![]() Just watch him turning submissive and sycophantic to coax information out of alpha-male unsubs in “The Perfect Storm” and “The Tribe” - it’s startling and more than a little creepy.ĭowd falls for Hotch’s act and grants him a final request: Kicking the crap out of poor Reid. All the profilers do this sort of thing to some extent, particularly during interrogations, but Hotch (and Gideon, before Mandy Patinkin left the show) does it best. Drawing upon the information the team has gleaned from profiling Dowd, Hotch slips into a spiteful, bitter, Reid-hating persona to win his trust. This adds to the bizarre hilarity of the climax, in which Reid and Hotch are taken hostage by Dowd in a crowded hospital. Psych is a comedy, whereas Criminal Minds is decidedly not, but really, there’s only the merest whisper of a difference between Dowd and Lassiter. The unsub turns out to be Philip Dowd, a gun-crazy, narcissistic, paranoid ex-cop, played by Timothy Omundson, who is best known as gun-crazy, narcissistic, paranoid Detective Lassiter on Psych. The BAU investigates the shootings and deduces that their suspect has a background in law enforcement. Meanwhile, back at Quantico, gun-shy Reid falls into a funk after he botches his weapons qualifications exam, despite Hotch’s patient attempts to coach him at the shooting range. a long-distance serial killer, more commonly known as a sniper - shoots several random people in a park. With this bit of information, Gideon and the team track down the kidnapper, who turns out to be an agent at the local FBI field office, and recover the missing twin.Īn L.D.S.K. The team members react to the criticism: Reid is baffled, Hotch is unfazed, Elle and Morgan are disgruntled and secretly wounded, and crazy old Gideon is delighted, since the only way the unsub could know so much about them is if he’s someone close to the case. In general, exposition-heavy dialogue like this is a bad idea - information about characters should emerge through their speech and actions, not from the writers spelling it out for viewers - but this diatribe was a clever way to spotlight the flaws of the major characters in one fell swoop. Whipped into an apoplectic froth by this show of disrespect, the unsub calls back once more and launches into a venomous tirade, in which he provides his own spiteful - yet not inaccurate - profile of each team member: Gideon is arrogant and bonkers, Hotch is callous and ambitious, socially-maladroit genius Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) is borderline autistic, new recruit Elle Greenaway (Lola Glaudini) is out of her league in “the BAU Boys’ Club,” and hunky Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) is a “pumped-up side of beef” who desperately wants to be taken seriously. ![]() When the unsub (unknown subject) repeatedly tries to call back, Gideon disconnects each subsequent call as well, cutting him off in mid-sentence again and again. This is a rock-solid early episode, which makes my list largely on the strength of one outstanding scene: In an attempt to provoke the kidnapper into doing something reckless, lead profiler Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) intercepts a taunting phone call to the father of the twins… and hangs up on him. Here’s my list, warts and all, in chronological order:Īfter a young woman (Elisabeth Harnois) is kidnapped, the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) moves in to find her assailant and protect her twin sister, whom they suspect will be the next target. Grimness mixed with competence works like catnip on me, and FBI unit chief Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) is the most awesomely bleak character on television since Edward James Olmos scowled his way through five seasons of Miami Vice. I also have a discernable pro-Hotch bias. ![]() I rewatched Season One most recently, so it’s freshest in my head and thus is disproportionately represented. I make no claims that this list is either comprehensive or balanced. ![]() ![]() These are simply the ten episodes I view with the most fondness at this moment. In fact, some of these episodes are distinctly… ungood. One caveat: This is a Top Ten list, not a Ten Best list. They’re certainly attractive (two of the six current regular cast members - Shemar Moore and Matthew Gray Gubler - are former male models. Still, while the subject matter of the show doesn’t push my buttons, I sure do like the major characters. This is odd, since I’m pretty indifferent to both crime procedurals and shows or movies or books about serial killers. I’ve been on a Criminal Minds kick lately. ![]()
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