For once, this show doesn't start on the Strip. Unless it's starting in the Strip and this is, like, the prelude to the Blue Man Group. By "this," I mean some sort of electronic beat, a blue-tinged spotlight coming down from some unknown point above, and a phalanx of people running as red and white siren lights escort them. Maybe this is cruel and unusual punishment from bored prison guards?
Actually, no. These runners all look like they want to be there, as baffling a concept as that may be to the less aerobic among us. They've got the head lamps, and the bibs pinned to their shirts, and the leaders of the pack all look like they've been reverse-engineered to resemble greyhounds as much as possible.
And then we get to the middle of the pack, where people not secure enough in their masculinity to pound the pavement in either running shorts or tights are jogging in their baggy sweats; then the camera gets all swoopy, and we see only the pounding legs, backlit by the police lights. The camera twirls around to an aerial shot, so we can see the police cars hemming in the runners from the back, and then the banner one car flies; it bears the legend, "Law Enforcement Desert Relay." Then we return to a shot where we're facing the runners, and a helicopter provides blinding light overhead. Go towards the light, runners! Go to the light, Carol Ann!
Another shot of the runners hemmed in by police cars, and then another silhouetted-runners shot, only this time in slow motion so we have time to develop the appropriately reverent response for the kinesthetic marvel of the human body mid-footrace. And now the lights and the music have gotten silly. Usually I see this only after the endorphins have kicked in. We see Sara running. She is not what you'd call a natural at the sport, although the flailing elbows have given her a lot of personal space. She, and a bunch of other runners, have come to some relay checkpoint. Sara relays the baton to Nicky in slow motion, so we can all marvel at how masterfully the two of them did not drop it. Off Nicky goes, arms pumping lest all .0085 mg of carbohydrates he loaded before the race stick to his ribs. Sara runs out her leg, then gets caught in an inadvertent do-si-do with Liam the lab tech. The two hug, and Liam silently thanks inertia for slamming Sara into him without too much protest on her part.
Nicky, who's running like he learned how from a 1930s newsreel -- "Young Crimestopper Runs For The American Way! He Races For His Life! And Yours! Take That, Mussolini!" -- trots over to a water, grabs a bottle, and spills much in the general direction of his mouth. I love it when they almost get the details right on this show; the water stop around any race is a wreck. However, you usually get your water in little paper cups. Anyway, Nicky then proceeds not to give a hoot, and tosses the bottle where the cleanup crew will have to tend to it. He continues to run, until he turns into Warrick.
Warrick's perambulation remains a mystery from the clavicle down. I like to think that Gary Dourdan took a look at this script and said, "You know what? I'll hop up and down to make it look like I'm running, while someone pulls me in a wagon." Either that, or he's bashful about showing his legs on national television.
We go back to an aerial shot of the runners silhouetted by a deep night sky.
And then, we go to what must be a pre-dawn shot, as the sky is lightening. The crowd has thinned considerably; each runner has his or her own escort vehicle. As we see someone pelting down the road, the unmistakable strains of Vangelis's Chariots of Fire theme soar over the scene. The camera pulls in on Catherine's face as she runs. She turns toward the car and asks, "What the hell kind of music is that?" Gil grins as he tells her, "It's inspirational!" Catherine begs to differ. How much do I love that a) Gil is nowhere near lacing up the Nikes to pigeon-toe it down the road, and b) he's providing road support to Catherine, and c) he's got a thematic play list going. It official: this is my favorite moment of the season.
Anyway, Catherine doesn't find Chariots of Fire all that inspiring, and neither of Gil's subsequent selections are getting her going. Well, I don't blame Catherine's rejection of the country music; it's kind of hard to hold a baton, drink a beer, and run at the same time, and that's what it put me in the mood for. We eventually settle for Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" Catherine's digging it, Gil not so much. He's driving along, and he sees a blinking red light in the brush off to his left. Without warning, Gil veers off and goes driving off-road. Catherine does not take this well, what with this leaving her alone on the road. Why is she alone? Is the CSI team really slow?
Anyway, Catherine demonstrates what fine aerobic shape she's in by continuing to run while she bellows Gil's name at the top of her lungs. Catherine runs, and when she finally catches up to Gil, she hits the SUV and shouts, "God! What are you, taking a leak?" Heh. Pissed runners. I was one, once. Catherine continues in the key of pique: "The follow car is supposed to stay with the runner! We've been training for months, man!" She's so much more civil than I would have been. When I ran the USMC marathon in DC a few years ago, I had just passed the 26-mile mark when a spectator broke what has to be the cardinal rule of cheering for marathoners by shouting, "The finish line is just ahead! Not far now!" Well, yeah, but when you're finishing a race by sheer force of will, "just ahead" translates to "you can see it," not "now it's time to run up the hill to the Iwo Jima memorial -- ha ha ha ha!" So as I'm laboring up the hill, wondering if I'm going to have the energy to cross the finish line and run back down the hill to kill that lying not-far-now bastard, the boyfriend pops out of the crowd to shout, "Keep going, honey!" And I shouted back, "Keep going? The hell I will! Where the f*** is the finish line?!?!" Reader, he still married me. And did not blanch when I entered the lottery for this year's marathon.
But enough about me. Catherine exposits that the racing team is made up of twenty CSIs who have to cover 120 miles. Honestly, a six-mile run doesn't seem that bad. Gil calmly replies, "Don't blame me. Blame him." Catherine looks down as Gil flashes his mag light on a blond corpse and explains, "I saw his flasher from the road." Catherine concedes that Gil made the right call. In the distance, we see a few pass cars go by. I guess Catherine wasn't bringing up the rear; the pack just got spready. Gil notes, "Fresh cut on the forehead, but the corneas usually take days to gloss over." Catherine concedes that this is weird. She identifies the victim as coming from the L.A. county police department special enforcement squad.
