Criminal Minds Review: Broken Wing (Season 14 Episode 9)

The BAU takes a deep and personal dive into the depths of addiction as disease on Criminal Minds Season 14 Episode 9, “Broken Wing.”

Addiction is the topic of many “very special episodes” of television. Too often, the story is brief: someone pushed to addiction is finally persuaded to get help by friends and family. Cue a tearful happy ending.

But with addiction, that end is often not the end. It’s a lifelong disease, and those implications can be hard to portray. Criminal Minds delves into both sympathetic and deeply cruel perceptions of that hopelessness.  

The case is brought to us by Darryl, Tara’s ex-husband who has finally recovered from his own addition—one that has ended their marriage and left her scarred. Darryl’s own story is very complex and complicated.

First, though, the case. Mercy killings are semi-regular occurrences on crime dramas. The unsub (or, at least, the man who technically qualifies as the unsub) here certainly falls into the category.

These victims already suffer tragedy before their lives are taken, when they are cast out to the streets by the very people who are supposed to help them. Here, we see the worst of how society treats addicts.

Whether or not our “doctor” knows that he is sending people directly into the hands of a killer is almost beside the point. He knows that, in their state, he is almost certainly sending them to death regardless.

There should at least be ethical, if not legal, implications to a man who calls those suffering from disease selfish and treats them like garbage running a clinic meant to help them. The possibility that this could reflect real life is alarming.

Meanwhile, the man actually committing the murders is either suffering some mental illness or is simply lost in a rabbit hole of grief, having lost his wife to addiction. He tries to spare his victims pain in the fate they see themselves destined to.

A killer should still be punished, of course. Yet I certainly hope the man pushing flawed but innocent people to the depths of despair that set them up to be killed gets his comeuppance, too.

All this isn’t to say that this episode makes excuses for addicts or shies away from the damage their actions do to others. We see that reflected in Tara and Darryl’s interactions.

At first, it’s not completely clear why she’s as bitter toward her ex as she is—a way that goes beyond the normal feelings of a failed relationship. Soon, though,, we expose just how much damage lies in their past.

This is a complex portrayal. Darryl truly has recovered at last. That awakens a whole new set of feelings for Tara, realizing that he’s finally become the man he couldn’t be as her husband, and with support of another woman.

Darryl is not a bad person now, and he’s been a victim of disease, too. But the flashback scenes where he verbally and physically attacks Tara in the throes of addiction hold nothing back and make no excuses.

The point is sobering but real: recovery is hard and it often falls apart. Tara  has had to reach the conclusion that she’s not the right person to save Darryl. He’s been lucky. Many others are not.

Realizing you sometimes can’t help feels like a hopeless message, but it’s tied to the idea that someone else might be able to. Above all, we see that people like Rob save nobody, but instead sentence addicts to the very stereotypes they perpetuate.

This is Criminal Minds handling a complicated, painful, and very real issue at its best. The performances show the effects of addiction on all involved and tell us that we must see this as a lifetime problem—not just one resolved in an hour-long special.

 

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 10/0c on CBS.

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