Vegas. Panorama. Out of control construction. Row upon row of too-big houses squeezed onto too-small lots, since nothing says "Delightful!" like the combination of sterile suburban sprawl and life-sucking desert. We then go to a tight shot of a billboard reading "Sandstone...the American Dream," thereby alerting everyone via a tastefully-appointed anvil that we're about to discover something hideous in the innocuous burbs.
And we do: a pair of feet clad in high-heeled boots. The feet (and the rest of the body, which we assume is still attached -- always a risky proposition on this show) are encased in a block of tar. It's probably safe to say few people in America yearn for a house in a development studded with tar-wrapped corpses. Well, few people with good credit ratings, probably.
Cut to Nicky checking out the scene, a bandana over his face bandit-style, while the head of the construction site tells Catherine, "If this is an Indian burial ground, I'm totally screwed. I'll be in litigation for months." What, because of the families who sue after little Carol Ann gets sucked into the television? Catherine replies, "I can't make any promises, sir, but I don't think the Paiute wore heels." Yeah, that would have cramped their style. Although perhaps a stiletto to the groin might have slowed down some of the resettlement efforts.
Anyway, Warrick tells Catherine, "The body's been covered with something. It's black, it's flexible, but it's pretty stubborn. I think it's roofing tar. It keeps the smell and the animals away." Catherine grouses that it's also made her job a lot harder. Suck it up, supervisor. Set an example for the troops. Nicky notes the radius of disturbed soil, which is important only because it sets us up for the tricksy special-effects scene where we see the tarry block getting dug out and presented like a low-budget Damien Hearst piece ("I call this...my opaque period") in the middle of a big hole. Catherine, Warrick, and Nicky are poking around looking all forensic, and Catherine asks if Jane Doe got buried alive. Warrick's not sure, but notes that her thorough entombment in the tar indicates that whomever did this is not unfamiliar with industrial supplies, the use and procurement thereof.
By the way, Nicky has gone back to playing both cop and robber with his get-up. Just as Catherine's asking him if he's about done with soil samples, he's all, "Well, yes. And now I've moved on to taking desiccated toe bone samp-- wait." And that's how we discover body number two, stacked immediately under body number one. We then get a TMIcam of said body so we can all appreciate how it's decayed over the past few years. Catherine quips, "I don't know if she was buried alive...but she wasn't buried alone."
The Who would like to know exactly who this "she" is.
The big block of bodies has been moved to the lab, where Emergency Backup David is put to work taking X-rays of it. We then transition to David the Dualistic Coroner telling Catherine, "Two sets of hands, two sets of feet, two skulls, two bodies. They both appear to be female. Jane Doe Bottom's curled up; Jane Doe Top's laid flat." Catherine points to the parallel tracks encircling Jane Doe Top's jaw and comments, "This looks like barbed wire." David thinks it's a dental appliance; Catherine prefers to think it's a torture device. Anyone who's had braces will tell you they're saying po-tay-to, po-tah-to here. David's all, "Do you think it's ritualistic?" What, the dental work? Catherine shrugs tiredly.
Just then, Gil skids in, a vapor cloud slowly dissolving in his wake. Displaying more enthusiasm than we've seen in at least two seasons, he burbles, "Hey! They told me you found two bodies covered in tar?" He's so excited about this, he's practically glowing.
The camera tastefully pulls away so Gil can have a moment to compose himself, and when we get back, he's busy asking Catherine how she plans to separate the bodies. Catherine's not sure -- she can't saw through the block without potentially damaging the bodies or the evidence, and the tar's not hard enough to chisel, but too sticky to peel. Gil's back to glowing again; he's also smirking gleefully, and rocking back and forth. Aww. It's so cute how he's all giddy in love. I wonder if he'll be sending a Valentine to the big block of tar? You were dug up, so big and black / And my heartbeat fell right off its track… He says he's got an idea, and Catherine's all, "Of course you do." Then she channels Ecklie and adds, "But last I checked, the backlog on Grasshopper, your adopted son number three, was about a hundred cases?" Gil gives her a look and issues a gentle smackdown: "You've been spending too much time with Ecklie. I'm off the clock. I came in early for this."
We then gear up for a science montage. You can tell because there's an electronic backbeat. Catherine and Gil are now wearing blue jumpsuits; she's sporting a drill and asking Gil, "Have you ever done this before?" "I usually try to keep my work life and my personal life separate," he replies. Oh, he does not either. He cheerfully says he hasn't, but adds, "I do know that tar becomes at brittle as glass at minus-200 degrees." Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Kelvin? You'd think a science show would be all into using actual units of measurement for these things. Anyway, what Gil then does is pour a lot of liquid nitrogen -- this is the stuff that freezes at 63 degrees K (or -210 Celsius, or -346 Fahrenheit), beloved of science teachers the world for its unparalleled ability to get students' attention with demonstrations like "Watch how I turn this banana into a hammer" and "Watch me shatter this penny." ["Those of us sadly familiar with its 'watch me burn off this wart' properties are not big fans. Heh." -- Sars]
Gil does neither of those crowd-pleasing experiments. Instead he and Catherine work together to drill some holes in the block, cap them with funnels, then pour in the liquid nitrogen. Afterward, Catherine's all, "Okay, Mr. Wizard," and Gil drops his tight science IN! HER! FACE! by tapping the block once and having it neatly fall into chunks. He and Catherine quickly chisel and wash the detritus off Jane Doe Bottom, and they comment that there's not much left of her but her clothing.
