It's a dark and stormy night in Las Vegas. Suddenly a shot rings out! The maid screams! A beagle sitting on his doghouse phones his attack lawyers and begins making preparations for an intellectual property lawsuit. Actually, scratch the part with the beagle. It's a dark and stormy night in Las Vegas, and the camera pans from an external shot of the Saturn Arms apartment complex to an interior shot of a shabby-chic apartment. We hear a popping noise, and a young woman sits up, thoroughly freaked out by what she's hearing. The music continues to play ominously as the woman does a survey of her room. She lies down, convinced she's only hearing things, then bolts upright again as she hears another noise. This time, unfortunately, her fears are confirmed: there's an intruder with a hooded sweatshirt and a garotte standing to her bed.
The woman's scream lets the episode segue into daylight. Gil and Brass enter the bedroom, and we see the woman sprawled in a pseudo-provocative position, hands tied to her headboard. Gil looks somber; Brass catches the grim mood and delivers his contractually required exposition with appropriate gravity: the victim is Eileen Jane Snow, discovered only after the woman with whom she carpooled in the morning couldn't get anyone to answer the door. "This is exactly the same as the last two," Gil says. Brass wants to know how: "Audrey Hayes was strangled in her basement and the other one was found in a park." "Different M.O. [modus operandi], same signature," Gil clarifies. "M.O.'s how he breaks in; signature's what he does when he's inside," Brass intones with stock hard-bitten police detachment. Not one to sit on information when he could share with the class, Gil tells us what the killer's signature is: "Three or four overpowering blows to the head with a homemade weapon fashioned at the scene, forces her to drink a mixture of sodium pentathol as a chemical restraint, overligature of the victim, and an object rape. Then he strangles her, ejaculates on the bedsheets; then as a final act of degradation, he poses her as a pin-up." Gil, to his credit, looks ill as he recites the details. I wonder yet again why serial killers must be such goddamned overachievers: if you're going for quantity, why waste your time on elaborate redundancies? Wouldn't it be more efficient to dispatch your victim with a swift blow to the head, then leave, like, a deeply disturbing haiku on a Post-It Note? Why bother with seven separate steps? Just as Gil's finished reciting the list of depredations to which the victims are subjected, Sara -- whom we all know is not the most sanguine of investigators when it comes to gender-targeted victims -- comes in, checks out Eileen Jane Snow, and says, "Damn him!" Brass turns around, looking mildly surprised. Why, I have no idea; if anyone's blindsided by Sara's opinions at this point, they don't have the observational skills necessary to investigate crimes. "Damn him!" Sara says again, getting more upset. Gil steers her out into the hall and instructs her to leave her emotions at the door. Because, you know, that's how all the other investigators have worked this season. Sara tries to explain her strong reaction to Snow's body by telling Grissom that the killer's escalating. "Guess he wants to get caught," she concludes. "Signature killers never want to get caught," Gil counters, "but they won't stop until they do."
Cue The Who. At least I'm assuming it's The Who. I can't hear over the sound of my own voice ranting about how clichéd it is to have the woman-in-peril opening, and that if I want to see something where violence against women is eroticized, I'll rent an installment of Friday the 13th, not tune into the network whose track record for cultural crimes -- including the prolonged employment of noted sushi aficionado Don Johnson and kung fu dilettante Chuck Norris -- was recently expunged owing to the termination of the aforementioned, um, actors' employment. You were doing so well, CBS. Why ruin it now?
My voice has given out, and we're back in Snow's apartment. Sara notes that she's tape-lifted and roll-lifted the scene, and she hasn't found one hair. Gil ponders what's going on. "He vacuumed the place before he left," Sara continues, and I wonder whether this isn't going to be the work of a particularly lethal team of Molly Maids. While Warrick continues to work on the background, Sara heads for the closet, finds the vacuum cleaner, and notes that the bag has been taken. She gets ready to dust for prints, but Catherine pops in the doorway -- apparently wearing one of her daughter's shirts -- and tells everyone not to bother. Gil comes up with the obvious conclusion: "He stalked this woman. He knew how much time he had to kill her, and then to clean up after himself." Gil dispatches Catherine to check on all sex offenders and peeping Toms within a two-mile radius. Warrick looks up with one of his more mildly beleaguered looks -- one he might wear to convey that he can't believe he works with idiots -- and skeptically asks about peeping Toms. Gil shares his slippery-slope theory about sexual boundaries: "It's like cake, you know? You're just going to have a little bit of the frosting and you end up eating the entire plate." Yet another food group ruined in the service of forensic metaphor. I'm guessing that year, we find out that a processed-sugar product killed Gil's deaf mother or something. ["Maybe Gil just has an eating disorder and that metaphor was a cry for help." -- Wing Chun] Anyway, Sara looks up -- stunned to be pondering pastry-based metaphors -- and meets Warrick's skeptical eye. Warrick turns back to the bed he's been surveying and annouces, "Nobody move!" He found a solitary hair.
Gil, unfortunately, has moved on past tonsorial victories and is now wrestling with plot complication #1: the presence of the FBI. I'm deeply conflicted. On the one hand, Dale Cooper and Fox Mulder have conditioned me to believe that FBI agents can be cerebral and sexy in an offbeat kind of way, and they're kind of like little proto-Gils in that regard. On the other hand, I'm thinking that we don't really have a Lynchian version of the FBI to work with (packed with deaf, cross-dressing, and rockabilly types) nor do we have the FBI of Chris Carter (packed with corrupt conspiratorial types, all of whom know how to wear a trenchcoat with flair). We're probably going to get an FBI that is banal, irritating and heavyhanded. You can fill in your own punchline here. Back to the show: Gil's walking toward the madding crowd with Evil Ike (those of you who have not slavishly read my every recap will recognize him as Sheriff Brian Mobley). Ike is making out like the FBI has just galloped into town on a herd of white horses, come to rescue the citizenry from the serial killer. Gil calls him on it: "I don't think the investigation needs to go that way, Brian. Roadblocks and special ops?" Evil Ike begs to differ: "Well, that's a pity, because I do. Maybe you'll feel better when you meet Agent Culpepper." Yup. Because Gil is such a people person; prolonged interaction with the person taking over his investigation is exactly what will make him feel better.
