Pull up a chair, you gonna be here for a while
So how brilliant was that ep?
Wait, that opening shot? Brill. Just brill.
Teen keg-party outside? This can’t end well... Oh, and here’s our victim, I’m guessing? She’s just waay to high-and-mighty for this to end well. I think she means well, though. And she seems strong. Although I’d say that “Oh, yes, baby, let’s have sex outdoors, a hundred yards away from the other people! Because I like it when drunk people can accidentally stumble over us!” is kind of a lapse of judgement, no matter if you think something bad has happened to this other girl or not.
JJ is looking pretty haggard. Maybe the job is finally getting to her? We saw the signs in Poison, maybe it’s starting to really kick in now? Poor girl. She’s really out of it today! And, because I just realized, in RL, does the team liaison have to prepare a slideshow of photos and stuff before a team briefing, especially when they’re in a hurry?
Garcia looks AMAZING in that outfit and with her hair like that! /shallow
The team brainstorming right after JJ finishes is so of the gorgeous. Hotch starts, and they all seamlessly transition into pulling out definitions and previous cases. You can see how they somehow speak different languages. JJ contributes the facts, while the others are pensive, pulling out the relevant bits and analyzing them -- or setting them apart to be analyzed later. JJ doesn’t speak their language, and she’s not part of their group. Note that Garcia isn’t sitting either, and while there’s a practical reason why JJ isn’t, that does mean that the de facto team are sitting around their round table, and the “outsiders” -- those who don’t speak the language -- are standing. Now, while JJ is capable of speaking the language, or at least making the connections, like she did for example in In Birth And Death, she doesn’t get involved. In fact, she doesn’t want to; she told Hotch in North Mammon that she had no desire to be a profiler.
God, Emily is gorgeous! /shallow
And then, JJ turns to the screen and the team keeps talking. Love this bit, which resembles slightly what they did in True Night, the team isn’t the focus, they’re just there as background noise, and they do that to make a point. I love how this show is so subtle but so loud, JJ’s practically telegraphing “Not Okay!”
Oh, oh, the scenes with the UnSub and the victims are so downright terrible they make me a little bit pukey. They’re... just terrible. But so poignant.
Hotch and Reid play off each other very well in brainstorm/discussion settings. (Hello, Revelations) Maybe that’s part of why Hotch/Reid is such a popular ship, that obvious professional (and personal) dynamic?
“You have to go to a different place. It’s the only way to get through it.”
The writers of this show have scary amounts of insight. They’ve got it so right.
It always surprises me what a capacity Morgan has for politeness. His mom really raised him right. And the old sheriff has obsessed about this case for a long time.
And Hotch goes to take care of JJ. (And in the process fuels my Hotch/JJ bunnies) He’s such a caretaker. (Too bad he doesn’t get a chance to be that in his personal life.) He shares his own weakness, which is never easily read from his behavior or manner, and uses it to try and convince her that it’s okay to be weak. However, the “follow my advice, not my example”-thing rarely works even with kids, and sure as hell won’t work with grown people who work with profilers.
We might assume that JJ’s job is relatively easier -- and the way her role was set up in the beginning, maybe it was -- but as has been hammered home in the past few episodes, it is in fact harder for her. She sees every case they are asked to take on, and she’s the one who has to (I assume) turn cases down, either because they don’t have time, because it’s too late, because of many things. Add to that that in the past season and a half, she’s seen a friend be gravely injured and then kill a suspect in cold blood, another one’s childhood hell uncovered, one has been abducted, injured and perhaps suffered a drug addiction, one colleague has lost his girlfriend and then disappeared himself, and lastly, maybe her best friend on the job was shot and very nearly died. It’s not strange that it takes a certain toll on her; in fact, it would be strange if it didn’t.
“Promise, if I die, you’ll never tell my parents what he did to us.” And then the cut from the barn to the plastic bags at the dump site. I’m nauseous again, but v. impressed. And the zoom-out from in the mine to the silence of the forest? Beautiful.
And finally, the secret of the bracelet. Dave, they need to move on, man, and so do you. Dude. (What are the odds the season finale was intended to be putting that case there to rest? Too bad the AMPTP has put a stop to that. Damn them.) I am, however, starting to really warm to Rossi.
Oh, Garcia... You’re Not Okay either, are you? I wish I could give you a hug.
