Elliott's Pond
Three kids go missing in a place where three kids went missing thirty years earlier. A man who is living "off the grid" turns out to have taken all six, with what's left of the first three helping him.
Tropes in this episode:
- The End Is Nigh: The original UnSub wasn't really a murderer, just a man who thought the world was about to end and had cut himself off from people.
- Pet the Dog: The twins who went missing in '83 turns out to have been living with an off-the-grid survivalist ever since. He was fairly certain that the world would end soon, so he kept the twins and raised them until he passed (his death was not shown in the episode). When the three boys are taken by the adult twins, they aren't hurt, and the twins even feed them. After the children are rescued, the twins are reunited with their older brother. This is one of the rare episodes in Criminal Minds where nobody dies.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The Red Herring that is Jimmy recalls the 2013 murder of intellectually disabled Bijam Ebrahimi, who was attacked by his neighbors for taking pictures of their kids who vandalized his garden.
- Time to Step Up, Commander: Hotch told the FBI that he wants Prentiss to succeed him as unit chief. She's quite reluctant, given that she has a life and a boyfriend in London, but ends up taking the job.
- Title Drop: The survivor of the 1983 incident claims he found his friends by Elliot's Pond, which he told the cops, but they couldn't find them.
- Witness Protection: Hotch and his son Jack are revealed to have gone into witness protection following Mr. Scratch, a serial killer with an obsession of Hotch, showing up at Jack's school.
