CSI Files
Captain
<p><b>Synopsis:</b><p>The Vegas team has a busy night when the body of a man is found crammed under the steering wheel of a car, a woman's body is discovered in a hotel room and a man ends up dead in his swimming pool. The man by the pool is Carsten Pennington, an art collector who lived with his fiancée, Darcy Farrell, and threw a party the night of his murder. Ray Langston gets some help from Wendy Simms at the scene, who notices Carsten's cat, Gareth, licking pieces of a shattered vase in the studio housing Carsten's art collection. Darcy tells Brass that Carsten fought with a guest at the party before abruptly kicking everyone out. Viewing footage from Carsten's surveillance camera, Langston and Archie zero in on the man Carsten was arguing with and identify him as a Marrakesh casino employee named Jeffrey Luvan. When brought in, Luvan denies that he was purchasing the vase for his boss at the casino--or that he killed Carsten. Wendy brings Langston startling news: the vase was a fake, made in part out of yogurt. They wonder if Luvan might have killed Carsten because he discovered the vase was a fake, and return to the house to look for more evidence. Wendy discovers blood on Darcy's dress and suspicion falls on her, but Darcy refuses to talk. Catherine flags Ray down: she's discovered a person of interest in her case, a producer named Tripp Linson, who is a dead ringer for Carsten. Catherine's case involves the death of Jenny Mackin from Hollywood, CA, who is found dead in her hotel room, two bullets in the ceiling. The only witness is a large tortoise with blood--and a print--on him. The print matches an actor named Mickey Ross, who tells the CSIs Jenny was his wife and the tortoise, Gareth, belonged to them. Jenny left him for Tripp Linson, who also swindled Mickey out of money. When his wife followed Tripp to Las Vegas, the man rejected her. Mickey brought Gareth up to help win his wife back, but after he had sex with her, Jenny shot herself. Catherine is skeptical--no one commits suicide with two shots--until Greg shows her the first bullet caught in the barrel and didn't release until the second one was fired. Mickey's story checks out, but the mystery intensifies when Nick recognizes Tripp as Ryan Morton, a person of interest in his case!<p>The body of a private investigator named Sam Hagen is discovered behind the steering column of a car outside a casino. Dr. Paul Anton, the man who Sam was working for at the time of his death, tells Detective Cavaliere that he hired Sam to find his business associate, Ryan Morton. Anton gives Nick an advertising DVD Morton gave him. Nick and Riley discover a contact lens on the body, and also a bullet hole in the man's hand. Doc Robbins points out that the man died when the bullet ricocheted through his body and hit his spleen. Nick views the DVD and sees Ryan, his dog Gareth beside him, advertising property for the Royal Tahoe Group in Lake Tahoe. The gun that killed Sam is traced back to Anton, who tells Nick that he met Ryan at a tennis club in Tahoe and grew close to the young man, to the point that he felt he was a surrogate son. He gave Ryan his gun as a gift, and invested in property--only to find himself swindled by the young man. Wendy turns up surprising DNA evidence--the DNA on the contact is a familial match for Carsten Pennington. Collectively, the team realizes Carsten, Tripp and Ryan are all the same man. Ryan Morton is the man's real name, and he has a brother named Gareth. Gareth is caught speeding and gets brought in. The CSIs surmise that Gareth was found by Sam Hagen, the PA searching for Ryan. They posit Gareth killed the PI after learning his brother's debts were falling on his shoulders and then came to the party and argued with Ryan and ended up killing him, too. Gareth denies killing Hagen and his brother--he claims he went to see his brother about buying Ryan's half of their family house in Tahoe, but Ryan refused. Gareth claims he left his brother alive. Riley and Nick turn back to the evidence, finding only one contact lens in Gareth's car...as well as clothes from a discount warehouse mixed in with one pair of Burberry underwear. Suspecting something fishy is up, Langston brings in Darcy, Carsten's fiancée, to look at Gareth. He tells her she's going down for the crime unless she tells the truth--and she admits the man in the interrogation room is Carsten/Ryan, not Gareth. After killing the PI sent to find him, Ryan killed Gareth when his brother came to his house and assumed his identity.<p><b>Analysis:</b><p>I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I got a little confused while trying to summarize "Kill Me If You Can." Though the story all holds up, it's a little mind-boggling given the killer has no fewer than <i>four</i> identities throughout the course of the episode. Keeping track of the fact that Ryan was both Tripp and Carsten wasn't too tricky, but when Gareth got thrown into the equation, the waters definitely became muddied. The most perplexing detail? The DNA on the contact belonging to Hagen's killer that was a familial match to the victim, initially thought to be Carsten, but who turned out to be Gareth, meaning that the contact was actually Ryan/Carsten's. Confused yet? Despite all the twists, everything did hold up, and in the end Ryan turned out to be one fascinating killer. "You're just one lie wrapped in another," Brass says in disgust after Ryan's been exposed. "It's the truth," Ryan insists. "Even if it never happened." The exchange is a great--and chilling!--way to end the episode.<p>As Ryan/Carston/Tripp/Gareth, <font color=yellow>Michael Weston</font> turns in a great performance, slipping into each role seamlessly. As Carston, he's the effete, cultured art collector. As Tripp, he's the epitome of the Hollywood player. As Ryan, he's an open-faced, warm salesman. As Gareth, he's a nerdy, nervous guy. Kudos to the make up and wardrobe teams for helping Weston slip into character so effectively. Aside from his bright blue eyes, the different personas don't really resemble each other in the slightest. As Carston, we're drawn to those blue eyes and his angular features, which are lost beneath stubble and a baseball hat in the Tripp persona. Ryan looks like the boy next door, while brother Gareth is unkempt and messy, his eyes hidden behind large glasses. Even more effectively than the killer in season seven's <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/csi/season7/living_legend.shtml">"Living Legend"</a>, who disguised himself to take revenge on the men who'd left him for dead decades earlier, Ryan is a true master of disguise.<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/kill_me_if_you_can.shtml">here</A>.<center></center>