Criminal Minds & CSI: NY
Okay, I'm late as usual, but here's my reviews. I mostly really loved Criminal Minds. I was too nervous for most of CSI: NY to really enjoy it, and I know I didn't really appreciate the actual case because I was consumed by the B plot. Details under the cuts, obviously there are spoilers.
Criminal Minds: 3x12, Limelight
Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
Overall, I liked this episode a lot. Rossi is finally starting to develop into a character I think I can enjoy, the pathology of the killer wasn't quite as interesting as it sometimes is, but Agent Jill Morris' story was. I enjoyed the premise.
The opening is fairly powerful, but theirs usually are. I really like the image of these two men sorting through the pieces of someone's life. It all seems fairly mundane, and then, just when they think they've found the valuable whatever in this mess of knick-knacks and outdated furniture they instead find bondage porn and detailed descriptions, often including diagrams of how to abduct, torture, rape, and eventually kill a woman.
I'm less thrilled with the first glimpse of the team. Rossi gets a fax of some of these papers. We learn that the agent in the Philadelphia field office doesn't actually know him, but knows of him. It's kind of implied that she's sort of a groupie, probably because of his books and that there are way more of these at the FBI than Rossi himself is comfortable with. Reid, wanders over and reads part of them over Rossi's shoulder and points out that they're probably fantasies because the verb is future tense. Rossi and Hotch both seem to pretty much ignore him while they discuss the merits of the case. Rossi says that he'd like to drive down there and take a look at the rest before he makes up his mind. Hotch says to take Reid with him. It's at this point that I have a bit of an issue. Reid is like some kind of overgrown, English-speaking puppy at this news as he leaps around, excited about the "road-trip," and grabs his tapes of the "Foundation Trilogy," read by Peter Coyote. Rossi looks torn between extreme annoyance and genuine affection. I know they've been making Reid a little more animated this season with things like scaring Morgan at Halloween, but this seems way way over-the-top. Reid's always been excitable, but it's usually about knowledge, not about doing things. On top of that, on the still fairly rare occasion where we've seen this child-like side of him in the past it has always been with one of the long-standing team members (usually Morgan, occasionally Elle or Gideon when they were both still on the show). I can't see him acting that way with Prentiss and he's known her a lot longer than he's known Rossi. Besides, based on their introduction of Rossi it's fairly clear that he has a bit of hero-worship of his own for the guy. While it made him babble on about Rossi's work in that first episode, I would also think it would mean he wanted to appear more focused on the job with him rather than less. It just felt wildly out of character to me. I didn't like it, and I'm particularly sensitive to them making Reid do things that I perceive as out of character, because he is my favorite. (except of course for when my favorite is Morgan)
Jill Morris is clearly awed by Rossi, but she also, just as clearly, thinks she has stumbled upon a career-making case. We learn that the storage unit was rented in a fake name, and they always paid cash. It was auctioned because it was six months delinquent. After some brief discussion, she takes Reid and Rossi to a room that she's set aside for their use. There are boxes and boxes of materials in it. Rossi mentions that he doesn't understand why the unit would become delinquent when everything he's seen so far points to a highly ordered personality. He's meticulous.
We get a big kind of nice montage of the Reid and Rossi studying what's in the boxes. They're very careful about it. They check everything about the papers, holding them up to strong lights to inspect them. What we assume is much, much later, Rossi leaves and finds Jill still in her office. She asks what he thinks. He tells her that while this individual was clearly disturbed there's no evidence that he ever acted on his fantasies. He tells her that he and Reid are going back to Quantico where there are real cases with real bodies. She argues that she's certain there will be bodies, and he tells her to call him when she finds one. She calls him back into the office, and tells him that there was something else in those boxes. She hands over a plastic evidence bag with some blonde hair in it. She's read his books. She knows that serial killers will take these kinds of things before killing. Rossi says he'll call the team. I knew here that there was something not quite right about Jill. She was withholding her strongest piece of evidence, hoping it seemed, to not have to use it to coerce him into bringing the team.
The case is divided up once the whole team is there. Morgan and Prentiss are sent to the storage unit to sort through the other items that are there, the childhood things and mementos, hoping to find some clues. some prints had been found earlier, but there were no matches in AFIS. Hotch, Reid, and Rossi stay at the field office to go back over the written materials looking for a signature that they can use to match against open cases. Reid says he thinks that will be difficult because the unsub seemed to want to try everything. Hotch basically tells him to try anyway, to look for patterns in the writing.
Morgan and Prentiss make a bet. Whoever makes the best insight is owed lunch by the other. Early on, things are looking good for Prentiss. She looks through the childhood art. She determines he's probably caucasian with blonde hair. She also sees that at some point the mother disappears and things begin to deteriorate. She theorizes that he may have first been exposed to these kinds of sexual fantasies as an adolescent, perhaps through pornography that belonged to his father.
At the field office, they note that the earliest magazine is a 1982 Hustler and very tame compared to the more recent additions to the collection. Hotch says it was probably a trigger. Rossi brings up his interview with Bundy and a correlation he made to his early exposure to pornography and his later killings. Hotch finishes the statement and says that he's read Dave's books too, something that seems to almost embarass Rossi.
At the storage unit, Morgan comes across a few textbooks that lead him to conclude that the unsub is in a fix-it line of work. He then finds a box with several dresses in it. They are all different sizes and have all been altered. Prentiss admits that she's been beat. The unsub crossdresses, and the dresses are probably from the women he has killed.
Reid tells Rossi and Hotch that he thinks he has found the trigger. The unsub seems particularly excited about electrocution. Rossi pats him on the head like a good puppy and he scampers off. Sorry, that was a bit too sarcastic. Rossi tells him he did a good job and it makes Reid get this ridiculously pleased look.
