Miami. Marina. Elevated subway train. I imagine that elevated subway trains can't be much fun during hurricanes. Skyscraper. Ditto. Highway. Trees. Boredom setting in. Feminine panting. Ominous strings. Ennui. Suddenly, we're in a controversial Nike commercial, minus the chainsaw-wielding psycho killer and any sense of fun. An athletic thirtysomething with an eerily immobile ponytail huffs her way through the woods, leaping underfoot obstacles and dodging low-slung branches. Stretched across her heaving bosom upon her beater tee is the name and logo of "Cabrerra University." She seems a little old to be a student. Perhaps she's the cross-country coach. Or she could be a faculty member. Or the wife of a faculty member. Or an alumna. Perhaps you're wondering why I'm not getting to the point here. For this I have an answer: The first ninety seconds of this episode contain nothing but shots of this woman running. There are a lot of sequences like this tonight -- random people performing endless tasks that never really forward the plot along. God, this show is dull. If this were the Vegas version, we'd already have nine attractive corpses littering the frame amid hordes of big-haired good-time gals flashing fake rocks, gimlet-eyed broads marking cards, and feisty yet vertically-challenged conventioneers, while Darling Nicky jots down Gil's latest transgression in his Rage Journal. Maybe life moves at a more languid pace in Dade County. And look at that -- while lapsing into the first of many comas this evening, I completely missed Ms. Maidenform Sports Bra stumbling on a root. She plows facefirst into the ground as the camera switches angles to take in the bound, bare, masculine legs of tonight's A-plot victim dangling a good ten feet above the ground. Ms. Maidenform draws herself up, gets an eyeful of the dead guy, gasps, and darts off from whence she came. The camera focuses in on the twine knotted around the dead guy's ankles.
Some time later, the camera cuts to give us our first full view of the corpse. Dark-haired male, late thirties to early forties, hands lashed behind his back, strangled by the rope connecting him to the bough of the tree. The network's sense of propriety dictates that our corpse sport a pair of dark, baggy boxers. The network's sense of propriety does not, however, dictate we be spared the sight of the numerous bruises and puncture wounds that cover our corpse's torso and legs. A spear-bald gentleman the captioning identifies as "Bernstein" notes, "Sixteen years on the job, and I've never seen anything like this." Apparently, it's a first for Horatio as well. Ms. Maidenform believes the deceased was a professor at the university, but there's no confirmation of this. Bernstein and Horatio quickly reject autoerotic asphyxiation and suicide as possible causes of death as the camera lingers lovingly on the corpse's scarred chest and abs. "So where does this leave us now?" Bernstein asks. Skirting the edges of necrophiliac bondage porn, if you ask me. He's not asking me, though, so he'll have to settle for Horatio's retort: "Up a tree." Shut up, Horatio.
Credits. Even the spin-off's theme song blows.
Miami. Highway. Trees. Calleigh's POV through the lens of her still camera allows us a couple of blink-and-you'll-miss-them shots of a pulley and some rusted chains wound around a tree branch. From her perch on a ladder, Calleigh announces that the rust from the chains has transferred to the bark, meaning the pulley system's been part of this particular tree for quite some time. Meanwhile, Alexx snaps off a few photos of her own from the ground as she notes that the corpse is scarred from head to foot. Speedle's on his hands and knees in the dirt ten yards from the tree, uncovering scraps of bloodstained fabric and the remains of a Dalmatian that had been similarly tortured and executed. Horatio, of course, stands off to one side playing pocket pool while everyone else actually works for his or her paycheck. Bald Bernstein sidles over to reveal that the deceased was one "Adam Metzger, cultural anthropologist." "Teaches at the university," Bernstein adds. "Well, he just took a permanent sabbatical, didn't he?" Horatio bloviates. Shut it, you tool. Who thought dragging David Caruso back to prime time was a good idea?
After another lingering shot of the strung-up deceased, we cut to Metzger's glazed expression as his eyes stare blindly up at the morgue's ceiling. Alexx states for the benefit of the radio audience, "Eyes open." Horatio, for a change, has forsworn his skybox to join her on the morgue floor by the body. Peering through a magnifying lens into Metzger's irises, Alexx is surprised to find retinal burns. "How could he get snow blindness in Miami?" Horatio asks as the TMICam shoots into Metzger's skull for a glimpse of the scorched tissue in his eyes. Alexx can't answer that, but does discover that the professor's eyelids have been glued open. Blurry, overexposed shot of the paralyzed prof's eyelids being glued open by a hand of indeterminate gender. Alexx and Horatio bang their heads together and decide that the killer either wanted the professor to see something, or wanted the professor to see nothing. That's helpful. Not. Alexx moves on to the corpse's other wounds, enumerating nine six-inch-deep puncture wounds possibly from an icepick, eight twelve-inch contusions indicating blunt force, fourteen one- to two-inch cuts likely from a razor blade, and a series of needle marks on the soles of the feet for a total of sixty-two ante-mortem wounds, none of which were fatal. The professor died of asphyxiation when hoisted into the tree. To determine how long his torture session lasted, Alexx examines the abrasions on the palms of the professor's hands. We learn that the skin's four stages of healing involve scab formation, epithelial regeneration, hyperplasia, and regression of granulation tissues. The TMICam helpfully walks us through each stage. As these particular scrapes are in the second stage, Alexx estimates that "his body went through four to six hours of healing." "Or four to six hours of torture," Horatio adds. Okay, that's three scenes in a row wherein David Caruso has claimed the final line for himself. Egomaniacal blowhard jackass.
Over on the banks of a sun-dappled canal, we're "treated" to nearly two full minutes of Sevilla watching a four-door sedan being pulled from the water. She's pensive. Or, like me, she could be listening to her fingernails grow. Eric "Token" Delko arrives and starts firing off shots of the dripping car. He briefly scans the ground and, noting the absence of skid marks, assumes that the car was pushed into the water. Or the driver fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into the creek. Or it's been so long since the car sank that any skid marks or tire tracks would have been obliterated by later traffic and rainfall. But don't mind me, Token. I'm just thinking out loud, here. A police diver who receives neither a name nor subsequent screentime in this episode heartily greets Token with a couple of jokingly snide remarks. They deduce that the car sank quickly, as the windows are wide open. We witness a brief dramatic reenactment of the car sinking quickly, because the windows are wide open, before Token grabs a screwdriver and mallet from his toolbox to jimmy the trunk's lock. The dank stench of putrescent flesh rolls out of the vehicle long before Token eases the trunk completely open. Token, Sevilla, and the nameless diver gag and cover their noses as the camera lingers on the bloated, waterlogged corpse within. Captain Nemo bolts to "secure the tow" while Token exposits that three or four weeks' worth of bacterial infestation have ballooned the corpse with rancid gas. I dare the producers to arrange for scratch-and-sniff inserts in major-market newspapers the days this show airs during the sweeps period, so that CSI devotees can get the full Odorama experience in the comfort of their own homes come February. Sevilla, disgusted, guesses the corpse was the victim of a mob hit. Token points out that drugs might be involved. Captain Nemo inadvertently jostles the car while securing the tow line, and Water Boy's bloated remains explode. Token howls and bitches while flicking corpse bits off his arms. Sevilla, repulsed, turns on her headlights before turning away. Hey, watch it, lady! You could poke somebody's eyes out with those things.
CSI Armory. What? The walls are lined with guns, people. What do you expect me to call it? An anonymous and flirtatious lab tech informs Calleigh that the professor's wrists were bound in a "handcuff knot." We get a helpful diagram illustrating how one goes about fashioning handcuff knots, and to stave off the mind-shattering boredom brought on by this episode, I pause my tape to experiment with my laptop's power cord. It's quite simple, really, and this is from a guy who both sucked and blew at the various knot-tying exercises mandated by the Boy Scouts. "Military," Calleigh pronounces. Not anymore, doll. Though I don't see how anyone could claim military exclusivity in the first place for a knot that's basically two interlocking loops. Whatever.
