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addictedtostorytelling · 9 months ago

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Any thoughts on what would be the dark side of Grissom?

hi, anon!

so here's the thing:

gil grissom believes he has a "dark side."

heather kessler believes he has a "dark side."

but i don't really think he does.

—and neither does sara sidle.

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

to me, the question of gil grissom's supposed "dark side" all comes down to definition.

gil grissom has one definition, which has to do with "having the capacity to be selfish and place one's needs ahead of others (even those one cares about)."

heather kessler has another that is close to his, though not necessarily identical, centered in "having the capacity to inflict pain on others (even those one cares about)."

however, i have another definition, which i think approximates sara's (which i'll explain later on).

suffice it so say, grissom doesn't fit it.

so let's take this thing piece by piece:

grissom's definition of "dark side"

the show directly links the term "dark side" to grissom in episode 09x05 "leave out all the rest," specifically when heather kessler reads both grissom and sara into the specs of the bdsm-related case grissom has invited her to consult on, i.e.,:

"he kept his dark side locked in a trunk, hidden away from her."

the idea of grissom's dark side (or at least his belief in his own dark side) is also strongly implied in episodes such as 04x12 "butterflied," 05x03 "harvest," 07x06 "burn out," and 09x02 "the happy place," where direct comparisons are made between grissom and violent criminals, both in dialogue and in the framing of the narratives.

as i talk about here,

throughout his time on the show, grissom frequently finds himself able to relate to the killers whose cases he processes. though he would never cross the same lines that they do, he feels he is in some ways like them: antisocial, obsessive, caught up in the details, frightened by his own mind. he sees pieces of himself in the paul millanders, vincent luries, kevin greers, and natalie davises of the world, and, when he does, it gives him pause.

though he never applies the term to himself directly, grissom seems to subscribe to the notion that he, like these criminals, has a dark side, as is evident from the disparaging way he sometimes speaks of himself and his own proclivities (such as in his monologue in episode 04x12 "butterflied"), as well as the way he passively accepts other people's assessments of him in that regard (i.e., he doesn't negate heather when she says he has a dark side, catherine when she accuses him of being antisocial/misanthropic, direct comparisons killers and rapists make between themselves and him, etc.).

for grissom, his belief that he has a dark side is seemingly predicated on his sense that he lacks some fundamental "human component."

his whole life, he's been told by various sources that he sucks at being a person—that he's too emotionally aloof, unempathetic, and analytical; doesn't relate to others well; stuck in his own head; overly obsessive, etc.—and he has very much internalized that criticism.

to his mind, his "dark side" is part and parcel of this "insufficient humanity" in him: i.e., he feels he has a tendency to use people to serve his own needs and also that he can do so relatively easily, experiencing little guilt for treating people around him like objects he can manipulate. he observes that he can and does keep people at arm's length, remain ignorant of their problems, put what is easiest for him ahead of what is best for them, derive pleasure from situations that cause them to suffer, behave in a generally selfish manner, etc. and keep things running smoothly this way for a very long time.

he believes he sees evidence to support this belief in his personal relationships—in the occasions when he's treated catherine or nick or other members of the team in this very utilitarian manner on a micro-level, certainly; however, nowhere more so than in his romantic dealings with sara, which, to his mind, is what offers the most damning indictment on him, considering she's the person he cares most about in the world.

for years, he keeps her in a kind of "emotional holding pattern" which serves his purposes but not hers, ignoring the damage he deals her along the way.

