“ Gil steers Sara 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. ”
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."
Strip Strangler
“ '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. ”
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 clichd 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.
Strip Strangler
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: