Season 2 Episode 11: Organ Grinder

The episode title is something of a misnomer – it’s actually more like Organ Blender (I know I know and obviously, I, too will sacrifice much in the service of a pun) (hence why my nail art blog is called Lacque to the Future). I only mention it because of the amazing ‘Will it Blend’ moment Nick gets to enjoy.

Will it Blend: Exhumed, Partially Decomposed Nine Year Old Liver?

Yes! It blends!

I’m sure it isn’t just me wondering why this regular kitchen blender has a place in the CSI laboratory, and harbouring dark suspicions about where the gang might have got it from… (waste not, want not!)

Anyway this is getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s whizz on back to the start of the episode, where a couple making out in a casino lift encounter a rather unwelcome third wheel.

GROUND FLOOR PLEASE

Seems a little odd how he badly dressed himself before neatly arranging himself across the lift floor, huh?

Grissom: This is as phoney as a Chappaquiddick neck brace.

It’s bad that I had to Google that, right? Luckily I’m not the only one feeling baffled by Grissom’s esoteric vocabulary, as Nick and Sara are both baffled by his description of the corpse, Bob Fairmont’s, room as ‘murder central’.

Haha Nick you doofus gosh don't you even know what murder central means

Gee I guess I know now, after Grissom ostentatiously explained it TO YOU

Remember this moment! It will be of import next week (?). That is why I am harping on about it. (Oh, and murder central? It’s the room by the lift – easy access, easy escape, only one neighbour to hear you scream. Bear that in mind next time you visit your wayside inn of choice.)

Anyway turns out that Bob Fairmont’s wife is Bree from Desperate Housewives!

Yes it's me the face of Albert Bartlet Rooster potatoes

As the episode unfolds a murky plot emerges involving Bree, Fairmont’s dandruff-riddled secretary Claudia,

Needs to get some Head and Shoulders

a bottle of shampoo and a previous DOUBLE LIFE with a secret wealthy husband whose parents were apparently called The John Gideon Sr.

Seriously the props person on CSI needs to get some proofreading skillz

The Red-(/Flaky) Headed League

Unfortunately it also proves to be one of those cases where the CSIs just can’t convict their guy (or girl) (or girls), leaving Sara extremely frustrated.

Grissom: Sometimes science isn’t enough.
Sara: What are we doing? Digging up graves, chasing prints – if it’s no good in court? If the killers win?
Grissom: It isn’t a competition. We don’t win. Courts are like dice. They have no memory. What works one week doesn’t work the next.

SOMETIMES SCIENCE ISN’T ENOUGH??! This is crazy talk.

On the other hand, Sara spends a lot of this episode confused because she's been scanning in a fingerprint 'the wrong way up' so probably science (or at least technology) isn't enough, if it can't even cope with that (also! note the 'solved crimes' board from episode 1.1 in the background!) (someone's crime is 'floater' hahahaha)

Luckily Grissom has a cheery thought to finish off.

Grissom: The good news? There’s no statute of limitation on murder.

And it doesn’t say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty! Yeahhhh America. (I don’t know. Something about the phrasing brought Cher Horowitz to mind.)

Wait! I love Josh!

It’s not just Grissom on bodacious form this episode – all the lovely CSI boys are in fine fettle. Of course, I’m mostly talking about Nick, who displays his usual all-round greatness not only in owning up to what he doesn’t know (*cough cough* Miss Sidle) but in charming the pants off (or rather, kidney out of) this round, sweaty little man.

Sad about my failing kidney but oddly consoled by Nick's chiselled beauty

Kidney Dude: You don’t look like a doctor.
Nick: No, sir, I’m Nick Stokes.

YEAH YOU ARE

Always the tiny hope, isn’t there, when you wake up in the morning that that beauteous face could be gazing over you? Isn’t there? Isn’t there?

Seems like Bree agrees with me - a little poison is a small price to pay for the MANLY WARMTH OF NICK'S EMBRACE. I'd totally selenium myself for that

Aaaaanyway. Where were we? Kidney man does offer to give up his organ (ex-Bob Fairmont) for testing – but never fear, that’s not his kidney Nick was blending at the start of this post. That was The John Gideon’s descendant’s kidney, in fact. Taking the kidney of a living man would be an insufficiently noble act for Nicky to engage in.

