Two episodes remain in CSI: Miami’s ninth season, and as always the show plans on closing the season with a bang. With the penultimate episode, “G.O.”, set to air tomorrow night, series star Omar Benson Miller, who plays art-theft specialist Walter Simmons, previews the final two episodes of the season, his growing friendship with Ryan Wolfe (Jonathan Togo), and more with CSI Files’ Shane Saunders.

CSI Files: As we head into these final two episodes of the season, are there any moments that shed more light as to who Walter Simmons is?

Omar Benson Miller: You know, not just particular moments for Walter, but I think that you guys are going to be surprised as to the fabric and texture of the team after these next two episodes. We get tested in a very new kind of way.

CSI Files: Interesting!

Photo credit: Manfred Baumann

CSI Files: We hear the season ends on a cliff-hanger and that a character’s life is put in grave danger. How does Walter fair at the end of the season?

Miller: See, now you’re trying to mine for information that I can’t give you!

There’s a very perilous ending at the end of this season and it is a cliff-hanger. There’s more than one CSI’s life that is in danger and I think that you guys are going to want stay tight to the TV to figure out what goes down. Put it like this: we’re all in duress at the end of the season.

CSI Files: Walter started off in an emotional state this season after the death of colleague and personal friend Jesse Cardoza (Eddie Cibrian). Has Walter moved past the grieving period?

Miller: I think we moved past the grieving and are back to work. In theory, what these kind of guys do is when you take on a job like this, you recognize what the potential dangers are. You hope it never becomes realized. But, you recognize there is a chance, so you can’t let it crumble your world. In this case I was closest to Jesse on the team and I was really happy that the show let me deal with him being killed and now it’s more continuing on in the way that any other CSI would want you to continue after they pass. He’s gone, but not forgotten.

CSI Files: What was that like as an actor to lose not only a character you interacted with on the show, but someone who in real life departed the series?

Miller: It’s different. It was really different. It was the first time that it happened to me; this is my first extended stay on a television series. So this thing was kind of difficult. I really liked working with Eddie Cibrian. I liked coming into work with him, we went to Laker games together, and all kinds of stuff. We actually built a rapport; I met his wife, his kids, his father. So not having him there every day is like losing a friend because he has to move on in his real life and do other work and continue to live. That bond is there but not the same as when you see somebody every day. It was tough, but it gave me a very quick lesson in the world of television. You have to be professional and move on.

CSI Files: There was a close bond between Jesse and Walter last season, and it seems like at this point in time Walter and Ryan now share a similar relationship. Would you agree that Ryan has stepped up as Walter’s new best buddy?

Miller: Oh, absolutely. And I don’t even think necessarily he steps up as it, because if you remember last season we had a lot of Three Amigos kind of moments going on where they would put Eddie, Togo, and myself together. Now it seems like there’s a lot of moments with Jonathan and I or Jonathan, Adam [Rodriguez, Eric Delko] and I. He’s a really funny dude and they like to take the comedy that he and I can take and bring together and the chemistry that we have and bring it to life on screen.

Some of my favorite moments when I watch the show are the moments between us and the suspects. Like this season [in "About Face"] when we interviewed the girl that we thought was the killer [who was] the victim’s ex-roommate and she was like, “look at me, do I look like a killer?” (laughs) And Wolfe and I look at each other and we’re like “you kind of do.” There’s a lot of nuances that he and I can bring to the table based on our personal relationship.

CSI Files: Viewers learned in “Hunting Ground” that Walter speaks some French! Was that something you learned specifically for the episode or do you happen to be bilingual in real life?

Photo credit: Manfred Baumann

CSI Files: Those small character moments are always a wonderful highlight for a show that is primarily focused on investigating murders.

Miller: I agree, I agree. And you’re a CSI Files man, so I think you can attest to this is what people want to see. They definitely want to see the team work together and solve crimes, but I believe they also want to see us on a more individual level as well and get inside as to who we are as characters.

CSI Files: Adam Rodriguez sported multiple duties this season as both an actor, director, and writer. Have you ever considered working behind the camera on the show?

Miller: Yeah, I have actually, but I saw what it did to Adam and it was tough on him even thought it recharged him in a certain way. I have more aspirations to direct films and independent films, but if a spot opened up to direct an episode I wouldn’t shy away from it.

I thought it was great that Adam put a specific spin and a different look in his episode than in other episodes from the season. That episode really stood out to me.

CSI Files: Talk CSI users really took a liking to his episode.

Miller: I believe it. I thought David [Caruso, Horatio Caine] was great in that episode and I feel like he stepped it up and really supported Adam and really helped him out in a lot of ways when we were on set hoping to get the best possible product out there. Hopefully Adam gets to direct another episode or two [next] season.

