Rather than bore you with another description of nightfall in Vegas, I'm going to take this time to talk all about myself, and how, thanks to a confluence of events (being college-aged in the early 1990s, going to an engineering college in southwestern Virginia), I am unfortunately conversant with the musical stylings of one Garth Brooks. While this did occasionally come in handy during my undergraduate heyday -- bellowing the unexpurgated final verse of "Friends in a Low Places," while several shots' worth of Everclear gradually destroyed the neurons that would have otherwise gotten me through organic chemistry unscathed, was a surprisingly durable party trick -- it also induces flashbacks.
Like now, where the lightning is crackling over the neon-washed streets of Vegas, as a blurry scenario of brewing domestic discord plays out in what's clearly meant to be narrative supposition. Except that I'm sitting here on the couch with the histrionic twang of a Crisco-faced Okie ringing through my ears: "And the thunder ro-oh-ohlllls / And the lahtning strahks! / Another love grows co-oholld / On a sleepless nah-haght / As the sto-orm blo-oh-ohs / Out of con-trow-wu-owl / Deep in her har-er-art / The thunder rollllllls."
So, yes, there is a domestic incident ending in gunplay and murder, only this time it's the presumably cheating wife who's been killed, and not a cheating spouse. And as the scene clears and we see a bunch of jurors weighing whether or not the guy actually did it, I just kind of watch. Like LSD, Garth Brooks flashbacks happen at the damnedest times. One of the jurors testily asks foreman Chris to put the matter to a vote. Everyone who watched Center Stage instantly identifies her as Susan May Pratt, an actress who's made a name for herself playing delightfully caustic young women. Everyone who hasn't seen Center Stage -- what's wrong with you? Go rent it now! It has everything -- Peter Gallagher's eyebrows playing the ballet master at a company, overbearing stage mommies practically shoving their fingers down their daughters' throats so the girls can stay thin, ballet dancers entering stage right on motorcycle (yes, you read that right: motorcycle), sex scenes done en pointe, ballet dancers getting funky to Michael Jackson tunes -- or as funky as ballet dancers can get, anyway, with it being Michael Jackson. At least they're not dancing to "Ben." Anyway, this movie is excellent fun and you should go watch it after you finish this recap.
So there's this tense moment because apparently putting this whole thing to a vote is a contentious issue, and then Chris looks at the eleven other people giving him the hairy eyeball and says, "The burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. We don't have that. There was somebody else in the house that day -- the cable guy. Cable guy's got priors. He skipped town." The other jurors tell him to stop making like Juror #8 in Twelve Angry Men (more or less), and then, because the parallels haven't been drawn enough, another guy gets up. It's now blindingly bright out; the hot-tempered juror snits, "Who keeps shutting this window?" Probably the city employee who wonders what kind of moron would ignore the climate control in an office building. Another juror snarls that lunch will be here soon, and they all take a break. Susan May Pratt flutters by the vending machine with, "I'd kill for a candy bar." And on this show, someone probably will.
Out in the lobby, they all talk about how they want Chris replaced. A busty not-at-all-natural blonde purrs, "I pointed him in the right direction, but he didn't snap." A bailiff rounds them up with, "Hey, people. Your lunch is getting cold," and then they all troop back inside, chattering the whole way. Chris's supine body more or less stops conversation.
Ah, that's okay. Gil's not much for the small talk anyway. We see him walking into the now-empty jury room. Brass looks down at the body, his Mantle of Plot Advancement fluttering in the air conditioner's breeze, and explains, "Chris Gibbons, UNLV graduate student." What? He couldn't get into the prestigious Western Las Vegas University? Turns out the jury's been sequestered two and a half weeks on a murder trial. Brass doesn't add whether Gil's shift or Ecklie's worked the case, which seems odd, because you think they'd be interested, or at least remember that we're interested. Gil name-checks everyone's favorite existentialist: "Twelve people, stuck in a room with no exit." Or, if it's a lit seminar, twelve people stuck in a room with No Exit. Ahem. Gil continues, "It's like Sartre said, 'Hell is other people.'"
The Who thinks not knowing who other people are is pretty hellish. I personally wonder if Simone de Beauvoir sometimes snapped, "Hell isn't other people -- it's listening to you carry on about other people!"
When we get back from commercials, Gil is snapping pictures of Chris's dented forehead and telling Brass his early opinion is that Chris was killed via blunt force. We flash back to someone grabbing Chris by the back of the head and bouncing his skull on the conference table. Gil checks the medical alert bracelet; Chris was allergic to penicillin. Brass is already delighted at the prospect of eleven potential suspects. Gil is too busy pulling long, fake blonde hairs off Chris to care. Brass identifies her as "Miss Davis. She's a stripper at the Shimmer." As Brass walks off, Gil notes that -- shocker -- Miss Davis isn't a natural blonde. I bet her customers could've told you that. Brass shoots back, "Hey, this is Vegas, baby." Gil looks up like this is news to him.
Brass then goes through the most recent juror ballots and notes, "Eleven guilty, one not-guilty. Now, that's motive."
Ah, here comes Catherine. Do you suppose the department has a special C-ray with a busty silhouette to summon Catherine if there are strippers to talk to, like the Bat-sign? She eventually settles the fractious jury and introduces herself ("I'm Catherine. A giant beacon summoned me here because one of you shakes your groove thang for money and I was once one of you…") One juror's all, "So it's a mistrial, right?" Susan May Pratt eagerly asks if they can go home. Catherine's all, "Mmmmm…no." She then summons the stripper for a one-on-one.
Once they're in a room, Catherine's all, "We found a synthetic blonde hair on the body. Care to explain?" Miss Davis whips off the wig to reveal some light-brown hair that looks surprisingly good given that it's in a wig, and says, "I'm a dancer. I came down off the pole, I teased him a little bit…" By this, we see that she meant, "I came on to him by the soda machine and offered to sleep with him if he'd just get over that pesky 'reasonable doubt' thing and vote guilty." While I'm relieved that she apparently doesn't travel with a stripper pole and bring it out when she gets bored, the moral implications behind what she did do are appalling. Turns out Chris was into more cerebral come-ons. Catherine cracks, "Lucky for you. Attempting to influence is a class-D felony. It's up to four years in prison and a $5000 fine." Miss Davis wants to know if she's under arrest, and Catherine preaches, "Woman to woman? The pole is there for a reason. It's what you have to hang on to so the creeps don't pull you out of there. Smarten up." Holy homily, Catherine!
Back at the Labitrail, Nicky's busy passing a folder to someone when Detective Strongjaw (hey, I have no idea what his name is, and Detective Lockwood took all variants of "Detective Hot" with him to the grave as far as I'm concerned) comes on over. The two men shake hands hello, and then Strongjaw gives us the backstory on the B-plot: Nicky and Gil worked a missing-person's case out in Moapa four years ago, where a woman who lived on a farm with her husband went missing. Surprisingly enough, Nicky remembers both the case and the victim's name (Rita). Well, Rita's sister Faye waltzed in the door today and is now claiming Rita was murdered.
Cut to Nicky shooting the breeze with Leslie Van Houten as she -- oh. My bad. The lank center-parted hair and empty yet focused gaze only made Faye look like she and Patricia Krenwinkle used to swap pot brownie recipes between disruptive courtroom hearings. Anyway, Nicky's pointing out the obvious: "It's been four years since your sister went missing. Now, CSI conducted an investigation and found nothing suspicious, nothing criminal. Why are you coming forward now?" Good question. It turns out Faye "lied to you back then, and [she] live[s] with the guilt every day." Strongjaw advises her of her right to counsel, which she naturally shrugs off since that would make for a much shorter episode, and she adds nobly, "I admit I withheld information. That's why I'm here. And if I have to go to jail, so be it." Yes, but a good lawyer's the difference between a few months in jail and a few years. Anyway, now Faye wants to do right by her sister. The past four years, she was still working through the anger over ten years' worth of crappy bath sets as Christmas gifts, I guess.
Nicky says, "Let's start from the very beginning." Long story short: Faye tells a story about how her sister came home early from a business trip and happened to find her husband Aaron in a barn with "another woman" who's named…Maye. Or Gaye…or Shaye…or Raye…but certainly not Faye. No sirree. Apparently, Rita went nuts with rage and threatened to leave Aaron, and that threat prompted Aaron to kill Rita. Rather than ask, "And you were…hiding in the rafters through all this?" Nicky points out that Aaron had an alibi -- camping with someone named Harris. Faye -- yes, the same Faye who hasn't established how she had this story or why she sat on it for four years -- then dismisses Harris's credibility, claiming that because he owed Aaron a lot of money, he would have said anything. Conveniently enough, Harris died last month, so he can't defend himself against these charges.
Nicky then asks what Aaron did with Rita's body. Long flashback short: he stuffed in a metal drum, filled it with gasoline from the pump he had on the farm, and then, according to Faye, "He drove her out to the river about half a mile from the farm and, um, set her on fire. She burned all night, and then in the morning, he dumped her ashes in the water." Strongjaw finally gets around to asking how Faye knows all this stuff Aaron supposedly did, and Nicky correctly deduces, "You were the other woman."
Back on the A-plot, Warrick is checking out the window latch, which happens to be covered in blood. He asks Sara if any jurors have blood on their hands. Sara…directs him to Catherine, I guess, because she's the one now talking to window-opening juror Mr. Jervis to see why his fingers are bloody.
In return, he asks, "You ever been on a jury?" The testy older woman is asking, "How many students does it take to screw in a light bulb?" and the prospect of a bad joke sends Jervis screaming toward the window. Jervis continues to rant about how awful it is to have the civic obligation to serve on a jury, as opposed to living in a country with a Charles I-style Star Chamber, but Catherine reminds him he's still under a judge's orders not to discuss the case. He goes on about Chris the lone holdout was standing between him and a quick exit, and dolefully notes that his boss calls him "Mr. Replaceable." He should start calling his boss "the defendant," as there's a case to be made for the guy violating Nevada's revised statute NRS 6.190: "Terminating or threatening to terminate employment because of jury duty; dissuasion from service as juror." However, Catherine the law-enforcement professional -- the same one snotting about class D felonies to Miss Davis -- does not bring this up.
