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Wednesday 15 May 2013

CSI 13.12 "Double Fault" Review

A tennis match is underway as we're provided with commentary by Chris Everett and Lindsay Davenport.  The two shake hands as Claudia (Brittany Shaw) wins and the other player, Tara (Susie Abromeit) whispers something in her ear.  Later Claudia is found dead in the tennis ball machine by Justin (Justin Gimelstob) who tells her he was hit by a blood covered ball. Finn (Elisabeth Shue) notices the clay on the court was moved and so Claudia must have been killed there.  There is also blood on her shoes. Greg (Eric Szmanda) and Finn also find more blood on the gravel and some grass.  Greg follows the blood trail to the bin but the bags have been changed.  It's Greg and Nick's (George Eads) turn to dive into the trash as Earnest (Brandon Michael Rowan) leads them to the dumpsters and Nick finds a broken racket which turns out to be the murder weapon, it also has evidence of blood and Nick thinks they can get DNA from the tape on the handle.
Doc (Robert David Hall) finds evidence of blunt force trauma on the head and her throat was cut.  There is a contusion on her brain.  The tape leads to Tara, Claudia's rival who is a big hit at the lab as everyone takes photos and gets her autograph.  Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) breaks up the fan fest to question Tara.

Nick questions Ivan (Ivan Sergei) Claudia's husband and he tells her he was in a separate hotel room cos he snores and she needed her rest. Nick has to take evidence from him and question him to eliminate him as a suspect and she was on the court late night.  She was all her father Simon (Matt McCoy) had left.  

An immigration official turns up at DB's (Ted Danson) office mentioning him by his first name, just incase viewers missed it last time round asking about Hodges (Wallace Langham).  Whether he knows about his fiance and about Hodges' character in general.  Hodges met a babe, ha, in Italy called Elisabetta (Catrinel Menghia Marlon) which he kept secret from everyone, yes but Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) kissed him after he got back from Italy but still he didn't say anything.  He later tells DB about her and asks if the official was suspicious.  Elisabetta turns up at CSI asking why he's kept her a secret, she's not exactly ugly and Henry (Jon Wellner) and Morgan hear the brunt of their argument.  She then kisses him and adds now everyone knows about them.  Morgan confronts Hodges, well it was a full-on confrontation as she thinks Elisabetta is just using him for a Green card.  She wants to know why he didn't tell her of all people.  Hodges saying cos people would say he couldn't get a woman like that cos of who he is and how he looks, which is what it boils down to really.

Besides was it really anyone's business but his own.  Considering Morgan kept her feelings hidden, at least we really didn't get to know what she  was feeling.  Not about Hodges or about Greg.  But she comes good in the end when she tells the immigration about Hodges' character and puts in a good word for him.  They're friends after all and that's what friends do, as long as he's happy.  Henry using his Italian translation App was fun.  Also Henry tells DB about Hodges and Wendy and how he was accused of stealing her from Hodges so they don't really share.  DB wanting to know who Wendy is.

Hodges also tells DB that US courts use crushed basalt and not clay.  Tara is shown a video of her breaking a racket in a temper tantrum, just like McEnroe used to.  Tara says she was eating with Chris Everett.  Who confirms she did meet with Tara who has some anger management problems, which was a giveaway as to who killed Claudia but also Claudia had problems with Ivan who was also her coach.  Claudia was dropping him as her coach cos she couldn't make both husband and coach work for her.

The DNA found on the court belonged to Ivan, leading Nick to question him once more.  There was also some tobacco on her shoe.  He spits it out and that's what he did that night.  Claudia was also having nightmares and used to call out "Brent" in her sleep.  DB and Greg go through her belongings and find a stuffed toy and also LSD.  Her Tox screen came back negative and DB knows from experience what LSD can do.  Greg thinking he used to take it but it was his parents.   Oh Greg thinking he could get a little piece of wrongdoing from DB's past.  The print on the bottle leads to a Darcy Shaw (who was counselling Claudia. (Ever Carradine)

Darcy gave the LSD for Claudia to recall her repressed memories.  She recalled being camping when 4 and her mother being attacked.  She has recorded the sessions. Simon tells them he isn't her biological father and he found her on the side of the road, hurt.  He later adopted her with his wife.  Finn feels this is too much of a coincidence that she spoke of the man who attacked her and then she's killed.  Photos from the hospital show she had her soft toy with her and Hodges analyzes it to find blood.  It also has traces of sulphur.  Greg narrows down the campsite to being near sulphur and they take out the ground penetrating radar.  They find two DBs buried in one grave.   Doc finds the skeletons were her parents.  Her father was a criminal and she also had an older brother, Brent.

Morgan finds Claudia was calling many Brent Abbots and narrows down one to Earnest.  He didn't change the name on his phone.  He tells them his father was abusive and his mother let him get away with it.  When they were camping he killed them with a shovel but didn't kill Claudia.  He tried to help her and at the campsite she came out of the tent and got hit by the shovel.  He also recalls Tara was on court when Claudia was killed.  Tara was having an affair with Ivan and thought he'd leave her.  Instead he told Claudia and they were going to start over.  She got angry for winning the game and for taking Ivan from her so she killed her.  Brass tells her "instead of serving aces, you'll be serving time."

Thought that backstory about Hodges was more interesting than the tennis player story.  Always boils down to jealousy on and off the court.  As Finn mentions the Monica Seles incident when she was stabbed.  Finn also shows her tennis prowess when she has a game with Chris, putting it down to playing when she was younger.
Just goes to show Tara ended up with nothing, was it really worth killing her.

As for that call from Gil we don't even get to know what that was about as Sara isn't even in this ep!

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