‘Criminal Minds’ season 9, episode 16 review: Did ‘Gabby’ make enormous impact?

“Criminal Minds” is a series that often deals with a number of emotional cases, and Wednesday night’s “Gabby” was one of them. But was this an episode that really provided everything that you could have wanted and then some? Really, the way that we see it is one that really provided many things that qualify as both good and bad.

We’ll start things off here with what worked here: A complicated story about a young girl named Gabby who was kidnapped, and the BAU’s attempts to try to find her and bring her back safely. You had a babysitter who was of course corrupt … and a victim who we’re pretty sure plays the part of Marley’s mom on “Glee.” It’s too bad that we’re not going to see too much of that character moving forward.

In the end, young Gabby was found and rescued, and the reunion scene was of course a pretty powerful one. This put a pin on a story that was strictly procedural, and will probably be forgotten by many at this time next week.

Now, we turn to some of the negatives about this episode, with the primary one being that it really did not do very much at all to do something more than be a standard “Criminal Minds” episode. We understand that you have 24 episodes a year to make, and not every one of them can be home runs. We were just hoping that in the wake of what happened earlier on this year with JJ that some more long-term stories could be formed that would really matter. That wasn’t so much the case, and that places this episode overall in the “good but not great” territory. Grade: B-.

What did you think about tonight’s “Criminal Minds”? Share below, and click here if you want to read some more news related to the show (including a preview that we’re going to have up soon for next week’s installment).

Photo: CBS