Believer
Someone has reached out Reid through his work email and tipped him about the whereabouts of a FBI Agent who went missing a year ago. That is indeed where they find him, but on debriefing it comes out that he was being held captive by a cult. The team grows suspicious, until it turns out that there are FBI Agents with ties to the same cult.
Tropes
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Reid and Meadows in a Mexican standoff and Garcia being used as a hostage to force Reid to surrender.
- Contrived Coincidence: Rossi finds it to be this that the abductor family's son took Reid's class on sex offenders.
- Cult: The people who kept Quinn in their basement for however long.
- Cult Defector: The team suspect Quinn of being this, since they removed his fingerprints, and the initiation ritual to the cult is removal of fingerprints. The only difference is that initiation rites use acid baths and the captors apparently used a torch.
- I Have Your Friend: When Reid discovers that Meadows is the real cultist rather than Quinn, she forces him to cooperate with her and her men in breaking Merva out of FBI custody by revealing that they've taken Garcia hostage, and will kill her if he refuses.
- Oh, Crap!: just when everything seems to have worked out and the team begins relaxing after the case, one of them makes a connection and realizes the UnSub of the week has another trick up his sleeve.
- The Mole: Special Agent Mary Meadows is actually a member of Benjamin Merva's cult. She shows her true colors at the end of the episode by shooting Quinn and capturing Garcia and Reid.
- Your Mom: Tara makes Your Mom jokes to Luke.
