I'm warning you now. This episode so irked me, I did all of the following before recapping it: sanded, stained, and finished five six-foot-tall bookcases; read a book on stock charts and long-term market indicators; unpacked twenty boxes of books; stapled twelve feet of telephone cable to my apartment baseboards so my TiVo can call its little TiVo friends in the middle of the night from the one working phone jack in my apartment two rooms away; baked two apple crisps for Thanksgiving with the in-laws. Does that sound like fun to you? Well, the baking, yeah. And I do love wielding power tools. And it's nice to find Quicksilver in time for my Thanksgiving trip back to MaBell's cozy Quantico pied-a-terre. But my point is -- this episode was so personally irritating, it drove me to new heights of productive procrastination. If the powers that be keep this up, you'll be able to bounce quarters off my washboard abs by February sweeps, and I'll be writing recaps in Greek and Mandarin.
What could possibly be so irritating, you ask? Read on, MacDuff
After an ominous shot of the Bellagio's fountains dancing in the air -- we know it's ominous because someone's broken out a boy soprano singing in portentous foreign-sounding syllables, or else we'd only think it was pretentious and silly thanks to the closed captioning's assertion that we're hearing "La, la, la, la" -- we hear a woman coyly saying, "Some girls want to be homecoming queen. Some girls want to be Miss America. I have always wanted to be a showgirl." I can't believe someone's parents nurtured that ambition. Rockette, maybe -- I have a cousin who married a Rockette, and he was king of Thanksgiving because he actually shared a house with a high-kicker we could all see on TV -- but showgirl? Who actually wants a career involving weird hours and tacky topless costumes? This woman: "I mean, I've been taking dancing lessons since I was five. I would, um, pull my leotards up on my hips and stick feathers in my hair." And ask for dresses cut down to there. At the Copa! Copacabana! The hotte-- oops. Sorry. Like you've never gotten sung along to that song in the car?
We see that the woman has been talking on what appears to be a TV broadcast, if her pixilated countenance is anything to go by. Some man reaches out and puts his hand on the screen as if to touch her. Oh, delightful. Who doesn't love a stalker story? It's not like they're predictable or anything. There's no way we'll see the stalker letting his overwhelming infatuation and possessiveness drive him to set up some impossibly baroque and fatal situation, only to be found out and judged by presumably saner people. Maybe this time, we'll see that the stalker has turned to a life of altruism and good works in an effort to score the kind of karma that lets him meet with the object of his affections in the afterlife, eschewing the stalkee on Earth lest he miss out on the celestial portion of his obsession.
“ Brass tells them that SWAT cleared the house and it's empty. 'So no girl?' confirms Catherine. Questions like these are why she's a senior CSI, you know. ”
Or maybe we'll see the usual stalkery garbage, where the unhinged gentlemen in question gets all weepy while an anchordroid drones on about how it's Day Six in the search for aspiring showgirl Julie Waters. Is he crying over media bias, since the disappearance of a young and comely nobody is apparently leading the news while ugly people vanish unremarked? Of course not.
The stalker calls 911, still watching Julie on his ginormous television, and when the operator asks, "What's your emergency?" he replies, "She's so beautiful. Like an angel. Soft and sweet." "So you're being held hostage by a boy band in need of a lyricist? Say 'my heart will skip a beat' for yes," the operator instructs. Or not. The stalker gasps, "I never meant to hurt her." Then he crawls around in front of the giant television in his messy living room for a while, so we can let the metaphor about physical space reflecting emotional disarray sink in. In the background, Julie is recounting the Las Vegas version of getting discovered at the drugstore soda fountain.
We see the stalker continue to watch the tape while putting a gun in his mouth. Outside, a team of SWAT personnel raise their weapons. El Stalker -- who is the fine, fine Martin Donovan, star of Hal Hartley films like Trust and Amateurs, and failed but interesting series Wonderland and Pasadena. Come to think of it, Martin's a poster boy for the Trio channel. Anyway, Martin's the stalker, and he comes out waving his gun around, but drops to the ground soon enough and hangs out with a few snipers while Brass instructs people to clear the house and look for the girl.
The boy soprano is back, just in case we haven't twigged to the news that this is going to be a creepy episode with some sort of message. Is the message "When in doubt, stalk people who won't end up on the six o'clock news"? Anyway, a horde of reporters is on the front lawn, cops are everywhere, and Brass is demanding of Martin, "Where is she? See this face? I'm going to be all over until you give her up." Nicky says warningly, "Jim, the world's watching." Our boy's learned from his own media gaffe. I'm so proud. Someone in the media crowd says, "Get that shot." Brass mutters some more about how he wants Martin waiting for him at the station, and then Catherine and Sara come over. Brass tells them that SWAT cleared the house and it's empty. "So no girl?" confirms Catherine. Questions like these are why she's a senior CSI, you know. Catherine references the breathalyzer test Martin was taking before Brass came over and began making conversation, and it turns out our stalker has a BAC of .21. Catherine notes that it'll take some time to sober him up. Sara asks if Martin said anything about Julie, and Captain Exposition explains, "He never actually mentioned her name. All he said was, 'I never meant to hurt her.'" Catherine points out, "Six days missing? He did more than hurt her."
“ Talking can wait until after the Bloody Mary. Howard looks around, clearly expecting to see a bar, a bartender walking by with a can of tomato juice and a few stalks of celery, anything -- and then Brass grabs him by the chin and commands, 'Tell me.' ”
And then we go to the credits. It seems so different when it's not Gil delivering some eye-rolling line beforehand.
When we get back from commercials, Martin -- a.k.a. "Howard Delhomme" -- is sitting and watching another big blue screen as we hear Sheriff Xander Berkeley tell the press that they've got Howard in custody for questioning.
Nicky, Sara, and Catherine are watching the press conference as well, but they're watching it on Howard's big-screen TV as they sift through the detritus on his living room floor and find countless newspaper clippings and photos of Julie. Xander promises that the police department will be going through the evidence and all, and Catherine snorts, "Attaboy, Sheriff. Nothing like predicting the future." Yeah, especially since he just rode out one case where they switched perps midstream. Sara looks at one photo where Howard had blacked out the eyes of Julie and another woman, then drawn another, larger eye on Julie's forehead, and she decrees, "This guy was unraveling." We then see what looks to be a Sunday newspaper magazine cover with the headline, "Dying for Fame: the Life of Julie Waters." She's been gone six days and the press has already done a cover story where it's assumed she's dead? Catherine looks at the rest of the clippings and determines, "It's like a timeline: day one, up until this morning." She says that as she's looking at a clipping with the headline "No leads in missing case" and dated November 11, 2003. That's a Tuesday, so Julie probably went missing on Sunday, if it was reported Monday in time to make press for Tuesday's paper. Six days puts us at Saturday, which makes me wonder now when that magazine comes out. Yeah, it's trivial, but we all have our nits to pick and media timelines are mine.
Sara and Catherine head past the kitchen, where Julie's still carrying on about her early aspirations, and down the hall, where they pass a Virgin Mary statue and a picture of what looked to be a blindfolded religious figure. The music gets all spooky, and Catherine pushes open the door to the darkroom. She and Sara wave their flashlights around, taking in all the photos of body parts. At least they're photos of attached body parts. Catherine notes the stack of business cards identifying Howard as a photographer.
Howard is also hankering for some hair of the dog, if the sweaty face and lip-smacking cottonmouth are any indication. Unfortunately, he's going to get a harsher sobriety treatment: Brass in his face, growling, "The media are gone now. It's just you and me. Where is she? Nobody calls 911 unless they're ready to talk." Howard looks like he's ready for a Bloody Mary. Talking can wait until after the Bloody Mary. Howard looks around, clearly expecting to see a bar, a bartender walking by with a can of tomato juice and a few stalks of celery, anything -- and then Brass grabs him by the chin and commands, "Tell me." Howard says nothing, and Brass tells him he's not going anywhere.
“ There's suspending your disbelief, and then there's using a series of pulleys, winches, hoists, and cables to try and get it off the ground without breaking anything in your brain. Guess which one I'm doing? ”
In another part of the lab, Catherine and Sara are sitting at a table, looking at the enormous projection screen, and Catherine asks who reported Julie Waters missing. Nicky, who's standing behind them, tells them that Ma Waters called it in; she and Julie talked every day, and when she couldn't get hold of Julie, she called the police station. The camera shifts perspective, and we see that they're looking at pictures of Julie's shabby, if tidy, apartment. Sara notes that Julie's bills were paid and ready to be mailed. Nicky points out that none of Julie's toiletries are missing, and when the slide clicks into place, Sara adds that Julie's birth control is still on the counter. Nicky tells us that Julie was scheduled to have dinner with the producers of Real Vegas Showgirls that night. Naturally, I assumed it was an HBO or Showtime thing along the lines of what HBO did at that brothel in Nevada, or Taxicab Confessions, but no: it's a reality show about trying to make it in the highly competitive showgirl world. God help the people in the CSI universe; theirs is populated by TV executives whose evil stupidity surpasses that of the TV honchos in our own, since they gazed upon Showgirls and thought, "What if we made a series about it?"
Anyway, Nicky's explaining that Julie's car was picked up at a pizza place four days ago, and Gil wanders in as Sara recounts how Julie's purse was the only thing that was missing. Gil looks at the 75 percent of his minions arrayed before him and asks, "What about the drunk guy?" Nicky fills Gil in on Howard's vocation. Gil asks somewhat shortly, "You collected everything at his house -- no evidence of Julie?" Catherine says they collected only articles about Julie, all of which were published after the fact. The rest of this riveting Socratic examination is cut short by Brass's page.
As Gil and Catherine head down the hall, Brass is laying a guilt trip on a uniform with, "I ask you to do one thing" Catherine asks Brass where Howard is, and Brass tells her, "Getting stitched up. But he left something for you." Catherine and Gil walk into the dramatically lit interrogation room, where Howard's used his own blood to write, "I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone." He wrote that when chained to the interrogation table? What kind of yoga is he doing to stay that flexible? Gil provides all the answers through flashback: Howard prised the table's edging off and used that to slash his palm. Thus provided with ink, he was able to write on the walls. So Howard, suspected abductor at best and killer at worse, sole suspect on a high-profile case, was left unrestrained and unsupervised in police custody. There's suspending your disbelief, and then there's using a series of pulleys, winches, hoists, and cables to try and get it off the ground without breaking anything in your brain. Guess which one I'm doing? Gil purses his lips and mentally judges the man based on his handwriting (come on: the man's bound to have pondered graphology at some point) while Catherine's all, "Anyone? What's that supposed to mean? Julie Waters wasn't his first victim?" Or presumed victim, if you want to get technical.
We see Howard being led back in again, this time in handcuffs. He claps eyes on Catherine. She looks at him, gets unnerved, looks away, and then stares back, trying to read him. Howard keeps staring; you can tell that in his head, everyone else has receded to the distance, an orchestra has struck up "Strangers in the Night," and a spotlight's trained on him and Catherine as they meet. Meanwhile, in Catherine's head, the shrieking violins from Psycho have kicked in.
Gil notices Howard giving Catherine the moony stalker gaze, and Catherine glaring analytically in return, and then says irritably, "You wanna take him into the room, please?" Howard's taken away; Catherine watches him go.
In the shot, Howard is picking at the dressing on his wound while Sara says, "Look, I know you wanna make this right." Howard looks like he wants to write a sequel on another wall. Brass reminds Howard he's unlikely to stroll out of there. Why? What can they hold him on? Anyway, Sara's all, "If you help me, I can help you. We already know who you're talking about. All we need to know is where to find her." Howard is silent as the grave. Brass interrupts irritably, "Are we boring you? 'Cause what you're not getting is, I've got all night. One of us is getting overtime, and it isn't you. So talk to me." Howard replies, "I'll talk. But only for the one in the room. The pretty one." Sara looks less that thrilled with that. Well, she's a pretty girl, but when she straightens her hair like that, she looks like she just rolled out of bed after a two-week bout of the flu. Go with your natural curl, Sara!
