i didn't think it fit the tone of the show. i mean, cm is about a branch of the fbi that deals with domestic serial killers. (ok, except for the one time they ended up in canada and the one time they went to mexico....) they don't deal with international ira-associated criminals who get caught in italy and sent to jail in north korea, and then escape and come gunning for one of the fbi agents. they don't deal with the kind of cases that result in people going into hiding overseas with fake passports. they don't tend to come up against international espionage agencies and international government spies. i guess i can see prentiss as a former interpol agent - that part didn't bother me as much because you're right, it does kind of track with her background - altho i can't say i liked it a lot - but the whole international-thriller aspect of the subplot just seemed un-criminal-minds-y to me. i really like prentiss and i was already annoyed she was leaving, but i wish they'd found a way to write her out that wasn't so ridiculous and didn't feel lifted from an entirely different kind of show.
(your name is familiar but i'm not sure from where.... hi. :D )
That's fair, the Prentiss arc was definitely a departure from the show's usual fare. Even the Foyet arc was firmly grounded in serial killer territory. But perhaps one way to look at all the backstory we get on Prentiss is... this is victimology. The team eventually tracks down Doyle's location and saves Prentiss because they did their jobs and profiled him as a serial killer, a family annihilator. They asked questions like, Why this victim? What was the stressor? What doesn't fit?
But you're right that it feels like the spy stuff takes over the show and that it feels like something a different show would do, not Criminal Minds. For my part, I'm just glad Prentiss got to have a really interesting, dramatic send-off.
(Hi back! I'm primarily in Stargate fandom, so that might be where we've seen each other?)
>>The team eventually tracks down Doyle's location and saves Prentiss because they did their jobs and profiled him as a serial killer, a family annihilator<<
in retrospect that makes last night's episode the most cm-like of all, because it went from being a weirdly bisected show (3/4 criminal minds, 1/4 bourne movie) (someone on my flist felt like she'd wandered into an episode of nikita by mistake) to one solid case of "ian's the unsub, prentiss is the victim, now we can get down to business". so at least they managed to tie the two disparate plots together. if there had been more episodes like that i might have liked the subplot more, but because it was such a departure it just made me feel like i was watching two completely different shows awkwardly stitched together. (either that or someone on the writing team realllllly wanted to write a spy thriller, and this is how they scratched that itch.)
(your name is familiar but i'm not sure from where.... hi. :D )
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That's fair, the Prentiss arc was definitely a departure from the show's usual fare. Even the Foyet arc was firmly grounded in serial killer territory. But perhaps one way to look at all the backstory we get on Prentiss is... this is victimology. The team eventually tracks down Doyle's location and saves Prentiss because they did their jobs and profiled him as a serial killer, a family annihilator. They asked questions like, Why this victim? What was the stressor? What doesn't fit?
But you're right that it feels like the spy stuff takes over the show and that it feels like something a different show would do, not Criminal Minds. For my part, I'm just glad Prentiss got to have a really interesting, dramatic send-off.
(Hi back! I'm primarily in Stargate fandom, so that might be where we've seen each other?)
Reply
in retrospect that makes last night's episode the most cm-like of all, because it went from being a weirdly bisected show (3/4 criminal minds, 1/4 bourne movie) (someone on my flist felt like she'd wandered into an episode of nikita by mistake) to one solid case of "ian's the unsub, prentiss is the victim, now we can get down to business". so at least they managed to tie the two disparate plots together. if there had been more episodes like that i might have liked the subplot more, but because it was such a departure it just made me feel like i was watching two completely different shows awkwardly stitched together. (either that or someone on the writing team realllllly wanted to write a spy thriller, and this is how they scratched that itch.)
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