Grave Danger
Encyclopedia
"Grave Danger" is the name of the fifth season
finale of the American
crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
, which is set in Las Vegas
, Nevada
. This two parter was directed by Quentin Tarantino
and was aired on May 19, 2005.
This episode features veteran actors Tony Curtis
(himself a resident of Henderson, Nevada
) and Frank Gorshin
as long-time friends of character Sam Braun; Gorshin died only two days before the episode aired in the US. The episode was later dedicated to his memory.
driving down The Strip
at night, listening to Bob Neuwirth
's Lucky Too on the radio. He pulls over at a car park and a uniformed officer leads him to the "body": a set of intestines coiled in an alley. When the officer walks off to be sick, Nick wanders down the alley and spots a styrofoam
coffee cup, already in an evidence bag. As he crouches down to photograph it, he is snatched from behind and a cloth is clamped over his face.
Twenty-five minutes later, police officers and CSIs swarm the scene. Conrad Ecklie, Assistant Director of the Crime Lab, arrives and assures Grissom
and Catherine
that "the crime lab only has one case tonight." As they search the scene, they find Nick's stab vest
, camera and kit lying on the ground. They see the bagged coffee cup and realize that Nick did not bag it.
The scene cuts to earlier that night: Grissom and Sara
are reviewing a past homicide
case, Greg
and Hodges
are playing a Dukes of Hazzard
board game and Nick and Warrick
toss a coin to choose assignments: an assault at a strip club or a "trash run" at the cross of Flamingo and Koval. Nick loses and Warrick leaves for the club, gloating.
Back to the present, police scent dogs track the smell of Nick's vest to an empty parking space on a side street. Warrick notices a void in the fallen rain and takes measurements. With the help of the lab technicians and a dispatch officer
, Warrick determines the getaway vehicle to be a Ford Expedition
and tracks its escape route on the traffic camera video tapes. Doc Robbins
determines that the entrails belong to a dog.
A cutscene shows the kidnapper (as yet unidentified) placing an unconscious Nick in a Plexiglas coffin, throwing in his loaded service pistol, a set of glow sticks—one already lit—and a dictaphone
. The coffin lid closes and earth is shovelled on top of it.
Grissom and the team review: there was no trace on the coffee cup or the evidence bag, although there was ether on a white fiber present on Nick's stab vest. In the corridor, Hodges grapples with a delivery man, who had just delivered a package marked "RE: Stokes." Grissom hurries into the layout room, carrying the package.
The scene cuts to the coffin. Nick wakes up and knocks his head on the coffin lid. He checks the magazine of his pistol and cocks it. He listens to the dictaphone tape. A taunting voice speaks:
The voice then says "okay?" and another voice says "perfect."
Nick panics, twisting to find a way out, hammering on the coffin lid and starts to scream.
At the crime lab
, Grissom opens the package, which contains an audio tape, which mockingly plays Outside Chance by The Turtles
, and a USB key that links to a website; the website shows the message "One million dollars in 12 hours or the CSI dies. Drop-off instructions to follow. And now for your viewing pleasure...you can only WATCH." There is a link on the page which opens a webcam viewer and activates a light in the coffin, broadcasting from the coffin; the CSIs watch on in horror as Nick frantically pounds on the box lid, with the music on the tape playing and telling them that "You don't stand an outside chance." They determine that it is a live feed and Warrick resolves to "keep the light on."
Brass interviews the delivery man, and obtains the address which the package was picked up from: 625 Viking Circle. He and a SWAT
team storm the house, but find only an overweight drunk lying on the couch; the address was picked at random. Back at the lab, Nick's parents, Judge Bill Stokes and his wife Jillian, meet with Grissom, who shows them the webcam link. Meanwhile, Ecklie briefs the staff: the City will not finance the ransom, despite his pleading with his boss, Undersheriff McKeen.
In desperation, Catherine asks her father, casino mogul Sam Braun to donate the money for the ransom. After some hesitation, Braun does turn over $1 million. When Catherine returns to the lab, Grissom is angry that she received the money from a former murder suspect. However, in the absence of other plans, he agrees to deliver the money. Soon afterwards, a message appears on the webcam site, giving an address—4672 Carney Lane, Boulder Highway—and a deadline: "Be there in 20 minutes, or don't bother coming."
Grissom goes alone to Carney Lane; the address is a disused barn. Inside, he sees the corpse of a dog and a white Ford Expedition matching the description of the getaway vehicle. He walks through a door and meets the kidnapper, Walter Gordon (who is not identified by name at this stage). Gordon is skeptical that the money is real and not booby-trapped. He taunts Grissom, reminding him that the police are not supposed to negotiate with terrorists. When he is pressed for Nick's location, he asks:
Gordon opens his jacket, revealing a belt of Semtex
and a detonator. As Grissom backs away, Gordon flips the switch and blows himself up. The episode ends with a shot of Grissom lying on the floor of the barn, splattered with blood, while Sam Braun's money drifts down through the air towards the ground.
Inside the coffin, Nick realizes that every time the CSIs click the "Watch" button, the fan supplying him with air switches off as its power supply is diverted to power the lights. He starts to rage at the unseen viewers for switching on the light. In the AV lab, Warrick watches as Nick suddenly becomes still and plugs his ears with chewing gum. As Nick draws his gun and racks the slide, Warrick leaps to his feet, urging Nick not to fire. In the box, Nick turns the gun away from his own head and shoots out the light by his feet. Warrick yells at the screen until Nick snaps one of the spare glow sticks and can be seen moving around inside the coffin. Grissom enters and comments that "at least Nick's keeping it together."
Meanwhile, Mia and Sara are in the DNA
lab; Mia ran the DNA from the thumb through CODIS and found a partial match to Kelly Gordon, the kidnapper's daughter, who was convicted three years previously of accessory to murder. Grissom looks up the file, and sees that the homicide took place at 625 Viking Circle—where the messenger picked up the package containing the USB key. On the evidence log, they note a styrofoam cup, which contained Kelly's DNA and sealed her conviction. Brass and Sara have her brought to interrogation, and ask her if she knows where Nick is being held. Kelly, bitter because she is being abused by her cellmate, expresses her hope that Nick dies, but also reveals that she used to work in horticulture.
At the crime scene, Warrick loses his temper at Greg due to the lack of progress, and kicks a bucket of liquid at him. When Catherine leaves to talk to Warrick, Greg notices that the liquid is sinking into the ground in some places on the floor, and the team frantically begin to dig. Inside the box, Nick hears cracking noises; thinking it to be a rescue effort, he starts to belt out Lucky Too, the song which he sang in the car at the start of the episode. However, when the CSIs open the box that they found, they find that it is only a prototype, containing a dead dog. Nick looks around inside his coffin and realizes that the cracking noises are the result of his shooting earlier; the box is breaking apart.
Back in the lab, Warrick takes the box apart, confirming that the fan and light were linked. Grissom watches on the monitor as Nick records his goodbyes to his family and friends; he is able to lip read (a skill learned when Grissom was losing his hearing) Nick's words as he apologizes to Grissom for ever disappointing him, possibly a reference to his affair with prostitute Kristy Hopkins. Suddenly, Nick begins to convulse and scream, the team thinks he is starting to go crazy, but Grissom zooms in on the video, and sees fire ants crawling around and on top of Nick.
Later, Nick forces himself to stay still, and plugs his nose and ears with a torn latex glove. Meanwhile, Grissom manages to get a close screenshot of the ants and identifies them as Solenopsis invicta
, a species of fire ant
. These are only present in nurseries in Nevada, as the natural soil is unsuited to them, so he cross-references the Expedition's range and the narrowed webcam trace area to narrow the search area to two nurseries. Sara remembers the comment that Kelly made about her work at a garden center, and the CSIs race to the location.
On site, dozens of officers fan out, and Catherine sweeps the ground with an electronic scanner and soon locks onto the webcam transmitter and finds the vent pipe. Inside, Nick is still being ravaged by fire ants.
