Criminal Minds
Criminal Mindshas been in the tidings a slew lately , what with Thomas Gibson ’s firing for violence on the readiness ( No ! ) , Aisha Tyler ’s move to a lasting topographic point on the cast ( Yes ! ) , Adam Rodriguez ’s addition to the cast ( Jury ’s still out ! ) , the news that Paget Brewster ’s income tax return will be lasting ( Double hooray ! ) , and the fact that this will be the first time of year without Shemar Moore ( Boo ) . Since the new time of year start in a few week , now seems like a good time to revisit what gives this show its endurance .
It ’s not the depravity of the offence , despite the hype . The " Unsubs"—unknown subjects who place them — are normally pretty horrible , it ’s true , and can take their price on the viewersas well as the player . But it ’s the heroes of the Behavior Analysis Unit ( the BAU ) that make the show what it is . In the face of Unsubs who kidnap , torture , and torment , our behavioral analyst step in week after week to put themselves in harm ’s way , look down the horridness , and save the day . Are they double-dyed ? Nope . But sometimes they descend pretty damned close .
Here are our15 Most Heroic Moments FromCriminal Minds .
15. Reid in “Elephant’s Memory”
When gamey schooler Owen Savage goes on a killing spree , it ’s Spencer Reid ( Matthew Gray Gubler ) who knows how unspoiled to profile him , because he have it off what it ’s like tobehim . The whole Ithiel Town is quick to find Owen and gun him down , but Reid alone remains benevolent , think back what it was like to be the loneliest minor in the schooling , publicly bedevil and abandoned . When they begin close up in on Owen , Reid pass his bulletproof singlet over to Hotch , say he wo n’t be a part of what ’s to fare . He have sex Owen is going to squeeze the police to shoot him .
But when the showdown come , Reid walk into the center of it , pass Prentiss his artillery before he steps right into Owen ’s path , his hired man outstretched . When the BAU usher up , he positions himself between them and Owen , blocking their shot . He extend up sympathy instead of condemnation:“I cognize the hard you tried , the worse it cause , and it feel like everybody just stood there watching you stand . Not a single soul even seek to help,“Reid tells him .
He makes the connection . Owen drops his gun , and they take him in alive . Hotch secernate Reid he should fire him , and Reid tells him it wo n’t befall again . But you could tell he ’s glad it did .
14. Gideon in “Plain Sight”
The BAU is asked to help stop The Tommy Killer , a serial killer who rapes and execution women , then glue their eyes open . When the police force go to connect his first few murders , he start up leaving snippets of 16th century ballads at the offence scenes to help them connect the dots . He desperately wants his 15 minutes of renown .
At one of the the crime scene , Jason Gideon ( Mandy Patinkin ) puts himself in the precise same spot as the attacked charwoman , realizing that they are always made to present the phone celestial pole outdoors . The Tommy Killer works for the phone company and can see right into their windows . By identifying with the victim , Gideon is able to understand what urinate this grampus check off .
They pin down the neighborhood of his next target and split up to check out individual houses . Gideon hits the correct one . He goes in alone , gun drawn . Franklin Graney , AKA The Tommy Killer , is on a higher floor , holding a woman at gunpoint . Gideon tells him Graney that if he frivol away her , Gideon drink down him and his reputation will die with him . Gideon separate Graney on the dot what he need to try : that if he survives , everyone will know who he is , for all timelessness .
It works . Graney , dire for notoriety , make Gideon promise to distinguish everyone all about him , and hands over the triggerman . And Gideon , who knows that it ’s the victim we ’re conjecture to remember , does n’t keep his hope .
13. Hotch in “Tabula Rasa”
Tabula rasameans " vacuous slate " in Latin , and in this type it refer to Brian Matloff , a serial killer who ends up in a comatoseness after run from Morgan . When he wakes , he has focal retrograde amnesia , and therefore no retention of his identity or his criminal offense . He is put on test anyway .
His attorney , Lester Sterling , insists that he was wrongly arrested in the first place , claim the apprehension was base more on the BAU ’s profiling than on concrete grounds . While Aaron " Hotch " Hotchner ( Thomas Gibson ) is on the outdoor stage , Sterling calls profiling"intellectual guesswork"and jeer that Hotch could n’t even tell him the colouring of his socks"with any greater accuracy than a carnival psychical . "
With the reputation of the BAU at stakes , Hotch beak up the gauntlet . Without a change in tone of voice or facial locution , he gives Sterling a laundry listing bio , begin with the colour of his socks and the ground he opt them . After he has sedately outlined Sterling ’s failing finances , his grounds for taking the instance , the lifts in his shoes , and his fake Rolex , he tells the court that Sterling is betting on horse race , and judging by his increasingly bad mood , is not doing very well . “If I ’m not mistaken,“he says,“the results from the 5th wash should be add up through any minute . "
Sterling ’s BlackBerry bombinate right on cue . Hotch bring through the shell and the stellar repute of the BAU , all without break a sweat .
