Previous Criminal Minds data overviews: Season 1

This post collects data on how often various things happen during season two of the CBS police procedural and drama Criminal Minds. You can find a broader overview and context for the below data categories in the season one write-up linked above.

Season two police killings

Criminal Minds resolves ten of season two’s twenty-three episodes with the death of the person or persons they are pursuing. Derek Morgan killed three people by himself in season two and was one of three (along with Prentiss and Hotchner) to fatally shoot another. Morgan has killed five people over the first two seasons, Hotchner two (plus one non-fatal shooting), Greenaway two and Reid two. The only main cast members who have not killed people through two seasons are Jason Gideon, JJ and Penelope Garcia – the latter two of which are rarely or never in a position to have contact with the people the BAU pursues.

Episode name/date	Body count	Episode resolved via suspect’s death	Suspect killed by
E1 “The Fisher King pt.2” 20 Sep 2006	1	Yes	Suicide
E2 “P911” 27 Sep 2006	0	No	N/A
E3 “The Perfect Storm” 4 Oct 2006	3	No	Local cop
E4 “Psychodrama” 11 Oct 2006	2	No	N/A
E5 “Aftermath” 18 Oct 2006	1	Yes	Greenaway
E6 “The Boogeyman” 25 Oct 2006	2	No	N/A
E7 “North Mammon” 1 Nov 2006	1	No	N/A
E8 “Empty Planet” 8 Nov 2006	3	No	N/A
E9 “The Last Word” 15 Nov 2006	5	No	N/A
E10 “Lessons Learned” 22 Nov 2006	10	Yes	2 by Morgan / 2 by SWAT team
E11 “Sex, Birth, Death” 29 Nov 2006	3	No	N/A
E12 “Profiler, Profiled” 13 Dec 2007	1	No	N/A
E13 “No Way Out” 17 Jan 2007	3	No	N/A
E14 “The Big Game” 4 Feb 2007	6	N/A	N/A
E15 “Revelations” 7 Feb 2007	3	Yes	Reid
E16 “Fear and Loathing” 14 Feb 2007	4	No	N/A
E17 “Distress” 21 Feb 2007	4	Yes	Unnamed police sniper
E18 “Jones” 28 Feb 2007	3	No	N/A
E19 “Ashes and Dust” 21 Mar 2007	9	Yes	N/A
E20 “Honor Among Thieves” 11 Apr 2007	3	Yes	Russian mob
E21 “Open Season” 2 May 2007	7	Yes	1 by Morgan / 1 by intended victim
E22 “Legacy” 9 May 2007	2	Yes	Morgan, Prentiss & Hotchner
E23 “No Way Out pt.2” 16 May 2007	3	Yes	Suicide

Criminal Minds in season two pursues all white people except for episodes: “Fear and Loathing” – Black male, “Profiler, Profiled” – Black male, and “Lessons Learned” – several Arab and Black Muslim men. Season two stills portrays Black Captivity largely without Black people. It is explicit about it in episodes like “Profiler, Profiled” where it takes tremendous intervention in order to steer Black youth from criminality and where we first dive into Morgan’s background and meet a large group of violent Black men that comprise both his peers and authority figures. “Distress” too does this where Hotchner imagines exceptional difficulty finding someone in Houston’s Fifth Ward. “We’re looking for a homicidal serial criminal in an neighborhood populated by criminals. The challenge will be separating him from the rest.” But as noted in the season one overview, Criminal Minds finds Black criminality as much in audience grammar as in explicit dialogue.

“Aftermath” is an outlier in the police shootings category as Greenaway murders someone and Hotchner and a couple of others do not approve. Importantly, neither Gideon nor Hotchner pursues accountability for Greenaway despite knowing the murder was unjustified.

The media in Criminal Minds

Criminal Minds season two focuses a little less on journalism – in canon this means accountability – being a malicious force but it is still present in nearly every episode.

Big Hero vs. Big Villain storytelling

Criminal Minds regularly uses a cop show trope I’m calling Big Hero vs. Big Villain. Big Hero vs. Big Villain are story arcs where the police are less systemic violence’s agents and more individuals in contest with others styled more after a superhero with a personal rogue’s gallery.

Episode name/date	Big Hero	Big Villain	Notes
E1 “The Fisher King pt.2” 20 Sep 2006	Whole BAU	Randall Garner aka The Fisher King	Dies via suicide bombing
E10 “Lessons Learned” 22 Nov 2006	Gideon	Jind Allah	Gideon must outwit to avoid mass casualties
E13 “No Way Out” 17 Jan 2007	Gideon	Frank	Frank has super elaborate plans
E14 “The Big Game” 4 Feb 2007	Reid	Hankel	Hankel kidnaps Reid
E15 “Revelations” 7 Feb 2007	Reid	Hankel	Reid kills Hankel
E23 “No Way Out pt.2” 16 May 2007	Gideon	Frank	Frank kills people close to Gideon

Six of season two’s twenty-three episodes are entirely or feature elements of Big Hero vs. Big Villain story arcs. A seventh, “Profiler, Profiled”, could be included too and “Lesson’s Learned” could be excluded..

