Types

Fandoms

Multiple criteria

Criminal Minds Minicaps: Season 2

[ Back: Season 1 | Onward: Season 3 ]

It's time once again for a game of "find the character development" in the serial-killer-profiler-procedural-type-show Criminal Minds. In case you forgot, here are all the special traumas we learned about our team last season.

Gideon: Has job-related PTSD and occasionally suffers nervous breakdowns at work. Has an estranged son; is in contact with him (i.e. knows his phone number), but feels guilty about not being there for him, and so continues to not really be there for him.
Hotch: Has an apparently picture-perfect home life with a wife and baby, but his wife resents how much time he spends at his job, and while he professes to like his family, he never, ever prioritizes them over work. A former case which went badly has taught him to err on the side of killing the perp when you have a chance. Was possibly abused as a child.
Reid: Socially awkward due to obsessive learning instead of human contact. At one point, mentioned voices in his head urging him to learn ever more. Poor shot. Prone to nightmares. 1 known kiss, with a woman he was supposed to protect.
Elle: Easily angered, especially when women are victimized. Insecure about her Spanish knowledge.
Morgan: Seems pretty well-adjusted, actually. Scores with a lot of ladies, or claims to.
JJ: Not too sure what her deal is but one time she let a killer sniff her hair. It was weird.
Garcia: As featured comic relief, she got more fun one-liners and conspiracy theories than trauma, but high hopes for this season as she is in the credits.

Let's see if we can't rack up a couple more damaged pasts and DSM diagnoses for our heroes. Onto season 2!

 

2x1 The Fisher King, Part 2

Reid solves the puzzle and figures out that the unsub knew his mother in the sanitarium; he retrieves her for protection and, with her help, they track down a burn-covered Phantom of the Opera type and rescue his chained-up daughter.

Character Arc 1 (Of Many!): The episode turns out to be mainly about Reid, surprise surprise, and his relationship with his paranoid schizophrenic mother. He doesn't like to spend time with her, so he alleviates his guilt by writing her letters. (She seems pretty lucid, and I guess we're supposed to understand that she'd be yelling at Reid about government conspiracies even if she weren't being given remarkably good evidence that he's drawn her into one. Like another full-lipped mid-twenties temporarily-dead-at-some-point academic genius fandom darling I could name, it's delightfully ironic given his mother's issues that Reid ended up working for The Man.) Toward the end, Reid comments to Garcia that schizophrenia is genetic. (Plus FYI peak onset years are 20-28, so we're looking at some fun by season 4, I think.)

Character Arc 2!: There are Character-driven B-stories! This has never happened to be before! Elle, who was in fact shot, but managed to dial 911 before she passed out from blood loss, hovers between live and death and has a dream about apologizing to her dead cop father that her last words to him were "I hate you." Yawn, is that the best you can do for Elle, show? I'm glad she's getting replaced by Jessica from Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

One More Mini-Character Arc! Hotch feels guilty because he was insufficiently clear in his orders to the underling that "take Elle home" meant "take Elle home and bodyguard her," so it's all his fault, probably. The final scene is him attempting (with surprising effectiveness) to wash the blood from Elle's walls with plain water.

Highlights:

• Garcia, with surprising and sudden respect for Reid's privacy, stops herself from explaining a sudden revelation that would require her to tell Morgan that Reid's mother is crazy. (They all find out eventually, though.)
• Reid is somehow thrown clear of an explosion which shatters the windows along with our suspension of disbelief, unharmed except that his ass is on fire. Morgan puts it out.
• A legitimately effective bittersweet moment between Reid and his mother toward the end, in which they bond even though Reid's mother doesn't seem to know who Reid is.

 

2x2 P911

The BAU team helps the Crimes Against Children unit catch a pedophile who is selling a boy in an online auction. L@@K MINT BOY NR!!!

Character Arcs (Such As They Are): Elle insists on coming back to work a week early after a four-month recuperation. Morgan seems to get a little too violent in his arrests.

Highlights:

• Back from the timeline break that happens between the end of the previous-season-cliffhanger-resolution and the rest of the season, and you know what that means: haircuts! Elle has shorter, wavy hair and little bangs, and Reid has shorter, slicked-back hair which is less cute than his goofy season 1 girl haircut but it's growing on me. Reid and Elle compliment each other on their haircuts.
• REID HAS GLASSES. I guess that is related to the above point, but I feel it deserves its own bullet point as it is that adorable. They are unattractive 50s-dad style hornrims, and he is adorable in them. They make him look like the Scarecrow in Batman Begins, and we all know how I feel about him.
• Elle has to stay at Quantico and do support work from there, but since the case is local, she ends up dragging Reid to a scene. When Hotch scolds her, Elle schoolyardishly tries to blame Reid. Of course Reid, the goody-goody, immediately defends himself.
• I think this is the one where Garcia calls JJ "kitten."
• Reid has glasses.

 

2x3 The Perfect Storm

The team searches for a pair of serial killing partners.

Character Arc (Is There One?): I can't tell. Morgan seems to still be kind of mad?

Twist Alert: This episode has a twist!

 

2x4 Psychodrama

A serial bank robber who makes his hostages strip down and simulate sex confuses the team by being both calculating and wacko.

Character Arc (Such As There Is One): The personal drama the killer is enacting through his hostages turns out to be about family issues (abandoned by his parents, etc.) which resonates with Hotch, who is totally abandoning his family as usual.

Quote of the Episode: "Keep it clean and don't call me honey." --Hotch to Garcia

 

2x5 The Aftermath

Rapist just wants a baby.

Character Arc: This is an ooey-gooey-oh-so-charactery one, and it's about Elle, no less! So Elle is very upset at the serial rapist, which isn't that unusual in and of itself, as she generally is, but she also keeps dragging up her own feelings of violation at being shot in her home. (Four episodes it took, to get to this?)
            She volunteers for an undercover mission where she pretends to be a target, but screws it up for everyone by arresting the guy prematurely. Since they have nothing on him, they have to let him walk, and Elle blows up at everyone for putting him back on the streets. She accuses Hotch in particular of not having her back, which, come on, he already felt really bad about that whole letting-her-get-shot thing.
            Elle confronts and threatens the rapist. He is insufficiently cowed, knowing she can't arrest him on what she has, and taunts her. She remorselessly shoots him dead. When the police come, she says he had a gun and she shot in self-defense.
            Damn. Elle is a bad person.

Highlights:

• It's sort of cute when Reid goes to Elle's hotel room and tries to talk to her. I think he drinks alcohol.
• After a particularly extended flirtatious telephone exchange with Garcia, Morgan hangs up, looks around the fertility clinic waiting room, and explains, "It was a work call."

 

2x6 The Boogeyman

Children found murdered in a small town may have a connection to a local legend about a haunted house.

Character Arcs (Such As They Are): The character arcs aren't too connected to the main plot this time; mostly there's just some clean-up related to Elle's drama from last week. While the rest of the team investigate the crime of the week, Hotch and Elle stay behind to deal with Elle's IA investigation. It is found that she acted in self-defense and she's cleared to go back to work, but Hotch isn't so sure, and orders a psych eval. While he doesn't arrest her outright (though he assures her he would if he knew she was guilty), he is so dark and glowery and frowny at her that she finally just resigns.
            Meanwhile, on the case, Reid frets that maybe he could have stopped Elle--he knew, after all, that she was messed up from the moment he sat down to drink with her--but Morgan tells him not to drive himself crazy wondering.

Highlights:

• JJ is afraid of the woods. When Morgan insists on knowing why, she makes up a fake story about finding a body when she was a kid, and then laughs at him for believing it. They both make fun of Reid for being afraid of the dark.
• Reid, cowering alone in a dark haunted house, calls Garcia for information, but all Garcia wants to do is make spooky noises and tell him scary stories.

Impotence Watch: Morgan cruelly mocks a suspect's sexual prowess during an interrogation, suggesting he is impotent or a "minuteman." He goes on and on. I think maybe he is a minuteman.

Diversity Watch: The culprit is a child!