JJ finds them a victim. She was a real estate agent who had gone to show a house. This was 5 years ago. She was later found dead in the cellar. She'd been strangled, raped, and she was covered in electrical burns. Her clothes were not recovered and Morgan talks about the cross-dressing. Jill is almost creepy in her excitement over this guy. Rossi asks if any of her hair was missing and JJ says it wasn't in the report if it was.
Rossi and Hotch go to check out the initial crime scene. The current owner doesn't look to happy to find the FBI on his doorstep but he lets them into the cellar. He says they never go down there. it floods when it rains and the electricity is all messed up. They go down. The light doesn't work, but they have flashlights. They decide that she was probably suspended, like in the drawings he did by two large beams. The walls are thick and the neighbors are a good distance away, so nobody would hear her scream. They aren't sure where he got the electricity to burn her. The burns didn't conform to cattle prods or tasers. Eventually they find an outlet that has been tampered with. He knew enough about electricity to use what was already in the house.
JJ goes to tell Jill that Hotch and Rossi are back. She notes the awards littering every wall and surface of the office. Jill waves off any signifcance attached to them. She asks JJ what she thinks of some names that are written on a white board. They're things like AC/DC killer. Again, it's almost creepy the way Jill talks about it. JJ tells her that they really don't do things like that, they try not to mythologize the unsubs. She also tells her that they don't even know he is a serial killer yet. Prentiss shows up to correct her. They do know, because Garcia has found them more bodies.
After studying the 3 cases that Garcia found, Reid concludes that there are probably 19 more kills between 2005 (the latest incident) and now. He also says that there may not be any bodies to find, given that the unsub wrote about building a homemade incinerator. Jill leaves them (Morgan and Reid) and tells them to keep her posted. Morgan asks Reid when she leaves, "She does know we don't work for her, right?" Reid just shrugs. This is the only real moment of Morgan and Reid together this episode, which is disappointing for me.
The team is giving their profile to the agents and detectives working the case when JJ interrupts them. She turns on a TV and Jill is giving a press conference. The team watches in kind of vague fascination and horror. Meanwhile, someone, presumably our unsub is also watching. He clicks off the TV and walks away as she's finishing up.
Later Hotch confronts her. He tells her that she should have consulted them. And she makes some noise about how it wasn't a press conference and it's her case. Hotch reminds her that every one of his agents outranks her. She says that it would have eventually leaked out anyway, and she's just trying to protect her city from a serial killer every bit as prolific as Cullen. Hotch throws out some other names that she doesn't recognize. He tells her that they're Cullen's victims, that they're the people who are forgotten when an agent puts a story ahead of a case, and that the bureau doesn't need any more agents like that. Rossi caught the beginning of this dressing down picking up a fax and he stays and listens to the whole thing with a somewhat pained look.
Reid, Morgan, and Prentiss are eating at a diner and discussing Jill. Reid says he finds her excitement a little disturbing. Morgan mentions the board with the names that JJ saw, and Prentiss says that they're just saying these things because she's a woman. They say if Jill were a man, they'd say she had balls. I was just starting to like Prentiss well enough, but this reminds me of all the reasons that I don't like her. It's an absurd statement that anyone who knows them should know better than to make. First of all, I think they'd both be just as disturbed by a man making the same bad calls (the press conference and the naming) and Reid certainly wouldn't be any less disturbed by a man who was that excited about a serial killer. Frankly he might be more disturbed. Beyond that, when has Reid especially ever done anything to make Prentiss think that he is at all sexist. Morgan maybe, but definitely not Reid. I'm just annoyed that she tries to take a really and truly concerning situation and make it be all about sexism. Anyway, still in this scene, Reid says that he isn't having any real luck with a geographical profile, but he believes that the unsub will start killing closer to home soon. They all realize that to catch him there is probably going to have to be a fresh kill.
Jill shows up at Rossi's hotel room door, offering an apology and a drink. Reluctantly, Rossi goes to have a drink with her. She seems to think, like Prentiss, that the only reason anything she has done got to people (people meaning Hotch) is because they don't like "female ambition." I find it no less annoying, but at least more realistic coming from her. Of course she isn't creeped out by her own excitement, and if she truly thought it was wrong, I don't think she would have done it. So the whole sexism thing makes sense coming from her. Rossi, quite correctly profiles her, and says that he remembers giving a lecture at the academy the year she says she was there. She remembers, she sat in the third row and had a crush on him. Rossi was a star, for the inroads he made into publishing and consulting. Rossi asks if her hair was longer and blonder then. She thinks he remembers her, but he assures her that he doesn't. It was her hair in the evidence bag. She says it was all for the greater good, because she was right. Rossi tells her that he sees a lot of himself in her. He hurt a lot of people and burned a lot of bridges to get where he did, and he doesn't want to see her make the same mistakes. She doesn't seem to take his criticism seriously. Rossi tells her to get some sleep because her press conference will bury them tomorrow. She doesn't understand why (proving to me that she isn't smart enough to be in that position).
The next day, Rossi was clearly right. For every person who has gone missing in years and years in the Philadelphia area, some family member has shown up to talk to someone. Along with a lot of the agents from the field office, at least Reid, Prentiss, and JJ are also talking with these people. One couple is looking for their daughter who disappeared not too long ago. They have a picture of her in the dress she disappeared in. Meanwhile we see a man, wearing the dress and listening to recordings of torture on a computer. He's repeating the victims words softly, and walking around, stroking the dress. It's fairly creepy.
There have also been a fairly massive number of "tips" phoned in. One catches their attention. A man, in an extraordinarily calm voice says that his car broke down and he saw a man digging a whole for a body, "a bleeder stripped of its clothes." One of them assumes that this means that there were visible wounds, but Reid recognizes the term from the unsubs writings. He refers to women as bleeders because of the menstrual cycle which he sees as a weakness. They're pretty certain, as a group, that this call came from the unsub.
