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Wednesday 8 August 2012

CSI: NY 8.14 "Flash Pop" Review

Mac (Gary Sinise) receives a message on his phone whilst in the office.  It's a photo and he looks through the old case files and finds a similar photo of a woman sprawled out in the snow.  The DB has a missing shoe and the CS is similar to this photo.  Flash to 1957 in classic film noir style and old style forensics.  A photo of the DB is taken, who is wearing bright red lipstick.  Her shoe and wallet were found down the street.  1818 Myrtle Street.  The Vic was Lana (Kathryn Collins) and this one is found in the same place with red lipstick.

Mac calls Jo (Sela Ward)  who has the same photo of the NY crime lab tech.  Jo posits this one is also posed like the original.  Adam (AJ Buckley) tries to track down who took the photo.  Flack (Eddie Cahill) finds her shoe, everything mirrors the original DB.  Mac notices the three wounds to the abdomen and recognizes Jessica (Natalie Floyd) from the eyes, one green, one blue.  Flack says there must be a reason why they want them to know they're dead.  Mac: "this time we're gonna find the killer."

Hawkes (Hill Harper) says a wine glass was used to stab her.  Jessica's TOD was two hours.  Lindsay (Anna Belknap) met her parents at the lab.  Yeah she's the only one around who always has done everything.  Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) doesn't find any blood drops and there are two sets of prints around the DB. No evidence of a struggle or that the killer was here.  Hawkes: "mother nature's an accomplice."  Lindsay mentions how snow powder in Montana is easier to shovel and there could be evidence under the snow, all cos Danny and Hawkes live in a city where they don't get snow!  Such was her smug attitude and how they couldn't think of that!  Well, Mac and Stella did in 1.13 Tanglewood.

Hawkes finds a piece of wood-like trace from the DB.  Sid (Robert Joy) conducts the autopsy and there's a flash to the 1957 coroner too.  Jo thinks a champagne flute was used as its' the same shape and length and it's like a paper spike.  Hate those paper spikes, they're so dangerous and Ziva has one too in NCIS on her desk.  Jessica had heterochromia iridum and she was stabbed three times, bleeding out.  Jo wonders why the murder weapon was changed.  Her wrists were held tightly and there's a Fi Gamma Alpha impression from a ring.

Flack interviews her friends, other lab techs.  Harlan (Aaron Hill) liked Jessica and worked in ballistics.  Kim (Spencer Grammer) says he nicknamed her Lana so he becomes their obvious suspect.  She was putting on an act, see her erratic eye movements. Harlan is missing.  Flack asks Hawkes about him, as well as Jo, Lindsay and Mac, but not Danny and not Adam either.  Jo thinks he was kind.  Flack: "no one can reach him."  
Mac: "doesn't make him guilty."

Mac brings food for the techs and Christine (Megan Dodds) invites him to her parents wedding anniversary and gives him an out.  The techs remember Jessica, including Adam.  Jo gets all emotional and tells Mac she values their friendship.  Mac says Adam's eyes said it all.  Jessica passed her criminal exam and there were two spots open  in the lab.  That was the motive which I guessed.

The original murder weapon is missing and sheets were signed from property by Harlan.  Adam can't trace the phone photo and Danny and Hawkes were the only ones there who took any photos.  Thus the killer took the photo sent to Mac.  Mac thinks it's one of the techs and they shouldn't handle any of the evidence and they need to start over on everything.  Adam takes all this personally since he knows them and calls it "guilt by job description."  Adam doesn't believe any of them did it which is being rather naive.  Yes he works with them but sometimes you can't tell who is really trustworthy and all the rest of it.  Mac loses the plot cos he's not his fave Lindsay.  There's an unspoken rule of trust which is inexcusable.  Jo says this is personal for him.  Adam spent time with the techs and started out with them.  Jessica was his friend.

Adam analyzes the wood-like trace Hawkes found as being part of a stick insect, that was obvious when Adam said there's an eye and it isn't from NY.


At least Danny got to prove Lindsay wrong, yay!  re the footprints.  The property was vacant and was shown to renters.  The footprints are eliminated to two which are heeled.  But he eliminated the women.  Danny: "boom, I'm good right."  Flack finds Harlan and the evidence fits if hes being framed;  he didn't get the file out and his signature can be checked by QD.  He wanted Jessica to get off the bar with Kim and they all passed their criminal exam.  There's that motive again.  Flack and Danny go all quiet when he tells them he didn't get the chance to tell Jessica how he felt.  Especially Flack cos he didn't get the chance to do the same to Angell.


Kim didn't tell Flack any of this cos she says she didn't want to get anyone into trouble.  She was the obvious suspect and says she went home.  Lying again.  Adam checked the cases using EDNA and the insects were being updated onto the system.  All of the techs were involved except Jessica.  Mac gives another speech on the integrity of the lab not being compromised.  It's always the same question and it's always something he's concerned about since that fiasco with Aiden before she was killed.

Mac meets the original detective from the 1957 case, Paul Burton (Lee Majors).  He's here to help Mac and retired ten years ago with solving it.  Why the flashback when Burton (Corey Blair) doesn't look like that.  The colour of the lipstick was DNA: Do not analyze and it wasn't revealed.  So only the killer would know it was red as the CS photos were also in black and white, but that's a colour that was common in the fifties.  The secretary pool was where Lana worked and wore Stormy Red.

Jo says Mac wants evidence not a confession.  Danny finds the footprints don't go up to the door.  Lana wore high heels and Lindsay mentions the heels.  Mac says Kim was jealous about the job.  Jo is disgusted with Kim.  Her grandmother worked in the secretary pool and inspired her to go into law enforcement.  Trace on Jessica and the original murder weapon is found in Kim's apartment.  She claims to be smarter than her and didn't want to go through with it but the glass fell to the floor in the bar and this was a message.  Flash to Lana and the killer being a woman. For a moment there, it looked like it was Burton  the way he came into the office.  Maybe he was just having a flashback moment.  Mac: "taking Jessica's life may have been easy but living with it - that's gonna be hell, I promise you."

Jo wants to solve Lana's case.  She tells Mac to change his suit and lose the tie.  She's trying to help him with his lovelife.  Mac changes and Christine's family expects more from her re men.  Mac says they should give them something to talk about and kisses her on her cheek and she moves in for the kill.  Then apologizes.


The show delves into yet another cold case (there was one from Stella's past in which Danny Pino from Cold Case guest starred, in Cold Reveal.) This time the CSIs are goaded into opening it, which didn't really show Kim to being smarter - if she was, she wouldn't have tried to frame Harlan, not to mention keeping the original murder weapon. She had all this time to dispose of it. Adam's first episode back after two week's missing (no one sent out a search party) and he had a chance to be personally involved; with yet another berating from Mac. 

As for Lindsay's comment and not so original idea about the snow, Mac and Stella did something similar in 1.13 Tanglewood. That was like saying Danny and Hawkes don't live in a city with snow and only Montana has snow. At least this episode had some mystery and the cold case still went unsolved. Either to feature again because the killer still wasn't found and was probably someone closer to home. Here the victim was a lab tech, but who would have a motive to kill Lana? The method of her murder suggests crime of passion. 

Anyway thought it was creepy the way Burton sat at the desk and had a flash. Maybe his arrival meant he wanted to ingratiate himself into the investigation for reasons other than being helpful. Flack had pause for thought when Harlan says he didn't have a chance to tell her how he felt. Again another reminder of his losing Angell. As for Kim, she didn't have any gloves on so why no prints on the shoe or wallet for starters. Those items weren't processed. Oh and I liked the title too, Flash Pop a reference to the past or to the flash/pop of the old fashioned camera when the bulb pops out after a photo has been taken.

Wonder if this is solved next season, or will it just remain one of those that got away!
Aaron Hill was in CSI episode Unleashed and in CSI:Miami episode Raging Cannibal.

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