Gil introduces himself to Agent Culpepper -- who quickly corrects him to point out that it's Special Agent Culpepper -- and Culpepper magnanimously drawls, "All our kids in Quantico are always going on about your bugs." The tone of his voice implies that he doesn't put too much stock in those kids or their opinions. In a rare display of social savvy, Gil picks up on this. He listens impassively as Culpepper carries on, saying that the FBI are but Gil's humble servants, save for one detail: as the agent on the case, the investigation now runs through Culpepper: "Your sheriff probably already told you that." "No, he didn't mention that, either," Gil replies peevishly. Evil Ike looks embarassed, since he only now remembered that Gil's acute lack of political savvy translates into awkward moments for everyone. Culpepper decides to exacerbate the situation by patronizing Gil some more: "You get an 'attaboy' from us. Three women dead because you couldn't get the job done. There's not many guys who would hand the case over to us Fibbies." Gil disabuses him of that notion: "I'm not handing it over. I'm willing to work in conjunction with you." Culpepper gives Gil a big ol' whatever look and says, "Okay. We're working the strip-strangler case in conjunction." "The what?" Gil asks, clearly horrified by the sensationalist title. Culpepper explains: the killer works off the Las Vegas strip, and he strangles his victims. Wow, with naming aptitude like that, what is this guy doing working for the FBI? He could be working for one of those brand-strategy companies coming up with names like Agilent. The two men share a moment of mutual antipathy, broken up only by the heavyset buzzcut detective telling Gil there's someone who wants to see him.
Gil crosses to the tape line, where the multitudes of rubberneckers are waiting; someone who's a dead ringer for Phil Stubbs over on Ed is waiting to talk to Gil. Gil goes to introduce himself to the guy -- a security guard named Syd Goggle -- and Syd tells him there's no need: he recognizes Gil from television. This is the point where I officially lose it. We've seen enough this year to know that the people who tend to recognize the men and women of CSI are either hardened criminals or overzealous forensics groupies. That this security guard is reciting Gil's media appearances with the feigned insouiciance of a groupie meeting her idol for the first time should be setting off big, red fire alarms in Gil's mind. Unfortunately, the only alarms going off are the ones in my house as my computer decides to protest this hackneyed plot device by bursting into flames. I do not kid: one minute I was typing a brilliant recap, one in which my wit sparkled like bile, leaving no target unscathed, and in the moment, the screen of my PowerBook had gone horribly dark and my husband and I are having this exact conversation:
Me: Do you smell something burning?
The Husband: No more so than usual.
Me: No, no, no. It smells like...plastic. Wait. Why is my lap hot?
The Husband: Only you can answer that question.
Me: I don't think the hard drive's supposed to be glowing orange like this. Or smoking. Or, you know, bursting into flames.
The Husband: For God's sake, put the fire out.
Me: But...my files!
The Husband: We'll discuss your priorities later. How do we put this out?
Me: I know. We'll call Jason. He was at MacUser when the PowerBook 5300 was out. Those used to burst into flames all the time. Maybe he's dealt with this.
The Husband: Hey, Jason. Yeah, the wife's computer is on fire...well, it was her idea to call you...I'll ask...Honey, did you try putting the fire out?
Me: Well, yeah. Anything else?
The Husband: No. He's too busy wondering why your computer burst into flames.
Me: I blame C.S.I.
So, three weeks later, after hanging around a couple of Apple techs while they prised the molten cover off my computer and stood around appreciatively saying, "Wow, I've never seen anything like that before!" and reconfiguring a replacement computer only to discover that my copy of Microsoft Office had apparently suffered some sort of fire damage, thereby refusing to get rid of Clippy, the office icon spawned in the eighth circle of Hell, and refusing to run for more than five seconds without going into some sort of sinister error loop involving an obtuse spellcheck function that the customer support people up in Redmond had apparently never heard from...anyway, the whole point of my sorry tale is that dammit, this recap is late because my computer exploded and took the original, funny recap with it. I still blame the show.
And yet, I'm still recapping it. So here's Gil, talking with yet another one of the pretenaturally forensics-literate citizens of Las Vegas. The guard gives the vaguest of statements to the effect that maybe a car pulled out and burned rubber the night before, but if there's anything he can do to help...and Gil testily replies, "The last time a security guard tried to help me, he ended up dead. But thanks." Gil stomps off to go to an autopsy, leaving Evil Ike and Culpepper to give each other vaguely concerned looks.