The scene cuts to the autopsy room; in black and white, we see Al Robbins
and "Super" Dave Phillips
cheerfully dissecting Nick, who watches dispassionately. Robbins then gives a lecture to Judge Stokes on the cause of death. Nick realises he is hallucinating, and snaps out of this disturbing thought. At this point, Nick is starting to fibrillate due to all of the ant bites. But when he comes to, he is unaware that the CSIs are above him, digging their way to him, and puts his gun against his chin. Just as his finger is tightening on the trigger, Warrick clears away the dirt from the top of the coffin. At his urgings, Nick drops the gun. The team force open one corner of the coffin and use a fire extinguisher
to send in short bursts of carbon dioxide
, killing the ants. However, before they can pull him out, Catherine receives a phone call from David Hodges
; the GCMS
found traces of Semtex
on the underside of the box, attached to a pressure switch. Catherine shouts a warning, and the CSIs run away from the coffin, Warrick somewhat reluctantly. Nick panics as he sees the team leave, but Grissom dives into the hole to calm him. When Nick continues to scream and pound on the box lid, Grissom addresses him as "Pancho," the name that Bill Stokes uses for his son. Nick freezes, and Grissom explains the booby trap to him. He opens the box, but Nick remains lying down. A line is clipped to his belt and a nearby tractor is enlisted to dump 200 pounds of dirt onto the coffin, to equalize the pressure. On Grissom's order, the team pull on the line to get Nick clear and the dirt is released—not fast enough to prevent the explosion, but enough to suppress it and save Nick. As the wounded CSI is bundled into an ambulance, with Catherine and Warrick at his side, Grissom tells Ecklie that he wants his guys back.
A few days later, Nick goes to visit Kelly at Nevada State Prison. She is uninterested in what he has to say at the start, but he manages to get her to listen. He begs her "not to take it with her" when she leaves the jail. Kelly hangs up and leaves, but she later sits awake in her cell, mulling over his words.
with an average of 30.05 million viewers, although as the viewing figures grew throughout the show, it hit a high of 35.15 million. This meant it had twice as many people watching it than its nearest competition, The Apprentice
.
, played by Uma Thurman
, in the Tarantino film Kill Bill
; both are buried alive. In the original broadcast, the two episodes were entitled Volume 1 and Volume 2, mimicking the nomenclature of the Kill Bill films. An exchange between Walter Gordon and Grissom also paraphrases a line from the movie (italics indicate the shared dialogue):
Visually, the episodes have been referred to as "Tarantino-esque...really attentive to detail" by Gary Dourdan
, who plays Warrick. His co-star Marg Helgenberger
opined that "his [Tarantino's] filmmaking style lends itself really well to CSI... there's an enormous amount of close-ups, and it's a very visual show".
Some elements of the episode, such as the pile of intestines that lures Nick to the alley, Walter Gordon's suicide and the black-and-white autopsy scene which Nick imagines when he is trapped in the coffin have been likened to the viscera of Kill Bill and other Tarantino films, and Nick's hallucination of Al Robbins
and David Phillips
conducting his autopsy
is also similar to Tarantino's cinematography in the same film. The use of nonlinear
storytelling at the beginning of the episode (going forwards in time to the search for Nick, back to the early evening and so on) also mimics Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2, which present various elements of the story in a nonlinear order over two films.
Crate 'n Burial is a season 1 episode of CSI which bears many resemblances in terms of plot, to Grave Danger. For example, the kidnapper buries his victim, a businessman's wife, underground in the Nevada desert and demands $2 million for her safe return, on a short deadline of 3 hours. However, the culprit in Crate 'n Burial is after the money, not revenge, and the victim (Laura Garas) was initially an accomplice in a staged kidnapping. One scene from Grave Danger in particular, of Nick hammering on the lid of the coffin and screaming after he hears the dictaphone message, echoes a scene from the earlier episode where the victim wakes up in a box, flicks on a lighter
and seeing her predicament, starts to scream wildly.
