Review for Criminal Minds Episode 9×14, “200”
Review for Criminal Minds Episode 9×14, “200”
One fan’s take on it:
So okay. I’m going to preface this by saying that it’s going to be kind of visceral review, like from the gut. I’m not a journalist and I don’t pretend to be, and these are just my colloquial words as a fan. I could talk about this episode for days and not run out of things to say, both good and bad, but this is the short version. I’d like to hear your thoughts, too.
I don’t think I’ve seen such a polarizing episode in the entire history of the show, and I’ve been a fan since the first season. Viewers are loving/hating it in equal measure, and it is interesting to see. Why? Because this show has pulled off a unique feat in that it has managed to please a huge faction of its hard-core fans, while simultaneously alienating them.
“Super-JJ, not yet a profiler for the FBI (a domestic entity) is in on the hunt for Bin Laden? And what is STRAUSS (no offense, nice to see you Jayne but wtf?) doing there?”
“But Prentiss!” No matter how much our hearts warmed to see her, and I did tear up to see her back with our team where she belongs, the fact is, Garcia’s magic computer found JJ, not Emily (although she did help with the Blackbird hint). So why did Hotch need to call her in again?
Hotch was awesome, though. I thought it was great how he sicced everyone on everything he knew they’d be best at, our Unit Chief at his Chiefiest. He tried to go through channels, but when that failed he went in the back door. I love Aaron.
Despite the intensity of the events here no matter how unlikely, our team was strangely emotionless. Either everyone has had copious amounts of xanax and botox or there was just no time but everyone was oddly expressionless throughout the entire show, with the exception of JJ (and damn AJ, you BROUGHT IT), who definitely earned her showcase, the team was dry and stoic the entire time. It seemed like instead of being invested getting to JJ because she was one of their own, that they were out to ‘protect the President’ or something. The time crunch felt completely manufactured because they all of a sudden needed to get to her before she got raped? Oh, like the waterboarding, drugging, and electrocution portions of the torture were all par for the course? Come on.
Reid. I love Reid’s zippy, rapid-fire explanations and exposition. I’d listen, rapt, to that man whisper-translating the original Solaris. But this was JJ. They have a very special bond, which the show likes to tease us with periodically. I’d venture to say he’s been closer to JJ than any other woman in his life, save his mother and Maeve. So here he’s Mr. Roboto? Thank you very much – uh, no. Gubler has great facial expressions, but wasn’t allowed to use any of them here. Come on guys, we know you’re pushing the Willifer, but not even a determined grimace or a clenched fist from Reid (the perfunctory hug at the end felt forced and awkward), who went through nearly the exact same thing with Hankel? Leave it to the fandom to make a gifset of the similarities within a few hours:
Perhaps the most obvious bone of contention was that JJ went through all of that (by the way, in case you hadn’t heard, AJ was actually waterboarded. It wasn’t fake. They did it to her, and managed to get her full permission to do so. I have issues with this.), and then skippity foo, went out to the bar with the gang (who were inexplicably dressed in khaki everything – Garcia even had a camo vest on?) to have yet another round of drinks (just stop it writers) to say that everything was just hunky-dory. Um. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this woman has just been through (we know it was the same night because Emily was only there for six more hours) the worst torture imaginable, the most horrible of her life… and she goes out for a cocktail? All smiles playing kissy-face with her husband (who doesn’t even know she was pregnant and suffered a miscarriage) and cracking jokes? Eeesh. I hope we at least get to see how she processes the fallout from this experience in the coming episodes.
As a fan, I confess I resented so much of such an important episode being given to characters we neither know, nor care about. I needed to see some emotion from our crack team, and them faltering a little because of how much they love her. The inevitable comparisons to 100 set aside, I do think this milestone would have been better served if all of the writers had weighed in, like with the perfect, classic 100.
As much as the broad brush of Rick Dunkle likes to paint himself the expert, I think this particular task was beyond his range, and I would have liked to have seen some of Breen’s technical profiling skills, a LOT of Virgil’s trademark emotion, and some of Jim’s skillful team empathy tossed into the mix. There was a lot of explodey, a lot of big bang-bang extreme action (attributed no doubt to director Larry Teng’s ‘Michael Bay meets Hawaii 5-0’ style), it got the best ratings in a year, and it was very fast-paced… it just didn’t feel like CM.
And I love CM.