CSI Files: Going into season nine there was some talk that Walter had a powerful secret that would be explored. I’m assuming that storyline has been put on hold for the time being.

Miller: It has. There’s been a lot of real life subplots that took place [this year] in the world of CSI: Miami. With Emily [Procter, Calleigh Duquesne] having her baby and Adam directing, all of this kind of stuff caused for shifts set to take place in the storyline because of scheduling and timing. I’m actually meeting up with one of the writers sooner or later so that we can hopefully expose that secret thing.

CSI Files: You’re currently on hiatus. Do you have any special plans for the summer?

Miller: Yeah, actually! I have a film [Gordon Glass] coming out that I directed and made with my family and friends that comes out July 12th in WalMart, Best Buy, iTunes, and NetFlix. So I’m really excited about that. Working on a couple of side projects, just some passion projects. As far as television shows go, now I’m doing feature shows.

Shane Saunders is a freelance writer and reviewer.

Thanks to greatfan from TalkCSI for the heads up.

Thanks to Jacquie from TalkCSI for the heads up.

The team is on the hunt for evidence to link a diabolical killer to an attack on the lab that claimed a CSI’s life in the season nine premiere.

Synopsis:

Picking up where “All Fall Down” left off, a frantic Delko tries to revive Calleigh. He carries her towards the elevator but eventually stumbles and falls, overcome by the toxin in the lab. Horatio arrives just in time, and realizing there’s something in the air, shoots out one of the windows. He and Delko are able to revive everyone but one person: Jesse Cardoza. In the morgue, a somber Dr. Loman tells Horatio that everyone in the lab would have been dead if Horatio hadn’t shot out the window. He posits that Horatio wasn’t able to revive Jesse because Jesse hit his head when he fell and may have suffered a subdural hematoma. Knowing killer Roger Starling is behind the attack, Horatio and Tripp confront him, but Starling simply promises more violence. Natalia tries to talk to Starling’s PhD student, Melissa Walls, but the young woman blows her off. Back at the lab, the team tries to link evidence from the attack to Starling. Horatio and Delko discover someone set up three canisters of Halon gas to be pumped through the air conditioning system. They trace the gas back to Dade University, where Starling was a professor, but when Delko and Ryan determine the time it was released, they realize Starling was in class when the tanks were set up, meaning he had an accomplice.

In the morgue, Walter cleans off Jesse’s face and discovers glass in his head wound. He goes back to the lab to determine what Jesse was working on before the gas was released. He finds Starling’s camera with a shattered lens and takes it to Dave Benton to recover the deleted photos from the camera. Horatio and Delko go to Melissa Walls’ apartment to question her, only to find her tied up inside with a gun pointed to her head. The gun’s trigger is attached by rope to the front door, so Horatio breaks in through a window and rescues her. Grateful for Horatio’s interference, Melissa tells him she didn’t see her attacker. The serial number on the gun is registered to Keith Garwood, a janitor at Dade University. Melissa tells Horatio that Garwood idolized Starling. Horatio and Delko chase down Garwood, who runs as soon as he sees them. They catch him, but back at the lab Calleigh finds something puzzling: the bullet from the shotgun was filled with sand rather than gunpowder. Keith refuses to talk, so Horatio turns to the “They All Fall Down” note sent to him by Starling and uncovers hieroglyphics written on invisible ink between the words. Natalia and Delko translate the hieroglyphics to “Man marks Earth ruin,” which Travers recognizes as being from a poem by Lord Byron. Piecing the quote together with other things Starling has said, Horatio concludes the killer has left a bomb on Pier 25.

Horatio and Delko rush to the pier to find a red cooler sitting unattended. After evacuating the pier, Horatio gingerly opens it… only to find it’s a fake. The bomb was a diversion to distract from Starling’s escape attempt during his transport from the police precinct to Miami West prison. Tripp, who is escorting Starling, is shocked when someone opens fire on his car. Starling escapes in the melee, just before Horatio arrives at the scene. When the team searches for Starling’s accomplice, all they find is a rigged gun. Walter and Dave Benton find the clue to Starling’s accomplice’s identity when they finally recover the pictures from Starling’s camera, which reveal him kissing Melissa Walls. Horatio pressures Melissa, telling her all the evidence points to her, and that she’ll go down for a cop’s murder alone unless she gives them Starling. Melissa agrees to make a deal, and leads Horatio to the boat Starling is planning to escape on. Starling realizes she’s wearing a wire, but is caught off guard by Horatio and Tripp, who arrest him for Jesse’s murder. The team joins Walter for a game of basketball in honor of their fallen colleague.

