Ah, the life of a bachelor! All-night poker parties. Sports on the television set 24-7 and a cold beverage within arm's length of the La-Z-Boy. And of course, meticulously recapping a CBS prime-time drama in order to fulfill your wife's contractual obligation to a website.
Huh? Those Coors Light commercials didn't mention anything about that when touting the merits of single life.
Yes, Sobell's away, and, thanks to an obscure subsection of our marital vows that fell somewhere between the part about sickness and the part about for better or for worse, it falls to me, her ever-loving husband, to recount this week's CSI adventure. The transition should be relatively seamless and altogether painless for you, the home viewer, with one notable caveat. While Sobell is extremely well-versed in the science geekery that is CSI's stock-in-trade, the only thing I know about DNA is my genetic predisposition against comprehending anything more complicated than "fire is hot" and "atoms are tiny." I guess I should have paid more attention during those elementary school filmstrips on "Our Friend, The Radioactive Isotope" and "Evolution -- Nature's Way Of Letting God Sort 'Em Out." At any rate, perhaps Sobell can weigh in from the wilds of southern New Jersey with a thought or two about tonight's episode...
...which begins with a shot of the Vegas skyline at night. Man, that's new.
A band of unkempt minstrels is rocking the casino floor with a jaunty tune about flaming hills and cracked streets and driving rain. It's the Wallflowers bringing us this apocalyptical vision of rock 'n' roll, and the only reason I know that is because CBS tells me so. If it's not Frank Sinatra backed by the Red Norvo Quartet, I'm afraid I'm out of my depth. Boy, I hope Jakob Dylan doesn't turn out to be the suspect in this week's case -- that would just devastate Bob. That would make him incoherent with grief. As opposed to what's making him incoherent now. But I kid our nation's folk singers.
Half a dozen groupies wearing the finest selections of Donna Karan's But I'm With The Band collection make their way to the casino floor where The Wallflowers are holding court. Just a rapid pan away from the bandstand, some people are shooting craps. And not even a minute into tonight's episode, we have our first comical break with reality -- I've spent more time than I care to admit without a court order inside casinos, and I can tell you that if a band were playing as loudly as the Wallflowers are right now, the gamblers would not be going obliviously about their business. They would ask the young musicians very politely to keep it down, and failing that, they would then strangle Jakob and the gang with a couple of guitar strings before the deal.
But the focus of our episode -- a young man who looks like the product of a Brad Pitt-Ethan Hawke breeding experiment -- doesn't seem the least bit perturbed by the Wallflowers' song about blood and tears and how everybody should get out of the water. And why not -- he's just made point on eight. The scruffy young man -- Brad Hawke? Ethan Pitt? Uma Aniston? -- is Tom Haviland, one of the more noticeably insipid groupies informs us. "I love him in I-95 and that other movie with Julia Roberts," she exposits. Oh God, it really is Brad Pitt. Or Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer Pitt?
"There's too many bodies, not enough room," the Wallflowers sing, and man, ain't that the truth? Why just sing a little ditty about how the scruffy-looking actor is going to be implicated in a grisly murder later this evening? While we contemplate this little bit of musical foreshadowing, a pudgy little ferret weasels his way over to Tom "Fictitious Character Who In No Way Represents Any Living, Law-Abiding Actor Except For Maybe O.J. Simpson" Haviland. "So what are you in the mood for, huh?" Freddy Ferret simpers. "A little French? Italian?" "No, I'd prefer some fusion cuisine, with perhaps a hint of Cajun," says Tom. "And remember, I'm a vegan." Actually, he doesn't say anything of the sort, since they're not discussing food. What they are discussing is women, and since Tom confesses to having Italian last night, he would prefer to have Chinese. As in two Chinese twins. Because Tom has apparently seen the same Coors Light commercials that I have.
While the Wallflowers continue warbling, we cut to Tom in his hotel room, throwing one of his companions on the bed and jumping on top of her, while the other jumps on him, presumably not for something more than a piggyback ride. And since this is more writhing than CBS's core demographic is probably comfortable with, we cut to the shadowy figure of Gil Grissom making his way through the same hotel room, only later. "Help is on the way," Jakob croons. Hey, who's doing the recapping here -- me or The Wallflowers? ["And in the wilds of New Jersey, MaBell looked at me and said, "Oh, the lyrics match what's going on. Is that on purpose?" -- Sobell]
Capt. Exposition informs us that Tom Haviland "says he had a romp with two ladies between 1 AM and 2 AM when he left them in the sheets and went back to the crap table." Claaaaaaa-ssy. Because who among us doesn't mellow out after a three-way with two complete strangers by shooting a little crap? Anyhow, Tom comes back half an hour later to find one of the participants with her throat slashed. Which really must cut down on the thrill of rolling six the hard way, but I digress. The victim's name is Kim, thus keeping CSI in compliance with a little-known television law requiring all Asian female characters to be named "Kim." "The extent of the coagulation suggests she died before that," says Gil, referring to Tom's return to the room and not the passage of The M*A*S*H* Stereotypical Ethnic Character Name Act Of 1975. "Possibly before 1 AM." "When he puts himself in the room," Brass volunteers, for the benefit of audience members who aren't already plotting out the crime timeline on graphing paper. What? You don't do that? Um...neither do I.
Gil notes that we're one lady shy of a three-way, and asks Brass where the other one is. Tonya apparently was out of the room when Tom returned, so we will almost certainly never see or hear of her again. Right? Because I'm new here. Brass further reveals that Haviland's assistant, Raymond Lester -- Freddy Ferret to you and me -- notified hotel security and, contrary to the protests of Chuck D. and Flavor Flav, called 911. "What do we know about Raymond?" Gil asks. Um, that everybody loves him? Oh, also that eyewitnesses saw him downstairs at the time of the attacks. Freddy Ferret has also scurried off to Los Angeles for a meeting, but plans to return to Las Vegas forthwith. "And Mr. Haviland?" Gil asks. "He's in the other room," Brass replies.
