CSI episode review for 5x13 - Nesting Dolls
Yoohoo! What a great episode. I had to really contain my excitement over the weekend and force myself not to read any spoilers. I knew all of the public ones, but I just didn't want to hear if anybody hadn't liked the ep. I did manage to stay clear of everything except medie's comments. :) And they turned out not to spoil my fun. *phew*
I have decided to introduce a 'g-s-meter' to my reviews, to measure the amount of Grissom/Sara interaction or (god-forbid) shippiness. Where 0 is when neither of them appears in the episode at all, 5 would be nice G/S moments without shippiness, and 10 would be anything shippy. (we take what we can get, right? :))
g-s-meter: a solid 6. I enjoyed it a lot.
(Last week would be an 8, btw., I almost melted off my seat...)
On to the gritty details, where I analyze G/S to death - or maybe to life. ;) That depends on your view, I suppose... :P
- there was too little Greg. (And no Sofia. But Catherine took the scapegoat slot for her, I'll get to that later.)
- why did Greg have to go on his first prelim alone? Way to train your employees.
o And, Sara really was flattering him when she said she 'didn't know [his] hair could do that'. Because it really can't. He did look like a dork. :) He should have gone with his usual spiky do, that would have made him a lot more confident, too, I bet.
I'm getting the non-grissom-sara parts out of the way first:
- I was going to rant about the stupid idea to freeze the tar off the women, because obviously not only tar gets brittle at -200 degrees. But Grissom proved himself stupid by ruining the skull, so I feel vindicated enough by that. :))
+ It was fun to watch Grissom be all giddy about the case, though. It's not often we get to see him so enthusiastic about anything these days.
+ I loved the scene between Warrick, Nick and Cath, where Warrick said that not understanding each other was the most important thing. He did it to rile up Catherine, and boy did it work. *lol* I guess they're building up the tension, so anything the writers have in store for them will at least make a bit of sense. Not that I have anything against pairing them up. The scene in Down the Drain was sparking, the actors have good chemistry.
o Catherine. Hmm. I believe she was deliberately put into a bad spot in this episode. She first chides Grissom's shift for being behind on cases. Then she brushes off Greg's attempt to help Sara. Then she shuts up Nick by telling him she doesn't want to talk. She seemed to be in a pretty nasty temper throughout the ep. She was also getting far too friendly with Eckley in that last scene. (Funny that Grissom's comment to that effect -in his first scene- would be so on target. He's not usually that observant.) I am sure it was significant that Eckley and Cath were on the same side of the table - opposite of Grissom during the confrontation. I have no idea what I should conclude from that observation, I only know it was so obvious, it must have been intentional.
- I did not like the exchange about Sara being drunk when Grissom arrives at her place. I agree that drinking is not the source of her problem, but it's still a symptom. I refuse to believe that she is an alcoholic, simply because I like her too much. Still, she was sitting at home, alone, depressed, and having a beer. There's really nothing to reinterpret about this, I just hate that they've made it part of her, and now we are left to deal with it. :(
o So what new information did we get about Sara? Sara's mother was abused by Sara's father. She killed her husband. That's it. We don't know if Sara was hit as well, she certainly suffered the emotional scars from growing up in an abusive environment. We don't know how old she was, how long she was in foster care, if she and her brother ever went back to their mother. It's not clear if it was considered murder or self-defense, so we have no way of knowing what happened to her mother. Sara talks about a 'murder gene', that could be taken as an indication that it was indeed murder, but it's a weak one. It would explain why Sara is so angry at the handling of domestic abuse cases, though, if she was the only one who thought her mother acted in self-defence, but she was convicted for murder instead. I also have a vague memory that any kind of killing is considered murder in US law, just the degree varies. In that case, her comment doesn't help us at all.
- I was going to say something about continuity because I remembered Sara mentioning her parents at some point. But I looked it up. She said: 'When I was a kid I was playing hide-and-seek one day and I found this plastic bag under my big brother's bed. I thought it was a bag of dirt so I took it to my mom. Turned out it was his bag of weed. He was grounded for a year.' So, a) her brother could be a lot older than her, and it could have been before her father was killed. Or b), it was after, and they were back with their mother. Sara doesn't mention the word 'parents' at all. I'll keep quiet then and be happy without continuity errors. :)
So, off to the G/S parts. I will first take a look at it from the objective POV, the non-shippy interpretation. The bare necessities... :)
+ Grissom had a lot of external reasons for being at Sara's place. Eckley expected him to fire her, so he was pretty much cornered. If he didn't act now, he'd have to fire her. So that part is quite easy to rationalize.
