Criminal Minds (TV Series) A Good Husband (2017) User Reviews

A good husband makes a good wife

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 10 June 2017]

In its prime (Seasons 1-5, with Season 4 to me being the best and most consistent season with a lot of classic episodes and even the weakest episodes being far from awful) 'Criminal Minds' was one of my favourite shows. From Season 6 it did become hit and miss, with the odd gem, but a lot of average episodes and some stinkers.

Season 12 so far has not been consistent, with some episodes faring much better than others, but it is much better than the mostly underwhelming Season 11. It went through some significant changes, a couple working but others not so much, and has done reasonably well considering. "A Good Husband" is an improvement over the previous episode "Surface Tension", which had the beautifully done subplot with Reid and his mother but suffered from a confused and clumsily written case. As far as Season 12 goes, it's not as good as "Elliot's Pond" or "Mirror Image" but fares significantly better than "Taboo" and "The Anti-Terror Squad".

Loved the touching and warm chemistry between Reid and Prentiss (am so glad she's back and she is a good leader), who is like somewhat of a mother-figure here who really helps Reid here as he struggles to balance his job and the dilemma with his mother. Matthew Gray Gubler and Pager Brewster do wonders with their acting. Sure, Reid's story about Houston is a little bit dishonest but not in a way to bring the episode down or like the character less.

Alvez and Walker have a nice scene discussing jazz music too. The case has some suspense and intriguing moments, Bill is a sympathetic character and the unsub is appropriately creepy. The murders are disturbing, and "A Good Husband" does a good job highlighting manipulation and abuse in relationships.

Visually, "A Good Husband" is very well shot and lit and is overall stylish, gritty, classy and atmospheric. The music is moody in the haunting and melancholic sense and fits well, without either enhancing or distracting from it. Direction is also good, alert and accommodating. The acting is very good.

However, some of the team are a little underused and Walker is still not doing much for me, bland and not particularly well developed. The case is not bad at all, but is a little derivative of Season 7's "Closing Time", one of the lesser episodes from that season, and Season 8's "Broken", one of the better faring ones from that season.

On the whole, a decent episode but not great and no classic. 7/10 Bethany Cox

To my future life

[l-j-ianan · 10/10 · 12 February 2017]

The whole time I was watching this episode, it made me highly uncomfortable. As a member of the LGBT group, it's already hard enough for me to open up to someone about my sexual orientation, let alone finding someone I love. It wasn't the killing that made me uneasy, well, it did, but it wasn't as bad as the realization that I'm still single and have always been my whole life. You never know if things like this would ever happen in real life, and as one of the characters said, people and circumstances change unexpectedly, so it's impossible to predict the future. I hate the unknowns and not being in control, but it's life, you never know what life brings you next. I just hope when I am lucky enough to finally find someone that's right for me, it wouldn't end up like the show for me, not that I wish things like that for myself, I'm simply scared. Fictional or not, this episode got me thinking. Everyone is an individual, an independent individual, and doesn't matter how much you're in love with someone and think what you do is best for them, don't ever try to control someone, give them space, let them be themselves. Life is full of surprises, maybe good, maybe bad, but I just hope when I start my soon-to-be new life, things will go smoothly for me. Keeping my fingers crossed and hopefully, my future bf is awaiting me somewhere along the way. Hope to meet you soon.

Good in theory but poor in practice

[hbashwood · 2/10 · 21 September 2018]

This was one of worst episodes of entire for me. But unlike with others e.g. "anti-terror squad" from earlier in season 12, where the writing was flat, this failed for me from an acting perspective.

With the exceptions of one or two scenes, like the ones between Reid and Prentiss, the main cast just felt completely out of sync with their characters and the characters with each other. I don't know why but the majority of the time something just felt off. Like a shirt you don't realize you've put on backwards.

The two main guest stars were even worse. Consistency is a thing and the actors playing Mark and especially Bill have clearly never heard of it. While I wanted to have sympathy for Bill, because in the context of the storyline he is a sympathetic character, every time the actor spoke more than three words I had to put the tv mute, rewind and put the captions on because I could not listen to him. At one I actually yelled out loud for him to pick an accent and stick with it. Every scene he flipped between standard American, Midwest, and Southern as well as jumping between a normal speech patter and an exaggerated pattern that is classed as "stereotypically homosexual."

This episode should have been showcase on how easy it is to be manipulated by abuser, but because these two men were just so bad it didn't take. This should have been an episode that resonated with people because it's relevant, but it didn't. And I put the "blame" for lack of a better word on the actors of Mark and Bill. Not only did they give poor performances but they had no chemistry together and seemed to suck it from the main cast like vampires.

My friend is a casting director and both these guys were what she likes to call 'butter face' actors. Meaning they can't act, but their faces will get them a pass.

As much as I wanted to like this episode, as much as the summary drew me in and intrigued me, as good writing was and relevant as the storyline is, this is one of those sad but growing moments in tv and film where the acting was off the mark and just dragged the whole thing down. From a technical standpoint it a solid episode, well written, good lighting, great music. However as much as good acting can make a technically flawed episode good and enjoyable to watch, a poorly acted episode can absolutely destroy one that's technically great and that's the case here for me.

Guest performances fall flat... SO flat.

