Before getting together with Eric, Calleigh didn’t have much luck in love. “Calleigh has poor taste in men,” Procter told Zap2It. “She’s the child of an alcoholic. She has an alcoholic father. She picks terrible people for herself.” She added, “One’s dead; one got married. Jake [Berkely (Johnny Whitworth)] disappeared, but I think he’s coming back. Then there was the guy that I rode out into the sunset with, that we never saw again. He rode off into Cougar Town. That’s true, he did.”

Calleigh isn’t the only one whose relationships usually end in ruin—leading man Horatio Caine (David Caruso) has had some romantic woes of his own. “If I were a Floridian, I would not date either Horatio or Calleigh. It would not be a smooth move,” Procter said.

Putting Horatio and Calleigh together wouldn’t be a smooth move either, she explained. “The only reason I could guess that they didn’t put the two of them together would be that he’s a really mystical character,” she said. “If you had him in a personal relationship, inevitably he’d have to expose some of himself, and I just don’t think that, as a character, it works.” Or, she added, “maybe it’s because it was important that he always have really beautiful girlfriends that got killed.”

The romantic development between Calleigh and Eric was not a surprise for the actress. “We both watch TV,” she said. “There’s wish fulfillment in entertainment. Let’s face it, we, the humans, watch other humans being human for entertainment. It’s a big, fat zoo. Why wouldn’t you want to see love in there? I mean, it’s the most powerful thing of all.”

“I think it would be fun if it turned into a Mr and Mrs Smith thing,” the actress continued, referring to the possibility of her character marrying Eric somewhere down the line. “It’d be nice to see them at home, with children, trying to balance having a job like this.” She added, “I always think that when you can take the reality of a situation and add the fantasy to it, it’s good.”

Horatio and Delko take a trip to the City of Angels in the hopes of getting to the bottom of an evidence tampering accusation lodged against Jesse.

Synopsis:

Jesse Cardoza’s demons come back to haunt him when the Miami team is called to the house of Tony Enright, the successful pornographer whom Jesse is convinced is responsible for the murder of his wife. A party at Enright’s house ends in tragedy when a guest, Leslie Stultz, is murdered in the same room where Tony’s girlfriend, Anna, is passed out. A distraught Anna tells Natalia that Leslie starred in all of Tony’s films, and Natalia is concerned about Anna’s memory loss, suspecting she was drugged. Anna becomes agitated when she sees Jesse, and Tony and Jesse are practically at each other’s throats when they cross paths. Walter discovers a listening device hidden in the bedroom, while Jesse finds trace amounts of roofies in Anna’s glass. Dr. Loman notes that Leslie wasn’t roofied, and points out that the murder weapon was a pen—apparently a weapon of opportunity. Ryan and Calleigh match prints on the pen to Coop Daly, a former Miami Dolphins player who now works for Enright. Coop is unfazed by the CSIs’ suspicions, telling them that he was signing autographs the night of the party. Calleigh and Dave Benton follow up on the wiretap in Enright’s house, tracing it to the parking garage at the lab. Calleigh insists on going to investigate alone, and zeroes in on the car in the garage: Jesse’s. When Jesse shows up, Calleigh gets him to open the trunk, revealing the recording equipment inside. Jesse insists he didn’t break into Enright’s house to plant the device; he snuck in during a party. Jesse tells her he’s pretty sure the murder was recorded. The beleaguered CSI insists Tony Enright is the one who killed his wife, and Calleigh agrees to help him prove it.

Horatio plays the tapes from Jesse’s recording device for Rebecca Nevins, but she refuses to admit the tape as evidence, claiming Jesse is a dirty cop, based on an accusation of evidence tampering in Los Angeles. Horatio decides to go to L.A. to clear Jesse’s name, and Rebecca tells him she’s going to send someone from the State’s Attorney’s office with him: Eric Delko. After landing in L.A., Horatio and Delko meet with Captain Chris Sutter, whom Jesse used to work for. Horatio and Delko catch up on the case that tainted Jesse’s career: Jesse was the primary on the investigation of the murder of Tony Enright’s first wife, Victoria. A cufflink with the initials “A.T.” was found at the crime scene and documented by Jesse, but lost at some point before the trial. Enright’s lawyer, Darren Vogel, attacked Jesse on the stand, accusing him of tampering with the evidence by stealing the cufflink. In order to clear Jesse, Horatio and Delko must discover who actually took the cufflink. The two CSIs go pay a visit to Darren Vogel after discovering he purchased the cufflink found at the scene. Vogel planted the cufflink in order to create reasonable doubt for Enright’s trial. Going over the crime scene photos from the investigation, Horatio and Delko identify a photographer at the scene, Olivia Burch, and track her down in the hopes that her photos might reveal who removed the evidence from the crime scene. The two find what they’re looking for and clear up the photo, revealing that Captain Sutter himself was the one who took the cufflink.

