Criminal Minds/Awesome

The BAU is a team of Badass Bookworms, Badass Normals, and just plain Badasses.

Aaron Hotchner

• Hotch is a walking, talking Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• "This morning, I decided to save your life." (Hotch to the Big Bad's Battle Butler in "Legacy".)
  • Hotch walks into the room, tells the Battle Butler exactly what is going to happen, lays out why, and everything happens exactly as Hotch says it will, for the reasons that Hotch has layed out. It's probably one of the most intimidating scenes in the show; Hotch just deconstructed a man's entire life and personality and turned him against everything he'd done to that point with a two-minute monologue. And it seems completely realistic.
• In "L.D.S.K.", when Hotch tricks the sniper into letting him kick the snot out of Reid—which gives Reid access to the gun strapped to his ankle.
• "Riding the Lightning". Jacob is in the electric chair, just about to be executed, and Hotch comes storming into the room. He slams a recent picture of Jacob's son Riley onto the glass and says "You lose", proving that Jacob didn't kill his son, and neither did Sarah Jean.
• Hotch, in court, is faced with a defense attorney who calls the whole field of profiling into doubt. Hotch proceeds to profile the LAWYER, with extreme accuracy, basically demolishing his case.
  • This scene is the origin of the term "Hotchalanche" - wherein Aaron Hotchner is made of awesome.
• Hotch, again, in "Nameless, Faceless", staring down the barrel of Foyet's gun and not even blinking when the bullet comes within an inch of his shoulder:

Foyet: Is this part of my profile? You can't show me fear?
Hotch: If you don't see fear, maybe it's because I'm not afraid of you.

• • "You know, I've been thinking about it, and in all the time I've known Hotch, I've NEVER SEEN HIM BLINK."
• And again in "Brothers in Arms", when he Xanatos Gambits the UnSub into attacking him at the press conference. The UnSub stalks Hotch through the parking lot, and the audience thinks Hotch is going to get his head blown off. The UnSub rounds the car to find Hotch ... not there. A gun cocks from behind the UnSub to reveal Hotch, having gotten the upper hand.
• In "100", he beats Foyet to death with his bare hands and continues until Morgan pulls him off.
• Hotch facing down the barrels of four rifles in "Exit Wounds" is told that the UnSub is coming with the angry townsfolk. His reply is a simple "Not happening."
• Hotch going toe-to-toe with British superspy Clyde Easter in "Lauren", talking Easter into helping the team and pulling an I Never Said It Was Poison to do it.
• In "Out of the Light," he shoots the UnSub three times underwater through a car window.
• In "Psychodrama" a killer was holding up establishments just to order people to undress, and get sons to have "control" of their mothers (slapping them repeatedly) while carrying a MAC-10. He murdered a bank employee, as well as a fourteen-year-old child, which disgusts Hotch, and fills him with stoic rage. When they eventually track the guy down, Hotch blows a hole in his chest with his gun and then tells the paramedics not to give him any painkillers. Oh, and all the while, this guy is detoxing off of crystal meth. Hotch gives the guy exactly what he deserves.

Spencer Reid

• After failing his firearms test, Reid grabbing the gun on Hotch's ankle and blowing away a sniper in "L.D.S.K." Followed by one of the best Reid lines ever:

"Hotch, I was a twelve-year-old child prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school. You kick like a nine-year-old girl."

