‘Criminal Minds’ season 11, episode 13 review: The true meaning of ‘The Bond’

If there is one thing that we would say about Wednesday night’s new episode of “Criminal Minds,” it was this: This installment “The Bond” was certainly creepy and then some.

The title was ultimately a reference to the bond that took place between the UnSub and his mother, which gave us what can only be described as a semi – Norman Bates vibe where the mother was actually more of the killer than the son. It was creepy and then some from start to finish, and of course it took the BAU most of the episode to piece together that the mother was more or less forcing her son to continue her work through persuasion. In some ways, this was a reminder that in many ways an UnSub can be a victim in their own right.

In terms of giving you a memorable killer, we’d say that “The Bond” delivered. The same goes for giving us a lot of Aisha Tyler, who we still hope becomes a series regular in the future even with her super-busy schedule.

Here’s where we will get a little bit more critical. We do think that there is something to be said for storylines on this show that give you many different layers, but also ones that top some of the episodes that came before. After the show gave us so much great material with the “Dirty Dozen,” we’re finding that it is hard to top that with the case-of-the-week format … at least for now. This was an improvement over last week’s “Drive,” but we haven’t matched the emotional turmoil and performances of “Entropy” in 2016 so far. Grade: B.

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