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Criminal Minds Season 15 Episodes
Season 15 Episode Guide
10 Episodes 2020 - 2020
Episode 1
Under the Skin
Wed, Jan 8, 202043 mins
For six months, Rossi has been on a one person crusade to catch Everett Lynch, ever since Lynch almost killed him. Many of Rossi's actions have been behind Prentiss' back, and as such she feels they need to have a "talk". Things take a turn when a murder occurs that Rossi believes is Lynch's doing comes under the purview of the entire team as their next case. The team as a whole, including Prentiss who is still leading things, believes Rossi needs to broaden his view to look at the evidence objectively and not try to fit the evidence to Lynch. This latest victim is discovered in Baltimore County, and not the American south where Lynch has exclusively worked. The victim is a twenty-something male, and not a forty-something female that fits Lynch's victimology. While the latest victim did have the skin off of his torso removed post-mortem - unlike the faces of Lynch's female victims - the bodies were not burned like Lynch's previous victims. Another common factor is the fact the victim probably met the unsub on the same dating website that Lynch used to lure his female victims. Eventually, more male victims emerge fitting the same victimology and M.O. Although Rossi had interviewed Grace Lynch, who is behind bars for the crimes she committed with her father, over the course of his one person crusade, Prentiss wants him to focus on the Lynch angle by not only reinterviewing Grace, but also interviewing Everett's mother, Roberta Lynch, both who Prentiss is having transferred to DC for questioning. The rest of the team will continue on with the investigation as per normal course. It is a casual comment that Reid makes to Rossi that may be the turning point on discovering whether the unsub is Lynch or someone else.
Episode 2
Awakenings
Wed, Jan 8, 202041 mins
JJ is in the hospital clinging to life having been seriously wounded in Everett Lynch and his daughter Grace Lynch's successful escape from custody. Besides Will, Reid is standing vigil at the hospital, he who is angry at himself for not realizing sooner that JJ was in trouble. If JJ doesn't make it, Reid will not only lose arguably his best friend, but he and she will not have been able to clear the air about the strain that has existed between the two of them since their previous case. Reid is also torn in two different directions emotionally as he is called by the facility where he recently moved his mother, they wanting him to come right away. With the Lynches, the team knows they they have disrupted Everett's plans - he a highly organized man - and thus Everett and Grace will be working on the fly. The team believes they have to find any connection that either Everett and/or Grace would have in the DC area for that support they need, including financial, to go off the grid. If Prentiss is able to speak to JJ about the shooting, they may get another piece to what is happening with Everett and Grace. Also working for them is the fact that they still have Roberta in custody, who, despite being a criminal in her own right, would probably want to protect Grace at all cost, perhaps even at Everett's expense.
Episode 3
Spectator Slowing
Wed, Jan 15, 202041 mins
With Kristy on mandatory bed rest due to her pregnancy, Matt is in charge of minding the kids, their time which he wants to make different and special, and according to Rossi at his own risk. That home duty means that Matt is working from home as the rest of the team heads to Memphis, Tennessee to work on their next case, it where the latest - the third - mail bomb has exploded, each bomb in different cities in the eastern part of the country. While the first two bombs killed their recipients, the latest victims, mother and daughter Rhonda and Sophia Kirkman, survived but are in critical condition. The team discovers that the "mail" was not delivered by any official means and was probably hand delivered by the unsub. In piecing together the bombs, they discover each was encased inside a photo album, and without any spring loaded mechanism to detonate the bomb, the unsub was probably within sight not only to detonate the bombs via remote control but to watch each bomb explode, making the targets personal and not random, despite Garcia not being able to find any common bond between the victims. Rhonda's parents, Fred and Laura Kirkman, who made the trip to Memphis from their home in Michigan, may be able to provide that tie between the separate bombings. The question to discover the identity of the unsub becomes what his endgame is. The case hits home for Matt in light of his child care duties and the imminent birth of his and Kristy's fifth child.
Episode 4
Saturday
Wed, Jan 22, 202043 mins
It's Saturday, a day off for the BAU team members. Reid, who is in his latest therapy session with Dr. Stein, has recently dealt with his feelings for JJ, and is currently talking about a recurring workplace dream concerning being attacked by an ax murderer. In learning that his entire life including his support is work and the other team members, Dr. Stein orders him to spend the day not only not thinking about work, but to have a normal, everyday conversation with someone outside of work. Rossi and Prentiss are spending the morning with the Simmons as they prepare for the arrival of the baby, Matt having just bought a crib they have to put together. While Rossi ultimately has a discussion with both the Simmons about their future and their financial concerns such as college tuition for five children, Prentiss, who has already taken relaxation this day to an extreme having consumed copious amounts of wine and doughnuts, is called away at the last minute when she discovers she and the FBI are being sued by a former neighbor, Brian Garrity, a conspiracy theorist who believes her work has led to the FBI placing 24/7 illegal surveillance on him. And with Prentiss' prior approval, Garcia is holding a power computer class in the BAU outer offices. The class takes a turn when Garcia learns that one of the students, Elizabeth Wise, is being stalked online, the threats against her from the unsub extremely violent. Garcia calls in team reinforcements in the form of JJ, Alvez and Lewis. Finding Elizabeth's stalker hits home for a frantic Garcia, who confides in Alvez about her disturbing mix of an online professional/personal life.
