Season 2 Episode 12: You’ve Got Male

Standard stuff this episode: Sara’s a loser with no social life, Grissom is inappropriate, Catherine is badass and yet loaded with maternal empathy. And Greg is desperate for the approval of his superiors. JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE CSI OFFICE.

To take the smaller story first, Nick and Catherine investigate the death of a guy who was apparently shot in a hunting accident. Apparently they are also engaged in some kind of fancy dress competition.

Qui? Moi? (Catherine has obviously come as a French mime) (all mimes are French, right?)

Can you guess who Nick has come as?

Here's another shot to give you a clue (note the jumper)

Obviously, this is obvious. Nick's whole face (his whole body, heh heh) is an Action Man costume

YOU GUYZ I'M SERIOUS

ANYWAY enough of my obsession with Nick’s face. Hunting guy has left behind a grieving widow

Grieving

who quickly discovers a surefire way to get Catherine onside.

Grieving widow: … with the baby and all…

Did you say BABY? Wouldn't that make you a MOTHER? I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEEEEEL!

Anyway this is quite a sad little story (except for a brief happy moment where Nick and Catherine model some attractive waders)

People say I look like me da (ten points for anybody who gets that reference)

and therefore ill-suited to my CUTTING AND SARCASTIC WIT. So I will maybe leave it there.

Meanwhile on the main storyline, Grissom and Sara are probing the case of two, very different, sisters, both found dead in some pipes near a field. One of them is glamorous and has tattoos. The other one (much to Grissom’s surprise) doesn’t shave her legs.

What kind of sorry excuse for a woman does she think she is?!

Obviously, with that kind of weird sociopathic behaviour, one who just likes to stay at home and buy things on the internet. (Actually this might merit a new post category: Internet Weirdos. Anybody on CSI who participates in social media is usually suspect in some way.)

Gosh Grissom, not everyone can be as UNFEASIBLY GLAMOROUS as you appear to look on your ID badge headshot

Anyway after a brief hiatus of suspecting glamour-girl’s boyfriend, Not Mark Wright

Mark Wright

Mark Wrong

Grissom is soon set on the right (Wright?) (I’ve overused that one) track, via an enterprising prison governor who has his inmates working shifts on a kind of boutique call centre.

*Johnny Cash plays as hold music*

PPP sez... "This is the kind of shizzle that went down at Shawshank. And that didn't end well for ANYBODY. Except Tim Robbins. And Morgan Freeman."

Seems like dowdy hairy lady ordered herself a MAN as well as some (dowdy, hairy) clothing.

Mail order boyfriend

Nothing wrong with that (though it’s always risky to purchase sight unseen) but a sudden (Greg-enabled) realisation later

BUT OF COURSE!

"You've got that look." << It's called a realisationface, Sanders

and (with the help of an open-minded yokel) Grissom is collecting some evidence which doesn’t look good for Mr Mail-order.

Grissom: Mr Willoughby – would you mind if I fingerprint your spigot?
Mr W: No one’s ever asked me that before.

Is this one of those fetish things you read about on the inter-ma-net?

Lesson of the day? The internet is BAD, mmmkay?!

That’s the lesson for the viewer, anyway: Sara receives with a more personal takeaway as HEAVY PARALLELS are drawn between her and hairy internet lady. She realises the similarity herself, as they look around Donna’s house –

Sara: We already know she cooks like I do – takeout on speed dial.

Alert! This is Sara's house! Note the many takeout menus on the fridge. (I thought this was our first look in a CSI's home but actually I think we see chez Catherine a few times in the first season)

– but the point’s made more harshly when Nick (somewhat out of the blue) gets on Sara’s case about her obsession with work.

Nick: Sara – you gotta get out more.

That was way harsh, Thai!

I feel like this exchange is a bit weird and gratuitous but maybe I am expressing unrealistic expectations about character integrity… Nick is a nice boy!

I mean, he is objectively right. The empty answering machine is an Ancient Symbol of Doom. (What's the 2010s equivalent? An empty email inbox?)

But Greg agrees, it was uncharacteristically catty. Booo!

Season 2 Episode 5: Scuba-Doobie-Doo

Unfortunately after last week’s enjoyable smellfest this week’s episode is pretty mediocre. It feels like the writers (let’s name and shame: Elizabeth Devine and Andrew Lipsitz – both regular contributors) were more interested in the setup than in the payoff; unlike the tight theming of the previous episode, this time neither story feels cohesive.