Nicky's reviewing Rita's old case files. Gil comes by to say quizzically, "Homicide just called: they're re-opening the Rita Westonson case based on new information from the eyewitness?" Nicky notes that the file's thinner than he remembers. We could say the same of you, my man. Go forth and hoover up a kilo of pasta! Gil asks if Nicky thinks the testimony's worth re-opening the case; Nicky does, reasoning, "If she's lying, she's wasting my time and obstructing justice. If she's telling the truth, we may have closed the investigation early." Gil saves the sanity of everyone trying to remember if we covered Rita's case in Season One of the show by reminding Nicky he was a CSI-2 when he worked the case, so closing the case was all Gil's call. (Remember, Nicky was promoted to CSI-3 in the first episode of the show.) Nicky's deferential, but he holds his ground: "I'm checking out her story -- see if it holds up." Gil wanders off; Nicky watches him go.
And now, it's fun with blunt force trauma wounds time! Or perhaps not: David the Hypoallergenic Coroner points out that the impressive wound on Chris's head didn't kill him, but his raging case of hives did. "Cause of death: anaphylactic shock," David tells Sara. He walks us through it: "The outer skin becomes irritated, the eyes inflamed, throat closes." We see it all courtesy of the TMIcam. It's pretty much a cascading histamine reaction gone horribly wrong -- when people with normal immune systems hit a trigger (say, dust), the first line of defense are the histamines. In an allergic person, an allergenic trigger substance pushes the immune system into overdrive: histamines, which can cause an inflammatory response (useful for restricting the passage of allergens, in theory) or a smooth-muscle contraction, flood the body, causing urticaria (pruritic wheals), angioedema (swelling), vasodilation, and bronchospasm. In other words, your body puffs up in overreaction.
Anyway, Sara has no time to contemplate the horrors of IgE gone horribly mad -- instead, she's all, "But he was only allergic to penicillin, and it's not like that comes out of vending machines! So what caused the reaction?" Do an immunoassay and find out! But before we get to that, David points out the wound on his thigh that's consistent with a puncture mark. The two decide this is surely a sign that somehow, someone must have snuck back into the room and plunged a hypodermic full of penicillin into Chris's thigh, or something, because they're now on the Death by Penicillin Express.
Faye, meanwhile, is leading Nicky and Strongjaw over to where she and Aaron played Campfire Girl with Rita. She intones, "Sometimes, it feels like it was yesterday. Sometimes, it feels like it never happened. Sometimes, I feel like a nut. Sometimes, I don't." Or maybe she stops sometime in there. Faye shows everyone the running river in the leafy picnic area and asks overdramatically, "Who could have imagined?" Imagined what? That you still don't have a lawyer and nobody's given you the fisheye for maybe having motive to murder your sister?
Anyway, Faye's taken them to the exact spot, and she walks them through the night that Aaron dropped the match into the barrel. Apparently, nobody bothered to close Rita's eyes, so she's bobbing around her flammable sea and staring up reproachfully at her cuckolding spouse and murderer. Then Aaron tosses a match, and thing you know, they're singing Blue Oyster Cult songs over a roaring fire. Faye helpfully embroiders the story by pointing out how the yucca plant was flowering during all this. Strongjaw turns around to look at the plant, which seems totally imported for the occasion. It looks kind of awkward, all tough leaves (thick cuticle seals water in, dehydration out!) and monocotyledons in a deciduous dicotyledon world. Well, it's heart-wrenching if you're into botany. You'll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, there's some "You sure?" "I'm sure!" and then Nicky takes a soil sample. This kind of alarms Faye, especially after he explains, "The gasoline fumes would have settled into the soil, and trace amounts of hydrocarbons would still be detectable." Faye's okay with that.
Back in the lab, the computer tech from Ocean's Eleven has wandered into the Labitrail and is playing in the dirt. Is he pulling a scam? Will we see George Clooney and Don Cheadle go wandering by? Because I'm okay with that. Anyway, Jemison -- as I'll call him for now, since his name is Eddie Jemison and we don't want any confusion with Eddie the Dead Pancake-Making Bastard -- is all about processing the dirt. You know, according to his IMBD entry, he was in CSI: Miami last year, and yet I have no recollection of him, possibly because my irritation towards Horatio tended to bleach out all surrounding plots, characters, and details. Anyway, Jemison's name is short-lived, because Nicky comes by and calls him Mr. Dorsey. Dorsey it is. Now bring on the George Clooney! No? Brad Pitt? I can take Brad Pitt -- he was on King of the Hill and that is meet and right. No? Matt Damon? He's the ying to the Affleckian yang/wang/wanker. Throw me a bone here, people.
Anyway, Dorsey ran the tests -- no evidence of gasoline whatsoever. Nicky looks around the lab suspiciously and asks, "Where's Hodges?" He's off at a conference in San Francisco. Ah, nothing could be more appropriate. I say that as an unwilling veteran of several extended jaunts at the Moscone. Dorsey, however, is under the impression the conference is on Pier 39: "Three days of sourdough and seafood." He then clumsily tells Nicky that word around the day-shift water cooler is that Sara's getting the promotion because "Grissom only gave Sara a higher evaluation because of their history." Since God forbid a woman should get a higher evaluation on her own merits. But you see why openly lusting after your boss is a bad idea? Like it or not, fair or not, it gives people an excuse to question your competency. Fortunately, Strongjaw comes in before Nicky can inspect all the mangled remains of reality after it's been ground in the rumor mill. Nicky tells him how the science doesn't back the story. Strongjaw tells us that as it turns out, Faye has motive to pin something on Aaron, since he just moved on to the third Westonson sister, Terry, and got engaged to her. Aaron's something of a dog.
