wknt3

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought so. And next week looks pretty blah too. There's been a few episodes like that so far this season - not bad, not good, just kind of dull. I'm willing to give them some slack since they're showing signs of improvement, but I hope they start building on that soon. Otherwise I just might miss the glorious cracked out monkey in a basketball days where it might have been bad but was never dull.

Just watched this on DVR. Was there some sort of contest to see how many of the most annoying elements of this series could fit into one episode? Let's see we have 1. A Nikki heavy episode. 2. Danny catches the case because he is the only detective in NYC and MUST be in the A or B plot. 3. And so does Erin because she is the only prosecutor and will get the case even though there are about 97 glaring conflicts of interest. This will only be noticed by one of our villains who doesn't care about cops being threatened. 4. Henry is a former police commissioner, but doesn't know anything about politics, the media, etc. and thinks about everything like a retired precinct sergeant or a beat cop. 5. We can't be bothered to make an attempt at some level of realism. Rutgers monitors applicants social media? And thinks this is a serious deal? We can't be bothered to come up with something slightly more scandalous that Nikki is peripherally involved in? Or even hand wave it away with a line about her being a high profile applicant held to higher standards? 6. Every police critic is not only wrong, but a total jerk. And we will make sure to hammer you over the head until you get the point (that giant picture of Che anyone?) 7. If we don't know what do with a plot St. Frank will just make a speech and everything will be OK.

I felt like this was pretty solid episode. Well acted. Decent writing with the exception of the character's motivation. The biggest problem is with the big picture. They really need to do something with that chief. I just don't find him believable and the lack of nuance or humanity is grating. How is the audience supposed to react when he is supposed to fill Cragen's shoes as the voice of reason/realism? Like the speech at the end about not making policy. If they were to humanize him a little bit or show him as having some other concern than being an old skool kop knuckle dragger it would be a little more watchable. I really think they'd be better off with a new CO instead.

This show has no consistent view police brutality and civil rights. Sometimes it glorifies it as RoboDanny cleans up the streets of NYC all by himself. Sometimes it's dismissive trying to get us to believe that it's just a few bad apples and throwbacks bygone era. Sometimes it condemns it outright. Sometimes it wants to present it as a thorny moral problem with no easy clear cut solutions. If you don't like how they handled it this week just wait for the next episode and it will probably be more to your liking.

Shoot the controls out of his hand? Do you want realism or not? Here's a pretty good explanation of why it doesn't work that way in real life http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/19/police-deadly-force_n_5693020.html From a story point of view I agree that I am tired of "BAU kills unsub at the last possible moment before he completes his evil plan" and would love to see more arrests and questioning, but don't want to see killing the unsub replaced by "super elite ninja Hotch saves the day with his sharp shooting". The only thing I'd like to see less is "ninja JJ saves everyone with her fighting skillz".

Or a fanfic. Oh wait...