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RSSJoe Mantegna starts his 'Criminal Minds' duty
On Wednesday (Oct. 31) night's very special Halloween Criminal Minds, a white, male serial killer terrorized female victims, with a sexual element to his crimes. Oh wait. That's every episode of Criminal Minds. This week, though, introduced new leading man Joe Mantegna to the hit drama's cast.
[If you haven't seen the episode, stop reading, because this recap'll will leave things as spoiled as a weighted down, water-logged corpse.]
Although Thomas Gibson's Hotch has taken over since Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) drove off into the sunset, many viewers have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mantegna's ostensible fill-in for a couple weeks.
Introduced duck hunting, Mantegna's David Rossi has been retired for nearly a decade, becoming something of a literary and media superstar in the interim. In not time flat, we learned that Rossi is meticulous, gruff and that he's a bit of a rock star, drawing giddy admiration from JJ, Emily and particularly Spencer. We got a strong hint that he has a past of some sort with Jayne Atkinson's Erin.
We also learned that he's got his own way of working, a way that doesn't jibe with the way Hotch and Gideon run the BAU.
"Sharing is a learned skill," he explained to Hotch. "You know, when this all started, there were only a few of us. We'd go out on the road alone. We didn't group think."
The lone wolf Rossi didn't share his ideas, preferring to take his own private notes and to operate outside of the purview of both the FBI team and the local law enforcement (represented by everybody's favorite West Wing body guard Michael O'Neill) to lure out this week's unsub.
What with all the time given to establishing Rossi's motives, the unsub was sold a bit short. His M.O. -- putting up "Have You Seen Me?" pictures on his victims doors in advance, kidnapping them, leaving masks and removing their faces -- was plenty creepy, but there wasn't any real mystery. Penelope found an obvious connection between the two victims with led them right to the unsub in no time flat.
The case was such a breeze that Rossi managed to request a file in a different case, a 20-year-old murder involving Diana and Richard Galen and their three children. This unsolved crime appears to be what has brought Rossi back to the FBI.
Joey Mants is a pro and it's no surprise that his stern and authoritative presence instantly fits in with the established cast, nor that his age and experience set up all sorts of generational conflicts for future episodes. Part of me figures that if Joey Mants had to do one CBS procedural, he ought to be chewing on the Mamet and Mamet-esque dialogue on The Unit. I was also distracted by his waxing and waning facial hair within the episode, as if somebody decided the character needed a goatee half-way through the episode shoot and didn't consider that things weren't being shot in sequence, producing several continuity gaffes. Oh and was it just me or was Mantegna doing more than his usual amount of Fat Tony for this character?
Anyway, if the addition of Paget Brewster last season wasn't enough to make me more than a sporadic Criminal Minds viewer, Joey Mants won't make me a regular either, but the latest shift to its ensemble appears to have been smooth.
What'd you think of Mantegna's first appearance? Are you interested in the character or will you continue to miss Mandy?
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What is unsub short for?
unitendified subject
I don't care for Joe Mantegna's acting in most things that he is in so I am slightly biased in my dislike for him. There were so many things that bothered me. One was the way that he gets an office but was supposed to be subordinate to Hotch.
It's a strange thing to bother me, plus the over the top imagery of him removing Gideon's name plate drives me crazy. The viewers of this show aren't stupid, we get that he is taking over the older character role.
Plus his whole "group think" comment made me mad. It works for them, just because he is a sullen cranky man doesn't mean that their way doesn't work.
I personally thought the show was fine after Mandy P. left and the team didn't have any prima donna members. I enjoyed those episodes. This character seems like he will be a PIA which is the last thing the other members need as they try to solve crimes.
His character really needs to learn about teamwork and also realize that he's Hotchner's subordinate. I hope that he will get along with every member of the team.
I agree that the show was fine after Mandy left. They didn't need anyone else. I thought those three episodes were some of the best of the whole series. I liked Joe Mantegna on Joan of Arcadia so I am willing to give him a chance.
I liked him. Of course, I'm probably also biased, because I've always liked Joe Mantegna. I think his character is going to add to the series. I'm not sure if it was a needed addition, but I'm still going to like it. But I think it would take something really big for me to not like this show. I've been fascinated with profiling ever since NBC's Profiler, so I was very excited when Criminal Minds came on the scene. :)
I have always liked Joe Mantegna in whatever show he has been on, so I am biased in my support for him. That being said I believe the team was doing an excellent job without an additional character. I have to admit though, that I am curious about the reason for him coming out of retirement. There is a case from the past that he needs to solve and I have my ideas so I want to know if I am right. Kudos to the writers they grabbed my attention.
Saw most of this episode. I liked Joe Mantegna in the 'Joan of Arcadia' ep's that I saw, so I wanted to check this out. I liked HIM. The other characters kinda irritated me. I've never liked 'Dharma & Greg's" Greg being such a dour character on this show. I get that the psych geek is a good profiler but his character is way too annoying for me to be interested in watching him for long stretches of time. Shemar Moore's hot so I don't mind watching him. The brunnette on the team, I find fascinating, but that's because I caught that ep of her mom asking for help with some Russian? diplomat. This show is still on-again-off for me. I'll watch if it seems like an interesting ep. But regular weekly watching is a no-no. Subject matter and cases almost never seem to change.
My idea of a great crime drama? The Closer.
Actually, "UNSUB" stands for either "unknown" or "unidentified" subject. The reason for the two words is that in some cases, they have no clues about the criminal's identity at all (including the major things like gender, age, etc), so they use the term UNSUB to mean "unknown subject." In other cases, they know more about the criminal, and so UNSUB in these instances means "unidentified subject," since they know much about him/her, but not their names or general whereabouts. As for Joe Mantegna joining the show, I say hurrah, since I've always liked his acting chops. I still wish they'd have shown Thomas Gibson the door as well, because a store mannequin has more emotional range than he does. I tend to be lukewarm towards the show's premise, since it presumes that there are serial killers in abundance all over the place. I have serious doubts about this, especially in the modern era of law enforcement. Yes, I know that in certain communities, gang violence (especially when only a few members of said gang are committing numerous murders) is rampant, but I don't consider one gang member killing a bunch of rival gang members to be serial killings. So while I feel the week-to-week goings-on of the BAU to be just this side of ludicrous, I do agree that the show has its moments. I just hope they don't drag the "unfinished business" of David Rossi's out too far. It's already being done over on "Life" on NBC, and the old yarn of a cop not wanting to retire until he catches the perp that got away, etc, etc, etc, has long since gotten stale. At least now that there is new blood, maybe CM will get more interesting. Now if they could remove the telephone pole shoved up Thomas Gibson's nether regions...
I've always liked Joe M but I'm not exactly sure what his character brings to the show except potential conflict. I thought the episodes without Mandy Patinkin were just fine. Now they bring in a replacement that is shown as being a 'cowboy' that doesn't play well with others - I'm not sure I like that.
Of course the idea that there is a new serial killer each week is not realistic, but that's the premise behind all procedurals. The idea that the FBI has a Missing Persons team that jumps into action in 6 hours is ludicrous (Without a Trace) as is the idea that a city police department has a Cold Case unit that finds a new case each week. It's the process that is supposed to entertain and interest us, not the reality.