[crossdck · 1/10 · 19 August 2019]

I rarely write reviews for episodic television. And when I do, I almost never give 1 star, as it's an overused and overdramatic way to rate a piece of entertainment that in all likelihood had SOMETHING good in it somewhere. Sadly, this time, that's not the case. This 1-star rating for one of my favorite shows is all too earned.

This episode fell way below par by series standards. While the main cast was consistent if unspectacular in this week's story, their analysis and profile felt forced and counterfeit, mainly because the actor playing the unsub didn't deliver on the characteristics meant to accurately describe him.

Mark (the unsub) and Bill, his would-be ultimate victim, are a bland, 2-dimensional couple, poorly written and exacerbated by stiff, bad-soap-opera acting. What could have been an expertly orchestrated display of a textbook abusive/manipulative relationship ended up sounding like a high school drama... written by a high school drama class, with a little LGBT stuff sprinkled in in a vain attempt to make it topical. Mark's supposed controlling ways are discussed at length, but he overtly possesses no skills or methods that ever suggest that he'd be successful at controlling Bill. He's written as a charm-and-harm abuser, who when rejected employs killing to vent, then to scare his victim back into his arms, but he's portrayed as a simpering child with no interpersonal skills, no charm, and very little awareness when it comes to reacting appropriately to what Bill is saying. Moreover, not once does he ever flash the cruelty or rage to suggest that he'd not only kill men with a butcher knife, but then dismember the bodies and display the torso to revel in his crimes.

Early on, Bill is literally packing his bags, and while Mark *should* be pleading apologetically (which he does), there is no sign of the anger, rage, resentment or manipulation bubbling under the surface. At the same time, no charm. No smoothness. Even his frantic desperation to keep Bill around is clearly phony. In fact, there is no sign of ANYTHING under the surface, except maybe the actor thinking about his next line instead of being present in the scene. The hugging of the framed photo was the tipping point for me as a viewer, when I realized that this is not going to get any better. This is what untrained actors think emotion looks like. All this, before Mark is revealed to be the killer. Were meant to think he could be a potential victim here, and personally, I was hoping for it. Sadly I would be further disappointed.

Bill, on the other (but remarkably similar) hand, fails to deliver as a man fed up with being lied to and manipulated, afraid of being abused, tired of being controlled, or torn at the idea of filing for divorce. He says all of these things, but he shows none of it. He's first shown packing his bags with the iron resolve of a man without a care in the world, preparing for something as routine as a business trip, despite the dialogue, and while Mark is trying to appear heartbroken, Bill looks up distractedly to unmute a television, and the viewer immediately wonders: why does he care about (and how did he even notice) what's going on on TV in the middle of storming out of his marriage?

Long story short, he doesn't act like someone who is afraid/fed up/tired of his husband. Long story even shorter: they're not a convincing couple. These actors have zero chemistry with each other, or anyone else in the episode, frankly.

This episode's failings fall mostly on the casting department, though I will say quickly that what looks to be an effort to show that dysfunctional relationships can and do occur all across the spectrum ultimately comes across as one with a possible LGBT motive shoehorned in at the last second. The writers have historically written pieces like this much better, creating stories about human relationships and psychologies, but (and again, it could very well be the acting that failed to deliver here) I absorbed this episode as a bad story with bad acting and a badly-written "is this a gay hate crime?" red herring crammed in the middle to flesh it out.

All in all, not the long-running series best look.

Meh...

[libbyhatch21-1 · 1/10 · 3 July 2019]

The acting of the guest stars was on par with a bad movie of the week or a D straight to video movie. Was this the first time these actors ever acted? The regular cast was good.

Awful acting

[kenhallofficial · 2/10 · 15 February 2022]

The end scene with the killer and his husband was by far the worst chemistry I've seen on this show between guest actors. They seemed awkward and overcompensating and dramatic. Like a bad soap opera.

Do not like the new agent

[debb-34918 · 5/10 · 1 August 2020]

I don't know about other shows but in Criminal Minds, Damon Gupton cannot act. He has the personality of a wet wash cloth.

Disappointing plot surrounded by standout episodes

[laurmonnot · 4/10 · 9 May 2023]

I really love the plot of this episode, but it was poorly executed. I've been rewatching Criminal Minds for the umpteenth time and was looking forward to this episode, but I normally have the show on in the background and hadn't realized before now just how bad the acting was. Moreover, there are a few factors that have influenced my experience watching the later seasons, both good and bad.

Firstly, the turnover of the BAU agents makes it difficult to get to know their characters and follow their respective storylines, and it's frustrating keeping up with the revolving door of new characters while watching each case unfold. However, despite the issue of the ever-changing dynamic of the unit, I really love how immersive the show becomes into each of the agent's lives and how the cases start to weave amongst them.

That said, this episode falls in the midst of some pretty significant agent-focused plot lines and pulls focus away from them. At this point in the show, a large portion of air time has been dedicated to following the agents as they are affected by past unsubs, and some of the cases tucked into these integral moments are welcome departures when coupled with good writing and competent acting. Unfortunately, this episode was severely lacking in the latter department, and failed miserably to deliver a well-constructed, dramatic story the viewers have come to expect.

This story could've been a really good one to tell, had the cast been comprised of more talent. It offers a unique perspective into the lives of a dysfunctional gay couple and touches on the sensitive issue of spousal abuse and control. Fortunately, after this let-down, the show picks up quickly and delivers shocking and powerful plot lines that rope the audience back in.