<p><b>Synopsis:</b><p>Stella, Hawkes and Flack stand over the body of Macabee Taylor, who apparently plunged to his death in a high rise building. Hawkes observes that he's the second Mac Taylor to die in the space of a week. Stella calls Mac, who has just finished up a swim at an athletic center. During his swim, Mac noticed a man walking alongside the pool, fully dressed, and afterwards he finds someone has rifled through his wallet and keys, leading him to conclude he's the killer's next target. Sid compares the deaths of the two men: the first, MacDonald Taylor, died from exsanguination after being shot, while the second apparently died from his fall, though Sid notices a subdermal bruise that suggests he was hit in the face with a gun before he died. At the scene, Lindsay observes that Macabee's keys are fifteen feet from his body, the keychain crushed and scattered, indicating the killer and he may have struggled over the keys. The new deputy inspector, Gillian Whitford, introduces herself to Mac and recommends he be cautious in pursuing the case. He tries to dismiss her, but she urges him to consider the possibility that someone is attempting to retaliate against him for closing a previous case. Adam identifies 21 Mac Taylors in Manhattan and Mac has them all brought in. Reporter MacQuinn Taylor is nervous, while Machiavelli Taylor is irritated at being detained. Mac gets a call: another Mac Taylor has been attacked--and survived.<p>Stella goes to the hospital to question MacKendra, who says she was attacked on her way to her car after work by a man who fought her for her keys. The CSIs realize the killer is after a car; Mac concludes that the killer dismissed him as a target after looking at his keys at the pool. Danny turns up a hit in the database on the bullet that killed the first Mac Taylor, which ties it into a parking garage break in three weeks prior. Danny and Flack pay Terrence Davis a visit, hoping he's seen the suspect, a man sporting a distinctive neck tattoo. Adam discovers a shard found at the scene of Macabee's death is made of deer antler--and it has female blood on it. He identifies the shard as a button from a highend fashion boutique, Kitano Oka Designs. Stella drops by to find Daniel Oka, one of the owners, packing up. He says the line didn't sell very well, forcing him and his partner, Melinda Kitano, out of business. He mentions that Melinda used to be his girlfriend. In the holding area, the seven Mac Taylors Mac is continuing to hold at the station get edgy, and MacQuinn walks out. Terrence gives Danny and Flack the heads up when he spots the man with the neck tattoo in his bar; Danny and Flack arrest and question the man, Perry Samuels, who is guilty of violating his parole. Perry admits to breaking into the garage, but insists he sold his gun afterwards. Watching the interrogation through the two-way mirror, Mac recalls MacQuinn Taylor mentioning he parks his car at the same garage Perry broke into.<p>Hawkes brings Stella to the Art Installation Waterfall in Brooklyn, where he's found evidence their killer may have held a vigil with flowers and candle wax. Mac gets MacQuinn to show him and Danny his car. Noting that the first victim lived just blocks from the garage, Mac notices damage on the car. MacQuinn claims it was from a fender bender, but Danny finds blood that proves to be human. Stella has Adam search for hit and run victims and Lindsay matches the blood on the car to the blood on the deer antler button. Stella looks up Melinda Katana, Daniel Oka's girlfriend, and learns she was killed in a hit and run in Brooklyn. Stella finds a grieving Daniel Oka, who witnessed Melinda get hit and die right in front of him--while the killer drove off. All he had was the image of the car--and the name of its owner, Mac Taylor. Mac brings MacQuinn in, disgusted that the man didn't even stop to see if the woman he hit was alive. While MacQuinn claims it was an accident, Daniel Oka, who has doused himself in gasoline, plunges into the memorial he's set up for Melinda right in front of Stella. After seeing a critically injured Oka off to the hospital, Stella sits with Adam and they look up the names of their co-workers to see how many others in Manhattan share their names. Mac goes to find Gillian and asks her out for a cup of coffee.<p><b>Analysis:</b><p>I'll admit it up front: I had some reservations about the hundredth episode of <i>CSI: New York</i> after hearing the premise of it. Mac being targeted by someone out to get him <i>yet again</i>? We saw at the end of the third season that Mac has a bit of a persecution complex; after Clay Dobson plunged to his death in <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/newyork/season3/past_imperfect.shtml">"Past Imperfect"</a>, IAB rightfully investigated, but Mac felt he was being railroaded. Season four brought the 333 stalker and Mac's proclamation that the whole case was about his life after Adam assembled the massive 3-D puzzles. His complaint might have been legitimate in that case, but oh, Mac can get so irritating when he feels he's personally under the gun. Knowing that, I groaned a bit when Mac announced in the teaser that he was the killer's next target.<p>Imagine my relief when, even before the halfway mark was reached, it became obvious that our Mac Taylor was in fact not the target of the killer. Coming off Mac's ordeal in <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/newyork/season4/hostage.shtml ">"Hostage"</a> and <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/newyork/season5/veritas.shtml">"Veritas"</a> at the beginning of the season, as well as the 333 storyline from last season, it's nice to see a story that heavily involves Mac but doesn't make him the target of a killer. The case itself is a rather inventive one and I found myself quite liking the way it was set up and how it unfolded. The idea of a man only having the license plate of the car and the rather common name of the person responsible for the death of his girlfriend and using those two things to try to track her killer down is a clever set up for a <i>CSI</i> episode. I was totally caught up in the mystery, and, despite his crimes, found it impossible not to feel bad for Daniel Oka in the end.<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/my_name_is_mac_taylor.shtml">here</A>.<center></center>
Great review, Kristine! Like you, I too had reservations about this episode, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. I loved the Danny/Flack scenes, they just play off each other so perfectly, you know that you're guaranteed something good when you see that those two are together! For me though, I think the scene with Stella and Adam kinda stole the show this time. It was so adorable, just a lovely scene.