.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (season 5)
The fifth season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation premiered on CBS on September 23, 2004 and ended May 19, 2005.-Notable cast members:-Episodes:-External links:* at TVShowsOnDVD.com....
finale of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, which is set in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
. This two parter was directed by Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
and was aired on May 19, 2005.
This episode features veteran actors Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
(himself a resident of Henderson, Nevada
Henderson, Nevada
-Demographics:According to the 2000 census, there were 175,381 people, 66,331 households, and 47,095 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,200.8 people per square mile . There were 71,149 housing units at an average density of 892.8 per square mile...
) and Frank Gorshin
Frank Gorshin
Frank John Gorshin, Jr. was an American actor and comedian. He was perhaps best known as an impressionist, with many guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show...
as long-time friends of character Sam Braun; Gorshin died only two days before the episode aired in the US. The episode was later dedicated to his memory.
Summary
The separated graveyard-shift team join together after one of their own is kidnapped from a crime scene and held for a million dollar ransom by a mysterious and vengeful assailant. However; it soon appears that the kidnapping may be about more than the ransom.Volume 1
The show opens with Nick StokesNick Stokes
Nicholas "Nick" Stokes is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by George Eads. Nick has appeared in every episode except for "Blood Lust" from season three, "Jackpot" and "Butterflied" from season four, "Committed" from season five, and "Spellbound"...
driving down The Strip
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
at night, listening to Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth
Bob Neuwirth is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. A mainstay of the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk scene, he subsequently became a friend and associate of Bob Dylan alongside whom he appears in D.A...
's Lucky Too on the radio. He pulls over at a car park and a uniformed officer leads him to the "body": a set of intestines coiled in an alley. When the officer walks off to be sick, Nick wanders down the alley and spots a styrofoam
Styrofoam
Styrofoam is a trademark of The Dow Chemical Company for closed-cell currently made for thermal insulation and craft applications. In 1941, researchers in Dow's Chemical Physics Lab found a way to make foamed polystyrene...
coffee cup, already in an evidence bag. As he crouches down to photograph it, he is snatched from behind and a cloth is clamped over his face.
Twenty-five minutes later, police officers and CSIs swarm the scene. Conrad Ecklie, Assistant Director of the Crime Lab, arrives and assures Grissom
Gil Grissom
Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom, is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by William Petersen. Grissom was a forensic entomologist and the night-shift supervisor of the Clark County, Nevada CSI team, investigating crimes in and around the city of Las Vegas...
and Catherine
Catherine Willows
Catherine Willows is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by Marg Helgenberger, who has received two Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations for the role...
that "the crime lab only has one case tonight." As they search the scene, they find Nick's stab vest
Stab vest
A stab vest, or stab proof vest is a reinforced piece of body armor, worn under or over other items of clothing, which is designed to resist knife attacks to the chest, back and sides...
, camera and kit lying on the ground. They see the bagged coffee cup and realize that Nick did not bag it.
The scene cuts to earlier that night: Grissom and Sara
Sara Sidle
Sara Sidle is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by actress Jorja Fox. Sidle is a forensic scientist and one of the core characters of the show, which revolves around a crime scene investigation team from Clark County, Nevada that investigates...
are reviewing a past homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
case, Greg
Greg Sanders
Gregory Hojem-Sanders, is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by Eric Szmanda. Greg appeared in every episode, with exception of "Blood Drops", "Fahrenheit 932", "Crate N' Burial" and "Too Tough To Die" from season one, "Cross Jurisdictions" from...
and Hodges
David Hodges (CSI)
David Hodges is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by Wallace Langham. Hodges has a habit of giving far more information than anyone wants to hear while explaining things and is very afraid of germs....
are playing a Dukes of Hazzard
Dukes of Hazzard
The Dukes of Hazzard is an American television series that aired on the CBS television network from 1979 to 1985.The series was inspired by the 1975 film Moonrunners, which was also created by Gy Waldron and had many identical or similar character names and concepts.- Overview :The Dukes of Hazzard...
board game and Nick and Warrick
Warrick Brown
Warrick Brown is a fictional character in the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by Gary Dourdan. Warrick appeared in every episode until his death in season nine, with the exceptions of "After the Show" from season four, "Crow's Feet" and "Committed" from season five, and...
toss a coin to choose assignments: an assault at a strip club or a "trash run" at the cross of Flamingo and Koval. Nick loses and Warrick leaves for the club, gloating.
