Emily Prentiss

Emily Prentiss is the daughter of Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss who was primarily posted at the United States Embassy in the Ukraine, but has also been posted in some positions in Italy and the Middle East. All this moving around caused her adolescence and family live to be less than enjoyable. Prentiss has expressed extreme disdain for politics as a result. Prentiss apparently lived in Middle East some during her childhood, and she is fluent in Arabic, Spanish, Italian, and some Russian ("Honor Among Thieves" and "Catching Out"). She was placed on the Behavioral Analysis Unit by Section Chief Erin Strauss as a means to end SSA Hotchner's career, but quit instead of helping Strauss ("In Birth and Death") claiming she hates politics. Hotch recognized her on her first day at the BAU from one of his first commands where he set up security clearance for her mother and her employees. She graduated from Yale in 1993, and has been working for the FBI for around ten years, primarily in the Midwest until she joined the BAU--it is unknown what she did between the year she graduated with her undergraduate degree up until the time she joined the FBI.

Emily is a self-described nerd who feels like she can never date a guy for very long before he is either scared away by the job or her nerdiness. She reveals to Morgan that she loves to read Kurt Vonnegut, and he informs her that he does as well, the two of them discussing the Vonnegut book she buys at the end of a case ("Fear and Loathing"). In season three, she offers to become the guardian for a victim who lost her entire family, but the girl's aunt and uncle were located and agreed to let her live with them. In season four, when Jordan Todd - JJ's maternity leave replacement - feels like an outsider, Emily befriends her until JJ returns. Emily is also shown to have a very close friendship with Derek Morgan. She was born at 7:12 AM on October 12, 197- ("Cold Comfort"). She graduated Garfield High in 1989 and apparently rocked a very Cure-esque look in high school ("Tabula Rasa").

Throughout the show it is hinted that Emily has a somewhat tumultuous past, which is expanded upon in "Demonology," where it is revealed that when she was fifteen she had an abortion in Italy, which she believes caused the downward spiral of her friend, Matthew Benton. Benton was recently killed during what was eventually found to be an unsanctioned exorcism, and Prentiss pushes the BAU to look into. She takes on a great deal of responsibility of Benton's death, which causes some dissent between she and Hotch, but seems to bring she and Rossi closer together.