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Things aren’t quite what they seem on ‘CSI’

A dead Fed, red Incredible Hulk, and sex trafficking all add up to one incredibly strange episode of the forensic drama.
/ Source: msnbc.com

More than a flesh wound: Not everything was as it seemed on this episode of “CSI.” We thought our murder victim was FBI agent William Ray Hatford, who was pummeled to death by a man that a local stoner described as looking like a “Red Incredible Hulk.” The Red Incredible Hulk turned out to be Vinnie Mingus, a Supreme Force Fighter, who had pumped himself so full of steroids that not only did he rip off Hatford’s arm, he cut off some of his own muscle at the scene. Hunk of flesh: Now that’s a real clue.

Fake Bureau of Investigation: Hatford had a couple partners, Miles and Emma, who seemed very professional. They told Brass that they had been working a sex trafficking case with Hatford, and even took the CSIs back to their headquarters. They had logs, surveillance tapes, everything you’d need to run a case. Except for one thing: They weren’t real Feds. And though the CSI team didn’t realize it, Vinnie Mingus did. So when the cops went after Vinnie for Hatford’s murder, he assumed their guns were fake, took one of them and pointed it at his own head and fired. But, um, yep, those guns were real. Bye, Vinnie.

Woman down: The man running the sex-slavery ring (his name was “The Fist” in Portuguese) didn’t care if the Feds were fakes, he wanted to kill them all anyway. And Emma was quickly dispatched next.

Halfway to sanity: It was then that the CSIs learned they’d been fooled, and traced all three “Feds” to a halfway house. They discovered that Emma was a former prostitute who’d tried to commit suicide, and that Miles had come to the halfway house via the Central Nevada Psychiatric Hospital. Miles tried to convince them he was undercover and that they had to pretend to arrest them. Ray convinced a frustrated Brass to go along with this request. But when they got outside, one of The Fist’s henchman took a shot at Miles. Brass shot him first, though. “I’m putting you in for a commendation,” Miles told him. “Shut up, you wackjob,” Brass replied.

A good deed? Looking through the fake Feds' logbooks, Nick and Riley wondered what the alphabetic codes meant. They might be able to solve the murder of a prostitute named Rio if they could figure them out. Ray went to talk to a despondent Miles, who was facing 15 to 20 years in prison for impersonating a Fed. “I think you and Emma and Billy Ray were trying to clean up your corner of the world and do some good,” Ray told him. Miles finally revealed his complicated code of initials meant: “Little Guy Dropped Gun Down Sewer – Unable to Apprehend Perp” and the gun was labeled “Gun Little Bastard Dropped – Gonna Nail His Ass Someday.”

Tonight’s forensics lesson: Wendy showed Ray how to swab a gun to check for blood. She had him check the grip, magazine and the opening with a swab, and then wet the swab with Phenol. The opening had a trace of blood, which lead them to Mingus’ fight doctor, who was wanted by Interpol and posing as “The Fist.”

Chasing windmills: Ray (Laurence Fishburne) may not be Gil Grissom, but he is definitely the most empathetic CSI we’ve met. He brought Miles a copy of “Don Quixote” to read in prison. Miles noted that even though Quixote regained his sanity, he always stayed melancholy and ultimately died alone. “Well, they didn’t have antidepressants back in those days,” Ray told him. “Those windmills you tilted at, they really were giants.”

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