It's night, and someone in Las Vegas remembered to pay the power bill. They had to skimp on the public health department, though, which is why massive, highly communicable epidemics are breaking out up and down the Strip. At least, that's one possible explanation why we're seeing David the "Sanitized for My Protection" Coroner wandering the halls of a hotel in a hazmat suit. I should note that the first time I watched this episode, I had missed the set-up for this, so all I saw was the wavy clear lens and I wondered, "Why on earth are we getting the crime scene from a goldfish's perspective?" Now, in retrospect, I kind of wish TPTB would go in that direction. Wouldn't it be fun to see an episode from a housecat's perspective?
Anyway, David's walking down the hall, and as he heads into the hotel room, there's Vartann on the phone. Unfortunately, he neglected to put on a hazmat suit before heading in to say hi to Patient Zero. Even more unfortunately, he's still wearing clothes, period. David continues walking past the maid (who, in mid-freak-out, registers his presence and is not calmed by it), then heads into the main room, where he's been keeping Emergency Backup David as a test rat. If our Boy Coroner expires, then we've got a contagious disease. If not -- autopsy party at David's place! Emergency Backup David is still breathing -- albeit a little shallowly and rapidly -- but the woman on the bed, who is covered in circular, angry-looking sores, is not.
Cut to an angry-looking Catherine attempting to work her way through a hotel lobby. As she passes a crowd of stressed-out-looking patrons (all of whom, no doubt, are split between wondering if they've caught Ebola and wondering how they can get comped for the inconvenience of hanging out in the lobby in their bathrobes. Either that, or they're like, "At last! I'm in a hotel lobby in my bathrobe and there's not a damn thing security can do about it!") ANYWAY, Catherine fights her way through the crowd, only to be turned back at the yellow tape by a uniform who tells her, "Sorry, ma'am. I'm waiting for Catherine Willows. She's the one in the tank top? You're in a blazer and blouse, so it's clearly not you."
Catherine whips out her ID and repeats her name, and the guard covers his confusion by saying, "I know who you are. But the hotel rooms are under quarantine. No one goes up, no one comes down." Catherine's miffed at this.
Upstairs, David is busy poking about Patient Zero while Emergency Backup David tries not to pass out from holding his breath. Eventually, David peels off the bunny suit and announces to the suite of would-be disease vectors, "False alarm! We're clear." This is good news for Catherine, who's wandering into the suite as a suite escorts the still-shaken maid out. Vartann continues his streak of uselessness by remaining clothed, and Catherine trots into Patient Zero's bedroom, where David is busy looking at the body and Emergency Backup David is busy looking at his boss and thinking, "You were willing to let me die of Lassa Fever! What kind of sick employee evaluation was this?" Catherine then asks, "Someone want to fill me in here?" David says, "[Emergency Backup] David assessed a potentially infection agent, and per emergency protocol, he stayed at the site so I could suit up in this thing. Seniority has its perks, baby!" Oh, he does not. And he's not trying to murder Emergency Backup David by sending him out to get exposed to Marburg virus, Legionnaire's Disease, hantaviruses, or the sniffles. Emergency Backup David simply had the bad luck of the draw with this one; he defends himself with, "Her red blotches are consistent with CDC photos of Ebola." David assures him he made the right call. Catherine turns to Vartann and asks what they're looking at. He thinks it's a 419 -- suspicious circumstances -- but "honestly, I have no idea." The camera then zooms in on Catherine's image in the mirror. We're still watching her reflection as she says, "It's my turn now. Clear the scene."
The Who want to know who this mirror-gazing, quipless stranger is.
Anyway, we're off to Ms. Loakes's apartment. She has quite the home gym set-up. Nicky comments, "Doc Robbins did say Renita was in shape." Catherine checks out the array of cosmeceuticals on the counter. There's also a battery of supplements. Nicky photographs the contents of Ms. Loakes' library -- The Hamptons Diet, The South Beach Diet, Tai Chi for Slowing Aging. Ms. Loakes seems like she was a colossal, self-obsessed bore in life. Catherine pulls out Ms. Loakes's contribution to the world of letters -- a supplement diary. The woman evidently inhaled a habitat's worth of animal and plant matter prior to ingesting whatever ghastly blender concoction she called "breakfast." Nicky examines one big bottle and asks, "Do you think these supplements do any good?" Catherine gets all defensive and asks, "Why are you asking me?" "Because you're all glowy and pretty and stuff, and oh God, my foot's in my mouth!" blurts Nicky. Oh, he does not. He grins and points out, "I'm just asking a [rhetorical] question, Catherine. It's not about you." Maybe he only thinks that last part. Catherine sniffs, "Scientifically, there's not a whole lot of evidence [that supplements work]." She saunters on over to Ms. Loakes's vanity, which could double as a Sephora outlet. Catherine picks up one tube and container after another, all of which have three-figure price tags. So Loakes would have been totally broke by retirement age, but she would have had excellent skin. That's forward-thinking. Nicky comes over and sniffs, "More lotions and potions." Catherine snaps, "You gonna ask me if this stuff works too?" Nicky assumes the "give me patience, Lord" look before saying, "No. I'm going to process the bathroom. Also, YOU'RE STILL PRETTY, okay? So give it a rest already." Catherine looks appeased, even though I made up most of that quote. Proving that she was an insanely self-involved cipher in life, Ms. Loakes kept a giant, glossy framed photo of herself on the vanity.
Inside Ms. Loakes's lovely blue-and-white bathroom, there's a metal tray thing that's fitted in the toilet seat, and what looks like a white wine glass on the counter. Both have some traces of liquid in them. Nicky snaps a photo, then calls to Catherine that she might want to take a look at this. Catherine tears herself away from gazing at her own reflection long enough to walk in. Nicky greets her with, "Urine in the bedpan, and in the glass." The piano of perversity plays as we flash back to Ms. Loakes decanting her morning tinkle into the glass, then toasting herself in the mirror prior to drinking. Oh, my…I just keep getting hung up on the white wine glass, because now I'm like, "Did she decide it was okay to drink human urine with chicken and seafood? Was she maybe hoping for an oaky aftertaste, or some light pear notes on the finish?" And also -- what is the point of looking good at age 60 or so if you had to drink your own pee to get there? That's a long time. Plus everyone would be whispering, "She's a total pee-drinker, I know it."
We get back from commercials, and David is now autopsying Our Lady of the Suppurations. Catherine bursts in, announcing that she's late because she was processing the scene. David looks as though he couldn't care less. He's more interested in announcing, "There are 42 distinctive laser burns on Julie Stern's body." So she's a particularly masochistic Douglas Adams fan? David continues, "Lasers cauterize the skin as they destroy tissue. Lack of blood and scabbing confirms their use, so best guess would be, she recently underwent a cosmetic procedure." We flash back to the procedure in question. Catherine says that's not an unreasonable conclusion, what with the victim being booked into a suite because "women who don't want their friends to know they're freshening up will check into the suite while they heal." David figures a five-star hotel suite's also cheaper than a hospital stay. And, one would hope, considerably more comfortable. Catherine asks if complications from getting your skin polka-dotted by lasers could have been the cause of death, and David shoots that down. The only funky thing on the body are the Mees' lines on her fingernails (we've seen these before) so David's got a tox screen on hair for heavy metals poisoning. He then adds, "I'm not sure if it's probative, but I found 10 cc's of urine in her stomach. Digestive system's intact. There are no bruises around her mouth, so there's only one way it could have gotten there." A horrified-looking Catherine replies, "Chug-a-lug."
And now we're going to the circus! There's a striped tent and everything. But it's a small tent, so I bet it's one guy holding a "Cirque du So Lame" sign while his girlfriend the gymnast "interprets" the musical stylings of Enya for a bored audience. And I bet wrong: according to Captain Exposition, there is no struggling suburban circus here, but a house that was tented for termites two days ago. The exterminators came back today to clear the house of insect carcasses, but found the dead body of Eliot Beckman (the erstwhile homeowner) instead. The poor guy was either 42 or 52, depending on whether you're relying upon the closed-captioning for verisimilitude, or Brass.
Gil, Sara, and Liam the Erstwhile Lab Tech enter the house. As is meet and right, the female CSI's in a tank top, and the most junior member of the team is toting all the cases. Gil opens the door, an unearthly blue light fills the screen, and the instrumental music gets all wifty. Oh, we are going to see Cirque du So Lame after all! Lucky us! Gil sees the dead bugs all over the floor, and looks distressed; he composes himself enough to explain, "Exterminators use sulfuryl fluoride. It kills the bugs, and then evaporates. Agro scientists call it the 'safety' fumigant." Once again, William Petersen manages to make it clear that he's putting ironic quotes around a word. He may be the only actor working who's capable of enunciating marks of punctuation; I look forward to the day he stretches as an artist and tries the curly brackets.
Sara and Gil sprint on over to Beckman's body, while Liam elects to stay behind, wincing as he steps on bugs, and thinks, "In the DNA lab, we at least had lights." To make himself feel better, he looks for evidence instead, and actually finds some: eyeglasses, some distance away from the body, and a puddle of dried vomit. He then continues to wander through the house, finding some long blue feathers. Lest anyone accuse him of professionalism on the job, Liam then busts out the fake riddles: "What flies when they're on and floats when they're off?" Gil, of course, knows the answer. Liam's off to bag the feathers. Sara notices that Beckman's sporting a bruised cheek. Gil wonders what the guy was doing in here anyway. Waiting for the Cirque du So Lame, I tell you! The feathers have got to be part of a clown costume.
Outside, Brass is talking to the two exterminators. The point of this scene is to establish that a fumigated house is highly toxic for the first 12 hours, and if you're inside, you're totally screwed because the firm secured clamshell door locks on every door knob to prevent easy entry or exit and deter would-be thieves.