Back in Miami, Natalia informs Anna that she was raped after being drugged, but that her attacker wore a condom. Natalia offers her help escaping her relationship, but Anna insists Tony is a good man. Calleigh analyzes the print on the pen, finding traces of lambskin in it–from a unique brand of condom. The trace matches the condom trace from Anna’s rape kit, connecting Coop Daly to both the murder of Leslie and the rape of Anna. Once he’s caught, Coop brags that Enright “gave” Anna to him, drugging her drink himself. When Leslie barged in on the assault, Coop killed her. Anna watches the confession, floored. Calleigh books Tony for his part in Anna’s rape and Leslie’s murder, and when he tries to appeal to Anna, she spits at him angrily. On her way out, Anna leaves a note for Jesse that simply reads, “Thank you.” In Los Angeles, Horatio confronts Sutter with the photo, asking him why he let Jesse take the fall for something he did. Sutter admits that he was afraid Enright would beat the murder charge because of the cufflink, so he pocketed it. Horatio tells Sutter he knows what he has to do, and the captain gives a press conference, clearing Jesse’s name and offering him his apologies. Horatio and Delko return to Miami, and Horatio is surprised to find Darren Vogel in town to represent Enright, whom he claims will never see the inside of a prison cell. After the lawyer departs, Jesse thanks Horatio, who modestly replies that Jesse would have done the same for him.

Analysis:

It’s not quite the spiraling shot that “Rio” opened with to announce Horatio Caine had arrived in the Brazilian capital, but is it any surprise that after the establishing shots of the Griffith Observatory and the Capitol Records building, we see Horatio standing tall, the Hollywood sign in the background as he and Delko wait for the arrival of Captain Sutter… who arrives by helicopter. CSI: Miami does nothing small, and Horatio’s trip to the City of Angels is no departure in that regard. That he meets Sutter on a helipad that just happens to overlook the Hollywood sign as opposed to say, in Sutter’s office at whatever police station he works out of is already a stretch, but then when Horatio confronts Sutter about taking the cufflinks, he meets the captain at the Hollywood Bowl. Though a stretch, the use of the landmarks is mostly forgivable—after all, this is television, and what’s the point of sending two of the characters to Los Angeles and not utilizing the setting?

Aside from these flourishes, the trip to Los Angeles is remarkably low key—Horatio and Delko don’t hobnob with movie stars or find themselves visiting a pornography shoot; aside from Sutter, the only Angelino they spend any serious time with is Enright’s slimy lawyer, played with true panache by Malcolm McDowell. Indeed, in addition to having Rob Zombie as a director, the episode is packed with notable guest stars, including McDowell, Michael Madsen as Enright’s slimy pal/employee, William Forsythe as the well-intentioned but misguided Sutter, and Paul Blackthorne as the slimy pornographer who killed his own wife as well as Jesse’s, and got away with both murders, at least thus far. Blackthorne and McDowell are standouts among the strong guest cast, the former convincing as a sociopathic killer who can turn from affable to scornful on a dime and the latter almost charming in his sleaziness. “You can buy a sense of humor,” he advises Horatio after the CSI has revealed that he’s on to Vogel’s scheme to plant evidence. Indeed, the lawyer is unfazed by Horatio’s disdain for him, showing up in Miami to represent Enright even after telling Horatio he was considering retirement.

