Synopsis  

IA enters the fray. Internal Affairs has begun to look into the charges against David Hodges. Meanwhile, the lab must solve the case of a woman murdered at a gaming convention.

Review  

Since IA is digging into why Grissom and Sara stuck around in Vegas, and the Diane Chase case (" Rashomama") has come back up, Grissom decides it’s a good idea to start working on cases that aren’t related to Hodges. They both go to assist a case where a man is found dead in a luau pit.

While Grissom was Hodges’ supervisor, none of the cases in question were signed off by Sara (even though she is the person who worked the most with Hodges), who uses that to her advantage. Sara comes up with a plan to allow them to keep working on the case, and to access the files of those convicts Hodges supposedly framed, while Grissom ‘borrows’ enough equipment to set up a mini lab and analyze the faked evidence.

Sara’s plan involves her playing herself up as the emotional being, even going so far as revealing her history to Nora from IA. Grissom, on the other hand, becomes the extra intellectual. With Maxine in their back pocket (admitting that Grissom and Sara did come back to help Hodges, but also that she’d be a fool to discard that kind of expertise in her lab), Grissom explains he’s only able to say Hodges “might” have falsified DNA and Sara convinces IA that the only way to get Gil on IA’s side, and get him to testify, is with access to the evidence.

Through the evidence, Gil narrows things down. There’s one case where he can see how the evidence was altered. The case of Ronald Pose, who choked to death on the cremains of his dead wife (" All That Cremains"), was in-part solved due to “Bones leached of DNA.” With that, Grissom agrees to testify.

But of all the suspects they had, only one had the skills to pull off what they found in the file. Now they have to prove it.

Notes  

• After all this time, Grissom and Sara are well aware of their character flaws.
• Sara is waiting for Grissom in the bedroom, with a robe on. She finally goes to see what her husband is up to, and finds he’s set up a mini lab in the hotel living room.
• Sara calling her childhood ‘complicated’ is an understatement.

Quotes  

Sara: What’s wrong with my character?
Nora Cross: “Sara Sidle’s temperament can be an issue. She has blind spots. An inability to channel emotional energy stands in the way if her becoming the best CSI she can be.”
Sara: What’s that from?
Nora: A performance review, written just before the Chase investigation. Written by your supervisor at the time.
Sara: Gil.
Nora: That’s about when you two got serious, right?
Sara: That has nothing to do with it.
Nora: You were distracted by an affair that began in the workplace. That’s why you failed to notice …
Sara: That is completely untrue!
Nora: I didn’t bring this up to rile you. I just want you to know where it will go if you get up on the stand and start to …
Sara: What? Tell the truth about Hodges? If I do that, I’ll get beat up with my husband’s own words twisted against me? Great. Got it. We’re gonna finish this later. I gotta get back to work.
Nora: On what, exactly?
Sara: Murder at a luau. Why don’t you ask around?
Nora: You should know, that wasn’t all of it. “If Sara masters her demons, she’ll thrive as a CSI for as long as she wants. She’s made for this job.”
Sara: Great.

Sara: This [gestures at Grissom’s makeshift lab] is not what I had in mind tonight.

Sara: I want to tell you why I left yesterday, it … It’s this idea you have that Gil and I were swept up in a romance, not paying attention to our jobs.
Nora: You wouldn’t be the first.
Sara: Well, it wasn’t like that. The work at CSI, that- that was our passion. You know, it’s what brought us together.
Nora: I just want the truth.

[…]

Sara: If you believe that Gil Grissom would cheat the process, that he would jump to a conclusion and work backwards to get there … you’re not as good at your job as you think you are.

[…]

Nora: You know, I don’t normally have this much trouble bringing a man around.
Sara: Tell me about it. It took me years. He didn’t understand my temper. He didn’t understand why I would get emotional on the job. You read some of that. One night, during a particularly rough case, I told him my story. My whole story. My childhood was complicated. Gil understood and after that, he was just there.

[…]

Sara: Most people are motivated by impulses. Desire, anger, fear. There aren’t any gears that shift for my husband until he sees how they work. But you put him in a lab, you give him time to study, he finds his way.