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

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“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

Synopsis:

Wrath of Connie is a jammer on the Miami Masochists roller derby team, but she’s having an off night. She heads into the locker room during the middle of a bout, but she doesn’t come out alive. Her real name is Connie Briggs, and someone hit her hard enough with an object to break her rib. Dr Loman posits that the broken rib must have ruptured something and caused her to bleed out internally.

Ryan speaks with Miami Spice, aka Olivia Adler, a rival player who got into a fight with Connie during the game. However, Olivia was in the penalty box known as the “Sin Bin” when Connie was murdered, and footage from the game confirms that she didn’t leave the rink. However, Masochist player D’Beat Down, aka Deb Taylor, got knocked off the track and didn’t return for 15 minutes. Deb and Connie were “derby wives”, partners in crime on and off the track. They had a bond, and they were supposed to be there for each other. She should have had Connie’s back, but she was signing autographs and posing for pictures while Connie was being murdered in the locker room.

Loman confirms that Connie’s chest cavity is filled with blood from a massive vessel rupture caused by the broken rib. He found ipecac in her stomach contents, which is used to induce vomiting. That’s why she went into the locker room during the bout. There’s some bruising on her gums from an ill-fitting mouthguard, which didn’t belong to her. The person who dosed her with ipecac had to use their own mouth to mold the mouthguard, and Natalia finds male DNA. It belongs to Vince Kessler, who says he just wanted Connie to get sick so she couldn’t play.

Lucy Strickland is Connie’s emergency contact and roommate, and she comes to the lab. She’s been friends with Connie since freshman year, but she claims nobody would want to hurt her. They didn’t talk about the roller derby much because that was Connie’s thing, but Lucy does remember Connie mentioning a woman named Tara and Feathered. They had a beef when Connie joined the roller derby four months ago. Natalia and Horatio speak to Tara Werner, and they discover that she severed her T9 and T10 vertebrae during a scuffle with Connie on the track. She doesn’t blame Connie, though, it’s just part of the game.

Vince is Tara’s brother, and he’s angry that they think she had anything to do with this. Tara’s injuries provide motive for Vince to kill Connie, but he claims he didn’t do it—still, he says, karma is a bitch. Tara says her paralysis has been tough on Vince, but he knows she didn’t blame Connie. Horatio asks her to use her roller derby expertise to identify the strange bruise left behind by the murder weapon. She has no trouble figuring out what caused the mark: an elbow pad.

Loman shows Natalia evidence of domestic abuse in Connie’s x-rays. He locates a fragment of bone, which is from a previous rib fracture. It has been healing for at least six months, but the new rib fracture dislodged the fragment; it was this piece of bone that shredded her thorasic aorta. Natalia and Horatio talk to Lucy, who says Connie broke up with a guy named Jake McGrath about four months ago. Connie doesn’t seem like the type to keep quiet about abuse, but Lucy says that’s why she joined the roller derby: it made her feel empowered and in control.

They bring Jake in, and Horatio points out that he put Connie in the hospital on several occasions. They find a punching bag at his house with indentations from elbow pads, but Jake says the marks were made by Connie and a friend when they were practicing. It wasn’t Deb, though, it was Lucy. The pair of them were hellbent on joining the roller derby, and the team finds equipment in Lucy’s trunk. Her elbow pads are heavier than the ones used by Connie’s teammates and rivals because she replaced the plastic plates with steel, which increased the force of her hit and enabled her to break Connie’s rib.

It was Lucy’s idea to join the derby, but Connie was the one who excelled. Lucy didn’t make any of the squads, and she and Connie drifted apart. Lucy went into the locker room to clean out her stuff, and she saw Connie after she threw up during the bout. Connie told Lucy she might not be cut out for the derby because she’s not fierce enough, and Lucy slammed the elbow pad into her back one time before running out. With the murder solved, Deb skates around the rink with Connie’s jersey to honor her memory, and the team sits in the audience to watch the roller derby bout.

Analysis:

I don’t know much about roller derby, but “Wheels Up” makes it look like a fun and brutal sport. These women are tough and take no prisoners, and getting hurt is just part of the game. However, things go too far when Connie is killed, and the murder casts suspicion over Connie’s friends and foes alike. The killer ends up being Connie’s close friend, who is hurt and angry when Connie dismisses her after becoming so successful at something Lucy couldn’t do. During the final interrogation with Eric and Natalia, Lucy says she lashed out because she felt mistreated by her friend, but Natalia points out that friends forgive each other.

Jake is a bit of a red herring, although there’s no denying that his abusive behavior indirectly caused Connie’s death. It’s frustrating to see him shrug it off and know he’s going to get away with it, but Horatio goes way too far at the end of the episode. After Jake is released, a uniformed officer wrestles him into a room alone with Horatio. Horatio tells Jake he should be going to prison for murder, but Jake points out that they caught their murderer. Horatio mentions the broken rib he caused in the past, which contributed to her death, but he claims she fell off his bike. When Jake says he wants a lawyer, Horatio remarks that it will take a while for one to arrive. In the meantime, he locks the door and closes the blinds.

