So did you know this show was set in Las Vegas? Yep, that's right. Vegas! Where even the deepest desert is lit by the garish glow of neon. We fade up this week on a frightened-looking blonde woman (whom I'm going to call "Have Another" Sherri Lewis, for reasons that will become obvious approximately forty-three minutes into the episode), who cranes her head rapidly from left to right as she drives along a dark and deserted desert highway. She suddenly swerves to avoid something in the road that we can't see, and ends up smooshed across the front grille of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler soon thereafter. After a nicely edited pull-back from said relatively unscathed grille, we see that Gil and Catherine are already on the scene, trading observations about vehicular physics and lingering over Sherri's bloody corpse (StC = 28. Nice!) for a lengthy amount of time that's in direct inverse proportion to her importance in the episode. Rubbernecking thus completed, they proceed to use their Mood-LightTM flashlights to follow the trail of Sherri's skid marks along the highway (and no, not those kinds of skid marks. Sherri's mom will be gratified to know that she died with clean underwear on) until they find a set of ridiculously large animal paw prints. "What kind of animal?" wonders Catherine. "A big one," replies Gil. Oh, please. Those prints are so obviously fake, they might as well have Acme© stamped on them.
Our intrepid investigators follow the paw prints into some underbrush by the side of the road, where they're soon confronted with what appears to be a dirty, amorphous lump of fur. The director heightens the "What is the hell is that, an elephant with alopecia?" suspense for as long as humanly possible by instructing Gil and Catherine to only shine their lights on bottom half of the corpse. Eventually, however, we do get a shot of the thing's head, and it's soon revealed to be an actual human being in a full-sized, extra-fuzzy raccoon costume, complete with striped tail and oversized headpiece. Hmm. Millions of Americans wait on the edges of their seats for the expected snappy wisecrack, but the ever-diplomatic Mr. Grissom decides instead to simply observe a moment of silence in honor of the absent Sobell, and we go shockingly quip-less into the credits.
The Who, however, have noted the StC reference, and are understandably curious as to my identity.
When we come back, Catherine is just removing the raccoon's head to reveal the dead guy inside. Gil is shocked by the extensive detail work on the mask, but Catherine is rather blasé. "I once dated the Detroit Lions mascot," she explains. "Off-season. His name was Dutch." Ooh. Ouch. The Lions? Off-season? Dutch? That's just harsh. What's , an affair with that University of Colorado buffalo that craps on the field every time they bring it out? Although dating a former stripper would seem to be about par for the mascot course. The Pittsburgh Pirates' former mascot once did a season of Road Rules and then came home and got busted for having sex with a sixteen year-old in a public pool at three in the morning. His name wasn't "Dutch" (and there's no word on whether or not he was wearing the costume at the time), but if you read enough recaps, it's not real hard to figure out who I'm talking about. "The breadth of your social experience never ceases to impress me," offers Gil. But not the depth? That doesn't exactly bode well for dear old Dutch. Also impressive, incidentally, is Catherine's ability to find the evening's real first clue, in this case a tiny clump of blue fur that was lodged in Rocky Raccoon's teeth. "Dutch never had furballs," she observes with a curious tone. Well, thank God for that, at least.
onto the scene is Emergency Backup David, who looks surprisingly queasy for man who's dealing with what must be the tenth corpse he's seen this week. "It's just…disturbing," he confesses. "There was a raccoon who hosted an after-school kids' show when I was little. Stripey. Everybody loved him. I loved him." Sniff. Aww. Stripey, of course, was exactly like Barney, although not purple and without any other elements that a reasonably talented attorney could possibly construe as a copyright infringement. Gil explains that "Stripey's brother" took a Ford to the face at 250 knots, which leads us into a flashback that starts with Rocky Raccoon waving cheerfully at Sherri's oncoming car and ends with his now-mangled body getting flung straight into the camera. Hee! Then David finally overcomes his childhood anxieties like the emergency backup man that we all knew he could be, and manages to wheel the body off to a waiting ambulance. And then, at long last, Catherine finally coughs up a quip: "The eternal question: Why did the man in the raccoon suit cross the road?"
