A shark attacks the guests in the pool at a Vegas hotel. Catherine meets a casino boss who knew her father and Wendy leaves for pastures new, much to the sadness and anger of Hodges.
The shark attack in the pool in the opening scene was more of an episode storyline you would acquaint with CSI:Miami than Vegas. But at least it was different, though I didn't much like this episode, it wasn't as explosive and fast paced as the season opener. Yet it did have some redeeming features, such as allowing Wendy (Liz Vassey) to come back to give a proper ending to her character. She will be missed. Also Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) having a "Kodak" moment about her late father. Also the story of casino bosses rivalries is the usual stuff of Vegas and has been covered before in the show.
This is Brass's (Paul Guilfoyle) "first shark call out" as he puts it and that was the first of many puns and fishy jokes floating around throughout the whole episode, as was expected. Also got that 'funny' music you associate with a comedic episode of the show in some scenes. The Vic, Desiree (Michelle Charlene Lee) was a cocktail waitress and it was her day off. She was sporting lots of bling, as Ray put it, for a waitress. Greg (Eric Szmanda) suggests the aquatic vet, Dr Holloway (Christopher Gartin) can clear the shark from the pool. It's a saltwater tiger shark and it's outside of its habitat so it doesn't survive. Nick is late for work as he had an appointment, we presume this was with the shrink he called last episode. The casino boss, Boozell, aka Booze (Elliott Gould) recognizes Catherine as "Sam's little girl."
Catherine: "No, I'm a big girl." Then comes Catherine's first joke, "biggest shark in Vegas" and she doesn't just mean the tiger shark either. Catherine loves her job and he shouldn't mention her father. Sara (Jorga Fox) looks for surveillance to ascertain where the shark got in the pool. Jorga had a cold in this episode, one wonders if she got thrown into the pool at some point during filming, ha, but I jest! Half of the pool is in a blind spot and is not covered by the camera, and Nick (George Eads) finds a smoked joint on the ground.
Wendy's back for her farewell episode and tells Hodges (Wallace Langham) they need to talk later. Whereas Hodges only wants to continue with their relationship. Ain't it always the way, Hodges finally gets a girl and she's cruelly taken away from him. Ray (Laurence Fishburne) hobbles into the morgue and asks permission from Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) to come aboard. Desiree has a missing arm and Doc finds a shark tooth embedded in the wound of her arm. The tooth however, is devoid of any blood and they surmise why there wasn't any blood when she was bitten, her blood had to be flowing, so how can it be both.
Nick and Brass interview Drops (Method Man) who is an ex-con, whom Nick and Brass both know, as he was in the earlier episodes of CSI , Poppin' Tags; Big Shots and Drops' Out. He was smoking but he didn't put the shark in the pool. He was fired from Macklin's casino across from the Golden Nugget but wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his job, with a family to support. Brass calls him a "co-conspirator" and adds Drops, "to a shark."
Catherine talks with Booze and he comes up with another fishy line, "sounds like you're fishing."
Catherine: "...trying to test the waters." Did the cast keep a straight face with all these fish flying during filming. More to the point what were the writers thinking? He tells her he had nothing to do with it, "cards up" the same phrase her father used. Booze thinks Macklin (Sasha Roiz) is setting him up and he was right.
Doc and Ray conclude she should have bled out into the pool, so she must have been dead before she was bitten. Attempting to turn her body over, both their walking sticks fall to the floor. On her back, Doc finds a needle puncture, she was injected with something. The drop of blood from the needle attracted the shark to Desiree, so she was dead before she was bitten. Henry (Jon Wellner) runs tox on the syringe to find she was injected with heroin. Ray sees Desiree's jewellery was missing when he watches the surveillance with Nick, so it may be in the pool.
Henry tells Hodges he and Wendy talk and Hodges demands to know if he's a 'friend with benefits'. Before they leave for the pool, Wendy tells Hodges she's leaving to become a field mouse in Portland. Henry convinced her it was a great opportunity. Yeah Henry, if you can't have her, neither can Hodges! At least Wendy actually cried for having to leave Hodges, so she really had feelings for him. Macklin explains to Catherine if a shark was missing, he'd know. Lots of card game references here.
Hodges and Henry have a fracas in the pool, leading Hodges to hold Henry's head under the water and nobody noticed. These lab rats have their own side stories going, which can sometimes be funny and interesting. Henry finds the syringe in the pool. A fingerprint on the syringe matches a woman in the system, Anya Sanchez (Alicia Lagano) who is found with Desiree's stash of jewellery. She admits to the robbery and to injecting her, but she can only be charged with robbery. Nick corrects her, Desiree died of heroin poisoning and that's felony murder. What a way to go, that's the only thing she could use to rob her. The funny part was actually watching her attempt to buy off brass and Nick with her ill-gotten gains. Catherine calls the incidents "two separate events". Nick states it was 'attempted murder on everyone in the pool.'
How could Ray cut that shark open with such a small knife. The first thing he finds inside the shark is Desiree's arm. Holloway says the shark was from the wild, but he didn't empty it of its fresh fish dinner, which someone had fed it. He was so dumb for a vet. As Doc says Holloway's not a 'Shark Week' watcher, since there are captive breeding programmes, where most aquariums obtain their sharks. The shark was also sanded down to remove its serial number, which Ray recovers. The shark belonged to Macklin. He had to get rid of one of his sharks, it began eating the other fish. Booze's car is clamped outside the PD, providing us with another clue. Catherine comments, talk about "shark infested waters" (groan) when Macklin and Booze argue.
Sara and Nick check out Macklin's fish display, to find Holloway's DB floating in the water. He's pink which can only be caused by some kind of poisoning, carbon monoxide, dioxide, and Nick thinks of his diving tank. Asking Hodges to check it. Hodges is wallowing in self-pity and tells Nick to put the tank in his mouth, but Nick doesn't want another explosion, as his hearing is only just returning. So that's why he probably didn't hear Henry, when he spoke of his swimmer's ear earlier. They found an appropriate song to play for Hodges whilst he was analyzing the tank; which contained carbon monoxide.
The team have their usual conference around the table and Greg reappears to suggest they 'let the evidence decide'. Hate it when one or more of them vanish for almost the entire episode, they used to do that a lot in past seasons! The exhaust fumes came from an old vintage car, leading to Booze. He had dinner with Macklin last night to bury the hatchet and call their rivalry "squashed." That was another clue, Macklin conveniently inviting him over for dinner. Catherine has a flashback to her father telling her, "because it's squashed, doesn't mean it's squashed."
The valet is caught on the ATM using the pipe Sara found in the trash to take exhaust fumes from Booze's car. How stupid was that valet, he also dumped the pipe at the offending site. Brass relays the story of what Macklin did, removing the "fin number" from the shark, but he's caught, "hook, line and sinker."
Booze later tells Catherine he was wrong about her, she's "hard-working, passionate" but she's not motivated by money and she thanks him for the compliment. He can see where her greatness extends from and Catherine had to have the final fishy pun of the night, "I don't swim with sharks."
As I said not much I liked about this episode and it's very hard for a CSI episode to disappoint me.
Some UK critics commented how they should get UK popstars/groups, to make appearances in our home-grown programmes, just as Method Man and Justin Bieber.
No comments:
Post a Comment