Golden showers bring...well, not flowers so much as burglars, if the opening sequence of this episode is to be believed. I like how they set up the guy who's peeing in the middle of the road as up to no darned good. My only question is, how was he holding the crowbar while he was, you know, aiming? It's not like we could tell down there at ankle level.
We get a few shifting scenes to indicate that the kids are pierced, bald, or gelled -- no stodgy hoods, these -- and we watch them progress toward their target a quick-cut at a time. First the backs of their heads, then their Doc Martens-clad feet. Then back up to the heads. Then down to the feet. Another quick cut and they're jumping the cinderblock fence and landing on a convenient table. Another quick cut and they're prying open the back door with the crowbar. We go to an aerial view as the two head inside. When they walk through the narrow kitchen, one comments, "This place doesn't look like much to me." The other one replies, "I'm telling you, this bitch is loaded, and no one's seen her for weeks." You know, nothing says, "You'll be seeing her now!" like that sort of statement.
As the two walk into the lit living room -- have these rocket scientists wondered why the living room is lit if nobody's seen the bitch in question for weeks? -- they notice the general state of disarray. "This place is trashed!" complains the most aesthetically sensitive. Oh, wait. He's not protesting on aesthetic grounds; he's worried that he's going to look stupid. The other kid protests that someone else must have had the same idea they did.
Just then, their gaze alights on the furniture shoved up against the closet door. "What the hell is this?" one of them asks. A siren blurts inquisitively outside, and the other makes the command decision to take off. The two head back from whence they came, leap over the fence...and straight into the spotlights a phalanx of cop cars have directed right at the spot where they jump. Heh. As the two boys put their hands on their heads as directed, we see them squinting in the bright glare…
…and then light pulls back. We see a flashlight, and Gil's bearded face at the end of it. He's intently studying the chair that's been wedged below a doorknob. It's a nice chair. Gil then dusts it for prints while Warrick hangs around. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Then we see Warrick dusting what appears to be a different flat surface, and telling Gil, "Smudges, nothing but smudges. Doesn't anyone use Formica anymore?" A uniform's standing by and telling Gil that the contents of the closet are a total mystery, as the police were loath to open it until the geek squad arrived. But now he's all impatience: "Are you gonna open it?" Gil assures him that they will eventually. "Eventually" actually translates to "in the time it took me to type the preceding sentence." There's some more dusting for prints, and Gil lifts a partial off the doorknob. The uniform mutters, "This is going to take all day." Gil replies, "Sun Tzu once said, 'If you wait by the river, the bodies of your enemies will float by.'" The uniform shoots back, "My mom once said, 'I'm not getting any younger.'" Oh, he does not. But just once, I'd like it if someone responded to some quoted tidbit with a smart-assed rebuttal. Gil then opens the door, flashlight at the reader.
The gray-green legs of a mummified corpse are resting on the floor of the closet. Gil and Warrick take in the twisted posture of the woman, her deeply-furrowed death grimace, and the limp gray hair, and Gil refers back to Sun Tzu by saying sardonically, "But those were brutal times."
The Who are having a brutally hard time figuring out who the hell we are.
When we get back from commercials, Emergency Backup David is preparing to wheel a gurney into the house. He's blocked by Warrick, who's a) at the door, and b) asking that David cool his heels since that woman's not about to rehydrate, reanimate, and skedaddle on out. David agrees, "I'm not going anywhere." Warrick goes through the mail and notes that there's at least four weeks' worth; Gil calculates, "Four weeks of a hundred-degree days with zero percent humidity. Eventually the body tissues sublimate, the fluids vaporize, and all that's left are proteins, fats and minerals." We see this happening in time-lapse as Gil narrates. Warrick comments, "Turns a grape into a raisin." What happens to a corpse interred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun, or mummify indoors? Gil comments, "The desert was making mummies long before the Egyptians." I wonder if the early Egyptian mummifiers were merely hucksters trying to convince people that their mummification process was better than nature -- "You could keep Grandma on the sand dune in the back, but siroccos and camel spit will damage her -- why not use our patented Dri-Linen mummy technique instead?" Gil notices something, then calls Warrick over so he can bear witness too: the door is scored with scratches, and that scratched area splotched with blood. We then see that the poor woman's fingers are like half-chewed jerky. Warrick states the grim and obvious: "She tried to claw her way out." Gil adds, "Which means she was alive when she was entombed." And now we're back at those Egyptians again. Or at least at Aida and Radames, who were kind of Egyptian.
Meanwhile, Brass is outside gathering more evidence for the comprehensive thesis, "Kids these days are up to no damn good." The hood with the hair is alleging that the house's resident has to have been loaded, since she had the nerve to go out to dinner all the time and bring in shopping bags; he further endears himself to Brass by adding, "Bitch had insurance money, and word had it that she kept it hidden under her bed." Because this was 1930 and she didn't want anyone to know she had cashed out before the bank crash the year before? Brass contents himself with replying, "A retired grade-school teacher living on a pension?" Hairy Punker protests that he didn't kill the target of his burglary. Brass snorts that he knew that, and says what he's really more interested in is learning whether or not these two kids touched anything in the house. Hairy protests that there was nothing left to touch, trash, or take. Brass just gives him a level look, then resolves to call him mom and make sure that she's got everything from motion detectors to call-in buddies who will check up on her if nobody's heard from her in 48 hours. Or maybe I'm just projecting that last part.
