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TvN Drama "Criminal Minds KR" Lee Joon Gi, Moon Chae Won, Son Hyun Joo, etc. *Finale Episodes*


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  • Criminal Minds: Episode 15criminalminds15-00067a.jpg

     

 

 

Tensions grow among our kidnapping victims as a seed of doubt sprouts amongst them and feeds off their suspicions. An insignificant event in one person’s life can be a devastating one for another, and it’s our profilers’ job to find the trivial string of fate that weaves all the pieces together. As the heroes dig deeper into the case, they experience the depths of human failure, selfishness, and indifference as past sins come to destroy the lives of the present.

 

 

 

EPISODE 15 RECAP

 

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The NCI team is briefed on the kidnapping case of the three female competitive swimmers (Hye-in, Yoo-jin, and Song-yi) and the discovery of their vandalized bags in a vacant lot. The culprit’s deliberate choice to leave behind evidence in an open place signals to that the location must hold special meaning. There’s no sign of resistance at the pool, which prompts two scenario possibilities: Either the culprit threatened the victims and they lost their motivation to resist, or the culprit built up trust with the girls.

 

It’s clear the kidnapper planned this thoroughly and must have observed the girls for some time. Min-young wonders if the girls are already dead, but Ki-hyung firmly tells the group that the victims are alive since the text messages sent to the parents specifically mention Friday. That gives the team two days to find the kidnapper, and Ki-hyung orders the team to bring the parents to the police station and prepare the profile.

 

 

 

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Still trapped in the empty room wearing only their underclothes, Hye-in looks through the vent while Yoo-jin and Song-yi huddle together on the floor. Yoo-jin, who’s fending off a fever, says that she’s cold, and Hye-in lashes out at her for complaining. Song-yi takes issue with Hye-in’s attitude, and the two begin to argue until Yoo-jin begs them to stop fighting.

 

However, the damage is already done, and Song-yi mutters to Yoo-jin that it’s Hye-in’s fault they’re in this predicament in the first place. Hye-in runs towards the vent again and screams at the kidnapper to let them go. Song-yi tells her to conserve her energy, but Hye-in warns that they’ll die here if they don’t do something.

 

 

 

=== Read more: http://www.dramabeans.com/2017/09/criminal-minds-episode-15/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMMENTS

 

For the most part, the kidnapping arc was interesting because of the moral dilemma it raised. It was a rather static case, with most of the action happening in the interrogation rooms, and there weren’t any big twists or revelations. The NCI team diligently looked for clues, trying to find the missing connection that linked all the parents together, so the ultimate reveal and capture weren’t too abrupt. The show utilizes an episodic type of storytelling, and despite the odd mid-episode cuts, it’s a tried-and-true formula that works for most shows of this nature. Though I’d appreciate more closure to cases, it makes sense why the creators would choose to leave arcs with neat endings because the task of the NCI team is to assist the local police instead of taking over a case. As a result, the audience sees up to the point where the team acts, which often leaves questions unanswered and deliberately challenges the audience to ponder.

 

On that note, I appreciate the way the creators use narrative bookends for the arcs, which also makes the cases feel like vignettes. For the kidnapping arc, the show started with the three daughters and then ended with three parents. It was interesting to see how, at the end, the kidnapper’s claims that humans are self-centered creatures was true, as we saw the two dads claim innocence for their actions while the mother’s inaction was revealed to be an act of selfishness all along.

 

 

 

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It’s another bittersweet ending even though the kidnapper was caught, because the culprit ultimately fulfilled his agenda: to show the world the girls’ (and by default the parents’) true nature. Though I find the criminal culpable in Hye-in’s death, despite his protests that he didn’t even step foot into the storage room, Yoo-jin’s question still haunts me because I can’t say for certain what is “right.†The best scenario would have been to wait since the NCI team could have found the storage building in time, but in that situation, should Yoo-jin have let herself potentially die? It’s a tough question that also clearly left our heroes wavering, but life isn’t always clear-cut, as we’ve learned from the show so far.

 

 

 

As usual, a new case emerges as soon as the old one wraps up, and it’s another serial killer on the loose. Though serial killers are obviously scary and incite terror, I must admit that I didn’t see all the hullabaloo surrounding the newest one in comparison to the other serial killers the show has produced (e.g., the Reaper). I felt a disconnect because there was such (over)emphasis placed on the epic scale of this killer, with repeated statements of how this was going to be an extremely difficult task, plus Hyun-joon’s final statement at the end of the episode. With only a quick glimpse at the killer and one actual murder occurring onscreen, there’s not much for the viewer to draw upon, so it doesn’t feel epic for the viewer. Also, I thought it was an odd choice for the creators to suddenly have the NCI team defend their profession and explain what profiling is. You would think that fifteen episodes in, the show would have already covered this, but then again, the final scene was just a verbal regurgitation of their current profile that relied on them telling the story rather than showing it. The back and forth made the information dump somewhat dynamic, but in essence it was still largely static.

