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"Time of Your Death" Discussion **Beware Spoilers**
- Thread starter Destiny
- Start date
*meanie mod walks in takes a deep breath*
Lets not even start, I have made it clear about ship talk, this ep was basically GSR, I don't care if your, for or against, or not a shipper.
One last time the discussion of this ship that pertains to this ep is allowed, all other ships, or anything with GSR that does not pertain to this ep goes in the Shipper forum.
If you need to further discuss this please feel free to pm me, or make any complaints in QSF. Thank you.
*Meanie Mod takes another deep breath and walks out*
Lets not even start, I have made it clear about ship talk, this ep was basically GSR, I don't care if your, for or against, or not a shipper.
One last time the discussion of this ship that pertains to this ep is allowed, all other ships, or anything with GSR that does not pertain to this ep goes in the Shipper forum.
If you need to further discuss this please feel free to pm me, or make any complaints in QSF. Thank you.
*Meanie Mod takes another deep breath and walks out*
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Guest
Guest
Would it annoy you if it was going anywhere? In my oppinion it seems as if the trouble people have with the scenes in this episode is that it appears to be going somewhere (I mean - they can't seriously bring this up again if there isn't a point to it)
(i hope this was allowed
)
GrissomFREAK
CSI Level Two
I think you got a point here.
That's exactly why I liked this episode. Because *at last* you can feel that it's going somewhere.
Other than that, my favorite scene is the last one *obviously LOL*, when they're all in the break room discussing the case.
The part when they talk about Greg's birthday present was funny. Greg was funny, especially when he said "Nahhh. That was last year." :lol: :lol:, and Grissom's look when Greg hinted that he, too, would love a 'fantasy night' for his birthday
I liked that scene, it reminded me of the breakfast scene at the end of Strip Strangler (122)
G
Guest
Guest
Out of curiosity, why are people so annoyed / frustrated about GSR?
GrissomFREAK
CSI Level Two
I'm all for GSR, and this episode was just AWESOME.
I mean, if you support GSR, it was a great episode, wasn't it?
Just like YoBling and Bodies In Motion.
I really don't see where's the problem. That's not as if we were off topic or something
I mean, if you support GSR, it was a great episode, wasn't it?
Just like YoBling and Bodies In Motion.
I really don't see where's the problem. That's not as if we were off topic or something
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Guest
Guest
It was a GLANCE, nothing happened. Nothing has happened in 5 years. That has been my point all along.
Unfortunately this thread turned into another shipper thread instead of a discussion about the episode. That's what sucks. The thread should be relabeled shipper thread part 2. Apparently a 2 second glance makes it impossible for others to have a discussion about the rest of the episode... If the discussion involved the glance, it would be one thing, but unfortunately, it involves everything that exists in the entire GSR shipper thread and has taken over this thread. It does seemed to have calmed down since Destiny intervened, but I think everyone just gave up on discussing it anyway by then. I know I had. My farewell to the death thread, aka shipper thread part 2...
Unfortunately this thread turned into another shipper thread instead of a discussion about the episode. That's what sucks. The thread should be relabeled shipper thread part 2. Apparently a 2 second glance makes it impossible for others to have a discussion about the rest of the episode... If the discussion involved the glance, it would be one thing, but unfortunately, it involves everything that exists in the entire GSR shipper thread and has taken over this thread. It does seemed to have calmed down since Destiny intervened, but I think everyone just gave up on discussing it anyway by then. I know I had. My farewell to the death thread, aka shipper thread part 2...
creegan, if you would like to discuss something else about the episode, rather than just complaining about the discussion of GSR, bring it up! Destiny intervened to remind us that so long as what we are talking about pertains to THIS episode, and how THIS episode displayed a certain ship, we are ok to talk about it.
