Sara turns up to an event that Grissom can't make and his mother introduces Sara to his ex. She later turns out to be a suspect in a murder investigation and wants Sara removed from the case.
Taiko drums play at the Gilbert Foundation for the deaf and Sara (Jorga Fox) receives a text from Gil (William Petersen) saying he's needed in Peru on an investigation. Sara notices some shadows going at it in the bathroom. Gil tells her that the deaf love the vibrations from the drums. Julia (Marlee Maitlin) is the Head of the Department of Deaf Cultural studies and comments Sara must be 'The Other Mrs Grissom'. However, Gil's mother, Betty Grissom (Phyllis Frelich) replies that Sara kept her own name. Betty's proud of Julia and thinks of her as a daughter. She was Gil's ex. Dr Lambert (Anthony Natale) is the Director of the Foundation. Betty can't help sticking the boot in saying Gil's away a lot. Which Sara finds annoying to say the least. Dare I ask, was the Gilbert Foundation named for Gil.
Outside Sara hears an explosion in the distance and leads Julia away from the car which explodes with Lambert still inside. Ray (Laurence Fishburne) comments he didn't recognize Sara in a dress and Nick (George Eads) asks what she's done with her hair. They brought her work clothes. Nick asks if there was an open bar, as Ray believes he could have been drinking and driving. Sara attempts to question Julia but needs an interpreter, cue Dennis (Matthew Jaeger) standing non chalantly behind the yellow CS tape, as if he was just waiting to be asked. Knew he was a suspect as soon as I saw him there in the crowd, as it's commonplace, whenever the perp is guilty, just like arsonists, they like to return to the scene the crime, behind the yellow line. Hey, he could have interpreted whatever he wanted, so it's good that they got their own interpreters in. Ray watches David (David Berman) take the body away and says, "Reminds me of my first case."
Julia supposedly felt the explosion when she was in her office. Ray theorizes since the car was sliding downhill, the tank could have been ruptured if there was any metal nearby. Sara thinks if the car blew up where it was, then the shock waves would have been absorbed by the hill. Nick doesn't find any skid marks, so the car went straight over. Nick finds a gas line on the ground and a trail of debris. Ray spots a piece of a detonator. The explosion killed Lambert outright.
Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) no autopsy is shown this episode, but he still gives Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) the results as per usual. Sara explains to Catherine that it's not the language barrier she's having problems with but Betty's "hard to get close to, she questions everything and is emotionally unavailable." Catherine says she's "just described Gil; "like mother, like son." Greg (Eric Szmanda) generates a 3D simulation of the explosion on the computer. Shock waves show that they didn't reach the building so Julia couldn't have felt the explosion. She lied.
Nick doesn't find any signs of nitrates in her office and Betty prefers to talk to Nick, who says someone planted the bomb in Lambert's car. Sara tells Julia she hasn't been honest with them. Nick comments how Sara hasn't won any points with Betty, "She really seems to like me though." Betty would like Nick, a bit of the ol' Gil in her there, cos he wanted Nick to be good at his work, though Warrick (Gary Dourdan) was Gil's favourite, Nick saw Gil more as his mentor. Sara finds a message from Julia's voicemail stating the relationship must end as there's a risk to the school. Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) questions Julia and accuses her of blowing up Lambert. Julia denies killing him, but instead refers to the apparent conflict of interest with Sara being on the case, as Julia was intimate with Gil. Sara replies she didn't know and that her marriage is irrelevant to the case.
Sara looks at the blue marble given to her by Gil (just as Nick did in the House of Hoarders episode, which is why it was mentioned then, as a timely reminder. Julia gave a DNA sample. Sara vents to Catherine that Julia played her and she knew exactly who Sara was. Brass wants Sara off the case but Catherine spoke up for her and told him she's a professional and capable of being objective. Nick and Ray (together again, ha, I just had to get that in) process the car. Ray's torch is attracted to the industrial strength magnet. Nick: "You're losing your superpowers there, Dr Ray." Nick doesn't find any timer. Greg checks out the fragments in trace and Hodges (Wallace Langham) reports that the nitrates found were consistent with the smokeless gunpowder. Greg comments the last time they found smokeless gunpowder was in the police bomb in the season opener. (Just to prepare us for another episode with the bomber again soon.) Greg finds scorch marks on the curved shape of the fragment; helpful in holding the explosives. He matched the partial serial number to a company selling consumer products for the deaf. It's a deaf fire alarm as Hodges tells him, a Shake Alert, he has one as his mother snores so if there's a fire it will shake his bed and wake him up. He uses earplugs. Greg and Hodges having a bit of a tete-a-tete once again, with Hodges sharing some personal info with his best bud. That was shortlived. Good to see Greg's moved on past last episode's fiasco.
Nick and Sara check out the dorm for fire alarms and Nick finds one white one, the others were all black. The room belongs to Michael (Tyrone Giordano) Julia's TA and he was in his room alone. His research project was rejected for a grant. He directs them to Sean (Sean McGowan) from England and calls him Julia's pet. Sean argued with Lambert who told him to fix the problem or he would. Nick finds traces of nitrates in Sean's room. Nick asks if Sara thinks Julia's still guilty. Sara says it's not personal. Nick comments that Julia is really pretty. Sara and Nick getting on better now after their little fall out in the earlier House of Hoarders episode. When Nick said he thought Julia was really pretty, thought Sara was waiting for him to add, "but not as pretty as you" - which he didn't. Betty's adamant Julia didn't hurt anyone and Sara thanks her for the heads up about Julia and Gil. Betty thought Sara knew. She takes the opportunity to berate Sara that if she saw Gil more often, then she'd know more about him. She did see him more; all the time at work and he didn't exactly share about his personal life, not his love life at any rate. Lambert obeyed the rules but she saw Julia was distracted.
