19.9.09

CSI Miami Episode 719

Things open on a creepy note tonight, with a woman arriving at home… only to find that it’s been robbed, and the criminal is still on the premises! She finds this out when he stabs her in the back. Which is among the worst ways of finding something out. She manages to shoot him once, though, driving the stabber out into the back yard where a vicious dog lives. The maid struggles through the house trying to reach the phone, because she’s the only person in the modern world to not have a cell phone. Amazingly the paramedics arrive in time to save her life, and as they work, her head lolls to the side and she sees the vision of an angel standing over her.

Okay, it’s just Horatio. But check out that backlighting, right? And really, at this point is there a difference between the two? Also, why is the head of Crime Scene Investigations there in the doorway before uniforms have even finished searching the house? Maybe it’s good that they get there that fast, because they manage to turn up a weird looking knife with a usable print trapped under a layer of wax! They figure that if they can find out whose knife it is, they may just have their stabber!

It seems that the stabbee is a personal chef, who worked for the man that the knife was stolen from! Is it all a big coincidence, or is she a thief? With her finally awake, Horatio is able to ask her directly. How great is it that for once they’re not dealing with a murder, right? I mean, there’s probably going to be a murder at some point this week, but it’s a nice change in the premise.

Despite the lack of blood, the stabbee is convince she shot the stabber, and she tells Horatio that there’s a wad of cash in her kitchen that might have been stolen. Apparently people pay their high-end personal chefs in cash. Idiotically Callie goes to look for the cash all on her own, and winds up being attacked by the stabber, who’s upgraded to using guns, when he steals Callie’s. Before this happens she’s the star of one of the most pointless montages in the show’s history – which, in showing her rifling through a kitchen, doesn’t compress time at all, making me wonder what the point was.



Callie uses science to collect the ambient smells of the room, sure that the stabber’s was distinctive enough that it will be traceable. The vicious dog also offers up a key piece of evidence – fabric she bit off the stabber! Interestingly, it comes from a piece of bulletproof clothing, which should normally be bite-proof as well. Unless, of course, the dog bit the exact same place the bullet struck, which is not at all preposterous. The team tracks down the designer who makes the bulletproof clothing, and she explains that some clothes were stolen recently, and that it was an inside job!

Another clue crops up when Horatio catches a photographer snapping pictures of him and the designer. It seems that this is the very same photographer that Wishmaster hired to stalk them back in the horse-racing episode! The photog refuses to admit who he’s working for, but then immediately makes a cryptic reference to Eric’s father. Which means he’s working for the Russian Mob. Horatio immediately gets a meeting with Wishmaster in prison, giving them a chance to exchange some generic threats. Even though Horatio is supposedly an observant guy, he somehow misses the fact that the guy Wishmaster is meeting with when he arrives is clearly wearing the exact stolen bulletproof suit that he’s supposed to be looking for.

Not your shiningest moment there, Caine.

Poring further through the photos, they discover that the same personal trainer worked at all of the robbed houses – so he must be the ones letting the thieves in! When they arrive at the trainer’s house he’s been very lightly stabbed. The team immediately realizes the stabbing was self-inflicted, in an attempt to throw suspicion off of himself. When he arrives at the police station the trainer gets so indignantly stupid that I’ve got to let you see it:



Yeah, stabbing yourself isn’t actually a crime. They don’t care about that part. But it’s nice that you immediately confessed to it as if it was. He also confesses to the robberies, even though there’s no evidence whatsoever linking him to them other than the coincidence that he worked for all of the victims. After confessing to the entire scheme suddenly the trainer gets quiet when asked to name his accomplices. So he’s happy to confess to crimes they have no proof of, but he’s no snitch. I guess that makes sense…

Callie finally gets around to investigating her smell evidence, and discovers that the strong odor she detected was a cream used to treat dog bites! Eric immediately searches the dog for evidence of human blood – wait, doesn’t it seem like they should have done that back when they found the evidence that the dog had bitten someone? Ah, but that wouldn’t have eaten up an extra two minutes of show, and when you’re as thinly-plotted as CSI: Miami, you need to waste all the time you possibly can.

They immediately go from checking the blood for DNA to arresting Wishmaster’s friend – which, again, Horatio really should have done when he saw the guy wearing the evidence. Naturally he confesses immediately – he was just going to steal money from the stabbee, but then she came home unexpectedly. You may be wondering why he brought an antique knife worth 75K to another crime scene with him, when any knife would have been equally good at stabbing. There won’t be an answer to that question. Or any others.

That’s right. It seems the Russians knew that stabber was going to be arrested, and where, and had time to get a sniper set up across a river in the exact position to kill him. But that sniper didn’t shoot him in his own car, but waited until he’d already confessed to the police. I can’t tell whether the Russians are really good at their jobs, or just terrible.

While Horatio and Callie are being shot at smuggy is driving down the highway in one of the department’s hummers. It proves to have a flat tire, which gives the Russian mob an opportunity to kidnap him! Is it too much to hope for that he’ll be killed, and I won’t have to put up with the smugness any more? Probably.

With the trainer in jail because he confessed to a crime there was no evidence of (especially with stabber dead), Wishmaster discovering his plan was working, and Horatio’s team scrambling to find out who shot at them, the show comes to an abrupt, cliff-hangy END.

And no false accusations this week! Way to go, team! I guess they only get incredibly unprofessional around murder cases, huh.

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