It's what you've been waiting for: a Deputy Director Baby spotlight episode. In a completely unnecessary sidequest, the team heads to West Virginia to stop a religious-themed injustice collector with a problem with opioid users and abusers. Hey, opioid crisis, eh? That's in the news, isn't it? Meanwhile, Lewis looks at her phone a lot and Garcia does the nasty...nastily. Ready your barf bags, folks.
Jazz is back and so is Criminal Minds: Evolution. Episode 6, "True Conviction", sees the BAU race against time to free a wrongfully convicted man on death row even if it pisses off Lewis' girlfriend. Meanwhile, Sicarius visits his Harry Morgan and Garcia kisses someone. Oh, it's very eventful. Oh yeah, that cliffhanger from episode 5? Doesn't fucking matter. Not one bit.
Jazz is sick with Havana Syndrome, so it's up to 3 time DTP champion Dr. Daniel Daughhetee to pick up the slack. In this gap week between Criminal Minds: Evolution, we decided to cover "Bloodline", aka the Most Racist Episode Of Anything Ever. A family of Romanians--or Gypsies, pick your poison--go around murdering parents and kidnapping their daughters for forced arranged marriage. Criminal Minds, which is not a tolerant program to begin with, stoops to new lows here. Ronnie and Daniel go behind the bigotry to name and shame the creatives as well as announce the death of a beloved conservative entertainer (nearly) live. Oh, and since "Bloodline" takes place in Alabama, Ronnie gets to poke fun at Daniel's home state quite a bit.
Things heat up slightly with the introduction of a werewolf connected to a senator--or grenator, pick your poison--portrayed by Aunt Zelda from the old Sabrina the Teenage Witch show. As this represents the midseason finale, one expects something of import to occur, and while there is a cliffhanger, it's a lot more bequeathing of rescue cats and Paget Brewster playing "mommy" than chickens coming home to roost. "Oedipus Wrecks"' werewolf bites women on a dating app and it's up to the BAU to find out the dirty backstory behind a service for professionals working in the DC area to connect with each other. Tinder is basically a hunting ground for serial killers, folks. But you knew that BEFORE you watched Criminal Minds.