Honestly, for me, there isn't a lot else to talk about the episode because I found the case file dull. When I first posted I talked about Mr. Rambo's consitently round characters, down to the parking attendant! I'd love to discuss that more! No one else picked up on it, though. What would you like to talk about pertaining to the ep? Try to stir up a conversation, and maybe I'll join in. I enjoy conversation about CSI in general, not just my ship.
dani_banani
Police Officer
I was about to say the same thing as Alyssa.
creegan, I think a lot of people interpreted that glance to actually mean something and that Sara and Grissom's interactions throughout the episode were focused upon quite a lot, especially through the editing of the episode; thus, the amount of discussion about this ship. I find it interesting how non-shippers interpreted this ending scene, but I don't think we're not allowed to discuss the GSR implications that some might have seen.
creegan, I think a lot of people interpreted that glance to actually mean something and that Sara and Grissom's interactions throughout the episode were focused upon quite a lot, especially through the editing of the episode; thus, the amount of discussion about this ship. I find it interesting how non-shippers interpreted this ending scene, but I don't think we're not allowed to discuss the GSR implications that some might have seen.
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Guest
Guest
Yeah, you can't discuss The Glance but ignore the ship that goes along with it. If you ignore everything that happened before the glance means nothing but in the context of the rest of the series in terms of GSR, it's pretty noteworthy.
Everyone is entitled to there opinion as you to disagree, that being said, I urge that you try to switch the topic as well (to include other parts of the ep), Alyssa mentioned it in your post that you tried before. therefore lets try discussing the actual case, I know there wasn't a lot to it, So I will start with you on this.
In regards the the guy that died as a result of his fantaxy he did take his own request to far, thinking he was in love, and then ticking off the wrong person, ego got involved and everything from there went down the drain.
Also I miss the "B" plots, I know some complained about it but to be honest this ep needed a B plot, to many people working the case, I think we were on a good level with "Rashomama" in which they lightened up the whole thing but thats just me.
So then who would do something similar to what they guy did, creating a fantasy and paying someone to set it up? (and don't make me remind people of the whole adult content rule you know what I mean). Do you think the businesses like that on the show is tacky or a good idea?
Come on folks there is more to the ep (that I remember) then just the "Looks", etc. Lets try to talk it out.
In regards the the guy that died as a result of his fantaxy he did take his own request to far, thinking he was in love, and then ticking off the wrong person, ego got involved and everything from there went down the drain.
Also I miss the "B" plots, I know some complained about it but to be honest this ep needed a B plot, to many people working the case, I think we were on a good level with "Rashomama" in which they lightened up the whole thing but thats just me.
So then who would do something similar to what they guy did, creating a fantasy and paying someone to set it up? (and don't make me remind people of the whole adult content rule you know what I mean). Do you think the businesses like that on the show is tacky or a good idea?
Come on folks there is more to the ep (that I remember) then just the "Looks", etc. Lets try to talk it out.
it was very dull. and contrived. that's the whole point. the episode was contrived for one reason only and it sunk big time.
now if you want to talk about other aspects of the show, then let's talk about the interaction between billy and marg in this ep---from an acting standpoint, not shipping gc. their usual flow was completely missing, as if they had been told do not look at each other. do not react to each other. this alone made the ep awkward from teh start.
My fiance told me, when we discussed this ep, that the biggest zinger to him was finding out that the whole thing was a fantasy, put together just for that individual man. Honestly, I don't think that kind of business is smart, for the very reason that though you craft the fantasy around the individual, individual actions cannot be taken into account, and mistakes can be made.
Heidi made the mistake of pointing to a particular high-roller, which led our vic to make the mistake of talking to that guy, of fussing him out, which led to the guards going after him and accidentally killing him. All the events were a chain-reaction.
Also, if one were to set up the dinner for the golf guys with the submissive women, what's to say that one of the men might not misbehave himself, or have a "thing" for dominating women? What if the submissive women encourage him to push, to even rape them? I'm not saying that these conditions don't exist in real life, but Heidi very well could have been murdered herself. It's a risky business to get into.
Heidi made the mistake of pointing to a particular high-roller, which led our vic to make the mistake of talking to that guy, of fussing him out, which led to the guards going after him and accidentally killing him. All the events were a chain-reaction.
Also, if one were to set up the dinner for the golf guys with the submissive women, what's to say that one of the men might not misbehave himself, or have a "thing" for dominating women? What if the submissive women encourage him to push, to even rape them? I'm not saying that these conditions don't exist in real life, but Heidi very well could have been murdered herself. It's a risky business to get into.
Kyle_Elliott
Dead on Arrival
I agree. It did make me think about the lives of people whos 'work' is to to play out fantasies.
