Day breaks on the Las Vegas strip, but we quickly move from shots of the more tastef-- I mean, "less gaudy" casinos, and into a courtroom. From the depths of the couch, Mr. Sobell wonders, "Why don't they hold trials in casinos? Think about it -- 'Today at the Excalibur: Merlin's Banquet, Thunder from Down Under, and People vs. Greeley!'" Yeah? Why not?
Anyway, we're in a courtroom, at what is obviously a trial, with Gil on the witness stand. D.A. Jeffrey Sinclair tells Gil, "I need you to answer the same questions I asked you at the first trial, and I need you to answer them honestly, just as you did back then." Okay, then. We're at a retrial, and Sinclair's making a big deal over Gil's credibility. He then becomes Mr. Exposition, Esq., explaining that on December 20, 1999, Gil answered a call at a hardware store, where the victim was evidently beaten to death with a tool. That's an Alanis Morissette lyric in the making. Sinclair holds up the wrench that killed the victim, and Gil confirms that verily, it is the fatal wrench, and it was found underneath the sink at the business door, Garbett's Gourmet. You know, if I operated a food emporium, I wouldn't use a name that's so close to "garbage." Sinclair confirms yet again that Gil is ab-so-posi-lu-tively certain the wrench is what sent the victim to the Home Depot in the Sky, because Gil found Mr. Garbett's fingerprints on the handle of the lethal lug fastener, and in the hardware store-cum-murder scene.
Sinclair then asks what else Gil found at the store. Gil says he found a matchbook, explaining it with, "The killer tried to cover his tracks by setting a fire, but a lack of sufficient combustibles may have thwarted his effort." Or a lack of sufficient brain cells: what hardware store isn't packed to the rafters with combustibles? It's not like manufacturers put the "keep out of direct heat and away from open flame" warnings on the paint thinner and furniture finish cans because they've never been able to think of anything catchier with which to fill the space. Sinclair produces the matchbook, but Gil's just noticed something new -- a fingerprint. Sinclair presses with, "Is this the same matchbook you found on the scene," Gil attempts to duck a perjury charge by asking for a quick break to consult with the prosecution, and the defense jumps all over his request like a pyromaniac in the aerosols aisle of a hardware store. Gil's all, "Okay, fine, it's the matchbook I collected at the crime scene." The judge allows for a break.
Cut to Mr. Exposition, Esq. getting shirty with Gil because "the defendant was found guilty at his first trial. The only reason we're back in court is because his new lawyer convinced some appellate judge the original jury instructions were faulty. This has nothing to do with the evidence." Gil sighs under the burden of having to explain to Mr. Exposition, Esq. that if it weren't for the precious evidence, the television character "Jeffrey Sinclair" would still be synonymous with Babylon 5. He explains that the matchbook has a fingerprint on it, and when Sinclair reasonably asks, "So?" Gil says he doesn't remember it. It figures Gil would operate on the kind of mental plane where he's got immediate and perfect recall of six-year-old crime scene artifacts. Also, the fingerprint's not in his notes.
Sinclair points out that the evidence seal's unbroken, so the print's clearly been there all along. Gil throws another blood-covered monkey wrench into Sinclair's plans to have this deposition wrapped up in time for happy hour by pointing out that the fingerprint on the matchbook don't match the defendant's fingerprints. Sinclair asks, "Are you sure?" and Gil shoots him a look that clearly conveys his deep desire to shoot laser beams out of his eyes at all who dare question him. Sinclair sets us up for the rest of the hour with, "When the defense hears about this, they are going to call every other piece of evidence into question. I don't need to tell you what that means." Gil shrugs and says resignedly, "I've given them reasonable doubt."
The Who doubt anyone's even trying with the bumper lines anymore.
When we get back from commercial, Gil is strolling through the Labitrail. Conrad Ecklie materializes out of nowhere and snarls, "I heard we have a problem." I bet you he thinks the first-person-plural pronouns are a team-building tactic. It's so Successories of him. I bet he gave the day shift the desk plaques reading, "Teamwork: Coming together is a beginning...Keeping together is progress...Working together is a success." And everyone on the day shift promptly stampeded to the computer, where they all jostled each other to see who could hit Monster.com first. Anyway, Gil smacks Ecklie lightly with, "The Middle East has a problem." Gil is also the master of the understatement. Ecklie reproaches Gil for missing a fingerprint, and Gil disputes that with, "I'm trying to keep an open mind." "Then how do you explain it?" Ecklie shoots back. Gil tries to remember the English-to-Successories tutorial he had to take once and replies, "With...'Creativity: An organization that is committed to creative collaboration will ride the wave of the future. They will go beyond the realm of assumptive thinking and welcome the dawn of innovation...because there is nothing more empowering than an idea whose time has come.' So welcome to the future, Conrad. We're riding the wave above assumptive thinking."
Oh, he does not either. Gil actually admits he can't. Ecklie wonders if maybe another matchbook got in there, and Gil points out that the evidence seal more or less eliminates that possibility. Ecklie says, "Since your testimony differs from the actual physical evidence, I thought I'd inform you, I've opened a supervisory inquiry." Gil practically smirks, then rearranges his features before saying tartly, "Well, that's good, Conrad. You know, I can't recall a lab director as expeditious as you." Ecklie's about to reply, "That's because I 'Dare to Soar. My attitude, almost always determines my altitude in life.'" "That's good, because your punctuation certainly isn't helping," Gil shoots back.
Actually, none of that happens either, because the two men are distracted by Ballistics Bobby shooting out a wall of his testing lab. Why on Earth is the ballistics lab not in the basement, thus minimizing the odds of bullets traveling through the lobby? For that matter, why is Ecklie opening a supervisory inquiry on Gil when he wasn't even supervising the shift yet? If y'all recall, Brass was in charge until September 2000, when he was busted down in the wake of Holly Gribbs's death. But we don't get answers to these questions, so let's focus on the one we can answer: what caused Bobby's gun to go off?
It accidentally discharged. Bobby swears that's never happened to him before, and Gil tells him not to worry, 'cause it happens to guys all the time. No, he doesn't either. And I realize I'm basically offering you the recap of what would have made this episode more interesting, but you know, we're nine minutes in and it's something of a snoozer so far. Anyway, what actually happened: Gil asks if Bobby was okay while Ecklie is all, "What the hell just happened?" because what we really need is another Goofus-and-Gallant staging to show which one of these two is really management material. And Bobby mentions that he was just about to do a test fire when the gun accidentally discharged for unknown reasons. Bobby apologizes, Ecklie asks him whose case he's working, and we find out it's one on Gil's shift. Sara and Liam are investigating a DB found in an off-strip parking lot, and the gun was to the body. Ecklie peevishly orders everyone back to work despite the possibility that ordnance in the workplace is the paradigmatic and literal "Challenge: Life is a journey...taken one shot at a time."
Cut to Gil, Catherine, Nicky, and Warrick giving the case The Big Chill treatment. We find out about the stupid argument that led to the two business owners' feud -- dead guy Max Larsen owned the alleyway behind the two stores, and filled it with dumpsters that blocked the Garbetts' food delivery trucks. When they sued to get the dumpsters removed, they lost, and without access for food deliveries, the business dried up. Gil says, "All the physical evidence pointed to Garbett, and according to the victim's business partner, Garbett had an argument with [Larsen] the day before the murder." Or two days, if you're following along with the closed captioning. There's a discrepancy there -- is Ecklie going to open a supervisory inquiry into that too? Warrick then asks, "The Garbetts' appeal didn't call the forensics into question. Why are we here?" Gil tells everyone he's calling the forensics into question, and we get close-up shots of everyone looking dismayed. He shows them the newly-discovered print and Catherine says, "The fingernail's...pink. So you used ninhydrin?" Gil nods. Catherine exposits, "Well, I know on some surfaces, ninhydrin can take time to develop a print. That was in last May's Journal of Forensic Science." Gil remembers the article, but he's not clear on the variable. Nicky's all, "If the print matches the suspect, who cares?" so Gil is compelled to point out that he cares, thankyouverymuch, because the print doesn't match the suspect's prints. He tasks Warrick and Nicky with revisiting the case, under Catherine's supervision. Gil will be nowhere near this case, to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
He will, instead, be buried under a stack of old Journal of Forensic Science issues in his office. Sofia comes sauntering in to sing the praises of online archives, and Gil replies, "You read on a computer screen, you have to lean in. I like to lean back, therefore I prefer a hard copy." Sofia hands over the correct journal and Gil thanks her, adding pointedly, "News travels so fast around here." Sofia replies, "Ecklie travels fast." She then tells Gil that she's been the lab's quality assurance/quality control officer for the last year. "Congratulations," he tells her guilelessly, adding, "That job requires a detail-oriented person." "As my favorite desk accessory reads, 'Quality: Countless, unseen details are often the only difference between mediocre and magnificent,'" Sofia replies. Gil does not ask if unseen details could maybe be unheard ones too.
And there I go making stuff up again. In any event, Sofia's been assigned the inquiry, since as someone who's held the QA/QC job for 12 months, she's certainly the person to turn to for something that happened 72 months ago. She just dropped by to tell Gil because the writers need some plausible excuse to account for her increasing presence on our screens. Anyway, Sofia assures Gil she'll be impartial and Gil gets in his third sneaky verbal jab of the evening with, "I'd expect nothing less." Oh, be still my heart. As Sofia leaves, we find out that Gil is hip to the online journal password she set up ("margaritaville") and is therefore more hip to workplace news and gossip than he lets on.
Cut to Catherine, supervising. She reminds Warrick they found several hairs near the body, but he hadn't analyzed them once the D.A. said they had sufficient evidence. Catherine's all, "Yeah, well -- do the hairs." Nicky's off on a field trip to Memory Lane with, "Catherine, remember why you were late to this crime scene? Eddie had a gig, and you couldn't find a sitter." Catherine cops to lying about that so she and Eddie could have a little pre-work nookie, then deflects the attention to Warrick with, "You were going out with the assistant manager of the Flamingo." Warrick's all, "Ah. Susan." He smiles fondly. Catherine continues, "Boy, did she have it bad for you. She kept calling while you were working the scene -- you had to shut your phone off." Warrick reveals that it was an amicable breakup with, "Now she's VP of food services so I get steak and eggs every Sunday morning." Nicky grins, "Free steak and eggs means she didn't know about the flight attendant." Warrick asks mildly, "Does everyone know my business around here?" Well, yeah. This is the same lab where the details of the day Liam became a man are up for discussion. Warrick's just lucky the resident forensic artist hadn't practiced plaster casting. Anyway, since nobody has any dirt on Nicky for who knows what reason, Catherine tags him to explain the unidentified print he lifted off the wrench. Nicky tells us he had lifted six prints off the weapon and five of them matched the suspect. The sixth was a mystery and had been ruled irrelevant at the time. Catherine tells Nicky to compare the print against the one on the matchbook. Nicky will, but he protests that when it came to originally handling the case, "We didn't do anything wrong here." Catherine replies, "I agree. But the prosecution may not see it that way."
The prosecution may not have time to see anything if they're too busy pressing my case in The People vs. Whoever Thought This B-Plot Was A Good Idea. Truly, it is the time-waster in this episode, and the only narrative purpose it ultimately serves is to keep Sara out of an investigation into a case she wouldn't have been around for anyway. So I'm going to just sum it all up in two paragraphs, and we can then move on with the rest of the episode:
Sara and Liam visit David the concerned coroner, who asks how Bobby is ("Shaken, but trying to figure out how the gun discharged," Sara says). David explains that their John Doe's C.O.D. is a single gunshot wound to the leg. Unfortunately, the wound in question happened to be around the femoral artery, which is the cardiac equivalent of tapping a gusher. Liam tells us that he processed John Doe's jeans, and the tight GSR around the wound tells us that John was either shot by someone at close range who left the gun behind, or himself. Liam then gets to do the thing that totally squicks me out -- sticking a big metal rod in the wound tract -- and we get a TMIcam shot of the route the spear takes, complete with sound effects. The trajectory is up to down, consistent with a self-inflicted wound. Sara then goes to see what Bobby's found about the gun. He tells her, "Some garage gunsmith tried to turn this baby into a machine gun." "That is a big-time felony," she replies. Watch out -- Sara's done with the petty crap like serial killing and mass murder, and she's on to firearms offenses. Using a lengthy and boring technical explanation that slid off my brain and got processed as "blah blah blah blah blah" no matter how many times I rewound, Bobby explains how John Doe's own ineptitude led to his death. He then tells Sara the serial number's not exactly present anymore, nor is roughly half the metal surrounding it. "Well...I love a challenge," she says gamely. And suddenly, three years of schmoopy faces at Gil make so much more sense.
Except this time, the challenge has none of that pesky free will, so Sara's able to wrestle it into submission. She explains to Liam the fine art of extracting formerly-denuded serial numbers: "You take the polishing compound and you rub it on the obliterated serial number. And then you hit the spot with the [polishing] wheel until it's mirror-smooth. Fry's Reagent -- it differentially eats away at the compressed area --" "To expose the denser metal of the serial number!" Liam concludes. Between this and figuring out that John Doe was into altering the guns before he sells them, newbie's on a hot streak. Liam then runs the number through pawn shops and whatnot, and before you can say, "How many A-plot scenes did we fast-forward through to get here?" Sara and Liam are pulling up to meet Detective Vartann in front of a lushly landscaped mansion. They must have taken a field trip to Carmel by the Sea. Lovely central California coast and Vartann? The B-plot evidently has its perks. Anyway, Sara thinks the John Doe is the actually the guy the gun's registered to -- Paul Turlock. A look around his empty, neglected house quickly confirms this. The big box of guns also bolsters the hypothesis that maybe Turlock was engaged in a little freelance firearms wholesaling. A message on the machine suggests that a prospective buyer would like to meet Paul at Monday, 9 PM, to buy five guns. Giddy with the prospect of nailing someone on five felony counts, Vartann and the two CSIs head out to the site where John Doe was found. Just as they prepare to arrest a dicey-looking guy, a dozen squad cars converge, and it turns out half of them belong to the ATF. Sara responds to the realization that she's stumbled into the second half-cocked federal investigation in three years with a groaned "I...don't believe this." Excellent line delivery from Jorja Fox there. Anyway, Sara breaks the news that the ATF can't bust someone when they're already dead, and everyone goes home. The end!
And now, back to the A-plot. Nicky's found a match for the sixth wrench print -- and it's on the matchbook. Now all the team has to do is figure out who, other than the suspect, touched the matches and the wrench. Easy-peasy, right?