He was apparently a "hardcore bad-ass." Catherine begins surveying the body, with Gil training the flashlight at her direction. There are recent abrasions on the body's knuckles. Catherine then asks Gil for the phone, so she can call in the body while Gil sits there and looks tired. Maybe that's why he didn't call it in? You'd think it'd be like a finders-callers sort of thing. We see the body's bib number (3), and Catherine explains she's halfway through leg 16 of the race, and there's a 419; she asks the person on the other end of the line to notify Brass. Gil notices a red thread caught in the guy's parka, and pulls.Catherine gets off the phone and asks, "Barehanded, huh?' "Collect it or lose it," Gil replies. He adds, "Ten years ago, nobody would have known the difference." "Ten years ago, we wouldn't have been able to get DNA off that fiber," Catherine says. Now she sounds winded. Catherine pants that she'll put the body's time of discovery at 4:32, and sighs, "So much for the race." Gil looks at the body and philosophizes, "At least we didn't come in last."
The Who come in to ask who we are.
Morning has broken, over the body. People are still running by the crime scene. What, did the later teams recognize they had no chance to place and stop for breakfast in Jean, Nevada? Liam is drawing a map. Brass has showed up on the scene. Regrettably, he's standing around in a suit and tie, instead of getting into the episode's theme and race-walking up in purple spandex shorts and a terrycloth sweatband. Catherine and Gil continue to work near the scene, and Gil notes that there could be blood on a nearby rug. Catherine then asks how many cops are in town for this road race. Gil and his Nike swoosh cap estimate that there are 20,000 cops in town. And a minor epidemic of crime up and down the western seaboard. He also adds that the road is closed to civilians. Catherine replies, "Spring break with a badge." So does that mean all the Girls Gone Wild tapes from this weekend will feature the topless babes beating the cameramen into submission with their nightsticks? Gil bags a rock as Catherine Longstocking kvetches about the joys of dealing with a case where every suspect's in law enforcement.
Emergency Backup David is working the body. He asks Liam how the run was. Liam replies that he's still alive. It's too bad we only got to see a few of the CSIs run. I would have paid cash money to see Questionable Documents Guy or Hodges break a sweat out there. Emergency Backup David hands Liam the contents of the guy's pockets, and Liam notes, "ATM receipt. No card, no cash?" Emergency Backup David notes that this was a race and the body was traveling light; Liam suspects that someone walked off with the wallet.
Brass adopts a grizzled look and asks the lieutenant to tell us all about his now-dead teammate. Larry Mendez pulls out his best grizzled look and adopts the same attitude Brass normally has with, "Tim Coleman. Newest boot. Two months in. Came right out of patrol. Best cop out of Carson Station." Brass notes brevity. Looks for detail. Replies, "I mean, he's got to be in shape. He's SWAT." Mendez corrects him: "SWAT's LAPD. We're SES. We're better. Better conditioned. Better prepared. Better dressed. Better small talk at parties." Or something to that effect. Anyway, Mendez continues with his inimitable vocal parsimony, gesturing to Gil and Catherine with, "Those the best you got?" Brass chuckles and nods. Mendez continues, "They're not, I'll fly mine in." Brass gives them the cop seal of approval with, "I'd want them investigating my murder. Well, maybe not Nicky, because he's a little slow. And Warrick would throw the case just to spite me. And Sara…" (Makes tippling motion.) "But these two…it's okay." Oh, you all know he stops well before that.
We get a shot of the Paris, and then we go to the morgue. There is probably no deeper meaning to that sequence of shots. David the Yoga-Doing Coroner tells Gil, "Other than the fact that he's deceased, this guy is in excellent physical condition." And yet, death disqualifies you from many Olympic events. Gil's hung up on the head wound, but David dismisses it, adding, "Your bloody rock may be incidental." As may be the guy's bloody knuckles. But we're here for cause of death. They go to the fallback position -- cardiac arrest -- and Gil protests that the dead guy was a scant 25 years old. David clucks, "I didn't say I was finished. The clouded corneas tipped me off. Look at the liver -- his serosal surfaces are unusually dry, his urine was minimal and dark brown." Gil figures it's dehydration, and David adds, "Well, the race isn't the only reason these guys come to town. It's a good party." Gil's all, "Too much running, too much partying?" Spoken like a man who hasn't done enough of either. David's all, "L.A. SES -- they go all out." Gil sermonizes, "Work hard, play hard, die hard…leave a good-looking corpse." Well, provided "good-looking" also includes "a giant Y-shaped incision down your front where David scooped out your liver," I can see your point.
Catherine catches up to Gil as he's loping through the Labitrail. She tells him the tox screens came back, and it turns out Coleman had 75 micrograms per milliliter of furosemide in his system. Gil's incredulous: "Blood pressure medication? There's no history of that in his medical records." Or of extreme water retention, I'm guessing: furosemide is a diuretic. Gil catches up to me and notes that the drug could have been responsible for Coleman's dehydration. Catherine then reads off the NIH list of adverse reactions: muscle cramps, dizziness, confusion, blurred vision, and restlessness. Or, as I like to call it, "waking up." Gil asks the relevant question: "How'd the furosemide get into his system in the first place?"
