But it's not generic - she's talking about 1 person's reaction to 1 action. When she's profiled before she's been deeply and creepily specific. Why should this be different?

Her descriptions of Roger's actions were deeply and creepily specific. Her rationales for those actions, however, were not.

Tim, please make an episode about a man who murders ice cream sandwiches. Thank you.

(Sorry, I had to...)

"Harold, it's Bateman, Patrick Bateman. You're my lawyer so I think you should know: I've killed a lot of ice cream sandwiches. Some Klondike Bars in the apartment uptown, uh, some Skinny Cows - maybe 5 or 10,um, a Sara Lee I met in Central Park. And Ben & Jerry. I killed Ben & Jerry with an axe in the cookie, its body is melting in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 sandwiches, maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it, uh some of the M&Ms Sandwiches have seen the tapes. I even, um... I ate some of their fillings, and I tried to cook a little. Tonight I, uh, I just had to kill a LOT of sandwiches. And I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, ah, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty sick guy. So, if you get back tomorrow, meet me at Harry's Bar, so you know, keep your eyes open."

Her rationales for those actions, however, were not.

I rewatched the scene. Nowhere in it do I detect any implication that her rationales were meant to expand to encompass anyone other than Roger. She's telling him why he'd do things. Not, anywhere I can see, is she even slightly implying that other people would behave the same way with the same stimuli. If it were that easy, would we even need profilers?

I think my problem is that I have a hard time buying into any of her profiling. I realize that Rebecca being a good profiler is part of her character's premise (along the same lines as "Angel is a vampire with a soul") but I just don't buy them. Because she makes her intuitive leaps with such little evidence (which is, of course, why she's good), there's almsot nothing I can evaluate on my own terms. I have to either accept that she's right until I'm shown otherwise.

So far, Roger's required the most suspension of disbelief.

I have to either accept that she's right until I'm shown otherwise.

Yeah -- that's where I am. We may be shown later that she's been off all the while, but I'm not going to sweat questioning her (or the writing of it) until then. You want her infallible, Tim? Then it shall be so.

(I have no idea how the word "either" got into that sentence. It's a sneaky little bugger.)

I have to either accept that she's right until I'm shown otherwise.

On this one, I believed she could absolutely be wrong, as could prefiler. I always think she could be wrong. Profiling is a guess, not an absolute. She's saying, "this is the likely scenario/description according to my understanding of things."

Which isn't a good enough reason to execute someone.

There's a "get out of my gene pool!" response I have to it, but he's already seeded it with his whiny video game playing kids who should get offa my lawn.

Which isn't a good enough reason to execute someone.

If she was right, to me, it still wouldn't be a good enough reason. The execution is separate from the guilt, morally.

As for her accuracy -- I'm waiting to be shown she's wrong. Either she's been right, or it's been untestable. I don't have the information to second-guess her. Only Tim does here, so I'm going to leave it be.

Profiling is a guess, not an absolute.

I want there to be an episode where they're all completely wrong a la Gary Ridgeway.