Criminal Minds: Devil's Night

It’s the Halloween episode, and it’s a doozy. Let’s get to it:

At the Hotchner household, a refreshingly chipper Hotch and his toddler son Jack (Cade Owens) get hopped up on pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies and squabble adorably about Halloween costumes. Jack doesn’t want to wear his usual old Spider-Man™ duds, and I can’t say I blame him; the kid’s grown at least a foot since the last time we saw him, and it seems highly unlikely that last year’s costume is still going to fit.

Back at Quantico, Reid bores the snot out of the rest of the team with arcane Halloween trivia. Everyone’s in an upbeat mood, until Hotch swoops in, having reverted back to his usual angel-of-death persona, and smashes all their fun holiday plans to bits: There’s been a series of grisly murders in Detroit, and the BAU must investigate.

For the past two years, the unsub has struck during Detroit’s annual Devil’s Night festivities, a citywide Mardi Gras-esque celebration that takes place over the three nights before Halloween. The unsub kidnaps one apparently random victim each night of the festival, chains them up in an abandoned building, douses them with gasoline, and burns them alive. He murdered his seventh and most recent victim the previous night, which was the first night of the festivities. Hence, Detroit is gearing up for two more victims.

Criminal Minds: Top Ten Episodes

I’ve been on a Criminal Minds kick lately. This is odd, since I’m pretty indifferent to both crime procedurals and shows or movies or books about serial killers. Still, while the subject matter of the show doesn’t push my buttons, I sure do like the major characters. They’re smart. They’re good at their jobs. They’re likeable. They’re certainly attractive (two of the six current regular cast members -- Shemar Moore and Matthew Gray Gubler -- are former male models. Those are my kind of odds). Ergo, this list of my top episodes.

One caveat: This is a Top Ten list, not a Ten Best list. I’m not going for quality here. In fact, some of these episodes are distinctly… ungood. These are simply the ten episodes I view with the most fondness at this moment. I make no claims that this list is either comprehensive or balanced. I rewatched Season One most recently, so it’s freshest in my head and thus is disproportionately represented. I also have a discernable pro-Hotch bias. 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. Consider yourself warned.

Here’s my list, warts and all, in chronological order:

Criminal Minds: Safe Haven

Two families -- the Bennetts in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and the Archers across the state line in Omaha -- are found bound and stabbed to death. In the case of one of the families, the father was gruesomely and amateurishly disemboweled after being slaughtered. Suspecting they’re dealing with a dangerous spree killer, the BAU jets off to the Midwest to investigate.

Show of hands: How many viewers want to join the BAU solely so they can zip across the country in that cute little private plane with the big comfy seats and the flattering mood lighting? Just me?

Meanwhile, young Ellie Spicer (Isabella Murad), the kid who was kidnapped by Tim Curry’s character after he murdered her father in last season’s finale, runs away from her neglectful foster family in Los Angeles and seeks refuge with Morgan (there’s been a running subplot over the past several episodes about Morgan keeping in constant touch with Ellie, but frankly, it’s been too dull to warrant a mention before this). He stashes her at Quantico in Garcia’s care while he investigates the murders in Nebraska and Iowa. Not wanting to return Ellie to Child Protective Services, Garcia tries to track down Ellie’s absent mother.

Criminal Minds: Compromising Positions

In Akron, two married couples are murdered after being forced to have sex with their spouses at gunpoint. Both male victims were traditional alpha males: educated and athletic overachievers with attractive wives. The male victims were shot, while the female victims were stabbed. This, plus the highly sexualized staging of the crimes (the men wore condoms and had Viagra in their systems), suggests to the BAU that the unsub is impotent. While Reid yammers on about the established stabbing-impotency link, Hotch looks glum and refrains from mentioning the time the Reaper gave him a highly personal demonstration about how being stab-happy doesn’t always equal impotent.

(Hey, we’re four episodes into the new season, and nothing soul-wrenchingly awful has happened to Hotch yet! This is a good omen.)

Criminal Minds: Remembrance of Things Past

Hey, look! There’s a brand-new credit sequence with a slightly revamped version of the theme music, plus new footage where the cast members show off their kicky new hairstyles. I approve, apart from this business about how A.J. Cook is no longer a cast member. That part still sucks.

In Bristol, Virginia, a young woman named Jenny leaves a distraught message on her parents’ answering machine: “When you get this message, I’ll probably be dead.” Shortly thereafter, her corpse is found, along with that of another young woman, who made a similar phone call to her fiancé before being horrifically tortured and murdered as well. The MO is nearly identical to that of a serial killer known as The Butcher, who murdered twenty women from 1984 to 1993 before stopping. This was one of Rossi’s old cases, and he’s taking it verrrrry personally that he was never able to capture the culprit.

Oh. It’s a Rossi-heavy episode. This doesn’t bode well.

Fun With Keywords: Trampy Jai Wilcox Edition

Here’s another look at some search terms used to find this site over the past few months, courtesy of Google Analytics. Is this post just a shameless excuse to look at photos of Sendhil Ramamurthy? Yep. Sure is.

is conrad sheehan still on covert affairs
No. The character was written out after the pilot, and sexy Jai Wilcox replaced him. And there was much rejoicing. Jai is pretty.

jai/ben
jai/joan
auggie/jai
jai/auggie sex
Wow. Jai gets around, huh? Gotta say, I’m a little disappointed the Jai/Arthur crowd is keeping quiet. I thought that pairing would be a natural.

covert affairs will annie and jai ever hook up
I doubt it. Looks like he’ll be too busy with Ben, Joan and Auggie.