You Kill Me (CSI)

Infobox Television episode | Title = You Kill Me
Series=


Caption =
Season = 8
Episode = 8
Airdate = November 22, 2007
Writer = Sarah Goldfinger
Douglas Petrie
Naren Shankar
Director = Paris Barclay
Prev = Goodbye and Good Luck
Next = Cockroaches

You Kill Me is the eighth episode of the of the popular American crime drama which is set in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Plot

David Hodges stages hypothetical murders in the lab so his colleagues can play the role of a crime scene investigator. Meanwhile, Supervisor Gil Grissom's team members reach out to him after Sara Sidle's departure from Las Vegas.

In the first scenario Hodges lays out for Wendy Simms, Archie Johnson is logging bricks of cocaine out of a suitcase when it suddenly explodes. Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown head the case and examine the evidence. Their preliminary assumption is that the dealer booby-trapped the suitcase, but when they discover there are twenty bricks brought in with twenty-one wrappers, both suspect someone in the lab has added another brick. Upon examining the bomb, they track the blasting cap to a pack in Bobby Dawson’s gun locker, making him their prime suspect. Upon further analysis of the chemical composition of the bomb, they trace its components to Henry Andrew’s lab refrigerator, where a box of baking soda absorbs the telltale odor. Henry, confronted by Captain Jim Brass, instantly confesses.

In the second scenario, Henry is found frozen solid by Mandy Webster in a freezer among several bottles of broken chemicals, with the solid steel emergency release knob torn off. Catherine Willows investigate, who thinks it may be a lab prank gone bad: Henry was locked in, panicked, broke several bottles and died inhaling the fumes. Bobby is again the suspect when traces of peanut butter on the exterior of the door is matched to one of his discarded gloves, and Brass interrogates him. However, the autopsy reveals Henry overdosed on PCP, to which the real Henry, having joined the game, strenuously objects. Wendy asks if Henry was found with any signs of having ingested, snorted or injected the PCP, which Hodges denies. In fact, Henry’s lab coat is tested, confirming Wendy’s suspicions: it was soaked in PCP, which was absorbed through the skin when exposed to sweat.

In the third scenario, Wendy is the victim, having suffered a wound to the throat from the edge of a table when she falls off a ladder in the evidence room. Greg Sanders' preliminary guess is that this a simple workplace accident; his second guess is that Bobby lubricated the ladder with gun oil from traces he finds on the ladder, leading Brass to smack him around in another interrogation. However, Doc Robbins' autopsy indicates she would have been conscious for at least thirty seconds after sustaining the injury, which raises the question why she did not call for help or get blood on her hands, trying to hold the wound closed. Greg notices a burn mark on her wrist, where her silver bracelet seared the skin. Reasoning that electrocution would instantly stop the heart and melt the silver, Greg finds a car battery hooked up to the ladder and a strip of conductive tape just inside the handhold of the evidence box Wendy was touching. Unfortunately, Wendy complains this last scenario is ridiculous, the "kind of thing Wile E. Coyote would dream up", then catches Hodges fiddling with a tape recorder.

Tracking him to the lockers, Wendy discovers that Hodges is in the process of creating a board game called "Lab Rats", complete with tiny figurines based on all the lab techs. Her amusement turns sour, however, when she notes her figurine describes her as “clumsy, yet buxom”. Wendy berates Hodges for not having asked her initially for help, and uses his scenarios to eavesdrop on his co-workers' suggestion instead. She leaves, calling him the “dumbest smart guy I know”.

Later, Grissom catches Hodges playing with the figurines and they play out one final scenario. Hodges is explaining his game on camera when he is shot through the forehead. In the morgue, Doc Robbins removes the bullet from Hodges’ brain intact, and is matched to a gun that was seized by the lab and destroyed a week ago. The bullet also shows signs that it’s been fired twice. Investigating the camera angle by watching the tape, Grissom pinpoints the source to a homemade zip-gun hidden in a box, activated by a pager. Once again, Bobby is the prime suspect, since he is the firearms expert understands primitive firearms. However, Bobby’s lab is on the other side of the wall, and he would never put himself down-range of a shot. Plus, Grissom notes that Hodges straightened up right before the gun went off in the video, leading Grissom to believe that Hodges killed himself and framed Bobby, instead.

In the final moments, Hodges asks Grissom about letting Sara go, and it becomes clear Hodges himself feels he needs to let Wendy go, although he never truly had her at all.

Running Gags

Over the course of the episode, several recurring features are present in each scenario:

* The victim is a member of the crime lab.
* Assistant Coroner David Phillips always points out that "There is no sign of sexual trauma" in the victim.
* The lab techs and CSIs often point out the miracles of trace evidence.
* Bobby is always the prime suspect, but turns out innocent; at one point, Grissom asks what Hodges has against Bobby, to which he replies, "Nothing: running gag".
* Brass is depicted as an intimidating detective when questioning the suspects; at one point, he guns down Bobby, when he unwittingly gets a hold of an officer's gun, after attempting to flee from an interrogation.

References

This is the second episode where the viewer sees a bag of Lucky Chips, the first being Lab Rats.

External links

[http://www.tvguide.com/detail/tv-show.aspx?tvobjectid=100100&more=ucepisodelist&episodeid=7255780 TV Guide Summary]