Prentiss and Morgan go to check the site. The body has already been exposed. It's remarkably well preserved because of the recent cold weather, and Morgan immediately notices the burn marks. They direct the ME to try to identify her through dental records as quickly as possible. They start to leave, but are called back. When the body is removed from the hole, there is a hand sticking out from the ground beneath.
Prentiss doesn't get why he would lead them right to two bodies. After some discussion the group determines that first, he wants them to be looking for him, and second he is trying to lead them through his kills chronologically, and he's writing the final chapter now.
A clearly professional woman calls someone (boyfriend or husband) cancelling dinner plans for the evening. Just after she hangs up the phone, a big truck plows into the back of her car. She gets out and so does the guy. They agree to exchange insurance information, and while her back is turned he knocks her over the head with something.
The team discovers the identities of the two bodies in the grave. Both women were reported missing on the same day. The unsub has graduated to doing doubles, increasing the challenge by taking two women in a single day.
Someone comes and tells Jill that she has a call from a reporter. She leaves to take the call and Morgan asks as she's leaving if she's planning another press conference. Jill clearly knows the reporter, Katrina (the same name as the woman who was abducted in the last scene), and tells her that she can't give her anything right now. Katrina tells her that she's calling because she has something for her and tells her to check her e-mail. She does and finds a note, handwritten, that looks remarkably similar to the writings of the unsub. It's not one they already have. Katrina asks Jill to meet her. Jill asks if she's okay, because she sounds funny. Katrina says she's fine and asks again for Jill to meet her. Jill agrees. We see the unsub take the phone away from Katrina's ear and snap it closed.
Rossi, Hotch, Morgan, and Reid are working when JJ comes in with a picture. It's a missing person that she thinks might fit the profile. One of them notices that the hair is similar to what was found in the storage unit and suggests that JJ have them run a DNA profile. Rossi tells them that it won't match and admits that he knew that Jill faked that evidence. Hotch is horrified. Reid, Morgan, and JJ stay very quiet, while Rossi explains that he sees himself in her. Hotch says that Jill is nothing like Rossi. Rossi says that he knows other agents think he crossed a line when he published, that he knows that he's one of those guys who made the killers famous while everyone forgot the names of the victims. It's fairly clear that he thinks Hotch was talking about him when he was confronting Jill earlier. About that time, Prenitss comes in with information about a woman just reported missing. Her car was found idling on a street. She gives the woman's name and occupation. Rossi recognizes the name from the call Jill took earlier and goes to find Jill. He goes to her office, and Reid follows. The letter from the unsub is still up. Rossi asks Reid if it's one that they have. Reid shows off his eidetic memory by reading the first line and saying it's not. Rossi says that Jill is the unsub's "final chapter."
In the meantime, we see Jill in a parking garage, apparently waiting for Katrina to meet her. We see her abduction. Her cell phone is on the ground.
At the field office, they have just tracked the cell phone to a stationary location. Reid and Rossi go to check it out. In the meantime, Garcia calls Morgan to let him know that she's traced the IP address that the email came from to an Internet cafe. He goes to check it out. Rossi is blaming himself for Jill's abduction. Reid says he couldn't have known she would go off on her own like that, and Rossi says that he did, because it's what he would have done.
We see Jill and Katrina both bound, but Katrina is already being tortured.
Hotch interviews a guy at the internet cafe and finally gets a description of a guy and that he may have left in a white van.
The unsub has moved on to Jill whom he tells to beg him not to hurt her. She refuses, and he says she will before it's over.
Reid's got enough information for a geological profile now. He makes a triangular shaped area, and the unsub should be inside of it. With Garcia's help they narrow it down using electricians and the knowledge that he was driving a white van. They get an address.
The unsub is binding Jill to a mattress frame when they hear the agents enter the house above them. It's over, but the unsub strokes Jill's hair and tells her it will never be over for them. The team comes in and take down the unsub. Hotch checks Katrina, and calls for a medic both on the radio and out loud. Rossi unties Jill who is crying and lets him comfort her. She says she's sorry.
The unsub doesn't speak. But he has admitted to killing 17 people on their list of missing people and they aren't through. He just points at the ones that he killed. He isn't giving up any information on location of remains.
At the hospital, Jill is being released. Rossi is trying to convince her take a few days. She is insistent that she's not a victim, and Rossi says she's already showing the early signs of denial. He's clearly worried about her, she didn't even ask about Katrina. She ignores him and walks out. He tells her that Katrina is dead, and that changes something in her look, but she keeps walking.
There is a swarm of reporters outside the hospital, and she visibly composes herself and walks over to start answering their questions. Rossi watches her for awhile before getting into his SUV and driving away. It's pretty clear she hasn't learned any real lesson from all of this.
Sadly, this was the last episode, probably of the season. It was the last one filmed with scripts completed before the writer's strike. It does appear that it has already been picked up for a fourth season, though, so that's a good thing. Also maybe the lack of new episodes will make me actually write the massive # of fics I have prompts for in this fandom.
CSI NY: 4x13, All in the Family
Written by Daniele Nathanson & Noah Nelson
I have far fewer coherent thoughts on this episode, largely because I spent the latter half filled with bone-chilling terror that they might be writing Danny out of the series. And I'm not completely over it yet. The episode did not end on a high note for him. I love Mac. Gary Sinise was my whole reason to watch the series in the first place, and Don has really grown on me, but Danny is my favorite. He has been for a long while now, and with the exception of the original CSI (which has only written out a character that I hated, but did remove Greg's personality so I guess it kind of evens out) the franchise has a habit of getting rid of people I love. The only character I ever gave a damn about on CSI: Miami was Speed. I adored Aiden and they killed her too.
Anyway, that makes this one much less re-cap like than the Criminal minds review, but here it is.
