The episode opens with a family driving home from vacation, the dad is getting a little tired, so he decides to pull over and get some fresh air before something tragic happens - which will, no doubt, lead to tragedy, unless the episode is pulling a 'Doctor House'-style twist. But before we get there, quick comment - maybe my DVR didn't record the 'previously on', and I'm getting freaked out for nothing, but there was no clip package filling us in on Xander's abortive proposal to Garcia. Greg goes out on one date with a woman and there's a giant clip package about it next episode to set up her showing up at a race and meeting his son. Last episode television's cutest couple may have just broken up, and Derek did everything he could to sabotage the relationship, and there's not a peep. WTH, Criminal Minds?
Okay, where was I? Roadside! Dad goes out to stretch, and when he gets back into a car and turns on the headlights a brutally beaten and filthy teen is revealed! Ah, so they're just rescuing someone? It was a "Doctor House'-style twist after all!
The team is on the plane in the next scene, learning about the case. It seems that the teen probably escaped captivity, since he's barefoot and clearly ran through a cactus field while still wearing leg irons. Leg irons that the police decided to leave on him even after he'd arrived at the hospital.
Was this really so important to document that you had to keep the kid in suffering until you'd taken pictures? Couldn't you have sprung the leg-irons immediately, snapped a few shots of the wounds and shackles, and assumed that would suffice? In any event, the kid's not talking yet, so they don't know who took him - or if his chance to escape came when another kid was abducted!
That's right, there's been another abduction in the area within hours of the escape. Roadblocks were set up and alerts went out, but no clues have come up. Hopefully the escaped kid will have enough information to help lead them to the basement where the latest boy is being kept!
To celebrate tonight's return of lovable actioner 'Person of Interest', I thought I'd present this video I made, chronicling the show's bizarre relationship with biology. Suffice to say, if all the characters were revealed at the end of the show to be mummies, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. So, with no further ado, the video!
The episode opens with a woman talking about her love for someone while footage plays of a teen girl sneaking out of the house to meet the boy across the street - possibly the same one from the voiceover, but on this show I take nothing for granted. Then she returns home to discover her parents executed on the floor of the living room!
Yikes! I hope the girl didn't do it and then forget. The only reason that's even on the table is because the monologue included the line that she wasn't going to let anything keep her and her paramour apart. She can't be the killer, though, since when she snuck out all the ground floor lights were doused-
And when she returned they were all on and the front door was ajar. So there's no way she's the killer - unless of course it's one of those subjective reality things, and we were watching the show from the character's point of view. I hope that isn't the case, because it always kind of feels like a cheat. Of course, they never got around to explaining how Malcolm in the middle could have possible knifed ten gangbangers to death outside of his own head, so anything goes when it comes to this show.
Also, look at that picture and take a moment to be shocked by the show's extremely misguided idea of what Seattle looks like during late February/Early March.
In Quantico Xander stops by Derek's office to announce that he's proposing to Garcia and wants some advice. Derek's oddly unhelpful, and walks to the conference room without shushing Xander up, even though he knows that Garcia is in the window-filled room, and will spot Xander following him like a confused puppy. Very passive-agressive, D.
Case time! There have been two couples murdered in their homes in the recent past - Garcia doesn't say when the first couple (multiracial and gay) were shot, but the prologue people were killed 'last night'. No sign of forced entry, no assault or robbery beyond the executions. It's unclear how the killer could have shot each one neatly in the head at point-blank range without any kind of restraints. At least we know the voiceover has nothing to do with the teen girl.
Then something confusing happens - Greg says it's 'wheels up in 30', letting us know that they're immediately headed out to work on the case. But the very next scene is of another couple being shot to death at nighttime. Is this another killing from the night before? Did the team do nothing of consequence for the whole rest of the day after arriving in town around noon? I'm puzzled.
Oh, and the killer is a blonde woman who shoots the couple with a .22 revolver while they're standing a good distance away from her in their kitchen - by no means the clean executions we were shown previously. So I guess that's just going to go unexplained. For the record, the voiceover explains that she's killing people due to her love for the titular character, one 'Tommy Brown'.
