We begin this episode with confusion and betrayal: confusion because I've apparently already joined an episode in progress, and betrayal because I programmed my TiVo to begin recording at 8:59 p.m., so either my trusty PVR is being brought down by Jamie Kellner's minions, or CBS has screwed up the broadcast and betrayed my confidence in their ability to start a 9 PM show at 9 PM. Either way -- betrayal and confusion, and then I look at the screen as a magic act is unfolding onstage to the strains of Dead Can Dance. We see Janet Reno -- or someone who looks a lot like her -- being led to a clear glass booth as "Rakim" plays, and Suspecto the Magician flashes some swords around before instructing her, "Stand in the middle of the box, hands by your sides." The assistant twirls around, conveniently distracting the audience so it's harder to pay attention to what's going on in the box, and then Suspecto the Magician instructs her not to move as the booth fills with smoke. He then runs several swords through the booth as the crowd gasps in awe. Then the smoke is sucked out, and the booth is empty. The magician says dramatically, "Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you she's all right. In fact, she's -- spotlight please..." The assistant runs down the aisle and gestures dramatically at an empty seat. She then demonstrates her lack of improvisational ability by telegraphing her dismay so clearly, blind people in Reno can pick up on it. Wouldn't magicians practice how to handle screw-ups in front of a live audience? Anyway, after a hasty conference, the magician takes off his black cap and mask, revealing a bald pate and pasty complexion that make me wonder if he goes to a makeover team with a picture of Billy Corgan and says, "Make me look like this." He grins wanly and offers an explanation to the audience.
Cut to the now-empty theatre and Gil walking down the aisle as Brass says, "Welcome to the house of illusion. This is bizarre -- you're not going to believe this. Female volunteer goes on the stage, disappears, and then doesn't come back." Gil asks a little testily, "Was she supposed to reappear?" Brass's sentence construction would imply so, yes. Brass indulges Gil with: "The Amazing Zephyr won't say. You know magicians -- they won't reveal their tricks. But we're working on him." Gil walks over to the booth and stoops to get a better look inside. He calls back to Brass, "I can understand why he won't reveal his trick...but would he like to explain this blood?"
And then we go to the credits. First the 8:59 start time, then no snappy line leading into the credits? Has the world gone mad?
Once we return from the commercials, we're back at the theatre with Brass telling Gil, "We got a bunch of police officers canvassing the theatre -- no sign of her yet, but we have traced her back to her aisle seat 8A. Paid cash." Gil, who really does look as though someone peed in his Wheaties at the beginning of the shift, testily reminds Brass, "Magic is fun, Jim, but it isn't real." I'd dispute the "fun" part too, but that's probably due to a traumatic Doug Henning experience at an early age. Anyway, Gil informs Brass that the woman is "somewhere" -- a prediction that stays remarkably consistent throughout this episode without the precise coordinates of "somewhere" ever revealed to us, the TiVo-befuddled viewers at home -- then wanders off to let Brass deal with two genial and baffled tourists on his own. As it turns out, Brass will need the camera the tourists used to take pictures during this, the only show in Vegas that does not expressly forbid flash photography. The woman demonstrates her compassion for the missing by protesting, "But our entire trip's on there." Brass tells her she should have invested in a digital camera and a flash memory stick, and then they wouldn't have this problem. Oh, wait, that was me. Anyway, he walks off with the camera; the tourists stay behind, bummed because someone's possible abduction means that their pictures of Pharoah's Pheast won't be available instantly.
Cut to Sara, pulling out a sword and examining it. Further proving that this episode was filmed and broadcast from an alternate universe, she's not wearing a hideous shirt as is her wont, but a snazzy black v-neck and a nifty chunky necklace. In fact, Sara's looking great, and while I'm not sailing on the S.S. Geek Love, I'm kind of baffled as to how this phenomenon manages to pass by unnoticed by anyone within a five-foot radius of her, Gil. Anyway, Gil's playing with the sword, noting that it's quite dull, and Sara notes that from a distance, it looks razor-sharp. Gil introduces tonight's theme of illusion by saying, "That's the point. So is it real blood?" Why, yes it is.
Cut to Gil talking to Suspecto the Magician (a.k.a. Zephyr), who's wiping off stage make-up and saying, "Nothing is as it seems." Yeah. That base, for example, seems about five shades closer to natural than the chalky stuff he was wearing on stage. Gil pontificates to the professional magician, "That's the conflict of magic -- the burden of knowledge versus the mystique of wonder." The mystique of wonder? What's so mysterious about wondering? Granted, I wonder about many things on regular basis so it's kind of lost its luster, but wouldn't "the wonder of mystique," which implies a phenomenal quality to mystery, work better in this case? Anyway, Gil's syntactic bafflement provides Zephyr with the chance to segue into a reply: "You're wondering now. I can hear your mind ticking. Was she a plant? Was it real? Is there a reason they've reunited you and I since last we met on Manhunter?" Gil says, "There are no secrets, are there? Only hidden answers and flashbacks to the movie that kicks Red Dragon's ass until its head falls off." Zephyr -- whom many of you will remember as The Tooth Fairy -- turns to Gil and says, "I'm an honest liar, sir. In my line of work, it's accepted. You could say it was my livelihood." "Honest liar"? This episode isn't going to turn into the Prisoner's Dilemma, is it? Gil snaps back, "Well, my livelihood is dispelling lies and finding the truth." And handing tissues to magicians who request it. Zephyr says, "My secrets can't be revealed by any microscope." Gil protests, "But there's a woman missing." Well, she won't be revealed by a microscope either. Unless she's in really tiny pieces. This is the point where Zephyr pulls a half-dollar out of Gil's ear. It's a miracle! He's not deaf anymore! Actually, Zephyr does some sleight-of-hand with the coin. Gil's not very impressed: "Very nice. So where'd she go?" Zephyr leans over again and pulls the woman out of Gil's other ear. It's the shortest CSI ever. Zephyr says, "From the salt of my marrow, I don't know." He offers Gil a half-dollar as consolation. Gil takes it, and Zephyr says, "It's as real as my answer." Gil goes to offer it back, and Zephyr grins at him, saying, "No, you can keep it." Gil narrows his eyes in suspicion.
