A Night at the Movies

The episode opens with the desultory establishing shots, and a melodramatic soundtrack. It sounds like a panicky movie dame, trying to talk her way out of an express ticket to the Pearly Gates with, "This won't help you! Don't you see? After me, there will be others! You'll keep on killing -- on and on, until they catch you! I won't be the last! There will be others after me!" Boy, talk about getting all meta about this show. The scene shifts from the Vegas skyline to the panicky dame in question, twelve feet tall in black-and-white on the silver screen, emoting at someone who's dressed like Mister Rogers. The woman on screen begins screaming, "You can't help yourself because you're mad! Mad! Mad!" and then we shift to the irritated film snobs in the audience sending the glares of death to whomever has been so thoughtless as to keep their cell phone on during the screening. Normally, I'd be rooting against the film snobs because my cinematic sensibilities are closer to Joe Bob Briggs than to Elvis Mitchell, but in this case, I share their pain. Cell phones in the theatre are the number-two reason I wait for most movies to come out on DVD; the number-one reason is parents who haul their screaming children to rated-R movies after dark.

But we're not here to read one of my "how other people always ruin all my fun" screeds. We're here to figure out why someone has been so foolhardy as to leave their cell phone on in an art-house cinema half-filled with passionate movie geeks. The answer becomes apparent in a moment when an usher comes in to chide the cell phone miscreant and discovers that he's bleeding dramatically from the mouth into his popcorn. The usher -- who looks extremely familiar, but damned if I can place him -- looks taken aback that a real murder took place during a movie about murders.

Cut to Catherine coming into the now-empty theatre and commenting, "[Movie] theatres are like nightclubs -- they should always keep the lights off." Well, those crappy AMC googolplexes, sure, but genuine art-house theatres are often lovely when the lights are on. Gil comments, "This is the last art house left in Vegas; I saw Baraka here, on a double bill with Koyaanisqatsi." Catherine asks, "Was anyone else there?" Gil replies, "Sure." Catherine persists, "With you?" Gil looks at Catherine and says matter-of-factly, "No." I'm not even sure Gil would ask anyone to go to the movies with him. Brass, meanwhile, reveals that he's been reading a lot of Raymond Chandler in his spare time: "Thursday night is noir night. The poor sap was slumped over like a sack of potatoes, oozing blood like a broken bottle of ketchup." Gil looks up, startled; he's probably thinking, "Well, it's not 'a blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window,' but it's not bad for improv." Then the eyebrow hooks up, and Catherine joins in with a skeptical look of her own. Brass sighs and abandons the lurid metaphors of 1950s noir for his usual Captain Exposition spiel: "His name is Gus Sugarman. Runs a dental practice in Henderson. Cell phone went off three times during the movie, so an usher finally came over to shut him up." Catherine states the obvious with, "Yeah, somebody beat him to it." Gil notes the single puncture wound to the base of the skull; Catherine wonders if anyone saw anything. Brass points out that all the witnesses were watching the movie. Gil muses, "Dark room, loud music, four exits, everybody looking the other way." Catherine flings her hair back in a move last made by Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia and asks, "Professional killer?" Gil brings us to the credits with, "Movie buff."

The Who want to remind us that they made a movie too.

When we get back from the credits, David The Cinemaphiliac Coroner is arguing movies with Gil: "It was Build My Gallows High with Robert Mitchum in 1947." Gil corrects him: "It was Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer." David tries to get the last word: "And Kirk Douglas. Trust me -- the book was Build My Gallows High." Catherine couldn't care less about Mitchum, Robert and Mitchum deodorant, and interjects, "Mr. Siskel, Mr. Ebert -- may I have a cause of death, please?" Blunt-force thumbs down! David notes, "Puncture wound is small, not a knife. Seems like it penetrated all the way to the brain stem. There is some bruising around the mouth." Yeah, but really bad movie popcorn can do that to you. Who among us hasn't gone to the movies and gotten what is essentially a bag of Styrofoam packing chips soaked in axle grease? Gil says enthusiastically, "Well, someone could have stood over him, placed his hand over his mouth and stabbed him in the back of the head." David says flatly, "Telly Savalas did that in The Dirty Dozen." Gil points out, "Anthony Quinn did that too, in Guns of Navarone." Catherine, who's busy examining the neck, asks, "What movie did you see this in?" Interview with a Vampire? Behind the Green Door? Love at First Bite? David realizes Sugarman had something ripped off his neck; Gil theorizes it was a chain or something.