That said, there are still some things to be enjoyed. This is CSI after all!

So, the main plotline begins with this guy, Cliff, aka ‘nose man’ (Sara), aka ‘the Schnoz’ (Grissom), ‘expirating blood from his nose all over his apartment walls to get back at his manager’.

Exhibit A

Yes you're right Jim, that IS disgusting

Cliff is unrepentant (also, looks like a fat Charlie from Busted)

(sorry Charlie)

Confusingly (disappointingly?), Cliff turns out to have done nothing wrong, beyond being kind of gross; but JUST BY CHANCE a crime HAS been committed in the neighbouring apartment.

My spidey-sense is tingling! (aka, realisationface)

The number on the door should probably be a clue this guy is up to no good

Thank goodness Grissom is able to save face by stumbling fortuitously upon an unrelated criminal proceeding!

Also, this gnarly-looking corpse (to borrow a phrase from last ep's emergency dude)

Maybe you can see why I wasn’t that overwhelmed with admiration.

Nick’s storyline feels similarly halfhearted. He and Catherine are, briefly, excited to be confronted with a scuba diver unexpectedly roosting in a tree. He’s the ‘rocket man’ to Sara’s ‘nose man’.

The stuff of (urban) legend

However, all too soon it becomes clear that the guy wasn’t scooped out of Lake Mead by firecopters (as Nick spends a few minutes energetically hoping):

Nicky: he can't handle the truth

rather, this is a much more straightforward story of Friendship Gone Bad.

Also of Matt Damon and Kiefer Sutherland's evil lovechild, and his lawyer, friendly George Bush

Zzzzz! It’s like a less exciting version of the spontaneous combustion story from the previous season. With that in mind, all the excitement this ep does have to offer comes from the CSIs’ romantic relationships… and most of all, from Greg.

So: GSR alert as Sara ‘wipes some chalk’ off Grissom’s face, in a lingering moment of desire.

Ohhhhhhhh myyyyyyy love... my darling... I HUN-ger for... your touch

"I'm intrigued... AND AROUSED"

Unfortunately for Sara, she has to compete with this guy:

Griss: Either Paul or John.
Sara: A Very Important Beetle?

A true look of longing

By the end of the episode, Grissom is turning down breakfast with Sara (AND NICK! crazy fool) to spend more time with his new friend.

Gotta take your friends where you can get them, especially when you're Gruesome Grissom I guess

Catherine meanwhile is pumping our old pal the district engineer for information (hahaha pumping BET THEY’VE DONE THEIR SHARE OF THAT [too far?])

Willowz meanz bizniss

and letting Greg off lightly when (in a moment of giddy madness) he refers to her as ‘Cat’.

Catherine: I’m going to forget that you called me that.

Sheepish (a little bit)

On the other hand, it's apparently fine for her to call him 'coffee boy' (alongside Nose Man and Rocket Man, part of the world's weirdest superhero supergroup)

I love it when they flirt. But the best romance of the episode? One I promised myself I wouldn’t get involved in… come on people, SOMETIMES THIS STUFF JUST WRITES ITSELF.

Cath: I just talked with your partner – you’ve been working this case without me, huh?
Nick: ?
Cath: Greg SANDERS?
Nick: Let go of my Greggo! He’s a CSI wannabe.

Let go of my Greggo? I LOVE IT!!!!!!

Almost as much as I love this ridiculous shirt...

... but not even as much as I love this moment! (it's a gif, click it)

So. Good. (Anybody know the appropriate portmanteau for the Nick/Greg ‘ship??!)

Season 2 Episode 1: Burked

Well I’m pretty thrilled because the title of this episode is a reference to a 19th century body-snatching scandal. As a student of Victorian literature I am ALWAYS ON THE LOOK OUT for ways in which I can work CSI into my academic life so this is just MORE WEAPONRY in my METAPHORICAL ARSENAL. Yeahhhhh.

Grissom: Remember Burke and Hare? The two nineteenth century Scottish bodysnatchers, who made a living intoxicating innocent victims and suffocating them? Made a living selling their cadavers to teaching hospitals? Got away with it, too, until a medical student discovered his fiancee on a slab.

