Criminal Minds: Normal
By fred | December 18, 2008
(S04E11) Well, for their last case of the year the BAU sure picked up one hell of a case! In the past weeks we’ve had a few cases that allowed to dive into the life of the team and its members, but not all cases can have such a personal tone or allowed such “team moments” — sometimes action keeps rushing in and you gotta to act & react fast, and there’s no time for anything else.
That was pretty much the case this week, for a very great and solid case which didn’t leave much time for the team to do anything else but run after the new unsub, a guy who, as it turned out in the end, was actually all but normal.
As I said, lots of things happening this week, and starting with that first kill, which was pretty awesome! Not the kill in itself, but the way it was done, him just shooting the woman’s car and eventually sending it up in the air. Pretty impressive I thought, and adding to that that car chase in the end, this episode didn’t leave much time to breathe. (This is obviously not a complaint!)
One thing I didn’t really get though, but I’m not sure they actually gave us an answer to that : why did he had the gun with him, in the car, in the first place ?? He never intended to actually kill anyone, or did he? The way I understand it, he was surely crazy and going there, after all he did got himself a gun and loaded it up, but why did he had the gun like with him like that, wrapped up as a gift ? Was he planning on shooting his wife and everyone else at her party ?
Maybe, after all the guy was clearly crazy. Unless I got it wrong, I think he actually killed his entire family that very day, after the party. When we saw him walk to each of his daughter’s doors, what we didn’t get to see then, I believe, were the shootings. About that, how come no one heard the gunshots ? Not the neighbors, but not even the daughter? They’re all in rooms next door, and yet he can kill his wife, then his first daughter, and apparently no one ever woke up or nothing…
He killed everyone, and yet, after that, he still was seeing the women in his life around, resenting him and making fun of him when he confessed he was the killer. It was so strong that even after having actually done the “real thing” and killed his family, he kept looking for outlets like he still hadn’t managed to do it, probably because he thought he had not.
I have to say, I knew something was wrong with his third daughter, the only one we hadn’t seen at first, and I actually thought that all his kids were dead the first time we saw him looking at each doors (so, when he was actually killing them). But then we saw the other two, and it wasn’t until Hotch and the others walked into the house and smelled something bad that I realized he had kill everyone already, and was alone in that car. We had been told he was acting as if there was someone with him in the car while he was in fact alone earlier on, but I didn’t register that sooner.
What I didn’t like so much, though, was Jordan. We already had her screw up (lying to a family) before, and now she had to be all touchy and everything, and I have to admit that when she came almost yelling at Hotch in the middle of the streets asking is she had done this – as if she was the one who, on her own, decided to go do a press conference and came up with what to say, as if this wasn’t a team work with everyone, every member of the team, involved just as much as the other. Because when Jordan tried to tell her in previous episodes that if was not her and them, that she was part of the team like everybody else, I guess that never registered for her.. – she really started to annoy the Hell outta me!
Also, what the Hell was with Rossi calling her “kiddo” ?? I know they’re a team and get close and everything, but she’s only been here a few weeks and that felt out of place, as well as out of character for Rossi, I thought.
But hey, if this episode was action-packed and not leaving much time to breathe, once it was over we all had a nice surprise as our very own mommy-JJ came by! Just how cool was that ? And to see everyone smiling, including Hotch! And what about Prentiss and Garcia both going “Gas!” at the same time ? Very sweet scene right there.
So now, we’re done for the year. Next episode planned for January 14th! In the mean time, let us know what you thought if this episode in the comments below…
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Criminal Minds
