Criminal Minds Season 1 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for every episode of the first season of Criminal Minds, which aired on CBS from September 2005 to May 2006. Jason Gideon comes back to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit after a breakdown, and with Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Elle Greenaway, media liaison Jennifer “JJ” Jareau and technical analyst Penelope Garcia he profiles killers across the country, until a puzzle-setting unsub called the Fisher King turns his game on the team itself.
Season 1 recap
Criminal Minds follows the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, a Quantico team that profiles unknown offenders, or unsubs, for local police across the country. Its first season aired on CBS from September 2005 to May 2006. In “Extreme Aggressor” Jason Gideon, off the job for six months after a breakdown, helps catch two Seattle killers while unit head Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner quietly weighs whether he is ready to come back. Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid and technical analyst Penelope Garcia complete the group, joined by Elle Greenaway, a Seattle agent who helps on that case and starts with the unit in “Compulsion,” and liaison Jennifer “JJ” Jareau, first seen there too.
In “Won't Get Fooled Again” Gideon must recite an apology for the Boston deaths to Adrian Bale, the jailed bomber behind them, to learn which wire to cut, then has the other one cut. Neal Jones plays a counselor who lives with families before murdering them in “The Fox.” Reid, having failed his firearms test, shoots a nurse holding him and Hotch hostage (“L.D.S.K.”), and later boards a Texas train with a fake chip to calm a delusional physicist whose captives include Elle (“Derailed”). In “Riding the Lightning” Gideon decides a condemned woman never killed anyone and helps keep her son’s new life secret.
Haley Hotchner spends late pregnancy on bed rest, and the team meets the couple’s baby son in “The Fox.” Hotch explains why he left prosecuting for profiling (“Poison”), and Gideon calls his son, Stephen, to suggest they meet (“Blood Hungry”). In “What Fresh Hell?” Gideon enters a suspect’s house without a warrant and finds the missing girl alive in a hidden space. Reid kisses an actress, played by Amber Heard, whose stalker is shooting her rivals, before subduing the stalker without firing a shot (“Somebody's Watching”).
Mandatory leave scatters the agents in “The Fisher King: Part 1,” and an unknown man sends each a clue to a medieval quest to save Rebecca Bryant, a girl missing for two years. Reid visits his mother, Diana, played by Jane Lynch, at a Nevada sanitarium. The season stops mid-story, with the killer confronting Elle in her home, furious that the team went to the press.
Episodes
- 1
Extreme Aggressor
Called back from medical leave, Jason Gideon leads the BAU to Seattle to stop a pair of killers before their latest captive’s time runs out.
- 2
Compulsion
The BAU must throw out the usual arsonist profile to stop a fire-setter who has turned deadly on an Arizona college campus.
- 3
Won't Get Fooled Again
A Palm Beach bomber copying a jailed killer’s designs forces Gideon to bargain with the man behind his worst failure.
- 4
Plain Sight
The BAU hunts a San Diego killer who strikes in daylight, glues his victims’ eyes open and slips past heavy patrols unseen.
- 5
Broken Mirror
When a prosecutor’s daughter is kidnapped, the BAU must protect her twin from an abductor who seems to know the team’s every move.
- 6
L.D.S.K.
The BAU hunts a long-range shooter in Des Plaines who wounds his victims instead of killing them, while Reid, who has just failed his firearms test, goes unarmed.
- 7
The Fox
The BAU tracks a killer who moves in with families about to leave on vacation, plays the father for days and then murders them in the basement.
- 8
Natural Born Killer
A Baltimore triple murder leads the BAU to a mob hit man who tortures his victims, and to an undercover FBI agent who has gone missing.
- 9
Derailed
A schizophrenic physicist takes a train car hostage in West Texas, with Elle among his captives, and Reid boards to play along with his delusion.
- 10
The Popular Kids
When a quarterback is killed and his girlfriend goes missing beside satanic symbols on a Virginia mountain, the BAU looks past the devil-worship panic to the person staging it.
- 11
Blood Hungry
In a small Tennessee town, the BAU hunts a psychotic killer who takes his victims’ blood and organs and then abducts the young boy who saw him.
- 12
What Fresh Hell?
A girl is lured from a Wilmington park by a man searching for a lost dog, and the BAU, called in late, races the clock while the police first suspect her father.
- 13
Poison
When residents of a New Jersey town are secretly dosed with LSD and rohypnol, the BAU races to identify a vengeful poisoner before his real attack.
- 14
Riding the Lightning
Hours before a convicted killer couple is executed in Florida, the BAU interviews them, and Gideon comes to believe the wife never killed anyone.
- 15
Unfinished Business
A Philadelphia serial killer resurfaces after 18 years with older victims and new methods, and the BAU works with the retired profiler who never caught him.
- 16
The Tribe
When college students are tortured and killed on former Apache land in New Mexico, the BAU looks past the reservation to a cult bent on a race war.
- 17
A Real Rain
A killer who executes New Yorkers acquitted in court is hailed as a hero in the press, and the BAU races to find him before he strikes again.
- 18
Somebody's Watching
While teaching in Los Angeles, Gideon and Reid join the hunt for a stalker who kills a young TV actress’s rivals, and Reid grows close to her.
- 19
Machismo
Invited to Mexico to rule out a serial killer, the BAU finds one: a man in women’s clothing who murders elderly women in their homes.
- 20
Charm and Harm
The BAU races to catch an identified serial killer, a master of disguise, as he flees Florida and kills his way across the South.
- 21
Secrets and Lies
Called into CIA headquarters, the BAU must expose a mole in a counterterrorism unit before a Saudi diplomat finds the wife who informed on him.
- 22
The Fisher King: Part 1
On vacation, each BAU agent receives a clue from a killer who sets the team a medieval quest to save a girl missing for two years.