Cut to Catherine and Nicky having a sit-down with one Dr. Malaga, who owns up to treating the polka-dotted Ms. Stern: "I abladed her liver spots three days ago, checked on her yesterday at the Mediterranean. I applied post-op ointment to prevent scabbing and infection." You know, whatever health plan Ms. Stern had, I want some of that. Forget this $25 co-pay per visit business. Where do I sign up for the luxury suite and the medical professional rubbing unguents into my expensively-maintained skin? Dr. Malaga adds, "She seemed in good spirits." He then gives Catherine a creepy and appraising smile. Catherine attempts to look wary back at him, but I'm kind of distracted by the new bangs and the new forehead. Meanwhile, Nicky forges ahead with the scene, asking if maybe Ms. Stern was taking advantage of some sort of bulk-volume discounts, what with having 42 spots burned at one time. Malaga writes off this economy-sized serving of pain by pointing out that the post-abladed skin is quite hideous, and the average appearance-obsessed patient certainly isn't going to let pain management or moderation get in the way of eliminating all her flaws at once, Swan-style. As Malaga talks, he continues to stare at Catherine, and you can just see him mentally compiling the list of products and procedures he'd do on her if given half a chance. Nicky wants a copy of the medical records; Malaga's busy imagining Catherine's dermabrasion sessions, and it takes Nicky snapping, "Do you have a problem with me, Doctor?" before the awkward vibe in the room is dispelled. Malaga stops imagining Restylane wrinkle fillers for a moment and snots, "Excuse me?" and Nicky explains, "There are two of us here, and you're only addressing my colleague." Malaga claims to be blinded by her beauty; he adds, "You have Venus de Milo aesthetics." Catherine fails to be bowled over by this; I guess being told you're evocative of armless art isn't the compliment she dreams of hearing. Nicky turns to play art critic. Unfortunately for Catherine, he's more into Calder mobiles. Catherine caps the conversation by saying they'll be back with a court order for Ms. Stern's records.
Back in the B-plot, Sara's inspecting the circus tent, photographing mysterious splotches. What, is that where Patches the clown bought it? "He was five days away from retirement…you never see the seltzer bottle with your name on it." She rounds the corner and finds Liam also taking photos. Liam, unfortunately, is wearing sunglasses by Top Gun and hairdo by Beaker. He points out that someone tampered with the tent, and a window is open. Sara says the exterminators leave some windows open to help circulate the gas, and to offer the bugs false promise of escape, just to mess with their tiny vermin minds. Oh, and maybe Beckman got back inside his house that way, before passing out inside. The CSIs agree that Beckman's kind of an idiot if he did that, but Liam asks the valid question, "If he went in [that way] and never left, shouldn't the window be wider?" Sara opens the window wider, but it falls back down again, as the sash cord, which is normally attached to two weights that run through channels on each side of the window and helps raise or lower a window, is broken. Beckman was evidently not much on home repairs. Liam wonders, "Mr. Beckman never came out of the house. Why is there a trail of sand leading away from it and straight to a neighbor's house?" "That's a good question," Sara says.
The CSIs head door, where the neighbor is busy depositing his alveoli all over the lovely hardwood floors. Sara introduces herself and breaks the news of Beckman's death to the guy. He's not what you'd call broken up about it. He does, however, deeply miss the ability to keep anything down, as he's been "laid up for the past two days, puking [his] guts out." He's a regular master of the small talk, as this revelation is followed by the admission that "[his] wife bailed a few months ago." She probably despaired of ever keeping up with him conversationally. Liam asks the guy (whom we shall refer to hereafter as Rory Kendall, since that's what the writers called him) if he's been feeling particularly lightheaded and out of it, and when Rory stops screaming, "Bats! Bats! Man the frigate, my good bosun! Woo-chuka!" Sara decides that now is a good time for a urine sample. Rory's all, "Huh?" and Liam explains, "You may be suffering from sulfuryl fluoride gas poisoning. Urination's the only way for the poison to get out." Ah, but what does it do to you while it's inside? And why isn't the TMIcam explaining this to us? Rory protests that he's got the flu. Sara chirps, "If that's true, your urine will be sulfuryl fluoride-free." Liam adds, "But if you're lying, you're in big trouble." And then he looks around because he's hoping The Who will kick it for him. And you know, just once, I would love to see the CSIs have to apologize to whomever they're bullying into submitting evidence, or at least be all, "Dude, we're sorry. He keeps shooting for the pithy one-liners and hitting the Bazooka bubble gum wrappers."
Back in the lab, Nicky's decided to fill the gaping silence where once Liam capered by playing around with a bunch of jars and asking, "What do Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden and our victim have in common?" They peaked four presidential administrations ago? Catherine guesses, "Heavy metal." Her dead voice makes it clear this isn't the first time someone's made that joke in this lab. Nicky flashes the devil-horns hand gesture and confirms that Ms. Stern had arsenic in her system. She's had it in her system for about three months, coinciding with two sweet old ladies moving in door and inviting her over for tea. Nicky waves his arm over the cluttered table and indicates that of the many ingestibles collected at her home, none were contaminated. Catherine injects a refreshing note of skepticism by asking whether Nicky's sure arsenic poisoning was the cause of death. Nicky says, "Not yet. Until the quants come back, we won't know if the concentration was lethal." The two then banter about how in a poisoning case, the killer's usually a relative who has easy access to the victim. It just so happens that Ms. Stern's of kin has a vineyard in Pahrump.
Cut to said of kin in the interrogation room, inquiring testily, "You sent a cop all the way to Pahrump to pick me up. What couldn't you tell me on the phone?" Nicky asks when the last time of Kin saw his mom; NoK recalls that it was three months ago, and the visit didn't end well, what with Ms. Stern getting all worked up that her son had the nerve to have a four-year-old child of his own, thus selfishly contriving to make her feel old. Catherine asks, "'Grandma' was a dirty word?" NoK replies, "She could hardly look at him. Nice, huh?" Nicky mumbles that he also did a background check, and NoK's maxed out three different credit cards. NoK explains that he did not go a little nuts at the iTunes music store, but dealt with his vines contracting the black rot. He's all, "What are you, Equifax?" Nicky wonders if maybe NoK wanted to pay off that 15%-interest balance, and NoK is all outraged. Catherine wonders if maybe NoK wanted Mom's money, and he spits, "When my dad died, he left my mom boatloads of cash. On her last visit, I asked her for a loan…she'd spend thousands on designer clothing, jewelry, plastic surgery, but wouldn't lend me a dime." Catherine tries not too look judgmental, but fails miserably. Nicky wonders if maybe NoK's using pesticide on his vines, and the guy snorts that of course he is, since people's silly insistence on not swilling PCBs with every mouthful of liquid is merely a passing fad.
Speaking of mouthfuls of liquid, that's more or less what killed Beckman. As David explains, "The termite fumigant entered his bronchioles, causing his lungs to fill with fluid. COD is pulmonary edema and respiratory arrest." "Just like a drowning victim," marvels Sara. "Didn't I say that at the beginning of this scene?" David shoots back. Sara then asks about the bruise on Beckman's cheek; it turns out his zygomatic arch is fractured. David helpfully adds, "Given the force needed to cause this type of damage, the injury's more consistent with an inflicted blunt force trauma than a simple fall. If that's what you're asking."
Cut to Catherine jabbering in the general direction of some baby-faced lab tech. He's busy ignoring her by peering in his microscope; she's telling him arsenic is the primary ingredient in NoK's pesticide of choice, so it's kind of funny how he's ruling it out as a possible poison. The tech carefully explains, "The pesticide is a copper-arsenic mix. It's chemically different than the arsenic ingested by Ms. Stern. And FYI, that pesticide was outlawed by the EPA years ago. This guy is poisoning the soil." Catherine's dismissive: "So he's not a killer. He's a polluter." Catherine! This stuff gets into groundwater and kills things. Did you learn nothing from Erin Brockovich? Weren't you IN Erin Brockovich? Enviro-tech shares my hard-line attitude in re: environmental despoilers. But before we can come to a true meeting of the minds, Enviro-tech moves on to discuss the urine found in Ms. Stern's stomach. Catherine admits, "I'm not sure if it's hinky or kinky." Enviro-tech grosses Catherine out with a story about how he and his little ballplayer friends would pee on their palms during spring training to toughen them up. Catherine's all, "Is this a come-on? Are you quizzing me about water sports? Because, ew. But you still find me attractive, right?" Or something along those lines. She says, "Remind me never to shake your hand." "I'll put on a glove first," he replies. Because like so many of the other lab techs, he's afraid to hit on Sara, so Catherine's the closest he'll come to flirting with a real live girl. Catherine flirts back, since she's nothing unless she's validated by the male gaze.
Because I just can't get away from the conversations about pee, the scene switches to Liam and Sara dishing on the liquid. Mercifully, there is no innuendo involved -- only the knowledge that Rory's got sulfuryl fluoride in his urine. Liam's ready to declare the guy guilty, but Sara chirps that she's lifted prints from the clamps holding the tent together and matched them to a neighbor who was booked on drunk and disorderly in 1982 -- but it's not Rory. It's one Zach Alfano, who was rushed to the hospital two days ago after a bout of prolonged projectile vomiting.
Cut to Brass asking Alfano why he didn't contact police; Alfano rasps with asperity that until half an hour ago, the tube down his throat made conversation tricky. The story he now tells: as he was jogging by, he heard someone shouting from within the tent, "Someone help me!" Ah, an angry Cirque du So Lame ticket holder. Actually, it was Beckman, passed out inside. Alfano broke in, began dragging the body toward the window, but began choking on gas, and thus was forced to flee. He went to Rory's for help, and it's all black after that. Liam is dispatched to Rory's to find evidence confirming the story, which he's able to do.
Liam then pops under the Cirque du So Lame tent and back into the Beckman house, where he finds Sara standing around looking rueful. She's probably wondering why she's working with Liam instead of Warrick. Speaking of whom -- where is he, anyway? Has he been calling in sick to avoid Catherine?
In any event, Sara tells Liam they missed something: "The directionality of the floor rug. The center of the rug is pointing toward the side window -- confirms [Alfano's] story. We're back to Rory Kendall." Or, as I like to call him, "Red Herring." Oh, come on! Like you weren't thinking it. We're only at the 25-minute mark. Sara continues to trip down the primrose path of false leads by reasoning, "If he didn't leave the house for two days, why didn't he answer the doorbell when Zach rang the bell?"