Back to the present, police scent dogs track the smell of Nick's vest to an empty parking space on a side street. Warrick notices a void in the fallen rain and takes measurements. With the help of the lab technicians and a dispatch officer
Dispatcher
Dispatchers are communications personnel responsible for receiving and transmitting pure and reliable messages, tracking vehicles and equipment, and recording other important information...
, Warrick determines the getaway vehicle to be a Ford Expedition
Ford Expedition
The Ford Expedition is a full-size SUV built by the Ford Motor Company. Introduced in 1997 as a replacement to the Ford Bronco, it was previously slotted between the smaller Ford Explorer and the larger Ford Excursion, but as of the 2005 model year, it is Ford's largest and last truck-based,...
and tracks its escape route on the traffic camera video tapes. Doc Robbins
Al Robbins
Dr. Albert "Al" Robbins M.D. is a fictional medical doctor in the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by actor Robert David Hall...
determines that the entrails belong to a dog.
A cutscene shows the kidnapper (as yet unidentified) placing an unconscious Nick in a Plexiglas coffin, throwing in his loaded service pistol, a set of glow sticks—one already lit—and a dictaphone
Dictaphone
Dictaphone was an American company, a producer of dictation machines—sound recording devices most commonly used to record speech for later playback or to be typed into print. The name "Dictaphone" is a trademark, but in some places it has also become a common way to refer to all such devices, and...
. The coffin lid closes and earth is shovelled on top of it.
Grissom and the team review: there was no trace on the coffee cup or the evidence bag, although there was ether on a white fiber present on Nick's stab vest. In the corridor, Hodges grapples with a delivery man, who had just delivered a package marked "RE: Stokes." Grissom hurries into the layout room, carrying the package.
The scene cuts to the coffin. Nick wakes up and knocks his head on the coffin lid. He checks the magazine of his pistol and cocks it. He listens to the dictaphone tape. A taunting voice speaks:
"Hi, CSI guy. You wondering why you're here?
Because you followed the evidence. Because that's what CSIs do. So breathe
quick, breathe slow, put your gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Any way
you like, you're going to die here."
The voice then says "okay?" and another voice says "perfect."
Nick panics, twisting to find a way out, hammering on the coffin lid and starts to scream.
At the crime lab
Crime Lab
A crime laboratory - often shortened to crime lab - is a scientific laboratory, using primarily forensic science for the purpose of examining evidence from criminal cases.- Lab personnel :A typical crime lab has two sets of personnel:...
, Grissom opens the package, which contains an audio tape, which mockingly plays Outside Chance by The Turtles
The Turtles
The Turtles are an American rock group led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The band became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with its cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965...
, and a USB key that links to a website; the website shows the message "One million dollars in 12 hours or the CSI dies. Drop-off instructions to follow. And now for your viewing pleasure...you can only WATCH." There is a link on the page which opens a webcam viewer and activates a light in the coffin, broadcasting from the coffin; the CSIs watch on in horror as Nick frantically pounds on the box lid, with the music on the tape playing and telling them that "You don't stand an outside chance." They determine that it is a live feed and Warrick resolves to "keep the light on."
Brass interviews the delivery man, and obtains the address which the package was picked up from: 625 Viking Circle. He and a SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
team storm the house, but find only an overweight drunk lying on the couch; the address was picked at random. Back at the lab, Nick's parents, Judge Bill Stokes and his wife Jillian, meet with Grissom, who shows them the webcam link. Meanwhile, Ecklie briefs the staff: the City will not finance the ransom, despite his pleading with his boss, Undersheriff McKeen.
