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My biggest complaint with Reid in the past two seasons has been the lack of empathy with which MGG has been playing him. We see him acting completely blasé about crime scenes, victims, unsubs, even his co-workers—most notably in “Hope”, when Garcia’s obviously struggling with the fact that her friend is missing, and Reid barely seems to care. He’s been completely robotic—other than the few moments where he wibbles to employ cheap emotional manipulation. (See also: “Oh! Reid is sleeping! That means the episode has been nicely finished and everything is okay!”)
The reason that this is so notable to me is that Reid’s empathy has always been one of the cornerstones of his character.
Reid is a person who has no reason to feel empathy toward others. Even before the BAU, his life was hellish. He was abandoned by his father at a young age—after watching his parents fight about how neither of them wanted to be the one to keep him (“Revelations”)—and left to care for a mother who, despite her best intentions, was mentally unfit to take care of a child. Reid split his childhood between being bullied severely at school and having to take care of an unstable schizophrenic parent at home. Many people would have been so jaded by that kind of upbringing that they would just give up. But Reid used that hurt and that pain to help other people.
Reid has probably been the team member to end up on the wrong end of the gun the most frequently throughout the show. He was kidnapped, brutally tortured, and seated with a drug addiction that he never would have otherwise acquired. And he apologized to his captor after having to shoot him, because he still empathized with Tobias—he could see how Tobias’s disorder and addiction had broken him, and even though I don’t think Reid would change his decision to pull the trigger, it’s something that Reid regretted having to do for years (as is obvious by his attachment to Adam/Amanda in “Conflicted”, two years later).
After this experience, Reid had every reason to say screw it and stop being the team member who tended to focus more on the unsubs than the victims. (I don’t mean this as a negative thing—Reid understands the unsubs because he’s been through the kinds of things that tend to make people snap. The bullying, neglect, abandonment, addiction—Reid could have easily ended up like many of these unsubs. The fact that he didn’t, but can still empathize with what could drive someone to it, makes him an asset to the team just as much as his intelligence does.)
But he didn’t stop. After managing to get past the worst of his addiction and his post-traumatic stress disorder, Reid funneled that experience into helping people, just like he’s done with everything in his past. He empathized so deeply with what Owen Savage had been through that he walked up to an angry, armed teenager, blocking the shots of his back-up, and told that boy that he understood what he had been through, and that he didn’t have to go through with this. He empathized with Adam, and fought to try to get him back when Amanda took him over. He empathized with Samantha, the unsub in “Uncanny Valley”, and that ended with one of the most touching moments he’s had on the show.
Reid’s lack of empathy, as seen in the past two seasons, has never been part of his character. Reid has never been a robot. He’s been angry and petty, he’s been goofy and sweet, he’s been crushed and he’s barely held on. But connecting with emotions, and using those emotions to help people, has never been an issue for Reid. Not until season six, when he suddenly didn’t seem to understand social cues, and had exactly three emotions—robot, crying child, and goofy six-year-old.
This show has run one of my all time favorite characters into the ground the past two seasons by gutting one of the core aspects of his character and turning him into the shambling corpse of who he used to be. It’s distressing, and it’s happened to a degree that sometimes I can’t bring myself to care about this character that I used to look up to and adore. The fact that both the writers and the actor who brought Reid to life brilliantly for five years have dropped all pretenses of knowing who this character is devastates me.
And if by some chance you break from the pack, you know I’ll be waiting to welcome you back.
I surprised myself by having a really strong reaction to this. I found it genuinely moving and it is probably my favorite dance from the final scene because, well. Shipping considerations aside, I’ve always felt (and I’ve said this before) like their relationship has one of the most - if not the most - dynamic trajectories on the show, where I’m using “dynamic” in the sense of “marked by continuous change or activity.” And one need only compare this moment to their very first in The Last Word to understand what I mean. He didn’t trust the circumstances under which she came to be on the team. He didn’t trust them to the point that he didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust her to the point that he told her so to her face in probably the single most unprofessional display he’s ever had with another member of the team (Sex, Birth, Death). And it cut her to the bone, to the point that she busted out with that (what I will forever maintain is completely unfounded, BTW) accusation that he didn’t trust women as much as he did men.1 To be perfectly blunt, they … straight-up didn’t like each other during most of Season 2.
