Is there anything more embarrassing than writers who don't understand comedy trying to write comedy? I had to pull up a game on my phone so I could devote only half my attention to the episode, that's the only way I could get through it.
I stopped watching Criminal Minds the previous season--too many cast changes, and the writing just got progressively thinner as the show went on. But I tuned in to this episode for Paget Brewster's reunion with her Thrilling Adventure Hour co-star Paul F. Tompkins. Well, Tompkins is on the show for all of five minutes in aggregate so I should have just found an edit of his scenes on YouTube. He handles the paper-thin caricature--a mockery of conspiracy theorists--with aplomb, but it's barely a footnote in the overall episode.
We get to see what the Criminal Minds writers think is funny--I mean beyond Garcia calling Morgan "sexual chocolate" or whatever. First we have Matt struggling to assemble a crib he bought online while his pregnant wife nags him for buying the wrong color. Then Garcia stumbles upon a stalker case and brings in the victim's ex-boyfriend so A. J. and Tara can interrogate him and snidely comment on what a loser he is. (The guy's alibi is that he was having a threesome and they're just like, "Ew, who'd wanna bone this guy?" Um, at least two women? They're not even good at bullying.) Then Prentiss finds out her crazy former neighbor is suing her and brings him into the station so she and Tara can comment on what a psycho loser he is and how out of his league his ex-wife was. Meanwhile, Reid meets a woman in the park who accuses him of being a creep after her unsupervised nephew wanders up to him and starts bothering him, and when the nephew insists Reid comes along while he plays, the woman continually rejects Reid before he even has a chance to open his mouth, telling him his dreams are boring and he's a loser for being out in the park trying to have a conversation with another human being--and this is AFTER he tries to get her out of a parking ticket she very much deserved to get. Noticing any kind of pattern here?
Tara, A. J., and Prentiss come across as shallow mean girls who use their positions of authority to harass and snipe. Both of the guys they mock behind their backs are complete victims--one of a stalker, another of his paranoid delusions. No compassion for either of them. It's treated as a joke that the stalker is a self-loathing homosexual--when they think he's after the woman, he's the biggest most threatening scum of the earth, but when it's revealed that he's actually after the ex-boyfriend the show is like, "Wakka wakka! Silly stalker!" Matt's "dopey husband who can't even assemble a crib!" shtick is worse than sitcom level writing. I don't even remember this character, but his wife sure sucks. Garcia abuses the privilege of utilizing the BAU office for her hacking workshop by blasting music to the point that it bothers everybody else in the building, and she doesn't appear to be a very encouraging teacher either, just walking by everybody's computer and berating them for not already being master-level hackers even though the reason they're there is presumably to learn from her. Everybody's either a jerk or an idiot and that's all the writers can think to do in this "humor"-filled episode. Well, except for referencing memes. My God, the cringe.
The episode deserves one star, but I gave it one more for the only genuinely funny exchange in the entire 40 minutes:
Max (annoying lady in the park who's mean to Reid the entire time for no reason until he falls for her): Remember when you were a kid, you could just get on your bike and just ride until you had to come home for dinner?
Reid: Conceptually yes, but practically, no.
If you think there's nothing funnier than that T shirt in your closet that reads, "I'm not as think as you drunk I am!", this episode is for you.
I stopped watching Criminal Minds the previous season--too many cast changes, and the writing just got progressively thinner as the show went on. But I tuned in to this episode for Paget Brewster's reunion with her Thrilling Adventure Hour co-star Paul F. Tompkins. Well, Tompkins is on the show for all of five minutes in aggregate so I should have just found an edit of his scenes on YouTube. He handles the paper-thin caricature--a mockery of conspiracy theorists--with aplomb, but it's barely a footnote in the overall episode.
We get to see what the Criminal Minds writers think is funny--I mean beyond Garcia calling Morgan "sexual chocolate" or whatever. First we have Matt struggling to assemble a crib he bought online while his pregnant wife nags him for buying the wrong color. Then Garcia stumbles upon a stalker case and brings in the victim's ex-boyfriend so A. J. and Tara can interrogate him and snidely comment on what a loser he is. (The guy's alibi is that he was having a threesome and they're just like, "Ew, who'd wanna bone this guy?" Um, at least two women? They're not even good at bullying.) Then Prentiss finds out her crazy former neighbor is suing her and brings him into the station so she and Tara can comment on what a psycho loser he is and how out of his league his ex-wife was. Meanwhile, Reid meets a woman in the park who accuses him of being a creep after her unsupervised nephew wanders up to him and starts bothering him, and when the nephew insists Reid comes along while he plays, the woman continually rejects Reid before he even has a chance to open his mouth, telling him his dreams are boring and he's a loser for being out in the park trying to have a conversation with another human being--and this is AFTER he tries to get her out of a parking ticket she very much deserved to get. Noticing any kind of pattern here?
Tara, A. J., and Prentiss come across as shallow mean girls who use their positions of authority to harass and snipe. Both of the guys they mock behind their backs are complete victims--one of a stalker, another of his paranoid delusions. No compassion for either of them. It's treated as a joke that the stalker is a self-loathing homosexual--when they think he's after the woman, he's the biggest most threatening scum of the earth, but when it's revealed that he's actually after the ex-boyfriend the show is like, "Wakka wakka! Silly stalker!" Matt's "dopey husband who can't even assemble a crib!" shtick is worse than sitcom level writing. I don't even remember this character, but his wife sure sucks. Garcia abuses the privilege of utilizing the BAU office for her hacking workshop by blasting music to the point that it bothers everybody else in the building, and she doesn't appear to be a very encouraging teacher either, just walking by everybody's computer and berating them for not already being master-level hackers even though the reason they're there is presumably to learn from her. Everybody's either a jerk or an idiot and that's all the writers can think to do in this "humor"-filled episode. Well, except for referencing memes. My God, the cringe.
The episode deserves one star, but I gave it one more for the only genuinely funny exchange in the entire 40 minutes:
Max (annoying lady in the park who's mean to Reid the entire time for no reason until he falls for her): Remember when you were a kid, you could just get on your bike and just ride until you had to come home for dinner?
Reid: Conceptually yes, but practically, no.
If you think there's nothing funnier than that T shirt in your closet that reads, "I'm not as think as you drunk I am!", this episode is for you.