History Series / Criminalminds

Beyond that, ''Criminal Minds'' is notable for a mostly gender-equal cast, its standards of realism for the motives of its criminals (who are often fascinating characters, though the mechanics of the crimes aren't always that realistic), and for the sympathy and respect with which it treats the victims of violent crime (and sometimes the perpetrators as well).

* ''Criminal Minds: Evolution''(2022) In February 2021, it was announced that a 10-episode revival would air on streaming service Creator/ParamountPlus, though later in the year, [[https://deadline.com/2021/07/criminal-minds-revival-paramount-plus-likely-dead-paget-brewster-says-1234807129/ Paget Brewster indicated]] the series had either fallen into DevelopmentHell or been outright cancelled. However, it was confirmed to be back on in July 2022 with most of the cast returning barring Creator/MatthewGrayGubler and Creator/DanielHenney, who did not take part in the revival due to their busy commitments and the revival, subtitled ''Evolution'' began airing in November 26 with two episodes. The show was renewed for a second season.

* ''Criminal Minds: Evolution''(2022) In February 2021, it was announced that a 10-episode revival would air on streaming service Creator/ParamountPlus, though later in the year, [[https://deadline.com/2021/07/criminal-minds-revival-paramount-plus-likely-dead-paget-brewster-says-1234807129/ Paget Brewster indicated]] the series had either fallen into DevelopmentHell or been outright cancelled. However, it was confirmed to be back on in July 2022 with most of the cast returning barring Creator/MatthewGrayGubler and Creator/DanielHenney, who did not take part in the revival due to their busy commitments and the revival, subtitled ''Evolution'' began airing in November 26 with two episodes.

** [[Woobie/CriminalMinds Woobie]]

In 2011 it got an unexpected DarkerAndEdgier spinoff, ''Series/CriminalMindsSuspectBehavior.'' It was poorly received by the fanbase because it coincided with budget cuts to the original series, and only lasted one season.

In 2016 it got another spinoff, ''Series/CriminalMindsBeyondBorders,'' focusing on [[SequelGoesForeign international incidents.]] It lasted for two seasons before it was cancelled due to low ratings.

A South Korean remake aired in 2017.

In February 2021, it was announced that a 10-episode revival would air on streaming service Creator/ParamountPlus, though later in the year, [[https://deadline.com/2021/07/criminal-minds-revival-paramount-plus-likely-dead-paget-brewster-says-1234807129/ Paget Brewster indicated]] the series had either fallen into DevelopmentHell or been outright cancelled. However, it was confirmed to be back on in July 2022 with most of the cast returning barring Creator/MatthewGrayGubler and Creator/DanielHenney, who did not take part in the revival due to their busy commitments and the revival, subtitled ''Evolution'' began airing in November 26 with two episodes.

** [[{{Woobie}}/CriminalMinds Woobie]]

** RippedFromTheHeadlines/CriminalMinds

In February 2021, it was announced that a 10-episode revival would air on streaming service Creator/ParamountPlus, though later in the year, [[https://deadline.com/2021/07/criminal-minds-revival-paramount-plus-likely-dead-paget-brewster-says-1234807129/ Paget Brewster indicated]] the series had either fallen into DevelopmentHell or been outright cancelled. However, it was confirmed to be back on in July 2022 with most of the cast returning barring Creator/MatthewGrayGubler and Creator/DanielHenney, who will not take part in the revival due to their busy commitments.

All fifteen seasons are available on Creator/ParamountPlus.

All fifteen seasons are available on Creator/DisneyPlus.

In February 2021, it was announced that a 10-episode revival would air on streaming service Creator/ParamountPlus, though later in the year, [[https://deadline.com/2021/07/criminal-minds-revival-paramount-plus-likely-dead-paget-brewster-says-1234807129/ Paget Brewster indicated]] the series had either fallen into DevelopmentHell or been outright cancelled. However, it was confirmed to be back on in July 2022 with most of the cast returning barring Creator/MattherGreyGubler and Creator/DanielHenney, who will not take part in the revival due to their busy commitments.

In February 2021, it was announced that a 10-episode revival would air on streaming service Creator/ParamountPlus. However, later in the year, [[https://deadline.com/2021/07/criminal-minds-revival-paramount-plus-likely-dead-paget-brewster-says-1234807129/ Paget Brewster indicated]] the series had either fallen into DevelopmentHell or been outright cancelled.

[[foldercontrol]]

CriminalMinds/TropesAToD

CriminalMinds/TropesEToH

[[folder: I-K]]
* IAteWhat: "Lucky"- the team's reaction (although they didn't actually do the eating) when Floyd reveals that [[spoiler: the episode's missing person they were looking for was the main ingredient of the chili he prepared for lunch and fed to search party volunteers.]]
* ICannotSelfTerminate: [[spoiler: Prentiss does this in "Lauren" after being stabbed by Doyle, prompting Morgan to respond, of course, with NoOneGetsLeftBehind]].
** In "Reckoner," the last name on Judge Schuller's hit list is his own.
** A college student in "Doubt" [[spoiler: kills a dorm-mate in a copycat murder so the [=UnSub=] would be released.]] She then dyes and cuts her hair so she'll look more like his preferred victims, [[spoiler: seeks him out, and tries to entice him to kill her.]] She even admits that she can't do it herself.
** The [=UnSub=] in "Coda" [[spoiler: asks his captive to shoot him, because his sons won't be able to collect his life insurance if he commits suicide]]
* IHaveYourWife: [[spoiler:"Retaliation"]]
** Also, "100", with [[spoiler: Foyet and Haley]].
** Happens to the Cop of the Week played by Eric Close in "Our Darkest Hour," though [[spoiler: it's more of a case of "I Have Your Sister and Daughter."]]
* ILoveTheDead: "The Last Word", "Cold Comfort", and [[spoiler: "Reflection of Desire"]].
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Standard operating procedure.
** In "The Fox," the killer, profiled as probably having OCD, has a minor FreakOut during questioning when he notices the pictures of his victims are out of order.
** From "A Real Rain":
--->'''Gideon:''' Is that why you stabbed him in the groin?\\
'''Suspect:''' It's what he deserved. [[note]]The victim, of course, had been stabbed in the head.[[/note]]
* IShallTauntYou: Gideon sometimes uses this tactic to get under an [=UnSub=]'s skin, to either goad them into doing something stupid or to get them to say too much. As a master profiler who can read an [=UnSub=] like a book, it usually works.
* ISurrenderSuckers: Part of Gideon's backstory is a bomber taking out six of his agents this way.
** It nearly happens a separate time in the episode that reveals this. Two agent have cornered the supposed [=UnSub=] in a storage room. He throws his gun to them and is about to come out, but then Gideon, in another building, puts all the pieces to the puzzle together, and realizes that the cornered guy is strapped with bombs. He tells the agents to get out, and they do so, right before the bombs strapped to the guy detonate and he becomes paint on the walls.
** One of the [=UnSubs=] from "Identity" also pulls this.
** The Reaper makes an attempt at this at the climax of "100," but Hotch doesn't buy it (or is too far past the DespairEventHorizon to care) and [[spoiler:[[KarmicDeath beats him to death]]]].
* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine:
** In "Minimal Loss," the antagonistic Attorney General that Hotch gets into an argument with is Joel Murray, Thomas Gibson's old co-star from ''Series/DharmaAndGreg''. Gibson also runs into Mimi Kennedy (another ''Dharma and Greg'' co-star) in "Coda".
** In "JJ", the two [=UnSubs=] are played by Michael Welch and Chris Marquette, who played, respectively, Luke Girardi and Adam Rove opposite Joe Mantegna in ''Series/JoanOfArcadia''.
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The 100th episode is titled "100", the 200th is titled "200", and the 300th (which is the season premiere of Season 14) is "300", though the latter is a DoubleMeaningTitle that also refers to the fact that his intended victim of the episode [[spoiler:(Reid)]] will be his 300th.
* IdiotBall: Averted. It's rare, if ever, that a member of the cast -- serial killer or FBI agent -- holds the idiot ball. They are all very competent, and usually remain highly competent. In fact, it's rare among police procedurals these days to have such a consistently competent cast. Everyone but [[DoesNotLikeGuns Garcia]] can shoot well and know how to handle themselves in a crisis situation, and rarely if ever miss anything.
** Example: When an [=UnSub=] and a victim he's taken hostage crash into a marsh in a car, and there's no sign of bodies, the team fans out and find him almost immediately, and take him down with a headshot instead of forgetting how to use their guns.
*** That said, there have been a few (graciously rare) instances where agents conveniently forget the basics of clearing a building or crime scene where a dangerous person is hiding. In these cases, the ordinarily competent agent take off alone and blunder into an area without "checking the corners," and conveniently absent peripheral vision for good measure. If you ever screamed "how did he/she not see him?!" this is one of those times. This always ends up with the [=UnSub=] getting the drop on the agent and either being subdued or a protracted struggle/fist-fight.
*** On the matter of fist-fights, there have also been rare occasions where agents that have previously demonstrated extremely competent hand-to-hand skills turn into push-overs for dramatic tension. For example, JJ in "Run" wipes the floor with an highly trained [=UnSub=] (including a mid-fight gun disassembly), but in "Scream" JJ is easily subdued by a small, dorky Social Services worker, and Kate conveniently arrives to shoot him before he can beat her to death.
** Worth pointing out that this applies to the victims, too. In the above example, the victim crashes her car on purpose, runs away, and even when the killer has caught up with her and is drowning her, she grabs the next thing that can serve as a weapon, and fights back. Oh, and the noise from the car crash is what told the nearby police and FBI where to go.
** "Open Season" has arguably two victim examples. The [=UnSubs=] are hunters who let their victims loose in the forest and attempt to hunt them for sport. One victim intentionally rips her shirt on a tree bark while the other tosses a rock to lure them out. The latter then proceeds to run ''in the general direction of the rock!'' Naturally, she ends up being shot. Then that first victim jumps on the [=UnSub=], stabs him twice, then ''runs away'' instead of making sure he's dead. Fortunately, Morgan and Prentiss show up before he kills her.
** One could argue that the second-part episodes of "Revelations" and "Penelope" are the results of Reid and Garcia (of all people!) making stupid mistakes in the first parts ("The Big Game" and "Lucky" respectively). In the "The Big Game," [[spoiler: while in the midst of chasing Tobias Hankel, Reid decides in the heat of the moment to split up from J.J. in order to cover more ground to capture Hankel (which J.J. didn't think was a good idea in the first place) and it backfires on Reid as he ends up being kidnapped instead]]. For "Lucky," since Garcia is the Techno Goddess, you would think that she would have done a background check on her [[spoiler: would-be shooter before going out with him?]] Then again, for Rule of Drama, if Reid and Garcia didn't make the choices they did, those two episodes would never have happened or impacted their Character Development (they do regret them later).
*** And you'd think that after everything that had happened with Hankel, Reid would have learned his lesson about splitting off from the rest of the team on an impulse, but no. He does it again in "Amplification." And again in "Corazon." It's understandable in-character, because Reid, for all of his smarts, does tend to get caught up in the emotion/excitement of it all more than most of the other team members, but still, come on, Reid!
*** Even if Garcia did a background check on her date, all she would have found (assuming she penetrated the false name he gave her) was that he was a decorated cop. Yes, she might have caught him in the lie of being an attorney (which he didn't bring up until they were already out to dinner) and, of course, the fake name, but she would have already been on the date and in danger. She's not a profiler... his Chronic First Responder Syndrome would not have raised any red flags for her.
** In "Roadkill," the first victim tried to ''outrun'' a truck, when she could moved out of the way or something of the sort.
*** While definitely not the smartest option to take, it seems unlikely that any of her options would have worked out; where could she go that that truck couldn't have followed? The driver was willing to ram it into ''steel elevator doors'' when in hot pursuit, and it didn't damage anything but the bumper! It was pretty clearly modded for what he intended to do with it.
*** Not that the victim could know anything about that.
** "Sense Memory". Prentiss shows a lack of caution when bringing in a mysterious package from Doyle that could have been harmful, though it can be argued that she knew he wouldn't try to kill her with something as impersonal as a bomb.
** Likewise for the mysterious packages received by several team members in "The Fisher King."
*** Reid actually mentions this in "The Fisher King," once the team has reason to be suspicious. Hotch points out that the plan was too elaborate for the [=UnSub=] to just blow them up.
* IgnoredExpert: "Lucky" begins with Dr. Jim Lorenz urging his superiors at a psychiatric hospital not to release a young Floyd Feylinn Ferrell. Lorenz says that Floyd is a psychopath even while taking the medication that keeps his delusions under control and convincingly argues that Floyd will stop taking his medication once he's released. Floyd is released anyway and goes on to be involved in the deaths of 15 women.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Though this normally applies to villains, [[spoiler: Prentiss takes a wooden stake to the gut in her knock-down, drag-out fight with Doyle]].
* ImprobableAimingSkills: With his handgun, Hotch once shot a perp who was on top of a moving train from a speeding car. Also, [=UnSub=] Ian Doyle shot his henchman square on the wrist tattoo, conveniently obscuring it for the sake of plot tension.
* ImprobableAge: Justified by Reid, as yes, he ''is'' that young and that accomplished, because he's a genius. Played straight by Hotch, who manages to have been a prosecutor for a while before joining the FBI, worked with the SWAT team and the Seattle field office, joined the BAU, trained under Rossi and Gideon and worked the Reaper case 10 years ago, but made Unit Chief in only 6 or 7 years. Probably a result of WritersCannotDoMath.
** As of "The Last Word", Hotch has been with the Bureau since Emily went off to college, which means at least fourteen years (Emily's been with the Bureau almost ten years).
*** It's recently come to light that Prentiss may have been, and in fact probably was lying about having worked for the Bureau for ten years, since her [[spoiler: undercover Interpol operation with Doyle]] would have been 2 years before Season 1, but she was sworn to secrecy about its existence. Still, it can be assumed that for her to be chosen for such a sensitive mission, her career in the criminal justice field probably was around 10 years.
** Reid has also been with the Bureau for three years by Season 1 ("L.D.S.K."). So, since he graduated from high school at age twelve, he's earned three [=PhDs=] by the time he was 20.
** And there were two birth dates given for Morgan in "Profiler, Profiled."
** Since the entire cast suffers from OlderThanTheyLook in RealLife, some of these accomplishments are not as improbable as they seem at first. Thomas Gibson is almost 50... it would have been a quick ascension from law school to prosecutor to BAU, but not entirely impossible for a man that age. Shemar Moore and Paget Brewster are both 40+ as well. But damn they look good, don't they?
* ImAHumanitarian: Given what he feeds his pigs, the [=UnSub=] in the episode "To Hell...and Back".
** Sure, there's that one, though there's never any evidence that he eats any of the victims himself. But there's also the Season 1 [=UnSub=] who drinks the blood and eats the organs of his victims because he believes they're divine, plus the infamous Season 3 [=UnSub=] in "Lucky" who not only eats parts of his victims (he has [[ToServeMan a cookbook!]]) but also [[spoiler: tricks all of the volunteers searching for them into eating them, too]].
** And there's the [=UnSub=] from "Exit Wounds", especially creepy because [[spoiler: he's a 16-year-old kid]].
** Plus, there's Gina King, though she only drinks their blood. That still counts, right?
** Similarly the unsub in "The Good Earth" believes that bone meal from physically fit men will cure her daughter, who [[spoiler: isn't sick in the first place; her mother is imagining her rash]], because when her husband died of natural causes, ''his'' bones treated ''her''. She also abducted and performed a C-section on a pregnant woman in order to get the placenta to feed her daughter. In the only non-fatal version on this page, mother and infant both recovered.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Appears to be what Brooke is suffering from in "North Mammon." For one thing, it's implied that the only reason her cough is 'fatal' is because they're locked in a cellar with no way to treat it; not to mention there's a lot of protesting going on due to the situation the [=UnSub=] has set up. For another, [[spoiler: while the other girls are working each other up to kill her, convincing themselves that she's dead anyway because she's coughing and they have no medicine, she [[SurprisinglySuddenDeath picks up the hammer and kills one of them from behind]]. So arguably it ''is'' a "cough of death"... but the death isn't hers!]]
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Subverted painfully on multiple occasions.
** Played straight in "Our Darkest Hour": [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=] played by Tim Curry doesn't harm children. Well, not ''[[HarmfulToMinors physically]]'']].
** Frank also mentioned he had absolutely no interest in harming children. ''Indirectly'' harming them, however...
* InformedAbility: Seaver supposedly got top marks at the FBI Academy, but never seems to demonstrate any remarkable skills.
* InformedFlaw: The PapaWolf in "3rd Life" is said to be a {{Sociopath}} on grounds of his past as an [[spoiler:Irish-mob hitman]]. But while he's definitely not the nicest guy around, he clearly shows a desire to wipe his slate clean, worry over his daughter's well-being, and disgust at the rapist-murderer [=UnSub=] who abducted said daughter and tortured her best friend to death -- all of which an actual psychopath would be incapable of.
* InsaneEqualsViolent: Several [=UnSubs=], but the [=UnSub=] in "With Friends Like These..." stands out.
** Reid does everything but mention this trope by name in this episode, in fact. He gets quite upset at the implication that all schizophrenic people are violent, and goes to great lengths to point out what a varied condition schizophrenia is, and how peaceful most of the people who suffer from it are. Given that his mother is one of those people, and he himself might be one day, that's pretty understandable.
* InstantMarksmanJustSqueezeTrigger: In "L.D.S.K.," Reid is trying to pass his firearms qualification test, and Hotch gives him lessons, telling him "front sight, trigger press, follow through". Hotch also mentions the "squeeze, don't pull" advice.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation:
** Reid's school experience -- "Being the smartest kid in class is like being the only kid in class."
** Prentiss, too--she laments in "Fear and Loathing" that she is a nerd and the guys she dates always find out.
* InternalAffairs: Erin Strauss, though she's sympathetic to Hotch after [[spoiler: Haley dies]].
** Though Straus isn't actually Internal Affairs. She's just the big boss.
* InTheBlood: "In the Blood" is the name of an episode; the killer believes that [[TheWitchHunter witch hunting]] is in his blood, and he tracks and kills several people for looking at a witchcraft book in the library or otherwise "showing" him that they're witches. He ''is'' legitimately a descendant of someone involved in the Salem witch trials, but he's also suffering from delusions.
* InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath: "The Fight".
* IronicNurseryTune: A young boy hums "Pop Goes the Weasel" in "At Childhood's Hour", intercut with footage of his mother being stabbed to death.
* ItAmusedMe: This is the ''only'' justification that Baker, one of the construction workers turned spree killers in "Hopeless," gives when pressed by Morgan. At the end of his rope this episode, Morgan has been searching for an answer, ''any'' answer, to why the [=UnSubs=] decided to start killing people and with Baker in custody he angrily demands an explanation. All he gets is an indifferent, "It was fun, boss."
* ItNeverGetsAnyEasier
* ItsAlwaysSunnyAtFunerals: "Fear and Loathing", "100" (although the coffin looks as if it's been rained on), "The Slave of Duty", and "Lauren".
* ItsForABook: Stated by a school principal when child porn is found on his computer in "P911".
* ItsPersonal: In addition to having hot-button issues, each agent has gotten a case which leads to this. Hotch has the Reaper arc; Gideon had Frank; Rossi in "Damaged", "Zoe's Reprise", and "Remembrance of Things Past"; Morgan in "Profiler, Profiled" and "Our Darkest Hour"; Prentiss in "Demonology" and in her Doyle arc; Reid in "Instincts" and "Memoriam"; Elle in "Aftermath"; J.J. in "North Mammon" and "Risky Business"; and the entire team in "Penelope", "The Fisher King", "100", "Lauren", and "It Takes a Village".
* JackTheRipoff:
** There's a serial killer who is specifically stated to be copying Jack the Ripper's ''modus operandi''. [[spoiler: Although, this one is a woman killing men]].
*** This is actually one of the more out-there theories about the real Ripper's identity. Since he was never caught, we can never know.
** Occurs in "Doubt": after the primary suspect is arrested, there is a second killing which seems at first blush to be the work of the [=UnSub=]. [[spoiler: It's the work of a copycat who wants to see the [=UnSub=] released; the team realizes this because the copycat's ''modus operandi'' varies from certain signature details which were withheld by the police]].
** The killers in "Zoe's Reprise" and "Tribute" each (mostly) recreate famous serial killers' [=MOs=]. A villain from the spin-off book series also copied infamous serial killers, and near the end he even tried copying spree killers and mass murderers.
* JoggersFindDeath
* JustInTime: The team almost always capture the [=UnSub=] just as they're about to claim their next victim, since arresting them while they're at home watching TV or something would be boring.
** Subverted in "Cradle to Grave" when they catch the [=UnSub=] coming out of the bathroom.
** And "Zoe's Reprise", where it first looks like the [=UnSub=] is strangling another victim in a park, only for it to turn out "the victim" is the [=UnSub=]'s girlfriend, and they were just starting a bout of rough sex.
** "Lauren" plays with this. Morgan is just in time to [[spoiler: save Prentiss before she can bleed out]], but thanks to [[spoiler: Hotch and JJ's plan to fake Emily's death]], he's led to believe he wasn't. He later tortures himself with the idea that being sixty seconds earlier could have changed everything.
* KarmicDeath: At the end of "Paradise", the serial killer who murders couples and stages car accidents for cover is run over by a truck.
** The hitman in "Reckoner" eludes the BAU (and didn't really leave behind any conclusive evidence of his guilt even if they had caught him), but ends up being killed by the protege of a mobster he murdered.
** At the end of "100", the Reaper, a [[AGodAmI God complex]] as he is, finally met his 100% deserved, ultimate ''defeat'' in the hands of an angry Hotch, ending his reign of terror over the innocent lives for good.
* KarmaHoudini: Consistently averted, even when it initially seems VillainExitStageLeft has occurred (i.e. "Reckoner"), and it is the BAU's job to defy it. Up until Season 6, the only [=UnSubs=] to successfully pull this off were Frank and the Reaper, the series' worst of the worst (and even they were eventually brought down in later episodes).
** Played straight in [[spoiler: "Into the Woods", though, where the child killer manages to get away]].
** Also, in "Blood Relations", [[spoiler: the almost superhuman boogeyman known as the Mountain Man is shown to have survived a hail of gunfire from the entire team, who NeverFoundTheBody. Somewhat fitting, as the character was written more as a slasher movie villain rather than a regular serial killer.]]
** [[spoiler: Darlene]] in "The Pact", but it is downplayed for three reasons. First, [[spoiler: she is an ''extremely'' SympatheticMurderer]]. Second, [[spoiler: she targeted [[AssholeVictim Asshole Victims]], ranging from mild- to serial-child-molester-and-killer- level]]. Third, [[spoiler: her partner and leader of the duo was caught]], making it hard to feel bad about the ending.
** The fate of the guy from "Secrets and Lies" is also left somewhat ambiguous.
** Nothing happens to [[spoiler: either of the two [[PapaWolf Papa Wolves]]]] from "3rd Life" (though they were, if not exactly sympathetic, certainly understandable), nor do we ever learn the fate of [[spoiler: the second killer family]] from "Bloodlines." None of these were the primary [=UnSub=], though.
** "Dorado Falls" has another one, although it's not the [=UnSub=]. It's the person who made the [=UnSub=] the way he is.
** The first suspect in "Out of the Light" could qualify. While he isn't guilty of the murders, or (probably) any murder, he's still, at worst, an accessory who knew who had kidnapped the girls and kept silent, and at best a pedophile who decided to conceal evidence and get off on the victim's suffering after the fact. Either way, he gets off Scot-free, and the BAU believes he's an innocent man who was framed.
** The lying kids in "Painless." Granted, they are not the [=UnSub=], but their [[UngratefulBastard ungratefulness]] is so heartbreaking that it makes the [=UnSub=], who has saved their lives and could have grown to be a decent man, become a murderer. At the end of the episode, nobody mentions what liars they've been.
** The serial killer who killed Tatiana in "Awake" manages to get away with his crimes, as the BAU aren't even aware of his existence. The ending of the episode implies he's found another victim.
** If you do the maths, two of the [[spoiler:[[SerialKiller Serial Killers]] broken out of jail by Mr. Scratch]] are still unaccounted for.
* KickTheDog: {{Sympathetic Murderer}}s are sometimes given an instance of this, especially if the victims so far have been fairly faceless or [[AssholeVictim assholish]]. Examples include Owen killing the elderly ranch owner in "Elephant's Memory" and Megan killing an executive who was a childless widower in "Pleasure is my Business".
** Morgan snapping at Garcia in "The Longest Night" because she doesn't have the answers he wants.
** "The executive branch" does this to the BAU team when it [[spoiler: puts forward the decision to transfer JJ out of the BAU, completely disregarding their family]].
** "Reflection of Desire":
--->'''[=UnSub=]:''' No, I think you're an ugly little girl who has nothing to offer the world.
:: However, if you consider what the episode's [=UnSub=] did to women he found beautiful...
* KillItWithFire: The [=UnSubs=] in "Ashes and Dust" and "Devil's Night".
* KillThePoor: The rich and completely insane killer in the episode "Legacy" believed he was doing the world a favor by exterminating street people, who he viewed as completely subhuman garbage, tainting everything they touch. When the detective who watches over the part of the city the killer gets his victims from is actually awarded due to the lower crime rate, the killer is insulted, and sends him a letter saying he should be ashamed for stealing the credit for other people's work. In the end, when the killer is surrounded by the police just as he is about to murder someone else, he actually screams "Let me do my job!" before being shot.
* KilledMidsentence: A few [=UnSubs=] are shot down mid-sentence, among them Anita Roycewood from "Mosely Lane" and Todd Franks from "Pariahville".
** [[spoiler: In "100", the Reaper gets [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown savagely beaten to death]] by Hotch when the bastard had the gall to beg for mercy after everything he's done]].
* KillerCop: [[spoiler: Jason Clark Battle]] in "Penelope", [[spoiler: Ronald Boyd]] in "A Rite of Passage", [[spoiler: Owen [=McGregor=]]] in "Angels"/"Demons".
* {{Kneecapping}}: In the Season 6 episode "Today, I do", a self-ascribed motivational speaker turned serial killer shatters the kneecap of her most recent victim with a hammer after the victim refuses to eat the popcorn she made for her. She later turns this into a self-help lesson, by teaching the victim to "walk in the face of adversity".
* KnifeNut: A number of [=UnSubs=], including the ones from "The Big Wheel" and "Public Enemy", as well as the Reaper.
* KnockingOnHeathensDoor: Morgan and Prentiss are briefly mistaken for Jehovah's Witnesses in "Compromising Positions".
[[/folder]]

