My favorite way to unwind at the end of the day is putting on the goriest, most anxiety-inducing episode of Criminal Minds I can find. While most of my friends shudder at the intense, psychologically twisted storylines, they thrill me.
It reminds me of how, growing up, my brothers and I loved nothing more than to collapse on the couch and watch an episode of Scooby-Doo, be it one of the old Boomerang shows with the flat animations or the darker Mystery Incorporated installments.
Criminal Minds follows a team of FBI Behavioral Analysis agents who psychologically profile and capture a different twisted, serial killer in each episode. Some of the plot lines are pretty insane — human marionette dolls, cannibalistic killers who feed their victims to search party participants, or intensely dramatic episodes involving the abduction and torture (be it physical or psychological) of the team members themselves.
The childhood classic Scooby-Doo, across dozens of film and television adaptations, follows a gang of mystery-solving teenagers and their talking dog as they investigate anything from the Lochness Monster, disappearing friars in Crystal Cove, to possessed spring breakers by demonic forces at Spooky Island.
Balancing adult jokes in kids shows (it wasn’t until recent years that I understood why Shaggy’s favorite name was “Mary-Jane” in the first-live action movie), comically large jaw-stretcher special sandwiches by Shaggy and Scooby, and Fred’s infamous traps, the show does a great job of entertaining all audiences.
While Criminal Minds may be the older sister down-the-line to Scooby-Doo enjoyers, each universe shares a surprising amount of parallels. They each feature a lovable nerdy character (Velma or Reid, pick your poison), a pretty girl who proves to offer far more to the team than just her striking good looks (no wonder Daphne and JJ have always been my favorites), a team leader with a soft spot for his members (I adore Hotch’s dad jokes or plotlines involving Fred’s goofiness), and enough best-friend relationships to make the shows just as endearing as they are thrilling (I’ll always have a soft spot for the Morgan and Penelope, or Shaggy and Scooby dynamic duos).
As much as I love the lightheartedness that spans each season and episode, I must admit that what has always drawn me to the shows is my fascination with crime, ideals of justice, and scarily accurate analyses of human nature.
It’s not just limited to these specific shows, either. I discovered the Maggie O’Dell series that similarly follows an FBI Behavioral Analysis agent at a Little Free Library during a trip to Victoria, fell in love with Agatha Christie mystery novels featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple while sifting through my aunt’s old room, and finally got around to reading about Clarice Starling track down Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs this summer. I love anything Nancy Drew, profiling, and mystery, be it Alex Michaelides’ The Silent Patient, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Adam Sandler’s hilarious Murder Mystery, or Stephen King’s The Outsider.
I couldn’t tell you precisely what draws me to them so much. I love to read articulations of behavior that draw nuance in characterization. I’m fascinated by how authors create such detailed storylines that account for every possibility from every angle. I get impressed every time with how drawn in I get to a story, and attached to the characters and caught up in the stakes of every situation. I’m inspired by how tension and dread are drawn up, in a way that makes me watch every episode and flip through every page. I’m entranced by each creative picturing of a scene, and how clichés are both built up and in glaring contrast to each situation.
By offering elements of voyeurism and escapism, I can safely experience the high-stakes thrillers of murder mysteries and exciting police chases without being threatened by real-world scenarios of stakeouts, crime scenes, forensic labs, and arrests. Most importantly, I get the satisfaction of puzzling out the clues and parsing information out of carefully worded dialogue and cleverly oriented frames to act like a Sherlock Holmes in my own right.
My 8-year-old self had taste — she knew what she was getting herself into as she eagerly awaited the blue and orange Mystery Machine to pull up to the scene and the gang of adventure-seeking kids to pile out, while she achingly wished to solve mysteries like they did. Now, I still relish the satisfaction of guessing the UnSub everytime I watch the Behavioral Analysis Unit give a profile, and the camera lingers too long on a background figure as I sit on my college couch with a bowl of popcorn. Some things change, but my appreciation for suspense, calculating plots, and intelligent characters keeps me coming back for addicting after addicting episode.