The Hundred Thirty-Second Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

This panel, like the horse featured in it, speaks for itself.

The Hundred Thirty-First Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

I think it's the sentence construction that's confusing me this time around. 'Really Was Murdered' suggests that rather than idle threats ("I'm gonna kill that ump!") someone actually killed the man. 'Was Reaaly Murdered' just brings to mind a man being killed an especially significant amount.

The Hundred Thirtieth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Before this panel I didn't know that the gong thing was a real talent show device before the Gong Show.

Criminal Minds 724: Run

When last we left the team, Emily had run into a bank just before it exploded. For no reason. Jr and the two bank robbers were in the basement, possibly sheltered from the effects of the blast. Will either of them survive? My money's on both, but I guess we'll see!

After one of those annoying audio things where the television tries to deafen me by playing a loud high-pitched whine to simulate the after-effects of a bomb blast on the inner ear, the team runs into the building to check if anyone survives. They don't let paramedics and firemen do this, once again, for no good reason.

As they enter, there's a corpse lying on the floor that I don't recognize-

That's a blonde woman in a brown or maroon dress. I'm not sure why she's there. The people who were shot inside the bank were: White Male Security Guard, Black Father, White Male Bank Manager, White Male FBI Agent, Jr. Jr's in the basement. Everyone else charged out of the bank before the blast, so whose corpse is this? I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't in the bank with the hostages earlier.

A search of the premises reveals another corpse, this one a black woman with long hair. She was, in fact one of the bank employees in the previous episode. I guess she just didn't bother leaving with everyone else while the place was unguarded? Why not?

Xander and Reid see footage of the explosion on Xander's computer, which causes Reid to utter the Prentiss Award-Winning line of the night



Yes, because if there's one place that a technical analyst is most likely to be helpful, it's away from his computer. Genius!

After a shot of King running away through the underground, Joe announces that this wasn't a suicide pact, but rather the bomb was meant to cover an escape. He points out that 'you don't learn explosives overnight', which doesn't have anything to do with anything - one of the members of the team is a professional criminal and murderer, and she's had over seven months to teach the other two whatever they needed to know. Also, the working theory is that they just burst a gas main to full up the main floor with gas, which doesn't actually require 'explosives training'.

Inside the bank Emily is revealed to be fine - she's discovered the elderly couple of hostages, who hid inside the bank rather than trying to escape when King left. Perhaps they've been hiding the whole time? Derek and JJ head downstairs to look for Jr, but find instead the hole in the wall that the Royal Flush gang escaped through. King manages to get to a car just outside the building and drive it away because the cops set a half-block cordon around the crime scene. I'm not sure why. He takes the precaution of driving a black SUV with police lights, but still, there should be a roadblock he has to get through, shouldn't there?

Where are Queen and Jr? I guess we'll find out after the opening credits!

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

Do fat people not have nerves? Is this a prejudice with which I'm not familiar?

Criminal Minds 723: Hit

It's morning in the nation's capital, but the show decides to focus on a reddish sun over the captial dome, so that morning isn't an optimistic one. We cut immediately over to JJ's house, where it's her day off! She and her son say bye to Jr., who heads off to work with his partner. He's a local cop, in case anyone's forgotten.

Then we cut over to Greg, whose girlfriend drops by to spend a little time with him and his son. Gosh, this is all so bucolic that everyone's day off absolutely has to be ruined by a terrible tragedy. Thanks for the telegraphing, Criminal Minds.

Things get super-awkward at the local convention center, when Garcia and Reid, who have dressed up as two Doctors-

Run into Xander and a friend, dressed as Doctor and Amy.

Yikes. Garcia immediately cancels her plans to go inside, such is the awkwardness created by her refusal to marry Xander. During their flee they run into Joe, who was at the center for a different event (or so he claims...). No, he was clearly there for something else.

It seems it's a hotel/convention centre, and their boss is leaving after an overnight assignation, probably with Joe!

Man, this episode is packed with incident and we're not five minutes in! Are they finally just going to give us a crime-free hangout episode of Criminal Minds?

There's more hanging out, this time with Emily and Derek, who are inspecting the new house she was planning to buy. She's having second thoughts because she doesn't want to commit to anything, and Derek encourages her to waffle. Because he's sensitive!

Then the plot starts to intrude, as criminals prepare to rob a bank. We see some happy people and a mother with baby enter the bank just as things are about to go down, so this is clearly going to turn into a hostage situation. Their plan was to walk in maskless, then shoot the guard before putting their masks on. I'm not sure this is a great plan. Are they going to wipe the security system? Hopefully it doesn't record offsite...

The Royal Flush gang's scheme is going just fine when someone calls the cops - and guess whose car is just outside? Man, they'd better not kill off Josh Stewart. His brief appearances are one of the few reasons I keep watching the show. Also, the promise that Xander will turn up from time to time. This is actually a great episode for me, come to think of it.

The gang tries to leave via the side door, but find Jr and his partner waiting. The partner is shot in the head (classy, show), but Jr manages to return fire, wounding one and driving him back into the bank. Things are about to get nasty... right after the credits!

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.