Meanwhile, Catherine's with the band. We should call this the B-side, instead of the B-plot, but I have a feeling none of you raised-on-CD folks will know what I mean. She's asking who the band is, and Nicky gives the Behind the Music synopsis on Peckinpah, including a tuneful excerpt from "Symphony of Epiphanies." The Singing CSIs pass by a harried man talking to the cops. Catherine purrs, "It was good to dance to." Nicky looks at her askance, clearly befuddled about Catherine's personal chronology -- is she talking about cutting a rug, swinging on a pole, what? Anyway, we identify the short bellicose man as the road manager. Catherine notes, "He does not look too happy," and Nicky replies, "Well, he just lost a lead singer." Actually, I'm sure if you looked in the last place you put the lead singer, he'd still be there. In the most literal sense of the word "lost," really -- we all know the lead singer isn't going anywhere in his current condition. Catherine and Nicky climb aboard the tour bus, and after the first whiff, Nicky's all, "Rock and roll, baby!" They examine a rock star named Gus Kenyon. Nicky mourns the loss of Gus's vocal chops as the camera shows us that yea, verily, when you live fast and die young, you do leave a good-looking corpse. Catherine hunkers down to note the syringe stuck in Kenyon's arm and asks, "If this was an overdose, why leave some in the syringe?" Nicky's also skeptical about the OD: "There's no vomit around either -- that's a first for me." He then notices the tourniquet: "He's obviously left-handed if he shot up in the right arm. If he tied it himself, he would have pulled it towards him like so. It's tied the other way, away from him." Catherine stops musing over the big ink splotch on Kenyon's beringed index finger to register Nicky's astute observation. She then finds the bottle of Black Rush Irish Whiskey (from the Old Mullowhey Distillery Co., a product of Ireland) and wonders if Kenyon was incapacitated by the drink. Their speculation is interrupted by the manager somehow barging into the crime scene, eager to have done with the whole affair so he can plant Kenyon and begin negotiating with MTV for the posthumous special. Catherine and Nicky break the news that this is a crime scene and he shouldn't be there, and that's how we find out Kenyon's a recovering junkie who had been clean for some time.
Then, thankfully, we're back at the A-plot, where Sara and Warrick are examining the glass booth and finding it bereft of evidence. Gil asks if the booth has been processed yet, and Warrick deadpans, "Want us to bag it for you?" Sara adds excitedly, "Let's take it back to the lab -- see if we can make Liam disappear." Think bigger, Sara: let's see if we can take it to Miami. Gil and Warrick pause for a moment while they mentally note never to cross Sara. Then Gil asks who controls the stage, and someone who looks like Zephyr Junior enters. It's Punky Dillinger. No, really. This isn't one of my nicknames. Someone on this show looked at a lanky young man with a gentle, self-effacing demeanor, and decided, "That boy looks like a Punky Dillinger!" Anyway, Punky's the stagehand, and he vigorously denies knowing how the trick works, as he's only responsible for the rest of the stage show. Gil gives him a glare until Punky admits that he does, and Gil snaps, "Make me disappear." Cut to us seeing how the trick works -- the floor of the booth opens up, leading to an entry accessed by the area under the stairs leading to the booth, and that in turn leads to a corridor which typically spits audience members right back out around 8A. Warrick is the first observer to figure this out.
We then follow the camera down to the under-stage area where Punky is explaining the sequence of events to the three CSIs, and he says that he only lost sight of the volunteer for a moment, but she disappeared then. Gil establishes that stage left is the only way to get out, then asks if they could possibly survey the area in any light other than red, as "we're looking for blood." Punky flips the lights, and as everyone wanders toward the back of the space, he calls, "Those are Zephyr's tricks in the corner. No one's allowed to go near them, not even me." Everyone pauses for a moment to feign compliance, then resumes poking around. We get another shot of Sara, and wow, did she make a friend in the wardrobe department or what? Sara's really working the basic-black ensemble tonight. Warrick, however, has his eyes on a trail of blood drops leading toward the wall. Punky asks if Gil wants more light, and he says urgently, "No! Turn them off." Punky does, and the three train their flashlights on the trail instead. It leads to the back wall, which has a thin strip of light glowing along the bottom. It looks like someone was lying about there only being one door out of here. Et tu, Punky? Gil opens the door and walks through to the stoop outside, explaining, "Magicians of Zephyr's caliber belong to a very secluded society..." How does he know this? Does he get the Secluded Society newsletter too? Gil continues, "They barnstorm from city to city -- no contact with the outside world, no association with other magicians. They're like ghosts with skin." Take away the magic and you've got what sounds like a Gil Grissom road trip. Once we're down the steps, Gil has reached the end of the bloody trail, concluding that the puddle looks like a mixture of blood and clear liquid. Warrick notices a skid mark and concludes that someone drove off rather quickly. Sara, who's been inside dusting for prints and lifting footsteps, finds a palm print on the glass.
