Criminal MindsMayhem
Original Airdate: September 24, 2008
JD - TwoCents Reviewer
JD@thetwocentscorp.com
Four long months we've waited since Lo-fi aired in May to find out who--who?!--was in that SUV that went kaboom at the end of the season finale. It really has felt like an insufferable length of time to wait and see if I was losing one of my beloved BAU team members. Would the victim of the bomb be killed or just injured? Over the last few weeks promo pictures and previews went out, and I greedily snapped up all I could find, while at the same time wondering: will Mayhem live up to its name? There was no doubt it would start with a bang, but would it deliver all the way through?
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[photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS]
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Criminal Minds
ReplyDeleteMayhem
Original Airdate: September 24, 2008
JD - TwoCents Reviewer
JD@thetwocentscorp.com
Four long months we've waited since Lo-fi aired in May to find out who--who?!--was in that SUV that went kaboom at the end of the season finale. It really has felt like an insufferable length of time to wait and see if I was losing one of my beloved BAU team members. Would the victim of the bomb be killed or just injured? Over the last few weeks promo pictures and previews went out, and I greedily snapped up all I could find, while at the same time wondering: will Mayhem live up to its name? There was no doubt it would start with a bang, but would it deliver all the way through?
After last night's premiere, all I can say to anyone who hasn't seen it yet is that you'd better breathe while you can, because the ride is fast and furious.
Of course, it doesn't start that way. The episode opens with slowly falling debris, gently wafting down from the sky after an explosion has just blown apart an SUV within blocks of Federal Plaza.
This would be a good place to take a breath. Trust me; it won't be long before you need it. So just breathe now and enjoy the really beautiful opening sequence as the camera drifts down to Hotch, who's thankfully standing, but obviously injured and disoriented, and just watching himself in the television sets of a shop just in front of him. As he turns, we move with him to see the burning wreckage of the SUV that he and Kate Joyner (played by Sienna Guillory) were sharing.
This is Hotch's worst nightmare. Mr. Always-Has-To-Be-In-Control can barely hear, can barely discern what's happening to him as he's approached by a young man, Sam, who wants to make sure he's all right. Of course, if you don't have control, you fall back on what you know, reactions learned from years of dealing with emergencies, until it hits you what's really going on. Hotch tells Sam to call 911... and then it hits him. He has no idea where Kate is. And Hotch is off at a run to find her, nearly climbing into the burning SUV before he realizes she's on the ground quite a way away from the blast.
When he gets to her, she's disoriented as well, looking for her purse. She's badly injured, her legs are broken, and she's losing a lot of blood. Hotch tries his best to stop it as he assures her that people are coming to help her. The problem? No one is coming for them, she tells him, because the FBI told them not to when they warned that the attackers would be hitting the first wave of emergency responders.
And Hotch is left to call out desperately in the streets for help that isn't coming.
This, ladies and gents, all happens even before the very first commercial break. Are you still breathing? I hope so. If not, you're going to miss the rest of a great episode. I'm very sorry. If you're still with us, breathe some more and get ready for Mayhem to get going even faster.
At this point, I could easily go on and on about the rest of the episode. It's not an episode that was light on things to talk about. I could explain how Rossi and Reid immediately predicted sixteen explosions would go off around the city, or how Garcia pulled footage that let her watch Hotch and Joyner get blown across the street in the blast; how Hotch and Joyner just waited in the street, or how Morgan managed to get past the blocks set up to get to them.... Or I could tell you how they realized that Sam wasn't quite the good Samaritan that he seemed. Still, I wouldn't even be taking you through the second commercial break. This episode is packed full, and I think it's an episode that really needs to be experienced rather than spelled out. To be honest, as David Rossi points out later in the episode, everything the UNSUBs do in the episode was set up to look like something else anyway, so I'm not sure teasing you all would really even be worth it.
What I will tell you is that the acting in this episode was phenomenal. I adore when the writers of this show really give their actors a challenge and make them stretch. Seeing Hotch broken, not in control as he is always wont to be, and still fighting was not only beautiful to watch, but deeply, deeply humanizing. As much as I love Hotch, sometimes I think we all need to be reminded that he is every bit as vulnerable as the rest of his team. His interactions with Joyner were amazing, and the writing of the scenes with them lying out in the street were so real, so subtle, and so very perfect. Guillory really upped her game from Lo-fi and delivered some really poignant moments, like when she laughs early in the episode as she's slowly losing blood, and suddenly says, in near wonder, "I feel cold. Oh, this is such a cliche."
As usual, Garcia provides us some much needed comic relief, but even she manages humor with a wonderful subtlety, just enough to balance out the state of near-panic-attack this episode induces, and never too much to throw the tone. And Morgan... where do I even start? There is what I like to call a 'Derek Morgan's Extremely Stupid But Ultimately Useful Move of the Episode' in each and every episode, it seems, but this episode might just contain Derek Morgan's Most Extremely Stupid But Ultimately Useful Move of Any Episode. Time will only tell, I suppose, but it's currently at the top of my list. What about yours?
I have to admit I was mildly disappointed that the profiling part of this profiler show got lost in the action, but overall I thought Mayhem delivered on its name. And while I'll never say that it was worth the wait (because, let's face it, I'm impatient), I will say that it was a great start to what I hope will be an equally great season, and I'm very glad to have my team back. Was it every thing you expected too?
I too was not let down by the BAU gang. I was afraid they would do something like “we begin now, and we see that the SUV that exploded belongs to some random passerby” or “we begin now, 4 months after Hotch’s SUV exploded and he went to the hospital to recover.” Although it was kinda cheap that the explosion happened before they got in the car (that wasn’t the impression they gave us in May), and that the one character that dies is not a regular character. Not that I’m complaining!
ReplyDeleteGood story, lots of action…though I agree with you about it lacking the usual exploration of the “criminals’ minds.” The truth about Sam, I admit, was a surprise to me, but I could see that evil gleam in the EMT’s eyes as soon as he showed up.
You’re right about Morgan, he always does something stupid. It’s the cop show equivalent of the scary movie “no, don’t go up the stairs!” Hotch points it out, but like you said, he is a control freak so he really has no room to talk!
Yes, the season is off to a good start!
Jenny -
ReplyDeleteI agree--that would have been a major cop out if it had just been some random person! As much as I hated to see anyone hurt, I might have actually been upset at that for making me worry for so long while we waited! :) I didn't, however, really expect someone on the team to be killed, so I guess I almost suspected that they weren't going to be in the SUV, though. :)
And YES! The EMT guy was creepy from the get go. When Hotch asked him "is the area clear?" and the guy didn't give him a direct answer, just said he couldn't listen to Hotch calling out anymore, all I could think was "this guy is so bad news, Hotch!"
And Hotch the Control Freak being out of control of his team, specifically Morgan, near the end there? Ouch! I worry about how this episode is going to affect him, not just on the possible PTSD side of things, but also because he was probably left feeling totally useless after Kate died and Morgan went running off like he did. Poor baby; I just want to hug him. Gently hug his bruised self. :) Really, this wasn't just a great episode, it was a great Hotch episode.
- JD