So the episode opens with what might actually be one of the most off-putting dead-body shots ever -- someone with their face blown off, and their body being gnawed by assorted scavengers in a time-lapsed sequence. I love how someone's face being turned into maggot lasagna evidently passes muster with America's bluenoses, but a grown man in a diaper is something that'll warp the kiddies for life.
Anyway, the few remaining gobbets of flesh left on the face liquefy and turn into what I can only conclude is the Hamptons of the Hyde beetle world. Gil is peering at a Dermestes maculatus now. He concludes that the guy's been a bug buffet for at least two weeks. Gil then pokes his forceps into the seething beetle scene and pulls out something he thinks may be "number four buckshot, maybe?" Emergency Backup David replies with, "His pockets are empty. There's no wallet or ID," and Gil points out exactly how that doesn't address a question about buckshot with, "What would be the point of blowing someone's face off if you're going to leave the driver's license?" Emergency Backup David concedes defeat with, "He's all yours." As he walks off, he says hello to Patty Hearst, fresh off knocking over a bank.
No, sorry, that's just Catherine, sporting the latest in retro-SLA chic, accessorized by a chip on her shoulder that must have been cut from an old-growth forest. She snipes, "Grissom, what's the deal? You getting to my crime scenes before me now?" Gil replies, "Weren't you on a 419 in north town?" "Guess you missed me," Catherine replies. Gil says matter-of-factly, "I'm just documenting. Then I'm leaving." This deflates Catherine's attitude considerably. Although why she has it is a complete mystery: she knows -- and has said in the past -- that Gil has neither political acumen nor particularly burning ambitions. She also knows that as a boss, he's scrupulously fair. So why is she acting like he's out to undermine her?
So then Catherine points out how an abandoned corpse can be an indicator of biospheric diversity, rattling off the assorted animals that gnawed on Faceless Johnny here: "Rodents, coyote, buzzards, the occasional mountain lion." She also notices the ring he's still wearing. Brass materializes out of nowhere to crouch down to her and say, "The end of Rainbow Canyon. This must be the pot of gold." If by "gold," you mean "grue," then yes. Catherine reads the ring, which is set with several tiny diamonds in a football shape -- it was given to members of the Las Vegas Greenbacks, a team in the long-defunct American Franchise Football Association. Because someone, somewhere would probably still be willing to sue if the show used the name of the USFL. But before Brass and Catherine can debate whether professional football will ever work in a town that makes a lot of money off sports wagering, Catherine yanks the conversation back around to the case and notes that the fist-sized hole blown in Faceless Johnny's stomach would seem to imply that he was shot at close range. We see the injury being inflicted in flashback. And then Gil says in the present time, "Right between the numbers."
The Who wants to know who you are. I wanted to know what "Right between the numbers" meant. From the depths of the couch, the husband tells me, "It's a football term. As pithy sayings before the credits go, it beats 'Looks like the shotgun formation!'" He's right. It does.
When we get back from commercials, Nicky's come to pour kerosene on the smoldering fire of Catherine's resentment: "I don't get it. Grissom calls me up, I come out here, and I find you. Things were a hell of a lot simpler when we were all on the same shift." And across the viewing land, people begin printing homemade T-shirts bearing the legend "Nick Stokes: He Speaks For Me." Catherine asks in a I'm-joking-but-not-really kind of way, "You saying you don't like me as your boss?" Nick gives her a look like, Why are you asking questions you don't want to know the answer to? and replies dismissively, "Whatever." Catherine looks up with an expression like she can't believe NICKY just said something less than amiable. So she moves back to work-safe topics: "I got a shot cup. That doesn't make any sense because our vic was definitely shot at point blank." Now that they're on safer conversational ground, Nicky relaxes and says, "Yeah, a shot cup coming out of a shell is like throwing a potato chip. It doesn't really go that far."
The two of them quit jaw-jacking and resume gathering evidence. Nicky pulls what looks to be a shotgun pellet out of a tree. Catherine photographs a scuff mark. Nicky collects a second casing -- "That's got to account for at least two more shots." Catherine explains, "Typical mag action -- four in the pump, one in the pipe. This was a chase." Oh, like a biathlon? No, wait, that would be if someone was skiing and shooting at someone, wouldn't it? We see the chase in flashback -- sadly, there are no skiers, which would have raised the comedy quotient considerably -- and it's just what you would expect. Someone's running while bullets fly by, and we see that the scuff mark Catherine photographed was actually a bullet glancing off a low-lying rock.
Catherine says, "We know where it ended. Let's find where it began." She and Nicky turn to look at a small lake. Their posture suggests that they're expecting a female arm, clad in shimmering white samite, to rise from the waters bearing the murder weapon and a confession inscribed in Carolingian miniscule on a silken scroll. Oh, Catherine. Strange women lying about in ponds is no basis for the solution to a murder case.
