MSNBC Season 8

[nhmystix]

Sept 27

She’s alive! In one of the strongest “CSI” episodes in ages, Sara managed to survive despite miniature killer Natalie Davis’ best efforts. At one point Sara even tried to reason with Natalie, telling her that she was also a foster child. “I do know what it’s like to be alone, afraid that no one’s ever going to be there for you.” Luckily, everyone on the CSI team was there for Sara, and their combined efforts saved her life.

Teamwork: Greg noticed the cameras in the parking garage where Sara was abducted. And Catherine found a Taser dart in a car’s tire. In a flashback, Sara talked to Grissom on her cell phone about Natalie before she was Tasered and dragged to the car.

A true fighter: Warrick did a sweep of Natalie’s car and noticed a hole in the stereo speaker near the trunk. In a flashback, Sara woke up in the trunk of Natalie’s car. She got free of her zip tie and used a screw to get through the divider between the trunk and the rest of the car. She then attacked Natalie and finally ended up leaping from the car. Unfortunately, she passed out again and when she came to, she was bound up and Natalie gave her some drug-laced water.

Sara in peril: Hodges pulled dirt from Natalie’s scalp in a desperate effort to narrow down Sara’s location. A terrible rain storm made things worse, as Grissom realized when he poured water onto the miniature and saw that, eventually, Sara would drown.

Not her day to die: As he searched Natalie's place, Nick remembered back to “Gum Drops” episode, where he desperately kept faith that little Cassie was still alive. He was obviously also having thoughts of his own abduction and near-death experience. Then, he happened to notice a scrap of paper with the name Desert Diamond Auto Yard. The man at the auto yard told the team that Sara was in Ice Box Canyon and directed them to the spot.

That’s my girl’: When they got to the car in the desert, Sara wasn’t there. In flashback, she managed to break her arm free and swim out from under the car. But in 110 degree heat with no water and disoriented, it didn’t look good. “She’s a survivor,” said Catherine. And Sara was smart, too. She managed to leave piles of rocks to mark her trail and found a map and a car’s rearview mirror. Though she finally passed out in the desert, Nick saw the sunlight bouncing off the mirror and found her.


A sigh of relief: When they finally found her, Sara had no pulse. They got her onto the helicopter and Grissom rode with her. Finally, after a harrowing and pulse-pounding episode, Sara opened her eyes. The look on Grissom’s face said it all. If you didn’t tear up a little at this one, you’re officially made of stone.

[nhmystix]

Oct 4

She’s back: Bruised and scratched, her arm in a cast, Sara returned to the CSI lab amidst whispers and stares. What her co-workers were too afraid to ask, priggish boss Conrad demanded flat out – how long had she and her supervisor Grissom been in strict violation of lab protocol i.e. an item? “Two years,” she told him, much to Conrad and the audience’s surprise. That’s at least a year longer than the first time Grissom was shown wearing his Bermuda hat while sitting on the edge of Sara’s bed.


Head start: Under the beating sun on the Las Vegas highway, Greg surreptitiously fished for gossip as he, Nick and Gil examined a high school football helmet filled with a human head – and no body in sight. Gil – wearing that same silly hat that makes him look especially age-inappropriate for Sara – traced the blood spatter on the road. Greg fronted to Nick like he always knew about Sara and Grissom, right before they discovered the body in the hills – not wearing a football uniform. Fingerprints identified the deceased as a local high school student named Vincent.

Eyes wide shut: Examining a crime scene at a chi-chi restaurant where food is served in the dark, Warrick casually mentioned to Catherine that his marriage is over. Then they moved on to the evidence. Someone drove a pen into the head of a porn publisher, killing him instantly while he dined with two centerfold “Kitties.” The murder took place in a full dining room, but there were no witnesses as the lights were out and the waiters are blind.


Rubber to the road: Hodges opened up his endless well of esoteric knowledge to reveal that the black dust found on the headless body was the exact chemical composition of go-kart tires. Ignoring Hodges’ hint that he’d like to accompany them, Nick and Greg head to the local track where an attractive female attendant identified a photo of young Vincent, a go-kart champion. She then pointed out his arch rival, “Hot” Rod. Vince’s nemesis attempted to escape in his pickup truck, but Nick pulled his gun, yanked Rod from the truck and found Vincent’s bloody belt on the seat.

In the dark: Somehow managing to hide her glee that Warrick is back on the market, Catherine enjoyed a tense moment when her not-so-secret crush asked her to turn off the lights at the crime scene. Creeping ever closer to her to illustrate a point, Warrick revealed the pair of military-issue night vision goggles he found under a table. Alas, they belonged not to the murderer, but to a suspicious husband who suspected correctly that his wife only wanted to eat at the experimental restaurant so she could make out with another man in the dark. A bigger clue turned out to be honey found on the murdered man’s toupee.


Cut-throat politics: Though Rod made himself look guilty by running, Nick started to have doubts – especially since he couldn’t figure out how Rod decapitated Vincent. Rod maintained his innocence during interrogation, claiming he and the victim took their race to the streets where inexplicably, Vincent’s head came off. Rod said he then used Vincent’s belt to tow the second go-kart back to the track so as not to get the aforementioned hot female attendant in trouble for letting the two guys borrow the go-karts.



She’s gone: Flummoxed by their decapitation death, Nick and Greg went to Grissom, who came up with a convoluted recreation of the accident using an expensive mannequin made of gelatin or something. He thus proved that a semi-truck’s loose tire tread killed the kid, and it wasn’t murder at all. The lab expense peeved Conrad, but not as much as Grissom’s claim that he and Sara started up nine years ago. Later, Sara had a laugh outside the go-kart track realizing that Grissom considered the beginning of their love affair when she met him at a forensics lecture. Then she dropped the bomb that she is switching to the day shift, so she’d no longer work for Gil. Grissom and the rest of the team then had fun racing go-karts while Sara watched, smiling bitter sweetly, from behind the fence. She’s an outsider once more.


Blind justice: While interrogating the diners, Brass learned from the young Kitties that the restaurant owner/chef was a former Kitty. The restaurateur came clean about her centerfold past but claimed she didn’t know the pornographer was in the house. Turns out, the blind honey-handed waiter did it. His motive: The restaurateur was his former lover who stole his idea and his recipes, and forced him to wait tables. When the pornographer showed up, he saw his window for revenge – kill the guy and frame the chef. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those darn Kitties!