as i talk about here,

[for the first several seasons of the show,] sara is, essentially, grissom's work girlfriend, and that arrangement works for him. he can flirt with her when he likes (as long as things don’t get too personal); he can occasionally walk arm-in-arm with her around their crime scenes; they can trade trivia and jokes; he can pay attention to her and make her smile; she can emotionally support 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 his superiors (see episode 03x02 “the accused is entitled”); they can share weirdly intimate moments; etc.; etc. really, they can do everything short of going home together. but when things get too intense, he can also shut their interactions down at a moment’s notice. he can maintain his space, go off by himself, even turn his attentions—fleetingly and superficially—to other women, like teri miller (see here). nothing he’s willing to do with sara endangers his career. they toe that line between coworkers 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 of hearts, grissom very much yearns to extend his and sara’s relationship to all the spheres in his life (see his original monologue from episode 04x12 “butterflied”), and, certainly, on a subconscious level, he realizes that he is dissatisfied with the status quo between himself and sara, particularly when she dates hank peddigrew during s2 and s3. in a better world, in a better life, where grissom could be sure that sara would love him forever and that he could know that he was actually good enough for her, he would want to be the man she came home to after shift. he would want them to share everything. to be everything for each other. but in this world, their arrangement 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. worse yet, even on the occasions when he becomes passingly aware that this setup isn't actually copacetic for her and is in fact directly doing her harm (like in episodes 02x15 "burden of proof" or 03x03 "let the seller beware" or toward the tail end of s4), he still makes the active decision to continue subordinating her needs in favor of his own, which, as he sees things, suggests that he is more beholden to his own fears than he is mindful of her well-being—a major mark against him not only in terms of him being a potential lover for sara but in terms of him being a human being with a heart and compassion for others.

while someone less critical of grissom than himself might point out that his selfish behavior regarding sara, while not awesome™, is more in line with him having a fear of intimacy and poor interpersonal skills than it is with him being some kind of heartless and depraved "creature of the dark," grissom, who is hypercritical of himself, views these failings on his part as a condemnation of his overall person, drawing connections between his own "willingness" to mistreat sara and the way the criminals in the cases he investigates do violence to the people around them.

the fact that he also shares with these criminals a tendency toward obsession further compounds his sense that he is like them, as does his notion that he could perhaps find it within himself to be violent (and even kill) were someone he loved threatened.

he sees in himself a capacity to cause harm in order to serve his own purposes and consequently believes he is by nature a cruel and heartless being, particularly unworthy of sara and her "light."

this belief grissom has concerning himself (i.e., that he has a dark side) is one that, unfortunately, other characters around him frequently, albeit often inadvertently, reinforce.

almost every member of his team has, at some point, accused grissom of being unconcerned with the emotions and needs of others on some level: e.g., catherine disparages him for having no personal connections (see episode 01x04 "pledging mr. johnson"), warrick calls him a robot (see episode 03x13 "random acts of violence"), nick harps on him for not caring about the human element in their cases (see episode 04x11 "eleven angry jurors"), and even sara on one particularly fraught occasion despairs that he has no feelings (see episode 01x16 "too tough to die").

while all of these statements are ones that his team members make in moments of personal frustration and are inaccurate to their true views of him—not a single person on that team actually doubts grissom's capacity to care about others; to the contrary, they all emotionally rely on him and turn to him as a confidante at the times when it really counts—grissom nevertheless takes these outbursts from them at face value, internalizing the messaging, believing he is, just as they imply, on a fundamental level, "deficient" (see episode 01x04 "pledging mr. johnson").

though he receives a thousand evidences otherwise that his friends feel his love for them and that they acknowledge his humanity, those positive assurances don't stay in his mind the same way their momentary negativity does, largely due to confirmation bias.

for all that catherine will willingly kill for him, that warrick praises his magnanimity as a boss, nick obviously looks up to him and craves his approval, and sara loves him unconditionally and thinks more highly of him than anyone, he still can't help but see "proof" everywhere that he is a bad person given over to his dark side.

something, something "autism rejection sensitive dysphoria." ahem.

—and, unfortunately, this belief of his is only furthered by the one significant friendship he has outside of his work team, i.e., with heather kessler.

heather's definition of "dark side"

now.

while there are a great deal many good things about grissom and heather's friendship—not only are they well-suited to each other in terms of intelligence, temperament, interests, etc., but over the years they are incredibly loyal to each other and stand by each other in times of crisis time and time again—one area where they are perhaps not good influences on each other is in how they both conceive of themselves and each other as "belonging to the dark."

whereas when grissom's other friends call him out for being "insufficiently human," they do so in moments of anger, when they're purposefully trying to say hurtful things to him either because they are frustrated with the case of the day or with him or both, heather tends to make her claims much more calmly and without intention to wound.

she doesn't so much level accusations at grissom as she does simply make what she considers to be observations of him, impassive in nature, framed as fact.

these observations are ones she offers not out of malice or with intent to disparage him but because she feels kinship.

of course, her intentions notwithstanding, they still exacerbate his sense of "otherness" and "unworthiness" in himself all the same.