• • Let's be clear here. He killed the sniper from the floor, while in handcuffs, after having the crap kicked out of him, in a room full of hostages. With a headshot. And then cracked a joke about it.
  • Bear in mind, this still doesn't mean he has good marksmanship skills. That execution-style headshot? He was aiming for the UnSub's knee.
• Spencer Reid—the team member once referred to by a witness as "a pipe cleaner with eyes"—walking, unarmed, with his hands up, purposely blocking the snipers' shot, into the middle of the street to talk down a machine-gun-wielding spree killer on the verge of going nuclear, and succeeding.
• Reid gets what is arguably one of the best in the entire series in the episode "Revelations". Despite having been beaten, tortured, drugged and having a revolver containing a single bullet pointed at his head by an UnSub with multiple personalities, Reid refuses to choose one of his colleagues to be the killer's next victim. He refuses several times, barely flinching as the gun clicks to the next empty chamber, until (in what might be considered another, separate MOA) he has a flash of inspiration and "chooses" Aaron Hotchner,^[1] calling him a narcissist who puts himself before the good of the team and referencing a biblical verse about pride. Hotch, who is watching with the rest of the team via webcam, knows that though he has many faults, narcissism isn't one of them - so rather than getting upset he looks up the Bible verse and finds a clue that allows them to locate and rescue Reid.
  • Reid's first action upon seeing the team being to limp up to Hotch, wrap him in a hug and gasp out "I knew you'd understand!" also makes for a Heartwarming Moment.
  • It gets funnier/more awesome: the DVD commentary for that episode sets up Reid choosing Hotch to die as a counterpart to Hotch kicking the snot out of Reid in an earlier episode. "They have a very effective system of spite-based communication," was how one writer put it.
  • Just to reiterate, Spencer Reid, the young, awkward, physically incompetent, near-constant target of serial killers played Russian roulette, and won.
• Reid's furious verbal smackdown to Jonathan Frakes in "Uncanny Valley."
  • "See, this is why I love my job, Doctor, because my lab is a jury of your peers. My tests will be Jenny Larson, Abigail Moore, and Linda Krauss. The DA will put them on the stand and I'm gonna personally bring these dolls in and we're gonna watch how they react."
• In "Somebody's Watching", Reid confronts the UnSub, a crazed stalker, who has a gun to her victim. He's unarmed, the gun is like six inches from the hostage's head and he disarms the UnSub with a tackle.
• From the Season 7 episode "It Takes A Village", Reid delivers an almighty verbal smack-down to the Senate Committee after they question his decision to release Ian Doyle:

Reid: If you want to punish me for taking a risk, then I encourage you to do that, but do not put the rest of my team on trial for something I suggested.
Senator: Calm down, agent.
Reid: This is calm, and it's doctor.

• In Tabula Rasa (season 3, episode 19) Reid confronts a grieving father of a victim, who is bent on shooting the man who murdered his daughter, and talks him down. He does this completely without a weapon or force of any kind, using only his profiling skills and general compassion.
• Not to mention in Damaged when he gave a thirteen minute profile FROM SCRATCH to keep a killer occupied while they waited for guards to come back to let them out of the cell where they were interviewing him.

Killer Is that true, what you said?
Reid I dont know, maybe

Jennifer Jareau

• JJ has one in "Revelations" when she fires three shots in the dark and takes down three attack-trained dogs.
• When JJ takes down Garcia's shooter with a Boom! Headshot! through a glass window in "Penelope".
• And yet another one, in "The Performer", where, after having been whacked upside the head with a shovel by the UnSub, JJ comes out of nowhere with her own shovel-to-the-UnSub's-head.
• JJ talking Billy Flynn into letting Ellie go by talking to him about what a parent should do and that she understands how bad his childhood was, and that even though she can't understand why he's doing what he's doing, she knows what a parent should do and that he should let Ellie go. She's not a hostage negotiator, so the fact that she did this was all kinds of awesome.
• The fact that JJ's last episode also doubled as a Take That to CBS.
  • It's pretty plain to see that the writers are just as pissed as the fans are.
• She gets one simply walking into a room in "Lauren", when she's revealed as the State Department official that Hotch called in.
• In "The Last Word", the team has discovered two serial killers in the same town in competition with each other. Having captured one, JJ holds a press conference where she says that the captured one will be studied for years as "one of the most complex killers we've ever encountered" while the other appears to be either isolated incidents and copycats or a killer so sloppy and unsophisticated, he isn't worth the BAU's time. This drives the second UnSub to go to the police station in a rage to confront them. It doesn't end well for him.
• "Run" gives JJ a CMOA to end all others. After seeing Will get shot, nearly blown up, and then taken hostage by the UnSubs, she discovers that one of the UnSubs is in her house with her son. While Rossi helps the kids outside get to safety, JJ sneaks in and holds a gun on the UnSub. A fight that shows off JJ's Mama Bear side ensues and then the UnSub gets a gun. In one fluid motion, JJ pushes the gun away, ejects the magazine and then racks the slide to eject the round in the chamber, completely disarming it. Then she does a roundhouse kick that would make Chuck Norris proud to put the villian down for the count.

