Man Down!
9.2
"Superb"
Tonight's show opens with a scene on the casino floor. A security guard is walking around, looking for a man. He's speaking to someone in the surveillance room, trying to get directions. Eventually, the security guard comes across two men fighting and tries to intervene. One of the men pulls out a pistol and shoots the guard in the chest. The surveillance technician calls for security to swarm the area. When the gunman flees, they track him with the security camera. They find him getting into one of the guest elevators and taking a hostage. The man demands someone call the police and to make sure they bring SWAT with them.
Soon after, Jim Brass and other members of SWAT arrive at the casino. Brass is briefed on the situation and with no hostage negotiator on the scene, he takes the job himself.
Upstairs, SWAT is going room to room, looking for the gunman. When they come to the room with the man inside, they open the door and the man shoots at him. They quickly draw their weapons and back up a bit.
15 Hours Earlier...
At a residence, we find Jim Brass briefing Gil Grissom and Warrick Brown as David Phillips and Doc Robbins examine the body of Janice Cutler, who was shot in the face. Brass suspects it's domestic violence, as the car is gone, as is her husband.
At the coroner's Doc Robbins tells Grissom that Janice Cutler had recently had sex, but she wasn't raped. The killer shot Janice in her mouth; the gun was placed in her mouth and then fired. Doc Robbins asks Grissom if he's ever been close to getting married, so Grissom responds, "Once... when I was younger. Her name was Nicole Daley. I asked her to marry me. We were classmates. She liked bugs too. I gave her my grandmother's ring, but my mother made me get it back. Second grade."
Back to the crime scene, Sara and Warrick are talking about Warrick's wedding to Tina. They photograph the scene. One of the photographs is shown with blood splatter. The phone also has blood on it, but it's not blood splatter like the photograph. A neighbor is said to have called 911. Sara wonders if the husband considered calling 911 and changed his mind before he finished dialing. The blood is only next to one number, the 1, not the 9. While Warrick photographs the phone, Sara goes into the bedroom area of the home. She takes a number of photographs of the bed and then finds pieces of grass in the closet. The grass doesn't seem to belong to any of the shoes which are in there. She also finds a sock, sticking out from under the bed. Warrick joins her in the bedroom with a pamphlet/flyer for some sort of vacation. It seems the husband was planning on taking a little time off.
At the police station, Brass tells Sara that they brought in a gardener who has working down the street. Sara tells him he was being paid an awful lot by Mrs. Cutler, far more than he should have been. They go into the interrogation room to interview the gardener, Timothy Johnson. He immediately denies killing Mrs. Cutler, so Brass and Sara ask him about being paid by Mrs. Cutler. Sara shows him that they found his sock in the bedroom. He admits to sleeping with her, but it wasn't his idea. Mrs. Cutler had allegedly been very disappointed in her marriage. It seems Timothy was caught in the act and tried to hide when Mr. Cutler came home early. Timothy hid in the closet, but it wasn't good enough, as Mr. Cutler found him and told him to get out. Timothy tells Sara and Brass that she was alive when he left and he didn't hear a gunshot from the house...
In the lab, Warrick examines the vacation flyer he found earlier. He's checking the document for prints and he finds a set. Nick walks in joins Warrick, who has found a print next to a picture of a woman on the flyer with a phone number. Nick gives the number a call and tries to get her to meet him. Unfortunately for her, she goes along with it, unaware Nick is a cop.
We cut to Nick escorting the young woman to the interrogation room. She's a little upset about being asked to meet him at a crime lab, but she's willing to help Nick with the case as long as she doesn't get busted for prostitution. Nick shows Sally a photo of Willie Cutler and tells her the man's wife was found dead. Sally tells Nick that she and Willie once dated. Willie apparently was a nice guy and offered to take her to Hawaii. She pulls out a brochure for Hawaii Willie is said to have given her. Nick takes it from her and keeps it as evidence.
Catherine and Detective Vartann stop by Cowboy Dan's. This is the company mentioned on the business card Sally gave Nick. When they get inside, they find the place very empty. Vartann finds a lot of blood on the wall and a dead body lying on the floor. Catherine calls it in and asks for police to come by immediately. They sweep the building and find a dead body. A sound comes from a nearby room, so the two check it out and find an injured man hiding under a desk. Fortunately, he's still alive.
