What do you binge watch?
This seemed like an appropriate topic for everything going on right now. Lately, I’ve been on a Criminal Minds kick. And I won’t lie. It started before the quarantines went into effect. I LOVE police procedurals. NCIS, Criminal Minds, Castle (oh my God, Castle—I miss that show!), Hawaii Five-0, Battle Creek—the list goes on. I find them so very, very interesting. The hows and whys of criminal behavior intrigues me. I probably should have gone into police work. I would have made a great detective. But I’m not really a fan of confrontation and don’t have the patience for most people. I’m an introvert for a reason, much to my son’s dismay. If I don’t have to go talk to anyone, I don’t really make an effort to seek others out. I’m content with my books and my binge-worthy TV shows. Right now, that means Criminal Minds.
If you’ve never watched this show, you should know it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s gory and gruesome and twisted. But, for someone who likes screwy plots and thinks the human mind is a fascinating place, Criminal Minds is like crack. It doesn’t help matters that through season 11 there’s a bunch of witty banter between the bubbly and vivacious technical analyst, Penelope Garcia and the oh-so-scrumptious Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan. When Shemar Moore (the actor who plays Morgan) left the show, I quit watching. While I loved the twists and turns the cases took, to me, it was losing its comedic relief. I might like the way the human mind works and find it wildly intriguing to ponder what makes a serial killer tick (book research!), but I can’t handle all that sorrow and angst without some humor.
Earlier this month, I was cruising through Pinterest when a pin caught my eye. It was a conversation between Garcia and one of the new actors on the show, Adam Rodriguez who plays SSA Luke Alvez. I read the pin and got excited. It seemed the show hadn’t lost its funny bone after all.
Y’all. I still miss the banter between Morgan and Garcia, but what’s between Garcia and Alvez is almost as good and even better in some ways. We all rooted for a romantic relationship to develop between Morgan and Garcia, but we all also knew that ship was never going to sail. Garcia and Alvez, though—well, that’s another story. She wants to flirt with him so bad, but unlike Morgan she like likes him, so she yells at him instead, and he makes it his life’s mission to wear her down, resulting in some really funny stuff. It’s fantastic.
Then there’s SSA Dr. Spencer Reid. If you’ve never seen the show, he’s a boy-genius with Ph.Ds in three different subjects and Bachelor’s degrees in two others. When he starts spouting off random factoids, the nerd in me rejoices. I love that he makes being a nerd cool. I wish younger people could see how awesome the super smart people are and not wait until they’re in their late twenties and older before they figure it out. There’d be a lot fewer bullied kids if that were the case.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. After fifteen seasons, the last episode aired just a couple weeks ago. Now, I have to be content with reruns. Thank God for Netflix.
So, what do you binge watch?