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Criminal Minds Season 11 Episodes
Season 11 Episode Guide
22 Episodes 2015 - 2016
Episode 1
The Job
Wed, Sep 30, 201543 mins
With Kate having quit the team to spend time with Meg, and J.J. on maternity leave, the BAU is down two profilers as Hotch conducts interviews to fill Kate's position and as the remaining team members work on a case in progress. The case has two victims thus far - a suburban dad and a drug dealer - killed in two days, in two different cities across the country from each other, namely Albany, New York, and Seattle, Washington. The only reason they were able to identify the two deaths as being tied is that both victims had their face painted much like a pulchinella. It isn't until the autopsies are done that they learn that both were killed by a massive injection of a liquid nutritional supplement, much like one would would consume if one has trouble eating. They tie this evidence together to determine that the unsub has suffered a facial injury that does not allow him now to speak or eat. When a third victim emerges in Charlottesville, Virginia, the team has a clearer picture of the unsub's background, and the nature of his victims. At this time with no official police agency as their client, Hotch figures that he can kill two birds with one stone by delivering the profile to the team applicants for assistance. They also know that the unsub has some assistance in carrying out his mission, they not yet realizing who that person/people is/are and why.
Episode 2
The Witness
Wed, Oct 7, 201544 mins
The BAU heads to Los Angeles, California, where a sarin attack on a CityLink bus has left all ten inside the bus dead. A homemade timing device found on the bus was what was used to release the sarin without the unsub needing to be on the bus. The team looks into any chemists who may have had access to sarin stockpiles and had a grudge of some sort as a possible suspect. But a man named Charlie Senerak jumps to the top of the suspect list when surveillance footage shows that Charlie was sitting in his car in a park and ride lot where the bus originated, and that he and his wife Tracy, with who he works, usually take that bus, but neither who were on it this day. In questioning Charlie, Rossi and Lewis don't believe Charlie to be the unsub, but they do know that he is hiding something major that he did not want to divulge to them, meaning that that something could be related to the attack. As further evidence piles up on Charlie, the team, if they discover the truth, will find that Charlie is indeed involved peripherally, the unsub who is blackmailing Charlie to carry out a deadlier attack, with the questions being what that blackmail issue is, why the unsub chose Charlie, and how the unsub is able to manipulate Charlie at every step along the way.
Episode 3
'Til Death Do Us Part
Wed, Oct 14, 201542 mins
The BAU's continued work on the Dirty Dozen case without much substantive progression takes its toll especially on Garcia, who is worried she won't find out who the dozen targets are before they are murdered. Meanwhile, the team has a new case in Savannah, Georgia, where brides-to-be in town for their bachelorette party from elsewhere are found murdered, with the actual murders taking place the night of the bar hopping parties. The other similarities between the two victims thus far are that their dead bodies were found in a dumpster, and both were wearing sashes identifying themselves as brides-to-be. Shortly after the team's arrival in town, another victim is discovered. Based on her death and the autopsy of the second victim, the team discovers that the unsub is a female with mental health issues, she who has self-esteem issues as well as a nervous habit of biting her fingernails. Being engaged herself, Lewis may have special insight into the case, that insight which could prove invaluable in discovering the unsub before there is a fourth victim.
Episode 4
Outlaw
Wed, Oct 21, 201542 mins
The team heads to Las Vegas, New Mexico where three employees at a local restaurant were killed during a robbery. The investigation leads to the re-opening of a cold case from six years ago, which is believed to be related to the restaurant homicides.
Episode 5
The Night Watch
Wed, Oct 28, 201541 mins
The BAU heads to Detroit, Michigan where community activist Russell Pearson is found murdered. His latest cause was opposition to a proposed gentrification project of high end condos, however it was recently discovered that he took bribes from the condo developers. As identified by the tag next to Pearson's body, the murderer is renowned street artist, Morpheus, whose actual identity is unknown. Morpheus, whose art has a social activism bent, would have been on the same side as Pearson of the condo development issue up until the discovery of the bribes. Morpheus, who works primarily in New York, Los Angeles and the Gulf coast, generally shows up after an issue has become known, leading his voice to the cause through the art. Morpheus' art first appeared in Detroit a few weeks ago, next to a burnt out car where a homeless mother and her infant died, the car where they were sleeping. By the time the team arrives in Detroit, Morpheus has struck again, this time kidnapping Corinne Wallace, the infant daughter of one of the condo developers, Stuart and Katherine Wallace. This abduction, with no ransom note, changes the focus of the investigation, where Morpheus' end game is a personal one, and with he not caring about showing himself after all is said and done. The team believes the focus of the crimes is the baby itself and not the condo development per se. They have to find any connection Morpheus may have to anyone else - he who could not have stayed underground for close to a decade without help - and if they can if there is a connection to a baby. The task of finding Morpheus may also be difficult as Detroit is not his general base of operation. The other possibility is that the art is a forgery and that someone has a personal vendetta against Morpheus. Meanwhile, her work take takes its toll on Lewis' home life.
