Gil just smiles smugly and has Holly sign waivers in case of injury or death on the job. She does so, complaining that she's lightheaded from giving blood. "You're probably low on sugar. I've got just the thing," he says, and pulls out a jar of indistinguishable dark objects from its home next to the urine samples in the lab fridge. "Try one of these," Gil offers. Holly looks even more squeamish than before -- she's really reaching into levels of human discomfort that normally accompany being asked to breaststroke through a vat of rancid lard -- and says she doesn't want to eat anything that's been in the lab. Gil looks nonplussed, then smiles persuasively. Holly takes a look at the thing Gil's handed her and asks, "Is there a grasshopper in here?" Gil responds by popping one in his mouth and rolling his eyes orgasmically, while the soundtrack crunches along. Crunches? I asked my dad, who had eaten a variety of chocolate-covered insects during his wild days in the Navy, what chocolate-covered grasshoppers were like, and he told me they squished -- not crunched, squished, much like lard would if you had to swim through it. But I digress.
Holly's now in a meeting being run with ruthless bloviation by Cap'n Brass. He fulfills yet more police clich�s by carrying on about paperwork, then brusquely assigns cases to detectives who couldn't be less thrilled to get them. Nick gets a trick roll, which is exactly what he didn't want; Warrick gets a homeowner shooting a would-be intruder. Brass then asks, "Anyone seen Catherine Willows?"
No, but we're about to: a minivan pulls up, a woman leaps out of the passenger seat, leans into the back to kiss a child who's a dead ringer for the Bad Seed, then scoots into the police station.
Brass gets to revel in yet another clich�: he's chewing out Gribbs for being related to her mother -- who is, as it turns out, a lieutenant in the traffic division. Brass carries on about being forced to hire Gribbs due to nepotism, then segues into his secondary role as Lieutenant Exposition, informing Gribbs -- and us, the viewers at home -- that the CSI lab is number two in the country and solves crimes nearly everyone else would call unsolvable. He does not, unfortunately, tell us who's the number-one crime lab or why we're not watching them instead. Perhaps that information will be revealed in an upcoming episode, when the CSI folks go play them in the Forensics Softball Championship Games or something. Gribbs absorbs his diatribe and exposition, then replies that she thought the key to being an investigator was to collect evidence, then come to a conclusion, as opposed to prejudging her. Gribbs then gives us backstory: she graduated with honors in criminal justice at UNLV. Brass is less than impressed, as am I, since UNLV's requirements apparently don't include spending any time around a lab, if Holly's reactions are anything to go by. Gribbs tells Brass he's not being fair; Brass hauls out the big book of clich�s, bitching first about hiring, then about his breadth and depth of experience on the squad, and finishes by telling Gribbs she'll amount to nothing more than headaches and bad press. He then dismisses her. Way to get the last word in there, Brass.