Greg (Eric Szmanda) drives back to the lab in the rain and Sara (Jorga Fox) calls him to pick up a veggie burger for her, Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) asks him to do the same and a grilled cheese for Finn (Elisabeth Shue). When he arrives back, a sinister looking man waits for him in the rain and serves him! Of course we had to think something more dramatic was about to happen, having known already what the ep was going to be about! Sara and Morgan talk about Greg getting food and Henry (Jon Wellner) thinks he can pick him up some soup too. DB (Ted Danson) walks in to assign another case and it's Sara's turn to go out. She arrives at the hospital with a man barely alive, or seems to be. He was found in the flood channels and his satchel caught him from going out any further. Opening his satchel, Sara finds a bomb inside and it activates.
For what appears to be the longest time holding it, the bomb disposal expert, Anthony (Jason Gerhardt) arrived and helps her to give him the satchel. It's destroyed as a controlled explosion outside and Sara barely gets her legs and her breath back, asking for the bomb parts. At the hospital she processes his fingerprints and receives a match on AFIS, but it's a fake ID, showing the photo of a black man. With a fake address, Snowdrift Drive in Atlanta. Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) asks Sara how she is and it's good to see the old team still have such concern for each other, cos they've been through so much together over 14 years. Sara also uses her App to find out what he's repeatedly saying over and over, saying 'pearl', the rest of it is not clear.
DB introduces Finn to the investigator, Jennifer Rhodes, a defence criminalist from the Innocence Project, she's going to be assisting to investigate a case Greg was assigned CSI on, when he was still new back in 2006. Gus spent 7 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit and Greg is accused of planting the blood evidence collected from Gus and planting it on the crowbar. Finn hates she has to investigate Greg cos she was under the same IA investigation in Seattle and DB investigated her, hating every minute. That's why he assigned her to it and tells her to get over it. Later evidence which wasn't available at the time, Jennifer calls it, 'touch' evidence, identified another suspect who raped women and killed them. Gus was seen as a voyeur and was seen by the women when he peeked it through their windows. It was claimed he took it further with the Vic as she actually reported him to the police.
Finn ignores Greg cos she can't speak to him and he takes that as personal. Greg just wants access to his notes from back then, but he's not allowed to and DB puts him onto desk duty. When looking through the evidence, they see Greg took photos of the bedroom first where the DB was found, then the rest of the house, then returned to the house again. Finn says she processes the serious CS first as well. Then notices that the photos of the crowbar indicate it's been moved in the second picture he took. It also has blood drops on it now. Greg received a sample of blood from Gus to check and eliminate him. They think he returned to the CS again in the bedroom and planted the blood on the crowbar. Yet the question they didn't ask is why he would do that and what exactly would he have to gain, especially since he so desperately wanted to be a CSI out in the field and the trouble he went to, to ensure he made it. Also he was a lab rat before, so if there was evidence planting to be done, sure he'd have had several opportunities there and also in other cases. So as a plot point in the ep, it was a little obvious he wasn't guilty and secondly we all know Greg by now and how he's not a corrupt CSI! Oh perish the thought.
Jennifer notices blood spots on the pavement outside the house in photos, which aren't there in the first photo Greg too. Having decided he's guilty since he head enough time to take blood from the sample tube and also reseal the bag. Wendy was the lab rat who analyzed the evidence and signed that the bag was sealed when she received it. Henry does an analysis of the blood from Gus and says there are traces of EDTA in it, but then it's found in most other things too, including, soap, etc. He wants
Finn to include it in the report, adding he's known Greg for along time and he's the most honest person he knows. Then saying he'll add it to his report himself. Finn replying she will do that too. The blood drops were found to be gravitational. Also there was blood on Gus's handkerchief, found in his pocket, with Finn positing Gus doesn't look like the type to carry one.
They talk with the officer assigned to the case, Yancy Langer (Derek Smith) he said Gus had a nosebleed, which he helped Gus with, putting his hand on his nose and then giving him his own handkerchief. Why would you use your fingers to stop a nose bleed, for all sorts of health reasons. He snuck in to take a look at the DB, since he hadn't seen one before and he tripped, but he put everything back. Thus explaining that's how he repositioned the crowbar. So he was responsible for an innocent man going to prison for seven years. He's sorry but he didn't follow the case and didn't realize what had happened to Gus.
