Warning: Adult Content. I'm going to have to ask all of you underaged TWoP readers only to access this recap with an adult nearby. Parental discretion is advi...wait a minute. This is CBS. When it comes to their core audience, "parental discretion" doesn't involve gleefully flouting the rules, but enforcing them. Heck, read away.
The episode opens with a shot of the Stratosphere, and a glowing half-moon hanging behind it. We hear an ominous chord, and then we immediately see the discretionary content: what looks like a blue movie in the most literal sense of the word. It's all loud and violent sex with Joel Schumacher-like cuts from assorted body parts to assorted facial expressions. Gil and Catherine are standing there watching it; both of them look like they'd rather be watching anything else, up to and including a Saturday Night Live alumni film festival including The Ladies Man, The Animal, It's Pat, and Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights. The technician -- whose long nails are just the icing on her cake -- catches the overtly reproving look on Gil's face and says, "Okay, this is where it got weird." On the screen, we see the blue people: the woman's being yanked off the bed, whimpering and sobbing in fear as the man she's with pulls out a butcher knife. We move from the action on the screen to Gil and Catherine watching the screen. Then we move back to the screen: the movement of an arm and subtle "snick" tell us that the knife has been used, and the woman staggers back, her hand clamped over her throat a second too late, as a fine jet of blood arcs away. She collapses. The sassy tech -- have I mentioned how much I love her style? -- says, "I've processed hundreds of bogus snuff films, but this -- this one just felt different." Catherine is still watching the screen; she looks sad and outraged. She says, "Yeah, it should. Arterial spray was real." Gil -- who's elected to skip the "sad" portion and head straight toward pure misanthropic digust -- weighs in: "It's not fake blood; it's human." We switch back to the screen to see a large clot of blood slide down the window in the room, and then we focus on Gil, who looks very intent. He brings home the teaser: "That was a murder on 16-millimeter." ["Boooooooooooo." -- Wing Chun]
The Who play as I giggle over the diss to the big-screen snuff movie whodunit, 8MM, which stole hours from my life that I'll never be able to get back.
Then we get another warning that we're going to see adult content. Usually, I see this on the BBC only when I'm watching Manchild and idly fantasizing about the depredations to which I'd subject Anthony Stewart Head if the opportunity ever presented itself. If this episode contains adult content and Anthony Stewart Head, I'm all for it.
Gil's asking the sassy tech whether this particular pornographer's sent her film to be developed in the past. The sassy tech replies, "I'm sure he has. We get raw films from hundreds of adult-film companies. No names, just those private boxes. You can film porn, develop it, buy it, sell it, but you can't send it through the U.S. mail." Catherine corroborates this with the news that she's found several envelopes from private shipping companies. When Gil tells my new favorite one-episode character that he'll be taking those with him, the sassy tech shrugs, "Whatever."
Just then, Gil's cell phone rings. It's Captain Exposition, who's reporting a dead body on Henderson Road. Gil tells Brass he's already on a case -- and I entertain the brief, flickering hope that Gil and Catherine will work together, because we see them do so far too infrequently for my liking -- and Brass says, "Yeah, well, reconsider. These ants just came flying out of the body, and they're taking chunks out of the coroner. The CSI day guy says he's not going near the body again." Gil's interest is piqued; he replies, "They're fire ants. Keep everyone away from the body: [the ants are] evidence." Wouldn't it suck if you were the lab tech assigned to tracking down recalcitrant evidence? Brass implores Gil to reconsider; in the background, we can see Emergency Backup David thrashing around, obviously beating at something and twitching. Brass also barks, "Bring bug spray." Gil replies, "No bug spray!"
I wonder if Brass brought out the bug spray line to goad Gil into coming on out. Whether or not it was intentional, it worked. Gil walks on the scene and Brass is explaining that a guy driving along the side of the road saw the toolbox, thought it would look nice on his truck, checked inside, and got the surprise of his life. The minute Brass finishes this tale, Gil is waylaid by Emergency Backup David, whose arm is wrapped in ice packs. He asks Gil, "You ever see anything like this?" "This" is a series of large and painful-looking blisters. Gil replies, "Any species that finds itself in a place that it doesn't belong can do this kind of damage." Now that's a sentiment that should be copied on postcards and sent to the White House en masse. Then maybe they'd reconsider the logging policies they're putting in place, or actually listening to the eighty thousand or so people who wrote in to protest the relaxing of the snowmobile restrictions in Yosemite. But I forget: I'm not recapping a political show. My bad. Let's get back to the part where Gil is offering Emergency Backup David the dubious comfort of knowing that he's but a pawn in ecological chess. Gil and David agree that cortisone will be David's best friend, and then Gil continues to walk toward the body with Brass. Brass asks, "I've heard these things can kill a deer. Is that right?" Gil replies that enough colonies working in concert can kill off humans. Brass and Gil arrive at the toolbox, and Brass asks whether the ants did in this body. Gil replies, "Well, only if they also learned how to put him in a box and dump him in a ditch." Gil's not ruling that out, mind you.
Gil then opens the box, and it gets all disgusting -- which is saying something, given that this episode opened with a snuff movie. There are ants swarming. Yeah, I know it's what they do, but in terms of volume, this is one seriously impressive swarm; it's picked the skeleton clean. Gil waves off the flying members of the swarm as Brass asks from several yards upwind, "Man or woman?" Gil replies, "Anthill. They're using this body as a colony site. I'm going to have to take this box and this specimen back to the lab as-is. These insects are evidence." And by "I," Gil's actually referring to himself and not a squad of long-suffering second-stringers. However, I'm not sure if he's so hands-on because he's innately a better manager, or because he doesn't want the grubby fingers of the B-squad touching his six-legged pretties.
Back at the snuff plot, a detective whom I don't ever recall seeing before is busy telling Catherine that this film-processing place is the soul of discretion -- no records, and cash transactions only. Catherine shares her news: Archie blew up a head shot of the victim, so it might be possible to match her to a missing-persons photo. Only if the original photo was taken during the throes of a particularly tedious bout of sex, if the position of the head and the expression on the girl's face are anything to go by, but I guess in some circles, that might not be as hard to come by as I'd think.
Catherine heads in to where Sara's got the unenviable task of searching the filmstrip for fingerprints. Sara explains how she should be able to take prints, because the gelatin the film is made of offers a particularly pliable medium for leaving a permanent mark; however, the prints are too smudged to do too much good. Sara then tries to end on an up note by explaining that she's nailed the film's manufacturer and year, so the homicide department is calling the company for a buyer's list. Catherine replies, "Won't help. Pornos buy short-ends from legitimate clearing houses. Saves money, and they're impossible to trace." I thought most porn was shot on video or digitally, because it's even cheaper to produce and easier to distribute, but I suppose there's a niche market for the consumer who has both a 16mm projector and a hard-on for dead chicks. I can't see it being a growth market, but who am I to question the business plan of a snuff auteur? Sara's kind of intrigued as to how Catherine knows all this. Catherine explains, "I pulled a porno ring using teenaged girls a few years ago. Learned all you want to know about the adult entertainment industry." Catherine takes the film from Sara and scans it, commenting again, "Hell of a way to go." I wonder if she's thinking about what might have been if she hadn't stopped dancing. Sara looks uncomfortable for a moment, then addresses the episode's biggest plot hole: "I always thought snuff films were an urban legend. I mean, outside of urban Bangkok." Catherine says the FBI's official position on snuff films is that there's no such thing; I imagine they might get involved if the film involved intrastate trafficking in minors, intrastate commerce, or some other offense. Sara asks what the unofficial position is, and Catherine replies, "Single film goes for a hundred grand -- original negative." So the FBI's unofficial position is to buy them and place them in the warehouse to the Ark of the Covenant? Doesn't that just, you know, encourage people to try and make a hundred grand off Uncle Sam the sordid way? My head hurts from trying to parse the logic here. Sara's head hurts too, because she's trying to understand why a snuff filmmaker would send his film out to be processed. Catherine muses, "Greedy doesn't mean smart."
Cut to David the Cursing Coroner attempting to put on a bunny suit. No, not the kind with the fuzzy ears and tail -- we haven't sunk so low as to watch an episode about a plushie murder yet -- but the kind that people usually wear into clean rooms. As David struggles to fit the bootie over his prosthetic foot, he howls, "Come on, you bitch." Gil just stands and observes. David says, "I'm allergic to red ants, you know." Gil replies, "Yeah? I put them on my eggs." Bu-bu-but -- they're evidence. David expresses the fervent hope that Gil's insect garnishes are dead by the time he adds them. The two men don hoods with screened faces, and bend to examine the new colony site, a.k.a. the body. Gil begins shaking something down the site and David remarks, "Something tells me that isn't Black Flag." Gil replies, "Ecozone pyrethrum: toxic to ants, fleas, roaches, and silverfish." Proving once again that the most thrilling conversational exchanges on this show are between these two, David asks, "And how does an entomologist feel about putting ants to death?" Gil deadpans, "I view them as martyrs in a scientist's holy war?" David nods in understanding. The two then get down to business: it's hard to tell how long ago the person died because the ants and the elements have done a number on the body. David thinks it's been at least a year; Gil comments that it smells like two. Both clavicles were broken -- the right one roughly four months before death, the left one much more recently before death. We see the first-ever insect-infested TMICam as the clavicles break and heal (or not) with the bugs crawling on them. David asks for Gil's help in turning the body over, and they comment on the puncture wounds that pock the interscapular (shoulder) and the vertebral area, roughly eighteen inches apart. Gil suddenly detects something in the seething pit of activity around the spine and pulls out the tweezers to grasp it. "A pupa case!" he says happily. David asks, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" and Gil assures him it's a good thing: "If I can post-date the pupa, I can establish an entomological timeline."
Meanwhile, Warrick and Archie have the unenviable task of watching the snuff film frame by frame in an effort to uncover any telling details. After watching one man copulate with the victim, then get up and put on his shirt, Warrick bids Archie to stop the film and try to get a close-up of the guy's back. Archie does, revealing an impressive-sized mole. "Non-cancerous," Archie comments, since dermatology is apparently a hobby he's cultivated in his free time. Warrick laughs humorlessly and says, "You think? Too bad, the bastard." Warrick then comments on the blandness of the room and comments that it's like any one of a number in Vegas. I had been under the impression that the epicenter of the adult film industry was in the San Fernando Valley, but recent research shows that a lot of companies have moved out to Las Vegas for two lucrative reasons: fewer business taxes, and more exposure for the stars because they can dance in the strip clubs, thus supplementing their film work with a better-paying, less labor-intensive gig. Anyway, Warrick asks Archie, "Can you get any of that detail outside that window?" Archie is happy to oblige: "I'll reverse the polarization and see if we can get any more information out of this frame." Once he does, Warrick peers intently at the screen and notices, "That looks like a blob...it's spherical." Archie continues to focus on that one small area of the screen, and we gradually see the Stratosphere come into view. Warrick asks, "Using that Stratosphere tower as a point of reference, could you triangulate and pinpoint the street that this was filmed on?" Of course Archie can! He knows docents, and dermatology, and directions in Vegas!
