CSI: Crime Scene Investigation--'Leave Out All The Rest'

<p><b>Synopsis:</b><p>Grissom joins Catherine and the team at a crime scene on a rainy night: the badly scraped up dead body of a man lies on the ground. Marks on his wrists indicate he was bound, and given the damage to the body, Catherine posits he may have been tied to the bottom of a car and dragged to his death. Doc Robbins points out postmortem stab wounds on the body, as well as puncture wounds around the man's nipples. While Catherine examines tire treads at the scene, Nick is able to identify the man from the personalized shirt he wore. Along with Brass and Riley, Nick goes to the house of their victim, Ian Wallace, and finds evidence of a scuffle as well as magazines with a woman's name on the subscription label: Justine Stefani. Dr. Robbins determines Ian's cause of death was strangulation, and Grissom notices burn marks on the man's tongue which, when taken with the nipple puncture wounds, leads the CSI supervisor to conclude the man may have been into S&M. Grissom leaves the lab and goes to the house of Lady Heather, claiming to want insight into the case. She tells him the nipple markings are from needle play and the tongue burns could be from a kind of shock treatment, leading Grissom to conclude their victim was a submissive. Back at Ian Wallace's house, Riley finds a box with S&M bondage gear under Ian's bed, labeled with the name 'Lower Lynx'--a bondage club. The CSIs talk with the owner of the club, a woman named Michelle, who claims not to know Ian but after pressure from Nick and Brass, leads the CSI and the detective to the back room, where they discover a pair of metal chopsticks--possibly the instrument of the tongue shocks.<p>Lady Heather posits that Ian was keeping his S&M lifestyle secret from Justine, whose personal effects don't indicate she was into bondage. The case gets markedly more complicated when Justine's burned body is found inside her SUV in the desert. The CSIs determine she was hit with her own car. The CSIs trace the last phone call on Justine's cell to a man named Martin Devlin, who sells insurance. He tells Brass that he had called to sell Justine insurance but that she hung up on him before he made the sale. After matching Michelle's DNA to the chopsticks used on Ian, Nick questions the dominatrix, who admits to an affair with Ian, but claims they never went to each other's houses. When Wendy matches DNA blood splatter from Ian's house to Devlin, the CSIs haul him back in, finding the same needle marks around his nipples that Ian had. His aggressive female lawyer quickly puts a stop to the questioning. Archie retrieves records from Devlin's phone and find he erroneously sent a text meant for Justine to a wrong number. The text has a picture of Ian--and Devlin's lawyer having sex. The lawyer admits she, Ian and Devlin did a "scene" together at Lower Lynx and then she followed Ian home. After they had sex, Devlin burst in and fought with Ian over her, but the two left after that--with Ian still alive. With nothing to link either the lawyer or Devlin to the scene, the CSIs are at a dead end, left to wonder if Ian and Justine were the victims of random violence. At Lady Heather's house, Grissom admits to Heather his real reason for coming to see her: a goodbye video message Sara sent him, claiming his "not making a decision" to leave Las Vegas with her was in fact "making a decision." Heather agrees with Sara's conclusion and offers to let Grissom stay with her.<p><b>Analysis:</b><p>Episodes without conclusions are risky. It goes beyond the episodic nature of the <i>CSI</i> franchise--and with episodic TV there is no guarantee that the viewers who watched the first installment will be there for the second, or vice versa--and ventures into presenting an episode that, on its own, is unsatisfying. The <i>CSI</i> shows often hinge on coincidences--someone is able to match a tire tread to a specific car or trace a specific chip from a casino--but the idea that three people could be tied to two victims and not a single one have anything to do with their murder is hard to swallow. Even harder to swallow is that the CSIs come up with a pretty lame theory: random psychos broke into Ian and Justine's house after the melee went down with the Lower Linx crowd and killed Ian and Justine. After the intricate story that comes before, the theory that it could have just been a group of random psychos is a let down, to say the least.<p>Of course, this might not be the end of the case; there's a good chance it might be revisited in a later episode. One hopes it will be, if for no other reason than to give the audience a definitive conclusion to a case they've already invested an hour in. I realize the CSIs can't always solve every case and that sometimes they hit a wall, but to leave this one open-ended would be a mistake. The first episode to feature the Miniature Crime Scene Killer, <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/csi/season7/built_to_kill_2.shtml">"Built to Kill Part Two"</a> ended without an arrest, but even in that early episode, it was clear from the precision of the murder and the miniature reconstruction that it was the introduction of an on-going mystery rather than a case that would simply go down in the books as one of the ones the CSIs just couldn't solve. Realistically, I hate to criticize anything that makes the show more authentic--and not being able to solve a case now and then is indeed realistic--but after an entire episode has been devoted to it, it leaves the viewer with a distinctly unsatisfied feeling. Maybe this case will be revisited, but the end of the episode doesn't really make it clear one way or another.<p><HR ALIGN="CENTER" SIZE="1" WIDTH="45%" COLOR="#007BB5"><p>To read the full reviews, please click <A HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/reviews/csi/leave_out_all_the_rest.shtml">here</A>.<center></center>

 

We're five episodes into the new season and I haven't seen a comment on the new structure for the guest and technical credits. I think it's a unique touch to have the names alternate between the bottom left and right sides of the screen rather than the more traditional bottom center from before.

I think this is one plot line that will be revisited in the future. However this isn't the first time the episode ended without a resolution. I recall an episode where Catherine was unable to discover who killed an old friend of hers because the officer in charge falsified the evidence. Another would have to be that magician who hacked up a key in the final moments of the episode just as he was getting sent to lockup. Both of these episode have so far remained unresolved.

 

Great review, as usual. I agree that this storyline will probably be revisited in the future.

Spoiler: Based on an interview...

Based on the interview David Rambo did with the site last month:

It makes me wonder if these unsolved murders might be the first hint of that serial killer storyline...

Grissom's chemistry with Lady Heather is great, and it was nice to see her get to the root of his problems and help him say out loud what he may or may not have known deep down. After all the years Sara and Grissom danced around each other, and the years they've been together, I can't see the show having Grissom exit without some sort of closure to that relationship (and this episode didn't count as closure IMO).

I loved the scene with Nick, Greg and Riley - Riley is fun, and I think I may be developing a girlcrush on her. Her banter with Greg is refreshing, and it makes me think we might be seeing a bit more of the old Greg when he's around her. Nick sounded like the older brother when he scolded them to knock it off. :lol:

This show seems to drag a bit for me sometimes, so while I hated to see Gary leave (and that they killed Warrick), I like that we're getting some new blood in the lab to liven things up.

In other news, I can officially say that I have no desire to engage in any of the S&M stuff they talk about on this show. *winces and protects nipples*

 

It was a very riveting episode. all of it, the whole team at their best, Billy Petersen's awesome acting, I just read the analysis of the whole thing, and loved the part that says Grissom is going to wake up form the funk he's been in and and decide his future is with Sara" of couse it is, one doesn't blow off 9 years when trouble is brewing, they'll work it out! I never had any doubt! And fans who say Grissom is different, well DUH, their all sad and suffering a hugh loss, what's he supposed to do, go around joking and laughing? It shows the actors great acting skills~

 

I hated the way Episode 6 ended. It suggested that Grissom slept with Lady Heather!

It does not make sense especially minutes before Grissom decided to get some sleep in the guest room, he was an emotional wreck as he was constantly having flashbacks of what Sara had said in the video sent via email. Earlier on Lady Heather hinted that “no one has more rigid boundaries that Grissom”

On the other hand if Grissom had slept with Lady Heather, it was because he was angry with himself. For weeks Grissom has been grieving over Sara’s departure. Then Sara sends him a video telling him that she is having a good time and had not been this happy for a long time. And i think Grissom will even be more depressed if he slept with Lady Heather. He himself has admitted that to him “sex without love is pointless, it makes him sad”. So I think we can expect to see a gloomier Grissom in the coming episodes.

Moreover, in Lady Heather’s box, it was pouring rain and in this episode it was also raining heavily. It is so ironic that whenever Grissom visits Lady Heather on some problem, even the weather is gloomy. He never seems to visit Lady Heather on a happy note.