Anyway, the shot is of a whole lot of vans heading down a remote desert road, clearly in the foothills of any of the mountain ranges ringing the desert basin. Then we see Howard ambling along in chains with Catherine beside him. She asks him how many yards it was from mile marker 15, and he replies, "Why don't you take off your sunglasses and your hat?" Oh, so now he's a stalker-cum-killer-cum-fashion consultant. Also, what's that pack of reporters doing so close by? Catherine tells him, "I need your help here, Mr. Delhomme." "Howard," he replies. "Howard," Catherine repeats, taking off her sunglasses in a show of concession. She asks if they're in the wrong place, and Howard replies, "You walk like a dancer. Do you moonlight? I bet you're featured, huh? High dollar? Nice long hair down your back?" I realize the horse is already out of this particular barn and several hundred counties down the road, but how funny would it have been for Catherine to have not been a dancer, but constantly asked if she were one? It would have been like the anti-Nomi: "I'm not a dancer!" Let us all take a moment to contemplate what might have been.
“ Catherine shoots back, 'I'm the senior CSI.' What does that have to do with anything? Shouldn't this crowd cease the gum-flapping and figure out a Plan B for finding a body? And shouldn't their boss point that out and steer everyone back on track? ”
Moment over. Catherine asks about their surroundings while Howard continues to natter on about her hair a la Stalker Eye for the Straight CSI. There are CSIs and police dogs and media all swarming around, and that damn boy soprano is la-la-la-ing again lest we not realize that Catherine's negotiations with the stalker are supposed to be unsettling.
Then there's an arty silhouettes-at-sunset thing where Sara asks irritably, "What are we doing? We have suspects picking their criminalists now? Is this logical?" Gil counsels her, "We all want the same thing, Sara. Catherine may have a way in. It could be helpful." Gil is a total Zen manager: release yourself from personal want, and you will achieve crime-solving nirvana. Sara is one skeptical grasshopper; she asks derisively, "So this looks helpful to you then." Gil says nothing, electing to be in the moment.
The light continues to fade, and a helicopter is circling overhead to shine light on the search area. Gil's joined Catherine and Howard, and he points out, "We're not finding anything. You said she was here." Howard whines, "I'm getting confused. All these people here." You know he's totally hoping Catherine will be all, "Tell everyone to go. I will stay here and dance for Howard, and he will show me the body." And what do you know, Catherine begins heading down that road. The upshot is, Howard gets packed into a squad car. He and Catherine exchange one last set of lingering glances -- oddly enough, the boy soprano is missing -- and Howard drives off. She's left to face the peevish Sara and Nicky, and a none-too-pleased Gil.
Catherine tries to make lemonade out of the Howard-likes-me lemon, but Nicky's all, "Anyone stop to think this guy might just be nuts." Catherine counters, "Until we find the body, he is all the evidence we've got." Sara starts in: "We don't even know that he did it." Catherine is still defending her hypothesis: "I've got a good feeling about that." Sara shoots back, "So does the suspect. The only reason we're out here today on this wild goose chase is because he wanted to hang out with you. It's weird." Catherine retorts, "Believe me, I'd rather follow the evidence." Gil addsnothing. Perhaps he's being super-Zen and present in a moment, and that moment is somewhen else. Catherine says, "If it takes the evidence following me --" This is when Nicky pees all over the conversation in an effort to mark his territory: "The original missing person's call was mine and Sara's." Catherine shoots back, "I'm the senior CSI." What does that have to do with anything? Shouldn't this crowd cease the gum-flapping and figure out a Plan B for finding a body? And shouldn't their boss point that out and steer everyone back on track? Well, Gil kind of does: "I'm the senior CSI here." Catherine rounds on him angrily: "You want it?" Nicky doggedly persists, "Hold on, here. This is a career case, Grissom. Sara and I both put in for a promotion. We work this, we're on departmental radar." Only if you solve it, laddie. ["Also, I fail to see how this case is more 'career' than any of the others we've seen them work on, but whatever. Point is: Shut it, Stokes." -- Sars] Catherine indulges in a little hydrant-watering of her own by pointing out that she's got the most high-profile cases. Sara, to her credit, makes the most reasonable case with, "It's a big department; there's a lot of room at the top." Nicky grits, "We wouldn't have asked for it if we couldn't do it."