The episode begins by forsaking the glitz of Las Vegas for the searchlight of a penitentiary. We then go inside, where we see blue-suited law enforcement officials strapping down someone in a prison-orange jumpsuit. The camera switches to the clock on the wall, and we see that it's two minutes until midnight. The strapping process continues; we're about to witness an execution by lethal injection. The only sounds accompanying the scenes are a slow, industrial murmur meant to mimic either a pulse or the slow thrum of machinery, the Velcro (TM) cuffs being fastened, the scissors sliding through fabric as they cut away the jumpsuit, a tiny wet noise as a needle is inserted and taped to the convict's skin. It's a marvelous way to point out how surreal the act of being put to death must seem for the person experiencing it. The two EMTs finish by attaching the pulse monitor, then walk away, leaving the convict laid out in front of a phalanx of law-enforcement personnel. A pulse monitor beeps steadily.
The camera then pulls back to an area behind a window, where a series of huge, numbered syringes are lying on a counter. The low mechanical thrum and the pulse meter are still the dominant sounds until we hear the convicted man sucking in his breath. We see him spread out as if on a crucifix (semiotics students, on your marks...), the clock ticks one minute closer to midnight, and then we're watching the bare chest of the convict rapidly rise and fall as he breathes heavily. We get the convict's-eye view of the ventilation grate, then another shot of him breathing (semiotics students, get set...) as he looks over at a curtained window. The curtains pull back abruptly, and we see a pair of fifty- or sixty-something people start as they see him. The convict looks over at the people, then looks away; inside the viewing area, the woman takes her husband's hand, and we see that they're holding a picture of a very attractive young woman wearing very dated clothing. In the second row, an African-American woman grimly looks at the faces around her. The clock clicks to midnight, and the scene turns into a vein. No, really -- we're seeing a TMICam shot in which actual red blood cells are rushing by in syncopation to the body's pulse. We then pull back to see a heart beating moistly, and then we switch even further back until we're with one of the men in the booth. He's the doctor, and he's picking up syringe #1 and feeding it into a tube. We follow the solution down through the tube, through the needle, and into the veins, where it meets up with the RBCs. The convict's eyes widen, he breathes in, and then the camera switches to the heart again, which slows with every beat. The man breathes out, and everyone watches in silence.
Just then, the phone rings. Cut to a crash cart entering the execution area, and the same men who prepped the convict for death now attempting to resuscitate him as someone barks, "We've got thirty seconds to revive him."
Oh, where to begin? How about with the issue of what may or may not have entered this guy's veins? Most lethal injection executions have this order: first, the barbiturate sodium thiopental puts the inmate into a deep sleep; second, a saline solution flushes through the IV; third, the muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the diaphragm and lungs, is injected; then, after another saline flush, potassium chloride is injected in order to interrupt any electrocardial functions. I'm going to assume that Nevada is one of those states that administers an astronomically large dose of sodium thiopental, and the EMTs were rushing in there to try and prevent a barbiturate overdose.
But let's stop and examine the whole oh, we went ahead with the execution, right on the stroke of midnight, and -- whoops! There's a call! angle. Dramatic, yes. Realistic? God, I hope not. Cruel and unusual for a person who was under the impression they were about to die? Absolutely.
Cut to Catherine catching Gil in the labitrail and telling him, "A stay. New evidence -- hair analysis. I've already overnighted the six pubic hairs found on the victim to Norfolk Department of Criminal Justice for mitochondrial DNA analysis." Instead of recapping the tedious chain of events in which a perp's pubes take the red-eye to the Old Dominion, I'm going to swerve into geek monologue number two for the night and explain why mitochondrial DNA analysis could make or break this stay. First -- mitochondria are organelles (a specialized body within a cell) responsible for cellular respiration; anyone who's ever taken basic biology can probably chirp that "mitochondria are the cell's powerhouses!" and may even know a thing or two about ATP production. That's not relevant here. What is relevant is that mitochondria are self-replicating; in other words, it takes a mitochondria to produce another mitochondria, and over the course of the last forty years, researchers (most notably Doug Wallace) deduced that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) inheritance is matrilineal-only; in other words, you've got your mom's mitochondria, and back on down the line. Mary-Claire King, a molecular geneticist from Berkeley, was responsible for pegging a 600-base pair region of mtDNA which is so variable from person to person, it can be used as a way of biologically linking mother to child unambiguously. In addition to the precision which mtDNA allows for in identifying individuals in testing, mtDNA is also more likely to be recovered in small or degraded biological samples, because mtDNA molecules are present in hundreds to thousands of copies per cell compared to the nucleus (the other repository for DNA in cellular samples). So, the whole point to testing the mtDNA in this case is to try and establish that it's the convict's hair found at the site, and they'll do so by amplifying that 600 bp region and cross-checking it against a maternal relative's sample via PCR.
