Criminal Minds 1414: Sick and Evil

We see a woman talking on the phone with a friend. She's sad, because she lost her baby (as evidenced by the empty crib in the background, and is envious because the friend has one! Also, there's a killer in the house. She sees him at the end of a hallway locks herself in an office that has a fireplace in it! She grabs a poker to defend herself, but for some reason doesn't bother to push the desk in front of the door.

Instead, she just watches helplessly as the killer unscrews the lock and opens the door. The killer attacks her with a knife, while wearing some kind of two-colour plastic mask! It's a strange choice. Especially because whoever directed this episode isn't up to staging all of this like a slasher film the way Matt Gubler would have.

Joe goes to talk to Emily about his failure to find the conman, but she tells him that he can't worry about it too much - there's plenty of other cases that they need to work on. I'm not sure how the nationwide BOLO and adding him to the most wanted list hasn't helped - not to mention the bounty likely placed on his head by the surviving relatives.

They get a call about a new case! But it's already midnight. Why is Garcia even there to send them an e-mail. Then we see the team gathered around the table to chat about the case - it must be, what, 1AM at this point? Could this not have waited until the morning?

I know I explained in an earlier review why this can never wait until morning, but wow, is this troublesome from a writing standpoint. Like, I know most of you are job-obsessed weirdos, but JJ and Matt both have young children at home. Do they just never see their kids? Jr. and that Lawyer must be the best spouses on earth.

Emily reveals that both victims were clubbed into submission, then tied to a bed and stabbed 22 times in the stomach. Out of nowhere, Joe announces that neither of them were mothers, or pregnant at the time of their stabbing. What does that have to do with anything? Why would you bring that up? I mean, based on that opening scene, I'm sure that's going to be part of the killer's whole 'thing', but there's no reason that Joe should be talking about it already. They weren't stabbed in the womb, Joe.

And if they were clubbed into submission, why wasn't the killer brandishing a cudgel in that opening scene?

They head out to the plane at some point - we're not sure when, because Emily has continued giving people no information about when they're supposed to be at the plane. How is this continuing to be a thing? Oh, right, literally no one working on the show cares at all.

Then we cut over to a hose where a couple is cleaning up after a dinner party. Will the killer finally strike when it's not just a woman home alone? Yes! He murders the couple with a kitchen knife! Weird that people aren't taking more security precautions, what with two women being brutally slaughtered in their homes in the past week. Lewiston may be the second-biggest city in Maine, but less than 40K people live there, so it's not like this wouldn't be huge news.

Criminal Minds 1413: Chameleon

The episode opens as Joe is starting his day. Notably he has a band-aid on his head! No wonder dramatic music is playing over an innocuous scene! He grabs his gun from a secret panel that opens up when you put a magnetic card against a table. That's just a weird thing to have. You live alone dude, it's find if you have a gun safe.

This is the second time we've seen the team having this kind of secret gun safe - the weird part? No one had a secret gun safe until the Roswell episode. It's almost like the prop team had so much fun building the secret gun safes for that episode that they just decided that all of the team members should have them as an excuse to keep building the things.

Joe sits on the bed for a second, trying to get his head together, then goes down to leave, when he's intercepted by Crystal. She wants to know why he won't talk about 'this', and they're both really oblique about what's troubling him. Hey, what does Joe do on his birthday now that the Womb Raider has been dead for two years? Just curious.

When Joe gets to the office, we see that Eric's arm is bandaged and in a sling - apparently something bad happened to everyone? Also Reid has spent all weekend at the office, working on a case! What's going on here? Reid's mad it himself for not seeing something that should have been obvious. Apparently a case went horribly awry, just like the arson from last year - so... when do the flashbacks start?

From Joe's conversation with Emily we learn that a killer escaped and the investigation is still ongoing - Joe blames himself for what happened, and can't ask anyone for help, because that's the kind of person he is! So Emily sends him home to talk to Crystal, which is where the flashbacks will happen. So yeah, I guess this is a redo of that JJ and Jr. episode.

We get our first flashback scene - Joe is working his way through the woods completely on his own when the killer tackles him, knocks his gun out of his hand, and tries to choke him to death! So, is this the first time Joe's had a near-death experience while working for the team? I can't remember any others, but maybe I'll check later on!

Crminal Minds 1412: Hamelin

It's night, in Iowa, and a kid is sleeping peacefully in bed. But how long can that last? Like three seconds. Then he hears mysterious whispering and goes to investigate! He heads straight out the front door and heads down the street! We find him next in a playground, where he starts swinging. Then he's joined by more kids doing the same. Is this an episode about some kind of super-swami?

