Sunday, November 05, 2006
Criminal Intent: North Mammon
I like this show. True, it has been the same formula from week to week, much like House, but the way they execute on the formula is good. It's the same attraction as any one of the 100 CSI shows out there.
But this episode was different, in an eerie yet compelling way. in this one, the unsub (which is the show's oft used term for the "unidentified subject", has kidnapped 3 girls and has them trapped in a basement. Like every other episode, the BAU, the FBI's Behavioral analysis group, or basically the "profiling squad" have a timetable to find the girls and stop the unsub.
Like the Canadian Mounties, the BAU seem to always get their person. But here, the unsub's goal is to get the three girls to decide which one of them should get killed so that the other 2 may leave. After several painstaking days of deliberating, the kidnapper reveals that the girls will have to beat the chosen sacrifice to death with regular carpentry hammers (ouch).
Given the history of the show, we are fully expecting the BAU to save the day. Not this time. While two of the girls are discussing taking out the third, the third girl suddenly hits one of the conspirators over the head, killing her. Sure this sounds like an ode to the movie "saw", but this was wrenching television (some pun intended). We usually don't see kids killed. Even less often do we see them killing one another with just hammers. But the tool is effective in making us really revile the unsub. He is captured after the fact, but when he is, and says that he hasn't killed anyone, we really hate him.
I'm a believer that when a story makes you feel that much emotion, good or bad, then the writing and the acting are pretty good. It was more than just a cheap stunt (although we are coincidentally in sweeps), it was a story of how evil people really have the capacity to be, and it worked.
This show can be hard to watch, especially if you have kids, but it's worth watching if you can handle seeing the worst that humanity has to offer.
Labels: tv