Rob Zombie’s direction is clearly a good fit for CSI: Miami, and the opening sequence that culminates in the murder of Leslie Stultz definitely has a horror film feel to it. The episode opens on a lavish, sumptuous party featuring revelers in masks made creepy and forbidding by the lighting. The mood intensifies when Anna and Leslie go up to Anna’s bedroom, where a classic horror film is playing on the television. Images from the film are intercut with the assault on Anna and the murder of Leslie, making for a truly chilling scene. There’s a cinematic feel to the scenes in Los Angeles where Horatio and Sutter stand with the Hollywood sign and later the Hollywood Bowl as backdrops as well.

There are times when I wish Miami lived a little more in the grey area, and the introduction of Tony Enright is one of those instances. After the build up with the mystery of Jesse’s past and his interest in Anna Kitson, and then the revelation that Jesse’s wife was murdered, I was hoping Enright might have been a less obvious villain than this episode paints him as. After all, not only did he manage to get acquitted of the murder of his wife, but presumably he was able to either kill Jesse’s wife or have her murdered and not get caught for that—clearly this guy is good at evading the law. So why, rather than having him be a chillingly charming sociopath whom the audience believes could beat a murder rap, is he simply another mustache-twirling villain? Having him lose it with both Calleigh and Anna after she rejects him gives the game away completely. Sometimes subtle is better, and while I enjoyed Blackthorne’s performance, I wish the character had come off as a worthier adversary for the CSI team.

Enright’s involvement has some interesting ramifications for some of the CSIs, most notably Jesse, who is understandably livid when he comes face to face with Tony Enright, who is equally confrontational. Jesse accuses Tony of “killing every girl he comes into contact with” while Tony fires back that Jesse is “the guy who tried to frame [him].” Though it’s clear where the audience’s sympathies are supposed to lie, and at no point did I believe Jesse actually tampered with evidence, it’s revealed that Jesse did skirt the line by placing a recording device in Tony and Anna’s bedroom. Sure, maybe he didn’t actually break into the house to do it, but Rebecca Nevins calls it “dirty evidence” and she’s right. Even if Jesse was invited to that party (which I’m pretty sure he wasn’t), sneaking up to the bedroom and planting a bug still isn’t legal. If Enright’s lawyer is as good as he claims to be, he’ll have a field day with that when Tony has his day in court on the pandering and accessory to murder charges.

As soon as the recording device gets traced to the garage at the lab, Calleigh knows exactly whose car she’ll find it in, and she insists on going alone to the garage. Sure enough, her instincts are spot on. She’s clearly frustrated with Jesse, and while she doesn’t exactly go easy on him after she discovers the recording equipment in the car, she does agree to help him go after Enright, provided the pornographer is in fact guilty. Calleigh and Jesse got off to something of a rocky beginning—she was immediately suspicious of his admittedly suspect behavior, and he did everything he could to deflect her questions. But since she covered for him in “Show Stopper”, Jesse opened up to her about his interest in Anna, and the murder of his wife. The trust that’s gradually been building up between the two this season is really paid off when Calleigh offers to help Jesse prove Enright is a killer. Her only caveat is that Jesse had better be right about Enright—and by the end of the episode, we know he is.

After the glass Anna drank out of tests positive for roofies, Natalia reaches out to the woman, who is clearly in denial about the man she loves. Natalia, who left her own abusive husband, clearly empathizes with Anna, who initially denies anything is wrong, insisting that Tony is “not like that.” Natalia opens up to her, saying that she used to defend her husband, too. Not only is Natalia direct with Anna without being pushy, but she also displays a fair amount of savvy when she gets Jesse to back off. Though Jesse has good intentions, he’s clearly not the person Anna wants to see after she’s just learned that she was drugged and possibly assaulted the night before. By the end of the episode, Anna has seen Tony for what he is, and his attempt to worm his way back into her good graces by offering to take her to her favorite restaurant only elicits disgust from her.

With the news that Adam Rodriguez is going to be a regular on the show again next season (story), seeing Delko show up isn’t perhaps as novel as it was a few months ago, but it’s always good to have Delko back on the show working with his old team. In this episode, he’s brought in because Rebecca Nevins decides she wants one of her people to go with Horatio to Los Angeles. It’s a little amusing that she’d chose Delko, who not long ago worked for the very guy he’s supposed to be keeping an eye on, but it’s fun to see Horatio and Delko working together again nonetheless. It will be refreshing once the show no longer has to find excuses to throw Delko back in with his old teammates—presumably his return to the show will also involve him rejoining the lab.

