JMO

Post-ep 1219, True North https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12439149/1/Daymare

'Inconsistent' is the word that comes to mind. Not sure what qualifies as 'recently', but I think it's been this way for at least a few years. The quality of the plot is inconsistent from week to week, the quality of the characterizations is inconsistent, the alignment with canon is inconsistent, the research is inconsistent. I find the whole topic of writing a series to be interesting, because I think the nature of it has to change over time, and keeping up quality will have a different meaning with each phase of the show.

Everything about television is about the money.

It's official about the show. Haven't seen anything with definite info about the characters.

Yeah, not celebrating until that's assured. I've seen an article that said they were all 'expected' back. But that's a different word.

Sounds like a rush of memories to me. All of the murderous women in his life. Wouldn't be surprised to see 'Diane' show up soon. So, maybe this is one long, hallucinated dream. It could account for the poorly written cases, the team virtually ignoring Reid (except when it's their turn to worry), the fact that only the newbies are actually trying to help him. It could even mean that Garcia's ridiculous chart was meant to be ridiculous. But, if it isn't, they'll still have to do something with Scratch. He is, after all, a serial killer on the loose, and the main reason (on screen) why they lost their friend and unit chief. Now that he's been spotted, they can't ignore him. And, if it is a hallucination or a dream, then what? If they get renewed, and Reid returns, he will have been the only one who has actually been through something. For everyone else, it will have been business as usual. There will be no shared experience, no change in relationships. Nothing except a more reserved and removed Reid, if they even decide to write that. For me, they've drawn this out for too long, without dealing with the repercussions of some of the most dramatic moments. The writers essentially took themselves off the hook, by ending each episode with a crisis, and then beginning the next by implying that so much time had passed between episodes that Reid was already past the immediate emotional response. To me, that's just lazy storytelling, especially since those crises were the only interesting things in the episodes. If they'd dealt with them, I would be more on board. I wish they had given us two or three all-Reid episodes, gotten it done, and moved on.

NRF, except for what was already in the sneak peeks. I never seem to care for Bruce Zimmerman episodes. And I truly am not interested in the idea of Cat Adams being involved in Reid's case. Speaking of Reid--- the episode spent way too little time on the guy going through the existential crisis.

Many schools are closed either one or the other of the next two weeks, which means many people will be traveling. It's my guess that's why they're taking the break. It's fine with me. Either a long break now, or a longer one in the summer, assuming they're coming back at all.

For all their failings, the writers aren't going to taint Reid's character, nor his nature. I think it is safe to relax and go along for the ride. Whether or not it is an enjoyable ride will be a matter of taste. But I don't think we need to fear for Reid.

Post-ep 12X18, Hell's Kitchen https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12433434/1/Drawing-Power

The thing I noticed is that Reid's little science experiment (and I do agree that he was probably testing, and not tainting---I hope) gave off a noxious odor after he mixed the liquid with the powder---any chemistry buffs out there? Does this tell you anything? If it turns out that the other inmates' reaction to the drugs is part of a nightmare, I can accept that. But, if, as I've seen posited (? here or elsewhere), the entire prison sequence is some type of hallucination, I will feel misled and betrayed. No amount of 'happy ending surprise' would undo that. Unless, of course, it was all part of a hallucination Hotch was having. That would get my attention.

I only really watch CM now, but I remember three famous 'dream' explanations, from back in the days when I watched more: St. Elsewhere (series took place in the mind of the autistic son of one of the doctors) Dallas (Bobby coming out of the shower, having died only in a dream) Newhart (where psychologist Bob dreamt the whole series of the Bob who owned the inn in Vermont)

