Emily Prentiss

"I belong in this unit. And all I'm asking you for is the chance to show that."

Emily Prentiss is the current Unit Chief of the BAU who first joined the team two episodes after Elle Greenaway resigned from the FBI for good. At the end of Season Seven, she resigned from the BAU and accepted a position with Interpol in London. She was replaced by Alex Blake, who held the position until her own departure at the end of Season Nine. The position was then taken over by Kate Callahan for the duration of Season Ten before her own departure. She rejoined the team in Season Twelve and was then promoted to Unit Chief following the resignation of Aaron Hotchner.

Background
Due to her mother's diplomatic background, Prentiss traveled a lot when she was a child, living in several middle eastern countries and at one point in Rome. In "Demonology", she reveals that from wanting to fit in, she became pregnant as a teenager in Rome. When she went to talk to her priest, he said that if she got an abortion, she would not be welcome in the church. Her friend Matthew Benton encouraged her to go to an abortion clinic, and after the abortion, he helped her find the courage to come back to church. In "Tabula Rasa", Garcia reveals that Prentiss graduated from Garfield High School in 1989 and that she was a goth at the time.

In her first appearance, she recognizes Hotch from one of his first commands: security clearances for her mother, Elizabeth Prentiss, a U.S. diplomat. Her arrival surprises both Hotch and Gideon, as neither of them had signed off on the transfer. Prentiss insists her parents have not pulled strings for her. Ultimately, she joins the team at the end of "The Last Word" on a probationary basis as a replacement for Agent Elle Greenaway.

She is a graduate of Yale and has been working for the FBI for a little under ten years, primarily in the Midwest. Due to spending her early life with her parents on diplomatic missions to the Middle East, she speaks fluent Arabic and is familiar with that area's local culture. She also speaks fluent Spanish, French, and Italian and some Russian. She appears skilled at chess, and it is possible that she is better at the game than Reid. JJ once asked Prentiss how she could handle the stress from being with the BAU, especially since her last position was a desk job. Hotch concurred that she had "never blinked," and Prentiss could only reason that she "compartmentalizes better than most" ("Revelations"). After a bad date in the following episode, she admits to Morgan that she is a "nerd," despite how much she tries to hide it. For this reason, she hasn't had much success romantically. She discovers that she and Morgan share similar tastes in books when they begin discussing Kurt Vonnegut, particularly Slaughterhouse 5.

Personality
Prentiss is very level-headed and calm, sometimes it could be said that she seems to be dealing with the cases in an even more professional manner than some other members of the BAU. However, in a few occasions, like Elle before her, Prentiss lets her own emotions get the better of her. She has been shown to react emotionally at crime scenes and feels a strong surge of empathy for the victims. She also appears highly intelligent and driven. Prentiss is willing to put herself at risk to protect others and has a very sarcastic sense of humor.

On the Job
At the end of Season Two, BAU Section Chief Erin Strauss reveals to Prentiss that she arranged for her to join the BAU, contrary to Prentiss's belief that she was accepted on her own merit. Strauss asks Prentiss to sabotage Hotch's career by spying on him and relaying confidences back to Strauss, especially concerning Elle Greenaway's shooting of a suspect and Reid's struggle with Dilaudid. She seems to consider this offer, and the season ends with a cliffhanger until the second episode of Season Three, in which she resigns from the FBI to avoid betraying Hotch. She decided later not to resign.

Season Three
Prentiss has previously told Hotch in "Sex, Birth, Death" that she thinks politics "makes people distrustful, hate themselves, tear families apart and damage people," implying that her home life as a child was not pleasant, due to her mother's job. After some convincing from Hotch she returns to the team in the next episode, her resignation having never gone through system due to technical interference from Garcia, and the issue has not been brought up since. Upon her return, Section Chief Strauss remarks that neither Prentiss, Hotch, nor the rest of the team would be able to climb the ladder to the top because of all this, thus putting an end to some of Prentiss's future ambitions. In "Tabula Rasa", a high school photo reveals that Emily was a goth. Also, in "3rd Life", she implies to Hotch that she smoked as an adolescent as a way to rebel against her parents. In the season finale "Lo-Fi", she shoots and kills an armed suspect after the suspect shoots a New York police officer.

Season Four
In the episode "Minimal Loss", she and Reid are held hostage by a religious cult. When the cult leader finds out that one of them is an FBI agent, Prentiss admits her identity, partially to protect Reid, and ends up getting beaten by the leader. Prentiss antagonizes the leader by twice repeating "I can take it" to keep the rest of the team from coming in, knowing that they are listening via bugs and that it would put everyone inside of the building in danger. Later, Prentiss reassures Reid that it was not his fault and asks him not to feel guilty.

Season Five
In "Retaliation", Prentiss is in a car accident while transporting a prisoner to the local police station. Despite sustaining severe injuries, Prentiss manages to escape the police cruiser via the windshield and fire on the fleeing suspects as they escape. Morgan finds Prentiss on the roadside and she is taken to the hospital where she is treated for a concussion and several cuts and contusions. She insists on quickly returning to the job and plays an instrumental role in solving the case.

Season Six
In "Compromising Positions", she risks her life and is nearly killed while going undercover in order to dissuade a mentally-unstable unsub who is in the company of numerous bar patrons and employees, all in danger of being gunned down. When she accidentally gets one of the unsub's facts wrong, he is provoked into shooting her, but she shoots him first, firing her pistol hidden in a purse. Prentiss then watches as he dies.

In "The Thirteenth Step", Prentiss learns from a former colleague at Interpol, Sean McCallister, that Ian Doyle, an apparently highly dangerous criminal, has escaped from his North Korean prison and gone off the grid and apparently killed a man and stole his car. Sean warned her that he might come after her and that everyone is in danger. In the beginning of "Sense Memory", in her apartment, when the phone rings and the caller ID is unknown, Prentiss lets it go to message and listens to the recording. The caller, presumably Doyle, is completely silent and hangs up. In response, Prentiss sets up some noise-traps near all entrances and exits in the apartment, sits down in the hallway with a gun, turns off the lights, and waits.

When Prentiss returns to her apartment after a case, she finds a package by her door. When she opens the package, it turns out to contain a small, purple-white flower. There is a flashback to some time earlier when she is working in a flowerbed filled with the same flowers, apparently by a mansion somewhere in France. When authorities, presumably Interpol, arrive and drive away with her, Doyle watches her from a balcony. He calls someone and tells the other person to "stay on on top of [it]". As he is arrested by English-speaking authorities, he looks down at one of the flowers that Prentiss dropped.

In "Coda", Doyle resurfaced in D.C., confronting Prentiss and warning her that he will seek revenge on her soon before leaving. Soon after in "Valhalla", he began killing people connected to his case as well as their families. During the investigation, he kills one of Prentiss's former colleagues, Tsia Mosely. It is also revealed that Prentiss, Sean, Tsia, and two other colleagues were part of a team assembled by Interpol that profiled terrorists and helped apprehend them, codenamed JTF-12.

In "Lauren", Prentiss goes after him alone. As she attacks him and his men near The Black Shamrock, a bar in Boston at which he and Prentiss (as "Lauren Reynolds") first met. As she holds a submachine gun at his men, he flanks her and shoots her in the abdomen. She survives, wearing a bulletproof vest, and is abducted and taken to the group's HQ. She is tortured and beaten as Doyle recounts what happened after his arrest: he was taken to a prison in North Korea, where he resisted in interrogation for two years, hoping to see his son, Declan, again. When he was shown a series of pictures of Declan and his legal guardian being executed by a mostly unseen figure, he broke down completely and would remain there for another five years. Unbeknownst to him, the pictures were actually staged by Prentiss in order to save Declan from his father's life. The BAU, having found the photos, notices that the nails of the hand holding the gun are completely bitten down; Prentiss was a compulsive nail biter when nervous. Obtaining the address of the house, they conduct a stealth raid on it, killing all of Doyle's men. As Doyle, furious to learn how he was deceived by Prentiss, begins furiously beating her. She gets the upper hand and knocks him to the floor with a wooden stick. Once she drops it, Doyle grabs it and stabs it into her abdomen. Hearing the gunfire approach, he escapes and isn't seen for the rest of the episode. The BAU arrive and take Prentiss to a hospital, where they are told that she didn't survive. They all attend Prentiss' funeral. Her headstone is marked "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity", the motto of the FBI. In the final scene, JJ is seen approaching a woman (whose face is unseen) in France and giving her passports for three different countries and a bank account in each one. The woman's hands are shown to the viewers to have completely bitten-down nails, implying that it is Prentiss, who is alive and has faked her own death in order to go into hiding from Doyle, thus protecting the rest of the BAU team from him. The rest of the team missed her dearly and struggled to cope with the loss for the remainder of the season.

