#07x07 post mortem

[enbyboiwonder]

CSI Challenge | Day 6: Scene that made you fall in love with your favorite character

Every time Hodges acts like a giant dork, every time he lets down his abrasive anti-charisma wall and lets us see him be soft, I fall a little bit more in love with him.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hello! I love all of your CSI metas so much, your headcanons even more so. You really understand these characters. That being said - I often ponder on Greg's recovery from 7x04. We don't see much of his recovery journey. I was wondering if you had any headcanons on any lingering PTSD symptoms, and/or how the team would react and support his recovery. Thank you!

hey, anon!

thank you for your kind words! i’m glad you enjoy my metas and headcanons.

in response to your question:

first, i'll refer you to this timeline for greg’s recovery from the attack.

from there, let’s recount what we know about greg’s recovery from canon:

greg probably only stays in the hospital for two days at most (i.e., the night of his beating and the next day) and then spends another day or two at home before returning to work. we know for certain that he returns to work four days after his attack. despite initially being placed on desk duty until the coroner’s inquest (see episode 07x05 “double-cross”), he almost immediately convinces grissom to allow him to get back in the field. the crucifixion case at st. jude’s church is his first case since the attack.

while greg is in the hospital, we know that the team visits him—grissom individually and sara, warrick, and nick altogether as a group (bringing him mexican food the morning after his beating).

we are not told that his family comes to see him, though grissom encourages him to tell his parents that he is in the hospital, and greg indicates that when he does, he anticipates that his mother will “freak.”

when greg returns to work in episode 07x05 “double-cross,” we see catherine approach him to ask how he is, and she expresses surprise to see him back in the field so soon.

from that point forward, between greg’s return to work and the coroner’s inquest, we see the following team members check up on him:

in episode 07x06 “burn out,” sara works with greg in the garage, allowing him to pick the music. while they do not specifically discuss his beating or anything adjacent to it, it’s pretty clear that sara is purposefully sticking close to greg and showing him her brand of tlc;

in the same episode, sara defends greg to grissom (who is unusually irritable that day both due to the nature of the case they’re working and because he has a migraine), advocating that grissom should treat greg gently as greg has been under a lot of stress lately;

after sara puts in a word to her husband grissom, he also starts to be actively nicer to and more careful with greg, praising his work, reassuring him in stressful situations, and dispensing advice regarding his upcoming coroner’s inquest and the eventual civil suit to follow (see episodes 07x06 “burn out,” 07x07 “post mortem,” and 07x11 “leaving las vegas”).

when the inquest takes place in episode 07x07 “post mortem,” sofia offers greg counsel about how he should conduct himself under questioning and nick and warrick go to bat for him by running simulations to prove that he acted reasonably on the night of the attack.

after greg is served with the civil suit by the james family, his team continues to have his back: in episode 07x08 “happenstance,” warrick checks up on him, and in episode 07x11 “leaving las vegas,” grissom makes sure greg retains a union lawyer to protect his interests in court.

in episode 07x18 “empty eyes,” grissom informs greg that the city has settled the civil suit the james family leveled at him, and greg is upset with the outcome but can’t do much to dispute it.

the last time the story arc receives direct treatment then occurs in episode 07x19 “big shots,” when greg has a final run-in with the james family and chooses to show leniency to aaron james. from then on out in the show, there are really no mentions of greg’s attack, the subsequent fallout with the james family, or greg’s lingering trauma (if he has any).

so.

that brings us to the part where we have to get headcanony.

i've got my take after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

a couple of notes to start out with:

first, my tendency with headcanons is to try to make them fit as much as possible with the things we see in canon (or at least to not make them blatantly contradictory to anything that happens on the show), so what follows here is pretty much all stuff that i think could potentially take place “between the lines” with the things we already know about.

second, because we see little evidence on the show that greg has long-term ptsd*—as opposed to nick and sara, who definitely have it—i tend to think that while greg experiences an acute trauma response surrounding his attack and the death of demetrius james, he does eventually recover and not have lifelong symptoms.

* according to the united states office for victims of crimes, 69% of victims of severe beatings and physical assaults do not develop long-term ptsd, and i headcanon that greg is one among that number.

with those points in mind, here’s my explanation for what we see with greg from the events of episode 07x04 “fannysmackin’” on:

in my personal headcanon for greg, i’ve always imagined that his parents divorced when he was a kid and that he was primarily raised by his mother and maternal grandparents (papa and nana olaf); after the divorce, i think that his father remarried, and the new wife didn’t want kids, so he stopped really being a part of greg’s life at that point.

when grissom advises greg to call his parents and tell them what happened, i think it’s his mom he reaches out to (as he hasn’t had contact with his dad in years anyway), and she flies out to vegas immediately to be with him, arriving the morning after his beating, while he’s still in the hospital. she then stays with him for the two or so days after he’s released from the hospital before he goes back to work.

it’s during this time and with her that i think the first symptoms of greg’s trauma response manifest.

one of the most common symptoms of mental distress in victims of violent crimes is developing relational problems with family members and arguing with them.

i imagine that such is the case with greg and his mom.

the conflict probably starts small, with greg being short with his mother while she’s fussing over him and caring for him after he gets home from the hospital—snapping at her when she tries to help him get comfortable on the couch, expressing displeasure when she brings him his pain meds along with his lunch, just generally being grouchy about her “smothering him,” etc.

the tension then escalates when he decides to return to work just four days after the attack. what starts out as her imploring him (gently) not to rush his recovery and to take more time if he needs to turns into him accusing her of not supporting him and wanting to see him fail because he’s not living his life to a standard that she approves of. while his assessment of his mother’s motives is patently untrue, no matter what she says or does, she can’t convince him that all she wants is for him to be safe and to make sure he’s really healed before he jumps back in to more high-impact activities; all he hears is her doubting him (which is something he can’t handle, given that he is already doubting himself and feeling highly vulnerable).

pretty soon, he’s so worked up that he’s literally screaming at her that he wants her to leave, and she’s crying because she doesn’t understand why he’s being so loyal to a job that almost killed him.

the fight culminates with mom packing her bags and heading home four days earlier than she’d planned to, and greg feeling like a huge ass but being unwilling to apologize because he’s not about to change his mind—he’s going back to work.

he needs to go back to work.

so that’s exactly what he does.

at first, grissom tries to keep him on desk duty, but that assignment lasts all of six hours before greg starts begging him to let him back out into the field. though grissom is skeptical that greg is ready, greg swears up and down that he’s okay—going out of his way to make jokes and act like his usual goofy, happy-go-lucky self in order to prove his point.

being that he is sara’s boyfriend, grissom is by now familiar enough with the old “i'm fine” lie to at least have an inkling that greg may not be as dandy as he’s making himself out to be. however, at the same time, since greg has no physical injuries which would prevent him from carrying out his duties in the field and the crucifixion case is kind of an “all hands on deck” situation, he allows greg’s pleadings to persuade him, convincing himself that maybe getting back to work might actually be the best thing for greg at this point anyway.

it's the same m.o. he took with nick after nick was kidnapped two years ago and with catherine after lindsey’s abduction earlier this year. it’s what he’s always done himself—just put it all in the job. he hopes that having cases to solve will give greg a sense of purpose.

though we don’t see the exchanges play out on screen, catherine is not the only team member who checks up on greg on his first day back. everyone from warrick to nick to sara to super dave to doc to sofia to brass to wendy to yes even hodges, in turn, stops to ask him if he’s doing okay and offers to listen if he wants to talk. every time, he smiles his best smile and promises that he’s just fine—if a little sore still—and that he’ll take them up on the offer if he ever needs an ear.

of course, he isn’t really, and he never does.

