Danielg342

I don't understand how Lizzie can deduce that Tom is a liar yet believe that Red is an honest man...then again, I don't get anything Liz does so it's a wash.

Things that make me cry about CM: having to endure the last four seasons. :P

I suppose that makes sense- but I'd rather have the show explain that to me instead of me having to infer it. Many of this episode's problems stem from me having to infer things instead of having them properly explained- all because the writer just couldn't keep things simple.

So Red's been shot...something tells me we'll spend the next four episodes trying to figure out who shot him. We all know he won't die. (and, as much as I might appreciate the show tricking us and actually going through with his death...no, just no...Red's one of the most interesting characters ever, so no way he ever dies, at least not until the end of the series. Lizzie and maybe most of the Blacklisters on the other hand...) Dig seeing Mr. Kaplan at the end...provides some hope that perhaps Vanessa Cruz was captured after all. The episode itself...very ho hum. Hot girl who seduces corporate executives to get back at them for a wrong in her past. Been there, done that...and Criminal Minds did it much better in 2009 ("Pleasure Is My Business"). I didn't even think Cruz was all that great as a schemer...they showed her to be very meticulous, but every lead was easy to find. I also find it hard to believe the police can be that stupid and not see patterns develop. I mean, the connection with her husband should have been the first clue something was up, right? Regardless, though, I really think in the end, the show needs to drop this whole "Monster of the Week" format and just stick to the drama of the stories of Red's and Lizzie's lives. People like the shadowy organization Red is after, Tom, Deputy AG Connolly, heck, even Aram and Cooper, they're all interesting enough on their own to warrant having their own storylines and having them all intersect every now and then. Even Samar Navabi and Ressler could be thrown in there if they're given something to do, especially Ressler, who spent much of Season 1 having a backstory but now has nothing to do. Which is a shame since Diego Klattenhoff has really improved as an actor since S1. I know that's a pipe dream, but, if nothing else, let's at least have the Monsters make more immediate sense to the actual plots. I know that people like The Major and the Longevity Initiative have started to meld into the general plotline of the show, but it's taken too long. The show is at its best when it's resolving things, and I think it started to do really well in that department before we got to Judge Recap. Now, it's strayed from that, and the only way it gets back to it is by having the Monsters needing some urgent attention for being involved in someone's story. By having them be "Cases of the Week" it just detracts from the more interesting stories, and this needs to change. Hopefully, with the show coming back for a final flurry we can get more resolution- and the show at its best.

I'm okay with actors having some form of creative control over their characters- after all, they will be the ones stuck with their image. Like it or not, Gubler will always be seen by some as “Reid”, so he should at least be comfortable with the image that character projects. I also think, after 10 years on the show, he should be afforded some kind of respect in terms of decision making- after all, he's a big part of the show's success so he should be a big part of its future. That said, I do agree with MCatry that there's no hand at the tiller and that Erica Messer just lets people run roughshod all over her and she pretty much just lets it happen. It's not just Gubler or Joe Mantegna, or, as I suspect, Jennifer Love Hewitt (I don't know how else to explain why 10.02 to 10.14 had an endless stream of male victims and few female victims, an obvious show of political correctness, and why Kate Callahan gets to have, right away, a story about her recalcitrant niece) but I'm pretty sure the writers too are exhibiting far too much control over stories than they should be. How else to explain all the grotesque stuff that they do, and the fact that there's hardly much symmetry at all across the episodes as a whole? It's also quite clear in interviews the ideas that Messer has for the show and the stories she gets so excited to tell are in far contrast with what we actually get on screen- it's almost as if she's talking about a whole different show. The only aspect of the show I think she has much control over is JJ- since I think she gets shoehorned into awkward points in the plot only because Messer insists that she get prominent screentime- and even then, I wonder how much say she has over what AJ Cook wants. Cook was pretty vocal about getting more focused and getting more involved and, well, we've got JJ now in spades. Some writers seem to resist- which is why some episodes JJ seems to just “pop out of nowhere” after being in the background for most of the episode- and, I recall in the lead-up to “The Forever People” that Cook herself was seemingly angry with the writers (though her interview responses and what transpired on screen were vastly different), which leads me to think Cook maybe isn't as aggressive as her counterparts in her demands, though Messer kowtows to her every now and then. I also could be wrong, but I don't think Garcia's tendency to recoil in absolute revulsion of gore and her tendency to dress like a clown happened before Messer. She may have been repulsed by gory images, but nothing out of the ordinary for a “regular” LEO. So I wonder if Kirsten Vangsness is pushing herself around too.

