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?
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.
Inside the house, Nicky crouches to Cameron's body and notices a number of strange, translucent fragments embedded in the carpet by the body. He picks one up for Gil to look at. We get a TMIcam shot -- it looks like nothing so much as a wadded-up piece of scotch tape -- and then a shot of Gil admitting he has no idea what it is. He does tell Nicky to get all of it, though. We establish that Nicky has yet to find any cartridge casing.
Over at Mandy's body, Emergency Backup David inserts a meat thermometer with a juicy squish and determines her liver temperature to be 85.5 degrees, which means she died around 11 PM. As Gil takes pictures of Mandy lying in some surprisingly red blood, Nicky calls out, "Grissom, I've got blood, but a lot of pheno-negative stains as well." I can only guess that Nicky swabbed using a reagent that tests for blood phenotype -- AB, A, B, or O -- and it has very different reactions depending on whether or not you've got blood, or maybe different types of blood. Gil tells Nicky they're bringing everything back anyway. Warrick twirls a fingerprint brush over the door. Gil heads into the laundry room and sees a stack of clean white towels; he pulls back the corner of one and sees another with the Sphere's logo. Creepy!
Meanwhile, Nicky's directing Emergency Backup David to run tox screens on the dead bodies; it's all so much background noise for Warrick as he lays down a sheet and uses the miracle of static electricity to lift a footprint from the newspapers scattered by the back door. Warrick rolls; we see a TMIcam of the very particles of dust being compelled to stick to the newspaper via electricity. Warrick sees the print and remarks with the faintest hint of an edge, "Good thing Brass had cops watching the house." Gil has no time for interdepartmental snarking -- well, he has no time now. Wait a bit. Instead, he wants to tell everyone how the Klinefelds occasionally swapped out the Frette sheets for the linens and towels from the abattoirs they created. Gil also points out that the sheets tested positive presumptive for blood. Nicky asks, "Did they think they were smart, taking the sheets, or did they just get off sleeping on them?" Oh, come on, Nicky -- these guys were sick, not stupid; nobody's going to give up a 400-thread-count sheet for the poly-cotton sandpaper most hotels pass off as "linens." Warrick opines, "Either way, they were sick and dangerous." Gil asks, "What does that say about whoever killed them?"
Well, it's nice to see someone keeping this all in perspective. Outside, Undercover Shorty is busy asking Brass, "What's the big deal? There's no humans involved." Undercover Tall is of the opinion that the killer did everyone a big favor. Brass points out that from some perspectives, "This isn't a favor. This is a screw-up." Undercover Tall -- a.k.a. Bill -- points out that staying on surveillance and ignoring an officer who was down constitutes a bigger screw-up. Brass asks the boys what else they saw while on stakeout; Undercover Short points out that the kid across the street "made us. Thought we were bad news." Brass confirms that general opinion. Boy, he's pissed.
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.
Buzz defuses a little of the tension by quipping, "Soup's on." At least, I think that's Buzz. I'm afraid to actually look at my TV to confirm. From the sounds of it, Catherine's a little rattled. One of my questions gets answered: apparently, poor dead disgusting guy was home alone from Thursday night on, and in the words of Sara, "Guy goes to take a shower and DFOs." DFO is "done fall over"? Well, it is now. Anyway, the poor guy never got to the cold water, it's been steamy and awful in the bathroom, and any evidence on the floor has washed away. Now would be a good time to collect the cops, blow up the house, and feign ignorance when anyone comes by to investigate. Tragically, Sara and company decide not to do so. We'll be in for a scene where they work the crime scene and get the massively swollen body out of the house via the window or something.
The A-squad has made it back to the lab. Warrick is now leaning over the shoulder of a dispatcher as she replays the 444 call for him: "I'm at the corner of Harmon Hill and 25th, just east of the intersection. There's been a shooting. I think a cop got shot. John Oh...just occurred. I heard shots." The dispatcher explains to Warrick that she's the one who got the call and issued the 444; the uniforms called back a little later with the UTL. Warrick wants a dub of the original caller's voice, and his phone number. The dispatcher promises to get that for him. There are a few other things she'd like to give him too, if you know what I mean. Lady, the line starts behind me.
