New Series - CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

The hit Las Vegas-based crime drama returns to Five for its ninth season. In the opening episode, the team rallies together when Warrick is shot in an alleyway. Suspicion immediately falls on the police officer who tried to frame the CSI for murder, before evidence emerges that another corrupt cop could be at large.

Gil Grissom (William Petersen) is at a street kiosk when a call comes over his radio alerting him to an ‘officer down’. Realising that the location is close by, Grissom runs to the scene – and is shocked to find Warrick (Gary Dourdan) in his car, badly wounded from two gunshots to the neck. As Grissom slides his colleague onto the ground, he is joined by undersheriff Jeffrey McKeen, who says he was the first person to respond to the call. With ambulance sirens wailing in the distance, a distraught Grissom watches Warrick pass away in his arms.

While the devastated CSIs struggle to comprehend their loss, McKeen tells Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) that he saw the shooter, but was unable to catch him. Little does Brass know that McKeen is in fact the killer. He shot Warrick to prevent himself being exposed as a mole in the pay of a local gangster. To cover his tracks, McKeen makes sure his description of the killer fits that of Daniel Pritchard, the bent cop who tried to frame Warrick for murder (see the season eight finale, ‘For Gedda’).

Brass orders his men to find the missing Pritchard, and the CSIs begin to process the scene. At the same time, they are boosted by the return of Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), who flies in to offer her help once she hears the news. Meanwhile, Nick (George Eads) believes that Warrick’s suspicions about a mole in the police department may hold the key to the case. “He was right about the department,” he says. “Let’s finish this for him.”

Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) establishes the first link to Pritchard when she discovers that the murder weapon was originally used in a robbery investigated by the bent cop. Nick provides another clue when he extracts a knuckle print from the passenger window of Warrick’s car, which was wound down. “I think the killer knocked on his window,” he says. This fact seems to rule out Pritchard as the killer, since Warrick would not have stopped to chat with a wanted man. “Warrick would never have rolled down his window for Pritchard,” Grissom says. For Nick, this leaves only one obvious suspect – McKeen. “He’s the only eyewitness,” says the CSI. “He’s the one that placed someone who looked like Pritchard in the alley.” Returning to the scene, Grissom, Catherine and Nick stage a reconstruction of the crime and quickly determine that McKeen’s story about hearing the gunshots from around the corner does not hold true.

The CSIs present their findings to their supervisor, Ecklie, but he urges them to gather more evidence before they make an accusation. Acting on Sara’s suggestion, Catherine is able to lift McKeen’s fingerprint from one of the bullets. With this conclusive proof, Brass pulls the undersheriff’s phone records and learns that he recently hired a hotel room. The team realises that McKeen and Pritchard are working in league and that the missing cop has been hiding out at this hotel.

The cops swoop on the location but McKeen and Pritchard have already fled. However, the team is able to trace McKeen’s car via his mobile phone signal. Brass and Nick give chase, only to find the suspects’ vehicle has plunged off the edge of the road into a ditch. Pritchard is dead in the passenger seat, but an injured McKeen has crawled into the woods – and Nick takes off on his own to track him down. Will he be able to keep his desire for revenge in check when he finally catches up with Warrick’s killer?