The Pilot (CSI episode)
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| “Pilot” | |
|---|---|
| CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
| Guest stars | Matt O' Toole (Paul Millander) Harrison Young (Judge Cohen) Chandra West (Holly Gribbs) Garland Whitt (Jerrod Cooper) |
| Written by | Anthony E. Zuiker |
| Directed by | Danny Cannon |
| Original airdate | October 6, 2000 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "none" | "Cool Change" |
Pilot is the pilot of the American crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation which is set in Las Vegas, Nevada. It originally aired as Episode 1 of Season 1 on October 6, 2000.
[edit] The Plot in Detail
The episode opens with the apparent suicide of Royce Harmon. He loads two bullets into a gun and records a suicide message using a tape-recorder and says "I am going to kill myself". The scene then cuts to a shadowy man with a revolver walking down a hallway, the recorded message from Harmon is playing, and after his last words (they are "I love you, mom") we hear a gunshot.
Sergeant Ray O'Riley, Jim Brass, and Gil Grissom investigate the crime scene. We find out that Grissom is an entomologist, and their initial thought is that this is a suicide. Grissom notices from the larva metamorphosis that Harmon has been dead for 7 days. Grissom finds the tape recorder and calls it a suicide note.
Grissom and Brass go to Paige Harmon's residence to inform the victim's mother and sister of what has happened. They listen to the tape and Harmon's mother says that although the picture of the dead man is her son, the voice on the tape is not her son's.
It then cuts to the opening credits and after that we see Holly Gribbs get out of her car and go into Grissom's office. She introduces herself and we find out that Grissom is the supervisor on the 'graveyard shift'. Grissom asks Gribbs for a pint of her blood, which is apparently customary for all new hires.
In the next scene, Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown both find out that they only need to solve 1 more crime before they reach the level of CSI 3. They decide to have a bet on who will get there first and we find out that Brown enjoys gambling.
Back in Grissom's office, Gribbs is feeling a little light-headed from losing a pint of blood and Grissom offers her some sort of edible grasshopper as a refreshment. After, Brass gives out his assignments to the CSIs but he notices Catherine Willows is missing. The scene then cuts to Willows getting out of a car, saying goodbye to her daughter and her sister before rushing into the CSI building.
Jim Brass inspects Holly's file and attacks her because he was 'forced' to hire her. She tries to defend herself but Brass says that he has seen people like her come and go and he dismisses her. Grissom who is also there asks if Brass thinks he got through to Gribbs, and is given the reply that he is due in an autopsy. He tells Grissom to take Gribbs with because all new hires should see one on their first day.
Catherine and Warrick arrive at their crime scene where apparently a man who had been living with the family who owned the house tried to break in after he was turned out and the husband shot him out of self-defense. However, Warrick states that he thinks the husband is lying. There's a shoe print on the door that Catherine takes a copy of and Warrick takes a copy of the dead man's shoe. They compare and it's a match, showing that apparently the dead man tried to kick the door in from the other side. Catherine notices that the shoelaces are tied differently and asks the husband if the body was re-dressed or altered after the incident. The husband says no, and when Catherine asks if he would be willing to sign a statement saying that he had never worn the dead man's shoe he says yes. Catherine then notices that the husband's left toenail is broken and asks why. The husband replies that he 'tripped over a rattle'.
Back at the lab, Holly and Grissom have just started the autopsy. Gribbs reacts to the smell of the decaying flesh and is told by Grissom to 'breathe through your ears'. The doctor informs them that it was not a suicide as the entry hole for the bullet suggests he was not shot at close range, as would be the case if the dead man shot himself in the chest. Holly Gribbs decides she cannot take the smell and asks where the restroom is. She leaves the autopsy room and gets lost, eventually getting locked in a room full of cadavers on gurneys under plastic sheets. Holly throws up and accidentally removes one of the plastic sheets when it gets caught on her foot. The screen then cuts back to the autopsy room where Grissom and the doctor are not looking at the monitor that shows Holly in the room with the dead bodies. Holly bangs on the door and then turns around, coming face to face with the dead body she uncovered with her foot. Eventually, Grissom goes looking for her and rescues her from the morgue. She is in quite a state and says something about the bodies "breathing." As a form of reassurance Grissom shouts through the glass at the bodies 'you assholes!'
