User Reviews

A woman is found dead, covered in worms and paper wasps, but a muscid fly (found in urban areas not rural mountains where her body was discovered) could be the key to finding her killer. A gunshot to her temple and signs of a long abusive relationship located in her autopsy (via x-rays) could also be particulars indicating her husband as the murderer. Meanwhile, Warrick and Catherine are working a stolen painting case (could be inside job as the security system was shut off and there's no forced entry involved) while Nick is working a missing persons case (missing wife at bus terminal, her car found and will be investigated as if a crime scene). An ear print on the wall could implicate a member of the family responsible for the missing painting. Nick finds the missing woman's red hair in the trunk of her car, so he feels that it is possible there's more to the story than meets the eye.

Authentic paintings swapped out for forgeries as a cry for attention, a little hotel room hanky panky resulting from the pursuit of a call by a husband (totally unaware as to why his beloved is *missing*) worried about his wife, a casino recording which informs Grissom of an inconvenient truth regarding Warrick's reason for skipping a court date (Grissom's day shift nemesis, Conrad, letting him know that as an administrative CSI head how he's failing, gets him the goods on how Warrick should stick to his own shift's criminalists as a court room substitute), Catherine's husband up to no good calling child services on her, a dead pig and Teflon on a bullet wound implicating an abusive husband, and Sara Sidle's humanity and empathy encouraging Grissom to not just accept defeat in their pursuit of a wife-abusing killer all accumulate to make this episode of CSI a real winner. To be able to feature three different cases being investigated, two seemingly an alternative to the usual grisly crime scene investigations us CSI: Las Vegas fans are used to, and be compelling from start to finish still, this really just reinforces how the show knows how to captivate an audience and never release its hold. Doc Robbins, medical examiner with a bum leg, appears for the first time. Conrad, and his ability to get under Grissom (and our) skin, it is hard to imagine that he'd emerge a fully fleshed and far more interesting character instead of what he first appeared to be: an antagonist seemingly only interested in causing Grissom aggravation and further his bureaucratic self interests. Grissom's mastery in entomology comes to forefront here even if the sheriff (his boss) of Vegas considers his pig demonstration too confusing for a jury to understand. If anything, this "speaking for the victim" (as Sidle promotes in instigating Grissom to not quit), by not giving up, really makes Sara such an important character in Grissom's own evolution from strictly a scientist following the evidence to understanding how important it is to care.