To get to the other plot, of course. Nick and Sara are standing in giant freezer, staring down at a young man whose corpse is actually frozen to the floor. Nick notes shotgun spatter on the shelves behind him, and then Sarah shivers a bit and complains about the cold. Me? I like the cold. I always enjoy it when they remember to have a plot-based reason for busting out the blue filters. Outside the freezer, Petey the security guard is being interrogated in front of a row of smashed-up vending machines. And yes, it is "Petey" and not "Tweety." He even spells it for us. Although given what happens in the rest of the episode, you can be forgiven for possibly mishearing. Random Cop # Cinco de Mayo reports that the perps got away with about $600 in change, and Nick is astonished that anyone would be willing to commit murder over a vending machine. Oh, I don't know about that. There's a vending machine at my office that sells microwaveable Veal Parmesan. And frankly, if I ever saw anyone actually buying the stuff, I'd probably kill them where they stood. Trust me. I'd be doing them a favor. Sara asks Petey was he was up to when the shooting went down, and Petey does a highly unconvincing job of claiming he was in his guard shack. Then Nicky takes over, and makes excellent use of both canny reasoning and his vast knowledge of fast food preparation times to coax Petey into admitting that he was really out picking up a "double-double, animal-style" at the local In-and-Out Burger.
Now I know everyone was really impressed with Nicky's Rico Suave interrogational skills in this scene, but being the mindless pop-culture sponge that I am, I still can't help but notice that he's basically just recycling Joe Pesci's infamous grits bit from My Cousin Vinny. You know, because no self-respecting Vegasian would ever get non-grilled onions on their double-double animal-style. And unless the laws of physics cease to exist at In-and-Out Burger (which shouldn't be discounted, as I have tasted their food), that means Petey must have been off-site for at least half an hour. "Look, if my boss finds out I'm leaving the site every night to get my burger on," moans Petey, "I'm toast." "You keep lying to us," replies Cinco de Mayo, "you'll be toast in a jumpsuit." Mmm, toast. I love toast. Petey does a passable job of portraying the "ih-oh, I've watched Oz, and I really don't want to be a prag" face, and then immediately gives up the real story. It seems some day-shift dude named George showed up to talk to the dead guy (one Al Sesto, an employee on the night shift). Petey sent George back to the freezer, and then went off to chow down on his double-double animal-style gritsburger. Oh, and George's car is still in the lot. That'll be important later. The cop escorts Petey away, leaving Sara to opine that "unless he was slick, the guy who did this definitely left behind a print. And frankly, nothing about this looks slick." Except the fancy lens filters, of course.
Back at the morgue, Gil and Catherine meet up with EB David. He gives the bullet on Sherri Lewis (Name: Linda Jones. Age: 35. Cause of death: Blunt force trauma), and with the boring victim thus disposed of, all attention turns to the corpse of Rocky Raccoon, which is laid out on a nearby slab. Gil takes a moment to inform us that raccoons have opposable thumbs, which was definitely news to me. Then again, I'm a city boy who doesn't know the difference between a raccoon and an opossum, so that's not saying much. Catherine notices that the guy is wearing a 30-day AA chip, although why he's got it on the outside of the costume will forever remain a mystery. After noting aloud that the costume itself is completely lined with latex, Catherine goes on to compliment its impressive craftsmanship and fine Corinthian polyester. EB David responds to this by grabbing a pair of scissors and slitting the thing right up the side. Heh. He doesn't get far, however, before a huge pool of blood spills out, and shortly thereafter Gil discovers a bullet hole in the costume's front panel. They roll Rocky onto his side so that Catherine can open the Velcro clasps in the back, and why they didn't just do that in the first place is totally beyond me. In any event, the bullet wound is "through-and-through," which is indicative of a high-velocity round. "So he was shot AND hit by a car," realizes Catherine. "Bad night," agrees EBD. Gil then quips, "Even for a raccoon," but seeing as how getting shot and hit by a car would a bad night for pretty much any living thing on Earth, I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean.
Hey, look! It's Regular Non-Emergency David! He's out of the morgue and into the freezer, and he's telling Nick a story about another frozen corpse he once had to deal with. "Last time this happened, they tried to chop the guy out," he remembers. He also remembers that the dead guy lost an arm and a leg in the process. Ew. As a result, the city of Las Vegas apparently decided to send all of its medical examiners back to re-take ninth grade chemistry, so that time they'd just be smart enough to use hot water like everyone else on the planet. In a shameless and most likely ultimately vain attempt to win your affections while Sobell is away, I now present you with this very special link, which will take you a 100-percent true, real-life news story that perfectly blends this episode's two main plotlines. So don't say I never gave you anything.
