Broken Mirror (2005) User Reviews (8)

Among the better episodes of Season 1

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 1 October 2016]

Season 1 got off to a strong start. It did have a hit-and-miss patch after "The Fox" (one of the best-written episodes of 'Criminal Minds'), but still remained watchable. "Broken Mirror" is one of the early episodes and is a very good and often great episode.

'Criminal Minds' have generally had a good track record with their kidnapping episodes (with a few exceptions, in recent memory an example being "The Boys of Sudworth Place"), "Broken Mirror" is one of their better examples. The only strange scene is the team letting off steam in the kitchen, which couldn't have happened at a more inappropriate time and place.

That aside, "Broken Mirror", while taking a little time to tell the story (which with a lot of information to absorb works in its favour, is tense and suspenseful, the scene with Gideon cutting off the unsub in a scene lasting for three minutes was a highlight. That could have been a repetitive and dull scene but actually had some nail-biting tension and was brilliantly acted all round. Another great touch was hearing the characters' flaws coming from the mouth of the unsub, that was shocking and creepy.

"Broken Mirror" is saved from being predictable by having some very well-executed twists and turns, notably the unsub's real intentions and the scary revelation that the unsub was much closer than they thought the whole time. That was a surprise to me on first viewing, on repeat viewing the foreshadowing is more obvious due that only somebody intimately close to the case could have figured that much out of the characters unless they were a stalker, nevertheless it was a surprising revelation doing cleverly.

It is a very well-made episode too, with one of the best and most fitting music scores of the season. It's very tautly scripted, keeping things tight with nothing coming over as pointless. As said, the atmosphere is incredible here with great tension and suspense, from the eerie opening to a well-done if perhaps not particularly original climax. The acting is very good, where there is real urgency and desperation. Mandy Patinkin is particularly commanding, and this is one of not many episodes where Elle didn't annoy me.

Overall, very good episode indeed and one of Season 1's better ones. 9/10 Bethany Cox

He Just Wanted To Women For Himself

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 6 January 2007]

A young couple driving home from a party finds themselves having to abruptly stop on a small country road as some vehicle is sitting in the middle of the road. The driver goes out to see what the story is, but can't see anything in the tinted windows of the SUV. He and his girlfriend go back to their car and suddenly there is a man outside the driver's side with a gun pointed and we hear a shot.

We soon discover the man was killed and the woman, the daughter of a U.S. District Attorney was kidnapped. The father receives a strange kidnap note. Our BAU team flies up to Connecticutt to handle the situation. The woman kidnapped has a twin sister.

It turns out that's what the kidnapper wants - the sister, not the money. He torments everyone, the father, sister and the BAU team to the point where Gideon realizes the house must be bugged even thought it was "swept" before they started monitoring the kidnappers calls. Someone on the inside must be the kidnapper.

This is an excellent episode, start to finish.

This one is a doozy

[lottiemarshalllm · 8/10 · 29 July 2020]

Disclaimer:I am no expert reviewer, I just need a show to binge watch and I'm going to Write a review for every episode I watch.

I really enjoyed this episode I thought the plot was excellent with the extra suspense of a high society person going missing I guess you could say. It just adds to the drama which I love.

My favorite part of this episode definitely has to be when Gideon is taunting the kidnapper over the phone and that kidnapper just comes back hard with those insults towards the whole team. And I really like the twist that it was somebody on her team the whole time. I like that the writers made the enemy seem really smart but also very stupid at the same time because he could've easily gotten away with the idea that he just wanted ransom money but he's so stupid that he didn't even do that right so that was funny to me. Also really enjoyed that agent L got to prove herself Unlike in the episode before.

Overall really like the aspect of the twins being like hunted I guess by somebody close to them. And I also really enjoy the fact that there wasn't a bunch of red herrings everywhere like an all the other episodes which I don't really mind but I like that this episode was a little bit more focused on the one plot line.

VERY Good Episode

[projectsgamer · 9/10 · 16 September 2021]

Good episode interesting one also at first i thought it was not going to be good but the sister good character by helping the FBI Gideon once again knows how to trick the criminal I don't know how he does it start so smart and Morgan litterly saves the sister by Hotch is thinking that it is about the money nope Morgan thought to think what would a criminal do well he would try to get another kidnap to happen Morgan saved her from that very good episode season 1 is actually pretty good not what I was expecting.

Who do we trust? No one.

[rwk2 · 6/10 · 14 September 2010]

It must be one of the local FBI agents, so let's use them to hide the girl. Really? No one thought about that plot hole? Aren't there enough BAU members to assign one of them to take her to a hotel and watch her?

There are 700 agents working out of New Haven plus all the satellite offices. True, but how many of them have been INSIDE the lawyer's house and know his family?

I hate it when they go against common sense.

All the actors did well with the material they were given though, I must say.

Side note: excellent musical score on this one. It was noticeably cool.

Way too melodramatic

[amyrae2609 · 1/10 · 17 January 2022]

I'm a big fan of crime shows (true crime or old school SVU). I'd seen random bits of Criminal Minds but it never really made it onto my radar. I work with students and after a particular group of girls demanded I watch their favourite show, I figured I'd binge a few episodes.

The first 2-3 episodes weren't bad. I was definitely on board for more, until I got to this ep. I hated this. I hated the melodrama, the bland dialogue and the lack of profiling the UnSub. The scene where Gideon was taunting the UnSub on the phone, I kept groaning and snapping at me TV "why is no one taking the family members out of the room?" I tried to skip the episode from there, but Disney+ made it too tricky to navigate without crashing the app. So I stuck it out, while writing this angry review.

At the very least, I can tell my students "yeah, you're right, Spence is the best character."

Heavy on drama

[TOT_EchoofGlory · 7 June 2020]

This episode, unlike most of them, has fewer profiles and a fixed location. Personally, I'm not used to it.

Getting Better

[nebohr · 20 November 2021]

There is a 3.9% chance that monkeyface Gideon will show some emotion this episode.

After four episodes there was finally some tension in this episode. Sometimes it seems like Hotch is the only person who truly has faith in Gideon. And don't ever forget that a boot to the balls is a good way to get information out of an unsub.