Nick Stokes arrives at his crime scene to find his victim has been drugged by a woman who stole his possessions while he was passed out. The victim says that he loves his wife but couldn't resist the good-looking woman who tried to seduce him, Stokes says there have been quite a few cases like this. The victim says that he hasn't been slipped anything through what he was drinking because he can't drink alcohol but Stokes notices a discoloration around his mouth and takes a sample.
After Gribbs has calmed down, Grissom takes her to her first crime scene which is a simple robbery and leaves her there. He tells her what to do and tells her he'll be back in an hour to pick her up.
Elsewhere, Warrick examines hairs from his crime scene and discovers that they were pulled out, signifying struggle. He decides to follow up the investigation at homicide.
Holly Gribbs gets into trouble because the owner of the store she is processing wants to get back to work and is convinced they will never find the criminal. Eventually the owner pulls a gun on Holly and she requests back up from Catherine Willows.
Warrick is questioning the husband who now says that he put the shoes back on the dead man after he was dead for no apparent reason. He also admits that there was a struggle.
Nick speaks to Greg Sanders who tells him that they don't always find what they're looking for in mouth swabs and the results show that there's nothing but saliva and denture adhesive in the victim's mouth.
Catherine arrives at the store and tells the store owner that if she doesn't want the robbery investigated then they'll leave and takes Gribbs with her. Later on, she convinces Gribbs to stay at least until she solves her first case and if she doesn't feel like 'King Kong on cocaine' then she can quit the job.
Grissom smashes a dummy's head in with a golf club and with the blood taken from Holly Gribbs notes the pattern of the blood spatter. He has a case involving a murdered adulterer and the adulterer's wife at a country club. Warrick fills him in on his case and says he doesn't know what to think. Grissom quotes from The Exorcist and tells him to follow what doesn't lie - the evidence. Warrick realizes he has to investigate the shoe that was tied wrong in more detail. He finds a broken toe nail inside the shoe and realizes the husband was lying. He tries to get a warrant to see the husband's toe nails. Brass won't call the judge to get one so he goes to the judge's house and as a favor for giving him a blank warrant the judge gets Warrick to put a bet on. While he's waiting for the judge a police car arrives because they had reports of a 'black man' lingering around.
Grissom's suicide case becomes more complicated when a finger print with latex particles in it is found on the tape-recorder. It does not match the victim but matches a man named Paul Millander. He investigates (after Brass has called Judge Cohen for a warrant, much to the annoyance of Warrick) and finds out that Millander sells fake Halloween hands made from a mould of his own hand, which can explain how his print got into the crime scene. Grissom finds this explanation acceptable and assumes that the suspect used one of these hands. Later, Grissom promises Harmon's family that he will find the person responsible for the murder. This case is followed up in episodes "Anonymous" and "Identity Crisis".
Nick Stokes is told about Kristy Hopkins who has crashed because she passed out and is believed to be link to his case. He asks to look inside her mouth and finds no discoloration so he tells them to let her go to the hospital. Later, around the time that Grissom is talking to Millander, Nick is paged to see Kristy Hopkins again because they found discoloration around her nipples. It turns out that she and a few other girls have been putting scopolamine on their nipples to knock their victims out and steal their possessions. They absorb it through their nipples so it knocks them out too.
Catherine has a case of child abuse in which she must question a little girl who has been sexually abused. She finds this emotionally upsetting.
Meanwhile, Brass has discovered that Warrick went behind his back to get the warrant and takes him off the case for either 3 weeks or until Nick reaches 100 solved cases, becoming a level 3 CSI. He makes Warrick shadow Gribbs, and Grissom calms him down by reminding him what he is supposed to be doing. Warrick still has to place the bet for Judge Cohen and leaves Holly Gribbs alone with a police officer.
Grissom takes over Warrick's case and finds the husband's toe-nail clippings. He matches the broken nail in the shoe to the husband's clippings and concludes that the husband kicked the door in, not the victim. This leads Grissom to believe that it was not self-defense, but murder. The husband is arrested and the case is closed.
Holly Gribbs is disturbed, yet again, as she is processing the scene as the officer has left her alone and unprotected. We see the disturber, Jerrod Cooper, pull a gun out and the scene switches to Nick giving his victim's possessions back after they have been recovered from the prostitute.
Nick is now a Level 3 CSI, and just as the CSI team start to celebrate Brass tells them the news that Holly Gribbs has been shot and is in hospital.
