Criminal Minds 7x08: Hope

Original Air Date: 16 November 2011

Storyline: Garcia asks the team for help after a woman in her survivors' support group disappears on the seventh anniversary of her daughter's disappearance.Best Quote:

Garcia: We are each on our own journey. Each of us are on our very own adventure encountering all kinds of challenges and the choices we make on that adventure will shape us as we go. Those choices will stretch us and test us and push us to our limit. And our adventure will makes us stronger than we ever knew we could be.

Intro: "Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark." George Iles (Garcia)Outro: There's a quote by my favorite author, Joseph Campbell, and it goes like this: "Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." (Garcia)Review: This week's episode was very centered on Garcia and her feelings towards losing yet another person that she loved. But most of all, the episode was incredibly creepy, You got a guy who saw his ideal woman and decided to abduct her when she was just an eight-year old happy girl with pigtails. Then, after she committed suicide and took the life of her unborn child in the process, he decides to abduct her mother as well, in order to recreate his ideal woman. As I said, creepy, and the addition of computer generated butterflies didn't help. Plus, when Monica found the body of her daughter, I half expected Dr. Brennan to come into the room and start analyzing the remains.

I don't necessarily have a problem with this episode being so focused on Garcia, as I have about the fact that the kidnapping of a friend of hers immediately got picked up as a case for the BAU. I thought they had to be invited by the local police in order to be able to investigate a case. Oh well, plot holes are not uncommon so I guess I can get behind that.
I loved the profiling work they did this week. Everyone contributed with something, which is rare, and I was glad to see Rossi come up with the final image for once. We don't see much of Prentiss these days - maybe the writers are taking a break from the long running plot of her death, but she and JJ did a great job getting to Hope's childhood friend and finding out the truth about how Bill was able to kidnap her. And of course, there was Dr. Reid and his geographical profiling; I swear, this guy's love of maps is uncanny! I can hardly picture him anymore without having him point out at one, and that kind of kills the whole fantasy. He's still my favorite doable geek out there though.
The case itself - and following Monica as she followed each step of her daughter's abduction - kept me on the edge for most of the hour. It was as fast paced and thrilling as a criminal case should be and having the emotional component of Garcia's connection to the victim added even more to it. Penelope herself amazed me with her strength, as she put herself in the middle of the investigation and even in the position of being a hostage negotiator. 
I'm very excited about the character development this season and hope to see more of Reid (I feel like I'm repeating myself, but I love the guy, can't help it) and maybe Morgan. They are the only two who didn't get the personal element this fall.  
Overall, this didn't seem like a midseason finale, but then again, not all shows go for that and this definitely isn't a supernatural series with a majority of teenager audience. The show will return in December and all I'm left with now if to fill my Wednesday nights with some reruns until then. Criminal Minds 7x07: There's No Place Like Home Back to Season 7