Criminal Minds- Gideon's Final Episode

The tonight, Wednesday October 3rd 2007 is the final farewell of Gideon on Criminal Minds is no secret. The buzz on the boards dedicated to the show has ranged from the show will not be the same without him, through to, it can survive, but for how long. Gideon has been a driving force throughout the show. His presence, strength and inner demons have been a focal point and with that now ripped from the show can it truly survive without him.

And how will the other characters handle his loss?

The season premiere ended with a letter written by Gideon, to an un-named person who he feels will be the one to come and find him, to open the letter and find his body. Because yes, it's a body the viewers fully expect to see. Not just because of the way the show is losing him, but the very way he sat at the end of the previous episode, nursing a gun in his hands. That Gideon has battled with suicidal thoughts and desires is no secret. The loss of his girlfriend at the end of the last season, and the way the double death at the end of the season premiere this time, has left the character blaming himself and looking for an answer.

In his own, oddly logical mind, the only answer to someone like Gideon is to remove himself from the picture in a permanent manner. With no options for coming back. No temptations for team members to lean on him. So how can he do that, other than go into hiding?

A bullet.

Oh, he'll have sat and worked it all out. Discussed with himself that his death, his loss, although it will hurt his friends, will still be better for them in the long run that remaining alive and perhaps causing the death of one or more of them in the coming months.

As the episode opens with a spate of abducted and dead women, with their hearts cut from their bodies the team is thrust back into their work - minus Gideon who hasn't answered the phone, and Hodges who has been suspended. But only Reed, at first, expresses any concern about the missing Gideon. With no team leader, and the head of the department deciding she will lead the team for now, without any field experience, the remaining members of the team are unsettled.

The women who have been abducted are held for forty eight hours before their hearts are cut out in a crude manner. No sexual abuse. And the manner the hearts are removed reveals only one thing. That the unsub has no surgical skills. Can the team pull themselves together to focus on their work? They have to.

With Stauss, the head of department, managing to find a way to upset the local police department within forty five seconds of meeting them, things are not looking good. And they take a nasty turn for the worse when it's revealed that the unsub is using a young boy to decoy his victims. But is the connection between the unsub and the boy a real one? A family bond, or has he picked the boy up along the way?

With Gideon still missing, Hodges is persuaded to come in and help the team. Without a leader they are lost. But by getting involved he is risking the transfer his wife wants. A wife he loves, but who still doesn't understand why Hodges has a loyalty to the team he is no longer, in her eyes, a part of.

But it is his strength that pulls it together when Strauss is faced with her first fresh body, one of a woman they had hoped to save. He is the answer the team needs. He has the ability to pull them together. The focus they need. The calm in the eye of the storm. This is a part of his strength, something Strauss had overlooked, or never accepted the team needed in the first place.

A father sick with a tumor. A missing mother. A child forced into a difficult situation where he is used to lure women into a trap where his father then kills them. A child who will be left damaged by the illness, both mental and physical, that has struck his father. But with the killer under arrest, his son kept safe, Hodges is given the chance to remain with the team - but it all depends on what his wife says. She doesn't want Hodges to continue, she can't handle the work, the stress, the death that surrounds the man she loves.

And with all of this Gideon remains missing.

Through the events of this case it was Reed who was left worrying about Gideon and it is Reed who walks into the cabin Gideon often used as a place to get away from it all. It is Reed who finds the gun and the badge on the bed, along with the letter. But there is no body.

Why? When it was all set up for his death is Gideon still left alive?

Because he knew it would be Reed, his friend, one of the few people in the world who understood him, who would walk into the cabin. And he couldn't do that to a man who would only blame himself. Gideon didn't want to die, despite the way it was set up to leave the viewers believing that was the only possible option. He didn't want to find a way into the darkness.

He still believes in happy endings - and needs to find that again. That sense of understanding people, those in the team, those in the world around him. And at the end of the day it leaves the door open for him to return. Not just to the team, but for the millions of viewers who have watched the show, watched Gideon, grown to know and understand him.

I have to give the show a lot of credit. If Gideon had died, it would have left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Suicide is not the only answer, even when at times it might appear that way. Gideon has been through hell and back, but he's stronger than he ever believed himself to be. He can find his way again. And if he can, anyone can.

So is this truly Gideon's final episode?

Only time will tell.