Okay, then. Two science swerves in the first three minutes of the show has got to be some kind of record. Now that we know why the mtDNA is such a big deal, let's get back to what's on the screen. Catherine's telling Gil, "Defense thinks DNA's a magic pill for exoneration. I doubt if it's going to change the outcome." Gil has been silent as Catherine talks, and once they enter his office, she says, "You don't know what I'm talking about." "Not really," he allows. Catherine exposits for all of us: "People v. John Mathers. Serial. Western LVU. I was a rookie." Western LVU is turning into UC Sunnydale with the mortality rate. I wonder if they're in the same athletic conference -- the DEAD 10? Gil recognizes the case -- three dead coeds, all sexually assaulted with no semen found. The women were found dead and bound in garbage bags. Catherine explains, "The strongest evidence was victim #3, Charlene Roth. Mathers, a campus security guard, got murder one for that." Gil asks when Catherine can expect the mtDNA tests back, and Catherine says only, "I put a rush on it." Gil gives Catherine his full attention and asks, "Is this your first one?" Catherine admits that Mathers is her first death-penalty case to exhaust all the appeals and head to the chamber. We find out that Gil's already had two. Gil goes back to flipping through a file and asks, "So how you feel about it?" Catherine blinks, then says calmly, "Mathers was convicted and sent to death row by a jury of his peers. I played a small part. I presented my findings --" "Non-responsive," Gil says without looking up. I admit, the first time I saw this, I thought Gil wasn't looking at Catherine because talking so frankly with her was making him uncomfortable; on re-watching, I think he's doing it to give her room to open up and talk without being studied. Gil finally looks up at her, and Catherine realizes that Gil's already mapped the circles she's talking in; she says, "Okay, I haven't figured out how I feel about it." Gil replies, "It's just about evidence. It's not up to you whether he lives or dies. Case has no face."
And on that note, we go to the credits. Roger Daltrey and friends want to know who we are, which certainly contraindicates the case-has-no-face philosophy.
Once we're back from commercial, we see a sweaty, bald man swaying back and forth; he looks to be at that point in the inebriation cycle where all you really want to do is get some sleep. The camera pulls back, and we see that the man's undershirt is covered in blood. That might explain the presence of assorted siren-blasting law enforcement vehicles nearby. Brass is telling Sara and Gil, "Cops did a welfare check on this residence. A girl, seventeen, didn't show up for work, and they found Dad passed out on the sofa in a bloodstained t-shirt." Gil asks archly, "Did he have anything to say about his daughter?" Brass points out, "Mr. Reston can't remember what day it is. Claims he was in a bar fight." We also find out that Mr. Reston's blood alcohol level is .37, which in some regions fully qualifies him for entry into the state fair's pickling exhibition. "Alcoholic," Gil says, before excusing himself from the scene. "Lucky me," Sara grimaces. Brass hunkers down as Sara prepares to process the guy, and shouts, "Hey, buddy, this is Sara Sidle of the Las Vegas crime lab. She's going to ask you some questions." Sara asks, "Sir, I need to see your shirt, and I need to see your hands." The man stares at her blankly. Brass barks, "Shirt and hands!"
Gil is busy shining his flashlight around the inside of the residence; there isn't a single uncluttered surface, and a Ronco infomercial merrily jabbers on as he picks his way around the room. Nicky enters from another doorway, and comments, "People are pigs." Because it's not an episode unless Nicky gets chided by Gil, Gil says, "Don't insult the pigs, Nick. They're actually very clean." Nicky makes a mental note to transfer this exchange to his diary later, in the column titled, "Ways in which Gil uses my colloquialisms to keep me down." The two men then open a door, and upon seeing the clean, tidy space, Gil concludes, "This would be the girl's room." He notices the multiple deadbolts on the door. Nicky comments that it doesn't even look like it belongs in the same house, then snaps a picture of the door. The two men continue to look around. Gil notes the bedroom refrigerator and opens it: "There's milk, fruit, a toaster?" Nicky comments, "Guess they weren't much on family dinners." I'd guess she was probably big on eating, and if Dad's any indication, if she didn't buy her own food, she didn't eat, and if she didn't lock up her own food, it wouldn't be there when she got home. Nicky keeps snapping pictures -- the carefully-arranged bulletin board, the made bed -- while Gil looks inside the closet, whose scanty contents are carefully put away. Gil pulls something out and flatly calls Nicky's name. Nicky turns around sees what he's holding: "A ghi and a black belt." Gil muses, "Trained in the art of self-defense." You can practically see the mental picture he's drawing of this girl as he goes through her room. The hamper sets off alarms for Gil -- there's fabric sticking out of the corner, which seems uncharacteristic -- and once Gil's opened the hamper, he sees a bloody towel. Nicky sighs and comes on over; he and Gil check out the towel.
