paraka | This week's Numb3rs

Over all I really loved this episode. One of my biggest phobias is religion, so this one was hitting so many of my creepy spots. I was a little confused though on some points. Like why was the killer leaving behind these clues? I didn't get the feeling from John, the bad guy, that he wanted to be found, maybe if there was a lot of publicity and he was getting the message out that he was Jesus, but we didn't see that. Why leave behind all of these clues, set up a *webpage*, when he really didn't want to be found/stopped? And he didn't seem to be getting off on tricking them (which is another reason to leave clues). I would have really liked for there to have been a better profile on him, instead we just got the profile on the boyfriend who wasn't actually killing (most of) these people.

Also, what was special about his first victims? Was Thomas the first? Or Mary? I can understand why he'd grab Thomas, but Mary? How did he find her? What made him think she was a whore? They explained why/how he was picking the other victims, I guess I'm just frustrated that Mary, one of the most important victims wasn't explained. And again, I wish we had gotten a motivation for what got him started.

There were also a *lot* of victims in this episode: Thomas, Mary, John (the victim), Andrew, Peter, Thaddeus, Nathanial, not to mention Jared (Judas) and John (Jesus) (there may have been more, I wasn't actually counting). Really dark, but I actually liked it. The writers seem to be tackling some darker story lines lately. It'll be interesting to see where else they go.

As much as love the team, and getting that insight into what Megan was doing while away last season, and seeing Colby being my Action Man (WTF was up with him jumping great heights so much this ep? Was he trying to prove something? Impress the others with how far he's willing to go so they'll welcome him back onto the team?), there wasn't very much FBI!Don. And that makes me sad. Don hardly did any of the FBI work, it was all pretty much the team, and it's been like that for most of this season it seems.
Same with Charlie. He hasn't been doing that math as much as he's been using his connections to bring other specialists in. I find myself really missing the brother's dynamics of the first season, where the work was so much them, now we mostly just get ending shots of them being family, not so much the feeling of them working together.

Was it just me, or was Charlie really weird and out of character in his actions this episode? He's a professor, and has spent most of his life in academia, but he does his father's *homework* for him!? That's one of academia's biggest no-nos and he just does it with a smile on his face? WTF? He could probably get fired for that! And it's not like Ray Ray wouldn't notice that it wasn't Alan who had done the homework. I'm sure their math styles are very different. I just can't believe that he'd do something that stupid. Although it was really cute to see Alan running out of Charlie's office.

Also, what was up with him being an ass to Alex? He has spent so much of his time with the FBI having to convince people (his brother and the team originally, and then every guest star since then) that his work is valid, and can be applied to this type of work. I find it really weird that he'd be so down on her, *especially* since he was the one who asked her for help. If I were that woman, I would have bitch slapped him so hard, especially when he said "Great, even the fluff fails us". W.T.F!
I also found Charlie's skepticism over Numerology really dumb. Sure he can think it's stupid to apply religious significance to numbers, but saying he can't work with numerology because it's "nonsense" was just stupid. So much of what he does is looking at numbers and finding the significance that was given them. Think back to that train episode. With numerology, he's *given* the significant numbers and the meaning behind them, it should have been easy! You don't have to believe in the significance given the numbers to be able to use it.
I also had trouble believing that Charlie doesn't see significance in *any* numbers. Saying that he doesn't see numbers as magical... Charlie has a deeper understanding of math than most people, he can see them sing, I can't believe that he'd be so dismissive of them and their power. That he wouldn't see them as special. Way back in season 1 he gave Terry a little lecture on the Fibonacci sequence, and spoke with reverence of the beauty of the golden ratio, and then in the ep he's all "well there is evidence that math occurs *spontaneously* in nature." I find it incredibly unlikely that a mathematician would be so dismissive. Charlie often tries to tell us that everything is numbers, and logic, to say that these things "just happen" and have no "significance" or reason is mind boggling. Just because we don't understand the significance or the reason doesn't mean it's not there. The limitation is within us, not the numbers. I realize that they were trying to get across their opinion that the significance that the killer is giving these numbers isn't really significant, but I thought it was poorly done of the writers to have Charlie basically denouncing his profession to do it.

On a more positive note, I loved the girlfriends this episode! Which is saying a lot, because normally at best I'm indifferent to them, at worse hate them, Liz especially. Liz was good this episode though. There just enough, but not over powering, or feeling too random.
Amita on the other hand, rocked. I find that often when Amita and Charlie have their romance going, Amita stops being a fun character, and instead is just the girlfriend, this episode they were able to balance her character though. They had her teasing Charlie over Alex, and reminding him what a catch she was, and we got to see her brains in action. Did anyone else notice the look on Charlie's face when she was talking about how they could narrow down the potential victims by their phone numbers? It could only be described as adoring, and was super cute. :D