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1'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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4* Perhaps I am mistaken here but, is it not against procedure, and in fact a security to provide detailed information about an ongoing case? If so, Reid does precisely this in God Complex when talking to his new girlfriend.
5** Perhaps it's just to show how excited he is to have a girlfriend. The show's portrayed him as being pretty childlike in some aspects of his personality, despite his intellect.
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7* Why does Reid carry a revolver when everybody else carries Glocks? Aren't semi-automatic pistols standard issue in law enforcement? And if it was established that Reid is a terrible shot, then why would they give him a weapon with more recoil, less bullets in a chamber, a more complex reload and much slower rate of fire?
8** CharacterDevelopment and RuleOfCool. He's definitely improved shooting-wise since that early season one episode. Heck, he's even been the first one to enter a house after the door gets kicked down.
9** Reid, being the type of person he is, probably rationalized that a revolver won't jam like a Glock, and he'd be able to cycle to the next round in case of a misfire.
10** It's entirely possible that his aim is more accurate with a revolver as opposed to a semi-automatic. I believe it's either implied or said outright (I haven't rewatched the show in a long time) didn't learn to shoot properly with a semi-automatic until after Emily faked her death.
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12* In "Tabula Rasa", in flashback, Morgan asks Reid what Garcia's name is. Reid says "Gomez, I think". Reid's supposed to have an eidetic memory! I know it applies more to stuff that he reads, not hears, but he presumably only heard it a little while ago. Was he intentionally screwing with Morgan? Because that doesn't seem like the sort of thing he would do.
13** Maybe was only verbally told and didn't hear clearly? Ehh-hh.
14** He was probably just screwing with Morgan, or being snarky, since both García and Gómez are ''last'' names, and mistaking them for first names would be more than out of character for him.
15** Given that Reid's eidetic memory is visual and not verbal/aural (he can easily remember word-for word things he's read but has to think about things he's only had read to him), probably he heard her name when she was introduced to him, but it didn't stick; he just remembered that it was a Spanish surname.
16** They pick on each other all the time. He was probably screwing with him.
17** Could be someone else confused Garcia's name when they told him, thus he was reiterating their uncertainty.
18** Eidetic memory is not perfect recall; it's the ability to re-examine remembered sensory data and pick up new information from it, and that sensory data doesn't last forever. Realistically, if Reid hasn't heard her name used by someone who knows it in the last 20 minutes or so, his eidetic memory has nothing to work with. He also has a good memory for words (i.e. being able to recite entire books) but that's more likely to be conscious memorisation, which he may not have used with Garcia's name. (Not the the show gives any credence to the difference between eidetic memory and perfect recall, but they *are* different.)
19*** Also, Reid's eidetic memory is visual. He can probably use it to remember people's name by picturing them spelled over an image of the person, but it's a conscious act. Eidetic memory isn't absolute, either. You can have degrees of it.
20** Could also be that Reid just didn't care to remember Garcia's name--his delivery sounded very nonchalant.
21*** The way I took it is that he wasn't really paying attention when they asked him what Penelope's last name was, just that it started with "G" and was Latin.
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23* Ryan, the main unsub in "3rd Life", was said to be 28... this just seems way too damn old, considering how everyone calls him "a kid" and "a boy", and nobody found it odd how he was always hanging out with high schoolers (the victim, also a high schooler, apparently had a crush on him as well). Reid even calls him a kid in "Elephant's Memory", even though Ryan was older than he was (Reid mentions he had just turned 27 in "Masterpiece", a season later).
24** I will give you the first part, that does seem odd. But as for Reid calling someone older than him a "kid", it may not be that strange. From my own experience, I graduated from high school and college early, and have a habit of doing this myself... it's a side effect of spending most of your time around people who are far older than you, you tend to feel more assimilated with them, than with others around your own age.
25*** Don't forget that Reid is talking to other LEOs who are much older than him, so he's probably trying to relate to their perception. Also, Reid himself has always been called "a kid" by almost everyone, so it's not unreasonable for him to call Ryan a "kid" too because they're in the same age group (late twenties).
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27* For "Lucky," since Penelope Garcia is the Techno Queen, you would think that she would have done a background check on her beau *cough*shooter*cough*, but no, she ignores Morgan's warnings and goes off to the date anyway. Idiot Ball, or a case of Lapsed character judgement? You decide.
28** I'd say lapsed character judgement. It's been a while, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't she incredibly flattered/astonished when he asks her out? Which means that she would probably be able to completely ignore whatever her gut/friends/personal experience and training tells her because she so desperately wants to believe that he is just a nice guy who happens to like her. I think just about anyone in her situation would do the same; denial is a human trait.
29** Not to mention she was insulted by Morgan's immediate suspicion -- understandably so. When Morgan's first reaction to "A guy actually likes me" is "Wait -- something's not right", it makes sense that Penelope gets a bit hot-headed.
30** Also, Morgan's suspicion was based ''entirely'' on Garcia's own. She mentioned that she got asked out at the coffee shop and his response was "It happens." It's not until she points out that it ''doesn't'' typically happen to her that he agrees. His advice is that she should trust her instincts; she just finds it offensive because of the way he words it. The episode (and Prentiss) frame it as a misunderstanding of women, but he was actually doing exactly what Prentiss suggested: validating Garcia's concerns. Garcia's suspicions were already raised by the guy enough that she wasn't planning on calling him. She only does a 180 out of stubbornness because Morgan upset her, so her quick acceptance was a snap decision. It's entirely possible that she would normally be more cautious in who she dates. If Morgan had been a little more thoughtful in his response, her natural suspicions could have very well inspired her to perform a cursory search. Then again, she herself points out in the following episode that she doesn't view the world as a profiler. She does work with the team and see some of the worst of humanity, but she's an optimist at heart. Even with her history as a hacker, she probably wouldn't have gone too far beyond a check of Facebook or Google which would have turned up nothing. It's not like she even had his picture to search with, just a name and a phone number (which led to a burner cell). She didn't learn any other checkable facts until she was already on the date (his fake career, school history, etc.). Since he's already demonstrated that he's poor with computers as part of his manufactured MeetCute, she probably would have just assumed he didn't have a social media presence. While that could very well have been a turn-off, it probably wouldn't have been an automatic red flag.
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32* Given that the show portrays most of its killers being of above average to genius levels of intelligence and knowing of advances in DNA technology, information sharing and data mining as well as criminology, why would the majority of them use body disposal methods from the 1960's-1970's? Leaving multiple bodies out in the open to be quickly discovered is almost a sure-fire way to be detected and caught and yet most of these killers still shown to be doing it on this program.
33** [[HumansAreStupid Long live denial!]]
34*** And for at least some of them, the fact that the body will be found is part of their deal. It wouldn't feel right for them otherwise.
35** DNA, like fingerprints, only work if they already exist in a database, so the killer would have to get caught in order for the DNA to matter. Given privacy laws, the only database it can draw from are those who have already been arrested once before.
36*** Let's also not forget that combing DNA evidence is time consuming--given the nature of the program, it wouldn't be time efficient to catch a spree killer in this manner since the killer could have claimed even more victims while the team is waiting for DNA results to come in.
37** Because the episodes are being written/consulted on by retired federal agents who probably worked most of their cases in the 60's-70's.
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39* Why aren't any of the BAU members amazed by the staggering number of serial killers that they have faced/arrested/killed throughout the series' run? Given that two shows were about terrorists, one show was them assisting in Guantanamo interrogation and one was about CIA mole hunt, they have encountered more than 100 killers in the history of the show. And no one is shown being amazed (or even mildly surprised) by this number.
40** Sadly, this is TruthInTelevision. While murder rates may be low, that low rate still translates into tens of thousands of murders each year. At any given time there are 20-50 serial killers working in the US alone, and that number doesn't take into account the spree killers that make up the majority of Criminal Minds cases.
41** Keep in mind a number of their cases do not fall into the "serial killer" category. They deal with rape, abduction and a slew of other cases. None of those are accounted for in the criminal statistic.
42*** And also, their jumping on top of a case that shows certain trends helps them stop a killer from progressing far enough to gain notoriety as a serial killer.
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44* In the same episode, Hotch tells Morgan and Prentiss to assist Garcia. Morgan asks Hotch in manner that suggested he was annoyed about it why that is necessary. After Hotch explains, Morgan goes into Garcia's office, gives a rather fake "pep talk" and then leaves WITHOUT HELPING HER! Morgan's attitude and actions were inconsistent w/ his previous actions and really seemed to undercut the believability of his and Garcia's friendship.
45** I think he was overestimating Garica then again Garica's provide time and time again that she can pull this thing out of the bag plus the rest of the team needed his help more. Also assisting her could have given her the impression that he thought that she couldn't handle it.
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47* In "Seven Seconds", when the team is looking for a little girl in the mall, a search dog is brought to help find her. The dog picks up her scent, but loses it the moment it smells food from the restaurant. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these dogs trained to stay "focused" and follow the scent no matter what, and in real life the dog would keep going until it would have eventually located the girl?
48** Yes and no. Yes they are trained to stay focused, but in a mall filled with people and food they can be easily distracted. It's not the ideal environment for them by a long shot.
49*** Dogs also have layered senses of smell. Overwhelming a dog with certain smells/stimulus triggers more of their instinctive nature than their training. Even the most trained dogs can become distracted by something that is evolution and patterned in their genes.
50*** It would make a difference, also, if food scent were on the girl's clothing. If she ate something, and spilled a little on her clothes, then ketchup, or something, might be part of what the dogs think of as her scent. Also, if she went into a food place, as opposed to just passing one, it might be harder to keep track of her scent.
51** Dining areas also tend to get cleaned more often than most places. It's possible that someone spilled their drink or fries or whatever on the floor where the little girl had walked, and the mall's custodial staff wiped her trail away along with the mess.
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53* In "Supply and Demand", the season six finale, it's revealed that JJ's coming back. Earlier in the episode, it's revealed that the FBI's going to have budget cuts. So, if they're having budget cuts, how do they have the money to hire JJ?
54** JJ isn't a profiler. She gets paid from a different source from the one from which the profilers are paid. She went on maternity leave, and returned to the FBI, she didn't quit. Her intention had been to return to a slot without so much travel, but she changed her mind, and went back to her old team. Whether JJ returned, or someone took her place, the team needed someone in her support position.
55** They're letting go of Seaver. Sad thing is, the actress, Rachel Nichols, found out via the internet, so they didn't even have the decency to let her know that she's being let go before the entire world knew.
56*** But they didn't know that when the episode was being filmed. [[{{WMG}} Or have they been planning on getting rid of Seaver ever since then?]]
57*** Likely the latter. JJ's departure drew a fair bit of ire, to the point you notice the double meaning in the case's dialogue. It was no secret this was a network discussion and even the writers were irritated. Unfortunately, it meant Seaver was a {{Scrappy}} the moment she stepped on scene.
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59* This is a really minor thing, but the episode "Roadkill" was set in Oregon. The unsub has to keep replacing his front bumper and license plate because he's killing people with his car. We see this again and again, and, appropriately, he always replaces Oregon plates. Rossi and Morgan find his discards... and they're California plates.
60** Well, the series is filmed in California. And it could be a mess up with the props people, or the just didn't care.
61** Vehicles with California plates aren't exactly an uncommon sight in Oregon.
