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addictedtostorytelling · 3 years ago

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Hi AJ!

I'm driving crazy with all this excitement for CSI:Vegas! But I think this is the general mood all around the world... :)

I have a couple of question for you.

From Jorja's interview we saw yesterday, we know that Sara receives a call from a dear old friend, which bring her, and then Grissom, to come back to Vegas. Now, from what we know the only characters from the original CSI coming back are Hodges and Brass. It would seem strange that Brass calls Sara, intead of Grissom. So is that person Hodges maybe?

And also, how do you explain that Sara has always been, in her words, "the one who always wanted to get out of Vegas" and then both in Immortlaity and in this new show she's the one who in some way make Grissom to come back working with CSI?

Thanks!

Take care

hey, @buildinggsr!

i know, right? it's wild—and wonderful!—getting all of this new content again after so many years.

in response to your questions:

i actually think it would make more sense for brass to be the one to call sara rather than for hodges to do so. i also don’t find it strange that brass would call sara at all.

as for the issue of sara returning to vegas (and getting grissom to come with her), i think her willingness to do so stems from her conceptions of what “home” really is to her.

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

in regards to why brass would be more likely to be the one to call sara rather than hodges, based on the full trailer and other bits and pieces of information we've gotten in various interviews, we know that brass is "in trouble," whereas hodges is now an expert witness; of those two positions, it seems more likely to me that brass's is the one from which someone might call in an old friend for outside help.

as i've talked about here and here, i think it's pretty likely that brass is implicated in the fabrication case and/or has been targeted by its perpetrator(s), particularly based on the "jim brass is just the beginning" typewriter text and also what we see/hear in the scene in which he consults with the grissoms in their hotel penthouse about what they should do next.

that scene reads very much like one in which brass has expressed sentiments along the line of "well, i'm really fucked, so what do we do now?" and grissom is telling him "the truth will out. we'll clear your name and/or find the person who's after you if we just follow the evidence."

if so, it would make sense that brass would need someone to help him either clear his name and/or catch the person(s) gunning for him.

though hodges is likely also involved in the case or at least eventually becomes so, it's hard to say in what capacity he first signs on.

it's possible that to start out he's not involved in the case at all but rather is just working more generally as a kind of legal "gun for hire" after having left the lab (taking on the same kind of role that phillip gerard has in s3), in which case he might only be "sucked into" the case at the same time that the grissoms are or even afterward.

if he is already involved in the case BEFORE the grissoms join the investigation, then he might be working as an expert witness for the defense, trying to help sort out the fabrication and clear the lab of wrongdoing, using his expertise in trace analysis to help wade through the counterfeit evidence.

however, i also think there is at least a possibility that he might be working as an expert witness for the prosecution under the new district attorney, perhaps having made some kind of deal for immunity in exchange for testifying against his old coworkers, lest he, too, be implicated and face criminal charges.

either way, whether he were working for the defense or the prosecution, while it's possible that he could call on the grissoms for some reason or another, i don't think there is necessarily the same imperative for him to do so as there is for brass.

all said, i won't 100% rule out that hodges could be the one to place the call; however, i also think there is a clearer narrative path for the caller to be brass.

for my money, brass is our guy.

imo, for what it's worth, sara would also probably be more likely to consider brass a "dear old friend" (which is how jorja refers to the mystery caller in her tv guide bts spot) than she would hodges, which is not to say that she hates hodges or isn't friends with him at all, but just that her relationship with him as not as close as her relationship with brass is.

now, in regards to why brass might call sara rather than grissom:

honestly, i'm not sure that we're actually dealing with an "either/or" situation here—meaning i'm not sure that it's a deal where brass opts to solicit sara's help but has no interest in also soliciting grissom's.

while everything we've heard so far specifies that sara is the one who gets the call, indicating that it probably comes in on her phone or at least a phone that she answers, it may be the case that she's the one brass reaches out to more by default than for any other reason.

as of the events of "immortality," brass has sara's phone number (as she calls him during the course of the investigation to warn him about the suspicious person outside of heather's house).

while she may have to change that number after leaving csi in 2015, it's also possible that she doesn't or that even if she does, she distributes her new number to her old contacts, and particularly those that she would consider "family," such as brass.

in any case, i think it's likely that if brass needs to do so, he has a way to get in touch with her.

not necessarily so with grissom, though.

between 2009 and 2015, grissom basically goes "off the grid" as far as his old coworkers are concerned. while he does have a cell phone, he is hit or miss about answering when called. also, very few people (aside from sara and heather) seem to have his number.

though we know that ecklie gets grissom's number from sara during the events of "immortality," we cannot say for certain if anybody else does. however, just knowing grissom, i think that it's somewhat unlikely that they do, and particularly not as he leaves vegas after the case is solved operating under the assumption that he has just lost his one true love AGAIN and so is off to resume his sad and solitary existence, bereft of her forever, meaning that he is probably not looking to "keep in touch" with anyone from that part of his life.

also, brass is still in the hospital at the time that grissom skips town, so even if grissom does hand out his contact info to others, brass isn't in on that whole exchange.

if not, then brass may not have any means to actually contact grissom except to do so through sara—hence his call to her rather than to him.

however, even if brass does have both grissom and sara's numbers, i still don't think that the fact that he calls sara's indicates that he wants her help but not grissom's.

when i call my mom, i know that the majority of the time she will probably take the call on speaker, and that, if he's home, my dad will be standing next to her, taking part in the conversation, as well; that so, i'm always aware that i'm not really calling one of my parents so much as i am calling both of them, even though it's technically my mom's phone the call is going to.

the same kind of thing might be going on here.

brass might call sara's phone, but he probably does so knowing that what he's really doing is calling the grissoms, either in the sense that grissom will also be on the line with sara OR that sara will immediately turn around once the call is over and relate everything brass said to her husband.

if so, then it's probably not a situation where brass is saying "i want her but not him" or even "she's my first choice for this over him," much less "she's the dearer friend to me or the one i trust more to help me with this problem."

hell, depending on the grissoms's living situation, he might not even know who's going to pick up when he calls if it's the kind of thing where they maybe are sharing one cell phone or he calls them on a ship-to-shore line.