Nicky, showing a shocking lack of imagination considering all the places Brass and Gil drag him for kicks, looks around the secluded glen and says, "There's not a lot for a couple of guys to do out here beyond hiking and fishing." Or canned hunting. Or fighting. Or...well, come on. Catherine points out that the dead guy wasn't dressed for hiking or fishing. "So they were up to no good," Nicky concludes. That's thinking outside the box, my boy. He and Catherine then trundle through the pond to what looks like a trailhead, but he gets distracted by the C-note pasted in a nearby beaver dam. Catherine takes a photo. Nicky clips a stick that's holding the bill and pries it up, unmindful of the damage he's doing to the beaver's financial assets. Catherine comments that the beavers must be doing okay. Going by the shot we get of the inside of the dam, they're doing better than I am. Nicky replies, "They should do a commercial for the city -- 'Las Vegas: where even the beaver can strike it rich.'" Catherine gives him a look like, "But beavers do -- oh. Wait. You weren't speaking euphemistically."
And Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three is a little sorry that's not the case either. He's bouncing into a hotel suite and asking Vartann, "Please tell me I got a hooker roll." What, with a side of cole slaw? Vartann's all, "No, actually you got the unremarkable Maurice Hudson, age 37, most recently of Tahoe." He was also running around with $14,000 in cash. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three assumes the guy's a gambler. Maybe he's just a naturalist helping Nevada beavers get their start on a new dam. Oh, wait. Gil just pointed out the casino W2s. So he was a gambler, and a winning one at that. Gil also notes a name tag printed at the Tangiers; Vartann promises to check out whatever convention spewed out that tag.
As the camera pans over to Maurice on the bed, we see a rather large, round, body-length damp splotch to it. But that's not important right now. Gil wants Grasshopper, His Adopted Son Number Three to tell him about the body. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three says, "Well, uh, rigor mortis is settled, which means the body's been lying in position for a while. Pronounced petechiae on the chest from lack of oxygen. Guy was struggling to breathe, pressure built up, and he popped the blood vessels."
Gil looks at Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three. His boy wonder looks back at him. Gil looks at Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three again, then looks pointedly at the body. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three follows the Grissomian gaze and sees nothing. Gil gives an eloquent eye-roll, whips out his forceps with a rather snippy gesture, then extracts a thin purple filament from Maurice's lips. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three blusters, "Yeah, I saw that purple fiber. I was going to collect it, I was just gonna work on my own rhythm…" and trails off, all protests dissolving in the face of Gil's ineffable smugness. We soon establish that there's nothing purple nearby. Even if there was, it's doubtful Gil would notice it: he's distracted by the damage done to a nearby occasional table. "This table's cracked," he announces. Well, that happens occasionally. The table's also covered in semen. Again -- no warning about this prior to the episode. I suppose Man Juice is a sacred, beautiful vision in prime time, whereas a woman who enjoys a little something-something is profane in the eyes of Standards and Practices. Gil points this out to Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three in a tone that suggests that Grasshopper's furniture is also dripping with the stuff. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three is looking at the bed; he replies, "[I've found ejaculate] too. This guy was a machine." Gil can't stand someone else having the last word, so he adds, "And he got around." But he's thwarted by Grasshopper, who determines, "We want to see who came...and went." Gil is not amused.
And now, we go into the first montage of the night, where Sara gets to run an ALS over the hotel sheets and Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three. At the end of it, all we learn is that Maurice was always alone entering and leaving the elevator at his room; we're also waiting on Mia to process the semen on the sheet to determine if it was self-service, or a social deposit. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three discounts that possibility: "No way. Soft porn couldn't crack that table." Yeah, but that table didn't look very sturdy. Sara adds, "If he had a partner, that would explain the unusually large sweat stain I found on the sheet." Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three poses the question: "No cell phone. No calls out. Always alone. Who was he with?"
And why does he perplex David the Dumsquizzled Coroner so much? Well, there's the eyes: Maurice has bulbar hemorrhages and petechial hemorrhaging, both of which indicate suffocation. Lividity's settled in the posterior area, which backs the position in which Maurice was found -- but why are there blanching patterns on the chest and thighs? Gil notes, "Blanching happens when something's pressed against the area, displacing the blood." David said, "I know what you're thinking, but the body wasn't moved. And these two lividity patterns, when taken together, are consistent with him being on his back. " Gil's all, "So you're telling me there was something on top of him? Compression asphyxia?" Ah, but it gets better. Whoever was on top of Maurice not only remained there for the 2-3 minutes it took to kill him, they hung out for another 8-10 hours until lividity set in. Gil says, "Well, whatever it was, it was gone when we got there." So Gil hasn't ruled out the possibility of a poltergeist, then?
Meanwhile, back on Catherine's plot, the beaver dam has been removed and spirited back to the lab. Those are going to be some angry rodents there -- it's not enough someone grabbed their house, but they've lost their life savings too. Catherine's busy telling lab flunkies the procedure for counting the money, and they're all, "You know, we did manage to respire and perform basic, trained-monkey functions long before you got the spite promotion." As Catherine strides through the Labitrail, Warrick calls out, "Hey, Cath, I think I got an ID off the victim's ring...the AFFA. It only lasted a few years, and only one player wore the number 12 for the Greenbacks. He was a wide receiver...Gabe Miller. [He] fits the general description."