The A-plot is pretty simple. A girl is dead. She was buying flowers, and she seems to have been killed by a shotgun blast. There's a tooth fragment caught in her skin. The shot seems to have come from above, and Mac traces it to a gargoyle with some damage. Mac and Don are on the roof when they get notice that there's another homicide a few buildings away. Don and Mac run over the rooftops and go to this second scene. A family court judge has been murdered, but COD appears to be blunt force trauma. He wasn't shot, but it still seems a bit too much of a coicidence. He was found by his daughter, and I think her boyfriend and his friend. She seems really broken up.
As they investigate, it becomes ever more clear that the two cases are connected. They at first suspect a downstairs neighbor who the judge was trying to get evicted. The reason is that they find a black-oil sunflower seed hull in the judge's home, and this guy had lots of birds that he fed just those seeds. Then there's a contractor whose divorce was presided over by the judge. He had threatened the judge. He admits to being there and to threatening the judge, but says he didn't kill him. He has an alibi. He went and yelled at his ex-wife who called the cops. He was with them at the time of death. Then, they suspect the daughter. She had wanted to go and live with her mom after her parents' divorce, but her dad used his connections in the court system to get custody. Also, she has no real alibi. She says she was just out walking around until she met the boys at the movie theatre. And they don't think that the boys had anything to do with it, because they went to the movie, got popcorn and then later met the girl after the film. That changes when they find popcorn grease on the shower curtain. They had already realized that whoever killed the judge must have stripped and then showered to get rid of the blood. The boys are really brothers who were taken from their father who was doing a good job of caring for them, according to them, he just wasn't home much because he had to work 3 or 4 jobs. Their dad has just recently died. The elder brother swears that he did it all, that his brother was just there. Oh, they snuck out a back way from the theatre.
They were going to shoot the judge, but the shotgun didn't work properly. After they cleaned up they tossed it off the roof of the building with the gargoyle. It hit the gargoyle and went off, killing the girl who was shopping for flowers. The daughter had nothing to do with it.
The B plot starts when Lindsay asks Flack to check on Danny for her. He was supposed to be at work a couple of hours ago, but he hasn't shown up and he's not answering his phone. She's going to cover for him with Mac, say he called in sick with the flu.
Danny is just going off shift, but he agrees to go by Danny's place and check up on him. He goes, and has the building super let him into Danny's apartment (with a well-placed threat). Danny isn't there, and more troubling, his gun is gone. His computer is on and open to a page that shows that the guy who robbed the bodega where Ruben Sandoval was killed has been released on bond. There is also a copy of the paper from Ruben's memorial service. Don notices some impressions from writing on it.
Don goes back to the lab and has Lindsay do a thing to let them see what was written. It's a phone number. Don calls it, and it's the number to a bail bondsman. Don goes off to that place and finds Danny there. He asks Danny what he thinks he's doing. Danny explains that he's not going after the guy, Barnes. His neighbor, Rikki, Ruben's mother is going after him, and she took his gun. Don wants Danny to report his gun stolen right now, but Danny won't do it. Don agrees to help him try to find Rikki using the information he got from the Bail bondsman. He says if they don't find her in 4 hours he's reporting it. Danny agrees and gives him half the list. I have to mention Danny's motorcycle here, because I love it.
So after Don has been all the places on his list, he tries to call Danny, but he doesn't answer his phone. He calls and asks for a location trace on Danny's cell phone, which he gets. When he gets there, Danny has already seen both Barnes and Rikki and is following them. Don follows Danny. Everyone's moving pretty quickly. Danny catches up, and Rikki has the gun pulled on Barnes and is yelling at him. She of course blames him for Ruben's death (even though he didn't actually make the shot that killed Ruben, someone in the bodega did, but I can't remember if it was the owner or his sister, I think it was the sister). Danny steps between them, and says that he's the one who is really at fault. All he had to do was stay with Ruben and he could have saved him. Rikki of course can't kill him, and they take the gun away. Don is there, trying to talk the whole situation down when Barnes does a very stupid thing and makes some crack about Rikki. Danny starts to beat on him, but Don pulls him off and tells the other guy to go. Then he tells Danny that they have to make this official. They have to get it on the record because Barnes is almost certainly already on the phone with his lawyer. Danny says he can't turn her in, that he's taking her home. Don says he'll be at his desk. He's giving Danny an hour and then he's doing what he has to do.
It's fairly clear that he's just about given up on Danny and Rikki showing up to make the report when they walk through the door. Don's already called ahead. She's going to be walked through the process. It will be as painless as is possible, and she won't even spend the night in jail. Danny isn't altogether pleased about it, but he starts to leave anyway. Don tells Danny that he has to stop blaming himself for Ruben's death. Danny looks like he's about to cry when he asks how he's supposed to do that. Poor Danny.
The good part about this episode was the Danny and Don interaction. At one point, Danny tells Don that it's none of his business and tries to get rid of him. Don answers, with his own sad puppy dog look that Danny is his friend and that makes it his business. They're one of the bigger pairings, possibly the biggest pairing these days, but I'd never really seen it. They're friends, good friends even, but not anything else. I might be willing to change my mind after Wednesday's episode. There was a fair amount of subtext there, and even though they aren't my pairing, I desperately want the post-ep tag where Don goes to comfort Danny. So, here's hoping someone writes it, because I certainly won't be. It looks like there's one episode left, scheduled to air February sixth.
I haven't watched this week's Atlantis yet. We didn't get home from my brother's until after 1 AM, and I couldn't have watched it until after 4. Mom had other things to record at 9, and I made the idiotic mistake of setting the stop time as 12 PM instead of 12 AM which meant the tape wouldn't stop recording until it hit the end about 4 AM, because I set it to record until noon on Saturday. I'll try to get around to watching today, but it may be tomorrow or even Monday (because tomorrow is the Democratic bean feed). So it will probably be Monday or Tuesday before I get that review up. Anyway, I'm off to check a couple of people's journals for updates and then to work on my heroes_fest story.
