Jack Hotchner

"I worked the case, Daddy, just like you said."

Jack Hotchner is the son of Aaron Hotchner and the late Haley Brooks, who first appeared in The Fox and has been a recurring character on Criminal Minds ever since.

Background
When Haley became pregnant with Jack, she and Hotch kept debating on what they should name their child. Hotch refused to use a name that was shared by a famous serial killer, thinking that it would be in some sort of honor for the criminal. Finally, they settled on Jack, ironically.

On Criminal Minds
Jack's first appearance was in The Fox, when his parents introduced him to the team as a newborn. After a handful of further appearances, he moves out of his childhood home in In Name and Blood, Haley's relationship with Hotch having become severely strained over the last few months.

From then on, there are little glimpses of him throughout the show when his father visits him, like in Seven Seconds, or when Hotch gets to watch some homemade videos he keeps with him, like in Pleasure is my Business. His first notable appearance in a while is in Nameless, Faceless, when Hotch must say goodbye to him because his mother and him are being placed under witness protection, George Foyet having made it clear he intends to go after them to make Hotch suffer. His next appearance is again in video format, this time shown to Hotch by U.S. Marshal Sam Kassmeyer in the episode Reckoner, and we learn his birthday is that day or a previous one.

In 100, he is seen with his mother in an unknown location when she gets tricked by Foyet, who is under the guise of a U.S. Marshal after killing Kassmeyer, into going back to their old home, where he's waiting for them. In his eagerness to make Hotch suffer, Foyet allows a lengthy phone call between Haley, Hotch, and Jack, and his father gets to tell him to "work the case", a code phrase for him to hide in a bin and wait for his dad to get him, which will be a fundamental factor to save his life. We see him again in The Slave of Duty, first at his mother's funeral and wake and later with his father at the condo where they are going to live together; in a couple of sequences it's revealed how much he misses his mother, and that he thinks his father is like Captain America, his favorite hero.

In Devil's Night, Jack and Hotch debate on what costume the former should dress for Halloween, and Jack wants to be a superhero, but he isn't sure which one yet. By the end of the episode, he wears a black suit with a red tie, and when Hotch asks what kind of superhero he dressed up as, he replies, "I'm you, Daddy." In 25 to Life, Hotch calls Rossi to tell him that he won't be coming to work. Rossi later tells Strauss that it sounded like Hotch hadn't slept and that Jack had had a bad night. Strauss says that it had been a year since Haley had been killed and that she was glad that Hotch spends time away from work to be with his son.

In Out of the Light, it is revealed that Jack became a member of a pee-wee soccer team. In Painless, we learn that he has been bullied at school, but the teacher found out and had the two separated. In A Family Affair, after attending a triathlon that Hotch was one of the participating athletes in, he is finally introduced to Beth Clemmons, a woman who was Hotch's training partner for said triathlon and later becoming his girlfriend; both take a good liking to one another instantly. In Fatal, he manages to get his third-grade class to have a field trip to the BAU headquarters to learn about profilers as part of their career day, something Hotch is initially concerned about in the wake of Foyet's murder of his mother. However, the trip commences without incident, and some students are impressed enough to express desires of becoming profilers someday.

Appearances

 * Season One
 * The Fox
 * Machismo
 * The Fisher King, part 1
 * Season Two
 * Psychodrama
 * Lessons Learned
 * Season Three
 * In Name and Blood
 * Seven Seconds
 * Season Four
 * Pleasure is my Business
 * Season Five
 * Nameless, Faceless
 * Reckoner
 * 100
 * The Slave of Duty
 * Season Six
 * Devil's Night
 * Coda
 * Out of the Light
 * Season Seven
 * Painless
 * A Family Affair
 * Hit
 * Run
 * Season Eight
 * Through the Looking Glass
 * The Apprenticeship
 * Brothers Hotchner
 * Season Nine
 * Route 66
 * Fatal
 * Season Ten
 * Boxed In
 * A Place at the Table