Well, it's easier than handling jailhouse widow Mrs. Garbett, who ditched her old man once he landed behind bars and married some cat named Katz. She's also ditched a good colorist and embraced the great white-blonde way. Nicky prepares to launch into his spiel about the trial, but Mrs. Katz is quite emphatic that "this case has nothing to do with me anymore." Nicky asks if Mrs. Katz thinks her erstwhile spouse is guilty. She non-answers with, "Jason was a quiet man, bottled everything up. In 25 years of marriage, he raised his voice maybe a dozen times, but when he expressed himself, the neighborhood knew." Before we can find out how -- skywriting? Sandwich boards? Interpretive dance? -- the door opens and her son Keith comes in. Incidentally, Keith is played by Jason London. I have never understood how it's possible for him to find work; I have not even begun to ponder how it's possible for his twin brother to also remain gainfully employed in pop entertainment; you'd think the greater Los Angeles area would have been sucked into the black hole their combined anti-charisma creates. Is there a state law requiring one London to work in Canada at all times? Does being in Dazed and Confused give you a decade's residual good will AND render your twin bulletproof despite his participation in Seventh Heaven? I just don't get them.
In any event, Keith is here, trying to be squeaky clean and earnest, but he's up against Nicky, so it's no contest here. Nicky asks for a list of anyone who had access to the restaurant five years ago. Keith asks why, and Nicky hedges that there's new evidence. Keith pushes, Nicky's all, "Sorry! Lips are sealed!" and Keith's all, "My dad is innocent!" in a way that broadcasts his likely guilt. Poorly played, CSI -- I shouldn't be able to guess this until at least the 20-minute mark. Mrs. Katz helpfully and obliviously points out that Keith's devoted himself to springing his old man. What she leaves out is that Keith hasn't figured out how to do so without implicating himself. Nicky's all, "So you weren't living in Las Vegas at the time of the murder?" and Keith dismisses that out of hand, then overdoes the helpfulness angle, oozing unctuousness as he promises, "Whatever you need from us. Mom." She's clearly not on the help train.
Speaking of reluctant blondes, there's Sofia preparing to dig through a mountain of paperwork. Warrick gives her the hairy eyeball, then heads into the DNA lab, where someone has shackled Mia to a lab bench mere inches away from a radio, yet rendered her incapable of turning off the Avril Lavigne. I bet you this is the set-up for David Fincher's new movie 8ight. Warrick comments on the music, and Mia groans, "It was Liam's suggestion." Warrick backpedals slightly since he's smooth like that, and tells her, "It's good. Well, maybe not your musical taste, but we'll work on that." If he's inviting her over to check out his stereo system, she is a lucky, lucky, lucky woman.
However, cruel fate has intervened: Warrick's only here for the DNA analysis on the hairs Catherine told him to process. Mia doesn't have it, and she doesn't offer any explanation as to why not. Warrick asks, "No? Do you need more time?" No. She needs a zoologist -- the sample wasn't human. However, since no animal experts were forthcoming, Mia had to settle for sending the hairs to Trace. Warrick replies, "All right. Thank you." Clearly, he's hoping to condition Mia's social skills through positive reinforcement. As he heads out the door, Warrick recommends, "Avril's fine, but if you want to experience musical heartache, you should check out Nina Simone." Mia replies by turning up the Avril. Warrick rebuffed!
Then we get a musical montage where Gil does a lot of monkeying around with prints in an effort to come up with a plausible scenario for a print slowly developing over time. Tragically, his line of inquiry is halted when Sinclair and Ecklie come in. Sinclair notes dolefully that the judge has summoned him to her chambers on the morrow. Ecklie adds, "And a full update, Gil." Ecklie's malicious glee is so unbecoming. With an expression that clearly conveys how he is making sure he's choosing the smallest words possible as he speaks, Gil says, "I don't have an explanation for how the print appeared on the matchbook. That's what I'm trying to figure out." Ecklie whinges, "You're making the lab look bad." Yeah! All that insistence on testing hypotheses and providing reproducible results is bad science! Sinclair's fretting because Gil's re-opened an entire case, redirecting attention to an unexamined hair and an unidentified print on the murder weapon. This produces Sinclair's nightmare scenario: "Did we make a mistake and arrest the wrong guy?" Gil tells him he doesn't know.
