A series of body dumps lead the CSIs to believe they are dealing with a serial killer, which has personal consequences for Greg, when he falls for a woman he believes to be a teacher.
An opening teaser in black and white showing a woman being dragged away. The CSIs attend a CS where a DB has been dumped in a ditch. No vehicles around and Greg (Eric Szmanda) asks the officer to tape off the CS. David, (David Berman) at the prospect of having to go down to examine the DB, asks "Why can't people die closer to the road?" The DB is still smoking on the wet ground, covered with gravel. Hey Nick (George Eads) didn't arrive at the CS with Ray (Laurence Fishburne) like he usually does. The DB is rolled over, revealing his burnt face. His teeth are clenched and his tongue is burnt and black. Greg notices the singeing on his collar. When David attempts to cut the DB to determine TOD, he wakes up. David: "Call me if his condition worsens" has the last word before the opening credits this episode.
Nick notices 4 wheel tracks on the ground. Ray accompanies the Vic to hospital and takes photos whilst he's in the ER, along with evidence from the Vic. He suffered third degree burns, 90% to his head and face - ligature marks at the wrists and ankles. Nick notices his chest was restrained by straps. Ray points out the intense, circular burn to his head. Nick wonders "What turned him into a Roman candle?" That's not nice to say and referring to him as a SOB too. Ray theorizes he was executed by electric chair.
Hodges (Wallace Langham) brings a group of people to the Layout Room and tells the visitors the CSIs are cooking up a mystery today. Nick says that Greg is the lead CSI on the case. A woman refers to Hodges as Lodges. Greg can't discuss the case. Nick and Ray notice Greg's obvious attraction to her. Her name is Ellen (Dita Von Teese) and she teaches fourth grade science and Greg thinks a toned down tour could be arranged for her pupils. Ray gives Hodges evidence to run for trace. Nick encourages Greg to get her number, but Greg is hesitant as "she didn't come here to be hit on." Yeah she did, accidentally on purpose! She also gives her number to him as we know she's got ulterior motives for doing so.
Ray attempts to electrocute Jelloman. Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) asks what Jelloman did to him. Ray: "Some men were just born to suffer." If I'm not mistaken, that was a direct reference to Greg in this episode! Before electrocuting Jelloman Ray determines that electrical current enters through the head, is drawn through the body by a wire, long enough for the heart to arrest. But he doesn't achieve the results he expected. His theory is wrong or he missed a variable. Hodges to the rescue. The trace he analyzed was a synthetic sponge dipped in saline solution. This is used to conduct electricity. The sponge must be natural, or the charge doesn't work. The synthetic sponge increased resistance and the electricity turned to heat, setting the Vic's head on fire.
Ray tells Catherine it's all about amp-age. If the current is strong enough then electrocution can take place anywhere, in a house or truck. The Vic was thrown from the vehicle in this instance. Greg finds the tyre tracks match to a specific truck and gets a hit on the Vic's ID: Carlton Doreen. Catherine tells Greg to go home now. He's "burnt out" and Greg apologizes for the pun. Nick eggs him on to call Ellen and he meets her for a drink, well several drinks. She likes to use the bus, just like her pupils. (A clue for the end.) Greg would love to give a talk at her school. She's just flattering him. Greg watches her through the glass as she stretches, or should I say, strikes a distinct pose!
Greg tells Nick about how amazing and smart she is. Nick takes the credit for steering him towards her. She smelt of peaches. They find more tyre tracks at a similar CS. Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) comments on the absence of collateral burns to the head like the first Vic, but has the same wounds and scarring. Another uncouth comment from Nick, "Looks like somebody else got the chair." A storage facility nearby may have surveillance cameras. Nick asks Doc Robbins if he actually wants to cut into him, he may wake up. But this one is really dead.