[nhmystix]

Oct 11

Motel hell: This week’s murder victims were the Macalino family. The parents were found in a seedy motel; Alvin was shot and Girlie was tortured. Warrick found a bloody shirt that looked like the killer had rolled up the sleeves before committing the murder. At the Macalinos' home, they found one daughter dead and the other, who was being kept in an attic room, missing.


Michael, is that you? The good Reverend Rhodes (Harold Perrineau from “Lost”) liked to save souls of hookers, pedophiles and other lost souls. He looked good to be the killer, and when Nick and Warrick searched his apartment, they found videotapes that they assumed were child porn. Turned out they were tapes of exorcisms.


‘Sunday school bull’: Rhodes admitted to trying to exorcise the demons from little Amy at her parents' request, but said that her father had ruined the ritual so it hadn’t worked. Brass had little patience for the discussion between Rhodes and Grissom about whether evil exists.

Devil made her do it? The cops found the stolen Macalino car; Amy was inside with pedophile Andrew Wolflynn. At first, Catherine thought Amy was the victim. But then she and Warrick determined that the bloody shirt had actually been worn by Amy. Computer chats between Amy and Wolflynn showed that Amy had been trying to lure him to have sex with her. The CSIs realized that after the failed exorcism, Amy called Wolflynn, they had sex, she called her parents back to the motel and killed them, and then went home to get the computer and killed her sister.


Saved? The CSIs went to collect Amy, but the Reverend Rhodes beat them to the scene. He was determined to exorcise her demons -- and did so by tossing her over a balcony.


The bee's knees: The dead body Sara was assigned to wasn’t quite as exciting as the main story. But she did manage to catch Grissom in the act of taking a beehive from the Macalinos' house. He said he was interested in the recent spate of bee deaths. Sara told him she’d heard that if the bee population disappears, humans would follow four years later. “No hard evidence to support that. But the world will end. Some day,” Grissom said wistfully. Romance, GSR style, people.


Hey, newbie: Ronnie Lake is the newest cast member on “CSI” (Sofia seems to have been demoted out of the credits). We found out that this crack forensics student had been wooed by a lot of departments, but she chose Vegas because the crime rate is going up. With that 109 degree heat and the constant blackouts, there should be no shortage of bodies for Ronnie.

[nhmystix]

Oct 18

Hate crime: Dead body No. 1 was Brian Towne, who was found hanging from a tree and had chest lacerations. Brian also had breasts. Warrick and Nick were sure it was a hate crime. They honed in on co-worker Larry Ludwig, who had seen Brian the night before. When they'd gone swimming, he and some women had seen Brian’s breasts and laughed at him. Warrick realized that the chest wounds where self-inflicted, with Brian trying to destroy his breasts. Then Brian hung himself. “He hated himself,” said Warrick.


Something in the water: Dead body No. 2 was Paul Cyden, who was found shot five times. At first, Nick and Warrick thought there was something going on with Paul and Brian, but when they found a freezer full of carp and a journal documenting hormone levels they realized something was up. Grissom and Catherine realized that Cyden wasn’t injecting the carp with hormones — the hormones were in the reservoir. They were also in the tap water. Brian wasn’t a transsexual at all, he was simply full of estrogen from the water.


And the murderer is? Nick accused Jonah Quinn, the water treatment manager, of killing Brian. “I don’t need a gun,” Quinn said. "I have lawyers." It turned out that Brian’s mother was so distraught about Brian’s death that she shot Cyden. The DA didn’t plan to prosecute Lynn Towne, but Catherine wanted the water treatment plant to pay and told Grissom they should go to the press. Grissom warned her that she’d be fired. “As a mother, maybe I don’t care,” said Catherine.


There’s history and then there’s history: Dead body No. 3 was found on the site where Sam's casino, the Rampart, used to stand. At first Sara was sure it was a Native American body, but cavities in the teeth proved the body was from 1964. Disappointed, Sara said, “I was hoping just once Vegas would have to honor its past.”


Double duty: Sara hoped Hodges could help her narrow down where her victim came from. He managed to narrow the isotopes to show the body had been in Vietnam — and was so proud he'd accomplished it that he planned to write an article for a scientific journal. He also helped on Grissom's case. Excited to be working with his “partner” for the first time since the miniature case, he happily took blood samples from carp.


Ring-a-ding kid returns: Greg, who worked with Sara on his own time (get a life, Greg) quickly realized they were looking at a hit. With his encyclopedic knowledge of 1960s Vegas, he even came up with a bunch of potential suspects from the era. Sara and Greg found a film canister that had shots of the Rampart’s first night's take, with a list of payoffs. Catherine’s mom, Lily, identified the men in the photos and remembered a reporter in a Native American costume who had been there the opening night. With that, the case was solved and Greg and Lily headed out to talk about old-time Vegas for Greg's book.


Bee mine? Sara went to see Grissom while he was tending his new beehive. He got her to take off her glove, telling her the worker bees wouldn’t sting. Then he popped the question: “You know, maybe we should get married?” Rattled, she was stung by a bee, but quickly recovered to respond, “Yes, let’s do it.” And then they attempted to kiss with their beekeeper masks on. Oddly, however, neither one of them told a soul about their plans when they got back to the lab.

[nhmystix]

Nov 1

‘The horror’: Murder victim No. 1 was schlocky horror movie actress Weatherly Adams. At first producer Stanley Vespucci claimed she was missing, but Nick quickly discovered her body among some mannequins. There was an axe in her back, but that wasn’t what killed her. Among the suspects: Director Zach Putrid, Revulsion Studio owners Mason and Vincent Lafoon, and Weatherly’s former lover who was disfigured in a fog machine accident: Oliver Zarco. Quite a crew.

Send in the suspects: Though Putrid had been having sex with Weatherly, and his skin was under her fingernails, Putrid told Brass that was because she was an “ass scratcher.” Brass also brought in Vincent Lafoon, who on video surveillance appeared to be trying to frame Zarco. Nick and Archie went over the videotape again, however, and discovered that it was Mason Lafoon posing as Archie Lafoon. Confused yet?

