In many ways,Criminal Mindsis similar to countless other police procedurals that popped up on network television in the wake ofLaw & OrderandCSI. Like those two venerable institutions, it adheres to a strict formula, as easy for the showrunners to make as it is for audiences to binge-watch.Criminal Mindscenters on the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, or the BAU, a clever and attractive bunch of criminal profilers who travel across America to solve crimes with the power of psychology. (In real life, the BAU rarely leaves their headquarters, but television’s gonna television.) In the average episode, a new threat is established, the BAU banter their way through the case, and catch the baddies in the nick of time. There are exceptions, especially as the show neared its end, but for the most part, that’s how episodes unfold.
Every element ofCriminal Mindsis of a piece with other network procedurals. The character archetypes are familiar: there’s a stern father figure in charge, there’s a stuttering nerdy genius, there’s a playful tech expert, and over the course of the series there aremanyno-nonsense women with brown hair. The production has that slick CBS sheen which brings to mind time spent on a couch watching reruns on a Saturday afternoon. Even the soundtrack, consisting of omnipresent ambient cues and the occasional needle drop, is similar to what one would find onNCIS.
But what setsCriminal Mindsapart fromNCISis thatCriminal Mindsisunhinged. The sheer number of serial killers the BAU finds over the years is frightening enough, like some country-wide version ofMurder, She Wrote’s Cabot Cove. But the killers inCriminal Mindsare rarely satisfied with murder methods as pedestrian as stabbing or strangling. They skin people alive! They feed people to rats! They set a house ablaze and put on a fire suit to watch the family burn to death! They tear a woman apart with rabid dogs! And that’s only in the first two seasons! It’s not quiteHanniballevels of disturbing, but it comes pretty close.
At its weakest,Criminal Mindsverged on PG-13 torture porn, relishing the horrible things done to terrified young women and not remotely earning its resolutions. (Mandy Patinkin, the show’s original star, agreed, which is why he stepped away.) But it was also capable of some great, tense television, as well as the occasional detour into gleeful insanity. Here are the top episodes that showCriminal Mindsat its best.
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“Rock Creek Park” (Season 10, Episode 18)
Criminal Mindshad a formula, and for the most part, it stuck to it; when it deviated, it was usually as part of a greater arc for one of the characters (as with most episodes named after a BAU member: “Penelope,” “Lauren,” “Spencer,” etc.) But sometimes there were episodes that didn’t center around a serial killer at all, but rather another criminal who needed to be profiled. The underrated “Rock Creek Park” doesn’t focus on serial murders or even a regular murder: it focuses on an abduction. When the wife of an up-and-coming congressman is kidnaped, the BAU is tasked to figure out which of Benjamin Troy (Chris McKenna)’s enemies might have done it. The actual reveal isn’t quite as shocking as the episode might think (hint: no one casts an Oscar nominee for no reason), but the show often crackled as a sort of political thriller, and the intrigue, coupled with the change of pace, makes this one sing.
“The Good Earth” (Season 8, Episode 5)
Criminal Mindspushed the boundaries of its TV-14 rating a lot harder than other procedurals of its ilk, but even for this show “The Good Earth” is gnarly. The UnSub is a woman by the name of Emma Kerrigan (Anne Dudek), a hypochondriac health nut who hallucinates rashes and scabs all over her body. After her scleroderma clears up once she spreads her late husband’s ashes over her tomato garden, Emma decides that the sensible, level-headed thing to do is to force-feed captives soil additives, kill them with an axe, and grind them up with a wood chipper to use as fertilizer.Criminal Mindssometimes struggled to nail the right tone when it came to the more outlandish UnSubs, taking a dull, by-the-book procedural approach to characters who were one step removed from Batman villains. But “The Good Earth” manages to strike the balance, making Emma feel somewhat plausible while still reveling in the utter grotesquery on display. How many other shows will have someone steal a pregnant woman’s placenta?
“Heathridge Manor” (Season 7, Episode 19)
When aCriminal Mindsepisode has a “directed byMatthew Gray Gubler” credit, it’s as much of a warning as “directed byAlan Alda” was forM.A.S.H.: things are about to getdark. Gubler, who also played the BAU’s resident awkward genius Spencer Reid, directed some of the series’ best-remembered episodes, some of which will appear further down the list. “Heathridge Manor” lacks the emotional punch of those episodes, but it makes up for it with sheer gothic brio. Centering on a series of ritualistic murders in Oregon, “Heathridge Manor” has everything: hallucinations, poisoned dresses, incest, a baby with their arm cut off,The Merry Wives of Windsor. And who’s that at the end, knocking on the titular manor’s door? Could it be…Satan?Criminal Mindswas at its best when it was unafraid of getting weird, and “Heathridge Manor” is proof.