Morgan mentions what happened to her, and she immediately shuts down. Looks down, covers herself, shuts them out. “You callin’ me a liar?” And won’t even take Emily’s card. “I’m not a lead.” To quote matociquala: “Refrain. Drink.”
And Morgan cracks part of the case. Beautiful. And Dave does the final bit and makes the CotW remember.
“I’ve never felt sorry for myself” - a young, pregnant woman is widowed and never feels sorry for herself? Something is funky here, I’m telling you. Maybe she killed him?
And here’s the next victim, am I right? Oh yes. I like when I’m right.
I love the situations where the team are discussing and talking their way to the answer. Such beautiful writing and acting. They’re a complete team.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because he’s going to kill me first.”
“I couldn’t make my baby pay for what his father did.” Right there. She’s way stronger than she thinks, that’s for sure. And Emily’s great with families and victims. She really has a compassionate streak.
And JJ’s starting to channel into anger and aggression instead of staring into space.
Stephen’s (where have we heard that name before, I wonder?) first concern when there are unknown people in his living room is for his mother. Nice. And he knows! Sweet Jesus, he knows! And he understands what they want. “And I’m not.”
Flashback is very elegantly done. Poor woman.
Oh god, she’s pregnant too! Oh, that’s just terrible.
I agree with matociquala, this barn is totally a redress of the one in The Big Game. And Reid’s somewhere deep inside his own mind.
CotW stays focused when Mrs. Wilkinson appeals to him. “Where’s Charlie now?”
Side note: I love what they do with Emily’s make-up outside and in the field as opposed to when they’re back in the offices. It’s subtle, but it’s there. ‘S not just the lighting guys on this show that are geniuses.
Prentiss is amazing with Karen Foley. And Karen Foley is amazing with Mary Wilkinson. Man, where do they get these guest actors from?
Oh, she sure as heck isn’t going to rest, she’s going to find Charlie!
And Karen’s cognitive interview. *shudders* And her absolute surprise in finding that she helped. Wow.
Gun-question: Does everybody carry their gun with their right hand, no matter if they’re lefties or righties? Or, rather, when you carry your gun with one hand, would that be the firing hand or the other one? And does everybody fire with their right hand? Does this make any sense? I just know Hotch/TG is a leftie, and he’s carrying his gun with his right hand in that running scene there.
And JJ comforts the victim. She always does.
And the UnSub triggers when she speaks badly of his daddy. Textbook.
“He came at me. I had to do it.” Right. You keep telling yourself that.
“You stop caring, you’re jaded. If you care too much, it’ll burn you.” JJ’s really feeling the strain here. And Hotch, who could often be mistaken for jaded, defends caring.
“Your killer was dead.”
“Not to me.”
And Rossi opens up a little more to CotW. Nice.
“Who’s up for a drink?”
“Oooh, who’s up for five?”
They really want to forget. But JJ, who wants it most of all, has -- surprise, surprise -- work to do. And as matociquala has pointed out, Reid hesitates. Poor Reid. But go writers (and actors!) for not forgetting trauma! And Hotch agrees to go out for a drink, wow.
Ohmigod, that’s the divorce papers, isn’t it? It is. And he knows. And he’s just resigned. This is exactly the way I expected him to react to her leaving him. That endless sadness and a resigned clamping together of the lips.
“Haley’s filing for divorce. I’ve been served.”
And Emily doesn’t know. She might have an ominous feeling when she asks what it is, but she’s the only one who’s shocked. JJ has, if not known, had a feeling. Morgan knows, of course, and so does Dave. Reid... Well, if Rossi figured it out in his second ep... I’d say Reid figured it right before Morgan asked Hotch what was wrong. Because he is the best profiler there, methinks. Emily is outright shocked. And Hotch leaves. Alone. (And the song lyric of the moment is “I got a family”.)
It’s weird, for all the terrible stuff we see on CM, it’s this scene right here that makes my breath catch in my throat. I want to cry so bad for Hotch. Not only is his life, his carefully concocted life, breaking up in front of him, it’s displayed for them all to see. They all know except Emily, his defences are down, and he can’t not answer Emily’s question. So now it’s out there. And he leaves. He doesn’t want their pity. He wants an empty room and...whatever he uses as a coping mechanism these days. What does Hotch do with this? Go to the shooting range? Pour himself a big damn glass of Scotch? What does he do? Theories, plz.
