CSI: Crime Scene Investigation--'Mascara'

[CSI Files]

<p><b>Synopsis:</b><p>A disoriented young woman runs from a Lucha Libre match out into the streets of Vegas, trying to hail a cab but failing. When she notices a masked man following her she flees, but the man catches up to her and breaks her neck. When the CSIs arrive at the scene, Langston is shocked to recognize the woman as Sylvia Mallick, a former student of his from WLVU. Before he left the university to join the crime lab, Langston was her thesis advisor. At the autopsy, Langston discovers a piece of white leather in Sylvia's hand and sends it off to the lab for analysis. Dr. Robbins determines that Sylvia's killer broke three of Sylvia's vertebrae, killing her swiftly. After examining Sylvia's cell phone and seeing several recent calls from another former student, Dan Forester, Langston goes to the casino where Dan works as a bartender to speak with him. Dan tells Langston that Sylvia, who was his live-in girlfriend, told him that she was doing research the night before, and Langston tells the young man that Sylvia is dead. Langston visits Sylvia's office on campus and finds papers strewn all across the floor. He finds the autographed copy of his book that he gave her--along with a picture of a murdered woman.<p>When Ray brings the picture back to the lab, Catherine recalls the case: the Southwest Strangler killed three Hispanic women eleven years ago. All the women died from broken necks, and toxicology has found another link: like the women murdered eleven years ago, Sylvia had Datura in her system, a drug that caused her disorientation. The team contacts the narcotics department to get a list of known Datura dealers, leading Nick and Brass to a house in a rundown Las Vegas neighborhood. They interrupt a voodoo ritual in the house--and spot a bowl of brown powder they recognize as Datura. They show a photo of Sylvia to the priest, but he claims not to know her. Greg looks at surveillance camera footage from locations near to where Sylvia's body was found and pinpoints her location: the corner of Harlem and Pinker, coming out of a building. Langston, Nick and Brass go to the location and walk into a Lucha Libre, or Mexican wrestling, match where the opponents face each other wearing elaborate masks. Brass and Langston set about questioning the various wrestlers with criminal records, but all of them claim innocence of the past crimes they were arrested for or convicted of, and none of them admit to murdering Sylvia. The announcer, Esteban Fillipe, recognizes Sylvia and tells the CSIs that she used to come up to him with lots of questions.<p>Stymied, Langston turns back to the leather scrap. After Hodges tells him it's approximately fifty years old, Langston and Riley scour a database of luchadores, they get a match to one named Fantasmo. Fantasmo, whose real name is Jesus, tells Ray and Brass that his mask is a copy of the mask that belonged to his father, also a Lucha Libre wrestler. When asked for his DNA, he readily offers it up. Wendy analyzes the leather for DNA and eliminates Jesus's sample, finding only one other: Esteban Fillipe's. In the locker room at the wrestling ring, Jesus confronts Esteban and accuses him of stealing his father's mask. Jesus notes that he's seen Esteban looking at girls--including Sylvia. Esteban shoots Jesus three times and flees into the crowd, pursed by Ray and Brass who have come to arrest him. They finally manage to corner him and arrest him. Esteban denies hurting anyone--he claims the god of violence is responsible for his actions. Disgusted, Ray refuses to let him shirk blame for the murder. Afterwards, Ray recalls Sylvia's compassion for the victims of serial killers who were never caught and starts to write the book she never got a chance to finish.<p><b>Analysis:</b><p>The show's landmark 200th outing gets off to a cinematic start, eschewing the typical opening credits for an opening in which the casts' names are flashed over a burning circle while drums beat in the background. Visually it's dazzling and the drums add an intensity to it that all speaks to the promise of an exciting, larger-than-life episode. Alas, the story doesn't live up to the stunning visuals and mystique the episode establishes: it's paper thin and lacking emotional impact. Save for Sylvia, neither the victims or the suspects or the killer have any real personalities. The killer murdered three women eleven years ago, and then mysteriously stopped for some reason that is never explained. If Esteban really is deranged, why would he cease killing? After all, <i>CSI</i> has taught us that serial killers generally don't stop until they're caught--rather, they escalate. At best, Esteban is a sketchily developed character, and the audience doesn't even know if the CSIs ever discovered his last victim, Jesus.<p>It's fairly obvious that the story was secondary to <font color=yellow>William Friedkin</font>'s direction. As he did with the first <i>CSI</i> episode he directed, <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/csi/season8/cockroaches.shtml">"Cockroaches"</a>, Friedkin offers up a lush, vibrant sensory experience, taking no scene for granted. Whether it be the long, florescent-lit hallway Langston travels down to reach Sylvia's office or the colorful, charged Lucha Libre match or the elaborate voodoo ceremony Brass and Nick walk in on, Friedkin presents everything in vivid detail. The setting is impressive, but where "Mascara" differs from episodes like <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/csi/season4/fur_and_loathing.shtml">"Fur and Loathing"</a> or <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/csi/season5/who_shot_sherlock.shtml">"Who Shot Sherlock?"</a>, the audience is never really invited into the world the episode explores. We see the Lucha Libre matches and the various masks the luchadores don, but we don't really get a sense for the men involved, aside from the fact that many of them have criminal records. Even less is revealed about the voodoo ritual Nick and Brass witness--it doesn't seem to have a purpose in the narrative at all. It's all very sensational, but to what end? Ultimately, Esteban could have been any deranged killer--the Lucha Libre match was just a backdrop, rather than an integral part of the story in the way other subcultures have been in other episodes of the series.<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/mascara.shtml">here</A>.<center></center>

