Criminal Minds / Tropes O to S

Tropes A to D | Tropes E to H | Tropes I to N | Tropes O to S | Tropes T to Z

Ripped from the Headlines has its own page.

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Other tropes

O-P

• Obliviously Evil: The UnSub of "God Complex", a Mad Doctor who abducts people, amputates them and forcibly grafts prosthetic limbs onto them, genuinely has no idea just how wrong his work is. In fact, he is genuinely shocked when he discovers just how horrified and revolted others are by his actions.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Erin Strauss, the bureau chief. Subverted in "100" where she doesn't even try to punish Hotch for killing the Reaper. After spending most of the entire episode playing the Obstructive Bureaucrat role in trying to get all the facts from the team, she audibly chokes up and almost tears up as Hotch finishes his report. Some deleted scenes from "In Name and Blood" also had her showing a softer side (she's actually shown comforting the husband of a victim in one of them).
• Off with His Head!: The UnSub in "Drive" killed his victims using a homemade guillotine, displaying their bodies in public and keeping the heads as trophies.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The expression on the UnSub's face before he gets blown up at the end of "Ashes and Dust".
  • The UnSub from "Lucky" provokes one at the end of the episode, during an interrogation:
    Father Marks: God is in all of us.
    Floyd Feylinn Ferell: ...So is Tracey Lambert.
  • Garcia has a massive one at the end of "Target Rich", when she deduces that "the Dirty Dozen" does not refer to twelve targets, but one: her.
• Old Master: Jason Gideon. To everyone — (although more specifically, he's the mentor to Reid).
• Ominous Mundanity: Some episode titles, like "Mosley Lane", "Hanley Waters" and so on.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: "Illabye" by Tipper is used in "The Fox" and "Mosley Lane".
  • The music in the former is, unfortunately, replaced by a much more generic piece on the DVD release, making a number of scenes far less disturbing and creepy.
  • "The Uncanny Valley" uses a more upbeat, but just as creepy, tune called "Miniatures" by Yan Volsy.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Reid has PhDs in chemistry, mathematics and engineering, BAs in psychology and sociology, and he is working on a bachelor's degree in philosophy.
  • Joked about in the very first episode, where Hotch introduces Reid as "Doctor Reid, expert in... well, everything".
• Once an Episode
  • The voice-over quote at the beginning and end of each episode. It was averted and lampshaded at the end of "... And Back", when Hotchner begins his voice-over with, "Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what's happened that day..."
  • Playful telephone banter between Morgan and Garcia. Used well to show the changed team dynamic after Morgan gets promoted. "Thanks, baby g—Thanks, Penelope." Also used in "The Longest Night" to show Morgan's stress: he snaps at Garcia for not having an answer for him.
  • Reid going off on a tangent.
  • The briefing where the team delivers the profile.
  • A scene on the jet after the case is concluded.
    • Unless the case is taking place in the DC area, there's usually a scene on the jet beforehand too.
  • Meeting the local cops. It's entirely possible that there are dozens of police captains out there who think J.J.'s full name is "Agent Jareauwespokeonthephone."
• One Head Taller: Rebecca is significantly shorter than Tara, only coming up to around her shoulder. It's highlighted when they kiss and Tara has to bend her head down.
• One of Our Own: Reid is in peril almost every week, but it happens to the others sometimes, too. (They spread the love around.)
  • Garcia even got shot.
  • Oh, and half the time, when Reid isn't getting kidnapped or held hostage or infected with anthrax, the case is still hitting him in the gut: nightmares, visions of himself in the victim's shoes, etc. The one time that Reid is held hostage but not the one the Bad Thing happens to, he's guilty about it for the rest of the episode. (In "Minimal Loss", when Emily takes the beating to keep him from getting shot.) And in the end, he was still slammed in the gut with a gun and nearly blown up. Reid does not have a good track record.
  • Hotch, in "...And Back" and "Nameless, Faceless".
  • Prentiss in "Lauren"; Hotch even goes so far as to declare Prentiss the victim and her abductor, Doyle, the UnSub.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted, logically — there have been how many UnSubs called Vincent, again? And how many victims named Katie/Katy? There have also been at least two blonde boys called Michael, and a baby.
  • An extremely weird example is in "Closing Time," where two victims are named "Joe Krause" and "Joseph Kraus." They apparently aren't intended to be the same person, either, because the UnSub killed them in different ways.
  • There have been two Allen (Alan) Archers. One is a minor character in "Magnum Opus," the other is a heroic witness actually one of the UnSubs two years later in "Hero Worship," with Indianapolis's mayor even declaring "Allen Archer Day."
  • The Replicator asked Hotch if the Aaron/Erin thing ever got confusing.
  • There are probably enough UnSubs called Turner by this point that real Turners could denounce the show for defamation.
  • Ramos is both an alias of a victim in Season 12 and a terrorist from Luke's past.
  • JJ and Morgan both name their firstborn sons "Henry", though Morgan nicknames his "Hank".
  • At least two disturbed teenage UnSubs have been named Owen, both of whom turned into murderers for feeling misunderstood by everyone.
  • If an UnSub is named Frank you can be pretty certain he'll be one of the most dangerous psychopaths ever.
  • Several boys, from Reid's childhood friend to Blake's late son, are named Ethan.
  • UnSubs named Ellen tend to be practically apathetic with depression.
  • Whereas UnSubs named Dana tend to be deranged and hallucinating.
  • At least two UnSubs have had the surname Montola.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Quite a lot of episodes end with the BAU attempting to disable armed suspects by shooting them in the arm or leg (often, the armed person is mentally ill, an emotional non-criminal attempting to get revenge on a serial killer that killed a loved one, or otherwise acting out of mistake rather than malice). However, all shootings are necessary, and the show seems to actively avoid showing whether or not the person that got shot actually survived (their fates often aren't mentioned during the team's final debriefing), so the writers may be aware of this trope.