Meanwhile, Catherine's off proving Sara and David the Concluding Coroner wrong: "Tox came back on Chris Gibbons. He may have been allergic to penicillin, but he didn't have any in his system." Gil adds that it turns out the injection was not some sort of stealth penicillin shot, but epinephrine, commonly used to halt an anaphylactic reaction. The brain trust finally concludes that Chris had an allergic reaction to something else. Gil deduces that Chris must have carried an auto-injector epinephrine pen. My question: Why did he not also carry a bracelet listing all his potentially lethal allergies? Why stop with penicillin?
Don't ask Liam for answers: for once, he doesn’t have a handy window into a niche population. He does have a massive complaint about work: "I'm not the allergy expert. I'm trying to get out in the field, and you're trying to multitask me in the lab." Catherine points out, "I'm the one that actually put you on a case, not just talk about it." Liam points out that Catherine took him off the case too; she justifies it by using a baseball metaphor. Liam does not point out that you typically don't bring in a closing pitcher after the sixth inning (his arm would fall off), and snaps, "What am I? Fish or fowl?" He's foul-tempered. Catherine, however, is inspired; she tells Liam to check Chris's blood for the big food allergies: shellfish, egg whites, nuts and soy. What, no dairy?
Cut to the Somber Twins, who have been lurking in the darkened jury room while waiting for the writers to remember that they're on the show. Catherine's just called from offstage to tell them to look for any traces of peanuts in the lunches the jurors ordered. While Sara pokes through Chris's thoroughly disgusting-looking chili, Warrick notices a peanut shell on the table. A juror named Mr. Durham has peanut skins under his seat.
And now, we pause this narrative while I wonder how on earth someone presumably so allergic to nuts that he carried around an epinephrine pen, and/or possibly got killed by them, did not raise his allergy concerns with the bailiff or anyone else responsible for accommodating the jurors during the trial; the June 10, 2001 New York Times magazine article "The Allergy Prison" detailed how pervasive allergenic proteins can be, and the extensive efforts undertaken to limit an allergic child's exposure, especially in publicly accessible places. Why wouldn't a county trial be any different?
Rant over. Back to the plot. There were peanut shells under Chris's seat -- odd, since he didn't eat them -- and when they bring in Durham for questioning, the jerk is all, "Just 'cause he's allergic doesn't mean I can't have them." Sara rips him a well-deserved new one: "Chris Gibbons died from a severe allergic reaction. You were the only guy in the jury room who was eating peanuts. You might have killed him." Durham protests that he was just messing with the guy, in the practiced tones of someone who probably killed two freshmen a year during fraternity hazing in college. In this case, "messing with his head" meant flicking peanut shells at him until Chris had to whip out his injector pen before the anaphylactic shock kicked in, but apparently, "it wasn't that big a deal." Nice. If I were the defendant and I knew folks who were all about swaying the jury through sexual favors and demonstrating an inability to parse "I'm allergic to peanuts" with "I didn't realize flicking peanut shells would do anything" were in charge of my fate, I'd begin testing the tensile strength of my shoelaces against the nearest beam.
Nicky's finding out why Faye neglected to mention either sister Terry or her current relationship with Aaron. After Faye pulls the "it's not what it seems" move, Nicky asks, "Then why didn't you tell us about your younger sister?" "Because I knew it would come to this!" she responds, in a mind-boggling logical fallacy that is so simple, yet so incredibly wrong, I can only meditate on it like a koan. You'd think that Faye would realize her credibility is a tricky issue here. Nicky gives her a fuming glare, and Faye babbles, "I was dumped by Aaron for my younger sister. I was hurt, and angry, and jealous, and I wanted to get back at him, so I falsely accused him of killing Rita." This is where I'm glad my sole sibling is both male and heterosexual, as it guarantees we'll never be in danger of our spouses dumping one of us for the other, and then giving us the lobotomy that makes Faye's behavior seem like a good idea. Anyway, Faye goes on to carry on about how worried she is for Terry, and Strongjaw basically asks, "If you're this worried, why haven't you raised your concerns with her?" So then Faye pulls out her second broadside against rational reason with, "Because she's in love with him. If I told her what Aaron did to Rita, she'd run right to him. Crazy Faye, always causing trouble. Aaron would like nothing more than to drive a wedge between me and my sister." If the guys in this room are listening, they've hopefully realized that sentence number two in that spiel is the relevant one.
Warrick and Sara are back in the Labitrail, going through the trash until they find the used auto-injector pen. You know, it seems like doing something like administering a lot of medication to yourself like that would prompt a follow-up visit to the doctor, as opposed to resuming deliberations. It also seems like you'd carry more than one of those suckers. Maybe I'm just being overly cautious; for all I know, the massively allergic head out into the public with only one pen as a form of histamine-fueled joyriding. Sara addresses the pen issue with, "Well, he was sequestered. He couldn't exactly go out and get another one." Except if he's that damn allergic in the first place, wouldn't he have to make medical provisions in the event of isolation? I can't believe any county courthouse would be all, "Welcome to the jury. Got a life-threatening condition? Tough it out, sucker!"