I believe that Sara decided to contact Grissom, is because she was deeply missing him and wants to get back with him. In earlier seasons we know that Sara is always putting it out there for Grissom. Hoping that he will get her bait. I don’t believe she is happy, and something tells me that there is more to this. She is not revealing everything. The timing was wrong for her to ask Grissom to go away with her. He was grieving the death of Warrick and it has deeply affected his job which he loved so much. First, like in Season 3 after the lab explosion, Sara had asked Grissom out for dinner, He turned her down. A that time bedsides the lab explosion, was dealing with the possibility of loosing his hearing moreover in the video Sara never mentioned once she was breaking up with Grissom. She kept saying that it was Grissom who wants to breakup. Grissom on the other hand told Lady Heather that he never said he broke up with Sara.

I strongly believe that Grissom asked Lady Heather to stay, was because he wanted to talk to someone. Something tells me that Grissom and Sara will get back together in the end and he will leave Las Vegas with her.

 

Great review as always, Kristine. I like how you parallelled the 'non-endings' of the crime and Grissom and Sara's relationship. Hopefully, both will be revisited again.
I agree with you about LH also. WP and MC definitely have some chemistry, but I didn't detect any sexual tension that there had been in the past. I think it was a friend being there for a friend. Nicely done by the actors.
I also agree that Sara was not completely happy in the video. The inflections and the cracks in her voice betrayed the 'happiness' she was trying to convey to Grissom. I suspect he noticed it, too. Hence, the guilt and the song lyrics that said 'forgetting all the hurt inside you've learned to hide so well'.
I enjoyed this episode more than I thought I would. It was so well acted and produced. I liked how they used the song and Sara's video. Hopefully, this is Grissom's lowest point. I'd like to see him start crawling out of his hole in these last few episodes. It's pretty clear that the rest of the CSI team can carry on without him.

 

Well the GSR thing certainly ruined the song for me.

However, I liked how the team got together at the end.

It seems like Grissom is on an entirely different planet now from the rest of his team. He's gone whether they know it or not.

Great metaphor to say that the show will carry on without him.

I don't think he slept with Lady H because she is far too dignified to be Grissom's 'sloppy seconds'.

 

It was a great review, Kristine, but IMHO, you made the same mistake I've seen most people have made: overestimating Lady Heather, and overestimating the connection between Grissom and Lady Heather.

If there's something Lady Heather has proven during all her previous appearances on this show (and I'm sorry to say this, but it's true) is that she's not a woman of much dignity and/or self-respect, and that she's not a strong woman, or one who can even make sense of her own life. Last time we saw her, she was selling her own life to a stranger who fantazises about abusing and killing women because she (with very good reason!) was denied visitation rights to her grand-daughter. It may break some hearts, but the power and strength she displays is all an act (and not a very good one, by the way).

During this episode's interaction between her and Grissom, it was clear that she had an agenda. That, of she got her psych diploma (in less than a year!) out of a Choco Krispies box. Yes, she had the right strategy with Grissom: she asked him the questions out front. But if "Does Sara know you're here?" is a question a concerned friend who happens to be a therapist would asked to a closed off person, "am I your dirty little secret?" is a question you ask to somebody who's depressed in order to take advantage of them.

The mere fact that in the next to last scene Lady Heather was sit on a desk above his eye level bothered me to no end. That's intimidating! even I who haven't studied psychology know that you must always - as a friend or as a therapist, as this may be the case - be at eye level with the person you're talking with. And even in her dominatrix-ie ways, all she did was give him excuses and validation for his actions of lack thereof: "a relationship is dead before it's over", "deep down we feel relieved, even if we don't want to admit it". In a way, that's sort of what Grissom wants to hear: he really wants to believe it's for the best (when it's painfully and obviously not), and he wants to believe ultimately he will feel relieved (and she will feel relieved), and that it just wasn't meant to be, it was fate (and therefore, not his fault). Heather does nothing but reinforce these notions on him - that's the reason why he prefers going to her when he has a problem: she's rationalization and justification, instead of in-depth analysis and action.

