CSI Miami - Television Tropes & Idioms

In A World of nasty crimes, only one man can ensure that the women of Miami continue to be able to wear bikinis and sunbathe without corpses washing ashore. That man...wears sunglasses.

Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh!

CSI Spin Off, set in Miami. Horatio Caine (played by David Caruso) takes the role of the guy spouting the Grissom One Liner, which he always does

after putting his sunglasses on

- wonderfully parodied by Weebl And Bob here

. Horatio differs from Grissom by being a complete and utter unrepentant dick. Unless you're under 15 and/or a woman and/or have just survived a horrible crime, in which case he's your best and most compassionate friend.

The show uses its Miami setting to tell different stories to its Vegas counterpart, namely more water-based mysteries, i.e. stories involving dead people on boats and people fleeing Cuba. One of its oddities is Alexx The Coroner, who liked to say, "Oh, poor baby" or words to that effect over the corpse of the week. Other characters include Calleigh Duquesne, known as the "bullet girl"; Ryan Wolfe (always referred to by Horatio as "Mr. Wolfe"); and Eric Delko, whose intensely drippy sister was briefly married to Mr. Caine before getting introduced to a firearm.

Probably what would result if the writers of Starsky And Hutch were told 'Stop that! This is serious, goddammit!'.

Strictly speaking this is an ensemble show, like the other CSIs, but one character dominates the show.

This show provides examples of:

Atonement Detective - (Caine)
Bad ~~Blue~~ Orange Lighting
Butt Monkey & Chew Toy: Eric Delko. The universe hates him. His sister got shot to get at Horatio, and died. He got shot in the head (again someone trying to get to Horatio. Feeling a pattern yet?) but survives, albeit with several side effects. He's been in trouble with internal affairs over his sister's use of medicinal marijuana, had a girlfriend who was the jealous clingy type who wanted to snipe his sister (she got beaten to it by another sniper). He goes to a nightclub, the place burns down. Every lawyer in Miami tries to have him seen as incompetent after his bullet to the head incident. Said bullet made him forget his sister's death, meaning he had to grieve all over again. His badge was once stolen and used to commit a murder. If crap is going to happen to a member of the team, there is a 80% chance it happens to Eric.
- Don't forget that while Speed's fate was worse for Speed himself, Eric was his best friend.
- And where's Eric now? He got shot again, this time by his own girlfriend while helping his father escape the mob. There was also some question as to the legitimacy of his US citizenship. No wonder he finally decided to leave.
Big Yes - YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
California Doubling - Except for the season opening episodes, the show is not filmed in Miami (which may explain the random mountains out of nowhere). Considering Space Mountain is the third-highest point in the entire state of Florida, anything with a higher elevation than an anthill is out of place in Miami.
Changing Clothes Is A Free Action
Chekhovs Gun - Speedle's gun, which he doesn't keep clean and misfired on him once (and earned him a stern talking to from Calleigh) before his fatal shooting.
Chekhov MIA (Caine's brother)
Click Hello - Horatio's favorite method of executing a Stealth Hi Bye on a perp.
Coolest Club Ever: It IS Miami, after all.
Cool Shades: Horatio. That...*puts on shades* is all.
- YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
- The production team have 100 sets of H's shades.
- And the season 8 opener is a Flashback telling the origin story of H's shades.
Cold Opening - often featuring some of the most intense techno beats ever.
The Coroner (Alexx, Price)
Crime And Punishment Series
Death Glare - Horatio and Delko while Perp Sweating.
Death In The Clouds - "Flight Risk"
Diplomatic Impunity: One of the bad guys, naturally.
Dramatic Landfall Shot
Dropped A Bridge On Him
Drugs Are Bad Horatio's son is now working in the coroner's office (don't ask me how or why) and Horatio suspects he's stealing drugs. It turns out that Dr. Price (the current coroner) is an Oxycontin addict - when a grenade went off in the lab, Wolfe noticed her grabbing her spilled drugs: "Your pills are more important then your safety?"
Everyone Calls Him Barkeep - Tim "Speed" Speedle.
Evil Is Sexy: Julia, Horatio's secret baby-mama, who doesn't wear a bra and had a neckline steadily lower over the course of a two-parter.
Fanservice: What else do you call the regular shots in the pre-titles sequence of scantily-clad women? Or every outfit in Calleigh or Natalia's wardrobes? And, occasionally, Alex.
Flanderization: Caine used to have moments when he would actually emote.
- Caine used to have moments where he worked in the lab, like, you know, a CSI.
Glasses Pull: Horatio
Horatio Caine: Only I...*puts on shades* make it cool. (YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!)
Grissom One Liner. Subverted on one occasion when the episode starts with Horatio's old friend on the bomb squad being killed in an explosion while he's outside. Caine, stunned, actually takes off his shades and says absolutely nothing.
- Due to the sheer amount of mocking the character has received for his One Liner style, Caine has pretty much stopped doing it.
God Mode Sue: Horatio. Seriously. Name me ANYTHING he's not capable of doing. He's a bomb expert, a flawless marksman, great driver, and seems to have a wider scientific knowledge than Grissom did.
Gut Feeling: Horatio. In fact, one wonders why the Miami-Dade police department even needs crime scene investigators, given the guilty party always turns out to be the person H doesn't like.
Hot Scientist: Take your pick of the entire cast.
Idiot Ball The CSIs don't even have a camera in their interrogation rooms. Allowing suspects to beat themselves up on the table and claim police brutality.
- What makes this scene even worse is the fact that said interrogation room is basically made entirely out of glass, meaning pretty much anyone else in the entire police station at the time and within 200 yards of the scene would have seen the suspect smashing their head into the table while Horatio is standing on the other side of the room.
- To be fair, how many cop shows have you seen where the detectives didn't record their questioning? That's right, all of them.
  - The sad part is that the suspect beating himself up to claim police brutality ploy happened not one, but twice. Seems that while they can afford holographic interfaces, cameras for the interrogation rooms are still way too expensive.
- Meanwhile, up in New York, Mac Taylor responds to a suspect trying this by explaining how forensic evidence can establish that the wound was self-inflicted. The perp sulks a bit and asks for an aspirin.
- CSI (the original) does have a camera in the interrogation room. As seen in the episode where the suspect went ballistic and tried to strangle Grissom.
- NCIS also has a camera in the interrogation room, with someone sitting there overseeing the recordings...
Ill Girl - Eric's sister, who valiantly survives cancer only to get a terminal case of bullet to the gut; Horatio's brother also had an illegitimate daughter who is diagnosed with leukemia (I think), necessitating Horatio to tell the widow about this so that her son can be tested as a potential bone marrow donor.
Its Personal
The Lab Rat: Originally Natalia, now shared by Maxine and Travers, who is very... British.
Laser Guided Amnesia: "Dude Where's My Groom", thanks to a drug.
Last Name Basis: Horatio to Ryan. It's never explained why Ryan is the only one to get this treatment from Horatio.
- Because his name is MR. WOLFE. If people could call me Mr. Wolfe I'd beg people to call me by my last name.
Luke You Are My Father: Caine discovers he has a son he didn't know about. The mum is Jessie off Saved By The Bell.
Mac Gyvering: When Calleigh gets kidnapped, she uses her l33t forensic skillz to give the team the identities of her kidnappers and her location.
Man On Fire - The fate of at least two Corpses Of The Week, both related to siphoning gasoline out of the tank (but in different episodes)
Memetic Mutation - Looks like...it's time for...the opening sequence.
- YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Mood Lighting, because it's always easier to find forensic evidence in a darkened room.
Moral Dissonance: It's difficult to take anything Horatio says about the law seriously after seeing him cold-bloodedly murder an opponent he'd already disabled.
Ms Fanservice: Natalia and Calleigh share this duty, but have reined it in recently.
Narm Charm: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Never Found The Body: The fate of at least one nemesis who has escaped the long arm of the law.
Only One: The Miami cops cannot do ANYTHING - SWAT interventions, bomb disposal or police chase - without Horatio's direct presence and involvement.
- Hilariously, later seasons regularly have Horatio showing up first when a crime is in progress, or there's a 911 call. And By showing up first we mean he gets there before patrol cars. Leading This Troper to suspect that either A) Horatio has no life and patrols Miami even during his downtime. or B) He's Miami's equivalent to Batman.
Overprotective Dad / Papa Wolf: "Dude Where's My Groom": the bride's dad really disapproved of the groom and at the first sign that he had hurt his daughter (emotionally, by going to a strip club after swearing he wouldn't) he bribed a stripper to bring him out back, hogtied him and left him to die at sea in a tiny inflatable raft.
Perp Walk - Once Per Episode, in super dramatic Slo Mo.
Poorly Disguised Pilot
Real Song Theme Tune - "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who, beginning right at the YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Ship Tease - Eric/Calleigh gets a big one when Calleigh dons a wedding veil while attempting to recreate the crime scene.
Shoot The Hostage - Mostly averted, as Horatio is good enough to shoot the hostage taker.
Sixth Ranger - Technically First Ranger Jesse Cardoza, who is introduced in flashback retiring just as Calleigh joins the lab; he rejoins just in time to replace Eric after he decided to leave.
Sliding Scale Of Shiny Versus Gritty - Very much on the shiny side.
So Bad Its Good (Everything ridiculous about the original CSI, distilled to pure form.)
- This troper maintains that it is in a category all of its own: So Bad It's Awesome.
Split Screen (common in Season Five)
Stealth Hi Bye - Horatio is a master of the Stealth Hi.
Stock Footage - The aerial establishing shots over Miami.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute - Jessie Cardoza replacing Eric Delko
Take Five
Team Dad - Horatio to his team members, though he doesn't really go into full berserker mode unless Alexx is in danger.
Team Mom - Alexx, who'd even act motherly to the corpses.
TemptingFate/Foreshadowing - When walking into a jewelry store with Horatio, Speed discusses expensive cars, disdaining them in favor of his bike. Caine mentions that he might need "something with doors" some day. Speed says he has plenty of time. He is fatally shot not five minutes later.
This Is Sparta - Just about every line out of Horatio's mouth. The other lines are One Liner Name One Liner.
Verbal Tic - Horatio has a tendency to repeat himself for emphasis.
- Every episode, my friends. . . . Every episode.
- He'll also phrase half his statements in the form of a question, won't he?
Vigilante Execution - A common hazard, and not just at the end of the episode, either - sometimes it happens halfway through and they discover some additional twist in the case.
We Are Everywhere - Subverted on at least one occasion when Horatio answers back that he'll be using the evidence they found out of the Perp Of the Week's stuff to hunt down every last member of this "we".
What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome (YEAHHHH— *is shot*)
- That and they edit looking at lab samples to make it look exciting.
You Fail Geography Forever (I didn't know there were mountains in Miami! I guess I just wasn't observant stepping out of my house.)
- Are there even any mountains in Florida at all?
  - There are three — Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain.
Whole Plot Reference - "Dude, Where's My Groom?" was explicitly inspired by The Hangover, except Bloodier And Gorier (naturally) and the groom might be dead. The commercial even uses a few lines from the film.

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