Anyway, Warrick text-messages Gil with the 911 caller's phone number. Gil dials it and begins wandering around. He passes the two undercover cops, neither of whom will win awards for cheery attitude. When they ask if they're done, Gil snaps back, "If I'm not done, you're not done." The cops are all, "We already gave you our footprints, and our fingerprints are on file. What else do you need?" Gil needs directions to Harmon Hill, from whence the 911 call came. Correctly perceiving a chance to send Gil far away, the cops point him in the correct direction. Gil wanders on down the sunny street -- this time sans sunglasses, which is baffling, since you'd think he'd want to wear them now that it's not cloudy -- and listens as the number he's dialing keeps ringing. He finds a cell phone ditched in a clump of ivy. You know, ivy doesn't normally thrive in the desert. I'm just saying. Anyway, Gil's found a phone, and a big brown stain that's attracted the attention of the local ant population, so he takes a swab. I love how he's got the latex gloves and the swab (complete with plastic case) at the ready in his coat. After Gil takes his sample, he sees Brass talking with the kid who noticed the undercover police officer. Gil notices a uniform at attention in a door, then turns back as Brass is saying, "You saw a uniform at that door?" The kid did. He launches into a confused narrative wherein the undercover cops are the "bad guys," then a policeman in uniform showed up and knocked, Mr. Klinefeld let him in -- and ponder for a moment how the neighbors will react when they discover that they harbored kinky serial killers in the homeowners' association. What does that do to property values? Anyway, Cameron let in the cop, and that's all he wrote; the kid saw no cop car, and heard no gunshots. After the kid leaves, Brass asks, "Ever see a beat cop anywhere but the Strip?" Well, since y'all are hanging in the Pacific Northwest now, anything's possible. I mean, really. People in Vegas do have lawns, but they don't have the kind of twelve-foot rhododendrons and massive elm trees we're seeing in the Klinefeld neighborhood. Gil's not too concerned about the whacked-out ecosystem; he wants to know how the killer got to the neighborhood.
Commercials. Oh, my God, that Hungry Man Sports Grill must be what a cardiac arrest looks like when you put it on a plate and freeze it.
Back at the morgue, David the Relieved Coroner -- hey, any coroner who's not examining Cream of Dead Guy soup has got to be relieved -- is looking at the odd translucent stuff Nicky found. There are traces of it in the wound track, which we see up close and personal thanks to the TMIcam. Does it sound jaded if I hearken back to the first minute of the show and yawn, Been there, done that? David notes the absence of gunshot residue around the wound. Gil muses that Cameron could have been shot through some sort of object. David notes that Cameron was shot once through the front, Mandy once through the back. We see a flashback to the Klinefelds' last minutes, where they're standing around in a darkened room -- again, why? Why? Didn't they pay their electric bills? --- and running around trying to elude gunshots. David quips, "Dare I say the couple that slays together lays together?" Aw, David, don't ever change. Gil gives him a look.
And now, a montage that I will be merely listening to, as I really want to make sure I don't inadvertently catch sight of Steamed Victim or the tasty juices he was basted in. Go, you scooping CSIs, go! I am with you in spirit, but not in vision.
