TVSquad

I would love to know who decided that roller derbies were fun to watch. It's a step up from NASCAR, but it's still just a bunch of silicon jobs on wheels in both cases. However boring the sport may be, it sure makes for a great crime scene when one of the derby girls (known as She Hate Me) is apparently trampled during a match.

After Sid does the autopsy on She Hate Me, it turns out that even though she was trampled, it's not what killed her. Dinitrophenol, better known as DNP, is a chemical used in dyes, wood preservers, and explosives. It's also a very illegal weight loss drug. It causes the body to heat up and can literally cook your organs (for whatever reason, that makes me think of stew). She Hate Me was chock full of DNP. On the other side of town, Danny and Hawkes fish a body out of a dumpster. The vic is wrapped in an expensive looking oriental rug and after Danny brings the body back to the lab, he puts a blacklight on it. The body is covered in writing, all uniform, meaning that someone else did it. A handwriting expert describes it as Hypographia, which is the uncontrollable urge to write. Doesn't matter what you write on.

Back to the roller derby case, Lindsay examines the uniforms and skates. She then questions many of the girls and apparently playing roller derby professionally pays nothing because they all have day jobs (meter maid, dog walker, security guard). Mac finds trace DNP in bottles of muscle rub and shampoo - so all the girls were potentially infected. After testing their blood, it's confirmed that the shampoo was the source of the DNP. Analysis of the shampoo revealed that the DNP was old. So old in fact that it had broken down into Aminonitrophenol (ANP). So who else would need an illegal weight loss drug that happens to be about two decades old? Stella recalls the owner of the team saying that he wrestled back in high school, so he probably would have used it back then but did he still have it lying around? Mac checks out the owner's office and finds trace amounts of shampoo with DNP on the floor. So it was mixed there. The only other person who had access was the owner's wife. Poor thing, she knew her husband spent a lot on the team and she just didn't want it to be a losing venture for him. So she gave the girls a little extra action in their shampoo. Too bad it killed their most popular skater - everyone loved She Hate Me, go figure.

Back to Oriental rug guy. He was an author, and according to his editor, he had recently turned in one heck of a manuscript. Only problem is that it was missing the last chapter. Danny says he's pretty sure he knows where it is written. The victim's brother is contacted and he tells Danny that he saw his brother the other day and that he stole a rug from him. So Hawkes examines the rug and pulls some DNA from a piece of skin. It belongs to a bum named Eddie whose alley of choice happens to be across the street from where the editor lives. He says the other night some guy came out of her place carrying the rug all rolled up (with something in it) and he just tried to help but the man with the rug told him to stop. Hawkes and Danny search the editor's apartment and she admits to having an affair with the vic. Danny finds that one of the rooms has writing all over the walls when you turn on a blacklight. It's the manuscript and that writing matched what was on the body. The editor's husband has Hypographia - he wrote it all and when the vic slept over with his boss, he would sneak into the room and copy it down. So it wasn't really his book, it was the editor's husband's. Needless to say, every night the editor would read it out loud and her husband just couldn't stand it anymore. So he killed the guy, wrote the last chapter all over his body, wrapped him in a rug that was lying around, and threw him in a dumpster. Logical move.

So I guess here's my question to all of you... well I have two actually. Which case was better, because I was really impressed with this episode. I know I said in one of my other reviews that I think CSI: Miami is the best of the three, but this episode reminded me why this one is still worth catching. And what is the deal with Lindsay? Why did they even bother replacing Aiden if they knew Doc Hawkes was going to be getting all the attention as the new guy?