The next day, JJ gets a call from her mother announcing that she's coming to stay while her house is being repaired. For a moment I think this means we're going to have Josh Stewart show up, but no, their house is being painted, so JJ is staying in a hotel for a week while he takes the boys to Florida.

Wait... Florida? Why would he not take them to Louisiana? That's where he's from - shouldn't they get a chance to see their ancestral homeland? And I mean ancestral, they've got a French last name, they've probably been in New Orleans for ever!

Time for a case rundown- three kids went missing! Crazily, the team actually takes a moment to wonder if this is just ten-year-olds spending all night out with friends. Hey, remember when that actually happened last year, the kids were going to spend all night out with friends, and the team went anyway even though there were no signs of foul play?

This time they at least have reason to be weirded out - no clothes or shoes were taken, so the kids must have gone out in the bedclothes. Suspicious!

Then, Emily once again uses 'Wheels Up' as a catchphrase with no unit of time attached to it. When are they supposed to be in the plane, Emily? You're the boss, you should be planning this better, Emily.

Before they can leave, Garcia gets an e-mail from the police - they've got footage of the kids swinging in the park, and then getting into a white panel van, beckoned and dragged by a white guy, based on the hand!

Criminal Minds 1411: Night Lights

In bed, a woman is awoken by her smartwatch! It warns her that the motion sensors outside the house are detecting someone. Her husband assures her that it's just the cat, and they should go back to sleep. Why even have an alarm system?

Then they hear someone banging on the door downstairs and screaming! So naturally they check the door camera and call the security office, who are already sending a car!

The couple debates whether to open the door, and decide not to - but it woudn't have mattered, because the killer comes and grabs the guy less then 30 seconds after they turned on the camera. So by the time they got downstairs and opened the door, he would have been there, killing them. I'm not saying that this guy is an idiot, but if you're ever in this position, running away from a killer in a suburban neighbourhood, here's what you do - run across lawns, screaming for the police, and every time to pass a house, smash every window you can without slowing down. A dozen families waking up at once is the kind of thing that gets the police super-mobilized, and might even scare off a killer.

At Quantico, the team is talking about the fact that DRGF is planning a housewarming party so that she can meet the whole team. Eric is hesitant about it for no good reason!

Time for the case! It seems that a week ago a couple was wound with duct tape and killed in their home. Last night a man with duct tape on was banging on a door, screaming about how someone was going to kill 'us'. That suggests another couple has been attacked! Although the victim hasn't been identified yet. Despite Garcia's access to Portland's DMV, and the fact that they have a high-resolution image of the man's face from the door camera. Garcia explains that 'nothing's come up' on the guy. So what, he doesn't have a driver's license?

Then it's over to the killer's lair, where the couple are tied down with nowhere near enough duct tape. Seriously, there's just a single piece over the guy's forehead and neck, he could easily sit up with no trouble at all. They talk about how scared they are, and then the killer arrives with a blow torch and night vision goggles, even though it's super-bright in the room! Apparently the killer's thing is to burn people's eyes out with blowtorches? Disgusting!

Criminal Minds 1410: Flesh and Blood

In yet another SAW-type opening, we find a guy hanging from the ceiling of a torture dungeon, with a bag over his head! A killer shows up with the baseball bat and murders him! Based on the victim's statements, he's probably a murderer.

Then we cut to Emily, who's making dinner for FBI Guy! She doesn't like how the dinner is turning out, though, so she calls Joe for advice! Turns out she was using cooking wine instead of drinking wine! He's a snob, you see, and cares about that sort of stuff. This gets into her head, though, and suggests they order a pizza instead!

This is why you don't listen to cooking snobs, people. Your tomato sauce will taste fine if you use cooking wine.

The date goes fine until it's interrupted by a phone call! It seems that the latest guy was a lawyer - as was the previous victim! Was he a mob lawyer? Because he sure talked like a scumbag! Both men where smashed to death with baseball bats and then had their hearts cut out. Ick! The team divvies up duties to go and look for info on the killer - who's local, as most of their killers seem to be these days.

Seriously, they do not fly a ton. Does their new, lower budget mean they can't pull the jet set out of mothballs very often?

Then it's over to the killer, who makes a fancy storage case for the victim's heart! Just like that guy did back at the start of Season 3! Wait, has he been sprung from prison? No, wait, he was dying and wanted to find a replacement mother for his son, right? So he can't be the killer.