Elsewhere, Horatio corners Speedle and demands a report on the bloodstained scraps of fabric. I demand to know who threw up down the front of Speedle's t-shirt. Horatio's the only one of us to receive an answer. The blood doesn't match the professor, so it might be the perp's. The two gentlemen pedenatter through the hallway about how the thirteen different types of wounds mean that the professor was tortured with thirteen different weapons. Are you also wondering how they arrived at this "thirteen different types of wounds" thing? Don't bother. The only ones noted are the retinal burns, the glued eyelids, the abrasions from the rope, the scrapes on the palms, the blunt-force bruising, the ice-pick punctures, the razor blade swipes, the track marks on the feet, the (spoiler!) staple remover, and what's coming up . And I really don't think the eyelid thing should count. Bore-atio passes a folder of autopsy photos to Speedle-dee-dee and asks for his opinion on the top shot. Blah streaming nuclei, blee microblisters normally associated with electrical burns, blah taser or cattle prod? Speedle-deedle-doo politely inquires as to which area of the professor's body received such caring attention. "Scrotal sack," Horati-oh-go-blow-yourself snorts. I realize that as a person of the male persuasion, I'm to cross my legs in sympathetic discomfort immediately upon receiving this bit of information. Unfortunately for those responsible, I merely find myself wondering if the "scrotal sack" thing is the writers' way of cracking on Caruso's complexion. If I might be so blunt, David Caruso's got a face like a bulldog's ass. Speedle-dee speedle-dumbs something red-herringlike about the thirteen different weapons equaling thirteen separate torturers, which Boratio notes would be an ideal number for a cult. And once again, Sack Face gets the scene's final line.
Cacaesthesia University. Dean "Hernandez" leads Bernstein and Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy on a tour of the quad while expounding upon the late professor's reputation. The professor's students loved him. However. The students' parents, the professor's fellow instructors, and Hernandez himself thought Metzger was "a whack job." Why was this, you ask? He would arrive at lectures dressed as Hitler and scrawl numbers on everyone's forearm. Yawn. Classroom guests included white supremacists and dusky prison interrogators of indeterminate origin. Boring. The good professor forced his students to sit through "home movies of slaughter, torture, and lynchings." Been there, done...wait. What? If they were his own damn movies, why was he never reported to the police? Unless, of course, Metzger was simply wasting class time on Faces Of Death, in which case: Feh. (Sidebar: My acting professor in college once spliced together a cleverly-edited tape featuring every Blonde Woman In Peril sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's entire body of work. Now that was some funny stuff.) Intercut throughout this monologue are black-and-white shots of the supposedly charismatic prof in action, screaming crap like "Man is not man without hate!" and "Pain moves us into the process of becoming whole -- pain is vital for survival!" The dialogue, she is bad, and the acting, she is worse. One bespectacled (and therefore mousy and spineless) lass diligently copies every word into her notebook, apparently swallowing this bullshit whole. A far more sensible young woman with perfect vision merely cocks an eyebrow and smirks as Metzger's pronouncements become more and more outlandish. Back on the quad, Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy wonders how many students the professor had. "Thirteen," answers Hernandez. "Thir. Teen," Caruso overenunciates, for he'll follow Kim Delaney into the unemployment line before he allows some fricking pussy-boy day-player to get the last line of his scene, goddammit.
Classroom Of The Damned. We get silent, poker-faced reaction shots of four students -- including Spineless and Smirky -- as Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy informs all present that he'll be collecting DNA swabs from their cheeks. Without a warrant. Or probable cause. Or common sense. And despite the oncoming commercial break.
Marina. Intracoastal Waterway. Speedle. Oh, wait. That's not Speedle. That's one of Metzger's students, enduring a typically lackluster round of the third degree as administered by Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy. Seems this particular student's illegally-obtained DNA sample matches the blood found on Speedle's scraps of fabric, and he was heard to threaten the professor's life on three separate occasions. "Ned" explains that he fell prey to one of Metzger's sadistic class-participation schemes -- a "mock lynching" in which he was the victim and his classmates the howling mob. We see during the black-and-white flashback of the event in question that Ned's shirt matches the pattern of Speedle's crime-scene cloth. We also receive an explanation for the presence of Ned's blood. Upon Metzger's command, Ned's classmates tore his clothes from his body, scratching open his skin with their fingernails. There's no way that sadistic asswipe would ever have received tenure. Nope. Not as an anthropology professor. Not buying it. Then again, this is Cacaesthesia University we're talking about, so maybe they award tenure differently down there. Ned attempts to justify his experience by noting that Metzger set the whole thing up to demonstrate how "normal people follow social norms." "Like the Stanford Experiment?" Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy asks. Um. No. Not much like the Stanford Experiment at all. Moron. (And many thanks to tv_or_not_tv for providing that link in the forums.) Aside from the fact that Professors Metzger and Zimbardo both appear to be ivory tower idiots of the most egregious sort, the two "experiments" seem to have nothing in common at all. So once again: Shut up, Horatio. The only other item of note in this scene is that Ned's suffering from some severe residual psychological distress as a result of his experiences, but it's pretty clear he's not responsible for Metzger's death. Oh, and Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy gets the last line. Like you were even wondering about that one.
Hacienda Del Whack Job. Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy and Speedle wander in to find Spineless, Smirky, and a couple of other students lounging around in the professor's dining room. To Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy's immense irritation, Professor Whack Job had an open-door policy, and all of his students have keys to his home. They'd type up his research for him or handle his dry-cleaning. That sort of thing. Smirky claims some sort of teacher-student privilege regarding their dealings with Professor Whack Job, eliciting a delightfully contemptuous sneer from Speedle. Smirky also scores a bit of a coup by snatching the scene's final line away from Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy. "We were all really close," Smirky claims. I bet she's doing Caruso.
In the professor's study, Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy and Speedle dither with a trash can full of shredded paper before stumbling across Professor Whack Job's torture cabinet. I spy a chastity belt and an iron face mask, along with several pointy things. Oh, leave me alone. Like I know from medieval torture tools. You should be happy I recognized the chastity belt from my costuming classes at college. Oh, yes -- we did cover chastity belts in costuming class at Northwestern, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Horatio -- wait for it -- gets the last line. "Nice," he sneers. "Very nice." I bet Smirky's in for a surprise when she hits Caruso's condo tonight.
Morgue. "Jade," an autopsy underling ["and a possible shout-out to the assy Caruso vehicle of the same name" -- Sars], slides the rancid, bloated car corpse into an MRI-type machine so Alexx can determine the gentleman's cause of death. Whoever filmed this bit has a thing for Khandi Alexander's lips, by the way. Especially when they're pressed close to something phallic like a microphone. Alexx instructs Jade on proper corpse positioning through said microphone from a nearby room. The TMICam takes us through layers of scalp to reveal, as Alexx puts it, a "circular fracture of the cranial vault." In other words, Rancid Man got bonked on the head. Token finds this intriguing.
CSI Garage. Token and soon-to-be-exiled-to-Chicago Megan rifle through Rancid Man's car. Much as I hate to admit this, she'll fit right in here in the Windy City with that mullet of hers. Ew. Anyway, someone apparently stripped the body before transferring it to a gurney, as Megan's delicately picking items of water- and fluid-soaked clothing from the trunk while Token examines the interior. A dashboard figurine was removed shortly before the car sank. In fact, all personal items appear to have been removed, leading Token to propose that he identify the owner through the car's VIN number. In Rancid Man's rancid clothing, Megan's discovered a wad of paper, a car key, and a buck fifty in change. She bags all but the car key and, sliding into the driver's seat, fits it neatly into the ignition. The two examine the recesses of the trunk, where they find a Neil Diamond CD. Megan has to hoist herself halfway in to reach it. They then spot fingernail grooves on the trunk's interior. The Cleansing Burst Of Synchronicity dials Token on his cell phone to inform him that Rancid Man died not from the bonk on the head, but from drowning. The black-and-white flashback helpfully illustrates this, as Not-Yet-Rancid Man frantically scrapes away at the trunk while foul canal water covers his gasping face. Token and Megan eye each other as they slowly realize that Rancid Man was likely a victim of his own stupidity. Or maybe they're still clueless, and I'm the one making the realization. Really, does anyone care at this point?
Lab. Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy swabs a splotch of blood from one of Professor Whack Job's medieval implements and disappears to process it. Calleigh, meanwhile, announces, "I'm all over your tool marks." She's also all over dressing like one of the Von Trapp Family Singers tonight, what with that blouse she's stitched together from curtain remnants and the little Swiss Miss buns in her hair. She glumly notes that none of the sixty-two wounds suffered by Professor Whack Job nicked bones or cartilage, so rather than matching the implements to corresponding marks on Whack Job's body, she's going to have to work something Speedle calls "wound comparison." This involves making clay impressions of each implement's unique pattern. Calleigh proceeds to have far too much fun with maces and such while, over in another part of the lab, poor Speedle painstakingly pieces together the shredded documents found in Whack Job's study. Wait a minute. Why bother right away with this sort of document reconstruction? Wouldn't Speedle have commandeered Whack Job's home and office computers and run searches on the hard drives first? I suppose watching someone staring at a monitor doesn't make for the same sort of compelling television that watching someone puzzle together thin strips of paper does. Except that neither option is particularly compelling, and they stare at monitors all the damn time on this show. Whatever. None of Calleigh's weapon impressions match Whack Job's wounds, and what's more, the blood from Jo-Jo The Sack-Faced Boy's swab turned out to be canine. Horatio: "So what in the hell dug into the professor?" He's nine for ten thus far this evening. Fuckwit.
Factory Of The B-Plot. Token and Sevilla enter some sort of tool-and-die warehouse-and-metal-shop to interview one Lorenzo Castenotto, the owner of Rancid Man's vehicle of doom. Larry, as he likes to be called, apparently owns the metalworks as well, for he's clad in a Hawaiian shirt, practicing his putting while all around him blue-collar types weld things. Larry's pretty blasé about the whole car thing, as he's already received a check "from the insurance." Token throws him off his game, however, when he makes mention of the car key found on the corpse in Larry's trunk. Token and Sevilla thoughtfully provide Larry with a gruesome autopsy photograph of the corpse in question, wondering if Larry might be able to ID Rancid Man. Larry, of course, cannot, and in fact drops the photo to the floor while choking back vomit. Token stoops to retrieve the photograph, and notices a conveniently-placed bobbly hula girl of the type so popular with gentlemen who favor Hawaiian shirts. Token slyly connects the bobbly hula girl to the adhesive he found on the death car's dashboard, and politely asks if he can escort the bobbly hula girl back to the CSI lab. Larry protests mightily, wresting the bobbly hula girl from Token's hand. Sevilla snidely notes that they'll be returning with a warrant, as if they've ever had need of warrants on this show before. Then again, she's not Jo-Jo The Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard, so perhaps she must rely upon proper legal channels to retrieve her evidence. Larry's all, "Bring it on!" and waves them out of his factory. Outside, Sevilla and Token blather about Larry's suspicious behavior before heading off in separate directions.
Lab. With an assist from Calleigh, Jo-Jo The Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard matches Whack Job's implements to wounds found on the partially-buried Dalmatian from the top of the hour. Jo-Jo The Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard also extracts one of those doggie detector microchips from the Dalmatian's scalp. Using a handy microchip reader that just happens to be wired to the appropriate centralized database, Jo-Jo The Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard learns that "Fisher" the "Dalmation" was owned by one Ginny Taylor of 1021 Laurence Street. For those of you who've grown attached to Fisher during his brief time on screen and wish to know everything about him, I'll also note that he was fond of bacon. If you want his date of birth, you're going to have to get your own damn copy of this episode. The final line before the commercial break? Is Jo-Jo The Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard's. "So now her relationship with the professor officially becomes our business. Good." Ten for eleven. Jackass.
Back from the break, the grief-stricken Ginny "Smirky" Taylor is shocked -- shocked -- to discover that Professor Whack Job kidnapped her pet so that he could torture and kill it. While Ginny Smirk also insists on the professor's brilliance, it's clear she's suffering from the same sort of mental anguish afflicting Ned. She reveals that the professor once ordered her to lick his shoes, which she did. Gladly. Granted, I know little about psychology, but it seems like these kids suffer from a form of Stockholm Syndrome. At least, the form of Stockholm Syndrome that's most familiar to those who, like me, know little about psychology. Which I mention only because Sobell once sagely noted that the relationship between we recappers and those we recap often takes on aspects of the syndrome, and this I find amusing. It's like every single one of us is Patty Hearst. I honestly couldn't give a rat's ass if anyone on or responsible for this show lives or dies, much less whether or not they'll receive appropriate treatment for whatever psychological ills they suffer. Well, except for Alexx and Speedle. They both need to move to Las Vegas in the very near future. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes: Ginny Smirk hasn't a clue who killed the professor. And she gets the scene's last line. She's so sleeping with Caruso. In fact, I bet she's willing to have a hundred of Caruso's ass-faced spawn just to further her career. Pity the joke'll be on her rapidly-expanding and pregnant derriere when this show and whatever remains of Caruso's own career finally spin down the toilet where they belong.