Reading down through the posts, I can tell that not many people liked the case. People thought it was too blah, boring, etc. Well, I watched the episode twice in a row (thank you, satellite TV!), and on the second viewing I realized just how well written it actually was. It's been on my mind since Thursday. All the clues hung together; there were no missing plot points; the events followed a logical, albeit complicated pattern. In addition, I'm a sucker for episodes where the murderer comes out of left field. Most of the time on CSI, if you pick either the secondary character with five seconds of screen time or the kid, then you've got your killer. Truth is, you can't really watch a lot of criminal procedure/mystery series these days and not get a feel for how storylines progress. So I appreciate it when we as an audience are introduced to the guilty party only after the CSIs have discovered that person themselves.
I also thought the theme of fantasy was explored quite deeply and very thoughtfully. I felt sorry for Jeff, who seemed to be very Nick-like in personality - boyish and chivalrous. Whether or not he knew he was playing a script that evening, he set in motion a series of acts that eventually caused his own death. I found that to be very sobering.
Fantasy is something that CSI likes to explore a lot, from sexual fetishes to the strange inner worlds of serial killers. One thing that is common to most of these fantasies is how ritualized they are - really, a ritual is only a set of actions according to a planned script, isn't it? We human beings ritualize a great deal of life, even when we don't fully understand the actual meaning of the script. (That's what bugged Sara about weddings in "Rashomama.") The point of scripting rituals is to provide a sense of control over these sometimes-profound aspects of life. For example, funerals seek to give closure and perhaps the sense of the spirit moving on; graduation provides the sense that we have learned enough to move on with our pursuit of life's work as an adult, and so on.
Fantasies are also scripted, and for the same purpose - to provide the perception that we are in control. We've seen this during the exploration of myriad sexual fetishes on CSI. Take BDSM, for example - both the dom and the sub know the script going in, right down to the code word for halting the proceedings. In this way, one can submit through domination and the other can dominate through submission. Why participate in such an elaborate and complex fantasy? Because the reality of wielding or yielding power over/to another in a relationship is scary as hell, and messy, and sometimes beyond our ability to understand it - in short, out of our control. So some of us ritualize this use of power, write it according to script, and ensure the situation comes out just the way we want it. We do the same in all fantasies... manipulate the events to achieve our desires.
Jeff's problem, as Grissom pointed out, was that he confused fantasy with reality. He thought that he was truly in love with Heidi, and she with him - and did not realize that Heidi was only getting her groove on as the perfect capper to a successful workday. Therefore, he walked up to a stranger whom he thought had insulted his woman, and pissed that stranger off. The result: he lost his life. When you confuse the safe boundaries of fantasy with the uncharted shores of reality, all bets are off. You don't realize it yet, but your hands are now off the controls... and that is sometimes a very dangerous place to be.
The irony of Grissom pointing this out? He has done, and continues to do, the exact same thing. Grissom has also confused fantasy for reality. His "reality" is that he's Grissom, the Bugman - the logical, the analytical, the Holmesian "brain+mere-appendix", the inscrutable, the enigmatic, the mysterious. The man who knows something about everything. The man who does not need to make connections. The man capable of leaving the lab with nary a goodbye to anyone (can't remember the episode title; sorry). The man who, in defiance of poetic truth, is stubbornly an island. He has played this role most of his life, from being a "ghost" in school to "That's why I don't go out" from "Weeping Willows." But this is not who he really is; this is his fantasy, who he wants to be - and he lives it because he's afraid of the alternative, of being Gil, the mere man. Of allowing people into his life, and developing the emotional connections necessary to care about them or even love them deeply - because this means taking the risk that they'll leave him, and leave him powerless to stop them. Then he can only weather through the pain of the empty spaces left behind, a pain that exists only because he cared so damn much. (This certainly could apply to his father, from what we learned in "Still Life" - incidently also written by David Rambo, who co-wrote this episode. It may also apply to Teri Miller or Lady Heather, depending on how strong you believe those relationships are/were.) That's not to say that Gil is not actually logical or analytical or introverted, of course - he is - but rather that he is repressing so much more of who he is in an attempt to contain himself within these boundaries, these controls, this script he has written of who he should be.
