S13.E18: The Dance of Love

[Danielg342]

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The BAU travels to Chicago to capture an unsub who places roses alongside each victim. Also, Rossi receives a visit from one of his ex-wives.

Special note for CTV viewers- this is on Wednesday at 8PM, not tonight.

[ReidFan]

regarding CTV, yeah. The Tuesday night thing was only last week. It resumes its regular 8 pm Wednesday time slot now that XFiles is done for the season.

[Danielg342]

On Days of Our Criminal Minds Lives...

(Because, let's admit...this show stopped being a crime procedural and became a sappy soap opera a long time ago)

Joe Mantegna is a pretty charming guy...and pretty ruthless when he has to be. The staredown he had with Wick was one for the ages.

"You're breaking my wrist!"
"Nah, it's just soft tissue pain."

Of course, I'm not sure how legal any of that was and I'm not sure Wick can't sue Rossi or get him into other kinds of trouble (he's a sociopath...he'd never lose that easily)...but, I get that this episode didn't want to end on a sour note, so Wick had to fold like a deck of cards.

Fitting Krystall and Rossi played poker at the end.

That was the only real watchable scene tonight. The rest? Garbage.

I had Wick penciled in as a baddie from the moment I saw him. "Oh, they're going with this angle?"

*sigh*

Then the Case Of The Week...we had not one but two twists in the space of a minute.

"It's Craig Kaline!" "No, it's his spurned mistress!" "No, it's Craig's wife!"

Phew. Did you get all that?

Not that it really made up for a turgid, rote case. This was, once again, a "talky" one, where the show thinks being cerebral means tacking on a lot of clues and explaining how they fit in, with random team members assigned to say "they fit- but how?" every now and then so that the writer can pretend there's an actual mystery.

It wasn't necessarily a bad case...but it could have done with more "showing" instead of simply "telling". It's kind of hard to stay interested when all you get is a massive info dump passing as an episode.

Reid was good though...and Alvez impressing Prentiss with the Native American bit was fun...but that was it.

Oh, and what was the UnSub's ending speech? That was trippy, and not in a good way. Hey Joe, less "Twilight Zone" and more scenes grounded in reality, please.

Talk about your dreck. Blegh. At least there's only four more to go...they can't get worse...can they?

Edited March 29, 2018 by Danielg342

[Annber03]

1 hour ago, Danielg342 said:

Joe Mantegna is a pretty charming guy...and pretty ruthless when he has to be. The staredown he had with Wick was one for the ages.

"You're breaking my wrist!"
"Nah, it's just soft tissue pain."

Of course, I'm not sure how legal any of that was and I'm not sure Wick can't sue Rossi or get him into other kinds of trouble (he's a sociopath...he'd never lose that easily)...but, I get that this episode didn't want to end on a sour note, so Wick had to fold like a deck of cards

I wondered if it was wise for Rossi to do that, too. But I did like him getting all "protective father" anyway. I was surprised when Wick came to Rossi's house, but then he started getting all cocky with him and I was like, "Aw, Wick thinks he can take on Rossi. That's cute." :p.

I didn't mind the storyline with them-I actually didn't think the focus would be on Wick turning out to be a bad guy. I thought the story would focus more on Rossi's old feelings for Krystall returning, and him struggling with that, especially given he broke up with Hayden. Afraid to take that risk again, and all. I am kinda glad they didn't go that route, though I can definitely imagine Rossi keeping in touch with Krystall and Portia (and towards the end I kept imagining Joy and Portia meeting someday, which could be kinda fun). 

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Alvez impressing Prentiss with the Native American bit was fun

Emily's reaction to the thing about sending people to the women got a good laugh from me :D. 

I did like the twists this episode-I am glad it didn't go the predictable route I thought it would. But I do think they could've just stuck with one woman or the other and left it at that. And I do agree the takedown with Cheryl was weird. 

Didn't mind the case, though. It was something a little different and unusual, and given my dad worked as a DJ and I've seen how oddly fanatical some people can be towards radio DJs as a result, that part of the story rang rather true and was especially interesting to me as a result :p. I also liked that part of Cheryl's anger was because of mere suspicion of other women being with Craig, instead of the idea that every woman was actually dating him. Though Craig is still a jerk for cheating on his wife at all, obviously. 

[threebluestars]

I was so sure Rossi was going to open the door and get shot by Wick at the end lol. I almost wish that had happened.

