CSI - Episode 717 - Fallen Idols

This episode starts out with a voiceover by Grissom and a montage set to some emo song ("Good Enough" by Evanescence, for those who like to know these things). What is this, Grissom's Anatomy? I know the ratings battle is fierce but sheesh. Although, I would totally watch Grissom's Anatomy, y'all. I mean, Sara would be his McDreamy. That much awesomeness shouldn't just live in my head.

Our story begins when two high school kids - Ryan, the star athlete, and his cheerleader girlfriend, Megan - disappear after a big basketball game. In Brass' office, Megan's and Ryan's parents bicker and cast blame on each other until Brass tells them to shut it. He manages to extract one piece of useful information, which is that Megan was supposed to spend the night with her friend Sheila but never showed up. When Sofia talks to Sheila later on, the girl is slightly uncooperative because she's nursing a monster of a headache (dun dun DUUUUUNNNNN!) but confirms that Megan was supposed to spend the night and never showed. Sheila assumed Megan was late because she was making out with Ryan, then she fell asleep and didn't realize Megan had never shown up until the next morning.

Over at the high school, Grissom is grumpy at being called out so early in the morning when it's likely the kids ran off to Mexico to elope. However, his tune changes when he finds blood in the parking lot. Grissom calls in Nicky and they follow a trail of blood and other evidence to the football field, where they find a tackle dummy soaked in blood. Spotting an open storage room door nearby, they go inside and discover frayed ropes ties to a weight bench, Ryan's letter jacket, and Megan's cheerleading top. The door has also obviously been kicked in and pieces of broken glass lie on the pavement outside. Later, Hodges, still creepily obsessed with Grissom ("I'd recognize those footsteps anywhere."), identifies the glass as coming from the lens of a high-end camera.

In a beautifully filmed long tracking shot, Catherine reports to Grissom that Ryan and Megan's cell phones and ATM cards haven't been used since they went missing, but before that Ryan made a call to Diane Kentner, the photography teacher. Since a student calling a teacher is unusual, Warrick's checking up on that. At the high school, Warrick talks to Diane, who might as well have been named Mary Kay Lefauxneau, she's so clearly one of those teachers. She talks a good game, though, telling Warrick that her camera is an old Minolta and that her cell phone number is on the syllabus so the kids can call her when they need to. She dishes a bit about how Charlie, another cheerleader, is in love with Megan, who's in love with Ryan, who's in love with his future as an NBA player. She almost pulls off the breezy, "these silly high school kids" thing but she talks a little bit too much and Warrick seems suspicious.

Back out in the football field, Wendy calls Nicky with the news that the blood belongs to Ryan. However, they've still got two missing kids so they spread out and start canvassing the grounds for more clues. Out on a nearby road, Nicky and Greg find pieces of a broken car light and a bloody sneaker. Later, Grissom joins them and learns that the sneaker matches what Megan was wearing when she disappeared. Also, Nicky points out an acceleration mark, indicating that the impact was deliberate. Grissom points out that nobody matching Megan's description was admitted to a hospital, so they fan out and start looking for her in the nearby bushes. Nicky finally finds Megan, who is still alive, but barely. It doesn't help that Nicky stupidly moves her head even though there's a very good chance that she's got a spinal injury. WTF, Nicky?

Warrick and Sara meet up with Sofia, who informs them that Ryan's van has been found. They ascertain that the van wasn't used in Megan's hit-and-run but there's blood on the rear bumper and a bloody sleeping bag in the back. They haul it in to the CSI garage, where Warrick discovers a whole lot of women's undergarments in the back, bolstering Charlie's earlier tale to Nicky that Ryan was a manwhore and Megan was the only one who didn't see it. Sara finds a pink cell phone under the driver's seat, which has been pushed closer to the steering wheel than Ryan's six foot frame would find comfortable. The phone belongs to Sheila but when Brass goes to talk to her, she appears to have fallen asleep on the couch in his office. However, when her mother tries to shake her awake, Sheila's body rolls off the couch. In the morgue, Doc Robbins determines that Sheila suffered a hard blow to the top of the head, causing a massive epidural hemorrhage that eventually killed her. The blow happened about the same time as Ryan and Megan's disappearance. Plus, Sheila swallowed a memory card from a camera and she also had crabs.

Catherine processes the bloody sleeping bag, also finding multiple semen stains along with a nice collection of crabs. Charming. Grissom joins her and she grouses that she's going to have Lindsay fitted with a chastity belt. When Grissom starts to muse that the pee hole in chastity belts would not prevent Lindsay from getting crabs, Catherine glares at him and hisses, "You are so creepy sometimes." HEE. Changing the subject before Catherine kills him, Grissom says that if Megan also has crabs, they could be tested, as the nasty little bugs would contain DNA from the giver and receiver. If she was raped, it could help figure out who attacked her.

In Sheila's belongings, Greg finds a camera with a broken lens, matching the pieces of glass found outside the storage shed. In the A/V lab, Archie loads the memory card found in Sheila's stomach and it contains a video of a tied-up Ryan being forced to admit on camera that he's a manwhore with crotch rot. Archie uses Sheila's cell phone outgoing message to do a voice analysis comparison and it's a match. Sheila was definitely behind the camera, but there was another person also in the room. After zooming in on a reflection, Archie determines that Sheila's partner in exposing perverts on YouTube (which gets a couple of shout-outs in this episode) is Charlie, the boy cheerleader with a crush on Megan. When questioned, Charlie admits that he helped Sheila force Ryan into making the confession video. However, things went terribly wrong when Ryan got free and chased them outside, trying to get the camera. Sheila was able to extract the memory card before Ryan grabbed the camera and she placed it on her tongue, taunting him. When Ryan threw the camera and hit her in the head, she accidentally swallowed the memory card. Ryan then rushed at Sheila, who shoved him at the tackle dummy. The metal edge caught his throat and he quickly bled out. Sheila and Charlie, scared, wrapped Ryan's body in his sleeping bag and drove his van out into the desert. Charlie says he has no idea where Ryan's body is now and when Nicky asks him where Megan was in all of this, he insists that she ran away as soon as he and Sheila interrupted her make-out session with Ryan.

Warrick checks out Ryan's MySpace FriendAgenda page, where Ryan has a password-protected "hit list." Grissom suggests that he try "megan" as the password, since men are not as mysterious as women want them to be. So does this mean that Grissom's password is "sara"? That's actually brilliant, since nobody he works with would figure that out. Anyway, the hit list is a list of Ryan's conquests and Diane Kentner's name is on there. Also, other evidence shows that Diane's fingerprint was found on Ryan's van and her car, a Saab, is the same type as the one that hit Megan. However, when Warrick talks to her, Diane says Ryan helped her move some large equipment, explaining the fingerprint on his van, and refuses to let him look at her car without a warrant. She also scoffs at her name being on Ryan's hit list, saying that she only slept with Ryan in his fantasies. Warrick does score a small victory when he hands over a warrant for a DNA sample.

The case begins to wrap up when Grissom extracts DNA from Ryan's crabs. Besides getting matches to Ryan, Megan, Sheila and some unknown subjects, he also finds a match to Diane, proving that she slept with Ryan. They have enough for a warrant and when Brass goes to her house, he finds a rental agreement to a storage facility and a key. At the storage place, Grissom observes that it seems like Diane drew them a map. Unlocking Diane's storage space, they find it decked out as a photography exhibit, with a slideshow of pictures of Ryan displayed on sheets pinned up in a way to suggest a maze. Brass, Warrick, and Grissom work their way through the maze until they find Ryan's body laid out on a large bed. Diane, also dead, is draped over him, an empty bottle of Lithium near her hand. The camera continues to capture shots of Ryan in death but Grissom's attention is diverted by a more interesting series of shots. It turns out that Diane witnessed Ryan's death and took photographs that prove Megan was not only there the whole time, but was the one to shove Ryan into the tackle dummy. However, when questioned, Megan insists she doesn't remember anything about that night and even if she did kill Ryan, her paralysis is punishment enough. Unfortunately, the DA agrees and Ryan's parents are devastated that the person who killed their son won't be prosecuted.

This episode's coda is a lovely scene that also happens to be, hands down, the hottest moment this show has ever had. Sara, looking into a mirror, holds up a straight razor and asks, "Do you trust me?" She turns around and Grissom, his beard lathered with shaving cream, gazes at her and replies with a delicious purr, "Intimately." She moves close to him and he, trustingly, submissively, closes his eyes and tilts his head back. She holds his head steady with one hand and, with the other, begins to shave off his beard. This scene lasted all of 25 seconds and I feel like I need a cold shower and a cigarette. I don't even smoke, y'all. That's how hot it was.