Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Hunting Ground--A CSI: Miami Adventure

My wife got me into CSI: Miami which is so awfully bad that it's good. David Caruso is just amazing as Horatio Caine and it makes me wonder if Caruso is this bad in the first season of NYPD Blue. I wouldn't think so because he won a freakin' Golden Globe. And they don't just hand those out willy-nilly.
The plots on Miami are pretty stupid and a few of them are just not plausible and when I found out this recent episode ("Hunting Ground"; aired 3/13) was about people hunting people, I grabbed my popcorn and was anxious for the magic. Then I noticed who wrote it. Adam Rodriquez--who also plays Eric Delko, an investigator who is there to be slightly attractive and add a bit of Latin flair to the otherwise whitewash of the Miami-Dade Police Department. My wife then informed me that he also directed the episode (I had missed that part of the credits). I then flashed back to a couple years ago when the series Numb3rs was still on the air.
FBI Agents or professional models?
The episode was "Trouble in Chinatown" (aired 1/23/09) and it was written by co-star Peter MacNichol and it was about Chinese girls being sold on the black market to families of recently deceased men.  The girls were then killed and buried next to the dead man because apparently it was shameful to have a dead son who was not married.  The entire episode became a public service announcement for something that sounds made up (possibly for a crime procedural).  I feared the same thing with "Hunting Ground" being both directed and written by Rodriquez.  I figured he read one article or saw that movie "Surviving the Game" one too many times.  Anyway, the episode opens with a man being shot with an arrow so hard that it attaches him to a tree.  Another man then comes up to the now-dead man and begins removing a necklace around his neck when Horatio suddenly appears (he was watching Lockup on MSNBC when he heard screams apparently) and the man "stealing" the necklace begs for Horatio to shoot him.  Now Horatio wants to know why.
Quickly going through what happens, the team does an autopsy on the arrow and finds that it's custom made and leads them to the only hunting supplier (played by Not-John Waters) near the murder scene.  Not-John Waters says humans hunting human is against nature and the CSIs leave.  They then question this douchey stock trading guy who keeps hitting on Natalia (Eva La Rue) but he seems clean.  It's then determined he's not, something about a leach and a flower spotter and the CSI team is led back to Not-John Waters who is taking money and letting people hunt people.  The CSIs stop the hunt while Horatio confronts Not-John Waters and hilariously gives him 15 seconds to get a head start.  Just like Not-John Waters did to the victims of his manhunt.  Not-John Waters begins to run but Horatio shoots causing Not-John Waters to fall down.  Horatio points out that he wasn't going to kill him and that Not-John Waters has now peed his pants.  The police then arrive and apparently are just going to ignore the slight police brutality because Horatio Caine has freakin' gun.
Yippe-i-o-ki-ay.  *puts on sunglasses*
So the H-Squad (or is it H-Team) wrap up another case and it doesn't get as preachy as I thought it was going to get.  Sure the two brothers being reunited and the guy who was killed in the cold opening had a wife and daughter but other than that it was pretty standard escapist fare from CSI: Miami.  Next week's episode is about the connection between a murdered delivery truck driver and murdered housewife.  Should be a hoot.

No comments: