Grade 'Murder Sings the Blues'

I've got a central vac. Just shove anything down there you never want to see again, within a certain size.

 

But....USED CONDOMS?

 

Here's my take:

Not a bad episode. Not an earth shattering one. A B+ from me.

First off let me get this off my chest: Danny seems to be slowly disappearing off the face of the CSI world. I know he can't be up in our faces every single episode, but it seems lately that he's barely there, and when he is he's strangely sedate. I want my fiesty, emotional, passionate Danny back I am noticing it now and I miss him.

What I did really like this episode was Mac. Seeing him cranky like that that was riveting. THERE was the Gary Sinise I know and love!!!! I have to say if I was acting with him in a scene where he gets intensely angry like that, I would be bloody terrified. Nobody does intense like Gary Sinise. The guy is a phenomenon. I think he was wrong to blast Hawkes like that in public, although I understand that he was making him an example to the rest of the staff in the lab. I also thought Hawkes should have told Mac that he had met the vic, but as he didn't really know the girl (a one hour coffee hardly counts!) I don't see why he should have taken himself off the case. I don't think Hawkes was being unethical at all.

I liked the Mac/Peyton scenes as well. Peyton is such a contrast to Mac that it is refreshing. When Peyton unintentionally revealed that Hawkes 'knew' the vic Mac should have said that he hadn't been told that, and not hidden that from Peyton. No wonder Peyton was upset. I liked that she was faced up to Mac and was loyal to Hawkes, despite her relationship with Mac. Mac really did show some errors of judgement which was really nice. Good to see he's not the perfect CSI :lol: And the pissiness made him seem more human too. We've seen him pissy at Danny plenty of times, but this was different. More like a minor meltdown.

I like to think that Mac was just having a really shitty day and was highly irritated. It was his birthday, the oingo boingo with Peyton he thought he'd be getting wasn't panning out.

The scene where he went to Hawkes' office was nicely done. No apologies .. but there was definitely a conciliatory tone to it.

I adored the scene at the end where Mac had eye sex with Peyton as he was blowing the candle out on the cupcake. Phwoar. Made my heart go pitty-pat. More of that and I'll definitely get That Gary Thing back again.

Actually didn't mind Lindsay at all in this episode. I think because she was relaxed. I particularly liked her trying to remove herself from the lab when Hawkes' was being 'slapped down'. She looked very uncomfortable, and so sorry for Hawkes.

As for the cases ... meh ... okay I suppose. I too have been a bit affronted for a long time about the victims all being young, gorgeous, sexy and white. Glad I'm not the only one

 

I enjoyed the Mac/Peyton scenes as well, I actually think their romance is being handled exceptionally well, considering it's on a CSI show, and they don't always do romance well, it not being their particular forte. I thought it pretty clearly showed that he's relaxed with her away from the office, but he still has those nagging doubts when they're in the workplace together. I also like that she doesn't adoringly put him on a pedestal, and gets in his face when she thinks he deserves it - and he's willing to take it from her, when he knows he deserves it. Yet neither one devalues or denigrates the other, there's no underlying nastiness or insult to their disagreements, like there often can be in lovers' quarrels. I also didn't feel like their relationship was being shoved down my throat, she's been absent from the past two eps, and in this one, only 2 scenes were romance-related, the very beginning and the very end.

I think it can be somewhat difficult to show good character development on a show like this, and not turn off at least some of the viewers. Everyone has their own ideas of how much development they actually want to see, and what kind they deem appropriate or interesting. I know my own personal idea about baaaad character development on another of the CSI shows is many folks' idea of great character development. Eh...as long as she's not on every single ep, and not in half of all of Mac's scenes, I'm okay with it. I don't want to see his interaction time reduced with the other team members, because I think he has great onscreen chemistry with all of the other characters. I love seeing Mac/Stella, Mac/Danny-Hawkes-Flack, Mac/Adam, and as long as I still get that, and the dynamics between all of them don't change, then I can take a little bit of Mac/Peyton thrown in, here and there. JMO.