Just then, Catherine drops her flashlight and exclaims, "Butterfingers!" I take the opportunity to add, "Scharffen Berger!" Only a few more days until Lent is over and I'm back on the bean again. Catherine heads off to fetch her flashlight while Gil and David look at the body and mentally prepare for Round N of Forensic Nerd Movie Trivia. Gil discovers that the person who phoned Sugarman didn't leave a number. A few aisles down, Catherine discovers both her flashlight and the screwdriver that was used as a murder weapon. Lest she bask too long in the glory of her discovery, Brass comes in to dramatically announce, "I got a witness."

Cut to a kid wearing glasses that an East German ophthalmologist would have had on hand in 1986 and an Eraserhead t-shirt. I wonder if the person who costumed this episode simply wandered down to the New Beverly Theatre over in the Fairfax district of L.A. and watched people at they came out. He's saying flatly, "I only noticed because she got up during the best part of the movie, right before the gunfight." Gil asks, "Is the gunfight loud?" Film Kid answers, "Yeah. I mean, it's not THX surround-sound. This was 1950 and mono optical track. I like how loud this theatre keeps it." Gil and Brass exchange glances; Gil comments, "Good moment to do it. Cover up any noise the victim might make." Brass asks if Film Kid got a look at the dame, and Film Lad replies, "I drove fifty minutes to see this flick; my eyes were on the screen. But she was tall, not old, a redhead." Brass asks if Film Kid saw the woman come back in. He did not, nor does he see her milling among the patrons gathered in the lobby. Gil asks if anyone saw this mystery redhead come in; Brass answers that the manager had left for the night and the usher who found the body called it in and then bolted lest the LVPD arrest him for toking on the job. Film Kid interjects, "If you ask me, anybody who leaves their phone on in a movie deserves to get stabbed in the head." Brass shoots back, "That's why nobody asked you."

Meanwhile, in the light of day somewhere in the Pacific Northwest -- hey, all the lush old-growth trees confuse me sometimes -- a boatload of official-looking vehicles are parked outside an industrial garage. The Young Turks are together on the 2003 Reunion Tour; get your "The B Plot Rides Again" t-shirts from the Television Without Pity store. They duck under the tape to talk to Detective Ray O'Reilly (a.k.a. Buzz), who tells them, "First officers to drive up found the scene. Called in the world. I hope you brought extra supplies." "Why is that?" Sara asks. "You're going to be here awhile," he answers.

The camera then swoops to the perspective of the inside of the garage and the door slides up to reveal...The Young Turks! The cute one! The funny one! The mysterious one! The fat one! Or, left to right: Sara, Nicky, Warrick, and Buzz. We then switch to the Young Turks'-eye view: the walls are riddled with bullet holes, and a single body slumps on the floor. Cut to Nicky commenting, "Looks like a war zone." That was probably a much better line back when it was written, before we were all watching an actual war zone on CNN. Sara exhales in dismay at the sheer scale of the scene they've got to process. Then the Young Turks walk inside to get started. Warrick asks about ID; Buzz tells 'em the kid's got a driver's permit that names him as the fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Timmy McCallum. Tim-may! That name has been permanently warped for me by South Park. Warrick stares at the many, many spent shells on the floor and the thin trail of blood drops; he tells Buzz, "Tell [the coroner] to watch his step; there's casings and blood everywhere." Shouldn't that be "there are casings and blood everywhere"? I'm all for colloquial speech, but even casual conversations typically incorporate subject-verb agreement. Warrick then straightens up and looks at the slightly shocked Sara and Nicky. "Divide and conquer," he decrees. Sara calls outside perimeter. Nicky announces he's Dennis Rodman, then runs off to fetch his wedding dress. Well, he does say he's Dennis Rodman. What does that mean? He's going to be resentful of Michael Jordan? He's going to make the round mound of rebound look reticent by comparison? I have no idea. Warrick announces he'll take everything below the knees.

Back at the lab, Liam is telling Jacqui the print tech and Catherine, "The question isn't what we're going to find on your murder weapon. The question is what isn't on it." He holds out the tool for the two women -- and incidentally, why aren't there more regular chicks in the supporting cast? There's Bob, Archie, Hodges, Liam, and Emergency Backup David, but the distaff side is represented only by Jacqui and occasionally Leah the tattooed girl, and here I am getting all off track with my observation instead of focusing on the rare scene when an actual female lab tech is on the screen. Anyway, Catherine and Jacqui quickly identify soda and popcorn crumbs, Liam points out some carpet fibers, and Catherine sums up with, "It wasn't the cleanest theatre in the world; I just want to match some blood to our victim." Jacqui adds, "And you want to know if there's a recoverable print." Catherine does. Liam looks up at Jacqui and asks, "You want to race?" "What's the bet?" she shoots back. Catherine looks at Liam as if only now noticing that he's something of a goofball, and he smirks as the wager commences. Cue the montage wherein Jacqui fumes some prints off the screwdriver.