12. Sarah Jean Mason in “Riding The Lightning”
This time , it ’s not a member of the BAU who does something extraordinary to save someone . Sarah Jean Mason ( Jeannetta Arnette ) and her husband , Jacob Dawes , have been convicted of the slaying of over a dozen young cleaning woman and doom to death . On the day of their execution , the team come to the prison house to ask them if there are any victim they have n’t found yet , and to get to the bottom of what happened to Riley , their son . The account has it that Jacob forced Sarah Jean to kill him , but the details do n’t quite connect .
Jacob is unrepentant , while Sarah Jean is calm and nice , even gentle . As Gideon questions her , he realise that she did n’t know Jacob was torture and drink down char until he was caught . She has been on last row for 15 years for crime she did n’t institutionalize . He fall upon that Riley is still active , living with a family and all incognizant of who he really is . Sarah Jean is protect him , not just from Jacob , while he is still alive , but from his parents ' legacy after their deaths .
If Gideon bear witness that Riley is alive , Sarah Jean will be save , but she insists on dying to protect her son from becoming Jacob ’s last victim . Gideon embraces her before she fail to the electric professorship , and pulls the team back from bring out the verity that would discontinue her carrying out . thankful , she ask if his face can be the last one she sees before she dies .
11. Rossi in “Damaged”
David Rossi ( Joe Mantegna ) has been haunted by a compositor’s case for 20 years , and when the squad rally around him to help . He ’s still excruciate by guilt about not being able to solve it , but they refuse to countenance him abide that encumbrance on his own any longer . JJ has the index to put any case she like on the BAU ’s roster , and insists on doing so .
The execution victims were the parent of three vernal children who are now in their twenty and still living in the shadow of the criminal offence . The now - grow kids tell Rossi to back off ; staying in contact with him is prevent them from go on with their lives . Then they impart that he should stop sending them gifts . gift ? Turns out he has n’t been sending them anything . The gift are cheesy carnival toys , and provide the leave out cue to help result them to the killer whale .
All of that is very prissy and impart them closure , but it turns out Rossi has been doing more than brooding for the past 20 long time . He bought the house they had lived in and kept it in pristine shape . When the criminal offense is lick , he hands over the key , and tells them they will get a ripe price when they trade it . He has been keeping it for them for X , and is now giving them a fresh financial head start to get their lives in rescript , ultimately . They necessitate if they can keep in feeling . Grateful , Rossi agree .
10. JJ in “The Longest Night”
Tim Curry plays a killer terrorizing Los Angeles during a serial of rolling blackouts in " The Longest Night " . Billy Flynn has an obsession with the Spicer family that goes back X . He kill Detective Spicer ( after having killed his parents when he was a tike ) , colza and beats his sister , and snatch his girl Ellie . In the midst of this cruelness and little terror , there are multiple acts of heroism to be found .
Ellie , forced to become Flynn ’s accomplice , betrays him and tells a little boy to monish the integral neighborhood . Morgan takes on Flynn alone , though he ’s still tormented by the vision of Detective Spicer being fritter away dead in front of him . But the grownup moment comes right before that , when Jennifer " JJ " Jareau ( A.J. Cook ) is asked by Hotch to make a personal appeal to Flynn over the radio set .
This is n’t familiar territory for JJ . She ’s usually the press interpreter and squad coordinator , not the individual who speak down Unsubs . She ’s terrified , clearly wishing Hotch would step in and treat it with his common expertise . But it has to be her ; he ca n’t get there in clip .
She stumble at first , and then she reach deep into her mortal and appeal to him as a mother and human being . It ’s her biggest second in the serial publication so far , when she has to abuse outside her comfort zona and detect some humanity in a killer no matter how heinous she thinks he is . She succeeds and he lets Ellie go .
9. Kevin Lynch in “Penelope”
In two - part episode it ’s really punishing to perfect in on a single routine of heroism : should it be Garcia helping former crime victim get closure in her off time of day ? Or Morgan insisting on staying at her side when she comes home after being shot ?
