Haha believer, the unsub was good looking! I did see a bunch of people saying that
But I agree it was a weaker episode. And I agree about too many profilers. 8 team members, with 7 profilers, is just too much. I get Tara and Reid miss episodes here and there, but those missed episodes don't always overlap. I think it did once last year. But even then, with just 1 of the profilers gone, you still have 6 and even then, that's still a lot. Especially when in the first 5 seasons, it was 5 profilers and a media liaison out with Garcia at the office. I think 5 was a good number of profilers with a media liaison and tech analyst. When JJ came back as profiler it wasn't too bad since they still had the same number of people going out on the case. But smaller definitely worked better. The season 11 premiere showed they were perfectly fine with just the 4 profilers and Garcia for most of the episode.
I do like Matt though. And Luke and Tara. And I liked Walker. But this sudden need for 8 members is weird. Did they think they needed that extra person last season to make up for Hotch/TG being gone? If that's the case then that's stupid. They've always had no more than 7 and it's not like anyone could easily "replace" Hotch/TG. And if the reasoning was to have that extra person for when MGG and Aisha are gone, that's also a bad excuse. Those two don't miss enough episodes to warrant an extra person all season. It would be one thing if they had that extra person come in when MGG and AT miss an episode. I kind of wish that's what they had done with Damon last season. Only used him as a recurring character and maybe have him help the team out on a case (especially when Reid was in prison). But Walker's main purpose was to catch Scratch, so they should have focused more on that and just brought him in occasionally to specifically focus on that.
Believer, I agree, the plane did look a bit crowded. But I think the number of profilers is also noticeable when they give the profiler. They've turned giving the profile into a horrendous thing with everyone saying a sentence then the next person goes on. It's even worse with 7 people!
Rossi had a funny line about middle aged women not being able to say no to him.
And yes, a good excuse having Reid's 100 days on/30 days be a way to work in MGG's absence. My only question is: what about later in the season? Will MGG miss more episodes in the second half? Or after episodes 8-11 will they say he no longer needs to do that format?