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I'm going to throw this out to the internet: did Criminal Minds' showrunner troll her own show in the series finale?
(I know nobody on my f-list watches Criminal Minds. But bear with me; I'm chasing something here....)
Criminal Minds, as most of you probably know, came to an end on Wednesday night, after 15 years of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit bringing the worst serial killers in America to justice.
Although it was a solid performer for CBS on Wednesday nights, CM was constantly dogged by controversy, from its depictions of graphic violence (especially towards women) to the off screen sexual harassment scandal centering on its longtime director of photography, and the near-constant turnover of its cast. Series star Mandy Patinkin left in season 3, claiming he couldn't stomach the violent content. (He's currently starring in Homeland, where he and Claire Danes pick daffodils in a quiet country garden.) Other series star Thomas Gibson was fired a few years later for assaulting a producer. (And the Les Moonves scandal affected the series' female cast in ways too complex and dispiriting to describe here...)
So, after all that, the series ended on Wednesday with an episode cowritten by showrunner Erica Messer that was (to be generous)....baffling. It was split between the team's pursuit of a final serial killer, and a literal head trip through the mind of the show's boyish prodigy, Spenser Reid (played with hushed soulfulness by the always-solid Matthew Grey Gubler). But Reid's psychic journey didn't seem to match up with his character; my wife was vocally irritated by the choice of characters Reid meets on the trip, and the scenes presented. It made no sense at the time--but thinking about it later, I realized that it was not Reid's story being presented; it was the story of the show itself. And frankly? Ms. Messer was not kind. The evidence:
1. In the first scene in the dream journey, Reid recalls a clip from the CM pilot with Gubler, Patinkin, Gibson, Lola Glaudini and Shemar Moore. It serves little dramatic purpose except to remind the audience that Gubler is the only one left.
2. Reid tearfully says that his father and (Patinkin's) Jason Gideon left notes to say goodbye. That's exactly how Patinkin quit the series.
3. Jayne Atkinson's Erin Strauss is an odd choice for a "guiding angel" for Reid's journey. (She's more associated with Joe Mantegna's David Rossi.) UNLESS, of course, you think of FBI Assistant Director Strauss as a "veteran female showrunner"--in other words, a stand-in for Messer herself, telling Reid/Gubler that the current phase of his life is over, and he needs to move on or die.
4. Here's a big one: George Foyet (C. Thomas Howell) plays the devil on Reid's shoulder in the dream. But Foyet is entirely tied in to the story of Gibson's Aaron Hotchner--and the episode replays the entirely-too-graphic scene of Hotchner beating Foyet to death in the series' 100th episode.
Reid solemnly states that Hotchner's act of revenge and subsequent departure was "the beginning of the end" of the BAU. Except...it wasn't. The unit went on swimmingly for a decade after that. But Gibson's violence and dismissal WAS the incident that ended CM's status as a ratings blockbuster.
I've got one more: in the real world plotline, the killer kidnaps Rossi's wife, and in exchange for her safety, the team arranges for him to gain access to the unit's private jet.
Wait a minute, you say. This tiny division of the FBI has a private jet?! Yes. Yes, they do. Messer has subtly acknowledged in the past that the jet is one of those ludicrous parts of a TV show everyone has accepted without denying the stupidity of it all--and she finally gets to blow it up for the climax. (Yeah, the FBI springs for another one at the end, but that must have felt good.)
Now, I have no verification for any of this. Messer would deny it. But I'm pretty sure I'm right. This isn't even the first time this season Messer has ranked on her own show; in a previous episode, Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) catches up Prentiss (Paget Brewster) on the preposterous events of their favorite prime time soap. The scene slid right by me until my wife pointed out that everything Garcia described was Prentiss' entire plotline in the series.
I just find it amusing that a showrunner trashed her own show heading out the door, and nobody noticed. Any other examples of this come to mind?
(I know nobody on my f-list watches Criminal Minds. But bear with me; I'm chasing something here....)
Criminal Minds, as most of you probably know, came to an end on Wednesday night, after 15 years of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit bringing the worst serial killers in America to justice.
Although it was a solid performer for CBS on Wednesday nights, CM was constantly dogged by controversy, from its depictions of graphic violence (especially towards women) to the off screen sexual harassment scandal centering on its longtime director of photography, and the near-constant turnover of its cast. Series star Mandy Patinkin left in season 3, claiming he couldn't stomach the violent content. (He's currently starring in Homeland, where he and Claire Danes pick daffodils in a quiet country garden.) Other series star Thomas Gibson was fired a few years later for assaulting a producer. (And the Les Moonves scandal affected the series' female cast in ways too complex and dispiriting to describe here...)
So, after all that, the series ended on Wednesday with an episode cowritten by showrunner Erica Messer that was (to be generous)....baffling. It was split between the team's pursuit of a final serial killer, and a literal head trip through the mind of the show's boyish prodigy, Spenser Reid (played with hushed soulfulness by the always-solid Matthew Grey Gubler). But Reid's psychic journey didn't seem to match up with his character; my wife was vocally irritated by the choice of characters Reid meets on the trip, and the scenes presented. It made no sense at the time--but thinking about it later, I realized that it was not Reid's story being presented; it was the story of the show itself. And frankly? Ms. Messer was not kind. The evidence:
1. In the first scene in the dream journey, Reid recalls a clip from the CM pilot with Gubler, Patinkin, Gibson, Lola Glaudini and Shemar Moore. It serves little dramatic purpose except to remind the audience that Gubler is the only one left.
2. Reid tearfully says that his father and (Patinkin's) Jason Gideon left notes to say goodbye. That's exactly how Patinkin quit the series.
3. Jayne Atkinson's Erin Strauss is an odd choice for a "guiding angel" for Reid's journey. (She's more associated with Joe Mantegna's David Rossi.) UNLESS, of course, you think of FBI Assistant Director Strauss as a "veteran female showrunner"--in other words, a stand-in for Messer herself, telling Reid/Gubler that the current phase of his life is over, and he needs to move on or die.
4. Here's a big one: George Foyet (C. Thomas Howell) plays the devil on Reid's shoulder in the dream. But Foyet is entirely tied in to the story of Gibson's Aaron Hotchner--and the episode replays the entirely-too-graphic scene of Hotchner beating Foyet to death in the series' 100th episode.
Reid solemnly states that Hotchner's act of revenge and subsequent departure was "the beginning of the end" of the BAU. Except...it wasn't. The unit went on swimmingly for a decade after that. But Gibson's violence and dismissal WAS the incident that ended CM's status as a ratings blockbuster.
I've got one more: in the real world plotline, the killer kidnaps Rossi's wife, and in exchange for her safety, the team arranges for him to gain access to the unit's private jet.
Wait a minute, you say. This tiny division of the FBI has a private jet?! Yes. Yes, they do. Messer has subtly acknowledged in the past that the jet is one of those ludicrous parts of a TV show everyone has accepted without denying the stupidity of it all--and she finally gets to blow it up for the climax. (Yeah, the FBI springs for another one at the end, but that must have felt good.)
Now, I have no verification for any of this. Messer would deny it. But I'm pretty sure I'm right. This isn't even the first time this season Messer has ranked on her own show; in a previous episode, Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) catches up Prentiss (Paget Brewster) on the preposterous events of their favorite prime time soap. The scene slid right by me until my wife pointed out that everything Garcia described was Prentiss' entire plotline in the series.
I just find it amusing that a showrunner trashed her own show heading out the door, and nobody noticed. Any other examples of this come to mind?
