'CSI': Cordelia and Falling Turtles

Last time on "CSI," we got a pretty terrible episode by regular stands, let alone landmark-episode standards. I was severely disappointed in the 200th episode so let's hope tonight has something better to offer.

Nick & Riley
We kick things off with a pretty disconcerting sky-diving home video. A guy's chute doesn't open and he crashes, but is still alive. Now, from what I know of sky-diving, he wouldn't still be alive due to the sheer free-fall but I guess I'll allow it. Turns out Cordelia Chase is Pierre's (the victim) sky-diving buddy! Her name is "Mink." Snerk. That's even worse than "Cordelia." There's another girl who sky-dived with them, Schulyer, and Pierre's partner Max as well.

Riley gets a good line when Nick asks about the diver and she says, "Well, you can ask his pelvis... which is in his ribcage." Yikes. Nick finds that both his primary chute and his backup chute malfunctioned, which the odds are not in favor of happening accidentally.

Nick hauls the ladies in for questioning. Mink calls Pierre her "fiancee" and Schulyer loses it. It's an incredibly well-edited and humorous scene.

Dr. Ray Langston
Langston finds a 30-something white male in the desert. He's dressed like Jesus and has been scavenged by birds. As they examine the body, Langston and Hodges find pistachios. Hodges quips, "Salty and easy to open." As, by the way, am I. (CJ Cregg).

Dead Holy Guy has a tattoo of Holy Steven on his back and a deep bleed in his brain that corresponds with blunt-force trauma on the very top of his skull. Did something from the parachute guy fall and hit him? Probably. Does this remind anyone of the scuba diver in the tree? I don't know why, but that's what this episode made me think of.

Turns out Holy Steven is the victim and his church is now The Church of the Holy George. Holy George is played by Fish from "Ally McBeal." Awesome. George went a-walking with Steven in the desert, was bestowed Steven's staff and confesses to the murder, but Langston smells a rat. Brass has an amusing interrogation with George and realizes that he didn't do it.

Greg & Catherine
There are two dead bodies in a mansion, Ismail Javid and Allen McKenna and hey! The widow is Theresa from Passions! Excellent! There are no external injuries on the bodies, they're just dead in the backyard from heart attacks. When an officer from the scene and the widow both have an almost-coronary arrest, they discover it was Cardiac Glycocide, a naturally-occuring toxin. The team fluoresces the yard and finds concentration of it all over the place.

Turns out the Glycocide was flown across the yard in a motorized glider which took off and landed from Max and Pierre's airstrip. DUN DUN DUN! Pierre and Max confess to a man who offered them money and then threatened them if they didn't fly him over the Javid compound. It also turns out Pierre sabotaged his own parachute over guilt about what he'd done and that a falling turtle shell dropped from a hawk killed the Holy Steven.

This was a weird episode but it was still better than the Killer Luchadores from last week. Why wasn't THIS the 200th episode? At least it was an ensemble piece. Le sigh.