I get that they were trying to make the character of Jill to be agent Rossi when he was a younger, but she just came across as egotistical and arrogant. The fact that she manufactured evidence, made it even worse. I realize that her "gut" was correct, but agents just can't go snipping chunks of their own hair, just to have other agents take the case. My eyes almost got stuck because I rolled them so many times, at her uncaring and cavalier attitude. She seemed like she was nothing more than an opportunistic camera hog. It made me even more annoyed when it seemed like she cared more about the publicity than the victims. That was even more evident during the final scenes. She clearly just cares about how high she can climb.
5 Reviews
Close but not quite there...
jendarden15 December 2019
Warning: Spoilers
This was a unique episode where for once, the protagonist is actually an FBI agent. The team first declines the case which opens the door for the first of many unsettling behaviors by Jill Morris. When Rossi and Reid decline, she presents false evidence to keep them on board, her goal obvious from the beginning: making a name for herself by working alongside Rossi, distinguished agent and author. Her attempts to make this happen are unethical and reckless from the get, and she ultimately pays a serious price for her arrogance, greed and pathological desire for recognition. We know it's fiction when someone with such glaringly self-centered actions would likely, in the real world, be red-flagged for her behavior during a performance review and would not likely continue to be kept on, not only as an agent but a - what? - Section Chief? Whatever the equivalent of what Hotch is to his team. She's just too narcissistic, self-centered and despite her Wall of Fame in the office, a somewhat pathetically unhealthy, quietly (sometimes not so quietly) desperate person.
A local FBI agent messes up the BAU investigation
fabian515 April 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Jill Morris, a local ambitious FBI agent in Philadelphia--with an eye for media publicity--seeks out the BAU team's help to reveal an unsub's identity based on the contents of an abandoned and now rediscovered storage unit which contained his fantasy on female bondage and possibly murder. His ideas were scribbled out on mounds of paper. She persuades the BAU to allow agents Rossi and Spenser to visit her city and look at the paper evidence but Rossi remains unconvinced that the anonymous unsub will act out on his own ideas--until she pulls out a pair of women's nail clippings and hair. What Jill Morris doesn't say, however, is that they are her own hair and nail clippings.
So, Jill lured the entire FBI BAU team to Philadelphia on false pretenses. Rossi finally figures out her scheme--after the team has identified several of the unsub's victims who were electrocuted to death--and warns her to stop her behaviour although he sympathises with her situation in capturing the unsub. When his BAU colleagues finally realizes what she has done, Rossi says to them: "she (Jill) can be saved. She was who I was 20 years ago chasing the killers but now everyone remembers the killers and no one knows the victims." He clearly empathises with Jill's goals here even if not with her methods towards capturing the unsub. But Jill also ticks off Hotch for having a separate non-BAU press conference where she discusses their progress in catching the unsub...which shows her love for the 'limelight' of publicity. Hotch quickly criticises her for putting her face into the investigation. This act turns out to be be one of supreme folly as the unsub deliberately targets her as his final victim by kidnapping a female Philadelphia Chronicle reporter and contact of Jill--Kat--and forcing Kat to set up a meeting (via a cell phone call) containing supposedly new information with Jill. Lured unsuspecting into the meeting--and without notifying anyone in advance of her rendezvous (a second major mistake by this high risk taking FBI officer)--Jill is knocked unconscious on the head by the unsub who drives them both (ie. Kat & Jill) off in his van to his home. The unsub proceeds to strap the female reporter and Jill into his electrocution device. He electrocutes the reporter first and proceeds to caress Jill before the BAU team frantically breaks down the door to his home, arrests him and rescues her. But a major shortcoming occurs: there is no time in the show for us to see how Penelope identifies the house of the unsub; all we know is that he is an electrician who had a troubled family upbringing. Instead, what one sees is Penelope triangulating her search grid for the homes of middle-aged electricians in a Philly neighbourhood...and then then scene cuts directly to the BAU team and the FBI task force breaks into the unsub's home.
Rossi plays a major role in this episode into its conclusion. He confronts a mostly uninjured Jill at the hospital bed when she avoids asking any questions about the fate of Kat Townsley, the Philadelphia chronicle reporter who the unsub electrocuted shortly before the BAU team stormed the house. Jill replies to him: "I know you think I'm in the first stages of denial" to which Rossi plainly says "she didn't make it." Jill merely stops a second and sighs before going on her merry way and leaves the hospital as if nothing happened. Kat was just a contact to her, I suppose. At the hospital exit, a police officer calls out to her to come into a police escort van but Jill sees a crowd of reporters waiting for her at the other side and still can't resist the "limelight." So, she walks towards them. The reporters rush towards her asking their questions about her encounter with the unsub and Rossi, who watches Jill's behaviour, slowly walks past her and gives her a cold hard stare. If looks could kill, this would be it! Rossi realizes that the battle to save Jill is lost: she cares more ambition and the spotlight of a case then its safe and successful conclusion--the very things that got Jill captured by the unsub in the first place. Her risk taking has reached intolerable levels. Rossi ends the episode by quoting a short piece of prose below by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942), the author of Anne of Green Gables: "For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won."
