Slaughterhouse

So this recap is incredibly delayed because I had to move all the furniture and vacuum all the cat hair my cats are storing down there in case they wake up bald one day. And then I had to scrub the kitchen floor and do the dishes, run a few loads of laundry and get those put away, tend to the mildew on the bathroom ceiling (such a shame I had to do that -- they had just evolved to the point where they were electing representatives to a sort of mycological Parliament) and shine all the faucets, and then, once I had finished this frenetic bout of housekeeping and could therefore suffer some horrible death without having total strangers rampaging through the house and tut-tutting over my housekeeping skills as a reflection of my fitness as a human being...wait a minute. You mean not everyone has the paranoid fear that once they're brutally murdered, others will jump to conclusions about their mental health based on the cleanliness of their apartment? I don't know where that came from. Let's just get on with the episode, shall we?

We begin with a shot of grassy swampland, then a well-manicured suburb abutting it. It's no doubt named for the very ecosystem it just displaced. We see people going about their business -- two kids carrying surfboards, hired help tending to the lawns, and then a toddler in a bloodstained footy pajama set wandering down the street. Cut to a few different law enforcement vehicles, one of which is disgorging the Child Protector of the Greater Miami-Dade area himself, Horatio. He asks Sevilla what's going on, and she tells him, "Gardener saw a bloody kid out here on her own." We cut to the child in question now on a gurney and being divested of her bloody romper. Caine and Sevilla brainstorm where the child might have come from -- some uniforms are doing door-to-door, but there's nothing to indicate that the wandering waif is local. The two are over by the gurney now, asking the EMT what they've got; the EMT replies, "There's not a scratch on her." The child, however, is understandably irritated and begins crying. Horatio looks at the girl for a minute, then says, "Well, the blood had to come from somewhere, didn't it? My guess is that someone close to this child is either dead or dying."

And then Roger Daltrey screams off-camera, leading me to wonder if someone's covered his footy romper in blood too.

Once we're back, the little girl is looking up at Horatio and crying fiercely; not even Speedle's presence calms her down. I can empathize. Horatio is swabbing her and directing Speedle to take the swabs to Hematrace. He then turns back to the little girl and croons, "Good job. You are a good girl." That shuts her right up. Speedle performs an impromptu field test and discovers -- unsurprisingly -- that the little girl was covered in human blood, and it's not her own. Horatio directs Speedle to take the sleeper to Megan and get DNA and Trace working on it, then goes back to reassuring the toddler, "You are a good girl." He then wanders over to Sevilla and says, "Too much blood for a casual injury." Sevilla wonders how far the toddler could have walked. Horatio muses, "Your average adult has been clocked at two-and-a-half to three miles per hour, but to my knowledge, no toddler has ever been road-tested." For some reason, the idea of road-testing toddlers cracks me up. Horatio then says, "I'm interested in that sunburn on the one side of her face. You have a sunburn on one side of your face, it means you've been walking in a straight line, doesn't it?" The two figure out that the child was traveling due north, so they hop in a car and begin heading south.

Back in the lab, Speedle's standing at a lab bench where Megan's seated. Calleigh comes in and says, "Everybody's talking about the bloody child. Does anyone know where she came from?" Speedle replies, "That's the question." Megan, who's cutting up the sleeper, says, "This [beat] is the answer. You want a leg or a foot?" Megan begins cutting up the sleeper, paring the edges as neatly as the story editor must have begun paring her role following the big news.

While Horatio drives south, Megan and Calleigh examine the feet of the sleeper. Megan points out the presence of soil; Calleigh wonders if it came from a lawn the little girl crossed. Megan replies, "Well, her feet [beat] were soaked with blood." Speedle checks out the muddy mixture of blood in the scope and says, "Well, that narrows it down." He then holds up a sample container and announces that he has business elsewhere.

