CSI: Miami – “Bad Seed” Review by Scott Parker

CSI: Miami – “Bad Seed” Review

October 20th, 2009 by Scott Parker

If I learned one thing about tonight’s CSI: Miami episode, “Bad Seed,” it’s this: always wash produce before eating.

In what may be Eric Delko’s swan song, the show focused on him to a
great extent tonight. He and former ME Alexx are chatting about leaving
MDPD when paramedics barge into the ER. A young woman is on the cart,
her boyfriend, Ethan, trailing behind. In the short scene that follows,
the camera lingers on Eric watching Alexx do her thing as a doctor. To
me, I think Eric was wondering if he was making the right decision to
leave MDPD. Unfortunately, the woman dies on the table. Ethan’s pretty
distraught–he was going to propose and shows Eric the ring–but Alexx is
having none of it. With the steely glare that make her corpses feel
just a little deader, Alexx tells Eric to call Horatio because the girl
was murdered and, in her experience, the number one suspect is right
over there.

What makes a good mystery on an hour-long television cop show like CSI: Miami
is the trail of the evidence and how it plays with the viewer’s
assumptions. Initially, it looks like Ethan’s the bad guy and Eric’s
kicking himself for missing the signs. But then Ethan collapses and my
first impulse is this: it’s the future mother-in-law who doesn’t’ want
her son marrying the girl. Next thing I’m thinking: did Eric touch
something contaminated? Is that how he’s going out? If so, that’s
pretty darn lame.

The CSI team gathers to go over the evidence. I don’t think I’m
alone here in appreciating how well the guys and gals in the MDPD lab
worked as a team during this episode. It was fantastic. Horatio and his
team determined it was E. coli bacteria, and he assigns
various team members to various areas of the investigation. Calleigh
and Eric team up and take on the owner of the restaurant where Ethan
and his bride-to-be last ate. Calleigh and the owner sparred, neither
backing down. Only thing I have to say on that:  that owner is a
bee-yotch! Yow!

The evidence leads our team to fields where the produce is grown.
Jesse, Ryan, and Warren, the Three CSI-kateers, confront the grower,
and you get this fun exchange:

Grower: Show me a warrant

Jesse: Show me the pickers’ green cards.

Grower: Enjoy your investigation.

Naturally, for a crime show, nothing pops positive for E. coli. Next step: the trucker, who, of course, runs when Trip calls out for him.

Trip: Why’d you run?

Trucker: You were chasing me.

Trip: I ran because you ran.

Unfortunately, that was Trip’s only contribution to the program. The
MVP for this episode was Warren. Dude knows his bacteria, where it
comes from, and how it’s distributed. I can’t remember his character’s
bio, but he’s got some serious biological cred with the team. He
determines the bacteria originated from the water, Ryan stepped in some
of the evidence, and Jesse got to trudge up a low rise and find the
culprits. Hint:  they moo and eat corn.

It’s here, in a brilliant “Follow the E. coli” animation reminiscent of the movie Outbreak where we see how E. coli
bacteria get from a cow to your mouth. Yuck! Like I wrote above, I’m
not sure I want to eat a salad from any restaurant now. Eww!

After a cat fight between Horatio and the huge agriculture
corporation’s CEO (H lost. Ouch!), it’s back to teamwork, the
underlying theme of the show. Over and over again, we see the team
working together on one case with no sub-plot. It was a nice change. We
also are treated to a mini-treatise on modern agriculture courtesy of
Warren and, later, the CEO, played by Stephen Culp. Mr. Culp must get a
lot of casting calls to play a-hole hotshots, because he brings his A
Game to this episode. The little snide chuckle as he leaves the station
the first time is nicely swallowed at the end, when Horatio pulls out
the tape recorder, revealing their entire conversation about
“acceptable losses of human life” is okay if it feeds hundreds. Culp’s
CEO makes the case for modern agriculture:  food prices would
skyrocket, people would starve, and the most fundamental of all, people
don’t care where their food comes from. All valid points, to be sure,
but he’s still an arrogant ass about it. Legal scholars out there:  is
what Horatio did legal? Seems shady, but it still makes you pump your
fist in victory.

For all the group activity throughout the episode, it came down to
individuals. Eric and Calleigh, alone in the locker room, have their
talk. It was a little short, to be honest, but Alex Rodriguez and Emily
Proctor do a spectacular job of the awkwardness, the longing for things
to stay the same, and the things left unspoken. Proctor’s Calleigh
barely kept it together as Eric walked out the door. It was a touching
scene. Eric gets to his car and he sees a white piece of paper under
his wiper. A ticket? No. A note from Horatio:  “I’ll always be there. H”

I’ve read some grumbling around the internet about the new guys
crowding out the veterans and, up until this episode, I have to agree.
This episode, however, things appeared to gel. Each member of Horatio’s
CSI team contributed something. All eyes and attention was on the
single case and that was a nice change of pace. After last week’s
lackluster episode, CSI: Miami returned to form with a story and character arcs that just felt right.

I certainly don’t want Eric to leave, but it’s happening. That’ll
leave Horatio and Calleigh (and Trip? Can’t remember if he was an
original or not) as the only constants in the entire series. Change is
never easy, but if they keep producing episodes that are as cohesive as
this one, everything will be fine.

Am I alone in this assessment? Did you like the teamwork on the
single case? Did you like that the murder was one of negligence rather
than violence?

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