Extreme Aggressor

"Extreme Aggressor" is the first episode of Season One of Criminal Minds, and the first of the two-part season premiere.

Summary
Jason Gideon is called back from a six-month leave from the Behavioral Analysis Unit to profile a killer. Meanwhile, the team flies across the country to Seattle when another young woman goes missing at the hands of another killer.

Guest Cast

 * Leanne Adachi - College Student #1
 * Kirsten Adler - Brick Agent
 * Kwesi Ameyaw - Police Officer #1
 * Trevor Beeby - SWAT Officer
 * Artine Brown - Detective Holmes
 * Louise Grant - Mrs. Slessman
 * G. Michael Gray - Imaginary Unsub
 * Lukas Haas - The Footpath Killer
 * Jeff Hephner - Boy in Image
 * Chelah Horsdal - Heather Woodland
 * Andrew Jackson - Timothy Vogel
 * Hiro Kanagawa - Seattle ASAC
 * David Lewis - David Woodland
 * Natalina Maggio - College Student #2
 * Jamie Mayo - Sister
 * Meredith Monroe - Haley Hotchner
 * Alonso Oyarzun - FBI Student
 * David Pearl - Police Officer #2
 * DJ Qualls - Richard Slessman
 * Malcolm Stewart - Warden
 * Joanne Whalley - Karen Donovan

Referenced Criminals

 * George Metesky, The Mad Bomber
 * John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, The DC Snipers
 * Theodore Kaczynski, The Unabomber
 * Ted Bundy
 * The Lipstick Killer
 * David Berkowitz, Son of Sam
 * Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris
 * Charles Manson
 * Henry Lee Lucas, The Confession Killer
 * Jeffrey Dahmer, The Milwaukee Cannibal

Music

 * "Penitentiary" by Citizen Cope
 * "In The Air Tonight" by GodHeadSilo
 * "Rock Music" by The Pixies
 * "Enter Sandman" by Metallica

Bookend Quotes

 * Jason Gideon: Joseph Conrad said, "The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
 * Jason Gideon: Emerson said, "All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle."
 * Jason Gideon: Winston Churchill said, "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see."
 * Jason Gideon: Nietzsche once said, "When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."

Trivia

 * As the first-ever episode of the show, Jason Gideon, Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, and Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia, as well as then-future BAU member Elle Greenaway, are introduced for the first time.
 * "Extreme aggressor" is a term referring to a strategy type for Go, a heavily strategic yet relatively simple Chinese board game that was played by Richard Slessman. This strategy was pointed out by Reid as an extremely difficult type of strategy due to its rather aggressive nature.
 * The episode marks the most times a different bookend quote was recited in a single episode, with a total of four, all being recited by Gideon.
 * The Metallica CD found in the laptop of Richard Slessman is the soundtrack to Some Kind Of Monster, which does not include "Enter Sandman", the song that allowed Reid to solve the laptop's password.