So. Garcia Is Not In Broken Mirror. Sad. Reid Takes What Would Usually Be Her Place W The Trap And Trace

so. garcia is not in broken mirror. sad. reid takes what would usually be her place w the trap and trace which is. interesting given his establishment as a luddite*. and funny because of his terrible typing skills.

anyway. obviously doylist (real world) answer is probably that kirsten vangsness either just wasn't available, or they didn't have her in this episode because she wasn't yet a main role (kirsten vangsness is credited as "also starring" during season one).

but watsonian (in universe) answers are way more fun, so. sound off: why wasn't garcia in s01e05?

*this is a tangent and a half, but I think this lends credence to the idea i sometimes see that reid isn't so much bad with technology (horrendous typing skills aside) as he does just not like it and avoid it for that reason. this + his engineering degree, which—correct me if i'm wrong—would be rather difficult without some tech knowledge...just makes me hmm. from what i've seen, i think that early characterization is forgotten a bit in the later seasons (not surprising. with all the love in my heart, the cm writers really could have benefitted from, like, a collaborative google doc titled "continuity") but it's interesting to think about

i interrupt your regularly scheduled fandom content to bring you a clip from my friends’ band’s set last night. the band is borderline thrills and the clip is from the end of their song deadnamed, which is exactly as transgender as you think it is.

I love this scene a lot and it lives in my head rent-free. I can't really think of another way to interpret it other than that this is elle telling reid that the reason he can't get a date isn't because of something wrong with him that he needs to change but simply because he doesn't ask people out (or, more broadly, lacks confidence).

I have seen some spencelle shippers read this as elle saying "hey. ask me out" but i disagree, not because i don't ship spencelle (i sort of do, elaboration in the notes) but for the following reasons:

I think elle would have realised very early on that if she was going to wait for reid to ask her out, she would be waiting years

i don't think she gives enough of a fuck about gender roles to wait for The Man to ask her out

she generally seems confident

i lean more towards her being very new to the BAU in the early episodes. I don't recall right now if there's an official anti-fraternization policy or if that's a fanfiction trope, but even if there isn't, entering a relationship with a coworker that early on is an easy way to mess up her career.

i think she was waiting until she was more established to start anything, but then, well, everything happened, and she left before becoming established enough to feel comfortable taking a risk like that

again, elle! you are at work!

what are u thinking elle. if your thoughts were broadcast in this moment would this show still be TV-14?

so. this scene has been talked about a lot:

I think this scene is a really interesting example of the criminal minds writers giving tiny pieces of character backstories that are never elaborated upon, (or, more broadly, forgetting early established character details) because unlike a lot of examples where lines are said and immediately forgotten about, I do think this revelation informs a lot of Hotch's character. I'm not necessarily saying that the writers always had it in mind when writing Hotch that he experienced childhood abuse, but I do feel like you can see the ways in which he was affected. I don't know—this made more sense in my head, but it feels a little less forgotten about and a little less thrown in than some other examples. I think a big difference between this scene and some later ones is that:

The trauma happened pre-series

and

It was established in the first season.

criminal minds isn't great at letting their characters be affected by their in-series trauma for more than a few episodes (and then maybe it'll come up once or twice down the line because the writers remembered it happened) and a lot of later instances* of characters being revealed to have some major pre-series trauma suffer because the impact it would have reasonably had on them isn't consistent with earlier portrayals and sometimes even contradicts established information.

not that it can't be interesting to look at those earlier portrayals of their characters with the backstory that is added later. again, this all made more sense in my head: essentially, the reason i think this feels different to me is that the writers knew when they started writing hotch that he was abused as a child, while other characters who have traumatic backstories revealed have those backstories added much later, and so the writers have a not-great choice between showing the effects their trauma had on them when there was no sign of it earlier, or moving on with their character as if none of it ever happened.

*i'd like to quickly establish that i'm not talking about morgan here. that was also a pretty early reveal and feels consistent enough with early characterization that i wouldn't be shocked if the idea was first floated while season one was being written

HIIIIIIIIIIII <3