“I’m the Slayer, ask me how!”

Can you believe it has been ten years since a certain plucky blonde punned her way into our hearts?

Welcome to the Hellmouth, the first of what would be seven years worth of episodes following everyone’s favourite vampire slayer, first aired March 10, 1997. Wow. I didn’t start watching from Day 1, and I can’t remember exactly when I started watching. I have a distinct memory of channel surfing and seeing a scene from “The Puppet Show,” and my siblings’ baby-sitter commenting on how much she loved the show. By mid-way through the second season I was hooked.

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“The Perfect Storm,” Criminal Minds. I think I saw this on the news.

Folks, I apologize for getting so far behind. As it turns out, spending five hours boiling down a TV show becomes a daunting task. It’s also a serious investment in alcohol. But together we shall persevere. In the interest of getting caught up quickly, I have made a valiant attempt at being brief. Or. Well. Briefer than usual.

Suburbia. Random blonde lady checks the mail and receives a package from her daughter. Banter with dashing graying man regarding the speed at which technology is passing the blonde (Mary Clemensen) by, as she expected pictures and instead got a DVD. The letter says that daughter’s vacation is awesome. The DVD suggests otherwise!

BAU. JJ exposits that the DVD so upset gray-haired man that he had a heart attack and died while watching it; the DVD appears to be depicting a rape scene as she snaps the computer lid shut.

The knights are at the round table, discussing the video. Exposition: part of a series of rapes and murders that have been happening these past two years. The knights do the profiling thing. Blah de blah, offenders are playing to an audience, the torture is escalating, sadistic need to spread pain to the families of the victim as well as the victim herself. You know, the usual! The DVD plays and “Only The Good Die Young” is on the video’s soundtrack. It doesn’t take our heroes long to figure out that there are (at least) two people behind these attacks. Master and commander. Dom and sub. Tonight’s drinking game is a shot whenever a master/commander/dominant/submissive reference is made. And is it getting hot in here or is it just Morgan?

“P911,” Criminal Minds. The internet is for porn.

We open on a little boy as viewed on film, tinted blue. A pan across and now we look at the camera, which sticks creepily out of the mouth of a mask. Flip back to the camera view, and the boy holds up his GI Joe doll – the doll’s name is Jack and he protects the boy. The boy pitifully states that he didn’t mean to make [the camera operator] mad, and he’ll be good, so please let him out?

The Crimes Against Children Unit, Maryland. A brunette agent looks at footage of the boy, registering shock. “Peter.” She gets up and crosses the room to address another agent, Katie,* and tell her that Peter is back. Katie is open-mouthed in shock, and the first agent, Gilroy, verifies that she has just received a new image.

*I will state for the record that IMDb lists this character’s name as “Amy Cole,” but every time it was said on the show, I heard “Katie.” Normally I defer to IMDb’s greater wisdom, but that would mean changing a zillion instances of “Katie.”

The two agents pedeconference, as the exposition goes that new footage of Peter has just been received; Gilroy got the hookup from a chat room, where she was phishing. Katie gets the attention of the room, giving us the back story that the agency named the boy Peter, they knew of him a year ago, and dammit this time they’re going to find him. Katie delegates tasks, getting Gilroy to start up a messaging session (they use MSN Messenger, by the way). Many acronyms later, they get a website with a live streaming broadcast of Peter. Katie announces that the clock under the image is an auction clock, counting down until Peter will be sold. Oh internet, you so crazy. Katie wants Aaron Hotchner at the BAU.

Over at the BAU, Reid is explaining, for the benefit of his fellow special agents, that 40,000 new child porn pictures appear on the internet each week. Because the internet is for porn. Specifically, child porn.

“The Fisher King, Part Two,” Criminal Minds. Turns out it’s not just a flesh wound.

Previously on Criminal Minds: The Unit goes on vacation! Murder ensues! There’s a head in a box but sadly it’s not Gwyneth Paltrow! Garcia loves RPG! The lab was sent on a quest! They need to find the girl and save her! Gunshots are fired chez Greenaway!

Fade to white.

Welcome to the second season of Criminal Minds! A brief view of an airplane interior and the back of a brunette head, all in high contrast dream-o-vision, and then we cut to Gideon looking think-y. JJ drops by with a folder, a photograph, and an announcement: that the hostage from last season’s finale has been identified at Rebecca Bryant. Gideon, forgetting that Blondie here is even a character on the show, tells her to drop it and scram; only when she is gone can he bring himself to look at the photograph. He thinks. He does that a lot.

Pan across a sheet of numbers that Reid is considering very seriously. Hotch busts out with the SAT logic quiz: “How many books do you think are published in a year?” Reid suggests thousands. In the whole world. What, really? I think you underestimate the power of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, boy. Go big, go millions.

The Knights of the Round Table of Exposition (Hotch, Morgan, and Reid) refresh our memories. The Unsub (that’s unknown subject, n00b [MS Word highlights “noob” as incorrect, but lets “n00b” slide. I like it.])… Where was I? The Unsub is toying with our Unit, and has sent many clues and riddles relating to hostage Rebecca Bryant. Butterflies, keys, baseball cards, really all that is missing are a few foreign stamps. Each of the clues represents a hobby of a Unit member, and Morgan looks over the clues and comments that he did not know the things about the unit that the Unsub seems to know. At the same time, Reid works a riddle over in his mind, in the process commenting that he has an eidetic memory. How nice for him. Anyhoo, the sheet of numbers is actually a coded passage from a book, and Reid needs to figure it out. That’s what this show is about, isn’t it?