The sun rises as Warrick is looking through the surprisingly intact kitchen. Intricately painted mugs are stacked on a scalloped shelf over the sink, and a full china tea service is laid out on the counter under a window, where it probably glowed in the sun. I have to give the CSI set-design team credit here for giving this victim's life more texture and poignant detail than the usual body-of-the-week gets. Warrick looks at the tea set, then sees a plastic grocery store container and a slice of chocolate cake with a bite taken out of it. It's remarkably mold-free and moist-looking; one wonders when it got in the house relative to when the teacher was killed, or if it's so full of preservatives and 64-carbon-long hydrocarbon chains that it's immune to any of the elements, period. Warrick explains why the cake strikes him as odd: "A woman taking the time to make tea like this leaves a chunk of chocolate cake on the counter?" Gil adds, "With a big bite out of it? Yeah." It's probably sick and wrong, but I like it when Gil takes a case personally. It's a nice, subtle way to develop his character, as opposed to having him wander around glassy-eyed while the soundtrack is all "mwah MWAH mwah mwah mwah MWAH." And Warrick's no slouch in the reaction department; he shakes his head while he checks out the "Lavish Café" container and comments on the likelihood that some crackhead did this. Gil commands Warrick to take the cake back to the lab.
Gil then heads into the room with the closet, opens the closet door, shuts himself in, and imagines what it was like to be locked inside with no hope of escape. As he imagines, we also see the interspersed shots of the terrified woman being thrown into the lit closet, straining mightily to get out, sobbing as she claws at the bottom of the door, and then collapsing with a final weak groan. The light bulb in the closet burns out shortly afterward, and we're left back in the present, in a dark closet, with Gil. He looks like he's about to cry.
We then transition to the body on an autopsy table in the morgue, while David the Not-Quite-Outraged Coroner explains to Gil that, apart from multiple fractures on her fingers and hands, the old woman died with few injuries. Gil postulates, "So whoever boarded her up in the closet maybe didn't intend to kill her." David says, "They must have thought somebody would find her, a friend or relative." Gil points out, "She lived alone. Only relative was a nephew. Brass is looking for him." David sighs, "Live alone, die alone. In this case, from massive dehydration. Rule of threes: three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food." Spoken like someone who has never fretted over a friend or relative living alone. Gil says quietly, "Three days must have felt like three years." The two of them then get back to forensics: Gil needs prints and dental impressions to rule out any prints at the scene, and any impressions left in the cake. David partially obliges by popping out the denture plate, and then commences clipping off fingertips.
Don't you feel like a lighthearted B-plot at this point? You don't? Too bad -- you get one anyway. In the lush heart of well-manicured suburbia, Catherine's walking around someone's rolling green acres with a uniform. He's explaining that a gun more or less appeared out of nowhere, a little kid fired near his foot, then dropped the weapon, and nobody's touched the gun since. Anti-gun lobbyists begin bouncing excitedly as the gun's independent movement toward childish hands proves that, as a matter of fact, the guns are killing people (or at least trying), and they're taking the initiative now. Catherine is now standing over the gun. She picks it up and inspects it. At one point she notices a tiny piece of red ribbon.
Catherine then walks over to talk to the kid, who's dressed in his pajamas and sitting on his mother's lap. We establish that he's been given a rocket-ship Band-Aid for his troubles, and that his mother is somewhat silly: "My husband and I don't believe in guns." Not even after one wings your kid? I can see not believing in the tooth fairy, unicorns, or the presence of WMDs in a certain country, but when you've got actual evidence, I'd say it's time to start believing in guns, and maybe consider not-believing in something else. Then the woman mewls, "We moved here from the city because it was supposed to be safer." Oh, someone is about to become her homeowners' association's worst nightmare as she begin petitioning for some sort of watch to prevent further incursions by flying firearms. In any event, we go through the usual rigmarole to demonstrate that there's a reason Catherine works with the short set while Gil vibrates with fury over a mummy (she's good with childish quirks, whereas Gil would hear about Seymour the imaginary friend and say something to Brass like, "They don't believe in guns, but they do believe in imaginary friends," and then he and Brass would stand there and marinate in their general contempt). We also establish that the gun seemingly appeared out of nowhere in the planter.
Back in the unfun plot, Gil and Brass are awaiting the arrival of the mummy's nephew, who apparently aroused Brass's suspicion when he insisted on seeing his aunt's body. Conor Foster finally shows up, loping along and apologizing for his tardiness; he got lost on the way over. Conor finally registers some bodies on gurneys and asks, "This is the morgue, huh?" No, it's where the CSIs nap when they don't want to be disturbed.
Once everyone has decamped to the cool greenish light of the morgue proper, Gil tries to prepare Conor for what he's about to see: "You have to prepare yourself for this. Your aunt was found in an advanced state of decomposition." The words fall like so many gibberish syllables into Conor's ears. David pulls out the drawer and Conor looks down at his wizened green aunt for a moment before deciding, "Oh, this is messed up. This is really messed up. Whoa! She just moved! Did you see that? I'm telling you, she just moved." Gil and Brass are exchanging skeptical glances. Brass says calmly, "Sometimes, when you see the body of someone you know, someone you've seen move before, you want them to move." Conor persists, "That's not her. This lady's too thin. That's not her skin, either! My aunt always wore sunblock." Heh. Conor's what passes for a good time in the morgue. Gil says to Brass, "Dry him out. Diaphoresis. Red eyes, dilated pupils." Conor doesn't know what "diaphoresis" means. (It means you're sweating a lot, Conor. And you are.) Brass says, "You're high." "I gotta go," Conor replies. "We'd like you to stay," Brass assures him.