If I can write on the plane today, there will be post-ep fic for this sometime soon.
Wait, that opening shot? Brill. Just brill.
Teen keg-party outside? This can’t end well... Oh, and here’s our victim, I’m guessing? She’s just waay to high-and-mighty for this to end well. I think she means well, though. And she seems strong. Although I’d say that “Oh, yes, baby, let’s have sex outdoors, a hundred yards away from the other people! Because I like it when drunk people can accidentally stumble over us!” is kind of a lapse of judgement, no matter if you think something bad has happened to this other girl or not.
JJ is looking pretty haggard. Maybe the job is finally getting to her? We saw the signs in Poison, maybe it’s starting to really kick in now? Poor girl. She’s really out of it today! And, because I just realized, in RL, does the team liaison have to prepare a slideshow of photos and stuff before a team briefing, especially when they’re in a hurry?
Garcia looks AMAZING in that outfit and with her hair like that! /shallow
The team brainstorming right after JJ finishes is so of the gorgeous. Hotch starts, and they all seamlessly transition into pulling out definitions and previous cases. You can see how they somehow speak different languages. JJ contributes the facts, while the others are pensive, pulling out the relevant bits and analyzing them -- or setting them apart to be analyzed later. JJ doesn’t speak their language, and she’s not part of their group. Note that Garcia isn’t sitting either, and while there’s a practical reason why JJ isn’t, that does mean that the de facto team are sitting around their round table, and the “outsiders” -- those who don’t speak the language -- are standing. Now, while JJ is capable of speaking the language, or at least making the connections, like she did for example in In Birth And Death, she doesn’t get involved. In fact, she doesn’t want to; she told Hotch in North Mammon that she had no desire to be a profiler.
God, Emily is gorgeous! /shallow
And then, JJ turns to the screen and the team keeps talking. Love this bit, which resembles slightly what they did in True Night, the team isn’t the focus, they’re just there as background noise, and they do that to make a point. I love how this show is so subtle but so loud, JJ’s practically telegraphing “Not Okay!”
Oh, oh, the scenes with the UnSub and the victims are so downright terrible they make me a little bit pukey. They’re... just terrible. But so poignant.
Hotch and Reid play off each other very well in brainstorm/discussion settings. (Hello, Revelations) Maybe that’s part of why Hotch/Reid is such a popular ship, that obvious professional (and personal) dynamic?
“You have to go to a different place. It’s the only way to get through it.”
The writers of this show have scary amounts of insight. They’ve got it so right.
It always surprises me what a capacity Morgan has for politeness. His mom really raised him right. And the old sheriff has obsessed about this case for a long time.
And Hotch goes to take care of JJ. (And in the process fuels my Hotch/JJ bunnies) He’s such a caretaker. (Too bad he doesn’t get a chance to be that in his personal life.) He shares his own weakness, which is never easily read from his behavior or manner, and uses it to try and convince her that it’s okay to be weak. However, the “follow my advice, not my example”-thing rarely works even with kids, and sure as hell won’t work with grown people who work with profilers.
We might assume that JJ’s job is relatively easier -- and the way her role was set up in the beginning, maybe it was -- but as has been hammered home in the past few episodes, it is in fact harder for her. She sees every case they are asked to take on, and she’s the one who has to (I assume) turn cases down, either because they don’t have time, because it’s too late, because of many things. Add to that that in the past season and a half, she’s seen a friend be gravely injured and then kill a suspect in cold blood, another one’s childhood hell uncovered, one has been abducted, injured and perhaps suffered a drug addiction, one colleague has lost his girlfriend and then disappeared himself, and lastly, maybe her best friend on the job was shot and very nearly died. It’s not strange that it takes a certain toll on her; in fact, it would be strange if it didn’t.
“Promise, if I die, you’ll never tell my parents what he did to us.” And then the cut from the barn to the plastic bags at the dump site. I’m nauseous again, but v. impressed. And the zoom-out from in the mine to the silence of the forest? Beautiful.
And finally, the secret of the bracelet. Dave, they need to move on, man, and so do you. Dude. (What are the odds the season finale was intended to be putting that case there to rest? Too bad the AMPTP has put a stop to that. Damn them.) I am, however, starting to really warm to Rossi.
Oh, Garcia... You’re Not Okay either, are you? I wish I could give you a hug.
