CSI: Dead Doll (Episode 801)

Sara Sidle is one badass mofo

Previously on CSI: the entire miniature killer arc happened. At the end, the batshit crazy Natalie Davis was arrested, but not before she kidnapped Sara and left her pinned under a car in the middle of the desert. Will Sara live or die? More importantly, will I have a nervous breakdown before finding out if Sara will live or die?

The rain falls on the desert and Sara's hand clutches at the ground. Closeup on her staring eye, which blinks once. As it continues to storm over Las Vegas, Catherine and Greg are in the garage where Sara's car was found. Greg points out a security camera and Catherine asks the strip mall security guard for the tapes, but he says the feed is sent off-site and his boss is bringing the tapes over. Catherine shows him a picture of Natalie, who he doesn't recognize, but he does recognize Sara. She eats at a vegetarian place in the mall a couple of times a week and she was there around 7:30. Greg says they have a timeframe to work with and he takes off to go through the tapes.

Nicky and Warrick are investigating Natalie's lair. Warrick finds a sketchbook with several desert landscape drawings but Nicky points out that the whole city is a desert so Sara could be anywhere. Nicky finds another sketchbook where Natalie has drawn Grissom caressing Sara's arm. Warrick doesn't remember seeing a camera or sketchbook with Natalie in the photographs of her at the scene and Nicky suggests she has an eidetic memory. Warrick unhappily notes that Sara's location is locked inside Natalie's crazy head. He gets a call and listens briefly, then hangs up and tells Nicky that Natalie's car has been found. He takes off and Nicky stays behind, saying he's not leaving the lair until he finds something useful.

Lab. Brass tells Grissom that helicopters with night vision are in the air and with the temperature cooling, it'll be easier to pick up any body heat signals. Grissom points out that with Sara under the car, it'll be difficult to detect any body heat. Brass tries to tell him that maybe Sara got out but Grissom is distracted by the news. A meteorologist reports that three storm systems are converging on the Las Vegas area and there are flash flood warnings. He dashes off to fill a beaker with water, then slowly pours it over the miniature. The ground quickly begins to flood, rising to cover doll Sara's head. Out in the desert, the rain is falling steadily and Sara struggles to keep her head above the rising water.

Credits. Louise Lombard is no longer a regular but Wallace Langham is. As much as I love Hodges, I'm sorry Sofia's been demoted to a recurring character, as it means we now have only two female regulars to seven male regulars. That's ridiculously imbalanced.

Desert. Sara tries to free her pinned arm before the water rises above her head. In the lab, Grissom and Warrick are processing Natalie's car while back in the lair, Nicky goes through Natalie's computer. He calls Grissom, telling him that Natalie made about a dozen trip searches to locations in the desert. Warrick pipes in and reports that the last trip Natalie's car took was 34 miles one way. Grissom tells Nicky to call Brass with the search locations and to narrow them down to any within 34 miles. He hangs up and looks pensive as we see a flashback to the scene in the season two episode "Scuba Doobie Doo" when Sara brushed dust off his cheek.

Natalie has suffered a full-on psychotic break and a psychiatrist examines her. A very nervous Hodges enters and Sofia tells him that Natalie has wounds on her scalp and he needs to swab them for DNA and trace evidence, to prove that Natalie wasn't roughed up in custody. The psychiatrist says a blow to the head could cause many things, but not psychosis. When Hodges collects a sample, Natalie murmurs something and he flinches, but the shrink assures him that Natalie isn't speaking to him or anyone there. Hodges is just barely reassured and it doesn't help when Natalie looks right at him and tells him he's special. Sofia wants to know how long Natalie's condition will last but the psychiatrist has no answer for her.

Catherine is still investigating Sara's car and she finds a taser barb lodged in one tire. We're kicked back to the past, to the beginning of Sara's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night. She's headed back to her car after dinner (wearing her CSI vest, which is a little contrived) and her phone rings. "Hello, Gilbert," she answers cheerfully. Hee. Grissom informs her that they've identified Natalie Davis as the miniature killer and it's only a matter of time before she's arrested. She says she'll meet him at the lab and hangs up, then opens her trunk to put her case inside. Like with the vest, it doesn't make much sense that she'd take her case with her to dinner. Anyway, Natalie, who's been lurking in the shadows near Sara's car, calls her name. Sara whirls and before she can react, Natalie tasers her. Grissom and Greg watch the security tape of the assault and Natalie driving out of the garage. Greg notes that she turns to the west, which gives them a direction for their search.

