CSI: If I Had A Hammer

"If I Had a Hammer..." was marketed as the episode which had the CSIs likely releasing a person who was convicted of a crime that he had no part in. The episode started out this way, but it quickly turned into something different, leaving me feeling a little duped.

It was Catherine's first solo case and the technology and requirements for conviction were primitive compared to 2009. Jeremy Kent was convicted for robbery and the murder of an elderly man. What Kent didn't know at the time was his court-appointed attorney was conspiring against him and had another one of his clients testify in trial, saying that Kent made a full confession while in his cell.

I was taken aback by this, quite frankly. To think that your lawyer would do such a thing is pretty frightening, especially for someone facing a murder rap and would be facing the possibility of life in a state penitentiary.

After eighteen years of reading books about the law, Jeremy Kent decided it was time to file an appeal and managed to get the evidence reviewed once again. It's rare for this show to depict a guy representing himself in court.

Kent wasn't innocent of the murder. He was involved, but what the CSIs did learn was that he wasn't the only one who was guilty. His then-girlfriend was an accomplice. She was pregnant at the time and went on to have the child while the father rotted away in prison.

Sabrina was in for quite a shock when the police showed up on her doorstep and brought up what happened that night. She had a husband and a few kids and thought that she was done with that night.

Kent seemed to know that he wouldn't get released from prison, but at least with Sabrina going to court, he'll finally get to see the son he has never seen. It's too bad that Sabrina kept the boy from his father like that - Kent probably would have never appealed the conviction. This story seemed to take a while to get where it was going, but it proved entertaining nonetheless.

At times CSI reminds me of House when there are glaring science problems. In this case, I had an issue with the recovery of the hammer. It's unfathomable to think that the blood and the fingerprints would have survived. Wind, rain, and the tree encasement, all would have removed those pieces of evidence from the murder weapon.

This ridiculous use of creative licensing with the science and the terrible acting in the scene where Sabrina and her husband parted ways dragged down what was only a decent story to begin with.

CSI: 19 Down

In part one of the two-part episode that will hand off the reins of power at the Las Vegas crime lab from Gil Grissom to Raymond Langston, CSI spent as much time breaking the news about Gil's exit as it did lay the groundwork for Langston's entrance.

Speaking of entrances, Laurence Fishburne was given quite the platform, appearing in shadow until the light clicked on and he was revealed. It'll be interesting to see if Petersen's last scene will replicate Frank Sinatra vanishing into distant spotlights, singing "Excuse me while I disappear." Considering the Vegas connection, I think that would be a perfect way for him to go.

But not just yet. First there's this very complicated, very gruesome case that's still unresolved. The Dick and Jane Killer, a guy who murders couples, seems to have a copy cat on the loose because the confessed serial killer, Haskell, is already behind bars. Brass and Grissom learned that Langston was using Haskell -- via remote feed -- as part of his classwork at the University. Without telling the prof, Grissom got into the lecture hall in order to question Haskell. It seemed like an oblique way to get Langston and Grissom to work together -- they eschewed the direct approach -- but it did immediately create a schism between Brass and Langston, something to be played out when Langston takes Grissom's place at CSI.

Because this was a two-parter, I was left on edge about creepy Haskell. But if a prisoner is in keep-away, as Gil points out, why was he allowed an unsupervised phone call to Langston to taunt him and tip the authorities off about the ninth D&J kill? Still, Irwin scared me as Haskell, so he definitely did his job well.

Interestingly, for me the best part of the show was how oblivious Grissom was to the way his abrupt news flash about leaving CSI is affecting the team. He seemed genuinely stunned by the tears in assistant M.E. David's eyes when Gil said he would miss him and not the work. Like the bugs and insects he studies, Gil is still in the cocoon emotionally.

For a student of behavior, he should know that some reactions -- like Hodges being hurt that he was not personally informed by Gil -- were predictable. The coolest (as in wise and aware, not reserved and uncaring) reaction was probably Catherine's. She anticipated it, perhaps based on the conversation at the end of the last show about Grissom upping the ante. My favorite exchange was Brass and Grissom's, suggesting that they'll stay in touch and perhaps go out on the boat and celebrate July 4th together. Gil's response, "You have a boat?" was priceless. It was so obvious they never socialized before and likely never would in the future. Their relationship -- and friendship -- was all about the office.

As for Fishburne's character, it's too soon to tell. He only met with Grissom and Brass and only on his own turf. He came off as authoritative and imposing, but also intelligent and observant. He also was pretty obvious when dealing with Haskell, like putting him on hold to conference Gil in on the phone conversation. That could have been done in a more stealth-like fashion. I suspect Part Two will have more opportunities for Nick, Catherine and the others to meet/clash with Langston.

CSI: Young Man With A Horn

It's a sad CSI as I learned about two sets of lovers who are separated by years, but united by tragedy. The death of a young singer leads the CSI team to an abandoned casino and an old murder. Along the way I learn that Greg has a sequin fetish and Grissom originally came to Vegas to play cards. The last one was a surprise. The sequins? Not so much.

The show opens on an American Idol...oops I mean Overnight Sensation...rehearsal. Two young singers are trying to sing a duet, but an obnoxious producer, named Drew, keeps yelling at them and insulting them. The young girl, Layla, yells back at him and then runs off the stage. The young boy, Kip, after being told that rehearsals are still going on continues singing. Naturally, our next glimpse of Layla is her dead, tied in a tablecloth, and left under an overpass. And here I was hoping the dead body was the producer.

Layla's autopsy reveals that she was killed by blunt force trauma to the stomach. She was also 8 weeks pregnant. DNA analysis of the fetus leads the team to Drew who has a history of sleeping with underage girls. Sadly, he has an airtight, prostitute alibi for the murder, but Brass is able to derive some satisfaction by arresting him for statutory rape.

That leaves Layla's murder unsolved until the team realizes that the lipstick Layla was wearing was very old: like 20-30 years old. They look at the tablecloth that was used to wrap her up and determine that it is equally old.

Using the tablecloth supplier as a guide, they find the only casino that is still standing from that time. A quick visit to Chateau Rouge and they've found their crime scene, and conveniently, a cellphone video of Layla dressed up as one of the dancers from the club singing to Kip. The films shows her being surprised by a man on stage playing a sax.

As the team contemplates that turn of events, Grissom realizes that they're being watched. He's right. It's the guy with the sax, only this time he has a gun too. He takes one look at Grissom and faints. In the hospital, the man refuses to give his name and claims that he did kill Layla. It looks like that's it for him, but Catherine goes back to the scene and realizes that Layla died because she fell on a chair after being scared by the sax man. It's ruled an accident.

