CSI Miami Episode 714

The episode opens with Callie and Smuggy heading to a house. Because it’s a crime scene? Because there was a shooting there? No, because a neighbour called 911 to say she smelled something bad coming from the house. That’s right. The CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATORS, instead of investigating crime scenes, are now checking out reports of smells.

Isn’t that what we have, oh, I don’t know, EVERY OTHER KIND OF COP for?

So why the preposterous setup? So that Callie and Smuggy can get trapped in the attic with a corpse while a crazed murderer sets the house on fire. I’m going to cover the whole fire setting incident later on, because wow, yeah, it’s just… yikes. They escape (duh), but during her next scene Callie will have to be hospitalized few smoke inhalation. Wow – I wonder if this threat to her life will be what finally motivates Eric to reveal his feelings for her? (spoiler alert – it is) In an amazing coincidence, her emergency room doctor is none other than Creepy ME from the first six seasons. I know, right? What were the odds. Well, at least this gives her and Horatio a chance to hang out.

Working under the assumption that the killer returned to set the house on fire (if that’s the case, why not burn it down at the time?), they search the place, and come across a business card for a real estate agent. He explains that he was considering buying the house, and broke in to take a look around. Horatio doesn’t believe the agent or his wife, so he gets DNA and fingerprints from them.

It’s finally time for an autopsy scene, where the new ME announces that they found evidence that the victim was a drug user, as well as skin under his nails. The magic of insta-DNA leads them to another suspect, whose murder accusation occurs before the scene even begins. I have only one question about this suspect, well, two – 1: Why was his name in CODIS, the DNA database, and 2: Who wears a sweater during the summer in Miami?

This is the scene that’s broken up by Callie’s illness, and, rather puzzlingly, no one bothers to finish the interview with sweater-vest to inquire as to why his DNA was on a murder victim.

Then, because god forbid they actually do any investigating, the plot is moved forwards by a techie announcing that the bullets fired at them match a gun those used by a known felon in a robbery some time earlier. One foot chase later and the criminal is under arrest. Naturally the criminal immediately admits to the attempted murder of two police officers, and explains that he burned down the house not to cover up the corpse in the attic, but rather his drug dealing operations. Yup. He saw the crime scene Hummer outside the house, and decided to walk in to an active criminal investigation. Then, when he was able to talk into the house unmolested and grab his drugs from their hiding place, instead of just, you know, leaving, he trapped the cops in the attic, shot at them with a gun, then used a combination of whiskey and an aerosol can in a microwave to set the house on fire.

You may ask why he would do such a thing. That would be an excellent question.

The drug dealer is able to identify the victim is one of his clients, a heroin-addicted doctor who worked at, in another amazing coincidence, the exact hospital Callie is at! Which means Eric doesn’t even have to drive anywhere to interview suspects! Suspect number one? The pharmacist, who was having an affair with the victim!

When they arrive at the victim’s address they find something strange – a makeshift operating room!

Just what was that victim into, anyhow? Illegal organ sales, actually. To fund his drug habit he was finding people who needed kidneys and hooking them up with people who needed money. Also, based on the fact that every surface in the entire room is coated in blood, apparently one of his patients exploded at some point.

Now they have two leads – the doctor had an assistant, and they used a fancy kidney-transporting box. This leads to a preposterous scene where Eric, who can’t be bothered to ask someone to bring him a fingerprint kit, MacGyvers up a homemade one from stuff he finds in the medical supply closet.



That’s right. It’s more important not to waste the ten minutes it would take to get the proper kit there than to risk losing the case in court because the method you used to collect the fingerprint was against all accepted law enforcement techniques, in an unsupervised, contaminated location. Wait, what am I saying? There are no courts in the world of CSI. Everyone just confesses.

Naturally there’s a totally collectible print right on the start button, and it belongs to… Sweater Guy! Yup, didn’t see that coming, did you? Oh, you did? Because his DNA was on the victim which he never even tried to explain and the writers just hoped we’d forget. Ah, right. I forgot that you were paying attention. Sorry. Anyhoo, sweater -vest was both the surgical assistant and the guy who set up the organ selling ring. Which he’s got no reason to confess to, but does, anyway. He also confesses that they lost a patient, essentially admitting to a murder that the police had no evidence of.

You may wonder why he would do this. That is also an excellent question. Hell, he even tells them where they can find the body.



For his sake? How, exactly, is it in his interest that you find the body? Right now you can charge him with accessory to murder based on his confession, which may or may not hold up in court (it’s possible that the character’s intelligence is so low that he’s not legally able to answer questions without a parent or guardian present), and now you’re going to be able to habeus corpus him as well.

Does CSI:Miami operate in a world where prisons are like spas, and people are just desperate to get there at any cost? (note from the future – we never find out what happened to this guy)

There’s another ME scene, this one examining the dumped body, which I’m at a loss to understand how it’s going to impact the case. Oh, wait, through stupidity. Smuggy happens to drop by the morgue and notices that instead of being stitched, the wounds on the victim were stapled! Just like the staple that cut his hand in the attic! Which means the killer must have been the donor!

Another quick DNA test and they discover that the real estate agent was the donor, and therefor must have been the killer! Despite the fact that there’s absolutely no evidence against him other than Smuggy’s story that there was a staple in the attic (evidence that was destroyed in the fire and which they could never produce in court), he immediately confesses to the entire scheme.

Give that we’re only at the 40-minute mark this would be a perfect time to mention that things had wrapped up ‘much quicker than usual’, except that we’ve still got the Callie/Eric subplot to deal with. So let’s do that.

They admit that they like each other.

The End.

Oh, and then Creepy Doc invites Horatio over for a family dinner.

And now it’s time for False accusation theatre – you’ll notice the real estate agent in here, but please note that at the point in the show they had no evidence against him, and were completely wrong about the motive, so I feel it still counts as a false accusation.