 

Though it was only a tiny scene put in as a breather between cases, I loved seeing the team gather to celebrate Nana’s birthday. In the beginning, I thought the scene was being used to show the difference in impact the cases made on the individual team members, especially between the members who actively interact with the victims and criminals versus Nana who takes a more support-based role (though without her, I doubt the NCI team would run at all). But in the end, it was just a fluffy scene, and I enjoyed it for what it was. It was sweet to see the team surprise Nana because that meant they knew it was her birthday and planned an event for her accordingly. Ki-hyung’s note was also adorable, and I loved Nana’s teary response to it.

 

While I was surprised at first that he didn’t physically show up, it makes sense with his character since he’s their boss and usually doesn’t “hang out†with them at the bar (too informal for our stoic leader). Thus, the sweet and short note, telling Nana that he’ll always be her support as well, was the perfect way to capture Ki-hyung’s bond with the team while also emphasizing his separation from the group. Although a lot of the members go to Ki-hyung when they need support, as the leader, Ki-hyung seems to not allow himself the same comfort. He doesn’t confide with the others when he has problems, choosing instead to bottle things up and solve issues by himself. Part of it is due to the nature of his position, but I also think it’s his personality. Though Ki-hyung gladly accepts the responsibilities of being a leader, he doesn’t let others shoulder the burdens he carries. But if Hyun-joon can change and learn how to open up to the team he once despised, maybe there’s hope that Ki-hyung will also learn that he’s not alone in this fight and can lean on his team for support.

 

 

 

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Edited by FranCella
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  • Criminal Minds: Episode 16cm16-00019.jpg

 

With a vigilante on the loose, today’s case invokes big questions about justice and the law, and what happens to justice when the law fails. It’s a question that particularly gets under our profilers’ skin, because they struggle with it every day themselves, especially Ki-hyung. But for others, the more egregious the failure, the less it matters whether there is a line between what is legal and what is just.

 

 

EPISODE 16 RECAP

A woman notices a hooded man on her way out of an otherwise empty church at night. He doesn’t respond when she asks if he’s okay, and she gets creeped out by the strange typing motion he keeps doing with his fingers and hurries on.

After she’s gone, he intones his mantra: “Only public law shall be like water, and justice shall flow like sewage.â€

In an inner room, the priest also finishes for the night. But as he leaves, the hooded man ambushes him and slits his throat. The killer repeats his mantra over the body.

 

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The NCI reaches the scene, and Ki-hyung notes that it’s the first murder this killer has committed in a public place. There’s no sign of him on the CCTV, and he sends Sun-woo and Min-young to question the woman who had seen him. Hyun-joon examines the victim and realizes from the blood pattern that he was blindfolded after his murder.

The woman witness tells Sun-woo and Min-young that she didn’t see the killer’s face. Hyun-joon comes in and asks what she remembers about him. She recalls the way he kept moving his fingers, as if he were playing a piano. The woman fears for her life, but Hyun-joon observes that the killer isn’t targeting people randomly, which means they have to discover what ties the victims together.

 

=== Read more: http://www.dramabeans.com/2017/09/criminal-minds-episode-16/

 

 

COMMENTS

That’s a really odd place to end the episode, but this show’s strange editing decisions shouldn’t surprise me anymore. Criminal Minds has quite a fixed formula at this point, from which it rarely deviates: 45 minutes on the main case (with a quote to tie it up), a five-minute team interlude of some kind, and then ten minutes introducing the new case. It’s hard, as someone really determined to look on the bright side, to hold my feelings about this show in check sometimes. The thing that frustrates me most is that it’s not a badshow as such, but it unfortunately uses all its elements really poorly. But we are probably flogging a dead horse at this point, so let’s move on!

I think the most interesting moment to me this episode came at the end of the main case. There’s a spark of sympathy from everyone, I think, for the vigilante who has legitimate grievances and a truly tragic story, but it came through most strongly with Ki-hyung. Considering what happened to his wife, there’s no one who understands more how a victim feels. But as strongly as he sympathizes, his opposition is even stronger, because he understands that taking the law into your own hands is never the answer, even if justice (of a kind) is served.

 

 

It illustrates how justice and law aren’t always the same thing, and I think part of Ki-hyung’s unease with public opinion is that he understood where it came from: The law had been tested and found wanting. But his core belief is that the law, even when it’s flawed, must be the only vehicle for conveying justice, because justice outside the law is of a dangerous kind and cannot be its own purveyor. It’s a philosophical inquiry that underlies the entire case, and at the end, when he agrees with Jung that his victim should die, I feel that he meant it. Not in the same sense as Jung, but in a sense.

I found it telling, too, that as Jung lay dying, both Ki-hyung and Hyun-joon were genuinely distressed—not just at his death, but also at the life which brought him to this death. It’s difficult to know how to feel about it yourself as a viewer, and in that respect, this episode really succeeds in making you feel simultaneous, complex and mixed emotions. We can all agree pretty easily that murder is wrong, but how do we give comfort and reason to someone who was failed by the justice system? The other half of that dilemma lies in the question of forgiveness. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one incensed by the gall of the murderer who told Jung he’d already asked for and received forgiveness. To go religious for a second, I can’t believe in a god that absolves you of wrongdoing when you don’t make an effort to make amends with the living. The guy whose family you butchered is right there! Make amends with the living, dude.

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  • love changed the title to TvN Drama "Criminal Minds KR" Lee Joon Gi, Moon Chae Won, Son Hyun Joo, etc. *Finale Episodes*

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