Pledging Mr. Johnson

Previously on CSI: Sara Sidel fled the ridiculous real estate market in San Francisco for much cheaper Las Vegas. Warrick and Nick were tied at ninety-nine solved cases apiece until Warrick made several errors in judgment on the same night Nick happened to solve a case; Nick got a promotion.

And now...time for CSI, brought to you courtesy of yours truly, and the IV drip filled with DayQuil. Stupid fall colds.

We open on what looks like Lake Mead, at night. Two men are in a small dinghy, fishing. Something bumps against the hull of the boat. "What the hell was that?" Man #1 asks. "Probably one of those eight-foot carp," replies the other. They're pretty sanguine about this, which is surprising given what cool things one could do with an eight-foot carp, like build a giant koi pond, or prepare gefilte fish for all of Reno. These guys, however, view eight-foot carp as freaks of nature -- and rightly so -- and decide to vacate the premises before the episode turns into a bad Jaws sequel. One of the guys tries to start the motor, but it won't turn.

"Something's probably caught in the blades. Check the prop," says the guy not starting the motor. "I'm not sticking my hand down there," says Guy 2, apparently in response to me screaming, "Oh, no! This is how the mutant carp will get you!" Guy #1 decides he'll brave the jaws of the homicidal carp and plunges his hand into the Stygian depths. "I got something," he says. He sure does -- he has a human leg, clad in a red high-heeled shoe. "Dude, throw it back!" says Guy #2. I can tell that he thinks the carp took care of the rest of that woman, and they're .

In the shot, we see the leg drying out on a tarp as police lights wash over it. In the cool glare of the floodlight, the skin looks creepy and green; I have the feeling that it would squish if you touched it. Catherine snaps on her latex gloves and crouches to get a better look; Gil's already attempting to commune with the corpselet. Catherine notes that the femur is the strongest bone in the human body, and yet this femur was shorn clean through. "Like a Ginsu through a banana," Gil helpfully finishes. Does Gil actually own a Ginsu? My parents have one, and given the wide variety of animal carcasses they've dispatched with that thing, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ginsu could take on a human leg. I'm digressing -- blame the DayQuil.

Brass saunters up, asking, "So what do you think, drowning?" No, Brass! The carp got her. It's an eight-foot beast -- I bet it bumped her boat a few times, then overturned it and got her in one or two gulps. Fear the carp! Gil, of all people, takes the practical route: "Probably. But under what circumstances? You don't wear flippers at a five-star restaurant. Why would you wear three-inch heels to the lake?" Brass has no answer for that. Gil cracks, "Mr. Watson, the game is afoot."

Fortunately, we're saved from further punishment by the timely appearance of the credits. And then come the ads -- God help us all, someone made another miniseries about the Kennedy clan.

We're back in the squad room: Warrick is clad in suit coat and dress shirt, collar upturned as he begins to tie his tie. Nick is considerably more casual, to the point of being shirtless. He asks Warrick, "What do you think, bro, breakfast on me?" "Not if you keep saying 'bro,'" Warrick shoots back. Oh, wait. That was me again. Warrick replies a lot more civilly: he has a court date to get to, since the best witnesses for the prosecution are the ones suffering from exhaustion. Nick offers his condolences, and a female voice rings out, "Fine suit! And...just fine." It's Sara Sidel, courting a sexual harassment lawsuit first thing in the morning. And some of us just start with coffee. Nick comments to this effect -- much more pithily than I -- and Sara replies that she's merely being observant. Warrick cuts off this banter by noting the evidence room opens in five minutes and taking his leave. Nick pulls on a shirt to shield his shapely pecs from Sara's prying eyes. She informs him they have to head over to fraternity row; there's a body swinging from the rafters at one of the houses. Nick comments that the two of them will be working a double shift; Sara comments on his shirt: "Are you going to be wearing that?" "Yeah," Nick replies, puzzled. "It's that...hideous." "Hideous?" he says. Well, hideous is a strong word. Let's just say that the coloring does nothing for Nick. Winters should never wear warm olive tones. Sara leaves and Nick starts unbuttoning his shirt again. How many shirts does that man have around the office? And is at least one of them an undershirt?