Anyway, we get a TMI-cam of the ice melting, and thanks for reminding me that I have to go defrost my freezer tonight. Then poor Al Sesto's completely rigid body is raised onto a gurney and wheeled out. This segues us into one of your more standard evidence collection montages, as Nick bags and tags a handful of shotgun pellets, and Sara dusts for prints. Nick also finds a wood chip. Fade to black.
Hey, look! It's Warrick! No, really. He was right over there. I swear! Well, then, you shouldn't have blinked. That's your fault. Besides, you didn't miss much. All he did was ID Rocky Raccoon as "Robert Pitt" and show Catherine that the blue furball she found is made of synthetic fibers. What's really sad is that the guy only gets three seconds of screen time, and the exposition he's saddled with isn't even relevant to the actual plot. So why is he here? I mean, really. Why bother? Just say he's at the In-and-Out burger and be done with it. And then things get even sadder for the poor guy when Liam shows up to deliver the only information in the scene that actually will be relevant: Rocky wasn't drunk when he died, but he did have traces of "ipecac" and "civet oil" in his system. Ipecac, of course, is Mr. Yuck's beverage of choice, as it induces vomiting. Civet oil, on the other hand, is the scent of a wild cat that "has been prized since the pharaohs for being an aphrodisiac." Oh, great. Thanks for spilling the secret, Liam. Now millions of spam purveyors all over the world are going to start composing subject lines like "Make h3r h*0*r*N*EE -- C1v3t 01L-4-U. Gua ranted 0^3rn1t3!!!"
Oh, and just in case you weren't paying close attention, the preceding scene contained the words "emetic," "mothball," "Manimal," "sober," "schmohawk," "ipecac," "civet," "pharaoh," "aphrodisiac," and "Warrick."
Hey, look! It's Brass! He leads Catherine into Rocky's home, which is dark and sort of messy, even though you'd think a raccoon would be pretty diligent about eating up any garbage that might get left lying around. Catherine notices a veritable gaze of stuffed raccoons on Rocky's bed, leading her to observe that "if you want to know what the man really is all about, check out his bedroom." Great. That means I'm all about unread books and allergy medications. No wonder I live alone. "Now this scares me," deadpans Brass. Heh. Catherine tries desperately to find some logic in the situation: "A man lives alone, has no relatives, no attachments…so he forms his own furry little family." Well, that seemed unnecessarily snarky. "Don't worry, Aaron," whispers my plush Lauren Ambrose Beanie Baby, "they just mock what they don't understand." Brass notices something called "PAFcon" on the guy's calendar, and realizes that whatever it is, it's still going on. A special super-duper TiVo freeze-frame reveals that the other entries on Rocky's calendar relate to the picking up and completion of "TPS forms," a show called Marsupial Madness (which airs Fridays at 8:00 on Channel 16, if you want to set a season pass), and a "virus scan" scheduled for the second business day of the month. Oh, great. For some reason I'm totally scared by the fact that this guy owns a computer. Probably because you just know his screen name is fuZZyluv2k and he spends all his non-con-attending waking hours composing torrid cross-over slash-fic about Bullwinkle and Simba from The Lion King.
And then the saucy, fair-haired commercials pressed him deep into their heaving alabaster bosom. "No!" cried the Olive Garden waitress. "We musn't!" "We must," whispered the strong, virile Pac-Life whale. "The electric touch of your grease-soaked fingers on my blowhole has thrown me into a passionate rage! Our love cannot be denied!"
PAFcon. The director starts off slow, with a couple of guys in plastic masks and a kid with a stuffed animal backpack, just so we can get our bearings. "The 'Plushies and Furries Convention,'" observes Gil. "And we're looking for a bright blue plushie. I think." They round the corner, and that's right about when things start getting weird. The room is filled with people in fuzzy animal costumes, including a Dalmatian chatting up a chipmunk, a duck who struts around like John Travolta in Staying Alive, and a donkey posing for a picture with a gorilla. "This is fascinating," gushes Gil. "A whole tribe of people who prefer to interact as fuzzy animals rather than human beings." "I think I'm having Hunter S. Thompson flashbacks," replies Catherine, before taking the actual punch line to that joke and wadding it up in a ball of Saran Wrap so that it'll still be fresh when they need it thirty-five minutes from now. ["I, meanwhile, think I'm having ERflashbacks. Way to keep it current, Zuiker." -- Sars] Gil goes on to pontificate at length about the plushie lifestyle, using terms like "Native American war dances" and "Jungian archetype," which only serves to make me use terms like "blah blah blah furcakes." Mmm. Furcakes. They spot a rather humorous sign announcing the day's schedule (which other TiVo users have already freeze-framed for you in the forums). After deciding that they should "divide and mingle," Gil announces his intention to take in a lecture.
Back at the lab, Nick and Sara are told that the wood chip Nick found comes from the stock of a Mossberg shotgun. Then they go in to visit Hodges, who tells them that said stock was recently repaired with some fairly cheap glue. "So some budget-minded garage-gunsmith glues his gun stock together…" begins Nick. "And kills Al Sesto for $600 in change," finishes Sara. Nick is of the opinion that "even Petey can do better than that," which seems to be a shockingly generous assessment of the intelligence of a man who eats In-and-Out Burgers five nights a week. "There's always the elusive George," answers Sara.
Except he's not really all that elusive. But we don't know that yet. Some random really dumb guy with random really bad hair wanders into the station and asks to report a crime. Cut to Hair Brain, explaining his hare-brained scheme to Sara and the cop. He was there at the warehouse that night buying expired ice cream for resale with Al Sesto, or "trash for cash," as he calls it. "It's still good," he assures the disgusted Sara. If you haven't figured it out yet, Hair Brain is actually the not-at-all elusive George, and he's now claiming that it was some dude in a ski mask that shot and killed Al. George, meanwhile, was knocked out, blindfolded, stuffed in the trunk of a car, and driven around for a couple of hours. Eventually, Hair Brain managed to miraculously find the trunk latch, pop it open, and jump out somewhere in the vicinity of a town called Pahrump. "All right, MacGyver," snits Sara, "I just need to check you out." Aww. I miss MacGyver. A thorough examination of George's apparel yields a strange blue paint-like substance from his shirt, and a few small drops of dried blood on the inside of his pants cuff. "I'm afraid you and your pants are going to be here for a while," announces Sara, and George just stands there looking thrilled that the hot police lady wants to get into his pants.
Plushie lecture. A guy in a tiger suit is delivering a horrible psychobabblicious diatribe about "the observing superego of society" and how "a human form doesn't always come with a human spirit." The audience is composed entirely of people in giant fuzzy animal costumes, with the lone exception of Gil, who is wearing his new giant fuzzy beard. The lecture also comes complete with PowerPoint slides, which reminds me that I actually have a gorilla-themed PowerPoint due for my day job week. Strange but true. When a five-minute break is announced, Gil ever so nonchalantly turns to the horse beside him and asks, "Excuse me, do you recognize this man?" Then he has to move the picture of Rocky around while he tries to figure out where the costume's eye holes are. Heh. Cut to Catherine, interviewing some of the marginally more normal convention attendees out in the lobby. She shows Rocky's photo to a kid that almost has to be Screech, but he doesn't recognize it. Then she tries to pet his stuffed dog, and he jerks it away with a hiss. Hee! Although I totally could have died a happy man without ever seeing Dustin Diamond in a studded leather dog collar.
Once the lecture ends, Gil heads out to the lobby so that he can peruse all the various tables filled with fascinating furry merchandise. And while I'm sure he was horribly disappointed by the glaring lack of fuzzy cockroaches or plush dung beetles or whatever, he still does manage to locate a photo of Rocky Raccoon seated on a park bench beside a giant fuzzy lamb. He immediately forks over the cash to purchase it, and I'd really love to see his expense report entry on that one. He then looks up and notices a pair of…somethings (cats? Monkeys? Moose?) with bright blue fur. Before he can approach, however, we smash cut into one of the nearby rooms, where a furry fashion show is in full swing. Catherine enters just in time to see a giant blue-furred cat, complete with whiskers and a tiny string bikini, prancing down the runway while a jaunty tune blares from the speakers nearby. Catherine tries to identify herself as a CSI, but the cat just hisses and struts back to the other end of the runway. Okay, that was funny, but would Catherine really try to interrupt a show like that? Wouldn't someone from Vegas know to wait until the cat got backstage?
Lobby again. Gil's brought his pair of bright blue plushies, and Catherine has Blue Kitty from the fashion show in tow. "This is racial profiling," meows Big Blue, when she spots the others. Hee hee! Upon further review, I'm actually demoting Liam and declaring that one to be the best line of the episode. It's a total throwaway, but it's been cracking me up all afternoon. Gil and Catherine demand that everyone remove their masks and turn over a fur sample. Gil's two comply immediately (and one was kinda cute), but Blue Kitty flat-out refuses. "If you want to talk to me," she growls, "this is the me you're gonna have to talk to."
Cut to Brass perp-walking Blue Kitty through the station in slow motion as the jaunty fashion show music reprises. And yeah, it's damn funny and all, but are we really supposed to believe that everyone would stop and stare like that? I mean, this is Vegas. A guy in a giant blue cat suit probably isn't even the weirdest thing they've seen since lunch.
Brass sits Blue Kitty down in the interrogation room, and then asks for a name. "My friends call me 'Sexy,'" she replies. Um…yeah. Okay. I'm still calling you Blue Kitty. Brass demands once again that Blue remove her "helmet," but Kitty apparently matriculated from the University of Kentucky's veterinary law school, because she insists that no one can "sequester a domestic animal without due cause." Brass, however, correctly cites the famed Supreme Court case Plushie v. Ferguson, and forces Big Blue to comply. And then the mask finally comes off, and our "Sexy" Blue Kitty is revealed to be…Stanford Blatch. Get it? Do you? You know, "Sex and the Kitty"? Yeah. I have, however, noticed a startlingly large amount of cross-over between fans of this show and fans of Stargate: SG1, so it seems quite a few of you know him better as Martin Lloyd. My personal problem is that watching Stargate just reminds me of how much I miss MacGyver. And also Kurt Russell. "Helloooo, Sexy," purrs Catherine when she gets a look at Stanford's face. Gil then brings things back down to basics, and establishes that Blue Kitty's "human name" is actually Bud Simmons. He also notes that Bud has a "musky odor" that's "quite stimulating." And then they kiss! Just kidding. Gil explains about the blue fibers that were found in Rocky's mouth, and intimates that it might have been Bud's cat costume that caused Rocky's incapacitation. Um, "incapacitation"? When did this happen? The last time we saw Rocky he was happily playing in traffic, and nowhere near incapacitated. Bud, however, does recall that Rocky was "skritching" him earlier in the evening. It seems that "skritching" surprisingly falls outside the breadth of Catherine's social experiences, and Bud is forced to explain. "It's friendly scratching," he says. "People who don't know each other can't just nuzzle and exchange tummy rubs." They can at my house! "But for animals," he continues, "skritching is perfectly normal." "So is killing," notes Catherine, and then an odd and completely unnecessary shot of the city skyline takes us out of the scene.
It's later now, and Gil and Catherine are examining Blue Kitty's costume in one of the labs. After observing that Bud felt safe enough to skritch in the suit, Gil goes on to wonder if he would also feel safe enough to "explore some of the more aggressive aspects of his animus." Nice alliteration. Catherine busts out the body fluid black light thingamajig that Sobell would totally know the correct technical term for, and soon discovers that the crotch of the kitty costume is covered in cu…seminal fluid. Sorry. I keep forgetting I've gone network here. Gil and Catherine recoil hilariously in disgust. "Okay, well, I've heard of some guys getting off in weird ways," gripes Catherine, "but humping an animal suit? I mean, whatever happened to normal sex?" I'm sorry. Is humping animal suits considered abnormal now? Because I can stop any time. Really. Having already referenced Jung, Gil now goes Freudian on our collective psyche by pointing out that "the only unnatural sexual behavior is none at all. After that, it's just a question of opportunity and preference." Yeah. Freud obviously never recapped Oz. "And evidently," Gil continues, "many prefer the feel of fur to the texture of human skin." Hmm. I'll freely admit to not watching this show as closely as I would if I were recapping it full-time, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen the episode where it's revealed that Gil is from West Virginia. "Well, I like hairy chests," admits Catherine. "Have I got a guy for you," replies Aaron. "But I'm not about to bop a six-foot weasel." Oh. Never mind then. He doesn't make pancakes anyway. Liam shows up at this point, mostly to reveal that he found ipecac and civet oil on the big blue kitty costume, but also because he's almost ready to challenge Peter Krause for the highly coveted Worst TV Haircut of All Time award and he'd like to get some last-minute grooming tips from Gil. Once it's clearly established that something from the outside of Blue Kitty's costume somehow ended up in Rocky Raccoon's stomach, Liam grins like the proverbial Cheshire cat and announces, "That's what you get for eating…"
Commercials. Don't get it? Just keep trying. It'll come eventually.