Episode 5
Ghost
Wed, Jan 29, 202040 mins
The team returns to Des Plaines, Illinois, to deal with another long distance serial killer (L.D.S.K.), one, Phillip Dowd, who terrorized the town as an L.D.S.K. fifteen years ago. The unsub is a copycat killer in that Reid killed Dowd back then. Another difference is that Dowd was shooting to wound so that he could play the savior at the hospital, while this unsub seems to be shooting to kill. The team knows that there are connections to fifteen years ago in that the latest victims were shot in Scott McCarty Memorial Park, named after the law enforcement officer who was killed by Dowd. As such, the team believes that the police may be the ultimate targets, most specifically Police Chief Wayne Weigart, who was involved in the Dowd case. The unsub indeed does have an end target in mind, but what is happening is more a means to that end.
Episode 6
Date Night
Wed, Feb 5, 202043 mins
What is supposed to be Reid and Max's third coffee date in they taking it slow ends before it really even begins when he is called off on a case, one that has particular significance to him. The BAU received notification of a father and his adult daughter in the DC area being abducted - their faces and that of their female abductor not at all obscured which should make it relatively easy for the team eventually to identify all three - the kidnapper's demand being the release of one the BAU's most dangerous foes, Cat Adams, in return for the father and daughter's lives. Before the team is able to identify the kidnap victims, they believe the pair is Cat's biological father and her half sister, Cat who has always had "father" issues. But the team also knows that Cat always has two agendas: the one she wants them to believe and the real one. Cat's own demand in this case is not so much her own release, she who has confessed to all her crimes (or so she states) and who will soon be put to death, but her "final meal": a date with Reid. The team but specifically Reid have to weigh the merits of giving into this request, especially in saving the kidnapped pair, Reid, in moments of "closeness" with Cat, always having had the final upper hand in she tripping up somewhere along the way. But in giving in to the demand with his own agenda, Reid may find his date with Cat is not as he had planned.
Episode 7
Rusty
Wed, Feb 5, 202043 mins
The BAU is called to Denver, Colorado as several young to middle aged men there have been murdered in fairly public places, they decapitated with the heads gone missing. With the last murder, the face of the unsub is in half frame in a video, he who seems to be in some psychotic rage. Although there are no seeming ties between the victims, the team is able to determine that they have been targeted as fathers or father figures. Upon examination of the victims, they further learn that the unsub is leaving bruises on the torsos which form a symbolic message, leading to the team believing the murders being ritualistic in there being a finite number of victims in order for the unsub, in his belief, to pass into an alternate reality. One other tie between the unsub and some of the victims is a woman by the name of Brenda Hacker, who, if they are able to find her as that tie, may be be able to provide key information as to the mental break the unsub faced that has led to his murder spree, and what his end goal actually is. This case reunites Prentiss with Andrew Mendoza, who took over the role of the Denver field office chief two months ago, Denver where he wanted to move ever since his ex-wife and teenage daughter moved there, he wanting to be a part of his daughter's life, especially as she is entering high school. Officially Prentiss and Mendoza have been trying the long distance relationship routine, but Prentiss, who has been avoiding Mendoza since the move, may have to set her relationship cards on the table with him, something that he had already done with her.
Episode 8
Family Tree
Wed, Feb 12, 202042 mins
The team heads to Beaumont, Texas where male/female pairs, in separate incidents, go missing and are eventually found murdered. Beyond all the victims thus far having both ears, their tongue and their left hand severed post-mortem, the men are treated recklessly, stabbed to death and their bodies dumped in trash cans and the like, while the women are buried with care in shallow graves. This treatment belies the fact that the middle-aged men are from wealthy, upstanding families long ensconced in Beaumont, while the women are all prostitutes. The team's initial belief is that the unsub is exacting some moral social justice for the community with these murders, but begin to believe based on evidence that the unsub is actually the biological son of a wealthy, upstanding male and female prostitute and is trying to bring his biological parents, in the victims as surrogates, back together to start life anew. Complicating the case is the fact that the unsub has sent to the police audio recordings of himself, at times wanting them to stop him in knowing he not to be evil, then going off into some fantasy diatribe. While Rossi emerges from the case admitting something about himself and the effect of the job on him, Prentiss and J.J. both contemplate job offers, what one does arguably affecting the other.
Episode 9
Face Off
Wed, Feb 19, 202043 mins
It has been a year since Rossi nearly died at the hands of Everett Lynch, a.k.a. "The Chameleon," and he has developed some new theories, with inspiration from his former partner, Jason Gideon. The BAU team sets out on an epic hunt to capture Lynch.
Episode 10
And in the End
Wed, Feb 19, 202043 mins
Season Finale. Following an explosive face-to-face encounter with Everett Lynch, Dr. Reid suffers from a brain injury and, while experiencing hallucinations, is visited by ghosts from his past. Also, the BAU makes a shocking discovery about Lynch that affects Rossi personally, and the entire BAU team comes together to celebrate Rossi's retirement.