Cut to a shot of the Stratosphere, where management has put up signs reading, "Family-friendly! No snuff movies filmed on these premises!" Or maybe they're just wishing they had.
Then we're looking at a leaf-strewn parking lot in New England. I think Archie needs to check his program. No, wait -- this merely the deciduous section of Las Vegas. Warrick is asking what the deal with the hotel is, and Detective New Guy tells us that the hotel's in receivership, but according to the caretaker, the elevator still works. Warrick's all, "We're going to need to talk to him," and Detective New Guy says it will have to wait until the caretaker's gotten off the phone with the owner. The crime-solving quartet walks into the atmospherically lit lobby, and Catherine stops to ponder a particularly hideous lamp. Warrick asks her what's up, and Catherine replies, "Oh, nothing. The only thing separating kitsch and art is time." And taste, I would hope, if only so I could cling to the hope that people in the year 2525 (if man is still alive) aren't revering those Margaret Keane paintings as masterpieces.
B is bug and B-plot and busy, and all three relate to Gil as he stands before a clear board with a Sharpie. Just then, Liam the lab tech comes in and says, "Heard you're doing a timeline on the ant man." Without looking up, Gil asks, "Slow day in DNA, Liam?" Liam admits that it is -- hey, B is blond too, and Liam's sporting a new towheaded look -- and says tentatively, "I can take notes." Gil warmly says, "Very good. Go ahead." Wow -- this is the Grissomian equivalent of a hug. Liam begins writing as Gil dictates, "Week 0: body dies. Week 2: green blowflies arrive and leave their pupal casings. Week 4: black soldier flies move in. At Week 28, they leave their pupal casings. Now, the presence of winged reproductive fire ants suggests that their colony was in existence for at least a year. Now, since we found no more pupal casings since the black soldier flies left at Week 28, we know this is when the fire ants must have first arrived. So calculating the gestation period from the flies, we get..." Liam whips out a marker and says, "One year, plus twenty-eight weeks...guy's been dead nineteen months." Under what math? Assuming fifty-two weeks in a year, plus twenty-eight weeks, gives you eighty weeks, or twenty months, not nineteen. Gil, however, is not going to let anything so petty as incorrect arithmetic get in the way of praise: "Very good. It's an approximation, but it's a start." Liam passes out from ecstasy.
Meanwhile, Sara, Warrick, and Catherine each take a picture of the view Archie extrapolated from the frame and go through the hotel rooms trying to determine which one could have been used for filming. Sara hits the jackpot. After everyone else comes in, Warrick notes, "Somebody moved out all the furniture." Yeah, it's probably at the one-hour Blood-B-Gone cleaners. Catherine notes that the walls are freshly painted, too. Warrick scoffs, "If they can't see it, we can't, huh?" Warrick opens his kit, attaches a little yellow filter thing to the flashlight, and checks out the wall. Out pops the damned spots. "Arterial spray," says Catherine. Sara asks, "How does somebody cross the line where killing a woman is a turn-on?" Catherine -- who displays her usual grasp of the kinks in human nature -- replies, "Oh, I don't think snuff makers cross a line, Sara. I think they start on the other side of it." Yeah, I can't see this being an industry where there's an active college intern program. Sara replies, "Biology determining pathology." Warrick adds, "Yeah, well, some people were just born bad." Catherine opts out of the nascent nature-over-nurture discussion and decides it's time to talk to the security guard.
Warrick and Catherine are in the hall with the guard and Detective New Guy, who closed-captioning has just informed me is Detective Sulik. We find out that the security guard has been on the job four months, but he has no idea who painted Room 918. Catherine studies his jacket and leans forward, saying, "You should try a scalp conditioner -- your dandruff. Oh, my bad. Primer. Alkyd-based. Never comes out in the wash, but you already know that." Busted, yo. Warrick circles around the guy and notices the giant mole on the back of his neck. It's hard to miss it, really. Warrick says in faintly concealed horror, "You were in that snuff film!" Catherine accuses the guard of stabbing the girl. He replies, "I let them use the room to make a movie -- that's all." Oh, to be young and innocent of the concept of personal responsibility. Warrick sets the man straight: he's in the movie, as anyone with eyes can see. The guard replies, "The guy threw in another two hundred if I'd have sex with the girl. She was hot, so I figured, why not? Did her and left." That sounds so very Franklin-Covey action item, like he'd have a planner with a to-do list that includes "take bribe," "fornicate with stranger for cash," and "disclaim knowledge of activity in room." Warrick has little patience with this chump: "When you saw the blood on the wall, did you think to call the police?" The guy replies, "I didn't want to lose my job." Whether or not this shows intends to do so, it's an excellent indictment of consistently acting in one's self-interest. Catherine thinks so too -- she orders Sulik to arrest the guy. It's a good thing Sara's not there to lose her temper over how callous this guy is about women being killed for kicks. Come to think of it, where is Sara? Did they make her wait in the car or something?
