The scene opens in Frank's Restaurant, the hang out of the CSIs, as each one of the regulars is shown, as well as the waitress, Edie (Elizabeth Bogush) who is afraid to go home cos of her stalker and is working late, as he stands outside and watches her. She asks the police to have a word with him, but he disappears. Nick (George Eads) and Greg (Eric Szmanda) show up and find the CS. Everyone is dead and they find Vincent (Ayre Gross) locked in the walk-in freezer. That was convenient for him, as my sis blabbed he did it and I was about to say the same, especially since he had a 'convenient' alibi of being locked in.
They get to gathering evidence and Finn (Elisabeth Shue) arrives for her usual blood spatter analysis, looking at the ceiling she finds blood spatter on there as well as the counter. She finds DB Owen's (Matt Hoffman) finger was shot off and landed by the door. She stops a policeman from stepping on her finger. Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) is angry the suspect stalker, was allowed to leave.
DB (Ted Danson) visits Ecklie (Marc Vann) in hospital and he's checking out. Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) is there to collect him but she's called in to the CS. To which DB also arrives. Finn shows him some discrepancies between the blood and the DBs, meaning three of them were moved, Rios (Yves Bright) Alex (Adrian Quinonez) and Connie (Del Hunter-White) so the CS was staged.
Hodges (Wallace Langham) pops his head through the door when Greg and Morgan are together and actually wanted to ask about Ecklie, however he was hoping for some conversation about her kissing him no doubt, unless that was resolved without us knowing. Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) and David (David Berman) are accosted by Basderic (Adam J Harrington) who says he's Edie's next of kin. Doc sends out David to get Sara (Jorga Fox) as she's got the paperwork. Took their time getting to Autopsy didn't they. He wants to put a ring on Edie's finger as he was going to marry her but Doc can't let him touch the DB.
Basderic is arrested but claims he didn't shoot anyone as he hates guns and he loved Edie. Rios doesn't have any criminal record but a red flag is raised when Alex's prints are checked. Brass is visited by Deputy US Marshall Karen Taylor (Monnae Michaell) who tells them Alex was in witness protection but the Vegas brass (ha, sorry) didn't get a heads up cos they didn't know if they could trust the LVPD, due to the corruption investigation. Doc finds Rios had polar fleece residue in his lungs as he was wearing a ski mask and had GS residue on him. There were two guns at the scene and one of the guns belonged to Alex.
There's another callout to the same diner location where a newspaper delivery man shot off a gun accidentally. It was buried in the pile of newspapers. Nick finds a second gun in another pile of papers. Ecklie is also there when he's meant to be taking it easy. Sara tests the papers for prints using ninhydrin which shows up a set of prints belonging to Basderic. He is questioned and says the gun isn't his. He touched the paper cos DB explains he's OCD. He took the second paper out and not the top one which is folded and no one takes. It's like taking bread from a packet, Sara says she takes a slice from the middle.
Sara doesn't like him though and does a search on him with Greg's help who finds he was involved in a civil case where he shot a man and the judge awarded him damages. Apparently it was self defence, so much for not liking guns.
Finn prints the newspaper stand and finds she can't open it up cos there's a coin stuck in there. Nick asks if she needs a quarter. He removes the coin and finds it's Chinese. Recalling Vincent keeps foreign coins behind the counter. Thus he was involved. At last figured that out ages ago, ha. Vincent tells Nick he's not a monster but he is, irrespective of getting all those innocent people killed, his regulars he's known for years, and shooting Edie through the head when she was still alive. Vincent became a monster as soon as he thought up the plan to have his brother murdered. Nick's familiarity with the restaurant and knowing Vincent so well breaks the case but also since he removed Vincent's apron from him as evidence since Vincent insisted on entering the CS when told not to. Which was to get blood on himself just incase any traces were found on him. He thinks he's clever just cos he's heard the CSIs talk about their cases when they're eating there. Nick finds the apron Vincent was wearing when he was locked in the freezer was different to the one he cut from him. Also Greg getting stuck in the freezer too where he found the camera placed there by Vincent, as another way of establishing an alibi.
Owen tried to wrestle with Rios and pulled his mask off, thus everyone saw his face and they had to be taken care of. Rios shot each one of the diners in turn but why were they just sitting there when clearly they would have heard the gunshots going of. Especially since Connie and Alex were at the back and may have made it out before Rios got to them. At least Connie may have. So they assumed the intended target was Alex but the crime and criminal were closer to home. Vincent's greed go the better of him.
Sara telling Basderic that he got Edie killed as she was afraid to go home and her shift ended so she wouldn't have been there. Yes he was to blame but she should have also vented her anger on Vincent, he was the instigator of the entire plan. But her anger was justified in such a creepy stalker as Basderic being able to get away and move on to another Vic. Sara always takes a personal interest in most of her cases and Victims and it's good to see she still hasn't lost that caring streak after 13 years. Though a bit disappointed there wasn't time for a continuation between Sara and Nick from last week when they were having their argument. Seems Nick is firmly back in the ranks of the Vegas CSIs, which is great. Seeing as he's also one of my fave CSIs.
Hodges is peeved he doesn't know about the restaurant cos he's never invited, well Nick's not listening. There's still mention of the ongoing corruption scandal so hope there's more made of that even if it is early days yet. Notice the newspaper headlines they analyzed mentioning "Police scandal corruption opens doors to Appeals". They always have some sort of a storyline in the CSI shows which leads to criminals being set free and having to deal with the fallout. CSI:NY done it in 3.8 Consequences (one of my fave eps) and CSI:Miami has also covered it too.
Morgan didn't have much to do this episode and when she determines the angles of the bullets using lasers, she gets that wrong, since she places the oil can the wrong way round, would have thought she would have tried the can in all directions before concluding where the bullets came from.
Also DB is having family woes as Barbara has accompanied Maya back to Seattle and intends to stay there. The tension is apparent and he doesn't tell Finn when she asks if he's okay. Barbara may be thinking of not coming back since DB is heard to tell her this is their home now. Kind of strange since they were always shown to have a strong marriage, the kidnapping has obviously shaken her.
Liked the reconstruction near the end showing where everyone was and what happened. Took me back to the plane episode from the first season Unfriendly Skies, where they did something similar, that was one of my fave CSI eps. Also this episode reminded me of CSI:NY season 1's Outside Man episode where the killer also killed everyone in the restaurant for personal reasons. They turned out to be collateral damage since he was actually after his girlfriend as she was taking their children out of state. Thus he made it look like a robbery gone wrong but he murdered all those other people too. Here Vincent wanted to open a diner in the Mediterranean but Owen was against the idea, so just to get him out of the way, he got Rios to kill him in a 'botched' robbery, but ended up with all those deaths on his hands.
Enjoyed this episode of CSI as the show gets back on track covering cases which have a personal impact on the entire team, which are always interesting to watch.
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