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Saturday 26 May 2012

CSI - 12.06: "Freaks and Geeks" Review


This case involves the death of a woman working as a human candleabra in a carnival. Suspects are plenty but it's not always those who are the most obvious that the CSIs need to be the most weary of.

The scene opens with a woman being forcibly tied to a chair and needles being inserted into her arms.  Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) and DB (Ted Danson) arrive at a CS where this same woman has been found.  Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) helps Catherine process the Vic, as they remove needles and a skewer from her body.  Morgan notices black wax on the skewer.  Doc Robbins (Robert David Hall) finds scars on the Vic which were formed when needles were repeatedly stuck into her.  There was also lidocaine in her system.  Doc also discovers a knee implant which DB says will give them her name: Rachel Grier (Jenny Parsinen).

Rachel's sister, Jennifer (Suzanne Cryer) is a doctor and Catherine questions her.  Silvia, (Skylar Day) Jennifer's daughter spoke with Rachel a few days ago.  Hodges (Wallace Langham) scrapes away at the tarp in which the body was found, beneath which a painting is discovered after Nick (George Eads) takes over from Hodges.  He converses in Italian and then says something Nick hopes wasn't anything bad.  The painted woman looks similar to Rachel and has flames in the same position the needles were stuck in her arms.  Hodges describes her as a human candleabra which Morgan searches on the Net; coming up with Major Willie's Rambling Carnival and Curious Abravaganza.  Rachel was the 'Magnificanet Femmistophles.'

Willie (Kevin McNally) isn't surprised she's dead.  Rachel was killed wirth propofol so she suffocated.  DB speaks French again.  Nick and DB process her tent, finding traces of blood and semen in her bed.  The blood reveals she was pregnant.  Catherine checks out Elephant Man, Joshua Helm. (Paul Hodge)  The semen in the blood belongs to him.  He suffers from Proteus Syndrome and he and Rachel were going to leave the carnival, but Rachel lost the baby and he didn't want another.

Willie is brought in for questioning and he proceeds to swallow a paperclip after inserting it into his arm.  Willie refers to himself as a geek - he honed his talents, as did Rachel.  Freaks are those who have natural abilities. DB gives him a paperclip for the road.  Willie is later found hanging and Silvia is caught escaping from his tent.  She discovered his DB and ran.  Doc gives Greg (Eric Szmanda) and Nick the contents of Willie's stomach to analyze since he practically swallowed anything and everything.  His stomach was punctured from the inside.  A nipple is found with the ring still attached, which has the Zodiac sign, Gemini and leads to the strongman, Sergio.  You know what they say about the quiet ones. In this case, strong and silent was guilty.

Greg takes photos of all the men and their nipples and Sergio wears a bandage.  His nipple is missing.  His name is Seth (Tug Coker) and he's Joshua's brother.  He helped Willie cover up Rachel's death and he thought he'd killed her, so a scuffle ensued and Willie bit his nipple.  Seth then pushed Willie whilst he was swallowing a sword.  Seth coughs up a bottle of propofol and this leads to Jennifer as the killer.  Of course it had to be someone with access to the medication since it wasn't found at the carnival.  Also in the beginning she didn't show any emotion when Catherine informed her of Rachel's death.  Even if they were estranged they were still family, which should have garnered some reaction.

Jennifer wanted to keep Silvia away from the freaks and was protecting her "from the monsters of this world," at which point I commented just like Jennifer was a monster and then Catherine called her a monster too.  DB thinks Willie was guilty cos his own parents were with a travelling show and made their escape one night.  Catherine thinks it's Joshua cos Rachel left him and he couldn't walk away from the only refuge in his life. Seth being the one who took this away from him and the others when he killed Willie.  All three: DB, Catherine and Seth made the wrong asumptions here as to who was the true culprit.  Dangerous assumptions for DB and Catherine to make in their line of work, particularly since the evidence wasn't even in.

DB met his wife at college and she was his "first and only love" whereas Catherine regrets her 'fling' when she was 16 at the 'Missile Base' where Rachel was dumped.  Not something she's told anyone else.  Sara (Jorga Fox) was missing this episode and Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) only got one scene.

CSI: NY season 1 episode Blood, Sweat and Tears featured a circus, where the contortionist died and this time it really was love since he had made a suicide pact witht the girl he loved, akin to Romeo and Juliet and she didn't go through with  it.  He suffered from Ehlers Danlose Syndrome for which there is no cure.  Also CSI: NY  1.11 Triborough had paint chips to be analyzed.  CSI: Miami  season 8 episode, Dude Where's My Groom? had a painting revealed within a painting.

CSI  usually comes up with these human interest episodes which will appeal to most.  6.11 of the show, Werewolves, dealt with Hypertrichosis Syndrome where Catherine was once again involved in investigating.

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