Back in the lab, Gil is stirring something in a big, forensic stock pot when the long-lost Teri Miller comes up and quips, "I see you learned to cook for yourself." Gil replies, "Well, I had to, Teri -- I heard you were married. Hopefully not to a criminalist." Teri laughs wryly before saying, "You think I'm stupid? He's a teacher." Maybe he teaches Criminology. Or maybe Art Therapy. Gil congratulates Teri; she thanks him, then asks, "So what's the special occasion?" Gil replies that he's going to the annual cockroach-racing award dinner and it's pot luck this year, so if she'll pass on her French onion soup recipe, he'd be much obliged. Or maybe he says, "I have someone I'd like you to introduce me to." Gil then pulls out a vegetable strainer filled with newly-bare human skull. You have to admit serving French onion soup in that would be a change from the usual crouton-and-melted cheese presentation. Teri leans forward, and something in her look asks Gil to prompt, "What, did I miss some?" "Actually, yes," she replies. Gil whips out a pair of forceps and pulls a parboiled dung beetle out of the hollow at the back of the jaw. Teri adds, "It probably hid in the nasal cavity." Gil says, "The ants ate everything but the exoskeleton." In a way, that's creepy, but at least it's one less boiled martyr for Gil's holy war. Gil keeps musing, "He was probably murdered near some large animals, maybe a farm or a zoo. As to who -- I leave that up to you." "Will do," Teri replies, smiling slightly. Well. That could have been a lot more awkward than it was.
Warrick is going over the snuff film for the umpteenth time, pulling out individual frames and running a comparison on the participants in assorted couplings. He notes that Amoral Mole Man appears to be around 5'10", while the second guy is flirting with six feet. "Our minds must've filled in the negative space," Sara replies. Catherine tries to add some sense to the conversation: "Look, the security guard must have just left the room. You can see the door's shadow there, at the foot of the bed." Sara notes that the camera stopped moving, and Warrick says, "That's because he's not behind it; he's in front of it." Catherine replies, "Well, then that's our guy! There's got to be some way to ID him." Warrick tiredly replies that he's enlarged every frame in the film -- no wonder he looks so beleagured -- and he's about tapped out on clues. Catherine says, "Maybe there's a short end." Warrick looks a little confused, so Sara displays her ability to incorporate freshly acquired knowledge by saying, "Pornos use the short ends of film, so they never know when it's going to run out." "Roll out," Catherine absently corrects her, then explains, "The last frame stutters, gets hit with more light." We see how, courtesy of the TMICam. Warrick realizes what Catherine's getting at: "So there's more visual information on it." Catherine agrees, and adds, "Good editors always cut the rollout." And that would be Catherine's first mistake when it comes to porn films: anyone who's ever sat through one would be the first to tell you that the film editing can be described in many ways, but "good" is not one of them. Perhaps the real porn talent goes into snuff. I don't know -- I didn't really ponder or research any purported brain drain in the adult film industry.
Anyway, Sara and Catherine are back at the film editing place, talking to the sassy tech. She's explaining how all the rollouts and other editing detritus end up in a collection bin which is picked up once a week, and finishing with an elaborate eyeroll about how environmentally unsafe the film is. Sara comments sharply, "Be nice if the people were as concerned about the women in these films." Sassy tech rightfully bristles, "I am the one that called y'all! Remember? Knock yourselves out, ladies." She then saunters off after warding both CSIs off with a jaunty wave of her formidable manicure. I love this woman, in a fervent yet platonic way. I would bounce around the couch in joy if it turned out that the CSIs kept running into her on cases because she kept moving from one dubious workplace to another. It would be a great running joke -- by the time Warrick and Nicky had busted a contraband organ-transplant clinic, she'd look up from the reception desk and greet them by name, and it would be comedy gold. To dream the impossible dream... Anyway, Catherine turns to the waste, annoucing, "Bins of sin!" Sara reasons that most of the clips are from 35mm film, and the 16mm should have settled at the bottom, so they'll start there.
While they're doing that, Nicky strolls in from an extended break of some sort -- who knows, maybe he was putting the finishing touches on the scale model he'll use to plot the tactical maneuvers in his Day of Justice -- and commences working on the toolbox that was recently ground zero for the flying ants of death. He's not wearing any protective gear, so I can only conclude that the holy war now has 50,000 tiny new martyrs. Nicky finds a small chipped area where the rust has begun to settle, and a broken-off metal tooth of some sort. He ponders it.
And then, after testing, he brings it to Gil, telling him it's carbon steel. "How nineteenth-century!" Gil comments, adding that carbon steel was used in surgical instruments. Nicky reasons, "Well, you found those stab wounds on the vic, right? Underneath all those ants? Maybe it's somebody's old scalpel." Gil notices the tiny prongs at the base of the tooth and suspects it's part of a repeating pattern. "Geometrical extrapolation," Nicky replies. Gil's thinking that might be a way to figure out what this thing is.
