<p><b>Synopsis:</b><p>As hit man Ronny DeSoto takes an assignment, Mac Taylor meets Talmadge Neville, newly released from an eighteen month prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter, as he gets off the prison bus. Mac tells Neville that he's convinced Neville wasn't driving the car that struck and killed Maris Donovan when she was riding her bike. Neville puts off the CSI, insisting he wouldn't have gone to Rikers for eighteen months if he hadn't been responsible for the girl's death. Mac recalls processing the scene with Stella and finding a cell phone with a half-finished text message on the floor. He tells Flack that he recalls Neville rubbing his right shoulder after the accident, indicating he was in the passenger seat and not the driver's seat. The orientation of his thumbprint on the seatbelt release and the cell phone landing on the floor rather than the seat of the car corroborate Mac's suspicions. Neville refuses to budge on his story, noting that he was a struggling single father who wouldn't have thrown everything away for someone else.<p>While Mac uses his day off to pursue the truth behind the Donovan case, Lindsay returns from Montana and promptly goes into labor. A nervous Danny meets her at the hospital. When Mac goes to see them, he catches sight of Neville's daughter, Karita, a surgeon at the hospital. Suddenly Mac realizes who Neville was protecting, and he confides his suspicions to Stella. Stella turns the screws on the young woman, but Karita refuses to admit she was in the car. Mac asks Sid to pull the autopsy report on Maris for him to see if there was evidence that someone performed life-saving measures on her just after the accident, and Sid confirms that some of her injuries are consistent with that conjecture. He also tells Mac that someone pulled the autopsy records a week earlier, but he doesn't have any information of who might have accessed them. Mac pays a visit to Katharine Donovan, Maris's bereaved mother, and tells her he's reopening the case, sharing his suspicions about Karita with her. Flack and several officers go to Neville's apartment, but the man isn't there. Flack finds a white bike pedal wrapped in a copy of Maris Donovan's autopsy report. When Hawkes sees Adam examining the pedal, which has been painted white, he recognizes it as a ghost rider--a bike painted entirely in white to memorialize a rider killed in an accident.<p>Flack and Stella are surprised when hit man Ronny DeSoto walks into the precinct and tells them he was hired to kill Neville--and then the person who hired him changed the hit to Karita. He tells them he doesn't kill women or children, and that the person who hired him--a woman in her 40s--is probably desperate enough to carry out the hit herself. The prints on the pictures of Neville and Karita DeSoto turns over to them match the prints on Maris Donovan's autopsy report found at Neville's apartment. Unable to find either Neville or Karita, Mac goes back to Katharine Donovan, telling her he knows she hired DeSoto. She tells him she's still grief-stricken after two years, and he shares with her that his wife died in 9/11. Rather than arresting her, Mac offers her compassion--so long as she doesn't harm Neville or his daughter. Karita shows up at the police station and confesses she was indeed driving the car, but her father insisted on taking the rap, fearing that the accident would ruin her future. Neville, too, pays a visit at the precinct, asking for the bike pedal and returning it to Maris's memorial. At the hospital, Lindsay gives birth to a baby girl, and, surrounded by the team, she and Danny ask Mac to be their baby's godfather. The CSI leader happily accepts.<p><b>Analysis:</b><p>Mac relentlessly pursues a case only to find out compassion occasionally trumps blind justice in this excellent entry of <i>CSI: NY</i>. The conclusion is all the more surprising because it's Mac, he of the unshakeable beliefs and sometimes frustratingly dogged adherence to the letter of law. Mac isn't one to see the shades of grey in situations--he doesn't even seem to consider that, when Talmadge Neville persists in his denials despite Mac presenting evidence to the contrary, that the man might be protecting someone out of love and not fear. His first thought is that an overzealous teamster got behind the wheel in order to shake down Neville. That Mac never considers Neville might be protecting one of his children until Mac is literally confronted with the woman's name ringing over the loudspeakers at the hospital where two of his CSIs are about to become parents emphasizes just how much Mac is <i>not</i> a parent. Anyone with a child would have likely immediately suspected Neville was protecting one of his own.<p>Parenthood and what it means to love unconditionally as a parent is at the forefront of the hour, which is fitting in an episode which features two CSIs becoming parents for the first time. Neville is willing to take responsibility for the death of Maris Donovan and go to jail for the tragic accident rather than have his daughter Karita face the consequences. Katharine Donovan is devastated by the loss her daughter, to the point that she's willing to hire a hit man to kill the person she believes is responsible for the girl's death. Veteran actors <font color=yellow>Charles S. Dutton</font> and <font color=yellow>Mare Winningham</font> are very good as the tormented parents and both are incredibly sympathetic. Neville maintains the debt to society has been paid while Katharine doesn't ever think the loss of her daughter can be compensated for, though she makes an attempt to go about things biblically, hiring a hit man to kill Neville hoping in her grief to assuage the pain she feels from Maris's death. Both believe they are doing what's best for their children in the face of a terrible tragedy.<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/greater_good.shtml">here</A>.<center></center>
Excellent review, although I don't agree 100% this week. I liked the case and thought it was interesting, but I found myself bored with it rather than being truly intrigued. I didn't like the flashbacks very much, and I wish we could have seen the episode as a regular investigation. Charles S Dutton and Mare Winningham did a great job, though. I'm not sure how I feel about Mac's actions at the end, but I've noticed them bringing up Claire a lot lately. Lindsay's line to Adam was just rude, labor or not, but what else is new? The whole baby thing was about as cliche as I figured it would be, and I was mostly uninterested. It's just not the kind of thing I want to watch - if I was more fond of the character or the storyline, maybe I'd be singing a different tune, but alas. Baby-related storylines just aren't my favorite. Very interesting point about Mac and Hawkes having close calls in the episode and how that emphasizes that what happened to Karita could happen to anyone - I didn't think about that. I always enjoy reading your perspective on things. Overall, it was an okay episode, but I wish they'd just given the kid a name. People have been speculating about that for months, and now we're still left wondering what it'll be. *sigh* Spoiler: Season finale It makes me worry that they're going to do what I've been hoping they wouldn't do since Hawkes revealed that it took his parents 6 weeks to settle on his name: decide on a name after the character dies in the finale, naming her in honor of the fallen comrade. That would be so corny - if they do that, I hope they at least limit it to a middle name.