Cut to Nicky and Gil hanging with David the Secretly Fun Coroner, not having a whole lot of fun as they survey Eileen's traumatized corpse. We are treated to yet another eroticization of violence vis-à-vis flashbacks of what happened as David recounts, "[The sodium penthanol] allowed him to control her for six hours and torture her. Look at the bruises." No thanks. "Percussive control," Nick says, after we're treated to a flashback of Eileen thrashing around on the bed. "He choked her unconscious and brought her to multiple times," Gil says clinically. I pause the episode to re-read the excellent article "Slash and Earn" in Bitch (issue #10), in which Lisa Miya-Jervis argues quite eloquently that staged violence like the type being depicted in this episode is a handy way for us to justify watching -- and enjoying -- brutal acts while adding convenient moral dividers between violence as a narrative plot device and violence as a fact of life. ["That was a really good article. She's smart." -- Wing Chun] Then I get off my high horse and resume recapping this episode: Gil and David clinically discuss the brutal object rape Eileen Snow endured before her death, and David offhandedly remarks, "I did find something embedded in her uterine wall. Looks like an everyday polymer to me." He does not finish the sentence by adding, "Not that polymers embedded in the uterus are, or should be, an everyday occurence." ["Actually, that depends on your contraceptive method. Just kidding." -- Wing Chun] Gil and Nicky look at the black, l-shaped scrap, and Nicky vows to return to the crime scene and determine what the object was. Gil says, "Be careful, Nicky. The cliché's true: signatures return to their scenes." Why Gil's telling Nicky -- who is, to the best of my knowledge, not a single female likely to be brutalized in bed at night -- this is beyond me at first, but then I realize we're all here to learn about signature killers, and we've just been handed a big, fat clue.
After Nicky strides off to work the crime scene, Gil asks David whether they're done. Apparently not. David notes that he found something missing on the two victims: two fibers, one in the back of Eileen's throat, one stuck between two incisors. Gil fixes the fiber with his usual Grissomian Gaze of Contemplation and hands down a verdict: the fiber is white cotton, possibly of the sort used to weave bath towels. I resist the urge to go fetch my copy of Home Comforts and confirm Gil's take against Cheryl Mendelson's. "Well, that would explain why no one hears the victim's screams," David muses. "He brings it with him and takes it away after. So somewhere, there's evidence of the victim on a towel...now we just have to find the guy and hope that he hasn't done his laundry," Gil says.
Cut to The Lab Tech Who Is Now Sporting A Vaguely Liam Gallagher-Like Haircut, Thus Making Me Wonder Whether I Should Resume Calling Him Liam ("Greg" for short). Greg is talking sperm with Catherine -- something that seems to be turning into a regular habit for these two. He's explaining that the semen he found on the sheets matches the semen taken from the other scenes but there's a mysterious red substance mixed in with the little swimmers. "Freaky, huh?" Greg asks; Catherine replies, "Freakiest semen I've seen in a while." Oh, so she must have broken up with her building-inspector boyfriend! ["Unless he has normal sperm, and she's still seeing it." -- Wing Chun] Catherine exits the lab and promptly runs into Evil Ike, who tells her he'd like to talk to her about a few things. "About the case?" Catherine asks, feigning ignorance. "As a jumping-off point," Ike responds. Catherine parries, "Well, Sheriff, I'd like to say let's go to my office, but I don't have one." Oh, my. Gil should watch where he sits; I'd hate to see an unyielding chair back drive that dagger Catherine's about to stick into his back any deeper. Ike confirms my suspicions by smarming, "Well, that's just the sort of thing I was hoping we would discuss."
Sara has apparently calmed down enough to be allowed back on the show again; she's peering intently into a microscope as Warrick walks by. She calls him over, and the two of them puzzle over yet another cryptic piece of evidence: she's matched the hair Warrick found to the hair found on a crime scene, but there's no way they can make a DNA match,since there's no skin tag attached to the hair. Warrick ruminates on how unlikely that is, what with women in peril typically ripping their attacker's hair out by the roots as a self-defense move. I'd also think there would be more than one hair around the scene, but then again, I'm neither a forensics technician nor an overachieving serial killer, so the idea that the killer might be messing with everyone's heads by planting scanty and deliberately confounding evidence is, I'm sure, a silly one. Sara and Warrick continue to bat around hypotheses, eventually leading up to the "plant misleading evidence" theory, and stop only when their beepers go off simultaneously.
Gil's wandering through the halls when Nicky catches up to him and asks, "You want to give me the skinny on this meeting of yours? I'm on my way back to the crime scene." Gil knows not about the meeting; in fact, he was on his way to Evidence. Nicky replies, "I got paged about the signature case." Before Gil can reply, Sara gloms on to the gathering and shares the news: "Warrick and I just got a break on the case. The guy's been planting hairs." Warrick appears out of nowhere saying, "Shed hairs -- he's trying to throw us off." Gil's more or less oblivious; he's too busy watching a phalanx of suit-clad Feds head into a room.
Gil enters, his C.S.I. flunkies in tow, and Culpepper jovially says, "Y'all got my page! Good!" "I didn't," Gil says pointedly, and Culpepper shoots back, "We'll get you a new battery." Well, he's nothing if not smooth. Culpepper continues, "I thought we'd convo about the strangler -- hear what you've got, tell you what I think our move should be." Gil listens impassively, then turns to his merry men (and woman), asking, "Would you guys go back to my office, please? I'll be there in a few minutes." Everyone gives him the hairy eyeball, uncertain whether they're relieved that he's sparing them what will undoubtedly be a painfully embarassing alpha-male-type showdown, or wary of what's going to happen when Gil does make it to the office. Gil then turns back to Culpepper and snits, "I'll be happy to pass back any pertinent information you may have to my team." Culpepper gives a barracuda-like smile and sweetly queries Gil as to what pertinent information he might have for the Fibbies. Gil coyly says, "You first." Culpepper takes the opportunity to drop the bomb: Sara has bravely -- or stupidly, depending on your point of view -- volunteered to work with the FBI as a decoy for an operation wherein the Feds plan to set up and entrap the serial killer in mid-stalk. As Culpepper is busy explaining why this is a sure-fire plan -- "Sara Sidle matches the victim prototype to a T. She's a young woman, brunette, tall for a female" -- Sara's creeping up on Gil, a look of obvious trepidation on her face. Gil gives her a look and wheels back around to face Culpepper, stating, "You're not serious." Culpepper talks over him: "And by all reports she's steady, has the right personality for a decoy operation --" "You're going to bait this guy with a human being! This is your big FBI plan?" Gil interrupts. Thank you, Gil, for saying that so I don't have to. ["A good friend of mine has been working on a book about a Canadian case that went down like this, except that the woman used for bait actually got raped. Whoops." -- Wing Chun] Culpepper challenges Gil to come up with a better plan; Gil's is to understand the guy so that they can anticipate him. "And if he kills again while we're trying to understand him?" Culpepper asks. "Well, I'm sorry, but he's not going to kill my C.S.I.!" Gil flares. Displaying unfortunately precise timing, Sara neatly undercuts her boss's authority by saying, "I'm going to do it, Grissom. I want to." Gil does not take this well, then turns back to stare angrily at Culpepper. The two men engage in a little glare-down, and then Culpepper decides that the best thing to do would be to make Gil look like he's stalling, which he does by asking Gil whether he's out ahead of the killer yet. Gil has to admit that he's not, and then gives us a little profile of the guy by telling us he's something of a forensics maven, and a remarkably hair-free one -- "He probably shaves his head, maybe his entire body, as DNA protection" -- and goes on to note that the killer uses a garden-variety bath towel in his murder kit. Gil concludes, "He will go after another tall brunette, and the torture will be worse. time, he won't ejaculate, at least not at the scene." Sara asks whether the two crime-solving geniuses in the room care to guess whether the killer knows his victim. "Yes...but they don't know him until he tortures, rapes and murders them [sic]," Gil replies ominously.
