Criminal Minds Premiere: Is Derek Morgan a candy-ass?

I’m temporarily filling in for Aryeh, the Criminal Minds guru. I have no doubt you’ll see posts from 500 other of us today who leaped on the chance. Normally, I like to write incredibly long, intensely pondered (to my eye) posts, but this time I can’t. Why? Two reasons. First, I’m an on-again/off-again Criminal Minds fan. I tend to watch the repeats while only catching the new eps every now and again (luckily, I watched the season finale last year so I didn’t find shifting to this season’s premiere jarring). Second, Criminal Minds’ typical five-part pattern (watch baddie do bad, watch team identify baddie, watch team handle the local law, watch JJ disseminate media calm, watch team usually succeed) dissipated for the premiere. Is that bad? Of course not. But, like Pavlov’s dog I’ve found myself pre-conditioned.

Below find my five cents worth of observations. If you think they’re worth +.20, send the difference to CliqueClack.

Interesting Items

• Ordinarily, the show overtly focuses on the criminal’s violence without actually delving into the criminal mind (save through the profilers’ eyes). But, this time, I felt they actually showed why the character iteratively re-constructed the same crime (without re-creating torture porn).
• While Criminal Minds typically places known actors in atypical roles,  I can’t really comment on Tim Curry’s performance. I couldn’t tell if he truly inhabited Flynn’s serial killer’s mentality (despite the creepy teeth). At the same time, his Billy Flynn portrayal contained more energy and commitment than I sensed in his Dodo cameo on SyFy’s Alice .
• I loved the little girl’s beyond-my-years wisdom and her ability to goad/manipulate Billy. I feared that if they remained ‘partners,’ she might find Billy casting her in the role of his mother.
• I liked Billy’s color-saturated dreamscape and his atemporal flashbacks. I felt those scenes visualized his interior criminality more than the usual – “I’ll tie the person up and stick him\her like a pig” scenes that seemingly glorified female violence. I hope Criminal Minds continues to deviate from their template in that perspective.
• I loved watching Derek apologize to Penelope and I love the continuing expansion on their relationship. I wonder if CliqueClack could do a poll on great platonic male-female relationships i.e. Xander-Willow, Guinevere-Merlin, Derek-Penelope, Scully-Mulder (pre-final 2 seasons).
• The ending with Derek possibly becoming a father figure seemed odd. I would’ve preferred to see his character experience a committed relationship before parenthood.
• I loved how the girl seemed to comfort him and I partially  saw a future with Derek and Penelope serving as her temporary (or permanent)  family unit.

Random Comments:

• The show opens with a recap of the season finale. Oddly, despite witnessing the death of a federal agent, I couldn’t stop myself from calling Derek Morgan a candy-ass. I think the writers enjoy taking his alpha male, football star character and repeatedly allowing serial killers to kidnap/taunt him. Sure, it happens to the other characters, but it typically stands out (in my mind) when it occurs to Morgan.
• I realize they’re slowly shifting the main female characters off the pipe. I supported that decision last year because I did not feel either actress truly brought a tangible personality to their roles. While I see CM as the first spin-off of NCIS, due to its taking the formula of the stalwart leader, hot guy, boy genius, and quirky female tech and applying it to another government setting. While I feel all of the actors have transcended their season one characters, I never felt JJ’s or Emily’s characters truly defined themselves (outside of brief glimpses). And, when I compared them to other former BAU actresses’ who played similar roles i.e. Lola Glaudini as Elle and Meta Golding as Agent Jordan, my opinion increased. However, in the premiere I reversed my decision and didn’t want to see them leave. I had assumed the show would bring in another female. It looked as if they might use Robert Davi, who I enjoyed in Profiler. However, if he’s a re-hash of Hotch, Gideon, or Rossi, I could skip it. At this point the team is so tight knit, I’d rather see them struggle without a media figure or stock female field operative.
• On a side note: JJ’s uncertainty seemed out of character (considering I never witnessed that level of insecurity in her). They’re clearly preparing a case to move her character off first, but I wish they had done it in a less obvious manner.
• Am I the only one who feared the girl internalized Billy’s lessons and might manifest his psychotic tendencies as an adult?

OK. This post proved slightly longer than I expected. If it’s nonsensical, apologies and chalk it up to late night typing. But, I’m wondering what everyone else thought. Did you like the dreamscape? Did you notice the slight deviation from formula? Do you think the should remove the only two female characters outside the tech? Sound off!

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Sep 23, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT