Gil Grissom/Catherine Willows (CSI)
Willows/Grissom (CSI)
Title: The Yin/Yang Phenomena
Pairing: Grissom/Willows
Fandom: CSI
Author: marco
Website: N/A
Spoilers up until season 5, with a weeny bit of season 6 (we are still seeing season 5, and from the spoilers I got, I’m glad we do)
Note: This is my particular analysis of the ship, so don’t worry if you don’t agree with me, fellow Grillows/Graveshifter/Parental. I’ll stay true to the show, and forget about CBS’ website info (the show already proved those info to be wrong, so…)
The Yin/Yang Phenomena
Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows are a couple than can be seen even when the authors don’t mean it. Confused? Well, I hope you’ll understand more after this small treaty.
Lab Personnel: Plot Summary and characters.
CSI hasn’t a really convoluted and complex week-after-week plot, as it is about a team of night-shift Crime Scene Investigators (CSI in short), who solve the crimes they get assigned to. It’s also not very realistic about the role of CSIs in the investigation process (sometimes they seem to have authority even on Homicide cops, when it is the contrary in real life), but that’s not the reason of this manifesto.
The reason are two ‘perfectly flawed’ characters such as Catherine Willows and Gil Grissom.
Gil Grissom
Gil Grissom is the most charismatic character of the series; the reason the Las Vegas Clark County Crime Lab is one of the best in the Country.
Born in California, Grissom lost his dad in mysterious circumstances when he was 9 years old, and his mother kept on buying presents for her dead spouse’s birthday for years, in a gesture of grief (episode 6x10, ‘Still Life’). This is probably the main reason he has made almost a mission of his job; to find out the truth about strangers’ murders to relieve the pain due to not knowing it about his father’s one.
At 25, he was the youngest coroner in the county of Santa Monica, and is an authority in the field of Forensic Entomology; these things have earned him ‘cutesy’ nicknames such as ‘Bugman’ and ‘Gruesome Grissom’.
It’s still unclear the why he arrived in Las Vegas, but he’s cited as the main reason the LV Metro County Crime Lab is 2nd only to Quantico’s FBI one in terms of efficiency, and believe me, that isn’t just wasted ink; Nick transferred from Dallas just to work with Grissom, just to make an example.
Problem is, while he was so occupied with his professional life, he completely disregarded his personal one; he kept secretive, enjoying more science experiments that dates. For evidence of that, look at the relationship he had in Season 1 with Forensic Anthropologist Teri Miller, and at its dismal ending in ‘To Halve And To Hold', where he got up during a dinner to answer to a call from the Lab, and when he went back to the table, Teri was gone, knowing he would never leave the job for her.
In Season 2, the producers began to write weak ‘geek’ scenes (scenes with shipper Grissom/Sara content) based on the popularity of the pairing and sometimes these scenes backfire (notice the tone in which Petersen pronounces the infamous ‘Since I’ve met you’ line - an ad-lib by him, by the way, - in Primum Non Nocere)
In Season 3, two interesting plot developments (and a completely revolting one) got in play for him; Grissom began to suffer from an acute form of Othosclerosis, which would have disabled his hearing, and his fascination with Lady Heather, played by O.C. vixen Melinda Clarke, a very literate dominatrix which he meets for the first time for the case of a murdered young woman, who turned out to be an employee of hers, and for the second time during the case of two murdered male escorts, though even there, there was the certainty that Grissom would never embark in a relationship with such a woman, and it’s not because of her job; his interest is just psychological, almost clinical. The othosclerosis problem was solved (or was it?) in the season finale ‘In The Box’, where Grissom gets surgery. And guess who he thanks for ‘Being there.’
He thanks Catherine, whom he has met while she was still a dancer at the French Palace, put under his wing as she began her journey from lowly Lab Tech to CSI Level 3, protected from her (abusive?) husband Eddie (though the only reference to violence is in ‘Too Tough To Die’, where he basically pushes Catherine against a wall) and helped with her daughter Lindsay.
The one he enjoys working with.
The one whose tush he misses. (King Baby)
The revolting development which I was talking about earlier is the self-degrading puruit of Grissom by Sara, with some scenes that make one think about Sara’s thick-headedness, like the one where she asks him to dinner and gets a curt ‘no’ as an answer, then she insist (because she wants to give it a try and then ‘see what happens’) and gets a ‘no’ again. The answer is motivated by an ‘I don’t know what to do with this.’ (from the 3rd season finale). Sadly, this behavior will last for all of Season 3.
In Season 4 the biggest change he goes through is growing a beard; that is, until episode 12, the infamous ‘Butterflied’ which previews made many a Grillows’ heart go into shock.
The case is the one of a young murdered nurse who looks exactly like Sara. At the end, Grissom gives a speech to the murderer in the interrogation room, in which he says that he couldn’t do what the guilty man (played by Kyle Secor) did, that means having a relationship with a much younger woman. Then we pan to the other side of the glass, and see Sara, who’s heard it all. She’s going to come a little apart from now on.
The episode was promoted as a heavily ‘geek’ episode, but ended up being more Grillows; as an example, it’s Catherine to point out that the victim looks like Sara.
Season 5 is kind of a turning point for G and C: the night shift is broken up by the new Head of CSI, which is (for what reason, I don’t know) Conrad Eckley, the worst criminologist ever, into two; swing shift (starts at 16:00 and ends at the time Night Shift starts) with Catherine as supervisor and Nick and Warrick as CSIs, and Night Shift, where Grissom is the supervisor and Sara, Greg and the new entry Sophia (don’t worry about her, she won’t stay for long) are the CSIs.
The G/C innuendos get more than just that: Grissom openly says he missed Catherine’s tush (behind) in ‘King Baby’, and Cath helps him dress up in ‘Formalities’.
And also, this division could be kind of a blessing in disguise; now they’re equals, and no-one would suspect Cath of ‘getting advantages because she sleeps with the Boss’ if they were dating.
But at the end of Season 5, after a terrifying experience in which Nick Stokes was kidnapped and buried alive, Grissom says he ‘wants his team back’.
Does this spell D-A-N-G-E-R for our fave couple? I won’t tell…
Catherine Willows
We don’t know really much about her before she came to Vegas either; she is from Montana, was raised by a single mother and when she was a teenager moved, for whatever reason, to Las Vegas, where she became an exotic dancer at the French Palace, and a pretty memorable one, if she says so.
That’s also where she met Eddie, the man who later became her husband and father of her daughter, Lindsey. Unfortunately, their marriage didn’t work out very well, as Ed was an alcoholic and Catherine became a drug addict, and in the end they divorced, with Catherine getting custody of Lindsey.
She has faced some serious drama in season 3 and 4, such as finding out her mentor tinkered with a crime scene, causing the killer of her friend Stephanie to go free, discovering family friend Sam Braun was actually her biological father (and wanting to be a grandfather for Lindsey at all costs, including blackmailing Catherine), Eddie being killed under their daughter’s eyes and unwittingly causing the CSI Laboratory to explode.
Thankfully, the drama seems to be over for her, and she even gets promoted to Head of the swing shift.
The request Grissom makes, after having saved a buried alive Nick Stokes, to ‘have his team back’ may muddle up the waters again…
Evidence: Grissom/Catherine Scenes.
Grissom and Catherine interact a lot, both in and out of the job, but particularly notable are those scenes:
In episode 3, ‘Crate ‘N Burial’, Catherine is worried because Lindsey doesn’t want a party for her birthday, and esposes her concerns to Grissom, who had shown up earlier in the break room with a ‘Little Chemist’ for the little lady, finishing with telling him she thinks her daughter is doing this because of her example, and that she’ll end up like her. Grissom replies (more like ‘stammers’) ‘Then she’ll grow up well, I mean, look at you.’
At the end of Season 3, as told above, Catherine is there for Grissom when he needs to be operated to avoid him deafness, and in Season 4 she is the first to give him a very warm ‘Welcome back’.
One of the most amusing scenes, though, occurs when Catherine is speaking about her life, work and everything, and ends up commenting on her sexual life (or lack thereof).
Catherine: Write this down; I haven’t had sex in six… no, seven months.
Grissom: How can I help?
Grissom then corrects himself and says he meant ‘how can I help you advance in your career’. Yeah, right.
And also in all the scenes they have together (crime-related or not) there is such an atmosphere that makes one think if those two are just friends or a married couple.
DNA Analysis: Why Grissom/Catherine
Grissom/Catherine is the ship that will never die; no matter how GSR the situation can get, there’s always a shred of hope, a ‘light over the Frankenstein place’, so to speak. It has beaten out Lady Heather, Teri Miller, and don’t worry about Sara; she’ll be out of the way eventually (and not because I hate Sara - I don’t! It’s just that they’re way too much alike, being in a relationship will only damage both of them)
Second: they are always together in the promo pics, and you know what they say about detectives that sleuth together…
Third:The Yin always goes with the Yang: they don’t call it Yin/Yang for nothing. Think about it; would you really like a Yin/Yin? Or a Yang/Yang for that matter?
Fourth: It’s the only ship that makes a grown adult male argue with teenage girls (GSRs, obviously; what else would we have had to fight about?) with all his heart, and make a fool of himself. Enough said.
Case Files: Fanfiction and helpful resources.
I can give you two addresses that should quench your thirst for Grissom/Catherine; two, and a Yahoo!Group.
http://www.graveshiftcsi.com - the official website of the Graveshiftcsi Yahoo!Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/graveshiftcsi/): you can find everything you could ask for: ratings for episodes based on their G/Cness, transcript of G/C scenes, and as obvious… fanfic. Lots of fanfic. If you’re a Grillows, this is the ‘Way To Go’.
Look especially for Platypus by Erin , Gone in 60 secs by DJ , Catch Me When I Fall by Anne , Return to Jackpot by Ercila , Glimpses by Anne , 15x20 by DJ , Lindsey's Party by coolcatz (still WIP)
Smut (PWP):
Heat Rash by Angela, The Closet by ZsaZsa
Fulfillment by Star Journeying - a great post-Time of Your Death fanfic and has a reworked version of Way To Go. Its still WIP though.
( Reply to this)( Thread)
The other one is for a little site… really new, but beautiful, and Italian (more power to it!) It’s at http://shootingstars.altervista.org. There is also a (small) fanfic archive, at http://sstarsfanfiction.altervista.org/
And there is also www.FanFiction.net; just put Grissom/Catherine, Grillows or Parental in the search engine and enjoy! Quality may vary, though.
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