62** And swiping plates from an out-of-state vehicle when he has the chance is going to impose a bit more of a delay on the investigators' pursuit, as they'll need to request information on the Californian vehicle from another state's DMV. Not much of a stall, but every bit of red tape will buy him more time to put distance between himself and the locale where he swiped the plates.
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64* How did Foyet know which page in Hotch's address book to take? Haley is listed by her maiden name and Hotch doesn't really seem the type to put smiley faces next to the people who would be convenient targets if a serial killer happened to be looking for one, so how did he know her significance?
65** Foyet CrazyPrepared he would have researched everything about Hotch and found out her maiden name that way and when he didn't find her under H he would have looked under B.
66** The better question is why Hotch needed to keep their contact information in an address book at all. They were living in the same house that they used to share! For crying out loud, when he told the team, they never asked for an address -- they just said "get to Hotch's old house." Although I guess I could see Hotch being so compulsive that he'd have to fill out every space in his address book...
67** We don't know how long Hotch has been using the same address book. It's possible he wrote down that information when he first moved into the house and hadn't yet memorized its address. Or the house may have originally been Haley's home before they were married, and he filled it in when they were still dating.
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69* The episode "North Mammon" has never really sat right with me. I can sit through basically every episode without flinching at all the horrible things they show, but it really perturbed me that none of the agents expressed any anger or disgust at what Brooke did to Kelly. Obviously they were all put into a difficult position, but I think it could have been inferred that had the girls not chosen someone, the unsub would have just let them go. I can't really accept what Brooke said about not having a choice as an excuse, either. Kelly never even touched the hammers, she was essentially all talk and no action, trying to convince Polly that they should choose Brooke. Brooke, on the other hand, attacked with no noticeable hesitation. I just wish someone would have said something about the fact that she did have a choice, and the one she made resulted in the death of an innocent person.
70** It seemed that the inference was the exact opposite. Had they not chosen a girl to kill, someone that twisted would not have let them go -- he would rather let them starve and wallow in their own waste than see that happen, and it seemed that this was the implication. While I don't think that their reaction was entirely unrealistic, I do think that Brooke and Kelly may have acted and intended to act (respectively) very hastily. But if I had to venture a guess as to why the team really isn't that appalled, I'd say that, firstly, it's because it's not the worst they've seen. They already know what people are capable of, and they've become somewhat, although not entirely, inured to it. Secondly, they felt that it was important to place the blame on the mastermind, not the pawns. In the end, though, I really think that it's because they're used to this madness.
71** Ok, this is to the original poster. I do think Brooke had a choice. What I also think is that Brooke felt she had no choice. In a situation like that, you don't think rationally. It seems like Brooke knew Kelly was going to kill her at the beginning. She probably heard some of what Kelly said. Now imagine this: You're locked in a cellar with no food or water, you're also diabetic and don't have your medicine. You hear about your friend's plan to kill you. When you hear her yell to the abductor you guys made your choice, how are you going to think? Brooke acted on impulse-be killed or kill. She didn't want to die. Now I have another thing that bugs me... How come Kelly talking about killing Brooke is justified. You may not have been paying attention when during the episode, but Kelly was ACTUALLY going to kill Brooke. She wasn't just all talk and no action, she was trying to talk Polly ((Who was going to at first, but then backed down when he threw the hammers down.) into killing Brooke. Brooke acted fast upon this. Like I said, you can't rationally think about things in this type of situation.
72** The [=UnSub=] wasn't going to let them go. He wanted to hurt their parents, so he wouldn't have just gone, 'Oh, you took the logical path, I'll let you go'. He wanted them to get hurt/killed. He wanted it to get bloody and vicious. Brooke found herself in a situation with exactly two choices: kill or be killed. She was sick and she heard one of her friends talking about how her being sick made her the logical choice to die. Kelly may have been all talk, but Polly didn't want to do it and Kelly was thinking of herself first. Brooke killed Kelly because there was a very real and substantial chance that Kelly would have killed her instead, not because she wanted to. 'Put into a difficult position' is the wrong way to describe it, because they all had exactly two options: kill someone, or die of starvation/exposure/illness.
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74* In "Mayhem", the terrorist cell's plan is to set off a bomb in an ambulance to kill someone protected by the secret service. But the bomb doesn't seem large enough, especially since it would be in the underground concrete parking garage while the target was being airlifted off the roof. Were they planning to bring down the entire building?
75** They were planning to kill the government official that was having a surgery. So if you think about it, the explosion could have cause enough damage to screw up the surgery, even if doesn't completely destroy the building.
76** Maybe branching into WMG here, but we don't technically know that their plan was to kill the target. That's the obvious assumption, but what else about their plan has been obvious? Maybe their plan was still "mayhem." Maybe it was enough that they get the publicity of tricking the FBI into enacting a terrorist attack right under the Secret Service's noses. Maybe the government was attempting to downplay the target's health problems, and the cell would have been satisfied that they had to report how sick they actually are (a President/Vice President/etc. in poor health doesn't exactly instill confidence, especially if they're going to have to be dealing with terrorists). Maybe this was just Step 3 of the plan, with Step 4 being something like "Force the White House to reconsider how safe the hospitals are, forcing them into a different situation next time the President needs surgery, only this one is a situation we can control" just like Step 1 was just a setup for Step 2. Considering we know nothing about the ideology behind the cell, maybe there's no political motive at all and they just want to jack up the price of medication and this is all a smokescreen.
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78* In "Outfoxed," Prentiss and Hotchner interview the Fox in prison and, in order to garner more information, Prentiss flirts with him and feigns attraction. She later expressed disgust at herself for having to behave like that, saying that she had never done that before. In her story arc in the sixth season, though, it is revealed that she essentially faked an entire romantic relationship for years with Doyle, so she had obviously done it quite successfully before. Prentiss has a reputation on the show for being exceptionally cool and level-headed, so it's a bit confusing that she would be affected by something that didn't seem to faze her with Doyle.