Sara's not finding anything in Chris's chili, but Warrick just found a purloined peanut butter wrapper hidden in a Coke can. He shares the discovery with Sara, who notes gloomily, "That could belong to any of the jurors." She goes back to closely examining the chili and discovers that someone put peanut butter in Chris's chili. "Someone was doing more than just flicking peanut shells," she says. Yes: it's a Reese's product experiment gone lethally wrong. Reese's Chili Chunks is just not going to sell. Sara underscores the significance of the murder with, "If Gibbons had that severe a reaction to peanut shells, imagine what peanut butter would do to him." Warrick says, "That's more than just messing with the guy's head." Yeah -- you're mucking with his immune system. Sara takes it a step further: "That's murder."
After commercials -- no peanut products pimped during this episode's sponsored airtime! -- Sara runs into Gil in the Labitrail and tells him the defense moved for a mistrial in light of the jury members attempting to murder each other. Or, as she calls it, "Suspicion of jury tampering." Gil says disbelievingly, "Based on peanut butter in the chili? How does a juror benefit from Gibbons's death?" Sara doesn't know: "Lone holdout, and now they get to go home?" Gil replies, "That's nuts" -- hee! He said "nuts," and it's all punny because, well, you get it -- and continues, "The risk isn't worth the reward." Sara says, "Well, Warrick's still working on that print." Gil asks Sara, "What are you working on?" then walks off before she can shoot back, "My people skills. You know, handling difficult personalities up the chain of command, boss." Instead she just stands in the hall and has a head-shaking "Huh?" moment.
Nicky, meanwhile, is off to check the site where Rita was cremated. He checks the soil moisture index, then hacks off some branches of a nearby tree so he can check the rings back in the inorganic comfort of the Labitrail.
And there he is now. Gil comes over, waving around a piece of paper and noting that the soil report doesn't support the eyewitness testimony. Nicky replies, "No. So I stuck a moisture testing probe into the ground at the burn site and registered 18%. Now, anything over 10% is indicative of full saturation over the last couple of years." Gil counters, "The river might have washed away all trace of hydrocarbons." Nicky continues, "Exactly. But before it washed away, some of the hydrocarbons could have seeped into the ground, into the tree's roots. Roots carry nutrients to the tree, some of the hydrocarbons could have hitched a ride. Oaks don't bear fruit, but this one bears witness." Way to reduce transpiration to a forensic coincidence, son. Anyway, Nicky continues, "Every year, [the] branch grows a new ring composed of a light, dark band" -- yeah, it makes no sense to me either; I only rewound and rewatched this four times to confirm -- "counting outside in to go back four years --" "The ring from four years ago is thinner and distorted," says Gil. Nicky tells him the distortion is present in ring 4 of every branch. Really? Is any part of that tree left? Gil connects the dots for those playing along at home: "The distortion could mean evidence of a toxic event." Nicky's thinking "burning a corpse in gasoline under a tree" counts as toxic. Gil asks how he's going to prove it. Nicky holds up a hunk of wood and replies, "Sawdust." He walks off and Gil gives the camera a bemused almost-smile before quirking up an eyebrow and going back to staring at the tree cross-sections.
Dorsey's now testing the dendritic detritus for Nicky and reporting that yea, there are hydrocarbons in the ring. Nicky's all, "Now we're talking." How he's talking is the real mystery: that turtleneck he's got on is so massive, it's a wonder he's not suffering from rugged-sailor-knit-induced bronchospasms. Dorsey demonstrates his flair for office politics by saying, "No offense, Nick, but proving the boss wrong is not the quickest path to career advancement." Nicky neglects to reply, "Says Exhibit A to my left," or "And you just sling samples because it keeps you real?" Instead, he just gives Dorsey a look.
Sara's off talking to the bailiff now. We find out the trial lasted four weeks, and the jury's been sequestered two more with virtually no access to newspapers or other media, outside phone calls, et cetera. Sara asks how the food worked; the bailiff tells her the jurors had breakfast and dinner at their hotels -- presumably, they were staying off the Strip, as opposed to being sequestered at Caesar's -- but for lunch, he brought in a menu and they ordered off that. Chris got the chili every day; the bailiff neglects to mention whether it's because every other item on the menu contained something he was allergic to, or because Chris really liked beans. I get the impression it was due to the allergies.
We then head over to the vending machine where, nestled amidst actual licensed goods like Snackwells, Nutrigrain bars, Oreos, Fig Newtons, Hershey Bars, Toll House Cookie Bars, and Nestle Crunch with caramel, there are the "Peanut Butter Stix" by Mystery Vendor Ending in -CHO. Now I'm all disappointed they didn't stock the machine with Choco-Bees too, just to keep things consistent. I can understand why they didn't go with Skippy Squeeze Stix (actual peanut butter products will not sell well if implicated in murdering the allergic), but if you're going to make up products, honor the lead-containing Choco-Bees!