The perpetrator in the rape/murder case is apparent practically from the get-go, paving the way for the investigation in L.A. to take the forefront. Still, Calleigh and Ryan have to dig up some effectively damning evidence in order to really nail Coop Daly. Though he’s something of a one-note slimeball, Coop does get one great zinger in Ryan’s expense, calling the CSI “Pint Size.” Ever the one to be prickly, Ryan shoots back that he’s 5′9, which just invites more ribbing from Coop, who tells the CSI that his “pants are 5′9.” Poor Ryan doesn’t handle it very well when people tease him, but it certainly offers a good laugh for the audience.

For a complete list of winners, visit Zap2It.

As CSI Files previously reported, Rodriguez will be a series regular again starting in season nine. The actor was going to leave after a limited number of episodes this season, but the plan changed. “[W]e got to a crossroads last year where [CBS and I] wanted different things,” Rodriguez told Entertainment Weekly. “And one thing that was important was going back to finish the character properly. I think when the fans got the news that Delko wasn’t going to be back full-time and when they actually saw he wasn’t back full-time, they felt there was something missing from the show. They were very vocal about that and I have to give credit to CBS that they paid attention to it.”

“I think, you know, a lot of it had to do with both parties even being willing to hash something out,” the actor continued. “[The first] time, it was really CBS that walked away [from negotiations] quickly. I’m not going to pull any punches, that’s just the way it was. I think that fans really made it known that the show wasn’t the same without Delko. And like I said, CBS was wise enough to pay attention to that and make sure that they kept the chemistry of the show the way the fans wanted it.”

Miami added several new characters to the fold this season, but Rodriguez hopes that nobody has to leave to make his return possible. “I would be very, very disappointed if that was the decision that was made,” he said. “I can certainly tell you that the agreement we came to should not warrant that happening at all.” While he hopes everybody is able to stay in front of the camera, Rodriguez will also be spending some time behind the scenes next season as part of his new deal with the show. “One of the things [they did] to sweeten the deal was they’re allowing me to write and direct at least one episode next season,” he explained. “That was something that was really attractive to me.”

Rodriguez doesn’t know which direction Eric’s story will take, but he assumes the character will leave the District Attorney’s office in order to return to the crime lab. “I don’t have confirmation of that, but I don’t know what else [they could do],” he said. However, he doesn’t want them to rush the transition. “I think it might be interesting to explore [his current job] a little further before he actually comes back to the team.”

The future of Eric’s relationship with Calleigh Duquesne (Emily Procter) remains unknown at this point as well. “I’m curious to see what they have in mind,” Rodriguez said. “But I think we have to go all the way down the road at this point. I would really love to explore the relationship fully and see what it’s like to have these people that have had this attraction to each other and are finally getting into this relationship for real after all this time. It certainly took a long enough for it to actually happen.”

“I think we owe it to the people who wanted to see it happen to give them the whole ride as opposed to making it a short one, [especially since] it’s not about me leaving now,” he continued. “Now that I’m going to stay, I think that we’ll have a little more latitude as far as what we can do with the relationship.”

CSI Files previously reported that Adam Rodriguez (Eric Delko) would return to Miami full time next season. In the meantime, the character will launch an undercover investigation of the lab for the State’s Attorney’s office that will have a profound effect on Horatio Caine (David Caruso). “That investigation will reveal the most dramatic betrayal in Horatio Caine’s career,” co-executive producer Barry O’Brien told TVGuide.com. “It puts Horatio in a light we’ve never seen him in before, questioning the loyalties of his team. … It will rock the fabric of the team and threaten at least one—if not more—CSI’s future.”

In other Miami news, actor Simon Miller has been cast in an upcoming episode called “Spring Breakdown”. Miller will play a sexual predator who becomes the victim of a gruesome murder. The episode was written by Corey Evett and Matt Partney, with Larry Detwiler directing.

Sources: TVGuide.com and PR Newswire

“Anika Noni Rose and Hill Harper are a part of a new generation of Hollywood that embodies the spirit of the Image Awards,” said NAACP Hollywood Bureau Executive Director Vicangelo Bulluck. “Their talent and success is inspiring and adds a sophisticated glamour to the evening.” The awards will be broadcast live on the Fox network.

Source: ScreenCrave

According to TVGuide.com, Eric will launch an undercover investigation of the lab for the State’s Attorney’s office. He’ll also return to be by Calleigh’s side when she faces a dangerous situation at a crime scene. Co-executive producer Barry O’Brien promised that after all the ups and downs in their relationship, the pair will have some closure. “They’re going to face a defining moment of decision,” O’Brien said. “All the starts and stops in their relationship are going to be put to the test and they will finally make a decision that will inform their relationship for the remainder of the series.”

CSI Files previously reported that Mädchen Amick would be joining CSI: NY in a recurring role as a love interest for Mac. However, things may not end well for the pair. TVGuide.com reports that Mac will have to choose between Amick’s character and another woman—one that New York fans are familiar with.

Horatio and the Miami team have 24 hours to determine whether a man on death row was falsely convicted of murdering his wife and daughter.

Synopsis:

James Bradstone, a former doctor on death row for the murder of his wife Sarah and daughter Caitlin fifteen years ago, is granted a temporary stay of execution just in time after the key eyewitness in his case changes her testimony. Louise Russo, Bradstone’s elderly neighbor, tells a reporter on a national news show that she actually saw Bradstone kill his wife from her kitchen, not her living room as she testified in court—at the behest of the prosecutor, Evan Talbot. Now the State’s Attorney, Talbot sends new hire Eric Delko back to the CSI lab to help the Miami lab prove Bradstone did indeed kill his wife and daughter. Jesse Cardoza, who worked the case as a rookie, tells the team that in addition to Louise’s testimony, he also recovered the murder weapon with Bradstone’s prints on it. The only survivor of the attack, Bradstone’s son Todd, was seven at the time. Jesse is convinced Bradstone is the killer. Horatio goes to the prison to speak to Bradstone, who insists someone broke into his house while he was sleeping on the couch and killed his wife and daughter. He admits that he was selling prescription drugs illegally, and suspects one of his clients may have committed the murders after he stopped selling. Calleigh and Ryan interrogate Donald Newhouse, who bought drugs from Bradstone after losing his medical license. Newhouse claims he was at an addiction meeting at the time of the murders, but as Calleigh points out, the meetings are anonymous and there’s no way to prove or disprove his claim.

Delko questions the eyewitness, Louise Russo, who reaffirms she was in the kitchen but was told by the prosecutor that she should claim to have been in her living room because a tree blocked her line of sight from her kitchen to the Bradstone’s bedroom. She was reluctant to do so, but trusted the “young officer” at the scene—none other than Jesse Cardoza. Delko is angry upon learning Jesse changed the report at the prosecutor’s behest, but Horatio reminds the two men that there is another witness: Bradstone’s son, Todd, now twenty-two. Todd tells Horatio that he was dismissed as a credible witness because at the time he recalls hearing the sound of a train going by the house—impossible as there were no tracks anywhere nearby. He tells Horatio that he recalls seeing a man on top of his mother, prompting Delko, Natalia and Jesse to go over Sarah Bradstone’s clothes from the night of the murder. They find semen on the nightgown she was wearing that proves to be a DNA match to Donald Newhouse. When questioned again, Newhouse admits he was having an affair with Sarah Bradstone, but claims he fled out the bathroom window when he heard her husband come home. The CSIs poke a hole in his story when Natalia, Ryan and Walter go to the house—untouched since the murders—and find a blood trail from the bedroom to the bathroom indicating Newhouse stood over Sarah as she died. Calleigh and Ryan question him again, and Newhouse admits he went back for his wallet, which he’d forgotten, and found Sarah bleeding to death in the bedroom. Rather than helping her or calling the police, he fled—a cowardly action, he admits, but he maintains that he didn’t kill her.