And now, back in the plot that's not making my stomach turn, Nicky's examining the fragments he picked out of the carpet. As he and Warrick work, Nicky says, "You know that cell phone we found at the crime scene?" Warrick is familiar with it. Nicky adds, "We traced it back to a public defender. Said she lost it. Made life hell for her in DC last week." Now I'm all interested to know why a Las Vegas public defender was in DC -- was she taking a case to the Supreme Court? Interviewing at Rob Lowe's new law firm? -- but we'll never know. Warrick asks if Nicky's run a sample of the mystery stuff through the GCMS. We're all familiar with GCMS standing for Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, right? Nicky says he did, and came up with polyethylene. Warrick adds that he got the results from Gil's ant-infested puddle, and it came back as corn syrup, glucose, caramel, and water. This rings a bell for Nicky. He charges through the lab, asking a lab tech where he keeps the sodium rhodizonate. FYI, sodium rhodizonate is used to test for the detection of lead originating from firearm discharges. Nicky addresses the big question I have about who this guy is by asking, "So, what's up? Did you and Bobby switch, or what?" Let us hope it's an "or what." I like Bobby. Warrick gives us a name for the ballistics tech -- Rich -- and asks whatever happened to the Klinefelds' bullets. Rich tells him the slugs in question were "six right nine-millimeter. Beretta, amongst others. Consistent with an officer's duty weapon." Warrick asks if they're consistent with Undercover Shorty and Undercover Tall's weapons. Rich tells him there's no match. On second thought, we can see more of Rich; he meets the lab's standards for attractive geekiness. At the other end of the lab, Nicky reports, "Polyethylene plus corn syrup plus GSR gives you what?" Warrick knows this one: "Polyethylene and corn syrup is cola in a bottle." Nicky finishes, "GSR on the inside of a plastic bottle means..." "Soda silencer," Rich grins. He seems very fond of that idea. I wonder if anyone who knows ballistics ever resorts to wandering around the house with a twenty-ounce bottle of Coke and a gun, idly musing, "You know, I could shoot someone through this and it would be an excellent silencer. Kinda gives a new meaning to 'Do the Dew,' huh?"
Warrick figures out the stream of events: "So that shooter was sitting on the house and the surveillance team. He's had his bottle of soda. Calls in an officer down, drops the phone and takes a walk." We see all this in flashback. It's a nice transition device, because when we get out of this sequence of events, Nicky and Warrick are standing with Gil and asking him what he thinks. Gil sighs and asks, "Who do we have around here who could find us a somewhat used soda bottle?" "Ain't nothing wrong with your vision," Warrick replies. Oh, he does not. And remember, the Young Turks know nothing about Gil's hearing condition; they just think he was being weirder than usual. This whole scene is a thinly veiled excuse to work more Liam the Lab Tech into the plot by having Gil turn around and give the lad a meaningful look. Liam gapes irreverently in response. You can imagine the line out of Gil's mouth being, "You wanted more field work, right?"
Well, you'll have to imagine it, because we immediately go to a montage wherein poor Liam hunts high and low through the neighborhood looking for the shredded remains of a soda bottle while his coworkers get to log evidence in the air-conditioned Labitrail. As Liam wanders around for what must be days, if his whippet-thin frame is any indication, Nicky analyzes the footprint Warrick lifted. Liam eventually makes his way over to a storm drain that has an eddy of water around it, and hunkers down to get a look at what might be in the sewer.
Naturally, this is when we cut to the B-plot. Sara is looking at the dead guy's t-shirt. She sprays it with a reagent -- I have no idea what, and it's not like the bottles have labels -- but it must be something that reacts with human sweat, or epithelials, or something, because the only areas that don't react once she's sprayed are the ones that form a backwards "7." Sara wonders what that number is doing on the dead body's shirt. Catherine figures out that the 7 was made with some kind of greasepaint or makeup, and Sara wonders, "How do you get paint on the inside of your clothes?" "You're a dedicated sports lunatic," I say automatically. Catherine takes a more roundabout approach: "It rubs off your chest." Sara's still not getting it: "What kind of guy paints his chest? Performance artist? A clown, maybe?" Catherine says triumphantly, "Sports freak!" This baffles and confuses Sara. Personally, I have a hard time buying that: she works in a lab that's overflowing with guys, in the sports betting capital of America. Like she's not going to walk into the lounge during a weekend shift and see this stuff on TV? Or see any one of a dozen commercials referencing the fanatics who paint their faces for games? I'll buy that she's a workaholic with unconventional hobbies, but unless we see otherwise in an upcoming episode, I'm not buying that she spends her off-time living under a rock.