The episode opens with a 'previously on' clip package reminding us the Greg is dating someone, so we can expect to see more o that plotline. But not before we see a couple attempting to get it on in a bedroom somewhere. Attempting because the guy is in a wheelchair, and is unable to achieve an erection, which doesn't impress his prostitute. So he murders her. Yikes.
Then a breakfast date with Greg and his girlfriend, whose name I have yet to learn - nothing plotty here, so let's move on to the briefing, where we discover that two prostitutes have been murdered recently in Atlanta! The weird part? No rapes and the bodies were clothed when dumped. So he's angry at the women, but isn't disgusted by their gender. Why could this be? Wheelchair sexual dysfunction, obviously - but the team doesn't know that yet.
Once the criminals have been safely subdued, only then is it time to make fun of them for having black paint splashed on their faces. If those insults are racial in nature, so much the better!
In a San Berdoo suburban housing development a woman is having trouble sleeping. Between a crying baby and snoring husband, will she ever get the rest she needs. Perhaps... eternal rest? She checks the baby monitor to see how serious the situation is, but is shocked when the camera on it (they have cameras on those now? Neat!) goes dark. It turns out power in the whole house is dead, and there's someone banging around downstairs!
The family then turns stupid, with the parents splitting up - mom hiding in the bathroom with the baby, and dad going to the older daughter's room to snag her cell phone (his is downstairs, where the thumping is coming from). Then, rather than just all heading to the bathroom to hide together, he leaves his 10-year-old daughter alone, hiding under the bed, with the responsibility to call 911 all on her while he goes off to check on his wife and other child. Even worse? He's had a gun the whole time! So why not just bring the whole family into the daughter's room and secure the door? Morons.
While the daughter is on the phone there are some screams and gunshots, then the killer enters the room, looking for another victim. Then the operator hears a gunshot and the phone goes dead. So yeah, parents? It's your fault that your whole family is dead because you couldn't be bothered to stay together and shove a dresser in front of a door.
Then, some time later, for reasons which confuse the hell out of me, we immediately cut to Derek running an FBI training exercise, letting the new people know that they're not taking their training seriously enough. Emily thinks he's being a little hard on the troops, but Derek thinks that toughness is what's going to save their lives out in the field!
Garcia then runs down the case details, and they're confusing as hell - this was the second home invasion in four days in which the entire family was killed, and the previous one happened just one block away! Wow, were those parents not vigilant enough if there had been a massacre that close just days earlier. Here's the confusing part - the killers broke in and cut the power and phone in both houses, but while one house had an old security system with bypassable wires, the other had a modern cell-based one, the service on which just happened to have to have gone into arrears, so the company wasn't listening for their signal. Of course, the killers must have known that, which is one heck of a lead.
Even more puzzling - at each house one of the criminals was killed, then the body left behind by his partner. The cops are assuming that the families killed one guy in a shootout in each case, but that seems like a hell of a coincidence - so the killer must be doing it, which means he also has to ensure that he's going into a house where the families have guns. That's a lot of research. How is he pulling this off? I'm guessing we'll find out after the opening credits!
In King's Beach California some graduating high school students are partying on the beach to celebrate the end of classes. A couple wanders off to be alone, and has the bad luck of heading towards the lifeguard shack from which a shadowy figure had been observing the proceedings. As they make out underneath the shack the couple notices blood dripping down through the floorboards. The man of the couple heads in to check out the source alone - because it's not like there's twenty teens armed with cell phones fifty feet away - and discovers a corpse with a mutilated groin, and what might be another two wrapped in plastic. It's kind of hard to tell.
In Virginia Greg has running with that athletic woman, and finally gets around to asking her out on a date! Good for him! Joe is encouraging, and promises to wrap their case up in time to get him back for his date, even if that means framing an innocent person for the crime! Okay, I made that last part up - but how else can you explain a 100% clearance rate and an average solve time of 30 hours after wheels down? Sounds like railroading to me!
