For those of you who have managed to miss the 56 episodes of CSI broadcast between fall 2000 and tonight, guess what? The show takes place in Las Vegas! Who knew?
And now, let us move on to the establishing sequence of the night, that two-minute stretch wherein we, the viewers at home, will watch ordinary people going about their business until the moment they stumble across a body, call the police, and hang out until Captain Exposition and Gil arrive. Can you imagine this from their point of view? Say you're working in the wholesale meat delivery industry, as tonight's Man We Will Never See After The Credits is doing, and you stumble across a human arm stuck in a meat grinder, as this guy does, and after the omigawd, omigawd, it's a human arm, what do I do? moment has passed and you've managed to conclude that calling the police might be the thing to do, while you're hanging out and mentally reviewing every detail of the evening, wondering if you managed to sound more calm and competent than you feel, you're wishing you were somewhere else, and then some balding guy in suit comes by, telling a good-looking blonde, "Ever wonder what's in that hot dog?"
Well, you'll have to try, because tonight will not give us the spectator's-eye view of how the CSIs work the scene. We find the arm; thing we know, Brass is making hot dog jokes with Catherine as a way of easing into his duties as Captain Exposition: "Human body in a meat grinder. Shop foreman found an arm; the rest of him is prime grade-A sirloin." Catherine thinks this "sounds kind of Mob-ish, except they left town in the '80s." After establishing that there were no people sticking out of any industrial machinery when the plant shut down for the night, Brass invites Catherine and Gil to check out the fresh meat. Catherine gives him a rueful smirk before ducking under the rope with Gil, then walks over and checks the mess of fleshy gibbets caught in the metal pan. "Oh, God," she groans. Gil, naturally, is focusing on the nature of the crime scene: "It looks like the elbow got stuck in the blade." The camera helpfully shows us how, lingering on the ground meat at the opposite end of the grinder pipe. Gil confirm this: "Yup. The ulna." Catherine adds, "One of the strongest bones in the human body. Probably what jammed the grinder." Gil figures that the jammed grinder explains why they're looking at a human arm as opposed to a pile of mystery meat. Catherine comments, "It's like that Morrissey album, Meat Is Murder." Or the Smiths album of the same name. Gil, however, can't let Catherine have the last word before the credits, so he grunts dramatically while he pulls on the fingers of the hand they found, and tells Catherine, "I'm going to need a hand."
Cue The Who, who are apparently in need of some assistance themselves lately.
Once we're back from commercials -- and is it just me, or does Presidio Med look a lot like that Lifetime series Strong Medicine? -- Gil and Catherine are hunkered down before the pureed remains, surveying the mess. Gil comments that they're going to have to sift through the little parts; Catherine says morosely that the blood is everywhere, so using phenolphthalein or luminol is an exercise in futility. Gil looks at the meat grinder again and says, "We're going to have to dismantle this piece by piece." Catherine agrees. Gil begins to get up, saying, "I'll get a foreman." Catherine stops him with, "I think I can handle this." Gil asks skeptically, "You know about meat grinders?" Catherine says matter-of-factly, "Everything's pretty much plumbing, male into female parts. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey."
We transition to Catherine expertly dissembling the grinder and wincing with disgust every once in a while. Gil interrupts this bloody task to show her a small orange ear plug, noting happily, "Ear wax is ripe with DNA." Catherine points out that the earplug find is less than impressive, given that all the meat-processing plant employees wear them. Gil replies that these are special earplugs and not your standard work-issued ones: "Whoever wore this brought it with them -- we just have to find out whose ear it fits." Oh, no -- not another tell-tale ear episode.
Cut to the B-plot, where we're outside an apartment complex, listening to Detective Blandino telling Sara and Warrick that the victim in question is Linda Damen, and she's an apparent suicide; her dad stopped by to bring her dinner, and found her. There are no signs of forced entry, although the police did find her wallet empty. "Maybe she was just broke," Warrick muses. Well, now that's a sentiment that can be used to frighten and horrify consumers in a commercial: "It's either death, or debt counseling -- give us a call at 1-800-USURY-R-US." Sara and Warrick walk into the bedroom, where Hank is repacking his paramedic supplies. She gives him a friendly greeting, and he replies, "You guys are fast." Oh, you know Sara, always sitting by the phone in the hopes that crime calls. Hank gives them what he knows: "[Time of death] 7:20, coroner will be able to tell you more. It looks like she bled out. Left wrist is transected." Sara notes that "it's not typical for a female. Women usually commit suicide in a tub. Easier cleanup for whoever's left behind." So even in suicide, women are assuming the housekeeping role? Talk about your societal conditioning. Warrick keeps snapping photos while Sara examines the bedclothes, and she calls for his attention when she uncovers a straight razor. She calls Warrick's attention to it, then asks the room in general, "Did her parents say whether she was dating a man?" Hank answers that Linda was dating a Brody Jones. Warrick then notices a long bloodstain which gives the appearance of someone or something having been slid away from the body and off the mattress. He asks, "Did someone move her?" Hank replies, "She was propped up when we got here. I checked for vitals." Warrick presses, "With all your life-saving efforts, you didn't move her?" Hank says a little more forcefully, "Hey, man, like I said: I. Checked. For. Vitals." Without even thinking, Sara speaks up and says, "It's okay, baby." This is the point where every man in the room looks at Sara, and she looks as though she'd welcome a fatal embolism right now. She wheels around to gather her composure and escape eye contact.
After an awkward moment of silence, Hank says, "The victim had no response; I had no reason to move her." Warrick replies, "Well, someone moved her: she bled out here, and she's dead there." Sara, who's been studying the contents of the closet pretty intently while calculating the odds on the floor opening up and swallowing her, suddenly begins inspecting the contents, clearly hoping that she can just segue into the rest of the investigation without any guff from anyone. As Warrick works the bed, Hank comes over to the closet where Sara is hiding and says, "I'm going to hit the road...baby." Sara smiles sheepishly and says, "I'm sorry." After Hank leaves, Sara hangs out in the closet for a few more moments, then tells Warrick she's found some stains on a shirt -- they're recent, as they're cool to the touch. Warrick, who's just noticed a footprint, calls Sara's name. She looks over and he says, "I think our suicide just became suspicious circs."
Back in the morgue, David The Obvious Coroner is giving Gil a helping hand with the hand he found. David says, "Since I'm the one who always seems to state the obvious, this arm was dead before it was hacked off." Gil asks about the scar tissue on the palm of the hand, and David tells him it's probably the result of an occupational hazard. Gil then points out the blisters, and David says, "Gradual denaturing of the proteins in the epithelials, resulting in scarring on the palm or surface." Gil scrapes under the fingernails for a sample to send to the folks down in Trace. Gil then bemoans the fact that the tips of the finger look as though they're worn down to the bone. David asks if Gil can get a partial. Gil then swings into infomercial mode: "Much more than that -- Lansbury's Ridge Builder." David makes a suitably awed infomercial audience as Gil continues, "One application on the bulbs of the fingers, and the ridges plump out temporarily like a Chia pet on steroids." For some reason, I'm now imagining WWE wrestlers with a lot of curly green hair, and that's not really helping me grasp the magic behind the Ridge Builder. We then get the TMICam look at the ridge-building effects, which aren't nearly as entertaining as the mental image of beefy, Chia-covered men grappling in homoerotic combat, but the effect is still pretty cool. Gil takes his prints, and he and David exchange a deep and meaningful look.
Within seconds, AFIS has spit out a match. Gil tells Catherine, "Petrov Samsko. Non-gaming permit. Head chef, Dew-breff restaurant. Chef -- that would explain the burns and scar tissue on his palm." Catherine corrects Gil's pronunciation -- "It's Doe-breff. It's a four-star restaurant. I've eaten there." Regardless of how this place is pronounced and spelled in closed-captioning, it's spelled DoBreff in the chef's whites, and I'm going with that. Gil is unimpressed with Catherine's culinary expedition, saying only, "Good. Maybe you can get us a table." "You don't have to end every scene by making a punny quip," Catherine snaps. Oh, she does not either.
In the B-is-for-"baby" plot, Warrick is stating that the print they found on the scene must have come from someone else. Then he goes to deal with the grieving parents, starting off with an apology: "Sorry for the inconvenience -- this is just a standard procedure. Do you have any idea where your daughter's boyfriend works." Mr. Damen replies, "A casino." Warrick asks which one, and Mr. Damen replies, "All of them. He's a gambler. Used to drag Linda out and keep her up days at a time. Ran her health down, her spirit." Mrs. Damen adds, "She was getting better, though. She'd had a rough time after college, finding herself. But she was getting better." Warrick just stares at the Damens; he's either moved by their plight or wondering what they're not telling him. Just then, Mrs. Damen catches sight of her daughter being wheeled out by the paramedics. Warrick has to look away. Wow -- who knew he was going soft in his old age?
Time has presumably elapsed, because Linda's now in the morgue, and David is holding her wrist as he explains, "The transection of the left wrist is consistent with a self-inflicted wound, particularly because she's right-handed." Sara notes that there's no hesitation marks, and asks if that isn't a little odd for a suicide. David tells her, "People usually stutter-cut a few times, trying to work up the courage. This woman cut herself with one smooth motion." David's only convinced Sara that's something's not right here, what with someone having moved the body two feet from the location where she bled out. Sara asks about the tox screen -- it's not back yet. She then leans down and notices what looks like glass in Linda's hair. David says that it is, and that he's already tweezed a few pieces for Trace. Sara muses, "We didn't find any broken glass in her apartment...round edges, tinted -- it looks polarized." David replies that it's probably safety glass. Sara replies, "Yeah. Too bad it didn't protect her."
Meanwhile, Gil and Catherine have a dinner date at DoBreff. As they approach the reservations podium, the hostess is picking up one phone line after another, sing-songing, "DoBreff, please hold" into every one of them. She stops only long enough to ask Gil and Catherine what last name their reservation is under. Gil says, "We don't have reservations. We're here from --" The hostess shows him the hand and goes back to the phone line, taking no small pleasure in telling a party of four they can be fit in three weeks from Thursday. Catherine tries again: "Excuse me, but you don't understand --" The hostess gets a little snippy when she replies, "I'm sorry -- you don't understand. You're walk-ins on a very busy night. We're down a chef." Catherine replies, "We know. He's dead." Never content to let Catherine be on top of any verbal dogpile, Gil adds, "Not only dead -- dismembered." And now he shows his badge. You know, as entertaining as this little comedy of errors was, wouldn't it have made more sense for Gil and Catherine to have walked up and flashed their badges first thing? That probably cuts the number of would-be misunderstandings in half. Anyway, the hostess eventually manages to shut her mouth and tells them she'll be right back with the owner.
