Grissom's greatest hits

An investigator of the old school, the inimitable Gil Grissom was always a stickler for the anything-but-flashy hands-on technique at the heart of unravelling a crime scene.  While the geek squad were getting caught up in the wonders of DNA profiling and virtual reconstruction, the captain and bonafide bug whisperer would be catapulting dummies off skyrises or using his affinity for multi-legged critters to solve the unsolvable.  Add into the mix his relationship with Sara Sidle and it’s easy to see how, in the wake of his departure, one of Vegas’s finest has left a back catalogue of case files bursting at the seams with greatest hits.

Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot

New-kid-on-the-chopping-block Holly Gribbs signs up for some Crime Scene Initiation – Grissom style.  Lesson one: donating blood doesn’t always benefit the living or end with tea and biccies. (Chocolate-covered grasshopper, anyone?)  Before she winds up on the slab herself, the ill-fated necrophobic even gets to enjoy an ‘accidental‘ lock-in with a storeroom full of corpses.

Season 2, Episode 13: Identity Crisis

One year after his first appearance as the mastermind behind costume-and-props company Halloweird, serial killer Paul Millander – also known as Pauline and, on his better days, Judge Douglas Mason – does the unthinkable and outsmarts Griss to claim the latest in a line of victims sharing something in common with the CSI himself.  Happy birthday, Gil.

Season 3, Episode 15: Lady Heather’s Box

Grissom immerses himself in a brave new world when the murders of two male gigolos see him revisit dominatrix Lady Heather and her now thriving empire.  With nothing known of the hours between their near-kiss one balmy night and ‘a little civility before work‘ the following morning, the question remains: was the captain tempted into mixing business with pleasure (or pain)?

Season 4, Episode 12: Butterflied

Grissom finally begins to dissect his frustratingly non-existent love life as he investigates a blood-curdling crime of passion.  During interrogation with his scientifically minded suspect, he admits that he’s found in him the man who did what he never could: put his relationship before his career.  Cut to a doe-eyed Sara, who realises that she’s in for a criminally long wait.

Season 5, Episodes 24-5: Grave Danger

‘It was Christmas in Las Vegas, when the locals take the town…' and one unlucky CSI got buried underground.  A fatherly Grissom turns his entomology know-how into ant-nav, saving Nick ‘Poncho‘ Stokes from being eaten alive by the swarm of ravenous bugs sharing his explosive coffin – all before declaring to evil Ecklie that he wants his divided team back as one.

Season 6, Episode 24: Way To Go

Grissom’s unique art of seduction is revealed as a late-night rendezvous confirms the lab’s worst kept secret: his relationship with Sara.  And forget pillow talk; try an A-Z in dream death scenarios.  ‘I’d like to…have some time to prepare.  Go back to the rainforest one last time, reread Moby Dick, possibly enter an international chess tournament.'  Who said romance was dead?

Season 7, Episode 24: Living Doll

Business gets personal and Grissom meets a right pain in the sawdust when Sara’s mysterious disappearance puts him face to face with the vengeful Miniature Killer (that’s the larger than life Natalie Davis, not a matchbox-sized murderer), who offers him nothing in his search but some spooky singing and a scaled-down model of the crime scene.

Season 8, Episode 4: Case of the Cross-Dressing Carp

In the marriage capital of the world, Grissom mixes together his two greatest passions as Sara joins him for his latest case-related experiment.  Bee-keeping outfits, a swarm of stingers and a whole lot of science talk make for a thoroughly indecent proposal – but one which is oh-so-totally Grissom.  And no, they still haven’t kissed yet.

Season 9, Episode 1: For Warrick

He may at one time or another have managed to save various members of his CSI family from meeting a sticky end and being relinquished to the mercy of Dr Robbins‘s scalpel, but not even Grissom could have predicted the tragic demise of Warrick at the hands of the unashamedly corrupt McKeen.  Here it’s after seeking justice for the fallen that the usually socially awkward Gil offers an all-important glimpse into their relationship, with a tear-jerking eulogy.

Season 9, Episode 10: One To Go'

After 17 years on the job, Grissom does the unthinkable and hangs up his lab coat, leaving straight-laced successor Professor Ray Langston with a few lessons unlearned – a shirt and tie is a uniform reserved exclusively for city slickers – and saying goodbye to his office of pickled insects and shrunken heads before taking one final stroll through the inner sanctum of the LVPD lab.