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RSS'CSI': Mind games
It's not often CSI misfires, and misfires badly. As much as I may nitpick the show, the central premise remains solid, which makes up for any slips. The Thanksgiving episode, though, removed even that anchor.
Let's cut to the chase: Hodges leads Wendy and the lab rats through a series of "thought exercises" in which he posits a murder, one lab rat killed by another with the CSIs investigating. Archie dies first, killed by an exploding kilo of cocaine; turns out to have been Henry, who laced baking powder with chemical explosives. Henry is next to die, frozen in the, well, freezer. That one was Wendy's fault. She soaked his lab coat with PCP, and he essentially trapped himself in the cold.
In the third scenario, Wendy was found dead in the evidence locker, her neck sliced. (In a rare funny moment, the camera during the autopsy begins panning toward her "perfect...ly acceptable" breasts before her corpse reminds Hodges the wound is on her neck.) She was electrocuted by a trapped ladder, and it speaks to my boredom that I didn't even write down the killer's identity that time. In the fourth and final game, which Hodges plays with Grissom, Hodges is found shot through the forehead. Grissom rather quickly determines it was suicide, and reminds us all why he loves what he does.
We got some glimpses of the "real" world, with an overly hyped Warrick suddenly returning to gambling; Wendy preparing for the CSI field test; and Hodges using these thought exercises to create a board game. In one scene, Greg weirdly dismisses Grissom -- what was that about? And in what was part of the first game but may have been inspired by "real" life, Grissom discloses that Sara has gone back to San Francisco to stay with her mother.
Maybe this episode rubbed me the wrong way coming so soon after the tongue-in-cheek horror movie parody; I certainly enjoyed the lab rats theorizing about the Miniature Killer last season. Still, the humor felt too forced, with the possible exception of David's "no sign of sexual trauma" running gag. As for the budding Hodges-Wendy romance, the less said the better. Credit to the actors for being such good sports, but I'll be happy with a straightforward murder next week.
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I thought the ep was drop dead funny but then, I am so glad sara is gone and I needed a show without all the downer sara....
Sounds like someone just eat too much Turkey and could not enjoy a dumb yet very funny ep...
You got to love how the CSI team gave all sorts of hints and how Hodges was praised so highly by the team as they investigated the crimes..
A nice break from the sara saga...
It's not often that I watch CSI, but once I saw that it was going to be a Hodges-centric episode, I knew I had to watch it, and I wasn't disappointed and I realized how good this show really is.
I really, really enjoyed this episode. It's nice to change it up from the norm
I also enjoyed this ep... as for the third murder (electrocuted on the ladder) the lab rats called Hodges on how far-fetched it was and he told his recorder the scenario needed work.
I did not see the purpose of the episode at all. As somebody said above, it was dumb, but not in an entertaining sort of way. One of the few scenes I did enjoy and laughed out loud was when Hodges shot himself. Other than that it felt convoluted and forced. I gueses the dark humor is not to my liking. CSI can do so much better than this.
Hey all, I just have to agree with most of the posters above. This episode was great, no show like CSI can spend every episode being so centred on murder and death for 8 years without throwing in a fun episode... especially one airing on a holiday. Plus even though some of the humour was forced the actors and writers put together an episode that had me laughing and realizing just how much steam this show still has left in it.
I've got to agree with the "blogger", Andy, on this one. This episode stunk. My sister and I watched this one together and we were bored. When the show was over we looked at each other and were like, "whatever."
i love these offbeat episodes. and this one was no exception. while i love csi, it's often really depressing and can be very dark and so it's nice to see a lighter toned csi. plus, we know all shows have some sort of "highlight episode" where they just show clips from previous shows but CSI chooses to do episodes like this which is waaaay better than a clips episode. loved the humor in this one.
This was a great new episode on a holiday. At least it wasn't a repeat. I laughed out loud several times.
I loved this episode, not too sure how in real life things might be around a place like that, but I'm sure thay have loads of boring time on their hands and this could be just a way to kill time.
I missed the openning credit I wanted to see if they still have Jorge Fox listed, guess I'll have to wait 2 weeks for the next new episode to see.