Horatio keeps driving through beautifully manicured neighborhoods, squinting hard through the Sergio Leone filter to see if he can discern any details that would give hints to the child's route. Too bad that nice Bil Keane can't come by and do one of those maps that shows where the kid's been wandering; it'd be a lot easier to follow the dotted lines and captions. Horatio drives on by, and as he passes one house, he hears screaming. He perks up, but it only turns out to be two giggling teenagers chasing each other out of the house. He speeds off, disappointed.

In the meantime, Calleigh and Megan work silently on the sleeper. There's a science montage here, but nobody on the show's going to go to the effort to explain what they're doing or why. Who cares about these pesky "clues" and "tests," anyway? Calleigh's cell phone rings, and she answers it; it's Horatio, and he wants to know what Profiler Plus has turned up. A slightly less cross-eyed version of a psychic babe than the original? That would be my first guess. Calleigh tells him "amelogenin's up -- we've got two different bleeders, one male, one female." Megan calls out, "Make that three." Calleigh verifies that it's another male, and "we're three for three and counting." And...what are they testing for, what is it telling them, and how will it contribute to the plot? Why do I even ask?

Once Horatio's off the phone with Calleigh, he's on with Speedle, who tells him, "Somebody was trading the old for the new. The soil on the toddler's feet was laced with glyphosphate." Horatio says, "That's a heavy-duty grass killer. They may be resodding, so let's look for a location where they're resodding." And by "let us look," he really means, "Let's have Delko tool around in a helicopter and look." Meanwhile, Calleigh clicks back into the conversation to tell Horatio that the number of bleeders has gone up to four, and they're all related to the girl. Just then, Delko breaks in to tell Horatio that they've spotted the house with the lawn that's being resodded. Within seconds, Horatio has pulled up. Two vehicles park behind his. He notices the open door, and Sevilla whips out her gun and gets into position as Horatio intones, "This is the place." He gives a thumbs-up to the helicopter -- good thing Delko's got binoculars -- then heads toward the house.

Well. When they titled this episode "Slaughterhouse," they weren't kidding around. There are two adult-sized bodies lying prostrate in the foyer, one of which is huddled over an infant, and a woman lying on the couch with no face below the nose. I have to admit, I wasn't particularly curious to see what someone looked like when they stuck a gun in their mouth and pulled the trigger, so this really isn't doing a lot for me. Horatio notices one of the bodies in the foyer breathing raspily, does the usual "we have survivors" drill, then crouches down beside the man, asking, "Who did this to you?" "My son," the man answers, then goes into the fragmentary speech patterns one might reasonably expect from someone who's been witness to and/or a participant in a mass murder. Horatio looks over at the boy lying in a pool of blood a few feet away, rolls him over -- ignoring the splashing noise from the pool of blood the boy's lying in -- and notices the baby the boy is holding. Sevilla comes out of the bedroom, voice choked, as she says, "Horatio, we've got another one." Horatio heads into the bedroom to see a small boy slumped over a computer keyboard, his headphones still blasting music. He's been shot once at the base of the skull, and his computer monitor is blood-spattered. Horatio sighs, as if he's aware that the show's been killing minors at an alarming rate. Come to think of it, they're not the only at-risk demographic: it's very dangerous to be a woman on this show ("Golden Parachute," "Wet Foot, Dry Foot," "Ashes to Ashes"), or a Latino ("Saving Face," "Wet Foot, Dry Foot"), or a child ("Broken," and now this). Only the white males are safe, and that's assuming they don't comport themselves like brazen man-hussies and get killed for their wanton behavior ("Breathless").

Anyway, Horatio takes a moment to brood over how he wasn't here to protect the children; then he's distracted by a beeping sound. He wanders through the house, alert and tense, and into a rather crowded kitchen -- dishes in the rack and in the sink, food along the counters -- toward the microwave. He warily presses the door button and notices a bottle of formula inside. It's easy to see how creeped out anyone would be about that; after spending ten minutes with a houseful of bloody bodies, one would almost expect to find a microwaved housecat and "Helter Skelter" written in blood on the door.