• Only Friend: Eileen in "Elephant's Memory" is the only friend of Jordan (the Unsub's victim), due to Jordan's slower learning abilities and her being a victim of Slut-Shaming. Eileen is shown as deeply concerned about Jordan throughout the episode and is characterized as having helped stick up to her when she was bullied.
• Only in Florida:
  J.J.: We got a bad [case].
  Morgan: How bad?
  J.J.: Florida.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Animal, the Footpath Killer, the Hollow Man, and the Mill Creek Killer. Three of the members of the hitman ring in "Entropy" are only referred to by their specialties: the Sniper, the Chemist, and the Bomber.
• Oppressive Immigration Enforcement: In "A Rite of Passage", the serial killer of the week is Ronald Boyd, a crazy sheriff's deputy of a New Mexico border town who spends his nights hunting down undocumented immigrants trying to sneak into the United States and killing them. When the BAU arrives to town because of the huge body count he has left behind, he escalates to insane levels to not be caught, including annihilating a local Cartel group to try to frame them for the deaths, killing a fellow deputy when he is a witness, and trying to shoot it out with the FBI agents. He's even infuriated his boss Sheriff Ruiz investigated his victims' disappearances, declaring his victims can't be missing as they "ain't supposed to be here in the first damn place" right before killing him.
• Organ Dodge: The team realize that the sniper that they are chasing in the "Final Shot" episode is not a run-of-the-mill spree shooter because his victims were hit by kill shots directly to the head, base of neck, and heart. The only reason that the sixth victim survived the mass shooting was because he had dextrocardia, having the heart on the right side of the body instead of the left. But it is ultimately averted since the bullet still tore through major arteries and the doctors couldn't save him.
• Orphaned Punchline: "Reckoner":
  Tony: Hear the joke about the two Irishmen— [gets shot]
• Our Vampires Are Different: "The Performer"
• Outlaw Couple: " The Perfect Storm", "Mosley Lane", " A Thousand Words", "The Thirteenth Step", and the novel Finishing School. "Conflicted" is suspected to be the case, but it is subverted when it turns out to be a case of Split Personality.
• Paparazzi: "The Performer", "Public Enemy", and "Somebody's Watching".
• Papa Wolf: Hotch. Do not threaten his son. Just... don't.
  • There's also the father from "Big Sea". He gets himself killed protecting his son, but he puts up a hell of a fight. The team even wonders what it was that made him fight so hard before they realize his son was also kidnapped.
  • One of the victims in "Mr. Scratch" kills himself instead of his son, like he was instructed to.
• Parting-Words Regret:
  • Elle's last words to her father were "I hate you, Daddy," because she was eight years old, and he couldn't stay home from work to teach her how to ride a bike. He was a policeman and died that day.
  • When Hotchner leaves the team, Garcia's regret is that she doesn't actually remember the last thing she said to them, because she didn't know it would be the last time they'd talk. She declares that it's too much pressure to always end conversations with something deep or meaningful, but she also makes sure to tell Rossi "I love you" before hanging up.
  • The unsub in "Hanley Waters" is driven by grief because she was yelling at her young son just before they got into the car accident that killed him.
• Pater Familicide: "Normal"
• Paying It Forward: Derek is from a tough neighborhood in Chicago. He goes back and keeps tabs on the kids at the local youth center. This is partially because he knows the youth center director is a pedophile and because he wants the kids to get the same help he got but without having to pay the same price.
• The Plan: "Masterpiece" it fails. "Omnivore" (a successful one).
  • The lead killer in "Children of the Dark" also tries pulling one, and it's just barely averted (the gambit, not the trope).
• Photographic Memory: Reid has one. It seems to mostly pertain to things he has read, but to an extent also to the things he's lived. At one point, Elle comments that despite having an eidetic memory, he can barely remember anything from his first ten years of life.
• Piecemeal Funds Transfer: It uses the "multiple transactions below reporting thresholds" in cases where someone pays off a hitman via a series of payments. Once they know that's what they're looking for, the strategy doesn't help the unsubs, since they just look for the smaller payments and see them adding up.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Derek Morgan and Penelope Garcia truly, madly, deeply love each other and would go to the ends of the earth to back each other up. But they aren't in love with one another and are just fine with that.
• Playful Hacker: Garcia.
• Playing Pictionary: Morgan looks at a picture drawn by an autistic kid and can't figure out what it is. Hotch makes a glance, says "It's obviously a dog" and keeps on with what he's doing, leaving Morgan absolutely befuddled.
• Police Are Useless:
  • Generally averted, as the local police assisting the BAU are generally depicted as helpful and competent within the boundaries of their expertise and experience, but simply outmatched by whatever Psycho of The Week they're currently facing. There are a few exceptions, of course, including a remarkably bizarre Lost in Translation moment in "Machismo" (although her subordinates are more capable), and the prejudiced and antagonistic Detective Gordinski in "Profiler, Profiled".
  • Generally, you can tell whenever an episode's particular FBI consultant has a dim opinion of non-Federal law enforcement, because in those episodes the local police are always at best helpless and rather in awe of the BAU, fading into the background and reduced to scenery, and at worst obstructive and actively harmful to the investigation, giving the BAU chances to lecture and scold them.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot:
  • The 18th episode of Season 5, "The Fight," is not an example if only because the producers announced their intention right from the beginning. It featured another BAU team who starred in the spinoff Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. This didn't really pan out, as very little fandom interest plus poor writing got it canceled.
  • Played straight in Season 10's "Beyond Borders", which served as a pilot for the Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders spin-off. Despite criticism about the California Doubling and unoriginal case (The Criminal Minds wikia cites no less than 8 previous UnSubs with a similar MO), the episode got enough viewers for CBS to pick up the new series.
  • "Nelson's Sparrow", also in Season 10, shows young versions of Gideon and Rossi at the beginning of the BAU in the late 70s. According to them, this was the writers' pitch for a spin-off (Criminal Minds: Origins) that was not greenlighted. They still liked the premise enough to make a regular episode out of it.