In the course of the investigation, the team finds another murder. Years ago, the owner of Chateau Rouge, Rosenthal, was shot to death in his office. The casino was then closed and boarded up because his wife refused to sell it. While trying to discover the sax man's history, Grissom realizes that the man put in jail for the casino owner's murder was actually framed. A little investigation and face recognition software later and they've identified the sax man. He was a performer at the club named Harry.

Grissom brings Mrs. Rosenthal to identify Harry and when she doesn't do it, Grissom realizes what happened to the casino owner. Harry and Mrs. Rosenthal were having an affair and were caught by her husband. There was a fight and she shot her husband. The town's big bosses decided to cover up the shooting, because she was white and Harry was black. She never went back in the casino and Harry never really left.

This CSI was a bit different as the team delved into a case from the past. I enjoyed it.

CSI: Woulda Coulda Shoulda

Sometimes life and death intersect. When paramedics respond to neighbor's complaints of gunshots, they find a mother and daughter, Janelle & Nora Rowe, shot after coming home with takeout. Nora, the daughter, is still alive, and the paramedics trash the crime scene to save the girl. Unfortunate for the CSIs, but sometimes they owe the living more than the dead.

However, they don’t owe much to the suspects. Peter Rowe, Janelle’s husband and Nora’s father, comes into the house with gunshot residue on his hands. A suspect? Well, evidently he’s been out shooting in the desert. A likely story. Brass takes him into custody and questions him about his past. It turns out Peter Rowe used to be Mark Redding. Years ago Redding was being followed by a private investigator hired by his then wife. Redding was cheating, and when his wife found out their marriage ended… and P.I. Trevor Murphy disappeared. Back in the present, Rowe has been receiving anonymous threatening text messages. Perhaps his past has come back to haunt him.

Nick is out in the field looking into what looks like an alcohol-related car crash fatality involving two high school boys. They ran into the tree and then… the tree ran into them. Their bodies are basically full of wood from the tree, but there are injuries that are inconsistent with the crash, as well as some wood that doesn’t belong to the tree. After a bit of analysis they discover it’s wood from a baseball bat. I take a trip down Nick’s memory lane and learn about mailbox baseball, the practice of driving by freestanding mailboxes and bashing them with a baseball bat as you pass. It’s good fun to Nick and Hodges evidently, but it doesn’t explain why a bat wasn’t found at the scene. Or how those interesting shoulder fractures occurred just by knocking over a mailbox…

Brass does some research into the threatening texts on Rowe’s phone and traces it back to a computer on Kelsey Murphy’s IP address. Kelsey Murphy is, of course, Trevor Murphy’s daughter. She claims innocence, and Brass later learns that it was actually Nathan Murphy, Trevor’s son, who sent the texts. He says he didn’t do anything but text, and there’s not much evidence to hold him, so they let him go.

Meanwhile, Greg and Riley spend some time at the Rowe’s house. They find blood on the corner of a table and figure that comes from the laceration on Nora’s head (who may or may not pull through, by the way). Riley finds a plastic jewel inside before heading outside and finding the cell phone it belongs to. The cell phone has photos on it, and most of them were taken just before the attack. There’s an interesting one of the floor. Perhaps what the neighbors saw wasn’t actually muzzle flash but camera flash instead… and maybe the killer thought the little girl had taken an unsavory photo. That’s why the phone was nearly destroyed.

Grissom is on a bit of a mission of his own. He’s gone to visit Natalie Davis, everyone’s favorite miniature killer. She’s currently involved in a hearing to see if she’s sane enough to move out of the psych ward and into real prison. The prosecutor asks Grissom to testify as to her mental state when he interviewed her during the murders, and also to her state now. He agrees, and goes to talk to Natalie. It seems to him that she’s more normal now, actually guilty for what she’s done. He tells as much at the hearing, and it is determined that her psychosis was only temporary, and she is now as sane as anyone else.

Nick goes out to investigate the real cause behind the fractures and the baseball bat. Around the scene of the crime he discovers a house with a detachable mailbox. Hmm. The owner of the house is friendly enough… until Nick finds a hole in the ground with a mailbox full of cement in it. It turns out Mr. Jackmin was getting sick of the punks around here destroying mailboxes, so he filled one with cement and set a trap. The teens came roaring by, smacked it with a bat, and the resulting ricochet caused an injured shoulder, a car accident, and two very dead teens. Oops. Not a very nice way to teach a lesson, Mr. Jackmin.

While monitoring Peter Rowe, the CSIs see him on the hospital cameras while he is visiting his daughter. He is accosted by Kelsey and lead away. Where to? They track them down in the middle of the desert, where Kelsey is pointing a gun at Peter and telling him to dig. Evidently he confessed to killing her father and is showing her where he is buried. Brass tries to talk Kelsey down but to no avail: she shoots Peter and the cops shoot her.

It’s time to put the miniature killer to rest. Natalie is going to prison, and she and Grissom say goodbye. She expresses her regret and says that people who do bad things deserved to be punished. Evidently she means that, because Grissom finds one last miniature in her cell – a tiny figure of herself, hanging by a noose.

I was happy to see more involving the miniature killer (by far the most successful continuing plotline in CSI history) but it was brief and seems to be over now. Oh well. It’s better for it to end well than have it drag on. The case involving the two teens and mailbox baseball was fairly entertaining, though I found the arrest of Mr. Jackmin at the end to be quite harsh. I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to argue his way out of that one in court.

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!

CSI: Leave Out All The Rest

CSI never fails to make me cry. All those poor dead people, their families, Catherine’s “professional” attire… and this episode tries to hook us all in immediately. It’s a motif that runs throughout the episode – Grissom watching and rewatching a video that seems to be Sara’s final goodbye. Whether or not it is truly the goodbye remains to be seen (and with Jorja Fox’s track record for staying off the show when she’s supposed to be off, I’d have to say it’s doubtful). Either way, Grissom looks pretty broken up about it.

But enough of this sentimental stuff. Let’s get to the “body” of this episode.After a bit of mope time, Grissom decides to get his rear in gear and head over to the crime scene he was supposed to be at awhile ago. There he finds Catherine ankle-deep in mud, trying to preserve a tire track from the monsooning rain. She gives Grissom a mild talking-to about professional duty and then they head over to the body.And what a body it is. The face is completely gone, scraped off. The same for his fingers. From the marks on his shirt (oil and rope burn), they deduce that he was tied to the undercarriage of a vehicle, where his face was dragged off before the rope wore away and he fell out from under. The body is taken away and Doc Robbins gets a crack at him. He finds needle marks around the victim’s nipples, which at first seem to be some sort of drug injection site, but there are no drugs in the victim’s system, so that’s a no-go. He also finds burns on the vic’s tongue – some sort of grilling. Gross. Cause of death is ruled strangulation by someone’s bare hands. Some sort of S&M gone wrong, perhaps?

Meanwhile, Brass is off cheerfully destroying the victim’s property. Upon breaking open the front door of the vic’s house, they discover his ID and learn that his name is Ian Wallace. Nick and Riley search the place and they both find blood in different places. Something obviously went down here. The back door is unlocked and nothing seems to be broken into.

And what’s up with Brass suddenly becoming “Jim”? Did I miss this somewhere along the way? I’m sorry, but he’ll always be Brass to me. It’s more fitting.

Riley uses her keen observational skills to reveal that Ian lived with a female, given the fluffy heart-shaped throw pillow and the women’s magazines. And that’s how they discover her identity: Justine Stefani. And she is nowhere to be found.

Grissom broods a bit more before deciding that a visit to an old friend is just what he needs. He heads over to visit Lady Heather in her new life. She’s no longer a dominatrix – just your run-of-the-mill sex therapist. But Grissom’s not there for a head-shrinking (is that still what they shrink in sex therapy?). He needs professional advice.

Heather takes a look at the pictures of the vic and has some helpful ideas. The needle marks around the nipples are an arrangement called stacking, used in bondage. The tongue burns are too – metal chopsticks are placed around the tongue and electrified. She needs more information about the victim’s habits and lifestyles. Grissom has Nick, Riley, and Greg investigate the vic’s bedroom some more. Nothing at first, and then Riley hits the jackpot. A big toy box under the bed. But there are no tinker toys or Legos in there. Just S&M paraphernalia. They find a bloody shirt in the hamper with blood patterns that match the nipple needles, semen and vaginal fluid on a dresser, but no needles or tongue chopsticks. Nick does find a card for a club by the name over Lower Linx. Heather tells them that that’s an amateur bondage club with a well supplied back room. Maybe they’ll find more toys there.

The first thing Nick and Brass find when they infiltrate the club is the manager, Michelle Tournay. After a bit of badgering she gives them a DNA swab and lets them into her back room. They find the tongue chopsticks there, and another piece of the puzzle falls into place.

Checking in at the lab, the semen is Ian’s, but the vaginal fluid is not Justine’s. Another woman! There is also some blood on the back of the shirt that doesn’t belong to Ian. It could be from someone getting punched. The vaginal fluid does however match the epithelials found on the chopsticks. This could be the dom to Ian’s sub.

Soon enough they find a car burned near the crime scene. It’s Justine’s car, and Justine herself is in it (although all that really remains are her breast implants). She’s a victim now, not a suspect. Her hands were tied, and Doc Robbins determine she was probably hit and killed by her own car before it was torched with her inside.

Brass checks up on Justine’s phone records and sees that the last call was with a Martin Devlin, an insurance agent. He seems innocent enough, until they discover that it’s his blood on the back of Ian’s shirt! His hard-as-a-rock lawyer won’t let him say anything.

That is until they look at Martin’s phone records and find a picture he sent in a text after his call with Justine. It’s a photo of his lawyer and Ian together! He sent it to a number that is just one digit off from Justine’s, so it’s probably just a misdial. Time to talk to the lawyer again. She was involved in a little S&M play with Ian and Martin, but she got a little too involved with Ian. She fell for him, and that made Martin mad. He socked Ian at home, which explains the blood in the hallway. Ian socked back, which explains Martin’s blood on his shirt.

It looks like an open-and-shut case, but unfortunately the CSIs can’t link either Martin or his lawyer to the crime scene. The episode ends with a killer still free and Grissom staying in Lady Heather’s guest room. And is she staying too?

What a disappointment. I suppose even our genius CSIs can’t solve every case. Maybe they should have a separate CSI show for all the cases they just can’t break. Either that, or maybe they should have a CSI: The FUTURE!!! Where CSIs of later generations use their advanced crime-fighting gadgets to solve the cold cases of today. Either way, I’m thinking this won’t be the last we see of this case. Maybe it won’t be resolved next episode, but it’s fairly rare that they won’t tie it up in a nice neat little package for us.

Is Grissom going to leave the show solely for Sara? I hope not. Grissom’s character for so long has boiled down to his respect and passion for his job, and I’d hate to see his character change so drastically because of a failed romance. Even if it was Sara. She couldn’t hack it as a CSI any longer. Grissom doesn’t have to catch that disease as well.

CSI: Let It Bleed

Nothing creepier than the already-creepy city of Las Vegas decked out for Halloween. Luckily, the Las Vegas Crime Lab knows what to expect. This episode opens with Riley and Nick investigating some liquor store burglaries. They interrupt one in progress, apparently being robbed by… a cop? Nick chases him down while Riley calls for back-up. They run through what looks like an old abandoned building, with Nick cornering the suspect in a room. The suspect decides he doesn’t want to be cornered, however, and jumps out of a window to his death rather than be captured. He lands in a garbage container and cuts himself to ribbons with broken glass. Ouch.

However, while he might not have done himself any favors, he did do the police one. He lands on the body of a young girl, already dead. The CSIs take the whole dumpster back to the lab to sort through the debris. As they piece together the shards of broken glass, both loose and imbedded in the victim, they discover that the female victim has what looks like a tattoo or a club stamp on her skin. Follow the stamp, find the last known whereabouts.

This time Riley teams up with Catherine to check out a hopping nightclub by the name of Koi. Together they hassle the club owner Greg Hess a little, who of course swears he doesn’t know the girl in question. However, when they review the surveillance tapes from the previous night, they discover that while the girl did not enter through the front door, she did exit through it, escorted by Hess, who apparently had something important to say to her.

And her body has something to say to our team. The glass wounds appear to be post-mortem, probably from the fall of the other guy. She has recent needle marks in both her arms, white powder in her nose, and hives. She also happens to be Angela Marine Carlos, the daughter of drug lord Juan Ramon Carlos. Bad news for whoever did this to her, because Juan does not take well to people hassling his daughter.

In the meantime, Nick works on the mysterious un-cop. Brass steps in to lend a forensic hand, proving that the cop costume is actually a real cop uniform by showing the pen stains left in the pocket. They trace the uniform to a Reno cop, in Las Vegas for a brief jaunt, who handed his uniform over for dry-cleaning and never got it back. And the dead guy just happened to be staying in the same hotel.

