17 Years Later, I Still Can’t Stop Thinking About This Wild Criminal Minds Cold Open

Criminal Minds is one of the best and most beloved police procedural dramas, and continues to prove its popularity with the success of the revival series Criminal Minds: Evolution. The original Criminal Minds series ran for fifteen seasons and concluded in 2020, but a continuation series soon debuted on Paramount+ in 2022. Criminal Minds is best known for its uniquely dark and disturbing criminals and cases, and for the focus on serial killers and their psyches and motivations. Many Criminal Minds episodes are still talked about and discussed decades later, either for the horrific cases featured or for the terrifying criminals, but very few leave a mark right from the very beginning. And this is the case of one episode from Criminal Minds Season 4 that, to this day, still has one of the most shocking and wild cold opens: “Normal.”

Criminal Minds Season 4 had many memorable episodes, some of which introduced unsubs that continued to be major characters in the series for multiple seasons, such as George Foyet, known as The Reaper, in “Omnivore.” This Criminal Minds season also had one of the best yet most disturbing season finales with “To Hell… and Back.” Season 4 was easily one of the best Criminal Minds seasons, and with so many influential episodes, it’s possible that many fans don’t remember or mention “Normal” when talking about shocking and memorable Criminal Minds episodes. However, this Season 4 episode proved that Criminal Minds was headed for the long run, with a wild cold open and a storyline filled with twists and tension, cementing the procedural as one of the best in its genre.

“Normal” Gives Audiences an Unexpected Twist Right at the Beginning

This Episode’s Cold Open Is One of the Few Not to Feature Any BAU Member

Cold opens on television are often used to quickly grab the attention of viewers, especially of those who are unfamiliar with the show. With these cold opens, networks hope to secure viewers with a shocking scene or a hilarious moment, in the case of sitcoms, before the credit sequence. And “Normal” might be one of the Criminal Minds episodes that uses its cold open in the best way possible, introducing the unsub of the week in a wild and unexpected way.

Criminal Minds Season 4, Episode 11, “Normal,” opens with the main character, Norman Hill, and his seemingly normal and quiet family life. That is, until an altercation with a woman while driving in the middle of the road is enough to push Norman to the edge, and he takes out a shotgun and shoots at the woman and her car, causing her to crash and almost die. This is a wild and unexpected twist, as the cold open seems to show Norman as an average man with a simple life, but one woman cutting him off in traffic was enough to flip a switch within him.

Norman then goes to an office party where his wife is celebrating a promotion, and acts as if nothing’s wrong, though something has changed within him, and he looks and feels more confident and in control. Audiences then see Norman reliving the attack on the woman, who shared many similarities with his wife. He then starts working on his shotgun, seemingly making it better for shooting people from his car, clearly preparing himself to do it again.

This Criminal Minds cold open doesn’t feature any BAU members, focusing instead solely on Norman, his home life, and the sudden change within him as he seems to go from an average, “normal-looking” middle-aged man into a cold-blooded killer who shoots innocent people on the road. This wild cold open perfectly captures viewers’ attention from the start, with an action-packed sequence that seems to come out of the blue and that sets the tone for a tense episode.

Most Criminal Minds Cold Opens Slowly Set the Tone for the Episode

Very Few Cold Opens are as Action-Packed As “Normal”

Criminal Minds makes perfect use of cold opens, often using them to introduce the unsub and show part of their crimes before taking audiences back to Quantico and to the BAU’s office. In most cases, these cold opens see people falling victim to the unsub, either by being kidnapped or killed at the beginning of the episode. This case is often what eventually brings the BAU team into action, as the FBI unit is usually called by local authorities whenever serial killers or child abductions are involved.

But “Normal” doesn’t feature any BAU member in its cold open. The episode deviates from what viewers have grown accustomed to, which often leads to some of the best episodes of the season. And “Normal” is proof of this, as the episode not only starts with a wild cold open, but soon turns into a tense episode full of twists and with an unexpected emotional story that makes Norman one of the Criminal Minds unsubs with a sad backstory.

“Normal” Kept the Tension High Throughout the Episode

The Team Must Race Against the Clock to Capture the Unsub

Norman Hill is possibly one of the scariest Criminal Minds unsubs, mostly because he chooses his victims at random, making it harder for the BAU to catch him. Norman doesn’t have a specific ritual or cooling period that the BAU can use to catch him, and their only hope is for someone to come forward after they put the unsub’s profile out there. The BAU team knows that Norman is devolving and killing more people every time, and it’s only a matter of time before he points the shotgun at his own family.

The local authorities and the BAU try their best to appeal to the public, releasing the profile through the media, hoping that someone will recognize this person. This is how they eventually find Norman Hill, after one of Norman’s co-workers hears the profile and realizes that they must be talking about Norman. Norman’s co-worker reveals that Norman’s youngest daughter died in a tragic accident only a few months before the killings started, and Hotch and his team realize that this must’ve been the trigger, the event that made him lose control.

This Season 4 Episode Has a Heartbreaking Twist

The Case Takes a Toll on the BAU’s Newest Member

Learning about Norman’s daughter and her tragic death was a heartbreaking twist, but this isn’t the only one in this episode. After finally identifying the unsub, the BAU must now find him before it’s too late, but they soon learn that Norman’s family has been dead long before they joined the case. The BAU team profiled that Norman would eventually take out his own family, but they didn’t expect that this had already happened, and now Norman seemed to be in denial, suffering from a psychotic break, and as he realized what he’d done, he broke down in one of the saddest scenes in Criminal Minds.

Rossi and a few other members of the BAU are the ones who find Norman’s family still in their beds, clearly dead for a while. And Jordan Todd, JJ’s replacement while she’s on maternity leave, seems to take the scene the hardest. She was the one to release the profile to the public at a press conference, and she has since felt responsible for every new victim of Norman, nicknamed “The Road Warrior,” as she thinks Norman could’ve been upset after seeing her talk about him on the news.

Todd isn’t used to seeing the dark and disturbing cases the BAU works on, and she’s particularly affected by Norman Hill’s case. Even if Rossi assures her that Norman’s killings aren’t her fault, and that Norman’s family has been dead since before they started working on the case, Todd has a hard time coping with the tragedy. She stays with the BAU only for two more cases before deciding to leave at the end of “Bloodlines,” the episode where families abduct young girls as wives for their sons, and JJ soon returns to the team.

“Normal” is a Criminal Minds episode that perfectly showcases the talented acting and writing of the series. This Season 4 episode probably took more than one viewer by surprise, especially with its shocking cold open, and proved that Criminal Minds still had a lot of stories to tell and a lot of action-packed episodes to keep viewers entertained. Almost twenty years later, this episode’s cold open is a perfect example of what made Criminal Minds one of the best police procedural series, with a wild and unexpected twist and a criminal with a tragic backstory, getting viewers invested in the episode from beginning to end.