—and, honestly, greg is pretty good at acting like he’s peachy keen as long as he’s on the clock.

he can fake a laugh with the best of ‘em, and he doesn’t allow his production levels or the quality of his performance to drop off in the least. that's why grissom continues to let him work call-outs and why after a few days most of the team is pretty convinced that he’s basically “back to normal” (particularly once his bruises start fading).

honestly, i think that for a little while, in the beginning, the only one who really has any idea that greg is struggling at all is sara—not because the rest of the team is at all uncaring or unobservant or because sara is better than anyone but just because of the particular dynamics in play in this scenario.

on sara’s end of things, she’s able to pick up on the cues that greg isn’t as all right as he’s claiming to be a) because they’re close and she reads him well, b) because she has some experience with the whole “i'm repressing my trauma because i don’t know how to talk about it and especially not how to ask for help” song and dance routine herself, and c) because he allows himself to be somewhat more vulnerable around her than he does around anyone else.

on greg’s side, he ends up showing his feelings to sara more than to anyone else mostly by default.

grissom and catherine are his bosses, so he doesn’t want to let on to them that he’s still shaken, lest they pull him out of the field again.

meanwhile, with warrick and nick, he feels the need to maintain some semblance of machismo around them. after all, nick got back to work pretty much immediately after his near-death experience, right? and warrick is “mr. unshakeable,” isn’t he? greg doesn’t want to come across as weak or incompetent by comparison.

the same is also true with the sofias, brasses, and lab techs of the world, whom he fears might judge him for being out of his depth or as having overstepped his capabilities if he were to back down from his responsibilities now.

he had a hard enough time convincing them all that he deserved to be out in the field to begin with, you know? he doesn’t want to lose the hard-won respect he’s spent the last few years earning. he doesn’t want to go back to being just “goofy greg from dna.”

so by process of elimination, that leaves sara.

while of course greg does care about impressing sara and not letting her down, same as with everyone else—and especially given that she was his primary trainer—he’s always been more comfortable opening up to her and being vulnerable in her presence than he has been with anyone else (see, for example, when he confides in her after he attends his first autopsy in episode 05x02 “down the drain”).

part of that’s because she’s his best friend on the team. part of that’s because she was his trainer. part of that’s maybe because he has some intuitive sense that she somehow “gets it.” part of that’s because he’s secure in the attachment to her—that he knows she’s seen him struggle before (when she first started training him and he was so green, back in s5) but that she still believes in him nonetheless; that she’s always been patient with and kind to him; that she has his back no matter what.

still.

even though greg may be somewhat more open with sara than he is with everyone else, i still don’t think he necessarily tells sara directly that he’s having a rough time (going on three or four weeks since the attack now)—more like he just feels more comfortable being quiet and subdued in her presence, not having to be “on” all the time, and she’s able to figure out what’s what from there.

having a lot of personal experience being a trauma survivor herself, sara knows better than to try to force him to talk when he’s clearly not ready to or to draw attention to the fact that he’s obviously not as “okay” as he’s trying to pretend that he is.

instead, she just takes to hanging out with him a lot around the lab, showing up when he’s processing evidence and quietly spending time with him—hence the scene in episode 07x06 “burn out” where she’s listening to music with him in the garage and why (in that same episode) she defends him to grissom; she intuits that he’s stressed and masking how much so, so she decides that the best thing she can do to help is just be present with and gentle on him and encourage others including her husband to do the same.

—and that’s nice.

it's nice that he doesn’t have to put on a show around her. it’s nice that he doesn’t have to wear a happy face all of the time. it’s nice that she’ll just chill out with him.

it's about what greg can handle at this point.

however, even having a friend at work doesn’t do much to help greg process the trauma he’s repressing.

for as much as he pretends that he’s okay, the fact is that he finds himself feeling exhausted almost all of the time. it doesn’t help that he isn’t sleeping well, but there’s also more to it than that—a bone-deep kind of weariness that he never felt before, like simple, everyday tasks just drain him. the closer the date of the inquest draws, the harder it is for him to maintain his façade and feign that he’s anything other than spent. faking those smiles and acting like good, ol’ “carefree greggo” becomes increasingly impossible, even in the presence of those he’d most like to convince of his “fineness.”

little by little, his mask starts to slip—he foregoes perfect opportunities to crack jokes where normally he’d be all over the chance; he keeps his head down and does his work almost too diligently, to the point where he’s seldom taking breaks or “coming up for air;” there’s just something sad and heavy about him, and it only gets worse as the weeks wear on.

that's why, by the time the inquest happens, other team members besides sara have noticed that greg needs their support. sofia gives hers by way of offering professional advice. warrick and nick give theirs by attempting to convince the inquest jury that greg’s actions on the night of the attack were justifiable given the situation. grissom gives his by praising greg for his work.

there are probably also instances of other team members shoring greg up and being there for him that happen off-screen in the days leading up to and surrounding the inquest: catherine feeding him pointers on how to come across as confident in his testimony when he’s on the stand; sara just plain feeding him, showing up with bagels in the breakroom (“do you want one? there’s cream cheese”) and taking him with her through drive-thrus on their way back from crime scenes, shoving coffee under his nose when she finds him all but passed out in layout, pretending she can’t finish her fries and offering them to him after team meetings; brass wishing him good luck on the day he has to testify; doc telling him, not unkindly, that he should start taking a b12 vitamin because he’s looking a little pale.

while greg still finds it hard to accept this kind of “charity”—especially when he’s not sure he deserves it—by this point he’s too tired to really fight it, so he accepts what he’s given quietly and guiltily, hoping that maybe things will “go back to normal” after the inquest takes place.

of course, life is seldom so simple.

as he says in episode 07x07 “post mortem,” he’s not sure if his response to demetrius james was justified after all; maybe it was only excusable. but, excusable or not in the legal sense, there’s also the matter of his conscience and of what happened to him when he was attacked. taking a life changes a person. so does being a victim.

so, in terms of what changes for greg going forward:

i think he exerts so much effort to try and remain even-keeled at work that the main thing that changes for him is the other stuff—his life beyond the lab. in the early seasons of the show, greg would occasionally mention other friends/girlfriends from outside of the department; he engaged in diverse hobbies (from scuba diving to coin collecting); he was more social and adventuresome and outgoing. from s7 on, though, we hear less and less about those aspects of his life, and i tend to believe that’s because he lets those things drop off. being at the lab and working to solve crimes is one of the few things that makes him feel empowered and like he’s actually “doing something,” so that’s what he expends 100% of his energy on. in the meanwhile, he stops going out with his friends to strip clubs, picking up kinky latex fetish girls, taking surfing trips, importing expensive coffee, etc.; he lets his world get a whole lot smaller because, somehow, things feel safer to him that way.

as was the case with his mom, he also has a few falling-outs with his nonwork friends. he finds himself picking fights with them over the stupidest shit, getting pissed when they’re too lighthearted or unserious around him (“can you just grow up! jesus! we’re not freshmen anymore! it’s not funny” “geeze, sanders! sorry. take a joke much?”), feeling like they’re hopelessly immature and just don’t “get it.” there’s not necessarily one big blow-up fight that brings everything crashing to a halt, but after a while, they just kind of stop reaching out to him because he’s not as much fun anymore. he tells himself it’s for the best because he had outgrown them anyway.

while he does at least nominally patch things up with his mom and eventually apologize to her for rejecting her care for him, he also does still generally keep his distance from her and the rest of his family more than he has in the past—fewer calls and visits, less detailed updates. he convinces himself it’s because he's too busy, but the truth is he somehow just feels uncomfortable around them, like he’s not the same person they used to know; like he’s less deserving of their adoration.

