Wet Foot, Dry Foot

There is a boat on the water, a small white boat of the kind used for fishing. It has the look of a fishing boat of the kind that takes charters out to the sea, where men will drink beer and catch fish. The beer is cold, the fish less so. A man is at the prow of the boat, as men will be, and he is listening to a radio. It tells us of a squall that happened the night before. As the man listens, three other men sit in chairs under the hot sun and drink cold beer. The men are drinking, but they are not relaxed. One checks his watch, the kind of shiny and expensive watch that men who sit in offices, not in chairs in the sun drinking cold beer, wear. He comments, "I'm not working on my tan here." The other men nod. A man in an orange shirt and a blue baseball cap and black sunglasses tosses the chum in the water. It lands in the clear blue water, trailing black blood. Behind, a fishing line flies taut and metal, and it is also covered in chum. It is a good line. On the small white boat, the good fishing line goes tense and the reel begins spinning, and the man leaps to his feet. He is no longer drinking beer, and he is not working on his tan. We see the line pulling down in the water, which is not blue anymore but dark, and we know that it is dark as death and on the end of the good line with the black blood chum there is a shark.

And then my headache intensifies as I realize I just don't have what it takes to recap this entire episode Ernest Hemingway-style. So much for my dream of winning the International Imitation Hemingway contest. I can still hope for the Bulwer-Lytton. A woman's got to have dreams.

Enough about me: the shot is of a shark hanging by its tail in a hangar while the men stand around a joke about how macho they are. Frankly, I'd be more impressed with shark fishermen if they met their sharks in the water -- it strikes me as inherently more fair, as the sharks get to use their natural defenses -- but I suppose it would be harder to feel macho when something's chomping on your femur. Anyway, one of the deckhands passes the fisherman a knife and tells him to gut his catch, which the man does after a moment's squeamishness, saying, "That's gonna look nice on my wall." The deckhand gives instructions ("Just give it a good jab and enjoy the ride up"), the fake fisherman follows them, and out flops a severed human arm. Well, that's not going to look nearly so nice on his wall. The fisherman rears back, disappointed that the human is already dead, thus robbing him of a chance to kill another living thing, and his friends discreetly hoarf into the wharf.

And then they vomit again as Horatio and Megan show up; they must have seen the first two episodes too. Kidding! Megan's there, taking pictures of the arm as Horatio does what he does best, i.e. stand around and watch his underlings work. Horatio looks at the arm and asks, "Is this all there is?" Why don't you stick your arm in the shark's gut and find out, Horatio? Oh, wait -- that would require you to do actual work. He hunkers down to chat with Megan: "So let me ask you a question: did you know that some species of tiger sharks are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources red list as vulnerable, meaning that any effect on its population would push it into endangered species territory, and fishing can't be helping matters much? Have you thought about how maybe Florida should take a hint on the fishing-to-the-brink-of-extinction thing and avoid another near miss like it had with the alligator or the manatee by actually thinking ahead instead of scrambling to make a last-minute save?" Oh, no, he does not either. That would mean that Horatio thinks about anything other than himself. Or the bereaved and vulnerable. What Horatio actually asks is, "You find human body parts in a shark -- is that murder?" "It is when we're looking for lead," Megan replies, and conveniently finds some. The two of them have a moment of Zen, and then The Who kick in.

Commercial time -- and I still cannot escape NYPD Blue alumni as Amy Brenneman and her hair flounce across the screen. St. Jude, please make the hurting stop!

But the patron saint of lost causes evidently has better things to do, because we're now back at the episode. After giving us a close-up of the shark's bloody maw, we see Alexx standing and peering at it nose-to-nose. She straightens up, sashays past Horatio, and cracks, "I think we're going to need a bigger body bag." Heh -- nice Jaws shout-out. Horatio says, "If anyone can find one, it's you, Alexx." Maybe she can also find another outfit -- although her embroidered waistcoat is lovely, it's also white, and that doesn't strike me as eminently practical when one's job requires one to wallow in gore all day. Anyway, Alexx pivots over to the other side of the shark, slaps a flank (which would hurt, or at least shred her latex gloves, since sharks have notoriously abrasive skin), and says with no small amount of satisfaction, "Okay, fellows, you can bag him. My shark now." Horatio announces to nobody in particular, "I'm off to ruin the captain's day," and I snarl at the screen, "You're not content with ruining mine?"

