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Tuesday 26 June 2012

CSI: NY - 1.23: "What You See Is What You See" Review


Mac comes across a shooting whilst in his coffeeshop, talk about a case falling in your lap. Here he also meets a woman who takes a shine to him and asks him out after he saves her life.

Mac (Gary Sinise) comes into his usual coffeeshop for breakfast and comments on the woman's new boyfriend.   He orders what we think is the usual, oatmeal, raisins and maple syrup.   A woman talks to Mac, he's an oatmeal person.   The waitress, Amy (Emily Harrison) accidentally drops a plate of bacon on the floor and a man holds a gun behind a newspaper.   Another man pulls a gun and is shot, so is Amy.   Mac helps her.   Mac: "Save it for your new boyfriend, Amy, you're gonna tell him about how you survived all this."
Flack: (Eddie Cahill) "I'm never gonna get a better eye witness account than this."  Mac recalls there were three shots fired, first ricocheted off the metal chair, which Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) finds went through the pastry tray and into the wall.   The second hit Amy and the third hit the man.   There are prints on the phone.   The killer was alone and left a DNA sample.  Another man alone in the booth gave $20, it wasn't "just a nickel and dime robbery."

Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) speaks to the woman, Rose (Penelope Ann Miller) at the counter who doesn't know what she saw.  She was distracted and Stella has to talk to the man, i.e.  Mac.   Stella: "You're free to go" as if she's a suspect and not a witness.    Rose gives Mac the address of a bar she goes to. He saved her life and she wants to buy him a drink.

Hawkes (Hill Harper) finds the DNA belongs to Adam Baxter who has a minor rap sheet.   He cracks the bone containing the bullet so it drops out. He doesn't want to risk scratching the stria.   Aiden (Vanessa Ferlito) processes the evidence from the shop.   Danny finds there were three years of activity on the gun for unsolved crimes and then nothing.   Aiden wants to tell Danny about mandatory psych evaluation.   He claims she's not his mother.   Aiden is looking out for him which Danny couldn't see in 1.21 On the Job and here we get another mention of it which is good continuity; since Danny didn't think anyone was in his corner and here Aiden is showing him she was and still is and he doesn't want to know.   Maybe it was the rejection she gave him, ha.  Danny: "Don't worry about it, I can handle it."  Something he always seems to say.

Aiden checks the DNA on the swizzle stick on CODIS, which comes up with Steve Collins.  (Garret Dillahunt)  He spent 5 years in Rikers so that's why there was no activity on the gun.   His apartment is checked out, where they find a bloodied shirt with tape on it and a rent money envelope on the floor.   Mac processes the clothes.   Stella finds his DNA has one allele in common with his mother (Sandy Martin) who doesn't know where he is.   There's a swizzle stick in the coffee which is a dead giveaway.  Shoeprints on the carpet lead to the trailer outside.   Stella has her permission to look for him.   There's a gun inside.   Mac tells James (Dave Power) to return to hospital and Amy's brother calls her Aiden and not Amy.

Stella and Mac need evidence and ballistics confirms Steve was the shooter, Stella: "That combined with your eye witness testimony."
Mac: "...means he goes free."  Steve is released and shot at by a biker.   The gunshot originated from across the street.   Mac rides in the ambulance.   Steve has been "handled."  He has "evidence to back up what I saw."  He's working as a confidential informant that's why the tape was on his shirt.   You'd think they would have known the significance of the tape, working in forensics and in the police.   He was wired in the coffeeshop.  

Aiden compares the bike tyre tread and some other substance left behind.   Flack helps her out.   Aiden takes tyre impressions from the spin out.   Aiden: "It's all about the tyres Flack, not the bike."
Flack: "speak for yourself."  Well it's not like he's going to check out the treads so he checks out the bike instead, ha.   One matches a Suzuki.   IBIS reveals nothing on the casing.   COBIS: where all legal guns sold in NY are test fired, only state that does this.  The gun belongs to James, brought it for Amy for protection.   He sold his bike for cash.   Flack canvassed the neighbourhood and there's no sign of the gun.   He also informs of a department turf battle.  No one knows who's handling Steve.   Aiden uses GCMS to check the unknown substance.

Hawkes finds Steve's mother was killed and she was an innocent Vic.   She was beaten and strangled.   Garbage bin down the street with metal object and a blank piece of paper was in her mouth.   Mac: "On a blank piece of paper what are they trying to say?" Stella analyzes the paper.   Danny want to psych eval and it's over for him.   He checks the murder weapon which reveals glucose and fructose, the first shot hit the pastry tray.  Caffeine is found in the trace from the boot sole.   Mac believes the shooter was in the shop.   Stella finds the paper is used to print counterfeit bills.  

Steve was Secret Service bait for the counterfeiter.   Mac: "That's why we don't rely on eye witness testimony.   I saw what I saw but the evidence knows what was really going on."  The ink on the paper can change colour and the Secret Service didn't tell them of this.   Research is needed in these colour changing particles and this leads them to university.  The professor (Ben Bode) says the assistants have no money and a list of former assistants reveal Amy's boyfriend's name, Dennis (Wil Hornef).   Amy gave him the gun.

Dennis's phone is traced to a warehouse with a bike outside and a printing press.   He needed US Treasury paper and was meeting Steve.   When Mac arrived in the coffeeshop, Clark coughed warning him.   Tyre treads match and the gun is in the bike.   Clark missed Steve and killed his mother with a printing press component.   Steve was no longer needed.   He will be tried for Adam Baxter and says Mac: "I'll be the first on the witness stand." Mac looks at Rose's card.   Danny tells Mac he did the eval, "What about you and me, we good?"
Mac: "We'll see." Yeah it'll take all of summer til season 2, then Lindsay will come along and they will be all good, he and Mac.   So much for Mac saying that's why they don't rely on eye witness testimony, yet in 1.21On the Job he did look at eye witness testimony and statements from the witnesses who were in the subway at the time of the shooting.  They may not have been probative but they are necessary.   Besides eye witness testimony is used in trials and it's subject to cross examination.

Stella asks if he talked to Danny about his eval, like she cares now all of a sudden after the fact.   Mac tells her Hawkes wants to be in the field, he should've seen that coming.   Stella removes his tie and he meets Rose.   Funny Stella gets a date when Mac gets one too.   As for removing his tie they were removed next season, aside from Flack's, nah I'll remove that myself, ha.

It would have been good to see Danny at his psych eval since we'd get an insight into his character and how he behaved there, or answered questions.   No, we had to endure that with Lindsay in season 7.   Hawkes was good as an ME but they probably wanted to move him away from that and into CSI territory.   He felt he was ready to leave the lab.   Haven't written much about Hawkes this season so I suppose this was a good way for him to actually do something different each week, giving more insight into him.

CSI episode Table Stakes involved analyzing the suspect's drinking straw for DNA.   Season 3.14 One Night Stand episode of CSI:Miami where a counterfeiting ring was exposed.   Mac loses his temper with a suspect here.

For some reason Carmine said he would have liked to have had a romantic moment with Jane (Sonya Walger) from the lab.   Ironically Carmine also commented that they could have been cancelled after the first season, but "I think we came out with a bang."  I wanted to mention that as CSI:NY is once again 'on the bubble' regarding cancellation by CBS.   I think that's pretty disgusting especially since fans and actors found themselves in the same predicament last year too.   It always comes down to the wire with CSI:NY which is unfair for all concerned.    Season 8 was already cut in terms of the number of episodes.  What else do they want - blood?!  They'll do the same thing with season 9.

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