she sees them both as people who have dark sides, and she often reminds him of this point because (to her) it is a basis of their friendship.

grissom doesn't necessarily agree that heather is as "irredeemable" as he is—he thinks much more highly of her than he does of himself and doesn't believe she has as much claim to "human deficiency" as he does, her profession and occasional criminality notwithstanding—however, since a) she has always been able to read him like an open book from their very first meeting anyhow, and, b) she is at least familiar with darkness by way of her profession/lifestyle, he does seem to feel that he is safe to be himself, forgo masking, and make no attempts to hide his darkness in her presence.

because she is comfortable operating in proximity to darkness, his sense is that he doesn't have to fear her disgust and/or rejection in the same way he might from his more "towards the light"-oriented friends.

he can just trust that she knows he has a dark side but won't disparage him for it.

and that brings us to heather's definition of what a "dark side" even is.

to heather, who lives in a world that is rife with violence and runs on dynamics of dominance and submission, having a dark side entails being comfortable inflicting pain (both physical and emotional) on others.

she views herself as having a dark side not only because of her profession but also (and even more so) because she is possessed of a very brutal approach to human relationships: building and enforcing sharp walls between people, being cruel when doing so suits her, knowing how to needle others and using that skill to her advantage (having little regard for what damage she might cause in the long run).

as i talk about here,

like grissom, heather fears that she is a creature of the darkness, unfit for the light, and that she deserves many of the misfortunes that befall her. we don’t know exactly what brings about the end of her relationship with her ex-husband jerome kessler, but we do get hints that heather believes that she is a difficult person to love and be around—hence her comments to grissom that it must have been hard on zoë to have her for a mother. heather has carefully cultivated her “lady heather” dominatrix persona, becoming a person who is surprised by nothing, beholden to no one, totally autonomous and aloof. she’s this person whenever she’s in situations where she feels uncomfortable, such as when she has to interact with men who disrespect her, like jim brass (see episodes 03x15 “lady heather’s box” and 07x23 “the good the bad and the dominatrix”), or people who deride her for her profession and character, like sara sidle (see the interview scenes in “immortality”). she believes she is dark because she can push everyone away (including her husband and child) in order to make herself feel safer and more in control in an otherwise cruel and chaotic world and then go on living in this loneliness, almost as if nothing had ever happened; as if it were no loss. she can draw strength from making others feel weak. she can make herself an island and still function that way, devoid of any real ties. she can permit even those she loves to suffer if doing so gives her some advantage. she views herself as heartless. as lacking. as not having that crucial component that allows other people to connect.

when heather meets grissom, she very quickly surmises that he feels similarly about himself as she does about herself. she hones in on the fact that he withholds key parts of himself from even the people he's closest to emotionally ("[you fear more than anything] being known"), including sara.

she also suspects that because he lacks social and even sexual outlets, he may harbor some repressed tendencies toward relational violence (see episode 02x08 "slaves of las vegas").

the longer she knows grissom and the more she becomes aware of his relationship with sara, the more she starts to read what she views as his dark side into the relationship problems he and sara experience during s8 and s9.

as i talk about here,

heather believes that she and grissom are two of a kind: both creatures of the darkness, unsuited for domestic life. in her view, sara is not like them. she is something different: a sweet soul who secretly longs for light—who, despite how she may protest to the contrary, very much wants for normalcy and the cookie-cutter life with the dog and the house and the husband. though sara works the graveyard shift at a crime lab, she is, as heather sees it, vanilla, repulsed by that which is gruesome, violent, and twisted. she doesn’t share heather and grissom’s macabre side, and, by heather’s estimation, because she doesn’t, she can’t fully understand grissom, a man who lives in isolation, harbors misanthropic tendencies, and finds it easy to think like a serial killer. she’s too tame. too quaint. too afraid of the dark. honestly, heather is probably reading a little bit of her own history into grissom and sara’s current situation here: as we learn in episode 07x24 “the good, the bad, & the dominatrix,” heather’s ex-husband, jerome kessler, is shocked at and repulsed by heather’s involvement in the s&m business, and his attitude towards her lifestyle influences his decision to keep her away from their granddaughter, allison. since heather sees herself and grissom as being similar, she perhaps thinks of sara as being similar to jerome. just like jerome couldn’t handle heather’s darkness, sara perhaps can’t handle grissom’s. that side of him might be a deal-breaker for her. in making this assessment, heather isn’t necessarily disparaging sara; she’s just pointing out that sara isn’t built to wade endlessly through human evil in the way that grissom is. it goes back to what she said about the schism and grissom and sara having different roles and priorities: sara is persephone; grissom is hades. she was made for flowers and springtime; he was made for the underworld. they are fundamentally incompatible in this way, at least as heather sees things.