Where he's signing autographs for a clutch of Las Vegas' finest and most star-struck. "Do you do your own stunts?" one of the uniforms asks. Affirmative, Tom answers, "but I don't want to dog on the guys who use stunt doubles, right, believe me. When you're hang-gliding over the Grand Canyon, you should think twice." Apparently the plan is to make Tom as unlikable as humanly possible in the shortest amount of time. Mission accomplished, CSI. Warrick's waiting for Gil. "You don't recognize that guy, do you?" he asks Fearless Leader. "It's Tom Haviland, the movie star." Gil corrects him: "Clark Gable was a movie star." Well, sure -- in 1949, Gil. La-la-la-la-la-la live for today, my man. Gil dismisses the uniformed officers, who disperse to see if they can get Robert Blake to sign some 8-by-10 glossies, as Tom tells them, "Keep the peace, boys." Where's that rogue bald cop from The Shield when you need him?
Gil curtly introduces himself to Tom, who wonders if Gil "has a sheet of paper because I'm kind of running out of things to write on here." Huh -- asking Gil if he wants an autograph. I guess there are stupider things he could have said. "I think people who collect bugs are losers." "Sure, evidence is nice, but you know what really helps solve cases? A crackpot theory or two." "You know what's a great idea for a TV show? CSI Omaha." Nope, asking him if he wanted an autograph was probably the stupidest thing he could have done. "What?" Gil asks, unable to fully appreciate the mental giant standing before him. "Oh," Tom says. "My bad." Yeah -- just a little, pretty boy.
Gil asks if Tom touched the victim after he found her. Nope, Tom says, adding sotto voce that he got creeped out by the dead body and kept his distance until the ambulance arrived. But Tom managed not to faint at the sight of blood long enough to ask Kim who did it; she was apparently able to croak out, "Tonya," before shuffling off her mortal coil. Of course, Tom's elaborately constructed story withstands scrutiny for all of fifteen seconds, as Gil asks to see Tom's hands. Thanks to an elaborate zoom courtesy of the TMI-cam, we see that Tom's cuticles are caked with blood. Which is why you should always wash your hands thoroughly in hot, soapy water after violently murdering the person you've just had sex with -- that's one to grow on, kids. "I get one phone call, right?" Tom says. "Sure," Gil says. "Just like in the movies." Which is just what Clark Gable would have said.
The Who want to know who am I. Maybe they should go back and read the opening paragraphs of the recap.
When we return to the lavish Palms Casino Resort, seven total strangers forced to live together are in the midst of debauching themselves for a crummy, long-in-the-tooth cable show that should...whoops, wrong recap. No, Tom Haviland is the only person on camera who's debauched himself, and he's being led away by Brass to his new deluxe accommodations at the Clark County Jail & Casino. But first, Tom is led through a mob of reporters and cameramen who shout indistinct questions at him. "Tom, did do you do it?" one aspiring Edward R. Murrow wants to know. "Why, yes I did," Tom says. "I want to make a full and complete confession, thus saving Mr. Sobell the trouble of having to recap the remaining 51 minutes of this episode. Thanks for asking." Well, a fellow can dream, can't he? "You're the best, Tom," shouts one bug-eyed, goatee-sporting fanboy. "Stay strong." And doesn't that say it all about the way things work in this culture of ours, and how our fascination with celebrity usually winds up stiff-arming our common sense? One woman is dead, her throat slashed to ribbons, another is missing. But hey, Mr. Actor, don't let that harsh your mellow. Don't let these silly murder charges bring you down. Stay strong, man. And don't drop the soap.
Brass explains to the media hordes that Tom is being hauled off to the gray-bar hotel because of conflicting statements and forensic evidence. "Can you be more specific?" demands a reporter who's not wearing a fedora with a little cardboard tag that says "PRESS," though he very well could be. "Blood evidence," Brass responds. "What kind? Where did you find it?" Scoop McDeadline wants to know. "On his fingers. Numbnuts here forgot to scrub thoroughly," Brass says. Wait, no -- I said that. Brass just shoos away the reporters while Gil and Warrick look on, and the rest of the gang arrives at the casino.
"I like his movies," Sara says. "Some of them are good." Which is when I figured out that the character of Tom probably isn't remotely based on Kiefer Sutherland. Meanwhile, Catherine hangs up her cell phone to report that Tom's manager has hired Marjorie Westcott to defend him. "'Soundbite' Westcott?" Nick asks incredulously. Incredulous is right -- her nickname is "Soundbite"? Was she taking depositions on the day they handed out nicknames at law school, so she was forced to pick between "Soundbite" Westcott and something like "Writ Of Habeas Corpus" Westcott? There are so many better nicknames she could have gone with -- Spike, Cap'n Margie, Ol' One-Eye. Ah well, Soundbite it is.
"Forget about who's involved," Gil says. "We do this like we do any other case." And with that, Dr. Grissom and his Merry Band of Forensic Pranksters leap into action -- Warrick's off to take the blood evidence over to DNA, Catherine's on her way to the penthouse suite with Sara in hot pursuit, and Nick and Gil go to watch strippers. Er, a go-go dancer actually, and she's plying her wares near the craps table where witnesses saw Tom Haviland before and after the time of the murder. "I'll look for transfers," Nick volunteers. "He's already admitted to sleeping with the victim so hair and fiber evidence won't mean anything," Gil reminds his young apprentice. Don't worry, Nick -- you'll win his approval one day. Nick ducks under the yellow police tape and asks Gil if he's coming along to look for something other than hair and fiber evidence. "I'm just going to supervise on this one," Gil says. "Because I'm going deaf." Oh, wait -- that last part is still a secret. Shhhhhhhhh.