And we go to commercial break. My God, I have never been more grateful for a commercial break in my life.
Back at the Saturn Arms, there's a small shrine to Eileen outside, stocked with photos, candles, and flowers. I have to say, I've never quite gotten the point of those, but kudos to the C.S.I. production designers for giving us a small tableau to indicate that Eileen's death shook people deeply. The camera swoops inside, where we see Nicky heading into Eileen's bedroom, past the now-stripped bed and into the room. He notes an open window -- cool, creepy light pouring in for maximum horror-cliché effect -- and proceeds to move toward the danger, waving his flashlight around and finding a scrap of latex the other eight hundred C.S.I.s who combed through the room missed. As he ponders the scrap, we get a flashback of the killer snapping on the gloves. Since, you know, we haven't had enough stylized violence for one night. A noise from the closet interrupts Nicky's reverie; he fixes his flashlight there with only slightly-shaky hands, opens the closet door...and scares the hell out of a reporter. "Hey! Get out of there! What the hell are you doing?" Nicky screams, doing his damnedest to put on the I'm-not-really- scared-I'm-in-control voice, while the reporter babbles that she's justified in breaking into a crime scene because she knows the police are withholding information. Nicky reads her the riot act for contaminating the crime scene and breaking in where she's not wanted; he's obviously still all shook up. I can see why: hanging out in the room where a person was violently killed would give anyone the creeps, and then this reporter in her hideous periwinkle suit was skulking in the closet. Poor guy. "I'm sorry I scared you," she counters. "You didn't scare me," Nicky says, still sounding twelve. "Wanna tell me what you found over by the window?" she tries, clearly not terribly interested in cultivating Nicky as a long-term source if she's going to ignore his exhortations to get the hell out before he gets her arrested. Nicky declines to share.
Catherine, meanwhile, is off harassing Greg again. "You got a hot dog?" he coos and she rears back, startled. "Is this one of your jokes?" she demands. "I've got the ketchup," he whispers seductively. Oh, heaven help us all. He goes on to explain why he's so into the Heinz 57: "I went back and looked at the ejaculate from the last two murders. The same thing -- indeterminate red stuff. It's C12, H22, O11 [the basic sugar molecule, for those chemistry buffs keeping score at home], NaCl, H2O, and tomato paste." Catherine fills in for the molecularly-impaired: "Sugar, salt, water, and tomato paste. Ketchup." "Ketchup," Liam confirms. "Did he add it after, or is it...organic?" Catherine asks. Organic? As in, there's someone out there capable of dispending trace elements of common condiments with every ejaculation? Oh, Catherine. Greg bobs and weaves, finally saying, "Don't ask me why, but he adds it."
Cut to Gil, pursing his lips and saying, "I was expecting something a little more elemental." "Where we zig, he zags," Catherine agrees. "He's not as smart as he thinks; ketchup is not going to mask the DNA in his semen," Gil asserts. "All of which I'm sure you'll share with the FBI," Catherine responds. Ah, so this is where we get to find out what Faustian bargain Catherine's struck with Evil Ike. Gil prissily purses his lips and whispers, "I'm sure." Catherine rhetorically inquires as to the relative morality of lending one's lab to the FBI; Gil answers by correctly assessing that she's been talking to Evil Ike. "I've been listening to Evil Ike," she replies. "Yeah," Gil says dismissively, continuing, "And if I don't shape up, he's going to have Ecklie take over the case." Catherine begs to differ: "Noooo, he prefers someone from night shift. And it may be more than just this case." There's a tense moment where the two look at each other, and Gil sits down, smiling slightly and saying, "Now that the trees are gone, I can almost see the forest." Oh, that's a beautiful -- if gibberish-laden -- sentiment. I fervently hope someone has been compiling Gil's gnomic morsels of wisdom on a website somewhere. Catherine meets his eyes with a hard look and leans across his desk, saying, "Learn to be more politic." As they're engaging in another stare-down, Nicky enters the lab to share the news about the killer's wearing thick latex gloves.