For those of you wondering what geometrical extrapolation is, your curiosity is allayed: it's the forensic extension of your seventh-grade math class where you used a compass and protractor to determine the measurement of angles. Nicky's tracing the tooth and explaining, "From the tip down, the slope looks to be slightly curved. Now, if I extend that trace outward -- what do you think? Blade of a saw?" Gil says, "Keep doing the math -- maybe we won't have to guess." Nicky does: "You see how the base of the fragment curves downward, suggesting something circular?" He whips out the compass, draws a circle from the base of the tooth, and notes, "Repeating pattern. Circular saw, maybe?" Gil doesn't think the tooth is sharp enough for a saw. That's okay, because Nicky's figured out what the thing is: "It's a spur, a cheap spur." Gil asks, "What's that old cowboy expression? Got to see a man about a horse? That reminds me, I've got to see a woman about a face." Nicky laughs a little, and says, "Yee-haw."
Speaking of women, the night shift's distaff members are sorting through the film. Sara asks, "You notice all the guys in these movies are wearing condoms?" Has Sara ever noticed how ugly most of the guys in porn movies are? The real suspension of disbelief comes not from accepting a world where everyone from nurses to pizza delivery women are ready, willing, and eager, but that they're so hot for the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing men involved. Anyway, Catherine replies, "Yeah, industry policy, ever since '98. Even have a quarantine list -- who's positive, who's not." I encourage everyone to check out the forums, because some of our more intrepid posters researched this and came up with a snappy and informative summary on the veracity of Catherine's statement. Catherine continues, "That security guy wore one, too. Pretty surprising for unregulated porn." Sara picks that time to find the rollout on the film. "Thank God," says Catherine, who's visibly relieved at not having to look at any more ends. Catherine peers at the end and says that she still can't see who it is. Sara points out, "You can see a little more of the room, though -- there's a small table and a lamp in the corner." Catherine replies, "Good eye, Sara. Yeah -- that kitsch lamp. Somebody moved that out to the lobby. I'll have Warrick go back to the hotel and grab it."
Gil is indeed seeing a woman about a face: Teri is reconstructing the facial features to a house dance beat -- between this and C.S.I.: Miami, I am beginning to suspect the crossover album Crime Jams is in the works -- and Gil shows off how smart he is by chatting Teri up about what she's doing. First come tissue-depth markers, twenty-one in all (sixteen for the face, five for the nose). Then come the tissue approximations. As Teri molds the clay, she explains that the occiput -- the bump in the back of the head -- is flatter than normal; she also calls out the epicanthal folds in the eyes, the poorly developed bridge on the nose, and the disproportionately small ears. She explains, "These elements are small for the head, which is in itself almost too short and too wide. Your victim was born with trisomy of the twenty-first chromosome." "Down's Syndrome," Gil clarifies, and Teri turns her finished reconstruction to the camera so we can see the proof.
"So I sent out a community fax to every Down's Syndrome link in Clark and the surrounding counties -- you know, Special Olympics, societies, schools -- and I got lucky," Brass is explaining, as he inexplicably sends out another bunch of faxes. Meet Randy Traschel, age twenty-five, missing for seventeen months. Gil seems irritated to have to conclude, "I guess my ants were off a little." He soon perks up, though, when he reads that Randy's last employer was Las Vegas Ranch, which would go a long way toward explaining the dung beetles.
Cut to Brass and Gil at the ranch; they've brought Nicky along for protective coloration. As someone moseys on by, Brass comments that his first reflex when it comes to horses is to bet on them. I'm sure nobody working at Las Vegas Ranch has ever heard that one before. Nicky asks Gil if he's ever ridden a horse before, and Gil replies, "Nope, just roller coasters." Before any of the writers can work in a sly reference to Young Guns 2, we're interrupted by the outraged whinnying of a horse being broken in the corral. Not knowing the first thing about horses and the taming thereof, I can't comment on the methods being used, but I do wonder if the dozen or so howling yahoos dancing around the corral are really necessary to the process. Don't they have a line-dancing video to go be in? Ranch manager Pete Banson comes over to greet everyone with a "howdy," and instead of letting Nicky open his mouth and go drawl-to-drawl, Brass makes the introductions, then pulls out the picture of Randy. Pete replies, "Yeah, he was one of my stall-muckers. Hired him about two years ago. He was a little slow in the head, but he got the work done. Then all of a sudden, he up and disappeared. Never heard from him since then." Gil's eying the whole scene with suspicion, and after the feisty horse figures out that the best way to remove a pesky cowboy is to crush him against the fence, Gil asks, "Did he ever ride horses for you, Mr. Banson?" Nope -- Randy just mucked out the stalls, then went home. Nicky asks who mucks the stalls now -- what, is the competition for the job so intense that it leads to murder? -- and Banson's all, "Am I in some kind of trouble here?" Nicky replies, "A former employee of yours was murdered. Now, who mucks?" Banson replies that the illegal immigrant Enrique does so. Brass deadpans, "Shocking."
Meanwhile, Catherine and Warrick are examining the kitsch of death. After checking a few of the film's frames, Warrick confirms that the lamp currently gracing his lab bench is the same lamp, and it's got a red bulb. Catherine replies, "Guy thinks he's Zalman King, playing with the lighting." Zalman King, for those of us who aren't conversant in our erotic auteurs, is behind such Skinemax staples as The Red Shoe Diaries and 9 and a 1/2 Weeks. Warrick gets thoughtful and muses, "You know, if I had screwed a hot lightbulb, I'd probably lick my fingers." I'd probably use a couple layers of cloth to change the bulb, but that's just because I'm a big baby about pain. Fortunately, our snuff film director is made of sterner stuff than I, because, as Catherine notes, "Guy replaced [the original bulb] with a red bulb, got residual saliva on it. I'll process for DNA, run it through CODIS." Ten seconds later, in the fastest DNA-processing job on record, she's getting a fax with a name and mugshot. Catherine looks disturbed for a minute, and then heads off.
