Criminal Minds: A Higher Power
By fred | April 10, 2008
(S03E15) This show wasn’t returning to the air after its strike-break last night, we already had one episode before that last week. But as I explained then, that episode really wasn’t good, in fact it was pretty bad. Last week I told how this season didn’t started too well for the show, loosing its lead and having to deal with that loss and introduce a new character while none of that had ever been planned.
It took them time, and a few bad episodes, but they eventually got there and I believe we’ve had a few episodes before the strike that were amongst the best of the series, no less. But last week was bad, it was as if everything achieved before the strike had been forgotten, and we had to suffer through bad episodes all over again, and so I was willing, this week, to forget about last week and see this as the “real” return of Criminal Minds to the air.
And while better that last week, no question there, if this was their return, then they didn’t return anywhere near the level of quality they had reached before being interrupted by the strike. Because while not actually bad, this episode wasn’t really good either. I would say it was about the minimum that you could expect from this kind of show, the cop-drama about serial killer, but I’m not even sure it was the minimum we’re entitled to expect from Criminal Minds, a show that’s proven over the years to be actually a pretty good one.
First, there was Morgan. I don’t know why he was so reluctant into getting the case, accepting that there was one to begin with, because it was pretty obvious to me that, at the very least, so many suicides with precise interval in between (although, of course, things got much faster as soon as the BAU got there…) and all linked to that tragic event, the fire, that was a little too much to be just a coincidence.
Usually, they are the ones confronted to people, like the local sherif, who refuses to believe what they’re explaining, that serial killers lie, hide, manipulate, and can be part of the very community they’re hurting, all of that. And now that the episode is over, I still don’t see any real reason why he would behave the way he did, and I’m pretty positive that Hotchner would have taken the case from the first as well, just like JJ brought it up to them. She is the first filter, and she wouldn’t have brought that one up if she didn’t think there was something to it, and she’s good at her job.
Yet it lasted, on the plane and then even while working the case, with Hotch back after a 5-minutes meeting with his son, it took him an awful long time, and a few more victims, to finally accept that there was an unsub here, and that really felt wrong, and out of character, to me. I mean could he really believe that a mother would go and hang herself, leaving her baby unwatched like that ? Had she been suicidal she would have had him somewhere else, out of the house, she would have make sure he was safe elsewhere, or killed him. Not to mention all the signs that Emily pointed out which indicated that something wasn’t right.
It was like they wanted to have that dynamic of someone not believing it, so others would have to argue and go over the evidences of what was going on, except that unlike what we usually get from this show, or any good show, they didn’t bother writing that in a way that would just make sense, for the story and the characters.
Other than that, the story in itself was quite predictable, and it didn’t help that we got shown both the unsub and the obviously soon-to-be next victim quite early on, and in the end I felt that this episode was not so good. I watched it, I wouldn’t say I was bored, but I wasn’t really excited either. It was pretty standard stuff, going from point A to point B, without any surprises, unexpected discovery, tension or mystery.
But at least there was (major) improvement over last week’s mess, so here’s hoping that next week will actually be a really good episode, because truth be told, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a really good, strong episode of Criminal Minds now…
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Criminal Minds
