http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/CriminalMindsUnsubsSeasonsEightToTen

This page lists the notable UnSubs faced by the BAU during the course of Criminal Minds, listed per episode broadcast order. Seasons 8 through 10.

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Season 8

John Myers (The Silencer)

Played by: Troy Kotsur

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_myers.jpg

sign language: "There's no where to go. I'm not going back there."

A mute and deaf spree killer who sews his victims' mouths shut as a form of torture.

Abusive Parents: His mother paid for a then-untested implant that was faulty and caused her son considerable distress, not to mention repeatedly abusing him to the point where she became his very first victim.
Beard of Evil: Has a short stubble.
Calling Card: Stitches his victims' mouths shut.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Stitches the lips of his victims shut while they are still alive.
Driven to Suicide: A rare aversion to Suicide by Cop on this show, in that when the team has him cornered, he doesn't make a last move at the team or his captive that gets him shot, but takes his pistol to his head and shoots himself.
Ear Ache: Tried to remove his own cochlear implant by force.
Eye Scream: Permanently damaged one of his own eyes with a knife.
Freudian Excuse: Was born deaf and forced to get a cochlear implant by his Abusive Mom. It malfunctioned, making the slightest sound agonizing to him.
Good Scars, Evil Scars: The left half of his face is scarred and paralyzed.
Keeping the Handicap: He was born deaf and given experimental cochlear implants as a teenager at his abusive mother's insistence (she was paid for participating in the trial). The implants themselves are faulty, causing him constant pain, which is probably his primary motivation for wanting them gone. Throughout the episode, he attempts performing surgery on himself to remove them. While he never explains his reasoning beyond that, the episode clearly demonstrates that he's able to hear, but he never speaks. Since he's not mute, that's a conscious decision on his part, which implies there's also a mental factor at play in why he wants to be deaf again.
Pet the Dog: Refusing to harm a child.
Self-Harm: Paralyzed half of his own face in an attempt at destroying his cochlear implant.
Self-Made Orphan: It's heavily implied his first victim was his abusive mother.
Serial Killer: Of women, primarily, due to his abuse coming from his mother.
Silent Antagonist: He's mute and deaf, so he communicates only in sign language.
Sympathetic Murderer: Bordering on full on Tragic Villain once his backstory comes out.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Silencer".
Wicked Cultured: Fluent in French, Spanish and several other languages, and is a fan of Alexandre Dumas and other French literature.
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Avoids hurting children if he can help it, due to his own dark past giving him a little more empathy to kids around the age he was when he was under abuse.

Ellen Russel and Darlene Beckett

Played by: Mackenzie Phillips & Kim Wayans

Ellen: "Admit it, Darlene, this gave you a reason to live."

Darlene: "That's what I was hoping. It just made me feel more... more nothing."

Two ladies with the common trait of having lost underage relatives under tragic circumstances where the culprits were only punished lightly. With the man accused of Darlene's daughter's rape and murder only serving ten years and being released from prison, the two snapped and decided to join forces as vigilantes, seeking the people responsible for their losses and wanting to kill them in retaliation.

Anti-Villain: They're not psychopaths or mentally disturbed, they're just women who lost young family members they deeply cared about to criminals and snapped under the realization that the guilty parties went essentially unpunished for their actions, deciding to take matters into their own hands.
Asshole Victim: Their targets are all people responsible for the losses of their loved ones, namely Ellen's nephew Sam and Darlene's daughter Kelly. But Jason Nelson, the man who raped and murdered Kelly, stands high above the rest for being a truly wretched monster who even uses the opportunity to further torture Darlene mentally by showing her where Kelly was buried and taunting her repeatedly about it while also trying to convince Ellen to join him to kill more people. It's little wonder Darlene can't stand it anymore and bashes his head open with a shovel.
Big Bad Ensemble: Averted with the two, since they stay together despite their different approaches to the idea of killing. But then they go after Jason Nelson, the man responsible for Darlene's daughter's rape and murder, who quickly shows he's a true psychopathic bastard far worse than either of them.
Bittersweet Ending: They successfully kill all their targets and escape into Mexico, but no matter how righteous or justified they were in their purpose, their lives are forever ruined and they can't go home anymore. In the end, while Darlene does manage to escape custody by ducking into a tourist bus, Ellen is apprehended by Rossi and the Mexican police force, separating the two for the indeterminate future.
Extreme Doormat: Darlene is the more hesitant of the two when it comes to killing, with Ellen having to repeatedly push her buttons by reminding them of their "mission". Unlike usual examples of this trope when it comes to dominant-submissive villains, however, Ellen is very patient and understanding of this and will often comfort Darlene when she's regreting her actions.
Foil: Ellen and Darlene are polar opposites in their approach to revenge. Darlene is not at all eager to kill but is obliged to do it out of the sentiment that the justice system has failed her and Ellen, feeling more like she has to do something even if she's not into the idea, while Ellen openly embraces the idea of killing to a frankly worrying degree, being the one to repeatedly push Darlene into going along with her and feeling entirely justified in taking action no matter how extreme.
Greater-Scope Villain: Jason Nelson, the man truly responsible for Darlene's daughter Kelly's rape and murder. The moment the two find him, he doesn't take too long to reveal himself for the utterly sadistic psychopath that he is and plays cruel Criminal Mind Games with the two when they demand he take them to where Kelly is buried. The only reason he doesn't get a folder on this list is due to not being the episode-centric UnSub and instead being a part of the reason why Darlene and Ellen fill that role instead.
Karma Houdini: Zig-zagged. The two manage to kill all their targets and escape to Mexico together, but the BAU catches up to the beach they're at with the Mexican police having authorized them to make the arrest. That being said, Ellen is the only one who gets apprehended, while Darlene escapes out of their sight in a tourism bus, remaining at large even if it's pretty much clear she doesn't plan to kill again.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The two women have lost children to criminals who were exonerated for one reason or another.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Pact".
What a Drag: Their favored method of execution is to drag their targets down the road by tying them up alive to Ellen's car.

Arthur Rykov

Played by: John Fleck, Nick Saso (young)

"You made choices. The wrong choices."

A family annihilator, serial killer and stalker from Kansas who targets families with an outward appearance of "perfection", taking them to his own secluded cabin in the woods and torturing the members through their hidden vices and sins.

Abusive Parents: His mother's death made him be relocated to live with his strict Russian Orthodox father who cared far more about his beliefs than his own son, either being abusive or neglectful towards Arthur.
Criminal Mind Games: His primary M.O. is to mentally torture the captured families into having severe internal arguments that start breaking apart their bonds, including possibly killing people related to their vices right in front of them (since he does this to the Acklins throughout the episode). In the end, he gives them a final Sadistic Choice: use a revolver in the room they're in to kill each other, or watch their youngest child die.
Driven by Envy: Lived through a terrible childhood under a negligent father who never cared about him and fantasized often about a family who lived across the street from him, seeing them as the "ideal" family until he caught the father of said family cheating on his wife with one of his own teachers, who he then attacked at some point. His murders from then on are all motivated by his desire to punish families who he perceives to be taking their familial bonds for granted or putting up a public facade of "perfection" to hide their sins.
Even Evil Has Standards: Given his own childhood, he deliberately targeted families where the youngest child was also deemed to be the most "antisocial" of the group for one reason or another (Braden Acklin was then-diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, for example), likely because he was able to empathize with them. Even when he has to recapture Braden after he briefly escapes, he never deliberately hurts the boy even when he's threatening the family with his death. Furthermore, as shown with the Yamadas before, the youngest son was killed in a deliberately painless, quick way as to not suffer, and his body was dumped with far more care.
Ridiculously Average Guy: Employed. He's the owner of his own private tech firm that sets up computers and internet modems for several households. Arthur uses his unassuming job position to set up cameras and microphones in target houses to find new victims.
Shout-Out: Much like Charles Holcombe from Season 2, Rykov acts a lot like Jigsaw in how he captures people he deems as being "unappreciative of what they have" and tortures them using elaborate set-ups until they're all dead.
Villain of the Week: Of "Through The Looking Glass".
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Yet he is entirely willing to harm said child's teenage sister for her secret drug addiction.

John Nelson

Played by: Ray Wise

"I've perfected this. This is my last test. Then I can fix you."

A former mortician, married to a loving wife with a form of hypoplasia that made her be born without her right leg. Wanting to help her, he became a serial killer and abductor who started kidnapping live human "specimens" and using them as experiments to see if he could perform the operation.

Calling Card: The bodies of his victims, dead or alive, were found with their right legs amputated or replaced with another person's.
Dramatically Missing the Point: He didn't think to entertain the idea that his wife was happy with herself and didn't want to be fixed and didn't anticipate she would actually be horrified by his projects.
For Science!: Downplayed in that his primary motivation is his love for his wife, but he could still have found any other option to try and help her, instead preferring to kidnap people and use them as living test subjects against their will.
Love Makes You Evil: He wants to "fix" his wife by giving her a leg transplant.
Mad Scientist: He's a mortician, but considers himself a scientist. His experiments consist of finding victims with matching blood types through fake blood drives, cutting off a leg on each of them and sewing the other person's leg back on them.
Morality Pet: His wife Linda, who he does truly love and wants to help through his horrible "experiments". The moment she realizes what he's been doing, she tells him to stop and threatens to leave him for death at the hands of the BAU. Because he loves her, he complies and is arrested.
Villain of the Week: Of "God Complex".

Emma Kerrigan

Played by: Anne Dudek

"The soil will heal you."

A delusional, hypochondriac serial killer and abductor who kidnaps fit young males to kill and use as fertilizer for her farm's soil, believing their bodies will give the soil healing properties that will treat her skin condition.

False Cause: Her late husband's ashes being spread on their tomato fields gave Emma the delusion that eating food from the soil "fertilized" with them afterwards helped treat her scleroderma, at least temporarily.
Hypochondria: Emma believes herself to catch rashes that can only be cured by ingesting the ashes of a healthy person, or in some cases live burial, depending on how severe her delusion is.
I'm a Humanitarian: She kills and uses the shredded bodies of young fit males as fertilizer for her farm's soil.
- At one point she figures she can cure her daughter's hallucinated rash by force-feeding her placenta, so she grabs a pregnant lady and performs a C-section on her so she can take that one.
Mama Bear: In her own psychotic way, she is very protective of her daughter. She does later tries to bury her into the ground with only her head out in a completely psychotic attempt to "cure" her of an imaginary condition like her own.
Spice Rack Panacea: A firm believer of holistic nursing to the point of actual fanaticism, with her own hypochondria making her think she'd only ever treat her skin condition successfully by eating food she herself planted on her farm's soil. Add that to her unstable mental state and the False Cause mentioned above and she starts using people to fertilize her garden.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Good Earth".
Villainous Breakdown: Suffers an extensive one throughout the episode, seeing herself completely covered in scabs and bruises on her skin until she also starts extending it to her own daughter, which quickly places poor Lexy in serious danger when her mother tries to bury her on the ground to "heal" her. The BAU only manages to arrest her by tricking her into believing she still has her late husband's ashes to use.

David Roy Turner and Toby Whitewood

Played by: Matthew Lillard & Harrison Thomas

David: "You know, when we started this whole thing, I wasn't sure, I just, you know, I didn't know if you had it in you. ...Last couple nights, I mean, you've come a long way. I'm proud of you, Toby. I really am."

A duo of sadistic serial and thrill killers operating in Miami, targeting prostitutes. After witnessing Whitewood murder one, Turner contacted him and the two entered a teacher-student relationship where Turner instructs the younger sociopath to kill his victims better.

Bastard Understudy: After getting scolded by his teacher over choosing a victim he has personal ties to, Whitewood's impulsiveness makes him think Turner just wants a Kill Steal and knocks him out with a hammer in retaliation. While it does allow him to briefly try to kill the victim, his former boss lady, all it does is get an enraged David to kill him when he wakes up.
Bludgeoned to Death: David uses a common hammer to kill and later knock his victims out with a single strong blow to their heads. Toby later incorporates this into his own M.O. along with torturing them.
Calling Card: Whitewood leaves the plastic bags he uses to choke his victims to death on their heads.
Crazy-Prepared: Turner learned from his own "teacher" back in jail, Rudy Stein, to take certain measures after killing his victims so there'd be too little evidence tying back to him, such as rolling the bodies around in garbage to destroy forensic traces.
Depraved Bisexual: Turner, who lusts after underage boys and whose first rape victim was a teenage male sex worker, but also gets off on killing female prostitutes.
Freudian Excuse: Averted completely with David (who developed his sadism during adulthood), then hinted at first with Toby, but then averted as well. While he did go through a shocking, traumatic experience in his childhood where both he and his sister were abducted and he watched their abductor rape and kill her, he didn't do anything because it aroused him.
Foil: While both of them relish in the killing of their victims and take pleasure from the kill itself, the two of them differ in how they manifest it. Turner is a patient older man who plans his killings out first before executing them, saving the sadistic tendencies for the act itself and having the foresight to cover his tracks, while Whitewood is an impulsive teenager who can barely hide how much he loves inflicting pain on others, and gets hostile with his "teacher" the second he thinks he's taking a kill from him.
Jack the Ripoff: Turner uses the method taught to him by his former prison mate Rudy Stein, himself a convicted serial killer.
Student–Master Team: Turner saw Whitewood kill his first prostitute and, wanting to teach a budding serial killer as he himself was taught in prison, took him under his wing so he'd perfect his technique and learn how to not leave any evidence behind.
Suicide by Cop: Turner, who does it out of a refusal to get sent back to jail, shot down by the BAU after attempting to kill Hollie Riggio despite being surrounded.
Surpassed the Teacher: Violently attempted by Whitewood when they're about to kill Hollie Riggio, knocking out his "teacher" with a hammer before trying to kill her all by himself. Too bad for him that Turner didn't stay down for long and choked him to death in a fit of betrayed rage.
Teens Are Monsters: Whitewood's kid sister died to an unnamed abductor because he was too aroused by her death to do anything about it himself. As a teenager, he gleefully kills prostitutes or anyone who gets in his way just because it makes him feel good.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Apprenticeship".

Chad Mills

Played by: Shane Johnson

"You should recognize the signs. It was your kind who did this to me!"

A firefighter who snapped and became a "house cleaner"-type serial killer who murders homeless people in LA out of severe mysophobia, thinking the homeless population is a "virus" that needs immediate extermination. One of Rossi's former war colleagues, now a homeless man himself, helps with the investigation.

Disposable Vagrant: Subverted since he's going after them because of the "vagrant" part, not because no one will notice they're missing.
Driven to Suicide: Thwarted yet again by the BAU when they save Harrison Scott from him, Mills finally succumbs fully to insanity and sets himself on fire.
It's All About Me: His biggest rescue operation was undermined by the fact one of the homeless men he rescued from a massive fire was infected with tuberculosis, which was transmitted to Mills through the unprotected contact and rendered him briefly discharged from the fire department so he'd get treatment. In his mind, this stopped him from becoming "someone that matters", and the ensuing OCD made him snap and start killing homeless people partially as retaliation for them taking away his time in the spotlight. Even during his final confrontation, he emphasizes his maniac desire to become someone important to Harrison Scott while threatening to burn him alive, saying he'll still become important.
It's Personal: For Rossi, whose former Vietnam colleague Harrison Scott, now a homeless man himself, became a target for Chad after he personally tried to interfere on his spree, later being abducted when the BAU finds his home and saves his latest victim from her own death.
Playing with Fire: Burned the bodies of his first three victims as a form of sterilization. He later tries to burn Harrison Scott alive for his interference in his spree, but the BAU's involvement finally drives him to set himself on fire.
Terrified of Germs: He was already a massive mysophobic before, being utterly afraid of germs. But when he contracted tuberculosis from a homeless man he himself saved, his fear became full-blown OCD exaggerated by an irrational, hate-filled mind. To him, all homeless people are carriers of disease that must be "cleansed", reflected in how his later kills were done by drowning the victim in bleach.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Fallen".

Joshua and Matthew Moore

Played by: Andrew James Allen & David Gallagher

Joshua: "Remember, when mom and dad split up, we made a promise...that we'd stick together always. It's us against the world, dude. It's always been that way."

A duo of sociopathic young brothers who abducted a school bus full of students to make them participate in a twisted Alternate Reality Game the two elaborated.

Alternate Reality Game: Their M.O., forcing the abducted students to divide themselves into two teams for each brother to command as they see fit, participating in a real-life version of a First-Person Shooter game the two grew up playing.
Cain and Abel: Played with. Neither of them are truly capable of filling the role of "Abel" with their animosity towards each other during their "game" and general vileness. Matthew comes closest, as he is shown to genuinely care about Joshua, the latter using their bond to calm him down when he accused Joshua of cheating, and despite his claims about only caring he "won" when Joshua died, Matthew still looks sullen once put in the back of a police cruiser. Joshua meanwhile is more openly antagonistic towards Matthew, openly engaging in Unsportsmanlike Gloating since they were children, being a Sore Loser and trying to kill one of Matthew's "players" when he lets another take her place, and his calming of Matthew down is framed less as legitimate affection and more as manipulation to save his own life.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While he's just as sociopathic as Joshua, Matthew at the very least seems to genuinely appreciate their brotherly bond, calming down when Joshua reminds them it's "us against the world", and looking genuinely upset when he sees Joshua dead despite claiming to only care about having "won".
Freudian Excuse: Averted. The two are born sociopaths and suffered no obvious abuse from their parents besides their divorce. The only explanation for their methods is the fact they grew up playing violent video games their whole life and their parents' separation.
Mirror Character: Their dynamic and "us versus them" mentality echoes the Mulford brothers from Season 2, with the noticeable difference that the Moore brothers are far less united and make their "prey" kill themselves instead of hunting them down methodically on their own. While the Mulfords also orchestrated their own demise by pushing their prey too far and end up dying because of it, Matthew does get arrested while Joshua dies alone in a bull-headed attempt to be a "badass". Even better, both sibling teams had one of the brothers be shot by Morgan in defense of their intended victims.
More Dakka: The two use assault rifles when forced to take matters into their own hands. There's a reason the two's case warranted a full SWAT team being called to deal with them.
The Most Dangerous Video Game: A variation. The two created a "system" that monitors their captured "players" and keeps a tally of their team members, essentially turning their intended killing spree into a video game for them to play however they please.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Joshua is the more actively violent of the two and plays to win, even going as far as cheating and making excuses for it afterwards, while Matthew can be just as brutal but tends to be more subdued and prefers to direct his anger towards his victims.
Start of Darkness: Well start of active darkness, but the stressor was when they were booted off Gods of Combat for hacking into the forbidden level. They substituted by getting real human beings involved.
Smug Snake: Both of them have no fear of law enforcement, with Joshua also extending it to his own brother and repeatedly beating him at the games they play despite knowing full well he's just as dangerous as himself. This is also what gets Josh killed later, as he aims his rifle at the students Morgan and the SWAT team have with them, actually thinking he can get some shots off.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Wheels on the Bus".
Villainous Breakdown: The two go ballistic when Garcia shuts down their system and helps their hostages escape, with Matthew even thinking this is Joshua's doing and trying to shoot him until he's convinced not to by his brother.

