Kicky electronic music plays, causing viewers in the audience who grew up in the 1980s to look around and wonder who broke out the Atari. We get a wide aerial shot of Las Vegas's sprawling suburbs (nary a tree to be seen from the sky; evidently the ones we see are those elusive burrowing trees you hear so much about on the Discovery Channel) and then we zero in on a bustling café. We can tell it's a café and not some dreary chain where people fret about their flair count because the patrons are all too good-looking to have ever thought about eating a cheddar-and-bacon-filled potato skin, much less hefted one toward their mouths. Also, the glassware is way too nice. Anyway, couples huddle over the tables in conversation, murmuring, "Things couldn't look more normal here if they tried!" A saucy brunette sashays out of the bathroom, heading towards a confused-looking blond man. I'm going to assume it's Hank. I have a confession to make: the character's never really registered with me visually. He's like the human equivalent of rice; I know in the abstract that the different varieties are supposed to look and taste unique, but it's all one big, bland mass to me. So it is with Hank, too. I'm pretty sure the powers that be have swapped actors for this character at some point, but since the guy slides off my memory like eggs off a Teflon-coated skillet, I can't confirm it and I don't care enough to look it up on IMDB.
The patrons all partake of postprandial chitchat while the manager beams benevolently. His smile disappears the moment he notices the Jaguar heading down the empty street which faces the café, as the Jaguar is a) speeding, and b) showing no indication of making a turn before reaching the T-shaped intersection at which the café rests. In fact, the car goes hurtling through the café's plate-glass window, wreaking impressive Bruckheimer-caliber carnage as it goes. Glassware breaks, people go flying across the room in the kinds of parabolas that require entire trigonometry classes to map, enough blood splatters to look grisly without going overboard, and general mayhem ensues. In short, we've just seen proof that the apple doesn't fall far from the Bruckheimer tree when it comes to carnage. The penultimate shot of the disaster is perpendicular to the ground -- probably to demonstrate how disorienting it can be to plow into a restaurant without a reservation -- and the scene ends with the camera resting on the slumped senior citizen pinned behind the wheel of the Jag. Oh, AARP's gonna be pissed about this.
Then, in true CSI style, we switch to the crime scene already in progress, with tape strung, paramedics present, and everything settled down. Also, it's begun raining. Going by this season alone, Las Vegas appears to be in danger of leaving the desert biome and moving into a savanna classification, what with the extraordinary amount of rainfall they get on this show. Perhaps season will feature a group of mystical nomads besieging Gil not to muck with the ecosystem because the Spice must flow. Anyway, Catherine and Sara come in out of the rain and walk over to Brass, who's talking on the phone to someone who will never be identified. Captain Exposition apprises them of the situation: the old woman in the Jag plowed into the cafeteria during happy hour, killed two people outright, and critically wounded four. Catherine asks about the driver, and Brass tells her that the driver is non-responsive thus far. Sara's looking around and assessing the scene when a familiar (to her) voice rings out, and she perks up like the cats do when I open a can of wet food. It's Hank, doing what he does best: moving bodies around a crime scene. Sure, they're alive now, but that's just because Hank knows the dead ones aren't going anywhere until he gets to them.
Sara wanders over toward Hank as the closed captioning reads: "CATHERINE: That's Sara's boyfriend." I'm mentioning this because it establishes the kind of relationship all of Sara's coworkers think she and Hank have. As Sara comes over, we see that Hank's a little banged up, which he deflects by saying, "Hey, Sara. Typical Thursday." Sara realizes that Hank might be in shock when she watches him try to open an unconscious man's jaw and she notices, "Hank, your wrist is broken." He looks down and says casually, "Yeah, it is. Larry, take over, will ya?" Larry tags in as Sara watches.
Meanwhile, firemen are using a crowbar to pry the door of the Jag open. Gil and Catherine watch; he tells her, "Car's dry. This must have happened right before the rain." They continue to observe as rescue workers inspect the condition of the driver. Brass wasn't kidding about "non-responsive."
On the other side of the room, Sara's asking Hank what happened. He tells her he was sitting at a table when a car came out of nowhere. Then he gets out of the conversation by rushing off to tend to a victim elsewhere. Let's hope he's not doing chest compressions with that broken wrist or anything. Sara's still anchored to the spot, visibly knocked for a loop that her boyfriend was directly affected by the scene. Or perhaps she's just realizing that she can't remember what he looks like the minute he moves out of sight. "My God! I'm dating a completely personality-free man!" she's thinking. Or I'm projecting. Take your pick.
As Hank barrels on by, Catherine and Gil both give him the fish-eye. Heh. As Hank hunkers down by the driver, Catherine comments to Gil, "Some happy hour, huh?" Gil brings us to the credits with, "I think happy hour's over." Owwwww.
The Who would like to know who you are.
Apres-commercials, we're back at the scene. Paramedics are running thither and yon. Catherine is taking photographs of the car. Hank is finally getting that broken wrist tended to by a fellow paramedic when Sara asks if she can tag in and finish that up. She crouches down and begins taping, cooing, "Are you okay?" Hank's all, "I didn't think I'd see you tonight," but he doesn't exactly sound thrilled about this surprise encounter. I'm willing to cut him some slack for the throbbing pain in his wrist, but I'm thinking that if I were in a freak accident and my sweet baboo popped up unannounced, not only would I be glad for the company, I'd be shamelessly milking the chance encounter for succor in the form of Scharffen Berger, hand-and-foot valet service, an audience for my increasingly hyperbolic narrative of what happened, et cetera. Instead, Hank's almost irritated that of all the crime scenes in Las Vegas, Sara had to be working his. Sara's all, "So that's what this is all about." Hank abruptly thanks her, and Sara gives him a limpid gaze before saying, "Any time." Who is this woman? Did she get a lobotomy between episodes? I realize we've had this whole Sara-and-Hank-are-dating thing going on for nigh unto sixteen episodes, but Sara's typically been pretty low-key about it, and we've seen very little evidence that she and Hank actually like each other or enjoy each other's company. Her locker at work doesn't have "SARA+HANK 4-EVA TLA!!!" taped on the front, and Hank's not exactly humping her leg to mark his territory in front of the lab techs. This sudden ratcheting up of the emotional stakes seems patently false and manipulative. Plus, there's the unavoidable fact that she's trying to act as though she's madly in love with the human equivalent of rice. Hank's all, "Gotta run!" and Sara's all, "Call me! I'm totally available!" and Hank scampers off with nary a backward glance at Sara.