Well, Brass is off following up. Let's hope that general description also includes the adjective "faceless," because that's what the body's looking like. David tells Nicky that "Minimal hemorrhage around the head wound suggests the heart was destroyed first. Close to contact SGW caused extensive pulpification of the heart and bilateral hemothoraces." Aside from being an excellent name for a Joy Division tribute band, the bilateral hemothoraces are accumulations of blood on both sides of the pleura covering the lungs. Nicky's all, "I think the guy used a sawed-off shotgun," and when David presses him on it, he replies, "Hey, chump. All the guys I murder when I set up practice crime scenes look a lot like this." Oh, he does not. But aren't you chomping at the bit for Nicky to have some shocking kink in his personality at this point? No? Anyway, Nicky explains that the striae in the shotgun shell indicate someone who did a hasty job in sawing off a shotgun barrel, thus leaving a burr in the edge of the barrel and raking the edge of the shell.
Nicky continues to explain how the shells would have affected Gabe Miller, and David's amused. Nicky's all, "I'm glad to see you find his name so funny. I personally thought it was charmingly old-fashioned." Noooooo. It turns out that David happens to recognize him as "the new councilman from Ward 7. Interesting story -- he played pro football --" "Yeah, wide receiver for the Vegas Greenbacks, right?" Nicky asks. Why, yes. Well, Gabe's ring is on the dead guy's finger. So unless Las Vegans are in the habit of electing the deteriorating to public office -- as opposed to the merely prevaricating, obfuscating, and occasionally grating --- then a new question's been tossed into this case. How did the dead guy end up with Gabe Miller's ring?
Cut to Brass talking to Gabe Miller, who is radiating the squeaky-clean and generally intact complexion of the not-at-all dead. Miller remarks lightly yet ruefully that he hasn't seen that ring in a long time. Brass is all, "Why is that?" Miller says, "Every cent I made playing ball went up my nose or on some dog at Las Vegas Downs. I was a real mess until I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior." Brass can't keep the smirk off his face, and Miller asks, "You got a problem with that, Captain?" Brass slyly says he's merely being a good listener, and Miller's all, "All right. Out with it." I like this guy. Brass says, "Okay. Councilman. Say you're an alcoholic. One day you decide to give up the bottle. More often than not, you're going to trade in the shot glass for a dozen Krispy Kremes and start pounding them with both hands --" "So you think I'm an addictive personality, only now I'm into God and not greyhounds," Miller says, not at all upset. Brass says, "I'm really not making judgments." Brass is lying through his teeth. He's judging every minute of the day; you don't get to be that hard-boiled by waltzing through life with a mind as open as Tara Reid's neckline.
Miller says, "When the Lord cleaned up my life, I promised him I'd always remember the man I used to be, so I'd never be that man again. I dedicated 20 years of my life to playing football -- and I pawned my championship ring for a $50 parlay." Miller then pulls out the ticket, which he's evidently kept as a reminder of how low he sank before he began rising again. Brass tells Miller that they've got the ring now, and he can file a claim, and Miller tells him, still unruffled, "I don't need trophies now, Captain. Good luck on your case." And that's it for him. I have to say, it's refreshing to see a Christian on television who's not a Camden. Or very possibly evil. Or symbolic shorthand for "sanctimonious hypocrite." Would that off-screen morals squads took their cues from the Christian depicted on this degenerate show.
Anyway, we go to commercial and come back, and now we're in the lab with Sara and Hodges. He's inviting her to check out the purple fiber in the scope, saying, "Based on birefringence, your product's the product of a bivoltine moth." Bivoltine sounds like something you'd drink. "Mmm! It's lemon-y, lepidopteric goodness!" Anyway, Sara straightens up and tells Hodges, "You could just say it's silk." Hodges is, "Um. Yeah. Moving on...the color's unique, not found in our database or the Fed's." And then he's quiet. Sara asks, "That's it?" "That's it," he assures her. Sara says suspiciously, "That's not like you to get down to business." "Even I have off days, Sara," Hodges sniffs. I LOVE HIM. If that is wrong, I don't ever want to be right.
Some disco tune flares up as Vartann, Gil, and his Number Three Adopted Son, Grasshopper, all ride down the escalator in the Tangiers. Vartann says there's only one convention in town this week. As a rather overweight young woman wearing a t-shirt that reads "If my body disgusts you...keep it to yourself" rides up the escalator in the opposite direction, we quickly figure out which sole convention is in town for the weekend.
Hey, it turns out the tune is "I'm Every Woman." And every woman on the pool deck is at least a size 20. We see a synchronized swim team wearing some truly jubilant bloom-covered caps doing their routine, and lots of people dancing on the pool deck. Vartann explains, "It's a Hogs and Heifers convention. Hudson wasn't fat. What was he doing here?" Accepting the Supreme Court ruling Sprat v. Sprat's order to "mingle among different weight classes with all due haste"? Expressing an aesthetic preference echoed in several different cultures at several different points in human history? "Maybe he used to be [fat]," Gil suggests, instinctively looking for a motive that would give Maurice an outsider-passing-for-normal mentality. "Maybe he's a chubby chaser," Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three suggests brightly. Gil gives him a glare, and Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three's sunny look stays in place as he shrugs, "Some men like curves." Vartann sneers, "There's curves and there's rolls. Look, have tons of fun. I've got a murder-suicide to cover." Both Gil's and Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three's expressions suggest that they won't really be missing the special ingredient he brings to the investigation.
