Grade 'Criminal Justice'

They shouldn't, but for some reason Lindsay seems to be a special snowflake who does that kind of work. She did it in NWILL and I guess she did it in this episode as well.

 

Stella & Flack did it once too, kinda in You Only Die Once.

 

Yeah, and Flack also does drug busts and stuff too, so I guess they just do anything and everything if it fits under the NYPD umbrella. I get it (since using our guys is preferable to one-off guest stars), but sometimes it does stretch credibility. Not that it's the only thing about the show that does, so I tend to shrug it off these days.

 

Danny and Aiden also kind of went undercover in "Hush". Although to be fair, that seemed to be more of a spur-of-the-moment thing too.

It's unrealistic, especially when compared to the other CSI shows...but this show's also the only one of the three where the CSIs also get the label of "detective", maybe that's why they get the free pass more often than not.

 

I have to comment on someone who said CSI: NY is unrealistic compared to the other CSIs. First of all I don't agree (have you seen or ever heard about Miami?). Second, NYPD Crime Scene Unit is composed of forensic detectives (in my favorite tv show's case, Mac, Stella, Danny, Lindsay, Hawkes). NYPD also has investagating detectives (more on Flack, but also Mac and Stella). This sets aside NY from the other CSIs. I didn't see Grissom chasing suspects but CSI is so good and that's how things work at Las Vegas. I have no objections on Lindsay as undercover. C'mon, this is a tv show after all! It's not really being an undercover. She just seated and waited for the suspect. I would object a lot if it involves a terrorist cell. And, there were some police in that room aside from Lindsay.

 

In New York City the people at the crime lab are detectives, not civilians. Other jurisdictions do have civilian technicians that work at the lab - but not in NYC.

It is possible that since in real life it's detectives that work at the crime lab that they decided to use it in the show.

 

True, but he was giving the mom that skeevy grin when he was actually in a courtroom with a judge who seemed more than ready to convict him. I don't think it meant that he really thought he had a chance of going anywhere -- even if Lindsay didn't take him out, there were about ten other cops in the room who would have -- but I do think he was mocking something that he perceived as weakness, both times.

Or, lol, again maybe I'm still reading too much into it.

Yeah, I'm starting to think the Lindsay-gun-combat issue was just oversight instead of characterization...though I'm still sort of willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that, since I think it's weird that she seems to actively avoiding using/shooting the gun outside of the lab. It is fun to see Lindsay carrying in the field, and she seemed fine with that in this episode; but it still struck me as a little odd that she'd tackle the suspect in Dead Reckoning rather than shooting her. Yay for not causing unnecessary bullet holes, but I agree with everyone who thought it would've been easier to just shoot that girl. I might be proven wrong about that, though.

I agree about NWILL being more believable -- a little more, anyway -- but for me, Lindsay being the decoy was the least of the scene's problems as far as believability went. That's an issue I have with a lot of the show's undercover scenes, the perps' behaviour almost never make sense. Even if I could believe that Reyes felt he literally couldn't leave town without the one eyewitness being dead, and couldn't send one of his groupies after her instead, and had to break into said known eyewitness's house by smashing the glass of the front door...I really, really couldn't buy him somehow missing that many cops/SWAT members on his way to the girl's living room. I just couldn't, and it bugged me. Some of them came in through the same living-room door that he used :lol: I liked the scene, but it was ridiculous.

Yeah, I figured that might be the explanation the show falls back on... I know the guys on Miami and LV refer to themselves as "CSI ____" when they're introducing themselves, whereas most of NY's characters introduce themselves as "Detective ____". I never really thought there was much to the difference, but maybe there's a different set of umbrella skills that all NYPD detectives (no matter what branch they work in) need to know, that the other CSI units don't?

I find it unrealistic because I'm a big LV fan; I still see CSIs as primarily science geeks, and I sometimes have believability issues with gun-toting science geeks on the spinoff shows (and to a lesser extent, LV's newer seasons). Yeah, I know Miami's by far the bigger problem in that regard, but I can believe that since CSIs are part of the PD and go into dangerous environments, they'll carry and use guns. What I couldn't believe, before anyway, is that they might also be called on to go undercover, even on the spur-of-the-moment, because that seems so out of their job description. But maybe it's not for NYPD CSIs, and I do think NY is the only show where CSIs have ever gone undercover (?).

I didn't have a huge issue with Lindsay being undercover in this ep, either -- at least, not as much as I did in NWILL, to be honest. In NWILL she was supposed to play a character, here she just had to sit under a towel until Reyes snuck up on her. It would've made more sense with a trained undercover, but I don't think it was something that required all that much training to do.

 

^I'm a big CSI fan too. CSI sticks with Las Vegas standards and procedures as well as CSI: NY does with NYC. The 'undercover' thing is just fine. It's a good character build-up for Lindsay who's been in the background for a while. I don't think being an 'undercover' by just sitting and watching tv needs a specialized person, anyway, Lindsay is a trained detective. There are some questions better left unanswered.