Up in the suite, Kim is being hauled off by the meat wagon as Sara photographs the crime scene -- or, more specifically, Kim's bra. A brawny paramedic whom I can't help but feel we've seen before suddenly appears over Sara's shoulder. "I need to talk to you," he says. Why, it's Hank, the pleasantly bland paramedic who first caught Sara's eye by retching at the stink of a decomposing body she was investigating. I can see why Sara would want to hold onto a catch like that. Hank seems different somehow -- taller, less blond. Ah well, I'm new to this gig. It seems that when Hank tried to revive Kim, her bra was in the way, so he repositioned it. "I didn't think about it until I was at the elevator," he says in a sheepish this-is-going-to-hurt-my-chances-to-score-later-tonight-isn't-it? kind of way. Sara thinks for a moment, and asks Hank if he can tell her where the bra was exactly. They position it in the appropriate place, and Hank thanks Sara profusely. "Thanks nothing," Sara says in a matter-of-fact that's-right-you-won't-be-scoring-on-this-night-or-any-other-for-the-forseeable-future kind of way. "I'm going to have to put it in my report. 'Evidence moved due to life-saving efforts' with before-and-after pictures." "Sorry," Hank offers. Ah, don't worry about it, kids. It's such a seemingly innocuous thing, I'm sure it won't be brought up later in an effort to discredit the case against Tom.
"I could live in that bathroom," Catherine exclaims as she walks in the room. She must be eating a lot of fruit lately. She's been in the bathroom searching for the portion of Kim's blood not caked on the fingernails on Tom Haviland -- or "Movie Boy," as Sara calls him, so we shall follow suit -- and there's none to be found in any of the plumbing fixtures. "Movie Boy had to wash his hands someplace," Catherine says. Why? Was there one of those "Employees Must Wash Hands" signs located somewhere in the room? While we contemplate that mystery, Catherine has an idea. She heads down the hallway to a door marked "Utility Room -- Employees Only." Inside the room, there's a sink. Inside the sink, there's blood. See -- employees do have to wash their hands. It's not just a good idea -- it's the law.
The go-go dancers are still going at it while Nick continues combing the craps table for clues. Thanks to the miracle of closed-captioning, we learn the lyrics to the song playing: "The ride of a lifetime is what it seemed/Oh, don't stop/Took a trip to the center." Only, all I'm hearing is the instrumental music -- no lyrics at all. Hmmm. Maybe Gil's not the only one of us going deaf. Or the song got edited out of the complete episode. Either way. "Can the casino do anything to hurry this up?" a blow-dried, expensive-suit-wearing goombah asks, and no, he's not talking to me about my recapping speed; he's talking to our Nicky. "I'm processing as fast as I can, sir," Nick replies in a tone of voice containing the absolute minimum of politeness required to interact with society. "It would help if I had the dice used at this table." Sadly, the casino replaces the dice every hour -- and then doubtlessly sells them at a huge markup in the hotel gift shop. "I've got my work cut out for me then, don't I?" Nick says, with a smile that basically suggests Mr. Fancy Suit can pick his choice of ropes to go piss up.
Catherine's still at work disassembling the pipes in the utility room. There's a fair amount of blood on the inside pipe, so unless the hotel hired Carrie White to begin work as a chambermaid right after her prom, things aren't looking good for Movie Boy. Further dusting of the utility-room floor by Catherine reveals what we can only assume to be a Tom Haviland-sized footprint. Bet you wish you had someone else to do your stunts for you now, eh, Movie Boy?
Back down in the casino, Nick is testing dice, no doubt for his upcoming self-help videotape Winning At Craps The Nick Stokes Way. He swabs one of the die with a Q-tip, and it comes up looking like it's been dipped in Cherry NyQil. The wife will have to confirm this, but it looks like, science-wise, our good friend Movie Boy just rolled snake-eyes. Reveling in his find, Nick looks up and notices the casino's eye-in-the-sky. He signals that he's done with his appointed task, and hardcore gamblers, clearly put out by having to wait more than ten minutes to hand over their money to the casino, eagerly flock to the table. Murder investigation be damned, Papa needs a new pair of Reeboks!
Driving through downtown Las Vegas -- we know this courtesy of the large neon sign for Sam Boyd's California Hotel & Casino up ahead and to the left -- Warrick spots a traffic accident blocking the intersection. Doubtlessly beleaguered, Warrick radios in an accident report at Ogden and Main -- where this is actually being filmed, in a touching nod to realism -- and requests emergency medical assistance. Rather than cool his heels until the EMTs arrive, Warrick heads over to the accident site where the hysterical, and noticeably bloody, victim is blubbering about how she can't see. "I think I'm going to pass out," she says, and lest we accuse her of showing and not telling, that's exactly what she does. Warrick's expression can now officially be classified as beleaguered, for those of you scoring and/or playing elaborate drinking games at home. "Don't leave me please!" the suddenly revived victim begs Warrick, and he promises to wait with her until the ambulance arrives. Aw, Warrick -- you're a nice guy. And you know what they say about nice guys, don't you? They get eviscerated by pit bull attorneys during cross-examination.
In the lab, David the Coroner Whose Nickname Changes Depending on Sobell's Whim is briefing Gil on what did in Kim. "The wound tract tells us the weapon was sharp, irregular with a tight curve." Um...a giant fisherman's hook? A waterpick? A Curt Schilling slider? No, a corkscrew, Gil posits, and not because he's like that pasty-skinned clown on that other show about CSIs and knows everything about anything, but because he uses deductive reasoning to figure out that a likely weapon of opportunity in a hotel suite would be a corkscrew. "Corkscrew would be consistent with this tissue damage," David confirms. He also notes that whatever the weapon was, it transected the superior thyroid artery and external carotid and severed both laryngeal branches of the vagus nerve, as well as the larynx. "Vagus nerve controls the muscles in the larynx," David offers, for the benefit of audience members who can tell you who won the American League MVP Award in 1959 -- Nellie Fox -- but have a hard time telling a larynx from a Lorax. "Any injury in this nerve and the surrounding muscle results in immediate paralysis of the throat." And just to drive this point home, the TMI-Cam demonstrates exactly what David's talking about, complete with helpful squishing noises. Ew. Long and short of it, Kim would have a hard time gurgling anything to Movie Boy, let alone give an elaborate account of how Tonya murdered her. That sound you just heard was Movie Boy's alibi crumbling into dust.
