History Characters / CSI

%%* TheIntern
%%* TheLabRat[=/=]MisfitLabRat: At first.
* AscendedFanboy: From "CSI Wannabe" to actual CSI.

* PetTheDog[=/=]EstablishingCharacterMoment: For the first couple of his seasons, he is portrayed as a through-and-through {{Jerkass}} ProfessionalButtKisser with no redeeming qualities whom all his co-workers hate. In Season 7, however, he gets a surprising amount of CharacterDevelopment in a scene where he has to break bad news to a victim's family, and he's portrayed as a sympathetic character ever since and even joins the main cast.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: In a series that generally conforms to this trope, she remains the one notable aversion. Her practices still make her dark and troubled, however.

* NiceHat: Seen sporting a straw sunhat in more than one episode. It was once complimented by a hooker.
** And that hat belongs to Petersen himself acquired from his own travels.

%%* {{Meganekko}}

* TheHeavy: Ray is really troubled by this suspect, especially when they meet in a hospital and Jekyll steals Ray's ID card, which he mails back along with prosciutto that had a Jane Doe number of an earlier botched victim on it; [[NiceJobFixingItVillain this is how they identify him when they match DNA he left]] to [[spoiler:his father's septic appendix]], which was found in his second victim (and the first one he actually killed) earlier in the season.
* MeatgrinderSurgery: Subverted; he took great care when performing his surgeries/murders, which did not help the case at all.
* SecretIdentity: [[spoiler:Dr. Jekyll turns out to not be a doctor at all, but a cook in a luxurious Italian restaurant who had to drop out of medical school to assist his father. He did well as a chef, but did not take the whole thing well at all, hence his literal butchering surgery on the season's victims.]]
* ThatOneCase: Jekyll's odd surgeries (starting with someone who was already dead, but moving on to actual murder thru surgery after the C.S.I. trilogy) stumped Langston and Dr. Robbins throughout the show's 10th anniversary, with Langston taking his work home. They [[DealWithTheDevil eventually had to]] [[EnemyMine enlist Nate Haskell]], the BigBad of Ray's introduction episodes, to finally bullseye Jekyll, but this move [[NiceJobBreakingItHero leads to the Season 11 plotline]] and the events that end in Langston and Catherine's departures from the crime lab.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:When Langston and Stokes find him, he finally turns on the Mr. Hyde persona for the first and only time by grabbing a shotgun, blowing the head off a cop, and shooting up his restaurant and trapping everyone there.]]

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:After all he's done, it's hard to feel sorry for him after Raymond Langston kills him.]]
* AttentionWhore: After being caught, he pled not guilty, but later confessed when his defense claimed that his crimes could only be committed by multiple people working together. He was also the only murderer to accept the opportunity to speak to a class during a lecture.
* AxCrazy: As Brass put it, "He's like the Joker from Batman, except without the laughs."
* BigBad: Of Langston's intro episode halfway through Season 9 (this was also Grissom's final regular story arc as a character until the series finale), and of Season 11. [[spoiler: His death is what ends Langston's character arc and his time in C.S.I.; Fishburne was asked to leave at that point and was replaced by Ted Danson.]]
* BlatantLies: While torturing his victims, he would offer them a chance to survive. They never did.
* ChickMagnet: While in prison he was proposed to a few times.

* EnemyMine: Helped the CSI team find Dr. Jekyll. He uses the whole thing to ultimately set up his escape.

* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: His dad beat his mom to death and made him listen to her screams]].
* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Kidnapped Langston's ex-wife and raped her, among other things.
* InTheBack: Stabbed Langston there in the 10th season finale.

* KillAndReplace: "Nate Haskell" turns out to have been the name of his first victim, a traveling salesman whose identity he stole. His real name is "Warner Thorpe."
* {{Sadist}}: He was compared to the ''Joker!'' Need we say any more?

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Does this to his final MonsterFangirl, after most of the others kill one another.