Sara wanders off, and Gil pops up in her path to tell her that she and Catherine will be working evidence on this scene. Warrick will be pitching in too, now that he's done with Internal Affairs; one wonders why he was in there, if we'll hear more about this, and if he spent any of his time with IAB asking if they missed being real cops too. Gil tells Sara to connect with the restaurant manager. Sara, having fully recovered from her Hank-induced amnesiac state, snaps to and tells Gil she'll do that. Then she asks Gil where he's off to. He assumes a regretful look and says, "I got gas." Sara gets the "thanks for sharing -- I think" look and she says, "Oh." Gil stops on his way out to clarify: "Residential gas leak in Henderson." He wanders off while Sara furrows her brow and thinks, "Gil made a joke? About a case?"
Then she heads on over to the restaurant manager, still visibly thrown off her game. She introduces herself, and Fred Lychock -- holy cow! They've identified a character by name within the first six minutes! -- attempts to do likewise by extending his hand for a shake. Sara's gloved, though, so she passes. Fred makes the Most Valuable Witness list by saying, "Your supervisor asked for a seating chart. Everything's computerized -- a software program. This will show you the number of people per table." Sara looks at the tidy layout and asks Fred where he was during the crash. Fred tells her he was at the register behind the bar. Sara asks if Fred saw anything, and he replies, "A blurry Jaguar speeding through the intersection. I thought the car would slow down, but it just kept right on coming, you know? If you ask me, that's the reason old people don't belong behind the wheel." Oh, Fred. You're off the MVW list now. Sara gives him an unimpressed look and says flatly, "I didn't ask you. Thanks for your time."
Catherine's still over by the Jag when Sara comes over. Sara apologizes with, "I'm sorry. I got wrapped up in..." "Hank," Catherine finishes, clearly evaluating Sara; what's not clear is whether she's looking over Sara in empathy (what with the recent Eddie thing) or in trepidation (what with the possibility that Sara will flake out in a personally-involved case). Sara looks into the car and comments, "An old Jaguar with a GPS unit. That's strange." Catherine quips, "This is not your granny's Oldsmobile."
Then we leave this scene, get another aerial shot of the Vegas 'burbs at night -- perhaps this is when the elusive Suburban Burrow Tree comes out of its subterranean den to decorate the streets -- and get a voice-over of Gil asking, "We're cleared to go in?" We then see the house in question, and Detective Lockwood confirming that they're cleared; the gas company's shut off the valve at the street and the paramedics have aired out the scene. Nicky then asks, "Homicide radioed in a DB?" Yes, and it's one Vanessa Arnz, currently lying in the master bedroom to her son's room.
As Gil and Nicky walk down a picture-lined hall, Gil tells Nicky, "The gas company spikes its gas with mercaptan -- smells like rotten eggs." Nicky walks past the bubbling fish tank -- the bubbles are pretty loud, so we must be meant to notice the tank -- and peers inside the son's room. He notes, "I don't smell anything." Gil replies, "All I smell is mothballs and stale tobacco." Nicky shoots back, "Science geek." I'm pretty sure that was a remark commenting on the resident of the room -- there's a telescope set up in the window, a bookshelf filled with books and papers, and a desk, upon which a model of the space shuttle, a microscope, and a personal computer rest -- and not on Gil's general observation about overall odors in the house. Gil looks into the room after Nicky comments, so I'm thinking that he's confirming the geek assessment. After Gil nods slightly at Nicky, Nicky replies, "Takes one to know one, I guess." That comment I'm not so clear on -- it's either Nicky confirming that Gil is the geek standard by which all others are measured, or that he himself was a boy geek with the science equipment and other left-brain paraphernalia. That ambiguous moment over, Gil and Nicky head into the bedroom where Vanessa is splayed out on the bed.
Gil greets Emergency Backup David, and the younger man responds, "She's hot pink, like a maraschino." Gil replies, "That makes our job easier." Emergency Backup David continues, "Death was not the result of natural gas inhalation." Gil responds, "No, but carbon monoxide's still gas." Nicky tags in, "Right. And carbon monoxide displaces oxygen in the blood. Victim asphyxiates, turns...pink." And here's how: oxygen circulates through the body because it binds to hemoglobin (red blood cells), and the hemoglobin moves through the bloodstream, refreshing deoxygenated tissues by depositing oxygen and picking up fresh infusions of oxygen to circulate around. Hemoglobin loves oxygen; unfortunately, it loves carbon monoxide more. Much more -- hemoglobin has approximately 240 times the affinity for carbon monoxide it does for oxygen, so if the body ingests a lot of CO at once, that molecule binds to the hemoglobin, thus forcing out the oxygen and leading to oxygen starvation and asphyxiation. Bizarrely, we do not get the TMICam shot of hemoglobin moving around with its deadly load of CO. Instead, we get a combination flashback shot of the invisible killer wafting around, and Vanessa turning pinker as she breathes. In the present, Gil asks if Mr. Arnz was in bed with Vanessa, and we find out that he was; Emergency Backup David explains, "Paramedics said they found them both in here." Gil asks pointedly, "So why is she dead and he's still alive?" Everyone looks at each other and raises their eyebrows pointedly. Nicky straightens up from the body and says, "You know, David, when I was a CSI 1, I would have tried to answer that. But now I know: 'where' before 'why.' Find the source of the CO. I'll grab the Nighthawk, fire it up." Gil gives Nicky a neutral look, but it beats the all-too-frequent smackdowns, so we'll assume that Nicky's making progress. Gil then turns his attention back to the late, pink Mrs. Arnz. Lockwood comes in and tells everyone that Mr. Arnz is now stable and ready to be transported, probably to the Desert Palms, where everyone else ends up. Gil says he's off to take a look at the surviving spouse.
Outside, Gil's listening to Mr. Arnz as he explains, "I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes. I get cold. Vanessa steals the covers. I woke up and my head was spinning. I think I'm coming down with something. Then I look over at her..." We flash to Mr. Arnz realizing that Vanessa's in worse shape than he is, and calling 911. Lockwood asks if Mr. Arnz remembers anything else, and he replies, "I don't even remember hanging up the phone. I must have passed out. thing I know, paramedics are taking me out." As he talks, Gil sees the science geek from two paragraphs ago, standing by himself and looking considerably upset. The paramedic tells Gil that his interview is over anyway, as they're about to transport Mr. Arnz to Desert Palms (Yes! Yes! I called it!). Mr. Arnz interrupts to ask how his son is, and the EMT replies, "Peter's fine. Kid's eighteen, signed an AMA." Gil walks over, ducks under the tape, and introduces himself to Peter. The kid turns around and says flatly, "You want to ask me questions. I was in the bedroom, asleep. I heard the doorbell. It was the paramedics. Two minutes later, the police showed up." Gil listens, then says carefully, "I'm very sorry about what happened to your mother." Peter finally looks over and says caustically, "Why are you sorry? You're not the one responsible." Interesting choice of words there, Creepy Pete. ["Creepy Pete, late of Sleepers, was last seen braining his boyfriend to death in The Deep End. Boy's got issues." -- Sars] The kid continues, flatly intoning, "You didn't know her. You don't know me." Gil mentally notes to tell Nicky that they're not dealing with a science geek, but a really creepy science geek, so be sure to be on the lookout for renegade colonies of genetically engineered super-rats if he wants to dust Pete's room for prints.
Back in the A-plot, Sara's walking down the hall of Desert Palms hospital. She meets someone (I have no idea who; he's shot in the shadows) outside a door and asks, "How's she doing?" I assume we're talking about the car's driver. Nameless Guy replies that the doctors are working on the woman now, but it doesn't look good. Sara notices a grieving young man sitting near them, and asks about him. Nameless Guy tells her that the driver has been identified as a Diane Lambert, and the man is her grandson Corey. Sara walks over to introduce herself, and Corey replies, "I don't even know why she was in Las Vegas. We live in Laughlin, and she hates it here." Sara asks if Diane did own that Jaguar she plowed through the window, and Corey tells her, "Yeah. She won it in the quarter slots. First two coins and, bingo! Triple stars." The woman won a Jag and she hates Las Vegas? Sara asks if Diane also won the GPS. Corey explains that she didn't: "She hadn't been driving it much. She got lost a couple of times and it scared her, so for her birthday last month, I bought her the unit." Corey's giving good information, but unfortunately, he's giving it to someone who's all distracted watching her meathead boyfriend hover around a saucy brunette currently confined to a wheelchair. Sara wants to see what's going on with her boyfriend, as opposed to pumping someone for more background while he's too distraught to wonder if he needs to get Grandma lawyered up, so she walks off.
As Sara reaches Hank, she cranks the perkiness level up to ten, and bubbles, "And the EMT of the year goes to --" "Not me. Death toll's up to three. It could climb to four. Elaine -- the girl in the wheelchair -- is one of the lucky ones," Hank says solemnly. Sara ratchets down the rah-rah -- and thank God, because it looked as physically painful for Jorja Fox to execute as it did for me to watch -- and says intensely, "You were amazing." Hank looks somewhere over her left shoulder and says, "Eight years in the rig, first time I've actually been a part of the scene. I can't stop it going through my head." I can see why -- so many bodies to move around the crime scene, so little time. Sara gives Hank a meaningful look and says, "You never know when your life is going to change." I'm going to assume that Sara saw Hank on the scene and it shocked her into one of those battlefield revelations about how much she luuuuuuvs him, because the thought of her schmooping over him like this during each of their get-togethers is simply too awful to entertain. Hank tries to make a hasty escape, and Sara grabs him by both hands -- yes, the good one and the broken one -- and asks eagerly if he needs a lift. Hank nervously replies that he drove, then takes off without actually saying goodbye. Sara watches him lope off, thinking, "Rice is nice," then calls his name. Hank turns around, looking like someone just smacked him between the eyes with a golf club. There's a long moment where one of them is giving a meaningful look while the other tries to remember his name. Sara finally speaks: "I'm really glad you're okay." Hank awkwardly thanks her, then lopes off.
Meanwhile, Warrick and Catherine are actually working. They're busy checking out the tire tracks that led to the bistro. As they walk, Catherine says, "You gonna tell me how it went?" Warrick replies, "I got called in by Internal Affairs. How do you think it went? Too many questions. I wish I could have pleaded the Fifth." Did IAB actually take an interest in how Warrick bungled the Aimee Phelps case? Or is he supposed to be dropping the dime on Gil's possible involvement with Lady Heather? Or is this some new thing we'll hear about in a later episode? Catherine replies, "If you don't answer their questions, you're looking at more days off without pay, and that blows." Huh? You'd think that with recapping this show, I'd actually know why on Earth Warrick's been off without pay, but you'd be wrong.
The two CSIs move off this baffling topic and back to the case; Warrick notices the red-light camera parked to the traffic light and asks, "Did any of the witnesses see the driver run the red light?" Catherine replies, "Nobody mentioned it, but camera's there. Big Brother knows." If by "Big Brother," you mean "John Ashcroft and his merry band of privacy brigands," you're right on, Catherine. Actually, come to think of it, you could mean a lot of people; the increasing incidence of recording technology in public and publicly accessible spaces presents the very real possibility of compiling instant dossiers on someone as they move about their everyday life. But for purposes of narrative convenience, nobody has a problem with the idea of recording technology logging our every public move, because it will come in handy later. Catherine then notices the motor oil on the sidewalk. Warrick comes over and comments on how fresh the oil looks. Catherine muses that hitting the curb could have caused the car to buck, and then she imagines the car speeding for her, courtesy of the Osmont cam. Catherine muses, "Traffic light, intersection, curb. Either the car wasn't working or the driver wasn't." Warrick has no comment on that. The two CSIs continue walking back toward the café. Catherine notices that the newspaper dispenser was taken out. Warrick walks ahead to the trunk of the car and calls, "Catherine! Tire treads. That kills one theory. Car's brakes must have been working." Catherine muses that Diane must have tried to stop too late.
In the morgue, David the Possibly Overly-Sensitive Coroner is going over Diane Lambert's autopsy with Sara. He opens by guessing that there was no airbags in the vehicle, and Sara hands him a cookie for being right and coming to that conclusion based on the epidural hemotoma Diane got when her head slammed into the steering wheel. Well, if that didn't do it, the way her neck snapped as she slammed forward probably could have. David continues to explain, "Blood accumulated between the table of the skull and the dural membrane. Her injury is consistent with a severed meningeal artery." We see said artery severing, with the blood pouring out, courtesy of the TMICam. Sara asks, "What about pre-impact? At the risk of feeding a stereotype, she was 72. Any indication of stroke, Alzheimer's, heart attack?" David replies that he considered and dismissed any possible age-related factors: "No arthritis, no significant impairment on her senses. She has had part of her colon removed, probably due to injury or prior medical treatment, but Sara, it's irrelevant to your case. I found no physiological explanation for the crash." Sara replies shortly, "Well, that's a bummer, 'cause at this point we've got no forensic one either." To his credit, David does not reply, "Not my problem, babe."
Back at Creepy Pete's House of Carbon Monoxide -- hey, the kid may be half-orphaned, but he's one malevolent-looking little bastard -- Nicky's wandering around the bedroom with a carbon monoxide detector, telling Lockwood, "Carbon monoxide fills the air when any carbon-based substance is ignited. The kid checks out, so the point of ignition's probably in this room." Lockwood replies, "The two most common causes for household CO poisoning are unvented space heaters and improperly maintained chimneys. I don't see any heaters." This is Nicky's cue to wave the monitor around in the general direction of the master bedroom fireplace, but first he has to look at Lockwood to figure out why the detective knows so much about the silent killer. Lockwood explains, "My dad's a fireman. Last Christmas, he gave all the kids CO detectors." Stop and ponder the notion of a living room full of Lockwood look-alikes for a moment. Merry Christmas, indeed! ["Then stop and ponder the notion of receiving a CO detector for Christmas. Weak showing from Lockwood Sr. in the gift department." -- Sars] The detector picks that moment to confirm that the fireplace is the source of the CO problem. Nicky comments, "This is a natural gas fireplace. It burns clean; CO fumes should be minimal at best." Well, they would have been if someone hadn't piled some sort of foreign substance at the base of the fireplace. Nicky looks at the charred remnants and draws on his years of forensics experience to conclude the obvious: "There was something other than natural gas burning in here." Lockwood's just grateful the utility company shut off the gas before all the incriminating evidence could go up in flames. Nicky's now trying to dissect the problem: "Chimneys are designed to funnel smoke, a much slimmer Dick Van Dyke, and Santa Claus, up and out. If this fireplace was the source of the CO, the fumes should have traveled up the chimney instead of permeating the room." Lockwood points out that the chimney may not be doing its job; the broken damper seems to indicate that that's the case. Nicky concludes, "Foreign fuel substance in a compromised chimney. I think we just ruled out accident."
At the Labitrail, Liam shimmies on over to Sara's lab. He leans over her table and says, "Hey, I hear you're working on Hank's case." "I believe it's my case," Sara responds, without even looking over at him. Liam comments, "Territorial. Guys don't like that." Because if there's one person in the lab who desperately wants to please men, it's Sara? She lets it roll off her back with, "You're crowding me," delivered through a clenched-teeth smile. She really should have gone for the jugular and asked why someone who's got Beaker's hairdo isn't also running around saying only, "Meep meep meep -- meep meep meep meep meep meep." Liam is undeterred by Sara's attitude; he says jauntily, "I have some information that could bring us even closer." Sara gives him a look, and Liam feigns interest in her work so she'll be distracted from her thoughts of killing him. Sara explains that "I downloaded the memory from the GPS in the Jaguar. She wasn't a local; I wanted to see if she got lost." Liam asks, "Well, did she?" Sara continues, "Diane Lambert lived in Laughlin. She took 95 North to Summerlin Parkway. Then she took Parkway to Rampart, made a left onto Main Street, and headed straight to Meadows Lane -- 16 North Meadows Lane. That's where she was going, and that's where she ended up." There was actually a turn from Main to Meadows, but Sara's no less accurate than MapQuest. Liam wants to know if Sara's mad GPS skillz can tell us why Diane Lambert drove as she did, and Sara instantly perks up: "What do you have?" Liam can barely keep the grin off his face as he replies, "Well, maybe she had the munchies. Tox screen came back -- Mrs. Lambert tested positive for Cannabis sativa." Sara says incredulously, "Grass?" Liam laughs, "Grass? So '70s, man! Sticky green, the dank, the chronic, the cush, the happy stick, wacky tobaccy --" Sara cuts him off, stammering, "W-w-wait, wait. Grandma was high?" She says that like it's a surprise. Come on, Sara, the baby boom's eligible for AARP now. You think they're gonna abandon something because it seems age-inappropriate? Liam confirms this. Sara repeats again, "Grandma was high," and Liam mimes taking a hit off a joint before saying, faux-stoner style, "As a kite."
This prompts Sara's mad rush back down to the morgue, where David is not surprised to see her. Sara asks excitedly if Diane Lambert was legally impaired, and David replies, "Less than two nanograms of THC, so per NIDA, she wasn't." This daunts Sara but for a second before she's asking, "If [Diane] were a long-time user, her reaction time could have been slowed down, right?" David stops what he's doing to perform this episode's reference to topical issues: "THC has no significant cumulative effect, so the question you should be asking is, 'Why was a woman her age doping up?'" Sara parrots, "Why was a woman her age doping up?" and David responds, "Because she was touring with the Rolling Stones." But I kid the Stones. Actually, David replies by telling Sara to check out Diane's optic nerves, and Sara channels the power of the TMICam to determine that Diane's nerves were damaged and she had glaucoma. She says to David, "I thought you said [Diane] was in good health." David explains, "That was before the tox screen came back. It's not standard procedure to check for glaucoma, but the Mary Jane tipped me off. People think it slows the progression of the disease, but it just reduces the pressure in the eye, and that reduction's only temporary. Prescription medications do a much better job. Unfortunately, they don't have the same side effects." Nor can they be grown fairly cheaply. Sara and David have another version of the forensic cause vs. physiological cause argument, and end in another draw.
So Sara walks back upstairs, where Catherine's tapping the power of Big Brother to match photo identification and biographical details against the restaurant seating map. All she needs to do now is add their history of checked-out books at the library. You laugh, but I have no doubt this information will feature in a future episode of this show or CSI: Miami. Catherine explains, "I got photos of the restaurant patrons off the DMV database and input the information per the restaurant seating chart and police report. Who's Elaine Alcott?" The sexy descendant of Louisa May? Sara has no idea. Catherine trails off, "Well, she was seated with Hank. I just thought that maybe..." Sara spends time staring at Elaine while Catherine fills in that Elaine was coming back from the loo at the moment Diane plowed into the bistro, and eventually pipes in with, "They must be friends. I saw her with him at the hospital." It is a testament to the difference in Sara and Catherine's attitudes that Sara assumes Hank is just dining with friends, whereas Catherine would have already pegged Hank as a cheating cad and moved on to the logical step (maiming, mutilating, et cetera). Catherine shrugs off Sara's explanation and notes that of the thirty-six people in the restaurant, twelve were Sillmont Health Care employees. Warrick picks this moment to walk in and ask, "You know how long it takes to get in touch with anyone at the Transportation Safety Bureau? It's way out of hand." I thought Catherine knew someone over there. ["I laughed out loud at that line, because I raised a live person in about thirty seconds at the national bureau, and I'm not even law enforcement. It's a long story." -- Sars] Anyway, Warrick delivers the news that Diane Lambert sped through the light, and Catherine examines the accompanying camera stills. Diane looks like a woman who's got places to be -- unpleasant places, that is -- and has every intention of getting to them at 52 miles per hour. Sara notes that 52 mph is more than twice the speed limit. Warrick pipes up, "Well, the tread marks tell us her brakes did work, so it must have been something else that malfunctioned, causing her to accelerate." Sara guesses that the gas pedal could have gotten stuck or the throttle plate could have jammed. Catherine replies, "There's only one way to find out." Sara assures her she's on it, then goes off to disassemble a car in time to music.
