Things I liked about this week's CM:

Bitchy-Reid is always fun to watch, at least for me. Not that I agree with all of the reason of his being bitchy, but his striking out with little snarky asides is so consistent with his character (see "Elephant's Memory"--"Still haven't found the Father-of-the-Year award...", and "Memoriam"--"They say people look like their dogs, too") that I was okay with it. However, him calling JJ Jennifer was strange; I don't think anyone has ever done that.

Hotch actually smiled, and more than once!!! I think that's something we haven't seen since Season 3. And I liked the way he made his "strongly tempered suggestion" to Rossi.

Speaking of Hotch, he was looking very hatchet-faced in some of those interrogation scenes. He's going to age into an interesting-looking character actor.

Things I didn't like:

All the really explicit horrific scenes. I averted my eyes (and ugh, seeing those two bodies in the morgue with their acid-etched eyes really tripped my eye-damage squick bigtime, almost as much as the S5 ep about annucleation) for all of it. Shudder.

I was another one wondering how the hell the family didn't realize how off the brother was.

Prentiss's talk with Reid on the plane wrapped things up too quickly. I was really hoping that they'd have him repress things until mid-season, at least, and then have it blow up in their faces. Maybe it'll make a reappearance around ep 15?

And yes, that finale was overly cheesy for this show. Very un-CM. But, I guess it was more meta than anything else.

ETA: A neat, if long, podcast with MGG. The interviewer played the socialite who was killed in "52 Pickup" in S4, btw.

However, him calling JJ Jennifer was strange; I don't think anyone has ever done that.

I think that it was deliberate. He wanted to create distance.

I was another one wondering how the hell the family didn't realize how off the brother was.

I think that the family knew, they just didn't want to acknowledge it. The wife saw that he had been in her underwear drawer and in their bed and didn't say anything even when the team was asking about strange behavior.

The problem being, that it wasn't strange for them. ick

I had to change channels briefly during some of the more explicit scenes. If they don't improve some, I may have to say goodbye to this show.

But I did love Garcia explaining to Rossi (at the beginning) that the problem with the pancetta was that it was tofu.

This is one of the few Criminal Minds where I wasn't mad about spending so much time with the unsub.

I was another one wondering how the hell the family didn't realize how off the brother was.

They knew something was off, just not the extent. There are a lot of examples of sociopaths of that nature, even those with some sort of frontal lobe damage, to be able to pull off being normal (ish) or at the very least, harmless and eccentric, maybe even charming (although not this one so much) so long as they have some outlet for their psychosis.

Or, they've been living with him so long, it's become "normal" for them. The wife was pretty consistently freaked by him, but the husband - his brother - was the one who kept inviting him to pretty much move in.

And I could almost imagine there being a little latent guilt there as well-- that brother was the "lucky" one and that he needed to take care of his brother-- maybe felt guilty for how he treated him when they were kids, but that's all speculation, obviously.

Yes, or their parents always told him he had to take care of his brother.

Or, of course, this is all something from the brain of a scriptwriter and, being TV, logic and rationality or psychological consistency are optional.

I'm disappointed that JJ is a profiler, now. That scene where she explained to Hotch that that wasn't her goal was one of my favorites.

Did Castle feel more... forced, or heavy handed than usual? Next week looks interesting though. Looks like the return of 3XK.