CSI: Miami - 8.22: "Mommie Deadest" Review

Another case of domestic abuse in this episode, one where the roles are reversed and the mother is the one who hands out the abuse to her children. Delko continues his investigation of the crime lab.

Parent's anniversary is filmed by their son, Cody (Colin Ford) and his mother, Laura ( Fay Masterson) is angry at children breaking the lamp again.   She takes the video camera to film them and is beaten and left to die.   Horatio (David Caruso) posits it's safe to say it was "overkill."  ME Tom (Christian Clemenson) concludes that every blow was fatal and she was swung at from all angles, demonstrating rage from the killer.   Jesse (Eddie Cibrian) thinks she could have interrupted an intruder and Natalia (Eva La Rue) believes he could have killed her.   Isn't that what Jesse just said. Jesse notices a void on the ground, so something was there to stop the blood spatter.   Jesse notices Cody is sad, as sits drawing pictures.  (Which was the clue.)  He controls whatever he draws in his pictures.   Horatio tells him he's a good record for catching the bad guy and it's "highly likely" he'll get him.   Yes, especially when he's talking to him.   Than again Horatio makes promises which he always ends up keeping.

The video caught her husband, Chuck (Mark Moses) laughing with another woman.   Jesse refers to him as the first suspect.   He'd be suspected first anyway since he's the spouse.   Chuck found her and he asks how a grieving husband should react.   (Well he's played many a grieving husbands, twice in Desperate Housewives, alone.)  Jesse tells him if he was lucky enough to be with his wife on their twenty-third wedding anniversary, then he'd tell Chuck how to react.   However, Jesse does know how Chuck feels as he's also lost his wife, who was killed.  (Season 8.17 LA) Reminding us this is still a sensitive subject for him.  The woman in the video was Bridgette (Andrea Bogart) a neighbour and Cody's teacher.   Jesse tells her that her body language reveals more than she's telling when she was with Chuck.   The murder is personal.  

Delko (Adam Rodriguez) checks the bank records of the CSIs.   Walter (Omar Miller) has made numerous deposits, but he's innocent, obviously.   Seriously could he really suspect Walter.   He calls the bank for more info and Calleigh (Emily Procter) walks in; causing Delko to go on the defensive.   So apparently they're on again, after last episode.  Calleigh notices he's stressed.  Bridgette admits she likes to flirt.   Ryan (Jonathan Togo) tells her that Laura's dead now and Chuck couldn't resist her.   Calleigh thinks she more than just flirts.   Bridgette has a test she does when she's worried about parents at home.   She pretended to wipe something off Cody's shirt and realized he's being abused.   Calleigh finds there were reports of domestic violence but no charges were filed.

Dave (Wes Ramsey) notices someone was in the video with the mother, there's a ghost image, which wasn't erased when filmed over.   It's Thanksgiving dinner and the image is enhanced by him.   Her mother forced her daughter, Andrea (Olesya Rulin) to eat from the dog bowl.   Calleigh declares the mother was the monster in the house.   Delko talks with Rebecca Nevins (Christina Chang) and takes issue with what he has to do as part of his job; which doesn't prevent him putting forward Walter as a possible suspect.   Walter and Ryan examine the CS and Walter doesn't find the murder weapon.    Ryan thinks it might have been left in the car and asks Walter to take a look.   Walter suggests they should both take a look and finds blood spatter on the headlight and bumper.   The car made the void in the drive and was moved after the murder.   Chuck doesn't know about the blood on the car and moved it to make room for the ambulance.   Horatio asks why he didn't mention Laura's abusive behaviour before.

Horatio and Natalia question Andrea and her boyfriend, Logan (Nic Roebuck).   She fiddles with a lighter.   Fire calms her and Natalia notices the bruises on her wrists.   She sneaked out to see Logan and her mother handcuffed her to the bed.   Andrea called the police but they didn't do anything.   Horatio notices a glass chard on the floor and checks their shoes.   Logan admits he was there.   Rebecca questions Walter about the money in his account and Walter gets angry at Delko for dobbing him in.   He sarcastically thanks him for watching his back.  He was accused of stealing the diamonds.   We know how Walter hates being accused falsely.  Walter's friend was paying back a loan.  He wants Delko to stay away from him.

Jesse doesn't believe Chuck.   ME Tom finds the COD was blunt force trauma to the head, using a round, 3 diameter object, probably metal.   Calleigh recalls an aluminium bat and Logan plays baseball.   Tripp hopes Ryan doesn't find any evidence implicating Logan as he was only trying to save Andrea from "Mommie Dearest."

Ryan: "It's like the line between Vic and perpetrator keeps becoming blurred."  As they've noticed over past episodes and seasons.   Similar to Calleigh saying they have to investigate all crimes and treat all Vics as individuals even if they are bad or criminals.  Recently seen in the Spring Breakdown episode where Calleigh clearly was more on the side of Alexis who humiliated Courtney, since Alexis became a dead Vic herself.   Logan doesn't know how the bat got in his bag.   He snuck in and dropped the lamp.   Ryan explains Logan would do anything for Andrea.   Andrea confesses to killing her mother.   We don't often see Jesse behind a desk (and won't again).  She admits to hiding the bat in the bag and couldn't leave Cody alone with her when she left for college.  Andrea explains she slapped her and Andrea hit her once.   Horatio knows she's lying since Laura was hit nine times.

Rick Stetler (David Lee Smith) respects Delko who tells him Horatio asked him to look at all the evidence.   Rick adds he has the full support of IA.   One question I always wanted to ask is that if IA are watching the police officers, who checks IA in return? Delko tells him he just wants the glory and looks good on camera, which Rick agrees with.  Delko surmises more than diamonds are missing and none of the CSIs are behind it.  Calleigh watches them from afar so we don't know what else they talk about.   Delko meets with Sully (Brad Leland) and lets him know about the evidence stolen from one of his cases.   There was over a million dollars recovered in heroin, which would have been easy to remove from the evidence locker.   Delko adds the amount logged was less than that.  (See CSI:NY season 3.8 Consequences.)  Rebecca agrees to meet Delko at the marina later.

Natalia questions Cody and tells him when secrets are kept, it's "hard to decide what the truth really is."  It's almost like she suspected him before she found the evidence, as she looks at his drawings.   They're vigilante characters, his family.   She discovers they had a younger brother, Bradley, who died when he was 5.   Again something not mentioned by Chuck.   The COD was determined an accident.   Chuck was away when it happened.  Bradley swallowed lighter fluid.  Andrea admits he wouldn't drink it, their mother killed him.   She was punishing him for burning the carpet, and it was Andrea who really did it.  Natalia says they shouldn't blame themselves, parents should protect children.   Their father was afraid of her and took her side.   Chuck admits it wasn't an accident and she threatened to take the children away if he told.   Horatio says this makes murder a last resort.

Ryan says they're looking for the trace of a killer and believes this was justifiable homicide.   Natalia agrees, they "should examine the evidence and not pass judgement."  Ryan thinks it may not be blood on the bat and Natalia analyzes it to be ink.   Cody killed her.   He left his marker open on the sofa and he left red ink on the bat.   He hid in the garage and heard her shouting about the broken lamp.   He wanted to make her stop and he felt relieved after he killed her.   Andrea told him to keep it between them.   Chuck confesses it was really him and wants Horatio to let him be father for once.  Horatio wants them to talk to the prosecutor and tell their story, he hopes Cody doesn't go to prison.   He's a little young for prison isn't he and surely he won't be tried as an adult after the trauma he's experienced.

Delko arrives to meet Rebecca and a paper blows away in the wind, conveniently for him.   Her car blows up.   Knew that was coming and Calleigh was there too.

Laura handcuffing Andrea so she couldn't see Logan, was done later in CSI season 11 episode House of Hoarders, though here her mother wanted her to stop killing boys.   CSI:Miami likes to delve into domestic episodes, especially ones involving abuse of children and here the roles between father and mother are reversed, with Chuck being threatened with losing the children if he reacts.   So he cowers in Laura's presence.   But if he told the truth about Bradley, she would've got her comeuppance, saving Cody the pain and heartache of having to kill her because no one would do anything for them.   Strange seeing Mark Moses in a role where he isn't empowered and not a killer, as we're used to seeing him as bad guy Paul in Desperate Housewives.   Another reason why he would've been suspected as a killer (ha) other than the fact spouses are the first to be considered suspects in such killings.

Andrea still hasn't grown out of her habit of playing with her lighter, as this was the reason for Bradley being punished and killed the way he was.   She says the fire calms her, perhaps this is what she was doing when she burned the carpet.   It's no wonder Horatio goes to bat (no pun) for the family, especially Cody at the end, as this family has been subjected to so much abuse and terror at the hands of one parent; with the other choosing to be away and powerless to act, or just choosing not to.   Mommie Deadest a play on the title of the book, 'Mommie Dearest' penned by Joan Crawford's daughter, Christina Crawford, about the abusive treatment from her alcoholic mother.   (Made into a movie in 1981 with Faye Dunaway.  No wonder Bette Davis treated Joan Crawford in the way she deserved in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962).)

Good to see Natalia relating to the children, particularly Cody, seeing as she has been a Vic of abuse herself and knows they can never blame themselves for that sort of treatment.   Rick trying to take the glory from Delko's investigation (and so he should).  Have to wonder why Rick shows up now, as he did last time, even when Delko tells him he has Horatio's approval and Horatio said he'd let him in on the results.

Drugs going missing the subject of CSI:NY 3.8 Consequences episode.   Okay so it seems I'm forever mentioning this episode, never mind, it was one of my faves.

Elsewhere Delko continues his investigation of the CSIs and posits Walter as a suspect, yeah he hated so much doing it, that he couldn't tell Rebecca he was still working on it.   Well more likely than not Delko would've named Walter, or Jesse or even Ryan as possible suspects if push came to shove and gives in too readily and easily when Rebecca asks for names.   Then he's so nervous when Calleigh questions him, lest he be discovered.   He was even looking into her financial records, behind her back.  One reason why I never liked his character - he displays very little or no backbone where his friends/colleagues are concerned.  He tars everyone with the same brush of suspicion, even the woman he loves.   Now Horatio didn't teach him that.