Carl Finster

Played by: Raphael Sbarge

"Why do you keep resisting me?! You awoke this gift in me. You of all people should understand that we have to do this mission together."

A delusional spree killer who suffers from synesthesia surrounding his sight and hearing. A demented admirer of motivational speaker Barry Flynn, he wants to have him become his own personal sidekick in a "mission" to eliminate people he considers evil from the colors of their words in his eyes.

Calling Card: Stabs his victims in a set pattern post-mortem to resemble a ritual sacrifice. For at least two of the killings, he wrote messages near the bodies in red paint to reference the red words he saw.
Living Lie Detector: Invoked. Carl's brain translates spoken words into printed words with colored fonts in his eyes. It is implied that the color depends on the speaker's feelings – variations of red for stressed, white for calm – but Carl thinks orange means they're lying, while white means they're telling the truth and red means they're outright evil.
Loony Fan: Obsessed with the speeches and written work of Barry Flynn, a motivational speaker who indirectly saved Carl from suicidal depression, but also fed his delusions and made him think of his disorder as a "superpower" that lets him detect evil people who need to be killed. It escalates to the point he not only killed Cynthia Strobl to prove his "devotion", he eventually kidnaps Flynn so he'll be his sidekick in his "crusade", forcing him to watch as he kills innocent people left and right.
Protagonist-Centered Morality: Runs on this. Barry Flynn's motivational work made Carl believe his synesthesia is a superpower that lets him identify evil people and that it's his duty to seek them out and kill them, even kidnapping Flynn himself to be his sidekick.
Verbal Weakness: A variation. Carl's synesthesia affects his eyes and ears, so he can actually see words that are spoken to him in different colors each to indicate a person's mood, but his delusions make him believe they're actually indicators of someone lying or telling the truth. Seeing words come out as red letters makes him think the person is evil and therefore in need of killing.
Villain of the Week: Of "Magnificent Light".
Villainous Breakdown: Almost kills Barry Flynn when he sees his words come out as red to him, indicating his idol is also "evil" when he's really just nervous, only being stopped when the BAU arrives and intervenes, convincing Carl to surrender.

Adam Rain

Played by: Brad Dourif, Mark Povinelli (Mr. Conrad)

"Ladies and gentlemen... truth is what the storyteller brings you. He holds up a mirror to your soul and reflects back the truth of what happened, or in this case, what should've happened. And so without further ado, the Rain Theater proudly continues that great tradition in this very special matinee performance of 'The Robbery', a family tale of love... and redemption."

The son of a popular puppeteer showman, turned into a delusional "collector"-type serial killer and abductor who seems obsessed with recreating a scene of his dark past using puppets... Or rather, people he's forcefully turned into his own flesh marionettes.

Body Horror: As a result of his unique signature, his victims ended up completely broken and disjointed when they died.
Composite Character: His disassociation and childlike mind are traits seen in previous UnSubs Rhett Walden and Samantha Malcolm respectively. The episode even builds up to a reveal similar to the Hill Ripper's case.
Dead Man's Chest: Stuffed his first two victims in custom-made boxes and dumped those when they died during "rehearsal".
Depraved Dwarf: Mr. Conrad, Adam's stage assistant who seems very eager to help him with his plan of kidnapping people and holding them hostage to act out a stageplay. Him being a puppet Adam is seeing as a real person would likely help with his eagerness.
Foil:
- To Samantha Malcolm from Season 5. Both are "collector"-type serial killers who transform their victims into living dolls in order to replace ones that were taken from them, and both have tragic backstories related to their fathers (Adam lost his to a robber, Samantha's father molested her). But while Samantha knows her dolls are lifeless and just wanted to have them back in the long run, Adam is delusional to the point he thinks they're alive and wants them to save his father from a crime he already died to long ago.
- To Rhett Walden from Season 6. Both are delusional serial killers with issues related to their parents and a passion for show business, but not only do their mediums differ (Rhett's is cinema, Adam's is theater), Rhett's mother was an abusive, narcissistic actress who he had a severely-damaged incestuous fondness for, while Adam's father was a loving, caring one who he held in the usual high regard a child would. But it doesn't change that both of their episodes end with a shocking, disturbing reveal of how they see the world.
Imaginary Friend: His deceased father's two main puppets, Mitch and Stephanie, who were his favorites when he watched his father's shows in his childhood. Mr. Conrad, his "assistant" in the present day, turns out to be one as well.
Missing Mom: She died in a car accident back in 2002.
People Puppets: A literal version of this trope, with his captured victims turned into marionettes suspended on heavy strings he's set up on the rafters of his theater.
Psychopathic Manchild: The car accident he suffered damaged his brain to the point it caused him to revert to a childlike state of mind while still keeping his proficiency in theatrical arts learned from his father. He mostly lashes out at his victims when they fail to follow his play's "script" because it involves him fulfilling his childhood fantasy of his favorite puppets saving him and his father from the robber that killed him.
Set Right What Once Went Wrong: His overall plan is a very tragic version of this trope. His play, "The Robbery", is about his father's prized puppets Mitch and Stephanie saving him from the robber that originally killed him, which will somehow make things better for Adam.
Through the Eyes of Madness: Most of the episode is spent with Adam as he talks to his own puppets as if they were people and treats people like they're his puppets, goaded by his accomplice who doesn't seem to ever be noticed even when he's right there with Adam. Adam's delusions are what the viewer is seeing as well, with Mr. Conrad and even his audience at the theater being hallucinations caused by his damaged mind.
Tragic Villain: He watched his father die to a robber in front of him when he was still young, but his childish mind made him believe his father's two signature puppets would save them. The car crash that caused his brain damage made him revert to how he was as a child and try to somehow have "Mitch" and "Stephanie" save his father as it was "supposed" to happen.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Lesson".
Wham Shot: During his play, in front of an audience that somehow isn't questioning the people puppets and the two "actors" afraid for their lives, the BAU storms his theater and try to talk him out of it by pointing out how him saving them would be as if he was saving his father at long last. This is when it's also revealed, both to him and the viewer, that Mr. Conrad was a puppet the whole time, and his "audience" has been nothing but props set up on chairs, which Adam gleefully bows to before he's arrested.
Would Hurt a Child: With George and Matt Small, threatening to hurt young Matt if his father doesn't cooperate with the script.

Diane Turner

Played by: Michelle Trachtenberg

"That's it, isn't it? I-I-I just- I have to let him see that I'm on your level."

A psychotic stalker who once worked in the same institute as Spencer Reid's love interest Maeve, the target of her obsession. She's goaded by the Replicator into continuing her pursuit in order to further damage the team.

Artistic Licence – Biology: Anyone who made it through high school biology with a passing grade ought to know that cells die all the time. If Diane was referring to some special or unusual kind of cell death she failed to mention it.
Attention Whore: All she wanted was some recognition. Her threatening letters to Maeve repeated "Why don't you see me?" a few times. Reid attempts to use this desire to be noticed to get her arrested. It doesn't work.
Big Bad: For the early half of Season 8, but not shown in the flesh until "Zugzwang" when she becomes the episode's UnSub.
Brainy Brunette: She attempted to pursue her Ph.D. in genetics at the same university that Maeve was at.
Circular Reasoning: Diane believes that when you decide to commit suicide, your cells start to die. She also believes that it is this cell death that causes you to commit suicide.
Evil Is Petty: Stalks, terrorizes and eventually kills Maeve because Maeve told her that her theories about how there may be a biological reason for suicide were sound, but Turner needed to broaden her testing methods (because Turner used her own parents — who committed suicide — as test cases in her thesis).
Freudian Excuse: When she was a little girl, she watched her parents commit double suicide. This led to her unhealthy obsession with suicide and trying to prove a biological cause for it.
Green-Eyed Monster: She may have turned into this after stalking Maeve for ten months.
Icy Blue Eyes: Has piercing blue eyes that help sell that she is a genuine threat, and could in fact commit murder.
I Never Said It Was Poison: No one on the FBI team said Spencer was a doctor. She realizes her mistake and kidnaps Bobby.
Murder-Suicide: She shoots herself and Maeve in front of Reid and the other FBI agents.
No Sparks: Though she was already sold on the idea that Reid liked her, her "Take That!" Kiss with him convinced her otherwise.
Not Good with Rejection: She started stalking Maeve because her theory on cellular death causing people to commit suicide was rejected.
- When Reid doesn't think fast enough to return her "Take That!" Kiss, she freaks out and calls him a liar.
Samus Is a Girl: For a while, it was assumed that Maeve's stalker was a straight man with a sexual or romantic interest in her. JJ realizes that a photo of Maeve found in the UnSub's apartment has been drawn on with black eyeliner.
Stalker with a Crush: Diane develops a crush on Reid, mostly because he is Maeve's boyfriend, but he meets with her approval in the looks department as well. Maeve, on the other hand, doesn't even know what he looks like until the last five minutes of her life.
Stalker without a Crush: Diane's initial stalking was about her paper being rejected and trying to figure out what's so great about Maeve.
"Take That!" Kiss: To further humiliate Maeve, she kisses Reid in front of her. He doesn't return it.
Villain of the Week: Of "Zugzwang".

Bryan Hughes

Played by: John Patrick Amedori

"No! I have to make her see what I see."

A hemophiliac serial-turned-spree killer who bleeds out his victims so he can preserve their blood and use it as paint for his art pieces.

And I Must Scream: He uses drugs to paralyze his victims and leave them completely immobile and anesthetized, making them die painlessly but slowly, and without any method of preventing it on their own.
Attention Whore: Part of his motivation for killing is that he feels ignored and neglected, wanting to be recognized for his "talents" in art by displaying them in a gallery.
Blood Lust: A hemophiliac with a homicidal fascination for blood, using it as paint for his art projects, seeking to make a name for himself while also doing it just because it surrounds him with the thing he likes the most.
Bloody Horror: Blood is his entire motif. While no detail is given on his past, Bryan suffers from a type of blood clotting disorder, and later snapped after being part of a car accident where the other driver bled to death before EMTs arrived, which he watched intently. In the present, he murders people through exanguination and uses their preserved blood to make his paintings, even knowing to use a clinical centrifuge to separate the plasma so he'll have a clotting agent and thicker blood to paint with.
Calling Card: Dumping the bodies with their eyelids cut and fully drained of their blood near public art locations.
Eye Scream: Cuts off his victims' eyelid to make them "see what he sees" as he drains them. It's possible this ties back to his dumping them near public art on the streets, making them look at things he feels are being ignored just as he is.
Mad Artist: Can't be more "mad" than bleeding people dry and using their blood as paint for his pieces. His entire motivation is to display his disgusting art at a nearby gallery and be recognized for it, wanting attention and feeling like he's being ignored.
Suicide by Cop: When cornered by the BAU, Hotch does try to talk him out of killing Madison Riley, which seems to take effect until he tries anyway, forcing Hotch to shoot him dead.
Villain of the Week: Of "Magnum Opus".

Sera Morrison

Played by: Sophi Bairley

"I should've cried for Katie. I guess there's some things I just can't fake."

The teenaged daughter of an alcoholic writer with DID, and a psychopathic manipulator driven by immense envy towards her own mother and younger sister, planning their murders and seeking to blame her father for it.

Cain and Abel: A huge part of her motivation was the jealousy she felt towards her sister Katie, who she perceived as getting more attention from their mother than herself. After killing her mother, she also kills Katie years later to further worsen her father's image.
Disproportionate Retribution: Killed her mother and younger sister because she wasn't getting enough attention after Katie was born.
Framing the Guilty Party: "Guilty" is a stretch, since while her father Bruce's alternate self "Johnny" truly is a sadistic dominant type, he never did anything to actually hurt them. It was still enough grounds for Sera to plot her scheme and pin the deaths of her mother and sister on his hands.
Green-Eyed Monster: A psychopath who believed her mother doted on her sister more than her, plotting both of their murders in cold blood.
Hostage Situation: Corners J.J. at the basement of her home and plans on killing her after realizing she caught onto her deception, making up a story of "getting panicked" to justify her death. Luckily, the BAU had already caught on and play her for a fool before arresting her.
Self-Made Orphan: Killed her own mother Judy during a blackout, then planned to pin the crime on her dissociative father to get rid of him too.
Teens Are Monsters: Even with a considerably lower body count than the likes of Jeremy Sawyer, she's still one of the most evil teenage UnSubs in the series by virtue of just how far and long-reaching her revenge scheme went, even going as far as to plan to kill J.J. when she started getting too suspicious of her.
Villain of the Week: Of "All That Remains".
Villainous Breakdown: Has one when Reid and Morgan arrest her, having not fallen for her distraught act.

Paul Westin

Played by: Patrick John Flueger, John Omohundro (teenager)

"Save me? Ha. You mean fix me, don't you? Fix me. All those years trying to prove to me that I was broken. Well, it worked, Dad. It worked. I'm pretty damn broken now."

A serial-turned-spree killer facing a massive mental breakdown due to his traumatic experiences at the hands of a "gender-realligning camp", now targeting women and gay men that trigger his depression.

Abusive Parents: His father didn't approve of Paul being gay and forced him into a "conversion camp" where he was repeatedly molested by a female prostitute and forced to watch heterosexual porn movies.
Calling Card: Kills gay men after sexual intercourse by bludgeoning them with a blunt object, and women who remind him of the prostitute at the camp by stabbing them repeatedly in the genitals after attempting sex with them. He also made sure to re-dress the male victims as a sign of remorse, and had all victims bear wristwatches set to 6:22 after killing them.
- The number is actually a reference to Leviticus 18:22^note (6:22 in military time is 18:22), a passage that Camp Willing used as their motto.
Cure Your Gays: Portrayed as a devastating, dangerous consequence of this trope, especially with the way the "conversion camp" chose to "treat him", ie having women rape him and forcing him to watch his father have sex with the "instructor" at age fourteen.
Driven to Suicide: His father and Mitchell both dead, Paul is driven to shoot himself for what he did, but the BAU stops him in the nick of time and convinces him to get institutionalized instead so his testimony can shut down Camp Willing for good, which is what ends up happening.
Freudian Excuse: After being sexually abused in a conversion camp as a child, Paul is convinced that he deserved it, and that it follows that all gay men deserve to die. The issue comes from him still being gay, wanting to be with male partners, but having depressive episodes stemming from his trauma that drive him to kill his partners afterwards.
Greater-Scope Villain: Both his father John and Camp Willing, the conversion camp that tortured him and Mitchell Ruiz in their teenage years, with Paul going out of his way to target women who resemble Isabella Grant, the prostitute that led the place. With his willing arrest, the BAU is later able to raid the camp and arrest the owners.
The Ludovico Technique: The gay conversion camp made him watch heterosexual porn on a huge screen when he was about fourteen, as well as "live demonstrations" between his father and the female prostitute who ran the place.
Murder by Mistake: When he tries to humiliate and kill his father as revenge, his former boyfriend Mitchell Ruiz tries to wrestle the gun out of his hands and make him stop, but ends up shot fatally in the struggle.
Self-Made Orphan: After the aforementioned accidental death of Mitchell Ruiz, he foregoes the humiliation and just shoots his father violently. Given what he and Mitchell were made to go through by him, few tears were shed over that particular death.
Villain of the Week: Of "Broken".

Donny Bidwell

Played by: Scott Grimes

"Hard? Hard? You ruined my life!"

A "wound collector"-type serial killer, copycat, stalker and abductor from Philadelphia. The BAU is drawn to the case after his killings deliberately mimic the M.O. of a previous UnSub they dealt with, leading them to think this is the Replicator finally showing himself.

Calling Card: He's identified through his copying of Jack Lee Kemper, the killer whose case ended his life, targeting nurses from hospitals in Pittsburgh. When he copied Bryan Hughes' method to kill them, he gave himself up as a copycat by virtue of not using anti-coagulants to paralyze them or doing any art pieces with their blood, as well as dumping the bodies randomly instead of under public art pieces. To trick the BAU into thinking he was the Replicator, he also placed a photo of Hotch on Shannon Levin's body, which the Replicator gave to him.
The Dragon: Effectively this for the Replicator, even moreso than Diane Turner by virtue of copying the M.O. of an UnSub like the Replicator himself does.
Driven to Suicide: Whatever the Replicator told him in his last phone call with him, it shook Donny enough to make him deliberately overdose before his jail transport, dying under police custody.
Eye Scream: Copies Bryan Hughes' tendency to cut off his victims' eyelids but without the symbolism attributed to the act.
Jack the Ripoff: Built up as being the Replicator because of how he's copying the M.O. of a serial killer previously dealt with by the BAU, namely Bryan Hughes and his blood draining practice. He also takes after Jack Lee Kemper's target preferences for his killings, namely nurses in the Pittsburgh area.
Never My Fault: Places the blame for his life falling apart solely on the BAU's shoulders, including his killing spree that he started out of revenge.
Red Herring: Exists to be this for the Replicator, leading the BAU on a wild goose chase made specifically to taunt them further.
Then Let Me Be Evil: The BAU once misidentified him as an UnSub while investigating a case and had him briefly arrested for it, but even after his release, he was slandered by the media and turned into a pariah, with Donny's life spiraling out of control, his loved ones leaving him and with him suffering an accident that gave him seizures. Under a nervous breakdown, the Replicator didn't need much to drive him off the deep end and make him start killing.
Villain of the Week: Of "Carbon Copy".
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Implied. He calls the Replicator while in jail, but we never near John Curtis' end of the conversation. But whatever it is he said, it was clearly either directly or leading up to this effect in practice, as Bidwell kills himself afterwards.

Peter Harper and Mark Jackson

Played by: Patrick Breen & Andrew Bowen

Mark: "You [Peter] should be honored that I chose your stories. I did everything that you described down to the smallest detail."

Peter Harper is a mentally disturbed man with obsessive murder fantasies, trying to find a way to live them without succumbing to the actual urges. Help arrived through a writing therapy group led by Mark Jackson, leading Peter to write about his recent fantasies and present them to the group and through online blog posts, unaware that his new therapist was using his stories as basis for a murder spree.

