Whilst his parents have been brutally attacked, Billy Travers (Taylor Handley) lives it up at a party. Appropriate choice of music with Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight, but that was going back a few years. Mac (Gary Sinise) arrives at the CS and elicits from the mother the identity of their attacker. She uses finger motions to indicate her son from the family photo. Flack (Eddie Cahill) arrests Billy. Hawkes (Hill Harper) asks Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) and Lindsay (Anna Belknap) if they would have had the foresight to ask her the same questions as Mac did in order to obtain an ID. No they wouldn't have and also because it's not conclusive. Even if she may not survived, her ID would still not have been enough to convict her son, but it would have carried some weight. They analyze the CS and collect trace evidence and samples.
Jo (Sela Ward) questions Billy, who can't believe his mother would have accused him. He denies everything. She's been a detective for a long time and "this is as bad as it gets." Everyone's so sure he's guilty and the evidence isn't even in. Flack questions Billy's girlfriend, Jules (Crystal Reed). Asking her to go over her story again, she'll only "say something different if she's lying." She is sure Billy's innocent. Prompting Flack to reply: "I'm gonna let you into a little secret, everyone has it in them to do something like this, everyone."
To me, Flack seemed to be speaking from personal experience, like he was referring to how he pulled the trigger on Angell's (Emmanuelle Vaugier) killer in the season 5 finale (Pay Up), out of revenge. He also tells her it's usually 6 months into dating that he can say for certain whether anyone has 'homicidal tendencies'. Good to know! (What about after 6 months?) To which Jules quips: "You're kind of a bitch you now that." No retort from Flack , only a smile. Flack didn't use any "severe threats" when interviewing Jules either.
Jo has to establish Billy's alibi and he tells her he was alone in his room before the party, to which she comments, "because you're not man enough to admit what you did" she'll have to resort to Math and she hates Math. Er, you need Math in order to take up any discipline involving science. Danny failed algebra and Jo hates Math. Jo was calm with Billy and didn't throw her weight around (that's probably my oft-used phrase). No, she's cool, calm and collected and doesn't let any of her tactics slip. She was left to conduct the interview alone this week.
Jo questions Sid (Robert Joy) on the nature of blunt force trauma and he's taken aback by her and Jo asks if he didn't expect her to be female. We know Sid has an eye for the ladies, look at the photo of his ex later in the episode. Also because nobody introduced her, again. There are puncture wounds on the father's DB, TOD (Time of Death) is narrowed down to between 9-10pm and the weapon is probably a hammer, crowbar or tyre iron.
Flack informs them about a prisoner in Rikers, Owen Hicks (Alex Solowitz) whose cellmate, Manny Ravarra (Marcos de la Cruz) confessed to the crime. Manny was an escapee and was picked up last night. Danny and Flack question Manny, not one of their usual interrogations. Danny tells him they have an eyewitness who says it wasn't Manny. He just replies "sometimes crackheads tell the truth" and he's got nothing to lose since he's already serving life. Danny's "not buying it" and rightly so, since he states the attack was personally motivated. He suggests they look in the sewer. Flack and Danny were calm when they questioned Manny at Rikers. No threats or manipulative diatribes of any kind, that was different for them too.
Lindsay and Hawkes find the shoe prints were from the officers and EMTs and none of the blood matches Billy. Lindsay comments he either didn't do this or he was really careful. That's strange, how can someone who brutally attacked in that way be really careful, since even if none of the blood matches, there has to be other evidence. No one can be that careful. Mac doubts his decision to question Grace Travers (Stacey Edwards) "maybe I pushed too hard in the moment." Gotten used to seeing Stacey Edwards in mother roles now. She played Debbie Montenassi in CSI:NY season 1 episode, Tanglewood. Where her son was a gang member, killed by one of his own gang.
Flack and Danny check out the sewer, actually Danny does it. Well he is the CSI. Flack thinks Manny's probably laughing at how "two moke detectives are knee-deep in crap" Danny tells him it's "one moke detective."
Flack: "I don't do sewers." Since when, he was in a sewer with Danny last season, chasing the Compass Killer! Danny finds a crowbar. Hawkes sees Danny is going to date the rust from the crowbar but it doesn't match the rust from the door, so Manny wasn't there. Grace tells Mac Billy wouldn't do this and tells him to leave.
Sid tests his neurone reactions to seeing familiar faces in a photo and when he has an emotional connection to the woman in the photo, the results go off the scale. That was a reaction to alimony. He concludes Grace's memory could have been affected and the movements in her hand could just have been ceasures.