Greg and Catherine go over the evidence they have. Catherine says there are two Vics. Greg says the first Vic didn't die and identifies the second Vic as Neublume. There's no apparent connection but roads were named after them, intersecting at Doreen Blvd and Neublume Ave. Hodges finds some chemicals allowing Catherine to recall the explosion in 1988, where the ground was contaminated. Archie (Archie Kao) found the truck from the surveillance cameras and it was moving at 2.30am. Johannes Desmoot (Andrew Howard) is the owner. Ellen calls Greg but he has to work late. Providing her with the excuse she needs to turn up at the lab. Hodges: "Don't let us interrupt your personal life."
Desmoot used to work for the secret police in South Africa. Wonder how many people actually understood his accent and what he was saying without subtitles (Closed Captions), he was bunging it on rather strongly. Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) questions why he doesn't recall his handle. If Desmoot was lying he would have made up a name for Brass. Who tells him it's not good insulting the man who holds his future in his hands and threatens to return him to South Africa .
Ellen arrives and calls him Lodges again. So not funny and it wasn't funny the first time either. Pondering the question of did they spend the night together as she says she didn't want him to think she's the type to fall into bed on the first date and Nick also said he didn't want the intimate details from Greg, which he kept to himself. She wonders if the killer's been identified yet and that explains her interest in the case. Which is the only reason she was here and we saw that coming a mile off in the beginning. Henry (Jon Wellner) found chloroform in both of the Vic's systems and calls her cute. Why did Greg leaver her alone with the evidence , which she looks at on his desk. Didn't she just destroy the chain of custody and all that. She conveniently leaves now as he's got to work. Greg notices the photo of the truck in the file has been moved.
Greg follows her to a club, and we all noticed the name of 'Rita Von Squeeze'. How unoriginal! She's dragged into the club by a man and Greg asks the bartender (Steven Jotiner) who the man is. After Greg pays him, he replies he doesn't know. Greg takes his glass for prints. We were waiting for Greg to actually see her and finally he turns to see her in the cocktail glass. As I said, just like he was watching her through the glass when they were having drinks earlier on; repeated here again but without clothes. The prints from the glass match a Roderick Hammerbacher (Jim Pirri). Greg looks Ellen up on the Net and accesses her profile as a respected member of the community. Nick tells Greg in no uncertain terms that he's got to leave her, she lied to him. Well Nick does have the tarnished reputation of spending time with a hooker (no one remembers that anymore) but he warns Greg now probably due to his own past circumstances and experience.
Hammerbacher is Ellen's manager and has a history of psychological incarceration. Nick notices more tyre tracks and Ray officially determines they have a serial killer on the loose. Greg calls Ellen at school and leaves his number again, for the purposes of the storyline, so that was convenient. Ray notices the burn is narrower and the kill was cleaner this time. Nick says the ligature marks are less distinct and this time conducting gel was also used. Ray calls him a 'perfectionist' and that the DBs were left out "like little presents." This rules out Desmoot as a killer since he's still in custody. Greg receives a call informing him of Doreen's death. he thought it was Ellen. Lots of calls for Greg this week.
The prints match to a Hammish Hershkowitz.. Nick to Ray: "So much for your theory about pulling names off a map." This was actually Catherine's theory as Nick and Ray were both absent when she and Greg were going over the names of the Vics in an earlier scene.
Greg immediately thinks of "The Rat." Looking up old clippings etc, Greg tells the story of Herzog Hershkowitz. Before the end of the Second World War, Bugsy Siegel brought a woman named Agnes to the US. She lost her true love, Kuchkow, a Russian ballet dancer. Unknown to her, he survived and they were reunited in 1946 in Vegas. They had an illegitimate daughter. Sam Braun told Catherine this story. They had to hide their love from Bugsy and fled to Santa Fe to escape him. But he found them and took Agnes away where she was decapitated and posed in a ballet position, implicating Kuchkow in her killing. Herzog 'The Rat' is the third Vic's grandfather. The defence attorney, Doreen and prosecutor Neublume, were both loyal to Bugsy and threw the trial. Kuchkow was innocent but was executed. Ray believes this to be ironic as the two survivors died because they ran into Bugsy, a psycho Jewish mobster. Which is also ironic since Ellen has been using Hammerbacher, who is a psycho himself, to avenge the killings for her. Greg shows them Agnes' photo and she is the splitting image of Ellen, her granddaughter. Greg is still adamant she couldn't kill anyone. Oh so naive still Greg.