And her offering him to stay in one of her guest bedrooms, and then staying when he asked her to? Sweet, but then again, does nothing to actually help him. All she does is help him hide from his current situation, instead of facing it out front and changing it. She absolutely fails to address his core problem, the one that makes him get himself all the other problems of his life: His lack of action, his "thinking too much and doing too little" and his fear of taking risks and ultimately, his fear of being happy and tendency to sabotage himself (He prefers what's safest over what's best, what's easiest over what will make him happy). In other words: at worst, she wants to take advantage of Grissom. At best, she's a lousy friend and a therapist I wouldn't go to.

And Grissom's main problem is that everybody in his life do nothing but validate his actions even if they're wrong because "that's the way he is", "he needs more time", "he's not good with people" etc, etc, etc... and if there is somebody to critizise him, it's always a villain or a dumb person. What he needs is somebody, a friend (a TRUE friend) to tell him "Grissom: you're pathetic, sad and full of you-know-what. Stop wallowing in self-pity because you're too old for that so instead, grow some balls, pack your bags and go after Sara. Don't worry about the humilliation of begging her to forgive you because you can't get more humilliated than you're now. If she accepts, you'll be happy. If she says no, you needed the change of job anyway". Sadly, so long there hasn't been anyone to do that.

 

I'm not sure I agree entirely with your analysis of Lady H, but it was a good one!

And yeah, for so long no one's really ever been able to say to Grissom what's really needed to be said. The character was written in a way as such he is right about everything and never wrong.

He should just leave because he is of no use to his team now. He's wallowing in self-pity to such a degree he is not there for them especially after Warrick's death. He hasn't been much of a leader as of late and so it's time for him to go.

Go after Sara, go on a safari. But just go Grissom-you're done.

 

Great review Kristine thanks.
I don’t think that Grissom slept with Heather (Sex) because is out of Grissom character.
Grissom said that "sex without love is pointless and sad".
And we know that Grissom loves only a woman: Sara Sidle.
In 7x23 Grissom said that Heather is a friend and in this episode Heather tell him::
"May I make a personal observation? As a friend, not as a therapist?
Billy said "She's a friend, she's someone who he can trust." He went on to say, "I think that my character, Grissom, sees in her an anthropologist. Someone who is so keyed in to elements of humanity that Grissom never has been able to understand."
For Carol Mendelsohn, "The two characters feel at ease with each other and share an intimate respect for one another. In a different world — one without Sara Sidle in it — Lady Heather and Grissom might end up together."
So I think that Grissom respects Heather and he does not use her only to forget Sara.
Grissom needs a friend not sex and they are friends, good friends.

 

Yeah, I don't think she was going to sleep with him or he was requesting that she stay for that reason. More than likely he needed a shoulder to literally cry on. Heather is his equal in her own way and he can break down in front of her, speak to her in his own frank way and not worry about offending her or making her uncomfortable.

Grissom doesn't seem to be the submissive type any more than Heather would be. They're both clearly a dominate-minded personality and at best they'll have a close bond that doesn't break the friendship barrier.

I think Grissom will eventually either go find Sara and make that his response (he's going to give up the lab) or he'll go off on his own somewhere like Sara did, only Grissom's would be more solitary and isolated. Like out in a remote location in another country to study bugs or something.

As to the seemingly random "psycho" crime, I doubt we've seen the last of it either. The miniature murders weren't the first or only time we've seen an overall arch go through a season. There was also the one of the judge who was a woman that got a sex change and was killing men based on birthdates. This one won't showcase Grissom as the main investigator but seems to either be a set up for the incoming boss (Fishbourne) or one for the lab as a whole to solve.

 

I loved the analysis made by Hadapurarura. It aptly conveys my sentiment of Lady Heather. I absolutely with Kristine that Grissom should wake up from his funk and realise that his future is with Sara. Grissom admitted that the only one he ever loved is Sara, the sonnet he had dedicated to her in a letter, his marriage proposal and his pinning for her when she left, the only right thing is for Grissom to be untied with Sara whom he first met in San Francisco 9 years ago and it was love at first sight for him.