Haleysgalaxy, I'm not expert at this, but I have a lot of experience interfacing with it, so I've made a point of learning more. It's fascinating and frustrating simultaneously. I like to think that all children are born capable of empathy, but it can be fleeting if it isn't reinforced, and especially if it is punished. Toxic stress, which is defined as prolonged activation of the stress response in the absence of protective relationships, doesn't have to mean abuse. It can mean food insecurity or outright hunger, homelessness, exposure to violence or even chronic loud, angry arguing. Poverty is a huge source of toxic stress. TS been studied for quite a while, and there is convincing evidence that it negatively affects the whole process of brain development. It can even negatively impact adults by literally changing their DNA, and making them more vulnerable to a variety of health conditions like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. Between the DNA changes and the effects on brain development, it becomes something that can multiply its effects from generation to generation. The current research is on finding interventions that work, usually targeted at the adults, so they will be better able to nurture the child. I don't know that we can ever say anything as an absolute. So maybe there are people who are sadistic 'just because'. Whether that, or genetics, or environment, I agree that our attempts at rehabilitation haven't been very effective. Better to invest in prevention programs, but they're always the first thing cut when the budget is tight. Doesn't make fiscal sense to me, to spend hundreds of thousands to house people in prison instead of a few thousand to launch them well.

I don't know, there are lots of adjectives besides 'bad'. I don't mean to say that there is something about a specific situation that makes someone prey upon someone else. I think it is cumulative, possibly the result of deliberate maltreatment (abuse) or just the absence of a nurturing environment (neglect). Either has a direct effect on brain development in early childhood. Compound that with ongoing stress, continued familial dysfunction, homelessness, exposure to violence, etc., any or all of which can contribute to emotional stunting and a lack of empathy, and you have the makings of a criminal. The child welfare system is overloaded, under resourced, and lacking in good evidence about what constitutes an effective intervention. We watch these things unfold in the lives of young children, and we have sympathy for them. But we don't have good solutions. As they grow up in these circumstances, we're left to wonder, 'On which day of his life do we tell him that he's now responsible, that he should know better, though he's never been taught?' Understanding where it comes from doesn't mean we don't still have to keep the greater society safe. So, incarceration is still in order. And then we would have to get a whole lot better, and a lot more creative, about our rehabilitation efforts.

Illustrious?! I can't comment much on the episode yet, because I'm traveling and didn't see or hear it all that well---will have to wait for a rewatch. But, yes, I noticed that the episode started with a Reid nightmare, and wondered if it had ended the same way.

I don't know if it is 'in' to see prisoners as victims. But I do know that it is the sum of their lives, and their life experiences, that results in some people doing desperate, violent and despicable things. I work with children and families. I have held newborns who grew up to be murdered, and I've held newborns who grew up to be murderers. They're all the same, at the beginning. They all smile, and coo, and melt your heart. They're all oppositional as toddlers (and teens) and funny as preschoolers. Some are more intelllectually gifted, some less. How that plays out depends on the others in their lives. Some struggle with personal or family mental health issues, some don't. Some are born into households rendered chaotic by addiction, some aren't. Some have no functional family to speak of, so they create a family in a gang. When the cards are stacked in your favor, or even if you just have healthy adults who help you deal with an unfavorable hand, life usually progresses without crime and incarceration. But, absent a guiding hand, and the gifts we so often take for granted, it's really not all that hard to get into trouble. It would be easier to dismiss the criminal as 'a bad seed' or just a sociopath, because then we could ignore them. But they're not, and we can't. Reid is too smart not to see that. For the first eleven seasons, he's shown us that he's known it all along. This season, he's learning it in a new way. I truly hope we get to see how it affects his work in season 13.

Agreed. Still, it's dizzying. Apparently, they only wanted him to be in a little bit of danger. So, he's moved from the open space, where they could grab him whenever, to a cell, where he has protection during the overnight lockdown. And I still don't think that anyone but Shaw officially knows he's a fed. It seems like they wanted it to be scary, but then maybe realized that 'scary' could easily spin out of control, so they pulled back. Trying to make sense of the gen pop/protective custody thing---I think Shaw just likes to play. He's bored, and he wants more real life chessmen to move around. So he made sure he had the fed, 'saved' him so he would be beholden, and then had him assigned to the laundry room, so he would move the drugs out of gratitude. All of that seems pretty obvious. What's not obvious (to me, at least), is how Shaw found out so quickly that a fed was on the way to prison. It was presented as a sudden and unexpected move. Did Shaw manipulate it? Or is he connected to someone else, who did?

