Sorry writers, that was appalling.
The first half an hour was just cliché after cliché. For instance, man leaves slot machine, woman goes on slots and wins jackpot on first turn. Sara hears someone entering nightclub, draws gun, oh wait it's just the cops. Despite the casino being in a lockdown the killer conveniently manages to escape through an unlocked stairway. I lost count the number of times I rolled my eyes during that opening sequence.
The characters seemed off the whole way through. I agree with GNRF that Nick's "how're you doin" was really OOC, the real Nick would have gotten a bit flustered and instantly apologised to the girl for stumbling in on her in her undies. Another moment was when that same girl asked Morgan why she was taking the sheets and Morgan responded something of the lines of "why do you think?" That again felt really obnoxious and OOC for her.
Did anyone else get really irked by Finn's "I hate it when you do that" with DB on the phone? I know it was a shout out to the Grissom/Catherine dynamic of old but it felt really flat and out of place. It seemed like the writers were trying to make the two into Grissom/Cath v2.0 instead of developing them as independent characters.
The lack of Greg both surprised and annoyed me considering it was mainly written around DNA. Hodges being missing was really noticeable too but other than that I thought the screentime was pretty well balanced throughout the episode.
I must admit I didn't see the twist with the kid coming and I could buy that the kid killed the twin for killing his father, but when they revealed that he was actually the mastermind of the whole lot I thought that was pretty ridiculous more than anything. It's a shame that they wasted a good subject matter (identical twins / abandoned embryos) on this episode.
I've got to admit, as soon as they said about making the perfect defence I instantly thought we were going to get a poorer version of "Tell-Tale Hearts" from earlier this season. Relieved they didn't go down that route.
I don't actually have a lot of positive things to say about this episode apart from the balanced screentime. Archie got some good time at least, even if most of his scenes comprised of "Have you found the guy?" "No." Nice to see Mandy and Henry in good capacity. I notice they felt pretty adament about pairing up Nick/Morgan, Finn/DB and Sara/Brass pretty much the whole way through too.
Yeah, so overall. Pretty crappy episode I have to say. Easily the worst one of the season so far and one I probably won't bother watching again. Thankfully the next two episodes look more promising at least, and we can go back to crime scene evaluating not police-work.
My rating: 5.5/10 (poor)