Doc Robbins and David do a little more investigating in Angela’s body and find some things of interest. For one, Angela has another piece of glass stuck in her head that appears to have been put there before she died. The white powder in her nose wasn’t cocaine by atropine, a tranquilizer. Also, her blood isn’t all her blood. It’s actually a combination of her blood and the blood of two unknown males. And there is our COD: one of the blood types is not compatible with Angela’s. Death by transfusion.

Back in the fingerprint lab, I learn that the falling man is Thomas Taylor. He was accompanied by Barry Wonderlick, a friend who was getting married. However, a little bar fight at his bachelor party ended up with Barry in the slammer. In a misguided attempt to help his best friend, Thomas attempted to get bail money by robbing liquor stores around town, and wound up dead. Not a very happy ending to a happy occasion.

The tech-inclined CSIs manage to trace Angela’s cell phone to a garbage truck that was carrying it. They find her phone, her purse, and a bunch of broken glass. Hodges pieces together the glass to find the shape of a fishbowl. He also finds a fish scale on the purse, and Catherine knows right where to go.

She heads back to the club to talk to Hess, who tells her that yes, he did know Angela, but he did not give her any drugs or kill her. Instead he referred her to his fish provider Goya, who also peddles drugs on the side.

The CSIs breach the fish warehouse and find Goya and another fish guy with a lot of coke. The story comes out after that. Angela came to them looking for drugs, and when their backs were turned she ended up snorting atropine instead. Taking the advice of an urban legend about Keith Richards getting a transfusion to filter out his blood after bad drugs, the fishheads decide to give her a little transfusion. However, that wasn’t so successful.

Unfortunately, even confessing won’t save these two, or any of the others who played any part in Angela’s death. Revenge is sweet, her father thinks, as he has all those closest to Angela executed.

I think they could have played a little more with the Halloween theme. I hadgrisly murders galore, and there couldn’t have been a bit more spookiness? It was disappointing.

One thing I think that CSI has always both succeeded at and failed is their handling of the characters’ personal lives. Interspersed here and there were mentions of Catherine’s daughter (though the resolution seemed to be simply that she is a good kid), Grissom’s hearing loss (a possible excuse for him leaving the show?), and, of course, Warrick’s death. However, these issues are merely glossed over and have little to no bearing on how the cases are conducted

CSI: Art Imitates Life

There's another serial killer at work in Las Vegas and this one likes to pose victims like they're statues. It's exceedingly creepy. In other news, Grissom makes a mistake on a simple lab test. I think this may be the end of the world as we know it.

There's only one case in this episode, but it's a big one, so the whole team is working on it. The first victim is a young woman who is posed leaning against a pole. The second victim is a young man that's found in jogging shorts on a bench. The third is a transient dressed in a suit and posed standing up, and the fourth and fifth are a couple bird watching.

The only thing in common between the corpses? They're all in advanced stages of rigor mortis, which is why they look like statues. Less clear is how this happened, since for the jogger, at least, they know that he was not on the bench an hour before he was found and yet, he has marks from the bench on his back. The team tries to find commonalities between the victims, but they're different ages, sexes, and ethnicities.

They decide to focus on the young woman, because she had the most mainstream life. Searching her apartment leads them to a local artist, Jerzy Skaggs, who she used to pose for. Jerzy claims that he doesn't kill his models. He would also like to paint Brass nude, which makes me laugh. Brass, of course, takes this in stride.

They discover that the transient who was posed as a business man had lice. This is remarkable only because the lice were killed by gas. Grissom surmises that the victims were also gassed, but they had to have been gassed while in those poses. He thinks they were drugged, then posed, then gassed in something like a gas chamber. Yikes.

Brass pulls in Jerzy when they discover that the jogger had been to one of Jerzy's parties. Jerzy is unimpressed by this reasoning, since everyone goes to his parties, apparently. Brass shows him the pictures of the victims and Jerzy immediately recognizes the poses. One of the contractors working on his studio tried to show him drawings with similar poses. Jerzy doesn't know the man's name, but remembers him mentioning a municipal art competition. The competition was to produce sculptures that would reflect the socio-economic diversity of Las Vegas. Well, considering the number of serial killers in Las Vegas, I guess he accomplished that mission.

They review the submissions and find drawings with the same poses as their murder victims submitted by Arthur Blisterman. The only problem: one of the drawings has yet to be completed and it's of a little boy. Grissom realizes that Blisterman isn't done killing yet.

Brass goes after Blisterman, but he hasn't been seen. The new CSI, Riley, suggests that the killer is into the controversy brewing in the artist community about the killings. She's surfing the web when Nick realizes that one of the pictures of the girl was posted by the killer. They corral the owner of the artist's blog where the pictures were posted. He replies to the killer and keeps him online so the police can trace him. Unfortunately, a mother has just arrived at the station, because her son is missing.

They trace the killer to a library machine. During the subsequent raid, they find Blisterman, but no boy. Blisterman left spots of tan dust (burlap) on his computer, which was also found on the other victims. Greg and Catherine find a warehouse that makes natural fibre packaging materials. They break in just in time to save the little boy.

Grissom gets the privilege of interrogating Blisterman. His motivation? He's an artist who just wants some recognition for his murderous work. Nice.

In other news, Grissom is having trouble adapting after Warrick's death. He actually gets confused when doing a simple lab test. Grissom's dog, Hank, is not eating or sleeping and acting listless. Being Grissom, he asks the peer counsellor, Patricia, if Hank might be reflecting his owner's feelings. Patricia thinks that Hank might be and that Grissom should talk to someone about his feelings and soon.

I'm also introduced to Warrick's replacement: Riley Adams. She's a CSI Level 2 with a sarcastic wit. Both her parents are psychiatrists and she doesn't like being called defensive. She also knows good pot. I guess she's okay--she's no Warrick.

I'm a bit tired of the serial killer episodes. I mean Las Vegas has more serial killers per capita than anywhere else, apparently. I also didn't like the thwarted artist who turns to gas chambers. That sounds awfully familiar.

CSI: The Happy Place

Back to classic CSI with three unrelated victims: a woman who gets dressed for the beach and then jumps off her balcony; a gambler who is found dead in an alley with her eyes pushed in; and a coma victim who is taken off of life support. There isn't much team interaction this week, but Sara gets sucked into an investigation which just confirms her disillusionment with CSI work, so she leaves...again.

Nick and Catherine investigate the death of a woman named Sprig. Seriously, her name is Sprig and, no, it is not plot related. Anyway. Sprig is cooking dinner until she gets a phone call which prompts her to change into a bikini and then jump off her balcony. Maybe she just received her latest cell phone bill—I know I'm tempted to commit suicide when I do. Unfortunately, Sprig's fall is not cushioned by the bus she falls on. A point that is quite ickly illustrated when the coroner decides to play move-the-limb -with-the-crushed-bones. Ew. Catherine and Nick discover that Sprig was engaged to be married and cooking a dinner for her soon-to-be in-laws. Her fiance, Brad (I was expecting him to be called Twig or Branch), informs them that Sprig wasn't depressed at all. She was on a crazy, obsessive diet and had just lost her job as a bank teller after being accused of stealing from the till, but apparently, she was still cheery.

