I sometimes abuse ampersands

4.25

* I like the eps where the marginalized groups are targeted. That might sound creepy-wrong-wrong, but such victims actually raise the stakes for the BAU: if the victims metonymically represent the middle class & its values (blond cheerleaders, hikers from white-picket-fence neighbourhoods, etc.), it's the social order at stake; when the marginalized people are targeted, it's humanity in danger. This message is underlined by the inhumane, almost mythological way the killers dispose of the bodies (devoured by pigs? ew, creepy), and their Frankestein-esque experiments; the battle against them is almost cosmogonical in its scope.

* The show is sending some seriously mixed signals re:the pervasiveness of trauma. The victims are not defined by the trauma (the major reason I'm loving the show for) - the killer is, but also the BAU, but then, their likeness to killers, their single-minded obsessiveness is oft-referenced onscreen. Here we have the good guy defined by the trauma too - not just the psychological one, but the physical one as well. Not that self-sacrificing courage bordering on insanity (and, y'know, taking justice into your own hands) is healthy; but it's presented as a heroic deed, so. (Liked him a lot, BTW.)

* I'm BADLY squicked by doctors-gone-bad plotlines (I tend to blame it on childhood exposure to description of Nazi quasi-medical experiments), so I ended up skipping whole chunks of the ep :(

* God, it's good to see Rossi again after catching up on earlier seasons! I love the way he conducts interrogations - no-bullshit, just this side of menacing, fiddling with interviewee's emotions like whoa.

* OMG bloody shoes! That's a whole new level of creepy! (and a concentration camp visual shout-out, I guess)

* I'm developing an inappropriate girlcrush on Prentiss XD

* Garcia: still a minor deity who has too much fun doing what che does now to bother with larger stuff XD

* They had the cutest bloodhounds as police dogs <3

* I love how tuned-in the team is to each other's trigger buttons: Hotch just lets Morgan go without further questions the moment he asks leave.

* Kelly: another of those victims who, basically, save themselves, yay!

* Hated the final Hotch's exposition-y monologue. It was almost 19 C. in style, and I prefer smth more subtle as my poison of choice.

* Killing off Hotch has become their favourite way to end seasons, woot XD


Somebody told me this season was meant to be 26 episodes long, so I've been hoping for one extra ep :( Well, at least this one was extra-long.