HOTCH: Hey, What Are You Doing Here?HALEY: Your Cellphone Kept Going Straight To Voicemail.HOTCH: (stammering)

HOTCH: Hey, what are you doing here? HALEY: Your cellphone kept going straight to voicemail. HOTCH: (stammering) Yeah. No, I was in a meeting. Is everything alright? HALEY: Going out of town? HOTCH: Yeah, we've got to go to LA. I was going to call you from the car. (beat) What is it? HALEY: You really don't know why I'm here? HOTCH: Honey, I'm sorry. We're running late. HALEY: (sighs) I just got back from the hospital. Jack. HOTCH: (putting his hand on his head) Oh, my God. The tests. HALEY: Yeah. HOTCH: What happened? HALEY: He's got a condition. It's treatable and he's going to be okay. HOTCH: Honey, I'm sorry. (beat) How was he? HALEY: Scared. They put those electrodes all over him and he was wondering where his daddy was. (walking forward) Babe, you promised you'd be there. HOTCH: I know. I'm sorry. (beat) Where is he now? HALEY: At home with my mom. I didn't want him here while we were talking. Look, I know this job is important to you. But we're important, too. HOTCH: You don't have to tell me that. HALEY: I don't want you to wake up someday in some random city and realise that you don't know your own son. HOTCH: ...They can go without me. HALEY: No, they can't. It's okay. Go. We'll talk about it when you get home. HOTCH: I'm so sorry. (they kiss as Hotch leaves) Sorry.

haha im so glad this is the only conflict they have and everything is fine in their relationship for the rest of forever. haha. ha. hh.

hey simon mirren? what the fuck was this:

(it's a little hard to tell from the image, but elle's "it's totally you" reads to me as earnest, if slightly teasing)

am i supposed to think elle is being sarcastic? because it's not coming off that way to me—although caveat that i am autistic and bad at reading tone. is it platonic? it doesn't read platonic to me. and not because "oh my god a man and a woman complimented eachother. they must be in love" but. im sorry im legitimately trying to read this scene from any angle other than "there is mutual attraction" and i am not finding it! am i biased because i ship them or is this scene legitimately just Like That.

EDIT: forgot that this happens like a minute later. what the fuck!!! you cant do this to me!!!

oh.

man criminal minds is just full of these lines that never ever come back. nothing in this scene causes me immense pain in hindsight.

(also: just because it's a little hard to tell from the screencaps and I'm unsure if this is information that's okay to include in Alt Text given that it's context not included in the screencaps—here is the conversation with who says what.

ELLE: You know how many rapists I saw walk during my Sex Crime days? [...] It was enough to make you explode.

JJ: Well, it's a long way from feeling like that and actually committing murder. Don't you think?

HOTCH: Oh, not really.

so. potentially slightly controversial opinion amongst elle fans: i really like her departure.

i think it's very thoughtfully written. the fatal flaw that contributes to her departure (her impulsivity) is shown and named in the very first episode. the trauma she suffers in the season one finale also contributes significantly, and i believe the implications i and others picked up on that there was something related to SA in her background were intentional, and even though we never got confirmation on that, elle does still express a specific hatred of sex offenders and briefly relates to the vigilante unsub in a real rain.

it makes sense. it's tragic, but it makes sense. elle has a special hatred for sex offenders. at the time of the episode, she's recently suffered a trauma wherein her home was invaded and she was, in a way, violated. (although no sexual assault happens, a man shooting a woman and then reaching into her wound, coupled with her later feeling that she can sometimes still feel his hand there, does have heavy and likely intentional imagery paralleling sexual assault). it's entirely plausible that a case concerning a man who is both a home invader and a rapist would push her to the edge.

i don't know how soon the writers knew lola glaudini would be leaving the show, but whether they knew late in season one and set up foreshadowing, or they knew later and referred to elle's previous statements, implied backstory, and canonical trauma in writing her departure, i think they did a really good job. a long-running show like criminal minds is pretty much guaranteed to have a lot of cast turnover and i wish it was this well-written more often.

if i could change one thing about the way elle's departure was written, i could have used a little more nuance, maybe changed the way some of the characters spoke about her, and referenced her more often later on. (when i say "the way some of the other characters spoke about her" i am not saying that i wish all the characters had gone "what elle did was fine. that rapist deserved to die." i wish we had gotten to see varied opinions amongst the team (without any of them being treated as having The Wrong Opinion) and that she had been discussed with more sympathy given the lead-up to her choices). referencing departed characters more often is something i wish was done in general. i wouldnt want it to be every episode, because that would be obnoxious, or even that often at all, but sometimes it feels like when the characters remember someone who left the team, it's because the writers remembered, if that makes sense?)

ELLE: Key? MORGAN: No, I got one.

i love love LOVE this blog so much. your thoughts are brilliant

thank you so much!! that's really kind of you =] this is how i enjoy pretty much all media and its nice to see other people feel similarly