Meanwhile, Gil and Brass are doing laps around the Labitrail. Brass is ribbing Gil for his typical single-minded focus. Gil replies that if the evidence points to a cop, they should be looking at cops. Brass rebuts that Frick and Frack were sitting on the house per his orders, and he's going to wait until there's enough physical evidence to get a warrant. Gil reasons, "Somebody knew we were looking at the Klinefelds. They knew where they lived. That's somebody inside." Brass posits, "Cops don't take the law into their own hands." Then he and Gil stop and look at each other. Gil says, "I can't believe you said that with a straight face." Brass says, "I know! Me neither! I wasn't going to say anything until you did, though." Gil's all, "Yeah, we probably shouldn't joke about that sort of thing." Brass concurs, "True. Plus the last four sentences of our conversation absolutely did not occur in the episode." What really happens is nearly as amusing: Gil gives a short, high bark of laughter -- my God, have we ever heard him laugh before? Like, not even derisively, but at all? -- and asks, "In what city?" Brass is wounded: "Oh, you want to hit below the belt? A lot of people had access to the Klinefelds. Who knows? Maybe CSI III Nick Stokes opened up his mouth to another parking lot attendant." Burn! Gil points out that an eyewitness saw a uniform at the door; Brass counters that the eyewitness is a creepy little kid "hyped up on sugar, going blind on X-Box." Gil snippily asks if Brass is discrediting his own witness. Brass is all, "Let's break it down: you've got a public defender's cell phone -- no prints. You've got officers' weapons taken from the scene -- not fired. You've got officers' shoe prints -- not matching the evidence prints. You got three black-and-whites confirming that Undercover Short and Tall responded to a 444. Give these guys a break." Gil heatedly replies, "Just because these guys weren't the shooters doesn't mean they weren't involved!" Brass isn't interested: "Oh, now it's a conspiracy?" Gil's practically sputtering. He manages, "Please! You got a bogus phone call four blocks away --" Brass overrides him, "You know the deal! You know better than that. There's bogus calls come [sic] in every day. Well, maybe you don't -- because you're the kind of guy who goes to serve a warrant without a gun!" Wow! Tempers flaring! When was the last time Gil got this worked up? After that last remark, Gil gets an oh, no, you di'int look and points out, "I'm not a cop." Brass points out that it's a fine distinction many perps wouldn't bother to make. He continues, "I had your back. Now I expect you to have mine." Gil's all, "That's not how it works." Brass shoots back, "In what city?" Gil seems a little peeved at having his words tossed back at him. Just then, Liam flings himself into Gil's office to announce that he's found something. Gil is all, "Not now." It's a top-down style of mood-wrecking. Liam's not having it, though. He emphatically says, "No! You need to see this. Both of you. Now!" Liam's all smudged. Sewer spelunking will do that to you. Gil gives him a look, and Liam adds, "Please."
We then go to a light table, where a filthy cop's shirt is spread out. Gil alternates between studying it and trying not to gloat; Liam alternates between studying Gil and the shirt. Brass just looks grim. Liam apologizes for not finding the soda bottle. Gil is back to his detached self as he says, "This'll do."
Brass studies the shirt and says that it comes from the biggest uniform shop in town. He notes that it's wet, and Liam says pettishly, "I found it in a storm drain." What did I say about top-down mood management? He found it two blocks west of the house, in the opposite direction of the 444. Everyone's quiet for a moment, and then Brass finds an anomaly with the shirt: it's got buttons, not zippers like the newer shirts have. Gil notices that the collar is dry. Brass is all, "It's hot out -- at least a buck twenty-five. Let's hope whoever wore that shirt sweats." I have more sympathy for Liam now, given that he had to run around in all that. Brass goes off to run the badge number. Gil stays behind to give Liam meaningful if incomprehensible looks.
And now, it's a green brain, which means that a green bloated body won't be far behind. Not watching, only listening, as David the Obvious Coroner notes, "The roommates weren't able to make a positive ID due to the accelerated decomposition." He has many contusions and lacerations, the details of which will remain with the show crew and closed-captioners. The upshot of the scene is that Sara and Catherine learn that poor swollen Daniel Hennessey died because he got hit on the head, and the subdural hematoma (slow, steady bleeding in the brain) caused him to lapse into unconsciousness shortly before death. He never even registered the temperature of his shower. We also learn that when human brains are steamed, it turns the brain into gelatin. Catherine and Sara determine that the killing blow Hennessey suffered happened on Thursday night. They don't bother having the conversation I wish they would have -- "Is his last name Hennessey or O'Hennessey?" -- but I'm not about to risk looking at the television to check the closed captioning. So we'll all have to live with that mystery until some smartypants posts otherwise in the episode thread.