When Gil moves on to Jane Doe top, he gives the tar plate over the head a good yank, pulling it up forcefully enough to crumble the skull underneath. This is the Grissomian equivalent of hitting your baseball through the neighbor's window. Gil looks appropriately mortified; Catherine's looking none too pleased either. He finally says, "Huh." Catherine mm-hhmphs, the universal sound meant to signify, "I am searching for something to say that will not indicate the churning stew of fury, profanity, and panic you cooked up for me. Because I am trying to be an adult, and not the subject of the headline 'Local Kills Coworker, Stuffs Skull Into Liquid Nitrogen Container.'" Gil then tries to extract himself with, "I better go get my shift started. Good luck with the case." Heh. Catherine protests, "No, no, no. You don't get to just destroy the skull and split." Gil asserts, "You can get a nice mold from the impression." Catherine protests that she's short-handed; Gil appeases her by offering Sara's services, as Sidle just wrapped a case. They'll both rue that offer in about ten minutes. Gil makes his exit while Catherine makes more exasperated noises. Uneasy rests the head, Catherine.
We then cut to Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three, attempting to give himself a hip-ectomy so that he might pass himself off as a stolid pillar of forensic aptitude in the eyes of the court. He does the spit-on-the-hand move before styling his hair. So this locker room is co-ed, with no doors, and it's so hideously underappointed that there's not even a sink for Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three to use in the coiffure avec de l'eau? Sara comes in and comments cheerfully, "Look at you, Mister Straight Edge! I did not know your hair could do that." Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three grouses that he looks like a dork, and Sara cheerfully lies that he looks like a professional. Well, really they're both right: he looks like a professional dork. In a nice bit of continuity, Sara asks, "Lemme guess: prelim for Sherlock?" Ayup. Sara asks who Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three pulled for the judge, and he replies, "Dudley...Anderson?" Sara stops taking off her coat to grimace, "Yeah, not the sharpest tool in the shed. Speak slowly, use simple terms. You're gonna nail it." Their professional rapport is then blown to shreds by Catherine blustering in and telling Sara, "You're mine tonight." "Not unless you buy me dinner first," Sara coos. Oh, she does not.
We go into our second montage of the evening -- I know! It's only the 12-minute mark! -- where Emergency Backup David is examining Jane Doe Top, intercut with Nicky checking out Jane Doe Top's clothing, David reconstructing Jane Doe Top's skull, and Sara spraying the inside of Jane Doe Top's former sarcophagus with nonstick cooking spray and beginning the long process of casting a facial mold. While all this is going on, some Portishead manqué is ululating. And how old am I when Portishead is my pop-culture reference point. Just encase me in tar already.
Sara debuts her face mask to the swing shift, and Catherine, Warrick, and Nick all murmur appreciatively. Everyone sits down. Catherine thanks Sara for the mask, then kicks off the brainstorming session: Jane Doe Top was killed owing to the severe blow she took to the head, a premise supported by the copious amount of blood found on her clothing, but nobody will know for sure until the DNA tests come back; she had a broken jaw, as evidenced by the giant steel appliance wiring her mouth shut; she's missing her fingertips, which were cut off by some sort of tool that's jagged on one side, smooth on the other. Just then Hodges comes by to ask, "You guys still working on that mass grave theory?" Mass? Two is "mass"? Anyway, Catherine confirms that they are, and Hodges says, "You know what I like about flesh decomposing in soil? It's predictable." You know what else it is? Showing up in full, glorious color via the TMIcam. Hodges explains, as the skin melts off Jane Doe Top's bone, "The constituent parts diffuse into the ground over time, the longer they're there, the lower the concentrations. I tested some of the soil samples Nicky took from around the body. Curly Sue was around for at least five years, and Flat Sally was on top for only two." Having fulfilled his expository duties, Hodges then returns to his netherworld lair -- located immediately under Ecklie's feet, no doubt -- with a loud bang and a dramatic puff of smoke. Or maybe not.
Catherine fills us in on the last fifteen minutes with, "We've got a killer who digs a grave, dumps a body, fills it with tar, comes back a few years later, digs again and dumps another one on top of it?" Yes. You do. Or you've got one hell of a coincidence. Maybe it's a case of identical twins, separated at birth -- but prone to killing women and disposing of their bodies in identical manners. Believe it...or not.