At the hospital, the man is checked out by a doctor, and fortunately, the wound isn't that bad. He tells the nurse what to do and leaves. Sara takes photos of the wound while she and Detective Vartann interview him about the incident. He tells them that he was working in his office when her heard a number of gunshots, one of which went through the wall, striking him in his side. He hid from the gunman under his desk, hoping someone would come looking for him eventually. As Mr. Cutler is about to leave, he learns that his wife was killed.
Back at Cowboy Dan's, David Phillips and Catherine examine one of the bodies. Cowboy Dan was killed from a single gun-shot to the head, likely from short-range. Greg is in the other room, looking over one of the other victims, Roger Banks. Mr. Banks had just got a promotion when he was gunned down. All of the bullets from the gun have been accounted for, although the gun was wiped clean, so they won't have any prints. Catherine walks to the door going to Mr. Cutler's office. She judges that his story seems to be right about being hit, as the bullet holes are in the right place for his story to be believable. Greg takes a photograph of one of the office phones and finds a bloody fingerprint on the digit 1.
Back in the interrogation, we find Brass interviewing Mr. Cutler, who's obviously had a terrible day. He's been shot, his boss has been shot, another co-worker was shot, and he lost his wife. Brass plays a little mind game with Mr. Cutler, suggesting someone is out to get him, when in fact, it seems otherwise. Brass tells Mr. Cutler that Timothy, the gardener, told him that he had been sleeping with Mr. Cutler's wife. Mr. Cutler says he had no idea, but according to Timothy, he dragged Timothy out of the closet after getting caught. There's also the issue of Mr. Cutler spending time with a hooker, Sally. He says that he heard he was getting a promotion, so he decided to throw himself a little celebration, by spending time with a hooker. Cowboy Dan passed Mr. Cutler over with the promotion because he has a bad mark in his criminal history, a minor offense, but Cowboy Dan wouldn't let it go. Brass comes right out and says that he believes Mr. Cutler may be behind a lot of the violence. Brass then pulls out a receipt showing Mr. Cutler wired $50,000 to The Lucky Dragon. Brass wonders if maybe Mr. Cutler hired a professional killer to kill his wife, boss, and co-worker. Mr. Cutler assures Brass that he lost that money on the tables. He loses his temper and walks out. Brass can't do anything since they have no evidence that suggests he had anything to do with the murders.
In the hallway, Brass tells Grissom about the interrogation room, and Grissom agrees that there's no evidence suggesting he killed those people. He then tells Grissom that he's got a unit shadowing Mr. Cutler.
In the lab, Greg is taking a look at some photographs from the crime scenes and realizes how both sets of phones have blood on the digit 1, but not on any of the others.
We cut to Greg and Detective Vartann at a taxi service. The phone number is 111-1111, which is quite interesting considering the blood on the phones. They talk to one of the drivers about a man who had asked to be driven around for a while that night. Greg takes a look at the cab and finds camera footage from the car. The man called himself Sammy, but it's actually Willie Cutler. He was driven around the city for five or six hours. Also in the camera footage, Greg finds a gun tucked away in Willie's waistband.
Back at his office, Detective Vartann searches for Willie Cutler and Sammy Cutler and tries to find any information on them. They're both brothers and they both have a criminal past.
In the hallway, Brass informs Grissom of the criminal history of the two brothers. Sammy was Willie's older bother and they both have a grand auto felony conviction on their sheet; it was the same theft and Sammy spent more time in prison. Anyway, Sammy got out six months ago. They walk into Brass' office to take a look at a fax Jim had received from the cab company. A cab was dispatched to a location and the fare never arrived. The destination was a no-show, so Brass sent out a unit to look for Sammy.
At The Lucky Dragon, Warrick passes out photos of Sammy Cutler, asking for people to look for him. He also passes it out to the guys in the surveillance room.
