S11.E08: Awake

[thewhiteowl]

Victims are kidnapped in Phoenix and forced to endure sleep deprivation. Meanwhile, JJ copes with exhaustion from juggling work and caring for her newborn son; and Hotch and Garcia deal with threats from the "Dirty Dozen," an underground hit man group.

 

 

[Danielg342]

If this is part of a long arc where JJ eventually leaves the show, it might be worth the likely dearth of Reid.

[ForeverAlone]

At this point, I could believe that pretty much any of the main team members could leave. We could find plausible exit stories for all of them (and the actors who play them). 

[Bookish Jen]

Hmm, Awake. Is this the name of this episode or what all of us suffering CM fans will try to do when it airs?

[SSAHotchner]

Hmm, Awake. Is this the name of this episode or what all of us suffering CM fans will try to do when it airs?

No, Jen, it's what the writers and show runner need to do and stop giving us crap for episodes. 

[Old Dog]

How depressing to see the promo photos for "Awake" and no Reid to be seen. I have no wish to watch the next 3 episodes at all.

[ForeverAlone]

I'm still curious if Reid will make an appearance at all. The fact that his exit story was set up in episode seven makes me doubt it, but it is possible, because Matthew was around a couple days during the filming window. But if he does show up,  my money is on a short phone call scene or something. But it also would not shock me if his absence is just explained away with a quick sentence from Hotch and that might be the last we hear of him for two/three episodes. 

[normasm]

I hate that his perfect record of being in every episode will be bust. 

[ForeverAlone]

Well...this is interesting. But somehow I doubt this means there will be any sort of Penelope absence.

 

http://www.tvguide.com/news/exclusive-criminal-minds-sneak-peek-garcia-witness-protection/

[normasm]

Interesting? i found it mind-numbingly boring, especially the second vid.

 

Again, why did they get rid of Reid for 3 episodes?

[Bookish Jen]

Interesting? i found it mind-numbingly boring, especially the second vid.

 

Again, why did they get rid of Reid for 3 episodes?

I'm trying to wrap my head why the current state of CM treats Reid, one of the show's most beloved characters, with such utter contempt. Plus, Matthew has proven himself as both an actor and a director. Furthermore, he's hard working, professional and doesn't go around like a total jerk on the set. I don't hear any horror stories about any foul behavior from Matthew (and let's keep it that way, Mr. Gubler!).

 

Then again, maybe Matthew took some well-deserved "me time," but that still doesn't explain why Spencer has become nothing but a cardboard cut-out. What a waste.

No, Jen, it's what the writers and show runner need to do and stop giving us crap for episodes. 

I'll probably have this episode on as background noise as I putter around my lady lair. I'll only take a look at my TV when Hotch is on my screen, especially if he's in shades, wearing a Kevlar vest, and brandishing his gun.

 

And I came up with a new song for Spencer, Hold My Earrings. It's called, "I Put the Ho in Hotch."

[missmycat]

Oh goody. This is just what we need, more Garcia angst.This is ridiculous. She is a freaking tech analyst for crying out loud,but somehow she has become a bigger threat to the unsubs then the men and women who actually go and put their lives out on the line to try and subdue them. No doubt some unsubs must have gotten wind of her magic computer. If that is the case than I can probably see why Garcia would be targeted. Suddenly I am not so upset about Reid missing these episodes.

[smoker]

Ooh my... No more shit all over the Marshals. I can't help it, I have a soft spot for them and this is going to be just like Haley's, García is going to break the rules and put her life in danger and then Marshals are going to be killed and look incompetent while Morgan saves her

[Droogie]

Rossi with a new love interest, Garcia goes into protective custody...

I may go postal. I'm not even lying about this.

[thewhiteowl]

Please wait until after you see the episode to start your bitching. I put these up early as a courtesy, not to get a jump on complaining. If you have no new information to add, wait until the show airs, thanks!

[Droogie]

Sorry, White Owl. It's hard, but you're right. :::hangs head:::

[ReidFan]

::::puts Revelations in the dvd drive::::

 

:contented sigh/relives the Reidhorror:

ah yes, this is what a great episode looks like!

[SSAHotchner]

I'm trying to wrap my head why the current state of CM treats Reid, one of the show's most beloved characters, with such utter contempt. Plus, Matthew has proven himself as both an actor and a director. Furthermore, he's hard working, professional and doesn't go around like a total jerk on the set. I don't hear any horror stories about any foul behavior from Matthew (and let's keep it that way, Mr. Gubler!).

 

Then again, maybe Matthew took some well-deserved "me time," but that still doesn't explain why Spencer has become nothing but a cardboard cut-out. What a waste.

I'll probably have this episode on as background noise as I putter around my lady lair. I'll only take a look at my TV when Hotch is on my screen, especially if he's in shades, wearing a Kevlar vest, and brandishing his gun.

 

And I came up with a new song for Spencer, Hold My Earrings. It's called, "I Put the Ho in Hotch."

Haha. My husband is mildly jealous of Hotch. I keep telling him he should get one of those kevlar vests and a toy gun and slink around the house like Hotch. 

Edited November 19, 2015 by SSAHotchner

[ReidFan]

Haha. My husband is mildly jealous of Hotch. I keep telling him he should get one of those kevlar vests and a toy gun and slink around the house like Hotch. 

I'd be really lucky if that was all it took. My husband IS a cop and would have a kevlar vest...toy/real gun. But he still wouldn't have Reid's beautiful eyes and fantastic mind. :-P

[normasm]

But, he is YOURS

[ReidFan]

But, he is YOURS

and so is Reid O:-)

[JMO]

No Reid.  Good night.

[MCatry]

No Reid.  Good night.

Thank you for watching this episode to finally reveal the mister about Reid or no-Reid episode.

[ReidFan]

A cursory mention of a text from Reid saying his moms doing better. And a scene in the jet on the way home where Morgan and Rossi are mocking him.

Wonderful.

I. Hated. This. Episode.

[ForeverAlone]

Honestly, I think this case would have been far more interesting and psychologically compelling if the "twist" at the end had been the actual case. Meaning that if they were tracking the man with the skull tattoo who was abducting and murdering children across a multi-state region, and building the profile (even if they didn't catch him at the end). That ending was actually creepy and spooky. I was glad that Hotch and Tara had that conversation on the plane at the end, because they were actually talking about one of my major questions from that case. How was that girl abducted from a car when her father was in the front seat, even if he was asleep? Didn't he keep the doors locked?

 

But to get to that interesting ending, I had to watch a case that wasn't that interesting to me, with way too much unsub. I do like delusional killers, but I like interesting delusions, and this killer wasn't interesting and watching one too many sleep deprived hallucinations didn't really excite me.

 

When we did see the team, it was nice to see them talking through the case, the victims, and such. It is always more interesting to spend more time on the cerebral side of things, though we still had the takedown scene at the end that was written in such a way that required the ladies (girl power takedown activate) to kill the unsub. For the most part (with one major exception, I'll address below), the team interaction was good. We obviously didn't spend too much time on the Dirty Dozen, but for all the pomp made about Penelope being in "witness protection", she basically is in protective custody at the FBI HQ and not allowed to even go home. But whatever. We'll see more of that later.

 

This episode does get MAJOR points deducted for its treatment of Reid though. I always knew that, AT BEST, this would be Reid lite, just because I knew Matthew wasn't around for most of the filming window. But once we had the exit story last episode, I fully expected him not to be there at all. And I was right. At the very beginning Morgan had his explanatory line that Reid was with his mother, and she was doing better. I figured that would be the last we would hear about him for this episode. But no, we got another Reid reference at the end. At first I was amazed that he was getting mentioned TWICE in his absence, but that amazement quickly turned to anger at Morgan and Rossi. It would have been one thing if they were just respectfully quoting Reid and his discussion on sleep, like they took it seriously. But nope, both Morgan and Rossi had to bust out their mocking Reid voices. Whether it was simply to make fun of Reid when he was not there, or bore JJ to sleep with their talk about Reid, neither sat well with me. He wasn't even there to defend himself, and it just felt like an unnecessary cheap shot. I am already pissed that there will be no Reid for three straight episodes, only for him to be more comic relief fodder, and now when he is not even around to snark back. 

[normasm]

This episode should have been named "Asleep." CM, you have jumped the damn shark. No Reid, no Criminal Minds.

[SSAHotchner]

Did not work for me. I expected we'd get a lot of JJ and Tara but I didn't think they'd actually let JJ decide that it was time to give the profile (did Hotch take the rest of the day off?) or that they'd send the 2 women out alone to apprehend the unsub. They let Hotch say, "Wheels up in 20" instead of "Wheels up in 30." Oooh! I guess he had a few other lines, but this whole thing just fell apart for me. I couldn't figure out where they were getting their information from which to draw their conclusions about the unsub. So tired of the need to make the viewers feel sorry for the unsub. Disliked the torture porn. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kim didn't ask Janine Sherman Barrois for some ideas. Some of this felt very much like her writing. And, of course, I disliked poking fun at Reid when he wasn't even there at the end. They seem to think this kind of thing is funny, when it's really insulting. The show no longer holds my interest. I think, besides chatting with friends online, I'm going to have to make a game out of it in order to really pay attention if I stay with it. Finally, I'm so disappointed that they said Garcia needed to be in protective custody but apparently can still be in touch with everyone on the team and annoying the living daylights out of me week after week. If they found her through her computers and she's still using them....what's to keep them from finding her now?

[Cherubim]

Just a little message to the writers of Criminal Minds: I only watch Criminal Minds so I can look at that gorgeous Matthew Gray Gubler (aka Dr. Spencer Reid)

Get him the, Hell, back on the show like right now, or don't bother with the show at all. 

[iscoffy]

It pains me to say it, but I think I may be done.  When you've just had one of the profilers say that eyes were stapled open and the victims were tortured, we don't then need to see eyes stapled open and victims being tortured.  It's bad writing, and it's not why I watch this show.  The show has been going more and more in the "super icky unsub" direction so it isn't a surprise, but there just isn't enough of the cast I used to enjoy to get me past the horrifying torture porn.  Plus I really can't do eye injuries.  Sorry, Criminal Minds, I hung in as long as I could.

 

I couldn't find the promo for next week online, did anyone see it?/Is one out?

I assume there isn't an episode next week, since Thanksgiving and serial killers aren't a natural match.

 

Tara did seem to have a slightly less horrible wig this week, so I guess there's that.

Edited November 19, 2015 by iscoffy

[Guesswht]

JJ looks sooo tiny next to Tara. it's so cute :)

 

At first I was amazed that he was getting mentioned TWICE in his absence, but that amazement quickly turned to anger at Morgan and Rossi. It would have been one thing if they were just respectfully quoting Reid and his discussion on sleep, like they took it seriously. But nope, both Morgan and Rossi had to bust out their mocking Reid voices. Whether it was simply to make fun of Reid when he was not there, or bore JJ to sleep with their talk about Reid, neither sat well with me. He wasn't even there to defend himself, and it just felt like an unnecessary cheap shot. I am already pissed that there will be no Reid for three straight episodes, only for him to be more comic relief fodder, and now when he is not even around to snark back. 

The sleeping scene was on point! The point is not to make fun of Reid... Some people always try to make it seem like Reid is a victim of something.

AJ Cook overworks herself to make us happy. She's working way too hard for her fans and everyone is so vile to her, she gets told to leave CM every day. I just can't seem to understand why or how it became so natural for some people to be so mean to her. It's like: you should feel bad if you like her because there's something wrong with you if you don't hate her.

[leela46]

I deleted this episode from my DVR without even watching it. Sounds like way too much JJ. I'l be back when Reid is back.

[Old Dog]

I have zero interest in watching this episode or the next two but I did catch a clip of the Mean Girls scene with Rossi and Morgan on the jet. For a show that touts that the team are this lovey dovey family I found this mean and insulting but typical of Harrison's style of writing. It is so sad that this show now sacrifices quality to target the lowest possible common denominator for the audience.

[Kelda Feegle]

Snarking on Reid was just off, and surprising from Rossi. Not cool guys, not cool at all.

[ReidFan]

Three positives for me to take away from this episode (I noticed how negative my post was last night and I can't be like that):

 

1. Matthew wasn't in it, but the writing was such crap we (and he) should be happy to have been excluded from this one.

2. Reid's mom is doing 'better' (so why did he have to run to Vegas but)

3. The muse has been poked. I'm in the process of writing a couple of 'missing scenes' for this and the next episode.... about why Reid is *really* in Vegas, I'm calling it 'What Happens in Vegas"

[ForeverAlone]

Reid is in Vegas, because the writers needed a cheap and easy way to explain Matthew's absence for a few episodes. Based on what we have seen so far, it is pretty obvious that Reid's absence is not storyline driven, but rather driven by events in the real world. But heaven forbid they send Reid off on a special project where his talents could be fully utilized. I guess only JJ and Tara are good enough to be specifically requested.

Edited November 19, 2015 by ForeverAlone

[JMO]

Three positives for me to take away from this episode (I noticed how negative my post was last night and I can't be like that):

 

1. Matthew wasn't in it, but the writing was such crap we (and he) should be happy to have been excluded from this one.

2. Reid's mom is doing 'better' (so why did he have to run to Vegas but)

3. The muse has been poked. I'm in the process of writing a couple of 'missing scenes' for this and the next episode.... about why Reid is *really* in Vegas, I'm calling it 'What Happens in Vegas"

 

Ditto.

 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11622606/1/The-Banishment

[ReidFan]

nice,  JMO <3  and you're much faster than me. Mine isn't done yet LOL

[JMO]

It was written a few days ago.  Reid's absence had been telegraphed for a while.

[ReidFan]

It was written a few days ago.  Reid's absence had been telegraphed for a while.

yeah, the optimist in me was just hoping beyond hope that they were going to cut a cameo appearance for him into the episode but I guess that's just asking too much. I waited to see that before I started writing but I'll say the outline was done before the opening credits were finished. >:-(

[zannej]

I'm confused-- did they actually say that Garcia was in Witness Protection or did they say there was talk about it possibly happening? Because it seems like she was just in protective custody.

 

I like Tara and I actually liked JJ in this episode. Her insight about the caffeine actually made sense, but the male characters basically disappearing and not being involved when they should have just so CBS could annoyingly tout #girlpower on Twitter really hurt this episode. It made zero sense for Tara and JJ to be the ones sent out because Tara is new to the team and has less experience in combat situations than the rest of the team and JJ was very obviously exhausted. Hotch would have to be a complete imbecile to not notice how tired JJ was-- and if he didn't see her enough to notice, *someone* on the team would have noticed and said something. You can bet your ass Morgan would never have let JJ go out to face an armed and dangerous man who was overpowering, torturing, and killing healthy grown men. He would have volunteered to go in her place-- and if Hotch was still being written as perceptive and knowing his team, he would never have sent JJ at all. He would have told her to nap on the couch and let people who were well-rested take care of things.

 

Oh yeah, and then they just opened fire into the truck when the guy was trying to drive away-- I'm pretty sure that they aren't supposed to shoot to kill unless the person is posing imminent danger-- like trying to run them over or brandishing his gun at them. They could have shot his tires out or shot to wound. Cop cars could have blocked his truck.

 

Every scene with the little girl was annoying to me. She was a cute kid, but they shouldn't have given her any lines because it was just bad. I gagged a bit at the "you are my sunshine" song at the end.

[ForeverAlone]

They specifically used the term "witness protection" and Hotch basically said that the witness protection persons wanted to hide Penelope out of state under a new identity (i.e. real witness protection), but instead agreed to basically providing her protection at the office. I think they used the term "witness protection" because it sounds more serious and dangerous for Penelope, but they obviously weren't going to take Penelope out of several episodes. 

 

I missed it, but seriously, where were Morgan, Rossi and Hotch at the end? Did they even try to give some sort of plausible reason they weren't there with Tara and JJ? Granted, not much of this episode made sense, so probably not. But that is one of the many glaring errors in the writing.

[iscoffy]

Oh yeah, and then they just opened fire into the truck when the guy was trying to drive away-- I'm pretty sure that they aren't supposed to shoot to kill unless the person is posing imminent danger-- like trying to run them over or brandishing his gun at them. They could have shot his tires out or shot to wound. Cop cars could have blocked his truck.

Was I hallucinating the angle that J.J. shot from?  I honestly don't get how she shot through the front of the windshield from where she seemed to be standing.  

 

And what even happened to the captive guy?  They didn't bother to follow up there.  They shot the "sad" unsub and then... what? Did the poor captive have a family worried about him?  Nobody seemed to care about the wife of the first captive after he was killed, either.  All of these things could have been covered, with the team having to deal with breaking news of sorrow or hope and having to confront their own feelings about the failures and success of their profiling efforts.  And it would have been covered in the past, rather than spending time on ballerina dancing little girls, eye stapling, and making fun of Reid on a plane.  I know which scenes I'd rather see, but...

[zannej]

Was I hallucinating the angle that J.J. shot from?  I honestly don't get how she shot through the front of the windshield from where she seemed to be standing.  

 

And what even happened to the captive guy?  They didn't bother to follow up there.  They shot the "sad" unsub and then... what? Did the poor captive have a family worried about him?  Nobody seemed to care about the wife of the first captive after he was killed, either.  All of these things could have been covered, with the team having to deal with breaking news of sorrow or hope and having to confront their own feelings about the failures and success of their profiling efforts.  And it would have been covered in the past, rather than spending time on ballerina dancing little girls, eye stapling, and making fun of Reid on a plane.  I know which scenes I'd rather see, but...

Good point. The victims were once again just fodder. We only had more insight into the guy who had a wife but that was very brief-- and it still was unclear how much of the profile was right and how much was wrong. That "profile" was just not right. It was like they threw things at the wall to see what stuck and there was no actual sense to it. It was like they just took different speculations from previous episodes and regurgitated it-- but it wasn't a cohesive profile. It was all over the place.

 

I thought that it was Tara who fire and that she shot through the back window-- but I looked away from my screen for a few moments and missed some things.

[iscoffy]

I also didn't understand why they kept saying "expand the search to include such-and-such," when they were adding criteria that would actually narrow the search.  Why wouldn't the broad search have found the information?  If anything, the broad search should have found too much information, rather than nothing!  

[Droogie]

Reid is in Vegas, because the writers needed a cheap and easy way to explain Matthew's absence for a few episodes. Based on what we have seen so far, it is pretty obvious that Reid's absence is not storyline driven, but rather driven by events in the real world. But heaven forbid they send Reid off on a special project where his talents could be fully utilized. I guess only JJ and Tara are good enough to be specifically requested.

Hopefully he is using his time in Vegas to update his CV and his letter of resignation from the BAU.

[Danielg342]

"Awake"...or what I tried to watching this episode.

 

Yaaahhhhwwwwwnnn.

 

It was just so dull and so boring that I couldn't be bothered to keep up with it. You could ask me if it was a well-plotted case or if it was one full of plot holes (likely the latter) and I couldn't tell you. I could never really be bothered to care all that much.

 

I knew right away that the victims in this episode would be male, because you'll never see an episode full of visible torture that features women. 'Cause Hollywood is sexist like that. Of course, knowing that the Man with the Skull Tattoo was a real person and not a figment of the UnSub's imagination mitigates this somewhat, since there's no way the UnSub could kidnap a woman in this regard.

 

Of course, if the torture victims were all women I don't think this episode would have made a marked improvement. I might have appreciated it from a story choice standpoint- just how I would have appreciated seeing the little girl's body, since that's another thing Hollywood shirks from- but that's all I would gain out of that. The storytelling was still awfully flat, since it seems obvious that this episode was written essentially as an excuse to do some torture porn, and that's what really bugged me. I don't really think the UnSub's scenes were really all that necessary- everything we learned about the UnSub could have been gained just from learning what he did to the bodies and understanding victimology. You know, profiling, the stuff this show is supposed to be about but never actually does.

 

Concerning the UnSub's methodology- maybe it's just me from reading too much Snopes, but I'm told that if a guy's got a gun drawn on me while I'm driving a car, it's best to just drive the car to a police station, because...what's the gunman going to do? He shoots you, you lose control of the car and you're both dead.

 

Or you just drive to the nearest gas station and call for help. Regardless, the guy's method was pretty flawed...I think.

 

Probably the biggest gripe I have about this case is "why is this a BAU case?" There was only one dead victim to start, one that went missing (who was later killed because of the local authorities' dithering) and nothing at all particularly striking that suggested this guy could have evaded the local cops. The most the BAU did was make rudimentary observations that any detective could have made- if the guy was trolling rest stops between 1:30 and 2AM it wouldn't have taken much for the local police to scan the areas and wait for an abduction, since the UnSub made no attempt to hide it. All this stuff about sleep deprivation was purely academic, since it had no bearing on actually catching the guy.

 

Speaking of sleep deprivation...how convenient it is for JJ to be suffering from it just in time for this episode, huh? Way to contrive that storyline, show. Is there no clue that is beyond this woman? Her perceptive abilities are quite frankly ridiculous.

 

This goes for Tara too...I guess because Reid wasn't there someone had to take over his lines, so Tara it was. Never mind she hasn't even been with the team for more than two months yet walks around like she knows everything.

