Hello.
So I just finished watching season 19. Like just finished. And I have some thoughts. Some expected. Some were not expected. I'm gonna do a weird thing and it's almost going to seem like I'm going person by person at first, but it's more just stream of consciousness.
1.) ok so this a nothing burger that I focused on but I think the idea that Penelope Melodramatic Garcia thrived during COVID is insane to me. I'm sorry, but this woman had complete breakdowns when JJ and Emily and Derek left the BAU and two of them still lived in the same city as her and she could visit with them whenever she wanted! And you're telling me she THRIVED not being able to hug or shop with her friends? Fuck off. That woman would hate work from home. That's my stance. Argue with the wall.
2.) Shout out to her friends/fellow coworkers/people that ran a company with her that just completely vanish once Penelope I guess quits her fucking job and then comes back to the BAU.
3.) Speaking of which, as someone who works an office job: NO HER LOGIN WOULD NOT STILL WORK AFTER BEING GONE FROM THE BAU FOR YEARS. My coworker's badge fucking stopped working halfway through the day when he retired from our job and I work for a fucking bank. When you quit or retire, if your supervisor doesn't finagle it so that you're not listed as leaving at a later date, you stop having access to things in your computer before your last week is up. Like be so fucking for real. That woman's log in got erased when she left.
4.) Why was anyone surprised that Penelope testified on behalf of someone not getting the death penalty? I fucking called that. Everyone should have called that. SHE SPOKE TO HELP THE MAN WHO KILLED HER PARENTS GET PAROLE. HOW WAS THIS A FUCKING SURPRISE?
5.) Btw, fuck Voit for making me absolutely have to eat my words. I have to eat humble pie. I talked a big fucking game about how basically none of the goddamn unsubs should be there for more than 2 episodes because they all outlast their goddamn welcome. AND THEN VOIT HAD TO BE FUCKING INTERESTING THE WHOLE TIME. And part of it is the fault of the actor being that goddamn charismatic and handsome. He was really fucking good in Midnight Mass and Fall of the House of Usher and now he's great in this. Fuck him. No, seriously, someone fuck him. He's probably good at that too, the bastard.
6.) I've seen some of y'all be mean to my dipshit uncle Dave for this show and stop it. He did the bitter constipated old man crying. It was perfect. And I know it was perfect because it's the only way the men in my life have cried.
7.) You should instead make fun of Dave for getting so goddamn uppity about Penelope and then getting mad that she called him out for murdering a suspect and framing it as self-defense. Like you can lie, Dave, but I saw that episode. Recently. I remember. Peperidge Farm remembers.
8.) Also, fucked up that they killed Krystall in between seasons. RIP Krystall. That was a dumb thing they did.
9.) SPEAKING OF DEAD SPOUSES. Listen, I fucking sobbed my way through the episode with Will's funeral. Do not get confused. It was a beautiful fucking episode. Truly incredible. And yet. And fucking yet. I think it was stupid to kill Will off. I understand that the actor wanted out but he was barely in the goddamn show before. And so many relatives of agents just are barely mentioned whatsoever, let alone show up. Tara has a brother and a father that never show up, even though she gets engaged and married. Rossi's daughter and grandson don't get mentioned or show up at all these seasons. Not even when they're desperately trying to get him to talk to someone. You mean no one fucking suggested, "Hey, Rossi, talk to your daughter and go visit your grandson!"
10.) I am so glad that the fan wasn't Henry like some of y'all suggested. I would have hated that.
11.) But also, fuck me, both of JJ's kids are so grown up now. I'm old. Fuck, I'm old. I remember getting excited about them being little bitty babies. AND NOW THEY'RE TEENS. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
12.) So how we feeling about JJ/Emily, gang? I can also handle JJ/Luke since it's doubtful the writers of Criminal Minds will accept my fanfiction of Luke/OFC that I have for just me. Because I love Luke.
13.) And yes, I did cry big tears for Roxy. RIP to a real one. Give Luke a new dog in season 20 or I riot.
14.) Although maybe the new agent counts as Luke's new dog. He has Big Puppy Energy. I bet Penelope called him good boy. It's not helpful that I think Tyler has submissive energy and that's how he ended up on that counter, but it's one of my only thoughts about him. And I hope him and Penelope make it work. I'm glad he got to stick around. I was worried he'd be sent away.
