Criminal Minds: The Angel Maker
By fred | October 2, 2008
(S04E02) When this season opened, there were a lot of things that needed to be addressed, as we had been left hanging on a pretty big cliffhanger, the explosion of an SUV. Of course this needed to be addressed, and the rest of the ongoing case with it had to come to an end as well. And that’s exactly what they did, they caught the bad guy and put an end to the case.
But the thing is, there wasn’t much profiling going on. Lots of things happened, there was action and chases all over the place, but it didn’t really feel that much like an episode of the show, because usually here they are the brains of the investigation, they analyzes everything, they get into the mind of the unsub and make a profile that will eventually lead to his arrest. All that part had pretty much been done last season, and it was missed.
This week, for our great pleasure, it was all back!
Last week the show was back and, of course, we got to find out whose SUV it was that blew up, and what the consequences of this explosion would be for the team. While someone died, out team remains the same as before, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s changed after such traumatic events. Hotch was involved in the explosion, and is now suffering from it.
It was made clear to him that he should probably take a few days off and rest, but he wanted to go back to work despite medical advice, and so he did - promising to keep away from any (loud) noises of course, as otherwise he could risk to go deaf, permanently. And still, during this case only, Hotch was exposed to quite a few loud noises and other situations he shouldn’t have yet been exposed to.
First off, he flew with the rest of the team while he probably shouldn’t have, then there was the scene at the graveyard, and later on the gunshot. I have to say that I’m not sure where this is all going, but it looks to me as if Hotch was not only drowning himself in work (ever since his marriage went west it’s nothing new that he’s been working day and night), but quite careless about his health, too. I mean, of course the digging up was going to be noisy, he should have stayed in the back. And the same can be said about the gun shot, it is loud and he obviously knows it.
And since I knew that she was going to get out and have them kill her, so that she could join him in death, both being killed by the “same people”, he should have known it too, and walked down. It’s not like there was a need for him to be involved, the whole team was there and armed, so was the local police, he should have walked away.
Anyways, as for the case itself, it was a pretty fantastic episode we got there. There was plenty of misdirections planted here and there that made the whole thing very much unpredictable, I loved all the “beliefs” about the unsub being either a ghost or back from the dead, reinforced by the fact that no corpse was found. I also really liked how what Emily and Rossi told the crazy “lover” of the unsub got her to try to kill someone, trying her too to get closer to him by killing for him. She didn’t had a long “career” as criminal, but she was creepy alright!
And of course, even better that all the interactions with every member of the team, though there was plenty in that department to enjoy, I loved that Reid was fully back in Reid-mode, so to speak, despite a new haircut. Seeing things nobody else could, talking about twins and eviler-twins, decoding letters on his own, I just love it when he does those things, but the best line of the episode, absolutely hilarious, came from Emily. As Reid explained how he decoded the letters on his own because it ended up being faster than using a computer, she simply pinched his cheek and went “He’s so life-like!“
A pretty awesome episode, now we can really say that the show is fully back this season, better than ever!
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Criminal Minds
