photo: cbs
Entropy
Original Air Date: Jan 13, 2016
Caitlin- Senior Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
It’s been a long 5 weeks since our last episode. It’s been an especially long wait for Reid fans. (I know, I know, JJ fans, you’re just so sympathetic.) He returns from Vegas this week to a front and center role in the new episode. Which, because it’s Reid, means an overwhelming among of angst.
Fair warning: the vast majority of this episode is Reid and his “date” (That’s putting it very loosely) playing mind games with each other. So if you’re not so much a fan, you might want to play some games on your phone. But keep an eye out, because there are lots of awesome moments for the BAU team.
At first, it just seems like a- very awkward- meeting at a restaurant between a guy and a girl for the first time. But the fact we get no context for how the date happened, at least at first, should tell us it’s not going to be romantic at all. And no kidding. Reid’s pretense is that he’s posing as a husband who wants Cat to kill his pregnant wife. Now, can you see him as that kind of guy? Neither can Cat. She calls him out as an FBI agent and pulls a gun on him under the table.
This makes things very tense. Not just for Reid, but for everyone else, stationed around the restaurant. Cat takes his phone and gun and tells him they’re going to play a game in which she has to answer everything he asks. The first thing she asks is why he went to Vegas- a matter he immediately tries to avoid. And so we launch into flashback. Of cute scenes like him meeting with Morgan (and getting a file from Savannah), and significant ones- like the setup to take down a ring of hit men.
Yes, all this started because of the folks who are after Garcia. You’ll remember that moment we left hanging on last season? This is that plan. The BAU has an insider who points them towards the individuals. (“He sounds delightful” Rossi says of a man who poisons victims without leaving a trace.) First, though, they find a kid (And I do mean kid. He looks like he’s in middle school) forced into doing their tech work. And through him, they take down two of their killers.
Reid tells Cat about all of this, but she still wants to know why he took time off. He still refuses to tell her, at least until she threatens Rossi’s life. So he tells her he was visiting his mom, but she knows that’s not the whole story. She thinks quite a lot of herself, probably with good reason (though Tara is wonderfully unimpressed). As she tries to manipulate him, Reid works out there’s more at play here. She’s here because of her father. Cat responds by revealing she’s planted a bomb.
That does shake Reid. So, to a lesser extent, do Cat’s comments about gender bias, though they don’t really pay off until a bit later. As the team works to clear out the restaurant, Reid and Cat discuss her father, who killed her mother and is now an alcoholic living on the streets. Though Cat acts like she can’t be touched, she desperately wants to track down her father, and when Reid says he found the man, it’s enough to keep her from walking away.
She listens to him tell her about finding the man and learning that he doesn’t remember her. And that’s when she works out something else about Reid’s trip- his mother has early-onset Alzheimer’s and is already having trouble remembering things. Which is devastating, and yet we don’t even get to be devastated, because Cat arms the bomb. Or rather, her partner does. Her partner who is a woman, which nobody on the team predicted. (There’s the gender bias payoff.)
As it turns out, the whole bomb thing was kind of a lot of drama for nothing, though, because Morgan disarms the bomber easily. Cat responds by pulling a gun on Reid. As civilians are rushed to safety, Morgan tells Cat the only thing he can- that they have her father ready to meet her. Reid seems unhappy that they’re playing this card, but it’s their only choice. So of course, it’s all an act. Cat walks willingly out of the restaurant and into custody, only to find her father is nowhere in sight.
She’s angry and upset, but has one last card to play with Reid- that being the fact his mother’s condition now makes him vulnerable to Alzheimer’s, too. The file he got from Savannah was medical information on the subject. Her last words are chilling even as she’s taken away. And then there’s the rest of the episode. The good is that Garcia is now (finally!) free and celebrates by getting gloriously drunk. The bittersweet is an emotional but fantastic scene between Morgan and Reid. And the bad? I mean, can’t Spencer Reid ever catch a break? Somebody please hold me.
Next Week: Drive