Dear Blacklist writers: you know your characterization is bad if, at 2.17, we *still* don't bother to remember the name of your character.

https://twitter.com/GUBLERNATION/status/3091118963 ^ That's the tweet right there where Gubler says Reid is a germaphobe. Says he tried for a while to "enforce" it on set to mixed reactions. It's dated August 2, 2009, so it was done while filming for Season 5.

It's actually safer to hug and kiss on the cheek than it is to shake hands, since you're more likely to get germs into your body if they're on your hands (since from your hands you'd transfer them via scratching your eye or licking your finger or eating or something) than through a hug or a cheek kiss (since, although germs can pass through air, it's not as likely and you need to breathe in someone's face for it to *really* work, and that would be one awkward hug). So that could be one explanation for Howie Mandel's and Reid's behaviour.

I would think if CBS is smart it includes at least a S11 and S12, since it'd be foolish to cancel a moneymaker and replace it with a dud. Granted, we have seen worse decisions...

Not a good sign if they're re-filming. Hopefully they'll be ready for next week.

Still April 8, right?

I need a bottle of that hand sanitizer. ...and hey, if this thing works out with him and Agent Dorian, they'll be touching each other's genitals quite a bit...

Guess not...I don't know...I'm still not convinced that he didn't know about the plot, just from the acting alone. He may not have an active participant but his mother must have at least told him before. *shrugs*

I wonder, at the end of the episode, did the Congressman tell his mother, “what you did was unforgivable...and it worked” or “what you did was unforgivable...but it worked”? The latter at least would confirm prior knowledge of the plot.

Eerie. Has just about everything except CM didn't have deputies taking bets.

Moved from the episode thread for “The Longevity Initiative.” Do I think Lizzie is sympathetic? Well...I don't think of her as one of “the bad guys”...she has noble intentions, so in that regard, yeah she's “sympathetic”. Is she “likeable”? That's another question, and one more difficult to answer. I think there are episodes where she's an interesting character who informs the plot in intriguing ways, sometimes even as much as Red or Tom do. Then there are other episodes where I wonder why she was even considered as a character, because all she does is fill up space and ruin the plot. For me, the writing is what has failed Lizzie the most, because they're the ones that made her hopelessly erratic. I also don't think they play to Megan Boone's strengths. Boone is great, I think, when she has to display that “quiet confidence” and be the kind of character who's sneaky and does her things in the background. She's not a “forefront” character where she has to be the “life of the party” and be the focal point of the scene at all times, like Red does. She should be feeding off what other people give her, and if she is the focal point of a scene, someone should be “guiding” her or it should be a scene where she's the only component. Boone isn't a “scene chewer” like James Spader is, or Reed Birney (Deputy Attorney General Thomas Connolly), so she shouldn't be required to be, like she has been at times in this series. I also think Boone is much better playing the depraved, potential future criminal than she is at playing the “sweet, innocent, delicate little flower” they've tried to make her. Her emotional reactions are over the top, and she comes across as a petulant child than an actual adult. In those cases, she's more “caricature” than “character”, so I think they ought to keep those scenes to a minimum. So...is she likeable? I think she can be...the show just has to use her right.

I'll reply in Lizzie's thread.

I mean we'll see him in a future episode.

A game-changer? This episode will air in April...so maybe. I just hope Vanessa Cruz won't get in the way of the Tom/Red/Lizzie battle the episode is promising.