Episode 6
Pariahville
Wed, Nov 4, 201541 mins
The BAU heads to Glenport Village, Florida to investigate a single murder, that of resident, adult and married Paige Lincoln, by stabbing, she who was wearing a recently purchased cheerleader uniform. What makes this case one for the BAU is not Paige per se, but Glenport Village, which is a planned community of close to two thousand non-violent sex offenders, such as voyeurs, flashers, and statutory rapists. Lewis had been directly involved with the community and knows Reverend Jorge Santos, who oversees the self-isolating community and is also a resident, he who was convicted of statutory rape forty years ago, but who has been happily married to his "victim" when she became of age. Santos screens the people before they are allowed to move into the community. Santos' goal is reform through self-policing. The general thought is that one of the residents is the unsub. Law enforcement for the community is by Sheriff Paul Desario, who is overprotective of his two children despite not living in the community and the community itself having a low crime rate. Of his two children, midteen Riley Desario is more apt to push the boundaries of her father's restrictions. It isn't until the BAU arrives that they and Desario find out part of the reason for the low crime rate: Santos requires the residents to sign a contract which includes imbedding a monitoring chip under their skin, so that their whereabouts can be tracked. This fact reduces the likelihood that the unsub is a resident. Meanwhile, Lewis is offered a prestigious promotion, which, if she accepts, means leaving the BAU.
Episode 7
Target Rich
Wed, Nov 11, 201543 mins
The BAU assists Rossi's daughter, Joy, in an investigation into the disappearance of a college student. Also, the team is alarmed when Giuseppe Montolo dies in prison after he warns Morgan about the Dirty Dozen, an underground group of hitmen, and JJ returns from maternity leave.
Episode 8
Awake
Wed, Nov 18, 201540 mins
While Reid is in Las Vegas attending to his mother, the rest of the team is on heightened alert with discovery that Garcia is the intended target of the Dirty Dozen, with four of those hit men known to be after her. If the situation gets to a certain worse case scenario point, Garcia may be forced to go into the witness protection program. Regardless, the BAU still has cases on which to work. The latest case takes the team to Phoenix, Arizona, where two men have been abducted, one who was later found murdered, seemingly held captive for an extended length of time, and tortured extensively before murdered. Besides gender and residence, the two men seemingly have no connection. Based on other evidence coming to light, the team believes the men were random targets. That conclusion is also based on they believing that the men were picking up a hitchhiker in distress along a section of Highway 10, therefore being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Based on the abductions seemingly happening in the middle of the night and because of something JJ is going through in her own life, she believes that the unsub is dealing with an issue pertaining to sleep, and trying to keep his victims awake through high doses of caffeine. They come to the conclusion that the unsub has a personal connection to that stretch of highway that has caused whatever mental break he has suffered to abduct these men in the middle of the night.
Episode 9
Internal Affairs
Wed, Dec 2, 201543 mins
Hotch is asked as a favor by Tony Axelrod of the NSA to work on a case of three missing DEA agents in El Paso, Texas who were working on a joint NSA/DEA case to dismantle a Mexican drug cartel called Libertad with both in the field and online components. One of those three agents has since been found murdered, the face of his dead body covered by another dead man's face, that second victim not yet identified. The specific reason Axelrod has asked for this favor is that he believes the agents were given up by a mole, the specific person he suspects being Assistant DEA Director Bernard Graff. Axelrod wants to go this route as he does not want to tip off Graff that he is being investigated (which would be the case if Internal Affairs was conducting the investigation). The BAU would have an outward motive to work on this case as it would be connected to Giuseppe Montolo and the Dirty Dozen case. The only other team member who Hotch is able to confide in as to the rationale for working on this case is Rossi, and as such Garcia in particular optimistically but falsely sees the light at the end of the tunnel for her confinement at BAU HQ as the target of the Dirty Dozen. Hotch is to stay in the DC area to liaise with the cyber unit of the DEA, most specifically Graff and his second in charge in the cyber section of the Libertad case, Agent Adrienne Mitchell, while the rest of the team heads to El Paso to deal with what happened to the missing agents, the murderer unsub who they believe is using the drug violence in the El Paso border area as a cover for his/her own reasons for killing. Hotch may have the more difficult task in that he has to keep suspicions by Graff and Mitchell away from his real mission to discover if Graff is the mole, and if he is not, who is.
