Spoilers ahead for the fourth episode of CSI: Vegas, called “Long Pig.”
Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle returning to their old stomping grounds to try and clear Hodges’ name on CSI: Vegas hasn’t been quite as simple as being handed the evidence and following it to find whether or not Hodges is guilty, and if not, who is framing him for fabricating evidence. They’ve had to more or less work on Hodges’ case on the side while working their investigative magic with the new CSI team, and Gil made a breakthrough in “Long Pig” that at first glance seems like good news for Hodges, but could actually backfire.
The Internal Affairs investigation led by Detective Cross began to dig into Gil and Sara’s histories as part of the attempt to prove Hodges’ guilt, which involved citing a professional evaluation that Gil wrote about Sara back in the day without any context and refusing to let Gil look at the evidence in the case.
Gil wouldn’t agree to testify about his cases that Hodges is accused of tampering with, even with Cross saying that he would either have to state on the record that he missed it when Hodges fabricated DNA or come across as a party to what Hodges was allegedly doing. She therefore definitely wasn’t making a friend out of Gil when pressing him on the Diane Chase case, or Sara once she more or less accused Sara of being too emotional to be professional.
And Gil and Sara ultimately used that against her, with Sara playing on Cross’ bias to trick her into letting Gil see the evidence and narrow down their list of ten likely suspects that they came up with in the previous episodes. In true Gil Grissom style, he needed only a few moments of looking at a file that read “Bones leached of DNA” to connect the dots, and he went back to Sara with a photo of the guy who framed Hodges. And now it’s just a matter of proving it with evidence that would be admissible beyond the dog tooth and what they were able to piece together. Great news, right?
Well, Gil cracking the case is great news, but there could be a side of very bad news when it comes to actually making the case and having an unimpeachable enough reputation for it to work. How he went about getting Cross on his side even after Sara manipulated her might come back to haunt him. After seeing the “bones leached of DNA” note in one of the files with which he had not previously been familiar, Gil immediately seemed to flip on Hodges, and told Cross:
Yeah, he faked the evidence… You got it. I’ll testify in the Diane Chase case.
It seemed that Gil finally followed the evidence to the point of believing in Hodges’ guilt… if only that dog tooth hadn’t put them on the trail of the truth in the previous episode. Still, he had an A+ poker face, prompting a response from Cross that could ultimately make this move backfire. She said:
I’m glad I met you, Dr. Grissom. An honest man is hard to find.
Cross seemed very sincere with her praise of him as an honest man, and she seems to believe him in his statement that he missed it when Hodges faked evidence all those years ago. That “fact” alone damages his credibility as a professional, and it won’t do him any favors when the truth inevitably comes out. His sterling reputation may be able to only take him so far, especially considering that so much time has passed and there are fewer people familiar with his character.
If he goes so far as to testify and lie under oath, that’s perjury. If he comes out with the truth at trial, Cross would know he lied, and that could potentially be used against him and Hodges, giving the impression not only of Hodges’ guilt, but that Gil was in on it all along. He may have identified the real culprit in this episode; he may have also seriously reduced his chances of clearing Hodges on his word alone. At this point, Hodges’ best hope is that Gil and Sara come up with an absolutely airtight case that somebody framed him.
Find out with new episodes of CSI: Vegas on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. The creator and executive producer recently explained how NBC’s successful One Chicago block of programming (also on Wednesdays) can serve as a blueprint for CSI: Vegas moving forward, so it should be interesting to see what happens for the returning original series characters as well as the team of newcomers.