Criminal Minds: 3x12, Limelight
Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
Overall, I liked this episode a lot. Rossi is finally starting to develop into a character I think I can enjoy, the pathology of the killer wasn't quite as interesting as it sometimes is, but Agent Jill Morris' story was. I enjoyed the premise.
The opening is fairly powerful, but theirs usually are. I really like the image of these two men sorting through the pieces of someone's life. It all seems fairly mundane, and then, just when they think they've found the valuable whatever in this mess of knick-knacks and outdated furniture they instead find bondage porn and detailed descriptions, often including diagrams of how to abduct, torture, rape, and eventually kill a woman.
I'm less thrilled with the first glimpse of the team. Rossi gets a fax of some of these papers. We learn that the agent in the Philadelphia field office doesn't actually know him, but knows of him. It's kind of implied that she's sort of a groupie, probably because of his books and that there are way more of these at the FBI than Rossi himself is comfortable with. Reid, wanders over and reads part of them over Rossi's shoulder and points out that they're probably fantasies because the verb is future tense. Rossi and Hotch both seem to pretty much ignore him while they discuss the merits of the case. Rossi says that he'd like to drive down there and take a look at the rest before he makes up his mind. Hotch says to take Reid with him. It's at this point that I have a bit of an issue. Reid is like some kind of overgrown, English-speaking puppy at this news as he leaps around, excited about the "road-trip," and grabs his tapes of the "Foundation Trilogy," read by Peter Coyote. Rossi looks torn between extreme annoyance and genuine affection. I know they've been making Reid a little more animated this season with things like scaring Morgan at Halloween, but this seems way way over-the-top. Reid's always been excitable, but it's usually about knowledge, not about doing things. On top of that, on the still fairly rare occasion where we've seen this child-like side of him in the past it has always been with one of the long-standing team members (usually Morgan, occasionally Elle or Gideon when they were both still on the show). I can't see him acting that way with Prentiss and he's known her a lot longer than he's known Rossi. Besides, based on their introduction of Rossi it's fairly clear that he has a bit of hero-worship of his own for the guy. While it made him babble on about Rossi's work in that first episode, I would also think it would mean he wanted to appear more focused on the job with him rather than less. It just felt wildly out of character to me. I didn't like it, and I'm particularly sensitive to them making Reid do things that I perceive as out of character, because he is my favorite. (except of course for when my favorite is Morgan)
Jill Morris is clearly awed by Rossi, but she also, just as clearly, thinks she has stumbled upon a career-making case. We learn that the storage unit was rented in a fake name, and they always paid cash. It was auctioned because it was six months delinquent. After some brief discussion, she takes Reid and Rossi to a room that she's set aside for their use. There are boxes and boxes of materials in it. Rossi mentions that he doesn't understand why the unit would become delinquent when everything he's seen so far points to a highly ordered personality. He's meticulous.
We get a big kind of nice montage of the Reid and Rossi studying what's in the boxes. They're very careful about it. They check everything about the papers, holding them up to strong lights to inspect them. What we assume is much, much later, Rossi leaves and finds Jill still in her office. She asks what he thinks. He tells her that while this individual was clearly disturbed there's no evidence that he ever acted on his fantasies. He tells her that he and Reid are going back to Quantico where there are real cases with real bodies. She argues that she's certain there will be bodies, and he tells her to call him when she finds one. She calls him back into the office, and tells him that there was something else in those boxes. She hands over a plastic evidence bag with some blonde hair in it. She's read his books. She knows that serial killers will take these kinds of things before killing. Rossi says he'll call the team. I knew here that there was something not quite right about Jill. She was withholding her strongest piece of evidence, hoping it seemed, to not have to use it to coerce him into bringing the team.
The case is divided up once the whole team is there. Morgan and Prentiss are sent to the storage unit to sort through the other items that are there, the childhood things and mementos, hoping to find some clues. some prints had been found earlier, but there were no matches in AFIS. Hotch, Reid, and Rossi stay at the field office to go back over the written materials looking for a signature that they can use to match against open cases. Reid says he thinks that will be difficult because the unsub seemed to want to try everything. Hotch basically tells him to try anyway, to look for patterns in the writing.
Morgan and Prentiss make a bet. Whoever makes the best insight is owed lunch by the other. Early on, things are looking good for Prentiss. She looks through the childhood art. She determines he's probably caucasian with blonde hair. She also sees that at some point the mother disappears and things begin to deteriorate. She theorizes that he may have first been exposed to these kinds of sexual fantasies as an adolescent, perhaps through pornography that belonged to his father.
At the field office, they note that the earliest magazine is a 1982 Hustler and very tame compared to the more recent additions to the collection. Hotch says it was probably a trigger. Rossi brings up his interview with Bundy and a correlation he made to his early exposure to pornography and his later killings. Hotch finishes the statement and says that he's read Dave's books too, something that seems to almost embarass Rossi.
At the storage unit, Morgan comes across a few textbooks that lead him to conclude that the unsub is in a fix-it line of work. He then finds a box with several dresses in it. They are all different sizes and have all been altered. Prentiss admits that she's been beat. The unsub crossdresses, and the dresses are probably from the women he has killed.
Reid tells Rossi and Hotch that he thinks he has found the trigger. The unsub seems particularly excited about electrocution. Rossi pats him on the head like a good puppy and he scampers off. Sorry, that was a bit too sarcastic. Rossi tells him he did a good job and it makes Reid get this ridiculously pleased look.
JJ finds them a victim. She was a real estate agent who had gone to show a house. This was 5 years ago. She was later found dead in the cellar. She'd been strangled, raped, and she was covered in electrical burns. Her clothes were not recovered and Morgan talks about the cross-dressing. Jill is almost creepy in her excitement over this guy. Rossi asks if any of her hair was missing and JJ says it wasn't in the report if it was.
