Criminal Minds Review: Scarecrow (Season 12 Episode 8)
On Criminal Minds Season 12 Episode 8, “Scarecrow,” the team is still dealing with the repercussions of Mr. Scratch’s personal attack on Tara, while someone else deals with their own family drama.
Rossi: Sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together.
Tara is naturally still feeling the impact of the attack on her family, and the entire team is questioning what their next step is to taking down Mr. Scratch before he can hurt another member of their team.
With her head somewhere else, is Tara okay to continue this fight? She’s probably more motivated than ever, but now the search is more personal to her.
Meanwhile, Reid’s mother has become an integral part of his story this season, which isn’t a good sign for him.
She’s been moved to undergo a clinical trial in Houston, but with her memory, the move is concerning as everything around her is unfamiliar and strange. Reid’s phone call with her makes him believe the treatment is a placebo effect, sending him to Texas for the foreseeable future.
Given that Mr. Scratch is after the profilers, it’s likely one will be killed off/leave the team after a brutal attack, and my bets are on Reid. He’s been around since the beginning, and it’s possible that Matthew Gray Gubler would want to leave the series after committing a decade to it.
Anyways.
The team dynamic is growing as a new profiler is introduced, and it’s possibly very good for the series. Shaking things up can either go very well or very bad, but Criminal Minds seems to have put together a fairly adequate team. It’s the best team the series has had in years, honestly.
Emily Prentiss as the Unit Chief is a welcome breath of fresh air after 11 seasons with Aaron Hotchner in the same role. The formula for an episode used to be so standard; the new female character each season would just fill in the role left by the previous.
Case thoughts:
- The woman being held captive is possibly one of the smartest hostages ever on television. She knows how to survive, how to manipulate, and she’s willing to do whatever she needs to live and be there for her son. It’s no surprise she lives longer than the rest of his victims.
- The scarecrow is horrifying. After what the unsub’s father did to him, that retribution is to be expected. Tying him up in a burlap sack over night with the word “fornicator” hanging from his neck is a cruel form of punishment. Well, everything he did was. Ending up as the scarecrow himself seems like justice is the worst sense of the word.
- Still don’t understand the religious connotations behind this unsub and his motivations to kill. It’s about purity and abstinence?
What did you think of this episode of Criminal Minds? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Criminal Minds airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.
Jay Ruymann
Jay is a freelance writer and a Slytherin, who uses Leslie Knope as a role model, suffering from an addiction to coffee and television that is only encouraged by his professional life. While busy slaving away at the day-to-day, he also enjoys a good binge-watch of Parks and Recreation and Pretty Little Liars.