S13.E16: Last Gasp

[ReidFan]

1 minute ago, Racbec said:

 

How much time passed between Barnes' big announcement about their futures and when we saw each of the team members in their new assignments?

either Simmons or Alvez mentioned it had been two weeks.

[mefein]

17 minutes ago, Calamity Jane said:

Just echoing most of you - did not like every other FBI unit being depicted as lazy, unprofessional, unintelligent, etc., and was totally baffled as to why a senator would have staffing say-so in the Bureau.  All that made it hard to take the rest of it seriously.  I've felt for several years now that CM needs to wrap it up and wave goodbye to us all, and nothing here did anything to change that opinion.  

Yes the super Senator was the last straw.  I was trying to think back on the episode in case I'd missed some reference to this guy being someone much more powerful than he was but I don't think that is the case. Also like some others have said, the ending was so rushed. Sigh :(

[K42]

I wish we can contact the people who run CM and talk to them about this mess. I can't believe what they did to this season.

Last season wasn't perfect but at least it had some interesting episodes. Not to mention how it ended with a bang. I don't even have words to describe this season and I'm not even a picky viewer. I'm a little dishearted by this. Part of me doesnt want to finish watching this season. I don't think I can handle another disappointing episode or ending. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by KatsDivision

[Mystery]

Hated the whole arc. There was no reason for Barnes' hostility. She'd rather be paying profilers to sit and do NOTHING for two weeks than to solve cases until they get one that the public will like? 

The only things I liked in this episode were Mulder and Scully and the other cybercrimes analyst. 

[Danielg342]

5 hours ago, Mystery said:

Hated the whole arc. There was no reason for Barnes' hostility. She'd rather be paying profilers to sit and do NOTHING for two weeks than to solve cases until they get one that the public will like?

It would have been fun if we learned that Barnes wanted to run for public office and Senator Mayhew was her chief backer- that would explain why she only wanted "presentable" cases and didn't put up a fight when Mayhew put the team back together.

...and all it would have taken was a line or two to establish.

[UncleChuck]

Before the BAU gets too comfortable and complacent now that the FBI Director has told Barnes to keep her hands off of the BAU, just remember that (in the real world) FBI Directors do not rule forever, and can also be fired--just ask James Comey.

[TheGreenWave]

9 hours ago, Mystery said:

Hated the whole arc. There was no reason for Barnes' hostility. She'd rather be paying profilers to sit and do NOTHING for two weeks than to solve cases until they get one that the public will like? 

The only things I liked in this episode were Mulder and Scully and the other cybercrimes analyst. 

Agree completely.  Since they did not explain it in this episode, any future attempt to do so would not feel genuine.  And, is this the first time they've presented the BAU as the "public face" or whatever of the FBI?  I've never heard of public imaging to be of such importance of the BAU on the show before....

M&S reference: that was a welcome tangent, but weird.  Aren't these shows on different networks??

4 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

It would have been fun if we learned that Barnes wanted to run for public office and Senator Mayhew was her chief backer- that would explain why she only wanted "presentable" cases and didn't put up a fight when Mayhew put the team back together.

...and all it would have taken was a line or two to establish.

Exactly.  It is something they should have done at the end of this episode.  Otherwise, it will be like a giant eye roll from me on trying to explain the terribleness of this arc away at some point in the future....

And re: the going rogue - I was surprised that, when it appears JJ and Simmons are the primary breadwinners in their families (at least, I think so), they would be so cavalier about their jobs and risk getting fired without any sort of acknowledgement that their families were like: go for it! 

[normasm]

Yeah, Daniel, there has to be a reason she so quickly dismantled the BAU, and the Senator instantly reconstituted it without a whimper from her. I almost expected to see her and the Senator go out of sight of the BAU, and look at each other and burst into laughter. MUA-hahahahaha!

[JMO]

She called him 'sir', and he called her 'Linda'---after he grabbed her by the arms upon arriving to the scene.  Seems like there's some connection there, beyond possibly having been at meetings together.