Back in the lab, Catherine's standing in front of a light table and looking at photos of the Mathers crime scene. She's looking at pictures of a woman's bound hands; the palms are smeared with a blue goo. Warrick interrupts Catherine's reverie -- and why, I ask, can't people who look like Warrick be the ones who interrupt me when I'm woolgathering? -- and says, "I heard Mathers had the I.V. in his arm and everything when that call came in." Catherine's just looking at him, so Warrick walks in and comments, "I've never had a death penalty case get that far. Just working it all out?" Catherine comments, "Yeah. Old case, new eyes, new technology." Warrick asks, "This evidence was processed -- what, fifteen years ago? That was before DNA." Catherine sighs, "Now that the case has been reopened, I can re-evaluate all three murders. We always thought Mathers was good for the other two, but if they overturn Charlene Roth with the new DNA, we can go back and retry Mathers for the other two murders with the new evidence." That Catherine, she's resilient. As Warrick begins flipping through the case files, Catherine's Gil-ovian conditioning kicks in; evidently trained to talk to any man reading a file, she asks, "You pro or con?" Warrick looks up and matter-of-factly says, "Pro, if he did it." Well, that's reassuring; I'd hate to think someone in law enforcement was all for randomly enforcing the death penalty. Warrick continues, "The application sucks, though. A lot of brothers get on death row. What about you?" Catherine admits, "I try not to give it much thought. I stick to the work." Warrick packs a world of subtext into his response: "Really." Catherine changes the subject, noting that campus police found Charlene Roth in a trash bag that she's about to take down to Franco down in the print lab. Although the bag had been processed six ways to Sunday before, Catherine's about to avail herself of fifteen years' technology advancement in fingerprint retrieval and analysis.
As Catherine walks down a flight of stairs, Liam the Lab Tech catches her and chides, "I heard you're cheating on me with an out-of-state DNA analyst." Catherine replies, "Apples and oranges, Liam. Fifteen-year-old hair samples, room temperature storage." Liam is shocked: "Room temp?" Catherine tells him that's how they did it back in the day, when it looked like hair metal was going to be around forever and jokes about East German athletes were both relevant and funny. She ends, "Microscopy was king." Liam replies, "Really? I thought Elvis was king." Elvis had been dead for ten years by then, Liam. Catherine asks, "You were how old [then]?" Liam gallantly replies, "Age is irrelevant in our relationship." Catherine glibly shoots back, "Maybe so, but face it, Liam -- you just don't have the equipment." Burn! Liam tries to trash-talk his rival for Catherine's base-pair affections with, "The government results won't yield individual profile, and you can't put them through CODIS." Catherine shoots him down: "Maternal lineage is good enough on this one. No one else on Mathers' mother's side is a suspect, so if the match stays lifted, he's back in the chamber. If not, we're back in court."
And now begins the first of many riveting sequences taking place at the Department of Criminal Justice laboratories in Norfolk, Virginia. Basically, what we'll see over the course of the episode is the PCR, which is conducted with extreme care -- pre-packaged sterile equipment and reagents, aerosol-resistant barrier pipette tips, gloves, masks, and lab coats, separation of pre- and post-amplification areas in the lab, dedicated reagents for the separate processes, ultraviolet irradiation of equipment, autoclaving everything but human beings. Typically, when doing mtDNA analysis for a criminal case, the questioned sample is done before the known sample so that the accusation of fudging the results can't be made; going by the steps we see here, it looks like the same policy is being effected. No one will be seated during the lab-testing sequences! Possibly because they're not all that exciting, so we're all off getting snacks.
Back in Las Vegas, Catherine is greeting Jacqui Franco, saying, "I'm so glad you're back on nights. I got a good one for you." Jacqui agrees. Catherine requests that Jacqui give it the vacuum metal deposition treatment. Jacqui comments, "Hottest thing going for plastic. If there's anything to be found, my machine will find it." Catherine then drops the other shoe: "Super-rush. You're in a race with the Federal lab." Jacqui's pretty pumped about this. The two then chitchat about how they need to catch up, a minor continuity gaffe is introduced (we found out last week that Lindsey's nine, and this week we find out she's in the second grade; my Brownie troop of eight-year-old third graders would be having a field day with that), and the scene ends with Catherine owing Jacqui a beer.
Meanwhile, back at Maison de la Reston, Nicky and Gil are checking out the backyard, which was apparently ordered from Squalor.com immediately before this scene. The presence of a shovel and a recently spaded swath of dirt does not bode well for Mr. Reston. The two then catch sight of a small shed, and begin poking around that. Nicky catches sight of a Glock with laser sighting just lying out on a workbench. He says dryly, "Mr. Reston was a bit of a garage tinkerer." Gil grumbles, "Great. Drunks with guns." He then notices an empty gun case and hauls it up for closer inspection; it should hold an M11-9, but doesn't. Sara, who's shown up, comments, "He didn't have any kind of weapon on him." I'm assuming she's discounting the near-lethal alcohol fumes rolling off Mr. Reston. Sara announces that she's taking Mr. Reston's shirt back to Liam, and Nicky asks her to take the bloody towel along too. She agrees. Sara comments on the general filth and the experience of processing a slovenly alcoholic by noting, "After this place, I need a shower." She takes off. Gil begins to move back toward Nicky, and notices a board creaking. Nicky notices too. Gil does a little shuffle off to Buffalo, the floor creaks again, and Gil drops to his knees to roll back the dusty rug and pull up the extremely loose boards. Nicky notes the weapons cache below; you just know that he's mentally making a note to move his own Day Of Justice inventory to the inside of the couch frame or something. Nicky finds the M11, and a sixteen-round magazine which has already had fourteen rounds fired. Gil says, "Up to fourteen rounds expended and unaccounted for." Nicky adds, "Missing girl's old man has blood all over him. Blood in her room..." Gil says, "I think it's time for dear old Dad to go to detox."
And it's time for Catherine to get her caffeine fix. She's telling the barista at a local shop, "I'd like a vanilla iced soy latte," when the couple we saw during the execution -- Tom and Sally Roth -- approach her. Sally explains, "My husband Tom heard from a friend that you came here." Catherine says politely, "I'm sorry, do I know you?" Sally says sadly, "We're Charlene Roth's parents." Catherine inhales; she apologizes, "I'm sorry. I didn't recognize you." She probably didn't want to -- given how many cases the CSIs work, the number of grieving friends and relatives they deal with sometimes must be overwhelming, so not cataloguing them all is probably for the best. Tom stammers, "We were just wondering if you had any news." Catherine says, not unkindly, "Any news has to go through the attorney general's office. I can't divulge any information on an open case." "He was convicted. It is not an open case to us," Sally says. Catherine ducks nicely by saying, "I was confident at the trial, I'm still confident now. The evidence is solid." Sally continues, "If they overturn the convic--" as Tom talks over her, "We just can't go through another trial." Catherine's looking a little panicky; fortunately, her cell phone rings and she's able to make her retreat that way. I do feel for Tom and Sally, though: it's hard enough when someone you love dies unexpectedly for no discernible reason, but dealing with the criminal justice system afterward can be frustrating, and it's so easy to get to a point where you're cornering someone, anyone for some answers so you can get a handle on things. This scene broadcast that sense of helplessness perfectly, and managed to nail Catherine's response too.
As it turns out, Catherine's escape really isn't of the Calgon-take-me-away variety. Detective Buzz has called her to Western LVU because "your name's on the memo." Catherine wants to know what memo, and Buzz tells her, "Young female, bound, trash bag. Copycats come out of the woodwork every time there's an execution." Damn, Texas must have its hands full. Come to think of it, so does Virginia; I wonder if the Norfolk Department of Justice lab is open 24/7 to handle all the work. Catherine groans, "Mathers's attorney's going to have a field day." Buzz reassures her with, "Everyone liked Mathers for the Kent and Reese cases. The DA wouldn't file because he had a slam-dunk with Charlene Roth. How many times can you fry a guy?" The two of them examine the plastic-wrapped mass, and Catherine notes, "Body dump. Just like fifteen years ago." As Catherine surveys the body, she keeps flashing back to other, nearly identical crime-scene photos.
Catherine begins taking photos. She also pulls out a cicada's molt from the woman's hair and wonders aloud what it is. Emergency Backup David wins my eternal love by using "bailiwick" correctly when he says, "That's Grissom's bailiwick, not mine." Warrick comes over to look at the dead body and ask Catherine what she's got. I'm going to guess it's a headache. I guessed wrong -- Catherine's looking on the bright side, if by "bright side," you mean "cicada casing and black fibers." Emergency Backup David then takes the body. Catherine asks Warrick, "How come I get you?" Because you're a lucky, lucky woman. Warrick replies, "Grissom says it's in case Mathers gets overturned and you get swamped." Catherine replies, "Well, I'm glad to have the help." Warrick comments, "This looks familiar." Catherine thinks it's a little too familiar, and then she and Warrick set to the task of figuring out how the girl got here.
