Somebody's Watching

Not that he wasn't interesting already, having been the best thing for example about "Derailed", just that quite a lot of the best moments of the episodes before "Somebody's Watching" belonged to Gideon and Garcia.

"Somebody's Watching" sees Reid as much more than the geeky young doctor spouting facts or a smart-ass, not that he ever was the latter but this episode develops him very well and it was lovely to see a more romantic side to him. Matthew Gray Gubler as always does a splendid job, as did Amber Heard as his love interest. Their scene in the pool was one of the highlights of "Somebody's Watching" and both sweet and sensual.

This said, their scenes do not compromise the screen time and chemistry of the rest of the team, the characters carry the episode really well with well-established personalities and their dynamic delights enormously. Still am indifferent to Elle, who has always been cold and egotistical to me. The profiling was good, though there could have been more of it.

Regarding the case, it is engrossing and suspenseful with a shocking twist that one doesn't see coming. The opening scene is a bit clunky, and the whole stalking subplot after such great build up could have been better wrapped up, didn't seem believable enough to me. Script is tight and thought-provoking, while as ever the production values are high in quality as is the haunting music score and acting, leading and supporting alike.

All in all, very good episode that just falls short of being great.

Reid has always been one of my favourite characters on 'Criminal Minds', and one of the show's most interesting and best developed, but this saw an even more intriguing and different side to him compared to before and it was appreciated. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The 12-year-old-looking Dr. Reid (Matthew Gubler) is out in Hollywood with Gideon on a guest-speaking assignment. While there, he is introduced to a pretty soap opera TV actress. While on the way back to the airport, a crime takes place and the local cop asks Gideon and Spencer if they have time to look at the scene, since it's "on the way."

They discover this is the third crime with the same MO. They are asked to stay and investigate, so they do, and fly in the supporting cast. Then, an agent comes in to tell police about a threatening note his client received: the actress "Lila Archer" (Amber Heard) Dr. Reid met, and is obviously smitten with, which is understandable for this poor nerd.

Anyway, two actresses and a producer have been killed, so the BAU goes after the murderer with the usual deductive profiling. They quickly label the guy as a "Type 4 assassin with a stalker mentality" and the object of his desire is obviously this "Lila" chick. The three people murdered all stood in the way of her career advancement.

This winds up to be both a very stupid but very suspenseful episode. Stupid in that the brainiac Spencer gets involved with this bimbo actress, and some of the dialog between the two was stupid. However, it was suspenseful regarding the surprise killer.

I thought the episode"Someone's Watching" was well done for it's subject. The humor line delivered by actor Ian Anthony Dale was well placed and I was truly tickled, thinking about my own friends who are 'highly intelligent' but don't have a lick of common sense. My friends make me laugh all the time as I try to figure out what in the world they are talking about! I can identify with Dale's character(and that is not saying that we are dumb). The character's of the 'team'(the cast) are specially trained to do the job of profiling killers. I look for the humor in shows like this in the plot, to relieve the tension and among the cast characters. It's what makes the show worth watching, to see depth and puts a 'real life' human take for us the viewers to identify with.

I've seen some few episodes of this series in the past so I'm hardly a fan or an expert of it (nor of most crime/police procedural dramas). However, I think that even fans of the series would agree that this episode wasn't particularly remarkable in the context of the rest of the series. The narrative format is typical as so was the plot, the cinematography, the sound, and the performances by the main characters. As such, there's not much to say about the backbone of the episode except that it was just OK. Moreover, the racial and gender inequalities and negative stereotypes in the series as a whole are also reflected in this episode.

That said, it's the guest performers in this episode that, if anything or anyone, make it memorable. Most notable is Amber Heard who plays Lila Archer, a Hollywood actress that's being stalked by a mysterious killer with an erotomanic obsession over her. It's clear from Heard's parts in the episode that the writers and director were aiming for a Bimbo trope in Lila Archer that would serve to primarily sexually spice up the episode. While Heard plays this intended role well, one notices, from how Lila engages with Spencer in some scenes of them together, that Heard never allows Lila to be intimidated by Spencer's genius-level smartness - at least not visibly or audibly so. Indeed, even as the contrast between Lila's and Spencer's intelligence is written into the script to emphasize the Bimbo trope in Lila most times when the two characters interact, Heard gives Lila reactions to Spencer's intelligence - unimpressed, even "bored" with it, etc - that suggest to the viewer that there's a depth to Lila's intelligence than the writers and director were willing to show or that should have been willing to show. In this way, Heard, as is similarly evidenced in several of her performances in other movies/series where she plays heavily sexualized characters, fights against the reduction of Lila Archer to a mere sexual object, a Bimbo, for the entertainment of male viewers by giving her, within the limits of her powers, more agency and depth.

Also of note in Heard's performance is that her portrayal of a Lila that Spencer turns out to be particularly attracted to is as cute as it is heartwarming. One can't help but imagine, while watching the two together in several scenes (e.g. Lila's home scene, the pool scene, and the goodbye scene), how the two would be together. They'd definitely be an odd couple but the chemistry between them suggests that they'd fit each other as well as Lea and Shaun fit each other in the American version of the TV series The Good Doctor. By the time I was finishing watching this episode, I definitely wished that the two had gotten a relationship arc of their own. If they had, I'd definitely be watching more of the series from this episode onward right now. Sad that they didn't.

Another notable guest performer is Katheryn Winnick. Although she'd been in the industry for much longer than Heard had been by the shooting date of this episode, she got a relatively minor role compared to Heard's in the episode. Nevertheless, and without giving away spoilers, she does an amazing job portraying a caring but mentally disturbed friend and co-worker to Lila Archer named Maggie Lowe. I have to say though, I would never have thought that Heard and Winnick ever acted together until I came across this episode. And the two both shone through their parts. My only wish is that they could have been given more screen time together.

All in all, I'd have given this episode a 4 for its unremarkableness but the presence of Amber Heard and her magnificent performance raise this to a 7. Winnick's presence and performance raise this further to an 8. I strongly recommend this episode to any fans of Amber Heard or Kathryn Winnick and to fans of the series or crime procedural dramas generally. Even if you're not a fan of Amber's specifically, if you're interested in studying her work from the early years of her career, I recommend this one to you too. Beyond these audiences, few others would find much to enjoy in this episode.