Recipe for Murder

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."

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]