Doc Robbins stops by Sara's post in the lab with some autopsy documents Grissom asked for. While he's there, he notices photos of the gunshot injury Willie Cutler received at his office. Doc Robbins suggests it is not a gunshot, but from something sharp, like a knife or something. Sara's surprised by this and pulls out a pen Catherine found. It's got blood at the base, where one would have used it to cut him/herself.
We quickly cut to Sara still in her office, working on the shirt Willie Cutler gave her. She's unable to find any evidence which would lead them to believe Willie was shot by a gun. Grissom agrees with her and then notices a black substance inside of the shirt sleeve.
Back in the surveillance room, we join some of the guys as they look for cheaters or Sammy Cutler. As Warrick joins them in the search, he notices a familiar face in the audience, his wife, Tina, with another man. He decides to call her and ask her what she's up to. She lies about being somewhere else, but Warrick knows better. He admits to being up in the surveillance room, and he sees her with the other guy. Upset, Tina tells Warrick the other guy is a VIP host who is helping her plan a special birthday party for him. Warrick's visably upset for looking like an ass.
Back at the lab, Grissom is trying to examine the substance he found on the shirt. He's joined by lab technician, Wendy Simms, who looks on. After running some tests, Grissom finds out that the substance was blood and that the blood is female, belonging to Willie's wife. This means Willie was in the room when she was shot. He calls Brass with the news, but Willie's gone missing. They can't seem to find him.
Back at The Lucky Dragon, a fight breaks out with Willie Cutler and someone else, with Willie shooting the security guard. Willie runs through the casino and takes a woman hostage and hops onto an elevator.
Upstairs, Brass and SWAT has the floor covered. Brass calls Willie, but he's not picking up just yet. As Brass waits, he tells SWAT that the kill word is "Jim", Brass' first name. Eventually, Willie picks up the phone and Brass tries to get him to calm down. He wants to be allowed in and asks Willie to look at him through the peephole to see if he's armed. Willie allows Brass inside, but he warns him to be careful and asks him to close the door. Brass calls Warrick and asks to get Sammy on the line, but they don't have him, of course. Willie wants to talk to his brother and is getting impatient. Brass gets Willie to stop pointing his gun at the hostage and to talk out the problem with him. He was expecting a $15,000 promotion from his boss. When he didn't get that, he wired all of his money to the casino and gambled it all away. His brother Sammy came in and he took Willie back to his home where his wife was angry about Willie losing their entire savings.
In the lab, Catherine and Grissom are looking over some of the security footage. They're unable to find Sammy anywhere but Willie was hauled away from the table with roughly $10,000 in chips remaining. This is why Willie came back.
Back in the hotel room, Willie's still talking to Brass. He tells him about being driven around for hours and then was taken to the office where he found his co-worker and boss killed. Brass asks Willie to let the hostage go since she didn't do anything to deserve any of this. Willie responds by saying "I don't want to hurt anybody." Brass warns him that if he kills someone, even by accident, he can't take it back.
Back at the lab, Sara rushes into Grissom's office with some bad news. She found a newspaper article on darienchronicle.com which says Sammy Cutler was killed in a traffic accident in Mexico. This obviously shocks Grissom.
Back in the hotel room, Brass learns about Sammy's death from two months ago from Grissom's call. It's obvious that Willie has been playing them all along. Brass soon thereafter says the kill word, "Jim" and Willie shoots Brass in the chest twice. SWAT rushes in with their weapons, putting several bullets into Willie's chest. the SWAT radios for help as they've got a man down. Brass is on the floor, shocked by being shot. At least one of the bullets missed his vest, striking his lungs, which makes him make a gurgling sound as he lies there...
I enjoyed the case, but the obvious drama is about Brass and being shot. Although I knew this was coming ahead of time, it is a little surprising to see. I don't know how this shooting will play out in the ratings, but it wasn't the drama I wanted to see. Brass hasn't been one of the main characters in a long time. Although I like Jim Brass, I think there would have been much more shock and drama if something terrible like this happened to Grissom, Sara, Warrick, Catherine, or Greg. I don't include Nick because he was featured in a big shock in season five's finale, by far the best finale of the series so far.moreless
