Boom

Guess what, everybody! CSI takes place in Las Vegas! Who knew?

Three sweeping shots of the strip later, we get a transitioning pan over to an office park. Like office parks throughout the rest of America, this one manages to combine the worst of architecture and landscaping in a life-denying nexus of boxy office buildings and spindly shrubbery. And then we transition into the lobby: it's heartening to see what whomever selected the sets this week had an eye for consistency. It's all sterile spaces and hard edges; the silence of the foyer is punctuated by the security guard's incessant stream of small talk. We learn that the bluff fellow's name is Dominic; based on his amiable prattle, we learn he's the kind of well-meaning goober you don't mind unless you're having a really bad day. And then, you peer at him through a haze of DayQuil and Robitussin and wonder if, when you're prosecuted for pulling his ceaselessly prattling lower lip over his head, you can make the argument that you were out of your mind on over-the-counter narcotics at the time. Not that I've had that experience with virulent head colds and security guards or anything.

As people move in and out of the lobby, Dominic's partner Jake takes the vase of flowers Dominic just signed for and sends Dom out to get dinner. He then moves over to a bank of packages on the lobby's far wall. Hearing a ticking noise, he looks up and notes that the clock -- which looks like something Howard Roark would have hung on the wall in between defiant acts of Objectivism -- is ticking quietly. I note that the clock reads 12:30 and wonder why Dom went for dinner. Anyway, Jake looks down at a briefcase and notes that it happens to be ticking; as the music plays all hollow-like to indicate that Jake's hyper-perceptive toward ticking mystery briefcases, Jake leans down. The briefcase promptly blows up, sending Jake hurtling toward the far corner of the lobby in a hail of fire and debris.

Cut to Catherine and Gil walking toward the taped-off lobby at night. Catherine mutters about how the fire department really knows how to trash a crime scene. I have no patience for her tonight: life is tough when the crime includes fire. Deal with it, okay? Gil cheerfully responds, "That's what they do: put wet stuff on the red stuff." I have no patience for him tonight either. Brass comes out of the smoking husk of building and plays Captain Exposition: a few people had head wounds, an elderly guy lost his arm in the blast, and Jake died. His body's still inside. Brass declines to state exactly how many pieces of Jake's body are inside and easily identifiable. As the three grown-ups on the show make their way into what's left of the lobby, Brass wonders, "How big do you think this bomb was?" Catherine answers dismissively, "It's not the size of the bomb, it's the overpressure in the air around it." I have no idea what overpressure is -- I imagine we'll find out in a few scenes, but in the meantime, amuse yourself as I do by imagining that whomever is responsible for Saving Silverman is pleading for clemency by saying, "The movie's not a bomb, it's just a victim of vicious critical overpressure!"

Gil and Catherine gravitate to Jake's corpse with unerring instinct and peer at his miraculously intact body. Well, make that "mostly intact." Gil quips, "The Van Gogh effect. In stereo. Both ears gone," and then the camera helpfully pans down to the corpse so we too can see the earless tragedy. Ick. Still, for all that he's missing his ears, the rest of Jake's face is remarkably well-preserved; I would have thought that the force might have blown off his nose. Even his eyebrows look mostly-there. Anyway -- Catherine notes that the perfectly symmetrical amputation indicates poor Jake was looking directly at the bomb when it went off; Gil picks up her point to note, "So it either drew his attention or was contained in something that seemed benign." The two of them promptly sweep their flashlights over an area to see if they can find anything to support Gil's hypothesis. Just then Gil sniffs and inquires, "Smell the sulfur?" Yes, Gil. It's Old Scratch himself, and he's come to bet a fiddle of gold against your soul. Before Satan -- or his CBS equivalent, the team that brought you Yes, Dear (Alan Kirschenbaum and Greg Garcia) -- shows up, Gil's whipping out his Leatherman and scraping some gray powder off Jake's body. He then asks for Brass's lighter and flicks it near the powder, igniting it. The team notes the ready burn and concludes that the bomb's propellant was gunpowder. Gil gives Catherine the Investigatory Eye and commands her to make the call. She does: "Seat of the bomb is here" -- as evidenced by the scorched crater -- "victim was thrown three meters. His clothes are torn but not burnt, indicating a low-velocity propellant, six or seven thousand feet per second. Who? Why? Will he do it again? Time will tell."

