{ gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. }

[delga]

Flist cut! I'm not hearing disputes but I don't care if you lurk/comment/stick around. I barely lock anything anyway and I'm boring, so I doubt any of you truly care.

Every day is de-friending amnesty. No-one has to be here if they don't want to be.

--

Some opinions. Firstly, the first quote was about whether or not evil affects you; the answer this week is apparently 'yes'.

+     I think the 100th episode should have featured the whole team in equal measure, and I'm disappointed by the route that was chosen. George Foyet stopped being a compelling villain the second he came after Hotch because the story stopped being about obsession in criminal terms and started being about character-pandering. Your views will likely differ on this point, and you're welcome to them. For me, this was a let down.

+     I am upset at the decision to kill Haley. At this point, a radical death would have been Jack or Hotch himself. I rarely advocate death as a plot motivator; I have a preference for the harder choice, which is living with what happened. But Hotch's death would have served a purpose in this episode and in this season because I feel it would have changed the team's motivations.

+     This is not to say that I wish death on Hotch. I know some of my flist adore him and others couldn't care less. I'm at a middleground with him because I used to enjoy the character much more than I do now. I don't think the parental metaphors apply any more, and I'm tired of seeing them bandied about as though they are the character's flesh, as opposed to the skeletal frame on which a character is built. Hotch is not mother; that is a role requirement that he filled and which informs on his characterisation. He is not solely defined by that trait.

+     Haley's death was lazy writing, which is how I feel about every single female character death which a) motivates the (usually male) hero to extreme lengths and b) is therefore gratuitous. She was safe to kill off: close enough to a primary character as to induce sympathy but distant enough for it not to matter in the long run. What is the emotional difference in killing Haley compared to killing, for example, Garcia, or Hotch, or Reid? That was a judgement call with which I disagree very strongly and for a show that is normally very good at these distinctions, it's a disappointment.

+     I did enjoy watching Reid extrapolate Foyet's alias, though I'd liked to have had some indication of his methodology as opposed to: hey, boy wonder! Too much ellipsis. Plus, yes, Reid does have an eidetic memory but to date it has been shown that his data recall is text-based; he tends to have to read it to recall it. The boy is not a dictaphone.

+     It was interesting that they brought Kevin and Will back for this episode, especially as Hotch loses Haley.

+     Jack calls everyone on the team 'miss' or 'mr'? Not 'aunt' and 'uncle'? Is this likely? That's a small quibble in the face of things, but it threw me from what was otherwise an emotional scene. Manipulative or not, I was relieved to see the child, albeit confined in what was possibly a coffin of his own making.

+     Naturally, I'm also cheap: the glance Reid and Emily share before she went in to see Strauss was wonderful.

+     Emily's scenes with Erin Strauss was forced. There is a history of a) Emily's dislike of politics and b) Emily's dislike of Strauss but first and foremost, Emily is the Good Child. She does what she's told to do; she argues tentatively but clearly; she toes the line, yes ma'am, no ma'am, very well ma'am. The only occasion in which she lost her self-control and her ability to compartmentalise was in Demonology (which I will always argue was linked to regressive behaviour and exceptional circumstances, but I am biased so take what you will from that). So whilst it seems plausible that she would not be interested in hearing what Strauss had to say, I did not at all find it satisfying to see her sitting in that chair and sulking like a petulant child getting their wrist slapped. There were moments that elicited the fangirl in me - her clipped tone, her directness - but they felt out of place.

+     I did enjoy the team dissecting Haley's fear. That felt like a real profile. Victimology is Reid's strong suit, am I right? But it was nice to see the team play together, so to speak.

+     What exactly was the point of Strauss' interludes? She is so easily made a villain, and Rossi even sits across the table from her and accuses her of being out of touch (nothing can be done by a bureaucrat, or something of that ilk). And then she hears Hotch's story and that's the end of it? She was so swayed that her professional attitude is suddenly dropped? She didn't know that Haley was dead before Hotch sat down and told her? Whatever. Her argument is with Hotch; we know this because she was extremely sympathetic when handling Morgan. But what purpose did it serve to have her do that one-eighty? Wouldn't it have been more true to the character if she said, okay, you're going to take time to heal now, and then when you come back we're going to talk about this again, and we're going to judge your part in this, and we're going to judge your effectiveness? Which is what she did a year or so ago when there was no indication that Hotch needed reeling in. That conversation should be happening now. I don't know: I feel like I missed something with this.