I know Horatio is a bit of a comic book hero, where the rules are more fluid and laws can be bent by the Good Guys, but I have a hard time suspending my disbelief when Horatio is able to physically attack people, even horrible people, without repercussions. Two examples that immediately come to mind are the man in “To Kill A Predator” who was planning to molest a teenage girl, and the rapist in “On the Hook”, whom Horatio threw through a window. Both men were very clearly in the Bad Guys category, yet Horatio chose to attack them rather than simply arrest them and let the system take care of the rest. It isn’t realistic, but it may be a form of wish fulfillment for some viewers; it can be gratifying to see Horatio bend the rules and fight back against sexual predators, rapists and men who abuse women.

Walter and Ryan are always a fun duo, and this week they get several great scenes while investigating the roller derby death. Walter knows all about the derby, but Ryan is skeptical—until he sees the girls on the track, at which point he announces that it is the “sexiest, scariest thing I’ve ever seen.” Walter is amused, but he did try to tell him how hardcore these women are! As they’re watching, a fight breaks out, and they wade in to attempt to break it up. It seems silly, given that they are outnumbered, but I do feel bad for Ryan getting punched in the face. Later in the episode, he collects the elbow pads of the woman who hit him. She apologizes (although she doesn’t sound terribly sincere), and he tells her she has a nice cross. She knows this, of course, so his compliment is unnecessary.

Ryan has another amusing scene with a derby girl when he talks to Olivia Adler, aka Miami Spice, about her fight with Connie prior to her death. He’s a bit confused about derby names, and she compares them to the names used by professional wrestlers—but the derby girls aren’t faking it. He suggests that she was angry enough to go after Connie and attack her, but Olivia insists she was stuck in the “Sin Bin” during the time of the murder. When she skates away, she lifts up her skirt and smacks herself on the butt. Ryan calls out, “That’s not professional”, and Jonathan Togo’s delivery earns a laugh—as does his “not bad” a moment later.

Dave Benton, like Ryan, is also surprised by the ferocity of roller derby when he sees the footage from the bout. Walter, Ryan and Dave are great together, and I love their exchange as they’re watching the game. When Ryan confirms that Olivia was in the Sin Bin when Connie was attacked, Dave asks what that is. Ryan’s response? “Don’t ask.” Oh Ryan, don’t try to make it sound more dramatic than it is. Who knows what Dave might think!

The mouthguard scene has a very old-school CSI vibe. The camera zooms toward a set of teeth as they bite into the soft mouthguard material, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that reminds me of the earlier seasons of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. There’s just something very interesting about looking at someone’s teeth from the back or side. I remember mouth close-ups in season one’s “The Strip Strangler” as well as season two’s “The Hunger Artist”, just to name two off the top of my head. Miami has also done a close-up shot of someone’s mouth, during season one’s “Slaughterhouse”. There may be more examples, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.

The scene with Natalia and lab tech Sara Clark is great. Desiree Hall previously appeared in season eight’s “Hostile Takeover”, but she hasn’t been back since “Wheels Up”. It’s a shame because she and Eva La Rue play off each other very well, and it’s fun to watch them try out the elbow pads and attempt to recreate the necessary pressure to replicate the injury that killed Connie. Unfortunately, they don’t have the strength to do it, and Eric wanders in to offer his services. There’s a bit of good-natured teasing about him thinking he’s stronger than them, but Eric points out that “force equals mass times acceleration”, and he’s got more mass to throw around. He’s able to replicate the conditions necessary to break the victim’s rib, and he suggests they’re looking for a male killer. Natalia and Sara disagree, however. Some of these derby girls are really tough, and they could be looking for a very strong woman. It’s a really fun demonstration, and I’d love to see Hall come back to reprise her role in season ten so she can interact with the team again.

See also: “Wheels Up” episode guide

Director Jeffrey Hunt shared a picture from the CSI lab featuring himself alongside series stars George Eads (Nick Stokes), Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) and Ted Danson (DB Russell). Hunt also posted several images offering fans a glimpse of the art department building something for an upcoming episode. Click to enlarge:

Eva La Rue (Natalia Boa Vista) posed alongside her CSI: Miami costars Adam Rodriguez (Eric Delko), Omar Miller (Walter Simmons), Jonathan Togo (Ryan Wolfe) and Emily Procter (Calleigh Duquesne). You can also check out a picture of upcoming guest star Kate del Castillo with leading man David Caruso (Horatio Caine). Click to see the full-sized images:

Lastly, CSI: New York set designer Will Batts posted a fun image of some dummies on the set. Click for full size: