thewhiteowl January 25, 2016 Share January 25, 2016 The BAU searches for a motive and an UnSub when victims are found in truck stop restrooms along highways throughout the South. Link to comment
normasm January 25, 2016 Share January 25, 2016 This one has Veronica Cartwright in it, whom i've loved for a very long time. I hope she's good in it. Link to comment
ReidFan January 25, 2016 Share January 25, 2016 oh! she's Angela Cartwright's sister ! :D (I remember her from the 60s Lost in Space) I'm sure Veronica will be great. doesn't mention her in imdb though :-\ Link to comment
normasm January 26, 2016 Share January 26, 2016 Veronica was in the inimitable Alien. Link to comment
normasm January 26, 2016 Share January 26, 2016 She was on a million things! She's been acting since a small child and she's 66! Link to comment
Danielg342 January 26, 2016 Share January 26, 2016 I wonder what "the bond" will be. I will predict that we'll get an episode title drop somewhere. Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 26, 2016 Share January 26, 2016 Based on what we have seen from the promos, my guess is the "bond" is a mother/son bond. 1 Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 26, 2016 Share January 26, 2016 Some sneak peeks for this episode. http://criminalmindsroundtable.blogspot.com/2016/01/criminal-minds-season-11-1113-bond_26.html Link to comment
secnarf January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 It's episodes like this that just make me wish for the series to be done. Nothing new, bland storyline, all unsub. I was bored, and I was painting while watching! I actually laughed out loud though when Morgan said (paraphrasing) "hey, maybe the victims all worked the same case!". Any of them should have realized that way earlier. It just seemed stupid by the time he said it. Also, it occurred to me that Tara is still around...wasn't she supposed to leave at one point? Why is she still there? I didn't notice until now because they're all so interchangeable. 6 Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 (edited) Decidedly meh. WAY.TOO.MUCH.UNSUB. I mean, basically this was their story and the team was just the occasional prop dressing. The unsub(s) were the opening scene, and they were the final scenes. When the team knows who the unsub is at the 30 minute mark, you know there is going to be way too much unsub. If the episode had been the mother's story, I think it would have been a far more interesting episode, but I gave a bit of side eye to the son's motivation for becoming a serial killer. It didn't really make sense, or at least it strained credulity a bit on my part. Or at least I didn't really buy the victim pool. Yeah, I GET why they were supposed to be targeted, but I don't really buy that the mother would have been hell bent on killing those people. Edited January 28, 2016 by ForeverAlone 6 Link to comment
smoker January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 (edited) I used to think unsub all the time was a mix of Messer style and bad writing, but its obvious they are taking advantage of it to give more free time to the main cast, they only work properly once in a while, for example, when there is an episode focused on them Edited January 28, 2016 by smoker 2 Link to comment
JMO January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 As a fan, I just feel so insulted by this episode, as though I'm not worthy of the writers and producers putting forth their best work. It's as though they feel like they can just throw anything out there, and the masses will still feed hungrily on it. One famous time that a historical figure had that attitude, they suffered the fate of the victims in Drive. 6 Link to comment
SSAHotchner January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 Another turd of an episode. I was chatting with some CM online friends, as I always do, but playing computer games at the same time. Some of the others were flipping back and forth between CM and other shows. Everyone I was chatting with hated it. If there's an actual reason why writers feature one or two cast members and hardly give the others something to do, I'd like to know what it is. I can understand if one person needs more time off, especially if they're going to be directing an upcoming episode and need planning and scouting time, but Hotch, Reid, Rossi and JJ were barely used in this episode, and Morgan only a bit more than the others. This was clearly the Lewis/Unsub show. I hated it when they used to do that with JJ and I hate it just as much with Lewis. I've never been a fan of Kim's writing, and this isn't the first time while watching one of her episodes that I wondered whether she got some material from Janine Sherman Barrois. This was as gory as some of JSB's episodes, and of course there had to be something in the unsub's past that caused him to have become a murderer and for which we should pity him. Please tell me why the writers, directors and actors don't notice or seem to mind that the weekly robotic, one-line-per-character delivery of the profile is boring and almost more unbelievable than the screwy plots they come up with. I agree with other posters - this was unworthy of Criminal Minds and we viewers. Just put us and the show out of our misery. 7 Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 (edited) I don't particularly have a problem with Tara, but it was a bit bizarre that Hotch, Rossi, Reid and JJ basically disappeared halfway through the episode and didn't really have much contribution beyond a scene or two. I said it on another forum, but the main cast certainly had plenty of time off this episode. It is just so bizarre to see and compare to other CBS dramas. I mean, no other show features the guest cast more than the main cast. If there is a lot of guest cast, it is mainly in the presence of the main cast. I honestly don't know why CBS allows this, because they are completely overpaying their actors for the actual work they get out of them. And the vast majority of fans tune in to see the team do their work, not some random unsub of the week. Edited January 28, 2016 by ForeverAlone 3 Link to comment
RedheadZombie January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 oh! she's Angela Cartwright's sister ! :D (I remember her from the 60s Lost in Space) I'm sure Veronica will be great. doesn't mention her in imdb though :-\ Until this moment I thought they were the same person. Link to comment
Reghan January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I was bored by this episode...Can we have more Entropy type episodes...please? 3 Link to comment
threebluestars January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 This episode has made me believe they desperately need to trim the cast so we get more of the characters. I'm up for Reid/Hotch/Rossi and some new blood. 4 Link to comment
leela46 January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 This was so bad I fell asleep watching it. I watched some early, season one, Criminal Minds the other day while I was snowed in. What a difference. The show is just so bad now. 4 Link to comment
Old Dog January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 Another episode starring the unsub where the team were just supporting cast. And I liked Lewis to begin with but it is beginning to annoy me that she is featuring more than the main cast when she is supposed to be a recurring character. She should have had time learning the role as profiler instead of being on top of the game and involved in everything from the start, It was what I expected from a Kim Harrison script - predicable, pedestrian and lacking in Hotch, Reid and Rossi because she doesn't like writing for them. So far this season there has only been one decent episode - I really hope things pick up in the remainder of the season. 5 Link to comment
Lostinthehouse January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 30 seconds in: What? The unsub already? Again? 10 minutes in: This sucks. 30 minutes in: Yeah, the girlfriend is next. 60 minutes gone: This sucked beyond all previous sucking on this show. Hated. It. 5 Link to comment
normasm January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I called mama with the hacked off ear 10 minutes in. I really like Veronica Cartwright, and she did do her best here. Too bad it was total dreck. Oh, and, in a hospital for the criminally insane, there would not be anything - and I mean anything - sharp enough to cut the skin, much less through cartilage. Cheap dramatics and so, so predictable. 7 Link to comment
BooksRule January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 (edited) She was on a million things! She's been acting since a small child and she's 66! She was also in 'The Birds' as Cathy, the sister. I didn't care for this episode (although Cartwright was great as usual). I was distracted by the actor who played the unsub. I don't know if I've seen him in anything else*, but I kept thinking that he looked like a member of the Carradine family (like he was Keith's son, or something). (*ETA: I just looked him up on imdb. I guess he just looks like a Carradine to me in this show, because I see that he played Scott Carpenter in 'The Astronaut Wives Club' and I totally didn't recognize him here.) Edited January 28, 2016 by BooksRule 3 Link to comment
Kelda Feegle January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 She was also in 'The Birds' as Cathy, the sister. I didn't care for this episode (although Cartwright was great as usual). I was distracted by the actor who played the unsub. I don't know if I've seen him in anything else*, but I kept thinking that he looked like a member of the Carradine family (like he was Keith's son, or something). (*ETA: I just looked him up on imdb. I guess he just looks like a Carradine to me in this show, because I see that he played Scott Carpenter in 'The Astronaut Wives Club' and I totally didn't recognize him here.) Dang! I was also thinking Carradine genes! 2 Link to comment
ReidFan January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I'm currently sick as a dog in bed. drugged to the nines, i almost forgot it was even on last night. (The PVR took care of that for me). Between multiple trips to the bathroom (I drink a ton of tea when I'm sick, that's all :) ) and playing a new game on the iPad, I did turn CM on, just as the opening credits rolled. Guess I missed the 'teaser' and it's a good thing, cause apparently they gave away the unsub again right off the mark? I found myself more interested in my game than the show. Honestly. Because of the meds, my head wasn't particularly clear...but even I knew the woman had been raped by a trucker and was the one bent on revenge. What does that say about the quality of the writing? I thought last week's episode sucked. This one was even worse. I'm afraid I was spoiled by how good Entropy was, and am now doomed to a CM fandom where every episode is held up against the light that was Entropy. And every episode might just fail. 3 Link to comment
Bookish Jen January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 Am I horrible person for laughing when the unsub son cut off his ear and I thought it looked like fortune cookie covered in raspberry jam? 5 Link to comment
needschocolate January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I can see the Carradine resemblance, but I was thinking more Norman Bates looking. They reveal bits and pieces of the back story, usually not in chronological order, during the episode. When the show is over, I like to put those bits an pieces in order and see if it makes sense --- Woman is raped by a trucker who ties her to a bathroom sink at a rest stop and cuts off her ear. That rape leads to a pregnancy, and she gives birth to a son. She gets her revenge by killing truckers, until she finds the one who raped her (the 6th trucker). She somehow drags him to a barn and ties him up. She then gets her son and brings him to the barn and makes him help her kill and bury the trucker (the boy's bio-dad), after cutting off the trucker's ear. Okay, makes sense so far, but things are about to get fuzzy. The boy tells something to his teacher - we don't know what - and she reports the mom to the authorities. A social worker testifies in court. The son is taken away from the mother. The mother is accused of killing truckers and they find her hiding out in a barn - probably the same barn that she killed the last trucker in. She is sentenced to a prison asylum. Eventually, the son finds out who she is (we know nothing about his life during the time they were separated). They meet and the mother convinces the son to go off his medication and to kill the teacher who alerted the authorities, the social worker (now real estate agent) who testified, and the judge. The fuzzy part is the timing - The trial/hearing that resulted in her son being taken away from her happened after she killed the last trucker, but before she was arrested for murdering truckers. So why did they take the son away? What did the son tell the teacher that started the investigation? If he told her about the murder, then the mother should have been arrested sooner and lost custody of the son because she was in jail/prison - without any sort of hearing. They should have given us an explanation why she lost custody. They also should have given a plausible reason why the son would be willing to kill for the mother, whom he just recently found after 30 years. What was he on medication for? How was she able to talk him into it so easily - most people would think "She wants me to kill someone? My mother is nuts! Well, of course she is, she is in an institution for the criminally insane. I'm outta here and not gonna come back." I actually laughed out loud though when Morgan said (paraphrasing) "hey, maybe the victims all worked the same case!". Any of them should have realized that way earlier. It just seemed stupid by the time he said it. And yet there was no further investigation. I expected his next line to be "Sugar Mama, can you give me a list of all cases they both were involved with, and then see it any of them had anything to a child who had First-Victim-Name as his teacher?" Please tell me why the writers, directors and actors don't notice or seem to mind that the weekly robotic, one-line-per-character delivery of the profile is boring and almost more unbelievable than the screwy plots they come up with. Unfortunately, I can't tell you why they do it, but it usually gives me a laugh. Not only how the profile is delivered - it would be much better to just have one person give it, as it is unbelievable that they each of them are just adding info off the top of their heads. If it were real life, they would have to waste time rehearsing and memorizing their parts it to make it flow that well. I also find the profile itself funny, because it usually includes info that wouldn't help anyone find the unsub without having Garcia's magic computer. "He's a white male in his 30's or 40's" - that narrows it down. "He recently was re-united with a parent" - no help at all. Additional laugh - they tell the profile to a group of officers, but none of those officers will help find the unsub in any way. No patrolman comes up and says "I saw a guy meeting that description." They are never just standing around the station and the local detective comes in and says, "They are bringing in someone who fits the profile." I know that it is a TV show and that allowances need to be made for making things less complicated and explaining things to the viewers, but I also find it amusing that the moment they have the correct profile, someone says that it is time to give the profile. This episode, they kept thinking the unsub was a trucker - they seemed very sure of it, but didn't give a profile. Someone suddenly realizes that the unsub might not be a trucker and the immediately are ready to give the profile. I called mama with the hacked off ear 10 minutes in. I really like Veronica Cartwright, and she did do her best here. Too bad it was total dreck. Oh, and, in a hospital for the criminally insane, there would not be anything - and I mean anything - sharp enough to cut the skin, much less through cartilage. Cheap dramatics and so, so predictable. I think we were supposed to believe that he tore his own ear off. I guess the medication isn't working. 3 Link to comment
Bookish Jen January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 And was it just me or was the trucker loo (other than for the blood) the cleanest trucker loo you have ever seen? It resembled the type of bathroom you might see in a Mr. Clean commercial. I've been in many trucker rest stops (no, not for that-get your minds out of the gutter) and most of the restrooms are disgusting! 4 Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 Your work on the timeline is similar to what I was trying to do, because it didn't really make sense to me, at least the part of the mother's arrest and losing custody of the son. Because yeah, part of the episode sounded like the cops found her the mom in the barn shortly after she killed the sixth trucker, or she gave up shortly after. She killed six truckers over a six year period (roughly), it sounded like. So if the cops found her first and arrested her, of course her son was taken away from her. I didn't get the impression that the son was taken away first (and if so, WHY) and then she was arrested later. In any case, I didn't buy that the mom was so hell bent on anger at the court system workers that she would entice her son to kill them 24 years after the fact. We also never knew what was wrong with the son, but we were supposed to somehow believe that his mere desire for a family connection was enough to start him killing. It was all so vague and didn't really add up to much of any sense. 1 Link to comment
normasm January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 Not that it makes that much sense to me either, but it could be they are implying that after the rape and ear-cutting, Mommy was acting out her PTS, and the child complained, or the teacher was concerned, knowing what had happened to the mother. Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 Yeah, that might have happened, but he wasn't taken away from her until after she killed her final victim. So unless, it was the kid reporting something that got her arrested (but it didn't sound like that from the talk between the mom and Tara), I don't really see her anger directed toward them. I would have to go back and watch it to see if it all adds up, but it certainly didn't the first time I watched it. 1 Link to comment
secnarf January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 Reading through these comments reminds me of another issue I had with this episode: He "went off his medication" and now is dangerous and killing people. Come on. Off of his medication, he wasn't psychotic, no hallucinations, only possible delusions about him and his mother "being together". Medications don't magically make people non-homicidal. They can make a world of difference if it is a person's psychosis that is making them dangerous, but this unsub's behaviour didn't seem to be rooted in psychosis. If he had some sort of mental illness that required medication in the first place, stopping the medication would cause many other symptoms other than just being a secret serial killer, and the gf/fiancee would have noticed those much earlier. One always hears about how people with mental illness, and schizophrenia in particular, are much more likely to be the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators, but that never really sunk in for me until I spent time on a psychiatric unit in a hospital. I have seen antipsychotics do amazing things for people, and then seen people spiral out of control when they stop their antipsychotics, but I really hate how TV always implies that a person can be perfectly normal while on medication, and a homicidal maniac off of the medication. 6 Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 This show didn't use to make that connection. Instead, they really did say that mentally ill persons are more likely to be victims of violence, rather than perpetrators of it. But the current crop of writers don't seem to have an understanding or an interest in criminal psychology, so they don't understand these sorts of things. But Kim is the weakest writer on staff, and her stories rarely add up, from either a psychological angle or a profiling angle. And this episode is no different. 9 Link to comment