[[folder: L-N]]
* LampshadeHanging: In Exit Wounds, the victim in the opening scene, upon hearing rustling chains on the "deserted" pier, calls out "Who's there?" and immediately after says "Right, because the homicidal maniac hiding in the shadows is really going to answer you."
* LaserGuidedKarma: The BAU is an embodiment of this trope against serial killers.
* LastNameBasis: Everyone but J.J., who is referred to by her nickname.
* LittleMissBadass: Ellie Spicer in "The Longest Night", who stands up to a serial killer who's just [[spoiler: murdered her father in front of her, left her aunt to die, and has been killing in ''every single state for twenty-six years'']].
** [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] in "Remembrance of Things Past," where we find out that the poor thing has developed PTSD and can't sleep without talking to Morgan first.
** And played straight again in "Safe Haven" when she hijacks her foster mom's credit card, flies cross-country, lies her way past airport security, and talks her way into the BAU to see Morgan (and because [[spoiler: her foster brother is perving on her in the shower and no one's taking her seriously]]). Impressive, for a nine-year-old.
* LivingDollCollector: "The Uncanny Valley"
* LocalAngle: The obligatory reporters who appear, occasionally real-life ones.
* LoonyFan: "Somebody's Watching" and "The Performer".
* LostInTheMaize: "Middle Man", and the end of "The Big Game".
* LyingToThePerp:
** Rossi is slick like an oil spill. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_W8_X3F-tc There's a reason why he teaches interrogation at Quantico]].
*** Particularly impressive in "Reckoner" when he has not only the [=UnSub=] believing he'd slept with the [=UnSub=]'s wife multiple times, but ''the entire team'' believing it, too.
** General Whitworth in "Amplification"
** And before Rossi came Gideon, especially memorably in "Lessons Learned".
** The team tries to trip up the title [=UnSubs=] of "Soul Mates" by convincing them they're betraying each other while one is incarcerated. The one who's loose doesn't act on it but seems to fall for it, while the captive one isn't fully convinced but eventually does just as the team wants after his partner kidnaps his daughter.
* MadArtist: Played straight in "Magnum Opus". Subverted in "The Night Watch"; the murderous "art pieces" (a corrupt community activist placed in a giant rat-trap, a rival artist's body hung from a giant baby mobile) were ''not'' the creations of the Creator/{{Banksy}}-esque artist/activist "Morpheus", but instead [[spoiler: her ex-husband trying to ruin her reputation. For his final piece, he flung himself and Morpheus off a roof onto a coffin placed at street-level, with black roses and a sign reading "RIP MORPHEUS"]].
* MadBomber: "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Empty Planet"
* MadDoctor: John Nelson in "God Complex", Bobby Boles in "Future Perfect".
* MadMathematician: Ted Bryar in "Derailed."
* TheMafiya: "Honor Among Thieves".
* MagicalDefibrillator: Used on the little girl in "Seven Seconds". Obviously, it doesn't work, and resort to using CPR again.
** Zig-zagged in "Poison," where a defibrillator is correctly used on a patient who goes into V-fib who was poisoned with botulism toxin. However, we still hear the sound effect of a FlatLine [[CoconutEffect because the audience still associates it with defibrillators.]]
* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: Local law enforcement seems to stop investigating at all when the BAU arrives. More glaringly, the BAU will also go to arrest the most dangerous crooks themselves, despite how devastating the loss of one profiler would be, compared to the average cop.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: "Paradise"
** HuntingAccident: How the father of the [=UnSub=] from "Natural Born Killer" died.
* MamaBear: JJ's truly ''vicious'' fight to defend Henry from Izzy in "Run".
* MarriedToTheJob:
** Pretty much everybody. Led to Hotch's divorce, possibly Gideon's, and also led to Rossi's ''three'' divorces.
** Tara's fiance left after she had to work overtime interviewing an imprisoned serial killer, annoyed that his fiance would rather talk to murderers than him. A previous episode hinted that their engagement was in trouble and the next morning:
--->'''Tara''': Do I look good? I just lost 200 pounds.
** Played with after "The Fight" when Prentiss gives her job as an excuse not to call Mick Rawson, a member of the San Francisco BAU team
** Avoided with J.J. & Will, Morgan & Savannah, and Alex & James Blake, three couples in which both partners have stressful jobs with demanding schedules. J.J. and Will are both in law enforcement, and Morgan and Alex both have doctors for spouses, but they make it work.
* MarionetteMotion: "The Lesson" had an [=UnSub=] who turned his victims into living marionettes, and disposed of them when they inevitably died.
* MauveShirt: SSA Kate Joyner from "Lo-fi"/"Mayhem", [[spoiler: Sheriff Ruiz in "Rite of Passage", Detective Spicer in "Our Darkest Hour", and Tsia Mosely in "Valhalla"]].
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Pondered by Morgan at the end of "Lucky". Rossi tells him not worry about it. Also used in [[spoiler: "Cold Comfort"]], where it's left ambiguous whether or not [[spoiler: Stanley Usher was genuinely psychic]], in "Demonology", where one line of dialogue suggests that maybe [[spoiler: John Cooley actually is possessed]] and [[spoiler: it's only ever a theory that the holy water was poisoned]], and in another episode when [[spoiler: the possessed Voodoo priest told Reid (who had been experiencing migraines and visions) that he had "ghosts" in his brain (there's no physical problem with his brain and now he's terrified he might be going crazy like his mom)]]. Also "With Friends Like These..." ([[spoiler:"Our spirits have ''always'' been with you."]])
** Done more subtly in "Revelations": [[spoiler: Tobias Hankel]] calls his Russian Roulette game "God's will". He tries to shoot [[spoiler: Reid]] at least five times and fails, but when [[spoiler: Reid steals his revolver he kills Tobias on the first try]].
** A similar example in "Minimal Loss" where just after Cyrus says "God could have stopped me", [[spoiler:Morgan bursts in and shoots him dead]].
** Averted in "The Angel Maker" were everything is eventually explained and it was deliberately made to look like the supernatural going on. However it did take the original [=UnSub=] a long time to die and his death freaked the Doctor out so much he quit executions.
** Does [[spoiler: the Devil really come for poor Lara]] at the end of "Heathridge Manor", or is she just as crazy as her brother and mother? (The last shot of the episode shows [[spoiler: Lara is looking at thin air when she opens the door to the Devil, but even that's a little ambiguous]].)
*** For that matter, is the Manor itself [[EldritchLocation somehow sentient and causing the madness of its inhabitants]]?
** Was Hotch just hallucinating in "Route 66," or did he actually talk to his dead ex-wife and her killer?
** Much like in the aforementioned "Route 66," is Morgan just "dissociating" to [[spoiler:survive his torture and escape his abductors]] in "Derek," or is he actually being guided by the spirit of [[spoiler:his dead father (played by Creator/DannyGlover, no less)]]?
* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: Subverted in [[spoiler: "Damaged", when a sign partially-obscured by J.J.'s head reads "Gacy". As the [=UnSub=] they're looking for is a carnival clown, this coy use of RealLife serial child-killer John Wayne Gacy's name makes things far creepier, implying that the culprit may be ''far'' worse than they expect; in the end, however, Joe turns out to be as mentally-challenged as they'd hypothesized, and surrenders without resistance on his father's say-so]].
* MeaningfulName:
** William ''[=LaMontagne=]'' is Jennifer's "rock".
** ''Aaron'' also means "mountain".
** Spencer ''Reid'' is a bookworm.
** Subverted as both "Dereck" and "Morgan" mean "leader". He lead the BAU for a short time, was happy to step up whenever Hotch or Rossi were incapacitated, but generally was an ordinary team member.
** "Jennifer" means "beautiful woman".
** Penelope was the character in the Illiad who stayed home waiting for Odysseus to return, much like Penelope Garcia is the team member who stays behind at Quantico.
** Owen Savage blows people up and shoots teenagers with an assault rifle.
** The name of the GeneralRipper in "Dorado Falls" who [[spoiler:caused the episode's SympatheticMurderer's StartOfDarkness by forcing him to assassinate two innocent children to keep a covert Navy SEALS operation quiet]]? ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram Milgram]]''.
** A number of [=UnSubs=] have been surnamed Turner, often ones who used to be good before they turned to murder.
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: If an episode features an [=UnSub=] who kills both genders indiscriminately, the "main victim" will almost always be female.
** Actually subverted in "Big Sea" where [[spoiler: a man and his teenage son are the [=UnSub=]'s main victims. The father is killed, but the son is the last surviving victim]], as well as in "A Real Rain" and "Roadkill".
** For bonus Unfortunate Implications, she's [[MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome almost always white, too]].
*** She's almost always white because the *killers* are almost always white, and, as the team frequently mentions, serial killers tend to kill within their own race almost always. When they have a black killer, the victims will usually also be black.
** Possible example in "Into the Woods": the [=UnSub=], who is a boy-preferential killer (and heavily implied to be raping his victims as well), has uncharacteristically ended up with his intended victim's sister as well. During the search, they almost never talk about the risk to the boy, with nearly all the dialogue focusing on the danger his sister is in. Granted, she may be in more immediate danger due to the idea that the [=UnSub=] will simply kill her, while he at least keeps his boy victims for months, but still somewhat striking.
* TheMenInBlack: They are sometimes perceived as this, which can be detrimental to the case. In "Identity," it causes conflict because they're trying to solve a case in an area with a heavy militia presence, and the FBI aren't very welcome after the events of Waco and Ruby Ridge. It can also work against them if they're trying not to feed the [=UnSub=]'s fantasies, and attracting the attention of the FBI would do that.
** Lampshaded by Gideon in "Compulsion":
---> '''Gideon''': No badges. I don’t want to satisfy the [=UnSub=]’s need for attention by letting him know the FBI is here. Try not to look official. ''(looks at the team)'' Try to look less official.
** Though they made use of it in the episode "Derailed." The unsub is demanding to speak to "the higher authority," so Gideon has them sit in their car for a few minutes after arriving and delay communication when the unsub calls, in order to increase their mystique, because he wouldn't expect a "higher authority" to bend to anyone's will.
* MenOfSherwood: The district cops.
* TheMentor: Gideon, who acted as Reid's father and mentor-figure for a couple of seasons before leaving under mysterious circumstances to a place where Reid can never contact him again.
* MercyKill: Some [=UnSubs=] believe they're performing these on their victims. They assume that the people they target want to die and unable to do so without "assistance" or are dying inside and need to be set free.
** In "From Childhood's Hour", the [=UnSub=] targets depressed and suicidal mothers, kidnapping their children and killing the mothers with their child's "permission". [[spoiler:When he was younger, he was in the same situation, living with a depressed and suicidal mother. He followed her one day where she was sitting on the bridge, possibly considering jumping off. To "help" her, he pushed her off into the water. It's unknown if she wanted to die or if she just wanted to be alone on those days.]]
* MindScrew: For a show about crazy serial killers, Criminal Minds is fairly light on the MindScrew.
** A minor bit is tossed at you in "Normal" but it's foreshadowed, appears internally consistent, and may not even register as such.
** The opening of "Reflection of Desire", however, is a masterpiece of television mindscrew. And even when you think it's over, it isn't. [[spoiler: In fact, they've been mindscrewing you the entire episode. The [=UnSub=]'s mom is dead, despite the fact she seems to appear in public]]. Of course, if you know what [[Film/{{Psycho}} homage the episode is making]], you'll have spotted it.
** The entire second half of "Mr. Scratch." [[spoiler:We're shown two versions of events mostly from Hotch's perspective. The first is a nightmare where his entire team dies, then snaps out of it into a second, much more believable scenario where his team come to the rescue, but the [=UnSub=] inexplicably surrenders. This is potentially ''also'' a drug-induced fantasy, and he prepares to tell Rossi what ''actually'' happened -- [[TheUnReveal but then the episode ends]].]]
* MissingMom: Just about every [=UnSub=] on the show has one.
* MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome: Lampshaded in "The Last Word" and in "Legacy". Also in "Fear and Loathing"; several black girls are killed and the murders look like hate crimes and, when the BAU gets involved with the investigation, a local preacher claims it's only because the latest victim's ex-boyfriend, who was white, was killed alongside her.
** Interestingly the white blonde haired and blue eyed Rebecca Bryant, VictimOfTheWeek in the "Fisher King" two-parter was not treated this way due to her behavior. She was a serial runaway and troublemaker so the detective on her case talked about her in a way more common with DisposableSexWorker[=/=]DisposableVagrant cases.
** Straight examples include the good chunk of RippedFromTheHeadlines episodes that have white, middle class young women or nuclear families from EverytownAmerica as the victims, when the real cases often did not.
** Real serial rapist John Jamelske abducted five women of different races and aged 14 to 53. He is briefly portrayed in "North Mammon" with a twenty-something white victim.
** Strange aversion in "The Fight," the PoorlyDisguisedPilot for ''Series/CriminalMindsSuspectBehavior.'' Hotch's team is called in to investigate a pattern of beaten and killed homeless men in San Francisco, while only Sam Cooper has ever realized that a white, middle-class father and daughter also go missing the same time every year. Thus we're introduced to the Red Cell (who cuts through red tape and flaunts the rules) via them daring to say that pretty white girls deserve our attention too! There's not even a hint of awareness to the episode. Not a single lampshade about the irony of nameless poor men warranting top FBI resources while a string of missing white teenagers goes uninvestigated by even local law enforcement.
* MissionControl: Penelope Garcia.
* ModelScam: This was the tactic of the killer in "Fear and Loathing." Although he doesn't rape his victims. He records their voices as trophies and kills them by drugging and strangling them.
* MoleInCharge: The villain of "Internal Affairs".
* MonsterFangirl: Several examples, most prominently in "Riding the Lightning" and "The Angel Maker".
* MonsterOfTheWeek: When the perp is more than this, you know that the [=UnSub=] in question is really, really deranged. See: Frank, the Boston Reaper, Tobias Hankel, Billy Flynn, Mason and Lucas Turner.
* MoodWhiplash: The ending of "Proof". [[spoiler: We see a father watch a tape of his PsychopathicManchild brother torturing his own daughter, covering his ears in fear as she screams. The scene then cuts to Rossi cheerfully teaching the team how to cook. Though to be fair, Hotch and Rossi were deliberately invoking this in-universe]].
* MoreDakka: "Rite of Passage", where the team breaks out the MP-5s since they're headed into cartel territory and might need heavier firepower if someone objects too strenuously. It comes in handy since the [=UnSub=]'s backup plan included an AR-15 modified for full auto.
** In "Lauren", Prentiss leaves her badge and Glock in her desk drawer and goes after Doyle's men armed with an MP-5 and flash-bang grenades.
* MorningSickness: Hinted at in "The Hunt." Reid realizes that [[spoiler: J.J.]] is pregnant again after he sees her eating soda crackers (a popular home remedy for nausea) at her desk.
* MotherhoodIsSuperior: A sort of inversion happened in an episode ("Hanley Waters"): the mother throws all the standard accusations at the father claiming that since he stopped doing things like celebrating their dead child's birthday, he didn't care about him. However, said woman is also going on a psychotic rampage caused by her grief while the father's subdued reaction is portrayed as more appropriate.
* MotiveRant: Averted more often than not, as the team's cracking the mystery of the [=UnSub=]'s motive is usually how they catch the culprit in the first place. Hence, there's no need for this trope to provide exposition at the end of the manhunt.
* MotorMouth: Reid veers into this territory sometimes, going off on tangents when he's nervous or thinking hard.
** Garcia, too, when she's upset or excited about something. Or drinking too much coffee:
--->'''Garcia:''' The kid's tech savvy, sir. But fret not. I am tech savvier. Is that a word? That sounds like a word. If it is a word, I'm it.\\
'''Prentiss''' (wearily): D.C. time, Garcia.\\
'''Garcia''' (checks her watch): 11:17 a.m.\\
'''Prentiss:''' D.C. ''Decaf''.
* MrFanservice:
** [[DarkAndTroubledPast Morgan]]. Hoo boy, yes, Morgan. Most especially: [[spoiler: coming out of the shower wearing only a ModestyTowel in seventh season episode "Snake Eyes", with every inch of him showing a sheen of water droplets. A moment that caused many a remote control to wear out and smoke as it was constantly brought back up to the screen...]] InUniverse, Garcia constantly flirts with Morgan and teases him over his sexiness, although their relationship remains platonic. Morgan flirts with and teases her right back.
** Hotch has his moments, particularly if you like your men [[SharpDressedMan in a nice suit]], though when seen without it -- as in Season 1 episode after a [[SexyDiscretionShot fade-to-black]] with his wife -- he proves nearly as impressive as Morgan. And Reid gets a fair share of attention as well, for those who like their men [[PrettyBoy pretty]], nerdy, and [[DistressedDude in distress]].
* MsFanservice:
** We have Garcia's spectacular cleavage and Elle's double gun holsters criss-crossing over very tight t-shirts. Not to mention [[BeachEpisode the time she wore a bikini]].
** Prentiss also gets a chance to flaunt her [[BuxomIsBetter considerable]] assets in "JJ." And let's not forget her and Jordan Todd in "52 Pick-up" at the club. She is also used as an in-universe example, in several instances using her looks and flirting to gain the trust of the [=UnSub=] ("Outfoxed").
** Garcia and Prentiss' dresses in "Run" [[spoiler: at JJ's wedding]] seem specifically designed to show off their [[Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice healthy chests]].
** Lampshaded in "Legacy":
---> ''[after canvasing the area for potential witnesses]''\\
'''Prentiss''': How'd you guys do?\\
'''Hotch:''' Well, Reid got propositioned by every prostitute we talked to, but we didn't find anybody who thinks they'd seen the [=UnSub=].
** Also in that episode, Morgan flirts with a homeless lady, much like he does with Garcia, to get her to go to a shelter. He uses his attractiveness for good.
** In an unusual departure from the norm, it is the [[BigBeautifulWoman heaviest]] woman on the team who provides most of the female fanservice. Garcia often wears clothes that emphasize her impressive bustline, and while this may have been unintentional on the part of the costuming department at first, it definitely seems to be deliberate as of Season 7; to wit, "Snake Eyes" opens with the camera ''staring directly down her nightshirt''.
** Several of the female [=UnSubs=] have a rather alluring quality to them, as well; Megan Kane, Sydney Manning, Izzy Rogers...
** Laura Allen in the episode where humans were hunted for sport.
** [[CanadaEh Bre Blair]] as the prostitute Maggie in the Season 2 episode with the murderer taking homeless people off the streets. She got ''a lot'' of positive comments on showbiz forums for this role.
** Several scenes in "Compromising Positions" feature a call girl in lingerie or costumes for the viewing pleasure of her clients and the audience.
** Also, [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004719/ Jennifer Aspen]] who appeared in "A Higher Power".
*** From that same episode, [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0395360/ Brynn Horrocks]],
*** And Lila Archer the actress Reid had a ShipTease with in "Somebody's Watching" managed to wear a bikini twice in one episode. Once at her job on a TV show and the other time while hitting on Reid.
* MuggingTheMonster: "The Big Wheel" (although the [=UnSub=] doesn't get away uninjured).
* MultiPartEpisode: "The Fisher King", "Lo-Fi"/"Mayhem", "To Hell..."/"...And Back", "Our Darkest Hour"/"The Longest Night", "Hit"/"Run", "The Inspiration"/"The Inspired", "Angels"/"Demons".
* MurderByCremation: "Mosley Lane" [[spoiler: (well, almost)]]
** "In the Blood" (see BurnTheWitch)
* MurderByRemoteControlVehicle:
** One episode has an unsub who's able to hack into airplanes via the in-flight entertainment systems. He doesn't so much fly the planes remotely as lock them into autopilot and cut off ground communication, then deploy the landing gear and slats, causing the planes to crash (though he does take manual control when confronted by the team).
** Another episode has an unsub hacking cars and causing them to hit random pedestrians. He eventually has a breakdown and abducts the woman who'd turned him down, remote controlling her car while he's in the passenger seat.
* MurderDotCom: "Revelations" and "The Internet is Forever".
* MurderSuicide: A number of killers do this rather than be caught.
* MyCard: Hotchner in "Poison", giving his ABA card to the [=UnSub=] of the Week. Also by other BAU members, when persons of interest in the Case o' the Week are being squirrely.
** Used in hilarious fashion by J.J., Garcia and Prentiss to some guy in a bar claiming to be a Bond-esque FBI agent.
** Used by Reid in "Sex, Birth, Death" when he gives his card to Nathan Harris. [[spoiler: At the end of the episode, Harris attempts suicide and leaves the card on the table as a "suicide note". The prostitute he's with uses it to call Reid, saving Harris's life]].
** Played for laughs in "52 Pickup" when Reid uses magic to put his card behind the ear of a cute bartender.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The [=UnSub=] in "Normal," word for word.
* MyGreatestFailure: Prentiss' [[spoiler: assumed death]] was this for Morgan, and he's been slow to get over it.
* MyGreatestSecondChance: Morgan [[spoiler: trying to keep the drowning kidnapping victim alive at the end of "Out of the Light" is very similar to his tending to Prentiss in "Lauren." Of course, it's somewhat ironic in that he actually managed to save Prentiss -- he just doesn't know it]].
* NailEm
** The "Hopeless" episode has the killers nail a man's hands to a bartop before beating him to death.
** The [[SerialKiller [=UnSub=]]] from the "Hashtag" episode used a nail gun to kill all his victims except the first one because he was emulating a CreepyPasta called The Mirror Man that kills people with his long (finger)nails. Also, during the second murder, he fired his nail-gun repeatedly at the back of the driver's seat of the victim's car, forming a hashtag with the holes as a CallingCard.
* NecessaryWeasel: The real BAU rarely leaves Quantico and just advices police forces from there.
* NeckSnap: "Secrets and Lies" and "Distress".
* NegativeContinuity: Either as a way to keep the show grounded in some sense of reality, or to make it more appealing to occasional viewers, most past [=UnSubs=] will never be mentioned again after the episode they appear in. Profiles, books and conferences will continue to mention real serial killers from decades past like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy, even though the exploits of more recent fictional [=UnSubs=] like George Foyet, Frank Breitkopf and Billy Flynn put theirs to shame.
* NerdGlasses: Dr Reid, [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]].
* NeverFoundTheBody: Morgan's cousin Cindi. They found ''a'' body [[spoiler: that Morgan claimed was her body so his family could move on]], and later [[spoiler: found Cindi alive]].
* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: Reid actually says this in "Lauren".
* NeverMyFault: In "Derailed," we have a passenger that is a known drunk, wrecked his father's car, and got kicked out of school. He constantly spouts blame on everything else, mostly on the government, which seriously does not help the guy who just suffered a mental break with delusions of the government coming after him.
* NeverSuicide: In "A Higher Power" a town has a disturbingly large number of suicides, which turn out to be the work of an Angel of Death serial killer who believes he is putting the townspeople who lost their children in a fire out of their misery. A subversion occurs in the end when it's discovered [[spoiler: the guy whose death sparked the BAU's involvement in the case wasn't a victim of the killer and did just commit suicide]].
** Also seen in "Risky Business," when J.J. refuses to believe that several teens from the same school, with no apparent risk factors, would kill themselves. [[spoiler:They didn't, intentionally. All of them were trying to play "The Choking Game," getting high through auto-asphyxiation, with an apparent contest going on between their school and another. They took webcam videos of their deaths, which were then were downloaded and backed up on DVD by the [=UnSub=] who used the game to lure them into killing themselves]].
* NeverTrustATrailer:
** "Snake Eyes'" B-story says that Garcia and her boyfriend have a fight over her flirty friendship with Morgan. Actually [[spoiler:Garcia's afraid that she slept with Morgan while drunk. Not only did that not happen, but Garcia's boyfriend completely trusts Morgan (though the next episode has him state he "went through a lot of therapy to figure out their relationship")]].
** In "Pariahville", Rossi's line about "who knows where the bodies are buried" has nothing to do with the case of the week, but is [[spoiler:a CallBack to the killer from "Profiling 101", whom he's conversing about with Lewis]].
* NewMediaAreEvil: "P911", "The Big Game", "Revelations, "Risky Business", and "The Internet Is Forever." You'd think a show featuring tech goddess Penelope Garcia would be better about averting this.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The BAU team themselves frequently point out that their own involvement has clearly acted as a stressor that causes the unsub to escalate, sometimes from merely assaulting people to killing them. Obviously there's not much they can do about it since the other option is "let serial criminals do whatever they want", but they often seem remarkably blase about being almost directly responsible for various deaths.
* NietzscheWannabe: In "The Popular Kids," Morgan and Reid speak as though the killer is one simply because he was carrying a copy of ''Thus Spake Zarathustra'' the first time Reid met him. The killer himself, however, never says anything to indicate that he is one.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: [[spoiler: How Hotch kills Foyet. ''Barehanded'']].
** Prentiss is practically famous for being the subject of these.
* NoKillLikeOverkill: See above. In Hotch's defense, though, [[spoiler: Foyet]] did fake his own near-death once by stabbing himself so many times that the police thought he was one of the victims. Hotch was probably right to make sure he was down for the count.
* NoodleIncident: There's a few of these, mainly involving J.J., which are often [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]].
** Also some pretty ominous ones implying past outrages by the [=UnSubs=], that are mentioned in veiled terms that make them sound [[NothingIsScarier worse than any amount of detail]] (e.g. "that thing with the puppies", "I said I was sorry!").
* NoPartyGiven: When politicians show up, they're not usually given a party, although in some cases it's easy to guess.
** In "25 to Life", James Stanworth's speech at a fundraiser is so vague and packed with MeaninglessMeaningfulWords that it's impossible to tell what he stands for.
** By contrast, Clark Preston's virulently xenophobic rhetoric in "A Thin Line" puts him in line with the extreme fringes of the Republican Party.
** When Benjamin Troy of "Rock Creek Park" is asked if he has any enemies, he lists the oil lobbies and the National Rifle Association, which are both typically conservative groups; this would suggest that he's a Democrat (although he also lists PETA as an enemy, regarded as a very liberal organization).
* NoSell: Hotch's completely badass response to [[spoiler: Foyet/the Reaper shooting at him? To not even ''move'' as the bullet goes right by his shoulder into the wall behind him]].
** Move? He doesn't even '''blink'''.
--->'''The Reaper:''' Is this part of your profile? You can't show me fear?\\
'''Hotch:''' If you don't see fear maybe it's because I'm not afraid of you.
* NoSocialSkills: Dr. Reid has obviously spent a lot of his life in academia, and before that had a rather isolated childhood; as a result he's socially awkward. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Rossi, when he jokes that Reid was found as a baby on the steps of the FBI.
* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: In-Universe. The [=UnSub=] in "The Performer" turns out to be [[spoiler: the manager of a rock star who hoped to cash in on this trope by manipulating a mentally ill fan into killing people in ways that referenced the singer's music. The singer himself was completely oblivious]].
* NotMeThisTime: In "Pariahville", an entire community of non-violent sex offenders is suspected (or framed) when a former TeacherStudentRomance resident is murdered. [[spoiler:It's actually a young offender with no connection to the residents]].
* NotProven: Two particularly personal (and eerily similar) cases early in the show.
** In the season two episode "Aftermath," Elle (who's still dealing with her attempted [[StuffedInTheFridge fridging]] by the Fisher King) moves too quickly and arrests a suspect before he makes a move, spoiling their sting and preventing them from legally obtaining his DNA. When she confronts him afterward, he ''thanks'' her for letting him get away, but still doesn't actually confess to anything (which was probably her goal). Instead, she winds up [[spoiler: shooting him as he walks away and planting a gun to make it look like a good shoot]]. This is the last straw for her after the aforementioned Fisher King incident, and she leaves the team.
** Then in the Season 3 episode "Doubt," the team arrests a man who fits the profile perfectly, and who has no alibis for any of the murders, but as there isn't any definitive evidence to say he did it, the team aren't sure what to do with him. After he is released, the team enact a plan to get him to confess, but [[spoiler:it goes horribly wrong and results in his death and the death of someone else, and they still don't have any proof that he did it]]. This is the final straw for Gideon after what happened with Frank in the previous season and causes him to leave the team.
* NumberOfTheBeast: In that satanic cannibalism episode "Lucky", the [=UnSub=]'s name is "Floyd Feylinn Ferell".
** The first three digits in the Reaper's mugshot.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: O-P]]
* ObliviouslyEvil: The [=UnSub=] of "God Complex", a MadDoctor 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.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Erin Strauss, the bureau chief. Subverted in "100" where she [[spoiler: doesn't even try to punish Hotch for killing the Reaper. After spending almost the entire episode playing the ObstructiveBureaucrat role in trying to get all the facts from the team, she actually 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).
