Previously on CSI: The couple that slays together stays together, even in death; Nicky blabs about the case to someone he barely knew in college; Catherine's case gets tossed on its ass thanks to her unorthodox evidence-collection measures; Sara finally realizes she should be uncomfortable around the boss she asked out; Gil gets ear surgery, and an apparent personality augmentation.
And now...we pretty much pick up the show where we left off. Gil and Brass are in the Klinefelds' darkened house, shining their flashlights down at the victims. As Gil stares down at Cameron Klinefeld, we get a TMIcam shot of the wound. Brass is standing over Mandy's prone body. He looks over at Gil and asks if he's carrying. Gil says, "No," in as close to a Duh! tone as he ever gets, and Brass says calmly and tersely, "Then get the hell out of here while I secure the room." Gil scoots.
Brass cases the house. I always think it's weird that these victims never bother to turn on their lights at night. I know there's always some reason -- maybe the killer turned them off, maybe Gil wants to see things as they were, maybe the victims wanted to cry alone where nobody could see them -- but I suspect it really comes down to providing an excuse for the director to get one of those spooky blue-lit sets and have the actors wave flashlights around. Anyway, that's what we're doing here. Brass calls it in, adding, "Send rescue. There's no rush."
Gil's on the front stoop, watching two slobs stand in front of a van across the street. One guy is smoking; the other is performing the vital task of keeping the bumper pressed into the front of the van. As Brass comes out, Gil asks him, "Are those your guys?" Brass allows that they're undercover cops, yes. They're looking pretty nonchalant for two people who hung out while a double murder took place. Gil asks how long the policemen have been sitting on the house; Brass tells him, "Oh, about the time judge didn't sign the first warrant." Gil points out, "Two undercover guys outside, two dead bodies inside?" Brass replies, "Makes you feel a little paranoid, doesn't it?" Gil shoots back, "Not paranoid enough."
And The Who get all paranoid and demand our identification.
Commercials. What the hell happened to Mary Tyler Moore? Was Promises about the hideous tragedy that befell her?
After we come back from commercials, we learn that a horrible broadcast mistake has caused us to get the feed for CSI: Portland. There can be no other explanation for the lush, old-growth deciduous trees, privet hedges, and grassy swards that line the street filled with cop cars. I mean, unless someone has put a bubble around Las Vegas and turned it into Biosphere III, there's no way we'd see this kind of neighborhood in a desert, right? Right?
“ Undercover Shorty asks, 'Why would we off two scumbags when we know you're coming back with a warrant?' For the O. Henry-style ironic twist? ”
Oh, who are we kidding? Of course this is Las Vegas. And it's now daylight. Emergency Backup David is getting out of a coroner's van and walking toward the house. He passes the two undercover cops, who are indolently slouching in front of a rumpled Brass and a glowering Gil. I love how Gil has his sunglasses on; it's like his super-CSI disguise that lets him seem even more disapproving. Brass is finally getting around to asking the cops what happened. What on earth have they been doing for the last however many hours? The shorter of the two cops finally tells Brass, "Around 7 PM, there was a 444 call." We learn via flashback that a citizen had reported an officer down. The taller guy cuts in: "We met with a couple of black-and-whites. UTL." Gil stares for a moment before asking, "What -- what is that?" Brass finally tells him it stands for "unable to locate." I realize this scene is supposed to underscore the gulf between the badge and the lab, but it seems that in an era when any true-crime buff can hop on the internet and learn law enforcement lingo in no time, someone who works around police officers all the time would pick up a working lexicography of cop talk. Anyway, the officers went out, they came back, they saw nothing. Gil's all, "We're going to need to see your guns." Undercover Shorty asks, "Why would we off two scumbags when we know you're coming back with a warrant?" For the O. Henry-style ironic twist? Gil points out that he wasn't making a request. Shorty rebuts that Gil's not the boss of him. Gil does a slow burn toward the general direction of the person who is. That would be Brass, who does begin inspecting the assorted firearms each cop has secreted about his person. The guns give every sign of having not been fired recently. Tall Cop gets all shirty with, "Satisfied?" Brass hands off the guns and heads to the back; Gil hangs behind to glower some more. You know, with those glasses and that beard, he is one hoodie away from living in a shack in the woods and mailing dreadfully tedious anti-technology manifestos to people.