So, on to CSI Central, wherein we find Sevilla and Token hustling to an appointment with Rancid Man's possible girlfriend. Well, possible ex-girlfriend, because he's dead now. Sevilla found the ex by scouring recent missing persons reports and matching the description of a "Doug Reid" to Rancid Man's height and coloring. Oh, and look! Here's Rancid Man's ex emerging from the elevator now. The girlfriend's name is Caroline. Get it? Just like the titular object of affection in the Neil Diamond song? Caroline dated the deceased for all of three months, planned to travel to Aruba with him, tore up all photos of him save one when he disappeared, and bears a frightening resemblance in both appearance and dizzy demeanor to Paula Abdul. This last detail is the only one that holds any interest for me whatsoever. Caroline hands over her remaining photo of Doug and leaves.
Elsewhere, Jade the autopsy underling and Token compare Doug's photo to one of Rancid Man's. I don't know why I'm bothering, but I have to ask: Why compare the post-mortem face with all of its bacterial bloating to the pre-mortem face? Wouldn't it make more sense to reconstruct Rancid Man's face using a scan of his skull and some of their fancy imaging software? Whatever. Like I said, I shouldn't bother. Token spies a pair of presumably custom-made plugs in Doug's ears, and notes that Doug's uniform bears the name of Larry's Tool Up And Die machine shop. The autopsy underling is most enthused, for if Token can find the earplugs, he might be able to match them to Rancid Man's ears. As she puts it, the ears of "a bloater" are the only bits that retain their original shape after lengthy periods of submersion. Token motors on over to Larry's Tool Up And Die, where he breaks into Doug's locker and retrieves the custom earplugs. Back at the morgue, he bursts in on Alexx with, "I've got my glass slipper, now where's my Cinderella?" Token worries me. No snuggling for him with this particular corpse, however, as Alexx cremated Rancid Man yesterday. Some in the forums have questioned cremating the remains of an unidentified body, but I would suppose that, if they've gathered the necessary forensic evidence and stored DNA samples for future identification, it makes sense to dispose properly of the remains as soon as possible, though I would think they'd choose interment rather than cremation on the off chance that the family, if found, would want an actual body. No matter, because Token has a cunning plan. He scans in photographs of one of the plugs, generates a three-dimensional image of the thing, concocts an accompanying three-dimensional image of Rancid Man's ear, and then matches the two images in an absolutely stunning display of forensic moxie. Or something like that. I'm so bored with this entire episode that I'm just babbling away to myself at this point.
Speaking of babbling, Calleigh and Jo-Jo The Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard do some of their own as they wander through the lab's hallway. She's identified the vegetable fibers in Professor Whack Job's fatal twine as "guadua augustifolia," also known, evidently, as "Colombian bamboo." We must trust her on this, mainly because my research for this episode began and ended with that Stanford Experiment nonsense. Jo-Jo The Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard links the Colombian bamboo to one of Professor Whack Job's guest lecturers, and suggests they summon the gentleman for a chat. Eleven for thirteen, folks, though since Caruso and Ginny Smirk clearly have a thing going, we probably should just give him credit for all his thirteen scenes thus far.