Hey, everyone! It's spring break with a badge! I keep looking for the Cops Gone Wild cameras, and yet they're nowhere to be found. Some jackball in an unflattering yellow t-shirt comes up to Mendez and smirks, "Maybe you guys bet on the wrong horse." Mendez throws his drink dramatically: "Maybe you forgot! One of our own! Died out there in the dirt!" While his escort vehicle plowed on ahead! Or was vaporized by extremely discreet aliens. Hey, I'm just looking for an explanation here: Catherine was all over that course with her escort vehicle. Where was Tim's, and why didn't it notice he was missing? Anyway, a nitpicky inquiry into the state of Timmy's death isn't our concern on this here procedural drama -- not when there's drink-throwing and taunting to be had. Yellow Tee is all, "I'll drink to his memory. You want to make the toast?" Catherine comes over before this whole scene turns into a manly brawl, and asks if she's interrupting anything. Both men stand down, helpless before the white tank top and the woman packed within. Yellow Tee heads off with a "Later, pogue." I love the Pogues! Does this mean these two are friends now? Catherine asks about the duffels behind Mendez. They're brought in from the race; Catherine snags Tim Coleman's. Mendez clumsily lays down the clues that he's linked to the crime by making noises about what the cops are doing with off-time, and saying how much he won't miss this now that he's been kicked upstairs to lieutenant. He's all, "I got nothing to prove anymore." Catherine says, "A man with nothing to prove. Now, that would be a first." Then she humps him, which seems to be de rigueur any time she runs across a jackass/public employee while she's on the case. Oh, she does not either. Thank God.
Liam capers through the Labitrail until he ricochets off Nicky, then tells him, "I ran a bank trace on Tim Coleman. I got a hit. $300 withdrawal on his ATM card at 4:06 AM today." Nicky laconically notes, "That's about nine hours after he died. Good hunch." Liam lets Nicky walk off before adding, "I also got surveillance video from the bank." Why did he wait? Was he expecting Nicky to come bounding back up the hall, gushing, "I love the way you take an hour and a half to get around to saying anything useful. I love the way you get a little wrinkle, right above your nose, when you're running a GC. I love that after I spend a day with you, I can still smell acetone on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I close a case, and the first one when I'm on an open case." And then dramatic music swells, a pink cloud of romance fogs the Labitrail, and L. Brent Bozell's army of decency cadets have a collective embolism.
But back in the real episode, Nicky and Liam are reviewing the footage of a heavyset man who is most emphatically not the athletic Tim Coleman using young Coleman's card to make a withdrawal. Why is Liam reviewing the footage instead of Archie? That ain't right. ["Archie dissed you for ER, dude." -- Sars] Putting aside this gross aesthetic injustice and getting back to the scene…Liam's all, "All we got to do now is match a name with the face, write up a description, send it off to Dispatch for broadcast." Nicky sits there looking thoughtful, and a little bubble appears over his head reading, "We, kemosabe?" Actually, he's noted a little "Fast and Fresh Burgers" logo, and they can use that to track down ATM guy.
Meanwhile, down in Hodges's hidey-hole, he's trying to impress Gil with his extensive knowledge of textiles. The fiber Gil pulled is mercerized cotton, which is treated with caustic solution to coarsen the fibers and increase their surface area so they'll absorb more dye when wet, then dry as a stronger thread. Hodges adds that the thread is used in machine quilting and embroidery. Gil's all, "Like on sports uniforms."
And then Gil's teleported to what promises to be a photo finish to the race, with the SAS runner trying valiantly to hip-check the SWAT guy without breaking stride. The SWAT guy wins anyway, for a team time of 13 hours, 24 minutes. Gil watches the celebration. You know, between the hat, opaque sunglasses, and beard, he's like the Unabomber's desert cousin. The sullen expression doesn't help dispel that impression. Gil notices someone swaddled in a SWAT windbreaker with red piping; he's noteworthy because he's sporting quite the shiner.
Gil's pulled the shiner buck away from the pack and begun interviewing him. Shiner says, "For the last six years I've run the toughest leg of the relay against the same guy from SES." But this year, there was a new guy. We flash back to their meeting by the aid table, where they fail to do the cinematically-impressive thing and knock over the entire array of precisely-arrayed water bottles. Instead, Tim cold-cocks the guy -- or so he says. Gil casually notes that they found red fibers, and Shiner replies, "I'm SWAT. I subdued him." Note that this means "flung about like a rag doll while making manly noises." Gil asks if they can take the jacket, and Shiner hands it over, inviting them to knock themselves out. Gil notes a small, torn area on the jacket.
And then we get a shot of the New York, New York before transitioning back to Nicky. He's talking to the chubby ATM patron. After Nicky slaps the still from the security camera on the table, the guy looks up and asks, "Is my wife here? Is she behind the glass or something?" Nicky gives him a penetrating look, possibly wondering how, in four seasons' worth of criminal masterminds and brainy perps with poor impulse control, the first person to suspect an ulterior agenda in an interrogation is a burger slinger whose biggest crime seems to be an overt fondness for fast food. Nicky dons the helm and mantle of his shrewd alter ego Snicky and improves, "I'll be talking to her soon enough." The guy panics, "Is that really necessary? I'm just a regular guy." Snicky puts on the pressure by saying loudly, "Hey! Regular guys don't steal $300 from a dead cop's ATM cards, man." What's with the "man," man? Is that the new hip lingo around the lab? The guy is in a full-blown tizzy, and he insists that the money is his; Nicky looks skeptical, and the guy admits, "I sell this tight little Asian chick a $3 tasty meal. She says for $300, I can get a very tasty meal. I was about to go on my break anyway. My wife's not behind that glass, right?" Nicky tries to look stern, and has to hide his jaw in his hand so the other guy doesn't see him cracking up over the whole situation.