Colin Ford played little Sammy Winchester in Supernatural.

Without a Trace 3.3 "Light Years" Review

A woman asks Teddy (David Eigenberg) what’s wrong and he replies he’s not safe there with them, they’ll sense the heat.  He looks out of his apartment window and disappears.

35 Hours Missing
Teddy Cota, 37 works in X-ray at St Andrews; disappeared 2 days ago.  Jack (Anthony Lapaglia) tells Sam (Poppy Montgomery) Teddy liked his apartment warm.  He has x-rays on the wall and a necklace of a star.  The star is the Constellation of  Pleiades. The 7 sisters.  It’s 4,000 light years away.
36 Hours Missing
Danny (Enrique Murciano) interviews Thompkeller (Navi Rawat). She’s a prostitute and he tells her she won’t be needing her lawyer’s number today.  She’s Teddy’s friend.  She heard a noise in the hall and Teddy let a man in.  Viv (Marianne Jean Baptiste) believes her.  Teddy has a girlfriend., Sonya.  Jack is served with divorce papers.
37 Hours Missing
Sonya knew they were looking for them.  Jack took his daughters to the zoo last weekend in Chicago.  Sonya says Teddy knew of her pregnancy.  They’d been together 4 years and he has a private side.  Sam asks about aliens.  He thought he’d been abducted and experimented on.  He spent time at the Clear Skies society, a support group.  
 A doctor tells Martin (Eric Close) all the x-rays are of Teddy’s head.  He has an object in his head which could be a tumour.  He needed more tests and wanted it removed.  If there was pressure on the brain then it could cause erratic behaviour.
Jack receives a warning from Maria’s lawyer.  He has 30 days to sign the papers.  Jack says he needed a process server for this.  She’s trying to intimidate him and he needs to sign.  She’s bringing third parties to testify against him: Danny, Viv, Sam and Martin and Dr Lisa Harris.  She’ll use his affair to make him out to be an unfit parent.  His lawyer tells him she’s been taking notes: when he came home late, missed dinner etc.
38 Hours Missing
Sam and Martin visit the group.  Duncan (TJ Thyne) tells them Teddy’ been here for the last 3 months.  He tells them about the Men in Black because he and Teddy were followed by them into an alley.
39 Hours Missing
The oldest x-ray was taken 15 years ago.  Martin says Teddy thinks the object in his head is an alien implant.  Martin’s done reading on the subject of conspiracies etc.  Martin thinks the Men in Black was a scam. 
Viv has tracked down his cousin, Leo Cota (Raphael Sbarge) she asks if she should check him out.
40 hours Missing
Martin says he became an x-ray tech to keep track of his head.
EAST RUTHERFORD NEW JERSEY
Leo says Teddy read sci-fi comics and watched movies.  He made the stories up from that. Teddy thought someone at the hospital hurt a boy there because of Teddy.  Leo told him to report it.  Danny and Jack talk to Kevin Burke.  He thinks aliens hurt him.  Teddy helped him remember what happened to him.
43 Hours Missing
The Prostitute identifies Kevin’s (Nathan Norton) father as the man who fought with Teddy, Pat Burke (Joseph Hodge).  He threatened him and told him to stay away from Kevin.  Jack says he’s abusing his son.
 The accident occurred at Highway 22, Pennsylvania.  Teddy didn’t suffer any injuries.  In October 13 1978, Teddy was shot.  A bullet fragment was removed from his head and scar tissue was left.  Leo knew.  He shot his uncle to protect Teddy from him.
 45 Hours Missing
He used to abuse him and then started on Teddy.  Viv and Jack argue in the car.  She tells him he should be in Chicago with his children.  He replies his personal life is none of her business.  Then he shouldn’t bring it in to work with him..
Danny brings Teddy out of the old office but he runs back in.  Jack tells him he hasn’t been taken yet,  he loses his temper and tells Teddy he was raped by his uncle.  Danny is uncomfortable with Jack’s actions and tries to stop him from telling Teddy what happened to him.
 Sam watches Jack.  Viv’s okay.  Sam tells Martin she hasn’t seen his apartment yet so she’ll drop by later.


Jack: “Danny’s tracking her down on the job.”  Danny removes his jacket to question her which he doesn’t normally do. Viv and Jack didn’t argue half as much as they needed to just to clear the air and possibly give them a new start. Viv defending Sam – she knew what she was getting into with Jack or was he going back to Maria just as a token gesture after all?
Those looks Danny and Jack passed between each other showing Danny was thoroughly disgusted with Jack’s behaviour for going too far.  Sam asking Jack not to make fun of her, re Pleiades.  See season 2 episode about the kidnapped self-help motivator and she said she’d read his books and commenting on Danny watching the DVDs part was substituted for aliens in this episode.
 As Enrique was in an episode of Star Trek Enterprise  reference could’ve been made to this in passing.  But it would’ve been good to hear all their views on Martin and his knowledge of conspiracy theories and aliens for a fuller picture on their thoughts.
 Sam: “Hello Sci-Fi channel.”
Sam: “Promise you won’t mock.”
Jack: “Can’t make that promise but give it a shot.”  They then get together and mock Martin.  Sam appears to be into astronomy.
Jack :”I can’t believe she’d resort to this…she doesn’t operate this way.”  But Maria does and we saw it coming ages ago; the looks she gave when she saw him and Sam together in season 1. If looks could kill.
Sam: “The movie?”
Martin: “you mean the Government-alien conspiracy…pact between the grey aliens and a secret rebel faction of the government intent on destroying the human race.”
Sam: “Really.”
Martin: “Yes.”  Now the icing on the cake would’ve been if he mentioned Majestic 12.  Using his knowledge from the series Dark Skies to spoof himself.
Duncan: “You’re like the real Mulder and Scully.”
Martin: “yeah, that’s us.”  Yeah also in a fictional sort of way.
You’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve tuned into a conversation between Mulder and Scully circa 2004.  Martin sounding like Mulder there and Scully had an implant.  They must’ve resisted Jack from saying “trust no one.”


Dr Bedford mentions November 1975: 6 men see Travis Bolton get struck by  a bolt of green light from an object in Arizona skies.  November 1939: 3 men including a witness Linda Cortillo transported through her window in New York apartment.  The examples date back to the Incas, Greeks, Myans and are not all myths.  All Mulder territory here.  Spooky!.  I mentioned Linda Cortillo’s abduction in my Dark Skies piece I wrote years back.
Martin: “became an x-ray tech to keep track of that alien implant in his head.”
Sam: “You should be in law enforcement.”
Martin: “..the hours are terrible.”
Sam: “all benefits are pretty good.”  Yes the 2 of them.


 Jack: “Do no speak unless I tell you to speak…next time you wanna hit someone come and find me.”
 Jack: “Call off the whole martyr thing.”
Viv: “me a martyr.  You walk around with the weight of the world on your shoulders…You screwed Samantha and dumped her like garbage.  You go back to your wife and you don’t really make that work.  You recommend me for a job than you take that back…you need to take responsibility for the things you do Jack and grow up.” 
Jack however doesn’t take responsibility as he goes on to blurt out to Teddy what really happened to him.  Danny appears to be disgusted with him too as he wasn’t really tactful but took his anger out on him.
Martin: “Scully you done yet?”  Viv’s desk is still empty. Yet another car accident.  Note Danny lost his parents in a car accident also when he was 11. 

The Closer 7.2 "Repeat Offender" Review

At the funeral of Delk, who died of an aneurysm, Pope (JK Simmos) reveals to all about his being appointed Interim Chief - emphasis being on Interim.  Meaning Taylor (Robert Gosset) will not be appointed Assistant Chief, but will remain a Commander for the foreseeable future.  Also Taylor stands at Delk's coffin for a long time, ruing his aneurysm no doubt before the final appointments were made.  This leaves Brenda (Kyra Sedgwick) shocked along with everyone else.  Gabriel (Corey Reynolds) receives a call about a murder Vic being found in an affluent neighbourhood; that of housesitter, Ashley.

The owners, the Dixons were away on holiday, including their son Jesse (Spence Treat Clark) and what's more there was a suspect right there for them but no one caught on.  In that he could have been connected in some way, I mean, young boy, young DB.  No one cottoned on until they had wrecked the marriage of an innocent man;  professor Alex Banks (James D'Arcy).  Okay I use innocent loosely cos he wasn't guilty of murder but did cheat on his wife.  SO in one universe that'd mean he's paying for it now.

Sanchez (Raymond Cruz) finds there was no forced entry and so the robbery looks staged.  Also only a few items were stolen and most of the valuables remained intact.  Emily Dixon (Mary Page Keller) covered up Ashely's DB as she was dressed in her undies, making it even more viable that she may have been raped and that was the motive behind the killing.  She fell or was thrown from the landing upstairs.  Kendall (Ransford Doherty) says the coroner will have to check for rape and she was lying here like this for 5 days.

Brenda thinks Pope will take care of the audit and make it go away, but of course it's not that easy.  He tells Raydor (Mary McDonnell) to continue since he doesn't want the LAPD subjected to the lawsuit.  Also he had his own agenda he's working to: he wants to keep his job and be made Chief.  He tells Brenda that too.  In that way Major Crimes will continue.  Me thinks it's also cos Brenda was in the running for the Chief's position and the more dirt there is levied against her, the more he'll be in line for the job.  So I agree with Fritz (Jon Tenney) when he tells her Pope is only looking out for himself and doesn't have her back.  He sic-ed Raydor onto Brenda to cover himself and for Brenda to take the fall in the Shootin' Newton murders lawsuit.

So naturally Brenda is shocked for a second time with the audit and Pope wanting Raydor to interview her team.  Thus Brenda sends them on a grid search, with Taylor heading it up to look for the stolen property and to keep them away from Raydor's questioning.  So how long will this continue, she can't keep them away forever.  Provenza (GW Bailey) also suspects there's more going here but Brenda doesn't spill and replies she doesn't know what's going on anymore.

Brenda ad Flynn (Tony Denison) turned up at Banks' wife, Sarah's (Amy Sloan) house who kind of puts him in it when she tells them Alex had an affair with one of his students.  He being a journalism professor, which he later denies to Brenda.  Thus making him look like a suspect since he lied.  She harps on about Alex making her drink extra wine so she'd pass out and he could sleep with Ashley on the night of their anniversary.  Sorry but his wife was such a weak character at one point it looked like she'd killed Ashley.  hey why am I apologizing, she was weak.

Turns out Ashley was their babysitter which is how Alex became a suspect.  When brought in for questioning, Alex admits he drove Ashley home but wasn't having an affair.  Provenza suggests Gabriel searches the dumpsters and replies, "I don't do dumpsters" when Gabriel wants him to help.  He also couldn't bare to listen to Taylor and his moaning any longer.  Provenza decked out in chair, notices a bag similar to the Dixon's luggage.  Inside are items from the robbery, including a laptop, which wasn't reported stolen.  Tao (Michael Paul Chan) works late and finds the laptop was reported stolen from an earlier robbery in the same area.  The owner IDs it as his and his son has just graduated high school, just like Jesse.  See my suspect!

Sarah turns up wanting to speak to Alex and she lands him in it once again, well especially if he had been guilty.  Brenda has Buzz (Phillip P Keene) wire the break room and they watch and listen during their intense conversation, leading to their marriage bust up; he asks Sarah to tell the police he was at home with her since that's what he told them.  He admits he drove around Chloe's house: his former fling.  Don't they know anything said at a police station isn't subject to privilege and they can listen in and use it against them.  Clearly not.  Sarah says they both need a lawyer.

Jesse admits the robberies began as a dare to rob each other's homes but he was no longer a part of this.  He didn't know the others would rob his house otherwise he would have told them of Ashley.  He loved her.  Jesse is a loose end for them and they conclude he'll be their next target.  Gabriel and Brenda convince him to name them.  Come on, did he really think he was doing them a favour by keeping quiet.  Brenda informs him he's a co-conspirator during the commission of the crimes and thus he's also responsible for felony murder.

Pity Brenda didn't get the hint when Raydor told her she'll stay here until she's "ordered" to leave and she didn't want to continue with the audit anyway.  Brenda sends out the team again to arrest the boys and she returns Alex his things.  He remarks on the irony of Ashley being alive if he was having an affair.  Brenda tries to convince him he did the right thing by owning up.  Subtly hinting she's not done the right thing in the Newton case and can't own up.  His marriage is over and he looks at a photo of his family.  Loving James in this.  Initially he plays a cad but can't help but sympathsize with him at the end of the show cos he kept his word to not cheat on his wife.  Oh and he got to keep his Brit accent too, which was written in when wifey said he married her for a Green Card.  James looking like he'd been put through the ringer in this ep.

The team was also seen in their dress Blues and Brenda tells Pope he's fat in his, which is what he wanted to hear.  Yeah he got that way sitting behind that desk of his, ha.

Alex: "...real irony here is if I had actually have been having an affair with Ashley...she might still be alive."
Brenda: "that's the best justification for adultery I've heard in a long time."
Will we get an end to the audit pretty soon and seems Raydor has a soft spot after all, as she's been groomed to take over the spin off  from The Closer, Major Crimes, but I will miss this show.

Supernatural - 1.10: "Asylum" Review

Sam and Dean investigate the goings-on at an abandoned asylum, where Sam is attacked by the spirit of a doctor who worked there. Several patients were treated badly and now they're out for revenge.

Roosevelt Asylum, Rockford, Illinois:  some teens break into an asylum and the police are called out.   One of them talks about the legend which states the place is haunted by the ghosts of patients...  "If you spend the night, the spirits will drive you insane."   They split up, Walter Kelly's (Peter benson III) flashlight conks out.   Later at home, Kelly shoots his wife and himself.

Sam (Jared Padalecki) thinks Dad (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is in California, he calls Caleb but he's not heard from him.   There's nothing in the journal, at least nothing that Dean (Jensen Ackles) can make out, "I love the guy, but I swear he writes like freakin' Yoda."  Well Yoda never wrote a thing.   Sam thinks they should call the police and file a missing persons report.   Dean thinks he'd freak and Sam doesn't care.   He should have been in Kansas but wasn't.   Sam: "he could be dead for all we know."  But we know he's not. Dean doesn't want Sam saying that.   Just like Sam didn't want Dean talking about Mom the way he did in the Pilot episode.  Clearly Dean's Dad's son and Sam's more Mom's son.   There's a message on Dean's phone from "Unavailable: Subject Msg:42-89."  The text message gives them co ordinates.

Sam comments Dad can barely use a toaster, but this confirms he's alive.   But anyone could have sent the message though.   Checking the local paper they find a Walter Kelly killed himself after responding to a call at an asylum.   Dad marked the asylum in the journal.   Sam thinks this is just a job and maybe Dad's not there.   Dean puts his foot down as big brother, it's good enough for him since Dad told them to go and that's what they're going to do.   Dean talks to the other policeman Tom Pickett) as Nigel Tufnell, he's from the Chicago Tribune and on a story.   He refuses to talk to him, so Sam throws Dean out to get on his good side.   Sam was method acting.

They break into the asylum.   In Dad's journal he wrote about three teens breaking into the South wing of the asylum in 1972.  One survived, his friend went crazy.   (When Dean opens up the journal, the wendigo pis is gone, but it was there before.)  Dean thinks something was being kept out or kept in.   Dean: "Let me know if you see any dead people Hayley Joel...ghosts are attracted to that whole ESP thing." Sam doesn't think it's ESP, he has 'strange vibes and weird dreams'.   Dean uses his EMF.   Dean: "Whatever, don't ask, don't tell."  Sam says spirits appear at certain times of the day and Dean adds "the freaks come out at night."  Like them, ha.  

Dean: "Sam who do you think is the hottest psychic, Trish Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt or you."  (Sam of course, cos the others are chicks and aren't real psychics, but just actors names he mentions!) Sam hits him.   Dean: "Kind of like my man Jack in Cuckoo's Nest." (1975)  Where they had a lobotomy and did twisted stuff to people.   Sam thinks it's more like Amityville or the Smurl Haunting.   Spirits drive them insane.   Then Dean mentions Jack again, "kind of like my man Jack in The Shining." (1980)

Sam wonders when they're going to talk about Dad not being here.   It doesn't matter what he wants since Dad could be in trouble.   Dean: "See that attitude right there, that's why I always got the extra cookie." That and the fact Deano is just plain greedy when it comes to food! Sam retorts they deserve answers since it's their family.   Dean has to harp on about being given an order.   Sam hates orders, "so what, we've always gotta follow Dad's orders."  For Dean they have to.  Sam thinks they need to find out more about the South wing and Dr Sanford Ellicott, Chief of Staff (Norman Armour) at the asylum.   Sam sees a shrink, Dr James Ellicott (James Purcell) he wants to talk about Sam who's on a road trip with his brother, they met lots of interesting people.   He's avoiding answering the question and Sam asks about the Roosevelt riot.   The asylum housed the criminally insane and psychotic, they attacked the staff and each other.

Dean comments the patients took over the asylum.   Some of the bodies weren't recovered, including Ellacott.  The bodies were put somewhere meaning angry spirits are about.   They return at night and two more teens break in.  Gavin (Nicholas D'Agosto) wanders off and a woman kisses him, but it's not his girlfriend, Kat (Brooke Nevin).   Dean uses the EMF and Sam films using his camera.   They need to find and burn the bodies.   A figure walks in front of them but they don't see it.   Sam sees a bloodied woman on the camera and Dean shoots salt at it.   She didn't attack them so what did she want.   They come across Kat hiding.  They split up and Dean says when it's said don't enter the place in a horror movie it means just that.  

Sam finds Gavin.   The woman whispered in his ear but he ran.   Dean's torch conks out and someone grabs Kat's arm, taking her into a locked room.   Sam tells her to face it and listen.   It whispers "137." A room number.   They find it and Kat asks if Dean is Sam's boss.  Sam: "No."  (yes.)  The doors of the asylum don't open so they're stuck here.  Something doesn't want them leaving.   Dean finds a patient's journal (Dean utters the all work and no play line again.)   Kat can handle a gun.  Dean didn't call Sam.  Who is attacked by Ellacott.   Dean finds Sam who was lured down there into the basement.   Spirits telling them about Ellicott, extreme rage therapy made them worse.   His logbook shows a hidden room where he worked on the patients.

Sam isn't himself and Dean can hear the wind through the wall.   Sam pulls a gun on Dean and he's tired of taking orders from him.   The salt gun won't kill him but hurt him and fires the gun at Dean.  Sam is normal, he's being honest for the first time.   Dean follows Dad's orders and does what he asks without questions.   Sam: "Are you that desperate for his approval.   That's the difference between you and me, I have a mind of my own.   I'm not pathetic like you."  Dean gives Sam the real gun to use on him which he takes.   Dean: "You hate me that much.   You think you can kill your own brother."  Sam fires but the gun's empty.   Dean knocks him down, like he'd give Sam a loaded gun.  Ellicott lurks in the frame again.   He attacks him, Ellicott will make Dean better.

He throws the lighter into the cupboard and the fire starts; yet Ellacott's body still lurks and doesn't vanish when it's set alight.   Dean asks if Sam's going to try and kill him, "cos that would be awkward."  Sam's sorry for saying those awful things - he remembers what he said and didn't mean any of it.   Sam tells him they need to talk about this but Dean isn't in a "sharing or caring mood."  Well that's Dean for you, he never talks about the deep and meaningful.   Sam answers Dad's phonecall.

Ahh, poor Sam wants to talk about what happened but Dean doesn't and that's cos Dean never wants to talk about anything serious, he just dismisses it or changes the subject.   When clearly Sam needs to get what he said off his chest.   Strangely enough these two only share when they're possessed by something, or not themselves, especially Dean, who did plenty of sharing as the shapeshifter in 1.6 Skin.   Now it was Sam's turn to tell him his thoughts of Dean and his orders, as well as Dad's orders.   Sam doesn't want to follow them.   Also Sam says he didn't mean what he said to Dean, but we know really deep down he does feel that way.   He said as much in 1.8 Bugs, particularly what he thought about Dad and now it was Dean's turn to bite the bullet.  In the sense that everything Dean does or did was just to please Dad cos he's not his own man.   That would irk anyone, let alone Dean.   So he hands him the gun but obviously he wouldn't load it, but Sam goes ahead and shoots it even if he wasn't himself.   There was no hesitation.