Criminal Minds 1409: Broken Wing

At a suburban house a woman is enjoying her first day back out of drug rehab! Her friends are worried about her and offer to stay over to help ensure she doesn't relapse, but she says she'll be fine! We'll see about that...

Then we cut to Aisha giving a lecture to students, accompanied by a kooky image. You need to see this, because I have no idea what it means:

Okay, so... doesn't recidivism rate measure the number of people who reoffend? How can those two interchangeable terms be the different colours on a pie chart? Let's see what Alisha has to say! She says that recidivism rates capture only a small percentage of the crimes repeat sex offenders commit. So I guess the chart means that 100% of sex offenders reoffend, but only 7% are caught so only that is registered in the recidivism rate? Or maybe she means they only get charged for a small number of the crimes they actually commit? In any event, this is flat-out bizarre.

At the end of the speech a guy comes up to harass her, and based on her reaction, I'm guessing this is the ex-husband/drug addict she talked about a little while ago? He demands her attention, because he's been working on counseling addicts, and he thinks someone is murdering his clients via overdose to make it look accidental!

While Aisha' ex is showing her some documents about spikes in overdose rares, we check back in on the addict! She's preparing a picnic lunch for her kids, but pauses when she notices that she's sweating way too much. It's withdrawl! She tries to call someone for help and asks them to come over. Is it her sponsor, or her old drug dealer? Whoever it is is probably going to kill her, either way.

Aisha calls the team with the details! Seven people have overdosed on heroin the day they got out of rehab. The weird part? None of them were in rehab for heroin addiction! That's good enough for Emily, who wants to fly the team out immediately!

Oh, and that lady gets murdered by a white guy. We see him open the front door with his bare hands, but that probably won't come up later.

Criminal Minds 1408: Ashley

A minivan pulls into a driveway at night. A man walks into the house, seemingly up to no good. I assume this because he turns no lights on, and wears his shoes as he goes upstairs. If he lives there, he must be an animal.

He doesn't, of course, and shoots the parents while they sleep! We cut to a little girl in another part of the house. She's awoken by the screams and gunshots, and darts under her bed! Somehow she thinks this will work - I guess because she's so tiny? It doesn't, and the killer drags her away!

At Quantico, Reid is prepping his next course! Weirdly, they say that Emily has to arrange for him to take a sabbatical to teach it. Um... are you still not on the restricted duty that Tuvok gave you last year? Do you really have any choice in whether you teach or not? It's going to be another terrible class, though - that's for sure!

Then Eric goes to see Emily, who lets him back on the team because he was able to follow orders, and played an integral role in solving the last case! Only he really, really, didn't. The man just followed a trail of blood. The other two cops with him could have done that even if he wasn't there. Still, this isn't a show about making people suffer consequences for their actions (see previous paragraph for example), so he's back on the team!

Then Garcia - just the worst person, overall, confronts Joe with the fact that he's planning to propose to Crystal loudly in the middle of the office. She feels betrayed that he didn't tell her this was happening!Naturally, Crystal is in the room for comedic purposes! Crystal isn't sure about getting married, but before they can talk further, the case comes in!

We get a rundown of the case - dead parents, abducted girl, you know the drill. Then Emily humiliates herself with the worst Wheels Up yet.

You know you're not on the plane right now, don't you? Like, you're aware of that fact? Because unless you're actually on the plane, the wheels can't go up. If the wheels go up now, that means the plane is leaving without you, moron. How hilarious would it be if the pilot had been on a conference call with them and took her statement seriously, then they get to the runway in twenty minutes and the plane is already a hundred miles away?

Speaking of, if I ever got the chance to pitch a Criminal Minds spinoff, it would be the lives of the two pilots who fly these people around the country. What do they do all day when they're in all of those cities, waiting for the team to need to go home? And they've got to have plenty of free time most weeks, since the plane has to be available whenever the team needs it. Those pilots are on staff, making a decent living just waiting around to ferry people to a place where serial killings are happening. And sometimes they don't work for a month.

That's an interesting story.

You know what would be the best episode for the last season, though? If someone noticed a pattern of 230+ murders over the past fifteen years, each one while the team was in the city, and Reid is briefly suspected of having murdered all those people, until they realize that their pilot had been a serial killer this whole time!

Okay, we've reached the point where I'm pitching Criminal Minds episodes, so let's move on.

Before the credits roll, we get a glimpse of the killer doing a bad job of washing bloodstains out of the little girl's clothes!