* DemotedToExtra: After being a major recurring character throughout the first season, he only appeared once in the second season before disappearing from the show entirely.
* WhatTheHellHero: He gave Grissom a major tongue lashing for turning his friend into a murder suspect for an apparent suicide, and wrongly, as it turned out, and forced him to issue a public apology.

* KillItWithFire: Narrowly averted when he was nearly blown up by a car bomb.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Disappeared without explanation after Season 4. [[spoiler:Season 14 reveals he died in the line of duty offscreen.]]

* TheBusCameBack: Really never appeared after William Petersen/Grissom stopped starring in the show, only appearing once for a case in Season 11. She returned as [[spoiler:a suspect yet again in one of the most massive cases to hit the show in ''C.S.I.'''s series finale.]]
* CollateralAngst: Not Heather herself, but in the GrandFinale [[spoiler: her toddler granddaughter is offhandedly revealed to have been killed in a car accident, which serves little purpose other than driving Heather across the DespairEventHorizon so she can be a murder suspect. She pulls the plug on her practice after her granddaughter died, which helped set up the plot of the GrandFinale]].

* {{Dominatrix}}

* PlayingGertrude: Melinda Clarke was 32 when she first played the role of a character who, given her daughter's age, was probably intended to be in her early forties. [[spoiler: Melinda wasn't even 40 by the time Heather became a grandmother in the show.]]

* CainAndAbel: One of his sons killed the other out of jealousy.
* [[LukeIAmYourFather Catherine, I Am Your Father]]: We'd been informed he was an ex-boyfriend of her mother in prior episodes, so there was some {{foreshadowing}}.
%%* [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corrupt Casino Head]]

* KarmaHoudini[=/=]NotProven: He was a suspect in a murder from decades ago, and Catherine wholeheartedly believes it was him, but there was another suspect whom all the evidence seemed to point to and Sam is never charged.
* KickTheDog: Organizing the bank robbery that gets [[spoiler:Detective Lockwood]] killed. Kept from being a full-on MoralEventHorizon-crossing by the fact that Sam didn't ''intend'' anyone to die and the AxCrazy head robber went off the rails, but the fact that he was willing to put innocent people [[spoiler:and lovable supporting cast members]] in a life-threatening situation purely for his own benefit is a pretty huge dick move.
* MoralityPet: Catherine. He also expresses genuine affection for Catherine's mother and Lindsay, but is never seen interacting with them on-screen.

* RedHerring: No matter how good his motive or opportunity might've been, he is ''always'' this.
%%* [[EvilOldFolks Sleazy and Hedonistic Old Folks]]

* ChekhovsGun: The rubber hands he made in his shop, the hand impression his father made for him, and the ID his son made for Grissom all turn out to be crucial to the case.

* DarkIsEvil: Before going on the run he was the owner of a shop that sold ''seriously'' grisly Halloween props.

* AxCrazy: Key word [[spoiler:Bleach. Say this to her or make any indication of the thing and you're dead.]]

* SiblingMurder: [[spoiler: As a child, she murdered her sister Chloe by pushing her out of a treehouse, because she was jealous of the attention her sister was receiving after her mother's death. This is also what caused her thing regarding bleach, as her father used it to clean her sister's blood off of the concrete.]]

* DirtyCop : Originally a big subversion of this, stating how he refused to be bought or get dirty, but now drifting into that territory as of the end of season 11. [[spoiler:He covered for Ray when Ray killed Nate Haskell, and was reluctant to help catch a killer who was killing other killers.]]
* [[EtTuBrute Et Tu, Officers?]]: In the episode, "A Bullet Runs Through It," he felt this way when one by one, all of the other officers walk away from him at the dead officer's funeral.
* HandicappedBadass: He's in his 70s and half-blind come the revival series, but said revival series opens with him kicking and killing the ass of a man sent to kill him.
* HiddenDisdainReveal: [[spoiler: Despite trying to help his daughter, even knowing she isn't actually his, every time she gets herself into trouble. After her latest crime got her mother killed, he flatly tells her that she killed the only person who cared about her.]]