So Gil believes this solitary role "Grissom" is really who he is, and has convinced others of the same. Think of Warrick: "Who knows anything about that guy?" in "Burden of Proof", or Sara: "I wish I were like you. I wish I didn't feel anything" (and dammit, I hate not remembering episode titles!), or Catherine: "Grissom - what personal life?" in "Pledging Mr. Johnson." Notice that he is always addressed as Grissom by them, but very rarely as Gil. Even us fans - be honest now: don't you have trouble thinking of him as Gil? That is, as a man of emotions, as flawed and weak and needy as the rest of us? Neither we, nor they, nor Grissom himself see the cracks in the facade that belies his ordinary human need for deep connections with others. But they are there. Examples would include his friendships with Catherine and Jim (the only ones who ever address him as Gil, incidently), his worry over Nick in "Grave Danger", and his empathy for Sara in "Nesting Dolls," among others.
I'll come back to Grissom's similarities to Jeff in a bit. Before that, I want to touch on something Caprice said that was rather significant - his last sentence. He looked at Gil and Sara and said, "May all your dreams come true." Dreams - not fantasies. The two words have similar meanings, but also at least one profound difference in the way they're used. We use "fantasy" to refer to the specific encoding of our desires into a script - that script may take a tangible form, enacted in the physical world, or only take place in our head. We may want it to become reality, or be more comfortable with it remaining a fantasy. In any case, the scripting is an attempt to control the outcome of acting on our desires. However, we use the word "dream" differently. It is often nebulous in form - where a fantasy deals with specific details, a dream is usually the expression of the desire only, with no underlying structure and conditions. In addition, it often brings with it a connotation that we understand the possibility that it cannot or may not come true - it contains the acknowledgement that we have no control. In short, "fantasy" implies escaping into a pseudo-world where we shape our desires, whereas "dream" implies a yearning to see these desires manifest themselves in "the real world."
Now, whether or not one sees these "dreams" of Gil and Sara as being specifically about each other, or about other characters, or about something other than relationships - that's up to the individual. The neat thing about GSR is that due to the *coughcowardicecough* intelligence of TPTB, the matter has always been handled so *coughgingerlycough* delicately that you can link every GSR "moment" of the past six years into a continuing plotline chain that contains all the strength of tight internal logic - if you accept the basic premises of "Gil wants Sara", "Sara wants Gil", and "TPTB intend GSR to be a canon plotline for now and a resolved plotline in the future." If you don't accept each of these premises, then all of these same moments are equally capable of a quite different interpretation. (It's rather like religion, in that sense.)
Just so you know, discussion for the rest of this episode is based on the acceptance of these premises. You have been warned.
Let's go back to comparing Grissom and Jeff. Remember Nick's statement at the end of the episode? "Your fate in Vegas is determined the minute you step off that plane." This could definitely apply to Sara, in the sense that GSR was set in motion once she stepped off that Vegas plane six years ago. But wait - why did she get on that plane to begin with? Because Gil Grissom trusted her, and asked her to come. Jeff did not notice the moment when fantasy gave way to reality, and consequently made a decision that had a profound impact on his life. Doesn't this also describe Gil, in a sense? You could argue that the inevitable cracking of the Grissom facade began on the day Gil made that decision to contact Sara. Because while he wants her, he can't bring that about as long as he stubbornly clings to being "Grissom" as his reality, instead of recognizing it for the fantasy that it is. And while Sara wants him, enough to have accepted and played along with that script in the first two years of her being in Vegas, she has refused to do so for quite a long time now (thereby instigating the long-held GSR tradition of Sara inspiring "WTF?" looks in Grissom - although that's neatly reversed this year). I believe that Gil is gradually emerging - his need to do finally impinged upon his awareness after nearly losing his hearing, as we learned in "Jackpot" - but he is not quite there yet. Almost, though. Far more than before.
One particular Grissom statement went something like this: "Some men are afraid of beauty, afraid of being rejected." This echoes the "Since when were you interested in beauty?"/"Since I met you" of "Primum Non Nocere," of course, but in this case I don't think Grissom was talking only about physical beauty, or even the beauty of women in general. I think that somewhere, deep within the intricacies of his thoughts, Gil was also talking about the beauty of the real - a flesh-and-blood person, someone that refuses to fully dominate or fully submit, someone who exists on her own terms and does not comply to the scripts of fantasy or ritual, someone who knows who one really is (as Lady Heather would say) and is knowable in return. It isn't merely that Gil Grissom is frightened of a beautiful woman turning him down. He's frightened of letting go of the Grissom fantasy, of dropping the facade and revealing himself, Gil, only to have the person turn around and leave. I think this applies to friendships even, not just a relationship with Sara. To go all J. Alfred Prufrock on you: he's afraid of Gil finally being pinned and wriggling on the wall, only to have someone turn around and say, "That's not what I meant, at all." He's afraid that he will be almost, at times, the fool - which is why he has preferred instead to be the crab scuttling on the floor of silent seas. And now, he grows old... he grows old....