Once Sara's neck-deep in car parts and sporting a picturesque oil smudge on one cheek, Warrick comes in. He starts, "You have, uh..." and makes the universal wipe here gesture. Sara does, but doesn't even move the oil around. Warrick's all, "Don't worry about it. How's it going? Did you find anything?" No, Sara did not -- everything checks out. Warrick's had slightly better luck; now that he's got a contact at the TSB, he can prevail upon them at any time, and he's found out that the particular light which captured Diane's sprint through the intersection catches four times as many violators than any other camera in Vegas. Sara concludes, "That intersection's dangerous. Could be a death trap."
In another, less oily part of the Labitrail, Hodges the High-Strung Lab Tech is hovering over a microscope as if it's about to throw a foal. Nicky walks in and parks himself to Hodges, who looks up and says, "I didn't page you." Nicky replies, "No -- I just figured I'd come by." Hodges says querulously, "You're checking up on me again." Nicky tells Hodges it's not about him, but the evidence. He ambles on over to the FTIR, and Hodges snaps, "You think if you hover, the FTIR will work faster?" Nicky says dismissively, "Yes, Hodges, that's what I think." Hodges harrumphs himself into a rebuttal guaranteed to bury Nicky, but then Gil comes in and he's a different man, singing out, "Hey, boss!" Hodges is not so observant as he thinks; Gil's pretty sanguine about the adoration from his subordinates because it's pretty much their default setting. One more toady isn't going to register. Nicky smirks as the FTIR spits out results, and as Hodges tries to grab them for presentation to Gil, Nicky snatches them back; Hodges is left to sing-song, "Nice timing." This is the point where Nicky tells us all that the substance in the fireplace is pure carbon. Hodges checks in with, "It may be pure, but it's not solid. Micropores. Sample's under the scope." Gil floats on over to the scope, but Hodges attempts to block Nicky. Hodges is all but guaranteeing that he'll be getting the early bird special on the Day of Justice, especially with the looks Nicky's giving him now. I get the feeling that Nicky's already mapping out exactly where to shoot in order to inflict maximum damage. Gil, who's actually been examining the evidence, is surprised to see activated charcoal. Nicky begins brainstorming: "Used in filtration systems, kitty litter, some medications --" "And possibly a murder," Gil says, looking up from the scope in surprise.
He's probably surprised because he just caught sight of the weather channel and noticed it was raining in Las Vegas again. The city's average rainfall is less than five inches per year; this episode alone has already topped that. The only reason we know it's raining is because Sara and Warrick don't have enough sense to come in out of it. They'd rather stand on the corner of the intersection that Diane Lambert blew through while trying to achieve Mach-2, trying to gauge whether Diane ran the light on account of glare. Sara turns around -- sporting a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses that would look great on an actual sunny day -- and notes that Diane would have been driving with the sun at her back, and the resultant glare on buildings in front of her might have affected her vision. Warrick reiterates, "So you think the sun was a factor in the crash?" Sara replies, "According to the accident report, the sun set at 5:30 yesterday." Warrick adds, "The accident was at 5:15, so the sun was still in the sky." Sara turns around to check out the view behind her; we see that two of Las Vegas's beautiful and elusive Tall Burrowing Palms cap an avenue lined with these shy arboreal giants. They must have been flooded out of their underground warren with the unexpected rain.
Sara figures the trees are about ten degrees above the western horizon. Warrick makes the word problem harder by adding information: "There's 24 hours in a day, the sun moves 360 degrees in the Earth's rotation. Three hundred and sixty divided by 24 is 15." Sara picks it up: "Fifteen. The sun moves about 15 degrees an hour." She imagines the path of the sun on the mirrored window of a building facing an intersection -- that building's looking mighty intact, so I'm curious as to whether we're looking at a neighboring building or what -- and as she mentally tracks the sun, it lights up her face. It's a nice visual effect, but the accompanying audio -- violas playing the whimsical music -- is kind of precious. At least this pretend sun Sara's looking at justifies her totally real sunglasses. She and Warrick stand there in the rain under the umbrella he's holding (aww!) and imagine the sun moving until Sara asks, "At 5:15 yesterday, the sun would have been about what -- 3.75 degrees above the horizon?" Warrick compliments Sara on her speedy mental math, then concludes that the sun was behind the trees already, so glare wasn't a factor. Plus, didn't it rain, like, immediately after? Wouldn't there have been the possibility of rain clouds altering the typical light patterns? Sara's bummed because "our investigation is still in the dark." The string quartet wraps up the scene on that line. I don't know what happened to the music supervisor between last season and this one, but boy, am I noticing his work a lot more.
Since Liam's only getting out of the Labitrail during supervised field trips, he's living vicariously through whatever loud, debauchery-raddled rock group he's listening to as this scene opens. Gil comes in and turns off the CD player, saying, "I just got a page from James Watson." Nicky adds, "And I got one from Francis Crick." And Ecklie got one from Rosalind Franklin, causing him to pound the desk and scream, "Dammit, I still don't get any credit and nobody knows who I am!" Oh, he did not. But for those of you who are amused by Liam's little page, you might be pleased to know that we just passed the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of DNA, so Liam's got a historical sense of humor. Liam tells the unamused CSIs, "Watson and Crick are the granddaddies of DNA. Without their discoveries, I'd have nothing to do all day." Nicky asks testily, "What have you been doing all day?" Pitching sweet woo to Sara, Liam-style, but that news isn't going to endear him to Gil.
Liam replies, "A tox report on your DB, Ms. Pretty In Pink. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Blood saturation level 46.2 percent. No surprise there. Nicotine levels are high -- she was a smoker. And she popped a couple of sleeping pills that night." Gil's not impressed: "Nothing probative." Liam's prepared: "What if I told you that Mr. Arnz had a blood saturation level of 37 percent, nearly ten percent lower than his wife." Gil's still not convinced: "Mrs. Arnz was a smoker. Typically, a smoker's blood is already ten percent saturated with CO." Nicky adds, "You mean smokers get a jump start on the poisoning process. Could explain the ten percent difference. It could also explain why he lived and she died." Liam replies to both CSIs, "Nice theory. But what if I told you that Mr. Arnz had high nicotine levels as well?" "They were both smokers," Nicky states. "That still doesn't explain why one lived and one died," Gil points out. Liam piles on more crucial information with, "I don't know if this is going to help, but those sleeping pills were zolpidem, a prescription-only. I thought I'd save you some time, so I talked to Lockwood. She didn't have a prescription, but her husband does." Gil actually looks impressed. He sincerely thanks Liam, and turns to go. Nicky shows his appreciation by turning Liam's music back on before following Gil. They depart, and Liam hunches down at his bench, scrawling in his notebook, "Note to self: The Master approves when you look for the reason behind a physical clue. Also, The Master SMILED AT ME!!!!!!!"