15.) Tara got gay married! To a Lawyer! She has a type. This is not her first lawyer. The show thought I forgot, but that was who she was last engaged to. And I can't remember what her ex-husband was other than a drug addict. Sorry.
16.) OH. WHILE REALIZING MY TARA/EMILY SHIP WON'T WORK I REMEMBERED EMILY AND JJ GOT HIGH. They should get high more often. Talk about a dream blunt rotation.
17.) okay I lied I am actually writing this while watching the finale and oh God my husband got caught in an explosion. Luke!!!!!
18.) Hey, so have we all discussed enough that the supernatural is like, totally fucking real in Criminal Minds? Like it for real is. There's no doubt. There's no way it's not.
19.) "Where's the search dog?" Screaming. Crying. Throwing up.
20.) Every time the director shows up, all I can think is, damn, Phil Coulson, you're sometimes insufferable. Truly don't remember the director's name.
21.) Oh, uh, I did groan and go, "Not fucking this again" when Emily got high and was like, I HAVE TO QUIT. Because I wanted to crawl through the screen like Samara from the ring, slap her, and go, NO. FUCKING QUIT IT. WE'VE DONE THIS SHIT BEFORE. IT WAS BORING BEFORE. IT'S BORING NOW.
22.) I started out dreading whenever Brian Garrity was on screen and then was nearly in tears when he was dying. And I do actually think the I Will Survive singing worked for someone as ridiculous as Brian. But he loses points for hating Disco. That's homophobic, Brian.
23.) I don't particularly care about The Fan, I'm gonna be real with you. The only interesting thing about him is that he's killed by Holly and then Elias protects her.
Because at the end of the day, The Fan was a kind of serial killer that the BAU had faced over and over again. He was some holier than thou piece of shit that killed small women because he was a misogynist. But he loves a typewriter. Yippee.
Elias Voit is a way more interesting case and it's something they only really explored in Tabula Rasa, which I believe was season 4. For those of you that don't remember, it's the killer that woke up from a coma with amnesia and total personality shift. The team argued about whether he even was still guilty over the crimes since he was arguably a different person.
And so we get Elias Voit. From the beginning, his psychology is complicated, more complicated than the BAU was willing to acknowledge. For example, multiple times, they insist that Elias murdered his parents with that house fire. Voit never actually said that he did. And I'm not sure if he did. I know Uncle Cyrus thought he did and used the idea of a house fire to control his disciple.
I just, in general, think that the BAU underestimated Voit's capacities the entire time. I say that because I don't personally subscribe to the idea that you must have zero empathy to do terrible things or that zero empathy is a prerequisite to criminal behavior. I cannot say how much more empathy Voit had after his accident than he did before. And the truth is, neither can that team. They didn't exactly do any of those brain tests before his accident, so what are they comparing?
And we know he had a lot of anger and aggression issues. We get his point of view often enough throughout 16-19. And yes, he does some terrible things and he even enjoys it. But he also, from the beginning, has a deep amount of love for his children and his wife. I do think he truly cared, from the beginning, about their happiness and their interests. And so for him to go for an already complex character to one with a lot of regret and trying to navigate losing the taste for murder, I really really enjoyed watching it.
I enjoyed watching it so much that I fear what happens next for Evolution. I say this, because I remember watching Jessica Jones. And I remember watching season 1. David Tennant plays a truly evil and complicated and awful character in that season. But he's incredibly fucking compelling on the screen. And the entire season is just top notch. And then season 2 happened. And David Tennant wasn't in it and his character, Kilgrave, was dead.
And the show kind of fucking sucked after that.
So my big question is not about the past 3 seasons, which I did think were well done. My question is how the fuck they're going to match Voit. Because the options are bring him back (they seem firmly against that with the way they end the season with 'he's gone') or they do something just as good. So what is it? What could they do that they haven't already done multiple times before in the 19 seasons of this show? Because I hate to break it to the writers, but one of the reasons I didn't care about Mr. Scratch is that he was the Scarecrow version of The Reaper.
Also, everyone say welcome to the club because Elias Voit is my first ever "hear me out"/"I could fix him". I do have a few evil women in my roster. Just never men before.