Delko and Jesse show Newhouse’s picture to Louise Russo, but she says she’s certain the man she saw was Bradstone, not Newhouse. She walks off, but before she gets very far she’s struck by a car that speeds off! The driver is caught and identified as Phillip Hale—and the CSIs learn he worked at 40 Palms, a golf club Newhouse used to belong to. Newhouse maintains his innocence, and Walter finds corroborating evidence when he ties the gold bars Hale was paid with to a bank robber who shared a cell with Bradstone. Remembering Todd’s claim that he heard something that sounded like a train rushing by the night of the murders, Horatio goes back to the Bradstones’ house with Jesse and Delko—and a wind machine. The CSIs are able to generate a high wind that moves the trees blocking the view of the Bradstones’ bedroom from Mrs. Russo’s kitchen. After getting documentation from the weather service about the winds the night of the murder, Jesse and Delko take the evidence to Talbot. Horatio tells Todd that his father is indeed guilty, and Todd goes to see Bradstone before he’s executed. Horatio checks in with his own son, Kyle, who is fighting in Afghanistan.

Analysis:

It’s been a long time since I’ve been this engrossed in an episode of CSI: Miami. This one had me from the get-go, opening with a last minute stay of execution after a witness’s false testimony gets exposed on a national news show. Jesse is sure the guy is guilty, but reopening the case turns up another likely suspect, and Delko is having doubts. Both James Bradstone and Donald Newhouse seem like genuinely viable suspects. If the episode loses a little steam in the fourth act once it becomes obvious that Bradstone is indeed the killer, that’s only because what has come before is so genuinely suspenseful. The initial teaser hooked me right away, but even more importantly, what followed built on that, layering in doubts and creating genuine confusion—the good kind—in the viewer’s mind. Until those gold bars were traced back to someone Bradstone knew in jail, it was anyone’s guess who the killer was. That’s good plotting.

The teaser itself is a fun little treat for the fans, not simply introducing the case but also seeding in the kind of personal moments for the characters that the audience is always hungry for. Horatio is watching the news with keen interest, viewing a story about casualties in Afghanistan. It won’t be clear until the end of the episode why this story concerns Horatio, but the tense look on David Caruso’s face conveys that it means quite a lot to the CSI. Troubled Jesse is looking over a news story about Anna Kitson and her husband–the man he believes killed his wife. Jesse’s brow furrows as he reads about a reference to a “stalker”—presumably Jesse himself. And Calleigh shares a tender moment in bed with a man that is revealed to be none other than Eric Delko. Fans wondering about the state of their romance now have their answer—the hot duo seems to be “on again” almost in spite of themselves.

The memorable teaser leads into the reopening of the case, which quickly proves to be nowhere near as open and shut as it first seemed. Another suspect quickly emerges in the form of Donald Newhouse, whom the CSIs learn was having an affair with Sarah Bradstone. Newhouse seems to be tied in at every turn—first the CSIs learn he was getting prescription drugs from Bradstone, then that he was sleeping with Bradstone’s wife the night of the murder, then that he was in the room after she was stabbed and finally that he played golf at the same course where Phillip Hale, the caddy that hit eyewitness Louise Russo, worked. Newhouse definitely seems tied in with the murders, and unlike other cases where the evidence points to one suspect and then another and then another, in this case, the evidence keeps coming back to Newhouse.

Newhouse is played with a kind of apologetic sliminess by Nicholas Lea, well known for his role as Krycek in The X-Files. Newhouse seems credible if not especially admirable—especially once he admits to abandoning Sarah as she bled to death in the bedroom—but as the evidence against him mounts, it’s easier and easier to see him as the killer. Anthony Michael Hall’s Bradstone appears sympathetic in his early scenes, which creates further doubt in viewers’ minds. The case hinges on Louise Russo’s testimony, which the CSIs end up proving is accurate after all with the help of a wind machine and a look back at the weather on the day the murder was committed. Why Louise wouldn’t have remembered it was a windy day the first time she was questioned and that that was the reason she was able to see the Bradstones’ bedroom from her kitchen is a nagging little detail, but a mostly forgivable one in light of how enjoyable the episode is.

The case brings about some friction between Delko and Jesse, who worked the case fifteen years ago as a rookie. In a flashback, Jesse tells the prosecutor at the time, Evan Talbot (now the State’s Attorney Delko is working for) that the case is his first murder investigation. Talbot is able to bully Jesse into changing the documentation of Louise’s statement after the young cop witnesses Talbot talking Louise into saying she witnesses the murder from her living room rather than the kitchen. This obviously eats away at Jesse, but he quickly tires of the skepticism Delko directs his way, snapping that he’s “not to blame for everything that went wrong in this case.” For his part, Delko is frustrated by the obvious discrepancies and mishandling of the case fifteen years ago. What makes it work well is that neither man comes off as the bad guy–Delko is trying to get at the truth and Jesse is attempting to make up for some rookie mistakes.