79** FridgeBrilliance? This troper takes Prentiss' comment in ''Outfoxed'' as her still feeling guilt or regret over leading Doyle on the way she did, and she's now developed a distaste for such tactics. Notice that, even though she was disgusted by the idea, she still did it well. And she couldn't have very well just up and told Hotch "Yeah, I did this before to catch an arms dealer when I was a superspy, and I hated it then too!" That... probably wouldn't have flown.
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81* In "Painless", how did the truth about what happened during the bombing never come out? Even if the 'Top Ten Survivors' clique all stuck to the story, why didn't ''other'' survivors come forward and reveal how the one guy was taking credit for the eventual Unsub's actions?
82** The whole episode is an obvious lift from UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}}, and the explanation may be a reference to Cassie Bernall. For years, the famous 'she said yes' account was attributed to her, and the survivor who actually had the exchange with Klebold, Valeen Schnurr, was denigrated for suggesting that some wires were crossed in the telling of the story. The whole issue is well-explained in the book 'Columbine'. Clearly, if a similar situation happened in real life, and none of the survivors could corroborate the story, it could easily happen in the world of fiction.
83** As Reid is fond of saying, memories are like puzzles, not like paintings -- it's very easy, especially if you're confused and frightened, to put a bunch of real pieces together in the wrong order and create a false memory. That's what happened in the real life example above -- it wasn't that people had fuzzy memories, it's that they were 100% SURE that the memories that they had were correct -- but they couldn't have been, based on objectively confirmable things like placement and timing that people pieced together later.
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85* In "Internet is Forever" Reid states that he doesn't even have an email account. As a socially awkward child genius he must be from the internets! Sure he can't be Garcia, but no email account?
86** Especially valid considering how hard it is to get along professionally without email these days. That's never sat right with me, either.
87*** You could take it to mean he only has a professional email, rather than having a personal email, as well. Obviously, you wouldn't be sending your social networking updates to your work email.
88*** Hmmm. Good point! Thank you.
89** Actually, they did establish Reid has an unusual dislike of technology. When Garcia bought the team iPads, she didn't get Reid one, saying something to the effect she knew he preferred paper. Not to mention, this is a guy who reads classic literature in its original language.
90** Possible FridgeBrilliance for why he prefers a revolver over a glock. Reid just likes older stuff and doing things the old way.
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92* In "Safe Haven", Jeremy was supposedly one of twins and absorbed his brother in the womb. If the pregnancy was advanced enough for the mother to know she was having twins, is that even possible? One mostly-developed twin could die, certainly, but how could it just disappear?
93** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_twin It is possible.]]
94** We don't know the twin was reabsorbed. The quote we get is "I was pregnant with twins, and then I wasn't." That's vague enough to imply that the second fetus was stillborn. Considering she actively blames her unborn son for actions in the womb, she isn't exactly basing her concerns on actual science.
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96* The ending of "Machismo" (1x19) bothered me quite a bit. Hotch asks if the women who castrated the unsub would be charged, the Mexican cop asks "With what? They were only protecting their homes." Which... doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm not denying that a group of women who were raped did not deserve justice, and hell, attacking the unsub probably prevented another murder. But it's not that they incapacitated him, it's they ''cut off his penis'', and were treated as if this was not only perfectly acceptable, but also somewhat heroic.
97** DoubleStandard.
98** What? It was a rescue! He was actively trying to kill someone when they attacked him, and he was armed. They were going to have to incapacitate him in order to stop him. Yes, they picked a way to do it that was particularly bloody, but it's not like they just grabbed him off the street while he was minding his own business. They weren't arrested for the same reason that nobody arrested that mob of Angelenos who came after the Prince of Darkness with baseball bats in "The Longest Night."
99** That's just it, though. Instead of just subduing the killer (who, it should be noted, was dressing as a woman in order to perform his rape murders), they brutally castrated him, mocked him over it, and it is presented as a ''good'' thing. In an episode already chock full of homophobia, transphobia and sexism.
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101* In "The Fisher King", we see Greenaway come home and sit down on her couch, then get attacked by the Unsub who was waiting inside. Given that the door she enters through was nearly all ''glass panels'', wasn't she kind of asking for such a thing to happen? You'd think a female agent who lives alone, and knows just how many violent sickos are out there, would make sure her residence was a lot more secure than that.
102** Also in "The Fisher King," was it ever explained where the Unsub got his hacking skills from? He seemed like an insane old man to me, but he was savvy enough to penetrate a government database, and even when Garcia went after him she only got back what he wanted her to.
103*** Garcia used her own laptop on FBI's network, which was significantly less secure. While I'm replying by 2021 standards, I don't find it unlikely that an obsessed person could have found a script that triggers a specific, relatively new exploit, and was hoping that Garcia hadn't secured her laptop even if the FBI had secured the other machines on the network. Depending on what Reid had told his mom about the team, and what she'd told everyone else, he might have been able to put the digital attack together.
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105* When (if at all, according to rumours) do you think Rosie Marcel is set to appear on the show? To quote a Holby fansite, she was supposed to appear mid-2013, but there isn't any confirmation of it.
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107* In ''The Silencer'': why didn't John Myers just '''write''' what his problem is? We know he's intelligent, well read, so why didn't he just write on a piece of paper "My defective hearing implant is making every sound a torture, I need to be put in a place without noise"? I can understand why he never tried to tell his mother since she was probably just looking for excuses to abuse him, but he must have had teachers, neighbors, and after that the jail personnel must know this since they provided him books: someone should have at some point said "Maybe he does not speak because he's deaf and/or mute, but he writes so I'll try that way to communicate".
108** Clearly there's more wrong with him mentally than ''just'' hearing painful noise a lot, considering most people would react to that by seeking medical help, ''not'' attacking people and sewing their mouths shut. Besides which, if he'd acknowledged that he could write responses when first arrested he'd have had to tell them who he was, and that would make it ''much'' more likely he'd be convicted of his mom's murder too. So he probably just tore up any writing paper they offered him in protest, same as he'd refused to identify himself in sign language.
109** John Myers is an abuse victim who was trained by his mother from a young age ''not'' to complain about his implants. Getting away from your abuser does not mean you automatically snap out of that trauma. If it did, the BAU wouldn't have nearly the caseload that they do. The only intervention we know he's received in relation to his hearing is the doctors who gave him the implants in the first place, which means the only authority figures in his life have caused him pain. He has no reason to believe that anyone would react any differently.
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111* At the end of "Demonology," why don't they arrest Father Silvano? His DiplomaticImpunity has been revoked and they just caught him committing, at the very least, breaking and entering and assault (and maybe attempted murder, if they want to press it), but they just pack him off to Italy and hope somebody locks him up for something there.
112** The Vatican may have set specific terms under which they'd help get his DiplomaticImpunity revoked. Sending him back to Rome for his punishment was probably one of those terms, allowing the Church to avoid a public scandal.
113*** Wait, what? If they wanted him returned to the Vatican for punishment, they could have just recalled him, rather than pulling immunity. Waiver of immunity is specifically to allow for the host country to hold court proceedings.
114*** Also, what about his five or six accomplices? Each time we see him take a victim, he has some {{Mooks}} to subdue them for him. These guys just sort of vanish.
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116* How can the be so sure about the [=UnSub's=] skin color in the profiles?
117** Usually based on the victims, the area of the killings, and things like that. If the victims were white women abducted in a mostly white neighborhood and no one noticed anything out of the ordinary, you can rule out a ScaryBlackMan. Or if the victims were African-Americans abducted in a predominantly African-American neighborhood and no one noticed anything out of the ordinary, you can rule out a creepy white guy. Generally serial killers who abduct people in populated areas as opposed to waiting in the woods or something, do so from areas in which they can blend in, which is either going to be a very crowded area or a neighborhood where most people match their racial background. I am not sure but I'm fairly certain they're much more likely to state a probable race in the profile if the abductions happened in a neighborhood setting as opposed to a rural area or a crowded commerce area.
118** Also, it's a statistical fact, apparently, that serial killers tend to choose victims within their own race. White killers kill white victims, black killers kill black victims...and so on. Chalk it up to mommy/daddy issues in a lot of cases.
119** The above is true, but also in real life there would probably be a decent chance they'd be wrong at least every so often. The only reason they're never wrong in the show is because 1) few shows like this like to make the protagonists look fallible in major ways and 2) the show is borderline FBI propaganda.
120*** If it helps anything, a lot of times when the police look for a suspect, they go by process of a elimination and, in the case of the ethnicity of an [=UnSub=], they're not so much being correct, they're going by likelihood, also, make note of how that's ''early'' in their investigation, they change their inferences later in the investigation when there's more evidence. Now that I think about it, they're usually looking for someone whose [=MO=] fits their investigation and going by the details they did have about the perp (like what their [possible] ethnicity and age range were). Going a bit further, [=IRL=], the [=FBI=] uses cases of other serial criminals (murderers, usually) with similar [=MOs=] when it comes to finding the perpetrator or, at least, to get a general idea of what sort of perpetrator they're looking for, potential ethnicity and age range factoring into it.
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122* In "P911", the young boy is being kept in a soundproofed cell with no door. The team eventually realizes that the cell was built around him. However: 1, wouldn't that A, take a while and B, be highly problematic considering that there's someone in there while it was built? 2, the boy was kept in there for several days. The room wasn't that big and there was no ventilation, so wouldn't he have run out of air? 3, if the room was soundproofed, then how did that scene where he calls to his captor, asking to be let out, and his captor yells at him to shut up work?
123** The cell was part of a larger room once, and the kidnapper laid the boy's body down in the middle of it, probably unconscious. The captor built the walls around him to fit tight against the floor and ceiling. The walls weren't soundproofed or airtight, just too sturdy for the kid to bust out through.
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125* In "Demonology" what exactly is going on with John Cooley? He tells Prentiss that Matthew's father told him of Matthew's death but later the man in question says he hasn't spoken to or seen John in years, this is never explained. Later the priest targets him but he doesn't seem to have any of the problems the other two did nor does he seem to be connected to the other priest's death as the other two are, so why target him? Further what does Prentiss's nosebleed at the end mean?
126** It's implied that he's possessed by Baliel.
127** Or at least believes he is, so strongly that he developed a psychosomatic nosebleed.
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129* In the season 9 Openers, at the end, the mother tries to pass off her surviving twin as the one not proven to be the one who committed several murders -- gambling that they can pass off the murders the two twins did on the dead one. When it's pointed out that Fingerprints can tell them apart, Hotch says a good lawyer could explain around those. Besides this being a dubious statement Hotch then decides to go for a gamble having the twin's estrange schizophrenic dad identify the surviving twin, hoping this will trigger the twin to give himself away (as Estranged parents with severe delusions are weaker evidence than even fingerprints are). It works and the Wallace gives himself away when his father names him. But, why was that even necessary? Wallace was a fry cook suffering from Psychosis. His brother's a junior associate in a law firm, and while a psychopath too, isn't suffering from delusions. There's no way Wallace could've passed for Jesse for any length of time. Just have him name his adoptive family members' name and birthday, ask him some law question, ask him his bar license number or the color of the walls of his own office -- or just wait for him to start showing signs of his psychosis. There's literally no way the subterfuge was ever going to work. Why does the episode makes such a big point of it?
