The BAU team continues to unravel the clues given to each of them by a psychopath in order to save his most recent victim. Gideon decides not to focus on the personal aspects of the case. Rather, he tells the team to profile the killer as they would in any other investigation. Reid stays behind to work on a personal connection that could solve the case as one member of the team fights for life.

A young boy who had disappeared a year ago turns up for sale by a child pornographer on an online auction in Cleveland. A former profiler who now heads the FBI's Crimes Against Children Unit asks Hotch and the BAU to help her save the boy's life before it's too late.

The BAU has reason to believe a series of murders might have been committed by two people working as a team after the victims' families receive DVDs after each crime that includes psychological attacks.

The BAU is called to investigate a series of bank robberies after it becomes evident the crimes are not based on money because the robber abuses his victims by forcing them to undress before he leaves the crime scene.

The BAU investigates a serial rapist who had been attacking young women at religious schools and stopped for six weeks. He has resumed his attacks, but is now targeting a different demographic of women. Elle makes a decision that could end her career with the BAU.

The BAU travels to a small Texas community to investigate the murders of children. Meanwhile, Elle is having readjustment issues after being shot, and Hotch becomes worried about her when she misses a mandatory psych evaluation and isn't answering her cell phone.

After a man kidnaps three teenaged girls and locks them in a cellar, he tells them only two of them will live and they must choose which one will die. The BAU team takes the case when the mother of one of the girls travels to Quantico to ask JJ to intercede with the FBI on the girls' behalf.

The BAU travels to Seattle to identify and catch a serial bomber who has been terrorizing the city and targeting centers of automated techology. Working with the author of a science fiction novel that has become a guide for the bomber, the team attempts to determine why certain sites have been chosen as targets.