Close the book on 2019 with the final Deliver The Profile of the year! On this eve of New Year's Ronnie and Jazz discuss a pivotal Season 14 episode, "Chameleon"! The unsub of the episode, The Chameleon, is promised to play a pivotal role in Criminal Minds' final season (starting January 8th), so this is one podcast you don't wanna miss. Unlike you're one of those normal people who doesn't care about what happens in the lives of fictional FBI profilers. Well, let this sweeten the deal: this unsub, he steals people's FACES. Why this wasn't titled "Face/Off" is a mystery.
Not a dream! Not a hallucination! Not an imaginary story! Reid goes to prison at the behest of being charged with murdering what looks to be a Mexican citizen and having a huge cache of drugs in his truck. Can the BAU bail him out and get him on a plane back to the States? Considering this is the start of a storyline, the chances of everything going right are very little. The point is to enjoy the non-sequential journey of Deliver The Profile's look at the 10 part Reid in prison storyline. There'll be plenty of rape jokes, don't you worry.
It's a Tara Lewis episode. A Tara Lewis episode about her dealing with her ex-husband. No, don't, please stick around. "Broken Wing" may be a total snore, but Ronnie and Jazz still have a few good bits. That's all you can ask for, right?
Note: this Criminal Minds makes no use of King Crimson, why is it titled that? Well, in the SEASON 12 premiere the gang is hunting the Crimson King, freed from a coordinated serial killer jailbreak. Yeah, wait until we cover that episode to hear us bitch about that ridiculous plot twist.
The episode serves as the introduction to Luke Alvez, so Ronnie and Jazz have a lot of little to say of CM's newest hunk. Also in the show: gas masks! People are gassed into thinking they're other people. Personality switching! Silly voices! "The Crimson King" has it all, except for the aforementioned King Crimson.
Deliver The Profile reaches the penultimate frontier: Season 14. What is this strange season and what does it contain? Why are the hosts doing this? Well, "Flesh and Blood" has a connection to an episode the podcast covered a few shows ago, which will become evident as you listen. (Hint: You'll be good if you check out Episode 143: Milwaukee prior to this.) What is less evident is what the point of all this is. Ronnie and Jazz create some hashtags you'll do well to amplify.
Goodbye Gideon comes to a close as the characters truly say goodbye to the Mandy Patinkin portrayed persnickety bird obsessive. By this we mean he gets his face blown off by the most gruesome antagonist yet - The Birdman! That's not all. Witness what was to be the second Criminal Minds spinoff: Young Rossi and Young Gideon traveling the country, trying to catch serial killers and prove profiling isn't hokum. Yes, Criminal Minds predicted Manhunter, with decidedly less David Fincher direction. Did we mention Young Gideon is played by Cory Fucking Matthews?
We're going back. Back to Milwaukee. Yes, Ronnie and Jazz's hometown, the Big Apple itself, makes its return to Criminal Minds in "In Flesh and Blood". The penultimate episode of Goodbye Gideon, it's the last appearance of Mandy Patinkin. He makes his 38 seconds of screentime count. Meanwhile, a man is ripping women's hearts out, literally. Only in Milwaukee! Listen to Ronnie talk Animorphs and derail the conversation with talks of porno. Hear about Jazz's deteriorating health. This podcast has it all!
Ronnie and Jazz discuss "Doubt", the episode in which Gideon screws up and one of Elaine Benes' boyfriends pays the price. "Doubt" was originally meant to be the Criminal Minds Season 2 finale but got bumped when it proved too similar to the Virginia Tech shooting. Remember when shootings were significant enough events to delay scripted programming? Those were the days.
The long awaited conclusion to the Frank saga is here, and it's far from a good episode, much less the best one ever. Ronnie and Jazz cannot mask their disappointment that Carradine's and Patinkin's onscreen chemistry is reduced to a bunch of phone calls. The former kills the latter's pseudo-girlfriend and the rest of the BAU hauls ass to apprehend one or the other. The hosts try to answer the important questions: why is Mandy Patinkin obsessed with birds? Why does Garcia wear a wig for sexual encounters? Why does their boss want Hotch fired so badly? Can you get good crime scene photos from a 2007 phone? Then it's bashing that 13 Reasons Why show and some other junk.
