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.
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."
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.
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.
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 adds…nothing. 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."
Gil is silent for a moment, as if he's hoping to shame them into realizing that the victim's being completely forgotten in this tussle for promotion fodder. Keep on hoping, Gil. Once you strip away the topical words of that conversation, what you had was the following:
Sara: Me me me. Not Catherine = me.
Catherine: Ah, but it's good to be me. Me me me.
Nicky: Excuse me. Me me me me.
Catherine: Oh, yeah? Me.
Nicky: Me me --
Sara:And me, me, me.
So Gil looks at Sara, who realizes that she's lost this round. She angrily says, "Fine," and stalks away. Nicky gives Gil a hurt and disappointed look and melts in her wake. Catherine turns around and asks Gil, "You gonna have my back?" Gil says dully, "I always have your back." He does not add, "Did I not have your back when you blew up the lab? Or wrecked a high-profile case when you decided to trace your family tree?" Catherine replies, "He wanted me. He got me." Oh, climb down off that cross, Catherine; you asked for this.
When we get back from commercial, an anchordrone is recapping the last few moments just in case you were distracted. Interestingly, Howard is now a "suspected murderer" and Julie is presumed dead.
Gil is loping through the Labitrail, and Xander is telling him, "Just don't make me look bad." Gil points out belligerently, "Hey! You set the stage." I'm guessing the fish didn't sit well with him. Xander blah-dee-blahs about voters and quick resolution, and Gil says, "Let's find out if he is the guy first." Gil looks over to see Liam the Lab Tech helping Catherine, and identifies him to Xander. "Is he on the case?" Xander asks. Gil essays an improvisational-feeling yes. Xander asks, "Hell of a time to break out the B-team, isn't it?" Hee. Gil gives him a cryptic look. I sometimes wonder if Gil deliberately cultivates a quirky loner persona so he can use it during moments when he's adrift.
Catherine is schooling young Liam in the art of sifting through evidence. He says, "So we find out where he was seven days ago, we find Julie. So I know Warrick's off and Sara's pissed. Why not ask Nick?" How funny would it be if the lab techs had some sort of emergency code they used to indicate that Sara was on the warpath? Going from Liam's demeanor, Sara being pissed is not an unheard-of phenomenon. Also, it's worth noting that the stuff they're sorting through on the table is grouped by date, going back to Wednesday, November 5, so my earlier timeline is wrong: Julie disappeared on a Tuesday night, so there was plenty of time to rush her on to a Sunday magazine cover. I feel so much better for having settled that.
Anyway, Catherine answers Liam's question with, "You want to learn." She continues, "And you can start by not repeating my mistakes." Why, yes, she is referring to Sam Braun. So now that we've established that Catherine is also working this case for craven political means, let's move on. Catherine says, "I screwed up; you covered me." Liam asks disappointedly, "That's why I'm here?" Catherine replies, "No. You're here because I want you to be here."
Liam pulls a receipt from the Big Snax chain; Howard bought a soda, a snack, and a household item. Catherine finds a receipt from Inucci Motors for checking out a car. The car is apparently worth $100,000. I don't know whether to be impressed by the pricey car or inquisitive as to why anyone doesn't use a damn shredder on incriminating receipts.
Cut to Catherine talking to someone from Inucci Motors. She learns that Howard was hired to shoot the car, but the dealer -- who has clearly taken the adage "everything sounds classier with a British accent" to heart -- pooh-poohs the idea of using a model because "nothing in the photographs should be sexier than the car." Catherine wants to look at the car, and the man rolls out his plummiest vowels to say, "It's not just a car; it's a Maserati." Catherine fails to genuflect toward the engine compartment. The man tries rolling out the clipped accent: "Honey. The car has been detailed three times since Howard got back. It's getting primed for a whale tomorrow. You're wasting your time." Catherine gives him a look to indicate how not-amused she is: "You know what I did last time I checked out a car? I cut out a twelve-by-twelve-inch section of leather from every seat." The guy blinks and spits, "Untouched." Catherine grins and says, "I can't promise you that. But I can promise you that for the few hours, that car is mine."
Catherine then spends some time going over the Maserati. I believe anyone who's watched this show is not unfamiliar with how the CSIs inspect a car.
Liam comes in and drools, "Boy, what I could do with a car like this." Catherine hands him a mess of stuff she's collected and dispatches him to do some errands. I guess the angry shunning around the office is beginning to get to her. She snaps, "You want to gawk, do it on your own time. You want to work with me, stay focused." Liam resignedly replies, "Got it."
Sara and Nicky are in some sort of file room. She's still steaming: "I don't believe this." Nicky resorts to the sports metaphors with, "What does it matter? We're all on the same team." You know, if he had busted out that little insight back in the desert, Gil might have nudged things in a different direction. Sara whinges a bit: "It was our case. You said it. We've waited our career for a case like this." Nicky seems a little uncomfortable now; he says haltingly, "Let's just find her, okay?" He's talking to himself; Sara's on a roll with, "You know what the worst part of this whole thing is? Catherine knows I can do this case." She says the last part in a whisper. Nicky whispers back, "So can I." When did Sara turn into this career-obsessed termagant? No, really -- when? She's always been really into her career, but in seasons, it was because she derived a lot of personal satisfaction and identity from her work. We came in to the series with Nicky and Warrick neck-and-neck for the CSI III promotion, so it's not unexpected to find Nick bucking for a change in status, because he seems wired to gauge his own progress by external criteria. But Sara -- she used to seem a little smarter than that.
Anyway, Sara continues stoking the fires of resentment with, "I would take you and me over Catherine and Greg any time." Yeah. Because competitively rating coworkers is a total exhibition of leadership skills. Nicky's a little startled by this news; Sara confirms it. But Nicky fails to lose his shit; he swallows and says flatly, "Well, the only way to learn is by getting out in the field. If that helps find her, I'm okay with that." Sara looks at him, wondering why Nicky had to take the high road by remembering the victim and their jobs relative to her in all of this.
Catherine is off watching Julie gush about her Wall Drug's soda-shop encounter with the Trop's chorus line. The boy soprano decides this is creepy. Well, it kind of is. Gil asks Catherine if there's anything on the tapes. That's a big no; Catherine asks how it's going with Xander. Gil replies, "He wants to know why you're working with young Liam." Hee! Gil points out that there are two other CSIs who can pitch in on this, and Catherine says she needs someone without an agenda. Gil asks, "Like when Fung brought in Mazzola? Everybody lost." Burn! Nobody in law enforcement appreciates an OJ reference. Catherine protests, and Gil says, "A trainee on a career case?" Catherine cordially invites Gil to blow her and returns to staring at Julie and her…career…aspirations.
Sara and Nicky are going over the missing women files -- twelve over the last two years, ten of them found dead, only one -- a Robyn Knight -- a model. Robyn's skeletal remains washed up in a creek six months ago. Curiously enough, Howard was one of the photographers listed in her day planner.
We get another shot of the Bellagio's dancing waters, and then we're back in the office. Nicky and Sara are working together on a computer. Catherine appears in a doorway and says, "Hey." The two let her hang just long enough to get uncomfortable. Catherine comes in and asks how it's going, and Sara doesn't even look up as she says, "Your case. You tell us." Show of hands, anyone who thinks petulant grudge-holding is a good thing to have in a boss. Catherine tells her: Howard put 133 miles on a Maserati, so the search radius is approximately 66 miles. Nicky reminds us that Julie's car was found 12 miles from the Maserati dealer. They figure Julie hooked up with Howard there and went off to the shoot. Sara makes the valid point, "If they finished the photo shoot -- and we don't even know that they did -- where are the photos?"
Liam comes in then with more news: he matched a hair in the car to one Sara got from the apartment (that car was detailed three times, and they still combed up stray hairs and blood?) and he found out where the Big Snax was (hint: somewhere in the search radius) as well as what the household item on the receipt was. It was a shovel, and this news leads everyone to conclude that Howard had already killed Julie. Nicky wonders where the body's buried. Sara remembers that Robyn Knight had washed up near Furnace Creek, right on the edge of the search radius, and she makes a little notation on their electronic map so we can all see the red wedge of land comprising the narrowed search area.
Cue another search scene. The boy soprano is back in force since it's all…it's all tiresome at this point. Nothing about this episode has been particularly unsettling or poignant, and the music is twee and pretentious. Liam asks why all the off-duty cops have shown up, and Catherine replies, "Chance to be a hero. This girl's beautiful. These guys don't get too many chances." Liam asks, "Chances to do what?" Catherine replies, "To rescue a princess." If by "rescue," you mean "uncover her week-old body," sure. And that's kind of a sick fantasy. Then again, few people seem to think stumbling over women encased in glass coffins or passed out in a castle somewhere is unsettling, so maybe I'm the one with the issue here.
Anyway, a well-manicured hand pops up from the dirt, and we've found our princess. Catherine immediately scrambles down to the rocky wash and takes command, barking at people to get searching for the shovel and the purse, et cetera.
Nicky steps in on the education of Young Liam. I may just start calling him that now. Anyway, Nicky says, "Okay, Liam. Diagram this entire rock pile. Come trial time, they're going to make us recreate this whole scene." We get an aerial shot of the CSIs working on unearthing the body. The boy soprano kicks in again, since the death of one beautiful person apparently diminishes us all as compared to the death of average-looking schlubs, and Catherine looks down at Julie to remark, "Sleeping Beauty." What did I say about women passed out in castles?
Dawn has broken (crash!) and Brass has finally wound his way down to the crime scene, where everyone's sitting around and moping more than usual. Catherine sighs that the cool weather and loose, sandy soil acted as a natural freezer. She then notes the fully zipped-up collar and the bare face, both of which seem odd for Julie. Sara suggests that Howard cleaned Julie; Nicky adds that he then buried the girl under the rocks so "she wouldn't wash up in a storm the way the other girl did." Brass is all over this: "What other girl?" Catherine explains, "We think there may be a connection to the Robyn Knight case last year." "We," kemosabe? Brass asks if they can prove that hunch. Catherine replies that only skeletal remains were found, so…no. Brass says grimly, "Then we'd better make this one stick."
He and Catherine are hanging out with Howard in the scene. Brass tells him, "You lost your bargaining chip. We found the body." Howard, looking considerably more composed than he did in his appearances, says directly to Catherine, "And smart, too." His lawyer futilely pleads with him to shut it. Catherine asks, "Howard, just help us with one thing: how did you kill her?" Brass adds, "You're pretty composed, Howard. You kill her. You go buy a shovel, a soda. Thirsty work, digging a grave." Howard says smugly, "That's not how it happened." Catherine cuts in, "I understand. Photographer. Model. Had to get the light just right." Howard tells Catherine he would like to photograph her; she demurs, since there's that whole murder investigation thingy they have to work through before she can clear a space in her schedule for a shoot. Howard sighs, then whispers, "It was an accident. I wanted to move the car, and I didn't see her." I remember hearing this back when it was the real-life case of who killed aspiring model Linda Sobek. Brass asks why Julie was there, and the lawyer's all, "They worked together before! Nothing to ask about!" Catherine points out that Mr. Maserati was ah-da-mant that no mere sexy woman be in the photograph with the car. Howard pulls the "I'm doing…new headshots. That's the ticket. Headshots…" card. Catherine asks where the rolls of film with Julie on them are, and Howard makes a big deal out of not remembering. Catherine's all, "When you remember, let me know?" but what Howard heard was, "Hey, big stud. Want my phone number? Call me for a good time."
David the Surprisingly Late-In-The-Episode coroner is standing over Julie's body, pointing out, "She has no injuries consistent with getting hit by a car. Cause of death is positional asphyxia." Catherine tells David that Howard weighs a buck-eighty, and that squares with David's estimation. She notes Julie's torn earlobe, speculating that Howard struck her there; David adds, "Occurred ante mortem, close to time of death. It was the only bleeding injury." Catherine then asks if there was any evidence of sexual assault. By all means, give us the flashback to that; we've already seen Julie smacked around and suffocated, so no detail is too grisly for reenactment. David says, "Lots of trauma. Collected a kit." Catherine asks if there's anything else; it turns out Julie's BAC was .18. Catherine's having a hard time with that: "On the day of her dinner with producers from Real Vegas Showgirls, she'd be like Dorothy racing for Oz. There's no way she'd slow down to get drunk." David takes us to science school this week by explaining, "Decomposing blood can generate ethanol post-mortem. As the cell walls lyse and contact the sugar in alcohol, bacterial growth produces the byproducts of carbon dioxide and ethanol." We see this happening courtesy of nifty computer-generated graphics. David adds that the estimations are inexact, but the body's capable of producing .08 grams percent on its own. Catherine figures Julie got a head start of about three shots.
The shot is of Catherine examining all the photos of Julie on a table as she explains David rushed the protocol so he could release Julie's body to her parents. "So they could take her home to Provo?" Gil asks. Provo, Utah? I have a hard time believing that a Mormon family would be a hundred percent behind their daughter running off the Vegas to swill hooch and work as a showgirl. Let's just assume the Waterses weren't following Brigham Young too closely and leave it at that. Anyway, Catherine hauls out an iteration of the "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen the neon of Vegas?" plaint, in which it is implied that thousands of virginal lasses are sacrificed on Vegas's impersonal altar of ambition, and Gil's not buying it. Gil and Catherine spend some time looking at raw, angry red pictures, and we establish that those would be of Julie's battered cervix; there are multiple abrasions, but no indication of semen. Gil says dryly, "So it's possible he used a foreign object."