Bates Motel, anyone? After almost running out of gas and stopping at a super creepy motel, Ronnie went back to the studio to find her cell phone and discovered thingyie’s body. Then Putrid, who’d been shot, but not fatally, found her. Stanley appeared, ready to shoot both Ronnie and Putrid, when a blonde-wigged figure (who turned out to be Zarco dressed in Weatherly’s old clothes) killed him. At the hospital, Putrid was amazed by the whole experience. Then he offered Ronnie a career in horror films, which she promptly turned down.

A small proposition: Little person thingyie Jones put the moves on Catherine as she looked for clues. “Have you ever had those thighs kissed by a man who’s standing up?” he asked her. But he also seemed to have information he wasn't sharing. It turned out that Weatherly’s death was accidental. She’d fallen onto a metal post and then Stanley and Mason conspired to cover it up and frame Vincent. thingyie tried to shake down Stanley for some cash, so Stanley killed him.

Life before rat-dom Turns out Wendy had a career in horror films before her life as a lab rat. She, Hodges, Ronnie, Sara and Henry watched one of Wendy’s old films. After, Ronnie made a remark about large-breasted women and horror films. Wendy looked down and said, “Mine are kind of medium.” “But perfect,” Hodges felt compelled to add.

Just look at that epiglottis: Super Dave is huge horror movie buff and he wanted Doc Robbins to get in on the fun, so he showed him one of Weatherly’s movies. “You can actually see the transverse view of the trachea,” Robbins said, impressed as he watched a woman’s throat get slit.

Laying the groundwork: Still shaken by her recent brush with death, Sara was a bit stirred by the horror movie. “When they go after the dark-haired girl, she always dies,” she said to Greg. Then she lamented about the how the murder rate keeps going up and nothing they’re doing is slowing the killers down. “I’m sick of having murder shoved in my face every day,” she said. Say goodbye to Sara (in about two weeks).

[nhmystix]

Nov 8

Meet the Fed: Tonight’s first two dead bodies were Carmen Davis and Evan Michaels. The two of them were bludgeoned with a hammer. Greg and Catherine went to process the scene, but the Feds stopped them. Special Agent Jack Malone flew in a helicopter because he thought the boy might be Jason Taylor, who was abducted from New York six years prior. “Our tax dollars at work,” Brass griped, looking at the helicopter. Malone told Grissom it would be a joint investigation. “You do your thing, I’ll do mine,” Malone said.


Save it for Guantanamo: At first Brass and Malone thought that a suspicious poker player might be the killer, but it turned out he was Tom Michaels, the boy’s father. Tom had left him with Carmen while he played cards. Unfortunately, they didn’t find this out before Malone roughed Michaels up, slamming his head against the table. “In this house, we play by the rules,” Brass said, stopping him.


Key clue of the night: Greg found an empty jewelry box at the crime scene, which led the team to a pawn shop, which in turn led them to the Tangiers casino. On the surveillance tape, they saw a mysterious man in a baseball hat playing cards.


Bodies pile up: Yet another pair of victims were found in Boulder City. The woman was raped and murdered and the man, still alive when he was found, died in the hospital. Sara was visibly shaken by the randomness of the scene. “It’s just wrong,” she said.


Links appear: Grissom realized that both murders took place near railroad spurs. Even better, back at the lab, Archie and Nick went through the Tangiers surveillance tape and Archie realized that the potential killer was looking at a poster of a waitress who worked at the South Point casino in Boulder City. The waitress' name was Gina Farrentino. They put an APB out on her car, but when a state trooper stopped the guy driving it, he was immediately shot. And there was a boy in the car.


And the killer is... Terry Wicker used to be married to Gina. And the two of them had a son: Kobe. After Terry killed Gina, Wicker went to the boy’s school to pick him up. Grissom and Malone thought they found Wicker on a train, but it was a homeless man Wicker had paid $100. He actually jumped on a bus with the boy, then the two of them headed to Tucson. In Tucson, Malone found the skeleton of another boy. It was Jason Taylor, the boy that Wicker had abducted six years earlier. Grissom traveled to FBI building in New York to help out on the case. “What the hell are you doing here?” Malone asked.


One more body: When Martin and Malone checked out Wicker’s old apartment in Astoria, Martin found a VCR and a tape with Wicker and his son. They also found the dead body of the guy who lived in the apartment. Wicker had called a hooker to try to calm down the kid after the murder, and when she started arguing with him, had been poised to kill her as well. But the boy stopped it by calming down and going along with his father. “That boy saved your life,” Elena told the hooker.


Oh, that troubled childhood: Vivian interviewed Wicker’s old therapist who shed some light on his violent nature. When Wicker was a kid, he killed his own brother with a rock after his father had given the boy a medallion that Wicker wanted. That same medallion had been around Jason Taylor’s neck. Wicker had made a connection with his kidnapping victim — and he wanted to duplicate that connection with his son, Kobe.


Tragic end ... or is it? Malone showed Wicker’s sister Sylvia pictures of some of the women he’d killed. She was shocked, but recoginzed some of the jewelry they were wearing. Wicker had given them to her. They ran a tap on Sylvia’s phone so that when Wicker called her, they could trace his location. Wicker called in and Malone got on the phone and told him that if he didn’t meet him and turn over the boy, his sister would be arrested as an accessory to murder. Wicker did meet with him, claimed he didn’t kill the boy, and then shot himself.


‘At least you’ve got your pig’: Malone and the other agents found Kobe sleeping in a railroad car. They turned him over to Sylvia. Then Grissom and Malone went to tell the Taylors that, after six years of waiting to hear, their son was dead. “Do you ever think about hanging it up?” Malone asked. “Every day,” Grissom answered.

Crossover episodes may be sweep stunts, but Grissom and Malone made a great team. And it was never more so than early on in the “CSI” half of the night, when Malone asked, “Is this your office? By choice?” and then noticed Grissom’s fetal pig. Let's hope these two meet again.

[nhmystix]

Nov 15

A girl not unlike Lindsay: Tonight’s murder victim was Kira Dillinger, a straight-edge college student who was pushed out of her dorm window. Fingerprints on a tub of sexual lubricant led them to a familiar face, Marlon West (from season six’s “Unusual Suspect”). Catherine also found a tooth fragment between Kira’s knuckles, leading her to believe there had been a struggle. Once Sara found out Marlon was involved, she wanted on the case. This was her chance to finally right the wrong that had occurred at his trial.