Past. Sara comes to in the trunk of Natalie's car. Her hands are tied behind her back with a plastic zip tie but she uses her teeth to pull free the other taser barb from her vest and maneuvers it around to unlock her cuffs. That's my girl. She'll do her own damn rescuing, thank you very much. She opens the trunk a few inches and peers out, but the car is moving too fast for her to jump and she doesn't see any familiar landmarks. She closes the trunk, Natalie completely oblivious to the dashboard light going on then off. Looking around for another option, Sara notices that one of the speakers is loose. She carefully unscrews and removes it, then pushes her hand through the mesh covering. As Natalie continues to drive with a single-minded purpose, Sara releases the backseat latch and quietly climbs through, then launches herself at Natalie. The car swerves wildly and Sara is thrown against the passenger window, hitting her head. But she continues to fight Natalie, who has to try and keep control of the car and subdue Sara. As the car continues to swerve all around a deserted parking lot, Sara grabs Natalie and shoves her head into the driver's side window, shattering the glass. BOOYAH! Well, now we know how Natalie got those head wounds. Sara opens a door and jumps out of the car but she lands badly and lies on the ground, gasping for air, as Natalie stops the car and gets out, crouching down to peer at Sara, who slips into unconsciousness.

Present day. The rain continues to fill the car. Sara tries to kick out the window behind her to release the rising water but she can't get a good angle. She tugs at her trapped arm, then gives it a strong yank, but all it does is cause her to scream in agony.

In the lab, Hodges processes the trace evidence while Warrick collects evidence from Natalie's car. He calls Grissom over and points out the shattered window with blood on it, the hand-sized tear in the speaker cover, and the unlocked plastic cuffs in the trunk. He thinks Sara gout out of the trunk and if she was able to get out of the car, she could be anywhere. Grissom disputes this, saying he could see in Natalie's eyes that she completed the miniature and Sara is under the car. Hodges joins them with news that the spores from the car and Natalie's head are from Red Rock Canyon.

Past. In the backseat, Natalie wakes Sara up by splashing water in her face and forcing some down her throat. She climbs into the driver's seat and starts driving while Sara tries to talk to her. Sara knows who Natalie is and she says she's seen her before cleaning at the lab. She apologizes for earlier, saying she has a fear of trunks because in her line of work, she only finds bodies in them. She gets no response but when she tells Natalie that she was also a foster kid, Natalie's eyes dart over to look at Sara through the rearview mirror. When Sara says she knows what it's like to be alone, Natalie whispers that Ernie was there for her. Sara agrees and says she also lost her father, then, her speech starting to slur, says Ernie loved Natalie and would not have wanted her to do this. Natalie says Ernie loved her more than Grissom could ever love Sara and Sara understands what Natalie's attack on her is really all about, but she also realizes that Natalie put something in the water. She loses consciousness as Natalie drives on through the night.

Later, Sara comes to as Natalie is lowering the salvaged car on top of her. She repeatedly asks Natalie what she's doing but gets no response. The car settles into place and Sara grunts in pain as her arm is pinned. I wondered why Sara didn't move her arm close to her body so it wouldn't be trapped as the car was being lowered but I figure she was still rather out of it and didn't entirely realize what was going on until it was too late. As Sara calls Natalie's name, Natalie gets in her car and drives off. Sara is left alone in the desert, the wind blowing sand around as lightning flashes in the distance. A coyote howls nearby, then pads over to check out the car. Sara tries to make herself inconspicuous but the coyote sees her anyway and snarls, but it's startled away by a rumble of thunder. The first drops of rain start to fall. Before long, it's pouring, the ground floods and the water starts to rise inside the car.

Present day. Nicky is still looking around Natalie's lair and, frustrated that he can't find anything, he yells and kicks the bed. He remembers his conversation with Sara in "Gum Drops" when he was convinced Cassie McBride was still alive and she tried to prepare him for finding her body. He reminds her that he was rescued and she smiles and tells him it was not his day to die. That scene, that entire episode, still makes me cry like a baby. Holding back tears and determined that this is not Sara's day to die, Nicky renews his search. He looks at several sketches of Sara on the wall and, in the corner of one, he spots the name and number of an autoyard. It sparks his memory and he looks through a file, then finds the same autoyard listed in the file for the crime scene where Natalie watched Grissom and Sara.

