Thursday, February 14, 2013

CRIMINAL MINDS Season 8 - 814. All That Remains - Review



I really love when Criminal Minds plays with our perceptions, leads us to think in one direction and then goes and explain why we were so deadly wrong... and does so with profile, profile, profile. Finally getting a long interrogation with Rossi and Hotch at the helm, and everybody else pitching in adding their strengths, was pure bliss. Cherry on cake? A combative, distrustful, confrontational LEO.

First surprise of the night, we don't see what's happened.
Great idea!
This case was different from the very beginning; even if sometimes the LEOs of the week have someone in their mires by the time the BAU gets on scene, Bruce Morrison had everything to be the main suspect to them too, starting with a incomprehensible late reporting of the disappearances of all the females members of his family, in the present time and a year before too, followed by a contradictory behavior while talking about them to the investigators.

When during the interrogation was discovered that Morrison may have Dissociative Identity Disorder, with "Johnny" as his arrogant, violent, alternate personality, all the pieces fell in place and the case was ready to be closed. Right? Wrong!

Somebody had known for years what mental illness ails Mr. Morrison, and had had the patience needed to plan in detail how to pin on him the murders the real unsub wanted to commit. Explained like that, sounds convoluted and unbelievable. Not so much when we learn the real unsub identity: Morrison's older daughter.

Sera Morrison, high school senior with a 4.0 GPA, psycophatic tendencies and an unchecked jealous streak directed to her little sister Katie, who, she is convinced, had stolen her mother's love.

Sera waited to strike when the odds where in her favor, and then a blackout happened; her mother was killed, disposed and any evidence that could point to her, erased, leaving her father as the main suspect of the disappearance. The second part of her plan was in motion after that. She got an alibi in Jeff Godwin, who fell for her pitiful tale of the motherless daughter of a violent, drunk father. She cut her father prescriptions for his DID, ensuing his episodes as "Johnny" became habitual and were noticed by people outside the family, but specially by Katie. Convincing her scared sister, thus making her another alibi, to call an abuse hot-line must have been ridiculously easy by then. Unsurprisingly, his father's DID flared up on the one-year anniversary of his wife disappearance, and as per usual, he got drunk, loud and violent; the bad "parenting" decision he made under those circumstances, gave Sera the perfect opportunity to kill Katie and, once again, direct all suspicions towards Bruce.

Seeing the team, our dear team of profilers, unravel this story bit by bit, uncovering the lies and mysteries following the clues left - not only the physical ones, but all of them - as the brilliant profilers they're, was a joy. A joy I want to experience as many times as possible while watching my show.


.....Dear Thomas and dear Erica, please, click over the images to reach your full size letters.



~~~~Sir Elyan the White