Cut to Rory explaining, "I was sick. I figured it was some Girl Scouts selling cookies." Wrong answer! Girl Scouts sell cookies in the spring. ["In the Garden State, they sent us out in January. Still the wrong answer, though." -- Sars] Sara's not buying the explanation either; she tells us all the results of his urine tests reveal that his urine's just not very smart. Actually, they reveal that he's got sulfuryl fluoride in his system. Given how leaky this tent was, it's a wonder the entire neighborhood doesn't have sulfuryl fluoride in its system. However, Sara comes to the exact opposite conclusion, arguing that Rory had to have been inside the house and "you had a fight, you knocked him out, and you dragged him into the house through a side window." Brass tags in with, "You figured the fumigation would cover your tracks and we'd tag it up to an accident." Rory asks why they figure he wants to kill his neighbor; Brass suggests that Rory snapped after the stress of filing five noise complaints got to him. What, does Brass think Rory's a delicate flower? We live below people purporting to be college students, and five noise complaints is a slow month for us. Rory more or less points that out, so Brass exposits that there is also an assault charge stemming from a neighborly tête-à-tête last spring. Rory rebuts, "I overreacted, I apologized, charges were dropped." Brass could not care less: Rory's now under arrest, presumably for murder.
Down in the morgue, we're getting introduced to our third victim of the night, Ms. Renita Loakes, age 38. She began as a routine autopsy. David exposits, "She was shopping at the Venetian. Keeled over at LaCoste. Physically, she was in excellent condition, so I figured spontaneous aortic dissection or maybe pulmonary embolism. Then I noticed the Mees' lines. " As Catherine says -- just like Ms. Stern. So David sewed Ms. Loakes back up and began painting her face with toluidine blue, to highlight the tiny pinpricks he saw on her face; the perforations line up with an acupuncture facial designed to reduce the signs of aging. But wait! There's more! David extracts Ms. Loakes's stomach and "for only the second time in my career, in the space of two days, I found urine in the decedent's stomach." And how -- he wrung that organ out like a sponge. Nicky declares that surely, this must be more than mere coincidence. Catherine muses, "Two women, both fighting the toll of time, die prematurely. Why?" Because TPTB want to make a heavy-handed point about how unfair societal standards of beauty are on a show that does little else to refute or reject them? That's my best guess.
Anyway, we're off to Ms. Loakes's apartment. She has quite the home gym set-up. Nicky comments, "Doc Robbins did say Renita was in shape." Catherine checks out the array of cosmeceuticals on the counter. There's also a battery of supplements. Nicky photographs the contents of Ms. Loakes' library -- The Hamptons Diet, The South Beach Diet, Tai Chi for Slowing Aging. Ms. Loakes seems like she was a colossal, self-obsessed bore in life. Catherine pulls out Ms. Loakes's contribution to the world of letters -- a supplement diary. The woman evidently inhaled a habitat's worth of animal and plant matter prior to ingesting whatever ghastly blender concoction she called "breakfast." Nicky examines one big bottle and asks, "Do you think these supplements do any good?" Catherine gets all defensive and asks, "Why are you asking me?" "Because you're all glowy and pretty and stuff, and oh God, my foot's in my mouth!" blurts Nicky. Oh, he does not. He grins and points out, "I'm just asking a [rhetorical] question, Catherine. It's not about you." Maybe he only thinks that last part. Catherine sniffs, "Scientifically, there's not a whole lot of evidence [that supplements work]." She saunters on over to Ms. Loakes's vanity, which could double as a Sephora outlet. Catherine picks up one tube and container after another, all of which have three-figure price tags. So Loakes would have been totally broke by retirement age, but she would have had excellent skin. That's forward-thinking. Nicky comes over and sniffs, "More lotions and potions." Catherine snaps, "You gonna ask me if this stuff works too?" Nicky assumes the "give me patience, Lord" look before saying, "No. I'm going to process the bathroom. Also, YOU'RE STILL PRETTY, okay? So give it a rest already." Catherine looks appeased, even though I made up most of that quote. Proving that she was an insanely self-involved cipher in life, Ms. Loakes kept a giant, glossy framed photo of herself on the vanity.
Inside Ms. Loakes's lovely blue-and-white bathroom, there's a metal tray thing that's fitted in the toilet seat, and what looks like a white wine glass on the counter. Both have some traces of liquid in them. Nicky snaps a photo, then calls to Catherine that she might want to take a look at this. Catherine tears herself away from gazing at her own reflection long enough to walk in. Nicky greets her with, "Urine in the bedpan, and in the glass." The piano of perversity plays as we flash back to Ms. Loakes decanting her morning tinkle into the glass, then toasting herself in the mirror prior to drinking. Oh, my…I just keep getting hung up on the white wine glass, because now I'm like, "Did she decide it was okay to drink human urine with chicken and seafood? Was she maybe hoping for an oaky aftertaste, or some light pear notes on the finish?" And also -- what is the point of looking good at age 60 or so if you had to drink your own pee to get there? That's a long time. Plus everyone would be whispering, "She's a total pee-drinker, I know it."
Back in the present, Nicky's looking at the glass and commenting, "She liked it fresh." Well, I suppose you've got to take a stand somewhere in your pee-drinking practices. Catherine just looks horrified. It's okay, Catherine. I feel the same way. I also feel that way about Botox, Restylane, and the idea of "freshening up" via invasive surgery, but I'm squeamish like that.
Back at the lab, Liam's just identified the feathers he found at the crime scene as belonging to the hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus). The largest parrot in the world, it's an endangered species found in southern Brazil, eastern Bolivia, and northeastern Paraguay, and worth no small amount on the black market. It's also an extremely strong bird -- they apparently disassemble welded wrought-iron cases with ease -- and slow to mature. But that's not at all important to the discussion Liam and Sara are having. His nose is out of joint because Sara and Brass didn't involve him in the interrogation. Sara tells him that until he can cool the "You're in trouble" comments, he'll be typing feathers where nobody can see him. Oh, she does not. Sara just points out that Liam still needs to complete his solo, but he's doing a great job. Good God, Sara with people skills. Will wonders never cease?