Far away from the sartorial hijinks in the squad room, Catherine and the Cool Chick Coroner are looking at the leg. The coroner notes it was severed post-mortem. "That's good news," Catherine says. "How do you figure?" asks the coroner. "Do you want to be alive when your leg is being cut off?" Well, when you put it that way -- no. Just then, Gil wheels into the room, bearing a sodden greenish body on a gurney. Good news! It's the body that goes with the leg, apparently found floating half a mile from Calville Marina. Since this body -- female, Caucasian, mid-thirties and sporting a wedding ring -- does not bear a tattoo giving instructions on contacting the of kin, Gil and Catherine must turn to prints. Unfortunately, in the words of the coroner, "her skin's shriveled like a Shar-pei. No pressure, no prints." Gil thinks for a moment, then looks expectantly at Catherine. "No," she says, "No way. Use your own hand."
"Come on, Catherine, my hand's too big."
"No!"
"It's the only way we can print her!"
"Lay some dead flesh on the living? Wrong Hannibal Lecter movie, manhunter!"

Well, she leaves out that last part. Gil soothes, "Her skin on your hand should feel like a leather glove." Catherine is not consoled. In fact, she's probably flashing to the same Silence of the Lambs scene I am. Gil ignores her, and begins peeling off the skin. He turns to Catherine, a limp gray bundle of flesh in his right hand, and extends his left gallantly, saying, "May I take your hand?" Catherine slams her hand into his palm, glaring balefully. Gil slides her hand into the decedent's skin, thanks Catherine on behalf of poor dead Jane Doe, and begins the printing. Catherine grits her jaw and thinks, "The finest minds in science can create a transgenic bunny that glows in the dark, and yet nobody's come up with a way to replicate the pressure of a live hand producing fingerprints."

Back in a part of the world where the sun shines and people aren't donning the waterlogged skins of the newly dead, Sara and Nick are wandering through the world's cleanest fraternity house. I mean it -- I've been in a few frat houses in my time, and the indeterminate organic matter/square footage ratio was always stacked in favor of the ick. Not only can you see the floors in this fraternity house, the walls aren't covered with Larry Flynt's finest offerings. Still, since this is television, Nick curls his lip and says, "I can't believe I used to live in a place like this. It seems like it was a hundred years ago." "And here I had all this respect for you," Sidel shoots back. The two wander over to a knot of generic blond youths; one introduces himself as Matt Daniels and tells the two investigators that James is upstairs. He sure is. Not only is he upstairs, he's also about two feet above everyone else, feet gently swinging in the breeze. "Good God!" Nick says, deeply disgusted. Sara determines there was no suicide note, then instructs the cops to hold everyone downstairs for questioning. "Just get him down," spits Nick, who looks like he's going to go home and burn his pledge paddle as soon as his shift ends.

Gil and Catherine are walking through the squadroom. The prints bore fruit; the woman is Wendy Barger, a local from Green Valley. Gil clucks that they should contact the of kin. Catherine tells him she already has; she talked to Wendy's husband, who hadn't reported Wendy missing. "She was in the water for two days," Gil says incredulously. "Where's the husband now?" "At the coroner, IDing the body." However, the coroner has elected to leave the grieving spouse alone with his sodden bride so she can come up above ground and tell Gil that Wendy's body showed evidence of semen and vaginal penetration, sported a dislocated shoulder and a cracked skull. Gil thanks the coroner -- we finally learn her name is Jenna -- and the two walk over to meet the husband. Mr. Barger is the television embodiment of Walter Mitty, and seems remarkably composed for someone who recently spent time with his wife's battered, waterlogged, chopped-up body. Or perhaps he's still in shock. In any event, he remembers his manners, rising to shake hands when Gil and Catherine walk in. Over the course of the conversation, we learn that the Barger marriage may have been unraveling, something that becomes apparent when Catherine asks, "When was the last time you two had intercourse?" "That's rather personal, isn't it?" "It's part of our investigation," Catherine says, softly and matter-of-factly. Mr. Barger looks wary; his entire body screams that he suspects Gil and Catherine are going to judge him by the quality of his sex life. "The average is only once a week. Saturdays." He's hedging and they all know it. Catherine prods: "Mr. Barger..." "P-probably four months ago!" he blurts out. The poor guy. His wife shows up dead and he's stuck telling strangers about his less-than-stunning sex life. Gil turns the conversation away from marital relations and back toward evidence collection, asking Mr. Barger for a DNA sample. "What's going on?" Barger says. "I thought Wendy drowned." Catherine explains that she's still piecing together the case; Gil follows up by imploring Barger to give them the DNA sample. Mr. Barger looks at him, stunned.

