Directed by Joe Dante
Written by Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn, Peter M. Lenkov & Daniele Nathanson
"Boo" is the sixth episode of Season 4 and the 77th overall. It originally aired October 31, 2007.
Synopsis:
On Halloween night, Danny and Lindsay investigate the murder of a family in Amityville, while Mac and Stella take on the case of a man who dies in the middle of a mob dressed as zombies.Tropes for the episode:
- Batter Up!: A jealous lover hits his rival repeatedly with a cricket bat.
- Buried Alive: In the opening, before Mac & Stella's victim dies, he claws his way out of a recently filled in gravesite, startling two nearby gravediggers. Turns out, the coffin he'd been in was made of hemp, which made it easy for him to escape.
- Fate Worse than Death: The victim of the week managed to give his killers a huge dose of the toxin they gave him to fake his death (and then literally left him for dead) when he encounters them, and the NYPD finds them lying in bed. Mac points out that an ambulance is on the way and they may be saved, but right now they are as close to being dead as one could get.
- Halloween Episode:
- The family in Danny & Lindsay's case make a home video of themselves while trick-or-treating right before they get attacked. The lone survivor claims to have seen a monster.
- Sid relishes the opportunity to decorate the morgue for the holiday.note
- Improvised Weapon: Mac & Stella's victim is beaten with a cricket bat which his attacker grabs at the primary crime scene.
- Insurance Fraud: The buried-alive man and his wife were trying to fake his death for his life insurance, only she betrays him in an attempt to get all the money for herself and her lover.
- Mistaken For An Impostor: Because of his appearance due to having fought his way out of a burial plot... being dirty, disheveled and somewhat disoriented... Mac & Stella's victim is at first assumed to be one of the zombie crowd.
- Number of the Beast: Discussed. Mac & Stella visit a Vodou shop to question the proprietor about a doll found buried with their victim. The shop woman blinks slowly, showing Mac the numbers 666 painted on one eyelid and 333 on the other. He demands to know why. She tells him that while 666 is the Devil's number, some believe 333 to be the number of his son.
- Rise from Your Grave: The opening, where the man claws his way out of his freshly dug and filled in grave, complete with the onlooking gravediggers.
- Shout-Out: To The Amityville Horror (1979). The house Danny and Lindsay process looks quite similar to the one in the film. In both universes, the homes are on Ocean Avenue.
- Tarot Troubles: While tracking a lead in their case, Mac and Stella visit a Vodou shop. The blind woman at the reception desk immediately deals out three tarot cards: Death, The Tower, and The Hanged Man, and ominously says, "The man is cursed." SPOILER ALERT!: Fast forward 4 eps to when the 333 Stalker has lured Mac to the Tribune Tower in Chicago... where he finds a human skeleton hanging by the neck in an empty office with a game of hangman painted on the wall.
- Voodoo Doll: A voodoo doll of the first victim is found in the remains of the hemp coffin that he crawled out of. To fake his death, he and his wife had a corrupt doctor dose him with tetrodotoxin so he could have an open casket funeral. Unbeknownst to the man, his wife had paid a Vodou shop owner to put a curse on him. Believing that he was really dead, the owner brought the doll to the service and placed it in the coffin because she thought it was the most fitting place for it to be.
- Zombie Gait: The crowd dressed as zombies for Halloween are all shuffling along the street when the victim falls in with them. Of course, he's dirty from being buried alive and slowly wobbling due to having been drugged and left for dead, but he fits in easily.