• Pose of Silence: In "Memoriam", Reid relives some pressure off Henry, whose mother is hung up on him attending Yale, by whispering to him that he (Reid) can get him (Henry) into Caltech with a call. Henry's mother JJ remains none the wiser.
• Power Born of Madness: "True Night". The guys from "The Big Wheel" and "Reflection of Desire" also had an extremely high tolerance to pain.
• Precision F-Strike: A few times, but the most notable would have been Reid in "Painless" yelling "Son of a bitch!" when his phone's been ringing off the hook for the past two days when Morgan pranks him.

• Pregnant Bad Ass: JJ and now Kate.
• Pregnant Hostage: "Derailed", though she was actually on her way to get an abortion when the train was hijacked.
• Present Absence: Gideon is frequently referenced after he's left. Depending on who's talking, this can be as a cautionary tale, a source of wisdom, or just someone who is deeply missed.
  • After she's murdered by the Reaper, Haley's presence is felt in many episodes focused on Hotch and Jack.
• Prison Rape: Prentiss openly implies this will happen to the UnSub in "Slave of Duty."
  • Implied to have happened to the missing prisoner in "Lockdown".
• Professional Killer: "Natural Born Killer", "3rd Life" and "Reckoner".
• The Profiler: Obviously.
• Promotion to Parent: In "Damages" Connie Galen did a lot of taking care of her siblings after their parents died when she was about ten. Given her young age at the time and the family's economic status this could have turned out better (they're dysfunctional, but still loving deep down and not criminals or anything 20 years later).
• Properly Paranoid: The hitman in "Natural Born Killer," whom the BAU had classified as suffering from paranoid personality disorder, asks Gideon, "Hey, Jason, is it still called 'paranoid' if I'm right?" He says this after a non-BAU agent confirms his suspicions about an undercover cop.
• Psycho Knife Nut: A number of UnSubs, including the ones from "The Big Wheel" and "Public Enemy", as well as the Reaper.
• Psycho Lesbian: UnSub Maggie Lowe in the episode "Somebody's Watching." She stalked Lila Archer for years after falling in love with her in college. She killed people who were either in Lila's way or were competing for her attention.
• Psychopathic Manchild:
  • The perpetrator of the brutal murder that haunted Rossi for twenty years — built up to an extent as a ruthless, brilliant, homicidal maniac — turned out to be a frightened, mentally ill man who never meant to kill anyone (he followed a little girl he liked from his carnival workplace, broke into the house, and panicked when the parents discovered him and the father, quite understandably not knowing what was going on, attacked the 'intruder' with an ax and fought back with tragic results) and cries helplessly for his daddy when he's arrested. He felt so bad about the murder that he had been sending fluffy toys as presents every year on the anniversary as an apology.
  • The UnSub in "To Hell..."/"And Back" was revealed to be an overgrown manchild who was being manipulated into stealing the stem cells of homeless people by his quadriplegic mad scientist older brother.
  • The UnSub from "The Uncanny Valley" is probably an example of this as well, as she has the mind of a young child, due to electroshock therapy her father put her through so she wouldn't talk about his sexual abuse of her. She just wants her pretty set of dolls back, the set he took from her.
  • The UnSub from "Proof" is an extremely dark one. He suffered a brain injury at birth that left him with cognitive disabilities. As a teen he got Seven Minutes in Heaven with the popular girl, only to have her taken by his brother. Many years later, he hears they're having marital problems and starts brutally torturing and killing women after she rejects him again. He ends up kidnapping his niece when she bleaches her hair to look like her mom on prom night and when taken in he explained what he did in glee. Oh, and he taped every murder. "I like hearing the women scream, it reminds me of the roller coaster!" Playing Kick the Dog was fun too.
  • "The Lesson" features a puppeteer who comes out of a coma with severe brain damage that leaves him stuck in the mindset he had when he was ten. This includes thinking puppets he inherited from his father were actually people who failed to intervene in a fatal robbery, so he tortures people into becoming the puppets and reenacting the robbery with a different ending where the puppets do help.
• Psycho Supporter:
  • "The Performer" Dante/Davies's manager is completely loyal to him to the point of manipulating an obsessed, schizophrenic fangirl to murder other fangirls to promote his new album. Needless to say, Dante is horrified.
  • "Rock Creek Park" A senator's mother is determined to get her son into higher office and is willing to have his wife kidnapped, maimed, and murdered to boost his popularity. Unlike Dante, while the senator is horrified when he learned of his mother's plan (the murdering part was thankfully averted) it worked so he's willing to work with her for the foreseeable future.

• Psycho Psychologist:
  • The UnSub of "The Fox" is a psycho family therapist, who stalks and kills families based on failings that come out in their therapy.
  • "Scared to Death", had a "phobia specialist" who killed patients based on their fears of drowning, being Buried Alive and so on.
• Put Off Their Food: The UnSub of "Rabid" kills his victims by infecting them with rabies. When a report comes in about a woman who is frothing at the mouth, Rossi mournfully looks down at his fresh coffee with extra foam and then throws it away.
• Put on a Bus:
  • In early Season 2, Elle left the BAU after killing a rapist and hasn't been seen since.
  • At the start of Season 3, Gideon resigned after failing to stop Frank Breitkopf, his late girlfriend's murderer, and his lover Jane from committing suicide. In Season 10, he comes Back for the Dead.
  • At the end of the Season 5 opener, Hotchner's ex-wife Haley and his son Jack get whisked off into protective custody in order to protect them from the serial killer known as the Reaper, which means that Hotchner will lose all contact with Haley and more importantly, with his young son Jack as long as the Reaper is on the loose. For a Papa Wolf like Hotchner, this is probably a Fate Worse than Death, which was exactly the Reaper's goal all along.
  • In "JJ", J.J. was shuttled off to a new position in the State Department. Luckily, The Bus Came Back.
  • At the end of Season 7, Emily left the BAU to head Interpol. As in the case of J.J., The Bus Came Back.
