Criminal Minds -- Saving JJ

I have to admit I wasn't really wringing my hands over someone kidnapping JJ. I wasn't really interested in it. Since they decided to turn her into Bad@ss JJ I really haven't had much interest in the character. I wasn't even very interested in her secret past with Cruz. I knew the whole JJ In Jeopardy was going to be featured for the 200th episode and wasn't thrilled about it, but hoped it would be interesting. Instead I found the whole thing farfetched and unbelievable.

Supposedly, JJ had to leave the BAU because they needed her to help track down Bin Laden. Yeah, I'm not making that up. That's what they said. Seriously? JJ? I could see maybe Reid because he's so smart or Rossi or Hotch who has worked in the middle east, but JJ? She's not even really a stand-out in the team. Has she ever come up with that one observation that leads the team to tracking down an unsub? It just seemed absolutely absurd. Maybe it might have been more believable if they had made someone up instead of making it a real person.

They even threw a miscarriage in for a bonus. This is the second show this year that did a flashback episode and tossed in a one scene pregnancy that ends in a miscarriage the very next scene. They seem to be in there to try and drum up cheap emotion from the viewer. Me, it didn't elicit any emotion. Especially since JJ was acting like this was her first pregnancy going on about how hard her and Will were trying to get pregnant. I kept thinking I'm pretty sure you already have a kid, JJ. And adding a bad taste to the whole thing is JJ apparently told Cruz she was pregnant but neglected telling her husband about it. And as someone pointed out the minute Cruz learned she was knocked up she should have been shipped out on the next plain. Instead she goes on a dangerous mission and has a miscarriage.

The torturer JJ and Cruz worked with named T-Bon [I can't even attempt to spell his last name] is the one who kidnaps Cruz and JJ. He was a double agent working for the other side. Anyway, he wants the security code to a secret government website that only JJ and Cruz have and begins torturing them for it.

To say Will really got screwed in this episode is the understatement. First, JJ tells Cruz first that she's pregnant and doesn't tell Will. And then when she dreaming of being rescued she dreams of Prentiss rescuing her, not her own husband. They didn't even show a scene of Will and JJ reuniting, just her reuniting with the team. Maybe she should marry the team. Whomever wrote this really screwed up.

Despite being treated as a nothing by his wife, Will was in the episode. He tipped Hotch off to the fact JJ and Cruz were working together and worked together in the past. From there, Hotch tried to find out what was going on, and discovered the government wasn't even going to try and rescue them. Gotta love the government. Makes you wonder why these people even work for them and risk their lives for them when they basically say, "Screw you," when you're in trouble. So Hotch appealed to Prentiss to help and she came to town and filled Hotch in on what she knew.

At one point they made it appear like Cruz was a double agent and working with T-Bon. He even persuaded JJ to give up her code in a really gag-worthy moment. Seriously, that code is the only thing keeping them alive, so it was stupid to give it up. But JJ just couldn't hang on for much longer and her beloved Cruz told her it was time to give it up. And that in a nutshell is why JJ the bad@ss is just not believable. In her place, Prentiss wouldn't have cracked. Heck, she thought she was dying at the hands of Ian Doyle and lied that his kid was dead to keep him safe from his father. I didn't care for Prentiss, but she was a believable bad@SS and JJ just isn't because they don't follow through with it. She caves to the torture or needs to be saved when she tries to take down the guy working with T-Bon. Bad@sses save themselves, they don't cave or need to be saved.

But it turns out Cruz wasn't a crook and the guy they worked with was the real culprit. When T-Bon threatens to rape JJ, Cruz also caves and gives his security code and all the info from the website is being downloaded on a flash drive.

Luckily, for the ungrateful government and these two namby-pamby's that Hotch and the team are on the way to save their bacon. The flash drive is destroyed and JJ [who apparently isn't in pain or weakened from the torture she endured] pops up and goes chasing after the bad guy. She manages to take him out, but also manages to fall off a building and has to be saved by Prentiss.

Cruz, who got stabbed, is taken to the hospital, So he'll survive and I guess continue to be bureau chief, even though he manipulated matters to be appointed chief so he could be reunited with JJ and lied to her when he said he didn't know he was going to be given the job.

Hopefully, now we got through the JJ episode we won't have to endure another one for two more seasons. The last one she had was when Will got caught in a bank robbery and she got to act all bad@ss when she used martial arts on one of the felons to save the day. I'm sorry, but of all the members of the team she's the least interesting. She ranks above Blake who is even less interesting than JJ is.