So we're seeing Roger Hobbs again. Red's "dark cloud" talk sure seemed awfully prophetic, although I wonder how much of it I wanted it to be true. Great to see Ralph Brown again, but Hobbs truly wasn't an interesting character. Perhaps the only hope here is that Hobbs was poorly developed and was a one-dimensional corporate slimeball...ho hum. I half wanted Red to blow him away to put us out of our misery, but nothing doing. (Sidebar: I really would have loved it if Hobbs' right-hand man was named Calvin, but I'll take what I can get) The case itself was really ho hum too. I'm guessing the show wanted us to think the rudimentary "fountain of youth" story would be entertaining if it's littered with "cool" stuff like jellyfish (whose characteristic is true by the way- the Turritopsis dohrnii actually can revert itself back to its initial stage (the polyp) and live its life again, although the caveat here is that this characteristic has only been observed in a lab, not "in the field"), but I didn't think so. There was ample opportunity to really dig in to the ethics of immortality, but instead we got a pedestrian explanation that this whole thing was just a cover for the doctor's research into trying to rejuvanate his wife, which actually failed. Lizzie and Ressler, too, despite all their exhortations that the lives they're saving matter, didn't really seem to care all that much about the actual victims themselves...they were "just another victim of a crazy lunatic". I suppose the show opted for a pedestrain case so it could drop a "bombshell" later so that Red can explain he's interested in the crazy doctor's research just so he can help Lizzie but it felt hollow to me. We've seen Red obsess several times for Lizzie and look wistfully like he did in this episode, so I don't really think we learned a lot of new things. One thing I did appreciate- and I wished this was established in Season 1, not now- was the sidebar story with Connolly and Cooper. Good that Ressler caught on to Cooper's seeming betrayal of justice, but I thought Connolly's move was a reminder that even your motives are just, the path isn't easy. I've said it many times before and I'll say it again- this is a show filled with unscrupulous characters where you can play with the question of what truly is "right" and "wrong", and that to do the right thing may require having to do some wrong. It also presents the wonderful opportunity- through Tom and Red- to show that no one truly ever is "good" or "bad"- we're all somewhere in between. Connolly's move was shady, but it was a nice reminder of who Cooper- and his team- really are dealing with. I do hope that even if Connolly isn't long for this show (it's an inevitability, I'm afraid), the show at least continues along the path of "black and grey morality"- when one of their central characters is a "bad guy", they have no choice. Speaking of the bad guy...Tom, or Jacob or Christoph or whomever he is...he's a really great character. Ryan Eggold really gets the conflicted "compromised good guy" role really well and it's a joy to watch. The problem in this episode was that the story didn't make any sense- why did his German pals come to the U.S.? To remind "Eggold's character" that he's in trouble? I really didn't think they were necessary, and they didn't even add to the plot- it seemed like an excuse just to show a bloodied "Eggold's character" and cut open his thigh. I did like seeing him inflitrate Lizzie's motel room...whomever he is, he is desperately trying to make amends. Then we get to Red...he really didn't do much in this episode, and it's a shame. The last few weeks I appreciated the fact he was in the background as other characters took centre-stage, because the story demanded it...here...I think we really needed to see him more involved. Most of the episode was lifeless and punchless, and Red could have been useful in the investigation. Hopefully next week reverses this. Finally...Lizzie's birthday. Nothing special here, considering the whole "careerist who's too busy to properly celebrate her birthday" has been done to death before and this wasn't an especially novel telling of that story. Still, though, it was great seeing Lizzie wonder how her life became so messed up, especially because we got another nugget about her (perhaps her admission that she finished top of her class only for it to mean nothing in the real world is the writers admitting they screwed up with her character), and Ressler was nice to celebrate her birthday with her. I liked Lizzie having to make a wine choice, but I expected Ressler or Lizzie to gag after drinking it...I mean, it was an old wine after all... Ultimately...I really wish they'd have a few episodes, at least, here and there where they'd ditch the "Case of the Week" entirely and just deal with the storylines of the characters, because they're far more interesting. Early on, it was fun and provided a nice insight into the world of Red and his struggles, but I think now, with the characters sufficiently developed and storylines established about them, I'm not sure we need stuff like jellyfish-obsessed scientists to get us to tune in every week. We're clearly at the part of the show where simply asking "what's 'Eggold's character' up to?" will draw viewers. After a while, every monster becomes the same, just with different methods, so it's important to flesh out the characters. Plus I think we've got some really good characters with some really good stories- "Eggold's character", Red, Cooper, Connolly- that could use expanding, so I really think the show ought to devote a few episodes fleshing those stories out and ditching the Monster of the Week, because by now they just get in the way.

