The fourth episode of CSI delves into the differences between its leads, Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows. Grissom typifies science and reason and logic, which are essential in the field but also a little cold. On the other hand, Catherine personifies emotion and passion and feeling, which can sometimes be beneficial and sometimes just the opposite.
At the beginning of the episode, Grissom refers to Catherine as Watson (as in Sherlock Holmes’ partner), indicating their strong partnering.
Grissom and Catherine both locate the boat; Grissom uses his tank to figure out which way the current would have driven the boat, but Catherine is the one who actually physically finds it using her eyes. Which way is more effective? It's mostly a draw, though by the time Grissom figures out where the boat with his mock set up, Catherine has already found it. Though Catherine's way is less precise than Grissom's, both methods are clearly valid. Grissom and Catherine just have two completely different approaches to their work.
Sanders: I hear Catherine beat you to the boat.
Grissom: We work as a team. We’re not competing.
Sanders: She found it first, right?
Grissom: ‘Two roads diverged in a wood. And sorry I could not travel both.’ But Frost does not apply. When you’ve got a partner, you each take a road and that’s how you find a missing boat.
Less acceptable is Catherine allowing her own experience and emotions to sway her approach to a case. By the end of the episode, it's very clear that telling Winston Barger that his wife was cheating on him was a mistake. Not only could Catherine have spared Winston the pain of knowing his wife was going to leave him--especially after hearing from Phil Swelco that Wendy was worried Winston would fall apart if she left him--but in telling Winston, she unintentionally gave Winston motive to kill Swelco.
Obviously, Catherine couldn't have predicted that Winston would murder Swelco, but Grissom had a point when he said she shouldn't have allowed her personal experiences to influence her in handling a case. Grissom made the distinction between what their obligation was to Winston: telling him how his wife was killed is their duty, but telling him that his wife was having an affair is not.
When Grissom criticizes Catherine for telling Winston that Wendy was cheating on him, she doesn't take it lying down. She tells Grissom flat out that she can't be like him, eschewing a personal life for work, work, work. Therein lies the difference between the two: while Grissom is able to approach his work from a clinical, scientific standpoint, but Catherine is guided by her emotions and can't separate them from her work.
More than that, she's irritated at Grissom for being able to do just that: she lobbies a personal complaint, saying that she wished he'd told her when her ex-husband Eddie was cheating on her. This implies that the two are more than co-workers: they're friends, and Grissom was aware of the details of her personal life, and about her husband's infidelity.
Catherine: He needed to know the truth.
Grissom: [accuses Catherine of compromising the case because she told the husband about the affair]
Catherine: You have to be at the wrong end of an affair to understand.
Grissom: You can’t make this about Eddie.
Catherine: We bring ourselves to our cases. Relax. I didn’t tell him the details.
Grissom: You can’t give him anything. We’re scientists not psychiatrists or victims’ rights advocates.
Catherine: You're right, you know. I should be just like you. Alone in my hermetically sealed condo, watching Discovery on the big screen, working genius-level crossword puzzles. But no relationships, no chance any will slop over into a case. Yeah, right. I want to be just like you.
Grissom: Technically it's a townhouse. And the crosswords are advanced, not genius. But you're right, I'm deficient in a lot of ways. But I never screw up one of my cases with personal stuff.
Catherine : Grissom... WHAT personal stuff?
William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger play off each other perfectly in this episode, adeptly showing why they were perfect choices for their roles. Petersen plays Grissom as the consummate scientist, truly baffled by the idea that emotion and gut instinct could ever compete with or even supersede science. Helgenberger, on the other hand, brings out all of Catherine's spitfire, spunky spirit that the character will come to be known for. And yet, different as they are, they do respect each other.
[after a huge argument]
Grissom: Look, could we have a truce?
Catherine : I would love to.
Grissom is visibly impressed that Catherine found the boat on her own, without the aid of his scientific experiment. And Catherine is suitably awed when Grissom shows her Wendy's death was in fact a tragic accident and not the result of foul play. These two might have little in common, but each recognizes what the other brings to the table.
Grissom: So, was the boat at the marina?
Catherine : What do you think?
Grissom: My spider sense says it wasn't.
Review provided by CSI Files.
Quotes provided by Wet Paint.