David Rossi

• Just Rossi's scene in "About Face," when he's preparing to return to the BAU—might not have seemed as cool when we were first watching it, but seeing it again later, knowing Rossi, seeing him get ready to return to the job with the CM background music (DUNDUN DUN DUN!)... it's simply awesome.
• Rossi's response to Rothchild's Hannibal Lecture in "Masterpiece" about destroying Rossi's ego and killing his "family" and that he was going to get away with it: "Did you get all that, Garcia?". Followed by Rossi offhandedly mentioning that the confession will make "a good teaching aid" - oh, wait, did he forget to tell Rothchild that he teaches interrogation at Quantico?
• In "Omnivore", after The Reaper has taken out an entire bus full of people in response to Hotch turning down a deal, Hotch is suffering from a severe crisis of faith and believes it's all his fault. What does Rossi do? He holds out his gun to Hotch.

'"Well here, use mine. You've convinced me. No, no, you hung up on him, you practically killed them yourself. Go ahead, get it over with. Don't worry about us, we'll get this guy without you... Look, if you want to end up like Shaughnessy, like Gideon, blaming yourself for everything, you go ahead. But that voice in your head? It's not your conscience, it's your ego."

• Rossi gets another one in "Exit Wounds" - Hotch, Reid, and the Alaska sheriffs are facing off with a virtual lynch mob over the UnSub. Hotch and Reid are trying to defuse the situation, and the leader of the mob wants to know who Hotch thinks has the high ground.

Rossi: (standing behind the mob with Morgan and Prentiss) I think you'll find we do.

• In "It Takes A Village", Rossi does what no one else in the team does: he gets the Senator on the committee to shut up, with just one question:

Rossi: Was it wrong for Agent Morgan to want Ian Doyle dead?

Penelope Garcia

• Any and all of Penelope Garcia, though especially when Kevin calls her his girlfriend and she says all dreamy-voiced, "Girlfriend? Kevin...if you come within 100 feet of Agent Rossi, I will release a virus onto your personal computer that will dissolve your electronic life into something between a Commodore 64 and a block of government cheese. Call me later."
• Garcia hacking the Unsub's video feed in "The Internet Is Forever": ACCESS DENIED. YOU LOSE.
• After having to research a town's dark secrets to help find an UnSub, Garcia gets sickened and extremely depressed. She completely tears into Hotch when they get back, and he apologizes.

Derek Morgan

• The time that Derek Morgan tackled a moving van. Seriously. When doors and people just can't do it for you anymore...
  • He also tackles a train, and, maybe best of all, leaps tall buildings in a single bound.
• Driving a bomb-laden ambulance out of the city and jumping out seconds before it explodes ("Mayhem").
• Morgan taking care of Ellie Spicer after the events of "Our Darkest Hour" and "The Longest Night". Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, too.
  • He also helped take care of Angel in the episode "Foundation". Angel escaped from the UnSub and Morgan got him to talk and interact again. When they finally catch the UnSub, Morgan was able to punch him a couple of times before being stopped by Rossi. The UnSub deserved it. There were bite marks on Angel. Worst part, there were more victims before him.
• Morgan walking into a Congressional candidate's fundraiser in "25 to Life" and accusing him of murder after repeatedly being told by Strauss that his job is on the line if he so much as looks at the man wrong. Morgan - with Rossi and Prentiss for backup - strides right up to the guy and baits the guy into confessing in front of a ballroom full of guests, then handcuffs him and leads him out.
• In "Lauren," he arguably saves a grievously injured Prentiss (at least until the paramedics can get there) by forcing her to stay conscious, despite her entreaties to let her slip away. His plea of "if you can hear me, just squeeze my hand" doubles as a CMOH.
• Chased a minivan off the side of the road into a lake in "Out of the Light." He then dives in to pull the victim out of the car and resuscitates her. (Possibly having flashbacks to "losing" Prentiss).
• His epic "screw you" response to a Conspiracy Theorist's Hannibal Lecture in "Identity."

