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Wednesday 27 March 2013

CSI 13.5 "Play Dead" Review

It's Hallowe'en in Vegas and two girls stumble across a dog who appears to have killed a man and is taking a bite out of his throat.  Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) Nick (George Eads) and David (David Berman) arrive at the scene.  David finds drugs on him and his ID shows he's an officer Mike Nelson.  The dog is a police dog, Sam.  Inside his truck there's an LVPD envelope with money and a yellow bandanna with meth.  Varanski (David S Lee) who runs the canine unit says Nelson was a good officer but why didn't he tell them the dog responds to commands in French when he was there considering he wanted to take the dog with him.  Nick needs to process him for evidence and eventually gets a muzzle round his mouth.  He finds a piece of human flesh stuck between his teeth which everyone assumes belonged to Nelson.  Aren't they supposed to be waiting until the evidence is in before forming any conclusions, they've barely started gathering evidence yet.

Sam is sent to the pound and will be put down if not for the fast work of Henry (Jon Wellner) who tells them the DNA on the flesh doesn't match Nelson, thus the dog took a bite out of his killer.  Nick brings Sam back to the lab, who makes a run for DB's (Ted Danson) office and his totem statue which was an anniversary gift.  He doesn't put it down and Nick takes him to the dog training area when he's now told Sam is a French dog.  He throws down the totem and gets a bottle of water.

Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) finds Nelson was bitten by a human, Brass tells DB about a case where a cheerleader ripped flesh from a human whilst on PCP.  An actual CSI case from season 3's Let the Seller Beware.  CCTV footage shows a woman with a yellow bandanna in her pocket and they deduce she's a hooker.  Several are brought in to find which one was with Nelson and Sam will later ID her.  Now he's fully part of the investigation.  The women have a laugh making innuendos to DB, especially one of them, about the length of the pipe and about touching his, which he replies his wife won't like.  Sam picks out Carly's (Johanna Braddy) scent.  Greg (Eric Szmanda) helps out with analyzing the effects from her motel.  Carly said Nelson was good to her and she was his CI.  Carly is later found dead and Doc finds out she was pregnant but Nelson wasn't the father, it was the killer.  Also Carly didn't die of an overdose but was killed since the needle missed her vein.  The needle mark was found in her back and she couldn't have put it there.

David calls Nick to Autopsy when Sam goes missing, he hasn't been eating since he misses Nelson.  He sits outside the freezer containing his DB.  Nick talks to Sam who seems to understand him now and says they need to work together to find his killer and get justice for Nelson.  He understands since he puts his paw on the harness and his head on Nick's knee.  Nick tells him all about losing a friend, referring to Warrick though he's not mentioned by name.

Using the killer's bloody bandage from the motel they can find out which clinics he could have gone to in the area for help.  Nick, Brass give chase to a suspect at a burrito stand, which Brass comments Sam wants, but he sees the suspect there.  Sam takes a bullet in the chase and arrest and Nick doesn't realize he's been shot until he gets some blood on his hands.  Vinnie (Mike Alexander) didn't want the baby and saw her with Nelson which made him lose it.   Nick waits around and Varanski tells him Sam will pull through.  He was going to retire this year and live with Nelson so Nick takes on a new roommate, with rules.  They will watch ball on Sundays and he'll have to sleep on the floor when his girlfriend comes over.  SO he has a girlfriend now.  Wonder if we'll get to see her and whether she's someone we've already seen on the show.

Greg: "I guess that makes him a dead dog walking." It was good seeing how Nick gets on with everyone whilst doing his job, including man's best friend and to think a while back he when quit.  No mention of that anymore so guess everyone's moved past that.

Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) and Finn (Elisabeth Shue) investigate the killing of a lawyer, Barry Sloane (James Hyde) who was shot in his house.  There are traces of fluid in his bed and a bullet hole in the wall where the bullet missed him.  Morgan finds the gun outside and prints on the window.  Two of his neighbours both women, talk about him.  One doesn't think much of him and is glad the house prices have increased cos of him and the older woman, Marjorie (Caroline Lagerfelt) defends him on being a good neighbour and friend.  Morgan is confronted by Hodges concerning the kiss from the first ep of the season, so they haven't been together or even talked about it since then, but she seems nervous to talk about it now.  She just wants him to fix the GCMS and get the results.  He's fixing it himself and reminds him of how the defence is picky about such things.  Finn walks in on them and she tells her she kissed Hodges when her father was in hospital.  Finn thinks they've both been sleeping together.  Finn likens Hodges to an "awkward Jimmy Stewart."  He's sweet and funny.

The prints on the window belong to Walsh (Michael Bunin) who hired Barry as his divorce lawyer.  Also he saw his wife, Sabrina (Brianne Davis) with Barry and she would have gotten everything in the divorce, his house, money and his cat.  The gun is found to belong to Barry.  Walsh has an alibi and Sabrina found out Barry was sleeping with a neighbour.  Hodges analyzes the lipstick on Barry's shirt and finds it contains formaldehyde.  Which is a carcinogen so isn't used anymore as a preservative.  Eeww. Thus lipstick was used by an older woman, Marjorie.  She saw the way Barry was treated by Sabrina and she came over admitting she had feelings from him.  She tried to kiss him but he rejected her.  She was old enough to be his mother.  She shot him since Barry had given her the gun for protection.

CSI delves into two very different cases this episode but both with a similar theme of being rejected or misunderstandings.  Vinnie when he saw Carly with Nelson and Marjorie was rejected by Barry.  CSI hasn't covered two separate cases in a while.  No Jorga Fox this episode.

Season 13 spends a lot of time on DB and his family so it would have been good to see some of the other's personal lives and the job affecting them, or even what they do with their time away from the lab.  It's a little tedious having the show concentrate just on DB's family.

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