meanwhile, at work, he doubles down on trying to come across as professional/“with it.” he’s secretly doubting himself and his professional judgement a lot after what happened, and he doesn’t want to give anyone else reason to do so, as well. he also doesn’t want to cost the department/city any more money. that so, he tries his damnedest to do everything “by the book.” he'd already cut down on his goofing off a lot since transitioning from lab rat to field mouse, but now he does so even more. he starts dressing neater. combs his hair down. dots his i's and crosses his t’s on his case logs. isn't as much of a cut-up on the job. it’s nothing drastic—not a stark enough change that anyone would really notice aside from to think “well, he’s growing up and coming into his own”—but it’s definitely a difference. he’s not as fun-loving anymore. not as much of a free spirit.

there are also things he used to enjoy or do regularly that flat-out scare him now. for example, prior to 2007, he had never missed a rage against the machine concert when they played within 200 miles of sin city, but after his attack, the mere thought of getting anywhere near a mosh pit causes him to feel sick to his stomach, so no more rock shows for him. ditto for parking anywhere but on well-lit public streets or in designated parking lots or garages; he can’t bring himself to pull into an alley, even when doing so might save him a few bucks or put him closer to his final destination.

while he mostly replaces his other social outlets/hobbies/activities with work, one thing he gets more into is his historical research and working on his vegas mob book. looking at events that happened long ago is comforting to him because it grants him perspective; he already knows how the story ends, so he knows who the bad guys and the good guys are and can pick out the moral threads. there's also an anodyne quality to the past. times were simpler back in the day. even the crimes were somehow cleaner. writing about what happened back then helps him to feel like there is a sensibility to the world after all. it’s a way to sort through and categorize what might otherwise seem like pure chaos.

the biggest thing, of course, is the guilt he carries around over demetrius james. even after the inquest, he’s still not sure that what he did that night was right or reasonable. he still feels horrible that he killed a kid, whether or not doing so saved anybody else’s life (including his own).

for a long time after the fact, he can’t bring himself to go anywhere near the alley where the attack happened and even passes up call-outs that would place him within a three-block radius. he dreams about what happened a lot. has nightmares. sweats himself awake. seeing undergrads in wlvu tees at the start of a new semester is enough to turn his stomach. so is driving past the graveyard where he knows demetrius is buried. sometimes he cyberstalks the james family, even though he knows he shouldn’t. checks up on the other “piglets.” calls in sick to work the night he learns that cole tritt filed an appeal to his conviction. coming up on the one-year anniversary of what happened, he drops three pounds because he can’t force himself to eat.

even after the city settles the civil suit, that’s the stuff that doesn’t go away.

that’s the stuff that lingers.

still.

things do gradually get better for him over time. putting in a good word for aaron james after the events of episode 07x19 “big shots” helps assuage his conscience somewhat. so does continuing to accrue experience on the job and becoming increasingly confident that he is a good criminalist (and that he can trust his instincts).

around the events of episode 09x03 “art imitates life,” he does actually attend some therapy, either seeing patricia alwick or someone she recommends to him. while discussing his lingering trauma from the attack is not his initial purpose in going—he’s just interested in processing warrick’s death and sara leaving again and the general slog of the last few years—he does eventually end up talking about what happened a little and is able to work through some of his guilt and his grief.

by the time a few years have passed, i imagine his “bad days” are mostly concentrated around the anniversary of the attack and/or at times when other crises dredge up his old feelings of helplessness and victimization (such as, for instance, when morgan is kidnapped in the helicopter in episode 12x05 “csi down”) and that 99% of the time otherwise he’s able to function without impediment to his life and daily activities.

while he still bears marks from what happened—not physically but in the sense that his personality and habits have changed in response to his experience—he’s generally okay, having adjusted to his “new normal” and learned to accept the things he cannot go back in time to alter.

that's not to say that there are never times when thoughts like “god, demetrius james would have been twenty-five this year if i hadn’t killed him” or “if i confront that suspect, he might attack me, like what happened before” enter his mind unbidden or that he is completely free of the occasional bad dream—just that he does eventually reach a place where he can eat and sleep and be himself (or at least the new, more straitlaced version of himself) again.

anyway.

that’s my take, for what it’s worth.

your mileage may, of course, vary.

and especially since the show really gives us nothing to go on with this plot thread past s7.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[enbyboiwonder]

Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care Glide by the people when they stop to look and stare Do your dance, do your dance, do your dance quick, mamma Come on, baby, tell me, what is your word? Ah, word up

Word Up - Willis

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hello! I am a huge fan of your CSI metas! know this might be a tough question, but I'm trying to write a fic and could really use your help. The timeline for the show is confusing at best - but would you happen to be able to shine a light on the dates/length of time around Greg's attack in Season 7, as well as the subsequent Coroner's Inquest? How many weeks do we think have reasonably passed from the time Greg is discharged and returns to work, and the time of the initial trial? I understand there are some big events with the miniature killer arc happening in-between, so it has left me feeling a bit lost. Any help or guesses would be appreciated 🙏❤

hi, anon!

i’m happy to report that i can offer you some pretty exact in-universe dates here:

episode 07x04 “fannysmackin’”: though there is one flub-up in the episode which rather confusingly suggests two different september dates for these events (see here), greg’s attack actually takes place during the predawn hours on 10.12.06, as is proven by a) the dates visible on the evidence photos of the shoeprints, and, b) the overall timeline for csi s7. (the events of episode 07x03 “toe tags” take place on 10.05.06, one week before.) 

episode 07x05 “double-cross”: greg then returns to work on 10.16.06, as is shown by the date on the evidence bag holding the rosary. of the four days between these two episodes, we can’t say exactly how many he spends in the hospital. however, it’s reasonable to assume that given that he has no internal injuries and/or serious mobility issues, he may only be there overnight or two days at most. my guess is that once his doctors feel certain he hasn’t sustained a concussion, they release him to continue his recovery at home. he then goes back to work a day or two later.

episode 07x06 “burn out”: the events of this episode take place on 11.02.06 (as is seen on the evidence photo of the dentures). by now, three weeks have passed since the time of greg’s attack.

episode 07x07 “post mortem”: the events of this episode take place between 11.08.06 and 11.09.06 (as per the date on the surveillance footage). greg’s inquest happens during the day on 11.08.06, with only the final scene of the episode taking place after midnight on 11.09.06. that so, about twenty-eight days have passed between greg’s attack and the time of the inquest. 

episodes 07x08 “happenstance” to 07x17 “fallen idols”: the events of these episodes take place between 11.15.06 and 03.06.07 in show time. (if you need any of these dates specifically, just let me know, and i can provide them.)  

episode 07x18 “empty eyes”: greg receives the news that the city has settled with the james family for $2.5 million on 03.29.07 (with the date coming from an evidence photo of one of the dead girls). by now, over five months have passed since he was initially attacked.

episode 07x19 “big shots”: the next events of the demetrius james saga take place between 04.05.07 and 04.07.07 (as per the evidence photo of the window and the evidence bag containing the seatbelt adjuster fragment). from this point forward, greg’s storyline is pretty much concluded.

if you need any more specific details, just let me know.

good luck with your fic! happy writing.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Quick question: would Grissom be the type to know what to say to comfort someone who is deeply upset about non-work related things?

hey, @coping-via-clint-eastwood​!

i think the answer is generally “yes,” though admittedly there are a lot of variables that would affect the execution.

depending on the whos, whats, under what circumstances, and whens, grissom might initially hesitate to involve himself in the situation, fumble with his words, or even flat-out say or do the wrong thing, but even if he were slow to respond or did so awkwardly at first, if the upset person were truly in crisis, and if grissom were fully aware that they were, and especially if they were someone he cared about, he would eventually find it in himself to say---or at least do---something appropriate to comfort them.

more discussion after the “keep reading,” if you’re interested.

