Day breaks on Vegas, and we are instantly whisked to the rich-people suburb. We know it's Yuppie Acres because it's got rolling green lawns and a verdant canopy of leafy trees blanketing the premise, so we can safely conclude that everyone's paying the kind of home-owner's association dues that cover the cost of importing your own biome into a desert.
Anyway, a woman with a lot of showy jewelry and an even more abundant quantity of showy blonde hair is rinsing out her coffee cup in the morning -- oh, like she wouldn't just leave it for the help -- and a man comes up behind her, kisses her good morning, and tells her he'll go get the paper while she goes to get the car. Hope he can read fast -- he's up before the credits, which means something's about to happen to ensure that he won't be reading "The Family Circus" this morning.
The guy heads out his front door, takes a short cut through the remaining rain forest in Borneo, and heads back toward his garage. The wife pulls out, and it's a testament to the elasticity and tensile strength of the human skin that her giant lips and extreme cheekbones come with her instead of lagging behind a moment or two when gravity registers their immense mass. She's checking for her husband in the rear-view mirror, which affords her a prime view as some black-clad thug bolts out of nowhere and zaps the guy with a stun gun.
Then she gets a little distracted as her own thug opens the car door and drags her out. In the very shot, which is dramatically introduced by a crescendo of ominous background music, we see her dead on the driveway, wearing the same peacefully blank expression she had in life. Her husband, however, is on his back, a long slide of blood indicating that he was dragged somewhere from his execution spot.
Crime scene personnel are all over the scene, wandering around the grounds warily as they check out the giant swath of rainforest in the middle and get distracted debating whether they just heard a Bornean gibbon (Hylobates muelleri) or an orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) hooting in the front yard's boreal belt.
“ The Trents also owned the Psychedelic Hoedown, which frankly sounds like the bastard offspring of Hee Haw and Laugh-In. ”
Catherine gets out of a CSIMobile and bitches about the early-morning call. She snarls at Gil, "Where did you come from?" He replies, "I sprang from the forehead of Zeus fully-grown, got a sex change in Sweden back in' 74, then entered the forensics field. Why?" Oh, he does not. He tells her, "I was watching The World Series of Poker, waiting for Sam Farha to light a cigarette." Why? Is there some sign or portent attached to that?
Brass approaches them both and asks, "Ever been to the Acid Drop?" "Not since Woodstock," Gil replies. Or not. Catherine drawls that she tries to avoid those places. Brass tells us that the victims, Mike and Laurel Trent, were the owners. Brass dons the mantle of Captain Exposition and says that both victims were shot execution-style, and a neighbor walking the dog found them. Brass further reveals, "Mike used to own a semi-pro hockey team with one other guy. Made a ton of money, sunk it all into clubs like the Acid Drop." He made a ton of money off semi-pro hockey? Why isn't he bailing out the NHL with his superior financial skills? Both the Sabres and Senators could've used his help. Hell, the Penguins still do. Anyway, Brass is called away right after telling us that the Trents also owned the Psychedelic Hoedown, which frankly sounds like the bastard offspring of Hee Haw and Laugh-In.
Catherine checks the bodies and uses her keen CSI skills to note how the two dead bodies lying on the driveway never got off the driveway. So the killers got up pretty early to try and pull one over on her, and it still didn't work. Gil makes the first useful observation with, "She dropped where she was shot, but he looks like he was dragged." Catherine puzzles, "You drag a body away to hide it, not down a driveway for the world to see it." Gil stops and gives the 500-yard stare; it's half as profound as the thousand-yard stare. And then he says, "Unless that was the point."
The Who get to the point and want to make introductions.
Once we're back from commercials, Catherine and Warrick are letting themselves into the house and checking out the foyer, which has at its circular center a round table blanketed with photos of Laurel draped all over Mike. Man, I just don't get those couples that erect shrines to their relationship. You already live together; do you really more than one photographic reminder that you might dig the person you're sharing the place with? Mind you, this is coming from someone who took nearly three years to actually pick up her wedding photos, so take my critique with that information in mind.