In desperation, Catherine asks her father, casino mogul Sam Braun to donate the money for the ransom. After some hesitation, Braun does turn over $1 million. When Catherine returns to the lab, Grissom is angry that she received the money from a former murder suspect. However, in the absence of other plans, he agrees to deliver the money. Soon afterwards, a message appears on the webcam site, giving an address—4672 Carney Lane, Boulder Highway—and a deadline: "Be there in 20 minutes, or don't bother coming."
Grissom goes alone to Carney Lane; the address is a disused barn. Inside, he sees the corpse of a dog and a white Ford Expedition matching the description of the getaway vehicle. He walks through a door and meets the kidnapper, Walter Gordon (who is not identified by name at this stage). Gordon is skeptical that the money is real and not booby-trapped. He taunts Grissom, reminding him that the police are not supposed to negotiate with terrorists. When he is pressed for Nick's location, he asks:
"What does Nick Stokes mean to you? How do you feel when you see him in that coffin? Does your soul die every time you push that button? How do you feel, knowing that there's nothing you can do to get him out of that hell? Helpless? Useless? Impotent? Good. Welcome to my world."
Gordon opens his jacket, revealing a belt of Semtex
Semtex
Semtex is a general-purpose plastic explosive containing RDX and PETN. It is used in commercial blasting, demolition, and in certain military applications. Semtex became notoriously popular with terrorists because it was, until recently, extremely difficult to detect, as in the case of Pan Am...
and a detonator. As Grissom backs away, Gordon flips the switch and blows himself up. The episode ends with a shot of Grissom lying on the floor of the barn, splattered with blood, while Sam Braun's money drifts down through the air towards the ground.
Volume 2
After the prime suspect blows himself up, Grissom and the team must continue to find Nick using the evidence they have managed to put together. Greg and Warrick tap into the Explorer's trip computer to narrow down a search radius, Catherine collects up Sam's money and Sara finds the kidnapper's amputated thumb, but on returning to the lab she cannot match the print.Inside the coffin, Nick realizes that every time the CSIs click the "Watch" button, the fan supplying him with air switches off as its power supply is diverted to power the lights. He starts to rage at the unseen viewers for switching on the light. In the AV lab, Warrick watches as Nick suddenly becomes still and plugs his ears with chewing gum. As Nick draws his gun and racks the slide, Warrick leaps to his feet, urging Nick not to fire. In the box, Nick turns the gun away from his own head and shoots out the light by his feet. Warrick yells at the screen until Nick snaps one of the spare glow sticks and can be seen moving around inside the coffin. Grissom enters and comments that "at least Nick's keeping it together."
Meanwhile, Mia and Sara are in the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
lab; Mia ran the DNA from the thumb through CODIS and found a partial match to Kelly Gordon, the kidnapper's daughter, who was convicted three years previously of accessory to murder. Grissom looks up the file, and sees that the homicide took place at 625 Viking Circle—where the messenger picked up the package containing the USB key. On the evidence log, they note a styrofoam cup, which contained Kelly's DNA and sealed her conviction. Brass and Sara have her brought to interrogation, and ask her if she knows where Nick is being held. Kelly, bitter because she is being abused by her cellmate, expresses her hope that Nick dies, but also reveals that she used to work in horticulture.
At the crime scene, Warrick loses his temper at Greg due to the lack of progress, and kicks a bucket of liquid at him. When Catherine leaves to talk to Warrick, Greg notices that the liquid is sinking into the ground in some places on the floor, and the team frantically begin to dig. Inside the box, Nick hears cracking noises; thinking it to be a rescue effort, he starts to belt out Lucky Too, the song which he sang in the car at the start of the episode. However, when the CSIs open the box that they found, they find that it is only a prototype, containing a dead dog. Nick looks around inside his coffin and realizes that the cracking noises are the result of his shooting earlier; the box is breaking apart.
Back in the lab, Warrick takes the box apart, confirming that the fan and light were linked. Grissom watches on the monitor as Nick records his goodbyes to his family and friends; he is able to lip read (a skill learned when Grissom was losing his hearing) Nick's words as he apologizes to Grissom for ever disappointing him, possibly a reference to his affair with prostitute Kristy Hopkins. Suddenly, Nick begins to convulse and scream, the team thinks he is starting to go crazy, but Grissom zooms in on the video, and sees fire ants crawling around and on top of Nick.