 

2x7 North Mammon

Three small-town girl athletes are abducted, held without food or water, and forced to kill one of their own in order to gain their freedom.

Character Arc (Such As It Is): All signs point to this being a JJ episode--in the Mile High Minute she talks about how she grew up in a small town, and had to excel in athletics to get a scholarship and get out. Hotch tells her she did good work and asks her if she wants to become a profiler (I guess she isn't one?), and she says she's happy doing what she does (which is...?) Not sure really how the arc of the adventure itself relates to JJ at all, but it was creepy.

 

2x8 Empty Planet

An anti-technology bomber turns out to be attempting to enact the plot of a science fiction book.

Character Arc (Such As It Is): The adventure itself doesn't seem to have a coherent character arc, although there are good moments for Morgan, who refuses to leave a woman's side as the bomb squad verrrry carrrrefullly removes a pressure-activated bomb from beneath her car seat, and Gideon, who loses his patience with the author that they're interviewing at the time, saying, "A young man I respect and admire deeply is putting his life on the line right now!" It starts to come together a bit in the Mile High Minute, when Morgan tells Gideon that Reid told him what he said (did you get that?). Gideon is annoyed but tells him he meant it. Morgan pauses, and then pats the table between them, because they are TOO MANLY TO TOUCH DIRECTLY. Though not, apparently, to gossip to Reid.

Gender Bender Grab Bag: There is enough gender-related weirdness in this episode that I feel like it must be intentional (someone assumes the author of the book was male, but it's female; the bomber assumes a baby the author gave up was him, but she tells him it was a daughter; Reid goes on an entirely unnecessary tangent about how Ted Kazinsky was briefly on the waiting list for gender reassignment surgery), but it really doesn't come together enough to constitute a "theme."

 

2x9 The Last Word

Two separate serial killers simultaneously terrorize St. Louis.

Character Arc (Such As It Is): I am not sure. There is a lot of JJ in that there is a lot of dealing with the media, but I don't know that she exactly does anything character-y. For about five total minutes at the beginning and end, we meet a new character, Special Agent Emily Prentiss. She says she was transfered to the BAU; Hotch says this is a mistake. But she really wants a chance to prove herself and join the team! So she's Elle. Except she doesn't want to prove herself in the no-nonsense, violent, tough-from-the-streets kind of way, but in the nerdy, academic, eager to please kind of way. So she's... Reid?

 

2x10 Lessons Learned

As part of the investigation of a suspected terrorist bomb, Gideon, Prentiss, Reid, and Reid's decorative purple fashion scarf head to Guantanemo Bay.

Character Arc: Although Prentiss's knowledge of Arabic and various Middle East factoids (she grew up there for some reason; also, she is Reid) make her a natural choice for the trip, Gideon is wary and doesn't trust her yet. On the plane he will only play chess with Reid. Then in the Mile High Minute, Reid goes to sleep, so Gideon consents to play with Prentiss. Prentiss is super psyched about it. Meanwhile, Hotch is ignoring his family yet again, but when the team figures out that the final bomb is set to go off at the new mall in McLean, VA--where Reid's wife and kid have a photographer appointment--he spares some worry in their direction.

Highlights: Garcia openly weeps upon seeing news footage of an explosion at the investigation site where Morgan and Hotch are supposed to be.

 

2x11 Sex, Birth, Death

As the team investigates a series of D.C. prostitute murders, a teenage boy comes to Reid for help with his homocidal impulses.

Character Arc (Pretty Decent): Reid becomes personally invested in helping the boy, whom Gideon profiles as a pretty definite future killer. He relates to the boy's precocious intelligence and sadness, and explains to Morgan, "I know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind." He responds to the boy's cry for help and manages to save him after a suicide attempt, but frets to Gideon that he has saved him at the expense of some future victim's life.

Additional Mini-Arcs!: Hotch feels affronted and powerless when a congresswoman pressures him to hush up the murders to make it look like she's had more effect on stopping crime than she has. The final profiling session outlines a frustrated low-level political pawn interested in stopping crime; I love it when the profile seems to fit one of the team! Hotch accuses Prentiss of playing politics behind his back (her parents are politicians), and Prentiss snaps that she hates politics and thinks it tears families apart. I'm sensing some tough Thanksgivings at the Prentiss homestead.

Impotence Watch: Did you know? The symbolism of stabbing a prostitute is a clear sign of impotence.

Highlights: Garcia and Reid are friends! As in Fisher King, Reid confides most to her about the situation with his mom: "I used to think if I learned all I could about schizophrenia, I could stop it." Garcia: "Can't." (tearing up) "I'm sorry." In an attempt at genuine comfort, Garcia kisses her fingertips and then presses them to Reid's forehead. Later, Garcia tries to take Reid out on the town to forget his problems (of course, they're interrupted by a plot thing.)

 

2x12 Profiler, Profiled

A cop who's had it in for Morgan since he was a teenager is searching for the killer of some kids, and he becomes convinced that Morgan is the killer based on a profile Gideon wrote.

Character Arc (Another Winner): The season picks up pace with another super-charactery one! Lots of people have feelings here. Gideon feels guilty and annoyed that his profile was used against Morgan. Hotch feels angry and betrayed that Morgan never disclosed his juvenile criminal record. (He was charged with aggravated assault after getting into a big fight. In Morgan's defense, he's legally in the clear. His record was expunged based on a stirring character reference from his coach/mentor guy.)
            Morgan gets angry right back at them. He doesn't want to be profiled, and he doesn't want his privacy violated. "We practically live together already," he tells Gideon, so can't anything be kept to himself? At the end of the episode, we find out why Morgan wanted his past kept in the past: as an adolescent, he was sexually abused over a number of years by the selfsame coach/mentor guy that got him off the hook on the assault charge and helped him get into college on a football scholarship. This guy now wants to take credit for Morgan's success--and that of every other boy he "helped". Morgan gets an angry, teary verbal showdown with him.

Highlights:

• The episode opens with a thematically unrelated but totally brilliant sequence where Reid is showing JJ, Garcia, and Prentiss what he calls "physics... magic." He's making a tiny bottle rocket in the office. He's adorable as he waits for it to explode, all waggling fingers and high-pitched "Watch!!!" The rocket lands at Hotch's feet, and he hands it back sternly. "Physics magic? Reid, we talked about this."
• Morgan Sister: Derek talks about you.
  Reid (pleased): He does?
• On the phone with JJ, Garcia is manically reluctant to research Morgan.
  Garcia: It's a sealed file!
  JJ: Well, unseal it, then.
  Garcia: But it's a sealed file!
• She's also manically proud of his successes.
• Garcia: Quarterback, that's the guy that throws the ball, right?
  JJ: Yeah.
  Garcia (singsongy): That's what he was.

 

2x13 No Way Out

A sexual sadist falls in love!

Character Arc (Such As There Is One): Um... the nearest character to central is Gideon, I suppose, as he spends the most time talking directly to Frank, the serial killer, and trying to figure him out. Frank is creepy, and Gideon is duly creeped out. Frank patronizingly says someday Gideon will feel as he does, talking about love, and Gideon says, "If I ever feel the way you do, I'll shoot myself."

Highlights: Reid explains the chemical basis of love, and gets overexcited naming foods which release the same chemicals: "Peas!" he squeaks.

 

2x14 The Big Game

Investigating what appears to be a two to three person team of killers who efficiently slaughter what they describe as "sinners" and post the video on the Internet, the team discovers that it is really one killer with multiple personalities. Unfortunately, Reid and JJ discover this while at the killer's house (initially thinking he's a witness), and they go after him without backup. In a cliffhanger ending, JJ ends up in a barn full of hungry hunting dogs, and Reid ends up on his back in a cornfield, with the killer standing over him cocking and uncocking(?) a gun all "Yes--no!" and Gollumy.

Character Arc (None): Soon, my preciousssss.

Guest Star I've Heard Of: The multiple personality killer is played by James Van Der Beek, TV's Dawson.

 

2x15 Revelations

The tech savvy religious fanatic multiple personality killer ties Reid to a chair in a shack and tortures him. All episode.

