While is appreciated that Criminal Minds came back to the excentric cases where the serial killer or criminal have a whole ideal and structure behind his delusions a lot of this episode suffers from trying too much to focus on the concept and lacking structure to support it.
The most blatantly part of this episode is the huge plot inconsistencies and the lack of logic with BAU work being completely useless. The only profiling done in the whole episode is made by Reid figuing out the doomsday clock, all the rest happens without any effective thinking work of the team. The only work the team does is running here or there and speaking with people without substancially impacting the case. Rossi, Prentiss and Tara part in this episode is totally forgetable.
The inconsistencies are so prominent in this episode that I even need to list them:
Again, the episode is fun, I love seeing Criminal Mind taking concepts of elaborate crimes with gimmicks but it should be better dosed so the story and investigation flows well together otherwise you have what this episode displayed: Story driven episode with bad investigation work and not enough time to give a tight and coherent story.
The most blatantly part of this episode is the huge plot inconsistencies and the lack of logic with BAU work being completely useless. The only profiling done in the whole episode is made by Reid figuing out the doomsday clock, all the rest happens without any effective thinking work of the team. The only work the team does is running here or there and speaking with people without substancially impacting the case. Rossi, Prentiss and Tara part in this episode is totally forgetable.
The inconsistencies are so prominent in this episode that I even need to list them:
- BAU don't even question theirselves during profiling in debriefing if the 3 women abductions with no bodies found could be sexual oriented.
- Mat Simmons tells Penelope to filter a list of 70 preppers (suspects) by asserting that the abductor would be steriotypically a mathematician or engineer because preppers are more likely to be have a technical profile... The guy basically tried to find a prepper inside a list of preppers, and even if this would be case, if preppers are more likely to be technical why just 1 name in 70 would be technical, doesn't make sense.
- BAU suddenly receive a video of the kidnapping rendering their whole profiling to figure out who the killer was and the vehicle used, useless.
- The video received is unexplicably shot by a random guy inside a stopped car BEFORE the guy even try to abduct one victim.
- The abductor totally ignores the fact that someone next to him in the other side of the street was filming him with a cell phone, while they stated the the guy was technical and avoided risk.
- The vehicle used had a license plate visible in the video, the vehicle belonged to the terapist, they just found out her involvement much later.
- By the time of abductions only Reid was able to figure the motivation behind the killer kidnappings being moved by the avoiding the Doomsday time which was 12:00 but when locked in his prison with a 4 digit code to be released he doesn't even try to rationalize and imediatly accepts that he can't figure the obvious code (1200).
- BAU finds out that the terapist is the one who feeds the killer with the victims information, participates in the kidnappings and owns the bunker but yet she gets suddenly get convinced to let everyone go after hearing Reid convincing the braiwashed people that the outside world was normal, which the girls didn't know but the terapist already knew even brainwashed.
- It's never explained what was the end goal of the killer (they just mixed the cultist archetype with the prepper), why he only kidnapped women, why the terapist was only mildly annoyed with the murder (when nether had killed before) and how the girls were brainwashed (the video they show to the victims doesn't convince any of them).
- Chrissy story was very bad explained, at the beggining they stated that she was very fascinated by "end of the world" subject like tv shows and websites while later it is slightly implied that she was kidnapped after consulting herself with the terapist which makes the ending a lot confusing. Was she abducted or convinced? If she was convinced to live there or abducted wasn't she still aware that her sister would keep searching for her? How anyone specially Chrissy have no the curiosity to know if their families were really dizimated or ok by the end of the world if they believe that there were survivors? If they accepted that the world had went into decay in radiation how the abductor could freely go in and out bringind new people inside? If the terapist believed in the same delusions that the other victims believed, going outside and kidnapping people without protection wouldn't be the proof that the world was normal?
Again, the episode is fun, I love seeing Criminal Mind taking concepts of elaborate crimes with gimmicks but it should be better dosed so the story and investigation flows well together otherwise you have what this episode displayed: Story driven episode with bad investigation work and not enough time to give a tight and coherent story.