Make that fourteen, what with the guest lecturer's interrogation immediately following the above chat in the hallway. But before we get into all that, I just have to stop for a moment to say: Jesus. Christ! What is wrong with Emily Procter's face? The woman is a slightly-thicker eyebrow pencil away from looking like Joan Crawford: The Trog Years. And the luggage under her eyes? Ack! Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I can tell you that Calleigh's translating for Jo-Jo The Omniscient Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard, despite the fact Jo-Jo speaks perfectly good Spanish, as we shall shortly see. Calleigh faces "Señor Barbosa," formerly of the Colombian secret police, from across a table and asks on Jo-Jo's behalf just what Barbosa's relationship with the deceased whack job entailed. Barbosa replies, "Usted es una muy buena estudiante, señorita." "She's not a student," Jo-Jo The Omniscient Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard sneers. "She's a police officer, so I suggest you answer her questions before you have to answer mine." Barbosa suaves something about how we're all students at one time or another, depending upon our specific relationships. "So you speak English," Jo-Jo The Omniscient states. Yeah, just like you speak Spanish, jackass. "This is about power for someone like you?" Jo-Jo asks as I roll my eyes and swallow my tongue at this fucker's audacity. What, dear Horatio, is it about when you have Calleigh translate for you despite the fact you speak the language yourself? If not power, then what? Sloth? "A narcissistic fantasy," Horatio continues, ignoring me, "in which you degrade somebody until they lose their identity? Their soul?" Their job on the spin-off of the highest-rated series on television? I'd love for a drunken Kim Delaney to stagger into the frame at this point and bash Caruso in the head with a bottle of Cuervo, but alas, it is not to be. I do receive some small satisfaction, though, when Señor Barbosa acidly calls Horatio on his crap by noting, "It is not what you do to people -- it is what you get them to do for you." He follows this statement with a pointed glare in Swiss Miss Slave-Girl's direction. Calleigh remains true to her boss, however, simply snotting in return something tedious about mental ability as it relates or does not relate to physical and psychological torture and wah. Whatever. This scene has become tiresome. Long story short, Señor Barbosa couldn't have murdered Professor Whack Job, because as a parting gift from the new regime down Colombia way, he had the flexor tendons in his hand severed with a machete. Yee-ouch. As Calleigh notes once they've left the interrogation room, "He couldn't even pick up a pencil." "Let alone string a man up in a tree," Jo-Jo The Omniscient Omnipotent Sack-Faced Blowhard concludes. "So he's not our killer. Hmmm."
Meanwhile, over in the B-plot of Token's despair, the gentleman in question confirms for Sevilla's benefit that Rancid Man is indeed Doug Reid. While the detective peers over his shoulder, Token carefully unfolds the wad of paper Megan found in his clothing. It's a brochure for Aruba, within which rests a small sheet of paper containing hastily scribbled directions. Token delicately lifts the sheet with a piece of film and flips it over to discover that it's a deposit slip for Larry's checking account. Sevilla smirks in triumph before heading over to Larry's with Token. Once there, they confront Larry with the evidence. Larry hastily cops to the insurance fraud, but insists that he had nothing to do with Doug's death, and offers an alibi. On the night Doug took care of the car, Larry was at the dog track. He even has the credit card receipts to prove it. "I swear, Doug was my friend," Larry asserts. "I would have no reason whatsoever to kill him." Enter Reason #1, in the form of Doug's ex, Caroline. She gawps vacantly at Token and Sevilla as Larry gulps.
Lab. Jo-Jo The Omniscient Omnipotent Arrogant Evil Scene-Stealing Foul Talent-Free Rotten Sack-Faced Bastard Of A Blowhard accosts poor, put-upon Speedle, wondering what gives. Speedle's managed to piece together a few of the shredded documents, one of which reads, "The experiments with the dog exceeded my expectations. Standing under the tree taking notes, I could feel my assistant breaking." Not only was the late professor a whack job, he was also a shitty writer. As the flashback shows, the professor wasn't standing under the tree taking notes -- his assistant was. Also, he spelled "subservience" incorrectly. Or his assistant did. Or the feckless PA in charge of this particular prop did. Asshats. All of them. In any event, Speedle and The Foul Sack-Faced Bastard From Hell Formerly Known As Horatio realize that one of Professor Whack Job's thirteen students must also be his assistant, and as such must have left fingerprints on the professor's computer. Only they put it like this, so that The Foul Sack-Faced Bastard can get the last line before the final commercial break:
Speedle: "A computer keyboard has at least twenty-six places..."
The Foul Sack-Faced Bastard: "...for nervous hands to leave sweaty fingerprints."
For one thing, you're not going to lift a usable print from the fucking keys, and for another, why didn't you confiscate the fucking computer in the first place, you douchebag? Also, I'll be the first to admit I'm overly reliant on a personal recapping conceit involving the onrushing commercial breaks threatening to overwhelm the characters while they stoically stand their ground in the face of corporate adversity, but never did I so want a group of commercials to kill a television character until I met Horatio Caine. Die, you worthless piece of trash, under a torrent of fresh-to-your-family values from Jewel.
And yet he lives. The Foul Sack-Faced Bastard, after twirling a bit of dust on the professor's computer, announces, "There's no prints on the keyboard." Of course there aren't, you stupid git. Did you not hear what I said before the commercial break? Huh? Have you gone deaf? Have you? Answer me, you rotten shit!
Ahem.
