Criminal Minds: Omnivore
By fred | March 19, 2009
(S04E18) The BAU does have its ups and downs, and not every case makes for an interesting episode. Certainly the value of a case, or an episode, does not only depend on the team, but also the unsub. Whether he’s good or not, fascinating or not, smart or not. I don’t know if we can go as far as saying the unsub is everything, but the better the unsub, the better the episode.
And this week, this week the BAU was confronted with an unsub like you don’t meet every day, one true mastermind that is a really strong enemy for our guys. He’s not the stupid pretentious crap like the guy who shows up and gets arrested on demand, playing his revenge on the team, or Rossi, a guy soaking in his own ego so much it’s boring, especially when it fails to deliver.
No, this is the real deal, this is much, much better. If the value of an episode is based on its unsub, it’s no wonder this was one of the best episode of the season, as what we had there was probably one of the best unsubs of the entire series! I know, maybe when he insisted on how long it took to stab someone 67 times I should have been suspicious, but I honestly wasn’t, and I didn’t see that twist coming at all.
But even if you had, the better twist wasn’t that his identity, but that he had it all planned from the start. He wanted to be caught this time, because he wanted the journalist to know the entire truth, and to write a book about him, revealing the full extent of his genius, and he wanted to be arrested, so that he could escape and have his face on TV, turning him into a star, making him more famous than anybody ever suspected. He wanted them not to have a choice to ignore him, he wanted to force the media to put the light on him, and dedicate hours of broadcast and plenty of books about him and his killings — and so he did.
This guy was brilliant (in a very twisted way, I’m not endorsing his actions or nothing), he might even be better than Kevin Spacey’s John Doe in Se7en, because not only do he get to work the cops as he wanted, he way playing with some serious bad ass who deal with such criminals every day of the week, and he got his plan to work as he wanted to : he made it out, alive, and won’t be caught. He’ll be famous, and he’ll be alive to enjoy it!
Which is why I really hope we never hear from it again, ever. It would be easy to bring him back, later on this season or the next, and to have Dereck’s credentials show up again, but I hope they will never go there. Because the story is much better as it is now, with an epic fail for the BAU, a killer running free, no happy ending of any kind. It’s a lot more true to life that way, and I hope writers won’t screw up this wonderful episode by adding a follow-up later on, which could only be a disappointment.
Other good things about this episode? Well, there were plenty, starting with Hotch of course. Loved to see him working this case, loved to see his “guilt” fill in after he hang up the phone with the killer, and even more so when he discovered the bus. Also, and as much as I may not like Rossi, I loved their talk then. This time Rossi was perfectly in character, did and said exactly what you would expect an old timer like him to do and say, and I believe he was the best choice this time.
Prentiss should have had her talk with someone else, for many reasons, but here it couldn’t have been anyone else but Rossi. As he said, he’s probably been there himself, he knows you have to let things go, and others will come to replace you. His references to his retirement or of course Gideon felt perfectly in place, and couldn’t/wouldn’t have worked from somebody else, I don’t think, or not as well. Plus, how great was not just that talk, but the joke about his many wives after wards?
Bad things about the episode? Not many. Maybe two. One would be the use of JJ, Prentiss and Morgan. JJ was there at first, and for the final twist, but in the middle she just pretty much disappeared. And for Prentiss and Morgan it’s different, they were pretty much nowhere to be seen (after the plane) until the end. Maybe it was for the Hotch/Rossi exchange to appear more natural, but it was often those two, maybe Reid, but with everyone else in the back, almost not involved. Seemed a bit odd maybe at times, maybe.
The other thing would be Dereck’s survival. For one thing, their attempt to make us think he might have been shot just couldn’t work for one second, but I didn’t really buy it, that he would not kill him, just because he couldn’t “play” with him, because he wasn’t conscious. The people on the bus, he just shot them dead, no time spent with them. The old lady in the car, just shot dead, no time to play here either.
Sure, maybe sometimes he liked to play with his victim, take his time, and stab them 67 times, but Dereck isn’t an hot 20-something girl, so I fail to see the need for him to be alive so that he could be killed. And so far, none of his victims ever made it alive (really none, since the only one who did wasn’t a victim, but himself), never, and he wasn’t afraid to kill cops either – since he just did seconds before getting face to face with Dereck.
Anyways, overall this was a pretty fantastic episode, and some awesome unsub. Might have been a major fail for the team, but for the show this was a superb win!
What did everybody else think?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Criminal Minds
I agree that this was by far the best episode of the entire season (despite that Prentiss is my favorite character and we barely got to see her in it). But anyway… this was an exciting, unpredictable, entertaining, amazing episode. I did not see the twist coming, although I did have some kind of feeling that the guy with the glasses (I don’t remember his name) had something to do with it (I originally thought he was starting up the killings again, but I never thought he was the original killer). But one thing I don’t agree on is that you said not to have a follow up episode. I am certainly hoping that they do… that would be absolutely amazing… like you said to have Morgan’s credentials show up and have reactions of the public and stuff. Just thinking about that situation in general, I can’t see how the next episode won’t be able not to mention it somewhere. Something like that, unfortunately for you, does not just go away. I guarantee Hotchner will refrence to it, or still be guilty, and so on, for quite some time. I am really hoping for a follow up episode really, really soon. This would make a great movie!!!! A+++++ for this episode!
I think only a few of us are hoping he doesn’t come back, but I feel the same way for the same reasons. It’s an epic fail, and I wanted an epic fail. And, I agree it would diminish this whole episode, where he had them played from the start. And, bringing him back would make a lot of things said pointless -saying they won’t find him. Hotch telling Morgan he had to find a way to live with it. Dealing with defeat gets pushed away if they just get another shot at beating him.
Hotch is my favorite character, so I loved this episode and loved Hotch’s scene with Rossi -for all the Hotch goodness, since I do not like Rossi.
As far as leaving Morgan alive, I don’t think it was because he couldn’t play with him so much as he couldn’t see his fear. The older woman in the car was killed quickly, but she was still screaming in terror, trying to get away. The people on the bus were also obviously afraid. He couldn’t get any fear or shock or anything from Morgan. So I believed that he wouldn’t kill him.
Yeah exactly, a follow-up episode would only diminish this one, doesn’t matter which way it goes and what happens, it’s much better to leave things unresolved as they are now. Of course, that doesn’t mean Hotch and Morgan and everyone else can’t still think about it, reference it, talk about it, obsess over it… obviously.