Criminal Minds 1407: Twenty Seven

A pair of women are taking pictures on the street when a madman with a machete slashes someone up right in the middle of frame! When he notices that he's being filmed, and hears the police being called, the madman runs away! He's not a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, but they've still probably got pretty good footage of him.

Everyone runs to help the slashed man while the ambulance is on the way, and in a closeup we notice that even though we saw the madman slash at his victim one more time before fleeing, the man has no additional wounds from when he fell. Maybe the guy missed?

An FBI agent arrives moments later, and starts organizing the scene! Emily, JJ, and Matt get there twenty seconds later, which is amazing. I guess this guy is a known criminal they were already chasing? Because he ran off approximately 90 seconds ago. In fact, why are you parking cars and talking to people - drive around and look for the guy?

According to Emily, a guy has been running around downtown for the last hour, slashing people with a machete! His first victim just died in the hospital! Wait, why are there still people out in the street? Shouldn't this news have already gotten around to everyone in downtown Washington? Shouldn't they all have been alarmed by the hundreds of cops cars that would be swarming the streets, looking for this guy?

Each slashing has taken place exactly 30 minutes after the previous one. So Emily sets a timer on her phone - is this going to be a real-time episode? That's ambitious, if so! I guess we'll find out after the credits!

Criminal Minds 1406: Luke

Looks like they're doing more with Eric, since the episode opens with a flashback to his injured friend and him dating that woman! Yup - the first scene has both those characters (as well as the dog) over at Eric's apartment! His injured friend is even walking again! They chat about their lives! The friend encourages Eric to set he and Garcia up! He's able to dodge all inquiries when a call about a case comes in!

At the office, it turns out Garcia actively wants to be set up with the friend, and Eric isn't doing it for some reason! Weird choice, Eric.

We get the details of the case - the killer has shot three middle-aged men in the back of the head with the same pistol. And he seems to be moving south in a straight line towards their neck of the woods. Could it be an assassin? Are they witnesses in some kind of a crime? Or does the connection exist only in their heads?

Hey, you know what no one says in this scene? "If there wasn't something shady in their past, they wouldn't have ended up with a bullet in the head." Weird that it's only female victims that Aisha is into blaming, huh?

Then we get a scene of the next killing - only this time it's a much younger guy, and he has bleach poured into his mouth while tied to a chair! That's a twist!

Criminal Minds 1405: The Tall Man

In the darkest woods some teen girls are going ghost hunting! Is this a halloween episode? They're looking for Slenderman out in the woods! Or 'Tall Man' as they call him, but we know what they mean. One of the girls goes on ahead, and the other two conspire about something they have planned. Are they going to stab the third girl, like the Slenderman crime, or is the show planning to use our knowledge of that crime against us?

It would be weird if there was a teenaged killer in two episodes in a row, though.

The next day, some campers in the woods are packing up, and the lead girl stumbles out of the woods, scratches all over her face, yelling that 'the tall man' has taken her friends!

It's breakfast time at the JJ household! These two boys are so incredibly blonde. They have to be JJ's real-life sons, right? And hey, Jr. is there, because of course he is! That guy's the best. Then JJ gets a call - the two girls are missing in a place called 'Dead Man's Conservatory Park'. They have to get there immediately!

JJ's upset, because that's in her home town, where her sister committed suicide! She doesn't want to go back, but then she sees the place they went missing, and remembers the stories about Slenderman from her own childhood!

We get a breakdown of the case - Slenderman's deal is that he grabs you and cuts you until you reveal all of your secrets! Oh, could the other two girls have been planning to torture the lead girl in some way, and it all went horribly awry? I'm sure we'll find out when they get to the park in question!

JJ flashes back to her childhood, when her sister scolded her for stealing a necklace from her room! But then the sister gives her the necklace, as part of the 'giving your stuff away before you kill yourself' thing.

In the hospital, a nurse comes to scrape under the lead girl (Ally)'s nails, and she has a traumatic memory of being attacked by Slenderman! Or is it just a delusion? Presumably we'll find out after the credits!

Criminal Minds 1404: Innocence

After a prologue about Garcia's fractured emotional state, we head into the woods at night! A crying, blindfolded woman is being dragged around by a man in a hoodie! She's tied to a tree and then murdered!

The attack is match-cut to Penelope dropping a mug as Emily enters the room! She almost breaks into tears, because she's going through some PTSD over her kidnapping and her fractured relationship with her family, but Emily doesn't notice how screwed up she is, and I guess Eric didn't tell her about the snuff film situation, so Garcia is left to cry over spilled coffee while Emily briefs the team!