And now, we're introduced to another red herring in this whole miserable two-parter. Y'all remember all that time and attention paid to Brian and Jessica last week? Me too! Are y'all wondering where they are in this episode? Me too. We'll never find out, though. Just suffice it to say that this is the scene where we get introduced to the surly career cop whose badge number matches the found badge, and is none too pleased that Gil has made the leap from "beats people up" to "kills them." Think he's a suspect? Gil does, and swabs him while Brass stands by and does nothing in his official role as police union rep.
Gil goes hauling ass down the Labitrail hall and interrupts Liam and Nicky's bullshit session to blare, "This swab is your new priority." Wow, he's in a really bad mood. Liam makes delaying noises, and Gil snaps, "Fill me in first! The sweat stain?" Liam dithers and bends to work. Gil rounds on Nicky and demands to know more about the shoe print; Nicky replies that he was running it through limbic. I'd love to know what that is -- I know Nicky didn't cram a print into the medial temporal lobe of someone's brain and say, "Use your central nervous system!" Anyway, Gil busts both their chops with, "How can you be doing that when you're standing here?" Someone needs to learn not to take his mood out on others, Gil. He goes in to terrorize Warrick, but the younger man is already working, and he produces the dispatch tape. Warrick points out, "I've never heard a citizen that calm. This 911 call -- he's using officer's code. 'J' becomes 'John,' 'O' becomes 'ocean,' 'j.o.,' 'just occurred.'" Gil comments that old habits die hard. No doubt he'll be using that excuse to wreck Liam's day in 2025. Warrick wants a voice exemplar; he asks Gil if he got a name off that badge, and Gil grins, "Yeah."
Sara and Catherine are in the house -- apparently stench-free and only in need of minor renovation -- and Daniel's housemate is sharing that Daniel was into the Green Bay Packers big-time. Excellent taste in football teams, my dead steamed friend! I love the Packers. Daniel's football enthusiasm also extended to whichever college he happened to be at; the episode declines to state which it is, so let's just assume it's UNLV, because they are the Running Rebels. Anyway, Daniel was such an extreme fan, his housemates banned him from the premises on game night, what with him jumping all over the furniture. "He was a real Bluto," the housemate replies. Sara and Catherine ask where else he might have Bluto'd.
Cut to a rowdy collegiate sports bar. A waitress remembers him fondly because he was good for business; she'll miss him. We see a shot of a shirtless and relatively unpuffy Daniel freaking out in the bleachers of a game. Sara asks when the last time Daniel hit the bar was, and we learn that it was last Thursday during the last Rebel game. This is the second week in a row that the Rebels have been invoked as a mascot. It makes sense with UNLV, but it highlights last week's lazy writing. Here's why: first, Warrick played baseball in college (we learned that in season one); second, Nicky played baseball in college, although we know not where. Third, we know Warrick went to school locally (per prior college cases; at least one was at his alma mater). Fourth, we know Nicky did not. If he did, there will be a lot of retconning going on given his references to Texas, fraternity brothers there, et cetera. Fifth, we have no indication that Warrick and Nicky knew each other in college, which they would have through baseball, however tenuously. Someone should have come up with the Aggies and had done with it.
Anyway, we find out that the Rebels were doing sufficiently well last Thursday night, and so, by extension, was Daniel. Therefore, he felt free to send four Shirley Temples, extra cherries, down to a group of opposing fans; the waitress was more than happy to comply since he handed her a hundred-dollar bill. You know, when I was in college, the goal was to drink a lot without spending a lot of money. Anyway, the boys who got the Shirley Temples weren't too thrilled that the beefy gentleman down at the end of the bar had sent his regards, so there was a brief altercation between televised touchdowns. Sara listens to all this as if it's a monologue on Jovian plasma mining delivered by Martians. Catherine asks if any of the scufflers from the week before are in the bar tonight. Why, yes, they are.
