Previously on CSI, I recapped the pilot and “Cool Change” and then you guys voted for me to recap “Unfriendly Skies” next. This means we’re going to miss the Grissom/Sara face touching and “tie me up” scenes in “Crate ‘n Burial,” Nicky’s pretty tears in “Who Are You?,” and a wee Dakota Fanning in “Blood Drops.” I think y’all need to take a moment and really think about what you’ve done.
A CGI plane flies into McCarran airport in Las Vegas as the sun sets. The pilot radios from the cockpit that emergency personnel and cops will be needed on the ground. I wonder if that has anything to do with the scream and a little kid calling, “Mommy!”
After the plane has landed, Brass meets Grissom and they head into the plane. There’s a dead body on the floor of the first class cabin. All the first class passengers and the one flight attendant, who have been sequestered, claim the man died after a panic attack. Grissom peers around at the signs of vioence and clearly thinks there’s more to it. “I got a dead body, a crime scene with wings…something very wrong happened in this plane.” The rest of us call that “airplane food,” Grissom.
Before Grissom can even begin his investigation, he’s accosted by the sheriff. It turns out the FAA, which has jurisdiction, won’t be able to arrive on the scene for 12 hours. The sheriff strongly advises Grissom to solve the case and hand over whoever killed the guy before then, so the FAA won’t take all the glory. Grissom points out that he’s not sure yet if a murder was even committed, but the sheriff doesn’t believe Grissom would’ve had the entire plane taped off for an accidental death. Grissom ponders this and suddenly realizes the sheriff is running for mayor. He looks positively gleeful about sussing it out, like he’s about to run off and leak the tip to the local gossip blog.
Inside the plane, the entire team has assembled. The victim has been identified as Tony Candlewell, a businessman with no record. The coach passengers have all been cleared, since they were curtained off from first class and left through the rear of the plane. The other speculate that Candlewell must’ve been on drugs and more than one person had to have been involved to cause all the mess. Nick asks Grissom what he thinks and Grissom replies that all the witnesses say Candlewell went crazy and died. Unless the evidence proves otherwise, that’s what went down. He assigns Nicky to work with the coroner, Catherine and Warrick to handle witness interviews, and he and Sara will process the plane. And by “process” I mean “flirt and gaze lustily at each other.”
Catherine and Warrick head into the lounge to talk to the suspects witnesses. We see a redhaired flight attendant, an older couple, a younger couple, a younger single guy, an older man, a mom and her daughter, and one bald dude. Everyone’s tired and irritable but none moreso than the bald dude, who whines that the CSIs can’t keep them there. Catherine puts on her best Suspect Whisperer voice and calms the dude down. Warrick is impressed. “More flies with honey,” Catherine says.
Back in the plane, Sara, joined by SuperDave, looks through Candlewell’s wallet and makes a sad face after seeing a picture of his wife and kid, but first she pockets all his money. Oh, I’m kidding. Sara’s not like that. She’ll sneak it out of the evidence locker lately. Candlewell’s body is taken out while Grissom talks to the pilot, who says he saw Candlewell board and he seemed perfectly normal then. It wasn’t until the attendant, Shannon, asked the pilot to address an issue with a passenger that he knew something was wrong. Candlewell was banging on the door of an occupied bathroom and had to be told to return to his seat. The pilot tells Grissom that there was nothing out of the ordinary about Candlewell’s agitated behavior and adds that flying makes people react in different ways.
Morgue. The pretty lady coroner is still hanging around waiting for Doc Robbins to take over, I see. She takes Candlewell’s temperature, which is higher than it should be for a guy who’s been dead for two hours. Nicky does some math fu and realizes Candlewell had a fever of almost 102 when he died. He’s also got petechial hemorrhaging, a shoe-shaped bruise on his neck, multiple contusions on his body, and a broken hand. Nicky is confused; Candlewell has defensive and aggression wounds on his hands.
Grissom and Sara are putting cones with nametags in each of the first class cabin seats. Grissom realizes the back of one seat is broken, making it crowd the seat behind it, which is where Candlewell was sitting. They check the manifest and Nate Metz, aka the younger single guy, was sitting in the broken seat. Metz, a self-important type A dickwad, tells Catherine and Brass that Candlewell spent most of the flight kicking the back of his seat. Metz says he complained and punched his seat a couple of times after Candlewell ignored him. Catherine takes a look at Metz’ hands and the knuckles look more banged up than a couple of seat punches would account for.
On the plane, Grissom finds a couple of blood drops away from the main action. Sara wonders if it all started there and Grissom retorts it could just be a nose bleed. The passenger in the seat near the blood is Lou Everett, the whiny bald guy. He’s still in a pissy mood, especially now that he can’t get the vending machine to work. Brass and Warrick question him about what happened. Everett says Candlewell kicked Metz’ seat so hard it sent Metz’ laptop crashing to the floor. It looked like an altercation was going to take place so Everett stepped in to keep the piece. Candlewell, mumbling incoherently, slashed at Everett’s face with a CD. Brass realizes Everett had a few drinks on the flight and Everett shoots back that if Brass doesn’t believe him, he can ask the flight attendant.
Cut to Shannon, who’s giving her side of events to Catherine and Brass. She says Candlewell complained of a headache mid-flight and she gave him some aspirin, which he took without water. Catherine asks if he had the headache when he boarded and Shannon says he didn’t. She can’t explain what made things change. She says she’s seen everything in ten years as a flight attendant. “Who knows why anyone does anything?” She’s dismissed just as Grissom walks in and the investigators wonder why nobody’s talking if nothing criminal happened. They’re obviously hiding something and Grissom is thrilled he gets to test his hide and seek skills.
Grissom gets off the phone with the coroner, who told him that besides his external injuries, Candlewell also had a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding. He rattles everything off to Sara, who boggles at him all, “What the fuckity fucking fuck?” She’s found a broken wine bottle with blood on the edge, which could account for Candlewell’s defensive wounds. The bottle was found in front of Marlene Valdez’ seat. Cut to Marlene, the wife in the older couple, who’s bitching to Brass and Catherine about her ruined shirt. She tells them how Candlewell was agitated and she was sure he was going to hijack the plane, so she badgered her henpecked husband into confronting Candlewell. Candlewell shoves Valdez into a drink cart, breaking the wine bottle and sending wine flying all over Marlene’s shirt. She picked up one end of the bottle and used it to ward off Candlewell, cutting his hands.
Transition to Grissom and Sara, speculating that if Candlewell’s hands were slashed by the bottle, maybe he went to the bathroom next. At first glance they see nothing but Sara hands Grissom the ALS and he spots something. He peers at it more closely with a mini-microscope and Sara realizes what’s up or, rather, what was up earlier. Grissom confirms it’s semen and they both grin like tantalized middle schoolers over a couple of passengers becoming members of the Mile High Club. Sara realizes whoever was banging in the bathroom may not have known what was going on in the cabin. Grissom agrees, saying sex at high altitude heightens (pun intended?) the sexual experience and increases euphoria but Sara begs to differ. “It’s good…I don’t know if it’s that good.” Grissom looks sharply at her but Sara flips it back on him and demands he cite his source. He tries to divert back to the case but she grins and won’t relent. He claims he read about it in a magazine, which she’s never heard of, and he cheekily says he’ll get her a subscription. Yeah, a subscription TO HIS PANTS. He turns the tables and tells Sara to cite her source. She begs off but he uses the age-old and unassailable schoolyard retort: “You started it!” Blushing, Sara rattles off the details of her personal Mile High Club experience. Well, not those details. Grissom looks uncomfortably turned on enough as it is, and he’s happy to get back to work when she suggests it.