Season Seven
In "It Takes a Village", she reunites with the team when they are forced to team up with Doyle in an effort to save Declan from a trio of international criminals seeking revenge on Doyle. Although they are successful in saving Declan, Doyle is shot and mortally wounded by the trio's leader, dying as Prentiss watches in shock.

In "Proof", Prentiss and JJ received the cold shoulder from Reid because he was not informed that she was still alive after Doyle supposedly "killed" her, viewing that as betrayal. She eventually made amends with Reid, telling him that she regretted every moment of not letting him know but that it was necessary in order to protect herself and more importantly, the team. She reminds him that while he lost one friend, she lost six. Reid forgave her and they became friends again.

In "Unknown Subject", Prentiss started to deal with her traumatic experience caused by Doyle. This is particularly evidenced by her personal connection with Regina Lampert, a victim of a serial rapist whom she later abducts, tortures, and tries to kill in revenge.

In "A Thin Line", Prentiss is shot in the arm by the unsub. She is temporarily injured and forced to wear a sling. Morgan feels guilty that Prentiss was again hurt on his watch and tries to apologize to Prentiss. After gently teasing him, Prentiss tells Morgan that what happened to her was not his fault, it was just part of the job.

In "Divining Rod", Prentiss places a sealed bid on a house in the upscale DuPont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. When her bid is accepted, Prentiss seems reluctant to go forward with the purchase.

At the beginning of "Hit", Morgan joins Prentiss on an inspection of the DuPont Circle house. She shares with Morgan her doubts about going through with purchasing a home. When the team is called in to work a bank robbery and hostage situation, Clyde Easter contacts Prentiss to help identify one of the robbers, an international criminal. Clyde also offers her a position at Interpol, as chief of the London office. She appears to consider the offer.

In "Run", Prentiss risks her life to defuse a bomb attached to William LaMontagne, Jr. At JJ and Will's wedding, Prentiss confesses to Morgan that she is unable to feel comfortable in her old life after her near-death encounter with Doyle and subsequent period of hiding. She admits that she is strongly considering Clyde's job offer. At JJ's reception, Prentiss is shown looking mournfully at the rest of the team before joining each of them to dance. It is implied that she will leave the team and accept the job at Interpol.

Season Eight
In the Season Eight premiere "The Silencer", Morgan and Garcia come back from England, where Morgan was on temporary duty, after visiting Prentiss. They say she has settled in nicely. She is possibly referenced in "Magnificent Light", when Morgan and Garcia discuss about a friend of the former's, who comes from England, and Garcia makes a comment that "[they] like England, remember?"

Season Nine
Prentiss was mentioned in "To Bear Witness", when Garcia reveals that she had to ask her for assistance in finding any potential past victims of an unsub who performs lobotomy on his victims; this led to the discovery of a victim in Berlin, Germany.

In "200", Prentiss returned to the United States and assisted the BAU after JJ was abducted. She was also able to meet Alex Blake for the first time.

Season Ten
It is revealed that after Blake's departure from the BAU, Hotch had tried reenlisting Prentiss to the position, but she declined.

Season Eleven
Prentiss reappears in "Tribute", when she enlists the help of the BAU in catching an international copycat serial killer. She had become personally involved in the case since 2015, when the unsub began killing London prostitutes in an emulation of Jack the Ripper; her efforts to apprehend him failed and resulted in the death of an undercover police officer, Detective Inspector Louise Hulland. It is revealed that she has been in a relationship with a man named Mark for some time. She is also having recurring nightmares about Louise's death, which she had personally witnessed. Prentiss eventually gets closure in the case when she and the rest of the BAU corner the unsub, who she shoots and kills.

Season Twelve
When Hotch had to leave on temporary assignment in "Taboo", Prentiss volunteered to rejoin the BAU during his absence. A few weeks later, during "Elliott's Pond", it is revealed that Hotch, in reality, had resigned from the FBI and gone into witness protection with his son Jack to avoid escaped serial killer by proxy Peter Lewis, who had been actively stalking Jack. He had also named Prentiss his successor as BAU Unit Chief.