This lets us segue to Brass's very nice office, where Brass asks, "What about Paul Millander? Maybe he's our guy. And he had the latex hands." No, Brass, because that would require some sort of thematic unity stringing together the entire season, and God forbid viewers should expect twenty-odd episodes to contribute to some larger series leitmotif. Better to have a sensationalist serial killer: this brings in the ratings-grabbing violence against women in time for sweeps. But I could be looking at this a trifle cynically. Gil points out the logical incongruities preventing Millander from being the signature killer: Millander "stages suicides in bathtubs with paternal figures," whereas this episode's hateful misogynist is all about "overkil rage at young women." Brass suggests that perhaps the FBI has some sort of database Gil can access to see what killers have a vendetta against the womenfolk; Gil looks up, startled, and asks, "When did you become such good friends with the Feds?" Brass hems and haws a little bit before saying, "I've kissed worse ass" -- thereby confirming my suspicion that the C.S.I. writers are all about giving Paul Guilfoyle the slightly blue lines -- "but I don't like this decoy opp the Feds are talking up." That would make...most of us, judging by the way the forum felt about it. Gil reasserts that he told Culpepper Sara was off-limits. Brass lets him know that Culpepper practices selective listening.
Cut to the operation none of us are thrilled about. There are eight thousand law-enforcement vehicles parked within yards of a speciality grocery store two of the three victims patronized, and Culpepper is doing his Tommy Lee Jones imitation as a way of getting everyone all hyped up: "There's a very good chance our assailant will refrequent this store looking for his victim." "Refrequent"? Correct me if I'm mistaken, but is not the entire definition of the verb "to frequent" built around the contention that there's a repeat act involved? Argh. Gil begins loudly protesting -- not the grammar, which is yet another sign of America's oratorical decline -- but the entire operation, and Culpepper counters that it's more effective to waste time and effort looking as though one is solving a problem than it would be to, say, come up with a solid plan. "This is action for action's sake," Gil responds. Culpepper huffs off. This is Sara's cue to saunter on over to Gil, looking all tarted up. No, seriously -- she's in a spandex top and wearing a few trowelsful of makeup. It's kind of unsettling. She says, "This is my idea. I wanted to do something before another girl gets killed and --" Gil cuts her off: "Listen to me, Sara: if we study his past, we can predict his future." "You've been saying that for weeks! It's taking too long!" she protests. Ah, well. Those who don't have the patience to wait out history are doomed to experience it in real time, I guess.
Cut to the refrequented grocery store. Everyone's waiting for something to happen; Sara's just kind of meandering aimlessly through the aisles. In the surveillance van, Culpepper laments to Gil, "That's three hours expended. Maybe we should reposition over at that Borders bookstore -- a lot of foot traffic in there according to the field agents." Funny, I always figured serial killers to be huge Amazon.com customers; those customized recommendations undoubtedly come in handy for the homicidal maniac with an eclectic assortment of hobbies and pyschological hangups. But I digress. Back in the grocery store, Sara's feigning interest in fennel seed and other assorted spices as someone who's kind of grubby wanders by, catching her eye. Long story short -- since, frankly, I am only slightly less disgusted by this hackneyed woman-cop- figure-in-peril conceit than our boy Gil is -- the grubby guy chats Sara up, hits her up for cigarettes, and attempts to shoplift from her. Eight thousand Federal agents pour in to disabuse him of that idea. As the would-be robber surveys the sea of Feds, a cell phone rings. Culpepper has a terse conversation, and then says, "Gentlemen. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let's go. This isn't our man." Yeah, "gentlemen," especially you, Sara. "What tipped you off?" Gil asks sarcastically, basking in the warm glow of vindication. Culpepper chills his celebration by sharing the news that the strip strangler appears to have struck at the Monaco Hotel. All the Feds rush off, leaving Gil and Sara staring at each other. "He met the profile," she mumbles. Gil gives her a look Nicky usually gets after doing something unusually boneheaded, and chides, "Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to do nothing." He takes Sara's arm and ushers her out of the store; she's near tears over having failed to stop another killing.
Over at the Hotel Monaco, a bunch of uniforms are talking to a man when Gil and Catherine walk in and check out the latest body. At first pass, the body appears to be the work of the Strip Strangler; Catherine surveys the corpse and quips, "It's starting to look like déjà-vu all over again." Gil makes a dismissive noise, and then says, "Occasionally I'm struck by the absence of evidence." "It's there or it isn't," Catherine replies. Gil points out that the bedside lamp still has a cord; in the prior murders, the cord was separated from the lamp before being used as a garrote. He then points to the bedside table and notes, "The books aren't even disturbed." "Staged?" Catherine whispers, catching where Gil's going with this. "First time in a hotel. First time he didn't come in through the window..." "It doesn't look like he made a deposit either," Catherine muses, looking at the sheets. Culpepper comes over to the doubting C.S.I.s and says, "His signature's evolving. Isn't that right, Grissom?" Wow, talk about grasping at straws in an effort to clear a case and get out of town. Gil's about to reply when his attention shifts to the man sitting in the chair. "Who's that guy?" he asks. "His name's Brad Walden," Brass answers, since, as we all know, all expository information about a crime scene flows through him. "He's her husband. They're local, come here two, three times a year. He was downstairs playing poker; she was up here reading a romance novel. He comes up five grand richer, he finds her like this." Gil has a one-word reply: "Husband?" Again -- not in keeping with the Strip Strangler and his habit of preying on single women. Gil notes that they should bring in Brad for questioning; Culpepper replies, "I'll bring in the witness." "'Witness'? Suspect," Gil says.