At the shrink's, Sam was doing an impression of Dean, not wanting to talk about himself and changing the subject, was it method acting, ha.

The Roosevelt asylum is a real asylum which has been abandoned as it's thought to be really haunted by violent spirits.   Dean calls himself Nigel Tufnell, the name of the lead singer of Spinal Tap.   Hayley Joel is the actor from the movie the Sixth Sense.  Referring to Dad writing as Yoda, from Star Wars (1977) he spoke English in a funny backwards manner.   Lots of references to Jack Nicholson for whom Dean has a penchant and it's not the last we'll hear of him again.   Last episode Dean mentioned the Shining in the context of Sam and his visions and here he mentions it in the context of what the movie was about.

CSI: NY - 1.21: "On the Job" Review

Danny is involved in a shootout with an undercover policeman. The CSIs must find all the evidence to show it was a good shoot. Danny and Mac have words.

Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) and Mac (Gary Sinise) process a CS and Mac believes the killer wanted money.   Jan Knight was DOA and the gun is found.   Danny notices high velocity blood spatter on the wall next to the window.   He hears a noise in the closet and is hit by an assailant.   He pursues (hot pursuit ha) and identifies himself, leading to a shoot-out in the subway.  Danny fires the last two shots and a cop is killed.   Mac takes Danny's gun.   Flack (Eddie Cahill) identifies him as Officer Rodney Minhas (Gilbert Rosales).   Stories of six witnesses are all consistent: a man came down the stairs ran to the middle platform and hid behind a pillar.   He saw Danny and fired twice.   Minhas came down the north stairs and starts shooting at the same man Danny was chasing.

One question I have to ask which no one did here, at least I can't recall if they did, but did no one ask why Minhas was there at the same time Danny happened to be chasing the perp? Seems more than coincidental.   Can't be he happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Danny insists the cop fired at him first.   Flack breaks it up, "I don't want anybody making their minds up about this until we know the facts." Mac asks what happened. He chased the perp in the subway: onto the platform and shoots at him, turns and runs and Danny fired twice.   He's not sure if he hit the perp with both rounds.   Danny: "I followed my training by the book, Mac."  Minhas didn't ID himself.   He was an imminent  threat and he took him out.   Mac warns IAB will want a statement so Danny mustn't say anything until they issue the preliminary report.

Aiden (Vanessa Ferlito) finds a message recorder from an injured civillian who was standing next to the perp.   IAB Chief Hillborne (Joe Morton) wants a statement from Danny.   He has 48 hours before he talks to them.   Only uniforms have privilege detectives have no right.   Danny is insistent he has nothing to hide.

In story 2 Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) investigates a DB found in toilets in Central park.   Sandra Lopez, 19.   Matrice (Noureen DeWulf) and Glenda (Kimberly Dooley) were nannies.   EMS says the Bureau of Child Welfare is locating parents.   Stella processes Daniella, the baby who will be released when parents arrive.   Hawkes (Hill Harper) finds blunt force trauma to her head and a single blow.   Granular matter in the wound checked under autopsy scope coming up with feldspar, quartz, mica on a granite shaped rock.   Evidence of burn trauma with singed hair in nose and throat.   Sexual assault kit is positive.   A print is found on the rock but there's no match to anyone.

Hawkes removes a round from Minhas's shoulder, which wasn't fatal.   The second one entered his ribs and bled to death.  There's no way to determine who fired the fatal shot.   On the recorder shots are heard from three sources, one voice is heard to say, "undercover, I'm on the job, don't shoot."  Then Danny's shots are heard. He fired after Minhas identified himself.   Who was going to hear his ID through all that noise and commotion.   He may as well have flashed his badge.

Bullets are recovered from the pillar.   The perp fired twice and hit a civillian.   Minhas has hit the wall near Danny and the round is recovered.   Danny fired twice, one in the shoulder and one round is missing.   Danny leaves hospital.   Aiden looks at the platform and Mac takes Danny off the case.   The audio tape story doesn't match the witnesses.  Mac: "Evidence is damaging to you."  Danny didn't hear anything.   Mac thinks the missing bullet is the one that killed Minhas.   Danny needs to call a lawyer and talk to someone and  Mac didn't mean IAB.   Flack says the bullet that skip-marked could have been fired by Danny or the perp.

The Myerson's butler tells Stella how Sandra was acting strangely.   They had a robbery a month ago where a nesting doll was stolen and then anonymously returned.   Bartender does some firebreathing at the bar named Steve Dark (Chris Tardio).   She came onto him and breathed fire but couldn't' do it.   His DNA doesn't match the rock.   Hawkes runs the DB through the system.  Sandra was a thief and Chad (Chad Lindberg) finds an address fro her.   A blue sapphire necklace was stolen and there were prints on the jewellery box.   They tried it on, jewellery went missing and Sandra was blamed.  

Aiden finds a bullet in the stair without any blood.   The round is matched to Danny's gun.   Mac concludes Danny killed Minhas.   His round wasn't found.   Danny talks to Flack and about time to.   He doesn't want to call a lawyer.   Flack: "Don't start taking things into your own hands, listen to me."  He and Aiden are returning to the apartment to look for answers.   Danny still believes it was a good shoot and he has to do something about it.  

Flack demands he should stay quiet and let Mac handle it.   Danny: "Mac's worried about the reputation of the unit."  He's always worried about the rep of the unit but in this case he was also worried about Danny though he didn't say as much.   Flack: "You're wrong, he's got your back."  Danny is too busy wanting to defined himself, er that's what lawyers are for.   Flack tells him to trust the system but he knows what the system is like.  Wonder what that was about, Danny's gripe with the system obviously relating to his past, but we're not told anything further.   Flack: "Don't hang yourself Danny."

Stella finds there's no match to the prints in the system but those of Glenda are found in AFIS for robbery at Matrice's employer's address.   She asks for a lawyer and Stella wants her prints.   She checks the nesting doll for prints and there's a match to the stone of Matrice's prints.   They steal from each other's houses and leave prints at each other's homes.   All wiped clean but one.  She took the doll and Glenda wiped it down.   Sandra put it back, she confronted Sandra.   They were all trying to make money for health insurance.   Stella tells Mac the baby is everything anyone could want.   She's the strongest person he knows.  Yet throughout all this she didn't ask how Danny. She was too busy worrying about her own case and feelings for the baby.

Three men were in the room and one bled badly.   Knight pulls a gun and the perp takes the bullet.   Aiden says the window was open and the bullet is outside in the tree.   Mac finds the through and through was positive for blood.  Bullet in the tree was fired by Knight's gun.   The blood spatter matches the bullet.   Minhas was the mystery man from the apartment.   He was shot here so Danny didn't kill him.   He took another entrance down the block.   There are tickets on the car and blood on the pavement.   Minhas was the driver and was in the apartment with the perp.   Flack runs the VIN.

Danny followed procedure and tells his story to Hillborne.  The preliminary account of his statement is inaccurate.   Minhas's behaviour was irrelevant.   IAB will review if he's fit to be a policeman.   Mac gave him an order not to talk.   He had findings clearing Danny of the shooting and any responsibility in Minhas's death.   Their info will be useless in his defence.   Michael Armstrong (Maurice Compte) is the registered owner of the car and a gun is found in the apartment with his prints.   Armstrong hid in the closet.   Minhas wasn't trying to help him he was trying to kill him.  

The DA refuses to prosecute Danny.   Mac tells him you don't win in this situation.  IAB isn't calling it a good shoot, just there isn't enough evidence to prosecute.   Mac: "There's two things I wanna say to you....one I thought I'd never tell you.   I was strongly discouraged against hiring you."  The decision was Mac's to hire him and he followed his gut.   Danny is adamant he can account for every second of the shooting.   Mac says he can't cos Mac can't account for it.  He's off the promotion grid.   Mac gets a call from Hillborne.   So who was bad mouthing Danny, not so that we knew.   There must have been some Tanglewood connection here with Danny's past but it wasn't explored nor was it mentioned again, so really there was no point mentioning it just for the sake of this episode.

At least Flack showed he was there for everyone, especially Danny, but he chose to ignore his advice. So much for talking to him.  He went 'rogue' and decided to do what he wanted even going against Mac's advice to keep quiet.   But it wouldn't have hurt Mac to have told him he's got his back.   But in a way he did, cos that's why he told him to go home.   How could Danny have given a statement  to IAB without all the facts being in and the evidence too?   It was just supposition without proof and his version of events.   Aiden and Flack were the only ones concerned for Danny. Stella was off gallivanting around, absorbed in her own case.   Nothing new there then.

Appropriate title for this episode stealing whilst 'on the job' and besides, Minhas was a dirty cop which was nicely covered up by IAB.   What happened to the policemen who were running behind Danny in the opening?  They took their time getting to the subway.  Stella only getting the names of the nannies and not their addresses.   Was she going to contact all of them through their employers when she didn't know who they were either?  

The character of Steve Dark in this episode is also the name Anthony Zuiker gave to the character in his Dark Origins digi-novel.

In CSI episode Play With Fire, Gil (William Petersen) defends Catherine (Marg Helgenberger)when her actions affected everyone and he's told by the Director that it's not Gil's job to protect his people but only the integrity of the lab.   Gil: "Without the people there is no lab." Here Mac does have his back but Danny doesn't believe he does.     CSI season 2 A Little Murder Catherine is attacked by a perp hiding at the CS still.

NCIS - 7.18: "Jurisdiction" Review

The investigation of a dead man leads the agents to encounter agents from the coastguard and one of whom they suspect could be Gibbs' female double, cos they're so alike and she's a redhead.

Marines finds a dead diver on the beach.   Tony (Michael Weatherly) checks his desk for the van keys and finds gum, lip balm and change.   Ziva (Cote de Pablo) finds some leftover candy from Valentine's day.   Tony can't resist asking who it's from, it matters since Ziva "didn't eat it, so that person must not mean very much to you."  Ziva replies it means nothing, which got Tony's goat, he's glad he wasn't her Valentine and so is she.   Tony found McGee's (Sean Murray) CDs in his desk, which means McGee should've looked harder for them.   McGee apologizes for not thinking to look in Tony's desk.   Whoever drove the van last, has the keys.   Tony got pizza cos he was hungry, that's nothing new, so doesn't he have his own car to drive now, or the agency car.

