Directed by Skipp Sudduth
Written by Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn, Adam Targum & Sarah Byrd
"Where There's Smoke" is the 2nd episode of Season 9 and the 182nd overall. It originally aired October 5, 2012.
The charred body of a woman is found in an elevator. Later, a man dies while eating lunch on a bench in Central Park. The team discovers both victims are connected to arsonist Leonard Brooks, and that a third person is in danger. Det. Jamie Lovato transfers from Narcotics to Flack's Homicide unit.
Tropes for the episode:
- Abandoned Hospital: Brooks takes his third victim to the now-abandoned hospital where his mother, who worked in the burn unit, used to take him with her when she couldn't find a sitter.
- Asshole Victim: Brooks' first two victims were his mother and foster brother. While both died horrifically, his mother was an abusive alcoholic who took her anger out on him by beating him, and his brother beat him up to save his own skin rather than try to defend him.
- Bound and Gagged: Brooks ties his third victim to a chair and gags her.
- Chairman of the Brawl: Jamie. She arrives unannounced at the precinct, still dressed in her undercover get-up. The cops are trying to restrain a very large, very aggressive perp who breaks away from them and barrels in her direction. Without even looking at him, she calmly slides a metal chair into his path with her foot, tripping him so they can recapture him, then plants her foot on his chest and calmly asks "Where do you think you're going?"
- Cooked to Death: A woman gets trapped in an elevator that’s been rigged to heat up like an oven and she gets roasted alive.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Both victims. Brooks starts a fire in the ceiling of the elevator in his mother's building and traps her inside so she cooks to death; then he sneaks a chemical into his foster brother's mayonnaise which combines with the man's stomach acid and burns him to death.
- Failure-to-Save Murder: Brooks attempts to kill his foster sister for not telling anyone about the abuse he was suffering. When she points out that she was only seven at the time, he rebukes that she knew about a loose board in their fence that she could have used to go to the neighbors and tell them, her only excuse being that she didn't know what to say, which he then rebukes by saying she should have told the truth.
- Side Bet: Near the end of the episode, Flack reveals to Jamie that the guys in the precinct have a pool going about which will last longer, her or the fern on her desk.
- Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Being a pyromaniac, Brooks uses his glasses to start a fire with a paperback book he's reading in his jail cell as the episode ends.
