S16.E04: Pay-Per-View

[Danielg342]

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The BAU tries to determine how a home-invasion team is connected to the serial killer network. Meanwhile, Alvez and Garcia try to get a suspect to agree to a cognitive interview.

[Snazzy Daisy]

I guess we will learn about what has driven Elias to do all the killings and tortures through Silas Weir Mitchell‘s character soon.

Elias injected Moose with pentobarbital. Did he euthanize him? He can’t be that merciful, can he?

Great acting by Ryan-James Hatanaka during the cognitive interview.

I hope Will will be okay. I cannot handle too much of JJ’s personal drama. Just let her be happy!

[Danielg342]

Where to begin...

I suppose I could give this show credit for having a case where the BAU was actually wrong for a change, even they did actually capture some criminals.

Sixteen years late, but better late than never.

I'll also give the show a bit more credit that the story was more straightforward than it usually is from these writers.

Still, it was pretty boring and predictable.

For one, it followed CM's recent pattern of "kill the men, save the woman" storytelling that it not just patently unrealistic (serial killers tend to target women) but makes the cases too predictable.

There's no drama when you know, upon coming up to a woman who encounters the UnSubs, that she will survive with barely a scratch.

It's like all those episodes where kids are in peril- since the show had the (nerve? courage? gumption? audacity?) to kill only one child in its entire existence ("The Call" from S9), episodes where the premise is "kill the kid" have no drama, since you know the kid will make it in the end.

Yeah, I suppose there's credit to give that the "final girl" wasn't another security guard...but the story still fell into other horrible cliches.

One, the woman at the end was the boys' father's soon-to-be new wife, meaning that, like every other UnSub in Erica Messer-land, they have family issues.

Two, the boys' backstory made absolutely no sense. So they were victims of a home invasion...fine. Why did the home invader kill the mother but decide to let the younger boy go free? Because the writer balked at killing the kid?

Don't seasoned criminals know leaving someone alive means leaving behind a witness?

...but, hey, nice "swerve" there by killing the older brother, who may still be a teenager.

Only that it made the FBI agents, who are so dead set on catching Sicarius, look that much dumber because they eliminated one lead they could have talked to.

Gotta give the other brother an emotional gut punch or something.

As for the other stories...well, guess I'm glad we still have more from Tyler Green because that was an exercise in futility. Who wants to bet that the woman Elias Voit wound up marrying is Tyler's sister, who was kidnapped, brainwashed and had her hair coloured blonde?

Don't put that past these writers.

Also...Will and cancer. *sigh* I suppose it's better to introduce this story now without the "Jencer" stuff hanging over it's head but talk about your other police procedural cliches.

Will and JJ just can't have a normal story about how her job is affecting her marriage...no, she needs the "additional" (re: "tack on") drama of potentially losing Will too!

You know, watching Criminal Minds really does feel like a throwback, because when you watch the show, you're watching stories that other shows have (wisely) moved on from!

Ho hum. On to the fall finale next week (as I understand).

[pertho]

Monroe!

[rtms77]

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At this point if they do a JJ and Will break up over the job, it would be too depressing. It’s like not one agent working there can have a actual long term relationship. Which is just sad.

18 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

Also...Will and cancer. *sigh* I suppose it's better to introduce this story now without the "Jencer" stuff hanging over it's head but talk about your other police procedural cliches.

Will and JJ just can't have a normal story about how her job is affecting her marriage...no, she needs the "additional" (re: "tack on") drama of potentially losing Will too!

I can’t decide if the health scare is better or worse than a divorce/ cheating/ tired of “the job comes first” storyline. 
 

😂 Wow it actually feels like a downer when they have a normal case. 
No politics this ep! 
 

18 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

Who wants to bet that the woman Elias Voit wound up marrying is Tyler's sister, who was kidnapped, brainwashed and had her hair coloured blonde?

That’s some serious brainwashing if they go that route. I don’t recall Elias being so controlling with the wife. The guy in the memory had a temper and was a control freak . 