Flip to the B-side, where David the Classic Coroner is telling Catherine that Kenyon had no heroin in his system. Lots of bourbon -- which he must have drunk before passing out to an empty whiskey bottle, what with the scene and all -- but no junk. David tells Catherine that Kenyon died from an embolism in his heart: "I withdrew air from the right ventricle, and air can be deadlier than heroin if it travels through the vein and into the right ventricle to prevent blood from leaving or entering the chamber, which eventually leads to heart failure." All of which we see, courtesy of the TMICam riding that crazy vein to the heart. Catherine muses, "Shock. Suffocation. Explains why he didn't throw up." David points out that Kenyon's pupils weren't pin-sized either. Catherine wonders why the heroin in the needle didn't make it into Kenyon's system; David replies that Kenyon's blood alcohol count was .31, which is the legal definition of "plowed." And that he was unconscious before his heart stopped. Before Catherine goes, David reminds her of the smudge on Kenyon's index finger. It's standard black printing ink.
Back on the A-train, we see Warrick palm-printing everyone as Sara tells Gil, "The stagehand was lying about there being another exit. I got his palm print off the door." Warrick interrupts their together time with another print he got off the booth. It matches Punky's fingerprints. Sara says, "Hand on the trap door," Warrick adds, "Hands inside the trick," and Gil says smugly and somewhat prematurely, "There are no secrets." But there are commercials, and I'm grateful to them. Praise be to our corporate sponsors! We love to consume!
Well, we also have a weak spot for the Hack commercials, because they often feature the phenomenal Andre Braugher, but we digress. Also, we suspect our newly acquired habit of referring to ourselves in the first-person plural and our diminished attention span betray our lack of involvement with this episode. It's the magic, dammit. And the rock band.
After we get back from the commercial break, Brass is telling Punky that there's no smoking in the interrogation room. Punky promptly conducts a sleight-of-hand to make the cigarette disappear, grinning as though he knows a secret. Despite himself, Gil smiles at the trick; I have a feeling he'll be practicing something similar back in the office. Punky says, "I'm not a bad magician, you know." Brass refuses to give an inch: "When you find that, put it out." I like Brass. Punky wilts in the face of disapproval. Then he begins, "Truth is, I lied." Brass points out, "We know that. That's why we're here." Punky rallies: "I love magic, you know? One of the fringe benefits of my job is knowing how the tricks work. Zephyr wouldn't let anybody go near the tricks. You think I want to be a stagehand the rest of my life? I got aspirations too, you know? So I snooped around. Climbed into The Chamber one night and tried it out. Is that a crime?" Brass somberly replies, "We don't know yet."
Oh, God, the B-side. Nicky's talking to two members of the band, a sight not dissimilar to watching a young missionary from the Church of Latter Day Saints chatting up the girls at the Bada Bing. The bandanna one of the band members was wearing later ended up as the incorrectly-tied tourniquet on Kenyon's arm, but the guy's alibi checks out. Nicky asks the guy when the last time he saw Kenyon alive; the guy replies that it would have been right around the time Kenyon said he wanted to be alone. The other guy, who looks like Terry from Wayne's World, adds, "We finished the set with 'City of Sin,' you know? The hometown pleaser." He then freaks Nicky out by telling him he really loves him before passing out in his lap. Oh, he does not. Instead, the first guy croaks, "He always hated that song. I don't know why. It was his best one." Nicky mentions that he talked to the manager regarding Kenyon's sobriety, and Terry replies, "The whole band now. Six years." The first guy -- let's call him Jumpy -- says, "We-we did it as a band. We kind of had to. We went gold three months after we signed our first contract. The couple of years got pretty crazy." The third member of the band is apparently a mute who communicates through an elaborate series of hair adjustments. He appears to be telegraphing great personal stress. Oh, wait. He speaks: "Dude. Hit single. Twenty-four years old. Touring with Pearl Jam. I mean, Gus had bitches lining up outside his door twenty-four hours a day. Sleep isn't an option." Neither is saying "no," apparently. Nicky's not looking too sympathetic to a sex-induced drug addiction. Nicky then asks if Kenyon's bandmates knew anything about his being treated for depression, and the short-haired guy snaps, "Sober suits some better than others." Terry adds, "He could get pretty dark. It was like sometimes you couldn't even speak to him." What is this -- the Behind the Music pre-interview? Jumpy says, "He's been wanting out for some time now."