_______

let’s start with two salient examples of grissom offering appropriate comfort, the first of which is mostly work-related, the second of which starts out being work-related but then extends beyond work.

we’ll use these examples to establish some patterns grissom has when dealing with people who are deeply upset: 

first, grissom’s interactions with greg in s7 during the fallout from the demetrius james case.

because greg’s upset does not manifest in ways which are immediately recognizable to him, grissom doesn’t initially pick up on the fact that greg is struggling in regards to the events of the case until sara points this fact out to him, imploring him to be nicer to greg while the coroner’s inquest is ongoing (see episode 07x06 “burn out”). 

prior to this point, grissom had been snappish with greg, annoyed by his even-more-squirrelly-than-usual behavior. he was oblivious to the fact that greg was nervous about how the case was unfolding and also that greg had lingering trauma after returning to work.

only after his wife gets after him to be nicer to their son sara spells things out for him does grissom actually get a clue.

while he never directly addresses the issue to greg (perhaps not wanting to embarrass him or interfere with his work), his behavior toward greg does change going forward, becoming noticeably kinder and more supportive.

at the end of episode 07x06 “burn out,” grissom thanks greg for his fine work, showing him warm and open approval despite being harsh on him earlier in the day. later on, during the events of episode 07x07 “post mortem,” he praises greg’s performance at the inquest and makes sure that greg goes home to get some good rest afterward. during episode 07x11 “leaving las vegas,” prior to his departure for his sabbatical, grissom pulls greg aside and offers him helpful and specific pointers for how to navigate the upcoming civil case. he also reassures greg that everything will be fine in the long run.

for as much as grissom is insensitive to greg’s distress immediately following the fannysmacking incident itself, once he becomes wise to the fact that greg is having a rough time, he changes his whole approach to greg, becoming much more accommodating of him and imparting words of comfort to him whenever possible.

as this example demonstrates, grissom may not always pick up on upset on his own without prompting, particularly depending on how the upset manifests. (if someone’s crying or yelling, he’s probably going to get it, but if the reaction is more inward, subdued, or idiosyncratic, he may not.) however, once he does realize that someone is having a hard time, he will respond appropriately, adjusting his behavior to fit the situation.

a second example of grissom’s patterns with regards to offering comfort can be found in his interactions with sara during the events leading up to and depicted in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls.”

in this case, grissom does notice sara’s distress on his own. however, he hesitates to comfort her because he isn’t sure how to do so or even if he has the right to try.

from the tail end of s4 to early s5, grissom knows that something isn’t right with sara, but broaching the issue with her seems out of the question due to the uncertain state of their relationship at the time. 

while he somewhat tentatively suggests that she should take some time off (see episode 04x23 “bloodlines”), he backs down immediately after she rebuffs him, unwilling to push her or to pry into what he views as her personal business any more than he already has.

of course, part of his reluctance to intervene with sara stems from his sense that he is at least partially to blame for her doing so poorly. he sees her tailspin as evidence of a broken heart and feels guilty for mistreating her since she moved to vegas. not wanting to add insult to injury or to exacerbate her suffering in any way, he is reticent to confront her about what he’s observed, so for a long time, he hangs back, hoping that either the situation will resolve itself or someone else will take the action that he himself cannot.

only after sara nearly loses her job during the events of episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” does he finally come to the realization that the situation isn’t going to improve on its own and that there is no one else to intervene---that if he cares about sara and wants her to be well, he has to be the one to get involved, and he has to do so without any expectation of what his actions will mean for either him or their relationship; he has to keep her best interests in mind and place her well-being above all else.

so he goes to her apartment.

he asks her hard questions.

he doesn’t back down when she gets defensive.

he doesn’t allow her to push him away when she is really hurting.

ultimately, he says the right things to prove to her that he cares about her no matter the state of their relationship or where they’ve ended up in regards to each other; he demonstrates to her that he loves her unconditionally and that he wants to support her, even if doing so comes at his own expense.

he is firm but gentle making his appeals. he looks her straight in the eyes and tells her that he doesn’t believe that she is a bad person. 

and, because he is so straightforward and unequivocal, she can see that he means what he’s saying---and feel that he means it when he holds her hand. 

she can tell that he isn’t going to bail on her.

she is comforted.

so that’s another paradigm right there: 

if grissom feels responsible for the person’s upset and especially if he doesn’t initially know what to do to help and particularly if he feels as if his help may be unwanted or at all inappropriate given the situation, then chances are he’s going to hesitate to get involved or do so in an awkward, start-and-stall kind of way, uncertain of the protocol and reluctant to overstep boundaries. his attempts to help may at first be weak and ineffectual. he may not say enough or ask the kind of incisive questions that can get to the bottom of the issue.

but if there’s someone in front of him who’s hurting, and especially someone who seems to be in the throes of upset, pushed to their breaking point, he’ll gather his courage and figure out what to say or do.

he’ll get it right eventually.

so.

now let’s talk variables.

variable #1: how well does he know the person he is supposed to be comforting? what is his relationship with them like?

if grissom is dealing with a team member, heather, betty, or someone else he knows well and deeply cares about, then he’s probably more likely to know what to say or do to comfort them. 

for example, when catherine comes into his office ranting about her onerous work schedule and lack of personal life, he first allows her to vent to him and then offers to help her advance her career so that she can someday have better hours (see episode 04x15 “early rollout”).

and that’s exactly what she wants: someone to listen and help to eventually get out of the rut that she’s in.

it’s something that grissom knows to do because they’ve been friends and partners for almost twenty years at that point. 

of course, if the person he needed to comfort were a stranger or someone he’s only passingly acquainted with, then he might not know as well how to proceed, though i tend to think he’d be able to offer decent generic comfort. 

(he knows being straightforward, calm, and compassionate go a long way when someone is upset, no matter whom the person in question may be.) 

if the person is someone he knows but isn’t especially fond of, like ecklie, he might be more awkward and reluctant to breach boundaries, though, ultimately, if he saw that the person were truly in distress and needed help, he wouldn’t withhold comfort unless the person were someone he truly did not fuck with™, like a murderer or a child molester. 

beyond just the identity of the person in question and his basic relationship to them, the state of their relationship with him at the moment would also affect his response. 

again, looking back to s4 with sara, though he notices that she is in distress circa the events of episode 04x16 “getting off,” he doesn’t feel comfortable approaching her about it, as, at the time, their relationship is somewhat uncertain. 

only when he believes that he has no choice to step in (after sara is pulled over for drunk driving) does he overcome his hang-ups enough to finally say and do something truly helpful.

the same would probably be true in other situations where his relationship with a close friend or family member were strained at a time when they were upset---i.e., that he at first might not know how to connect with the person, given the relational distance between them, but he would eventually overcome his awkwardness and do what needed to be done if he knew the person were truly in crisis.

variable #2: what is the situation? what has made the person so deeply upset? what is grissom’s understanding of and degree of personal comfort in involving himself in the situation? does he feel as if he has the right and/or obligation to intervene?

in truth, for as much as he gets called a robot, grissom is actually deeply empathetic, and i think he generally has a well-developed capacity to understand and feel for people even in situations he himself does not have personal experience with. while he may not always know how to relate to others on a reflexive or intuitive level, he has become practiced in thinking through other people’s motivations and makes a concerted effort to try to figure out why people do the things they do and to himself behave accordingly in response. 