Later, Nick forces himself to stay still, and plugs his nose and ears with a torn latex glove. Meanwhile, Grissom manages to get a close screenshot of the ants and identifies them as Solenopsis invicta
Red imported fire ant
See main article Fire ant.The red imported fire ant , or simply RIFA, is one of over 280 species in the widespread genus Solenopsis...
, a species of fire ant
Fire ant
Fire ants are a variety of stinging ants with over 285 species worldwide. They have several common names, including ginger ants, tropical fire ants and red ants.- Appearance :...
. These are only present in nurseries in Nevada, as the natural soil is unsuited to them, so he cross-references the Expedition's range and the narrowed webcam trace area to narrow the search area to two nurseries. Sara remembers the comment that Kelly made about her work at a garden center, and the CSIs race to the location.
On site, dozens of officers fan out, and Catherine sweeps the ground with an electronic scanner and soon locks onto the webcam transmitter and finds the vent pipe. Inside, Nick is still being ravaged by fire ants.
The scene cuts to the autopsy room; in black and white, we see Al Robbins
Al Robbins
Dr. Albert "Al" Robbins M.D. is a fictional medical doctor in the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by actor Robert David Hall...
and "Super" Dave Phillips
David Phillips (CSI)
David Gregory Phillips is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by David Berman, who also serves as head researcher for the series....
cheerfully dissecting Nick, who watches dispassionately. Robbins then gives a lecture to Judge Stokes on the cause of death. Nick realises he is hallucinating, and snaps out of this disturbing thought. At this point, Nick is starting to fibrillate due to all of the ant bites. But when he comes to, he is unaware that the CSIs are above him, digging their way to him, and puts his gun against his chin. Just as his finger is tightening on the trigger, Warrick clears away the dirt from the top of the coffin. At his urgings, Nick drops the gun. The team force open one corner of the coffin and use a fire extinguisher
Fire extinguisher
A fire extinguisher or extinguisher, flame entinguisher is an active fire protection device used to extinguish or control small fires, often in emergency situations...
to send in short bursts of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
, killing the ants. However, before they can pull him out, Catherine receives a phone call from David Hodges
David Hodges (CSI)
David Hodges is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by Wallace Langham. Hodges has a habit of giving far more information than anyone wants to hear while explaining things and is very afraid of germs....
; the GCMS
Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry
Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry is a method that combines the features of gas-liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify different substances within a test sample. Applications of GC-MS include drug detection, fire investigation, environmental analysis, explosives investigation,...
found traces of Semtex
Semtex
Semtex is a general-purpose plastic explosive containing RDX and PETN. It is used in commercial blasting, demolition, and in certain military applications. Semtex became notoriously popular with terrorists because it was, until recently, extremely difficult to detect, as in the case of Pan Am...
on the underside of the box, attached to a pressure switch. Catherine shouts a warning, and the CSIs run away from the coffin, Warrick somewhat reluctantly. Nick panics as he sees the team leave, but Grissom dives into the hole to calm him. When Nick continues to scream and pound on the box lid, Grissom addresses him as "Pancho," the name that Bill Stokes uses for his son. Nick freezes, and Grissom explains the booby trap to him. He opens the box, but Nick remains lying down. A line is clipped to his belt and a nearby tractor is enlisted to dump 200 pounds of dirt onto the coffin, to equalize the pressure. On Grissom's order, the team pull on the line to get Nick clear and the dirt is released—not fast enough to prevent the explosion, but enough to suppress it and save Nick. As the wounded CSI is bundled into an ambulance, with Catherine and Warrick at his side, Grissom tells Ecklie that he wants his guys back.
A few days later, Nick goes to visit Kelly at Nevada State Prison. She is uninterested in what he has to say at the start, but he manages to get her to listen. He begs her "not to take it with her" when she leaves the jail. Kelly hangs up and leaves, but she later sits awake in her cell, mulling over his words.