Rossi and Hotch go to check out the initial crime scene. The current owner doesn't look to happy to find the FBI on his doorstep but he lets them into the cellar. He says they never go down there. it floods when it rains and the electricity is all messed up. They go down. The light doesn't work, but they have flashlights. They decide that she was probably suspended, like in the drawings he did by two large beams. The walls are thick and the neighbors are a good distance away, so nobody would hear her scream. They aren't sure where he got the electricity to burn her. The burns didn't conform to cattle prods or tasers. Eventually they find an outlet that has been tampered with. He knew enough about electricity to use what was already in the house.
JJ goes to tell Jill that Hotch and Rossi are back. She notes the awards littering every wall and surface of the office. Jill waves off any signifcance attached to them. She asks JJ what she thinks of some names that are written on a white board. They're things like AC/DC killer. Again, it's almost creepy the way Jill talks about it. JJ tells her that they really don't do things like that, they try not to mythologize the unsubs. She also tells her that they don't even know he is a serial killer yet. Prentiss shows up to correct her. They do know, because Garcia has found them more bodies.
After studying the 3 cases that Garcia found, Reid concludes that there are probably 19 more kills between 2005 (the latest incident) and now. He also says that there may not be any bodies to find, given that the unsub wrote about building a homemade incinerator. Jill leaves them (Morgan and Reid) and tells them to keep her posted. Morgan asks Reid when she leaves, "She does know we don't work for her, right?" Reid just shrugs. This is the only real moment of Morgan and Reid together this episode, which is disappointing for me.
The team is giving their profile to the agents and detectives working the case when JJ interrupts them. She turns on a TV and Jill is giving a press conference. The team watches in kind of vague fascination and horror. Meanwhile, someone, presumably our unsub is also watching. He clicks off the TV and walks away as she's finishing up.
Later Hotch confronts her. He tells her that she should have consulted them. And she makes some noise about how it wasn't a press conference and it's her case. Hotch reminds her that every one of his agents outranks her. She says that it would have eventually leaked out anyway, and she's just trying to protect her city from a serial killer every bit as prolific as Cullen. Hotch throws out some other names that she doesn't recognize. He tells her that they're Cullen's victims, that they're the people who are forgotten when an agent puts a story ahead of a case, and that the bureau doesn't need any more agents like that. Rossi caught the beginning of this dressing down picking up a fax and he stays and listens to the whole thing with a somewhat pained look.
Reid, Morgan, and Prentiss are eating at a diner and discussing Jill. Reid says he finds her excitement a little disturbing. Morgan mentions the board with the names that JJ saw, and Prentiss says that they're just saying these things because she's a woman. They say if Jill were a man, they'd say she had balls. I was just starting to like Prentiss well enough, but this reminds me of all the reasons that I don't like her. It's an absurd statement that anyone who knows them should know better than to make. First of all, I think they'd both be just as disturbed by a man making the same bad calls (the press conference and the naming) and Reid certainly wouldn't be any less disturbed by a man who was that excited about a serial killer. Frankly he might be more disturbed. Beyond that, when has Reid especially ever done anything to make Prentiss think that he is at all sexist. Morgan maybe, but definitely not Reid. I'm just annoyed that she tries to take a really and truly concerning situation and make it be all about sexism. Anyway, still in this scene, Reid says that he isn't having any real luck with a geographical profile, but he believes that the unsub will start killing closer to home soon. They all realize that to catch him there is probably going to have to be a fresh kill.
Jill shows up at Rossi's hotel room door, offering an apology and a drink. Reluctantly, Rossi goes to have a drink with her. She seems to think, like Prentiss, that the only reason anything she has done got to people (people meaning Hotch) is because they don't like "female ambition." I find it no less annoying, but at least more realistic coming from her. Of course she isn't creeped out by her own excitement, and if she truly thought it was wrong, I don't think she would have done it. So the whole sexism thing makes sense coming from her. Rossi, quite correctly profiles her, and says that he remembers giving a lecture at the academy the year she says she was there. She remembers, she sat in the third row and had a crush on him. Rossi was a star, for the inroads he made into publishing and consulting. Rossi asks if her hair was longer and blonder then. She thinks he remembers her, but he assures her that he doesn't. It was her hair in the evidence bag. She says it was all for the greater good, because she was right. Rossi tells her that he sees a lot of himself in her. He hurt a lot of people and burned a lot of bridges to get where he did, and he doesn't want to see her make the same mistakes. She doesn't seem to take his criticism seriously. Rossi tells her to get some sleep because her press conference will bury them tomorrow. She doesn't understand why (proving to me that she isn't smart enough to be in that position).
The next day, Rossi was clearly right. For every person who has gone missing in years and years in the Philadelphia area, some family member has shown up to talk to someone. Along with a lot of the agents from the field office, at least Reid, Prentiss, and JJ are also talking with these people. One couple is looking for their daughter who disappeared not too long ago. They have a picture of her in the dress she disappeared in. Meanwhile we see a man, wearing the dress and listening to recordings of torture on a computer. He's repeating the victims words softly, and walking around, stroking the dress. It's fairly creepy.
There have also been a fairly massive number of "tips" phoned in. One catches their attention. A man, in an extraordinarily calm voice says that his car broke down and he saw a man digging a whole for a body, "a bleeder stripped of its clothes." One of them assumes that this means that there were visible wounds, but Reid recognizes the term from the unsubs writings. He refers to women as bleeders because of the menstrual cycle which he sees as a weakness. They're pretty certain, as a group, that this call came from the unsub.
