Criminal Minds – Season seven’s doing a-okay

I know I gave up reviewing Criminal Minds way back when, but nevertheless I’ve continued to be a regular viewer of the show. It’s one thing to watch the horror every week … it was a whole nother trying to dissect and discuss the episodes.

Anyway, if you remember, I was most definitely not a fan of Paget Brewster’s Emily Prentiss. She turned me off so much, it’s not even worth getting into again. So when the show started focusing on her and her past toward the end of last season, with Doyle (Timothy V. Murphy) hunting her down? I just wanted it to stop.

Well, stop it did. And not only that, but for about five minutes I felt like Criminal Minds was throwing me the biggest party imaginable. Prentiss was gone! How could things have worked out any better?

Naturally, you can imagine how deflated I felt to discover that she was, in fact, alive. But I didn’t let that get me all the way down. Because as long as Doyle was out there, Prentiss would stay in hiding, and all we’d have to deal with was the occasional mourning by the team. I was willing to take that in the tradeoff. And it certainly was reasonable to imagine that Brewster might have been ready to move on from the show; sure it would have put more finality on it if Emily was truly dead, but maybe the writers didn’t want to depress us too much (no concern there) … there already existed precedent with Elle Greenaway (Lola Glaudini), who quit the BAU after almost dying and losing her edge. So it was possible.

And I was loving the cast makeup as this season opened. JJ (A.J. Cook) was back, now as a full-fledged agent. Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) was thriving pulling double duty, both as the team’s techie and in JJ’s old in-house role. Rossi (Joe Mantegna) still hadn’t fully found his groove, but Morgan (Shemar Moore), Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), and Hotch (Thomas Gibson) have been rocking and rolling along as always. Save for the gruesomeness of some of the cases (which I was aware of when I signed up), it was all good.

But for some reason Criminal Minds refuses to allow me to be completely happy with its cast. First we had to suffer through Elle; then Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) left us in the lurch. And this season? The team took Doyle down, and who should return but Emily Prentiss. Come on!

Look, obviously it’s easy enough to ignore one character (see: Ziva on NCIS). And even if it wasn’t, it’s only one character. But to come so close, and then to have the rug pulled out from under you … why tease us with a gift, only to have it so rudely stolen away?

Still, Criminal Minds continues to perform at a high level week in and week out. Even the Doyle takedown was done well (it was just the aftermath that I didn’t appreciate). Weeds’ Andy Milder as a psychopathic murderer? The former Navy SEAL who snapped and murdered his own parents? The high school bomber whose case Hotch and Rossi had worked ten years earlier? The guy trying to resurrect his brother in the eye of a tornado? Even Rossi and his ex-wife, who asked for his help as she was dying of ALS … this season has been great. Prentiss aside, Criminal Minds continues to score seven seasons in.

Still, did we really need Prentiss back? What do you think? How has this season of Criminal Minds been for you? Do you prefer the show with or without Emily?

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Dec 12, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT