#beyond borders

People confidently will say matt was a good “filler” but he didn’t have an impact and ugh how that hurts my soul. Firstly, please please please go and watch beyond borders because it gives so much more insight into matt as a character.

We first meet matt in the franchise in season 10 episode 19 and you learn instantly a few things, he has four kids and a lot lot of connections around. These ultimately seem insignificant but he’s immediately placed as dedicated, successfully raising his children whilst being a member of the IRT, which is something we hadn’t seen in criminal minds from the males.

Following this beyond borders is released and this is where you get so much insight. The first thing we start to learn about Matt is how genuinely family oriented he is, i always love the mention of his car being filled with car seats in season 1 episode 1 like get it!!! but more importantly in season 1 episode 6 (i think) where its found that a guy was kidnapping women to make them wives and mothers of his children. At the end Matt states that “he can’t help but think about his daughters” and how “he wants to protect them forever” to me he shares a lot of instincts with JJ which everyone praises on her but never on him, for matt it’s he’s just a family man, but like who else has that trait with the stability???

Alongside this his loyalty to the IRT and then the BAU is immensely high for me he is one of the most loyal focused characters (however i don’t disagree that every criminal minds character has loyalty) but for matt that’s one of the ways people can get to him, stating that he isn’t loyal or based on his team. In 2x09 Linda Barnes is trying to close the IRT and is doing so through exposing the teams weakness: she pushes clara through her having known the victim and suspect, challenges mae through her career and how she came about being a ME, but for matt she accused him of hindering his team stating that HE encrypted something wrong or maybe didn’t at all and that pissed him off and also led to him being able to sus that something was wrong.

If you doubt Matt as being skilled please recall the start of season 13x2 where he had been holding down fort without the rest of the BAU very successfully and also easily he didn’t report an issue. Also we see him in a lot of different settings: with the ME, in interrogations, taking down the unsubs head on which is something you don’t see in every character for example characters like spencer and alex you don’t typically see in the interrogation setting.

Matts experience genuinely is also some of the strongest, he was in the military, then the IRT before coming to the BAU. I think of 13x3 when he sleeps in and kristy states that jack was right and that matt wasn’t “ready for a desk job” because his job heavily plateaus in comparison to the IRT. Although criminal minds obviously shows when they’re on cases a lot of their job is advising from the desk which is significantly different but he still excels at.

All i have to say is i love my man and you should too 😸😸

Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders | 2.10