Prentiss and Morgan go to check the site. The body has already been exposed. It's remarkably well preserved because of the recent cold weather, and Morgan immediately notices the burn marks. They direct the ME to try to identify her through dental records as quickly as possible. They start to leave, but are called back. When the body is removed from the hole, there is a hand sticking out from the ground beneath.
Prentiss doesn't get why he would lead them right to two bodies. After some discussion the group determines that first, he wants them to be looking for him, and second he is trying to lead them through his kills chronologically, and he's writing the final chapter now.
A clearly professional woman calls someone (boyfriend or husband) cancelling dinner plans for the evening. Just after she hangs up the phone, a big truck plows into the back of her car. She gets out and so does the guy. They agree to exchange insurance information, and while her back is turned he knocks her over the head with something.
The team discovers the identities of the two bodies in the grave. Both women were reported missing on the same day. The unsub has graduated to doing doubles, increasing the challenge by taking two women in a single day.
Someone comes and tells Jill that she has a call from a reporter. She leaves to take the call and Morgan asks as she's leaving if she's planning another press conference. Jill clearly knows the reporter, Katrina (the same name as the woman who was abducted in the last scene), and tells her that she can't give her anything right now. Katrina tells her that she's calling because she has something for her and tells her to check her e-mail. She does and finds a note, handwritten, that looks remarkably similar to the writings of the unsub. It's not one they already have. Katrina asks Jill to meet her. Jill asks if she's okay, because she sounds funny. Katrina says she's fine and asks again for Jill to meet her. Jill agrees. We see the unsub take the phone away from Katrina's ear and snap it closed.
Rossi, Hotch, Morgan, and Reid are working when JJ comes in with a picture. It's a missing person that she thinks might fit the profile. One of them notices that the hair is similar to what was found in the storage unit and suggests that JJ have them run a DNA profile. Rossi tells them that it won't match and admits that he knew that Jill faked that evidence. Hotch is horrified. Reid, Morgan, and JJ stay very quiet, while Rossi explains that he sees himself in her. Hotch says that Jill is nothing like Rossi. Rossi says that he knows other agents think he crossed a line when he published, that he knows that he's one of those guys who made the killers famous while everyone forgot the names of the victims. It's fairly clear that he thinks Hotch was talking about him when he was confronting Jill earlier. About that time, Prenitss comes in with information about a woman just reported missing. Her car was found idling on a street. She gives the woman's name and occupation. Rossi recognizes the name from the call Jill took earlier and goes to find Jill. He goes to her office, and Reid follows. The letter from the unsub is still up. Rossi asks Reid if it's one that they have. Reid shows off his eidetic memory by reading the first line and saying it's not. Rossi says that Jill is the unsub's "final chapter."
In the meantime, we see Jill in a parking garage, apparently waiting for Katrina to meet her. We see her abduction. Her cell phone is on the ground.
At the field office, they have just tracked the cell phone to a stationary location. Reid and Rossi go to check it out. In the meantime, Garcia calls Morgan to let him know that she's traced the IP address that the email came from to an Internet cafe. He goes to check it out. Rossi is blaming himself for Jill's abduction. Reid says he couldn't have known she would go off on her own like that, and Rossi says that he did, because it's what he would have done.
We see Jill and Katrina both bound, but Katrina is already being tortured.
Hotch interviews a guy at the internet cafe and finally gets a description of a guy and that he may have left in a white van.
The unsub has moved on to Jill whom he tells to beg him not to hurt her. She refuses, and he says she will before it's over.
Reid's got enough information for a geological profile now. He makes a triangular shaped area, and the unsub should be inside of it. With Garcia's help they narrow it down using electricians and the knowledge that he was driving a white van. They get an address.
The unsub is binding Jill to a mattress frame when they hear the agents enter the house above them. It's over, but the unsub strokes Jill's hair and tells her it will never be over for them. The team comes in and take down the unsub. Hotch checks Katrina, and calls for a medic both on the radio and out loud. Rossi unties Jill who is crying and lets him comfort her. She says she's sorry.
The unsub doesn't speak. But he has admitted to killing 17 people on their list of missing people and they aren't through. He just points at the ones that he killed. He isn't giving up any information on location of remains.
At the hospital, Jill is being released. Rossi is trying to convince her take a few days. She is insistent that she's not a victim, and Rossi says she's already showing the early signs of denial. He's clearly worried about her, she didn't even ask about Katrina. She ignores him and walks out. He tells her that Katrina is dead, and that changes something in her look, but she keeps walking.
There is a swarm of reporters outside the hospital, and she visibly composes herself and walks over to start answering their questions. Rossi watches her for awhile before getting into his SUV and driving away. It's pretty clear she hasn't learned any real lesson from all of this.
Sadly, this was the last episode, probably of the season. It was the last one filmed with scripts completed before the writer's strike. It does appear that it has already been picked up for a fourth season, though, so that's a good thing. Also maybe the lack of new episodes will make me actually write the massive # of fics I have prompts for in this fandom.
CSI NY: 4x13, All in the Family
Written by Daniele Nathanson & Noah Nelson
I have far fewer coherent thoughts on this episode, largely because I spent the latter half filled with bone-chilling terror that they might be writing Danny out of the series. And I'm not completely over it yet. The episode did not end on a high note for him. I love Mac. Gary Sinise was my whole reason to watch the series in the first place, and Don has really grown on me, but Danny is my favorite. He has been for a long while now, and with the exception of the original CSI (which has only written out a character that I hated, but did remove Greg's personality so I guess it kind of evens out) the franchise has a habit of getting rid of people I love. The only character I ever gave a damn about on CSI: Miami was Speed. I adored Aiden and they killed her too.
Anyway, that makes this one much less re-cap like than the Criminal minds review, but here it is.
