Chapter 6

At the lab, Greg is processing DNA while watching Nick from the personal feed left over from Creepy Cable Guy. The writers have now reached their maximum capacity for continuity.

"Do you have my results?"

Grissom enters soundlessly. Greg begins to hyperventilate.

"Yep," says Greg, preparing to do a large and impressive display. His nervousness tells us he respects and admires Grissom, despite the fact that Grissom likes to berate and degrade him. "I found out - "

"I already know."

"You do?"

"No," says Grissom, roughly grabbing the results sheet from Greg's hand, "but I'm always annoyed by our interactions. I will later promote you to full CSI for absolutely no reason."

"Then why do we bother with these scenes?"

"Plot device, Greg. Plot device. The "revealing evidence" scenes are a way of explaining to the audience painfully slowly and obviously about things we as real CSI's would not need explained in finite detail," says Grissom. He checks his watch. "We have a little time left over if you want to squeeze in a hilarious case-related one-liner."

"No… I've shifted to Season Six. I'm now bland and boring," says Greg monotonously, combing his hair into a side-part to eliminate the last vestiges of his appeal.

"Isn't that Nick's apartment?" asks the glowing silhouette of light and hairspray that is now Catherine. Grissom has left at some point. "You'd think he would've taken out those cameras by now."

"Isn't it enough of a suspension of disbelief that Nick is a top-level scientist?"

"True," says Catherine, her lips in the unnecessary porn-star pout, collagen leaking out the side. "With the exception of Sara and Grissom, it's hard to believe that any of us were accepted to college."

Ecklie enters the lab… he's still evil.

"Sanders – you're talking during work. You're on one-week leave without pay."

"Do you ever really do anything except fuck over graveyard shift?" demands Greg in a way that is neither hilarious nor cute.

"Isn't it impressive enough with my incompetence that I can do that?"

Catherine exits while she still has a job.

Having received Greg's results and done an experiment on a pig, Grissom (though he hasn't explained why) feels it is now time for a dramatic interrogation scene. Though the reasons for this are unknown to the audience, by the 45-minute mark no one really notices anyway.

"You know," begins completely Unsuspectable Teenage Sister, "don't you find it interesting that on every other crime/law show you never see the Forensics people doing any interrogating?"

"It's called dramatic license," explains Grissom, because he knows everything. "Without this stuff, people would realize that being a CSI is actually a mind-numbingly boring job that takes months of investigative work which is only a small piece of the trial and very rarely actually ends in a pre-trial confession. But Brass is here to make this slightly more realistic."

Brass scowls from the corner. He is utterly pointless, but this adds depth and tension to the scene.

"All the evidence points to you," says Grissom, only taking about seven more drawn-out sentences to say it.

"I have an excuse/alibi that is both irrefutable and completely ironic in its total association with the case."

"And that is?" asks Grissom.

"I'm allergic to the finite molecules that accumulate on the metal they use to galvenize stripper poles. Therefore I couldn't possibly have killed my sister without a reaction. Plus I was having sex with my father at the time."

"That's not really helpful to our investigation – the first half was really all we needed."

"Yeah," says Brass. "But we don't have a fetish or weird lifestyle choice for this episode, so some healthy incest is the best substitute."

"I'm also a man."

"Spoke too soon."