When we come back, Nick and Sara are examining George's pants and wondering whether he's dumber than a stump or merely dumber than a box of hair. They're also wondering how it could be possible that George only has one drop of blood on him, and that's on the inside of his cuff. So you know what this means, right? Yep, you got it. TMI-cam experiments! Woo. Hoo. First they try recreating blood spatter at room temperature by spraying a syringe full of blood into a glass tank. Then they repeat the experiment at 22 degrees and discover that the blood droplets freeze into tiny little blood ball bearings. Except isn't blood 98.6 degrees when it leaves the human body? And since 22 degrees isn't really all that cold, do we really think the blood would freeze in the tenth of a second it takes to cross a small ten-gallon fish tank? And for that matter, how is it that I deal regularly with comatose telekinetics and pissed-off talking fish in my regular TWoP gigs, and this is the one thing I have trouble suspending disbelief for? Eh, whatever. Further TMI-cam musings present us with a surprisingly grotesque (but still pretty cool) stop-motion shot of Al Sesto taking a round of buckshot at point-blank range, and then we follow a cute little frozen blood droplet as it flies along an utterly impossible trajectory that defies all known laws of physics and ends up in the cuff of George's pants. Yeah. Double whatever.
The general upshot of all this is that George must be innocent, because he was standing behind Al, and Mr. Sesto was shot in the chest. So Nicky and Sara make their way back to Hodges, who informs them that the paint chips Sara lifted from George's shirt are multi-layered and highly unusual. The bottom layer is burgundy paint from a 1984 Monte Carlo, and the top layer is bright blue house paint. "Why would somebody use house paint on a car?" wonders Sara. Sara has obviously never met Hildi. "Who knows," answers Hodges. "I don't try to figure out what people do anymore." You are so right about that, my friend. In fact, even Sara agrees with him on that one.
Back to the A-plot. Brass and Catherine are interrogating Bud, and trying to find out how Rocky Raccoon's semen got all over his costume. "It started as a skritch," Bud confesses. "Then everyone got in a furpile, and pretty soon we were all yiffing." This news is accompanied by one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen on TV, and let's not forget that I'm the guy who recaps the pay cable shows. It's a grainy, washed-out sequence of shots featuring various "animals" getting their yiff on, and it's definitely the Alvin and the Chipmunks Do Dallas moaning on the soundtrack that makes it so nasty. Ew. Now poor Theodore will forever be associated with Ron Jeremy in my head. Although I bet Ron could yiff any time he wanted without even needing a costume. He may, however, need an explanation of what exactly "yiffing" is, because Catherine has obviously never heard the term before. "In a furpile," explains Bud, "when all the animals start rubbing and wiggling, some of them start to do things." And then those "things" are shown to us once again in another Behind the Green Barn Door sequence. Now that, my friends, is the quintessential definition of TMI-cam. "I know what you're thinking," says Bud. "You couldn't possibly," replies Catherine. I, on the other hand, know exactly what she's thinking. I feel the same way about "wibbling." Bud insists that he didn't kill Rocky, and also that he didn't put the ipecac and civet oil on his costume. "Look," he finishes, "if I don't have my costume on, I pretty much can't get yiffed." And you say that like it's a bad thing, Bud.
Outside of the room, Brass and Catherine debate about what to do . They decide to ask Bud where all the "hip, young plushies on the go" like to hang out on a Saturday night. I don't know about you, but I'm betting the answer is going to involve Lady Heather. Or maybe just the back room of a bar set that looks like it was assembled in the corner of the writers' room. I mean, really. They've got like two pieces of plywood and a couple of bottles tacked together and we're supposed to believe this is a real establishment. Anyway, Gil and Catherine follow a "rabbit" down a hallway until they come to a "polar bear" bouncer, who asks them for the password. "E-I-E-I-O?" asks Catherine. Heh. I'd have gone with "some animals are more equal than others," but that's just me. The Old MacDonald bit fails to sway Mr. Polar Bear, but then Gil flashes a search warrant and everyone heads inside to find a scene even more disgusting than Bud's flashbacks, because this time they've left out the grain and blown-out colors and given us a full-frontal furpile. Thanks. I mean that. I don't know if it's due to continuity or a general shortage of animal costumes in the vicinity of CSI's soundstages, but the horse Gil was talking to back at the convention can be spotted on the bottom of the pile if you look close enough. Which I totally didn't do. Gil: "Look, we need you to stop skritching, or yiffing, or whatever, and take off your costumes and tell us your names." Aww. That's exactly how my prom night ended. Good times.