*ahem* Sorry. Got lost there for a minute. But God, that's a great poem. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, go read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot; it could be quite an trip inside Gil's mind.
One comment I've heard almost no one talk about is Catherine's, as they're going through the casino to find Dennis Kim - she says something along the lines of "When a man falls in love, it makes him do foolish things." I thought William Petersen gave a great "studiously non-reactive" face in response to that line - you know the one, where a person's face is suspiciously too blank. This hearkens back to Gil's fears as well - to have the heart overpower the brain, to essentially lose one's self-control in passion. This is a terrifying prospect to many keenly analytical people, seriously. Such people pride themselves on their rationality; to have that buckle under due to strength of passion is not pleasant to contemplate.
Finally, there's all the glances, which (significantly) only happen after Gil and Sara talk to Caprice. Some have protested with "What the hell brought that on? The woman nearly dies in "Committed", and that's not enough to prod him into making a move, but suddenly some guy goes on about midwestern men wanting submissive-but-in-control women and now the man can't take his eyes off her? C'mon, now!" But me, personally, I kind of like it this way. The idea of making a move in the aftermath of some huge !EVENT! like nearly dying and what-not might make for great drama, and I'm sure it actually happens quite often... but I think that in real life many big decisions also build up slowly, under the surface, until some small circumstance suddenly unleashes a monumental change that doesn't really square with the slight significance of that circumstance. Isn't that really what the word "caprice" means? A sudden change of direction, often mysterious in origin?
Gil and Sara are not the same people they were six years ago. The fantasy known as "Grissom" has been slowly weakening as Gil shares more of himself with others and reveals the man beneath. (Interestingly enough, Sara now calls him "Griss" more than "Grissom" - which is perhaps a hint that she's picked up on the crumbling of this facade; even the name is crumbling.) Sara has also changed - she has faced her own demons and come out triumphant on the other side, revealing herself to be more confident in herself and mature than ever before. Witness in this episode how she handles questioning the car valet - how she is non-suspicious, friendly, even slightly flirtatious... quite a contrast to her earlier self. Significantly, she and Catherine have another very good personal interaction in this episode, one of several this year. This suggests to me that she has developed to the point where Catherine can now consider her as an equal on a personal level - and likewise, so could others at that level of development, like Jim... and Gil. She may still be younger than them age-wise, but in that sense they are now all on the same playing field (as is Warrick, for all you Yo!Blingers; Nicky's almost there; Greg's not there yet). There have been a lot of changes percolating in these two characters, and the result has been a genial give-and-take comraderie this season, a richer version of that which existed in Season 1. But, throw in a Lady Heather stand-in with a penchant for making people see the truth about what they want, and... well, who knows?
The argument has been made, even among Geek Lovers, that the GSR interaction in this episode was way heavy - almost too much to digest. This is quite a commentary on just how ascetic CSI relationships really are! What did we get in this episode, exactly? "May all of your dreams come true." "Some men are afraid of beauty, afraid of being rejected." "When a man falls in love, it makes him do foolish things." And a few sultry glances. This is hardly the soapy residue of melodrama, is it? Fans of Grey's Anatomy - a great show in its own right - would starve on a diet of such piddling relationship cues. So would the fans of Desperate Housewives. Granted, this is CSI, where TPTB claim that touching a man's cheek is equal to a sex scene - but let's not kid ourselves. The GSR in this episode? Nothing really - a few comments, a few significant looks... the usual diet us Geek Lovers feed on, so of course we like it. But hardly strong enough for shark-jumping, especially since the show has weathered the existence of far stronger and more blatant GSR-cues (and Yo!Bling cues, come to think of it) in the past two years with nary a shark in sight. And also far too bland to be inspiring the kind of passion with which people have been squeeing/ranting on this thread. Have all you people picked up on something I've missed? Or are you responding more to future events (for which I am deliberately and blissfully unspoiled) than to the ones that transpired in this actual episode?