for example, in episode 04x03 “homebodies,” while he doesn’t initially understand mr. kirkwood’s reluctance to cooperate with the investigation, he comes to empathize with and understand mr. kirkwood’s motivations by relating mr. kirkwood’s protective feelings regarding his family to his own protective feelings regarding sara. 

myriad times throughout the show, we see that grissom is able to comprehend and even explain to others who may be less empathetic than himself people’s motivations for behaving in the ways that they do (whether or not he personally condones their behavior) and to feel for those who are suffering. 

that said, while grissom in actuality is highly empathetic, he doesn’t typically view himself as being so---and, in fact, he very much doubts and distrusts his own “humanness.” between having been told many times over the years by almost everyone he cares about that he is unemotional, unresponsive, overly clinical, etc. and being aware of the limited scope of his own social experiences (i.e., that he doesn’t have many friends and/or participate in many social activities; prior to being with sara, has been a lifelong bachelor who seldom dated; doesn’t have kids; is an only child of a widowed mother whom he doesn’t necessarily see often due to his busy working schedule; etc.), he is self-conscious regarding his ability to comfort and support others. 

he fears saying and doing the wrong thing. he fears doing more harm than good. he also may wonder to what degree he has the right or obligation to intervene, if a given situation does not directly involve him, and particularly if the situation is personal in nature. 

that so, in situations where someone is upset but not yet to their breaking point, he might hang back, particularly if the source of the upset were something with which he feels he personally has no ken---such as marital troubles (particularly while he is still single), parenting issues, having been the victim of a violent crime, etc. 

of course, for as much as he doubts himself and for as hesitant as he is to involve himself in other people’s business, if someone around him were actively in crisis, he would still likely intervene.

variable #3: what does the upset manifest as? how is the person behaving?

while grissom is certainly not without emotions, he is someone who seldom displays his emotions outwardly, and especially not in highly demonstrable ways.

with the exceptions of a few times when sara is in danger, ecklie has pushed all of his buttons, or when he is incredibly frustrated by a case, his inner feelings don’t often manifest in visible ways. he isn’t a crier. he doesn’t often shout or scream. nine times out of ten, when he’s caught up in an emotion, he tends to turn inward instead of out. 

because he is himself generally fairly self-contained, grissom is somewhat uncomfortable when other people “let it all out” in his presence. this discomfort is evident in comments he makes regarding both sara and nick---his two most emotionally expressive employees---during early seasons of the show. it’s also evident in the way he sometimes appears baffled when others around him express their emotions loudly. 

that so, if the person upset were to behave in an extremely emotionally demonstrative way, such as if they were sobbing or screaming or falling on the floor in agony, grissom might be thrown for a loop and not know how to respond initially. 

he might not know how or when to interrupt what they were doing or even how to engage with someone who was so wound up---for example, if they were crying so hard they could barely breathe. depending on who the person was and what his relationship with them was like at the time, he might have trouble deciding if he should touch them or not and if so how so. he might not know where to stand or put his hands in relation to them. seeing them so distraught might momentarily rob him of words or a sense of what to do going forward.

that said, for as much as grissom has hang-ups about emotional displays, he is nevertheless capable of working through discomfort, even when someone is crying or behaving in a manner that would appear to be “out of control,” as is demonstrated by his interactions with sara at her apartment in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” and heather when she is about to kill jacob wolfowitz in episode 06x15 “pirates of the third reich.”

in fact, in situations where someone is in extreme distress (and even actual physical danger), he seems to forget whatever compunctions regarding emotional displays that he may have completely and attend to the person as needed, without showing any sort of hesitation or aversion, as is evidenced by his dealings with nick when they exhume his glass coffin during the events of episode 05x25 “grave danger,” pt. ii.

variable #4: how much does seeing the person upset take grissom by surprise?

if grissom had no idea that a person was doing at all poorly and then all of a sudden he were to walk in on that person sobbing, he probably would be taken very aback and want for what to say (particularly if he didn’t have any clue as to the source of the upset). 

but, then again, who wouldn’t? 

however, if he had some idea that a person was doing poorly and then saw that person very upset, he’d probably have a much more ready response.

if he’d noticed that the person had been doing poorly for a while before their breakdown, then he could even have some sense of what was at the heart of their distress and what specifically he might do to help them.

variable #5: to what degree is grissom involved in the situation himself? is he at all the source of upset for the person or does he at least perceive himself to be?

a general rule of thumb for grissom is that the more he views himself as the source of the upset, the more awkward he’ll be about trying to resolve it. if he knows he’s the reason why a person is angry or sad, he’ll often hesitate to intervene with them for fear of making the problem somehow worse or overstepping boundaries. 

of course, if the offense he has caused is a kind of one-and-done deal, like saying something obtuse or being momentarily inconsiderate, he’ll usually apologize fairly quickly, particularly if the person in question draws his attention to the slight. 

(see, for example, his response when catherine points out that he has made a misogynistic comment during the events of episode 02x23 “the hunger artist” or when greg calls him on being unfair to mia in episode 05x03 “harvest.”)

however, if the problem is a large and/or ongoing one, and if changing the status quo would be difficult or impossible for grissom, then he flails. not knowing how to resolve the issue, his instinct is to withdraw so as not to inflict further harm.

it may take him a while---and maybe even some outside prompting or a change to the nature of the situation itself---to decide that it is actually his place to say something to the person in question. 

in particular, if the person is actively expressing upset with him---and here sara would be the prime example, as in episodes 01x16 “too tough to die” and 02x15 “burden of proof”---then he typically clams up, though later he will find some way to make amends, sometimes with actions rather than a verbal apology (e.g., the green plant).

variable #6: how personal is the non-work related source of the upset?

grissom is a deeply private person himself, and he affords others a very wide right to privacy, as well. he doesn’t typically solicit information about his personal life to his coworkers, and neither does he solicit information about their personal lives from them.

if people choose to tell him about things that are going on with them, then he’ll respond, but he’ll also hold what he’s been told in confidence. he isn’t about to talk to anyone else regarding the issue or spread word around about what’s going on.

certainly, he behaves this way with regards to subjects that one might expect---people’s love lives, medical histories, trauma stories, etc.

but he also goes a step further than most people do, considering even fairly benign “life’s details” off-limits, such as, for example, with regards to what one does with their free time after work.

in general, he is most comfortable keeping his interactions within the realm of the professional and talking to his coworkers mostly about their cases.

but all of the above said, that’s not to suggest that he can only talk about work or that he wouldn’t be able to handle a situation where someone was upset about something that had to do with their life outside of the lab---because for as much as grissom likes to pretend that he is all about forensics 100% of the time, the truth is that he is a person, and he does understand a lot about life even outside of his own personal experiences. 

particularly as the show goes on, he becomes increasingly understanding of how there really is no completely separating the personal from the professional, and especially not with neatly-drawn lines; he comes to know that everything in one’s life affects everything else.

that so, while he might not personally know much about being a parent, he gets that being a parent is a big part of catherine’s life, and if he saw that she were truly upset about something having to do with lindsey, he’d hear her out and try to say something helpful---which is exactly what happens in episode 05x03 “harvest,” when catherine catches lindsey hitchhiking.

of course, the nature of the comfort and advice he offered would change based on how much personal understanding of and ability to empathize with the situation he possessed; for example, he would probably be better able to empathize with feelings of being “different” or an outsider more than he would with problems that come from having a social life that is too busy or crowded.