As for Danny, I enjoyed him in this ep, I thought it showed a pretty decent return to his feisty old self! I thought he had some of the best snarky or funny one-liners ("I hate rich people. Faaaan-tastic.") And I thought the scene where he was clearly fed up with sifting through the nasty stuff in the vac system was great. I honestly think we'll see lots of Danny, when Shane Casey resurfaces. He had a link of sorts to him, after all, and Shane's situation and motives clearly unsettled Danny. When Feisty Danny is the focus, he really shines - and has a tendency to dominate the screen. So when he's watered down a bit, it really stands out. I honestly don't think we'll see Zombie Danny all season, though. I'm looking forward to seeing some truly great stuff from his character in some future eps.

 

Having seen him prepare for and then film that particular scene I have to say I was totally amazed at how good he is. We couldn't really see his face from where we were sitting but I was terrified just hearing his voice and the way he delivered his lines. Gary is that intense.

 

Their relationship is refreshingly adult & mature, compared to Danny/Lindsay ... which is irritatingly childish.

Agreed. I think they've done a wonderful job with this. She doesn't detract from Mac's character at all ... she actually enhances it. Again, if you compare that with Danny being reduced to something that just felt bizarrely left-field ...

I'm sure there will be ... I need to learn some patience ... it's hard (for me) to remain cool, calm and collected where Danny is concerned :lol: A voice of calm reason in the wilderness ... thanks for that!

 

O. M. G. You have to be one of the luckiest people on the planet to have actually seen all of that in person. What I would not give ... One of my goals in life is to see him acting on stage, just once. Hard when I'm in Australia but why have little goals? :lol:

 

Well, I'm from Italy so nothing is really impossible...

 

hmmm. I'd give it a B.
Mac & Hawkes: Hawkes, you stupid idiot. As soon as he saw his phone number on that piece of paper... I thought Hawkes was a little smarter than that. Mac had a right to be mad at him, but he didn't have to chew him out in front of all the lab rats.
Mac & Peyton: Gag me. I re-watched all the episodes with Peyton in it and I realized that I only dislike her when she is engaging in eye-sex with Mac. When she's just being the M.E., she's bearable.
Lindsay: Was hardly in it. *gives several large cupcakes to the writers*.
Danny: Was also hardly in it. *takes back half a cupcake*. At first I didn't like him, but now I'm warming up.
Flack & Stella: Hilarious. :lol: I could go on and on, but you guys would stop reading after a few hours.
Overall story lines: Okay. Not drop-dead boring, but not amazing. I totally agree with the 'no more upper class white victims' campaign, but I would add: get a different age group! I am so sick of people in their 20's and 30's dying left and right.
I feel like I have more to say, but I just can't remember what it is.... more later, I guess.

 

I was told that S3 was a big improvement over S2 and I should give it try again so I watched this ep.

Plot wise...yeah, maybe we just won't go there. Or rather, I'd already been there in earlier Seasons.

Hawkes got some screen time! Pop the cork and swig the beer, it's party time! He has attitude and confidence to stick up for himself. The Hawkes they were trying so hard to hide. Snif, I think I need a tissue.

Anna needs a vacation, pronto. She looks so tired. She should go home, have the child and take a nice loooonnnng break. Have to say, though, Lindsay didn't annoy me in this ep. I kept wanting to tell her to go home, put her feet up and take a nap.

Danny...okay, this bitch is more towards the writers than the character...what the hell kind of psuedo science load of crap was up with the vacuum cleaner contents? How did you magically know which layer of content went to what apartment? What a load of bunk.

Stella...you played good cop! Usually when you interrogate with Flack you get to be the bad cop and he just sits back waiting for the time he has to pull you in. Gotta say I liked the diversity.

