Criminal Minds Season 19 Episode 9 Review: Special Agent Brian Garrity? Not So Fast — But In a Pinch? Sure!

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

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The Fan has a name. It’s James Crowley, which must be an alusion to Aleister Crowley, once called the wickedest man in the world.

You’d never guess that one of the men who would help bring him down would be the buffoon Brian Garrity, but if you can suspend your disbelief long enough, it makes for a somewhat enjoyable episode.

“Special Agent Brian Garrity” was quite the counter to Criminal Minds Season 19 Episode 8, which was so dark and dastardly that I needed a mental flush afterward.

Before we begin, I want to send a message to the Criminal Minds overlords. While it worked during Criminal Minds Season 16 to introduce Tyler and subsequently bring him on board the team, I hope we’re not doing the same with Brian.

I’ll admit he’s smarter than I once thought. He held up well during a situation when he really shouldn’t have, but let’s not make him a permanent member of the BAU. Please and thank you.

He was the center of Criminal Minds Season 19 Episode 9, as you can tell by the title. He was tied to almost all of the action. And… I didn’t hate it. They’ve done incredible character work with him of late, that’s for sure.

Can we talk about Brian’s peripheral vision, though? TV, in general, likes to make us believe it’s an inherent trait most of us don’t have.

But when Brian walked into the happiest place on earth for him and Sheila, he was expecting to see her, which would have made NOT seeing her tied up in the line of his vision as ridiculous as it turned out to be.

It turns out The Fan didn’t have OCD, but OCPD. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. Prentiss summarized it like this: You can function as a psychopath as long as you’re perfect at it.

It seems more like narcissistic personality disorder but with murder. Or something.

Brian didn’t know Tara had altered her theory, and when he told The Fan about OCD, The Fan revealed something about his first kill (he felt nothing) and how different his current situation was.

He is absolutely certain they will never find him.

Well, we knew that wasn’t going to be the case. But was it really going to be as easy as Garcia pinging the phone and rushing on over?

Why was Sheila so calm? Not only does she work for the IRS, but she was also married to Brian, which is enough to make anyone learn how to manage stress.

Then the IRS showed up, and I thought, yeah, she’s not with the IRS in the traditional sense. She’s hardly looking over tax returns.

I thought, given the IRS guy’s cagey answers, there was no way Sheila was an average IRS agent. But this isn’t a blockbuster movie, either. It’s not like Sheila was Mrs. Smith looking for her Mr. Smith.

And yet, there Sheila was dodging questions from Brian as they were both being held by the friggin’ Fan.

Brian’s assessment of the secret cabal within the IRS seriously raised that possibility, though. And honestly, this was a little too “funny.” This isn’t The X-Files, where the absurd regularly marries the darkness.

Yet Brian has been comic relief the whole time, and his ex, being played by Yvette Nicole Brown and Justin Kirk as The Fan, wasn’t giving True Detective-level darkness.

Hell, even Voit’s conversations with a continuously bourbon-guzzling Rossi have been, more or less, played for laughs.

It counters my feelings from the earliest episodes of Criminal Minds Season 19, when I complained it was too dark. So, here I am. Confused. It’s almost as if we aren’t supposed to take this series-long arc of The Fan seriously.

And why did The Fan want to get arrested? Obviously, part of his OCPD, but there was an entire episode’s worth of material left to unfold.

The BAU got to work comically trying to flip James Crowley into his Fan persona to give himself away, from showing him fonts and spilling coffee on them. But when he failed to “flinch,” according to Alvez, they wondered if they should just call it. He’s not the guy.

Sorry, but he did flinch. He didn’t freak out, but he stopped, took a deep breath, looked to the side, and centered himself. Yes, he picked those fonts and pages for precise reasons, but he’s not some random goon, either.

If you go to those great lengths to get something done right, wouldn’t you also train yourself to react less outrageously when something falls apart?

They brought Lance Kingston from Criminal Minds Season 19 Episode 4 to identify Crowley, but he lied. Prentiss realized he couldn’t be trusted, and to save Brian, Sheila, and Laura, they let the guy go, hoping to follow.

But who rigged Rossi’s car spike? How would either Crowley or Lance know which car they would use to follow them? Surely, it wasn’t a coincidence. It’s too significant.

But then we discovered that the whole reason for this charade of an episode was that Sheila’s true work with the IRS is as liaison for the WitSec program, which is where Crowley can find Voit’s family. That’s his ultimate goal.

At least that makes sense in terms of the story.

Because while Rossi was excited to “fuck Elias Voit and Lee Duvall because we’ll find The Fan without him,” Voit was leaning even more on his visions of Rossi.

He was bleary-eyed and concerned about his family. He knows enough about criminal behavior to know that The Fan would do exactly what he’d do himself. Go after his family.

Nobody wanted to believe him that they were truly in danger because if 19 years with the BAU has clearly proven anything, it’s that this stuff is never right, right? Wrong.

These gut feelings are always right, and it’s as aggravating as their lack of peripheral vision that they’d even for a second make an assumption otherwise.

It’s even worse since Crowley still has Laura, and Lance is unable to help anyone, knowing she’s unsafe.

The BAU knew enough to bring him in to identify The Fan, but not enough to consider that Voit’s suspicions about his family were any different than what Lance was going through with Laura.

Of course, Criminal Minds Season 19 hasn’t been all about The Fan. They still had other unsubs to track. God forbid, they’re allowed enough time to focus and end someone’s reign of terror before it claims another victim.

But they still know better than to let things get so far out of control.

Lance? Didn’t make it. He should never have been allowed to leave the BAU. Not until they had The Fan in custody.

And why didn’t they have more than one group on the ready to tail Crowley? This is a mass murderer. Surely, more than one car could be used. Even on old shows from the 1970s, multiple squads would be dispatched in the event one was sidelined.

All you needed to do was watch old TV and movies to know that at least one is always taken out. You need backup.

Things were heating up back at the happiest place on earth. When Crowley got back, he let Sheila go for a reason I forget, and Brian gave her a signal to skedaddle out of there for help.

That put his life on the line. Well, more than that. He died. But it’s never that simple.

Crowley got away, and Prentiss saved Brian, calling him a friend for the first time. He’d earned some respect for how he handled the whole thing. I would have spent the episode blubbering and sniffling away the snot running from my nose. Not Sheila and Brian!

Brian doesn’t get the girl, but he gets respect. Not a bad result.

The true showdown will come on Criminal Minds Season 19 Episode 10. Voit has escaped prison. Whether he’s going to find his family or just kill Crowley, I have no idea. Neither would likely be thrilled to see him.

But it does beg the question of where Voit’s story can go from here. Even if he has a valid reason to escape, valid reasons mean nothing here. He’s a serial killer who cannot be free for any reason.

They’ve given him so much rope along the way that this time, he might just hang himself with it. But if he can ensure his family’s safety, it will probably be worth it for him.

What are your theories for the finale? Is this Voit’s last stand? Will the series replace him with James Crowley for Criminal Minds Season 20? I want to hear from you!