Emily Prentiss

• Speaking flawless Arabic in "Lessons Learned" and helping the team identify the real terrorists behind the killings. It's also the first time she proves her worth to the team.
• Prentiss gets one in "Minimal Loss" when she takes a beating so Reid can preserve his cover, and even antagonizes her attacker in order to get a message across to the rest of the team, who are listening in.
• When Prentiss takes down a rapist UnSub in "Slave of Duty", presses her gun to his head, and tells him to think about her and all of his victims when he's getting raped in prison.
• In "Retaliation", Prentiss, a fellow officer, and the UnSub are hit by a truck while driving to a station. The Unsub just killed the officer and leaves Emily to die in the car. Cue Prentiss pushing her way out of the battered car and shooting at the truck the Unsub unfortunately got away in.
• Prentiss takes an exponential level in badass during the Doyle arc. It's revealed that Prentiss used to be a superspy for Interpol, working deep cover missions to put terrorists away. In "Lauren", she pulls off a one-woman assault on Doyle's SUV, involving smoke bombs and machine guns, and withstands branding, beatings, and torture before disappearing into Witness Protection.
  • In the final fight, she also delivers a Reason You Suck Speech while she has the Unsub in a headlock.
• Prentiss stepping into the Hotchalanche shoes that Jason Gideon and Hotch have left empty in 7x08.
• In "Run," she refuses to leave Will to die and disarms the bomb strapped to him with zero time to spare.

Jason Gideon

• An unarmed Gideon taking down the Footpath Killer in "Extreme Aggressor" on his own, by messing with his mind, to the point he couldn't function. :

Gideon: "COME ON!"

• • Later, he sums it up like this:

Gideon: "The Footpath Killer had a shotgun to my head, right here. I'm here, he isn't."

• Gideon repeatedly hanging up on the UnSub in "Broken Mirror" because he knows that he'll keep calling back. Also, when the UnSub goes on a rant about each member of the team, he says things that he thinks will cut each member down (Morgan is the token, Reid is the antisocial weirdo, etc), but each member laughs it off. It's awesome.
• Gideon insulting an armed UnSub holding a hostage into shooting at him, rather than holding the gun on the hostage, clearing the way for Elle to shoot the hostage taker. In the very first episode!

Hotch: "Guess what 'Gideon' means?"
Reid: "'Mighty warrior.' Appropriate."

• Gideon facing down Adrian Bale in Won't Get Fooled Again. For those who don't know, Bale was a bomber who blew up a building, killing six agents after Gideon thought he had captured him, driving Gideon to a breakdown. When They need his help stopping another bomber, Bale mentally tortures him for the whole episode until the end when he tells him which wire to cut. Gideon figures out that he is lying, using Bale's own Hannibal Lecture against him. This invalidates a deal Bale made, ensuring he will never get out of prison. Gideon reminds him how he got the best him. And Bale's fellow prisoners? They now know how willing he was to rat on Them to save Himself. Gideon's final smile just screams "I get to go to a nice home and You get to stay in a cell surrounded by guys waiting to knife You at the first opportunity. Have a nice life sentence, You simple motherfucker".

Elle Greenaway

• Proving that she is definitely not a Faux Action Girl, Elle Greenaway holds an erotomaniac FBI agent at gunpoint. When he disarms her, she punches him in the stomach, takes his gun, takes him out at the knee, steps on his balls, sticks the gun in his face, and politely inquires as to the whereabouts of the girl he's kidnapped. He is remarkably compliant.
  • This is so much her signature move that when Reid accidentally shoots the target man at the FBI shooting range in the crotch, Hotch snarks, "Did Elle teach you that?"

Multiple Team Members

• Reid and Hotch have one in "Damaged", trapped in a locked room with Chester Hardwick. Hardwick is a sadistic murderer who bears a marked resemblance to the real-life BTK killer in both technique and appearance. Realizing that Hardwick has no intention of cooperating with their interview, Hotch rings for the guard to let them out. Some highlights are below.

Hardwick: There won't be anyone to open that door for at least thirteen minutes. holds up a photograph of one of his victims, a horrifically mutilated woman and it took me less than five to do this.
Hardwick: So you planned to be locked inside with me, with no guns or weapons?
Hotch: I won't need a gun. Unfortunately for you, I'm not a five foot tall, hundred pound girl. All your life, you've gone after victims who couldn't fight back. And the rest of the time, you spent looking over your shoulder, worried about the knock on the door; scared that someone like me would be on the other side, waiting to put you away. At your core, you're a coward. Hotchner takes off his jacket and tie, rolls his sleeves, and is so obviously prepared to kick ass that Hardwick is taken aback.