Analysis:

The Miami team bids farewell to Jesse Cardoza in the ninth season opener, which manages to be both heartrending and thrilling. I’ll say straight off the bat that I was sorry to see Jesse go; the addition of Eddie Cibrian, Omar Miller and Christian Clemenson as Jesse, Walter Simmons and Dr. Tom Loman respectively, really invigorated CSI: Miami in its eighth season. Between the new characters and a strong batch of stories, the show had a freshness it had lacked for a while, and I think season eight was by far one of Miami‘s stronger years. Jesse in particular had a compelling backstory: his wife was murdered by a suspect he was investigating, and Jesse was determined to bring the man to justice, even if it meant crossing some lines. Jesse tangled briefly with his nemesis in “L.A.”, but the storyline was decidedly unresolved. Though it’s still possible that the storyline could be continued at some point, Jesse won’t be around to see the killer, Tony Enright, brought to justice, and there’s something more than a little sad about that.

Though the return of Adam Rodriguez‘s Eric Delko to the team likely necessitated the elimination of one of the newer cast members, I can’t help but wish there’d been some sort of workaround. Jesse was certainly a character with a lot of potential, and Cibrian had a great rapport with the rest of the cast. That being said, Jesse is given one of the best send-offs of any departing CSI from any of the three shows in the form of a touching monologue from Walter, who sits by Jesse’s body in the morgue and gently washes his face. He reminds Jesse they had a basketball game that afternoon, and jokingly tells the Jesse he was going to “kick his butt.” Then Walter turns serious, telling Jesse he called his mom and that she wants him back in California. Walter vows he’s going to make that happen, and he tells Jesse he’s going to miss him. Miller handles the material masterfully, conveying Walter’s heartbreak over his friend’s death with a beautiful, moving sense of sorrow.

Eva La Rue also gives a powerful and moving performance when Natalia tries to revive Jesse and realizes he isn’t waking up. Her heartrending shock makes the loss of Jesse immediately palpable to the audience, and gives the scene a great deal of emotional weight. Over the course of season eight, Natalia and Jesse grew fairly close. Natalia developed a crush on the handsome CSI, and it seemed like he might be moving towards reciprocating, though he was very obviously still grieving over the loss of his wife. After Jesse stood her up in “Kill Clause” while pursuing what he hoped would be a lead in his wife’s murder, their flirtation hit a stumbling block, but it’s easy to see how something might have developed between the two characters down the road.

Much as I like Delko, and enjoy his romance with Calleigh and his friendly rivalry with Ryan, I am a little disappointed his return to the show full time was at the expense of a new character, and I wonder if the show will feel as fresh and rejuvenated this season as it did last if the focus is going to shift back to Horatio and Delko out on the hunt while the other characters are mostly relegated to lab duty. Save for a few instances here and there, Horatio has never regained the empathy and down-to-earth attitude that made him such an appealing character in the show’s early seasons. I miss the Horatio who used to sit with his team and go over evidence with them. Though we saw that happen a few times last season, in this episode Horatio can’t even be bothered to pick up a book of hieroglyphics to help out Natalia and Delko, who are poring over the books in hopes of finding hieroglyphics that match the ones on the card sent by Starling to Horatio. The computers are down, making the search more time consuming and tedious than it otherwise would have been, but Horatio simply stands by while Natalia and Delko do all of the work! The scene only serves to make him seem more removed from those he works with.

The team is certainly up against one of the most fascinating and creepy villains they’ve ever come across: devious, homicidal mastermind Roger Starling. Played with a sinister menace by Roger Bart, Starling’s disillusionment after not getting tenure at his university gives way to a full out homicidal mania. Sure, he’s an over-the-top villain in pure Miami style, but the creativity put into Starling’s evil acts definitely keeps the CSIs on their toes—and the audience completely engaged. As Starling’s equally deviant PhD student and lover Melissa Walls, Kristen Hager is every bit as compelling as Bart. Though I had my suspicions about Melissa when Horatio managed to rescue her from Starling’s supposed murder attempt, Hager was incredibly convincing when Melissa tearfully thanked Horatio for saving her, despite her unwillingness to help the CSIs. Here’s hoping we haven’t seen the last of this sociopathic duo.

The episode ends on a touching note, with Walter on the basketball court alone, keeping his appointment to meet Jesse. He plays a solitary game until the rest of the team shows up to join him. Though Horatio’s line, “This is for Jesse” as he shoots a basket is cringe-worthy cheese, it’s always fun to see the team in action together. Ryan immediately opts to be on Walter’s team, a nod to the strong friendship that has built up between the two over the course of the last season. Delko naturally passes the ball to Horatio, who of course goes on to make a perfect basket after uttering the aforementioned line. The team must go on, as will the show, but I have a feeling the loss of Jesse Cardoza will be felt for some time.

