CSI: Miami - The Season Finale!

I didn't get around to watching CSI: Miami until Tuesday afternoon, so I thought, what the hell, since I'm watching with the Tivo-powered ability to pause, why not do that thing where I comment on it as it's going? Never tried that before.

The show opens with a man being thrown through a floor-to-ceiling window and plummeting to his death some dozen stories below. We don't see who threw him out the window, because, you know, 'mystery show'.

Horatio, Eric, and Frank are on the scene some short amount of time later, and establishing himself as Watson to Horatio's Sherlock Holmes (that is, Horatio's slow-witted but loyal sidekick), he refers to the dead body as a 'jumper', just so both Eric and Horatio can correct him by explaining that no one would ever commit suicide by jumping through a window without breaking or opening it first.

The new ME arrives on the scene, because 'The Corpse Whisperer' quit the show a few weeks back. The new ME is also a sexy lady, but it seems odd that they'd be introducing a new cast member in the season finale.

My confusion is resolved moments later, when the new corner is shot by a sniper, who then sprays the area with gunfire. In a realistic note, because of the hundreds of windows in the surrounding buildings it's impossible to tell where the gunfire is coming from, which makes it very hard for the cops and bystanders to figure out how to duck for cover. I also have to question the sanity of Horatio's decision to wildly fire at the surrounding buildings. Is he just hoping to get lucky? Isn't that putting a whole lot of lives at risk?

Tragically, the corner was killed by the fusillade, leaving Horatio in too bad of a mood to take off his glasses and make a pun.

Then it's back to the crime scene, where the new new ME shows up. Being as he's a plain-looking guy with glasses, we have no illusions that he's being added to the cast. There's no sign of the sniper, and their theory of the crime seems to be that he opened fire to make sure that the guy he'd earlier pushed out of a window was dead. You see, the body made a gurgling sound when the ME started examining it, so she called for fire and rescue just in case he might not be dead. It seems like this would be a good reason to open fire, except the ME was shot the split second she finished calling for fire and rescue, meaning that there's no way the killer could have been close enough to hear her, and still be far enough away that people couldn't tell where the gunfire was coming from. Had they waited to have her shot until she did something concrete, like attempt CPR or at least check a pulse, that would be one thing. But right now, it's just silly. Unless it turns out the ME or Horatio was actually the target of the sniper, which is something they really ought to be considering, but aren't.

Back at the morgue, the victim's brother shows up, and lets it be known that the dead man was a ne'er-do-well. He also shows a considerable interest in getting his hands on his brother's possessions, which suggests that he's the killer, and tossing his brother out the window was an accident.

Over at the crime scene two other CSIs are checking out the vacant apartment that the victim was tossed out of. The CSIs are Attractive Lady (whose name I can never remember) and Unbelievably Smug Guy (who replaced Rory Cochrane). USG looks at the unfurnished room and basically gives up on the idea of ever finding the killer. Luckily AL actually bother to do the job she's being paid to do, and looks around for evidence. There's a blood stain on some metal, and with that quick find they're off to do science!

Then we cut to CSI headquarters, where they've found a DNA match on the blood sample. Horatio interviews the lucky winner, who turns out to be an ATF agent! Wait, did I forget to mention that it was a shocking twist? Oh, well it was.

The ATF agent explains that he's been tracking the Dead Guy, then he confronted him about illegal munitions at the abandoned apartment, but claims that he didn't throw the body out the window.

Eric heads down to the morgue to get the bullet trajectories, then meets Callie at the crime scene, where they determine that the bullets were coming from the parking structure nearby. Hilariously, we discover that he opened fire using a machine pistol being fired one-handed. The idea that something like that could be fired at all accurately from the top of a parking garage at the street below is kind of ludicrous, but let's move on. Apparently the gun was using old ammunition that exploded, harming the shooter. Everyone agrees that this should be a useful clue.

At police headquarters, Horatio is interviewing popular villain actor Kim Coates, who has suspicious powder burns, suggesting that he might be the killer. Apparently he's a longtime nemesis of Horatio's. Sadly, my viewing of the show has been incredibly spotty over the past few years, so I'm not exactly clear on who he is, or why Horatio has a problem with him. Sure, I could just do a search over the webternet and find out the answer, but where would the fun be in that?

They find a fingerprint on one of the shell casings, and track it to a munitions dealer. Meanwhile, back at the lab, one of the rusty bullets goes off, setting the lab on fire, thereby risking the chain of evidence. They manage to recover one of the bullets, making the whole 'lab fire' interlude nothing but a waste of time. Turns out the bullets were faulty because they were made in Russia back in the 60s, and the munitions dealer was illegally selling them as new.

