Alexx Woods

CSI character
csi_serie=CSI: Miami
color=#FFFF99
name=Alexx Woods
born=August 13, 1963
city=Miami
job= Former Medical Examiner
rank= Former Coroner
family= unnamed husband, Janie Woods (Daughter), Bryan Woods (Son)
seasons=, , , , ,
portrayer=Khandi Alexander
first=Cross Jurisdictions
last=Rock and a Hard Place

Alexx Woods is a fictional character on the television show "". She is portrayed by American actress Khandi Alexander.

Character's background

Alexx is a medical examiner, originally from Queens, New York but currently employed by the Miami-Dade Police. She is married with two children and is always upbeat and has a good bedside manner with her patients, despite being a coroner. Alexx has a tendency, displayed in many episodes, to talk to the corpses she is examining. She often addresses the corpses as "sweetie", "honey", or "baby" in a maternal way, and she often comments that the victims were too young to die. It is nearly her mantra. She is also seen addressing her own children in a very natural maternal way when talking about "bad people" to them after a case involving a child (episode 106, "Broken").

She has a close relationship with Horatio Caine and his team of CSIs from the lab. This has led to friction in the autopsy room from her fellow MEs as well as her boss, who at one point tells her to transfer to night shift if she wishes to have any future promotions. Alexx is very maternal by nature and looks out for her co-workers as though they were her children. This is evident in season 4 of the show when she continues to care for and worry about Ryan Wolfe after he is injured by a nail gun. She prescribes him antibiotics after she believes his experiencing vision troubles may be due to an infection resulting from the trauma (episode 410, "Shattered"). She is the first person he sounds out as the possible mole in the lab and is hurt by his suspicion.

She has had to autopsy several people she knew, including CSI Tim Speedle (episode 301, "Lost Son") and Officer Aaron Jessop (episode 425, "One of Our Own"). Alexx is also horrified when her best friend's husband ends up on her table. And far from his being the victim of a random shooting, he was targeted by his wife's young lover at her instruction. Despite equivocal evidence and being taken off of the case, Alexx believes her best friend guilty of setting up her husband's murder (episode 123, "Freaks and Tweaks") a coroner's report from another M.E. also gains her attention as she delivers it to Calleigh, but gets around reading it by saying that she can read upside down.

Alexx also hosts groups from alcohol treatment programs, showing them the consequences (i.e., dead bodies) of drunk driving. One of the participants, a young former Navy corpsman, asks her for a job, and Alexx agrees to a one-week trial. When a flask belonging to one of the corpses disappears, she suspects the young man stole it. However, Alexx later discovers that it was in fact one of her fellow medical examiners, Dr. Glen Monroe, who purloined it, saying that the dead man wouldn't miss it. Alexx informs Dr. Monroe that if he does not report himself to the chief medical examiner, she would. Not long after, Dr. Monroe in a drunken stupor kills himself and a teenager when he gets in a car accident, and Alexx shows his body to the next group of alcohol treatment members, bitterly reminding them not only of the cost of their behavior to others but to themselves, as well (episode 311, "Addiction").

In episode 316, "Nothing To Lose," Alexx is held hostage by serial killer, Kendrick, and forced to dress his gunshot wound. She is eventually rescued by Horatio Caine. Kendrick flees capture into an Everglades wildfire. His body is later identified by Alexx when she recognizes her own handiwork over his gunshot wound.

She is superficially injured when a rocket is launched at the courthouse where she is preparing to give testimony. Alexx immediately begins to treat the wounded while the police attempt to discover the reason for the attack (episode 514, "No Man's Land"). When Eric Delko is shot in the head not long afterwards, she and her colleagues at the crime lab express great concern over his well-being. Alexx is the first to point out that because of the nature of the injury, Delko, if he should recover, might not be the same person they knew before (episode 515, "Man Down").

Alexx left at the end of Season 6, marking the end of her presence in the MDPD Crime Lab. When evidence ties a murder to her son, Alexx is forced to oppose her friends. Even though her son is eventually cleared of the crime, she can no longer find peace working in the morgue (episode 619, "Rock and a Hard Place"). She tells Horatio that "I need to spend more of my time taking care of the living." Horatio told her that the position of Medical Examiner "will always be open" for her, after which Alexx says goodbye to the rest of the team.

In the episode Going Ballistic, her replacement, Shannon Higgins (Alison McAtee), arrived at a crime scene and was murdered a short time later at the scene.

References