Ziva asks where the dumpster is, why's she asking that when she's been here long enough to know.   Gibbs (Mark Harmon) finds the keys on the lift floor and everyone scrambles for them.   Ducky (David McCallum) recalls strolling on Brighton Beach,  with his mother and friends and hates eating snails.   Don't we all.   Palmer (Brian Dietzen) prefers oysters, oh don't mention oysters when Tony's around, who naturally has to refer to them as nature's aphrodisiac.   Back to that again from season 4 and before.   Tony calls Palmer's girlfriend, 'Blondie'.   Her talents don't cease to amaze Palmer.

Ducky finds the DB didn't run out of air, the propeller took his forearm off after he was dead.   Tony: "This was no boating accident."   Richard Dreyfus's line from Jaws (1975) which Palmer also recalls.   TOD was 3-5 days ago.   McGee uses the PDA now and loves that bit.   Ducky finds a puncture wound through his wetsuit.   Lt Jensen (Brody Hutzler) wasn't alone, someone stabbed him and left him in the water to die.   Gibbs doesn't call it an accident.   Tony mentions, "clean, no nonsense, stoic."  When he sees the house.  Gibbs: "stoic."  Tony calls that an understatement.   House says a lot about a man.   Which explains why Tony has an apartment!  A woman sneaks up on Tony from behind, then Gibbs creeps up on her and another man comes up behind Gibbs.  All carrying guns and badges.   Tony comments it's a scene from Reservoir Dogs (1992) .   Only she's cuter than Harvey Keitel.

She IDs them from CGIS (Coastguard Investigative Service) and Tony laughs when he hears Coastguard.   She slaps Kyle (Eddie Shin).   Tony: "nice headslap."  McGee comments they have a wider enforcement jurisdiction.   Tony with yet more jokes, "Yes, Virginia there is a CGIS" and mentions  Corky in Life Goes On.   Tony asks if she reminds them of anyone?  McGee: "Like who?"  Oh come on it's obvious Gibbs of course!    She also drinks coffee.   Gibbs says Jensen is Navy so the case belongs to NCIS.   Recon flights saw the salvage boat adrift.   The Captain's dead and Jensen and the captain were seen at the marina on surveillance.   Gibbs likes to conduct his own investigations, so does she.   She asks if it's cos she's a woman, coastguard or got the drop on Gibbs.   Gibbs doesn't know her.

Ducky comments Davy Jones was after Jensen.  Palmer thinks he's quoting Jack Sparrow.   Already said twice before by Tony in the episodes 1.15 Enigma and 4.14 Blowback.   Ducky quotes Dickens' Bleak House.   Palmer likes Treasure Island personally and used to jump on the bed thinking he was Jim Hawkins, at 23. "The boy's story is the best he's ever told." Gibbs knows that was Charles Dickens.   COD was death by drowning.   Gibbs doesn't believe a master diver could drown but Ducky points out he was injured.   Abby's (Pauley Perrette) not herself today.   Usually she knows when Gibbs is coming, but she didn't know today.   He had rubber from the regulator in his teeth.   The hug didn't help her.   Gibbs tells her not to bang her head cos he needs what's in there.

Tony checks out Abigail Borin (Diane Neal) not in that way but you never know what's going through Tony's head.   It's another Abby.   She's a Sergeant, no spouse, no "little Borin's, it's uncanny: former marine turned surely investigative agent who flies by the seat of her gut."  Well she's not all Gibbs, as Gibbs did have a daughter and has been married 4 times.   Ziva asks how Tony knows all this.   McGee jumps in replying Tony was eavesdropping outside the conference room, their conference room, not the lift conference room.   Tony calls it recon, research, "McTattle.   The law of nature's being violated; matter and anti-matter colliding or something." McGee reads comics.   Ziva wonders if he's obsessed with her, cos she reminds him of Gibbs, or she's attractive.   Tony claims not to have noticed.   Tony not notice a woman's looks, never!  Hey but Tony called her cuter than Harvey Keitel before so how could he not have noticed.  Abigail creeps up from behind like Gibbs and asks 'what'.   Tony: "what have you got" she says, as does Gibbs.

Jensen had a storage facility.    Do they have a problem.   She was an only child from a small Ohio town.   Gibbs was from a small Pennsylvania town.Gibbs says they can connect Jensen to the boat, prints on the boat and blood matched him.   Abigail's outsourced and Molly (Hong Chau) gives them the info about the prints.   Gibbs asks what his people have got?  A large deposit was made into the captain's account.   Tony has a warrant for the storage unit.   Gibbs can't call her Abby!  His girlfriend, Missy (Shanna Moakler) "can't believe he's dead...you mean he's deceased too." McGee gives her a look.  He didn't have much money but told her he'd have some money when he returned.

At the storage unit, Tony finds treasure charts, Calafuego, Tony mentions pirate treasure.   Ziva says it looks like Davy Jones Locker.   Tony remarks Davy Jones used to sing with The Monkees.   Ziva asks real monkeys.   Tony: "I envy your brain sometimes."  Oh Tony is just there to try Ziva isn't he and most everyone else, with his comments just to confuse her even more.   Ah bless him.   As for envying her brain, Gibbs said much the same thing about Abby's brain, well that he needs her brain, not so much envies her.   They were looking for sunken treasure.

Abby heard he was having his own personal problems with ...both are Abby.     E-mails between Jensen and Mavrey, talked about Calafuego.   Abigail doesn't believe in coincidences, neither does Gibbs.   His wife, Andrea Mavrey ( Gabrielle Miller) says her husband is out of the country and has no way of reaching him.   She denies knowing Jensen.   Abigail wants to bring her in for questioning based on her gut.   Just like Gibbs relies on his gut.   Tony now mentions swashbuckling movies, took his time.   Erroll Flynn as Captain Blood, (1935) Douglas Fairbanks in the Black Pirate (1926).   Imagine Gibbs as a pirate, eyepatch, peg leg, parrot on shoulder.   Tony was lucky he didn't get a slap for that.   They would get $250 million if the boat was found.   Mavrey had money to fund Jensen.   Tony links it to the Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).   Mavrey needed money.   Vance (Rocky Carroll) finds Dr Kalsa (Aaron Lustig) never left the country, logged onto his website to perform live surgery.   Tony says you can watch it online if you pay $19.99.

Abby sticks to the original formula.   The coins are fake, there is no treasure and Andrea said she didn't know Jensen.   Tony thinks the widow and the stud diver did it together.   Oh Tony took his time connecting the wife, would've thought she'd have been his first suspect.    Tony: "Ziva did you hear that."  Ziva: "yes I heard the wife did it, oh Tony you are a genius."  But as said he didn't say that earlier, not once did he suspect her at all.   Off he goes again this time with Body Heat (1981), where the wife hired a stud to kill the husband.   He's mentioned this movie twice before too in 3.12 Boxed In and 5.5 Leap of Faith.   He has a a Live Aid T-shirt signed by Bob Geldoff in his locker.  Gibbs: "Yo ho ho."  Tony says it's "time to walk the plank matey."

A private jet was hired to fly to Guam, Kyle gets the coastguard to intercept the plane.   Ducky's alone and depressed, Sophie left him, she wanted to change him and he's back to wearing bow ties again.   From the mould he found Jensen suffered three fractures of his incisors from a seizure.   He bit through the mouthpiece and that's why there was rubber in his mouth.   Ducky explains he was suffering from congenital retention of iron and so he couldn't be a diver.

Abby says they changed the Caf Pow formula which explained her behaviour.   She didn't find anything in the blood.   Abby: "There's something rotten in Denmark."  Paraphrasing Hamlet.   The plane was empty and was a decoy.   Tony mentions the wife's nice pad, he's used to big mansions isn't he, from childhood.   She gives them a sob story, it wasn't possible for him to kill anyone, no cos she did it.   Medical records show Navy doesn't have any records about a liver condition.   It wasn't Jensen but Mavrey who had seizures as a boy and a liver disorder.   Jensen is Mavrey.   He embezzled for the treasure hunt.     Abigail asks who Bogey is.   (Humphrey Bogart was in the Treasure of the Sierra Madre.)  When Tony mentions the Treasure of the Sierra Madre again.   Missy bought two tickets to Mexico and he never showed up.   Vance thinks cooperating with sister agencies produces great results and Gibbs agrees.

Ziva and Tony watch a movie together.   Tony says Ziva doesn't have any friends, but she does.   So why is she with him on a Friday night watching a movie with him.   Ziva says he's her friend.   Tony: "really."
Ziva: "No." Tony's date cancelled, so did hers.   The way these two just make things up don't they, just like when they told McGee the wrong story about who slept where in Paris.   Good episode especially now they've got a female version of Gibbs, even dresses almost the same with the long coat and everything.   Of course Tony had to notice the similarities straight away, he's so into that kind of stuff.

Notice Andrea Mavrey's house is Jenny Shepherd's (Lauren Holly) house.   The team also had doubles/doppelgangers in the season 2.12 episode Doppelgangers, only this time round, Abigail is more like Gibbs, albeit she's a woman.   Tony paraphrases, 'Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus' at the beginning.

CSI: Miami - 8.21: "Meltdown" Review

The CSIs investigate a bank robbery where a man is killed, leading to the proceeds of the robbery being stolen from the Miami-Dade evidence lock up. Delko is sent to investigate in secret with Horatio's approval.

A man buying a ring is killed when the jewellery store is raided.   One of the robbers take the ring from his hand, which is unusual.   They pass Horatio (David Caruso) on the bikes when he's in pursuit, but they didn't just disappear.   Tread marks on the road reveal they drove into a truck.   They did a u-turn and doubled back, Ryan (Jonathan Togo) suggests they rode onto something.   Calleigh (Emily Procter) can't find anything wrong with the SUV.   Jesse (Eddie Cibrian) says it was used to block the road and it's been stripped of the VIN number.   Jesse asks if Calleigh's okay after she sees Jake (Johnny Whitworth) in the crowd.    Jesse notices the VIN plate on the ground.   Calleigh wasn't looking for it.   No she was too busy wondering what Jake was doing there.   Well he could only have been undercover, yet he appeared to be a suspect the way he vanished.

