What is reids job in criminal minds

Reid grew up quickly, too, graduating from public high school in Las Vegas at the age of Living… in Washington D. C, although he spends a lot of time in Quantico, where he works with the FBI. He also travels a lot because of his job. Profession… genius. Which he entered at age After graduating from Caltech and MIT.

Interests… reading and learning. Reid is also a committed nerd, even dressing up as the fourth Doctor Who for a convention. He made the scarf himself, too.

Reid continues to snap at Prentiss, even when she makes a little joke complimenting him. While in the city, Reid does go to see Ethan and they go to a bar. Ethan notices Reid is unhappy and can tell he is having a drug problem.

Ethan tells Reid that his team members notice, even though Reid thinks they don't. Prentiss gives him a hard time about it and later admits to Gideon that there's something going on with Reid and Gideon knows.

At the end, Reid is at the bar watching Ethan play piano and Gideon finds him. Reid admits he's "struggling" and is questioning if he is strong enough and Gideon assures him that anyone would be after being abducted and drugged.

Reid promises to "never miss another plane again. It is hinted that Reid may be getting his addiction under control. He burns himself on the espresso maker and drops things. The lack of coordination suggests he's been without drugs after possible withdrawal in "Distress".

He is very cheerful and seems better. He was excited that the station had an espresso maker and when JJ joked with him he excepted it without lashing out. The cabin is empty, except for Gideon's gun, badge, and letter. The letter is addressed to Reid and contains an apology for his actions. It is also in this episode that Reid's possible drug addiction is mentioned again, when Hotch tells Prentiss that "another [agent] might have a very serious drug problem which I didn't report.

It implies that Reid was on extra good behavior and would ask for extra projects and offer to clean classrooms for teachers. Reid points out that Gideon left a letter without saying goodbye in person — just like his father when he abandoned Reid and Diana. He was the last person to see her before she went missing.

Reid does a great job interviewing the boy and in the last interview reveals some of his personal life to the boy. He talks about when he first started noticing girls at 13 in an effort to get the boy to open up. He also shows empathy at the end when he tells the boy whose parents have both been arrested that they the team will make sure he is okay.

Spencer also admits that he was an awkward child, of course we as in the team, and all the shows viewers all knew it but he has admitted to knowing it. The father shoots the UnSub in spite of Reid's efforts to talk him down, leaving Reid standing in shock as the father a State's witness , walks away without being charged. They get locked in the room that they were in interviewing Chester They guy their interviewing.

Chester saying He could kill 2 FBI agents. Before he had the chance to get at Hotch Reid and Hotch were unarmed Reid gave a 13 minute speech saying why he killed.

The cops got them out. Reid says while him and Hotch are in the car, "I find that I do some of my best work under extreme terror". He mentions that most groups asks the participant to write the letter to themselves. As he says this he appears self conscious as Prentiss looks at him and it sounds like he is speaking from personal experience.

He says he has been clean for 10 months. He has to leave abruptly due to a call from work, but a man named John stops him. John appears to be someone high up and he loans Reid his own one year medallion as inspiration— saying he can give it back when he reaches his one year mark. It is speculated that he becomes Reid's mentor in the program. Rossi and Morgan tease Reid when he arrives late for the case meeting.

Reid claims he was at a movie, but Rossi realizes he is lying. Reid admits to Morgan that when he was a high school freshmen, a girl, Harper Hillman, approached him in the library and told him the prettiest girl in school, Alexa Lisbon, wanted to meet him behind the field house. When he arrived, Alexa was there with the entire football team.

Everyone there laughed at him and he begged them to help but nobody did. He finally got free and went home at midnight to find his mother having an episode, so he never told anyone what had happened. Morgan is the first person he's ever told. Reid also tells Hotch that being the smartest kid in school also meant being the loneliest.

Reid withholds information from the team so they will not know where Owen is going. This gives Reid the opportunity to confront Owen and talk him in to surrendering, rather than allowing the boy to be gunned down. Although he saves the boy's life, he is reprimanded by Hotch— who threatens to fire Reid if he ever does it again. Hotch then tells Reid to "catch the end of that movie"— showing that he knows where Reid really was.

In a flashback to a case on his first year at the BAU, Reid volunteers to deal with the victim's father at the crime scene, and, surprisingly, is tactful and helpful. Later in the episode, Reid prevents the father from shooting the man being tried for his daughter's murder.