—all of which is to say that i'm not sure that we can assume that brass is actually calling sara "instead of" grissom, as opposed to "with him" or "in addition to him."

sara's just might be the phone that he calls or she might just the the one who initially picks up (for whatever reason).

sara also might be the one who originally ends up helping brass not because hers is the only help he requests but because she is the only one certified to help in this particular situation.

after all, as we learned from the tv guide interview, sara still has her csi accreditation, whereas grissom does not.

if brass needs someone to help clear his name and/or catch a criminal, that someone has got to be able to cross the yellow tape.

sara can still do so, but grissom can't (at least before he is brought on as a consultant to the lab), and whether or not brass already knows as much when he calls her/them, the fact is that, of the two grissoms, sara has more ability to help him at the moment—just from a law enforcement angle—than does her husband.

moreover, while not so much a reason why brass might contact sara rather than grissom, i think it's worth noting that while brass and grissom are old friends and have a lot of working history together and brass literally trusts grissom with his life (see episode 06x24 "way to go"), the same can also be said of brass and sara, meaning that it's not necessarily a sure thing that he would prefer grissom's help to sara's or would feel that sara were less capable of getting him out of this jam than was grissom.

by the time brass leaves the lvpd back in 2014, he and sara have been working together for fourteen years, and they have been through a lot together. he thinks of her almost like a daughter, and he trusts her to have his back.

given how highly he regards her professionally and how dear she is to him personally, i don't think it would be strange for him to call her to help him out at all—and particularly not if a) he has the means to get in touch with her, and, b) he knows she still has the necessary certifications to work the case, as discussed above.

that so, while he probably isn't opposed to also getting help from grissom, i don't think he's at all disappointed when sara is the one who initially comes to his aid; he's getting good backup from her, and he knows as much.

all of the above said, if it does turn out to be the case that brass is specifically calling for sara and not grissom, he could potentially be doing so because sara is in some way directly connected to the case while grissom isn't (at least to start out with).

say that one of the first cases to come under scrutiny in terms of the fabrication is one that brass and sara worked together between 2010 and 2014. say that brass is under suspicion for having tampered with the evidence, but sara is someone who can potentially vouch for him and prove that he didn't, as she was there and she knows what actually happened at the time.

in such a scenario, it would very much make sense for brass to call sara, as she could provide an alibi for him.

if things were to go down that way, it might explain a) why sara is the one who returns to vegas first (before grissom does), and, b) why she initially assumes it'll be a quick seventy-two hour, "i'll just explain what happened and then leave again" thing when she does so, as per some of what jorja talked about in her recent tv guide bts interview.

as for the matter of sara being willing to return to vegas now, whereas in the past she was the one who wanted to leave, i think it comes down to a couple of factors:

the first time sara ever voices a desire to leave vegas is in s2, when she asks for a leave of absence from the lab and then subsequently threatens to quit if grissom doesn't grant it to her (see episode 02x15 "burden of proof"); in that instance, her desire to skip town is a symptom of the fraught state of her and grissom's relationship at the time.

essentially, after having moved to vegas back in s1 with the expectation that she and grissom would "up the ante" on their relationship, she's finally realized, after a year and a half of disappointment, that things are worse off between them than ever, and she's feeling disgruntled because he keeps giving her the runaround, treating her well one minute but poorly the next.

thankfully, in that case, grissom is able to change sara's mind about leaving him the lab by changing his behavior toward her.

see the gsr love fest that is that back half of s2, from episode 02x16 "primum non nocere" on.

the next time sara develops a desire to skip town is in s8/s9, as a result of her ptsd in the wake of her abduction by the miniature killer. in that instance, her instinct to flee is largely motivated by her sense that she cannot remain in grissom's presence or maintain their relationship, given how mentally ill she is. not wanting to burden him or elicit his disgust, she basically runs away because she can't deal, not once but twice.

that said, she does eventually return to sin city once her mental health crisis has been dealt with and her relationship with him stabilized (see s10)—and, at that point, the only thing that then eventually induces her to ever leave again is her desire to be wherever he is (see "immortality").

so.

all considered, the thing is that with the brief exception of during her s8 and s9 ptsd arc (when the desert landscape is somewhat triggering for her, given her recent ordeal), sara never really "has beef" with las vegas in and of itself; it's not like she grows to hate the city because of what or where it is.

rather, her willingness to be there or not is almost 100% dependent on the state of her relationship with grissom.

if she feels like they're good, then she's content no matter where she is.

it's only when she considers that things are bad between them (or are in danger of becoming so) that she gets that itch to run.

—and even then, that's only when he's there with her in las vegas to actually run away from.

when he's not there with her, like when they get divorced in s13, she is content to stay put, because what the hell does it matter anyway? she's going to be bereft of him no matter where she is; that so, she might as well at least stay somewhere where she has friends/a job.

as her goodbye letter in episode 08x07 "goodbye & good luck" states, grissom is home to her above anything and everything else—so as long as he is with her and things are well between them, she can live anywhere and be happy.

that's why she's willing to return to vegas with him: because it's all about them being together, and the rest is just details.

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

i hope you and yours are safe and well.

take care!

#answered #buildinggsr #asks: csi #csi vegas #**#my meta #meta: csi #speculation csi #csiverse

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