Hi, friends!
The fourteenth season of Criminal Minds will be starting soon, so this seems like a good time to talk about the show. If you've clicked on this, I assume you've at least seen some episodes. If you haven't and are still reading this for some reason, it's about a team of FBI agents who specialize in tracking down serial killers based on a profile they create. They use information like who the victims are, what method was used to kill them, where and how the body was left, and any patterns or unique things they notice.
If you haven't seen all the episodes and still plan to do so, beware of the spoilers ahead!
Over the thirteen seasons that have aired so far, all of the agents on the team have suffered in at least some way. A vicious killer targeted Agent Hotchner specifically, stabbed him a bunch of times in non-lethal places, and murdered his ex-wife while their young son was in the house. Agent Jareau's husband was shot, kidnapped, and strapped to a bomb all in one day. Penelope Garcia was shot in the stomach on her own doorstep. Agent Morgan was held captive and brutally tortured, with his pregnant wife being nearly killed by a sniper only months later. Agent Prentiss faked her own death after barely surviving an attack from a terrorist in order to hide from him. That's only a few of the intense things these characters have faced.
Everyone has had awful things happen to them and the people they love, but nobody has suffered as much as Dr. Spencer Reid.
Some people think the reason the writers put Reid through so much is because of how great an actor Matthew Gray Gubler is. Sometimes it seems like they hurt him because they know it hurts the people watching the show. Whatever the reason is, they sure don't hold back.
Reid's mother has schizophrenia and his father abandoned them while he was young. He was badly bullied as a child. He had to put his mother in a mental institution when he was only eighteen. Because schizophrenia is genetic, he's afraid that he'll end up like his mother eventually.
In season two, Reid is kidnapped and held hostage by a delusional serial killer who gets him addicted to Dilaudid. He struggles with his addiction and ultimately overcomes it. He has a really hard time when Agent Gideon suddenly leaves the FBI at the end of the season.
The third season has one episode where Reid identifies with the murderous teenager the team is trying to track. Seeing the similarities between himself and the killer really shakes him.
In season four, he gets held hostage by a cult. He is later infected with Anthrax.
Season eight is where things start to get seriously heartbreaking. He had been speaking to a geneticist on the phone in hopes of finding the cause of and solution for intense headaches he'd been having. She was being targeted by a stalker, so they communicated via letters and phone calls for six months for the safety of both her (Maeve) and Reid. One day, instead of Maeve's voice on the payphone, he hears a threat and worries for her safety. They come close to being able to save her from her stalker, but the stalker shoots herself and Maeve simultaneously right in front of Reid. That was the first time they ever saw each other. He is understandably traumatized by seeing his girlfriend get murdered.
Not a whole lot happens to him in season nine, but he does get shot in the neck by a corrupt police officer and is nearly killed while recovering in the hospital.
Remember the agent who left after the second season? He gets murdered in season ten. Not a good time for Reid.
His mom starts showing signs of dementia in season eleven, which is one more thing Reid has to worry about getting someday.
Mrs. Reid's condition keeps getting worse, so he brings her to his home and hires a caretaker for her in season twelve. (Why he decided that was a better option than keeping her in a facility designed to take care of her, I don't know.) In pursuit of experimental medicine that might help her, Reid travels to Mexico, where he gets framed for drug possession and the murder of the woman he was getting medicine from. Because he, an FBI agent, had been going to Mexico without informing the government, he gets in even more trouble than normal. He gets extradited and put into a regular prison without protective custody and is denied bail.
As one might expect, prison is not a happy place for a scrawny agent. He almost gets killed, gets beaten later, and is attacked yet again for refusing to help smuggle drugs. He agrees to help the smugglers after they murder his friend and he poisons the drugs in an attempt to kill them.
The events that transpired in Mexico start to be more clear (since he was super, super drugged when he was found) and he realizes that the murderer is a troubled girl he saved in a case several seasons ago. That girl, now grown up, has become his mother's new caretaker after killing the one Reid had hired. This is around the same time that the poisoned drug users recover and one of them outs Reid as a federal agent. Reid stabs himself in order to get put into solitary confinement until the other agents can get him out of prison, which they finally do now that the season is ending.
Season thirteen's finale ends with Reid and Garcia being face-to-face with members of a cult, who will apparently kidnap them to make the first episode of season fourteen extra dramatic.
Like I said earlier, everyone on the team gets hurt physically and emotionally because of their jobs, but Reid just cannot catch a break. He's brilliant, caring, and sweet, even after being beaten, shot, traumatized, framed, and jailed.
Please, CBS, give this poor nerd at least one happy arc. No more killing off people he loves, no more shooting him, and no more mom drama. Write in another cute girl for him and don't let her get shot in the head this time. I know MGG is a phenomenal actor and he does a great job of looking sad, injured, heartbroken, scared, and otherwise hurt. He's also pretty good at acting happy, though! Maybe give him a chance to do that? Pretty please?
Love,
Lizzie
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