Nick: I don’t think any investigation for the dead is worth hurting the living.

Noble

... you're so hot right now

Of course he is. He’s so hot right always.

Meanwhile in other CSI news, Greg is (weirdly, unexpectedly) lusting after Sara, his affection for whom causes him to regress to adolescence as he keeps trying to plan a lunch break together. Of course, it’s only when he produces some killer evidence (obtained through the mystical medium of an Internet Search Engine) that he actually gets her attention.

"I could really, really just kiss you right now"

... I said OKAAAAY...

Seems like Catherine was right.

Greg: Hey, Catherine: do you think Sara would ever go out with me?
Catherine: Sure! As long as you don’t tell her it’s a date.

Greg and Catherine will forever be my ultimate CSI ‘ship; but, as ever, Warrick and his rippling pecs are getting in the way.

This picture does not capture the full, inappropriate extent to which Warrick's chest is displayed by this shirt

Apart from exhibiting his body for all to enjoy, W-Brow also has an entertaining story to recount about one of his very first cases, a groinally-targeted shooting in which the very same Bob Fairmont was the victim.

Don't be confused by the lifelike graphics. This is not, in fact, how it happened.

Warrick: I think I fell for it because I was new, and I wasn’t too eager to talk to another guy about him almost shooting off his manhood.

The only thing better than a pun? A DOUBLE ENTENDRE! And speaking of puns I thought of an even better one for this episode title. ATTACK OF THE KILLER BREES!

You know you love it

Season 2 Episode 10: Ellie

Lesson from this week’s episode? EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.

That’s true for these guys, doofus touristicii who we see in the opening scene getting ripped off by a Vegas conman:

"We're honest people"... honest

It’s true for the conman, who ends up shot in a car park shortly after making off with $2000 of their money:

Griss (looks at body): Striking resemblance to Judas.
Brass: How’s that?
Griss: Both men lost their lives over a worthless bag of chips. (ROLL TITLE SEQUENCE)

Worthless?? ARE YOU CRAZY IN THE HEAD?

Oh what yeah these are actually pretty worthless. OK.

It’s definitely true for Warrick, who gets lumbered with running the shift as Catherine’s in Reno and Grissom is cockroach-racing at an entomological convention in Deleuze.

UNLUCKY

Warrick: Acting supervisor? What about Nick – he’s got seniority? Or Sara – she’d jump at the chance.
Grissom: If it was about seniority, I’d ask Nick. If I wanted someone to stay up for three straight days, I’d ask Sara. Instead, I want you.

PPP sez... "I want you"

... and I think we can ALL see why

It’s also true for Sara and Nick, when they find out. Nick (all round solid and amazing guy that he is) takes the snub well. Sara – who doesn’t have seniority and therefore has much less right to be pissed off – is, unsurprisingly, a little harder to handle.

So full of burning rage

It’s true for Special Agent Beckman, who accidentally ends up in the middle of one of Sara and Warrick’s many rows.

Argument in progress

AWKWARD

It’s true for Sara, when Special Agent Beckman turns out to be running a complicated, Sherlock Holmes-style double-bluff to test her morals. Turns out those doofy tourists weren’t so doofy after all?

BETRAYED by the cut-glass cheekbones

Don’t worry Sara I don’t think he would be much of a lover:

Special Agent Beckman: Never feels right when it works; only feels wrong when it doesn’t.

BUT most of all, as the episode title suggests, it’s true for Captain Jim Brass, whose daughter Ellie turns out to be involved with the central crime and with some rather shady characters.

NO WAYYYYYYZ

YES WAYYYYYYZ

SAD DAYYYYYYZ

Ellie’s shady dealings (and flagrant ingratitude to her dear old dad) land both of them in trouble, as Brass goes all vigilante on her boyfriend

Not the best way to meet the parents

and finds Warrick having to confiscate his badge.

EMASCULATION

Ecklie - never knowingly absent when somebody's getting bitched out

The episode is notable for rekindling the mutual dislike between Warrick and Brass that was evident at the beginning of Season 1 but seems to have been let slide until now; anyway it’s back with a vengeance (as you can imagine) after this incident, and isn’t much helped by Ellie’s shameless flirting with the W-man.

Ellie to Warrick: Will you fill me up, Warrick?

