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Friday 15 June 2012

CSI: NY - 1.13: "Tanglewood" Review


A boy, is beaten to death in the park since he wants to be part of the Tanglewood gang, an old gang which Danny may have connections to. A woman appears to be killed in a hit and run.

Story 1: A boy runs in the park and is chased, then beaten with a baseball bat, even after he begs for his life.   A set of shoe prints are visible in the snow.   Mac (Gary Sinise) "Lucky for us it happened out here: best investigative tool money can't buy: snow."  Mac 'cooks' up some pure sulphur.   Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) paints the prints.   Mac pours the sulphur over them to get a cast.   A broken baseball bat is also found and Stella finds tyre tracks.   The Vic was Paul Montenassi (Nick Di Brizzi Jnr).   COD was blunt force trauma and has a tattoo on his back, which has been scraped or sawed.   High velocity blood spatter is present on his face.

In story 2: Marta Santo is found dead, with suspicious skid marks at the CS and silver paint is seen on a red car.   The flakes have been dried in.   Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) considers it a hit and run.   Hawkes (Hill Harper) determines the COD to be massive internal trauma, shattering her bones, bruising on her neck and wrists.   She was either raped or had rough sex.   Her husband, Ramir (Marco Sanchez) IDs her body, then loses it and cracks the window glass with his head.

In a possible third story, Flack (Eddie Cahill) is called to a bodega where the owner Lev's (Anjul Nigam) brother has been shot.  Flack thinks it's robbery/homicide.   A surveillance tape is also found.

Danny comments on Aiden (Vanessa Ferlito) "Oh there she is, Crouching Aiden, Hidden Burn, you're on this case, you're on that case, the other case." Danny discovers the paint chip is the standard colour of a major car manufacturer and silver is a common colour in North America and most everywhere else too.   Using various techniques he finds unknown fingerprints on the paint chip.

Mac speaks with Paul's mother, Debbie Montenassi (Stacy Edwards) in yet another mother role, she was in season 7.3 episode, Damned If You Do, too and she knows Paul didn't have a tattoo.   She doesn't know how he spent his time.   Mac: "I understand what it's like to need to belong..."  He finds sawdust and shuffleboard wax on Paul's shirt.   DNA is found from the killing at the bodega, showing that Paul killed Lev's brother, but who killed Paul?  Stella looks at the footage showing Lev had a baseball bat, but he claims he didn't do it.   He was chased and he dropped the aluminium  bat.

Danny finds something on Marta's sleeve - sperm, from multiple donors.   One is from Ramir who has priors for domestic violence.  He apologizes for his behaviour, referring to Marta as a nymphomaniac.   She worked at a hair salon.   Danny comments on most massage parlours being owned by the Asian mob.   Once you're hired, you can't leave.   Aiden: "Come on act like you haven't been to a place like this before."
Danny: "You kiddin' me [Flack's line] I had girls for that, why would I pay."
Aiden: "You're paying one way or the other, trust me." Aiden discovers a white stone on the floor and towels in the bin.   The last client was an R Lee.   Danny checks DNA for a CODIS link.

Hawkes restores the tattoo by applying a secondary burn to the skin and letting it rise.   It reads: Tanglewood.   Mac: "I haven't spent much time there, but I know someone who has..." That someone being Danny of course.   Leaving the gang legitimately isn't allowed.   Danny played ball with them and they wanted him to join but he refused.  "I knew what they were all about."   All of their fathers are connected.  "Nowadays it ain't the mobsters you need to worry about, it's the next generation."  Any run in with them is deadly.

Danny asks Mac about his case, he keeps thinking of Paul and fake tattoos.   Mac joined the Marines to belong.   He wanted to serve his country and would have done anything to join.   His sense of belonging  was achieved in the wrong way, Paul's that is.  Mac: "...You were smarter than they are.   Look where you are today - you're respected, you're law abiding, you're performing an important civil service for the finest city in the world - you should be proud of that."  Danny insists he is proud.

The blood and DNA belongs to Johnny (Eamon Behrens) from Pelham Bay.   Danny tells Mac he hangs out at the mall, didn't he just tell him they all hang at the mall.   Flack finds mall security has Johnny, who says, "What are you guys, like a couple of Homos or something?"
Flack: "I was about to ask you the same thing?"  Johnny claims to have been hit by a bat outside a bar, which has a shuffleboard.   The baseball bat is missing and the prints on the case match Sonny Sasson (Michael DeLuise) .   He has seen Paul around.   Stella notices the truck has a new back window, new tyres and a shoeprint on the ground.   The tread pattern is consistent in size.   Different patterns for all three show they changed their shoes.   The ATM footage shows Paul with a girl.   Paul hit Johnny and shot the clerk at the bodega.

Ross Lee (Fredric Lehne) claims he's happily married and his wife doesn't know he was at the parlour.   She has a car.   The stone Aiden found was a cubic zirconium used on nails.   Flack gets a database hit on the paint chips.   Ariana Lee is the registered owner of a silver car.   The car has traces of red paint, but  the paint doesn't match her car.   The nail polish isn't  a match either.   Ariana wasn't there.   R  Lee doesn't match his writing on his business card.   His assistant, Tavia (Jordana Spiro) signs for him and she denies being there.   A Lee matches her reference signature and she has press-on nails, as well as driving a silver navigator.   Ariana told Tavia about his affair and Aiden tells her she wanted revenge.   She drove close to her to scare her.

Mac finds the car was cleaned with bleach and a Derek Jeter doll on the dashboard.   There's blood inside the doll but isn't enough for a full DNA profile.   It's also been exposed to bleach.   At the house, they find a high power, cordless sander, which Stella notices is visually positive for blood.   Sonny wants to settle out of court but he can't do that for murder.   Paul was tested to join the gang, and after getting him drunk, he shot the clerk.  He had to be kept quiet and his tattoo was sanded.   Paul was killed in cold blood.   Stella quotes how much she earns, exactly.   Sonny believes Tanglewood are the next generation of mobsters with their own rules.
 Sonny: "Ask Danny Messer.   He knows all about us and we know all about him."
Mac: "Sure you do."  Ooh Danny lurking out of curiosity or something more.   An episode which was definitely a Danny one as far as character development was involved, but they just didn't carry it through.   As for Mac saying 'sure' at the end, well Danny did tell him about the gang, so he can't really dismiss what Sonny said about Danny knowing him and vice versa.

Again Danny talks to Mac about the case, this time it's Mac's case he's more interested in and we also get more background on Mac's reasons for wanting to join the Marines, not only to serve his country but he felt he needed to belong somewhere.   The killer can actually be seen in the opening shot of the episode, this usually happens in CSI:Miami.   This episode is concluded in the season 2 episode, Run Silent, Run Deep, where Danny is linked to a past case and we get interfering Lindsay getting in on the act.  Turns out there was no third story since it was linked to the first story.

Lots of repetition from past CSI shows as far as the evidence is concerned, such as CSI:Miami season 3 episode Legal, where sheets and towels were swabbed for fluids after being found in a bin at a massage parlour.   CSI season 3 episode, Precious Metal, a missing false nail is found with a gem on it.   In To Halve and To Hold, a cubic zirconia diamond is found at the CS.   CSI:Miami season 2 episode A Horrible Mind, a Hawaiian bobblehead doll is missing from the dashboard of the car.

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