Whilst the main storyline in this episode is fairly standard in several ways, the B-storyline (the NICK storyline) is almost up there with the cannibal nutritionist episode in the batshit crazy stakes. It also features a truly cringeworthy moment, quite a rarity in CSI and almost a neverity (?!!) for me where Nicko McStokes is involved. SAD (BUT, AWESOME) TIMES INDEED.
Before I get into the plot of the episode, however, let me reassure you all that the deeply unsettling wardrobe shenanigans that Greg put us through in the previous episode (viz, wearing a T-shirt) are a thing of the past. PHEW.
Every inch the ladies' man
The shirt exposed in its full, lab coat-less glory
Once you have finished appreciating Greggo’s unique sartorial choices, you may notice in that second picture that Sara’s hair is doing what I like to call ‘a Hermione’.
Ms Granger?
Ms Granger!
In fact, Sara and Hermione have lots in common: i.e. their concern for less powerful creatures (gorillas/house elves), their total swottiness and occasional (related) annoyingness, and best of all their fundamental badassity.
Grissom, sadly, bears absolutely no resemblance to Ron
The Sheriff is ginger, at least, but that's all he got
As per usual, the sheriff’s appearance bodes ill for Grissom (he just doesn’t deal well with authority, does he? maybe not totally dissimilar to Ron after all). There’s been a murder on a building site
Hard hats all round!
but not only is the project a new ‘jailhouse’ (in Brass’s terminology, though it just makes me think of Elvis), which the sheriff is itching to get finished; the guy in charge of operations (and Grissom’s initial suspect) is one of the sheriff’s closest friends. In fact, he was best man at his wedding.
Gee thanks Brass for your timely warning/WORDS OF UNHELPFUL DOOM
Grissom and Warwick contemplate space travel as a means of dealing with the situation
I'm joking of course this is just an insanely futuristic looking funeral home
but luckily, just as it’s looking like Grissom will get fired (which hasn’t happened for, ooh, at least 2 episodes), this handy Muppet-face man interposes himself
Just me that thinks he's muppety? I suspect not
and turns out to be GUILTY LIKE A MASSIVE GREAT LADLE so Grissom doesn’t have to arrest the boss’s friend after all.
Lucky for some!
In fact, he not only has time to do his nails during the interrogation session (above) but also to indulge his baser urges:
Grissom (to Doc Robbins): Tell me about his testicles.
Grissom (to Sara): Can I have your pickle?…
... Ahhh, that's a nice one"
The pickle thing is not only part of a bonanza of CSI-eating moments (you know I love them so forgive this quick tour:)
Egg salad sandwich for Sara...
... hot dogs for Catherine and Nick...
... and what looks like some kind of reheated crumble for Doc Robbins (it's the remains of his anniversary dinner, dontcha know).
NOTHING FOR GRISSOM, THOUGH! (flashbacks to his binge-eating childhood, again?!)
… it’s also the sequel to a weird and (frankly) unconvincing experiment, whereby Grissom demonstrates that a guy’s blood is electrically conductive because of its unusually high levels of iron.
PPP sez... "Love a haemoglobin based power source"
Wot. EVEN I who am far from being a scientist and haven’t studied biology for almost 10 years know that blood is always electrically conductive! it is basically made of water AND WE ALL KNOW YOU SHOULDN’T DROP A TOASTER IN YOUR BATH! Bad science, Grissom… verrrry bad indeed.
Nick also has a bad science/Southern doofus moment during the identification of an angora blanket:
Greg: Cheese, milk, sweaters. What do these things have in common?
Catherine: Goat cheese… goat milk…
Nick: Goat… sweaters?
Cut to what's happening inside Nick's brain
All this confusion would be avoided if Americans would just use a possessive construction like everybody else
However, the far and away the worst science this episode (if you can even call it science) is practised by this lady, not an evil nutritionist but an evil THERAPIST (and also, Mary Alice from Desperate Housewives! which is weird because the guy who played her husband on DH was in a previous episode).
In CSI, nothing is more evil than alternative medicine
Notwithstanding her existing advantage, this lady likes to up her sinister quotient by dressing all in white
Essentially, some weird business with an ‘angora birth canal’
perpetrated by therapist lady and this (subsequently regretful) mother
That's either guilt, grief, or SHEER UNBRIDLED LUST in her eyes. And given that it's Nicky Stokes who she's looking at, I think we all know where to place our bets.
lead to the rather unfortunate death of a 14 year old boy. Catherine is empathetic…
I weep for you! and for all womankind!
… Nick isn’t.
YOU BASTARD
In fact he goes a bit psycho with rage (especially when he thinks that the therapist is in fact a rapist) and it’s when Catherine gives him a talking-to about this that the moment I find so uncomfortable occurs. Nick randomly reveals that a babysitter subjected him to an unspecified sexual assault when he was nine.
NOW you feel pretty awful, huh Catherine?
HORRENDOUS. I have been trying to work out why this bothers me so much, when I’m fine with Nick getting stalked, kidnapped, held up at gunpoint etc, and even with Sara’s much more lurid story about her own background. It’s not the acting: Marg Helgenberger and George Eads do it really beautifully (so well that it made me reconsider the way in which I sometimes dismiss the level of acting ability necessary for CSI)
Of course, George Eads does everything beautifully
… but the quality of the acting actually makes it worse, as you find yourself moved by what I think is actually a fairly cheap and ill-thought-through inclusion in the service of introducing some random emotion. It feels SO gratuitous. Unlike Sara’s horrible history, which you do feel influencing her in a lot of her actions and decisions, I don’t feel like this incident has much to do with Nick’s behaviour. OK so he gets super involved in cases involving child abuse, but most of the CSIs do; most people would. And this babysitter thing is Never Mentioned Again. It’s just a kind of plot device hauled in to add additional drama to an already decent episode; which feels to me like a bit of an insult to those people who did have to deal with this kind of thing in their childhood and who are genuinely dealing with the consequences every day. BAD WORK CSI WRITERS (and that’s not something I am often called upon to say!).
C.S.I. Love You 