bau-thoughts

Morgan: Seize the day, seize the night, what’s the last one?

Currently rewatching the show and decided to take note of precisely when Reid switches to using a revolver.

Contrary to popular belief, he didn't always have one.

Even Matt himself seemed to forget it when he said that he carried the revolver prop gun nearly every day for 15 years. x

I've kept a sharp eye on it and as far as I can tell, Reid doesn't ever have a revolver all the way up until The Angel Maker, 4x02.

Right from Extreme Aggressor, 1x01, we can see that he has a Glock just like the others that carry guns.

Here is The Boogeyman, 2x06.

A year later and still no sign of the revolver that's become synonymous with Reid.

There is a funny instance in which it seems like his gun transforms for an episode.

In The Big Game, 2x14, we can see throughout this episode that he still has his Glock.

At the end of the episode, Tobias knocks him over and takes his gun from him. We can clearly see that it is still the Glock here.

In Revelations, 2x15, it opens immediately following the last episode, it should have still been the Glock. But when they're in the cabin, it is somehow a revolver. There's no explanation for this but I'm assuming it's just for the plot so he can do the roulette game with Reid.

After this episode, Reid resumes using his regular Glock.

Here is shortly afterward, Distress, 2x17.

This would have been the easiest time to switch out his Glock for the revolver and make it his permanent gun. The whole roulette ordeal is still fresh in the audience's (and Reid's) mind and it would be easy to not even question him carrying the revolver. But it's back to his Glock again.

Here is 3rd Life, 3x12.

This is much later, almost a year has passed. He continues to have a Glock, with no reappearance of a revolver at any point yet.

Here is Mayhem, 4x01.

This is the last time we see him with a Glock.

In the next episode, The Angel Maker, 4x02, he suddenly has a revolver now. There is no comment on him having a different gun from him or anyone else.

It's about a year and a half after his encounter with Tobias Hankel that Reid actually begins to carry a revolver.

This leads me to believe in a couple options as to what happened there.

In canon explanation: That revolver in 2x15 was Tobias's own gun. Because if it were Reid's, surely he would've taken it back and continued to carry it. What happened to Reid's actual gun, I'm not sure. Perhaps Tobias disposed of it or hid it to ensure Reid couldn't get it back.

I think Reid chose to switch to a revolver later on because in his mind, this is the weapon that he used to save himself. This is the weapon that he had extreme luck with. He got three empty chambers in a row when Tobias was pointing it at his head and pulling the trigger.

Then, right as he decides to speak Hotch's name to give him the clue of where they are is when Tobias fired and it happened to be on the bullet. If he had refused one more time, he would have died. But he didn't.

Later, he finally gains the opportunity to take the gun to save himself. Tobias warns him there's only one bullet in the gun. Keep in mind, the cylinder had been spun! He fired and it happened to be right on the bullet. He not only saved himself, but he fired away the bullet meant for Hotch, metaphorically saving him too.

Considering all of this, he was extremely lucky the way it all played out with that revolver roulette.

We know that despite being a logic loving genius, he does a lot of things that fall outside of his love of rules, order, and logic. And this might be one of the instances that ingrained the luckiness in his mind.

In 3rd Life, 3x12, he was alone and trying to talk Jack Vaughn out of shooting his daughter's captor. He couldn't convince him and witnessed Jack kill the guy in front of him.

Then later, in Elephant's Memory, 3x16, he actually leaves his Glock behind. He hands it to Emily and walks out to try and talk down Owen Savage, completely unarmed. Later when Hotch is talking to him about his reckless actions and asked what he was thinking, Reid responds by saying he was thinking about how it would have been the second time a kid died in front of him.

So we know that these things remain and weigh heavily on Reid's mind. He might have started to think and agonize over all his perceived "failures" and "bad luck" in the field.

He could have started to have some illogical thoughts about how he kept failing whenever he had his Glock. And since he managed to successfully talk Owen Savage down after getting rid of the Glock, this could have further cemented that little idea in his head.

And he might have thought back to how incredibly lucky he was with that revolver in 2x15. Maybe this is why he decided to start carrying one himself, in the hope that it would help him be "better" and "luckier" in the field.

Real life explanation: The creators of the show needed to have Reid in a tense roulette situation where Tobias kept pulling the trigger over and over and realized this wouldn't work with a Glock. So, they gave James Van Der Beek a revolver for that episode and didn't think anyone would notice or particularly care that the gun changes magically from one moment to the next lol

(Also sorry for not posting so much, school has been taking my attention it’s hard studying to become a teacher🥲)

They link pinkies when they kiss, especially before going out into the field or in dangerous situations

Henry and Michael started calling Emily ‘Momem’ after Michael slipped up, starting to call her mom, but caught himself and ended up calling her ‘Momem’ and it just stuck

JJ wears Emily’s old Yale t-shirt, which she stole the first time she slept over, to bed so often that it’s threadbare and almost unwearable now

Emily loves gummy bears, she bites off their heads and switches the bodies (she freaked Reid out the first time she did it) and now Henry and Michael do it too

Emily is an insomniac and even though she is prescribed sleep meds, she doesn’t like to take them, so most nights she lays awake for a while and watches JJ sleep.