In another part of the lab, Catherine's playing San Francisco Driver on the company dime. I love that game! Sara comes over and Catherine bids her, "Check this out: the red light camera clocked her speed at 52 miles per hour, right? The computer software pegged her at 60 by the time she hits the newspaper dispenser. She accelerated into the building."
This prompts Sara to head back down to the morgue for a third time, where David the Obviously Cranky Coroner snipes, "You already reviewed the driver's tox screen, and now you want her basic blood panel." Sara shrugs that she's running with a hunch. Grumbling, David lets her into the lab and pulls the file. Sara reads and notes that her acetylcholine levels were low and epinephrine was high. David asks why she's focusing on the hormones now, and Sara explains, "Kamikaze pilots in World War II, their blood work was very unusual; acetylcholine levels were low, epinephrine was through the roof." David points out that she's talking about "the body's sympathetic response to stress -- eyes dilate, heart rate goes through the roof, hormones go haywire." Sara argues, "Diane Lambert lived two hours away. She drove her car into Vegas with the intention of using it as a murder weapon. I imagine she would be pretty stressed out." David smiles sadly and says, "Kamikaze granny."
In another plotline, Nicky and Gil enter a smallish hardware store. Nicky peels off toward a counter and Gil heads toward the back where Creepy Pete is intently reading a book. Gil breaks the ice with, "Isaac Asimov. One of my favorite writers. 'Knowledge can create problems, and it is not through ignorance that we will solve them.'" Creepy Pete asks, "Is that what you're doing here? Solving problems?" Actually, it sounds like he's sending you a coded warning about what to do, kiddo. Gil points out, "It's my job to figure out what happened to your mother." Creepy Pete proceeds to tell this seasoned scientist, "'Scientists derive their satisfaction from figuring out the puzzle. It's about the quest, not the grail.'" Gil nods in recognition of the quote, and then picks up Creepy Pete's copy of I, Robot, but he doesn't launch into a discussion of whether or not either one of them identifies with Susan Calvin and the phenomenon of being most fully human when interfacing with the inhuman. Instead, he listens to Creepy Pete tell him, "Asimov believed that only scientists could understand the universe. His corollary: 'It's not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right --'" "'But that I have so much confidence in non-scientists being wrong,'" Gil finishes. See, these guys remember all the profound things Asimov said; the one line that always sticks with me is, "Give my big hearts to Maude, Ray. Dismember me for Harold's choir. Tell all the Foys on Sortibackenstrete that I will soon be there," because, like Asimov, I have a fatal weakness for puns. Clearly, I am not fit to commune with serious-minded scientists like Gil and Creepy Pete. Gil asks a now-smiling Pete if he's a scientist, and Creepy Pete declares that he is. Just then, Mr. Arnz comes back to tell his son, "Those boxes won't unload themselves." Only in a John Hughes movie is the dramatic timing more obvious. Creepy Pete goes off to unload boxes and glower over how his dad embarrassed him in front of his new scientist friend, and Gil joins Nicky over by the register.
Mr. Arnz says he and the boy would like to get back in the house that night, and Nicky regretfully tells him that it's not possible, as there's a new wrinkle in the investigation, and it's caused by 20 milligrams of zolpidem in the missus's system. Arnz explains, "Vanessa was having trouble sleeping." Gil points out that the prescription isn't in Vanessa's name. Arnz goes on the defensive with, "Are you accusing me of something?" and Gil feigns indignation as he says guilelessly, "No. We're just telling you what we know." Arnz confesses, "Ever since this big box store which I can't name lest the corporate entity slap me with a lawsuit, but it probably rhymes with 'roam free throw,' opened down the block, I've been working sixteen-hour days just trying to survive. And I'd go home, and Vanessa'd come at me." In flashback, she's busy yammering at her exhausted husband about how they never have a decent conversation anymore and she's got needs too, and she's home all day. Without delving too deeply into the Arnzs' domestic life together, I've got to wonder -- if he's working his ass off and clearly tired, and she's not getting enough quality time with the man, why doesn't she let her teenaged son live the life of a latchkey kid and help reduce the workload at the hardware store? Anyway, back in present, Arnz continues, "She'd just go on, and on, and on, talking. When she finally let me get to sleep, she'd want what every woman wants." Cut to Nicky and Gil both looking baffled. Sometimes, the comic moments just happen organically. Oblivious to the monk-like CSIs before him, Arnz clarifies, "I don't just mean sex. She'd want to talk and talk. thing you know, it's 5 AM, the alarm is screaming at me, and I've got to go back to work." Nicky asks, "So you drugged your wife to get some shut-eye?" Arnz admits that he did, and Nicky comments on how it's illegal to dope your wife like that. Arnz explains, "Happened as an accident the first time. See, I got a problem swallowing pills, so I crush them up in the ice cream. One night, she grabbed the wrong bowl and was out like a light. Best night's sleep I'd had in a long time." That off his chest, Arnz tries to shoo the boys off, but Gil has one more question: "I have one more question: when did you quit smoking? I noticed the nicotine patch on your arm." Arnz says it's been three weeks. Nicky chimes in and asks if Arnz knew the damper on his chimney was busted. Arnz wonders if that might have had something to do with Vanessa's death, and then muses, "I asked Peter to -- huh. Is this my fault?" Gil lifts an eyebrow with sphinx-like ambiguity.
Back at the Labitrail, Sara and Catherine are discussing whom Diane might have been aiming for if she was going kamikaze. Sara thinks it was the restaurant or someone inside; Catherine says she'll call Brass so he can find out if anyone there knew Diane. Sara thinks it was a patron that Diane was gunning for, and argues for processing the most obvious targets first, i.e. the people in the windows. Catherine pulls up the Total Information Interface, and they begin looking at folks from top to bottom: a first-time visitor to Vegas, eliminated as an unlikely mark; two people who worked for Sillmont Healthcare; Hank and Elaine (who also works for Sillmont). Sara notices, "Three out of five people sitting in the window work at Sillmont Healthcare. Maybe I should go talk to her." Catherine gets a fishy look on her face and says, "Yeah. Maybe you should." Oh, Catherine's suspicious mind is working overtime.
Cut to a shot of Diane in happier times. Elaine's telling Sara, "I'm sorry. I don't recognize her." Sara asks if maybe Diane was one of the Sillmont policy holders. Elaine admits that might be the case, but she oversees hundreds of accounts, so she can't recall the name off the top of her head. Elaine offers to check her list, and rises stiffly from the table due to the neck brace she's wearing with her Juicy sweat suit -- and while I've got the chance, let me just ask, what is the deal with that thing suddenly becoming the uniform of Beautiful America? -- and walks over to the couch to begin looking through her laptop for relevant files. As Elaine bemoans her lack of time off owing to half her department being dead or wounded, Sara comes over and sits down beside her on the couch. They're both facing the coffee table, the better for Sara to see the picture of Hank and Elaine getting lei'd in Hawaii. Sara picks up the photo, and Elaine spares a moment to look over, smile, and say, "My boyfriend. I saved up my miles and took him to Hawaii last year. He's going to take me to Tahiti in a few weeks -- I can't wait." There's a small part of me that's really curious as to how Hank would have explained the tan lines from that trip to Sara, but I imagine that's the least of the details Sara's suddenly become concerned with. Sara's sitting there, kind of stunned; she barely acknowledges Elaine as the other woman says, "She's not on my list, but if you want, I can go on my company database." Sara, who looks like she's holding back a crying fit only through sheer force of will, turns to look at Elaine and stammers a quick exit, awkwardly flinging her card at Hank's girlfriend before fleeing. Ten bucks says she sits in the CSImobile for ten minutes trying to figure out if her move involves hunting down and killing Hank, or going home and crying for a while.
Meanwhile, Gil is going through Creepy Pete's abode and meditating on the fish tank before stopping to inspect the filter. Pete comes in and watches Gil; Gil tells him, "You're not supposed to be in here." Pete responds flatly, "It's my home." Gil notes that for a self-identified scientist, Creepy Pete isn't too observant, saying, "Perhaps you didn't see the crime scene tape." Pete looks irritated, and gets confrontational with, "Do I look stupid to you?" Gil assures him that's not the case: "I heard you have an almost perfect four-point GPA, with the exception of a B in English. Our detectives do complete background searches on all the principals at a crime scene. I understand you threatened your English teacher." Creepy Pete declines to elaborate on why, saying only, "I have to feed my fish." He comes over and channels Dr. Evil, intoning, "Clown loaches, tetras, angelfish." Ooh, so he reads Asimov and he knows his fish species. Someone rescue this Boy Scientist from a stultifying life in suburbia! Gil watches Creepy Pete feed his little charges, and points out that he might want to check the filter, as it's running low. Pete's head swivels around, and his eyes bug out: I'm not sure if this is supposed to be startlement, menace, or the sudden onset of hyperthyroidism.
Over the course of the commercials, Gil got Creepy Pete into the tank, and collared Nicky for the big confession scene. He opens by telling Creepy Pete, "In 1939, Isaac Asimov was an undergraduate studying zoology. As part of a course requirement, the students were asked to find a stray cat, kill it, and dissect it. Isaac found his cat, he killed it -- and then he promptly dropped out of zoology. Fifty years later, he wrote that the memory of killing that cat still haunted him." Creepy Pete's unmoved by this story of the human side of science: "Do you have a question for me?" Gil's demeanor hardens, and he asks, "Yeah. I do. Why didn't you fix the damper in your parents' bedroom?" Pete asks snidely, "Why would I?" Because you live there rent-free so it wouldn't kill you to help out around the house? Actually, Pete claims he only told his dad that he fixed the chimney so the old man would get off his case. He then adds arrogantly, "And if you're accusing me of disobeying a man with only a tenth-grade education, then you're right." What's the famous Mark Twain attribution? "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." Nicky misses a golden opportunity to throw that at the kid -- given Creepy Pete's B in English, he's probably not equipped to counter-quote with anything -- and points out that it's obvious Creepy Pete took advantage of the broken damper and put his charcoal from the fish tank filter in the back of the fireplace, setting up the murder scene. Nicky also declines to quote Exodus 20:12, and says, "You killed your mother. You almost killed your father." "Don't rub my nose in my failures!" Creepy Pete screams. Oh, he does not. He attempts to play it cool by dismissing Nicky's statements as science fiction. I think the people at Locus might differ with Creepy Pete's definition of the genre. Nicky explains, "You thought the charcoal would burn up, destroying any evidence of the crime, but your father woke up and called 911."
Gil finally speaks up to ask, "Grasshopper, at what point is the saturation point of carbon monoxide in the bloodstream lethal?" Nicky replies that it's approximately 45-50 percent. Gil nods and says, "Mmmm. Well, his mother's level was in the range, but his father's level was low." Nicky plays along with, "Yeah, but two people exposed to the same level of carbon monoxide for the same period of time, their CO saturation levels...should be approximate." Creepy Pete promptly jaws down on the hook and interrupts, "If the variables are consistent -- body mass, health, age." Gil continues to play to the kid's hubris by asking, "What about smoking?" Creepy Pete says, "Of course." Nicky points out, "Three weeks ago, your father quit." Creepy Pete telegraphs his surprise via the blinking Morse code. Gil picks up on it and says, "Yeah, we didn't know he'd quit either. The nicotine levels in his system were high, but when we went to speak with him, he was wearing a nicotine patch." Nicky gives us all a refresher on how the patch works, and adds, "Since your father quit smoking cigarettes, his CO saturation level returned to zero." Creepy Pete looks as though he's kicking himself. Gil extends a foot to join in: "You made a basic scientific mistake, Peter. You stopped observing the human element because you thought it was inferior."
Nicky presses Pete on the "why" of the whole sordid affair, what with him having gotten into Princeton (I'll leave it to Sars to detail whether any of her classmates were like this kid ["they weren't in my class, but…two words: Menendez brothers" -- Sars]) and only a few months from escaping the house. Gil says he knows why; Creepy Pete's parents weren't going to let him go. Pete confirms this: "They refused to pay it. I don't qualify for financial aid because my father makes too much money -- not enough money to live well, but enough to destroy my dreams." Oh, that's hogwash. First of all, the kid can delay matriculation for a year, work full-time to build up a nest egg, and argue the "unusual circumstances" clause in the Federal definition of self-supporting student (and don't get me started on how wrong-headed that definition is...). Second, there are private financial aid programs available through banks. The point is, this alleged genius couldn't come up with a Plan B for paying for school, so he resorted to murder? Nicky articulates the logical conclusion for the slow people in the audience: "So with your parents gone, you could sell the business and pay your tuition." And probably pay room and board off whatever life insurance policies his parents had. Creepy Pete tells Nicky, "You figured out the puzzle. Must be very gratifying." Yeah, and Nicky went to a state school, too. Go, Aggies. Gil tells Creepy Pete, "Science isn't about the gratification, Peter. It's about the truth." And for Creepy Pete, it will soon become about the ability to whip up jailhouse hooch and thus stay on everyone's good side.