I want out now, especially as I see Liam wearing a giant Carnac-style turban and facing down Sara as she says, "I know you didn't call me for a magic trick." Liam replies, "Swami doesn't do magic tricks. Swami's here to reveal all your DNA secrets." And try on some fabulous hats. I can't wait to see what he whips up for an Easter bonnet. Sara says in a dangerously level voice, "I'm very busy." Liam slaps the file folder to his forehead and intones, "Blood from the chamber of doom -- same as the donor of the blood found on the basement floor, but different than the blood found in the alleyway." Sara asks, "Different person?" Still holding the file folder Carnac-style to his forehead, Liam replies, "Different...animal." Sara wonders what kind of animal, and Liam tells her the lab tests aren't ready by means of extending the metaphor -- "Swami needs more time." Or his lab tests do. He then moves on the liquid found near the blood droplets, and presses the results to his forehead right about the moment Gil walks up behind him and begins reading. Oh, the comedy. I'm laughing on the inside -- very, very quietly, and very, very, much inside. Liam tries to drag out the suspense by saying, "It's not Thora Birch, but --" "Thorazine," says Gil, with flawless timing. I sometimes think he lives for those moments when he can crush Greg beneath his heel. Sara notes that Thorazine is an animal tranquilizer, and Zephyr didn't use any live animals in his act. Perhaps he used psychologically unwell humans; I understand they get to have Thorazine too. Gil suggests a variation on this theme. Liam continues staring ahead and fervently hoping that the floor will open up and swallow him whole.
In the scene, we get to rifle through other people's effects as we see the photographic evidence of the couple from fifteen minutes ago having a vacation in Vegas. We see them in front of the big Siegfried and Roy statue, then mugging in front of New York, New York, and then a shot of the assistant ushering the woman -- who, from the back, looks like John Lithgow from The World According to Garp. Gil and Archie study the picture for a moment, and then go to the one, which is of the improvisational self-portrait variety. Archie's sharp eyes catch someone in the background who turns out to be "Toby Arcane, freak man." Gil wants to know what, other than Toby's taste in clothing, makes him a freak. Archie replies, "He really digs bugs. And roller coasters. And blundering into confrontations with serial killers sans back-up." Oh, he does not say anything of the sort. In fact, Archie's amazingly inarticulate as to the freakish quality of the Toby Arcane. He does say, "It's not for the faint of heart." Gil raises his eyebrows as if to remind us all whom Archie's addressing.
Cut to Toby Arcane in the middle of his own crucifixion. I suppose this means that he won't be able to shake hands when introduced. We see Arcane being hoisted up as a crowd of goths cheers. From the depths of the couch, the husband opines that this is the worst casino floor show ever. Me, I'm just baffled by goth magic groupies. What does Toby do for an encore -- pull Echo and the Bunnymen out of his hat? Anyway, the crucifix is hoisted high, and Toby spends a lot of time screaming -- something that actual crucifixion really doesn't enable, as the whole point is to fix the human body into a pose where the rib cage's inspiratory position makes it impossible to take a full breath and only slightly less impossible to exhale. The only way to breathe is to hoist your full weight on the balls of your feet and keep it there, with gravity working against you. As a result, muscles go into cramps right around the time the lungs begin collapsing from lack of oxygen; acid builds in the muscles, which is exacerbated by fluid pooling in the lungs, and eventually, the person either passes out from the pain in their muscles from trying to maintain a posture that enables them to breath, or they pass out from lack of oxygen. Either way, they slump into a posture that hastens suffocation. See what you missed from not going to Sunday school at St. Jerome's with me, where we covered crucifixion in detail, with pictures and computer simulations? I'm not kidding.
Anyway -- Toby screams at his adoring goth magic groupies, and the camera pulls back to spotlight the baffled and irritated Gil, Sara, and Warrick. This is almost as good as the time Gil and Warrick went to a rave. Then the music comes to a halt right around the time the lights conveniently go out, and when the power comes back on, Toby's missing. A gout of flame later -- the better to tweak resurrection mythology and imply that Toby's spiritual affiliations lie elsewhere -- a nice young man in a pink Carol Channing wig notices the conflagration and calls everyone's attention to it. Toby Arcane emerges unscathed. The crowd swoons, then heads out the door for the 4 AM showing of The Crow. Gil is smirking in admiration. We then go to a small, dramatically lit dressing room as Toby explains, "I call it the cross-i-fiction. I get nailed to it every night." Gil says lightly, "Well, miraculously, you've resurrected. Have you ever been to the Zephyr show?" Toby declines to answer yes or no with, "He's a hack." Then he states, "I wouldn't be caught dead at that show." Then how fortunate for him that Gil caught him alive. Toby replies, "You should see my nudes, Grissom." Gil whips them out in the hopes of getting an autograph. Oh, come on -- you know you wanted him to. Gil asks Toby if he thinks the nice young ma-- I mean, woman who disappeared was a plant. Toby opines that she was, as "his way of doing magic is as dead as, uh, dead. Fooling people from a hundred feet away, 'cause I'm in your face." I'm thinking the name "Arcane" refers to his methods of communication. Gil's not terribly cowed by Toby. Warrick then speaks up, telling Toby, "We have reason to believe that, plant or not, the woman sustained injury during the first insertion of the saber." We see it in TMICam. Sara asks Toby if he thinks it was part of the act, or a mistake. Toby doesn't look up from freshening his mascara as he opines, "Could've been a blood pouch, but knowing him, it was a mistake." Gil then asks if it's possible that Zephyr put his saber into the wrong slot, and Toby simply replies, "This is Vegas, baby." Okay, then.
