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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. He has an IQ of 187 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"), but it has been implied that he deliberately suppresses some of his childhood memories. 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). 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.

Reid exhibits many common autistic tendencies, including impaired eye contact, abnormal speech, stimming, literalness, savantism, and missed social cues. The unsub in "Broken Mirror" noted this, and Matthew Gray Gubler stated in an interview in the show's second season "'s an eccentric genius, with hints of schizophrenia and minor autism, Asperger's Syndrome. Reid is 24, 25 years old with three PH.D.s and one can't usually achieve that without some form of autism." Originally, Reid was supposed to be more like Data from Star Trek, but the producers liked Matthew's interpretation and finally hired him after several auditions. He is a technophobe, and does not use either email or the new iPads. Matthew Gray Gubler tweeted that Reid is also germaphobic. In general, Reid hates shaking hands, and shows adverse reactions when touched by strangers. It's speculated the character may also have slight obsessive compulsive disorder, particularly from a scene in "Out of the Light" where Derek Morgan slightly moves an item in an OCD unsub's home, and Reid immediately places it back to its previous spot.

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, concluding that his birthday is October 9, 1981. However, in season 7, Reid celebrates his 30th birthday in "True Genius", which airs in January, 2011. 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. Adding to the speculation is the fact that his car, as seen in "In Name and Blood", has DC license plates.

Storylines

Backstory

Spencer Reid was born in Las Vegas, Nevada (as was Matthew Gray Gubler). 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 was 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, remaining there for hours. In "L.D.S.K.", Hotchner is forced to kick Reid in order to allow him access to a gun in order to shoot a suspect. When Hotch says he's sorry if he hurt him, Reid points out that he had been a child prodigy in a Las Vegas school and that he (Hotch) kicked like a nine-year-old girl. Reid's social standing as a child increased when he started winning games as the coach of his high school's basketball team, by using statistics to break down the opposing teams' shooting strategies. 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". Writer Breen Frazier admitted the MIT line was a mistake, but as of yet that has not been corrected onscreen. Also, in the same twitter chat, Frazier noted Reid now has a fourth Ph.D, from Yale. This has not been stated onscreen.

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. Also when he contracts anthrax in "Amplifications" he does not want to take any pain medication. 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, and was later shot in the leg protecting a doctor whose life was being threatened.

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.

In the 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.

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.

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."

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."

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.".

References

1. "The Instincts", season 4, episode 6
2. "Extreme Aggressor", season 1, episode 1
3. "Tabula Rasa", season 3, episode 19
4. "Masterpiece", season 4, episode 8
5. "Broken Mirror", season 1, episode 5
6. "An Interview with Matthew Gray Gubler (Dr. Spencer Reid, Criminal Minds)". Retrieved 2010-09-26.
7. "'Criminal Minds' Star Matthew Gray Gubler on Directing".
8. "GUBLERNATION Aug 3 2009".
9. "CM_SetReport Chat Transcript for Executive Producer Janine Sherman Barrois and Matthew Gray Gubler 12/15/2011".
10. "Pleasure Is My Business", season 4, episode 16
11. "Out of the Light", season 6, episode 22
12. "Plain Sight", season 1, episode 4
13. "Coda", season 6, episode 22
14. "In Name and Blood", season 3, episode 2
15. "Painless", season 7, episode 4
16. "CM_SetReport Chat Transcript for Breen Frazier 10-13-11".
17. "CM_SetReport Chat Transcript for Breen Frazier 10-13-11".
18. "Amplification", season 4, episode 24
19. "Nameless, Faceless", season 5, episode 1; the shooting was written in to explain actor Matthew Gray Gubler's crutches following knee surgery after an injury from a dance-off with several co-stars from the film 500 Days of Summer.
20. "Corazon" Season 6, Episode 12
21. "Coda" Season 6, Episode 16
22. "Valhalla" Season 6, Episode 17
23. "Lauren" Season 6, Episode 18
24. "Proof" Season 7, Episode 2

External links

• Template:Imdb character
• Dr. Spencer Reid at Criminal Minds Wiki

• Criminal Minds characters
• Fictional FBI agents
• Fictional characters from Las Vegas, Nevada
• Fictional doctors
• Fictional characters introduced in 2005