The two cases involve a woman, found dead in a lake after one of her legs has been severed. Her husband is losing her and there is another man. It's another case where Grissom refuses to accept cursory evidence. The second is about a fraternity pledge who is suspected of hanging himself. But when hazing comes into the picture, things go haywire. There is a bit of a cliche here with the head of the fraternity being connected and having a thing with power. Bot cases have neat solutions and make this one of the better episodes.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV Series)
Pledging Mr. Johnson (2000)
User Reviews
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CSI : Pledging Mr. Johnson
Scarecrow-8814 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Outstanding episode of CSI has Warrick exorcising a demon in the corrupt judge wanting him to disrupt evidence so that a guilty party will escape prosecution. Meanwhile a doozy of a case might seem like either the lover or husband was behind the drowning death of a decomposed 34 year old woman, but a head wound on a boat and a shoulder injury could very well indicate that a completely different reason was responsible. What I think makes this case so memorable in the CSI canon is that Catherine and Grissom go head-to-head over telling the husband about his wife's affair, basically pointing out who he was
a man separated from his wife and deeply in love with the deceased. The tragic results of this and how the wife really died are a direct example of what Grissom argues with Catherine about
telling those involved in their investigation only what is necessary, and not bringing personal life events into the job (Catherine endured a cheating husband and wanted to "do the right thing" by telling the husband about what his wife was doing, encouraging inadvertently the notion that the lover killed her). Catherine's explosive back-and-forth with Grissom over his "not having a life" is especially an eyebrow-raiser. His turning out to be correct is a life lesson that haunts as the screen fades to black. A highlight of this investigation includes Grissom using science (a recreation of the area of water covering certain lakes, little boat, and a fan to determine where the wife's boat ended up while Catherine put "feet to concrete" to find it herself first) while Catherine "pounded the pavement" with both locating the victim's boat. Greg lovingly giving Catherine props to the "defeated" Grissom is a treat. I like how this case doesn't go as expected and, instead, arrives at a conclusion that tells us that accidents do happen. Also, a fraternity-suicide is investigated by Nick and Sara as they pursue the reasoning behind a college kid (trying to secure a spot in the fraternity) hanging from a rope. They have a hard time believing he'd commit suicide just because he didn't make it. When a girl's "inking" of her name on the victim's "privates" shows up during autopsy, a liver is found in his system, the cause of death is ruled to be a choking, and a rope is found with blood located around its noose, Nick and Sara are sure there's much to this story and it could implicate fraternity heads (one with a big-time attorney as his father). Fraternity hazing is put under the microscope here as Nick cops to understanding (since he was part of one in college) the inner working of this while Sara shows her repulsion at these types of activities and behavior. The narcissistic behavior of a frat kid, thumbing his nose at Nick and Sara by lying to them and throwing out how his pops would help him escape the sentencing he truly deserves provides a nicely satisfying conclusion when he gets what's coming to him.
The Leg and the Frat Boy
claudio_carvalho10 August 2022
When two men that are fishing in a boat in a lake find a severed leg, the police and Grissom and Catherine investigate the case. Soon the coroner puts together the leg with the body of the victim in the morgue. They learn that she was Wendy Barger and although she was married, her husband had not had intercourse with her for months since their marriage had practically ended. Soon they learn that she had a lover that lives nearby the lake and they had just had dinner and sex before her death. Further, she died before falling off the boat in the water. Meanwhile Sara and Nick go to a fraternity house to investigate the apparent suicide of James, a teenager that was pledging to join the fraternity. The leaders Matt and Kyle tells a story about the request of James, but Sara and Nick do not buy the story. Warrick is helped by Grissom to catch the corrupt Judge Cohen.
"Pledging Mr. Johnson" is another great episode of CSI, with another two good cases and the resolution of Warrick's problem with Judge Cohen. Catherine learns an important lesson with Grissom to be limited to the case with no speculations to avoid undesired consequences. The arrogant Kyle is an annoying character. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Implorando à Sr. Johnson" ("Pledging Mr. Johnson")
"Pledging Mr. Johnson" is another great episode of CSI, with another two good cases and the resolution of Warrick's problem with Judge Cohen. Catherine learns an important lesson with Grissom to be limited to the case with no speculations to avoid undesired consequences. The arrogant Kyle is an annoying character. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Implorando à Sr. Johnson" ("Pledging Mr. Johnson")
Pledging Mr. Johnson
Metal_Robots4 February 2024
Warning: Spoilers
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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
If Nick and Sara aren't quite there yet, it's only because they're younger and less familiar with each other. Sara dismisses Nick when she learns he was a frat boy; it's clear from the get-go that Sara thinks little of the fraternity system and the people involved in it. But while Sara is the one with the nagging suspicion throughout that the fraternity boys are lying, it is Nick who is finally able to get Matt to crack by appealing to his sense of community within the fraternity, telling him that unless he levels with the CSIs, the house will go dark. Though Sara's instincts were dead on, it is Nick who speaks the language of the boys they're dealing with, and knows just what to say to Matt to get him to crack and give up Kyle.
Warrick's entanglement with Judge Cohen comes to an abrupt end in this episode when the judge crosses the line by asking Warrick to tamper with evidence and thereby allow a rapist to go free. Warrick might not be above placing a bet for the judge in order to get a warrant, but actually tampering with evidence and compromising a case, and thus letting a criminal walk free, is going to far. Testing Warrick and seeing what his limits are early on is a good move: the audience knows he's a bit of a maverick character since he did gamble for the judge, but they're allowed to see that he's still honorable when he refuses to do anything that would help put a criminal back on the street. Grissom is still worried about him and therefore we as an audience are, too, but his promotion to CSI Level Three is hopefully a sign of good things to come.
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.
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. 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.
If Nick and Sara aren't quite there yet, it's only because they're younger and less familiar with each other. Sara dismisses Nick when she learns he was a frat boy; it's clear from the get-go that Sara thinks little of the fraternity system and the people involved in it. But while Sara is the one with the nagging suspicion throughout that the fraternity boys are lying, it is Nick who is finally able to get Matt to crack by appealing to his sense of community within the fraternity, telling him that unless he levels with the CSIs, the house will go dark. Though Sara's instincts were dead on, it is Nick who speaks the language of the boys they're dealing with, and knows just what to say to Matt to get him to crack and give up Kyle.
Warrick's entanglement with Judge Cohen comes to an abrupt end in this episode when the judge crosses the line by asking Warrick to tamper with evidence and thereby allow a rapist to go free. Warrick might not be above placing a bet for the judge in order to get a warrant, but actually tampering with evidence and compromising a case, and thus letting a criminal walk free, is going to far. Testing Warrick and seeing what his limits are early on is a good move: the audience knows he's a bit of a maverick character since he did gamble for the judge, but they're allowed to see that he's still honorable when he refuses to do anything that would help put a criminal back on the street. Grissom is still worried about him and therefore we as an audience are, too, but his promotion to CSI Level Three is hopefully a sign of good things to come.
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