Some time and a change of clothes later, Sara comes in and sits down to Catherine. The older woman asks how it went with Elaine Alcott. "Oh, awkwardly," Sara replies. She does not either, but Catherine's Spurned Woman Senses have honed in on Sara's throbbing ego. Without making eye contact, Sara says, "She didn't have anything to add to the investigation." Catherine keeps staring at Sara. Brass interrupts the standoff by forking over phone records for Diane and saying, "Where the hell have I been for the last forty-some minutes?" Actually, he admits, "There may have been something to that kamikaze grandma theory of yours. Last week, Diane closed down her bank accounts, paid off her credit cards, and updated her will." Catherine concedes that Brass's revelations provide evidence that Diane's actions were intentional. Sara looks up and notices that there's only one Vegas phone number on the statement. Surprise, surprise, it's for Sillmont Healthcare. Sara asks for the address, and we find out it's at 16 South Meadows Lane; Café Kamikaze is at 16 North Meadows Lane. Sara wonders how Diane ended up plowing into the wrong target, and the team quickly concludes that the GPS occasionally throws a rod. That leads to one of two conclusions: either the GPS screwed up for Diane Lambert, or she entered the wrong address. Before that can be addressed, however, Sara wants to find out why Diane Lambert was so angry. Perhaps she had just found out Hank was seeing two other women.
In the scene, we actually find out why Diane Lambert was so angry. Sara and Catherine are meeting with Elaine and Corporate Asshole #1. Well, he is. They're talking Diane Lambert -- it turns out she has a policy there -- and when Catherine asks to see Lambert's file, CA#1 tells her they keep them private. Catherine points out that not even patient/doctor privilege extends beyond the grave, and Elaine slides the file over. Sara skims it, and looks up, saying, "Mrs. Lambert had colon cancer." CA#1 replies, "If you read further, you'll see it was in remission." Sara replies, "No, actually, her most recent CAT scan shows recurrence two months ago and that's about the same time she started calling your office." "Well, you weren't supposed to read down that far," CA#1 replies. Or maybe his body language just shouts it. Sara asks, "Why would she be calling you?" and as the Sillmont delegation gets very shifty eyes, Catherine intuits what's going on and snaps, "You know what? Four people are dead. Don't waste our time. We can take this downtown." Elaine blinks. She says, "Mrs. Lambert's oncologist recommended immediate and aggressive treatment." Sara asks if she got it. Elaine replies, "The recommendation was pending." Catherine asks, "Well, what exactly does that mean?" CA #1 replies, "Not yet approved, not yet denied." Catherine clarifies, "In other words, Mrs. Lambert's health was in limbo. She wasn't receiving treatment, but she couldn't file an appeal." Mrs. Lambert was merely a bellwether for what's to come in Medicare once the Bush administration's proposed overhaul of the Medicare appeals process goes through. CA#1 says, "The authorization process takes time." "Time Mrs. Lambert didn't have," Catherine points out. That doesn't matter to CA#1; Sillmont's mission statement evidently hinges on following procedure regardless of the effect on human lives. Catherine pontificates, "And while you were following your procedure and postponing a decision, her cancer cells were multiplying." Sara finally snaps to and asks, "What were you, playing the odds, hoping she would die before you had to spend a dime?" Yeah, but it failed, because now they have to pay out for employee health insurance on everyone injured in the crash. Talk about pennywise, pound foolish. CA#1 insists he's not liable or responsible for Diane Lambert's actions. Doesn't matter -- he still makes Catherine sick.
Well, now that they've got the motive, there's only a few loose ends to wrap up. Since everyone's more interested in what's going on with Hank, we'll actually finish the case first: Diane's loving grandson Corey is the one who programmed the GPS per his grandma's request. When Sara and Catherine point out that he evidently stood to gain a lot of money when she died -- she had made him the beneficiary of her life insurance, which I hope was through a different carrier than Sillmont or its corporate parent -- and suggest he might have helped on the kamikaze mission, Corey is outraged. He loved his grandma, he could care less about the money, and the whole thing is just sad and awful.
And now, on to the stuff all of you are really watching for: the confrontation between Hank and Sara. Catherine's riding shotgun, giving tips on where to hurl things for maximum pain ("this used to hospitalize Eddie for days!"), until she excuses herself so Sara can go over and gently close Hank's open mouth before he catches any more flies. Sweet Jeebus, what did she ever see in him? If she wants to eat from the company trough, there's a whole lab full of smart, personable, cute lab techs -- Archie, Bob the Ballistics Guy, Archie, Emergency Backup David, Archie, Liam -- instead of panting after this personality-free bonehead. Anyway. Hank is all, "I called the lab. They said you were here." In the hall? What, did the operator say, "She likes to walk along hallways when she's upset"? Hank continues watching Sara's face as he says, "I heard you met Elaine." Sara replies that the two of them are going out to lunch together to bond over how bad Hank is in bed. I wish. Instead she's all composed, yet misty, saying, "Yeah. She's really...something." Hank continues to stare into space until Sara continues, "I didn't tell her about us, if that's what you're wondering." "Oh, thank God. Those Tahiti tickets were nonrefundable," Hank blurts out. Or rather, manages not to. Instead, he tries to salvage the situation with, "I'm really sorry, Sara." Sara is too, but probably not for the same reasons as Hank. He dodges any sort of culpability for this relationship mix-up with, "I don't know what to say." Well, that's not exactly a one-time phenomenon with him. Sara blows him off with, "See you around." At awkward crime scenes? Can't wait!
She goes walking out the door as the Sundays' melancholy "Wild Horses" starts up. As Sara hops in the car, her misery is evident. Catherine asks, "You got plans?" Sara looks straight ahead and says, "Nope." Still looking at Sara, Catherine asks, "You want to get a beer?" Sara looks at Catherine, and this is the point where the husband comments from the depths of the couch, "If this was a porn movie, they would so start doing it right now." "Try the fanfic," I advise him. "But then I can't see Marg Helgenberger naked!" protests the husband. "Use your imagination," I advise. Well, all of you can too -- I personally like how this ends with the two of them riding off to go get a beer together.