• • The best way to sum up the above is that Hotch is not locked in with Hardwick; Hardwick is locked in with Hotch.
  • Though not as taken aback as when Reid proceeds to completely steal Hotchner's thunder by saying he can explain the killer's actions. He proceeds to do just that, filibustering for fifteen minutes on mental conditioning, damage, and the nature of how human failing is passed on and grows worse, possibly saving his and Hotch's life, and concluding that really, Hardwick never really had a chance. When the guards finally do arrive, the killer asks Reid if that's true. Reid says, "I don't know; maybe."
    • (And later, "I find I do some of my best work under intense terror.")
  • It wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that before serial killers go to sleep, they check their closets for Aaron Hotchner.
• In "52 Pickup", Prentiss and Jordan Todd humiliate a skeevy, misogynistic pick-up artist who inspired an UnSub, refuting every single point he tries to make and bringing up the fact that not a single woman in the club is interested in him.
• Hotch and Rossi tag-team steamrollering the Wyoming Attorney General in "Minimal Loss", furious at the leaks to the press and the escalation of a hostage situation in which two of their team members are trapped. Rossi plays it cool, but Hotch backs the AG down with "get off my crime scene". As Marshall Eriksen might say - "LAWYERED!" Rossi follows it up by kicking some hostage-negotiation ass.
• Emily, Garcia, and JJ in the bar with Brad the Real FBI Agent in "Open Season". They catch him in a pick up lie about being a "real" FBI agent, get him to dig his grave a bit deeper by asking to see his badge (to which he replies, "That's classified."), and then they totally own him by showing him their badges.
• In "Hopeless", the team has been hunting a group of UnSubs that have been attacking at random with much overkill and violence. The police in the area are so worked up that Hotch fears a burtal retaliation against the UnSubs. Once two of the UnSubs are cornered and surrounded by cops, Hotch walks away - when Morgan questions him, Hotch says "It's our job to catch them, not kill them." Then Prentiss and Rossi walk away too, and the three of them do an Unflinching Walk away from the scene as the UnSubs burst out and the cops mow them down mercilessly.

UnSubs

• Magnificent Bastard Foyet's intricate and insane escape from custody in "Omnivore" puts a new meaning to the term "Crazy Prepared".
  • Not to mention "You should have made the deal."
• The end of "Public Enemy" when the now imprisoned killer shivs his even bigger Complete Monster father to death in the lunch line, as the other inmates look on with disinterest (it's mentioned the father was really unpopular with everybody).
• Ian Doyle in general.
  • His "hello, Lauren" to Prentiss in "Sense Memory".
  • The reveal of just how far his organization reaches in "Valhalla".
  • His masterful Batman Gambit to Prentiss in "Lauren", attempting to force a Sadistic Choice of who he shoots - Rossi or Seaver. Prentiss takes a third option by telling him to shoot his own mook.
• Ben killing the fuck out of his evil, Ax Crazy hallucinations in "With Friends Like These". Granted, it only gives him a temporary reprieve from them.
• The UnSub of Dorado Falls used his training to break into the FBI and get the jump on Rossi. Allow me to repeat- HE BROKE INTO THE FBI!
  • The above statement really doesn't do it justice. Most of the time, the UnSub manages to evade the BAU because they don't know who he is. In this case, the BAU quickly learn who the UnSub is and are actively chasing him, but he's always a step ahead of them and countering their plays. The very best part? Rossi figures that he's coming to the FBI, realising that the UnSub recognised the FBI prefix from the BAU phone. As the FBI SWAT operators are locking down the building, the UnSub is already inside. As the SWAT team is clearing each floor, the UnSub walks into the BAU bullpen and gets the drop on Rossi. Justified by the fact that he was a former Navy SEAL.