* OffWithHisHead: The [=UnSub=] in "Drive" killed his victims using a homemade guillotine, displaying their bodies in public and keeping the heads as trophies.
* OhCrap:
** The expression on the [=UnSub=]'s face [[spoiler: 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:''' [[spoiler:[[IAteWhat ...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: [[spoiler:her]].
* OldMaster: Jason Gideon. To ''everyone'' -- (although more specifically, he's the mentor to Reid).
* OminousMundanity: Some episode titles, like "Mosley Lane", "Hanley Waters" and so on.
* OminousMusicBoxTune: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npqHIH2-TjY "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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogYA5jgl7Do "Miniatures" by Yan Volsy]].
* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: 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".
* OnceAnEpisode
** 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 [[spoiler: Morgan gets promoted. "Thanks, baby g--Agent Garcia."]] 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."
* OneOfOurOwn: Reid is in peril almost every week, but it happens to the others sometimes, too. (They spread the love around.)
** Garcia even [[spoiler:got shot]].
** Oh, and half the time, when Reid isn't getting kidnapped or held hostage or [[spoiler: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 [[spoiler:Emily takes the beating to keep him from getting shot]].)
*** And in the end, he was still slammed in the gut with a gun[[spoiler: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 [[spoiler: declare Prentiss the victim and her abductor, Doyle, the [=UnSub=]]].
* OneSteveLimit: 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: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.
* OnlyAFleshWound: 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 love 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.
* OnlyFriend: 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 SlutShaming. 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.
* OnlyInFlorida:
-->'''J.J.:''' We got a bad [case].\\
'''Morgan:''' How bad?\\
'''J.J.:''' Florida.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: 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.
* OrganDodge: The team realize that the sniper that 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.
* OrphanedPunchline: "Reckoner":
--> '''Tony:''' Hear the joke about the two Irishmen-- ''[[[KilledMidSentence gets shot]]]''
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: "The Performer"
* OutlawCouple: "[[spoiler: The Perfect Storm]]", "Mosley Lane", "[[spoiler: A Thousand Words]]", "The Thirteenth Step", and the novel ''Finishing School''. [[spoiler: "Conflicted"]] is suspected to be the case, but it is subverted when it turns out to be a case of [[spoiler: SplitPersonality]].
* {{Paparazzi}}: "The Performer", "Public Enemy", "Somebody's Watching"
* PapaWolf: Hotch. Do not threaten his son. Just... don't.
** There's also the father from "Big Sea". [[spoiler:[[HeroicSacrifice 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" [[spoiler: kills himself instead of his son, like he was instructed to.]]
* PartingWordsRegret:
** 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 [[spoiler: 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.
* PaterFamilicide: [[spoiler: "Normal"]]
* PayingItForward: 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 [[spoiler: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.
* ThePlan: "Masterpiece" [[OutGambitted 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).
* PhotographicMemory: Reid has one. It seems to mostly pertain to things he has read, but to an extent also to the things he's lived. Elle at one point comments that despite having an eidetic memory, he can barely remember anything from his first ten years of life.
* PlatonicLifePartners: 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.
* PlayfulHacker: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MalSc-Ei2fI Garcia]].
* PlayingPictionary: 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.
* PoisonousFriend / PsychoSidekick: "The Performer" [[spoiler: 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" [[spoiler: 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.]]
** "Today I Do"
* PoliceAreUseless: 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 [[MonsterOfTheWeek Psycho of The Week]] they're currently facing. There are a few exceptions, of course, including a remarkably bizarre LostInTranslation 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.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot:
** 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}} ''Series/CriminalMindsSuspectBehavior''. 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 ''Series/CriminalMindsBeyondBorders'' spin-off. Despite criticism about the CaliforniaDoubling 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.
* PowerBornOfMadness: "True Night". The guys from "The Big Wheel" and "Reflection of Desire" also had an extremely high tolerance to pain.
* PowerWalk: The team doesn't get as many of these as you might think, but special mention has to go to Hotch, Rossi, and Prentiss's in "Hopeless".
* PrecisionFStrike: A few time but the most notable would be 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.
* PregnantBadAss: JJ and now Kate.
* PregnantHostage: "Derailed", though she was actually on her way to get an abortion when the train was hijacked.
* PresentAbsence: 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.
* PrisonRape: Prentiss openly implies this will happen to the [=UnSub=] in "Slave of Duty."
** Implied to have happened to the missing prisoner in "Lockdown".
* ProfessionalKiller: "Natural Born Killer", "3rd Life" and "Reckoner".
* TheProfiler: Obviously.
* PromotionToParent: 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).
* ProperlyParanoid: 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.
* PsychoLesbian: [[spoiler: [=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]].
* PsychopathicManchild:
** 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: 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. [[spoiler: 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 KickTheDog was fun too]].
* PutOffTheirFood: 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.
* PutOnABus:
** In early Season 2, [[spoiler: Elle left the BAU after killing a rapist, and hasn't been seen since]].
** At the start of Season 3, [[spoiler: Gideon resigned after failing to stop Frank Breitkopf, his late girlfriend's murderer, and his lover Jane from committing suicide]]. In Season 10, he [[spoiler: comes BackForTheDead]].
** At the end of the Season 5 opener, [[spoiler: 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 PapaWolf like Hotchner, this is probably a FateWorseThanDeath, which was exactly the Reaper's goal all along.
** In "JJ", [[spoiler: J.J. was shuttled off to a new position in the State Department]]. Luckily, TheBusCameBack.
** At the end of Season 7, [[spoiler: Emily left the BAU to head Interpol]]. As in the case of [[spoiler: J.J.]], TheBusCameBack.
** In Season 11, [[spoiler: 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]].
** In Season 12, [[spoiler: 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: [[spoiler: Ashley Seaver in Season 6 (moved to a different team)]], [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: 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".
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Q-S]]
* TheQuisling: "Bloodline".
* RapeAsBackstory: and not just for the [=UnSubs=].
* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
** 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 him back.
*** Similarly, Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt'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 Creator/MandyPatinkin'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 RealLife Creator/MandyPatinkin 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 ShootTheShaggyDogStory 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.
%%** Spencer Reid knows that Mr. Scratch is after the team and ''will'' hurt them in the worst way possible, yet he still crosses the Mexican border three times without being briefed by the FBI. That alone would be understandable because he wants to help his mother. What is not understandable is him not telling ''any'' of his team members. Of course it turns out that [[spoiler: it was actually Cat Adams and Lindsey Vaughn who orchestrated the entire thing,]] but that doesn't make it any less nonsensical for him to illegally cross the border while he knows someone is after the team and knows how to work his way around the legal system. He is then [[spoiler: drugged and involved in a murder]] and charged with [[spoiler: the murder of Nadie Ramos and thrown into prison because of course the police and FBI won't believe Reid that he was framed because they don't know him like the team does.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: 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.
* RecurringCharacter: Haley Hotchner (S1-5), Jack Hotchner (S1-11), Erin Strauss (S2-8), Kevin Lynch (S3-Present).
* RedHerring: 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 EurekaMoment.
** The episodes [[spoiler: "Roadkill"]] and [[spoiler: "The Performer"]] seem like one of those "follow the [=UnSub=] from the beginning" episodes, but the characters we see first in them are innocent.
* RefugeInAudacity: This is some of the [=UnSubs=] schtick, and occasionally taken UpToEleven as an artform.
* RejectedMarriageProposal: 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. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, Kevin disagrees and they subsequently break-up]].
* RevengeByProxy: Attempted in "Masterpiece" -- [[spoiler: Rothchild attempts to kill the entire BAU team except Rossi, who is the object of his rage]].
* RevengeIsNotJustice: 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.
* RightBehindMe: Penelope Garcia, meet Alex Blake.
* RightForTheWrongReasons: In [[spoiler: "A Higher Power"]] the detective who called the team in started investigating [[spoiler: 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]].
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: This show is such a recurrent offender, it has [[RippedFromTheHeadlines/CriminalMinds its own page]]. At least, the show has a better excuse than ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'': Since the show's gimmick is profiling, the characters can only solve crimes by literally comparing them to previous, real cases they have studied in their career. Even when these real cases aren't explicitly mentioned, many a true crime aficionado will have little trouble spotting the similarities.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: "Elephant's Memory", "House on Fire", the appropriately-named "Retaliation", and what Hotch does to [[spoiler: Foyet after he targets Hotch's family in "100"]]. 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 ([[spoiler:his only friend in high school was publicly humiliated and later killed himself]]) and the actual ring-leader [[{{Irony}} was safely out of the country fighting insurgents in Afghanistan]] so he settled for [[spoiler: ''the guy's ex-girlfriend's parents'']] instead.
* RoaringRampageOfRescue: The Dorado Falls [=UnSub=] ''believes'' he's on this.
* RoomFullOfCrazy: [[spoiler: 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.
* RunForTheBorder: 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".
* RunningGag:
** The blank look Reid always gets from [[strike: 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, [[spoiler: 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 OnceAnEpisode 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 PlayedForLaughs many times.
* RussianRoulette: [=UnSubs=] have played this, with Reid in Season 2 and Morgan in Season 11.
* SadisticChoice: "Psychodrama" and "North Mammon".
* SamaritanSyndrome: Hotch has this, to a certain extent, and Rossi deconstructs it angrily:
--> '''Rossi:''' It's not your conscience talking, it's your ego.
* SamusIsAGirl: The [=UnSubs=] in [[spoiler: "Jones", "Seven Seconds", "The Instincts", "Outfoxed", "The Good Earth", "All That Remains", "What Happens In Mecklinburg?"]] are revealed to be female. [[spoiler: "The Perfomer" and ".. A Thousand Words"]] are cases where in turns out [[spoiler: she is ''one'' of the [=UnSub=]''s'']]. And in [[spoiler: "The Dark Knight", the enigmatic artist "Morpheus" is revealed to be female, though the [=UnSub=] is actually her ex-husband]]
* SanctuaryOfSolitude: 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 [[spoiler: his [[MostImportantPerson '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 {{lampshade}}s 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 [[SinisterMinister Silvano]] is finally captured. She ends up outside a church (which she hasn't been in since her [[spoiler: 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.
* SarcasticClapping: Done by Morgan at the end of "25 to Life".
* TheSavageIndian: 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.
* ScarilyCompetentTracker: 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..."
* TheSchizophreniaConspiracy: Ted Bryar in "Derailed."
* ScoobyDooHoax: 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 [[spoiler: 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.
* ScreamDiscretionShot
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Happens a lot, usually culminating in the involvement of Strauss. Lampshaded in "It Takes a Village".
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: J.J. is neither present nor even mentioned in the first episode.
* SelfDeprecation: "False Flag", with its abundant dosis of BaitAndSwitch, works both as a DeconstructorFleet 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 [[spoiler:one is actually a freak accident and another is a mundane, spur-of-the-moment murder by a disgruntled lover]]. Likewise, several [[EurekaMoment Eureka Moments]] are actually [[RedHerring Red Herrings]], most notably the introduction of a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Ted Kaczynski in the third act that all the other conspiracy theorists are afraid of, but who turns out to be [[spoiler: a façade put up by a ''skeptic'' to scam the conspiracionists, 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 HollywoodHacking, 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 conspiracionists. One of such conspirationists even thinks that the BAU [[NecessaryWeasel flying around on their own private jet]] borders on the unbelievable.
* SelfServingMemory: "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 [[spoiler: 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]]. [[DrivenToSuicide He does not take this well at all]].
* SeparatedAtBirth: The twist ending to [[spoiler: "The Inspiration", setting up "The Inspired": the [=UnSub=] has a brother, and ''both'' of them are the EvilTwin]].
* SerialKiller: Well, natch.
* SerialKillingsSpecificTarget: "Sniper Sniped": the targets of a sniper rampage throughout Dallas were in reality the targets of a mercenary hired by a rich [[DomesticAbuse domestic abuser]] out to kill his runaway wife, killing his way through the "underground railroad" she used to escape.
* SeriesContinuityError: 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[TitleDrop 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.
* SexyFigureGesture: 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.
* ShakyPOVCam: "Blood Hungry", "Our Darkest Hour", and (to a lesser extent) "What Fresh Hell?" and "Catching Out".
* ShellShockedVeteran: "Distress"
* SherlockScan: 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".
* ShootTheShaggyDogStory: "No Way Out II" turns [[spoiler: "The Fisher King"]] into one of these, because [[spoiler: Frank kills the girl they saved in those episodes]].
** [[spoiler: "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." [[spoiler: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". [[spoiler:The team doesn't even learn the [=UnSub=]'s name -- let alone find him -- until after he kills his final target via PsychoSerum, and he even gets to do the same to Hotch (though he survives) and surrender victoriously instead of actually being beaten.]]
** "Awake". [[spoiler: The WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds [=UnSub=] dies, his daughter turns out to be DeadAllAlong, and the GreaterScopeVillain responsible (the man with the skull tattoo) pulls a KarmaHoudini 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=].]]
* ShoutOut:
** An episode involving a serial bomber takes place in [[Series/CSIMiami Florida and is titled "Won't Get Fooled Again"]].
** The episode "In Heat," also set in Miami, starts with a ColdOpening that closely mimics a ''Series/CSIMiami'' ColdOpening in its cinematography and editing. At various crime scenes in the episode, several extras in the background are seen wearing "CSI" windbreakers.
** The hyper-egotistical surgeon in "L.D.S.K." (Gideon calls him "The worst narcissistic personality disorder I've ever seen.") looks and sounds just like Hugh Laurie's character in ''Series/{{House}}''. Also could be considered a TakeThat. Or TruthInTelevision.
** The title of "A Real Rain" refers to ''Film/TaxiDriver'', while the ending is a Shout Out to ''Film/TheBoondockSaints''.
** The [=UnSub=]'s methods in "North Mammon" and "Legacy" are similar to the traps set up by the Jigsaw Killer from the ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' saga.
** The episode "Legacy" opens with the [=UnSub=] whistling [[Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet 'Johanna']]. Mandy Patinkin is a notable performer/interpreter of Music/StephenSondheim, though he was never in ''Sweeney Todd''.
** The ending of "Damaged" has a sort of a ''Series/ColdCase'' feel to it.
** In "True Night", the scenes where Night kills the victims is shot in dramatic, ''ComicBook/SinCity''-style black-and white. This is appropriate, as the prime suspect is a comic-book artist. Garcia even quotes Creator/FrankMiller towards the end.
*** Night also looks very similar to [[Franchise/KingdomHearts an Organization XIII member]] (particularly Roxas), with his BadassLongcoat, a hood covering his face, black gloves, black boots and DualWielding swords. Some of the poses can be seen in the Deep Dive video too (although from slightly different angles).
*** Aside from that, the whole storyline is a wee bit familiar: [[Film/TheCrow A psychotic and creative young man whose fiancee is raped and killed by gang bangers adopts a dark and intimidating superhero-esque persona in order to get revenge on those who wronged him]].
** The kidnapping we saw in "The Uncanny Valley" was strangely similar to the one done by [[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs another famous fictional serial killer who also predated young girls]]. Also, the entire plot is suspiciously similar to that of Dollhouse episode "Belle Chose", though the [=UnSub=] is portrayed far more sympathetically than Terry Karrens is.
*** They are actually both based on Ted Bundy. He used that ruse.
*** Speaking of ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' series, even in context of Shout-Outs, ''an evil quadriplegic heir to a pig farm named "Mason"'' was pushing it.
** The family in the beginning of "Children of the Dark" have an awkward conversation in their house's entryway with two strangers, who admire their lifestyle and golf clubs before torturing and killing them. [[Film/FunnyGames Sounds familiar, in a funny sort of way]].
** A Series/WhiteCollar conman who's juggling too many aliases is described as a [[Series/{{Leverage}} functioning alcoholic]].
*** It's probably nothing, but one of his aliases is [[ComicBooks Alex Ross]].
** Character David Rossi is based on real-life FBI profiler John E. Douglas. However, a certain Forensic Psychology textbook cites not only John E. Douglas, but another FBI profiler named D. Rossi.
** Garcia swears by using "[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Frak]]."
** Billy Flynn (played by Creator/TimCurry) from "Our Darkest Hour" is dubbed "The Prince of Darkness", the moniker of several characters that he's previously played.
*** Could also be a ''Theatre/{{Chicago}}'' shout-out.
*** It's a reference (or also a reference) to the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, the killer he's based on.
** Possible shout out in "Penelope": Garcia has this piece of dialogue.
---> '''Garcia''': When I was in the ambulance I could hear the song [[Series/LifeOnMars2006 "Heroes" playing in my head. I kept flashing in and out of consciousness, everything was really bright and I remember thinking]], [[Series/AshesToAshes2008 "Wait, is David Bowie really God?"]]
** A brief scene in the Season 4 episode ''Demonology'', shows two priests preparing for an exorcism. Obviously, [[Film/TheExorcist one of them is old and the other one is young]].
** In "Devil's Night", Garcia calls Kaman, the [=UnSub=], "the BigBad".
*** The episode also features [[Film/TheCrow Ernie Hudson as Detroit police officer dealing with a series of revenge murders on Devil's Night]]
** "Reflections of Desire" is basically [[spoiler: ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' and ''Film/SunsetBoulevard'']] thrown in a blender.
** In "What Happens At Home", we first meet FBI cadet Ashley Seaver when Rossi goes to see her [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs on the FBI academy training course]].
** At the end of "Amplification", the shot of the virus being sealed in a gigantic virus vault refers back to ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk".
** One of two murdered convenience store clerks on Garcia's computer is [[TheSimpsons Apu N.]].
** [=SF=] author and blogger Creator/ElizabethBear is a ''huge'' and [[http://matociquala.livejournal.com/tag/geeks%20with%20guns vocal]] fan of the series, and someone on the writing staff obviously loves her back; not only was the opening quote in "Lauren" from one of her books, it was from a ''thematically appropriate'' one. Doubly appropriate because Bear was one of the first to vocally support Prentiss' addition to the show.
** In "With Friends Like These," there is a shout out to ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' when [[spoiler:Ben sees his hallucinatory friends pinned to the ceiling, dripping blood on his face]].
** Perhaps unintentional, but the plot of "Sense Memory" concerns itself with [[Literature/{{Perfume}} an antisocial man who harvests beautiful young women for their scent]].
** In "Mosley Lane," Bud Cort [[spoiler: hangs himself]]. [[Film/HaroldAndMaude Does that sound familiar?]]
** In "Zugzwang," which is already filled with Conan Doyle references, [[spoiler: Diane Turner brings Maeve onto the roof for a final confrontation, wherein she wants Maeve to jump to her death to prove her theory. The situation is a mirror of the final scene between Moriarty and Sherlock in {{Series/Sherlock}}'s ''The Reichenbach Fall'']].
** [[Series/{{Profiler}} Robert Davi]] appeared twice; as it happens, Hotch has pretty much the same job in the BAU as Davi's Bailey Malone did in the fictional Violent Crimes Task Force.
** "The Edge of Winter" could be a subtle one to [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries Harley Quinn]]: [[spoiler:A young med student is tortured until she "falls in love" with her captor and becomes a willing participant in his crimes. When she reveals she'd still kill for him if he asked, she is deemed criminally insane, not to mention a very unreliable witness in his trial.]]
** The [=UnSub=] in "Reckoner" is extremely similar to [[spoiler: the murderer in Agatha Christie's ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone''. They're both judges who, having contracted a deadly illness, start executing people who got away with their crimes.]]
** The names of the victims, suspects, and affiliates in "Hashtag" all have names related to {{Series/Buffy The Vampire Slayer}} and {{Series/Angel}}: Tara Harris, Riley Summers, Alexander Chase, Jonathan, Andrew Wells, Dawn Rosenberg, Joyce Giles, Charles Lorne, Daniel Osbourne, and Connor Holt. The teen characters all go to Sunnydale High School. And the name of the culprit, who killed his victims with a nail gun? [[spoiler: William Pratt]].
** The lead kidnapper in "Rock Creek Park" is directly referred to being like a character in ''Film/TheManchurianCandidate'' [[spoiler: specifically the ambitious, manipulative, murderous mother]], but their reasoning is more like [[ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}} The Smiler]] [[spoiler: murder loved ones for voter sympathy, in this case her son's wife]] and for special coincident points they look rather like [[spoiler: Mallory WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}]]. There's probably some ''HouseOfCards'' in there too.
** One [=UnSub=] uses the name "[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV Niko Bellic]]" as an alias. The characters are shocked that Rossi knows who he is.
---> '''Rossi''': What? I know things.
** Garcia has a [[Anime/DragonBallZ Goku figure]] on her desk.
** In "Last Gasp" Lewis mediates a dispute between two FBI partners; [[Series/TheXFiles a red-headed female agent and her dark-haired male partner who believes in the paranormal]].
* ShownTheirWork: 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.
* ShutUpKiss: [[spoiler:J.J. and Detective La Montagne in "In Heat"]].
* SiblingsInCrime: The [=UnSubs=] of "Open Season" (formerly TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether) and, in a gut-wrenching variation, [[spoiler: "To Hell..."/"...And Back"]]. Two of the robbers in "Hit"/"Run" are brothers, though neither turn out to be the primary antagonist.
* SignificantBirthdate: For reasons unexplained, both Reid and Prentiss are born on October 12. It is never remarked upon.
* SinisterMinister: the [=UnSub=] in "Demonology", and the [[RedHerring decoy [=UnSub=]]] in "Angels".
** A [[SubvertedTrope 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. [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] is the kid.]]
* SlasherSmile: The BigBad in "Lessons Learned" cracks an ''incredibly'' creepy one at the thought of Islamic extremists brutally murdering all ''four billion'' non-Muslims in the world.
* SlayingMantis: "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.
* SleightOfHandiness: In "Derailed," Reid uses sleight of hand to trick the UnSub into thinking he's removed a tracking chip from his arm.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: 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.
* SmugSnake: Professor Rothschild in "Masterpiece.", at least [[spoiler: Rossi destroys his master plan of revenge]].
* SnuffFilm: A number of [=UnSubs=] ("Hopeless", notably) have a habit of recording their murders, sometimes for... [[ADateWithRosiePalms 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.
* SoundtrackDissonance: In "Mosley Lane," we can hear ''Illabye'' as [[EvilMatriarch Anita Roycewood]] carefully puts a sleeping boy in a cardboard box, smiles to him, hums a lullaby... [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: a family trying to escape their burning house in vain, as the arsonist watches]]. You can watch it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=steKWtFkZ4g right over here]].
** Done in universe with the [=UnSub=] known as "The Piano Man" (no, not [[Music/BillyJoel 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 BerserkButton later.
* SouthOfTheBorder: "Machismo"
* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''The Inside'', a Fox series which also revolved around a unit within the FBI tasked with pursuing serial killers (see {{Expy}}).
* SpinOff: The show, itself, is not a spin-off, but, rather, has a type 3 spin-off, ''Series/CriminalMindsSuspectBehavior''. They met the team that is in the spin-off in "The Fight" (Season 5, episode 18).
* SplitPersonality: Two [=UnSubs=]. [[spoiler: Raphael/Tobias Hankel/Tobias' father in "Revelations,"]] and [[spoiler: Adam/Amanda in "Conflicted."]]
** There's a third example in "All That Remains" with [[spoiler:Bruce Morrison/Johnny]]. Interestingly, this time, [[spoiler:he is not the [=UnSub=]]].
** Potentially [[spoiler: 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]].
* SportsHeroBackstory: 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).
* StalkerShrine: "The Crossing"
* StalkerWithACrush:
** "Broken Mirror", "Somebody's Watching" and again "The Crossing".
** Morgan's cousin Cindi fled Chicago over hers and was never seen again. [[spoiler: Too bad she had ''two'' stalkers, and one of them was more determined and sadistic than the other]].
* StandardCopBackstory: 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.
* SteelEarDrums: 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 [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: Reid]] is perfectly able to hear the rest of the team despite having been in close proximity to an explosion.
* StockholmSyndrome: "The Edge of Winter": [[spoiler: 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.]]
* TheStoic: 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 [[spoiler: when J.J. announces that she's pregnant]]. He's clearly happy for [[spoiler: her]].
** Earlier, he does smile more. Go back to Season 1's "The Fox". Hotch and Hayley showing off baby Jack to everyone.
** Prentiss becomes this following her [[spoiler: return from the dead]]; she shows very few signs of post-traumatic stress.
** NotSoStoic: The Season 5 episode "100" gives us [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: Evan Abbey incinerates himself]].
* StoryArc: Several long arcs have been developed over the course of the series.
** Hotch's attempt to [[FamilyVersusCareer 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, [[TheReveal 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 TenMinuteRetirement 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 CharacterDevelopment.
* StrangeMindsThinkAlike: Slightly more plot-relevant than most examples, but in ''A Thousand Words'' both Reid and the NightmareFetishist tattoo artist the team consults are reminded of Ray Bradbury's ''The Illustrated Man'' by the tattoos on the [=UnSub's=] body.
* StrictlyFormula: Most of the episodes have a highly predictable structure -- a ColdOpening 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. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools 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.
* SelfHarm: 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).
* StoryboardBody: The [[spoiler: 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".
* [[TemporarySubstitute Substitute Media Liaison]]: Jordan Todd.
* SuicideByCop: 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 "[[spoiler: Parasite]]."
** Averted by Will in "Jones" and Reid in "Elephant's Memory."
** What [[spoiler: 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. [[spoiler: 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 SuicideByCop and another part [[TheDeterminator 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 [[spoiler: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.
* SuicideIsPainless: Averted by "Risky Business" and the "choking game". The kids think it's a big contest until [[spoiler: 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.
* SuperOCD: A handful of [=UnSubs=], the most prominent probably being Vincent from "The Big Wheel" and [[spoiler: Clara Hayes]] from "Compulsion".
** This show deserves points for playing OCD fairly accurately and sympathetically. There's even a case where it helps -- in "Legacy", the Kansas City detective's compulsive note-taking was the very reason he noticed that ''sixty-three'' homeless people were missing, leading to the discovery that they were being systematically tortured and killed.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: 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.
* StockFootage: 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.
* SympatheticMurderer: "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 ([[spoiler: "Conflicted"]] and arguably [[spoiler: "The Perfect Storm"]]) and an even rarer sympathetic ''domestic abuser'' ("The Performer").
* SympathyForTheDevil: 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".
[[/folder]]