Bookish Jen January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 30 seconds in: What? The unsub already? Again? 10 minutes in: This sucks. 30 minutes in: Yeah, the girlfriend is next. 60 minutes gone: This sucked beyond all previous sucking on this show. Hated. It. You should post this on CM's various social media sites. It would be a welcome relief (not to mention constructive criticism) to all the comments that state, "Reed is hot!," "Bring back Emily!," and "JLH is a bitch and she sucks!" 5 Link to comment
jaytee1812 January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I like this episode, it was fairly Lewis heavy, which I liked. I did like her interview with the mom, not buying any of the mom's bullshit. She is clearly the best part on this show. Nice to see Wilson Bethel back on my screen. I haven't seen him since Hart of Dixie. Link to comment
secnarf January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I like this episode, it was fairly Lewis heavy, which I liked. I did like her interview with the mom, not buying any of the mom's bullshit. She is clearly the best part on this show. What is it about Lewis that you like? I'm asking because I really can't stand her, but if I try to think about it, she's really no different from anyone else on the show - so I wonder if maybe that's what irritates me so much. It might not be her specifically, just that she seems to serve no purpose and is just another bland character. If there's something about her that you like, I'm curious to know what it is. 3 Link to comment
RedheadZombie January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 . Please tell me why the writers, directors and actors don't notice or seem to mind that the weekly robotic, one-line-per-character delivery of the profile is boring and almost more unbelievable than the screwy plots they come up with. I agree with other posters - this was unworthy of Criminal Minds and we viewers. Just put us and the show out of our misery. They've always done this, and it's the reason I didn't watch the show for years. I finally accepted that it's the only way to include such a large cast of profilers. It still gets on my nerves. It's also irritating that they always state the basics. Garcia: A body part is missing Random profiler: Hm, must be keeping them as trophies What also irritates me is Garcia randomly pounding on keys whilst balancing a daisy-topped pen in her hand. Am I horrible person for laughing when the unsub son cut off his ear and I thought it looked like fortune cookie covered in raspberry jam? It didn't help that the music choice missed the mark. I'm sure it was supposed to be sinister and chilling, but it was just odd. They also should have given a plausible reason why the son would be willing to kill for the mother, whom he just recently found after 30 years. What was he on medication for? How was she able to talk him into it so easily - most people would think "She wants me to kill someone? My mother is nuts! Well, of course she is, she is in an institution for the criminally insane. I'm outta here and not gonna come back." How about the long-term girlfriend turned fiancé? Oh, you visit your serial killing mama daily at the home for the criminally insane? Cool. 3 Link to comment
SSAHotchner January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I can see the Carradine resemblance, but I was thinking more Norman Bates looking. They reveal bits and pieces of the back story, usually not in chronological order, during the episode. When the show is over, I like to put those bits an pieces in order and see if it makes sense --- Woman is raped by a trucker who ties her to a bathroom sink at a rest stop and cuts off her ear. That rape leads to a pregnancy, and she gives birth to a son. She gets her revenge by killing truckers, until she finds the one who raped her (the 6th trucker). She somehow drags him to a barn and ties him up. She then gets her son and brings him to the barn and makes him help her kill and bury the trucker (the boy's bio-dad), after cutting off the trucker's ear. Okay, makes sense so far, but things are about to get fuzzy. The boy tells something to his teacher - we don't know what - and she reports the mom to the authorities. A social worker testifies in court. The son is taken away from the mother. The mother is accused of killing truckers and they find her hiding out in a barn - probably the same barn that she killed the last trucker in. She is sentenced to a prison asylum. Eventually, the