Inside the lounge, Catherine talks to the younger couple, who were obviously the ones occupying the lavatory, although they’re not admitting it. All she learns is that they’re married but not to each other. Back to Sara, collecting evidence from the bathroom. She dusts handprints on the ceiling and mutters an impressed, “Stallion.” Back again to Catherine, who’s complaining about the tight-lipped witnesses to Warrick. He thinks Candlewell was killed by one of the passengers and the others are too afraid to talk. And back to the plane, where Sara finds fibers from Candlewell’s pants. In the lab, Greg is examining Candlewell’s clothes when Nicky arrives. Greg tells him that he found no blood or saliva, but there are a lot of shoe prints on the back of Candlewell’s jacket.
Catherine’s enjoying a tasty snack when Grissom barges in and says he needs the passengers’ shoes. She wonders why he can’t collect them and he whines about how she’s the people person and gives her a pitiful puppy look. She rolls her eyes but does his bidding. After the shoes are all tested, Catherine says she needs to see Everett, Max Valdez, and Kiera Berhle, the mom of the little girl. After talking to Everett and Valdez, which we don’t get to see, Kiera is taken into the office. Brass tells her that her daughter, Emily, will need to go with an officer. Then he kneels down and chats with Emily, saying if he can borrow her mom for a few minutes she can borrow anything on him. Emily immediately asks for his gun. I think this budding little sociopath is the prime suspect. Brass is like “Oooookay, that’s creepy. How ’bout you take my badge instead?”
Brass goes inside the office and tells Kiera, “Cute kid,” but it’s clear he wants to ask if Emily wets the bed and sets small pets on fire. Catherine notices that Kiera, who is a doctor, has a black eye. Kiera says she got it while trying to help Candlewell, “the price you pay for being a good Samaritan.” Kiera recounts how she went to help Candlewell when he passed out and accidentally stepped on him in the narrow aisle when trying to roll him over. She says she attempted CPR, to no avail, and she’s satisfied with how she handled everything. Brass suggests the first one to talk gets a deal and Kiera insists she doesn’t need one, but Brass retorts that Emily may need her to take a deal.
On the plane, Grissom gets off the phone with Catherine and tells Sara to look for a defibrillator. She finds it but after examining the paddles says it hasn’t even been used. “There was more lubricant in the bathroom.” Hee! Sara wonders why a doctor wouldn’t try to shock Candlewell, since she likely knew every commercial airline carries a defibrillator. Grissom adds that even if Kiera didn’t know, Shannon did.
Shannon tells Catherine that Candlewell was already dead when she thought to use the paddles. That’s not good enough for Catherine, who points out that Shannon is trained to use them in an emergency. Shannon insists she was scared, because Candlewell was screaming and kicking on the cockpit door. She says she thought he was going to take the whole plane down. Catherine ticks off how the Valdezes were occupied but what about the passenger closest to the action? Shannon says that was Mr. Cash, who was in his seat.
Cut to Grissom and Warrick approaching Mr. Cash, who is perhaps more commonly known as Philip Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Hee, “Banks” and “Cash.” I wonder if that was deliberate? Anyway, Warrick asks Cash what he saw and Cash, amused, says not much. Grissom irritably bitches about the long night and basically tells Cash to stop dicking him around. Cash is like, “I’m blind, Mr. Crankypants.” Oh, Grissom. Is that foot delicious? At Warrick and Grissom’s urging, Cash recounts everything he heard. He recalls how the ruckus increased in sound as more passengers jumped in to subdue Candlewell until Emily screamed and then, “I never heard such silence.”
After getting a page, Grissom meets Lady Coroner (no relation to Lady Heather) at the morgue. She rattles off a bunch of medical mumbo jumbo that I’m not going to recap because I have a glass of wine waiting for me if I finish this in the next hour. In short, Candlewell had undiagnosed encephalitis that went off with the change in altitude and pressure. The swelling in his brain caused his abnormal behavior but it wasn’t the only thing that killed him. Lady Coroner says the encephalitis, ruptured spleen, internal bleeding, and a stopped heart all contributed to Candlewell’s death.