They arrest the munitions dealer, who was, in fact, the murderer, and made the brilliant move of keeping the murder weapon in his office. He also confesses right away, and his motive for committing the crime in the first place is as ludicrous as I've come to expect from the show. It seems that the Dead Guy had gone to the Munitions Dealer and offered to sell him futuristic bullets. Not being a trusting guy, Munitions Dealer followed dead guy to his meeting with the ATF agent. Apparently the Munitions Dealer suspected he was being set up, so he went and killed the dead guy. But why? All that had happened was a shifty guy had swung by and offered to sell him bullets. He hadn't given anyone any money, or even agreed to by them. Even if he was being set up, he hadn't agreed to take part in the setup. And how would killing the guy who was attempting to set you up serve to make you look less guilty? Oh, and he announces that it was the ME yelling that triggered his shooting, but again, he started shooting before the sentence was finished, so that doesn't actually make a lot of sense.

Then the Munitions Dealer is gunned down in a drive-by shooting as the police walk him out the front door, so we'll never learn what he thought he was going to accomplish. Horatio is able to find a list of the people who bought the futuristic ammunition, and one of them is Kim Coates, whose suspiciously convenient powder burn has yet to be explained.

The show then totally makes up for its lack of an opening quip, as Kim Coates explains that he couldn't have killed the Munitions Dealer, because he was getting married to Julie when it happened. Who's Julie? According to the following exchange, she's the mother of Horatio's secret son, Kyle

The Scene: Interrogation Room.
The Players: Horatio Caine, Ron.
The Context: Ron has just announced that he's saving all of his futuristic bullets for a 'special occasion'.

Horatio: Is that a threat?
Ron: Don't flatter yourself. Although it would be a lot easier on Kyle come father's day.
Horatio: Ron, you're going to be dead by father's day.

With the threats flying far and fast, Horatio heads out to his secret son's school, and tells Julie and the son to skip town. They're reticent, but agree to let Horatio put them on a private plane at 5 O'clock.

Then it's back to the case of the guy who shot the Munitions dealer. It's not much a mystery though, as we, the audience, clearly saw that it was a black person's hand holding the gun and the only black person in the show so far was the Munitions Dealer business partner. USG and Callie check the car' s computer, and luckily technology solves the crime for them, as the business partner's cell phone automatically logged onto the computer when he drove the car. Oh, and also it was his own personal car. Why did they even bother with the computer?

Just before the confession starts, USG excuses himself to take care of 'something'. Callie doesn't find this nearly as suspicious as she ought to.

It turns out that someone had come into the munitions dealer's office and put a gun to the Business Partner's head, demanding that he kill Munitions Dealer, or else. Who was this mystery man? Dead Guy's brother. Remember him? He was the one building the superbullets and having his brother do the dealing. The team is able to arrest him without incident. Right away, he confesses to all of his crimes, once again making their jobs far easier. Of course, right at the end of the scene, he warns Horatio that he's got a lot of friends, and Horatio could be in danger.

Now things start moving quickly, as Julie runs out to do 'something' before meeting Horatio. In jail, the brother calls someone and tells them that the person's name is 'Horatio Caine', and he wants to know 'when it's done'. Then we cut to Ron, who's looking over the superbullets he bought from the dead guy. Then it's back to the hotel, where Kyle goes through his mother's suitcase and finds a loaded pistol.

Then we cut to the airfield, where someone shoots Horatio! This isn't a huge surprise, of course, since the show's advertising for the past month has centered around the image of Horatio's trademark shades with a bullethole in them. Luckily for all is fans of Horatio, and by extension, the hilarious mugging of David Caruso, he takes off his glasses right before being shot, and had his hands down at his side, so the bullet that went through them likely hit him non-fatally, somewhere in the midsection.

No, the real twist is just who gets the call notifying them that 'It's done'. Not the brother in prison, but rather the Unbelievably Smug Guy, who spends the whole scene with his head titled down slightly, to make him look more sinister.

Is there any better way to end a season than to ask 'Who Shot (BLANK)'? I can't think of one, and as a result, I'm even more excited by this season-ender than I was about the one where Horatio announced in the season ender that he was going to go to Brazil to stab a guy to death, and then in the season opener, he did just that.

Okay, so it wasn't better than that. But it has the potential to be, depending on the amazing stupidity level that the season opener manages to rise to. September can't come fast enough.