Ray says Greg is in over his head. Ellen calls again and asks Greg to meet her at a diner, where he's shot at when he arrives. Ellen disappears leaving behind a bus time table. That was her earlier comment of using the bus. The real Ellen calls Greg and he realizes his Ellen isn't who she claims to be and that the others were right. Hodges finds traces of magnesium oxide on the third Vic. Leading to the contaminated site. Brass and Nick check it out, chancing upon Hammerbacher who electrocutes himself, partly for the love of Ellen, who was also using him and partly cos he's a psycho.
Ellen was meant to be a femme fatale, but a killer and not as good as you'd find in a film noir either! Greg claims she used him, but she blames Hammerbacher. They "fell for each other hard..." A line definitely from an old black and white movie! Hey the dialogue in this scene turned into an old movie too. With Greg telling her she played him from the start and his long explanation. She doesn't know "where the truth ends and your own lies begin...crazy's right." She set Greg up to die. They'll find her prints in the truck. She calls him "Greg baby." That they can be together, what, like Hammerbacher. Greg has her arrested. Loved the way the camera panned into him when she was led away. Ellen: "For what it's worth, I've loved you since Tuesday." (Hey we get the show on Tuesday in the UK, the first showing anyway!)
Catherine understands what Greg went through as she's been blinded by lust too and that he should come to her next time to check out anyone he meets, as she's "got an eye for the rotten ones." To which Greg replies,
"Why do the rotten ones smell so good?" This ending was like a film noir too where the hero realizes he was used. Oh man, some classic B movie lines in this. Started off a routine CSI episode, interjected with some Hitchcock and ended a full-blown, classic film noir. That was really different. Nice opening teaser too leaving you wondering how it was connected to the case, but it wasn't that hard to figure out, since Ellen was the one shown (as Agnes). Yes, it started out in black and white and ended in colour, but with an ending you'll find in a black and white film.
The cocktail glass was nicked from CSI:NY season 4 episode Buzzkill. This was a gangster episode and had to be associated with Greg and his love of Vegas history. What happened to the book he was writing when Grissom (William Petersen) was around. Mentioned in the season 8 episode The Case of the Cross Dressing Carp. In season 6's Kiss-Kiss Bye-Bye and in Cockroaches, where Greg was researching mob bosses from the Vegas past. In this episode a garbage truck was used in a mob murder case and here trucks were also used . With his extensive knowledge of mob history it was no coincidence Greg clicked onto The Rat. In the episode, For Gedda and For Warrick, Greg has completed his book. He had interviews with three publishing companies, but due to Warrick's (Gary Dourdan) death, he misses them. His book was never mentioned again and this would have made for an interesting chapter.
Nick encouraging him to ask her out, cos he'd know all about falling for the wrong type of woman and great to see Catherine on Greg's side even if he went AWOL for a bit. News about Greg travelled fast. This storyline about Greg was a long time coming; demonstrating his vulnerability and how their work interferes and crosses over into their personal lives, since the younger CSIs don't really have much of a personal life. Finding it difficult to meet someone cos as we know the course of true love never runs smoothly and anyone they fall for ends up dead, or the suspect or the killer.
Sara (Jorga Fox) missing two episodes in a row now. Jim Pirri makes his third appearance, that's one in each CSI show. Just as Carmine Giovinazzo was the first regular cast member to star in all three shows and Brian Bloom was the first guest star to appear in all three.
Here this show was heavily advertized due to the appearance of Dita Von Teese (no comment) and next week's episode with William Petersen is also being advertized.
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