I really do hope they've been hiding cast information, and that we'll see some explanation for this whole thing.  Although I suppose Barnes doesn't have to be on screen for some exposition to take place.  

[K42]

When Barnes was explaining to JJ what happened with the first victim, they flashed back to a woman standing next to the victim. After JJ called the team and told them that Barnes said there were 7 people in the room, I thought the team were going to find dirt on Barnes and see that she had a connection to the first victim's murder. I also thought the guy at the end who demanded to speak to Barnes was going to be the person working with her to destroy the team. Guess not. I wish they went down the route or something. It all seemed to end too abruptly and too easily. What was the point of Barnes? Is that it for her? Is she just going to disappear after this episode?

I honestly can't believe how upsetting this show has become.  I know Virgil left but what about the rest of the writers? You guys know a lot more about this. The show used to have good writers. Did they ALL leave? How did the show get reduced to this? (Serious question)

Edited March 16, 2018 by KatsDivision

[Annber03]

1 hour ago, KatsDivision said:

When Barnes was explaining to JJ what happened with the first victim, they flashed back to a woman standing next to the victim. After JJ called the team and told them that Barnes said there were 7 people in the room, I thought the team were going to find dirt on Barnes and see that she had a connection to the first victim's murder.

I missed seeing the woman standing next to the victim, but I thought this, too. I thought that maybe they'd find out that her reason for sealing Tracy's file was somehow connected to her having some kind of shady dealings with the high ranking politicians who brought mistresses to the hotel, or that she was covering up the way the case was investigated, or something to that effect. When Emily told Tara about how she looked through Barnes' file and found it was clean, I thought that was foreshadowing for them to ultimately realize that wasn't true in the end.

[K42]

4 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

I missed seeing the woman standing next to the victim, but I thought this, too. I thought that maybe they'd find out that her reason for sealing Tracy's file was somehow connected to her having some kind of shady dealings with the high ranking politicians who brought mistresses to the hotel, or that she was covering up the way the case was investigated, or something to that effect. When Emily told Tara about how she looked through Barnes' file and found it was clean, I thought that was foreshadowing for them to ultimately realize that wasn't true in the end.

 

They need to hire this fanbase (LOL)
Pretty sure everyone here can come with a better storyline than the ones being presented on the show.

[MMC]

Dear CBS/ABC Studios

Please do not allow Erica Messer and her writers to do any more of these so called arcs. Because quite simply they do not seem to have the talent/creativity to be able to pull it off the way Ed Bernero and his writers were. 

signed a disappointed CM fan

 

Believe it or not I actually liked watching this episode even though there were things about it that irritated me. But at the same time I find it hard press to disagree with those who felt the execution of  this entire arc left much to be desired. I really hope that we will find out later in the season that there was actually something more sinister to Barnes, otherwise what in the hell was the purpose of putting the team through all of that beside just doing it for the sake of the drama. But than again I am still waiting for an explanation as to who in the hell was behind keeping Reid in Genpop during his stay in prison

Edited March 16, 2018 by MMC

[TheGreenWave]

2 hours ago, KatsDivision said:

They need to hire this fanbase (LOL)
Pretty sure everyone here can come with a better storyline than the ones being presented on the show.

Otherwise, it would be a HUGELY BIG coincidence that the random case that Garcia just happened to be assigned in Cyber Crimes was actually connected to a case that Barnes worked on as a field officer (and closed, by the way).  I mean, what are the odds!??!?  Eye roll.

[Danielg342]

One thing I'm not sure I mentioned- I would have loved seeing one case where the BAU operated under Barnes' conditions. I think it would have given the story more of an impact.

8 hours ago, TheGreenWave said:

Agree completely.  Since they did not explain it in this episode, any future attempt to do so would not feel genuine.  And, is this the first time they've presented the BAU as the "public face" or whatever of the FBI?  I've never heard of public imaging to be of such importance of the BAU on the show before....

M&S reference: that was a welcome tangent, but weird.  Aren't these shows on different networks??

...

And re: the going rogue - I was surprised that, when it appears JJ and Simmons are the primary breadwinners in their families (at least, I think so), they would be so cavalier about their jobs and risk getting fired without any sort of acknowledgement that their families were like: go for it! 