[CrimeFan12]

I enjoyed the episode (I'm probably still in the minority).  To me it was an improvement over last weeks.  I liked all the twists and turns.  I was guessing right along with them as they tried to figure out how the UnSub connected with the victims.  Then when they showed the guy and all his smarminess, I went well here he is, shown a little too soon for my liking. But then to my surprise, he turned up dead and it was his wife who was insanely (literally) jealous of all true or perceived affairs.  

Enjoyed Emily and Penelope teasing Dave over how he got married the third time around and Emily musing about getting the Native American tidbit on a plaque so she can hang it over her desk.  Too funny.

I didn't mind the Dave b-story.  I liked that even though they were long distance friends, he cared enough about them to step in with that con man of a fiancee.  He knew it would probably end the friendship, but he wanted to protect the daughter.  That seems like Dave to me.  I think he just made up the thing about the guy in prison to scare Wick off because there was nothing he could legally do.  It worked and bye bye Wick.

This is one I will be watching again and am already looking forward to next week.

[ams1001]

What kind of name is Wick? And they said it about a million times, too. Wick, Wick, Wick...stop saying Wick!! (Italicized part my actual thoughts during more than one scene.)

 

Garcia really needs to learn when to stop talking.

 

Didn't really buy Emily not thinking a woman would torture the guy. Haven't they seen it all by now? Why would that surprise her?

[Annber03]

5 minutes ago, ams1001 said:

What kind of name is Wick? And they said it about a million times, too. Wick, Wick, Wick...stop saying Wick!! (Italicized part my actual thoughts during more than one scene.)

LOL, I wondered the same thing :D. 

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Didn't really buy Emily not thinking a woman would torture the guy. Haven't they seen it all by now? Why would that surprise her?

Also wondered this as well. Somebody needs to sit down and watch a few episodes of "Deadly Women", apparently :p. 

I also find it slightly odd that Garcia was just now learning about everything with Krystall. Yeah, she wasn't on the plane with the team when Rossi told them all about Krystall a couple seasons back, but I would've thought she would've learned about her at some point between then and now. 

[ForeverAlone]

I liked this episode. It actually surprised me with the unsub, and I do enjoy having my expectations subverted. It was nice to see that it wasn't just a dude killing off his dates. And it certainly explained the rapid pace of the kills, because before that, I thought the show was really overdoing it with the escalating pile of bodies.  At least there was some sort of psychological explanation for it this time. And it was nice to see some actual profiling that built toward unsub identification and not just Penelope pulling a magic rabbit out of a hat. She actually spent more time investigating creepy fiance dude, and that was nice to see the team do their actual job.

I enjoyed the various team interactions, and it felt more natural to me than plenty of other team scenes in recent years. Sometimes it has felt forced, but this time, it seemed to flow better.

I could see the evil fiance twist coming from a mile away, but that had to have been intentional. At least he ran off in the end after Rossi put the hurt on him. It went a long way to at least hiding the fact that Rossi is old these days (way too old to still be an active agent in the FBI, but I've complained about that for the past couple seasons).

It was rather humorous to have likely virgin Spencer (or at least nothing in this show has indicated he has had sex) weighing in on the evolutionary advantages of multiple sexual partners. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by ForeverAlone

[Mystery]

I didn't like the ex-wife still being around at the end. You don't get to give the "I'm glad I'm not you, always looking for evil" speech, when the guy is trying to protect your frigging daughter, and still be around at the end. 

I did like that first scene where Wick displayed his controlling behavior, even *I* caught that that was weird. Loved Penelope being all over doing a deep background check on him. 

I didn't feel like the episode satisfactorily explained why the wedding was in D.C. 

[Danielg342]

5 hours ago, ams1001 said:

What kind of name is Wick?

I know...odd. My guess is that the writer was going for allegory, as the wick is what you would light to get something like a lamp or a candle burning.

Basically, he's "a fire waiting to happen."

Personally, I would have picked a name that's more natural, like Rufus (Latin for "red").

[K42]

I liked the episode. It was an improvement over the ones we've seen this season. I love Rossi's badass attitude. Reminded me of his character Joey Zasa. I'm still hoping they deal with Reid's trauma and what happened with his mother. I can't believe they swept it under the rug for so long. As for Penelope, they really need to tone her character down. 
 

[normasm]

I thought the name Wick was to indicate that he was ruled by his, er, "wick", and that he was going to have to be dealt with in Rossi fashion. That, along with several other parts of this, was so heavy-handed, and the ending was so bizarro. But i liked hearing that Hayden's out of the romantic picture. I liked that I knew every song they were talking about (due to my parents' extensive record collection), and that's about it.

[Old Dog]

10 hours ago, ams1001 said:

What kind of name is Wick?

 

 

Wick is not that uncommon a name. I thought it might be just over here in the UK but reading this there have been prominent Americans also.

Edit: Ignore this - I didn't realise they used it as a first name. This episode hasn't aired yet in the UK.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Old Dog

[The Wild Sow]

1 hour ago, Old Dog said:

Wick is not that uncommon a name. I thought it might be just over here in the UK but reading this there have been prominent Americans also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wick_(surname)

Yes, but Wick was his first  name.  Mother's-maiden-name-as-first-name?

[JMO]

I was pleasantly surprised by this one.  While I love Rossi, I have not been a fan of many of his centric episodes, save the ones with the dying first wife.  But his ‘B’ story was interesting, and we got to see him in action, displaying the kind of charm that won him his three wives.  It felt real to me in a way that his other centric episodes haven’t. 

I also didn’t mind JM’s directing this time, and even liked a lot of his choices.  I think he doesn’t edit particularly well, which makes some of the interactions come off as stiff and deliberate, one actor waiting for another’s lines, and not really interacting.  But I liked the visuals.

I liked that the profile evolved, and that I could actually follow the evolution in a logical fashion.  I especially liked that I was surprised about who the unsub actually was, because it wasn’t shown, nor telegraphed, from the beginning. 

The Reid-meter went more than half-way around, as he had reasonable contributions to make and looked especially nice.  I didn’t notice JJ being short with him.  I thought they worked well together, and kept a professional focus on the case.

It wasn’t just Reid who looked good tonight.  Rossi looked great with the gray, a guy comfortable in his own skin.  And Garcia looked especially good in her toned-down, semi-professional clothes.  I enjoyed her in this episode, in a way that I haven’t for a very long time.

Everybody else got short shrift, but that’ll happen when there are too many people in a cast.  As long as they don’t ‘short’ Reid, I’m good.

[Old Dog]

39 minutes ago, The Wild Sow said:

Yes, but Wick was his first  name.  Mother's-maiden-name-as-first-name?

Whoops! I haven't seen it yet as we are about 4 weeks behind over here.

[bkathi]

I took the name Wick to be something an idiot would think sounded upperclass so renamed himself.  I was happy to see them include coercive control as part of the b plot.  It is so pervasive in society today - and we all need to be able to recognize when someone we love is affected.

I know a few people I would like Rossi to "talk" to.

[K42]

12 hours ago, CrimeFan12 said:

I enjoyed the episode (I'm probably still in the minority).  To me it was an improvement over last weeks.  I liked all the twists and turns.  I was guessing right along with them as they tried to figure out how the UnSub connected with the victims.  Then when they showed the guy and all his smarminess, I went well here he is, shown a little too soon for my liking. But then to my surprise, he turned up dead and it was his wife who was insanely (literally) jealous of all true or perceived affairs.  

Enjoyed Emily and Penelope teasing Dave over how he got married the third time around and Emily musing about getting the Native American tidbit on a plaque so she can hang it over her desk.  Too funny.

I didn't mind the Dave b-story.  I liked that even though they were long distance friends, he cared enough about them to step in with that con man of a fiancee.  He knew it would probably end the friendship, but he wanted to protect the daughter.  That seems like Dave to me.  I think he just made up the thing about the guy in prison to scare Wick off because there was nothing he could legally do.  It worked and bye bye Wick.

This is one I will be watching again and am already looking forward to next week.

 

I love dorky Emily! She's hilarious. I hope badass Emily makes a comeback too.

[SuzieQ]

I love Rossi!!

And on a purely superficial note, I love that they've let his hair be gray and got rid of that black shoe polish look he's been sporting for too long.  I think he's really charming and a very attractive older guy so trying to make him look 15 years younger always struck me as a major fail.

Episode was ok.  Not great, but not awful.  Rossi  hurting Dick-Wick's wrist was enjoyable.

[Danielg342]

7 hours ago, normasm said:

I thought the name Wick was to indicate that he was ruled by his, er, "wick"

Could be, although if that's the case, why not just name him "Dick"? It's already an accepted shortform of "Richard".

[Calamity Jane]

15 hours ago, ams1001 said:

What kind of name is Wick? And they said it about a million times, too. Wick, Wick, Wick...stop saying Wick!! (Italicized part my actual thoughts during more than one scene.)

 

From 26 years of teaching, I can tell you that Wick seems perfectly innocuous to me.  Perhaps it was meant to be somehow symbolic, but it doesn't seem weird to me.  

[ams1001]

4 minutes ago, Calamity Jane said:

From 26 years of teaching, I can tell you that Wick seems perfectly innocuous to me.  Perhaps it was meant to be somehow symbolic, but it doesn't seem weird to me.  

It might have just been that they seemed to say it so many times.

[normasm]

Why would they say Wick instead of Dick? Because it's different. It's probably an in-joke.

[normasm]

After watching a second time, I like it better. I have to say, it almost felt like a backdoor pilot for a Rossi spinoff. I think I might watch an attractive, older, man with a sense of humor who solves crimes and plays music from the '50s, especially if he had a sidekick who was tall, smart, and handsome and had 3 PhDs.

As others did, I totally approve of the silver fox look, and Rossi has definitely got his sass back. I rejoiced that he's not romantic with Hayden anymore, and I liked his casual friendship with Krystall. His relationship with Garcia in this was fun (she can be in the spinoff, too, if she doesn't get super annoying again). However, I must say I ship him with Tara, who seems to enjoy the heck out of him, and he reciprocates.

The episode was OK. I particularly enjoyed the ME mourning the loss of Morgan ("don't worry 'bout me, I'll be fine"). I liked Prentiss being impressed by Luke's anecdote about the Native American women, and I expect to see that plaque before the season's over. I like that Tara picked up on the songs, and I loved the plot device itself (thanks, Bruce, I know how all those songs go). 

And, we found out for sure who the real unsub was when they did, partly because of the hand-raised roses Spencer pointed to (see, JJ? The tidbit did come in handy! PFFFFFFFffffffffffftt!) All in all, it was better than I thought it would be.

Edited March 29, 2018 by normasm

[Annber03]

4 minutes ago, normasm said:

After watching a second time, I like it better. I have to say, it almost felt like a backdoor pilot for a Rossi spinoff. I think I might watch an attractive, older, man with a sense of humor who solves crimes and plays music from the '50s, especially if he had a sidekick who was tall, smart, and handsome and had 3 PhDs.

I'd watch that, too :).

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However, I must say I ship him with Tara, who seems to enjoy the heck out of him, and he reciprocates.

YES :D! I was wondering if I was alone in shipping those two. They have a great chemistry and click really well together, and I've loved the fun little moments and conversations they've had together over the past few years. 

[normasm]

And they've spent non-work time together! Working on cars, stuff like that. Even if it's strictly platonic, it could be a great partnership, like Morgan and Reid. 

[Mariana]

Much, much better. 

I always thought that Krystall was younger but I liked that she's about Dave age. I enjoyed this story.

The case good and it was great to see all the team members interacting and not disappearing. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Mariana

[normasm]

1 hour ago, Mariana said:

Much, much better. 

I always thought that Krystall was younger but I liked that she's about Dave age. I enjoyed this story.

The case good and it was great to see all the team members interacting and not disappearing. 

I'd say she's about 10, 12 years younger than he, even on the show. Joe IRL is 70, but I think Rossi is supposed to be 62.

[The Wild Sow]

5 hours ago, normasm said:

. However, I must say I ship him with Tara, who seems to enjoy the heck out of him, and he reciprocates.

Doesn't Tara have a husband  hanging around somewhere offscreen?

[MMC]

10 minutes ago, The Wild Sow said:

Doesn't Tara have a husband  hanging around somewhere offscreen?

No she doesn't. She was however engaged at one time, but it didn't work out.

[idiotwaltz]

I enjoyed this episode. Didn’t see the twist coming - I actually thought Janis might’ve been the UNSUB for about 3.5 seconds. I liked Matt talking the Unsub down.

Rossi’s awesome, but I can live a long and happy life without seeing his ex-wives/long-lost children/army buddies ever again. 

[Danielg342]

On 29/03/2018 at 8:23 PM, normasm said:

I'd say she's about 10, 12 years younger than he, even on the show. Joe IRL is 70, but I think Rossi is supposed to be 62.

In "Identity", Rossi says he's 52. That was 11 years ago in November, 2007. Considering that "Profiling 101" established that his birthdate is May 9 (owing to that episode's airdate), Rossi would indeed be 62, turning 63 this May.

Of course, there's also the six month time jump that occurred in S11, so I'm not sure if the show is still following the air date=actual date formula, meaning Rossi could be 63 already.

*shrug*

[K42]

6 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

In "Identity", Rossi says he's 52. That was 11 years ago in November, 2007. Considering that "Profiling 101" established that his birthdate is May 9 (owing to that episode's airdate), Rossi would indeed be 62, turning 63 this May.

Of course, there's also the six month time jump that occurred in S11, so I'm not sure if the show is still following the air date=actual date formula, meaning Rossi could be 63 already.

*shrug*

 

The fact that you would remember this is just.. 

[ForeverAlone]

Yeah, but this show is notorious for screwing up timelines. Sure when Rossi was introduced, he was 52 at the time. BUT then they did the retcon where he was at the Tet Offensive. Assuming he was 18 at the time of the Tet Offensive in January 1968 (the youngest he could reasonably be), that would mean he would have been born in 1949 at the latest, which means he would be no younger than 69 this year. 

[normasm]

Yeah, that's what happens when they put Joe's history on top of Dave's!

[rhys]

Maybe Dave should be in a spin off with whose ever left over the age of 50 on Major Crimes. Bring Reid along & I'd watch. Who cares if the 2 shows are on different networks. We geezers have a type.

[K42]

35 minutes ago, rhys said:

Maybe Dave should be in a spin off with whose ever left over the age of 50 on Major Crimes. Bring Reid along & I'd watch. Who cares if the 2 shows are on different networks. We geezers have a type.

 

 

I want Reid and Emily to have a spin off. I want to know more about Emily's Spy-life. It's interesting how she's super dorky and has a hard time dating yet she's so badass. I also wish CM had more Hotch-centric episodes with women. There was episode in season 4 where the unsub was a woman who targeted high profile men. It would have been a very different kind of Entropy episode. I remember the unsub started the conversation in the elevator by saying something about the stocks. We got to see a very old and classic type of conversation/flirtation between the two. 

Edited April 1, 2018 by KatsDivision

[Danielg342]

48 minutes ago, SweetTooth said:

My favorite trope, and I know they've done it on this show, is when there's a team that has a certain specialty, and they're presented with a case that at first looks like it's not something they usually handle, and so rather than:

a. waiting to hear the rest of it 

and

b. knowing their boss wouldn't just give them a case that had absolutely nothing to do with their specialty, 

one member of the team says, "This looks like a run-of-the-mill ________. Why aren't ______ handling it?"

Mom and daughter came off looking really stupid. This wasn't a hunch. Portia's like, "You don't know him!" But was that the point? I mean, he has proof that Brick beat other women and conned them out of money. And mom getting upset at Rossi for basically saving her daughter and asking him if he wishes he could just switch off SPOTTING BAD PEOPLE WHEN OTHERS CAN'T. I would love to have that skill. If Rossi turned it off, then what? Daughter gets beaten and swindled, and then mom can come back to  him and say, "I THOUGHT YOU WERE AN EXPERT PROFILER! HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW HE WAS A SOCIOPATH???"

Morgan used to always be the guy who would ask, "why are we involved?" and always acted as the team's "Devil's Advocate". Yeah, it was awfully simplistic, but I appreciated it since it at least gave the character something to do.

Of course what made it better was that when Edward Alllen Bernero wrote those exchanges he was inherently aware that his stories- organically- would have moments that require explanation since the audience might not clue in to something.

Now, if there's a moment with a contrarian its planned in advance, meaning natural contradictions in the story are never explained. Granted, I wouldn't want my entire episode to have to be "explained" but I do want my writers to understand that the plot at times requires an explanation.

As for Rossi- what gets me more about Brick (good name for him) is that Garcia too picked up on his misogynist tendencies, and she's not a trained profiler. I could go into a screed about the "realities of profiling" (I don't think it's too difficult for a layperson to perform, especially with experience), but all I'll say is that you are spot on- Rossi is darned if he does and darned if he doesn't.

I do think it would made a better story if it centred around Brick and involved him killing Portia because Portia didn't get the profile or didn't want to believe it. Then the impact of "when does profiling go too far?" would resonate more.

[Prairiemakeup]

Does anyone have a feeling that Wick is going to show up again?

[Danielg342]

5 hours ago, SweetTooth said:

This is a girl who supposedly WORSHIPPED Rossi. Why would a girl who has multiple copies of his book, so she must clearly be interested in profiling and think he's pretty special, totally disregard her hero's diagnosis?

Good point. Don't understand why Portia was so dismissive of Rossi. It also leads to questions about why she fell for Brick in the first place- presumably Rossi would explain how a sociopath works in his works and Portia would have at least a basic understanding.

This would have worked better if Portia made the decision to end the wedding but wanted Rossi's input before she did so. It gives her agency in the story and rectifies what we know about her being a fan of Rossi's work, and Rossi likely still gets to play "the hero" at the end.

1 hour ago, Prairiemakeup said:

Does anyone have a feeling that Wick is going to show up again?

They mentioned his name so many times, so there's a possibility. I'm not sure how excited I am at the possibility after the dreck we got in this episode, though.

[Annber03]

Episode review:

https://www.spoilertv.com/2018/04/criminal-minds-dance-of-love-review.html