Gil looks around at the assorted revelers with a look of helpless confusion. He muses, "Something heavy killed our vic." Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three -- still sporting a blithe tone that suggests he's taking in the scene with a great deal more sangfroid than anyone else would -- shrugs, "Heavy object, heavy person." Gil dispatches Grasshopper, His Adopted Son Number Three to see if anyone at the registration desk recognizes Maurice. "Where are you going?" Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three asks. Gil gets positively festive as he smiles, "I'm going dancing." Incidentally, during this whole conversation, the shots of the guys talking have been intercut with shots of the synchronized swim team underwater. I have no idea what purpose these shots serve. If TPTB put them there in an effort to get viewers to examine their own reactions to seeing substantial-sized women moving in bathing suits underwater...it worked.
Gil wanders from group to group, asking if anyone recognizes Maurice. No dice. He then wanders over to a woman who's sitting in a chair, doing the above-the-waist dancing so many of us have done at our desks. She's no Numa Numa dancer, but she's got flair. She's also got on a purple blouse. Gil does the "'Scuse me, do you know this guy?" Nope. Gil's staring at the blouse, and the lady grabs her cleavage and squeezes with, "You see something you like?" Gil apologizes and explains, "I noticed your lovely purple undergarment." Conveniently enough, the chair dancer bought it at the convention. Gil thanks her and moves on, but not before Purple Reign can get a good swat on his behind. I can't help but suspect that many of you lived that moment vicariously. Gil turns around with a shocked look, and Purple Reign flirtatiously smolders, "Fat girl, gay guy. It's not unheard of." Oh, honey -- Gil's still reeling from you manhandling his hinders. Don't go bringing his sexuality into it right now. You'll blow his bug-loving mind.
Cut to a reproduction of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's "Grande Odalisque," and then a sweet-faced redhead telling Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three that she remembers seeing Maurice at the mixer last night. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three breaks the news of Maurice's death, and the redhead looks slightly stunned, but not stunned enough to alter her behavior any. She didn't notice whether Maurice had any company, then directs Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three over to the message board. She explains, "When you see somebody you like, you leave them a note. If they respond, you're in luck. If they don't, it's softer than face-to-face rejection. We get that enough as is." God knows why -- are there really that many idiots out there who entertain the idea that there's an inverse relationship between body mass and emotional sensitivity? Don't answer that. I don't want to know.
Back on the swing shift plot, the lab flunkies have finished cleaning out the beavers' life savings. Nicky sums up the take for Warrick: "Roughly $25,000 in cash, money bands from five different sports books, some assorted trash and junk, and these." These would be markers at the Orleans. Warrick reads, "Duke minus 17 on a Tuesday and Louisville on a Friday..." "They winners or losers?" Nicky asks. Warrick's all, "You know what? I don't follow college roundball any more. Most of the good players go pro right out of high school. [picking up markers] The Mirage, the Stardust, the Golden Nugget and Sam's Town." One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong. Also, all of these things point to a classic runner's route, thereby implying that the dead guy may have been placing bets for a bookie.
Just then, Brass appears to tell us that the last person to have Miller's ring was a guy named Kelvin Russell, who worked for the Vegas Sports Line (VSL). Nicky helpfully tells us, "They set the spread for almost every sports book in Vegas." Brass dons the mantle of Captain Exposition and upholds his sworn duty with, "If the vic worked for VSL, he's legally prohibited from sports gambling. I mean, that guy should be nowhere near a sports betting ticket."
Cut to what I presume is the VSL. Many sport- and bet-related things are going on, all of which made substantial parts of my brain recall, with great force and clarity, why I prefer to spend my time in Las Vegas playing blackjack and conducting extensive field work for my comprehensive study, "Which hotel spas provide the most value for the money?" Sports betting is just...not the activity for me. Anyway, we're witnessing the setting of a point spread as helmed by some middle-aged hustler, and Brass wanders in with Warrick to look for Kelvin Russell. Why ANYONE thinks it's a good idea for Warrick to be tromping through gambling organizations is one of the show's private mysteries. So, this modern day titan of point spreads says nobody's seen Kelvin in two weeks, so they've taken his absence as a sign that he wasn't too set on staying employed at VSL anyway. Brass and Warrick announce Kelvin's death with no small amount of mordant relish, and then begin the process of gathering statements from Kelvin's associates.
The first stop: Scotty Kerwin. Within mere seconds, we've established that Scotty and Kelvin were buds in the sense that Scotty was the only guy who didn't gag in distaste when he set eyes on Kelvin. The deceased was evidently something of a swollen ego -- "Kelvin's the new guy here and [head honcho] Mitch Urbana's the man." Oh, goody -- another workplace in which the tone is set by a macho pecking order. Why gung-ho primatology candidates don't just ditch the bonobo studies and spend their field time taking notes on these offices is beyond me. Anyway, we also establish that Scott has Tourette's. And then...oh, blah blah blah blah blah. The relevant thing in this scene is that the last time Scotty saw him alive was the day after the Duke-Louisville game, when he came into the office to gloat about how he called the game.
Back at other plot, Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three has finally found the bulletin board, and is telling the woman running it that he needs Maurice's messages. This woman's another stunner, as whomever cast these women evidently went on the "If we have to [gasp] show people whose dress size hits the double digits, let's make sure they're all striking" principle. She passes over a thick sheaf of messages and asks what happened; Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three breaks the news of Maurice's death. The woman says drily, "A few ladies here are going to be in mourning. He was popular. Don't know why...I guess some people like pigs."
"I take it you knew him," Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three deadpans. "Well enough to keep my distance. The bastard liked doing fat girls, but didn't want to be seen with them. There are some women who spend all their time and energy giving pleasure because they think they aren't worthy." Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three attempts to relate with, "You don't have to be large to have low self-esteem." The woman smiles as if to say, Fine. And the time you check the news and you see another article on America's growing health epidemic of spiky hairstyles, you come talk to me. But she keeps it to herself. Instead, we find that Maurice was attempting to set up an assignation with lingerie vendor Regina Owens.
Because there's lingerie involved, Gil has sent Grasshopper, His Adopted Son Number Three to the showers and stepped in for what is clearly a man's work. Regina saunters up, and in a nice nod to her other gig on Carnivale, opens the conversation by silkily cooing, "That's some tickler you got there. [rubs her jaw] You got everything you need to please a woman." Gil is surprised that anyone sees his beard as anything other than a one-bad-mood-away-from-a-cabin-and-a-4000-word-manifesto fashion statement. But he recovers and asks about the lingerie. Regina's sold about nineteen sets. She's wearing the merch; she pulls down her top to reveal a bit of bra and purrs, "Men love purple." "Do they?" Gil squeaks. Regina tells him it's her Purple Reign outfit, and asks if Gil wouldn't maybe like to take some home for the wife. "I'm not married," he replies. "Girlfriend?" she parries. "No," Gil says, almost flirtatiously. "You want one?" she asks, definitely flirtatiously. Gil smiles and winks, "I do." He's charmed! But who wouldn't be? One of my favorite things about watching Carnivale -- since God knows I'm not in it for plot clarity -- is seeing Debra Christofferson imbue her role as Lila with an almost toxic seductiveness; she and Cynthia Ettinger, who plays Rita Sue, are so lushly sensuous, they practically qualify as human hothouses. So it's a kick seeing her here. Anyway, Gil asks for copies of Regina's customer receipts. Regina's all, "This isn't how I like to start a date, but okay..."
Back in the swing shift plot, Warrick's headed to the sports book at the Tangiers, where the manager confirms that there's this guy who laid down the bets. Only she calls him Lou Barnes. Okay, then. I've only been watching each scene a few times, so it's not like I've been paying attention to this plot or anything. Anyway, she says she was hoping the runner wouldn't show up and collect the $23,000 the guy made off his $1000 bets. "That game hit us hard," she says. I'm crying for the casino. Very softly. On the inside. And it might just be tears of laughter. Warrick says, "I heard the book's the only place where casinos actually lose money." "I've worked here a long time and I've never seen anything like it -- not even ASU/Washington in '93," the manager says ruefully. "That's when the players shaved points. Any indication this game was fixed?" Warrick asks. Answer: no. The manager adds, "I figure we just got caught in a good steam play." "A lot of one-way action?' Warrick asks. She replies, "The minute VSL opened the line. It was weird -- those guys usually are right-on. I mean, that's what we pay them for." And then the conversation gets all insider-baseball here, only replacing "baseball" with "gambling," and the scene ends with Warrick asking if he can get a printout of the line action.
He then repairs to a corner of the casino bar to study the numbers. I'd make a crack about the distraction factor, but I'm typing this in my living room with one cat passed out on my shins and the other one -- the 22-pounder -- attempting to wedge himself into my armpit. And my upstairs neighbors are playing John Mayer's "Daughters" song on repeat loop again. So I'm thinking Warrick and I are both testaments to awesome single-minded concentration. In fact, I'd even argue that he's more able to concentrate since he's not running the risk of puncture wounds every time he crosses his ankles.
I'm sorry, I appear to have gotten distracted there. Casino, cats, awesome powers of concentration...ahhh, here's my point. Catherine and her cleavage come over to confirm that they haven't run across Lou Barnes before, and then she finds out that Warrick's engrossed in examining the game the guy got rich on. He comments, "These are the craziest line moves I ever saw." Catherine speaks for some of us when she snorts, "Line moves. The only thing the sports book means to me is guys without showers." Warrick laughs, "That's actually true." And then the show remembers the millions of us who aren't fluent in wagering, and stages this conversation:
Warrick: Let me see if I can break it down: Monday morning, the week of the Duke/Louisville game, VSL sets the line at Duke minus 15.Catherine: He got more than 17 and less than 23...he won both bets.
Catherine: So if I were to place a bet on Duke, they would have to win by more than fifteen for me to win the bet.
Warrick: Right. Now, according to the manager of the book, the moment that number went up, cash came rolling in on Duke. Professional bettors were all over the number. Dispatching runners in every book in town. Now, remember, money moves the line, so by mid-week, the tourists and the local suckers caught wind of what the pros were betting, [therefore] pumping the line to Duke minus 25.
Catherine: Yeah, everybody's throwing money on Duke. Big favorite.
Warrick: Now here's where it gets weird. By Friday, all sorts of cash starts rolling in, but this time on the underdog -- Louisville plus 25.
Catherine: Which means Louisville could lose by 24 [points] and still win the bet. So why would you bet on the underdog if you had already put money on the favorite?
