Jason Gideon

Jason Gideon (played by Mandy Patinkin) was the BAU's best profiler on the CBS crime drama, Criminal Minds. He helped Morgan and Reid through their nightmares. He is shown to have a very close relationship with Reid, having hand picked Reid from the FBI Academy for his team; helping Reid through many difficulties (including his implied drug use), even leaving the good-bye letter for Reid to find. His 'father-son' relationship with Reid extended to non-work aspects as well; such as when he encourage Reid to ask JJ out on a date (by buying Redskin tickets for Reid's birthday), and insisting on 'Dr. Reid', as he believes people respect the young genius more. Through the first two season, Gideon is portrayed to be very good at chess, winning against Reid many times (only exception being Reid's birthday, 1x04), and encouraging him to 'think outside of the box'.

Prior to the series, he is said to have had a "nervous breakdown" (or "major depressive episode") after he sent six men into a warehouse in Boston with a bomb in it. All six agents were killed, and he was heavily criticized about the event. He would later confront the bomber, Adrian Bale and finally face the demons that had haunted him for months. He shows particular dislike for the practice of using religion as a defense or motivation for one's crimes.

He blamed himself for the torture Reid received from Henkle as he had ordered Garcia to add a virus warning to the videos Hankle posted. Gideon also has a son named Stephen, as shown in episode 1x11 ("Blood Hungry"). The nature of their relationship has not been directly stated, but it is implied that they have not seen each other very recently. Gideon began to lose confidence in his profiling skills after Frank murdered his girlfriend. During his final case in Arizona, he further lost faith in his abilities when his decision to release the unsub resulted in the deaths of both the unsub and a young woman.

As a result of his actions Hotch was suspended and this was the final straw for Gideon. Leaving his gun and badge behind at his cabin with a letter for Reid to find, he left to wayfare and to regain belief in himself and happy endings. Gideon shared much in common with real life FBI profiler John E. Douglas, who has written many books on the subject. Similarities include that both controversially predicted an unsub would have a stammer, and both required a prolonged leave of absence due to stress related illnesses acquired as a result of the job. He was replaced by David Rossi.

David Rossi

Rossi was born and raised on Long Island, New York, in the town of Commack. As a child, he was friends with a young Emma Taylor, who he refers to as the "one who got away." He was also close with Ray Finnegan, who eventually grew up to be a prominent local mobster. Rossi, however, avoided the lure of organized crime, and joined the Marines. After being discharged, Dave was recruited by the Bureau. He subsequently cut most ties with his former life, not even returning to Commack for Emma's funeral in early 2009. Rossi has had an apparently illustrious FBI career and sterling reputation, even outside the BAU confines. He claims to have "written the book" on hostage negotiation, and stepped in as a hostage negotiator in 4×03 ("Minimal Loss") when his fellow agents Reid and Prentiss were held hostage. He takes an annual leave to do cross-country lecture and book-signing tours, which apparently attract a lot of female fans, "if Barry Manilow isn't in town." He worked with Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) prior to his retirement from the Bureau. Rossi has been married 3 times, but has said the only people he knew how to make happy were "divorce lawyers". One ex-wife allegedly said he had a "flair for the dramatic", but he never specified which. He seems to be a lapsed Catholic, but still has a close relationship with D.C. priest Father James Davison.

Rossi was in early retirement until his voluntary return to the BAU in 2007. He had retired in order to write books and go on lecture tours, but returned to settle some unfinished business which wasn't immediately specified. Having served in an early form of the BAU, it was initially hard for Rossi to acclimatize to the current team structure, but he eventually did. Rossi revealed to Sheriff Caulfield his reason for returning: he held out a charm bracelet with the names of three children from one of his first cases. The children had found their parents stabbed to death in the family home with an axe, but the BAU couldn't solve the case. Rossi had promised the children he would find out who did it. Each year on Christmas Eve, Rossi called the children to let them know he hadn't forgotten them and hadn't given up on solving the case of their parents' murders. He kept with this tradition through his return to the BAU, though none of the children had replied to his most recent calls. The case had gone unsolved for 20 years. It was finally solved when the BAU found that a mentally handicapped carny clown had committed the murders accidentally when he broke into the house to play with the oldest daughter, the father surprised the man in the parents' bedroom and triggered the resulting attacks. After finally solving the case he gave to the kids, now grown up, the bracelet he kept with him and the house where the murders took place, which he had bought. While initially Rossi came back from retirement only to solve this case he continues working in the BAU.

Penelope Garcia

Penelope Garcia is the team's Audio/Visual Technician at BAU Headquarters in Quantico, VA. When she speaks with Morgan they use pet names such as "hot stuff" or "sweet cheeks" or he calls her "baby-cakes". Garcia frequently answers the phone with comments like "This is the office of All Knowing; how may I be of assistance?" She is into online games, specifically MMPORGs. She has broken down crying several times due to the fact that the area of her job is to listen to and watch terrifying things in her office to analyze them for the team. However, according to Hotch, she "fills her office with figurines and color to remind herself to smile as the horror fills her screens."

Garcia was shot by an UnSub with the hero/homicide complex in Season three by the name of Jason Clark Battle ("Lucky" and "Penelope") when she flags several open homicides to help out the families she helps council without knowing that Battle is the murderer in all of the cases. She has since recovered, and is currently dating another Technical Analyst by the name of Kevin Lynch. She may also be the only person that Derek Morgan truly trusts, and they are considered to be best friends.