his ability to comfort would probably also depend on where he felt certain boundaries were located. for as much as certain subjects make him uncomfortable to talk about, he would undoubtedly also be conscious of the comfort of the other person and would never try to give comfort that he didn’t feel was welcome.

so.

to sum everything up, i think that while there are many situations in which grissom might initially be reluctant to comfort someone or not know exactly what to say right away, in the end, his empathy and care for the people around him always wins out. 

if he stumbled into the locker room to find one of his coworkers despairing over a breakup or crying over a death in their family, he might momentarily freeze in his tracks or fumble to get out any words.

but eventually, he’d reach inside of himself, and he’d find something there---whether it were affirming words or an affectionate gesture.

to me, it’s telling that despite his own doubts concerning his humanity, grissom’s friends all do seem to confide in him when they need comfort and reassurance---from warrick admitting to his gambling addiction to sara revealing her life story to him (when she had never told it to anyone else before) to heather calling him after her granddaughter died, etc., etc., etc.

grissom is, ultimately, a good shoulder to cry on and good listener, and while he may be quieter than some people, when he does speak, his honesty and care counts for a lot. while he certainly makes mistakes, he’s actually much better with people than he gives himself credit for.

anyway.

that’s my take.

thanks for the question! feel welcome to send another any time.

[addictedtostorytelling]

I am positive someone else must have asked you this question before; I am always troubled by the way Grissom treated Sara outside Seasons 6 and 7. I always feel he was selfish, and he didn't do well if he didn't have control over her, or rather, he couldn't have things in the way where he liked to be. Am I wrong? Too harsh?

hey, anon!

i do have a post addressing some of the unhealthy aspects of early vegas gsr, particularly on grissom’s end of things, which you can read here, if you like. the post deals more with the issue of poor communication than with the issue of potential mistreatment, but some of it is applicable to the topic of your questions.

regarding your questions specifically, the short answers are: because he cannot figure out how to reconcile his fears with his desires, yes, grissom is often selfish in how he treats sara during the early seasons of the show, and, yes, he can sometimes be controlling. it takes him a long time to allow his love to win out over his fear and to both recognize sara’s needs and start to prioritize them. he doesn’t really get his act together until around season five.

the longer answers—with more nuance—are after the cut.

_____________

first, let’s talk about the selfishness issue.

gil grissom lives very much in his head, a trait which is simultaneously his great strength and great weakness.

the same intense cerebral quality which makes him an excellent criminalist also makes him socially awkward and even difficult at times to interact with. while he certainly has the capacity for empathy, as he demonstrates both with his cases and in certain instances regarding members of his team, sometimes he can’t see past the end of his own nose—or, as catherine puts it, “lift [his] head up out of that microscope”—particularly if he is not first prompted to do so.

if grissom learns how someone is feeling either from that person or from someone else, he can be understanding and thoughtful to the max, such as, for instance, in season seven, when sara tells him to be nicer to greg as greg deals with the fallout from the demetrius james case, and he starts going out of his way to show greg support (see episodes 07x06 “burn out,” 07x07 “post mortem,” and 07x11 “leaving las vegas”).   

however, if a person isn’t explicit about how they feel and no one else illuminates the issue to him, grissom can easily miss cues and will assume that things are copacetic, even if they aren’t (see episode 02x15 “burden of proof”). 

sometimes even if he realizes that there is an issue between him and another person, he doesn’t know what to do to fix it, and so he ends up doing nothing in the hopes that the problem will perhaps resolve itself on its own.

hint: it never does.

that’s why catherine, who has worked with grissom for years, is so often frank with grissom about how she feels he treats her (see, for example, episode 05x05 “swap meet,” when she unloads on grissom for what she perceives as his lack of support for and belief in her regarding the day shift supervisory position). 

catherine knows that grissom is often oblivious, and she wants to make sure that he is aware of her needs. she isn’t shy about asking him to do what she needs him to do because she knows he might never pick up on those cues for himself or never take action of his own volition. 

the way she sees things, he’s just too much of a headcase.

and it’s true. 

grissom tends to be hyperfocused to the point of myopia on whatever is going on inside his mind, meaning that he oftentimes fails to realize how his behavior affects others and that he sometimes will behave hypocritcally (because he can justify behaviors in himself that he doesn’t understand when they come from other people). this tendency is evident in his interactions with all of the people closest to him, but nowhere is it more evident than with how he treats sara. 

the fact is that in early seasons of the show, grissom is wrapped up in his own needs when it comes to his relationship with sara, so much so that he has difficulty recognizing that sara’s needs not only sometimes differ from his own but are also sometimes fundamentally incompatible with his.

in this case, his needs come from a place of emotional vulnerability—which means that he comes by them honestly enough.

it’s just that they’re difficult for him to negotiate, and he often handles the business of getting his needs met badly.

as i discuss elsewhere,

throughout the course of the show, certain admissions grissom makes reveal that one of his biggest hangups regarding his relationship with sara is that he feels, to some extent, like he is not good enough for her.

he expresses this feeling during his famous monologue at the end of episode 04x12 “butterflied,” when he implies that “for fifty years” he hasn’t “really lived at all” and speaks to the fact that sara has the ability to take the beautiful life she offers away from him at any time.

this sentiment is even more explicit in the original script version of the monologue, in which grissom speaks about how looking at himself in the mirror robs him of his courage to tell sara how he feels and goes on to say that one of the scariest things that he can imagine is

“the day she looks at [me] for the first time and sees a middle-aged man who never experienced life—a man who’s fifty going on fifteen, buying her a bracelet, with her birth stone, thinking it’s special. thinking he’s special. but in truth, he’s a two-week subscription, and no amount of rogaine or propecia can change that. she’s already moved on.”

another place where we see this feeling of inadequacy at play for grissom is in episode 09x05 “leave out all the rest,” when heather kessler correctly deduces that grissom views himself as being inherently too dark for sara, framing his fear within the context of the case he’s investigating, with sara as a stand-in for the female victim, and grissom as a stand-in for her boyfriend:

“she’s the keeper of the hearth—sentimental, traditional. mass card and rosary in her nightstand. a good girl, afraid of the dark… [but he] liked to compartmentalize. it made him feel safe. everything had its place: work, her, [sic]. he kept his dark side locked in a trunk, hidden away from her.”

though grissom loves sara and wants to be with her, he worries that he isn’t good enough for her for myriad reasons:

because he is fifteen years older than she is (and she “deserves someone her own age”);

because he is romantically inexperienced and has never been in love with anyone before her (and she “deserves someone who knows how to be in a romantic relationship”);

because he is too dark for her and has a misanthropic, sinister, even gruesome side (and she is a “good girl, afraid of the dark” who “deserves someone who will be with her in the light”).

he feels like she is so smart and beautiful and empathetic and compassionate that she deserves the entire world, and he has nothing to offer her.

that insecurity is part of what causes him to withdraw from her once she moves to vegas, even though she clearly expresses that she wants to be with him:

as he hints at in the “butterflied” monologue, he fears that once she gets close enough to him, she’ll see him for what he truly is: an old man with nothing to offer her; someone who knows nothing about love; who is inherently flawed; a coward. he believes that if she learns the truth about him, she’ll undoubtedly reject him—and, if she does, he knows he won’t be able to handle it. her rejection will destroy him.

so on a subconscious level, grissom decides that it’s best if he never gives sara the chance to reject him at all—i.e., that he keep himself at arm’s length from her so that she can’t fully realize his flaws.

as lady heather surmises in episode 02x08 “slaves of las vegas,” grissom’s greatest fear is “being known,” and it is precisely for this reason.