Another CSImobile pulls up. Nicky and Warrick get out. Nicky asks if these are the alleged serial killers. Gil replies, "So it seems: yesterday's suspects, today's victims." Nicky expresses something akin to regret: "We had 'em." Well, I didn't say it was regret for the violent ending of a life, no matter how twisted and immoral.
The three men approach the house. Gil sends Nicky to work the inside alone. That's right: send the easily startled guy to poke around a house full of dead people. Warrick and Gil hang out around the door. Warrick notes that there's no sign of forced entry. Out by the curb, Brass is continuing to check the formidable cache of arms the undercover cops traveled with. And here I thought that van was for surveillance, not arms storage.
Across town, a B-plot is unfolding. We're introduced to it with Sara getting out of the CSImobile and saying to Catherine, "I can't believe Grissom pulled us off that murder case!" Catherine's all, "Let me tell you how it ends: they die." The two women walk up the sidewalk to a bland two-level house, and Catherine comments, "Whoa! This isn't bad for college kids." Sara breaks down the economics of college housing: pay too much for a fleabag studio, or get a discount on communal bedlam. Catherine asks, "Hey, how 'bout it? You, me, Warrick, Nick, Grissom..." The mind, it boggles. Where do I begin? With the Beverly Hills, Casa Walsh flashbacks? Or with my morbid curiosity to see what happens when a group of CSIs stops getting polite and starts getting real? Just imagine Catherine pounding on the bathroom door in the morning as Nicky frets over making sure his hairline matches his jawline. Amuse yourself thinking of the hijinks when Warrick confuses Sara's blood sausage for Gil's latest batch of blood tests. Paint a mental picture of the house meeting where the roomies have to discuss what to do about Liam sleeping over on the couch all the time. The potential for comedy is practically limitless. Oh, wait -- so is the potential for awkward situations. Sara points this out by saying, "Eh, no. Not Grissom."
The two women enter the house. There's water dripping through the ceiling. Catherine snaps in disgust, "What the hell is this?" A massive breakdown in group house management would be my first guess; bad plumbing is number two. ["Hee. 'Number two.'" -- Sars] A uniform hands over an umbrella; Sara grins her thanks. Is that a grin because she's trying to find another boyfriend on the job, or because there's the kind of smell that makes her gorge rise, and we've already established that she smiles when she's trying to beat back the nausea? Catherine asks where the body is, and the poor now-wet policeman says, "Upstairs." "Upstairs?" Sara repeats. The exact nature of the leakage dawns on her and Catherine at the same time. Catherine recovers first: "It's raining man juice?" "Hallelujah?" Sara assays tentatively.
After donning rubber boots, Catherine and Sara make their way upstairs, past the rain and into the flooded upstairs. Many comments are made about the smell, and we see a thin scum of something disturbingly tan and foamy sliding around. As they splash into the bedroom, we see clothes neatly laid out on a bed. And then the camera heads into the bathroom, and...ugh.
Just suffice it to say: dead body in bathtub. Dead body marinating in hot water in bathtub. Rather than address the flood -- pardon the pun -- of questions, like what kind of exceedingly moronic housemates do you have to have to let a bathtub run for days at a time while one-fifth of the rent dies and swells up like the Goodyear blimp and turns a lot of colors not normally associated with the human body, or what marvel of engineering produces a water heater capable of keeping a constant stream of water scalding-hot for five days, I'm just going to not look at the screen and hope that the people who give out awards for TV makeup and special effects all have strong gorges and pass over any pansy-ass aliens-with-latex nose bridges for this. Verily, it is an excellent job they've done of making it look like a days-old corpse was soaking in a hot bath. And rather than sully what must surely be the apex of special-effects makeup on television by clapping my profane eyes on it, I'll just leave it be on the screen.