Re: The Great Ship Debate -- CSI:Crime Scene Investigation, Part 2
I thought the way Sara's leaving the first time was very moving and beautifully done. Sara and Grissom have had communication issues throughout the years(think LLV), and they have both been portrayed as being very private and extremely independent, so I don't believe her leaving a note was all that OOC. She was breaking down and she needed to handle things on her own. No, I wouldn't have done it like that, but that's me, not her.
I totally Agree, you could tell that she'd been struggling with things for awhile at that point. She was at the point where she just couldn't deal. I definitely agree that her leaving, that time was beautifully handled from a writing point of view. You could tell she was breaking down and that she was about to snap if she didn't do anything. I also agree that I wouldn't have done it that way, I would have taken some sort of time, or told someone that I couldn't deal.
THP was totally frustrating to me. (I'm going to blame this trainwreck of an episode on the Writer's Strike.) I hated the way she left, but mostly I hated the way Grissom was portrayed here. He was so patronizing in the office scene with Sara. He essentially gave her an ultimatum: stay, on my terms, or else we are through. Well, I'm sure Sara doesn't handle ultimatums any better than I would, so she left. Good for her. Pretty sure I would have done the same thing. Yeah, yeah, I know Grissom was hurting, but Sara has had her share of hurt; so I'm not cutting Grissom any slack. The ball was left in his court after this episode. Game on, so to speak. If he wanted her back, it was his turn to go after her. Period.
Once again, I agree with what you've said about Grissom and Sara's Relationship. They didn't communicate well, and that was established from the first season, and illustrated well in subsequent seasons, especially in Season 3 and beyond, when Grissoms hearing loss was an issue.
I think that in that scene in THP, he was both giving an ultimatum, and begging her to do something, because he couldn't.
Honestly, I think that this is endemic of the way that they write relationships and romance on the show. I don't think that they've shown ONE healthy relationship on the show. You have Catherine and Eddie's contentious relationship shown throughout the first three seasons, with his infidelity, substance abuse and backbiting over the divorce and Lindsey. You have Nick with Kristy Hopkins, Sara with Hank the Skank, Catherine's affair with Chris Bezich, and Warrick's marriage to Tina, which ended with his downward spiral into drug addiction.
Grissom and Sara were no different. It seems as though they were attracted to each other with varying degrees over the years until they finally got together.
I know it's been shown that Sara has had a hard time with her childhood, having grown up with her abusive father, and seeing her mother kill him.
It doesn't seem that Grissom had it much easier, losing his father at a young age, and being raised by his mother, who had a significant hearing impairment.
It was never stated how much relationship experience either of them had prior to getting together, although it looks like Sara had more, with being a member of the "Mile High Club" and having at least one boyfriend who cheated on her in college, as well as Hank. Just judging by Grissom's handling of relationships with Terri Miller, Lady Heather, and Sara in Season 2 (the episode Burden of Proof, where she wanted to resign over the incident with the hamburger meat), he never really had much experience. Not to say he didn't have Any, but maybe he never had any or many that were lasting, strong relationships. He does strike me as the curious type who might try anything once, no matter how freaky. Makes you wonder what he has done, and with whom.
