Tonight's episode is brought to you by the letter A, as in "atmosphere." Boys and girls, "atmosphere" is what you get when you show several dizzying close-ups of Las Vegas casinos at night while a boy soprano and an ominous string recording moan in the background. We zoom into a plush hotel room, where a guy in his mid-forties pours himself a vodka on the rocks and drinks despondently. The boy soprano starts singing again in a language other than English, which is always a dead giveaway that something bad -- be it run-of-the-mill murder or some apocalyptic Schwarzeneggerian interpretation of the Second Coming -- is about to happen. The man and his drink take a trip into the bathroom, where the water's been running. The mirror is steamy, so our unnamed gent wipes it clean with the sleeve of his very nice white dress shirt. We see his face as he stares into the mirror. Oh my God, it's Al Gore! Or at least an actor who looks a lot like him. Al stares in the mirror with a haunted expression; the actor may be trying to convey the whole Thoreau rap on quiet desperation, but all I can think is this guy is probably vexed by dancing images of Florida's electoral college members. Al sighs deeply, then hears a noise behind him. He turns his head and his expression turns from vague malaise to specific dread.
Cut to Gil walking down a hotel corridor lit by cool, blue recessed lights. Brass greets him with, "You're going to love this." As the two men enter the swanky hotel bathroom, Brass continues: "Ring any bells? Rub-a-dub-dub, dead man in a tub, sleeping bag for easy clean-up, open window so the stench alerts the neighbors..." "It's Royce Harmon all over again," Gil says numbly. We flash to a montage of Royce's bloody hand holding a tape recorder. Gil muses, "Whaddya think, suicide note in the same place?" "You tell me, Karnak," Brass replies. Gil leans over the corpse and withdraws another microcassette recorder. Gil presses a button and a garbled message plays. Brass asks what language the message is in, and Gil replies with the obvious: the message was recorded backwards. "Would you excuse me for a minute?" Gil asks, and Brass ushers everyone out. The uniform asks if Gil's okay, and Brass provides a recap of Episode 1 for him. In the bathroom, Gil's jimmying buttons to play the message forward; I wish, for a moment, that this serial killer in the making would display a sense of humor and perhaps leave a message comprised of old Twin Peaks dialogue from the Black Lodge, but we know from Hollywood that most serial killers, in addition to possessing Martha Stewart's knack for time management and handicrafted displays, also have her obvious lack of humor. So the message merely says, "My name is Stuart Rampler. I reside at 818 Boeing Hill Court, Las Vegas Nevada. I'm 43 years of age, and I'm going to kill myself. I just can't do it anymore. I love you, Mom." Gil furrows his brow; this all sounds familiar. I do a quick check of my first recap and confirm what Gil's thinking. This suicide note is the same, word for word. Gil sighs and looks at the mirror. He gives his reflection a menacing gaze and says, "You're back."
As the credits roll, I ponder the likelihood of the serial killer actually being an alternate personality of Gil's. It would be a hell of a plot: Gil being confounded by his own alter-ego at every turn while his colleagues gradually realize what's going on. Unfortunately, the odds of this happening are pretty slim.
Gil's tearing through the lab, dispensing evidence to techs left and right, clearly disturbed. As he enters the main lab, he sees Nicky and Warrick playing Madden Football 2000 and ribbing each other as the Forty-Niners crush whatever team it is that wears the white jerseys and gold pants. I'll be damned if I know who's playing whom here: the only uniforms I can make out at a pixilated distance are the Packers and the Raiders, the latter because I live less than five miles from the Raiders' practice grounds and the former because my father is an ardent cheesehead. Gil snipes, "Do you want an assignment slip or a pink slip?" Warrick mumbles a little, and Nicky asks Gil if the killer from the Harmon case has struck again. Gil hedges, then gives them their assignment: "410, reckless driver at Hoover Dam. Car went over a cliff, anonymous caller. Could be foul play." Warrick and Nicky promptly begin alpha-male posturing, and Gil snipes at them to work with each other, not against each other. He then charges into his area, where Sara and Catherine are standing by the fridge, probably looking for a Diet Coke behind the assorted chocolate-covered cicadas and specimen jars. Gil announces that the three of them are going off the board; when Sara inquires, "Off the board?" Catherine fills her in, telling her that it's slang for working on cold cases like the Harmon one. Gil recaps episode one yet again, then shows photos from the Harmon and Rampler murders, noting that there is little to no difference in the details of the crime scene. Sara marvels that the killer is good; Catherine corrects her by noting the killer is very good, and recaps the whole latex-hand-thumbprint thing for Sara since, you know, Sara was still working for the San Francisco CSI and dealing with the dual frustrations of the country's worst housing market and Terrence Hallinan, the DA who doesn't deliver. Sara reiterates her opinion on how devious the murderer is, and Gil uses that opportunity to segue into the night's assignment: he and Catherine are going to visit the coroner, and Sara will go back to the hotel and dust the bathroom with Gil's own special print powder, Red Creeper. Sara takes the tin and marvels over how very red red creeper is, and Gil tells her, "Serious case, serious print powder."
Nicky and Warrick are walking toward a cluster of ambulances, emergency workers, and other signs of mayhem. As they get closer, they have to scream to be heard over the assorted machinery that's peeling back the doors and hood of a crumpled car. As a bunch of firemen lift off the hood, both investigators notice that the front seat is empty and the only person in the car is in the back seat. Warrick shouts, "Where's the driver?" The fireman shrugs. Nicky says, "I'm thinking DUI?" Warrick's ears prick up. "You calling it?" Nicky turns from Warrick and happens to notice something among the grass. "I'm calling that beer bottle." He goes over and uses a pencil to pick it up. "How do you know it's from the car?" Warrick asks. "It's still cold. Foam in the bottle," Nicky says, grinning. What I want to know is how that bottle managed to survive a car crash where the car went over the guard rail and tumbled several hundred yards to its eventual stop. Warrick, however, has other things on his mind.