130** The mere idea that the fingerprints would somehow be useless is laughable in itself. Considering the mismatched fingerprints are what started the whole mess in the first place, there's no way a lawyer could "explain" that. Hotch probably just wanted a sort of revenge by proving that profiling was more accurate than forensics. He got to publicly, dramatically demonstrate that profiling (for a dubious definition of "profiling") was still credible after having it slandered for the "false arrest" earlier. And they brought the crazy parent along anyway. Might as well get some use out of him. (The idea that profiling was in any way responsible for Jesse's arrest in the first place also strains credibility, since the profile was A- spot-on and B- irrelevant to the arrest of a man witnessed committing a crime, but that's a different point entirely.) Chalk it up to lazy writing attempting to make a point but fumbling it along the way.
131** Interestingly enough, fingerprints aren't the most reliable ([[https://bit.ly/2LL3ojS Check]]), not like [=DNA=], they're just the most ''tangible'' as a far as evidence goes.
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133* Why didn't Maeve ask Reid and the BAU to take care of her stalker problem? She says that she doesn't want to put him in danger during an episode, but we're not talking a regular guy here. We're talking about a special agent, who's part of a squad that literally puts serial killers, spree killers and other mentally disturbed, criminal individuals behind bars.
134** To Maeve's credit, Reid and the BAU can't go after every last stalker of their loved ones, not without legal problems, no, after all, there's [[BeingPersonalIsntProfessional a trope for that]], and, from we did see in that episode, the BAU did have their hands full with that one. Also, they didn't know where exactly to start with Diane besides profiling her as a "celebrity stalker" and they were more focused on Maeve, who didn't give them too many details (not that she probably could, [=IIRR=]).
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136* In season 1 it was mentioned that Hotch's father developed heart problems and later died of a heart attack. HOWEVER some seasons later Hotch tells a man with terminal cancer that his (Hotch's) own father had died of cancer when he was a teenager. Um... did someone rewrite Hotch's history or did the writers just forget what they had already established about Hotch's family?
137** It's just an oversight by the writers. It's not the first time a character's background has gotten a little fuzzy over the years: Penelope at one point early on mentions that "Garcia" was her stepfather's surname, but it's hard to reconcile a stepfather with the fact that both of her biological parents were killed in the same auto-accident when she was eighteen.
138*** For Garcia, I always assumed that her parents divorced, her mother married Mr. Garcia, and that her mother and biological father were killed in the accident (going together to the graduation to show their daughter that they weren't going to let their differences interfere in them celebrating a major milestone in her life).
139*** Well according to 13x20 it is her mother and stepfather that were killed in a car accident when she was eighteen. I guess she considered her stepfather more of a real father to her then her biological father.
140** For Hotch, this troper had always assumed that his biological father (the one who was implied to be abusive) died of a heart attack. His mother remarried and had Sean (he seems a great deal younger than Hotch). So his step-father and Sean's biological father was the lawyer they both looked up to, and he was the one who died of cancer. Seemed logical to me, but no in-universe proof to that theory.
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142* I love Garcia and her individuality is to be applauded but... how does she get away with dressing like she does while working for the FBI? Judging by the other characters they seem to have a dress code in place at Quantico and yet no one ever scolds her for not looking professional?
143** Kevin's style isn't that much more formal, also it's established that she was forced to join the FBI in order to avoid more serious repercussions. Seems like the Bureau are aware that these people are going to be locked in their own offices all day and wouldn't really need to deal with the cameras or public very often. When her role becomes more encompassing -- when she takes over JJ's work for example -- she DID try to change how she dressed, but this seemed to have a detrimental effect.
144** Garcia doesn't deal with the public.
145*** You'd be surprised as to how casual a workplace can be. I mean, I've seen some workplaces where you'd expect everyone would be dressing "suit and tie" formally but it's almost the opposite, though, Garcia's manner of dress seems closer to business casual.
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147* I have a very ... unpleasant question about "A Shade of Gray." It's mentioned that the body of the little boy matches the other victims ... who were raped. Which makes sense ... until you find out that he was actually murdered by his older brother and the sheriff helped the parents fake the crime scene to protect the older son. If the little boy wasn't raped you'd have thought the medical examiner would have pointed that out. So ... [[FridgeHorror did the sheriff use something to sodomize the little boy's body to match the other murders?]] {{Squick}}!
148** The details of the abduction were the same as the other two. The body hadn't been found at that stage.
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150* In "Risky Business", several teens' strangulation deaths were initially assumed to be suicides, but later were revealed to be accidental self-asphyxiations during a "choking game" they'd been playing online. The game was set up by an online serial killer who required them to record their self-choking via webcam, ostensibly to prove how long they'd done it and score points in a contest. Presumably that means that all the "suicides" would've been recording their own choking sessions, and the ones who died couldn't turn their webcams ''off'' if they were busy choking to death, so why didn't the parents or sheriff notice that they were all recording themselves when they died?
151** To me, it always seemed like that they never 'did' upload their recordings. If no one knows that anyone died during the games, I would feel much more safer doing the game. Also, computers turn off after a while.
152** And then the local police investigating the "suicide" turn them on again, so they can check if the dead teen left a note on their computer. Really, the recordings should have been found long before the BAU got involved.
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154* In "Blood Relations" The FBI empty their weapons at a man who is supposedly underwater -- despite one thing you are taught in gun safety is to not shoot at hard surfaces such as water. They don't wait for him to resurface, or form any sort of search party. They just presume that he's dead because they shot thirty bullets into the pond. Even if shooting at the water was assumed safe, emptying their weapons seems like a bad idea given that if they miss, he could resurface.
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156* The whole ending for "Demonology" bothered me to no end. In a show that at least tries to pretend some semblance of realism trying to do something that might hint at there being real demons or whatever seems fairly jarring not to mention the fact that it would actually justify the murdering priest.
