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Tuesday 17 June 2014

CSI 14.3 "Torch Song" Review

                                          
Another ep where the subject is a fire in a club.  The opening shows how the people try to get out and trample all over each other, Nick (George Eads) narrating about how colony of ants protect each other, but only humans would crawl over each other to survive.  Four people are dead and it appears one of them was murdered. A mother tuns up looking for her son and sees he may be one of the dead ones.  Nick asks Finn (Elisabeth Shue) if she wants to help with the fire investigation.  She's seen a lot in Seattle but noting like this. Nick reassuring her that she can identify the cause of death by a drop of blood so this shouldn't be too much for her to handle.

David (David Berman) examines a DB and Morgan (Elisabeth Harnois) and Sara (Jorja Fox) search through the club.  Sara finds the wallet of one, Timo (Joshua Alba).  One was the band member, a woman who was most likely the bassists as she had a plec in her hand.  The other two also appear to be band members too. Greg (Eric Szmanda) takes pictures of the DB at the lab and Doc (Robert David Hall) undergoes the examination of the others.  Morgan puts back the skin of the Vic, Timo and Doc rules he was already dead before the fire as peticule in his eyes showed he was asphyxiated.  Morgan notices the chain marks around his neck,  and David is a little puzzled over what he's seen.  The bassist has tattoos all over her DB, which are all related to being a White Supremacist.  Sara does a search and finds her name was Rene Nylen.  Of the group White Rising.

At the hospital Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) points out the club owner, Stu (John Ratzenberger) to DB.  Well he was my obvious suspect, who else would it be.  He tells Greg he pawned the guitar to keep his club open and it would have been closed.  Nick continues to look for the point of origin and notices the sound proof foam just went up in flames immediately.  He finds a candle attached to cardboard and thinks it could be the incendiary device.  Hodges (Wallace Langham) analyzes it to find there's a bar code attached which leads back to a Lee Wong Automative, Lee who was attacked by people at the club a while ago and left in a coma.  Brass tells DB about the incident and Nick also recalls it too.  Before that Nick is pestered by the annoying fire investigator Ryan Miller (mark Deklin).  Talk about arrogant.  First he makes a comment about having Finn as an investigator with Nick and then he comments on the camera he's using.  Preferring to use his own.  Also Finn finds red paint on the second door showing it was unlocked but blocked from outside.

DB talks with Lee's sister, Nora (Irene Keng) who runs the shop now but she claims she thought she was here due to her brother's coma.  He can't speak now and it's unlikely he ever will.  DB asks her what car     she drives and she replies her late father's jeep.  She recalls taking her friends back to the club where Lee was attacked and they lit lanterns which must have got stuck on the roof.  Nick thinks this is plausible.

Nick thinks if they can strip back the wiring, then they can find where the wires came away from their coverings and bubbled up.  This leads them to one area and once again Miller tells them they're wasting their time.  Ecklie (Marc Vann) arrives and they think it's cos Miller's been in his ear.  He's not bothered about that but just wants to get to the bottom of it.  Nick singles out the point of origin and searching through the rubble find the incendiary, a bunch of matches attached to a cigarette with an elastic band.

Henry (Jon Wellner) uses CCTV camera footage to find the red Pontiac which shows fire damage at the side but the driver can't be seen.  It's registered to a Jeremy Douglas (Joe Adler).  He didn't set the fire, but he was told to leave the car outside and was sent a text by Caleb Voight (Michael Filipowich).  You don't argue with him cos he breaks rocks.  Ecklie gives him a microphone to record his conversation with Caleb.  He has to get him talking about the wallet with the chain on it, the cigarettes or the limestone, that was found in Timo's throat.

Sara and Brass wait outside and it was so obvious Caleb would attack him, as he throws acid over him and makes a run for it, only to be knocked down by Brass.  Who also finds the chain.  Brass was rearing to do that after everything he's been through, it was an outlet for his anger.  Also mentioning to DB earlier it must be some small comfort for the mother not to know what her son was involved in and the sort of people he was mixing with.  Caleb admits to fighting Timo, he came to the club and got in his face, but it wasn't meant to go down like that.  Claiming he was going to take him to the hospital, yeah I bet he was.  Brass saying he knew Timo was already dead.  Also he couldn't get out cos Jeremy had blocked the door with the car. He saw someone crouching in a corner wearing a dark T shirt with a skull on the front.  He's now in a coma in hospital and Morgan is able to lift a print from his burnt fingers.  Ian Baxton, an arsonist.

Nick and Finn confront Miller about Ian who says he was working last night cos his parole officer said so. Nick adding they could have solved the case a day earlier if he had told them he knew Ian's MO.  Ian is also an arsonist for hire and the trail leads back to Stu, the owner.  There notch up another one for my getting the suspect, ha.  They found money at Ian's apartment, the same amount for which Stu pawned the guitar and it has his prints on it.  He ran that club for 30 years bit couldn't get anyone to buy the building.  He hates how kids these days talk about bad things and what they sing about.  He thought everyone would get out of there and didn't think the fire would spread so quickly.

Nick shows DB some ants going round in a circle, a death spiral cos they're following each other blindly due to their pheromones which alert the others to danger.  Nick saying at least they wouldn't set fire to each other and wouldn't be chaotic when an emergency breaks out, leading to every man for himself.  DB adding they wouldn't break out and compose a symphony or search for enlightenment either.  Nick breaks the circle and gets an ant on his finger, adding that's Beethoven.

So first off this ep reminded me of the CSI:Miami fire ep in 1.22 Tinder Box where the fire in the club was started by a disgruntled man, Danny (Ben Browder) who was rejected from becoming a fireman.  Almost headed that way here with Miller who really was more about his techniques rather than solving the fire by any and all means necessary.

Thought Ted and John wouldn't get a Cheers reunion in cos he didn't speak with him at the hospital, but turns out they did get a scene together at the end and a powerful one at that.  DB adding that they're just "stupid kids" but that's no excuse for setting fire to the place for insurance money.  They maybe just being kids but violent ones at that and their actions wouldn't earn them any points on the humanitarian front.  Look at Lee's attack and Timo being killed in that way just cos they're 'different' in other's eyes.  Seems his remark was rather flippant and thoughtless, especially after his earlier conversation with Brass and his comment about hoping the boy's mother didn't know who her son was in league with.  Maybe if more parents knew, there'd be less senseless attacks.  Also the acid attack reminded me of Eddie Cahill's appearance in Law and Order SVU 2.17 Folly,  they sent Tommy to 'extract' a confession with a wire attached and the woman threw boiling water over him, so knew that was coming!

So this was the last ep with Nick/George before he was 'suspended' for his behind the scene remarks which I won't go into here.  We won't see him back until ep 9!  But at least he got some good scenes here with his narration at the beginning and at the end with DB, but also putting Miller in his place.  Showing him he's just as capable of doing his job if not better.  With Finn adding that Nick's science led to the case being solved, or almost.

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