Gil is now at C.S.I. conferring with David; David replies, "It's the same menu as the last three: chemical restraint, overligature, death by strangulation." Gil asks about the object rape. David replies that it's different: he found a scrap of cross-hatched leather with tiny airholes for breathing. David's about to share where said leather might have come from, but Gil's silently disappeared. Cut to Culpepper, telling Brad Walden, "I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, but a man and his wife get a hotel room for a romantic weekend, then spend the whole weekend apart...tells me there might be trouble in the marriage." Walden weakly responds, "I liked to gamble, she liked to read, it was the perfect getaway." Yes. Because we all can see how, in Las Vegas, it's necessary for two locals to pay for an overpriced hotel room in order to facilitate the gambling and reading. "You like to play golf, too," Gil says, materializing out of nowhere. Both Walden and Culpepper look spooked -- and who wouldn't? -- at his sudden appearance. Gil brandishes a bag of golf clubs, agreeably musing that he prefers a titanium driver and telling Walden, "I'd like to see what you use, but your carrier's locked." Walden replies, "I have a key on my keychain with my car keys." "So you won't mind opening it," Gil replies, all innocence. Walden digs in his pockets for the keys, then asks, "Why?" Judging from the look on Culpepper's face, he'd like to know the answer to that one too. Gil clues us all in when he says, "So I can see if the leather on the club handles matches the leather on the object used to violate your wife." Walden starts to look uneasy; as he opens the case, he says, "Well, uh, if it does...I read that this, uh, character uses whatever is at the scene of the crime for, uh, killing his victims." Culpepper's smiling, and not in a nice way. Gil is busy pulling out golf clubs and inspecting the grip; he turns to Walden and says, "Well if this 'character' killed your wife, how'd he get your clubs out of the case without the keys? Or, for that matter, back into the case after he killed your wife?" Again, I love the way William Petersen can enunciate the skeptical quotation marks around words. Walden's looking more than a little dismayed now. Gil finds the club that matches the missing scrap and hands it over to Culpepper; Culpepper responds, "Read this man his rights, please. You're under arrest for the murder of Jennifer Walden. And Eileen Snow. And Tracy Berg. And --" Gil clenches his jaw and interrupts, asking, "Can I have a word outside with you...please?" Oh, we know where this conversation is going.
The two men charge out into the corridor, where Gil says that Culpepper can't charge Brad with the murder of the three victims. "Every piece of the signature is there," Culpepper says, ignoring all the obvious signs and portents that this was a copycat killing. Gil's having none of it: "He read the papers. He piggybacked on the real killer." "For what possible reason?" Culpepper asks. Oh, Christ -- this guy's in law enforcement? For the reason that he can attempt to pin the blame on someone else, that's what. Gil answers in more or less the same way. Culpepper decides that "logic" is for suckers and says, "This is the point where I like to reference the power and the majesty of the Republic of the United States of America." Right -- especially since we all know the FBI has never screwed up a criminal investigation. "Go ahead, pull rank, but that hotel room scene was staged to look like the signature's," Gil replies. Culpepper continues to insist that the married woman fits the single-woman victim type to a T. Gil implores him to stop and think about it, and Culpepper blows him off.
Cut to an anchordroid babbling on about the Strip Strangler's being caught, and Special Agent Culpepper's preparing to hold a press conference; Sara watches the TV through the window of the lounge. She sighs, and the camera pans to the press conference, where Culpepper is holding forth on Bradley Mac Walden's crimes against humanity. Catherine slips in and sits down to Gil -- who's fuming in the back amidst the throngs of press, leading me to wonder why, if he's such a political liability, anyone in the LVPD feels comfortable letting him wander about unsupervised in a carefully orchestrated media event...anyway, Catherine sits in the empty chair to Gil and says that Brass gave her a little off-screen exposition: apparently Walden was having an affair. Good God almighty, haven't any of these murderous spouses ever heard of divorce? It seems as though that takes a lot less effort than killing someone does. ["Maybe they're like Ross Geller and would rather be known as murderers than divorced men." -- Wing Chun] Gil replies, "I'm telling you, this guy did not kill those other women." Right on cue, the same reporter Nicky ran across earlier turns around and gives the two the fish-eye, clearly under the impression that she's on to something. Again, I have to ask: whose bright idea was it to let Gil into a press conference unsupervised? Just as Culpepper decides to start taking questions, the Girl Reporter turns around and says, "Mr. Grissom, Linda Darby, Las Vegas Tribune. Tell me, as the lead C.S.I. on this case, do you have anything to add to the statement?" "Politic," Catherine sing-songs in a warning tone. Gil blinks in irritation and flatly tells Linda, "No." She follows up: "So Las Vegas can breathe easier. You do have the Strip Strangler behind bars?" Well, that's a leading question. I wonder whether Linda's at all acquainted with due process, since she's just given Gil a variety of loopholes to slip through in answering that question. Evil Ike turns around to see how Smoking Gun Grissom answers this one. He answers it predictably: no. Then he excuses himself as Catherine makes the someone's-getting-in-trouble face. Evil Ike watches Gil go.
In the scene, Evil Ike is handing Gil his head on a silver platter. Gil's arguing that Walden's not viable; Evil Ike counters that "further investigation will bear that out, but until it does, people will feel better as they go about their daily lives. Now why on Earth would you want to counteract that?" Because maybe people wouldn't feel better if they knew that the people charged with solving crimes went for the easy and obvious fix instead of actually catching the killer? I'm just guessing. Gil feels similarly, and he snits, "To those who have to ask, no answer could suffice." Evil Ike doesn't appreciate what Gil's implying, and tells him to take two weeks off from both the investigation and the department. "You brought this on yourself," he tells Gil, adding, "time you want to play with my career, you'll think twice."
Cut to Gil cleaning out his locker as Nicky slumps disconsolately and whines about how unfair Gil's suspension is. Gil turns to look at him, and we see Warrick and Sara hovering in the background; Catherine, too. "Is there no one you can appeal to?" Warrick asks. "No. I'm off," Gil replies. "Come on, this guy's on the loose and there's nothing you can do?" Warrick presses. Well, Warrick, after a question like that, I imagine Gil can go home and throw himself in full-time recrimination and guilt wallowing, but other than that, his options are pretty limited. Gil takes the high road, however, saying, "It's all Catherine. She's the boss. Good luck." The remaining C.S.I.s watch him go.