And now, another transitional shot of the Strip by day -- and another plot! Can we stand the excitement? Detective Vartann is loping through the corridor of a hipster hotel with Warrick and Sara, telling them the manager stumbled across two dead bodies during what was supposed to be a typical noise complaint. The room is registered to a uniform out of Laughlin, NV -- Manny Senteno. Vartann adds, "He carries tin, so that makes him family." That's…kind of sophistic reasoning. The female victim is one Patricia Fielding, also a cop, of the Bakersfield, CA P.D. Warrick asks if Senteno checked in alone; Vartann replies, "Issued one key, but his itemized bill shows lots of room service for two." Sara's scoping Fielding -- who's got a gun in one bloody hand -- and notes that a wife or girlfriend would be on the hotel register. Warrick takes pictures of the shirtless Senteno and the surrounding room, noting the two unused champagne flutes and the still-packed suitcase. He comments, "Looks like it's all his stuff. I don't see a purse around here." Warrick continues to muse, "The guy's away from home. Decides to unwind with some opportunity sex…" The camera swings over to a used condom on a bedside table -- what, was the deceased raised in a barn? Was he so enervated afterward he couldn't walk to the bathroom, or reach over and drop the item in a trash can? Was he saving it for his scrapbook or maybe some fertility ritual done by the light of the new moon? Because really, there's no excuse to go leaving your used condoms out where anyone can find them. Warrick, however, has decided to begin making dry runs at bumper-worthy quips, and he cracks, "Looks like the deceased came before he went."
Fortunately, Sara's off in her own world. Or drunk, because she did her carbo-loading after the race. She picks up the standard police-issue Glock 19, and finds something on the slide. There's 14 bullets left in the 15-round chamber; Warrick's not surprised: "Any good cop keeps one racked in the chamber. Two bullets, two bodies." Because I am not all that gun-savvy, it took me a moment to realize that Warrick meant there was a bullet in the chamber plus a 15-round magazine. In any event, we flash back to a confrontation in which Fielding shoots a half-dressed Senteno before turning the gun on herself. Warrick says, "I'm thinking straight-up murder/suicide." Ah ha ha ha --- no. Silly Warrick. It's the 24-minute mark! Nothing is as it seems before the 48-minute mark. Black is white! Night is day! CSI: Miami is surprisingly watchable, while this show runs off the rails! Only after we've endured to the 48-minute mark does the world begin to make sense again.
Back at the lab, Catherine is apprising Gil of what Tim packed in his gear bag: gym clothes, towel, vitamins, pocket knife. Gil steps in and notes the protein bar wrapper, the empty water bottle, and the banana peel. Catherine explains the race's policy of "Take only shin splints, leave only dead bodies." Actually, there's a five-minute penalty if you litter the race course. I wonder if Nicky took the penalty then, what with his dramatic flinging of the water bottle. Anyway, Gil asks, "What's the best way to get chemicals into your system?" Catherine replies, "Injection." Gil says, "There's no evidence of that. Second best." Catherine replies, "Ingestion." Gil looks at Catherine and then grabs for the water bottle. They begin going to work on all the ingestibles in the bag while I wonder why there were no personal toiletries in the guy's bag. What, did SAS sweat Eternity by Calvin Klein?
Gil finds traces of furosemide in the water bottle, leading Catherine to conclude that someone spiked Tim's drink. Someone needs to direct Catherine to the 48-minute rule. It would save her a lot of time.
And now, we're back at Spring Break With A Badge. If this were really Spring Break With A Badge, we'd see a team of uniforms beating Carson Daly with their nightsticks until he bled buttermilk. Instead, we see a bunch of go-go dancers who look like they got their moves from the Walt Disney animatronics lab. They're jerking around -- badly -- to "Bad Boys."
Catherine winds through the crowd and finds Yellow Tee. His name is Will Marshall, but his friends call him "Jackass" for short. He tells Catherine, "There is something very wrong in the world if a woman like you is only handling test tubes." "Well, it's gotten me used to treating tiny objects with care," Catherine says, grinding into his leg. Oh, sorry. In an unprecedented second time per episode, Catherine does not immediately release a cloud of pheromones in the general direction of the suspect/public servant she's getting aggressive with. Instead, she says, "Well, if you think that's all I handle, you're not as smart as I think. So you're the L.A. county team medic, right? That means you're responsible for making sure all your teammates are well hydrated. Including Tim Coleman." Brass provides the red herring of the evening by musing on how unfair it is that Will was number one on the list to transfer into SAS when Timmy was promoted over him. Will notes that he was on the list for six months, and on January 31, the powers that be reached over him to pull Coleman. Brass notes, "That's the cutoff date for the race. Coleman was a ringer." Will sardonically replies, "Ding, ding. SES transferred in for speed, not skill. Might not be another opening for years. I'm not getting any younger. And after all that, Coleman doesn't even run." Catherine dryly notes, "He had a good excuse. Did you give it to him?" Will points out that he's not so stupid as to kill someone while 20,000 cops are milling around. Well, someone was. That doesn't mean he didn't vividly fantasize about how he would have killed Coleman. Will points out, "Every cop [thinks about how to kill someone]." Charming. So when they're not subject to cronyism and promotion without merit, they're busy working out elaborate killing fantasies or engaging in adultery. This episode makes the boys from The Shield look like a living recruitment poster for your local police force.