The Who comes in to underscore Catherine's point, and the credits roll.

Note to CBS: if you're looking for a graceful way to end That's Life -- which, going by the previews, looks in need of a mercy killing -- feel free to bring the CSI team east to investigate a killing spree that leads to the death of every character on the show. Just a suggestion...

Back to the show: Warrick and Sara are standing near Catherine, probably getting briefed. If she briefs anything like the way she calls a scene, it's got to be a frustrating experience. Gil is poking among the rubble with a flashlight and holding forth on the unique frustrations of a crime scene. As he moves, he steps over the flowers Dom and Jake manhandled minutes before the explosion; it's all very symbolic, I'm sure. Gil is more interested in looking for evidence, telling the assembled troops, "Our murder weapon's in a thousand pieces and we have to put them back together again." You know he lives for moments like this. Warrick and Sara look nonplussed; when they ask Gil for guidance, he tells them to cart anything they can find back to the lab and "stay curious." Sara turns to Catherine and asks for a further explanation. Catherine actually provides one: "Bombs explode. Weird thing is, their components survive the explosion. If we can piece together this bomb, we can find out who did this." How? I reiterate what I said earlier: Catherine's style of briefing is as incomplete as her style of calling a crime scene. Warrick is sent off to take photos of the scene, with instructions to also photograph anyone who is checking out the carnage perhaps a little too eagerly. Back inside, Catherine uses a nifty-looking set of pincer-thingies (note: not the technical term; if you know what these things are actually called, feel free to share on the forums) to pick up assorted pieces of twisted and scorched metal. Sara uses a pair of calipers to do likewise. Warrick continues to take pictures, sweeping the walls for things that need photographing. His eyes alight on the Ayn-Randian clock; the camera lingers on the face, which still reads 12:30.

And then the scene abruptly changes. Nick and some anonymous guy are walking out of what looks like one of your higher-end casinos, and the pal is exhorting Nick to hang out, drink a lot, and pick up some women. Nicky declines with, "I just pulled a double and I still have to file my shift report." He's such a do-gooder. The friend goads with, "You never passed up a wild night back at A&M," and I nearly pass out from the shock of realizing that we finally have a little backstory on Nicky: he went to Texas A&M, which explains the occasional accent. Then I grow faint as I behold the second revelation of the night: George Eads has apparently buried the hatchet with the hair and wardrobe personnel. Oh, happy day! Anyway, the newly shorn Nicky slaps the friend down with a condescending comment about how he's all grown up now. The friend proffers his condolences, then runs off to chase two blonde women who, frankly, look like they'd just as soon slit someone's throat with a nail file. Nicky shakes his head ruefully and continues toward his car. Just as he's waved off the valet and is about to get into his big ol' SUV -- it figures that Nicky would drive one of those -- he notices an altercation. We hear an unfortunately familiar female voice yelling, "Let go of me!" as a man responds, "Kristy, you're not going anywhere." Nicky's head swivels around. Could it be? Unfortunately, yes. Nicky mounts his white horse and goes charging over to the scene in question. Some buff guy is manhandling our favorite feisty post-feminist sex worker; as he warns Nick to stay out of the private argument being conducted in a very public space, Kristy says, "I know him! He's a cop!" "Crime scene investigator," Nicky corrects her, which, although an endearingly geeky move, is not a bright one. He then defuses the situation, and the guy in question moves on. Nicky and Kristy are left to their usual witty banter:

Him: You okay?
Her: Yeah. I'm fine. That was good timing, thanks.
Him: I suppose you need a ride.
Her: Do you mind?
Him: No.

In the scene, Las Vegas's answer to Hepburn and Tracy are at her bungalow, having a little heart-to-heart in the driveway. Kristy ruefully notes that every time she runs into Nicky, she's in trouble. He tactfully counters that perhaps she should take up a line of work that doesn't require quite so many people skills. Kristy tells Nicky she's doing precisely that. "I'm going back to school. I've always wanted to study communications." Oh, Kristy. Stick to hooking. Really. It's a little more useful than being able to tell people what the hell Marshall McLuhan meant when he asserted that television was a cool medium. Nicky's just relieved she's leaving the business, so he doesn't question her choice in majors. After a few moments of awkward small talk, Kristy invites Nicky in for a drink. "I don't think it would be a good idea," he demurs regretfully. "Just 'cause you're a crime scene analyst, you don't have to analyze everything!" Kristy chirps. Well, with such a profound grasp on the intricacies of logic vis a vis equivocation, it's a wonder Kristy isn't studying philosophy. Anyway, Nicky laughs. Nothing good can come of this.