Gil, meanwhile, is off making bombs, since it's been a while between workplace explosions. Actually, he's making smoke bombs so he can discover the uncapped electrical conduit that actually connects the two houses. This goes a long way toward explaining why the noise bothered Rory so much -- Beckman's speakers were right over the conduit on his side. It also explains the fumigant in Rory's urine. And that explains how Rory had fumigant in his urine without ever stepping into the house. "So you devised the experiment to prove he was lying," Sara says. "Exactly. But he was telling the truth," Gil says. "So now what?" Sara asks.
So now Brass talks to the exterminator guys again, what with them being the last ones to see Beckman alive. The younger one (Ted) is all, "We saw him walk away. His car was in the shop or something? He was staying down at the motel down the street?" The balder one reveals that Beckman was heading back toward the house following Ted's release of the gas, "so I gave him a lift back to the motel. That bird crapped in my truck." Gil perks up at this, and determines that the bird was blue. We also find out Beckman should have been staying at the Four Aces. Then Gil asks, "Does it ever bother you that you make your living killing insects?" Both men look baffled. Heh.
Cut to Catherine and Nicky finding out that the internet is full of some truly weird stuff. A website promoting "Urine Therapy: Nature's Elixir for Good Health" uses the Bible to bolster the practice with the following quote: "JESUS'S FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 'If you believe in me, you will never thirst. Rivers of living water shall flow from your bellies. -- John 7:38.'" What is that from, the Sermon on the MAC Counter? I mean, I'm no theologian, but I don't recall the Son of God being particularly concerned with the appearance of fine lines. Nevertheless, Catherine points out, "some fringe health professionals have used the Biblical passage as a justification for urine therapy." Clearly, these people are counting on their customers not being familiar with Luke 4:10-11, where Satan quotes Scripture as a justification for temptation. Anyway, Catherine then runs a remarkably focused search on Amazon.com for urine therapy books, as she found a scant 15 (I found 76, searching with the phrase "urine therapy" in quotes). Nicky cuts off her "Can you believe the wacky crap I found on the internet?" monologue by snapping, "It's a perversion of medicine, not to mention the Bible. I don't get it. These women -- the time, the pain, the effort. And for what? Smoother skin? Please." Catherine tries to equate drinking your own pee with spending time at the gym, an analogy that's not exactly forceful in its illustration of a premise (men are equally as addle-pated about vanity as women) but does provide her with an excuse to grope his big, bulging bicep. As Catherine's all, "Ooh! Rock hard!" Emergency Backup David comes on over and lingers awkwardly in the doorway during this tedious exercise to prove that Catherine's STILL ATTRACTIVE, just in case we don't quite understand that she's unjustifiably insecure about her looks, just like the victims.
Anyway, poor Emergency Backup David is all mumbly and stammery and awkward and so freakin' adorable, I want to take him home and bake him cookies. Nicky attempts to set him at ease with, "It's all right, Super-Dave. Nice purse." This doesn't do much for the poor guy, as it turns out he has hang-ups about his ability to accessorize too. Actually, he's toting it to the evidence lab, as it was the departed Ms. Loakes's bag. Then Emergency Backup David flees, because his social instincts may be shaky, but his survival instincts are dead on.
Nicky and Catherine dump out the contents of the bag and paw through them. Catherine picks up a small pump bottle filled with "Dorian Spray." Oh, no. Somewhere, on a writer's computer in an attic, there's a copy of this script that's getting better. Catherine reads the directions for this ("Spray under tongue twice-daily") and then bids Nicky to check out the second ingredient. "Snake oil?" he reads. Oh, no, he doesn't; he says, "Arsenicum. Holistic for arsenic. In an oral spray?" Catherine rolls her eyes at this. The spray leads back to Dr. Malaga, of course.
Cut to the dynamic duo entering Malaga's office complex; it also doubles as a spa. And, evidently, as the set for the repertory revival of Logan's Run, if the number of youthful beauties milling around aimlessly is anything to go by. Nicky introduces himself to the receptionist at the Sagebrush Spa, because Catherine's too busy having a nervous breakdown to say anything. After the receptionist wanders off to find the good doctor, Nicky picks up a menu of services and reads, "Botox injections: $500. Restylane: $500. Looking like one of the puppets in Team America riceless." Maybe he doesn't actually get to that part because Catherine -- who is now wearing more makeup than she did in the prior three episodes combined -- gloomily interjects that these cosmetic procedures cost roughly the equivalent of her monthly car payment. Oh, don't you hate it when you're forced to apply opportunity costs to your budgetary items? Reliable transportation…a face that never moves again…reliable transportation…a face that looks weirdly blank and featureless…it's so hard to choose! Nicky asks, "You don't actually think you need this stuff, do you?" Catherine pauses, mid-nervous breakdown, to check out the array of generically attractive women getting spa-like things done. Then she replies, "This is Las Vegas, Nicky. Everybody needs it." Nicky assures her, "You don't. But I'm picking up price lists for Brass and Gil." Or something like that.