Inside the store, Tripp (Rex Linn) wonders how they managed to open the display cases as the manager, Leonard (Tim Russ) has the only key.   They left behind the expensive pieces.   Tripp thinks it could be an inside job.  Natalia's (Eva La Rue) hearing aid attracts her to a device hidden in the plants.   ME Tom (Christian Clemenson) finds trace under the Vic's fingernails.   He's clearly upset at his life being taken like that and the ring being stolen too.  "Snatched from his dying hand."  Tripp identifies the device as a signal jammer, it blocked the feed to the wireless surveillance cameras.   A woman outside looks for her boyfriend, Ben (Christian Campbell) and ME Tom scraped his nails for trace, outside the store in public.

Walter (Omar Miller) identifies the trace under the Vic's nails as latex.   Tripp follows up on the VIN number which leads to an address and to a truck, stepping on the diamonds, which have been discarded outside on the ground.   Shots are fired and inside the building they find Jake has shot one of the robbers, Joe (Celestin Cornielle).   Jake was recruited for the heist and they found out he was a cop.   He claims self-defence.  Jake drove the truck and they threw the diamonds away as the serial numbers could be traced back to them.   Jake left the VIN number for the CSIs.   Horatio says the trail hasn't gone cold yet as they still have the diamonds to follow through on.

Ryan discovers the seal on the evidence box containing the diamonds is broken and one of the envelopes is missing.   Walter looks at the chain of custody.   They were logged in by Calleigh and checked out by Ryan, who says he put them back.  Orlansky, (Rashawn Underdue) the officer on duty, confirms Ryan did put them back.   Ryan: "Somebody stole the stolen diamonds."  Question being couldn't that somebody have waited for the investigation to be completed before they charged in.   The fingers would point to Ryan after he's been in so much strife since he got here.

 Rick Stetler (David Lee Smith) (never far behind) wants the cameras fixed as the signal was jammed by the device, which Walter turned off.   Walter is adamant he didn't do it.   Now it's his turn to be fingered as in the next episode too.  Rick wants to handle the investigation, but Horatio puts his foot down as he always does with Rick.   It's Horatio's lab, his investigation, but he'll share the results.

Ryan and Natalia process Joe's clothes and there's a mark under the blood stain.   Natalia finds a memory card which has photos of the store.   The robbers could have made a key using the photo.   The photos were taken from opposite the store.   It's a real estate office owned bu the Vic, Ben Rooney.   His girlfriend Kayla Pennington (Kathleen Robertson) says he was there to buyher an engagement ring.   They believe Ben was casing the store, but she's the more likely suspect to me - she knew him 3 weeks yet agreed to marry him, that was an obvious clue.   Besides now that he's dead she can also say anything.   Calleigh wonders what she's not saying.

Horatio says boric acid is used in metal casting, the diamonds were removed from their settings, so they wanted the gold.  Jesse mentions Spano (Kevin Weisman) who is a fence and Horatio asks him on info about the gold, which increases in investment.  They need to widen the net.   Horatio doesn't agree to a deal with him.   "Poof, take him." Horatio wants the FBI called.   Delko (Adam Rodriguez) arrives for the signal jammer, he's always been on their team.   Natalia says Delko is the one who's causing her hearing aid "freaking out when he walked in."  He's spying on them.   Natalia reminds him she was a mole in the lab for the FBI and he's wearing a wire.

 He's been working on the evidence for months.   That's news to us, as this was a way for his character to be brought back permanently, worse luck.   Small amounts were missing.   Horatio knows what he's doing and Delko volunteered for the gig as he could protect the team.   That's why he's here, he can go through the recordings from his wire first.  He's so caught up in the job that he didn't even tell Calleigh, so I ask would he really suspect her?

Delko questions Jake who accuses him of being jealous.   GSR  containing mercury was found on the signal jammer.   Jake isn't the only one who uses those bullets and asks if Delko's working for IA now.   Delko also accuses Jake of stealing the diamonds and Jake replies he nearly got killed for his efforts.   Delko thinks he's been undercover too long.   Jake gave them the signal jammer so the GSR would have been already on there.   HE also adds that until Delko goes undercover he can't tell him what it's like to be on the job.

Jesse accuses the gang of being 60 second men.   They took only the gold and escaped on the bikes.   Horatio analyzes the photos from the witnesses and  notices they were wearing facial prosthetics.   One of them is Ben's girlfriend, Kayla, she shot Ben, and all of the robbers were female.   Ben was the mark.   Jesse believes he was more than that since if he was just a mark then why didn't she melt the ring down with the rest of the gold.   She fell for him and went back to the store to see if he was alive.   Well he wouldn't still be alive after getting shot like that.   She claims she couldn't shoot him.   Jesse says Kayla isn't a murderer and gives up her partner, Whitney (Tina Casciani) .

 Horatio and Jesse locate her and Horatio finds the gold is being transported as part of the bikes themselves, which Jesse missed when he analyzed one of the bikes in the truck.   Horatio tells her if the shipment had already gone then she'd have left the truck behind.   He's no fool.   Horatio uses a gold pen to check for gold.   Jesse says the gold was hidden in plain sight to get through customs.

Calleigh tells Delko he doesn't need to worry about Jake as he was with her.   Delko being defensive, says it's not about them but about the lab.   Calleigh explains Jake was with her at the hospital to get him checked out, then adds she thought Delko wasn't jealous about their on-again/off again relationship, so guess they're on again.   Delko claims to be curious that's all.   Yeah, pull the other one.   Thus Jake couldn't have stolen the diamonds so much for Delko's accusations.   Walter's use of "poof" too, just like Horatio.

Ryan claims to be going home and they decide on drinks.   Walter's buying.   Natalia changes her mind about going as she has to be in court.   That was a quick turnaround, she was acting a bit suspiciously and now Ryan's going for drinks too.   Did she not want to go as she'd have to sit around with Delko and his 'lies' to the rest of them, but then she can't be that  self-righteous, as she did the same thing too.   Then when everyone found out, she wanted them to trust her.   Where was Jesse, he wasn't invited for drinks, so it was safe for her to go; and no he wasn't stealing stuff from evidence either.

Apparently evidence had been missing from lockers for a while and they've only just got Delko on the case, surely someone had to have been suspected.   Out of the 3 shows, CSI:Miami is where someone or another on the team is always suspected of doing something wrong, and where such bad things actually happen.

In CSI:NY episode 7.18 Identity Crisis, the woman who was a con artist dressed as a man to steal from her marks.   You can see where that idea came from.   In this episode, the robbers were women and wore prosthetics, in CSI:NY, she wore a mask.

The Vampire Diaries - 2.16: "The House Guest" Review

Katherine wants to help. Jenna asks about isobel, and Bonnie and Damon look for the burial site of the witches who were massacred there. Speak of the devil vampire, Isobel arrives.

Damon (Ian Somerhalder) thinks Katherine is Elena (Nina Dobrev) as she's wearing her clothes and then Stefan (Paul Wesley) thinks Elena is Katherine, but she is really Elena.   Katherine thinks it's easy being Elena and they all need her, especially since none of them know what Klaus looks like.   Matt (Zach Roerig) asks if Caroline's (Candice Accola) made her decision or she should leave him alone.   Stefan feels this may be Katherine's only chance to get Klaus.   Damon tries to burn Elijah (Daniel Gillies).  Katherine only tells him afterwards that he can't get the dagger back now and he wonders why she didn't warn Damon he would die if he used the dagger.    Cos Damon would burn her.   She always gets what she wants.   She wanted out of the tomb and knew he'd die, she didn't care.   Stefan wants the Martins on their side.

Jenna (Sara Canning) asks about Isobel.   Elena asks her how they can tell someone what they know.   Alaric (Matt Davis) wants to be with Jenna but can't until he can tell her about Isobel.   Bonnie (Kat Graham) says she's looking for the site of the witch massacre centuries ago and if she can't find it then she can't help.   Emily told her about the witches.   When a witch dies violently, it releases mystical power marking their place of death with this power.   Elijah was looking for this place.   Stefan says Elijah didn't have a weapon to kill Klaus cos he didn't need one.   If the burial site is found, a weapon won't be needed.

Jonas (Randy J Goodwin) thinks Elijah should have killed them.   Jenna and Caroline wallow in their relationship problems.  Sometimes it's hard to tell he truth.   Lukas (Bryton McClure) tries to channel Elijah with a spell and astrally projects himself and finds himself in Damon's cellar and thinks he sees Elijah.   Emily died on the massacre site.   Damon doesn't believe Katherine is being sincere about helping.   She's not lying and she senses a presence.   When she's not around, Damon shows Stefan a passage from the journal.   Lukas removes the dagger from Elijah and Katherine tries to push it back in.   Jonas tells Lukas to kill Katherine.   Damon uses a flame thrower to burn Elijah calling it a "crazy-assed witch attack."  Lukas burns.

Alaric sees Jenna at the Grill.   Matt ignores Caroline.   Jenna can handle whatever Alaric's keeping from her.   Jenna: "Not tonight Ric, tonight I have traded you for Senor Tequila."  Caroline compels the singer on stage to let her sing and does a rendition of Eternal Flame, appropriate for what's happening not only in terms of burnings, but their relationships and ironically, Caroline will always be eternal, ha.   Hey I thought of this song the other day.   Matt kisses Caroline and Jonas attacks Stefan.   Damon stakes Katherine for the dagger, next time he'll put it in her heart.  

 John (David Anders) and Isobel want Stefan and Damon out of Elena's life and made Katherine a deal: killing Elijah would get her out of the tomb.   She could help with Klaus and kill Stefan, the deal was to save only one of the Salvatore's and she chose Stefan over Damon.   Why is that not surprising that Katherine has been making all these deals and counter-deals?   That she would be working with Isobel.   Only last episode she lied about the dagger and also how not killing Elijah would get her out of her tomb.