Never heard of any department being "The public face of the FBI." Guess the writers wanted to butter up our team, but it makes no sense.

The police would rather remain anonymous, for obvious reasons.

As for Mulder and Scully- technically, it's illegal for the show to use the characters without permission, but- assuming CBS didn't reach out to FOX anyway- CBS can get away with using Scully and Mulder because:

• They did not name the characters onscreen. Two and a Half Men took a similar track when Dharma and Greg cameoed on their show. The idea is a matter of technicalities- the characters are functionally the same characters as on the other show but they're not named that way so "you can't say that for sure".
• The scenes were harmless, in that they did not tarnish the characters or even hit any notes we didn't know about them already. They were also in throwaway scenes unimportant to the plot- from a PR standpoint, FOX would look foolish suing CBS for using those characters.

Of course, using Mulder and Scully is an interesting choice given that CBS has a slew of FBI types they could have called upon- this was, after all, the network of The Mentalist and NUMB3ERs, as well as CSI. Why not bring back Patrick Jane or Charlie Epps or Jim Brass or someone else from CBS' vault and see how they're doing? I was a fan of many of CBS' procedurals back in the day and I'm sure I'm not alone...why couldn't CBS throw us a callback?

The rogue thing made me think of all those times Hotch or Emily said, "there's no shame in not being in this one." Never has someone said, "I'm out" and I understand why- though these conditions would provide the perfect opportunity.

I mean, wouldn't these guys care at all about their careers? Forget Barnes- the rest of the FBI will care that the BAU are a bunch of agents who only follow orders when it's convenient for them. Those aren't the kind of workers that stay employed or get promoted.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Danielg342

[Mislav]

Wait, has anyone actually believed those were *the* Mulder and Scully? Because that would mean that "Criminal Minds" takes place in a supernatural universe, and that would really be a final nail in the coffin.

[ReidFan]

it was an inside joke. Years ago, CM Exec Producer Harry Bring worked on the X Files show. There are lots of little Easter Eggs like that sprinkled through CM. 

[Danielg342]

24 minutes ago, ReidFan said:

it was an inside joke. Years ago, CM Exec Producer Harry Bring worked on the X Files show. There are lots of little Easter Eggs like that sprinkled through CM. 

What would be some other examples?

29 minutes ago, Mislav said:

Wait, has anyone actually believed those were *the* Mulder and Scully? Because that would mean that "Criminal Minds" takes place in a supernatural universe, and that would really be a final nail in the coffin.

Well, they could be "realistic" versions that investigate "abnormal" crimes (like the ultrasound attacks on American diplomats in Cuba) and try to figure out what is "really happening".

I grant that Mulder is known for having a belief in the paranormal, but we could get around this by having Mulder research this in his own spare time and always hopes he chances upon a case that "proves" the paranormal, having been disappointed he hasn't had one case yet.

(...and yes, I realize I'm putting too much thought into two characters the show will likely never bring back)

[ReidFan]

A couple off the top of my head:

In Entropy, the restaurant is called "Harry and Glenn's" (after Harry Bring and Glenn Kershaw, two co-exec-producers at the time who have both been promoted to exec producer since)

in Mr Scratch, in the BAU when the lights go out, there's a conversation about things 'you were afraid of' and Jennifer Love Hewitt's character Kate Callahan alludes to 'Melissa Gordon, that BITCH' (referring to her OWN character Melinda Gordon in the Ghost Whisperer, her previous show.) If you do a pause/frame by frame forward, you can see how much difficulty the editor and director had with this one, as both Matthew Gray Gubler and AJ Cook are laughing their @$$e$ off.

[Danielg342]

What about X-Files references?

[ReidFan]

I don't know offhand if there are any other XFiles references, I just meant there were lots of Easter eggs sprinkled on the show throughout, not necessarily about the XFIles. Pretty sure there was a Melrose Place reference once too (another show Harry worked on) but I never watched that either so I don't recall the specifics.