Mileage varies, but it seemed to me like the Congressman was in on that plan, or at least knew about it, just from how he acted in that final scene. I guess I could infer brainwashing because the movie was referenced, but I find that spurious since there was nothing in the show to suggest that happened. Which leaves me with either: a) The Congressman and his mother had planned everything beforehand b) The Congressman and his mother discussed the plan and the mother decided to go through with it anyway c) The Congressman was in the dark about the plan but, seeing how well it worked, approved of it If it's “a”, then the Congressman is the best actor in the world and the episode was horribly contrived to ensure that Reid wasn't there to snuff it out quickly. If it's “b”, the acting still applies, to an extent, and I wonder why the Congressman never clued in to what was happening. If it's “c”, then I have to wonder why the Congressman was never surprised to find out his mother devised the plan- sure, he called the actions “unforgivable” but he also asked his mother “what to do next” and never seemed to act like he didn't know what his mother was up to all along. Of course, none of this explains the ear- sure, the mother hated the Congressman's wife but I'm sure she would respect him enough not to harm the wife. It also doesn't explain why nothing was made of the fact the Russians defied their orders and demanded more ransom money- you'd think it'd make the mother scramble or retaliate, but nothing doing. I think this could have worked better if the wife and the mother were the ones who hatched the plan, and the “mob” were hired actors and not actual Russian mobsters. That made more sense to me than all the questions I got here.

Manipulative mothers! Reid gets a coffee date! Lots and lots of action from the men...and hardly anything from the women! A congressman's wife is kidnapped and her ear is cut off! Russian mobsters! Including one with a Yoruba fetish! Smirking Hotch! Cool Rossi! Accusations of having an affair! A jealous brother! A slimey investigative reporter! A not-so-sly jab at Albertan oil! A reference to the movie they ripped off! We've got it all! And more! On Criminal Minds! Okay...serious tone now...I liked it in a strange way. This season's a bit like S8 where it started all weird, implausible and downright horrible before getting back to the basics and developing some winning episodes. Problem is, the "winners" just don't seem to be winning all that much, and they're not really winning the right way. In fact, it seems like CM is winning in spite of itself. There were a lot of good character moments, lots of good twists and feints and misdirects. Great acting. Problem is...there was just about nothing in the story that really connected itself in any way...there were so many tangents that the episode felt like it was running all over the place without getting anywhere...and then it ended. I wonder- did we need the Russian mob in this one? Did we need to have Sophie Troy's ear cut off? Did we need to have a gangster with a Yoruba fetish? Was the brother necessary? Was the intern needed? The gun purchase? The slimey reporter? Oil references? I mean, you could probably have some of those things, and, who knows...with better editing, perhaps it could have all made sense. The way it was presented? Unless you were paying attention, there was a lot of stuff you'd miss. Then ultimately, what was the payoff? The knowledge that the Congressman was in on all of this all along? Like no one saw that a mile away. Which makes me wonder about some of the choices made in this episode...I'm pretty sure if he was in on this that he'd have some kind of "assurance money" stashed somewhere to ensure his wife is safely rescued, and I doubt he'd consent to her ear being cut off. I also have a hard time believing that along the way his mother wouldn't put in a secret sign or something to reassure him that it's "their" plot and that he really shouldn't be worried. He's also got to be the greatest actor in the world because he fooled the BAU into believing that he was genuinely believing he was concerned for his wife...c'mon guys, you're slipping. Badly. (Oh, so that's why Reid was told to join the surveillance team at the house...because if Reid was around interviewing the Congressman and his associates, he would have figured it all out in about five seconds. Groan) Granted, it wasn't all bad, but I think this one owed more to the actors and the director and everything except the writing...it was good, in spite of itself. Which I think is the ultimate disappointment. With a clearer vision and better planning, this could have been a bellwether episode that shows the rest how to get it done. Instead, it's just merely good. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. (as well as hoping they actually make something of Reid's date and not have it go by the wayside...again)

If she's not the one providing all the introductory information first, I think she'll need half the epiosde, at least.

I suppose it makes sense, at least in that he change characters at will and immerse himself in that character. The only question I have is- what spurs the change? When he was in Germany he had no reason to “become” Tom again- he could have just reverted to his instincts and fled.

Maybe it would have made more sense if the ME revealed that Gideon was developing dementia or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or some other kind of neurological disease, because I'd buy that Gideon was stubborn enough to work through that. It'd also be very poignant for Reid as it would serve as a reminder to him to always cherish his brain- because he may never know when he'll lose it.