 

Is it also just me or did Tara sound bored in this episode? At least I can say that AJ Cook gave JJ some life and some warmth to her character...Aisha Tyler sounded like she was dragged out of her bed at 1:30AM just like the victims in this case.

 

Hardly any Hotch, Rossi or Morgan...they might as well not have been there, since they contributed very little. Well, Morgan did have that time with the M.E., where he too sounded a lot like Reid, because the writer's lazy and decided that Reid's lines could be spoken by anyone. Well...at least the show's honest about how it treats its most popular character.

 

Speaking of Rossi and Morgan...didn't really mind their imitation of Reid. I didn't think they were really malicious about it, they just wanted to give JJ a laugh. However, their voice acting sucks- since both have worked with Matthew Gray Gubler for close to a decade, you'd think both Shemar Moore and Joe Mantegna (who's also a voice actor on The Simpsons) would know how to imitate Gubler's voice a bit better.

 

Overall...this episode was at the bottom of the barrel. Not just because Reid couldn't even have made a small cameo (meaning now it's just Morgan who's been in every episode), but Reid's absence didn't help. No wonder this episode hit a series low.

[mertensia]

As someone who lives in Tucson: dead dude would have driven back and forth from Phoenix. Not taken a plane. He might- depending on the office- order a town car service to take him to Tucson and back but otherwise? Easier to drive. It's I-10 people. Not Lake Shore Drive or the DC Beltway. Hell if it's bad on I-10 he can go over to 77 and take that down.

[Danielg342]

I thought that too- I've only been to Tucson once (nice city, by the way), but I recall the drive from Phoenix to not have been that long.

[Bookish Jen]

Egad, this show has become a den of suck and not even a mere shadow of its previous glory. I've been watching the earlier seasons on ION and the difference is so glaring Stevie Wonder could see it.

 

Still, I'm CM's bitch so I did have "Asleep" on and often peeked up from my project (altering vintage cardigans) to see what was going on with the BAU-apparently, not much.

 

First, why was the BAU called into this case? As mentioned here, this seemed like a case the local police department can handle, no profiling truly necessary. And once again way too much focus on the unsub and the torture porn was truly disgusting. I believe Matthew once mentioned that elements of mystery, the unknown can be scarier than blood and gore, and the blatant obvious. He is so right on this. "Mr. Scratch" nearly scared the knickers off me; Asleep just made me roll my eyes in disgust.

 

Note to MESSer: JJ had a baby; she did not re-invent the wheel. Most parents of newborns experience sleep deprivation. This is hardly an earth-shattering observation.

 

Yep, Tara seemed to just sleepwalk through this episode and her wig was so atrocious a drag queen would slap her into next week.

 

Other than the when Hotch was talking to Garcia earlier in the episode where was he? Did he fall into the active volcano I designated for MESSer? Our beloved SSAHotcner needs her Hotch fix or else she has no reason to live.

 

Okay, I did giggle a bit when Garcia was in Hotch's office, writing a list of the stuff people need to pick up from her lady lair and she scratched something off. What could it be? I deduced that it must be a glitter-covered Hitachi Magic Wand. A good vibrator is every women's birthright! Other than that, I don't care about Garcia and her probs!

 

Oh, Spencer, how I miss you. How will I survive the next few weeks not being able to stare at your beautiful face and reciting facts like a learned poet? I wish we could have gotten a brief scene of him in Vegas with his mom, or at least a voice over phone call. And seriously, Spencer has problems with texting? If my 70-something mom can handle texting, I think a 30-something man can handle it. Other than dealing with his mother, I hope Spencer had some fun, read 539 books and updated his CV so he can finally tell the BAU to "Fuck off!!!"

 

And I really didn't appreciate Morgan and Rossi and their middle school antics of mocking Spencer; we all know Spencer is very sensitive and feels things much deeper than most people. This bit of business just seemed so childish and unnecessary, but perhaps I'm taking it way too personally. And I love seeing Spencer's hands whether he's speed reading through a book or using them as emphasis. Matthew has lovely hands.

 

[ReidFan]

Yes. the only edit I wanna make to your post BookishJ is the last sentence to: Matthew has lovely everything. :D but yeah you hit the nail on the proverbial head here.............   (<- gratuitous misuse of ellipsis)