CSI: MIAMI “Permanent Vacation”

The sexy new song “Gimme More” by Brittany Spears plays as the opening scene fades in from black. In a posh hotel and a prime vacation spot, a family snaps a last picture before heading on home, back to Canada. As pictures are being taken, the father, Mr. Partney exerts his authority and demands the family “be in the car within the next five minutes or [they] are going to miss [their] flight!” The music continues and both sons go in different directions to finish off the last of things. Suddenly, the music cuts and the last scene we see is of Brian Partney in an elevator. Blackness engulfs the screen and when the picture reappears, Brian lays dead on the floor with blood already pooling around his body. His furious father is ravenous for revenge and seeks it out rather than awaiting justice.

This episode plays largely on the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” All three relatives, the mother, father, and brother (Shane) would rather kill the man who led Brian to his death rather than let the CSI team find the murderer and take him down. This hunger for vengeance gets them all into trouble when Shane attacks the number one suspect. Thought to be a result of a gang called the Cobras, the team assumes Mendoza to be a part of the situation because where he lives is largely part of the Cobra gang. We find out later that Mendoza was not involved at all, and was dragged into the murder through the use of his valet jacket and hole puncher. While watching the episode, I had felt no sympathy for the ill-tempered father who, at every chance he got, yelled at someone or demanded revenge. He showed nothing but disgust towards his other son and pushed him for answers about what he heard while outside the hotel, during the time Brian was murdered. Either out of desire to seek justice or to seek approval from his father, Shane attacks Mendoza, the number one suspect. We finally learn that Brian was killed as a gang initiation, as if we had not gained that information already from the first time a CSI said it was a gang related murder. I was irritated that Natalia, a CSI accompanying the mother out of the police station, had not paid closer attention to her. When the mother stated that she wised to ask her son’s killer “why he shot her son,” Natalia should have realized that she too wanted revenge. The episode ends with the mother approaching the killer and shooting him in the stomach. While the final scene played out, a series of flashes of black to picture took place and we heard the steady sound of a beating heart.