Characters / Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior

Red Cell Members

Sam Cooper (Forest Whitaker)

"Aaron Hotchner wasn't available, was he?"

• Beware the Nice Ones: He's a generally kind and empathetic man, but there are a few hints that he's got a darker side, like when Beth has to stop him from strangling a particularly twisted UnSub to death with his bare hands.

• Mommy Had A Good Reason For Abandoning You: He likes to believe that his biological mother, whom he never met, gave him up to give him a chance at a better life.
• Mysterious Past: He's an old friend of Aaron Hotchner and David Rossi, has a history with Mick Rawson, left the BAU for a while and then rejoined it, is a Catholic priest and graduated from a seminary, and somehow got the authority to handpick a Red Cell team including a foreign national and an ex-con, two types of people usually not allowed to join the FBI.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Catholic priest + martial arts training + Army Veteran + profiling skills.
• Religious Bruiser: He's a Catholic priest and a skilled practitioner of Kali.

Beth Griffith (Janeane Garofalo)

• Brutal Honesty: Has gotten her in trouble before. She has been kicked off several anti-terrorism teams for this.
• Cassandra Truth: They apparently would've caught the Beltway snipers a lot sooner if they had listened to her.

• The Lancer
• No Social Skills: A milder example than most, but she's definitely socially awkward.
• Uncertain Doom: She is abducted in the final episode of the first season. Her fate was left hanging in the air when the show was canceled.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Both her parents were doctors and were constantly being called away, and she responded with increasing acts of rebellion up to smashing her dad's pager in the garage.

Mick Rawson (Matt Ryan)

• Big Brother Instinct: Implied concerning his unseen little sister, Jenna.

• Fair Cop
• Friendly Sniper:
• Handsome Lech: He's somewhere between this and Chivalrous Pervert. In 1x04, he describes himself as a "serial dater" and has trouble remembering if his last night's date's name was "Lisa" or "Elise", but he also seems genuinely insulted at the accidental suggestion that he's just racking up notches on his bedpost.

Jonathan "Prophet" Simms (Michael Kelly)

• The Atoner: For killing a child molester.
• Berserk Button: He doesn't like child molesters.
• Only Known by Their Nickname

Gina LaSalle (Beau Garrett)

• Fair Cop: Part of her problem with her dad. He can only see her as "the pretty one".
• Military Brat: Child of a father in the military. She was even enrolled in West Point until she dropped out to join the FBI.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Her father doesn't have much faith in her career, and has apparently always viewed her as just "the pretty one".

Other Characters

Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness)

• Character Overlap: See Criminal Minds. In her role as Technical Analyst, she works both for the main BAU and the Red Cell Team.

FBI Director Jack Fickler (Richard Schiff)

• Reasonable Authority Figure
• It's Personal: His goddaughter is kidnapped in "Strays".

UnSubs

Richard Stahl (French Stewart)

• The Dragon: To Stahl.
• Parental Abandonment: Both his parents died when he was young and he was left with his aunt.
• Self-Harm: Shown cutting off two of his own fingers.

Rawlins (Nick Chinlund)

• Final Boss: The final villain the team faces in the series.
• Last-Name Basis: His first name is unknown.
• Sadistic Choice: What he does with his targets: he has Stahl abduct that person's loved one, gives the person a revolver, and tells them that they need to kill a random person and drop the weapon within a time limit, or else their loved one will be killed.

Jason Wheeler (Noel Fisher)

• Cold Sniper: He has excellent marksmanship and he kills most of his victims with Pretty Little Headshots. The only exception was his father, whom he killed in a fit of rage.
• Patricide: He has great marksmanship skill, but when he tries to join the Armed Forces or work for military contractors, his father wrote to them warning them that his son had rage issues and unstable behavior. Proving his dad right, Wheeler right became enraged and killed his father.
• Pretty Little Headshots: How he kills.
• Ripped from the Headlines: The character resembles the Texas Tower Sniper, Charles Whitman
• Serial Killer: Starts like this, then turns to a Spree Killer.

Davis Scolfield (Raphael Sbarge)

• Replacement Goldfish: His goal is to have a black girl he abducted serve as one for his deceased daughter, and invariably kills them when they disappoint him.
• Starter Villain: The very first UnSub the Red Cell faces in the series.
• Would Hurt a Child: He abducts young black girls to serve as a replacement for his deceased daughter, and then kills them when they disappoint him,