Criminal Minds season 13, episode 6 review: It’s (not) the end of the worst as we know it

Last week CBS decided not to air a new episode of Criminal Minds season 13 due to the final game of the World Series airing and sucking up all the viewers. No one wants to go up against that (and many networks pulled their programming for the night because of it). Therefore tonight’s episode is going to be the one we missed last week. Just in case you are worried, pushing this episode back a week doesn’t mean that we are going to be short an episode this season, it just means that CBS will have to find a way to give us an extra episode somewhere else in the schedule.

This episode called “The Bunker” was directed by cast member Aisha Tyler, and it was one of those installments that focused as much on the victims as it did the BAU. In some ways this felt almost like the creepy version of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt given that you had a number of women stuck in an underground bunker. The difference was there no real comedy here — or any random appearance from Jon Hamm.

Instead, this was terrifying. The main victim we met tonight, (who also happened to be pregnant) was only a teenager. As the episode progressed we learned that this UnSub captured many of these pregnant young women over the years plus also a doctor to care for them. It was eventually revealed that it was a couple was running this bunker (it wasn’t just a creepy guy), and the moment that they realized that the doctor was having cold feet, they decided to let her go — and leave her in a pool of blood.

This was a violent, strange operation, and for a while it was unclear as to why.

Reid to the rescue!

As it turned out, there was a motive for the way in which this UnSub was capturing his victims — he was following the Doomsday Clock and finding pregnant women to use in order to start a new world. He brought his victims to his bunker, with the help of his partner, and made them watch a video about the end of the world and his new mission.

In getting back to the bunker itself the UnSub eventually abducted a new doctor, and following that we got a scope as to the sheer size of this compound. While it wasn’t massive per say, there were certainly many women who had come to occupy it over the years.

Thanks to scouring the internet for various doomsday preppers we learned that the UnSub was a man named Lawrence Coleman and his partner was Irene, a woman who had the ability (thanks to her job) to identify many possible victims. She had targeted the right people at first, but made some mistakes along the way — her most-recent abductee and the new doctor helped to fight back, and Reid and JJ were able to find a way into the bunker. They were at first in danger, but eventually used everything that they knew about the bunker’s victims to convince them to turn on Lawrence. Eventually, Irene did too and everyone was freed.

Your Garcia side story

Apparently, she’s ready to move! She doesn’t like watching naked karate next door — who can blame her? — and she wants a new start.

CarterMatt’s overall thoughts

While this was a crazy episode, did we really need an explanation as to who doomsday preppers are? The rest of this was compelling enough, especially where we got to the part where Reid and JJ were putting themselves on the line to enter the bunker and free everyone.

Congratulations to Aisha Tyler, who directed her first episode of the show with all sorts of intensity. Just because of the bunker itself, this is a case we’ll remember for some time.

What did you think of this episode of Criminal Minds? Leave us a comment in the box below with your thoughts. If you are looking for more scoop on what’s coming up next time on Criminal Minds then head on over to the link here where you can check out a preview.

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