Enter the geek squad: Marlon denied having anything to do with Kira’s murder, and claimed his fat lip had come from a boy who’d been hitting on Kira. Greg used Twitter (yes, it’s a real social networking site) to track down Jordon Rockwell. In the meantime, Henry discovered that there was GHB in Kira’s bloodstream.

Putting it together: Jordon admitted to having sex with Kira that night, but was shocked to hear she was dead. He’d been in a car accident and told Brass that he’d been feeling sick after he left Kira, got dizzy and plowed his car into a telephone pole. It turned out he’d been dosed with GHB, too, and Catherine realized that the GHB was in the sexual lubricant.

Last case: Marlon’s sister, Hannah, was attending the same college as he was (as a graduate student). She and Sara immediately started sparring again. She told Sara, “You’re different than you used to be. You’re angry. And a little sad, too. Why?” At first she claimed her brother was innocent. But Sara realized the tooth fragment was backward in Kira’s knuckles, meaning it had been placed there. Hannah was framing her brother for the crime. When Sara accused her, Hannah immediately brought up the miniature killer to shake her. It worked. Sara convinced Marlon to try to talk to Hannah. But Hannah wouldn’t confess. She told her brother, “I’ll visit you every week.” But he finally got the best of her — by hanging himself. When Sara went to tell Hannah, she broke down. “He can’t leave me all alone,” she cried. After that, Sara was done. She went back to the lab, gave Grissom a kiss and went into the locker room. She peeled her name patch off her vest and put a note on it that said “good luck” and hung it in Ronnie's locker. Then she threw her name patch in the garbage and left.

Good luck: Ronnie was thrown by Sara’s jaded behavior on tonight’s other case. They went to a crime scene, found a bloody house and no body. But then Mrs. Jimenez came back — with a knife in her back. When Mr. Jimenez returned he started screaming at his wife and tried to choke her for calling the police. Sara sat trance-like watching it, while Ronnie got between them. Later, Ronnie told Sara she managed to get Mrs. Jimenez to leave her husband and go to a women’s shelter. The contrast between the two women — down to the pictures of friends in Ronnie’s locker (Sara only had a picture of her and Gil, which she left there) — was clear. Sara didn't believe she could make a difference anymore, Ronnie does.

Goodbye: All night, Grissom tried to find out what was wrong with Sara. “I’m worried about you,” he said. “That just makes it worse,” Sara replied. She left without telling him goodbye in person, instead leaving him a letter. “Gil, you know I love you. I feel I've loved you forever,” she wrote. “Since my father died, I’ve spent almost my entire life with ghosts ... it’s time to bury them ... You were my one and only ... Our life together was the only home I’ve ever had ... I love you, I always will. Goodbye.”

Sad song: The song that was playing in Sara's headphones when she bumped into Warrick earlier that night, "Carousel," by Iron and Wine.

[nhmystix]

Nov 22

Game on: Every Thanksgiving, “CSI” serves up its silliest yet somehow most endearingly lovable show of the season. Perhaps inspired by last season’s miniature killer, Hodges decided to covertly enlist the lab techs to help him work out the bugs on his new board game, Lab Rats: the Game of Science and Murder. He told Wendy (and the others, as they filtered in one after another) that this was a “thought experiment.” But as they went through the different murder scenarios, he was secretly taping the conversations to use as research. “This is a kind of impressive in a painfully sad kind of a geek way,” Wendy told him, when she found out the truth.

Coroner comedy: All of the CSIs, Robbins, Brass and Super Dave were presented through the eyes of Hodges or whichever lab tech was trying to solve the case. This resulted in Super Dave giggling, “no signs of sexual trauma” for every victim, Catherine proclaiming, “Trace, is there anything you can’t do?” and Brass calling Hodges an underpaid genius.

Keyed up: Tonight’s first fake murder victim was Archie, who was blown up while logging in keys of cocaine. Wendy discovered that a binary explosive was used. At first all signs pointed to gun expert, Bobby Dawson, who would have had access to the blasting cases. But then Wendy and Archie (who helped solve his own case) realized that Bobby was being framed by toxicologist Henry, who immediately confessed to a rather overzealous Brass.

Don’t sweat it: The second murder victim of the night was Henry, who seemingly died while locked in a freezer. There was no way to do an autopsy because Henry was frozen (“What do you want me to do stick him in a microwave?” Robbins asked). A shmear of peanut butter on the freezer door handle led them to Bobby, but once again (after intense questioning by Brass), he didn’t do it. It turned out there was PCP in Henry’s system. “You make me a loser duster. That is totally bogus,” Henry said. “I hypothetically called your mother and explained everything,” Mandy reassured him. “That woman is a crier.” It turned out Henry hadn’t taken the PCP; Wendy had dosed his lab coat with it.

No sparks: After telling Hodges that she was thinking of taking the CSI field test, Wendy became the third victim. She seemingly fell from a ladder while looking for a box of evidence. She'd actually been electrocuted by a motorcycle battery that had been placed in a vent and hooked to the ladder. But the techs realized the ridiculousness of this scenario. “Who’s the killer, Wiley Coyote?” Henry asked. It was then they also realized that Hodges was taping them. In the locker room, Hodges showed Wendy the prototype of the game, which even had little lab tech pieces. The one modeled after Hodges was called Hodgkins. “You named yourself after cancer?” Wendy asked. Her figure was described as “clumsy but buxom.” “You are the dumbest smart guy I know,” Wendy said, pushing his game to the floor. “You think I’m smart,” Hodges called after her.

Distract this man: After being asked if he was OK about Sara leaving all night, Grissom found the perfect distraction in Hodges’ game. The victim was Hodges, who was shot through the head while videotaping an intro to his game. The bullet came from a gun that had been turned in through a buy-back program and subsequently destroyed. Grissom realized that the bullet actually came from a zip gun in Hodges' office that was triggered to fire using a pager. The bullet used was actually fired twice: once from the destroyed gun, and once from the zip gun. At first Grissom thought it must be Bobby (what does Hodges have against Bobby?) but then realized that Hodges himself had set up the mechanism. “I’m a mere Padawan in the presence of a Jedi Master,” Hodges told Grissom. Grissom just wanted to play again. Hodges advice about Sara: “When it’s time for somebody to move on, you just have to let them go.”