Garcia lays out the details of the case - three dead guys, all shot in the head, genitals removed. And, as we learn in a cutaway, the killer's already murdered number 4! They talk a little about the possibility that the guy is recently out of prison, and that the lifeguard tower wasn't due to open for a month, which may well be important. I think the shack deserves a little more attention - you've got a presumably lone guy going to the trouble of lugging ~200 pound corpses into a small building with absolutely no cover around it. And it's an LA-adjacent beach, meaning that there's no time of day when you can be sure that no one's going to be wandering by. All of this conspires to make a lifeguard shack essentially the worst possible place to hide bodies, meaning they must hold some special significance to the killer. Or, you know, bad writing.
Also, and I know I say this all the time, but couldn't they be doing this on the plane? It's not like they're debating whether or not to go on the trip. Are they just shooting in the conference room so that they can justify the cost of the set?
Can you solve this brain-teaser? If not, you can find the answer in the comments. If I remember what it was when this thing finally goes live. Apparently you cannot pre-post comments.
The episode opens with footage of a flurry of activity inside a casino! Will there be a murder inside one of the most-surveilled places on Earth? That would certainly be an easy one to solve, wouldn't it? So probably not. Maybe I spoke too soon - we cut to an office were a blurry man who may or may not be Dean Cain-
Beats a man to death with an award! Then he walks out onto the casino floor, using his jacket to obscure the bloodstains that cover his shirt. Irony rears its ugly head when maybe-Dean tries to hide from security guard attention by playing a slot machine, only to wind up winning! Although it's a strangely small amount. Check it-
He scored three 'Triple Stars', and according to the machine-
That combination gives a 10000-1 payoff. Wouldn't a quarter bet mean a $2500 payoff, rather than just five hundred?
We don't see how possibleDean deals with the attention, because the show immediately cuts to Penelope, who's woken by the sound of her bedazzled phone ringing off the hook. Excellent work, prop people. It's JJ on the phone, calling Penelope in on a Sunday - meanwhile, Xander is showering in the next room. Garcia explains that she's super hung over since she drank an entire bottle of wine after a fight with Xander the night before, and doesn't remember the rest of the night. Things then take a turn for the 'Penelope is a horrible person' when Xander shows up at the door, bearing flowers he bought in hopes of apologizing for the fight they had.
Garcia slams the door on his face in hopes of keeping him from seeing the shower occupant, who turns out to be Derek! This means that Penelope isn't awful after all, she's just going through another one of those wacky Three's Company-style misunderstandings that this show so rarely does. When will these crazy kids stop with all the hilarious shenanigans and just tie the knot? I'm asking only because that would theoretically give Xander more to do on the show, since he was already robbed of a spin-off. But I promised I wouldn't mention Suspect Behaviour until the end of the season, so let's move on.
The team runs down the case - a mob-connected floor manager was beaten to death in his office, and an 8 of Hearts along with 8 one-dollar bills were left around his body. The team has been called in because of the mob connection. No one mentions the fact that there's doubtless video footage of every second the killer spent in the casino, including entering and leaving the victim's office. There's plenty of time for a super-early Prentiss Award-winning line, though!
That's the opposite of true. Collateral damage is basically the worst thing that can happen to the mob, because it attracts police attention. You'd think Joe Mantegna, of all actors, would know this. Couldn't he have passed that terrible line off to someone else? Why was the line in the episode at all? Are the producers afraid that if only mobsters are in danger there will be no stakes? Wait, why am I asking that? The show already massively adjusts reality so that hookers are almost never the victims for that exact reason.
Then we cut to Dean Cain - turns out it was him, after all, calling his wife to announce that he's parlayed that five hundred dollars from the slot machine into an epic gambling run! He's leaving a message on her phone, though, so it's possible that she's dead, and that was the 'stressor' that led to the floor boss getting killed. Things then get weird when Dean - who's planning to leave the casino with his 30K - is taunted by his reflection in a bathroom mirror-
His worse nature convincing him to keep gambling? Looks like it! Also, did you notice the mistake in the picture? If not, the answer will be at the end of the review!
You know, this might be the most screenshots and video I've ever had before the opening credits of an episode. Also, is this scene set earlier? Because it's not clear if he's been gambling this whole time, and this is supposed to be happening on Sunday morning - if it is, he's going to have a hard time leaving the casino, since the cops have doubtless locked the place down, just in case the killer is still inside the building.
