CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

The finale, it's finally here. The Drama! The Suspense! The ....oh, we're in a 7-11. Blue-tinted customers are putting tin-foiled crap in the microwave and giggling as the microwave puts on a fireworks show. An employee who is mopping up the floor knocks over some bleach, which creeps along the floor in dramatic slow motion, right to the foot a frail-looking girl with a heart-shaped face and thin hair. Girl does not approve: she stumbles outside, pawing psychotically through the crowd of tourists who are watching the ceiling light show over...is that Fremont? Let's say it is. What could be wrong with this lovely girl, you ask? Yeah, that chick's crazy. Did ya enjoy your appetizer of crazy? Oh, you'll enjoy this episode then. Onwards!

Grissom's still rounding up all the Dell fosters. Another one's dead, but then a living one turns up, so Griss n Brass make a housecall. Not soon enough -- dude's dead in his bathroom. Gil moves his flashlight over the guy's action figure collection (aw, men and their dolls...) to discover a tiny little figure dressed just like the DB, down to tiny little silver bracelets.

Soon, Dave the Sidekick comes to toil over his new catch in the bathroom. Their Corpse Du Jour was a nurse. His apartment has the A/C turned way up which has slowed his decomp, making it impossible to determine time of death. They zoom in on the DB and he's not nearly decompy enough; oh come on, CSI, you'll have to do grosser than that if you ever wanna beat Grey's Anatomy's ratings. Also, there's bleach at the scene, just like with the other murders. Sara theorizes that this one wasn't planned, and the place is so cold so's to buy time to build a miniature. At this, Griss leaves the scene, but not before sending an "It's all yours, m'dear," Sara's way. For a workplace romance, those two sure suck all kinds of balls at stealthyness.

Creepy workshop! The Crazy Girl from Fremont is humming as she's makin' tiny, creepy little dolls....and, it appears, so is Grissom! He's undressing the Miniature Killer's supposed creation and finds a fingerprint. But none of the other figures had prints; Grissom's hoping Mini-K's gotten careless.

Meanwhile, Creepy Killergirl is sketching creepily in her sketchpad of death. She's at a job interview; a secretary calls her name....Natalie. The woman interviewing Natalie for the job is a real piece of work herself -- one of those obnoxious chatterboxes who wear cheap bright jackets and giggle a lot -- and wastes no time mocking Natalie when the latter has a hard time trying to get a word out. Natalie wins her shallow, shriveled heart by demonstrating to the woman her impeccable attention to detail by listing everything she saw in the reception area. It's never good when a homicidal maniac has a photographic memory, huh? Natalie is merely seeking a janitorial position. Harmless? Yeah, not at all.

Warrick is rummaging through NurseyBoy's computer and determines, from his unanswered emails and IMs, that he's been dead about 12 days.

CSI Meeting! The rundown: multiple blunt force trauma, materials consistent with other killings, but this one was a bit up close and personal for Mini-K. Nothing on print Griss got off MiniNurseyBoy, but there were epithelials in the print, and they're running DNA.

Natalie's checking out an arts and crafts store. She sees a train and we go into FLASHBACKMODE, where Ernie Dell's chewing Natalie out for him having to cover up for her. "Why did you kill those people," Ernie asks; he pleads her to have a good reason. Crazy crazy Natalie says she does have a good reason! Ernie really really really wants to believe this and swears he won't let the cops get her. But only if she promises not to kill anymore. It's kind of a funny line. "Promise you'll be a good girl," Ernie says. "Your SPECIAL girl?" Natalie asks, an excited twinkle in her batshit-insane eyes. "Yes," Ernie replies, a bit put off by the fact that his special girl's so goddamn psycho. "You were the one thing I thought I'd done right." Seriously? Dude.

Oh and have another NatalieFlashback, on the house. This one's at a car accident, the scene crawling with cops and CSIs, and Natalie's creepy stare is directed at Grissom and Sara as she stands in the crowd. Griss takes Sara's camera off her shoulder, and as he does, he delicately runs his hand down her arm, a motion unnoticed by anyone accept Natalie.

And back in the present... wow, this is not good: Nat's made a little tiny Sara doll, tiny CSI vest and everything. Oh, the crazy. Oh, the DRAMA!

Griss has found a "thriving" miniature community online. Their motto is "A Place for All Things Small and Small." I bet after this episode, the real miniature community will start an aggressive letter-writing campaign to the writers of CSI for making them out to be either psycho killers or complete morons. Nick asks hesitantly if that is why Griss built his miniature, "other than to creep us all out." Hee:) Griss kinda dodges that and explains that the bracelet on MiniNurseyBoy is difficult to make, so he's hoping to narrow down the suspect list.

LabGirlWhoseNameIForget runs in. The DNA off the doll? It's XX. Gosh, those liberated modern dames, smokin and votin and killin, jus' like men; the nerve of em!

As they're discussing the killer's gender, the message board question Gil just posted about the bracelet gets a response: Schuster's Hobby Shop. Gil leaves because he "has the see the shadowcaster of the forgotten realms." Gil, tone down the melodrama in your one-liners a bit will ya, cuz that shit can get out of control, causing you to turn into Horatio, and then we're gonna have to take you out back and shoot you.

Nicky, working on a hunch, goes to check out NurseyBoy's body (for scientific purposes, you perverts!!) and finds a tiny tiny brown spot on his foot.

At Schuster's Hobby Shop, Gil's totally sharing details of the case with the guy behind the counter. When he shows him the bracelet, the guy admits to making it...for Natalie. The name comes with a cellphone number and a generic physical description. She's a weird one, CraftShopGuy tells Gil, "control freaks with social problems are my bread and butter" but this one was way past that. Aw, poor miniature-enthusiast CSI fans! Natalie came by the shop a few days ago to buy a battery powered micromotor. Attach to anything you wanna animate. He shows Griss a miniature with animated figures involved in a tug-of-war. "No one ever wins." See, a better one-liner!

Doc Robbins has biopsied the DB's foot and found that NurseyBoy was electrocuted. Back at NurseyBoy's apartment, Nicky find bloody footprint covering a black mark where poor chap's foot grounded out near the sink. The sink was booby trapped!! Upon closer examination of the bathroom outlet, Cath and Nick find out that one of the metal brackets running from the outlet is touching the sink and the sink is cracked, so add water and ZAP! Cath says all this with her head THISCLOSE to leaning on Nicky's shoulder. The Nick/Catherine shippers go wild. All 4 of them. Anyway, the killer must have gained access from the apartment next door.

Crazy Natalie is still crazily building her psycho lil death toy. Cath comes back with the cavalry to bust down NurseyBoy's Neighbor's door. Natalie is startled by a noise. Goes to the door! Cops bust in!!! ...Aaaaaand it's two completely different apartments. But did ya enjoy the suspense, did ya, did ya? Nicky and Cath run through the apartment and find a....live person? Wow, how long's it been since they found a live person in a dark apartment? The writers are really busting it all out for the finale! So, turns out the Neighbor was stealing NurseyBoy's electricity and accidentally electrified his sink. Yeah, I, uh, hate when that happens too.

Back at crime lab, the name Natalie is finally specific enough to release the foster records. "Natalie Davis."

Griss and Sofia make a visit to one of the foster homes Natalie went through. The woman running it -- battling her way through the crowd of kids and laundry -- whips out scrapbook and immediately remembers Nat. Turns out Natalie pushed some girl off the top bunk of their bed, so FosterMom sent her back. Gil and Sofia are all, "Just like that, huh?" FosterMom fires back with, "After a few dozen kids you learn the difference between damaged and broken, and Natalie was broken." How sweet, to base such sweeping generalizations on a few dozen kids...

But Natalie really is broken, and she's breaking a little red model car...to make it look as broken as the red model car in her sketches.....Why exactly does a person with photographic memory need to work off sketches?

Griss is having a busy day -- he and Cath track down Crazy Natalie's real daddy, who's doing a show at a casino. Because he's a ventriloquist. Or, as Cath puts it, "a grown man who sticks his hand up a back of a doll and speaks like a girl." Go Cath! Gil shares his research: Natalie's little sis Chloe fell out of a tree house and died when they were kids. The two of them sit down to wait for Mini-K's BioDaddy's act to end.

Did you think Crazy Natalie and her Mini Army of Plastic Depravity was scary? Try this: Nat's ventriloquist dad is doing a show with a doll named after his dead daughter. Yes, apparently some casino is paying him for this. The phrase "OMGWTF" has never rung truer.

I'll spare you the details of The Performance and will only mention that the doll "sings" a creepy little song about a "pain in [her] sawdust." Griss looks slightly unnerved. Catherine looks somebody just killed her puppy and is now doing a ventriloquist act with its dead body. After the horror ends, the next act is 4 guys in penguin suits who are singing "You're no one till somebody loves you." Seriously, what kind of fucked up casino is this?

The Ventriloquist and Doll sit with Cath and Griss at the bar. He dismissively admits that Natalie was his "other" daughter. She was 6 and Chloe was 4 and they were like "darkness and light." And the father of the year award goes to....the complete opposite of this guy. His family fell apart, the Ventriloquist says, and Gil asks what happened. "Can I tell the story, daddy," the Ventriloquist suddenly says in a little doll voice as he lifts Chloe off his shoulder. Ew, why!!! It's ok, though, we're in FLASHBACK! Little Natalie stands in a treehouse with her sister, watching daddy say "I love you" to Chloe and walk away (who leaves a 6 year old and a 4 year old in a tree house unattended?!) and when he turns around, Natalie's already pushed her sister out of the treehouse. Later, Natalie watches daddy sob as he scrubs the blood off the sidewalk with bleach. He tried for a while with Natalie, he says, but he just couldn't handle it. He had to give her up.

Natalie dons a cleaning uniform and grabs the miniature, all packed up pretty in a box...she's pushing a cleaning cart now, all the way into Grissom's office. She stares shortly at the miniature he's built, unimpressed. Aw, all that time getting into the mind of the killer, wasted!

Natalie's in the garage now...

Griss walks into his office and sees his new present.... a miniature of an upturned car on a stretch of desert, with a tiny doll hand pinned under it, the hand moving slightly as that little battery-operated motor works its magic deep inside the model.

Back in the garage, a car door opens. Natalie, who's standing beside the car, just out of sight, says "Sara?"

Wrapping a napkin around the car in the miniature, Griss lifts it to find a little doll clad in a little CSI vest, its outstretched hand moving feebly. Noooooo!!

Police lights fill the garage now. Brass circles Sara's empty car to find her keys, kit and cellphone. "Looks like an abduction," he mutters into his walkie talkie. He watches the cell phone start to ring, Grissom's name lighting up on the screen. "Pick up, please pick up," Grissom begs on the other end of the line. The receptionist tells him that only some girl from janitorial's been in his office while he was gone...

Nifty Light Table Room! The team's gathered round the miniature; Greg thinks Sara must be alive since the doll is still moving, Nicky looks at the mini-landscape and says she could be anywhere, Cath urges to focus on the details, Warrick figures Natalie must have wrecked the car first to put Sara under it. They decide to track the car's vin number down as Griss walks in the room, informing all that they're looking for a Natalie Davis and that she's worked on the cleaning crew in their own lab for a month. Just then they get a hit off the vin: a mustang totaled outside some bar 6 months ago, Sara listed as lead CSI on the scene. They pull up the photos of that scene to see Natalie standing in the crowd. But what's the motive, everyone wonders, why take Sara? Cath says this one feels different. "It is different," Grissom responds, staring into space, remembering his "slip of the hand" at that particular investigation. "This girl holds me responsible for the death of Ernie Dell," he concludes with a dazed expression. "I took away the only person she's ever loved, and she's gonna do the same thing to me." Oh. Oh wow. The team's reaction is priceless. Think it's anatomically impossible for jaws to literally hit the floor? So wrong you are, my friend. Cath gives Gil a "why you gotta break the hearts of those who want us together" look. Everyone else is still pretty much in a "naw, I couldn't have heard that right" mode. But the other reason this scene is awesome (aside from the funny faces) is that blurting things out while being completely oblivious to anyone in the room was the trademark of Season One Grissom, and we miss that guy so. Jesus, Gil, took you long enough to admit you love her when the rest of us knew this for like 7 years, you great big giant nerd.

Grissom, still staring purposefully into space, mumbles, "It's not a psychotic reaction to bleach, or some dead sister, or the doll....not your little bisque doll..." and he rushes out of the room....

Ok ok ok, backtracking for a bit, I know that scene made the shipper community cream all over their (ok fine, our) collective couches and I don't mean to shit on anyone's (long-awaited) parade, but, seriously, what is Griss like, 51, and he's never been in love till now? In the time we've known him, he dated a blond forensic artist, a dominatrix, and...whatever Sofia is...and despite all this luck with the ladies, he's never been in love? In my experience with nerds, they will fall in love with ANYTHING. And no, no, it was a sweet statement, but, come on, really? Never? Ok, alright, I'm done, back to The Drama!!

And hooray, Griss finds "NOTURLITTLEBISQUEDOLL" as a screenname on that model-making website, which proves to be the key to finally finding Nat. They bust into Crazy Natalie's Kooky Workshop of Creepy, and chase Natalie into the street. She almost escapes, but luckily she's crazy and is therefore distracted by pretty Las Vegas Neon Lights. She collapses and Nicky and Warrick nab her.

Thunder rolls over Vegas as Brass muses about what an effective interrogation method dripping bleach all over Natalie will be. Griss wants to talk to her. No, Brass, don't let him, he's....oh, it's too late, Gil's in the interrogation room. He introduces himself as a fan, waxing about brilliance and art and ...his uber-nerdy chess obsession. "I wonder if a game could ever be played without a mistake," he says. How would she know, she got caught! He complements her on her latest crime scene, towing the car into the desert, killing Sara...Natalie raises her head at this and says she didn't kill Sara. "You didn't?" Grissom blurts, revealing maybe a little too much hope.

She stares at him. "This is about her;" Natalie starts getting angry. "Her her HER!" Marcia Marcia Marcia! And then Natalie takes out a blade of an X-acto knife that she hid in her mouth and slices at Grissom's neck!! Griss sits around dying as Natalie starts singing the creepy "Pain in My Sawdust" song. Wait wait, guess what, that last part? Natalie imagined that, Griss is still in one piece and not at all bleedy. He leans toward her, desperate, "Tell me where she is....Natalie...please tell me where Sara is." He shakes her. "TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!" he shouts, panicking. She keeps singing. "I've got a pain in my sawdust, that's what the matter with me." Out in some unnamed desert rain is pouring, and a smashed up red car covers the little, barely-moving hand of Sara Sidle, grasping at the mud. Will Sara be found?! Will the Las Vegas Crime Lab start requesting more extensive background check for their cleaning staff from now on?! Will we find out when it started raining so damn much in Las Vegas?! Tune in to find out the answers to all of those (maybe not that last one) questions on the next exciting season of CSI!!