Brass heads out to the autoyard and shows Natalie's picture to the owner, who recognizes her as an artist who frequently comes out to collect pieces. She purchased a junked red ferrari and had the owner tow it out to the desert. At first he says he can't remember where he took it exactly, but when Brass threatens him with charges and shows him a map, he's able to pinpoint the location to Ice Box Canyon.

A bajillion police cars converge on the canyon while helicopters, one carrying Greg, circle overhead. Greg is the first to spot the car and he calls it down to the cars, which race to the location. Grissom and Nicky jump out and run over to the car, which is half-buried under sand. They dig frantically at the dirt and call Sara's name and they find her vest, but Sara is nowhere to be found.

Later, the car is being hauled away while cops dig through the sand. Catherine runs up and Grissom shows her the shoeprints he found. They're headed out into the desert and Catherine tells everyone that they're searching on foot.

Past. The water has almost filled the car and Sara makes a last attempt at freeing herself before she drowns. She snaps off the rearview mirror and, ducking under water for as long as she's able, uses it to push at the rock under her arm. She's unable to free it that way but just before it's too late, the water causes the car to shift and her arm comes free. She climbs out and slowly gets to her feet, cradling her broken arm. She looks around and heads off into the desert, the rain still falling. At first I thought she should've stayed with the car to make it easier for rescuers to find her, but we already saw that the car was mostly buried under sand, indicating a flash flood came through sometime after Sara freed herself. She knows the desert and knows how prone it is to flash floods when it storms, so she was smart to try and move to higher ground.

The sun rises over the desert and Sara walks, trying to spot anything that might tell her where she is. She's fashioned a sling for her arm and she carries the rearview mirror like it's a good luck charm. She spots a piece of paper but it's just a museum brochure, blown into the desert at some point in the past. She climbs up a hill and to the top of a large rock and looks around, but all she sees is more desert. She looks devastated and scared, nearly hopeless. Driving along a nearby highway, Nicky and Sofia look for any sign of their colleague. Sara gathers her strength and continues on, but she loses her balance and tumbles down a sand dune, injuring her leg. However, she gets to her feet once again and limps on. Sara, if you haven't figured it out by now, is one badass motherfucker.

Grissom and Catherine have come to the end of the shoeprints and they're frustrated, but Grissom sees something when he looks around with his binoculars. It's a pile of three small rocks, obviously arranged by a human hand and not by nature. They realize Sara is leaving them clues and, rejuvenated, they follow the new trail. In the past, we see Sara, her strength fading but not gone, slowly create her clue. Grissom and Catherine find another pile and look around for more, but Grissom sees something else that makes his heart skip a beat. It's a shoe-clad foot and he rushes over, Catherine right behind him, to find a body covered in drying mud. They both exhale sighs of relief when they discover it's not Sara but instead, as Brass tells them later, some hapless tourist who was hiking and got caught in a flash flood. "Where is she, Catherine?" Grissom asks anxiously, gazing around at the endless miles of desert. "It's a hundred and ten degrees, she's been out here all day, without water. She's disoriented, she's dehydrated..." "She's a survivor," Catherine reminds him. Preach it, Catherine.

That survivor, still carrying her rearview mirror talisman, is on her last legs but she is still going. She's counting her steps and telling herself not to stop. She doubles over, then falls, but uses the mirror to help herself climb to her feet again. She walks a few more steps, falls again, then gets back up but it's a little harder this time. She trudges on a few feet more then stops, swaying slightly, and gazes at the horizon, which is shifting and creating mirages in her blurred vision. She drops the mirror, falls to her knees and then carefully, almost deliberately, lies down on her side. Sara has fought the good fight as long as she can and she's now ready to rest.

Sofia and Nicky are still searching along the highway when Nicky spots a bright gleam from the desert. He tells Sofia where to go and and they drive across the desert to what Nicky spotted, which was Sara's mirror. And next to it, Sara, who is alive but unconsciousness. Sofia calls for a medivac while Nicky pours water on Sara's burned skin and tries to revive her. Grissom and Catherine arrive and they can only watch helplessly as the paramedics try and fail to get a response from Sara. The medivac arrives and Sara is loaded into the helicopter. Grissom insists on going with her to the hospital and they take off, the paramedics still trying to revive her. Grissom holds Sara's hand and fights to hold back tears. Slowly, Sara's eyes open and the first thing she sees is Grissom's name on his vest, then she focuses on his face. He smiles at her, now crying with relief and happiness. So am I, and I'm not the least bit embarrassed about it.