(S02E06) So long Agent Greenaway. Elle is no longer employed with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. It was kind of slow though, wasn't it? I was hoping for a more, I don't know, intriguing or exciting close to Elle's story. Maybe she admits to killing in cold blood or does something to partially redeem herself? Nope. Instead, she blew off work, skipped a psych evaluation, and went to visit her father's grave. Lots of soul searching I guess. She was close to her father though. If you remember the season premiere, she spoke with him in her dream.

But at the end of the episode, it was clear her head was no longer in the game. I'm not sure that Hotch fired her but there was some sort of understanding between them. He didn't want her on the team anymore and she didn't want to be there. So she handed in her gun and badge. I wasn't a big fan of her attitude though. I didn't like that she felt as though the team wasn't behind her (not true) and the crack about Hotch never smiling (also not true) was just mean-spirited even though she delivered it sarcastically. I was initially against Lola Glaudini leaving the show and I'm not sure if the writers did it on purpose, but I feel good about it now. I'm looking forward to what Paget Brewster can bring to the table. Alrighty, on to the rest of the episode.

(S02E05) This is the kind of episode that Criminal Minds needs to have every couple of weeks. It's fine to have some installments that are all about a case and only a case. But every now and then, we need the case to impact the team members somehow. Think Six Feet Under and how the opening death scene often related to the rest of the episode. If this show wants some serious longevity, like 5 or 6 seasons instead of 2 or 3, we need stuff to happen to our beloved BAU team.

Now we've known for a few weeks that Elle is being written out of the show and up until now, we've had no indication as to how that would be done. Well we do now and hats off to the writers for not taking the easy route and just killing her off or having her transfer. They've given Elle a really good final story-line and I'm looking forward to it's conclusion next week. At least I assume that next week is the conclusion... I wonder who her replacement will be?

(S02E04) I think I figured out the one thing I want this show to have. Some kind of ongoing storyline. I know there's plenty of serialized stuff on TV right now but I really think something that ties this show together, episode by episode, would help a lot. The reason I say all this is that we got a little taste of it tonight... needs more though. For viewers of the show, it's no surprise that Hotch and his wife have been having problems. The guy works too much, he's never home, and he's missing his son grow up. Instead of getting some lengthy scenes with Hotch and his wife (there was a short one), we instead got a case that seems have Hotch evaluating what he does for a living. Job might finally be getting to him.

I can't say that I was pleased with this episode. Thus far, the hallmark of a Criminal Minds episode is that is throws you for a loop because you have no idea what's around the next turn. This episode... not so much. It was pretty predictable and I found myself fast-forwarding (thank you TiVO) through some of the drawn out scenes.

The team (including Garcia... I love that she's in the everyday cast now) are sent to Florida to grill a serial killer couple 35 hours before their execution. Why you ask? Because the whereabouts of the couple's son is still unknown (he's dead as far as they can tell) and it's possible that they killed more girls than originally thought. Time's running out.