Oh I Know Garcia Bragged About This For Weeks.

oh i know garcia bragged about this for weeks.

I see a lot of people making jokes about how this line from Reid is him being sarcastic/funny/sassy insert adjective here but I just...cannot see that, for a number of reasons. I may just be autistic and shit at reading expressions/tone of voice, but to me he seems very sincere. (Well, projecting the image of sincerity. I doubt Reid can somehow actually see somebody else's hallucination.)

First: At this moment, "Ted, you're hallucinating. There's nobody sitting there. Leo is not real," will not only not help, but could even cause the deaths of Reid or any of the other hostages. Instead, Reid reasons out where Ted is seeing Leo based on where in the air he addresses him, and then addresses Leo as if he really is sitting there.

(Normally, I don't believe this is how you're supposed to handle someone in a psychotic break. The general advice I see is to not confirm their delusion, but don't deny it either. Instead, confirm the feelings. So the response to someone who believes they have a government tracking device wouldn't be "there isn't a government tracking device in your arm, you're in psychosis" or "yes, there is a government tracking device in your arm" but "that must be really upsetting. I'd be scared if the government was tracking me, too." However, I usually see that advice being addressed to healthcare workers and family members, not people being held hostage in a train, so I assume there's some leeway. Also—if you get nothing else from this post, get this: this is not advice. I am not a medical professional. I am talking about the real-world advice I see in comparison with the actions of a fictional character, not dispensing advice.)

Second, related to the first: If Reid was trying to be funny here like some people seem to think, that would be...incredibly reckless? Like How to Get a Bunch of People Killed and/or Get Fired 101. Why would he do that. This is not the time for bits.

Third: I don't think Reid, who has a loved one with schizophrenia, would make fun of someone in psychosis.

(It's entirely possible that people are joking when they say/imply that Reid is trying to be funny here, or that they think this is a funny line. I still disagree with the second—this moment actually really jumped out at me when I first watched this episode because of the strategy behind it—but, you know. Disclaimer that I might just, again, be autistic and misunderstanding people.)

can't post it because it's hard to communicate through screencaps and i dont know how to get video but the poker scene at the end of s01e12 what fresh hell is immaculate. the way reid says "two pair...of aces." the team's reactions. morgan shoving reid. morgan doing the "yap yap yap" motion with his hand while reid says that poker is math. hotch saying "he's from vegas." i've rewinded it three times this rewatch and im probably going to go rewind it again. it's perfect. if anyone has video or gifs of it i will love you forever if you share them.

OUGGGGH i never noticed this. elle my bbg. i will come back to this later when it's relevant. ow.

Made a chart for sorting fantheories

this scene makes me need to lay down. goddddd.

sometimes i get the sense that reid is more attached to gideon than gideon is to reid. obviously they both serve as surrogates for the family member each is estranged from (gideon is estranged from his son and reid is estranged from his dad) but.

you know. reid clings to gideon, not physically but emotionally, and i think a lot of his wellbeing at the start of the series relies on gideon's presence. gideon almost certainly knows the most about reid out of anyone on the team—i don't think canon ever says that reid has told gideon about diana, but i would imagine he has—and i think reid feels understood by him in a way he doesn't by other people, even compared to the rest of the team who (mostly) try their best. i think he also tends to try to be as good and deserving as possible of gideon's presence, since he definitely at least partially feels like his father left because he wasn't good enough.

on the flipside, while gideon definitely sees reid as a son, he's...not the best dad. i think we see him repeating a lot of the mistakes that drove a wedge between him and stephen with reid, and i think that had mandy patinkin stayed on, we would have gotten a larger parallel there. he holds him at arms length, trying not to get too close, although he definitely cares about him more than he lets on and the mask slips sometimes, like this moment and on the plane after ldsk.