Long post summary: I don't think this episode was badly written at all. I think it's incredibly rich and deep, once one gets below the surface.
I also thought the theme of fantasy was explored quite deeply and very thoughtfully. I felt sorry for Jeff, who seemed to be very Nick-like in personality - boyish and chivalrous. Whether or not he knew he was playing a script that evening, he set in motion a series of acts that eventually caused his own death. I found that to be very sobering.
Fantasy is something that CSI likes to explore a lot, from sexual fetishes to the strange inner worlds of serial killers. One thing that is common to most of these fantasies is how ritualized they are - really, a ritual is only a set of actions according to a planned script, isn't it? We human beings ritualize a great deal of life, even when we don't fully understand the actual meaning of the script. (That's what bugged Sara about weddings in "Rashomama.") The point of scripting rituals is to provide a sense of control over these sometimes-profound aspects of life. For example, funerals seek to give closure and perhaps the sense of the spirit moving on; graduation provides the sense that we have learned enough to move on with our pursuit of life's work as an adult, and so on.
Fantasies are also scripted, and for the same purpose - to provide the perception that we are in control. We've seen this during the exploration of myriad sexual fetishes on CSI. Take BDSM, for example - both the dom and the sub know the script going in, right down to the code word for halting the proceedings. In this way, one can submit through domination and the other can dominate through submission. Why participate in such an elaborate and complex fantasy? Because the reality of wielding or yielding power over/to another in a relationship is scary as hell, and messy, and sometimes beyond our ability to understand it - in short, out of our control. So some of us ritualize this use of power, write it according to script, and ensure the situation comes out just the way we want it. We do the same in all fantasies... manipulate the events to achieve our desires.
Jeff's problem, as Grissom pointed out, was that he confused fantasy with reality. He thought that he was truly in love with Heidi, and she with him - and did not realize that Heidi was only getting her groove on as the perfect capper to a successful workday. Therefore, he walked up to a stranger whom he thought had insulted his woman, and pissed that stranger off. The result: he lost his life. When you confuse the safe boundaries of fantasy with the uncharted shores of reality, all bets are off. You don't realize it yet, but your hands are now off the controls... and that is sometimes a very dangerous place to be.
The irony of Grissom pointing this out? He has done, and continues to do, the exact same thing. Grissom has also confused fantasy for reality. His "reality" is that he's Grissom, the Bugman - the logical, the analytical, the Holmesian "brain+mere-appendix", the inscrutable, the enigmatic, the mysterious. The man who knows something about everything. The man who does not need to make connections. The man capable of leaving the lab with nary a goodbye to anyone (can't remember the episode title; sorry). The man who, in defiance of poetic truth, is stubbornly an island. He has played this role most of his life, from being a "ghost" in school to "That's why I don't go out" from "Weeping Willows." But this is not who he really is; this is his fantasy, who he wants to be - and he lives it because he's afraid of the alternative, of being Gil, the mere man. Of allowing people into his life, and developing the emotional connections necessary to care about them or even love them deeply - because this means taking the risk that they'll leave him, and leave him powerless to stop them. Then he can only weather through the pain of the empty spaces left behind, a pain that exists only because he cared so damn much. (This certainly could apply to his father, from what we learned in "Still Life" - incidently also written by David Rambo, who co-wrote this episode. It may also apply to Teri Miller or Lady Heather, depending on how strong you believe those relationships are/were.) That's not to say that Gil is not actually logical or analytical or introverted, of course - he is - but rather that he is repressing so much more of who he is in an attempt to contain himself within these boundaries, these controls, this script he has written of who he should be.
So Gil believes this solitary role "Grissom" is really who he is, and has convinced others of the same. Think of Warrick: "Who knows anything about that guy?" in "Burden of Proof", or Sara: "I wish I were like you. I wish I didn't feel anything" (and dammit, I hate not remembering episode titles!), or Catherine: "Grissom - what personal life?" in "Pledging Mr. Johnson." Notice that he is always addressed as Grissom by them, but very rarely as Gil. Even us fans - be honest now: don't you have trouble thinking of him as Gil? That is, as a man of emotions, as flawed and weak and needy as the rest of us? Neither we, nor they, nor Grissom himself see the cracks in the facade that belies his ordinary human need for deep connections with others. But they are there. Examples would include his friendships with Catherine and Jim (the only ones who ever address him as Gil, incidently), his worry over Nick in "Grave Danger", and his empathy for Sara in "Nesting Dolls," among others.