 

I thought this was a solid, above average episode but still with its share of flaws.

It’s great that Stella was the most prominent, driving force in this episode, and it was a nice vehicle for showing various facets of her personality and character. Despite all the screen time that MK/Stella typically gets, seems like it’s been awhile since she really had a case where she was the more dominant presence. GS/Mac still got his screen time in this one but in more of a complementary role than usual.

The case itself really held my interest. I liked that there were actually two crimes/cases linked together by the planted evidence – seems the writers had more material to work with and crafted some interesting twists and turns. Count me as another one who thought the wife (Sarah?) may have been trying to somehow set up her husband. I didn’t find Sarah to be very convincing during her conversation with Stella , so II wasn’t at all sure that Craig was guilty until the last confrontation.

On the not so positive side, I thought the courtroom scenes were unrealistic and overly dramatic. Stella barging in to stop the hearing was ridiculous – a note requesting a private meeting with the judge and counsel would’ve made more sense. And to add to the drama, she also arrested her long time friend, Craig, in a very public, humiliating way. Did she really think he would accept her “help” after that?

As for the supervising DA, I thought the transition from the picture of a charming, smart friend to scheming, murderous husband was a bit abrupt and weak. First Sarah indicated to Stella that she and Craig, who apparently loved each other at some point, had simply grown apart. But at the end of the conversation, she’s says that Stella doesn’t know what Craig is capable of. So which is it, was Craig a normal, loving husband who just snapped when he found out about Sarah’s affair, or was he an arrogant, manipulative monster that had managed to hide his private side for 15 years from everyone except his wife?

Which brings me to the “friends for 15-16 years” scenario -- that seemed awkward and contrived as well. In fact, I found it a bit odd that both Mac and Stella seemed to be personal friends with Craig AND Sarah and would’ve preferred if Stella had been the only one to have a strong connection with Craig. (I guess Stella met Craig as well when she was in college. ) And maybe it was a consequence of earlier scripts (apparently Mac was originally supposed to be the focus of this episode), but a few times it seemed dialogue originally intended for Mac might’ve simply been transferred to Stella without any type of rewrite.


Re: Danny and the stolen badge, what interests me most is Lindsay’s response to the whole thing. I would’ve expected the first words out of her mouth to be “We have to tell Mac.” Instead she tells Danny to come home, and they’ll figure something out? I’ll be interested to see if Lindsay’s allegiance to Danny starts to get her into trouble. Seems like she’s the only one on the team (not counting Sid) who has never been chewed out by Mac for some lapse or other.


Grade = B.

Good effort with some flaws and foibles.

Do all the NY CSI's refer to themselves as detectives? Off the top of my head, I can't recall specifics -- although I vaguely recall hearing Flack, Mac, and maybe Stella specifically referred to as detectives.

In the CSI NY world, I guess I assumed the team was a blend of detectives and investigators. I always thought that Mac, Stella, Flack, and Danny all started as police officers (after going through the academy) and of the three, Mac, Stella, and Flack eventually earned detective shields. Since Sheldon came from the ME’s office (and was never a police officer), I assumed he was titled as investigator rather than detective. Same with Lindsay, who I assumed came from more of a lab/science role in Bozeman.

 

Another thing that bothered me about this episode is that the DA supposedly used his GPS to find the place to dump the body. Never found out what his connection to the property was. But, one would think that a DA would know better than to enter something into an electronic device. That even though things can be deleted, they can also be retrieved.

It bothers me that someone who has nothing to do with the crime just had his/her property trashed and stuff was removed from the property without permission (as far as we know).

If I were to need to get directions to dump a body I would use a random public computer and either write down or print the directions. I would then shred those directions and either scatter, bury, or burn the shredded pieces.

LOL!

 

^ i can't remember without watching it again but didn't they say it was his cabin or someone related to him (for some reason i'm thinking brother in law....)?

 

I'm not too sure if it changed in later seasons, but in the earlier seasons, I remember Danny and Lindsay both introducing themselves, respectively, as "Detective Messer/Detective Monroe" (at least in City of the Dolls) when they went to interview suspects; so I think they had the detective title along with Mac, Stella and Flack, at least back then. Hawkes, I know, usually refers to himself as "Dr. Sheldon Hawkes from the crime lab", ever since Season 2. Maybe earlier...? And I think Aiden went by "Detective Burn" a few times.

I'm not sure how they earned those labels, though (well, Hawkes I know; but Lindsay didn't go through the NYPD academy, and presumably had more of a lab background than a detective one in Bozeman). But it makes me wonder how Adam would classify himself, if he were introducing himself to suspects.

I'm pretty sure the cabin belonged to the DA, too. But they never found the actual body, did they?

 

I might be remembering it wrong but I seem to remember a scene where Stella was in front of a bank of computers with someone else and saying who the cabin belonged to and they were trying to find a connection between the owner and the DA. Wasn't sure if they ever explained the connection.

 

^ it was clearly a memorable moment