First, check out this picture Archie Kao (Archie Johnson) posted, which features the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation actor alongside Jon Wellner (Henry Andrews), David Berman (David Phillips) and Wallace Langham (David Hodges). Click to see the image full-sized:

Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor) posed with two of his CSI: New York costars, AJ Buckley (Adam Ross) and Carmine Giovinazzo (Danny Messer). Sinise also shared several images of himself with crew members dressed up for the holidays. Click to see each picture in its original size:

CSI: Miami’s Omar Miller (Walter Simmons) and CSI: NY’s Hill Harper (Dr Sheldon Hawkes) participated in the 4th Annual Manifest Your Destiny Toy Drive earlier this week, and you can find a picture of them with Nate Parker below. Click to enlarge:

Finally, check out three photos posted by Eva La Rue from the CNN Heroes ceremony, featuring herself alongside Miami costars Emily Procter (Calleigh Duquesne) and Rex Linn (Frank Tripp), as well as her husband Joe Cappuccio. Click to see the full-sized image:

First, check out some CSI: Crime Scene Investigation pictures. Co-Producer Phil Conserva shared an image of Elisabeth Harnois (Morgan Brody). Director and Line Producer Frank Waldeck posed with Location Manager Paul Wilson and “Chilly”. Finally, take a peek at a pic Harnois posted while filming on location. Click to see each image full-sized!

Supervising Producer Brian Davidson shared four images from the set of CSI: Miami. The first picture features Jonathan Togo (Ryan Wolfe). The second image includes Omar Miller (Walter Simmons) alongside Line Producer Marco Black. Davidson also posted a picture of the crew watching a monitor, including Director Sylvain White and Director of Photography Darren Genet. Finally, check out a pic of Script Coordinator and writer Robert Hornak:

CSI: New York actor Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor) posted a picture of himself with a fake lion. He also shared an image of the crew. Finally, check out two pictures of the cast—including Sinise, Sela Ward (Jo Danville) and Eddie Cahill (Don Flack)—filming on these steps. Set designer Will Batts shared the last image:

As CSI Files previously reported, La Rue is the national spokesperson for Beckstrand. The Diamond & Pearl Ball raised more than $1.1 million dollars for the foundation, which works to help families deal with the financial struggles they face after receiving a cancer diagnosis. The fifth person pictured above is Nicole Schulz, who spoke at the gala about her personal battle with AML leukemia. Schulz has been fighting the disease since 2005, and she continues to take “bags of medications” and receive weekly chemotherapy treatments. “I thank God for amazing people like those at Beckstrand Cancer Foundation who have helped me and my family when we needed it most,” she said.

The live auction during the event included a Miami walk-on package with La Rue, which went to Dave and Holly Wilson for $26,000. La Rue and her husband Joe Cappuccio bid $70,000 for a week’s stay in Tel Aviv courtesy of Lugano Diamonds. The package includes accommodations at a 5-star hotel, visits to historical sites and a trip to the renowned Diamond Bourse to select a diamond to be certified and named in their honor.

Source: The Orange County Register

Click the images to see them full-size. It is the exclusive property of CBS Broadcasting Inc. and may not be archived, leased, sold or distributed in any fashion without consent from CBS. It is released for one-time editorial use only.

“Sinner Takes All” — A high stakes poker game is disrupted by a masked assassin, leaving one player dead and the CSIs baffled, on CSI: MIAMI, Sunday, Nov. 6 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured: Emily Procter as Calleigh Duquesne Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2011 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Sinner Takes All” — A high stakes poker game is disrupted by a masked assassin, leaving one player dead and the CSIs baffled, on CSI: MIAMI, Sunday, Nov. 6 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured: Christian Clemenson as Tom Loman (left) and Emily Procter as Calleigh Duquesne (right) Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2011 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Sinner Takes All” — A high stakes poker game is disrupted by a masked assassin, leaving one player dead and Horatio (David Caruso, left) and the CSIs baffled, on CSI: MIAMI, Sunday, Nov. 6 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos) guest stars as Evelyn Bowers, one of the poker players. Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2011 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Sinner Takes All” — A high stakes poker game is disrupted by a masked assassin, leaving one player dead and the CSIs baffled, on CSI: MIAMI, Sunday, Nov. 6 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured:David Caruso as Horatio Caine (left), Ben Hollingsworth as Jason Huntsman (center), and Drea de Matteo as Evelyn Bowers (right) Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2011 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Sinner Takes All” — A high stakes poker game is disrupted by a masked assassin, leaving one player dead and the CSIs baffled, on CSI: MIAMI, Sunday, Nov. 6 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured:David Caruso as Horatio Caine (far left), Jonathan Togo as Ryan Wolfe (second from left), Ben Hollingsworth as Jason Huntsman (second from right), and Drea de Matteo as Evelyn Bowers (far right) Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2011 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Sinner Takes All” — A high stakes poker game is disrupted by a masked assassin, leaving one player dead and the CSIs baffled, on CSI: MIAMI, Sunday, Nov. 6 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured:David Caruso as Horatio Caine (left) and Omar Miller as Walter Simmons (right) Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2011 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A handsome gigolo is murdered in his hotel cabana, and the team sifts through a list of clients, competitors and jealous lovers to find the killer.