A considerably more sober Conor is sitting and drinking coffee in an interrogation room. He tells Gil and Brass that he's living at the YMCA off Industrial Road, and he's currently unemployed. Conor also has something of a history with his aunt; he was picked up a few years ago trying to pawn a pearl necklace she had reported stolen. He points out that the charges were dropped. Brass twists the knife with, "Sure -- anything for her favorite nephew. And what have you done for her? She was lying in a coat closet for over a month. You didn't call, you didn't stop by…" Now I really want to see when that cake entered the picture, because it looked remarkably fresh and moist. Conor says he limits contact because his aunt gets sad when she sees him. Before he can get further into their messy family dynamics, Gil asks if Conor gets the munchies. Conor asks, "When?" and Gil replies in a "well, duh" voice, "When you're high." There's a moment of silence, and Gil pushes, "Do you like cake." Conor laughs, "No, I go for burgers. Sonic." Well, he's not getting any Sonic burgers now; he's giving dental impressions instead.
Back in the B-plot, Catherine is dropping off the unregistered, no-prints-havin' gun with Rich the Replacement Ballistics Guy. Rich takes a moment to express appreciation for the "sweet piece" -- a .32 Beretta Tomcat with a titanium frame and a stainless steel barrel and slide, so it's lightweight. Catherine replies, "Light enough for a five-year-old to use." Rich replies, "Ouch." Catherine then adds that the kid's okay, and Rich pretends he was concerned. He loads the gun and makes the requisite two shots so he can begin running a match on the bullet. Rich finds something, which he announces with, "There's showing up for work, then there's doing your job. Warrick brought in a coroner's bullet last week. DB in Maslow Park. You just found the murder weapon." I wonder if the park was named after Abraham Maslow, and the park designer kept walking around insisting that the park needed swings and benches before it could self-actualize.
Anyway, the DB is one 47-year-old bounty hunter Frank Maddox, who died courtesy of a single .32 round to the side of his head. The gunshot was close range, from a downward angle, and there was no gunshot residue on Maddox's hands; he evidently died around two in the morning, there was a lot of wind -- Catherine interrupts Warrick's recitation of the facts with, "Warrick, your notes are great. Let the case speak for itself." Warrick shrugs and says, "All right. I gotta go see my mummy." Awww. That would almost be sweet if we didn't know he was referring to a desiccated corpse.
Actually, the clipped-off fingers have grown nice and plump following a short bath. Liam the Lab Tech picks one out with a pair of forceps and stares at it while saying, "You know, I could've sworn I heard Grissom telling you to do this." Warrick replies, "Yeah? You know what rolls downhill?" My observations from last week about the radiating Gil effect? Liam mutters, "Apparently, bloated fingertips." Warrick appeals to Liam's CSI-wannabe-itis by saying, "C'mon -- you've got a lot of new skills to master. Field work's a little messier than your test tubes and your GCMS." Liam snipes, "And a lot less accurate." Warrick counsels, "One continuous motion, nice and easy." Liam almost manages it. Warrick tells him, "That's not bad. Keep practicing. Nine more to go." What, because one of them won't be shredded beyond recognition?
Warrick rolls on out of the lab and saunters on through the Labitrail, catching Nicky and Sara heading in the opposite direction. Sara thinks the mummy in the closet sounds "very cool" -- which I suppose it is, once the circumstances under which the poor woman became a mummy are divorced from the situation -- and Nicky grouses good-naturedly that they've got a 406, or breaking-and-entering, to check out in Henderson. Warrick says derisively, "Nothing spells excitement like a B&E." Oh, little does he know.
Out at said place in Henderson -- nice freshly-washed driveway, by the way -- Sara and Nicky knock. Stephen Root answers. Yay! I like Stephen Root. The uniform with Sara and Nicky explains that a neighbor called in a B&E, and Stephen, who has not bothered opening the door more than a little bit, rambles, "Yeah, uh, sorry, officers. There's been a misunderstanding. My daughter, she had some, um, friends over tonight without my permission and they started, um, drinking, and it got out of control and they broke some stuff." While he's saying this, Sara's discreetly checking out what's going on over his shoulder. What we see is a ordinary-looking teenaged girl -- which, on network television alone, practically places her in the annals of cryptozoology -- huddled under a blanket, looking wary and panicked. As Stephen continues mumbling, "Some broken windows...we got it under control and we're cleaning it up, so I apologize for the trouble," Sara watches the girl scurry out of sight. The uniform lets Stephen off the hook, and he closes the door. As the three law-enforcement types walk back toward the car, Nicky quips, "To protect and serve." The situational irony, it is being laid on with the spatula of foreshadowing. Then Nicky and the uniform talk softball. Sara takes her exit as Nicky and the uniform turn razzing into a homoerotic spectator sport.
Once she hops in the car, she adjusts her rearview mirror -- and there's the teenaged girl sitting in the back of the car. Creepy! Sara only gasps, as opposed to bellowing, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," as I am prone to do when I'm badly startled. The girl requests softly, "I need to go to the hospital...please."
Cut to the hospital. Sara is saying, "Suzanna, if you were sexually assaulted --" Suzanna says stubbornly, "It was a party. It just got out of control. All I need is an AIDS test and a morning-after pill." Sara is standing behind the bed; Suzanna is sitting on the bed, cross-legged and curled up, facing away from Sara with her hands wrapped around her head as if to shield herself from something. Sara says, "Date rape is still rape." "Thank you for clearing that up," Suzanna manages with a deadpan delivery. The nurse comes in with the kit just as Sara notices the red bites on the juncture of Suzanna's neck and left shoulder, along the trapezius muscles. Suzanna asks if Sara has to be present. The nurse says no, and Suzanna bites out, "Bye. [pause] Thank you." The nurse goes outside to let Suzanna change, and Sara requests a full-body rape kit, reasoning, "If she can't talk, the kit's going to have to do it for her." I didn't think a hospital could give you a rape kit without your consent; going by Suzanna's reaction, it seems like she'd be unlikely to give consent. Ah, well. We have 35 minutes, so it's just as well.
Back at the Labitrail, Gil is shellacking the cake so he can take a dental mold when Liam comes up with the mummy prints. Gil surveys the blotchy smudges and grumbles, "Warrick's getting sloppy." Liam replies, "Yeah. Someone should really have a talk with that guy." Heh. Liam then asks what Gil is doing. He looks up and replies only, "Dessert."
Oh, hey, we're visiting with Stephen Root again. He's snapping at Nicky, "I thought we were done." Nicky says stubbornly, "Sir, we need a list of all the kids who were here tonight." Tonight? It's, like, ten in the morning. Also, Sara is apparently not wearing anything under the CSI vest. Mrs. Kirkwood -- that would be Mrs. Stephen Root -- asks why, and Sara explains to both of them that their daughter has been raped. They don't exactly react by weeping and rending their garments, expressing their concern for the girl, or otherwise giving any indication that this is terrible. Instead, Stephen asks anxiously, "What did she tell you?" Sara doesn't bother replying. She and Nicky just stare at the red, scraped knuckles of his hand. Nicky decides then and there, "We're going to need to search the premises." Stephen protests that they can't, since it's his house, and Sara produces the warrant. Nicky ushers them out, and the two of them proceed to search the house. Sara goes over Suzanna's room with the UV light. Nicky takes the master bedroom. He notices the shattered photo frames -- pictures of Suzanna as a little girl -- then sees the bloody glass embedded in the floor. After checking the almost-useless knob on the closet door, he lifts the glass, then acts on a hunch and fits an end table under the door. Then he opens the door and, amid the chaos in the closet, sees bloody streaks on the door, on the inside.
Evidently this find is enough to send him and Sara back to the Labitrail for a powwow with Gil and Warrick. Who's mocking the B&E now, huh, Warrick? The four CSIs stand around a long table laid with multiple crime-scene photographs. Sara asks, "How do we know it's the same suspect." "We don't," Warrick replies. That was a positively Grissomian response. Nicky reasons, "Table up against a door, chair shoved against a knob -- it is the same M.O." Sara asks about connections between the victims; Gil replies, "Well, both victims were left alive, we think. I mean, the old lady's death was probably unintentional. And the girl's rape was --" "Crime of opportunity?" Sara suggests. None of the guys are willing to elaborate on that. Warrick asks instead, "If you're out to rob somebody's house, why would you do it when they're home?" Gil replies, "The difference between burglary and home invasion -- infliction of terror." We see a likely flashback to the Kirkwoods cowering on the floor, hands behind their backs, as a home invader threatens, "Talk to the cops, and I kill you." Nicky comments, "Bad guys leave. Fear just stays behind." That's deep, Clem.
Hey, everyone! Don't get down! It's the wacky B-plot! Catherine and Buzz are walking in Maslow Park, approaching the bench where the bounty hunter breathed his last. "Like shooting fish in a barrel. Almost guaranteed to run into one of his skips or some lowlife who knows where they are," Buzz opines. This is the side of the bounty-hunting business you never hear about in the Stephanie Plum books; there, it's all wacky old ladies and hot-blooded Italian swains. In any event, Catherine's trying to figure out how the gun got from the park to the yard across town. I tell you, it's the gun itself, stealthily moving at night while chortling, "And they say people kill people, heh heh heh." Buzz thinks it's a drive-and-dump, but Catherine isn't buying it.
Back at the Labitrail, Warrick and Nicky are bringing their respective prints to Jacqui. By the by, in case you were wondering (as I was) what that dead woman's name was, it was Madeline Foster. It would have been nice to hear one of the CSIs refer to her by name. Anyway, Jacqui -- and by the by again, she appears to have a lot more hair than she used to, and it looks good on her -- sighs that the boys are always making her life hard. Nicky notes, "The center whorls look similar," and Jacqui rolls her eyes in his general direction. Heh. Warrick asks about a composite, and Jacqui replies, "It's all about gestalt. The whole of the pattern is greater than the sum of its parts." Oh, Jacqui, I love you for that statement alone. In a purely forensic way, of course.
