The CSIs bet on who will win the cycle: they have an accidental death, a suicide and a homicide, needing a natural death to complete the cycle. Stakes are high, as is finding whether their cases will fit the mould.
Henry (Jon Wellner) reminds Nick (George Eads) about the cycle and doesn't mention it cos they'll jinx it. Nick tells Greg (Eric Szmanda) he's having A Beautiful Mind moment. For the cycle to be complete they need a natural death for the graveyard shift. Hodges (Wallace Langham) knows exactly how long it is since the cycle was last completed: 4 years ago. As for Henry thinking they'll jinx it he adds, "We're men of science not superstition." Hodges has been superstitious on a few occasions in the past. Hodges bets on Nick who's on a roll, and not just because Nick is Co-supervisor. There's his position being mentioned again, wonder if this means anything for later episodes; or next season.
Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) has a new assistant, Kevin (Travis Aaron Wade) who is adept in making annoying comments and irritates everyone. He's from LA. Sara (Jorga Fox) wants Greg to give the cycle a rest. The DB died at her desk and Doc removes a paper clip from her intestine, she swallowed it, which makes her death an accident. They get a 419 call out. Greg: "Where there is death there is hope." They investigate the death of DV8 Avenger, aka Steven Pyles (Ramsey Moore) who wears a diaper and was AFK. Unfortunate name as they say and AFK, Greg explains means, 'Away From Keyboard.' He's a serious gamer and Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) makes his exit. Kevin keeps smiling at Sara, ooh creepy. Kevin says it's natural causes, just cos the Vic was overweight and probably binged on one pizza too many. Greg sarcastically says, they all can go home then. David (David Berman) tells Kevin they need to wait for an autopsy. TOD was 6-8 hours so the body temperature should've been lower. Sara says they can't rule out homicide and she was right.
Nick and Ray (Laurence Fishburne) are paired together again and arrive to find a DB in the pool. Benjamin (Victor Brown) was crashing here after his divorce. Ray notices the shoe prints on the door and believes it was a forced entry, there's glass on the ground. Nick notices the window was broken from the outside in. He thinks it's a robbery/homicide. Making a lot of judgements here the CSIs, without all the evidence being in, was the cycle turning their brains to mush!
Doc tells Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) he had Kevin remove the diaper. And Catherine always ends up in autopsy with Doc Robbins, that's a habit now. He finds undigested food in his gullet, there was a violent regurgitation and he was unable to expel. He had healed contusions on his tongue indicative of a history of seizures, so he was most likey epileptic. Catherine's bet $200 on there being no natural causes death. Greg read about cases of gamers who suffer epileptic fits whilst playing. Steven used to record his games so he may be able to find the last moments before his death.
Nick fishes the gun from the pool and doesn't need a forensics lesson from Kevin, he knows what he's doing and he'll put it on the bag to dry. Kevin is in awe of Ray crossing swords with Haskell (Bill Irwin) and since he's mentioned, he's bound to turn up soon. David tells them Kevin's from LA. Nick: "That explains it." Benjamin probably tried to free himself of his restraints and sustained a single GSW to the back of the head. Ray notices the woman in the photo and from his own personal experience says it's his wife since he was still wearing his wedding ring.
Greg tells Catherine that Steven was playing an MMORPG, so he had opponents. The players weren't supposed to use a flashpan otherwise points would be deducted, one of the players, Ninja assassin, did. So he could have caused the seizure. Catherine surmizes if he knew about his epilepsy then it could be homicide. Brass asks him if Steven mentioned his medical condition to him. He "kinda new." So Brass adds he'll kinda need a lawyer. Lots of funny one liners from Brass in this episode. Nick tells Doc there are plenty of people betting on him, but Doc holds his cards close to his vest and his money even closer. There were teeth marks on his restraints Nick thinks the bullet now exited the back of his head, but the real entry wound was in his pharnyx. Ray talks to Benjamin's ex-wife. He knows what divorce is like. She bailed him out of jail (and he offers her wine!) Hodges tells Nick he's not going to look for the bullet in the pool as he's having a good hair day, unlike the season's second episode; Pool Shark, where he was in the pool with Henry. Nick finds the bullet in the pool cleaner. Hodges is elated and has to utter, 'team Stokes.' Now they just need a natural to win.