Sorry, I was channeling Burgess Meredith there for a moment. What did I tell you about being a pop culture reliquary unto myself? Sara looks at the X-ray of Jane Doe Top and decides it's a case of domestic abuse -- "Beat up, then shut up." We then go to the face mask, just so we can all feel outraged by this hypothetical miscarriage of justice.
Sara's now plowing through box after box of broken-jaw medical records, courtesy of every ER in town. I presume she's in one now. But where is the hot Croatian doctor? The self-centered wrecks humping over the prone body of a patient? The breaking pane of glass? Damn you, ER, for ruining me for other hospital shows! Anyway, some woman says they don't see as many broken jaws as they used to. Sara replies, "Domestic violence laws have forced men to get smarter about their hitting." She fixes the hospital employee with a Meaningful Look, and the woman scurries off so Sara can review the files and suffer the periodic flashback. We don't see any of the latter, only hear them via vague, muffled shouts between a man and a woman. O, frabjous day, it's Sara's Very Special Episode. Sara emerges from the mud pastures of her memories long enough to notice a file that matches her death mask -- it belongs to a Svetlana Melton.
In the shot, we see Zeljko Ivanek walking into an interrogation room. He tells the willowy, withdrawn Asian woman with him that maybe she doesn't get to come inside with him. She slouches off, no doubt to wonder why she can't ditch the tank top and mini-kilt for something that'll actually keep her warm. Catherine invites him, "Have a seat, Mr. Melton." Sara glares at her invitation. As he sits, Melton says, "I married June about a year after Svetlana left." Sara and Catherine exchange looks that speak volumes about their contempt for this guy. Catherine asks when the last time Melton clapped eyes on Mrs. Melton Number One was, and he estimates it was about two years ago. "She didn't come home one night. thing you know, the cops are knocking down my door. I thought something had happened to her, but they were there to arrest me for hitting her." "Are you saying that you didn't?" Sara asks sharply. Melton says he and Svetlana were married for three years, and he never hit her. Sara asks, "Why would she lie?' Melton has no idea. Catherine eyes this exchange with some trepidation, then steps in to ask what happened . Melton says he went to file divorce papers, "but it was like she fell off the face the earth." "Or got buried a few feet under it," Sara suggests. Catherine gives Sara another, sharper look. Melton protests that he took out ads in the newspaper every day for a month, but Svetlana never responded. Catherine wonders why he didn't also file a missing persons report. Melton replies, "I was accused of abuse. How would that have looked?" "You seem to care a lot about the way things look, Mr. Melton," Sara says, as light and acid as a lemon. She and Melton glare at each other for a while, as Catherine tries to bring this back around to a conversation from which she can get useful information, like a list of Svetlana's friends and family. "She didn't have any," Melton says, and Sara immediately replies, "She spawned from nothingness." Svetlana's parents died in an industrial accident in Odessa. "Russia?" Catherine asks. "Yes," Melton replies. Or the Ukraine. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, right? This is how we establish that Svetlana was a mail-order bride -- or as Melton insists, they met through an agency.
This is about the point where Sara follows in a fine CSI tradition of crossing the line and getting personal with, "So what happened? The Russian agency denied your appliance for another wife? Or you just lost your taste for white meat? Too...tough." Catherine is gaping. Melton recovers first and shoots back, "Lady, I am not going to feel bad about my decision. I dated American women like you. They don't want to be anyone's wife or mother. You mention the word 'domestic,' they're done with you. It's nice to be needed." Or, as our translators found after they ran this monologue through the de-rationalization filter: "I am secretly ashamed of the fact that I have to coerce women from economically disadvantaged backgrounds into sex-for-security transactions. I dated American women, but I was threatened by the idea that they had access to independent means for economic security and personal selfhood, so I thought it was easier to blame an entire nation of women on my dissatisfaction than it was to work on addressing my own gaping character flaws. And when I made it clear that my fragile ego needed constant massage via the idea of a woman who lived to serve me and act as the repository of my seed, these same women sensibly fled. It's nice to be able to prey on women who don't have the same options you American women do."
Catherine just has her head in her hands at this point. It's evident she's lost control of the interaction and has no idea how to get it back; it's equally evident that Sara has no plans to help her out by recognizing the other woman's authority as a supervisor. Anyway, Sara takes in the line "It's nice to be needed" and shoots back, "Yeah, I find dependence and isolation really sexy too." Well, fifty percent of that is good news for Gil. Melton decides he's had enough of picking Sara's barbs out of his skin, and leaves. Catherine is not at all happy about this turn of events.