Asshole Victim: While Mark Jackson ends up killed right before the final act, no tears are shed from his death, as not only was he using his patients' works to base his killings on, he belittles Harper and taunts him over stealing his work outright, causing Harper to unravel and kill him in a violent rage.
Big Bad Ensemble: Harper is the episode's focus, whose internal monologues lead the audience to believe he's acting out the fantasies he writes about, but it's soon made clear there are two psychopaths in action and clearly at odds with each other.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jackson hides his psychopathy under a pleasant therapist facade, coming off as a normal man willing to help people with dangerous urges, when in reality he's a mysoginistic egomaniac seeking the right inspiration for his killings.
Brutal Honesty: Having cornered Harper when he's about to try and drown Tammy, then threatening to slit his own throat, Reid is the one to attempt to talk him out of it... Except instead of the standard FBI procedure of trying to dissuade him or appealing to his better nature, Reid is clearly still grieving over Maeve's death and point-blank tells Harper that his urges have no cure, but he can still fight them if he just tries to. Peter lowers the knife and thanks him for his honesty... Before killing himself anyway.
Calling Card: The UnSub cuts off his female victims' tongues before killing them with a knife and staging the murders in various ways depending on their personal blog posts and the stories used as inspiration. Peter never wrote about cutting off the tongues, however, and his fantasies only concern a single woman.
Creepy Souvenir: Mark keeps the tongues of his victims as trophies.
Freudian Excuse: Jackson grew up abused by his father, and when he tried calling social services about it, his mother lied to protect her husband, leading Mark to see all women as liars from that point on. This trope is averted with Peter, whose backstory we never hear in detail.
He-Man Woman Hater: Jackson, whose abusive childhood led him to believe all women are liars out to save their own skin. This is also the reason he cuts off their tongues before killing them.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After finding out Mark used his stories to fuel his killing spree, Harper corners him alone after therapy and beats him to death on the spot.
Plagiarism in Fiction: Jackson copies his M.O. from the written murder fantasies of people with murderous fantasies, Peter Harper's writings being his latest, most "inspiring" source.
Then Let Me Be Evil: With his therapist revealed as a psychopath using his work as "inspiration", Peter finally succumbs to his urges, kills him and kidnaps the object of his delusions, Tammy, to try and act out his fantasies by drowning her in a public pool. The BAU arrives as he's about to carry it out.
Through the Eyes of Madness: The episode has Harper as the focus, showing his delusions and hallucinations while often cutting back to the BAU's investigation, leading the audience into believing he's the killer they're after before The Reveal that his therapist is the real UnSub.
Tragic Villain: While mentally disturbed, Peter Harper was a case of someone with violent urges actively trying to fight them and be a good person, channeling said urges into his writing rather than act on them. When he finds out his therapist has actually been using him and other patients to gain inspiration for various murders, he succumbs to Sanity Slippage, invokes Then Let Me Be Evil, kills his therapist, and then tries to act on his impulses, up until Reid tries to convince him to keep fighting, at which point he regains a smidge of lucidity, and kills himself.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Gathering".

Tory Chapman

Played by: Rob Nagle

"All this crap about the time capsule and showing the future what a great place Bronson Springs is in 1988. I wanted to give the future a real snapshot, one that isn't in their stupid chamber of commerce booklets."

A serial killer and vigilante harassing his hometown of Bronson Springs, Colorado, kicking off his real mission after the town's time capsule is opened and is shown to have the decapitated head of his first victim from 25 years before as a message.

Asshole Victim: He targets residents of Bronson Springs who hide secret crimes and misconducts behind a facade of living a perfect life, with his first victim (whose head he put in the time capsule) being Wade Burke the man who sexually assaulted his now-wife 25 years prior. But because Leanne's charge was false, two of Tory's victims were basically killed for no reason, especially Wade Burke himself. He doesn't take this well.
Best Served Cold: He overheard a rape accusation from his then-love-interest Leanne Tipton 25 years before the episode and killed her then-boyfriend to use his head as a message for the entire town of Bronson Springs when they made the time capsule, seeking to expose their people as hypocrites and show that the town is undeserving of being called "perfect". He knew very well that it would take 25 years for the head to be exposed but he waited every single day patiently, marrying Leanne in the meantime. Even the BAU in their profile state that the UnSub has "extraordinary patience".
Broken Pedestal: Both on the giving and receiving ends. His whole idea behind the killings is to show that Bronson Springs is undeserving of the title of "Perfect City" by exposing the town's dark underbelly through his victims (an anti-drug lobbyist with a secret marijuana farm, a police officer who kept a hidden second family, etc), especially after his crush was molested by her ex in the past. He then gets hit by this trope when Leanne confesses that the rape allegation was so she could avoid the consequences of her dating and argument with Wade Burke. The rage makes Tory try to kill her next.
Calling Card: Decapitating his victims and leaving the bodies where the kill happened.
Creepy Souvenir: His victims' heads, which he plans to make a literal trophy case out of at the City Hall.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Tory married Leanne Tipton sometime after the rape charges and genuinely stood by her side all those years, even when he goes back to killing people in Bronson Springs by keeping the kills secret. Unfortunately for him, she does eventually find out in the worst way. And then HE finds out she lied about the rape all those years ago...
False Rape Accusation: As it turns out, Leanne was never raped by her ex-boyfriend 25 years prior. She put forward a false claim out of fear her dad would find out about her date and beat her up when she got home. Naturally, hearing that his own 25-year-long love interest is as much of a liar as (most of) the people he's targeted, he almost manages to kill her next had the BAU not arrived in the nick of time.
Off with His Head!: His M.O. is to execute his victims and then cut off their heads to keep them as trophies.
Smug Snake: When the BAU arrests him, he speculates that an Insanity Defense will shorten his time to 25 years in jail, gleefully proclaiming he'll wait it out again.
Villain of the Week: Of "Pay It Forward".

Tess Mynock & Raoul Whalen

Played by: Angela Bettis & Cooper Huckabee

Tess: "You remind me of Steven, my ex-boyfriend. With that stupid smirk on your face. You should've been looking out for Adam instead of lying your cheating ass off!"

A husband-and-wife team of killers who own a hotel near Rapid City. Tess is a disturbed budding serial killer mourning the loss of her son Adam a few years prior, who found Raoul after he promised to help her... Except Raoul is a closet sociopath who is using her to satisfy his killing urges.

The Atoner: Tess blames herself for the death of her infant son after he wadded out of her sight while she was too busy arguing with her then-boyfriend Steven. Raoul uses this to exploit her psychosis and make her rape and kill men that resemble her ex after he drugs them for her.
Black Widow: A variation of this with Tess. The team argues that she suffers from "black widow maternal desire", which compels her to try and get pregnant to replace the child she lost, killing the partner if she's unsuccessful.
Driven to Suicide: Tess, after finally learning that Raoul was only using her to satisfy his sociopathic urges. The team later finds her body drifting down the lake current at the same place her son drowned.
Evil Duo: Two married UnSubs working together to rape and kill specific men before dismembering them.
Magical Native American: The trope is bastardized by Raoul, a former member of the nearby Native American reserve who was kicked out for his sociopathy. He uses rituals performed by the tribe in order to throw off would-be investigators from tracing the bodies back to him.
Replacement Goldfish: Invoked by Raoul, who tricked Tess into thinking that having sex with men that look like her ex will give her a baby that houses Adam's spirit.
Villain of the Week: Of "Alchemy".

Jonathan "Johnny" Ray Covey (The Nanny Killer)

Played by: Christopher Amitrano

"Shut up. Don't pretend that you care."

A violent serial killer, rapist, stalker and abductor from LA who targets babysitters and the children they watch on a specific day of the year related to a trauma he suffered during childhood.

Best Served Cold: Averted. He spent his entire childhood and early adulthood planning a revenge scheme against the nanny that killed his baby sister Amanda, but she died from breast cancer before he reached her. Being denied his revenge is what caused Covey to finally snap.
Calling Card: His victims are tortured for days until they're killed on May 13, the anniversary of his sister's death. He then dumps their bodies on public locations, usually the parks he took them from, while also releasing the children he takes with them.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Inflicts this on the abducted babysitters as part of his revenge fantasy against the woman responsible for his sister's death, the entire process being a reference to said event; Namely, he burns their skin with a lit cigar (since Griselda Vasquez used to smoke), sics his dog Roscoe on them, then finally kills the nannies by drowning them in a tub of boiling water (which is how his sister died).
Do Not Go Gentle: The BAU on his trail, Johnny sics Roscoe on Morgan and tries running out the back door of his home, opening fire on J.J. when she runs after him. On his second attempt, he's put down with a shot to the forehead.
Freudian Excuse: When Johnny was still a child, his baby sister Amanda was killed when the Coveys' nanny, Griselda Vasquez, neglected to watch her when she was taking a bath, letting her drown in boiling hot water. An investigation was carried out but Vasquez was never charged, leading Covey to grow bitter and resentful, plotting a revenge scheme to torture and kill her... until she ended up dying early from breast cancer, denying him his revenge.
Heroic Sacrifice: What he tries to induce in the nannies he kidnaps, forcing them to "confess" they don't care about their charges so the children can be released.
Lack of Empathy: The BAU releases the profile publicly through the press to try and reach Covey with a passionate plea from his latest child victim's parents. He sees the conference on TV and then promptly turns it off.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The one time he couldn't keep watch of his victims in the past allowed babysitter Tara Rios to escape his torture, and she later becomes a valuable (if hesitant) witness for the BAU.
Revenge by Proxy: He projects Griselda Vasquez' image on the nannies he abducts and tortures them to live out an unsatisfying revenge fantasy of himself torturing the woman that killed his baby sister through her negligence. He also forces the victims to admit they don't care about the children they watch over just as he wanted to do to Vasquez.
Right-Hand Attack Dog: His Rotweiller "Roscoe", which he trained to attack his bound victims as a form of torture. He also sends the dog to attack Morgan so he can escape when the BAU raid his home, with Morgan knocking the dog out by hitting it with a door.
Vengeance Denied: Hatched an entire plan to torture and kill Griselda Vasquez, waiting for years to enact it, but she died before he got his hands on her. The denial caused him to resort to projecting her onto other nannies.
Villain of the Week: Of "Nanny Dearest".
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: He did love his sister Amanda, and he lets the abducted children leave alive, since he projects his sister onto them.

Phillip Connor

Played by: Adam J. Harrington

"Maya! Maya! I love you!"

A proxy killer-turned-budding serial killer, abductor, stalker and hacker who kidnaps women into a private chamber of his own creation, using recordings and mind games to live out his stabbing fantasies.

Crazy-Prepared: He hacked into the targeted couples' cars' systems to disable their GPS software, ensuring the authorities wouldn't be able to trace their location when he abducted them.
Death of a Thousand Cuts: He's stated to have shown signs of piquerism ever since childhood, a paraphilia and form of sadism that grants satisfaction from penetrating one's skin with sharp objects. Basically, he's obsessed with stabbing, both others and himself, and forces his captive couples to stab each other to death to live out his sexual fantasies, something he also wanted to do with his wife before she separated from him.
Diabolical Mastermind: His murders were mostly done indirectly, using a persona, a video setup and tightly-sealed cells in a microprocessor plant he acquired, all so he could carry out his fantasies without directly incriminating himself.
The Dog Was the Mastermind: For the first half of the episode, we are led to believe he's another victim being held captive alongside Emma Churchill, forced by a "masked man" to be stabbed by her repeatedly. It quickly turns out he and the kidnapper are one and the same and he actively wants to be stabbed.
Freudian Excuse: His mother thought he was "diseased" from his piquerism and, instead of seeking treatment, neglected him.
Greater-Scope Villain: Despite incarceration, his M.O. is seen again at the end of Season 8. The Replicator uses it and another UnSub's signature toxin to kill Section Chief Erin Strauss, although he does it incorrectly due to a deliberately-false report from Strauss done in order to trick the killer.
Hidden Villain: His "kidnapper" persona is himself wearing a mask that completely hides his face, standing in a dimly-lit studio, all of which makes it difficult to discern any of his features.
Stalker with a Crush: Profoundly obsessed with his wife Maya, who he stalked for a long time before the episode's events until she finally couldn't take anymore and separated from him without an official divorce. It's only with Maya's help that the BAU manages to find Connor and arrest him, with her making a point to tell him to his face she never wants to see him again, causing him to scream that he loves her in desperation.
Villain of the Week: Of "#6".

Larry Feretich and the Edinburgh's staff

Played by: Richard Augustine (Feretich), Steve Wastell (Jim Peters), Sean Maguire (Thane Parks) & Kara Luis (Liz Leonte)

Peters: "You're a good man, Sean. You understand, we just don't want them shutting the place down. Club like this one closed a few days, we're finished for good."

Feretich: "He [Peters] killed my daughter! He killed Megan!"

Jim Peters is a bar owner who had one of his clients, Megan Feretich, die of an apparent Ecstasy overdose at one of his venues. Enraged, her father and possible drug handler Larry targeted his other signature location, the Edinburgh, by replacing the staff's Ecstasy supply with a powerful drug that leads to horrific death by blood loss, seeking to destroy Peters' reputation and then kill him, until it gets several of the clients killed instead. Not only does this case lead to the Replicator's reveal, it gets Hotch's brother Sean tied up in the mess when he's revealed to be working at the Edinburgh himself.

Accomplice by Inaction: Liz Leonte, the Edinburgh's bartender, knew about Parks' raping and the possibility of the wine being poisoned, but kept her mouth shut so she could continue to profit off her job, worrying more about herself than the other women Parks was abusing.
Big Bad Duumvirate/Big Bad Ensemble: Larry Feretich is the episode's active UnSub trying to sully the reputation of the Edinburgh by poisoning its clientelle, but the bar's staff is itself a group of uncaring criminals more concerned about keeping the venue's reputation clear than about the people who die because of its poisoned wine, with Thane Parks even using the place to date-rape several women.
Didn't Think This Through: Feretich planned to trick the Edinburgh's staff into taking his PMMA/methamphetamine mix by getting them through their Ecstasy suppliers. What he didn't count on is that they would spike their own wine supply with the chemicals as a "prank" on the patrons, getting several people killed instead. Mind you, Larry doesn't really care about this side of the plan itself, only that the drug is effective but didn't reach the people it was meant for.
Disproportionate Retribution: Larry's response to the possibility that his daughter died at one of Peters' venues is to mass-poison the staff of one of his venues so he could kill them and frame Jim as a drug dealer, even going as far as killing a fellow baggage handler named Mike Spires who was secretly a drug handler himself, getting his hands on a supply of PMMA for his plan. He also poisons an unrelated dance party just because they used the same Ecstasy supplied to the Edinburgh.
Evil Brit: Thane has a south-east English accent and spiked the Edinburgh wine for a laugh.
Evil vs. Evil: A vengeful father with a possible past in drug usage mass-poisoning people related to a bar where the owner and the manager are both complicit in the date-rape of several female patrons and now have to deal with one of their pranks Gone Horribly Wrong after what they thought was Ecstasy turned out to be a much deadlier mixture.
- This trope is also how the BAU arrests both Parks and Liz Leonte, by telling them that both will be released if they don't cooperate with the investigation, thus leaving them wide open for Feretich to find and kill like he killed Peters.
Greater-Scope Villain: The Replicator would later use a mixture similar to the one Feretich used to poison and kill Erin Strauss with, while at the same time incriminating himself and leaving him vulnerable to the BAU afterwards.
It's Personal: Hotch's brother Sean worked at the Edinburgh after his job as a fry cook fell through, getting involved with ecstasy until his girlfriend Linda, another bartender, convinced him to go sober with her. After people begin dying to the place's tainted wine, he helps the BAU as their inside guy in trying to get their confessions via wire, except it also ends up outing him as an accessory to the staff, much to Hotch's dismay.
Laser-Guided Karma: Peters is cornered by Larry after the latter runs his car over with his own, and finally gets the bar owner to take his deadly mixture by Force Feeding him the drugs directly and leaving him to die in the wreck.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The bar's manager, Thane Parks, used the Edinburgh to date-rape some of the female clients with small doses of ecstasy. While Peters is undeniably evil for letting him do it and covering for him, Parks is shown as being the most sociopathic of the two by virtue of how he not only doesn't care about the people dying to the tainted wine, but also rubbing the death of Sean's girlfriend Linda Heying on his face when he confronts him about it, since she died at the place too.
The Unfettered: Jim Peters' reaction to discovering that the white wine supply of one of his venues is likely responsible for several people dying horrifically is to worry about his reputation as a bar owner first and try to keep it under wraps, praising Sean when he reveals he lied to the police about it to preserve the bar's reputation (although Sean was naturally lying and working for the law as a mole).
Villain of the Week: Of "Brothers Hotchner".
You Killed My Father: The whole reason behind Feretich's spree is his assumption that his daughter died at one of Jim Peters' venus from ecstasy overdose, seeking revenge on him for it. He only gets to paraphrase the trope at the end, though, when the BAU finds and arrests him.

Season 9

Colin Bramwell

Played by: Mike Colter

An abusive, sociopathic husband with a lot of influence, Eric Carcani hires hitman Colin Bramwell to stalk and kill his wife Maya Carcani after knowing the assassin from their time together in the Special Forces unit they were a part of in South Africa.

Cold Sniper: Bramwell is a hitman for hire and a profficient sniper. Along with the designated targets he kills in order to reach Maya Carcani, he also kills a number of nameless innocents just so he can cover up his tracks and throw off law enforcement from finding a pattern connecting the victims.
Friendly Sniper: Bramwell comes off as this to the imaginary version of his target that he talks to in order to stay focused.
The Heavy: Despite being the mastermind who hired Bramwell, Eric Carcani is given no speaking lines and only lasts a single chase before dying unceremoniously. The episode instead focuses on Bramwell as the main UnSub and his dynamic with Maya Carcani, his intended target.
In Love with the Mark: To focus on his assignment, Bramwell uses a focus technique known as "fantasy integration", creating a scenario where he's staying with Maya at his apartment and protecting her from her abusive husband. Problem is, this works SO well that he ends up hesitating when it finally comes time to kill her just as she's exiting her apartment in need of some fresh air, which gives Rossi just enough time to shoot him dead first.
The Man Behind the Man: Eric Carcani is the man who hired Bramwell to kill his wife, and is therefore responsible for the deaths of countless other people. But as far as the episode cares, Colin is the focal UnSub the BAU is after, so Carcani only gets an escape sequence and a frontal meeting with a truck at the end of it.
Villain of the Week: Of "Final Shot".

Anton Harris

Played by: David Anders

"My father named me Anton because it means 'invaluable'. Do you think he ever believed that?"

An international criminal from Germany with extreme jealousy of his younger sister Dana. So much so that he's abducted both her and her boyfriend Sam in order to experiment on them.