Episode 10
Future Perfect
Wed, Dec 9, 201542 mins
The BAU heads to St. Augustine, Florida, where a young woman and an elderly man are found dead in a swamp area outside of the city, seemingly unrelated. The woman had her blood drained, and placed into the man's body. Based on the triangular cut mark in the man's thigh, what was known to be his ill health (specifically Parkinson's), and the young woman's healthy lifestyle, the team surmises that the unsub is using his victims for medical experimentation to find a cure for some disease. Animal DNA found in the male victim also shows that the unsub has some fantastical notions of what that cure could be. Another young woman, Andrea Gambrell, who was a colleague of the first female victim, goes missing, and is deemed to be the next healthy subject for the unsub in his experimentation. They have to see if they can find another missing person as the "unhealthy" subject with some sort of neurological disorder to close in on the unsub. The nature of the animal DNA and the St. Augustine locale may provide more clues as to the unsub's end goal. Meanwhile, Garcia remains at BAU HQ, going a bit stir crazy.
Episode 11
Entropy
Wed, Jan 13, 201643 mins
Reid has what appears on the surface to be an Internet arranged blind date at an upscale restaurant with a young woman named Cat. It is, however, a supposed business date, with Reid pretending to be a potential client for her, one of the Dirty Dozen assassins, she the "Black Widow" of the bunch. In a break in the case, the team has determined that there are four assassins, all working independently, but acting like spokes on a wheel to a central axle, that axle being someone code named the Snowman. However, she, being good at her job, knows that the meeting is a set-up. When Reid and Cat come clean to each other, what results is a thirty minute game of psychological cat and mouse between the two. The outcome is affected by how well Reid and the team have Cat profiled, how well she in turn has calculated the strategic moves in their chess match, plus a little, or perhaps a lot, of what Reid just went through visiting with his mother on his recent time off from work.
Episode 12
Drive
Wed, Jan 20, 201640 mins
The BAU heads to Boston, Massachusetts where two unrelated women are found within days of each other in very public areas of city parks, beheaded, the heads not yet found. Beyond leading low risks lifestyles, there are seemingly no other ties between the two. Each woman has wounds on the knuckles of both hands, and electric shock marks like she was tasered. With no sedatives found in their toxicology, the victims were alive and conscious when they were killed. By the time the team arrives in town, there is a third victim. While the first victim's wounds are jagged in nature, the second and third victims' beheadings are clean, meaning that the unsub has found his preferred method of killing. Reid believes that he has discovered the instrument of killing based on the very public nature of the dead body sites. And the team discovers other similarities between the victims including some issue in their lives which has made them act out in various ways, and canceling a ride share request just before their probable capture. The former issue they believe is what sets the unsub off, he reliving situations from his childhood where he was unjustly punished for being bad, with the latter issue leading to a theory on how the unsub is able to abduct his victims. When the team has a potential fourth victim identified, they have to work fast to piece together the information to identify the unsub before the potential fourth victim is found dead.
Episode 13
The Bond
Wed, Jan 27, 201642 mins
The Atlanta field office requests the BAU's assistance in a case with two victims thus far, both stabbed multiple times to death, both victims found bound in different truck stop rest rooms, one outside of Chattanooga and one outside of Birmingham, posed post-mortem, both victims missing their left ear, with the murders probably taking place elsewhere as concluded by the lack of blood at the scenes. The wounds indicate indecisiveness and inexperience in the act of killing, while the posed bodies in highly public locales indicates the exact opposite of experience in the act, leading to the competing theories that there are two people working together, or one person who has long fantasized about what he is doing and is only now being able to act upon those fantasies. One victim is a homeless John Doe, while the other is a well regarded schoolteacher. When a third victim emerges with a slightly different M.O. in that she was killed at the disposal site, the team knows that the victims are targeted and not random, that there is only one unsub who was removed from his family at a young age and is now getting revenge on those associated with the family court and welfare system, but that the unsub is being fed information by someone in the generation above his on who to target. When the team believes they have discovered the identities of both the unsub and his older information provider, the latter who may not know what he's doing, the question becomes whether the older partner will give up the other in the pairing.