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158* A minor thing but in "Seven Seconds" what happened to Jeremy after his parents were arrested? His aunt and uncle don't seem all that concerned about him (justified as they were focused on Katie) but did they take him in later? Or did they abandon him to foster care due to what his parents did?
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160* Another minor thing but in "Mosley Lane" it's revealed that the oldest kidnap victim (a teenage boy who been held by the kidnappers since he was a young child) had helped kidnap more kids (by driving the get away car I think). I have always wondered was he charged (by the police) for his role in the crimes?
161** The fact that he was kidnapped and coerced would most likely remove any accessory charges, especially since he was a minor for some of that time.
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163* In the episode "Cradle To Grave" when the team arrive at the unsub's house it's revealed that one of the captive women had already given birth to a boy (now about four or five years old). Why, then, did the unsubs continue abducting and impregnating women if the female unsub already had her Michael?
164** The female [=UnSub=] had ''very'' specific criteria for whether or not she considered a baby to be "Michael", and if the baby doesn't meet ''all'' of them, the male [=UnSub=] kills the mother and puts the baby up for adoption. I can't remember exactly why the baby you're referring to was rejected by them, but I think it's because he had brown hair and Michael had blonde hair.
165*** OP here. The little boy was living with them and was in fact named Michael (the name of the unsub's stillborn son) meaning he wasn't rejected (also the babies they gave up for adoption were all girls) indicating that the Unsub's "goal" had already been fulfilled yet they kept kidnapping and impregnating women which is what puzzles me. Then again the female unsub was nuts, so maybe I'm looking for logic where there isn't any.
166*** It's entirely possible that the baby she was desperate for was actually that, a baby. When the older Michael got too old, she'd lose interest in him as her baby, and need a replacement.
167** The male unsub was a sexual sadist. When he met his wife, he temporarily became calm, but soon regressed again, abusing her. However, because she was willing, he couldn't derive any pleasure out of it. In order to avoid killing her, they made a deal: he could rape and kill the abductees as long as she could raise the children that she chose. She was in it for Michael (and eventually more children, when she found out her cancer would kill her). He was in it mostly to satisfy his sadism, so there was no reason for him to stop just because she got her Michael.
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169* How did Samantha Malcolm, the [=UnSub=] of "Uncanny Valley" get a stun-gun? She's a woman known to be mentally disturbed and legally incompetent in a state that has restrictions on the item in question. You need a permit to own one.
170** How was her father not brought before some sort of review board due to giving his daughter electroshock therapy to treat the death of her mother? (I know he was molesting her but that was still a flimsy excuse.) As Reid himself said, 'There are literally hundreds of therapies to help children cope with the loss of a loved one, electroshock is not one of them'.
171*** It's made pretty clear that no one outside him and Samantha knew about the torture.
172*** [OP] I understand about the torture, but there's still an official record showing that he ''was known'' to have used electroshock on his daughter. How was he not questioned ''in detail'' about why he used that form of therapy? The second she goes through her little mantra like she did with Reid, another therapist would've immediately realised what he did.
173*** Sad but true, authorities don't always intervene when they should. Reid has a special interest in mental health due to his mother, so he knows what does and does not constitute a valid treatment for depression. The rest of the team doesn't seem to pick up on it. And look at episodes like "Cradle to Grave" or "100" where the BAU has to have it pointed out to them that just because certain drugs can be used for fertility doesn't mean that they're primarily used for fertility, or that prescription drugs can have OTC equivalents. A police officer without a medical background probably heard Dr. Malcom say "This treatment was used for this problem" and went "Well, he's a doctor. He knows better than I do." The episode also says that there were multiple cases of abuse brought to light by the contest stories. If it was enough to shame the manufacturer out of business, it was probably enough to overwhelm the local social services. Once they received a plausible-sounding explanation for Samantha's story (and she only mentioned the electroshock therapy, not the molestation), they probably moved on to what they deemed a more pressing case.
174** For that matter, how was she able to keep her victims drugged properly (okay, ''almost'' properly)? Even if we assume lax security around drugs, she really had no business having access to them. She was a patient. And just because she could get her hands on the drugs and equipment she needed doesn't explain being able to use them. Maybe she could pick up on how to administer [=IVs=] by observation, but how did she know which drugs to use, in which quantities, to have the desired effects? There are unsubs who undergo trial-and-error when it comes to strangling people, but an emotionally-stunted woman with no formal training is able to administer a complicated drug cocktail designed to keep her victims alive and immobile without accidentally overdosing (and immediately killing) or underdosing (and allowing escape) anyone? It takes a diabetic victim before she has any problem with her dosage?
175** If I remember right, her father, Arthur, had Samantha stay in a hospital that he runs called "New Lives" after he declared her mentally incompetent, so she either figured out where he kept the medicines and how to get to them ([=ECT=] is administered after the patient is sedated or, sometimes, "rowdy" patients are sedated) or she had training as a nurse (not farfetched, given what we see and Reid's profile of her),if she wasn't reading her father's medical books in her spare time. To answer the point about the diabetic victim (I think her name was "Bethany"), if memory serves, her diabetes meant she could break the drugs down the drugs in her system quicker, however, her being diabetic also meant time was even more of the essence, as a side of effect of certain sedatives in diabetic patients is glucose complications. In terms of the dosage, while [=IV=] treatments can have a margin of error w/ miscalculations, she might have paralyzed them with atracurium, which can cause a patient to suffocate, as it paralyzes ''all'' muscles.