Meanwhile, Warrick's having no fun at all taking photos of the crime scene. Nobody else is having a good time either, so it's okay. Catherine finds a cog with "FP" scratched into it and drops it in a bag for further study. Meanwhile, Gil's outside studying the walkway for clues when he hears his name. He looks up and it's Dominic, who's gazing upon him with a mixture of awe and nervousness. "I've seen you on TV before," Dominic stammers. "I admire your work." Forgive my lack of a willing suspension of disbelief, but I have a hard time swallowing the idea that Gil would be some sort of cult-like media figure to forensics groupies in the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area. Anyway, Gil rounds on Dominic with a mixture of skepticism and irritation on his face and, realizing he's got a live one here, quickly dials it down to distant amiability. "Have you talked to homicide yet?" he asks cannily. Dominic then stumbles into a conversational melee that has me writhing in secondary embarrassment, telling Gil that the boys in homicide sent Dom back to talk to Gil, "since we're in the same line of work...law enforcement." He's so sincere, and so blissfully oblivious to Gil's skeptical eye assessing him, that I just have to wince. Gil does not share my reaction. After ascertaining that Dom knew Jake and watching Dominic turn around to look at the news crews hovering in the background, he asks, "Would you, uh, like to be on the news?" "Oh, sure!" Dom burbles, "but only if I was, you know, helping people." Gil smiles a little, and Dom nervously barrels on, "I know what you're thinking: my building blows up and I'm ten minutes away at Arby's sucking down extra sauce. You know, how could I want to help people?" Oh, Dominic, that is so not what Gil is thinking. Gil says blandly, "Well, I mean, realistically, what could you have done?" Dominic, who is conducting an entirely different conversation from the one Gil's having, continues to incriminate himself by babbling, "Well, I know a lot about bombs! Pipe, power, powder. The three Ps of mass destruction." He finishes his recitation with a look on his face that clearly conveys how much he hopes Gil is impressed by his knowledge. Gil, on the other hand, can barely notice since he's distracted by his Spidey-sense blaring. He flatters Dominic by asking if the other man would like to help him in the investigation -- Dominic's pleased and incredulous reaction sparks another round of secondary embarrassment for me -- then takes his leave to tell his cohorts, "Well, we got a live one out there. I got a cop babysitting him." Having played fast-and-loose with the fantasy life of one security guard, Gil turns back to the investigation, and Catherine shows the gear with FP scratched into it.

And now, the commercials. Apparently, William Peterson is in that Haven movie. I don't care; just watching Natasha Richardson bray, "Yah're sayfe. Yah're in Amurricah!" in the previews is enough to put me off even thinking about watching it.

It's daylight, and Nicky's in his gargantomobile. He's on the phone with someone, saying, "Hey. It's me. You in the shower? Anyway, if you check your messages, I don't have to work until later, so I thought since you're between careers, you might want to grab a late..." His voice trails off as he reaches Kristy's house and notes the ribbons of crime-scene tape festooning the exterior. "Breakfast," he manages. Ooops. Before plunging into how much grief Nicky's about to get into, let's stop for a moment and give Nicky style points for the morning-after breakfast invitation. If it weren't for the unfortunate plot complications -- as exemplified by the rest of the scene, in which Nicky drives up to Kristy's house, has to bluff his way out of the situation as Ecklie approaches, then drives off looking ill upon learning that Kristy's a 419, i.e. dead -- Nicky would be having a red-letter episode.