Reception
When first screened in the US, this episode was number one on the Nielsen ratingsNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
with an average of 30.05 million viewers, although as the viewing figures grew throughout the show, it hit a high of 35.15 million. This meant it had twice as many people watching it than its nearest competition, The Apprentice
The Apprentice (U.S. TV series)
The Apprentice is an American reality television show hosted by real estate magnate, businessman and television personality Donald Trump, created by Mark Burnett and broadcast on NBC...
.
To other Tarantino works
As stated above, Nick's situation echoes that of The BrideBeatrix Kiddo
Beatrix Kiddo, primarily known as "The Bride", is a fictional character and the protagonist in the movie Kill Bill by American director Quentin Tarantino...
, played by Uma Thurman
Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman is an American actress and model. She has performed in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action movies. Among her best-known roles are those in the Quentin Tarantino films Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill...
, in the Tarantino film Kill Bill
Kill Bill
Kill Bill Volume 1 is a 2003 action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart, the second volume being Kill Bill Volume 2....
; both are buried alive. In the original broadcast, the two episodes were entitled Volume 1 and Volume 2, mimicking the nomenclature of the Kill Bill films. An exchange between Walter Gordon and Grissom also paraphrases a line from the movie (italics indicate the shared dialogue):
- Gordon:You're telling me there's a million dollars in there? Along with some cute little booby traps? Which is it, a tracer, a dye pack
Dye packA dye pack is a radio-controlled incendiary device used by some banks to preemptively foil a bank robbery by causing stolen cash to be permanently marked with red dye shortly after a robbery....
?- Grissom: Normally you'd be 100 percent right, but this time you're 100 percent wrong.
Visually, the episodes have been referred to as "Tarantino-esque...really attentive to detail" by Gary Dourdan
Gary Dourdan
Gary Robert Dourdan is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Warrick Brown on the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.-Early years:...
, who plays Warrick. His co-star Marg Helgenberger
Marg Helgenberger
Mary Marg Helgenberger is an American film and television actress known for her roles as Catherine Willows in the CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and as K.C...
opined that "his [Tarantino's] filmmaking style lends itself really well to CSI... there's an enormous amount of close-ups, and it's a very visual show".
Some elements of the episode, such as the pile of intestines that lures Nick to the alley, Walter Gordon's suicide and the black-and-white autopsy scene which Nick imagines when he is trapped in the coffin have been likened to the viscera of Kill Bill and other Tarantino films, and Nick's hallucination of Al Robbins
Al Robbins
Dr. Albert "Al" Robbins M.D. is a fictional medical doctor in the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by actor Robert David Hall...
and David Phillips
David Phillips (CSI)
David Gregory Phillips is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by David Berman, who also serves as head researcher for the series....
conducting his autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
is also similar to Tarantino's cinematography in the same film. The use of nonlinear
Nonlinear (arts)
Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, hypertext websites and other narratives, wherein events are portrayed out of chronological order...
storytelling at the beginning of the episode (going forwards in time to the search for Nick, back to the early evening and so on) also mimics Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2, which present various elements of the story in a nonlinear order over two films.
To Crate 'n Burial
Lighter
A lighter is a portable device used to generate a flame. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable fluid or pressurized liquid gas, a means of ignition, and some provision for extinguishing the flame.- History :...
and seeing her predicament, starts to scream wildly.
Continuity
Related episodes include:- Daddy's Little Girl, with the character Kelly Gordon
- Crate 'n Burial, a Season 1 episode with a similar storyline
Awards
Tarantino was nominated for the 2005 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama SeriesPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series is an Emmy presented to the best directing of a television drama series.-Best Direction of a Single Program of a Drama Series:*1959: Jack Smight – Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre ...
.
See also
- List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes
- List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation characters
- Minor characters in CSI: Crime Scene InvestigationMinor characters in CSI: Crime Scene InvestigationThe following are minor and recurring characters from the television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.-Current:LVMPD: Undersheriff Conrad Ecklie...
External links
- "Grave Danger" at CSI Files