But then, something happened. She proved his distrust of her wrong by falling on her sword in In Birth and Death rather than running him through with it at Strauss’ behest. You can see the moment that the penny drops for him in that episode, when the three of them are in his office and she spits out that barely-concealed contemptuous “M’am” at Strauss as she verbally tenders her resignation. And in that moment, she was recontextualized for him, the circumstances of her arrival suddenly making so much more sense when framed through the lens of Strauss trying to depose him. And he came to trust her and they came to trufax like each other. He trusted her judgment to the point of giving Jordan another chance at her suggestion in 52 Pick-Up. He was willing to lean on her, even if only a little, during that terrible dark time at the start of Season 5, and he was perfectly willing to risk the wrath of the entire team to protect her (and them) from the ghosts of her past in Seasons 6 and 7.
Go back and watch that very first scene between them in The Last Word and the argument in Sex, Birth, Death and then watch this dance again. And I dare you not to think, “Well played, kids. Well fucking played.”
1. I ♥ Prentiss but LOL, no. She’s full of it in Revelations, y’all. Sorry.
(Source: peppymillervalentin)
I think it’s funny when fans act like JJ has become this super tough bad ass in season 7. The only difference in JJ’s character in season 7 is her job title, which is a whole different subject that I take issue with. But her core character has remained the same, or at least the progression has been slow and steady through out all of the seasons.
If anything, her character went through the most dramatic change after she gave birth to her child. Which again, is a whole different subject to take issue with. But JJ has always been tough. She has always been determined and focused. She has always been the kind of person that will do whatever it takes to survive.
In season two she killed a pack of wild dogs, in the dark, with just her and her gun to protect her. There were several fast, vicious, angry dogs coming at her. And she managed to kill them all in order to survive. She also shot a man point blank in the center of his forehead to save Garcia. She did it without a second thought and she did it with skill. She has always, always had the ability to shoot a gun skillfully. She has proven that on several occasions. In season 5 she started spending more time in the field, and in season 7 she increased that time even more. But that is a result of her job title changing. Her having the skill was never the issue.
As far as physical confrontations go, I would assume that JJ had always had some basic training. She has always been a physical person, having been an athlete even in high school. Her increased physicality in season 7 was explained when we found out that Morgan had been helping her. This is a direct result of her increased time in the field. But she is not more or less bad ass in season 7. If you look at her fight scenes, there is some skill involved and a lot of scrappiness. That scrappiness has been with her since season one. Her determination and will to survive is what continues to keep her alive.
I also think it’s funny that people often use the words sweet and caring to describe JJ. She is both of those things, but she is also extremely manipulative. Her entire job was largely based on her ability to manipulate. She had to manipulate the media, the general public, the detectives they would work with, and even her own team at times. She had to do whatever she needed to in order to first get Hotch and the team to sign off on a case. Then she had to do what she needed to in order to get the detectives to cooperate. And then she had to manipulate the media to benefit the case, and so on and so forth. She was literally a professional manipulator.
There are several instances where her manipulation is more clear than others. When she convinces Hotch to take a case in her hometown, leading him to believe that the town requested their help. But in reality the town was manipulated into agreeing to accept their help. In North Mammon, JJ literally manipulated everyone and everything in order to get what she wanted. This turned out to be a good thing, because she was right to trust her gut and to push the case into the BAU’s hands. But it was still manipulation and it was still very blatant.
We have also seen JJ use her innocent looks and sweet reputation to lull people into a sense of comfort. They don’t see her as a threat and so it is easy for her to deceive them. She was effortlessly able to get a detective to let her look through his files, when Hotch couldn’t get the man to spare him a second glance.
Since season one, JJ has been manipulating situations and people on a regular basis, but the fan base doesn’t see it. The team doesn’t see it. In season 7 when Reid screams at JJ, he tells her that he didn’t realize she was lying because he trusted her. The truth is, he didn’t realize she was lying because she is a damn good liar. She has always been a good liar. And no matter how much it killed her to keep the truth from her friends, she was able to do it. The same way she hid her relationship with Will, and her pregnancy, and a million other things that nobody quite caught on to. JJ is a good liar, she’s good at hiding things, and she’s very good at manipulation. The fact that people don’t see that, shows just how good she is. Those three things are probably some of her biggest character traits, yet the majority of people never acknowledge them. You can’t fully understand JJ without understanding that she is a master at deception. Probably more so than anyone else on the team.
So I find it funny when people say that JJ is different in season 7 than she has been in previous seasons. If anything she’s just being more open and forthcoming with certain characteristics. But she is who she has always been.
(Source: deetotheeye)
Like I said the other night, I’m genuinely intrigued by the possibility suggested in the promo for Profiling 101 that we’re going to get flashbacks, if not to each team member’s origin story, at least to the time when each member was a bb!profiler. I’m fascinated by the strong difference in demeanor, just in the brief glimpse we get in this moment where he first introduces himself to Dave, between Aaron Hotchner before he joined the BAU and the Aaron Hotchner not only that we have now, but even the one we had in Extreme Aggressor. He’s so eager here, so bright and happy and excited. And sure, some of that might just be about getting to meet Rossi, who was probably approaching legend status within the Bureau by this time. But I think back - as I have a lot this season - to what Haley said in 100 about how Aaron wasn’t always so serious, that he used to be able to make her laugh and I feel like this is an example of what she meant. When was the last time Hotch greeted a local LEO with this level of openness and relaxation? It’s … been a while. And I can’t help but think, This is what he was like before the BAU sank its hooks into him, before this particular job, with its particular brand of bleak reminders of exactly how awful human beings can be, both in themselves and to each other, brushed up against, teased out, and warred with his own darker impulses, with that deep well of untapped anger he had in him that we got flashes of even in the earliest seasons when he dealt with a certain kind of Unsub.
In his great, recent interview with Tavis Smiley, Thomas Gibson talked about the producers cautioning him, while filming Extreme Aggressor, that the character wasn’t as “dark” as Gibson was making him and that they already had their “dark” character (Gideon) and didn’t need another. His response - thank God - was that he wasn’t trying to make Hotch dark so much trying as understand him and make him relatable, and that it seemed to him like it would be incredibly unlikely that such a job wouldn’t rub off in some ways on the people who do it, and that Hotch was one of the people who couldn’t leave it all at the office. I think he’s right about that and I think it’s a big part of why Aaron becomes more and more shut down as the seasons go on (and certainly it played a significant role in the end of his marriage). I love the prospect of getting to see this played out - even if it’s only for a few minutes in Profiling 101 - this glimpse of an Aaron who’s not yet burdened by the uniquely heavy weight of the horrors to which he (and the others) have been made privy by this particular job.
- Why do they insist on ruining Reid? Why? I mean, it’s like, if you’re going to bother to write facts for him to say which you’ve so obviously had to google to find, and you’re going to orchestrate entire scenes and entire dialogue sets to fit in that one little piece of trivia that you’ve just spent at least five minutes looking up, then why not put in a tiny bit of extra effort and add in, oh I don’t know, some actual proper interaction with other characters that don’t revolve around ‘guess what else I know’?
- Reid’s whole I’m-a-genius-and-you-know-it-no-seriously-here-let-me-prove-it happened SO. MANY. TIMES. It wasn’t MGG this time- it was completely on the writer(s). Let’s count the number of times, shall we? Because I feel like torturing myself more:
1. A fear of owning property. This one bugged me the most because we’ve seen Reid and Prentiss have friendly social interactions. We’ve seen it. He invited her to a fucking play in season six- six! when all the character interactions went down the drain!- so I think that he should at least be capable of congratulating her, wishing her luck, offering her advice, or really just doing anything a normal friend would do.
2. Nap times. Okay, seriously, this entire section of dialogue was added in solely so that the writer could add in the bit about nap times. There was no other reason. Literally none. That portion of lines had no other significance whatsoever
3. The awkward wave. Yeah, he doesn’t like handshakes, we get it. It’s cute and endearing but you’re overdoing it (just like ‘Spence’. More on that later).