Meanwhile, in the most dramatically-lit morgue ever, Sara and Vartann escort Mrs. Senteno -- her maiden name was "Cuckold" -- to identify her husband's body. Vartann whips down the sheet with unseemly flair, and a surprisingly serene Senteno is there, chilling on the slab. "At least you can take comfort in knowing that he died with a smile on his face, despite the shot to the gut," Vartann adds. Oh, he does not. He asks Mrs. Senteno if that's her dead husband she's looking at. "He doesn't wear his hair like that," she replies. "Yeah, that was the Extremely Dead Makeover team. Sorry about that," Vartann replies. Actually, he mumbles about paperwork while Sara smolders righteously for the sister done wrong by her man. Mrs. Senteno asks what happened, and Sara puts her off by pointing out they still haven't finished the investigation yet, but Senteno died from a gunshot wound. Mrs. Senteno asks who shot him, and Sara says, "We don't know yet." Mrs. Senteno wants to know where he was found. Sara tells her: the Pharoah's Pheast over at the Luxor. Security really doesn't like it when you cut in line. Oh, she does not. There's mumbling about the hotel room, and Mrs. Senteno catches sight of a well-pedicured toe sporting its own toe tag. She quickly realizes that Manny wasn't alone. Sara looks like she'd rather be anywhere else. Mrs. Senteno continues to burnish the image of the law enforcement professional by saying, "I married a cop. With that comes alcohol, and women to take the edge off. The first time, he said it meant nothing. He promised never to do it again. By the third time, I told him to stop confessing. I wasn't going anywhere." Vartann listens to this, and looks like he's about to head on out for some booze and broads to take the edge off this conversation. Sara looks frankly skeptical. You're welcome to interpret that look as her recalling how she dumped Hank's duplicitous, body-moving ass last year, or her thinking that despite Gil moving on with his life, she's still hanging out in the lab instead of moving on. Sara manages, "Don't ask, don't tell," and Mrs. Senteno replies defensively, "I wasn't willing to trade my family for the flavor of the month. That doesn't make me pathetic." Sara continues staring, since Mrs. Senteno has become the perfect blank screen upon which she can project her own issues.
In the scene, Warrick catches Sara in the Labitrail and asks her, "What happened? You have to break the news to the wife?" Sara replies, "Oh, I didn't have to." Warrick exhales and comments, "Women. Always know, huh?" Sara replies, "Not always." Heh. Nice subtext. However, I can't believe that nobody in the lab eventually put anything together; with the way everyone gossips (if episodes are to be believed), plus the way the paramedics figure into the scenes, sooner or later, someone was bound to connect Hank and Sara's split with Hank's trip to Tahiti with the girlfriend and realize that Sara got played. Anyway, Warrick insists that women always know when the man is straying, and Sara counters, "What are you -- the voice of experience?" Warrick says somewhat tartly, "No -- I'm a really nice guy." Sara placates him, and they move on to discussing the case: one bullet in each of the bodies, both bullets from a Glock, a female's prints on the gun, so it's still looking like murder/suicide. Heh. Sweet, naïve Warrick, so ignorant of the magical 48-minute rule.
Sara heads over to Hodges to ask about the stuff she found in the gun, and he perseverates on the failure of the CSI team to finish the race, managing to omit any mention of either a dead body or his own contributions to the team effort. Sara manages not to bring up any of Hodges's deficiencies, athletic or otherwise, and eventually hops on her high horse and rides right over him until he tells her that what she found was a piece of Kleenex. Sara asks, "Are you saying that the gun was wiped down, and the prints were planted?" Hodges rolls his eyes and replies, "No, you're saying that. I don't get to say that. But somebody else could have pulled the trigger." Sara looks appalled by that idea. And the myth of the 48-minute mark rises up and snaps, "Defy me, will you? Have a workable theory before I arrive, will you? I don't think so!"
Then the myth escorts Sara to Jacqui's fingerprint lab, where Sara finds out that Manny Senteno's prints are all over the place, but Patricia Fielding's prints are only on the hotel room door, the inside knob, and the murder weapon. Jacqui doesn't say, but I'm intensely curious to find out, whether or not she printed the condom and what she found. Sara insults Jacqui by asking if she's sure about all that, then apologizes with, "I'm sorry. This just doesn't make any sense. The sex kits came back negative, and now this. That room reeked of musk!" Are you grateful that nobody's invented Smell-o-vision yet? I am. Jacqui breaks open the case with, "Well, maybe he swapped fluids with someone else. There was a third set of prints. I ran them through AFIS. Got a hit on a cop -- another one." Sara reads the ID on the screen -- Lydia Lopez, Bakersfield P.D. She and Patricia Fielding would have been coworkers.
Meanwhile, Catherine and Gil are still playing Who Slipped The Mickey? Catherine tells us, "According to histology, Tim Coleman's muscle cells were hyper-hydrated, yet his body was dehydrated." Gil points out that this is not uncommon among people who abuse drugs. He does not tell us why this is common, which I find irritating. The explanatory portions of this show have dropped way, way down. For example, Gil could have explained whether the dehydration was the result of metabolic alteration, whether hyper-hydrating muscle affected the way water was shunted to the rest of the body's systems, whether diuretic hormone production is affected by certain drugs and their side effects, whether this was more prevalent among steroid users, and so on. Instead, it's just a smartypants Gil-knows-more-than-you-do move, and it doesn't enlighten the viewer one lumen.
Catherine copes with Gil's statement much more calmly than I did, pointing out yet again that the tox screen came back negative save for the furosemide. She says she looked into steroid use, and Gil replies, "Kind of risky for a cop, considering they're subject to random drug tests." Catherine then points out that "Steroids are controlled, but creatine isn't. It's a legal way to bulk up." Anyway, Tim was making like Barry Bonds and using creatine. Catherine explains, "Creatine pulls the potassium from the blood and moves it into the muscles." We get a TMIcam shot of the muscle fibers swelling up with what one presumes is potassium. Gil points out that this also dehydrates the body. Wanna know how? Of course you do: potassium works in concert with sodium to regulate the water balance and acid-base equilibrium in the blood and tissues. It initiates the sodium exchange in cells that helps generate energy via the ATP pump, and when the potassium balance gets disrupted, it mucks with the body's ability to pick up sodium for the cellular ATP pumps and create more energy.
And wanna know why any athlete would deliberately court dehydration by upping the ability to move potassium around? Because an increased level of potassium lowers a muscle cell's resting potential, thus making it more excitable, meaning it takes less stimulus to contract the fiber. In other, more general words, it ups your muscles' responsiveness. It also works in carbohydrate metabolism, converting glucose to glycogen that can be stored in the liver for future energy -- which comes in handy when you're exercising. The irony to all this is that the dehydration reduces blood volume, which in turn reduces the blood's ability to carry oxygen -- thus blunting one's aerobic capacity.