Hodges checked the nitrates trace from Sean's room and says he must have had a plant since the nitrates are found in fertilizer. Hodges goes on to mention Lady Heather (Melinda Clarke) and Grissom's yen for sexually adventurous women, until he realized he was open to "spirited, intellectual stimulation." Catherine tells him he's phone's ringing to make him stop. Sara justifies they have great sex together. Catherine is sure they do. They go over the message from Lambert's phone and so Sara thinks Sean killed for money and love. Brass questions Sean about his affair and how it could be viewed as favourtism for him to get the grant. He claims to love Julia and puts Julia right in it by saying they left together and she was in his dorm until just before the explosion. So much for loving her. Well he didn't kill Lambert as he had an accomplice.
Michael leaves a box for Julia on her desk. So obvious there was a bomb in it. Ray and Sara want to take Julia in for questioning and as she turns to call her lawyer in her office, the bomb explodes. Nick runs in concerned about them. Ray says they can collect more evidence now as there wasn't a fire. Sara notices a piece of the box and Nick surmises the box was rigged to explode when opened. Nick finds a resistor with a delay, like a timer. Sara points out to Michael that his computer has a stalker wall. He explains he was angry and should have had a chance to get the grant, but he didn't bomb anyone. Even when Sara tells him that he's skilled enough to have made the bomb and the batch of resistors were ones he ordered. He claims they were stolen and he reported the theft to campus police; however he thinks there's something strange about Sean. Well he was right.
At the hospital, Sara notices Sean use unusual sign language she doesn't recognize and neither does the interpreter. Betty tells her in Quebec sign language Sean signed 'Sweet Pea'. She asks Sara what sort of marriage she and Gil have. Oh stop with the marriage third degree already. She lost her husband early but they were never apart. Sara replies, angrily, they love each other and are a family, but if Betty doesn't want any part of it, then that's up to her. Nick puts together the fragments from the detonator. The bomb contained the same smokeless gunpowder. The resistor gave the bomber ten minutes to put it in place before it exploded , so a remote was used and when it was, it sent a signal to the receiver and a beep was heard. Thus the bomber could hear, ruling out Michael.
Catherine and Sara give Sean a test which he thinks is a polygraph. See Sean sneak in a rye smile there when he thinks he's passed. He faked his test as the brainwaves indicate he can hear. He faked being deaf for the half a million dollar grant. Sara runs a check on him through Immigration Custom Enforcement (ICE) and turns up Sean Leblanc from Montreal. Julia can't believe it. He was already a student when they met and she fell for his compliments. Sara found the one person to connect with and she wanted someone of her own. She was lonely and he used her. (Echoes from last weeks episode; A Kiss Before Frying with Greg.) Julia found an e-mail address of his in french and she recalls it. Ray finds the e-mail was a blueprint for the grant scam and is connected to Dennis. He's Sean's cousin. Brass tells him he had access to all the buildings on campus and used Julia's key card. They found receipts for the pipes and gunpowder. It was Dennis' idea. Sean's mother was deaf. Nick can't believe he listened to Dennis when he said he wouldn't hurt Julia. Brass tells Dennis he got greedy and he wanted to make Michael a suspect. Sara holds Julia's hand as a sign of comfort and reaching out friendship.
She speaks with Gil on the Internet and he asks how her week was. She mentions his ex, but he doesn't say anything about her. Gil tells Betty she didn't come to the office when he was there. She gives Sara African Violets as he told her Sara likes vegetation. Sara would like her and Betty to start over. He suggests dinner when he gets back. Then talks about 'sex pots' in Inca society, talking about sex with his mother around!! Why's she so into it?
Catherine doesn't do much anymore now as supervisor, except, supervize. She didn't even get a scene in autopsy this week with Doc Robbins. It's as though she's just waiting to bow out of the show. True to form, Nick arriving at the CS with Ray. Sara in a dress, which we haven't seen her in before. Nick not noticing she's wearing a dress, but that her hair looks different. Ray not recognizing her in a dress. Typical men, ha, I could say! Like my friend said to me once, didn't know I had legs, cos I always wore trousers.
Expected to see Gil in person, not stuck behind a computer, or should that be stuck inside a computer screen. Thought they would have made more of his appearance. Still it was good to see their marriage under the spotlight since we don't get too many episodes concentrating on their personal lives. As far as Gil and Sara go, we haven't seen anything of their lives at all since they got married and he left. Then everyone talking about Gil and Sara's sex life, well practically everyone and Sara being so candid about it to Catherine and the scene with Hodges when he didn't know when to quit talking or how to get himself out of the hole he kept digging for himself, but that's Hodges and what makes his character so fun. Have to ask though, why was Betty so interested in their marriage and Gil so openly talking about "sex pots."
Marlee Maitlin was also in the CSI:NY episode Silent Night, where she played a deaf mother who felt vibrations in her house, after a gun had been fired. Ray commenting to David that the charred DB of Lambert reminds him of his first case, refers to the season 10 episode, Death and the Maiden, which indeed was Ray's first ever case on CSI, where he investigated the death of a DB in a murder/arson case.
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