Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders season 2 episode 5 review: Ups and downs
Specifically, what we saw tonight in Bangladesh was an UnSub who was specifically set out to ruin other families’ lives, largely because of what happened to his own. He suffered as a result of an incident where almost nobody cared about his family, and he wanted others to feel his pain. In particular, his targets this time were some American entrepreneurs who had come over to the country in order to spend some more time on-site where some of their products could be made.
The thing that we liked about the episode was that the motive for the UnSub was traceable, personal, and easy to understand. Sometimes, you need that. This proved itself to be one of the better cases of the season just because of the fact that the mystery was one that was easy to dive into.
Ultimately, though, this was a case that didn’t have much in the way of a shocking reveal, or an UnSub that we would consider to be exceptionally memorable. The setting was used well, but probably not incorporated as well as it was last week with South Korea.
On the flip side, wasn’t there a nice little story of flirtation tonight with Clara Seger and Jeffrey, the British journalist who proved essential to ensuring that the UnSub was caught. There wasn’t much story tonight in terms of content that impacted the main characters on the show, but we had a nice moment at the end of the hour where she found a gift waiting outside of the empty house. We’d be down for seeing this story continue in some capacity — given that Jeffrey is a journalist, it feels certainly possible that we could see him turn up in some other part of the world.
Overall, the biggest weakness for this episode is probably just that it came after the strongest overall of the season. The Seger / Jeffrey subplot was fun, but there was no clear emotional through-line beyond the case of the week to help make this hour stand out. Grade: B-.
Next time
If you want to get a sense of what is coming up next on Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, be sure to head over to the link here right now. Let’s just say that there are going to be two episodes coming up on the show as opposed to a single one. (Photo: CBS.)