Indelible


Indelible

Season	8
Number	1
Writer	Zachary Reiter, John Dove
Director	Frederick E.O. Toye
Original Airdate	September 23, 2011
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Previous Episode: Exit Strategy
Next Episode: Keep It Real

Indelible is the first episode in Season Eight of CSI: NY.

Synopsis[]

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 proves a wrenching but clarifying passage for Mac, who suffered a terrible loss on that day. Meanwhile, an open-and-shut robbery/homicide proves more complicated than the team had anticipated.

Plot[]

It has been ten years since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, and Mac thinks back to the day he lost his wife Claire. He was shaving in the bathroom that morning when Claire walked in and teased him about listening to an *NSYNC song on the radio. Mac teased her in return, suggesting that he was going to the opera with a coworker—but really, the tickets for him and Claire were hidden in the cotton swab holder. The pair was very much in love, and they got ready for their day with no inkling that their time together was running out. Later, they listened to a song together on the bus, and Mac got off and waved goodbye to Claire for the last time. Mac heard about the attack in the precinct, where he saw people watching news coverage after American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He spoke to Claire on the phone and learned that she got out of the building, but she kept thinking about everyone trapped inside. He told her to get as far away as she could, but they were cut off when a shadow overhead indicated United Airlines Flight 175 was heading toward the South Tower. Mac yelled Claire’s name into the phone, but they were disconnected. Mac headed toward the World Trade Center, but he watched in horror as the South Tower fell and sent dust and debris billowing toward him on the street.

Danny and Flack met on 9/11, when Flack was a uniformed officer helping an injured woman down the dust-covered street away from the World Trade Center. Danny was running toward him from the opposite direction, trying to help people. Flack grabbed his arm to stop him, telling him there was no use going back. Everyone was gone. Elsewhere in the city, Sid and Hawkes were working together in a makeshift hospital/morgue after the attack, helping the wounded and placing the dead carefully to the side. Mac helped carry a firefighter into the building and knelt beside the body with several other firefighters. Knowing the man was already gone, Mac took his hand and said a prayer over him while the others watched in silence. Jo was in Washington, DC in 2001, working for the FBI when American Airlines Flight 77 flew into the Pentagon. She looked out at the smoke snaking up from the crash site as she called people in to work, and then she spoke to her mother on the phone and asked her to take Tyler and Ellie until it was safe.

Meanwhile, the team works to solve a murder as they honor the memory of that fateful day. Sean Petersen was shot after a robbery at the bar where he worked as a bouncer. Two men broke in and stole everyone’s money and cell phones, and Sean was pistol-whipped at the door. He went back to the front after the men left, when they thought it was over, but someone came back to shoot him. Flack speaks to Devon, one of the waitresses who left several minutes before the robbery. She describes seeing the perps outside, but she didn’t go back and warn Sean. She blames herself for his death.

Adam is able to trace one of the phones that was stolen, and they find the robbers in a hotel room with two guns, all of the stolen property and their bloody sweatshirts. Unfortunately, neither one of the guns they find matches the bullet pulled out of Sean’s body. When they interrogate the two suspects, the men deny killing Sean. Blood at the scene proves to be the key. When Sean was pistol-whipped, blood sprayed onto the wall. Some of it was smeared by the men when they left several minutes after it splattered on the wall, but another section was smeared immediately. Whoever dragged their arm through that blood left right after Sean was pistol-whipped. They are looking for a third person, and the only person who could have left was Devon—she lied.

Jo and Flack talk to Devon, who admits that she was involved. The men were supposed to arrive just as Sean opened the door to let her out, but they were late; she put her foot in the door to stop it from closing. Sean knew she was involved, and she got freaked out. She came back after the robbery and shot him. She got drugs from one of the robbers, and she owed him a lot of money. He promised no one would get hurt.

After solving their case, the team gathers together to head to the dedication of the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance, a tribute to the fallen first responder heroes of 9/11, where Mac will be giving a speech. He is revealed to have left the Crime Lab four months earlier to go to work for Piper Laboratories, helping develop new ways of extracting DNA in hopes that more victims of that fateful day, including Claire, can eventually be identified. Many family members of those lost are in attendance at the ceremony as well.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Josh Wingate as Kyle Lannigan
Brandon Fobbs as Mike White
Bug Hall as Mike Black
Edward Finlay as Sean Peterson
Valorie Curry as Hannah McCray
Noshir Dalal as Officer
Cassidy Freeman as Devon Hargrove
Robert Forster as Joe Vincent
Jaime Ray Newman as Claire Taylor
Charlana Brown as 9/11 Victim
Cassidy Freeman as Devon Hargrove
Jennifer Hammond as Business Woman
Julie McKinnon as A/V Lab Tech
Taylor Spill as Girl In Crowd

Quotes[]

Adam: I need your signature on this, boss.

Jo: I told you not to call me that.

Adam: Well, whose signature do I need at the bottom of this report?

Jo: Mine.

Adam: Then you're the boss.

Jo: Interim boss.

Adam: I'm not gonna call you interim boss.

Jo: Well, that's what I am, at least until Sinclair fills Mac's position.

Music[]

This I Promise You by *NSYNC.
Here Comes The Sun by Nina Simone.
Locked In The Basement by The Boxer Rebellion.
If I Should Fall Behind by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Notes[]

This episode is set on Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 which marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Through some flashbacks and other bits of information disclosed as the episode progresses, we get to know the characters' whereabouts on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
Gary Sinise, along with his Lt. Dan Band, helped to raise funds needed to complete the actual Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance. He also gave a speech at its dedication.

Trivia[]

Jaime Ray Newman, who plays Claire Taylor, also appears in the CSI episode A Space Oddity.
Cassidy Freeman, who plays Devon Hargrove, also appears in the CSI episode Coup de Grace. She would later go on to play former Russian Sleeper Agent Eva Azarova who became a love interest for Special Agent Tammy Gregorio played by Vanessa Ferlito on NCIS: New Orleans.
This is the only episode in which Mac does not wear his Detective Bureau pin. He wouldn't have had it in 2001 because it is only given to long-term detectives; in the 2011 scenes he wears a memorial US flag pin instead.

< Exit Strategy	CSI:NY Season 8	Keep It Real >
Indelible • Keep It Real • Cavallino Rampante • Officer Involved • Air Apparent • Get Me Out of Here! • Crushed • Crossroads • Means to an End • Clean Sweep • Who's There? • Brooklyn 'Til I Die • The Ripple Effect • Flash Pop • Kill Screen • Sláinte • Unwrapped • Near Death