Greg is cleared as we know he would've been, and Finn tells Sara about her own investigation and how she still hasn't forgiven DB for it. She might be new but she cares about him too, which she needs to tell him. She apologizes to him and she knew all along he was innocent but had to remain impartial and go along with Jennifer. So what would Finn have done if Greg couldn't be exonerated. Anyway they go for grilled cheese and she offers to pay for it. Yeah as if that'd make up for it. Also loved how Sara brought him Baklava from the bakery (love Baklava! ha.) Where she also found out what Agakian (Scott Connors) was saying.
Greg also gets to mention Gil Grissom again and how he followed everything he was trained to do, cos he loves this job and wanted to carry on doing it.
Great to see Sara support Greg since they've been through so much and it's so much like a brother/sister relationship with them. She tells him how tough this job is and they've all been under scrutiny before, but before she can say anything else, she's called away by Brass. He's found the hotel where the man was staying. After they went public with his photo on the news. Here Morgan finds his passport, identifying him as Agakian, a US Armenian and Sara finds a flashdrive in the toilet roll, well if he was meant to be a professional, it wasn't a very good place to put it.
Sara finds Doc (Robert David Hall) brought him back to the lab since the hospital weren't able to run tests on him and finds he's got ceramic fillings, meaning he's been in the US for along time. He keeps repeating the same words over and over. They find Agakian planted a bomb at the Mediterranean Casino since Greg is 'picked up' by the new chemist, Terri Royce (Deirdre Henry) to help with some evidence, reassuring him, they've all had their fair share of investigations, asking him if he did it, cos if he didn't then he'll be fine. Greg IDs the mark as a grease mark and finds oil was spilled at the casino. Terri was good, very sassy, being from New Orleans, hope we get to see more of her in future eps!
Sara takes Anthony to help at the casino and she finds there's blood on the fence where it was cut to get into the flood channel. She takes a sample back to her SUV, but doesn't find any results. Officer Mitchell (Larry Mitchell) tells her Agakian is dead. At the hospital morgue, David (David Berman) is greeted by the FBI, who take his DB, as it's their investigation now. They also return to the lab for the remaining evidence and Morgan accesses the password on the flashdrive after Sara tells her to use the address of the fake ID. Agakian was FBI and was infiltrating an Armenian ring. He had to get inside by planting bombs but they were fake. This being determined by Hodges (Wallace Langham) who reconstructs the bomb, much to Henry's disapproval, after first trying to make it go off, using bulbs instead of explosives, the bulbs explode. Then Henry notices the white substance in the tube which should've burnt out if the bomb had gone off. It's not real, so the bomb was never meant to go off.
Agakian planted the first bomb and then was planting the second one when he slipped and fell into the channel. The FBI would've removed the bombs and this would've got him into the ring. But had to abort the investigation now. Loved the banter between Hodges and Henry when Henry tells him of his life flashing moment, when he had dental surgery to remove his wisdom teeth. He had a reaction to the drugs and told the dentists he loved her. Which is more than just an awkward moment for him. He's still got his wisdom teeth. Hodges doesn't tell him about his own experience, preferring to leave that until later.
Was that an indictment on Wendy's ability as a lab rat, seeing as how she didn't check all the evidence and especially on the handkerchief, why dismiss all the evidence like that, it didn't necessarily have to be Gus's, could've been someone else's. Great to see Greg and Sara get centre stage in this ep, but would've been good if Greggie had gotten a much more meatier storyline in terms of getting more screen time, since a frame up was just too pretentious, He'd never do that, as said before. But it did serve to show some friction between Sara and Finn and Greg, for having to do this, which was a little too easily explained away, cos it happened to Finn and she was loathe to do it. Anyway don't much like Finn, she always comes across as smug to me.
Jennifer wasn't bothered about nay personal vendettas and just wanted to get to the truth, even if it was at the expense of a good CSI. Funny Morgan finally getting that veggie burger for Sara who will eat when she gets her appetite back. But shame Morgan wasn't shown to have any words with Greg over his predicament, in the same way he's been there for her in the past, like when she was kidnapped. Greg being frustrated at having to go through this, but as Sara tells him, he's dealt with hundreds of cases since then and won't recall this one.
Recall
CSI:NY doing something similar in season
1.23 The Closer, when Mac had to reopen a case he investigated when a bloody hammer was used to convict a man who turned out to be innocent. turned up.
CSI:NY 7.3 Damned if You Do involved a crowbar, also been done in
CSI in the past, such as
7.21 Ending Happy.