CSI Files previously reported that singing sensation Justin Bieber would appear in the season eleven premiere of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. According to executive producer Carol Mendelsohn, Bieber’s character is part of “a group who believe that our country has been co-opted by profiteers.” The singer-turned-actor will be back in February to reprise his role.

Meanwhile, Marg Helgenberger has said this will be her final year playing Catherine Willows on the crime drama. Mendelsohn is making plans for the character, but she’s hoping Helgenberger will change her mind. “It’s a transitional year for Catherine,” Mendelsohn explained to EW. “It could be a way to end things for her—or to begin things.” CSI will premiere on Thursday, September 23 at 9:00pm ET/PT.

Over on CSI: New York, the premiere of season seven will show what happened after the screen went black and a gun went off at the end of the season six finale. “No one on our team died,” executive producer Pam Veasey revealed. In addition to resolving the cliffhanger, New York fans will see how the series handles the departure of Melina Kanakaredes (Stella Bonasera). Veasey had already written six episodes featuring Stella before the actress announced she was leaving, and the writing team had to work hard to introduce new leading lady Sela Ward (Jo Danville). “It was tough, but at the same time, that kind of surprise does wonderful things [creatively],” Veasey said.

Veasey described Jo as “a very confident, professional Southern woman who kicks her shoes off Friday night and spends time with her family.” The newest member of the team will jump right into the thick of things as the CSIs work on new cases featuring the webcam site Chatroulette and Battlestar Galactica’s Edward James Olmos as a former gang leader. CSI: NY will premiere in its new timeslot on Friday, September 24 at 9:00pm ET/PT.

CSI: Miami will be the last member of the franchise to debut new episodes. At the end of last season, most of the team was unconscious on the floor of the lab. “All of our CSIs are in an extremely vulnerable position,” explained executive producer Barry O’Brien, “and—how do we survive this?—one of them may not survive.” Executive producer Marc Dube teased, “Anyone keeps an eye on contract negotiations may get some sense [of what happens].” As CSI Files previously reported, CBS opted not to pick up Eddie Cibrian’s (Jesse Cardoza) contract after season eight.

Cibrian might be gone, but Adam Rodriguez (Eric Delko) will be back full time during season nine—just in time to deal with some old enemies. A prison break puts one of Miami’s most notorious villains back on the street. “It’s going to serve as a season-long arc for us,” O’Brien said. “Some of these former nemeses of Delko and Horatio [Caine, David Caruso] are going to emerge and pose a tangible threat.” Miami will premiere in its new Sunday night timeslot on October 3 at 10:00pm ET/PT.

Source: The Fall TV Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly, which is on newsstands now. Thanks to Shane from TalkCSI for the info!

As CSI Files previously reported, Miami will lose one of its own when season seven gets underway. The end of the episode will feature a tribute to Jesse Cardoza (Eddie Cibrian). “We are out by the lovely Pacific Ocean, pretending it is the Atlantic Ocean, playing basketball in honour of our fallen hero,” Emily Procter (Calleigh Duquesne) told Entertainment Tonight.

“When a cop dies, it is a heavy blow whether you knew him or didn’t know him, worked with him or didn’t work with him,” Adam Rodriguez (Eric Delko) said. “Anytime you do a job where your life is on the line every day and somebody pays the ultimate price, it is a heavy thing to deal with.”

Leading man David Caruso (Horatio Caine) agreed. “It is part of the job. You always feel you are prepared [for the loss], but then it is a real shock,” he explained. “The thing that matters about the shot that we take at the end, is that the scene it has to validate his life.”

You can watch the video, which offers a glimpse of the tribute game, embedded below:

As CSI Files previously reported, Jesse Cardoza (Eddie Cibrian) will be ending his days as a CSI in a body bag. “In the season premiere, we lose Eddie Cibrian,” La Rue confirmed to Fancast. However, the show will be regaining a familiar face when Adam Rodriguez returns as Eric Delko full time during season nine.

Fans will have to wait and see how things go between Eric and Calleigh Duquesne (Emily Procter), but it has already been revealed that Procter’s pregnancy will not be written into the show. “It’s going to really interesting to see how they cover up Emily Procter’s pregnancy,” La Rue said. With the show moving to Sunday nights this fall, La Rue is confident that the fans will follow. “Adam Rodriguez is back,” she said. “There are a lot of good reasons to watch.”

When Miami‘s ninth season begins in its new timeslot on Sunday, October 3 at 10:00pm ET/PT, fans will learn that Jesse was murdered. “He was killed by a guy we’ve been after for a little while,” Adam Rodriguez (Eric Delko) revealed to Fancast.

Source: Fancast. Thanks to Shane from TalkCSI for the heads up.