Gil and Catherine have been whisked to the kitchen, where Gil is busy peering at a salad while Catherine talks to the owner. He's asking if she's sure it's Petrov. Catherine replies that they are; once they had the fingerprints, identifying the remains was a snap. The owner then asks, "What makes you think this event happened here?" Catherine replies that they found traces of aspic and olive oil under the guy's fingernails, so they've deduced that Petrov went into the meat grinder without having showered first, and possibly straight from the kitchen. The owner tries the "Don't I just look trustworthy?" tack, asking, "If there was a murder in my kitchen, don't you think I would know about it?" Catherine replies flatly, "I don't know. Would you?" Gil, meanwhile, is busy looking at the pile of bloody chef's whites in a laundry cart to the stainless-steel prep area. He calls Catherine's attention to it. The owner replies dismissively, "It's a kitchen. The chefs use knives. That's not uncommon. You are..." Gil answers, "Gil Grissom. I'm with her." I like how Gil instinctively lets Catherine handle the human interactions while he pokes around for evidence. These two make an excellent team, and I wish we saw them work together more, as they've got great chemistry. Lest all you swabbies on the S.S. Geek Love threaten mutiny, let me clarify: I think they've got a great rapport, the characters complement each other, and it's a pleasure to watch a man and a woman working together without wondering if the scene's going to degenerate into some thinly-veiled sexual harassment masquerading as "unrequited love," or some not-so-thinly-veiled sexual activity masquerading as "the A-plot on any given episode of ER." Anyway, Catherine just grins at all parties and steps back so that Gil can ask who Stephanie, the owner of the bloody uniform currently dangling from his finger, might be. The restaurant owner replies that Stephanie's one of his waitresses. Gil says, "I understand how chefs cut their fingers, and how the kitchen help could have blood spatter on their uniforms, but how does a waitress get blood on the back of her shirt?" The background music that usually plays when someone's tangled with Gil and lost begins playing in background. Catherine points out, "We could shut you down for hours, or get a warrant and shut you down for good." The owner leans in and pleads, "Give me until after the rush?" Gil fixes him with a look, clearly suspecting that the man's going to dash through the kitchen tampering with evidence, but says nothing.
So Gil and Catherine kill time by hanging out in a doorway and staring at diners. If I were eating at a swanky place where I had just run a gauntlet of snotty service workers simply to get a reservation, and two people were skulking in a doorway watching me eat, I'd be pretty irritated. However, the patrons here are blissfully oblivious; either the food is that good or the patrons are that stupid. Catherine comments, "People always think that the show is out front. It wasn't until I waitressed, I realized it's all in the back." Gil, whose idea of hell probably incorporates any hourly-wage job involving work with the public, stays silent. He looks around and notices a large, arced burn mark on a wall in a small alcove to his left, and wanders off to inspect it. Catherine watches him go, no doubt mentally debating for the umpteenth time whether or not it would be in everyone's best interest to put Gil on one of those people-leashes so she can keep track of him in public. She eventually wanders over and asks him what he's looking at; they come to the conclusion that it's a burn of some sort, caused by something bigger than a candle. Just then, the owner comes over and announces that his cocina es Gil's cocina. Gil asks, "Mr. Dutton, can I ask you what happened here?" Dutton replies that someone probably put the candles too close to the walls. Catherine and Gil exchange meaningful looks. That Gil's just looking meaningfully at everyone tonight.
Then they head to the kitchen, where they flag down Stephanie and ask her if the uniform they're holding is hers. Lola the saucy saucier answers, "You don't have to answer that. They don't have a warrant." Lola has just singled herself out for a lot of scrutiny. Gil reacts by turning to Catherine and saying in a bewildered tone, "I thought you said the Mafia had left town." Catherine laughs nervously in Gil's direction, then says, "We have the owner's consent, so again -- could you explain this blood?" This time, Ross the line chef comes to her rescue, saying, "Order up, Stephanie -- hot items. Two filet mignons and one coquille St. Jacques." If this crew were any more obvious about trying to distract Gil and Catherine, this would turn into a Martin and Lewis movie. Catherine loses her temper: "Hey! We found blood spatter on the uniforms of several employees who worked the night that Chef Petrov died." Gil begins rattling off names, and asks for an explanation as to why there's blood all over their uniforms. Ross says, "It's my blood. We got a rule in the kitchen -- don't touch my knife, don't touch my johnson." He then relates a tale in which he was working with Petrov, grabbed the guy's knife, got deliberately nicked for it, and was then forced to caper around and bleed all over everything. Gil is horrified: "Haven't these people ever heard of HIV?" Or hepatitis? Or any other blood-borne disease? You've got a bunch of people with small, open wounds in a kitchen getting doused in each other's blood -- it's a wonder the CDC doesn't open an observation station by the sink. Gil says, "We're going to take over your kitchen -- starting now." Well, that'll teach everyone to go bleeding all over other people's food. ["Not everyone, if Anthony Bourdain is to be believed." -- Sars]
Back at the labitrail, Sara's walking into a new, sunny-looking lab. She asks the tech, "You got something on that glass?" "Didn't beep you to say hi," he responds. Oh my God, it's the lab tech of my dreams. Sara says, "Glad to see you're settling in, Hodges." Hodges straightens up from the bench and says, "You were right. It is polarized. Ultraviolet quotient is very high, probably from a car windshield." Sara muses that it may be the result of an accident, possibly a hit-and-run -- and Hodges looks up to ask, "And she crawls home, crawls on her bed, and commits hara-kiri?" Where did this guy come from, and why is he making all the comments I normally make in the recaps? Sara snaps back, "Stranger things have happened. If you weren't such a lab rat, you would know that." Although Hodges can't tell Sara what kind of car has the glass she found, he can narrow it down to the year in question. He explains, "Car companies add more ultraviolet sealants each season to stay ahead of safety standards" -- and this is where I pause in shock that any facet of the automotive industry does something for consumer safety without waiting for a gazillion fatal accidents, hectoring books from crusading journalists and/or Ralph Nader, and marathon congressional hearings to happen first -- "I used a comparison study of a car that was made in 2001." As Sara peers into the comparative microscope, Hodges says, "Your windshield was a 2002 model." Sara thanks Hodges, and he says "mm-hmm" in a hilariously uptight and disapproving way.
Cut to Warrick and Sara looking at the windshields of the cars in the apartment complex where Linda lived. As they tool through the aisles, Sara tells Warrick, "You can tell a lot about a person by what they leave in their car." You just know everyone who was watching this scene did a mental inventory of their own cars at this point. Sara and Warrick amuse themselves by inspecting the detritus in different people's cars before they find a car with still-tacky adhesive on the edge of the windshield. Just then, a woman runs over, bellowing, "Hey! Heeeey! What are you doing? That's my car." Sara does an all-purpose introduction ("Crime lab," while flashing her ID), and the girl replies, "Cute picture. I'm late for work." Maybe she's dating Hodges. Sara tells the woman that she notices how the windshield's been replaced recently and the adhesive was seeping. The girl snaps that you get what you pay for; the car shop she went to had a half-off deal, and she's in no position to shop around. Sara asks if replacing the windshield had anything to do with "the tenant in 325?" The girl replies, "Linda? Yeah -- she did it. I'd send her the bill if I thought she'd pay. She hasn't paid for anything else she trashed in this complex." Warrick is suddenly very interested in what's going on; perhaps he's planning to ask the Damens if Linda's efforts to find herself included some gonzo rental art happenings. Warrick asks what else Linda's broken, and the helpful neighbor says, "Well, that would depend on her mood. When she's up, she breaks the mailboxes. When she's down, she throws the patio furniture into the pool. She broke the windshield yesterday because she said she 'heard' me talking on my cell about her." As the neighbor woman is talking, we see flashbacks of Linda's assorted fits. The neighbor finishes with, "We just call her 'the whackjob in 325.'" Warrick says, "She died yesterday. We think it may have been a suicide." This does not reduce the neighbor woman to a puddle of remorse. She only says, "Yeah? I'm surprised someone didn't kill her." Sara and Warrick give the woman intent stares, and she shrugs, "Look, unless you want to call my pit boss and tell him I'm under arrest, I'm going to work." As she drives off, Sara comments that she'd like to see Linda Damen's tox report. She may also want to see if the neighbors filed any complaints with apartment management or with the police, and then she may want to see why the Damens didn't bother to mention that Linda clearly had mental problems that may have been a contributing factor in her death.
Back at the DoBreff, Catherine and Nick are analyzing every square inch of a now-bare kitchen. Nicky explains why we're only seeing him now by saying, "Fresh off a plane from a conference and -- BAM! -- I got seminal fluid." Wow, and some people only have their ears pop. Anyway, Catherine shares that she found cocaine. Gil, meanwhile, has found blood by the kitchen's main drain. Catherine says, "Blood, coke, semen. These people were doing everything in this kitchen but cook." Nicky departs the episode, telling everyone on his way out, "I'll go have a little chit-chat with the hostess. They always seem to know everything." Catherine then lifts the lid of the drain off so that Gil can collect the stuff caught in it -- mainly the blood clots with sand embedded in them. Catherine establishes that the order of things down the drain was blood first, sand second. Gil notes, "This was not a little knife nick. This guy was stuck. He bled out long enough for his blood to pool and clot." Catherine and Gil then look over at Stephanie and Ross, both of whom look as though butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. Gil calls out that he's going to need to see everyone's knives, starting with Ross's. Ross is all, "I need 'em back by shift." Ross is an idiot. Catherine sets him straight with, "Well, that depends on what we find."
The Damens are now talking to Sara in an interrogation room in the labitrail; they've brought in a picture of Brody. Sara deflects the queries on how the investigation is going, then says, "I did meet a tenant at your daughter's apartment complex that described Linda as...troubled. Did you ever witness Linda being violent?" Mrs. Damen non-answers, "We like to think of her as 'normal,' as improving. She was prescribed lithium her junior year of college." Somehow, Ma papering over everything and insisting that Linda is "normal" seems to be more harmful than accepting that Linda's brain is wired differently from many other people's. Sara asks if Linda was diagnosed bipolar; Mr. Damen answers wearily, "She's a rapid cycler -- she shifts into manic in a blink. We knew she had been violent around the complex." Instead of asking, "And you decided we didn't need to know this because...?" Sara only asks, "And the lithium didn't help?" Mrs. Damen soggily explains, "It's a catch-22: when Linda's in an up phase, she doesn't think she needs the lithium, so she doesn't take it, which only makes her more unstable. Made." Sara just kind of stares before saying, "I'm sorry for your loss." I'm just kind of amazed that nobody is addressing why the Damens didn't bother mentioning their daughter's illness when they found her body. That kind of omission needs explaining -- did the Damens do it because they were afraid Sara and Warrick would dismiss Linda's death as the natural result of a down cycle? Did they not say anything because they were deep into "We like to think of her as 'normal'" denial? This sort of narrative ambiguity irritates me.