And I Must Scream: Induced a locked-in state on Dana and Sam Carter so he could experiment his knowledge of lobotomy and ocular surgery on both of them.
Cain and Abel: The Cain to his sister Dana's Abel, seeking to torture her for being their father's favorite.
Eye Scream: Has a fascination with seeing things from other people's perspectives, making it literal by implating micro-cameras on both his own sister and her boyfriend, then connecting them to a livestream where others can see him torture the former after he deliberately released the latter. Such knowledge also comes from the fact he did it on himself some time prior to 2013.
Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Blames his criminal status on his father, who Anton says hated him for "bringing shame to the family", although Hotch later points out that Aldor Harris' real reason was very likely to protect Dana from him instead, knowing full well what kind of person Anton was.
Green-Eyed Monster: Jealous of his sister upstaging him in all areas of life, taking to highly illegal and psychopathic ways to make her suffer.
Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Done literally and horrifically to both his victims and himself, implating micro-cameras into his own, Dana and Sam's eyes so he could connect them to a livestream and have people witness both his tortures and his crimes, experiencing what it's like to be him.
The Unfavorite: Aldor Harris, his father, repeatedly shielded Dana from trouble and Anton himself, knowing his son was a vicious psychopath hell-bent on harming her. Anton grew up resentful of both, wanting his father's attention and Dana's suffering at his hands.
Villain of the Week: Of "To Bear Witness".
"Well Done, Son" Guy: Wants to be his father Aldor's favorite by torturing his own younger sister, who was always protected from Anton himself. After Anton's arrest, Aldor does actually try to help his son by trying to have him extradited back to Germany, but by that point it's too little too late to stop him from facing trial.

Eddie Lee Wilcox

Played by: Todd Stashwick

"I promised I would always take care of you, and I meant it."

An armed robber turned spree killer who the BAU track down after he seemingly abducts his daughter from her home in Wichita, Kansas, but it turns out she's with him willingly.

Establishing Character Moment: His introduction involves beating his daughter's boyfriend to a pulp for trying to pressure her into sex, illustrating his devotion to Samantha and his propensity for violence.
Freudian Excuse: His father committed suicide while Eddie was five, and he was left with his father's corpse for two days before they were found.
Hair-Trigger Temper: He has a tendency to react violently to the slightest provocation.
No Kill like Overkill: His partner tried to double cross him after a robbery gone bad. Eddie shot his partner eight times in retaliation.
Papa Wolf: Eddie is ferociously devoted to his daughter Samantha, and she is a lot closer to him than her mother.
Parental Abandonment: His mother suffered Death by Childbirth and his father committed suicide when he was five.
- He also missed most of Samantha's childhood due to being in and out of jail for various crimes.
Run or Die: He's on the run for killing his partner, who had ties to the Mafia in Chicago.
Suicide by Cop: The BAU suspect he'll do this when he's finally cornered. Samantha talks him out of it, pleading that she'd rather he's alive in prison, where she can at least see him, than lose him for good.
Villain of the Week: Of "Route 66".

William Danary/Leland Duncan

Played by: James Immekus

"Do you confess your crimes?"

A psychotic serial killer, stalker and abductor obsessed with the Salem witch trials, thinking he's a missionary on the hunt for "witches" in Salt Lake City.

Artistic License – History: His final two intended victims were meant to be burned alive at the stake. While this is often used in fiction as an execution for "witches", it never happened in any American provinces. Of the 30 Salem deaths, 19 were hanged, one man was executed by crushing, and at least 5 died in jail.
Black-and-White Insanity: To him, if you are a "witch", you need to be judged and executed for your "crimes". Anyone who tries to stop him is either a phantom made by witches, or just as guilty, which includes his own boss just for letting a mother and daughter rent the book he'd been using for his hunts. Even when Yvonne successfully convinces him Kylie is a witch hunter that tried to stop her, he initially feigns sparing, then upon revealing he lied says she must die simply because she has the blood of a witch in her veins.
Calling Card: Torturing his victims by slashing at their arms repeatedly, then branding their bodies with the seal of his ancestor.
Evil Librarians: Works as a library assistant under Charlotte Novak, mostly so he can have free access to a book about witchcraft that he refuses to let anyone take. Yvonne doing so earns his ire and makes her and her daughter Leland's last victims before the BAU saves them.
Famous Ancestor: None other than William Stoughton, the person in charge of the Salem witch hunts back in the 17th Century. He even brands his victims with Stoughton's personal seal.
Felony Misdemeanor: Zig Zagged. Of his victims, both successful and attempted, he had them all killed because he saw them as Sinners and Witches. Abby Stafford and Parker Mills were actually guilty of things, the former being a drug addict and the latter before a repeat voyeur and stalker, making them actual "sinners" even if not for the reasons Leland thought. Gloria Carlyle however he killed for leaving a cult, and Yvonne and Kylie he tried to kill just because they borrowed the book on witchcraft he'd been using for his Witch Hunt.
Freudian Excuse: His birth parents died when he was still young, his adoptive parents were strict Mormon missionaries, then also ended up dying when he moved to Salt Lake City. Discovering his Salem ancestry, the added grief made him snap and think he's meant to continue the "legacy".
In the Back: Refusing to surrender, thinking the BAU are "witch emissaries" and lunging towards Kylie to try and kill her, Alex shoots him fatally in the back and he dies from the resulting blood loss.
Irony: The last thing the man who saw himself as fulfilling a legacy of witch hunters ever sees is a hallucination of witch hunters set to burn him as a witch.
Meaningful Rename: He was born William Danary, with his name being changed to Leland Duncan after his adoptive parents took him in.
Take Me Instead: Attempted by Yvonne Carpenter to try and at least save her young daughter Kylie, claiming she's actually a witch hunter who was trying to cleanse her from witchcraft. While it works at first, Duncan's delusions make him still try to kill Kylie, claiming she's "tainted" regardless of whether she's a witch or not.
Through the Eyes of Madness: Occasionally shown hallucinating shadowy, robed figures holding torches standing around himself in some kind of witch burning ritual, as well as an angry mob of villagers. As the BAU manages to interfere with his attempted burning of Yvonne and Kylie Carpenter, the angry mob slowly vanishes and, as he lays dying, he hallucinates the robed figures approaching him with the lit torches to burn him next.
Villain of the Week: Of "In the Blood".
Witch Hunt: His entire motif, thinking he's a modern-day missionary on the hunt for "witches" that he stalks and later tortures before executing.

Tanner Johnson

Played by: Jack Plotnick

"This is proof! This is proof that I can protect our new baby! This is proof. Proof that I'm never, never going to let anything or anyone ever hurt him!"

A traumatized and delusional serial-turned-spree killer, vigilante and stalker still grieving over the loss of his infant son. Abandoned by his wife, who blamed him alone for the loss, he snapped and started killing people he perceived as "bad influences" to the apartment complex he watched.

Asshole Victim: Subverted. He targets people who he thinks are "bad influences" on the tennants that live on the complex he works at, like junkies and layabouts, but these people are ultimately harmless (if not at least deserving of, at most, being kicked out), his projection making him think the absolute worst of them.
Batman Gambit: While Hannah is giving birth, Reid makes an on-the-fly claim that her baby is being strangled by their own umbillical cord and needs scissors to cut it with. This tricks Tanner into giving him the pair he was using to threaten Hannah with and allows Morgan to subdue him.
Calling Card: Strangled his victims with improvised garrote wires, then took personal items or small body parts from each to put in a scrapbook, along with pictures taken of each victim pre and post-mortem.
Dramatically Missing the Point: Cornering his ex-wife at her home when she's about to give birth, he refuses to take her to a hospital out of fear something might happen to the baby.
Freudian Excuse: His ten-year-old son Jeremy died from an accidental choke-hold his friend gave him while play-wrestling, the one moment Tanner wasn't watching over him. After Jeremy passed away in the hospital, his wife Hannah divorced him and blamed Tanner for Jeremy's death, claiming he was too weak to protect him, causing him to project a desire to be stronger onto the aparment complex he worked at.
Maternity Crisis: Hannah is going into labor by the time of the episode with her second husband's child, which is just when Tanner breaks into her home, kills her brother and promises they'll be a family again. The BAU, Reid in particular, is forced to help Hannah give birth while negotiating with Tanner to not kill her in his growing desperation.
My God, What Have I Done?: Since he considers the tenants of the apartment he works at as his children via Psychological Projection, he doesn't want to hurt them, so when he accidentally pushes one over a railing, he ends up spiralling, abandoning his crusade on "toxic influences" and instead rushing straight to Hannah so he can prove he can protect their baby.
Psychological Projection: The reason he started killing, projecting his idea of being a "stronger father" onto the apartment complex he works at as a nighttime doorman.
Stalker without a Crush: Stalk everyone in his apartment building in case one of them constitutes a threat to his unborn child.
Villain of the Week: Of "Gatekeeper".

Wayne Gulino

Played by: Mark Sivertsen

"Everything we worked for, all these years... It's come to this moment. Make me proud."

A former Chicago PD officer fired for reckless behavior and excessive force. Not taking the loss of his badge well, he devolved from budding serial killer to a "wound collector" homegrown terrorist and abductor, kidnapping children and conditioning them into becoming his own personal army.

Arc Number: 53699, his original badge number. And he'll be damned if he doesn't assign it to every single one of his "soldiers".
Best Served Cold: Spent seven years preparing his revenge scheme against Mark Reyes, the then-rookie cop who reported Gulino and his partner's abusive behavior to their superiors and therefore getting them fired. Nearing the anniversary of his dismissal (the episode), he launches his attack through his "army".
Child Soldiers: His scheme involved kidnapping children who often lived in high-risk lifestyles (like being street kids, living in gang territories or in single-parent households) and torturing them for years with techniques he learned from his time in the Iraq war. By the time he was done, they were stripped of their free will and made into his "soldiers", willing to even die for him.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Employs this to make the children he kidnaps loyal only to him, even training them for years to ensure they give no information to would-be interrogators besides name, rank and serial number (the latter being his old badge number).
Dirty Coward: He only directly killed two people, children who resisted his torture and refused to join his "cause", shooting them dead and dumping the bodies elsewhere. Then, when push comes to shove, when all of his "soldiers" are either dead or arrested, Gulino's last plan has him kidnap one final child and hide in his old partner's home until he can make a getaway. Sadly for him, the BAU determined he would do this and he's ambushed when he gets there, arrested by Morgan.
Disproportionate Retribution: His response to being rightfully fired for abuse of authority and police brutality is to concoct a seven-year-long revenge scheme that involved mentally torturing children into becoming his sacrificial pawns and threatening all of Chicago with terrorist attacks just so he could get back at the one officer who reported him and his partner to their superiors.
Police Brutality: Both he and his partner used this freely when apprehending suspects, which got both of them fired. Gulino then used that anger to target Mark Reyes for seven years.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Threatens all of Chicago with child-suicide bombers and mass shooters to get revenge for being fired from the force.
Sociopathic Soldier: Served two tours in the Iraq War before returning and joining the Chicago PD as an officer, except he used torture and excessive force on the criminals he and his partner apprehended. Now a disgraced terrorist, he uses his interrogation and torture knowledge to train children into becoming his personal army.
Suicide Attack: Two of his child soldiers were given bombs to detonate at specific locations: Trevor Madison with a suicide car in the middle of a busy intersection, and Stephanie Lawford (his first kidnapped victim) at the precinct Gulino used to work at in order to kill the BAU and Mark Reyes in one fell swoop. While Madison dies in the blast, Lawford is shot non-fatally by Morgan before she can press the button.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Return".

Charles Johnson

Played by: Glynn Turman, Kian Morr (teenager)

"You [Rossi] know what you can do with your black wife and your black friend? ...You can kiss my black ass."

A serial killer in Virginia faced during a period of inactivity. After being horribly abused and maimed by members of The Klan several decades ago, Charles Johnson snapped and became a serial killer targeting both the original members responsible for his torture and their families years later. The BAU investigates the case when the skeletons of the victims are found in his family's backyard.

Abusive Parents: Charles is one of the Tough Love variants for Lyle. He does love Lyle, but he considers any sign of Lyle being mentally ill to be him just being weak and as a result refuses to get him diagnosed or medicated, instead forcing him to work a 13 hour shift at his construction company as a means of toughening him up, any arguments against this treatment he responds along the lines of "black men didn't get to have medication during the Civil Rights Movement, and they managed fine". Charles also unknowingly passed on his rage to Lyle too, as Lyle witnessing him bury a body when he was five combined with Charles' attempt at Tough Love just instilled in Lyle an immense sense of rage and hatred, all but ruining his life. Rossi pointing that last part out is what convinces Charles to fully confess, so as to do right by Lyle.
Asshole Victim: 95% of his victims were the people responsible for his castration and torture, all of them members of the Ku Klux Klan chapter that did it. Unfortunately, he also extended his revenge towards the members' families, killing the daughter of one of them when she started dating his son Lyle in school, despite no clear indication she was like her family.
Calling Card: All four of his victims were beaten to death with his bare fists, then castrated in a nod to the torture he suffered in the past.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Repeatedly beaten and then castrated by members of the Klan back in the 60s. The latter resulted in Charles needing to take testosterone pills his whole life.
False Rape Accusation: A white woman leveled this against Charles when they were both in high school, resulting in a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan lynching and castrating him. This would become his Start of Darkness.
Happily Adopted: Because Charles was castrated, his wife Tina resorted to (apparently) a sperm bank and had their son Lyle from it. He doesn't know about it, however, and the threat of revealing it to him is what finally gets Charles to admit to his crimes.
Never My Fault: When confronted on why he killed not just his abusers, but their families including Lyle's girlfriend, he defends himself by saying the girl who accused him shouldn't have lied in the first place, and that what happened to his victims is all on her, not him.
Red Herring: The episode places all of Charles' family under scrutiny from the BAU after the discovery of the bones in their backyard, with his son Lyle suspected as the UnSub after the discovery of the testosterone pill stash and his old girlfriend Mary Ann's skeleton, not helped by Lyle's aggressive behavior. He's cleared when the other two remains are identified as being much older, leaving Charles as the sole suspect.
Rejected Apology: On her deathbed, the woman who falsely accused him of raping her confesses and begs for Charles' forgiveness via letter, which he is understandably reluctant to give.
Tragic Bigot: Charles has a low opinion of white people, thinking any of them can be racist assholes that do nothing but look down on black people. Considering how he was treated by white people after a false rape accusation though, his disdain for white people isn't unfounded.
Tragic Villain: Having been tortured by members of the Klan for an ignorant lie told by one of their associates, it's hard not to sympathize with Charles even after seeing how hateful he's become himself.
Villain of the Week: Of "Strange Fruit".

Ronald James Underwood

Played by: Tom Vincent, Phillip Fallon (young)

"Maybe we should just shake hands and forget about it. That's what you used to say, right?!"

An "injustice-collector" serial-turned-spree killer and stalker who hunts down the people responsible for the bullying of his high school colleague.

Abusive Parents: His mother was arrested five times on D.U.I. charges and was negligent enough to not care that her son spent a lot of time in random porn sites and learning mixed martial arts.
Adults Are Useless: Certainly holds this opinion. His third victim was a substitute teacher present during Riley's humiliation that did nothing about it, and his final target was the history teacher that also did nothing to stop the ongoing bullying and would even have the two parties "shake hands" in a piss-poor attempt at reconciliation.
Asshole Victim: His targets were the high school bullies that picked on his friend Riley and forced him to parade around the building using women's underwear, and the teachers and onlookers who saw what happened but did nothing to stop it, all of which led to Riley killing himself.
The Brute: A massively muscular male who beats his victims to death.
Bully Hunter: His targets are the people who led his friend Riley to suicide through constant bullying and neglect.
Calling Card: As a call-back to Riley Wilson's humiliation, his male victims would be stripped naked and made to wear a pair of bright-colored panties. If he killed them alone, he brought a pair to put on them, but if it was a couple, he'd have the man wear the woman's pair.
Cop Killer: Averted. He did attack Scott Miller, Alex's detective brother, when he was interviewing Charles Gates, but Charles was the real target. Scott was heavily bruised, but only knocked unconscious.
Dead Partner: His former high school friend Riley Wilson, a frequent victim of bullying who killed himself after being humiliated in front of everyone in the building.
Drugs Are Bad: Profiled as a drug user on top of the boiling anger he feels towards his targets. Turns out part of the reason he became so big was due to steroid use.
Formerly Fat: Flashbacks to his childhood show he used to be a portly kid, which was possibly the reason he was targeted by his school's bullies. He took to steroids and heavy workout sessions to build himself into a juggernaut in order to carry out his revenge.
Hypocrite: Possibly due to his past, but the guy who beat his offending bullies and neglectful teachers to a pulp starts Playing the Victim Card when he's cuffed and dragged away (by three officers), crying out that they're hurting him.
It's Personal: His case happens in Alex Blake's hometown of Kansas City, and her brother, a detective, ends up assaulted by Underwood while interviewing one of the suspects, who was one of his targets.
Misplaced Retribution: One of his targets was supposed to be one of his bullies, Lance Tate, but since Lance was serving in Afghanistan, he decided to try and inflict Revenge by Proxy by going after someone close to him, but both Lance's parents and ex-girlfriend Laurie were out of state, so he instead targeted Laurie's parents. Not only had Lance and Laurie long broken up, but it was also the incident where Lance aided in humiliating Riley that convinced Laurie to break up with Lance after realizing what a piece of shit he was, meaning she wasn't even one of the bystanders he hated.
My Greatest Failure: Holds himself responsible for his friend Riley's suicide, and vowed to kill the people who led him to do it.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: His M.O., which he worked on ever since he left high school. His first two victims fighting back made him even more obsessed with making sure his beatings were strong enough so his future victims couldn't do anything to retaliate.
Psychopathic Manchild: Ronald never properly emotionally developed as a result of the abuse he received from his bullies, with his rampage feeling like a case of The Dog Bites Back. When he's being cuffed, despite his hulking physique, he's crying out about the officers hurting him and Playing the Victim Card, fully showing how despite his roid rage and rampage, he's still the same teenager at heart just lashing out in anger.
Revenge by Proxy: One of his bullies was Lance Tate, but at the time of the episode he was serving in Afghanistan. Underwood decided to kill his parents, but they were out of the state. He then chose to go after his ex-girlfriend Laurie Patterson, but she was studying out of state. Finally, he settled on Laurie's parents, which he surprised at home and beat to death.
School Bullying Is Harmless: Ruthlessly subverted. Ronald and his friend Riley were both victims of repeated bullying in school, being abused heavily and publically humiliated, the teachers proving Adults Are Useless by forcing the victims and their bullies to shake hands as if that would solve anything. Riley eventually couldn't handle it and was Driven to Suicide, which caused Ronald to snap, dropping out of school and beginning his years long revenge plan, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
Unstoppable Rage: He's at his boiling point throughout the episode, which is also what helps make his beatings more effective. The implied "roid rage" certainly can't be helping.
Villain of the Week: Of "Bully".

John Nichols and Sam Russell

Played by: Jeffrey Combs & Erik Passoja

Nichols: "You took my money, and you hoarded my servers for your little crusade, and none of that is free. Even those women knew that."

Russell: "I'm not gonna cooperate and help you find the Star Chamber. They're the only ones fighting to keep me alive."