And then we hit a science montage: Gil taking a mold off his shellacked cake, Sara taking a dental pattern off the bite marks on Suzanna's shoulders, Jacqui doing her gestalt-y thing. A minute later, Gil and Sara are talking teeth; the impression matches up, more or less, with the cake. We learn that the assailant bit Suzanna from behind; Gil notes, "It's easier to subdue her in that position." We go to what will be the first of many rape-scene flashbacks during the rest of the episode. Sara looks disturbed, as well she should. Gil asks, "You okay?" She says she is, so they get back to teeth. It's the same person -- and definitely not Conor. Just then, the remaining Young Turks roll in with a print: Steve Jansson.
Steve's been working out, if his arms are anything to go by. Or maybe he just got that buff twiddling his thumbs in the interrogation room. Brass and Sara are standing in the interrogation room looking down at him, and Brass is asking, "How was the Home of the Good Shepherd, Steve?" "I'm now allergic to lanolin, you prick!" Steve snaps back. Oh, he does not either. Instead he smugly and correctly points out, "Juvie offenses don't mean squat. My record? It's been expunged." Brass is all, "Doesn't mean you're not still committing crimes!" and Sara points out that there have been two crime scenes, two crimes -- and he's the common denominator. Brass points out, "Looking at your adult record, this makes strike two and three with one pitch." I think something in my brain just broke thanks to that tortured baseball metaphor. Stevie feigns ignorance without breaking a sweat. Brass tosses out Madeline Foster's name and the Kirkwoods' name. As luck would have it, he was a handyman for both households. Sara ambles over and asks, "Do you always help yourself to something sweet when you work?" Steve gives her a look, and she extends a dental plate, growling, "Bite it." Heh. CSI on the edge! We should just throw open the Rage Sweepstakes and see who will be first to snap.
Ha ha ha, funny B-plot. Catherine is watching the recently deceased bounty hunter make the near-fatal career mistake of bragging about catching his quarry whilst said quarry was legging it two states away. After we take a moment to mourn Frank Maddox's hubris, Catherine and Warrick debate whether or not he was actually killed. Warrick is in the pro category, while Catherine argues, "Maybe too textbook. A bounty hunter would know how to fake it." She cites the oddly pulled-down right sleeve, which would explain why there weren't any prints on the gun. Warrick counters that her explanation still doesn't account for the missing gun. Why will nobody consider the mobility theory? How else do people on this show "just happen" to find guns, like the Jackass jackasses with the Russian roulette stunt last season? Catherine says ruefully, "We're always looking for a weapon. You think it'd be easier when the weapon finds us." Warrick then asks what's in the scope -- you know, it's nice that he's in the scene, and far be it from me to begrudge more screen time to the man since he was barely in Season Two, but how on earth is he managing to hang with Catherine and work on the whole home-invasion mega-case? I'm just wondering. In any event, Warrick asks, Catherine answers, and after she explains that it's ribbon, like you use to wrap presents, she has her Eureka moment.
Cut to Catherine weighing the gun, then measuring out an equal weight in small lead balls. Warrick asks, "You got a theory?" Catherine replies, "You got ten bucks?" I think I'm going to start answering questions like that and see how much money I make before people catch on. Anyway, Warrick digs up the money.
Back in the bleak A-plot, Gil is telling Brass that Stevie's dental impression matches the bite marks on Suzanna's shoulder. Brass replies, "Consistent, but not conclusive. I spoke to Mr. Kirkwood -- he wouldn't confirm or deny [Stevie's] story." What was that about the terror lingering? Making Gil's bad day worse, Sara rounds the corner to announce, "Hey! Guys, we're screwed." Liam fills us in: the semen from the rape kit doesn't match Stevie, and there are no hits on CODIS. Sara concludes, "There was more than one guy; she was gang-raped." And then we go to another excruciatingly vivid rape flashback, this time with multiple assailants. You know, I've never been sexually assaulted, and I'm finding this to be a tad intense; I can't imagine how someone who had lived through this kind of experience might react. Back in the Labitrail, Brass grouses, "This gets cheerier by the moment." Everyone agrees that without figuring out who the second guy is, they can't put anyone away, and another person or family is likely to fall victim to the two home invaders. Gil snaps angrily, "We've given them no reason to stop."
So he deals with this by going to visit the Kirkwoods. Will wonders never cease? She opens the door, and Gil introduces himself. She stands there until Mr. Kirkwood, nee Stephen Root, shoos her off protectively and says brusquely, "What do you want? I already told the police I have nothing more to say." Gil begs to differ: "I think you do. And I need you to speak for someone who can't speak for herself, another victim." Mr. Kirkwood says, "I don't care about another victim." Now would be a fine time for Gil to say, "Maybe someone else's attitude like that led to you being a victim in the first place." But he's more sensitive than I am, so he doesn't. Suzanna hovers like a ghost. Gil says that they know there were two men who broke in, and they've already got one suspect, but they need Mr. Kirkwood to talk so they can get number two. Mr. Kirkwood reiterates that he can't help, and he goes to shut the door on Gil. Yeah, good luck with that. Gil's got some sort of supernatural juju -- nobody shuts doors on him. Gil pleads that the CSIs have done everything they can, but "I need what you saw." Kirkwood goes kind of tangential with, "Do you have a wife, children?" "I have roaches. Trained roaches," Gil replies defensively. Oh, he does not. He merely replies in the negative. Kirkwood continues, "Then you can't possibly understand how I feel. All I am to you is a folder in a drawer." Gil tries to understand this strange logic by asking, "And if I had a wife and children…?" "Then you wouldn't be here," Kirkwood says. He then manages to shut the door on Gil after repeating that he can't help him.