* PutOnABus: Took a leave of absence for season 15 [[spoiler: after his daughter faked her kidnapping with the help of a boyfriend, got Brody involved and almost killed her, killed the boyfriend, and killed her mother (who she didn't expect to come to Las Vegas) because she would have recognized the boyfriend. Amazingly Brass is helping her with her trial.]]
** TheBusCameBack: Came back for the finale, and for a few appearances in the revival.

* BrotherChuck: Was a semi regular for three seasons, a regular character in one season, and then vanished without a trace, or explanation.
** TheBusCameBack: Returned late in Season 11. [[RankUp She's Deputy Chief now.]]

* HeroicBSOD: In the episode "A Bullet Runs Through It," when she believes she shot a fellow cop.

%%* RankUp: Now she's Brass's boss.

* ADayInTheLimelight: The B-plot of one episode featured Ecklie handling the investigation himself when the main characters were unavailable.
* AmbitionIsEvil: The real reason he was such an ass to Grissom and the team was because he thought that Grissom had the same ambitions he did. Once he realized that Grissom and the team wouldn't keep him from fulfilling his goals, he eased off considerably.
** His behavior in the season 14 episode "Consumed," though, suggests that running for sheriff may cause him to relapse.
* BigBad: Arguably, of season five. He never does anything illegal, but his antagonistic actions drive the overarching plot of that season.
* CharacterDevelopment: A fairly significant example of this. He's almost a completely different person now than he was in season 1. He makes a pretty seamless transition from {{Jerkass}} to JerkWithAHeartOfGold. After 13 seasons he's still could a bit nasty at times, but he has the respect of the team and the department as a whole, and he's absolutely a ReasonableAuthorityFigure now. (He's aware of it, too: when he talks to Morgan about being offered the sheriff position, he admits that part of the reason he isn't sure about it is because he's afraid he'll revert to the manipulative asshole he used to be.)
* DaChief: He starts out as the day shift supervisor, then becomes director of the lab, and is later promoted to undersheriff of the entire department.
** Come mid-Season 13 he's the new sheriff. He almost didn't take it at first, because he was worried that he'd revert to the {{Jerkass}} [[CharacterDevelopment he used to be]].

* HeroicBSOD: This is debatably the cause of his considering leaving his job in season 13. He doesn't show any signs of being tired of his job until the corruption of the department and his shooting.
* {{Jerkass}}: Definitely one pre-Season 6.
** JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Developed into one, and a ReasonableAuthorityFigure, pretty nicely afterwards. His statement that he would've helped Grissom and Sara avoid any conflicts because of their relationship certainly sounded genuine, and he's been mostly a lot nicer to the team while still keeping his prickly attitude. Come the later seasons, and he's been even better with Morgan around.
** JerkassHasAPoint: Despite being rude, unpleasant, and power-hungry, he was accurate about Grissom's leadership in Season 5, especially in the way he handled Sara. By that point, she had become very unprofessional, culminating in Sara mouthing off to Catherine (at the time, a superior) in front of coworkers and to Ecklie himself. He was absolutely right to suspend her, something Grissom would not have done due to their relationship.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: He's extremely ambitious, and saw Grissom as competition. At different points, he would try and undermine the team's work.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: When Nick was BuriedAlive, Ecklie pulled some strings to gather the ransom his kidnapper demanded, and relations between him and the night shift have mostly thawed since then. Ecklie came into his own as Asst. Director, where his talent for juggling the top brass and news media have proven to be an asset to the team.
** Now he's the new sheriff, and he seems to have kept his reasonableness. The only time so far that he's really pushed back against the team is when he's faced with having to give permission for his own daughter to be used as bait for a serial killer. A perfect example of his reasonable attitude is when Finn and Nick clash with a fire investigator at an arson scene. The investigator calls in Ecklie with "concerns" about their methods, and before passing any judgements, Ecklie hears Nick and Finn out and even takes his jacket off and helps them dig through a burnt-out building to prove their theory.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He served as a temporary replacement for Grissom both In-Universe and out, since Creator/WilliamPetersen needed time off to star in a play.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler:Only around for four episodes before being shot and killed.]]

