White Collar: Forging Bonds

Hey, Andrew McCarthy is guest-starring on White Collar! This warrants a recap. Bonus points: We finally get to see the big Peter-Neal origin story. I love a good origin story.

So it was revealed in the last episode that Neal’s former mentor, Vincent Adler (McCarthy), was most likely the mastermind behind both the explosion that killed Kate and the attempted murder of Mozzie. Nobody knows where Adler is, so Peter shows up at Neal’s place, equipped with beer and wine, ready to pick his lovely gray matter as to his possible whereabouts. The wine comes in a screw-top bottle, and just watching Neal swirl it around in his glass and sniff at it and wrinkle his pretty little nose in perplexed disgust makes the episode worth watching all by itself.

Neal, of course, is reluctant to dish about his past criminal exploits to a Fed, so Peter offers him full immunity for anything he says until sunrise. Neal tells Peter that, as Mozzie figured out last episode, the tune in the hotly-coveted music box represents a fractal equation… which is identical to one that Adler used to keep on a plaque in his office. If they can figure out what the fractal means, they might uncover why Adler was willing to kill Kate and Neal and Mozzie over the music box.

Criminal Minds: The Thirteenth Step

Hey, Criminal Minds? I’m dumping your sorry ass.

This has been brewing for a while. This season, we’ve had poorly-written episodes that have been sort of stupid (25 To Life, Reflection of Desire), and we’ve had poorly-written episodes that have been unnecessarily salacious (Remembrance of Things Past, Middle Man)… but up until last night, we haven’t had that perfect storm of poorly-written stupidity and sensationalism that comprised this miserable episode.

A couple of homicidal nitwit junkie newlyweds, Ray (Jonathan Tucker) and Syd (Adrienne Palicki), go on a violent rampage across Montana, shooting up convenience stores and murdering droves of people -- shooting them, burning them, beating them, even sodomizing one store clerk with a crowbar. I have a policy of not singling out specific television writers for blame, because TV scripts tend to be a collaborative effort and it’s impossible to tell what the credited writer or writers should be held responsible for. However, the only other Criminal Minds episode this particular writer has to her credit is Remembrance of Things Past, in which the team of unsubs sodomize women with electrical rods before murdering them; seriously, it’d be swell if she could come up with a script where a victim doesn’t get something shoved up his or her ass.

Criminal Minds: Corazón

In Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood, three people are found murdered with their hands cut off and shells placed over their eyes and mouths. Because Allapattah is heavily populated by practitioners of Afro-Caribbean religions such as Santeria, the BAU team suspects the unsub might be using religious rituals as a cover for his pathology.

Meanwhile, Reid keeps experiencing hallucinations and painful headaches, which make him terribly sensitive to light and require him to go around wearing dark glasses while looking glamorous and anguished. Naturally, he doesn’t tell his teammates about any of this, opting instead to act nervous and jittery while rubbing his eyes and clutching his head at random intervals while the rest of the team furrow their brows and shoot each other meaningful looks behind his back. You’d think Reid would have figured out by now that it’s simply not worth trying to hide anything from a pack of snoopy FBI profilers. If I worked for the BAU, I’d hand everyone a weekly memo of what was going on in my personal life, just to cut all the silent speculation and worried glances off at the pass.

In Miami, Reid and Morgan head to a local soup kitchen and interview Jimmy Mercado, a friend of one of the victims. Shortly thereafter, Mercado is found decapitated, his brain removed and his head arrayed on some kind of altar, with his severed tongue placed in a dish beside it.

Lovely.

The Strange, Sick, Sad Career of Thomas Gibson

I haven't written one of these in a few years, so some explanation might be in order before diving in. Despite the flippant title, the Strange Sick Sad Career mantle is bestowed only upon actors I genuinely like, such as Jonny Lee Miller and Michael Rosenbaum and Ioan Gruffudd… and, now, Thomas Gibson, who is freaking amazing in his role as ultra-grim FBI unit chief Aaron Hotchner on the CBS crime procedural Criminal Minds. How amazing? Consider this: I voted for Gibson with a clear conscience when he went head-to-head against Fringe's magnificent John Noble in Entertainment Weekly's Under-Appreciated Entertainer of 2010 poll, an honor Gibson went on to win.

So… what’s strange or sick or sad about Gibson’s career? Fair question. After all, he’s spent thirteen of the past sixteen years starring in well-received prime-time network television shows (three seasons on Chicago Hope, five on Dharma and Greg, and he’s presently well into his sixth on Criminal Minds), which is pretty impressive. Just take a peek at his film work, though. All respect to the talented Mr. Gibson, but if you’re an impeccably-pedigreed actor who puts your Juilliard training to work in films like The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas or, god save us all, The Monkey King, you’ve got to expect to receive a few snark-filled softballs lobbed in your general direction.