The B-side, where Liam is redeeming himself by collecting everything he can on Peckinpah for Nicky and Catherine's edification. He adds, "I heard that they were splitting up." Nicky wants to know how Liam's tapped into the music community; Liam tells him it's the New World Library. I'm sure there's a real-life counterpart this is meant to mirror, but I'm such a rock fogey, I wouldn't know where to begin looking. Anyway, we establish that Kenyon was the guy who wrote all the songs, and boy, wouldn't it suck for the other band members if he left? Nicky tells Liam, "Why don't you get back on the internet for us, see if there's any gossip floating around." Liam gives Nicky the universal sign for "Rock!" and Nicky replies by telling Liam he loves him in sign language. Well, that or hopelessly mangling the rock sign in reply, as if to indicate that he's a resolutely unhip kind of guy. Just once, I want to see a case where Nicky is everyone's guide into a particularly exotic segment of society, as opposed to watching him dork his way across everything from little people to drag racers to dominatrices. Catherine announces her intention to follow that ink.
In the sequence, she rips apart the band's bus as she does so, discovering a broken cell phone, as well as a broken walkman which doesn't work because someone replaced the batteries with heroin. Nicky mentions that the manager is none too pleased about the warrant and is currently engaging an attack lawyer back in L.A. Catherine wonders why he wants her off the bus so badly -- could it be that he doesn't want her to discover the smudged copy of the Las Vegas white pages, with entries for S.M. Dean and S.P. Dean conveniently smudged? Catherine then brainstorms how someone would make a phone call when their cell phone wasn't working, and hauls the book outside to the conveniently-placed phone booth.
Back at the A-plot, Warrick is matching up the tire track to a Goodyear Wrangler, which is the tire of choice for a Ford F-150. Liam then pops by and tells Warrick that he ran the DNA profile on the human blood through CODIS and found Zoe Clein, Caucasian with red hair. Warrick says, "Wait a minute -- CODIS? What database?" Liam answers, "Missing persons." Warrick asks incredulously, "She's in the database already?" Liam replies, "She's been in there for six months, same time she's been missing. Brass is working on an address." Warrick looks baffled.
Brass worked quickly; he found a huge Tudor-style house that's right to a train track. As everyone enters, it gets kind of spooky -- all the furniture covered with sheets, as if someone's prepared to shut down the house for a long period of vacancy. Gil sing-songs, "Las Vegas crime lab!" Warrick comments, "It's a little too calm in here." Sara agrees, then says, "I'll take upstairs." Gil and Warrick look at each other, then silently agree to split the downstairs. Warrick walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge, and finds it empty, save for six one-pint bags of blood. He shouts, "Wow!" This gets Gil's attention, and Warrick informs him, "Six pints of A-positive." Gil stands there to ponder that, then notices how everything in the house rattles as the trains roll by. There's one picture that doesn't rattle, though, and when Gil inspects it, he quickly figures out that it actually triggers a hidden door in the panel. How Scooby Doo-like! Just as Gil disappears, Sara comes down to inform the empty downstairs that Zoe's room is intact, and gives every sign of indicating that she never planned to go anywhere. The silence kind of creeps her out, so she comes downstairs, calling for the guys.
Meanwhile, Gil is waving his flashlight around a cobwebby cellar lair. There is a round iron cage standing right behind a table filled with draftsman-like drawings. Gil goes downstairs to check it all out, taking in the slim slice of sunlight coming from a basement window placed high in the wall. As he leans over the table to read whatever's on the papers, Sara and Warrick sneak up behind him, startling him. Sara apologizes; Warrick says a little less apologetically, "You keep disappearing." Gil gives Warrick a reproving look, then invites them to check out the documents: they're the blueprints to the Chamber of Doom, as designed by Zoe Clein. Warrick has wandered over to another dusty and disordered desk and found an old framed photo. It features the Clein Magical tour, with a guest cameo by what appears to be Karl Marx. We see a petite-looking Zoe and a tall, hirsute Zephyr holding what I had thought was a ventriloquist's dummy, but was in fact a baby. The CSIs take a moment to try to figure out what Zephyr and Zoe are doing in the same picture. But more importantly, Gil wants to know, "Who's the baby?"
Back at the lab, Liam is validating the existence of the internet, mentioning that he snooped on several fan sites, and discovered that Peckinpah was planning a best-of album. This surprises Catherine not, until Liam shows a clip of Kenyon on an MTV2 interview, saying, "Compilation albums are for has-beens. They can release one over my dead body." My, but Kenyon sounds like Trent Lane there. What was going to be on the album? Betrayal, yeah/A stab in the back/Betrayal, yeah/I'm stretched on the rack/Betrayal, yeah/Thrown out of the...thrown out of the...uh... Are we sure we're dealing with Peckinpah and not Mystik Spiral in some horrible alternate dimension? Anyway, now that there's some motive for killing Kenyon (i.e. the greatest hits album), Nicky's going to check out Jumpy the guitarist. Catherine's off to chase the names in the phone book.