That's right, there's a new novel on the way from me, the guy who writes extensively about Criminal Minds. I've taken a break from that to put together a delicious eBook, though, and in the coming weeks you can watch this space for more information about the book's release!
For now I've got two things to offer you - the cover art:
And the title - which until this moment has been a closely guarded secret:
"King of the Ching Chong Chinamen*"
(*A literary response to Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian')
That's right, it's a satirical fantasy western! What's not to love about that? Other than the hugely offensive title, of course.
Anyhoo, stay tuned for more news about this upcoming literary event, including how to get your own copy, and be sure to click the Cow whenever you want to find out what's going on with the book!
Here, broken down into categories, are things that are wrong with the film ATM.
Reality problems:
No one parks that far from an ATM. Especially at 1AM.
If it's cold enough that their lives are in danger, why can I see no one's breath?
If it's so cold, why aren't your hands in your pockets all of the time?
Why is the water so terrifying? By virtue of it not being ice it must logically be warmer than the air you've been complaining about all night. Yes, water can suck the heat right out of you, but it's less scary than -15 degree weather.
And if it's less cold than that outside, what are you complaining about?
Stupid things people do:
You saw the killer get into your car and sabotage it - how do you think you're going to be able to drive away? Just grab the purse and get out of there.
Okay, so you made your friend walk a hundred feet to the ATM just to be a dick - when you also have to go to the ATM, why aren't you driving up to it, rather than also walking 100 feet?
What woman leaves her purse in an unlocked car at 1AM? I don't care how empty the parking lot is.
How did that janitor make it past all the dead bodies and wrecked cars without becoming alarmed?
If he was alarmed, why did he lunge into the ATM kiosk without saying anything or yelling? Why didn't he say or yell anything while he was being held on the ground?
Why wasn't someone always watching for the killer? Isn't knowing where he is priority 1?
When the security guard sees a car with broken windows and people waving from inside an ATM, why does he not radio it in? Isn't the broken window alone worth a police report?
How did he miss the body lying in that pool of light?
After becoming alarmed, why does the security guard get out of his car rather than driving up to the ATM? Is this parking lot mined or something?
Why didn't the characters run out to the security guard? He has a working car, at least a club, and possibly a taser. Wouldn't running to him, waving your arms the second you see him, be your only sane choice?
The ceiling of that kiosk is not so high that you can't simply hold the burning trash can over your head. Why are you messing around with this 'climbing on shoulders' nonsense?
Here are things that had to happen for his plan to work (and why they couldn't have):
More than one person had to stop at an out-of-the-way ATM in the middle of the night - had just one person stopped, the plan falls apart. (Already a stretch.)
All of the people in the car have to go into the ATM kiosk. (This doesn't happen - people wait in the car with the motor running while someone runs in.)
Despite it being winter and freezing, none of the victims can be dressed for the weather. (Which... how?)
None of his victims can have a cell phone. Or a lighter. (As if.)
His victims have to be unwilling to physically assault him, despite the fact that he's alone and unarmed to begin with. (Why don't they do this?)
His victims have to be unwilling to simply run away since, as is established time and again, he's alone, and could only chase one of them - catching that person is not guaranteed. (Yes, one of them would have hit the tripwire, but the rest would have escaped.)
He must have laid the tripwire after the victims arrived, an activity that would have taken some time and been plainly obvious, since it necessitated standing directly under street lamps to wrap the wire around their bases. (So why didn't they see him do it?)
It has to be believable that one of the victims could have spent a half hour breaking into the back of the kiosk. (But the characters were on the ATM camera for all four hours, other than a couple of 90-second gaps when only one of them ran outside, and a thirty-second gap when one ran out to rescue another injured victim.)
For the end of the plan to work, he had to crash a car into an ATM kiosk and somehow be sure that the remaining victim inside wouldn't be hurt. (Which he absolutely couldn't be sure of.)
The police have to be immediately certain that the sole survivor they find in the kiosk is the killer, and be completely unwilling to listen to his story about the real killer, who's just a few feet away. (The cops have no evidence of his guilt, and no reason to jump to that conclusion.)