Synopsis:

Natalia and Ryan arrive at the Hotel Ember, where they find the body of Derek Vaughn in a poolside cabana. He was hit over the head multiple times with a heavy object, but the murder weapon is not in the cabana. However, they do find several long hairs and a box of condoms.

Derek has been renting the cabana by the week for the past six months. It was $2000 a day, and he paid by check. When they look at the checks, they realize he’s a gigolo. His only client the night before was a married woman named Gretchen Cambridge. Her husband doesn’t know she’s been having a longterm relationship with Derek, and she says she doesn’t care about the other women who paid Derek for sex. When they were together, she felt like she was the only woman in the world.

Someone damaged the propane shut-off valve on the fireplace in the cabana, causing a leak that filled the building with gas. The head injury only incapacitated Derek, leaving him vulnerable on the floor. The propane displaced the oxygen in his lungs, suffocating him. The only way for the leak to go unnoticed is if the gas was lacking the necessary additives to give it a distinctive smell. The hotel started struggling when the economy took a downturn, so the owner, Hector Romero, was looking for ways to save money—like buying inexpensive, illegal propane. He’s going to be charged with negligent homicide.

Calleigh finds a piece of singed paper in the cabana. It’s a parking pass from a high school, and it belongs to a teacher named Emma Davis. She was a virgin until she met Derek. She had a good time, and he made her feel special. However, she saw him arguing with another man at the hotel, and she thinks he’s another gigolo. Joe Grafton argued with Derek about clients, and he says Derek has been taking his business. This makes him suspect number one.

There are flakes in Derek’s head wound from a snow globe. Joe says some of the women give them gifts, and Natalia and Walter go through financial records until they find a client who purchased a snow globe: Gretchen bought one in Paris. They find a piece of glass and a hammer with some white flakes in the garage, so Gretchen confesses. She says she killed Derek by hitting him on the back of the head, but that’s not how he was injured—she’s covering for her husband Steven, who suspected she was cheating and saw her with Derek. He confronted the man, asking him to stop seeing his wife, but he lost control when he saw the snow globe. Steven saw his wife buy that in Paris, and he assumed it was for him. Gretchen thought her husband stopped loving her, but he never did. Steven admits to hurting Derek, but he says he didn’t go anywhere near the fireplace.

They reassemble the fireplace valve and find a piece of leather from the sole of a shoe. The killer kicked the valve, and it would have taken two hours for the level of propane in the cabana to become deadly. The killer must have known the gas had no scent. Hector made a lot of money from Derek, so he had no reason to kill him. Hector’s daughter Luisa, however, runs the day to day business of the hotel, and she knew about the illegal propane as well. She kicked the valve while wearing open-toed shoes and got frostbite on her toe. She says she was dating Derek, and she thought she could handle it. She asked him to quit because she was falling in love with him, and she couldn’t handle seeing those checks. She knew he wasn’t going to stop, so she kicked the valve thinking he and the next woman who paid for his services would die when he lit the fireplace.

Analysis:

“Stiff” brings the team into the world of high-end male escorts. It’s very sexy and very CSI: Miami, filled with gorgeous men, intrigue, jealousy and, of course, murder. Despite the sexy premise and the twisting-and-turning storyline, my favorite part of the episode is Ryan being spooked by the floating hat. He snaps a picture from outside the cabana, but when Natalia opens the door, they find the hat sitting on the ground. Ryan tries to show her what he saw, but his camera only took a photo of his own reflection.

Eric and Walter tease him about the hat, but Walter believes his story. They only need to figure out a reasonable explanation for why the hat was floating. He’s able to explain the phenomenon in the lab: propane is heavier than air, so it settled near the ground as it collected in the unventilated cabana. The hat is light enough to float on the heavier gas. Ryan is fascinated by the truth, but he realizes that Eric and Calleigh are still collecting evidence in the cabana. The gas is building up inside, and one spark could cause the whole place to go up in flames. Ryan tries to call them, but they don’t pick up the phone. He contacts Horatio, who rushes to the scene, but he’s not quick enough. Eric realizes there’s a leak moments before Calleigh picks up a robe with the fireplace remote inside. The remote slips out, and Eric yells to warn Calleigh as it hits the ground and lights the fireplace—along with the propane built up in the room. Horatio helps them escape, but the evidence is destroyed. Luckily, the team is able to salvage the parking pass from the singed cabana, and they reconstruct the fireplace and locate a piece of shoe leather that leads back to Luisa.