Danny tells Jo, Manny and Billy were at the same police precinct at the same time, so he could have overheard the policeman talking, calling upon his girlfriend to dump the crowbar in the sewer. Giving Jo an idea using the polygraph. For which she needs Adam's (AJ Buckley) help as a polygraph expert. Wonder how Jo convinced Adam to take part in the polygraph ploy, anything more about his file, ha. Using big words Adam forces Owen to come clean. Even timing it down to the nearest second when Owen will crack. Manny wanted to see his girlfriend more, so if he confessed he'd be at trial for a year at least. As he confessed, there wouldn't be a trial, only a sentencing hearing!
Jo reads the DD5 on Grace's misidentification and places it back on Mac's desk. Of course, Mac being Mac, had to see her. Jo admits she "sees history repeating itself." But this isn't Mac's history, she was under oath to reveal any wrongdoing she may have witnessed in the FBI. She knew Frank for 12 years and "trust became just another word." She doesn't regret what she did and wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Mac: "my team does not sacrifice integrity for a desired result."
So we find out what that reference Adam made about Jo's whistleblowing was in reference to. Mac reassuring her she won't have the same problem here. Again alluding to the integrity of his lab and his workers. Think back to the dressing down he gave Aiden (Vanessa Ferlito) in season 2, when she falsified evidence against the rapist she was after and Mac referred to the integrity of his team/lab and how she jeopardized it.
Lindsay (always interrupts them in the office) links the shard of glass found in the bed, to 'Glasphemy' where people go to take out their aggression.; and to a worker, Paul Benson (Brian Guest). He grew up in the Vic's (victim's) house. What is it about Danny and Flack that gives them away as cops. I sense a chase coming on, that's almost expected everytime they're in a scene together and second one for this season. But not like past chase scenes when they had to run quite a bit to collar the suspect.
The dirt on Paul's shoes matches the soil from the house. Danny likens him as the guy "you loved to hate in every John Hughes film." Flack and Danny talk about how he had everything going, which was a good scene, seeing as they had to apprehend him. They don't normally share like that, we usually go straight to an interrogation. They had nothing but Paul's girlfriend's statement about him raping her and his parents testified against him. Jo reassures his parents they did the right thing. Mac tells Paul he was old enough to accept responsibility for his actions and not to hide behind his parents, whom he betrayed.
Mac visits Grace in hospital and to say sorry to Billy, "sometimes we lose sight of how hard it is to be called a suspect." That's true. Mac's anger is better suited when it's directed at the suspects and criminals that deserve it, not his own team. Then his character really comes into his own, since that's where you see all the years of hard work and dedication to the job and you know it isn't really a job to him anymore. It's almost a calling. Mac having the last word, that he could've made something of his life when he got out, but instead he destroyed an entire family and
The opening was good - how Billy was having a good time at the party whilst his parents had been attacked. They painted him as being so cool and carefree at the same time. Also the parallels, in some respects between the two families: both had sons, one set of parents turned in their bad son and Billy's mother was convinced her son was good. Mac tells her she's lucky at the end, can't help but think he wasn't only commenting on Billy and having a good, caring son, but also her being lucky to survive.
As for the title of the episode, "damned if you do" the family who testified against their son, and "damned if you don't" the family who had nothing to do with Paul, but were unfortunate enough to be in his line of fire. As for making snap judgements, and decisions over the guilt of Billy, that's something CSIs aren't meant to do. They need to "follow the evidence" as we've heard often enough. Letting the evidence lead them to the suspect. That's why it was a bit of a shock seeing Mac rely solely on Grace's ID to pursue Billy. Sid spelled out what I also said, that a good defence lawyer would discredit the case. Since when can you solely rely on statements made by someone who has just suffered such a traumatic attack and hasn't even received proper medical care yet. It should've occurred to Mac that she was reaching out for her son in the photo for comfort/safety after what she endured. An episode clearly showing, you can't decide until you've got all the facts.
CSI:Miami episode, MIA/NYC-Nonstop (the crossover/introductory CSI:NY) had a similar storyline, where a man ordered a family killed, only the wrong family was killed as he was dyslexic. Wrong family, wrong address. The dead couple's son was framed as a suspect for their murder. Here Paul killed the wrong family, and wrong address.
This case was loosely based on the real life case of Chris Porco who was accused of killing his father with an axe and attempted murder of his mother, who survived. The case on him being a leading suspect was centred on him as the investigating detective at the CS asked his mother to ID his killer and he asked if it was her son, to which she nodded. He was found guilty on both counts.
CSI episode Blood Sports where a coach was attacked and went about his normal routine before he collapsed and died, was also based on this case.
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