The Hundred Twenty-Eighth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

So he can tear steel asunder with his bare hands, but when under a net he needs a child to chew through the rope? Is Uncle Same just humouring the kid sidekick to make him feel useful.

Boo's rampant discontinuity!

In addition to its other flaws, Boo is notable for some incredibly prominent discontinuity. Check out this brief sequence of shots.



Now let's break it down!

Criminal Minds 722: Profiling 101

We open on Joe sitting outside, going over a list of scratched-off names - all women. The list has 40 typewritten names on it, and a 41st added in pen. Might that be significant? Greg shows up to escort the distracted Joe to some kind of a large gathering where the whole team is waiting. Joe's so flustered he has to splash water on his face first. What's making this class he's going to lecture in front of so stressful?

The team announces that they're going to be talking about what makes a serial killer. They show two women from different backgrounds and classes, saying that they couldn't be more different-

(Other than the whole thin and pretty thing, I guess)

The one thing they had in common? Crossing paths with 'the most profilic serial killer the BAU has ever seen'! Wow, so they're starting an episode talking about Frank? That's amazing! This show basically never references earlier cases, so I'm excited about the twist.

The team talks about how this killer probably grew up in a monstrously abusive household, but that people shouldn't be prejudiced against the monstrously abused, since they don't all become killers. Joe furthers his point by saying 'not all' psychopaths become killers, as if that's some kind of revelation. The vast majority of psychopaths don't become killers, Joe - you should know that.

Okay, so it turns out they were lying about the 'most prolific' thing. The killer they're talking about is still out there, and he butchers women up and down the California coast. But he's only got 40 victims so far, and Frank was well into 3 digits. Still, the team thinks this is a good case to use, although I'm not sure why, since you can't talk about someone's past definitively until you know what it is, and they apparently haven't caught this one yet. I guess we'll find out what they mean (and why Joe was freaked out) after the opening credits!

How To Ruin Your Own Movie - The Barrens Edition

The Barrens opens with an important reminder of Count Vardulon's Rule of Vacations - Don't go on one with either of the Ashmore brothers. It's not going to go well for any of you. In this case, Shawn and his girlfriend are out in the Pine Barrens, walking off the official trail when they come across a pile of torn-apart animal corpses.

Things get even more unpleasant when a mortally wounded deer bolts out of the woods and collapses right on the trail - no doubt it was fleeing from whatever left the huge pile of bodies.

Then the teaser ends with a shadow passing over the girlfriend's face as she looks up and sees something enormous flying over her head. The implication is clear - there's a monster in these woods slaughtering animals, and the two of them are next!

The Hundred Twenty-Seventh Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

War or no war, everybody likes to sleep in.

Criminal Minds Episode 721: Divining Rod

As the episode opens a man is being put to death via a firing squad. At that same moment, a woman is tied to a bed, adjacent to a mysterious figure in a cap. What do these two settings have to do with one another? I don't know yet, but I'm eager to find out! Once the firing squad has completed its work the killer decides it's time to murder his hostage - which he does with an icepick! Which seems like it would take a while. So automatic sadistic personality disorder diagnosis, right?

Over at Quantico the team is discussing Emily's plans to buy a house while walking into the meeting room - the meeting itself once again proves to be one of those get-togethers so brief that it would make more sense to have it on the way to the airstrip. It turns out the icepick stabbing of a blonde woman was the executed man (a serial killer - shocker, right?)'s M.O., so they likely have a copycat on their hands. Will they make it to Oklahoma in time to stop him from killing again?

Of course not, this is Criminal Minds, and we're only one kill in.

Man, they're not wasting any time this week - the very next scene is another blonde woman being stabbed to death, maybe a day after the last one. How can they catch a man killing so rapidly?

Let's find out together, after the opening credits!

The Hundred Twenty-Sixth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

They thought they'd gotten away. They forgot about the bomb eagle.

Criminal Minds 720: The Company

Now that was an unexpected clip package! It seems that we're coming back to Derek's missing cousin? Remember, the one the boat-board killer claimed to have murdered last season, only Derek didn't believe him, but Derek told his aunt she was dead anyhow so that she could have some peace of mind? It seems that story wasn't dead and buried after all - how will it come up this week?

