In Criminal Minds, the most often remembered lines don’t come from the main characters, but rather, from the show’s signature opening and closing with quotes said by famous people in history. Despite the use of those quotes to hit home the themes present in the episodes, a lot of the characters do have some great lines on their own, including Emily Prentiss.
Due to the nature of the show as a crime procedural, and Prentiss not being the comedic relief, she doesn’t get a lot of witty one-liners. Instead, Prentiss gets dramatic lines that remind the audience of the humanity inherent in her job. Most of her best lines are actually more dramatic ones.
Prentiss Doesn’t Like Playing Politics
“I think politics makes people distrustful. I think it makes them hate themselves. I think it tears families apart and damages people.”
When Emily Prentiss joins the Behavioral Analysis Unit in the second season of Criminal Minds, there’s some fear from other characters that her joining the team is a political move. There’s a question of whether it’s a step in a career path to a more political position within the FBI, or whether she’s there to report back to the team’s boss.
Prentiss, however, makes it very clear that she’s there to be a field agent, not to play politics. Her own childhood, growing up with parents who were political figures, made her realize how much she hates the duplicity of it. She readily admits to Aaron Hotchner that she’s not there for anything other than being a part of his team.
Prentiss Is As Fascinated By The Job As Appalled By It
“It never ceases to amaze me how dark obsession can get.”
It’s a running theme in the series that for as interested as the BAU team members are in the human mind and the psychology behind the crimes, they are just as appalled by the darkness they find in humanity. All of the team members have different cases that truly get to them, that make them want to step back, but there are also plenty of moments in the show that make them marvel at just what the cases entail.
Prentiss remarking on the darkness of an unsub’s obsession is one of those moments. While she might be fascinated by the case, it’s another reminder of how dark humans can be.
Prentiss Understands Life Is Fleeting
“It’s always sad seeing someone’s life reduced to the things they had with them when they died. It’s just so clear they didn’t know how short their time would be.”
Given the large variety of ages seen in the victims of the crimes the BAU investigates, and the many different backgrounds of the victims, the team doesn’t always get to see just how a victim lived. While they sometimes learn as much about the victims as the killers, if the victim isn’t killed in their own home, or doesn’t have a home to go back to, the only way to get to know them is by examining what they had with them in their last moments of life.
It’s a particularly poignant and sad way to learn about someone, and Prentiss is the only one to voice that over the course of the Criminal Minds run.
Prentiss Explains Venting
“When a woman tells a man about her feelings, she doesn’t want him to fix her. She wants him to shut up and listen.”
As a woman in a male-dominated field, Prentiss experiences plenty of misogyny in the series. So do the rest of her female coworkers. Sometimes, that frustration boils over into their cases as other law enforcement officials, witnesses, and even suspects treat them differently than their male colleagues.
Prentiss says this particular quote as a way to explain just what it means to vent to someone. Sometimes, she just wants to vent her frustration or her sadness, not have someone try to explain her feelings away or find a way to change them for her.
Prentiss Tries To Embrace Endings As Change
“I’ve always heard every ending is also a beginning. We just don’t know it at the time. I’d like to believe that’s true.”
The nature of the job means that Prentiss and her colleagues see a lot of people come and go. Jobs change, people are injured or even killed in the field, and families grow. All of those circumstances can lead to a lot “endings” in the life of an FBI agent.
As Prentiss points out in the series, endings can be treated as new beginnings as well. She tries to embrace the change in her life and find something to look forward to. That might not always work for her, but at least she has a silver lining to look forward to.
Prentiss Knows How To Bend The Rules
“Well, if I’m no longer in the FBI, then you have no authority over me. I’m just a civilian knocking on a little boy’s door.”
Whether Prentiss is considered an active FBI agent or not, she knows her way around an authority figure. She never misses the chance to find a way to bend a rule instead of break it.
Her tactics go a long way to endear her to the team early on, but they also endear her to the audience. When she bends the rules in order to do the right thing, it makes an impression. It might not always be by the book, but the method makes Prentiss an invaluable asset on the BAU’s cases.
Prentiss Sees The Lasting Effects Of Their Cases
“Home is where you’re supposed to feel safe. Nobody deserves to have that taken away.”
Though a lot of the cases shown in the series don’t delve into the effects that a traumatic event can have on a survivor because so many victims in the series lose their lives, that’s not always the case. There are instances in which the team sees how criminal acts affect people in the short term, or even long after the event itself is over.
It’s in those times that the team demonstrates their capacity for empathy very well. While they are all able to perform the job and solve puzzles, they are also all affected by what they see.
Prentiss Knows Her Team Well
“Is there any possibility that, while we’ve been talking, you’ve been multitasking?”
Prentiss knows her teammates inside and out. It really doesn’t take her long while working with Hotch’s team to hae a good understanding of just how everyone works and how she fits in with the group.
That means that while Prentiss has no problem bantering with Garcia on phone calls or in the office, she knows that Garcia isn’t someone who is going to sit idly by while they talk. Prentiss understands that Garcia is getting her all of the information she needs while they joke about bad dates or office politics.
Prentiss Doesn’t Want To Lose Her Humanity
“I need to know that I can be human.”
The members of the BAU are expected to be impartial in every case, to clinically dissect witness statements, perform interviews with suspects, and go over the evidence at their disposal in order to identify and arrest a suspect. Remaining impartial, however, isn’t always possible with human beings who have emotional reactions to cases.
That’s part of what makes the series so good. The team all have very human reactions to the cases they work. When Hotch voices his concern early in the show that Prentiss needs to be able to remain impartial on cases, she shoots back with this line, one of the most remembered in Criminal Minds. Hotch doesn’t dispute her need either.
Prentiss Finds The Perfect Partner
“He is the perfect man. He doesn’t hog the covers, and he poops in a box.”
As members of the team begin to find relationships or marry, there is quite a bit of attention paid by her teammates to Prentiss’ dating life – or lack thereof. She claims to have found her perfect partner in Sergio, who ends up being someone Hotch mentions in a report evaluating her emotional state.
As it turns out later, Sergio is actually a cat Prentiss adopts, so her statement about finding the “perfect man” is often remembered for Paget Brewster’s comedic delivery.