Back at the lab, the Young Turks are going through the stuff they took from the Kirkwood home. Nicky comments that "Miz Kirkwood was a Hoover. She even bleached the sheets." I don't even pretend to understand how vacuums and Clorox are linked in his pointy Texan head. Sara is thinking of deeper things. She doesn't understand how home invaders get in when there's no sign of forced entry. Nicky replies, "Ring the doorbell. That usually seems to work." Sara rolls her eyes in the universal sign for "whatever." Nicky then tosses out what Warrick identifies as a key piece of evidence. It's a bag bearing the same label as the container that held the cake at "old lady Maddie's" house. So respectful, that Warrick. Sara points out that the victims are now linked by the Lavish Café; Warrick checks the receipt and notes that it's dated from the night of the home invasion (10/08/03). For those who are curious, the Lavish Café is located at Kildare Road, Las Vegas, NV ; make your reservations at 702-555-2398. Warrick also notes that the receipt shows a dinner for one. Nicky muses, "Single women dining alone make for easy targets; all you'd have to do is follow them home." You know, rather than go into a seething rage over how delightful it is to be a woman and therefore susceptible to this sort of targeting by would-be criminals every time I have the nerve to go out alone, I'm just going to sigh and say, "Dammit. Mabell watches this show, and now she's going to be all paranoid about eating out alone." Then again, given the entire tenor of this episode, eating out alone would probably be the least of her worries.
We then establish that the Kirkwoods and Madeline Foster were linked by the same waiter as well; he looks a little taken aback to have Brass, Gil, and Warrick lined up and glaring at him. The waiter says, "I haven't seen Maddie in a while, but Mrs. K comes in every Thursday while her daughter's at soccer practice." Brass asks if the waiter knows all his customers so well. Ryan the waiter replies, "I try to chat up the ones who come in alone; I feel bad for 'em." Gil is giving Ryan the fisheye, as if to say, "I eat alone all the time. Why should anyone feel sorry for me?" We establish that both Madeline Foster and Mrs. Kirkwood were weekly regulars. Well, if the waiter chatted me up while I was dining solo, as opposed to sitting me by the kitchen and making me feel as though I were invisible, I'd become a regular too. Brass asks where Ryan was after his shift on Thursday night, and he replies that he was the best man at his friend's wedding; he then goes overboard proving he was. Brass smiles and says, "Down, boy." Ryan heads off to minister to other solo woman diners, and Warrick opines that someone who radiates clean living like Ryan is not likely to run with Steve. However, the scuzzy-looking busboy trying not to catch Gil's eagle eye does.
We're back at Maslow Park, where Catherine is testing her theory by buying four big red balloons, just as Frank Maddox did. She then sits on a park bench and ties a small sack to the balloons, then lets the whole thing go. Up flies the pouch and the four red balloons. Across town, a German pop group sees the balloons fly by and begins writing a song about how we're all doomed to die from tiny weapons, lizard aliens wearing human masks dive for their self-contained breathing apparati, and a little French boy wonders when his floating friend began running in a gang. Catherine is delighted by it all. That's because she's not beset with niggling questions like, "Did she adjust for twelve hours' helium deflation?"
Back on the grim A-plot in the grim Labitrail, the Young Turks are laying down the case: Sara's researched Steve and his life, Nicky and Warrick have tackled the restaurant employees, and they're looking for points where the two parties intersect. There's a busboy who graduated from the same juvie center that Steve did. Sara opines, "It's always nice when they come out worse than they come in." Yeah. Not that America's penal system is the crown jewel of our social reform, but the juvenile aspect is a particularly tarnished little facet. Gil pricks the bubble (by the way, busboy Kelly is the creepy one; when there are only ten minutes left in an episode, you know he's got to be guilty) of optimism when he points out that it's a connection, but it's not enough to force DNA testing. Well, then, they should import one of those Miami CSIs who have no problem getting evidence under dubious pretenses. Gil points out that he's got a name and a work location. Nicky says he'll find out where Kelly was on the night of the Kirkwoods' home invasion.
Gil's beeper then goes off, and he looks at it, a little startled. We cut to Suzanna being escorted through the Labitrail. There are no jolly showgirls being arrested tonight; it's all mean perps who give her the heebie-jeebies, and mourning people clumped in the hallway. As Suzanna walks by, Brass exposits, "Lineup's almost ready to go." Gil replies, "Listen, when she IDs Kelly James, we're going to need a DNA sample and an immediate hold, no bail." The lawyer says irritably, "He's not a flight risk." Gil replies, "He's a risk." I'm still…hold on. How did we get from "well, we think that this busboy's shady, so we'll talk to him and -- hey! Beeper!" to a lineup? Are we supposed to infer that the beeper signified the Kirkwoods' calling in and changing their minds? Did Suzanna hop a ride in another law enforcement vehicle and just show up? Events have been elided, and I am not happy; why focus on Gil's surprise at the beeper if you're only going to hint at follow-through?