Back at the world's cleanest frat house, Nick's asking some random blond guy -- apparently everyone in this fraternity underwent their own round of DNA testing to guarantee genetic conformity -- if James was depressed. The blond guy, Matt, says he thinks so. Sara presses him: "Could you say that? He was eighteen, he had his whole life in front of him. Why would he want to hang himself?" "I dunno," replies our fair-haired boy. "He didn't get in? Pledging a fraternity isn't easy." Right. Let's not confuse pledging a fraternity with splitting an atom or climbing K-2. There's a world of difference between doing something challenging, and flinging yourself into organized mind games for the sake of wearing a few Greek letters. Sara seems to feel the same way. The blonds in the room stare uncomprehendingly at a woman who fails to be awed by their letters; Nick just looks uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable, what's Warrick up to? He's exiting his car, wearing the ugliest suit in Christendom. No, really. Warrick is not the kind of man who should be wearing light gray glen plaid -- he looks better in earth tones. What's with the wardrobe this week -- first we get Nick in the olive shirt, and now we get Warrick in that suit? Someone get wardrobe a copy of Color Me Beautiful, stat. Few men could pull off the giant Rubbermaid file box as accessory look either, so Warrick's doubly behind the ball insofar as court-appropriate ensembles go. As he heads toward the courthouse, looking as irritated to be out and about in glen plaid and plastic as I am to be watching, Judge Cohen comes out to tell him the case has been continued. "Nobody told me," Warrick shoots back, now even more annoyed because he's tired, he's in a bad suit, and he doesn't even need to be there. "Nobody was supposed to tell you," smarms the judge. "You're going to do something for me." Warrick replies that the two of them are already even; Cohen replies that they will be after Warrick does one more thing -- namely, compromise the evidence in the Henderson rape trial, a case that could nail a serial rapist, because Cohen owes the rapist's family. Warrick protests and Cohen flashes a predatory grin. "Don't worry," he drawls. "I've got your back." If I were Warrick, I'd be carrying a hand mirror to make sure Cohen wasn't burying shivs back there. That man is a travel-sized package of evil.

Back at the lab, Liam Gallagher is multitasking. Gil comes in and screams over the music, "Hey, maestro, what's the latest on our floater?" "Come hither," Liam replies. He shows them a PCR gel, and fluoresces it to show how the DNA found in the semen bears no resemblance whatsoever to Mr. Barger's DNA. Gil blinks, nonplussed. "I liked the husband for this," he says.

Switch to the scene, where an off-screen lawyer says, "You were wrong. My client's been through enough stress as it is. Winston, come on." Mr. Barger's first name is Winston. That seems so appropriate somehow -- the only other Winston I've known was a worried little pug, and something in this guy's expression puts me in mind of that preternaturally fretful dog. He gets up, draws on whatever dignity he has left, and says, "When you find out what happened to my wife, I want to know everything." "I promise," says Gil. After he leaves, Gil and Catherine are left to talk amongst themselves, so I take the opportunity to check the appropriateness of their outfits. Both pass muster -- Catherine's burnt-orange turtleneck sets off her hair, and Gil's shirt brings out the blue in his eyes. I wonder briefly what Nick and Warrick did to piss off wardrobe, then pay attention to the conversation again.

Catherine asks Gil, "Would you want to know everything?" "You're asking the wrong guy," Gil replies, hinting that they've had a similar conversation before. Catherine lays out her argument: Winston admitted he and Wendy were having problems, Wendy was already staying at the lake for extended periods, and the situation is ripe for Wendy to be seeing someone else. "You were married. You tell me," Gil says. "Very good to excellent," Catherine says. The intrigue! Did those two have an affair while Catherine was still married? Did Catherine's hitherto unseen ex have an affair? The mind swirls with possibilities...