PS: A minor detail one learns from this episode is why the BAU team calls their suspects "unsubs rather than criminals." When Jill privately remarks to JJ that she should soon give this killer an exotic sounding name like the BTK killer, JJ objects and says the BAU team always calls their suspects 'unsubs' (ie. "unknown subjects") in order to demythologise them.
So, Jill lured the entire FBI BAU team to Philadelphia on false pretenses. Rossi finally figures out her scheme--after the team has identified several of the unsub's victims who were electrocuted to death--and warns her to stop her behaviour although he sympathises with her situation in capturing the unsub. When his BAU colleagues finally realizes what she has done, Rossi says to them: "she (Jill) can be saved. She was who I was 20 years ago chasing the killers but now everyone remembers the killers and no one knows the victims." He clearly empathises with Jill's goals here even if not with her methods towards capturing the unsub. But Jill also ticks off Hotch for having a separate non-BAU press conference where she discusses their progress in catching the unsub...which shows her love for the 'limelight' of publicity. Hotch quickly criticises her for putting her face into the investigation. This act turns out to be be one of supreme folly as the unsub deliberately targets her as his final victim by kidnapping a female Philadelphia Chronicle reporter and contact of Jill--Kat--and forcing Kat to set up a meeting (via a cell phone call) containing supposedly new information with Jill. Lured unsuspecting into the meeting--and without notifying anyone in advance of her rendezvous (a second major mistake by this high risk taking FBI officer)--Jill is knocked unconscious on the head by the unsub who drives them both (ie. Kat & Jill) off in his van to his home. The unsub proceeds to strap the female reporter and Jill into his electrocution device. He electrocutes the reporter first and proceeds to caress Jill before the BAU team frantically breaks down the door to his home, arrests him and rescues her. But a major shortcoming occurs: there is no time in the show for us to see how Penelope identifies the house of the unsub; all we know is that he is an electrician who had a troubled family upbringing. Instead, what one sees is Penelope triangulating her search grid for the homes of middle-aged electricians in a Philly neighbourhood...and then then scene cuts directly to the BAU team and the FBI task force breaks into the unsub's home.
Rossi plays a major role in this episode into its conclusion. He confronts a mostly uninjured Jill at the hospital bed when she avoids asking any questions about the fate of Kat Townsley, the Philadelphia chronicle reporter who the unsub electrocuted shortly before the BAU team stormed the house. Jill replies to him: "I know you think I'm in the first stages of denial" to which Rossi plainly says "she didn't make it." Jill merely stops a second and sighs before going on her merry way and leaves the hospital as if nothing happened. Kat was just a contact to her, I suppose. At the hospital exit, a police officer calls out to her to come into a police escort van but Jill sees a crowd of reporters waiting for her at the other side and still can't resist the "limelight." So, she walks towards them. The reporters rush towards her asking their questions about her encounter with the unsub and Rossi, who watches Jill's behaviour, slowly walks past her and gives her a cold hard stare. If looks could kill, this would be it! Rossi realizes that the battle to save Jill is lost: she cares more ambition and the spotlight of a case then its safe and successful conclusion--the very things that got Jill captured by the unsub in the first place. Her risk taking has reached intolerable levels. Rossi ends the episode by quoting a short piece of prose below by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942), the author of Anne of Green Gables: "For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won."
PS: A minor detail one learns from this episode is why the BAU team calls their suspects "unsubs rather than criminals." When Jill privately remarks to JJ that she should soon give this killer an exotic sounding name like the BTK killer, JJ objects and says the BAU team always calls their suspects 'unsubs' (ie. "unknown subjects") in order to demythologise them.
'Criminal Minds' in the limelight
TheLittleSongbird8 February 2017
Not one of my favourite Season 3 episodes like "Elephant's Memory", "Lucky", "Lo-Fi" and "Seven Seconds". For me, while slightly better than still-not-bad-but-somewhat-bland episodes like "Identity", "About Face", "3rd Life" and "Birthright", "Limelight" is one of the season's lesser episodes.
There is a good deal to like. Visually, "Limelight" is a typically well-made episode, it's stylishly shot, tightly edited and lit in a way that's atmospherically gritty but also classy. The music is suitably haunting and melancholic, very fitting with the episode's mood, not enhancing as such but never distracting. The direction is alert but also accommodating.