heather's views to this end only serve to echo fears grissom already has concerning himself and his and sara's relationship. he has always been secretly terrified that in addition to being too old for sara and too romantically inexperienced to be with her, he is also too dark for her; too much of a drain on her precious light.

he feels supremely unworthy of her, which is one of the major reasons why he not only holds back from being with her for so long during the early seasons of the show but also why, when she flees vegas in s8 and s9, he lets her go and does not (for the longest while) pursue her.

though he wants more than anything to be with sara, deep inside of him, he fears that he is ultimately too selfish for her, too cruel, too depraved, too macabre, too dark.

my definition of "dark side"—and sara's

but.

for all grissom and heather believe he has a dark side, here's the thing:

i don't really think he does.

and i don't think sara thinks he does, either.

not to get too philosophical, but here's my take:

all people have the capacity to take harmful actions, so just having that capacity is not enough to make someone a "creature of the dark."

neither is even taking harmful actions in itself.

that's another thing everyone occasionally does.

as social creatures, causing occasional harm is unavoidable—we all from time to time hurt other people, sometimes accidentally, sometimes purposefully; physically and emotionally.

it's just part of living together, of interacting.

of having competing needs.

that so, just occasionally causing others pain doesn't mean someone has a "dark side"—at least not in my book; not that way that grissom and heather mean it, anyway.

it's not a sign of criminality or depravity.

it's just humanity.

having a dark side has to go beyond just being capable of causing harm to others or even sometimes causing it.

to me, at least—and everyone is welcome to disagree—there has to be something more to it.

there has to be an orientation toward hurting others regularly, consistently, and even with impunity; toward harming the people around you and not caring (or even to taking delight in doing so); toward having no inclination to change or better oneself; toward inflicting pain and suffering without regard for others, never looking back.

and i don't think that's grissom at all.

don't get me wrong: the man makes mistakes.

sometimes big ones.

for example, his jealous, petty behavior toward sara at the beginning of s3 when she is dating hank is not great™.

that said, i think that, in general, grissom orients more toward taking beneficial actions than he does toward taking harmful ones.

he exists more in the light.

much—if not most—of the harm he causes, especially in regards to his conduct toward other people, is inadvertent on his part; a product of him flailing and not knowing how to satisfy his competing needs and wants as opposed to him purposefully lashing out or trying to assert himself over others.

while of course he can—and does sometimes—still cause harm even when he does not intend to do so (see, for example, how his mismanagement of sara contributes to her downward spiral in s4), his character is such that he almost never sets out to hurt anyone and is eager to change and do better once he realizes that he has.

he isn't inclined to be malicious at all.

he has occasional blind spots, yes. is sometimes selfish and makes mistakes, sure. he from time to time prioritizes his needs over those of his loved ones. every once in a while underestimates the effect his actions might have on the people around him. now and then behaves hypocritically because he is so deep inside his own head that he can rationalize behavior from himself that he condemns in others. at times makes poor judgment calls, the outcomes of which impact not just him but everyone on his team.

but gil grissom is not someone who goes about attempting to hurt others, much less someone who hurts others regularly, much less someone who does so with impunity.

flawed though he is, by and large, he is goodhearted, earnest, and willing and able to admit his mistakes. for the most part, his desire is to help and not to hurt, and he succeeds in enacting that desire.

contrary to what he believes about himself and even what heather believes about him, he is incapable of hurting others without feeling immense guilt for doing so if he is aware of the effect his actions have had.

in fact, i would argue that one of the primary emotions he experiences throughout the early seasons of the show is guilt, oftentimes of the undue variety.

while it does still sometimes take him time to change course even after he recognizes he has misbehaved, he always does change course eventually.

he never sits comfortably in the wrong.

he always strives to treat others compassionately and fairly, even often at the expense of his own interests.

