Criminal Minds - Anonymous - Review: "Organ Donors, Beware"

I'm terribly sorry for the lateness of my review. Sometimes life gets in the way :-P. Well, let's see, I enjoyed The Fallen (8x07), and I absolutely loved The Road Home (9x13) . So, this episode had a lot to live up to. The profiling on this show seems to be getting worse and worse, unfortunately. But enough of that, let's start the review!

The episode started off with a man driving in a car with a woman who is dying. He dropped her off on the side of the road, where she thanked him, and then he shot her. Interesting start. Next, Rossi and Morgan had a nice scene together where Morgan complained about the struggles of fishing. Rossi helped show him how it's done! When Morgan finally hooks We found out Rossi is getting a vacation with his daughter in San Fransico, that's so cute. Garcia comes into his office and alerted him that he had an urgent phone call from New Directions, where his friend Harrison Scott resided. Rossi found out that Scott has passed away, and Rossi gets emotional. He then asked for Garcia not to tell the rest of the team about this. Deja vu, huh Rossi? In Damaged (3x14), he asked the same thing of Garcia. She actually listened to him this time, though, so that's a relief.

At the roundtable meeting, we found out that Hotch will join them when they land, and she didn't reveal the reason that Rossi is absent. Did you catch Kate's reaction to this news? Her face screamed, "Hey, I should know everything about everyone, so why can't I know about Rossi?" Yeah, this may not be the reaction everyone gets when watching this scene, but Kate has acted superior and entitled before. Oh well, let's keep going. The unsub (unknown subject) called 9-11 before the crime he was about to commit actually took place. I could swear we have seen this in another episode before, but I could be wrong. It is a cool way to go, I will give them that. He wiped his prints off of the phone and then disposed of it. This unsub is forensically savvy too! How nice.

Opening Quote:
Spoken by Kate Callahan - "Death is the only god that comes when you call." Roger Zelazny

The BAU are on the jet. Morgan brought up race as a possible motive. Garcia discredited that by telling them about the latest victim who was shot that was white. Interesting. Hotch has a talk with a witness from the latest shooting. It went well. Rossi went to L.A. before he headed to San Fran to see his daughter. He went to collect some of Harrison Scott's things. Joy called him "dad", which threw Rossi off guard. It was a sweet moment. I liked the juxtaposition of Rossi taking off the cloth that covered one of Scott's boxes of things and the Medical Examiner taking off the cloth that covered the latest victim. Kate made a comment about how, "As head trauma goes, we've seen a lot worse." Since when has this been a competition? JJ and Morgan talked to the husband of one of the victims, how sad.

Rossi found a picture of him and Scott. There were flashbacks to Rossi and Scott in the war. Scott said the, "Scars only show us where we have been, they do not have to dictate where we are going." quote. I have always loved that quote, and it was great to see where it originated from. Scott's son Thomas showed up, and they exchanged a humorous set of quotes. Rossi: "Harrison had his own way of doing things." Thomas: "Yeah, stubborn." Rossi: "I prefer to say, sure of himself. It's what made him a great leader." This was very nice to see. Rossi asked to take care of Harrison's funeral. Thomas held up a picture and asked, "So, uh, which one's you?", and Rossi replied, "Uh, that would be the handsome one right there." That was amazing! Back to the case of the week, and we found out the unsub's daughter had a drug problem and now she needs to take medicine.

Reid, Kate, and JJ are brainstorming. Reid suggested that the could be making a statement about the mind, body, and soul. That is actually pretty cool, but Kate shut this idea down right away, and JJ shortly after. It was a shame, that would be a great addition a profile. Hotch and Garcia have a moment where they both realize that the female victim is an organ donor. Garcia says, "Sir, you frequently amaze me a little, but you sometimes amaze me a lot." The theme of this season seems to be having two characters say the same thing at the same time. Then, we had a profile delivery, where they didn't really have that much to tell the police other than organs are scarce.

The unsub's daughter is in need of a liver, so the unsub is killing organ donors. But when he found out about his daughter's friend, Keith, who is worse off than her and will need a liver sooner, he changes his motivation. It was a great time to finally go back to Rossi's subplot. Garcia admitted that it is getting harder and harder to keep Rossi's whereabouts from Morgan, but Rossi reassured her that he told Hotch to tell the rest of the team. Well, that was a relief. Rossi asked Garcia for a favour that we won't know about until later. Now the BAU has figured out that the unsub shifted his focus and is now killing people on the organ donor list. I believe this has been done before on other TV shows; it's disconcerting every time, though. The unsub came home and his daughter, Estelle, was in bad shape.

Joy came to visit Rossi and proclaimed, "There are times when families should be together, and this seemed like one of those times." Rossi talked to his daughter about the last time he and Scott had a conversation. Rossi was "a real hothead" back in the day. Rossi suggested they go to a restaurant where they play nothing but Tony Bennet all day, and Joy admits she doesn't know who Tony is. Rossi said he will help educate her. Back to the unsub, he has a job at the DMV. This was how he was able to find all of his victims, very convenient. What a bittersweet ending - with the unsub shooting himself so he could give his daughter his liver. The episode ends with the funeral for Scott. I think we have seen ENOUGH of Rossi and cemeteries.

Closing Quote:
Spoken by David Rossi - "As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end, the milestones into headstones change, 'neath every one a friend." James Russell Lowell

Final Thoughts:
Overall, it was an "OK" episode. The best quote of the night would have to be from Rossi to Morgan: "It's all in your technique, and all those muscles of yours won't help in something like this." That was a very comical scene and overall made the episode watchable. I definitely appreciate what Joe did for his dear friend, and I thought all of those parts were sweet. The case of the week was interesting, too.

I give this episode a C. If there was more from Rossi and Scott's backstory, and less of the ever-dwinling profiling, it would have received a much better grade. The whole reason why I started watching this show was to see how the BAU figured out the exact behaviours and psyches of the many criminals they face. However, the cases seem to become less and less important to each episode. Hey, I'm all for explaining backstories; I think it's about time that some people get some background information about their lives. But the show is called Criminal Minds. Hmm.

What did you think of Anonymous? Did you enjoy this tribute to Joe Mantegna's dear friend, Meshach Taylor? Are you excited to see Young Gideon and Young Rossi in Nelson's Sparrow next week? Leave a comment down below!