Gil, meanwhile, is looking in the restaurant log, conveniently located right near a big ol' gueridon, which is a sort of portable hibachi used for tableside cooking. Gil asks Dutton, "I thought there was a policy against the use of these in Las Vegas restaurants." Dutton says mournfully, "Ever since a television star from the '70s burned his face by one. It's changed dining forever. No more can diners enjoy their carpaccio and arugula accented by the piquant scent of roasting plastic surgery..." So maybe I made that last part up. Gil comments, "Those v-marks we found in the restaurant -- those were made fairly recently. Certainly since the '70s." Dutton says reluctantly, "I lied about the candles. It was an accident." Gil points out that the owner's log says it was a bad accident -- Danny Pasqualle, Italian male model, suffered third-degree burns on his face the night of September 26, 2002. Dutton explains, "We do special requests for special customers. Chef Petrov made Pasqualle a Café Diablo..." We go into flashback, wherein Petrov is combining the contents of the bar onto an open flame in the name of haute cuisine, shortly before the inevitable inferno and the screams of Danny Pasqualle, Italian male model. Gil wonders if Pasqualle pressed charges; Dutton professes amazement that Pasqualle did not. Probably because he was too busy being in pain to remember.
Cut to Gil talking to Pasqualle's good side as Pasqualle says, "What am I going to do -- sue a restaurant? I used to make five million a year -- you do the math." Brass says, "So after losing all that salary, you never filed suit. Maybe you didn't press charges so you could keep it all quiet and settle it yourself." We now circle around to Pasqualle's bad side. Frankly, it could be worse, and if it bothers him that much, why not take to putting on a little white mask and following women around, trilling operatically, "Sing, Christine! Siiiiiiiiing!" Everyone needs a hobby. Gil assures Pasqualle that nobody's pressing charges against him, so long as he's willing to fill out a statement saying he declined to press charges because he'd rather take care of business himself. The only thing that keeps Pasqualle from signing is the huge and ugly seeping wound on his hand. Gil then points out, "The patterned abrasions over the dorsal of the hand over the metacarpal and phalangeal joints..." Brass clarifies, "We call it a fight bite." Back to Gil: "Human mouths are full of bacteria. A human bite is a tremendous source of infection, unfortunately." And that's Gil's cue to pull out a syringe and draw some fluid from the infected area on Pasqualle's hand. I'm mildly disappointed that we don't get a TMICam for the bacteria.
While Gil is honing his people skills, Catherine is testing the kitchen's knife blades for blood with Liam; they're twenty-five blades in, and nothing's turned up yet. She sees something red on number twenty-six, but to her dismay, it's not blood.
Meanwhile, Detective Blandino is leading Warrick and Sara over to Brody, found by dint of much shoe leather. Brody's busy at the dollar slots, writing down what appears each time he pulls. For the curious, this page of his notebook reads, "Bar-line-line, line-bar-line, blank-bar-bar, bar-bar-line, line-bar-bar, bar-line-line, line-bar-bar." What, no cherries? This slot machine sucks. Sara watches Brody and asks what he's doing. Warrick tells her, "We used to call a guy like that a bean counter -- degenerates paying twenty-five cents a pop in hopes of cracking a pattern." Sara, still not quite getting it, asks what the notebooks are for and Warrick tells her, "It's his results. What the joker doesn't realize is that the patterns can end up in the hundreds of millions." Sara comments, "The more I see this kind of stuff, the less I picture you a gambler." Warrick sets her straight with, "That's not gambling -- this is the end of the line." I like this repartee Warrick and Sara have going; they're like junior Catherine and Gil with the cerebral/real-world yin and yang. Besides, there's less rage in their working partnership than in the Warrick/Nicky partnership.
Anyway, Warrick and Sara approach Brody, who looks as though sun and fresh air are his sworn enemies. Warrick happens to notice the blood on the cuff of Brody's shirt, and asks in a total police tone, "How long have you been here, sir?" Brody waves him off, and Warrick gets a troubled look. Detective Blandino steps in and says, "Las Vegas Police; we want a word with you. What do you know about the death of Linda Damen?" Without taking his eyes off the screen, Brody replies, "Unfortunate." Theirs evidently was not a demonstrative relationship. Brody continues distractedly, "I need to write...my results. I need to...document them." Warrick asks how Brody got the blood on his shirt, prompting Brody to ask, "What blood?" Sara then steps in and says that they'll need the shirt; Brody attempts to take it off as he continues writing down his slot patterns. If this sort of behavior offers no clues as to what sort of disorders Brody might have, Sara and Warrick might as well resign now. Anyway, Warrick tells Brody brusquely that he's coming with the shirt.
