TheCriminal Mindsseries was very good at utilizing the different specialties of its team members when it aired on CBS, but the streaming series has been so focused on one type of case that sometimes it forgets how different the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s members are. Season 3, episode 9 just remembered though.
In the episode, one of the suspects arrested during the season disappears into the prison system. Despite the team setting up his transfer, they can find no record of him. The predicament allows one team member to give their extensive knowledge of the prison system a workout - and this time, it is not just Garcia’s (Kirsten Vangsness) computer skills.
Luke Used His Former Skills From The Fugitive Task Force In Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3, Episode 9
Luke’s Knowledge Of Prisons Is Very Specific
When Luke Alvez (Adam Rodriguez) joinedCriminal Mindsin season 12, he transferred from the Fugitive Task Forceto the BAU. In order to transfer to the BAU, an agent has to be very good at understanding their suspects from a psychological perspective, so Luke must have shown some serious profiling skills on the team.
In addition to his ability to build a criminal profile, however, there are also skills that would have been specific to the task force, whose job it is to retrieve criminals on the run or who have simply gone missing.
Luke’s particular knowledge is able to save the BAU team a lot of time in their search and showcase someone other than Garcia…
Luke points out inthis episode ofCriminal Minds: Evolutionthat the suspect they are looking for might simply be the victim of a spelling error. Paperwork can be filled out incorrectly, and a misspelled name can be enough to make someone end up in the wrong place.
While Garcia is ready to search for a bevy of clerical errors to find the missing suspect, Luke requests that she start simply by checking the paperwork filed by the suspect’s lawyer. Luke is right and the man’s surname is misspelled. When they search for a prisoner with that spelling, they are able to find where he was transferred in seconds.
Luke’s particular knowledge is able to save the BAU team a lot of time in their search and showcase someone other than Garcia using her computer to cut through the investigation.
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 Keeps Forgetting That It’s Not Just Garcia Who Has Unique Skills
Every Team Member Has Unique Skills
Part of the reason FBIagents become members of the BAU is because they have unique skill sets in addition to their ability to work on a criminal profile.Criminal Minds: Evolutionhas not been utilizing those skills the way the original series did.
New FBI trainee Tyler Green (RJ Hatanaka) is the only member of the team whose skills have been highlighted consistently other than Garcia. That is only because his skills are directly tied to his pursuit of Sicarius after his sister’s death and thedarkness inside Tyler himself.
In the original series, for example, Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) was also very good at pattern recognition. In the early seasons of the show, he was often the team member who would figure out the exact parameters of the unknown subject’s “hunting ground” to narrow their focus.
JJ Jareau (AJ Cook) was known for her empathy in the show’s original run. As the original communications and police liaison for the team, she was also often responsible for talking a victim’s family members through hostage negotiations.
Because of leaving to work for the State Department, and for being the first person on the team to talk to different communities, JJ also has a lot of connections outside of the FBI.Criminal Minds: Evolutionhas not had to use those connections though since all of the cases have been local for them.
BecauseEmily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) is the unit chief now, she is also the one typically fielding calls and pulling favors from other agencies. That means the audience does not get to see JJ do those same tasks, and Emily typically does those off-screen, putting her own political connections to work.
Likewise, because of Emily’s connections to a mother in a political position and her own time with Interpol, Emily has a lot of international connections the team does not need to use inCriminal Minds: Evolution. In season 3, the people the team is pursuing are all in and around the Washington, DC area.
In the past, the show has delved into Joe Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and his connection to the formation of the BAU, but even that has been unnecessary in the third season of the revival series.
Criminal Minds: Evolutionhas been so focused on its longer story arc that it is very easy to forget that all of the members of the BAU team bring unique skills and connections to the team.
