CSI: Miami – “Bolt Action” Review

Leave it to the folks at CSI: Miami to give the ladies at home something young, taut, and male upon which to feast their eyes. Four hot (so I’ve heard) young studs playing beach volleyball, shirtless (natch) in front of a bunch of gorgeous cougars. In the crowd, none other than Cheryl Ladd, looking radiant as ever, although it appeared she was drinking a beer with a straw. The ladies on the beach cheer, they applaud, they probably take bets on who lands which young man later that night. Except something happens: three of the guys clutch their chests in pain. Three guys fall over, dead, one guy, spooked and scared, yells for someone to call 911. Jesse and Ryan show up and soon find copper sulfate. Jesse mentions that there’s no reason for the sulfate to even be in the sand. Ryan, stealing the intro quip from Horatio, replies with “No innocent reason.”

Horatio arrives at Cheryl Ladd’s house (she’s Amanda in this episode) and guess who her husband is? Jack Shepherd’s dad from Lost. Wonder if the Losties will figure out a way to integrate all the guests appearances of the actors in various shows. Another new guest star is the new ME, Christian Clemenson, late of Boston Legal. I’m guessing the CSI producers wanted Clemenson’s Jerry Esperson character (the one with Asperger syndrome) because Clemenson’s ME seemed a bit too eager to please Horatio, so eager, in fact, that he missed a vital clue: all three victims were electrocuted in the feet. Bizarre. Now, at this stage, the camera clearly showed the fourth volleyball player, the one that survived, wearing shoes of some sort. I immediately thought he was the culprit. For once, however, a character didn’t return. Guess I can’t be right every time.

Calleigh and Jesse return to the crime scene, and Calleigh’s just out of it. She’s distant and only focusing on work by a thread. Turns out that she has to testify to square-jawed Rick Stetler (dude’s wearing red on red; made him seem overtly devilish, don’t you think?) in the internal investigation into Eric Delko’s actions last season. They can’t speak to each other at all so their colleagues, like Ryan, seem to think she’s freezing Delko out. She had a reason to feel shut out since it seemed Delko broke up with her through the interview. That’s cold. And was it only me or did the room where the interviews with Rick were held look not unlike the shrink’s office from Monk?

Ryan gets the task of playing dumb this week. He’s the only one in the country who doesn’t know what a cougar is. Thanks to Natalia, he nows knows. “Oh.” He’s also clueless about how invisible braces can leave a mark on a guy’s chest. “Ooh.” Then he’s the guy who states the obvious to Calleigh: you both could lose your jobs. Gee, thanks, Ryan. Way to get all positive on the situation.

Horatio makes another cameo in his own show as he and the ME realize that for one of the studs, the electricity entered his body through conductive body paint. Whoa! Who’d do that? Tia Carrere would, and she explains to Natalia and Trip (hey! another cameo from a regular series guy!) how she and Peter the Stud were “experimenting.” Uh, right. Leave it to television crime writers to take a perfectly harmless invention and make it a murder weapon. Yeah!

A lightening strike is the phenomena that starts the electricity flowing, and a lightening rod is the likely conductor. Horatio deduces that golf clubs were rigged on a lifeguard stand to conduct the juice. Trip’s response is one of his best: “That’s great. Golf clubs. Every man, woman, and child in Florida plays golf before lunch.” He may not be featured on every episode as much as I like, but actor Rex Linn makes the most of his lines. And is Trip getting funnier as the seasons roll on? I think so.

During her interrogation, Tia Carrere takes umbrage at the word “cougar” and rightly so. To her, she’s offended when an older woman is with a younger man and everyone thinks it’s all about the sex drive, whereas when it’s the opposite, it’s all okay. She loved her guy, even if he wasn’t all that monogamous to her. Her words struck home when the culprit is revealed to be Cheryl Ladd’s husband, a guy we’ve seen on his own boat with a young little thing. Tiffany? Whatever. As he confessed, he dogged Ladd’s character for her flaunting and flirting with younger men. As a man, I was flabbergasted that he’d play that card. And then, when she called him on it, he had the gall to say “Because I’m a man.” Dude! That’s just wrong.

On the personal level, Jesse had two great moments as we learn more about his character. In one, we see him and Calleigh in the lab, searching through the family laundry. He jokes with Calleigh about internal affairs and gets her to laugh. He’s the good cop, being positive, to Ryan’s dense cop, stating the worst-case scenario. Later, when Jesse’s standing with Ladd having just proven her husband was the murderer, he says, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t have to do that, but that one little moment shows us why Horatio likes Jesse. I know folks are going to miss the relationship with Eric and Horatio. I think the Jesse/Horatio relationship could hold water.

Lastly, I enjoyed the repartee between Calleigh and Eric at the end. “You drove a car at me!” “You shot a gun at me!” Truce? Sure. Swak! (Seriously, where was the kiss, man?) Guess they’re prepping us for Eric not to be around much.

I know you have to introduce new characters and give them screen time to establish them but I missed Horatio this episode. And Ryan. And Calleigh. It’s like they were guest stars in their own show. I didn’t even mention Omar Miller, another new cast member. His scenes with Jesse–especially at the cougar bar–were dang funny.

What did you think of this episode? Did you like the new characters of Miller and Clemenson? How about Jesse working in the crime lab? You liking him better or not? And are you ready for some more scenes with the regulars?