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177* In "Divining Rod," a serial killer is executed at the beginning of the episode, and quotes from ''1,001 Nights'' before he dies. The team later finds a letter among his "fan" letters that contains this quote, which his wife says he enjoyed having her read to him. The letter leads the team to the [=UnSub=], who supposedly sent it to the killer when he was in prison. However, at the close of the episode, the executed killer's wife asks the [=UnSub=] if he is familiar with ''1,001 Nights,'' and he says "No." Is this just a mistake on the part of the writers, or is something else going on? who really wrote the letter? and if the [=UnSub=] didn't write it, what was his connection to it?
178** The wife wrote it and it probably just got mixed in with his fan mail.
179** The letter doesn't lead them to the new killer. In fact, they point out that it's inconsistent that someone who's committing crimes as a "screw you" to the first killer would have also been a fan, and they have to justify it as "the early stage of his interest," when it later turns out that the new killer's interest was always squarely on the first killer's wife, not the first killer himself. Either the wife wrote the letter in the first place or it did come from a genuine fan and she looked into ''1,001 Nights'' specifically because her husband responded positively to it. Honestly, what bothers me more is that the episode treats this as a WhamLine and acts as if she's somehow encouraging her love interests to commit crimes when the only thing it proves is what she was saying from the beginning: she supported her husband through his prison term, after he was already caught, convicted, and prevented from hurting any more women. Even if you view it as immoral to comfort an unrepentant killer, it's a far cry from causing them to commit their crimes. You can actually view her action at the end as noble. She's come to believe that something about her draws evil out of men, so rather than move to a new town and potentially inspire another serial killer, she's giving her attention to a man who's already incarcerated, already evil.
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181* Why was Ian Doyle imprisoned in ''North Korea'' after being captured by Prentiss and Interpol? (Not only North Korea, but a camp for political prisoners in North Korea???) North Korea isn't a member of Interpol to begin with, and for second, Interpol is a law enforcement agency, why would they capture a terrorist and then not have him tried by whatever country he's wanted by?
182** Without any better guess, I think they just wanted him the hell away from any connections he might have. I assume that all they needed to do to get him imprisoned in North Korea was to forge evidence that he had been spreading anti Kim Jong-Il material in the country or something else like that.
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184* Am I the only one who finds the premise of "Beyond Borders" (Both the episode [[Series/CriminalMindsBeyondBorders and the]] SpinOff) a bit unbelievable. Not the [=UnSub=], but the idea that there's a special FBI team to help Americans in trouble abroad? The US government won't even save people who ''work'' for them; they're going to dispatch a team to save some vacationers?
185** I don't know what you mean by your last question, but in real life the FBI [[AluminiumChristmasTrees does investigate]] major crimes against American citizens living abroad, including terrorist attacks, murders, kidnappings and disappearances where foul play is suspected. It also counsels Americans tried in foreign courts, and foreign law enforcement agencies that might ask them for help. The only license of the show is that there is no specific "International Response Team" within the FBI that is exclusively tasked with this.
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187* In "If The Shoe Fits", JJ is angry at her mom for telling JJ's son about Rosaline and makes a point that she discussed telling him with Will. Yet she never bothered to tell her mom about the decision to not tell the kid?
188** JJ apparently doesn't see her mom often, and she tends to be a private person, especially about Rosaline. She points out that she and her parents never really talked about it, so she assumed that would continue to be the case. If her mother hasn't brought it up in thirty-some years, why would she suddenly bring it up ''now?''
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190* In "The Performer", why did Dante's agent go to the unsub's house, and more important, why did he attack JJ if he had no idea who she was?
191** He went to the unsub's house to convince her to commit suicide. He'd already convinced her that the killings were Dante's will and the final step of being at Dante's side forever as his vampire queen was to kill herself. His intentions were that if she was connected to the killings, he could disavow all knowledge. She's just some bat shit fan. No one would know that he had told her to kill those people or that he'd convinced her to kill herself. It would have been a "perfect" crime if JJ hadn't shown up. The manager didn't know who JJ was, but he knew she was someone who had seen him with the unsub and could possibly link him to the murders so he knocked her out and tried to convince the unsub to murder JJ as well so there would be no loose ends.
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193* In "Lo-Fi", comparison of video which captured two of the shootings indicates that one killer was significantly shorter than the other, and left the area at a different speed. Based on this information, the BAU presents two possible profiles: either it's a two-person team of serial killers, or it's a gang-initiation ritual. But the killings had been on the news for some time, so a rough description of what the suspect(s) wore during the attacks has presumably become public knowledge. So why was there no mention of a plausible third possibility: that someone who ''specifically'' had a grudge against the second victim heard about the shootings on the news, dressed up like the unsub, and copied his methods to eliminate the person they wanted dead?
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195* In "Red Light" it was never explained how Cat and Lindsay met, particularly given that Cat has been in jail for nearly two years in Iowa while Lindsay operates primarily in border states. Lindsay's dad was relocated to Wisconsin, a bordering state of Iowa, by WITSEC, but Lindsay left the program and headed south three years before Cat met Spencer. This may later be explained by the "mole in the BAU" theory, but as of this writing it's a plot hole.
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197* In season twelve, if Cat and Lindsay weren't planning on getting Cat pregnant by forced sperm donor, ''why did Lindsay rape Reid at all?''
198** Are we sure she did? The only proof we have is Cat's word and a fuzzy flashback of Reid recalling Lindsay impersonating Maeve. Cat's a proven liar, and Reid's already had very flexible memories concerning this exact period of time influenced by what he believed or wanted to be true. Cat probably told Lindsay to impersonate Maeve in order to manipulate him, specifically so Cat could later tell him it facilitated a rape, but considering how pissed off Lindsay was when she found out about Cat's pregnancy, Cat clearly didn't tell Lindsay about that part of the plan. Cat gains nothing from actually raping Reid; she only has to briefly convince him that she did. Why risk her relationship with Lindsay (which was essential to the plan) by tossing in a sex crime if she didn't have to?
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