Mastodon Mastodon Mastodon Mastodon Mastodon Criminal Minds - Date Night/Rusty - Double Review: “Past, Present, Future”


    Enable Dark Mode!

  • What's HOT
  • Premiere Calendar
  • Ratings News
  • Movies
  • YouTube Channel
  • Submit Scoop
  • Contact Us
  • Search
  • Privacy Policy
Support SpoilerTV
SpoilerTV.com is now available ad-free to for all premium subscribers. Thank you for considering becoming a SpoilerTV premium member!

SpoilerTV - TV Spoilers

Criminal Minds - Date Night/Rusty - Double Review: “Past, Present, Future”

12 Feb 2020

Share on Reddit


Well, this is it. We’re down to the final five episodes of the series, everyone. Wild, I know. And after this week, we’re down to three, because for some reason, CBS decided to combine two episodes into one night yet again, despite the fact that the storylines aren’t connected. Normally, when a show gets to this point in its final season, they typically start tying up loose ends, setting up potential endgames for the characters, wrapping up loose ends to lingering storylines, stuff like that. Of course, that leaves one wondering if “Criminal Minds” is doing this very thing as it wraps up its run.

And after these episodes, the answer would be...yes? We do get an idea of where things look to be heading in regards to a couple team members in particular, and we do (hopefully) close a chapter on a notable unsub once and for all.

Thing is, that unsub is not the Chameleon, who’s been oddly quiet since the season premiere. It’s not even an unsub from a very recent case. No, instead the unsub we deal with in this week’s first episode is one that we thought we’d left behind for good a few seasons ago. There is a reason why they return tonight, but it felt a rather unnecessary one, at least, in my view, and it led to one of the more bizarre episodes in the show’s run. Fortunately, however, the episode ultimately did end on a very positive note.

The second episode was your typical case of the week, a nice comedown from the craziness that is “Date Night”. It was a rather predictable case for the most part, though there were a couple interesting wrinkles along the way. And ultimately, we got a happy ending to that episode, too, a much welcome, direction for the show to be heading as we near the end. With all that said, let’s get into these two episodes – and boy, is the first one a doozy. Buckle up, readers, we’re going in.

Cat vs. Reid, Pt. 3:

A father and daughter are discussing a movie they just saw (she hated it, he loved it). They bump into a strange woman who asks them what happened to some lady named Susan, but since they don’t know who she’s talking about, they pass her by. Once they get to their car, they notice something rather unsettling: a flier on the windshield with their pictures on it, and the words “Have you seen this man, wanted for the murder of Susan?” And when the dad looks up, there’s a crapton of those fliers littering the area. Shades of season three’s “About Face”, anyone? He then hears his daughter, and turns to see the woman they’d bumped into earlier holding her at gunpoint. She orders them both to get in the car.

“Coffee can wait. Go save a life.”

While this is going on, Max, the woman Reid recently met in “Saturday”, shows up at Reid’s place. They’re planning to go out for coffee (it’s their third coffee date), and Max picks him up, in part because she’s curious to see his place. Reid, noticing it’s been some time since he had company, went on a huge cleaning spree beforehand to make the place look presentable. Max finds this amusing, and asks him if he’s okay with them taking things slow. He is, but he’s curious what her definition of “going fast” is.

Before she can answer that question, however, they’re interrupted, with Reid getting a phone call. It’s a case, of course, the one involving the aforementioned father and daughter. But it quickly becomes clear this is not going to be just any routine case. When Reid comes to work, he finds out exactly what’s going on. A particular nemesis from his past has returned, somebody he thought he’d moved past a few years ago, and she is connected to this kidnapping case. Cat Adams. She’s baaaack!

You all remember Cat Adams, of course. She’s a hit woman whom Reid first encountered and took down in “Entropy”, but while in prison, she later got into cahoots with Lindsay Vaughn and plotted to drug Reid in Mexico and frame him for murder, thus leading him to spend months in prison as a result. She also tried to claim that he’d impregnated her (he hadn’t, of course), and used that information to mess with him yet again before he got one up on her at long last at the end of season twelve. She’s obsessed with Reid because, as JJ notes, “he’s the only man to ever outsmart her”.

Cat’s still in prison to this day, but now she’s apparently working with the woman who’s kidnapped the father and daughter. That woman has a particular demand: Release Cat within twenty-four hours, and she’ll let her captives go. At this point, Cat arrives at the BAU, In chains and an orange jumpsuit, ready to face off with Reid once more.

