A Few Thoughts on Criminal Minds' 'Moseley Ave.'

[laguera25]

cassandra_wolf asked me what I thought of Wednesday's Criminal Minds.

I think Matthew Gray Gubler tried. I do not think he should direct again. The episode wasn't in the small-screen steerage with CSI:NY, but it was lacking. The tone was off. Usually even the most somber, gut-wrenching episodes generate an engaging heat that makes you want to watch more, to see what these people will do. The characters have chemistry and work to produce a seamless whole that brings everyone--the agents, victims, cops, and unsubs--to life. It feels real even though it isn't.

Not so in "Moseley Ave." Aside from the unsubs and the children they had kidnapped, who were captivating and magnificent and creepy as hell, the episode was a plodding, turgid borefest. How many times can desperate parents ask, "Do you think there's a chance [insert child's name here] could still be alive?" while the chagrined agents cast shifty, knowing glances at one another? They're desperate. I get it. But to have the same tired scene played out three times in an episode bogged it down and made me wish the focus would shift to the children and those hellish unsubs, who at least displayed a range of emotions beyond overwrought Kleenex-throttling.

The team itself was remarkably disjointed, and the dialogue was painfully stilted. When the team was on view at all, that is. Most of the episode shifts between Clan Creepy and the interactions between J.J. and Madame Tinhat, Now With Less Tin.

Look, I like J.J. She's an asset to the team and a strong female character without having to beat up hulking perverts to prove it. She's got guts and has a set of ethics that extend beyond the rules and regulations set by the job. But why, oh, why has the birth of Henry and her subsequent initiation into the cult of motherhood suddenly invested her with super-sekrit powers of divination? Because she's a mother, she can intuit whether or not another mother is bugshit nuts? And the team accepts her instincts with a shrug? All right, then. This isn't the first time the show has used this lazy failsafe by which to insinuate itself into a case over which it would normally have no jurisdiction; it is, in fact, the third time this season, and it's getting old.

That said, the children were excellent, particularly Charlie. I can't imagine having the wherewithal at eight years old to photograph your fellow captives just in case the police ever do rescue you, nor can I imagine maintaining your moral compass in such a brutal environment. It was shamefully satisfying to see him shoot his tormentor in a scene that was eerily evocative of Hansel and Gretel. It was one of the few scenes that Gubler got pitch-perfect, and I'll remember it for a long time.

I'm just sorry that Stephen didn't survive as well.

C-