The season opening episode concludes a Big Hero vs. Big Villain story arc from season one. Randall Garner compiled extensive personal dossiers on the entire BAU through conversations with Reid’s mother while they both lived in the same psychiatric facility. Leaving aside the silliness and the ableist premise of hyperviolent crazy supervillains, Garner frames one BAU agent (Greenaway) while seducing another (Garcia) and creating mythologies around the rest. This is a story of individual personalities in contest, not agents of systemic violence pursuing their violent ends. The system is absent and the episode serves only to start Elle Greenaway on her way out of the BAU.

Episode thirteen introduces Frank for the first part of a nonsequential two episode story where he faces off against Gideon. As with Greenaway in “The Fisher King”, Gideon’s battle with Frank lays the groundwork for his exit from the BAU early in season three. Frank in “No Way Out pt.2” kills Gideon’s love interest and someone Gideon helped save during “The Fisher King pt.2”. In Reid’s two episode story arc against Tobias Hankell, Hankell kidnaps Reid and one of Hankell’s three personalities gets Reid addicted to dilaudid. Both Frank vs. Gideon and Hankell vs. Reid position BAU members as the targets and victims of the people the very people they pursue.

Heroic portrayals of torture

Episode name	Torturer	Does it succeed?
E2 “P911”	Morgan	Yes
E4 “Psychodrama”	Hotchner	Yes
E10 “Lessons Learned”	CIA	No

Criminal Minds has three clear heroic torture narratives in season two. Morgan slams someone’s head against a car while the man is surrounded by armed FBI agents in “P911”. Hotchner arranges do have pain medication denied to someone he shot in “Psychodrama”. In both examples the goal of the torture is simply pain. Neither Morgan nor Hotchner is trying to extract information so their torture is successful in that they cause the pain they sought. In the third example the CIA is torturing Jind Allah and Gideon stops them not because he is opposed, but to position himself as an alternative in a Good Cop/Bad Cop performance. Gideon even requests the torture briefly continue. The CIA’s torture happens to be unsuccessful but it is not a significant ethical problem in canon.

Season two ableist storytelling

Season two only amplifies Criminal Minds‘ ableist premise described in season one’s write up and there’s little to add here although Gideon briefly moves towards eugenics in describing Frank as having a biological inclination towards killing. Some episodes pathologize people in severe psychological crisis like “Distress” (US ex-soldier with PTSD from murdering Somalis lives inside a murderous flashback), “Psychodrama” (Bank robber in drug induced psychosis forces others to engage in incestuous and oedipal violence) and the Tobias Hankell episodes (Man with disassociative identities kids naps Reid).

The Ticking Time Bomb

Criminal Minds season two uses a ticking time bomb in every episode but “Aftermath”, “The Last Word”, “Profiler, Profiled” and “No Way Out pt.2” with a couple of others that are borderline. It still remains in season two a story crutch to develop urgency and justify the large numbers of police shootings and torture and to create a sense of urgency where the storytelling otherwise wouldn’t demand such investment.

Other cop show tropes

Criminal Minds season two has the first episodes to have significant Black characters beyond Derek Morgan. In one of the two, “Profiler, Profiled”, the storyline is tied to drugs and gangs as is common to cop shows. The other “Fear and Loathing” features a slight variant to another anti-Black cop show staple: the Loud and Wrong Civil Rights Activist. A third episode, “Lessons Learned”, has no Black characters beyond Morgan with dialogue but does mention they converted to Islam in jail making their narrative appearance Black criminality.

Season two introduces more prominently sex workers as targets of misogynist violence in three episodes, “The Last Word“, “Sex, Birth, Death” and “Legacy”. None of these have characters with significant agency nor is whorephobia or any misogynist violence even explored as a cause for the harm. In all episodes the FBI does not reflect on how being targeted by police makes sex workers more vulnerable to misogynist violence. Because Criminal Minds relies so little on street interviews it rarely reproduces the familiar Sex Worker Omniscient Snitch or Transwomen Sex Workers as Punchlines imaginaries so popular in Law & Order and other cop shows.

Season two brings Criminal Minds a second episode with a significant Muslim character, “Lessons Learned”. Like the only first season episode, this one is about terrorism. Through season two Criminal Minds is incapable of having Muslim characters without the stories being about terrorism.

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