[nhmystix]

Dec 6



Compact impact: Driving what appears to be a convertible Golf, three stoned slackers on a road trip to Las Vegas distracted from the real crime in progress -- a garbage truck speeding through the desert spewing trash from its back. Motorcycle cops passed the relieved losers and went after the truck into town for a full-on police chase. A concrete collision sent a bloodied body flying from the truck’s compactor. The driver fled on foot, only to get nailed by another smallish vehicle going fast enough to kill him. Catherine and cohorts examined the bodies, noting that the flying man most likely met the compactor after death, which, as Catherine pointed out, is the better way to have that happen.


Rude awakening: Warrick arrived late to the scene, though according to the CSI schedule, it was his turn to be first. Looking worse than the “Faces of Meth” Warrick recently posted on TMZ.com, the discombobulated criminologist argued with his ex-wife on his department-issued cell phone in a scene which tells the audience more about their marriage than the whole time the two were allegedly together. Hanging up, he popped prescription pills and got out the car. Grissom penalized Warrick for his tardiness with a fatherly talking to and the ickiest assignment -- examining the garbage truck's contents.


History lesson: Vintage garbage, such as newspapers with Ronald Reagan headlines and Van Halen’s “1984” on vinyl, revealed a truck that’s been out of commission for quite a while. Turns out it belonged to a trash-management company owned by one of Vegas’ biggest mobsters. Greg, who’s been studying the mob for a book he said he’s writing, identified the late mob boss. It seems he was nickednamed “Whacky” for his predilection for “whacking” people -- until he, too, got whacked back in the '80s.


Married to the mob: The crew put two and two together -- noting that the dead garbage-truck driver, a cop who retired in the '80s with a clean record, probably went on to become one of Whacky’s hitmen.
Meanwhile, the compacted kid turned out to be Jason, a 27-year-old club owner, a Vegas real mover and shaker. Brass learned from Jason’s mom that she’s Whacky’s widow. After her husband’s murder, she and their son went into witness protection, changing their names, yet never leaving Vegas. Mrs. Whacky claimed Jason never knew who his real father was, though she identified the former cop as a member of Whacky’s crew. As for the garbage business, Mrs. Whacky told Brass she gave all of her dead husband’s holdings to another business partner, Lou, another old mob dude who now runs a very lucrative strip club.

Bad medicine: Warrick and crew head over to Lou’s strip club, where the old mobster admitted to employing the dead ex-cop in his auto-detailing shop. Lou also credited Jason for bringing rich and famous clients to his strip club. But he claimed no knowledge of their deaths.
Closer investigation revealed that the establishment has a history of beating up clients while they’re strapped down in Lou’s old-school barber chair -- clients who rarely follow up on complaints, as well as witnesses who refuse to testify. To Warrick, this indicated bad cops helping Lou out on the inside. Yet even after examining Lou’s property for telltale signs of murder and questioning a homeless guy who hangs outside a club, Warrick couldn’t get enough evidence for a warrant.

Spending a late night pouring over crime-scene records and photos, Warrick got busted by Nick for popping pills. Warrick confessed to taking uppers and downers. Nick angrily threw Warrick’s pills away, and the two almost come to blows. Warrick calmed down and said he’d quit, and foolish Nick left, thinking everything was OK.

One ugly date: A man obsessed, Warrick staked out the strip club, confronting a stripper and her luggage, which he suspected to be a body, which turned out to be her stripper clothes. Warrick decided to hang out inside, slamming drinks, getting lap dances and running up a huge tab. Grissom arrived, having been called by someone from the club, and stuffed Warrick in a cab, ostensibly sending him home. Silly Grissom!
Warrick went back to the club in an instant, all hopped up on goofballs and hallucinating when he saw the luggage-toting stripper is getting off work. After following her to a bar, the two go home and have trippy sex. When he awoke, she was gone.

Cabbing it back to the strip club, Warrick arrived to find the parking lot a sea of yellow crime-scene tape that Grissom wouldn’t let him cross. The woman with whom he just had freaky relations now hung bloodied and dead from Warrick's car.

To be continued...

[nhmystix]

Dec 13



Rock star Robbins: Tonight’s murder victim was found in a dump, surrounded by dead dogs. She had dog bite marks on her body, but it was also obvious she’d been tied up and beaten. Doc Robbins recognized the victim as Elizabeth Rodriguez; she was being honored at the benefit where his band was playing. Who knew Robbins is in a band that, according to Super Dave, plays “moldy oldies.”


Dog database: Wendy looked at the canine version of CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) to track down the DNA of Elizabeth’s dog bites. The saliva belonged to a dog named Hannibal, whose former owner Gino Aquino was D-Street Killers gang member. Hodges feigned being impressed by Wendy’s work, “That will look good on the old Grissom point meter,” he said. “No one likes a kiss ass,” he added. He should know. Side note: The show should get rid of new girl Ronnie, and just promote Wendy.


Kennel club: Gino claimed that he hadn’t seen the dog since it had been taken away from him, but Nick found leashes, a treadmill, dog carriers and a bowl of water. Henry also found out that Elizabeth’s death was due to an overdose of drugs normally used to put down dogs. That led the team to a kennel that was a partnership between Elizabeth and vet tech Steve Card. Catherine found a hidden camera at the kennel, which was pointed at a breeding stand that had blood and restraints on it — and red strands of hair that matched Elizabeth’s.


Dogs have their day Steve Card revealed that Elizabeth was involved in fighting dogs and that she’d cheated Gino out of $50,000. But after Gino was shot when the cops raided a dog fight, he claimed that Card was the more likely suspect because he’d also been cheating Elizabeth. Nick was incensed about the dogs, and he realized there was one other person who was as angry about their treatment: kennel worker, Tommy. It turned out that Tommy was a CI trying to bust Card for illegal dog fighting. After Tommy found out Elizabeth was going to get a humanitarian award (despite her secret cruelty to animals), he decided to kill her, but not before approaching her husband Felix to try and get him to stop her from participating in dog fights. Felix did nothing, though, so Tommy killed Elizabeth and let the dogs in the kennel attack her dead body. “At least I had the decency to euthanize her before I threw her to the dogs,” he said.