 

[queenlynx]

I totally agree with this review. Everything. I am extremley disappointed in how this episode turned out. This should have either been revolved around the team as a whole or the original team members. At least this wasn't the season finale. That would have been worse. :shifty:

 

[Faylinn]

Excellent review, as usual.

I was pretty disappointed with this episode as a whole. Some of the stylistic choices were very interesting and cinematic, but at the same time, it didn't really feel like I was watching an episode of CSI - I would have preferred for the 200th episode to embody the best the series has to offer. Very few shows get to that kind of a milestone - so why not remind loyal viewers why they watch CSI and show curious new viewers what the big deal is? It should have felt like a classic episode of CSI, not a departure from what the show has always been.

The plot itself was thin, and some of the scenes felt like pure filler. This is a TV show that has to tell a story in 42 minutes - there really shouldn't be scenes that are unnecessarily long. The voodoo scene just seemed too long and was ultimately pointless. Yes, it looked cool, but they could have put that time to better use filling in some of the plot holes.

Like poor Jesus. He gets shot twice while tanning (which BTW I thought was kind of lame), wrestles around with his assailant, still gets killed - and they don't even mention him again? It's like they wrote in the scene to serve no other purpose but to give Aaron Aguilera more screentime. Ultimately, it was another scene that was unnecessarily long since it had no real bearing on the plot.

An episode concentrating on Langston is fine IMO, especially since he's the new guy and hasn't had as long to be developed as the others. However, that being said, while I know Laurence Fishburne is a big name and a major deal to the show and the network, let's be honest - the other characters, the ones who might not have such big names behind them, are a much bigger deal to the millions of people who have faithfully watched the show for years. If this was any average episode, I wouldn't care that it was Langston-centric, but it was episode 200. It should have been a CSI event - not a mini Laurence Fishburne movie directed by William Friedkin.

Also, I'm rarely a fan of stunt casting or casting professionals in other areas as actors - being good at one does not imply being good at the other, and while I think it was good that they tried to include real luchadores in the episode - they stood out when it came to acting, and not in a good way.

In other news, I'm not entirely sure why CBS chose to air the 200th episode of CSI (as well as the season finale of Eleventh Hour) up against the series finale of ER.

 

[myfuturecsi]

here's no heart to anchor this story, no interesting twist to intrigue the audience, no moments of warmth between the characters that remind the audience that while there are many, many procedurals on the air, CSI is the one they keep coming back to for all of these things. There's a reason this show has made it to 200 episodes, and that's because it's capable of far, far more than this.

I have to say as a viewer, I kept asknig myself through the episode, "What is going on here?"

This episode was all style, no substance. As the 200th episode, it should have reflected more on the original cast members as opposed to centering around the new guy.

I'm wondering what is going on behind the scenes of CSI. Perhaps hiring a big named star to head the show was a mistake-and I say that with all due respect to Laurence Fishbourne who did the best he could with the material presented to him.

This was more about Naren Shankar's exploration into the world of wrestling, the problem was, none of us wanted to go there with him.

 

[happyharper13]

Wow. Great review, Kristine! You hit it spot on!

