Good examples! It's restoring my faith in tv writers. I just get so disappointed by shows like NCIS when they regress Tony to an infantile state and refuse to let him retain whatever character growth they occasionally throw his way.
And honestly, as life altering as Revelations was for Reid, I think unraveling his past and confronting his father were almost bigger events for him.
Very true. Reid achieved an initial level of maturity after "Revelations" and the ensuing addiction recovery (compare him from early in S1 to, say, "Seven Seconds," and his growth is just huge), but that second level of growth after "Memoriam" gave him another boost. He's much more restrained now (I read a good quote online somewhere that he now has dignity, something I never would have imagined for him in Season 1), and that quiet confidence is making him even more impressive as a character.
(Speaking of Reid's dad, I love the throwaway line from a S5 ep when they're flying back home and discussing the unsub's crimes being a way to strike back at his father, and Reid pipes up with "I just keep getting more PhDs!" as his way of getting back at his own dad.)
I think one of the odd benefits of the dilaudid addiction for Reid is that it allowed him the freedom to lash out, for the first time in his life. Prior to that, I think the most emotion we'd ever seen him express was during Nathan's suicide attempt in "Sex, Birth, Death."
Post-"Revelations" however, he snapped emotionally-- lashing out at people, mostly Emily because she was the new girl and the only one who tended to confront him directly. And he found that he wasn't going to be pushed away or shunned because of his behavior. I think prior to that, because of his upbringing, because of essentially having to parent not only himself, but his mother, coupled with the burden of being a prodigy thrust into more adult situations, forced him to toe the line, emotionally. Don't make waves. Don't potentially alienate the few people who seem to like you.
I think he learned that he could disagree and even fight with people without a loss of respect or support or more importantly, love. They weren't going to leave him behind.
That's when you saw him start becoming a bit more forceful and less fearful of confrontation.
Don't make waves. Don't potentially alienate the few people who seem to like you.
His childhood also taught him not to trust others, as seen the first time we see him really yell at anyone, when he's revealed his nightmares to Morgan in "The Popular Kids." He finds out that Morgan told both Hotch and Gideon and shouts at him, "This is what happens when I trust someone, it gets thrown right back in my face!"
His abduction shows that he can trust his team to have his back (something that Elle forgot), and his addiction reinforces that fact, because he knows darn well that the team knows what he's going through (as Ethan points out in "Jones") and they never reveal his secret.
I think that this show of support gives him the strength to trust others beyond his team when he finds himself struggling again after "3rd Life" and he goes to NA. He never would have been able to do that in the immediate aftermath of "Revelations" because he hadn't learned he could trust his team, let alone complete strangers.
That video is fun! I can't count how many times, over nine years of marching/pep band, that I played that song, but unfortunately, never while standing in the Hawaiian surf.
CM: Fisher King was on A&E tonight. Part 1 still sort of sucks, but Part 2 is one of my favorite eps of the entire show. The ending montage is great; Reid reading to his mom and reaching over to hold her hand is just lovely, and what is IMHO one of the most indelible images from the entire series ends the show, with Hotch washing the blood off of Elle's wall.
I totally agree with you, Kathy.
Which made her screaming at him that he didn't have her back suck that much more.
Which made her screaming at him that he didn't have her back suck that much more.
I really felt for Hotch with the way the Fisher King ended. Not just that he feels guilty about her getting shot (which I think is a bit deserved - if he wanted the agent to stay with her he should've said so), but that his family life gets the shaft again. He'd been looking forward to spending two weeks doing chores at home, and having him do chores at Elle's home instead was a neat little smack in the teeth for him (and his family).