"Limelight" is smartly and thoughtfully scripted too, and that there was more development to Rossi was appreciated and what's more the development on him is fascinating, sees him maturing more and brings sides to him that weren't seen before when first introduced. The story is mostly compelling, with a unique modus operandi, a freaky opening and some edge of your seat moments. There are a number of character delights, Rossi and Jill's relationship dominates and is advantaged by the perfectly pitched chemistry between Joe Mantegna and Andrea Roth, but just as much are the chemistry between Rossi and Hotch, which is business-like and realistically-direct, and Reid's adorable and very funny eccentricities. Prentiss and Morgan also work really well together.
All round the acting is very good, Joe Mantegna and Thomas Gibson are marvellous and Roth does the best she can with her material. The creepy is underused but suitably repellent.
However, the case does have its slow stretches where the story loses tightness and gets bogged down in talk. Some of the team take too much of a back-seat, especially JJ who is mostly background here.
Biggest problem with "Limelight" is the character of Jill. It was clear what the episode was trying to do in making her a younger version of Rossi, but she just comes over as arrogant, obnoxious and careless in her risk-taking. Her indifference towards the outcome of the case and her obsessive actions (i.e. false evidence) in the episode was almost like she was involving herself for fame's sake and not because she wanted the case solved and one strongly suspects her as the unsub in places.
In conclusion, pretty good but didn't blow me away. 7/10 Bethany Cox
There is a good deal to like. Visually, "Limelight" is a typically well-made episode, it's stylishly shot, tightly edited and lit in a way that's atmospherically gritty but also classy. The music is suitably haunting and melancholic, very fitting with the episode's mood, not enhancing as such but never distracting. The direction is alert but also accommodating.
"Limelight" is smartly and thoughtfully scripted too, and that there was more development to Rossi was appreciated and what's more the development on him is fascinating, sees him maturing more and brings sides to him that weren't seen before when first introduced. The story is mostly compelling, with a unique modus operandi, a freaky opening and some edge of your seat moments. There are a number of character delights, Rossi and Jill's relationship dominates and is advantaged by the perfectly pitched chemistry between Joe Mantegna and Andrea Roth, but just as much are the chemistry between Rossi and Hotch, which is business-like and realistically-direct, and Reid's adorable and very funny eccentricities. Prentiss and Morgan also work really well together.
All round the acting is very good, Joe Mantegna and Thomas Gibson are marvellous and Roth does the best she can with her material. The creepy is underused but suitably repellent.
However, the case does have its slow stretches where the story loses tightness and gets bogged down in talk. Some of the team take too much of a back-seat, especially JJ who is mostly background here.
Biggest problem with "Limelight" is the character of Jill. It was clear what the episode was trying to do in making her a younger version of Rossi, but she just comes over as arrogant, obnoxious and careless in her risk-taking. Her indifference towards the outcome of the case and her obsessive actions (i.e. false evidence) in the episode was almost like she was involving herself for fame's sake and not because she wanted the case solved and one strongly suspects her as the unsub in places.
In conclusion, pretty good but didn't blow me away. 7/10 Bethany Cox
Good but nothing special
lottiemarshalllm22 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Disclaimer:I am no expert reviewer, I just need a show to binge watch and I'm going to Write a review for every episode I watch
I thought this episode was pretty average. I didn't think it did the best job of balancing time spent on the unsub and the team.
I like to getting a more introspective look onto Rossi's past how he's made decisions he regrets yet doing it through agent Morris was pretty frustrating. I know I wasn't supposed to like her in this episode but I found her whole character and motives so frustrating.
Besides Rossi I really didn't think this episode had a lot of good character moments. I think they could've done more with Hotchner implying that what Rossi did in his past was bad, but they didn't.
And they just totally got over the fact that this agent lied about evidence for attention basically which is just downright absurd.
I thought the plot and the hunt for the killer was rather cut and dry but still good nonetheless.
Overall pretty basic episode definitely not my favorite but not bad.
I thought this episode was pretty average. I didn't think it did the best job of balancing time spent on the unsub and the team.
I like to getting a more introspective look onto Rossi's past how he's made decisions he regrets yet doing it through agent Morris was pretty frustrating. I know I wasn't supposed to like her in this episode but I found her whole character and motives so frustrating.
Besides Rossi I really didn't think this episode had a lot of good character moments. I think they could've done more with Hotchner implying that what Rossi did in his past was bad, but they didn't.
And they just totally got over the fact that this agent lied about evidence for attention basically which is just downright absurd.
I thought the plot and the hunt for the killer was rather cut and dry but still good nonetheless.
Overall pretty basic episode definitely not my favorite but not bad.
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