And now, the obligatory scene in which Gil practices a little tough love on Liam. Tonight, Liam lopes after Gil in the labitrail, asking, "Did you know that some doctors believe that oral bacteria have no other benefits than to make it impossible for other, more vicious bacteria to take up residence in our mouths?" Naturally, Gil knew that. Liam says, "So then I should just stop trying to impress you." "That would impress me," Gil says. I imagine that Liam having a hairstyle not conceived during a one-night stand between a Black & Decker hand tool and a tub of Tigi Bedhead might go a long way in impressing Gil too. Liam segues to the real reason for his conversation with Gil: "Results from fight-bite boy. I had to go to an outside lab to get 'em since we're not equipped to do bacterial DNA testing ourselves, hint, hint. Bacteria in the guy's knuckles matches the natural bacteria found in the chef's mouth." Huh? How did they find a sample to compare against? Did they find Petrov's head and just not tell anyone? Did someone sample all the piles of ground chef for oral bacteria? Would it kill them to clarify this? Gil's all quippy: "I guess he settled out of court." Cue the flashback, complete with fisticuffs.
In the scene, we're outside an interrogation room, watching Gil showing Pasqualle the bacterial results and saying, "You can see where I have a hard time believing you." Brass knocks to get Gil's attention and asks for a progress report; Pasqualle is copping to battery, but denying murder. Brass points out that Pasqualle may be telling the truth, as the earplug DNA yielded results on CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). Incidentally, CODIS is called "codus" in the closed captioning; I am persistently amused that a show about a CSI who's going deaf is plagued by inaccuracies in closed captioning. I imagine people who rely on the closed captioning are less amused. Anyway, the match is one Harold Haskins, delivery man for Meteor Meat, who's out on parole following his extortion charges. In one of those it's-a-small-world turns, Haskins also happens to deliver meat for DoBreff.
Cut to Brass talking to Haskins in the meat plant. Brass is asking, "So you snuck into the place to grind up a body?" Haskins protests that he didn't know what it was until it was too late. Brass asks who gave Haskins the meat to grind, and Haskins explains that it was in the restaurant freezer. Brass is all, "You see my face? This is me almost believing you. Now, you've already violated your parole, so whatever I say to the judge is up to you." Haskins fingers Ross the sous chef: "I owed him $3000 for coke. He said I could pay him back with a favor." So Ross is a sous chef and a drug dealer? That's an impressive grasp of time management; I'd love to see what his Day Planner looks like. Do you think he color-codes his contacts depending on whether they're with the kitchen, the cocaine cartel, or his customer list? Ahem. Brass states flatly, "You ground up a body as a favor." Haskins notes, "It was already dead. It's not like I killed him." This fails to wash with Brass.
At the DoBreff, Ross is lording it over the kitchen and telling Catherine, "I'm a sous chef. Twenty guys are into me for recreational substances. It doesn't mean they'd cut up a body for me." "Ground it up," corrects Catherine. Behind her, Gil is oblivious to the conversation as he inspects something just out of camera range. Catherine continues, "We're thinking that you did the actual filleting." Ross snorts, and challenges Catherine to ask anyone in the kitchen. Catherine says, "We have. They won't talk. Military calls it 'code red.' Fierce loyalty to the top dog. I guess Petrov was that until someone killed him. His tragedy is your promotion?" So what is this, the thin white line? Anyway, Gil's been poking around the oven and the vents, and he's found something he's interested in. Dutton comes in and cops an attitude with, "Ex-cuse me, we're in the middle of a rush here. Customers don't forgive lateness or a cold meal." Does Dutton realize how lucky he is to be open? Catherine starts to put him in his place with, "I bet they'd forgive a murder --" but before she can work up a good head of steam, Gil shouts, "Do you guys serve mutton?" Ross asks, "What?" Gil repeats," Mutton. It's from the French word for sheep." You'd think Ross would know that; many of the food-based terms in the English language come from French roots as a result of the Norman conquest after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 -- beef and poultry are two others. But I'm letting my etymological geekiness get in the way of Gil's exposition here. Gil says, "These fibers look like wool, and since sheep are sheared before they're butchered, I think that somebody was cooking something here, and it wasn't food." Since the background music's gone all impish again and Ross is wearing an oh, shit look, we can end this scene concluding that once again, Gil's gotten the upper hand. Catherine looks at Ross and says with feigned innocence, "Code red?"
Back at the labitrail, Warrick is saying, "Brody, we have your shoeprint in Linda's blood. We also have a sample of Linda's blood that we found on your shirt. Is there anything you'd like to tell us?" As a matter of fact, there is; Brody says, "Someone is playing that machine right now and is throwing the entire last seventy-two hours of calculations right out the window." If this isn't a clue as to Brody's mental health, I don't know what is. Blandino asks, "Did you kill this girl, and then try to make it look like a suicide?" Brody replies, "If anything, I tried to save her." Blandino asks, "Save her how?" Brody explains, "I went to her place to borrow some money from her. I looked in her bedroom, thought she fell asleep reading. Then I saw blood. I tried to revive her." Warrick leans in and says, "But you left her there, dead." Brody gives him a well, duh look and replies, "You don't get it. Even as the Son of God, I can only do so much." Warrick gives Sara a look through the one-way window, flips through Brody's notebook until he sees a drawing of Jesus with the caption "GOD," and says, "Oh, I get it. You and Linda are kind of on the same page. Did you stop taking your lithium together, is that it?" Brody indirectly confirms this when he says, "It's not a crime." Warrick says disgustedly, "You're right -- it's not." Then he picks up Brody's papers and walks out. I think at this point, it's safe to say that Warrick has some sort of issue regarding mental health, but damned if we'll get to figure out if it's fear or loathing or pity or what. It's almost a shame we don't have Nicky here to make some ill-informed remark about "the crazies" so everyone else can jump all over him and reveal their own attitudes about mental illness as a result; instead, we have Warrick and Sara doing a lot of awkward staring without much exposition as to why they react as they do.