+     We've had character-centric episodes before - some better than others (the first Frank&Gideon episode was better than the second; Revelations was better than Memoriam; Demonology was terrible) - so I don't object to them on principle. I do think the more interesting aspects of Hotch's story have long-since been buried and forgotten. Um, his brother, anyone? This is probably the point at which I should tell you that Gideon's manpain was wholly uninteresting to me the whole time he was going through it; ditto Rossi's original plot. It's too egocentric, and I have never enjoyed it. Your reactions will differ greatly, and I'm not saying they're any less valid, just that I have never given a damn. I was always more interested in Frank, and this time around I could. not. give. a. shit. Foyet was boring.

+     On the whole I would probably protest less if this wasn't supposed to be a 'special' episode for the 100th show. This episode should have been about the team working a case together, in tangent, as a mechanised unit. It should have shown us scenes like Rossi and Morgan pinning a suspect down in interrogation, or Reid and Emily working their brain magic to get a perp or a victim to come out of hiding. It should have been JJ and Garcia proving that you don't have to be in the field to make a difference. It should have been all bases covered. And it was none of these things. I'm disappointed.

+     I did not enjoy it. I was too busy waiting to see who would die. I will likely be more sympathetic on a re-watch, but I dislike being manhandled by characterisation.

So. There was that.

--

Up soon: NCIS marathon because I'm behind the times; Yuletide prep; Bones marathon (I keep saying this and never doing it but I waaaaaant to); dancing to Glee tracks. I'm set!

Comments

[perverseparagon.livejournal.com]

Hee, you know, it constantly amazes me that when people have flist cuts that I somehow manage to cling on in there somehow. I'm a useless friend, and I so rarely comment when I'm flitting through.

So, hey! This is a comment. I'm glad to see that you're well and that fandom seems to have pounced on you in a big way. *waves*

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Hello! I am rubbish at commenting, too, so, you know. Also: how could I cut you?! Known you for ages; wouldn't even think to dare!

[failte-aoife.livejournal.com]

I did not enjoy it. I was too busy waiting to see who would die. I will likely be more sympathetic on a re-watch, but I dislike being manhandled by characterisation.

Thanks. I nearly believed that I'm the only person in the fandom who didn't enjoy the episode (and generally hates Strauus and thinks Foyet is boring)

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

No, I wasn't enthused. I don't hate Strauss, I just don't really understand why she's even relevant.

[asemic.livejournal.com]

The use of death and tragedy to create insta-character growth in Hotch was pathetic. And I agree that 'fridging Hayley was cheap especially when used to develop The Hero. Hell, Hayley was the only thing defining Hotch; the only characterization we got of him was when they were together and when she left him. Other than that we've been told he's been abused and, like you said, has a brother, but those two things barely come up.

It's a shame that a lot of time and energy has been spent on a character that is largely a wooden block with a bamboo stick up its ass.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Aside: is 'fridging the term now? Because I never heard it before this week, and then bam! Three times, all in relation to this episode. Huh.

I think more could have been done if she'd lived, that's for certain. I hope we get back to solving cases now, not traumas.

[asemic.livejournal.com]

Stuffed Into the Fridge and Women in Refigerators

I doubt that more could have been done with her if she lived. The show should stick to the core team because secondary characters come onto the scene and then are used rarely.

[dreamer-86.livejournal.com]

*flickering past the Criminal Minds spoilers*

So, I don't know if you've cut me or not. If you have, I won't be offended seeing as how I'm not all that active these days. But if you have cut me from your flist, would it upset if you're still on my flist? Mostly because I don't have the heart to flist cuts and also your journal makes for fun reading sometimes; the fandom parts I mean.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Tell me if I ever spoil, mmm'kay? I do my utmost but everyone lapses.

re: cut, we've already spoken about this :)

[dreamer-86.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's easy to lapse if it's a really good episode and it seems that CM is one of your favorite shows, kinda like Smallville is to me so I know all about spoilers. Plus, you're probably ahead of Sweden in CM so I have myself to blame if I read something I don't wanna read. :P

[muldy.livejournal.com]

Yay I made the cut ;-)

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, how could I cut YOU? Don't be daft :)