As implicitly promised in all the teases leading up to the show, Thursday’s (Feb. 3) episode of “CSI” featured the return of the show’s original lead character, Gil Grissom (William Petersen) - at least for a couple minutes.

It was not, however, a particularly splashy comeback. Grissom appeared only at the end of the episode (the scene is above) to chat with his wife, Sara (Jorja Fox) and mom (guest star Phyllis Frelich), via video conference. He wasn’t directly involved in the case of the week, which concerned a murder at the college for the deaf where Gil’s mom teaches - although Sara’s investigation stirred up a lot of Gil-related feelings - and he didn’t interact with any of his other former co-workers.

(Petersen’s cameo also didn’t boost the show’s ratings. The episode averaged 13.8 million viewers and a 3.0 rating among adults 18-49, pretty much in line with its same-day average for this season.)

The scene did, however, highlight the oddly touching chemistry between Petersen and Fox. Their characters are not the most socially adept, but together they make a rather nice couple. Here’s hoping that the “CSI” team can persuade Petersen to do a bigger guest spot somewhere down the road.

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