Since Sara's PEAP counseling did not tell her how to read trouble signs from newly-minted supervisors, she then takes the ill-advised step of dogging Catherine's steps as Catherine stomps through the Labitrail, the better to ask for black-and-whites to drop by and check up on the second Mrs. Melton from time to time. Catherine points out that the wife has to ask for help. Sara counters, "That's kind of hard to do when you don't speak English and you're a sex slave. I'm sure she doesn't know her rights." Catherine sighs and points out, "You can't arrest someone for marrying the wrong person." And thus J. Lo continues to elude the long arm of the law. Sara snots back, "You would know." Oh, there's no need to go there. That's my job. Catherine keeps it on topic with, "If the guy's an abuser, if he killed his first wife, we will build a case and we will nail him." Sara says heatedly, "And in the meantime, he can just keep using her as a punching bag!" Catherine points out that there wasn't a mark on her. Sara shoots back, "Not that we could see, Catherine." I dunno. It's not like June's outfit left a lot to the imagination. Catherine stops in the hall and says, in a low voice, "Every time we get a case with a hint of domestic violence or abuse, you go off the deep end. What is your problem?" Well, Sara's immediate problem might be that they're having this discussion in the hall instead of in Catherine's office. Or it might be that Ecklie's walking right into the scene. But let's just say that Sara's raised-voice response here -- "Yeah! I do! And you let your sexuality cloud your judgment about men, and I'm gonna go over your head!" -- is Sara's number-one immediate problem.
Yeah, I'm going to have to go with that one. Especially since Ecklie's all, "Sidle! Get in my office! Now!" Oh, she's in for a lecture now. Ecklie will tell her to "Be the bridge -- problems become opportunities when the right people join together." We go to commercials with Sara looking like she's dreading a lecture that starts with, "Wisdom is knowing what path to take …"
When we come back from commercials, Ecklie is tearing into Sara: "You are a law enforcement officer and a representative of this city. I expect you to conduct yourself in an appropriate manner in and away from this lab." Sara sets fire to the bridge she's standing on with, "If this is going to be one of your 'for the good of the lab' speeches, don't bother. I've heard them." Ecklie tells Sara to take a seat. She noticeably does not; Ecklie is too busy rummaging for her file to log this. He says, "Willows is a supervisor. You will treat her with respect. Insulting her in front of coworkers --" "She's not my supervisor," Sara points out. Ecklie spins around in his chair and snaps, "All right. Your superior. Sara, you berate witnesses, you disrespect the people you work with, you luck your way out of a DUI. Take a look -- you got half-a-dozen complaints in your jacket! And if Grissom really documented your performance, there'd probably be a dozen more. That's not the kind of person I want in my lab." Sara then proceeds to dance to the rhythm of the bridge toll-taker's screams as the flames crackle merrily: "The only reason you're in charge is because Grissom doesn't kiss ass. You couldn't hack it in the field, so you fail your way up, you break up our team, and now you just hang out in the hallways, waiting for one of us to screw up." Ecklie informs Sara she's on one-week suspension without pay. He tells her, "When you get back, you're apologizing to Catherine." Even the troll pokes his head up to complain that the heat is getting to him and he's run out of goat kebabs as Sara lobs another incendiary device in the middle of the bridge and tells Ecklie she will do no such thing, and walks off. I may not agree with how Sara conducted herself, but she gets points for knowing how to make an exit.
Catherine walks into the lab where Warrick's working, and he's all, "Mom, is Sara in trouble for talking back to you in front of the principal?" Or something like that. He asks what's going on, and to her credit, Catherine tells him she's not getting into it. Well, yeah. It is kind of hard to play huffy victim when the first thing someone will ask is, "Why didn't you just take the discussion to your office?"
Anyway, Warrick's analyzed the jacket Svetlana was wearing the night of the original abuse charge (the jacket's been in evidence storage) and there's blood there both from Svetlana and an unnamed male. The male is unnamed because it's not Melton, who had voluntarily given a sample back when this brouhaha went down. So it's entirely possible that Melton, while a despicable weasel, is not a wife-smacking despicable weasel. Warrick goes on to share the discovery he made whilst poking around the jacket pocket: a Russian-to-English dictionary, with several words of an amorous nature helpfully marked for future reference and a strip of photos wherein Svetlana is canoodling with someone who is most emphatically not her husband.
And now, it's time for Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three to remind Catherine that one known substance speeds through the universe faster than light, and that one substance is gossip. He's all, "I heard Ecklie suspended Sara!" and Catherine's all, "Mmm, yeah, don't wanna talk about it." He asks, "What are we going to do about it?" and in a tone that lays ice on the glowing embers heaped where the bridge Sara torched once stood, Catherine replies, "Nothing." Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three replies, "Sara's always been there for anyone who needed her. She's always had my back. So what if she flew off the handle a little?" Catherine snaps, "She crossed a line with a suspect, she failed to tell me I look pretty and all men desire me -- I mean, 'she was inappropriate with me and with Ecklie,' she needs the time off." Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three watches Catherine walk off and thinks that she's not as hot now that she's The Man.
And now Warrick and Nicky are talking women's clothing, but it's nowhere as beguiling as I'm making it sound. The conversation eventually works around to the slip of paper Nicky found in Svetlana's jeans, and how it's grown illegible with time. Warrick relates an anecdote about how he once got this hot woman's phone number, but then lost it when he washed his jeans, and the upshot is, he was able to retrieve the number again because the skin's fatty acids dissolved the ink and imprinted it on his pocket liner. I suppose that's more scientific than saying, "My sheer hotness caused the number to be seared onto all available surfaces."