The team's back in at the GilCave and wearing matching blue lab coats -- do you suppose they called up each other the night before and coordinated what they were going to wear? While a newscaster recaps the entire episode thus far in the background in a fraction of the time it took me to get to this point, Gil sums up the case: "We've got at least one murder charge on Haviland. I imagine we'll add another one...so let's run Kim Hsu's murder." That's your cue, FlashbackCam. "Haviland slashed her throat," Gil continues. "Probably with a corkscrew." Catherine picks up our story from there -- conscious of his guilt, Movie Boy went pulled a Pontius Pilate and washed his hands of Kim's blood in the utility room around the corner from his suite. Liam the Lab Tech appears with the results of the blood tests: "The forensic sample matches the reference." He adds, "The blood on Tom's hands definitely matches the victim's. Triple-checked the data." Which means that whatever acting Tom plans on doing in the near future will probably be in the prison theater guild's production of Little Women starring Tony the Icepick as Jo.
At that very moment, Soundbite Westcott is speaking on the TV, so the CSI gang stops recounting the first eighteen minutes of the show and listens intently as she mounts a vigorous defense on behalf of her client. "Aside from the fact that the other woman in this case, also known as Tonya, is still at large and is still a likely suspect in this murder," Westcott says, over an Eyewitness News caption reading "Murder Charge Unfounded," "the evidence Las Vegas CSI did collect, the evidence they're using to railroad my client, Tom Haviland, has been completely and irretrievably compromised." Man, this isn't much of a soundbite. It's more like Filibuster Westcott. "I'm holding in my hand compromised, contaminated evidence, ladies and gentlemen," Excessive Oratory Westcott continues. "CSI should be ashamed, and you as citizens should be outraged. This is not how we do things in America." I dunno -- John Ashcroft seems pretty cool with it.
Commercials. Man, I got me a hankering for some Red Lobster shrimp.
We return to the sight of people walking and talking -- maybe Sorkin guest-wrote this one. It's Gil, Catherine, Warrick, and some empty suit, who appears to be giving Warrick the business in the matter of People v. Movie Boy. "They're saying the chain of custody was broken," Empty talks as he walks. "The sample was contaminated when you stopped to help that woman." Warrick protests that the blood sample which will condemn Movie Boy to a fate worse than direct-to-video was not contaminated -- he recovered it from Movie Boy's hand, sealed it, and delivered it to Liam without a hitch. "Did you lock your car when you helped this driver?" Catherine asks. Whoops -- sounds like a hitch. Warrick protests that he was out of his car two, three minutes tops. Gil is remarkably silent at this moment, since as it turns out he can't hear anything. Remember -- he's deaf. And to just drive home the point of how helpless Gil is, the audio in this scene suddenly becomes muffled and indistinct. It's a very effective moment -- or at least it would have been, had the folks doing the closed-captioning been clued in on when to stop transcribing. "Dispatch put you out of your vehicle for seven minutes and eleven seconds," says someone -- we'll assume it's Empty Suit -- according to the closed-captioning, but not to the show's audio track. Finally, the captioning shifts to "[speaking indistinctly]" until Warrick pierces Gil's silence with a forceful, "The day I do that is the day I turn in my badge." And we are left to contemplate exactly what "that" is which would make Warrick turn in his badge -- work a case pantsless? Go undercover at the Siegfried & Roy estate? Not look so beleaguered for a significant stretch of time?
"Our evidence is solid," declares Catherine, who has managed to walk and talk while simultaneously reading a document. Try and do that, Allison Janney! "We can't let them take us out of our game." Empty Suit, who appears to be affiliated with the district attorney's office in some capacity, cautions that Soliloquy Westcott has been flooding the DA's office with legal motions, and not the "change-of-venue, request-for-a-continuance, say-this-state-doesn't-happen-to-have-the-death-penalty-does-it, whoops-I'm-crazy" kind. Tom Haviland's attorneys are not waiving time, we're told -- which, as Gil puts it, means "no requests for continuances, no stall tactics, they're pushing for their day in court." Which is convenient, what with us 37 minutes away from Without A Trace's opening credits and all. And here we have the nut of the episode -- the preliminary hearing takes place in 72 hours. If the CSI team can't muster a convincing case in that time, the judge is going to throw out the charges against Movie Boy. True, the D.A. could always drop the charges and refile once CSI gets its act together, as Sara suggests. But that could give Tom plenty of time to, in Catherine's words, "relocate to Europe and pull a Polanski." As in Roman Polanski, the acclaimed director of Chinatown and other lesser pictures who fled our shores in 1979 rather than face sentencing on a statutory rape charge. Basically, imagine the O.J. chase, only this time, the white Ford Bronco drives all the way to Paris.
As if Gil and the gang didn't have enough troubles, Gil tells everyone that Lengthy Monologue Westcott has retained the services of a forensic scientist, who is charged with examining every piece of evidence gathered to convict Movie Boy. "As soon as it's processed, they'll get a copy of our report," Nick says. Wrong again, Nicky! Gil notes that the law firm of Westcott, Westcott & Westcott is entitled to see the evidence as it's processed. "I've never done a case where the defendant took advantage of that rule of discovery," Nick protests. Well, welcome to Season Three, my man. "When you can't attack the evidence itself, you attack the method of gathering the evidence," Gil says. And then comes name-calling, followed by the time-tested "says you" defense, first used in the landmark case of Rubber v. Glue. Sorry, I'm rambling now.
The role of the hired-gun forensic scientist will be filled tonight by one Philip Gerard, who apparently has given up his dogged pursuit of Richard Kimball to become a recognized expert in the field of criminology. Oh, and he also happens to be Gil's mentor. I'm sure this won't cause any sort of conflict later on. "Marjorie Westcott is a smart lawyer," Gil says ruefully. Yup -- only her nickname is dumb.
In another scene, Brass informs Gil that "Tom's best friend," ferret-faced Ray, is coming in voluntarily to give a blood sample. "He knows his blood's not on those sheets," Gil says. "They're trying to choke us with evidence." Ray has also retained legal counsel, with Movie Boy picking up the tab. That's an impressive level of devotion -- most people would have just baked Movie Boy a cake with a file inside. As this goes on, Nick reviews the casino surveillance tape of Movie Boy at the craps tables. Suddenly his beeper goes off -- it's a page from Liam, who's standing ten feet across the hall, waving coyly. Nick does his best Warrick impression: "You beeped me from across the hall?" "I waved," Liam explains. "You didn't look up." Bet that's a recurring episode in their relationship. Liam tells Nick that the blood contributions on the craps die comes from both Movie Boy and Kim -- when he blew on the die, he was blowing her blood. Thankfully, the FlashbackCam and the TMICam team up to make sure we don't miss one detail of this. Remember, kids, always brush after meals and sugary snacks. And grisly murders. Nick goes back to the surveillance tape to find footage of Tom expectorating victim blood at the craps table. And Liam does what he does best, which is to say that he screws around with the evidence by tossing the dice high-roller style. Only when he looks up, there's a gray-haired gent glowering at him. Guess that's the mentor.
Gil and Sara are off in another part of the lab, examining the bed sheet from the murder site. It looks like something Jackson Pollock might have come up with, had he moved away from oil-based paints and canvas as his medium and switched to plasma instead. "The flowing pattern is from the victim's neck wound," Gil says. "This other pattern, though..." "The waffle pattern," Sara continues. "Yeah, I know. I've been trying to figure that out." Gil corrects her: "Here, the blood splatter." Sara counters that Kim didn't encounter the sort of trauma that would produce a medium-velocity splatter. Hmmm. Maybe it was Jackson Pollock. Anyone got an alibi for him? What? He died in 1956? Damn. That rules him out. Gil has another theory, a non-crazy theory that doesn't involve major contributors to abstract expressionism. "I think her throat was slashed to shut her up," he says. "She was collateral damage. My guess: these blood patterns mean that Tonya's dead, and I bet she was the first to die. Rage killing. Sudden hand-to-hand combat." Wondering if FlashbackCam is helping us relive the gory glory? You must be new around here, too.
As Sara hypothesizes that the day-shift DNA guys will be needed to pull all this together in time for the prelim, that white-haired fellow who was giving Liam the stink-eye slithers behind Gil and Sara. "Sorry, Gil," he says, with a surprising lack of sorrow in his voice. "Just doing my job." "Sara," Gil says, "This is Dr. Gerard." What, no hello? No how's it going? No congratulations for bringing that dastardly One-Armed Man to justice? "Anything you say to him will be considered testimony." "Then hopefully," Gerard smarms, "you'll say I'm better-looking than I appear on TV." Two thoughts on that, Doc -- Fat. Chance. Gerard recognizes Sara as the CSI who recovered the clothes from the crime scene. "And the bed sheets," Sara adds. Gerard asks if she followed departmental procedures in bringing the evidence back to the lab. Affirmative, Sara says. Took multiple photos at the scene? Aye-aye, Cap'n. Saved her gloves from the scene of the crime? Sí, Señor Mentor. "Terrific," Gerard says, pointedly noting that the DA has provided him with copies of pictures of the victim's bra. Oh dear -- this doesn't bode well for Sara. Or Hank, for that matter. Gil notes that it's no state secret the bra was moved, since Sara already filed a supplemental report about that. Gerard agrees. "I wish she'd mentioned her relationship with the EMT who moved the bra." Sara looks like she's just found out she's about to appear on an episode of Springer -- "My Boss Doesn't Know I'm Dating A Paramedic." Gil is uncharacteristically a few steps behind the rest of us. "'Relationship'?" he says, in the same way you or I might say, "Comprehensive IRS audit?" Gerard goes on to say that they've just interviewed Hank, who was nice enough to thank Sara for letting him move the bra back. "He was just...uh...being polite, and...um, it's not a relationship, we go to movies," Sara protests. Gil suggests that he and Gerard go to his office, to give Sara enough time to find her way out of the hole she's dug herself into. On his way out of the room, Gil gives Sara a look that will have fan-fiction writers across this great land of ours squealing with girlish glee. And that's just the male ones.
Catherine is reading a document, while yet another newscaster again reminds us that Tom Haviland is in the pokey awaiting trial. Oh, and he sends his condolences to the family. Because he's a touchy-feely, New-Age kind of murderer. Catherine, however, is focusing on Stemwinder Westcott's latest request -- copies of CSI's proficiency test records. This troubles Catherine, since a) if CSIs fail the annual test, they'd be out on the street and b) Catherine failed it. Oh, she's appealing the grade -- something about an ambiguous question -- and the board is going to rule her way (they have to; she's second in the credits after William Petersen), but not before the prelim and not before Hour-Long Homily Westcott makes her and the case look bad. "Just trying to rattle me," Catherine grumbles. "Is it working?" Gil asks, perhaps a little bit rhetorically. From this vantage point, all signs point to yes. "Maybe I should just take a page out of your book," Catherine sneers. "If I don't collect or analyze anything I don't have to testify. Of course, it helps to be boss. Very politic. Ecklie must be rubbing off on you." Ooh, what a burn. Time for Gil to seek the less stuffy air of a mentor-occupied office.
But not before he runs into Warrick in the hall. He's just been served -- Keynote Speech Westcott wants the shirt he wore at the crime scene. "So give it to them," Gil says. "I had to throw it out," Warrick confesses. "It was covered in the blood of the accident victim." Gil imparts upon Warrick the importance of finding that shirt -- "otherwise it will look like you've got something to hide" -- all the while fixing him with a can't-anyone-here-gather-evidence-without-turning-it-into-a-Three-Stooges-routine look. "Oh, so CSI is on trial now," Warrick sighs. "CSI's always on trial," Gil corrects him. That's why we grade the episodes.
Gil finds his mentor -- who is starting to give off a kind of Evil Mentor vibe -- hovering over Nicky as he pulls together the casino surveillance film. "I want to compliment you on how quickly you've organized the video forensics," Gerard says, as Gil looks on with a mixture of both pride and dread. Up on the screen, Raymond is seen taking a cell-phone call while at the craps table -- a no-no under Nevada gaming laws, incidentally -- and then coming out of the elevator carrying a golf bag on his shoulder and dragging another golf bag behind him. A big golf bag. One might even say a human-body-sized golf bag. Gil tells Nick to zoom in on the club heads in the visible golf bag. Since there are about a dozen irons popping out, Gil posits that Ray has stuffed all the clubs into a single bag, leaving plenty of room in the hard-shell bag to remove a second body from a particularly messy crime scene. "Looks like Raymond was disposing of the bodies for your client," Nick says to Gerard. "You think he ran out of time before he could move Kim's out?" Oh, Nick -- never taunt an Evil Mentor. "Or Ray was disposing of them for himself," Gerard hisses. "You've just supplied Tom Haviland with reasonable doubt." Nicky testily points out that the video shows Ray in the casino at the time of the murders. "His zeal is clouding his judgment," declares Gerard, who we can now say without fear of contradiction is officially an Evil Mentor. Mentoc the Evil Mentor. "It's not what did happen," Mentoc continues. "It's what the jury will believe could have happened." Inspiring words for these troubled times. Mull them over while advertisers exhort you to buy Honda Accords.
Back at the lab, Ray and his Movie Boy-funded legal mouthpiece have brought in the hard-shell golf bag for inspection. "Very considerate of you to bring this golf bag in without insisting on a warrant," Gil says. The attorney asserts that Ray wants to help the investigation in any way he can -- just look at the sincerity in his beady little ferret eyes. "Tell me, counselor," says Brass, who's also here to take a look-see at the golf bag. "Does Tom Haviland pay in a timely fashion?" Someone's working in a little freelance pissiness on top of their normal expository duties, I guess. Brass wants the lawyer and his ferret client to confirm what they already know from the cell phone records -- that Movie Boy called Ray up to the suite at 1:31 AM, presumably to help dump some bodies. "He called so I could hear him with the girls," Ray insists. "He does that sometimes." Boy, there's a pal, huh? I can see where you'd go all-out to destroy evidence for someone who retains your whore-wrangling services and then calls you up later to provide a play-by-play description of the action. Brass points out that the police have surveillance tape of Ray leaving the hotel an hour after the call, carrying what appears to be one of the bodies, in a case much like the one Gil is currently poking at. Ray's lawyer asserts that the little ferret was just taking Movie Boy's clubs to the airport. Wow -- he does your pandering and hauls your luggage? If he cleans and does automotive repair, I might want to hire him. Nevertheless, Brass maintains that Ray dumped the body somewhere, "and, as we speak, the Police Department is out looking for it." They'd better find it, too, as Gil notes that the golf bag reeks of solvent. It's been scrubbed clean, and fairly recently, too.
Later, that same day, Gil is squirting some sort of magical science potion on the case while Nicky and Mentoc the Evil Mentor look on. The golf bag glows an unearthly blue. "Ray was caddying a dead body," Nick says to Mentoc, having still not learned that Evil Mentors are impervious to taunting. "We show him this, he'll rat out Tommy Terrific in a heartbeat." Or he would, if the unearthly blue glow wasn't so uniform. "The luminol's cross-reacting with the bleach," Gil says glumly. Sure it is, Gil...did I mention that Nellie Fox won the MVP award in 1959? Hit .306 that year. "Any blood evidence in there has been destroyed," Mentoc crows. "This is b.s." Nicky exclaims, since this is CBS and not HBO. "This is total b.s." He continues ranting in this vein, becoming increasingly unhinged and giving himself plenty of fodder for the "They Will Pay" section of his journal, until Gil snaps at him to go get a soda. Yes, let's all enjoy a nice, refreshing soda right now. Nicky, you take a Xanax with yours.
That leaves Gil and Mentoc to have a little heart to heart. "Marjorie's going to take him to the cleaners," the Evil Mentor growls, as he walks out of the room. Gil follows, "Hey, what happened to you?" Yeah, it used to be about the music, man! Gil lists Mentoc's bona fides -- pioneer in forensic science, many bad guys put away on his say-so, and so forth. "How many innocent men have been locked away since then because of sloppy investigating, shortcut forensics?" Mentoc counters. "You look for mistakes in any lab, you'll find them," Gil concedes. "I shouldn't be able to, Gil," Mentoc says with a twirl of his thin, black mustache, a flourish of his dark cape, and a tap of his cloven hoof. He rattles off a litany of CSI's transgressions -- compromised blood, sweetheart deals, a CSI who needs the crisp taste of soda to wash away his rage -- to the protests of Gil. "You're subverting good evidence," he says. "These are good people." Mentoc's not buying it: "The accused is entitled to the best defense possible." Sensing the title for tonight's episode, Gil picks up on Mentoc's theme: "The accused is entitled, yeah. He's a movie star. That's why he's entitled. He's killed two women. You know it. But you're willing to decimate these CSIs so that you can spoon-feed a jury into letting him walk." Mentoc agrees that influencing juries is chief among his evil powers. "A jury believes me because of my reputation, just like they do you," he says. "The difference is, Philip, I get the same paycheck regardless of what I testify to," Gil retorts. Mentoc suggests strongly that the DA drop the case. Gil refuses. "If you strike me down, I shall return more powerful than before," he says. Well, no, he doesn't, but I'm still getting a serious Jedi Knight vibe from this whole exchange.
Since we haven't had our quota of Liam-induced comedy tonight, everybody's favorite lab tech is dressed head to toe in protective gear -- all the better to not taint evidence, my dear -- and whispering to Grissom in a voice so low that even Mentoc, with his super-human hearing, can't eavesdrop. Which would be clever if Mentoc hadn't already left for the day. Anyhow, Liam's been testing seven bed-sheet swatches that Sara gave him. Three of them came up with genetic material from Kim; the other four -- those are the splattered ones -- have an XY chromosome sequence. "Blood's from a male?" Gil asks. Well, duh, Gil -- even I know what an XY chromosome sequence is. "Tom Haviland's," Sara deduces. Nope, Liam says, and it wasn't Ray's either. Must have been another guy in the room, figures Sara, who whines, "The defense has us moving so fast, we can't make sense of our own evidence." "That's what they want," Gil says. Yeah, they're sneaky that way. Nick interrupts the mope session to let everyone know that Tonya's body just turned up at Briarway Golf Course...
