Criminal Minds: The 5 Best & 5 Worst Episodes, According To IMDb

CBS crime drama Criminal Minds was one of the most viewed cable shows during its run. None of the first nine seasons ever averaged less than 10 million viewers. The series came to an end in February 2020 after airing for a total of fifteen seasons.

Criminal Minds had a tendency for changing its main cast on a regular basis, but this never discouraged fans of the show from continuing to follow it. The series was nominated for many awards including three Emmys. According to IMDb, the following episodes were the best.

10 Best: Mr. Scratch (8.8)

In the 21st episode of Season 10, the BAU captured three different killers who had all killed a loved one. Two of the murderers had similar descriptions of what led them to kill. Both claimed they had been attacked by monsters with talons and had to react.

Surprisingly, all three killers were also raised as adopted kids. They had all been adopted in 1985 at the age of three. The team thus began digging deeper into their histories to find out the common trigger that led them all to become murderers.

9 Worst: Burn (6.6)

After having several nightmares, Garcia went to Texas to have a one-on-one chat with the death row inmate who almost murdered her. She tried to probe him in order to understand him since she was once a criminal, too. However, this didn’t happen, so she was left rather disappointed.

While Garcia was absent Lynch took over as the analyst. The team was investigating two murders in Seattle. The two dead men both had Roman numerals carved inside their mouths. A mysterious person named Dante was said to be behind the murders, and his target was nine victims in total. The team thus set itself in a race against time to stop him.

8 Best: Believer (8.9)

Reid received an email from an anonymous person about the location of Owen Quinn. Owen was an FBI agent who wanted to join the BAU. He had quit after breaking protocol to pursue a major case himself. Owen hadn’t been seen in the past year.

The BAU thus set out to find the motives of the email sender. They questioned Oliver, who revealed that he had been held captive by a family known as the Stranglers. They had tortured him and only their teenage son had been friendly towards him. However, additional evidence suggested that Oliver might be one of the Stranglers.

7 Worst: Magnificent Light (6.6)

More murder cases popped up in the ninth episode of season eight. Two people had been stabbed in their apartment, and, for each murder, a message written in blood had been left. The victims were said to have attended a gathering organized by a motivational speaker, and one of them had gone for a one-on-one session later.

The motivational speaker named Flynn became a suspect since he had gone into hiding. But, when Flynn became a target of the killer, too, the team was forced to look elsewhere.

6 Best: Revelations (9.0)

The second season’s 15th episode was all about serial killer drama, but with an interesting angle that reminded viewers why the show is so brilliant. This time, it was a drug-addicted religious fanatic named Tobias Hankle. The man with a history of killing had abducted Dr. Spencer Reid and kept him inside a cabin in the woods.

While investigating the kidnapping, the team learned that Tobias had been abused by his father when he was a kid. His father was a religious fanatic, too. He thus ended up developing a split personality as both a God-fearing man and a violent killer.

5 Worst: Future Perfect (5.8)

The BAU descended to St. Augustine, Florida to investigate a case where the bodies of a woman and an old man had been found in a swamp in the outskirts of the city. All of the woman’s blood had been drained and injected into the man’s body.

The man had been suffering from Parkinson’s, while the woman was healthy, so the team figured that the killer was conducting some kind of medical experiment to find a cure for the disease. Animal DNA was also found in the man’s body, thus confirming the killer’s motives.

4 Best: Mosley Lane (9.0)

Season five’s sixteenth episode saw the BAU handling a case involving someone that J.J. was familiar with. The case involved Sarah Hillridge, whose son had been abducted when he was eight. The BAU was working on a new kidnapping case, and it was very similar to that of Sarah’s child.

Garcia soon discovered that a total of twelve kids had been abducted in the same manner in the Virginia area. All of them were eight years old when they were abducted, too. The team thus decided to go on a hunt for the kidnappers.

3 Worst: Internal Affairs (5.8)

NSA agent Tony Axelrod requested Hotch to look into a case of three DEA agents who had gone missing in El Paso, Texas while working into the Libertad drug cartel. One of the three agents was found murdered with his face peeled off and replaced by another man’s face.

Axelrod suspected Assistant DEA Director Bernard Graff of being a cartel mole and giving up the DEA agents, hence the reason why he chose to use Hotch instead of doing the investigation himself. It was a decent plot, but audiences weren’t too impressed by it.

2 Best: Entropy (9.2)

In the eleventh episode of season 11, Reid went on a blind date with a woman named Cat. It turned out that she was one of the Dirty Dozen assassins known as the Black Widow and Reid was pretending to be a potential client. The team had determined that there were four assassins all related to the code name “Snowman.”

The assassin Reid was meeting was smart and knew she was being played. What resulted is a beautiful cat and mouse contest of psychological warfare between Reid and her.

1 Worst: Awake (5.6)

Reid was is in Las Vegas taking care of his mother in the eighth episode of season 11. Meanwhile, Garcia was being targeted by the Dirty Dozen. The team was even thinking of putting her into witness protection. While the BAU figured out what to do, they tried to solve other cases.

Another murder/kidnapping case popped up Phoenix, Arizona. Two men had been abducted, and one of them had been tortured before being murdered. The team found out that the victims were not related but were just random hitchhikers that had been targeted at night. Definitely not a fascinating plot.

About The Author

Philip Etemesi
(1215 Articles Published)

Philip Etemesi is an author, journalist, screenwriter and film critic based in Nairobi. Kenya. As a child, he preferred watching movies like The Goodfellas instead of Home Alone. His girlfriend constantly has to pull him from the front of the TV but he just keeps returning. Stubborn dude! An animal lover, Philip also has a pet giraffe called Refu.

More From Philip Etemesi