CSI MIami Episode 718

I hope you haven’t had your fill of preposterous murders, because this week’s episode is just extra-crazy. It starts when a bloody corpse falls out onto a baggage carousel, and it just gets weirder from there. Okay, it actually gets less weird from there, but still, that’s a nice idea, right?

The team begin investigating the scene, and discover the victim was a first-class flight attendant who someone got drunk, put in a ski case, and then loaded onto the luggage conveyor belt. The luggage attendant is no help, explaining that all he did was load some cases onto a belt. Smuggy ridiculously decides to charge him with possession of stolen goods, because he’s already begun the process of selling some skis he found in the plane online. Seriously? He didn’t even bring them home, just went straight to eBay? That guy deserves to be in jail.

The ME announces that she was drugged with a special kind of sleeping pill that’s only available in Europe. She’s also got a cigarette burn on her hand. Ouch. The cigarette is quickly located in the plane’s bathroom, because the smoker wasn’t smart enough to flush it. A quick montage nets them a suspect’s fingerprint, and the second of the episode’s people to falsely accuse.

Searching the plane they find a secret access hatch that they assume the attendant must have been moved through, which gives them the key information that the killer must have been familiar enough with the plane to know about the panel. It turns out the panel was right at the feet of an Air Marshall, but he explains that he has to monitor a beligerent passenger at the end of the flight, so he didn’t see anything.

Still more searching of the plane reveals a whole lot of empty liquor bottles behind the victim’s seat – she was likely drinking during the whole trip! Then they run into another stewardess who’s oddly cold about the whole situation. Science then reveals that the pilot had sex with the victim, and a quick interview with him later, the team knows about a secret compartment over the cockpit full of beds and televisions that the crew uses to relax in. If by ‘relax’ you mean ‘have orgies’.

In the love nest they find more of the sleeping pills that the victim was doped with – another flight attendant explains that it’s a pretty common thing for flight attendants to dope themselves up during a flight. She also lets it drop that someone was stalking the victim and taking creepy pictures, then mailing them to her. At no point during their interview with the flight attendant do they accuse her of murder, which means she must be the killer, if the pattern I just made up is holding. Of course, they didn’t accuse the Air Marshall, either, so I’m not sure what’s going on.

Taking a look at the creepy-stalker note gives them an opportunity to once again use science to their advantage. After spending an interminably long time pray at the altar of science (as you’ll see in the montage collection), science responds with an answer – the smoker is the stalker! He admits his love, but claims that he didn’t kill her. Since this is the second time he’s been accused of murder, he can’t be the killer.

Going through the stalker’s pictures they come across shots of the oddly cold attendant getting the victim really drunk. But then Eric goes and accuses her of murder, so she can’t be the killer. A much better suspect is the Air Marshall, who proves to have been smuggling sleeping pills through customs. Although, since he was on a San Diego/Miami flight, I’m not sure why he was worried about customs. Wouldn’t it have just been safer to swing by the post office and mail the pills to yourself after getting them into America?

Back on the plane the team comes across a bit of blood, which proves to belong to the friendly stewardess they didn’t accuse of murder. They have another interview with her, and once again they don’t accuse her of murder. But they’re still suspicious. And a quick trip to the altar of science they establish that a drop of the flight attendant’s blood may have fallen on the victim’s shirt!

Now it’s time for the confession, and it’s plenty stupid. It seems that she’d never intended to kill the victim, but after the victim accidentally found out about the drug-smuggling scheme, she figured there had to be a way to discredit the victim’s testimony. That method? Dropping her head first eight feet down onto a metal floor, jamming her into a possibly air-tight ski case and putting her through the luggage terminal. Because attempted murder is a less serious crime than bringing sleeping pills into the country.

And that’s the end of the episode. Now, for your viewing pleasure, here is, perhaps, the most time-wastingest montages that they’ve ever put on the show-



And now, False Accusation Theatre!