- Spencer Reid
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Dr. Spencer Reid Criminal Minds character 
Matthew Gray Gubler as Dr. Spencer ReidFirst appearance "Extreme Aggressor"
1x01, September 22, 2005Created by Jeff Davis Portrayed by Matthew Gray Gubler Information Occupation FBI Special Agent Title FBI BAU Supervisory Special Agent Relatives Diana Reid (mother)
William Reid (father)
Daniel (uncle)
Henry LaMontagne (godson, via JJ)[1]Dr. Spencer Reid is a fictional character from the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds, portrayed by Matthew Gray Gubler.
He is a genius and autodidact who graduated from a Las Vegas public high school at age 12. His fellow team members almost always introduce him as Dr. Reid. Hotch revealed in the first season that Gideon insisted on introducing him as Dr. Reid because Gideon feared that, because of his age, Reid wouldn't be taken seriously as an FBI agent. It has been revealed that he holds Ph.Ds in Mathematics, Chemistry and Engineering, as well as B.A.s in Psychology and Sociology; he is also working on a B.A. in Philosophy.[2] He has an IQ of 187[3] and an eidetic memory that applies mostly to things he has seen or read (he is shown occasionally to forget things he has heard, such as "that new tech girl's name"[4]). It is also said in "Extreme Aggressor" that Dr. Reid can read 20 000 words per minute (an average American adult reads prose text at 250 to 300 words per minute).
Spencer's birthday is noted in one episode, "Plain Sight" as having been "three days ago", the setting of this particular scene having been October 12, 2005, and his age was said to be 24,[5] concluding that Spencer Reid's birthday is October 9, 1981.
Spencer's place of residence is speculated to be near the Van Ness Metro Station in the District of Columbia, as surmised by the opening scenes in "Coda", where he is seen walking near the Van Ness-UDC Metro sign.[6] Adding to the speculation is the fact that his car, as seen in "In Name and Blood", has DC license plates.[7]
Contents
Storylines
Backstory
In Reid's youth, his father abandoned the family, ostensibly because he couldn't tolerate his wife Diana's paranoid schizophrenia. It was revealed in a later episode "Memoriam", however, that his father actually left because he couldn't bear all the stress of Diana's involvement in a murder when Spencer was a child. The Reids' neighbor, Mr. Jenkins, killed a man named Gary Michaels with a baseball bat because Michaels had sexually abused and murdered Jenkins' son, Riley, and Diana had seen the same man approach Spencer. After going to see what was happening, Diana witnessed the murder and got blood on her clothes, forcing Reid's father to burn her clothes to protect her.
Reid once mentioned that he had been a victim of severe bullying in school. In "Elephant's Memory", he recounts one instance where he was stripped naked and tied to a goalpost in front of other students. He grew up learning nearly everything he knows from reading and listening to his mother (a college professor of 15th Century Literature), as revealed in "The Fisher King, Part 1". It is revealed in "The Boogeyman" that Reid is afraid of the dark because of the "inherent absence of light".
While Reid was close to his mother growing up, and learned everything he knows from her, he nevertheless realized that the way she was living was unhealthy. When he was 18, he had his mother committed involuntarily to a psychiatric institution, as revealed in "Revelations". Diana still resides in the same institution, and Reid has stated that he sends her letters every day, in part because of the guilt he feels for not visiting her. He worries about the fact that his mother's illness can be passed on genetically; he once told Morgan: "I know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind" in "Sex, Birth, Death".
Reid has an obvious lack of talent when it comes to talking to women; there are very few times that he has actually interacted with a woman without being noticeably and obviously uncomfortable. The only two exceptions are Lila Archer, a young actress he was assigned to protect; and a bartender he wooed with magic tricks while showing her a sketch of a potential suspect, or "UnSub" (unidentified subject). In "Memoriam", a prostitute hits on Reid in a Las Vegas casino and he seems oblivious to her intentions. It is mentioned that Reid has been subject to the flirting of other prostitutes while searching for the suspect.
Reid got his Mathematics doctorate when he was 17. He has attended both California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also stated that Yale University was his safety school.
Criminal Minds
Reid joined the FBI at the age of 21 and was hand-picked by Gideon to work on Hotch's team. After being kidnapped by a serial killer with multiple personalities, Tobias Hankel, Reid was tortured and drugged over the course of two days in "Revelations". This led him to develop an addiction to the narcotic painkiller Dilaudid. While the BAU team members had their suspicions about Spencer's addiction, none of them confronted him about it. An old friend of Reid's in New Orleans is also aware that Reid suffers from 'problems' in "Jones". Reid has become clean since then and has attended a support group meeting for addicts in Law Enforcement in "Elephant's Memory", at which he admitted struggling with cravings as well as with traumatic memories, including a young adult suspect's shooting death in his presence. Memories of his torture under Hankel also allowed him to empathize with other victims.