[[folder: T-Z]]
* TakeMeInstead: Prentiss does this for Reid in "Minimal Loss".
** Reid offers himself to Diane, his girlfriend's stalker-turned-kidnapper.
* TakeOurWordForIt: The more gruesome activities the [=UnSubs=] partake in and their effects on the victims are often only shown through the horrified or disgusted looks on the team's faces.
* TakeThat:
** Upon arriving at a crime scene [[{{Series/CSI}} in Las Vegas]], this exchange between Rossi and Prentiss in "The Instincts": "Not exactly a well-preserved crime scene." "It's the crime scene investigators. They all want to play cop instead of being scientists and they end up trampling on everything."
** "JJ" is an episode-long TakeThat. [[spoiler: J.J.'s voiceover during the "goodbye montage" makes it quite clear that she, the actress portraying her, and the rest of the cast and crew don't want her to leave, but "people above her pay grade" (the studio) are forcing it]].
** To ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'' in "Breath Play": A woman who arranges UsefulNotes/{{BDSM}} meet-ups makes it clear that the [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed not-FSOG romance novel]] isn't an accurate portrayal of the lifestyle, which is supposed to be freeing and life-affirming not terrifying and abusive [[note]] to be fair while the killer uses the victims' love of the book to get them in a vulnerable state his ''real'' fetish isn't in either novel[[/note]].
** "L.D.S.K." features a surgeon that has "[[{{Series/House}} the worst narcissistic personality disorder]]" Gideon has ever seen.
** "Lessons Learned" is an episode-long Take That to the [[RippedFromTheHeadlines use of torture in Guantanamo Bay]] and shows like ''Series/TwentyFour'', presenting it as both clueless and useless, and it does it without making the terrorists look good or sympathetic.
* TakingYouWithMe:
** How the [=UnSub=] of "Ashes and Dust" meets his end.
** The villainous variant appears in a few episodes, with a cornered [=UnSub=] pulling a MurderSuicide to take their last victim with them; examples include "The Night Watch" and "[[spoiler: Zugzwang]]". [[spoiler:[[ArcVillain The Replicator]]]] tries this on Rossi at the end of Season 8, but Rossi [[OutGambitted out-gambits]] him and leaves him to die alone.
* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: In some standoff situations, the BAU manage to talk the [=UnSubs=] into surrendering. Also occurs literally in one instance where the detective working with the BAU accidentally prompts the [=UnSub=] to kill himself by breaking his delusion. And at the end of "The 13th Step" the team defuse a hostage situation by pushing the [=UnSub=]'s buttons so that he ends up killing his partner then committing suicide by cop.
* TattooedCrook: "A Thousand Words", given attention in "Honor Among Thieves", "Valhalla", and "Lauren".
* TeacherStudentRomance: In "I Love You, Tommy Brown," which also brutally deconstructs the idea that it's okay if it's a teenage boy with an attractive woman.
* TheTeam: The BAU, of course. Not only are they all TrueCompanions and several of them HeterosexualLifePartners / PlatonicLifePartners with each other, but they're also all a surrogate family, with a TeamMom (Hotch), TeamDad (Rossi), surrogate [[BigBrotherInstinct big brother]] (Morgan) and big sisters ([[TheHeart JJ]] and [[CoolBigSis Prentiss]]), a surrogate little brother / TeamPet (Reid), and a MoralityPet (Garcia). Further emphasized by the fact that several of them don't have a close relationship with their families and/or don't have family living nearby.
* TeamPet: Reid.
* TearYourFaceOff: The victim in "About Face" is killed this way.
* TelevisionGeography: Often.
** "Normal" begins with an aerial shot of [[{{Nerdgasm}} the Civil Engineer's wet dream]] that is the [[http://members.cox.net/mkpl/interchange/4lvl_mg.jpg Four-Level Interchange]], subtitled "Orange County, CA". The Four-Level Interchange is not in Orange County though... it's 20 miles away in Los Angeles. Orange County's freeway interchanges are not nearly as pretty from the air. They look a lot more like a [[http://www.ptank.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/I-5ca22ca57.png Freeway Full of Crazy]].
** In "Limelight," the [=UnSub=] is somehow able to get from police headquarters (which is in downtown Philadelphia) to a house where his next victim is (the design of which can only be found in parts of West Philadelphia), and then deposit her next to what is supposedly the Schuylkill Expressway near Conshohocken (which it's clearly not, considering the complete lack of a river nearby) in what has to be less than an hour. Any Philadelphia native will laugh at that above description. Repeatedly.
* TenMinuteRetirement: [[spoiler: Hotch and Prentiss, in the beginning of Season 3. They don't even make it through the episode]].
** Averted with [[spoiler: Elle and Gideon]].
* TermsOfEndangerment: The killer in "Natural Born Killer" puts himself on a FirstNameBasis with Gideon while being interrogated.
* TerroristWithoutACause:
** "Empty Planet"
** The cell from "Lo-Fi"/"Mayhem" ''claims'' to have a cause, but neither the characters nor the viewer ever find out what it is. Their [[EqualOpportunityEvil racially diverse membership]] and their target being a high government official implies a radical leftist organization of some kind.
** Hayman Vasher from "A Thousand Suns" just wants to kill people.
* ThatManIsDead: "Identity" and "In Heat".
* ThatOneCase: Multiple ones, in this show:
** Gideon had Frank ("No Way Out" and "No Way Out II: The Evilution of Frank")
*** Not to mention the bomber in Boston, which led to his nervous breakdown. He caught the man, but lost 6 agents and a hostage immediately afterwards.
** Rossi had the Galen case ("Damaged") and the Butcher ("Remembrance of Things Past"). In the latter we briefly see the Butcher case is just one of several old cases he still hasn't solved.
** Hotch had the Reaper case ("Omnivore", "To Hell..."/"...And Back", "Nameless, Faceless", "100").
** Reid had [[spoiler: Tobias Hankel, the [=UnSub=] with DID from "The Big Game" and "Revelations")]], and who sticks with him for a few reasons: first, the [[spoiler: drug addiction StoryArc]] that comes from being [[spoiler: shot up with Dilaudid, a painkiller, to help him survive the torture (physical and psychological) that the alter personalities were putting him through]]. This plotline is developed in "Fear and Loathing," "Distress," "Jones," and "Ashes and Dust," comes back for further development in "Elephant's Memory," and is referenced in "Amplification" and "Proof." Second, he feels a connection to the [[spoiler:primary personality, Tobias]] who showed him empathy, including [[spoiler: providing the aforementioned Dilaudid, which despite the long term consequences, clearly helped Reid cope with the torture at the time]]. As seen in "Conflicted," this [[spoiler:allows him to make the connection that Adam is switching personalities, and that the alter is the more aggressive partner they have been looking for]]. In the aftermath of that case, it [[spoiler:results in him feeling guilty for failing to save the (relatively innocent) primary personality, Adam. This leads him to maintain a relationship with Amanda in hopes of bringing Adam to the surface]].
** Reid also has the Riley Jenkins case ("The Instincts," "Memoriam"), from before he even "knew" it was a case.
** The Prince of Darkness ("Our Darkest Hour" and "The Longest Night") became this for Morgan.
*** Lampshaded by Morgan in "The Longest Night", telling Hotch that he needs to go after Billy Flynn personally:
---->''"We were there for you when you needed us. This one's mine."''
** The Doyle case for Prentiss, haunting her from her previous assignment [[spoiler: and coming back to bite her in the ass in a big way]].
** Recapturing "The Crimson King" for Alvez on account of the "King" gutted his partner. [[spoiler: He does, but the "King" is rendered amnesiac so Alvez doesn't even get the satisfaction of knowing he'll live the rest of his life as a failure]]
* [[ThatsWhatIWouldDo That's What I Would Do]]: "Elephant's Memory". Reid empathizes with the [=UnSub=] and says this almost word for word regarding how he figured out the [=UnSub=]'s next move.
** To further the point, the [=UnSub=] looks a lot like a younger Reid, right down to the hairstyle.
* TheBusCameBack: Numerous, but most prominently [[spoiler: JJ]] and [[spoiler: Emily]], who both came back as regulars and in the case of the latter, ''twice''.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill
** The Boston Reaper.
** Numerous other [=UnSubs=]: "Natural Born Killer," "True Night," and "Hopeless" for example.
** In "100," [[spoiler: Hotch does this to Foyet. With his ''bare hands'']].
** Unintentionally done in "Normal" after Norman shoots the first victim her car crashes and flips over in an over dramatic way. [[spoiler: She still survives albeit in critical condition and paralyzed from the waist down]].
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: Aside from the usual FromNobodyToNightmare [=UnSubs=] several "buyers" of the internet kidnapping ring look perfectly normal, including a pair of grandparents in what appears to be a BigFancyHouse and a suburban father with a bunch of girls caged in his basement.
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Thirteen serial killers escape from prison at the end of "The Storm". [[spoiler: By the season premiere the list is reduced to five (four by episode's end) thanks to new character FBI Agent Alvez.]]
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: Prentiss, word for word, in "52 Pickup."
* ThisIsReality: In Season 6, walking out of a movie theater, Morgan comments that the protagonist should have known the [=UnSub=] was hiding in the attic, and Reid informs him that in movies, [=UnSubs=] are called villains.
* ThousandYardStare: Hotch gets this a lot in early Season 5 after Foyet's attack, especially in "Haunted."
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: A lot of mentally unstable [=UnSubs=], most recently with the VigilanteMan in "Protection," who imagines his victims wearing different clothes and saying completely different things (a girl wearing a wholesome pink dress calling for the death of her rapist is really a girl in a black tank top and jeans screaming "Stop, he's my boyfriend!"). Interestingly, when the victims show up in his delusion at the end they're dressed as they really were, not how the [=UnSub=] imagined them.
* TitleDrop: Happens a lot with episode titles.
* ToKnowHimIMustBecomeHim: Count the times Morgan says "I'm the [=UnSub=] ... "
** Also, Reid in "Elephant's Memory".
** Hotch and Rossi use this to break the case in "Identity".
** Subverted by JJ in "The Longest Night", when she ''can't'' empathize with Billy Flynn, and instead, talks to him about what his mother ''should'' have done for him.
** Morgan and Prentiss play "you're/I'm the [=UnSub=]" in "Compromising Positions".
** At the end of "Open Season" Emily relates to Morgan that the victim asked her how killers can do such things, and she replied that [=UnSubs=] think differently... But she goes on to say that the BAU, who also hunt down people (the [=UnSubs=] they catch) may not be as different from their prey as they'd like.
* TooDumbToLive: The guy in "Psychodrama" who continually refuses to take his clothes off, even after the [=UnSub=] starts hitting him and shooting the floor around him.
** The woman in "Our Darkest Hour" who, despite seeing her door is now wide open even though there is no wind, goes in anyway.
** The woman who goes to see Vincent in "The Big Wheel". Think before you point out that the guy whose house you're alone in with looks just like that serial killer they're talking about on TV.
** The victims in "Roadkill". [[spoiler: The victim in the garage was especially stupid. He had ample opportunity to escape from the [=UnSub=] by dodging behind columns or other cars, but instead he tries to outrun the truck. Becomes even more apparent when it is revealed the [=UnSub=] had no legs and couldn't have caught his victims if they had got away]]
*** All the first victim had to do was get out of the road and behind a couple of trees in that dense wooden area. On the other hand, she seemed to be a rather vapid airhead.
** The first thing Hotch tells Agent Seaver is to never go anywhere by herself. Granted, the person she went to see was a grieving father and his young daughter, [[spoiler: but he was also a SerialKiller like Seaver's own father. Fortunately the dad was distracted because he needed to know ''why'' Seaver mentioned apologizing in the killer's family's place, but she was still chewed out by Hotch]].
** A victim in "Divining Rod" who fails to notice her full wine glass is now empty and her back door's open.
** The young hostage in "Derailed" who constantly speaks up and only agitates the hostage taker. He continually says things that only makes the situation worse and it's his fault the psychiatrist is shot. In his defense, he ''is'' a known alcoholic and presumably drunk at the time.
** "Haunted" might have ended bloodless if anyone in that pharmacy had one ounce of common sense.
** In the episode "Blood Relations," the team pulls up to an old barn and the guy inside starts shooting at them. He claims he thought they were his hillbilly-feud rivals. Pulling up in a fleet of brand-new black [=SUVs=]? Really?
* TookALevelInBadass: J.J.'s at ''four'' and counting -- shooting the dogs in "The Big Game"; shooting [[spoiler: Garcia's attacker]] in "Penelope"; bashing an [=UnSub=] upside the head with a shovel while just having been concussed in "The Performer", and [[spoiler: talking Billy Flynn down over the Emergency Broadcast System]] in "The Longest Night." Pretty damn good for the team's ''communications specialist''.
** Now she's up another, with her fight with a [[spoiler: professional killer]] in "Run."
** Reid definitely had one between Seasons 6 and 7. Just watch the Season 7 premiere if you don't believe me.
** Prentiss took a monumental level in badass during her Doyle arc, especially in "Valhalla" and "Lauren," when she donned a leather jacket, grabbed an MP-5, and led her colleagues to discover that she wasn't quite so much a desk jockey as a professional spy -- and one of the best, according to Clyde Easter -- before joining the BAU.
* TooSpicyForYogSothoth: The [=UnSub=] in "Lucky" said he stopped killing and devouring prostitutes since most of them were drug users, and they "taste funny."
* TonightSomeoneDies: "Lo-Fi": [[spoiler: [[MauveShirt Kate Joyner]]]]
** And in "100": [[spoiler: Haley Hotchner]]. Also [[spoiler: Foyet]], but no one really cares about [[spoiler:him]].
** "Demons": [[spoiler: subverted; everyone lives, but Blake leaves the team for personal reasons. Chalk it up to NeverTrustATrailer.]]
** Subverted in "Lauren," since [[spoiler: the team only thinks she's dead.]]
* TownWithADarkSecret: The town they investigate in the Season 9 finale "Angels" and "Demons" [[spoiler: have an entire squad of {{CorruptCop}}s, lead by the deputy, trying to cover up the murder of several sex workers who were witnesses by framing the local priest. By the end of the episode, it ends up with the BAU in a shootout with the local police.]]
* TragicHero: [[spoiler: Elle, Gideon, and Prentiss]].
* TrapMaster: Many [=UnSubs=], but [[ArcVillain The Replicator]] stands out most.
* TraumaCongaLine: Not a very long one compared to victims who were kidnapped for days or even years, but last victim in "Pariahville" was almost assaulted by a friend who then abandoned her on the side of the road. She was then picked up by another friend [[spoiler: who turned out to be the cheerleader-murdering [=UnSub=]]].
-->'''Victim''': Um, that's my stop...\\
'''Perpetrators''': Huh, yes it was... (x 2)
* TraumaticHaircut: Inverted in "Divining Rod": [[spoiler: A man kills four women in one day just to make the woman he loves a nice wig, which he lovingly places on her head. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the last victim hadn't been ''scalped'']].
* TrueCompanions: The Team. Perhaps shown best in "100". Which makes J.J.'s and Prentiss' departures all the more heartbreaking. It's as though the BAU family is torn apart.
* TruthInTelevision: While Hotchner promptly shuts the guy down, the defense attorney's criticism in "Tabula Rasa" that profiling is just "intellectual guesswork" is actually a common opinion expressed by real-life detractors. There have been studies that suggest that observers not specifically trained in the profiling process can sometimes notice the same details and make the same inferences as trained profilers. Furthermore, even some of the most experienced and well-known profilers will concede that the profiles they build are to be used as a tool to aid criminal investigation, not as a substitute for it, as often happens on the show.
** It's also not uncommon, even on the show, for the team to have to drastically revise their profile when new information comes up or they have some sort of EurekaMoment... or both.
* TwoDecadesBehind: About half the offenders are modeled after criminals from the 1980s, give or take a decade. It is sometimes jarring to watch that the local LE has seemingly never heard of high profile serial killers like Ted Bundy or Richard Chase, and cannot see the parallels with their current case before they are told them by the BAU.
* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Crops up on occasion, most notably the Season 3 episode "Damaged." Morgan, Prentiss, J.J., and Garcia help Rossi tackle a cold case that's been haunting him, while in the B-Story, Hotch and Reid interview a serial killer on death row.
** Also used in "The Crossing," another Season 3 episode, where Hotch and Rossi investigate a woman's abuse claims while the rest of the team goes after an erotomaniac stalker.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Kate's husband is chubby, homely, and graying, completely the opposite of her [[Series/GhostWhisperer last TV husband(s)]].
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler:Bruno Hawks]] in "Secrets and Lies" supposedly died in a car accident just after the events of the episode. While this is obviously a cover, it's uncertain if it's for [[spoiler:the CIA killing him or his death being faked to put him in witness protection]].
* UndergroundRailroad: One of these that helped battered wives escape their husbands was central to the episode "Sniper, Sniped".
* UnexpectedGenreChange: The comic-based scenes in "True Night," featuring someone who looks like [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI Al'tair]] fighting werewolves. [[spoiler: They're actually a metaphorical representation of a comic artist killing gang members who killed his girlfriend; he's unknowingly drawing his crimes]].
* UnflinchingWalk: At the end of "Hopeless," where the [=UnSubs=] decide to commit suicide by cop, and the policemen outside are so frustrated and angry they happily oblige. Knowing that they can do nothing to help, Hotchner, Rossi, and Prentiss walk away, while the hell breaks loose behind their backs.
** And promptly declare INeedAFreakingDrink, as we see in the final montage.
* {{Ungrateful Bastard}}s: In "Painless," this fueled the [=UnSub=]'s anger, as not only did [[spoiler: the media ignore his survival to focus on a top ten list of survivors]], but [[spoiler: one of them stole his story and took all the credit for ''his'' actions.]]
* UnholyMatrimony: "[[spoiler: The Perfect Storm]]," "Mosley Lane," and "The Thirteenth Step." Also possibly [[spoiler: "Divining Rod"]].
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight:
** In "Compulsion," the [=UnSub=] is setting fire to buildings all over campus. By the time the episode starts, three buildings have already been destroyed by this psychotic arsonist. And yet, every student continues to go along with their merry lives, worrying more about their homework and relationships than their lives, parents aren't arriving in hordes to take their children home, and the administration is doing little to protect their students other than helping the BAU and pulling the fire alarms.
** Near the end of "Psychodrama," no one (up until the birthday party scene, and even then it takes a bit) notices the [=UnSub=], who is wandering the streets in broad daylight, tweaked out of his mind and brandishing a MAC-10 machine pistol.
** In "Mayhem" as well... no one on the streets of New York gives much thought to guys dressed all in black with hoods completely covering their faces, even though the clothing worn by other civilians suggests it is not winter. Even after said [=UnSubs=] ''shoot strangers execution-style in broad daylight'', they still manage to get away undetected 6 out of 7 times. Because by the time they round a corner, and put the gun in their pocket, they're don't look all that out of place again.
* UnreliableNarrator: "Normal" and "Reflections of Desire" most notably. [[spoiler: their family members were dead the whole time]].
** For "Normal" this is actually a CallBack to earlier on in the episode when they come to the inevitable conclusion that [[spoiler: he was going to kill his family eventually, after killing all those other victims, but they had no idea when. This is further proven when they go into the last room and you can see near-fresh blood stains on the bed sheet]].
** If you figured out "Normal" then it's the same for "Protection" [[spoiler: The tenants the [=UnSub=] was hiding from a dangerous man were actually delusions, he had killed them a while before]].
* {{UST}}: Increasingly between Garcia and Alvez, until [[spoiler:he finally asks her on a date in the very last episode]].
* UnwittingPawn: The SerialKiller in "Internal Affairs" was unknowingly having victims funneled to him: undercover agents, sent to their doom by a MoleInCharge boss.
* VaguenessIsComing: At the end of "Devil's Backbone", Antonia Slade warns Hotch of "a coming storm". The following episode is titled, naturally, "The Storm".
* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: New character FBI Agent Alvez helps the team specifically so he can re-arrest a serial killer called "The Crimson King" who gutted his partner. When he finally catches him [[spoiler: he's been rendered amnesic by another serial killer and doesn't remember anything about his past much less killing an FBI agent. Alvez thinks/hopes he's lying or will eventually regain his memory but it's doubtful]]. Rendered doubly (tripley?)-empty since Hotch told Alvez earlier [[spoiler: as long as the killers are alive they can live with being a failure instead of believing they died for their cause. "King" doesn't even know what he failed at and is now the victim of a worse serial killer ("King" didn't kill unnecessarily, his attacker is doing everything just to get back at the BAU.]]
* VerbalTic: Reid's preference for [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness highbrow synonyms]]: "exceedingly" instead of "extremely", "consume" instead of "eat", etc. Also, his tendency to say "actually..." and then go on a long-winded explanation of something to correct someone.
* VerySpecialEpisode: More than a few occasions.
* VigilanteExecution:
** At the end of "3rd Life," the vengeful father of one of the victims indirectly does this by [[spoiler:giving the main PapaWolf -- a known ex-hitman -- information that allows him to KillEmAll on the [=UnSub=] and his gang, who also have said ex-hitman's daughter.]]
** "Reckoner" has the [=UnSubs=], a hitman and a corrupt judge client, kill people who got away with crimes, ending with the man who killed the judge's wife in a car crash. The Judge then ends up on the receiving end of this as he put his own name on the list.
** [[spoiler: Creator/TimCurry's character Billy Flynn]]'s death came across as one part this and one part SuicideByCop. He wanted Derek to shoot him and was going to shoot the hostage to get him to do so, but Derek seemed a little too eager to give him what he wanted.
** "True Night," where [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=] is a vigilante getting revenge on gang members for his girlfriend's murder, only without knowing that he is doing so]].
** The [=UnSub=] in "Brothers In Arms" is killed by a gang member who was avenging the death of a fellow gangster.
** "Hostage" has the [=UnSub=] killed by the mother of the girl who died in captivity.
** Pablo Vargas being castrated and beaten to death by an angry mob.
** "The Pact" revolves around two vigilantes abducting and murdering the people responsible for killing their daughters.
** Also occurs in "A Real Rain", "Demonology", "Ashes and Dust", and "Aftermath".
** Averted in "Tabula Rasa" and "[[spoiler: Exit Wounds]]."
* VillainousBreakdown: The [=UnSub=] in "52 Pickup" who had been using pickup artist techniques to lure his victims. When Austin the bartender recognizes him trying to lure a victim and takes measures to separate them, he targets her instead ambushing her and grabbing her by force.
* VillainousLineage: Subverted in "Birthright"; while it turns out that [[spoiler: the killer's father was also a killer, this is not portrayed as being genetic, and rather the result of a teenager who was raised to worship his dead father finding his dad's old journal and deciding to carry on the family tradition. Meanwhile, the father's other son, who's known for years that he was born out of rape, is a perfectly nice guy]]. In another episode, the [=UnSub=] claims that he has an inherited chromosomal disorder that makes him predisposed to violent crimes. This is met by Rossi pointing out that the study linking that particular disorder to violent crime had been debunked years ago.
* VillainEpisode: "True Night"; other episodes prominently feature the killer, but none of them have the spotlight shine as brightly on them as this one.
** In the opening of most episodes you see what happens to the victim, and then follow the BAU as they slowly uncover who the killer is and why he kills. In "True Night" this is reversed: You know immediately who the killer is, and over the course of the episode you find out who he killed and why.
*** That might be because "True Night" starred [[Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle Frankie Muniz]].
** "The Longest Night" is one for Billy Flynn.
** "The Big Wheel", though not quite to the same extent as "True Night".
* VillainsWantMercy: Some of the [=UnSubs=] go into this once they are cornered or beaten on in order to stop them from carrying out their crimes. The worst cases are [[spoiler:Foyet the Reaper and Mr. Scratch, [[MoralMyopia but both get their pleas rightfully ignored considering everything they've done]] and are killed off for good]].
* VomitingCop: "No Way Out," "Valhalla".
* TheWatson: Usually the role of the local cops of the week.
** In early seasons, prior to her becoming a profiler herself, J.J. served that purpose too.
** Seaver is normally seen as this.
* WackyMarriageProposal: [[spoiler: Garcia's boyfriend runs a few of these past Morgan, but ultimately proposes in her office while giving her her favorite foods. Sadly, she's not interested in taking things to the next level because she knows terrible things can happen out of nowhere (or the possibility that she might be a doom magnet)]].
* WeAllLiveInAmerica: Mexican Captain Navarro mentioning "maiden names" in "Machismo," despite the fact that there aren't maiden names in Mexico since Mexican women don't take their husband's name after marriage. Maybe he was using the words for the benefit of his colleagues at the BAU, but seeing how the episode failed Spanish naming customs right after despite the victim names being the clue that caused the team's EurekaMoment...
* WesternTerrorists: "Lo-Fi"/"Mayhem," "Amplification," "The Witness", and "Valhalla"/"Lauren."
* WellDoneSonGuy: [[spoiler: The son of TheButcher, to the point where, at age ten, he knocked out his dad's victim to help his dad kill her, then started helping his dad go hunting. It didn't help that, even if The Butcher showed approval, he'd just forget it due to his Alzheimer's]].
* WhamEpisode: "Profiler, Profiled," "Lucky," "The Big Game"/"Revelations," "Lo-Fi"/"Mayhem," "...And Back"/"Nameless, Faceless," "100," "Valhalla"/"Lauren," "Brother's Hotchner/"The Replicator," and "200."
** "The Boys of Sudworth Place" is an interesting example in that, for the vast majority of the episode, it plays out as your standard episode. However, in the very last minutes of the episode, it is revealed that [[spoiler:Kate's daughter has been targeted by a sexual predator]].
* WhamLine:
** "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis There. Were. Rules!]]" [[spoiler: Randall Garner, right before shooting Elle in her home]] at the end of "The Fisher King: Part 1".
** "Hey, Garcia? I've been thinking about doing this all night." ([[spoiler:Jason Battle to Garcia, before shooting her]] in "Lucky")
** From "Lucky":
--->'''Father Marks''': God is in all of us.\\
'''Floyd Feylinn Ferell''': [[spoiler: [[ImAHumanitarian So is Tracy Lambert]]]].
** From "3rd Life":
--->'''Reid''': When does it end, Jack?... When does it stop?\\
'''Jack Vaughan''': [[spoiler: Tomorrow. *BLAM!*]]
** "Don't tell them about your brothers." ([[spoiler:The mother to the young son of a family of killers]] in "Bloodlines")
** In "Memoriam", the line Diana Reid says to her son:
---> [[spoiler:[[AdultFear It could have been you]].]]
** "Did you get all that?" (Rossi to [[spoiler: Garcia]] in "Masterpiece")
** "You should've made the deal." ([[spoiler:Foyet to Hotch]], in "...And Back")
** [[spoiler: "She never made it off the table." J.J. breaks Prentiss' death to the team]], in "Lauren"
*** And then, even more so, [[spoiler: "Good luck." "(Emily's voice) Thank you."]]
** From "Divining Rod":
--->[[spoiler:'''Helen Garrett''']]: Have you ever read ''1001 Arabian Nights''?\\
[[spoiler:'''Dylan Kohler''']]: No, what's that?
*** [[spoiler: Everyone thought a copycat sent letters quoting the book to the original killer, who died reciting the quote; turns out the letters were from the original's wife who has since decided to embrace her "ability" to amplify serial killing tendencies after the copycat fell in love with her]].
** The ''closing quote'' in "The Inspiration'' manages to be one:
--->'''Hotch:''' Josh Billings once wrote, "There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: [[spoiler:[[EvilTwin twins]]]]."
** "Supply and Demand": "Welcome back everyone." ([[spoiler:one of the supposed HumanTrafficking victims reveals herself to be [[TinyTyrannicalGirl the leader]]]])
** From "Fate":
*** To Rossi: [[spoiler:"I'm your daughter."]]
*** And then later: [[spoiler: "You've got a grandson who's running a fever."]]
** The heartbreaker from "Nelson's Sparrow," as the team stands over a body:
--->'''Hotch:''' It's [[spoiler: Gideon.]]
** "Rock Creek Park": "What you did was unforgivable. [[TheExtremistWasRight But it worked]]." [[spoiler: Said by a rising young senator to his mother, who (apparently (?)) unbeknownst to him had his wife kidnapped, had her ear cut off, and was about to kill her so his popularity would rise ''a la'' [[ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}} The Smiler]]. Indeed after his wife's safe return his popularity is through the roof, the BAU has no inkling that the senator knows about his mother's plans beyond what they discovered in the episode, and the last scene shows she's still able to pull her son's strings from prison.]]
** Fall 2015 opened with an assassin who revealed he's a member of a group of professional killers whose latest target is a group called "The Dirty Dozen". Some episodes later "The Dirty Dozen" is revealed (paraphrased):
--->'''Morgan''': ''You're'' "The Dirty Dozen"?\\
[[spoiler: '''Penelope''': I use twelve search bots, they traced me back to the FBI. They killed an assassin ''and'' a guard '''''in a supermax prison''''', no one can stop them, they're coming for me, I'm so scared....!]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** Did we ever find out who the target was in the hospital (which the Secret Service had locked down) in "Mayhem"? We're given little context to draw from, and the Secret Service guards many different public figures, not just the President and Vice President. We're clearly supposed to know the individual in surgery is very important, but the writers neglect to name who it is, and leave viewers hanging.
*** To be important enough to cause ''literal'' "Mayhem" and be the target of a terrorist attack, it would have to be, most likely, the VP or the President. However, with no hints within the episode besides their political importance, it's difficult to say which of those two it would actually be.
** "In Name and Blood," the Hotchners' home phone rings, so Hotch picks it up, but after saying "Hello?" once or twice, gets no answer. Immediately after whoever was on the other end hangs up, Haley's personal phone starts ringing, but she doesn't answer it, and after talking to Hotch, leaves with it. What was up with this is never given an explanation.
*** While never explained, it is implied by the suspicious look on Aaron's face and the guilty look on Haley's and her defensive behavior that the phone call is from whomever Haley is having an extra-marital affair with.
*** Or it could be Haley's lawyer, calling her to discuss divorce options and didn't want Hotch to know about it.
** The [[spoiler: scarification]] inflicted by Ian Doyle in "Lauren" evidently disappears without a trace, though since we only know its approximate placement, it may just be too far down on her chest to be seen. (But at least we did find out What Happened to the Cat, i.e. Sergio.)
** In the episode "Identity," Reid is working on a map that would help narrow down where the [=UnSub=] lives. Rossi asks how the map is coming along and Reid replies that he's almost finished with it, then it's never mentioned again.
*** Of course, it becomes irrelevant once they find the [=UnSub=]'s ex-wife, who can just tell them where he lives. She points to a spot that is, in fact, at the edge of the area Reid marked off.
** In Season 1, we meet Hotch's little brother for a single episode -- he is never seen nor mentioned again. At the end of the episode it is shown that he has left to become a cook / chef in a New York restaurant; the team has worked several cases in New York since then, but Hotch still hasn't bothered to drop in.
*** Explained that Hotch was kind of tired of dealing with him -- Sean finally re-appears at the end of Season 8.
** In S1E21, it's shown that Morgan has a dog named Clooney... who is never referenced again.
** In "Lockdown," while the BAU stops [[spoiler: all the dirty prison guards, we still never know who all helped the WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds inmate kill two of said guards and their inmate ally at the start -- sans an AntiVillain guard seeking {{Revenge}} for the dirty ones threatening his daughter.]]
** JJ's self-destructive PTSD crops up for a few episodes before disappearing.
* WhatYouAreInTheDark:
** In "Legacy," Detective [=McGee=] receives an award for reducing the number of local vagrants. The real reason there are fewer homeless people around is that they're being abducted and murdered. Rather than accept the praise and do nothing, [=McGee=] tries to get first his superiors, then the [=BAU=] interested in investigating the disappearances.
** Kidnapping victim Tara Rickover provides a minor example in "Birthright." She arrives at a market to buy food and finds the owner absent. Tara still bothers to pay for the fruit that she takes.
* WholePlotReference: All the time, usually as a method of [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]].
* [[WhosLaughingNow Who's Laughing Now]]: "Elephant's Memory".
** And [[spoiler: "52 Pickup,"]] only for the first victim.
* WickedCultured: Some [=UnSubs=] can paint themselves as this, though they usually break down at some point. In the Season 1 finale, the Fisher King hid a music box that played "Fischerweise" by Schubert in the wall of an apartment where he left a body to show the BAU how much he enjoyed playing with them.
* WireDilemma: "Won't Get Fooled Again".
* WrongNameOutburst: A truly heartbreaking example is the TitleDrop of "I Love You, Tommy Brown". You see, the kid that is the underage lover of the deranged teacher that is the killer of the week? Nope, that is not his name. That's the name of the ''previous'' boy that she had a relationship with, died, and she became even more (read:homicidally) deranged as a result. The moment she mutters it while struggling with the cops arresting her and looks like she is professing her love for the kid is the moment he finally gets that a TeacherStudentRomance was a seriously stupid thing.
* TheWorfEffect: Morgan, usually an [=UnSub=]-beating machine, has been Worfed in both the sixth and seventh season finales, in the former by TheDragon and in the latter by the BigBad. [[spoiler: He managed to turn the tables on the first, but actually needed Hotch to save him from the second]].
** He was also taken out by The Reaper in "Omnivore", and didn't even get the chance to recover. This was apparently done at Shemar Moore's suggestion, who thought Morgan needed to finally lose a fight.
** He was also knocked out by a taser-wielding [=UnSub=] in an early Season 1 episode. He had yet to be established as the team's powerhouse at that point, however.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: "True Night," "A Real Rain," "The Thirteenth Step," "Pleasure Is My Business," "The Perfect Storm," "Elephant's Memory", "Jones", and ''especially'' "The Uncanny Valley."
** Later episodes like "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy" and "Lockdown" have [=UnSubs=] on suicidal [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge Roaring Rampages of Revenge]] for their dead relatives and/or friends against dirty leaders and their {{Mooks}}.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: The [=UnSubs=] from "The Perfect Storm" and "Supply and Demand" and The Reaper pull this. "The Uncanny Valley" has an [=UnSub=] luring victims by pretending to need help with their wheelchair, [[spoiler:but subverted as she actually is disabled, though not in need of a wheelchair]].
* WritersCannotDoMath: Usually {{averted|Trope}} or {{justified|Trope}}, but occasionally they slip up, such as in Season 8, taking place in 2011-12, when Reid says the [=UnSub=] must be in his mid to late twenties, therefore being born "between 1987 and 1992", although that's early to mid twenties.
* XanatosSpeedChess: The sting operation in "Entropy" turns into a spectacular one, with Reid and [[spoiler: Catherine Adams]] revealing plans and counter-plans all throughout the episode.
* {{Yandere}}: A good percentage of [=UnSubs=] are romantically obsessed or possessive of their targets, which leads to them stalking their obsession and killing people they believe to be a threat. This can lead to LoveMakesYouEvil or LoveMakesYouCrazy, depending on their character.
* YouAreNotMyFather: [[spoiler:The [=UnSub=] of "Dust and Bones" grew to resent her mother for abusing her as a child, and showing extreme ParentalFavoritism towards her second daughter, even outright having an article about her that implies [[IHaveNoson she's disowned the elder one]]. She even goes to lure her mom into a trap to disfigure her and kill the sister via a snake bite before being shot dead]].
* YouBastard: The team is rather disturbed at the public fascination with serial killers. Rossi encounters it more frequently, through his books and author appearances, and still seems baffled every time.
** Reid might qualify as an exception; he seems to be the only one of the team who is interested in criminal psychology for its own sake rather than just as a means to stop dangerous people. For example, he describes the near-unique psychological traits of the [=UnSub=] from "The Big Wheel" as "absolutely fascinating".
** Special mention should go to the [=UnSub=]'s audience in "The Internet Is Forever."
* YouGotMurder: "Won't Get Fooled Again". Played with in "Poison", where [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=] tries to kill his former bosses by poisoning the glue strips of envelopes they are using]].
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: "Poison," "The Fisher King," "Honor Among Thieves" and "Middle Man".
* YouKilledMyFather: The [=UnSub=] in "Protection" wants to kill the man who killed his mother: [[spoiler: he had no idea the killer was already arrested in another city hours away]].
* YouKillItYouBoughtIt: In "The Witness", a man discovers that his wife is having an affair, confronts the other man, and ends up killing him in a fit of rage. Said man happened to be one of a pair of brothers who had plotted a terrorist attack, and the other brother blackmails him into becoming [[UnwittingPawn his new accomplice]].
* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: Probably would be easier to count the amount of times the profile is accurate enough to lead to the killer in the first couple of acts (and then they have to prove it), because often it is just broad enough that some other poor bastard gets arrested first.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: E-F]]
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The pilot. Hotch smiles. Repeatedly. ''On the job''. There's also some tonal differences, like having multiple voice-over quotes throughout the episode instead of just as bookends; and characterization weirdness, like Morgan's wardrobe and Reid's "autistic tendencies" being decidedly more pronounced. This all gets smoothed over within the first four episodes or so.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Morgan]] goes through hell in the episodes leading up to his departure, but comes out intact by the end, [[spoiler:along with his wife and newborn son]].
* EcoTerrorist: One episode had an arsonist who began murdering men involved with corporations accused of being heavy polluters, as well as their families. It turns out he was acting alone, and was nothing more than a sadistic psychopath (he used a suit that allowed him to watch his victims burn up close). His actions disgusted the local environmental group whose website he was using to find his "justifiable" victims, especially the leader, who kills him in an instance of TakingYouWithMe.