After the explosion, Eric readily accepts Ryan’s story about the floating hat. Walter, however, can’t help teasing Ryan one more time. Ryan walks by the empty lab at the end of the episode and sees the hat sitting on a table. He glances around before he heads inside, reaching for the hat as a graduated cylinder nearby starts to rise from the surface of the table. Walter is standing on the walkway overhead, lifting the graduated cylinder using a fishing line as he puts on a spooky voice to startle Ryan. Ryan walks out while Walter doubles over laughing. Poor Ryan, he might not live this down for a while. However, despite the fact that Walter continues to tease Ryan about the hat, he never doubts Ryan’s story. The friendship between these two remains one of my favorite elements of the series. They have a great dynamic, and Jonathan Togo and Omar Miller always make the most of their scenes.

Natalia has an unexpected run-in with a handsome stranger after her car alarm malfunctions for the umpteenth time this week. She’s waiting in the parking lot, trying to get help over the phone, when a good-looking guy walks up and offers his services. He is able to correct the problem in under a minute, and Natalia expresses her gratitude. The man’s name is Joe, and he flirts with Natalia. She flirts right back, and she gives him her card when he asks if she’d like to go out for dinner. He’s surprised to learn she’s a cop, but he says it’s not a problem. Natalia has a spring in her step when she walks away, but her euphoria is short-lived. Later in the episode, the team discovers that Joe is another gigolo, and he and Derek competed for clients at the hotel. Natalia chases him down on foot, and she stops to ditch her shoes so she can run faster when he heads onto the beach. Frank pulls up in his patrol car, and Joe tumbles over the hood before Frank jumps out to handcuff him. Natalia points out that he had her fooled, but it’s too bad Joe is a gigolo—Eric Winter is a very handsome man, and Natalia’s enthusiasm is adorable when he starts flirting with her. She’s been though a lot lately, and going on a date with a nice, normal guy might be a good thing.

When Natalia and Walter are going through the financial records for all of Derek’s clients, words fly around the screen. It’s a fun visual element, and I especially love the highlighting and the little gas gauges next to the cups of coffee. The text adds a lot of interest to a scene that would be pretty boring otherwise—after all, they’re just looking through bank statements. The scene reminds me a bit of the subtitles used in “Hunting Ground” last season. I wasn’t a huge fan of the subtitles moving around the screen in that episode, but that isn’t an issue here. There are only a few phrases that need to be read, and even those are optional. Another similarity between these two episodes is the use of French. Natalia reads out the bank statement from Gretchen Cambridge’s trip to Paris, and Walter identifies a snow globe on the list of purchases. Walter’s ability to speak French was illustrated in the aforementioned scene from “Hunting Ground”, and I’m glad the writers included a nod to that skill this week.

See also: “Stiff” episode guide

Horatio and Natalia fight for their lives, and the team works to track down escaped serial killer Jack Toller.

Synopsis:

Horatio gets to his feet after being shot by Randy North, and he moves toward the edge of the pier and looks down into the water. Natalia is trapped in the trunk of a car that is rapidly sinking, and he has no choice but to jump in and save her. He can’t get the trunk open, but he sees the backseat shifting as she struggles inside. He pulls the door open and yanks down the seat, pulling Natalia out of the trunk. Natalia grabs Horatio and pulls him toward the surface.

At the hospital, both CSIs disobey orders and decide to leave. They don’t have any time to waste if they want to catch Randy and serial killer Jack Toller. Horatio sends Natalia with Calleigh so they can try to find Randy, and they know he’ll go after his children. Meanwhile, Horatio speaks with Secret Service Agent Renee Locklear, who says Toller found an interested buyer for the printing plates in Miami. They know they have to catch him, but time is of the essence: he’s a serial killer, and it’s only a matter of time before he takes another life.

Calleigh speaks to Randy’s son, and the little boy agrees to help them. Austin calls his father and says he ran away from his foster home, and Randy says he’ll meet him under the lifeguard tower on the beach in Sherway Park. The CSIs are waiting nearby and take Randy down. Horatio and Natalia confront him in interrogation, and they want Toller. During the time they shared a jail cell, Toller told Randy that he was going to make a deal with someone who pulls ATM heists. Horatio worked the heist case last year, so he comes up with a name: Leo Kendry. They can find this man by going after a known associate, Ricky Galindo.