Reid tries to help give the man closure by talking him through the case and, at the end of the episode, returning his daughter's watch and sharing a moment with him. Season 4. The press leak that an FBI agent is in the compound, prompting action from the cult leader, Benjamin Cyrus, who first suspects Reid. However Prentiss willingly gives herself up as the agent and is subsequently beaten by him. Feeling responsible, a regretting Reid is later assured by Emily that what Cyrus did wasn't his fault and that it was her decision to reveal herself as the agent, helping Reid regain his peace of mind.

The first boy's body has turned up in the desert and the team races against time to save the second boy before he suffers the same fate. As the team travels on the BAU jet toward Las Vegas, Reid falls asleep during the briefing and falls into a reoccurring nightmare where he discovers an abused boy's dead body behind laundry equipment in a basement. The team is concerned he's not up to this case and Hotch ask him if wants to sit it out, but he assures them he's fine.

Reid experiences the nightmare once again when he and Morgan are on night duty with the kidnapped boy's parents prompting Morgan to search for, and find, an old police cold case file on the murder of a child named Riley Jenkins from when Reid was four years old. Reid, who had believed that Riley was a childhood imaginary friend, visits his institutionalized mother searching for clues to Riley's murder. Diana Reid and her doctor also assist Reid to refine his profile on who the UnSub is and he is able to find the young boy seconds before Morgan would have been forced to shoot the UnSub.

Reid once again suffers through the reoccurring nightmare before the team is due to leave Las Vegas, but this time the ending has a twist. A man is bent over the boy's body and Reid forces the man to stand and identify himself. The man is William Reid, Spencer's father. He discovers his father worked only 10 minutes away from him. Reid has Garcia hack his father's computer and he learns his father has collected all articles and information on Reid since he left him and his mother.

Believing his father to be involved in the murder of a young boy named Riley Jenkins — who had been on the same softball team as Reid — Reid undergoes hypnotherapy and recovers memories of his father burning bloody clothes. He interrogates his father, leading Morgan and Rossi to believe he's taking out his personal frustrations.

Diana Reid reveals that the real murderer was likely a man named Gary Brendan Michaels who had approached a then-four-year-old Reid while playing chess, causing Diana to become suspicious. She had informed Riley's dad, who then murdered Michaels while Diana was outside. Diana returned home where William Reid helped cover it up.

William admits that the knowledge of what had transpired had become too big of a burden for him to stay with Reid and his mom. When Reid asks why he didn't come back, William admits he had lost his confidence and didn't know how to handle Reid any longer.

At the end of the episode, Reid returns home to discover JJ has given birth to baby Henry, and he is asked by JJ to be the godfather. Rothchild is fixated on Reid and demands to deal only with Reid while he belittles Rossi's intelligence. Rossi decides to throw Rothchild off balance by denying him Reid. While Rossi verbally spars with Rothchild, Reid and the rest of the team identify Rothschild's previous victims. Garcia receives a live video feed of the kidnapped woman and children while Morgan and Todd visit the day care center where Morgan sends a cell phone photo to Reid of a strange arrangement of toys on the floor of the play area that gives Reid the first clue on how to find the hostages.

Recognizing the pendent that Rothchild is wearing around his neck as both the physical representation of a mathematical spiral and a template that when placed on a map of Virginia leads to the location of the kidnapped children, Hotch, Reid and Prentiss head for the location in a helicopter. Rossi is still unsettled about something and continues to talk with Rothchild. When the team arrives at the house, Rothchild reveals that it's all a trap and that Hotch and his team will never exit the house alive.

After Rothchild reveals his complete plan to Rossi, Rossi reveals his own deception to Rothchild. Hotch and Rossi deduced that it was a trap and took precautions to deactivate the acid tanks trap and rescue the hostages while getting a video confession from Rothchild. Check, and checkmate.

Morgan is offered 4 girl's numbers and Reid becomes interested. Morgan gives Spencer pointers. Reid then flirts with a bar tender by using magic tricks and gives her his number and a description of the killer. She sees the killer and attempts to call Spencer. After failing to contact Spencer, she is abducted. The team gets to her in time to save her and then later she calls Spencer and tells him that she has decided to give up bartending and to pursue a career in magic and sends him his card with a kiss smack on the back.

We learn how confident Spencer is with magic. He is likely GS14 step 1 on the salary chart. He refuses to let the doctor give him any narcotics because of his past drug addiction to Dilaudid, and suffers through the pain. He has Garcia record a goodbye message for his mom in case anything happens to him. He helps solve the case while trapped inside the house the Anthrax was found in, and is later seen in an ambulance, suffering from aphasia inability to speak properly , and coughing blood — all symptoms of the Anthrax.