Episode 14
Hostage
Wed, Feb 10, 201642 mins
In St Louis a young woman is found who tells of being held captive for years with two others. Another young woman is near death and the third is taken by the abductor as he tries to get away. There is evidence of beatings and rape by their "Daddy". As the case unfolds there are even more reasons to get the accused and even the girls to fully cooperate.
Episode 15
A Badge and a Gun
Wed, Feb 24, 201640 mins
The BAU heads to the Los Angeles, California area, where two women, in separate incidents, were found murdered within a day of each other, each found in their own home with no sign of forced entry, both single, and both having died of asphyxiation from being wrapped pre-mortem by a regular household item like a blanket or rug. By the time the team arrives at the Los Angeles FBI field office where they are basing their investigation, a third dead body with the same victimology is discovered. From surveillance footage at the third victim's apartment complex, the team believes the unsub is either masquerading as an FBI agent or truly is one. When the team determines that he is only masquerading as one, but that he needs to gain the confidence of his victims by real world events, they decide to set a trap for him that is potentially dangerous for the public. But in doing so, they, in the process, learn of an unfortunate real life tie to the agency. Through it all, Morgan can't help but worry about a text he received from Savannah before the team left for Los Angeles in her need for them "to have a talk".
Episode 16
Derek
Wed, Mar 2, 201643 mins
The team learns from Savannah that Morgan has been abducted. They have no idea who the perpetrators are, only assuming that he is still alive, and with their first thought being that it has to do with the Dirty Dozen case and that the entire team may be eventual targets. Meanwhile, Morgan, while being tortured by his abductors, who he too has no idea who they are or who they represent, is disassociating his mind from his body and the pain he is enduring. During that dissociation process, he is guided by the vision of an old man he learns is his deceased father as he would be now if he was still alive. Morgan has to figure out why it is his father he has as his guide during this difficult time if he has any chance of getting out of this predicament alive.
Episode 17
The Sandman
Wed, Mar 16, 201641 mins
It's six months after Morgan's abduction and eventual rescue. He and Savannah have since gotten married and are awaiting the imminent birth of their first child. On what is his first day back at work, his welcome back is interrupted by a new case, which takes the team to Wichita, Kansas. A child named Ronnie Brewer is abducted from his rural farm home, with both his parents, Jim and Lyla Brewer, murdered on site. Both parents had their eyes filled with sand and glued shut. The team will learn that the ritual with Jim was done post-mortem, while Lyla was still alive. In addition, each parent was killed differently, Jim by having his throat slashed, Lyla by blunt force trauma to the head. By the time the team arrives in Wichita, Ronnie's dead body is discovered. However, a second victim family, the Zumwalts, is discovered. The early teen daughter Josie Zumwalt has been abducted from the home, father Luke Zumwalt dead on site with the ritual with the eyes and the throat slashed, but mother Ellie Zumwalt who survived the ordeal, albeit with the ritual of the eyes also conducted on her. The team find that a key piece of evidence at both sites is a custom made hourglass, with the sand used both in the hourglasses and placed into the eyes important. Ellie Zumwalt surviving may also provide some evidence both if her survival was on purpose or by accident, and what information she can provide about the unsub. That information makes the team's work time sensitive as they know they have only a certain amount of time before the unsub will kill Josie. This case proves difficult for Morgan who isn't sure if it is anything beyond being off work for six months.
Episode 18
A Beautiful Disaster
Wed, Mar 23, 201643 mins
While Morgan and Savannah are standing in a hospital parking lot, Savannah is shot by an unknown long distance sniper, with her and the baby's prognosis touch and go. Because of circumstances, Hotch orders Morgan off the case, which does not sit well with him. The team is certain that the shooting is connected to the Dirty Dozen case and Morgan's recent abduction, that link stronger when Garcia sees a Montolo, Chazz, Giuseppe's father, on hospital surveillance footage around the time Savannah was shot. In addition to locating Chazz Montolo, they have to find out if there is a long game plan to stop what the he and his associates are doing. Meanwhile, Morgan, who is out for revenge, has to decide how much he will divulge to the team in his effort to achieve his own end goal.