* BerserkButton: He absolutely HATES rats, even if it only showed in one episode, aptly titled "Lab Rats."
** More commonly seen is his tendency to get incredibly testy when he sees evidence of another medical examiner (or a paramedic, or police officer) cutting corners or not following protocol. And don't even think about suggesting that he was less than thorough about doing his own job.
%%* CoolOldGuy
%%* TheCoroner

%%* GeniusCripple

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Rats.

* CastTheExpert: The actor actually was a coroner’s assistant for a time.

* BornLucky: But only on a single day: April 7th. It's his lucky day. On this day, ''nothing'' has ever gone wrong for him, ever. In "Lab Rats" he took advantage of it being his lucky day to help crack a case that even Grissom couldn't figure out.

* DirtyCop: [[spoiler:The first episode of the revival uncovers evidence that, during his time at the lab, he faked results by the truckload, putting any conviction resulting from said fake lab results in jeopardy. Sara believes it to be a FrameUp, but the DA wants Hodges arrested anyway, and every one of his cases he was involved in is now under scrutiny.]]

* LargeHam: Has his moments, but the "Astro Quest" episode (and the dream sequences that had Hodges as TheCaptain of the ShowWithinAShow) were pretty much a chance for Langham to unleash his inner Creator/WilliamShatner in a homage to "''The Gamesters Of Triskelion."''
* MommasBoy: He was living with his mother when he first started working at the lab. When she finally appears on-screen, we learn that she's a surprisingly attractive and classy lady, and far from the typical MyBelovedSmother that most mothers involved in this trope are.
* TheNoseKnows: Has an incredibly accurate sense of smell. In "In Vino Veritas," he leans into a wine barrel that had held a corpse for a few days and deeply inhales, grossing out a co-worker. He explains that he can detect the source of the wine from the various ingredients he detects...over the smell of decomp. In "The Theory of Everything", Catherine has him get down on the floor of a victim's bedroom and smell the carpet for evidence, as he possesses the genetic makeup that lets him smell the presence of cyanide.
* PetTheDog[=/=]EstablishingCharacterMoment: For the first couple seasons he was on the show, he was portrayed as a through-and-through {{Jerkass}} ProfessionalButtKisser with no redeeming qualities whom all his co-workers hated. In Season 7, however, he gets a surprising amount of CharacterDevelopment in a scene where he has to break the bad news to a victim's family, and he's been portrayed as a sympathetic character ever since and even joined the main cast.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Birds

%%* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Wellner will get this from Season 13.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Just vanishes after season four or so.

* TheProfessor: Was teaching college just before taking the job as a [=CSI=].
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:After killing Haskell, he is discharged from CSI by IAB and sent back to the east coast with his former ex-wife. He's mentioned once in the Season 12 opener, but is completely dropped from the series afterwards and essentially completing his character arc; he's one of a handful of living characters that doesn't return for the series finale.]]

* DarkAndTroubledPast: considering her reaction to suicides, something unpleasant has happened in her past.

* PutOnABus: In universe: couldn't handle Catherine's leadership, and only spent one year in the lab.

* FakingTheDead: Does it with Catherine to escape the posse of hitmen after them.
** Also in his premiere as well as he is posing as a dead body for "''investigative purposes''".

* IHaveYourWife: [[spoiler:[=McKeen=]'s people do this to him with his granddaughter in the Season 12 finale.]]
* HappilyMarried: The only CSI to be this from the beginning, although things get strained later on when his granddaughter is kidnapped (There's Grissom and Sara, but that came later).