  • In Season 11, Derek quit the BAU after his wife Savannah gave birth to their son, and he decided that his job was too dangerous now that he had a wife and son. He reappears briefly at the end of Spencer's incarceration ordeal, clueing the BAU in that Mr. Scratch has returned to torment the team.
  • In Season 12, Hotch himself is sent off on a temporary assignment, though he later enters the Witness Protection Program with his son Jack in order to be protected from Peter Lewis, A.K.A. "Mr. Scratch"
  • Other put on a bus moments that are comparatively minor include: Ashley Seaver in Season 6 (moved to a different team), Alex Blake in Season 8 (quit the BAU after a shootout in Texas nearly resulted in the death of Reid, whom she had started to see as her own late son), and Kate Callahan in Season 10 (left the BAU to take care of her niece Meg and her new baby).
• Pyromaniac: "Compulsion", "Ashes and Dust", "House on Fire" and "Sick Day".

Q-S

• The Quisling: "Bloodline".
• Rape as Backstory: and not just for the UnSubs.
• Rape and Revenge: The Unsub of "Jones" was raped in college and the cops didn't take her seriously, causing her to target men who remind her of her assailants.
  • The Unsub of "What Happens in Mecklenburg" is targeting not only the frat boys who raped her little sister but the people who helped them avoid getting caught.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Actor Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Reid, injured his knee just before production commenced on the show's fifth season, forcing him to get around on crutches. In the first episode of Season 5, "Nameless, Faceless", Reid is shot in the leg, and has to use crutches for the next few episodes.
  • Likewise, AJ Cook's real-life pregnancy resulted in a pregnancy being written in for J.J., and the actor took maternity leave at the same time as her character.
    • For that matter, that's why Will was brought back as well. The writers realized they'd need to give her a love interest as well, and, remembering the chemistry between JJ and Will, brought the latter back into the show.
    • Similarly, Jennifer Love Hewitt's pregnancy became written in for Kate Callahan, her character. Both actor and character decided to leave at the end of the tenth season to focus on their baby.
  • As well as Mandy Patinkin's dissatisfaction with his role and subsequent leaving requiring rewrites to the beginning of Season 3, and the casting of Joe Mantegna as his replacement.
    • In his final episode Gideon left a letter for Reid to find for him but also addressed indirectly to the rest of the team, explaining why he was leaving the team and wishing them all well; in Real Life Mandy Patinkin left letters for each his co-stars explaining why he was leaving the show, and wishing all of them well.
  • Morgan's lack of kicking down doors or tackling people in Season 5 was because Shemar Moore was hit by a car and broke his foot.
  • A more unusual case occurs in "To Hell...And Back" Parts 1 and 2. The writers acknowledged that the episodes were so dark, depressing, a monumental downer ending, and bordering on Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story that they couldn't think of any quotes that would adequately apply for the second episode. So, they used that:
    Hotch: Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what's happened that day. Sometimes you do everything right, everything exactly right, and still you feel like you failed.

• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Subverted. Often, a member of the team — usually Gideon, Hotch, or Prentiss — will tell the UnSub exactly why they are the way they are, guessing their childhood traumas and how they dealt with it.
• Recurring Character: Haley Hotchner (S1-5), Jack Hotchner (S1-11), Erin Strauss (S2-8), Kevin Lynch (S3-Present).
• Red Herring: According to the commentary of "The Perfect Storm", the characters set up to be red herrings for the real killers are nicknamed "UnSchmucks".
  • One of their earliest UnSchmucks was in the second episode of the series. The student security guard was apparently there to be a suspect for the serial arson, but his real purpose was to give Gideon a "Eureka!" Moment.
  • The episodes "Roadkill" and "The Performer" seem like one of those "follow the UnSub from the beginning" episodes, but the characters we see first in them are innocent.
• Refuge in Audacity: This is some of the UnSubs schtick, and occasionally taken up to eleven as an artform.
• Rejected Marriage Proposal: Garcia goes a step further and confronts her boyfriend Kevin Lynch about not wanting to get married before he formally pops the question, after she sees from his online activity he's been looking at rings. Garcia argues that she's not ready to get married, but she does love him and is happy with their relationship as it is. Unfortunately, Kevin disagrees and they subsequently break-up.
• Revenge by Proxy: Attempted in "Masterpiece" — Rothchild attempts to kill the entire BAU team except Rossi, who is the object of his rage.
• Revenge Is Not Justice: Unsubs who kill for revenge are ultimately treated the same as any other killer. There's a good reason for this: On more than one occasion, the unsubs actually succeeded in killing the primary target of their rage, only to find that this didn't actually fix their internal traumas or improve their life for very long, so they attempt to relive that excitement by killing people who only slightly resemble their initial targets. And in the end, they are still killing to make themselves feel better, not for actual justice.
• Right Behind Me: Penelope Garcia, meet Alex Blake.
  • Emily Prentiss, meet Luke Alvez.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In "A Higher Power" the detective who called the team in started investigating the spike in suicides because he didn't believe that his relative would have committed suicide. Turns out the UnSub was faking the suicides but didn't have a trophy from the detective's relative suggesting it really was a suicide that time.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: "Elephant's Memory", and "House on Fire". Also evident in many other episodes where particular victims are chosen because they have somehow hurt or offended the UnSub (or are somehow like someone who has).
  • Also, Doyle's killing spree of the people who put him in prison, leaving Emily for last.
  • The UnSub in "Bully" kills seven people with his bare fists (he's stopped from killing another and KO's Blake's detective brother), but only two of them were directly involved with the crime that motivated his revenge (his only friend in high school was publicly humiliated and later killed himself) and the actual ring-leader was safely out of the country fighting insurgents in Afghanistan so he settled for the guy's ex-girlfriend's parents instead.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The Dorado Falls UnSub believes he's on this.
• Room Full of Crazy: Clara Hayes in "Compulsion."
  Morgan: OCD? I'm thinking more like OMG.
  • When they peel back the wallpaper in Tobias's house in "Revelations" it's revealed he's covered the entire wall in "Honor thy father"... in Latin.
• Run for the Border: Subverted in "To Hell ... " in which the Canada/US border is deliberately run into by what is initially presumed to be the UnSub, in order to instigate an investigation into the missing persons from Detroit.
  • Played straight in "Rite of Passage".
• Running Gag:
  • The blank look Reid always gets from local law enforcement everyone whenever he goes on a tangent. Also, the awkward smile-and-wave combo he invariably gives when being introduced.
  • Morgan really seems to like kicking down doors. (Possibly) lampshaded in "Honor Among Thieves", when he's all prepared to take down the door, only to hear the suspect escaping in a car at the front of the house.
    • Lampshaded in the Season 4 gag reel, in which Shemar Moore kicks down a door that the crew has unhinged so that the entire door just falls off.
    • And lampshaded again in the Season 5 opener, where J.J. says that Reid's going to be on crutches for a while, but that's okay, "kicking down doors is Morgan's job".
    • From "Psychodrama:"
      Elle: (about to enter a suspect's motel room) Key?
      Morgan: Nah, I got one (kicks in the door)
    • Lampshaded in "A Higher Power"
      Morgan: If I'm not kicking down doors, it's smashing down walls. At the end of the day, they both make me feel like I'm changing something.
  • Morgan and Garcia's telephone banter.
  • The UnSub being impotent. While this is part of the standard personality profile creation, it's practically the first thing out of an agent's mouth Once an Episode and the UnSub never seems to be so.
  • Any configuration of the team getting together outside work — provided it occurs at the beginning of the episode — will always be interrupted by a call (normally to J.J.) summoning everyone to the office immediately. Usually, they attend the briefing still in their party (or, in one case, funeral) duds.
  • Anytime Hotch is talking with someone in his office, the rest of the team stands in the bullpen looking at them and trying to profile what's going on. And then failing miserably to cover it up. Lampshaded by Hotch in Season 7, when he decides to talk to Prentiss in the back of the plane instead.
    Hotch: Well I get tired of being profiled through my office window.
  • Garcia's inability to keep a secret is Played for Laughs many times.
• Russian Roulette: UnSubs have played this, with Reid in Season 2 and Morgan in Season 11.
• Sadistic Choice: "Psychodrama" and "North Mammon".
• Samaritan Syndrome: Hotch has this, to a certain extent, and Rossi deconstructs it angrily:
  Rossi: It's not your conscience talking, it's your ego.
• Samus Is a Girl: The UnSubs in "Jones", "Seven Seconds", "The Instincts", "Outfoxed", "The Good Earth", "All That Remains", "What Happens in Mecklenburg?" are revealed to be female. "The Perfomer" and ".. A Thousand Words" are cases where in turns out she is one of the UnSubs. And in "The Dark Knight", the enigmatic artist "Morpheus" is revealed to be female, though the UnSub is actually her ex-husband
• Sanctuary of Solitude: Happens several times:
  • At the end of "Lucky", Morgan, who's been dealing with a crisis of faith, goes to church for the first time in years. Ironically, he's there because his 'baby girl' Garcia is mad at him and refused to spend the evening with him. As a result of that she gets shot by her date. The team can't reach him to tell him because he's turned his phone off in church. Morgan lampshades it in the next episode asking Reid "What are the odds that the first time I pray in twenty years, she's on the table?"
  • Prentiss subverts the trope in "Demonology", when she walks home instead of leaving with the team when Silvano is finally captured. She ends up outside a church (which she hasn't been in since her abortion at fifteen) and while she looks longingly at it, the last shot is of her deciding not to go in.
  • Gideon ends up in a church at some point for himself, but he also follows a young girl into one in "The Popular Kids". She confesses what's really been going on with the murders the BAU is investigating and she blames herself, though Gideon tries to help.
• Sarcastic Clapping: Done by Morgan at the end of "25 to Life".
• The Savage Indian: The episode The Tribe had a cult trying to start a race war by committing a massacre and using some of the most brutal techniques and symbolism associated with Native Americans to try and invoke this trope. A major clue is that they randomly mixed elements from several different tribes in a way that indicated they had no actual understanding of what they were doing, and in fact they turned out to be clueless white kids following a madman.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: John Blackwolf in "The Tribe" was able to (among other things) determine that Hotch carried a second gun by noticing that the right instep of his footprints was slightly deeper than the left "and since you don't appear to have a club-foot..."
• The Schizophrenia Conspiracy: Ted Bryar in "Derailed."
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: In "The Popular Kids" two bodies (one of them a skeleton) are found in the woods near some strange symbols, suggesting that some kind of Satanic cult may be responsible. A girl is also missing. It turns out the skeleton belonged to a hiker who died when he fell and hit his head, and the other body belonged to a teenage runner; another teenager, who had a thing for the runner's girlfriend, killed the boyfriend to get rid of him as competition, but the girl was out jogging with him. To distract the cops, the kid made the homicide look like some kind of demented ritual killing, and essentially used the hiker skeleton as a prop.
  • In "The Angel Maker," the UnSub tries to make it look like a dead serial killer has come back to life/didn't actually die.
• Scream Discretion Shot
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Happens a lot, usually culminating in the involvement of Strauss. Lampshaded in "It Takes a Village".
• Second Episode Introduction: J.J. is neither present nor even mentioned in the first episode.
• Self-Deprecation: "False Flag", with its abundant dosis of Bait-and-Switch, works both as a Deconstructor Fleet of conspiracy theories, and as one of the show's own, laziest tropes. Not only do the two deaths of similar victims being investigated by the BAU turn out to be unrelated, but one is actually a freak accident, and another is a mundane, spur-of-the-moment murder by a disgruntled lover. Likewise, several Eureka Moments are actually Red Herrings, most notably the introduction of a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Ted Kaczynski in the third act that all the other conspiracy theorists are afraid of, but who turns out to be a façade put up by a skeptic to scam the conspiracy theorists, and a completely harmless person otherwise. The BAU eventually figures out the real killer by playing what they call "old timey criminology", rather than recurring to Garcia's Hollywood Hacking, and even then, they comment that they still need hard evidence before making an arrest or they "will be not better than these people", meaning the conspiracy theorists. One of such theorists even thinks that the BAU flying around on their own private jet borders on the unbelievable.