Fiancee-on-a-slabface

However: Grissom’s version of the story is (surprise surprise) not quite accurate; the stuff about the fiancee on a slab is totally made up (but extremely reminiscent of my PhD topic text, The Mysteries of London) and he leaves out the fact that Burke and Hare weren’t just selling the bodies to teaching hospitals, they were working directly for a particular doctor with an interest in anatomy. I would say CSI missed a trick with this one in fact as there’s room for some interesting debate about the relationship between crime and science and about the scientific detachment associated with this kind of anatomy and that often attributed to Grissom… but I can feel this getting incredibly long-winded so I’m going to leave that there. FOR NOW.

Here's Nick doing a freaky face. If that hasn't reclaimed your attention then I don't know what will

SO. Outside my happy world of nineteenth century hangups, what’s going down in Las Vegas?

Tony Braun, that's what

Yes, it’s Tony Braun, well-known heroin addict and financial JEANIUS, son of casino mogul (prick up your ears, folks, this one’s a keeper) Sam Braun, one-time lover of Momma Willows and avuncular buddy to Catherine.

A face that only a mother (specifically, Catherine's mother) could love

Tony’s dead alright, but whodunnit? The glamorous (money-hungry) girlfriend?

Sexy swabbing: this is definitely a CSI trope. Remember how Nick first met Kristy right back in the pilot...??!

The neglected little brother? (he has the probable best line of the episode, during this exchange with Grissom:

Grissom: Would you mind if I took a photograph for my bite collection?
Walt Braun: Whatever rubs your Buddha…)

LANGUAGE IS MY TOOL

The slightly dodgy ‘old friend’ who leads the CSIs to a bunker full of silver in the middle of the desert?

Smells guilty in here alright

Gosh I don't even know what you mean I AM SO LEGIT IT HURTS

... although maybe I did a little swabbing of my own (hence the angry wife)

Well obviously it all gets BLOWN OPEN by the CSIs during the course of the episode… but that’s not what I’m here to talk about! No way! I’m more interested in Coffeegate, Nick being every animal’s best friend, and Warrick pissing off lovely Mandy the fingerprint technician.

So, in the order that I gave them to you then: Coffeegate, as it unfolds.

This coffee tastes like sweaty balls (I'm paraphrasing here)

*Chariots of Fire*

DO NOT DRINK MY LUXURY COFFEE, MADE FROM THE EYELASHES OF A THOUSAND VIRGINS

Great coffee, Greggo, thanks so much

A shocking abuse of power, as I think we’ll all agree. (Meanwhile, let’s have a moment of appreciation not only for Greg’s shirt, but for his chavtastic hairstyle.)

Why yes I do have wavy lines shaved across the side of my head

MEANWHILE in hotass Stokes news, Nick has made friends with Tony Braun’s doggies.

Yes, eagle-eyed viewers, those ARE new glasses but for some crazy reason the director of this episode decided not to use any close up shots of them. I know, WTF, we get anatomical detail of a dead guy's nose but NOTHING of Nick's hot new frames. Rubbish.

Following on from his cuddle with a cat in $35K O.B.O., I would take this as CONCLUSIVE PROOF that he is loved by all who encounter him, whatever their species, gender or sexual orientation.

And with those PUPPY DOG eyes (arf arf) I can well understand it

Warrick, on the other hand, is doing his level best not to be loved by Mandy the fingerprinter, who I slightly love.

Warrick: Well, that’s easy for you to say. All you do is scan prints all day and hit ‘enter’.

I agree, he definitely needs a smackdown

Come on Warrick, have some respect why dontcha!

Final bit of news (apart from this random picture of the CSIs eating)

I don't know why I always feel compelled to screencap this kind of activity, it exerts a weird fascination

is a line from Brass, with accompanying explanatory hand gestures which only serve to alert the viewer (i.e., me) to the fact that he’s straining to avoid the obvious (hilarious) mishearing.

Brass: Based on your pupes I could take you in right now.

Based on your WHAT NOW?

First PPP of the season sez... "I didn't know we were running that kind of a joint"

Season 1 Episode 20: Sounds of Silence

Unfortunately this episode is the start of a plot thread which I find UNUTTERABLY TEDIOUS, which is to say, Grissom’s deafness. However it gives only the faintest glimmer of what will become, over the next season, a seriously hackneyed subject. The hint at hand comes through the unfortunate death of this deaf kid, squashed ‘neath the uncaring wheels of a ‘large truck or SUV’.