4. The plane scene with Garcia, and all the looks everyone shared- the ‘here he goes again’ looks
5. Explaining the astronomical odds of Helen’s situation to JJ- she cuts him off with ‘Sorry I asked!’
I feel almost as if Reid’s entire characterization now hinges upon the fact that apparently, the writers view him as fanservice and comedic value, nothing more. He is more than that. The transition from the way that he used to blurt out facts because he didn’t know what else to do, to the reasonably settled ordinary person who just happens to be able to remember stuff was testament to his growth as a character and as a person. He CAN avoid shaking hands less awkwardly, and without making it obvious; he IS capable of social interaction with local cops, and, more importantly, he is capable of interaction with his teammates. Who are acting like he is a nuisance with all the looks and the rolls of their eyes….and I don’t blame them, because if I were in their place, I’d be pretty damn annoyed too. But the looks are just icing on the cake because COME ON WRITERS! REID’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT! In order to present Reid as the awkward, adorable social misfit, they’ve completely and utterly destroyed every last semblance of meaningful relationship he had with any of the team, who now share smirks and huff whenever he talks. THIS IS NOT OKAY, WRITERS.- ‘Spence’. Dear God, that is grating on my nerves. She called him that maybe four times a season before (granted she didn’t have that many lines, but she was still a ‘main’ character) and now, with the writers’ efforts to present them all as a big happy family, they’ve turned it into a… a thing. Like, she never even calls him Reid anymore. Last time I think was in 7x02. What makes this more irritating is that she calls Emily, who it has been canonically established that she hangs out with outside of work, by her last name. The writers can justify that but can’t slip in a little ‘Reid’ here and there?
- On the topic of the big happy family, I think that they may be overdoing it with the partner change-ups. Although yes, we’ve seen plenty of mixing around with the interview pairings and such, I think that this has actually been detrimental rather than beneficial. Instead of strengthening relationships WITHIN the team, it’s made the team appear more cohesive and in tune with each other as a WHOLE team, which is fine on its own, except that this has happened at the cost of the more intimate connections, e.g. Morgan/Prentiss, who have always had a very warm bond that goes beyond work friends. By portraying the team members as having equally affectionate relationships with every person in the unit, they’ve lost the special intimate nuances of each individual relationship. I don’t think that the team has/used to have favourites, necessarily. Just that every single person had a very different dynamic with every other person. No friendship was completely the same, and these subtleties, I think, are what they’ve given up in return for the whole-team vibe they’re aiming to create now.
- A personal thing: it’s kind of not in my head-canon that Prentiss loves shopping. She just doesn’t strike me as that type of person. So this episode and the last one (I think Dorado Falls?) which made references to the ladies’ apparent shopping addictions killed me a little inside. Garcia, sure. JJ, could go either way. But not Prentiss!
- I loved JJ’s outfit in the beginning. The skirt was hot.
- Emily’s tone when she read out ‘I applaud you’ from the fan’s letter struck me as a little odd. I don’t know if it was written in the script like that, but shouldn’t she be used to that type of thing? She read it with disgust and a scoff and something like shock… maybe my memory is serving me wrong, but the tone that I’m remembering seemed way too overdone for a profiler who’s seen many similar letters, and many worse letters.
- Other than that, not much to say. The case was alright. Nothing interesting. The blood and constant switches to the unsub and his victims were a little unsettling. I know it’s a part of the show, but I hate it when they show the victims crying or screaming. You can’t really take that out though.
- I thought they were going to reveal her reason for leaving in this episode? That’s what they said in one of the chats. I swear to God, if she decides to leave to adopt Declan and raise him in her fancy new house, I will break something.
You can see the winners here.
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Congratulations to our winners and our nominees!