Cut to Catherine in the interrogation room with Howard again. She's all, "Now I'm confused. Julie died because someone sat on her chest. Two years ago, you were arrested for forced oral cop." Howard replies, "You don't think I'd do that, do you?" The lawyer's squawking in the background, but Howard's trying to plead his case with, "I liked Julie. I took a lot of photographs of her. Even Julie's mother said that no one ever captured her on film the way that I did." That's pretty much as indirect a refutation as you can get. Then Catherine moves into the topic of Julie drinking, and Howard paints a picture of Julie as something of a boozy temptress who never said stop. Catherine asks why this never came up before; Howard replies, "I was afraid of what you'd think of me." Because thinking of him as someone who takes advantage of drunken women, accidentally killing them in the process, is somehow worse than thinking of him as an abusive stalker type? Potato, po-tah-to.
We then see the lawyer on TV complaining that his client is being tried in the media, and that exonerating evidence is getting delivered to Catherine as he speaks. Sure enough, it is. How convenient! Also, how tired is the whole "TV news as narrator and Greek chorus" thing? There are other narrative devices that don't have nearly the same odious self-referentiality. Anyway, Howard's only slightly less creepy brother brings in an envelope that was mailed two days ago, which contains Howard's film and a note reading, "If I get arrested, use these to help me." Catherine thinks this is all a little too convenient: "'If I get arrested.' Why would he think that?"
Catherine and Archie are looking at the negatives -- four rolls, all of Julie -- and Catherine explains per Archie's inquiry that these are supposed to provide Howard with an alibi. However, the double-exposed strip of film shows a naked body imposed over the car. She then goes off to look at a trash can with Sara; Archie will print up the photos and bring them by.
Sara pulls a lot of headshots out of the trashcan, immediately underscoring Howard's credibility problems on the "she ran out of headshots" front. We also see some face wipes Howard apparently used to swab Julie's face ("Doesn't explain why," Sara points out) and a blank book with "My Diary" written on the first page in round girlish letters surrounded by doodled flowers. As Sara checks out Julie's fairly light schedule, Catherine digs out a black backpack filled with Julie's clothing; she knows it's hers from the white shoes featured in the shoot. Catherine explains to a slightly stunned Sara, "First thing you learn as a model. Bring several outfits with you. You never know what the photographer might like." She then pulls out a stocking and examines it: "Here's our big lie. Delhomme said she injured her earlobe when she was in her underwear" -- presumably off-screen, since it wasn't part of any conversation I've seen. Sara tells Catherine with a tiny amount of relish, "I think Howard's been lying to you."
In the shot, Sara's going through Julie's stuff while Catherine stands around in a pair of shorts. All she needs is a pair of star-shaped sunglasses and a pair of roller skates and it's Boogie Nights II: The Millennium Edition. Anyway, Sara's gasping at the $65 price tag on a pair of black stockings, so I'm guessing she's never checked out the Wolford's hosiery shop over in the Caesar shops. Catherine explains, "Capital investment. Our victim hadn't made it to the show yet. Her life was all about after the show: the right guy, the right meal, and after that…" Sara comments that it's a tough way to get ahead. Catherine asks, seemingly off-handedly, "Your father ever tell you [that] you were pretty?" Sara doesn't look up as she mumbles, "I guess." "He ever tell you [that] you were smart?" Catherine asks. Sara looks up and decisively answers yes. Catherine says, "So it never occurred to you that you wouldn't be successful. If all you ever hear is that you're gorgeous, you can let everything else fall away, leaving you in a very dangerous place." Let this be a lesson to all parents who think it's cute to encourage their five-year-old daughters to pursue what basically amounts to an aerobic form of mistresshood. As Catherine was talking, she was rolling on those $65 Wolford tights, and now she's going to conduct a little experiment to see if the blood stain on the one tight squares with events Howard recounted, because "the only way we can get this guy is if the evidence counters every one of his lies." At least someone learns fast. Catherine figures out that the drop on top of the stocking was gravitational, but the second one was a smear. Sara adds, "She was standing. That makes another lie." Catherine adds somberly, "And there was no one to help her." We flash back to a terrified Julie clutching her ear as she sobs and faces Howard.