The boys then take the pocket down to Ronnie's the Questionable Documents Guy's Questionable Lair. Within moments, he's pulled out the contents of the message: "Madame Matryoshka's, Tues. 9 a.m." Only Nicky adorably thinks it's "G a.m.," as the "9" is written like a lowercase "g." Aww. Ronnie asks Nicky if he knows what Matryoshka are, which is an awfully mean thing to ask someone who's still struggling with the numbers 1-10. We soon find out they're Russian nesting dolls. Ronnie and Nicky both find these dolls delightful; I am fond of the Kiss nesting dolls myself. Anyway, Ronnie tells Nicky people who have gone from writing Cyrillic to English often write their 9s as lowercase "g"s. Wow, how handy is it that the QD guy is also a Russophile? Is there nobody in this lab who isn't a polymath?
It's Brass! O, frabjous day, calloo, callay! I chortle in anticipation. Brass has come to Madame Matroyshka's, and he's hauled the third most metrosexual CSI with him -- Nicky. (Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three, is also Grasshopper, CSI's Metrosexual Number One, while Warrick with his shoe thing and scarily extensive knowledge of women's brand-name clothing is Metrosexual Number Two.) The receptionist asks if Brass wants a haircut, and he deadpans, "I'm trying to get a Rastafarian thing going." I look forward to seeing how he reconciles the more herbal aspects of that religious lifestyle with the day job.
Brass gets to the point and asks for Madame Matroyshka, and the receptionist guy calls a warning to said madam that the police are here. Brass then abandons all pretense of formality and wanders on over to the madam -- excuse me, madame -- a.k.a. Chloe Daniels. After they get the intros out of the way, Brass asks about Svetlana, and we find out that she worked here as a hairdresser back in the day. "You mean wife-to-be," Nicky asks. "Yeah," Chloe replies. "For money," Nicky continues. "Yeah," Chloe replies again. "Sounds a lot like prostitution to me," he persists. "Well, it's not," Chloe says coolly. Nicky walks off to see if anyone left any more rejoinders on the floor somewhere. Chloe tells Brass that matchmaking for money wasn't a new phenomenon, then cites the internet as precedent of its ancient social origins. The deal works thusly: "I sponsor the girls with a 90-day work visa, teach the girls a trade, they cut hair for men." "So men shop for a wife. You screen the guys?" Brass asks. Chloe asks if the bartender screens potential partners on the bar scene. "Yes. Otherwise, why pay Soho House dues?" Brass asks. Oh, he does not. Nor does he point out the half-dozen logical fallacies in Chloe's analogy, starting with, "Well, few bars require 90-day work visas just for drinking," then moving on to "If the bartender's taking a fee, I expect a service in return" to "Every bar pays for a bouncer. Where's yours?" Anyway, Brass deadpans, "You should be sainted," and Nicky reliably galumphs in to say, "I don't know about that. Svetlana ended up dead."
Back in the madam's office, Brass hands over the photo-booth photos found in Svetlana's pocket and asks Chloe if she knows the man in the picture. His name is Ken Wellstone. "Actually comes in for haircuts," Chloe adds with a trace of surprise. Nicky's still hung up on the mail-order bride business: "I'm sorry. There seems to be a really fine line here between peddling marriage and peddling flesh." You know, if Nicky's really worked up about the sanctity of marriage, he's in the wrong town. Chloe tips her hand by saying that marriage is effectively a form of prostitution, only not in so many words. Eh. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to find "To My Favorite John: Happy Anniversary" cards at Hallmark. Brass establishes a rapport with Chloe by saying Nicky's an old-fashioned guy. She chortled and lectures Nicky: "What do you think engagement rings are? Just proof that a man can pay for his bride. Look, a caveman would go steal a woman from a neighboring clan. He'd tie her hands and her feet until she wouldn't run away. Once she stayed put, he would only tie her finger, just to remind her." Ah, how charming this historical anecdote is. And how totally incorrect. Neolithic marital rituals varied significantly, and the practice of engagement rings is actually thought to have originated with the Romans' betrothal hoop (the annulus pronubus), although some historical texts assert that the ancient Greeks and Hebrews may have used them too.
In any event, Chloe goes on to bolster the pro-family lobby by asserting, "Marriage is not romance. It's a contract with the state. It's an investment in your future." And in no way is it to be considered a religious sacrament or anything. Nicky surveys all the photos Chloe has of the unromantic marriages she's brokered, and looks deeply disturbed. That, or he wishes a caveman would tie him up and toss him over a shoulder.
Cut to Ken Wellstone lying about his relationship to Svetlana. Eventually, Nicky gets around to breaking the news that he and Brass will be looking around the place for signs that Wellstone truly is a lying weasel, and not merely making an unfortunate first impression. Cut to Nicky looking around the place while the Portishead manqué returns for an encore performance. Nicky extracts a little bit of something from the white shag carpet.