[Annber03]

5 minutes ago, ReidFan said:

in Mr Scratch, in the BAU when the lights go out, there's a conversation about things 'you were afraid of' and Jennifer Love Hewitt's character Kate Callahan alludes to 'Melissa Gordon, that BITCH' (referring to her OWN character Melinda Gordon in the Ghost Whisperer, her previous show.) If you do a pause/frame by frame forward, you can see how much difficulty the editor and director had with this one, as both Matthew Gray Gubler and AJ Cook are laughing their @$$e$ off.

....I totally didn't even catch that reference. Which is weird, 'cause my sister and my brother-in-law used to watch "Ghost Whisperer" a lot and I remember catching a few episodes when staying with them for a time a few years back. 

That's cute :).

[ReidFan]

I wouldn't have gotten the Ghost Whisperer one on my own either, never watched that show. Matthew mentioned it in the director's commentary.

[Annber03]

Ahhhh, okay :D. I need to catch up on my DVD commentary listening, for some reason I haven't taken an opportunity to sit down and listen to the more recent ones :p. 

[ReidFan]

oh.... thought of something else. Crew member Krish Ribeiro (not sure of his official title, but I think he might be an assistant director or sumpthin' like that) played the 'assistant director' in that scene last night where Rossi is giving the 'actor' some tips on holding his gun. He was all pretend-conceited about it on Twitter this morning, hilarious :)

[QASteph]

For a minute I will pretend that I am Thumper:

It is encouraging that TPTB have allowed Reid to grow and develop as a character to be an engaging and comfortable public speaker (contra-Masterpiece).  Yay for allowing characters to grow beyond their initial presentation and recognizing that normal humans change and grow over the decades.

 

Now I am completely disregarding that very good advice because:

That was awful.

The reasons have already been enumerated.  The ones I found most annoying:

• The entire rest of the FBI being inept or so rule-bound they are incapable of basic human decency.  (Hey - idea - Fornell is at loose ends these days.) 
• Any random Senator being able to make staffing decisions at the FBI (gosh it must be chaos there with 100 people sticking their oar in). 
• Reid teaching criminology 101 at... a local college? rather than short courses at the FBI academy, or seminars/courses for law enforcement to learn new skills, or something related to one of his advanced degrees.  (Side note: no university gives out Ph.Ds in  "engineering" - this has bothered me for ages.  What *kind* of engineering?  Chemical?  Mechanical? Civil?  Biological?  MatSci?  Aero-astro? Decision analysis?) 
• The lobotomies that the team must have undergone so that their only/best way of fighting back against gross mismanagement was to have a handily timed case where they saved someone of a high enough profile because there was just no way they could imagine to use, oh, I don't know, "no one cares about a bunch of Mexican grandmothers" said to a subordinate who has at least some Hispanic background going by his surname and the glances he made at that line or, say, doing no apparent work whatsoever for two weeks, in order to get some changes made.  I get that they were making Barnes as unsympathetic as humanly possible.  They succeeded.  She was so egregiously unsympathetic that it is mind blowing that her casual racism and blatant self-aggrandizement didn't get her fired long before now.  And there was no reason for it.  Why did she want the flashy public cases that have clear good guys and bad guys? What does she get out of that?  Alternately, what benefit is it to her if the BAU is broken up among field offices?  THAT is something they could have profiled.  I know I said this last week, sort of, but that would have been interesting at least.  
• A confusing and annoying arc that accomplished... who knows what.  You know who was good at leaving little clues in episode 2 of a story arc that all of a sudden made sense in episode 6?  (At least for a couple of seasons.)  Rob Thomas / Phil Klemmer / John Enbom / Dayna Lynne North, etc.  Of course, that requires mapping things out at the start but - hey - maybe that is a skill the CM writers could cultivate.

[Danielg342]

47 minutes ago, QASteph said:

"no one cares about a bunch of Mexican grandmothers" said to a subordinate who has at least some Hispanic background going by his surname

If the show wanted the BAU to go rogue, this could have been a great way to do it. At the end, when they solve the case, or maybe would have before Barnes foils them after she finds out, they could go to the Director or the Justice Department and argue Barnes' racism prevented the team from finishing their job. Barnes would be out of there so quickly that she wouldn't have time to utter a response, because there can't be.

