New Face, Same Old Minds
Paget Brewster, Thomas Gibson and Joe Mantegna in The Unit by Michael Desmond/ABC Studios
Say this for Joe Mantegna: He doesn't make
Criminal Minds any worse. Like that's even possible. This inexplicably popular crime drama remains the most pretentious, the most simplistic and the most dehumanizing of CBS' current glut of procedurals. Replacing Mandy Patinkin, who quit between seasons - I'm guessing he finally watched an episode - Mantegna makes a valiant effort at creating an actual character, but he invariably gets lost amid the wood (his supporting cast) and the cheese (the scripts).
We first see him bird hunting in a Virginia marsh. The next time we see water, a dead body (a brutalized, mutilated woman, naturally) is floating in a Dallas suburb. This victim's backstory? She comes home to find a "Have You Seen Me?" poster on her door with her own face on it. Understandably spooked, she goes to the sheriff, who figures it's just a Halloween prank. We know better, having seen this show in action before. Soon enough, she's a goner: sexually assaulted, drowned, with her face cut off (the killer leaves behind blank masks). Beyond that, we learn next to nothing about this victim, because this show (unlike superior crime fictions such as
Without a Trace and
Cold Case) really can't be bothered with such things.
This week's psychopath remains just as much of a cipher by the time the show reaches its pat, tidy conclusion. (Watching the episode once again reminded me how much better this subject matter was handled by a very short-lived NBC series,
Unsub, which lasted all of eight episodes in 1989, one of the first shows I professionally reviewed. Way ahead of its time,
Unsub was disturbing and unsettling, clearly influenced by the recently published
Silence of the Lambs. By comparison, no matter how disgusting the grisly acts on
Criminal Minds are shown to be, the execution is so bland it's easier to shrug off, which I actually find much more obscene.
As retired FBI special agent David Rossi, who spent the last 10 years writing books about his cases and becoming somewhat famous, Mantegna brings a less hammy sensibility to his character than Patinkin's woefully mannered take on Jason Gideon. Rossi is haunted, of course (aren't they all?), and he's returning to the job not only to help out the BAU team but to take a case of some dark unfinished business, which we catch glimpses of in fractured flashbacks. Rossi isn't entirely at ease with the unit's new methods and quirkier sensibilities (as always, Kirsten Vangsness as Garcia brings a little welcome pep to the proceedings), and he can't quite believe the BAU has such ready access to a private jet. Mantegna is right to feel out of place. He's a strong addition to a show that doesn't really deserve him.
