When you pour yourself a glass of wine and sit down to watch an episode of Criminal Minds, drinking at these times will get you through your glass…
- When they say, Wheels up in 30
- When they identify the trigger
- When they identify the stressor
- When they say that they have to deliver the profile
That’s a lovely night. But there are other nights when perhaps you have a six-pack of Pabst. Then you’ll also want to drink…
- Every time they mention Dahmer
- When there’s a mention of an isolated secondary location
- When someone (probably Reid) identifies the killer’s comfort zone
- When they determine the killer’s cooling off period (plus, extra drinks if there’s a chance the killer is devolving and it’s turning into a spree)
Now let’s say there’s a night where you want to do shots with your friends until you all vomit. Then you’ll want to add in:
- Every time Garcia does fake computer things
- Every time Morgan says baby girl (this only works through season 11, after which Morgan leaves the show)
- Every time Reid knows an absurd fact (and this, too, is only reliable through season 11, because after this, Reid stops being in every episode)
(You might want to sadness-drink when you realize that episodes are always better when Reid is in them.)
If you’ve reached season 11, I’ve still got you covered, because you can break out the champagne when Aubrey Plaza is in an episode! (There are only a few, so it won’t break the bank.)
Other things that will keep you going through the last few seasons:
- Any of these key words: ritual, timetable, endgame
- Also, accelerating (in reference to the frequency of murders) and escalating (in reference to the severity of the violence), the latter of which is often said at a new crime scene, looking someone dead in the eye: He’s escalating
- Any time they bring up the unsub’s mother, and in this case you should pour some beer out on your floor in honor of mothers who are holding it together, and then clean it up so no one else has to (especially, say, a mother)
Please note: Do not drink every time they say unsub. You will die.
SARAH BLAKE is the author of Clean Air, a cli-fi domestic thriller, Naamah, a novel reimagining the story of Noah’s ark, and poetry collections Mr. West, Let’s Not Live on Earth, and the forthcoming, In Springtime. She lives outside of London, UK.