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.

Yeah, I can see that. I've been a bit "Bwuh?" already that Reid went from being able to pick an unsub's favoured style of playing Go (not just aggressor, but extreme aggressor, which is an aggressor who drinks Pepsi Max) from a single board position, to learning that he's apparently never beaten Gideon at chess. Because he doesn't think outside the box!

I will note, though, that I thought it was hilarious that Gideon picked the footpath killer, obviously enough for the killer to notice, and yet still decided that his best plan was to turn his back and walk out instead of pulling a gun on him.

Because he doesn't think outside the box!

He gets dinged with that in poker too, I think. Doesn't Emily beat him in S5?

He seems to have a few gaps in his skills. Like chop sticks.

Well, I have seen Uncanny Valley, and I will be back for more. Good Reid episode.

Sometimes the writers will have gaps in his skills/education for comic effect that don't make any sense, like in the episode with the "vampires" where Reid doesn't know what Twilight is. I think that it would have been funnier if he had read all of the books just because he's Reid, or maybe that he had some obscure knowledge about the book or the author, but no idea of the culture phenomenon.

I think in an episode I watched last week, Reid won a poker game on the plane at the beginning of a scene. I can't remember if anyone commented on it or not, but I think it had the feel of him winning often. And I watched most of Season 1 more or less at once, so I can't recall now which ep it was.

He's definitely something of a card sharp, and they've attributed it to his Vegas upbringing.

Right, yes, that was the talk.

I read the chess thing as more a comment on Gideon. Reid, it seems, is supposed to be good at chess (it's not a gap in his abilities), but Gideon is just that much better.

I'm only vaguely remembering the poker game with Emily, but he's quoting stats etcetera at her, and she pulls it out with the last card, or something. And Morgan is watching.

I think.

I'm only vaguely remembering the poker game with Emily, but he's quoting stats etcetera at her, and she pulls it out with the last card, or something. And Morgan is watching.

That was in "A Thousand Words" towards the end of S5. He draws one card to her three and presents a Full House. She grimaces, says she always forgets that he grew up in Vegas and he looks smug as he goes to pull the pot toward himself. She stops him and says that she, too, has a full boat and lays down a Full House that trumps his. He looks confused and says something to the effect that he can't believe she got a full house from drawing three cards, that it's something like 100-1 odds and she interjects, "Ninety-seven to one."

I love it because it's one of those subtle moments where the writers show us that in her own way, Emily's as brilliant as Reid. It harkens back to her first assignment with the team in S2-- when she, Reid, and Gideon went to Guantanamo to interrogate the POW and Reid was playing chess with Gideon and the plane banks sharply because of the approach into Guantanamo and Reid is disappointed because he thought he was finally going to beat Gideon and Emily absent-mindedly says, "He would've had you in three."

She is, in many ways, the closest thing to an intellectual equal that Reid has on the team. With better social skills from being a diplomat's daughter.