In the scene, Gil's entering his condo. It's a nice space -- kind of like Pottery Barn meets The Silence of the Lambs. The collection of butterfiles mounted on the wall does a whole lot to help that impression, too. Gil flips on the classical music (of course), then reaches into a fridge filled with petri dishes (of course) for some water. He takes some medication, sighs deeply, and settles in for a restful afternoon of reviewing the files for the case from which he's been booted. Naturally, he flashes back to the torture and killing; what would sweeps month be without some gratuitous stylized violence? I guess it's supposed to be all artsy because he's listening to classical music while he's imagining this. Oh, the contrast; oh, his bruised sensibilities; oh, whatever. After the flashbacks get to be too much, Gil sacks out on a very uncomfortable-looking couch. As he tries to sleep all scrunched up on the couch, a noise startles him out of his reverie. Well, I'll be: it's Catherine, who justifies the home invasion by noting that the door was open. She asks whether he's okay. I don't know, Catherine: you try fantasizing in lurid detail about a serial killer, then see how sanguine you are when someone just wanders into your house uninvited and unannounced, hmmm? She picks up the medication bottle, noting that it's migraine medicine. "It's been a while," she says. "I get them about once a year. I'm not used to having people in my house," Gil replies peevishly. Well, not live people anyway, I'm guessing. Catherine lets Gil's comments roll off her back: "You just don't like it when you can't solve a case or command your troops." Gil sighs deeply and rubs his forehead before asking in obviously faked cheer, "Did you come here to tell me about your new job?" "I told the sheriff I'd pass," Catherine replies as she surveys his book collection. Hey! I do that too -- it's like a bizarre tropism: whenever I visit someone, I always end up mysteriously gravitating to their bookshelves and checking out the contents. Gil's a little surprised by this, and asks more nicely if she doesn't want to be a supervisor; Catherine replies that she would prefer to get the promotion on merit, not because Gil's a political idiot. "So...our guys are outside in their Tahoes. If you're a civilian, we are." She goes outside to get the gang, and Gil watches her go.
Cut to the C.S.I.s sitting around Gil's table. He looks like a new man as he says, "We should re-examine the victims, looking at the evidence pertaining to each one." Nicky calls Eileen Snow, and tops it off by saying he's got a feeling he'll be the one to break the case. Whatever you say, Mr. Cows-Drink-Milk. Sara calls Tracy Berg; Warrick takes Audrey Hayes, then rains on everyone's parade by claiming that the fibers in Snow's throat aren't going to give them anything. In TV-scriptspeak, that means they'll solve the case. "Cotton fibers are like oxygen; you'll find them everywhere," Warrick says. "Well, then, go back to your crime scene and prove they're everywhere!" Gil replies. "If you can't prove uniqueness, prove abundance," Warrick quips, and Gil calls out to the retreating troops, "Something's better than nothing!"
Meanwhile, Catherine's on semen patrol. She presses Greg into helping her troll through the registered sex offenders database for matches to the semen found at the scene; they have a match with Hunter S. Baumgartner, arrested and released for indecent exposure. "Call Grissom on his cell," Catherine commands. "I thought he was off the case?" Greg responds. Catherine has no time for protocol, saying, "He is. Dial, and tell him to meet me at this guy's work address." She takes off, leaving Greg to contemplate whether or not he really wants this kind of trouble.
I'm guessing Greg does: Grissom and Catherine are entering a seedy bar -- it's all very atmospheric, with the loud music and the sun streaming through iron-barred windows to reveal how dusty the air is -- and holding Baumgartner's mug shots. Gil calls his name, and Baumgartner (who looks like the end result of the Dean Winters Cloning Project, not that I have any problems with that) comes over, saying, "You two look like you made a wrong turn somewhere." Catherine and Gil choose to ignore that remark, and get down to interrogating Baumgartner. Yes, he knows who the victims are; he recognizes them from television. No, he doesn't know them personally. Catherine's not buying it: "How do you explain your DNA on the bedsheets they were murdered in?" Baumgartner shrugs and says, "I don't know." Gil steps in: "'I don't know' doesn't get it, pal. DNA's like fingerprints. No two samples are alike. You were in these women's bedrooms." Apparently, what Gil said has struck a nerve, because Baumgartner replies, "Believe me, mister, the last place you will find me is in a woman's bedroom...unless we're discussing window treatments. Hey, and my indecent was for tricking too close to the Boulevard. I don't know anything about killing women. That's straight-boy stuff." To their credit, Catherine and Gil recover nicely; Catherine asks whether any recent tricks asked for a, uh, "portable" sample of Baumgartner's DNA. He laughs, replying, "Only about ten times this month. This is Vegas!" The zing in that last line is all in the delivery; you'll just have to trust me that it was good. Gil, who apparently is under the impression that Baumgartner's being hired to dress up in a lab coat and hand over DNA samples in an Erlenmeyer flask, asks whether Baumgartner recognizes any of the men making the request. Baumgartner smirks and says, "Well, I'd have to be looking them in the face, now, wouldn't I?" He then saunters off to the other end of the bar, leaving Catherine and Gil to come to the obvious conclusion: if the serial killer was planting hairs, of course he'd also be planting semen, probably transported to the scene in empty ketchup packets. I pause yet again to ponder the incredible waste of time and effort that goes into being a serial killer.