• Self-Serving Memory: "Roadkill" has an UnSub who believes the reckless driver of a red car was responsible for killing his wife and leaving him paralyzed. Near the end he realizes there was no other driver and that he is responsible for the crash that cost him his legs and wife, as he had fallen asleep at the wheel. He does not take this well at all.
• Separated at Birth: The twist ending to "The Inspiration", setting up "The Inspired": the UnSub has a brother, and both of them are the Evil Twin.
• Serial Killer: Well, natch.
• Serial Killings, Specific Target: "Sniper Sniped": the targets of a sniper rampage throughout Dallas were in reality the targets of a mercenary hired by a rich domestic abuser out to kill his runaway wife, killing his way through the "underground railroad" she used to escape.
• Series Continuity Error: The inconsistencies between Rossi's story in "Birthright" (twenty years ago, three kids witnessed their parents get beaten to death on Christmas Eve) and what's shown in "Damaged" (nineteen years ago, three kids woke up one day in March to find their parents had been hacked up with an ax).
  • In "P911," Garcia recognizes a scout uniform worn by the abducted boy because all four of her brothers were members of the same organization. In "Safe Haven," she mentions she is an only child.
  • Subverted for Prentiss' backstory. Upon her entrance in Season 2, she is said to have been with the Bureau for 10 years, but as of "Lauren," we know that her undercover operation with Doyle would have taken place three years prior. However, the confidentiality of the mission explains why she would have lied about her background.
  • The UnSub in "Profiling 101," who killed 101 people, is described as the most prolific serial killer the BAU has ever encountered. Apparently, despite the fact that they were very prominent villains, the show forgot about Frank Breitkopf (166 victims) and Billy Flynn (in the neighborhood of 200-400 victims).
  • In S1:E10 "The Popular Kids" and S6:E23 Reid identifies bones, yet in any other episode that the team finds bones this skill is forgotten.
• Sexy Figure Gesture: In "Elephant's Memory", Morgan and Spencer are analyzing the decor of the teenaged UnSub's bedroom. When asked how he decorated his own room at that age, Morgan describes posters of Walter Payton and the "sexy ladies of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue", wrapping up the description by making the hourglass figure gesture with a nostalgic, wistful look on his face.
• Shaky P.O.V. Cam: "Blood Hungry", "Our Darkest Hour", and (to a lesser extent) "What Fresh Hell?" and "Catching Out".
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: "Distress"
• Sherlock Scan: Hotchner does this occasionally when someone is skeptical of the team's abilities.
  • Rossi and Gideon have also pulled these in several episodes.
  • Prentiss does it in "Lo-Fi".
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story: "No Way Out II" turns "The Fisher King" into one of these, because Frank kills the girl they saved in those episodes.
  • "Zugzwang" ends with Reid failing to talk down his girlfriend Maeve's stalker/kidnapper. She suddenly and immediately shoots herself in the head without warning, which goes right through her into Maeve's head as well (due to the way they were both positioned), killing them both instantly.
  • "To Hell...And Back." The team fail to accomplish anything, only one out of the 100+ victims was saved but she'll be dealing with so much trauma from the experience that she'll never be the same, there is no justice in how the UnSubs were defeated, and to top it all off, the final scene has Hotch attacked by a vengeful Foyet.
  • "Mr. Scratch". The team doesn't even learn the UnSub's name — let alone find him — until after he kills his final target via Psycho Serum, and he even gets to do the same to Hotch (though he survives) and surrender victoriously instead of actually being beaten.
  • "Awake". The Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds UnSub dies, his daughter turns out to be Dead All Along, and the Greater-Scope Villain responsible (the man with the skull tattoo) pulls a Karma Houdini and is heavily implied to be preparing to kill another little girl and devastate another parent — possibly leading to the creation of another such grief-driven UnSub.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shown Their Work:
  • At least in the early episodes. For example, when discussing recovered memories through hypnotherapy, they note that they are notoriously unreliable.
  • Reid's theory that the UnSub in "Dorado Falls" is suffering from Capgras Syndrome is spot-on in the academic sense. Given how rare Capgras is in real life, viewers could be forgiven for thinking such a disease was just made up by the writers.
  • Though the Season 10 episode "Hashtag" features a ten-minute sequence citing a lot of accurate info on web culture, including creepypastas and the infamous "Slender Man" murder.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: J.J. and Detective La Montagne in "In Heat".
• Siblings in Crime: The UnSubs of "Open Season" (formerly The Family That Slays Together) and, in a gut-wrenching variation, "To Hell..."/"...And Back". Two of the robbers in "Hit"/"Run" are brothers, though neither turn out to be the primary antagonist.
• Significant Birthdate: For reasons unexplained, both Reid and Prentiss are born on October 12. It is never remarked upon.
• Sinister Minister: the UnSub in "Demonology", and the decoy UnSub in "Angels".
  • A subversion in "Safe Haven", when a priest picks up a travelling 13-year-old kid in a scene that seems out of a pedophile's handbook. The UnSub is the kid.
• Slasher Smile: The Big Bad in "Lessons Learned" cracks an incredibly creepy one at the thought of Islamic extremists brutally murdering all four billion non-Muslims in the world.
• Slaying Mantis: "The Inspiration"/"The Inspired" uses them for incredibly creepy effect; one of Jesse's hallucinations of the dead girl is of mantises swarming out of her mouth and around her head. His obsession with mantises comes from the belief that they eat their mates, which is what he feels like the dead girl did to him.
• Sleight of Handiness: In "Derailed," Reid uses sleight of hand to trick the UnSub into thinking he's removed a tracking chip from his arm.