Meanwhile, Toller makes a deal with Leo for $180,000 for the plates, but he wants a bonus: a woman sitting nearby named Melanie Garland. Leo makes the deal, and Toller drags the girl away. Frank and Walter pull over Ricky Galindo, and Walter finds a Garra rufa fish on the floorboard. This leads the team to a spa, and they find Leo and the plates—but now they know there’s a potential victim in Toller’s custody.

The car Toller is driving is acting up, so he sends Melanie into a gas station to get a bottle of radiator fluid and a pack of cigarettes. She hands the man behind the counter a hundred dollar bill, and he figures out that something is wrong. She says Toller will kill her, so the man lets her go and immediately calls the police. When they look at the surveillance footage, they see Melanie steal a disposable cellphone. They are able to track the phone, and they realize Toller has been calling Randy over and over again. They tell Randy to call Toller back, but the man already knows what Toller is after: a necklace that fell out of his pocket when they were in prison. He still has the necklace, and they set up a meeting at a rail yard. Toller realizes that Randy is being followed, and he makes a run for it as a train cuts the team off from pursuing him.

Walter and Calleigh look through evidence from Toller’s original case to find something to help them locate Melanie. His clothes were never tested, and they discover that the chemical composition of the soot on his clothing leads back to a landfill. Toller incinerated his first three victims in a landfill, and he’s going to do it again. Toller puts his mother’s necklace around Melanie’s neck, and he forces her to repeat his mother’s words from when he was a child: “Jack, I’m ashamed of you.” Toller flashes back to his childhood, when his mother verbally abused him and burned him with cigarettes. He has been killing women because he can do to them what he couldn’t do to his own mother. The team arrives just before Toller lights Melanie on fire, and he throws down his lighter to distract them while he runs away. They save the woman, and Horatio takes off after Toller. He’s able to take the killer down eventually, and Eric arrests him.

Analysis:

“Countermeasures” is an action-packed episode. There’s no doubt that the team will bring down the bad guys and save the girl—this is, after all, CSI: Miami—but it’s an exciting storyline filled with suspense. Horatio’s health is also a big question mark throughout the hour, after he disobeys his doctor’s orders and leaves the hospital despite being shot by Randy North. The wound was caused by a bullet fragment that ricocheted and hit Horatio. There’s never really any worry that the show’s leading man will die, but he’s definitely looking worse for wear throughout the episode. I found myself wondering if he would collapse at the wrong time and lose the upper hand—or lose Toller. In the end, Horatio is able to stay strong enough to keep going until they finally catch Toller, at which point he finally lets himself collapse. It’s unrealistic for him to spend the whole episode in the thick of the investigation after sustaining such an injury, but Horatio Caine never misses the action.

Throughout the episode, Horatio sees visions of his dead wife Marisol. The episode opens with one of these visions, in which Horatio arrives at a restaurant and sits at a table with her. They have missed each other, and they don’t want to waste another moment. Eventually, Horatio looks down and realizes he’s shot, and he starts to remember what’s happening. Marisol tells him he has to get up and leave, but he’s reluctant. When he looks up to see his wife replaced by Natalia, soaking wet and begging for help, he finally drags himself out of this vision and back to the painful reality. He sees Marisol walking away from him multiple times throughout the episode, and at one point he crawls into his car and pulls out a photo of them. It’s a poignant scene, seeing him in such agony and knowing he’s determined to catch Toller. When he kisses the photo, you know it would be easier—and perhaps more desirable—for Horatio to just let go and be with his wife. He holds on for the sake of his team and the safety of his city, and it drives home how much pressure Horatio puts on himself to be Miami’s protector.

Horatio has seemed like a comic book hero for quite some time, but “Countermeasures” really emphasizes his humanity. He’s not invincible, but he’s a fighter. He spends most of the episode trying not to collapse, and the pain is written all over his face and his trembling arms. David Caruso does a great job of showing his character’s vulnerability and determination. It’s a relief when Toller is finally caught and you know Horatio can get some help. It’s a bit surprising that he isn’t taken to the hospital immediately after collapsing at the landfill, but I like the final scene with Agent Locklear. She hasn’t known Horatio for long, so she asks about the name he kept repeating in the ambulance: Marisol. He tells her the truth, and he tells her about seeing visions of her after being shot—something he didn’t tell anyone on his team. She says she’s glad he listened to her and came back, but it’s clear that he doesn’t necessarily agree. She asks if he’s going to be okay, and he finally admits that no, he isn’t. She helps him into a car and (presumably) drives him to a hospital. Hopefully now he can recuperate from his wounds and be back to his old self soon.