Archie is helpfully showing us the double-exposed photos of the woman and the Maserati. Nicky directs him into teasing out the instrument panel on the double-exposed photos versus the crime scene photos, and realizes they're not looking at the same car.
Meanwhile, Sara's checking the Julie shots from that day, which neatly clock the progression from photo shoot to bad scene. Sara and Catherine briefly squabble over the evidence vis-à-vis what could have been used to abuse Julie, and Catherine's all freaked about finding the smoking gun, as it were, before Howard can be let out of jail. The boy soprano agrees. Nicky shows up then to share the photo discovery.
Archie's manipulating the photos to accompany Nick's explanation of how the double-exposed film features a car that's different from the one on the photo shoots, and those were shot over the naked girl; we also find out that there's no face to go with the body in those poses. Catherine gets the bright idea to compare those photos with the SART photos the coroner took earlier. As she scrolls away from head shots toward the ones taken south of the border, Catherine says pointedly, "Why don't you guys take a break?" Sara completely misses the cue and states, "These photos don't bother me." "They bother me," Catherine replies. Sara gives her a sulky look and exits the room. Once Catherine's alone, she does a close examination of the photos, looking for common reference points.
Catherine wanders on out, and Sara asks, "So?" Catherine says peevishly, "The naked pictures weren't of Julie." Sara wonders what logic would compel someone to fake naked pictures and send them on over to someone else. Catherine doesn't care, and moves on to see what else is going on. Sara's also feeling cranky: "If he raped her with a foreign object, it is not on this table. Do you want me to leave you alone so you can [check all the objects] yourself?" Catherine looks up with a Why, God? Why now? look and says, "The entire lab didn't need to see pictures of Julie's vagina plastered all over a giant screen." Sara snots, "So Nick and I are the entire lab now?" Catherine declines to dignify that with a response. Sara ratchets up the cranky even more with, "That's not it, Catherine, and you know it." Catherine justifies her rapport with Howard by -- you guessed it -- referencing her stripper days. If Catherine mentioning her occupation is a drinking game item, I imagine people are loaded by now. She tells Sara, "As angry as it made you, when you're in my shoes, you'll do the same thing." Sara stands there and glares at Catherine awhile, so the groundwork is laid for the hair-pulling catfight that will no doubt take place during February sweeps. to a pool, no doubt. Or a mud-wrestling ring. Anyway, Catherine checks a case, and right after Sara's all, "I already checked that," Catherine notices the cutout where the gun used to be, and realized that they've been looking in the wrong place for the object Howard used to violate Julie. We get a flashback shot of Howard licking the gun just in case the dramatic music and big gun-shaped cut-out don't lead us by the nose to the inevitable conclusion. But for the slow people in the audience, Catherine sums up, "We're looking at the wrong evidence. His initial arrest was for brandishing a firearm."
Cut to Catherine testing the gun. Then she meets with Howard. There's some tiresome back-and-forth so we know that Catherine's on to Howard and his creepy misogynistic stalker ways. Howard insists, "She posed naked for me. My brother gave you the pictures. I never forced her to do anything." We then get the blow-by-blow, as it were, of Julie's last moments. Catherine says, "Julie Waters' cervical tissue was all over your gun sight. What's the matter? Couldn't swallow it when you saw her all over your TV?" Howard goes a little crazy then, but is conveniently restrained by a nearby uniform. He calls her a bitch a few times -- nothing Catherine hasn't heard around the office over the last few days -- and Catherine just stares at him contemptuously.
The anchordroid informs us that prosecutors will be seeking life without parole for Howard, which seems odd, since he did rape and murder her, and you'd think that would be a capital crime. Gil tells Catherine she did well; she replies that she had help. Gil asks how things are between Catherine and the promotion twins, and Catherine replies, "They're good. They're pros." The neat thing about that line is how she says it with a straight face. Catherine is still thinking about Howard; she says, "All he had to do was stay quiet." Gil points out that, unlike Robyn, Julie became "Las Vegas's post-mortem sweetheart. The media as moral conscience." How funny that a show which has just shown a man fellating the gun he used to violate a woman -- and relied on the media to sustain a thin narrative structure -- should all of a sudden get morals. Anyway, Catherine blah-dee-blahs about how Julie and Howard couldn't escape each other, and the episode ends with that goddamned boy soprano reminding us how sad it is when pretty people die and Julie on the screen telling the world, "My dad always tells me, 'Julie, people can't help but love you. And it's true.'" And yet, this episode has only made more of a misanthrope of me. How ironic.