A duo of hackers and serial killers who targeted prostitutes for their own demented pleasure. With Russell behind bars at his partner's request, Nichols uses his current position within a hacker group to try and get him out while continuing his murder spree, getting Garcia's ex-boyfriend - the leader of said group - involved as well.

Batman Gambit: His partner's intervention ensured that Russell's execution in prison would be put into question because of Star Chamber calling for the investigation to be cast off in his favor. In order to both catch Nichols and prevent a write-off, JJ interrogates Russell by moving her hair to her neck in a similar manner to what he did to his victims, making him fall into a trance and accidentally snap his prayer beads, revealing the locks of hair from his previous victims. This gives the BAU a confession and evidence they collect, with Hotch pointedly telling him the judge agreed to delay his execution for a retrial of his strangulations, leaving him screaming for his beads in his cell.
Calling Card: Nichols and Russell both targeted prostitutes and drugged them so they could easily be taken to remote locations. Then, Nichols would stab them mercilessly while Russell would asphyxiate them with his bare hands, violently grabbing their hair until locks were ripped from the roots.
Creepy Souvenir: To help keep Russell motivated in prison, Nichols sent him prayer beads containing the hair of their previous victims. This habit is also how the BAU ensures the two would eventually be incarcerated together.
The Cracker: A duo of these who also kill prostitutes on the side to satisfy their sadistic urges. Their hacking is purely so they can seize money illegaly and survey possible threats to themselves, protected by Star Chamber while leaving them unaware of their real activities.
Faux Affably Evil: Nichols plays calm and casual with his fellow hackers, but the moment he has Shane Wyeth alone he starts hollering threats at him for supposedly "wasting" the money that Star Chamber acquires through their illegal means.
It's Personal: Nichols is involved with a hacktivism group called "Star Chamber", headed by Shane Wyeth, who was also Penelope Garcia's boyfriend during her time as a member. Not only does the BAU request she get information out of him to help catch the UnSub when he starts killing, said UnSub ends up kidnapping Wyeth when he hears he's been in contact with the FBI, threatening to kill him.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Black Queen".

Clifford Walsh

Played by: Jon Gries

"Things won't change. [...] ...The world? There aren't enough bullets to make things right."

A former night supervisor whose wife and son were violently killed by a home invader. He's since become suicidal, but then gained new purpose in life as a vigilante and spree killer targeting the people responsible for his trauma and anyone unfortunate enough to commit a crime in his presence.

Antagonistic Offspring: Howard Clark, the man who killed his wife Emma and his teenage son Teddy, was actually the latter's close friend and drug dealer, and the home invasion was the two's plan to steal Emma's jewelery so Clark could get some money. Teddy didn't count that Clark would show up high on meth, though, and intervened when he tried to rape his mother, getting them both killed over it. Clifford blames himself for his son's fall into drug use.
Anti-Villain: Up until he kills Jeffrey Hines, all of his victims were criminals or harassers with evident bad behavior, as well as somehow responsible for his family's death. He also never targets innocents even when they can serve as witnesses and, while he does threaten Helen Clark's life, he hesitates and even talks to her because he sympathizes with her over having children that fell into drug use.
Asshole Victim: All but one of his victims were people with prior histories of crime and just obvious criminal behavior overall, as well as being responsible in some way for his family's death. So much so that the witnesses the BAU interviews all refuse to identify Walsh as the UnSub because, as far as they know or care, he's done them a favor.
Car Fu: When killing the three gang members at the start, he chases the last one to a gas station with his SUV and runs him over repeatedly.
Death Seeker: Was this before his spree, wanting to get revenge on Howard Clark for killing his wife and son before killing himself after, but Clark's death in prison negated his desire and he chose to simply do the latter. Killing the gang members that harassed two elderly citizens playing chess stopped him, however, and Walsh instead started a crusade as he went around killing common criminals...
Driven to Suicide: Until he kills Jeffrey Hines, mistaking him for his brother Morton, the attorney who defended his family's murderer in court. Hearing from the BAU that he killed an innocent man, Clifford immediately turns his pistol to his own chin and fires.
Even Evil Has Standards: By a given definition of "evil", but even in his grief-stricken state Walsh knows better than to just go around shooting everyone he sees, only targeting criminals and the people responsible for his wife and son's deaths. He even kills himself after learning one of his victims was not the intended target.
- He also hesitates with Helen Clark and doesn't kill her outright, likely because of hesitation towards killing an unarmed woman and due to sympathizing with her over their children's drug usage. He even sits down and talks to her about it before the BAU comes in.
Revenge Before Reason: Walsh is so hell-bent on killing criminals that he'll do it on sight without hesitation, even if there's people seeing him do it right there next to him. To make it more complicated for the BAU (since he's leaving plenty of witnesses behind), said people refuse to help identify him because he genuinely helped them, arguarbly even saving their lives in the process. The team only manages to get a name when Walsh kills the four drug dealers in their apartment without ever noticing the hallway camera that caught his face.
Vengeance Denied: His trigger, hearing that Howard Clark died from an unrelated head trauma he suffered in prison and being denied the chance to kill him himself after 10 years of waiting.
Vigilante Execution: His M.O., using a handgun to shoot criminals as he travels through Cleveland.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Road Home".

The Regime Squad

A notable threat throughout Season 9, mentioned right at the beginning with the introduction of Mateo Cruz, the squad is a group of terrorist militants loosely associated with al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden. J.J. and Cruz, along with the deceased Erin Strauss, were members of a unit of agents part of "Operation: Classified", meant to take down the squad and prevent them from interfering with bin Laden's assassination. While mentioned often in Season 9, they only become a major threat in one episode.

Arc Villain: Downplayed; while they're mentioned throughout Season 9, they only appear and start their plan in their debut episode, which is also only halfway into the season.
The Mole: Several of them, including their key members, were infiltrated in Operation: Classified and the US government in favor of the terrorists. The episode is about their attempt to download confidential information from the database "Integrity", which only J.J. and Cruz know the codes to.
Villain of the Week: Of "200".
Western Terrorist: A few of their members are US citizens and their leader is even graduated from the CIA.

Michael Hastings

Played by: Tahmoh Penikett

"Take your time, Matt. I've been thinking about this for years..."

The squad's leader, a sadist who delights in power and control over his torture victims, staying right under the US government's noses all along in an attempt to mislead them.

Disney Villain Death: Falls off a building while struggling against J.J. in combat. While she manages to grab onto the ledge, he hits the ground and dies on impact.
Race Against the Clock: The episode is about stopping the Regime Squad from downloading information regarding Operation: Classified and selling it to enemies of the US government. Hastings' phone is what keeps the download going when they get the codes, and his death also crushing his phone stops it in the nick of time.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: A rapist who delights in doing this to his female victims. He tries it with J.J. to mess with her further, but Cruz giving up the codes for Integrity makes him stop.

Tivon Askari

Played by: Faran Tahir

"Have you forgotten? I know exactly how to get what I want."

A former interrogator for the U.S. government during Operation: Classified. Since then, he was exposed as a traitor and a mole for a terrorist regime who is now wanting to cut the loose ends of the operation by targeting J.J. specifically.

Arch-Enemy: To J.J., as a former member of a task force in Iraq on the hunt for Al-Qaeda.
Bad Boss: Kills one of his own men to tie up loose ends before escaping.
Bald of Evil: Bears a strong resemblance to Mola Ram.
Freudian Excuse: He was raped when he was 10 and abandoned to his luck since then.
In the Back: Hotch kills him from behind just as Askari was about to murder JJ.
The Mole: For a terrorist cell in Iraq, giving them information regarding his unit, the same one Jennifer was once a part of.
That One Case: His torture of J.J. stays with her for a good time afterwards, and he even shows up again in hallucinations.
Torture Technician: His role in the task force he was a part of, except he also derided pleasure from his methods.

Alan (The Crestview Rapist) and Judith Anderson

Played by: Ned Bellamy & Mary Mara

Alan: "Sweetie, tonight...is all about you..."

A married couple of psychopaths, Alan is a serial rapist and spree killer who targets Caucasian female hitchhikers and drifters, while Judith is his submissive partner who likes to see him do it. After a period of recovery from Alan having contracted an STD, the two started killing again after couples therapy pointed to them "rekindling their passions".

Disposable Vagrant: Most of their victims are hitchhikers or drifters, women who tend to be or travel alone most of the time. Because of this, it took police twenty years to find the two.
Entitled to Have You: Because of Judith's growing sense of pride, she refuses to admit at first that her husband has been killing people on the side without her. When the BAU manages to prove her necklace once belonged to one said victim, she quickly takes the plea bargain and confesses their crimes.
He-Man Woman Hater: Downplayed, but Alan's growing want to kill people alone like he did in the 80s is partially due to the growing sense of confidence in Judith, which he feels is interfering with his role as the "man" in the relationship, not helped by their therapist being a woman herself "giving him orders".
The Shrink: The two have been taking couples therapy through Dr. Kathleen Benedict, who doesn't know they're dangerous criminals due to them keeping the secret. When Judith is arrested first, Alan seizes the opportunity to go into her office to rape and kill her by himself before his escape, only for the BAU to stop him.
Unholy Matrimony: A husband-and-wife team of psychopaths who delight in the rape and murder of young women, united and satisfied with each other's company. Part of the BAU's plan to finally take them down is to undo this trope by pointing out to Judith that Alan has been killing without her around.
Villain of the Week: Of "Mr. And Mrs. Anderson".

Sue Walsh and the Disruption Network

Played by: Sianoa Smit-McPhee (Walsh), Rachel Hroncich (Nicole Jones), Trisha Rae Stahl (Michelle Fader) & James T. Clemente (Michael Feehan, uncredited)

Walsh: "I moved into your perfect little house, your perfect little street. Everybody told me that I lucked out, that I got myself a good family. Well, I had a good family. I didn't want yours."

Sue Walsh was abused by her uncle after her parents' deaths forced her to live with her cousin Kate Hoffer. Growing up a resentful psychopath, she took revenge on her cousin's escape of the abuse by kidnapping her four-year-old daughter Gabby and trying to send her through a network of criminals who perform "disruption" crimes.

Big Bad Ensemble: While Walsh is the episode's focal UnSub, she employs an accomplice to try and take Gabby away to the hands of a couple who have kidnapped other children before.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Walsh plays the role of cooperating witness to the BAU and tries to have her own former accomplice Doug be pinned for the crime to throw them off her trail, but they discover her real self when Hotch zeroes in on her as the real suspect.
The Dragon: Severely downplayed, but Nicole acts as Walsh's contact with the criminal disruption network. Once the BAU finds Nicole, however, she's already sent Gabby off to a couple with other girls in their custody, and she's simply arrested without ever showing up again.
Expy: Walsh to Susan Jacobs from Season Three, as a family member resentful of another's happiness and deciding to take revenge on them by kidnapping their very-young daughter and leave her to die. But while Susan was married to a pedophile and was delusional that she could fix her marriage by eliminating the "problem", Sue sends Gabby away to a pedophile unaffiliated with herself because she's a psychopath intentionally focusing on harming her cousin.
Freudian Excuse: Walsh moved in with her cousin Kate Hoffer after her own parents died. This made her vulnerable to the abuse of her uncle, while Kate never saw or suffered through it, thinking her father was a good man.
Green-Eyed Monster:
- Walsh plotted Gabby's kidnapping to make her cousin suffer for avoiding the abuse of her father, Sue's uncle, and vouching for him as a "good man" while Walsh suffered repeatedly by his hands;
- Michelle Fader, partner to Michael Feehan, took to kidnapping kids through adoption disruption crimes so she could have children to take care of again, after her original three were sent to foster care due to her leaving a child she was watching over to die.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Sue hides behind a calm facade, but her psychopathic tendencies make her lash out violently at any opposition, which is why she killed Doug Hoffer after he started getting cold feet. Hotch finds out and exploits her temper to prove Sue's not as innocent as she's pretending to be.
Pedo Hunt: Gabby ends up at the hands of Michael Feehan, the leader of a duo of criminals who kidnap children so he can rape them. He's thankfully arrested before he attacks her.
Revenge by Proxy: Double proxy. Sue's uncle molested her when she was a child, but never touched her cousin Kate, and now she takes it out on Kate's four-year-old daughter by sending her away to be kidnapped by a pedophile.
Villain of the Week: Of "Gabby".

Marvin Caul (The Doctor) and the Las Vegas Vagrants

Played by: David Clennon (Caul), Michael Irby (Cesar Jones)

Caul: "I can't abide lies."

Marvil Caul is a former stage hypnotist dissatisfied with his position in Las Vegas' entertainment venues. Using his skills, he hypnotizes an ex-convict named Cesar Jones to be his second-in-command, starting a cult with the homeless people who live in Vegas' sewers to build an illegal fortune for himself.

Batman Gambit: Caul is cornered by the BAU just when he's being threatened by Finn Bailey, who wants to know the whereabouts of his sister Carrie. Reid claims that she's been found in a ditch in Phoenix, Arizona, which makes Bailey finally lower his weapon, except it also makes Caul openly admit that she died at his hands, giving them a confession and his arrest.
Brainwashing: He used his knowledge of hypnosis to make Cesar Jones his right-hand man and create an entire cult out of a homeless community so he could build his fortune through their pickpocketing and robbery.
The Dragon: Cesar Jones plays this role to Caul, acting as his enforcer under his hypnotic suggestion and even killing people on his behalf.
Small Name, Big Ego: While a successful hypnotist, Caul was still low on the entertainment ladder and was immensely jealous of other artists in Vegas, magicians and other hypnotists in partcular, for having more renown than him, motivating his whole scheme on wanting to get more famous than them through stolen goods his "army" acquired for him. His ego is so big, in fact, that he also admits to the murder of Carrie Bailey after the BAU fools him by claiming her death had nothing to do with him, which gives them the signal to arrest him too.
The Sociopath: In Caul's mind, there is no one he wouldn't kill if they tried to stop him from achieving fame.
Stage Magician: Caul was a stage hypnotist who felt dissatisfied with his lack of fame and notoriety in Vegas. He then started using his skills to rob people and kill those that crossed him.
Villain of the Week: Of "Persuasion".

David Wade Cunningham

Played by: Steve Monroe

"How you feeling? ...You cold? ...That's from the fever."

A serial killer and abductor in Milwaukee who infects his victims with rabies and keeps them locked away to torture them slowly, watching them succumb to the disease.

Bad People Abuse Animals: He's a former pest control worker who hides in a dingy, rotting animal shelter and has used animals infected with the rabies virus to perform his cruel "experiments". He also tortures his victims in ways that makes them seem like animals he can toy with at his leisure.
Cold-Blooded Torture: He keeps his victims locked up in a pound cage and tortures them with a cattle prod and a high-pressure hose, treating them inhumanely to speed the effects of the virus on their systems. He even surprises Morgan by tasering him.
Fat Bastard: A burly sadist who enjoys infecting people with a highly dangerous disease and watching them become frantic and feral.
Freudian Excuse: His younger brother was bitten by an infected bat when David was still 12, and their parents arranged for him to be sent home so he could die with family. The sight of his brother acting rabid, plus his parents killing the younger brother so he wouldn't suffer, scarred David's mind and made him grow a psychopath obsessed with the disease.
Insane Equals Violent: Cunningham's obsession with rabies makes his victims violent. He himself is also very violent when his victims resist his control.
Plague Master: Cunningham's whole shtick is infecting his victims with the rabies virus and watching them grow increasingly feral from the disease's degenerative effects.
Stout Strength: Despite being overweight, he's still capable of giving Morgan a difficult fight, making it a struggle to overpower him.
Villain of the Week: Of "Rabid".
Would Hit a Girl: At least two of his victims were women, with Liz Foley being the one victim the BAU manages to find as she wanders aimlessly on the streets after she managed to escape, already too far gone to the virus.

Joe Bachner and Daria Samsen

Played by: Taymour Gahzi & Aasha Davis

Daria: "Hey, do you think you'll ever catch Joe's partner?"

A dominant-submissive pair of criminals in upstate New York, with Bachner being a dangerous serial killer, rapist and abductor, while Samsen was one of his victims he kidnapped and tortured, ending up mentally damaged and forced to help him. The episode takes place after the duo's incarceration, with Daria being requested at Bachner's trial as a witness.

Cold-Blooded Torture: Bachner kidnapped random victims and tortured them through stabbing, beating, raping (if the victims were female), among other methods. With Samsen under his watch, he would sometimes make her do it with him.
Freudian Excuse: Bachner was made to live with his aunt as a child, and she repeatedly abused him until CPS intervened, but by then the damage had been done to his psyche. Daria averts this trope simply by virtue of Bachner being the reason for her mental condition at the time of the episode.
Insanity Defense: Subverted. Morgan decides that Daria can't testify due to her dissociative state, because then she will be convicted herself instead of getting treatment.
Neat Freak: Samsen is seen tidying up things around her before her interviews with Morgan, with the team having profiled that the submissive partner had OCD themselves. Whether or not this came about from her abuse at Bachner's hands isn't elaborated upon.
Psychological Projection: Bachner abducted Samsen because of her position as a medical student, reminding him of his abusive aunt, who was a nurse. Projecting his aunt on Daria, he tortured her the longest and forced her to help him with his other killings.
Revenge by Proxy: Bachner snapped after being denied revenge on his aunt after she died, so he took in Daria as a replacement.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Edge of Winter".

Wheeling UnSub/"The Mountain Man"

Played by: Bill Oberst, Jr.

"How come I don't look like the others, mama? How come I don't look like you?"

An unnamed and deformed serial killer and abductor raised by an unnamed woman in a cabin in the Appalachian mountain region of Wheeling, West Virginia. When his cancer-ridden mother tells him she adopted him as a baby, he seeks out his real parents by starting a string of deaths in the region.

Abusive Parents: He was the product of an incestuous relationship between siblings Malachi and Magdalene Lee, both of which didn't want anything to do with him and left him in the care of the "Appalachian Woman", who raised him into adulthood before dying to cancer. Before she passed, she also informed him that she'd frequently watch his parents having sex in the woods.
The Bad Guy Wins: A minor victory. He doesn't kill his incestous mother but he does escape justice.
Calling Card: All of his kills involve the use of barbed wire in some capacity.
Brother–Sister Incest: His biological parents were Malachai Lee and Cissy "Magdalene" Howard, née Lee, siblings who abandoned their offspring and avoided contact with each other on top of that.
Gorn: Even in comparison to previous brutal serial killers in the show, the Mountain Man's kills are gruesome, the usage of barbed wire probably helping with it. He killed Cissy's current son by strangling him with the wire and then twisting his head around 180 degrees.
Karma Houdini: By the end of the episode, even after he disappears under a lake when Alex is rescued from him and they riddle the water with bullets, he's STILL AT LARGE. The ending even shows him threatening to kill a couple in a woodland cabin for their car keys (although they actually show up in Season Fourteen, meaning they were thankfully spared). This marks the "Mountain Man" as one of only four UnSubs who completely eluded the BAU and managed to escape arrest.
Mama Bear: The "Appalachian Woman" cared for him despite his deformity and incestuous origin, keeping him protected until her death.
Never Found the Body: He tries to drown Blake during the climax, and though she wrestles free and the team fires into the pond and never see him get out of it, he turns up attacking a couple in a cabin in the epilogue.
No Name Given: Literally, since his mother abandoned him and never wanted anything to do with him due to being a child from incest. He's only ever referred to as an UnSub or through his urban legend title of "The Mountain Man".
Self-Made Orphan: He captures Cissy Howard, his mother (Magdalene Lee under a new name), and forces her to admit if she ever really wanted him or ever at least held him. After getting irritated with her, Cissy barely manages to avoid this trope by promising to help him escape, only for them to incidentally run into Alex Blake.
Villain of the Week: Of "Blood Relations".