Episode 19
Tribute
Wed, Mar 30, 201642 mins
The BAU team members are still feeling the loss of Morgan, who has quit the unit for a more stable life with his wife and son. But with one down, there is the temporary return of another in the form of Interpol agent Emily Prentiss, who is certain that a Son of Sam copycat killer in New York City is the same person she has been following through Europe doing copycat killings of famous serial killers. Prentiss had almost captured the unsub in London, that operation which claimed the life of a Scotland Yard operative named Louise Hulland. The team is able to get a description of the unsub from a survivor of the New York killings and produce an artist's rendering for distribution, a visual which Prentiss had not got previously. The team has to figure out what the unsub's next move will be following his Son of Sam spree and where that will take him. Through it all, Prentiss admits that she has had a recurring nightmare pertaining to the case. What she does not divulge however is why this case is so personal to her now.
Episode 20
Inner Beauty
Wed, Apr 13, 201640 mins
The BAU heads to Sacramento, California, where two women were found dead together in a water tank in an SRO in the poor Oak Park neighborhood. Although only one woman is initially identified, it is believed that both women led a high risk lifestyle of prostitution and drugs, albeit the one identified who they learn was trying to get out of the life, including becoming clean. Both women also had their faces slashed several times, both pre- and post-mortem, although the instrument used to make the slashes post-mortem different - more precise - than those when the victims were alive. The identified victim was also wearing a dress not typical of her attire, while there are signs of a poorly done recent hair dye job on the Jane Doe, leading the team to believe that the unsub is remaking his victims into the vision of the real woman of his rage. They begin to get a clearer picture of the unsub by the types of drugs found in the women's systems, and what Reid learns is the reason for the different types of slash marks on their face pre- and post-mortem. Regardless, they still know that identifying the woman of the unsub's focus is the key to finding him and who he is. Through this case, Rossi is a little preoccupied as it took him away from his grandson Kai's birthday party where his second ex-wife, Hayden Montgomery, told him the reason why she didn't tell him about Joy when she was born. Rossi tries to process this now twenty-nine year old information.
Episode 21
Devil's Backbone
Wed, Apr 20, 201643 mins
The authorities believed that two Virginia based cases of missing boys, Adam Morrissey and Jimmy Bennett, from two years ago were unrelated, until their bloodied clothes, those in which they were last seen, had just arrived in one intercepted package at Fletcham Correctional Center in Troy, Virginia. The addressee of that package is Antonia Slade, a serial killer of young teens, she who was convicted in part by work of the BAU, most specifically Gideon. A social worker, she ran a fake youth hot-line as a means to lure her victims to her home, where the dead bodies of the young teens were found encased behind her basement drywall. Since, she has never talked about the murders, and has refused all visitors. However, she seems to know about the clothes and the missing boys before the BAU's arrival at the facility to speak to her. They know that she, a narcissist despite not responding to the correspondence from any of her legion of groupies, has no compelling reason to talk to them unless there is something she knows, divulging which would be to her benefit. In speaking to her, the team members find that she is controlling, and any accomplice or associate to her criminal activities would have to be the submissive. Beyond cryptic statements, the one thing she is clear about is that Adam and Jimmy are still alive, but for how long is uncertain. The team discovers that she is indeed corresponding to the outside world through unofficial means, they needing to find how, to whom and what those messages state for them to find a hopefully still alive Adam and Jimmy.
Episode 22
The Storm
Wed, May 4, 201642 mins
Reid is trying to decide where to take his mother for vacation, Garcia is excited by her upcoming trip to London to visit with Emily, and Rossi and Hayden, who have decided to rekindle their relationship, try to figure out how to tell Joy they are back together as a couple. This calm within the BAU is shattered when at Hotch's house, a SWAT team storms in taking him into custody, all done in front of a traumatized Jack, JJ and Henry. A confused Hotch, who is placed under the authority of the federal government, eventually learns that the Department of Justice (DoJ) has been monitoring him for weeks based on testimony by Peter Lewis - Mr. Scratch - who was apprehended by the BAU in a case last year, has evidence of his suspicious activities involving the making of a bomb, and felt the need to bring him in now based on a 911 call he made. Hotch knowing that he made no such call, the BAU team members come to the quick conclusion that Antonia Slade, the serial murderer involved in their most recent case, is involved in what is going on with Hotch based on the cryptic nature of the message of that 911 call. As the team tries to work its way through Antonia to the source of the plot targeting Hotch, Hotch himself tries to use his profiling skills in convincing the DoJ that he not only is not the bomber they believe he may be, but that he is better positioned to help them in the long run working with the rest of the team than he is behind bars. His profiling work may come back to haunt him in this regard. What is going on may end up being far bigger than any of them initially imagine...