* EldritchLocation: The team briefly discuss the possibility that the titular "Heathridge Manor" [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane might be this]], given that [[spoiler:all three of its residents end up going completely insane]].
* ElectricTorture: "Charm and Harm", "Limelight", "Remembrance of Things Past", and a variation in "Lauren".
* EndangeringNewsBroadcast: The BAU often tries to control media information to prevent the [=UnSub=] from learning what they know, but it doesn't always work and sometimes information gets leaked anyway, causing either mass hysteria or the crimes to escalate.
* EnfantTerrible: "The Boogeyman" and "A Shade of Gray".
-->'''Jason Gideon:''' Why did you hurt those kids?\\
[[spoiler: '''Jeffrey Charles:''']] Because I wanted to.
** In "A Shade of Gray," a [[spoiler: little boy named Danny kills his younger brother because he broke one of his model planes. When his parents discover what he has done, Danny only feigns remorse so he won't get in trouble, secretly content his "annoying" brother is dead]].
---> [[spoiler: "He shoved plane parts down his brother's throat."]]
** Some of the adult [=UnSubs=] were also pretty screwed up as children. A partial list: Mark Gregory from "Charm and Harm" drowned his mother; Floyd Feylinn Ferell from "Lucky" tried to eat his baby sister; Peter Redding from "A Higher Power" slashed his brother's wrists; Colby Bachner from "Remembrance of Things Past" unwittingly helped his father murder his mother when he was ten; and The Reaper killed his parents and made it look like a car accident.
** [[spoiler: Jeremy, the budding sociopath]] in "Safe Haven".
** In "All That Remains," [[spoiler:Sarah Morrison kills her sister and mother, and had meticulously planned out their demise while setting up her dissociative identity disorder afflicted father to take the blame. She even tries to convince the BAU unit that [[WoundedGazelleGambit JJ wants to hurt her!]]]]
* EnhanceButton
* EntertainmentAboveTheirAge: A flashback scene shows profiler Spencer Reid recalling that as a child, he once brought his mother a copy of ''Rememberance of Things Past'' by Marcel Proust for her to read to him. She, knowing he was a child prodigy, merely complimented him on his choice.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** It is mentioned several times throughout the series that pedophiles are considered scum even by hardened criminals.
** Some criminals make it a point that while they've done horrible things, they will draw the line at some point.
** The killers in "Identity" were loathed by even the other members of their RightWingMilitiaFanatic coven for [[DomesticAbuse how badly they treated women]].
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes:
** Some criminals do genuinely care about their friends and family.
** William Harris in ''Soul Mates''. Even though he's raped and murdered girls that were about his daughter's age, he will not stand anything happening to [[PapaWolf his daughter]]. Bitterly ironic when Morgan and Rossi pointed out that the girls he and his partner killed were other people's daughters.
* EvilCripple: [[spoiler: "The Fisher King", "Roadkill", "To Hell..."/"... And Back" and "A Family Affair"]]
* EvilLaugh: "Lucky" and "Outfoxed".
* EvilGloating: [[spoiler: Foyet to Hotch in "Nameless, Faceless": "Like my scars? Yours are going to look just like them." He does it again in "100": "I'm going to find that little bastard son of yours and show him your dead bodies and tell him it's all your fault."]]
** The second example was [[BerserkButton something]] [[DespairEventHorizon of]] [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown a]] mistake on the gloater's part.
* EvilIsPetty: [[spoiler: Maeve's stalker is entirely motivated by the fact that Maeve rejected a thesis of hers since the girl had poorly conducted her sample by including her own parents' suicides. She then shaped her entire life around being better than Maeve, began dating Maeve's ex-boyfriend, and then tried to take Reid when she realized Maeve loved him.]]
* EvilTwin: Parodied in "The Angel Maker", where Reid suggests they're dealing with an Evil Twin and an ''Eviler'' Twin. Needless to say, they're not.
** Played magnificently straight in [[spoiler:"The Inspiration,"]] where it's not revealed to be that until the very end. And then subverted the next episode, when they turn out to be equally evil.
* EvilVersusEvil: Okay, maybe not ''evil'', but the Guantanamo guards detaining the BigBad in "Lessons Learned" are portrayed as little more than [[SmashMook brainless, brutish thugs]] themselves. This was likely partly due to [[HellholePrison the perception of the facility in the public eye]] and partly to contrast them with the protagonists.
* ExactWords: Weaponized by the [=UnSub=] in "JJ". The team are trying to figure out how he beat a polygraph. They then realize he used this. [[spoiler: He threw her overboard to be eaten by sharks. "Did you kill her?" No, sharks did. "Do you know where her body is?" No, because it could be anywhere now]].
* ExpandedUniverse: A trilogy of books (all of which take place mid-Season 3) and a computer game.
* ExtraYExtraViolent: Played with; one killer claims that he's XYY, and that's why he kills. However, Rossi replies that the study linking that condition to criminal behavior was debunked years ago.
* EyeScream: "The Eyes Have It"
** Particularly disturbing is a part where Reid mentions that sometimes "enucleators" (eye gougers) eat the eyeballs they take. Hard cut to a scene of the [=UnSub=] eating something small and round and white... and it takes the viewers a couple seconds to realize he's just eating eggs.
** For a more subdued example, there's the killer's habit of gluing his victims' eyes open in "Plain Sight."
** "Proof" features a killer who dribbles acid into his victims' eyes. We get to see a lovely view of the corpses' vacant eye-sockets.
** "To Bear Witness." The idea of [[spoiler: a microscopic camera installed in your eye via a lobotomy. Also, the way the spaces around Dana and Sam's eyes were red and almost sunken was horrifying]].
* TheFaceless: The [=UnSub=] from "A Thousand Words".
* FaceDeathWithDignity:
** Averted with [[spoiler: Strauss]], who dies terrified and crying for her children. Running contrary to the trope, this actually makes her more sympathetic and human.
** Played straight with [[spoiler:Haley]]. "Show him no weakness. No fear." "I know."
* FacialRecognitionSoftware: In "Derailed," Garcia uses this, plus her standard OmniscientDatabase, to successfully identify every single passenger on a train using grainy security camera footage.
* FairCop:
** J.J. and Prentiss are just overall criminally beautiful.
** On the male side we have [[PrettyBoy Reid]].
** [[TallDarkAndHandsome Hotch]].
** Even [[CoolOldGuy Rossi, despite being an older man]], is pretty handsome.
* FairyTaleMotifs: "The Fisher King", "Solitary Man", "If the Shoe Fits".
* FakeGuestStar: Kirsten Vangsness, before her PromotionToOpeningTitles in the second season.
* FakeKillScare: [[spoiler: Haley's death scene]] was set up as this in the show's 100th episode. And then it was terribly, horribly averted...
* FamedInStory: SSA David Rossi, who's made a boatload of money from his [[FictionalDocument books]], is one of the founders of the BAU, and apparently has a big following "when Manilow's not in town".
* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether:
** "Bloodline" is about a family (a mother, father, and young son) who kill another family to abduct their daughter as a future mate for the son. [[spoiler: Gets very creepy when it turns out that this is how the family continues; ''[[VillainousLineage they've been doing this for generations]]''. And then at the very end of the episode, it turns out that the family has other branches, and the last shot of the episode is another similar set (mother, father and young son) preparing to kill some other people.]]
** "Open Season" has brothers [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame who hunt people for sport]], having been taught to so by their uncle, a paranoid psychotic who had died some time before the events of the episode.
** Two borderline examples are "Mosley Lane" (the first kid abducted by the couple was kept alive, because he developed severe StockholmSyndrome; the couple treats him sort of like a son, and he even helps them abduct other kids) and "A Thousand Words" (a near example because the father committed suicide, and [[spoiler: the mother dies giving birth to their son]].)
** "Remembrance of Things Past" plays with the trope. [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] had started as a serial killer years before, and only as he'd started to lose his memory due to Alzheimer's Disease did he grudgingly take on his son as a partner.]]
** "The Longest Night" also plays with the trope. [[spoiler:Billy Flynn is so messed up in the head that, because he left her father alive, he believes himself to be responsible for Ellie Spicer's being born. In fact, he's come to see himself as a grandfather figure to her of sorts, and actively tries to invoke this trope. Needless to say, [[LittleMissBadass it doesn't work]].]]
* FanDisservice: [[spoiler: Doyle opening Prentiss' shirt and showing her bra when branding her]].
* FanserviceExtra: The episode "Supply & Demand" has a lot of cute brunette women in their underwear.
* FatalFamilyPhoto: [[spoiler: "Fear and Loathing" and "Our Darkest Hour"]].
* FetusTerrible: The unsub's mother in "Safe Haven" believes he was this. As she put it, "I was pregnant with twins, and then I wasn't." He counters that her hatred of him since his birth is what turned him into a monster.
* FeudingFamilies: The "Blood Relations" episode involves two West Virginian families that have been in a feud that dates back to when they were working as rival {{Hillbilly Moonshiner}}s in the times of prohibition.
* FictionalCounterpart:
** In "Lockdown," a series of murders take place in a private prison run by Citadel Corrections Company, a fictional version of Corrections Corporation of America.
** In "Breath Play," an [=UnSub=] becomes motivated to kill after reading the bestselling erotic novel 'Bare Reflections', an obvious expy of ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey''.
* FictionalDocument: Several examples:
** David Rossi is the author of several books on criminal psychology; an [=UnSub=] quotes from them in an interrogation scene in "Masterpiece" and Rossi himself reads from one in the opening to "Zoe's Reprise."
*** Reid has also quoted from them, including once early in Rossi's run on the show. Rossi was surprised at the direct quote. No one else shared this surprise.
** A new book on the Keystone Killer induces the [=UnSub=] to resume his murderous ways in "Unfinished Business."
*** The spin-off novel ''Criminal: Killer Profile'' has another book written by the former profiler featured in the episode -- ''Serial Killers and Mass Murderers: Profiling Why They Kill''. Near the end, it's discovered [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=] is using it as a guide to [[JackTheRipoff his copycat murders]]]].
** A reporter who wrote a book on the Boston Reaper is a character in "Omnivore."
** Professor Ursula Kent's SF novel in "Empty Planet."
** Jonny [=McHale=]'s comic book ''Blue'' in "True Night."
* FingerInTheMail: The Season 1 finale features a variation on this trope; SSA Jason Gideon receives, at his cottage, a baseball card and a head in a box via courier, which sets the BAU's targets on this new case.
* FlashbackBPlot: The series' present-day stories about {{FBI agent}}s solving crimes are intertwined with flashbacks detailing the crime itself and the people involved.
* FootDraggingDivorcee: Hotch hesitates for several episodes to sign the papers that divorce him from Haley.
* ForcedPrizeFight: The backstory to "Lockdown", taking place inside a prison.
* ForcedToWatch: If the [=UnSub=] is particularly sadistic. Though a couple go further and force them to ''participate''.
* ForTheEvulz:
** "3rd Life". The three thrill killers from "Hopeless" and the (unrelated) rioters in the same episode.
-->'''Morgan:''' You know what gets me? All this time we figured you guys were down and out. But here you are working? What the hell is so so God-awful about your lives that you have to take it out on everyone else?\\
'''J.R. Baker:''' [[AxCrazy It was fun, boss.]]
** Syd and her husband in "The Thirteenth Step," though they have a reason. [[spoiler:It's leading up to killing their sexually abusive fathers. Syd's especially, since she's the leader of the two and all but one of the attacks happen in places that remind her of her dad.]]
** This seems to be the case for the Reaper [[spoiler: George Foyet]] as well. The core of his character is that he gets off on manipulating and having power over people.
** Adrian Bale in the early episode "Won't Get Fooled Again". He agrees to tell the BAU how to disarm a complicated bomb, and in exchange he will be transferred from his maximum security prison to a mental hospital, and Agent Gideon will have to apologize to his victims' families, and admit that it was entirely his fault their respective relative died. When the inevitable WireDilemma occurs, Bale, even though doing so ''completely invalidates his deal'', purposely tells them to cut the wrong wire... because the bomb blowing up will give him some kind of "emotional release".
** It's a TV show about FBI profilers who hunt down (mostly) serial killers using psychological analysis to develop profiles of the likely unsub (unknown subject) so, obviously, most episodes avert this. However, some unsubs do still fall into this trope, making a particularly tricky case for the BAU.
** Subverted in the ''episode'' "To Hell And Back". The team profile someone who is abducting random drug users and homeless people as someone who is killing For The Evulz -- but it is actually a ManChild who is carrying out orders of his crippled ManipulativeBastard brother, who says he was using the victims to perform horrible human experiments in the hope of finding a cure for his condition. Then a DoubleSubversion when Rossi calls bullshit on that and says he's just a sadist, who enjoys forcing his brother to torture and kill people while he watches, since none of the equipment he has on hand is remotely suited to advanced medical research.
** Ben Bradstone from "Proof". He doesn't understand why people ask why someone would do these horrible things. He says its the same reason people do anything, because it's fun. That's why he [[KickTheDog kicked his dog]] as a kid.
** In the Season 2 episode "The Boogeyman", Gideon asks [[spoiler:young Jeffery Charles]] why he killed three children and almost killed another one. His response? "Because I wanted to."
* FreakOut: Most of the spree killer episodes, most notably "Haunted". Really, any time one of the [=UnSubs=] devolves.
* FreudianExcuse:
** The hitman in "Natural Born Killer" got sloppy in the triple murder that opens the episode because one of the victims was a woman and he identified her with his mother.
** Also a main issue for [[BigBad Frank Breitkopf]] and [[BigBad Billy Flynn]].
** The insane mother of the [=UnSub=] in "Heathridge Manor" convinced her son [[spoiler: from beyond the grave thanks to "infecting" him with her delusions]] that he had to destroy "the devil's brides" to save his sister.
* FreezeFrameBonus: You can see the whole list of victims at the beginning of "Reckoner". Of course, it will mean nothing to you unless you know TheReveal.
** In one episode, some fraud is happening via fake businesses that all have the formula "Video Game Character + Innocuous Business" as a name; most of these are called out, but you can see an extra one as a freeze-frame bonus: [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2 Ezio's]] Flower Shop.
* FriendshipMoment: Any ending scene on the jet, or when the team hangs out off the clock.
** Special mention to the one from "The Performer," where Reid mothers J.J., Morgan and Prentiss pick on Reid, and Hotch and Rossi argue about music and do their best [[LikeAnOldMarriedCouple married couple impersonation]].
** The ending of "Proof" when the team gathers at Rossi's for a cooking lesson
** Multiple instances of the women being shown out shopping, getting coffee, or gossiping together about their personal lives.
** The team (minus Reid, who is with his mother) having dinner together in "The Instincts," which is heartbreakingly reprised in "JJ".
** Hotch and Rossi coaching Jack's soccer team at the end of "Out of the Light."
** Rossi teaching Garcia, as well as the rest of the team, to cook Italian food at the end of "Proof." Bonus points to J.J. for just wanting to drink the wine and Hotch being the most knowledgeable besides Rossi.
** The implications that J.J. was Prentiss' lifeline [[spoiler: while Prentiss was in hiding and presumed dead by the rest of the team]].
* TheFundamentalist: "Scarecrow" features an [=Un=]Sub who had a violently homicidal hangup about sex and "penance" that could be traced back to his upbringing; notably, trying to trace his motives and ''modus operandi'', they find a slightly weird-looking local prayer group that he had been part of and then ''left off'' from because they weren't practitioners of the kind of ritual self-harm he'd had on his mind.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In "Compulsion," a student is telling to Hotch about his physics project and, rhetorically, asks 'Do you know how to solve the Three-Body Problem?' Behind them, Reid nods with a serious look on his face.
* FurnaceBodyDisposal: "Moseley Lane" has this, but there is also definite overlap with MurderByCremation. The child abductors are shown to want to kill their most recent, troublesome victim by putting her in their furnace (while still alive). However, they are also shown to place all their victims' bodies, regardless of how they died, in the furnace and spread their ashes on their garden.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:G-H]]
* {{Gayngst}}: "In Heat"
* GenderEqualEnsemble: Comes extremely close.
** This show does get a fair bit past the radar in daytime hours, but Sky Living's censors don't seem to notice, let alone care ([[LoopholeAbuse but no Ofcom rules are broken, at the time of writing]].)
* GenerationXerox: "Birthright" has Robert and Charlie Wilkinson, father and son serial killers. Both are alcoholic, misogynistic men who started murdering women when both were 28-years-old. Both abuse and kill at least five women, and [[spoiler: both are murdered by their pregnant spouses when they discover what their husbands had done.]]
* TheGlassesGottaGo: Fabulous subversion: After J.J.'s departure, Garcia (normally a {{Meganekko}}) tries dropping her usual distinctive style of dress for boring dark dresses, and (in a complete flip of PurelyAestheticGlasses) gets contacts so that she can look serious when dealing with victims' families and such. When she's starting to lose it, Morgan actually gets her to put the glasses (and her old wardrobe) back on.
* GoIntoTheLight: In "Epilogue," the [=UnSub=] [[spoiler: resuscitates his victims so he can find out what they saw and compare it to his own NearDeathExperience]]. During the investigation, Reid reveals that he saw a bright light before [[spoiler: Tobias Hankel resuscitated him]]; but the trope is subverted for Prentiss, who counters that she flatlined in the ambulance after [[spoiler: being impaled by Doyle]] and only felt cold and darkness.
** Becomes useful in "Wheels Up", where [[spoiler:Scratch doses Emily with a drug and gives her hypnotic suggestions that she's having an NDE standing in front of her own grave with two death dates on the headstone. That's how she figures out that she's not really in excruciating pain.]]
* AGodAmI: The [[spoiler: original bomber]] from "Painless".
* GollumMadeMeDoIt: "The Big Game"/"Revelations"
* GoneHorriblyRight[=/=]GoneHorriblyWrong:
** "Hero Worship" [[spoiler: A guy rigs a bomb to play hero and impress his girlfriend, whose dead husband wasn't just his best friend but a heroic soldier. The bomb cracks a gas line, accidentally killing a bunch of people, and then ''another'' bomber gets pissed that he's getting all the attention. (Perhaps needless to say, the first bomber's relationship with his girlfriend does not survive)]]
** The VigilanteMan in "Protection" is determined to find the man who killed his mother and terrorized his tenants and clean up the streets in the meantime. Actually, [[spoiler: the criminal was in already in jail in another city; the schizophrenic [=UnSub=] killed the tenants and has been living with delusions of them (ironically said delusions want him to take his meds), and one of his victims was not only innocent, he was also a star student who was on his way out of the bad neighborhood when the [=UnSub=] imagined he was a mugger.]]
* GoodCopBadCop: Hotch (Bad Cop) and Prentiss (Good Cop) do a fairly spectacular version in "Bloodlines."
** Again with Morgan (Bad Cop) and Gideon (Good Cop) in "The Boogeyman", although it should be noted that Morgan had every reason to believe the guy was the [=UnSub=], while Gideon was aware that he was innocent (but covering for the real [=UnSub=]) just before he took over the interrogation from Morgan.
** Rossi (Bad Cop) and Reid (Snarky Good Cop) in "Lauren," against a weaselly mook that Rossi keeps calling a "hood rat".
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Subverted by [[spoiler: Emily Prentiss, FBI agent who had an abortion at fifteen and is never shown to have angst over it. She does regret the division it caused among her friends -- such as when Matthew's family cut all contact with him because he supported her -- and that it's affected her faith and relationship with the Catholic Church. She is never once shown to have been "punished" or seen as "bad" because of her abortion.]]
** Also subverted in the episode "The Crossing": [[spoiler: it's revealed at one point that a stalking victim had an abortion, but although this causes some problems between her and her boyfriend, it's not connected in any way to the stalking and her abduction is not positioned as narrative punishment for having it. The episode also subtly implies, entirely non-judgmentally, that newly-pregnant JJ has been considering an abortion up until the point where she calls her boyfriend in the final scene.]]
* {{Goth}}:
** "The Performer" involves a series of murders seemingly associated with a {{Goth}} rock star and his fans' subculture.
** "Tabula Rasa" tells us that Prentiss was a goth in high school, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZyzGxU0brw and there are pictures to prove it]].
--->'''Prentiss:''' You obviously altered it in Photoshop or something. That ''hair''?\\
'''Garcia:''' Oh, no, Pussycat. That -- that's all you. Garfield High, Class of '89.\\
'''Prentiss:''' You really didn't change anything?\\
'''Garcia:''' I hacked it, as is. You're seriously trying to tell me you don't remember rocking that look?\\
'''Reid:''' Perhaps your lack of recognition stems from a dissociative fugue suffered in adolescence. Say, at a Siouxsie and the Banshees concert?
** "Doubt" featured a {{Goth}}/{{Emo}} college student who [[spoiler:copycat-killed a dorm-mate so the [=UnSub=] would be released. She wanted the [=UnSub=] to kill her because she didn't have the nerve to kill herself]].
** "Risky Business" gives us the {{Goth}} kid the team believes runs the "choking game" site. [[spoiler: He's actually not the [=UnSub=]. His father is.]]
** "The Popular Kids" had a group of {{Goth}} kids who were viable suspects. [[spoiler: They were innocent.]]
** One of the unsub's fellow bullying victims in "The Anti-Terrorism Squad" is a soft-spoken girl with black cloning and eyeshadow.
* {{Gorn}}: Creator/MandyPatinkin supposedly left the show due to his belief it was becoming something like this.
** {{Lampshaded}} in the third episode of Season 14, when Rossi tells the team how Gideon felt about Rossi's aspirations to write books about their solved cases.
--->'''Rossi:''' He was concerned was that by telling these stories it would create a prurient interest that would be more about consuming… pornography.
* GoryDiscretionShot: This is a show that’s not afraid of getting truly disturbing, but the constraints of its rating makes this a necessity. One aversion occurs in "Jones", which features a particularly nasty throat slitting.
* GothsHaveItHard: In the episode "In Name and In Blood", the person that makes things go awry [[spoiler:to the point that Jason Gideon, completely fed up, [[ScrewThisIAmOuttaHere quits the FBI]] and [[PutOnABus goes on a journey so he won't be found]]]], is a goth girl who, upon finding out that there is a SerialKiller on campus and that he's been apprehended and hoping he'll kill her ([[ICannotSelfTerminate she can't bring herself to commit suicide]]), [[JackTheRipoff kills someone imitating his style]] so the cops will let him go and approaches him.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Once in a while, the actual [=UnSub=] is only a DiscOneFinalBoss in contrast to some bigger VillainOfTheWeek. Examples include "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy," "Lockdown," and "Killer App."
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: What motivates the [=UnSub=], a social pariah, in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge in "Painless". By the grace of God, he [[spoiler: stared down the original bomber]]; by the disgrace of God, he [[spoiler: did not get to appear in TV like other survivors did; in fact they not only claimed one of ''them'' did it, they didn't even ''remember'' him, if they knew who he ''was'' in the first place. Worse is that the title refers to the fact that, because of the injuries he incurred from the explosion, he can no longer feel any pain due to brain damage, and is the only one who has any kind of long-term injury like that, so he suffered more than the rest too.]]
* GroinAttack:
** A victim briefly gets away by delivering one to her attacker in "Fear and Loathing". The [=UnSub=]'s rape victims in "Machismo" also castrate him.
** The sole female victim in "Haunted" gets knifed right below the belt.
** In "Strange Fruit," [[spoiler: a white woman claims she was raped by a black man when she misses her curfew. Her brother, a Klansman, and five Klansmen friends of his capture him and castrate him in retaliation; after finding out what happened, he goes and kills two of them, and later kills the daughters of two others who have died.]]
* GuestStarPartyMember: Generally the head of the local police force acts as an extra member of the team while they investigate the case. Some episodes play with this -- maybe the local police chief is a MauveShirt, maybe they're a SixthRangerTraitor.
* GuileHero: Jason Gideon and David Rossi.
-->'''Prentiss''': When did you know you were going to have to trick him?\\
'''Gideon''': The first time I talked to him.
* HackerCave: Garcia's workstation.
* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The [=UnSub=] of "Hostage" is captured and his last captive is rescued before the episode's halfway point. The remainder of the episode revolves around breaking said captive out of 15 years' worth of StockholmSyndrome, and tracking down [[spoiler:her daughters, who were being kept at another site]].
* HalloweenEpisode:
** "About Face," sort of. It takes place near Halloween and the [=UnSub=]'s MO is fittingly creepy. Also, "Devil's Night."
** "The Good Earth" is a minor example, premiering on Halloween of 2013 and with a B-story about JJ's son not wanting to go trick-or-treating.
** "Machismo" first aired on April, but is set in Mexico [[ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans during the Day of the Dead]]. Which is November 2.
** "The Performer" premiered the week after Halloween. The victims are PerkyGoth fans that were apparently drained of their blood by a vampire.
* HarmfulToMinors: ''A lot''. Besides things that happen during the cases themselves, some HarmfulToMinors events form various [=UnSub=]s' backgrounds and {{Freudian Excuse}}s.
* HateCrimesAreASpecialKindOfEvil: Being a crime procedural show, actual hate crimes show up from time to time.
** One epside has [[BoomerangBigot a gay man]] luring in and killing other gay men because of a deep rooted self-loathing.
** In the episode ''"The Tribe"'', a man wants people to believe that a series of grisly murders (including skinning the victims), were conducted by a group of Native American activists, hoping to trigger a race war between Native Americans and Caucasians. A number of his victims belonged to a group known as the "American Defense Unit", and when his attacks failed to generate the race war he was looking for, he and his followers took ADU weapons to make it look like that group had attacked the Native Americans, going after a school on a nearby reservation. He is caught and stopped by Hotchner and a member of the Apache Reservation's police force, John Blackwolf.
* HateSink: A good majority of all the unsubs are these as they are nothing but irredeemable assholes who kill for their own sick pleasure if for any reason at all. The worst ones are those who are [[DirtyCoward dirty cowards]] who enjoy killing but are afraid of dying themselves.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: The original quote is used first as one of the quotes in the pilot, "Extreme Aggressor", though it's shortened. It's used again, this time as the full version, at the beginning of "100." [[WhamEpisode For a reason]].
* HeelFaceReincarnation: Played with in the episode "Perennials." The unsub believes himself to be the reincarnation of serial killer Russel Smith, due to having been born in the next bed at the emergency room as Smith died from his injuries in a police shootout. All his life, he's had an inexplicable urge to do bad things, but he believes reincarnation is his chance to be a better person, so he doesn't act on it. Then one day, the brakes on his car fail, and he believes one of Smith's victim's reincarnations is responsible. So he sets about locating the people who were born after the deaths of the victims so that he can kill them to stop them from coming after him again, "forcing" them to reincarnate into harmless maggots. By the end of the episode, he apparently no longer believes in this trope, since he plans to commit suicide in a maternity ward so he can reincarnate to finish his work, rather than continue to atone for it.
* HellHotel: "Paradise"
* HeroInsurance: We find out that Prentiss's [[spoiler: fake funeral and real hospital expenses]] cost the government more than $650,000. Imagine what sort of tab the BAU has run up altogether over the years with their not-quite-by-the-book antics (see ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight, below).
* HeroismAddict:
** The Deputy Sheriff who [[spoiler: shoots Garcia]]. The disorder is identified by the name "Hero Homicide".
** Precisely the case with the shooter in "L.D.S.K." He's a [[spoiler: nurse in the ER where the victims are brought]], which allows him to 'heroically' help the victims. Here, it is again called "Hero Homicide."
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Most of the main characters on the show have this with at least one of the other team members. Most prominently:
** Aaron Hotchner and David Rossi, who have known each other for longer than they have the other members of the BAU, and serve as the TeamMom and TeamDad.
** Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid, who have a very brotherly bond.
** Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, and Penelope Garcia are a trio version, who are very frequently shown spending time together off the clock.
* HiddenDepths:
** The hitman in "Reckoner" is portrayed as a brutish thug, but his signature weapon is a gun that he built from scratch and his nickname is cribbed from a relatively obscure 17th century play.
** Emily Prentiss. A new agent, straight from a desk job, with a relatively comfortable upbringing... but she copes ''really well'' with the things the BAU deals with. It stands out enough that both J.J. and Hotch remark on it, but that's the only hint we get for quite a while!
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The killer in "Paradise".
** A depressing heroic variant occurs in "Mayhem". [[spoiler: Kate Joyner]] has been badly injured by a terrorist bomb. The FBI alerted authorities to the terrorist tactic to bomb emergency responders, and so though they arrive on the scene quickly, they stay back until they know the area is secure. The delayed medical response may be why she died.
* HoldingTheFloor: In one episode Hotch and Reid are locked in a room with a serial killer and the guards won't be back for fifteen minutes. Hotch prepares to fight the guy, but then Reid, true to his nature, starts babbling about all of the possible factors contributing to the killer's sociopathy. For fifteen minutes.
-->'''Chester Hardwick''': Is that true? I never had a chance?\\
'''Spencer Reid''': I dunno... maybe. ''(scurries out the door)''
* HollywoodAutism: One episode featured an autistic kid, whose portrayal would have been extremely offensive had it not been so ridiculous.
* HollywoodHacking: Not quite as egregious as some shows in the genre, but still pretty out there. There's a lot of RapidFireTyping, [[ViewerFriendlyInterface questionable GUIs]] with [[MatrixRainingCode impractical flashy bits]] and ridiculous jargon.
* HollywoodHealing: Averted for the most part. Injuries suffered are dealt with for weeks afterwards. Only occasionally enforced by actual cast injury.
* HollywoodLaw: "Collision Course." [[spoiler:The judge denies bail/bond for Reid on the basis of "actions speak louder than words"[[note]]Spending his off-duty time sneaking across the Mexican border to get unlicensed medicine for his mother.[[/note]]... despite so many more factors in his favor (his decade-long track record, his mental illness history, his schizophrenic mother at home, his willingness to surrender his passport and submit to monitoring, and the support of several high-profile FBI figures). In RealLife, said judge might as well have just committed career suicide.]] Being an FBI agent, Reid would also be put in protective custody assuming they did jail him like here, for protection against fellow prisoners if they found out (which happens, with him only being narrowly rescued).
* HollywoodProvincialism: In "Exit Wounds", the BAU travels to a remote Alaskan town to help the local Sheriff department catch a spree killer. In real life there is not a single sheriff department in Alaska: their duties are covered by the Alaska State Troopers, who are never mentioned in the episode.
* HollywoodPsych: Despite the show's heavy focus on criminal psychology, the trope shows up.
** In particular the show treats [[SplitPersonality Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder]] as an actual universally recognized disorder, while in real life it's one of the most debated and controversial psychological disorder (its rarity making any wide study nigh-impossible) with some even doubting it exists, thinking that instances where it is diagnosed are errors, or suffer from a bias due to the relative fame of the condition (i.e. a patient or doctor's view of what is happening being shaped by the condition).
** The Macdonald triad (sometimes called the triad of sociopathy) is often quoted by the team, a set of three factors that has been suggested if any combination of two or more are present together, to be predictive of, or associated with later violent tendencies and perhaps a precursor sign of sociopathy. The three factors being persistent bed-wetting in late childhood, animal cruelty and an obsession with fire-starting. The Triad has long been debunked (and nowadays, is generally held, at best, as a potential indicator of child abuse, which in turn is considered a potential factor that might cause violent behavior later in life).
* HonorBeforeReason: Prentiss in "Valhalla" and "Lauren"
* HopeSpot: The [=UnSub=] in "Legacy" promises his victims their freedom if they can escape his DeathCourse... only to knock them out if they reach the exit, and kill them anyway.
* HostageHandlerHuddle: One episode is about a trio of boys who kidnap a lawyer that abused them as children. Having heard that one of their close friends committed suicide due to the shame that resulted from the abuse, they decide to get a verbal confession from the lawyer. Unfortunately for them, he's a manipulative and very SoftSpokenSadist. The group's resolve diminishes rapidly and they find themselves unable to decide what to do next. The lawyer manages to convince one of them that if they release him, the two of them can go to the police together and sort the whole mess out amicably. This is a suggestion the other boys despise and fight breaks out culminating in one of them killing the other. While this ultimately ends in ShootTheHostage, [[AllForNothing nobody ever got that confession]] and the [[TheChessmaster hostage had them wrapped around his fingers the entire time]].
* HostileHitchhiker: "Safe Haven" features [[spoiler:a teenage sociopath called Jeremy]], who is hitchhiking his way back to his home and [[FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon exploiting his innocent looks]] to be allowed to spend the night on the houses of the people who pick him up... where he goes on to annihilate them and their entire families.
* HowWeGotHere:
** "Minimal Loss" starts with an explosion at the cult compound, then jumps back to the events leading up to it.
** Reid spends much of "Entropy" explaining to [[spoiler:Catherine Adams]] how the BAU managed to track down her cohorts and lure her into a trap.
* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: "Open Season", "Rite of Passage" (though to a far lesser extent), "Exit Wounds".
* HypocriticalHumor: In "The Internet Is Forever," Rossi makes fun of social networking sites like Twitter. Almost every single member of the cast has a prolific Twitter presence.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: A-B]]
* AbandonedHospital: In "Heathridge Manor," a woman's body is found in an abandoned asylum.
* AbortedArc: A first season episode ends with Reid asking JJ on a date. The next episode opens with Morgan asking Reid how it went and Reid refusing to give any details. It is never brought up again. [[spoiler:In fact, the entire concept of romantic feelings between Reid and JJ is abandoned until Season 14]].
* AbortionFalloutDrama:
** In a third season episode, a stalking victim admits to having had an abortion about a year earlier, and though her fiancé is upset when he finds out, it does not seriously damage her or her relationship with him.
** In the fourth season, we find out that [[spoiler: Prentiss had an abortion when she was fifteen. Though this fact is mentioned in the context of revealing why she's screwed up, the abortion is never treated as the reason; it is instead the negative reaction of her priest which damages not her, but her friend]]. In neither of these cases does the character revealing the abortion ''or'' the character hearing about it imply that abortion is an immoral act.
* AbusiveParents: Show up often, and aren't limited only to [=Un=]Subs. It's strongly implied in an early episode (and subsequently repeatedly hinted at) that Hotch's father abused him and that that's one of the reasons why he pursued a career in law enforcement.
* AcceptableBreaksFromReality:
** In real life, the BAU rarely leaves Quanti.
** The FBI has a forced retirement age well bellow Rossi's.
** The BAU in general. The real life BAU has nowhere the success rate the show has, and in fact several studies indicate Psychological Profilers perform no more accurately than regular police officers or students at profiling criminals. Here for the sake of the show, the BAU is correct and its methods work.
* AccidentalAimingSkills: Invoked in "L.D.S.K." when Reid claims, after shooting an [=Un=]Sub in the head, that he was "aiming for his leg." Reid recently failed his gun test, so it would be easy to believe this explanation. Except that Reid was lying just a few feet away from the [=Un=]Sub at the time, and it had been previously established that anything less than a [[BoomHeadshot headshot]] would probably result in the deaths of half the people in the room. Reid was making his first joke of the series, and fittingly, it was a morbid and obscure one. The joke is also a call back to the opening of the episode when Reid was practicing with Hotch for the not-yet-failed test and aims for the target's head but hits the groin. Potentially a ShoutOut as well, since Reid is a sci-fi fan. ''Criminal Minds'' began three years after ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' first aired.
* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: Viewers can always tell when the scene shifts from the BAU to the [=UnSub=] because the former is always more dialogue-heavy while the latter is punctuated by less talk and more action.
* ActorAllusion: Reid finding Morgan and Rossi watching ''Series/TheYoungAndTheRestless'' in his hotel room is an allusion to Creator/ShemarMoore's tenure on the show.
* AdultFear: Let's just add "take a shot every time a child is abducted/abused/assaulted/threatened" to the ''Criminal Minds'' drinking games.
** Notable episodes include "Risky Business," "Cradle to Grave," "Seven Seconds," and others.
** Taken UpToEleven in "Gabby" where we not only have child abduction, but [[spoiler: the person trusted to watch the child engineered it because she was abused as a child by Gabby's mother's father, and there was fear of the child's drug addict father having taken her, and fear of another drug addict as the abductor, and finally we get a look at underground "adoptions" where people, often bad people, acquire children from those who don't want them -- including people taking kids after having lost custody of their own.]]
** "Mosley Lane" has [[spoiler: the children abducted in plain sight while their parents are helping a woman who lost her child, although it is just a ruse. One child lived with the abductees for eight years, being threatened into silence. CPS even visited the family and never caught on.]]
* AdultsAreUseless: A number of [=Un=]Subs have the FreudianExcuse of being subjected to horrifying abuse or bullying as kids/teenagers that the authorities were well aware of and did nothing about.