“The only date that I’ll be there for is the one where they stick a needle in your vein.”

Reid, however, is in no mood for her games. He assures her whatever scheme she’s cooked up to try and escape won’t work, but she tells him she’s not looking to escape. She’s plead guilty to all her charges, and has been sentenced to death, so she’s pretty much just biding her time now. All she really wants is to spend some time with Reid before she’s executed, but the request she comes up with is unusual, to say the least. She wants to go on a date with him.

Yeah. For real.

Of course, Reid immediately shoots down this idea (his parting response? “Enjoy eternal nothingness. It’s a metaphor for your life.” Damn), and reacts to her taunts the way one would expect. He calmly leaves the room, goes into another room, and proceeds to undo his tie...before throwing papers all over the place while yelling in frustration. To say Cat’s gotten under his skin would be a wee bit of an understatement.

After he composes himself, Reid meets up with his teammates to discuss what they know about the case thus far. Cat’s victimology has changed from focusing solely on men that resemble her father, and JJ points out that Cat always has an obvious agenda, and then a hidden one. So now they need to figure out that hidden part.

The team soon learns more about Cat’s accomplice. Her name is Juliet (of all the names), and she was a cellmate of Cat’s, in for a few drug charges. The two connected over their shared tragic pasts regarding their parents (their fathers killed their mothers – the “Susan” Juliet asked about at the beginning is Cat’s mom), and that gave Cat an opportunity to groom and manipulate Juliet into her scheme, just as she’d done with Lindsay. The discovery about Susan also reveals that Cat has a half-sister, whom she’s very reluctant to speak about with Reid. Just as taking this father is her form of revenge, so too is taking the daughter.

Elsewhere, Garcia gets a flood of phone calls from people on one particular street, all of them complaining about the fliers plastered everywhere (which had her number on them) and also gets an e-mail of a video showing Juliet with her victims, and shooting at the father. She shot blanks that time, but the message she’s sending is clear.

At one point, Reid checks in with Max to see how she’s doing. She mentions a job offer at the Smithsonian, then asks how his case is going. Understandably, he’s reluctant to explain the entire crazy saga that is Cat Adams to her. After their chat, he turns his focus back to Cat, who really wants this date. Specifically, she wants to go ice skating. Oooookay, then. Reid still isn’t interested, but Emily, surprisingly, suggests they go through with the plan. Doing so may make it easier to get Cat to open up, she reasons. So Reid basically has no choice but to go along with this insanity.

As Cat, now out of her prison garb and all dressed up for an evening out, walks arm in arm with Reid into the elevator, boy, does the expression on Reid’s face say it all. This is the face of a man who is questioning every single one of his life choices right now. Either that or he’s plotting all sorts of ways to kill Cat and/or possibly Emily, one of the two.

“You know we just had our first fight, right?”

Cat’s not pleased about the particular rink they go to, and threatens to call off the date, but Reid, at this point, just does not give a damn. He’s in full on glorious snark mode, going so far as to point out that it’s their “anniversary”, so it’s this or nothing. She ultimately agrees, and they go inside, where Luke and some snipers are standing guard. You know, your usual date fare. There’s also a sign that lights up that says “CAT + SPENCIE 4-EVR!”, which makes Cat happy. She and Reid begin skating, and I’m sitting here wondering what even is happening on my television right now. I mean, I’ve seen some weird stuff go down on this show over the years, but this...this is something.

Of course, Reid is awkward on skates, but that doesn’t stop him from focusing on Cat. He asks about her baby, and she instantly closes off. She then tries to hit on him, but he, naturally, resists. This offends her, and she brings their date to a swift end by slapping him hard across the face. Whoa. Reid covers with all the sweet words she wants to hear, admitting he can’t get her off his mind and no woman could compare to her. The guy is smooth. That’s when she asks him about Max. She’s shocked to learn they haven’t even kissed yet. Once she learns she’s been to his place, however, Cat decides she needs to go there, too. So they do, because why the hell not at this point?

While Reid’s on his date from hell, the rest of the team is trying to solve another mystery. During her fight with Reid at the rink, Cat mentions the number twenty-three, and the team concludes the number is related to a familial DNA test. And indeed, Cat’s lawyer had been in touch with her about some results of that sort. This ultimately leads JJ to where the father and daughter were being held captive, but upon arriving, the daughter is gone. JJ asks the man about Cat, but he hasn’t the foggiest clue who she’s talking about.