Warrick: Our vic had Lou Barnes lay 17 points with Duke, and take 23 with Louisville. The game landed 22. How do you think he did it?
Warrick: All that action created this big middle, so he was able to win on both sides. I think Kelvin Russell sold VSL's numbers, and got killed for it.
And now we meet Lou Barnes, whom Brass evidently found wandering around a local crypt, mumbling, "Brains! Need brains! More brains!" As Brass beholds Lou's ashy complexion and vacant expression, he snaps, "Hey! Focus! You all right?" Lou elects to answer by passing out sideways. Brass cocks an eyebrow as if to say, I hadn't even asked him if he was gay yet.
When we return from commercials, we're in a hospital with Lou. A doctor matter-of-factly hands over a little baggie full of No. 4 buckshot and says briskly, "Found this in his leg. It's been there at least a week. He was septic. Lucky to be alive." Nicky and Brass then collaborate on conjecturing the circumstances leading to septicemia: Kelvin knew the line was going to go funky, but he couldn't cash in on it. So he hired Barnes to place his bets. And they both ended up on the wrong end of a shotgun. After an interminable flashback -- remember, watching someone sprint through the woods whilst being gunned down like a tranquilized bear is less likely to leave an impression on little viewers than Wendie Malick explaining how she never bargained for a husband who wanted a wet-wipe warmer.
Brass comes over and tenderly inquires of the invalid, "Hey, Lou! Lou! Lou! You wanna tell us who filled you full of lead?" By the way, "tenderly" is another way of saying "at the top of his lungs." Unfortunately, Lou has recovered enough of his mental faculties to gasp, "I want a lawyer."
Back at the Labitrail, a group of women from the Hogs and Heifers convention is waiting in the receiving room. They look less than thrilled to be there -- understandable, since a lot of guys in uniform are walking by, laughing and pointing. You know, given the grand circus of humanity available in that city, I find it hard to believe that Las Vegas cops would be so provincial as to act as if a group of obese women were some exotic novelty. That kind of behavior went out with the Hottentot Venus. Some uniform stops Sara on her way in there and snickers, "Walk softly. You don't want to start a stampede." Sara opens her can of whup-ass and sprays some in the guy's general direction: "I am going to remember that you said that, Metcalf, especially after these ladies sue you and the police for discrimination, you genius. Could you clear the halls for me, please?"
Sara then walks in and apologizes because the guys were out of line. Our Lady of the Message Board shoots back, "They all were. And so were you -- unless you've got a really good explanation for why we're all down here." Regina looks skeptical that such a thing is possible; Sara explains that she's working a homicide investigation, she's working evidence consistent with Regina's custom-made lingerie, and all of the women in the room own that lingerie. Our Lady of the Message Board makes a nice pun with, "I'm no lawyer, but that sounds flimsy even to me." LOVE HER. Sara adds, "We also found DNA evidence at the crime scene that proves that two women had sex with the victim prior to his death. I would like to rule you out as suspects, so I'm asking for a voluntary DNA sample." "You think one of us killed Maurice?" Regina bristles. "Who's Maurice?" a streaky blonde asks. Our Lady of the Message Board drawls contemptuously, "Maurice Hudson. Big ego, little scab." That delivery is so awesome, it's moved me to testify PTC-style: LOVE HER. O, GREAT TV GODS, PLEASE KEEP TARA KARSIAN ON MY TV SOMEHOW. Sara asks if she can swab the inside of everyone's cheek, and the redhead whom Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three had been chatting with emphatically denies permission. Sara points out that she can get a court order. Regina shrugs, "So get one," and makes motions to get the Purple Reign Posse to roll. But Our Lady of the Message Board -- a.k.a. "Jill" -- steps forward, because "I don't want this humiliation made more public than it already is, and I definitely don't want to come back here. So you do what you want. This ends for me right here."
Cut to Sara talking to the redhead. Before we get into the details, a shallow note: she looks really, really great in the pink shirt and jacket she's got on. Moving on...Sara's saying, "You told us you didn't know the victim," and the redhead huffs, "I didn't want to get involved. I still don't." Sara says evenly, "You were in his bed. I'd call that 'involved.'" The girl says, "Look, Maurice wasn't a nice guy, but I slept with him anyway. I could service him all night, and he wouldn't even ride the elevator with me." "I bet that hurt," Sara says. Then she adds, "Enough to kill him?"
And just in case you needed any contrast between the insecure-seeming redhead and Regina, there's the lingerie lady herself, defiantly asserting, "He was better when I left than when I got there." Gil's glasses steam up, but he maintains a deadpan mien and asks, "What time was that?" Regina said she stopped by for her booty call around 7 PM, adding, "He knew how to have fun. That's why we all come to Vegas, isn't it?" Gil squints through the fog, as steam rises gently from his skin.
Hammering home the contrast even further, Brenda the redhead says frustratedly, "I'm fat, Ms. Sidle. I am a fat woman. I've tried diet after diet, joined gym after gym, done obesity programs, obsessed about drastic surgery...and I'm still fat. I didn't get my high school crush -- I did his homework. I didn't get the one in college either. He became my 'friend.' But Maurice left a note in my slot on the message board. And he made me feel special, sexy, wanted." Sara asks, "Did you know about the other woman?" and Brenda indicates exactly how low her self-respect is with, "When I went to his room, she was leaving." Sara speaks for all of us with: "And you slept with him anyway?"
