We go right from Jewel slaughtering the National Anthem at the start of a bull riding competition, into a lengthy montage of bull riding archival footage. A finger-saving montage this early in the episode? Awww, CSI, what a thoughtful post-Christmas present! At the fictional event, one rider, a crowd favorite who's introduced by the announcer as Cody Latshaw, makes his ride. At first he does well but then he's thrown, getting kicked in the face in the process. The only reason I can kind of, sort of tolerate bull riding as not being cruel and abusive to the bulls is because they give as good as they get. I don't really like it but it's not like, well, dog fighting. Anyway, Cody lies there stunned for a few moments, then hops up and demands a re-ride.

Previously on CSI: I...I still can't talk about it. The horror is too fresh in my mind.

Warrick's getting grilled by IAD and he tries to convince the investigator that he dropped $300 and had sex with a stripper as part of his investigation. The investigation, you'll remember, that Captain Underpants kicked him off of. Warrick also claims he's off the drugs but when IA asks if he took them yesterday, he can't deny it. The investigator snarks that it's the first day of the rest of Warrick's life. Later, Warrick tells IA to check the hotel records for when he checked in and out, since they would prove he didn't kill Greenlea. He insists again that he didn't do it, but he knows who did.

I learned two things while watching this episode:

1. Special guest director William Friedkin may be considered a brilliant director, and I do not deny that I own a copy of To Live and Die in LA so that I can ogle William Petersen's junk whenever I want, but his style was all wrong for this show. The 80s are over, dude. Move on.
2. I now firmly believe the reason why Warrick hardly gets any significant screentime is because Gary Dourdan is kind of a sucky actor.

Does CSI hate me? First it almost kills Sara. Then it sends Sara packing. And then it delivers an episode that is 1) one of the funniest this show has ever had and 2) crazily non-linear, both of which make it extremely difficult to recap. What did I do to deserve this? I have only one response to the writers for tormenting me:

>:(

To preserve some of my sanity, I've divided this episode into two general sections for easier recapping purposes. These are:

Stuff happened, and then Sara left, and now I'm curled up in the fetal position and sobbing on the couch. The end.

Okay, FINE. I will elaborate, just for you guys. I hope you appreciate the agony I went through to do this recap. Watching the episode over and over? Let's just say that the Geneva Convention would consider it an act of most heinous torture. Now, where's the sweet, numbing relief of my beer?

It's all fun and games until someone breaks a hip.
Many thanks to the fabulous Nova A, who filled in for me last week while I was celebrating my birthday. I admit I'm a little sorry I didn't get to recap Catherine being hit on by a (let's be honest here, totally hot) dwarf, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that she'd take good care of my baby. Well, with that and a couple few dozen beers.

Weatherly gets the axe

Hey all!  Nova A, your regular Bionic Woman and Desperate Housewives Recapist, here.  I'm covering CSI for the lovely and talented Annie, who's on vacation.   She'll be back with her own hilarious brand of snark and squee next week.  So... let's start off with the title, shall we?  "The Chick Shop Flick Shop."  Dare you to say that five times fast.  I did (after having a couple of glasses of wine), and it came out sounding like "shicksaw flipsock."  After deciding that I probably shouldn't drink on the nights that I recap, I concentrate on our opening shot of Vegas.  Even after eight years, it's still all kinds of tantalizingly sinful awesome.  Somewhere in the midst of those colored lights, a young and boobtacular terrified woman, her hands bound above her head, screams bloody murder.  Emphasis on the "bloody" part, because just then a dramatic spurt of it catches her right in the mouth.  The chick sputters and coughs, and suddenly a voice yells, "Cut!"  The camera pans back, and we're on a movie set full of cliché horror flick sets and extras (including, for some inexplicable reason, a midget).  The sleazebag director rapidly eats up his Nova A Patience Quota as he advises the still-spluttering actress not to inhale the blood.  Yeah, thanks for the advice, dude.

This is not going to be Sara's wedding dress. Well, probably not.

All right, we all know by now that Jorja is definitely leaving. Although I am unhappy about it, it is her decision and I respect it, and I'm not going to spend my time whining about it in the recaps for her last episodes. Plus, how can I be bitter when the writers are giving Jorja such wonderful stuff to do before she leaves like, for example, The Scene. You know which one I'm talking about. We'll get to The Scene later.

The camera pans across a lake and over to the nearby neighborhood, where residents are performing their morning duties. One takes a pill with a glass of water, another showers, and two dudes water their lawn and wash their boat, respectively. That makes me twitch a little because I live in the Southeast and we're currently under mandatory water restrictions because of drought conditions. But this recap isn't about me so...moving on. The runoff from the selfish water-wasters (sorry, sorry, I'll stop now) goes into a drain then down a culvert and empties in the lake. We go down into the lake and see a fish swimming around, doing its fishy thing, until a fisherman catches it. The fisherman reels in his catch and, glancing up, sees a body hanging from a tree at the shore.

It's hot in Las Vegas, and I don't mean it in the Nicky's-taken-off-his-shirt way. No, it's for real hot in the global-warming-will-kill-us-all way, 109 degrees according to a thermometer at the top of a casino. Even the CGI bees are feeling the heat, as we see one buzz rather listlessly around the denizens of a crappy neighborhood - a hooker, a junkie, etc. A homeless man with a wound on his head staggers down the alley, then we go to a church where Mercutio Augustus Hill Michael Dawson a minister played by Harold Perrineau preaches about damnation and hell on earth to his lethargic congregation. Back outside, the wounded man walks a few more steps, then collapses into a pile of trash. Nearby, the CGI bee falls dead to the ground.

Sara should always look this happy.

Before I get to the recap, I was trying to decide if I wanted to recap the next few episodes as if I have no idea about the news, reported on TVGuide.com, EW.com and other entertainment sites, that Jorja Fox is likely leaving the show in November (I say "likely" because it hasn't been confirmed but it also hasn't been denied so, you know, it is what it is), or if I should incorporate that knowledge into how I interpret certain scenes. In the end, I decided to go with the latter because I do think the writers and Jorja are foreshadowing what's to come. And, hey, if you're unhappy about the Jorja situation? Be sure to check out this and this. Those links have lots of ways in which you can make your voices heard.