Never say that CSI doesn’t know how write a cliffhanger. This week’s season finale, “Homecoming,” saw the return of McKeen aka the man who killed Warrick Brown, and brought to a head the long-reaching subplot of the rampant corruption in the LVPD.
When the wife of a former mob affiliate turned community activist was found brutally beaten in the hotel room of a drug dealer, all signs pointed to her estranged husband as the killer. But with a little digging, the CSI’s realized the man was being framed, and that the victim had been a confident informer who apparently knew way too much.
How did all of this tie to one of the most hated characters in CSI history? Well, it turns out that getting a life sentence for killing Warrick (a cop of sorts) made McKeen a big deal in prison, enough so that he’s been able to continue to orchestrate his evil deeds from the inside. He even used his illegitimate son to help him keep a tabs on the officers under his control, a young man Ecklie was forced to kill when a surveillance operation went sour. The conspiracy runs deep, so deep that the sheriff vowed to flush out all of the poison in the department, no matter how high it ran.
But it might be too late for CSI. As the proverbial good guys who helped uncover the corruption in the first place, they all have targets on their backs. Nick recognized this right away, and while watching the sheriff’s speech, he concluded that it would never be enough…the bad guys were going to win. In a moment of uncharacteristic darkness, no doubt provoked by McKeen’s below the belt taunts about killing Warrick, Nick announced to Sara and Greg that he was going to follow Catherine’s example and quit.
Meanwhile, as Ecklie and Morgan were taking a walk and having a rare moment of father-daughter bonding, a car approached, called out for Ecklie and fired. The man who used to be the most hated character on CSI, but has proved time and again that he’s changed from those early days, took a bullet in his side for his daughter.
At the same time Finn was at a bar, being watched by one corrupt cop, DB was at home with his wife and visiting granddaughter. A phone call sent them running upstairs where they discovered that the little girl was missing, snatched out of her bed as retaliation for the death of McKeen’s son.
That’ll keep us coming back next year, CSI. Not that I believe Nick is really going to quit or that DB’s granddaughter will be killed…although I’m more on the fence about Ecklie’s chances of survival. But it will be interesting to see how far they carry this corruption plot that has been slowly boiling on the back-burner for years.
This season has been an interesting one, definitely a season of transition. Personally, I enjoyed it far more than the previous year. Ted Danson has done a great job in taking charge of the team, especially through Marg Helgenbergers’s departure, and Elisabeth Shue has been a great addition, adding a lot of spark to a team that’s gotten quite comfortable with each other over the years. And while it’s been my year-long wish for more subplots involving the original characters, the moments that have been shown between them have seemed genuine and as well-played as ever.
It’s little wonder that while its spin-offs are faltering, the main flagship of the franchise soldiers on.
What did you think of the episode…the season? Let me know below!
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