Anyway…creatine + furosemide = severe electrolyte imbalance, which leads to arrhythmia and cardiac arrest, what with all the oxygen issues, plus a disruption of the normal electrical charges needed to keep all the cardiac muscles working smoothly when the potassium ain't there to get the party started. Catherine throws in a plot complication when she points out that there wasn't enough furosemide in the water they tested to generate such a severe case of dehydration and the resulting electrolyte imbalance.
Back in the B-plot, Sara's making a visit to Lydia Lopez, who just happened to have the hotel room door to Manny's. After knocking, Sara turns to Warrick and says dryly, "Her division captain wants every professional courtesy extended to her." I imagine this falls under the whole "[they] wear a badge, so [they're] family" theory. Sara opens the hotel room door, and she and Warrick gaze upon the carnage within. Sara deadpans, "Interesting." Warrick adds, "Her clothes are still here. I guess if you off two people, you're not going to stick around to pack." Well, not if you haven't planned ahead, you're not. Maybe those meticulously-plotting serial killers are onto something; at least they can go on the lam in an appropriate ensemble once they've finished their latest tableau.
Sara opens the unlocked connecting door and begins to figure that maybe there was a reason the door was open. Warrick delicately inquires, "So Manny and Lydia were boning. How does Patricia Fielding fit?" In a way that can only be shown on cable? Sara more or less reiterates this with, "I don't know. Isn't the prevailing male fantasy two on one?" "Not if you're an introvert," Warrick shoots back. "We just want to be left alone." Oh, he does not. He guiltily admits that's the case and says, "So let's say the three of them were going at it. How do two out of three end up dead?" The rarely used murder/suicide/survival pact? You're the investigator, Warrick -- investigate! Sara thinks maybe Lydia had a hard time saying no prior to acquiring firearms.
They work the scene, and Warrick picks up a torn red nightie, noting, "Someone was pissed. This was like a $200-$300 La Perla nightie, ripped to shreds." And Warrick knows this, because he spends night after lonely night poring over lingerie catalogues, sometimes even trying on the merchandise, and upbraiding colleagues who see him slinking around with bags full of frilly confections with, "This is for work purposes! Nobody gives Nicky any crap about the Discovery Channel, so leave me alone!" And at last, he's been vindicated on the job.
Or maybe not. Anyway, Sara arches a brow and makes a comment about the garment's probable comfort factor. Warrick smolders that "It's not designed to stay on that long." Sara declines to take that any further, making mental notes for the harassment suit she'll be filing as a sweeps stunt. Sara also notices a man's wedding ring lying on the bed. It's not Manny's. Warrick asks if Lydia was married, and Sara replies, "I'll ask her. She walked into LVPD ten minutes ago."
She's not there because she confused it for a theme casino. Lydia sits in the interrogation room and snots, "My CO calls and tells me that Patty Fielding's been murdered, and you're about to broadcast a citywide for my 20. What the hell's going on in this town?" Haven't you heard? It's spring break with a badge. Vartann gives her a judgmental look and replies, "That's what we'd like to know. I hope you've got your story straight." Lydia does not, since she was under the impression that LVPD's version of a "20" involved crimes against hair. Someone needs to hold that Cold Case chick responsible for the epidemic of snarls she's unleashed on the rest of us.
Anyway, Sara tells everyone that Patricia Fielding was found dead in the room adjoining Lydia's, and Lydia totally tips her hand with, "Manny's room? Where's Manny?" Sara breaks the news gently with, "Manny's on a slab to Patricia. You murderous whore." Or maybe the hours of empathy training taught her to leave off that last phrase. Anyway, Lydia looks appropriately taken aback, and Sara exchanges a look with Vartann before pressing Lydia on her relationship with Manny. Lydia says, "Once a year, for seven years running. Desert Relay is our time together, then we go back to our lives." Vartann thinks that's sweet. "Isn't it? Best of all, it's like an Alan Alda movie, only with the bonus of not having to pretend I'd want to sleep with Alan Alda," Lydia replies. Oh, she does not. Instead, she and Vartann establish that there's no conceivable reason why Patricia would be in the room. Vartann said, "I heard that Manny Senteno was a real player. He moved on. You didn't like that." Lydia calls him on it: "Who told you that? Manny doesn't mess around!" Sara adds, "Except with you." "Yes. The hypocrisy of my last statement wasn't obvious enough. Thanks for helping out the slow viewers," Lydia replies. Or something like that. Sara snots, "How do you know, when the only part of him you know intimately is his body." For an Inadvertent Other Woman, she's awfully high and mighty. Projecting much?
Lydia spits, "Pedestal's a little high, don't you think?" Sara replies, "Your best friend and your lover are dead. What do you expect me to think?" When did we establish that Patricia and Lydia were BFF? Lydia proves she can take whatever Sara's dishing with, "I don't know what happened. I do know that Manny loves his wife just like I love my husband. It was just an itch we scratched every twelve months. It doesn't mean anything." Sara points out that it meant enough to someone who trashed the room, and Lydia rolls her eyes before saying, "Archie." "Archie," Vartann repeats. That's right, Jughead. Actually, Archie's the husband. Lydia fumes, "He wasn't supposed to be even be in Vegas! This is my time!" It's so sad when spouses don't respect each other's boundaries. Anyway, Archie came to Vegas, got a key to the room, then went a little ape when he got in there. Lydia snaps, "Did you see what he did to my teddy? That was Archie's gift to me." Vartann gets all high and mighty with, "Hey. Most husbands who buy lingerie expect that they're the ones who are going to be enjoying it." Well, Archie probably did enjoy it. He's not slashing the teddy because he didn't like it -- he's slashing it because someone else did too. Lydia unrepentantly tells Vartann, "I look good in it," then tells them that Archie's not capable of killing. Sara looks skeptical.