In any event, Suzanna shows up, and Sara's kind of happy about that. She pulls the girl away from Testosterone Central for a little pre-lineup bonding. We see the two of them sitting on a bench; Suzanna is staring straight ahead as Sara says, "I'm really happy you decided to come in today." Suzanna replies, "You want to hear something stupid?" Sara's all, "Given who I work with, hearing something stupid is par for the course." Oh, she is not. She's all understanding. Suzanna explains, "My boyfriend and I had been talking about having sex. I always said no, because I was afraid that my parents would find out." And instead they were there, listening in the closet. That's not ever going to be one of those family mishaps you can laugh about later.
Gil ambles on down the hall, where a rumpled-looking Mr. Kirkwood is waiting. Why they're not letting him hang with his daughter is anyone's guess; the girl is under eighteen, so it seems like it might be legal ["or mandatory, actually" -- Sars] for him to accompany her. Anyway, Gil comes over and apologizes: "Mr. Kirkwood, I'm sorry. The other day, I thought you were saying that you wouldn't help me. And now I realize that you couldn't." Mr. Kirkwood admits that he never got a good look at the guys.
Brass comes over to announce that the lineup's ready. Suzanna asks if Sara can come with her; Brass has already cleared it. I still can't believe this is the kind of thing a minor can do unaccompanied by a parent or guardian; nor can I believe that Suzanna's dad wouldn't want to be there now.
Apparently, he'd rather be talking to Gil. Mr. Kirkwood says, "She's sixteen. I only had two jobs left: teach her to think for herself, and keep her safe." Mr. Kirkwood looks over at Gil, who's just transfixed with empathy. Mr. Kirkwood finally manages, "I got one right."
Meanwhile, Brass is explaining the mechanics of the lineup, clearly and softly. He hands Suzanna the paper upon which she is to write the number of the man she recognizes, then finishes, "Remember: you can see them, but they can't see you." We see Suzanna's face reflected in the one-way glass; she looks bleak as she chokes out, "He already knows it's me." Sara urges, "Suzanna, you can do this. I know you can." What she does not add, but perhaps should have: "If you identify the man, we can put him away and he won't get out to hurt you. You can help us keep you safe." Given that Suzanna shows every sign of going tharn in the two minutes, she's not thinking clearly, so someone should have spelled out what it means for her to identify someone.
Unfortunately, nobody does, so Suzanna is left to stare at the men in mute fear as they come forward one at a time.
Out in the lobby, Kirkwood's still holding forth: "You never forget. Truth is, you do forget. And then you remember; it makes it worse. It was like, uh, it was like my brain doesn't know where to put it." We then see a flashback to the whole home invasion, which is every bit as brutal and violent as you might imagine it would be. If nothing else, this episode should have impressed upon anyone watching to lock the doors and to check to see who's ringing the doorbell before answering. Back in the present, Kirkwood says, "It must've run through my mind a million times: somebody breaks in, I get a baseball bat, everybody out the back door. Call the cops. My family's safe." Gil is looking even more moved; if he were anyone else, they'd be sniffling discreetly. Kirkwood keeps going, "And I just stood there."
Which is about what Suzanna's doing now when faced with Kelly. Yep, she's near catatonic. And just in case we didn't get enough rape flashbacks tonight, here's one more, complete with sound effects.
Kirkwood again: "When Suzanna was a little girl, Linda made me put those child-proof locks on all the kitchen cabinets. I complained. You know what she said to me? She said, uh, 'The least we can do is make her safe in her own house.'" Gil struggles for words for a moment before saying, "Mr. Kirkwood, you didn't do anything wrong." Before Mr. Kirkwood can elaborate further on how he feels like he failed his family, Suzanna comes charging out looking for him. He gets up, saying, "Baby." Suzanna begins crying on his shoulder, and he begins comforting her, because it's the least he can do. An unhappy-looking Sara watches them go on down the hall. Brass walks down with Sara and tells Gil, "She froze up; she couldn't do it." And nobody wants to maybe keep the Kirkwoods around for a bit until they're calm enough to process the news that a probable suspect now knows they went to the cops -- and is walking around free, just biding his time? Kelly was a risk, he's not behind bars, and nobody thinks to maybe give the Kirkwoods a heads-up on how risky they considered him? Anyway, Sara argues that Suzanna's reaction should be enough. Gil asks Brass what he thinks, and Brass reiterates, "Unless she writes a number down, there's nothing we can do." Except issue an informal heads-up, casually say, "If I were you, I'd consider taking a vacation," try to see if Mr. Kirkwood can accompany his daughter to another lineup for support...it boggles the mind. True, Suzanna should have understood that letting Kelly go free would endanger her, but I daresay Sara could have maybe backed off on the touchy-feely and spelled out that logical chain of events for someone too panicky to think of them herself. Anyway, Gil ends the scene much in the manner that I do -- by rolling his eyes in frustration.