Now that we've had another tedious exchange establishing that Catherine's STILL ATTRACTIVE, we find out that Dr. Malaga's pushing one of those 15 urine therapy books Catherine found earlier, and he's all about the Dorian Spray, which he personally formulated. Nicky asks him, "Doctor, you are aware that arsenic is a poison, right?" The good doctor quacks, "So is Botox, but 2.2 million people had injections last year. And foxglove is a deadly plant that also doubles as a cardiac medication…well, arsenic, in extremely small doses, fights premature aging by improving skin elasticity. Even if Ms. Loakes and Ms. Stern drank a whole case of that spray, the arsenic contents wouldn't be lethal." Know what would be helpful here? A CSI explaining exactly how much arsenic has to accumulate in your system before the Mees' lines begin to show up, and whether or not that amount would be lethal. Nicky checks out the medical diploma on Dr. Malaga's wall -- from Western Las Vegas University, natch -- and asks, "They teach you about arsenic in medical school?" Heh. As Malaga launches into all the reasons he's fine with making a living prescribing pee-drinking, he takes a photo of Catherine with some Web cam he must have hidden somewhere, then blows it up in the medical version of Photoshop and begins using the assorted tools to "improve" her face. He reasons, "HMOs don't recognize aging as a disease, so I'm free to charge what the market will bear." For some reason, this hits close to home for Catherine. Maybe she's been reading too many chick mags that do act like aging is a pathological condition, instead of shrugging and saying, "Given the alternative, I'll take a few fine lines." Catherine's all, "You consider aging a disease?" Malaga quacks, "With a 100% mortality rate. Aging wreaks havoc with every one of our systems -- respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, muscular-skeletal, and immune." And Malaga may have actually learned about one or two of them during his time at WLVU. Catherine points out, "You're not treating the body. You're battling crow's feet." Malaga can't refute the argument so he tries for an indirect ad hominem number: "Righteous indignation. That's one step before acceptance." Of what? Aging? No -- what Malaga does, apparently. While Malaga more or less says, "Don't you judge me! All I'm doing is preying on your own insecurities about the way age is affecting your appearance. Now tell me about your fine lines. I'll tell you what to do," Catherine has a big ol' silent freak-out.
You might ask yourself, "What is Nicky doing during all this?" The answer: getting distracted by shiny objects on a coffee table. I am not kidding. He surfaces from his inspection of the knickknacks to sarcastically comment, "What Ponce de Leon couldn't find, you did -- the fountain of youth. Snake oil in a fancy bottle." Malaga quacks that "medicine is about hope." Silly me -- all my life, I've been going to medical professionals expecting a diagnosis and treatments. Nicky rebuts, "Medicine is about healing. Hope is about prayer. That should be free." His words puncture Catherine's self-pity cocoon long enough to remind her that she actually came here to hand over a court order for Ms. Loakes's and Ms. Stern's medical records.
Back at the Labitrail, Brass interrupts Sara and Liam's study session with, "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I presume?" Sara snaps, "What do you need, Brass?" He doesn't miss a beat when he replies, "Well, it may be elementary, but I have a conundrum." The predicament: Brass just got back from the Four Aces, where the hotel manager said he turned away Beckman and his bird since the bird was cageless -- "but neither [Beckman] nor the bird ever returned." Liam turns to Sara and says, "Looks like we need to find that bird." You think?
They head back to the Beckman bungalow. It's all very spooky, and then, in an ironic coda that shows how futile extermination was, we hear a lot of flies buzzing around. Gil would be pleased that the insects got their revenge. Liam and Sara enter the house, being less than thrilled that they're walking into a fly-filled kitchen, and they figure since extermination killed all the household insects, these are latecomers. Liam sniffs and reasons, "The bird could have flown up somewhere and died." Sara wrinkles her nose and we have a scene that's clearly meant suggest that's just what happened…but what they actually find is a maggoty rat carcass in the pantry. It's every bit as delightful as it sounds. I bet that rat regretted having the ability to squeeze through tight spaces right before it passed out and died.
Since the scope of the investigation has now widened to include bird-napping, Gil stops at a pet store to see if anyone's tried to fence a big blue bird lately. As he walks in, a guy is busy telling a white parrot how very much he loves him; in profile, the two have similar beaks, thus proving that, occasionally, people do end up looking like their pets. Gil tries to break the ice with, "Teaching him to speak?" and gets a beakful of guff for his trouble, courtesy of the guy with the bird: "Although the cockatoo is highly intelligent, birds don't speak. To speak requires a cognitive ability to understand, which they don't have. They just imitate. And Edwina is a she." Gil apologizes for not noticing the tiny "Girl Power" shirt the bird was wearing. Actually, he and Barry Bird come to a meeting of the minds, and we establish that if Gil were to purchase a macaw, he'd have to come there, to Las Vegas's sole exotic bird emporium, Buy Buy Birdie. Although nobody's tried to sell Barry Bird a hyacinth macaw lately, we do establish that they're so rare, he's only sold one -- Bob, who belonged to the late Beckman. Gil breaks the news that Beckman died to Barry Bird, who bears it stoically. Then he whips out a photo of the feathers found at the scene and Barry looks genuinely grieved: "Tail feathers," he chokes out. "That's not good…macaws only molt one feather at a time. Get a pile like this, someone yanked. Real hard." Gil looks thoughtful as he hears this.