Morgan mentions what happened to her, and she immediately shuts down. Looks down, covers herself, shuts them out. “You callin’ me a liar?” And won’t even take Emily’s card. “I’m not a lead.” To quote matociquala: “Refrain. Drink.”
And Morgan cracks part of the case. Beautiful. And Dave does the final bit and makes the CotW remember.
“I’ve never felt sorry for myself” - a young, pregnant woman is widowed and never feels sorry for herself? Something is funky here, I’m telling you. Maybe she killed him?
And here’s the next victim, am I right? Oh yes. I like when I’m right.
I love the situations where the team are discussing and talking their way to the answer. Such beautiful writing and acting. They’re a complete team.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because he’s going to kill me first.”
“I couldn’t make my baby pay for what his father did.” Right there. She’s way stronger than she thinks, that’s for sure. And Emily’s great with families and victims. She really has a compassionate streak.
And JJ’s starting to channel into anger and aggression instead of staring into space.
Stephen’s (where have we heard that name before, I wonder?) first concern when there are unknown people in his living room is for his mother. Nice. And he knows! Sweet Jesus, he knows! And he understands what they want. “And I’m not.”
Flashback is very elegantly done. Poor woman.
Oh god, she’s pregnant too! Oh, that’s just terrible.
I agree with matociquala, this barn is totally a redress of the one in The Big Game. And Reid’s somewhere deep inside his own mind.
CotW stays focused when Mrs. Wilkinson appeals to him. “Where’s Charlie now?”
Side note: I love what they do with Emily’s make-up outside and in the field as opposed to when they’re back in the offices. It’s subtle, but it’s there. ‘S not just the lighting guys on this show that are geniuses.
Prentiss is amazing with Karen Foley. And Karen Foley is amazing with Mary Wilkinson. Man, where do they get these guest actors from?
Oh, she sure as heck isn’t going to rest, she’s going to find Charlie!
And Karen’s cognitive interview. *shudders* And her absolute surprise in finding that she helped. Wow.
Gun-question: Does everybody carry their gun with their right hand, no matter if they’re lefties or righties? Or, rather, when you carry your gun with one hand, would that be the firing hand or the other one? And does everybody fire with their right hand? Does this make any sense? I just know Hotch/TG is a leftie, and he’s carrying his gun with his right hand in that running scene there.
And JJ comforts the victim. She always does.
And the UnSub triggers when she speaks badly of his daddy. Textbook.
“He came at me. I had to do it.” Right. You keep telling yourself that.
“You stop caring, you’re jaded. If you care too much, it’ll burn you.” JJ’s really feeling the strain here. And Hotch, who could often be mistaken for jaded, defends caring.
“Your killer was dead.”
“Not to me.”
And Rossi opens up a little more to CotW. Nice.
“Who’s up for a drink?”
“Oooh, who’s up for five?”
They really want to forget. But JJ, who wants it most of all, has -- surprise, surprise -- work to do. And as matociquala has pointed out, Reid hesitates. Poor Reid. But go writers (and actors!) for not forgetting trauma! And Hotch agrees to go out for a drink, wow.
Ohmigod, that’s the divorce papers, isn’t it? It is. And he knows. And he’s just resigned. This is exactly the way I expected him to react to her leaving him. That endless sadness and a resigned clamping together of the lips.
“Haley’s filing for divorce. I’ve been served.”
And Emily doesn’t know. She might have an ominous feeling when she asks what it is, but she’s the only one who’s shocked. JJ has, if not known, had a feeling. Morgan knows, of course, and so does Dave. Reid... Well, if Rossi figured it out in his second ep... I’d say Reid figured it right before Morgan asked Hotch what was wrong. Because he is the best profiler there, methinks. Emily is outright shocked. And Hotch leaves. Alone. (And the song lyric of the moment is “I got a family”.)
It’s weird, for all the terrible stuff we see on CM, it’s this scene right here that makes my breath catch in my throat. I want to cry so bad for Hotch. Not only is his life, his carefully concocted life, breaking up in front of him, it’s displayed for them all to see. They all know except Emily, his defences are down, and he can’t not answer Emily’s question. So now it’s out there. And he leaves. He doesn’t want their pity. He wants an empty room and...whatever he uses as a coping mechanism these days. What does Hotch do with this? Go to the shooting range? Pour himself a big damn glass of Scotch? What does he do? Theories, plz.
If I can write on the plane today, there will be post-ep fic for this sometime soon.