Great review and analysis. I think we agree on this one about 99%. The most interesting thing I saw in this episode is seeing Mac learning what a parent would do for a child from both sides of the story...the grieving parent and the sacrificing parent. If Talmadge's daughter had gone to jail, he would have lost a child too, in some sense. In light of the request for Mac to be godfather to Lindsay's and Danny's little girl, the fact that a daughter was killed and a daughter was saved is not lost on me. It's good to see Danny and Lindsay actually being a couple now. The more I watch them, the more I think their lack of chemistry was due to the on-again off-again nature of the writing of the show. Even when they were off-again, they still seemed to have a connection working together and cared for one another. I am looking forward to seeing what they are like on the job now that they are settled. Oh, and I think Lindsay is permanently afflicted with a "blurting" disorder. She just doesn't have filters and what comes out of her mouth does seem harsh and abrasive, like you said in another post. She shares certain characteristics with "Bones" but without the genious level intelligence to excuse it and make it of comedic value. And speaking of comedic value, if they gave her the right material to work with, Lindsay could really do well with comedy. Unfortunately, between Adam being the geeky comic, and Sid being the creepy comic, and Danny and Flack being the sarcastic New York comics, there isn't much room left for anything else. And we don't need anyone else giving the cheesy one-liners they give Stella. Please! If I could have one more wish from this show it would be that Lindsay and Stella had more of a connection, as they are the only two women on this show. Most of what I see between them is supervisor/subordinate. Maybe I don't expect them to bond over latte's and pedicures, but they need something besides all work between them, for me, because when I see a scene like the one in this episode, that is what I use as a reference and Stella comes across okay, but still in that supervisor role. Believe it or not, I would have gotten more warm vibes if it had been Sheldon walking the hallway with her instead of Stella. Him being a doctor would have made it totally appropriate and he is such a warm caring presence that it would have worked much better for me. This season, in particular, has shown me the bonding between all the guys. I can't really attribute it to any one character. It just sort of happened and it's nice. It's just that the girls seem to have been left out of that. I really liked the dynamic between the girls in "The Murder Club" and would like to see a bit of that with the ladies in this show.
I enjoyed the case, though I do think the two twists were pretty obvious. I think it's more interesting that Mac missed them, though, which kind of shows his lack of experience in the area of parenting. It was rude, and it was a grating way to start out the birth story. I suspect it was meant to be funny, but Lindsay is simply not likable enough to poke fun at a lovable character like Adam. I think we'll either find out early in the next episode...or like you suspect, it will be held off a bit, giving the name more significance. Exactly--it was something of a learning experience for Mac. He's clearly not that in touch with that side of himself, and why should he be? He's never been a father--the closest he came was trying to be fatherly towards Claire's teenage son. It's not quite the same. So in that regards, I liked that the episode showed Mac that some things aren't as black and white as he usually likes to believe. I still don't see any real romantic chemistry between them--sorry! I also couldn't help but notice that they were apart for almost the entire episode, aside from one smile exchange in the hall and then at the end when she's actually giving birth. Why weren't Danny and Lindsay confiding their fears in each other? Once again, they turned to other people--her to Stella, him to Adam. I just don't see a deep connection between them, and I still see a big lack of communication there. As characters, we're supposed to buy them as a happily married couple, but I think there's a lack of natural chemistry between the actors that just doesn't seem to be evolving. I agree--at this point it's part of her character, and I suppose in that regard it's nice to have something that is solidly part of her character. I just wish it weren't glossed over--it would be nice if it was actually played up for comedy with a reaction from someone like, "Did you really just say that?" Lindsay is much, much better when used for comedy, yes, but as you point out, there are others who fill the role much better. Even after four years on the show, she still doesn't quite have a place, save for her role as Danny's love interest. I agree--there's not a real natural rapport between Lindsay and Stella. Stella always comes off like she's not sure whether to be motherly or friendly, and I wonder if part of that distance is because they've both snapped at each other on the job (Lindsay in "Silent Night" and Stella in "Open and Shut"). I also couldn't help but wonder why Lindsay wasn't walking with Danny in that scene--they were in the same hospital after all. There has been much more guy-bonding than girl-bonding this season, though I really enjoyed the way Stella and Angell worked together on the Greek coin case. Those two have a really fun dynamic--they're both tough go-getters. Lindsay just feels like the odd woman out.
Great review.I have to admit that the baby storyline is making the show too fairytale for me so I normally look at your review to see if I would give it a try.Sounds like the case was good.