For me, the best Season 4 episode is "The Big Wheel", and, while 'Criminal Minds' at its best is one of my favourites, one of the small group of episodes that this reviewer considers a faultless masterpiece where everything works.
"Conflicted", however, is perhaps a very close second, and everything works here too. It is a little formulaic, but that didn't really matter when the tension and suspense was so palpable, and while you do have a sneaky suspicion regarding the unsub how it's revealed is so cleverly done and really shocks and haunts the mind.
Much has been said about the performance of Jackson Rathbone, and for good reason. He really is as brilliant as the other reviewers say, didn't take much notice of him in the little amount of his other work seen but this is a role with some real meat and Rathbone does wonders with it. Particularly excelling in making the two different split personalities so completely different and utterly convincing, and that must have not been an easy thing to do.
Other standouts are the chemistry between Rathbone and Matthew Gray Gubler's Reid, they are the two most interesting characters and share a tense and sympathetic chemistry, and the frighteningly nail-biting and somewhat poignant rooftop scene with Morgan, Reid and Adam/Amanda. While Jason Alexander's direction is very fine throughout the episode, it is in this scene where it shines in particular, technically and atmospherically.
Visually, it's stylish, audacious, atmosphere and suitably moody, while the character interaction is always delightful and the music is haunting and fits with the mood well, while not enhancing the action it never distracts either. The script is thought-provoking and tight and the story/mystery is elevated by some great unexpected twists and turns, thought-provoking crime solving, profiling and psychology and terrific atmosphere.
All in all, "Conflicted" is a wonderful episode and up there as one of the season's best episodes. 10/10 Bethany Cox