'Criminal Minds' was one of my most watched and re-watched shows for quite some time and it is still a show that is come back to every now and then. Despite it being very hit and miss for a while now. Season 14 was not too bad a season, certainly a million times better than the mostly quite weak Seasons 11 (which only had like 5 good episodes) and 15 (which only had 2 good ones), but very inconsistent. Some very good episodes, especially "300" and "The Tall Man".
But some disappointing ones, even they though are better than the worst of Seasons 9 and 11 and the whole of Season 15. "Night Lights" to me was one of the disappointing ones. Not terrible but pretty average when it had big potential to be great. Considering how fabulous the idea was and that it was one of the best and most interesting concepts of the season and in a while for the show. For the show too, the unsub sounded very unique. And they were in a way, but had conventional motives and storytelling surrounding them.
"Night Lights" has enough good things. It started off very well indeed, very intriguing and creepy. The unsub in how they're made up, their actions and their circumstances at first is a unique one which was great and is one of the season's creepiest easily. The victims are rootable though they could have been developed more. The acting throughout from all is very good, cannot fault the regulars and the unsub is unsettlingly played.
It is a well made episode too, not unexpected, especially the truly eerie lighting that makes one scared of the dark for a while after. The music is not constant or melodramatic and has a real sense of atmosphere. Some of the script is thought-provoking.
Sadly, there were some great if not novel ideas very under-explored. The motive didn't make much sense by the end and there were a couple considered possibilities that would have been more plausible. The connections are very thin and not touched upon enough, being introduced quite late with little time left to go. More tension and suspense wouldn't have gone amiss, the climax was easy to figure out, and the episode could have had less taunting of the victims which began in a creepy way but got repetitive and had more of a back-story for the unsub, again in this case good ideas that don't come together.
Despite it being so great to see Reid, "Night Lights" did something unforgivable in underusing him and giving him little time to show off what makes him such a great character. His most memorable moment is when finding one of the more crucial clues, the significance of that being figured out unrealistically fast with such little prior information to go on to come to the conclusions the way they did so that was a waste as well. The side story jarred too much tonally and while it is always nice to have development to at least one character in each episode it didn't gel. The team interaction and the way they work was better in other episodes of the season.
All in all, was underwhelmed by this episode despite loving the concept on paper. 5/10
