CSI: Miami – Episode 8.01 – “Out of Time” Recap

CSI: Miami – Episode 8.01 – Out of Time
Air Date: September 21, 2009

[Photo: © 2009 CBS Broadcasting, all rights reserved]

• 2009: The season 8 premiere of CSI: Miami begins with the team, dogs and other officers in an all-out search of the Everglades for Eric Delko. Meanwhile, Delko stumbles, blood-covered, through the swamp on foot.
• After he collapses and they find him, he flat-lines in the ambulance. The flashback begins.
• 1997: Eric Delko is driving a wrecker-truck through the Everglades in search of salvage. He finds a submerged car and pulls it out of the swamp. Blood is dripping from the trunk. He finds a dead body in the trunk and calls for the homicide team.
• Horatio shows up and Delko reminds him to get a pair of sunglasses.
• 2009: Alexx Woods is in the hospital and says she’ll oversee his treatment.
• 1997: Horatio explains lividity to Delko, then goes to notify the husband of the woman’s death. The guy is nervous, doesn’t have an alibi, says he pawned the gun and there’s a smell of bleach in the house. Horatio’s partner seems quick to judge the husband, but Horatio wants to wait for the evidence before arresting him.
• Alexx is doing the wife’s autopsy and gives Horatio the 9 mm bullet she extracted from the head. The bullet matches the ammo found in the home. There’s also blunt-force trauma to the head.
• We see Calleigh in the precinct and Jesse Cardoza rescues her from some jerks that were hitting on her. He shows her to the lab and tells her that it’s his last day there. He leaves her there and goes to Horatio to find out how he can help on the case.
• Jesse gets to the home and finds that the place has been wiped down with bleach, but when he takes off a baseboard, he finds blood.
• Back at the precinct, Calleigh questions her new boss’ interpretation of the bullet evidence. Horatio tells her she did the right thing.
• We then see Det. Tripp with hair…not a full head of hair, but at least there’s still some. Horatio asks him about any domestic violence calls for the couple. Tripp says that they were just yelling at each other, no violence. But he told Horatio that he did arrest a peeping Tom in the area and gave him the info. The creep was a landscaper.
• When they bring in the landscaper, he seems guilty, but Horatio’s partner lets him go. He still thinks it’s the husband.
• Calleigh, who has been asked to help with the case, joins Horatio in the parking lot. Before they leave, Delko tries to get her phone number. She tells him she would never date anyone “remotely connected with work.”
• Calleigh & Horatio determine that the car was wrecked before it was pushed into the swamp. Jesse found blood spatter and a blood pool, consistent with blunt force trauma before being shot. Alexx found evidence of sexual assault on the wife’s body. But it was the kind of evidence that happens when the body was desecrated after it was dead.
• Horatio and Calleigh found no evidence that the husband was in the car when it crashed but that the landscaper definitely was there.
• Meanwhile Horatio’s partner has already been to the DA to get an arrest warrant for the husband.
• 2009: Horatio sits at Delko’s bedside and asks him to hold on. He tells him that he’s not ready for him to go yet.
• 1997: Delko & Horatio go back to the swamp where the car was found. They find trace from the car on the guardrail and footprints that suggest that something was thrown into the water. Delko fishes around in the water near a storm drainage pipe and finds a 9 mm gun.
• Jesse & Cardoza go to the house and determine that the air conditioner carried small drops of blood back at the killer and the window behind him. They examine the landscaper and find a small amount of blood in one nostril. They can prove he was in the house and fired the gun.
• Horatio found out that he needed to get a special new kind of DNA test that can determine DNA from only a few cells. The lab tech that does the test is Natalia Boa Vista. The blood from the nostril matches the victim. The landscaper is charged with first-degree murder, the husband is set free, charges dropped against him.
• As Jesse Cardoza leaves with his box of belongings, he congratulates Horatio for being named the head of the new CSI division. Jesse suggests that Horatio call Speedle for his new team.
• Just then, Delko shows up and gives Horatio a new pair of sunglasses. Horatio tells him that he has a great eye for detail and that he should go to the police academy and then look up Horatio.
• 2009: The entire team waits by Delko’s bedside as he gradually wakes up from the coma and smiles at Horatio.

Discussion Points:

1. Was it a satisfying explanation for how the team started?
2. Do you like the new character, Jesse Cardoza?
3. Is it just me, or is it significant that Delko looked at Horatio, but not at Calleigh as he woke up?
4. Also, did it look like the scenes from 2009 seemed like they were shot before David Caruso got a facelift and the flashback scenes afterward?
5. What did you think of the bubbly, vivacious Calleigh vs. the all-business, tough as nails Calleigh of today?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!