Anyway, Warrick walks over to Sara, who says, "Bipolar girl meets a bipolar guy. Together, they cut out their medication, she ends up committing suicide." Warrick sounds frustrated when he says, "It's almost like bipolar boy is too high to realize what went down." All of sudden, David appears to them. It's strange seeing him out of his natural habitat; watching him outside the morgue is like watching a penguin waddling down a suburban sidewalk. David says, "I was over here on an exhumation matter, and I thought I'd drop this -- tox results for Linda Damen." He then leaves. Warrick reads the results: "No lithium, just like her parents said. She did have a huge dose of Valium less than an hour before her time of death." This puzzles Sara: "That's the last thing a depressed person would take." Warrick notes that Linda had 200 milligrams, or more than five times the normal dosage, in her system. Sara muses, "That much Valium? There's no way she could have fought somebody off if they were coming at her with a straight razor." Warrick stares some more, for reasons that will never be made clear to us.
In another, less broody part of the building, Catherine is approaching Liam and asking what the smudge on that knife was -- it's nail polish. This is Catherine's cue to inspect everyone's nails for polish. The hostess has the mostess polish, and Catherine says, "I'm going to need to need a sample of that polish. A scraping." The hostess peels a nail off and asks, "Is this small enough?" Wow! Do artificial nails really come off that easily? How do people who have them do anything without fear of leaving their little plastic talons scattered hither and yon? Catherine takes the nail, dismisses the other three women, and says to the hostess, "I've got a table for you -- a five-top, all by yourself by the window. Someone will be with you shortly."
Back in the B-plot, Detective Blandino is sharing the results of his Valium homework -- Linda had no prescription for Valium, but her mother did. Time to go visit the Damons. Sara and Warrick thank Blandino -- a.k.a. Sully -- for his efforts.
Yay! It's Hodges. He's busy telling Gil his wool sample is a worsted, twelve-ounce weight. Gil asks, "That's heavy?" Hodges replies, "Light...weave. Mostly for season spanners." Gil asks again, "We're talking about clothes?" Poor Gil -- he really should have brought Catherine down for translation purposes. Hodges continues, "It's used in the manufacturing of suits and light overcoats. This is a trademark coating in high-end suits." Gil thanks him and prepares to go. Hodges makes an irritable noise and snaps, "I'm not done yet. There was also blood present on the burnt wool." Gil asks, "Did we get a DNA test?" Hodges says, "It's victim's blood, from your chef. I know what you're thinking -- couldn't possibly be his suit. Chefs wear checks and light shirts, but somebody did burn a bloody suit in the restaurant kitchen -- a high-end suit. You have a candidate." After a pause in which Gil considers the frightening possibility that he's finally run across a lab tech he can't bully or freak into submission, Gil finally says, "You're the new guy." Hodges gives an insincere smile: "Yeah. David Hodges. Transferred from LAPD. They said I had an 'attitude problem.' Said that I thought I was 'entitled.'" I love how you can practically hear the air quotes around this guy's words. Gil wanders off, somewhat hornswoggled by that interaction.
Meanwhile, Catherine's talking manicures with the hostess. It turns out that sample Catherine got off the knife matches the fake nail -- quelle surprise. Catherine notes, "You handled this knife." Hostess says, "So?" Catherine replies, "Kitchen's first rule -- don't touch my knife, don't touch my johnson." There's a pause, and Catherine asks, "Did you stab the chef?" Hostess says defensively, "This is the sous chef's knife!" Well, yeah, but it's not activated by DNA confirmation; anyone can use it. Catherine replies, "I know that, but when a transfer is made on a blade, it's usually from slippage due to a stabbing motion." The hostess then moves to the heart of the matter and asks if Catherine's charging her with anything. Catherine drawls, "No. But why don't you have a seat out in reception. Things could change."
And now, let us prepare to wrap up the B-plot. We find out that yes, Mrs. Damen did have a prescription for Valium, as "our lives get pretty frenetic just trying to keep up with Linda." Warrick tries to push for information on why Mrs. Damen had refilled her prescription so recently; Sara pipes up with news about the tox report, and finishes with, "Because there were no hesitation marks on her wrist, it suggests that someone else inflicted the wound. That much Valium would have been enough to subdue her." What nobody's mentioned yet in this scenario is how you'd get a volatile person to take all that Valium voluntarily, or how you'd get it into her system involuntarily. We don't get to find out -- Mr. Damen comes in and says, "Hey, hey, I think you're out of line here." Mrs. Damen's outraged that anyone would suggest that she drug her daughter; Warrick asks politely, "May we have your permission to look through the contents of your current prescription?" Wow, is he getting Grissomian in his queries, or what? Mrs. Damen asks if Brody "put them up to this," and as Warrick explains that one of the things about conducting an investigation is actually investigating all possibilities, Sara tells a call on her cell from Liam.
