cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (domestic)
Cimorene ([personal profile] cimorene) wrote2009-02-20 03:08 pm
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Criminal Minds: Hotch and Rossi

There was plenty of fodder for my currently favourite Criminal Minds OTP, Hotch/Rossi, in the new episode. Of course, that was because in the Metaphor of Best Fit, ie the crime-solving team as a nuclear family metaphor (try it! It basically fits all of the ones on TV. There are ALWAYS two 'adults' with a number of proteges!), right now Hotch and Rossi are the parents, so if one of them has an internal conflict storyline, the other one has to offer some support - not showing weakness in front of the children, right?

But one of the things I really love about CM this season (canonically and not subtextually/slash-gogglesedly speaking) is the careful and somewhat subtle portrayal of the friendship and mutual respect Hotch and Rossi already share, without making the development of that really central onscreen.

It was kind of a stroke of genius, from the point of view of interpersonal developments among members on the team, to have the replacement 'adult' character written in as an old colleague who had left in between, making him new to some characters and old to others. The quiet, coded conversations Hotch and Rossi share that hint at their pre-existing friendship, and the awkward, manly support they offer - it's sweet, and provides a more intriguing texture to the narrative than the whole 'tentative friendship-building' storyline that usually occurs when two characters are introduced for the first time. Also, I really, really loved that drinking-in-Rossi's(?)-office scene when Hotch needed comfort about his divorce.

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