The Tox screen shows Steven had sleeping pills in his system and was asleep when the flashbangs went off so Ninja Assassin didn't kill him. Sara noticed a prescription bottle in the trash, but it wasn't collected since there wasn't any direct link to the case. So where did these new rules spring from, thought if it was in his trash, it could have been pertinent to the case. She scans the barcode revealing the bottle belongs to Evan Ferrari (Kaitlin Doubleday). She's a blonde, Steven's girfriend, which surprises Greg. Brass refers to her as the "Italian sportscar girlfriend" and Steven must have been upset at what she was doing. She specifically mentions men and how he was the one who looked past her looks.
Nick found two contributors of DNA. Ray ran the prints and came up with Carl Jansen (Sal Lands) a loan shark. Benjamin owed him bigtime so he wouldn't kill him, he wanted his money so he stole from the house. Catherine tells David she won't repeat what Kevin said to her in the washroom and asks him to take a look at the DB: an old woman whom he determines died accidentally. Kevin asks him to keep that to himself, but of course David wouldn't do that.
Evan insists she loved Steven too much. Greg tells Sara gamers have groupies. Henry finally gets round to examining the rest of the evidence and finds Steven had ementine in him. The ingredient for Ipecac. The prints on the pizza box and pill bottle come back to Monica, aka DJ Drang ( Nathalie Kelley). She wanted Evan back. So it was just easier to end it all, how would that get her back. She assumed no one would notice or investigate the death of a fat guy, who would appear to have died from overeating, just as Kevin said. So if he'd been investigating, he would have said he died from natural causes. Didn't she realize all deaths are investigated, at least they all get autopsied.
Catherine spoke with the insurance adjuster who said a sculpture was missing from the house. Hodges determines the trace on the front of the gun was human tissue, from Benjamin's tongue. Catherine empties her gun and Hodges quickly apologizes. The evidence says the break-in was staged. Catherine uses Jelloman's head to test fire the gun. The fibres in his teeth showed he tied the knots himself. Catherine finds the flames from the bullet extinguished themselves when he fired the gun underwater thus no GSR. Ray explains he wanted to make amends and pawned the sculpture for a million dollars; paid off his insurance policy, for his ex wife. He never stopped loving her. Like Ray still has/had feelings for his wife. If a man lets his wife down he can also lose himself. A failed marriage makes them feel like they failed. All personal experience on Ray's part, since he must have felt the same way too. Ray seemed kind of dejected and distant in this episode, know Haskell's escape is still weighing on him, but that coupled with this case being a bit too close to home for him, he didn't seem to be his usual self. As he tells Nick if he wants to bet he'll go to a casino and Nick doesn't pursue the point any further.
Doc bet on David since as an ME, he'll always come across a natural death, before a CSI will and David is always there when a body drops. Doc wins the bet since they get a natural after all in the guise of Kevin, who died from an aneurysm. So he completed the cycle for them. That was obvious from the outset since no one liked him and thus no one bothered to look at the symptoms he was exhibiting, the hangover, the headaches. They just all saw him as annoying, which he was. Going back to Gil (William Petersen) in the season 1 episode Unfriendly Skies, when he said if one person took the time out to talk to the Vic and see what was really happening to him, then he could have been saved. Doc was a little cold and unfeeling here, but then he didn't really know him, so he'd treat Kevin like any one of his other DBs.
Lots of references to marriage break-ups since Ray's been through his own. Also he tells Nick that Benjamin was still wearing his wedding ring, Nick knows that's a sore point with Ray and in All That Cremains, Nick was the one who advised Ray should remove his wedding ring before he attended his ex's wedding.
Nick really has a competitive nature when it comes to winning and winning big, must be a sore loser; shown in Man Up, when he bet with Greg but gave him back his money as it wasn't tasteful. Also with Warrick (Gary Dourdan) in the Pilot episode when he bet on who'd make CSI 3 first.
It was apparent Benjamin had killed himself, noticed that straightaway. Ipecac is mentioned quite a bit in CSI episodes, most notably in Fur and Loathing in Las Vegas. Also the episode You've Got Male had a similar storyline to this and in the Pilot episode, the killer used the DB's shoe to break the door down and mask the fact he really killed his wife's brother; but not in self-defence.
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