(via turtleneckgirl)
18. Favourite Recurring Female Character: Erin Strauss
Strauss is fantastic, IMO, and she’s an excellent example of the difference between an antagonist or a foil and a villain. She’s most definitely not the latter; I believe her when she says that her job is to protect the Bureau and that 98% of the time, that’s honestly what she’s trying to do. Do I think that some of her gunning for Hotch, at least until the end of In Birth and Death, was a function of professional self-preservation? Yes. She wouldn’t be an ambitious person if she wasn’t always keeping an eye open with respect to professional rivals who pose a genuine threat. But. She wasn’t wrong that the team had a rough go of it throughout S2; she wasn’t wrong that maybe Gideon wasn’t in the best position to be leading the team and that if Hotch was in any way enabling Gideon in that questionable leadership, then he might be a problem, too. Trying to use Prentiss as a mole was a risky move, particularly since Strauss apparently hadn’t actually vetted how receptive Prentiss would be to repaying the ‘favor’ Strauss did for her by placing her on the team before she placed her on the team. But it demonstrates how canny and politically savvy Strauss is, something she’d need to be, I imagine, to do her job as Section Chief well at all.
I love how prickly she can be and how, even though she’s come to genuinely respect Hotch and she clearly respects that the team gets shit done, her edges haven’t been softened or blunted. I’ll be interested to see what happens when she returns from her time in rehab.
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(via maributerfly)
I’ve been lurking in this fandom for a while now and I’ve seen a lot of people hate on characters for no reason. But, I’ve not seen a character more under-appreciated like I have Ashley Seaver. I’ve decided to tackle some of the issues I’ve read people having with her.
1: She was a rookie and should never have been part of the team.
I get it, it is an unrealistic representation of how the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI works. But guess what? So is virtually every other part of the show. I hate to break this to you, but the real BAU is not a team of psuedo-superheroes who dart all over the country on a private jet shooting down serial killers like it’s target practice. So, Seaver been a rookie and joining the team as a trainee, really doesn’t seem so crazy in comparison. So, sorry, but I cannot accept this as a reasonable reason.
Also, if that is really your problem, then don’t you think that is something you should blame the writers for; on account of the way they handled her story after her first ep? Or the network for demanding the show cut the two female leads and introduce a new woman. Essentially taking the matter out of anybodies hands? Not the character of Seaver and certainly, never the actress.
2: She liked Reid and nobody is allowed to like Reid.
First of all, even if she did like him, I don’t understand why that makes her a bad character. I don’t understand the people who can’t keep fandom and canon separate. Hating a character that gets in the way of your ship is a really weak reason to hate. And if you’re hating on a character because you love the character they’re been hinted as a love interest for so much that you can’t stand seeing him with someone else, then I think an evaluation of your priorities may be in order.
Secondly, Seaver never even gave a hint of having a romantic interest in Reid. The only hint towards anything between them was the scene in her first episode when Garcia teased Reid about finding her pretty. I don’t doubt that Reid found her pretty, I don’t doubt he found her beautiful, but he didn’t show any sign of being romantically attracted to her. And, even if there had been any sign at all of that been the case and that it wasn’t just Garcia messing around with Reid, then why is that a reason to hate Seaver? She wasn’t the one who canonically showed interest. Is hating on a character because someone else expressed interest in them really a reasonable thing to do? I don’t think so, but maybe that’s just me.
3: She replaced JJ and I loved JJ
A) No she didn’t.
B) See above reasoning for blaming on the networks for making that decision as opposed to the character/actress (I can seriously not emphasize that last one more.)
4:I’m a[n internalized] misogynist but am too afraid/in denial to admit it.
Sorry, but if you hate on Seaver for any of the above reasons, I would also expect you to have hated Reid at least at one point as I highly doubt the BAU is in the habit of letting young, untrained and highly at-risk-in-the-field students in, despite their intelligence.
I also want to know that you hated Ethan who, in the one episode he appeared, showed more romantic and sexual interest in Reid than I saw from Seaver her whole run on the show.
Then, you must have been annoyed by Rossi, who just swanned in and replaced Gideon. Going on about all the famous serial killers he interviewed, all the famous conflicts he was a part of and the fact that he taught Hotch (a former lawyer) everything he knows about giving testimony.
But, in my experience lurking in this fandom, most Seaver haters think all these guys are just the best. So I really don’t understand what conclusion I’m supposed to draw but the fact that you hate her because she did all these things while in the ‘unfortunate’ condition of being a woman. In which case, your hate is irrelevant.
IDK, maybe I get defensive because I identified with her. Maybe I just get pissy when people hate on blameless characters (mostly female) but I cannot accept any of the above reasons as legitimate except for the last one.
(via amy494walker)