Character Arc (Here We Go): Reid bears up as best he can under torture, tearfully insisting to the paternal religious fanatic personality that he has not sinned, and develops a kind of rapport with the weak, drug-addicted son personality, who tries to help him by shooting him up with his drugs. From time to time the killer (the tech savvy personality, I guess, but it seems like they all are) streams video of Reid back to the team. Eventually they figure out, with what turns out to be coded hints from Reid, how to find him, and Reid, though he appears to be broken, manages to take advantage of the confusion of their arrival to steal a gun and shoot his captor. When the others aren't looking, he swipes the drugs. Whoa! We thought this was the culmination of the Reid arc for season 2 but it is only the beginning!

Additional Mini-Arc: Everyone back at the ranch is freaking out with missing Reid and thinking maybe they coulda shoulda saved him by now, but especially JJ, who feels mega-guilty because she actually split up with him at the house and let him go off on his own (even though it was his idea). The episode opens with JJ already freaked (even before she knows about Reid) because she had to shoot like eleven dogs. Her hair is all messed up and she's spacing out, and it doesn't really get better over the course of the episode. At one point she has a flashback about a snarling dog, and at separate times she almost shoots both Morgan and Prentiss when they come up behind her unexpectedly.

Mini-Mini Arc: Not really an arc, but could be character-important later: Prentiss sort of takes charge as the most competent and go-get-'em member of the team, which sort of makes sense since as the newest member she's the least emotionally involved in Reid, but she seems almost entirely unaffected by the bad things she sees. Gideon calls her on this, and she just shrugs, "I guess I compartmentalize better than most people." Weird.

Highlights (ie me describing every aspect of the entire episode):

• Have we seen Reid's mismatched socks before? When the killer removes his shoes and socks to whip the soles of his feet with a branch (causing him to scream like a girl, which is both heartbreaking and embarrassing in a "Dude. Dude." kind of way), we see that he is wearing one red striped and one yellow patterned sock.
• The killer shows Reid streaming video of potential victims and forces him to choose one. Reid refuses but when the killer lets him pick one to save instead of one to kill, and says he'll kill them all otherwise, Reid gives in.
• Investigating the next victim, Gideon finds the webcam and gives Reid firm assurances: "You are stronger than him. He will not break you."
• On the drugs, Reid unlocks memories of himself as a child. In the first, his father leaves his mother because he can't handle her craziness, but won't do anything for Reid, saying, "I'm weak." In real life, Reid weeps, "I'm not weak." Oh Reid, you kind of are. I mean you've only been being brutally tortured for like a day. Pace yourself. In the second memory, his mother reads to him, and in the third, he is eighteen and explaining to his mother that these men are coming to take her away (requisite ha-ha hee-hee ho-hos). In real life, he weeps guiltily.
• The killer gets mad after the team interferes with the release of his next video, and knocks Reid around with fervor; at which point Reid has a heart attack--for reasons not entirely explained to my satisfaction, but we'll go with it--and dies while Gideon and Garcia watch on the monitor, Garcia shaking with tears and Gideon sort of holding her.
• The killer talks to himself, debating what to do next, while Gideon locks himself in a bathroom, muttering to himself that he made the right call, they had to stop the video, it's not his fault. Double Gollums!
• In niceish-son form, the killer CPRs Reid back to life. (Too bad it wasn't Hotch or Morgan, but I guess we can't have everything. Actually, the Van Der Beek Killer/Reid is a pretty slashable pairing, in a horrible kind of way.)
• In not-so-nice form, the killer forces Reid to choose one of his teammates to die. Reid won't do it, but the killer loads a bullet into a gun and shoots empty chambers at his head with each refusal. Finally Reid says "I choose... Aaron Hotchner." Ha! Reid explains that Hotch is a "classic narcissist." Back at the ranch, everyone looks at Hotch all, dude. Yikes. Hotch leaves the room.
• In an effort to prove he's not a classic narcissist (Gideon's all, of course you're not, dear; but Hotch isn't upset, he thinks this is a clue, a clue) Hotch has the team list his worst faults. He starts it off, saying he has no sense of humor. The others call him a drill sergeant and a bully.
• The team finally puts together Reid's clues (which were actually very subtle; I didn't get them) and arrives to save him. There is a tearful reunion. Reid embraces Hotch. "I knew you'd understand!" JJ hugs Reid for a long moment. Morgan watches the proceedings tearfully.
• The last moment where Reid asks for a moment alone with the body--presumably to say goodbye to the nice-ish son, but actually to search the body's pockets and steal two vials of the drug--then stands up, limping and cold, and slam, rock'n'roll & credits? Legitimately badass. I might have to stop making fun of this show.