• Slumber Party Ploy:
  • In the season ten finale, Kate's niece Meg and her friend Markayla do this so that they can sneak out to meet a hot boy they've been chatting with online... who turns out to be a serial-killer-victim trafficking ring. Kate and Markayla's mother's reactions (before the whole trafficking reveal) indicate that they've done this sort of thing before. Or at least that they're Genre Savvy enough to recognize the ploy.
  • One episode had a quartet of boys lie that they are staying over each others' houses, even leaving their cell phones at the appropriate house, in order to investigate a local legend. Their parents don't find out until no one shows up in the morning.
• Smart People Play Chess: Simultaneously subverted and played straight: Reid is the designated genius of the team, but while good at chess, he isn't exactly world-class, almost invariably losing to Gideon and apparently being out-thought by Prentiss.
  • Played straight in "Compulsion" when his ability at chess is presented as an index of his ability to "think outside the box."
  • And played straight again with Reid in "Uncanny Valley", where Reid says that after Gideon left, he went through every possible chess maneuver (an exponentially high number) as an attempt to figure out a way to beat the system. He's then shown at the end of the episode playing a lightning-fast game of chess with a young chess prodigy.
  • More interestingly, chess (or, rather, the learning of it) is used in that episode as a metaphor for loss, trauma, and closure.
  • "True Genius" had former two chess prodigies, both were over 160 in IQ but one was far more successful than the other.
• Smokescreen Crime: The villains of "Lo-Fi" and "Mayhem" are a New York terrorist cell who commit seemingly random acts of violence to cause a citywide state of panic. Their endgame is to take advantage of the chaos caused by their actions to assassinate a government official.
• Smug Snake: Professor Rothschild in "Masterpiece.", at least Rossi destroys his master plan of revenge.
• Snuff Film: A number of UnSubs ("Hopeless", notably) have a habit of recording their murders, sometimes for... later use. In the book Jump Cut, the UnSubs planned on making "the best horror film ever" by using real murders, and were insane enough to believe it will make them rich and famous once they show it at film festivals and the like.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • In "Mosley Lane," we can hear Illabye as Anita Roycewood carefully puts a sleeping boy in a cardboard box, smiles to him, hums a lullaby... and then proceeds to burn the boy in a crematorium.
  • "Ashes and Dust" gives us one of the most powerful examples of all time, as Enya's "Boadicea" plays over a family trying to escape their burning house in vain, as the arsonist watches. You can watch it right over here.
  • Done in universe with the UnSub known as "The Piano Man" (no, not that guy), who plays an 80s piano ballad in the background while raping his victims, giving each one a different song that ends up being a subconscious Berserk Button later.
• South of the Border: "Machismo"
• Spin-Off: The show, itself, is not a spin-off, but, rather, has a type 3 spin-off, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. They met the team that is in the spin-off in "The Fight" (Season 5, episode 18).
• Split Personality: Two UnSubs. Raphael/Tobias Hankel/Tobias' father in "Revelations," and Adam/Amanda in "Conflicted."
  • There's a third example in "All That Remains" with Bruce Morrison/Johnny. Interestingly, this time, he is not the UnSub.
  • Potentially a whole summer camp's worth in "The Crimson King" who are in danger of being used to make copies of serial killers specifically targeted for the team.
• Sports Hero Backstory: When Derek Morgan's heretofore unexplored history is revealed, it is noted that he was the starting quarterback for the Northwestern University football team (until, inevitably, a career-ending injury steered him into police work).
• Stalker Shrine: "The Crossing"
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • "Broken Mirror", "Somebody's Watching" and again "The Crossing".
  • Morgan's cousin Cindi fled Chicago over hers and was never seen again. Too bad she had two stalkers, and one of them was more determined and sadistic than the other.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Morgan grew up in a low-income, inner-city neighborhood, lost his father at a young age, and suffered abuse at the hands of a leader in his community.
• Steel Ear Drums: Averted in "Lo-Fi"/"Mayhem", when Hotch and Kate Joyner's van explodes. Hotch's ears are ringing for a good while during the episode itself, and it affects his hearing for a couple episodes afterward.
  • Also averted in "A Rite of Passage". While driving to where the UnSub is, Hotch asks Rossi not to fire his gun in the car. He quips "You mean try not to deafen you?" Later Morgan does fire his gun in the car, and Prentiss yells at him for blowing out her eardrums.
  • Again averted after Garcia shoots the nurse attempting to poison Reid in "Demons." She babbles about having trouble hearing while Morgan retrieves the gun.
  • Played straight in "The Fisher King Part 2" where Reid is perfectly able to hear the rest of the team despite having been in close proximity to an explosion.
• Stockholm Syndrome: "The Edge of Winter": victim Daria is forced to participate in her captor's sadistic games and "falling in love" with him was the only way she could cope. There's enough of her old self left to escape when she gets the chance, but by the time she's found she's gone back to loving him and confesses she'd kill again if he asked her to.
• The Stoic: Hotch. Many characters remark that they hardly see him smile... but with a job like that, who could blame him?
  • The biggest smile Hotch gives is when J.J. announces that she's pregnant. He's clearly happy for her.
  • Earlier, he does smile more. Go back to Season 1's "The Fox". Hotch and Hayley showing off baby Jack to everyone.
  • Another rare one appears when Garcia is camped out in the BAU for her protection during the Dirty Dozen saga, when he helps cheer her up by making breakfast with her (especially when jalapenos are mentioned). In fact, most scenes where the team is cooking/eating together tend to evoke those rare smiles from Hotch.
  • Prentiss becomes this following her return from the dead; she shows very few signs of post-traumatic stress.
  • Not So Stoic: The Season 5 episode "100" gives us the Reaper getting hold of Hotch's family. You can feel Hotch's pain throughout the episode.
  • He also loses his composure to a lesser extent back in "Ashes and Dust" when Evan Abbey incinerates himself.
• Story Arc: Several long arcs have been developed over the course of the series.
