A Horrible Mind

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.