Nick reviews the security tape at the bank where Sprig hands a man $10,000.00 as change for two $50 dollar bills. Nick discovers that the same person robbed another teller, Grace, who is fortunately still alive. Grace tells Catherine that she doesn't remember the robbery at all even after seeing it on the tape. Catherine discovers that both Sprig and Grace were seeing the same hypnotherapist.The hypnotherapist claims that she was just helping Sprig and Grace lose weight and quit smoking, but Catherine matches the therapist's driver's license photo to the person at the bank. They also find her prints on the phone booth right across from Sprig's apartment. Catherine and Nick arrest her.

The second victim is Paula, a guidance counsellor and gambling addict. Paula is found in an alley with her head bashed in and her eyes pushed in. Grissom, who has finally decided to answer his phone, surmises that the murder was committed with a lot of rage. You think? They go to her house and find her son, Scott. Scott wants to know where his sister Lexie is. The cops have no idea, so they issue an Amber Alert. Video surveillance of the casino shows that Paula was gambling her money away when she was approached by a man who grabbed her and took her to a pawn shop.The cops track down Paula's car and the man who stole it. The man is a loan shark that Paula owed money to, so he took her car and her child, Lexie, who was in the back seat. They find Lexie safe at a day-care. It looks like the loan shark is guilty until they find her son Scott trying to turn in a $500.00 chip that Paula won that night. It turns out that her son is not her son—he was her student and Lexie is their child. He killed her because she'd lost interest in him now that he was “old”. At 18! Yuck.

The last case is one that Sara had worked on as a CSI. Tom Adler unplugs his wife, who was the victim of a rape, from her life support. He claims that the man who raped her, Thorpe, was harassing him and threatening her, so he had to save her. Sara believes him and fights with Grissom over it—only the fight turns into a discussion about their relationship. When she finds out that Thorpe has been in a wheelchair for months, so he couldn't have been harassing the Adlers, she realizes that Tom Adler lied. He admits that he needed to move on, and the only way he could do it was to unplug his wife's life support. Sara is upset and disillusioned and the last scene of the episode is her leaving.

I liked this episode. I thought the few references to Warrick were well done, and it was nice to see a crack in Grissom's CSI armor. For once, he just didn't want to answer his phone or work.

CSI: For Warrick

It's rare when a procedural drama, especially one like CSI, which is the blueprint for forensics-driven cop shows, has the chance for a truly emotional, cathartic episode. That's what happened with this episode and CSI's stellar cast rose to the occasion, especially William Petersen.

Picking up right where it left off in the season finale, unlike most CSI plots, this one wasn't a whodunit or a whydunit or even a howdunit. I knew what had happened in the early morning hours after the night shift finished work and shared breakfast together. Outside the diner, down a dark alley, Warrick was sitting alone in his car and something ominous was bound to happen -- and did.

There was no way Warrick was going to survive those shots through the neck. He was bleeding out when Grissom found him and died in Gil's arms. To say this was wrenching emotionally is an understatement. The sight of Grissom returning to the CSI lab covered in Warrick's blood, all of it evidence in the murder investigation, was vivid and gruesome. The look on the faces of the lab techs and co-workers said it all. When Sara appeared a short time later, it was truly like a family member returning home for a funeral. Every member of the cast reacted to Warrick's death with a look or a moment or a line. When Nick was assigned (with Catherine) to investigate Warrick's car, he said, "I feel sorry for whoever did this." It was clear, this case was personal and Grissom's team was going to find the killer.

Since I knew Undersheriff McKeen was the culprit, there was only one truly forensic challenge in the story -- lifting a partial print from the bullet -- so the plot was more about how to get the guy considering his political clout. There was a chase and ultimately a showdown between Nick and McKean, with Stokes taking a shot at the already prone criminal. Did he actually shoot him or was he already shot from his encounter with Pritchard in the car? I'm not sure.

Now that the fate of Warrick Brown has been resolved, I expect ripple affects. Sara could be the key to Gil's decision to leave CSI, which I know is happening because Petersen has only signed for 10 episodes. Another thread is Nick's actions, as well as the reveal that Warrick has a child and was fighting for custody. I can see Katherine keeping track of that child for Warrick.

Other points of interest:

McKeen should have known that the CSI crew wouldn't fall for the frame job on Pritchard. He's worked with them before and should realize they're very good at their jobs.

The revelation that Warrick had a child and was trying to win custody came out of left field. Perhaps it explains his erratic behavior before his death.

I liked Brass's story about joining the Las Vegas P.D. and his rejection of McKeen's graft.

Best moment of the show was Grissom's eulogy for Warrick. Kudos to Petersen.

CSI: For Gedda

Wow. I knew this was coming. The news of Gary Dourdan's exit from CSI has been all over the press. And yet, despite all the warnings, I was still horrified and saddened by the final moments of this episode. This is how they decided to say goodbye to a major character that has been on the show since the beginning of the series? Really? Well, I can't say that I was impressed.

The plot was fairly simple. Gedda, Warrick's nemesis, is found dead, handcuffed to his barber chair. Unfortunately, Warrick is also found at the scene covered in Gedda's blood and unable to remember what happened.Things only get worse when the evidence shows that Gedda was shot by Warrick's gun, that the handcuffs used to restrain Gedda were also Warrick's, and that Warrick had hired a private investigator to look at Gedda's involvement in the murder of Joanna—the stripper who was murdered in the "Cockroaches" episode—despite being told to let the matter drop. Unfortunately, the private investigator that Warrick hired was also the first murder victim of the night.

Warrick is processed and interrogated—on the wrong side of the table this time. Despite being removed from the case, Grissom, in full-on Mother Hen mode, tries to find anything in the evidence that will exonerate Warrick. The only highlight of this episode for me was Grissom. I love watching him go to work when one of his chicks is threatened.

Grissom uses the blood splatter on Warrick's shirt to determine that Warrick was likely unconscious and being held up at the time of the killing. He also realizes that Warrick's handcuffs were too small to have created the ligature marks found on Gedda's wrists.

Figuring that Warrick has been framed, Grissom theorizes that Gedda's mole in the LVPD is likely responsible, so he starts looking at the private investigator's death. They quickly find a connection between the cases: chloroform was used both times. An examination of the fingerprints left by the police officers at the two scenes shows that one officer left prints on the private investigator's coffin—something that would not be possible unless the officer was at the mortuary.

One locker search later, they find traces of blood on the cop's handcuff keys. The cop has fled, but Warrick, at least, is freed. To celebrate, the team goes out for breakfast. As Warrick is about to leave in his car, he is confronted by Under Sherriff McKeen. Upon learning that Warrick is never going to stop hunting for the mole, McKeen shoots Warrick in the head—twice.

Warrick's eyes twitch, and then close, as he slumps against the wheel. I start crying. Yeah, I'm a sucker, but I'm going to miss Warrick! For the record, they didn't confirm that Warrick is actually dead. The episode ends as his head slumps against the steering wheel, so it's certainly possible that Warrick is still alive, but I think I'm meant to assume that he's gone, especially in light of the news that the actor is not returning.

Warrick was easily my favorite CSI character, despite his sometimes uneven characterisation over the last few seasons. Gary Dourdan did a fine job playing him, and I will miss him next season.

Was killing Warrick really necessary? Whatever problems the actor may have had off screen, he was good at his job—he really brought the character of Warrick to life. I wish they'd chosen a different way for him to leave the series.

CSI: Two and a Half Deaths

Writing CSI is easy, writing Two and a Half Men is hard—or so the writers of Two and a Half Men would have us believe. There were Two and a Half bodies on CSI as the writers from Two and a Half Men crossed over to write an episode of CSI. I think this was the first time that writers crossed over instead of cast members, and I'm not sure it's something that I want to see done again.

The show starts, appropriately enough, with the dead body of a sitcom actress, Annabelle, star of the show Annabelle, played by the wonderful Katey Sagal. She's found dead with a rubber chicken stuffed in her mouth. A search of her room finds lots of water and no alcohol even in the mini-bar. There are also candy wrappers and a bottle of urine found in the closet.

It becomes clear very quickly that Annabelle was no angel. Spencer, the Executive Producer of the show, reports that Annabelle had a few problems, like alcoholism, bulimia, and a drug problem.

As Grissom tries to work the scene, Bud, Annabelle's husband of two days, arrives. Bud will inherit Annabelle's fortune, which gives him a fine motive, but Bud denies killing Annabelle. He claims that she was alive when he left her.

The autopsy shows that she was killed by a blow to the back of the head and that, despite having had a hysterectomy, she was using a tampon. A little research shows that she used her tampons as a vodka delivery system. Can we all say yuck?

A video of the elevator to Annabelle's apartment leads the team to Natasha, Annabelle's assistant/stand-in, also played by Katey Sagal. She claims at first not to have seen Annabelle or Annabelle's body, but when Warrick finds a bloody, female footprint on the carpet in the room, Natasha becomes a suspect. Unfortunately, before I can wonder why this episode of CSI only has one body, Natasha becomes our next victim.

Grissom and Brass go to Hollywood to visit the sitcom set where Natasha was found dead after crashing Annabelle's car. Someone modified the computer chip in the car and Natasha lost control.

Meanwhile a video of Bud and “Annabelle”'s wedding surfaces showing that Bud actually married Natasha, not Annabelle. Bud admits that he and Natasha faked the wedding to try to get Annabelle's money, but that they didn't kill her—she was already dead.

The CSI team finds DNA on the rubber chicken that matches the urine found in the closet. Fingerprints on the bottle lead them to struggling actor Richard Langford. Richard once had a cameo on the Annabelle show before Annabelle fired him after he refused to sleep with her. When he realized that she was in town, he decided to try to get his part back by sleeping with her. He snuck into her room and hid in the closet until she was alone. Unfortunately, it all went wrong when Annabelle slipped and hit her head. To try to shift the blame to Bud, since Annabelle liked to hit Bud with the rubber chicken during sex, Richard shoved the rubber chicken in her mouth.

End of story? Not quite. It turns out that Annabelle had high levels of blood thinner in her bloodstream. Without the blood thinner, Annabelle probably would have survived the head injury. The team discovers that the blood thinner was in her vodka stash. They track the blood thinner to Annabelle's co-star Megan. When Grissom and Brass confront her, she admits nothing and points out that they have no hard evidence. She walks off with her lover, Spencer, to start her new job as the lead on a CBS sitcom.

The Good
The cameo of the actors from Two and a Half Men.
The lighter tone and most of the jokes. I especially liked the differing responses to the Rorschach-like blood blot. Catherine: a puppy. Grissom: a hermaphrodite on roller skates.

The Bad
Too many puns and inside jokes. Granted, I have a low pun tolerance, but by the end of the episode, I was just sick of them.
The EXTRA scenes were just awful. One would have been more than enough.
The "half death" of Bud cutting his neck while shaving. Is that something that happens on Two and a Half Men? Or was it just to get two and a half deaths on the show?

The Science
What science? They didn't find any hard evidence! On CSI!

I was not a fan of this episode, but then again, I don't watch Two and a Half Men, so I may have been missing something. I wouldn't want this kind of episode on a regular basis, though.

CSI: The Theory of Everything

Lions and tigers and bears and deer dressed in tutus and killer squirrels and dead cats and that's just the animals! There was also people going up in flames, humans masquerading as Vulcans, and heads exploding. And if that isn't enough, the MythBusters guest star.

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. It opens with a woman dressed in tin foil shouting about “them” in the CSI lobby. The woman, Evelyn, warns Nick to watch out for things tonight. He would do well to listen to her advice.But he doesn't. He's too busy trying to give a Breathalyzer test to the suspect Brass is interrogating. The suspect, a very, very drunk man, is insisting that they got things all wrong. The “thing” that they got wrong is the dead deer dressed in a tutu in the coroner's office. A tutu? The poor deer was shot by our suspect's crossbow. The suspect flees the interrogation room, knocks a cop through a window, gets pepper sprayed, shot with a stun gun, and then actually goes up in flames!

The CSIs test the stun gun, the shirt, and the pepper spray, but none of these items alone or in combination create a human torch. They add the moonshine they found in the suspect's truck, but that also doesn't help. After they review the tape of the incident, they realize that the suspect touched Evelyn before he went up in flames. Cue an Evelyn manhunt that ends quickly when they discover her dead.

She was run over by a trucker who was blinded by her tin foil suit. A search of her body reveals that she was carrying a cracked butane lighter, which could have been enough to create the flames. Oh, they also find that Evelyn's blood was green. Yes, green. Green like Spock from Star Trek. After Wendy and Hodges geek out over why Spock's blood is green on Star Trek (Wendy wins the geek prize, BTW), they discover that Evelyn was not a Vulcan, which saddened me, but instead had incredibly high levels of sulphur in her body.