In another part of the lab, a computer screen spits out Sugarman's driver's license as Archie asks off-screen, "Is that our guy?" Gil gives him the look, and Archie realizes the answer's a resounding yes. Archie shares that the phone company unblocked all the private numbers for him, and Gil asks, "They can do that now?" Archie's thrilled to confirm that they can. Ha ha ha! It's funny when everything you do is logged in a database that someone can access any time they want! Archie and Gil go over the call log after Gil establishes that the movie started at 10:40 PM. Archie explains, "Last outgoing call your vic made was at 10:38 -- 555-0110. Twenty-six seconds." Gil figures that it's a no-answer call. Archie points out that 555-0110 is the same number that called three times in a row at 11:26, 11:27 and 11:28. Gil points out that Sugarman was already dead by then. Archie's astounded: "Dr. Robbins was that accurate with the T.O.D.?" Gil explains, "That's when the gunfire erupted." Archie's enthralled: "There was gunfire?" If Gil keeps this up, Archie will be nipping at his heels to go for walks outside the lab, just like Liam. Gil clarifies, "In the movie. I'll need an address on that number."

And then, because we haven't gotten cinematic enough, there's a very dramatic shot of light pouring in through the bullet holes which puncture the walls of the warehouse as Nicky stands there and contemplates them all, and the music swells as if we're about to swing into a Nike commercial. Over the minute or so, we go into an Air Science montage; all we need now is Derek Jeter collecting beer bottles as his sweat flies every which way to turn this into a commercial worthy of Superbowl ad time. As the time lapses, we see that everyone -- Warrick, Sara and Nicky -- is dealing with an embarrassment of evidence. As the montage winds down, Sara comes in with a long bamboo pole and asks, "Hey, guys? What do you make of this bamboo pole?" It's a prop in a tiki-themed strip act? Nicky brings the forensic funny with, "Bag it." Well, Warrick thinks it's funny. Sara, not so much. Warrick then notices some shards of glass mixed with black plastic; he heads over to look at those while Sara and Nicky discuss the square hole in the roof. When they're done with that, we learn that Nicky's placed 109 trajectory rods in the holes in the walls, and Warrick's laid down markers for 109 bullets. Nicky asks the question he thinks they're all thinking, "How in the world do trajectories occur 15 to 20 feet off the ground? Horizontally?" Sara asks the question they're really all thinking: "What in the hell went on here?" The camera fades out on their baffled mugs.

After a location shot of green, green suburbia -- if I didn't know better, I'd swear someone on the writing staff was reading this stuff and inserted this shot to show me that there are (artificial, heavily irrigated) green places in Las Vegas -- we go to a doorway of a house presumably set in one of these depressing cookie-cutter neighborhoods to meet tall redhead Audrey Hilden. Gil and Catherine are introducing themselves; it's kind of intimidating, as they're both wearing sunglasses and looking very official. Catherine asks if Audrey knows a Gus Sugarman, and Audrey looks taken aback in response. As a car pulls into a nearby driveway, she recovers with, "Why don't you come inside? Please?" They do. We get one more shot of Gil; actually, he looks like a bug in his sunglasses, which seems somewhat appropriate.

Inside, Audrey's sharing that Sugarman was her dentist. She explains, "He had asked me to go to them movies, and I had said yes, but it was a late show and I had to get up early for work." It's too bad we don't get a flashback to the asking-out, because I like to imagine it happening during a checkup --

Sugarman: Want to go to a movie with me?
Audrey: Wha? Du ooo athck me hoo tha oovies?
Sugarman: Yes. There's a noir at the Artypants Theatre. Want to go?
Audrey: Oh-thay.
Sugarman: Okay, now spit.

Catherine points out that Audrey didn't pick up when Sugarman called her two minutes before the movie started. Audrey rebuts that she was screening, and she figured he'd take the hint. Gil asks, "Then why did you call him three times in a row forty minutes later?" Because she's sending mixed signals, Gil. Audrey's all, "I felt bad for standing him up. I wanted to apologize. I figured I'd get his voicemail, but when I didn't, I tried again." Wow, that's both rude and cowardly. We go into the usual where-were-you-the-night-of-the-murder dance, and right then, the phone rings. Audrey is still screening her calls, and looking mighty nervous about it. Gil notices a schedule tacked on her wall -- featuring such classics as Rope, Vertigo, The Birds, North by Northwest, This Gun for Hire, Apocalypse Now, and : A Space Odyssey (yes, there's an extra "1" at the end) -- and asks Audrey if she sees a lot of films at the Art House Theatre. Audrey says she does; she loves old movies. Gil says, "I see they recently had a Hitchcock retrospective." Audrey's all, "I prefer French New Wave. If you'll excuse me now, I have to go to work." And she takes off before Gil can quiz her about Truffaut.