The Best Criminal Minds Season 13 Episodes According To IMDb

The CBS crime drama "Criminal Minds" changed a lot throughout its 15 seasons on the air. Significant cast shakeups, ongoing narrative arcs, and a variety of more subtle stylistic choices define the various eras that the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit passed through during the series. 

Although we may not have realized it at the time it aired, Season 13 of "Criminal Minds" was one of the final seasons of the show (not counting that upcoming revival series), and in many ways, the content of the season reflects that. The cast only saw the addition of one new regular character – Matt Simmons (David Henney), who was brought over from the short-lived spin-off "Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders" — and the season also wrapped up the storyline of one of the most fearsome recurring villains from the series, Peter Lewis, aka Mr. Scratch (Bodhi Elfman). However, that certainly does not mean the show was in decline quality-wise, as evidenced by the fact that a remarkable number of Season 13 episodes have an IMDb user score of 8/10 or higher — six, to be exact. 

But which one of those episodes is the highest rated of them all? 

Out of the many well-regarded Season 13 episodes, it's the finale that IMDb users seem to love the most. "Believer" has an impressive 8.8/10, and when looking at the episode itself, it's not hard to see why. The finale brings together many of the elements that make the show so loved: emotional bonding between our favorite characters, a complex mystery to solve, a complicated family, a cult, and huge personal stakes for the team. 

The episode begins with an incredibly intriguing setup, with Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) finding a troubled former FBI agent locked in a storage unit. The agent spins a twisted yarn that involves his abduction by a cult and an at-large serial killer known as The Stranger. While the team tries to parse out what to believe in the man's story, they realize there are clues that they have missed, and that they themselves may be in more danger than they realized. 

The episode is action-packed and the nature of the story setup leads to tons of conflicting information that keeps the audience guessing until the very end. The fact that so many other Season 13 episodes scored high is just further testament to the strength of "Believer." It beat out the season premiere, "Wheels Up," which featured the death of Mr. Scratch himself, as well as the disturbing abduction-themed episode "The Bunker," and "Last Gasp," which saw the team split up by turf wars within the FBI. All of those episodes scored an 8.1/10, which just goes to show how strong Season 13 of "Criminal Minds" really was.