The A-plot is pretty simple. A girl is dead. She was buying flowers, and she seems to have been killed by a shotgun blast. There's a tooth fragment caught in her skin. The shot seems to have come from above, and Mac traces it to a gargoyle with some damage. Mac and Don are on the roof when they get notice that there's another homicide a few buildings away. Don and Mac run over the rooftops and go to this second scene. A family court judge has been murdered, but COD appears to be blunt force trauma. He wasn't shot, but it still seems a bit too much of a coicidence. He was found by his daughter, and I think her boyfriend and his friend. She seems really broken up.
As they investigate, it becomes ever more clear that the two cases are connected. They at first suspect a downstairs neighbor who the judge was trying to get evicted. The reason is that they find a black-oil sunflower seed hull in the judge's home, and this guy had lots of birds that he fed just those seeds. Then there's a contractor whose divorce was presided over by the judge. He had threatened the judge. He admits to being there and to threatening the judge, but says he didn't kill him. He has an alibi. He went and yelled at his ex-wife who called the cops. He was with them at the time of death. Then, they suspect the daughter. She had wanted to go and live with her mom after her parents' divorce, but her dad used his connections in the court system to get custody. Also, she has no real alibi. She says she was just out walking around until she met the boys at the movie theatre. And they don't think that the boys had anything to do with it, because they went to the movie, got popcorn and then later met the girl after the film. That changes when they find popcorn grease on the shower curtain. They had already realized that whoever killed the judge must have stripped and then showered to get rid of the blood. The boys are really brothers who were taken from their father who was doing a good job of caring for them, according to them, he just wasn't home much because he had to work 3 or 4 jobs. Their dad has just recently died. The elder brother swears that he did it all, that his brother was just there. Oh, they snuck out a back way from the theatre.
They were going to shoot the judge, but the shotgun didn't work properly. After they cleaned up they tossed it off the roof of the building with the gargoyle. It hit the gargoyle and went off, killing the girl who was shopping for flowers. The daughter had nothing to do with it.
The B plot starts when Lindsay asks Flack to check on Danny for her. He was supposed to be at work a couple of hours ago, but he hasn't shown up and he's not answering his phone. She's going to cover for him with Mac, say he called in sick with the flu.
Danny is just going off shift, but he agrees to go by Danny's place and check up on him. He goes, and has the building super let him into Danny's apartment (with a well-placed threat). Danny isn't there, and more troubling, his gun is gone. His computer is on and open to a page that shows that the guy who robbed the bodega where Ruben Sandoval was killed has been released on bond. There is also a copy of the paper from Ruben's memorial service. Don notices some impressions from writing on it.
Don goes back to the lab and has Lindsay do a thing to let them see what was written. It's a phone number. Don calls it, and it's the number to a bail bondsman. Don goes off to that place and finds Danny there. He asks Danny what he thinks he's doing. Danny explains that he's not going after the guy, Barnes. His neighbor, Rikki, Ruben's mother is going after him, and she took his gun. Don wants Danny to report his gun stolen right now, but Danny won't do it. Don agrees to help him try to find Rikki using the information he got from the Bail bondsman. He says if they don't find her in 4 hours he's reporting it. Danny agrees and gives him half the list. I have to mention Danny's motorcycle here, because I love it.
So after Don has been all the places on his list, he tries to call Danny, but he doesn't answer his phone. He calls and asks for a location trace on Danny's cell phone, which he gets. When he gets there, Danny has already seen both Barnes and Rikki and is following them. Don follows Danny. Everyone's moving pretty quickly. Danny catches up, and Rikki has the gun pulled on Barnes and is yelling at him. She of course blames him for Ruben's death (even though he didn't actually make the shot that killed Ruben, someone in the bodega did, but I can't remember if it was the owner or his sister, I think it was the sister). Danny steps between them, and says that he's the one who is really at fault. All he had to do was stay with Ruben and he could have saved him. Rikki of course can't kill him, and they take the gun away. Don is there, trying to talk the whole situation down when Barnes does a very stupid thing and makes some crack about Rikki. Danny starts to beat on him, but Don pulls him off and tells the other guy to go. Then he tells Danny that they have to make this official. They have to get it on the record because Barnes is almost certainly already on the phone with his lawyer. Danny says he can't turn her in, that he's taking her home. Don says he'll be at his desk. He's giving Danny an hour and then he's doing what he has to do.
It's fairly clear that he's just about given up on Danny and Rikki showing up to make the report when they walk through the door. Don's already called ahead. She's going to be walked through the process. It will be as painless as is possible, and she won't even spend the night in jail. Danny isn't altogether pleased about it, but he starts to leave anyway. Don tells Danny that he has to stop blaming himself for Ruben's death. Danny looks like he's about to cry when he asks how he's supposed to do that. Poor Danny.
The good part about this episode was the Danny and Don interaction. At one point, Danny tells Don that it's none of his business and tries to get rid of him. Don answers, with his own sad puppy dog look that Danny is his friend and that makes it his business. They're one of the bigger pairings, possibly the biggest pairing these days, but I'd never really seen it. They're friends, good friends even, but not anything else. I might be willing to change my mind after Wednesday's episode. There was a fair amount of subtext there, and even though they aren't my pairing, I desperately want the post-ep tag where Don goes to comfort Danny. So, here's hoping someone writes it, because I certainly won't be. It looks like there's one episode left, scheduled to air February sixth.
I haven't watched this week's Atlantis yet. We didn't get home from my brother's until after 1 AM, and I couldn't have watched it until after 4. Mom had other things to record at 9, and I made the idiotic mistake of setting the stop time as 12 PM instead of 12 AM which meant the tape wouldn't stop recording until it hit the end about 4 AM, because I set it to record until noon on Saturday. I'll try to get around to watching today, but it may be tomorrow or even Monday (because tomorrow is the Democratic bean feed). So it will probably be Monday or Tuesday before I get that review up. Anyway, I'm off to check a couple of people's journals for updates and then to work on my heroes_fest story.