Happy Murder Fun Misogny Hour: Criminal Minds Review Part II

So in my last offering you met the characters and cast of the seminal television series Criminal Minds. Today let me walk you children in nature as I break down a few of my "favorite" episodes, in no particular order other than best to worst.

A preliminary word on the violence in CM. Both this show and Hannibal have in the past made me look away from the television in disgust, but I've always felt like on Hannibal that the people behind that show were at least trying to do something, right? Make the events occurring beautiful to look at, add some artistry into things. Something. Not so on Criminal Minds. The camera work, set design, and casting are all basic and do nothing for the gore to make it ascend past just merely being gross and unpleasant. Because of this, and it general awfulness, if you are sensitive don't watch this show and maybe don't even read these synopses. 

So here now are a smattering of episodes that I can actually remember.

1. Season 6, Ep. 13 "The Thirteenth Step"

This was a "Bonnie and Clyde" type episode notable for the amount of time it made us spend just hanging out with the murderers and for the fact that I think it thought it was pulling a twist at the end.

Basically Adrienne Palicki and her boyfriend are addicts who met at an AA meeting and decided to go on a Natural Borne Killers style murder spree.

I remember them being fairly well cast but the story is dumb and gross. It even gets confusing at the end when they duo confront the boyfriends abusive parent as we watch our team race to try and intervene. My question at the time was, who am I supposed to be rooting for here? The team to arrive so the guys abusive parent and enabling other parent can live? Or the killer guy? Spoiler: I rooted for the killers the whole time in this episode.

This show has a lot of dumb barely hinged psychology behind it since the team is supposed to be profiling killers in order to catch them. It means everyone makes huge leaps in logic constantly. (It also uses a quasi-mystical plot device where they basically hypnotize people to get them to remember details and it works 100% of the time).

Now, without going back and checking, the twist is that they come up with a theory that one of the duo is a psychopath leading the charge and the other is just a sociopath who is going along because they have no emotions. The twist is played up as- oh snap, the girl is the psychopath! But, but, estrogen?! I don't know why that is treated like a huge revelation, but it is. Anyway, the episode ends eventually, which I liked a lot.

2. Season 2, Ep. 21 "Open Season"

Lil' Cutie Pie

Two redneck brothers hunting the most dangerous game: man (well, mostly women actually). This episode is grim and unoriginal but I remember it because Jim Parrack aka "Hoyt" from Tru Blood plays one of the brothers and he is super charming, even when playing a garbage character.

I also remember it for how weird it was that when one brother gets captured it becomes this maudlin brotherly love type thing that was really creepy. Like, I don't give a shit about these guys and their fucking relationship- they are monsters. What are you doing here, Criminal Minds?

3. Season 5, Ep 23 "Our Darkest Hour"/ Season 5, Ep. 1 "The Longest Night" (Two Parts)

I know this isn't the real you. *fights back tears*

Tim Curry plays a gross rapist. Notable only for how memorably upsetting Tim Curry looks.

Tim Curry is a beautiful and dashing man about town! How dare this show sully his beautiful face with their filth!

4. Season 4, Ep 25 "To Hell . . . and Back"

Why, Garret Dillahunt, why??

(Side note: I'm starting to realize why I remember these episodes: 2/3 of them feature at least one talented and charismatic actor that I have enjoyed in the past.)

This is truly one of the most unpleasant 45 minutes of television ever filmed. No message, no artistic bent, no nothing but grim and dour suffering and cruelty. This is the Eli Roth movie of television. I could barely make it through this piece of literal garbage.

The story is a paralyzed man with the help of his mentally disabled brother (very very much modeled on Lennie of Of Mice and Men) kidnaps and performs medical experiments/tortures them at their pig  farm using his brother to carry out his commands. The bodies are disposed of via the pigs. I believe at the end when the farm is raided they also find the skeletons of children but I AM NOT FUCKING GOING BACK TO DOUBLE CHECK.

This story s disgusting. And you know what else I find legitimately disgusting? The Criminal Minds TV show Wiki mixes entries for the fictional serial killers on the show with the REAL FUCKING SERIAL KILLERS THAT Inspired THEM. They have entries for both, done the same way with a list of victims and years active and there is no fucking way to differentiate the fiction with the reality. It is so goddamn disgusting.

That there is real proof that not only is this  garbage show but it is watched and loved by true garbage people. The amount of insensitivity and detachment from reality one has to have to design a fan site like that is stunning to me.

5. Season 5, Ep. 12 "The Uncanny Valley"

A overweight woman who likes dolls kidnaps women and turns them into living dolls by using drugs she acquires from her job as a nurse to force them into a zombified state and then painting them up and dressing them in frilly clothes. It's pretty gruesome. But hey- she was molested you guys! And had a doll when she was a kid that her molester- I don't know. Blah blah blah. She be fucked up, basically. Come on!

A fat chick can't even be a psycho without being super infantilized, right? And all fat women are socially awkward spinsters right? And thy all love dolls because they need something to love because they can;t have children because no one will fuck them, RIGHT? It sounds crazy and out of left field until you realize that those themes are present in a lot of depictions of fat women, just not usually to this extent.

Side note: On re-familiarizing myself with this episode on IMDB I saw this topic title on the message boards: "Does CM mirror Star Trek (original) in addressing current social issues?" Fucking no, idiot. That is literally the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Fuck you, Tree_Woman.

6. Season  3, Ep. 8 and 9 "Lucky" and  "Penelope"

The Bad Guy

The fucking motherlode. This is the Garcia episode I hinted at back in my first post. It is truly one of the most misogynistic episode of television I have ever seen. Lucille Ball getting spanked had more nuance than this episode does.

Garcia gets hit on by a "handsome" (re: bland) guy at a coffee shop. Her work husband Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) warns her to be wary. She gets rightfully hurt because it is clear that Derek is saying this guy is out of her league, looks wise.

Well she goes on the date anyway and it goes great. Then as they are saying goodnight on her doorstep the guys pulls out a gun and shoots her. The episode is called "Lucky".

YEP. YEP THAT HAPPENED. CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE THIS SHIT?

Took that fatty down a peg, whoop whoop!

So yes. The episode s then the hunt for this guy. The details don't matter- what matters is she is told by a trusted male friend that she is not worthy of dating an attractive man because she is not attractive. She does it anyway and is punished by the man shooting her. She then apologizes again and again for the rest of the episode for ignoring her friends advice.

She is back in her place at the end of the episode. Not once does she say, look man what you said was still shitty and hurtful, even if you were right in this particular instance. You didn't say 'here's why I think he is untrustworthy'" even. You based you advice purely on the fact that n attractive man hit on me out of the blue. You are a shitty friend!". No.None of that happens.

It is so offensive and saddening to me. Someone thought this was a good storyline. Someone spent time on this, worked hard to produce this script and to film it. Kirsten Vangsness herself chose to participate in this piece of work, to say these lines. It's fucking shameful.


So that's it. A show that has been on for 8+ seasons and these are the episodes I remember. This is what your average CBS viewer is consuming on a weekly basis. And since the average CBS viewer (according to a Bloomberg.com article that cites Nielson stats) is in their mid to late fifties, this means that this is what your parents or grandparents are watching. This. Shit. It's sanitized torture porn for the geriatric set.

So don't watch Criminal Minds. It's gross and offensive and panders to the middle of the road.

"Hi, my name is Kirsten Vangsness and I have no self respect."