And you know, now that I've had a chance to see that episode again and recap it scene-by-scene, I'm tossing out my previous appraisal of it ("depressing") and going with "irritating" instead.

Talk about your bullshit endings. Aside from the cops on Reno 911, what law enforcement officer would be all, "Well, she's too terrified to identify the guy in a lineup -- but now that the perp knows which witness tried to finger him, he'll sure be too scared to come back and kill her, so let's just release everyone into the wild!" And what parents -- parents who were told, "Go to the cops and we kill you" – wouldn't take their kid and cool their heels somewhere else while they figured out where to move to or how to set up some sort of protection from this person still on the loose? While I'm handing out parent-of-the-year awards, why the same people who bugged out over the cops clapping eyes on their kid the day after the home invasion apparently felt that it would be safer to gallivant about in public (i.e. to the grocery store) with said kid, after the home invader was a) tipped off that Suzanna had gone to the police, and b) on the loose, since Suzanna couldn’t bring herself to pick him out of the lineup is beyond the show's internal logic, much less actual logic.

As far as I'm concerned, the ending was a cheap cop-out meant to add some sort of dramatic gravitas to the episode -- Ooh! The CSIs didn't get their man! Ooh! The CSIs have feelings too! Ooh! The invaders leave but the terror stays! -- without making any narrative sense whatsoever. Suzanna's death was stupid and pointless, and has the faint whiff of the hard-bitten-gritty-realistic-cop-show about it. When I'm watching The Wire or the The Shield, that's fine. When I'm watching a show that's cranked out three years of fairly conventional, formulaic episodes (i.e. this show) -- not so much.

I'm warning you now: if this is the season where CSI decides to be all deep and world-weary because they're gagging for an Emmy, I'm going to start treating this show like CSI: Miami. Grumble, mumble, grr, complain, irk…

(And then, sobell went off and soothed her frazzled nerves by watching Carnivale and singing, "Baby in a jar / baby in a jar / it's gross and it's symbolic / baby in a jar!" to the tune of "Bringing in the Sheaves.")