Anyway, we find out that one of the jurors had a second cell phone hidden in his sock. The bailiff points out, "Hey, I confiscated the primary [cell phones] at the beginning of deliberations, but I don't do cavity searches." He and Sara laugh over that. I take a moment to stare in bafflement at the sight: watching Sara smile this season is roughly analogous to watching a unicorn stroll around in the background. Does anyone remember when she was all into her work and happy about it? Without using reruns as a memory jog? Yeah, me neither.
Sara asks, "How do you burn out your cell phone battery when you're not allowed to use your phone?" and then we transition to the guilty juror saying, "They don't make cell phones like they used to." Sara replies brightly that they now make cell phones better -- like, with the ability to take pictures. She goes through the jury photo album and compliments the guy on his work. Brass says wearily, "Okay. Let's start with the misdemeanors: cell phones, and cameras, or cell phones with cameras are prohibited in the jury room. Somebody must have told you that." The juror doesn't bother to confirm or deny, but launches into an explanation of how the jury's like family to him now and he was merely compiling a scrapbook for everyone. Dude, Martha Stewart's crafty ass is already warming a seat in court -- the world doesn't need two of you. Sara asks sweetly, "Oh? And when were you planning on handing that out? At Mr. Gibbons's funeral?" He has no answer. Sara continues perforating his lie with the sharp truth: this clown just got a $30,000 credit to his account, all of which would have gone toward his $25,000 gambling debt. We find out the money came from a tabloid, and Gary the Gambler justifies it by saying he's self-employed, so he's been out of work for the last six and a half weeks. He also asks, "Why should the guy who killed his wife be the only one to make a buck?" Sara and Brass can't hide their bemused looks.
Wow. This entire episode is shaping up as an argument against jury nullification, jury trials, and even the idea of a jury of your peers. Either the defendant was a class-A jerk and these truly are his peers, or he had the misfortune to have a defense attorney who didn't have the brains to challenge any of the jury selections.
Anyway, at the B-plot, we finally find out that Strongjaw's name is "Detective Artan," and that he and Nicky are there to deliver a warrant to Aaron and Terry for a search on their property. As it turns out, Aaron remembers Nicky. Aaron also remembers the eighties, if the shaggy hair and muscle tee are any indication. It's hard to believe he's romanced all three sisters in a family looking like that -- maybe their susceptibility to his Reagan-era charms is actually carried on the X chromosome or something. Aaron says eagerly, "You found her?" and Nicky has to answer, "No, not exactly -- but we have a potential new lead." Artan takes this moment to add that they also have a warrant. Terry takes it, saying, "I'm an attorney." When that fails to impress anyone, she questions the contents (they want a sample of gasoline) and snots, "Warrant was issued by Judge Brenner. I'll make a call." Why? Because every lawyer in Las Vegas knows one another? Nicky cheerfully calls out, "Say hello for me!" and Terry gives him an oh, shit… look as she realizes that he's cheery because the science backing the warrant is pretty tight. Or maybe it's because she just realized that her fiancé's been lying to her, it's not really 1984 like he said it was, and her pegged-pants-and-cropped-jacket ensemble hasn't withstood the test of time.
Aaron and his Noo Yawk accent rant about how Nicky has some nerve coming back to search again with no answers about Rita, and emphasizes how he had nothing to do with Rita's disappearance. Nicky averts his eyes from the spectacle of Aaron's big, poofy Reagan hair (seriously -- I think he borrowed that hair from Andrew McCarthy, then dyed it black so twenty years' wear and tear wouldn't show) and goes to get his gas sample.
Or maybe he just goes to gape at a barn. Artan asks what Nicky's looking at, and Nicky replies, "I was standing right here four years ago asking myself that same question." And now, he's standing here asking himself whether Aaron liked his in-laws so much, he kept dallying within the family until he found a daughter that stuck. He and Artan take the diesel sample, and that's about it.
Back at the A-plot, Warrick's fuming. The wrapper, that is. Although, if I were him, I'd be fuming as I wondered why nobody was lobbing promotions my way, what with having already run a shift and been tagged by the bug man himself as the chosen one for succession. Anyway, he checks the Poncho's Peanut Butter Stix label and sees two partial prints, which he promptly pins on Pratt. Susan May Pratt, that is. Or, as she's known in this episode, Tara Newsome, Orpheus Casino and Hotel sous chef.
