Season 12 of Criminal Minds saw Dr Spencer Reid spend half of the season in a Mexican jail, after being framed by Cat Adams and Lindsey Vaughn.
Criminal Minds gave television viewers a fifteen-year run from 2005 until 2020, when it was cancelled. In the fifteen seasons the show gave the viewers, there have been multiple storylines that have continued to capture the imagination of viewers.
One such storyline is seen in season 12, through the character development arc for leading character, Dr Spencer Reid, played by Matthew Gray Gubler.
This is as viewers were treated to the thrilling journey of Reid proving his innocence after he was framed during his trip to Mexico, which resulted in him spending almost half of the season in prison.
Why was Reid in Mexico?
Dr Spencer Reid’s storyline in Mexico during season 12 began towards the tail end of the eleventh season. This is as the viewers found out, much like Reid did, that his mother had progressive Alzheimer’s disease.
At first, Reid managed to place his mother in a study which had been touted to help combat the progression of the disease.
However, when his mother was kicked out of the study, Reid looked for alternative healthcare facilities, which resulted in him finding a non-approved treatment in Mexico.
Who framed Spencer Reid in Criminal Minds?
Reid had been making the medical runs between Mexico and back home since 2016. During this time, the viewers find out that he was being stalked throughout his travels by season three appearance character, Lindsey Vaughn.
Vaughn was the daughter of a former hitman, who decided to leave witness protection in season three, in order to follow in the footsteps of her father.
Vaughn followed Reid to Mexico as he was meeting with Nadie Ramos, who supplied the drugs for his mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. He managed to drug Reid with a dissociative drug, convincing him to kill Ramos.
Additionally, she lured him into a car chase, after she planted drugs in his car. When Reid was stopped by the Mexican authorities, he was arrested for the suspicion of drug distribution and the murder of Nadie Ramos.
He was later extradited to the United States (US), when Ramos’ dual citizenship was discovered.
How was Lindsey Vaughn’s involvement discovered?
When Reid returned to the US, he was visited by a psychiatrist who held a cognitive interview with him on the events that took place in Mexico.
Initially, Reid did not remember anything, however, he then remembered that there was another woman in the room with him and Ramos.
While he could not remember the face, he did remember her voice. A detail that would jog his memory when Vaughn was in his presence standing in for Reid’s mother’s caretaker, after she killed the original caretaker in order to gain more access to Reid.
Why did Lindsey Vaughn frame Dr Spencer Reid?
As the elaborate storyline of Reid’s almost-imprisonment began to unravel, the real reasons behind the plot to frame him were also uncovered. As it was revealed that Vaughn was not working alone.
In fact, Vaughn was in love with Cat Adams, a hitwoman who was convinced by Reid to surrender and was subsequently imprisoned. Vaughn and Adams, who were lovers, devised this elaborate plan to frame Reid in order to exact their revenge on him.
A matter which would not have been discovered, if Vaughn had not kidnapped Reid’s mother during the investigation. Subsequently, a gun vendor Vaughn had encountered, revealed that she had shared that she was in a relationship with a woman.
Why did Lindsey Vaughn confess to framing Reid?
As the story arc reached its peak, Vaughn confessed and surrendered to her crimes. This was after it was revealed that Cat Adams had been manipulating her, by suggesting that she is romantically involved with her exclusively. When in truth, she was using her.
This is as Adams was doing the same with Officer Lionel Wilkins, a man who would be discovered to be the father of Adams’ child.
A child who was initially believed to be Reid’s by Vaughn, according to Adams recounting. When the ruse was revealed to Vaughn, she surrendered, giving up on life entirely.
Conclusion
According to IMDb’s ranking, the most favourable episode of the entire fifteen seasons of Criminal Minds is from season eleven titled Entropy.
It was the first episode to introduce beloved and problematic hitwoman, Cat Adams, who had planned to kill a restaurant filled with people with a bomb.
Adams and her love-hate relationship with f would also be the inspiration behind Reid’s arguably most memorable storyline.
This was when he was framed for murder and drug distribution by Lindsey Vaughn, only for Adams to be discovered as the mastermind of the plot, all while in prison.