In the season’s ninth episode, “Magnificent Light,” the BAU looks into the disappearance of a motivational speaker they suspected was the Unsub in their latest case. Read on to find out what the Criminal Minds writers have in-store for us this week.
The Evil that Men Speak
Two people are murdered after attending the same motivational seminar and the BAU suspects that the motivational speaker, Barry Flynn, may be the killer. That is until Flynn is abducted. The true killer is a delusional super-fan who thinks Flynn helped him find his life’s purpose. The Unsub believes he has an ability to see the truth about people and he can tell when someone is evil. The Unsub wants Flynn’s help in killing the evil people, much like a superhero would.
Flynn tries to talk the Unsub out of his “mission” but the Unsub refuses to listen. Eventually, Reid figures out that the Unsub has synesthesia, a condition that makes the Unsub see the words people speak. If these words turn certain colors, it makes the Unsub believe the speaker is lying and therefore, must be evil. This becomes problematic when the Unsub sees Flynn’s words in the lying-color, but the agents arrive and talk the Unsub down before he kills Flynn.
Garcia Uncovers Morgan’s Secret
In our B-plot, Morgan receives an invitation to a special dinner. An old family friend of Morgan’s is being honored and Morgan has been asked to speak at the event. But Morgan tells Garcia that he has no intention of speaking for his friend and he will not explain why. Garcia continues to question Morgan about declining the invitation and Morgan eventually opens up about his reasons.
Years ago, Morgan was asked to speak about his father and he froze during his speech. Morgan feels like it would be disrespectful to speak for another man when he could not speak for his own father. Garcia understands but manages to convince Morgan that he needs to stop beating himself up about that failed speech. Garcia’s words, as well as a special gift from Flynn convince Morgan to attend the dinner and speak on behalf of his father’s friend.
Garcia goes to the event as Morgan’s date and watches as Morgan gives a moving speech about his father and their family friend. Unfortunately, someone else is also watching–the season-long Unsub hunting our team!
An Observation
One thing that stands out to me about season 8 so far is that the writers seem to be making an effort to touch on some of the individual relationships between team members–Morgan and Reid, Garcia and Morgan, Reid and Blake–and yet, something about the team dynamic still feels off. As much as I love the interaction between those characters, I hope we see more scenes focusing on the team dynamic, as a whole. We have had a few of those moments throughout the season–Garcia making fancy drinks for everyone, JJ’s son showing off his Halloween costume–but I think we need more scenes like that to really solidify the team chemistry.
Do you have any thoughts on tonight’s case, the team dynamic or Morgan’s speech about his father? If so, let us know in the comments section.
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(Image courtesy of CBS)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