Brenda says she did, and then afterwards, that's when she started getting mad. Sara asks if there was a fight. Nope. According to Brenda, she merely waited for Maurice to fall asleep, and "then I smothered him with a pillow and held him down until he stopped moving." Well. Sara's got nothing to say to that. ["Brenda will be handling all of my breakups from now on, in conjunction with Clive Owen's character in Closer. …We're adjourned." -- Sars]
Back on the gambling plot -- which is growing so boring to me, I'm fighting the urge to nap as I type this -- Warrick and Brass are walking over to a car that Mitch Urbana had reported stolen the week before. A uniform pops the trunk on Warrick's say-so, and Warrick notices a lot of little metal filings inside. If you'd spent the 30 minutes on tenterhooks wondering, "Where, O God? Wherever did some mystery shooter saw the shotgun that did young Kelvin in?" -- well, now you can relax.
Cut to Mitch vigorously denying any link between his stolen car, the sawed-off shotgun, and the faceless body of Kelvin Russell. If he'd only disown whomever gave him the hairplugs and the fake 'n' bake, he'd come out ahead after this episode. Mitch babbles about the gestalt of numbers for a while, and it's nothing you won't miss if you don't just rent Casino already, which provides a much better explanation and carries the extra bonus of the oh-so-satisfying Sharon Stone Buys It scene.
Anyway, Brass says, "Let me tell you what I think: you're gay -- as gay as the Queen's Easter bonnet. Gayer than Can't Stop the Music. Gayer than Oscar Wilde's address book." Mitch looks at him and goes, "No. What the hell? Where did you get --?" "Hey, asking people if they're gay is apparently my thing this season. I think it gets them," Brass shrugs. "And I figure if this law enforcement gig doesn't work out, I can always go to work for the Advocate and spend all my time outing people."
You all know that I completely made up that last scene, right? What Brass actually says is that he thinks Kelvin made Mitch look bad, Mitch can't stand a blow to the ol' ego, and so he was compelled to kill. Mitch begs to differ: "Kelvin Russell didn't know what hard work was." It's so refreshing to find an advocate of the Protestant work ethic in Las Vegas. Oh, wait. Mitch is just being a cranky old man, as he finishes, "He was a loud-mouthed major pain in the ass." He then sneers that if Brass thinks Mitch killed Kelvin, Brass can very well try and prove it.
Well, it's just too bad for Mitch that Brass has another eleven minutes in which to do so. Because we're past the magical 48-minute mark, so everything is hurtling to its inevitable conclusion now.
Cut to Sara telling Gil, "Brenda Morgan is claiming she smothered the victim to death with a pillow." Gil points out, "[Maurice] wasn't killed with a pillow." Sara is baffled as to why Brenda is admitting guilt, then -- is she covering for someone else? Gil immediately dangles Regina's name in there, because looking for ways to disqualify would-be girlfriends is a lot less distressing to him than actually facing the dread prospect of connecting with another human being.
Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three is going through the elevator surveillance tapes with Sara, and the two of them figure out that Brenda spent the night with Maurice and his Amazing Rigor Mortis. "That means she slept with as dead guy! She's not only a killer, she's a necrophiliac!" Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three marvels. Please, no. The flashbacks alone would get me.
Anyway, Sara notices that Brenda was, in fact, three sheets to the wind before visiting Maurice, which seems like a sensible policy when dealing with someone as distinctly rodent-looking as Maurice. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three asks, "How drunk do you have to be to sleep to a decomposing body? The smell alone's an alarm clock." Sara realizes, "Not to him. On top of him."
Cut to Warrick schooling Catherine on the fine art of making wagers and giving points. Catherine asks, "What do I get if I win?" "I'll pay for your Botox injection," Warrick says. Oh, he does not. He promises a fabulous dinner. So Catherine will presumably be licking it off his naked chest? She's all for that. It's a date. Oh, God. Where to begin? With how it's ridiculous for the one manager in that place who has an authority complex to undermine her position by Hitting It with an underling? With how a boss dating a subordinate is not nearly so romantic for the rest of the office? But you know, Warrick and Catherine have shifted back to work topics, and so must I: they want to nail Mitch Urbana, but they'll need more than circumstantial evidence.
Fortunately, the contrivance fairy delivers unto them Cesar Dabo, who has just filed a lost ticket claim for some of the betting slips Catherine found in the beaver dam. Coincidence of coincidences, the only judge who called Cesar's career-breaking fight in favor of Cesar was...Mitch Urbana. "So maybe Urbana hired his former boxing buddy to do all his dirty work," Catherine muses. In other words, Dabo went to kill Lou and Kelvin, got the job about halfway done, and left a mess.
Within seconds, Warrick and Catherine have found the guy in a seedy hotel. Evidently, the way you celebrate a job shoddily done is by having a cocaine-fueled threesome. Keep that in mind the time you get a middling employee evaluation.