 

2x16 Fear and Loathing

A series of slayings of black girls in a mostly-white neighborhood turns out to have a sexual rather than racial motivation. Because it always does!

Character Arc (Such As There Is One): Reid's intermittently freaking out all episode, and keeps getting flashbacks about "Revelations," because PTSD flashbacks is what we do best here at Criminal Minds Central. At one point he goes into a bathroom, rifles through his magical mystery purse, and takes out the two vials of The Drug(TM) and appears to contemplate. We don't see him take them, so it's unclear whether he thought about it and decided against it, or started taking it, or had already started taking it at some earlier time.

 

2x17 Distress

Military-efficient random blitz killings turn out to be perpetrated by a vet in PTSD flashback mode.

Character Arc (Such As There Is One): I have to tell you, I'm doing these recaps like a week after watching, so my memory isn't as clear as it once was (for example, when I was writing up "Revelations"). All I have to go on are my notes, which read, and I quote, "reid is being a jerk (ptsd jerk)." I am pretty sure this is the one where Reid frightens and panics a possible witness unnecessarily, and then Prentiss is like, what the hell, you're not being like you, and Reid snaps at her: she's known him a month, she doesn't get to say what he's like! She's not his real mom! He hates this family!

 

2x18 Jones

Female Jack the Ripper in New Orleans.

Character Arcs (Such As They Are): There's two little character thingies in this, neither one particularly thematically related to the plotline. JJ gets a flirtation with the local detective. Reid gets a far more convincing flirtation with an old "friend", Ethan, with whom he studied and entered the FBI. But Ethan left after one day and flitted off to New Orleans to make music and grow facial hair. Reid pisses off Morgan and Prentiss by ignoring his beeper when he's with Ethan, thereby missing a plane for a quick investigative hop over to another town. At the end of the episode, Reid watches Ethan play a gig, and Gideon comes to join him and talk gently to him until they are both shiny-eyed with tears, as is his wont. Reid repents and promises never to miss a plane again.

 

2x19 Ashes to Dust

Serial arsonist.

Character Arc (Such As There Is One): We learn a little about Hotch's past when he follows a suspect to an oncology clinic. Apparently, when he was growing up, he thought his father was having an affair, and followed him... to an oncology clinic.

Reid Addiction Update: Reid issues a pathetic cry for help during a profiling meeting, announcing that the unsub is "like a drug addict... It would be virtually impossible for him to stop without help." Meaningful looks all around, but no help forthcoming.

 

2x20 Honor Among Thieves

The team tries to help the families of Russian ex-mobsters, but are stymied by the victims' unwillingness to talk to the police.

Character Arc (Such As There Is One): Prentiss's mother, the ambassador, brings them the case and works with the team; Prentiss is amazed when her mother shows frailty.

Um, What: "In America, they can only hurt you if you're afraid to ask for help," Morgan tells the kidnapped man's daughter. He must know that's nonsense--about a dozen people an episode die who had no objection to or opportunity for asking for help--but I guess this is an interesting sentiment coming from him, the guy who didn't ask for help. (Also, he's complicit in not responding to Reid's subtle pleas for same, but that's another issue.)

Highlights:

• Garcia calls Reid "junior g-man." "Junior g-man," Reid repeats when he hangs up the phone, apparently miffed.
• Morgan identifies knockoff pradas. Shoe profiling! What a gaylord.