...where she's buried up to her neck in a sand trap. Under the rules of golf, I guess that would make the body an immovable obstruction, meaning any golfer whose shot lands on Tonya would be entitled to relief without having to take a penalty stroke. I think about these things, you know. We're at the golf course now, where Capt. Exposition is holding forth as Nicky and a worker bee from the coroner's office gingerly scrape Tonya out of the trap. Thank God Ray didn't stash her body at a miniature golf course -- it would have taken days to pry her out of the windmill. "The golf pro told me they've closed the back nine down for a month," Brass says. Very convenient for the golf enthusiast who wants to play a quick nine holes, then stash a body somewhere without ever having to get out of the golf cart. "Did Tom Haviland ever play a boxer?" Brass wonders. "The girl's face looks like hamburger meat." "Looks like uncontrollable rage to me," says Gil, returning to his earlier theory, as Mentoc looks like he's about to lose his lunch in the water hazard. Nick calls for Gil to come down to the sand trap for a closer look. "Just say it, Nick," says Gil, who's clearly tired of his the cloak-and-k-bar routine. "Franks and beans," Nick says. Huh? What's that now? "Tonya's a man," Nick continues. Well, that's fine, but I don't see what that has to do with franks and be-- oh. "It's like that old Hollywood saying," Gil says philosophically. "Never get caught with a dead girl or a live boy." Or between Robert Downey Jr. and an unlocked liquor cabinet. What? That's not an old Hollywood saying? It should be.
Gil's continuing his hypothesizing -- Tom is having his ménage a trois, convinced he's representing the minority gender for the evening, when he reaches down on Tonya to discover peripherals above and beyond what normally ships with the base configuration. "Most guys would have just cleared the room and gargled with whiskey," Gil continues, forgetting that any time is the right time to gargle with whiskey so far as some of us are concerned. "But Movie Boy who brags about doing his own stunts couldn't take the thought of having a man in his bed. So he freaked out." Cut to the FlashbackCam, in which "freaked out" is defined as "stabbed repeatedly with a corkscrew." Mentoc is unmoved. "I'm just here to observe CSI's investigating techniques," he says. Gil points out that Nick is the primary on this case. "You're not running evidence," observes Mentoc, whose powers also include the apparent ability to state what is obvious. And to be devious -- "By the way, tell your mother I said hello the time you talk," he says to Gil. "I'm so impressed that night we all had dinner. The sign language, how you interpreted for her. Fluid. Didn't miss a beat." Gil realizes he's about to be ratted out. "What'd you do, subpoena my doctor?" he asks. What need does Mentoc have for subpoenas when he knows Gil's genetic predisposition for hearing loss? Muah ha ha ha! "You've become a bottom-feeder, Philip," Gil snorts. "Let the hate flow through you!" Mentoc exclaims. "Strike me down! Give in to your anger! With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant." No, no -- he merely points out that Gil depends on his five senses to do his job, and that one of them is about to go on permanent hiatus. And then, to illustrate Mentoc's point, the audio momentarily drops out again to let us know that yes, indeed, Gil will soon be deaf as a post. Possibly by sweeps.
Hey, use that T-Mobile thing. Otherwise, Catherine Zeta-Jones won't find you nearly as attractive as her 88-year-old husband.
Back in the lab, Gil is studying a watch. Maybe he swiped it off Mentoc back at the golf course and plans on hawking it. Nope, it's part of the Movie Boy case, and it has something to do with the waffle-shaped pattern of blood. Sara walks in, dressed in her finery for her upcoming court appearance, to tell Gil that she's looked everywhere in the hotel room, but she can't find anything that matches that blood pattern. Gil wonders if she compared them to the booking photos of Tom; Sara says Brass hasn't handed them over yet. Gil sighs, then looks at Sara. "You look nice," he says. The fan-fiction faction, having already screamed themselves hoarse, begins instant-messaging skeptical friends and family with all-caps messages: "SEE??? SEE??? TOLD U SO!!!!" Sara turns to leave for her court date, but Gil stops her with this friendly advice: "Whatever happens in court, it's not because you're seeing this guy. You deserve to have a life." Coming from a man who has none of his own, that must be a great comfort.
Catherine is busy giving Nick advice on how not to look like a mendacious weasel while testifying. Nick is busy looking at his tie as if he can't believe they make these things without clip-ons now. "Don't fidget with your tie" would seem to be Tip #1 when it comes to not looking like a mendacious weasel on the witness stand, but Catherine's busy instructing Nicky on not squirming if he's stuck for an answer. Baby steps, I suppose. They pass by Warrick, who's busy rifling through the garbage in search of his bloody shirt. "I've been through every dumpster on the premises," says Warrick, who has passed Beleaguered City and is now on the outskirts of Bone-Weary. "Better keep looking," Catherine says. She's full of helpful hints today.
We're off to a dimly lit courtroom, where Gettysburg Address Westcott is grilling Nick about his staggering incompetence. Nicky forgot to put case identifiers -- date, time, file number, and the like -- on his dice photos, which seems like a small thing, but when you're going up against a seasoned advocate like Voluminous Lecture Westcott and her evil assistant Mentoc, you can't afford the slightest misstep. "How can we be confident in your collection if you can't be confident in your own documentation?" Socratic Method Westcott asks, as Nick sinks in a sea of his own flop sweat.
Still, that's not nearly so disastrous as throwing out a bloody shirt that may or may not have contaminated the blood evidence that's the cornerstone of your case. That's what PowerPoint Presentation Westcott is arguing, anyhow, and oh, by the way, Your Honor, did you know that CSI Warrick Brown is a dirty, stinking gambler? Well, you do now. Warrick protests that his gambling habit seems rather irrelevant to the case at hand -- which would seem to be the job of, oh, I don't know, a prosecutor capable of raising objections when the defense runs roughshod over his witnesses. Perhaps the district attorney's office assigned a potted plant to argue the case against Movie Boy. ["Or someone who's completely unfamiliar with any of the following logical fallacies: argumentem ad hominem, affirmation of the consequent, argumentum ad ignorantium, the fallacy of interrogation, non causa pro causa, and ignoration elenchi. You could teach an entire course in logic and argument based on Blah-de-Blah Westcott's methods of interrogation. The readership has no idea what sort of bullet they've dodged by not having me recap -- and rant about -- all of Westcott's terrible tactics." -- Sobell]
Meanwhile, while Declamatory Statement Westcott is busy tearing members of his team asunder, Gil is staring intently at photos of Tom Haviland. Now it's the slash-fiction writers' turn to squeal delightedly. No -- these are just the booking photos of Movie Boy, and Gil is dismayed that the police didn't get any extended body photos. "I need lower extremities for comparison," Gil protests. Don't we all? "Marjorie Westcott blew in here and shut us down," Brass explains. "She said if we wanted fully body shots, we were going to have to get a court order. So the DA's working on it." Maybe that's why there's no one in court to object to Five Minutes For Rebuttal Westcott's line of questioning.
According to the courtroom sketch artist, Cybill Shepherd is now testifying in the case. Though, in reality, it's just Sara. M.C. Westcott is peppering Sara with questions about Hank -- and about Gil. "A murder investigation at the residence of one Charles Renteria," Opening Remarks Westcott says. Well, it was Cliff Renteria, but we see where you're going with this. That was the episode where Sara brushed chalk off his cheek -- "touching him in a romantic gesture," is how Purple Prose Westcott puts it. Maybe she writes fan fiction, too. Sara confirms this, saving us the heartbreak of a flashback episode. "Just how far will Ms. Sidle go on the evidence to please her boss, Gil Grissom?" wonders Rhetorical Device Westcott.
Catherine gets to testify as well. Biographical Profile Westcott asks her about her pre-CSI vocation, which as you know, was in the exotic dancing industry. "Took your clothes off for a living," Q&A Westcott says. "For a very good living," corrects Catherine, who, disappointingly, does not offer to provide a demonstration for the benefit of the court. No matter. Oh, and in addition to dancing naked for money, Oral History Westcott points out that Catherine also failed her proficiency test. Which makes her a bad person, apparently. ["But with fabulous shoes. Did you see those shoes? Oh, wait. Why am I asking you?" -- Sobell]
And mad, too. Because in the very scene, Catherine is storming back into the GilCave to give the boss what-for. "They're beating our heads in," she complains. "Judge is going to dismiss, you can feel it." Gil doesn't look up from the stack of papers and photos he's sorting through. "Don't get ahead of yourself," he says. "I'm not ahead of myself," she says angrily. "I'm up there front and center, taking hits with the rest of CSI. You know, you've turned into a really lousy leader." Well, that gets Gil to look up at her. "I need your help," she continues. "And you're on the sidelines." Gil blinks. "Would you know where I could get pictures of Tom Haviland?" he asks. "Like full body shots?" Oh, Gil -- you beautiful, non-linear bastard. That's why we love you.
Since it's scantily-clad photos of celebrities we're looking for, we naturally turn to Liam and his impressive collection of supermarket tabloids. "I hid all these when I heard that Gerard would be snooping around," Liam says. Catherine finds a photo of Movie Boy "away from the set, between films and in paradise" -- and Gil, with the help of a magnifying glass, finds exactly what he's looking for. "I'm going to go to court," Gil says.
And there Gil is, on the witness stand, fielding a question from the no-longer-mute Empty Suit, who up until now has been MIA in the courtroom. Gil is testifying that Movie Boy's story -- that both victims were alive when he left the room -- is horse manure, and he's got the evidence to prove it. The waffle-shaped blood pattern was made by Movie Boy during the attack, Gil says. Empty Suit ends his question, lest he be required to do any more talking. We cut to the defense table, where Mentoc whispers ominously in Toastmaster Westcott's ear. I imagine that he's whispering, "That's a very dear friend of mine up there, so whatever you do, don't speak in a low tone of voice since he's going deaf and won't be able to hear you. Because only an evil mentor would do something like that." So, of course, One-Woman Play Westcott gets up and speaks in a very low tone of voice. "By what standard are you basing this match?" she asks. Gil can't hear her, and as a matter of fact, neither can I, but I've got closed-captioning and he doesn't, so there you go. Gil asks Spoken-Word Album Westcott to repeat the question, while Mentoc grins evilly in triumph. Low-Talker Westcott obliges. "One more time, please," Gil says. The camera zooms in on her lips -- a-ha, Gil's a lip-reader. Didn't count on that, did you, Mentoc? Your evil mentoring plans have been foiled once more! Gil asserts that he's basing the match on visual comparison: "The accused has a distinct waffle-like scar characterized by diamond-shaped patterns on his left knee." Movie Boy claimed the scar was from a stunt in a particularly stupid-sounding Bruckheimer-esque production; in actuality, he got the scar by tripping on his way into the wardrobe trailer -- hence the unique scarring pattern. Gil overlays photos of the step, Movie Boy's scar, and the blood-stained sheet -- it's a perfect match. The judge binds the case over for trial, Cautionary Fable Westcott starts filing all sorts of motions to delay the case, and Movie Boy contemplates the do's and don'ts of prison courtship as Gil makes his way out of the courtroom. He's stopped by Mentoc, who says, "Gil...good work." "My team did it, Philip," Gil responds. "I've got good CSIs. And my mother says hello." He uses sign language to convey that last sentence, and we'll just have to take it on faith that those were the actual words he signed instead of "Cram it, clown." Which is what I would have done, but I am a small, petty man.
week, Nick takes his shirt off, and Sobell returns. Thank God. ["I assume it's the latter you're referring to there. Heh." -- Sars]