BRUTAL

PPP sez... 'hate breaking bad news to the family'

The CSIs’ investigation leads them to an unlikely pair of criminals, one of whom appears to be around 10 years old (and who is the first yoof on the show possessed of that fabled plot device/motivation to conceal a crime, ‘a scholarship to Duke’) [edit: apparently he’s also familiar to viewers of One Tree Hill. I’m not one, so can’t comment…]

He has a kind of Gareth Gates look going on

and the other of whom is not only Kenny the houseboy from Edwardian Country House

Kenny?

Kenny!

but who possesses a set of headlice to rival even my six and a half year old self.

Ming

'I had 37 headlice. It was the most!'

Truly, a fine achievement

It also introduces them to this absolutely terrifying lady

Righteous indignation - the same in any language

whose fear-inducing eyebrows and hip-hop dance moves

"Wicky waa" - as I believe all the kids are saying these days

have even Sara snapping into line.

Don't MESS with the PROFESS(or lady)

And finally, of course, it has Grissom whapping out his own sign language supermoves.

This one means 'your eyebrows look like tiny beards on your forehead'

In a speedy rundown of other important news, Catherine demonstrates some of her most fabulous faces as she becomes frustrated by Grissom’s absent-mindedness…

"I don't always want to be second banana...

... I could probably do your job...

... I KNOW that I could do Ecklie's."

… and Greg is modelling possibly his worst outfit yet.

White trainers, black trousers, orange shirt? Survey says, UH-UH!!

It's not even all one shade of orange!

It makes this exchange with Warrick and Grissom particularly intriguing:

Greg: I’m the man!
Warrick: Why? What’d you do? Let me guess… You ran a DNA profile from the blood on the dead guy’s knuckles and you got a match?
Greg: No.
Grissom: You ran a DNA profile and something very distinctive popped up?
Greg: Not quite.
Warrick: You made it out of bed and you dressed yourself?
Greg: No.

NO? Does he employ a STYLIST? Does his MUM (Mom) still dress him? The people need an answer!!

Finally, there’s another Olde Technologie moment as Nick listens in on the heavy metal music a gunshot victim was pumping…

It's got a ROCK SOLID BEAT

… on his handy Discman.

Hahaha what now

No seriously, wot?

Season 1 Episode 11: I-15 Murders

So the main plot of this episode – the one that opens the show – is about a guy murdering women and keeping them in his refrigerated truck.

Frozen corpse discoveryfaces

But that’s almost by the by in an episode primarily preoccupied with personal relationships. Warrick and Sara have a showdown as she accuses him of being a gambling addict and complains that Grissom hasn’t fired him, as she recommended.

Showing down (but also, reminding me of...

...this guy, Pleo the robotic baby dinosaur. Is that just me? Something about the eyes.)

In fact, Pleo isn’t the only person Warwick is looking like this ep.

Oh no, he di'n't

Of course he did

Meanwhile elsewhere in Sara and Warrick’s case there’s a funny moment that reminds you of how old this first series actually is.

Sara: Hard to miss all that high-tech computer equipment. There’s got to be five, ten grand there. First thing I’d take.

Wow, five or ten grand’s worth of computers?

'All that' equipment

Oh yeah I forgot, it’s 2001.

Other things which date this episode include Grissom’s office ‘burglar alarm’: Big Mouth Billy Bass

Surely the only thing that Gil Grissom and David Brent have in common

and… well, I would say Greg’s shirt but I think that’s just how Greggo rolls.

Rollin' with my homies

In Nick news, he is getting all hot under the collar as Kristy the prostitute from episode 1 resurfaces.

Kristy: My nipples are all better. Wanna see?

Don't even go there, lady

It looks for a while like Nickyboy might be getting lucky, but…

STEAMY MOMENT (note the soft focus)

"Think of your reputation, Nick! Think of the lab's reputation!"

 

Oh man. Cockblocked by a rubber fish.

Looks like he’ll have to cope with the next best thing instead.

... a grope of Greggo's manly moob.

Seriously though I can see how all those Nick/Greg slashfics got started

Good thing he would never do anything stupid like SLEEP with Kristy. Right, Nick? RIGHT???

Series 1 Episode 5: Friends and Lovers

So this episode sees ‘gruesome Grissom’ (an excellent coinage by Jenna the coroner – I like her, it’s a shame that she disappears in the next few episodes) getting emotional about the crime he’s investigating: a kid who has been killed by his best friend while they’re both high on jimson weed.