[StarBrand]

I was plesantly surprised to see that the murderers-of-the-week were entirely working on their own, and had nothing at all to do with Sicarious. That part was unexpected.  But in the scheme of things, what was this week all about then?

Tyler annoys me. He leaks info to Penelope, bascially draws her back into a job she no longer wanted to be in, and got mad that she gave it to the FBI? Does the dude not know anything about her? Was she supposed to go about it herself?  And now he doesn't want her involved at all. Helluva guy.  I was glad when she called him out on his lone wolf bullshit.

Aad out of the blue, Will has cancer? My tolerance of the actor is a bit low...the guy always sounds like he's been roused from his sleep, and can barely be bothered to get words out of his mouth.

[Annber03]

On 12/9/2022 at 4:01 AM, Danielg342 said:

Two, the boys' backstory made absolutely no sense. So they were victims of a home invasion...fine. Why did the home invader kill the mother but decide to let the younger boy go free? Because the writer balked at killing the kid?

Don't seasoned criminals know leaving someone alive means leaving behind a witness?

...but, hey, nice "swerve" there by killing the older brother, who may still be a teenager.

Only that it made the FBI agents, who are so dead set on catching Sicarius, look that much dumber because they eliminated one lead they could have talked to.

Gotta give the other brother an emotional gut punch or something.

I thought about that, too, yeah. I could maybe see the home invader letting the kid go, not so much out of compassion or a line he won't cross, but because he would know how child killers are treated in prison...but even then, the fact he held a knife to the kid's throat at all shows that wouldn't have really been a concern for him, either. If nothing else, one would think he would've at least killed the father, too, both to further traumatize the children and also because he was angry the father wasn't giving him what he wanted. That could've made for an interesting avenue in and of itself, with the children being left behind after the murder of their parents, and one is traumatized to the point of becoming a killer, while the other tries to find better ways to cope, and that causes some tension and friction as well. 

That issue aside, though, I did find the case interesting in and of itself. It felt a bit "Big Game"-ish, with the crimes being uploaded for people to see...just in this case, it was the homeowners, instead of random online viewers. And these killers may not be connected to Sicarus, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's not reading up on these crimes going on out there and perhaps getting inspiration, so maybe that's where the connection, such as it is, would come in? 

I also liked Garcia and Luke's interactions with Tyler in the interrogation room (also, Luke looked especially good in this episode. He's always good-looking, mind, but yeah, I dunno, something about his look in this episode was particularly working for me). And it's good to see Rossi getting reinvigorated again. 

So. That ending with Will. Eesh. Wonder how that's gonna play out. 

[Danielg342]

9 hours ago, Annber03 said:

If nothing else, one would think he would've at least killed the father, too, both to further traumatize the children and also because he was angry the father wasn't giving him what he wanted. That could've made for an interesting avenue in and of itself, with the children being left behind after the murder of their parents, and one is traumatized to the point of becoming a killer, while the other tries to find better ways to cope, and that causes some tension and friction as well. 

Perhaps. Though as I understand these were burglars who killed out of necessity, so I would think "doing everything we can to avoid going to jail" would trump worrying about what would happen if they were caught. Criminals like that would have the arrogance to think they'd never get caught, so I'm not sure they would worry about reprisals once in jail.

Further, the father and the other brother survived by hiding in a "safe room", Which I suppose I could buy, though it asks questions about the burglars' thoroughness.

9 hours ago, Annber03 said:

These killers may not be connected to Sicarus, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's not reading up on these crimes going on out there and perhaps getting inspiration, so maybe that's where the connection, such as it is, would come in? 

I believe the point of the episode was to present a case that the BAU would think is connected to Sicarius but finds out later that it isn't. Elias Voit is still probably going to read about this case but that won't be this case's main connection to the storyline.

Still, at the crime scene the BAU didn't yet know that the two brothers had no connection to Sicarius, so you'd think they would make a better effort than they did to bring both brothers in alive as opposed to wasting no time shooting one dead. Perhaps their hands were tied given the situation but it still felt sloppy by the BAU to act like they did.