The Creepiest Unsub In Criminal Minds Season 8

With its 15 seasons, CBS drama "Criminal Minds" sets a different benchmark for horrific serial killers, pedophiles, cult leaders, and more, and just when viewers think that they've seen the creepiest unsub in the show, the next episode proves them wrong.

The procedural drama follows the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI as they take on cases all across the country and profile criminals on the basis of their psyche. In keeping the stories fresh, the show's writers always came up with more disturbing crimes, and even more terrifying motivations that drive the unsubs. From Season 2, Episode 7, "North Mammon," in which a kidnapper forces two friends to kill the third one, to Season 10, Episode 21, "Mr. Scratch," which introduces one of the most twisted serial killers of the show, Peter Lewis (Bodhi Elfman), there are many goosebumps-inducing episodes.

In a similarly scary Season 8, there are plenty of episodes with unsubs who come right out of the fans' worst fears. Episodes like "Zugzwang," in which Dr. Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) sees his girlfriend die at the hands of a stalker, and "God Complex," in which an amateur doctor is amputating people's limbs and attaching them to others, are agonizing to watch. But even with these unsubs, the creepiest of the eighth season is someone even worse.

Season 8, Episode 10, "The Lesson," sees unsub Adam Rain (Brad Dourif) turn his victims into marionettes by breaking their bones and stringing them up from their joints, in response to a childhood trauma of seeing his father be murdered right in front of his eyes. As a child, Rain questions why the marionettes didn't save his puppeteer father from getting killed. Rain starts killing after an accident damages his prefrontal cortex, and it only makes the episode more devastating, and Rain more ruthless.

The torture scenes from the episode, when Rain strings the victims up to the ceiling or when he makes them perform, are absolutely chilling. On a Reddit thread discussing the episode, many fans shared tales of getting scared while watching "The Lesson." U/should_be_ said, " The scene where the unsub makes the girl dance.... Creepiest scene in the show," and u/Spelky12 agreed, saying, "I had to turn it off and go to bed and watch it the next day as this scene made me too uncomfortable, I can't even begin to imagine the pain."

On another thread about the creepiest episode, u/eirotnayr got spooked by watching "The Lesson" as their first "Criminal Minds" episode, explaining that "The marionette episode was the first one I ever saw many years back and I watched it right before bed which caused me to have nightmares all night long lol." The writers of the "Criminal Minds" revival will definitely have a hard time coming up with creepier unsubs than the already existing ones.