CSI 12x06 Freaks & Geeks

I think this could be considered my least-favorite episode of season 12 so far.

No, it wasn’t the “freaks” or the “geeks” that turned me off. It was the lack of riveting story and substance to go with the intrigue of the "freaks and geeks". I liked the Elephant Man; I liked Zodiac; For some reason, Major Willie reminded me of "the man behind the curtain" in The Wizard of Oz. I liked seeing the other attractions as the CSIs were watching some of the sideshows. Too bad that the story itself had to pale in comparison to the intrigue of the "freak & geek" community.

* what bugged me the most here is that there was no appearance by Sara. The whole "dead body at a 'freak' carnival" seemed very much like a Cath/Sara fanfic story that I’ve read – where the two are at a carnival similar to this one (with a bearded woman, contortionist, sword swallower, etc) and encounter a dead body and investigated the case. That story just stuck too much in my mind as I was trying to watch this one – which didn’t have Sara. Did the writer of this episode take that fanfic story and change out Cath/Sara for Cath/DB? Sure seems like it.

* I think that’s also what bugged me about the Catherine/Morgan scenes. As nice as those scenes were, I was missing Sara’s presence greatly.

* Every time Nick shows up in a scene during this episode, I can’t help but giggle because all that goes through my brain is his comment to Catherine in the Season 2 episode, Slaves of Las Vegas – "Catherine, do you really think that those freaks out there, running around with their little dog collars on getting spanked are the same as you and me?" After all this time, I still can’t see Nick in a place with a deviant nature or lifestyle and not giggle. And I cringed every time Nick said "freak show". Is that really PC? It just sounds so rude when he says it, for some reason.

* Dr Grier – as soon as I heard the daughter met secretly with her aunt, I knew the ending of the whole story. Access to medical supplies/hypodermics…dead giveaway.

Some brighter points –

* strangely enough, I liked Hodges’ excitement in discovering the extra painted layers and hoping to discover a Rembrandt.

* and I totally had to ROFLMAO when Greg picked up the pierced nipple bitten off that was in Willie’s stomach contents. Ewwwww.

* I like Cath/DB together, but wasn’t there a bit of the duo overload in this one? The opening Cath/DB scene was great, though.
C: what are you looking at?
DB: the view. I’ve never seen the city from this perspective before . It’s beautiful. Takes your breath away.
C: yeah. It can take more than that. We used to call this place “the missile base”
DB: The missile base? Care to share why?
C: why did I bring that up? Ugh.
DB: alright, I’ll tell ya what. I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll go first. I met my wife freshman year in college. She was my first & only love.
C: Oh. … seriously? You lost your virginity to your wife?
DB: yep, yep. Life is simple sometimes. Meet the right person & know it’s forever. And that was a boring story, so it’s your turn.
C: Tony Anthopolous, I was 16, too many beers, too little romance, seemed like a good idea at the time.
DB: ah, that’s better. Swept away by the passion of the moment.
C: something like that. Tony was a bad boy, first of many. I liked being wanted, til that got old
DB: you’re a very smart woman, you probably just wanted to be appreciated for that too.
C: yeah.

Yay. We get more about Cath’s "bad boy" phase growing up. I think the last time we heard about one of them was the motorcycle bad boy that she ended up recognizing on the autopsy table.

When they roll the tarp off her, and we see all of the needles in her arms, I got flashes of a scene in one of the Saw movies (Saw II, I think), where the one girl gets thrown into the pit of hypodermic needles and has to scrounge around in that pit and find a hidden key to help them escape. That still makes me shudder even thinking about it.

* as for the Cath/Morgan scenes – I liked the one where we first see Morgan and there’s some continuity and a little wrap-up from the last episode where Morgan was hijacked on the helicopter.
C: Morgan. I heard Russell cleared you to come back. If you need more time…
M: oh, I’m good. I might put off that helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon for a while.
C: that’d probably be smart.

Yes, we can give the writer a Gold Star for bringing continuity & tying up story lines.

* as the scene continues, Cath’s line – "you’d think after all these years, I wouldn’t be surprised by what people are capable of" - brought me back again to the scene with Cath & Nick in Slaves of Las Vegas, where she said basically the same – "There's one thing you learn on this job is that human beings are capable of anything."


* I loved Cath being at the zoo and interrupting Dr Grier’s seminar. It was nice to finally see nice green trees & bushes in the background. You don’t get much of that on this show.

* in the “family meeting” scene (that’s what we’re calling the talk-through-the-evidence scenes with the whole gang scenes – formerly known as the Pow-wows) I like how, on a hunch, Morgan goes to the computer and searches for “human candelabra” while all the rest of the gang are talking out scenarios.

* it’s all about the coffee
DB: do you mind? (shows Cath his coffee mug)
C: I thought you were a coffee snob?
DB: the machine in my office is broke & I’m waiting for parts.
Cath is on the computer researching “Proteus Syndrome”
DB: light reading, I see?
C: satisfying my curiosity.
DB: Nick & I found a whole pharmacy in Rachel Grier’s tent, including lydocane. Henry’s sourcing the stuff for me, also running an expanded tox panel. Maybe one of the other drugs killed her.
C: and we thought some sick bastard tortured the girl. Maybe she OD’d.
DB: Nah, you know, I don’t think so, actually. I mean she certainly wouldn’t have wrapped up her own body & dumped it.
C: no.
DB: there’s something about this Major Willie, he reminds me of…I told you about my parents being singers, right?
C: yeah.
DB: performers, really. When I was a kid, they were part of this traveling show & we went around the country in our van. Anyway, the leader of this group was a guy who called himself Durga Joe, he was a real charismatic, kind of like this Willie guy. He could make people …he could make people do pretty much anything he wanted. That was the problem, at least for my parents. So one day they decided they wanted to leave, and Durga Joe did not like that at all.
C: what happened?
DB: in the middle of the night, we got in our van & we just took off, never really looked back. Anyway, the point is, that this Rachel Grier, she wanted to leave too, you know. She wanted to go home
C: maybe this is about control
DB: Major Willie’s Rambling Carnival, one big happy family.
C: Until somebody wants to leave.

a coffee scene without mention of Greg’s extra-special coffee brew? Shame. It makes me wonder if DB goes down to the morgue on occasion and has a cup or two with Doc and his wonderful coffee machine. (what episode was that again?) Okay, you know I really wasn’t paying much attention to anything other than Cath & her mesmerizing glasses.

* I loved Catherine’s interview with the Elephant Man.
C: You do tell a good story.
EM: Is that what you think this is?
C: I’ve already seen the show, and I’m familiar with the story – girl hates her life, is searching for something, thinks she finds it in a man, a man who needs her, and then…it all goes wrong.

So…is that any kind of hint for a story about Catherine’s life? Is she telling her own story? Maybe she’s comparing her story to Elephant Man’s? Because it does kind of sound like a story of Catherine’s background, searching for something (doing the cocaine & stripping), thinks she finds it in a man (Eddie) and it all goes wrong (yeah, we know how Cath/Eddie turned out).

Elephant Man’s reply was interesting too.
EM: you can’t imagine how the love we had for each other existed, because you’ve never known it. And you never will.

* Cath & DB together again
DB: I don’t know what to believe anymore. I made a mistake about Major Willie. Think I let my past cloud my thinking?
C: well, we’re all guilty of that.
DB: woah, what do you mean? You’re not having doubts about our Elephant Man, are ya?
C: No. No, I mean I don’t like being called out about my lack of romance, but it’s no argument for innocence.
DB: you still think Elephant Man had motive to kill Rachel?
C: yes. Yes, and I think Sylvia was sincere about feeling a connection towards her aunt, which says to me that she wouldn’t do her any harm.
DB: okay, but that doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t go after the man she believed did.
C: Major Willie? But why would she suspect that he killed Rachel? We’re not even convinced ourselves.
DB: Maybe somebody whispered Willie’s name in her ear. Maybe our real killer

They do have a nice rapport between them, don’t they? With these two, I get more of a sense of "equals" than I did with Cath/Gil. It always seemed that through the years, either Cath was one-up on Gil or vice versa. With Cath/DB, they seem to be coming at things from the same side instead of opposite sides like C/G.

* as for the final scene with Cath & Dr Grier - I was disappointed in Cath.
DrG: Sylvia's safe now. She's safe from the monsters in this world.
C: yes, she is.

So did Cath mean, yes, Sylvia's safe from monsters like her mother? Because if she didn't then, Cath should have mentioned how there are "monsters" more frightening than what they'll find at a "Freak & Geek" show.