CSI Miami Episode 720

Time for another non-standard episode of CSI! This one opens with the freshly-tortured smuggy being tossed out of a van. A series of flashbacks reveal that the mob feels smuggy owes them money because he helped the horse doctor escape back in the horseracing episode, and now they need him to spike a case for them. He refuses to help at first, then concedes when they pull out a tooth and threaten to kill the horse doctor’s son.

The murder he’s supposed to cover up happens almost immediately – a broker is shot in his office by a thief, who then para-jumps off the roof of the building. Which isn’t a crazy plan, actually. They come up with a couple of clues right away – the bullet is still there on the scene, but it’s too mangled to be useful. Smuggy pockets a shell casing, while Eric collects some suspiciously purple water from the pool upstairs. The broker’s assistant explains that her boss’ job was to have cash on hand to exchange with shady foreigners, and mentions that two million dollars are missing from the office safe. They accuse her of murder a little, but not so intensively that she’s cleared of any involvement.

Using a ridiculous amount of science, Eric comes to the unbelievably obvious conclusion that the para-jumper must have landed on top of the parking garage across the street. Even more conveniently, there proves to be DNA on the tiny fragment of parachute that snagged on a nearby fence, allowing them to immediately identify a suspect. Wait, there was skin on a parachute? How? Smuggy gets a call from the Russian mob, reminding him to get the para-jumper out of jail before the kid dies. How does he do this? By asking the para-jumper a leading question about how DNA could have gotten on the chute.

While he’s supposed to be spiking the case, smuggy does the decent thing and also examines his clothes from the kidnapping, looking for evidence of where he was held, hoping that will lead him to the people who have the kid. Smuggy finally gets the horse doc on the phone, and somehow neglects to ask him the key question “Why on earth did you come back to the city where all the mobsters who want to kill you live? Were you having trouble finding other horses to doctor? They have horses in other cities, you know. Is Miami really even that big of a horse-racing town?” Okay, that was a couple of questions. But my point is that none of them get asked.

Smuggy then gets back to work ruining the CSI’s case, producing a set of false fingerprints that he can plant all over the evidence. I’m not sure why they think they’ll get fingerprints at all. What’s the likelihood that someone would go into an office to murder someone, crack a safe, and jump off a roof without wearing gloves? Smuggy succeeds in framing the building’s security guard – this is the point when I started wondering why smuggy wasn’t bringing Horatio in on the kidnapping. Horse doc takes care of this, though, walking into the police station and demanding to know what’s going on with his son’s case.

Finally he offers an explanation for why he comes back – he felt guilty about smuggy taking over his debt. A large question that goes unanswered: Why did smuggy ‘take over’ that debt? It’s not like the Russian mob has a legal, enforceable debt. Sure, they can muscle people, but smuggy works for an invincible supercop with no oversight of any kind – so what’s the downside in welshing on a debt? Smuggy confesses to Horatio, and announces that he’s happy to face punishment once the child has been rescued. Again, if he’d just brought Horatio in on this from the beginning he would have no doubt just helped create a fake investigation to trick the mobsters. You know, like he and smuggy did when they faked Horatio’s death a few months back. Doesn’t Horatio still owe smuggy for that, actually?

A little more science finally clears the security guard of involvement. There was a smear of gunshot residue on his jacket, and he remembers the broker’s assistant touching him that morning after the murder! So she must be the killer! She denies it, of course, but don’t they all?

Horatio swings by the kidnapped child’s school and comes up with a video of the kidnapping. There just happens to be a license plate visible on the truck, which leads Horatio to the Sugar refinery where smuggy was held! Inside Horatio finds the base-jumper, right as he’s busy burying the money. No sign of the boy, though, so Horatio threatens the base-jumper with being turned over to the mob as a snitch.

Together they drive to the Russian Mob hideout, where Horatio engages in a Jack 24-style one-man raid on the facility. Except he doesn’t shoot all of the mobsters. But it’s still thrilling. After Horatio has killed the kidnapper it’s not addressed in the least how he and the child make it out of the building full of armed criminals unmolested, but I think we'’e not supposed to worry about things like that. Back at the office they find a fingerprint linking the assistant to the crime. Because she’s not smart enough to have worn gloves while preparing for and committing the crime. Or washing her hands with bleach after it.

The assistant is dragged off to jail, as, presumably, is the para-jumper, who was too stupid to negotiate a deal before leading Horatio to the kid.

THE END