One question -- why did you single out 'Who Shot Sherlock' and 'Fur and Loathing' in your comparison?

Also, I'm 99% certain that Fantasmo's real name is Jesús, not Jesus. (The former is pronounced Hay-zeus, versus the latter, which is pronounced the way most English-speakers know it as).

 

[church2001]

A 200th episode in my opinion should either showcase the strengths of the show while being retrospective or be retrospective and funny. Stargate SG-1 had a wonderful 200th episode because the writers decided to look back on the series and gently make fun of those previous 199 shows (I sort of wish the writers did that with CSI with Grissom making an unnecessary third act cameo like what happened with Jack O'Neil on Stargate).

In fact this brings up my problem with the episode: it was too quiet. There should have been at least one reference to this milestone within the episode (like mentioning the team had hit 200 cases for example).

 

[Top41]

Wow. Great review, Kristine! You hit it spot on!

One question -- why did you single out 'Who Shot Sherlock' and 'Fur and Loathing' in your comparison?

Those were just two episodes that came to mind immediately that did a fantastic job of capturing the worlds they delved into. There are many others that do the same--unfortunately, this episode didn't really do that aside from the impressive visuals.

Also, I'm 99% certain that Fantasmo's real name is Jesús, not Jesus. (The former is pronounced Hay-zeus, versus the latter, which is pronounced the way most English-speakers know it as).

You're 100% right--we're working from an old system, though, and sometimes including special characters can be tricky.

 

[koshi700]

Honestly? I'm so sick of Langston right now I could just puke. When he first appeared on CSI I was pleasantly surprised at how well he fit in and I thought that maybe the change wasn't so bad. But now out of 8 episodes since he's joined only one hasn't been focused on him. I'm getting very frustrated. It's like TPTB have completely forgotten they have other cast members. It's become CSI: Langston rather than CSI: Las Vegas. I'm seriously getting fed up, i keep hoping that that next ep will focus on someone else and every episode, it's Langston this and Langston that. Enough already! His new glossy shine is starting to tarnish. I'm getting to the place when I see his face I just get annoyed. If they want to keep this show alive TPTB better show some loyalty to the original cast and to the fans of that original cast. Because, truthfully, I'm about a hairs breadth away from just leaving the whole lot in the dumpster.

 

[m1304m]

“The 200th Episode?” OR “The 200 minute episode?”

GOSH! It was so draggy and boring. Bruckheimer’s productions are supposed to be fast moving! I chided myself for sitting through it.

YES, I did cry from the pain of watching it – and my MASCARA did run – So it was aptly titled “Mascara”

The format for the credit at the beginning was quite good. Unfortunately from then onwards it started spiralling downwards. Ok, I finally got it into my head that Fishburne is the lead actor here. I thought the producer did injustice to the rest of the cast who have been there for the last 9 years. For the 200th episode the spotlight fell on Langston. It should be re-titled “Langston’s 200th Episode”

The 100th episode was in a league of its own. It did not involve Grissom personally. Again they are doing the same mistake as they have done with CSI Miami – Horatio’s role is overplayed as a saint, philanthropist hero, good will ambassador – in this case Langston!!

I was surprised that the director was William Fredskin. He is a top notch director who did top notch work, directing Season 8 Cockroaches. I don’t blame his directional skill; I blame it on the poor casting. It looked as if the wrestlers were recruited from a merry band of travelling actors. The only time they were able to mask their poor acting was when they actually had their masks on.

It was déjà vu watching the 200th episode. The storyline was almost the same as Season 5 Snakes. Instead of singers this time it was wrestlers.

Is the writer strike still on?

In Season 5, Committed, Grissom and Brass interrogated the inmates at a mental institution. Compare this to that of the interrogation of the wrestlers in the 200th Episode, it looks like Brass and Langston were conducting a recruitment for cadavers!!

 

[m1304m]

Wow, What a great analysis Kristine! You aptly conveyed the sentiments of the true fans of CSI, who have been there since the pilot episode :thumbsup:

I applaud Church2001, Queenlynx, Fannylin, MyfutureCSI, Kishi700, HappyHarper for their analysis - I COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN IT ANY BETTER!!

HAVE A GREAT EASTER!!

 

[electra]

I liked the episode.Yeah ,maybe it was too much Ray in it but at the same time it was nice to know something about him.Definely not like a 200 th episode but it's still better then most shows.