Cut to Brass and Warrick attempting to have a conversation with a coked-up moron, an ordeal only slightly less excruciating than force-feeding a kindergartner a pound of Pixy Stix immediately before making them sit through the State of the Union address. Is what they're doing legal? Is whatever Cesar says going to be admissible in a court of law? What if he was offered a lawyer and refused? Oh, the troubling legal questions, none of which will ever be addressed on this show. Eventually, Cesar says, "Mitch said the kid was selling his number. He asked me to follow him, see what was going on. Then he told me about the rabbits." Warrick wants to know why Cesar was driving Mitch's car, and Cesar snaps, "What, was I supposed to take a bus? My ride's been out all month." Brass wants to know how much Cesar got for the hit, and Cesar says, "It wasn't a hit. I did it on my own. I saw how much the runner was taking out of those books. Making Mitch look bad. He deserved it. They weren't so happy with a shotgun in their faces. I drove them out to Rainbow Canyon. I took the cash and stuff. I came back here. I called Mitch and told him what went down -- I said I'd kill him too if he said anything." Then Cesar sniffs several times for emphasis. Warrick wants to know why Cesar didn't take Kelvin's pawnshop ring. "It's a little too flashy for the likes of a simple thug like myself," he shrugs. "I like the powdered-steel look." Oh, he does not. Instead he says, "Man, I thought it was a Superbowl ring! Freakin' AFFA. Just my luck."
And now, time for a whimsical experiment in which Gil and Sara attempt to press Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three into Flat Stanley. They're doing so by putting a 240-pound Resusci-Annie on the lad and, in Gil's words, "Increasing weight incrementally until you can't move." Sara tells Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three to just lie back and enjoy sacrificing his body for science. He's all, "This is like a dream I had once, except we weren't in a garage and Grissom wasn't watching." Gil's got the kind of look on his face now that makes me hope young Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three is wearing a cup, otherwise this is a Greek tragedy in the making. Sara's all, "How it's feel, dreamer?" and Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three gasps, "Like 240 pounds of pure woman." You know, it seems like the weight would be distributed differently -- the dummy's got all the weight in her torso, whereas in most people, the legs account for at least 20% of body weight. Anyway, Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three wriggles free and Gil soberly orders Sara to add another 40 pounds. As Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three flails and gasps beneath the heavier dummy, Gil and Sara debate the likelihood of someone being suffocated to death beneath someone else's body, and conclude it's very good indeed.
We then flash to Brenda passing out on top of Maurice, who promptly dies. And while I suppose it's a big step forward for a man to be murdered for his callous sex-having ways, how about the message that fat chicks are lethal lays? It's a huge pity that the one fat woman on the show who was deeply unhappy about being fat and who didn't respect herself is the one who gets treated like a sexual freak. It kind of cancels out the force of nature that was Regina.
Anyway, cut to Sara explaining to us what happened: Brenda's got type-II diabetes, and she's got hypertension. She says, "The night that Maurice Hudson was killed, you'd been drinking. There was enough sweat on the sheets to run a tox panel...well, it doesn't take a lot [of alcohol] for someone to pass out who's on Propanolol and glucophage." This is where Brenda breaks down, and Sara confirms, "It was an accident, wasn't it?"
Brenda begins weeping, "I just couldn't bear the jokes...[to] be some comedian's punch line," and it would all be very poignant if it weren't for the fact that she is, in fact, playing the marginalized-outsider punch line of the week on this show. This episode didn't really flog the sexual conservatism that underlies nearly every fetish-related plotline, but it did underscore another one of CSI's nascent trends: highlighting the self-hating member of a visible, non-mainstream societal segment. The conceit of the poisoned insider is fairly insulting, because it puts forth the argument that a gathering of non-mainstream people in which they are the norm is inherently unsafe precisely because it's composed of people who will always be outsiders and freaks, no matter who they surround themselves with. I am not a huge fan of identity politics, but I can see the benefit of connecting with people who have a commonality of experience, and in creating your own safe space. And on this show, that's apparently not allowed.
Anyway, this plotline ends with Brenda saying she'd rather admit to murder and go to jail than to be turned into the latest Jay Leno/Jimmy Kimmel/Drooling Frat Boy Late Night Show Host joke.
As Gil wanders into the break room, his Adopted Son Number Three whines that he's finally regained feeling in his spine, thanks for asking, and Gil's all, "Did you take my silence to mean I was psychically communicating with you?" Anyway, Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three is leafing through a plus-sized women's magazine. Gil asks, "A little technical reading?" and Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three says he wants to see what the big deal is. Gil turns around and assumes his saintly, I'm-so-tolerant expression as he says, "Attraction is subjective --" and that's about the time the husband erupts, "And we're all snails! With symmetry! And they're little people, Nicky! And...aaaaigh. Forget it, Jake -- it's Chinatown."
Anyway, Gil is busy pointing out how attraction can't be analyzed, which will certainly be news to all those online dating sites that think otherwise, and Grasshopper, his Adopted Son Number Three says, "I consider myself to be very open-minded. I find other people's predilections very intriguing." These two are minutes away from screaming at each other, "I AM THE MOST TOLERANT AND YOU ARE NOT!" and then Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three asks a question I plan on never, ever asking my boss, "What are your predilections? What gets your juices flowing?" Gil says flatly, "Someone who doesn't judge me," and takes off. Grasshopper, Gil's Adopted Son Number Three watches him go with a look like, "So, what you're saying is, you don't see yourself hooking up with anyone at work?" Gil keeps on walking, presumably to find other, more open-minded pastures.