Victims and Non-Team Members

• "Machismo". When a serial killer, disguised as a woman, is going after elderly Latino ladies, it is said many times that the women in that particular community are usually bullied by the men and rarely go to the police. When the team finds the killer, he's been beaten to a pulp, and his junk chopped off. Cue the women of the community coming out with bloodied weapons. "He wanted to be a woman. Now he is one."
  • Made more awesome in that he had raped them, none of them had reported it and when one woman fought back, he snapped and killed their mothers - i.e. he killed the mothers of his rape victims.
• Even the victims get them sometimes. Like the time the killers were brother The Hunters, and would release their prey into the forest and hunt them over several days. The initial intended victim ambushes one, stabs him repeatedly, and manages to get the drop on the other. Still needed BAU to save her, though.
• In another "victims fight back" example, in "Compromising Positions", one of the male victims, even though he is handcuffed and the murderer has a gun, manages to kickbox the everloving shit out of him for several minutes before getting killed.
• "100". It wound up not mattering in the long run, but U.S. Marshall Kassmeyer deserves some credit. Even after he's been shot in both legs and one foot, had a finger or two cut off, and given a serious beating by one of the most sadistic Complete Monsters we've ever seen on the show, he does his job to the end. Not only does he not give up the Hotchners' location, but you can see him try to get up at least twice, presumably to go for his gun. Fairly badass, all things considered.
• "Mosley Lane". The female kidnapper is about to cremate the kidnapped children, chasing down the middle child when the oldest, Charlie/David pulls a gun, telling her to let them go. She laughs at him and says he's got to be kidding. He wasn't.
• In "The Longest Night" we get another one for one of the victims. In one night, Ellie Spicer has seen her aunt raped and beaten (giving her injuries she later dies from), a cop who came to save her beaten up and tied up, and her father shot to death in front of her by a Complete Monster Serial Killer. Said Complete Monster then kidnaps her, and starts bringing her to houses where he's forcing her to be his "helper" with killing families. So what does she do when he tells her to go get the child of one family he's planning to do this to so he can experience this same thing? She finds that the family has two kids, and sends one brother out to tell the neighborhood that the guy is there so that the neighbors will find them and stop him. She totally isn't scared of the guy, and is going to do whatever it takes to survive and save as many people as she can. She not only calmly tells him what she's done, but that she's given the boy instructions to not stop going door to door, because there's no way he can possibly kill enough people to stop the alert from going out. Did we mention she's only 8?
  • The CMOA extends to the residents of the neighborhood, who turn up en masse to surround the home where the killer is brandishing guns, baseball bats and whatever other weapons they can improvise. "Even California has its moments", indeed.
    • It becomes even more awesome when you remember that this particular UnSub is based on the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez. While the UnSub manages to get away from the neighborhood by stealing his most recent victims' car, the real life serial killer he was based on attempted something similar and was not as lucky.
• The general from "Amplification" pulls one hell of a Batman Gambit to get the UnSub to surrender, promising him a position at Ft. Dietrich in exchange for his virus which is killing Reid.
• Evan Abby from "Ashes And Dust" discovers that someone in his environmental group has been using it as a way of burning down homes and trapping families inside so he can watch them burn to death. Abby started the group after discovering he had terminal Leukemia and wanted his life to mean something. He lures the UnSub to an abandoned warehouse and spreads Benzine, a particularly flammable substance around. When the UnSub panics and asks Abby how he plans to escape, he merely says "I don't" and lights the place up.
• Not sure if this counts, but Nathan Harris from Sex, Birth, and Death fighting his homicidal fantasies even when he could have acted them out. He had a potential victim, a weapon, opportunity, was about to be locked away in a hospital (possibly for life) and instead of giving in, he tried to commit suicide. He wasn't successful, but he fought his violent urges and won.
• In Uncanny Valley, when the current victim finally gets the needle injecting her with the drug out of her arm, the first thing she says is:

"We're leaving!"

• • Hell, everything about what she did was awesome. The victim was severely diabetic, and could have died very quickly from the drugs she was being given. Instead, they wore off faster, and she did everything she could to get up, free one of the other victims, and call for help, even though she couldn't stand.

Other

• The promo for season 7 period. Not only do we see our team reassemble back to the ways of the glory days but Reid actually fires his gun, Doyle is brought to justice, and it looks like this season is going to kick UnSub ASS!

1. ↑ That said, considering the UnSub was using a revolver, it is entirely possible that Reid could see which chamber held the bullet from his vantage point, and waited until it was in the barrel to name Hotch, so the the UnSub's ultra religious personality would believe it was 'Gods will' that he chose Hotchner. This arguably makes Reid even more badass.