Meanwhile, Nicky and Enviro-tech labor to comply with the dictates of the post-48-minute mark, namely that if anything's going to be applicable to solving the case, it'll appear starting now. Enviro-tech -- who, we discover now that the episode is nearly over, is called Travis -- tells us we can rule out arsenic as a cause of death. Catherine snaps out of her panicky meditations on mortality to notice that the blood samples Travis processed yesterday are kind of funky, because the serum hasn't separated from the red blood cells yet. "The red blood cells have lysed. Something caused the red blood cells to lyse, or pop, and the hemoglobin from inside those cells infiltrated the serum," Nicky concludes. The accompanying TMIcam sequence has little popcorn-like sounds every time a RBC explodes. Hee! We also have a cause of death for these women -- as Nicky explains, if enough red blood cells lyse, you'll die. Yeah, not having those oxygen-bearing cells can be a real drag. But what -- oh, what -- can possibly have caused this?
In order to answer that question, Catherine and Nicky review Ms. Stern's and Ms. Loakes's regimens at Dr. Malaga's. Both of them had hydrogen peroxide therapy which, we find out, is when "a 3% solution is injected directly into a client's vein, bathing the red cells in nourishing oxygen, boosting the immune system, and reversing the signs of aging." It is frightening how well the writers approximated the pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo that spas use to bludgeon their customers' skepticism. If the aromatherapy candles and the pseudo-ethnic "rainforest serenity sounds" music don't cause your brain to go sliding out of your ears, bring in the semi-plausible-sounding explanations. I mean, I love spas, but they're not my number-one source for keeping up with cutting-edge medical technologies, you know?
And now it's time for the science montages. We're going to determine who pulled the Bob's feathers (and, it will be reasoned, attacked and killed Beckman at some point during the bird-mutilating incident), and we're going to see whether a 3% H2O2 solution can be lethal if injected. And yes, Gil is so good, he can pull an intact fingerprint off a feather. Was it ever in doubt?
Surprise, surprise, Beckman's killer is the exterminator. No, not the nice bald guy who gave Beckman and his bird a lift to the Four Aces motel. The other one --the gas guy, Ted. Sara wields the power of the warrant to rifle through his drawers and finds a dazzling array of purloined items. From thence, it's a quick trip to the conclusion: the gas guy would wait for people to leave, go through the house looking for items to nick, then seal it up. However, Beckman was coming back to the house to get a cage for Bob and he caught Ted. Rather than leave the house to call 911, he walked into another room, thus giving Ted the perfect opportunity to knock him out and seal him in a multi-species death chamber. Gil, meanwhile, has found and bonded with Bob. Ted says he's not admitting to anything, and Gil cheerfully tells him, "You don't have to. We know why the caged bird sings."
Moving right along toward rapid plot resolution, Nicky and Catherine determine that cells begin a-popping when the H2O2 concentration is 30%, or, as Nicky calculates, "That's ten times the concentration specified on the menu." "The death was in the decimal," Catherine intones. My brain cells begin lysing in reaction to the high concentration of lame one-liners.
Cut to an attack lawyer telling Catherine and Nicky that Dr. Malaga committed no crime. Catherine says heatedly, "He injected a lethal batch of hydrogen peroxide into two of his patients." The lawyer's all, "Yawn. It could have been a tragic accident. Also, the women were asking for it, as the procedures were elective." Then there's some blah-blah-blah between Catherine and the doctor where it's totally clear he's dying to inject a soup can's worth of botulism toxin into her forehead and she's dying to take out her aging issues on his face with her fists. She ends by promising to point the of kin towards a good civil lawyer so they can file wrongful death suits.
Catherine then stalks out of the office, and some ethereal-looking mannequin Dr. Malaga employs for the sole purpose of stoking his clients' aging fears goes striding past. The woman earns her day's pay, as Catherine's brought up short in front of a mirror, and she stands there, wondering if something's wrong, as it's been several minutes since anyone's told her she's STILL ATTRACTIVE.
And you know, this is the second episode in a row where I've been compelled to rant a little. So those of you who skip that sort of thing, pretend the following paragraph is all, "Blah blah, where's Warrick? Blah blah, would it kill you to toss a little Archie into the mix? Blah blah."
The ending was total hogwash, because the show is trying to have it both ways by packing the cast with folks who routinely land on People's "We'd Do 'Em" lists and then asking us to be all, "Yeah! They share my fears about getting ooogly! They're Just Like Me." And while there's plenty of room for a storyline where we are shown how a character like Catherine still thinks of her self-worth in terms of some externally-defined beauty criteria and how damaging that can be, the reason there's plenty of room is because little in this episode filled in that space. Instead, we got a lot of "Oh! She's afraid of aging, just like these silly women! And silly Catherine! She still has plenty of men to confirm that she's STILL ATTRACTIVE and therefore still worth something!" I know better than to expect any woman on a mainstream television show to be all, "You know what? I believe I look good. Because I say so," but it's pretty asinine to make this show about the identity crisis that comes from needing validation vis-à-vis the male gaze and try to pass that off like it's some great abstract societal evil instead of an active plot element perpetrated every ten minutes in the episode. Argh.
And that's it. Because really -- where's Warrick? And would it kill someone to toss a little Archie into the mix?