** One of the most violent [=Un=]Subs was a former bullied teen who spent years learning MMA and bodybuilding to take revenge on the bullies who tormented him and his only friend, which led to his friend committing suicide. He beat them all to death with his bare hands, but he reserved his worst beating for the principal, who never punished the bullies any further than making them give a blatantly insincere apology and shaking the victim's hand every single time:
---> "Shake their hand!? Did you actually think that would work?!" ''(hits him again)''
** Owen Savage is the poster boy for this trope: Abusive cop father, bullied due to being in special ed classes, beloved mentally handicapped girlfriend was raped by a boy who got off scot-free, tricked into making a video of himself masturbating which other kids put up on the internet and escaped without consequences, all under the eye of an apathetic police force and school staff. When Reid reviews his life, he is truly enraged at all the opportunities the authorities had to intervene and probably prevent Owen's spree but chose not to, under the assumption that bullying is part of growing up:
--->'''Detective:''' Look, boys have ways of taking care of these things.\\
'''Reid:''' Yeah, they sure do. Right now Owen is out there sorting it out ''with an assault rifle!''
* AdventuresInComaLand: Has happened a handful of times.
** After [[spoiler: Elle]] is shot by the SerialKiller of the week she is left unconscious and bleeding to death. Throughout the remainder of the episode while emergency workers attempt to resuscitate her, she is in [[spoiler: a dream version of the BAU jet, where she is visited by her police officer father who died when she was a child. During their conversation, Elle's father tells her that the decisions she makes in the plane will make the difference as to whether she lives or dies in real life.]]
** When [[spoiler: Hotchner]] is critically ill after the scars from [[spoiler: George Foyet's attack]] cause problems. He dreams he is in a theater with his [[spoiler: late wife Haley and Foyet, who killed Haley. Haley sends him back to raise their son Jack and gives him her blessing for his romance with Beth.]]
** The final episode gives [[spoiler:Reid]] a turn after he collapses from injuries suffered in the previous episode.
* AesopAmnesia: No matter how many times they encounter one, the team is almost always shocked to discover that the [=Un=]Sub is a woman and exposit to each other about how rare it is for a SerialKiller to be female.
* AffectionateNickname
** Morgan and Garcia have dozens of these for each other. "Babygirl" is Morgan's personal favorite.
** J.J. is also the only person (in the world, apparently), who calls Reid "Spence." Later in the series more characters use it.
* AlasPoorVillain: Each episode shows the motivations of the [=UnSub=] and why they do what they do, and often include traumatic experiences from their past. While most [=UnSubs=] throughout the series are unrepentant monsters, there are a few that -- though their actions are not excused -- garner sympathy. One such example being the killer from "Devil's Night", who [[spoiler:was horribly disfigured in a car accident and left by his lover, who we later find out was pregnant with his son.]]
* AllWomenLoveShoes: In "From Childhood's Hour," Morgan cites that a woman is definitely depressed because she only has ''four'' pairs of shoes. Reid doesn't get it. At the end of episode, Reid is talking to J.J., Prentiss, and Garcia about it. J.J. comments that even 10 pairs isn't enough, and Prentiss says that reminds her... she needs new boots.
* AloneWithThePsycho: Numerous times. This is a show about serial killers after all.
** Hotchner, at the end of Season 4 and beginning of Season 5. However, [[spoiler: Hotchner, stabbed multiple times, is not rescued by his teammates, but rather by the SerialKiller (called the Reaper) who ambushed him. The Reaper even takes Hotchner to the hospital to make sure that Hotchner survives to suffer more.]]
** Will in "[[Recap/CriminalMindsS7E23Hit Hit]] and [[Recap/CriminalMindsS7E24Run Run]]," the two part Season 7 finale, is forced to get in the runaway car with the bank robbers, who know he's a cop and that his girlfriend is FBI and plan on using that for their own purposes.
** Reid in ''[[Recap/CriminalMindsS8E12Zugzwang Zugzwang]]'' insists on going in alone to try pulling a TakeMeInstead, knowing that the Unsub is attracted to him.
%%** Reid and J.J. at the end of "The Big Game."
%%** Reid's entire plot during "Revelations."
%%** The entire Hotch and Reid subplot of "Damaged."
%%** And the Hotch and Prentiss subplot of "Outfoxed."
%%** Reid and Lila Archer during "Somebody's Watching."
%%** Reid tries to pull this at the end of "The Fisher King," but Hotch and Morgan don't let him succeed.
%%** Sci-fi author and postmodern literature professor Ursula Kent in "Empty Planet."
%%** Prentiss at the end of "In Name and Blood."
%%** Prentiss and Reid (although Prentiss more so) in "Minimal Loss."
%%** J.J. in "The Performer."
%%** Morgan and Det. Spicer ([[spoiler: and, after Spicer is killed, just Morgan]]) in "Our Darkest Hour."
%%** Prentiss in "Lauren."
%%** Reid in "Derailed" (much to the team's dismay).
* AlwaysMurder: Well, they ''are'' the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit. But if there were actually that many serial killers out there, no one would ever leave their houses.
** This ''may'' be TruthInTelevision -- the FBI estimates that at any given time, there are somewhere between 20 and 50 active serial killers in the United States. Rough calculations suggest they may have either dealt with half of the active serial killers in the U.S., or considerably less than that depending on how you think the statistics work (i.e. new killers replacing the old ones, old ones not getting caught or worst of all patterns not even being noticed). Also, most of the murderers they run into are actually spree killers, not serial killers
*** The team also deals with child abductions, serial rapists, terrorists, and spree killers, none of which are included in the FBI's estimates. Only about half of any given season's cases are actual serial killers. The seriously unrealistic element here is that one team would work all of those types of cases; in reality, the BAU has [[EconomyCast separate units to deal with separate kinds of specialized crime]].
*** Other divisions specializing in things like the Mob and child exploitation have shown up occasionally.
** J.J. once said that the BAU picks cases where they believe lives are at stake. In another episode, it was expressed that the BAU gets sent the "weird" cases.
* AmazingFreakingGrace:
** "A Real Rain". The Cop of the Week even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] how much of an EarWorm it is, and invokes some horror when she says anyone who kills cops should have to hear "Amazing Grace" [[HellIsThatNoise being played for eternity]].
** "Fear and Loathing" has this play over the detective's funeral after the [=UnSub=] is apprehended.
** In place of its usual end-of-episode quote, "Outlaw" has this song performed over the victims' funeral.
%%* AnachronicOrder: "No Way Out," "100", "It Takes A Village".
* AnArmAndALeg: Lara, the killer's sister in "Heathridge Manor", had her arm chopped off by her mother during a psychotic episode when Lara was a baby.
* AndIMustScream:
** "Uncanny Valley" [[spoiler: has the [=UnSub=], a mentally ill woman, kidnap young women, use drugs to paralyze them so she can dress them up as dolls. While all of this is going on, the victims are still alive and can hear, see and presumably feel ''everything'' -- including the wigs being sewn into their scalps, and the slow deterioration of their bodies under the influence of the drugs]].
** There's also what Frank did to his victims: [[spoiler:injecting them with a drug that left them completely paralyzed, but fully conscious, as he ''very slowly'' vivisected them. With mirrors in the ceiling.]]
** And the Pittsburgh suicides that weren't suicides. [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] was using support groups to make friends with grieving parents of a local tragedy, then would follow them home, inject them with a paralyzing drug, and set up the fake suicides, all the while explaining to his fully conscious victims that he was just doing what they ''wanted'' him to do.]]
** The [=UnSub=] from "Proof". Holy ''shit'', the idea of [[spoiler: being immobilized, feeling the torture someone's putting you through, getting acid dripped on various parts of you, and having it all videotaped with a running childlike commentary]].
** The victims from "Boxed In" were [[spoiler: locked in [[SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere a small box buried a few feet underground]] for ''a year'']].
%%* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Secrets and Lies", "Honor Among Thieves", "Minimal Loss", and "Tabula Rasa".
* AndStarring:
** Creator/ThomasGibson, after Creator/JoeMantegna joins the cast in season three.
** Creator/JeanneTripplehorn received a “With” credit during her tenure on the show in Seasons 8 and 9. This would carry over to Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt in Season 10, and Creator/AdamRodriguez in Season 12.
** Creator/PagetBrewster upon her return to the series in Season 12.
* AndTheAdventureContinues:
** Three ''extremely'' dark inversions of this. One is in "Bloodlines," where it's revealed [[spoiler: there are other families perpetuating the cycle of murder and abduction]]; the second is in "Solitary Man," where it's heavily implied there are other serial killers using trucking as a cover; the third is in "Awake" where we discover that the man that everyone assumed the [=UnSub=] imagined kidnap his daughter is real.
** Played straight in the series finale, which ends with [[spoiler:the team (minus Garcia) flying off to solve their next case]].
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: In Season 14, an [=UnSub=] forces JJ to tell Reid her deepest secret. She tearfully admits she was in love with him since the beginning and was too chicken to do something about it. Later, she admits that while Reid had been her 'first love' and she still cares deeply about him, she's moved on with her own family and apologizes for dropping that awkward bombshell on him.
* ArchEnemy:
** Frank to Gideon, the Reaper to Hotch, and Doyle to Prentiss.
** Seasons 11 and 12 have seen Mr. Scratch become this for the entire team.
* ArcVillain: Certain antagonists (the Reaper, Ian Doyle, the Replicator, the "Dirty Dozen" hitman ring) only appear in person a few times, but their presence is felt throughout a season.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: in episode "Magnum Opus", the [=UnSub=] turns out to be a hemophiliac suffering from Christmas disease. When the team ask García to pull up a list of people suffering from Christmas disease in San Francisco, we see a list with 15 matches, at least 3 of which are women. However, Christmas disease is ''extremely'' rare in females, as in, females can carry the disease but it is very rare that they suffer from it. And yet it turns out that at least 20% of San Francisco's B-hemophiliac population are women? Unless they are trans women, the odds for that are so close to 0 that Dr. Reid wouldn't even bother to calculate them.
** A small example in Episode 4, Season 8. When Reid calls Maeve, she asks him if he is taking his riboflavin and magnesium. Reid replies "yes, and the occasional shot of B2". Riboflavin ''is'' vitamin B2.
** In the first episode of Season 4 it is said that humans are born with 300 bones in their body, though the real number is closer to 270.
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: In "It Takes A Village", it appears that ''Criminal Minds'' takes place in a universe where you can get from Quantico, VA to Baltimore, MD in an hour.
** In "Angel Maker", Lower Canaan, Ohio is transported over 100 miles southwest from its real life location.
** It's about a 90 minute drive. If you drove a vehicle with a police escort, above the speed limit, and disregarded most stoplights, you could probably make it in an hour.
** And Quantico is apparently right in DC or the immediate surrounding area, as in the episode "Sex, Birth, Death," where Reid [[spoiler: thinks he meets the [=UnSub=]]] as he's exiting the Metro to work. In reality, Quantico is over an hour away, separated by two highways.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: In "I Love You, Tommy Brown", the titular underage student in a TeacherStudentRomance GoneHorriblyWrong (well, more wrong) is starting to have doubts (after the teacher in question shoots his classmate/neighbor), and she tries to calm him down and justify their love by saying that in medieval times, 12-year-olds marrying their elders was not unusual (this was only true of the aristocracy, and still wasn't very common); that when UsefulNotes/HenryVIII married Catherine of Aragon she was a much older woman (she was only 5 years his senior); and that Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet were 13 (true of the play, not of the original story; also, the point of the play is that they are too young and their love is childish; also, ''it's a play''). Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] since the teacher is a [[ManipulativeBitch manipulative]], AxCrazy [[TheSociopath sociopath]] trying to control a not-very-smart teenage boy, and of course she doesn't have to know a lot about history or English literature anyway.
** Much of what she said is frequently cited incorrectly in references to medieval times. Most people uninterested in that time period would make the same mistake, and those who are interested wouldn't really bother to correct them.
** Oddly enough, it ''was'' true of UsefulNotes/HenryVIII's grandmother, who gave birth to his father at the age of ''12'' -- and was rendered sterile as a result. Aside from the inherent horror of this, many families thus had practical concerns not to marry girls that young, because of this happening.
* ArtisticLicenseReligion: The episode "Minimal Loss," which deals with a hostage situation involving an isolated, self-sustaining religious commune which is similar to the real incidents at Waco and others, states the group was begun as libertarians, before turning religious -- because, of course, "Libertarians aren't religious." Uh, no; many libertarians are, though granted, the movement itself is not religious. While a group could go from being libertarian to authoritarian regardless of having religious beliefs or not, the scenario the episode lays out seems pretty unlikely to shift from libertarian community to apocalyptic cult.
** In the episode "Perennials" (Season 8), the suspect believes himself to be the reincarnation of a serial killer who died the day he was born, in the same hospital, and is killing the people he believes are reincarnations of the dead killer's victims, placing fly larvae by their bodies in the belief that it will make their souls be reborn into these instead of humans, so ending the cycle. Morgan states that "See, a fundamental tenet of reincarnation is that you can come back in any life form, not just human" (as part of {{Karma}}). In some reincarnation beliefs, such as Hindus', this is true; however, others, such as the Druze, believe people are only reborn in human bodies, not animals. They also differ on whether people can be reborn into different sexes than they had in their previous life, along with the concept of karma, which is primarily Hindu belief.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Rossi in "Demonology" says "...evil and the soul and scuff marks on the floor."
* ArtShift: In "True Night," the [=UnSub=] was a comic artist who unknowingly acted out scenes from his own violent comics by murdering gang members. The audience knows in real life, he wears a hooded sweatshirt, but while "on camera" within his delusion, he's wearing a hooded BadassLongcoat that seems to come standard issue from [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII Organization XIII]], wielding a pair of scimitars. He moves in slow motion, smooth techno music in the background. The entire scenes are in highly contrasted black and white, with highly sharpened raindrops and super slo-mo splashes when he steps in a puddle or slashes one of the "werewolves" he's fighting, with occasional bright splashes of blue or red. The entire style is deliberately evocative of something directed by Creator/FrankMiller, like the film versions of ''Film/TheSpirit'' or ''Film/SinCity''. Which makes it FanService for those familiar with those movies, as both Frank Miller and the [=UnSub=] (in-universe) are both highly successful and revolutionary comic authors. Garcia actually compares the [=UnSub=] to Creator/FrankMiller.
* AssholeVictim: A few:
** In "Pleasure Is My Business," the [=UnSub=] is a prostitute killing {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s who are cheating their ex-wives and children out of alimony.
** In "Elephant's Memory" -- the [=UnSub=] of the episode is profiled as an "injustice collector," killing people who've caused him or his girlfriend pain: her abusive father, his neglectful father, school bullies, etc.
** The victims in "True Night" -- the [=UnSub=] is murdering the gangbangers that were responsible for the murder of his fiancée, who was carrying their baby.
** "Lockdown" has corrupt prison guards, gambling on {{Forced Prize Fight}}s between inmates, and [[spoiler:launching a cover-up when one such inmate ends up dead]].
** One of the victims in "The Big Wheel" is an stupid gangbanger that unknowingly picks on a SerialKiller. Despite the victim being as far from his victimology as he can get (a male black teen vs white women in their thirties) the killer has little trouble taking him out.
* AsYouKnow: All too often, the MrExposition scenes will have the profilers telling someone something they already know about. Examples include "Mr. Scratch", where the team tell each other about the Satanic Panic in the 1980s and the FBI response to it, or "False Flag", where J.J. gives some examples of popular conspiracy theories to a crowd of [[ConspiracyTheorist Conspiracy Theorists]].
** There's also an element of this to the case briefings at the beginning of each episode. Supposedly, J.J. (until Season 5) or Garcia (after Season 5) is presenting the information to the team for the first time, but as soon as they open their folders, they begin splitting the exposition. It's probably done to spread the dialogue around, but the way the team flip open their files and begin stating information as if they're already aware of it feels like this trope. Sometimes this is replaced or accompanied by a scene (usually on the plane or in the Precinct of the Week) where they're ''explicitly'' reviewing the information they're already familiar with, for a double dose.
* AttractiveBentGender: This is how [[spoiler: Adam/Amanda]] lured his victims in "Conflicted".
* AuctionOfEvil
** Second season episode ''P911'' involves the online auction of a young boy to members of a pedophile website.
** A human trafficking ring appears in several episodes in Season 10; they specialize in kidnapping people (mostly women) to be auctioned to serial killers.
* AwesomeByAnalysis:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BlJ_MQNjY0 Hotchalanches]].
--->'''Defense Attorney''': The fact is, behavioral analysis is just intellectual guesswork. You probably can't even tell me the color of the socks I'm wearing with no greater accuracy than a carnival psychic.\\
'''Hotchner''': Charcoal gray. You match them to the color of your suit to appear taller. ... You also wear lifts and you've had the soles of your shoes replaced. One might think you're frugal, but you're having financial difficulties. You wear a fake Rolex because you pawned the real one to pay your debts, my guess is to a bookie. ... Your vice is horses. Your Blackberry's been buzzing on the table every twenty minutes, which happens to be the average time between posts from Colonial Downs. You're getting race results. And every time you do, it affects your mood in court, and you're not having a very good day. That's because you pick horses the same way you practice law -- by always taking the long shot...
* AxCrazy: A vast majority of the [=UnSubs=] that the BAU arrest.
* AwkwardSilenceEntrance: In Season 2, the BAU is investigating a militia in Montana. Rossi sends Morgan and JJ to the local watering hole. The presence of a black man and a white woman together brings the gathering to a silence, Rossi's intention. However, in an aversion of expectation, the group says they're more offended by the fact that feds are in their bar than by Morgan's race or JJ's gender and authority.
* BackForTheFinale: By reusing old footage while [[spoiler:Reid]] is [[AdventuresInComaLand in a coma]], nearly every past BAU member makes an appearance. Played straight with [[spoiler:Maeve and Foyet]], albeit only in the coma vision.
* TheBadGuyWins: Unfortunately happens fairly often.
** "North Mammon," essentially. The [=UnSub=]'s entire plan pretty much went perfectly, and he obviously didn't care that he was caught in the end, and may have even wanted to get caught, since he likely could have gotten away with it if he had bothered to cover his face when letting the remaining two girls go.
*** His entire plan likely hinged on getting caught anyway, since he wanted to use the girls to put the town through the same kind of pain the town put him through, which wouldn't work if he didn't get caught.
** "No Way Out" and "No Way Out II: The Evilution of Frank". [[spoiler: The first ends in Frank invoking CrazyPrepared to flee with Jane; the second, despite him finally being OutGambitted and killed, still gives him the last laugh: not only does he die how he wants and get to be TogetherInDeath with Jane, but his murder of Gideon's own lover soon sends the man over the DespairEventHorizon and out of the BAU forever.]]
** "Into The Woods," where Shane gets away. Whether he's gotten away for good, however...
** "Lauren," where [[spoiler: Doyle escapes after capturing and stabbing Prentiss. She does survive, but since she must go into hiding, Doyle has arguably made good on his earlier threat to "take the only thing that matters to you: your life". Technically, her life as Emily Prentiss is indeed over]].
** "Out of the Light", where not only does a bad guy get away, but the team thinks he's innocent.
** "3rd Life," sort of, though the Bad Guy who wins isn't the Worst Guy in the episode. The Worst Guy loses big time, mostly due to the Not-as-bad Guy [[spoiler:shooting him in the head]], but the Not-as-bad Guy is still pretty bad, and gets away with absolutely everything [[spoiler:due to being a valuable witness against more Worse Guys]].
** "Zugzwang" has Reid's girlfriend, Maeve, captured by her stalker, requiring Reid to enlist the team to find her. [[spoiler: The team eventually does, and Reid goes in to negotiate with the [=UnSub=] to release Maeve, but fails as the [=UnSub=] shoots herself in the head and holds Maeve's head right next to hers so that the bullet kills her as well.]]
** "...And Back." [[spoiler: Mason Turner gets away with all his crimes because, as Rossi points out, no one would believe that a quadriplegic could be responsible for the deaths of 93 people, all of his murders are pinned on his now deceased brother (who he manipulated and abused all his life), and while he does die in the end, it's on his own terms and the world will see him as a victim and his killer a murderer.]]
** In "Mr. Scratch," [[spoiler:the BAU finds the [=UnSub=] only after he gets his revenge, and he even gets to MindRape Hotch before being caught.]]
* BadassBookworm: Reid occasionally has his moments.
* BadassLongcoat: The fantasy/noir sequences in "True Night".
** The [=UnSub=] in "Elephant's Memory" is a big Johnny Cash fan and dons a BadassLongcoat when shooting folks.
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Animal cruelty is consistently mentioned as one of the signs of a sociopath or future killer, and several of the killers are seen abusing animals as well as people onscreen.
* BaitAndSwitch:
** After the team profile that the [=UnSub=] in ".. A Thousand Words" [[spoiler: has a partner]], it cuts to a scene of a man ominously walking through the grass while a woman is tending to her garden... only for it to turn out that he's passing her a package. [[spoiler: The woman then enters the house and room where the latest victim is being kept, revealing herself as the second [=UnSub=]]]
** The team start their investigation in "Safe Haven" by deducing that their [=UnSub=] has to be someone outwardly harmless and trustworthy enough that a parent would invite them into their house and leave them alone with kids without a second thought. In the next scene, a man in a priest's collar talks a young boy walking alone on the side of the road into getting into his pickup, offering him a ride to wherever he's going. [[spoiler:Cut to the truck crashed in a ditch the next morning with the body of the ''priest'' still inside.]]
** The opening scene of "Rabid." An attractive young woman in somewhat-revealing clothes is taking the bus home at night. A guy on the bus looks at her in a way that makes her uncomfortable. She gets off the bus and starts walking down the dark street to her home, visibly nervous, then she realizes the guy from the bus is following her. [[spoiler: It seems obvious that the girl is being set up as a victim... but the guy just wants to give her something that fell out of her shopping bag, then he leaves. ''He's'' the one who gets targeted by a killer. The girl makes it home safely.]]
** Throughout "Final Shot," the narrative frequently shifts away from the [=BAU=]'s investigation to a South African mercenary's attempts to protect an African-American woman from the [=UnSub=]. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that the mercenary ''is'' the [=UnSub=], he's a hitman hired to kill the woman, and the entire scenario has been taking place in his imagination. He's using a mental exercise called "Fantasy Integration", a technique that military snipers use to keep themselves awake and focused for long periods while they wait for a clear shot at their target.]]
** The opening of "Pariahville" shows a man loading a shotgun in his kitchen in the dark and switches to a FirstPersonShooter-POV. [[spoiler: It's the town sheriff (with a body cam), who discovers the victim's body and her distraught husband]].
* BallisticDiscount: The [=UnSub=] in "Hanley Waters" already has the ammo and intends on simply purchasing the corresponding gun, but resorts to this trope when she learns that she can't do it right away because of a mandatory waiting period. With the gun still sitting on the counter, the clerk gives her the gun license application and walks off to deal with another customer, giving her time to load before he notices what she's doing.
* BankRobbery:
** The [=UnSub=] in "Psychodrama" started out as a simple bank robber, but as the episode progresses he grows steadily more insane.
** The Season 7 finale "Hit"/"Run" dealt with bank robbers and a hostage situation.
* BasedOnATrueStory: "25 To Life" was based on the case of Dr. Jeffrey [=McDonald=], the subject of the book (and TheFilmOfTheBook) ''Fatal Vision'', convicted of killing his wife and children, with the premise that ''his'' story of the events (intruders killed his family) was true, which turns into ClearTheirName.
* BatterUp: "The Boogeyman", "Paradise", "Reckoner" and "Middle Man".
* BeamMeUpScotty: The trope is referenced In-Universe by Reid in "What Happens at Home".
* BeneficialDisease: One of the abducted women in "The Uncanny Valley" is diabetic, which somehow allows her to metabolize the paralytic drugs she was given at a faster than usual rate.
* BerserkButton:
** Certain agents will have ThatOneCase, or certain types of cases that set them off more than others (for instance, Prentiss and cases involving sexual abuse). One particularly notable instance was the episode "Psychodrama", where the [[TheStoic usually unflappable]] Hotch was severely rattled because the [=UnSub=] started forcing children to act out his revenge fantasies. As a general rule, violence against children sets Hotch off more than anything else.
** The [=UnSub=] from "Scream" lived a normal adult life despite witnessing his abusive father kill his mother then commit suicide, until [[spoiler:his audio tape of the incident -- his only memento of his parents -- was destroyed, prompting him to try and "recreate" it]].
** The [=UnSub=] from "Fate" is said to suffer from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_explosive_disorder intermittent explosive disorder]] (basically real-life HulkSmash syndrome) due to brain damage from a car accident, although in addition to sudden homicidal rage she also calmly and quietly sneaked into her victims houses hours after they triggered her (she apparently blacked out for those).
** In "The Night Watch," a street artist known as "Morpheus" pressed a big one after [[spoiler:using her last memento of her dead son in art installation (in tribute to another mother and child who had died), which drove her ex-husband (who still blames her for said son's death) to ruin her reputation by killing three people and abducting an infant, and ultimately commit murder-suicide by flinging them both off a roof]].
* BewareTheNiceOnes: J.J. and Garcia, especially J.J.'s BoomHeadshot through a plate-glass window to [[spoiler: Garcia's shooter]]. PlayedForLaughs with Reid who takes pranking UpToEleven.
* BigBrotherIsWatching: In "Pariahville," a community of non-violent sex offenders monitors themselves by agreeing to have GPS microchips implanted in their bodies (though the chips are removed if the residents go five years without issues).
* BigotWithABadge: Deputy Roland Boyd is a raving, racist SerialKiller who has Mexican immigrants hunted down and then killed with a machete.
* BilingualBonus: Prentiss speaks several languages and some of her languages scenes aren't dubbed. However, "Catching Out" becomes an unintentionally funny episode when you hear Prentiss speak Spanish. To Spanish speakers it is blatantly obvious that her pronunciation is ''atrocious''. Her Russian is barely intelligible, although to be fair, she says it's not her best language. Her French is understandable, but awkward.
* BirthdayPartyGoesWrong: Agent Rossi's coworkers throw a surprise party for him only to find he is a BirthdayHater who doesn't celebrate his birthday. The day has been spoiled for him by a serial killer he captured, Tommy Yates, who made a deal with the FBI to reveal one of his victims' locations each year on a specific day -- purposely picking Rossi's birthday. Naturally, that leaves him in no mood to celebrate.
* BitCharacter: Agent Anderson and Tech Gina Sharp, who have made a number of appearances, but never really do anything that noteworthy. Anderson hasn't even been given a first name.
* BittersweetEnding: The operation in "Entropy" is a complete success: the [=UnSub=] is captured ([[spoiler: as is her accomplice]]) with no loss of life, and the hitman ring targeting [[spoiler: Garcia]] is eliminated. It's marred by the revelation that [[spoiler: Reid's mother is deteriorating due to Alzheimer's, and it's possible that Reid may face a similar fate in the future]].
* BlandNameProduct:
** In the episode "Hashtag", the social media sites Instagram and Vine are replaced with the bland sounding 'Instant Pictures' and 'Video', which have similar layouts/colors.
** The episode "Drive" has a Uber-like ride share app called Zimmer. The [=UnSub=] used to be a driver, and currently pretends to be one to lure his victims.
** Subverted in "Sick Day" were the [=UnSub=] tries to lure a victim by claiming to need help with his cellphone. He mentions an app called "Snaptalk" but the victim corrects him saying it's called "Snapchat".
** Averted in "Saturday" where one of the suspects is stated to be a {{Twitch}} streamer.
* BlindAndTheBeast: "The Big Wheel" with the little blind boy and the [=UnSub=] of the week, but played with in that it's not anything about the man's appearance that's frightening... but the boy would ''see'' him as a monster if he could see, because he would recognize him as his mother's murderer.
* TheBluebeard: The [=UnSub=] from "The Fox" could be seen as a variant.
* TheBookCipher: "The Fisher King" features an Ottendorf cipher brought to the Behavioral Analysis Unit by [[spoiler:the [=UnSub=] via Hotch's wife]]. The cipher is part of a larger puzzle to find [[spoiler: a girl who's been missing for two years]]. The key text is [[spoiler:''The Collector'' by John Fowles]].
* BookEnds:
** Season 7's premiere episode and two-part finale episode has the [=BAU=] facing off against a three-person team of [=UnSubs=] with some sort of link to international organized crime: all three [=UnSubs=] in the premiere were various professionals in the Irish underworld, while the de facto leader in the finale was a hitwoman with a trail of victims that spanned much of the world. Both episodes also involved a fourth [=UnSub=] who directly factored into the team's crimes: in the premiere, Ian Doyle, the BigBad of the previous season, was the group's target due to him crossing them in some way in the past; in the finale, the fourth [=UnSub=] was operating behind the scenes, with his presence being known to only one of the other [=UnSubs=]. Both teams were eventually defeated, partially because of dissent and infighting that breaks out among their ranks, thus leading to members killing one another. And finally, both the premiere and the finale involve a child in danger from the groups: in the premiere, it was Doyle's son Declan; in the finale, it was [[spoiler:JJ's son Henry]]. Moreover, the premiere sees Prentiss rejoining the team, while the finale sees her leaving the team for good until Season 12.
** Season 9 both begins AND ends with a two-parter episode. The first part features what appears to be a typical chase after a serial killer, while the second part reveals something even more sinister beneath the surface of the case. Both the premiere and the finale also addressed Reid's dashed hopes of starting a family with Maeve, [[spoiler:which is one of the events that helped trigger Blake's departure at the end of the season]].
** Season 10 starts off with Hotch interrogating Kate in his office and accepting her into the BAU team. Then, the season ends [[spoiler:with Kate informing Hotch of her decision to take a maternity leave in the same office]].
** The opening scene of Season 12's premiere episode, "The Crimson King", features a semi-truck nearly ramming into a man who escaped a serial killer. The ending scene of Season 12's finale episode, "Red Light", [[spoiler: features a semi-truck ramming into the BAU's [=SUVs=] with them inside, while they are about to face off against the season's BigBad (who had been completely responsible for the events of "The Crimson King").]]
** The opening scene of Season 13's premiere episode, "Wheels Up", [[spoiler:had the lives of many of the BAU hanging in the balance, with Reid and Garcia being the exceptions]]. The ending scene of Season 13's finale episode, "Believer", [[spoiler:had the exact opposite scenario happening, with Reid and Garcia's lives being the ones at stake while the rest of the BAU was relatively safe]].
** The series as a whole: In the pilot episode, Gideon was haunted by a mistake he made not too long before, that ended with six FBI agents losing their lives in a bomber situation. In the series finale, [[spoiler:Reid has a coma dream featuring dead people after he misread a situation that ended with six FBI agents dying in an explosion]].
** The third episodes of the first and last season have a mailbomber [=UnSub=].
* BoomHeadshot: In "L.D.S.K." the [=UnSub=] shoots a cop in the head; later, [[spoiler:Reid shoots ''him'' in the head]].%%"Identity", "Penelope", "Lo-Fi", "Nanny Dearest".%%
* BottleEpisode: All but two scenes of "Seven Seconds" takes place in the same shopping mall.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: The Big Bad of the fall 2016 premier figured out how to [[spoiler: force people with associative identity disorder to create a new identity, in this case another serial killer (the "original" serial killer he was copying was left with amnesia). He gets away information on every DID sufferer in Arizona and the whole team, with whom he has a massive grudge]].
* BreakTheCutie: Poor Reid can't seem to catch a [[IncrediblyLamePun break]].
** After the Reaper case and the events of "Nameless, Faceless", it's only a matter of time before Hotch crosses the DespairEventHorizon... which is confirmed by "100": [[spoiler: Hotch beats Foyet to death using his bare hands]]. Understandable crossing of the DespairEventHorizon, but still a crossing of it.
** "Lucky"/"Penelope", "House on Fire", "Exit Wounds" and "The Internet is Forever" for Garcia.
** The Doyle arc (beginning in "The Thirteenth Step" and ending with "Lauren") for Prentiss.
** J.J. being tortured in the Middle East by someone she considered an ally made her more reckless (she has PTSD and blames herself for not recognizing how dangerous he was to the point that she's almost committing [[SuicideByCop suicide by [=UnSub=]]]), and despite a DeadPersonConversation with her torturer where she realizes what "he's" doing to her it's not clear if she's getting better or not.
* BreakTheHaughty:
** Rossi gets broken in "Limelight", "Damaged", "Zoe's Reprise", "From Childhood's Hour", and "Epilogue".
** Morgan is subjected to ColdBloodedTorture in "Derek".
* BreakingSpeech: In "Identity" Morgan receives one from ConspiracyTheorist Harris Townsend. Townsend is [[ShutUpHannibal told to shut up]].
* BrickJoke: In "Penelope," Garcia muses about having heard Music/DavidBowie singing "Heroes" in her head while being driven to the hospital. Three guesses what piece of music plays at the episode's end.
* BrokenHeel
* BrotherSisterIncest:
** The episode "House on Fire" touches on this: after losing his parents as a small boy, the [=UnSub=] became fixated on his sister. When they were teenagers, rumors spread about his attachment to her being on the verge of this trope; the rumors led to his being beaten, then sent away to boarding school for his own protection. As an adult he returns, kills several townspeople (including his sister's new husband), and freaks out when she rejects his overtures.
** Two members of the FeudingFamilies in "Blood Relations" are revealed to be brother and sister, who secretly had a child together.
** The [=UnSub=] in "Taboo" [[spoiler: lusted after his extremely promiscuous older sister (it was due a severe head injury) and thought it was OK because he's adopted and besides she slept with all of his other friends so why not him too? Unfortunately(? well, maybe he wouldn't have killed her or anyone else) her symptoms were getting better with treatment and even if they hadn't she wouldn't have screwed family -- especially since her "baby brother" was actually her son. The AwfulTruth triple-whammy -- he's in lust with his adopted sister, who's actually his biological mother, and his (grand)mother lied about his whole existence -- triggers his hunting of innocent single moms]].
* BuffySpeak: Usually averted, what with this being a team of highly intelligent agents, but sometimes...
-->'''Morgan:''' Come on, genius. Do something... genius-like.
* BurnTheWitch:
** The [=UnSub=] in "Heathridge Manor" first tries to drown them (if they're witches, they'll revive and if they drown, they're innocent), then sews them into poisoned dresses, but before he even finds them, he paints creepy portraits of them surrounded by flames.
** Leland Duncan in "In The Blood" is descended from one of the prosecutors of the Salem Witch Trials and hallucinates that others are witches, whom he must punish. One is thrown from a cliff, one is pressed to death by rocks, one is hanged, and he attempts to burn a mother and daughter at the stake, but is shot before he can pull it off. (Though they mention the in-universe ArtisticLicenseHistory, saying that even though this killer wants to burn witches, the actual Salem trials didn't.)
* BuryingASubstitute: Emily Prentiss is apparently killed off and buried [[RealLifeWritesThePlot due to real-life budget cuts]]. However, at the next season's opening episode she turns up very much alive, with an explanation that she'd really been shot, but the hospital saved her and the BAU leaders arranged for her funeral to be faked as part of a covert op. (Her coffin was full of sandbags.)
* BullyingADragon: After more than ten seasons, any killer that decides to go after the BAU members or their families should be considered this.
** One of the victims in "The Big Wheel" is a robber that makes the mistake of choosing a SerialKiller as his next victim. The killer isn't even planning to commit murder at the time, and the robber is as far from his victim type as he can get (he is a black male teen, the killer preys on white women in their 30s), but he has little trouble adding him to his count.
* BunniesForCuteness: The last words of the first victim in ''Gatekeeper'', while telling his friend about how he thinks he's fallen for his one night stand, is that she really likes bunnies.
* TheButcher: The [=UnSub=] of "Remembrance of Things Past," in Season 6, is actually called this. He killed close to two dozen women 20 years ago, then stopped after Rossi got too close. [[spoiler: After he develops Alzheimer's, he and his [[WellDoneSonGuy approval-seeking son]] start killing again while he can still do it right.]]

