Directed by Christine Moore
Written by Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn & Adam Targum
"Blood Actually" is the 16th episode of Season 9. It is the 196th overall and originally aired February 15, 2013.
Valentine's Day. Three crime scenes. Three dead men. Three different motives. One busy team. Meanwhile, everyone's making and/or changing their plans for the evening.
Tropes for the episode:
- As Himself: Josh Groban sings and plays piano in the venue Christine chooses for her and Mac's date.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: The wife of an overweight man thinks younger, prettier women are lusting after him and kills him to prevent him from leaving her for one whom she'd never even laid eyes on. Turns out the woman is just a travel agent (who is helping the husband plan a romantic getaway for him and the wife) and looks to be in her 50's.
- Dance of Romance: Mac & Christine slow dance to "Happy in My Heartache" as the episode ends.
- Formerly Fat: Sheldon reveals to Danny that he used to be severely overweight and shows him an old picture of himself at over 200 lbs that he carries around as a reminder. Danny wants to keep it, Sheldon wisely refuses to let him.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: One of the victims is hit over the head with a champagne bottle.
- Medication Tampering: A diabetic victim's insulin is swapped out for sugar water.
- Love Makes You Crazy: One guy's wife is so insanely jealous that she imagines other women lusting after her overweight husband, then kills him because she thinks he's cheating on her because he put a password on his phone and starts leaving the room to take calls. Suspicious, yes, but murdering the guy over it?!
- Mistaken for Cheating: The husband suspected of cheating is actually trying to secretly plan a dream vacation to surprise his wife on their fifth wedding anniversary.
- Onscreen Chapter Titles: In the only instance in the entire series, each case is given a title separate from the episode itself. They are shown onscreen as each begins: "Love for Sale," "Love Is Blind," and "In the Name of Love."
- Relationship Labeling Problems: Detectives Flack and Lovato have been flirting with each other almost all season. He pretends to have forgotten about the holiday, but invites her up to a high-rise rooftop to surprise her with a fancy dinner for two.Jamie: What are we doing, Flack?Don: What do you mean? What does it matter what we call it?
- Shout-Out: The format is a set of three short stories, shouting out Love Actually and Valentine's Day.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: The diabetic receives a box labeled sugar-free candy which had been swapped out for the regular kind. He eats the whole box.
- Three Shorts: The stories of the three victims are told in sequence, complete with title cards (although the team's personal situations are interspersed throughout).
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: The couple in one of the cases is a balding, overweight guy and his pretty, petite wife.
- Valentine's Day Episode: Obviously, it even aired the day after the actual holiday. The three canon couples all have romantic moments. Adam also leaves for a date with Michelle, and Ellie breaks her date to spend the evening with Jo.
- Valentine's Day Violence: The episode shows the team splitting up in three to solve three cases on Valentine's Day. All have a degree of ironic love themes ultimately culminating in violence, best illustrated by "In the Name of Love." An apparent Ugly Guy / Hot Wife combination turns out to have been a murder by the wife, who became obsessed with the thought that her husband was cheating on her — because he put a passcode on his phone. He had actually been planning for a trip for them to take together.
