Broken

Hey, everybody, it's Zany Town! I bet it's craaaaaaazy in there! I bet the menu's got a loooooot of Zs! I bet it's a thinly veiled, lawsuit-proof version of Jillian's or Chuck E. Cheese's! Let's go in! It'll be fuuuuuuun!

We see what appears to be a giant bandicoot wearing a uniform left over from Hall and Oates' 1983 Try Not To Notice The Really Big Height Gap tour, surrounded by rollicking children. Then we see a children's birthday party, attended by another suffering soul trapped in a giant chicken costume and a hideous checkerboard vest. Then we get to a giant ball pen where a winsome moppet is frolicking picturesquely, stopping only to inquire in dulcet tones, "Do you see, do you see?" If this were 1936, she'd be played by Margaret O'Brien. If I were recapping Uncle Tom's Cabin, this would be the scene in which Little Eva breathes her last. In other words, it's time to set your watches and place your dead pool bets, because there is no way a kid this cute lives past the credits. The mom grins indulgently, and our tiny cherub goes back to frolicking, with a break for taking off her sweater that only serves to hammer home the point that these two enjoy the kind of mother-child bond that makes Attachment Parenting advocates weep in envy. Mom keeps a watchful eye on Ruthie until someone runs over her foot with a toy truck. She diverts her gaze for a moment -- this is what we in the recapping biz call "a plot point" -- and when she focuses on the ball pen again, Ruthie is nowhere to be found. Cue the most exploitative two minutes on television this week: the mother's rising panic as she realizes that she's lost sight of her daughter, her frantic scanning of the room, and finally, her gut-churning search. Just in case parents in the audience weren't already shuddering in vicarious fear, the sound effects department kicks in and begins adding a dislocated echoing sound to everything, just to make it creepier. As the mother searches, other women protectively grab their children, since no detail is too small to be overlooked in this sequence. Eventually, someone dressed in the hideous Zany Town uniform asks the woman what's wrong, and she replies, "I can't find my baby." The employee sprints over to a control panel and initiates a security procedure the folks at NORAD whipped up as a lark. Gates clatter down to trap everyone inside, conveniently forgetting that angelic children like Ruthie are bodily assumed into Heaven, and where there's a will, there's a way. The minute the doors are locked, the children run towards them. Fortunately, this is an excellent screening test for determining who is smart enough to live; sometimes, it pays to lag behind. Ruthie's mom stands there alone -- none of the other mothers dare go near her to offer comfort, because Missing Childitis might be catching.

Unfortunately, not even locked gates can keep out Miami's avenging crusader; Horatio comes strolling in and hears all about Ruthie Crichton, aged five, whom the paramedics just pronounced dead. Horatio commands, "Nobody leaves." It'd be kind of hard in Stalag 17 there, Horatio. The detective reveals the first puzzle to be solved for the night: to get from the ball pen to the bathroom where Ruthie's body was found, the abductor would have to get past the arcade, past a food court, and past a lot of observers. Horatio looks around Zany Town and decrees, "This place is a buffet for these creeps." Maybe Zany Town might want to think twice about including that endorsement on the marketing materials. Horatio then asks to be taken to Ruthie in the bathroom.

Cut to Ruthie, lying on the floor of the most dramatically lit bathroom I've ever seen. She's on her back in a pool of light -- Alexx better get here soon, or flights of angels are going to be taking off with the evidence -- half-dressed, and Horatio takes a moment to brood down at her. After collecting himself, Horatio begins looking around the room, noticing the recently filled trash can, the recently used sink, and Ruthie. He then walks out to collect himself with a calming brood by the stuffed animals. Horatio and the detective survey the collection of mothers anxiously guarding their children, and the detective says gloomily, "Fifty witnesses." Horatio corrects him: "Fifty suspects." Roger Daltrey screams his assent, and we're at the credits.

