I'm late, but I had to add my $.02. This was
the best Miami episode I've seen in a really long time, and while it feels like I said that for several of Miami's S8 episodes, this one really knocked it out of the park (and was so much better than the finale). This was mostly impressive 'cause of how annoyed I was by Jesse's death, and a few other factors surrounding it.
Knew it was coming, but it was incredibly anticlimactic, like people have said -- and if EC said the same thing, I agree 100%. Even more so now that I've read the thread. I didn't hear the cause of death that Tom gave, so I'd just assumed that Jesse was close to the vent and therefore got a stronger dosage of the gas than the others did. He hit his head? What is that I don't even--
And all that stuff with telling various suspects they "murdered" a cop, how does that work? I'm choosing to buy my previous version of his death, rather than this one. Even so, just to me it felt a little like Stetler all over again. Jesse wasn't my favourite, it was way too soon for that...but I liked him, he had potential, and he gave Ryan the Three Musketeers dynamic. (Him and Walter, so thank god Walter's still there. Now the Two Musketeers?
)
That said, Natalia was heartbreaking in her opening scene, and I'm selfishly pleased for that scene because it was unbelievable (
so looking forward to seeing how 9.06 plays out). Walter talking to Jesse in the morgue made me sad, too, and damn, the basketball scene at the end! That singlehandedly bumped this episode to an A- in my book, because it was the cutest team moment I've seen on all three CSIs in a long time. I was so surprised by that, but it was fabulous.
I think I would've preferred to see Ryan grieve over Jesse rather than Calleigh, mostly because I think that would've been an extremely intense scene given how much closer they were (and Calleigh was more stoic than grieving in her scene, I thought). But Calleigh and Jesse seemed fairly close-ish as well, so it still came off okay.
These individual scenes were great, but overall throughout the episode, I also feel like
mjszud mentioned, the grief was short -- it felt like business as usual during many of the in-between scenes. I'm trying to figure out if that's because there was slightly more focus on Eric and Horatio, and since Eric didn't really know Jesse, he didn't have a reason to grieve; and so wasn't. H clearly was, though, and I was really impressed by his intensity in this ep -- and how into the team he seems to be (comforting Natalia, throwing that one guy against the fence and being all "you murdered a cop", joining the basketball game, the "this one's for Jesse" line...just wonderful :lol
. I kinda love him when he's being a father figure! I wasn't too much a fan of distant!Horatio from the past seasons, but in this episode, he was really on the other end of the spectrum. So I hope that, at least, is something they'll be keeping up with this year.
Um, anyway. A great start to the season, but Jesse shouldn't have died, imo.