And then the scene transitions to Sara's apartment. After a knock on the door, she reaches for a radio and -- click! -- the background music is turned off. I'm a sucker for little effects that mix the conventions of the genre with what's actually going on within the universe of the show. Also, I'm digging on Sara's apartment. Aside from her decision to decorate in Minnesota Vikings colors -- the purple walls I like, but the gold curtains, not so much -- it's nicely pulled together. I especially like the grouped, framed photos and carved wooden screen.
But enough about the décor: we're viewing the Suite de Sidle because she's not in the office, and there's someone at the door. It's Gil. Sara greets him with, "Well, if you're here, it can't be good." A thousand swabbies on the S.S. Geek Love would disagree, Sara. Respect your constituency. Gil asks to come in, and Sara lets him. As he walks by, she lifts her beer and asks, "Wanna ask me if I'm drunk?" A better question would be, "Why aren't you drinking better beer?" Nobody who graduated from college needs to be drinking Michelob. Gil replies, "We both know that's not your problem." The door closes, and Gil says, "I spoke to Catherine." We can all imagine how that went.
Gil: Cordial opening statement.
Catherine: Heated exclamation that sheds little light on the main point!
Gil: Calm inquiry as to what exactly happened.
Catherine: Feigned attempt to rein in temper. Biased recounting of story, outrage visibly mounting with every word!
Gil: Mild-mannered inquiry meant to clarify facts underlying incident.
Catherine: Continued tirade! Not entirely relevant references to past slights! Appeal to long-term friendship!
Gil: Conciliatory statement. Emphasis on getting all the evidence.
Catherine: Eye-rolling contempt over failure to manipulate Gil like putty.
Gil: Appeal to intellect and sense of fairness.
Catherine: Ornery statement of capability in re: objectivity and professionalism. Grudging acceptance of Gil's statements.
Gil: Sphinx-like closer.
It doesn't really matter what the words would have been -- the basic Gil-versus-Catherine discussion structure is as fixed as the haiku. Anyway, Gil adds that Ecklie wants him to fire Sara, and Sara sighs that she knew it was coming. To her credit, she still remembers her manners and offers a drink. Gil would rather have an explanation. Sara says, "I...lost my temper." Gil asks, "That seems to be happening quite a bit. Do you know why?" Sara indirectly answers with, "What difference does it make? I'm still fired." Gil asserts that it makes a difference to him. Sara begins rattling off why she might be angry. She has a problem with authority. She chooses men who are emotionally unavailable (and here, she gestures to Gil, which is a nice touch. I love that she's not letting him pretend she didn't have feelings for him). She's self-destructive. Gil asks, "Have you ever gone a week without a rationalization?" Sara doesn't have time to reply before Gil's explaining, "It's from The Big Chill. One of the characters explaining a basic fact of life -- that rationalizations are more important to us than sex, even." Sara protests that she's not rationalizing anything, and she was kind of pissy to Catherine and Ecklie. Gil wants to know why, and Sara tells him to drop it.
Gil's all, "No," and Sara looks up to snap, "What do you want from me?" Gil replies, "I want to know why you're so angry." "Well, I'd like to know why you're so emotionally illiterate but you don't see me badgering you for answers after you've had a bad day at work," Sara shoots back. Oh, she does not. Instead, she replies that she's angry because the guy she used to dig seems to be getting interested only because she's making noises about moving on. Oh, she does not do that either. But wouldn't you love it if she did? No? It's only me?
Well, it turns out that Sara's angry because she's now dealing with childhood trauma: her parents were in a relationship -- it's not clear if it was a mutually abusive one, or what -- and one night, her mother stabbed and killed her father. A cop on the scene commented via Technicolor yawn. Sara comments that it's funny what the mind remembers. Gil, looking like he acutely regrets asking the "Why for Sara make the angry?" question, struggles to reply, "Well, the mind has its filters." Then Sara's left lobe checks out of the conversation entirely as she asks, "Do you think there's a murder gene?" Gil, fortunately, has enough left brain for both of them: "I don't believe genes are a predictor for violent behavior." You'd think that both of them would also be acutely aware of the environmental factors that influence someone's violent tendencies. Sara alludes to this with, "You wouldn't know it in my house. The fights, the yelling, the trips to the hospital -- I thought it was the way everybody lived. When my mother killed my father, I found out that it wasn't." This is the point where Sara starts crying as the words "EMMY CLIP! EMMY CLIP!" flash over the bottom of the screen. In a rare moment of emotional insight, Gil reaches over and takes her hand.
Back on the case, Brass continues to tell Ken Wellstone he's a dirty liar, what with the tar on the carpet matching that Svetlana was encased in, and the blood on the jacket she wore in the E.R. the night she got her jaw cracked matching his blood. Ken finally admits he and Svetlana were a hot item, she wanted out of her marriage with Melton, and she thought faking a crunchy beating at the hands of her husband would speed the process along. And also totally discredit the problem of abused foreign wives who may not know their rights in the process, but that's a small price to pay for the chance to be with her Kenski, no? So Ken cops to breaking Svetlana's jaw. Such a tender love story!