[Danielg342]

If you really want to get into racism, how about the show opting for the "horny Asian" stereotype for the guy getting busted by the OPR in the opening scene?

[ReidFan]

The actor who played that character, Agent Douglas Rudy (not an Asian sounding name to me) was Victor Buno (also not an Asian sounding name to me). He looks like he might have some Asian heritage, but I don't think his character was meant to be Asian necessarily. I didn't even notice his apparently somewhat Asian looks until you mentioned it and I went back and watched the scene again. That he was into BDSM was the point, not his heritage. 

Looks to me more like the studio hired diverse actors for their guest characters. His dominatrix hooker was a lightly dark skinned woman. The woman helping Garcia had a definite unusualness about her. Diversity. 

I don't think racism was their angle.

*shrug*

[Danielg342]

He looked Asian to me so I made that connection. It's possible that Victor Buno is Filipino owing to the Philippines' heritage as a former Spanish (and American) possession.

[Annber03]

Episode review:

https://www.spoilertv.com/2018/03/criminal-minds-last-gasp-review-if-it.html

[dkb]

On 3/15/2018 at 12:44 PM, HighMaintenance said:

I'm looking at the clock and the show is 10 minutes from the end of the epi and there is no comeuppance for the evul mustache twirling she-beast, Barnes.  She's been acting like a "douche canoe" for this 4 epi arc, and her smackdown was the most anti-climactic event ever.

I liked this episode but definitely gotta agree on Barnes take down being stupid. I didn't need to see the team setting up their desks or what happened to the people that the agents were re-assigned to, the show could have used that time for a proper takedown. Cause Barnes is the worst.

 

On 3/16/2018 at 12:38 PM, KatsDivision said:

They need to hire this fanbase (LOL)
Pretty sure everyone here can come with a better storyline than the ones being presented on the show.

^While I enjoyed this episode and this arc, have to agree on the above. @Danielg342 your alternate storyline was awesome!

[Danielg342]

1 hour ago, dkb said:

@Danielg342 your alternate storyline was awesome!

Thanks. :) Interestingly, my frustration with CM's stories is what inspired me to finally write again. Maybe I'll use that storyline for a piece.

[Old Dog]

Just watched this episode. MGG looked spectacular. That's about it. Not much else made sense and the comedy assignments for the team seemed just like cheap parodies played solely for laughs - which I guess was what they aimed for but seemed horribly out of place in what could have been a really tense arc. It was all wrapped up far too quickly - they could have built much more around the BAU juggling their new assignments and working the case. A great shame. But at least MGG was drop dead gorgeous.

[katisha]

Finally catching up on the last few CM eps and just watched this one. It wasn't too bad but like many of you I thought it was a downright stupid way to end the rather pointless Barnes storyline. Although I personally got a kick out of the fact that the actor playing "super Senator" was Drake Hogestyn, who played John Black/the Pawn/Roman Brady mk II and God knows who else years ago when I watched Days of Our Lives. For all I know he is probably still on it playing a different character.

[Hotchgirl18]

On 3/16/2018 at 4:56 AM, Danielg342 said:

It would have been fun if we learned that Barnes wanted to run for public office and Senator Mayhew was her chief backer- that would explain why she only wanted "presentable" cases and didn't put up a fight when Mayhew put the team back together.

...and all it would have taken was a line or two to establish.

I thought she and the senator had an affair or something. That could explain the history, right?

[Danielg342]

4 minutes ago, Hotchgirl18 said:

I thought she and the senator had an affair or something. That could explain the history, right?

I don't recall anything that established a connection between the two. Of course, I saw the episode months ago, so there may be something I missed.

[Hotchgirl18]

20 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

I don't recall anything that established a connection between the two. Of course, I saw the episode months ago, so there may be something I missed.

I don't think they outright said it, but it's heavily implied that Barnes and the senator have some sort of "connection. "