Cut to the type of suburb that urban snobs are convinced hides The Ice Storm levels of emotional dysfunction, Happiness-style depravity, and other human activities meant to ironically subvert the tidy-looking appearance of the street. The three kids bicycling down the street only add to the impression that we're in one of those cul-de-sacs of sin that every American novelist since John Cheever has mined for story ideas. MaBell looks up from her novel to comment, "Yeah, I love this part -- they show this all-American street with kids riding their bikes, and they're doing porn films inside." My mom has a finely developed sense of irony. Yay, Mom! The door opens to the breathy squeal of a woman faking something, and Sulik flashes his badge, asking, "Douglas Sampson?" He is if you say so. Catherine does: "The same Douglas Sampson who did three years for sexual assault and battery?" Sampson coughs and says, "Did, past tense." Sulik says that he'd like to talk about a recent homicide at the Mandolin Tower hotel off Fremont Street, and Sampson pissily says, "I'm working." Why do people do this? It's not like the police are going to apologize and come back when you've got free time. Just talk to the cops, feign innocence, act guilty, whatever, then get on with your day. Catherine and Sulik look back at the curb, where Mole Man is being guarded by Warrick. He nods, and Catherine orders, "Take a break." The faint strains of boring, repetitive synthesizer music waft by, and as Catherine and Sulik come in, Sampson orders the people in the living room to take ten. We see two people in what looks to be an extremely compromising position readjusting. Where's the warning about adult content now? And for that matter, why the bad porn-soundtrack music now? It's not like the guy who does the soundtrack has a ringside seat and just does improvisational riffs on the Casio while the actors are working. Is this music to put the actors in a professional frame of mind?
Catherine looks at Sampson and muses, "I bet I could guess your exact height." Sampson's got a big question mark floating over his head. Sulik -- who appears to be averse to beating around the bush -- flashes the picture of the dead woman and tells Sampson that Mole Man just fingered him as the perp in a snuff film. Sampson coolly disclaims ever knowing those people. Catherine says, "We've got you on film, killing her." Sampson replies, "If you had any angle that I could be identified at, you would have arrested me already." Way to proclaim your guilt in six-foot-tall red letters, buddy. Catherine smirks, "We've got ourselves a film student here." Sampson corrects her, "I'm one of the best in the adult-film industry, and I'm going to be making the jump to the mainstream, just you watch." Catherine asks, "Financed by a snuff film?" Sampson tells her, "You have no right to be in my house. I'm not breaking any laws; I have a permit for adult film production. You leave now, or I'm going to file a complaint." The cool menace underlying his composure is undercut by the sudden case of the sniffles he develops.
After Catherine and Sulik walk outside, they notice Warrick peering at Sampson's car. Despite its freshly-washed appearance, there's butterscotch-colored soil up in the wheel well. Warrick asks, "You remember that body dump a couple years back, up near the Colorado?" Catherine does: "Biddahochy Range. Butterscotch-colored soil." They decide to radio ahead and notify the ranger that they're going hunting for bodies.
Meanwhile, Brass is interrogating Enrique. The man says, "All I know about him is they call him Stubbs." Nicky asks, "What, is that some kind of nickname?" No, it's his given name -- Randy was his nickname. We find out that the cowboys -- sensitive poets of the American range that they are -- made fun of Randy. We also find out that Enrique wears spurs; he claims to ride every day, and to wear spurs when he's breaking a horse. Brass wonders how shoveling manure can be interpreted as breaking a horse, and Enrique uneasily says that he forgot to remove the spurs. Nicky cheerfully says, "I'm going to need to take a look at those spurs, Mr. Vasquez."
Cut to Gil examining the spurs and successfully matching up the tooth to the spur. Before you can say, "Yee-haw!," Nicky's talking with Banson and confirming that Enrique got the boots and spurs from Heroes' Row, a sort of rummage area where cowboys leave out their old gear for anyone to take. Nicky then says, "The Pro Rodeo Association banned sharp rowels on spurs back in the early '70s, because they were found to be cruel to horses." This is old news to Banson: "I don't particularly agree with it, because as far as I'm concerned, horses are on this earth to service human beings. There's an order to things." Well, if you take that view of animal relationships, you could argue that humans are on this earth to service the bacteria, viruses, and insects that use us as hosts and food. Or that humans are on this earth to provide pink and crunchy snacks to predators like bears, panthers, and wolves. I hope Banson accepts his place in the circle of life with the same equanimity that he employs when carrying on about it. Nicky ignores Banson's sentiment and focuses on the fact that someone on the Las Vegas Ranch is caught in a sharp-rowel time warp. Banson tells us that someone is Billy Rattison, pro bronc rider.
That butterscotch dirt yielded gold, provided your definition of "gold" is "dead woman from snuff film." Warrick heads out to the area to crouch by her body.
