C.S.I.: Sara Smiles

Posted by ButtonKnows

If I were Warrick Brown, man, I would be getting nervous. Reeeeal nervous. Because I am guessing about 15 episodes of C.S.I. from now something really inventively crappy is going to happen to him. He’s due.

See, at the end of Season 5, toward the denouement of a twisty storyline almost as inventive as this past season’s miniature killer, Grissom’s team wound up with their Nick in a box. (“Step one: Build a plexiglass box. Twooo… put your cop in that bah-ha-hox. Three: Make them open the box.” You can take ‘er from here … and yeah, I know there’s another d-word for detective but my boss says to keep things PG.)

Season 6, eh. Storywriters seem to lose their way a little — maybe freaked out by that whole “Grey’s Anatomy‘s coming” thing and wondering whom could serve as McSleuthy? But still. There were a few tense moments when we weren’t sure ol’ Brass was going to make it, even if the real jaw-dropper was that we found out for sure that Grissom and Sara were totally doing it. Putting a total target on Ms. Sidle’s back for the season ender, you ask me.

And sure enough, there she was, pinned beneath a car in the desert, both in miniature and in real TV life, fighting for her real TV life as the rains came down.

(Warrick, we haven’t picked on you since that whole gambling thing. Trouble is a brewin’, my friend, you mark my words.)

Anyhow, back to Sara, with a pain in — and car on — her arm, and Miniature Killer Natalie with a pain in her sawdust and not much to discuss beyond that. Iambic or otherwise.

In a series of flashbacks that seriously tested my husband’s patience (and I’m starting to believe he only watches the show to seriously have his patience tested), we learn that Natalie got Sara out to the desert by tasering her in a parking garage.

Husband, who cannot just be entertained, I swear: “Where did she get a taser a gun?????”

Me: “She can build those miniatures in about ten minutes, she can get a taser gun, no problem.”

He would have argued this further, but we’ve moved on to the part where eensy-teensy Natalie has now bundled lanky-wanky (not to mention dead weight) Sara into the trunky-wunky of her car.

Husband: “Oh come ON! How did she li …” Except now Sara is now pulling the taser dart out of her shoulder with her teeth and picking at the lock of her trash-bag-tie-thingie wrist restraints, which is all very Dirty Harry and very exciting and spares me having to argue it further.

Until she pops out a speaker, drops the back seat and launches herself at Natalie, leading the girls into a mighty, car-spinning wrestling match which does not end well for Sara.

And leading the husband into a tirade about how drivers with captives in their trunks, whom one might assume might be the most vigilant drivers ever, never seem to notice that sort of thing is going on. Which I let him get away with since 1) I kind of agree and 2) I am hoping that he just stays aboard that train of thought long enough not to notice that the re-restrained Sara has just stated that she may possibly have “trunk issues.”

I’m guessing it was the last line of dialog that needed writing before we could break for lunch.

And anyhow, we’re now at the life-matching-miniature part where Sara is pinned beneath the salvage car …which is being lowered with agonizing precision by absolutely no one, since Sara is beneath it, Nat is watching from a few yards back and ain’t no one else around.

Husband: “WRARRALLLLGGGGHHHH!”

Me: “There are other TVs in other rooms.”

Husband: “Well, I want to know how it ends…”

Me: “…”

I’m not sure if it’s the sideline entertainment or just me, but the crack detective work — involving a sketch pad, the salvage yard, plant spores and a nice little indicator that Hodges may still ride his sudden tsunami of camera time as the season progresses — just seems like a series of afterthoughts. Like perhaps this episode may have been intended to span 2 hours, not one.

But the series of afterthoughts do, at last, lead them to Sara (and, for Catherine, the chance to wear a super-excellent J.Lo-in-the-desert hat), who has freed herself from the car and taken off in search of rescue, doing her multiplication tables and making three-rock towers as she goes.

Because I love my C.S.I., I have now taken up the chant of “Keep walking, Sara. Keep walking, Sara. Keep walking, Sara.” And the husband has taken to informing the rest of the C.S.I. team that they have 8 minutes to find her. Seven minutes. Six minutes.

And then they do. Well Nick does, allowing for a nice little “you saved me, now I save you” moment that gives me a case of the sniffles that handily lasts through the part where she wakes up to the sight of Grissom’s, well, embroidered name.

And, from under her oxygen mask, Sara smiles.

Welcome to Season 8, Gris and Sara … now you’ve got some splainin’ to do.