son finds out who she is (we know nothing about his life during the time they were separated). They meet and the mother convinces the son to go off his medication and to kill the teacher who alerted the authorities, the social worker (now real estate agent) who testified, and the judge. The fuzzy part is the timing - The trial/hearing that resulted in her son being taken away from her happened after she killed the last trucker, but before she was arrested for murdering truckers. So why did they take the son away? What did the son tell the teacher that started the investigation? If he told her about the murder, then the mother should have been arrested sooner and lost custody of the son because she was in jail/prison - without any sort of hearing. They should have given us an explanation why she lost custody. They also should have given a plausible reason why the son would be willing to kill for the mother, whom he just recently found after 30 years. What was he on medication for? How was she able to talk him into it so easily - most people would think "She wants me to kill someone? My mother is nuts! Well, of course she is, she is in an institution for the criminally insane. I'm outta here and not gonna come back." And yet there was no further investigation. I expected his next line to be "Sugar Mama, can you give me a list of all cases they both were involved with, and then see it any of them had anything to a child who had First-Victim-Name as his teacher?" Unfortunately, I can't tell you why they do it, but it usually gives me a laugh. Not only how the profile is delivered - it would be much better to just have one person give it, as it is unbelievable that they each of them are just adding info off the top of their heads. If it were real life, they would have to waste time rehearsing and memorizing their parts it to make it flow that well. I also find the profile itself funny, because it usually includes info that wouldn't help anyone find the unsub without having Garcia's magic computer. "He's a white male in his 30's or 40's" - that narrows it down. "He recently was re-united with a parent" - no help at all. Additional laugh - they tell the profile to a group of officers, but none of those officers will help find the unsub in any way. No patrolman comes up and says "I saw a guy meeting that description." They are never just standing around the station and the local detective comes in and says, "They are bringing in someone who fits the profile." I know that it is a TV show and that allowances need to be made for making things less complicated and explaining things to the viewers, but I also find it amusing that the moment they have the correct profile, someone says that it is time to give the profile. This episode, they kept thinking the unsub was a trucker - they seemed very sure of it, but didn't give a profile. Someone suddenly realizes that the unsub might not be a trucker and the immediately are ready to give the profile. I think we were supposed to believe that he tore his own ear off. I guess the medication isn't working. I got a Norman Bates vibe from this one as well. I also half expected them to show us both the mother and son only pretending to take their meds at the end. When he was looking in the mirror, I thought he was going to open his mouth and take the pill out and drop it down the drain. 1 Link to comment
ForeverAlone January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 (edited) Considering their history, you would think no judge or doctor would ever allow them to be in the same facility together. Edited January 28, 2016 by ForeverAlone 4 Link to comment
Setra January 28, 2016 Share January 28, 2016 I don't particularly have a problem with Tara, but it was a bit bizarre that Hotch, Rossi, Reid and JJ basically disappeared halfway through the episode and didn't really have much contribution beyond a scene or two. I said it on another forum, but the main cast certainly had plenty of time off this episode. It is just so bizarre to see and compare to other CBS dramas. I mean, no other show features the guest cast more than the main cast. If there is a lot of guest cast, it is mainly in the presence of the main cast. I honestly don't know why CBS allows this, because they are completely overpaying their actors for the actual work they get out of them. And the vast majority of fans tune in to see the team do their work, not some random unsub of the week. Rossi was in this one? 1 Link to comment
normasm January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 Most states only have one facility for the criminally insane. And I am no expert, but I believe the meds are distributed (or used to be) with at least 2 prison personnel present. I'm not sure about sinks or toilets either. My father did training in the draconian state mental hospital in GA in the late 60s, and everything was tightly controlled, mostly for the safety of everyone involved, especially the patients. He even met and talked with the woman who was the "Three Faces of Eve" DID woman. She was very docile, he said. Of course, now that a lot of these places have been shut down, and the rest have been bought by for-profit corporations, who knows what a prison will allow now? 1 Link to comment
Danielg342 January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 I hated this episode. One of the worst ever- if not the worst ever. First off, let's start with the obvious- this was written very, very, very poorly. Every single police procedural cliche you could think of you had- the sobbing parents, the stock character police officers doing nothing but scratching their heads, your abuse story to "explain" the criminal, etc.- was in this episode. It's a crying shame, because it wasted some pretty good acting performances from Veronica Cartwright and the Steve Buscemi lookalike Wilson Bethel. Probably the worst part about the writing is that, essentially, no one really "discovered" clues- they just intuited things and, lo and behold, they were correct. It was as if these guys were psychics and knew every detail of the case without needing an investigation. The worst part was Tara Lewis interviewing the mother- every line she uttered, I wondered- "how did she know that?" There was nothing I saw that really justified any part of the profile the team said- it's as if Kim Harrison realized at the last moment she needed the team to put the clues together so she decided to make sure everyone on the team offered an insight without realizing she made no attempt to establish where those insights came from. It's a shame, too, speaking of Lewis, because Aisha Tyler did very well in this episode. For the first time, I could believe that Tyler could work on a drama- she just needs to have her own show with her own cast of writers who know a thing or twelve about writing drama, because CM's writers sure can't. Tyler was strong without losing her warmth- her only problem was that, like the rest of her team, she was saddled with lines she was surprised to be saying. You know, having said that, Lewis seemed to be "forced down our throats", another indicator of what's wrong with Hollywood's idea of diversity. They seem to think that all they have to do is have a character who's not a straight, cisgendered, able-bodied white male, overexpose them, give them all these successes (without failures) and think they've created something we're going to love, when that's not how characterization works. Characters become loved when they have compelling stories, usually by overcoming some kind of adversity that holds them back, and Lewis has yet to face any kind of real challenge on the job- things just come too easy for her. Which I find insulting- if we're ever going to get real diversity in Hollywood, we need an honest effort at diverse characters, not caricatures- and Lewis, while not being a caricature, is yet to actually be a character. So small wonder why she doesn't attract too many fans...if I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd say Hollywood might actually want it this way... Other notes: -Only character who really did anything of note was Lewis: the rest of the team were glorified ciphers. Sure, Morgan was at the arrest, but did he do anything except "tag along" with whatever Lewis was doing? -Which leads me to the only real positive I can think of for Season 11- JJ has hardly had any focus. In fact, I almost forgot she was even on this show. It's a welcome relief after JJ was the one shoved down our throats for four seasons, but that only lasts for so long. -Just like last week, I don't know why the local police didn't solve it. "Drive" might have been harder since the victims were random, but in this episode all the victims were connected. That should make the case- to reference another CBS show that's gone off the rails- "elementary" to any detective with basic training. -Found it very amusing that in one scene Rossi declares the killer had experience only for Reid to say in the next the killer was a newcomer. Talk about your contradictions...eventually it did make sense, but it made my head hurt for a while. Overall, bad. Very bad. Very, very bad. Very, very, very bad. Very very...okay you get the point. F- 7 Link to comment
Droogie January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 What is it about Lewis that you like? I'm asking because I really can't stand her, but if I try to think about it, she's really no different from anyone else on the show - so I wonder if maybe that's what irritates me so much. It might not be her specifically, just that she seems to serve no purpose and is just another bland character. If there's something about her that you like, I'm curious to know what it is. I can't stand her either, I find her utterly redundant. If she truly brought something new to the table, I'd be all for it, but as it stands, the team does not need someone with her skillset. Furthermore, shouldn't she have some sort of learning curve, rather than profiling like Gideon right out the gate? She's a terribly conceptualized and defined character, IMHO. 5 Link to comment
