The Morgan Moment That Criminal Minds Fans Have A Problem Watching

Accurately portraying the finer details of police work while making it interesting for an audience has to be one of the biggest challenges of making a TV show like Criminal Minds. Over 15 seasons, the series introduced plenty of complex storylines and helped show fans what it might be like solving crimes as an FBI profiler. That meant that oftentimes, its cast of characters would find themselves in dangerous or heroic situations.

While the series actually did a good job of getting the technicalities right most of the time, it didn't always hit the mark. On forums like /r/CriminalMinds, fans have not been shy about pointing out when the series' portrayal failed to match up with how something would work in the real world. There's one moment in particular that fans recently noticed was a pretty big miss in the accuracy department.

It happened in the sixth season episode "Out of the Light," when Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) saved the victim of a sexual predator. While his actions were certainly heroic, his technique was sorely lacking — so much so that some Criminal Minds fans now have a hard time watching it. 

Let's take a look at what Morgan did — or didn't do — and why it's been bugging fans so much.

In "Out of the Light," the BAU uncovers Marcus Talbor (Time Winters), a creepy unsub who's been collecting victims for years. The investigators track him until he, in a moment of panic, drives his car into a lake. Morgan dives in and rescues his victim, pulling her to safety in true Morgan form. Then, he performs CPR to bring her back to life. That's where things start to go off the rails a bit.

In a recent discussion on /r/CriminalMinds, Reddit user Admirable-Inspector5 pointed out that Morgan's approach to resuscitating Marcy was not at all how you actually do CPR. They wrote, "Morgan didn't give a rescue breath right away (and then gave way too many at once when he did), did only THREE compressions at a time, and then as the girl was spitting up water LEFT HER ON HER BACK to choke."

Few could argue that Morgan's approach was up to snuff, but some Criminal Minds fans were willing to suspend their disbelief. A few users pointed out that the staging of the scene was probably done for dramatic effect, and that it's dangerous to do CPR on actors when they don't need it. Another fan, u/dontpanek, reminded those on the thread that "Most shows don't get CPR right which is wild because I feel like it's easy to learn the basic positioning."

So, while Morgan's CPR skills may make first aid experts cringe, at least Criminal Minds fans can take heart that he's working in a long tradition of shows getting this wrong.