Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior



Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior was a Spin-Off of the popular Police Procedural Criminal Minds. Starring Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker as Sam Cooper, Suspect Behavior centers on a BAU Red Cell, a team that "operates outside normal FBI bureaucracy". Accompanying him are former SAS Mick Rawson, Ex-Con turned FBI agent Jonathan "Prophet" Simms, young prodigy Gina LaSalle, and experienced agent Beth Griffith. Crossing over from Criminal Minds is Penelope Garcia as their resident tech expert.

The show started with a Backdoor Pilot (sans Beth) where the original team of Criminal Minds had to team up with the Red Cell to end a series of kidnappings and murders. The series proper premiered in 2011. The show seemed to aim for a slightly more Darker and Edgier tone than its original counterpart.

It was cancelled after one season in 2011.


 * Always Murder: Sometimes kidnapping, but even those tend to have a murder element.
 * Anachronic Order: In the first episode, Beth is already part of the team. In Here is the Fire, which aired later, it's clear she's just meeting them for the first time.
 * An Arm and a Leg: The MO of the villain in Jane was dismembering his victims with a bandsaw.
 * Asshole Victim: A politician is almost murdered by his schizophrenic son because he abandoned both him and his sister because of their mental problems, leaving them to grow up in foster care and poverty while he started a new, normal family.
 * Batter Up: Nighthawk.
 * Berserk Button: Prophet and child molesters. He gets violent around them. Guess how he went into jail in the first place?
 * Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Gina, Beth and Garcia.
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The killer in Jane goes to get a beer out of his fridge, revealing that's also where he keeps the severed heads of his victims.
 * Chalk Outline: Jane.
 * Character Overlap: The character Penelope Garcia is the technical analyst in both this and Criminal Minds.
 * Cliff Hanger: The Season One Finale (and as of now final episode) ends on one of the worst since the ending of The Sopranos.
 * Cold Sniper: One Shot Kill.
 * Courtroom Episode: The Time Is Now.
 * Cryptic Background Reference: What Cooper and Mick saw and did in Fallujah that still haunts them.
 * Cut Short: The Cliff Hanger ending of Death by a Thousand Cuts.
 * Dead All Along: Following tradition of Criminal Minds, there was a dead girl who was seen as alive by the unsub in Devotion. Until the reveal, she was played by an actress, talked and moved.
 * Did Not Do the Research: In "Jane", while talking to a victim's friend, Gina says they're from the Missing Persons Unit. There is no such unit in the FBI.
 * Dramatic Pause: Coop is a... fan of these.
 * Face Stealer: In The Girl in the Blue Mask, a father is trying to repair his daughter's (not actually) disfigured face by stealing the facial skin of others.
 * Fair Cop: Considering the two female agents are Beau Garrett (Gina) and Janeane Garofalo (Beth), this trope is definitely in play. On the male side we have Matt Ryan (Mick), and Michael Kelly (Prophet) has to do something for somebody.
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * I Have Your Loved One: How the killer in Death by a Thousand Cuts coerces people into committing murder.
 * I Just Want to Be Loved: Said by the killer in Two of a Kind, during his Villainous Breakdown.
 * Jack the Ripoff: Lonely Heart.
 * Knife Nut
 * Left Hanging: Rather cruelly, due to its cancellation.
 * Duty First, Love Second: A (mostly) platonic version. When is held hostage to force  to choose between  or letting her die, she flat-out tells the kidnapper to shoot her, because  won't  for her and she wouldn't want him to.
 * Mad Bomber: Here is the Fire.
 * Missing White Woman Syndrome: The first episode, where a white girl's abduction receives tons of coverage, while the earlier abductions of three black girls gain minimal attention, and go cold quickly.
 * And
 * Mommy Issues: Smother.
 * Monkey Morality Pose: The attacks (Eye Scream, Ear Ache and attempted Tongue Trauma) in See No Evil correspond to them.
 * Monster Fangirl: Lonely Heart.
 * Mummies At the Dinner Table: Devotion, which even ends with a literal instance of this.
 * Mysterious Past: Cooper, whose past seems convoluted and complex but never explained, only the occasional hint is dropped.