Elsewhere in the study, Calleigh pouts that everything's been wiped down. Despite the fact it's broad daylight, The Unspeakably Foul Sack-Faced Bastard flicks on his flashlight and trains it on Professor Whack Job's desk. Thereupon he finds several ominous implements of the modern sort: A letter opener, a tape dispenser, a stapler, a pencil sharpener, a box of silver push pins, and -- DUN! -- a staple remover. Heh. The staple remover cracks me up. Anyway, The Unspeakable Sack-Faced One announces that whoever cleaned the office concentrated on fingerprints, not bloodstains. Calleigh obediently fetches the luminol from her bag and sprays the Six Deadly Office Supplies. How on earth did the killer use that pencil sharpener? Calleigh examines the desk and finds The Seventh Deadly Office Supply in the form a tube of super glue as Speedle points out the impression of Whack Job's face on the Xerox machine's document glass, thus explaining the retinal burns. The final piece of evidence recovered is a bit of cotton fluff snagged on the copier. "Who wears cotton sweaters in eighty-degree weather?" The Unspeakable Sack-Faced One asks. Fourteen for sixteen.
Cut to Spineless opening her door to find Speedle with a warrant for her taser. She hesitantly retreats to her bed and retrieves the thing from her purse. It's disguised as a cell phone. "Clever," Speedle smiles after testing it on the lock. Spineless remains impassive, but dude. She is so busted.
B-Plot Of Token's Despair. He's programmed the elements of The Vehicle Of Doom's final ride into the computer, but even with Doug Rancid locked in the trunk, the car in his simulation won't roll into the canal. The Unspeakable Sack-Faced One wonders if it was raining the night Doug Rancid disappeared. Token's all, "D'oh! I'll check the weather report, boss!" "Let's do that," The Unspeakable Sack-Faced One croons. Fifteen for seventeen.
And it's back to the canal with Token and Megan for Kim Delaney's final appearance on CSI: Miami. I wish I could tell you this scene was in any way important, but it's not. Basically, Token and Megan rehash what we already know of Doug Rancid's final wild ride: After parking Larry's car on the embankment in the rain, opening the windows, and popping the emergency brake, Doug attempted to retrieve the Neil Diamond CD from the changer in the trunk before hopping on a city bus with the buck fifty in his pocket. Doug slipped, cracked his head on one of the trunk's bolts, and drowned when the trunk slammed shut and the car plunged into the canal. That's it. That's the entire scene. Well, that along with a thirty-second black-and-white reenactment of what Megan and Token just told us, of course. Happy trails, Megan. Oh, what am I saying? Like I even care.
Back in The Unspeakable Sack-Faced One's world, Teresa Spineless has been hauled in for a round of questioning. A very short round of questioning, as it turns out. For in case you've forgotten, The Unspeakable Sack-Faced One is omniscient. One wonders why he bothers to ask Teresa for her version of events, given that he already knows what happened. Professor Whack Job broke Teresa mentally and physically as part of an experiment. At some point, the experiment involved a bit of involuntary branding on Teresa's forearms. (The scars that remain necessitate her long-sleeved sweaters, don't you know.) At another point, the experiment included the demise of the sweet, bacon-loving "Dalmation," Fisher. Other elements and incidents are left to our imagination, but we do get a flashback to Teresa finally snapping. After silently enduring yet another screaming set of insults from Professor Whack Job, Teresa tasers him in the groin; attacks his torso with the letter opener, the staple remover (hee!), and the tape dispenser; glues his eyelids open; blinds him with the copier; forces him into the woods; trusses him up with the various "military" knots she presumably learned during his torture of her; and finally hoists him up on the pulley, where he strangles to death. It should be noted that as portrayed in the flashback, the professor appears to be a willing participant up until the very end. The sick fuck. Also, it's not entirely clear that Teresa meant to kill him, though that certainly is my own highly subjective opinion on the matter. Teresa at long last admits, "Had I known that I was a test -- that he didn't mean all those things he said -- I wouldn't have snapped. But I'm happy he's dead." "After six hours of torture," The Unspeakable Sack-Faced One opines, "I bet he is, too." You obviously didn't see the same flashback I did, you self-aggrandizing ass.
And look at that! The final word is mine! Mine, do you hear me? Mine! Muah ha ha ha ha!
For Sobell's sake, I hope they cancel this soon. Or, at the very least, get rid of Caruso. What an asshole. Back to you, Ms. S.