In the scene, Warrick is telling Catherine all of the blood on Svetlana's sweatshirt (the one she was buried in) is hers, and while some of the drops looked like dried blood, they came back as "Aubergine Sheen No. 315 professional grade hair dye." Catherine points out that this is hardly surprising for a hairdresser. Warrick persists, "Some of the patterns look a lot like castoffs." Catherine wonders if hair dye was present when she was being attacked. Warrick likes Ken for the killing. Catherine snorts, "His story is so absurd, I almost buy it." Warrick scoffs, "Admit the punch, you spend the night in jail. Admit the killing, you go to jail for life." The two then round a corner and find Nicky gazing moonily upon the future Mrs. Stokes at Maidens-In-the-USA.Com. Oh, man, I was joking, and then the camera pulls back to show that Nicky's actually looking at the Russian mail-order bride site "Ivanawife.com." I love it.
Nicky reads off the goal of a single woman who lists her occupation as "dancer" with only a hint of horror: "'I looking for kindest, noble man.' I got news for you, Sugar Pants, buying women ain't that noble." Warrick livens up his workday by playing devil's advocate: "Well, life is short. Dating's complicated. This makes it much simpler, doesn't it?" Catherine says slowly, "It's not supposed to be simple. Complicated is the whole point." And suddenly so many things about her love life make sense. Warrick gives Catherine a glare and says, "It is?" Catherine's all, "Duh!" Nicky steps in to make sure Warrick isn't planning on getting an account at Ivanawife.com any time soon. Warrick is all, "Me! No? But you're a guy who's over 40, tired of the bar scene, got a little cash, wants to buy a sweet honey to be his companion…" Then buy a RealDoll. That way, the human cost is lower. Catherine, meanwhile, has gotten all uncomfortable with the mention of the number 40. Ah, just think of it as one of those complications you're so fond of. Nicky quaintly insists that he'd like to actually be able to talk to his wife, and with this set-up, you're not even speaking the same language, and Warrick says deadpan, "That's the best part." Catherine makes a noise in disgust and walks away. Nicky's clueless. "That's the best part of what?"
And now, Madame Matrushka's gets the CSI treatment in the quest for evidence. Catherine finds a pair of scissors that have one jagged blade and one smooth one. Yeah, they'd be good for cutting off fingertips -- if they were ten times bigger and stronger-looking. These don't look like they could even trim my cats' claws. Catherine then finds blood spatter on the wall. Nicky comments that it's awfully low for a tall girl like Svetlana, and suggests that she might have been sitting. Catherine notices that the chair near the blood trace doesn't match the others, and rips off the cover to reveal a bloody face print.
Oops! My bad. It's an Aubergine Sheen No. 315 professional grade hair dye face print. Warrick then tells Catherine that the DNA on the wall was too degraded to get a match -- so while they may have their suspicions about whose blood that is, there's no way to prove it. Who knows? Maybe it's Jane Doe Bottom. Remember her? No? Anyway, after a desultory reference to pareidolia and grilled-cheese sandwiches, we get to the computer modeling that matches the face print with one of the photographs of Svetlana. Catherine notices something else: Svelana is wearing a huge cheap heart locket -- and it's awfully similar to the one poor June was wearing as she waited for Melton to get done getting insulted by Sara. "A recycled love token! Now that is tacky," Catherine decrees. Well, with what she dates, she's presumably PhD-level in the field of tack-ology. Warrick bows to her judgment. Catherine is all excited because they can now get a warrant for the locket.
Cut to Melton's Manse of Misery. He's busy reading the warrant and giving Brass lip while June stands to him, and Brass is just letting it roll right off him. Meanwhile, Catherine and Warrick are in a kitchen that confirms Sara's worst suspicions about the guy: he's put chains and padlocks on the fridge and the cupboards, and hidden the phone cord so poor June can't even call out for a pizza with a side of legal aid. Warrick muses, "You think he's trying to protect his investment? Weight goes up, value goes down?" Catherine doubts he's viewing things in terms of wife depreciation. She thinks it's about control. You don't say? Brass, meanwhile, has lost patience with the Meltons and taken the necklace. Melton makes the Hulk face, but fails to turn into a deeply horrible CGI in an even worse movie. Lucky him. ["So you're the one who saw that movie." -- Sars]
Back in the lab, Catherine's found traces of blood on the lobster-claw clasp in the necklace. Whoosh! She's sitting at a table with Warrick, dryly commenting on how Sveltana's blood is on the necklace worn by the second Mrs. Melton. "Can you imagine a control freak like him having to spend a night in jail on a phony abuse charge? You know he had to have gone looking for her when he got out." Nicky points out that the he-done-tracked-her-down-and-killed her theory won't stand up. They need a murder weapon. Catherine snorts, "Good luck on that one. Crime's over two years old. [sigh] All righty. We know this guy did it. How do we prove he did it?" Warrick wonders if they can prove Melton buried his wife, and Nicky's all, "You might want to readjust your thinking on that one." He cites the pre-existing grave, and the other body. Catherine cites the fingertip business. Warrick notes they found the shears at the salon, and the only people with full access to the salon are Chloe and Vlad. You know -- Vlad. Whose name we're only getting now in this, the 53rd minute of the episode. FYI: He's the receptionist in the salon. Nicky comments that Chloe's not likely to kill someone. No, she's just likely to misinform them to death.
After a desultory graphology scene with Ronnie and Nicky in which we find out that Vlad actually wrote the goodbye note Ken has been carrying around all these years, Nicky smirks, "It looks like the Vladski tricked the Kenski."
And now, time to wrap things up in a hurry! We've got a personal plotline to return to, so let's bag the procedural stuff. Warrick and Vlad are having a tête-à-tête in which it's established that Vlad bought a lot of tar a few years ago, and it wasn't because he was planning on launching his own cigarette brand. Vlad admits that "In Russia, I work in certain family. When they want body taken care of, I go to oil field, dump body in tar. None ever found." Warrick thinks that sounds like an excellent activity. Not. He asks about Svetlana and Vlad shrugs, "Girl already dead. Nothing I can do." That's Vlad saying he didn't kill her. He covered it up because "America is land of opportunity. Her death should be total loss? Andrew Melton is very good tipper." Warrick asks if Andrew Melton was a good tipper five years ago, adding that Svetlana wasn't buried alone. Vlad shrugs, "Many girls want American husband. Sometimes Chloe can't get them visa. They come anyway." And that's how we learn the first girl snuck over in a soft-sided suitcase. It's hard to say what would have killed her first: the lack of oxygen as the plane ascended, or the freezing cold. Anyway, Warrick concludes that the nameless stowaway was DOA, so Vlad dumped her in one hole, then remembered it -- in all the desert -- years later. That's remarkably stupid.
And now, Brass attempts to bond with Melton by singing "There Ain't Nothing Like A Dame." Actually, he waxes petulant about the many irritating traits of the gender, then adds, "You think you've got it all worked out. Your Christmas card's going to look like the Sears catalogue, right? And what? You give her stuff, you propose, you give her clothes, money and shelter, then she goes and makes up some bogus story about how you attacked her." "Which I never did," Melton says, aggrieved. In his best deadpan, Brass replies, "A love like that. So pure. Men have robbed banks for less. Put their lives on the line. They'd kill to protect it." Melton begins moaning about what a bitch it is to have had an attractive wife. Hey, you were the one who picked that model out of the catalogue. Melton adds that he was so aggrieved by this, it got to where he couldn't let her out of the house, and Svetlana took issue with that. Brass says, "You made her an American." "In all the good ways, and the bad," Melton said. And then he was driven to kill, kill, kill. "She never appreciated me," Melton says miserably. Awwww. You should have showed her your work on Homicide.
Cut to Melton being carted off. His wife is understandably concerned. In swoops Chloe, to begin helping out by telling her completely untrue things like, "Did you know chewing gum takes seven years to pass through the human digestive system?" and "It'll be okay, honey. It'll all work out." Brass watches the scene with disgusted resignation.
And now, the personal scene you've all been waiting for: Gil walks into Catherine's office. Ecklie's seated behind her. Gil's all, "You wanted to see me?" and Ecklie says, "Sidle's disciplinary action. What's the holdup?" Gil says matter-of-factly, "Well, I'm not firing her." Ecklie takes a moment to roll his eyes. Catherine, clearly peeved, asks, "What action are you taking?" "I thought I'd string her -- and the viewers -- along for a while in an attempt to sustain this unconsummated sexual tension until we've wrung out every last iota of interest from even the most credulous viewers," Gil says. Then, "Oh, wait. That's supposed to be punishment for Sara, not the audience." I kid! He tells Catherine in a none-of-your-business tone that he's already taken the action. And from the look on his face, it's plain he's disappointed that she's standing with Ecklie on this one. Ecklie snarls, "I thought I was clear." Gil coolly replies, "You were. Now let me be clear. Sara's behavior is a direct result of my management --" "So I should fire you," Ecklie interrupts. Gil sidesteps him with, "But you won't." Ecklie tries a different tack: "I've been there. We get attached to people, we try to fix their problems. It doesn't work." Gil shoots back, "She's a great criminalist, Conrad, and I need her." "I'm sure you do," Eckie smirks, adding, "She's a loose cannon with a gun, and she's all yours." And he's a mixed metaphor with a bag of clichés. The episode ends with Gil looking at Catherine like, "I am so disappointed that you are a party to this, Miss Braun," while she gives him the cat-caught-in-the-houseplants response. Tension! Will it continue through sweeps? We'll find out in a week.