At the end, he is seen in a hospital bed while Morgan eats his Jell-O. He makes no mention of his father nor does he show any interest in leaving a final message to him so he may not be on speaking terms with him. The UnSub is shown, waiting outside of the house as the father leaves. As this is happening Spencer realizes that it is not the son being targeted but the father. Reid is able to save the father and take down the UnSub, but gets shot in the leg in the process.

He annoys her quite a bit, such as interrupting her, giving the team information from her screens, hovering over her shoulder, and at one point gets mildly excited when a man refers to him as "that kid… the smart one. We see Reid's aggressive side, as he verbally attacks and intimidates the doctor. During this episode he befriends Julio Ruiz who notices that the light "is no good for you. It gives you a headache. You think you can do this job day in, day out and not carry it with you?

It's eating your soul. Reid ventures out alone and without his Kevlar vest only to be caught by the UnSub and held at gunpoint. He "pretends" to have a headache and this combined with Julio's muffled shouts had distracted the UnSub long enough for Reid to hit him with a pipe, knocking him to the ground. Once freed, Julio gives Reid a bracelet, Orula's Ide, to protect him saying, "I don't need it anymore, but you…" Throughout the episode, he is asked if he is okay multiple times by everyone except Rossi and Garcia, though the former shared a knowing look with Hotch at the end of the episode after Reid dismissed Hotch's question that he "pretended" to have a headache in order to distract the UnSub.

On exhausting all physical explanations he becomes frustrated and defensive on the accusation of his doctor that the cause may be psychosomatic. It is implied that he has already considered the headaches to be a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia and in truth is terrified that he has inherited his mother's disease. He storms out while putting on his sunglasses before any other explanation is given. At the crime scene the next day, Reid notes a few things that seem to come more from personal experience than a textbook, such as "If the meeting started at , and this happened at , then they were probably in the sharing portion of the meeting.

The trouble is these UnSubs already broke one of the most important steps … the thirteenth step, members aren't supposed to enter relationships with each other while trying to get sober. Reid who has displayed signs of mild autism himself realizes all the signs and clues Sammy is trying to give to the FBI to tell them where the unsub took his parents.

One amazing part of the episode is where Reid and Sammy are sitting on the chair in front of the piano and Sammy starts playing a song. Reid is confused on what the song means to him.

Sammy who is very sensitive to touch takes Reid's hand, places it on the piano, teaches him the song, and they play it together. At the end, we see him walking home after purchasing a keyboard. Episode 6. Matthew Gray Gubler also directed this episode. Until Season Twelve , she resided in that same mental institution and Reid had stated that he sent letters to Diana every day because of the guilt he felt for not visiting her. 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".

Reid has an eidetic memory, meaning that he can remember an exceedingly large amount of information with extraordinary detail. This, however, only definitely applies to information gathered visually especially things he's read, as implied with the word eidetic. However, his ability to retain auditory information has been rather inconsistent, as evident when he once noted he could not remember Garcia 's name " Tabula Rasa ".

Reid is noted for his socially awkwardness and prodigal brilliance, which draws on his analytical way of thinking and establishes him as the encyclopedic brainiac of the group.

He has an affinity for words - from reading and scrutinizing texts at an astounding 20, words per minute an average American adult reads text at — words per minute and his rambling of long explanations and tangents prompting Morgan and other team members to have to tell him to be quiet. He tends to miss social cues at times for example, unknowingly changing the subject of a conversation.

Reid also had a hard time feeling empathy, among other emotions, until after the events of season two, stating that he could understand what the victims felt before they died to Morgan in " Fear and Loathing ". Matthew Gray Gubler has also commented on the differences between Reid and similarly odd character Garcia: "She represents everything he is not, she is very tech oriented and I would like to imagine he is more like s smart, books and reading etc.

Gubler tweeted that Reid is also germaphobic. On par with bring an eccentric genius with trouble at conforming to social behavior, the show has hinted at symptoms displayed with schizophrenia, minor autism, and Asperger's Syndrome, as evident by his bursts of long-winded commentary, his impressive academic history three PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering in a short amount of time, and adverse reactions when touched by strangers.