Once we return to the show, a dozen different crime-solving vehicles have converged on the scene, and a uniform is already rolling out the crime-scene tape. The camera pans over to the long-suffering chicken-costume guy taking a well-deserved smoke break as he answers questions. Megan and the Bob-White crew enter the building, and Horatio says, "Welcome to the forty-eight hours of your life, ladies and gentlemen." Horatio then assigns tasks: Delko's securing an extended perimeter, Speedle's photographing everything, and Calleigh's checking into the surveillance system. Speedle and Delko will be dealing with the crowd, and Calleigh will be trying to trace the killer's path electronically. Megan will apparently be working the bathroom with Horatio. Cut to him examining the scene and noticing "what appears to be glitter in the northwest quad." We see Megan writing on a clipboard and staring into her cleavage. She asks if a path's been cleared; Horatio sweeps his flashlight and says, "From the door to the body, right there." The camera passes over Ruthie, who's halfway out of her pretty pink outfit and halfway into a nondescript t-shirt and pants. We also see that her hair's been inexpertly cut. Megan and her cleavage -- we're seeing more of it in every scene, so we might as well give it separate billing -- walk over, noting, "Cut hair, boy's clothes --" Horatio cuts in, "Looks like he was disguising her, maybe to smuggle her out." Looks the screenwriters haven't checked Snopes.com lately, as they've debunked this allegedly common practice amongst the kiddie-grabbing set. I give up. It's only a matter of time before I'm recapping episodes where Horatio and Megan find someone packed in ice in a bathtub and missing their kidneys, or a woman who dies of shock after the spiders nesting in her hairdo get aggressive, or someone who dies after their internal organs get cooked during a tanning-parlor session.

Anyway, we get some black-and-white shots that are supposed to drive home the point that an adorable moppet met a sordid demise. Just in case we miss the point visually, the boy soprano from last week returns to hammer it home acoustically. Horatio finally figures out that maybe the pedophile had been planning on taking Ruthie with him, as opposed to going to the effort of cutting her hair and changing her clothes as a prelude to murdering her in a bathroom stall. Rocket scientist Megan says, "He was going to take her with him." Before her cleavage can posit a different theory, we cut back to Horatio mumbling, "Something stopped the plan, didn't it? Maybe she was screaming?" Megan and her cleavage go back to taking photos, this time of Ruthie's kiddie-friendly Band-Aid, because we haven't had enough opportunities to reflect on the terrible tragedy of the young and adorable getting killed. Horatio carries on: "Maybe the alarm system in the store." Megan points out, "If it was the alarms, we could have a fish in the net." Horatio begins pulling out the adhesive for collecting fibers and corrects Megan with, "Not a fish -- a shark."

Cut to Speedle, looking harassed. That seems to be a natural look for him. He ducks under the police tape and follows the sounds of the boy soprano to all the photographically appropriate sites for picture-taking. We establish that the gate at a back entrance is locked tight. Speedle asks if the entrance leads into Zany Town, and the uniform with him replies that there's no public access. That's not really a yes-or-no answer. Meanwhile, Calleigh is interviewing someone who looks as though he might be the manager of the joint. The yellow cap and checkerboard vest kind of undermine his authority, though. She asks if there's a protocol for the gates, and the manager stutters, "Ea-each, uh, ah, em, em, emp --" "Employee," Calleigh supplies. She thinks she's being helpful, but I always thought that correcting someone who stammers was supposed to be counterproductive, because you only made them more acutely aware of the stammer, thereby exacerbating it even more. Anyway -- each employee checks a different section of the store. As the two people keep walking, Calleigh says she noticed the stamps on people's hands. I notice that she's wearing a top which would be right at home on the set of Dynasty; I'm not sure the broad-shouldered, puffy-sleeved look is really one of those things we want to be reviving. I'm also not sure whoever dresses the women on this show should be allowed within fifty yards of a garderobe. The manager protests, "My own kids come here." Huh? Calleigh says, "I'm going to need you to calm down, because I need your help. Can you tell me about the stamps?" The man stammers, "K-k-k-k-k-k --" and Calleigh intuits, "Kid check, kid check, you match the stamp on each child's hand to the stamp on the accompanying adult?" My confusion deepens -- how was she able to extrapolate all that from "K-k-k-k-k-k"?

Meanwhile, Delko and Speedle are heading toward a babbling crowd accessorized by cranky children. Delko says mournfully, "I don't know how we're going to start this." Speedle does: "People! Listen up! We're crime scene investigators. This is a very serious situation. We're going to need you full cooperation. I need everybody to stay with their families. Please watch your children. This is Officer Delko -- he's going to take your fingerprints. I know you're all frightened. We're going to try to get you home as fast as we can, okay?" Miraculously, the crowd has quieted during this speech, and nobody's asking, "What? I couldn't hear. What did he say?" Delko directs everyone to form a single-file line behind him -- and they do. This is the moment when I realize that CSI: Miami has transcended the boundaries of the crime-solving genre and turned into science fiction, what with its overreliance on willing suspension of disbelief and alien behavior.