On the other hand, I am shocked that some fans would suggest that Grissom should end up with Lady Heather. Yes they do have the right to voice their opinion BUT if they had really been watching CSI from the beginning, they would have known that Grissom is not a typical character on the tube, which jumps from one woman to another.

CSI writers are story tellers. What is said and done in earlier episodes will surface again in the future episodes.

In the episodes Butterflies, in his little speech he was obviously talking about Sara, He said he could not risk everything he wanted for her. Would he risk everything for a Dominatrix? He had always visited Lady Heather when he was down. There has never been a personal visit in a happy note. It is obvious he doesn’t want anyone to know that was visiting Lady Heather. His colleagues have no respect for Lady Heather. Brass refers to her “as a bad penny that keeps turning up”. Catherin has no opinion of her lately and even Nick and Greg sniggers at her. At the end of the episode Weeping Willow, we learn that Grissom is willing to give up his personal life for a perfect public life.

I think Grissom is only fascinated by Lady Heather. He describes her as an anthropologist. He is really impressed with her mind, her ability to run her own “service” - her S&M parlour. And to those fans who suggested that Lady Heather should replace Grissom as a head of CSI must be kidding. I don’t think Lady Heather is that intelligent! There are other ways of getting the DNA of her daughter’s killer than sleeping with him. I suppose she is only intelligent when it comes to dealing with sex. She overestimates herself. Only a fool would empty his family bank account (leaving a paper trail) to have the pleasure of killing her.

Hadapurarura is right; Lady Heather was not helping Grissom at all. She is a quack who got her degree from a Krispy Cocoa Box. And more over she was wrong when she said that the only place does not remind of Grissom of Sara is her own home, when it was just the opposite. She was trying hard to convince Grissom that his relationship with Sara was over before it ended. She makes no effort to get to know about Sara’s character and she echoes Sara’s words that not making a decision is making a decision. And it was obvious that Grissom care not to make a decision as he was not in a proper state of mind. She is only a distraction!!!

Hope this is the last time we see her. Her role is overplayed.

 

Well how generous of you as a GSR fan to allow nonGSR fans an opinion.

 

what a great post m1304m great analysis of the whole last 8 years, right on. I so agree with you on all the points you made. Lady Heather was only a distraction.. and I'll add, he never loved her~ also LH sleeps with her daughtrers murderer and nearly beats a guy to death, scary, Sara takes care of her problems on her own validity, and doesn't dump them on Grissom, I've always admired that! anyway thank's, good insight:thumbsup:

 

All this really comes down to is, that there "could be" a romantic thing with Grissom and Lady Heather and those who are GSR fans, can't stand it and that's why they hate her.

Now, if there was no "romantic thing" implied, then they would be fine with her.

I think Lady Heather's character is interesting. I also believe she has a lot more insight on life, and Grissom, then Sara does. Lady Heather has had tragedy in her life and she doesn't run from it, like Sara does. Lady Heather faces adversity and rises above it. Basically, she faces her problems and issues and doesn't run away from the people or the man in her life. She's a strong woman, while others aren't!

Also, she is no longer a Dominatrix, she sold the business in hopes of getting custody of her Granddaughter. Heather is really to make sacrifices to do the right thing.

I, personally, don't think that there is anything romantic going with her and Grissom, but for most people to say that it's not in Grissom's character to "sleep with her" is a bunch of crap. Grissom has the capability to do anything, including have sex with Lady Heather. He is NOT in his right frame of mind and he could conceivable give into temptation. After all, Grissom is a man! Though I don't think anything happened between the two of them, because Heather would not take advantage of Grissom.

Oh that's right, she write's a 'good-bye' letter and leaves it with the receptionist, so the receptionist can deliver the I'm leaving you without saying goody-bye. Lady Heather would have went to Grissom and told him he was leaving, not take a cowardly way out. And Lady Heather never dumped her problems on Grissom, Grissom involved HIMSELF in them. Lady Heather never went to him.

And what Lady Heather did when her daughter was murdered is pretty much what almost any mother would do. Because if my daughter was murdered, I'd tried to do anything to find her killer. But not all mother's are willing to do the ends of the earth for their kids.