It's been said that a superhero movie is only as good as its villain and, excepting rare cases, the same could be said for an episode of Criminal Minds. I don't want to oversimplify, of course.
"Parasite" is a reasonably entertaining episode that never quite manages to rise above formula. The problem, as alluded to in the first paragraph, is that the unsub is really only passable at best. In this episode the BAU are after a con man who has recently taken to murdering his marks. Using charisma and sexual appeal, he dupes women (some lonely, some married) into investing in fake companies maintained under a multitude of aliases. To complicate matters, he's got a wife and son, and the pressures of maintaining a stable upper class existence for them exacerbates the strain of preserving his multiple identities. Cracks begin to appear in the careful facades and soon the matchstick man finds himself on a downward spiral of self-destruction.
There is something satisfying, I suppose, in watching the unsub unravel as the walls of his high-stakes profession close in around him. There is a darkly humorous (very darkly humorous) moment in which the unsub, trying to play the role of wholesome father, has to interrupt a heart-to-heart with his son to stealthily bludgeon an incapacitated "loose end" coming to in the trunk of his car. It's blood-soaked Leave It To Beaver, Americana and the nuclear family turned grotesquely on their collective head, and if the whole episode had embraced this unconventional satirical tone it would have been one to remember.
But unfortunately, as much as I enjoy the compulsive structure of Criminal Minds that keeps you shotgunning episodes several hours past your bedtime, it's never a show I would accuse of having much in the way of a distinctive personality, except perhaps for the odd Gubler-direccted episode. At the climax the writers attempt a hard bank into "sympathy for the unsub" territory, which is ill-advised given that he's entirely responsible for his own predicament. It comes out of nowhere and falls rather flat.
On a side note, there's more chemistry than usual betwixt the BAU and local law enforcement--specifically, Prentiss forms a relationship that almost hints at deeper feelings with Agent Russell Goldman, who's been following con man William Hodges for years. Typically the cop-of-the-week only really functions as a black hole for exposition, but in this instance Prentiss teases him about her team's access to a private jet and points out his nervous habits on the ride to apprehend Hodges. It almost makes me wonder if a Will-J.J. relationship was being planned; otherwise the sprinkling of character traits on an incidental character in rather out-of-sync with the show. At any rate, nothing ever comes of it.
"Parasite" is a reasonably entertaining episode that never quite manages to rise above formula. The problem, as alluded to in the first paragraph, is that the unsub is really only passable at best. In this episode the BAU are after a con man who has recently taken to murdering his marks. Using charisma and sexual appeal, he dupes women (some lonely, some married) into investing in fake companies maintained under a multitude of aliases. To complicate matters, he's got a wife and son, and the pressures of maintaining a stable upper class existence for them exacerbates the strain of preserving his multiple identities. Cracks begin to appear in the careful facades and soon the matchstick man finds himself on a downward spiral of self-destruction.
There is something satisfying, I suppose, in watching the unsub unravel as the walls of his high-stakes profession close in around him. There is a darkly humorous (very darkly humorous) moment in which the unsub, trying to play the role of wholesome father, has to interrupt a heart-to-heart with his son to stealthily bludgeon an incapacitated "loose end" coming to in the trunk of his car. It's blood-soaked Leave It To Beaver, Americana and the nuclear family turned grotesquely on their collective head, and if the whole episode had embraced this unconventional satirical tone it would have been one to remember.
But unfortunately, as much as I enjoy the compulsive structure of Criminal Minds that keeps you shotgunning episodes several hours past your bedtime, it's never a show I would accuse of having much in the way of a distinctive personality, except perhaps for the odd Gubler-direccted episode. At the climax the writers attempt a hard bank into "sympathy for the unsub" territory, which is ill-advised given that he's entirely responsible for his own predicament. It comes out of nowhere and falls rather flat.
On a side note, there's more chemistry than usual betwixt the BAU and local law enforcement--specifically, Prentiss forms a relationship that almost hints at deeper feelings with Agent Russell Goldman, who's been following con man William Hodges for years. Typically the cop-of-the-week only really functions as a black hole for exposition, but in this instance Prentiss teases him about her team's access to a private jet and points out his nervous habits on the ride to apprehend Hodges. It almost makes me wonder if a Will-J.J. relationship was being planned; otherwise the sprinkling of character traits on an incidental character in rather out-of-sync with the show. At any rate, nothing ever comes of it.