It is speculated that he may also have slight obsessive-compulsive disorder , particularly from a scene in " Out of the Light " where Morgan slightly moves an item in the home of Marcus Talbot who suffers from it , and Reid immediately places it back to its previous spot. Despite his odd demeanor, and his family's history of mental illness, he has never been diagnosed with an official condition. Reid turned 24 in the episode " Plain Sight ". He also asked JJ out on a date, after being handed tickets to a football game by Gideon , who tells Reid that JJ is a big fan of football.

In the next episode, Reid only said that the date was "top secret" and it was never mentioned again, until " ", when JJ says that not knowing it was supposed to be a date, she brought Garcia along as a way of getting to know the younger team members.

He later joked that he was "aiming for his leg". Hotch is so proud of Reid he lets him keep the gun. It is not clear whether or not he kept the weapon as he is never seen using it again. He's livid to find out that Morgan not only told Hotch but also Gideon.

He understands more of where Morgan coming from as he told Reid his share of nightmares. During the case, he's held hostage by the unsub and is saved by Morgan.

On the ride home in the jet, Gideon has a talk with Reid about his nightmares. In " Derailed ", Reid reveals that he is capable of impressive sleight-of-hand magic tricks, which he uses to trick Ted Bryar. He then shows remarkable insight into the mind of the delusional man, successfully distracting him to protect the hostages.

After Elle Greenaway admits that Reid saved her life, she asks about how he gained such insight, implying that Reid may have some personal experience with mental illness.

Reid explains that he was just pretending, pats Elle on the knee, and walks away; leaving Elle and the audience wondering if he is hiding something.

In " Somebody's Watching ", Reid garnered the affection of Hollywood starlet Lila Archer , who was being stalked by Maggie Lowe , who killed people to further Lila's career. Lila gives Reid what may have been his first kiss. It is unclear whether Reid tried to pursue the relationship further, but JJ teased him about it briefly in the Season Five episode " The Performer ", asking if he still talked to Lila.

Reid declined to answer and quickly changed the subject back to Gina King the episode's unsub. In " The Fisher King, Part 2 ", Reid reveals to the rest of the team that his mother is "a paranoid schizophrenic who wouldn't remember to eat without being properly medicated and supervised".

He mentions to Garcia that schizophrenia is passed on genetically, something he is evidently worried about. In " Aftermath ", Reid seems to be the only team member who notices Elle's odd behavior, and confronts her; he gets her to open up to him but it does not stop her from spiraling out of control. Reid later blames himself for not having done more to help her. Reid being tortured by Tobias Hankel. While being held hostage by serial killer Tobias Hankel , Reid was repeatedly tortured and forcibly injected with Dilaudid , which caused hallucinations of his past and he became addicted.

He had a near death experience when he went into a seizure where he saw shadowy figures and a bright light and, as he later pointed out to Morgan, it couldn't be like other cases where these visions are just doctors in the emergency room.

Reid was forced to kill for a second time using the revolver that his captor used to torment him. Reid's addiction was noticed by Hotch and Gideon over time, as well as an old friend of Reid's in New Orleans " Jones ".

He has since become clean; in " Elephant's Memory ", he attended a support group called The Beltway Clean Cops meeting for addicts in law enforcement. He said he'd been experiencing cravings recently and spoke of Ryan Phillips who got shot in front of him in " 3rd Life " before being interrupted by multiple calls summoning him to work. He was surprised to find one of his superiors attending the same meeting. The older agent, named "John" [3] , loaned Reid his one-year sobriety coin, making Reid promise that he would return once he earned his own.

He is still very particular about staying clean, as seen in " Amplification " when he strictly refused to take any narcotic painkillers after Chad Brown infected him with Anthrax. When Gideon does not show up at work and fails to answer phone calls " In Name and Blood " , Reid drives out to Gideon's cabin in his own car.

Upon arrival, he finds a note addressed only to him explaining why Gideon chose to leave the BAU. Later, Reid explains to Prentiss that his father did the same thing when he abandoned Reid and Diana. Prentiss later exclaims to Reid that there was a reason that he left the note only to Reid to find and not the team. In the episode " Damaged ", he managed to save himself and Hotch from Chester Hardwick who intended to kill them as a way to evade the execution of his death sentence by giving a thirteen minute lecture on the medical explanations for Chester's condition and behavior.

