Is it possible for the end of the story to feel both long overdue and sudden at once?
That’s what the conclusion of the Silver Ink Killer case felt like on CSI: Vegas Season 2 Episode 16.
Viewers need to be invested in a season-long story. They need to grow to hate the big bad the heroes are attempting to capture so they get some satisfaction in the end.
That’s a difficult feat to accomplish with the villains the audience has just met.
That’s not to say that Ronald Winter wasn’t someone audiences couldn’t hiss at. He was not likeable in the slightest.
He was one of those hyper-intelligent types who were too smart for their own good. He had to call the CSIs to explain their mission, even if they wanted to hear it.
What was quickly established was that Hester, the Silver Ink mastermind, and Winter had two very different plans.
As revealed in CSI: Vegas Season 2 Episode 15, Hester set up a game to eliminate a potential serial killer.
Winter, one of his competitors, decided to go big, finding ways to get rid of people he felt were mentally defective.
Somewhere along the line, Winter decided that Eli was the only person in the lab who was intelligent enough to understand her. While he certainly missed that assessment, she was smart enough to prescribe his poison – thallium – which ultimately saved Sonya’s life.
However, Allie seems to have inherited an empathy gene that Winter definitely lacked. Why would he have promised Jack that they would save Sonya, even though it was unlikely?
Winter failed to recognize that although he was more intelligent than anyone in the lab, he combined his brains to develop the necessary answers.
While those examining Winter’s chemistry set do not find poison, the mention of heavy metals leaves Eli wondering what substances Katherine may have mined those smoke detectors. This led to his thallium diagnosis.
However, Max devises a way to find out what Winter meant by his cryptic promise to “lighten his workload”.
Despite Hester’s notes targeting the lab, Winter had nothing against the criminals. He poisons Sonya primarily to keep them busy so they don’t get in the way of his master plan to kill a significant number of mentally ill people. In his mind, it made sense.
Figuring out that Hester and Winter were connected in the Shadow Cell’s chat room, Max discreetly uses Byron’s log-in to locate her there and traces their conversation by searching for the word “thallium”. Winter stupidly listed his fictional target there as well.
Winter’s vanity, which led him to poison a failed cleaner, finally gets to him, as Catherine sees his expensive dress shoes under his lab coat and mask disguise.
It was also a bit disappointing that a plastic bag contained thallium, which was enough to eliminate Winter’s threat.
or did Much was made throughout the episode about how indecent Winter’s hieroglyphs were. What might some of those scribbled lines say when they are finally translated?
But, hopefully it will be a matter of another season now that CBS has renewed the series.
Another thing left hanging is Sonya’s status. Jack tells Ellie that the doctors weren’t sure how the thallium exposure might have affected his faculties.
Never mind the near-dead, but Sonya, along with her capable brother Jack, has been CSI: Vegas’ weakest leak this season.
The morgue has always been an integral part of the CSI narrative, beginning in the glory days of Dr. Albert Robbins.
That hasn’t been the case this season. Maybe it’s because Sonya’s aggressive style in the morgue is like a nail on a chalkboard. (Kids, this is what the teachers wrote on the whiteboard before.)
Viewers prefer their ME to be eccentric (think Ducky on NCIS), not arrogant. As Dr. Hugo Ramirez, Mel Rodriguez got it right before choosing to depart on CSI: Vegas Season 1.
So could this mean that Derek Webster’s Dr. Milton Hudson, who auditioned on CSI: Vegas Season 2 Episode 14, could be returning full-time?
Now that the show has a future, it would be wise to tinker with it, fix things that are currently not working.
Since it’s hard to say how long Katherine will be hanging around, the core group should be able to stand on its own without being a legacy character.
Looking to the future that might be why Max is suddenly getting more backstory.
First, her son Byron is getting more screen time, although not as much as your average lab rat.
Now her ex-husband Daniel steps in to save their family from a threat she clearly didn’t understand. oh good It’s the thought that counts.
His contribution seemed to be securing the rental as a friend’s hideout. Since he was in Henderson, the same town as the psychiatric hospital that Winter had targeted, he was probably not as effective as he would have liked.
Their conversation didn’t shed much light on why they got married. But it appears that both were interested in rekindling that relationship. Max can use life outside the lab, so why not?
For a review of the Silver Ink case, see CSI: Vegas Online.
Were you satisfied with this conclusion? Is this the conclusion?
Should the medical examiner be replaced?
What do you think of Daniel?
comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. follow him Twitter,