I wasn't expecting much when I sat down to watch the Criminal Minds off-shoot series Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior on Monday night. After all, the characters were new to me (with the exception of Penelope Garcia the technical analyst) and as a rule, spin-offs are never as good as the originals.
I was introduced to the Red Cell team, led by Sam Cooper and consisting of FBI agents Beth Griffin, Mick Rawson, Gina LaSalle, John "Prophet" Sims and, of course, Penelope Garcia. Garcia does technical work for both the Red Cell team and Hotch's team from the original Criminal Minds.
The concept of the show was the same: the team analyses criminals and works around the clock to try to get an insight into the way they think. In the episode that I watched, Strays, the team was under pressure to find FBI Director Jack Fickler's goddaughter, Emma.
While it seemed like a recipe for a great episode, I soon found myself comparing Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior to the parent series and thinking about how much better its team is, not to mention the storylines. Suspect Behavior's characters didn't come off as especially interesting, even though Cooper is played by Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker. While this kind of show has to grow on you, this one didn't get a chance: it was axed after the first season.
Strays lacked surprise and the "unsub" (unidentified subject) didn't arouse any curiosity whatsoever. The gist of the plot was that he abducted women who were trying to score drugs and held them captive before selling them to men in an old warehouse. He didn't say much, yet lacked mystery. The victim, Emma, was the daughter of a judge who was desperate for her safe return, although he and Emma had been distant since the death of her mother when she was 13. The father had no knowledge of the people Emma associated with and the team discovered that she had been taking money from his account to obtain drugs.
Using Garcia's towering talent for computers, they found an address for the unsub and rushed to the location. There, they found him but no victims.
The unsub refused to talk in custody, but agent John Sims told him of the harsh reality of life in prison - this was probably the high point of the entire episode. The unsub finally spoke and told the agents about the warehouse.
The team arrived on the scene as Emma was being sold, but the bidders made a break for it and took Emma with them. Cooper explained to the man who was carrying out the auction that Emma's godfather was the Director of the FBI and her father was a judge. Soon enough, Emma was found and returned home to her father.
I'm keen to watch more episodes - to see if the cancellation of Suspect Behaviour was justified. There are only two cases to go on RTÉ Two: can it end on a high note?
Here's hoping.
Katie Courage