That’s when JJ makes a surprising discovery: the victims aren’t, as initially suspected, Cat’s father and half-sister. They’re connected to Max! Juliet had kidnapped her father and her sister. Not Michelle, whom we briefly met in “Saturday”, but Max’s other sister, her younger one, named Eloise. So Cat’s main target is Max, and now she and Reid are on their way to his apartment, where Max is waiting.

“What is this sick, twisted thing that you have?!”

As if things aren’t awkward enough already, when they arrive at his place, Cat plants a big ol’ kiss on Reid, just in time for Max to see the whole ugly scene. Fortunately, Max is pretty well caught up on the situation, and Reid tells her to play along. Now it’s just Reid, Cat, and Max alone together. Raise your hands if you’re getting Diane/Maeve and Maggie/Lila vibes at this point!

Initially, Cat taunts Max about Eloise. Seems Juliet’s taking her to see her boyfriend, who’s currently In prison. She wants to kill him, to teach Eloise a lesson about men in general, which leads Cat to really up the ante. She tells Max she could do better than Reid for a boyfriend. “He’s not my boyfriend,” Max instantly replies, and Reid looks rather wounded by that comment.

Cat then proceeds to tell Max all the things that Reid had said about her at the skating rink, and things get even worse when she brings up Reid had physically attacking her during their last confrontation. Remember that? She’d mocked his mom, and he snapped, choking her and even threatening to kill her in the process. Reid admits it, and also mentions that Cat was pregnant when he attacked her, and he knew that. Cat then drops a bombshell: his attack led her to suffer a miscarriage the next day. OOF.

Max is, obviously, stunned to hear about all of this. This is not the sweet, innocent Spencer Reid she’d first met in the park, which is precisely what Cat wants her to realize. He’s no different than Max’s last boyfriend. Yes, Cat knows about him, too – girl is scary good at staking people. Max, desperate to save her sister, eventually opens up about him, and her story is intense. His name was Mike, and they’d dated for two years. She reveals he was abusive, to the point where she crossed the state line to get a permit for a gun. She never went to the hospital, because he hit her where it wouldn’t show.

She then began plotting her escape, and one night, she enticed Mike into a fight. He came at her, she shot him, and then she called 911 afterward. Self-defense, all good, except, she confesses, after calling 911, she shot him two more times. Cat, satisfied with this story, gives up where Eloise is, and Max takes off, joining the team to look for her. “I won,” Cat declares, smug. The team does find Eloise, and takes Juliet into custody. Cat is returned to prison. She tells Reid on the way back that she wanted to ensure he’s thinking about her, and, well, mission clearly accomplished. Woman. Is. Psycho.

So that’s that. Cat had one last crazy adventure with Reid. Unfortunately, she also totally destroyed his relationship with Max in the process. Reid looks absolutely dejected as he comes to work the next morning, knowing he’s blown it with what looked to be a very promising relationship.

Or so he thinks. Because as he enters the bullpen, he’s shocked to see Max there, along with his teammates and Max’s father and sister! The team reveals that this whole thing was a setup concocted by all of them. They begin explaining all their different roles in the plan, the way they pretended to be shocked and thrown by various revelations, as well as how they all stayed one step ahead of Cat.

But that’s not the best part. Max was in on everything, too! Her story about Mike? Well, he did exist, and she did date him, and he was a jerk. But he wasn’t abusive, and she didn’t kill him. And her anger at Reid? Fake. Garcia and JJ had briefed her on Cat and Reid’s insane history, as well as Cat’s general M.O., which led Max to this wonderfully awesome conclusion about her: “She’s like a mean girl, but more stabby.” She simply used her experience with queen bees, and played off that, with some help and advice from Tara and Emily. I officially love Max, you guys.

But what about Cat’s miscarriage? Well, sadly, she did lose her baby, but her miscarriage happened months after her confrontation with Reid. He had no role in that whatsoever. Whew. The team explains to Reid that in order for their plan to work, he had to remain completely in the dark. And clearly, it worked. Lesson learned, unsubs: do not mess with the BAU.

Now that’s all settled, Reid finally gets the chance to meet Max’s dad. He seems suitably impressed by Reid (though he’s not her boyfriend, they all remind him!) Eloise approves, too. Later, as Reid and Max walk to the elevator, she asks if he really goes for the bad girls. Reid admits they have an appeal, but he’s pretty happy with this particular good girl. They step into the elevator...and kiss! Woohoo!

So this episode was…weird. Very, very weird. For one thing, as much as I like the back and forth between Cat and Reid (let’s face it, folks, Aubrey Plaza and MGG have a frighteningly good chemistry – honestly, there was a lot more of Gubler on that date than there was Reid), I’m not sure I would’ve used one of the five remaining episodes of this show on a rematch between them. Their history seemed to come to a pretty decent close a few years ago, so it seems odd to bring her back now. I would imagine there’s more important, immediate loose ends worth tying up at the moment instead.

For another, this is not how I personally would’ve written a rematch between them. The date, such as it was, was rather...goofy, and that’s not these two. Their interactions are cool, more intimate, adult. Not this wacky teen outing type stuff. Besides that, they technically already had their date, in “Entropy”. The interaction in that episode perfectly set the tone for their face offs with each other. Maybe this episode could’ve focused on her execution date, with the team racing the clock to get their information. That would’ve been much more intense, and would’ve given a lot more urgency to everything with Max’s father and sister, whose plight seemed to get kinda lost amidst all the other craziness going on.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that, as noted above, this now marks the third time we’ve had a) a girl that Reid likes getting caught up in one of his cases, and b) had another girl trying to get between them. That’s not really a well we needed to revisit, especially considering Maeve’s tragic end. It took Reid a long time to move past that loss, and now he’s kept in the dark as his team plots, along with Max, to get rid of Cat. Thankfully, this had a happy outcome, but it could’ve just as easily fallen apart with one false move. It seemed odd that the team would want to put him in this kind of position again, knowing the potential painful memories it could’ve dredged up.

I also could’ve done without Max seeing Cat and Reid kiss. I’m thankful that she was up on what was really going on there, and they didn’t go the jealous girlfriend route, but it would’ve been better to just avoid that trope altogether.

All of that being said, however, I am happy that this episode did end on a good note. I liked Max being in on the plan – it would’ve been more fun to see her and Reid working together, but it was cool to see her thinking on her feet like she did. I also loved the team’s reveal at the end. It was fun to see how they were one step ahead of Cat all the way, and it was a nice example of them looking out for Reid, and Max as well.

As noted, the chemistry between Cat and Reid does remain as strong as ever, so even with my issues, I did get a kick out of their interaction itself. There were some genuinely funny moments throughout (notably Reid’s reactions). I also appreciate them touching on some of the more uncomfortable aspects of their history, like Reid choking Cat. And given all Reid’s been struggling with lately regarding the job, on that level, Cat’s reappearance makes sense. I can buy her still taking up space in his brain, not because of any attraction, but because so many of his issues in recent years were due to her schemes. Now he can fully move past her and all she’s put him through.

Of course, the best part of the episode was the fact that Max made it through all right, and her relationship with Reid has only strengthened as a result. After everything he’s been through, it’s nice to see him finally starting to get some genuine happiness in his life.

So! That’s the craziness that was “Date Night”. The next episode, “Rusty”, was thankfully much less wild, but still pretty weird in its own right, and rather creepy as well. Let’s see how that one played out, shall we?

The Case:

Two people, Sean and Brenda, are meeting for lunch. They’re discussing Sean’s upcoming adoption of his niece. He’s really looking forward to it. Eventually, they part for the day, but what Sean doesn’t know is that he’s being followed by a man in a station wagon. it’s not long after that that the team gets a video of the stalker, our unsub. He’s in some kind of dingy basement, and shouts into a camera, “Everything is wrong! Everything you know is wrong!” And then he holds up Sean’s head and I actually recoil a little. As if things couldn’t get any weirder, a goat demon that looks remarkably like the one from the show “Evil” makes an appearance, as something the unsub is hallucinating. This is shaping up to be a bizarre two hours, guys, I don’t even know.

Sadly, Sean is the third man who’s been murdered in such a gruesome manner, and the unsub didn’t wait until they were dead to decapitate them. Yikes. That’s not the only connection between the men, either. All of them had some kind of bruising on their chests in the form of some kind of image, All three men were also seen with or around children before they died.

A meeting with a co-worker of Sean’s gives the team some insight into Sean’s situation with his niece. His sister had fallen into some bad times, and so he was in the process of adopting her daughter. Aw. The second, and most interesting, aspect? Brenda was helping him with that adoption. She’s had a history of helping single men adopt kids. A noble effort, right?

Eh, not so fast. Turns out that her motives weren’t quite so altruistic. Garcia soon discovers that Brenda’s been manipulating the system. She takes advantage of these single men’s neediness, and then gets them to fork over a ton of money, manipulating the books and fleecing the men in the process. Lovely.

As the team keeps tabs on Brenda, Reid discovers that the unsub is trying to use the images seen in the bruises to create Schrodinger’s equation. For those who don’t know what that is, basically, it involves quantum mechanics and is connected to the “many worlds”, or parallel universes, theory. So their unsub knows his physics, apparently believes that he’s in a wrong timeline, and that his victims’ heads will somehow help him transition to the right timeline. You know what, I’m just gonna roll with this, though I will say the idea that we’re living in a parallel reality would certainly explain a few things.

As if the parallel universe delusion weren’t enough, the team also believes the unsub is suffering from the Mandela effect, named as a result of people believing Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s, even though that wasn’t true. Basically, it’s what happens when people believe something happened, or was, a certain way when it didn’t, or wasn’t.

So for those of you keeping score at home, we’ve got an unsub chopping off people’s heads, and he’s experiencing the Mandela effect, believes in parallel universes, and sees a goat demon. Got all that? Initially the team thought the unsub was seeking revenge on a father figure, but now they think he’s dealing with intense guilt over his own failure as a father, a tragic loss of some kind.

Thanks to one of the demon hallucinations, we learn the unsub’s name is Kyle, and he’s running out of time to get to his right timeline. This leads him to his next victim, a father with two teenage kids, a boy and a girl. He kills the father, and abducts the kids. When Reid and JJ come across this latest crime scene, they find a video of Kyle apologizing to someone named Ethan. Ethan, the team learns, is Kyle’s young son (seven years old), who tragically died in a horrible car crash seven years prior. Kyle had been driving them home from a movie when he’d hit a patch of black ice and skidded off the road.

Even more horrifying, Ethan was decapitated in the accident. As if things weren’t awful enough, Kyle had been in a coma for a time afterward, and when he came out of it, he struggled to accept Ethan’s death. He’d been in and out of institutions ever since, and was released four months ago, just in time for the anniversary of the crash a couple months later. Naturally, that set him off, and basically, since it’s been seven years since his son’s death, he needs to deliver seven bodies in order to get him back. What’s more, the boy he recently took is the same age Ethan would be now, had he survived.

A sad, unfortunate story, to be sure. Except it’s not quite that simple. Remember Brenda, the woman who was exploiting her clients? She’d worked on Kyle’s case, too. He’d had a history of DUIs, but he’d been getting help, and Brenda aided in him getting custody of Ethan during this time. However, their relationship wasn’t strictly professional, as it’s revealed the two had something of a relationship along the way,

That’s when Emily gets the real story about Kyle’s past. He was about to lose custody of his son, until Brenda worked her magic. Kyle still continued to drink despite this, and was drunk the night of the accident. Brenda, afraid that she’d get in trouble, came up with the black ice story as a cover. Now Emily’s got her over a barrel with this revelation, she must cooperate to help the team find Kyle.

Of course, they do find him, in a gold mine where he’d used to spend time with Ethan. The demon is urging him to kill the boy in exchange for his son. Kyle can’t bring himself to do such an awful thing, though, flashing back to memories of Ethan’s death. Emily talks to him, sympathizing with someone he loves being away from him. Her words sink in, and he’s sobbing and apologizing, first to the kids, then to Ethan. He’s taken away, and the kids are reunited with their mom. And the demon? Turns out it was both the image of himself and a stuffed toy named Rusty that Ethan was holding the night he died.

I guessed fairly early on that the unsub was dealing with the loss of a child, and that the issue of parallel universes involved him wanting to go back to another time to save his son. So it was a little frustrating for me to see the team take so long to get to that conclusion, especially given how sneaky they were in regards to taking down Cat in the prior episode. I also could’ve done without images of severed heads, but it’s “Criminal Minds”, so, y’know, that kind of stuff comes with the territory.

That said, I did like the angle with Brenda taking advantage of her clients. I thought that was a rather intriguing element that helped explain Kyle’s motives, and I would’ve liked to see that explored further. The ending, with Kyle breaking down, was genuinely affecting as well. Yes, his actions led to his son’s death, but it’s also clear he felt legitimately guilty over it. The images of stuffed animals sitting in the backseat of the car really brought home the tragedy of the situation, and Kyle’s loss. I liked how the toy explained the creepy demon vision Kyle kept seeing. It made it more haunting.

I also liked Emily talking down Kyle as she did, even if I feel her attempts to connect with him in regards to somebody you love being in another place were a bit of a stretch, given the differences involved. But it did help tie the two storylines together, so there’s that.

Meanwhile, back at Quantico:

“Take it from a guy who just married his third ex-wife for the second time, all of this work is worth it.”

And just why did Emily sympathize so much with Kyle’s plight? Well, she seems to be struggling with the concept of distance herself. Her situation isn’t tragic, like Kyle’s, but it is enough to have her distracted as her day begins. She’s staring off into space, and not paying attention during a budget meeting. She even tunes out Garcia, but part of that could be due to the fact that Garcia’s hopped up on coffee and rambling about a TV show that’s gotten all kinds of strange.

So who’s got her all distracted? Andrew Mendoza, the guy that Emily met over a year ago on a case he’d worked with the team. They’ve been seeing each other since then, but their relationship has become a long-distance one, as he’s now living in Denver with his daughter Keely. And yes, he was involved on the case the team worked in this episode. Awkward! The team doesn’t exactly help matters, either, with their constant nosiness. Garcia is especially relentless in wanting to know more about him.

Mendoza sends her flowers, and tries to call her a couple times, but she’s hesitant to respond to his gestures. He confronts her about this when they have a free moment at the station, pointing out that she’d canceled a trip to see him and his daughter a couple weeks back. The reason for Emily’s concern is obvious – she’s not dealing with this long-distance thing very well. This has Mendoza wondering if she wants to break up with him, and she insists she doesn’t. They decide to table the discussion for later.

Rossi checks in with Emily later, and she reveals another detail that’s giving her pause. Three months ago, Mendoza had invited her to move to Denver permanently, to live with him and work there. Obviously, Emily turned down that offer. She loves her current job, and doesn’t want to move.

After the case wraps up, there’s one person missing on the plane ride home: Emily. She’s staying behind to spend a little time with Mendoza. He’s already got dinner planned for himself and his daughter, but he invites her to join them. She finally gets to meet Keely, and the two hit it off right away. Everyone sits down together, and things seem to be running smoothly now.

For the rest of the team, the trip home is equally light. JJ brings up the parallel universe discussion, and asks Reid what he’d be doing in another universe, if he weren’t an FBI agent. His answer is adorably weird: he’d be a cowboy, with some acres and horses and cattle. What he’d do with the horses and cattle, he doesn’t know (pet them, he guesses), but it’s just a nice image.

That’s not all, though. He also sees JJ in this universe, with Will and the boys. She’s running a flower shop nearby. And Rossi’s running a saloon, and Garcia’s got a sanctuary for wounded animals. Aw. He’s cut off before he mentions what the rest of the team would be doing, but honestly? I’d watch a show about these guys based around that premise. Hint, hint, CBS.

Rossi joins in the conversation at this point, saying that if he weren’t an agent, he’d be a boxer. He came to this conclusion after a similar discussion over dinner with Muhammad Ali once, and now I want to know how the hell he knew Ali. He can’t recall much else about that conversation, though, because he was, um, a little tipsy, to say the least. They all make a toast, “to paths not taken”.

Again, another happy ending! For the first time in what seems like forever, most of the BAU seems to be in happy places relationship-wise! The only two people who are currently single are Tara and Garcia. It did seem a little odd at first that things ended on such a neat and tidy note for Emily, given she’s always seemed to struggle with long-term relationships, and commitment. I honestly thought she was going to break things off there for a while, so the ending did surprise me a little in that regard.

That said, I do like Mendoza, and I like seeing Emily happy, too, so I am glad that things turned out okay. Her interaction with Keely was sweet, too. Emily’s always been good with kids, so it didn’t surprise me they’d hit it off. I did find it amusing how the others kept talking about her relationship while working a case, though. I know they tend to be rather nosy in general, and I get Mendoza wanting to talk to Emily while she’s in town, but still, time and place. No wonder she felt anxious.

Okay! And we’re done. Whew. Quite a lot to absorb, huh. Three episodes left to go now. I can’t believe we’re so close to the finish line already. Let’s see what other sorts of craziness, if any, is yet to come.

What did you think of this episode? Did you see the reveal with the team’s plan coming? Did you enjoy seeing Cat Adams again? Are you surprised that both relationships survived these rollercoaster stories? What do you think will ultimately happen with Emily and Mendoza? What kinds of parallel universes would you like to see for these guys? Or, what would your lives be like in a parallel universe? Share your thoughts in the comments!