Leave Sid Alone!

Maroon 5 performs as everyone creates a mosh pit. There are signs, there are drunken brawls. Why can’t there ever be fun drunks, like the guy I met at Zootopia 2002 who had our tier of Giants Stadium try to do the wave faster than the tier below us. Good fun until he got ejected for being a little too inebriated. The riot squad shoots bean bags at the rioters as a Woodstock escapee stumbles around. She gets hit and then nearly gets hit by a bus. Flack, Stella and Mac look at her dead body.

Credits! I hate the fact they cut out the line “I don’t need to fight/To prove I’m right/I don’t need to be forgiven.” I thought that line was utterly perfect for the show. Also, anyone else want to see Appalosa?

Mac and Stella wonder if the riot police had anything to do with it, Flack isn’t particularly thrilled at this. Our Woodstock friend goes to Sid. He washes off the body paint and reveals either a bad case of acne or a rash. As he pulls hair out while brushing it, Sid sets off the panic button. Hawkes, Stella and Mac rush down. Sid confirms that she’s radioactive. Hawkes suits up and babbles on about proper channels while Sid passes out. Not Sid! The CDC rushes Sid to the hospital as Danny clears Mac and Stella, who also tells them the CDC has Woodstock’s clothes. Mac has Danny and Stella check out if the paint was radioactive. Adam analyzes her body paint. He tells Stella she was part of “shriiimping.” They find the body artist off his graffiti tags.

They go to his studio, looking like something out of a movie set in some dictatorship. But it’s Stella and the CDC to examine for radioactivity. He’s clear as Danny and Stella talk to the artist, Kenneth. He says the vic wasn’t unusual except for an odd complexion. He tries to hit on Stella, but she isn’t having any of it. Meanwhile, Mac and Lindsay go to the hospital. They don’t know what he has, but Lindsay and the close-up cam show us what can happen with radiation. Oh, the vic has a name—Eliza.

Back at the lab, everyone is walking around looking like droids. Eliza has more radiation on her skin than inside, so she had to absorb it in. She had thallium 201 in her system. Hawkes calls the hospital to tell them how to treat Sid. Oh please, save him! It would suck that he just made it to the opening credits in time to be killed off. Stella and Danny finally get her clothes and find mold on her shoes. They hope it’ll help them retrace Eliza’s steps. Stella gets a call—someone else with Eliza’s symptoms has died. At a horror film festival. Appropriate. The vic was supposed to receive a lifetime achievement award at this event but arrived late, suffering from dementia and hair loss. The droids check the hotel room—all clear. Then their doohickeys go off and find a razor. Hawkes also finds a paper, kinda old. Hawkes wonders if it was liquid thallium.

Droid!Stella studies the razor blade. Oh wait, it’s an EM Soft Tag according to the computer. Everyone wonders where the vics got the thallium while Adam tells us about it. Danny wants to check to see who got the thallium. The paper was from the 1930s and went through treatment after water damage. Danny notes that Eliza’s mold was black toxic mold, which comes from buildings with water damage. Stella and Mac go to the NY Public Library. CDC droids!

Droid! Mac and Droid! Stella lead the droids into the bowels of the NY Public Library. Mac picks up radiation coming off a red book—The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Cheery. Droid! Stella notices the same mark Eliza was wearing and that the paper was the same as the one found on Gunthar. No wonder he was getting a horror film award. Droid!Danny finds the mold and they believe the vics were chosen at random. But Mac wonders what killer doesn’t wonder about his victims. Back at the hospital, the docs are trying to heal Sid. A lawyer on TV announces he will be filing a wrongful death suit against the city and the library for the deaths of Eliza, Gunthar and some woman named Molly. Turns out to be the lawyer’s dead wife who worked in the library in the section with the radiation. The doctor thought she had lupus, which she did but was in remission. Hubby believes it had to be thallium. He gives permission to exhume Molly’s body.

Stella gets good news. Sid is alert and responsive. Flack gives some good news. No one can check out books from the special collections, duh, so the person had to poison the book in the library. The only non-clean guy is named Timothy and has a history of chemical company breaks in. His address is the same one found on Gunthar’s page and is a Buddhist monastery. They ask for Timothy Pram and is told he no longer exists. Turns out the Buddhist monk used to be Timothy. He says he was talking with Gunthar about what to do when people die, he was doing a film. He apologizes for his mistakes and insists it’s all in the past. Stella checks him for radiation.

Lindsay found sea sponge in the murder weapon. Adam looks at the trace found on the trace. He predicts it might be a bug. Meanwhile, Hawkes looks at a 3-D hologram of Molly’s body. She did die of radiation. Mac and Hawkes end up in her stomach, which is seriously damaged. Unlike Eliza and Gunthar, Molly ingested the radiation. Now the question is: Who wanted Molly dead?

Stella and Danny figure out that Molly was an intended target. Eliza and Gunthar must’ve been collateral damage. Flack tells the duo about Molly’s assistant, whom she wrote up thrice and who hasn’t been seen in awhile. Radiation comes off his desk but is low enough for lead gloves. Danny is glad—he doesn’t like Droid!Danny much. Danny finds a collection of smoke detectors in the desk. He was also taking iodine, which could be used to protect against certain radiation. It was taken after Chernobyl. The Droid patrol goes to find Larry the assistant, who looks moments away from death himself. He asks to be droided up. He tells Droid!Stella that he was building a reactor so we could have cheaper energy. Larry says he’s a scientist, Mac says he’s a quack, and Hawkes says he’s innocent.

Danny tells us the radioactive metals found at Larry’s but no thallium. Lindsay says that the trace found on the trace was from a beetle used for red paint. Stella and Danny think the “shriiimper” but Mac realizes it is Molly’s hubby. He was an amateur painter. He killed his poor sick wife and then got greedy. Killed a few other people to file a lawsuit. And since it affected Sid, Mac’s pissed off. That’s the theme of this season—Don’t piss off Mac Taylor. Hubby didn’t want to practice law, not after the chemical plant case. He wanted to be on Easy Street. Don’t we all.

Hawkes goes to visit and awake Sid, who is reading. He says he knows how a microwavable burrito feels and thanks Hawkes. Hawkes uses the “You would’ve done the same for me.” Mac brings him the Tibetan Book of the Dead (“A clean copy, I presume?”) and then Flack brings chips for the Ranger game. All that’s missing is Danny for a guys party complete with chips and water, which bums Sid out. He wants beer.

Well, at least Sid’s okay. Next week deals with a guy found dead on a plane…Didn’t CSI: already do this back in season 2? Oh, and Nelly. If I liked hip hop, I’d care.