Rossi and Reid have had several intimate conversations where Rossi calls him 'Spencer'. He says it with affection, and it's the only first name he's ever used with Reid. I think this (the sneak preview) is just another attempt to show familiarity without the writer actually being familiar with the relationship between the characters.

It's just a guess, but I think this might be an alternative fact.

I know this is heresy to some, but I actually wish they had killed Hotch off. If the characters could have grieved him on screen, it might have assuaged some of the grief of the fans off screen. It would have offered an opportunity to really honor the character. But I think the appropriate time for that has come and gone.

One of the reasons I love the character of Spencer Reid is that I think he defies stereotypes. He was a child prodigy growing up in a dysfunctional household where he had to become a caretaker at a very young age. All of that left him very socially isolated, which resulted in the awkwardness we saw when he first joined the team. I wouldn't want to confuse that with immaturity. I think Reid matured as a child, because of those very same things. What makes him vulnerable is his isolation. He's as strong as any, and stronger than some, internally. But he has only his colleagues as social support, When they are otherwise engaged, he is alone. That doesn't make him weak, it makes him lonely. In the prison circumstance, I think he's been off his game. I don't agree that he should have been trying to profile his way out of danger on day one. All of this happened suddenly, and after his brain was assailed with drugs. He needed to recover, and then to get the lay of the land. Not to mention that it's actually very difficult to engage on that level with those who are far less intelligent than he is. He could go after Shaw, and it looks like he might----but the goons are just goons. They follow orders, because they're not smart enough to do anything else. Which makes them not smart enough for Reid to be able to turn them with words. Baby Reid looked like a child, and was treated as one by Gideon. But that was 12 years ago. I don't think adult Reid is seen as a child by anyone on the team. I actually see Hotch and Reid as being equally vulnerable, because they were both so isolated. And I think both have served as the tragic heroes of the show. They bear the burdens for everyone else, because it's more dramatically effective, and because both actors are so good at it.

Rossi is a great example. He had an edge to him when he came back, brought on mostly by the fact that he felt like a fish out of water, while all of the others were swimming in his ocean. If he had any chemistry with the team, it was a negative one. But they had things to show him, and he had things to show them, and they all developed their own individual chemistries, over various things, throughout the season.

To my mind, it's comparing apples to oranges. It's one thing to create an original chemistry, and another entirely to break into a pre-existing one. There were definitely some good moments between characters in the first couple of seasons, but many more in later seasons, simply because there was so much shared history to draw upon. It's still there, to be mined by the writers, should they decide to do so. But the newbies aren't a part of that history, by definition, so they can't have that same kind of relationship. And, in a show as old as CM is, there probably won't be time to build a new shared history. Newbies can serve a different function, however, and I think the writers miss the mark on this. In a show as old as CM, which still appears to draw new viewers, there is a need for ongoing exposition. Long term viewers don't need to be educated on what a profile is, or the various psychopathologies that lead serial killers to kill, because we've had them explained to us before---usually through Gideon or Hotch quizzing or teaching Reid. But the newbies, and the new viewers, do need that exposition. They missed a great opportunity to show someone learning on the job when they had JJ rejoin the team as a profiler. Now they have a similar opportunity with Alvez, but they don't seem to be taking it. Should they decide to do so, Luke's learning from the more experienced team members would help the character build chemistry with them. But he, and they, probably won't be around long enough for that to happen.

I agree with Unkempt. It's not like he's out of work with a broken leg, or something outside their area of expertise. He is a situation where his life may be in danger, for the duration, and they are in a position to save it because of what they all do for a living. They need to explain why they are not, or they need to get busy about doing it.

I don't know what happened to Hotch that night, but I've always thought he didn't actually tell Rossi the truth. Maybe it seemed too crazy. Maybe he hallucinated that his team would fall for a story about him being in witness protection, that his youngest would end up in prison for murder, that the others would abandon him, too, and that they'd all be replaced by a bunch of strangers.