Criminal Minds: Elephant’s Memory
By fred | April 17, 2008
(S03E16) So, here we go with a new episode of Criminal Minds. If there is one thing for sure that can be said about this season, it is that it will be a very odd one, and a very uneven one as well. The first episodes weren’t all very good, with the departure of Patinkin (Gideon), and for a moment there the show had some pretty weak and quite bad episodes. It got better, much better, up to a point where we’ve seen some of the best episodes of the season (so far), as well as maybe best of the series.
The show was fully back, and then the strike. And since it’s returned, episodes haven’t been as good a they used to be a few months ago, far from it. Some episodes were just terrible, while last week was better, it still wasn’t there. There definitely no question, this season will be pretty uneven, with many highs and lows…
This week’s episode ? Well, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it to tell you the truth, but it’s definitely in the highs. What I first want to say at this point is “Finally, a good episode!”
It’s been a while while since I’ve been waiting for a good new episode of the show, and this week it was finally there. From the very first seconds I had a good feeling, just because I do love Johnny Cash (then again, who doesn’t?). I also found it quite interesting, as well as a nice follow up on past episodes, to see Reid dealing with his addiction problems and the things he’s had to experience so far, like that time he couldn’t save the kid, indeed. (A great episode that was!)
Then for a moment I started to worry, that that plus him identifying with the unsub might lead to some over-the-top situations, or things that would feel too much, forced, or even ludicrous if it went too far. But I’m happy to report that it did not, it was all played quite nicely, though a bit predictable not completely out of clichés. It’s good to see characters having flaws, and it’s good to focus on Reid, which I always thought was a pretty interesting & complex character.
As the for case itself, while nothing out of the ordinary for the BAU it was still well done, nothing too obvious, nothing too quick, even though some things like the fact that the unsub didn’t take his girlfriend’s PDA away, though knowing that people would be looking for them and that they could use it to let her know what was actually going on, was a bit odd I thought. I know, it doesn’t ring unless it was one of two people, but one of them was going to be worried about her, and aware of the murders, and could have mentioned it. Why not take it away, or took her off the ringing list ?
But that, or how Reid sometimes seemed not to care that he crossed the line, that was never too much. In fact the couple of things that probably “annoyed” me the most during this episode, which will reveal how there wasn’t much bad, are :
- that when watching the video one of the two cops took with his phone, after the explosion, that last shot (before the credits) of his dead colleague couldn’t possibly have been taken by the phone. There’s no way, he was on the other side of the guy, and pointing his phone in the opposite direction ! It may be a detail, but somehow it seemed incredibly huge & obvious to me ! (So much that I had to rewind and make sure I didn’t got it wrong…)
- that for their first time on scene, when going over how the explosion went down, how & why it had been done, for some reason everyone wasn’t talking about “him” or “the unsub” as they usually would do, but said “they”. They knew he’d coming through that door: They knew he’d be smoking. Sounded odd to me that everyone would somehow assume, from the start, that we had to deal with more than one people. (And, really, we were not.) After all even terrorists sometimes act alone.
I really liked this episode. I don’t think I’d call it one of the best, but it was a good one. And I liked how Reid took it very personally, how it related both to his own childhood and what happened to him as a child, as well as now in his job, with his recent drug problems, how he let his own emotions took over and understood what was going through the unsub’s mind while unable to distinguish such analysis from his own feelings, which is why he thought things made sense while they did not.
In the end it was all very well done, and if you add some Johnny Cash on top of that, well, you just got yourself a pretty good episode of a pretty good show. I’m really happy that the show is finally back, now it just sucks we have to wait until we get to see another episode…
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Criminal Minds
