<p><b>Synopsis:</b><p>Two young men, Bart and Duncan, are fishing using cherry bombs when they discover a severed arm, which leads them to the body of Kathleen Newberry, duct-taped to her car at the bottom of the lake. Horatio recognizes Kathleen immediately. When Calleigh arrives, the closeness of the crowd who've gathered to watch the CSIs unsettles her, but she still points out to Delko that Kathleen's Sun Pass toll device is missing. Delko goes to process evidence, dropping a piece of paper with crime scene processing steps as he does, which Calleigh picks up. Back at the lab, Natalia discovers a blonde hair on Kathleen's body, while Horatio runs the prints found on the duct tape that bound Kathleen to the car. When he discovers they belong to Julia Winston, the mother of his son Kyle Harmon, he confronts her, but she denies ever meeting Kathleen, claiming her assistant, Pamela gave Kathleen the million dollars Julia bribed Kathleen with to leave town and not testify against Kyle. Natalia matches the hair found on Kathleen not to Julia but to her former assistant Pamela, who denies doing anything aside from giving Kathleen Julia's money. She claims her hair must have gotten on Kathleen when the woman hugged her.<p>When Calleigh hooks her camera into her computer to download her crime photos, she's shocked to find them missing. Ryan surmises someone is trying to sabotage their case. The CSIs go back to the car and find evidence that the trunk's lock has been tampered with. When Ryan finds the tip of a fishing spear in the lock, their suspicions fall on Bart and Duncan. Sure enough, the young men are in possession of the million dollars that Julia gave Kathleen, but they deny further involvement. Kyle Harmon shows up at the station to convince Horatio to stop hounding Julia. While searching Bart and Duncan's possessions for Calleigh's stolen memory card and the sun pass, Ryan is shocked to discover a website entitled "Solve a Crime with Calleigh." In addition to photos of Calleigh at the crime scene that morning, Ryan and Calleigh also discover the missing crime scene photos. Calleigh is shaken but instead focuses on the Sun Pass, which she's able to trace to a tollbooth and get a photo of the vehicle using it. It's a semi-truck and Tripp catches the driver, Ted Wallace who claims he found the Sun Pass abandoned at a rest stop. Tripp and Delko scour the rest stop and find evidence in the bathroom of an abduction--the smell of chloroform emanates from the paper towel holder, and Delko discovers blood behind the damaged holder.<p>DNA off the holder matches a sleazy man named Ron Saris, who has a connection to Julia and a bite mark on his hand. Yelina tells Horatio Julia approached her about finding dirt on Horatio's trip to Rio several years ago, but she refused to help the woman. Horatio confronts Julia with his suspicions about Ron, and she counters with the knowledge that he killed Antonio Riaz, the man responsible for the murder of Horatio's wife, Marisol Delko. She leaves with a warning for Horatio to leave her alone. Ryan is able to find the person responsible for the website attacking Calleigh: Dan Cooper, the tech who committed credit card fraud with Tim Speedle's credit card. Calleigh confronts Cooper, but he refuses to back down, determined to take her down. The CSIs are able to match a boot-print on Kathleen's shirt to Ted Wallace, but the trucker insists she must have fallen in a diesel-filled shoe print of his. He does admit a man paid him to take the Sun Pass, identifying Ron Saris as the man. Horatio calls Julia to get her to bring Ron in, but she refuses and counters by calling the federal marshals on Horatio. Stetler tells Horatio he's being charged with Antonio Riaz's murder and extradited to Brazil. Horatio goes willingly to Rio de Janeiro and meets with Chief Braga, who absolves Horatio but sends him out into the wild with only a gun for protection against his many enemies. Calleigh answers a call on a lead and disappears, causing an angry Delko to confront Dan Cooper, who has posted her cell phone number on the internet. Somewhere in Miami, Calleigh awakens, a gag in her mouth...<p><b>Analysis:</b><p>For an episodic television show, "Ambush" is delightfully rife with continuity. Antonio Riaz and Dan Cooper are mixed in with more recent <i>Miami</i> characters, Julia Winston and Kyle Harmon. Delko is clearly still having trouble related to his near-fatal shooting in <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/miami/season5/no_man's_land.shtml">"No Man's Land"</a>. There's even a reference to John Hagen, Calleigh's onetime boyfriend who killed himself in her ballistics lab in <A class="link" HREF="http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/miami/season3/10_7.shtml">"10-7"</a>. It's rare to see so many plot threads relating back to older episodes in a <i>CSI</i> show. Sometimes it seems like things that happened just a few episodes ago are long forgotten, so it's a pleasant surprise to see events from a season or two or even three ago being referenced and worked into a current episode.<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/ambush.shtml">here</A>.<center></center>
Bestepisode in a long while, great to see horatio back in the lab coat. Remindes me of season 1 and 2. Great reveiw.
^Thanks! And yeah, I agree it was definitely a great one. I think all the references to older events and characters helped tie it back to earlier seasons.