I get enough of this kind of thing from Grissom, thanks

Some of her lines have a touch of the Louis Walsh about them:

Ellie to Warrick: You know, you have this whole Lenny Kravitz thing going on.

"like a little Lenny Henry"

Others are just terrifyingly prescient:

Ellie: Everyone I sleep with dies.

SHE'S GONE MOFFAT! (this is assuming they did actually sleep together, of course)

Poor Brass. A daughter who doesn’t respect him and who is desperate to get into the pants of the one guy at work who he doesn’t really like.

In a glass case of emotion

(He also sustains a head injury)

Thank goodness, then, for this episode’s one really reliable element: Catherine’s maternal empathy, which she phones in all the way from Reno. Can’t have a parent-child relationship without Catherine passing comment!

Yeah yeah yeah weeping for you Jimbo - but only a little as you're not a laydee. WHATEVS

Season 1 Episode 15: Table Stakes

This is a SEXY episode!

TOO SEXY FOR MY HEADDRESS

Greggo is not the only one who is in the mood.

Greg: Did you ever wear one of these when you were dancing?
Catherine: I wore nothing but skin.

I LOVE IT WHEN THEY FLIRT. Also, this.

TOO SEXY FOR OUR ACTUAL CLOTHES

What makes it even more sexy is when Grissom and Catherine watch. YEAAAH we did

These two appear on the scene after a girl is found drowned at a glamorous party

Bummer

… which they are hosting despite being a) suspiciously without a past and b) not the rich old lady whose master bedroom they are shagging in.

What do you mean no past, we are leading Scientologists Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (ish)

Other sexy times? Grissom ‘accidentally’ chats up a dancing girl

Grissom: I was just… looking around.
Showgirl: See anything you like?
Grissom: Yes, I do.

PPP sez... "it's the sparkly bikini"

and Warrick gets topless for a closer look.

Let's hear it for a body in a pool!

YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, SISTER

Outside of sexytimes I would say this is a kind of good day/bad day episode.

Bad day for Warrick (despite the hottitude) as he gets taken off glamorous drowning duties and put on a tedious case with a body in a glass lift.

Whut.

Good day for Greggo, who is full of cheer (and playing loud music) as he makes a series of dramatic discoveries.

Full of DNA-based delight

Dead cheerleader yaaaay

Bad day for Sara, who is exhausted.

Sara: I’m tired.
Nick: You? Tired? I thought you never sleep!

She wishes she slept tho (AKA, Gustoface returns)

ALL I WANT IS STEAK. Even though I am supposedly a veggie by this point in my life.

Good day for Doc Robbins, who (unlike Sara) just can’t get enough coffee.

This is where your (imaginary, American) tax dollars are going, people! Coffee machines for the coroner!

Bad day for CSI fashion, as Nick models a horrendously-necked jumper

'Girlfriend repellent'? I don't know what you mean

and Grissom manages to unearth the world’s least flattering sunglasses.

Did anybody see the other two Blind Mice around here somewhere?

Best day? These fat little fishies. Can you guess what happened to Rich Old Lady?

YUM YUM FULL OF CHOLESTEROL

Season 1 Episode 13: Boom

Boom is right! The budget has gone crazy in this ep and we have a real super bona fide explosion… or several.

BOOM! Oh wait, you meant...

Televisual DECADENCE

The episode kicks off with a bomb exploding in a big office block, killing a security guard and landing Warrick, Catherine and Sara with a massive great jigsaw puzzle as they try to work out what happened. Grissom, meanwhile, is spending time with suspect numero uno

What a chubbly berkum

– another security guard with a suspiciously encyclopaedic knowledge of explosives. However, as time passes, Grissom begins to bond with this weird and kindly fellow, so that by the time the real culprit is discovered and Berko is left holding the bomb, it’s all become a little personal.

Face of imminent fiery death

There he goes... Grissom's no.1 candidate for potential friendship

Now he has only his bajillion clocks for company

Bad times. (Times… geddit?)

Of course the real personal interest storyline comes from (let’s face it) everybody’s main person of interest, lovely Nicky Stokes. After a few drinks with an old uni pal, he turns down the chance of a night chasing these babes

The very embodiment of 'What happens in Vegas'

and is just heading home to write reports (what a geek) when he comes across our OLD FRIEND Kristy Hopkins, getting in a fight with a suspicious randomer. One rescue later (Nick loves to be a knight in shining armour) and she’s inviting him in for a drink…

ALLURING

Kristy: Just ‘cos you’re a crime scene analyst, you don’t have to analyse everything.

Analyse THAT

So far so good but suddenly DISASTER STRIKES as Nick’s cosy morning-after breakfast turns into a MURDER SCENE. And he’s prime suspect.

Face of regretting I ever let it out my pants

Even worse? Ecklie is investigating and on his most sanctimonious form.

Loving it more than JT loves a Big Mac

Ecklie: You think I wanna believe that a CSI could commit murder? Hell, I don’t even wanna believe that a CSI could sleep with a hooker.

WHATEVS CONRAD. WE’VE ALL DONE IT.

Anyway if a CSI gets arrested apparently it’s automatic dismissal – good thing for Nick that Catherine (lovely lady that she is) (the fact that she saves Nick’s ass isn’t even the main reason why I love her) is on the case. One moment of realisation later

Aha!

and she has a slam-dunk on Kristy’s dodgy pimp.

Booo! Hiss!

Yeehaw!

Catherine, you're an absolute hero

Unfortunately before Pimpy gets put away he has time for a quick confrontation with Nick, just enough to disillusion him about Kristy’s avowed plans to reform and get an education. ALL LIES (apparently).

Jack: This isn’t Pretty Woman. She wasn’t Julia Roberts. You’re not Richard Gere.

And a good thing too, Richard Gere is one of the least sexy men ever, I think we all know that Nicky is SEX FACTOR 10

Let's examine the evidence one more time, shall we? Boom!!!

Season 1 Episode 6: Who Are You?

A bit of a corker this episode: the inaugural CSI/PD showdown, some insight into Catherine’s past, and the first of many life-threatening situations for Nicky. Oh, and Grissom gets his lovin’ on.

So, to kick things off, Sara and Warrick are investigating an ‘officer involved shooting’. This is the officer involved

Good cop? Bad cop?

and they manage to upset Brass (who seems to have a bit of a vendetta against Warrick in the early part of this season) by wanting to verify his account of what happened with EVIDENCE. Because that’s what CSIs are all about! Anyway in the process not only does Warrick strip down to his tighty whitey (vest, not pants, sorry kids)

A musclebound hunk fo' sho' but I still prefer Nick's Clark Gable-style SHUNNING of the vest

but the cop gets a chance to berate the CSIs in what will become time-honoured fashion: they’re scientists who spend their time in the lab and don’t know what it’s like out on the street. Grissom has probably never even drawn his gun…

… which is super IRONIC of course because what has to happen later in the episode but a GUN SHOWDOWN? It all starts with a skeleton that an unfortunate plumber discovers in the house foundations (and which Nick and Grissom chisel out)

I think they've found Narnia

and which turns out to be a missing person (whose face forensic artist Terri constructs in a glorious Ghost-esque clay scene with the Grisster).

The look of love

Sing it with me now: "Ohhhh, my love, my darling, I've hungered for your touch..."

Really, can you blame the woman? PPP sez, "no you can't"

For the work of the country (and Canada)'s best forensic artist, she still looks like a Neanderthal woman from a museum diorama

She’s called Faye and it turns out her (ex-)boyfriend is still living (with his new wife) in the house they shared.

One of these people is not like the other...

CRIME SOLVING IN PROCESS

Missing the obvious fact that the guy appears to have perfect eyesight and thus is unlikely to be a criminal, Grissom has him arrested, leaving Nicobobinus (who seems to have sorted out his shirt issues and is looking F-I-N-E in this episode with a kind of 50s hairstyle going on) alone with the real culprit and suddenly rather vulnerable…

Uh oh

But look at his beautiful face! Don't hurt his beautiful face!

Poor old Nick is basically on the point of despair when Grissom FINALLY puts two and two together and rushes back – drawing his gun, of course, in your face snidey policeman – to rescue the lovely Mr Stokes. Who can’t help falling apart a little bit with relief.

Yes, it's a tear glinting on his cheek. He's a delicate flower. And that's why I like him

Nick isn’t the only one going to bits in this episode: despite Grissom’s best advice

PPP says: "I told you to hand this case over to Warrick"

Catherine ends up handling a case involving her ex-husband, Eddie.