A woman has been bludgeoned to death in Florida after a killer dragged her from her phone in the middle of the night. They've cleared the husband because he was out of town, and Garcia didn't see any evidence in his banking or e-mail history of him hiring a murderer!

Before we get back to the killer, we see Emily grab Garcia's mug out of the trash bin, so she can fix it and bring it back later! Is the mug a metaphor for Penelope's relationship with her family, which she thinks can't be fixed, but Emily will remind her that you just have to keep working at things if you want them to get better? Probably!

Then we finally check in on the killer, who hangs a man's nightshirt from a tree and then shoots it with a shotgun! I feel like that isn't as menacing as the shows thinks it was.

Criminal Minds 1403: Rule 34

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Criminal Minds 1402: Starter Home

A couple is moving into the new house they just bought, and discover that it's an absolute wreck! A sink fully of dirty dishes, dilapidated furniture everywhere. But will there be a corpse buried in the basement, triggering an investigation?

Nope. The corpse is in the wall! mummified and covered in salt to keep it from smelling!

I'm not saying this show goes back to the well too much, but isn't it strange that within four episodes we've had two scenes where a young, pregnant couple is moving into a new house and then drama ensues from tearing open walls? I know it's on the other side of a season break, so it feels far away, but the hum was only three episodes ago.

At the office, Emily complains about her commute, announcing that one should never live anywhere that you'll have to cross a bridge in order to get to work. I can't imagine what she's talking about, though - the marine corps base she works on has its own exit from the I-95, and while and since she definitely lives in a DC suburb, she should be driving against traffic every day. The only way she could have any traffic issues is if she actually lives in downtown Washington DC, which would be a crazy thing for her to do, based on where she works.

This might be my strangest nitpick ever.

Emily finds out about the mummy, but doesn't see how it's relevant to their work. But since Joe is in Georgia visiting Crystal anyway, she asks him to drop by the crime scene on his way home! That's right, they've continued dating, and are both hiding it from their loved ones. This is the third time they've done a story about Joe hiding a relationship, BTW. Just in case you were wondering if the show cared about going back to the well. Oh, and Portia has met a new man - will he also be a psychopath?

Joe arrives at the crime scene and gets some details. One of the previous owners is dead, and the other is in a nursing home. Could they be responsible for the body in the wall? Scratch that - bodies. They bring out a corpse dog, and it barks at literally everything. They pull the walls down, pull up the floorboards, and discover nothing but corpses! Also, some lumber that the props department forgot to age:

You know what? I'll change my guess - that was probably my strangest nitpick.

Criminal Minds 1401: 300

The season opens with a flashback montage, introducing all of the characters! I guess they're worried that someone might be confused by watching the season 14 premiere as their first-ever episode. Which, yeah, that would be weird. Also, hugely unlikely, but I'm not going to blame them for a surfeit of care.

The episode begins with the team driving back to base, unable to get anyone on the phone. That's because there's been a fire alarm in the building - that was how they were planning on smuggling Michael out of the building! Eric and JJ get to the garage from last year, and find the blood trail from when Owen was shot! They follow it to him, and find that he's barely clinging to life! They also notice spatters of blood on the ground near where the cult car peeled out!

The team finds out that Michael is missing and Owen wasn't in on it - we then cut to Michael and the evil VICAP lady in an ambulance. They've got a tablet showing footage of where Reid and Garcia are being held! Which couldn't be more than like ten blocks from the marine base, given the timeline here.

Criminal Minds 1322: Believer

The episode opens on Reid's face - that's right, he's finally back! He and some SWAT guys arrive in a creepy brick hallway via an elevator. Absurdly, Reid walks just behind the first SWAT guy with the rest of them following him. Dude, you don't have a helmet, rifle, or flashlight. Hang back.

Inside a storage unit they find a body wrapped in bandages! Reid immediately identifies the body as 'Owen', so maybe we'll get a flashback to figure out what's going on? And the guy's body temperature is apparently really warm, so he just died moments ago!

Then it turns out that the guy isn't dead at all! He springs up in the ambulance and puts a scalpel to someone's throat! Emily and Reid identify him as an FBI Agent, and he snaps out of his fog. He asks what year it is, and when he hears that it's 2018, he tries to kill himself! Luckily, they stop him. I guess he was brainwashed fairly severely? Is someone other than Mr. Scratch going around brainwashing people? Hopefully we'll find out after the opening credits!