Then, in a shot lifted straight out of the pilot ofTwin Peaks, we see the girl on a monitor in the morgue, washed in a bluish light with her eyes closed and mouth faintly curved up, hair tangled back from her face. David the Ant-Free Coroner walks over to the gurney where the girl is, and asks Sara and Catherine, "Warrick stick you with post?" Catherine replies that Warrick's working evidence down at the riverbed. David shares what he has: "Susan Hodap, twenty-six. Exsanguination from transection of the carotid artery. Slicing stab." Catherine asks about serration marks on the hyoid bone. David shrugs that he'll have to do a boil -- I assume he means her head -- but adds, "I can tell you conclusively is that Susan Hodap was already on borrowed time. I tapped her cerebrospinal fluid; didn't wait for a batch, had the lab run it solo. She was HIV-positive." Catherine and Sara take this opportunity to look at each other meaningfully.
Catherine and Sara repair to the computer, where they call up something called "Adult Entertainment Health," subtitled, "Health Services for Your Mind, Body." There's probably more, but it's not like we're getting a look at the whole site. It's apparently a big, publicly accessible list of adult industry names, with two columns to it: the HIV status, and other STDs. There are three HIV statuses: negative, HIV+ and HIV+ Quarantined. Catherine murmurs, "There it is -- tested positive six months ago." Sara says, "I can't believe that porn actors' monthly health records are on the internet." Me neither. How convenient for the plot! Catherine says, "Rule is, actor tests positive twice, they go on permanent quarantine." Sure enough, Susan Hodap's on permanent quarantine. Sara says, "That's why she ended up in a snuff film: she got bounced out of regular porn." Somehow, this makes me imagine a Burt Reynolds-like director screaming, "You'll never gangbang in this town again!" Catherine muses, "[Susan] walked into her own death scene. The thing is, the porn director may have, too."
Back at the ranch, Gil and Nicky are nosing around the property. They walk over to a blue truck, and Nicky comments, "This would be a pretty cool little truck if it weren't for the shiny new toolbox." Gil notices the bucking-bronco sticker and suspects it's Billy Rattison's truck. Banson comes out from making sure all the creatures of the earth are subject to his dominion and says, "I see you boys are back." Gil confirms with Banson that the truck does indeed belong to Ratisson, and then says they need to speak with Ratisson.
Simply look for the brooding figure in the black cowboy hat. He'll be endearing himself to the audience by saying, "I don't know nothing about no damn retard." This is Gil's cue to snap, "He wasn't a retard, Mr. Ratisson. He had what we call Down's Syndrome." That don't make no nevermind to Ratisson. He adds that Randy was always "sticking his nose where it didn't belong." We see one such example: Randy noticed Ratisson's can of chaw on the fencepost, held it up, and told Ratisson, "You left this." Ratisson responded with a hail of saliva-soaked tobacco leavings. Wow -- the writers couldn't make this guy more unlikable if they began flashing subtitles detailing his contributions to David Duke's election campaigns. Gil then tries to engage Ratisson in a discussion of his toolbox, and Ratisson demonstrates an even greater capacity for predjudice by insinuating that the stall-muckers are continually pilfering his possessions. Gil then pulls out a photo Nicky's been carrying around of Ratisson at the Bronc Finals in Witchita, Kansas. Ratisson tells us he spent a month there. We establish that Las Vegas is actually Ratisson's home base. Gil asks, "What month, exactly?" Ratisson sighs at the prospect of trying to sort through a whole calendar's worth of ignorance and predjudice, grabs the photo, and says, "March 2000." Nicky rolls his eyes and leans in to tell Gil sotto voce, "Nineteen months ago."
Gil and Nicky then wander among the barns to brainstorm. Nicky: "Your ants put the time of death at nineteen months, Rattison puts being out of town at nineteen months, yet Randy Traschel's been missing seventeen months. So, now what?" "We need a more precise timeline," Gil replies. Or he could just blame Liam and his math; that whole timeline seems hinky to me because it assumes that the fire ants arrived immediately after the last of the pupal casings was shed, as opposed to maybe coming in a few weeks earlier. But Gil decides that to go the precise timeline route, and decides to look at the rust in the toolbox.
At the labitrail, Sara's walking down the hall when she has to skirt to avoid a flying phonebook. We hear Warrick exclaiming, "Damn!" off-camera. She walks into the lab where Warrick's looking at the drape Susan Hodap was wrapped in, and asks, "Why are you throwing phone books?" Warrick logically replies, "Because a beaker gets glass all over the place." Plus they'd probably take it out of his paycheck. Sara asks what's wrong, and Warrick replies, "It's this curtain that the porn girl was found wrapped in. I've got no fingerprints, no second donor. I've got nothing linking this porn guy to the girl and it's driving me nuts." Sara takes Warrick's mind off matters by saying tartly, "I'm fine." Warrick looks abashed and asks if Sara's okay; she grins and lets him know she was yanking his chain by saying, "You missed me by a mile." Then she tells him she may have something -- she and Catherine suspect HIV transference from Susan Hodap's blood to Douglas Sampson's. Warrick asks how they're going to get the blood for comparison, and Sara replies, "Warrant, based on the butterscotch dirt that you found in his car." And now Warrick feels better. He throws another phone book in celebration; it hits Liam. Y'all know I'm kidding about that part, right?
Cut to a shot of Sulik watching Sampson get his blood drawn. Sampson looks sullen.
