Date Night Discourse

Well, I couldn't fit this into three paragraphs, so how about three threes? To get the easy part over and done with; it is such unimaginable bullshit that Cat got outsmarted by Max. She is without question the most proficient and dangerous unsub the BAU ever faced - kill count in the hundreds, working as a professional hitwoman internationally, successfully getting the jump on them all multiple times from within maximum security prison - and she's taken out by an art teacher who's training consists of a ten minute explanation of what's going on during the car ride over. Not only that, but the way they talk about her afterwards is infuriating. "She's a mean girl, a narcissistic, she was undone by her obsession with hurting men." They literally call her a mean girl. God. She's a serial killer, not a high-school bully.

She's cruel, and she's manipulative, and she's vicious; she's self-serving and she's damn good at it, but she's prone to investing too much of herself into her little games because she always expects to come out on top. And she didn't even lose - she chose to free the hostage, knowing she was going to die regardless of any outcome here, just in the hope her meddling would cost Reid another piece of happiness. Utterly ruined the stakes of that episode to find out this has no impact on his relationship with Max, because she was in on it the whole time. It's disappointing. Compared to how their previous interactions forced Reid to confront parts of himself he actively dislikes, this feels like a net zero. Cat's gone again, Reid is the same, happily ever after. What on earth is up with that? Was she just too neat of a villain for them to keep her around for long?

To continue onwards to a subject I will speak about with far less eloquence but much more emotion, let's discuss how this episode brings up the topic of Reids time in Mexico; namely, the mention Reid makes of Cat having assaulted him there.

For sake of ease, I'll occasionally be referring to the it as Cat assaulting Reid, because even though it was wasn't her who was with Reid in Mexico, everything Lindsey did was at her behest. The simplest answer is to believe that Cat didn't assault Reid, because we find out that she lied about her baby being his, so why would she have reason to assault him anyway? But I think that going down that road doesn't take into her capability for cruelty and her genuine desire to see him suffer, she doesn't need a greater excuse for her actions than the fact that she had an opportunity to hurt him, so she took it. And to resolve any questions about Lindsey; I think the level of outrage she showed at finding out Cat was pregnant points more towards the personal betrayal than some general dislike of non-monogamy or whatever, and that her relationship with Cat was genuine enough on Lindseys side that she would have been willing to assault Reid if Cat asked her to do so.

My personal take away from it all was that while I believe Lindsey would have done so, and that Cat would have no reservations about it, I don't know if Cat assaulted Reid - not out of lack of motive, I just can't decide if she'd have thought about that possibility in addition to her other plans for him. But I don't think that's the part that matters. Because while my interpretation was that she probably didn't assault Reid, he would never know for certain whether or not she did, and that was it's own form of violation. Or that was how I felt until 'Date Night' came along and gutted me alive.

Reid states it as a fact that Cat assaulted him in Mexico. That's not to say that she did or did not, but to say that - for at least two years, in the timeframe of this show - he has believed that is what happened to him. And her response is to ask if he's certain of that, because it would have been difficult for him to 'get it up' (that is a callous way to phrase it, but I cannot describe stuff like this in any detail) whilst drugged. I think that's an interesting counterpoint for her, to cast doubt on his memory; she ended their first encounter by taunting him with the possibility of him developing Alzheimer's, she drugged him and left him in the dark of what happened in Mexico, and she asks him word-for-word 'Are you sure?' if that really happened. For someone who values knowledge and his own mind highly, that's a lot for her to hold over him; knowledge which only she is privy to, regarding events he's lost recollection of.

Additionally, the word choice of calling him 'the boy who cried rape' is neat to me, for the implication that she's telling him both that he's a liar, and that no one will believe him when it's true. We already know she views him as a liar, for trying to withhold information from her during their games and for literally lying to her about her father, which makes the first part of that story easy to draw a casual relationship to. But the second part, the idea that it will be true one day and that moment will be when he finally pays for being untrustworthy in the past, is a little harder to pinpoint. It could be another taunt, some promise or retribution he has yet to pay. It could be another sort of threat, one last way to cast doubt on what he knows; that he was assaulted in Mexico, but that any accusation he makes is merely speculation due to the fact he can't recall anything, she won't face consequences and he may not even fully believe himself. Additionally, I am autistic about this. While I can't make up my mind about if this episode tips the scales one way or another on how likely it was that it did happen, I think it works very well as a character building moment for Cat, and fucking sucks retrospectively for Reids character.

It's a complaint I've made before and one I shall absolutely make again - that this show doesn't linger on trauma as much as I would like it to. I understand the practical reasons why; the show has to move forward with new episodes and new plots, they simply don't have the decades-long timeframe that people realistically need to make attempts at overcoming PTSD, viewers will get sick of the same thing over and over. And to give credit where credit is due, Criminal Minds is far from the worst I've seen in this regard, and I'd go so far as to tentatively call it one of the better ones. Even if it still only adds up to five or so episodes out of 300+, the depiction of Morgans experiences with assault will always hold a special place in my heart, and I appreciate the weight that adds to his character in how well he works with children. It's not perfect, it might not even be that good to most people, but it meant something to me.

Now, if they'd kept some of that spirit for 'Date Night', I wouldn't be writing this goddamn blog post. The revelation that for the past two years, Reid has been dealing with the aftermath of his assault (and I will reiterate pointlessly once again, that it doesn't matter in this regard if it was actually real, but it matters that he believes it was), and it goes completely unmentioned. They talk of the things he suffered in prison, the pain of being separated from his mother and friends and career, his utter loss of freedom. They do not, once, mention how he's coping with what he refers to as a 'violation.' I don't like that out of all the things he gets to admit to being scared of or upset by, that isn't one of them. I don't like the context it paints so many moments of this episode in - kissing Cat, his proclamation that no other woman will fill the space she left behind, her attempts to destroy his attempt to move on - even though I'd almost certainly have enjoyed watching them if not for that one tiny little moment at the start of the episode. Sorry, I don't like this.