CRIMINAL MINDS: SUSPECT BEHAVIOR “The Time is Now” Review

The Time Is Now

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior “The Time is Now”, Season 1 Episode 10 – Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior returned this week with “The Time is Now”, and gave us our first flashback murder, taking place in Los Angeles 10 years ago. This served as a precursor to a rather odd episode that had a couple good moments, but overall fell flat under its own premise.

I was excited to see the return of Richard Schiff as FBI director Jack Fickler, Cooper’s boss. However, I was even more excited that Jack sounded like he was giving us the reason for the Red Cell team! Since day one, this has been by far my largest complaint with this series, that there is really no clear differentiation between this show and the original Criminal Minds. They both seem to take the same kinds of cases, deal with the same kinds of killers, and they’ve done a very poor job of telling us why this Red Cell team even exists. In the first scene of this episode, we get Cooper actually asking Jack why they don’t just get the original team to do it! I was so excited to get the answer, but all I get is Jack giving some BS answer about Cooper being just as qualified, followed by Cooper saying “So Hotch can’t do it?” You know what Jack says? Yep! He’s on a case in Florida.

In the immortal words of Gob Bluth: COME ON!!! We were so close to getting a good, solid answer from the show about why it even exists, and then we just find out that the only reason this team is even called on for cases is when the other team is busy. Great, so we’re just watching a TV show of the B-team? Not cool, guys. Not cool.

Thankfully, to keep this episode from completely obliterating this show off my Tivo, it DID address another one of my major issues with this show: Rapport with the team. I know I talk about this every week, but this episode actually did the best job showing us some fun interactions with the team. Beth being the temporary boss of the team led to a fun exchange between Beth and the rest of squad when she was accused of being a fugitive. This was the only scene that I’ve seen on this entire series that served no other purpose except to show some fun teasing and rapport-building among the team. The final scene with Beth getting her own desk also put a smile on my face, and we need a lot more of that in this series.

Overall the actual content of the episode was a little…weird. It didn’t feel like an episode of a Criminal Minds show, more like a legal drama than anything. There was no kicking down doors, no car chases, nothing. The only time anybody even pulled a gun out apart from the first scene was when Sam pointed a gun at a killer who was already confessing. Not exactly a pulse-pounding action sequence. Also, was it ever explained why Veronica Day tried so hard to get out of jail, just to go straight to somebody’s house and confess? Couldn’t you have just confessed to her while you were in jail and save yourself the legal fees?

With a frustrating lack of explanation for the show’s premise, and an odd case-of-the-week, a little extra chemistry building in the team was not enough to make this week’s episode enjoyable. Hopefully we get some better episodes as we ramp up to the season finale in a few short weeks.

Random Thoughts:

- I was so excited to see Eric Roberts as the prosecuting lawyer. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, might I recommend the pinnacle of his acting career: Sharktopus!

- What’s up with Janeane Garofalo’s walk? It’s like she’s waddling when she’s pacing around the room.

- Was it really necessary for Beth to explain what a pager was?

By Luke Gelineau | May 4, 2011 | 8 Comments

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Phoenix5559

I found myself disappointed with this episode. The subplot of Beth running the unit was horribly underdeveloped. No real crisis or conflict and very little meaningful interaction between the anti-social Beth and her co-workers. Don’t know why they even bothered to give her the desk…I’m still guessing it must have a rubber snake stuffed in one of the drawers.
Janeane’s character is woefully underdeveloped and stereotyped. That is a shame, because I think she is a gifted actress who can rise to the level of good material. So far she hasn’t been written any.
I also noticed her “affected” walk, Luke. I’m either going to attribute it to elevator boots or her notoriously bad back.
I actually had to snicker at that allegedly “poignant” scene between Beth and the DA’s son, when she describes her own “wild girl” days and her defiance of her father by enrolling in the FBI rather than medical school. She actually says something like, “The FBI is nothing like art school. You don’t have all of the colors, just grey on grey on grey.”
Meanwhile I’m thinking, this is the lady who has been wearing the same grey pant suit for twelve straight episodes now….grey on grey indeed.
P. S. I also noticed the logic flaw re Veronica Day getting out of jail first before she confesses. I guess we’re supposed to believe that she wanted to confront her most outspoken victim face to face before she confessed — just as we’re supposed to believe that getting off the hook for her own mother’s murder made her get religion and fess up to all of the other killings. You can’t say it’s not an imaginative show…

Beth-jordan

I love the first show Criminal Minds but I do not feel the love of “Suspect Behavior”. The entire cast needs a make-over. There is no one that is an interesting character. I thought Forest Whitteger would be fantastic as I love him in so many other movies, but sometime I find he is trying to hard to be convincing and sometimes mumbles. I love both NCIS’s, and at one time all the Law and Orders but this second show needs work on its characters. The plots are fine, cast all wrong.
EJ

Phoenix

Beth, I don’t think the cast is the problem. It’s the characterization, or lack thereof. Jack Webb’s Sergeant Joe Friday was more fleshed out than any of the Suspect Behavior Team so far, and he was so stiff, you could iron clothes on top of him.

The first two or three episodes were so poorly written, they were laughable IMO. Then the plots got more credible, but the chemistry between the characters is still missing.

The good news is that this series seems capable of improving with time and correcting its own errors, so I wouldn’t give up on it just yet, if you like these kinds of crime dramas.

Pamela25401

I didn’t find it all that hard to understand Ms Day’s actions in the end. She was only really convicted of her mother’s murder. When that conviction was overturned she went to confess first to the surviving daughter.

She knew she deserved to be in prison, on death row, but not for the crime she was convicted of.

Phoenix5559

I understand the logic of Ms. Day’s decision, Pamela. I’m skeptical of the underlying morality, especially when you’re dealing with a serial killer, most of whom tend to be amoral and sociopathic by nature.

Maybe we’re supposed to believe that she had a bad life, and somebody finally doing her a good, just turn impacted her enough to change her, but most truly evil, anti-social types aren’t that easily rehabilitated IMHO.

Karin2878

i only managed to catch the first half of the show.. who was responsible for trashing Eric Roberts car and breaking into his house??

Phoenix

The son of the Eric Roberts character was responsible for the vandalism, Karin. He was frustrated with his father for focusing too much on work and not giving him another attention. Beth solves this case as a subplot, which has nothing to do with the Veronica Day serial killer who is up for appeal. The son copycats her m. o., while she gets released on appeal, because Cooper and Fickler discover that real evidence was suppressed in the original case. Then she goes to the home of the daughter of a couple whom she has murdered. Cooper and Fickler rush there, because they think she is planning another serial killing, but she actually confesses and gets arrested again.

It seems Ms. Day is now remorseful, since the only crime she was convicted for was the murder of her mother. When the FBI acknowledges their reversible error in that case, she is prompted as a measure of good faith to confess to the other killings which she was responsible for.