Criminal Minds

I can't say I'm a true fan of this show, but I like it from time to time. The fact is that, like somebody else already said, when the episodes are bad they're so really bad!

This one shouts "ridiculous" in any moment. Serial killers are ridiculous in their own way - or at least in the way they depicted them - but sometimes it's too much. And this is that time.

In addition to this, it's not the first time that the screenplayers copy from Hollywood scripts, but THIS time they overdid. Hitchcock was something, they are something completely different and copying doesn't do any good to anybody.

I feel like it's always been hit-or-miss with this show, either delivering the best or worst television has to offer. The characters are endearing, but sometimes they change drastically from episode to episode. Most of the time, I feel that an episode is good or bad based on if the profiling seems realistic or not. A good episode usually has influences from real cases (And then, the team themselves often reference those cases). Bad episodes usually feel as though they are influenced by Hollywood (I understand that Hollywood often draws from cases, but often times in turn the CM episodes are too distilled from the source).



As the seasons have progressed, "Hollywood" episodes have become more common. It's become less like 1 out of 2 or 2 out of 3 good episodes, and more like... 1 out of 10. SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT.



Anyway, this episode was Hollywood through-and-through. The profiling seemed completely off, the team was jumping to conclusions that they simply COULDN'T. The killer was ridiculous. I remember thinking, "Oh, great, it's like Norman Bates, except his mother's alive..." and then... oh, wait. Nevermind. It's like Norman Bates, except... no, it's just like Norman Bates.



Secondly and finally, there was already a fairly similar killer who kept the body of his deceased mother in season 1. Could it be that Criminal Minds is no longer doing variants of real cases in favor of doing variants of Criminal Minds episodes?

This show has become so stupid. Doesn't anyone else think it is ridiculous the conclusions that they can draw from the information they have. Where the hell did Morgan come up with the idea that he put marks on the top of the tree just like an animal does. They make too many extreme guesses about characteristics of the killers and are way too often right about it. Remember last week when they got the fact that the killer was a resident by the train station because he was there for longer than two hours so that must mean he didn't park at a meter and that he has a residential parking permit. I mean does that not sound way to far fetched based on the little information they had to be exactly right? Please someone write back if you disagree.

This episode was about the abduction of two female young blond girls. One if found dead, and the race is on when the killer takes a second victim.



I though t that the storyline was not the best one we have seen, but it was very suspenseful, and even somewhat gruesome. The acting of Robert Knepper bolstered the storyline immsensely. I loved his role on Prison Break, and as soon as I heard he was on this episode, I knew I would enjoy this one!



The ending is seriously weird, if you ask me, but it certainly goes to show just how lost someone can be. Really gruesome stuff!



All up, I really enjoyed this episode. The little side-show of Penelope Garcia's life outside the BAU was very interesting, and it added another dimension to an already interesting case. Keep it oing, Criminal Minds, and I am very interested and imporesed by this one!

I have to admit that watching the opening sequences and seeing that Garcia is moonlighting as a stage actress was certainly interesting and it was good to see some real evidence that someone outside of the team has a life with parts not at all connected to their jobs at the BAU.



I am a huge Garcia fan and have been from the start of the series, but it seems to me that Hotch getting her to do all these jobs for which she is not qualified and is ill-prepared would not be even close to reality with the real FBI, particularly as she is so obviously NOT keen on doing these things. I love her insecurity and indecision as it's very much how I think Garcia would react if instructed to give a press conference etc. but, once again, it seems that the writers are trying to make her a replacement for J.J. and that is not going to work, Garcia is Garcia, she isn't J.J.



Anyway, kudos to Robert Knepper for a great performance as the unsub and great work by Sally Kirkland as well. It was obvious that his mother was dead given that she had an almost 'shiny' appearance all the way through but that was ok because I think it was meant to be obvious to the audience whilst the unsub himself was secure in his fantasy world.



It seemed odd to me that the policeman had to suggest that the crowd around the site where the victim was found should be photographed, the BAU should have already had that one covered. I also didn't like the way Pentiss and Morgan spoke to and treated the homeless man, Prentiss in particular. The way they spoke to him was out of order. Coming up through the mean streets of Chicago, Morgan should have known better, but it isn't the first time he has been less than polite to people. He was derogatory to Reid's mother and has been quie unpleasant to several children over the last several years which doesn't really make sense considering we know how kind he was to the kids from his neighbourhood.



Taking crime scene photos with cell phones seemed very strange indeed to me. I know, of course, there would have been qualified crime scene investigators around earlier but both Reid and Morgan took cell phone photos of items of evidence which looked odd and unprofessional.



The lack of profiling of the unsub was, once again, disappointing. The team didn't get together and work through a profile before going off to try and find him or her, in fact, they didn't seem to have much of a clue about who or what they were looking for for quite some time.



The behaviour of the mother on the cell phone was appalling! Fancy chatting for all that time, looking stern and angry while your little girl talks to a strange man without even moving closer to see what was being said! One gets the impression that he could have walked out of the station with the child and the mother wouldn't have noticed until she'd finished her call!



I noticed that a reporter called Garcia 'Agent Garcia'. I wonder did Hotch tell her to refer to herself as that or whether the reporter simply thought she must have been, given that she was giving a press conference on behalf of the BAU? With all the duties that Hotch has been giving Garcia since J.J. left, one either assumes that he, as Unit Chief, has the authority to do so, or that Erin Strauss is away on an extended vacation and isn't aware of what's going on because I can't see her just sitting down and taking it if it hadn't been sanctioned!



Having Garcia do both the voice overs was a nice touch, as was the team going to see her play but I really hope there is far more to Garcia's 'secret' than the fact that she acts in plays during her time off, especially given the fact that the 'CM' producers have lead us all to believe that the 'secrets' are all very exciting and revealing. To be honest, while Garcia acting in her spare time is terrific, it is not all that surprising, given how 'theatrical' she can be at times.(In a good way!)



A worthy episode but some more profiling and having the team appear a bit more organised would have been nice. Certainly excellent work by both Robert Knepper and Kirsten Vangsness though. Nice job!

From the depths of my despair and loss of faith in this show comes a stunner. Excellently acted well plotted and emotionally sound this certainly takes the cake as a new milestone for the series and most certainly the best episode this season so far.



What makes this work so well is its tone... dark, mysterious and creepy it had its own identity from the sound design to the sets all pitch perfect. Also special note must be made to Robert Knepper. He gave the role such a great gravity that in other words would have just come off feeling very cheesy without him but he made it work. In fact that's part of the tone i was speaking about earlier this felt much more mature and adult than some previous episodes in recent memory, and that's Great!!



Plus as an added bonus we got to learn something about Garcia and I'm all for character development people.

What an entertaining, gripping hour of television!! Criminal Minds delivers in an all out creepy, but yet very unique unsub. A reflection from Hollywood's golden years to the modern age, and how this unsub is protrayed in this episode gives a whole new twist to the show!! This episode grabs the very heart and soul of you, and doesn't let go!! The writing, acting were great, I have to give the cast and crew on this episode mad props!! A perfect and entertaining 10!! And, I might add a very twisted and unexpecting end!! Criminal Minds delivers in this episode, for all of you who didn't see it, you're missing a KILLER EPISODE!!

This episode is indeed one of the strongest episodes ever. The unsub's story reminded me of Norman Bates, a character from Ed Gein-inspired "Psycho" movie. But I'd like to say that this one is not bad and was done very creatively especially the ending. Watching this episode made me feel like watching a movie rather than the usual TV series.



However, I don't know if I just have bad eyes, but I didn't see the corpse's lips when Prentiss mentioned it towards the end. I heard "look at the lips" twice or thrice, but they didn't show any. I also don't seem to get it when Prentiss said she thought she'd seen it all, although the way this unsub mutilated his victims was not really that gruesome compared to other episodes'. I also don't get why Hotch had to make Garcia look like "a face the unsub would recognize" whereas in the next scenes the unsub did not even pay attention to Garcia. The usual brainstorming and profiling was not done here probably because we saw a lot about the unsub. Morgan said something like, "Oh his mother made him do more than that." For the first time, the team didn't spoon-feed us with the answer to the most important question -- WHY. The story gave the hint that the young starlet lost her career because of the pregnancy and the child's father was weak. I think I get to understand or guess why the unsub turned out that way because I watched the "Psycho" movie and the Ed Gein documentary. Being a fan of the team's profiling techniques, somehow I felt like it's more of involving the fans, or a mental calisthenics for us fans to connect the dots and finish solving the puzzle on our own. Still a very nice episode though. One of my favorites. It certainly raises the bar for the next installment.

"Reflection of Desire" was certainly a solid episode of Criminal Minds, having a balance of intriguing case and personal storyline. Kirsten Vangess' performance was wonderful, and the interplay between her and Thomas Gibson was refreshing. They are two that usually don't interact a lot. The case itself was very interesting, and had a twist ending that made me gasp and laugh. Small moments between team members--Prentiss and Reid in the train station, Garcia and Morgan before the conference--helped to make the episode thoroughly entertaining.

If there is one complaint to be made, however, it's that there was hardly any profiling in the case. The team talked a little bit about location and parking permits, but the unsub himself was barely discussed. And while the audience was able to see a lot more of the unsub than usual, the team did not give its usual "profiler's explanation" of his psychosis. Perhaps once in a while this is good, so I'm not that unhappy. But I hope to return to some more profiling in future episodes.