Guesswht January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 What is it about Lewis that you like? I'm asking because I really can't stand her, but if I try to think about it, she's really no different from anyone else on the show - so I wonder if maybe that's what irritates me so much. It might not be her specifically, just that she seems to serve no purpose and is just another bland character. If there's something about her that you like, I'm curious to know what it is. "she's really no different from anyone else on the show" - exacly. She just fits right in. You should post this on CM's various social media sites. It would be a welcome relief (not to mention constructive criticism) to all the comments that state, "Reed is hot!," "Bring back Emily!," and "JLH is a bitch and she sucks!" Here's what i see on social media : Reid is hot Bring back 'prentice' Stop shoving JJ down our throats, she had a little bit more than 1min screen time in this episode Aeishea Tayloure sucks 1 Link to comment
wknt3 January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 (edited) Most states only have one facility for the criminally insane. And I am no expert, but I believe the meds are distributed (or used to be) with at least 2 prison personnel present. I'm not sure about sinks or toilets either. My father did training in the draconian state mental hospital in GA in the late 60s, and everything was tightly controlled, mostly for the safety of everyone involved, especially the patients. He even met and talked with the woman who was the "Three Faces of Eve" DID woman. She was very docile, he said. Of course, now that a lot of these places have been shut down, and the rest have been bought by for-profit corporations, who knows what a prison will allow now? I'm not an expert, but I have had some exposure to mental health treatment issues through my work and unfortunately just about anything a writer can come up with would be believable. There are plenty of real life stories that are completely insane and incredible on both sides - lack of supervision and patient abuse. The way recent seasons have portrayed forensic psychology and profiling procedures on the other hand... Edited January 29, 2016 by wknt3 2 Link to comment
needschocolate January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 I have nothing against Aisha Tyler, but I think the character of Tara Lewis is superfluous - there is nothing that she has done that wouldn't be just as believably being done by another character. And, as much as I don't like back stories that spread out over half the season (the kidnapping of JLH's character's niece), we don't know anything about Lewis to make viewers care. Is Aisha Tyler a good actress? Well, she isn't so horribly bad that I notice, but I may not be paying enough attention to her performance to judge it. Every time Tyler is on screen I get side-tracked wondering how they made her look so different from every other show I have seen Tyler on. It is more that a lack of make-up and a bad wig. She looks stockier and somewhat manly. The writers may not always be the best, but the make-up people are amazing. 2 Link to comment
Bookish Jen January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 (edited) F- minus, Daniel342? You are much too generous. I don't think there is a letter in the alphabet to grade what a level of suck this episode was. It actually hurt my feelings. And with a established group of profilers why make this the "Lewis Hour of Power?" Were Reid, Rossi, JJ and Hotch even in this episode? Okay, I do think I got a brief glimpse of Spencer looking fetching in a suit and tie, but that is not enough! And I guess I should thank someone that Derek "Abs of Steel, Brains of Pudding" Morgan got to break down a barn door-excuse while I roll my baby blues. While watching this episode I couldn't help think how this concept would have been handled during CM's glory years...and then wept. However, to make up for this week's episode of dreck, ION is showing both LDSK and Derailed tonight. I am weeping tears of joy! Edited January 29, 2016 by Bookish Jen 5 Link to comment
ReidFan January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 I was too sick to watch it and probably pay attention while it was on (it was on, I just really wasn't able to focus and apparently didn't need to) but it was enough to make me put on LDSK and Fisher King just to remind myself how good this show can be 2 Link to comment
Danielg342 January 29, 2016 Share January 29, 2016 F- minus, Daniel342? You are much too generous. I don't think there is a letter in the alphabet to grade what a level of suck this episode was. It actually hurt my feelings. First of all... *hugs* Sorry it hurt your feelings. :( Second of all...as far as I know, I can't assign a grade below F-...though thinking about it, “S” (or “M” for the French speakers among us) could work. 3 Link to comment
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