Sheila Harrison

Played by: Anne Leighton

"You're sorry?! Well, I am too and here we are. Sorry doesn't change a damn thing."

A vengeful abductor and budding serial killer in Memphis, Tennessee, who the BAU are called in to investigate after she abducts three men and one woman. It turns out she's targeting those she holds responsible for the rape and death of her younger sister.

Ass Shove: Part of the torture Sheila inflicts is sticking a fire poker up one of the rapists' ass.
Cold-Blooded Torture:
- She punishes one of her sister's rapists by sodomising him with a fire poker, forcing him to drink hydrochloric acid, then leaves him for dead in the same way he did to her younger sister.
- When another of her sister's rapists tries to claim he was too drunk to remember what happened, an enraged Sheila breaks one of his legs to "jog [his] memory".
Disproportionate Retribution: Sheila's only intended female victim was Christy White, a college classmate of Lauryn's who invited her to the fraternity party, left Lauryn behind with her rapists when the cops broke up the party, and then never bothered to visit Lauryn in the hospital (in Christy's defence, she never knew Lauryn was raped and they weren't particularly close).
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Sheila and her younger sister Lauryn-Anne were extremely close. She's shown watching a video of the two of them on vacation in Hollywood between torturing her victims, and is clearly left broken when she has to turn off Lauryn's life support in the hospital.
Evil Redhead: She's got vivid red hair and is a budding Serial Killer (even if most of her victims deserve it).
Freudian Excuse: Her little sister was gang-raped and left in a permanent coma from brain damage, and the rapists were never arrested or prosecuted.
Improbable Weapon User: Brandishes a fire poker; she sodomises one of Lauryn's rapists with it, bludgeons another and then kills the football coach who got them off the hook by driving it through his neck.
It's All My Fault: Morgan speculates that much of her rage is motivated by a feeling of guilt she wasn't there for Lauryn when it mattered.
Derek Morgan: You blame yourself for letting Lauryn go to that party.
Sheila Harrison: (sobbing) She was my responsibility.
Knight Templar Big Sister: Her actions have been about avenging her younger sister’s rape and death.
Missing Mom: Sheila and Lauryn's mother died of cancer several years earlier. Because Sheila was eighteen at the time, she was appointed Lauryn's legal guardian.
Pay Evil unto Evil: Two of her victims gang-raped her little sister and the third helped them avoid getting caught, so there's not a lot of tears to shed for them. For her fourth abductee, see Disproportionate Retribution above.
Rape and Revenge: Her sister was gang-raped and left for dead at a college fraternity party, ultimately dying from her injuries in the hospital. Now Sheila wants revenge, not only on the rapists but anyone who helped them evade justice.
Rejected Apology: The folder quote is her response to Lauryn's rapists begging for their lives by trying to apologise for what happened.
Tragic Villain: The BAU sympathise with her to a degree in that she's the sister of a rape victim who was horrifically failed by the police. What finally convinces Sheila to surrender is Rossi promising Lauryn's rapists, as well as those who helped them evade the law, will be arrested and prosecuted.
David Rossi: We know you want retribution, Sheila, but this is a mistake.[...] You are not responsible for what happened to Lauryn, but you can help us bring to justice those who are.
Trauma Conga Line: Sheila's mother died of cancer in her late teens, leaving Sheila guardian to her younger sister Lauryn while struggling to pay off her mother's medical bills. A few years later, her sister is gang-raped and left for dead at a fraternity party; Sheila didn't find out until it was too late and Lauryn had already slipped into a coma from fatal alcohol poisoning. To make matters worse, Sheila later discovered the medical examiner at the hospital changed her sister's report from suspected rape to rough consensual sex because Lauryn's rapists were on the college football team and their coach (an old friend of the medical examiner) convinced him to alter it so they wouldn't be kicked off the team, while another student dying at the same party meant the sexual assault was completely ignored by the police. Sheila bankrupted herself keeping her little sister on life support (JJ and Morgan discover Sheila's finances are so dire she's on the verge of being evicted from her home), only to then have to end it a year later when the doctors confirmed Lauryn would never recover. The team conclude that with all that trauma in Sheila's past, it's hardly a wonder she snapped.
Villain of the Week: Of "What Happens in Mecklinberg".

William "Bill" Harding

Played by: Brian Baumgartner

"You have less than a day to live. There is no way to prevent the inevitable."

A spree killer, stalker and poisoner in Long Beach, California. Terminally ill, he targets people he's jealous of for living happy lives, wanting to place people's fates on his hands for once.

Arc Number: In-universe, Harding believes everyone has this, that their lives are measured by the Fates in centimeters per year, as myth describes them doing.
Calling Card: Sending a letter to the targets of his list with a piece of twine, warning them of their imminent deaths. After his first two kills, he started placing the piece of twine on the bodies post-mortem.
Foregone Conclusion: While he's arrested, it's safe to assume Bill died in prison due to his mesothelioma.
Freudian Excuse: When he was six, he and his friend got lost in the woods, but Bill was saved while his friend froze to death. Blamed by the general public for letting his friend die, he developed PTSD and underwent treatment, until his first-grade teacher gave him a book about Greek Mythology to read while hospitalized.
Irony: Feels that most of him died when he missed his flight to Greece twenty years ago. JJ reveals to him that the shuttlebus he would have gotten on crashed, killing everyone inside, meaning that in Bill's worldview he was fated to die that day. Realizing this is what makes him surrender to arrest.
Motifs: Greek mythology and the idea of fate interpreted through it, namely the Sisters of Fate and their threads. Bill grew up fascinated with the stories and wanted to visit Greece as an adult, but his friend Wick tricked him into missing his flight out of concern for him. As a spree killer, his signature involves twine, as a direct reference to the threads created by the Fates.
Perfect Poison: His weapon of choice is arsenic. He averts this with Janice Cheswick, as she had already dialed 911 by that time and was even talking to the BAU through Rossi, forcing him to stab her mid-call. While Wick was also poisoned, he only took a small dose and got rescued in enough time to be cured.
Rule of Symbolism: Lampshaded by the BAU on Bill's usage of twine, referencing the Threads created by the Sisters of Fate in Greek myth that measure a being's lifespan until they're cut.
Villain of the Week: Of "Fatal".

Season 10 UnSubs

Steven Parkett (The Mad Butcher of Bakersfield)

Played by: Eric Frentzel

"Is that...Is that better?"

A violent serial killer and stalker from California who butchers the bodies of his victims, then sells off their limbs to an unknowing buyer. The BAU is joined by new agent Kate Callahan after Alex Blake's departure, and the case is the first indication of a dangerous group waiting in the shadows.

An Arm and a Leg: Parkett dismembers his victims meticulously in order to torture them to death. He then sells the limbs to Frank Cowles, who doesn't know of their origin.
The Butcher: The Mad Butcher, in his case, although Parkett's M.O. places more focus on the limb amputation aspect of the trope.
Calling Card: Hacking off his victims' limbs as a form of Cold-Blooded Torture then finishing them off with decapitation.
Composite Character: His backstory and methodology incorporate aspects from two previous UnSubs, namely Thomas "The Womb Raider" Yates (organized serial killers whose mothers died in childbirth, kills that involve mutilation and torture, acting in California) and John "The Silencer" Myers (abused by a parental figure, torture, first victims killed out of revenge).
Cop Killer: Averted; he ambushes Kate Callahan when she enters his shed in pursuit, but Hotch shoots him dead before he can do anything.
Foreshadowing: The BAU doesn't know how Parkett acquired his last two victims and the question is left unsolved to them. He bought them from a certain human trafficking ring, with the episode ending with said ring kidnapping other women and setting them up as the Arc Villains of Season 10.
Freudian Excuse: His mother died at childbirth and his father was an alcoholic schizophrenic who beat him up regularly, causing Parkett to grow distant and introverted without any social skills. He snapped when a woman he stalked started dating another man, leading to both dying horribly at his hands.
Honey Trap: Heroic variation with Angie Stanton, who puts up a sympathizing facade and convinces Parkett to release her, attacking him and managing to escape just in time for the BAU to find her and deal with him.
No Historical Figures Were Harmed: His title and M.O. are a reference to the unidentified "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run".
Red Herring: Frank Cowles is initially believed to be the UnSub due to his possession of the cut limbs, but the BAU soon finds out he's only an acrotomophile buyer and doesn't know where they came from.
Villain of the Week: Of "X".

Justin Leu and Nathan Chow

Played by: C.S. Lee & Jimmy O. Yang, Austin Chandra (Leu, young)

Leu: "I need...to finish...this journey!"

Chow: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here..."

Justin Leu is a delusional serial-turned-spree killer from Seattle with an obsession towards Dante Alighieri's Inferno. He manages to convince an equally-psychotic student of his to become his accomplice, building up a string of killings leading to their suicide.

Abusive Parents: Justin's father Raymond descended into alcoholism after his wife died when Justin was 10 years old, no longer going to church and instead beating up Justin and his older brother Todd whenever they received a low grade on their tests, also locking the two in a dark shed. The abuse went on until Todd overdosed on pills and Justin was taken by CPS. Leu started killing shortly after his father's death, targeting victims that match this trope even superficially.
Ax-Crazy: Leu is psychotic, but his motives are at least sympathetic. Nathan Chow, however, is just psychotic with no clear cause, and his end goal is to kill himself and Justin through a bomb that would no doubt kill SEVERAL other people in his high school had the BAU not caught him when they did, and even then he's arrested while laughing maniacally. All he does while in interrogation is brag about being the killer and mumble the "Abandon all hope" line to himself.
Calling Card: Leu kidnapped men he perceived as abusive or overly-strict father figures, then tortured his victims by carving a Roman numeral on the roof of their mouths according to whichever circle of Hell they represented, and theming each kill after said circles.
Freudian Excuse: Leu's father was an abusive drunk and his older brother, who tried to shield Justin from the worst of the abuse, ended up being Driven to Suicide by overdosing on pills. As a coping mechanism, the two brothers read Dante's Divine Comedy and bonded over their shared love of it. Nathan averts this by having psychosis from the get-go and just looking for an excuse to kill and die afterwards.
Mad Bomber: Nathan's plan is to kill himself and Justin with a homemade bomb so their kill will represent the circle of Violence. He's thankfully stopped before even arming the device.
Madness Mantra: Locked away in the interrogation room, Nathan descends into repeating "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" over and over.
My God, What Have I Done?: A delusional variation; cornered by the BAU, JJ begs Justin to stop letting his father control his life and this causes him to finally surrender and break down into sobbing and apologizing to his dead father over and over.
Pet the Dog: One of Leu's students talks to him about receiving a B on his test, making an offhand comment about how his father was "going to kill [him]" for it. Having a flashback to his brother's suicide, Leu immediately turns that B into an A, much to the student's confused joy.
Rule of Symbolism: Invoked; Justin's kills are all themed after the different circles of Hell as described by Dante's Inferno (as an example, Alan Dorslawn was carved with the number VI and burned alive inside a wooden coffin, representing the fiery tombs of the sixth circle of Heresy).
Sadist Teacher: Leu is a high school teacher who secretly murders people in horrific ways. The trope is somewhat lessened in that he doesn't target students and doesn't act out his psychotic delusions while on the clock, but he did meet Nathan on the school grounds.
Villain of the Week: Of "Burn".

Hayman Vasher

Played by: John Grady

"I am... become... Death."

A homegrown terrorist and hacker with high proficiency in technology, using his own hacking abilities to crash an airplane full of passengers. The BAU is called in when it's made clear he plans to do it a second time with even more casualties.

A God Am I: His motivation. He even quotes the Bhagavad Gita's famous quote of "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" as he attempts to crash another plane.
Disproportionate Retribution: Subverted; the BAU initially believe he crashed the first plane because a woman he went on a disastrous blind date once was on board. But when confronted, he insists her presence was irrelevant as he would have crashed the plane anyway.
Dramatically Missing the Point: Idolizes J. Robert Oppenheimer and his contribution to the Manhattan Project's development of a weapon of mass destruction, and how it earned him fame afterwards. But as Hotch very pointedly tells him later, Oppenheimer hated doing this and had to live the rest of his life with the knowledge that he was responsible for thousands of deaths, despising the "fame" he got in the aftermath and citing the Bhagavad Gita's quote to show how remorseful he was for misusing that power. Turns out Vasher doesn't care anyway.
For the Evulz: Crashes planes remotely because it's his idea of becoming a great person, not caring in the slightest about the damage or the deaths caused.
I Lied: Agrees to let the plane he's targeting land if the BAU calls off fighter jets with orders to shoot it down. The moment they do, he tries to crash it anyway and promptly gets shot by Hotch and Morgan.
It's Personal: For Kate, whose sister and brother-in-law were among the casualties of the September 11 attacks in 2001, dying from the plane collision at the Pentagon.
The Sociopath: No remorse for his actions, no regard for human life and no desire to stop his plan even when held at gunpoint and clearly on the losing end of Hotch's aim. Very few UnSubs in the show were just flat-out evil in the way he is.
Start of Darkness: Implied to always have been a budding sociopath with a developing God complex that idolized Oppenheimer for the wrong reasons, so he mostly averts this trope with the assumption that crashing planes and killing hundreds was already on his mind after a while. That being said, his rejection at the hands of Kristina Morrow is heavily hinted at as being his trigger, or at least the final straw.
Villain of the Week: Of "A Thousand Suns".

Leo Jenkins

Played by: Jon Abrahams

"You're right. Let me show you what it feels like to be sick like I am!"

A delusional UnSub who believes he's infected with bugs under his skin planted there by doctors, desperately wanting people to notice it as he does and getting increasingly frustrated with every denial.

The Schizophrenia Conspiracy: As with a lot of cases of delusional parasitosis and Morgellons, Leo became involved with a group of Morgellons sufferers who believe the government is to blame for their condition, with Leo himself thinking his vaccination is what got the "bugs" into his body. He's therefore desperate to try and get the "truth" out there.
Serial Killer: Averted. He barely even qualifies for a budding type, too, as he only killed one person directly in the entire episode; Albert Stillman was released and died by being run over by a car, and the BAU stopped Leo from killing Lisa Randall.
Through the Eyes of Madness: The episode shows a few scenes where Leo's hallucinations come to life, particularly his blood samples turning black and moving bulges under his arms which he thinks are the "bugs".
Villain of the Week: Of "The Itch".

Claire Dunbar

Played by: Abbie Cobb

"You take love and beauty and enchantment and you turn it into something ugly!"

A delusional serial-turned-spree killer from Montana. Believing herself to be a fairy-tale princess, she targets young attractive men in the hopes of finding her "Prince Charming", then lashes out violently when they don't match her ideals.

Berserk Button: If she doesn't see a handsome young man as her Prince Charming, or if they challenge her delusion in any way, she will kill them without a second thought.
Emergency Impersonation: How she's talked out of killing Chris Jensen, with Reid playing the part of Prince Charming giving her the "glass slipper" (really the shoe she left behind in a previous crime scene) and escorting her into her "waiting carriage" (a police vehicle so she'll be institutionalized).
Fairy Tale Motifs: Believes herself to be Cinderella looking for her Prince Charming in order to get a proper fairy-tale-esque happy ending. Any subversion or "corruption" of her ideals will make her attack the offending party.
- When she kills Colin Baylor, her third victim, she inexplicably covers herself in ashes before stabbing him, likely to make herself more similar to Cinderella even in how she got her name.
Freudian Excuse: Her mother was institutionalized and her father was an abusive pedophile who read her bedtime stories when he wasn't busy raping her and presumably other children. Even when she was taken into foster care, she was still abused until she managed to finally live on her own.
Obfuscating Insanity: Inverted. Her dates/victims mistake her fairy-tale talk for flirting, but she has real mental health issues.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Not only her backstory, but her fourth victim was a man from a nightclub who tried to force himself on her. She didn't even bother trying to subdue him or lure him out, just violently beat him with a rock then stabbed him when he tried to leave.
Single Woman Seeks Good Man:
- Claire basically twists this trope into a nightmare, as she wants a man who PERFECTLY matches her "Prince Charming" expectations and will retaliate VIOLENTLY if they don't act like a proper princely gentleman.
- Her boss' son Chris ends up fitting her criteria the most out of all the men she's met, purely because he's genuinely a nice guy who wants to help her stay out of trouble, but naturally she turns on him as well when he realizes she's not been visiting her father's grave, but a random stranger's.
Villain of the Week: Of "If the Shoe Fits".

John David "Johnny" Bidwell

Played by: J. Michael Trautmann, Austin Kane (young)

"Spend some time down there and you might learn your lesson."

An abductor and vigilante from San Diego responsible for the kidnapping of a trick-or-treater during Halloween. The BAU is called in when said boy shows up dead of malnutrition and another one vanishes in turn.

Abusive Parents: Sam Bidwell was a religious fanatic and alcoholic who beat his own wife Mary, young John and his sister Sandra regularly, keeping them from going trick-or-treating on Halloween. When the boy managed to sneak out and egg a neighbor's house, Sam locked him in a trunk and threatened to keep him there a whole year before Mary took action against him and bludgeoned him to death before letting Sam back out, who was then forced to help her hide the body. This all contributed to completely warp Bidwell's perception of reality, leading him to become aggressive, kill animals by locking them in trunks and thinking of his abuse all the way to adulthood, where he now wants to feel the same control his father did.
Closet Punishment: His M.O. is to put his chosen captive in a secret underground box compartment in his property and leaving the kid there for an entire year until next Halloween. This is in direct reference to his tormented childhood and his abusive father's punishment of locking Bidwell in a trunk and threatening to keep him there "until next Halloween".
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Warped as he's become, he still loves his mother. It's only when Mary is brought in that they manage to make him confess where Hunter's being kept and how to get there.
Smug Snake: Point-blank tells the BAU they'll never find Hunter when they show up to arrest him. Bringing his mother in immediately shuts him up.
Turning Into Your Parent: Bidwell's poor childhood made him grow into an equally abusive asshole exactly like his father Sam before him, emphasized by him muffling Hunter Olson's cries for help with loud music and, indeed, drinking and smoking callously before getting so frustrated from Hunter's pleas that he beats the boy up violently, even using the exact same words his father did when doing so.
Thou Shall Not Kill: His intention is never to kill the boys he abducts, only "punish" them, so much so that he only caused Tommy Wilcox to die by forgetting to feed him. He did a better job of that with Joshua Parker, who emerged hurt and traumatized but alive.
Villain of the Week: Of "Boxed In".