Not even the sight of a shirtless Warrick in the co-ed locker room puts me in a better mood. Catherine comes in and makes some small talk, because who wouldn't? She says she was sorry to hear about the case; Warrick sighs and says, "We were so close. You don't even know." Catherine says, almost by rote, "Oh, he'll be back. We'll get him eventually." Warrick kind of nods. Catherine then asks, "Wanna go for a ride?" That's a little direct, even for -- oh. Never mind. Warrick replies, "That's probably safer than anything else I had planned." Catherine gives him a half-smile.
Cut to the two of them walking through someone else's lushly treed backyard. Catherine's explaining how Frank Maddox was faced with the realization that his braggadocio led to his downfall, he couldn't handle losing face, so he decided to end it all. In death as in life, Frank's vanity had the final say; he wanted it to look like a manly homicide, instead of a wimpy suicide, so he attached the balloons to the gun and pulled the trigger, counting on his releasing the gun as a way to let the weapon drift out of the scene. It's almost too bad he didn't have one of those involuntary muscle spasms when he did it; it would have been a whole different case for someone who found a body on the bench with a balloon-festooned gun clutched in one stiffening hand. Anyway, Catherine finds the balloons in the tree where the gun was found. She grins, pleased that she cracked two cases in one.
Gil and his eardrums are in the dimly-lit lab; something baroque-sounding is playing as Gil reads. Brass comes to the door and says, "Get your kit." He gives Gil an obviously meaningful look, and Gil takes a moment to stare ahead as if he's dreading something.
And then we're back at the Kirkwoods' house. The senior Kirkwoods are standing just outside the yellow ring of crime-scene tape, and the camera pans down to show Suzanna lying in a pool of blood. There is a bag of groceries dropped near her head. I'm still not sure if this was a drive-by retribution (Suzanna's unloading groceries, and Kelly shoots her in a way that sends her to the ground and kills her without taking half her head with her) or a suicide (Suzanna somehow kills herself in her driveway, her mom or dad is walking up the drive with bags and drops one from shock). Either way, she's now dead. Gil stands on the edge of the scene, looking stunned. The camera switches to Suzanna for a moment; she has a smear of blood above her eyebrow. What, if anything, that means is unclear. Gil in near tears. He searches the crowd for Mr. Kirkwood and finds him standing behind his wife; the two of them are locked together. Well, if it was a drive-by shooting, I'm betting one or both of them would have no problem identifying the assailant. Gil then notices Sara standing on the edge of the crowd; she actually is crying. I'm thinking that the best thing they can do is get her away from the crime scene so no defense attorney can charge that she tampered with the scene or the evidence. I'm also thinking the best thing Las Vegas PD can do is brace for the inevitable lawsuit, once Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood retain an attack lawyer who brings a suit alleging that the LVPD endangered Suzanna's life somehow. There may not be much chance of them winning -- for all I know, there's some waiver that anyone who participates in a lineup must sign absolving the PD of any responsibility should a lineup guy (or girl) hunt you down and hurt you outside police HQ. Regardless, it would interesting to see whether or not this show ever hammers out where law enforcement's responsibilities end.
In any event, we end with an aerial shot of Suzanna's death scene. While it's clear that Gil is standing there and directing the evidence collection, it's unclear who he and Brass are watching. Sara eventually ducks under the tape and walks past a somber-looking Brass before sitting in a car and just watching the scene. Gil pulls on his gloves, grimaces, and then the scene goes black.
And you know, now that I've had a chance to see that episode again and recap it scene-by-scene, I'm tossing out my appraisal of it ("depressing") and going with "irritating" instead.
Talk about your bullshit endings. Aside from the cops on Reno 911, what law enforcement officer would be all, "Well, she's too terrified to identify the guy in a lineup -- but now that the perp knows which witness tried to finger him, he'll sure be too scared to come back and kill her, so let's just release everyone into the wild!" And what parents -- parents who were told, "Go to the cops and we kill you" – wouldn't take their kid and cool their heels somewhere else while they figured out where to move to or how to set up some sort of protection from this person still on the loose? While I'm handing out parent-of-the-year awards, why the same people who bugged out over the cops clapping eyes on their kid the day after the home invasion apparently felt that it would be safer to gallivant about in public (i.e. to the grocery store) with said kid, after the home invader was a) tipped off that Suzanna had gone to the police, and b) on the loose, since Suzanna couldn’t bring herself to pick him out of the lineup is beyond the show's internal logic, much less actual logic.
As far as I'm concerned, the ending was a cheap cop-out meant to add some sort of dramatic gravitas to the episode -- Ooh! The CSIs didn't get their man! Ooh! The CSIs have feelings too! Ooh! The invaders leave but the terror stays! -- without making any narrative sense whatsoever. Suzanna's death was stupid and pointless, and has the faint whiff of the hard-bitten-gritty-realistic-cop-show about it. When I'm watching The Wire or the The Shield, that's fine. When I'm watching a show that's cranked out three years of fairly conventional, formulaic episodes (i.e. this show) -- not so much.
I'm warning you now: if this is the season where CSI decides to be all deep and world-weary because they're gagging for an Emmy, I'm going to start treating this show like CSI: Miami. Grumble, mumble, grr, complain, irk…
(And then, sobell went off and soothed her frazzled nerves by watching Carnivale and singing, "Baby in a jar / baby in a jar / it's gross and it's symbolic / baby in a jar!" to the tune of "Bringing in the Sheaves.")