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Tuesday 10 June 2014

CSI 14.2 "Take the Money and Run" Review

                                                
Another card game goes wrong at the Four Kings Casino as there's a robbery in progress.  Knew that card dealer, Audrey (Tyler Kain)was dodgy, she looked so shifty and she looked like she was cheating.  A motorcycle rider hits the streets with police giving chase and is finally shot down.  When the CSIs arrive, they find that he wasn't shot but just died.  Nick (George Eads) tells Sara (Jorga Fox) he'd ask him but it doesn't look like he'll be talking.  Oh Nick, yet more jokes from him.  Nice to see him taking point on the one liner front this time round.  Also thought those motorcycle riding and stunts would be familiar to George since he did play Eval Kineval! Ha.  The money they find on him is counterfeit.

At the other CS Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) and Greg (Eric Szmanda) process the casino and also Morgan is upset over the security guard, Paul (Sean Riggs) being shot since he only just married his high school sweetheart.  Greg tells her he can process the scene if she's not up to it and she soldiers on.  They find strobe lights were used to disrupt the security feed on the cameras and Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) gets a call from NJ where he has to handle his ex wife's estate and is still visibly upset over it.  Greg fills DB (Ted Danson) in over the scene, thinking it's an inside job cos the robber knew exactly when to strike and the dead guard's wife, Karen (Teyonah Parris) arrives.  Making a big hooha, okay a bit rough, but she goes on about wanting to see him and how he survived four tours of Afghanistan only to be shot here.  Poor Greg can't really do much except say sorry.

Back at the autopsy, Doc (Robert David Hall) struggles to remove the leather pants of the DB motorcycle rider, Clint Tyree and Finn (Elisabeth Shue) has to help him.  He was the stunt rider in the Four Seasons' motorcycle show.  His body bloated and he says he suffered from an allergic reaction.  Hoping there's no relation to him.  Nick wonders what footage Hodges (Wallace Langham) got from the camera but the strobes disrupted the feed.  The newspaper clippings from a Chinese paper had traces of gunpowder on them from fireworks, so can't be traced back.   Nick wants him to clean it up or he'll do it himself.  Finn brings in footage from another camera as Gentry (John Allen Nelson) the man at the card game disappears.  He was found using chips from the Four Seasons in other casinos and these chips are all tagged.  He wasn't  part of the robbery but he saw someone in leathers leaving the other way.  Of course he wasn't a suspect but my first suspect as said was Audrey.

When Hodges shows Finn the other camera footage she notices how the biker jumps over the luggage in the way and how his boots don't match those of Clint's.  Apparently his had steel toes and were worn, showing he had a limp. She also notices the hole in his jacket, which was made by a syringe cos he was injected with venom which caused his allergic reaction.  Which Doc IDs as snake venom, from the Russell family.  If he wasn't allergic he would have suffered a slow painful death as Doc tells DB.

Sara and Morgan also question the casino's maintenance man, Ryan (Chad Brannon) and he demos how the lights can be switched on and off by using an app on the phone.  Obviously he was a suspect and especially since he's just showed them what he actually did.  Also cleaning his hands in mechanic's soap right in front of them.  Again that was a clue and not a red herring.  Don't think I've used red herring before in a CSI review, ha.  Well there's always a first. They notice his baby pic in his wallet.

Nick is called to a CS where the DB of Julian has been found, he was the valet and he's been beaten and shot.  He also finds trace on his collar and in the trunk he finds the biker outfit, well that was a plant job if ever there was one!  Henry (Jon Wellner) tells Sara that the murder weapon was the syringe and he's testing part of the jacket which turns out is giving off an orange colour.  Hodges finds the trace on Julian's collar was from pumice and he and Henry have a bit of rivalry going explaining its origins and where it can be found, mentioning soap.  Leading to Ryan.  No surprises there then.

He's brought in but he can't talk cos obviously his baby's been kidnapped but this isn't discovered until Greg finds a kidnapper's note to him on his computer.  Morgan is upset for the baby and as they search the rest of his house, she loses it and thinks the baby might be dead.  She knew they were looking for her we she was taken but what's the baby thinking right now.  Hey where were Morgan's tears?  Outside they find a coin in the garden and she IDs the writing as Pashto, so the coin is Afghani, leading to the security guard.

Greg tries to talk with Karen but she doesn't believe he had anything to do with it and clams up even when there's a baby's life at stake, she was heartless.  Even when Greg tells her they found evidence of the baby in his car. It's not like her husband's coming back is it.  Ryan tells Nick of how he was forced into going through with the robbery and they used to fantasize about staling some money.  He doesn't know who's behind it cos he was only contacted by Julian.  He takes out a pill which he's taking for Meningitis and that was another clue.  Again he had the motive right before them, the medical bills which his wife left behind after dying. How did they think he'd pay them off.

Morgan tells them that Ryan's vanished and they find a note on the computer via email.  Of course there'd be no phones involved since they'd sent a note before, getting a little lax hey CSIs in season 14.  Brass loses it with Officer Akers for leaving him alone and with Nick too.  At the garage Nick and Morgan find Ryan hailing them with blood on his shirt.  They find Audrey dead and Morgan checks her car using the key to find the baby.  Sara brings in the baby's clothes from the hospital to check and Henry remembers how he had an elephant toy called Stinky.  There's orange sweat stains on the baby's clothes showing he was handled by Ryan. They're both on medication so he was the only one who could have known that and given him the medication.  The leather patch and his sweat matches.  The orange was from the chromium in the medication.

He confesses he did it for the baby and to pay off the bills, all he needed was a little money just to look after his son.  Finn asks how he's going to do that now.  Morgan tells DB Greg found the money in the maintenance  locker at the casino, it was still there and that she's okay.  Time heals.  She wishes they could set up a trust fund for the baby and DB tells her how resilient children are and he'll be fine.  Speaking from experience there.  Brass apologizes to Nick telling him he has to testify against his daughter.  Nick tells him things will get back to normal, but his life is far from normal.

Can't help thinking this was all done before, just adding a variation on the story here and there and adding in personal aspects for Brass and Morgan.  Finn's line was straight out of a CSI:NY ep when he asks him how he's going to look after his son now when he's killed four other people, just for money.  Though CSI went all Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express when they were all in on the crime, but there was only one killer, suppose it makes a little change, but not much, ha.

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