Criminal Minds 05x03 "Reckoner" or "Can I Take A Nap Because It's a Rossi Episode?"

Before we get too enmeshed in this edition of Shit I Find Hilarious About My Favorite Television Show, let's do some quick clean up. If you like what you read, please comment! Follow! Some of you have, and that's been great and amazing and the thrill I get when I get a comment from someone I didn't directly ask to read the blog (hi friends and family and maybe coworkers/bosses) is awesome. I tend to link people over here from the LJ community ontd_gubler (you fucking wackos, I love you all) and you are great at commenting on the LJ posts I make with links, but PLEASE comment over here too! I'm trying to convince the internet that I'm funny and it doesn't help when no one comments the blog entry itself.

Anyway, moving on. SO RECKONER. What's up episode three, what have you got in store for us?

OH SNAP, REALLY!? This is one of the creepiest and best cold opens ever. EVER in the history of the show. They're totally using all of the tactics from horror films that work. Lady comes home, power's not on, she's got an arm full of groceries and she's yelling into a phone about a very serious issue regarding her ex-husband and daughter. All the tension is there, bam, in your face, right from the beginning.

AND THEN SHE WATCHES HER NEW HUSBAND GET HIS FUCKING HANDS CUT OFF. HIS HAAAAANDS. AND PUT IN A BAG. It's AMAZING. This is what I love about Criminal Minds, guys. Unabashed fucking horror. The terrible, most awful, ugly things happen on this show and we get cathartic redemption (usually, but especially in this episode) in under an hour. It's my dose of emotional satisfaction.

So the lady blacks out and in another brilliant sweep of genius directing and editing, we cut to a shot of

THIS GQMF RIGHT HERE. Little Jack Hotchner, badassest of the badass, slayer of lady-hearts, taking park swinging to the NEXT LEVEL. It's his BIRTHDAY y'all. Which insinuates to me at first glance that we're getting a Hotch episode, which I'm cool with at this point because Hotch has been through Some Shit and that plotline is nowhere near resolved. So bring it. Give me more Hotch.

Wait. Is that who I think it is? Is that DB "Strange Luck" Sweeney in our parade of character actors? I LOVE THIS DUDE. I watched Strange Luck for the entire like, seventeen episodes that aired directly after the X-Files when I was in middle school. It was excellent. It was nominated for a primetime Emmy, for pete's sake. Okay, the Emmy was for sound editing, but come on. Also, please have a look at DB's IMDB page. There's nothing this guy hasn't done. Crime shows love him.

So Hotch is sad that he can't spend his birthday with his son. This shot of the rain is representative of the tears inside him that he can't cry. Or some shit. I don't know, but it's a nice soft-focus shot, yeah?

Wait a minute. No. No no no. No. NOOOOOO.


IT'S A ROSSI EPISODE.


AHHHHHH. I HATE THIS GUY. Let's get one thing straight. I think Joe Mantegna is great. He is a fantastic actor and dude and his twitter is funny and he seems like an all around stand up guy. But Rossi is, at times, an unrepentant douche, and I don't know what it is but I just can't bring myself to give one fuck about what he's up to, or his life, or his four million wives or his wisdom or blah blah blah blah. Especially when the writers try to make it sound like Rossi has some dark, desperate past. He's all, I can maybe help us out with this case, but it means returning to my old life......... a life I left twenty years ago. DUN DUN DUNNNN.

Also, this might make me a terrible person but this victim's fashion sense is straight out of 1988.

Nice pixie cut paired with too muck lipstick and a turtleneck. I think Reid has that scarf somewhere and even HE thinks it's too lame to wear outside the house.

Speaking of Reid, Hotch is all, Reid, hobble the fuck over to Garcia's office because you've been lying to us about being able to fly with your busted up knee. Which is really the writers' way of saying, we don't know what the fuck to do with you this episode. You can sit this one out. At this point I was like, so wait. It's a Rossi episode AND we're only going to see Reid on the computer screen?

I'm with you, Reid. Fuck this. I'm outta here.

JJ briefs the team on the methods of the unsub's murderous ways, one of which includes missing genitals on the victim.

The Apprentice: When I hear "his genitals are missing" I think, CALL OLIVIA AND STABLER.

Me too. This show could use some Ice-T, really.

Haha so wait, our unsub's got a list? And he crosses out names with a pen? This motherfucker is organized. He has shit to do. His day planner is like:

11:15 AM - Yoga
12:30 PM - Lunch with mom
3:30 PM - Remove Bill Levington's genitals

BLOOD SHOT. Criminal Minds loves these.

Look how caring JJ is. She's probably a really good listener and smells maybe like jasmine and baby powder. They're like, JJ, you have soft blonde hair and a calming voice. Go interview the living victim.

GOD, WE GET IT. JJ is caring and kind. As soon as you have a kid on a television show, you get relegated to a mish mash of stereotypes. Give her a vest and a gun again, guys, c'mon. Though to be honest, this interview was kind of disturbing because it brought is back to the cold open murder really well. The victim was like, why didn't he kill me? Which always scares the pants off me.

So Rossi walks into the bar where he's gotta meet up with his old mob friends. Of course he has ties to the mob. Come on. This is Rossi. The Apprentice brought up the fact that Rossi seems very pulp-y, and I agree. He's got this almost noir hero edge to him. Bedraggled, old, bad with women and probably the first person to say something racist when he's loaded. Apprentice said we should stick him in a Dick Tracy trench and call it a day.

Are they watching polo or something? What kind of mob is this?

If you can't get Colin Farrell on your television show, get this dude. He's a classic Irishman. And his name on the show is Sean. Obvious show is obvious. But I like this guy, for some reason. He's got a swagger about him.

Rossi sits down with his old mob boss buddy and is like, who the hell is killing these people? Mob boss alludes to this Emma character from Rossi's past who I guess was his one true love. Blah blah blah. But eventually we get some info about our unsub. This guy's muscle, not a planner. He kills for cash and shoots the same way. Which means there's someone else stuffing his day planner full of vendettas and not wanting to get his hands dirty. So the dude agrees that in exchange for Rossi lowering Irish Sean's prison sentence to two years in a federal pen, he'll bring Rossi the muscle dude doing all the killing and from there, they can find the planner.

OH HEY LOOK. They're both fighting for mom and dad's attention on the screen! Reid is answering all the questions Garcia usually answers because he feels left out. Poor baby. But I love that when the writers remember to stick to something, they do, like Garcia not being able to handle other people in her workspace. She goes alpha lady apeshit.

What ties this all together is that it turns out that the unsubs are offing child molesters. One by one. Which, okay, but how am I supposed to hate these unsubs now? Occasionally, Criminal Minds throws us a bone and makes us a little conflicted. Prentiss goes to interview the victim of one of the child molesters and her dad's in the room. Which, isn't that against the rules? And then the dad is like, why didn't you tell me, why are you always lying?

Prentiss is like, excuse me, bitch, but shut the fuck up with your victim blaming. Prentiss is like a more hardass Olivia Benson, or at least a better acted one. She hates misogynists, victim-shamers and rapists.

I just thought the light was hitting Morgan's eyebrows really nicely here.

Rossi and Hotch are staking out the bar where the mob guy is gonna bring Rossi the killer. They're sitting in a van and for some reason it reminds me of a stoner comedy, even though no one is smiling, especially not Hotch.

They have this emo moment about Hotch missing his wife and kid and Rossi sort of starts in on this spiel that's been recited to Hotch a thousand times about how he should stop letting the job rule his life. You folks clearly don't know who this guy is. He knows this, but he can't help himself. He's already at the point where his family is in witness protection in order to safe them from getting knifed by The Reaper. We're kind of past the point of reclaiming his life in spite of the job.

But then this ninja unsub dude busts in and kills the mob boss and Rossi basically just effed over his childhood friend. Burn. Told you the Feds can't be trusted.

Somewhere along the way, we learn that this mysterious dude behind the list:

...is some judge who married Rossi's true love, Emma. She croaked in a car accident and he discovered he had cancer and only six months to live. So he has nothing to lose by offing all the people that he thinks escaped the justice system under his watch. He made a list and he paid the killer a ton of money and the killer picked them off one by one like a crossword puzzle that Garcia solved before Reid did in the scene before.

Her pleased as punch face is great.

I digress. This episode is the episode where they explain that unsub means unknown subject. We get one of these per season, usually, just for the stragglers. So they figure out who it is and then BAM. In walks the judge, all like, LOOKIN' FOR ME?

So duh, they interrogate him. Rossi's basically like, you don't remember me, but I toooootally fucked your wife. And the judge is like, bitch what? And Rossi's like, yeaaaaah. Multiple times. Which is a badass move. I like Rossi in this moment for sticking it to the man. It's like he's backing up all his cocky swagger in one swift blow. They want to know who's last on the list, and so, with his spirit broken, the judge tells him that the last guy on the list was the truck driver who hit his wife and killed her.

Ohhhh poor dude. There's a guy with a baseball bat behind you.

He's a tank and his scowl is almost as rough as Hotch's.

No wait, look at that smile. I take that back. He loves this shit.

Our rag tag team of FBI profilers has a WAIT A MINUTE moment in the eleventh hour like this is an episode of House or something. They're like, his wife is dead, he has six months to live, he turned himself in. There's no WAY this dude is planning on staying alive. And then in the middle of them leading him out of the precinct, there's a sniper shot and JJ gets blood all over her pretty outfit.

"THIS IS CHANEEEEEEL!"

Blood shot. I also wanted to direct your attention to the suspenders. A signature of old men.

So back on the plane, Rossi and Hotch have the SAME FUCKING CONVERSATION they had in the car. Don't get obsessed with the job, Aaron. Don't let the one true pure thing in your life slip away because you're obsessed with this job, Aaron. Shut up, Rossi. Hotch IS HIS JOB. There is no line anymore. There is no Life Hotch and Job Hotch. They are one in the same. And THEN. Rossi is like, oh by the way, I didn't ever sleep with Emma. ARE YOU FOR SERIOUS!? THE ONE AWESOME THING YOU'VE EVER DONE WAS A LIE!?

We get a little coda in this episode, which is rare. But kind of great.

Killer dude took his ass to Florida and retired with his cash. He's golfing. Getting in his car.

THEN FAKE COLIN FARRELL POPS OUT AND IS LIKE. SUP, HOMES? REMEMBER WHEN YOU KILLED MY BOSS? FUCK YOU.

Justice is served, bitch.

DAAAAAMN.