 

2x21 Open Season

A pair of brother bowsmen hunt THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME.

Character Arc (There Is Not One): There's a sort of character arc with the main victim, as we see her grow from a frightened deer to a sort of hardened monster who fights back, but there nothing, really, for the main crew, except a Mile High Minute where Prentiss uneasily draws parallels between profilers and hunters, and admits to Morgan that she lied when she told the victim that "they [the hunters] don't think like you and me," because "we do think like them."

Um, What: The team is all shocked and surprised that there are both male and female victims and no apparent sexualization of the bodies. Look, it's not like it hasn't happened before! On this show, even!

Highlights: The first scene with the agents shows the three girls--Prentiss, JJ, and Garcia--pretending to be impressed by a man in a bar who claims to be FBI. Prentiss is first to catch him in a lie and whips out her badge. Garcia clinks glasses with her appreciatively, telling her, "Lady, you're so in my top eight."

Garcia's Top Eight (Projected)
1. Morgan
2. Morgan
3. JJ
4. Morgan
5. Reid
6. Gideon
7. She-Ra, Princess of Power
8. Prentiss

 

2x22 Legacy

Homeless people killed in a particularly nightmarish slaughterhouse type scenario.

Character Arc (Nope): They do some heavy-handed hinting that the obsessive-compulsive cop who brought them the case is the unsub, but nothing really for the team, unless you count finding out that everyone likes Charlie Chaplin.

Highlights: Hotch: "Well, Reid got propositioned by every prostitute we talked to, but we didn't find anybody who matched the description of the unsub."

 

2x23 No Way Out Part II: The Evilution of Frank

In a follow-up to 2x13 No Way Out, Frank arrives in Virginia on the trail of the missing Jane and, for fun, kills Gideon's college friend/date type person.

Character Arcs: It's whomp!Gideon week, as he is the prime suspect in the crime, and must do all his emoting on the run. Meanwhile, the episode is framed with scenes of Hotch standing up for his team as they are investigated by bureau higher-ups. Finally, we get a sort of retroactive arc at the end, when it turns out Prentiss has been planted to report to the investigator on the team's activities.

Reid Addiction Update: So far it's been an open question whether the team knows about Reid's (remarkably consequence-free) drug problem, but this week in a list of the team's problems, Hotch casually tells Gideon, "We all know about Reid's issues..." If they know about them, why don't they respond to his cries for help? Help! He can't stop without it!

Um, What: Gideon dreamily tells Garcia that mockingbirds "provided insights into the origins of syntax." As a linguistics major, I can confidently state that that is gibberish. What origins of syntax? Is he talking about UG? How are mockingbirds involved?

Highlights:

• This episode is full of artsy little touches, like focusing on Gideon's pictures of birds and things for the sake of Symbolism; but my favorite has to be when Gideon gets some bad news while holding a bouquet of flowers, and he drops the flowers and they smash into a million tiny pieces.
• As if he's anticipating the season 3 trauma roundup I'll have to write all too soon, Hotch's defense-of-the-team speech at the end of the episode contains a quick rundown of everyone's basic emotional arc:
        "Morgan fought to protect his identity from the very people who could save him. Why? Because trust has to be earned, and there are very few people he truly trusts."
         "Reid’s intellect is a shield which protects him from his emotions and, at the moment, his shield is under repair." [What? Is he a starship?]
         "Prentiss overcompensates because she doesn’t yet feel she’s a part of the team. She needn’t worry." [A little disappointing - it would be nice if she had some personality other than "the new one", which will only take her so far.]
         "Every day, Agent Jareau fields dozens of requests for our team and every night she goes home hoping she’s made the right choices."
         "Garcia fills her office with figurines and color to remind herself to smile as the horror fills her screens."
         "Agent Gideon in many ways is damned by his profound knowledge of others, which is why he shares so little of himself yet he pours his heart into every case we handle."
         Thanks, I was wondering.
  zelempa: Does Gideon keep that bird figurine on his desk to remind him to smile?
  yolsaffbridge: No, it's to remind him of the origins of syntax.

Find out what happens next in Season 3!