It's possible, even likely, that there was a transcript made of the conversation that he read. That was my hand wave.

Last night's Ion rerun was "P911," the child-being-put-up-for-sale ep from S2. The throwaway line Reid has when he asks Elle which soap opera she was going to watch made me remember this fic, which is hilarious (and was prompted by that ep).

A Real Rain is the CM on A & E right now and it features one of my favorite team scenes from the Gideon eps. It's the extended meal in a Chinese restaurant, where we learn that Reid has no idea how to eat with chop sticks and compares it to foraging for food with #2 pencils, and he marvels that millions of Chinese people stay alive that way.

Oh and it also has Hotch smiling on the phone with Garcia.

I've just started watching CM from the start. (I've only ever seen one other ep, "Uncanny Valley".) Caught the first eight eps so far. I think my favourite ep so far is "LDSK", where Hotch gains the UnSub's trust by kicking the crap out of Reid. (And where Reid assures him it was ok, because "You kick like a nine-year-old girl.")

What is it people dislike about Gideon?

I think that he is played by Mandy Patinkin, or that could just be me.

Me, it was Gideon I found irritating, not Mandy P. Once I found out how he left the show, I was annoyed at him, but that didn't affect my perspective on the character, only the character's sudden departure.

I don't know. Maybe, it just seemed like Gideon was written as being awesome, someone that even other good profilers held their breath around, and Patinkin played him without a shred of humility. Even when he was angsting about his mistakes and people who died, he always seemed self-involved to me. Like, "This was a terrible tragedy! See how badly it's affected me?!" He was so sensitive and emotionally fragile, but at the same time came off like a total narcissist. Just found him a very unlikeable character.

To me, that describes most of Patinkin's TV work.

Okay, fair point, I guess. I never have seen him in anything else on tv.

eta Whre all my words gop? Why I cannot typoe anymoer.

I'm with Zenkitty--since he was the big name in the original cast and the obvious lead, the writers really featured him in so many of the early S1 eps before they got a feel for the rest of the cast's strengths. That made him just overbearing for me, not just in his screen time, but he had that streak of narcissism. Bleh.

It took me a while to get to like Rossi, but tonight's A&E rerun of "Masquerade" made me see that he is the only real non-geek on the team (now), and the working-class profiler is a nice contrast to the rest of the group. I liked the hints of him feeling threatened in some small way by Reid's smarts--it's a good transitional moment for his character being viewing Reid as this exceedingly odd creature to appreciating his talents overall, as seen in "Uncanny Valley."