Bonnie mentions dating Jeremy (Steven R McQueen) to Elena.   He's had pain in his life and he deserves to be with Bonnie, she gives them her blessing.   Katherine knows what to do about Jonas, who wants Elena to get his daughter back.   Elena tells him he doesn't need Elijah.   Matt is hit with a bottle in his neck by Jonas and Caroline makes him drink her blood.   It's not Elena but Katherine, how many of us weren't surprised with that revelation.   It's too common an occurrence not to happen.   She kills Jonas and attacks Bonnie.

Damon insists it was Katherine's idea.   They need Elena if they're to take on Klaus.   She's not a threat to Elena.   Alaric loves Jenna but can't tell her about Isobel's death.   Jonas gave Bonnie her powers back and wants her to kill Klaus.   He also told her how to do this.   Damon says the town knew Emily was a witch and Katherine turned her in.   Katherine knows he's lying about the site of the massacre but Damon's not in the mood to take on Katherine. He tells her there are six bedrooms in the house and she should use one.   Yes six rooms but they all use the same one bathroom!  Caroline's blood healed Matt: she's a vampire.  Vicki knew.   Isobel returns.

Seems funny that Jenna wanted the truth from Alaric and she didn't get it from him, but Isobel turns up and that came as a shock, even to Elena.   Plenty of shocks, twists and surprises this episode too, would an episode be complete without them.   It seems Matt finds out what happened to Vicki and he's the last one to know, as well as who or what Caroline is.  

Funny Alaric was being honest about Isobel being dead and she arrives on his doorstep.  What was Jenna meant to think, duh, he was lying.   She probably thought Elena was keeping this from her too.   Damon is responsible for many deaths on this show, or he wouldn't be Damon, but the way he used the flame thrower on Lukas was gruesome and what a way to go, being burned like that and he wasn't even a vampire.  

Not one death, not two, but three.   Jonas also gets killed (so much for wanting to kill Klaus by themselves).   Another plan falls by the wayside (as they so often do).   At least Jonas gave Bonnie her power back and told her about the witches' burial site.   Damon finally tries to burn Elijah's body this week, but that was a bit too late, then telling Katherine to find her own bed (he wouldn't have done that centuries ago!)  It seems Damon may have been peeved Katherine chose to save Stefan over him.   Yes Katherine, many of us were!

Katherine can't really be trusted considering she's done so much back-stabbing (pun intended?) always putting herself first and just plays everyone against each other.

Lie To Me - 2.10: "Tractor Man" Review

Cal and the team must prevent a disgruntled farmer from detonating a bomb and at the same time, determine if he has a real bomb on board his tractor. But he has an accomplice.

A farmer drives up and parks his tractor with a trailer in tow outside the Treasury building, demanding to speak to the president.  Cal (Tim Roth) has a group of school children at the Institute and gives them a talk on lying, in an attempt to determine who stole the class turtle.  He wants the culprit to own up instead pointing the finger cos he can do that anyway.  He introduces Ben (Mekhi Phifer) as an FBI agent but he needs Cal and Gillian (Kelli Williams) urgently.  Eli (Brendan Hines) is left in charge of the children.

No one can leave the building since it's safer inside but everyone needs to be kept away from the glass.   Cal examines Harold's (Sean Bridgers) face closely by use of the cameras and doesn't believe he shows signs of bomber anxiety.  Ben's boss, Steele (Miguel Ferrer)  arrives and suspects there is a bomb on the tractor as ammonia readings have been picked up.  Cal wants to be in charge since it's his call.  Harold has a wife, Mary (Jennifer Irvin) back at the farm and his son.  Ria (Monica Raymund) and Agent Irving (Sean Blackmore) are sent there.  Mary doesn't believe Harold could set off a bomb and Ria picks up on her fear.

Eli can't seem to keep the children entertained or focused so Cal suggests he should get out his guitar.   Steele wants snipers placed and Cal has to distract  Harold, who tells Cal the bomb will explode of anything happens to him.  Harold isn't lying but he too shows signs of fear as if someone else is pulling the strings, or is holding a gun to his head and Cal knows what that's like (re his past.)  Ben notices the explosives on the seat  which weren't visible before.

Ben also finds the 911 caller who called in the threat is Ron Jackson (Ronnie Steadman) and he too has a farm, which Ria and Irving check out..  In the barn, blasting caps used for explosives are found.  Gillian listens to the end of the call and  and posits there was joy in the caller's voice since when you smile, this is visible in your speech.  Ben wants to use a water disruptor on the tractor which will help to limit the effects when they detonate.

Harold admits Mary is being held and he was forced to do this.  Ria is warned about Dave Miller, (Sam Littlefield) the man also at the farm and she stalls him long enough for Irving to arrest him, after Ben calls him.   Oscar overhears Steele talk about the bomb and Cal admits there is a bomb but he has to keep this secret from his friends.   Oscar later acts strangely and Eli tells him a about story about being in love with a girl from the sixth grade.  He wrote his feelings down in a song and gets Oscar to do the same.  He smiles.   Their teacher, Miss Angela (Felicia Day) admits she's afraid and Eli does too.

Jackson's phone is located to a downtown hotel and Cal tells Ben what to look for since he'll be disguised, but ends up accompanying Ben.  They spot the white van with the bomb and search the crowd.  Cal spots Jackson and asks him about Harold and he opens up his phone.  Cal gives the signal and Jackson is shot.  Eli and the children sing about white lies, which Gillian listens in on.

Jackson was going to tell Harold how to disarm the bomb and he's willing to sacrifice his life to save others.  Harold says goodbye to Mary and Ria plays the video of Dave being questioned and Cal sees he's lying about the bomb.  Cal agrees to go out alone and rescue Harold, which he does and opening up the trailer he finds it full of corn.    Cal is actually pleased with Eli's actions and their teacher plants a kiss on Eli.  The turtle thief confesses and Cal tells her he'll have a job for her here.

Plenty of character dynamic in this ep with Ria out of the office, even if it appeared convenient for the purposes of the storyline.  Eli entertaining the 'troops' and Cal had to venture out too and take risks with his life, as well as Harold's.  Cal not being certain again at times if there really was a bomb or not but he did put himself in the firing line to rescue Harold.  Luckily Emily wasn't around to see this since he promised her in Secret Santa he wouldn't put himself in that position again.  More reference to Cal's 'secret' past when he says he knows what it's like to have a gun held to his head.  In the Secret Santa episode he mentioned his stint working for MI6 in Bosnia and also suspect he may have found himself in a similar position in Ireland.  Gillian took a back seat in the ep as she was relegated to the background.

Guess Eli had to get a song in since he sings and writes his own songs under The Brendan Hines.  This one wasn't written by him.  He released an album of his own songs in 2008, entitled, Good For You Know Who.  "...everybody does it because it feels all right and it's more polite, but a lie's still a lie even when it's white..."

Like Cal's arguments with Steele for saving Harold. Even Ben ended up arguing with him since Steele was so hasty and so establishment in his eagerness to react.  Don't know what was going on with Jackson and the 911 call, since he could have exploded the bomb and gotten away with it instead of using Harold as a distraction.  What was the point of focusing that much attention on Harold?   Also it appears Eli has forever been enamoured with girls, going back to sixth grade!  Though he does get a kiss out of this scenario. Who was jealous?

CSI 12.14 "Seeing Red" Review

Nick (George Eads) and Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) are about to tuck into a burrito when a car crashes into a billboard trailer.  They pull the driver from the car and Nick discovers he has GSW to his head and abdomen.  Wanted to ask what Morgan was doing out with Nick but guess they were on a work break, slash that to eating break and besides they're not going to be an item.  If they were then she'd have gotten her wish to be with Nick, alone ha.  Mind you she doesn't want Greg (Eric Szmanda) either.  That burrito looked horrid and they didn't even get to eat it.

The driver, Wes (Jesse Mccartney) tells Nick, "they're bleeding, they're dying."  So he recalled that as an immediate event but nothing else.  Hey look a cast member didn't get to say the last lines before the opening credits. Nick asks the nurse for his clothes and Doctor Stewart (Michael Bryar French) and nurse call him "crime lab."   DB (Ted Danson) arrives with a shirt for Nick since he's all bloodied and tells him he did a great job.   The nurse, Lauren (Nazanin Boniadi) brings him the Vic's clothes and the bullet recovered from Wes's abdomen.  She comments on how Nick's done this before and Nick replies, "more times than any person should have to."  Hey she's a nurse, sure she's in the same position too, so what a comment for her to make.  Also whenever our Nicky is around a woman they always have him acting a little weird in the sense of maybe this'll be the one for him and sometimes some flirting is thrown in.

Morgan  finds the car belongs to Elena.  There's no GS or high velocity blood spatter anywhere and Sara (Jorga Fox) concludes he wasn't shot in the car.  Vartann (Alex Carter) discovers Elena is missing.  Wes has no memory of who shot him but has bruising on his hands.  His parents say he has friends and he lives at home.  His father, Jonah (Philip Casnoff) doesn't recognize Elena and comes up with a comment that Wes wouldn't hang out with someone like her.

Henry (Jon Wellner) cuts out pieces from the shirt to analyze for DNA and finds there were three other Vics involved, including Elena.  One was a match to her brother Juan.  DB knows someone who can help, a blood whisperer, "sometimes blood is all you need."

He goes to recruit Finn (Elisabeth Shue) at a forensics seminar and calls her "Jules" which she hates and not in front of other people either.  DB: "of all the mock crime scenes in all the world..."  Paraphrasing Casablanca. She knows how it ended last time, which isn't a comment to a romantic past since DB loves his wife and wouldn't do anything like that, so it has to be about a past case since at the end he says she's been out of the game for a while now.  DB purposely leaves behind an envelope  for her.  He also says that playing the Vic means she misses him or not.  When she had that wig on and was playing the Vic that hair resembled Catherine,  don't know if that was just an oversight or if it was meant to have been staged that way.

Wes will only talk to Nick, as any Vic would and he recalls a man in a room with a gun and he tried to fight him.  Flashes to a bloody man and woman.  The way their heads twisted round was just like the heads twisting from the Master when he all the people on Earth changed into him in Doctor Who.  David Tennent's final episode.  Wes also remembers another woman and Nick gives him the pendant he carried in his pocket.  Her name is Vicky (Sarah Dumont).  Greg analyzes the bullet and matches it to a liquor store robbery.  It has Wes's DNA and an unknown female donor.  Sara calls it a through and through as the bullet went through her.