[[folder: C-D]]
* CainAndAbel:
** Zig-zagged at the end of "The Inspired": [[spoiler: one of the twin [=UnSubs=], Jesse, intends to kill his brother Wallace (at the behest of [[EvilMatriarch their mother]]), but can't go through with it and turns on the mother instead. This in turn provokes Wallace, a standoff ensues, and Jesse ends up dead]]. ''Which'' of the two is Cain and which is Abel is left to debate, though [[spoiler:Wallace]] has an insanity defense in his favor.
** The [=UnSub=] of "Dust and Bones", which is also combined with YouAreNotMyFather. [[spoiler:She was horribly abused as a child by her mother, who had her as a teen, by being locked in a shed filled with snakes and called ugly. The mother was eventually caught and forced into parenting classes, and her second daughter was treated well. But the damage was already done to the [=UnSub=], who grew up hating both her mother and sister, and finding a substitute family in snakes. By adulthood, she's taken her rage on other women by disfiguring them, before kidnapping her sister and almost kills her with a snake bite.]]
* TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse: "Somebody's Watching." Justified because the caller was using a cell phone.
* CallBack: The jet scene in "The Performer" has two, one to the team's previous case in L.A. (complete with teasing Reid about Lila Archer) and one to the vampire subculture "dressing like Prentiss did in high school."
* CanadaEh: "To Hell..."/"... And Back"
** A special nod to Reid's claim that once you cross the border from Detroit there is nothing but forest. So [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor,_Ontario Windsor]] [[CanadaDoesNotExist does not exist]].
* CannotSpitItOut: Gideon deliberately provokes the stuttering Footpath Killer until he gets so angry that he can't talk.
* CantGetAwayWithNuthin: In "In Name and Blood", "It Takes A Village" and "The Storm" Hotch gets called out for previously covering up [[spoiler: Elle Greenaway shooting a man dead for no valid reason]], [[spoiler: faking Emily Prentiss's death and using government funds for her fake funeral and to hide her in Paris]] and letting Rossi shoot [[spoiler: Jason Gideon's]] killer for no valid reason by Erin Strauss, Senator Cramer and the DOJ respectively.
* CaptiveDate: "Charm and Harm" opens with the killer having a one-sided conversation with a bound-and-gagged woman over a gourmet dinner in a fancy hotel room.
** One episode focuses on a killer who treats his victims to a romantic evening complete with rose petals, though they're not tied down. He means no harm until they turn him down once they reach the bathtub part of the date. The rest fits to a T, though.
** In another episode, a guy was stalking a woman and ended up kidnapping her. One scene shows them sitting at a table and talking, until the woman raises her hands and it's revealed that she's tied up.
* CarFu: "Roadkill" involves a serial hit-and-run driver. Justified because the man lost his ability to walk in a car accident, so his car is the only weapon he has and he obviously can't pursue any victims to places the car wouldn't be able to reach.
* CastingGag: The kid who plays a smart-aleck 13-year-old sociopathic serial killer from "Safe Haven" played essentially the same character on an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit''.
* CatapultNightmare: Played straight with Rossi at the beginning of "Damaged" (waking up from a nightmare involving lots of blood and screaming children) and with the [=UnSub=] in "Hanley Waters" (haunted by dreams recalling her son's death). Averted in "The Instincts" with Reid, who wakes up reasonably calm, despite his nightmare being rather creepy.
* CatchPhrase:
** "[=UnSub=]", short for "'''un'''known '''sub'''ject," a bit of [[TruthInTelevision real-life FBI jargon]].
*** Amazing Fun Fact: ''[=UnSub=]'' was also the title of a short-lived series aired in 1989, which the Other Wiki tells us was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsub_(TV_series) "centered around an elite FBI forensic team that investigates serial murderers and other violent crimes."]]
** Reid: "Actually..."
** Garcia: "Off the grid" and other techie/gamer/Internet slang.
*** Also: "Jinkies" and "Yahtzee."
** [=UnSub=] Stanley Howard from "Scared To Death": "Is it worse than you thought?"
** Hotch: "Wheels up in..."
*** In the later seasons, it is almost always "Wheels up in thirty."
** Mostly Hotch, sometimes someone else: "We need to/We're ready to deliver the profile."
** "I'm the [=UnSub=]." —team member who takes it on him or herself to reenact the [=UnSub=]'s crime to imagine their thought process. Originally Gideon's.
* CatScare: "The Angel Maker"; it even gets lampshaded when the soon-to-be victim actually finds her cat ("Geez Bo, you scared me half to death... such a cliche"). Also, in "Sense Memory," a paranoid Prentiss is startled when her new cat, Sergio, jumps in her lap.
* CeilingCorpse: In one episode, the [=UnSub=] kills three people in a fit of rage and lies down to go to sleep; [[DroolHello when he feels a blood drop in his face]] and opens his eyes again he sees the bodies of his victims stuck above him on the ceiling, blood pool and all. [[labelnote: Context]]The victims are hallucinations haunting him, and all he wants to do is sleep, but they keep him awake until he kills someone.[[/labelnote]]
* CelebrityParadox: Justine Ezarik appeared in the Season 6 episode "Middle Man" as one of the murdered exotic dancers. She was later mentioned in the Season 10 episode "Hashtag".
* CensorshipBySpelling: PlayedForDrama in "100". Hotch is on the phone with his wife Haley after learning that she and their son Jack are held in hostage by [[spoiler: George Foyet]] ,aka The Reaper.
-->'''Hotch''': He's just trying to make you angry.\\
'''The Reaper''': Well she should be! She's gonna ''(covers Jack's ears and lowers his voice)'' D-I-E because of your inflated ego!
* CentralTheme: Why do people do terrible things?
* CharacterBlog: Garcia's [[http://twitter.com/Garcia_BAU Twitter account]]. Several of the team members also have Facebook accounts.
* CharacterFocus: The BAU Team members each get a few episodes that either explore their backstory or in other cases where they take it seriously.
** A lot of the Season 1 and Season 2 episodes tended to focus on Gideon (he even narrates the quotations on all of them), but the most notable ones have to be:
*** "Extreme Aggressor"
*** "Won't Get Fooled Again"
*** "What Fresh Hell?"
*** "Riding The Lightning"
*** "Unfinished Business"
*** "Secrets and Lies"
*** "Lessons Learned"
*** "No Way Out"
*** "No Way Out II: The Evilution of Frank"
*** [[spoiler:"Nelson's Sparrow"]]
** Elle Greenaway
*** "The Fisher King, Part 2"
*** "Aftermath"
*** "The Boogeyman"
** Hotch
*** "Natural Born Killer"
*** "The Tribe"
*** "Ashes and Dust"
*** "In Name and Blood"
*** "Scared To Death"
*** "Pleasure is my Business"
*** The Reaper Story Arc (starting from "Omnivore" and ending with "The Slave Of Duty")
*** "Brothers Hotchner"
*** "Route 66"
*** "A Place at the Table"
*** "Internal Affairs"
*** "The Storm"
** Morgan
*** "Profiler, Profiled"
*** "Brothers In Arms"
*** "The Fox"
*** "Hopeless"
*** "Our Darkest Hour"/"The Longest Night"
*** "25 to Life"
*** "Cradle to the Grave"
*** "Big Sea"/"The Company"
*** "Foundation"
*** "Lucky"
*** "Restoration"
*** "The Edge of Winter"
*** "Derek"
*** "A Beautiful Disaster"
** Reid
*** "L.D.S.K."
*** "Somebody's Watching"
*** "Sex, Birth, Death"
*** "Revelations"
*** "Distress"
*** "Jones"
*** "Memoriam"
*** "Elephant's Memory"
*** "Conflicted"
*** "Amplification"
*** "The Uncanny Valley"
*** "Corazon"
*** "Coda"
*** "True Genius"
*** "Zugzwang"
*** "Magnum Opus"
*** "Entropy"
*** "Spencer"
*** "Green Light"
*** "Red Light"
*** "And in the End..."
** Rossi
*** "About Face"
*** "Damaged"
*** "Zoe's Reprise"
*** "Masterpiece"
*** "The Reckoner"
*** "Remembrance of Things Past"
*** "The Fallen"
*** "Profiling 101"/"Profiling 202"
*** "The Replicator"
*** "The Road Home"
*** "Anonymous"
*** "Target Rich"
** Prentiss
*** "Honor Among Thieves"
*** "52 Pickup"
*** "Demonology"
*** "Valhalla"/"Lauren"
*** "It Takes a Village"
*** "Tribute"
*** "Wheels Up"
*** "Miasma"
** JJ
*** "North Mammon"
*** "Risky Business"
*** "In Heat"
*** "The Crossing"
*** "JJ"
*** "Mosley Lane"
*** "There's No Place Like Home"
*** "Hit"/"Run"
*** "200"
*** "The Forever People"
*** "Sick Day"
*** "The Bunker"
*** "The Tall Man"
** Garcia
*** "Blood Hungry"
*** "Lucky"
*** "Penelope"
*** "House on Fire"
*** "The Internet Is Forever"
*** "Exit Wounds"
*** "Compromising Positions"
*** "Reflection of Desire"
*** "Hope"
*** "The Black Queen"
*** "Burn"
*** "Lucky Strikes"
** Todd
*** "52 Pickup"
*** "Normal"
** Seaver
*** "What Happens at Home"
** Blake
*** "The Silencer"
*** "#6"
*** "Bully"
*** "Demons"
** Kate Callahan
*** "A Thousand Suns"
*** "The Hunt"
** Lewis
*** "Pariahville"
*** "Mirror Image"
*** "False Flag"
*** "Broken Wing"
** Stephen Walker
*** "Scarecrow"
*** "Unforgettable"
*** "Wheels Up"
** Alvez
*** "The Crimson King"
*** "Dust and Bones"
*** "Luke"
* CharacterOverlap: The character Penelope Garcia is the technical analyst in both ''Criminal Minds'' and its spin-off, ''Series/CriminalMindsSuspectBehavior''.
* CharacterTitle: "Penelope," "JJ," "Derek", and "Spencer"
** "Lauren" is titled after [[spoiler: the name that Emily Prentiss used while undercover as an arms dealer]]
* ChekhovsGun: In the beginning of "L.D.S.K.", we're shown that Hotch has a gun in an ankle holster. When [[spoiler: Reid and Hotch are being held hostage at the end of the episode, Hotch tricks the [=UnSub=] into letting him kick Reid around, so Reid can get the gun out and shoot the [=UnSub=]]].
** In "Valhalla," Reid notices Prentiss is agitated because she's been picking at her fingernails. In "Lauren," this turns out to be the key to uncovering Prentiss' secret: [[spoiler: that it's her hand holding the gun in the photo of Declan Doyle's fake assassination]]. The reason this actually works well is that Brewster herself apparently has this tendency, so if you go back to earlier seasons, Prentiss can indeed be seen picking at her nails in times of stress -- and it's never pointed out.
* TheChessmaster:
** In the first 2+ seasons, Jason Gideon, one of the most experienced profilers in the BAU alongside Hotch, was both a literal example (he beat Reid in chess every time except once) and a figurative one as a master interrogator, utilizing strategies of [[OutGambitted Out-Gambitting]] and LyingToThePerp.
** Fittingly, Gideon's replacement, the equally experienced David Rossi, proved to be one of these as well, using the same strategies listed above for Gideon, and he displays it in absolutely ''epic'' ways in numerous episodes. (See "Minimal Loss," "Zoe's Reprise," and 'especially' "Masterpiece" for good examples.)
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Most of them, but it is subverted at least twice (in [[spoiler: "The Boogeymen" and "A Shade of Gray"]]).
** In "Safe Haven," [[VictimOfTheWeek Nancy]] thinks this and tries to convince Jeremy of it [[spoiler: even though this is a kid who has already killed two whole families, plus a minister in his car, threatened her two kids, and is holding her at knife point in her car, only not killing her because he needs a ride to his mother's house to kill her. In fact, her insistence on it ends up being part of what gets her stabbed before he gets out of her car.]]
* ChildByRape:
** In the episode "Birthright," the team suspect a serial's killer's son is carrying on his legacy... only to discover there's also a second son, whose mother was raped by the killer. [[spoiler: The episode avoids the second part of this trope in that the child by rape, while not a stellar human being (he's a bit of a bum), isn't evil -- because he's known for most of his life that his father was a bad man and loved his mother for caring for him despite it. The child by marriage, however...]]
** In another episode, this was the [=UnSub=]'s motivation, though he does not succeed (the only victim he impregnates is unwilling to have an abortion, but also unwilling to carry the child, and ultimately commits suicide.)
** The killer in "Profiling 101" was conceived through his mother's rape, after which she died giving birth to him. He then was raised with the horrible abuse of his cruel grandmother who resented him being born, saying he was conceived in sin and that her daughter's "womb was cursed," ultimately leading him to murder women [[FreudianExcuse and cut out their uteri]].
** The husband and wife [=UnSubs=] of "Cradle to Grave" perpetuate a string of these. [[spoiler: The wife lost her infant son Michael, then later contracted breast cancer and became desperate to have a son. She and her husband, who has a long history of sexual abuse, proceed to kidnap runaway teenagers who resemble her as a young woman; the husband then rapes the victims to get them pregnant. As long as the girls give birth to sons, they're allowed to live (and keep getting put through the same thing); but if they give birth to daughters, he kills the mothers and drops off the baby girls at a church. By the end of the episode, there are three known children to have resulted from this bizarre scheme.]]
** In the episode "Red Light," [[spoiler: Cat Adams tries to convince Reid that she's pregnant with his child due to her lover's rape of him in Mexico in order to get a sperm sample.]]
* ChildSoldiers: Having to kill one was the StartOfDarkness for the [=UnSub=] in [[spoiler: "Distress."]]
* ChristianityIsCatholic
** Played straight in "Demonology" and "Public Enemy."
** Averted in at least one episode, with an appropriate depiction of a Protestant Christian survivalist enclave.
** Crisscrossed with the [=UnSub=] of "The Big Game" and "Revelations;" his preaching is pure fundamentalist Protestant, but the mythology surrounding his [[spoiler: dissociated personalities]] comes from the Book of Tobit, which is canon for Catholics but not Protestants.
** In one episode, a man identified as a Catholic priest was said to have celebrated mass in Washington National Cathedral. Washington National Cathedral is Episcopalian.
* ChronicVillainy: "The Big Wheel"
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome:
** Though never appearing or heard in the series, Garcia's four brothers mentioned in the Season 2 episode "P911" mysteriously disappeared from existence by the Season 6 episode "Safe Haven," where she says she was an only child. (However, since she has a stepfather -- Mr. Garcia -- both scenarios could arguably be true at once.) We finally meet one of Garcia's step-brothers, Carlos, in the Season 13 episode "All You Can Eat".
** An early episode has JJ mentioning that she has a young niece, around seven or eight years old. However, we later find out that JJ sister is dead and has been since JJ has been young.
** Mateo Cruz, Strauss's replacement after her death, disappears after Season 10, his only appearance, before getting mentioned in Season 12 once.
* ChurchOfHappyology: The {{cult}} in "The Forever People" has hints of Happyology -- obsession with "levels," love of lawyers, separation of families, dangerous physical activities. Their leader looks more like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones Jim Jones]], with his SinisterShades, than El Ron.
* CIAEvilFBIGood: Played straight as far as the FBI being good of course:
** Averted the one time the CIA shows up in Season 1's "Secrets and Lies". They're portrayed as just kind of inoffensively shady, and although the [=UnSub=] of the episode is a CIA agent, he's explicitly a rogue one. The victim, also CIA, comes across as almost saintly.
** However, in the Season 7's "Dorado Falls", an episode that dealt with the Navy SEALS, they're portrayed as being pretty awful. The [=UnSub=] had to kill two kids during a mission, and this guilt combined with brain damage from a car crash makes him think the people he knows are imposters. He then goes on to shoot up his former team leader's workplace and kill his parents.
** In Season 10 episode "Mr. Scratch" were the [=UnSub=] Peter Lewis is part of the NSA, and uses his position to hack the BAU. Deputy Director Tony Axlerod is not willing to give up the name of the hacker, only after being pressured is willing to subtly slip them the name, but he tells Hotchner that he owes him a favor.
** Played with in Season 11's "Internal Affairs", in exchange for this favor, Axlerod sends Agent Hotchner to investigate the DEA. The NSA and DEA have a joint operation to find "George Washington", the mysterious leader of the internet drug ring called the Libertad Cartel, but Axlerod believes that DEA Deputy Director Bernard Graff is this man. When Graff finally opens up to Hotchner, he reveals that he thought Hotch was the cartel's leader. When Graff dies in an apparent suicide, Hotch then questions Axlerod, thinking he is guilty from a mysterious file transfer authorized by the NSA. Axlerod states he has an alibi, then reveals the man who pointed out Graff as a suspect, his boss NSA Director Brian Cochran.
* ClearTheirName: Becomes the plot of ''25 To Life'' when it turns out that a man who's just been paroled didn't commit the murders of which he was convicted, and the hunt for the real killers begins.
* ClickHello:
** Rossi pulls one during a MexicanStandoff in "Exit Wounds".
** Most of the team in "Cradle to Grave" where the [=UnSub=] walks out of his bathroom and looks up to discover his kitchen is now full of FBI agents and SWAT pointing guns at him.
** The [=UnSub=], a former Navy SEAL, pulls one on Rossi, Morgan, J.J., and Reid in "Dorado Falls" -- in the bullpen at Quantico.
* {{Cliffhanger}}:
** "The Fisher King, Part 1" (S1 finale): Elle walks into her house and lies down on her couch. The [=UnSub=] walks over to her with a gun. We hear a gunshot and it fades to black.
** "The Big Game": JJ attacked (offscreen) by rabid dogs who'd just finished tearing apart another woman, and Reid held at gunpoint by the psychotic [=UnSub=], both miles away from the rest of the team.
** "Lucky": [[spoiler:Garcia]] is shot.
** "Lo-Fi" (S3 finale): Each team member is seen getting into a car. One car blows up.
** "...And Back" (S4 finale): Hotch walks into his house and is greeted by [[spoiler:the Reaper]] with a gun. We hear a gunshot and it fades to black.
** "Our Darkest Hour" (S5 finale): Billy Flynn kidnaps Ellie and leaves Morgan incapacitated and Spicer dead.
** "Brothers Hotchner": [[spoiler:Strauss]] is killed by the Replicator.
** "The Inspiration" (S9 opener): The [=UnSub=]'s (unknown) twin brother is arrested in his place, leaving the real killer free and aware he's being hunted.
** "The Road Home": [[spoiler:J.J. and Cruz]] are both abducted.
** "Protection": [[spoiler:Kate's niece and her friend]] are both abducted.
** "A Badge and a Gun": [[spoiler:Morgan]] is drugged, beaten, and abducted.
** "The Sandman": [[spoiler:Savannah]] is shot, complete with SmashToBlack.
** "The Storm": One prison break is foiled, but three more follow it; {{thirteen|IsUnlucky}} serial killers escape in the chaos, among them [[spoiler:Peter Lewis ("Mr. Scratch")]].
** "Red Light": [[spoiler: the BAU is on the way to find Mr. Scratch when they are involved in a serious car accident.]]
** "Face Off": The episode ends with [[spoiler:Reid]] alone in his apartment, piecing together that [[spoiler:Everett Lynch]] is [[NeverFoundTheBody still alive]]. As he goes to the phone to tell the rest of the BAU, he collapses from internal injuries suffered in an earlier explosion.
* ClockDiscrepancy: The profilers trick a captured terrorist into revealing his co-conspirators' target by gradually adjusting the clock in his cell, then letting him think the planned attack had already taken place.
* CluelessAesop: "Machismo" -- the Aesop is that male chauvinism in Mexican culture is bad. The problem is that male chauvinism has no role in why the episode's killer acts or why the local law enforcement fails to catch him sooner.
* ColdBloodedTorture: This is a show about crazy serial killers. It comes up.
* ConMan: "Parasite"
* ConsultingAConvictedKiller:
** Once when MadBomber Adrian Bale was called upon to help stop a copycat bomber. [[spoiler: Bale was unable to resist the opportunity to try and trick the team into blowing up a potential victim. Gideon caught on to this and stopped it]].
** In another episode a serial hostage taker was asked to help stop a group of copycats. It turns out [[spoiler: [[ExploitedTrope the guy hired the copycats so the BAU would have to consult with him]], which gave him an opportunity to escape]].
** Third time's the charm in "Outfoxed," where the team has to consult with Karl Arnold when a new family annihilator emerges. When they get in contact with Arnold, they find out that it seems as though the new killer has contacted him. [[spoiler: Turns out ''she'' didn't and the note was actually from a much worse source: The Boston Reaper.]] Still, Arnold does give them a key insight that provides an important fact about the killer.
** Antonia Slade in "Devil's Backbone".
* ContaminationSituation: "Amplification," at the end of Season 4. [[spoiler: Reid]] is exposed to anthrax by a serial killer.
* ContinuityNod:
** In the Season 5 episode "Exit Wounds", Emily and J.J. are discussing the difficulty of maintaining relationships with their jobs. Emily starts to come around when J.J. says that she and Will make it work, but when they are called into work less than a minute later Emily dejectedly remarks that she should get a cat. In her Ian Doyle story arc in the sixth season, her new cat, Sergio, can be seen wandering around her apartment and even figures into the story a bit. Also, in an early seventh season episode, Hotch calls Emily out on lying to her therapist about Sergio, a wonderful guy she's become involved with. Emily states that he's the perfect man... his qualities include the fact that he doesn't hog the covers and poops in a box.
** The [=UnSub=] from "About Face" is referenced in "Fatal".
** When the BAU is hunting an [=UnSub=] in Wichita in "The Sandman", the local coroner notes that it's not the first time the team has shown up in his neck of the woods, having previously worked with them in "There's No Place Like Home".
** The Season 13 premiere has J.J. mentioning that [[spoiler: Prentiss would know if her death was being simulated because when she died before, it was cold and dark]], a point mentioned all the way back in Season 7.
* ContinuitySnarl:
** Across the series, details about Reid's father keep changing. [[spoiler:At first he left when Spencer was ten, later he was about four and it was to protect his wife from prison, later yet it was because of Diana's schizofrenia and her trouble staying on her meds.]]
** In "Birthright," Rossi mentions that his unsolved case is 21 years old. A couple of episodes later in "Damages," the main plot centers around the 20th anniversary of the crime.
* ContractOnTheHitman: The [=UnSub=] in "The Job" survives a botched one of these (said contract taken by one of his former clients, who grew suspicious of him), and proceeds to hunt down ''all'' of his former clients in retaliation.
* CopKiller: Several [=UnSubs=]. Possibly the most memorable was the one in "Brothers in Arms" who targets policemen. In another episode, there was a cop-killing [=UnSub=] who [[KillerCop turned out to be a cop himself]].
* CouldntFindALighter: In "Natural Born Killer," Morgan and Gideon imagine the killer lighting a cigarette with a blowtorch before using it on his victim.
* CourtroomEpisode: "Tabula Rasa"
* CrazyPrepared: The Reaper[[spoiler:/George Foyet. In the ten years after he stopped killing, he memorized the schematics of every jail, holding facility and courthouse in Massachusetts... so that when he got caught (which was also self-organized), he would escape to taunt and terrorize another day]].
** He also [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] it when he says to Hotch: [[spoiler: ''"Do you know how much you have to study the human body to stab yourself repeatedly and not die? I don't want to brag, but I'm something of an expert."'', referring to the manner in which Foyet faked his own attack and threw the police/FBI off the scent for ten years]].
** More than that: [[spoiler: he has his entire Season 5 arc with Hotch planned out to the last, down to the details of getting members of the BAU interviewing Karl Arnold]]. It's a BatmanGambit with a heavy reliance on FlawExploitation, taken to a power of ten.
** How Frank gets away in "No Way Out".
* CriminalMindGames: Done a number of times.
** In "The Fisher King," by the [=UnSub=] of the same name, who mostly just wants to send them on a quest. Some of the team work on it like a normal case, some of the team follow the breadcrumbs. The trail of breadcrumbs solves the case, and not following the rules nearly gets one of the BAU killed.
** In "Masterpiece" by Professor Rothschild/[[spoiler:Henry Grace]], who [[spoiler: uses clues and a "live video feed" of torture to lead the team into a trap]]. Luckily, Reid's GoodWithNumbers combined with Rossi's OutGambit turns the [=UnSub=]'s severe OCD around to figure that out.
** And then there's [[spoiler:George Foyet]]/The Reaper, who [[spoiler: stalked the cop who called him off, tried to guilt Hotch into taking the same deal, tortured Hotch, got his family taken away, stalked him for months, and sent the team clues through Karl Arnold, knowing that they would go to him when he got mail about a new string of crimes]].
** Before all those there was "Unfinished Business." The BAU teams up with a retired profiler to track down The Keystone Killer, a serial killer who has started killing again after almost twenty years and whose signature was sending complicated word puzzles to the authorities.
* CruelMercy: In "The Crimson King" there's a conversation about why they prefer to capture the killers alive instead of killing them; Hotch says it's so they can live with their failures instead of dying thinking they accomplished something.
* {{Cult}}: "The Tribe," "Minimal Loss," "The Forever People." In the latter case, the eponymous ChurchOfHappyology turns out to not be responsible for the murders -- [[spoiler: a serial killer within its ranks is killing off members who want to leave (and thus wouldn't be missed, making them easy targets)]]. Subverted in another episode, when it turned out the Satanist "cult" are atheists who just want to annoy the conservative locals.
* CureYourGays: Turns out ''horribly'' for all involved in "Broken." Considering their methods include telling gay teenage boys they were abominations and getting a female prostitute to "rape them straight," they really shouldn't be too surprised that a former student freaks out and starts killing people after he has sex with a man.
* CuriosityKilledTheCast
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Reid, as well as [[spoiler: Jack Hotchner]] in Season 5.
** Reid would disagree. Despite promising to forgive his father in exchange for help on a case, Reid remains (rightfully) unappeased. In "Public Enemy", in response to a case related statement, he bitterly quips that "There are lots of ways that sons defeat their fathers. I just kept getting Ph.D.s."
** You could even call [[TeamDad Gideon's]] departure from the team this.
* DamselFightAndFlightResponse:
** The [=UnSubs=]' target during most of "Open Season" starts looking promising at fighting back until she decides two stabs in the back and running away, not taking his weapon either, is enough to stop a serial killer she's already aggravated. For the record, ''Criminal Minds'' is good at keeping moments of stupidity from feeling [[ContrivedStupidityTropes contrived]], and it's justifiable in that a few of her screws seem out of place by the end of the episode.
** "Reflection of Desire" had a victim break the [=UnSub=]'s nose and immediately flee for a door... only to discover it's locked. Later, in a second escape attempt, she finds out she wouldn't have wanted to go in there anyway.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Everyone in the BAU wears dark clothes and dark suits, but they're the good guys.
** Conversely, more than a few [=UnSubs=] have worn [[LightIsNotGood white or light-colored clothing.]]
* DaydreamSurprise: Appears on "Final Shot". [[spoiler: The ScaryBlackMan protector of the [[MonsterOfTheWeek [=UnSub=]'s]] target seen throughout the episode is in reality the [[MonsterOfTheWeek UnSub]] himself, a mercenary ColdSniper using a kind of "focusing technique" so as to keep alert until the time the victim exposes herself]].
* DaylightHorror: Mass murderers have no problem attacking in the middle of the day as often as they attack at night.
* DeadAllAlong: Occasionally, an [=UnSub=]'s companion(s) throughout the episode will turn out to be this: [[spoiler:"Reflection of Desire", "Normal", and "Protection"]], among others.
* DeadArtistsAreBetter [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] in "Magnum Opus" commits SuicideByCop for this reason]].
* DeadGuyOnDisplay:
** The "Art of Dying" chapter from the PC game.
** "The Lesson," where victims are left on display inside of a box.
** "Magnum Opus," where victims are posed (with their eyelids cut out) looking at selected murals in San Francisco.
* ADeadlyAffair:
** Season 6 episode "Compromising Positions": The first victim of the killer's career was the man that impregnated his wife. When talking to the wife Reid shows her pictures of male murder victims and, despite Rossi and Hotch's skepticism, she turns on her husband when she sees the photo of the man who fathered her child.
** Season 10 episode "The Witness" has Charlie Senarak go after the man his wife was sleeping with. When he confronts the man, a struggle ensues, and Senarak kills the man. The man's half-brother, anti-government terrorist Mitchell Crossford, blackmails Senarak with this knowledge and tries to frame him for a sarin gas attack.
** During Season 12, Reid is sent to prison for a crime he did not commit. There he meets Calvin Shaw, a former FBI Agent who murdered his confidential informant. He claims that she was blackmailing him, but he actually was having an affair with her and killed her to prevent her from speaking and to destroy evidence of her pregnancy.
* DeadpanSnarker: ''Everyone'' on the team has their moments of this, but the most prominent examples are Hotch (with an emphasis on ''deadpan'', and combined with TheComicallySerious), Rossi, and Prentiss (and the latter two are ''especially'' snarky when teamed up together).
* DealWithTheDevil: Essentially what keeps the Reaper at bay for ten years.
* DeathByChildbirth:
** [[spoiler: The second [=UnSub=] (the first [=UnSub=]'s lover)]] in "A Thousand Words".
** Played with in "Cradle to Grave", where [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=] and his wife]] are killing the girls ''after'' they give birth, if the baby is a girl.
** The killer's mother in "Profiling 101" not only died while giving birth to him, but he was a ChildByRape. This, along with the horrific abuse he received at the hands of a cruel grandmother who resented him being born, saying he was conceived in sin and that her daughter's "womb was cursed", helped lead him to murder women and remove their uteri.
* DeathByIrony: End of "Paradise," and what happens to the main [=UnSub=] in "Minimal Loss."
* DeathCourse: The meatpacking plant in "Legacy." Highlights include gas vents, vicious dogs, a room with the floor covered in broken glass, and the body parts of previous victims suspended from the ceiling.
* DeceptiveDisciple: "Amplification"
* DefiantCaptive: [[spoiler: Meg, Kate's niece/adopted daughter (who was taught a lot of FBI techniques by Kate), becomes this once she realizes that playing along with the killer won't work.]] Generally considered a bad idea as defiance makes [=UnSubs=] more agitated.
** Prentiss has a habit of antagonizing her captors, notably in "Minimal Loss" when she states "I can take it" while being beat up, and in "Lauren" when [[spoiler: captured and interrogated by Doyle about the death of his son, Declan.]]
* DespairSpeech: Some [=UnSubs=] do this while confessing. The episode "Hopeless" shows how much this applies to the whole cast by having Hotchner using the OnceAnEpisode after-action quote moment to deliver one of these, prefacing it with "sometimes there's no fancy quotes that can be said".
* DesperatePleaForHome: In the episode "Submerged," a disturbed young man has been murdering people by binding them, tying cinder-blocks to them, and submerging them in bodies of water. At one point, he makes friends with a young boy by the name of Timmy, who unfortunately buys into the psychopath's pirate fantasy; this leads to the poor kid being bound and gagged as well, awaiting his turn to be the killer's next victim, during which he manages a muffled "I want to go home!"
* DidntSeeThatComing: Said word-for-word by Morgan in "Zoe's Reprise," after he and Prentiss seemingly stop the [=UnSub=] in the process of killing his next victim, only to discover that they are, in fact, a couple simply about to initiate a bout of very kinky sex.
* DiesWideOpen: [[spoiler: Kyle Murphy]] dies this way after [[spoiler: his older brother Danny shoves plane parts down his throat]] in "A Shade of Gray."
* DirtyCop: [[spoiler:An entire squad, bar the chief and likely the former chief]] in "Demons."
* DisappearedDad: Much of the cast, most notably Reid.
* DisappointedByTheMotive: Although there's other examples throughout the series, "Hopeless" is an incredibly powerful one because the discovery that the killers of the week are not slaughtering entire families because of some desire to take their anger out on the world or some weird sexual disposition or even because they are literally damaged individuals but because they ''think that it's fun'' makes the whole BAU decide to just walk away and allow the cops to unleash their anger on the killers and let a mass SuicideByCop happen.
* DisobeyedOrdersNotPunished: ''"Elephant's Memory"'', Reid violates protocol to try and talk down a Spree Killer whom he empathizes with, deliberately putting himself between the killer and a police sniper. Reid is successful, but Hotchner does read him the riot act for endangering others, though Reid ultimately isn't punished any further.
--> '''Hotchner:''' You knowingly jeopardized your life and the lives of others! I should fire you! You're the smartest kid in the room, but you're not the only one in that room. You pull something like this again, you will be! Am I clear?
* DisposableSexWorker: Happens a lot on this show (''e.g.'' "Legacy", "Sex, Birth, Death", "The Last Word"), but subverted in that the prostitutes are treated like people too, and the team takes crimes against them just as seriously. Inverted by "Pleasure is My Business", where the [=UnSub=] is a prostitute.
* DisproportionateRetribution: Maeve's stalker is eventually revealed to be working off of this. [[spoiler: Maeve rejected her thesis years ago because the study she did on suicide and couples included her own dead parents in the sample group, which was also implied to be too small to hold up. For this slight, the [=UnSub=] decided to make Maeve's life a living hell ''and'' prove herself better by dating Maeve's old boyfriend, then trying to seduce Reid, again to one-up Maeve. She is only happy when being assured that Maeve is not as good as she is. And the real kicker? Maeve actually thought her hypothesis might have merit, but thought she needed to improve her sampling techniques in order to present it properly.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: "Machismo"
* DoomMagnet:
** "Divining Rod": A woman was told that has a knack for "finding the evil in men" by her dowsing dad, and two serial killer boyfriends can't be wrong! [[spoiler: SuperEmpowering: The ending implies that she might have been "encouraging" them -- possibly unawares to the first (executed) boyfriend, but when your copycat boyfriend kills four women in one day [[TraumaticHairCut just to make you a nice wig]] you may as well embrace your "gift."]]
** This trope extends to the BAU as a whole often. Each of them have had so much stuff in their personal lives, both as part of their backstories and as a result of their profession.
*** Spencer Reid probably takes the cake. Reid's parent separated, his mother has schizophrenia and Reid struggles with the knowledge that there is a genetic component to schizophrenia and that as a male he's likely to also develop it as he ages. In her middle age she gets Alzheimer's, which could also be genetic and thus potentially passed down to him. As a child Reid was approached by a pedophile, then one of his friends was raped and murdered, which led to [[spoiler:his own mother]] killing the culprit when he invaded their home, which Reid then suppressed the memories of till years later when they surfaced and he thought it was his dad who raped and murdered the kid. Reid was also bullied extensively as a child, being the only kid under twelve in his high school, where several bullies at one point tied him to a pole, took his clothes, and left him there overnight. On the show Reid has been kidnapped and drugged at least twice (one of them he was tortured too), been shot in the leg, struggled with painkiller addiction, has seen a girlfriend murdered right in front of him literally the first time he actually got to see her in person, has been the target of another murderer he arrested, has been framed for murder and arrested in Mexico. And that's only SOME of what he's been through. Along with this Reid has a slew of {{Ambiguous Disorder}}s.
*** Derek Morgan: As a child, Morgan witnessed his father shot in the line of duty. Later he was sexually abused by the man who was a father figure for him. He was also frequently harassed by a police officer. His cousin was kidnapped and made someone's sexual slave for about a decade. On the show Morgan has been kidnapped and tortured once. He's also arrested and framed for murder at the behest of the man who once abused him. His wife was been shot by a sniper when in her third trimester.
*** Hotchner's wife was murdered by a serial killer while Hotchner himself was injured. Then his son was targeted by another forcing him to retire and go in witness protection. Hotchner also lost a friend to car bomb and suffered some hearing damage.
*** Then there's Gideon who basically got soul crushed by an Unsub he let go in exchange for a bus full of child hostages, forcing his retirement, and eventually was murdered.
*** Even Garcia, who is rarely in the field, and therefore rarely exposed to [=UnSubs=] still wound up getting shot by a man she'd dated who liked to cause crimes and report them because he thought she was on to him.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: Several examples.
** "Derailed" is an episode about a man having a psychotic break... on a stopped train.
** "Empty Planet" refers to an [[FictionalDocument in-universe science-fiction novel]] [[spoiler: and also to what the [=UnSub=] thinks the world is becoming, due to the proliferation of machine technology -- courtesy of his delusions inspired by the aforementioned book]].
** "Revelations" has an [=UnSub=] who believes he is living out the Biblical Literature/BookOfRevelation, and also contains several major, more mundane revelations about Reid's backstory.
** The StoryArc of Reid's drug use is developed in "Jones"; the title is the name of a bar in New Orleans which is a crime scene, and also a reference to an addict "jonesing" for his next fix.
** "Open Season" refers both to what the [[spoiler:[=UnSub=] team]] is doing with the victims, who appear to have little in common, and to [[spoiler:the fact that the [=UnSubs=] are hunters]].
** "In Name and Blood" refers to various fathers or father figures, and their respective tribulations with their sons (or sons-in-spirit): Hotch, [[spoiler: who loses his son when Haley leaves him]]; the [=UnSub=], [[spoiler: Mr. Smith, who is dying of a malignant brain tumor, has been using his son to lure murder victims, and structures his abductions and dumpings around his son's school schedule]]; and Gideon, a father-figure to Reid ("in name"), who left the team due to his inability to handle the work, but [[spoiler:only explained himself to Reid]].
** "About Face," while referring to the [=UnSub=] who is sending his victims and the local media "missing persons" fliers with their faces manipulated in and then cut out, is also the episode where we meet Rossi, Gideon's replacement. Rossi's character is an "about-face" (180-degree turn) from Gideon, egotistical and ruthless where Gideon was cerebral and team-oriented.
** "In Heat" involves an [=UnSub=] who kills because of his sexual impulses, and takes place in the very warm city of Miami.
** "Tabula Rasa" refers to both the presumed serial killer's memory, which has been wiped by coma-induced amnesia, and to the fact that, due to time-degraded evidence, the team spends the episode working primarily from the profile.
** "Cold Comfort" refers to both the cold comfort of false hope, and the cold comfort of necrophilia.
** "Demonology" refers to both the personal demons faced by [[spoiler: Emily Prentiss]] over the course of the episode, and to [[spoiler:demonic exorcism]].
** "Conflicted" refers to both [[spoiler: the conflict between Adam Jackson and his alternate personality, Amanda]] and the fact that Reid is [[spoiler: still conflicted about his experiences with Tobias Hankel]].
** "Haunted" refers to the psychological haunting [[spoiler:of the [=UnSub=] by his father's career as an [=UnSub=], and of Hotch by the Boston Reaper]].
** "Outfoxed" brings back the serial killer from "The Fox," who reveals at the end of the episode that [[spoiler: the Boston Reaper has outfoxed Hotch and is threatening Haley and Jack]].
** "The Slave of Duty" [[spoiler: deals in part with Hotch's decision to return to the BAU after the Boston Reaper kills Haley; the title is both a description of Hotch's personality and the alternate title of ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance''. Hotch met Haley when they were both in a high school production of ''Pirates'']].
** "Risky Business" refers to and darkly twists certain plot elements of the Creator/TomCruise movie of the same name -- [[spoiler: privileged, apparently straight-edge kids get into trouble behind their parents' backs, to hilarity in the film's case and to their deaths in the episode]] -- as well as echoing the notion of a victim being high or low risk, which is brought up several times over the course of the series.
** "JJ" Agent Jareau [[spoiler: having to leave the team]] as well as the potential nickname for the victim of the week. Her mother says they were considering naming her Jennifer instead of Kate.
** "Compromising Positions" refers to the sex the [=UnSub=] forces his victims to have before killing them, as well as the swinger's parties he's finding them at. It also refers to Garcia "compromising" [[spoiler: both her usual role as technical analyst and taking on J.J.'s former job as media liaison, and finding it impossible to do both to an acceptable standard]].
** "Safe Haven" refers to what the families who are killed are trying to give the [=UnSub=], not knowing what he's planning for them, [[spoiler: as well as being the name of the law under which the teenage [=UnSub=] was given up by his mother, precipitating his descent into murder]]. On top of all that, you also have [[spoiler: little Ellie Spicer, from "Our Darkest Hour" and "The Longest Night," looking for a safe haven away from her neglectful foster family in California by running away to Virginia to see Morgan]].
** "Profiling 101" refers to both the undergraduate class the team walks through the case in the episode and [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=]'s whopping 101 victims]].
** "Hope" can be unintentionally comical at times, as it deals with a woman's hope on the return of her long-kidnapped daughter... also named Hope:
--->'''[=UnSub=]:''' I'm the man who took Hope.\\
'''Mother:''' You took my Hope??!!
* DoubleStandard: In "Psychodrama" the family treats the father like he let the [=UnSub=] have their way with them while the [=UnSub=] held them at gunpoint with a Mac 10. Stating he should have fought back to protect them despite doing such action would have been suicidal.
* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: No, it is ''[[AvertedTrope not okay]]''. This either occurs or is a concern in "I Love You Tommy Brown" (along with DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnFemale), and it's treated with as much horror as it deserves.
** This trope is actually invoked in-universe during that very episode, acknowledging the double standard. A damn rarity for television. Shame as that is.
** The episode "Psychodrama" also indicates that a mother sexually abused her son and daughter. It's a relatively minor plot point, but is treated as being appropriately horrific.
** Also averted in "The Angel Maker". The team initially assumes the [=UnSub=] is male as the victims are being raped and murdered. They later learn the killer is a woman, and while they make a comment that she would had to have used an object to commit the rape, it is still clearly not okay.
** A [[CureYourGays "conversion therapy" center]] in "Broken" hired a prostitute to have sex with gay boys against their will in an attempt to "cure" them of their sexuality. This is treated appropriately as just one more of the center's many crimes, such as chaining them to chairs and keeping them drugged awake to watch heterosexual porn for the same purpose.
* DownerEnding:
** "100" most notably, since it's where [[spoiler: Hotch crosses the DespairEventHorizon]].
** "North Mammon" is also pretty bad, since [[spoiler:they don't find the three missing girls before they make the SadisticChoice offered to them by their kidnapper -- kill one and the other two go free]].
** "The Fox" -- [[spoiler:Sure, Karl Arnold is caught and tricked into a confession, but then Hotch finds a little box in which the [=UnSub=] keeps the wedding rings of the men he kills. There are eight rings, which mean Karl has killed many more people without raising any suspicion before being caught]].
** The end of the case (but not the episode) in "Normal" -- [[spoiler: Norman's family was DeadAllAlong, and he'd been hallucinating that they were still alive the whole time. Even worse, the time of death was confirmed to have been before the BAU's involvement, meaning there was absolutely nothing they could have done to save them at all]].
** "Honor Among Thieves" -- [[spoiler: The victim's daughter turned out to be the [=UnSub=]'s girlfriend, and was working with him to extort ransom money from his father, a Russian mob boss. In the end, the only justice that gets handed down is Mob justice]].
** "Aftermath" -- [[spoiler: Elle's pent up resentment and rage over how she believes the team abandoned her during the events of "The Fisher King" ultimately causes her to snap and brutally murder an unarmed man, effectively destroying her career in the FBI and horrifying her teammates.]]
** "Doubt" -- [[spoiler: Hotch's mishandling of the case leaves three people dead and his career with the BAU in jeopardy. Gideon, already heavily traumatized by the events of "No Way Out Part 2," blames himself for the case's failure and resigns from the BAU for good.]]
** "Revelations" -- [[spoiler:Reid]] is rescued from his kidnapper... but he's now a drug addict.
** "3rd Life" -- [[spoiler: Reid is ForcedToWatch as the teenage [=UnSub=] is gunned down by the kidnapped girl's father, who is revealed to be an unrepentant hitman who will continue to go on killing.]]
** "True Night" -- [[spoiler: "Hey, this is Vicky! I can't come to the phone right now because I'm out living my life!"]]
** "Bloodline" -- [[spoiler: The Romani family has multiple branches, which will continue to kill families and kidnap girls to maintain the bloodline]].
** "Conflicted" -- [[spoiler: Adam is completely consumed by his female split personality, Amanda]].
** "A Shade of Gray" -- [[spoiler: The BAU may have caught a predatory pedophile who killed two young boys, but he was framed for the murder for which they were after him. The victim's real killer turns out to be his older brother, and his parents conspired with their police detective friend to stage it as a murder by the pedophile, for whom the cops were already looking anyway. In the end, the boy is implied to be on his way to an institution, and the detective has been forced to resign and will likely face charges]].
** "The Big Wheel" is a pretty huge downer, although there is some goodness in the fact that [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=] actually did have a breakthrough that enabled him to finally clasp the hand of his friend]].
** As Hotch himself points out in the narration, "To Hell and Back" -- [[spoiler: Lucas is gunned down by the team, and Mason is killed by the brother of one of the victims, leaving no one alive to face justice for the crimes they committed. The fact that the episode, and season, ends with Hotch being ambushed by The Reaper makes it an even bigger downer ending]].
** "Into the Woods" -- [[spoiler:The [=UnSub=] gets away]]. Rossi, however, [[DefiedTrope denies that this is the case]], because they still [[spoiler: saved the children]], and that's what matters the most.
** "What Happens at Home," because [[spoiler:the killer murders his own wife, while his own daughter begs him to stop. Later he attacks Hotchner, who has no choice except to shoot him, though not before the murderer apologizes to his daughter, leaving her alone.]]
** "Lauren" -- [[spoiler:Subverted: Although there are wrenching hospital and funeral scenes, and the team suffers a terrible loss, Prentiss is shown to be alive at the very end.]]
** "Dorado Falls" -- [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] opens his eyes, triggering his mental illness and making him want to kill his wife and daughter, whom he now thinks are impostors.]]
** "From Childhood's Hour" ends with Rossi's first ex-wife [[spoiler: telling him she has ALS and asking him to help her commit suicide]]. The very next episode, [[spoiler: Carolyn, the ex-wife, kills herself and dies in Rossi's arms. Then he's shown at the cemetery, staring at a headstone that belongs to their son, who died the day he was born.]] Poor Rossi.
** "Heathridge Manor" -- [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=]'s sister ends up succumbing to the same mental illness as her brother, and hallucinates Satan arriving at the house to take her away.]]
** "Zugzwang" (see TheBadGuyWins, above). It was such a downer that many fans got upset with the ending, and Breen Frazier, the writer of the episode, said that the anger was his goal all along.
** "The Edge of Winter" -- [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] [[StockholmSyndrome utterly broke]] one of his kidnapping victims, to the point where she aided him in killing his victims and cleaning up afterward. The episode takes place in a mental institution (her story told through flashback), and it's unlikely that she'll ever recover.]]
** "X" (Season 10 premiere) -- [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] was just one of a network of bad guys who kidnap innocent people and sells them on the darkest parts the internet, and the end of the episode shows another victim being taken]]. This particular revelation [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse is left hanging]] until [[spoiler: the end of the season ("The Hunt"), where said network is discovered and dismantled]].
** "The Night Watch" -- While the infant kidnapped at the beginning of the episode [[ImprobableInfantSurvival is found safe]], [[spoiler: Morpheus' ex-husband, who killed three other people, flings himself and her off a roof, killing them both just as the team starts to negotiate with him]].
* DreamSequence: One of the victims in "Awake" escapes from his captor and later reunites with his wife, [[HopeSpot and then is forced awake each time]].
* DrivenToSuicide: A number of [=UnSubs=] kill themselves at the end of their episodes.
** This was actually the original plan for how to write Gideon out, but Creator/MandyPatinkin refused. You can still see echoes of it in "In Birth and Death", particularly in the shot where he contemplates his gun before putting it on the table with his badge instead.
** Done literally by an [=UnSub=] who targets people driving red coupes and runs them over with his pick-up, because his wife died from an accident involving a red coupe. When the team discover that [[spoiler: the red coupe was her car, and he was driving it when the accident happened]] and confront the [=UnSub=] about why his memories of the tragedy are so vague, [[GoMadFromTheRevelation he drives off a cliff]].
* DropTheHammer: "The Angel Maker" and "To Hell and Back".
* DuelingHackers: How Garcia and Kevin meet.
* DysfunctionJunction: Let's count them off, shall we?
** Morgan [[spoiler: was sexually molested from childhood through adolescence by an authority figure]], and his father was killed in front of him when he was very young.
** Prentiss had a neglectful mother and [[spoiler: had an abortion at age 15. One should note that the abortion itself is never played for angst; rather the consequences of it -- her isolation from the baby's father and the guilt heaped on her by her Catholic upbringing -- is]]. She also [[spoiler: went under deep cover to catch Doyle, to the point of feigning a relationship with him. We see that Doyle fell for her, but whether she did or didn't have some feelings for Doyle is unclear. In any case, they wind up trying to kill each other. Her resulting psychological issues are referenced throughout Season 7, notably in "Unknown Subject" where she is seen in counseling and talks to a rape victim about what it's like when "the monster from your nightmares" comes back for you.]]
** Rossi has three ex-wives as a result of being MarriedToTheJob. He also had [[ThatOneCase the Galen case]] ("Damaged") and the Butcher case ("Remembrance of Things Past"), which haunted him for more than ten years and didn't get solved until he came out of retirement. And in "From Childhood's Hour," [[spoiler: his first ex-wife, Carolyn, returns to ask him to help assist in her suicide, not wanting to go through the deterioration of ALS. He turns her down, and she kills herself anyway. The same episode reveals that they had had a son who died the day he was born.]]
** Garcia's parents were killed by a drunk driver when she was 18. She "went underground" and became one of the most dangerous hackers in the world. She was forced to join the FBI to avoid prison and [[spoiler: was once ''shot'' by a narcissistic [=UnSub=]]]. She also worries that she's getting desensitized by all the horrible things that she sees.
** Hotch is trying to raise his son [[spoiler: after his ex-wife -- his high school sweetheart -- was murdered by the Reaper, who made him listen over the phone while she died. Hotch was so grief-stricken that he beat the Reaper to death ''with his bare hands'']]. Oh, and this was ''after'' he got [[spoiler: stabbed and possibly raped by the Reaper, and had his son taken into protective custody]]. ''And'' after that time he nearly got blown up by a suicide bomber, lost an old flame in the same attack, and had painful hearing problems for some time afterwards as a result of it shattering his eardrums. And it does not stop there, as it's implied at the end of "Natural Born Killer" that [[spoiler: he was abused by his father]].
** J.J. had [[spoiler: an older sister who committed suicide by slitting her wrists]] and grew up in a stifling small-town environment. She also [[spoiler: had a miscarriage during her assignment in the Middle East.]]
** Reid has a schizophrenic mother, a dad who walked out on them, drug addiction and social isolation. And his father figure up and left without even saying goodbye in person. He also lives in fear of the day that he might experience his own schizophrenic break.
** Both Gideon and Elle were so messed up by the job -- Gideon by the serial killer [[spoiler: who killed his girlfriend in his own home]] (after he'd already had to get over the trauma of losing his previous team to a MadBomber); Elle by [[spoiler: the serial rapist on whom she went [[VigilanteExecution vigilante executioner]]]] -- that they up and left the team. Gideon didn't even resign in person, he just left a letter behind for Reid and took off. Elle, though, only resigned when Hotch made it clear he would never trust her again and [[spoiler: would arrest her like anyone else if he had evidence of her crime.]]
** Seaver's [[spoiler: father was a serial killer]].