yes, it hurts him not to be able to fully be with sara as his heart desires, but part of him would rather suffer the pain of never being with sara than to suffer being with her only to then have her reject him after a time, as he fears that she inevitably will.

it’s better never to know what he’s missing, you know? better not to risk it.

grissom’s fear that sara will reject him couples with his professional anxieties surrounding his relationship with her.

he asks sara to come work for him in las vegas, and suddenly he’s got catherineraising her eyebrows at him when he and sara get too flirty in the halls (seeepisode 01x03 “crate n’ burial”); the undersheriff and f.b.i. ridinghis ass about how he manages sara on career cases (see episode01x23 “strip strangler”); nick and warrick expressing jealousy whenever heshows sara the slightest hint of preferential treatment (see episode 01x10“sex, lies, and larvae”); and even sara herself pushing up againstboundaries and buttons and making it difficult for him to untangle his personalfeelings for her from their work (see episodes 01x10 “sex, lies, andlarvae” and 01x16 “too tough to die”). 

grissom knows what people will think if they find out how he feels about sara. he knows that he could lose his job if he takes things to the next level.

if he gives in to his heart, he honestly believes he will lose everything: his career, his sense of self, and, ultimately, even her. 

and that’s a risk he cannot take.

so, as things are, grissom contents himself with having sara’s company atwork and even treating their professional relationship like a quasi-datingsituation while otherwise keeping her at arm’s length. 

sara is, essentially, his work girlfriend, and that arrangement works for him. 

he can flirt with her when he likes (as long as things don’t gettoo personal); he can occasionally walkarm-in-arm with her around their crime scenes; they can trade triviaand jokes; he can pay attention to her and make her smile; she can emotionallysupport him and calm him down when he’s upset (see episodes 01x19 “gentle,gentle” and 02x05 “scuba doobie-doo”); he can show her off to hissuperiors (see episode 03x02 “the accused is entitled”); they can share weirdlyintimate moments; etc.; etc.

really, they can do everything short of going hometogether. 

but when things get too intense, he can also shut theirinteractions down at a moment’s notice. he can maintain his space, go off byhimself, even turn his attentions—fleetingly and superficially—to other women,like teri miller (see here). 

nothinghe’s willing to do with sara endangers his career. they toe that line betweencoworkers and significant others, and they keep everything relatively clean that way. furthermore, he’s able to to some extent “have her” without fear that he will lose her. if he never lets her get too close to him, she won’t see his flaws, and she won’t reject him; she’ll stay with him, almost happily, forever. 

sure, in his heart ofhearts, grissom very much yearns to extend his and sara’s relationship to all thespheres in his life (see his original monologuefrom “butterflied”), and, certainly, on a subconscious level,he realizes that he is dissatisfied with the status quo between himself andsara, particularly when she dates hank peddigrew during seasons two and three. 

in a better world, in a better life, where grissom could be sure that sarawould love him forever and that he could know that he was actually good enoughfor her, he would want to be the man she came home to after shift. he would wantthem to share everything. to be everything for each other.

but in this world, their arrangment mostly works for him.

it mostly meets his needs.

—and, because it does, he remains generally oblivious to the fact that things aren’t working out this way for sara.

it completely blindsides him when, in season three, he learns that sara is dating hank peddigrew. 

grissom thought he and sara had a fine thing going on, but, apparently, she was unhappy. this realization affronts grissom and also heightens his insecurities. it never occurred to him that sara might actively search out something more than what he was offering her; the fact that she has scares him, because it means that there is a possibility he might lose her.

hence his possessive and jealous behavior with her early on in season three—and hence why, after she calls him on said possessive and jealous behavior in episode 03x03 “let the seller beware” (“it’s just, um, you tell meto get a life, and then i get one, and then you expect me to be there at amoment’s notice. it’s, um, confusing”), he subconsciously becomes obsessed with “winning her back” to him and so turns on the charm for her, all the way up until she asks him out in episode 03x22 “play with fire.”

he wants her—no, needs her—but he also fears losing her, so he keeps perpetuating a situation where he takes as much of her as he can safely get but never reaches for more.

and is that a shitty thing for him to do? absolutely.

it’s really convenient for grissom that he can enjoy sara’s company and adoration and presence on his own terms without having to do any of the heavy-lifting required in a committed relationship.

like sara points out in episode 01x10 “sex, lies, and larvae,” he can talk to her about cases as much as he wants to at the lab, but he isn’t there to hold her at night when she’s having nightmares.

—and, beyond that, he isn’t there in a more general way.

there are no dates. there’s no sex. there’s emotional intimacy, but only on his terms. there’s no promise to be there when things go bad. for as much as he likes to pretend otherwise, he’s not actually sara’s boyfriend, which is a realization she comes to in season two (see episode 02x12 “you’ve got male”) and which haunts her throughout seasons three and four, as well.

so, yeah, in the interest of self-protection, grissom can be selfish with sara. he can take what he needs without giving much back to her. at times when she makes it clear to him that what’s going on between them isn’t working for her (see episodes 02x15 “burden of proof” and 03x22 “play with fire”), he’s shocked and affronted, and, though he feels bad for behaving in the way that he has, he often flails and doesn’t know what to do to change course.

now.

all of this said, we also have to talk about grissom’s unselfishness—because there are times, even during the early seasons, when he tries to do the right thing by sara, regardless of his fears and hangups.

when grissom learns that sara is dating hank, he behaves badly at first (see episodes 03x01 “revenge is best served cold,” 03x02 “the accused is entitled,” and 03x03 “let the seller beware”), but he does, ultimately, tell her that she deserves to have a life and respect the fact that she is someone else’s girlfriend now. he tries, not entirely successfully, to be okay with the fact that she is perhaps moving on from him and seems to understand that if he is himself unwilling to give her what she needs, then it is her prerogative to find someone else who is willing to do so.

of course, that’s not to say that he doesn’t still show his adoration for sara, even while she is dating hank—he does (see episode 03x09 “blood lust”)—or that it doesn’t in any way please him once she and hank break up.

—just that he tries to respect her autonomy and be understanding of her needs.

ditto for when sara asks him out in episode 03x22 “play with fire.”

for as harsh as it is for grissom to turn sara down in that scenario, it is also, in some ways, grissom’s attempt to be fair to sara and to “set her free.” he knows he’s not ready to give her what she needs, and maybe he never will be. that being the case, it wouldn’t be right for him to answer her invitation with anything but a no.

as i say elsewhere,

sara asking [grissom] out isn’t this out of the blue occurrence. she’s just going with the original plan—with what should have happened in october 2000, when she showed up on his home turf, all sunshine and smiles, ready to take on the world with him.  

his feelings for her never changed after those first few golden weeks, but his behavior did, and that’s where sara is coming from. she can see that, underneath everything, grissom is still in love with her, and, since she’s still in love with him, too, she can’t understand why they aren’t together.

she felt that incredible, once-in-a-lifetime connection that they made in san francisco jolt through her just as much as he did, and she knows it’s the type of love that won’t just fade away or peter out over time. it’s a forever love for both of them.

and, to her, that’s enough.

their love is enough to make her want to be brave and break rules and take a chance.

but not him.

grissom isn’t brave like sara. he’s a coward, and he knows it.

and that’s why he winces: because he knows that he may be passing up his once-in-a-lifetime chance at real happiness; because he knows that, in a lot of ways, he has led sara on, when she was totally undeserving of it; because he realizes that this moment is it—he’s going to lose sara, and he’s going to lose his hearing, and he’s going to be alone in the silence, and he’ll have only himself to blame.

