Criminal Minds season 13 episode 18 review: Rossi plays papa bear

The last episode of Criminal Minds didn’t bring us any movement on any of the main casts personal lives and instead was a case of the week episode directed by Matthew Gray Gubler that involved the type of clowns that will give you nightmares for days. Tonight though things are about to get personal again as Rossi’s ex-wife Krystall Richards will be entering the picture.

So who was Krystall? Let’s just say that she and David have quite the history, given that they met each other and got married following a crazy night in Las Vegas. She came back tonight because of her daughter’s wedding, and this actually turned into a rather amusing side-story of its own because of the fact that the daughter’s fiance had a little bit of a sketchy past. As it turned out, he has a history of dating women only to later leave them with huge financial payments in tow.

Rossi went into action with a very specific goal in mind: Making sure that this guy went away. Physical intimidation did not work and the same went for him calling him out on some of his misdeeds. Basically, it took him threatening the guy with psychological intimidation to get him to back away. There’s nothing like reminding someone what you do for a living in order to convince them to leave!

Also, isn’t it nice to see Rossi fully embrace the silver hair? It was even written into the story tonight with him explaining that the publisher told him to change his look.

As for the case, what we learned in “The Dance of Love” is that there was a series of murders being killed by someone with a romantic motif — someone who, in turn, was desperate in order to kill surrounded by romances and a visual tableau like no other. She was driven in part by some pain from her past — she was haunted by the voice of a man (basically a horndog) who slighted and hurt her greatly and was desperate for her own brand of revenge. She was about to kill again and it took some rather smart talking down from Simmons and the rest of the BAU in order to ensure that she was brought in. There was no violent shootout at the end of this episode, which is a reminder that not every UnSub needs to be taken care of the same exact way.

Related – Check out what’s coming up on Criminal Minds episode 19!

CarterMatt Verdict

It’s always nice to get a Rossi episode of Criminal Minds and “The Dance of Love” did not disappoint. The Rossi background story was great, and while we’re not altogether sure that he and Krystall have much of a future, they did spend the closing minutes of the episode clinking glasses and reminiscing on time gone by. It wasn’t a dance of love, but it was a dance back into the past.

Want to know more about the next new episode of Criminal Minds?

Like CarterMatt on Facebook! It’s a great way to stay up to date on all of our Criminal Minds coverage and talk to other fans of the show. (Photo: CBS.)