Before they can figure out why Evelyn's blood is green, they find another body, Wayne. Wayne was killed by blunt force trauma to the head. He also had green blood. Meanwhile, Grissom and the crew figure out that flaming guy was killed by flammable pepper spray. The cop who sprayed him was using non-department issue pepper spray. Nick retests, with the MythBusters in attendance, and indeed, the new pepper spray recreates the flames. The MythBusters give Nick two thumbs up. Heh.

The CSIs use fingerprints found at the scene of Wayne's death to find Dave Bohr. They pay him a visit only to discover that he's bleeding green blood from his nose. One of the cops opens a window to let in the sunlight and Dave's head explodes! It turns out that all three of the green-blood victims were suffering from migraines. They were taking incredibly high doses of a drug supplied by Dave. This drug turned their blood green. Dave killed Wayne during a drug bust gone wrong.

Case closed, except for the the death of an elderly couple who died in holding each other in bed. Aw. Not so sweet, however, is the large number of dead ground squirrels in their backyard. They find a rodent removal system, Atomic Dave's Painless Removals, in the backyard and wonder if that is what caused the deaths of the couple and the squirrels.

Warrick goes to talk to their neighbor who says that she was working in her studio making jewelry. When the tox screen and Hodges nose discover that the squirrels and couple where killed by high doses of cyanide, the neighbor becomes a suspect. She explains that she uses cyanide in her jewelry work and to occasionally, accidentally, poison ground squirrels and her neighbors' cat. She insists that she's not a murderer of people though. I also find out that her ex-husband was the man who went up in flames at the station and that Dave supplied her neighbors with the rodent removal system.

Coincidence? Not if I ask Grissom, who decides that it might just be string theory at work—the theory of everything so to speak.

But who killed the elderly couple? Catherine discovers that it was actually the squirrels. Yep. The animals finally get some revenge in this episode. A squirrel, probably running from the “painless” atomic removal system, chewed through a wire under the house, setting old carpet underneath the couple's bed on fire. When the carpet burned, cyanide was released. Catherine pronounces it self-defense. I have to agree.

The Good -I think Brass had the best lines this evening. Telling the cop to stun the suspect by saying “Light him up”. And referring to Evelyn as “very shiny”.The insights into Hodges home life. He's finally moving out of his parents house!

The Bad - Okay, they didn't explain why the deer was wearing a tutu. How do you get a tutu on a live deer anyway?

The Science - They had me at the green blood. I'm such a Star Trek geek.

CSI: Drops Out

A desperate Nick and Brass team with an old adversary to halt a rapidly growing murder count. Less gory and more story as a merry chase ensues. The team again plays with their laser beams in an attempt to figure out another unusual sequence of events that escalates beyond the simple killed/victim mold.

'Method Mans' Drops gets a 48hr pass in order to assist Brass and the CSI's to end a growing list of victims. Of course things never proceed smoothly and as Brass and Nick take Drops to help find his lady, who could well hold the key to the case, even a GPS ankle bracelet wont let the slippery con from seeking his own line of investigation.

As often happens the line between good and bad gets blurred and I wouldn't be surprised to see the surprisingly effective method man getting more air time in the near future (the modern 'Huggy Bear?' - he's got the walk, talk, attitude, insider dealings - but can he stay clean enough?)

Its also nice to see that the team is running more on brains than the emotions of recent episodes. Catherine is definitely better when she controls herself rather than the career risking blowups that are much better suited to the street hardened Brass or the tempestuous Warrick.

Overall a very good effort. Just enough humor to counter the bodies - and much less graphic than many episodes. I thought the pace of the show was just right and the hour flew past.

CSI: A Thousand Days on Earth

The case in this episode is a very delicate story and was given very good justice by the writers, actors and everything went well together perfectly.

Whenever the kids are involve in crime scene, everybody always gets too involve in solving the case. The body found in a box was too sad and too disturbing at the same time. The hysteria of the media was well executed. And how everybody handle the case was realistic. In truth, while watching the episode, I kept on thinking, "this is why I love the original CSI." Their dedication to realism makes each episode convincing.

Its also good that they start using really hi-tech equipments this episode. The surveillance camera on the site where they found the body and the camera used to see what's inside the grocery where a hostage was happening.

I'm just wondering why they only have one case this episode. Makes me think that this could be continued as season ender with Catherine and Leo, finishing their business. About the Leo guy, I think this is the first time that CSI focuses on what happened on the innocent suspects they interrogate. I like the confrontation at the end.

CSI: Bull

Who doesn't want to see cowboy's wearing tight jeans and chaps? Country music, the hats, the drawl! Loved it, even if it is the last one for a while...

The "CSI Effect" was awesome in this episode. The scenes of the body mechanics (bull and rider) were totally cool. As for the show itself: coming on strong with the quick humor and sexual innuendos. This is the CSI I grew to love over the past eight years.

"Bull" was very well researched and written. Nice to see the gang back in full swing. Nick having excellent mitigation skills. Warrick's is back to work, even though the "office mole" has not been reveled yet. Grissom's is still down over Sara's departure, but seems more open to talk about it. Hodge's forthcoming about his eclectic movie genera (scary). Wendy's demented storytelling. And one of the better bar scene fights I have seen in quite a while. Humor all around. Overall, I did like this episode very much.

CSI: Dead Doll

Last season CSI ended with the resolution of the great miniature killer mystery. Along with the killer's identity, Sara Sidle's life and death situation was also revealed, as she was left in the desert, beneath a car. "Dead Doll" picked up right where it left off last year, with the CSIs looking through all of the evidence they have on Natalie Davis in an attempt to find Sara's location.

I couldn't help but be taken back to the fifth season finale, "Grave Danger," when watching "Dead Doll." That Quentin Tarantino-directed two-hour episode showed the CSIs utilizing very resource they could in an attempt to save Nick's life. There was a real sense of urgency which was felt through the screen. In "Living Doll," that sense of urgency wasn't there until the second half until Captain Brass located a tow-truck driver who was able to provide him with the location of the car Sara was trapped under.

Although the investigators were able to find the car, they were disappointed to see that Sara wasn't in the car anymore. She had managed to escape the torrential rainfall, only to end up in the sweltering Nevada heat.

While the pacing of the episode wasn't the best, I loved the final scene. Sara is found, unconscious and unresponsive. She's medevaced out of the desert, and Grissom's inside, riding along. Emotional, Gil holds onto Sara's hand and she eventually comes to, opening her eyes. She initially spots Grissom's name tag and then looks up to see his face. As far as endings go, this was likely the most emotional the series has ever had.