So evidently he goes outside to clear his head and take a spin in the CSImobile, because when Gil hops out of the car in front of HQ, Brass pops up and tells Gil they're going to have a talk. Maybe this is where we find out why Brass is constantly asking the male suspects if they're gay. It is sweeps. Brass tells Gil Ecklie's used his hotline to Sheriff Xander Berkeley and thus hipped everyone in the greater Las Vegas area to the pending investigation. Gil correctly points out that there's nothing he can do about that, and Brass adds that he just wanted to give Gil a heads-up, because it's a lot more pleasant to see the hatchet buried in your face than to feel it sticking out between your shoulder blades. As Brass puts it: "In order to appear objective, Ecklie's going to follow Sofia's recommendation. The problem is, she's the acting supervisor of days, so she needs Ecklie to sign off to keep her gig." Gil realizes, "You think she'll say whatever Ecklie wants." Brass does: "And this isn't just about the Garbett case. He's looking into your whole team and your ability to lead them." Gil realizes that Ecklie's about to tussle with his subordinates and sighs, "Poor Conrad." Brass does not see it that way: "I hate to tell you, but when it comes to politics, he whips your ass." That's because Ecklie has a poster reading "Possibilities: Within me is infinite power, before me is endless possibility. Around me is boundless opportunity…why should I fear?" and Gil does not. Brass tells Gil to watch his back. Gil assumes the kind of otherworldly, martyred expression more commonly found on giant statues celebrating the more gruesomely killed saints.
Speaking of martyred expressions, it's Warrick. He's talking to Hodges, who tells him the hair in the crime scene actually belongs to a dog. Hodges adds, "Given its coarseness, I'd say a poodle or Portuguese water dog." You just know Hodges TiVos the AKC championships every year, and makes up an excuse just in case he makes friends and they happen to notice it in his queue of recorded shows. Warrick laughs at the mention of Portuguese water dogs, and Hodges tells him, "They were found on Portuguese fishing vessels in the 1800s." Warrick's mildly interested, but then Catherine comes down and is wondering why Warrick's following up a DNA probe in Trace. Warrick explains the hairs aren't human, hence Hodges's involvement. Hodges adds unnecessarily, "They're from a dog. Very obvious under a microscope." Warrick lets that pass, and says he'll see if the victim or the suspects owned a dog. He leaves. Still clutching to his bosom the fond delusion that anyone gives a rip about what comes out of his mouth, Hodges tells Catherine, "Ecklie was so pissed when I told him about those hairs." "You told Ecklie?" Catherine says in a tone that suggests it was the exact wrong thing to do. "Yeah, he's a friend," Hodges replies obliviously. He barrels on, "I sent him a card for his promotion. The guy was very touched by my thoughtfulness." Catherine grits through a clenched jaw, "We all are."
Because Nicky is the least likely to scare civilians, he's forced to track down all the Garbetts' former restaurant employees and check their fingerprints. While he's doing that and getting no results, Warrick's hitting his own dead end as the dead guy's former partner Mr. Reeba tells him that Max neither liked dogs, nor allowed them in stores.
After Nicky gets back, he pops in on Catherine in the lab. She's running video spectral analysis to try and pull the original image off the burnt matchbook. Nicky comments, "We didn't have this equipment five years ago." Six years, but if the people writing this show can't bother counting, why should we. Anyway, Catherine's all, "Well, we have the technology now."
Meanwhile, Ecklie ambushes Warrick and ushers him into his office. Warrick looks around to make sure there are witnesses in case he disappears, then follows the supervisor. Ecklie begins with, "Uh...I'll cut to the chase. Did Grissom instruct you to analyze the hairs you found near Max Larson's body?" Warrick dodges with, "It was my job to bring the hairs to DNA." "Did you?" Ecklie asks. "Yes," Warrick replies. "Five years ago," Ecklie presses. "Yesterday," Warrick shoots back. Ecklie switches tactics and says (more or less), "In my capacity as assistant director, I am given full access to personnel files. And while I was at play in the fields of HR, indulging in personal curiosity in everyone else's recorded shortcomings, I couldn't help but notice that while you have a zillion plaudits from your coworkers, you also have something of a gambling problem." Warrick straightens him out on tenses: "I had a gambling problem. What's your point?" Ecklie's point is that he wants to know what Gil did about Warrick's problem. "He helped me by being a friend," Warrick replies. The concept of Gil voluntarily socializing with someone throws Ecklie, and before he can recover, it occurs to him: there's no Successories philosophy that allows for the possibility of respect between boss and subordinate. This is uncharted territory! Ecklie dismisses Warrick so he can face this dark crisis of the soul alone.
There's a brief little scene between Catherine and Sofia in which it's made very clear to Sofia that the entire lab expects her to throw the probe Ecklie's way. Sofia seems a little startled that people are so loyal to Gil, they're willing to openly antagonize her. It's too bad Sara's on the B-plot; she could tell Sofia that Catherine's not reticent about getting her digs in, even on a good day.
Gil wanders into a lab and asks a tech named Neil for his expertise. Hey! Neil is played by Jason Segel, one of the players in the Judd Apatow Shows That Are Brilliant And Doomed Ensemble. Neil immediately and correctly guesses that Gil's there about the matchbook print, and after Gil gives him a look, Neil grins, "Everybody's talking about it." Gil sounds just a little pissy when he replies, "Well, good," but modulates his tone to note, "Scientific discoveries arise through discourse." The two of them proceed to break down the science thusly:
Gil: Now: ninhydrin works by reacting to one end of a protein chain to form Ruehman's purple.
Neil: It makes fingerprints visible.
Gil: Protein chains are made up of a series of amino acids, sometimes a hundred units long. But only one end of the chain has the H-N-H.
Neil: The N-terminus. It's the only part of the protein molecule that reacts with ninhydrin.
Gil: Fingerprints are subjected to bacterial degradation, which causes them to break down into a smaller number of amino acids --
Neil: Upping the number of n-termini --
Gil: Making the fingerprint more visible. But because new fingerprints are sometimes composed of fully-intact proteins, you could spray ninhydrin and not see a result for months.
Neil: Or in rare cases, years -- depending on the rate of degradation.
Gil: The matchbook print was inside a plastic evidence bag. That could affect the rate.
Neil: Let's see…plastic. Plastic traps in heat and humidity. Bacteria would continue to break down [the proteins] over time.
Gil: So theoretically, the bag was acting as a humidifying chamber.
Neil: I'd say you were processing a print in slow motion.
And now we have an answer for how the print appeared. Neil then horrifies Gil by treating the lyrics of Styx's "Lady" as a dramatic heartfelt monologue.
Meanwhile, Ecklie's ambushing Sara, who's been bused in from the B-plot to advance Ecklie's probe in the A-plot. He begins on the wrong foot: "Flitz's compound? I'm sure you're not polishing your jewelry in the lab -- that would be unauthorized." Yes. Because when I look at Sara, the words "accessory overload" come to mind. Sara gives him the kind of grin she usually reserves for those occasions when she's trying not to throw up, and asks, "What can I do for you?" Ecklie mealymouths about how he's just following up on whether Sara finished her PEAP counseling, and Sara immediately shuts him down with, "That's none of your business, Ecklie." Ecklie shoots back, "Is too." Or something like it -- he tells Sara he plans on chatting up Gil about Sara's PEAP deal, and adds, "You updated him, right?" Well, if a five-second conversation counts, then Sara is absolutely not lying when she tells Ecklie that yes, she and Gil have checked in. Ecklie is overjoyed to hear this, as Gil hasn't noted the talk in his file, and so Sara's statement either means she's lying, or Gil's a slacker on personnel notes. Either way, this is like an early Christmas present for the guy.
While Ecklie's twirling down the hall and giggling, "The poster was right!
'Countless, unseen details are often the only difference between mediocre and magnificent!' And I am going to magnificently screw Gil!" Catherine's squinting at a computer screen, trying to figure out the logo on the matchbook. It eventually pops out: "Club PCH, Los Angeles." Say! Didn't Keith give up his dog-filled veterinary practice in Los Angeles to exonerate dear ol' Dad?Cut to Brass and Nicky walking up Keith's driveway while Brass exposits that Keith used to have a veterinary practice in Encino -- something that finally hits Nicky despite Mrs. Katz having babbled something similar twenty minutes ago, or in dog time, roughly two-and-a-half hours. Anyway, Nicky's all, "We found dog hairs at the crime scene!" and what I want to know is, if Keith Garbett was shedding, why did they not find cat hairs as well? Living with two of the hirsute sociopaths passing themselves off as "domesticated" animals has taught me that there is literally nothing to which cat hair can not cling; you'd think Dr. Garbett, DVM, would have been walking around in a veritable cloud of the stuff. Anyway, Brass knocks. Keith answers and is all, "Tell me you've got some good news. Dad's lawyer says the case could get tossed!" and Brass is all, "Actually, I'm here to make your day worse by asking about your club-hopping days in Encino." Keith says slowly, "I did some clubbing in my twenties. What does this have to do with the investigation?" Nicky steps in and says that what he'd really like is a set of Keith's prints, and Mr. I'll-do-anything-to-help gets bellicose, snapping, "Why? I'm sorry, but I don't exactly trust you guys. You destroyed my family. You let my dad rot in jail for five years, and now you're coming after me? No way! Forget it!" He storms inside, leaving Brass and Nicky to stand there with identical "hey, an innocent man wouldn't have been so tense" expressions. Once the door slams, Brass turns to Nicky and deadpans, "I thought that went well."
The two then amble to the curb, where Keith's garbage cans await. Brass notes "There's more than one way to get prints." Nicky says guilelessly, "Trash on the curb...public property, right?" and Brass replies, "Don't need a warrant." Nicky grabs a Hefty and takes off.
And now it's Catherine's turn to get Ecklied. He tells her the conversation is on the record as part of the official inquiry into the Max Larson case. Ecklie then asks, "Five years ago, you were part of a team that processed a homicide at 2028 Boulder Hwy.?" Catherine snorts, "You know I was." Ecklie asks what specific tasks "supervisor Grissom" assigned, and Catherine gets in another verbal jab about Ecklie's lack of management skillz with "Gil doesn't micromanage. We all know what needs to be done." Yeah -- funny how the managers who aren't threatened by employees' brains and initiative are usually the ones who end up with more competent employees than those that try hands-on supervision every step of the way. Ecklie asks if Gil reviewed all of Catherine's work at the analysis phase, and Catherine twigs to what Ecklie's looking for: "Are you asking if he performed a supervisory review?" Ecklie is; he points out, "It's policy," and Catherine stonewalls with, "He must have. I'm sure he did." Ecklie knows she's putting him on, but there's no way to call her on it. He smiles tightly and makes a note. Catherine asks abruptly, "Are you doing all this for the sake of the lab, or to indict Grissom?" Feeling threatened, Ecklie strikes back with, "Catherine, there are a number of talented CSIs like yourself who have put in to be supervisors. I just want to make sure the right people are in the right place." Well, so long as Ecklie's given Catherine an opening... "About my request, I really would like to supervise days." Ecklie notes that moving Catherine to days sure would make her life easier. He also adds, "I bet you could use the extra cash." Catherine replies, "No, this promotion isn't about money." Oooh, that'll cost her: she should have said, "This promotion's more about recognition, and better hours." Why? Because Ecklie uses her comment as an excuse to insinuate that he knows about Sam's payoff. "We're done here, right?" she asks.
While Catherine's staggering down the hall and wondering what in the world just happened, Nicky's processing the trash and the bag in which it's contained. He uses what appears to be the world's most high-tech mailbox to find a print. Oh, wait -- it isn't a pricey mailbox, but a vacuum metal deposition chamber. Basically, the plastic's tacked inside, the chamber's cleared of all air, and in the vacuum, the metal particles rush to cling to the bag -- thus sticking to the prints. Unsurprisingly, the print on the bag -- presumed to be Keith's, unless he's got house elves doing all his chores -- matches the print on the matchbook.
We then flash to Keith in an interrogation room, attempting to reason his way out of this mess with, "It wasn't my restaurant. It wasn't my problem." Nicky doesn't care: "You lied to us, said you were living in L.A. at the time." Catherine elaborates, "But while your parents were in court to have that dumpster removed, you were running the restaurant. You signed the vendor checks that week." Nicky begins rubbing salt in the wound with: "In those records your mother sent over. You saw the business going under. Their marriage was in trouble. And when the judge ruled against them, you snapped." Keith's attack lawyer protests that the evidence is circumstantial at best, and Catherine shrugs, "You can play it that way -- it's fine with us. You and your father can both stand trial. After all, he was the one who had motive. He threatened Larsen. His prints were on the wrench." The attack lawyer attempts to ask scornfully whether Catherine really believes the D.A. would try two people for the same crime, but she was absent the day they did rhetorical posturing drills, so it's kind of a wan inquiry instead. When Nicky looks like a badass -- as he does here when he drawls, "Oh, yes, ma'am. At minimum, they're looking at conspiracy" -- that's when you know you need to work on the implied menace in your delivery. Catherine adds casually, "As far as we know, they could have been in it together. It's easier to overpower a guy when it's two against one." Nicky plays devil's advocate, musing, "I don't think it went down that way. After your father was convicted, you gave up on your veterinary practice, moved back to Vegas, spent every last dime you had on his defense. Now, that tells me you had a guilty conscience." Keith protests that he's merely an exemplar of filial devotion, and he loves his daddy. Nicky cracks up, and asks, "Your father spent the last five years in jail, man. If you love him so much, why don't you tell the truth. Set him free." So Keith bursts into tears and confesses. Gil and Ecklie watch. The question "Well, we know someone who's going to salve the pain of his rotten kid setting him up by suing us into oblivion, don't we?" lies unasked between them. Ecklie's all, "We'll convene in my office at the end of your shift." Gil asks, "Regarding what? This case is over." Ecklie can't reasonably expect to reply, "Regarding whatever trumped-up infraction I can pin on you," so he merely hedges, "Don't be late." Then he stomps off to bolster himself for the meeting by meditating upon his mug and its legend "Perseverance: In the confrontation between the river and the rock, the river always wins…not through strength but by perseverance."
But first, he stops to detour around and try to work on Nicky. Ecklie opens with a compliment -- "Hell of a job on the Larsen case, Nick. If it weren't for you, the son would have walked" -- which Nicky deflects with, "It was a team effort." Ecklie hisses at being thwarted, then slithers in to try and turn Nicky through judicious application of insincere flattery. "Team effort? Just like the Westonson case, right? Last year, that woman who burned to ashes in a barrel with diesel fuel." Nicky says curtly, "I'm familiar with the case, Conrad." Ecklie persists, "It seems to me you were a one-man CSI machine." Boy, is this a miscalculation: Nicky's the one who takes the "we're all on the same team" attitude, and he already knows he's promotion material. Ecklie steps in it further with, "Grissom rejected Faye Minden's testimony, but not you." Nicky disputes that by pointing out Gil gave him the okay to pursue a new lead under his supervision. Ecklie recognizes he's beat, and after he leaves, Nicky has one of those "Well, that was weird" moments.
We zoom to mid-meeting with Ecklie and Gil, where Ecklie treats Gil's theory about the slow-lapse fingerprint development with the kind of skepticism more commonly seen among creationists confronting the fossil record. Gil is unfazed. Ecklie continues, "As I know you are aware, I've asked my henchbabe Sofia to review your handling of the Max Larson homicide." He then lobs what he assumes will be a softball question at Sofia: "Did supervisor Grissom violate procedures in mishandling the evidence?" Sofia promptly hits the ball, driving it between Ecklie's eyeballs at 100 mph: "I don't believe he mishandled anything. He followed laboratory protocol, and when he saw the evidence didn't correspond to his records, he notified the D.A. and recused himself from case review." You can practically see Ecklie thinking, "Well, that wasn't what she was supposed to conclude. Hour upon hour of diligent, patient screaming to get my point across -- wasted!" He recovers by asking, "Are you saying that his handling of the discovery of new evidence while on the stand is within our protocols." Yes, because they were written by massive paranoiacs who thought of everything, you pinhead. Oh, please. Sofia realizes she's just stepped in a snake pit, and pauses for a moment so we can all see how disappointed she is that she's done good work for this nimrod. She then spells out, "As it applies to this case, yes." Gil sits and watches, radiating an ineffable smugness. I can't blame him; he's been handling this reptile properly all along.
So Ecklie then proves that he'd probably be happier if he was allowed to wear some green face paint and staff the lab with flying monkeys, because then at least he'd be allowed to express himself. He tells Gil that the inquiry has called Gil's leadership into question, and Gil inquires, "Isn't that beyond the scope of the inquiry?" Sofia, who has discovered that it's fun to have integrity, reminds Ecklie, "Again, we have no evidence Grissom violated any protocols or proced--" "Thank you for your input," Ecklie interrupts. He then decides that if he can't harness the power of bureaucracy to fire Gil, he'll use it to make everyone suffer: under the guise of "question[ing] your team and the ability to lead it," single mother Catherine, who has been quite open about wanting child-friendly hours on the day shift, is bumped to swing shift supervisor, thus guaranteeing she'll never see her daughter awake again. Warrick and Nicky are moved to swing shift, the displaced swing shift manager is moved to day shift, and to punish Sofia for her pesky insistence on drawing conclusions based on the evidence and not retrofitting coincidental findings to a predetermined conclusion, Ecklie busts her down from acting day shift supervisor to night-shift peon. This is about the point where Sofia and Catherine should shelve the animosity and pool their workplace resources for an employment lawyer who will hit the department with the kind of lawsuit that's only settled by skinning Ecklie and using his tanned hide as doormats in the matching new mansions they'll be able to buy with the proceeds from the suit.
Gil asks, "Why are you doing this?" and Ecklie claims, "There's been a chronic lack of supervision on the night shift. Your people have been covering for you." So he's taking them away, in the hopes that Gil really will slip up. Wow, did Ecklie misplay this one. People working under Gil tend to rise to his level -- or try to -- so he's effectively guaranteed that his one shift full of "loyal" people is outnumbered by two shifts that prefer Gil. And if he thinks Sofia feels chastened, he's really not the managerial whiz he believes himself to be. She'll be out for his blood, and willing to make Gil look good in the lab.
In other words: I think this shakes things up nicely, but I don't see the split being permanent, as there's plenty of material to oust Ecklie and undo his work by May sweeps. And then, we can begin Season Six with Gil in the shower, walking out to tell [fill in person of your choice],"I just had the strangest dream…"
Meanwhile, the kids have taken Dad out for a final meal before they leave for the new shift. Warrick apologizes, "Real sorry, Grissom." Gil tells him there's no reason to be: "Look, Ecklie doesn't have a scientific bone in his body. He starts with the answers he wants, and then devises the questions to get them." Warrick still thinks it sucks, adding, "This guy has been kissing ass all his life. He's trying to tell me -- trying to tell us what makes a good supervisor. What makes a good team?" Gil says, "Well, if a team gets used to doing things a certain way just because that's the way they've always done them, then they start to lose their effectiveness." Nicky correctly figures, "You don't really believe that." Gil admits, "No. I believe that the longer a team works together, the stronger they become. But I'm not in charge of the lab, nor would I want to be." Nicky then alludes to the lousy pay on the swing shift with, "I got this [check] -- that's the kind of cash I'm bringing down right now." Everyone chuckles. Warrick takes the chance to get all emotional with, "I always knew there'd come a time when we weren't working together anymore. I just didn't think it'd be under these circumstances." Gil is saved from responding by Warrick's phone. It's Catherine, calling them into work. By the way, Warrick does not look forward to having Catherine as his boss; Gil does not miss this. He does give Warrick this parting shot: "Heraclitus once said, 'It is in changing that we find purpose.'" Warrick brings it back around to the emotional with, "Thanks to you and this job, I already know my purpose." Somewhere, Ecklie's looking at his pen cup, which reads, "Change: If you're not riding the wave of change...you'll find yourself beneath it," and wondering why nobody ever credits him with giving their lives purpose. But here at the diner, Warrick takes off, and Gil's left to sit and alone and sigh as his shift scatters.