Meanwhile, poor Snicky and his giant crime-fighting brain are atrophying as they ponder the case of the would-be adulterer at the ATM. Clyde the burger-flipper actually took his break at 3 AM and made his withdrawal then, which means the video camera feed clock is off by an hour. Damn that Daylight Savings Time! So Liam and Snicky fast-forward the camera feed an hour and find someone cleaning out the ATM.
We then go to a transaction record for the ATM -- it's a bunch of $300 withdrawals between 4:06 and 4:30 AM. Nicky cross-checked the transaction records against every one of the users mentioned; in each case, the withdrawal seemed uncharacteristically large.
So now he goes to stake out the ATM. Some comely young thing is getting ready to use it, and a black-clad, spectacles-wearing Nicky begins hovering off to her right. I wonder if he's using the glasses because he thinks it worked to make Clark Kent look anonymous and non-threatening? In any event, the woman goes to get her money, and Nicky casually snaps on a pair of latex gloves. The girl hustles off. How cute -- Nicky's getting as unself-consciously, publicly geeky as Gil. This is a Kodak moment.
Within seconds, he's found and pried off the false ATM card slot thingy, and found an electronic gewgaw in a pamphlet sleeve placed suspiciously close to the machine. Nicky peels it off, and a dilapidated car goes peeling out of the middle of nowhere, only to crash into an SUV. Nicky jogs on over, waves off the bystanders with, "I'm with the Vegas crime lab," and approaches the driver with, "Yo, yo, yo. Where's the fire, my man?" The guy looks at him cross-eyed. The blood streaming down his face might have something to do with that, though. Nicky looks in the car and sees a card reader, a bunch of fake cards, and a laptop with a live camera feed to…himself, holding what turns out to be a tiny and functional videocamera. Nicky barks triumphantly, "Ha! No wonder you're in a hurry."
In the scene, Nicky's telling a sullen, bandaged driver (a.k.a. Mr. Drake), "This is certainly one way to make eight years in an injection molding factory pay off. You're certainly good with plastics." We flash back to Drake doctoring the ATM by adding a card reader to the false front, and Nicky explains for the slow viewers at home: "It was a good scam. Your reader transmits the card number to you, and the camera records the suckers' PIN numbers." Drake regrets only that he didn't use more powerful transmitters. Nicky notes that he cleaned up, with $13,000 of 62 skimmed accounts over two days -- and all the accounts belonged to cops. Drake smirks. He says, "I know. You know, I'm facing multiple felony counts here -- comprehensive theft. Card fraud. I'm going away for years. Everyone here knows that. When I got booked, they wrote me up for two moving violations. I hate cops." And the strings of whimsy take us out of that scene, while Nicky rolls his eyes and wonders how he got stuck with a paranoid adulterer and an unrepentant ATM hustler while everyone else works the serious cases.
Back in the B-plot, Vartann and Warrick are loping through the Labitrail while Vartann tells the CSI how a couple of uniforms just picked up Archie Lopez on a drunk-and-disorderly at Cheetah's. Archie made few friends at Cheetah's, what with booting on the bouncer's suit. They head down to the drunk tank. It's dismal -- if you haven't already tossed your cookies due to the drink, the color scheme will make sure you make up what you've been missing.
Warrick and Vartann have a hostile little conversation with Archie, where they break the news that his prints were found on the door leading to Manny Senteno's room. He's not too worried about this. Warrick points out that Patricia Fielding was killed in that room, and Archie snots, "My heart bleeds." Vartann asks if Archie's still drunk. He sure is -- he points out he's not much of a drinker. Warrick fishes with, "It takes a lot of drinking to forget a murder." Not if you're a lightweight, it doesn't. Archie sobers up and tells his side of the story: "I didn't kill anyone. I wanted to surprise Lydia. The manager gave me a key." And Archie went in, bouquet in hand, to discover that Lydia had already been using the room. The bed was unmade, and Lydia's lingerie is on it. Archie sniffs the lingerie. The nose knows, I guess. What he evidently smells makes him hurl the vase of flowers he brought, then rip $300 of lingerie in half before taking off his wedding ring. "And then I left," Archie concludes. "Where'd you go?" Vartann asks. "An art museum. Fool, where did you think I went? Somewhere with booze and strippers," Archie shoots back. Only not in so many words. He actually went to the hotel bar. Patty sees him, and her eyes go wide before she hustles off. Archie says, "That woman's been to my house. She's eaten my food. She smiled in my face. All the time -- all the time, she knew that Lydia was banging someone else." Well, only annually. Warrick tries to continue the interrogation, but Archie is the most boring would-be perp ever, and we're past the magical 48-minute mark, so it's pointless to consider him now anyway. They take Archie's clothes for testing. I keep returning to that sentence in the hopes that it's a different Archie who's stripping for my prurient inter-- I mean, "for science."
Meanwhile, Gil and Catherine are examining Tim Coleman's water bottle. Gil asks, "What does this look like to you." A water bottle, fool. Actually, Catherine catches his train of thought and says it looks like there's some tasty, tasty backwash in that there bottle. Mm-mm-mmm. Catherine then countenances the possibility that maybe the furosemide was in something other than the water, and re-examines both the banana peel and the energy bar wrapper. Long story short: rather than, say, grinding up the furosemide and injecting it into the banana in a black spot easily hidden by the peel, the killer stuck it in the middle of the energy bar and reglued the wrapper. You know, energy bars are not known for their appeal to the refined palate, but it would be kind of hard to miss a big pill stuck in the middle of it. Catherine fumes the wrapper.