Perhaps not unintentionally, Delko’s return feels more natural here than it did in “Delko for the Defense”. Not only has Delko found a job that suits him, but he and Calleigh have resumed their relationship—at least in the bedroom. At the end of the episode they talk briefly about how they keep promising it won’t go on… and yet it does. The scene in the teaser between Delko and Calleigh perfectly delineates the sizzling chemistry between the two, and with Adam Rodriguez returning to the show now and then for guest appearances—and Delko still working in the CSIs’ orbit in Miami—it makes sense to keep playing out the complicated relationship between them. Is an off camera happy ending, a la Grissom and Sara on CSI, too much to hope for? Possibly, but it’s nice to see that as of now, Delko and Calleigh are still very much entangled.

Natalia’s hearing issues seem to be resolved for now; apparently the doctor she saw in “Die by the Sword” got her a hearing aid, which allows her to hear Ryan and Walter talking behind her back as they go to check out the Bradstones’ house. Given that the doctor suggested Natalia’s hearing problems originated not with the blast in “Count Me Out” but from spousal abuse that happened during her marriage, I suspect that the hearing aid fix won’t be the last of Natalia’s hearing woes. For now, the hearing aid fix seems to do the trick, and Natalia is in good spirits, even laughing as Ryan and Walter gently poke fun at her.

This episode also clues the audience in on where Horatio’s son, Kyle Harmon, has been this season. Last seen working as an assistant in the ME’s office last season, Kyle was nowhere to be seen this year, and we now know why: he enlisted in the army and has been fighting in Afghanistan. The news explains Horatio’s worried look in the teaser, and paves the way for a touching conversation via video chat for the two at the end of the episode. It’s nice to see Horatio and Kyle—who were once at odds with each other—having such an affectionate chat. The scene is just one of the many things this episode gets exactly right.

Caruso described his history and appreciation for football and the city of Miami. “It started when I was 14 years old and watched the [New York] Jets triumph over the [Baltimore] Colts in Super Bowl III at the Orange Bowl,” he told NFL.com. “To me, it’s one of the greatest games ever played.” The Orange Bowl stadium has since been demolished, but Caruso has memories from another Miami football venue: the Sun Life Stadium (also known as Dolphin Stadium). Since it was built, the Sun Life Stadium has hosted five Super Bowl games—including this year’s Super Bowl XLIV.

“[I]n 2007, I had the good fortune to attend Super Bowl XLI, held at Dolphin Stadium, when the [Indianapolis] Colts beat the [Chicago] Bears,” Caruso continued. “This year marks the 10th Super Bowl in Miami, and it’s with good reason the game keeps coming back. The weather, the scenery, the culture, and the nightlife create an electric setting that’s perfect for such a big event. In this humble taxpayer’s opinion, the Super Bowl belongs in South Florida.”

The actor also related a story about himself and Miami co-star Adam Rodriguez (Eric Delko) that took place in the Sun Life Stadium after Super Bowl XLI. “No matter your age, I think we can all agree that the Super Bowl brings out the kid in us,” Caruso shared. “So, with the sincere intent of embarrassing my good friend and CSI: Miami cast-mate Adam Rodriguez, I want to share with you a truly giddy, adolescent moment that I believe is the fantasy of all Americans.”

The day after the Colts won the Super Bowl, Caruso and Rodriguez did an interview in the end zone at Dolphin Stadium. “While waiting to go on the air, Adam and I embarrassed ourselves by publicly reenacting moments from the game,” Caruso explained. “Equipped with an invisible football and our imaginations, we became 6-year-olds all over again.”

“After some nervous looks from the crew, we finally settled down and returned to reality,” he continued. “But it had happened—a small miracle, a tiny sliver of the great tradition was beneath our feet and now in our souls. We had been on the field where the Super Bowl had just been played, astride on the same turf where the great gridiron masters perform and where history is carved out.”