It’s time for roleplaying! No, we’re not in Grissom and Sara’s lovenest, alas. The team has assembled in the plane, dummies in tow. No, not Hodges. He won’t show up for a few more years. The dummies represent passengers who weren’t involved in events, except for Candlewell. Grissom says the physical evidence doesn’t match what the witnesses are saying and he trusts the evidence. Catherine agrees with him. He decides they’re going to re-create the flight from the moment Candlewell was escorted back to his seat by the co-pilot, with the team playing different passengers. Brass is Everett, Sara is Shannon, Catherine is Kiera, and Nicky and Warrick are hilariously playing the Valdezes. Nicky calls dibs on the husband and Warrick points out that he’s a henpecked weenie. Grissom will be playing Metz. He says they’ve only got 10 minutes until the FAA steals their crime scene, so they’d better bust a move.
They deduce that the altercation started with Candlewell kicking Metz’ seat, then Everett jumped in and despite his story, probably threw a punch at Candlewell and got slashed by a CD in return. He was followed by the Valdezes. Candlewell, his encephalitis in full swing, headed towards the front and tried to get into the cockpit, but it was locked. The pilot calls the first class cabin but Shannon had frozen and was useless. Then Candlewell went for the exit door, trying to open it, which set off a panic. Cash heard Metz and Max Valdez get to Candlewell first, then Everett, Marlene, and Kiera, and it became a free-for-all, with the five taking Candlewell down and kicking and punching him.
Sara jumps in and points out a crucial detail, “If you jump a guy at the exit, he dies at the exit.” Nicky speculates that Candlewell tried to get away but, Catherine adds, by that point it had become a mindless mob. After Candlewell had crawled down the aisle and was stomped and beaten to death, Kiera went through the CPR motions for show. The team looks horrified and depressed when it hits them how things went down.
As the sun rises, Grissom stands on the tarmac and tells the sheriff that five of the passengers should be arrested for murder. He says he just needs more time to prove his case, which looks like self defense on the surface but is really mob-driven murder. The sheriff isn’t going to be making any arrests, since anyone would do what it takes if they felt their life was in danger on a plane. Grissom says a jury would say that but it’s not what the evidence says. The sheriff replies that that’s the point. He drives off and Grissom looks frustrated.
Later, the team watches a news report about the incident, with the reporter saying the passengers have been released and nobody will be charged. Warrick shuts off the TV, telling them to let it go, especially since the FAA has backed up the sheriff. Nicky and Sara are appalled that five people got away with murder. Warrick tells them it’s not about justice, but about how people react when they feel threatened. He’s not condoning what they did, but says he understands it. Sara says a man is still dead and Nicky adds that the distance between the exit door and the aisle where Candlewell was found is the difference between self-defense and murder. Sara says it doesn’t matter was the circumstances were, she could never take a life. Nicky’s not sure, Warrick says he could if it was between him and a threatener, and Catherine pipes up that if it involves protecting her daughter, she’d go all the way.
Grissom is asked what he would do and he says he can’t answer the question, because they’re all looking at it from the side of the passengers. Nobody’s looking at it from Candewell’s side, adding that the passengers assumed because of Candlewell’s behavior that he was a threat. Catherine snaps back that he was a threat and Grissom replies that he became a threat, but it didn’t have to be that way. If even one person had considered why Candlewell was behaving the way he was, he might have lived. “It took five people to kill him. It would have taken only one person to save his life.”
And that’s one to grow on.
Next up: I’ll be recapping “Sex, Lies and Larvae.” Obviously. Also, I’m going to be recapping new CSI episodes starting this week (whoops, make that next week. Effing basketball) for Satellite TV Guru. Those who enjoy my typically rambling recaps may be disappointed because I’ll have a much, much shorter allowable word maximum, but I do hope y’all will read and comment on them anyway. I’m also recapping Criminal Minds and American Idol over there as well.
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