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Wednesday 24 September 2014

CSI 14.17 "Long Road Home" Review

                                                  
After appearing at a concert, a woman's DB is found stabbed inside a stretch limo, yeah, an extra stretch limo.  Sara (Jorga Fox) investigates and finds she has so much blood on her but there's not enough in the limo, so she was killed somewhere else, as is always the case.  DB (Ted Danson) comments about The Who dumping a limo in the pool and there are lots of refs to songs and groups. Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) and Greg (Eric Szmanda) collect evidence from the limo and she finds a rider being used as a cocaine tune.  This contains the demands of the group, such as bottles of beer, green organic gumdrops.  Greg also finds a necklace with the name 'Tangerine' on it.  Greg also comments on the statue of the Hindu God Shiva - God of fertility, so they have "sex, drugs and rock n roll."

Nick (George Eads) speaks with the limo driver, Mike (Nick Nalarza) who had alcohol poisoning and found his limo was gone and he mentions Tangerine, the prostitute and the groupie in the limo was Marcy.  The band was rehearsing for a gig.  The DB has a signature on her chest area and Finn (Elisabeth Shue) comments she must have known the rock star really well for the autograph to be placed there.  She can barely work out the initial is a 'G' and nothing else.  Hodges (Wallace Langham) has found out the signature for her, which was on a guitar pick and it's a 'GS' belonging to Gene Simmons from the group KISS.  Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) questions him and he says he wasn't even in the limo.  They were part of a 'Fame Experience', where people pay to behave like rock stars with him.

Nick and Sara arrive at the location where they speak with Marty Kirch (Michael Des Barres) who owns the Experience.  He says he found the place trashed like that when he came in the morning. Marcy was hired to be the groupie, but she's a good girl and he thinks of her like a daughter.  He wants to know where she is, but he doesn't know who Tangerine is.  They analyze the CS and Sara finds the blood spatter where Marcy was killed.  Nick also finds the round shaped blood spatter with gravatational blood spots leading to it.

Brass questions Arnold (Joshua Biton) one of the three who were playing in the band.  He was playing guitar and he got wild, smashing the guitar and the things around him.  The whole thing was Lex's (Paul Greene) idea, the drummer and he paid for it all.  He also IDs the knife that Nick found at the CS as belonging to Lex.  He's missing and didn't return to his hotel last night, along with Tangerine, so they suspect he's the killer.  Finn questions Ed (Jamie Kennedy) who was into the drugs, but didn't kill anyone.  Stating that Lex got both girls and they ended up with nothing, but there's plenty more fish in the sea.  So clearly he's not bitter about it, which rules him out as a suspect. Also adding that a record label was interested in signing Lex.

Lex's bank statements show he received money from the record label, but Greg says there was nothing but the charges from the Brimstone, where they were staying.   Hearing some noise from the garage, they find Nick playing drums and creating the odd blood spatter they find.  If there was blood on the drum, then the spatter would spray everywhere when played and there is a hole underneath the drum itself, making the round circle.  He mentions he was in a band at college. Adding that Lex must have played the drums with the blood.  Greg thinks they'll find the drums wherever they find Tangerine.  Heading out to the alley, he finds a drumstick and then the entire drum kit.  Inside is the blood stained drum and also Lex's DB.  So clearly their choice of suspect was wrong.  Of course, since it wouldn't be that easy.  I didn't have Lex as my suspect anyway.

David (David Berman) and Doc (Robert David Hall) carry out the autopsy on Lex and they find his phone with photos and torn pieces of paper.  David thinks they can get DNA from the paper and run it to find out who Tangerine is.  Finn runs her prints and finds her real name is Angela (Katherine McNamara) and she's a prostitute.  Finn realizes that the record deal was a scam and so she was behind it and also how she met Lex.  They now view her as a suspect.  The money went to an account in Belize and Morgan makes reference to the 'Nigerian e-mail' scam, of which I used to get plenty of e-mails! DB reads how the record company needed $50,000 to record and DB wonders why this would lead to murder.  Er, jealousy in terms of him getting the deal.

Morgan says the record label is traced to Vegas and to Kirch.  Kirch tells them Tangerine was hired by Lex and they should be looking for her as she and Lex had a huge fight.  He's guessing it was over money.  Gene returns ha with some panties for Brass, well that didn't come out right,.  They belong to Tangerine and she's in the limo.  The DNA reveals that she is related to Lex and is his daughter.  She already knows and they accuse her of losing it when she realizes she slept with his father, but she says she didn't sleep with him or kill him.  He gave her the letter and she tore it up and he later apologized and went to the studio to listen to his song.  Lex told her that someone would be there to help him and Marcy was also there.  Greg and Hodges listen to the recording of the song and hear another voice there, which Greg says could have been deleted, but whoever it was can still be heard since he bled into the microphone.

Nick analyzes the microphone and finds some trace from the gumdrop.  This is what was in Arnold's rider.  The particles in the xylitol dissipated at a particular time, so they showed he was at the CS at the time of the murder, Arnold was angry at Lex for making him stay in the background, so he killed them both.  Brass gives her the recording of Lex's song.

Wasn't this ep similar in plot to the ep 14.15 Love For Sale, where the reverend had a daughter who was working at the brothel and they thought that he was paying her to sleep with her, until they realized she was his daughter.  Well same thing here and the daughter was also hustling.

It appears that Gene Simmons had to make an appearance on the show sooner or later, seeing as how there have been so many references to rock stars and groups over the years, as well as the number mentioned in this ep.  Greg also mentioning the Hotel California "you can check out anytime, but you can never leave."

Obviously, it was apparent who the killer was since it's always the quiet ones, so to speak.  He was rather dismissive of his 'friendship' with Lex and also how he was just plain boring, so of course he had that whole jealous streak going.  As for Lex, well his chance to play a DB in this show.  You may recall Paul Greene from NCIS ep, 6.16 Bounce, when he was DiNozzo's (Michael Weatherly) lookalike, the one Tony put away for murder and got the wrong man.  He was meant to have been dead at one point in the episode, but turned up alive and well.  I'm sure Tony let him go at the end with the money that was stolen.  Anyhoo, digression! Ha. (A fave ep of mine as mentioned in my NCIS book: My NCIS...available at most online bookstores.)

Then there was the whole interaction and final scene with Brass that Angela had and you knew that was coming since his own experiences with Ellie and not being there for her.  Guess it works both ways, she didn't have to have that sort of a life as she still had her mother.  Brass wanting Angela to get out of hustling and giving her his card to call him anytime.  It's obvious he has a fatherly connection to her and doesn't want her getting into trouble like Ellie, as she's still young.

Oh and what about the big hooha about Finn being an expert in blood and blood analysis at CS, but it's left for Nick to find out what caused the odd blood spatter at the CS itself and at the lab.  Seems like she hasn't done a lot of blood spatter analysis for a while.  Nick eating that gumdrop at the end, yuk, germs!!

http://www.amazon.com/My-Ncis-Unofficial-Unauthorized-Guide/dp/1291032177

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