William Pratt (The Selfie Killer/The Mirror Man)

Played by: Ian Nelson

"We're gonna live forever."

A delusional teenage serial killer and stalker from Maryland who uses the image of a creepypasta character created by his friend to commit murders and live off the character's "fame" on social media.

Attention Whore: Craves social media attention to the Mirror Man story, using it to kill other influencers, and cares about nothing but this. Diminishing him as a threat makes him PISSED, and the news labeling him as "The Selfie Killer" earns his disapproval to the point of him creating a Mirror Man hashtag to correct them.
Berserk Button: Mocking or, worse, belittling him as his Mirror Man persona. It drives him to even great heights of savagery, since he actively tortured Daniel Osbourne before shooting him with the nail gun repeatedly and mutilating his body post-mortem.
Big Bad Friend: He helped create the Mirror Man story with his high school friend Connor Holt, and is using his friend's idea to formulate a spree of deaths to make it more famous online. Holt is horrified when he learns of this, and seeing his friend in the hospital, hurt from the gunshot wound he took, only care about how famous he's gotten, makes him disgusted and shocked.
Calling Card: Before each kill, he'd post a selfie of the target that he hacked off their accounts and altered by placing the "Mirror Man" on the background with Photoshop, then later post another selfie of the bodies with a description reading "Fear me". He also killed his victims post-Tara Harris with an automatic nail gun, and used it after killing Alexander Chase to fire 56 shots on the back of his driver's seat to form an actual hashtag symbol.
Composite Character: He's an attention-craving teenage serial killer who is disorganized in his methods and chooses specific targets with a specific goal in mind, looking up to a role model figure of an older boy he's close friends with, similar to Owen Porter from Season 5. But he also has Robert Johnson's type of "attention craving" through internet "fame" by killing people and posting the deaths online in some capacity, as well as being a lonely hacker who stalks his targets online.
Creepypasta: The "Mirror Man" is this in-universe, created by Connor Holt with Pratt's help. The story is about a ghostly entity that appears behind people on reflective surfaces when they take selfies.
Green-Eyed Monster: It's implied he started with Tara Harris because of her larger internet following through increasingly-raunchier selfies.
Hostage Situation: He's cornered at the parking garage of the mall he works at by the BAU and takes a random shopper named Kimmy hostage with his nail gun. JJ is almost able to talk him down until a news van parks nearby and gives Pratt an audience, encouraging him to shoot Kimmy (she survives) and forcing Derek to shoot him In the Back.
Memetic Mutation: Invoked in-universe. His objective is to make the Mirror Man story created by his friend Connor Holt an internet success, and he does this through killing other influencers to match the creepypasta's story.
Nail 'Em: After Tara Harris, he starts using an automatic nail gun to kill his later victims.
Red Baron: Deconstructed. The press starts labeling him as "The Selfie Killer", but Pratt doesn't like it since he's trying to become famous off the Mirror Man story. As a result, he uses a hashtag after his next kill to correct them.
Stalker without a Crush: Reid profiles him as doing this to influencers by seeking them out not just in social media (as he did with Tara Harris) but also from personal connections (Alexander Chase was Connor's other friend).
Teens Are Monsters: Pratt is delusional and only cares about the attention the Mirror Man is getting from the press and online through his killing of other influencers. Even in a hospital bed, he asks for Connor's phone just so he can post about surviving the shot, and brags that he'll be released immediately since he's a minor (given the BAU's history with underage killers, that's thankfully unlikely).
Villain of the Week: Of "Hashtag".

Jack Westbrook and the Sudworth Place victims

Played by: Jeffrey Nordling (Westbrook), Evan Gamble (Chad Griffith), Alex MacNicoll (Andrew Ford) & Garrett Boyd (Brian Stiller)

Westbrook: "You [Stiller] weren't like the others, even back then. Ah, come on, I knew you were special. To be honest, you were my favorite."

Jack Westbrook is a renowned attorney who is also a pedophile who abused the boys of a home for troubled teens back in 2002 to 2004 where he volunteered. Among his victims were Chad Griffith, Andrew Ford and Brian Stiller, the latter being his "favorite". In the present, the trio organize a plan to kidnap Westbrook and torture him as revenge, unaware that their group is not as united as it seems.

Accidental Murder: Griffith and Ford bring in their old friend Brian Stiller to help with Westbrook's torture, but he's oddly reluctant to help even after being the one the lawyer molested the most out of the trio. When Griffith, inebriated, decides to just kill Westbrook, Stiller intervenes and a fight ensues that makes Chad fall down the same pit Westbrook's in, killing him.
Anti-Villain: The three young men were molested by Westbrook in their youth and plan on torturing him in the present as revenge, having no other victim in mind and targeting an actual sociopathic pedophile, even if their own methods are radical.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Griffith's plan is to make Westbrook admit to their abuse in their youth by keeping him on a dark pit inside an old abandoned warehouse, the floor of which is littered with broken pieces of glass with Westbrook being barefoot.
Dirty Coward: Stiller ends up trying to pin Westbrook and Griffith's deaths on Ford when the BAU corners them, not long after he was telling Ford to listen to them and be cooperative. Naturally it doesn't stick since they already know he's also guilty of having child pornography.
Disney Villain Death: Griffith, whom Stiller accidentally kills by dropping him down the pit Westbrook is at the bottom of, killing him on impact.
Exact Words: When the BAU and the police find Ford and Stiller, Morgan promises Ford that he'll get a confession, which confuses Ford since Westbrook is dead. Cue Stiller trying to pin Westbrook and Griffith's deaths all on his shoulders, outing himself as someone keeping a larger crime hidden and trying to save his own ass. Ford is then horrified to hear them arrest Stiller for the charge of pedophilia, like Westbrook. He got his confession.
The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Downplayed, as they're all still criminals, but the trio still fits this dynamic.
- Andrew is the Good, being the least morally ambiguous and only wanting justice for what Westbrook did to them, not murder.
- Chad is the Bad, being the one who wants actual revenge and to kill Westbrook more than anything, though it's still motivated by what he did to them and their friend Matt.
- Brian is the Evil, having become a pedophile himself, accidentally killing Chad, deliberately murdering Westbrook when he threatens to expose his nature as a pedophile, and tries to pin the blame all on Andrew when the BAU arrive to save himself.
Greater-Scope Villain: Westbrook is the one responsible for all the trio's ills in their teenage years, having molested them all, Stiller especially.
Laser-Guided Karma: Pedophile himself or not, Stiller - the lawyer's favorite victim back then - is the one who ends up killing Westbrook.
Pay Evil unto Evil: The three young men were molested by Westbrook as teenagers and seek to torture him in the present as retaliation by throwing him down a pit with broken glass on the floor. Stiller ends up killing him when he's revealed to know that he's also a pedophile.
Pedo Hunt: Their plan amounts to this, wanting to make Westbrook confess to their molestation at his hands and torture him in retaliation, except he's resilient and knows that a confession will be the end of his career. Except the trauma hit Stiller differently and he is himself a budding pedophile with less resentment towards Westbrook, so much so that he almost helps him escape until the lawyer reveals he knows Stiller is one, at which point he shoots him dead in anger. When Stiller and Ford are cornered by the BAU, Ford is horrified when his supposed friend is arrested as a pedophile himself.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Boys of Sudworth Place".

Ellen Connell

Played by: Tina Holmes

"You don't have to do this, don't... have to do this. ...Yes, you do, you hate her, you... hate her..."

A woman who went through a near-fatal car accident that damaged her frontal lobe. Improper treatment of her condition led Ellen to become a psychotic spree killer who succumbs to fits of murderous rage and kills people around herself at the slightest provocation.

Berserk Button: Anything will set her off, as her fits of rage are almost uncontrollable and any provocation will drive her to manic episodes and killing.
Calling Card: After every kill, she'd wash the blood off her own clothes and the victims' and redress them in new sets. Her first three victims were also placed in sitting positions.
The Dog Bites Back: One of her victims is her credit-stealing superior Sarah Ryan, whom she corners at home and stabs once before making her admit she did steal her idea for the company. She then kills her with another stab.
Hostage Situation: Takes her own daughter hostage in a rage-induced panic when confronted by the BAU at Abby Benson's home.
My God, What Have I Done?: Her reaction every time her anger dissipates and she's left with the aftermath of the killing, with her redressing of her victims being pointed out as a sign of remorse.
Prematurely Bald: Stress and horror at what she's doing makes her tear out chunks of her hair, to the point there are bleeding bald patches on her scalp she has to wear a wig to hide.
Til Murder Do Us Part: Kills her own husband in a panic when he realises what she's done and tries to convince Ellen to turn herself in.
Unstoppable Rage: Suffered damage to her frontal lobe after a car crash, the result of which being a form of intermittent explosive disorder that causes her to become overstressed at the slightest trigger and lash out at people around her by killing them.
Villain of the Week: Of "Fate".

Benton Farland

Played by: Travis Caldwell

"Hi, Amelia."

A psychopathic spree killer, rapist and abductor who once used a woman named Amelia Porter to kill his own older sister when she rejected his advances, then to get a reduced sentence in prison when Amelia claimed to be the mastermind. Twelve years later and out of prison, he seeks to extend his sense of entitlement to his own niece by kidnapping her and her brother.

Age-Gap Romance: His mother's death corrupted his "love map" and caused him to feel an attraction towards his older sister Miriam, initiating a preference towards older women on Farland that caused him to gravitate towards Amelia Porter and obsess with her, getting her high so she'd be more compliant in stabbing Miriam to death when she refused him.
Ax-Crazy: A psychopathic asshole who kills people around him at the slightest provocation or even if they inconvenience him in the smallest way. He goes out of his way to shoot people just trying to help or innocent bystanders who just happen to catch him doing something wrong.
Batman Gambit: Attempted by the BAU, who corner him but claim to believe his lie about Amelia being the mastermind of his plan so he'll let Rebecca go, but it fails when he notices Kate is still pointing her gun at him and realizes they're lying. This still manages to save his niece and Amelia, so he shoots himself in response.
Brother–Sister Incest: The death of his mother inspired him to seek his older sister Miriam as a love interest, but her refusal caused him to drug Amelia and make her kill Miriam after raping her.
Creepy Uncle: Considering he raped his own sister before having her killed, it's no wonder his sense of entitlement extends to his niece Rebecca, wanting to do the exact same thing with her by having Amelia present for it.
Driven to Suicide: The BAU's interference saves Rebecca and manages to get Amelia away from him. Enraged, he shoots himself in the head.
Entitled to Have You: He killed his sister Miriam when he was a teenager because she wouldn't return his incestuous feelings towards her, "daring" to have a life of her own as well as her own children to raise. In the present, he also feels this way towards Amelia after all the years they've spent apart, wanting to go back to her and force her to kill his niece Rebecca just to relive their killing of Miriam.
The Farmer and the Viper: His nephew Andy stood up for Farland in the past, believing his lie that Amelia Porter was the dominant one in the pair. In the present, Farland repays his kidness by kidnapping both him and his sister and going on a killing spree with the two being Forced to Watch and, when he finally gets a chance to save his sister, Farland shoots him and takes her alone (although he ends up surviving).
Freudian Excuse: Downplayed; the death of his mother at a young age did affect him, but his response and growing psychopathic rage all stemmed from Farland himself.
Lack of Empathy: He's a psychopath, so he can feign emotions well enough, as well as having no emotional attachment even towards his own family. He actually enforces this on himself after his nephew Andy tries to save Rebecca from him, bluntly telling her that people who try to empathize with him are inevitably going to "betray" them.
Shoot the Dog: Repeatedly kills people who just happen to wander into the mess he's created by shooting them.
Villain of the Week: Of "Amelia Porter".

Jon Kanak and the Forever People cult

Played by: Ptolemy Slocum (Kanak), Grant Show (Colton Grant), Christina Edland (Beth Acosta)

Kanak: "It's eighteen below [zero degrees]. How long do you think he has?"

The Forever People are a cult in Nevada led by con artist Colton Grant, who freezes their new "members" as an initiation rite. However, a member of the cult named Jon Kanak is secretly using his position to satisfy his demented urges and becoming a budding serial killer within the cult, whose murder of a recruit gets the attention of a man looking for the victim, his wife.

Ambiguous Situation: After Kanak is arrested, the cult's status is left unknown, but it's highly possible the FBI worked on shutting it down afterwards.
Antagonist Title: Downplayed; the episode's name refers to the cult Kanak is a part of, but the cult itself is unrelated to his sick fantasies of freezing people alive.
Apocalypse Cult: The cult is a doomsday-oriented type that enforces the belief that only the Forever People will survive the decadence of modern society in the near future, and initiates their members through cryogenic freezing and ressucitation, which Kanak is responsible for at his home.
Badass in Distress: Carl Mason, whose wife was killed by Kanak, is eventually captured by him after being outed as an infiltrator, and ends up needing to be rescued by JJ when she corners the killer at his home's freezer.
Big Bad Ensemble: Colton Grant's cult practices are clearly not within the law no matter what his lawyer says, but he's unaware of Kanak's true intentions himself.
Even Evil Has Standards: Grant and his lawyer Beth are interrogated over the deaths in his cult but are quickly let go after being shown the crime scene photos. As the BAU surmises, despite his psychopathy, Grant was genuinely unnerved by the photos and showed shock at the fact the deaths were genuine.
Freudian Excuse: Averted with Colton Grant, who isn't given much detail about his past. Kanak, meanwhile, went hiking with his parents when he was a child, but they were forced into extreme measures when they got lost and the temperature started to drop. Whatever "measures" were taken left Kanak with a sexual fascination for freezing people alive.
The Heavy: Kanak is the episode-centric UnSub, with the Forever People being a convenient "excuse".
Human Popsicle: Part of the Forever People's intiation ritual is to be frozen in cryogenic sleep and ressucitated not long after as a full-fledged member. Jon Kanak, meanwhile, has a deathly fascination with the process of freezing people alive and uses it to kill his victims while hidden by the cult and its leader's legal power.
Villain of the Week: Of "The Forever People".
You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Attempted by Kanak when JJ corners him, as he points out her gun could set off an explosion in the freezer due to the leaking acetylene gas all over the freezer at that moment. Thing is, the lower temperature is enough to prevent an explosion all the same, as it's too cold for that kind of ignition. Cue JJ neutralizing him.

Frank Cosgrove

Played by: Ray Abruzzo

"Keep Estelle out of this! She's twenty-three years old! A mother! She deserves to live!"

A desperate spree killer whose daughter Estelle is on a long wait line for a vital liver transplant, making him seek out and kill people in the organ donor list in hopes of hastening the process.

Anti-Villain: Only kills to boost his daughter's shot at a new liver, and clearly regrets doing it.
Berserk Button: His killing of Dale Crawford lacks any of the remorse he had with the other victims because Crawford was an active drug user, reminding him of why his daughter ended up on the recipient list to begin with. As a result, he shot Crawford five extra times after killing him with a shot to the head.
Calling Card: Since he wants his victims to survive long enough to be rescued and taken into surgery for the organ transplant, Frank tries to kill them in ways that will both facilitate the process and leave the organs unharmed (blunt weapons, shooting only to damage the skull, etc), very often ending in failure as the circumstances behind each death make sure the victims die (like no one around when they should be or the blows being far too lethal). After his first two victims died meaninglessly, he took to calling 911 anonymously to report on his crimes before committing them.
Driven to Suicide: The BAU convinces him that he's doing more harm than good and his spree won't help his daughter in the long run. Regretful, he releases Carol Murray then shoots himself in the head.
Heroic Sacrifice: Cornered and convinced by the BAU that his actions are not the solution his daughter needs, he releases his final intended victim then fatally shoots himself in the head, his liver being donated anonymously to help his daughter.
Papa Wolf: A dark version; his daughter needed a liver to help with her cholestasis and he couldn't give half of his because of his high blood pressure, so they had to wait for one on a list. He decided to kill organ donors and then receivers with a higher priority just so that his daughter got a better chance.
Revolvers Are Just Better: Shoots his victims with a snub-nosed revolver.
Villain of the Week: Of "Anonymous".

Donnie Mallick

Played by: Arye Gross

"You can lock me up. I still win. I got my girls. And I killed Jason Gideon."

A serial killer from an old case investigated by Rossi and Jason Gideon back during the early years of the BAU. Mallick targeted single women with no "self-worth" in order to fulfill a fantasy, but the unit closed in on him and forced him into retreat. In the present, he's the man who shot and killed Jason Gideon.

Crime of Self-Defense: Invoked by Rossi who forces Mallick to pick up a gun and try to shoot him in order to execute him in cold blood, rather than arrest him and have him hailed as a hero in prison for killing a Federal Agent.
Evil Counterpart: To Jason Gideon. Both are fascinated with birds (in fact working this case is what got Gideon interested in ornithology in the first place), both are very introverted characters who like to live alone (ignoring the women Mallick kept as prisoners), was the first Un-Sub Gideon ever dealt with and one he never caught, and Mallick ultimately ends up murdering Gideon to cover his own tracks. The contrasts are striking as well since Gideon is refined, humanitarian and intellectual while Mallick is a Book Dumb misanthropic recluse who got away with his crimes through sheer luck and keeping his head down; further, while losing a woman in his life caused Gideon to retire, the death of his female prisoner is what brings Mallick out of retirement to find a replacement.
He Knows Too Much: His motivation for killing Gideon is that he was worried the latter was putting the pieces together and getting closer to arresting him. Turns out to be a case of Nice Job Fixing It, Villain since all this does is bring the entire FBI down on his head.
Hero Killer: The UnSub who managed to corner and kill Jason Gideon after suspecting he was getting too close for comfort to finally catching him. The repercussions of Gideon's death would deeply affect the BAU afterwards, Reid especially.
It's Personal: To the team as a whole after he kills Gideon off-screen, leading to Rossi more or less murdering him by invoking Crime of Self-Defense and getting away with it.
Small Role, Big Impact: Despite only appearing in one episode, he is chronologically the very first UnSub Gideon and Rossi ever faced and he killed Gideon himself.
Villain of the Week: Of "Nelson's Sparrow".

James Burke and Allen Archer

Played by: Grinnell Morris & Lex Medlin

Burke: "I'm the one with the bomb."

Archer: "I love my wife!'