Speaking of ruinous things on screen, in what will become a trend during this episode, Megan's subverting Horatio's authority and ruining the captain's day herself: "Everything is nautical [beat], I get it. What I want to know is [beat] did you mark the catch?" The captain's all, "Ten foot tiger shark? You bet your ass." Horatio then pops in to ruin the guy's day by telling him that the shark is now the property of the Miami/Dade crime lab. But wait -- there's more! Horatio notices the GPS system Cap'n Ron has on his boat, and Cap'n Ron answers, "I got precise positioning, if that's what you're asking." Megan asks, "'Precise positioning' -- how'd you get that? From the government?" Cap'n Ron tells Megan he has friends in low places. Horatio's thrilled about this. Cap'n Ron continues, pointing out the 170 miles total distance between Miami, the Grand Bahamas and Cuba. "We hooked in [fourteen miles offshore]." We learn that said hooking in occurred at 8:30 in the morning, and Megan tells us that she used to shark fish all the time (boo! hiss!) and she never went out during the day. Well, if you want to decimate a species, it sometimes helps to make a venti latte stop first, Megan. Cap'n Ron explains that the late start was due to a squall line pushing through, so he could neither chum (throw out the bloody bait) nor lay lines (depending on the scale, either laying out long lines with baited hooks, or simply laying the line as it unspools from the rod). Horatio decides to reward Cap'n Ron by taking his nautical maps. Cap'n Ron protests that the team has already taken the shark, and now the map, so what's . Horatio answers, "There's a school of adorable dolphins nuzzling their young with sentient compassion off the Keys. Go, man, go! Get 'em before the sun rises too high!" Right. What Horatio really says is, "You get a pass on your illegal GPS unit."

We switch to Alexx -- who has changed into something more autopsy-appropriate -- as she examines the arm, which is attached to a modest chunk of torso. It weighs 28 pounds, seven ounces. This information would come in handy if we had any context for it at all, as in how Alexx might use it to extrapolate the overall body weight of the victim, or how a forensic artist might try to get a general idea of how the victim was built. Here, however, things like explaining the data might get in the way of Horatio's screen time, so we'll never find out why we need to know the weight of the arm.

Oh, look, I went on a road trip to Rantville and forgot you were strapped in beside me. Want to stop at 7-Eleven for a Slurpee and some Funyuns before we head back? No? Okay then -- back to the scene. Alexx is puttering about the morgue as Horatio pulls his usual voice-of-God stunt. Alexx tells Horatio the body part in question has gynecomastia -- an enlarged breast which is usually caused by an imbalance in androgen and estrogen hormone levels in a man, something that can be caused by diseases (Kleinfelter's Syndrome, Reifenstein's syndrome, types of cancer that affect hormone-producing glands), by drugs (cannabis has been linked to gynecomastia, for example) that are believed to affect the liver, or by age. Alexx points out that the gynecomastia introduces some gender ambiguity; adding to the confusion, there's no armpit hair, but pronounced hair on the knuckles. The lack of armpit hair -- typically linked to androgen production at puberty -- might be a big honking clue that they're dealing with someone who's suffered a hormonal imbalance. Or it could be something based in logical deduction and fact, and therefore has no place on this show. What was I thinking? Anyway, Horatio asks Alexx what she's saying about the mystery arm, and Alexx says, "What I'm saying is I'm not an anthropologist. Could be a big woman. Could be a small man." She then tells the arm she's going to get its blood type. That Alexx, making small talk with the smallest of body parts.