Well, it was no, “We’re going to Brazil.” In fact, it didn’t even feel like a season finale. Where was the cliff-hanger? Where was the oh-my-god moment? It’s a sad indicator of the state of CSI: Miami when the scariest aspects of an episode are the fashions. Was there ever a more disturbing haircut than that sported by Mama Wade? And was Ryan wearing a pseudo-Members Only jacket? It’s depressing, really, because this one had potential. In the end, both Lucas and Lindsay Wade were murderers. She killed their other sister by pushing her down the stairs when they were all children, and everyone blamed little Lucas because he was supposedly genetically predisposed to violence. He took this to heart, and as an adult just started murdering women. Because it was her fault that Lucas did this, Lindsay decided to kill another woman to get her brother off the hook. Oh, and back in his corrupt traffic-cop days, Ryan pulled Lucas over, but had no reason to suspect...
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Here comes the new Wolfe, same as the old Wolfe. Talk about giving someone the benefit of the doubt. After the list of grievances Calleigh gave early in the episode (just to add to my list from last week), it turned out that all Ryan needed to do was admit the error of his ways while he was live on the air, and subsequently apologize directly to Horatio. If only everyone were so forgiving.The crime was a vehicle to serve up Ryan’s redemption, and as such, was mostly a yawner. As always, for those who missed it, the carjacker, Jim, wasn’t actually a carjacker. Sherry, the “victim,” was getting paid by his brother to get him out to her car so that said brother could shoot him, on orders from the drug lord. When Jim discovered his brother’s duplicity, the two got into a fistfight on Jim’s boat, during which Jim was knocked overboard. The drug lord decided that he’d rather have Jim dead than discover where the missing kilos of heroin were. Oh, and Hora...
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Let’s get the simple stuff out of the way first: Everyone was guilty of something. Claire dumped the gasoline to frame Anthony (her ex-boyfriend), who then sent Ron Cramer after her anyway, and Ron accidentally created the catalyst for the fire to start. Oh, and Ryan got fired for owing money to Michael Lipton. (Sidenote: I have a good family friend named Michael Lipton. Remember that episode of The Simpsons where a TV character has the same name as Homer? That’s how exciting this was for me.) However, before we get into Ryan’s misdeeds, I find it necessary to point out that not only is there no way this could have taken place in under 24 hours (how could the house have cooled enough to let in people without fire suits?), police departments have special arson units who deal with these kinds of cases. The CSIs would not be involved to the degree that they were.For a show that isn’t really into thematic cohesion, I was pleasantly surprised to find one major symboli...
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I knew this episode was headed somewhere fun when our opening Horatio-ism was, “Welcome… to the divorce… of the future.” After I stopped laughing, I considered the fact that we had already seen a house with lasers, Kelly Carlson with a chainsaw, and a personal trainer named Mandi. What more does one need in a pre-credits sequence? Nothing, that’s what.As always, for those who might have missed the big reveal, Hank and Laurie jointly killed Hank’s lawyer when they realized that he stole everything from their safe-deposit box and also got the deed to their house. In fact, in what passes for an ironic twist, they stabbed him with their wedding-cake knife. Much as I love Kelly Carlson, her Laurie was just an older, married and somehow slightly less screwed-up version of Kimber from Nip/Tuck. Not that there’s anything wrong with sticking with what works. On the other hand, Rachel Quaintance certainly shied away from type as a supremely bitchy female di...
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When Law & Order does ripped-from-the-headlines, it is so stunningly similar to real events that the disclaimers at the beginning and end seem superfluous. When CSI: Miami does the same, they take three weeks worth of Us Weekly, stick it in a blender, and see which elements survive. It makes me recall the Paris-Nicole rip-off from last year, where one of the girls ended up electrocuted in the tub by her assistant.What did we have this week? The actor from a podunk town made into a sex symbol (I’m going to pick Ashton Kutcher on this one), the starlet who goes into rehab though she’s not actually addicted to anything (Lohan with a twist), and um, Britney Spears (renamed “Elvina”). But you know what? It kind of worked for me.As always, for those of you who fell asleep before the end, it was the first person interviewed, Eddie Cabbott, who killed Brody Lasseter. Why would Eddie kill his best friend from Podunk, PA? Turns out that Brody had just confessed that ...