Finn turns up and lays down some ground rules: 1.  call her Finn.  2. they're never going to talk about the past.  Hey this is CSI the past is always mentioned here.  3.  Needs a safe word for when DB gets all Zen-talking.  This being 'stop.'  He gives her $1 consultation fee.  She asks for the best DNA mind around which is Greg of course.  She tells Greg that blood spatter can also help reconstruct blood events, which is what she does.  There was a struggle with a man, leading to blunt force trauma.  Elena was also fighting with Wes and Juan fired though Vicky.  They assume Wes is innocent in all of this just cos he appears to be a Vic and never for a second think he could be the perp.  Also since he was probably left for dead.  Well that part was right.

Vartann ran a web search on Vicky and found photos of Jonah with Vicky, his former PA.  So they were probably having an affair.  She then chased Wes as his mother, Leslie (Mary Page Keller) thinks and Sara asks her if she thinks someone else could be signing her cheques, such as her husband.  Jonah tells DB that Wes was driving the Bentley as it's at the scrapyard, when DB tells him it crashed through Vicky's wall.  Greg shows Hodges (Wallace Langham) some coats and he thinks they're new lab coats.  They're work smocks from Elena's car and Vicky's apartment.  Hodges: "Laverne and Shirley go femme fatale."  He analyzes for trace.  Morgan finds the phone records of Elena, Juan and Wes and pinpoints a business park.  Here they find Vicky and Elena's DBs.  Elena's face is beaten up and Vartann comments that he knows someone who can help, i.e Juan.

David (David Berman) finds TOD was 18-24 hours ago and Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) says same as Vicky.  Nick says she bled out but Elena wasn't so lucky as David discovers every bone in  her face was crushed.  Nick finds the weapon and says, "what happens in Las Vegas kind of stayed on Las Vegas" and Sara raises him as if a bet.  Wouldn't expect those sorts of lines from them.  Sara notices the print is from a workboot and they follow it out to find tyre treads, as well as red paint transfer and crusty white substance.  Hodges finds it's sodium bicarbonate and the paint was royal crimson red from a 1950's Austin Healy.  Soda blasting is used in auto shops before a car gets a paint job.

Juan makes a run for it as expected and Vartann gets a chase scene as Juan runs into the police car.  Morgan comments maybe he can fix the dent before they take him in.  Finn reconstructs the CS and finds Wes had the gun.  Juan fought him and Vicky and Elena tried to intervene.  Juan fired though Vicky and hit Wes and then shot him and ran.  Elena had 10-12 blows to the head and there's a knee impression in Elena's blood from Juan.  Juan wasn't the trigger.  Juan was in trouble all his life and the one time Elena needed him he couldn't help her.  It was obvious Wes did it. DB tells Juan he's got a smart friend who is his friend too. referring to Finn.

Nick tells Wes he hurt them all.  Wes replies he doesn't know the man who did this and Nick agrees with him.  DB offers Finn a position and she'll think about it.  She returns his dollar and will call him maybe.  DB: "maybe I'll answer."  She writes his name on the envelope, "Diebenkorn" and no one is meant to know that.  So how come she knows his name and no one else doesn't.  Also at least we got his name revealed.  They could have had us guessing what is was for a while.

Hey Vartann returns after Catherine's left, a bit silly he wasn't in her last episode. but think it was must be the ultimate compliment for Michael Vartan to have a character named after him in CSI.  (See my Celeb Style Icons Blog) since Anthony Zuiker's wife is a big fan of Michael's.  Pity they didn't get him as a guest star in an ep!!

CSI has had many episodes where the amnesiac doesn't recall whether they did it or not and in this case he was guilty.  CSI:Miami 7.12 Headcase where an amnesiac was found wandering the street.  Also CSI:NY 7.3 Damned If You Do where a mother suffers amnesia after being beaten and the CSIs think it was her son.  hey Hodges always comes up with some throwback to an earlier age reference, this time Laverne and Shirley, maybe his mother watched that too.  I recall that show.

 At least Elisabeth looks to be a good replacement for Catherine and her character was subdued especially since she could have been more gung ho in her first appearance and a bit too full on, luckily she wasn't and it seems like she really cares about her work and was moved when DB mentioned Juan having her as a friend who helped him out in the end.

Desperate Housewives - 8.4: "School of Hard Knocks" Review

Susan decides to take a painting class, Danielle returns home, Renee suggests Tom is having an affair and Gaby is in yet more strife with the PTA at Juanita's school.

Mary Alice: "It is often said that children learn their most important lessons outside the classroom...master the art of conversation..but for Gaby Solis the art of morning drop-off was something she never learned."  Gaby (Eva Longoria) drops off Juanita (Madison De La Garza) and lets her out before reaching the drop off point.   She is faced by Dana (Beth Littleford) who removes Gaby's drop off privileges.   If Gaby can take the placard from her then she can have it, but Gaby can't reach it.   Mary Alice (Brenda strong) "Some of our most important lessons are learned outside the classroom and when it came to school politics, Gaby's education was just beginning."

Mary Alice: "When it came to her separation, Lynette Scavo was determined to do everything by the book...kept perfect records of her household expenses...convinced her by the book approach was the right one." Tom (Doug Savant) and Lynette (Felicity Huffman) are considering counselling to find a way to reconnect.   Renee (Vanessa Williams) wonders if that's the case then why does Lynette dress so awfully if she wants to win him back.   Tom's whitening his teeth and working out and Renee thinks he's having an affair.   Lynette thinks he's taking care of himself and she's not.   If he was dating he'd tell her.

Bree (Marcia cross) checks the mail and fears another letter.   Gaby doesn't believe whoever sent it is good at blackmailing them.  Gaby also believes Susan (Teri Hatcher) is acting normal now and she couldn't be further from the truth.   Danielle (Joy Lauren) arrives, her husband, Leo has left her.   Susan needs to know if Mike (James Denton) still loves her and he replies there's nothing she could do to make him stop loving her.   He's just relieved she's not having an affair.   Susan wants things back to normal, which is what Gaby just said.   Mike tells her it won't be easy since things like this just don't disappear, he's done things like that.  She wants to attend a painting class and they decide on no more secrets between them.   Now if they could tell Tom and Lynette that.

Gaby has to walk Juanita to school from the B parking lot and the other mothers, Melissa (Lindsey Stoddart) and Rachel (Jillian Armenante) talk about Dana, who is in an elected position.   Gaby didn't vote for her cos she doesn't vote.   She wants to storm the PTA meeting like Braveheart, or the 300.   Andre Zeller (Miguel Ferrer) looks through Susan's portfolio and she confesses she's a fan.   He doesn't see her illustrations as art, which is about, "tearing guts out and smearing it all over the canvas" and calls her a bored housewife, which was a mistake.

Bree wants to talk about Danielle's future and tells her she turned into an alcoholic sitting in the chair after her marriage ended.  (Oh could the blackmailer be Danielle? She turned up conveniently and in need of money.)  She needs start-up money for exercise equipment she designed.   Tom's taken to protein shakes for lunch and Lynette confirms their appointment with the counsellor.  Gaby attends the PTA meeting for freedom and to oppose Dana.  Dana gives Melissa and Rachel their placards back and Gaby now has to park in the C parking lot;  which was over doing it.

Renee finds Danielle has been selling a fantasy 'sex swing,'  which she buys too.   Lynette buys Penny (Darcy Rose Byrnes) a tablet so she can spy on Tom via webcam when she's over there.   She sees him with a younger woman, Chloe (Ruby Lewis).  Susan shows Andre her painting of a lone tree.   He comments the tree is lonely like Susan cos there's no more Oprah.   Susan is shallow and so is her life and she's afraid of ugly.   She knows what ugly is and Susan lets rip when she loses it with the canvas and paint.   Bree tries out the equipment not knowing what it's for.   Danielle accuses Bree of always judging her.

Mike tells Susan, "It's not going to go away, it's a part of you."  It's like he doesn't want his dark past to be a part of him but it is.  Susan wants things the way they were.   Bree admits she's not perfect and has no right to be critical and isn't in a position to judge Danielle anymore.   She agrees to become a silent investor.   Susan returns for her portfolio and she's late for class.   Andre wants the 'crazy woman' here all the time.

Lynette wants to spy on Tom.   Renee: "So he can lie to you through his unnaturally, white teeth."  Gaby drops Juanita off at school and drives into Dana, accidentally, then has to apologize.   She can't work as PTA president and so Gaby will have to work as Acting President.   Dana was fun before she took this job and had a husband and hopes this will do the same to Gaby.   Lynette meets a doctor, Jane (Andrea Parker) at the fitness centre and talks to Tom.   She asks if Tom is really serious about Chloe and he replies he's had drinks with her mother, Jane.   He was going to speak about it at counselling, but Lynette no longer wants to go.

Mary Alice: "We often learn our most important lesson outside of the classroom...the powerful truth about the state of our relationship...sad fact life's colours aren't always rosy...wait for the chance to teach a lesson of their own."  Vance (Jonathan Cake) is still distraught over Bree and can't let it go.   A file with Alejandro's photo is placed on his desk.   Some would say it's about time Gaby got to take on some adult responsibilities and from next episode's trailer, it appears some of what Dana said to her about not having time for her husband may ring true.   It's been a long time coming, since Gaby has gotten away with so much, including roping the others in to cover Alejandro's death.

Susan just appeared to be her usual ditzy self when it came to the art class and getting angry.  She doesn't usually express it in that manner; no she clumsily makes mistakes and how much of that pent up rage actually have to do with Alejandro.   Bree taking some responsibility with how she's dealt with Danielle in the past.   Lynette and Tom just seem to go from bad to worse, nothing new here then, with Lynette's mind working overtime when he said he's only had coffee.   Thus far.   Appears she's determined to drive him away for good, like this show.  ha.  

Mike actually understanding Susan's plight and it would have been difficult to comprehend if he hadn't been able to understand what she's going through.   Apparently Bree didn't attend Danielle's wedding as in the episode, Kids Ain't Like Everybody Else, was when she first met Leo.   The episode title is from an unmade Stephen Sondheim musical this time: Climb High.   Andrea Parker is best known for her role on JAG and Pretender.