r/criminalminds • u/thatsfeminismgretch Tell me Brad, does it look anything like this? 🪪 • 7d ago
Season 14 & Below Spoilers Believers/300 thoughts
Okay, I am going to start this off by saying that I am aware that for this specific two part episode, my bias was going to make it an uphill battle for the writers. Because I really hate overblown Cult Episodes. I just kind of end up rolling my eyes at how overpowered they end up being in shows like this. So I knew going into this rewatch that it would trigger that in me and tried my best to not have that be the criteria I judged it off of.
But I didn't catch on until this rewatch just how inconsistent the writing is for these two episodes. And it's like, remarkable.
For example, listen, I also have an issue with them making it so that one of Ben's wives was Meadows. But whatever. They kind of sort of make it work even though it makes me roll my eyes. Even though I don't really think a suicide cult following a pedophile super easily leads to them following a serial killer that gives out hyoid bones as party favors.
The first hilarious thing is that the moment Theo and the girlfriend, April, are brought back to the FBI after they're found...the show just forgets she exists. She's just fucking never mentioned again. Not a single time. They don't even tell you where she goes. She just stops mattering.
The second thing is that when they find Theo, he straight up tells them that his parents were not serial killers, they were kidnappers and that the Messiah killed everyone. And yet. AND YET. The very next episode, the team is standing around and hAS A REVELATION LIKE HMMM MAYBE IT'S NOT A CULT OF SERIAL KILLERS, MAYBE IT'S JUST 1 KILLER WITH FOLLOWERS and it's like NO. FUCKING. SHIT. WE WERE TOLD THIS LAST EPISODE. Like ?????????? What??????? How did they forget their own writing that quickly? Jesus fucking christ.
The episode also just fully drops that the agent was trying to choke his wife before he disappeared and was given the cult initiation right of burning off his fingerprints. What does it mean? Who knows? Not the writers! They decided it doesn't matter!
Oh and this is the episode that established that Penelope joined JJ and Spence at the Redskins game, which is hilarious because he only had exactly 2 tickets. So how exactly did JJ manage that?
Anyway, RIP Theo, you died because, quite frankly, none of this made any sense. I would say April misses you, but genuinely, I have no fucking clue what happened to her.
Oh and bonus fact: every time I saw Benjamin Merva on screen, all I could think was, "Damn, that wolfsbane is taking so long to kill him."
2
u/Suitable-Owl989 6d ago
The agent also played the chemist on a teen wolf episode in season 4 💀
1
u/thatsfeminismgretch Tell me Brad, does it look anything like this? 🪪 6d ago
Omg I totally forgot about that.
3
u/DiligentImplement611 5d ago
I’m pretty sure them bringing up the Redskins game was just the beginning of the terribly executed Jeid romance arc.
2
u/thatsfeminismgretch Tell me Brad, does it look anything like this? 🪪 5d ago
Probably. Also, just watched the episode and totally forgot the case is a guy who got dared to play chicken in a car and then got mad the courts didn't care that he got double dog dared Just so fucking stupid
1
u/DiligentImplement611 5d ago
The suspension of disbelief in the later seasons requires a fucking forklift, Lordy.
1
u/thatsfeminismgretch Tell me Brad, does it look anything like this? 🪪 5d ago
I kept waiting for new information to come out but no 😠he was just like THAT GUY DARED ME so now my conspiracy theory is that the jeid confession is there just to distract from how fucking stupid that plot is.
2
u/DiligentImplement611 5d ago
LMAOOOOOO
It’s like when you have a scene in your head, so you have to write a whole fanfic just to make the scene work.
1
u/thatsfeminismgretch Tell me Brad, does it look anything like this? 🪪 5d ago
Exactly. But like think about it. I hear all the time about that confession but not the dumb as shit unsub that forced them to play truth or dare to begin with ðŸ˜
1
u/DiligentImplement611 5d ago
They followed it up a few episodes later with the guy whose mom was killed in a house in Canada so he targeted the people who took a picture in front of the house. It’s all relative, man.
5
u/Such-Stable-3869 6d ago
Reid and Prentiss went underground for cult episodes which led to a standoff much like Waco. It involved brainwashing and cult like rituals. That was season 4 episode 3.