CRIMINAL MINDS “Devil’s Night” Season 6 Episode 6-A man is celebrating the days leading up to Halloween by trussing random people up and setting them on fire in an abandonded and secluded building in Detroit. They are completely random, disregarding age, sex and race.
Oh, and Reid’s pronunciation of Samhain was incorrect: it’s not sam-hayne. It’s saw-won.
The burning of the man at the beginning of the episode was harrowing and chilling and promised a wonderfully insidious episode. Unfortunately, like the ‘Demonology’ episode of season five, it did not deliver on its potentially brilliant promise.
The outcome of Rossi’s hypnotising of the victim’s wife seemed ridiculous. Aide from the fact that there was no way to know when the killer was stalking her husband, she barely glanced at the guy, through the smoke of the BBQ and a bustling, revelling crowd, sitting in a corner behind her husband.I do not doubt that with hypnosis she could have seen him: but with that level of detail? She noticed that he was not wearing a mask, that he was missing an ear despite the fact that he wore a hood? Call me a skeptic, but I am certain the writers of the show could think of better ways to track down the unsub.
It turns out the unsub is actually acting like the superhero comicbook hero The Punisher. And yes, it is just as bad. He is taking his vengeance upon people apparently responsible forhis deformity: I may be just lazy, but burning all of these people alive seems a tad extreme. Especially when his endgame seems to be getting the attention of a girl, one Tracy Anderson, who abandoned him after the accident that left him in a coma and severely scarred but her physically unscathed.
The final confrontation was quite absurd and was reminiscent more of a really bad soap opera: he will beat and burn his lover’s parents to get her attention, oh, he’s got her attention, so he sobs and blames her, oh look, she has a son, oh wait, that son is his too, here comes Hotch (alone? How out of character for Morgan, Prentiss, Reid and Rossi to just cross their fingers and trust he knows what he’s doing!), Hotch saves the day with (shudder) empathy and the killer’s son touches his face and the murderer, who burned several people alive, finds his heart has gone soft and gooey. Aw…he just wanted to be loved. That’s why he burned a bunch of people. Alive.
Oh, and instead of Spiderman, Hotch’s son opts for a suit and tie to dress like his real superhero: his father.
What did you think of this episode? I was very disappointed as it is a dip in what has so far been a high quality season. Agree? Disagree? Sound off in the comments below!
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