Criminal Minds 7x07: There's No Place Like Home

Original Air Date: 9 November 2011

Storyline: After a series of tornadoes strike Kansas, the BAU is called to investigate when torn bodies of young boys are discovered in the aftermath of the storms in Wichita. Meanwhile, JJ faces pressure at home as well as at work.Trivia: The tornado in this episode was referred to as an F-2, which is an obsolete classification and was discontinued in 2007. The correct classification should have been EF-2 from the Enhanced Fujita Scale that is currently being used to describe tornadoes.

The book about Baby Star that was being read to Henry by JJ in the final scene was especially created for this episode because no other classic children's books could be cleared due to copyright issues. Virgil Williams wrote the verses himself while thinking of his own children.
Henry, JJ's son in this episode, is portrayed by AJ Cook's real-life son, Mekhai Andersen.
The character of Roscoe Gulch was named after Miss Gulch, the character portrayed by Margaret Hamilton in the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz. Also, Garcia uses a classic expression used by the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz when commanding her flying monkeys to find Dorothy - "Fly, my pretties, fly", when she tells the team "On it, my pretties."

Best Quote:

Reid: It's Frankenstein.
Morgan: What?
Reid: The UnSub isn't just trying to put his brother back together, he's trying to bring him back from the dead. He believes that tornadoes have the power to take lives, so conversely they should have the power to restore it.

Intro: "For the man sound of body and serene of mind, there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously." George Gissing (Hotch)Outro: "Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are." Arthur Golden (JJ)Reid's Facts: You know, turbulence very rarely causes planes to crash. What we really need to worry about are microbursts, sudden downbursts of air associated with thunderstorms. But a small craft like this, if we hit one of those at the wrong altitude... pulverized.Review: The story of Frankenstein finds a new a gruesome life when a serial killer tries to revive hid dead brother by killing adolescent boys and cutting their body parts, in hopes of assembling an entire body. Creepy? You bet. But it's not unusual for Criminal Minds, a show so dark it makes me wonder about the writers' sanity sometimes. But that's what I love about it.

My knowledge about tornadoes comes from The Wizard of Oz (cleverly referenced in this episode) and some movie I remember seeing about tornado chasers, which taught me about the Fujita scale, but that was basically it. I just know never to set foot into Kansas, or else I may end up in the air and wooshed away to a land populated by witches, talking lions and scarecrows. Or ripped away in pieces, much like the street hustler Travis James was dismembering in order to build himself a new and improved big brother.
Putting the team in the middle of tornado season gave us some great special effects, that one might expect from a movie, not from a TV series with limited budget. I loved it that didn't count the pennies and made everything so real. It also gave Reid the opportunity to scare the crap out of Rossi with his knowledge about turbulence and microbursts that could make their plane break into small pieces. His bluntness is adorable; after all, why wouldn't the others want to know the dangers they are facing, just to be prepared, right? I just loved his confused expression when both Garcia and Rossi said he scares them sometimes. 
He was also the one who did most of the thinking - or at least the one who came with the correct theory about the UnSub's delusion. If it weren't for his beautiful brains and Garcia's speedy fingers, they wouldn't have found Travis before he would have assembled the body of his "brother". 
The personal element this week was JJ's family life. It's something that has been hinted to ever since the beginning of the season and I feared things between her and Will weren't as good as I'd hoped. The disagreement was because of her work hours, which left her little time with her husband and her son. I'm with Will on this, though I'm happy to see JJ back in the BAU. She is the only one with a somewhat normal personal life and the show needs to preserve this - the light behind all the darkness, the hope that there can be more than just death and misery. Plus, I've always had a little crush on Josh Stewart and I'd be heartbroken if he'd left the show for good.
And how cute is AJ Cook's son, Mekhai, who played her TV son, Henry? He is just adorable, as was the Baby Star story she read to him at bedtime. We need more of these moments in this show, and I'm also hoping Reid's personal life - the headaches, his mother's condition - will come up during this season as well.Criminal Minds 7x06: Epilogue Back to Season 7