that so, to me, there is nothing exceptional in his misconduct; nothing depraved in it; nothing to indicate it is his preferred or even habitual mode of action.

though he is able to think like a serial killer for the sake of his job, just the ability to profile does not a "dark heart" make. he could never bring himself to behave like these violent criminals do. he is far too concerned with others' feelings, far too compassionate and just, far too much of a humanist, etc. he holds life and personhood too much as sacred.

and contrary to what he thinks, even the fact that he could potentially kill to protect someone he loves isn't some grand indictment of his soul; that just shows the depth of his love. many parents would say the same for their children. lovers for their lovers. friends for their friends. (hell, catherine kills to save his life at one point, and he doesn't think less of her for doing so!) it doesn't make him a coldblooded killer by any means to have those instincts. it's not like he'd be violent without provocation or in any other circumstances; just to save the people he cares about. that's not a flaw! that's a sign of devotion.

he's just a guy trying to get by in life, and occasionally he futzes things up and ends up hurting other people.

but he is also someone who immediately apologizes when he is called out (see, for example, how quick he is to recant the inadvertently misogynistic statement he makes in episode 02x23 "the hunger artist" once catherine confronts him on it); who forgives others of their mistakes immediately and wholeheartedly (such as when he lets warrick keep his job in episode 01x02 "cool change"); who is a pacifist at heart; a poet's soul; someone who, despite working a job that puts him into contact with some of the worst elements of his society, still believes in truth, justice, and love.

he learns from his mistakes as he goes.

and over time, becomes far more open.

far less selfish.

far more willing to place the needs of his loved ones ahead of his own.

he is not some "creature of the darkness"—or at least no more so than most people are.

fwiw, i don't think heather is actually a "creature of the darkness," either.

even where sara and his past mistreatment of her is concerned, he isn't even half as terrible as he imagines himself to be.

for as much as he does give her the runaround during the early seasons of the show and oftentimes fuck up with her very badly, he is not "all awful to her all the time." he is oftentimes very supportive of and gentle with her. frequently a very good friend (albeit not a boyfriend in the way that she would want).

he isn't 100% some negative force in her life, some black hole draining her of light.

that's why she never ultimately "gets over him," you know?

because for as complicated and messed up as things sometimes get between them, there is enough that's positive between them to continue to attract her.

there's goodness and beauty mixed in with the confusion and heartache; in greater part, even.

he also seldom consciously intends to treat sara badly and never is comfortable doing so when he is conscious of the outcomes of his actions.

as i talk about here,

though grissom may sometimes appear callous, in truth, he very much isn’t. he doesn’t like hurting sara’s feelings. he doesn’t like making her sad. though he is sometimes possessed of a very strong impulse to save his own skin and to do what is best for him, he also isn’t without empathy for her plight. when he fucks up, he feels bad about doing so. he kicks himself for being such a jerk every time he disappoints her. (look at his face after he declines her dinner invitation in episode 03x22 “play with fire;” that is not the expression of a man who feels good about what he’s just done.) he wants to make up for his inability to give her what she wants. he wholeheartedly desires to do better—to be better—though he may not know exactly how to overcome his more selfish impulses in order to meet that end.

but the thing is, he eventually sorts himself out.

his desire to do better does translate into action.

into improvement.

he changes his mo with her over time.

by s5, he makes the conscientious decision to prioritize sara's needs. he starts to be more transparent in his dealings with her, even though doing so scares him. he even puts himself and his job on the line in order to do what's best for her (see episode 05x13 "nesting dolls").

like sara says in the reboot, after he learns her story, he's consistently "just there for her."

though of course he doesn't do everything 100% perfectly with her going forward, the grissom of s5 on is so much more open about his feelings for her, so much gentler in his dealings, and so concerned with promoting her happiness.

and this willingness to change how he deals not only with sara but with all of his loved ones—see, for example, how he validates nick's emotionality by recommending him for the promotion in s4 and how supportive he is of greg throughout s7 after sara draws his attention to greg's struggles in episode 07x06 "burn out"—proves that, contrary to his misconceptions about himself, he is not some fundamentally evil person who always treats the others around him selfishly.

he is far more capable of compassion, empathy, and even evolution than he gives himself credit for—a notion which might come as a shock to him but which is no surprise to the one person who knows him better than everyone.

