Click EasyEdit to add information about Penelope. Develop her backstory, talk about her relationships, her defining cases, and what makes her tick. > Talk about Garcia!

Played by: Kirsten Vangsness.

NEW: Add pictures of Garcia in action!

Rank: Technical Analyst (TA)


Vitals: Penelope Garcia is the team's Audio/Visual Technician at BAU Headquarters in Quantico, VA. When she speaks with Morgan they use pet names such as "hot stuff" or "sweet cheeks" or he calls her "baby-cakes". Garcia frequently answers the phone with comments like "This is the office of All Knowing; how may I be of assistance?" She is into online games, specifically MMPORGs. She has broken down crying several times due to the fact that the area of her job is to listen to and watch terrifying things in her office to analyze them for the team. However, according to Hotch, she "fills her office with figurines and color to remind herself to smile as the horror fills her screens."

Garcia was shot by an UnSub with the hero/homicide complex in Season three by the name of Jason Clark Battle ("Lucky" and "Penelope") when she flags several open homicides to help out the families she helps council without knowing that Battle is the murderer in all of the cases. She has since recovered, and is currently dating another Technical Analyst by the name of Kevin Lynch. She may also be the only person that Derek Morgan truly trusts, and they are considered to be best friends.


Key episodes:
1x21: "Secrets and Lies"
2x12: "Profiler, Profiled"
2x15: "Revelations"
3x02: "In Birth and Death"
3x08: "Lucky"
3x09: "Penelope"

Who is Garcia? Discuss her character development by season.

Season 1	Garcia, although appearing in many episodes, had never really had any back story given to her other than a few tidbits here and there. Some episodes, while not being Garcia-centric have featured Garcia in more prominent roles than episodes before it. 1x19 "Machismo": Morgan teases Garcia about not being able to speak Spanish with a last name of "Garcia". Garcia admits she learned French but that Garcia is her stepfather's last name. 1x21 "Secrets and Lies": In this episode Garcia gets a good amount of screen time as she uses the CIA database to help the team capture the mole within the agency. While she questions why she doesn't get to go with the rest of the team we find out that she is on a "list," and is therefore not allowed inside CIA premises. 1x22 "The Fisher King Part 1". Garcia brings her personal laptop to the bureau to engage in online role-playing games while most of the team is on vacation. This allows an unsub to hack her computer and consequently all of the FBI computers, giving him access to the team's personnel files. Garcia feels guilty, especially when Gideon calls her actions "stupid", saying she has a responsibility. This puts a strain on her relationship with the team, most especially with Gideon.
Season 2	In Season Two, Garcia gains a spot in the main credits, in Season One she only had "Guest Starring" and "Also Starring" captions. 2x01 "The Fisher King Part 2". Garcia is noticeably uncomfortable around Gideon following their confrontation in episode 1x22. She and Reid work together to solve one of the hints left by the UnSub. Together, they piece together the major clues to the UnSub's name and location. 2x02, "P911," we learn that Garcia has four brothers. 2x12 "Profiler Profiled" Garcia is extremely reluctant to hack into Derek's sealed juvenile file for information and it takes a lot of persuasion from JJ to convince her to do so. She also comments that she didn't know that Derek had played football, indicating that they are very close. 2x15 "Revelations" Garcia goes out into the field with the team for the first time. (This is also a particularly difficult episode for her, as she's always watching the computers, and so she sees when Reid is being hurt.)
Season 3	3x02 "In Birth and Death", Garcia uses her knowledge of computers to keep Hotch's transfer request and Prentiss' resignation from being processed in the hopes of getting them to change their minds. Hotch figures it out and thanks her after warning her not to do it again. 3x08 "Lucky" Garcia stops for her morning coffee and ends up helping a handsome man (James "Colby" Baylor) fix his computer. They exchange phone numbers when he offers to take her out to lunch. She is surprised that such a hottie would ask her and when he calls her to invite her to dinner, she gets scared, lies and tells him she has a cold. When she tries to tell Morgan, he tries to help but it backfires so Garcia gets upset and calls "Colby" back to make dinner plans. After dinner, Colby walks Garcia back to her place, he hugs her and starts to leave. When Garcia is walking up to her door, Colby tells her that he had been dying to do something all evening and when Garcia turns and smiles, he pulls out a gun and shoots her in the chest 3x08 "Penelope" We learn that Garcia's parents were hippies and killed by a drunk driver when she was 18 years old. Also, Garcia was recruited by the FBI as she was a self-taught hacker, who had gone "off the grid" for a while and was underground after she dropped out of Cal Tech and kept teaching herself code. Garcia tells the Team about her past and how she volunteers once a week to counsel families of murder victims to help them understand the horror. With her work in counseling the families, she flagged 7-8 case files for them so when local police looked into them, they knew the FBI was watching the case. Three of these cases belonged to Deputy Jason Battle and he had been shooting the victims and thought Garcia was on to him. He invited her out so he could get her alone and kill her before she blew the whistle on him; although she did not know or make the connection until after she was shot. Garcia's devotion to the team on a personal level is evident in that she encrypted file information. She said that she never wanted anything to happen to them again like what happened with Elle and when her computer was hacked. 3x14 "Damaged" We learn our beloved Garcia has a boyfriend! She is dating fellow FBI geek, Kevin Lynch. When Rossi showed up at her apartment in the middle of the night, unannounced, Garcia stood her ground when questioned about her duties and what specifically he had asked of her. Lo and behold, a naked man strolled out of her shower, leaving her tongue-tied (and us!) to explain her "office-romance" to one of her superiors. At the office the next day, Garcia confided in JJ about her showering partner and got some girl advice from her fellow teammate. Later, she revealed to the rest of the team where Rossi had gone (to Indianapolis to close his 20 year old case). She tried to warn Rossi the team was joining him to help (because we all know there's no "I" in team), but rather than thanking her, he yelled at her and hung up. Kevin Lynch also decided to have a chat with Rossi "Man-to-man" regarding Garcia at the end of the episode!
Season 4	4x07 "Memoriam" We learn that Garcia is the godmother of JJ's son Henry, who was also born in this episode.