Post by nhmystix on May 18, 2007 18:17:47 GMT -6
Little details matter in ‘CSI’ season finale
The miniature murderer is found, but Sara is missing
As season seven ends, the question must be asked: How good are the "CSI" detectives if none of them has figured out that Sara (Jorja Fox) and Grissom (William Peterson) are a couple?
With the miniature MacGuffin finally resolved, the real objective of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’s” tumultuous seventh season was finally revealed. It went a little something like this: Grissom loves Sara! Grissom loves Sara! And yes, like many viewers, even ol’ Gil seems to realize their affair is creepy.
The MacGuffin, FYI, is what Alfred Hitchthingy called the narrative pretext that drives the main characters and creates tension in the plot, but in the end, doesn’t really matter. So innocuous is the MacGuffin that often its conclusion is a disappointment. Indeed, it was a bit of a yawn discovering that that the type-A psycho leaving intricately recreated murder scene dioramas all over Las Vegas is a just a bleach-phobic maid with an eye for detail.
It’s the final craft project by Natalie (the nutty cleaning lady) that brings the season’s real story line to a head — a desert scene featuring a crumpled model muscle car atop a tiny Sara Sidle doll, her plastic hand grasping for life via a hobby shop motor. No, CSI Sara isn’t dead. But as actress Jorja Fox continues contract negotiations with CBS, things for her character don’t look good.
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Lab chief Gil Grissom (William Petersen), who recently started building models himself, realizes that this miniature is personal. Somehow Natalie, an outsider, figured out what a lab full of allegedly top-notch clue finders never sensed — that Grissom and Sara are totally hooking up. Her past murders were motivated by bleach use. But now Natalie wants to hurt Grissom. It’s revenge for the death of her train hobbyist foster dad Ernie Dell, who earlier in the season took the blame for Natalie’s crimes before killing himself.
His subordinates may be oblivious boneheads, but surely Grissom understands that Natalie and her deceased guardian mirror the age-inappropriate daddy dynamic between Gil and the missing Sara. During interrogation, Grissom plays into Natalie’s need for paternal attention, praising her meticulous handiwork and saying that with her attention to detail, she’d make a great CSI. (Hey, the lab might have an opening next season!) It kind of felt like maybe Natalie was a better match for Gil than Sara. Well, at least until Natalie started fantasizing about jabbing an Exacto knife blade into Grissom’s neck.
To be fair, even the coroner, Dr. Al Robbins (Robert David Hall) seems like a better match for Grissom. Earlier in the season, Grissom and Dr. Hall rocked out in the lab to the music of Izzy Delancy, the fictional has-been rock star they were autopsying. What musical interests — let alone any interests other than work — could Grissom and Sara possibly share?
There was also a funny bit in a later episode when Dr. Hall screamed in horror as Grissom chased a rat that emerged “Alien”-like from a dead body. Guess we know who’d mow the lawn in that relationship. In fact, just the ability to imagine a Grissom/Hall relationship more easily than a Grissom/Sara paring doesn’t bode well for their future together, even if Sara survives into next season.
Had it not been for Sara’s disappearance, the mismatched twosome may have figured that out on their own. The episode before the finale found Grissom once again running to the aid of Lady Heather, the dominatrix whom, according to senior CSI Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), is the only woman she’s ever seen rattle Grissom. That Catherine didn’t notice Sara wince when she said that once again brought into question her detection skills.
Then again, if the rest of the crew are still oblivious to what’s going on between Grissom and Sara, who can blame them? They’ve had their own red herrings to fry. Warrick Brown’s (Gary Dourdan) wife seems to be missing — at least he hasn’t mentioned her in quite a while. The other lab techs have been tormented all season by co-worker David Hodges (Wallace Langham) who seems to be on the verge of stalking Grissom himself, what with his own obsession with the miniatures case.
The miniature murderer is found, but Sara is missing
As season seven ends, the question must be asked: How good are the "CSI" detectives if none of them has figured out that Sara (Jorja Fox) and Grissom (William Peterson) are a couple?
With the miniature MacGuffin finally resolved, the real objective of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’s” tumultuous seventh season was finally revealed. It went a little something like this: Grissom loves Sara! Grissom loves Sara! And yes, like many viewers, even ol’ Gil seems to realize their affair is creepy.
The MacGuffin, FYI, is what Alfred Hitchthingy called the narrative pretext that drives the main characters and creates tension in the plot, but in the end, doesn’t really matter. So innocuous is the MacGuffin that often its conclusion is a disappointment. Indeed, it was a bit of a yawn discovering that that the type-A psycho leaving intricately recreated murder scene dioramas all over Las Vegas is a just a bleach-phobic maid with an eye for detail.
It’s the final craft project by Natalie (the nutty cleaning lady) that brings the season’s real story line to a head — a desert scene featuring a crumpled model muscle car atop a tiny Sara Sidle doll, her plastic hand grasping for life via a hobby shop motor. No, CSI Sara isn’t dead. But as actress Jorja Fox continues contract negotiations with CBS, things for her character don’t look good.
Story continues below ↓advertisement
Lab chief Gil Grissom (William Petersen), who recently started building models himself, realizes that this miniature is personal. Somehow Natalie, an outsider, figured out what a lab full of allegedly top-notch clue finders never sensed — that Grissom and Sara are totally hooking up. Her past murders were motivated by bleach use. But now Natalie wants to hurt Grissom. It’s revenge for the death of her train hobbyist foster dad Ernie Dell, who earlier in the season took the blame for Natalie’s crimes before killing himself.
His subordinates may be oblivious boneheads, but surely Grissom understands that Natalie and her deceased guardian mirror the age-inappropriate daddy dynamic between Gil and the missing Sara. During interrogation, Grissom plays into Natalie’s need for paternal attention, praising her meticulous handiwork and saying that with her attention to detail, she’d make a great CSI. (Hey, the lab might have an opening next season!) It kind of felt like maybe Natalie was a better match for Gil than Sara. Well, at least until Natalie started fantasizing about jabbing an Exacto knife blade into Grissom’s neck.
To be fair, even the coroner, Dr. Al Robbins (Robert David Hall) seems like a better match for Grissom. Earlier in the season, Grissom and Dr. Hall rocked out in the lab to the music of Izzy Delancy, the fictional has-been rock star they were autopsying. What musical interests — let alone any interests other than work — could Grissom and Sara possibly share?
There was also a funny bit in a later episode when Dr. Hall screamed in horror as Grissom chased a rat that emerged “Alien”-like from a dead body. Guess we know who’d mow the lawn in that relationship. In fact, just the ability to imagine a Grissom/Hall relationship more easily than a Grissom/Sara paring doesn’t bode well for their future together, even if Sara survives into next season.
Had it not been for Sara’s disappearance, the mismatched twosome may have figured that out on their own. The episode before the finale found Grissom once again running to the aid of Lady Heather, the dominatrix whom, according to senior CSI Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger), is the only woman she’s ever seen rattle Grissom. That Catherine didn’t notice Sara wince when she said that once again brought into question her detection skills.
Then again, if the rest of the crew are still oblivious to what’s going on between Grissom and Sara, who can blame them? They’ve had their own red herrings to fry. Warrick Brown’s (Gary Dourdan) wife seems to be missing — at least he hasn’t mentioned her in quite a while. The other lab techs have been tormented all season by co-worker David Hodges (Wallace Langham) who seems to be on the verge of stalking Grissom himself, what with his own obsession with the miniatures case.
