Criminal Minds: Psychoanalytic Analysis

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Criminal Minds is an American television show which focuses on a fictionalized version of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, a group of professional profilers who travel around the country solving crimes and catching killers. In the 8th episode of the 4th season, titled “Masterpiece,” the team deals with a psychopathic murderer who turns himself in so as to play a gruesome game with the BAU. He tells the team that he has already murdered 7 women and hidden the evidence—but now, he has 5 others waiting at an undisclosed location to be killed if the BAU cannot find them in time. To solve the case, the profilers have to do a “reverse profile” to figure out who his previous victims were so as to determine who he might have targeted this time, and where they might be imprisoned within the timespan they are given. The murderer has an…show more content…
Some of what was presented was fairly true to life, and the rest was highly exaggerated so as to make it palatable for viewers. For these reasons, I would rate “Masterpiece” 35 out of 100 for believability and accuracy. Since Rothschild’s entire plan revolved around luring the BAU to the setting of the kidnapped victims, it seems likely that he would have given them more and more evidence towards the site had one agent not had a mathematics induced hallucination. In short, whether this case had been worked by a regular police department or the FBI, it was orchestrated to be solved. In a non-fictional setting, it is fairly unlikely that the profilers of the BAU would have been allowed to handle the case from start to finish as they did—I’m sure there exists a separate division to deal with kidnappings. Overall, the name “Masterpiece” might be true if you look at the ratings, but in terms of accuracy, this episode fell
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