James Burke is a former school board member with a God complex, swearing revenge on Indianapolis by becoming a serial bomber with the intention of proving his "authority" over the city. After one of his bombings at a high school kills a single janitor on the graveyard shift, another bomber emerges trying to replicate the original's idea for a different reason altogether.

A God Am I: James Burke's motivation is a severe God complex that makes him feel like he's the single most important individual in Indianapolis and everyone needs to respect and fear him.
Batman Gambit: Reid manages to convince Burke to turn himself in when he tries to blow up the press conference Archer is speaking at by telling him that, if he blows himself up with the crowd, no one will know what he did, and promises him media coverage if he does surrender.
Big Bad Ensemble: Burke and Archer are both serial bombers looking to prove something through their crimes, but their motivations are vastly different from each other and, in fact, Burke tries to kill Archer after assuming he's trying to steal his time in the spotlight.
Disproportionate Retribution: Brought on by Burke's narcissistic tendencies, but the reason he declares all-out war on Indianapolis' people is due to them daring to fire him over having a romantic affair with a student.
Even Evil Has Standards: It's ambiguous whether or not Burke planned on actually taking lives with the other locations he wanted to explode, but he seemed shocked that someone actually died during the elementary school bombing, since it wasn't part of his plan. As for Allen Archer, to say he's regretful of the deaths he caused in his bid to become a hero is an understatement.
Foil: Burke sets up bombs because of a God complex that makes him angry at the people of Indianapolis for "challenging his authority" and firing him from the school board, wanting to prove his power over them through the destruction of several commerce spots and landmarks, while Archer is a nobody jealous of his former best friend's success and who started using the bombing spree to try and make himself a hero in his new wife's eyes.
It's All About Me: Both UnSubs are different flavors of narcissistic, with their plans both boiling down to a need for attention and praise from the community, but for different reasons each (respect and authority for Burke, heroism and importance for Archer).
Jack the Ripoff: Archer took to setting up bombs himself so he could be recognized as a hero by his wife, using Burke's own bomb setup to blow up a coffee shop. Problem is, not only does he end up killing far more people than intended (which was none, he just wanted an easy rescue), the original bomber is not happy about someone trying to copy his methods.
I Just Want to Be You: Archer was resentful of his best friend Grant Ford, a US Navy SEAL with a loving wife and daughter. When Ford died overseas, Archer seized the opportunity to get close to his wife Brenda and managed to get together with her.
Mad Bomber: Two of them, and the first is not happy about the copycat that just appeared.
My God, What Have I Done?: Archer's first bombing was at a coffee shop where he planned on saving a pregant woman at the scene, except he didn't count on the bomb rupturing a natural gas line that caused a second, more powerful explosion at the location, killing seven people and wounding fourteen others (including the woman). When the BAU interrogates him, he breaks down crying from regret, never seeking to actually kill others for his goal.
Villain of the Week: Of "Hero Worship"

Peter Holden/Peter Folkmore

Played by: Brian Poth, Ty Haile (young)

"Scream for me."

A disturbed and delusional budding serial killer and abductor who suffers from the memory of his parents' gruesome deaths, seeking to make them anew through recording his victims repeat the dialogue while in pain.

Abusive Parents: His father Frank was an abusive sort who repeatedly beat up Peter's mother Karen. Hoping to get him arrested, a police officer named John Folkmore handed him a tape recorder to try and get evidence of the beatings, but young Peter's first attempt resulted in him witnessing his father slash his mother's throat open before killing himself, all in front of his son. The incident is what scarred Peter for life to the point of obsession.
Badass in Distress: One of the very few UnSubs who manages to overpower JJ in combat, needing another BAU member to come in and save her.
Batter Up!: Upgraded to using a baseball bat to torture his second victim with, tries using it to choke out the third and last one, then finally goes up against JJ with it when the BAU storm his house.
Calling Card: Tying up women that physically resemble his mother in his basement, playing Brenton Wood's "Great Big Bundle of Love" on a radio (the song that played when his father killed his mother) and reciting his father's dialogue before forcing the women to say his mother's, all so the recording would be similar to the original tape of his parents' murder-suicide.
Freudian Excuse: His father repeatedly abused his mother to the point a friendly police officer gave Peter a tape recorder so he'd record the abuse, hoping to have it as evidence. Instead, Peter ended up recording the moment his mother died at his father's hands and his subsequent suicide, getting traumatized as a result and making the tape recorder his entire world as he relived his parents' deaths on loop. Losing the tape with the recording of the deaths to a fire made him snap and try to redo it with new victims.
Irony: He wants to record a new version of his parents' deaths on tape, but the BAU ambushing him ensured all he recorded were his own final moments.
Meaningful Rename: He changed his last name to Folkmore in his adulthood to match officer John Folkmore, the only thing Peter ever had close to a true parental figure.
Prepare to Die: See quote above, directed at JJ. Cue Kate shooting him fatally In the Back.
JJ: You wish.
Psychological Projection: His entire world revolved around the cassette tape that accidentally caught his parents' horrible deaths, and losing it caused him to snap and try to replicate the contents with new victims that physically resemble his mother. Greta Thomas in particular is abducted because of how she's also suffering abuse at the hands of a hostile partner, with Peter even shouting at her for letting herself be beaten in front of her son as he was.
Serial Killer: A budding serial killer who kills two women in the episode and is stopped by the BAU before he killed Greta Thomas.
Villain of the Week: Of "Scream".

Reagan Federal Penitentiary Fight Club

Played by: William Ragsdale (Dale Shavers), Matt Corboy (Tom Polinsky), Tommy Lamey (Randall Jefferson Jones), Isaac Keys (Patrick Butler), Xango Herny (Weeks)

Butler, to Shavers: "They gonna figure it out. And they gonna find you, you son of a bitch."

An illegal underground fight club organized within the Reagan Federal Penitentiary by a group of corrupt officers led by Captain Dale Shavers, using everything from blackmail to lax behavior in order to get prisoners to fight each other to the death and hide their tracks by any means necessary. The unusual amount of violence summons the BAU, who suspect the foul play reaches far deeper.

Dirty Cop: A whole group of these operating within a federal prison, making the prisoners fight each other to the death for their amusement. The corruption is so far-reaching that they have informants within the prisoner community and even force other officers to join in on the scheme under blackmail and death threats to their families, as is the case with officer Polinsky.
Dirty Coward: Shavers will openly dispose of someone if he sees them confessing to their activities, but the second the BAU corners him at the prison's security office to arrest him, he kills himself to avoid getting caught.
The Dog Bites Back: Patrick Butler was one of Shavers' favorite victims, but he got to kick the crap out of him in his final days after the death of his friend to the ring. Even after death, Patrick's Dying Curse to the captain (see above) comes true and quite a few prisoners choose to see reason and help the BAU in minor ways, ending the corrupt cops' reign over the prison.
Evil vs. Evil: The entire prison is in a state of chaos when the BAU is summoned, with the corrupt cops having to protect their own dirty scheme and a group of violent, bloodthirsty prisoners seeking revenge against their captors.
Fight Clubbing: An underground type led by corrupt cops in a Texas prison making the prisoners kill each other.
The Informant: Randall Jefferson Jones was Shavers' informant in the prisoner community and kept the other victims quiet as to not divulge their activities. He was later ambushed, raped and killed by Patrick Butler in the shower room.
Prison Riot: Attempted by Shavers when the BAU successfully gets the information about the fight club out of Polinksy, siccing a group of inmates led by one he made a deal with named Weeks and opening all their cells so they could deal with the agents. The riot is thankfully stopped by a combined effort from the BAU and the actual law-abiding officers in the place.
Token Good Teammate: Tom Polinsky only joined Shavers' ring of corrupt cops after being threatened by him to keep quiet. When the BAU interrogates him, he finally tries to come clean until Shavers, watching the interrogation on camera, frees a bunch of prisoners to try and kill him, Morgan and Kate.
Villain of the Week: Of "Lockdown".

Patrick Jon Murphy

Played by: Mark Deklin

"Is your inner tigress worried or is she ready for you to be free?"

A serial killer, stalker and rapist from Wisconsin obsessed with bondage play and BDSM, seeking out women who read a book that contains the subject and acting out his sick murder fantasies by using the novel as a guideline.

Calling Card: Engages in sexual foreplay with female victims using bondage and restraints before suffocating them to death with a nylon rope. After reading "Bare Reflections", he started setting up his crime scenes to resemble moments from the book and sneaking into the victims' homes at night to have consensual sex with them before the kill. Ironically, the book itself has no erotic asphyxiation in it whatsoever.
Deconstruction: Of the type of "BDSM" portrayed in the real-life novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which "Bare Reflections" is a pastiche of; Murphy is an attractive wealthy male like Christian Grey, who sweeps up naive young women with his good looks and charm in order to get them on bed with restraints, except Murphy has become so utterly obsessed with the erotic asphyxiation aspect of BDSM that he uses it to satisfy a killing urge and leave these women dead in their homes, referring to a similar criticism of Fifty Shades where the BDSM in the story is inaccurate and portrays Christian as more of a dangerous control freak than a "bad boy" risque boyfriend. To hammer the point home, the episode was even released a month after the book's film adaptation premiered on theaters, and the trailer for the episode uses the line "fifty shades of pain".
Captain Ersatz: As pointed out above, Murphy is essentially a murderous, rapist version of Christian Grey who suffocates his "Anastasias" to death.
Freudian Excuse: A 12-year-old Patrick accidentally walked in on his neighbors having rough sex and watched the wife die when an attempt at erotic asphyxiation went horribly wrong. Since his "love map" was still developing, this incident marked brutal erotic asphyxiation as Murphy's fetish to the point he eventually killed a prostitute through it in his adulthood, despite already being married with children at that point.
My God, What Have I Done?: His rape of his daughter Connie's tutor Charlotte Jacobsen is seen by Connie herself, which stops him from killing her. As he tries to explain himself and prevent her from running, the BAU bursts in, chases Patrick and arrests him. He's taken into custody while looking at his daughter with a desperate look in his eyes.
Show Within a Show: He uses a book called "Bare Reflections" as his guideline to bondage and sexual foreplay, as its story centers around it, and targets women who have read the book themselves, even quoting and using scenes from it when engaging in his kills.
Villain of the Week: Of "Breath Play".

Dinah Troy

Played by: Tess Harper

"I'm your mother. And I raised a good son, didn't I?"

The mother of US Congressman Benjamin Troy, who wants her son to be successful in his career... to the point of orchestrating the kidnapping of his mentally-unstable wife Sophie in a ploy to garner public sympathy for Benjamin during a period of decline in his term.

Abusive Parents: Averted; despite her obsession with ensuring Benjamin has a good career and wanting to live her own lack of success through her children, she's genuinely looking out for him. The problem is that she doesn't hold the same amount of love for her daughter-in-law, whom she sees as a burden on her son's back, and she doesn't seem to really care about Paul either.
Bittersweet Ending: She's arrested for conspiracy and planning the kidnapping, which means she'll probably never live well-off again, but in the end her plan worked: Benjamin's approval rating went much higher after the incident. And he visits her in prison to know what to do next.
Dating What Mommy Hates: She never approved of Sophie as Benjamin's wife and wanted him to get rid of her much earlier due to her mental issues. Kidnapping her was basically the excuse she needed to do so.
Despite the Plan: The Russian mobsters act against her wishes and actually cut off Sophie's ear to demand a much bigger ransom than agreed on previously, one kills the other and even escapes, and Dinah was forced to reveal her plan so the BAU could save Sophie... and yet she still got Benjamin's approval ratings to rise. Even he's impressed.
It's All About Me: Dinah was never successful enough in her own life, having grown up with her own parents hammering the mentality into her head. Her demanding attitude with both Paul and Benjamin is a way to live her lack of success through them and ensure she's in a good place in life.
The Mafiya: She summoned two members of the Russian mob - Roman Azarof and Taras Yudin - to kidnap Sophie, but they act against her wishes and end up severing Sophie's ear to demand a much bigger ransom value than agreed on.
My Beloved Smother: Dinah wants her son to be successful, and suffocates him with her insistence that he needs to be on the top of the ladder at all times. She's desperate enough to concoct a plan to kidnap her own daughter-in-law to achieve this.
The Unfettered: Nothing matters to her but success, and she'll do anything to ensure her sons (but especially Benjamin) have a successful life she can live her own dreams through, even if it jeopardizes the life of her daughter-in-law.
Villain of the Week: Of "Rock Creek Park".

Jerry Tidwell

Played by: Darri Ingolfsson, Dylan Garza (young)

"What are you gonna do about it? Hmm?! Nothing! Sit down!"

An international family-annihilator serial killer and abductor responsible for a huge string of deaths in tropical areas, targeting tourist families out on their vacations and having recently kidnapped another in Barbados. Due to the legal issues regarding crimes targeting American citizens abroad, the BAU is joined by Jack Garrett's International Response Team, who previously investigated the case in Aruba back in 2013, with the BAU also having an attempt in 2014 at an undisclosed time.

Abusive Parents: Tidwell's father was a sociopathic abuser who regularly beat up his son in horrifying ways (belt, locking him in the closet, drowning) but never raised his hand against the rest of his American family, causing Jerry to become vindictive of Americans.
Ax-Crazy: Trauma has transformed Tidwell into a sadistic, utterly broken maniac who takes pleasure in assaulting American tourists and brandishing a belt and gun to show power over the captive families. When the two teams finally intercept him, he screams at them that the current mess of a hostage taking is "their fault" and proceeds to shoot at an armed helicopter overhead.
Boomerang Bigot: Jerry is Dutch-American himself, but his abusive father only took out his rage on him for his mixed ancestry. This caused him to develop a hatred of Americans and start targeting tourists out on tropical vacations, particularly around the time of Spring Break.
Calling Card: Captures American tourist families off airports, tortures the captives the exact same way his father did to him, then records their sorrow and misery for posterity. He also made damn sure the fathers were Forced to Watch him kill the other family members first.
Composite Character: He's a family-annihilator UnSub who did get arrested at least once before and demanded the attention of two FBI teams to deal with him, similar to John Vincent Bell from Season 5, but mixed with the ownership of a fishing business and a history of abuse similar to Blake Wells from Season 6, down to emulating their abusive fathers' methods.
Freudian Excuse: Abused by his father while the rest of his born-American family was spared the worst of it, causing Tidwell to develop a seething hatred towards American families, projecting his own terrible upbringing onto them.
Godzilla Threshold: The fact that Tidwell is a very prolific killer acting outside US borders is enough for Mateo Cruz to summon the IRT to help the BAU catch him, the second UnSub requiring two teams to apprehend.
Hostage Situation: The episode is about the BAU and the IRT trying to save the Sullivan family from Tidwell, all four members kidnapped and taken to his boat where he's beating and torturing them to satisfy his sadistic needs. It ends with his boat surrounded and Garrett putting him down with two shots to save the family.
Psychological Projection: He projects his anger and resentment towards his father and family on the ones he captures off airports, acting the same way his father did for added measure to give them a taste of what he went through.
Self-Made Orphan: His birth family, abusive father included, were his first victims. He was first caught soon after choking his father to death at the hotel they were staying in for vacation.
Turning Into Your Parent: Uses the same abuse methods his father did on him to torment the families he captures.
Villain of the Week: Of "Beyond Borders".

Marc Powers/Marc Clifford

Played by: Grant Harvey

"Sit down, Mom. We have something to celebrate."

A delusional spree killer and family annihilator who has been lied to his entire life about his family's history so his birth mother could cover up the fact he was the product of an affair and be paid a hefty sum for her silence. Enraged, he took matters into his own hands to make it clear he's angry at being lied to.

Best Served Cold: Marc's revenge scheme was spurned on by psychotic rage, but he didn't just storm the Kingman home and go on a rampage, he waited. He PLANNED it, every excruciating part of it. Worse, his reaction to being cornered before killing his mother is to chillingly tell her "it can wait" before he surrenders.
Graceful Loser: He sets up the deadly dinner for his mother and is about to kill her when the BAU arrives and stops him. Unlike other UnSubs, he doesn't put up a fight and calmly lets himself be taken, but not before telling Cora that their talk "can wait".
Lying to Protect Your Feelings: His birth mother, Cora Gilliam, hid Marc's origins from him by claiming his father was a Gulf War fighter who went MIA, setting up three plates on the table every time to help with the story. As soon as Marc found out the truth, he didn't take it well.
Mummies at the Dinner Table: What gets the BAU involved; during the episode, Marc successfully holds the Kingman members at gunpoint during a family dinner, executes each meticulously, then forces his father Frank to wake up to his family all dead around the dinner table, set up as a normal family dinner, before kidnapping and killing him alone, with the BAU summoned to see the crime scene he left behind. This is also how he's orchestrated his endgame for his mother, planning on repeating the scenario but with Frank's dead body at his home's table and forcing Cora to see him dead before killing her too. He's stopped before he can carry it out.
Self-Made Orphan: His objective is to make the entire Kingman family pay for abandoning him, as well as torture his own mother and kill her out of revenge for hiding it all from him for so long. While he does kill the relevant Kingman members, the BAU arrests him before he can do anything to Cora.
Villain of the Week: Of "A Place At The Table".

Daniel "Danny" Lee Stokes

Played by: Joe Adler

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/danny_lee_stokes.jpg

"You stay out of my city!"

A schizophrenic vigilante, serial-turned-spree killer and abductor who targets people he believes to be corrupt and immoral in a vain attempt to save his own family.

Asshole Victim: Averted; he THINKS he's executing criminals and law breakers, when he's actually executing minor felons at best and innocent people at worst, since his schizophrenia is making him hallucinate crimes in progress where there are none.
Dark and Troubled Past: His mother was murdered by an intruder. That, combined with his already present schizophrenia, caused him to kill the family of the man he believed murdered his mother and start hallucinating them.
Insane Equals Violent: Downplayed. Whenever he takes his medication, he is calm and placated. When he doesn't, that's when the violence kicks in and he starts killing what he perceives as "criminals".
Knight Templar: He mainly kills people he views as bad, such as prostitutes, muggers, and rapists. Due to his schizophrenia, this could be anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path.
Never Hurt an Innocent: He ensures no Innocent Bystanders get caught in the crossfire. Because of this, he is horrified when a woman dies of a heart attack caused by one of his shootings... Except he's also been killing these same innocent bystanders left and right, his mental condition just makes him see otherwise.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Empties entire magazines on his victims as he shoots them. (His gun carries thirteen rounds, including one already in the chamber.)
Vigilante Man: Believes himself as this. In reality, he's killing random people on the street.
Villain of the Week: Of "Protection".
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He's a born schizophrenic, genetically passed from his late mother, and his desire to protect what he perceives to be his family crossed with it to such a degree that he downgraded into shooting people around himself after seeing them as bad influences.

Characters / Criminal Minds: UnSubs (Seasons Eight to Ten)

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