As the episode begins one of Derek's sisters is driving home, stopped at a red light and leaving a message on their mother's answering machine. As she hangs up she notices her missing cousin (the one who disappeared after fleeing an abusive relationship) sitting in the passenger seat of the car next to her! How does she react to this? By trying to yell and get the woman's attention - the driver of that car bolts, and in her attempt to follow them Derek's sister's car gets hit twice! That's why you respect the red light.

Derek rushes to be by his sister's side while she's in the hospital and hears her story about seeing their cousin. Derek assures her that no, the cousin is dead - which is an odd choice, considering he doesn't believe that himself - but sister is firm in her belief. She even remembers the cousin saying 'I'm sorry' before their car made its getaway! Also, and this is the big one - if something weird wasn't going on in that car, why would it have run a red light to escape a random woman saying hello? For some reason she doesn't use that as proof, even though it's really on point.

During a call with Greg Derek comes clean about lying to his family in re: Cousin's disappearance, and Greg offers to bring the team to help look for the missing cousin. Which I suppose they have the right to do, since she was kidnapped, but certainly seems like the kind of thing that Greg would have to check with someone about before committing to be there. Also he kind of misrepresents the events of the boatman episode by saying that Derek 'deduced' that the killer hadn't murdered his cousin. This makes it seem like a feat of detective work or even profiling, when in fact the opposite is the case - it was the killer who read Derek's body language after putting down a picture the killer didn't recognize. The killer made the clever connection that Derek must have had some personal connection to the woman in the picture, and used that information to taunt Derek. By comparison Derek merely observed that unlike all of his other victims, the killer didn't know the cousin's name and personal details. Not exactly a heroic act of investigative logic, was it?

Oh, and Derek's other sister was snooping at the door, and overheard his confession.

The Hundred Twenty-Fifth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Somehow I feel like this flying tank wouldn't work at all. Not that I care in the least.

Criminal Minds 719: Heathridge Manor

The episode opens with a flashback to Heathridge Manor, way back in 1996! Which I guess is sixteen years ago, but I remember it well enough that it doesn't seem like long enough back to be the creepy past. Okay, enough about me - creepy mansion, black truck driving up on rainy night, eerie music... go!

A mother is reading to her child from a badly water-damaged storybook about a white knight battling a wizard who turned out to be the devil.

Oh, it's not water damaged, I guess, it must be a homemade storybook done with watercolours. The men in white from the local institution show up to drag mom off, who leaves the son with an insistence that he look after his sister. She quickly loses her nerve, though, and screams as she's dragged away. Hey, who's the guy who's watching from the sidelines, seated in a chair?

If that's the dad, there was quite an age difference, so I'm guessing grandpa?

Now we move to the present day, where a set of teens are exploring a mental hospital with video cameras, looking for demons - and instead they find a corpse! According to Garcia it's a teacher who went missing some time earlier. She's dressed as an old-timey lady from the storybook, with an elaborate gown and face painted white, so I guess the grown-up son is killing people to recreate the book? They know she was held somewhere else because her nails are mangled and there's limestone under them - did she try to scratch her way free through rock? Never a promising plan. A building old enough to have limestone in it would be a great lead, was the killing not in Salem, Oregon, which has plenty of elderly buildings.

Speaking of limestone, we immediately get a look at the conditions the women are held in - there's a pit in the ground with a contraption over it that dumps water in a little at a time, to torment the woman as they're slowly drowned. Classy guy, this traumatized child.

The Hundred Twenty-Fourth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Okay, as a matter of course I adore charts depicting bases and technology, but this one is noteworthy for a whole other reason beyond my nerdiness. One mistake was made when putting this image together - they laid out exactly where in the world Blackhawk Island was. This made it slightly awkward when, in 1942, the Blackhawks started working exclusively in the Pacific. That's quite a long flight.

Criminal Minds 718: Foundation

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!

Are the Persons of Interest made out of clay?

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 Hundred Twenty-Third Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

That is just an excellent question.

Criminal Minds 717: I Love You, Tommy Brown(!)

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'.