CSI: Living Doll

"You were the one thing I thought I done right." -Ernie Dell

That's it, huh? It's weird, but I suppose it is possible to enjoy something that you don't like. It's too bad that this is what I waited all season for, but the resolution of the Miniature Killer story was far less imaginative than I hoped it would be. The identity of the killer ended up being just about as standard as it could get and nothing creative even seemed to be attempted. Very un-CSI like if you ask me.

Natalie Davis, i.e. The Miniature Killer, was indeed one of Ernie Dell's foster kids who just happened to be out of her mind. The "great" twist? She blamed Grissom for her foster father's suicide. Foolish I know, but there wasn't much else to go on I guess. I hate to say it, but I have to complain.

First on my list? Is it just me, or was it ridiculously easy to figure out who the killer was? All season, it's been this huge mystery. If I've learned one thing about Grissom, he's incredibly smart. Always a step ahead. Now he's been making his own model for what? Maybe a month or two now? So he's probably made half a dozen trips to that hobby shop. He was even on a first name basis with the owner. This episode was the first time he thought to bring in some parts of previous miniatures to see if the owner recognized any of the work! You're kidding me, right? You know he had discussed the case with the owner because they were on the same page. That's just sloppy right there. The identity of Natalie could have been achieved a while ago! If you're going to stretch a case over multiple episodes, don't make the answers so easy to find.

Next up? Natalie's motives for her past killings. Ernie tried to feed his foster child some legit reasons for her killings should she get busted, but that was all bogus. Am I supposed to believe that she crossed paths with the three previous victims (as a temp cleaning lady) and took them all out simply because they were in possession of bleach? I think I am. That's too bad if Hodge's discovery was indeed the only thing that tied the cases together. At least we got an explanation as to why she hates bleach so much. Her father used it to clean up the blood of her first kill - her sister. I was hoping for something far more in depth and maybe we'll get that in the season eight premiere, but I doubt it.

Finally? Man... I'm not a Jorja Fox fan at all. I get the impression that the ending was supposed to be far more exciting and her refusal to show up and film her death scene messed it all up. Now I'm left with the wiggling hand (of some stunt double probably) allowing the summer for contract negotiations. Will she die or won't she die? I guess it depends on how much money CBS is willing to pay Fox. Frankly... I don't care.

As I mentioned earlier, I still liked the episode... sort of. Despite the fact that I was hugely disappointed with the story and the cliffhanger ending, I was still glued to the TV screen because I did want answers. I do think we'll get some in the fall premiere... just not good ones. Hopefully if Sara does die, we can move past it quickly and maybe the show can re-invent itself a little with some new cast members.

CSI: The Good, The Bad, The Dominatrix

"So now you're building your own?!?" -Catherine

A fan favorite returns. This was only Melinda Clarke's fourth appearance as Lady Heather on CSI, and I'm fascinated with how much they've developed her character in that short time frame. It just proves that good writing can go a long way, especially when the notion of "less is more" is kept in mind.

The episode started off quite unexpectedly, as I was reintroduced to Heather in a situation that didn't exactly jive with her own beliefs. She's a dominatrix, so why has she put herself in a submissive role? Do I recall what she told her late daughter Zoey in her very first appearance? Something like, give your body and heart to a man but never your power? Well now Heather is ignoring her own advice. Sounds like a good premise for an episode to me.

The story itself was extremely well laid out and I loved how it tied into Heather's previous story-lines. After the death of her daughter Zoey, Doc Robbins informed Heather that she had a granddaughter out there somewhere. Once found, Heather lost any visitation rights to her ex-husband (the child's grandfather). Being a dominatrix isn't exactly a good profession in the mind of the court. You could really see how this was affecting her though. Heather was clearly depressed and despite her diabetes, she developed quite the taste for rare single-malt scotch. So rather than do nothing for her granddaughter, she was willing to sacrifice herself to a violent client in exchange for over $800,000 to fund the child's future. Not your typical tear jerker, but it was still touching.

It brought to light the relationship that Grissom shared with Heather though. He gets her and this definitely did not sit well with Sara.

Elsewhere, I finally got a whole episode where Warrick said more than one line. He and Greg worked together on a standard hit and run case involving some bad blood between two cabbies. Now I admit that I've missed a few episodes here and there, but Warrick mentioned that he had a kid (when he picked up the heavy purse). Is that the first mention of him having a child or did I miss something? Besides, I thought things weren't going too well with his wife Tina?

Also worth talking about...

Before discovering that dead guy, Brass and Catherine were gossiping and Brass was about to talk about something "juicy?" I assume he knows about Grissom and Sara.

What's with Grissom's miniature replica of his own office? What's he trying to achieve?

Now that Greg is on loan to Ecklie and the day-shift, am I not going to be seeing him in the finale?

So yeah, the next episode is the end of the seventh season as I just mentioned. I'll finally find out the identity of the Miniature Killer and I honestly can't wait. I haven't been this excited about an episode of CSI since the Tarantino directed installment from a few years ago.

CSI: Leapin' Lizards

Another one-shot episode and a crazy one at that. Fortunately I got some little hints as to what may be in store for everyone as the season winds down.

The main case as I said was a bit crazy. Believers of some kooky reptilian race were behind the conspiracy and murder of a Las Vegas black-jack dealer who they apparently thought was some kind of hostile lizard queen. Hmm... there's a sentence you don't find yourself typing out every day.

Ally Sheedy (she looked terrible!) was featured in many of the interrogation scenes. She played the woman with the sword who slayed the aforementioned hostile lizard queen. This sounds hilarious now that I'm writing about it by the way. It was just an all-over-the-place plot from the aliens, to the hallucinations, to the mounted woman's head and the pigs that ate her body. I suppose it's stuff of that nature that keeps me glued to an episode of CSI.

As far as our main characters go, we got some very interesting developments which has me excited for the conclusion of the Miniature Killer plot. Before I jump to that, let's talk about Warrick. I feel bad for the guy. I feel like he's barely been in this season at all and now I find out that his wife Tina is having issues with the hours he works. So his marriage is going downhill. If it does fall apart, it'd be interesting if they tried to explore his gambling addiction again.

Back to the good stuff. Way back when Grissom was on sabbatical in MA, he wrote that love letter to Sara. I didn't know if he mailed it. He didn't and Sara found it tucked in a book near Gil's nightstand. She read it, smirked a little, and then her face was almost drained of any emotion. She looked downright creepy, almost as if she was thinking about how she has this guy wrapped around her finger and he has no idea.

Speaking of that, how about Grissom making his own replica (of what?) at the end of episode? It's like he's trying to get into the mind of his adversary.