Grade 'Heart of Glass'

Ceindreadh said:
Not sure I understand your question. IMO, Stella should have told Mac what had happened because (a) if Adam had tested the particular piece of glass that had cut Stella he'd have found blood from an unknown female which would have confused the investigation (I don't think CSI's would check every single drop of blood, so he might not have found any of Stella's)
(b) Adam should have been warned that he was working with HIV+ blood. I know he was double gloved anyway, and that it's probably standard procedure to assume that all blood is potentially dangerous, but he still should have been warned.
(c) Stella was clearly distracted by the realization that she could be HIV+, and she could be suffering side-effects from the drugs she's on. Mac needs to know if she's not going to be at her best.

Agreed on all counts, especially B. I can understand her not wanting anyone to know about her being cut, but making sure Adam knew the blood on the glass was HIV postive should have been top priority. Of course, it's possible he was privy to the autopsy results and already knew.

I don't fault Stella so much for using the bathroom to clean up in. She was bleeding, and her first priority would be to patch herself up. Although surely the CSI's would have a first aid kit or something with them.

Exactly. Yes, she broke protocol, but not just to take a piss. Cleaning herself off was important.
 
Of course, it's possible he was privy to the autopsy results and already knew.

When Stella was with Sid, he said he'd take care of notifying everyone that the vic was HIV+. From that I thought Adam would have known.

I also figured since Mac only touched the edge of the credit card that he wasn't contaminating anything. But, I know nothing about forensics so that was probably a huge leap on my part.

I can why some viewers would find these things inexcusable.
 
I love this episode! One of my favorites.

Melina is just a great actress. This could give them a nomination for the globes and the emmys! :)
 
I know I'll sound a bit fastidious here :rolleyes:, but I think the diagnosis of Kennedy's disorder as Capgras syndrome is wrong. See, I'm a medical intern specializing in psychiatry, and from what I know, Capgras syndrome is about people believing that the persons around them have been replaced by look-alikes. Kennedy's condition is more like something called "negative autoscopy", where one thinks its own image has been stolen by someone else. There is one example in Maupassant's short story Le Horla .
 
Danny's look when Mac said "I'm with her..." was priceless. For one brief shot, Mac obviously had a hard time keeping a straight face - either that or Gary Sinese did. It was small, so who knows whether it was in character or not!

There were several breaches of normal practices. Most notably, Danny wore gloves to retrieve the bullet from the bloody water but then handled it with bare hands afterwards. Ironic that at that point in the show, I thought of AIDS. Then, of course, there was Mac handling the credit card.

I can forgive the breaches of etiquette with Stella more, because they are more in keeping with the panic that someone would really have if they'd cut themselves with bloody glass. I think that if that happened, your first thought would be to wash immediately, no matter whether you were at a crime scene or not. And, I'm not sure this really falls under the same category as people mentioned with Greg at the crime scene in Las Vegas -- is it possible that given the circumstances, that they didn't regard the entire apartment as a crime scene? As for the contaminated piece of evidence, I imagine that she just didn't turn that piece over to be tested. It isn't necessary in all crime scenes to test every single piece of something -- we've seen cases both ways. I'm not excusing it as right, but quite possibly realistic for someone in that scenario. I also think the reasons for Stella doing what she did and Greg's carelessness are so totally different that a supervisor would handle them in different ways -- not to mention that Mac and Grissom are two very different types of personalities.

I can understand why she didn't tell anyone and went to the hospital on her own. Some people -- even ones who are very supportive of their friends -- have a hard time sharing their own problems and asking for help and support when something happens to them. And the worse something is, the harder it is for them to let people in. The horror at the possibility of being exposed to AIDS being realized when Sid told her that the victim did indeed have AIDS would have been so overwhelming that it might feel impossible to breach with friends, especially if she were worried about being faced with pity rather than support.

I thought both cases were good, but the ending of the first case in particular was a little too much of a stretch. The woman didn't know she'd been shot -- ok, maaaaaaybe, but surely she'd have bled on something other than what she showered away. Pillow or not, you'd have to be a pretty sound sleeper not to hear the shots that close, too. And for someone else to realize that she'd been shot in the head when she didn't know it herself, a little too much of a stretch of the imagination. The other case I could buy more, but how would Mac have known about the syndrome she had where she didn't recognize her own reflection?
 
^The CSIs always seem to have this infinite knowledge. It's been a while since I've seen the ep, but didn't Hawkes talk about the syndrome? Maybe he was the one who mentioned it to Mac.

Stella's reaction was believable, and definitely in character. I think she's used to handling stuff on her own.

Danny's reaction to finding out about Mac and Peyton was really cute. :lol:

As for the gloves thing, that bugs me, too, especially when it's so blatant!
 
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