Mac...Gotta say I love pissy Mac. Reaming Hawkes out...in front of the others made complete and total sense to me. Didn't seem out of character and it made sense from a supervisor point of view as well. You let something like that slide and everyone else will think they can be lax on the rules as well....although someone made a good point about Mac taking cases that he was emotionally involved in as well. Loved how Hawkes took him to task for that. Shows the level of respect they both have for each other that they can take criticism.

Peyton...okay, this is a weird bitch, but it bugged me. Where the hell did you learn to sew? Victor Frankenstein? The stitch up you did of the Y incision on the vic was terrible. Seriously, go find a Martha Stewart clone and take some lessons. A blind man could have done a better job.

The other female detective chick...okay, granted, this was only the 2nd ep I'd seen this season, but really, I can't remember your name. That says something. Not a good something, either. You made no impression on me at all.

Flack...oh, it's been said, but I'll say it again. Your humor and timing and the sheer presence you have in any scene is wonderful no matter how many lines you do or don't have. You can say more with a look than half the cast can with dialogue. I'll be watching next week just to watch you and Gary snark at each other.

Have to say I have enjoyed the editing this season much more than I did either of the previous seasons. Don't know whose idea it was to highlight and focus the evidence when it's revealed in relevance, but it's a nice, seamless trick. Makes the show more of a how-they-done-it than a who-done-it which given the plots will never be a real stretch of the brain.

The faster pacing that was lacking in S2 is back and very pleasant as well. Now, if they just need to get out of the rich WASP section of NY.

Oh, I did have one other bitch. I absolutely hate when they make a normally intelligent character look like an idiot so they can shove the plot line in a specific direction. Not that I consider Lindsay a normally intelligent character, but she didn't deserve the writers having Mac snapping at her over a suspect's background just so they could give Mac an excuse to go stare down the bad guy.

All in all, don't know that I will watch every week based on this ep, but they did hook me into next weeks showdown.

Oh, and Top, you were right. Even as shoddy as this ep's plot was, it was a lot better than most of the offerings in S2.

 

I gave the episode a C+. The only thing I loved was the screentime Hawkes got and Gary Sinise amazing acting, but the storylines was not interesting. In fact, I didn't understand the whole b-case at all. I should rewatched with subtitles I think, because I have no clue how they found the killer

 

Voted A-

I liked the pace in this ep; some funny one liners and nice interaction between several characters. Loved to get a little peek into Mac's and Hawkes' personal live. The idea of the 'blue' parties was great. Over all to me it was quite entertaining.

It had something to do with a special kind of waterproof chalk they found in the vacuum waste of the vic and on his forehead. And since that kind of chalk is used to sketch buddhist symbols it lead them to one of the neighbours.

And that was, like Hankster pointed out already, a bit strange. Someone who has the patience to make drawings by using chalk suddenly snaps and kills his neighbour because he is making some noise for about an hour a day.

And perhaps the fact that all recent cases seem to be evolved around rich and beautiful people is the main reason we don't get to see the "old" Danny so much any more. He does have to have a good reason to get all upset, angry and dramatic about things.

He just doesn't relate to these people at all so he does his job but couldn't care less about the people involved in it. That was nicely proven by the little conversation between him and Stella at the beginning.

S: At some auction somebody paid $ 100.000,- to have dinner with this guy.
D: Why, what's he cooking? :lol: :lol:

As being a superior myself I think Mac was absolutely out of line to address Hawkes about his behaviour (which was wrong) in front of others . No matter how shitty your day or your personal life is, this is just not done.

I'm dissappointed that there were no D/L scenes at all this week, but I'm sure the M/P and especially D/F shippers had a blast. The whole hose-'n-hole thing :devil: was so funny because I knew the instant I saw it how excited you all would be.

 

I thought the episode was okay
I've seen better cases but the Danny/Flack Scene
were funny
the Mac/Hawkes were great nice to see a more character devolpment for Hawkes
Glad Angle & Peyton are back, as wel