Reid and Prentiss were once held hostage by a cult led by Benjamin Cyrus (portrayed by Luke Perry). Though he was not injured, Reid struggled with guilt over "allowing" Prentiss's beating at the hands of Cyrus in "Minimal Loss". Reid also contracted anthrax during an outbreak in Maryland,[8] and was later shot in the leg protecting a doctor whose life was being threatened.[9]
Reid is a good map-reader, and is always the one doing the geographic profiling and reading maps for the team as they chase down suspects. He also has a talent with words, and is the team's go-to linguistic profiler, as well as their unofficial discourse analyst . He is rarely seen behind the wheel - one time when Morgan hands him the keys, JJ and Emily exchange horrified expressions - but in "Lo-Fi" he is seen getting in to the driver's side of a vehicle and even driving that same vehicle in one scene.
Gideon was his closest confidant on the team during the first two seasons, and often served as a mentor to Reid. Gideon even prodded him to ask out JJ after giving him Washington Redskins football tickets for his birthday. Reid is close to JJ, who asked him to be godfather of her son Henry, and is the only one on the team who calls him "Spence." It is implied in 'Plain Sight' that Reid may have a slight crush on JJ, but they have a brother-sister relationship
Reid does not have any current relationships with anyone. However, in one episode "Somebody's Watching", with the team on a case to protect a TV starlet, Lila Archer (Amber Heard), from being harmed by a serial killer, Reid and Lila kindle a short-lived romance, beginning when Lila pulls Reid, fully clothed, into her pool for a kiss. At the end of the episode they go their separate ways and Lila is not seen in further episodes. In yet another episode, Reid and Morgan are in a nightclub trying to find a serial murderer who picks up women in nightclubs. Reid is having trouble talking to the women in these clubs, especially since he is spouting out facts about club-related deaths, but Morgan helps him out. Reid starts a conversation with the female bartender, and proceeds to do a magic trick in which he appears to jab a pen through the eye of a police sketch, but pulls it through, leaving the paper unscathed. She expresses interest in him, and he gives her his business card in case she hears something about the killer. Later, she sees the killer with another potential victim and intentionally spills her drink on the lady, pulling her away. The killer seems to disappear, and while the bartender goes outside to phone Reid, he grabs her. The team responds quickly and saves her before she is harmed. At the end of the episode, she and Reid are talking over the phone, and he opens a package at his desk that contains the card that he gave her—with a lipstick kiss on the back.
During the episode "Corazon", Reid begins to suffer from severe headaches and hallucinations. He goes to see a doctor in order to find out the source of his headaches, but the doctor says that there is no physical cause for his headaches, and that they may be psychosomatic. Reid refuses to believe this, afraid that he may be suffering from the same illness as his mother.[10]
It is not mentioned again until "Coda", when he is seen once again wearing sun glasses and is carrying a book on migraines. In the same episode, Reid bonds with a young autistic boy.[11]
In the episode "Valhalla", Reid tells Prentiss about his headaches. By then, Reid had gone to several doctors, but no one has been able to diagnose what is wrong with him. He tells Prentiss that he has not told any of the team members because he is afraid that they will "treat him like a baby."[12]
In the episode "Lauren", it is Reid and Garcia who react strongest to the news of Emily's death; when he's told, he tries to run out of the room, and winds up sobbing into JJ's shoulder telling her that he "never got a chance to say goodbye."[13]
In Season 7 when Emily returns and Reid discovers Hotch and JJ faked her death, Reid is upset, especially with JJ. He tells her he felt betrayed because he came to her house "for 10 weeks, crying" and she didn't say anything. He also mentions that he considered taking Dilaudid again after Emily "died." [14].
References
- ^ "The Instincts", season 4, episode 6
- ^ "Masterpiece", season 4, episode 8
- ^ "Extreme Aggressor", season 1, episode 1
- ^ "Tabula Rasa", season 3, episode 19
- ^ "Plain Sight", season 1, episode 4
- ^ "Coda", season 6, episode 16
- ^ "In Name and Blood", season 3, episode 2
- ^ "Amplification", season 4, episode 24
- ^ "Nameless, Faceless", season 5, episode 1
- ^ "Corazon" Season 6, Episode 12
- ^ "Coda" Season 6, Episode 16
- ^ "Valhalla" Season 6, Episode 17
- ^ "Lauren" Season 6, Episode 18
- ^ "Proof" Season 7, Episode 2
External links
Criminal Minds Jeff Davis · Category · Quotes Episodes Characters Penelope Garcia · Aaron Hotchner · Jennifer Jareau · Derek Morgan · Emily Prentiss · Spencer Reid · David Rossi · Elle Greenaway · Jason Gideon · Ashley SeaverCriminal Minds: Suspect Behavior · Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior episodes Categories:- Criminal Minds characters
- Fictional FBI agents
- Fictional characters from Las Vegas, Nevada
- Fictional doctors
- Fictional characters introduced in 2005
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