MORGAN: Why The Woods, JJ?JJ: Hmm?MORGAN: Your Fear. You Said It Was Of The Woods.JJ: (ominous Music)

MORGAN: Why the woods, JJ? JJ: Hmm? MORGAN: Your fear. You said it was of the woods. JJ: (ominous music) Uh, I used to be a camp counsellor when I was a teenager in the woods up in Vermont. I had the night shift. Tuck the girls in and turn off the lights. You know, the typical drill. Everything seemed fine, all the kids were asleep. You know, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until I noticed that there was some blood on the hallway floor. (reid and morgan make eye contact) So, I followed the blood trail out to the camp director's cabin. Walked up to his bed and he was just lying there underneath his covers, dead. (morgan raises his brows and reid looks at him again) Someone stabbed him. I ran out of there so fast. Out the door, down the hall. I just...I remember it being really dark. Once I got to the door, there was another counsellor there. I guess she heard me scream. They caught the caretaker on his way out of town. I guess he still had the knife on him. Anyway, I guess that's probably when I decided I didn't like the woods. MORGAN: You're serious? JJ: REID: JJ: No. (ominous music stops, jj scoffs) No. I can't...you fell for that? Come on. I don't know why I'm afraid of the woods. I just...I am. (gesturing at Reid) Why is he still afraid of the dark?

jennifer jareau how does it feel to be the funniest person in the world. is it funnier if this is a story she regularly tells to fuck with people or if she came up with it on the spot? i cant decide

bonus:

MORGAN: Yeah, Reid, why are you still afraid of the dark? REID: Because of the inherent absence of light! JJ: (disbelieving, hitting his arm) Oh! MORGAN: JJ, that was pretty good. Just know that paybacks are a bitch. JJ: (sarcastic) I'm shaking.

I will. probably watch s0202 p911 today? If not I’ll do two episodes tomorrow. you know the drill (I say, yelling into the void)

anyway: i think hotch lets elle blame him for her shooting, and more broadly considers being the de facto scapegoat as part of his job.

granted, there isn't much time for him to respond to this before gideon takes elle out of the room, but i dont get the sense that he was going to defend himself. he could, easily. he could say "the only reason randall garner knew where you lived is because garcia compromised our system by playing an online game on our wifi" or "the only reason randall garner went to shoot you is because gideon chose to hold a press conference and break the one rule he gave us" or "the only reason you got shot is because anderson left after taking you home." (please note: i am not saying "silly elle! blaming hotch when all these other people are at fault!" i am saying "hotch has several people he can deflect blame onto, but he doesn't)

i didnt think to get a sc of it, but after her shooting, he even says "i should have been clearer with anderson," pulling blame away from anderson and onto himself even though his immediate reaction to elle's shooting is to be angry with anderson.

i think that contrasts him pretty interestingly with gideon, whose reaction to elle's shooting is to reassure himself that the press conference was the right decision, and that "elle will understand."

(disclaimer: i'm going to rewatch s02e06 the boogeyman tomorrow, which i havent watched in a while. there might be stuff in that episode that adds to or detracts from this analysis. i'll update if that episode changes my feelings)

GODDDDD. can we talk about hotch cleaning elle's blood off the wall himself. he could so easily have had anyone else do it but he does it himself and he does it alone. because he feels singularly guilty. can we talk about it. godddd. im going to come back to this (to his guilt specifically) when it becomes relevant again but for now just lay on the floor with me

goddddd motel scene time. i have a lot of thoughts on it and hopefully i'll be able to put them into some kind of order.

ELLE: After he shot me, he reached into my wound so he could write on the wall in my blood. I was barely conscious, but I...I could feel his hand in there. And sometimes it's like I can still feel it. REID: Elle, he's dead. You're...You're right here. You won.

obviously this is an unhelpful thing to say. i dont think that makes reid evil, or a bad friend, i think it makes him a twenty-four-year-old who's struggling to understand a situation he's never been in.

i dont think elle resents him for it. im sure there's frustration, deservedly so, but i dont think it's targeted at reid, more at the general sense of Nobody Is Getting Me. especially this expression here:

in the moment, this doesnt read to me as anger. it's certainly not a happy smile; she's not comforted by what reid says because it's not a comforting thing to say, and i think it sort of develops into anger later, but in the moment, she doesn't resent him for not being able to say the right thing. again, there's frustration, because he doesn't get it. he can't (not yet, anyway). a part of her wishes he did, a part of her wishes somebody did, and yet a different part of her hopes none of them ever do, because it's an awful, awful thing to understand.

i headcanon that reid and elle stay in contact after elle leaves, but i dont think its immediate. i flipflop between two reasons

reid doesnt reach out because he feels guilty, like if he had just said the right words in the right order in that motel room, she would have stayed. i think this is generally how reid responds to abandonment (and sometimes just conflict in general). if i had just said the right thing, done that differently, been better, i could have fixed it. boy is...a little emotionally stunted. if he was a stage of grief he would be bargaining. do you get me.

reid does reach out, but elle doesn't respond. maybe she's still angry about him not being able to Get It, maybe she wants to distance herself from the bau in general, maybe him not Getting It hurts in particular because they were quite close, etc.

either way, they get back in contact post s02e15, when reid texts her a barely coherent rambling apology for that night, how it was an unsympathetic and unhelpful thing to say, and he does get it now, and he's sorry, there is no winning—

she calls him.

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i love love LOVE this blog so much. your thoughts are brilliant

thank you so much!! that's really kind of you =] this is how i enjoy pretty much all media and its nice to see other people feel similarly