Back at the Restons', Gil is cataloguing the back yard while Nicky runs what looks like a forensic version of a metal detector over the ground; I think it's a ground radar device. Once it starts beeping, the screen shows what appear to be vertebrae, and Nicky calls out, "Hey, Gris, I've got a density change. The screen's showing something." Gil comes over and asks about the depth estimate; Nicky thinks that whatever it is, is buried about two and a half feet down. Gil says, "Oh, dear. Shovels and screens, chutes and ladders." Nicky understands, which is good, because I don't.
David the Scissoring Coroner is busy cutting the plastic bag away, and we see the dirt-stained body of the woman curled up in the fetal position, hands bound. Emergency Backup David begins snapping photos while David keeps her in the same position in which she was found. David instructs, "She's in rigor...at least twelve hours. Get out your ten card; you're going to need to print her. But watch out for this paint, because Catherine's going to want to see it."
Cut to a pile of dirt, Gil wiping his brow, and Nicky saying, "Well, we've got something else to hold Reston on: illegal burial of a domestic animal." He throws a handful of dirt back on the corpse of a dog. Gil notes correctly, "Weak." Nicky's going to rebury the dog. Wuh? Wouldn't now be the time to dispose of it properly? Gil sums up the situation with, "So Debbie Reston never showed up at work and she's not buried in the back yard. Where did Debbie go?"
Mr. Reston is no help; he slurs, "I don't know her schedule. She works, goes to school. I hardly ever see her." And he's secretly consumed with bitterness that they don't have the same kind of codependent relationship Molly Ringwald had with Harry Dean Stanton in Pretty in Pink. Brass says contemptuously, "She's seventeen. She lives in your house. You're going to have to do better than that." Reston shocks nobody when he opines that his daughter is ashamed of him and is counting the days until she graduates and can move out. The only useful piece of information he shares is that Debbie has a blue convertible VW. Brass says slowly, "And as a concerned parent, you're going to ask me to put out a broadcast, aren't you?" Brass continues to ask questions pertaining to the car as Gil watches from the booth outside the interrogation room. Sara comes in, fresh from a session with the makeup artist that normally menaces the CSI: Miami crew. She tells Gil that the blood all over Reston's shirt is his own. The towel's dismissed too -- although eight markers in the blood match Reston's, and probably point to Debbie, there isn't enough blood on the towel, and it's easily explained away with your standard cut-myself-while-shaving injury. Meanwhile, Reston is busy putting his foot in it by asking Brass, father of Ellie, "You got kids? They think it's all about them. Like I owe her." Brass spits, "You owe your daughter more than being a drunk. I think maybe jail might be the best thing for you right now." Reston's all, "I think she just took off, like her mother." Sara shakes her head in disgust: "Can you believe this guy? I wouldn't blame his kid if she just took off." Gil nods.
As he and Sara leave, Buzz catches them in the hall and fills them in on the Western LVU case, ending with, "Prints just came back. Matches your missing girl, Debbie Reston." Oh, this makes me sad. I was really hoping she'd be okay; the poor girl never caught a break, did she? Buzz tells them his guys will find the car, and lets Gil know that "they're posting her now."
We then see Debbie laid out on the gurney, with David sadly saying to Catherine, "Crazy world out there." Gil comes in and apologizes for being late, and asks Catherine to give him the bullet. She does: "Debbie Reston, seventeen. She was taking a night class at LVU. Pre-req for early admission." That poor kid -- working her tail off, and this is what happens. Gil, always looking for patterns, says sharply, "So technically, she was a Western LVU student." Catherine says, "Just like Mathers's other victims." David reminds us all that Mathers is on death row. Catherine says, "Doc, you were here back then: tell me why this one's different." David can't: "Must be intimately familiar with the minutia of the prior cases. What's identical: cause of death, strangulation. Bruising on her wrists. Plastic zip-tie. Navy blue paint. There is one new element -- defensive wounds on the hands. Whatever she grabbed on to shattered and caused these lacerations." We see the glass embedded in Debbie's palms, and Gil asks, "Was that before or after she got the paint on her hands?" David tells him it was after, noting that one of the cuts sliced clear through the paint. Ouch. Gil notices that the paint is still wet, which is odd because Debbie's been dead for at least twelve hours. Gil asks, "What kind of paint doesn't dry in twelve hours, I wonder?"