sara just offered him the beautiful life that he has always wanted with her, and all he can say is that he doesn’t know what to do, admitting total defeat.

if there was ever a case of someone going out with a whimper and not a bang, he’s it.

grissom doesn’t want to close the door on him and sara forever, but, in this case, he feels that he has to, so he does, or at least tries to—and that’s another unselfish action from him, even if it ultimately backfires and ends up hurting sara more than it helps her.

it’s something that he does with her best interest in heart.

in a way, the action grissom takes at the end of season three foreshadows his actions at the end of season four and throughout season five: once he realizes that sara is struggling (see episode 04x23 “bloodlines”), he starts to do what she needs, never mind his trepidations; he increasingly makes himself available to her (see episodes 05x13 “nesting dolls” and 05x21 “committed”), paving the way for them to have the kind of relationship they’ve both always wanted.

and that brings us to the issue of controllingness.

in general, gil grissom is a control freak. 

it’s something that catherine and brass call him out on on numerous occasions and something that he admits to himself in episode 02x07 “caged” (“i like order”). he can be controlling with his crime scenes and his management style and particularly with his personnel. he doesn’t like it when his subordinates step out of line.

—and, in that capacity, he can be controlling of sara.

sara is a rational person, but she is also, as grissom puts it, “very emotional.” particularly early on, she can allow her personal feelings to cloud her professional judgment on cases, which is something that she and grissom sometimes come to loggerheads about (see episode 01x16 “too tough to die”).

grissom doesn’t like it when he sees sara getting ahead of herself on cases, “chasing rabbits” as he likes to put it, or setting herself up for failure, so he tries to prevent her from doing so—telling her to set her feelings aside or giving her orders to drop things when he’s convinced she needs to move on (see episode 04x11 “invisible evidence”).

in his mind, he has the right to be controlling of sara in this way because he’s her supervisor and it’s his job to manage her. it’s debatable to what extent he’s right on that claim.

in any case, he certainly has less ground to stand on when he tries to control sara’s personal habits, as opposed to her professional ones.

the prime example here would be her relationship with hank.

as previously stated, when grissom learns that sara is dating hank (see episode 03x01 “revenge is best served cold”), he becomes intensely jealous. that jealousy manifests in his behavior: he starts “punishing” sara with unsavory assignments (see episode 03x01 “revenge is best served cold”), treating her coolly, and even “exiling her” as it suits him (see episode 03x03 “let the seller beware”). though he tells her early on that it’s good for her to have a life of her own outside the lab, his actions very much say the opposite. he isn’t happy that she doesn’t immediately respond to his every beck and call now. he’s distressed at the thought that he’s losing her, and he doesn’t know how to cope.

his behavior throughout the first three episodes of season three would certainly count as controlling, and there’s no justification for it.

he wants what he can’t have, and he’s throwing a tantrum about it, plain and simple.

—and, yeah, that’s also pretty shitty. 

but, again, that’s not the end of the story.

like we discussed above, once sara points out how shitty grissom is being, he actually does change his behavior and start to respect her autonomy. he realizes that if he won’t date her, he has no right to say whom she dates—or if she dates—otherwise.

if he liked it, then he should have put a ring on it.

he shapes up throughout the end of the season—though, of course, his “reformed behavior” does bring new complications of its own (i.e., he is so nice to sara that he gives her the impression he’s ready to date her when he’s not, and then he ends up shooting her down in episode 03x22 “play with fire”).

so where does that leave us?

of course, it’s up to every shipper as to where they draw the line in the sand when it comes to whether or not they can ship something in good conscience.

grissom’s treatment of sara in early seasons is oftentimes shitty. 

he isn’t particularly fair to her, asking her to move to a new state for him, knowing what she expects will happen when she does so, but then ultimately being unwilling to give her what she needs AND unable to tell her that he’s changed the stakes. 

through a combination of obliviousness and ineptitude, he keeps sara on the line with him for four years—or six, counting the time before she moved to vegas—and while i don’t think he consciously takes advantage of sara’s devotion to him, it certainly suits his needs that she is so longsuffering. 

he can be comfortable in limbo in a way she never can be, and his comfort makes it so that he doesn’t even think to question the status quo.

that’s selfish, and the few times when he tries to keep her attached to him even when she tries to pull away are controlling or at least emotionally manipulative.

to some people, that’s a deal-breaker, and that’s okay. gsr isn’t totally healthy from the get-go, and i can understand why some people might not like to ship like that.

but, to me, gsr is still a fascinating and shippable ship, even given how things go between grissom and sara early on, and even with all of grissom’s flaws considered. 

of course, i tend to be attracted to characters and relationships that are messy.

if grissom never learned from his mistakes or did anything to change his behavior, i would feel differently, but, as discussed above, he does learn and grow. 

especially during season five, i see grissom becoming much more concerned with sara’s needs than his own. he recognizes that he has hurt her in the past and that she needs him to be emotionally transparent with her in a way he has never been before, and he steps up. there’s no more keeping her at arm’s length and no more trapping her in stasis. he starts to be there for her outside of work—significantly, in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” when he actually goes to her house to offer her emotional support—and he does so on her terms. when she wants to confide in him, he listens. when she’s managing her trauma, he gives her space to do so in the way that she needs to (see episode 05x21 “committed”).

it’s also worth pointing out that many of grissom’s missteps in early seasons are not motivated by selfishness or a desire to exert undue control over sara but come about because he legitimately mistakes what will make her happy—i.e., he thinks he’s doing right by her, but he somehow ends up making things worse.

such is very much the case in season four, when, after sara asks him out and he turns her down, grissom decides that it will be best for everyone involved if he emotionally and physically withdraws from sara, giving her “space” to get over him and him space to get over her. 

throughout much of season four, grissom ends up sending sara on assignments that put her far away from him, and he thinks he’s being kind by doing so. little does he know that sara views the action as a rejection, and that perceived rejection just adds insult to injury, as far as she is concerned.

he likewise missteps handling the issue of her application for the key position. he’s thinking that he doesn’t want to behave inappropriately by showing sara special treatment or by promoting her to a position that will have her working even more closely with him than she already does, but she sees him punishing her for being too forward with him last year, choosing nick over her, and making a professional decision based on a personal history, despite her having specifically asked him not to (see episodes 04x11 “invisible evidence” and 04x22 “no more bets”).

sometimes, for a genius, grissom is an idiot, and especially when he’s not communicating openly with sara about how she feels.

he’s smart when it comes to many subjects, but guessing how his actions affect the woman he loves isn’t one of them. it’s therefore no surprise that he only really starts to do better with her when he starts listening to her and figuring out where she’s coming from emotionally.

so the bottom line here?

grissom is flawed, but he’s also not evil or malicious. he is trying to work things out for himself, and eventually he does. 

of course, the fact that his intentions aren’t inherently bad doesn’t prevent his actions from sometimes hurting sara. that’s something that happens frequently during the early seasons of the show. 

the good news is that, as you point out, he eventually figures out how to change and do better—and, once he and sara get together, he is generally pretty good about considering her needs, particularly once she makes those needs known to him in a way that he can understand.

seasons five, six, and seven show a different grissom, one whose greatest happiness and security is making sure that sara gets what she needs from him. he’s careful of her desires. he respects her decisions.

(see, particularly, episode 08x08 “you kill me,” when grissom tells catherine that all he wants is for sara to be happy, and he honors sara’s desire to be off by herself for a time, even though doing so isn’t necessarily what he wants.)

i’m really rambling here, so i’ll wrap things up now.

thanks for the question! please feel free to stop by my ask box again soon.