We then switch back to Zoe's basement, where Sara's nattering on about the many magic-trick blueprints Zoe had laying around while Gil ignores her in favor of peering at a moth fluttering in the window. He uses a candle sconce on the wall as a grip for hoisting himself up to window level, and captures the moth. He then excitedly calls Warrick over. Warrick hops to, then asks, "What is that, a butterfly?" You'd think the CSIs would be more careful about asking leading questions about bugs to an entomologist. Gil shares: "A male Io moth, one of the largest in North America." Warrick wants to know how it got in the basement, and Gil replies, "I don't know -- it feeds on trees and foliage." Warrick notes correctly that both seem to be in short supply in the basement. Gil brings up the episode's theme again with, "See the eye spots on its wings? It's an illusion to confuse predators. Birds get fooled into thinking it's an owl. I have a similar one in my office." Before Warrick can comment further, they're all distracted by the sounds of footsteps on the floorboards upstairs. Since it's not the officer who accompanied them to the scene -- and since Warrick's recently had an unpleasant experience vis-à-vis the hazards of letting partners wander around supposedly cleared spaces, they let Sara wander around alone to face whomever happens to be upstairs. We see a very good sequence where Sara is walking through the downstairs as someone streaks behind her, and Sara narrowly missing it. Then she opens the door, and the blonde assistant comes out babbling excuses as Sara backs off, one arm stiffened, shouting, "Hold it, hold it, back up! Warrick!" In rushes Warrick with gun at the ready, a little freaked out. Three cheers for continuity! The blonde assistant keeps talking, insisting, "I didn't think there would be anyone here!"
Speaking of nervous and jumpy, Nicky's talking to Mister Some-People-Take-To-Sobriety-Better-Than-Others. Clearly, he's in the latter category, pleading, "Look, I got a family, okay? They think I'm clean. The band too." We establish that the guy in question does not inject heroin, but merely snorts it, and his opinion of Kenyon won't guarantee him the honor of writing the eulogy. The other related development in this plot is Catherine discovering exactly whom Kenyon was trying to call: Samantha Dean, whose door has a big black gouge which coincides nicely with the huge, ugly ring Kenyon was wearing, as well as the ink on his fingers. Catherine talks her way inside with, "Gus Kenyon looked up your number and address and called you last night from a phone booth outside of his tour bus. Records indicate the call was made around 2 AM." Samantha says, "I must have been asleep." Catherine notes, "It lasted twenty seconds." Samantha says, "I didn't pick it up." Catherine asks, "So it rang?" Samantha stammers, "No! I-I mean I can't remember. We're both in bed by nine." Catherine looks outside to see a dark-haired, olive-skinned little boy who plainly takes after whomever his father is, as Samantha looks like she could have slipped into the White Oleander poster unnoticed. Catherine asks what the boy's name is, and Samantha answers, "Brandon. You a mother?" Oh, God. I was already having issues with this subplot before this got thrown into the mix. Catherine smiles -- big and unguarded, and says, "Yeah. I have a daughter who's nine." Already? She seemed so much younger last season. Catherine smoothly slides back into interrogative mode, "And I know how hard it is to do it alone." Samantha looks at her sharply, and Catherine tries another approach with: "Now those are some cool shades Brandon has on. Are those Silhouettes? Those are expensive." Samantha hastily ushers Catherine out the door. Catherine hops into the CSIMobile, pops in the album with "City of Sin," and begins listening to the lyrics as she studies the CD cover carefully. Catherine's no slouch -- she used to be married to Eddie the pancake-making bastard, who was a bottom-feeder in the music industry, so she's probably been exposed to her fair share of rock musicians.
Back at the A-plot, everyone's talking to the assistant, Matilda. We find out that she's been working for Zephyr for a year following the retirement of her old boss. Gil asks what Matilda's doing at the house, and she explains, "I came to talk to Zoe and the door was open, so I thought I'd snoop around a little." That's an interesting sentence, because it implies one of two things: that Zoe's been around on a regular basis for Matilda to visit, or that Zephyr's so closemouthed about what is apparently family business that he declined to tell his assistant that his sister was missing. Unfortunately, neither possibility gets explored. Instead, Brass just asks why Matilda wants to be a magician, and she says resignedly, "Because we do everything? What does he do -- wave his arms around? I work my butt off for that guy. Bring this out, bring that out, keep proper timing, inspect the tricks. You know -- follow his lead. Zoe is the best inventor in the business. You know, she sells me just one of her tricks and I can be in business myself." Gil returns to that statement that so intrigued me with: "So you know Zoe Clein." Matilda confirms that she does, through Zephyr. Gil asks if Zoe had anything planned the night she disappeared from the trick, and Matilda explains that one of the stipulations Zoe puts on her tricks is that she appear on opening night. Brass takes this opportunity to remind us all that Zoe arranging this is a neat trick itself, as she's been missing for six months. Matilda can't reconcile the seemingly contradictory statements "Zoe was missing for six months" and "Zoe showed up on opening night," so we move on to establishing how Matilda got to Chez Clein: via her Ford F-150.
Warrick and Sara visit the truck and get the surprise of the afternoon when they open the gate as a black panther screams at them. Sara appears frozen to the spot, but has the cool to hit a number on her cell and call for an animal control officer. Sara then notices the bloodstain on the floor of the trailer, and the empty Thorazine bottles and syringes. She asks, "What did they do -- drug [Zoe] and feed her to the panther?" Warrick looks at Sara, as if to say, I can't believe we're having this conversation -- and that there's an outside chance you're right.
Back at the B-plot, Catherine is examining the CD sleeve and noticing that once upon a time, back in her pre-maternal days, Samantha was attached at the groin to Kenyon. She then quickly matches a paint sample found in the ring to a scuff on Samantha's door.