Drugs're bad, mmmmkay?

The boy is quite the hottie [edit: and apparently a bit of a Hero too…] so I can understand Grissom’s emotional involvement.

Patented Petersen Pout sez... "I hope you plead diminished responsibility"

In fact, he is so upset by the whole thing that he has to take the Pout on the New York New York rollercoaster (an excellent ride on which I myself have rid), the first appearance of a hobby which gets referenced many times in future episodes. The whole sequence of Grissom doing a mournful face while whizzing round the sky is absolute gold (maybe one day I will set it to an appropriate soundtrack) but I have selected a pout picture as particularly pleasing to my many fans (ahem).

Pouting through the pain

At least this off-her-face lady at an illegal desert rave does her best to cheer him up.

Warrick thinks she's on ecstasy but I know it's just the PPP working its magic

Meanwhile a man (if not a face) we will soon grow to know and love makes his first appearance – step up step up David the assistant coroner! Woop.

What a jolly fellow

He cracks onto Sara with an excellent line, which she somehow manages to resist.

David: I really admire the gusto with which you approach your job.

I think this is what he is talking about

Sara, in this episode, applies her gusto to a clingfilmed lady found in a dumpster

Like a microwaveable burrito

who has been graverobbed by her own mortician. Ordinarily this would be something of a shock but let’s take a look at the man in question…

He's white... he's wearing spectacles... I think we all know where this is going

Meanwhile Nick and Catherine have to deal with some evil lesbians

OH HO SOMETHING'S HAPPENING HERE

who aren’t really that evil but have had to kill the headmaster of the school at which they teach to stop him blackmailing them about exposing their relationship to parents. What a horrible man. He kind of deserved to die. So I guess that means Speccy White Guy is the only real villain in this whole episode… what a surprise.

Another thing that isn’t surprising is that Greg is modelling YET ANOTHER hideous shirt.

It's a corker

And here in close-up... it's like he illustrated it himself with felt-tip pens

In a new turn of events, he’s also got himself a necklace.

I hear Catherine's all about the bling-bling so maybe this is some kind of elaborate plan to attract her

And finally… I don’t really have anywhere that I am going with this, but an excellent face from Nick.

Face of "I just told an amusing anecdote about my grandfather"

Season 1 Episode 2: Cool Change

Excellent eyebrow acting here from George Eads as Nick enjoys a moment of realisation. I love it when you can see them think. Luckily, so do the CSI directors

Well, it’s all shabazzle in the second episode as the CSIs have to deal with the fallout from letting Holly get shot on her first day in the job. Warrick, modelling an earring which I am sure doesn’t last beyond the first season, is taking most of the flak.

As Catherine says in a weird exchange with Holly's killer... "Maybe a little bling bling?"

Yeah, I don't know what you were on about either, lady. But I like you, so I'll let it slide.

This suit, on the other hand, we really need to talk about

Not only is Sara Sidle on Warrick’s case (WOOP WOOP) but a creepy old judge guy in a Crimplene shirt keeps following him around.

You'd be sad too if you were this guy's bitch

Poor Warrick. Luckily his gambling skills are so proficient that he’s able to make $11,000 in A SINGLE HOUR to pay off the judgeface… for now. (Why is he still working at CSI? He could be making a killing on the blackjack tables!)

It's not just the judge. You can always rely on Greggo to bring the bad shirts.

There’s also a case to solve – and guess who’s involved?

MY INSTINCTS ARE NEVER WRONG

OH YEAH it’s another Speccy White Guy! Granted this one is ‘the victim’ not the criminal but he’s still pretty unpleasant. He dumps his girlfriend when he wins $40 million on the slots. Who can blame her for killing him?

Buff

He is pretty stacked I guess. He probably could do better. On the other hand, his muscular build, while pleasing to the eye, puts him outside the true SWG stereotype (and is probably the real reason why HE HAS TO DIE).

Nick (probably feeling some hunky sympathy) isn’t too impressed with the girl whodunnit. She gets his best face.

Bish, please

The real story of the episode though is the establishment of the CSI team we KNOW AND LOVE. Sara rocks in from San Francisco (albeit, not to everybody’s best pleasure: she has Catherine’s hackles up straightaway) and Brass is moved away from CSI and onto Homicide.

Sorry, Jimbo

We all know what that means…

Nick: Who’s gonna run the unit?
Grissom: For now, me.