+ Sara had intended to tell him about her family in the season 5 season opener, but apparently over time changed her mind. Now she was pretty firm, telling him, more than once, that he shouldn't pry. Maybe she would have told him on her own time, but I see the chances for that as pretty low.
+ Sara did not recoil from Grissom when she started crying. If she had feared his reaction, she would have gotten up and evaded his contact. But she stayed and just turned her face away. Evasion enough, but not the whole nine yards.
+ Grissom had the sense not to get too close to her, but going the middle ground by holding her hand. If you know someone is interested in you and you don't return the feeling, you will not hug them - or encourage them in any way. I am sure even Grissom is aware of this basic rule. After all, he kept his distance from her after he found out that she was interested (that is, when she spelled it out to his face).
=> if you want to see it that way, you can definitely go with the interpretation of Grissom just trying to save Sara's job, by finally being a good supervisor and finding out what her problem is with some cases. It works, which is a good thing, and I like the way the writers keep pulling it off that way. But it's not my favourite view. ;)
So, here we go:
+ Grissom made sure he had enough non-personal reasons to be at Sara's, so he could rationalize his being there.
+ Funny that they were talking about rationalization so much. They are definitely both meant here, not just her. 'Rationalization is important to us, more than... sex, even.' D'uh... we knew that, Grissom! :) Otherwise this storyline would have developed *very* differently, about, oh, four years ago? ;)
+ I loved Sara's hand gesture when she said 'emotionally unavailable'. And the phrase itself was very nicely put. I like the term 'emotional fuckwit', myself. ;) No, really, I think she must have thought about this for a while. It pretty much hits the center of the problem, and it *doesn't* actually say that he's not interested. It's one of those phrases that you can take either way. It leaves all the options open for her, too. She shoves her problem with him in his face, for the second time in as many episodes. Maybe she's hoping he will do something about it.
+ Btw, 'emotionally unavailable' also extends to Hank. It fits him quite well, actually.
+ It was great to see Sara from a personal side. We didn't really get to know that much about her, but I don't think we've seen her cry since the first season. That was just something precious. She is almost never vulnerable anymore.
+ Obviously, Sara's vulnerability didn't leave Grissom unaffected either. His face was great to watch as well. I think they played well off of each other. He looked as if he was going to start crying any moment, too. I found it realistic that he wouldn't, simply because he's not in touch with his emotions very much. Other people's emotions usually don't affect him much. But that she would bring him this close to crying still surprised me. Usually, he has an answer for everything (that doesn't concern *his* feelings), but here he just offered quiet support.
+ He took her hand. Just let me state this again, so I can squee over it some more. He touched her hand. That's the fourth touch in five years, right? ;) Honestly, when thinking about it from the non-shippy POV, he should not have touched her at all. I am glad we got this much. It means something to me. And it's a welcome source for more G/S vids. :)
The last scene:
+ When he said 'I've taken it' - the action, that is - I couldn't help myself and asked, so what exactly did you do after taking her hand in yours?
+ Grissom took everything upon himself, making it impossible for Eckley to fire anyone. It makes not very much sense, and I would like to know Grissom's arguments for choosing that route. I don't consider it a dangerous one, which I could interpret a lot more into. ;( This way, there is basically no risk for him involved. So not much to say about that.
+ I have something to say about his choice of words, though. He explicitly said 'I need her', and Eckley replied 'she's all yours'. Powerful words. I don't expect any great follow-ups from it, but I like it anyway. There are so many issues between Grissom and Sara because of his 'the lab needs you' speech. Maybe he did think about it before he said '*I*' this time. There was no reaction from Catherine to his choice of words. But I attribute that to her being firmly on the other side of the fence that day.