Playing bad cop: Brass was all over Grissom about letting Warrick get so deep into Candy’s murder. They both knew that Lou Gedda was probably setting Warrick up, but there was no evidence. Brass told Grissom that he suspected that Gedda had “friends in the department.”


Plot thickens: Wendy told Warrick that she found Richard Dorsey’s (the homeless guy from the strip club) fingerprint in Warrick's car. Warrick thought that Gedda was trying to frame Dorsey for Candy’s murder, so Grissom went to find him. He found Dorsey, who had Candy’s cell phone and a knife. Dorsey wouldn’t say who did it, other than that it was “them.”


Suspended: After Warrick burst into the interview room and demanded that Dorsey tell everything he knew, Grissom suspended him. “You’ve had all your chances,” Grissom said. “You take the suspension or you’re fired.” A mysterious person in the department then called Gedda and gave him the news. “Good work,” said Gedda. So who's the dirty cop?

[nhmystix]

Jan 10

No bull: Tonight’s first dead body was Cody Latshaw, a bull rider, who after taking a fall from a bull called Wind Twister during a rodeo, was later found dead — at the closed rodeo arena with Wind Twister (who was still alive and kicking — literally). A vertebrae in Cody's spine had been fractured during his original fall at the rodeo, so it wouldn’t have taken much of a blow for his neck to snap. Fun fact about Cat: She used to date a bull rider.


Sensitive man: There was semen on Cody’s jeans, which the CSIs at first assumed was human. “It could be a ‘Brokeback Mountain,’” situation Hodges said. Catherine admitted the movie made her cry; Hodges said it made him cry, too. “It takes a big man to admit that,” Hodges said. “And I am that man.” Wendy discovered that the semen wasn’t human, but from a bull.


Hit and run: Body No. 2 was Tiffany, a prostitute who was involved with Cody, who had been the victim of a hit-and-run accident with Cody’s truck. The CSIs searched Cody and Tiffany’s hotel room and found a love poem written by Cody and a letter from Tiffany telling Cody that she’d decided to get married. At first, Nick thought it was a crime of passion. But then they found out that Tiffany’s death had occurred an hour after Cody’s.


TMI: Greg found an electroejaculator (used to stimulate the collection of bull semen) in Cody’s truck. Wind Twister’s owner, Nancy Twicker, gave Nick and Greg the lowdown on bull semen collection. Fun fact about collecting bull semen: According to Nancy, you can use an “artificial girl thingy.”


A little romance: The third victim of the night was Eric “Precious Ricky” Hahn, Tiffany’s pimp who was found shot in the bathroom of a country-western bar (and, yes, that was Shooter Jennings on stage). Another one of Ricky’s girls knew the man that Tiffany was going to marry. Tiffany had approached Troy in the bar, some girls came up to insult her for being a prostitute, a huge bar fight ensued, and Troy and Tiffany ended up engaged. When Tiffany didn’t show up at the altar, however, Troy assumed that Ricky had stopped her, so he went to the bar and shot him. Warrick spotted Troy in the parking lot, on the verge of shooting himself. Nick managed to talk him down. “It’s good to have you back,” Nick told Warrick.


More cowbell: Hodges discovered that the rope found in the stadium by Cody’s body was different than his custom-made ones. It was a rope used by an old timer. This led Brass and Nick to Wind Twister’s trainer, Cash Dooley. When they searched the truck cab, they discovered supplies for collecting bull semen. But they also realized there was a third man involved, and after checking all the rodeo participants' fingerprints, they were led to Dustin Lightfoot. Cody had just happened to walk in — he was drunk — when Dustin and Cash were collecting the bull semen. One punch from Dustin severed his previously injured spine. Tiffany’s death was a coincidence; they just happened to hit her when they were rushing to take the bull semen to the buyer. Fun fact: The actor who played Dustin (Brandon Wayne) is John Wayne’s grandson.


Pure poetry: Grissom was a fan of Cody's poem. When Nick asked him if Cody was using it to make sense of his girl leaving him, Grissom replied, “Sometimes that can help, too,” obviously thinking of Sara. He also figured out the biggest mystery of the night: who Cody wrote that love poem to. It wasn’t to Tiffany at all, but rather, Wind Twister. A man and his bull...

[nhmystix]

April 3

Sick world: Grissom was out with the flu, but that didn’t stop deputy district attorney Madeline Klein from calling him at home. She had a special interest in murder victim Don Cook, who, while in a burning car, was also shot. He’d been the key witness in Emilio Alvarado’s grand jury hearing. Alvarado was part of the notorious La Tijera gang and the CSIs even found the gang's sign on Cook’s car. Now all they had to do was connect Alvarado, who just happened to be in prison isolation, to the crime.

Flu crew: Grissom wasn’t the only CSI suffering, both Nick and Greg also had colds, leading the viewer to wonder how Nick could possibly process evidence from the car while sneezing all over it. Nick and Greg did manage to find part of a rag in between the catalytic converter and the heat shield that started the fire.

Guilty conscience: Brass felt responsible for Cook’s death and went to Grissom’s house to vent. In a rare show of tears, he told Grissom how he had convinced Cook to testify by showing him photos of a 16-year-old girl the gang had raped, shot, urinated on and slit the throat of. That was all it took to convince Cook. “I couldn’t protect him," Brass lamented.

Fun with guns: Warrick, taking over for the sick Nick, found a gun in the passenger side glove box. It was registered to Cook’s father-in-law, Richard O’Malley. He also figured out that the gun fired on its own when the temperature from the car fire reached 400 degrees. O’Malley said he gave Cook the gun for protection. But there was still the matter of the gang sign on the car, so Grissom and Warrick got a warrant to investigate Alvarado’s place, which promptly blew up as they made their way up the stairs.

Paint by numbers: Hodges told Nick that the killer had used a special paint blend and not spray paint. Grissom, Greg and Nic realized that the tag had been stenciled onto the car and then painted over to look freehand. Warrick and Grissom went back to O’Malley’s, where they found some hand-painted bird houses and paint supplies that connected O’Malley to the crime. O’Malley had killed his own son-in-law because his daughter Cody had complained about him. “I hate you,” Cody yelled as they took O’Malley away.