Cut to her saying, "I'm getting married in five days." Warrick shoots back, "Not if you can't explain how your fingerprints ended up on this peanut butter tube stuffed inside a soda can that we found in the jury room." Tara makes a frowny face and says, "I just wanted to go home, have my fittings. I spent my bridal shower with eleven strangers. My sister filled in for me! I'll never get to experience that." Unless you get married again. Or your friends and family aren't so crass as to hold an event honoring you without you, and decide to throw a wingding for you when you get back. I'm just saying, Bridezilla. Warrick cares not for these premarital travails: "Mr. Gibbons will never get to experience the rest of his life." Tara spills. They were on a break, the bailiff brought lunch, and she took the box and told him she'd pass everything out. Somehow, everyone else was out of the room, so nobody saw her taint the chili with a purloined tube of peanut butter she had gotten out of the vending machine a few days ago (cut to Warrick scribbling "premeditation" on a notepad). She says of the peanut butter, "I wanted to stuff it down the guy's throat, but I didn't." Warrick shoots back, "So you put it in his chili instead?" We find out that at the last minute, she had a change of conscience and handed over an untampered cup of chili -- but spilled it. So Chris took her chili, in one of those ironic moves that so often propel whodunit stories. Instead of yelling, "Hey! I put peanut butter in mine to change up the flavor a little!" Tara watches him leave, no doubt elaborately rationalizing that she had meant to give him the untampered chili so it's not her fault if he took the poisoned stuff. Warrick hears her out and says, "You had to know it was going to kill him." The person who prepares food for a living claims not to understand the severity of food allergies in general and Chris's in particular, despite having been around for the Shell Flicking Incident of Aught-Four, and all she wanted was to incapacitate Chris enough to replace him with an alternate who would vote guilty so she could go home to the wedding of her dreams. I imagine Tara's fiancé would have been thrilled to find out she's capable of killing, and not at all put off by the idea that her ethical sense of right and wrong went out the window when faced with the prospect of losing her big day. She sobs, "I killed him."
Cut to Liam saying, "No, she didn't." Sara argues, "She told Warrick she put peanut butter in the chili." Liam snaps, "I don't care if Mr. Peanut was taking a bath in the vic's lunch. That's not what killed him." Gil asks Liam to be a little more specific, and Liam says, "I got the detailed results back from the immunoassay test. The level of IgE was insufficient to cause a lethal reaction." There's a small pause, and then Warrick recovers enough to say, "Well, that goes along with what the bride-to-be said about the victim, that he had a dermatological response to the allergen and not a respiratory one." Gil asks if the assay showed any other food allergies, and Liam answers in the negative. Because nobody in the room has thought to look up this guy's medical records yet to see if someone else once figured out what he was allergic to, the CSIs all sit around wondering what caused Chris's anaphylactic shock. Maybe he was allergic to plot holes you could drive a truck through? Lord knows they're killing me over here.
Back on the B-plot, Nicky's telling Artan that Dorsey irritated Nicky further that day by testing the gas, confirming it was diesel, and thus throwing a monkey wrench into the tree evidence, since those hydrocarbons aren't from diesel gasoline. Artan puts it together for the slow viewers: "It means the fuel on Aaron's farm was not used to cremate Rita's body. Maybe it pumped unleaded four years ago, converted to diesel at some point since." Nicky's already gone through that hypothesis and rejected it, after calling the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and confirming that Aaron's permit was specifically for diesel fuel. However, the NDEP taketh away, but it also giveth, and in this case, its database has given Nicky a bead on all those near Aaron's farm who have permits for fuel tanks…and it turns out the only other person who does is Faye.
Back on the A-plot, David and Gil are perusing Chris's welt-riddled body for clues while David natters on about how if an environmental agent killed Chris, it's not unreasonable to expect one of the other jurors to react as well. David reasons, "[Chris's] body reacted to something. That's why I'm re-examining the exposed areas of the body, the face and the neck." Lo and behold, right at the juncture of the jawline, he finds something and pries it out of a blackened spot of skin. Gil looks at it in the magnifying glass and says, "Apis mellifera Linnaeus. We're looking for another body." Anyone who knows what an apiary is either chuckles in anticipation or rolls their eyes at this hoary plot chestnut.
Cut to Gil on the floor of the jury room, swinging a flashlight to and fro. On the other side of the room, Sara tells him Liam ran the assay for bee venom, and Chris's IgE levels were spiked. That's a well-equipped lab. For those of you wondering exactly what an immunoassay entails: It's a test using antibodies to identify and quantify a substance; the antibodies are usually developed to bind with a specific compound or class of compounds, and the concentration of the identifiable substance is usually made by a colorimetric reaction, i.e. a colored molecule is bound to the antibody so the color increases in concentration in direct proportion to the amount of identified compound found. There's usually a color scale to tell you exactly how much of anything you're looking at. Since chromatographic immunoassays can be pricey, I'm impressed that the Labitrail had so many on hand. Gil asks if Chris even knew he had a bee allergy. Sara replies that "Brass finally tracked down [Chris's] allergist. Gibbons? Was allergic to a lot of things." I still can't believe that someone who was so allergic wouldn't have many epinephrine pens on his person, or maybe mention all the allergens on a charm-bracelet edition of the medical alert bracelet, or maybe have brought up his allergies before moving from his no-doubt-self-controlled hypoallergenic environment into the jury room.
Anyway, Sara finds the dead body of a worker bee (they're the ones with the kind of stingers we saw in the scene, with a curly end good for sinking into target flesh) and says, "The killer, I presume." The PhD in ENTYMOLOGY adds, "Or what's left of him." Him? HIM? No, no, no! Even I know that the bees which sting-then-die are the female worker bees, and I'm the bio major who was so into bacteria, I got hazy on my vertebrate anatomy and once asked an ichthyologist of a bacterial sample I was testing, "Did you swab this off the fishes' lungs?" In short -- if even I, someone whose grasp on multicellular biology ebbs and flows depending on a wide and mystical array of factors, can reliably remember that it's female bees that sting-then-die, so can the damn PhD in BUG SCIENCE.
