Other things may change us, but we start and end with family...

[a_blackpanther]

This is the discussion post for Episode 7x16 - "A Family Affair". Watch out for SPOILERS in the comments.

Comments

[dhae_knight_1]

Have we had any serious ones, aside from Beth? Reid had a thing going with Lila and the bartender, but those were both singe-eps. And Morgan had that cop-of-the-week in Miami, but she was single-ep, too.

Whereas we had Will, who had an ep as cop-of-the-week before he became love-interest (and even then, he was in that episode for a reason divorced from his status as love-interest), and Kevin's always sort of lived around the edges. I know a lot of people dislike him intensely. Personally I like him because he's a geek and also, he's Xander! ;-)

Beth just... Seems to serve no purpose but to be love-interest for Hotch, and I find that kind of boring. :-(

[dhae_knight_1]

Urgh. Don't get me started on Tamara. All for Morgan getting some love - not so fond of his lack of professionalism in getting involved with the sister of a victim. When Garcia calls you on it, you know something's seriously wrong... :-(

The more I think about it, the more my issue with Beth is that I don't know who she is. This is a show where we were just talking about how brilliant their bit characters are. They have been brilliant at creating characters with personality in nothing more than two lines of dialogue and 30 seconds of screen-time. Victims get to be real, live human beings, with interests and lives beyond their role as victim.

And Beth... Nothing. I don't know anything about who she is. Not even the fake-cramp to win told me anything about her personality. Now, in the sense of being a writer - awesome! I can do all sorts of things to her and with her. I can turn her into a crazy serial-killer! I can make her nice! I can do whatever I like with her, because we know nothing. As a viewer - I find it somewhat disappointing... :-(

[dhae_knight_1]

What really, really bugs me is that the character development in Hotch Beth represents could just as easily have been conveyed without having to show us Beth. Better, even, because we would all have been able to form our own image of who Beth is.

I mean... Will was pretty much not there, after the two episodes that introduced him/introduced him as JJ's boyfriend. We've seen... I'd say about as much of him as we have of Beth, by now. And yet there is so much wealth implied in JJ's actions and reactions, in phonecalls and conversations in the team.

How much could have been told in a scene where Hotch tries to prepare Jack for meeting his new girlfriend? Not only would such a scene have meant Hotch seemed a lot less like an awkward teenager (and, dear God, I hate that bit of characterization!), but it would have given us a much-welcome scene between Hotch and Jack. Which, really, I'm all for. We've seen and heard too little of Jack these past couple of seasons. :-(