Big Shots – CSI:Vegas Episode Recap

For the quick summary, we’ve got the synopsis provided by TV.com:

After a man is killed in his limousine, Greg finds that the murder victim has ties to the man he had to kill in self-defense. The team finds that the brother is involved in this investigation and has to deal with him and his hostile mother.

And here’s  my recap:

The episode started off with a limo barreling into a crowd of people, most who seemed to be beauty pageant contestants, standing in line to get to a club. The first scene even included two girls kissing, but they were only sharing their lip gloss. Uh-huh! The limo was riddled with bullets and had two passengers, one guest starring Method Man, a victim, and the driver.

In the other death of the evening, a girl was found in the street and it appeared she had been dumped out of a car and potentially dragged along in the street.

What appeared to be a normal drive by shooting of the limo and attack on the character “Drops”, played by Method Man, was of course not as it appeared. Nick Stokes determined that at least one of the bullet holes in the limo’s windows were from a bullet exiting the car from the interior. Further investigation found some DNA evidence on a rolled up “nose straw” for doing cocaine, as well as some circular impressions on the seat leather of the car. Additional DNA evidence determined that there were at least two additional passengers in the car that were not accounted for originally. 

The team determines that the DNA for one of the passengers matches that of the girl that was dumped on the road suffering numerous and serious injuries resulting in her death. The other passenger’s DNA belonged to none other than Aaron James. Remember that name? He’s the younger brother of Demetrius James, who Greg Anderson’s character ran over and killed in the “Fannysmackin’” episode.

The under sheriff won’t let Greg and Grissom go after James because the city just paid them millions of dollars in a wrongful death settlement. Greg keeps talking after the under-sheriff tells him to be quiet. It was an excellent scene and one that helps us build Greg into a serious force to be reckoned with on the team. 

Through the ongoing investigation, it turns out that the girl liked partying and started off in a dive of  a club for a confidence builder. Drops and Aaron James were in the club working on a business transaction because Drops wanted Aaron to use some of his new found money to invest in the club. Two guys in a pick-up truck had hit on the girl, who rebuffed their advance and went and sat next to Drops and Aaron because her ultimate goal was to party with the rich guys.

Later in the limo, Drops friend, Champ, tried to get the girl to have sex with Aaron James to help encourage him withe all the drugs, glamour and benefits of doing business with Drops. The girl refused and Champ kicked her out of the car, which led to her death. Later the two guys in the pick-up truck had followed them and began shooting at the limo. One bullet hit Champ in the head, scattering his brain and skull all over the back seat, and left a piece in Aaron James’ hoody. Drops had Aaron jump out of the car and take the gun they used to fire back. Aaron’s jeans left the prints on the seat. Drops sat in Aaron’s place and rubbed Champ’s blood all over him to complete the cover-up, as if he had been sitting in that location all along.

The episode wraps up with Aaron’s mother confronting Greg again about what he’s got against their family. Greg responds by saying he had nothing to do with the choices that Aaron made, it was on him and the mother.

The mother said Aaron was all she had left. The end of the episode we find out that Greg asked the DA to go easy on Aaron and got him a suspended sentence.

Really great episode!

Images: Eric Szmanda from CSI Wiki, skull fragment from CBS.com