Directed by Matt Earl Beesley
Written by Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn & Trey Calloway
"Manhattanhenge" is the 9th episode of Season 6 and the 126th overall. It originally aired November 25, 2009.
The team race to stop the Compass Killer from claiming a fourth victim.
Tropes for the episode:
- Abandoned Area: The killer is discovered to be living in the forgotten "Underground Home" exhibit from the 1964 World's Fair.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Twice while searching for the killer, members of the team trek through a sewer large enough to stand up in and comfortably walk two abreast.
- Beneath the Earth: Mac and Don discover and search the killer's underground lair.
- Broken Record: Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" — the "I know, I know, I know..." part plays at least twice.
- Dead All Along: The killer has been seeing, hearing and even hugging his wife ever since "Lat/Long." It is revealed here that she was killed a couple of years earlier and that this episode takes place on the anniversary of her death.
- Dead Person Conversation: The killer talks to his dead wife. Mac realizes this and uses it to his advantage in apprehending the man.
- Shout-Out: A minor one to Forrest Gump. Danny tells Mac, "I got my sea legs."
- Sundial Waypoint: The team realize the significance of the date and time to the killer. Guided by the suspect's obsession with angles of sunlight over the city, Sheldon figures out where the sunrise will hit, revealing his location. Subverted in that he calculates it in advance, rather than waiting to observe it.
- Terminology Title: Coined by astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson for sunrises and sunsets aligning with Manhattan's street grid twice a year.
- Title Drop: The team discuss the origin of the term due to the events of the episode happen on the phenomena's winter occurrence.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: The killer and his wife, due to an incident a couple years earlier in which one side of the man's face was disfigured. She is a pretty redhead.
- Villain-by-Proxy Fallacy: The killer's motivation, stemming from the fact that his wife had been killed in the incident because he had asked her to stop by his office instead of their original meeting place that day. He wanted the people he felt responsible for her death to pay for their mistakes, but his mental condition causes him to go after people who look like his imagined pictures of them instead.
