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CBS’s classic procedural drama, Criminal Minds, ran for 15 seasons and is still considered one of the best procedural crime drama series. Hence revived again in 2022. It follows a group of FBI criminal profilers working for its Behavioral Science Unit. Over the years, viewers have seen the profilers catch heinous criminals across the country.
While all of them were beyond talented and worked as a team to catch their unsubs, it was Matthew Gray Gubler’s genius character, Dr. Spencer Reid, that captured everyone’s attention. Reid’s eidetic memory and attention to detail often helped the team zero in on a criminal and catch them at the end.
However, there were numerous episodes where Reid’s genius mind helped solve the case altogether. Whether it was solving difficult riddles, manipulating the criminals, or using his observational skills to catch the perpetrators.
Here are 5 instances from Criminal Minds where Spencer Reid solved the most important pieces of the case with his genius mind.
Disclaimer: This entire article is based on the writer's opinion. Reader discretion is advised.
5 times in Criminal Minds when Spencer Reid’s genius mind saved the day
5) Minimal Loss (Episode 3, Season 4)
This is one of the early episodes where we see Reid go undercover in Criminal Minds. Reid and Prentis go to collect evidence on Benjamin Cyrus, a cult leader, who practises polygamy and has married even girls as young as 15 years old. Both the FBI agents entered the cult as child interview experts.
In the episode, we see how Reid has improved while talking to other people as he manipulates and comes closer to the cult leader. He also signals the BAU to storm the place early in the morning. And after learning that Cyrus was planning a mass suicide rather than surrender, he also helps in saving numerous women and children to get out of the compound through the tunnel.
4) The Fisher King Part 1 and 2 (Episode 22, Season 1 and Episode 1, Season 2)
The Fisher King is among the most important Spencer Reid episodes in Criminal Minds, as it provides so much backstory about Reid as his mother becomes the link to help them catch the criminal. Hacking into the FBI systems and leaving them difficult clues is what the unsub in the episode does.
However, when you have a genius like Dr. Reid in your team, these riddles don’t appear as challenging. While the members try to save the kidnapped girl, Reid tries to solve riddles which takes him into his childhood memory lane, and he discovers that teh unsub might have talked to her mother and hence knows everything about him and also his colleagues about whom he writes regularly to his mother.
Through the help of his childhood memories and his medieval knowledge, and ofcourse his mother’s help, Reid and the FBI agents solve the case, making it one of the most difficult yet memorable cases of Reid.
3) The Uncanny Valley (Episode 12, Season 5)
Criminal Minds presented all types of horrifying cases, some of which also dealt with sensitive subjects, like it did in Episode 12 of Season 5. The BAU unit was looking into the murders of a couple of women and the abduction of another. Through the clothes and stitch pattern on the dead bodies of the women, they learn that their unsub might be a seamstress.
Through the essays submitted by the kids in a doll-making competition, they learn that their suspect might be a woman named Samantha Malcolm. They learn about how her father, who was a child psychologist, gave her electric shock therapy to deal with her mother’s death. As they go to meet Samantha’s father, Reid notices numerous dolls kept in his office.
He further observes how they are kept high up in the shelves, away from children’s reach. He starts questioning him about the dolls and deduces how each one belongs to his many abuse victims. It doesn’t take much time for Reid to learn that, like many of his young patients, Samantha was also abused by her own father.
Through his sharp observational skills, Reid discovers one of the biggest clues that helps them find Samantha and later save her other victims.
2) Masterpiece (Episode 8, Season 4)
Episode 8 of Season 4 of Criminal Minds is one of the rare episodes where Reid finds a weird fan who is also the unsub and comes with the BAU on his own and challenges them to save his victims. It is also one of the most unsettling and terrifying episodes due to Jason Alexander’s incredible portrayal of Professor Rothchild.
Rothschild came with them to take revenge on Rossi for arresting his brother and brought with him a puzzle for the team. As they find more clues about his victims, Reid notices that three of the women were from the same area and the other two were from a different location. They further received photos from Kaylee’s home, where the toys were left in an odd pattern.
It doesn’t take much time for Reid to find out that the pattern was the Fibonacci series: 1 1 2 3 5…. With the help of Rothchild’s locket and the map of Virginia, Reid explains his theory, and they go to save the victims of the unsub, only for him to reveal that Rossi’s team completes his pattern and will be dead.
Thinking that he might have won, he ends up confessing to all of his crimes without even knowing that the BAU was one step ahead of him and was unharmed. Like The Fisher King, this was also one of those episodes where only Reid would have been able to solve the case with his sharp mind.
1) Entropy (Episode 11, Season 11)
Episode 11 of Criminal Minds Season 11 introduces us to Aubrey Plaza’s Cat Adams, an unsub who wreaks havoc in Reid’s life in later episodes in multiple seasons. She is also among the favorite unsubs that have appeared in the procedural series, one of the rare ones who matches with Reid on an intellectual level.
Reid meets Cat undercover, but she calls out his bluff, and they begin to play a game. She asks him various questions, which reveal some painful secrets between the duo. Through the game of wit and manipulation, Reid one-ups her and arrests her in the end.
However, Cat’s unpredictability also shakes Reid a bit in the episode, but at teh end his intelligence trumps Cat’s cunning mind, making the episode one of the best and also gives us a character who also challenges Reid’s genius mind.
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