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Thursday 20 December 2012

CSI: NY 7.21 "Life Sentence" Review

                                                                        
The crime lab is engulfed in a hail of bullets. Mac finds the reason for Harris's vendetta and as usual it's more closer to home and has nothing to do with him but with his former partner.

Hunt (Peter Fonda) meets Mac (Gary Sinise) at his office on the basis of being sent a text, but Mac didn't send it.   In a split second, a barrage of bullets hit the crime lab.   What was Lindsay (Anna Belknap) doing walking too and fro back there anyway, not like she was actually doing anything, no but she had to get in on the action!  Just so Mac can rescue his pet Lindsay.   Never mind coming to the aid of the 'extra' lab assistant, and she was shot, Lindsay wasn't; worse luck.   Oh never mind I'm just projecting my personal opinions, at least something exciting should happen to this pointless character.   The rescue of the lab rat was left to Hawkes (Hill Harper) and Adam (AJ Buckley.)  Then Lindsay acting all gung ho in wanting to stay behind and process the CS.   Like the lab's not complete without her.

Mac works out the bullets were fired level to the centre of the windows so the shooter was directly opposite them.   Hunt is wounded in the arm and asks Mac what he can do, er, hasn't he done enough.     Mac arrives to find the building is empty, well it would be, the shooter wasn't going to stick around.   He leaves behind a rifle and a map on the floor, the one he lad last episode, when Flack (Eddie Cahill) gave him directions.   Wonder if he left that behind on purpose so Mac knows it was Harris (Clifton Collins Jr) suppose he did, he wouldn't have just dropped it, mind you he was leaving clues left right and centre, as well as leaving the rifle behind too.   Harris was just waiting for them to come to him.   Flack asks why Harris is trying to kill him after stealing his wallet.   Think Mac should have been more on the ball with this case.  Flack's/Eddie's gorgeous eyes when he looks through the window, when Mac finds the map!

Hawkes also processes the CS.   Think they wanted a new set.   Flack says there's no sign of Harris at the boarding house and he's shocked at the state of the lab.   Jo (Sela Ward) thinks it a miracle no one was killed.   (Yes wasn't it!  Okay no snide, sarcastic comments, from me, yet.)  Harris cloned Mac's phone to send the text.   Hunt tries to convince Mac he successfully persuaded Harris into leaving them alone and he even lies about being intimidated by Harris.   yes he really looks the type to be scared.   Mac thinks pushing Harris around put them in danger, but it was more than that, 17 years worth of anger.

Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) after that scene in attempting to comfort Lindsay we didn't need to see, processes the rifle.   Adam finds there was no physical trace at the other building, but someone sprayed the surveillance cameras.   Danny got a hit on IBIS relating to the gun, which was used in a drug robbery, gone wrong.   The AK47 wasn't found.   Hawkes says it was hidden as he found traces of copper, gypsum, asbestos, on the slugs.   They were hidden behind a wall so the bullet picked up the trace.   Mac goes to Harris's old apartment and he and Danny are involved in a shoot-out; killing a man who opens fire on them  (and no Flack either! darn.) IA Det Angela Sayer (Jennifer Mollen) questions Mac and Danny about the shooting.   She got there pretty quickly, like they were waiting for Mac to make the wrong move or something, or step out of line.

Meanwhile, Harris walks into the precinct to file a harassment complaint.   Funny Flack walking right into him and he didn't display the usual animosity he would've done in the past towards suspects.   Mac refuses a Union Rep as he did nothing wrong and the suspect opened fire on them.   Danny: "Bullets above my head were visual enough." She takes Mac's weapon, why not Danny's too, or didn't we see that cos he was just as much involved in the shooting.   Danny: "This woman's got a bug up her ass."  (Don't all IA officers.)  Hawkes answers his question saying she probably hasn't been in a shooting before.   Danny: "It was a clean shoot, no?"  Almost as if Danny was looking for some sort of confirmation from Mac, after his fiasco with clean shoots in season 1's On the Job.   Also cos next episode he's going to pass his sergeant's exam.   The DB didn't have any connections to Harris.   No, but that apartment was just rented to another crim.

Mac knows it was Harris.   Flack calls Mac and asks Harris how he got an AK into the building, but he's got nerves walking in here.  He was there when Harris stole his wallet and he put over a hundred rounds into the lab.   Harris describes Hunt as his assailant but refuses to ID him in a line-up.  He's after justice.   Glad Hawkes was the one to find the wall space, couldn't take another smug comment or look from Lindsay if she'd have found it.   She later tells Jo that 'they' found it.   No dear,  it was Hawkes.  She however finds dry blood under the carpet.   Mac is adamant Harris can't win this game and Harris doesn't want to kill him now, there's no surprise in it.   He wants them looking over their shoulders.   Flack asks if that's a threat.   Mac wants to know what he did?  He wants a tail on Harris.   Det Sayer clears Mac of the shooting and returns his weapon, telling him to stay away from Harris.   Well he's the one doing the stalking.

Lindsay tells Jo the carpets were laid after Harris was already in prison, there's a blood pool under the floorboards from a female donor.   Jo says he doesn't have any family or friends so how do they get into his head?  Silly question for Jo to ask Lindsay, she knows better than that.   Mac only now reviews Harris's file, what took him so long, thought he would have been onto that already.   Jo asks if he wants an outside perspective.   Mac said it was a routine bust, he resisted arrest and they subdued him.   Mac was a beat cop and only put Harris in the car.   There was blood on the duffel bag with the money.   Jo describes the blood stains as circular and not elliptical.   Mac surmises the blood lands on a  full bag at a 90 degree angle leaving circular drops.   Jo says the drops on a half full bag are elliptical, so the bag wasn't full when it was turned over for evidence.

Mac punches Hunt, seems he wanted to do that for a long time.  Mac hates what he did and loses all respect for Hunt, didn't know he still had any, though last episode Mac said he respects him.   Mac knows he stole the money.   It's the same old excuses about retirement, walking the beat and having nothing to show for it.   No one would question the property voucher if Mac's name was on it.   Mac didn't think he'd cross the line.   Hunt had a $35,00 pension coming.   CSI:NY likes to specify amounts, going as far back as season 1, Tanglewood, when Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) specified how much they earn and they work hard for every penny.   Mac posits this is more than about money.

A DB is found, identified as Lucius Woods (Michael Worth) a drug king.   Wow and Lindsay nowhere to be seen.   Hawkes determines he's been here a few weeks from the high level of decomp.   Jo says he was tortured.   Mac believes Harris sat and watched him die, he was Harris's boss and the drugs and money belonged to him.   Mac wants them to bring Harris in for the murder since they can't link him to the lab shooting.   They need to prove he was here, cue rosary beads on the floor, which Mac had to spot.   If Miranda (Alana Morshead) gave those to Harris, why was he so clumsy and dropped them on the floor, unless he wanted to be caught.   Jo says Danny Id-ed the fingerprints on the rope and the air fresheners to Harris.   The female DNA from the epithelial tissue on the rosary matches the dried blood from the apartment, and belonged to Miranda.   She was beaten to death and two weeks before Harris was arrested, they had applied for a marriage licence. Jo thinks Harris believes Woods killed her, but again it couldn't be that simple.

Mac calls Flack (and calls him Don now) who tells him Harris is in a diner.   Lindsay mentions finding an impression on the wood from the apartment and Mac recognizes the design and where it's from.  Flack asks Officer Stone (Vince Pavia) how long the truck's been obscuring the view to the diner, "5 minutes too long.  Harris is gone."   Mac asks Hunt for his pearl-handled gun.   He killed Miranda.   Of course it'd be him since he had to retrieve the money from the apartment, but he didn't think about covering his face, just in case.  The imprint belongs to Hunt's ring.   He thought about turning himself in but it didn't matter anymore.   It would have made a difference to Mac.  A truck drive into Mac's truck, that's an old ploy.   How did Harris know exactly where mac would be and that Hunt would be with him.   Since he was still in the diner, not 5 minutes ago.  

Did he have a tracking device on him, he couldn't have tracked his GPS.  Harris shoots Hunt and then fires at Mac, who shoots him with Hunt's gun.   Some would call that poetic justice as it would be like Hunt shooting Harris, but more likely it's as though Hunt saved Mac, as Mac was out of bullets.  Mac finally gets to tell Harris he didn't kill Miranda.   Flack's car looks rather sportier than the one he had last season.   Mac looked as though he genuinely felt sorry for Hunt dying.   Even Flack didn't have anything to say, what could he, but it had to be Mac saving the day for Mac.  That police officer was bit lax, sitting in the car, could he see through the truck.

It appears they were coming to the end of the series' run, with Mac having this case with his former partner, him being killed, the lab being shot up and again Mac looks defeated, as of he's given up on everything, especially the job, when all around him he sees deceit and betrayal and from those who should know better.   He's not in this job to punish their own, he shouldn't have to.   That's not what his work involves, it's about catching the bad guys, yet corruption always rears its ugly head, eventually.   mac taking that bag in for evidence - similar to Flack and the drugs in season 3's Consequences episode, where one of Flack's men stole stole the drugs and killed to protect himself.   A bit similar here as Mac checked the bag in, but no one noticed the missing contents, or indeed that anything was missing, until later.  No one would have suspected Mac of foul play, just as Flack had to ask if Mac suspected him and was certain one of his own wasn't a dirty cop.   Mac had to ask for Flack's memo book and prove himself right.   Here Mac's past comes to haunt him now; at least that of his former partner's catches up to him.   Showing he was self-righteous in his attitude towards that case back then and towards Flack too in Consequences.

This episode reminded me of season 3's Snow Day, only the opening shooting part.   In this episode, Flack and his team took hold of cocaine and weapons from a drug lord.   Here, they find the DB of the "snow king" as Flack refers to him, also into cocaine, hence his name.   Said drugs lord in Snow Day was also found dead, like Woods.   The lab was stormed then too and here it was swept by a  hail of bullets.   Flack mentions Mac's GPS in his car, how come they didn't have access to his GPS in the season 4 finale Hostage.

The car crash was reminiscent to the one in season 6's Rest in Peace Maria Garito and in an episode of the final season of Without A Trace, when another car hit Sam (Poppy Montgomery) at an intersection.   Danny wanting Lindsay to get downstairs, but Hawkes and the others were there too and no one told them to leave.   Again in Snow Day, Hawkes, Mac and Stella stayed behind to get their lab back.

In the season 8 CSI:Miami finale, All Fall Down, everyone was dropping like flies in the lab too and Delko (Adam Rodriguez) rushed to help Calleigh (Emily Procter) never mind helping anyone else, like Mac and Lindsay here.

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