Horatio isn’t the only one recovering from a near-death experience in “Countermeasures”. Natalia is clearly affected by her close call in the trunk of the car, and she fights her way off of the hospital bed to go after a man she thinks is Randy North. When she actually gets in the interrogation room with him later, she loses her cool and slams his head onto the table. She tried to help this man, and he betrayed her and tried to kill her. Horatio has to pull her back when she attacks Randy, but it’s hard to blame her. She’s still scared, and her nerves are on edge. The scene with Ryan in the locker room just before this is really great. Ryan asks if she’s okay, and she admits that she can’t stop thinking about being trapped in the trunk of that car. Ryan sits beside her and reminds her of the time he got shot in the eye with a nail gun in the season four episode “Nailed”. After that, he was afraid to open a door or head into a crime scene because he knew something else could happen at any moment. Natalia helped him move on from that experience, and he repeats what she told him in the past so he can help her in return. He tells her she’s going to be okay. It’s a really nice moment between them, and I love when the show features the close bond between the members of this team. Natalia and Ryan have become two of my favorite characters, and it’s great to see him share this scene with her.

In the locker room scene, Natalia points out that she has had a lot of close calls this year. As I mentioned in my review for last season’s finale, “Mayday”, Natalia has been kidnapped and victimized multiple times over the past season. It was frustrating to see her kidnapped again in “Mayday” and trapped until Horatio could swim down to rescue her, but it’s nice to see her get out of the car in the premiere and immediately rescue him in return. She’s shaken throughout the episode, but she doesn’t give up. At the end of “Countermeasures”, she’s at the shooting range, and I wonder if that scene is an indication of her state of mind this season. According to Co-Executive Producer Barry O’Brien, this whole experience will have a “profound impact” on Natalia. She needs to regain her balance and confidence after what happened, and time will tell if speaking with Ryan and confronting Randy will be enough to make that happen. Whatever happens, I hope we’ve seen the last of Natalia being victimized for a while.

Calleigh has her own storyline this week, and it feels like the start of something bigger. She speaks with Randy North’s son Austin and convinces him to help catch his dad so no one else gets hurt. The boy feels a connection with her, and she promises him they’ll do what they can to make sure he and his sister are kept in the same family. At the end of the episode, she reveals that they found a great family who will take both children in, but he wonders if he can choose someone else. He was hoping he and his sister could stay with Calleigh, and Calleigh is clearly moved by this. He says it was stupid to wish for that, but Calleigh disagrees. She’s honored that he would want to stay with her, but she knows she isn’t prepared to be a parent right now. Her job takes too much of her time and energy, and Austin and his sister deserve more than that. Although she can’t take care of them, she promises that she will come visit them and keep up with the children no matter where they go. Austin is pleased with this, and it’s clear that Calleigh plans to keep her promise. In addition to his comments about the impact the premiere has on Natalia, O’Brien also said that Calleigh will look toward her future and think about starting a family during season ten.

Frank and Walter have a great scene this week when they pull over Leo’s associate Ricky Galindo. They are looking for answers, but Ricky is just being cocky. Walter finds a fish smashed into the floor mat, and he holds it up to show Frank and Ricky. Ricky claims it could be from anywhere, but Walter recognizes the fish and knows that isn’t true. Frank doesn’t know how a sardine is going to help them find Leo, but Walter corrects him: this is a Garra rufa fish. Frank sarcastically calls Walter “Jacques Cousteau” and asks for an explanation. Walter knows these fish are used in high-end pedicures, and his knowledge guides them to Leo and the printing plates. I’m not sure why Walter is so knowledgeable about the Garra rufa fish, or its use in pedicures, but now I’m picturing him in that fancy spa—that’s a scene I’d love to see! Rex Linn and Omar Miller are gems, and all of their scenes on the show are pitch-perfect. Between “Mayday” and now “Consequences”, I hope this is a sign that these two will share plenty of quick, snarky scenes during the coming season.

Overall, “Countermeasures” is an exciting way to start the season, and the actors put in great performances bringing the characters to life. The episode sets several storylines in motion, dealing with Horatio’s lost love, Natalia’s recovery after her latest attack and Calleigh’s desire to find fulfillment away from the lab. I can’t wait to see what else season ten has to offer for character development, not to mention the thrilling cases that have become a hallmark of the series. CSI: Miami is back and raring to go!

See also: “Countermeasures” episode guide.