Criminal Minds spent over 15 years on CBS before concluding its final season in 2020. The show experienced a resurgence in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and earned a revival — Criminal Minds: Evolution — from Paramount+ in 2022.
Throughout the show's 16 seasons, the Criminal Minds creatives delved into the darkness of the human psyche and never shied away from exposing what humans were truly capable of.
As a show centering around cruel killers, many Criminal Minds episodes are disturbing. Whether it is because the Unsub's methods are horrifying or because a criminal attacks a fan-favorite character, some storylines in this show are truly haunting.Some descriptions and episode details may not be suited to all audiences. Reader discretion is advised.
Criminal Minds is no stranger to the macabre. However, some episodes are so disturbing that other episodes pale in comparison. This article has been updated to adhere to CBR's new formatting style and to add even more of the most disturbing episodes.
Due to the nature of Criminal Minds, there are plenty of sad deaths and gruesome murders, from Stephen Shepherd to Haley Brooks."The Capilanos" takes the audience to Guymon, Oklahoma, a small town that's dealing with a series of home invasions. When these crimes escalate to brutal murders, the BAU tries to find the Unsub with only one clue coming from a child witness: the Unsub dresses as a clown.
Although they're supposed to be funny and entertaining, clowns can be incredibly scary in the right context. "The Capilanos" doesn't deal with topics as creepy as other Criminal Minds episodes, but the killer clown haunts fans' memories, largely thanks to his creepy appearance and horrific murders.
"Mosley Lane" is disturbing and emotionally devastating, especially in its final moments. Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays the fan-favorite character, Dr. Spencer Reid, directed the episode. Gubler-directed episodes are usually creepy, and "Mosley Lane" certainly fits the bill.
"Mosley Lane" follows an Unsub who has been kidnapping children and holding them captive for years. The more that's learned about the captors and the conditions of their victims, the more horrifying the episode becomes. Several parents reunite with their missing children at the end of the episode, except for one set of parents whose son had died the day before.
Mandy Patinkin starred as FBI profiler Jason Gideon on Criminal Minds, but he only appeared in the first three seasons.Season 1's "Riding The Lightning" takes the team to jail to interview a husband and wife serial killer team a few days before they are sentenced to execution. The straightforward interview quickly becomes complicated when the team suspects that one-half of the criminal duo may be innocent.
Tensions heighten when the window to save Sarah Jean Mason from execution begins to close. However, this tension turns into horror when the true details of the serial killer couple's crimes come to light. Sarah didn't kill her son, but she still chooses to die in prison because if the BAU made her innocence public, her son would be in grave danger. Her story is one of the most haunting and sympathetic in all of Criminal Minds.
Peter Lewis was a long-running Unsub in Criminal Minds. His father, Neil Lewis, was falsely accused of a heinous crime against the kids of his group home and then killed inside prison. Peter then grew up, became a genius, and worked for the NSA with a thirst for revenge and a lot of knowledge about drugs.
"Mr. Scratch" is particularly disturbing because it plays with the audience's expectations. It begins as a seemingly paranormal experience, very Slenderman-like, but then it shows that the true horror comes from real human actions. Mr. Scratch uses mind-altering drugs to attack his victims and frames people into thinking they've killed their family members.
"Heathridge Manor" is full of spine-chilling horror, but the truly terrifying part is its ambiguous end. The episode follows a series of seemingly Satanic killings where women are found dead, dressed in Gothic clothing. The killer is later revealed to be James Heathridge, who has delusions of his mother telling him that he needs to murder all of Satan's wives to keep the peace. James is killed himself in a struggle with Agent Hotchner, but James’s sister, Lara, continues to live in their family house.
The terrifying end to this episode shows a dark figure with a cow-skull cane approaching Lara, and he asks her to accompany him. Lara obliges, but when the camera shows a different angle, Lara is walking alone. This ambiguous ending leaves the audience guessing as to the mysterious man's identity and whether Lara is going to follow in her mother and brother's murderous footsteps.
Like most Criminal Minds episodes, "Dust and Bones" is an unsettling episode due to its Unsub. The BAU quickly learns that a woman named Desi Gutierrez has been kidnapping and mutilating women — giving them serpentine bodily modifications. This stems from her traumatic past when her mother would lock her in a shed where she befriended the snakes that made their nest there.
The episode is not only disturbing because of its use of snakes but also because of how snake-like Desi has become. She transformed her own body and feels more at home with the reptiles than she does with humans. Also, the fact that she was treated so abysmally as a child still sticks with audiences long after the episode is over.
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