Back at Rancho de B-Plot, Gil's telling Nicky how he's taking the spur shard and looking at layers 100 microns thick to measure for oxidation: "Moisture from the body hits the carbon steel, and then corrosion begins. We can be certain there was moisture right away." Nicky grapples for a metaphor: "So it's like slicing mold off bread." Gil continues, "And measuring it. The rust penetrated through the thirteenth layer and just barely touched the fourteenth." He then has Archie run the weather patterns to help measure corrosion over time. The results, in Nicky's words: "Spur exposure time was exactly seventeen months." "And we can testify to this," says Gil. Nicky says, "Missing Persons was right -- the ants were off." Gil's sensitive about that, and he replies a little tartly, "Yeah. So was Rattison. He was in town." Gil then sets to studying the pictures of the wounds, trying to figure out the cause of death. He takes two pencils and a rubber band and stretches the band eighteen inches. Gil then holds up the pencils, one in each hand, tilts his hands in so the pencils splay out slightly, and has an obvious brainstorm.
We see the results in the very scene: a steer with a wide, if blunt set of horns. Nicky leans over the chute and measure the horns' span -- two feet. Gil explains to Banson, "We have reason to believe that the wounds that killed Randy Traschel were made by one of your bulls." Banson replies, "That's why we cut the horns -- to prevent such." The CSIs establish that they're looking for horns with the points still attached, and Gil asks to see the other bulls. Banson laconically replies, "Curly's the only one I got." Both Gil and Nicky turn to look at him. It's a nice visual moment.
Then Rattison goes sauntering by, shouting, "What do y'all want now?" Brass amiably says, "We're waiting on you. Mr. Rattison. We have reason to believe you were in town the month Randy Traschel was murdered." Gil then asks in his usual just-curious tone, "Can you tell me what used to be here?" with "here" being the front hood of the truck. Rattison claims that his belt buckles used to be there, but they were stolen. Gil observes, "You do get a lot of stuff stolen, don't you?" Gil asks if they can look around his truck, and Rattison consents. As Gil begins looking around, Rattison stands to Brass; Brass turns to him and mutters, "Don't get any tobacco juice on my shoe." Within moments, Gil has found a pair of uncut steer horns that happen to measure eighteen inches and display traces of blood residue. Wow, is Rattison stupid. Gil says, "The only thing stolen was Randy Traschel's life. Mr. Rattison, want to explain this?" What is there to explain, really? He had held Randy in contempt simply for being Randy, and after an incident in which Randy appeared to be laughing at him after he fell off a horse -- when in fact, Randy was simply standing around with a small, habitual smile -- he decided to tie Randy to an unbroken horse and set him loose in the corral. Then Randy broke his collarbone. He tried to run out after Rattison and apologize, and Rattison responded by slamming the man into the steer horns on his truck. Class act, that Rattison.
Once Rattison's done explaining his side of the story -- no doubt contending all the while that Randy deserved to die simply for being Randy -- Brass is looking deeply sad, and Gil's hovering somewhere near righteous fury. He passes Rattison and leans over his shoulder to say in an even, level tone, "By the way, the definition of the word 'retard' is to hinder or to hold someone back. I think your life is about to become retarded." He then gives the smirking Rattison one last disgust-filled look and stalks off. Wow, that was a hell of a downer case.
Wrapping up the A-plot, Sampson's in an interrogation tank, confirming for the record that he's never had sexual intercourse with Susan Hodap. He claims again never to have met her. The guy repeats, "You've never had sex with her." "Not ever," claims Sampson. Catherine and Sara nod at each other, then head into the room. Sara heads in first, giving us time to admire her blouse (classic fit; nice antique-looking print), then Catherine, who asks, "You still having those chills, Mr. Sampson? Feeling hot, achy? Back of your throat scratchy?" Sampson grudgingly admits that it is. Catherine says, "Original flu. Happens at the onset of HIV. Seroconversion. Usually presents two to six weeks after the exchange of fluids." Sampson asks, "Exchange of fluids?" Catherine implacably says, "That temperature is your body working up a resistance to the virus." Sampson works up a scoff: "HIV? Me? Come on, you just took my blood a ew days ago." Catherine says that a private lab can run a blood test within a day, and they were motivated enough to spring for one in his case. Sampson says, "You're playing me -- I don't have HIV." Sara forcefully says, "Susan Hodap had it -- the exact same strain you have." Catherine adds, "We had that lab do what's called a phylogenetic analysis of your HIV's DNA and Susan's." Sara jumps in again: "As you can see, the genes are identical, which means Susan gave it directly to you." Sampson's in denial about this, saying, "But we never had sex." Does he not remember the 1980s? Hello -- blood transmission through any open area! Catherine says as much: "You did stab her, though, and at that moment, arterial blood hit your eyes, entering your body through the conjuctival membrane." Sara adds, "Non-sexual transmission is extremely difficult, but obviously, it's possible. Susan's blood was absorbed into your bloodstream." Catherine follows, "Where the new HIV cells immediately started attaching to the white blood cells. Gets inside one, replicates about two thousand times, disables the host cells, pinches back out, infecting more good cells, lowering your immune system until your body loses its ability to fight off even the simplest invader." Sara plays up the contantly-mutating aspect of the virus by pointing out, "Of course the strains will have changed by then, and you and Susan Hodap will have different strains of HIV. The sooner you see a doctor, the better your chances for longevity." Catherine delivers the final blow: "But for now, we got you. You killed her." Sampson is staring at them with a look of horror and dread on his face. Sara then gets in one final, moderately inappropriate dig by smiling slightly and saying, "I guess she killed you back." Well, yeah, but don't visibly gloat about it, Sara! The episode ends on that note.