#CSI: 07x18

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gil grissom + wiping her tears

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Scratched Up Sara Sidle

03x22 | 07x18 | 08x02 | 14x10

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[bartramcat]

I've never really figured out if CSI was intentionally doing foreshadowing here or not. At the original airing, no one would have had the slightest clue a cleaning crew person was about to rock Grissom's and Sara's lives, so why?

There are a lot of things, large and small, in CSI that I often think were done with an eye towards reruns, DVDs, etc. Was this one?

Dunno. But the shot of her in the mirror is really...something.

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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.

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m y d a t e

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his hand on her back, though

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hi! first of all, i love your stories :) and second, last year i started watching csi from beggining and i just finished season 7 and i wanted to ask if it's in my head or sara appeared less on the episodes? i liked s7 more than the previous ones, the cases were more interesting imo (apart from the first seasons) but like in half of the episodes i got the impression that she barely shows? anyway i'm already bummed that jorja's leaving haha she was always my favorite

hi, @lamprey-savage!

thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you love my stories. <3

as for your question:

though jorja fox was negotiating her contract throughout parts of s7's production, she was still technically under contract as a regular cast member for its full run. accordingly, sara does appear in every episode of s7 and generally has about as much screen time as she has had in previous seasons. while there are some episodes of s7 where she is noticeably sparse (such as episode 07x08 "happenstance," where she only appears in one scene near the end), these "low visibility" episodes generally balance out with episodes where she is a major focus character (such as episode 07x18 "empty eyes").

that said, the sense you're getting that you're not seeing as much of her in s7 as you have in previous seasons may be because she really doesn't have a "front and center" personal storyline for most of the season.

whereas previous seasons—like, say, s4, which contains her depression arc, or s5, which reveals and expounds her backstory—provided her with consistent, dynamic mainline development, in s7, much of what happens with her happens on a "between the lines" level.

jorja fox has talked before about how early s7 was essentially a "romcom" period for sara, so a lot of her scenes then were on the lighter, more comedic side, with her playing off of grissom.

however, as the season went on and grissom eventually left on his sabbatical (coincident to billy petersen taking a break from the show to take part in a rhode island stage production in real life), the focus with her eventually shifted—just not to a more prominent storyline.

as i talk about in this post, "there is a subtle storyline that plays out for gsr over the course of s7, which sees sara wondering if grissom views their relationship in the same way she does and if he feels as deeply for her as she does for him. she is insecure because while grissom most often demonstrates devotion to her, there are occasions when he behaves carelessly regarding her and/or their relationship; sometimes she can’t help but wonder just exactly how he feels, particularly as he seldom verbalizes his feelings to her."

they keyword in the above paragraph is subtle, because the thing is, for the most part, this storyline does not really get a lot of direct attention throughout the season. only a handful of episodes—such as episodes 07x11 "leaving las vegas" and 07x23 "the good, the bad, & the dominatrix"—really broach the subject of sara questioning how grissom feels about her/their relationship and his level of commitment to her directly. the rest of the time, her anxieties are much more subtly implied.

since sara feels she can't really talk about her insecurities with anyone (including grissom himself), exploration of what she's feeling is limited to how she's shown to react to him. there's not a lot of dialogue where she expresses her emotions outright; more just facial expressions and body language.

the storyline is there if you look for it, but you do have to squint a bit to see it, particularly as the miniature killer storyline so dominates the s7 landscape otherwise, and sara plays a central role in that investigation, meaning that nine times out of ten when you see her on screen, the focus will be on what she's doing in relation to the case rather than what may be going on with her personally and/or in her relationship.

so tl;dr? sara isn't actually scarce in s7 in terms of how much screen time she gets; her personal development just isn't really spotlighted in the same ways it might have been in previous seasons. there's never actually a point in s7 where the show comes out and says, "here's what's going on with her!" for the most part, her development is much more subtextual/sublimated.

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

and good luck with s8! it's a heartbreaker, especially as a sara fan.

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gil grissom + getting increasingly worried about his wife the longer their walk-and-talk goes on as he realizes how triggered she is over the case

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she thinks he’s so cute, your honor

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Hi! I would like to ask your insight whether Jim Brass knows about Grissom and Sara's relationship prior to the S07E24 Dead Dolls reveal. I ask this because of the following:

On S07E18 Empty Eyes, after Camie died on Sara's arms, the next scene saw her standing distraught and in shock beside Jim Brass. JB is standing way to close as if making sure Sara is alright even though Sara is a veteran CSI. Do you think Grissom ask Jim to take care of his "Honey" while he keeps on processing the crime scene?

On S07E23 TGTBTD, Jim Brass said "I know something a lot juicier than Grissom and Lady Heather" after Catherine tries to get gossip from him about LH & GG. Do you think the juicy story is GSR?

hi, @hiei29!

i think i am in the minority, but i don't think brass knows about grissom and sara prior to the events of episode 07x24 "living doll."

i talk about the reasons why i don't think so in this post, if you're interested.

the tl;dr version is i don't think that if brass knew about grissom and sara's romantic relationship he would have taken the risk of blabbing about it to catherine, when doing so easily could have ruined grissom and sara's careers (given that he had no way to know in advance how catherine might react or whether or not she would blow the whistle on them); he would have shown more discretion and kept what he knew to himself. that so, the fact that he seems willing to tell catherine whatever the juicy gossip is suggests to me that whatever he knows isn't specifically that grissom and sara are currently having a romantic relationship with each other. it's got to be something else.

as for the events of episode 07x18 "empty eyes," i don't think brass would necessarily need grissom to tell him to stick close to sara after her traumatic experience with cammie—that's just something he would do on his own, a) because he is, down to his core, a protector and he very much views it as his job to keep the members of team graveyard (sara definitely included) safe, and, b) because he is quietly very fond of sara and views her as something of a daughter-figure.

while sara is certainly a veteran csi, brass knows that there are some on-the-job horrors for which even experience cannot prepare you. just one glance at sara, and he would see that she was trembling, scared, and pale after having had a civilian homicide victim bleed out in her arms; his "protective father" instinct would be triggered in an instant.

grissom wouldn't even have to say a word.

and even if grissom did ask brass to keep an eye on sara, there's no way he'd have framed that request as "please go look after my girlfriend"—not when doing so would have outed him and sara and potentially gotten them in trouble with the department (depending on brass's reaction). if anything, he would have said something much more innocuous, like, "can you check up on sara to make sure she's all right?", speaking in his capacity as team supervisor. he wouldn't have given brass any indication that his interest in sara's well-being exceeded what was allowable between a boss and his employee. but that's if he even asked brass to look after sara at all—which, again, i don't think he did. for my money, brass acted 100% of his own volition.

anyway, my views on this subject are fairly unpopular, and ymmv, but, in my view, jim brass has no special insights into gsr before the rest of the team does.

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

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gsr + grissom reacting to sara crying → episode 04x03 "homebodies" vs. episode 07x18 "empty eyes"

inspired by @bartramcat

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