Phone tag: Even though Cook’s murder was solved, Grissom and DDA Klein were desperate to keep Alvarado in jail. Catherine and Archie went through all the grand jurors' cell-phone records and found that juror Marie Leahy had made calls to disposable cell phones. A woman had approached her before she’d been sequestered and said that she would get Leahy’s brother out of jail if Leahy would tip them off about what the grand jury heard.

By the book: Grissom was still puzzled about how Alvarado managed to get the message out to blow up his place. Then Warrick, who’d visited Alvarado, realized Alvardo had a book in his cell. When Grissom went to check out the books, there were pages missing. Alvarado had used urine to write on the pages of the book, which turned into invisible ink until the next prisoner, who could pass the message on to a visitor, heated them up. Then the urine turned brown. Alvarado was put back in his cell.

Soul mate? One of Alvarado’s last messages was an order to kill DDA Klein. She told Grissom she owed him one. “You’re the only man I know who’s never let me down, which means you’re either a classic enabler or my soul mate,” she said. Back home alone, Grissom’s cell phone rang, and he seemed pleased to see the number in the caller ID. Could it have been Sara?

[nhmystix]

April 10

No laughing matter: Comedian Greg Fitzsimmons (let’s hope his act is funnier in real life) stumbled upon the body of a 3-year-old girl tenderly wrapped and deposited in a packing box. There were no indications of a struggle; she had died of blunt force trauma to the head, and had evidence of chemical burns (which turned out to be from drain cleaner) on her skin and bruising on her arms. Watching Super Dave carry her limp body into the morgue was one of the night’s sadder moments.

Scoring points with the boss: Wendy impressed Grissom by deducing (with some help from Hodges) that the little girl’s hair had been dyed blonde within the last 48 to 72 hours and curled. “Nicely analyzed,” he told her as Hodges looked on.

Flower cam: The community was understandably upset over the little girl’s death, and a memorial appeared at the scene. Nick and Warrick planted a camera in some flowers so they could monitor who came to pay their respects.

Innocent until ... The barcode on the packing box led Brass and Catherine to Nora O’Toole and her fiancé, Dean James. In the lab, one of the hairs from the box revealed that Dean was actually Leo Finley, a sex offender. He told Brass that his only crime was getting high on peyote and ecstasy and accidently dancing naked in front of some preschoolers. An oil stain led Nick to a mechanic close to the crime scene who said that Leo brought him a part in the box. “Every time I turn around you get closer to the scene,” Brass said. Leo claimed it was just coincidence.

A new suspect: When Donald Balboa, a inmate in prison saw the news story about the little girl, he freaked out. The girl was his daughter, Inez, and he claimed his old cell mate, Boyd, was the killer. Boyd had married Balboa’s ex-wife, Grace. Grissom and Catherine went to Boyd’s house. There were cartoons on TV, but no one was home. Catherine found drain cleaner under the sink and blood on one of the pipes. The cops put out an APB on Boyd, Grace and their other two kids.

Regrets, he’s had a few: The police found the family at a diner, where Boyd had taken hostages. A negotiator convinced Boyd to let the kids and the other hostages go, but when Grace went to leave, she accidentally broke a window and the cops started firing and killed her. Back at the station, Boyd told Brass he’d sign whatever confession he wanted about Inez. But the kids revealed to Catherine that Inez’s death was actually an accident that happened while they were playing hide and seek. Boyd was so afraid that he’d be blamed for her death that he didn’t report it. Grissom found tape of Boyd and Grace on the flower cam, crying at Inez’s memorial site. “Seems they loved her,” he told Catherine.

Mistakes don't go unpunished: Catherine headed for her car and was confronted by a very angry Leo Finley, who lost his fiancée, his place to live and his job because the truth about his identity came out. “You grind up the innocent with the guilty,” he yelled before calling her a “blonde Nazi pregnant dog.” Afraid, Catherine drew her gun. “Maybe I should save you the trouble and blow my own brains out,” he told her. And then he said that if he did decide to kill himself, he would do it on her front lawn “as a gift to you and everything you stand for.”

[nhmystix]

Unlucky ladies: Tonight’s first two murder victims were Jessica Jaynes and Maria Espinoza. Jessica was found shot in one apartment, and after Grissom noticed a drop of blood that came through a hole in the ceiling, Maria was found upstairs. At first, Grissom assumed that Maria had been killed by a stray bullet from Jessica’s gun. But then Catherine figured out that Jessica murdered Maria and someone else had killed Jessica downstairs afterward. “I like it when the king gets it wrong,” Catherine said of Grissom. “It keeps him human.” Wendy also learned from a puddle of urine on the floor that Jessica’s killer was Maria’s daughter, Dana.

Hello, old friend: Both apartments belonged to Drops (Method Man, who you may remember from last season’s “Big Shots” and season six’s “Poppin’ Tags”). Brass and Nick went to talk to him in jail, but he said that there was no way Dana, who was pregnant with Drops' baby, would talk to them and convinced them to let him out, “like '48 Hours,’” after a third murder victim, Valinda Carlisle, was found. “Raging hormones and a gun,” Warrick said of Dana. “We got to get that off the streets fast.” And thus, in a plush suit with a diamond watch, Drops hit the street.

Bodies pile up: Drops thought they might find Dana with his financial adviser, Bruce “Zig Zag” Zagberg, who Brass assumed was laundering Drops' money. “Why you always tossing the pimp card at me, man?” Drops said to Brass. But all they found was Zig Zag's dead body. Then they went to see Drops’ friend Sherry (“Yippee, we’re going to the hood,” Brass quipped), and unbeknownst to Nick and Brass, Drops was able to slip her a note asking her to find a GPS jammer for his ankle monitor.

The great escape: At Drops’ club, tapes from the hidden cameras revealed that Dana had come to the club with Jessica’s husband, Walter, and that he was holding her hostage. They also realized that though Dana had shot Jessica, Walter was the one who shot Valinda and Zig Zag. “Dude’s a man pregnant dog, takes care of the kid while she goes out and earns the money,” Drops said of Walter. Drops’ pal Dale tucked the GPS jammer into a sandwich and Drops was able to make his escape, jumping into a waiting car.