“The Lesson” (Season 8, Episode 10)
Speaking of getting weird: human puppets! The UnSub this episode, excellently played by character actorBrad Dourif, is Adam Rain, a traumatized puppeteer who wants to give his father’s tragic murder a happy ending. With the help of a complex pulley system, a hole-boring device, several terrified hostages, and a can-do attitude, he sets out to do just that.Criminal Mindshas always had nightmarish imagery for a TV-14 show, and “The Lesson” might be one of its most frightening episodes: it can’t show everything, but viewers might wish it showed even less. The scene where Rain uses his pulley system to make a limp, agonized woman dance to a lullaby version of “Where Is My Mind?” is like a scene from some grotesqueDavid Lynch/Eli Rothcollaboration. And say, doesn’t Rain’s assistant seem a little wooden…?
“The Big Wheel” (Season 4, Episode 22)
Not every episode ofCriminal Mindsis horrifying. Sometimes, they’re just deeply sad. There have been plenty of sympathetic UnSubs, but few are as sympathetic as poor Vincent Rowlings (Alex O’Loughlin), a shy young man with OCD who witnessed his mother’s murder and is compelled to re-enact it again and again.Criminal Minds’ treatment of mental illness isn’t always delicate, but “The Big Wheel” handles OCD relatively well. Vincent’s rituals, such as obsessively changing his slippers or wrapping his car wheel in plastic (or indeed, stabbing people), aren’t things hewantsto do, but things hehasto do. Add in a subplot where he befriends a blind boy whose mother he murdered, and “The Big Wheel” moves inexorably towards tragedy.
“Pleasure Is My Business” (Season 4, Episode 16)
As the BAU is sure to point out every time they encounter one, female UnSubs are rare; even in this setting where America has more serial killers than Cinnabon locations, the majority are male. But that just makes the episodes with female killers more memorable, and Megan Kane (Brianna Brown) is among the most memorable of them all. A glamorous call-girl who poisons rich dirtbags evading their alimony payments, Kane is sympathetic to the point of being an anti-hero: one might finish the episode wishing there was a whole movie about her. It’s a pity she dies at the end, but at least she gets revenge on her dad – and a sweet scene with Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson), the BAU agent she says is “the first man I ever met who didn’t let me down.”
“L.D.S.K.” (Season 1, Episode 6)
The title stands for “long-distance serial killer,” and just theconceptof that is frightening enough. Keeping away from dark alleyways and ominous strangers is one thing, but how does one keep safe from a killer several football fields away? Based on the case of the Beltway snipers, “L.D.S.K.” sustains tension through some nifty bits of misdirection–there are not one buttwored herrings–before finally culminating in a harrowing hostage crisis, in which both Reid and Hotchner are caught. Hotch, as ever, has a plan: it’s heartbreaking to see him speak about Reid with such convincing contempt, but when it becomes clear that it’s a gambit to disarm the UnSub it’s a thrill. And hey, at least Reid got his digs in back: “You kick like a nine-year-old girl,” he teases, and the BAU’s bond grows ever stronger.
“Amplification” (Season 4, Episode 24)
Here’s another case based on real life, and another with a great big dose of paranoia. A homegrown terrorist has developed a new strain of anthrax even more virulent than before, and he’s releasing it in public places to show how vulnerable America is to enemy attack. The lung-ravaging, organ-hemorrhaging disease is bad enough, but public panic would make matters even worse – and so the BAU has to stay quiet, despite the danger it poses to themselves and their loved ones. This is another one of those episodes that could have been fleshed out into a full movie, but the brisk pace reinforces the urgency of the situation. The best part is the chilling capper, when the anthrax is stored in an army base – alongside thousands and thousands of other biological weapons the public knows nothing about.
“Lucky” (Season 3, Episode 8)
Criminal Minds, likeLaw & Order, provided opportunities for typecast actors to try their hand at playing a villain. A few other ringers will show up later on this list, but first, let’s look at the most surprising success: who knewJamie Kennedyhad it in him? Best known as a smartass from the first fewScreammovies andSon of the Mask, Kennedy is skin-crawling as the Satanic cannibal Floyd Feylinn Ferell (note the repetition of the sixth letter of the alphabet). Maybe it’s just easy to believe Kennedy as a force of evil, but he’s convincing as a being of pure malevolence: take the scene where he reveals to a priest just what (or who) was in that chili he ate. It would be a lot to handle even without the cliffhanger, where the BAU’s beloved tech wizard Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) is shot by her date.
“100” (Season 5, Episode 9)
AnyCriminal Mindsfan will know that it takes a lot to rattle Hotch, but The Reaper aka George Foyet (C. Thomas Howell) was one of those unsubs that repeatedly slipped through the BAU’s fingers. “100” sees that conflict come to a head with Foyet targeting Hotch’s ex-wife Haley (Meredith Monroe) and his son Jack (Cade Owens). It forces the FBI to put both of them in protective custody while the gang hunts down Foyet, but the Reaper is one step ahead of them and the episode ultimately culminates in the painful death of Haley, who Foyet shoots, and then Foyet himself at the hands of Hotch. The twist is that Hotch uses the coded message “work on the case” over the phone so that Jack can hide in his office like he used to before the divorce, and ultimately this is why he survives the attack. A heartbreaking episode for the series' 100th. —Therese Lacson