Cut to later, with Gil and Catherine examining all of the confiscated costumes, which are now hanging on racks. They're sniffing each of them to try and find ipecac and civet oil, and Gil of course takes this as an opportunity to lecture about pheromones. Then he adds that most mammals only copulate seasonally. Catherine thinks that would get pretty boring. "For some," replies Gil, without missing a beat. "The rest of us know how hard it is to afford a good dominatrix on a civil servant's salary." They eventually locate a wolf costume that's covered in the episode's signature scent. "So I guess we're looking for a wolf," quips Gil. "In wolf's clothing."
And I guess they found him pretty quickly, because Gil is interrogating Mr. Wolf in the very scene. Wolfie admits to rubbing the ipecac and civet oil all over "Sexy Kitty," because he was pissed at Rocky and knew how much Rocky liked his big blue cats. "What did Rocky do to you?" asks Gil. "He's a raccoon," answers Wolfie. "They're all low-lifes. I mean, what do they do? Screw…eat garbage…screw some more." Hey! Don't you dare demean my lifestyle like that! I personally find there's nothing more relaxing than a nice post-coital snack of used coffee grounds and overripe bananas. Which may explain why most of my relationships don't last very long.
Wolfie further confesses that Rocky stole his girlfriend (one "Linda Lamb") at last year's PAFcon. "And I just knew," he continues, "that since Sexy Kitty was Rocky's fave, he'd have his filthy raccoon mouth all over her again this year. All I wanted to do was make him sick enough so he'd have to go home and stop cheating on my mate." Gil points out that Linda Lamb is actually his "ex-mate," and Wolfie reluctantly agrees. "I just couldn't take seeing what that wanna-be marsupial put her through," he adds. Heh. "Wannabe marsupial" is just funny for some reason. Probably because it makes me think of the Spice Girls in kangaroo costumes, which may be yet another reason why most of my relationships don't last very long. When pressed for details, Wolfie further reveals that Linda was the one who turned him out into the plushie scene. So does that make him her animal prag? The scene's big climax comes when Wolfie reveals what everyone who has actually been paying attention since the teaser already knows: that "Linda Lamb" is actually our old pal "Have Another" Sherri Lewis. Dun dun DUH!
This sends Gil and Catherine scurrying back to check out the wrecked car from the teaser. They pop the trunk, and discover that Linda's lamb costume was there the whole time. "Evidence without context is not evidence," pontificates Gil. Except for the part where Rocky was in a big giant animal costume as well, which definitely seems like "context" to me. "So she didn't just hit Rocky," realizes Catherine. "She knew him." "For the philandering raccoon he was," agrees Gil.
Commercials. And every time I hit my TiVo's fast-forward button, I get a little more jealous of all the other recappers. Then I count up all the Emmys I've won (in my head I like to pretend that I get one too) and feel a little better about myself. But only a little.
We return to find Gil plotting out Linda's driving route on a map while Catherine examines the wreckage of the car. Gil doesn't understand how Rocky ended up on the side of the road, but Catherine has an easy answer for that one. "You ever have a car fight?" she asks. She then goes on to explain the dynamics of car fights, which are pretty much made obvious by the term "car fight." In a surprising display of stupidity for a man who'd have us believe he knows everything, Gil uses the phrase "begs the question" incorrectly when he wonders aloud why Linda would have been driving back in the other direction when Rocky got hit. Or maybe the stupidity isn't surprising, because Catherine now has to further explain that car fights always end with the person still in the car feeling guilty and driving back to pick up the person they kicked out. "Except she didn't count on an eighteen-wheeler finishing her off," she concludes. "Mack truck ex machina," quips Gil, which makes absolutely no sense at all as anything but a meta-comment on this episode's tortured internal logic. Catherine finds a claim check from the valet at the PAFcon hotel, and they both decide to talk to the guy.
But first, more B-plot! Nick wasn't able to ID the car they're looking for (because we all know that Vegas is just inundated with bright blue 1984 Monte Carlos), but he did find a lead on the gun-stock adhesive. It's granite glue, which is used by stone masons, and unlike bright blue 1984 Monte Carlos, is surprisingly rare in the greater Clark County metropolitan area. In fact, you can pretty much only find it in quarries. "Okay," says Sara. "I will bet you a double-double animal-style that one of those quarries employs a guy with a blue 1984 Monte Carlo." Um, isn't Sara a vegetarian? And hasn't she learned by now that dinner with co-workers is never a good idea? And for that matter, why haven't I learned to stop asking questions about throwaway plot points that never even get mentioned again?