To the rescue: It turned out that Walter was the one that had picked up Drops, but only to shake him down for money. And to persuade him, Walter had a gun on the pregnant Dana. Even after Drops gave him $50,000, Walter still wasn’t satisfied. He said he needed payback and that Drops could choose: Walter would either shoot Dana or the baby in her belly. Drops quickly reactivated his ankle monitor and Nick and Brass were able to get there in time — although Dana was shot in the shoulder and Drops suffered a bullet wound as well. Dana then went into labor.

Not so happy ending: In the hospital, Drops woke up to find his baby had been born, but Dana had no interest in letting Drops hold him. “Because of you, I heard my mother die,” she said. She told him that she had no interest in a future with him. “When you get out, we’ll be gone.” Nick took Drops back to jail. Drops was sad about losing his son: “For once I did something good in my life,” he said. “Well, you’re life ain’t over yet,” Nick said. And let’s hope this isn’t Drops last “CSI” appearance. Possible spinoff: “CSI: Drops and Brass.”

[nhmystix]

May 8

Revenge is sweet: This week the “Two and a Half Men” writers had a bit of fun on “CSI,” and “Men” creator Chuck Lorre (“Roseanne,” “Cybill,” “Grace Under Fire”) got to exorcise some serious female-TV-sitcom-lead demons. The murder victim was Annabelle Bundt, an amalgam of all three ladies above, who starred in her own sitcom, tormented the writers, her second-banana co-star Megan and show creator Spencer Freiberg. She also had a Tom Arnold-esque boyfriend, Bud (who had been a bar back-turned-driver and was now an executive producer). Annabelle was found dead in her hotel room, her death apparently due to blunt force trauma when her head hit a table. And Super Dave found something else: A rubber chicken that had been shoved down her throat. “You gotta say something,” he chided Grissom. “'I suspect fowl play’ or ‘poultry evidence.’” Grissom chose, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”

What a man: Brass interviewed Bud, who Spencer called “a pimple on the ass of mediocrity.” He revealed that he and Annabelle had gotten married. Hollywood suit Stuart Lytle (“it’s pronounced Lite-el”) flew in to protect Annabelle’s image, but Spencer let it slip that Annabelle used drugs, was bulimic and wasn’t allowed to drink on set. Stuart also imagined the ratings the network would get with Annabelle’s last show appearance: “Thirty share easy, unless they throw that 'Dancing' crap at us.” When he saw Wendy working in the lab, he commented, “Beautiful people doing high-tech police work. There might be a series in this.”

Double trouble: Annabelle’s photo double, assistant and stand in, Natasha, was seen heading up in the hotel elevator to see Annabelle. Annabelle had made Natasha get plastic surgery (including breast implants) so she would look more like Annabelle. Meanwhile, Robbins also discovered Annabelle had butt implants and a hysterectomy. Super Dave was baffled. “Then why was she using one of these?” he asked holding up a tampon. “Nostalgia,” Grissom replied.

Lesson one: Hodges discovered that the tampons had been soaked in vodka so that Annabelle could get a secret alcohol fix. “That time of the month, huh?” Wendy asked walking in on him. “You going to help me or mock me?” Hodges asked. “I have to choose?” she replied. Then she showed Hodges how to use the tampon. “You don’t take it out of the applicator first,” she instructed. “I always wondered how that worked,” he said.

Rorschach test: Warrick looked at the bloodstained carpet. “What does this look like to you?” he asked Catherine and Grissom. “A hermaphrodite on roller skates,” Grissom replied. “A puppy,” Catherine said. But Warrick wasn’t talking about the stain. He was talking about a shoe impression on the stain.

Shark bait: When Natasha was found dead in a car accident (in Annabelle’s car), Grissom and Brass flew out to the coast and visited the Hollywood studio (where they passed the cast of “Two and a Half Men” and what looked like part of the “Lost” plane) where her body was found. Grissom puzzled over Annabelle’s Ferrari (which she leased and charged the studio to use in the show). He wondered how a single mom (which is what she played on her show) could afford it. “They had her win a radio contest,” Brass said (referencing, no doubt, the "Roseanne wins the lottery" plot from “Roseanne”). “For me that’s when the show jumped the shark.”

Who’s who? Looking at some tape of Annabelle’s quickie wedding to Bud on Perez Hilton’s Web site, Hodges, Greg and Catherine realized it wasn’t Annabelle at all, but her stand in, Natasha. Brass and Grissom went to see Bud, who got nervous when Grissom picked up his Emmy. “Is that what this is?” Grissom said, looking at the statue (the joke being how many times “CSI” has been overlooked by Emmy). Bud admitted that he kept Annabelle in vodka-filled tampons. And that he and Natasha had planned to kill Annabelle and take her money. But he said that someone had killed her before they got there.

Doing the robot: After Catherine talked to the show writers, she realized there was one man who had been with them in the elevator who wasn’t actually a writer. Nick and Warrick caught up with the man, Richard Langford, who was working as a robot mime on the Vegas strip. “A mime is a terrible thing to waste,” Nick said as they arrested him. Richard had once worked on Annabelle’s show, but she’d fired him when he refused to sleep with her. He said he snuck up to her room just to talk to her, but when she grabbed his crotch, he accidentally shoved her into the table. Nick then asked about the chicken. “That was less of an accident,” Richard admitted.

Things get punny: Robbins discovered that Annabelle had blood thinner in her system. “What we have here is a failure to coagulate,” Henry joked. They also found a mouthwash bottle full of vodka that had been dosed with the blood thinner. “The clot doesn’t thicken, but the plot does,” Henry said.

The real killers: Grissom and Brass went to see Annabelle’s former co-star Megan. At this point the “Two and a Half Men” writers had a bit of fun with the leaps the show usually takes with Megan making up a fanciful story about an Italian uncle who would have known how to fix the computer chip in Natasha’s car. Brass and Grissom looked on baffled, until she finally confronted them with the fact that they had no hard evidence she’d done anything. “Gentleman, if you’ll please excuse me. I have a 13-episode commitment with CBS.” She then revealed that show creator Spencer was her lover and the two of them waved goodbye. “Forget it, Gil. It’s Burbank,” Brass said in a nice nod to “Chinatown.” And finally, as a coda, we saw Bud cut himself shaving and begin bleeding profusely. He too, had been dosed with blood thinner. Looks like Chuck Lorre did it!