I'm tired of writing show descriptions that get deleted again and again so let's get through this fast. "No Way Out", perhaps the best Criminal Minds. It's got everything, from Keith Carradine to milkshakes to missing kids to rib bones to people with the word 'Crazy' in there. Despite the podcast's length, Ronnie and Jazz spend most of the time discussing Star Wars saga.
Origins Month comes to a finish with "Charm & Harm", an episode with suspicious similarities to the Season 14 episode "Chameleon". Would Criminal Minds be so callow as to rip themselves off? This isn't the venue to speculate, but yes. The serial killer drowns women and then switches his identity, from real estate guy to pilot to nerd with a limp. He's unstoppable! Except the authorities already know who he is. The BAU is there to crack the question "describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother". Exciting, isn't it?
In this week's podcast, Ronnie and Jazz discuss Season 1 'gem' "The Tribe", and we're only being half-sarcastic with the gem appellation. This really is one of the best Criminal Minds hours. Why? John Blackwolf. He's the Batman of Criminal Minds, at least according to Ronnie. As the profilers seek to solve some murders seemingly committed by Native Americans, the hosts dissect the stupid Hotch personal drama, posit a new name and gimmick for Reid and again wish they were watching an episode of Justified.
Origins Month enters its second week as Ronnie and Jazz try to do anything but discuss "Derailed", aka the train episode. More a hostage negotiation than an exciting adventure on the rails, "Derailed" is an attempt at an Elle episode that goes sideways when the writers realize they have nothing to say about a woman. They then move onto Reid and it becomes a funnier episode of Big Bang Theory. The episode has some character actors of note and the hosts discuss perhaps the most fruitful possible spinoff yet: Criminal Minds: Incels.
September means Deliver The Profile is doing Origins Month, aka a month of covering Season 1 of Criminal Minds. "Won't Get Fooled Again" is the third ever episode of the series and it goes so far as to resolve the trauma that set up Mandy Patinkin's character in the first place. We're dealing with a bomber this time, so that means jokes about Seinfeld's fitted hat day and a digression about Michael Morbius. Okay, maybe Morbius and bombers have nothing to do with each other, but they're both in this episode of Deliver The Profile!
For the finale of CHILDREN IN PERIL month, Ronnie and Jazz tackle Beyond Borders Season 1 finale "Paper Orphans". Set in Haiti, the episode is about a couple keen on adopting a Haitian boy lose their biological child during the night. But the hosts spend most of their time on tangents regarding spinoffs, Jack Garrett's illegitimate children and whatever else resides in the grim recesses of their minds. Does the episode make for a decent de facto series finale? God no. It's a, uh, good thing the show was renewed for another season...
We've got another kid in peril on our hands in "Seven Seconds", a Season 3 episode from that weird period between Gideon's departure and Rossi's arrival. The entire thing takes place in a mall, basically, and that means one thing: arcade games! Because it's 1994. It at least gives Ronnie the opportunity to talk about his favorite film, Mirrors. Besides that, there's a cognitive interview, brothers played by real life brothers, confused search and rescue dogs, a guy from The Shield and a not so subtle allusion to the time Morgan totally got molested. It's what good DTP episodes are made of, folks.
Kids In Peril Month rolls on as it's time for Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood star Julia Butters to get kidnapped and for the BAU to learn an important lesson about disruption adoption. Or something. It's Mississippi, Los Angeles and the unsub or unsubs belong more on Justified than on Criminal Minds, so take what you can get. "Gabby" breaks the format for a Criminal Minds episode and reminds the audience why that format is there in the first place.
Ronnie and Jazz return to Season 1 as part of KIDS IN PERIL MONTH with "What Fresh Hell?", an episode about, well, a kid in peril. Billie Copeland has been abducted by a guy with a van and a leash and nobody knows what to do, least of all her bickering parents. Can the BAU save Billie before the all-important 24 hour mark? It's television, of course they can and will. Morgan tackles a guy with cancer, Gideon gives the creepiest possible answer to the question "is that your family?", and Elle is stuck on mothering the mother duty. All that and a dead junkie prostitute that exists solely for a fake out makes for an exciting episode of Criminal Minds. Remember, this is Season 1, back before all emotions regarding the show were not subsumed by grim obligation.
In "Out of the Light", Hotch becomes a youth soccer coach with Rossi as his assistant. It's stupid but more valid than anything else that happens in the episode, which takes the gang to North Carolina and sees them delving into a case of missing and abducted women. Which creep is responsible this time, the peeping tom photography teacher or the stained glass guy? Who knew a small town would even HAVE a stained glass guy. Most important in this podcast is Ronnie and Jazz's discussion of ther new lawsuit to rock Criminal Minds. Will Greg St. Johns actually pay for his ballgrabbing? Here's hoping.
The summer rolls on, the heat continues, everyone wants to die. But before dying, it's time to discuss Criminal Minds! This time it's the 150th episode in the original series, "Unknown Subject". The sky is empty because the episode is full of stars, from Judith Hoag (the first April O'Neil, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) to Dina Meyer (Birds of Prey, Starship Troopers) to Jay Karnes (TV's Dutch Wagenbach). One or more of them is the mysterious Piano Man, the rapist who uses piano wire and loves piano songs. Who is it? What does it have to do with Prentiss' PTSD? Find out in another thrilling hour-and-a-half-or-so of Deliver The Profile!
Many things are going on and the least interesting one is the episode under discussion, Beyond Borders' "Citizens of the World". Ronnie and Jazz also discuss Nicholas Brendon's get rich sadly scheme, close the book on Babygate (we hope) and Ronnie tries to explain the plot of Mortal Engines to the bemused and hostile. As for "Citizens of the World", two Trump voters get kidnapped in Casablanca. We somehow learn the power of brothers. You wish Humphrey Bogart was in this.
This episode is late, yes, but considering both hosts' laptops are in various stages of death it is lucky there is an episode at all. "Somebody's Watching" posits what if Amber Heard wanted to fuck Spencer Reid. Look, she married Johnny Depp, she clearly has some bad luck with men. (There will be no abuse jokes.) Heard plays a starlet whose stalker is killing people to improve her career, and the team must jetset from Southern California where the show is filmed to Southern California where the episode is set. This is way back in Season 1, so expect to hear about Gideon freaking out when a lesbian hits on him. All that and more awaits your ears.
Sorry for the lateness, but we have a big episode for you, one nearing two hours. There's Criminal Minds news as the Season 15 episode titles appear to leak. There's show news as the podcast gets into a feud with a baby. Then there's the matter at hand, "Love Interrupted", a Beyond Borders episode about an unsub literally cutting dudes' hearts out. The action take place in Belize, a place the hosts only know as that place used as a euphemism for death in Breaking Bad. It's plenty stupid, folks.
Well, it's finally happened: Criminal Minds is flirting with the possibility that the unsub is a fucking ghost. It's not, but what if it was? "The Angel Maker" spends about 20 minutes down that route. In the aftermath of Hotch losing his hearing, there's almost nothing done with that. Look, there's not a lot of meat on this bone, but Ronnie and Jazz try their best anyway. That's their job.
Well, it's finally happened: Criminal Minds does 9/11. Mind you, they don't actually take on that case, as 9/11 was allegedly already solved years ago. A plane crashes and it reminds everyone of 9/11, especially Jennifer Love Hewitt, who lost family in the attacks. "A Thousand Suns" is a real shitshow with multiple red herrings, some choice anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner bigotry and Reid doing some obnoxious planesplaining. It's the biggest crime yet on Criminal Minds and still the episode manages to be boring and stupid. But hey, there's more PLANE.