CSI: Say Uncle

A cheerful afternoon in Koreantown turns deadly when a hail of bullets comes out of nowhere. People run for cover, but one little boy stands still, spattered in blood.

Later in the day, the police and CSIs are at the scene. Two people are dead – a man and a woman. The man is Sung Bang, recently released from prison. The woman is unidentified. The crowd is unhelpful, but a pair of child’s sunglasses covered in blood tells them that there’s one witness out there who is not talking just yet.

Doc Robbins illuminates Grissom on a few points with the bodies. For one, two separate guns were used, and the trajectories of the bullets were very different. The girl also seems to be a drug addict and also a hooker, but she’s had plastic surgery. Generous pimp.

Brass hunts out the plastic surgeon that altered the victim’s eyelids, who says he was held at gunpoint by the K.D., a Korean mob, and forced to perform the surgery before being extorted.

Meanwhile, the CSIs find surveillance footage from a department store where the male victim was seen earlier that day. The footage comes from Dempsey’s forensic services. The footage also includes images of a young boy, perhaps the same kid that witnessed the crime.

They track down Child Protection Services and identify the child: Park Bang, Sung’s nephew. The woman is Park’s mother, Kora Sil, and she, like her son, is HIV positive. She’s done time for prostitution with H.I.V. They find her MySpace and track the IP to a residence in Koreatown, the Pan residence. Mr. Pan has no idea where Park is, but he was friends with Park’s family, which is why he let’s Kora use his computer..

Nick tries to track Park and Sung’s path from the department store to Koreatown, looking for anything they might have left behind. Hodges manages to find it all pretty much instantaneously in a garbage can. The CSIs burst into the household, looking for Park, and encounter a hostile old woman with a gun. They also find a little boy! It happens to be Park, who is taken to a hospital where he is examined. He’s not well at all, with skin lesions and a gastric feeding tube.Brass attempts to get Park to identify the shooters, but to no avail. Grissom tries to get the information he needs, and eventually Park allows him to collect samples. A man by the name of Dr. Eastling comes in and attempts to give Park some “medication,” but Park obviously doesn’t want it. Grissom is suspicious. With good reason, because Park’s blood panel comes back and he has many, many drugs in his system. It looks like he’s on some clinical trials.

Park’s fingernail scrapings include the DNA of Jin Ming, A.K.A. Mr. Pan. He’s an ex-con who may or may not be a part of the K.D. Of course, he seems to have left town, and all that’s left in his house is the furniture in his basement where Park and his mother lived. The basement is booby trapped with a bomb, but no one was seriously hurt.

Besides the bomb, Greg finds a business card for a lawyer, who tells him that Kora was suing Park’s doctor for more money from the drug trials. Grissom confronts Dr. Eastling about his medical malfeasance and Eastling goes away with little choice. Park is grateful enough to let Grissom ask him questions. It turns out that Sung found him in Jin’s basement and took Park away when he saw how he was being treated, fighting both Kora and Jin in the process. Jin and Kora found Park with Sung, and Jin shot Sung and Kora.

However, the evidence seems to be telling another story. Sung, after all, left jail with a gun. Perhaps Kora shot Sung and Sung shot Kora back from his position on the ground, causing the strange trajectory. Riley and Grissom decide to settle this debate by reenacting the crime with dummies. They discover that neither of their theories are correct. Due to the angle, it would have had to be Park who shot his mother after she shot Sung.

This episode seemed, more than anything, intent on sowing some seeds of doubt into Grissom’s mind about his job. Just like Sarah, he’s beginning to wish some cases wouldn’t be solved, simply because of how horrifying they are. Anything to give him a plausible excuse for leaving. It makes me sad to see him going the same way as Sarah though, especially when he’s been so steadfast throughout the rest of the series. Either way, I must make the most of Grissom while I have him. At least I’ll get another visit from the miniature killer!