Great review as always Kristine! Yeah, I kinda had the same reservations as well. You got that right regarding Mac having a persecution complex. Definitely called for some eye-rolling! :lol: Good thing for TPTB, this didn't backfire. These celebrities actually turned in some pretty decent performance. I do agree that they really play off of each other really well.
I personally was misinformed from the spoiler from last week's episode. I was under the impression that the NY CSIs would start out with the 17 Mac Taylors of New York, minus the 2 dead ones making 15. In the spoiler, Chris D. says “There were 15 of us, now there’s only 7” leading me to believe that 8 more died, and then Det. Mac says, still at the pool, “he was just here, I’m his next target.” With the preview saying the 100th episode...? Kill Mac Taylor! When you learn quickly that the first Mac’s death was by idiocy and the second was an accident during a struggle, it lost a bit of the appeal for me. This regained my attention, to stay awake and finish the episode. I originally, after them solving the case, was going to go to bed, however I chose to watch it out after hearing he covered himself in gasoline.
Great review, as usual. Yeah, I wasn't thrilled with that either. I know he's the main character, and it's GARY FRICKIN' SINISE for goodness sake, but I was still disappointed that the premise wasn't more team-oriented. But the episode itself exceeded my expectations on that count. I thought the episode was a bit slow-going for most of the hour - the final ten minutes (or thereabouts) were the most exciting part of the episode. There were good moments before that, but that was the real meaty stuff. As much as we knew someone was out to get 'Mac Taylor', there wasn't a real sense of urgency with all of the possible targets sitting around the precinct for most of the episode while they tried to figure out the motive. That had me worried too. Rumer did well, as did Chris Daughtry. I wasn't really concerned about Scott Wolf or Julia Ormond since they're long-time actors anyway. Marshall Faulk's appearance felt gratuitous, but it did provide a cute little moment for Danny and Flack, so I'll deal. There must be something in the water in that lab. I wish they'd done more with her as 'the boss' first, before jumping into her being Mac's 'potential love interest'. I know there are apparently no rules about sleeping with coworkers and whatnot on this show, but is Mac putting the moves on his new boss really a wise move?? She's your boss, dude. Hee, they always are. I hope we continue to get these types of scenes even after next week's Big Sekrit is revealed. Spoiler: Next week I'd hate to lose their buddy-buddy relationship because the show is drowning in baby drama. Danny is so fun in these scenes - it would be a shame to completely lose them because he's got Big Changes coming. That scene was really cute, and it totally fit with the idea of enjoying the time you have with people you care about - considering that Adam's job is still on the chopping block at this point. I'd like to see more friendship scenes between Adam and the other guys - his crush on Stella isn't the only interaction worth watching. That being said, Adam's crush is endearing - but I hope they just leave it as it is. After rushing Flack and Angell's flirtation, and with next week's Big Reveal and Mac flirting with his new boss, enough is enough. Stella wouldn't go wrong by dating our favorite nerd, but I think it would be bad timing to go there now.
I like the sound of the story, and love all moments of Adam and Stella friendship, but no more, please. And Mac with the new DI? I'm not convinced. And especially after that phone call to Stella - it could have led to such a great scene between them. If any couple work, it is them, please allow us this, we're grown up enough to accept Mac and Stella subtley done, it works perfectly.
Either I've been watching too much CSI but I realized who the killer was just before Stella made the connection to Daniel. As soon as Lindsey mentioned the female blood in the car matched the blood on the button, I realized why Melinda was "missing" when Stella went to interview Daniel. In fact I was surprised that Stella didn't follow up on Melinda when Daniel said he didn't know where she was.