Hey! It's that grim-looking woman from the execution scene! It turns out she's Mathers's lawyer, and she's stalking Catherine to a library to ask Catherine about this most recent case, arguing that she's doing so because her client's life is in danger. Catherine reminds her, "Ms. Campbell, I have no personal opinion about your client. I tested the evidence in his case, and that evidence failed to exonerate him." Campbell argues that this was the case fifteen years ago, but now "the real killer struck again." Well, that just raises all sorts of questions about what the killer's been doing for the last fifteen years. Campbell asks Catherine if she's planning on testing the pubic hairs against the new suspect, and Catherine points out that she can't test against a phantom. Campbell explodes, "You CSIs are biased for the prosecution. You decide ahead of time how you want the evidence to come out." Wow, Campbell is lucky she picked the CSI with social skills when she made that ill-considered remark. Catherine replies, "I'm only an interpreter of the evidence. I know how to make the evidence speak to me. I don't care about the outcome." Campbell wants to know about guilt or innocence; frankly, it sounds like her job to care, and not Catherine's, but that's just me. Campbell's all, "I hear the same evidence speaking. You know what it's telling me?" That you're backing a losing horse in this one? No, she thinks the killer's still out there. I hope Catherine's mtDNA tests are such where she can send a copy to Campbell with "Neener, neener, neener..." written across the top.
Sara's processing a VW Cabriolet -- and so is Warrick. She tells him, "It's Debbie Reston's car; looks like you and I are officially running the same case." Warrick comments, "This has got to be the cleanest tape lift I've ever seen. There's no stains of any kind in this car." Sara concludes that Debbie met her bad end after leaving her car. Buzz comes up then to tell us that Debbie was taking Econ 101, and had a perfect attendance record prior to last night. Warrick says, "This is my alma mater -- Econ 101, Sabian Hall." I mentally begin running down the locations of all the different departments and introductory classes at my undergrad, and realize I can't do it. Warrick continues, "It's a long walk from here, but I know the way." Warrick and Sara begin walking through a tree-lined path, and after a pack of joggers speeds by, Warrick stumbles and catches himself on a handrail. A quick "damn!" later, we've established that the rail is covered in wet paint. Warrick looks around for something to wipe his palm on, and notices a water fountain; something clicks in his brain, and he asks Sara, "What's the first thing you'd do if you got paint on your hands?" "Wash it off," Sara replies. They both realize how Debbie stumbled into her murder.
Within seconds, Gil has teleported to the fountain; he looks up at the broken safety lamp above the fountain. He points out that they did find glass in the lacerations on her right hand. I'm looking forward to the explanation of how they got there, because I know she didn't levitate up to the bulb in a desperate attempt to escape her killer. Warrick hunkers down and picks up a piece of...something. Sara comments, "He painted the railing and waited by the water fountain. Victim was like a fly in a spiderweb." Wow, I'm really distracted by the make-up in this scene; the smoky-eye look is for nighttime only, and someone needs to tell the make-up department that. We see Debbie washing her hand, her image reflected in someone's Elvis Costello glasses. Gil says, not unhappily, "We just learned something about the prior murders." Catherine sighs, "Yeah, that's what the blue paint was all about." Gil asks, "And if we just learned about it now, how did the copycat killer know?"
Back at the handrail, Sara notes, "Looks like Debbie Reston isn't the only one to get paint on her hands." Gil underscores the predatory nature of the killer with, "Maybe he was waiting until he saw the girl he wanted." Sara correctly observes, "That's creepy," then moves to get the fire department to hack out part of the railing and take it back to the lab. Meanwhile, Catherine's looking at a tree over by the fountain, while Warrick pokes around the underbrush. He finds Debbie's backpack and wallet, undisturbed. Catherine notices another cicada carcass on a tree, and Gil comes over to ask what Catherine's up to; she tells him she found something similar in Debbie's hair. Gil tells her, "With the exception of the termite queen, the cicada is the longest-living insect. It spends seventeen years dormant underground, and then the cicada nymph emerges and sheds its skin. As adults, they flit around for about five weeks of activity in the hot sun, and then they die." Catherine comments, "They spend their whole lives waiting for the end." Gil tips his hand on how he really feels about capital punishment when he replies, "Not unlike death row."