Warrick's mind is swirling with moral conflict. He's down in the evidence room, requesting that technician fetch him the Henderson evidence. Warrick puts pen to paper, trying to sign out the evidence, but draws back several times. Fortunately, Gil comes by. The two make small talk: Warrick tells Gil the case was continued; Gil tells Warrick to take a day off and rest, as he's been working hard lately. Warrick replies that it's "nature of the beast." Gil then tells Warrick, "Go. Besides, I owe you a party." "A party?" Warrick asks, uncomprehending. "I made you a CSI-III." Warrick clearly doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry. He gives Gil a shaky, hollow grin, sighs deeply, and slouches in defeat. "More money, more problems," he says. Gil grunts noncommittally, then turns to go. Warrick turns back toward the clipboard, looking miserable.

Speaking of miserable, that's how I feel after taking in the chow-cam shot of Brass talking with his mouth full. He tells Catherine through a craw full of burger that whatever Wendy was doing, none of her friends knew about it. He also shares the obvious: Winston was clearly happier in their marriage than Wendy. "She had something on the side," Catherine says, waving a biscuit for emphasis. "I know firsthand: when you don't cheat, you don't suspect." Well, scratch that Catherine-and-Gil theory. "I wish I'd been married to you," Brass grunts. While I'm digesting the concept of a world -- however fictional -- where Brass convinces one, much less two, women to sleep with him, Catherine disabuses him of the marriage notion and rises to leave. She and Gil are about to head down to the coroner's -- Brass turned down her invite by noting that he prefers live bodies, leaving me to wonder uneasily exactly how he conducted the experiment leading to this conclusion, and what the control group might have been -- when Warrick comes by, looking even more uncomfortable than he did minutes ago. Perhaps he finally passed a mirror and realized what he was wearing. Warrick calls out, "I'm in purgatory. I need some guidance." Gil tells Catherine he'll meet her at the car, and turns back toward Warrick.

Everyone flashes back to the initiation as told by the Phi Alphas. It's pretty typical stuff: a bunch of boys being harassed by beer-swilling buffoons while the two lead guys pick on James. Flashing back to the present, Matt says, "He wanted to belong, but I questioned his chops." The two boys gradually reveal that the pledges had an "assignment": go to sorority row and get different parts of their bodies signed. Each part of the body was worth a different number of points; James was singled out for being deficient in points, and thus was directed to get several people to sign his penis, to make up the deficit. As the Phi Alphas are recounting this, Sara looks incredulous. I can tell she's thinking, "What person in their right mind would volunteer for this?" Nick just looks regretful. I bet the faces of those he hazed are floating up before him. The Phi Alphas continue: they catch James in the bathroom signing his own penis rather than whip it out for sorority women, and they parade him into the main room of the fraternity house for a dose of extra-special humiliation. By this point I'm wondering why anyone would bother to piss on these goons if they were on fire, much less go to all the bother of convincing them you're a worthwhile pledge. Sara, again, reads my mind: "You humiliated him in front of all the other actives. The kid was so scared he had to sign his own penis and then you give him a beer shower. And you don't call that hazing?" Pledgemaster, a.k.a. Kyle, looks away from her condemning glare and toward Nick, who's showing no sympathy. "Answer the question, guys," he barks. Kyle says, "I had no choice. I had to ding him." "You're only as strong as your weakest link," says Matt. Nick and Sara aren't buying it. "We didn't pledge him, he pledged us," Kyle says. Kind of wordy when all you need to say is "he asked for it," isn't it, Kyle? Matt says, "He knew what to expect if he didn't measure up." Or measure down, if the two scabrous specimens on the couch are indicative of the fraternity's quality. Nick, looking ever more disgusted with each passing minute, turns toward Sara and mutters, "Humiliation, initiation, appreciation." "That's what it's all about," says Matt. "We're sorry, but we didn't kill him." Sara lets us all know how much she believes that.

Back at the station, Warrick's on the phone with Judge Cohen. He sets up a meeting with Cohen in person, then hangs up the phone and slouches in defeat. If Warrick keeps up with the miserable hunching, he's going to be shaped like the letter C by the end of the episode.