Re: Grissom&Sara #20 - Who Cares? The Shirt's Coming Off Any
To celebrate the airing of "Way to Go" and the subsequent dawning of Canon!GSR in the UK, I thought I'd share this little exchange with you:
My sister likes
CSI, but she doesn't watch it regularly. This is because, unlike me, she has a life - a husband, a baby, a position as an accountant in one of the top accounting firms in our city - typical young urban professional. She makes time for
Survivor,
The Apprentice, and sometimes
American/Canadian Idol - everything else is hit or miss. She's a perfect example of the nameless millions who catch
CSI whenever they can and don't get too caught up in it.
Anyway, she's on maternity leave with a new baby, and I'm visiting for a while. We were sitting down watching something on daytime TV - I forget what - and out of the blue I asked her, "Did you ever catch the season finale of
CSI this year?"
"No - I'm rarely up late enough to see
CSI. What happened?"
"Brass got shot."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah - but he lived."
She nodded.
"And we found out that apparently, two of the CSIs have been in a relationship for quite a while."
"Oh yeah? Which two?"
"Well, one was Sara..."
"Which one is she again?"
"She's the dark-haired girl."
"Oh yeah. And the other one?"
"Grissom."
Silence.
"You know, that doesn't surprise me? I've thought before that there was something up with those two - I didn't know if they were dating, or if they had a history, or what the hell was going on - but I always thought there was
something."
And with that, we went back to daytime TV.
I really think that's the way most people saw it. The general mass of CSI-watchers turned it on, watched the ending, and said "Oh yeah, there was always
something between those two." And then promptly forgot about it and went about their daily lives.
SarahV sez:
Right, only during IE, we later find out in Butterflied, he's still trying to pretend like he doesn't have feelings for her. He later slips up in the Pin Me Down scene, but I think it was easier for him to publicly embarass her when it wasn't possible for them to be together.
I never did write the "Invisible Evidence" analysis, did I? Oh well; you'll have to get the short version now.
I think the double meaning behind "Invisible Evidence" is that the evidence that the
something between Gil and Sara is evident to everyone else, a theme that was explored throughout the season, from the stuff in this episode to the rumors going about the lab regarding the promotion that Nick discovered to "Butterflied" to the teasing about the gift Gil gave Sara in "XX". However, at this stage this evident evidence is completely invisible to Gil. He doesn't see it. He doesn't get that his disciplinary tone towards Sara in IE could be construed as The Big Boss Man playing it tough in front of the team to hide the fact that this particular CSI is different.
He doesn't get that his actions in the Pin Me Down scene are sexual in nature - at least, not consciously. Hence that look on his face when Sara leaps from having his arms encircling her waist to nervously stammering that she hopes what's not going on between them isn't going to affect her chances for the promotion. He looked horrified in that scene - A, because I don't think he'd ever be happy with the idea that anyone would think he could be biased like that, and B, because it honestly hadn't occurred to him that most people would construe his actions here as romantic.
And hence the scene with Catherine afterwards. "Too much?" "Not enough!" Catherine is saying, "Dude, you can't be too careful. We know Sara is different - you've got to take steps to make sure your ass is covered, bro. Don't let your feelings for her allow you to let her step out of line, because other people will take that and run with it." For Gil, it's another indication that people are taking what he says and does regarding Sara and giving it a significance that he himself hasn't yet seen... although he's damned aware of it by "Butterflied."
Forgive me if this doesn't sound coherent... it's five in the morning, and I'm tired.