After that scare, Horatio's giving Speedle the Cliff's Notes version of what's inside: four people dead, three of them children. Speedle looks about as you'd expect him to. Speedle asks, "Any sign of an intruder?" then looks over his shoulder as if expected someone in a t-shirt with a big "I" on the front to be frantically waving and shouting, "Me! Me! Me!" We establish that the sole survivor is being wheeled to the hospital; the little girl is currently with Social Services until, as Horatio says, "she can be placed with her family...if she has any left." Look around, Big Red, and draw your own conclusions.

Then Horatio moves on to giving everyone instructions: he's sending Delko over to the back -- poor Delko gets sent as far away from the action as possible in every case he works -- and tells Calleigh, "It may take a minute to acclimate yourself. There's a whole lot of red in there." Calleigh, who's recognized the grimness of the occasion by taking off a few layers of make-up, takes all of ten seconds before heading inside. As she looks around, Sevilla gives the expository spiel: "The occupants are Jason and Stephanie Caplin. Dad's an optician at Stonybrook Mall, Mom's a stay-at-home. Four kids: the oldest is Luke, he's sixteen; Timothy's nine, and the only other victim found in a separate room. Our toddler, Erin, the only surviving child, is seventeen months. And Max...six weeks." As Sevilla talks, we see Speedle taking pictures of Stephanie and her new chinless face, Alexx examining Luke and Max, Calleigh snapping a shot of Timothy. Alexx touches the baby's forehead and says, "Not a very long time down with us, angel, and back up you go." I do like the idea of talking to the dead people, but I wish she'd come up with snappier dialogue. Sevilla gives the usual "the neighbors had no idea a massacre was about to take place" speech. For once, I'd love to have a case where the neighbors say, "They were always so quiet...except for the abusive, profanity-laden screaming," or "It's about freakin' time. This gonna affect our property values any?"

Sevilla mentions, "Mom was tired because of the new baby." Hell, I'd think having a toddler, a pre-adolescent, and a teenager would do it too. Delko reports that the sliding glass doors were open, but no signs of forced entry, nor any other suspicious signs. Horatio says, "Okay, so everything we have is right here, and we have a happy, all-American family shotgunned to death in their own home." Speedle points out, "Except for the dad and toddler." Horatio, who's off and running for the theory train, says, "Right. But if the toddler belonged home, what was the dad doing here?" Delko wonders why two school-aged children are home too. Perhaps they're home-schooled? Needless to say, that possibility never gets raised. Horatio asks, "Alexx, do we have a time of death?" She tells him it all went down between 11 AM and 1 PM. Horatio asks, "Was everyone home for lunch when they were surprised by someone?" "Someone they knew," Delko says, hunkering down to Sevilla. Horatio begins pacing around, saying, "What we do know is that Mom's not the only one shot in the back, right?" Yup. Alexx notes, "Mom's wound is consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot." Horatio asks Calleigh if they've got spatter on the muzzle. Affirmative. We see the blood flying back toward the muzzle in TMICam, and Calleigh notes that the rifle's got "a hell of a recoil." Since the rifle's some three feet away from Stephanie, it's entirely possible that the force of the shot flung it backward. Calleigh points out that Jason could have pulled the trigger too. Horatio doesn't dismiss this, and orders GSRs for everyone. Speedle notes that in order for this whole scene to come off as a murder-suicide, Stephanie would have had to have shot herself last. This sort of deductive thinking explains how he ended up on the forensic fast track. Horatio replies, "Right. Let's work on a timeline." What is this "let us" business? Why not just be honest about it? "Speedle, come up with a timeline." "Eric, walk around a lot and look stunned." "Calleigh, run to me with reports every hour on the hour." "Megan, you -- wait. Why don't you just clean off your bench? Maybe unsub from some listservs so our sysadmin doesn't get any angry emails from listmasters. Keep on...doing whatever it is you're doing off-camera." Sure enough, Speedle is doing the timeline. He warns, "It's going to take a while." Horatio tells Speedle to take all the time he needs. Well, it's not like the Caplins are going anywhere. Sevilla is dispatched to warn the neighbors that they're in for a lot of law enforcement personnel in the 'hood.