We get a shot of a fingerprint on the wrapper, and then the LT, Mendez, sitting in Brass's office saying, "I don't appreciate being kept in the dark this long." Brass replies, "We don't release details of our investigations until we're sure of the facts. Now we're sure." Catherine begins the Denouement Monologues: "Tim Coleman died of a drug-induced cardiac arrest." And Mendez interrupts with, "If he was on drugs, he'd have never gotten into SES." Catherine continues smoothly, "Actually, he was on only one drug -- creatine. You made it plural. You gave him a protein bar that was laced with furosemide." We flash back to the fateful moment, where Mendez says insincerely, "You've got to keep up your strength. Don't make us look bad." Catherine points out that it's the drug combo that killed Tim, and Mendez immediately snaps, "I want my union rep." Brass says, "That's your right." And then does nothing else. Catherine asks for Mendez's pocket knife, which was presumably used to slit open the bar for tampering. Surprisingly, he hands it over without a fuss, and Catherine finds some gooey energy bar on the end. Oh, what so-called elite cop wouldn't think to wash his pocket knife? Back in the days when I had a pocket knife (before I left it in my purse and it became the property of the Port of Oakland following its confiscation at the airport security checkpoint), I always cleaned the gore -- I mean, whatever I cut off of the blade. And I wasn't even committing crimes…that anyone can pin on me. Mendez reminds everyone he asked for his union rep.
Warrick and Sara go through the contents of Archie's pockets, paying special attention to the cell phone and the luggage tag he ripped off Manny's suitcase. The phone number for the tag is 908-555-2641. ["Aw, a North Jersey area code. Shout-out?" -- Sars] Warrick and Sara test everything for GSR and blood, and come up with nothing. Warrick begins piecing the case together: "I know Archie was in Manny's room because he has Manny's luggage tag. Guy wants to find out who was sticking it to his wife." Sara asks if the luggage tag contains actual information. It sure does. Sara figures Archie might have called Manny's house. Warrick pulls up the cell phone register, and it turns out Archie and Manny's missus chewed the fat on six separate occasions -- and the last call was twelve minutes long. Sara concludes, "Maybe Archie found someone who can share his pain."
Cut to Sara talking to Mrs. Senteno, softening her up with a little small talk about what it's like to find out your man's been getting a side dish. Mrs. S insists that she's cool with it, and Sara asks, "Even when you hear it from the other woman's husband?" Mrs. S claims that talking to Archie was no big deal, insisting, "He was drunk. He was raving. I didn't understand half of what he said." Sara begs to differ: "I think you heard him loud and clear. You got in your car, and you tore ass to Vegas." Mrs. S claims she was in Laughlin with her son, and Vartann dons a deeply judgmental expression before pointing out that she was actually caught speeding on I-15. He then adds, "Most cops won't issue tickets to fellow cops or their families. Professional courtesy." Does the courtesy get revoked after you ice two cops? Also, is it just me, or has this entire episode been about how cops all abuse the system? Anyway, Sara points out that Mrs. S got off without a ticket, but the plates were still logged, and adds, "You were leaving Las Vegas before you even found out your husband was dead." Mrs. S tries to play the I-don't-get-it game, but Sara ain't buying.
We flash back to what happened: Patricia was standing by the door, apparently having just warned Manny, when Mrs. S comes barreling in. She calls Manny a bastard, and as he tells her, "It's not what you think" -- correctly, as it turns out, because what livid woman is going to confront her adulterous husband under the assumption that the woman in her half-naked spouse's hotel room is just there for the chit-chat? -- and then she picks up his service pistol and plugs the other two people in the room.
Back in the present, Mrs. S says petulantly, "You can't prove that." Sara begs to differ: "Well, that's why we got a warrant to search your house. And we found Patricia Fielding's blood in the lining of your purse from the tissue that you used to wipe the gun." Why didn't she throw away the tissue? Or, like, flush it down the toilet? It's the little, revealing mistakes like this that make me wonder why nobody's advertised for freelance crime cover-up services. They'd make a killing, so to speak, on last-minute calls. Anyway, Mrs. S loses it, sobbing, "She meant nothing to him -- nothing! He jeopardized our family for that?" Well, she jeopardized their family by plugging him. Vartann rubs salt in the wound, bless his heart, by pointing out, "Not for her." Sara jumps on the fatal mistake bandwagon and elucidates, "Patricia wasn't the one having an affair with your husband." Mrs. S points out that she caught the two of them together -- "She answered the door like she belonged there." Sara repeats that Wendy Senteno killed the wrong woman. She does not add that perhaps Wendy Senteno shouldn't have killed the man. This plot ends with Wendy staring in disbelief.
Meanwhile, Gil has come down to chew the fat with Mendez, who looks like he'd rather be alone right now, especially after he finds out that Gil's got all the evidence they need to nail him. Gil says, "I have a question. Off the record." The poignant music kicks in, and Mendez looks remorseful as he offers, "I wasn't trying to kill him." Gil asks, "Then why did you do this?" Still averting his eyes, looking agonized, Mendez -- who looks hot, in an extremely contrite, inexplicable and completely wrong way -- admits, "Leg 16 was mine. I ran it eight years in a row. I won it every time." Then he looks up, and I involuntarily swoon. Gil, however, is in the throes of trying to understand his own midlife crisis and fear of being replaced by a faster, younger model, so he's merely listening as Mendez spits, "Then the bosses transfer in that kid, kick me upstairs, and give him my race. No way I was gonna let him do better than me." Gil, who's looking a lot older and lot more tired than he used to, blinks for a moment before saying, "Sooner or later, everybody gets replaced." Mendez shoots back, "Talk to me when it happens to you." Gil's composure slips a little, and all he can do is blink and nod in the face of a man who's now looking unflinchingly at him.
And thus endeth the midlife crisis moment on the show. Foreshadowing for the day when William Petersen exits the franchise so fast, you can actually hear the sonic boom from Las Vegas, or merely more of Gil chewing on the problem that Sara's eventual dating will present? Only time will tell.