CSI Files
Captain
Synopsis:
The body of a young woman named Diane Langdon is found dead in a bathtub with no evident fatal wounds, though a bullet fragment is found next to her. Mac discovers a credit card on a nearby table with wood shavings on it and realizes the apartment is not Diane's. The name on the lease reveals it to be that of a man D.J. Melvoy, who had a restraining order against Diane. None of the neighbors know Diane, but one tells Danny he heard two soft pops during the evening. He also gives Danny the name of the guy he knows as the tenant of the apartment: Justin McKinney. Justin tells Danny and Angell he's subletting the apartment but denies knowing Diane. Mac joins Stella at the apartment of Emery and Kennedy Gable, where Emery has been found dead amidst bloody glass from his fish tank. Kennedy, who has been living with her brother since they were in a car accident together nine months ago, claims a 5'5 blonde woman attacked them and killed her brother. Stella goes through the blood glass and accidentally cuts herself with a shard. Though she washes the wound thoroughly, she is thrown to learn from Sid that Emery had AIDS. Realizing she could be infected, Stella goes to a clinic to get tested and starts taking anti-virals as a precautionary measure.
Peyton determines that Diane was electrocuted, so Danny takes a trip back to the scene and is surprised to discover the light above the tub is rattling. He investigates and finds the rest of the bullet--as well as a severed electrical wire, which he realizes was responsible for Diane's death when she herself investigated the light fixture. Danny returns to one of the neighbors, Colleen Ballard, who mentioned a headache the night of the murder, and takes her back to the morgue to see Peyton. At Danny's behest, Peyton examines Colleen and find a bullet in her skull. Colleen, who didn't even realize she'd been shot, is taken to the hospital. Danny and Angell arrest Colleen's husband, Russell, who shot at his sleeping wife twice the night Diane died and was shocked to come home and find his wife very much alive.
Stella and Hawkes question Rebecca Monin, a former hit artist Emery produced, and Mia Opal, an alternative medicine specialist who was performing heat cupping on Emery. Both women were angry with Emery and fir the physical description from Kennedy of the killer, but both deny murdering him, and the evidence backs them up. Mac's suspicions turn to Kennedy, who passes a polygraph but still bothers Mac. A trip back to the apartment helps Mac put it together: countless broken mirrors and glass in the apartment and Kennedy's claims that the woman who killed Emery had broken in twice before, coupled with the car accident confirm for him that Emery did indeed kill her brother. He breaks the news to her gently: she has Capgras syndrome, a disassociative disorder that follows a stressful trauma and causes sufferers not to recognize their own reflection. Kennedy saw her reflection, assumed it was an intruder, and when she attacked her reflection she cut her brother, who was trying to stop her. Kennedy proves his point when she attacks the reflective mirror in the interrogation room, shattering it and cutting Stella behind it. Hawkes tries to help Stella, but she refuses to let him touch her and runs out of the room.
Analysis:
The first three acts of "Heart of Glass" are excellent. I don't remember being this engrossed in the actual cases (save for ones where a main character's fate is tied in with the mystery) in quite a while. Both were strong premises that were gradually revealed to be nothing like they initially seemed. Each had an air of the unusual from the get go--the woman found dead in the bathtub with no apparent fatal injuries and the young, healthy man who died from a fatal wrist slashing, apparently administered by a woman much smaller than he. Great material there for both.
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To read the full reviews, please click here.<center></center>
The body of a young woman named Diane Langdon is found dead in a bathtub with no evident fatal wounds, though a bullet fragment is found next to her. Mac discovers a credit card on a nearby table with wood shavings on it and realizes the apartment is not Diane's. The name on the lease reveals it to be that of a man D.J. Melvoy, who had a restraining order against Diane. None of the neighbors know Diane, but one tells Danny he heard two soft pops during the evening. He also gives Danny the name of the guy he knows as the tenant of the apartment: Justin McKinney. Justin tells Danny and Angell he's subletting the apartment but denies knowing Diane. Mac joins Stella at the apartment of Emery and Kennedy Gable, where Emery has been found dead amidst bloody glass from his fish tank. Kennedy, who has been living with her brother since they were in a car accident together nine months ago, claims a 5'5 blonde woman attacked them and killed her brother. Stella goes through the blood glass and accidentally cuts herself with a shard. Though she washes the wound thoroughly, she is thrown to learn from Sid that Emery had AIDS. Realizing she could be infected, Stella goes to a clinic to get tested and starts taking anti-virals as a precautionary measure.
Peyton determines that Diane was electrocuted, so Danny takes a trip back to the scene and is surprised to discover the light above the tub is rattling. He investigates and finds the rest of the bullet--as well as a severed electrical wire, which he realizes was responsible for Diane's death when she herself investigated the light fixture. Danny returns to one of the neighbors, Colleen Ballard, who mentioned a headache the night of the murder, and takes her back to the morgue to see Peyton. At Danny's behest, Peyton examines Colleen and find a bullet in her skull. Colleen, who didn't even realize she'd been shot, is taken to the hospital. Danny and Angell arrest Colleen's husband, Russell, who shot at his sleeping wife twice the night Diane died and was shocked to come home and find his wife very much alive.
Stella and Hawkes question Rebecca Monin, a former hit artist Emery produced, and Mia Opal, an alternative medicine specialist who was performing heat cupping on Emery. Both women were angry with Emery and fir the physical description from Kennedy of the killer, but both deny murdering him, and the evidence backs them up. Mac's suspicions turn to Kennedy, who passes a polygraph but still bothers Mac. A trip back to the apartment helps Mac put it together: countless broken mirrors and glass in the apartment and Kennedy's claims that the woman who killed Emery had broken in twice before, coupled with the car accident confirm for him that Emery did indeed kill her brother. He breaks the news to her gently: she has Capgras syndrome, a disassociative disorder that follows a stressful trauma and causes sufferers not to recognize their own reflection. Kennedy saw her reflection, assumed it was an intruder, and when she attacked her reflection she cut her brother, who was trying to stop her. Kennedy proves his point when she attacks the reflective mirror in the interrogation room, shattering it and cutting Stella behind it. Hawkes tries to help Stella, but she refuses to let him touch her and runs out of the room.
Analysis:
The first three acts of "Heart of Glass" are excellent. I don't remember being this engrossed in the actual cases (save for ones where a main character's fate is tied in with the mystery) in quite a while. Both were strong premises that were gradually revealed to be nothing like they initially seemed. Each had an air of the unusual from the get go--the woman found dead in the bathtub with no apparent fatal injuries and the young, healthy man who died from a fatal wrist slashing, apparently administered by a woman much smaller than he. Great material there for both.
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To read the full reviews, please click here.<center></center>
I thought that aside from the resolutions to the cases, the episode was very strong--a lot of that is the characters. Without Lindsay to distract as a weak link, the cast really flourishes--every other character on the show is so well-rounded and interesting. I've heard that it's going to be a while before we get some resolution to Stella's story, so I'm interested in seeing how that plays out.