At the PAFcon hotel, Gil and Catherine are quizzing the valet about Rocky and Linda. The guy actually looks quite a bit like Mike from Las Vegas, so it's a shame Sobell wasn't here to enjoy some of that internal consistency she loves so much. Not Mike fulfills his expositionary responsibilities by informing us that Rocky was "hammered," and that Linda wasn't happy about it. Catherine immediately seizes on this as the cause for her car fight, because Linda interpreted Rocky's nausea as drunkenness (don't forget, he's supposed to be in AA), and just got madder and madder as the wrongfully accused raccoon denied it. We zip into flashback mode and watch the couple fight, although it's never made clear why Rocky is in costume and Linda isn't. ["I'm betting it's tough to drive in those rigs." -- Sars] Much to my dismay, she also never tells him to have another drink, which really would have helped me sell that whole "'Have Another' Sherri Lewis" nickname thing. Rocky begs to be let out of the car so he can puke, and Linda is more than happy to oblige. What Gil and Catherine can't figure out, however, is how Rocky managed to end up getting shot. "You don't think they allow plushies in the NRA?" wonders Catherine. Instead of pointing out the Pink Pistols like I would have done, Gil instead just makes a quip about grassy knolls and Lee Harvey Oswald. I think my way was better.
Back at the station, Nick and Sara have arrested a suspect who owns a bright blue 1984 Monte Carlo and a Mossberg shotgun with a chip missing from the stock. In other words, he's the guy who killed Al Sesto. The dude lawyers up, and that's the end of that scene.
Gil and Catherine, meanwhile, are using metal detectors to search the area around where Rocky got shot. Searching. Searching. More searching. Search for tomorrow. Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Search and seizure. And by that I mean that I had a seizure waiting for the searching to be over. Catherine eventually finds the bullet, and determines that its impact point indicates that Rocky was either shot from above or he was down on all fours at the time. "Or both," observes Gil, glancing at a nearby ridge. "I mean, imagine what it must have looked like out here at night, from a distance," he adds. "We've been looking for a person who shot a person. Maybe we should be looking for a person who shot an animal." Yeah. Because we all know that Vegas is just inundated with six-foot-tall raccoons who drive bright blue 1984 Monte Carlos.
And now it's time to wrap up the big B-plot. The hook here is that George actually knows the killer. It's his cousin, and given the context, George seems weirdly happy to see him. The killer cousin, however, is not amused. "My own blood, and you set me up?" he shouts. "I should have shot your ass in that freezer!" The Killer Kousin is led away in kuffs (which is totally Sars's favorite movie, by the way ["what can I say, I love Tony Goldwyn" -- Sars]), and George finally admits what everyone who has actually been paying attention since just after the teaser already knows: "I'm so stupid." Heh. Nick and Sara try to cheer him up (but not very hard), and George ties up all of our loose plot ends by explaining that he told the Killer Cousin all about Al and the vending machines. "Sometimes people, uh…disappoint us," says Nicky. "Why?" asks Curious George. And then a jaunty little musical segue ends the scene, and I never have to care about these people again.
Gil and Catherine are still out in the desert, but now they’ve located a dog-breeding rancher who lives near the crime scene. They establish that the guy knows all about the car crash, and then Gil asks him to run down his schedule for the evening in question. "Had dinner with the missus," the guy says. "Then I fed scraps to the dogs. Uh…watched Jeopardy. Could hardly hear it, because the dogs were so stirred up. Went outside to take a look, and spotted a coyote." In order to protect his "pure-bred" dogs, he promptly shot the coyote and went back inside to watch Final Jeopardy. Which I can pretty much guarantee you he got wrong. Gil nods knowingly, and the mystery of Rocky Raccoon's death has been solved at last. Thank God.
And finally, we head back to the station for an after-action report featuring Gil, Catherine, and Brass. Brass can't believe that anyone would mistake Rocky for a coyote (and I'm totally with you on that one Brass, my boy), but Catherine is ready to rule the death an accident. They explain all the same things that I just spent umpteen pages recapping (complete with flashback illustrations for those of you in the audience who are too stupid to understand people talking in short, single-syllable words), and then Brass wraps everything up with a nice tidy bow: "Well, the rancher's going to get off, Linda's dead, and Wolfie skates with a misdemeanor." "We took one look at those furry suits and thought foul play," sighs Catherine. "But this was really just a domestic dispute gone mad." "Hmm," mutters Gil. "Fur and loathing in Las Vegas." Fade to black.
And if you needed any further proof that Gil misses Sobell terribly, just check out that StTM score. 3,023, people. And that's after I adjusted for commercials. Come back, Sobell! And never leave us again!