When the situation had been diffused, he stated that he didn't know if the profile was accurate, thus revealing it had been improvised on the spot using his encyclopedic knowledge. He also stated that he does some of his best work when under 'intense terror'. In the episode " Elephant's Memory ", Spencer received a medallion from another superior agent only named John as his previous addiction to Dilaudid was giving him cravings since his previous witness to the murder of Ryan Phillips by the hands of Jack Vaughn , encouraging Spencer to strengthen his resolve and return the medallion once he had reached the one year mark.

Later in the same episode, Spencer lets some aloud some outbursts towards Morgan and a Texas PD officer handling the case in somewhat of a defense towards Owen Savage. It's revealed in a later scene that he identified with Owen, and was also bullied in high school by being lured towards the football field and forced to strip naked and tied to the football pole. Morgan is the only person he told this story to. In the Season Four episode " Minimal Loss ", Prentiss and Reid went undercover as "child interview specialists" to determine if Benjamin Cyrus the polygamist cult leader was sexually abusing young girls.

Prentiss took a severe beating in order to protect Reid, causing him to feel guilty about her having to protect him. He visits his mother, who inadvertently helps him solve the case.

In " Memoriam ", Reid reunites with his estranged father, William Reid , whom he hasn't seen in 17 years. It is not a happy reunion, as Reid is still very angry and suspects his father of being responsible for the murder of Riley Jenkins who's real killer was Gary Michaels.

However, William is eventually cleared of any suspicion. Later he is seen reflecting on his actions as Morgan confronts him, prompting Reid to correlate Adam's relationship with dissociative personality with that of his previous kidnapper Tobias Hankel. Reid doubts his abilities, prompting Morgan to tell him that sometimes they can't save everyone. In " 52 Pickup ", Reid impressed a female bartender named Austin while investigating the murders of Robert Parker.

On Morgan 's advice who told him "chicks dig magic" , he performed an impressive illusion with a pen and a flier showing a police sketch of the unsub. When she asked for his number, he told her she already had it behind her barrette, which she pulled out of her hair. The bartender would later call him and ask him out, though nothing appears to have come of it. In " Amplification ", Reid and Morgan go to Dr. Nichols' lab, believing that he is the unsub. They discover Dr. Nichols' corpse and a broken container of anthrax.

Reid locks Morgan outside of the lab as to not infect him. Once the team arrests Chad Brown for the attacks, they discover a hidden cure for that specific strain of anthrax in his inhaler, and Reid is cured along with the 4 surviving victims of the attack at the park. It is a non-life-threatening wound, and Reid tells the doctor to treat the unsub instead of him. In the next episode, " Haunted ", he carried crutches. Because of his injury, he stayed and worked from Quantico with Garcia in " Reckoner ".

Later in the season, he moved on to use a cane and continued doing so until the episode " The Uncanny Valley ". The team finds out Rhea's address and storms his apartment, only to find that Foyet had posted an Internet alert on the name Peter Rhea to alert him if the name was ever investigated and has disappeared. In " The Uncanny Valley ", Reid returns to the public park where he used to play chess with the locals.

A boy that knows Reid mentions that he used to come more often. Reid says that he used to play with an old friend who quit, Gideon, though he doesn't mention his name, just that he knows why he did quit. He was doing the same theme over and over and expecting a different outcome, yet it was all the same, the same definition of insanity. Spencer later deduces that the unsub, Samantha Malcolm , had been the subject of sexual abuse and electroshock therapy, trapping her mind in a broken childlike state at the hands of her father, Dr.

Arthur Malcolm. He finds Samantha amongst three victims and manages to talk her down and cooperate with authorities without any violence. In " Risky Business ", Prentiss shows Reid a star puzzle set that she proclaimed impossible to piece back together.

Reid then placed it together within seconds, prompting her to exclaim jokingly that there's a lot to hate about Reid, Morgan, Rossi, and Garcia then chimed in to throw their opinions never to play Chess, Poker, or Go with Spencer. A Thousand Words ", Reid is tasked to originally work on the tattoos of the unsub and decipher its meaning but ends up working the journals as he can read much much faster than the rest of the team.

Towards the end of the episode, Prentiss is seen beating him in poker. This implies that he is lactose-intolerant but, in retrospect, could have been a cover for his headaches that were revealed later.

On the jet, he is later shown to be feeling sick and went into the bathroom. When he comes out, he is wiping his mouth as if he had been vomiting. In " 25 to Life ", Reid appears to be rather disheveled. His shirt is partially un-tucked, his hair was unkempt, he reads very slowly, and he is much quieter and more subdued than he had been in past seasons.

The rest of the team seems oblivious to these signs.