Cut to Matilda pleading with the CSIs -- "Sadie's my cat. She's my pet. I got her from a gig, and Zephyr hates animals so I put her in my truck during the show. I let her out for air between shows, so she can get some air, and she cut her leg on the tail gate, so I sedated her. Can I go? I've got a lot of work to do. Tonight's a really big night -- we're sold out for the first time, and Zephyr's debuting a new trick." Gil studies her, wondering what to ask about first -- why Matilda's not taking Sadie over to Siegfried and Roy's for play dates, or what sort of trick Zephyr might be debuting. The trick wins out.
And we get to see the trick in action. Zephyr's addressing an adoring audience -- leading me to wonder, are there really passionate magician groupies out there? -- telling them, "Ladies and gentlemen, I know you all want to disappear. But tonight, there will be no sabers, no surprises, and no volunteers." The magic groupies express their disappointment. Zephyr tells everyone as he peels off his mask, "Tonight I will attempt to make myself disappear." Gil, Sara, and Warrick look a little skeptical. Zephyr chuckles, "Rakim" kicks in again, and Zephyr attempts to make himself disappear. He does this by putting his mask back on, walking offstage, and having Matilda wrap him in his coat as if he's just completed a set James Brown-style. Then someone dressed like Zephyr walks back onstage with his face shielded from the audience, and steps into the Chamber. Then he proceeds not to disappear, but rather, to endure a fiery and horrific death in full view of the audience. On the bright side, Zephyr's nowhere to be found, so if the trick was to disappear, then we can safely say that he succeeded.
After the body's been collected and the crowd's dispersed to assorted bars where they'll undoubtedly order too much to drink and keep repeating, "Dude! That was fucked up!" it's time for Gil, Sara, and Warrick to check out the chamber where they find, unsurprisingly, that it's been rigged with a metal stake so the trapdoor leading to escape doesn't open. Warrick quips, "Someone just got nailed to the cross."
As for the autopsy, David the Classic Coroner is telling Gil, "He's got external burns covering 80 percent of his body. The majority are second- or third-degree, extensive damage to his hands, curled and closed." Gil responds, "The human protecting its prints." David assures him, "You're going to have a tough time finding anything substantial here." David laughs at other ID attempts as well. The two men go on to establish the cause of death as laryngeal spasm; David notes, "You usually see this in drownings, only instead of swallowing water, he swallowed fire. It causes the larynx to pinch shut, protecting itself, yet cutting off his air supply, and that leads to immediate unconsciousness and death. Another example of the body trying to protect itself and it, uh, didn't work." I'm still stuck on the TMICam shot of the fire searing this poor guy's esophagus, so I'm not quite up to pondering how our reflexes can do us in. David then shares the unusual thing he found in the victim's mouth -- surgically created pockets of soft tissue in the roof of the mouth. Gil comments, "I knew that Houdini could swallow and regurgitate keys on cue, but I've never heard of skin pockets." It must not have made the Secluded Society newsletter yet. Those magicians and their secrets, you know.
Cut to Sara and Warrick inspecting all of Toby Arcane's assorted accessories, which is an activity that looks a lot like a rummage sale during the Crusades. Toby watches them skeptically. He looks a little puffy, what with not having had enough time to put on all his make-up yet. Once Warrick finds a stake, Toby steps forward and grabs Warrick's hand, saying, "Come on, trust me." Across the country, thousands whimper and/or swoon as they suddenly, fervently wish they too were the magician of choice among the children-of-the-night set. Warrick gives Toby a wary look, then says squeakily, "Okay." Still holding hands, the two sit down, and Toby whispers, "It's fun." Make that millions of viewers ardently yearning to be goth magicians. Sara can barely keep the smirk off her face as she watches, but her expression turns to one of concern once Toby grabs a mallet, positions the spike, and gives her a really intense look. He bangs the mallet on the table a few times for show, then pounds the stake. Sara jumps, Warrick winces, and Toby grins as he pulls up the stake, showing the tip that recessed on impact and the blood pouch that spurted out. Toby explains the trick to Warrick, then tells it like it is: "It doesn't suit me to kill Zephyr. I've been killing him for years. Come on, people, this is magic! It's B.S. It's all fake! Even this tattoo. I'm from Orange County, dude." Okay, that was the line of the night. I only wish I could replicate the delivery. Sara tightly thanks Toby for his time, and Warrick snorts, "On earth." Well, that was uncalled for. And after all you two shared. Toby's nothing if not possessed of a certain sangfroid, and he cheerily calls, "You're welcome!"
