Criminal Minds: Demonology
By fred | March 12, 2009
(S04E17) On this show, we don’t have a star. It’s a team work, they’re all essential parts of the team and all have their own talent, each of them is bringing something different on the table and when they succeed in something, or when they fail, it’s always as a team. That being said, it’s not uncommon to have an episode focus more or less heavily on one of the group.
This week, that honor was attributed to Prentiss, as she had a direct connection with the case. There’s a rule, for every case that the BAU gets to work, it’s that they never initiate things, they need to be invited, to be asked to help on an existing case. We know it’s not always the case, sometimes cases have been brought up to their attention directly and they just made it their own (think George playing with Rossi, or Rossi ditching some fan of his books…) but they can’t just decide they like a case, and go after it.
However, this time it wasn’t the case, this time an old friend of Prentiss died, possibly in suspicious manners, and even though they hadn’t been asked for help, even though they wasn’t officially any case to being with, (and even though in the end the unsub had immunity and they had been told from higher ups not to come close,) the entire team was there for her, to help her, and looking into the case.
I’m not usually a fan of those kind of plots, involving exorcisms, when it’s been presented as if there could have been a supernatural force behind it, as if victims might have been been possessed and/or their deaths not be planned murders, but this week didn’t really go that way, so it was okay. More importantly, this episode wasn’t as much about exorcism as it was about Emily - whom Hotch did call by her first name, was that a first? Felt that way, like to reinforce he was addressing her as a friend and not as her boss.
She’s always been secretive and we don’t know much about her and her past, but this week we got to find out a lot. She had this terrible burden, back from when she was a teenager. Apparently her teenage years were far from happy, and she even doubted to be worthy of love or friendship. But then came Matthew, a good friend who was there for her, stood up for her, and showed her she was indeed worthy of it all.
But after that, he started doubted a religion who would reject people, like Emily, when they should do just the opposite and support them. He started to question everything, and later he went into drugs, and had a messy life, something which Emily (wrongly) blamed herself for. And when she found out he was dead, there’s no question she was affected.
Acting is never bad on this show, but it was particularly brilliant this week, and to see her completely drained out when she came back to talk to Garcia, or to see her put her hand on her old friend’s hair, was something. All the way through you could see how she was in an emotionally raw state, always ready to slip, to attack, or just to fall apart.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Criminal Minds