YOU KNOWZ IT, G-DOG! “For now” my ass.

ThasswhadI'mtalkinabout

Last word goes to Nicky, who with typical incisiveness asks Grissom the question on EVERYBODY’S minds.

Nick: How do you know all this crap?

Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot

First episode, first series, weird theme tune (thank goodness they junked it by season 2) and SO MANY NEWS to discuss. The central storyline (by which I mean, the Nick Stokes storyline) involves Warrick and Nick competing to solve their 100th case.

I just don't think you can order these from Rymans

I can suspend my disbelief with probably more facility than most people but I can’t be alone in finding the physical actuality of the ‘Crimes Solved’ board a little bit unlikely. Number one: the 100th crime that Nick and Warrick will tackle hasn’t been assigned at this point in the episode… so how can it be on the board? Who keeps the board updated with newly printed, completed lists? Where do you buy ‘solved’ magnets? I JUST DON’T BUY IT. Luckily, the board is onscreen for less than 3 seconds and so all these questions are rapidly displaced by the SHEER CRIME-SOLVING FUN that succeeds them.

Luckily for Nick and Warrick’s tallies, the writers are really packing it in plot-wise. We see a suicide in a bathtub that turns out to be a murder (this is the storyline that links the whole series so it’s not resolved within the episode); a Speccy White Guy who shoots a home invader not really in self-defence;

Always distrust the Speccy White Guy

a trick-roll which Nick deals with in his own inimitable fashion (charming both the troll-looking tourist victim and the prostitute responsible);

Outside Vegas, the world is not a glamorous place

a random molestation of a small child who seems to be wearing her mother’s wig;

This is not a good look

a liquor-store robbery and some other kind of a robbery, both of which get dumped on (short-lived) new girl Holly and both of which see her end up at the wrong end of a gun. Unlucky. At least she has time to meet the fetal pig before she’s lying in intensive care looking like her time is up.

See the fetal pig and die happy - that's what I heard

She’s also relieved of some bodily fluids, pretty damn straight:

Grissom: I need a pint of your blood. It’s customary for all new hires.
Holly: Why?
Grissom: So many reasons.

Specifically (if I understood correctly), this reason.

Love a gratuitous recreation of a crime

Warrick asks whose blood it is and Grissom tells him it’s the new girl’s. Isn’t that just a tiny bit INSANE? I know that in later seasons Ecklie starts bitching about resources being tight but surely draining your staff of their blood only to whap it all over office in the course of a single murder investigation isn’t a particularly sustainable way to keep the cupboards stocked, either…?

In any case, it’s a pretty rollicking start. Holly isn’t the only anomaly about this episode: as with any pilot, the writers and producers are obviously testing the waters and there are a whole bunch of randomers knocking around the lab, including this cuddly-looking but disconcertingly lechy coroner:

Dirty old man

As Holly runs out of the room to vomit, he comments that she’s ‘cute’. I DON’T THINK SO, GRANDPA.

The other unfamiliar face is this lovely lady

She's a hottie, I'll give you that

– I don’t think we even get her name but it’s evident that Grissom has had more than that…

Grissom: If latex and cooking spray went on a blind date… how would the night end?
Random fingerprints lady: A lot better than ours did.
Grissom: I know. Pink Floyd’s not your thing.
Random fingerprints lady: I have on cowboy boots. I work in a lab. What makes you think Dark Side of the Moon synched to the Wizard of Oz is gonna warm a damn barn?

Yeah Grissom, WHAT ABOUT HER DAMN BARN?

Now this face would warm all kinds of barns. Or really any kind of farm building.

Maybe he seduced her in his badass glasses.

Veering dangerously close to Speccy White Guy territory

Who am I kidding? Grissom only needs one weapon in his Seduction Armory (TM).

The Patented Petersen Pout

The fingerprints lady is just part of Grissom’s (soon to become) uncharacteristic cuddliness. No really, he actually gets involved in some cuddling.

I'm sure this would incur sexual assault charges in most workplaces

WOT. This is not the Grissom I know. Luckily for my sense of normalcy there’s one lovely labrat who’s already installed in office: GREGGO!

He doesn't look a day over 12

Modelling a particularly unattractive shirt, he gets one of the episode’s best quotables:

‘I’m gonna warn you, though, these mouth swabs don’t always read. Vaginal swabs, no problem. Anal swabs – money.’

Anal swabs FTW!