Warrick's picked out the spot where the killer must have been hiding, as it affords a clear view of both the path and the rail. Gil hunkers by the fountain, trying to set up a scenario where Debbie's got her right hand in the fountain, her left hand on the water handle, and her back to the killer. Warrick figures this is how the killer caught Debbie off-guard. In the meanwhile, Catherine's found some polarized glass -- it's more likely to be from eyeglass lenses than from a light bulb. Gil says, "She was a black belt -- maybe she fought back." Warrick adds, "That would explain why she had defensive wounds and none of the other victims did."
Back in the lab, Catherine's dropping in on Jacqui, who wasn't able to get any prints off the old bag. Catherine says, "That's all right. You can make it up to me. I've got a new case, and a new bag." Cue Jacqui making it up to Catherine by doing the vacuum metal deposition treatment and finding a partial print. She tells Catherine, "I've gotten a hit off less." Catherine's reassured.
Meanwhile, Sara's analyzing the fiber Catherine pulled from Debbie Reston's hair; it's trilobal, meaning it's from vehicle upholstery. Warrick says, "It's not from her car; the upholstery's grey." As he's saying this, the camera's swinging around so we can see all three of them wearing lab coats and seated at separate microscopes. Sara thinks this is good, as it indicates that the killer transported the body by vehicle. As Nicky points out, "You can't carry a body in plain sight on campus, even at night." Sara gets an ID on the fiber;it's a generic Chevy. The three of them then begin putting their separate pieces together.
Warrick: The glass on the left [side of his scope] isn't polarized. It doesn't change color.
Nicky: Okay, the guy broke the bulb on purpose.
Sara: Gives him an advantage -- the cover of darkness.
Warrick: I'll buy that, but the glass on the right was the one from the cuts in her hand, and it matches the glass Catherine found near the water fountain.
Sara: Confirms that Debbie fought with her attacker.
Nicky: I haven't been in this episode because I was busy planning the day when I -- oh. It's my line. Suspect's at minute 1.25.
Warrick: What is that, 20/80. That's, like, half of mine. That's not much of a correction.
Sara: Right. We're looking for a guy with a 20/80 prescription who drives a Chevy with a black interior.
Everyone laughs ruefully and gets back to work.
Catherine's walking through the labitrail when Liam accosts her. "I got your report from the Feds," he says excitedly. Catherine wonders how he got it, and Liam answers, "Because they returned the DNA evidence to me. I took a look at the results -- didn't think you'd mind, and --" Catherine corrects him: "I do." She takes the report. It looks like Campbell's getting the "Neener, neener..." copy after all -- all six hairs are a match to Mathers. Catherine concludes, "He raped and murdered Charlene Roth." Liam sums up, "Dead-bang, hair-tight, goodnight, John." Catherine puts down the report, a bit appalled at Liam's flippancy, and asks pointedly, "How you doing with that twist-tie, Liam?" He's about to take a hint and begin working on it right now.
Catherine She then wanders into the room where Gil is working on the rail to tell him the news. He tells her in return that the paint on Debbie's hands was an oil-based blue. Catherine points out, "Oil-based? That's for canvases, not railings." And in this case, canvases that also fire on four cylinders; the paint was mixed with 30-weight motor oil. Gil notes that the motor oil does a wonderful job of keeping paint wet. Catherine begins thinking this through ("He knew what he was doing -- expanding his window of opportunity") when Gil notices some paintbrush bristles. He and Catherine conclude that the killer knows both a lot about paint and about the Western LVU campus. With all the time the CSIs spend there, you'd think they would too.
Cut to Gil and Catherine interviewing someone as he goes about painting; he's claiming he's not much help, as he's only been around since '95. Gil moves on to ask about brushes, and the guy puts on his eyeglasses -- which he was not using to paint -- to examine the brushes. He explains, "We artists covet our brushes -- Russian blue squirrel, Japanese synthetic badger." Japanese Synthetic Badger would be an excellent name for an anime series, I think. It would have to feature a lot of robots. Gil points out that in the sample they collected, they found both badger hair and nylon bristles, to which Vincent Van Nogh responds, "Anyone who's studied art would never use nylon with oils, unless they were using the paint for something else. When brushes age, they shed hairs, then, if they used a nylon-hair brush the time..." The brush picks up the old hairs in the paint. As Catherine's asking where one would find a badger-hair brush (short answer: all over the place), Gil's picked up Van Nogh's glasses and noted how weak the prescription is. Van Nogh catches Gil giving them his usual scary-intense scrutiny, and stops to stare. Gil recovers and assembles his features into the illusion of bland affability, saying, "Sorry. I was admiring your frames." Van Nogh thanks him, looking spooked.