sara.

sara was raised the darkness. she saw extreme selfishness in practice every day while she was growing up. was both a witness to and victim of harm inflicted with impunity for years.

she knows what can happen when people orient towards harming others and don't seek to change.

and don't get me wrong: she doesn't think that grissom is perfect, and particularly not as someone he has at times done emotional damage to.

she knows he is capable of causing pain, just like anyone else is.

she's felt it.

but she also doesn't think for one moment that he has a dark side.

i'll go as far as to say: she wouldn't be with him if she did.

as i talk about here,

[sara] doesn’t just love [grissom] for his mind, you know—she also loves his heart and his humanity, two features which others often claim he doesn’t possess; two features which he often doubts in himself. listening to him rhapsodize about the plight of the victim in [episode 01x09 "unfriendly skies"] and empathize with the man, refusing to entertain the question of whether or not his murder was justified and instead arguing that he was owed a basic level of compassion, she is struck by what a good person he is. that genuine kindness in him is part of what attracts her. she loves that he is nonviolent. she loves that he is humane. she loves that his tendency is always to look for whom he can help, not hurt. he is the most intelligent person she’s ever met, but he also has one of the best hearts, and she adores him for it. for as much as he will later say in the series finale that she restores his faith in the human being, he does the same for her. he is so much of the softness and light she needs to believe still exists in the world.

to continue on from this post,

though he doubts his own goodness, she doesn’t for a second. in fact, she believes in it more than anything. she loves how compassionate, humane, and just he is; how much he cares about the people in the cases they work and his deep capacity for empathy. she adores that he is a champion of persons who are vulnerable, that he speaks for the dead, that he honors and protects women and children, that he allies with the marginalized, etc. though of course she never likes for him to feel sad, she finds herself deeply touched whenever she sees his sorrow for someone he couldn’t save or an investigation that ended badly. while he often thinks the worst of himself, she knows he is the best—that he has this deep-seated and unfailing desire in him to help others and to right wrongs; that he is compelled by his nature to try to better the society he lives in and to show kindness to the individuals he encounters. that he can’t see in himself the virtues that seem so obvious to her honestly breaks her heart, which is why she never misses the opportunity to remind him that he is so much better than he gives himself credit for. just knowing that someone like him exists helps her have faith in the world. he’s such a good man, and the fact that he is is so important to her. to that same end, she also loves how inherently gentle he is. as i talk about here, “to my mind, part of the reason why she is attracted to grissom is because he’s generally very soft-spoken; is a committed pacifist; he’s not domineering; and even when he’s mad at her, he doesn’t yell at her.” coming from the background she does, she only ever could have loved a man who was soft, who seldom raised his voice (and when he did, only did so in defense of others or in the expression of righteous outrage over injustices), who treated others kindly, and who didn’t misuse power at times when he held it. that grissom is so fundamentally mild and never wants to hurt anyone or cause anyone to be afraid of him makes her feel 100% safe in his presence.

for a long time, grissom thinks of himself as a selfish, heartless monster, but sara never sees him that way, and, over the years, she slowly helps him to shed this poor opinion of himself, too.

scenes like the ones in episode 02x05 "scuba doobie-doo," where she encourages him not to be hard on himself, and episode 09x01 "for warrick," where she reminds him of how deeply warrick loved him at a time when she knows he is (unduly) blaming himself for warrick's death, speak to her unfailing belief in him and her desire for him to be able to see himself as she sees him, not as some creature of the darkness, unworthy of the light, but as a light to her and others.

grissom doesn't come around to this notion right away and suffers more than a few setbacks over the years (particularly at times when he feels as if he lets sara down); however, grissom does eventually start to trust in his own humanity.

the grissom we see in csi: vegas s1 is one who doesn't suffer from the same kind of extreme self-loathing and self-distrust as he did in his earlier years. he doesn't have those same doubts concerning his humanity and worthiness, as is evident by the way he allows himself to be comforted in times when he is in distress, accepting love in a way he previously could not bear to.

twenty years on, that grissom is one who has become very comfortable operating in the light, and it's a beautiful thing to see.

anyway.

rambling now.

sorry to go all philosophical here.

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

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: grissom #csiverse #let's talk shop

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