  • Hotch's attempt to balance his marriage/family with his career and the consequences of those decisions.
  • The conflict between Gideon and Frank ("No Way Out"/"No Way Out II") and how it leads to Gideon's departure ("Doubt", "In Name and Blood").
  • Greenaway's breakdown (beginning in "The Fisher King" and running through "Aftermath" and "The Boogeyman")
  • Reid's drug addiction ("Revelations", "Jones", "A Higher Power", "Elephant's Memory," "Amplification") and his relationship with his mother and father ("The Fisher King", "The Instincts", "Memoriam")
  • Morgan's history of being abused as a child (hinted at through much of the first season and a half, revealed in "Profiler, Profiled") and his return to religious faith ("Lucky" and "Penelope").
  • The relationship between J.J. and William LaMontagne ("Jones", "In Heat", "Memoriam")
  • The continuing conflict between Strauss and Hotchner.
    • As well as Emily's hatred of the former, stemming from her 10-Minute Retirement situation in the beginning of Season 3. The echoes of this situation are still in Emily's voice when she talks about Strauss in "JJ," three seasons later.
  • The Boston Reaper arc ("Omnivore," "...And Back," "Nameless, Faceless," "Outfoxed," "100," and "The Slave of Duty")
  • Morgan's relationship with little Ellie Spicer starting in "Our Darkest Hour" through "Safe Haven".
  • Prentiss' history with IRA terrorist Ian Doyle, which spreads across "The Thirteenth Step", "Sense Memory", "Today I Do", "Coda", "Valhalla"/"Lauren", and finally "It Takes a Village".
  • Many of these can also be considered examples of Character Development.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Slightly more plot-relevant than most examples, but in A Thousand Words both Reid and the Nightmare Fetishist tattoo artist the team consults are reminded of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man by the tattoos on the UnSub's body.
• Strictly Formula: Most of the episodes have a highly predictable structure — a Cold Opening with the UnSub's last victim being killed, taken by the UnSub or the body being discovered. Post credit, the team talks about the UnSub of the week, the team investigates the last murder scene (often by splitting, some going to the murder scene, some going to see the autopsy, the rest going to the local PD), the team rings up Garcia to get her to hack into a database, the team describe the UnSub's personality to the police — this profile alone never actually allows the UnSub to be captured. A new major clue allows them to narrow the profile and lets Garcia pull a name (or occasionally invalidates the entire profile making them see they were wrong all along), the team chases the UnSub, end of episode. However, this actually works for the show — the formula establishes the fact that the team are professionals who know what they're doing, and the UnSub's stories are always different and unpredictable.
• Self-Harm: In one episode, on a campus that the team has been investigating a spate of murders, one of the girls there is shown cutting and deliberately trying to get herself killed by the murderer (like a suicide attempt).
• Storyboard Body: The first UnSub in "A Thousand Words".
• Subject 101: The Season 7 episode where the BAU speaks to a college class about profiling is called "Profiling 101".
• Substitute Media Liaison: Jordan Todd.
• Suicide by Cop: About half of the UnSubs on the show are not apprehended alive. And almost half of said deaths are during confrontations with police officers or the BAU, many of those being instances of this.
  • The UnSubs in "Hopeless" take this route, as Morgan predicts.
  • Also, the UnSub in " Parasite."
  • Averted by Will in "Jones" and Reid in "Elephant's Memory."
  • What Billy Flynn forces Morgan to do in "The Longest Night".
  • The UnSub in "Lo-Fi" forces Emily into this, too, as part of the plot to make it look like the shooter was dead.
  • The UnSub in "What Happens At Home" pulls this with Hotch.
  • The UnSub in "Penelope" walks into the BAU and, when he realizes they know who he is, intends to go down that way taking as many of them as he can. J.J. shoots him from behind before he gets a chance.
  • Under the circumstances, the older UnSub's refusal to back down when surrounded at gunpoint in "Open Season" comes across as one part Suicide by Cop and another part being hell-bent on taking down the week's damsel in distress. He failed at the latter, but was wildly successful at the former.
  • One of the UnSubs in "Outlaw" opts to go out in a blaze of glory. Once he goes down, the other, after seeing his ex-lover and their son ferried to safety by the police, knowing that he'll probably never see either of them again, decides to follow suit.
• Suicide Is Painless: Averted by "Risky Business" and the "choking game". The kids think it's a big contest until the UnSub, a paramedic who has also been egging them on via a website, collects them from their houses and makes sure they've succeeded in killing themselves.
  • Also, in the same episode, Reid responds to a smartass student who's not taking the issue seriously with an all too detailed description of how unpleasant death by asphyxiation really is.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Luke Alvez for Morgan: They're both tall, dark, hot, ass-kicking persons of color. Garcia, for one, is not having it.
  • Ashley Seaver for J.J.
  • The seventh team member position seems to be exclusively filled by brown-haired, brown-eyed women.
• Stock Footage: One episode took place partially in Guantanamo Bay and used stock footage to establish the location. Judging from the recording quality, said footage was several years old.
• Sympathetic Murderer: "Distress," "Jones," "True Night," "In Heat," "Elephant's Memory," "Pleasure is My Business," "The Big Wheel," "Uncanny Valley" and undoubtedly more.
  • Any case where the killer is psychotic or forced to commit their crimes through compulsion while they regret their actions. Sociopaths and Psychopaths who torture and kill, however, will be portrayed as the monsters they are without hesitation.
  • This show also has a couple of rare sympathetic rapist-murderers ( "Conflicted" and arguably "The Perfect Storm") and an even rarer sympathetic domestic abuser ("The Performer").
• Sympathy for the Devil: Even some of the UnSubs not listed under sympathetic murderer are quite pitiable. The guy from "Solitary Man" is a good example of a killer who doesn't have a mitigating factor like not knowing what he was doing or killing only bad people, but has a tragic enough backstory that you do feel somewhat bad for him.
  • The song is actually used at the beginning of "Revelations".

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