In the scene, back at the lab, a somber Liam is telling Gil and Catherine that he finished running the DNA on the wristband used to tie Debbie's wrist. There were no foreign epithelials, but he did find a hair, which he ran and cross-checked against all the cases, and lo and behold, it belongs to victim #1, Janet Kent. Gil states, "So Janet Kent's killer saved some of her hair and planted it on Debbie Reston fifteen years later, on the night that John Mathers was set to be executed." Catherine realizes, "John Mathers is the copycat." Gil says, "Yeah. And the real killer is still out there, playing a really twisted game."
Gil is now checking all the paint samples via a mass spec. Three are identical -- Janet Kent, Marcia Reese, and Debbie Reston. Only Charlene Roth is different.
Catherine, meanwhile, has an execution to attend. She checks her lipstick in her locker mirror, then exits to the hall, where she runs into Gil. She tells him, "Mathers's execution is back on. The Roths want me to sit with them." Gil asks, "Is that a good idea?" Catherine says, "I just need to do it." He asks, "Why?" Catherine replies, "It's like your first autopsy, your first murdered child. If you can make it through that, you can keep doing this work." Gil shares his news about the paint, and says, "Being capable of matching paint samples that are fifteen years apart -- that's why I keep doing this work." Catherine smiles at him and says firmly, "Well, that's the difference between you and me." She passes Sara in the hall and heads off to an execution.
The camera swings around to follow Sara and Gil's conversation: she talked to the dean of the Western LVU art school, and he gave her the name of graduate student Cody Lewis, who was a student there in the late 1980s. Lewis had left right after the Roth case for a postdoc in Louisiana, but he's back now. Wonder of wonders, Lewis is another painter with glasses, and it turns out he's into painting dead girls -- or at least he was back then. Brass conducts his usual ham-handed questioning (why does he loses his ability to question coherently after the forty-five-minute mark?), and the only thing we find out is that Lewis knew Janet Kent. While this is going on, the Young Turks are working over his late-model Chevy with the black interior, but find nothing. Even Jacqui finds nothing. Nicky muses, "Maybe he thinks he's some kind of smart guy, you know, covering all the bases. Like me. They all think I'm the dumb one, but I've been taking notes on every case, just trying to make sure I won't get tripped up by anything after I decide to -- I've said too much." Or maybe Nicky just stops after that first sentence.
Catherine is in the witness area, and sits down to the Roths without saying anything. Campbell is in the back row, her face looking bleak. We see the beginning of the execution, identical almost frame-for-frame to the opening sequence.
Back in the office, Brass saying, "I keep racking my brain, going over these unsolved murder cases, and I keep coming back to the fact that they're fifteen years apart. That means he's either out of town, or in the joint." Gil wonders, "Why wouldn't he take his business to some other college if it was only about young girls?" Brass replies, "This has got to be personal -- he wanted to kill those girls."
Meanwhile, the execution continues. Catherine watches the man die, looking very stricken. Tom is watching with a look of grim satisfaction on his face; it's obvious he's waited fifteen years for this moment. Sally is still holding a picture of Charlene, but she turns from the execution for a moment, catches Catherine's expression, and grabs on to her hand. As Mathers dies, Catherine is blinking back tears.
Brass and Gil are sitting at Brass's desk, and Brass is telling Gil, "I don't know much about bugs, but most animals hunt in their own backyard." Gil takes off his glasses -- a sure sign he's tired -- and says, "True of most insects as well. You know why?" Brass says, "It's where they feel most comfortable." Gil corrects him: "And where they can blend in the best. This guy had ties to Western LVU. He paints a railing on a campus walkway. I tried it; it took me about five minutes." Brass replies, "My guys were all over that school. Nobody remembers seeing anything." Gil continues, "Probably because there wasn't much to see. He must have looked as though he belonged. Like the insects, he blended in." Brass sighs, and pulls out a bottle of liquor, asking Gil, "You off the clock?" Gil is now. While they're talking, we see a dozen different men in glasses walking down the walkway, underscoring the needle-in-a-haystack odds of finding the killer.
Catherine exits the penitentiary, running a gauntlet of protestors.
The camera switches back to Brass drinking (my guess: whiskey) and saying, "He's going to kill again." Gil takes a drink and says, "Yeah. And all we've got is a partial fingerprint, and an M.O. that may lead us in the right direction." Brass comments, "Sometimes in this job, I'd rather be lucky than good. Maybe time, we'll get lucky." Gil stares morosely at his drink and says, "I don't believe in luck. My only real purpose is to be smarter than the bad guys, to find the evidence that they didn't know they left behind, and make sense of it all. It makes me very uncomfortable to realize that this guy may be smarter than me." And he drinks, as the screen goes black.