[[folder: E-F]]
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The pilot. Hotch smiles. Repeatedly. ''On the job''. There's also some tonal differences, like having multiple voice-over quotes throughout the episode instead of just as bookends; and characterization weirdness, like Morgan's wardrobe and Reid's "autistic tendencies" being decidedly more pronounced. This all gets smoothed over within the first four episodes or so.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Morgan]] goes through hell in the episodes leading up to his departure, but comes out intact by the end, [[spoiler:along with his wife and newborn son]].
* EcoTerrorist: One episode had an arsonist who began murdering men involved with corporations accused of being heavy polluters, as well as their families. It turns out he was acting alone, and was nothing more than a sadistic psychopath (he used a suit that allowed him to watch his victims burn up close). His actions disgusted the local environmental group whose website he was using to find his "justifiable" victims, especially the leader, who kills him in an instance of TakingYouWithMe.
* EldritchLocation: The team briefly discuss the possibility that the titular "Heathridge Manor" [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane might be this]], given that [[spoiler:all three of its residents end up going completely insane]].
* ElectricTorture: "Charm and Harm", "Limelight", "Remembrance of Things Past", and a variation in "Lauren".
* EndangeringNewsBroadcast: The BAU often tries to control media information to prevent the [=UnSub=] from learning what they know, but it doesn't always work and sometimes information gets leaked anyway, causing either mass hysteria or the crimes to escalate.
* EnfantTerrible: "The Boogeyman" and "A Shade of Gray".
-->'''Jason Gideon:''' Why did you hurt those kids?\\
[[spoiler: '''Jeffrey Charles:''']] Because I wanted to.
** In "A Shade of Gray," a [[spoiler: little boy named Danny kills his younger brother because he broke one of his model planes. When his parents discover what he has done, Danny only feigns remorse so he won't get in trouble, secretly content his "annoying" brother is dead]].
---> [[spoiler: "He shoved plane parts down his brother's throat."]]
** Some of the adult [=UnSubs=] were also pretty screwed up as children. A partial list: Mark Gregory from "Charm and Harm" drowned his mother; Floyd Feylinn Ferell from "Lucky" tried to eat his baby sister; Peter Redding from "A Higher Power" slashed his brother's wrists; Colby Bachner from "Remembrance of Things Past" unwittingly helped his father murder his mother when he was ten; and The Reaper killed his parents and made it look like a car accident.
** [[spoiler: Jeremy, the budding sociopath]] in "Safe Haven".
** In "All That Remains," [[spoiler:Sarah Morrison kills her sister and mother, and had meticulously planned out their demise while setting up her dissociative identity disorder afflicted father to take the blame. She even tries to convince the BAU unit that [[WoundedGazelleGambit JJ wants to hurt her!]]]]
* EnhanceButton
* EntertainmentAboveTheirAge: A flashback scene shows profiler Spencer Reid recalling that as a child, he once brought his mother a copy of ''Rememberance of Things Past'' by Marcel Proust for her to read to him. She, knowing he was a child prodigy, merely complimented him on his choice.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** It is mentioned several times throughout the series that pedophiles are considered scum even by hardened criminals.
** Some criminals make it a point that while they've done horrible things, they will draw the line at some point.
** The killers in "Identity" were loathed by even the other members of their RightWingMilitiaFanatic coven for [[DomesticAbuse how badly they treated women]].
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes:
** Some criminals do genuinely care about their friends and family.
** William Harris in ''Soul Mates''. Even though he's raped and murdered girls that were about his daughter's age, he will not stand anything happening to [[PapaWolf his daughter]]. Bitterly ironic when Morgan and Rossi pointed out that the girls he and his partner killed were other people's daughters.
* EvilCripple: [[spoiler: "The Fisher King", "Roadkill", "To Hell..."/"... And Back" and "A Family Affair"]]
* EvilLaugh: "Lucky" and "Outfoxed".
* EvilGloating: [[spoiler: Foyet to Hotch in "Nameless, Faceless": "Like my scars? Yours are going to look just like them." He does it again in "100": "I'm going to find that little bastard son of yours and show him your dead bodies and tell him it's all your fault."]]
** The second example was [[BerserkButton something]] [[DespairEventHorizon of]] [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown a]] mistake on the gloater's part.
* EvilIsPetty: [[spoiler: Maeve's stalker is entirely motivated by the fact that Maeve rejected a thesis of hers since the girl had poorly conducted her sample by including her own parents' suicides. She then shaped her entire life around being better than Maeve, began dating Maeve's ex-boyfriend, and then tried to take Reid when she realized Maeve loved him.]]
* EvilTwin: Parodied in "The Angel Maker", where Reid suggests they're dealing with an Evil Twin and an ''Eviler'' Twin. Needless to say, they're not.
** Played magnificently straight in [[spoiler:"The Inspiration,"]] where it's not revealed to be that until the very end. And then subverted the next episode, when they turn out to be equally evil.
* EvilVersusEvil: Okay, maybe not ''evil'', but the Guantanamo guards detaining the BigBad in "Lessons Learned" are portrayed as little more than [[SmashMook brainless, brutish thugs]] themselves. This was likely partly due to [[HellholePrison the perception of the facility in the public eye]] and partly to contrast them with the protagonists.
* ExactWords: Weaponized by the [=UnSub=] in "JJ". The team are trying to figure out how he beat a polygraph. They then realize he used this. [[spoiler: He threw her overboard to be eaten by sharks. "Did you kill her?" No, sharks did. "Do you know where her body is?" No, because it could be anywhere now]].
* ExpandedUniverse: A trilogy of books (all of which take place mid-Season 3) and a computer game.
* ExtraYExtraViolent: Played with; one killer claims that he's XYY, and that's why he kills. However, Rossi replies that the study linking that condition to criminal behavior was debunked years ago.
* EyeScream: "The Eyes Have It"
** Particularly disturbing is a part where Reid mentions that sometimes "enucleators" (eye gougers) eat the eyeballs they take. Hard cut to a scene of the [=UnSub=] eating something small and round and white... and it takes the viewers a couple seconds to realize he's just eating eggs.
** For a more subdued example, there's the killer's habit of gluing his victims' eyes open in "Plain Sight."
** "Proof" features a killer who dribbles acid into his victims' eyes. We get to see a lovely view of the corpses' vacant eye-sockets.
** "To Bear Witness." The idea of [[spoiler: a microscopic camera installed in your eye via a lobotomy. Also, the way the spaces around Dana and Sam's eyes were red and almost sunken was horrifying]].
* TheFaceless: The [=UnSub=] from "A Thousand Words".
* FaceDeathWithDignity:
** Averted with [[spoiler: Strauss]], who dies terrified and crying for her children. Running contrary to the trope, this actually makes her more sympathetic and human.
** Played straight with [[spoiler:Haley]]. "Show him no weakness. No fear." "I know."
* FacialRecognitionSoftware: In "Derailed," Garcia uses this, plus her standard OmniscientDatabase, to successfully identify every single passenger on a train using grainy security camera footage.
* FairCop:
** J.J. and Prentiss are just overall criminally beautiful.
** On the male side we have [[PrettyBoy Reid]].
** [[TallDarkAndHandsome Hotch]].
** Even [[CoolOldGuy Rossi, despite being an older man]], is pretty handsome.
* FairyTaleMotifs: "The Fisher King", "Solitary Man", "If the Shoe Fits".
* FakeGuestStar: Kirsten Vangsness, before her PromotionToOpeningTitles in the second season.
* FakeKillScare: [[spoiler: Haley's death scene]] was set up as this in the show's 100th episode. And then it was terribly, horribly averted...
* FamedInStory: SSA David Rossi, who's made a boatload of money from his [[FictionalDocument books]], is one of the founders of the BAU, and apparently has a big following "when Manilow's not in town".
* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether:
** "Bloodline" is about a family (a mother, father, and young son) who kill another family to abduct their daughter as a future mate for the son. [[spoiler: Gets very creepy when it turns out that this is how the family continues; ''[[VillainousLineage they've been doing this for generations]]''. And then at the very end of the episode, it turns out that the family has other branches, and the last shot of the episode is another similar set (mother, father and young son) preparing to kill some other people.]]
** "Open Season" has brothers [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame who hunt people for sport]], having been taught to so by their uncle, a paranoid psychotic who had died some time before the events of the episode.
** Two borderline examples are "Mosley Lane" (the first kid abducted by the couple was kept alive, because he developed severe StockholmSyndrome; the couple treats him sort of like a son, and he even helps them abduct other kids) and "A Thousand Words" (a near example because the father committed suicide, and [[spoiler: the mother dies giving birth to their son]].)
** "Remembrance of Things Past" plays with the trope. [[spoiler: The [=UnSub=] had started as a serial killer years before, and only as he'd started to lose his memory due to Alzheimer's Disease did he grudgingly take on his son as a partner.]]
** "The Longest Night" also plays with the trope. [[spoiler:Billy Flynn is so messed up in the head that, because he left her father alive, he believes himself to be responsible for Ellie Spicer's being born. In fact, he's come to see himself as a grandfather figure to her of sorts, and actively tries to invoke this trope. Needless to say, [[LittleMissBadass it doesn't work]].]]
* FanDisservice: [[spoiler: Doyle opening Prentiss' shirt and showing her bra when branding her]].
* FanserviceExtra: The episode "Supply & Demand" has a lot of cute brunette women in their underwear.
* FatalFamilyPhoto: [[spoiler: "Fear and Loathing" and "Our Darkest Hour"]].
* FetusTerrible: The unsub's mother in "Safe Haven" believes he was this. As she put it, "I was pregnant with twins, and then I wasn't." He counters that her hatred of him since his birth is what turned him into a monster.
* FeudingFamilies: The "Blood Relations" episode involves two West Virginian families that have been in a feud that dates back to when they were working as rival {{Hillbilly Moonshiner}}s in the times of prohibition.
* FictionalCounterpart:
** In "Lockdown," a series of murders take place in a private prison run by Citadel Corrections Company, a fictional version of Corrections Corporation of America.
** In "Breath Play," an [=UnSub=] becomes motivated to kill after reading the bestselling erotic novel 'Bare Reflections', an obvious expy of ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey''.
* FictionalDocument: Several examples:
** David Rossi is the author of several books on criminal psychology; an [=UnSub=] quotes from them in an interrogation scene in "Masterpiece" and Rossi himself reads from one in the opening to "Zoe's Reprise."
*** Reid has also quoted from them, including once early in Rossi's run on the show. Rossi was surprised at the direct quote. No one else shared this surprise.
** A new book on the Keystone Killer induces the [=UnSub=] to resume his murderous ways in "Unfinished Business."
*** The spin-off novel ''Criminal: Killer Profile'' has another book written by the former profiler featured in the episode -- ''Serial Killers and Mass Murderers: Profiling Why They Kill''. Near the end, it's discovered [[spoiler: the [=UnSub=] is using it as a guide to [[JackTheRipoff his copycat murders]]]].
** A reporter who wrote a book on the Boston Reaper is a character in "Omnivore."
** Professor Ursula Kent's SF novel in "Empty Planet."
** Jonny [=McHale=]'s comic book ''Blue'' in "True Night."
* FingerInTheMail: The Season 1 finale features a variation on this trope; SSA Jason Gideon receives, at his cottage, a baseball card and a head in a box via courier, which sets the BAU's targets on this new case.
* FlashbackBPlot: The series' present-day stories about {{FBI agent}}s solving crimes are intertwined with flashbacks detailing the crime itself and the people involved.
* FootDraggingDivorcee: Hotch hesitates for several episodes to sign the papers that divorce him from Haley.
* ForcedPrizeFight: The backstory to "Lockdown", taking place inside a prison.
* ForcedToWatch: If the [=UnSub=] is particularly sadistic. Though a couple go further and force them to ''participate''.
* ForTheEvulz:
** "3rd Life". The three thrill killers from "Hopeless" and the (unrelated) rioters in the same episode.
-->'''Morgan:''' You know what gets me? All this time we figured you guys were down and out. But here you are working? What the hell is so so God-awful about your lives that you have to take it out on everyone else?\\
'''J.R. Baker:''' [[AxCrazy It was fun, boss.]]
** Syd and her husband in "The Thirteenth Step," though they have a reason. [[spoiler:It's leading up to killing their sexually abusive fathers. Syd's especially, since she's the leader of the two and all but one of the attacks happen in places that remind her of her dad.]]
** This seems to be the case for the Reaper [[spoiler: George Foyet]] as well. The core of his character is that he gets off on manipulating and having power over people.
** Adrian Bale in the early episode "Won't Get Fooled Again". He agrees to tell the BAU how to disarm a complicated bomb, and in exchange he will be transferred from his maximum security prison to a mental hospital, and Agent Gideon will have to apologize to his victims' families, and admit that it was entirely his fault their respective relative died. When the inevitable WireDilemma occurs, Bale, even though doing so ''completely invalidates his deal'', purposely tells them to cut the wrong wire... because the bomb blowing up will give him some kind of "emotional release".
** It's a TV show about FBI profilers who hunt down (mostly) serial killers using psychological analysis to develop profiles of the likely unsub (unknown subject) so, obviously, most episodes avert this. However, some unsubs do still fall into this trope, making a particularly tricky case for the BAU.
** Subverted in the ''episode'' "To Hell And Back". The team profile someone who is abducting random drug users and homeless people as someone who is killing For The Evulz -- but it is actually a ManChild who is carrying out orders of his crippled ManipulativeBastard brother, who says he was using the victims to perform horrible human experiments in the hope of finding a cure for his condition. Then a DoubleSubversion when Rossi calls bullshit on that and says he's just a sadist, who enjoys forcing his brother to torture and kill people while he watches, since none of the equipment he has on hand is remotely suited to advanced medical research.
** Ben Bradstone from "Proof". He doesn't understand why people ask why someone would do these horrible things. He says its the same reason people do anything, because it's fun. That's why he [[KickTheDog kicked his dog]] as a kid.
** In the Season 2 episode "The Boogeyman", Gideon asks [[spoiler:young Jeffery Charles]] why he killed three children and almost killed another one. His response? "Because I wanted to."
* FreakOut: Most of the spree killer episodes, most notably "Haunted". Really, any time one of the [=UnSubs=] devolves.
* FreudianExcuse:
** The hitman in "Natural Born Killer" got sloppy in the triple murder that opens the episode because one of the victims was a woman and he identified her with his mother.
** Also a main issue for [[BigBad Frank Breitkopf]] and [[BigBad Billy Flynn]].
** The insane mother of the [=UnSub=] in "Heathridge Manor" convinced her son [[spoiler: from beyond the grave thanks to "infecting" him with her delusions]] that he had to destroy "the devil's brides" to save his sister.
* FreezeFrameBonus: You can see the whole list of victims at the beginning of "Reckoner". Of course, it will mean nothing to you unless you know TheReveal.
** In one episode, some fraud is happening via fake businesses that all have the formula "Video Game Character + Innocuous Business" as a name; most of these are called out, but you can see an extra one as a freeze-frame bonus: [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2 Ezio's]] Flower Shop.
* FriendshipMoment: Any ending scene on the jet, or when the team hangs out off the clock.
** Special mention to the one from "The Performer," where Reid mothers J.J., Morgan and Prentiss pick on Reid, and Hotch and Rossi argue about music and do their best [[LikeAnOldMarriedCouple married couple impersonation]].
** The ending of "Proof" when the team gathers at Rossi's for a cooking lesson
** Multiple instances of the women being shown out shopping, getting coffee, or gossiping together about their personal lives.
** The team (minus Reid, who is with his mother) having dinner together in "The Instincts," which is heartbreakingly reprised in "JJ".
** Hotch and Rossi coaching Jack's soccer team at the end of "Out of the Light."
** Rossi teaching Garcia, as well as the rest of the team, to cook Italian food at the end of "Proof." Bonus points to J.J. for just wanting to drink the wine and Hotch being the most knowledgeable besides Rossi.
** The implications that J.J. was Prentiss' lifeline [[spoiler: while Prentiss was in hiding and presumed dead by the rest of the team]].
* TheFundamentalist: "Scarecrow" features an [=Un=]Sub who had a violently homicidal hangup about sex and "penance" that could be traced back to his upbringing; notably, trying to trace his motives and ''modus operandi'', they find a slightly weird-looking local prayer group that he had been part of and then ''left off'' from because they weren't practitioners of the kind of ritual self-harm he'd had on his mind.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In "Compulsion," a student is telling to Hotch about his physics project and, rhetorically, asks 'Do you know how to solve the Three-Body Problem?' Behind them, Reid nods with a serious look on his face.
* FurnaceBodyDisposal: "Moseley Lane" has this, but there is also definite overlap with MurderByCremation. The child abductors are shown to want to kill their most recent, troublesome victim by putting her in their furnace (while still alive). However, they are also shown to place all their victims' bodies, regardless of how they died, in the furnace and spread their ashes on their garden.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:G-H]]
* {{Gayngst}}: "In Heat"
* GenderEqualEnsemble: Comes extremely close.
** This show does get a fair bit past the radar in daytime hours, but Sky Living's censors don't seem to notice, let alone care ([[LoopholeAbuse but no Ofcom rules are broken, at the time of writing]].)
* GenerationXerox: "Birthright" has Robert and Charlie Wilkinson, father and son serial killers. Both are alcoholic, misogynistic men who started murdering women when both were 28-years-old. Both abuse and kill at least five women, and [[spoiler: both are murdered by their pregnant spouses when they discover what their husbands had done.]]
* TheGlassesGottaGo: Fabulous subversion: After J.J.'s departure, Garcia (normally a {{Meganekko}}) tries dropping her usual distinctive style of dress for boring dark dresses, and (in a complete flip of PurelyAestheticGlasses) gets contacts so that she can look serious when dealing with victims' families and such. When she's starting to lose it, Morgan actually gets her to put the glasses (and her old wardrobe) back on.
* GoIntoTheLight: In "Epilogue," the [=UnSub=] [[spoiler: resuscitates his victims so he can find out what they saw and compare it to his own NearDeathExperience]]. During the investigation, Reid reveals that he saw a bright light before [[spoiler: Tobias Hankel resuscitated him]]; but the trope is subverted for Prentiss, who counters that she flatlined in the ambulance after [[spoiler: being impaled by Doyle]] and only felt cold and darkness.
** Becomes useful in "Wheels Up", where [[spoiler:Scratch doses Emily with a drug and gives her hypnotic suggestions that she's having an NDE standing in front of her own grave with two death dates on the headstone. That's how she figures out that she's not really in excruciating pain.]]
* AGodAmI: The [[spoiler: original bomber]] from "Painless".
* GollumMadeMeDoIt: "The Big Game"/"Revelations"
* GoneHorriblyRight[=/=]GoneHorriblyWrong:
** "Hero Worship" [[spoiler: A guy rigs a bomb to play hero and impress his girlfriend, whose dead husband wasn't just his best friend but a heroic soldier. The bomb cracks a gas line, accidentally killing a bunch of people, and then ''another'' bomber gets pissed that he's getting all the attention. (Perhaps needless to say, the first bomber's relationship with his girlfriend does not survive)]]
** The VigilanteMan in "Protection" is determined to find the man who killed his mother and terrorized his tenants and clean up the streets in the meantime. Actually, [[spoiler: the criminal was in already in jail in another city; the schizophrenic [=UnSub=] killed the tenants and has been living with delusions of them (ironically said delusions want him to take his meds), and one of his victims was not only innocent, he was also a star student who was on his way out of the bad neighborhood when the [=UnSub=] imagined he was a mugger.]]
* GoodCopBadCop: Hotch (Bad Cop) and Prentiss (Good Cop) do a fairly spectacular version in "Bloodlines."
** Again with Morgan (Bad Cop) and Gideon (Good Cop) in "The Boogeyman", although it should be noted that Morgan had every reason to believe the guy was the [=UnSub=], while Gideon was aware that he was innocent (but covering for the real [=UnSub=]) just before he took over the interrogation from Morgan.
** Rossi (Bad Cop) and Reid (Snarky Good Cop) in "Lauren," against a weaselly mook that Rossi keeps calling a "hood rat".
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Subverted by [[spoiler: Emily Prentiss, FBI agent who had an abortion at fifteen and is never shown to have angst over it. She does regret the division it caused among her friends -- such as when Matthew's family cut all contact with him because he supported her -- and that it's affected her faith and relationship with the Catholic Church. She is never once shown to have been "punished" or seen as "bad" because of her abortion.]]
** Also subverted in the episode "The Crossing": [[spoiler: it's revealed at one point that a stalking victim had an abortion, but although this causes some problems between her and her boyfriend, it's not connected in any way to the stalking and her abduction is not positioned as narrative punishment for having it. The episode also subtly implies, entirely non-judgmentally, that newly-pregnant JJ has been considering an abortion up until the point where she calls her boyfriend in the final scene.]]
* {{Goth}}:
** "The Performer" involves a series of murders seemingly associated with a {{Goth}} rock star and his fans' subculture.
** "Tabula Rasa" tells us that Prentiss was a goth in high school, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZyzGxU0brw and there are pictures to prove it]].
--->'''Prentiss:''' You obviously altered it in Photoshop or something. That ''hair''?\\
'''Garcia:''' Oh, no, Pussycat. That -- that's all you. Garfield High, Class of '89.\\
'''Prentiss:''' You really didn't change anything?\\
'''Garcia:''' I hacked it, as is. You're seriously trying to tell me you don't remember rocking that look?\\
'''Reid:''' Perhaps your lack of recognition stems from a dissociative fugue suffered in adolescence. Say, at a Siouxsie and the Banshees concert?
** "Doubt" featured a {{Goth}}/{{Emo}} college student who [[spoiler:copycat-killed a dorm-mate so the [=UnSub=] would be released. She wanted the [=UnSub=] to kill her because she didn't have the nerve to kill herself]].
** "Risky Business" gives us the {{Goth}} kid the team believes runs the "choking game" site. [[spoiler: He's actually not the [=UnSub=]. His father is.]]
** "The Popular Kids" had a group of {{Goth}} kids who were viable suspects. [[spoiler: They were innocent.]]
** One of the unsub's fellow bullying victims in "The Anti-Terrorism Squad" is a soft-spoken girl with black cloning and eyeshadow.
* {{Gorn}}: Creator/MandyPatinkin supposedly left the show due to his belief it was becoming something like this.
** {{Lampshaded}} in the third episode of Season 14, when Rossi tells the team how Gideon felt about Rossi's aspirations to write books about their solved cases.
--->'''Rossi:''' He was concerned was that by telling these stories it would create a prurient interest that would be more about consuming… pornography.
* GoryDiscretionShot: This is a show that’s not afraid of getting truly disturbing, but the constraints of its rating makes this a necessity. One aversion occurs in "Jones", which features a particularly nasty throat slitting.
* GothsHaveItHard: In the episode "In Name and In Blood", the person that makes things go awry [[spoiler:to the point that Jason Gideon, completely fed up, [[ScrewThisIAmOuttaHere quits the FBI]] and [[PutOnABus goes on a journey so he won't be found]]]], is a goth girl who, upon finding out that there is a SerialKiller on campus and that he's been apprehended and hoping he'll kill her ([[ICannotSelfTerminate she can't bring herself to commit suicide]]), [[JackTheRipoff kills someone imitating his style]] so the cops will let him go and approaches him.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Once in a while, the actual [=UnSub=] is only a DiscOneFinalBoss in contrast to some bigger VillainOfTheWeek. Examples include "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy," "Lockdown," and "Killer App."
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: What motivates the [=UnSub=], a social pariah, in his RoaringRampageOfRevenge in "Painless". By the grace of God, he [[spoiler: stared down the original bomber]]; by the disgrace of God, he [[spoiler: did not get to appear in TV like other survivors did; in fact they not only claimed one of ''them'' did it, they didn't even ''remember'' him, if they knew who he ''was'' in the first place. Worse is that the title refers to the fact that, because of the injuries he incurred from the explosion, he can no longer feel any pain due to brain damage, and is the only one who has any kind of long-term injury like that, so he suffered more than the rest too.]]
* GroinAttack:
** A victim briefly gets away by delivering one to her attacker in "Fear and Loathing". The [=UnSub=]'s rape victims in "Machismo" also castrate him.
** The sole female victim in "Haunted" gets knifed right below the belt.
** In "Strange Fruit," [[spoiler: a white woman claims she was raped by a black man when she misses her curfew. Her brother, a Klansman, and five Klansmen friends of his capture him and castrate him in retaliation; after finding out what happened, he goes and kills two of them, and later kills the daughters of two others who have died.]]
* GuestStarPartyMember: Generally the head of the local police force acts as an extra member of the team while they investigate the case. Some episodes play with this -- maybe the local police chief is a MauveShirt, maybe they're a SixthRangerTraitor.
* GuileHero: Jason Gideon and David Rossi.
-->'''Prentiss''': When did you know you were going to have to trick him?\\
'''Gideon''': The first time I talked to him.
* HackerCave: Garcia's workstation.
* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The [=UnSub=] of "Hostage" is captured and his last captive is rescued before the episode's halfway point. The remainder of the episode revolves around breaking said captive out of 15 years' worth of StockholmSyndrome, and tracking down [[spoiler:her daughters, who were being kept at another site]].
* HalloweenEpisode:
** "About Face," sort of. It takes place near Halloween and the [=UnSub=]'s MO is fittingly creepy. Also, "Devil's Night."
** "The Good Earth" is a minor example, premiering on Halloween of 2013 and with a B-story about JJ's son not wanting to go trick-or-treating.
** "Machismo" first aired on April, but is set in Mexico [[ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans during the Day of the Dead]]. Which is November 2.
** "The Performer" premiered the week after Halloween. The victims are PerkyGoth fans that were apparently drained of their blood by a vampire.
* HarmfulToMinors: ''A lot''. Besides things that happen during the cases themselves, some HarmfulToMinors events form various [=UnSub=]s' backgrounds and {{Freudian Excuse}}s.
* HateCrimesAreASpecialKindOfEvil: Being a crime procedural show, actual hate crimes show up from time to time.
** One epside has [[BoomerangBigot a gay man]] luring in and killing other gay men because of a deep rooted self-loathing.
** In the episode ''"The Tribe"'', a man wants people to believe that a series of grisly murders (including skinning the victims), were conducted by a group of Native American activists, hoping to trigger a race war between Native Americans and Caucasians. A number of his victims belonged to a group known as the "American Defense Unit", and when his attacks failed to generate the race war he was looking for, he and his followers took ADU weapons to make it look like that group had attacked the Native Americans, going after a school on a nearby reservation. He is caught and stopped by Hotchner and a member of the Apache Reservation's police force, John Blackwolf.
* HateSink: A good majority of all the unsubs are these as they are nothing but irredeemable assholes who kill for their own sick pleasure if for any reason at all. The worst ones are those who are [[DirtyCoward dirty cowards]] who enjoy killing but are afraid of dying themselves.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: The original quote is used first as one of the quotes in the pilot, "Extreme Aggressor", though it's shortened. It's used again, this time as the full version, at the beginning of "100." [[WhamEpisode For a reason]].
* HeelFaceReincarnation: Played with in the episode "Perennials." The unsub believes himself to be the reincarnation of serial killer Russel Smith, due to having been born in the next bed at the emergency room as Smith died from his injuries in a police shootout. All his life, he's had an inexplicable urge to do bad things, but he believes reincarnation is his chance to be a better person, so he doesn't act on it. Then one day, the brakes on his car fail, and he believes one of Smith's victim's reincarnations is responsible. So he sets about locating the people who were born after the deaths of the victims so that he can kill them to stop them from coming after him again, "forcing" them to reincarnate into harmless maggots. By the end of the episode, he apparently no longer believes in this trope, since he plans to commit suicide in a maternity ward so he can reincarnate to finish his work, rather than continue to atone for it.
* HellHotel: "Paradise"
* HeroInsurance: We find out that Prentiss's [[spoiler: fake funeral and real hospital expenses]] cost the government more than $650,000. Imagine what sort of tab the BAU has run up altogether over the years with their not-quite-by-the-book antics (see ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight, below).
* HeroismAddict:
** The Deputy Sheriff who [[spoiler: shoots Garcia]]. The disorder is identified by the name "Hero Homicide".
** Precisely the case with the shooter in "L.D.S.K." He's a [[spoiler: nurse in the ER where the victims are brought]], which allows him to 'heroically' help the victims. Here, it is again called "Hero Homicide."
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Most of the main characters on the show have this with at least one of the other team members. Most prominently:
** Aaron Hotchner and David Rossi, who have known each other for longer than they have the other members of the BAU, and serve as the TeamMom and TeamDad.
** Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid, who have a very brotherly bond.
** Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, and Penelope Garcia are a trio version, who are very frequently shown spending time together off the clock.
* HiddenDepths:
** The hitman in "Reckoner" is portrayed as a brutish thug, but his signature weapon is a gun that he built from scratch and his nickname is cribbed from a relatively obscure 17th century play.
** Emily Prentiss. A new agent, straight from a desk job, with a relatively comfortable upbringing... but she copes ''really well'' with the things the BAU deals with. It stands out enough that both J.J. and Hotch remark on it, but that's the only hint we get for quite a while!
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The killer in "Paradise".
** A depressing heroic variant occurs in "Mayhem". [[spoiler: Kate Joyner]] has been badly injured by a terrorist bomb. The FBI alerted authorities to the terrorist tactic to bomb emergency responders, and so though they arrive on the scene quickly, they stay back until they know the area is secure. The delayed medical response may be why she died.
* HoldingTheFloor: In one episode Hotch and Reid are locked in a room with a serial killer and the guards won't be back for fifteen minutes. Hotch prepares to fight the guy, but then Reid, true to his nature, starts babbling about all of the possible factors contributing to the killer's sociopathy. For fifteen minutes.
-->'''Chester Hardwick''': Is that true? I never had a chance?\\
'''Spencer Reid''': I dunno... maybe. ''(scurries out the door)''
* HollywoodAutism: One episode featured an autistic kid, whose portrayal would have been extremely offensive had it not been so ridiculous.
* HollywoodHacking: Not quite as egregious as some shows in the genre, but still pretty out there. There's a lot of RapidFireTyping, [[ViewerFriendlyInterface questionable GUIs]] with [[MatrixRainingCode impractical flashy bits]] and ridiculous jargon.
* HollywoodHealing: Averted for the most part. Injuries suffered are dealt with for weeks afterwards. Only occasionally enforced by actual cast injury.
* HollywoodLaw: "Collision Course." [[spoiler:The judge denies bail/bond for Reid on the basis of "actions speak louder than words"[[note]]Spending his off-duty time sneaking across the Mexican border to get unlicensed medicine for his mother.[[/note]]... despite so many more factors in his favor (his decade-long track record, his mental illness history, his schizophrenic mother at home, his willingness to surrender his passport and submit to monitoring, and the support of several high-profile FBI figures). In RealLife, said judge might as well have just committed career suicide.]] Being an FBI agent, Reid would also be put in protective custody assuming they did jail him like here, for protection against fellow prisoners if they found out (which happens, with him only being narrowly rescued).
* HollywoodProvincialism: In "Exit Wounds", the BAU travels to a remote Alaskan town to help the local Sheriff department catch a spree killer. In real life there is not a single sheriff department in Alaska: their duties are covered by the Alaska State Troopers, who are never mentioned in the episode.
* HollywoodPsych: Despite the show's heavy focus on criminal psychology, the trope shows up.
** In particular the show treats [[SplitPersonality Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder]] as an actual universally recognized disorder, while in real life it's one of the most debated and controversial psychological disorder (its rarity making any wide study nigh-impossible) with some even doubting it exists, thinking that instances where it is diagnosed are errors, or suffer from a bias due to the relative fame of the condition (i.e. a patient or doctor's view of what is happening being shaped by the condition).
** The Macdonald triad (sometimes called the triad of sociopathy) is often quoted by the team, a set of three factors that has been suggested if any combination of two or more are present together, to be predictive of, or associated with later violent tendencies and perhaps a precursor sign of sociopathy. The three factors being persistent bed-wetting in late childhood, animal cruelty and an obsession with fire-starting. The Triad has long been debunked (and nowadays, is generally held, at best, as a potential indicator of child abuse, which in turn is considered a potential factor that might cause violent behavior later in life).
* HonorBeforeReason: Prentiss in "Valhalla" and "Lauren"
* HopeSpot: The [=UnSub=] in "Legacy" promises his victims their freedom if they can escape his DeathCourse... only to knock them out if they reach the exit, and kill them anyway.
* HostageHandlerHuddle: One episode is about a trio of boys who kidnap a lawyer that abused them as children. Having heard that one of their close friends committed suicide due to the shame that resulted from the abuse, they decide to get a verbal confession from the lawyer. Unfortunately for them, he's a manipulative and very SoftSpokenSadist. The group's resolve diminishes rapidly and they find themselves unable to decide what to do next. The lawyer manages to convince one of them that if they release him, the two of them can go to the police together and sort the whole mess out amicably. This is a suggestion the other boys despise and fight breaks out culminating in one of them killing the other. While this ultimately ends in ShootTheHostage, [[AllForNothing nobody ever got that confession]] and the [[TheChessmaster hostage had them wrapped around his fingers the entire time]].
* HostileHitchhiker: "Safe Haven" features [[spoiler:a teenage sociopath called Jeremy]], who is hitchhiking his way back to his home and [[FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon exploiting his innocent looks]] to be allowed to spend the night on the houses of the people who pick him up... where he goes on to annihilate them and their entire families.
* HowWeGotHere:
** "Minimal Loss" starts with an explosion at the cult compound, then jumps back to the events leading up to it.
** Reid spends much of "Entropy" explaining to [[spoiler:Catherine Adams]] how the BAU managed to track down her cohorts and lure her into a trap.
* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: "Open Season", "Rite of Passage" (though to a far lesser extent), "Exit Wounds".
* HypocriticalHumor: In "The Internet Is Forever," Rossi makes fun of social networking sites like Twitter. Almost every single member of the cast has a prolific Twitter presence.
[[/folder]]

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: In real life, the BAU rarely leaves Quantico, and the FBI has a forced retirement age well bellow Rossi's.

->''"[[HeWhoFightsMonsters He that fights with monsters]] must take care that he himself does not become a monster. And if you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks also into you."''

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Secrets and Lies", "Honor Among Thieves", "Minimal Loss", and "Tabula Rasa".

* WritersCannotDoMath: Usually {{averted}} or {{justified}}, but occasionally they slip up, such as in Season 8, taking place in 2011-12, when Reid says the [=UnSub=] must be in his mid to late twenties, therefore being born "between 1987 and 1992", although that's early to mid twenties.

%%* BoomHeadshot: "L.D.S.K.", "Identity", "Penelope", "Lo-Fi", "Nanny Dearest".