However, we then get a hilarious bee's-eye view of the killer's final moments, in which she sought out the one allergic person in the room with unerring precision, stung him, pumped in her venom, then expired before eleven grateful jurors could fete her for doing what they dared not.
Sara says sadly, "He had an immediate reaction to a bee sting." Gil concludes, "Lost consciousness quickly, fell forward, hit his head on the table." No doubt Mr. Disposable, who opened the window in the first place, will be thrilled to learn what the consequences were. Gil deadpans, "Well, that explains it. It was an outside job." For the second time in the episode, Sara smiles. She keeps this up, her face might freeze that way.
Nicky and Artan pull up, and Faye greets them by sing-songing a little too happily, "Heard you were over at Aaron's farm." Nicky confirms that they were, and she says a little less sunnily, "I think that shut him up." Then the syrupy persona returns. Ah, but it's not around for long; Artan drops the news that they're checking out her fuel, and Faye gets all paranoid: "My pump? What'd he say? Didn't I tell you he turned on me?" Nicky's all, "Tell it to the hand: I'm-a getting me some fuel," and Faye begins babbling about the firs on her Christmas tree farm -- because few industries thrive in a desert basin like conifer cultivation, I guess -- and Nicky's not even listening as he heads over to the tank with the huge "Unleaded Only" label. He tells her, "The pump on Aaron's farm was diesel; your sister was cremated with unleaded." Nicky then gives Faye the hairy eyeball while she tries to come up with an explanation on the fly. Sure enough: "You know what? Thinking back now, I remember, Aaron's pump was empty, and, uh, he insisted we drive over here and use mine. Sorry for the…confusion." Nicky excuses himself as Faye adds, "Please say you believe me." Well, no. He so disbelieves her, he wanders into a barn and sprays all her conveniently-displayed farm tools with luminol without bothering with a warrant first. When he comes back out, Faye's standing in a pose that makes her look like a redneck Courtney Love, while Artan's just kind of occupying space. Nicky spreads his arms wide -- while still holding the pair of bolt-cutters used as a murder weapon -- and says, "I believe you, Faye. You see, blood evidence doesn't disappear over time. Your sister was murdered…by you." So he just said he believed Faye to mess with her head? What is this?
Anyway, we flash back to the actual murder, where Rita is wandering into the barn for some reason that is lost to the ages, and Faye pops out from behind a door horror-movie style and bashes in Rita's skull, then cremates Rita and her remarkably well-shaped cranium in a barrel full of unleaded.
Nicky's back in the Labitrail, telling Gil's back, "Unleaded gasoline, barrels for incineration, cast-off on the walls, DNA consistent with Rita Westonson…Faye killed Rita to be with Aaron. Then a couple of weeks ago, [she] hears he's getting engaged to her younger sister Terry." Because he got a divorce in absentia from his still presumed-missing wife? Has he never seen My Favorite Wife? Also, why did nobody investigate the weird allure Aaron Westonson held for the sisters three?
Nicky continues, "Faye couldn't handle it, man. She just freaked. So she tried to pin Rita's murder on Aaron." Gil is still futzing with folders atop some counter; without bothering to turn around, he asks Nicky, "Four years ago, I decided to close the case. Did you agree with my decision?" Gil wanders over to his desk; Nicky hangs back by the lab bench and noncommittally answers with, "Well, you were following protocol." Still doing the "I can't look at you!" thing, Gil asks, "And now?" Nicky replies, "Now, I'd fight you on it, yeah." Gil straightens up and asks, "Why?" Why will he not turn around? Is he afraid he'll turn into a pillar of salt? Anyway, Nicky answers, "Rita Westonson was a dependable, predictable girl. We never answered the question of why she just woke up one morning and walked away from the rest of her life." Gil replies, "It happens, and that's what the evidence was telling us." Nicky argues, "That's what the physical evidence was telling us. We should have dug deeper. You can't just ignore the human element, Grissom." "I agree, Nick," Gil says in a way that conveys only abstract consensus, as opposed to sincere agreement. He continues, "But when you start to have feelings for the people involved, you risk losing your objectivity."
Nicky shrugs and lets loose: "So what? You know, I'm always getting criticized for empathizing with the victims and their families, but that's who I am. That's how I do my job." Good for Nicky! It's too bad he couldn't bulk up his argument by adding that his empathy gives him insight in a way abstract inquisitiveness doesn't, as opposed to making an argument solely based on the "I gotta be me" philosophy, but we can't have everything. This is good enough.
Gil finally turns around. Nicky continues, "As far as the promotion goes, that's all good, man. I can live without it. I'm not you." Well, yeah, for a lot of reasons, but Gil's burning need to move up the career ladder isn't one of them. Anyway, Gil's thrilled that Nicky's finally shot his daddy complex in the temple and buried it out back. You can tell because he just stares for a moment before saying, "Good. We certainly don't need another me around here." I imagine some of the ladies (and men) on the forums might dispute that. Nevertheless, Nicky nods and heads out with a bemused look on his face, and Gil sits at his computer to begin typing the following:
"I strongly recommend Nick Stokes for the promotion to Lead CSI."
Then, and only then, does Gil allow himself to almost smile, because one of his Zen lessons sank in and Nicky just learned that the quickest way to achieve career nirvana was to evince an absence of all desire for it.