 * "No. Just... No" Reaction: Essentially Mick's reaction to the suggestion that the killer in Devotion is a necrophiliac.
 * No Name Given: The titular victim in Jane, and the killer himself.
 * Offing the Offspring: The bomber in Here is the Fire intended to kill his three sons, and the bulk of his community's children.
 * Only Six Faces: What everyone looks like to the killer in Jane, who has a mental disorder. While he could tell the difference between, say, his mother, his teacher, and a random woman on the street there's no emotional connection.
 * Playful Hacker: Garcia of course.
 * Poetic Serial Killer
 * Powerful Pick: A victim gets an ice pick jammed into her ear in See No Evil.
 * Pregnant Hostage: Death by a Thousand Cuts.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Red Cell has shades of this: a Military Brat with father issues, a British ex-special-forces sniper, an ex-con with a serious Berserk Button about child molesters, and a woman who has been kicked off multiple anti-terrorism teams for personality conflicts, all led by a rather zen Catholic priest with a Mysterious Past and ties to a lot of people. They are based out of the back of a gym (the "Gym of Justice") and are fairly casual about dress code and professional behavior.
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: FBI Director Jack Fickler.
 * Which so far contrasts with the BAU's Erin Strauss.
 * Recurring Extra: The gym janitor, who was never given a name, and only spoke once.
 * Relative Error: When she catches Mick talking affectionately over the phone to a girl named "Jenna", Beth assumes it's his girlfriend and promptly heckles him. She later finds out that Jenna is his little sister.
 * Replacement Goldfish: The killer in Two of a Kind abducted little black girls who reminded him of his daughter,.
 * Retcon: The Red Cell team concept was not present in the pilot. Sam and Hotch were the same rank, just leading different teams. This show shows that Sam does not answer to Strauss at all (only answering to the actual director of the FBI, Jack Fickler).
 * Presumably, this is in response to cries that they Did Not Do the Research. One member of the team is an ex-con; another a foreign national. Neither are eligible for membership of the regular FBI.
 * Sadistic Choice:
 * Screwed by the Network: CBS aired the Poorly-Disguised Pilot shortly before it announced cuts to the Criminal Minds female cast for "budget reasons". Fans were displeased, and quite a few blamed the new show, which resulted in many fans boycotting it, causing it to tank in the ratings as a result. Though some would argue that it was Laser-Guided Karma, as the cnacellation of this show paved the way for CBS to bring back A.J. Cook and agree not to reduce Paget Brewster's screentime.
 * Serial Killer
 * Shout-Out: 'The Girl In The Blue Mask' is a CM: SB version of Eyes Without a Face-
 * Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Trailer: Beth is missing from most promo material.
 * Slashed Throat: Happens to a would-be good samaritan in Jane, when he spots the killer abducting his latest victim.
 * Smug Snake: The imprisoned killer in Lonely Heart.
 * Sniper Duel: Between Mick and the UnSub in One Shot Kill.
 * Spin-Off: This series is a type 3 spin-off of Criminal Minds.
 * Sympathetic Murderer: The unsub of Devotion who is schizophrenic, and is trying to get her justice from their dad putting them in foster homes.
 * The old man in Nighthawk.
 * Two-Faced: Two of the victims are left like this in The Girl in the Blue Mask, though only one survives.
 * Unresolved Sexual Tension: Mick and Gina; possibly Sam and Beth.
 * The Vamp: The killer in The Time is Now would manipulate teenage boys into killing their parents. While it's never explicitly stated she used sex to do so, it's highly probable.
 * Turn in Your Badge: Played with. Fickler makes it seem like he's firing, but he's actually . But the rest of the team doesn't know that, nor does the audience.
 * Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The son of the killer from Nighthawk was obviously based on Jeffrey Dahmer.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: Pick any two team members, but especially Mick and Prophet, Mick and Beth, and Beth and Coop.
 * Window Pain: Nighthawk.
 * You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry: The killer in Two of a Kind.
 * The father in The Girl in the Blue Mask temporarily disfigured his daughter by pressing her face against a hot surface while drunk.