The B-plot, wrapped up now for your convenience and mine: Catherine and Nicky are at Samantha's house; they've dispatched a deputy to keep young Brandon distracted while the fuzz grill his mom. Samantha is protesting that she has no idea who Kenyon is, and Catherine and Nicky lay out the paint, the phone call, the sunglasses, and the CD as premises in the "Samantha is a rotten liar" argument. I have a quibble, though: did they get a warrant so they could match that paint legally? Because the idea of Catherine just randomly scraping people's doors seems creepy and wrong. Anyway, Nicky's going over the argument using small words so everyone can understand, and he's either really ticked or really tired, because the Texas accent is coming on thick. It's pretty cute on him. Catherine eventually tells the story: Samantha and Kenyon met on a video shoot, had an ill-fated affair, and then a night or two before, a drunk and lonely Kenyon looked up Samantha, found her, discovered he was a father, and was overwhelmed with paternal impulses which he expressed in the form of threats to sic L.A. lawyers on Samantha until he had custody of Brandon. Terrified at the prospect of facing Johnnie Cochran and/or Leslie Abramson, Samantha gathered the medical kit she has by virtue of being a registered nurse, paid a visit to the tour bus, and attempted to set up an overdose. Catherine drives home the situational irony of the whole affair when she says, "My guess is when you found out you were pregnant, you stopped listening to Gus's band. You haven't heard any of his latest songs." More to the point -- and I write this to spare you the Mystik Spiral-style lyrics -- Catherine has figured out that Kenyon was writing his songs to Samantha: "I think that he wrote this for you. I think that he loved you very much, and that he missed you." Samantha counters with the yes-well-love-means-never-having-to-call-a-lawyer argument, and adds, "You're a mother. What would you be willing to do to save the life of your child?" Catherine does not say, "Not conduct myself in a manner that guarantees my kid's all messed up from having one parent dead and the other in prison on account of the killing?" She settles for an example from her own life with Eddie the pancake-making bastard instead: "I'd rather have my daughter know a bad father than no father at all." Because then the therapy bills from having only one problematic parent instead of two will be lower. And that ends the B-plot. Over! Done! Gone like any one of a number of bands that were big in 1993!
Meanwhile, Gil's busy trying to learn sleight-of-hand tricks with the Kennedy half-dollar Zephyr gave him when he realizes he's playing with a coin that's got heads on both sides. Recalling Zephyr's quote, "It's as real as my answer," Gil puts all the pieces together and realizes that Zephyr engineered poor Punky's murder -- kind of horrifying, given that Punky was Zephyr's son. We confirm it with the only slightly less horrific sight of Gil taking one of Punky's fingers, extracting the bone, then fitting the skin over his finger, a technique that never fails to lose its ick impact. He then concludes that Zephyr probably knows more than he's saying about Zoe's disappearance. Gil also realizes that although the blood in the booth matched Zoe's, we never confirmed that she had Type A, so it's never clear as to whose blood that is in the fridge, or why it's there, but that's just my wishful thinking because I'd like one of the loose ends in this plot tied up, and the issue of Zoe's disappearance won't be.
Anyway -- Gil looks at the moth and realizes that Zoe's presence at the show was, in fact, an optical illusion and that it was Zephyr dressed as Zoe on the night in question. Gil confirms this when he visits Chez Clein and discovers the secret lair in the basement, which was itself formerly the secret lair. There, Gil confronts Zephyr -- alone, naturally, since the man's a sucker for solo confrontations with evil geniuses -- and Zephyr strokes his Zoe wig, saying, "Nothing is as it seems. I fooled them all -- even that ungrateful masochist. His arrogance blighted his perception. It's amazing what you can do with a stagehand and a masquerade mask. You know -- not to mention a prop like a packet full of Zoe's blood. Lucky for me, she let me have some before she mysteriously disappeared." Gil finds his voice for the first time since he stumbled on Zephyr and his wig, and says, "You made her disappear." Zephyr turns around and calmly corrects him: "No. I assumed her. Quick-change artistry, a magical transformation -- with a good seamstress and some Velcro™ --" Gil interrupts him to inform him that he's figured out the Punky switch: "You switched with your son to set up Toby Arcane for your murder. That trick didn't work so well, did it?" Zephyr admits that it didn't quite go as planned. He continues, "And your finding me here has thwarted my transmutation." From what to what -- mildly pretentious magician to full-blown nutcase? Zephyr says, "Abracadabra." Gil, polymath that he is, replies, "Abracadabra -- that's a Kabalistic charm said to be made up of three Hebrew words meaning father, son, and holy spirit. You're the father who took his son's life...so that you could disappear and become the holy spirit?" Zephyr says that Gil's overthinking it: "No -- from caterpillar to cocoon, from cocoon to moth, from moth to dust." As he explains this, he plucks an Io moth from thin air and turns it into a handful of silver sparkles. Gil watches, intrigued and disapproving. Gil asks, "Your son aspired to be a great magician, didn't he?" Zephyr answers off-handedly and with a smile, "Yeah, but he served better as a prop." Gil continues in a tone of controlled disgust: "You're about to be arrested for his murder." Zephyr asks, "You don't want to know how I did that trick?" "No, I want to know why on earth you're telling me all of this now," Gil shoots back. I wish. It really would be nice if just once, the killer spills his guts as to his inner turmoil and a CSI says, "I don't want to know." Anyway, Gil chides him, "Magicians shouldn't reveal their tricks." Zephyr shoots back, "And they say they save their best trick for last."
And at this point, my TiVo does the delete-the-show trick. #$%* CBS! Fortunately, I also watch CSI: Missing Guy (or Without A Trace, as it's called in households that bother with proper names for shows), so I managed to catch the end: Zephyr is led outside and put in a squad car. The final shot is of him grinning as he sticks out his tongue, and we realize he's regurgitated a handcuff key. Oh, rapturous joy unbounded -- if Zephyr escapes, we're in for another serial killer to menace Gil, and this time, it's magical. Stay tuned for February sweeps when he reemerges, sawing people in half and still nattering on about transformations and transmutations.