Alexx has moved on from chatting up the infant to inspecting young Timothy, noting that the wound area is wide; this means that there was sufficient distance between Timothy and his shooter so that the pellets had the chance to spread before impact. We see this in black-and-white and slow motion, until the pellets hit, and then Timothy's wound runs red. Personally, I think it's overkill -- we already have three dead children, and showing their deaths over and over again isn't going to make the episode any more tragic or poignant. It's only going to make it more exploitative and obvious that the writers went for the cheap sympathy card by wiping out The Littlest Victims. Alexx notes, "No defensive posture." "That's because he was taken by surprise," Horatio says. Alexx blames the headphones. She also explains how Timothy was home from school; his liver temperature was 99 degrees, and if he died around the same time as the rest of his family, that means he had a 103-degree fever and was home sick. Alexx says, "When you're ready to snap, one more tug on your sleeve is all it takes." Horatio has no good reply for this.

He then wanders off to do God knows what. It isn't helping Speedle with the timeline; nor is it going over the master bedroom for evidence with Calleigh and Delko. Calleigh notes that this is the only bed that's not made, and Delko snorts, "Kids are cleaning their rooms -- Mom and Dad are the only ones living like this." Calleigh observes as she checks the drawers, "Mom is, anyway. Dad's getting his needs met somehow -- everything in here is washed and pressed." The "everything" in question is underwear, and this is where I reveal my shocking slovenliness by asking why on earth anyone would bother to press his or her underwear. Calleigh notes the crib at the foot of the bed, and Delko comments sympathetically, "Yeah, nobody's getting any sleep." We see a shot of Stephanie and her three older children in a frame on the dresser, and the camera pans up to show a plethora of family photos on the dresser. Calleigh comments, "That's no excuse." I hope she's talking about sleeplessness as a poor excuse for killing your family, as opposed to sleeplessness as a poor excuse for failing to make the bed. Delko's looking at the mobile, and he notices a long pendant. He lifts it up and says, "Baby's first jewelry was an amulet?" Calleigh blithely replies, "Oh, you can get them at any corner botanica." You'd think that Delko, living in Little Havana, would not have needed to be clued in to that. We find out that the amulet in question is supposed to ward off evil spirits, and then we move on to Delko's discovery of a full bottle of antidepressants, the prescription indicating that it was filled three weeks ago.

Speaking of depressing, it's Megan, evidently chained to a lab bench for the duration of the episode. A deputy drops off a bag of evidence, and Megan sighs, "Tell Horatio [beat] I'll call if I see anything." The guy leaves, and Megan mutters, "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again." Only if he's around during the two episodes, Megan.

Delko's in the kitchen now, telling Horatio, "I don't see any sign of blood or struggle here." "Not physical, anyway," Horatio opines. He looks around the kitchen, dirty plates in the sink and crowding the counter, and continues, "This place isn't a mess -- it's downright filthy. Kids will pick up after themselves, but they will not clean." Has Horatio ever actually been in a house with more than one person in it? Dishes pile up at an alarming rate. Heck, you should see our kitchen after the husband cooks dinner on an average night; it looks as though a grocery store mated with a Crate and Barrel, and all parties involved promptly blew themselves up afterward. And there are just two of us. I can only imagine what it's like in a household with six people. Delko opens a fridge with an "I love Daddy" picture on it -- rather advanced for a two-year-old, or shockingly backward for a nine-year-old, you make the call -- and we see that the fridge is practically empty. These people apparently didn't even believe in condiments. Horatio continues his litany: "Empty fridge, overflowing garbage. They obviously live on fast food." Well, Horatio, you spend all day tending to a few kids and see how many home-cooked meals you manage to whip up.