"JJ" Jareau

JJ graduated from East Allegheny High School near Pittsburgh, PA, where she was the captain of the varsity soccer team her senior year and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh. In Season One, she and Reid went on a date to a Washington Redskins game, but nothing has come of it romantically. In Season Two, when she and Reid split up the night of Reid's abduction (2x15), JJ walked into a dark barn and was attacked by several ferocious dogs, which she shot and killed. This had a great effect on her emotionally but has not come up since then. She also ended up shooting Jason Clark Battle - the man who had shot Garcia (3x09) - in the head, subsequently making him the first human she ever had to shoot.





Fun Facts:

· Is the team's liaison with local FBI branches and police agencies.

· Her favorite football team is the Washington Redskins.

· She used to collect butterflies as a child.

· She is afraid of the woods.

· She picks the cases that the team goes on.

· She excels at playing darts.

· She grew up in or near East Allegheny, Pennsylvania. (In a town "too small for even a bowling alley")

· She played varsity soccer and was team captain.

· 2x09 is the first time we saw her draw her gun. 2x15 is the first time that she wore a bulletproof vest.

· When she picks cases that the team works on, where there are victims around her own age, it affects her emotionally. The cases she doesn't pick also haunt her - she is aware that said cases may continue and more people may die.

· Is dating William LaMontagne, Jr., a Police Detective from New Orleans. Together they had a baby, Henry, and named Reid and Garcia his godparents.

· According to the season 2 DVD JJ is a Supervisory Special Agent - A certificate is shown on the special feature entitled "Profilers, Profiled" and on the chapter about JJ the certificate gives her the title of Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau.

· Knows how to play Gin, and has beaten Reid on several occasions.

· Has an Aunt and Nieces.

Derek Morgan

Morgan is a confident and assertive character, the son of an African American father and Caucasian mother. He has a black belt in Judo, runs FBI self-defense classes, previously served in a bomb squad unit and on the Chicago Police Force. Morgan went to Northwestern University on an athletic (Football) scholarship, but lost his scholarship when his knee was blown out during a game. He earned both his undergraduate degree and his law degree from Northwestern University ("Profiler, Profiled"). Morgan is the man's man of the team. He and his two sisters (Sarah and Desiree) grew up in a tough urban Chicago neighborhood. After the death of his father when he was 10, Morgan struggled somewhat and youthful fighting earned him a juvenile criminal record. He was taken under the wing of a local youth center coordinator, Carl Buford (Episode 2x12 "Profiler, Profiled"). Buford acted as a surrogate father to Morgan and helped Morgan obtain his college football scholarship, but also sexually abused him. In the season three finale, Morgan was told he was being considered to run the New York field office, if the current leader should fail. After the events of the season four opener ("Mayhem") where the head of the New York field office was killed, Morgan was offered the job as the head of the field office, but turned it down, after briefly considering it in "Lo-Fi", when Hotch fails to recommend him for the job, claiming Morgan has trust issues.

Morgan used to regard himself as the right hand man of Jason Gideon before Gideon's departure in the beginning of Season three ("Doubt"). He specializes in crimes pertaining to obsession and also has a very wide knowledge of explosives from his days on the bomb squad. Previously, he worked as an undercover agent in deep cover for eighteen months prior to joining the BAU. Occasionally, he takes delight in flirting with Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia, and the show often alludes to them being best friends. Morgan and Garcia are shown to be extremely close on several occasions: he confides in her that he loves her when she is shot (though we never find out if he means romantically or platonically) and when he trusts her to help him dispose of a live bomb in the season four opener ("Mayhem"). His birthday is June 6, 1973, making him around 35 years old (Episode 2x12 "Profiler, Profiled")

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.

Dr. Spencer Reid

Reid is a genius who graduated from a public high school at age twelve and went to Cal Tech (with Yale as his safety school) at thirteen where he earned three doctorates in Mathematics, Chemistry and Engineering by the age of twenty one. In addition he holds undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Sociology and is currently working on another degree in Philosophy (4x08 "Masterpiece"). He has an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and can read 20,000 words per minute. It has also been stated that while in high school he suffered severe bullying at the hands of his classmates, including an incident when he was tricked into going to meet a girl he liked behind the school field house, where the entire football team was waiting for him. They stripped him naked and tied him to a goal post. He was humiliated and said nothing until he told Morgan (3x16 "Elephant's Memory"). In his youth, his father left him and his mother, no longer able to deal with the paranoid schizophrenia of Reid's mother, Diana. Reid grew up learning nearly everything he knows from books, with his mother often reading to him. Still, Reid knew the way his mother was living wasn't healthy. When he was eighteen, he had his mother placed in a mental institution, Bennington Sanitarium. She is still there, and Reid has stated that although he sends letters every day, he is afraid to visit her up until season four when we see him visit her to learn about his father. Reid is also worried about the fact that his mother's illness can be passed on genetically; he once told Morgan that "I know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind". He grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada and is very adept at all card games.

Spencer Reid is the youngest member of the B.A.U., and has yet to reach his thirtieth birthday. He has had to shoot and kill two UnSub's during his assignment to the BAU. He has also been held hostage, drugged, and tortured at the hands of an UnSub with multiple personality disorder.

It is made clear that the rest of the team is aware of Reid's drug addiction problem that he obtained after being drugged while he was held hostage, but he seems to have improved over the following episodes, and he apparently has been clean for ten months at the end of season three ("Elephant's Memory").

Reid is the godfather of JJ`s son Henry.