+ There is a lot of room for interpretation in this episode, and lots of moments where we can finally say Grissom did everything right. That is worth a few bad episodes, which I'm sure will be coming up aplenty. ;P
I, for my part, am exceedingly happy with this episode. I don't expect any mention of Grissom/Sara in immediately upcoming episodes, but that's alright with me. I didn't expect to get this much in two consecutive episodes, either. Those two episodes will keep me occupied for a while. I don't for a second think that anything shippy happened off-screen. But I can dream, right? :)
I'm especially interested in how you interpreted the scene(s). Comment away! :)
I have decided to introduce a 'g-s-meter' to my reviews, to measure the amount of Grissom/Sara interaction or (god-forbid) shippiness. Where 0 is when neither of them appears in the episode at all, 5 would be nice G/S moments without shippiness, and 10 would be anything shippy. (we take what we can get, right? :))
g-s-meter: a solid 6. I enjoyed it a lot.
(Last week would be an 8, btw., I almost melted off my seat...)
On to the gritty details, where I analyze G/S to death - or maybe to life. ;) That depends on your view, I suppose... :P
- there was too little Greg. (And no Sofia. But Catherine took the scapegoat slot for her, I'll get to that later.)
- why did Greg have to go on his first prelim alone? Way to train your employees.
o And, Sara really was flattering him when she said she 'didn't know [his] hair could do that'. Because it really can't. He did look like a dork. :) He should have gone with his usual spiky do, that would have made him a lot more confident, too, I bet.
I'm getting the non-grissom-sara parts out of the way first:
- I was going to rant about the stupid idea to freeze the tar off the women, because obviously not only tar gets brittle at -200 degrees. But Grissom proved himself stupid by ruining the skull, so I feel vindicated enough by that. :))
+ It was fun to watch Grissom be all giddy about the case, though. It's not often we get to see him so enthusiastic about anything these days.
+ I loved the scene between Warrick, Nick and Cath, where Warrick said that not understanding each other was the most important thing. He did it to rile up Catherine, and boy did it work. *lol* I guess they're building up the tension, so anything the writers have in store for them will at least make a bit of sense. Not that I have anything against pairing them up. The scene in Down the Drain was sparking, the actors have good chemistry.
o Catherine. Hmm. I believe she was deliberately put into a bad spot in this episode. She first chides Grissom's shift for being behind on cases. Then she brushes off Greg's attempt to help Sara. Then she shuts up Nick by telling him she doesn't want to talk. She seemed to be in a pretty nasty temper throughout the ep. She was also getting far too friendly with Eckley in that last scene. (Funny that Grissom's comment to that effect -in his first scene- would be so on target. He's not usually that observant.) I am sure it was significant that Eckley and Cath were on the same side of the table - opposite of Grissom during the confrontation. I have no idea what I should conclude from that observation, I only know it was so obvious, it must have been intentional.
- I did not like the exchange about Sara being drunk when Grissom arrives at her place. I agree that drinking is not the source of her problem, but it's still a symptom. I refuse to believe that she is an alcoholic, simply because I like her too much. Still, she was sitting at home, alone, depressed, and having a beer. There's really nothing to reinterpret about this, I just hate that they've made it part of her, and now we are left to deal with it. :(
o So what new information did we get about Sara? Sara's mother was abused by Sara's father. She killed her husband. That's it. We don't know if Sara was hit as well, she certainly suffered the emotional scars from growing up in an abusive environment. We don't know how old she was, how long she was in foster care, if she and her brother ever went back to their mother. It's not clear if it was considered murder or self-defense, so we have no way of knowing what happened to her mother. Sara talks about a 'murder gene', that could be taken as an indication that it was indeed murder, but it's a weak one. It would explain why Sara is so angry at the handling of domestic abuse cases, though, if she was the only one who thought her mother acted in self-defence, but she was convicted for murder instead. I also have a vague memory that any kind of killing is considered murder in US law, just the degree varies. In that case, her comment doesn't help us at all.
- I was going to say something about continuity because I remembered Sara mentioning her parents at some point. But I looked it up. She said: 'When I was a kid I was playing hide-and-seek one day and I found this plastic bag under my big brother's bed. I thought it was a bag of dirt so I took it to my mom. Turned out it was his bag of weed. He was grounded for a year.' So, a) her brother could be a lot older than her, and it could have been before her father was killed. Or b), it was after, and they were back with their mother. Sara doesn't mention the word 'parents' at all. I'll keep quiet then and be happy without continuity errors. :)
So, off to the G/S parts. I will first take a look at it from the objective POV, the non-shippy interpretation. The bare necessities... :)
+ Grissom had a lot of external reasons for being at Sara's place. Eckley expected him to fire her, so he was pretty much cornered. If he didn't act now, he'd have to fire her. So that part is quite easy to rationalize.
+ Sara had intended to tell him about her family in the season 5 season opener, but apparently over time changed her mind. Now she was pretty firm, telling him, more than once, that he shouldn't pry. Maybe she would have told him on her own time, but I see the chances for that as pretty low.
+ Sara did not recoil from Grissom when she started crying. If she had feared his reaction, she would have gotten up and evaded his contact. But she stayed and just turned her face away. Evasion enough, but not the whole nine yards.
+ Grissom had the sense not to get too close to her, but going the middle ground by holding her hand. If you know someone is interested in you and you don't return the feeling, you will not hug them - or encourage them in any way. I am sure even Grissom is aware of this basic rule. After all, he kept his distance from her after he found out that she was interested (that is, when she spelled it out to his face).
=> if you want to see it that way, you can definitely go with the interpretation of Grissom just trying to save Sara's job, by finally being a good supervisor and finding out what her problem is with some cases. It works, which is a good thing, and I like the way the writers keep pulling it off that way. But it's not my favourite view. ;)
So, here we go:
+ Grissom made sure he had enough non-personal reasons to be at Sara's, so he could rationalize his being there.
+ Funny that they were talking about rationalization so much. They are definitely both meant here, not just her. 'Rationalization is important to us, more than... sex, even.' D'uh... we knew that, Grissom! :) Otherwise this storyline would have developed *very* differently, about, oh, four years ago? ;)
+ I loved Sara's hand gesture when she said 'emotionally unavailable'. And the phrase itself was very nicely put. I like the term 'emotional fuckwit', myself. ;) No, really, I think she must have thought about this for a while. It pretty much hits the center of the problem, and it *doesn't* actually say that he's not interested. It's one of those phrases that you can take either way. It leaves all the options open for her, too. She shoves her problem with him in his face, for the second time in as many episodes. Maybe she's hoping he will do something about it.
+ Btw, 'emotionally unavailable' also extends to Hank. It fits him quite well, actually.
+ It was great to see Sara from a personal side. We didn't really get to know that much about her, but I don't think we've seen her cry since the first season. That was just something precious. She is almost never vulnerable anymore.
+ Obviously, Sara's vulnerability didn't leave Grissom unaffected either. His face was great to watch as well. I think they played well off of each other. He looked as if he was going to start crying any moment, too. I found it realistic that he wouldn't, simply because he's not in touch with his emotions very much. Other people's emotions usually don't affect him much. But that she would bring him this close to crying still surprised me. Usually, he has an answer for everything (that doesn't concern *his* feelings), but here he just offered quiet support.
+ He took her hand. Just let me state this again, so I can squee over it some more. He touched her hand. That's the fourth touch in five years, right? ;) Honestly, when thinking about it from the non-shippy POV, he should not have touched her at all. I am glad we got this much. It means something to me. And it's a welcome source for more G/S vids. :)
The last scene:
+ When he said 'I've taken it' - the action, that is - I couldn't help myself and asked, so what exactly did you do after taking her hand in yours?
+ Grissom took everything upon himself, making it impossible for Eckley to fire anyone. It makes not very much sense, and I would like to know Grissom's arguments for choosing that route. I don't consider it a dangerous one, which I could interpret a lot more into. ;( This way, there is basically no risk for him involved. So not much to say about that.
+ I have something to say about his choice of words, though. He explicitly said 'I need her', and Eckley replied 'she's all yours'. Powerful words. I don't expect any great follow-ups from it, but I like it anyway. There are so many issues between Grissom and Sara because of his 'the lab needs you' speech. Maybe he did think about it before he said '*I*' this time. There was no reaction from Catherine to his choice of words. But I attribute that to her being firmly on the other side of the fence that day.
+ There is a lot of room for interpretation in this episode, and lots of moments where we can finally say Grissom did everything right. That is worth a few bad episodes, which I'm sure will be coming up aplenty. ;P
I, for my part, am exceedingly happy with this episode. I don't expect any mention of Grissom/Sara in immediately upcoming episodes, but that's alright with me. I didn't expect to get this much in two consecutive episodes, either. Those two episodes will keep me occupied for a while. I don't for a second think that anything shippy happened off-screen. But I can dream, right? :)
I'm especially interested in how you interpreted the scene(s). Comment away! :)