The come through moment belongs to Kevin Lynch ( Nicholas Brendon ) , a data psychoanalyst who ’s almost as good as Garcia . He ’s there to fill in while she ’s recovering , and they engage in a flirtatious struggle of electronic computer skills , both trying to determine who shoot her . They identify Jason Clark Battle , a lieutenant sheriff who shoot people so he can get credit for saving them . Too tough he does n’t always succeed , and when he thinks Garcia is onto him , he assay to silence her … permanently .
At the office , Agent Fuchs order Lynch help Battle delete his pillowcase files from the FBI ’s computing machine . But Lynch has seen Battle ’s photograph and recognise him instantly . He stalls as much as possible and sends Garcia a video provender of the office staff , where Battle is hovering over his shoulder . She warns the rest period of the team and thanks to the video feed , Prentiss is able to tell from Battle ’s body linguistic process the instant he realizes they ’re onto him . When he takes Emil Klaus Julius Fuchs at point , we get a volley of valiance from JJ , who shoots him through the doors of her situation . While she did the actual shooting , it ’s still Lynch who saved the day by adventure himself to warn them .
8. Ashley Seaver in “What Happens At Home”
Three adult female have been kill within one gate community , and the BAU is down a member , with JJ impel into a new line of work with the Department of Defense . get into Ashley Seaver ( Rachel Nichols ) , an FBI cadet with a unique crime syndicate history that makes her a perfect candidate to help oneself catch a successive killer : she ’s the girl of one . Seaver ’s unique perspective might be just the thing they involve .
She ’s only a plebe , but she ’s as brave as the rest of them . She visits the married man and daughter of the most recent victim , hoping to provide some comfort . Seaver tells them that she recognise the family of the murderer will feel shame and desire to apologize to the dupe , and the father keeps asking her how she knows . His intense questions give him away , and she realizes that he ’s the slayer .
Here ’s where the valour come in : while Seaver has a tongue to her pharynx , she ’s not thinking about herself , but of the slayer ’s daughter . She does n’t tap for her own life , but instead for him to send his girl out of the room , so she wo n’t spend the rest of her sprightliness haunted by the vision of her male parent killing someone . Seaver has suffered her whole life because of her father ’s offence , and when her own life is in risk , she is focused only on prevent the same guilt from haunting another killer ’s daughter .
7. Hotch in “The Fisher King: Part 2”
This scene is a powerful one , and even though it ’s not about salve lives or preventing tragedy , it ’s still a hero ’s here and now , and it ’s all Hotch . It comes at the very end of the series ' first two - parter . Each member of the squad has been pursued , threatened , and made vulnerable , but none more so than Greenaway , who was shot by the Unsub and then lay there bleeding as he write the word " rules " on her wall with her blood .
After the killer has been catch and Elle is recover in the hospital , Hotch comes back to her theater , alone . We take in him snap on gloves , fill a bucket with pee and Georgia home boy , take it to the living room , and tardily start scour . It ’s going to be an toilsome task , now that the parentage has been there for a while . It ’s physical , it ’s painstaking , it ’s emotional , it ’s powerful . Not a word is speak . As he works , you’re able to see he ’s go to be there for hours , because he believes that Greenaway should never have to see what ’s there . It ’s Hotch , so he ’s going to be meticulous ; there wo n’t be a hint of the blood leave when he ’s done . And it will take him all nighttime . Not all epic bit occur in peril .
6. Nancy Riverton in “Safe Haven”
Every once in a while , aCriminal Mindsvictim finds a room to get some command over their situation . In " Safe Haven " , Mare Winningham plays Nancy Riverton , a nurse with two small fry and a pith of gold . She pick up Jeremy , who she thinks is a lost teenager . Unfortunately for her , he turns out to be a sociopath , hate by his mother even before he was born when she find out he ’d devoured his own Twin Falls in the uterus , and now extremely unsafe at only 13 yr old .
Jeremy wake Nancy ’s nipper up in the heart of the nighttime and splice them up , hope to scare her for a while before kill them all , but she surprises him . When the BAU frees the shaver a few hr subsequently , they report that their mom leave with Jeremy . They ask why she told Jeremy that he was a good kid who did nothing wrong , and why she left with him while they were still tie up . Prentiss explains that their mom understood how severe Jeremy was , and did what she had to do to get him out of the business firm and save their life .
veer to Nancy and Jeremy in the machine . He ’s hold a tongue , toy with her , and she ’s doing her good to pacify him . She ’s offered to drive him wherever he demand to go , and while she gets stabbed when they finally arrive , she survives . Pretty key stuff , risking your life for your kids , and as heroic as it get .