Back at the C.S.I. Château, Sara's telling Gil that she hasn't been able to find anything new with regard to Tracy Berg. However, Warrick has had some success: he went back to Audrey Hayes's apartment and found white cotton fibers around the point of entry. Gil muses that perhaps the Strip Strangler treats the entry as his staging area, or even wears the towel to the crime scene. Warrick replies, "Well, I remember what you said about signature killers having low self-esteem; they're always going to the gym to work out...so I'm thinking gym towels." Sara cuts in to note that the FBI's Frequented Locations report noted that none of the women belonged to a gym where the killer would have spotted them. Warrick picks up the story again, saying, "I went back to see if any of them had tried out introductory offers...." Again with Sara: "I do all the time. It's a free workout, and you don't have to sign up." Warrick concludes, "But you do have to sign in. All three women went to Strong's Gym once in the last three months. So I'm going back there, grabbing some towels, taking them back to the lab, seeing if I can get a match from the crime scene fibers." Go, Warrick! Sara, meanwhile, will be poring over a list of the club's male gym members. The two troop off to begin their work as Gil's phone rings.
Ah, it's Mr. I-Bet-I-Break- Open-This-Case himself, calling in to tell Gil that the security guard lied when he made his vague statement about someone burning rubber outside Eileen Snow's apartment. As the two men are wondering whether Syd Goggle's lies might lead to something more, Culpepper enters the evidence bunker where Nicky's been conducting his clandestine phone call, and notes, "You're the only night-shift C.S.I. I can find." Possibly because it's broad daylight, but we'll let that go for the moment. Culpepper continues, chiding Nicky for looking at the photos and noting that he's tampering with evidence that belongs to the United States government. Ah, hell, it's only the FBI -- in ten minutes, they won't be able to find the case files, anyway. Nicky punts, stammering that he was just looking for someplace quiet to call his girlfriend. Nicky, wouldn't it be more useful to use a Ouija board? Damn, I'm on a roll. Culpepper, however, is not nearly as amused as I, and snarks, "Well, tell your girlfriend she's going to have you out of a job --" as if Nicky isn't already familiar with that particular threat -- "and the best thing you can do for your boss is protect him from himself." Nicky gives a big ol' "what?" and coos into the phone, "I got to run, Peanut. Love you too. Bye-bye." Cut to Gil staring at the phone in confusion. Culpepper gives Nicky a smirk before leaving; Nicky stares at the phone. Meanwhile, Gil's having a Syd Goggle moment, flashing back to his initial offer to help.
Having identified the possible killer, Gil apparently decides that the most prudent thing to do is go sniffing around Goggle's apartment alone. He knocks on Syd's door and gets no answer. That's his cue to enter the apartment. Because that's what you do when you have no warrant and you're dealing with a deranged killer, of course. As Gil looks around the Goggle household, he notices a tray filled with barbering utensils, and instantly flashes to Syd sitting in front of the television and shaving himself. Gil drops his eyes and notices a trail of trash juice, so he exits again and follows the evidence to a trash area. He hunkers down and opens the trash bags, noting the ketchup packets scattered about, then perks up as he hears a laundry machine running in the basement.
Naturally, Gil runs toward the peril. He enters the dank, isolated basement laundry room and notes Syd leaning against the washing machine. Syd turns around, and the two men greet each other warily. "To what do I owe the pleasure? I thought you were too busy with the FBI to talk to me," Syd pouts. "These investigations are always in flux," Gil replies smoothly. Hey! He's standing in front of double doors sporting big DANGER! signs. Could it be...symbolism? Syd establishes that he's laundering some gym towels. Gil ogles Syd with a smirk, and Syd responds by whipping off his wig. Gil smiles, and proceeds to lecture the killer: "You were so meticulous about so many things. Shaving. The gloves. Planted evidence. That's why I don't understand why you'd bring towels that could eventually be traced." Syd punts. Gil replies, "Strong's Gym. That's where the women told you to get lost, right? Stuffing club towels down their throat make your point?" Apparently, Gil's hit a sore spot, or we've hit 9:54 and it's time to reveal motive. Goggle complies: "You know, the thing with women is they work out because they want us to look at them. And then they parade around. And you just want to..." He breaks off, and begins twisting a towel as if he's pantomiming a strangling motion. "...Say hello. Everybody knows white cotton fibers aren't like fingerprints. They just come off a towel. You can't get a match." Gil begs to differ, pointing out that a towel can be traced by a washing machines and detergents. "Microscopic elements," Goggle coos as he pulls closer. "Locard's theory." Gil smiles at the forensics jargon, then proceeds to taunt Goggle some more. Goggle reacts by giving Gil a wrench to the cranium. Gil goes down like a sack of flour, and Goggle's about to follow his initial blow with a sledgehammer, but is deterred by the half-dozen bullets that appear out of nowhere and bury themselves in his chest. Cut to Gil gawping at Catherine "Dead Eye" Willows, holding a smoking gun with preternatural calm. Clearly, Eddie doesn't know about this side of Catherine, or he'd be a lot more respectful. She comes down to check on Gil, and Culpepper's hot on her heels. Everyone stands around and looks at the body. Gil numbly says, "I just wanted to talk to him."
Cut to Evil Ike, holding an "Oops! We did it again!" press conference. The C.S.I. team heckles the event from their booth in the diner, especially since Evil Ike gives all the credit to Culpepper. "We don't need props; we know what time of the day it is," Warrick notes, strenuously rolling his eyes. Nicky does some manly knuckle-punching thing, and then the two guys grab Sara and go off to fetch the food, leaving Gil and Catherine to a tête-à-tête. Catherine reveals that she has a strict no-regrets philosophy -- which is handy when you've shot someone, not so handy when you have her dating record. Gil tells her he admires that about her. Then the kids come back with their food and our little C.S.I. family settles in for breakfast and a brisk round of mocking the dead.
Well -- that's an upbeat ending to the first season. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and post on the forums, and I'll see you in the fall!