He looks a bit like a puffy-faced Will Ferrell. Could do better, Catherine

A dancer with a bad fringe (just like Catherine herself once was) accuses him of raping her.

Much too short. It's like a reverse Claudia Winkleman

Turns out he didn’t do it, but the whole thing leaves Catherine a little bit shaken. She’s not over Will Ferrell yet.

He's not worth it, really he isn't

At least she has a bit of banter with Greg to cheer her up.

Greg: So, you used to work at the French Palace, huh? My friends and I used to go there… Maybe I saw you perform.
Catherine: Oh, I doubt it.
Greg: Why?
Catherine: You would have remembered.

Oh and speaking of? Greg shirtwatch says… ANOTHER CORKER! This is evidently the only outlet for the CSI wardrobe department’s frustrated creativity.

Greg Sanders' shirts: the American equivalent of Pat Butcher's earrings

Last point… Doc Robbins arrives in this episode! What a nice beardy old man he is.

Doctor Robbins, what's the worst that can happen? Well, he's a coroner, so, quite bad stuff actually

 

Series 1 Episode 4: Pledging Mr Johnson

I knew this episode was going to be better than the last one when this happened in the first five minutes:

Let me hear you say "YEEEEAH"

Sara (on excellent form in this episode) has it spot on:

Sara: (To Warrick) Fine suit. (To Nick) And just… fine.

She does the ladies a further favour when she criticises Nick’s shirt (once he’s got it on).

Sara says this is 'hideous' but I think it's better than the previous ep's Chandler look

Now THIS is a hideous shirt

Oh wait. I see what she did there.

Woop and, indeed, woop. In fact there’s a further bonus lurking in store later along in the episode as Warrick gets in on the shirtless action:

Yeah yeah yeah corruption of the federal courts etc etc

It’s part of his vengeance against Crimplene Shirt Judge who has been trying to get Warrick doing his dirty work again… and let a multiple rapist go free. Huh. It’s almost as if the writers wanted to make the morals absolutely black and white, or something. IT’S ALMOST AS IF THEY DIDN’T TRUST ME TO TAKE AGAINST CRIMPLENE SHIRT MAN JUST ON HIS BAD FASHION AND LIZARD LIKE EYES.

Anyway so in the main plot Grissom and Catherine investigate a woman who died in a lake. There’s some banterous stuff about trying to find a boat – Grissom gets out a massive paddling pool to recreate the scene and Catherine just goes out looking for it – but also a badness happens when Catherine lets slip to the woman’s weirdy husband that she was having an affair with a friend – who the husband immediately assumes is to blame for the death. He’s not, but it all ends rather badly.

Oops

The Petersen Pout sez... "I told you not to get emotionally involved in the case."

The reason Catherine messes up is because she feels bad for the guy being cheated on – because HER ex, Eddie, cheated on her – and there’s an unexpected moment which suggests a kind of outside-work friendship between Grissom and Catherine that I don’t remember getting properly followed up at any point.

Catherine: When Eddie was cheating on me, I sure wish somebody would’ve said something.
Grissom: You mean me?
Catherine: Who else?

Maybe I’m wrong and it does crop up again. I’ll keep my eye out.

In the B-plot, Sara and Nick investigate a fraternity murder. It involves a dude with a phone number written on his penis, which Nick finds a little bit uncomfortable.

Face of man-meat embarrassment

Sara doesn’t.

Face of amusement at Nick squirming

Aside from all that shizzle (and this horrendous frat boy)

"My Dad's a top defence attorney"

my discerning eye has, erm, discerned a weird food theme running throughout this episode. The frat boy dies choking on a piece of raw liver. Grissom and Catherine identify the dead woman’s lover by following her stomach contents to a local seafood restaurant. And the CSIs just CAN’T. STOP. EATING…

Brass and Catherine opt for takeout burgers

Nick goes for a microwave burrito (Sara: Junk food and radiation... good combo.)

Ever the showoff, Grissom has the chopsticks out

aaaaaand the people's pathologist (he's actually a chemist but it doesn't sound so good) Greg Sanders plumps for a lovely pot of Ben and Jerry's. Yummo.

So, there’s that. Also of note? Grissom’s nicknames for Greg. He debuts two in this episode and I like them both: Professor, and Butch.