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Just to get this out of the way, was there ever a more nonsensical piece of dialogue than, “Harassment is not without its consequences/My team thrives on consequences”? I’m serious. What does that mean? How can one thrive on consequences?I have to admit to being slightly uncomfortable with this episode. Did we really have to have a Native American scalping someone as retribution? Granted, this Doug Lansing fellow did not seem to be the most altruistic person, but… scalping? For those of you who might have fallen asleep before the end, the murderer did end up being the very first person the CSIs talked to: the room-service attendant, who did it because he was 1/16 Native American.I do have to point out that O’Shay is a pretty brilliant evil mastermind. While in the end the Doug Lansing murder had nothing to do with him, he still managed to get Reggie Venton and his wife out of the picture by having a common thief sneak into Anna’s house to steal her bla...
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OK, let’s work this one out together. Of the three men on the “mancation” — sidenote: has anyone in the history of anything ever called a vacation a mancation? Or am I tragically unhip? — the one who wasn’t Dennis or Rob (but whose name I never caught) killed Tess, and Dennis killed the bodyguard Rocko. Then he got nervous and wanted to call the cops, so Rob and not-Rob smeared Dennis’ vest with vanilla bought from the man from Deliverance so that the only grizzly bear living in the Everglades could maul Dennis. Everyone got it so far? Then, it turns out that Tess was only at the hotel in the first place because Anna had to make her demo tape. But because Anna was actually part of a prostitution ring, Horatio is in trouble with a horny politico played by Ed Begley Jr.Now my head hurts.Maybe it’s because this show airs late-ish and my brain isn’t in working order. Then again, maybe it’s because the plot made no sense. Last week I p...
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Why is Delko back so soon? It seemed to be the question on everyone’s mind this episode — including his. He even said, “I came back too soon.” Well, yeah. I suppose it’s one thing to not have a scar or any swelling after getting shot in the neck, but it’s another to not even be limping after getting shot in the leg. If House has taught me anything, it’s that you don’t come back that easily from a leg injury. I nitpick because I love.I liked this episode. As all the regular readers are no doubt aware, I have not been a fan of the global focus of this season of the show. But this week we had what CSI: Miami does best: narcissism and nutcases. Here, Dr. Lasker was the narcissist, and Heather Crowley’s family and boyfriend were the nutcases. (We could consider Horatio to be both, but we pick on him every week, so I’m going to give him a reprieve.) I appreciated the tighter scope of this story. One murder spawned another and led to an in...
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Please look at the title of this entry. If you are a police officer and you’ve been shot, you are never, ever, ever, ever to say this. Ever. Even though Delko's getting shot was the worst kept secret on tvguide.com, I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be anything like it was. Dare I say, CSI: Miami is giving us suspense again? When he got shot in the leg, I figured that was it. And then he just had to go and say, “I’m gonna be fine.” Horatio didn’t even have any sunglasses to fiddle with. He just had to stand there and actually emote. It was a watershed moment in the history of this show.I have to admit that when the first Clavo episode aired, I was definitely more concerned with passing my physics-for-poets science requirement, and so while I vaguely remember it, it doesn’t have quite the same resonance for me as it may have for others. I like the character, though. He’s very over-the-top and so obviously evil that he almost makes up for the l...
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I got so excited when I read the description of tonight’s episode and found out that it involved Frank and a land mine. I was then crushed when I found out that it was not going to be an emotionally wrenching hour of bomb-squad awesomeness à la Grey's Anatomy, nor perhaps a friendship forged around a certain death due to a subway accident (we miss you and your Baltimore ways, Frank Pembleton of Homicide: Life on the Street). Instead, I learned to stay away from con artists and received a lesson in the politics of Cuban exiles. What now? That doesn’t really have anything to do with bombs and Detective Tripp, you say? Yeah, tell me about it. It took me pretty much the whole commercial break after they saved Frank to recover. Once I did recover, I was confused. Why would the past-his-prime pitcher randomly set land mines on a beach? I’m aware that he knew that’s where his rival would be landing, but wasn’t it kind of lucky (or unlucky, depending on how y...
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