The episode opens with something I'm more accustomed to seeing on paranoia-riddled, post-apocalyptic sci-fi shows: one car, being pursued by The Man vis a vis several squad cars and a helicopter. Were this a paranoia-riddled, post-apocalyptic sci-fi show, this would be the point in the proceedings where several jackbooted thugs in snappy black uniforms begin demonstrating the incontrovertible connection between big guns and even bigger worries about their manhood. Fortunately, this is CSI, so we get a bunch of cops yammering about a BMW filled with Victoria Secret's models instead.
Yes, really. All that chasing around was for two hysterical college girls joyriding in their skivvies. As the lead cop gives the command, "Rookie, clear the vehicle," I wonder if we're about to see a circle-of-life thing where yet another callow brunette meets an untimely end owing to the neglect of her supervisors at the LVPD. Instead, the cop displays the kind of sharp observational skills that Holly Gribbs could have used, noting the large bloodstain on the bumper.
Cut to Gil -- CSI lacks jackbooted thugs, but they do have their sharp-looking man in black -- and Brass walking toward the car. "Four-nineteen?" Gil asks, and all of us who have been playing along at home realize he's asking if he's been called to the scene for a murder. "More like a four," Brass answers. He and Gil get to the car trunk and open it up; Gil looks down, then looks over at Brass with a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me look; Brass smirks back, then Gil grabs a flashlight and focuses it on the drunk. "Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless," he quips. Brass proves he's read up on the CSI Canon of Carnage by replying, "Sleepy Hollow." Cut to the...uh, cut-off head of a dark-haired male. Gil reaches down and opens the eye; the greenish-blue pupil is milky and opaque. "Vitreous humor is glazed over," Gil notes. "What does that mean?" Brass asks, leading me to wonder yet again how it's possible for him to have managed the CSI unit at one point and not learned a damn thing.
Gil, however, recognizes that Brass is only fulfilling his contractual obligation as Captain Exposition, and thus deigns to reply. "That means that six to eight hours ago, somebody lost his head. And then...somebody lost his head."
Cue the Who. I'd just like to point out that I'm now conditioned, in some sick Pavlovian way, to feel as though I should be recapping a CSI episode every time this song comes on. Needless to say, this conditioned reflex makes going to sporting events -- such as, say, the Yankees/A's game I attended when Tim Hudson very nearly beheaded Scott Brosius with a particularly vicious fastball mere minutes after this song played -- an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
But enough about me. Back to the show.
Catherine is swinging down the hall with a sassy stride; she slam-dunks an envelope into what is, I hope, an out box, and mutters, "Sayonara." She then saunters into the office with Sara and Nicky. All three of them grin down at Gil, who looks up from a mountain of paperwork with a confused and defensive expression. Catherine comments on the novelty of Gil actually being in his office when they arrive. "It's evaluation day," he grumps, and we are all reminded anew how very much he hates paperwork. Gil then looks around and fails to spot the shift's favorite objet d'judgement. "Where's Warrick?" he asks. "Chained to a wall in the subplot subbasement," Catherine replies. "He won't chew his way out of his restraints until at least 9:12 tonight." Actually, what she says is, "He's working spillover on another case. It's personal. Kid he knows is in trouble." I wonder if it's the Mini-me who so charmed Sara in the Episode That Continuity Snubbed. "Oh, that's right. I forgot," Gil replies. "Maybe we should be evaluating you," smirks Catherine, clearly playing to the audience. "You're a riot, Alice," he replies, but fails to follow up with the promise of sending Catherine to the moon. The CSIs commence with the dispensing of the cases: Gil and Catherine will be working the disembodied head case. Nicky gets another homicide, roughly 40 miles outside Baker. Gil assigns Sara as Nicky's partner in crime investigation, and she grins, exclaiming, "Yes! Road trip! I'm gonna go switch boots." As Sara swans off to find a more travel-appropriate ensemble, Nicky broods. Gil notes this and shoos Catherine off, then turns back to a glowering Nicky.
Gil bids our sulky boy to sit and Nicky does, immediately saying, "Look, Grissom, I know this is a bad time to bitch to the boss, but I've been a CSI level 3 for nine months now. I was a CSI before Warrick. Warrick works DBs solo. Why can't I?" Gil gives him a noncommittal look, then says, "Repeat after me: silk, silk, silk." Nicky follows orders. Gil then asks, "What do cows drink?" "Milk," Nicky answers in a well, duh tone. Gil exudes disappointment from every pore: "Cows drink water. They give milk. A simple riddle, common sense disguised in a puzzle of words, but an excellent barometer for evaluating someone's readiness." So I'm guessing Warrick got to work solo because he got that one about the animal that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening. Nicky, understandably, takes umbrage at the idea that his evaluation is centered around a brain teaser, and retorts, "I'm not one of your suspects you can play mind tricks on. If I'm not ready, be a man and tell me I'm not ready." "You're not ready," Gil replies. Well, then. The riddle of why Nicky has to work with other people is solved.
Nicky strains to take the news like a man -- since, you know, Gil was a man and all while he delivered it -- and says, "You know why I took this job? I wanted to pack heat, walk under yellow tape, be the man..." My God, there's a lot of manliness going on around here. Nicky barrels on. " ...But mostly, [I took the job because] I want you to think I'm a good CSI." A-ha! I was right! Nicky does crave the approval of older male authority figures. Gil, however, isn't going to give Nicky his father fix: "That's the reason why I have to hold you back. Anyone who's good at anything does it for their own approval, not someone else's." Gil, that kind of logic is dangerous, especially for those (editors) who make their living withholding approval from others (hard-working recappers) as a means of motivating them (kidding).
Cut to David the unfun coroner, cutting loose and playing the air crutch in time with some truly egregious rock music. It's a skill that could come in handy if the Stones ever decide to tour again. David recovers quickly as he notices Gil and Catherine watching him, and attempts to deflect attention by asking if the voice on the tape sounds familiar. Catherine notes that it sounds a lot like the day coroner; Gil follows up incredulously with, "Gary Telgenhoff?" Okay, there's no way that name isn't an in-joke of some kind. Maybe it's the president of the CSI fan club, or someone who wronged one of the writers in high school, or something. Theories, anyone? David asks what everyone thinks of Gary Telgenhoff's discordant offerings, and Catherine replies emphatically, "It sucks!" Both men look at her, a little taken aback, and she continues, "I just filed for divorce. I'm feeling confident." Yeah. Confident that you've replaced one loser with another repellent alpha male who will belittle your intellect, that is. Gil takes the news with a big dollop of whatever and steers the conversation back to the head. David tells us all who the head belonged to: Victor DaSilva. David whips back a white sheet as he makes the formal introductions, and I have to say, Victor's probably looked better.
Gil and Catherine gaze upon the disembodied head, examining it for clues. There's a nasty contusion up top, which we get to see up close and personal courtesy of the TMICam, then the two swap theories as to how a few deep and vicious chopping wounds got on Victor's jaw. Catherine favors the "practice makes perfect" theory; Gil's pulling for "bad aim." They stare at the head some more. "Definitely a crime of passion," Catherine decrees. "You think a woman could have done this?" Gil asks. "I could've," Catherine responds. Okay -- two points here:
1. Catherine, quit bragging. It's unbecoming.
2. Who says that men are the only ones capable of beheading someone in a crime of passion?
And now we may return to pondering the unattractive visage of Victor DaSilva. David tells Gil if he wants to find out exactly what tools were used to bludgeon Victor, they'll have to boil his head. Gil pops up and says, "Really? You want me to prepare it?" Aww, he's so cute when he's grisly. "Sure," David replies, continuing, "what additive do you put in your boil?" "Laundry detergent. Works great. It's like peeling off a rubber Halloween mask!" Gil replies. This entire exchange plays like Emeril of the Damned. Catherine watches the two guys thrill to the prospect of boiling a human head with trepidation.
A-ha! Warrick managed to escape from the subplot subbasement two minutes earlier than predicted. He says hi to Mr. Moore -- whom vigilant viewers will remember as the loving grandfather of the kid who committed vehicular manslaughter way back when -- and we find out that young James won't take his Pops' calls, only Warrick's. Warrick tells Pops (and by extension us, the viewers at home) why he's going to be hanging with the boys in juvie for this episode: there was a brawl at the detention center, James was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now he faces a grim choice as to whether to give his testimony or not. The testimony choice, while appearing attractive at first blush since it guarantees him freedom once he finishes his initial sentence, is not nearly so sweet as you might think: James sings, and he'll get shanked for his efforts. If he keeps silent, the assorted hoodlums and punks won't kill him for squealing, but he'll be in prison for years beyond his original sentence. What can I say? It's the Prisoner's Dilemma for the twenty-first century. Just don't tell Nicky; he's still working on the original riddle.
Warrick consoles Mr. Moore as best he can by telling him, "Look, a crime occurred. CSI's got full jurisdiction. I got myself assigned to the case. See if I can take James out of the middle." He gives Mr. Moore an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder -- it's not like either one of those men are big on hugging -- and goes inside the facility.
Cut to the joyriding party girls, wrapped in itchy-looking police blankets and shivering in the tank as they look across the table at the unamused Brass and Catherine. Brass fires the opening shot, asking, "You wanna tell us why two college freshmen were driving a stolen BMW with the head in the trunk?" The blonde replies indignantly that they may have stolen the car, but they had no idea there was a head in the trunk. Her friend -- who bears an alarming resemblance to Meadow Soprano -- agrees, saying, "Gross." Catherine takes that as her springboard to play good cop to Brass's bad cop: "Gross. Now there's a start. How about gross negligence, flying down I-15 in a stolen car. Gross anatomy -- a human bowling ball in the trunk. Gross details -- let's hear it."
And now, a digression on oratorical form. As much as I appreciate the attempt to set up a cadence using repetition -- i.e. "gross" as a unifying concept through the little speech -- I have to point out that a) it didn't really flow, and b) there was a serious grammar brawl in the last sentence: "details" is plural; "it" is a singular pronoun. The object of the sentence (the details) is plural, and therefore requires a plural pronoun. And while I doubt anyone sitting around that table is obsessive enough to care about the correct pronouns, I do, and as a result, I was horribly distracted -- something a public speaker who's attempting to use repetition as a way to reinforce the message never wants.
Back to the interrogation. The blonde, who appears to be the dominant partner in this dynamic duo, tells her tale of woe: "We lost our friends at Bar 9-1-1. We had no ride home. We were bored. We started doing shots of tequila with some guy who looked like Cat Stevens" -- or, as he likes to be known now, Yusuf Islam -- "thing you know, we're in his van playing strip poker. It was a blast at first. Then, um, then he said the creepiest thing..."
The whole time Blondie's been talking, we've been seeing the story in flashback -- she and Meadow II knocking back shots and whooping with girlish glee, then doffing their party clothes in the van with the hirsute Yusuf Islam doppelganger. And finally Yusuf speaks: "I met this girl, on the Internet, who offered me a round-trip ticket to fly out there and end her life. She wanted me to shove a tennis ball down her throat."
Cut to Blondie and Meadow II exiting the van as Yusef calls, "Where are you going?" They hop in the first car they can find -- conveniently, it has keys in the ignition -- and take off like dingbats out of hell.
Back in the present day, Catherine's asking incredulously if the two girls left their clothes in the van. Both girls roll their eyes in the universal well, duh sign. Blondie says, "This guy was way weird. I was thinking he was going to pull a Silence of the Lambs and tell me to 'put the lotion in the basket.'" I love Blondie -- she should keep popping up as a recurring victim of bizarre crime scenes, hanging out in her cute leopard-print underwear and riffing on movies about serial killers. Blondie's a lot of fun, although going by the look on Meadow II's face, I'm not holding a popular opinion at the moment. Brass confirms my suspicion when he says, "I don't think you two committed any murders. I just think you're felony stupid." Then he books 'em on a bunch of charges relating to the car theft and the drunken driving; presumably, Yusuf will be left to roam free and share his tennis-related fantasies with other young women.
Back at Oz West, James is explaining how life in the Not-So-Big House works, since he suspects that Warrick, being an employee of the criminal justice system, would have no idea how incarceration shakes down on a day-to-day basis. Warrick shoots James a look, then bids him continue. James tells us all, "First off, this place only sees two colors, black and white. You stay with your own. Despite what those chucks think upstairs, this place is infiltrated with Rolling 60s, overflows from L.A." Or, for those of us who haven't done time: there's vicious race-based factionalism, and people who refuse to conform to the rules are punished harshly by their peers. The peer pressure is exacerbated by the furtive presence of a gang based out of Los Angeles; the gang is running things beneath the oblivious noses of the employees. Warrick digests all this and notes sympathetically that young James has got himself quite an education in a short time. James agrees, and points out that he has a mere sixty days left on his sentence unless he "gets got," which I'm guessing is either killed or sent to grown-up prison. Cut me some slack, people; it took me forever to find out what bling-bling was too. Anyway, Warrick asks James to tell him what happened, and James responds by demanding that Warrick tell him whose side he's on. "Who reached out to you?" Warrick says incredulously. "Who put me in here?" James counters. Well, so much for that there's-only-black-and-white thing. There's a lot of ambiguity here, my friends. James finally realizes that Warrick is serious and breaks it down: a Las Vegas gang member and an LA gang member had a moderately fatal difference in opinion while James happened to be cowering in his bunk. The half-dozen or so spectators to this incident immediately surrounded James and helped him realize that his liabilities -- being the newest kid on the cellblock and the only witness -- outweighed his assets, those assets being, uh, none. Warrick nods in understanding, summing it all up for us by saying, "So it's your life versus time."
Back at a less-depressing plotline, Sara and Nicky are driving out to the desert to see their 419. They meet the buzzcut detective at his jeep -- both man and vehicle are parked in the godforsaken middle of nowhere -- and get the details. The body -- which is being referred to as an "it" -- is apparently so repulsive as to frighten off callow cops; Buzz notes peevishly that "I had to tape the perimeter myself." Sara and Nicky follow Buzz's tracks across the dry mud flats; a few feet off, they can stop relying on their eyes and start using their other senses: the stink, and the noise of flies, coming off the body is bowling Nicky over. He and Sara have a conversation in which they bravely provide exposition -- the body is missing the head, hands, feet and skin -- while trying not to vomit. Nicky then makes an observation about the nature of the crime scene: there are no footprints around the body save for those of the police, and the body itself is lying in a crater. Sara looks skyward; I'm thinking we're all to deduce that someone dropped a headless, handless, footless, skinless body from the sky. Why not? Stranger things have happened on this show.
Such as what we're about to see now. The chucks upstairs have thoughtfully cleared out the dorms in the Not-So-Big House for Warrick, and as he navigates through a column of orange-jumpsuited boys, several comment on his status as a CSI. This is not the first time incarcerated felons in the greater Las Vegas area have exhibited incredible familiarity with forensics technicians, yet I still have problems believing that prisoners sit around all day brooding over CSI folks by name. Whatever. Warrick runs the gauntlet of gangsters and proceeds to go through the barracks-style dorm. The blood from the stabbed kid is still fresh on the floor; the rest of the dorm exhibits a similarly sanitary sensibility, which makes Warrick's initial evidence discovery all the more unpleasant: someone has stuffed a bloody t-shirt into a toilet. Guess who gets to stick his arm in there and fish it out? Good thing Gary Dourdan's got that extensive repertoire of long-suffering looks; he gets to use them all as he's elbow-deep in dirty toilet water.
Back at CSI Central, Nicky and Sara are sneaking into the garage where the stolen -- and now impounded for evidence -- BMW is. Sara inquires as to the prudence of stepping all over Catherine and Gil's evidence; Nicky replies that he's going on initiative. No, what he's going on is a threatened sense of masculinity, courtesy of the heart-to-heart he had with Gil earlier. This is going to translate into Nicky doing a lot of overzealous investigation. Ah, Nicky. Remember: only you can validate you. But until Nicky realizes that, he's going to throw a lot of evidence and science montages into the big, gaping hole where his self-worth used to be.
David, meanwhile, is standing over the body Nicky and Sara somehow managed to bring back to headquarters (I would like to have seen how they pulled that off) and is explaining to Gil all the ways in which it deviates from the standard human configuration: the shoulders are too wide in relation to the torso, the bone structure is disproportionate, and the leg bones are too thick. David whips off his glasses and prepares to make a statement: "If I know anything, I know two unequivocal truths..." I immediately shout, "There is no difference between good flan and bad flan, and we're not at war with Albania!" Actually, David knows two different unequivocal truths: "DaSilva's head does not belong to this body, and the reason I know that is because the torso is not human." "What is it?" Gil whispers. It's one of Siegfried and Roy's breeding experiments gone horribly wrong, Gil, that's what. David, however, decides to strain the improbability of this plot even more by admitting he has no idea what animal could possibly have humanoid skeletal structure, since he's never looked at a taxonomy chart and noticed that we happen to share an entire order known as the primates with animals that happen to be built a lot like us.
In a less dense part of the building, The Lab Tech Formerly Known As Liam Yet Who May Actually Be Rechristened Liam Since He's Lost The Fauxhawk For Another Vaguely British Coif -- or "Greg" for short -- is going nuts over the evidence Nicky found wedged underneath the brake pedal of the BMW. And I do mean that literally. He's comparing the nut shells against a prettily-composed directory of assorted nuts, and dramatically reveals his findings: "Squirrels love them, they get tossed at Dodger Stadium, and they make a hell of a butter." He purrs this last part at Sara, who doesn't bother to disguise her eye-rolling distain as she tells him, "You're nuts, you know that?" "Exactamundo!" Greg replies, then reveals that Nicky found peanuts. "Peanuts on the gas pedal...you're kidding," Nicky reiterates, perhaps wondering if this is yet another riddle he'll blow. "It's one of those funny clues. Could be nothing, could mean everything," Sara muses. Nicky, sensing he's out of his depth here, settles for nodding and saying, "Hmmm."
Meet Trent Calloway. He'll be playing our red herring for the evening. Trent is currently painting Victor DaSilva's apartment, so the entire place is draped in plastic tarps and covered in fresh paint. Well, that's a convenient way to screw with a crime scene. Undeterred, Gil pokes around. Brass, however, is the one who finds the interesting evidence -- a snapshot of Victor, with another person cut out of the picture. "So bizarre, human behavior," Gil says, conveniently forgetting that he may actually be human himself. Gil continues, "What you can't cut out of your mind, you can always cut out of your photo album." Brass looks at Gil and asks the question on everyone's mind: "Why are we in the closet?" Why, indeed. Gil explains that Greg called about the peanuts, so he's checking Victor's shoes for traces of peanut shells. He finds 'em, and proceeds to harangue Trent the Red Herring about the connection between Victor and peanuts; over the course of the conversation, Gil raises the question of whether or not Victor ever worked in the Secret Garden of Siegfried and Roy. Between that and the closet comment, we've got motive and killer; we just need to put a face to the idea.
Alas, poor Warrick, crawling through a fetid tangle of plumbing to find the toilet pipe. After the plumber opens a drainage pipe, Warrick busts out yet another beleaguered look, sticks his hand in yet another unpleasant place, and finds a shiv.
Speaking of unpleasant, Terri Miller is back. She's looking at the mystery body as Gil, David, Sara, and Nicky look on. After stumbling through a scientific monologue that, frankly, would be about as much fun to transcribe as the warning label on a bottle of Tylenol, she states the obvious: "It's not human, it's a primate. More specifically, it's a gorilla." Her shaky grasp on Linnaean taxonomy notwithstanding, the news appears to stun everyone.
Sara retreats to spend time in front of the computer, listening to a narrator talk about hunting gorillas for profit. She's wasting her time; she should be reading up on Dian Fossey. Anyway, Sara is listening to the barbaric practices of gorilla hunters and getting progressively more tense and upset. Gil walks in and asks, "What are you doing?" "Working the case," Sara replies. "What case?" Gil asks. "The skinned gorilla torso? Forty miles outside Baker?" she prods. Gil pretends to look thoughtful and tells her it's not a case; Sara begs to differ. Gil explains, "This isn't a human being we're dealing with, it's an animal." And it's endangered, which means that surely there's some sort of Federal authority you can call in cases like this. But never you mind. Sara's having none of Gil's species-ist behavior, spitting, "You should be more sympathetic to the senseless murder of an innocent gorilla." Gil apologizes nicely and explains -- surprise! -- that it was all part of her evaluation: "I was just checking to see where your head was at." As for the rest of her evaluation -- Sara's doing okay on everything except her ability to prioritize. Oh, like that's a surprise.
Cut to Nicky, trying to trip Catherine up with the same silk-milk riddle that felled him; she demonstrates that, rotten taste in men and profound inability to separate personal and professional matters aside, she can solve riddles.
Meanwhile, Greg and Warrick are demonstrating for us, the viewers at home, exactly how you can make a lethal weapon using only a toothbrush and a disposal razor blade. Those of us who were watching Oz this season will recall the instructions, but the cable-deprived still need to know: the perp melted the end of the toothbrush to insert the razor, then used a rubber band wrapped around the base to conceal the blade.
Nicky and Catherine are investigating yet another 419, this one at a U-Stor-It. As they're walking down the hall toward the body, they note bloody footprints leading down the hall. Whoever stepped in the blood thought that taking off their shoes and running in their stocking feet would confuse matters; they thought wrong. As Nicky and Catherine head into the shed, Brass materializes out of nowhere for another morsel of contractually obligated exposition: the shed is rented out to Victor DaSilva. And wouldn't you know it, Victor is here. Well, most of him anyway. "This is the rest of his body?" Nicky asks, demonstrating that perhaps he should stick to Word Jumbles before working his way up to riddles. Brass fixes him with a look and replies, "It ain't gorilla." He then grumps out, and Catherine and Nicky swing into science-montage mode. Catherine eventually finds one weapon: a hatchet with a blunt end counterbalancing the blade. Nicky finds another: a claw-headed hammer.
In the scene, Catherine is taking molds from Victor's skull -- presumably to use as models for verifying the murder weapon -- and pestering Gil about her evaluation. He gives her a bland look and says, "Keep up the good work." Catherine glares at him, and he deflects attention back to the case: "Those molds done yet?" "They're tacky," Catherine replies, and I pause to ponder how appropriate that comment seems in association with Catherine. The two then bend to figuring out how Victor was whacked; the molds imply that he was hit in the head with the claw hammer, then struck with the ax. Gil uses a computer simulation to show the hammer coming down on the skull. Although the prongs from the hammer fit neatly into the holes in the skull, it doesn't explain why he was killed with the claw end of the hammer and not the blunt end. Catherine eventually concludes that the Bob Vila act wasn't the actual method of murder, but a by-product of trying to fit the body in a footlocker with no headroom.
Back at Casa DaSilva, Sara's hectoring Nicky. "So, tricky Nick, whaddya get on your evaluation?" "It's private," he responds. I suddenly flash back to report card day in high school, wherein we'd all sit around and compare grades. Nicky and Sara barrel through DaSilva's house and end up in the closet. What is it with DaSilva and discoveries to be made in the closet? Could it be...? Anyway, Nicky explains to Sara the theory he's concocted all by himself: the footprints at the crime scene were a size 11, the peanut shoes were a size 11, yet DaSilva's a size 10. What gives? "Grissom missed something," Nicky concludes; that something was a peanut shell nestled in the cuff of a pair of khaki pants. Nicky and Sara stare at it as though it's got God's personal phone number written on the side. They then realize the pants are part of a jumpsuit uniform for Spur's Corral, a restaurant where you get peanuts on the tables. Nicky goes to call Grissom -- not that he's trying to get the approving attention of an authority figure or anything -- while Sara makes her excuses for ducking out, saying, "I gotta put something to rest."
David pulls out Victor's body and tells Gil they're all wrong about the cause of death; neither the blunt force hammer hit nor the hatchet chops did DaSilva in. He was killed by a point-blank shot to the heart. Well, whoever finished him off was thorough. "Imagine the human heart as an apple," David says, and we switch to a time-lapse photo of an apple exploding as it's being shot at close range. Apparently, human hearts do the same thing. Gil and Catherine muse as to where DaSilva might have been shot, since the shed in which he was found was not used to store any firearms. Catherine muses that he might have been shot elsewhere and transported to the shed. "That would explain the plastic," she says. Gil rounds on her, saying, "What plastic? You never told me about any plastic!" Catherine looks mildly taken aback -- and indeed, who wouldn't if their boss got in their personal space and demanded a backstory on plastic? -- but recovers nicely.
Trent the Red Herring is in the tank, since he's now a big ol' suspect in the DaSilva case. He's not the guy -- he's got a size 13 foot, as opposed to the comparatively dainty size 11 the killer is sporting.
Brass and Gil are standing in the lobby of Spur's Corral and eating peanuts as they wait for the host or hostess to notice them. Brass heartily approves of the joint: "Pretty good gimmick they got going on here. Eat peanuts, toss them on the floor, nobody gives a rat's ass." I wonder if Paul Guilfoyle lobbies the writers for vaguely profane lines; Brass seems to get away with proto-cursing much more than the rest of the crew. The two CSIs crunch their way across the peanut-strewn floor to Nicky, who's trying gamely to link the uniform he found in the closet with Victor DaSilva. Gil's watching the exchange, probably because a frustrated Nicky is really fun to observe, until he notices that the gaudy sombrero hanging behind Nicky's head matches the one in the truncated snapshot of DaSilva Brass found earlier. Gil notices an ear festooned in multiple earrings and muses, "The earrings...Victor DaSilva was here with someone he cut out of his life." "Probably his girlfriend," Brass mutters. Oh, please. Gil snags the attention of the host who -- O! Improbable Coincidence! -- recognizes the telltale lobe as belonging to Fred Applewhite.
Terri and Sara are standing over the remains of the ape. Terri tells Sara she has to dispose of the animal; for some reason, she sounds as though she's delivering her lines immediately after being administered Novocain, and her diction is distracting. Anyway -- long story short, because I cannot believe Sara didn't immediately warm to Dian Fossey, and I am frankly amazed that anyone who refused a rabies shot with the comment "I'm no more rabid than usual" wouldn't immediately go on Sara's She-roes list, thus prompting Sara to go all Fossey on us all by kidnapping a few poachers and holding them in primitive cages -- Sara expresses her frustration over not being able to find people who skin gorillas and fling the leftovers from the sky, and Terri tells her that if she wants to help, she can take the ashes, bury them in the desert, and babble some New Age nonsense before meditating in a very scenic fashion. Sara does so. I still would have rather seen her make like Dian and begin terrorizing the poachers.
Nicky and Catherine have coated Applewhite's feet with ink and are commanding him to walk, then run down a length of newsprint. Cut to Gil, telling a wary-looking Applewhite, "Footprints are as reliable as fingerprints, and every footstep tells a story." Ah -- we've reached the crime-solving portion of the evening. Gil explains how a walking footstep -- which shows the entire foot -- differs from the running footstep, which demonstrates only that all the pressure is on the ball of the foot. Nicky jumps in, desperate to appear smart: "Everyone's foot makes a unique well impression. The width, the ball of the foot, the instep, the arch..." "Mr. Applewhite," Gil continues, "your footprints place you at the crime scene."
And then we get the motive: Victor and Fred were partners (no, not business partners) until Victor dumped him for someone new. Fred hadn't moved all his stuff out because he was hoping for a reconciliation; unfortunately, none was forthcoming. We see a reenactment of the ugly final fight, courtesy of Gil, Fred's transport of Victor to the storage shed, his attempt to stuff the body in the footlocker, the post-mortem beheading, and the run back to the car with the head. Fred went back to lock the shed, and in the few minutes he was gone, Blondie and Meadow II took the car. Thus endeth the case, for the most part. Gil wraps up one loose end by telling Nicky that they need to take Greg out to lunch for his outstanding work with the peanuts; Nicky smiles, and we get the impression that he's beginning to see young Greg as a protege to be molded. Oh, God help us season.
Warrick claws his way back onto the screen with a wrap-up of his plotline: he talks to underage bad-ass Ronnie Conners about the stabbing, dropping some serious science in the face of Ronnie's soliloquy, the contents of which are too good not to transcribe in the fullness of their glory: "Let me tell you something, Breeze. I'm LA/Slauson payback crip, cuz. I gotta lotta offspring in here, black as night. They answer to me because I'm the macaroni. I mean, seriously. You have any idea who you're talking to?" Warrick, to his credit, does not deadpan, "The macaroni?" before bursting into gales of laughter.
Fade onto James, listening intently as Warrick explains that Ronnie "Macaroni" Conners is about to face a lifetime of dodging other people's shanks. The weapon he made will incriminate him, because he was dumb enough to shave with the razor before attaching it to the toothbrush, and his DNA will convict him. I guess now is not the time to bring up the growing concerns about DNA profiling as proof of a junk science practice. Anyway, James is appropriately grateful, and he hugs his Pops, and all is as reasonably well as can be expected for a kid who still has time left on his sentence.
And then this episode does something so shocking, I'm left agog.
Cut to Gil and Warrick strapping themselves into a roller coaster. "I thought you said you were grabbing a beer," Warrick says accusingly. "We are, after this," Gil replies. Warrick tries to duck out, saying, "Aw, you know, Grissom, this is your thing." "Every nine years and thirty-four days, I feel like sharing," Gil replies. My God, is he teasing? Are we actually two minutes from the end of the episode without a depressing twist ending? Be still, my heart. "You'll like it. It cleanses you," Gil says as he drops the harness over Warrick's head and secures him. "Cleanses me. Whatever happened to my evaluation?" Warrick demands. Gil grins: "You're sitting in it."
The roller coaster begins, and the two men begin yelling delightedly and laughing. It's quite nice. It's quite unlike your typical CSI ending. I think maybe I ended up watching the end of another show.
week: there's another serial killer in town, just in time for the season-finale cliffhanger.