Cut to Warrick, who's drawn the short end of the plot stick for two weeks running, watching Dominic give a lesson on explosives back at CSI Central. Warrick is trying mightily not to look terribly contemptuous; Brass isn't even trying. As Dominic continues to explain how the explosive in the lobby would have worked -- actually using the phrase "Bob's your uncle" as a sort of colloquial shorthand for mutatis mutandus -- Warrick mutters, "Gil was right: you do know a lot about bombs." "How'd you learn so much?" Brass demands. "Oh, they don't teach this stuff at universities. This is all trial and error," Dom blithely replies, still operating in the throes of the delusion that he's aiding the investigation as opposed to being investigated. "So you just blow up bombs and study them?" Brass asks incredulously. "Yeah," replies Dom, clearly puzzled that this method of study isn't immediately obvious. Just then, a remarkably humorless woman comes in, identifies herself as Dom's court-appointed lawyer, reminds everyone of the abundance of lawsuits raining down if Dominic should be treated like Richard Jewell, then tells Brass to quit talking to her client. Dom waves her off, but Warrick says, "Dominic, you should roll with your attorney. Thanks for your help, though." That Warrick, he's trying very hard to subtly convey to Dom that the guy's being played like a guitar, but it's all wasted effort on Dom. Anyway, Dom takes his leave, imploring Brass, "Tell Grissom if he needs me, just call me at home." Brass's eyebrows fly up, exiting his hairline and entering orbit around his skull. Warrick just looks tired.

Meanwhile, Sara and Catherine are sifting through a lot of twisted, burnt little pieces and educating us, the viewers at home, on what bombs do. Sara asks the question I've had since 9:02 tonight: if the area surrounding the bomb was blown to bits, why was Jake still in one piece. Catherine replies, "The vacuum effect. The air is being pushed out so fast, that when the bomb detonates, there's a calm at the center." "Calm, huh?" Sara replies. "Well, except for when he lost his ears," Catherine amends. While they're having this exchange, we get to see the explosion again courtesy of the TMI-cam, which takes us from the detonator in the briefcase all the way to Jake's airborne carcass. The two women also establish that they have yet to find out what the "FP" scratched into the bomb part stands for. Just then, Gil trips in, dying to share his discovery with the two women: one of the cogs in the bomb has some orange substance melted all over it. "It looks like a piece from a clock," Catherine says; Gil confirms, "The bomb was time-delayed and this was part of the timing device." Sara makes the mistake of asking about the orange stuff, and thus gets assigned the task of finding out what it is. That'll learn you to ask questions, missy.

Just then Nick comes in and asks if he can grab Grissom for a moment. "We're kind of busy here, Nick," Catherine snipes and Nicky snaps back, "Yeah, I know that, but I don't think this can wait." It's wrong to laugh at a man whose one-night stand has just been murdered and yet, here I am, because Nicky smacking down Catherine is just too much fun to watch. Anyway, the two men repair to Gil's office, where Gil is giving Nicky quite the reproachful glare. "You told me you weren't dating her," he reminds Nicky. "Well, I wasn't until last night, when I broke up this fight she was having with this guy...uh...Jack." Well. That's putting a spin on the situation. Gil continues, "And Ecklie's at her house now." Nicky confesses, "I can tell you what he's going to find: my fingerprints, my DNA." Talk about your awkward workplace conversations. Gil speaks for the entire viewership when he asks, "What were you thinking, Nicky?" And Nicky rebuts with a statement of the obvious: "I wasn't."

We then go to flashback, with Nicky narrating a blow-by-blow (as it were) of the encounter. It's every bit as cliched as you might imagine. We find out that Nicky left this night to remember around 4 a.m., and just as Gil begins to muse about the many, many ways Ecklie will be making Nicky's life miserable, Catherine comes in to offer her condolences to Nicky. Jesus, news travels fast at CSI Central: did Ecklie run the world's speediest PCR, make a match to Nicky, then hang the results in his office? No -- Catherine mentions she ran into the day shift coroner, and Nicky blurts, "So he told you I was with Kristy last night." "Not yet," Catherine shoots back, letting us all know that Nicky's big mouth will get him into more trouble than the actual evidence might. She and Gil exchange Meaningful Looks; you just know they're going to be talking about this the minute Nicky runs off. Nicky wonders if he should just go talk to Ecklie and come clean on where he was last night; Gil responds, "When you're a suspect, and you're innocent, you keep your mouth shut." Hey! Words for our CSI groupie Dom to live by too. But I digress. Gil says he'll talk to Ecklie, and Catherine helpfully reminds him that he gets along with Ecklie like Pakistan gets along with India. She says she'll work Ecklie. Nicky decides to displace his grief by getting into the investigatory action: "I can't just sit here!" "Take a walk," Gil coolly replies. "Maybe you'll accidentally bump into your guy Jack? ID him, but don't approach him." Nicky wanders off to do that.