Team members become pawns of a psychopathic killer.

Elle's fate is unknown, and the unsub continues dropping clues as the team scrambles to identify him before another tragedy occurs.

Reid has been kidnapped, and the BAU's only things to profile are a house, a computer, and the live feed the kidnapper is sending to them.

A child abduction case in Las Vegas causes Reid to have strange nightmares which appear to be connected to an event in his past.

Driven by his nightmares, Reid stays behind in Las Vegas to find his father in order to find out the truth about Riley Jenkins' murder.

Reid has returned from Houston, where he was visiting his mother who is in a new facility on an experimental drug program. He is called back home from the office while the rest of the team heads off on their next case. It isn't until the team is in the air that they learn that Diana is no longer in the Houston facility, but that she is now living with Reid, as the trial drug was not having the intended effect. Reid had received professional advice that his mother should be in a facility both for her and his own good, but it may be news from a more caring rather than clinical voice which may carry more weight with him. Regardless, he makes himself available to the team, who are in the Tampa, Florida area where two individual deaths have occurred, both now considered murders, the two tied together by ink drawings on the inner arms of the victims, the second victim's whose has one more stroke of the pen than the first. The M.E. is able to determine that the markings were made with the same pen. The death of the first victim, a model suburban soccer mom, was initially ruled a suicide from an overdose of sleeping pills, her own prescription. The second victim, a homeless man, died of a heroin overdose, he who was known not to be a drug user, but rather an advocate for the homeless to get those in need into drug rehab programs. As such, they were both killed using the tools of their life, they presupposing that the unsub forced them to kill themselves. With two subsequent victims, the team also gathers more evidence: that the victims post-mortem were taken to outdoor sites with disturbed ground, and the unsub is connected in some way to fire. The identification of the ink markings in relation to the aspect of the disturbed ground may provide the key to finding where the unsub will strike next.

When a member of the BAU gets in trouble in Mexico, they enlist the help of the International Response Team.

The BAU investigates when several federal government employees, including a close friend of Walker's, succumb to symptoms of a heart attack; Reid anxiously awaits his trial date.

Derek Morgan brings the BAU a lead in the case against serial killer and escaped convict Mr. Scratch.

JJ is in the hospital clinging to life having been seriously wounded in Everett Lynch and his daughter Grace Lynch's successful escape from custody. Besides Will, Reid is standing vigil at the hospital, he who is angry at himself for not realizing sooner that JJ was in trouble. If JJ doesn't make it, Reid will not only lose arguably his best friend, but he and she will not have been able to clear the air about the strain that has existed between the two of them since their previous case. Reid is also torn in two different directions emotionally as he is called by the facility where he recently moved his mother, they wanting him to come right away. With the Lynches, the team knows they they have disrupted Everett's plans - he a highly organized man - and thus Everett and Grace will be working on the fly. The team believes they have to find any connection that either Everett and/or Grace would have in the DC area for that support they need, including financial, to go off the grid. If Prentiss is able to speak to JJ about the shooting, they may get another piece to what is happening with Everett and Grace. Also working for them is the fact that they still have Roberta in custody, who, despite being a criminal in her own right, would probably want to protect Grace at all cost, perhaps even at Everett's expense.

Series Finale. Following an explosive face-to-face encounter with Everett Lynch, Dr. Reid suffers from a brain injury and, while experiencing hallucinations, is visited by ghosts from his past. Also, the BAU makes a shocking discovery about Lynch that affects Rossi personally, and the entire BAU team comes together to celebrate Rossi's retirement.