Back at the A-plot, Warrick's talking to Dispatcher Jen and asking her for a sample of Officer Red Herring's voice. Dispatcher Jen asks, "What's it worth to you?" Warrick laughs and smiles, then says, "Drinks." I should be all, "Warrick, you cheap whore!" but frankly, this is the kind of knowledge that is power, if I ever lose all grip on reality and end up believing that I too can withhold evidence until Warrick is forced to become my love slave. Dispatcher Jen's got the power: "I don't think you understand...I've got three full minutes of Officer Red Herring here. I was thinking of maybe taking it to the dispatch convention." Warrick modifies his offer: "Drinks at my place." Oh, man. Have we ever seen Warrick's place? It seems so wrong that Dispatcher Jen gets to see it before we do. Anyway, Warrick's just sold himself for a night of romance. Anything to solve a case, huh?
Gil goes out to a CSImobile and goes to back out. Officer Red Herring appears out of nowhere and appears to stop the car single-handed. Or maybe Gil just hits the brakes. Gil points out, "You're a suspect in an ongoing murder investigation. We're not supposed to have a conversation." Protocol, shmotocol, says Officer Red Herring. He says, "Let me tell you something there, you clown. I didn't shoot your suspects. I wouldn't waste my life on them." Gil's skeptical, and gets high-handed. Officer Red Herring threatens, "Some day you're going to need me or my buddies, and wouldn't you know it -- we all hit traffic on the way." Gil looks even more contemptuous. He asks, "Is that how you do your job, Officer?" Officer Red Herring bids him a good night.
Gil evidently drove back in to the Labitrail. Or perhaps that was his personal car and the officer was harassing him. In any case, he's moved from car to lab, and Archie is verifying that Officer Red Herring's voice sounds nothing like the too-calm person who called in the 444. Liam comes in just then to confirm that the sweat from the uniform doesn't match Officer Red Herring. Gil takes off his glasses and looks put-upon in a "my people are building pyramids and a burning bush wants me to take care of it" kind of way.
Cut to some time later. Gil is sulking in the dark, because it suits his mood. Brass comes in, commenting that Gil's an elusive little monkey when he wants to be. Gil matter-of-factly admits, "I messed up, Jim. I got ahead of the evidence. I made it personal, and I don't know why." A season's worth of CSI: Miami has made an investigator who cops to their mistakes a fresh and wondrous thing. Brass concedes that they did a little head-butting, but adds, "I kind of liked it. You were like your old self." The two of them kiss and make up -- well, mentally, in the parts of their imagination they don't examine much -- and get down to brainstorming suspects. They still think it was an inside job. Brass says, "To pull off a murder like this takes some practice. So I was thinking about this, and I remembered: about six or seven months ago, we arrested some gang-bangers. They were popping blackjack dealers on their way home from work, taking their take envelopes. Now because of some technicality, Judge Slater let them walk right out of the courtroom. I mean, they were talking about this in the precinct for weeks. Now this morality play has a very quick and unhappy ending. Somebody shot them." Gil wonders if it was vigilantes. Brass thinks it's a maybe, but he's not convinced it's a cop. Gil muses, "Take the cops out. Who's left?"
The person whose shoeprints Nicky was looking at. He eventually determines that part of the Nevada state seal -- which bears the legend "All For Our Country" -- was burned into the rubber. We transition to the seal, which is set into the pavement outside the Clark County building. Gil reads, "All for our country." Brass replies, "That's what he probably told himself." The two men head inside.
They meet with Judge Slacker -- excuse me, "Slater," who reiterates his intense desire not to give them a warrant. Brass replies, "We're not here to get a warrant, judge. We're here to serve one." Go, Brass! It's your eppy! The judge immediately inspects the warrant to make sure it wasn't printed off the internet.