I'll come back to Grissom's similarities to Jeff in a bit. Before that, I want to touch on something Caprice said that was rather significant - his last sentence. He looked at Gil and Sara and said, "May all your dreams come true." Dreams - not fantasies. The two words have similar meanings, but also at least one profound difference in the way they're used. We use "fantasy" to refer to the specific encoding of our desires into a script - that script may take a tangible form, enacted in the physical world, or only take place in our head. We may want it to become reality, or be more comfortable with it remaining a fantasy. In any case, the scripting is an attempt to control the outcome of acting on our desires. However, we use the word "dream" differently. It is often nebulous in form - where a fantasy deals with specific details, a dream is usually the expression of the desire only, with no underlying structure and conditions. In addition, it often brings with it a connotation that we understand the possibility that it cannot or may not come true - it contains the acknowledgement that we have no control. In short, "fantasy" implies escaping into a pseudo-world where we shape our desires, whereas "dream" implies a yearning to see these desires manifest themselves in "the real world."
Now, whether or not one sees these "dreams" of Gil and Sara as being specifically about each other, or about other characters, or about something other than relationships - that's up to the individual. The neat thing about GSR is that due to the *coughcowardicecough* intelligence of TPTB, the matter has always been handled so *coughgingerlycough* delicately that you can link every GSR "moment" of the past six years into a continuing plotline chain that contains all the strength of tight internal logic - if you accept the basic premises of "Gil wants Sara", "Sara wants Gil", and "TPTB intend GSR to be a canon plotline for now and a resolved plotline in the future." If you don't accept each of these premises, then all of these same moments are equally capable of a quite different interpretation. (It's rather like religion, in that sense.)
Just so you know, discussion for the rest of this episode is based on the acceptance of these premises. You have been warned.
Let's go back to comparing Grissom and Jeff. Remember Nick's statement at the end of the episode? "Your fate in Vegas is determined the minute you step off that plane." This could definitely apply to Sara, in the sense that GSR was set in motion once she stepped off that Vegas plane six years ago. But wait - why did she get on that plane to begin with? Because Gil Grissom trusted her, and asked her to come. Jeff did not notice the moment when fantasy gave way to reality, and consequently made a decision that had a profound impact on his life. Doesn't this also describe Gil, in a sense? You could argue that the inevitable cracking of the Grissom facade began on the day Gil made that decision to contact Sara. Because while he wants her, he can't bring that about as long as he stubbornly clings to being "Grissom" as his reality, instead of recognizing it for the fantasy that it is. And while Sara wants him, enough to have accepted and played along with that script in the first two years of her being in Vegas, she has refused to do so for quite a long time now (thereby instigating the long-held GSR tradition of Sara inspiring "WTF?" looks in Grissom - although that's neatly reversed this year). I believe that Gil is gradually emerging - his need to do finally impinged upon his awareness after nearly losing his hearing, as we learned in "Jackpot" - but he is not quite there yet. Almost, though. Far more than before.
One particular Grissom statement went something like this: "Some men are afraid of beauty, afraid of being rejected." This echoes the "Since when were you interested in beauty?"/"Since I met you" of "Primum Non Nocere," of course, but in this case I don't think Grissom was talking only about physical beauty, or even the beauty of women in general. I think that somewhere, deep within the intricacies of his thoughts, Gil was also talking about the beauty of the real - a flesh-and-blood person, someone that refuses to fully dominate or fully submit, someone who exists on her own terms and does not comply to the scripts of fantasy or ritual, someone who knows who one really is (as Lady Heather would say) and is knowable in return. It isn't merely that Gil Grissom is frightened of a beautiful woman turning him down. He's frightened of letting go of the Grissom fantasy, of dropping the facade and revealing himself, Gil, only to have the person turn around and leave. I think this applies to friendships even, not just a relationship with Sara. To go all J. Alfred Prufrock on you: he's afraid of Gil finally being pinned and wriggling on the wall, only to have someone turn around and say, "That's not what I meant, at all." He's afraid that he will be almost, at times, the fool - which is why he has preferred instead to be the crab scuttling on the floor of silent seas. And now, he grows old... he grows old....
*ahem* Sorry. Got lost there for a minute. But God, that's a great poem. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, go read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot; it could be quite an trip inside Gil's mind.
One comment I've heard almost no one talk about is Catherine's, as they're going through the casino to find Dennis Kim - she says something along the lines of "When a man falls in love, it makes him do foolish things." I thought William Petersen gave a great "studiously non-reactive" face in response to that line - you know the one, where a person's face is suspiciously too blank. This hearkens back to Gil's fears as well - to have the heart overpower the brain, to essentially lose one's self-control in passion. This is a terrifying prospect to many keenly analytical people, seriously. Such people pride themselves on their rationality; to have that buckle under due to strength of passion is not pleasant to contemplate.
Finally, there's all the glances, which (significantly) only happen after Gil and Sara talk to Caprice. Some have protested with "What the hell brought that on? The woman nearly dies in "Committed", and that's not enough to prod him into making a move, but suddenly some guy goes on about midwestern men wanting submissive-but-in-control women and now the man can't take his eyes off her? C'mon, now!" But me, personally, I kind of like it this way. The idea of making a move in the aftermath of some huge !EVENT! like nearly dying and what-not might make for great drama, and I'm sure it actually happens quite often... but I think that in real life many big decisions also build up slowly, under the surface, until some small circumstance suddenly unleashes a monumental change that doesn't really square with the slight significance of that circumstance. Isn't that really what the word "caprice" means? A sudden change of direction, often mysterious in origin?
Gil and Sara are not the same people they were six years ago. The fantasy known as "Grissom" has been slowly weakening as Gil shares more of himself with others and reveals the man beneath. (Interestingly enough, Sara now calls him "Griss" more than "Grissom" - which is perhaps a hint that she's picked up on the crumbling of this facade; even the name is crumbling.) Sara has also changed - she has faced her own demons and come out triumphant on the other side, revealing herself to be more confident in herself and mature than ever before. Witness in this episode how she handles questioning the car valet - how she is non-suspicious, friendly, even slightly flirtatious... quite a contrast to her earlier self. Significantly, she and Catherine have another very good personal interaction in this episode, one of several this year. This suggests to me that she has developed to the point where Catherine can now consider her as an equal on a personal level - and likewise, so could others at that level of development, like Jim... and Gil. She may still be younger than them age-wise, but in that sense they are now all on the same playing field (as is Warrick, for all you Yo!Blingers; Nicky's almost there; Greg's not there yet). There have been a lot of changes percolating in these two characters, and the result has been a genial give-and-take comraderie this season, a richer version of that which existed in Season 1. But, throw in a Lady Heather stand-in with a penchant for making people see the truth about what they want, and... well, who knows?
The argument has been made, even among Geek Lovers, that the GSR interaction in this episode was way heavy - almost too much to digest. This is quite a commentary on just how ascetic CSI relationships really are! What did we get in this episode, exactly? "May all of your dreams come true." "Some men are afraid of beauty, afraid of being rejected." "When a man falls in love, it makes him do foolish things." And a few sultry glances. This is hardly the soapy residue of melodrama, is it? Fans of Grey's Anatomy - a great show in its own right - would starve on a diet of such piddling relationship cues. So would the fans of Desperate Housewives. Granted, this is CSI, where TPTB claim that touching a man's cheek is equal to a sex scene - but let's not kid ourselves. The GSR in this episode? Nothing really - a few comments, a few significant looks... the usual diet us Geek Lovers feed on, so of course we like it. But hardly strong enough for shark-jumping, especially since the show has weathered the existence of far stronger and more blatant GSR-cues (and Yo!Bling cues, come to think of it) in the past two years with nary a shark in sight. And also far too bland to be inspiring the kind of passion with which people have been squeeing/ranting on this thread. Have all you people picked up on something I've missed? Or are you responding more to future events (for which I am deliberately and blissfully unspoiled) than to the ones that transpired in this actual episode?
Long post summary: I don't think this episode was badly written at all. I think it's incredibly rich and deep, once one gets below the surface.