Spoilers ahead for the November 10 episode of CSI: Vegas on CBS, called “Funhouse.”
CSI: Vegas served up a crime scene that was decidedly less than fun with “Funhouse” with a murderer who killed victims and dressed them up as clowns. Folsom and Allie were more or less on their own while the crime lab was on lockdown, and Sara and Grissom seemed on the verge of finding the person who framed Hodges within their own ranks. By the end of the episode, they were closer to finding the culprit, but Folsom and Allie encountered a murderer who revealed a horrifying new threat of what will happen if they don’t crack Hodges’ case.
Folsom and Allie ran into obstacle after obstacle while trying to track the murderer, when all signs pointed toward a serial killer who was already behind bars. The murders had to be the act of a copycat, but it wasn’t that straightforward, because the terrifying Jeremiah Dalt’s fingerprints were on some of the clues. They ultimately figured out what had happened with the reveal that Dalt had been convicted due to evidence given by Hodges, so there was the very real possibility that he could get out on a technicality if Hodges is found guilty.
And that possibility of getting out of prison gave him leverage on people who normally wouldn’t commit any serious crimes, let alone the kind of gruesome murders that Dalt was known for. He pressured people into doing his bidding by saying that he would kill them and their families once he was out of prison, and it’s easy to see why they caved to him. With the odds quite good that the evidence against him will be thrown out and considering his reputation for cruelty, why would anybody want to make an enemy of him?
Dalt himself won’t be getting out of prison to make good on any of his threats now that he committed some crimes that Hodges hasn’t touched, but Dalt made a point that was very unfortunately valid. He’s not the only bad guy who knows that he has a ticket to freedom if Hodges is found guilty of faking evidence, and other bad guys could take advantage of that in the same way that Dalt did.
If Sara and Grissom don’t catch the person who framed Hodges soon, then they could be dealing with more than just criminals falling back into old habits once they hit the streets again. They could have to deal with criminals already causing harm from behind bars thanks to the implication that it’s only a matter of time before they’re free to strike out at the people who didn’t do as they were told.
Not everybody would break and kill or attack or commit any other crimes because a person behind bars instructed them to, but “Funhouse” proved that it can work in some very deadly ways. As Dalt said, they have “no idea what’s coming” if all the bad guys who Hodges put away are freed. Luckily, Sara and Grissom made some major progress in tracking down the man who framed Hodges.
After some false starts in “Funhouse,” they found some dandruff that belonged to the man who presumably started the whole mess, and he wasn’t a CSI tech after all. Instead, he’s the lawyer who stands to make a whole lot of money if Hodges is found guilty and his criminal clients are freed. He’s not a lab tech himself, but has enough experience working on cases to have an idea of how things work when it comes to crime scenes.
They don’t have enough evidence at this point to make their case in court, but their chances of clearing Hodges’ name seem better than ever. Sara and Grissom just need to keep on chasing leads with whatever help they can get to make sure that Dalt recruiting people to kill for him is a one-off case that never happens with anybody else again!
See what happens next with new episodes of CSI: Vegas on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. The show is still balancing cases of the week with the serialized story of the case against Hodges, so be sure to keep on watching to see the new kinds of cases that the techs come across as the first season keeps rolling out new episodes in the fall TV season.