Liam tells her that the staining substance on the blouse is biological, with a high salt content, from a male. Sara thanks Liam, pauses, then heads back to the Damens to give them a small lesson: "Mr. and Mrs. Damen, there are five kind of tears -- sorrow, regret, joy, fear, and allergic reaction." How about rage? I tend to cry only when I'm livid about something; I had chalked that up to histamine reactions, as some people's immune systems kick into high gear when the fight-or-flight instinct gets tapped, so is Sara telling me I'm effectively allergic to anger, or what? Or how about little-kid tears when they're crying for effect in the middle of a tantrum? Or how about the tears of a clown, when there's no one around? Sara continues, "The one thing in common is that they all have DNA. We found a blouse in your daughter's closet the night that she died. There was moisture on it. The moisture was tears, the DNA was male. Mr. Damen, were you waiting in the closet for your daughter?" Warrick steps into the suddenly awkward silence and offers to go get the necessary warrants if Mr. Damen won't heed the fifty-two-minute mark on the episode and confess. Mr. Damen promptly caves: "The...the only way to get an adult committed for psychological help is if they hurt themselves. Everyone Linda attacked was too afraid to file complaints against her. She was out of hand, she was attacking strangers, vandalizing property. She was refusing to take her medication, and we were helpless to make her. It was supposed to be a suicide attempt, but then I heard somebody at the door, and I guess I panicked. I hid in the closet, and when she um, when he...by then it was too late. I just wanted to get her help. I just wa-- she needed my help. She needed help!" Well. Mrs. Damen's going to be needing another Valium refill, I think. Mr. Damen is cuffed and taken down to the station, and Sara and Warrick are left to stare at each other in the kitchen. Warrick finally says, "Reminds me of something my grandmother said a long time ago, and I'd never believe her." Sara asks, "What's that?" Warrick says hoarsely, "Crazy people make even sane people act crazy." They're called the mentally ill, Warrick. There. We've had our Nicky moment.
Back at the A-plot, Gil's playing with Ross's knife and listening to the rattling in the blade -- Gil tells Catherine he can hear it because "the evidence room is the quietest room in the lab." Catherine doesn't ask why Gil knows that, although I'm beginning to suspect that Gil's been surveying his workplace and trying to figure out where the loudest and quietest places are so he can continue to bluff through his hearing loss for as long as possible. But it's not like we'll ever see that kind of acknowledgment on the show. Anyway -- we find out that there's sand in the handle of the knife to help maintain the blade balance and precision. Gil asks, "Did you know that to a geologist, there's no such thing as sand? Each grain is its own tiny rock." In this case, we're looking at a bunch of tiny obsidian rocks. Catherine comments, "Volcanic sand -- long way from home." Gil replies, "Japanese call it singing sand. You walk on certain beaches in Japan, it'll make it a certain sound." Catherine brings the conversation around from the mystic Orient to the present by pointing out that this sand is singing like a stool pigeon, as she's already seen it in the blood clot she and Gil extracted from the drain. Gil snorts and quotes Shakespeare's Julius Caesar with, "Let us carve him as a dish fit for the gods." Catherine correctly guesses Shakespeare; she and Gil do not discuss the fact that "You cooked my who in a what now?" (Titus Andronicus, Act V) might be more appropriate.
And now we're talking to Ross, trying to determine what the hell happened. Gil slaps down the owner's log and quotes a passage about how Ross gets eighty-nine percent of the meat off the bone, which a six percent higher yield than anyone else there. He then says, "I don't think you killed the chef. You did fillet him, though. Your knife handle slid open and sand went down the drain, landing on the victim's clotted blood. It's hard work, carving up a man. I believe that's how you broke your knife handle. But you didn't do this alone, did you?"
Catherine is talking to Dutton, pointing out how a murdered chef might negatively impact business. We now flash back to Ross and Dutton debating not the morality of helping to redress the violation of a social contract committed in the case of murder, but rather, how to cover their own asses. Catherine babbles some about Code Red and how hard it is to clean up a kitchen, and we find out that the suit which burned was Dutton's, what with him wanting to dispose of bloody evidence ASAP.
Gil and Brass walk outside and bemoan how all three DoBreff people are neither admitting or denying anything. Brass says that maybe they need a little nudge. Gil asks him what he has in mind, and Brass says, "Well, they're in our custody. Shall we try a little theatre?" Cut to Brass walking into Catherine's area and picking up Dutton (after briefing her), then taking him for a little walk. We then see Brass walking a cuffed Ross and a cuffed Dutton past the hostess. As they walk by her, Ross glares at Dutton, who glares at the hostess, who simply stands there looking a little pole-axed. Gil smirks as he figures it all out. Then he walks over to the hostess and asks, "Why did you kill him?"
"I went into the walk-in to get some lemons --" and she discovers Petrov busy interpreting the touch-my-knife-touch-my-johnson rule in a whole new way with Lola. The hostess continues, "He played around all the time -- waitresses, patrons, nobodies. But she was different. She was a chef." Gil's not understanding: "What does that mean?" The hostess scoffs at him. She replies, "Well, I can't make toast. Where did I stand?" We then flash to the actual killing -- poor, stupid, promiscuous Petrov greeting his whatever-she-is with, "Hey, beautiful, I haven't seen you all night." "Well, I've seen you," she snarls, and stabs him. Gil seems kind of puzzled that anyone could be this stupid. Catherine is also taken aback. The hostess is clearly puzzled that nobody gets her crime of passion, and then she's taken away. After Catherine sighs that it's all in a day's work, Gil says, "Yeah. You up for dinner?" Heh.