Well, there's nothing like sitting through 44 minutes of humdrum narrative to get to one minute of reveal.

But that was the situation on Criminal Minds Season 12 Episode 20.

Let's go through that humdrum portion first, then hopefully pick up more narrative momentum than this hour did.

Somebody was radioactively poisoning federal workers at random.

Was it THE RUSSIANS?

That would have made for a more interesting storyline.

But no.

Instead, it was a woman who wanted to get rid of her husband and collect a $5 million insurance payout.

It couldn't be a simple murder. To be BAU worthy, it had to be complicated.

The nurse, a caretaker, had to collect radioactive materials from a bunch of different hospitals, then sandwich her husband's murder among four or five others.

Still, they managed to figure out Sarah's plot and gun her down before the last commercial break.

They didn't even need Garcia to magically piece it together for them.

It was the much-needed focus-on-Stephen Walker episode, in which we finally got some backstory. 

We found out that, in addition to two off-camera kids, Walker has a loving wife, who is very happy that he now has a job from which he can get home regularly.

We learned that he's a hell of a trombone player, which is certainly hard to work in on a regular basis. Maybe he needs a transfer to NCIS: New Orleans, so he could play at Pride's bar regularly.

We also discovered that one of Sarah's murder victims was Sam, Walker's best friend in the whole world. Sam selflessly stayed in Russia so that Walker could transfer home and save his family, something Sam was unable to do.

I liked Walker before this, and I like him better now that I got to know him more. He's a positive new addition to the BAU.

Change needn't always be a bad thing. Some shows evolve and survive (a few even flourish), while others ossify and die.

This Criminal Minds producers have done the best they can this season with the hand they've been dealt. Chanting "Bring back X" won't change the reality of the situation.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program "Reid Does Hard Time."

This marks Episode 8 of the Reid Watch, although it seems so much longer.

First, he got bad news from his ineffective lawyer that his trial has been pushed back six weeks. I didn't really catch why. Something about how the Mexican police couldn't get past the border wall, maybe?

Then Fiona told him that this was a good development. She said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Now the highly skilled investigative team you work with can focus on your case instead of being distracted by every freakshow that comes along."

So, as a consolation prize, Fiona got his mother, who apparently hadn't been told he was in prison, in to see him, so he could spend the entirety of their visit reassuring her as she began to go off the rails.

He also found out that she had fired the competent nurse he had hired. Wasn't someone from the BAU checking in on her regularly? If so, shouldn't they have told him that salient detail?.

Then, even better, he met her new nurse, who was actually Lindsey Vaughn, from Criminal Minds Season 3 Episode 12, who is also the woman from his Mexican memories. Vaughn is played by Gia Mategna, daughter of Joe Mategna (Rossi). 

Raise your hand if you plucked her out of Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine.

Even before the previews, you knew what's coming next. It's time for the BAU to rescue Diana from the miniature psycho. And the previews show Reid in a suit, so maybe, just maybe, there's some chance of a resolution, at least as far as the murder charge is concerned.

But probably not. Not until every bit of life has been sucked out of his storyline.

So let's assume that Reid will linger in prison until the season finale, and hopefully, he Mr. Scratch storyline will get sewn up, as well. That won't leave anything hanging, but I can live with that.

To catch up on the Reid storyline, watch Criminal Minds online.

How did you like the case of the week? Do you like Walker more now? Were you surprised by the Lindsey Vaughn reveal? Comment below.

Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on X.