When watching an older show, it isn’t surprising to discover some themes, dialogue, or character tropes don’t age well. We are, after all, an evolving species that tends to grow beyond preconceived notions once we open our minds to change. The idea of gender is one area of society where we have made significant strides in understanding its complexities, and, as a result, one episode in the fourth season of the series feels particularly old and antiquated when dealing with that concept.
Season 4, Episode 7, “The He in the She,” sees the team from the Jeffersonian investigating a body found in the Chesapeake Bay. While they initially had nothing to go on, breast implants eventually led them to discover the identity of a trans woman who disappeared to Massachusetts and became the pastor of a church. She is ultimately killed by the wife of a parishioner who is jealous of the time the pastor spent together with her husband.
u/D3xt3er felt that the episode shouldn’t have even been written. “As a trans man, it just makes me so uncomfortable; I know the show was made in the early 2000s, but honestly, I would’ve preferred if they never had a trans victim; they just weren’t ready to write it. It was a very stereotyped episode, what with the vic going to Thailand to get surgery, abandoning her past life, etc…” Older shows not knowing quite how to handle evolving societal concepts is nothing new, but some series and episodes tend to fall far below others, especially when approaching topics without being properly prepared to write about them.