Resolution of B-plot. I suppose I could watch now, but there's the outside chance that someone will whip out photographs of Bloated Dead Guy, and I can't be having that. So I'll just sum it up for you: Wayne the Shirley Temple-hating rival football fan sucker-punched poor dead Daniel in the back of the head, thus causing the subdural hematoma that led to Daniel's posthumous career as soup stock. Catherine and Sara figure this out by looking at the little shark ring he wears; the fin is bent, Catherine recalls that Bruce the mechanical shark in Jaws suffered a similar malady, and that recollection sparks her leap in intuition.
Meanwhile, in the A-plot, Judge Slac-- er, "Slater" is getting all shirty with Gil. Gil coolly reminds him that they're not accusing him of murder; they just want to see his shoes. Brass asks to see the bailiff's and the clerk's shoes as well. Brass checks the expression on the judge's face and says, "I'm sure you want to set an example for all court employees." Hee. Slater questions the scope of the warrant, and Brass explains that it all comes down to who knew about the Klinefeld warrant. Slater implies that the time Brass hits the courtroom, Justice won't be blind so much as she will be seeing red. The clerk asked who issued the warrant; we find out it was Judge Corell, and the clerk comments, "Good judge. You can always count on him for paper." Ooh, that's the kind of remark that can set a clerk's career back. Gil inspects the judge's shoes and comes up clean, then hits the bailiff. When he gets to Clerk Mouthy, we see that the clerk is a smoker, and then! The fateful reverse seal footprint on the shoe! The explanation is simple: not only was the clerk smoking in the arid Las Vegas afternoon, he was pacing as he did so, and paced over the meltingly-hot seal. Seriously.
Anyway, it's an excuse to get clerk Stewart Gardner into Interview Room A for a tête-à-tête with Brass. Brass notes that Gardner spelled his name for the record, and Gardner comments, "Once a cop, always a cop. You and I are brothers." Brass disputes that notion. He then sits down and says, "You're a murderer." We flash back to Gardner posing as a cop and presenting the Klinefelds with a warrant, then heading on inside and shooting a contemptuous Cameron. Why the Klinefelds were running around in the dark will be a mystery for the ages. Back in the interview, Brass explains that they found Gardner's old shirt, and asks, "What did you retire on? Psych? Medical? What?" Gardner rebuts, "Weren't you close to retirement? After you shot that bystander?" It rolls right off Brass: "You want to talk about me, huh? You're a clerk. Get your facts straight. The bystander was a passenger, and a passenger in a felony pursuit." Gardner asks how Brass got promoted to captain after that. Brass attributes it to his good looks; Gardner suspects it has more to do with deskbound duty "at CSI, with all the sleazy civilians." Of which he is now one himself, once-a-cop twaddle notwithstanding. Brass is the only one allowed to talk smack to Gil. He tells Stewart, "I'm going to give you a little therapy for free. You know, if you had only shown a little restraint, they would have pulled the DNA off the Klinefelds, and...slam-dunk case." Gardner comments that lots of guys get off on slam-dunk cases, and now we have our motivation: he works for the most liberal judge in the state, it's hard to watch these guys waltz on out, and in Gardner's words, cases go south once they're in the hands of "twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty." In the box, Gil and Warrick watch and marvel at Brass's technique. Warrick opines that Stewart is a nutjob vigilante who makes law enforcement look bad. Gil says, "He just thought he'd take a shortcut." Where are Liam and Nicky to witness the culmination of their hard work? Does Gil have them cleaning glassware for punishment? Gil turns to Warrick and says, "You've thought about it." Warrick allows that he has lots of times, and turns to Gil to ask, "What about you?" Gil gives him a look and wanders on out. Maybe he's thinking about it right now. Lord knows Officer Red Herring, whom Gil promptly runs into in the hallway, seems to have it on his mind.
Gil turns around and glowers at Officer Red Herring's back in an uncharacteristic bout of grudge-holding. Then he heads off to the firing range, where I see that I spent a lot of time suspecting the wrong CSI of snapping and inflicting a Day of Justice on the rest of the department. Gil's a good shot -- and the last shot of the episode is of him grinning as he confirms this. Yep, Nicky is now out of the running in the Day of Justice sweepstakes; I'm keeping an eye on Gil from now on.