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Not to Langston, but rather Grissom.
* TeamDad: Picking up where Grissom left off, but in a different kind of way since D.B. is a literal father as well. He's especially this trope for Greg and Morgan, the two youngest [=CSIs=]. (Morgan's actual father, Ecklie, practically states this trope directly in ''CSI Down''.) He now acts as this on the fourth series, ''CSI: Cyber''.

* HeroicBSOD: She's showing some signs of this following her [[spoiler: abduction and shooting]] in season 14.

* VitriolicBestBuds: A Type II with Greg and Sara is shaping up.
** Absolutely has this with Hodges. They bicker frequently, but clearly care about each other. Morgan actually flat-out refers to him as her best friend, and even once agreed to pretend to date him in order to get his mother off his back. (And now that her father is dating his mother, well, both the bickering and the caring have gotten more interesting.)
* [[WellDoneSonGuy "Well Done, Daughter" Girl]]: Seems to have a bit of this with her father Ecklie.

* HintDropping: Tries this as a tactic while trying to court Grissom. She once told Hodges (who was fretting about a possible grey hair) that she finds grey hair rather sexy, ''while standing next to Grissom''. Eventually, she point-blank asks him out, which he refuses. After a couple of more years, he eventually comes around to GladYouThoughtOfIt.

* TheMaidenNameDebate: She still uses "Sidle" now that she is married to Grissom. [[spoiler: They separated in Season 13, making the question seem moot, but got together again in the finale, so far as we know still Sidle and Grissom.]]
* MarriedToTheJob: At least until she married Grissom. [[spoiler: Divorced by the time the bus came back; back with him by the end of the series finale.]]

** TheBusCameBack: She's an official series regular again for Season 12.
* RelationshipReveal: with Grissom

* {{UST}}: For YEARS with Grissom before Season 6 ended with the [[RelationshipReveal above trope]].

* GeniusDitz: In earlier seasons. While he does act like an idiot he's very good at his job, and has extended knowledge on coin collection and Old Vegas.

* [[ISeeDeadPeople I *Might* See Dead People]] / MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: His grandmother had "the Sight" and the psychic who sensed his grandma tells him he has it too. One the one hand [[spoiler: he couldn't detect anything when he was in the "haunted" slaughterhouse with the killer]], on the other [[WildMassGuessing one could argue]] [[spoiler: the spirits were being really quiet so he could hear the killer's ringtone, which was caught on tape by the psychic before she was killed]].

* AscendedFanboy: [[spoiler: from "CSI Wannabe" to actual CSI.]]

* EnemyWithin: [[spoiler:He possesses the same "serial killer" gene that Nate Haskell has.]]
* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: [[spoiler:Does this to Haskell in "In A Dark, Dark House."]]

%%* IAmNotMyFather
* NotThatKindOfDoctor: Inverted, he ''is'' that kind of doctor (or rather, he used to be).

** Not to mention the stuff that's happened to her since.

* HollywoodHealing: He didn't wind up with any scars after having had lots of fire ant bites.
* ManlyTears: Nick has cried several times over the course of the show, and it serves to highlight his empathetic nature.

* PornStache: For a while, before he had enough of everyone's justified ribbing.
* PutOnABus: To run the San Diego crime lab in the season 15 finale, though it took him a while to decide [[spoiler: what with Finley in a coma and all, but DB assures him it's what she would've wanted]].

* TaughtByTelevision: "I watch the Discovery Channel," was one of his regular comments, back in the days when you [[NetworkDecay learned things from the Discovery Channel]]. He switched to Animal Planet once or twice.

* OutOfFocus: Got hit with this hard and ended up being one of the least developed members of the cast.

%%* TokenMinority

* AgeGapRomance: With Grissom; the actors are 16 years apart in real life. Not that it matters to Sara, who openly admitted to having a thing for silver foxes.

** TheBusCameBack: Returned to ''C.S.I.'' full-time in Season 11, and remained aboard for the rest of the show's run.

* BigSisterInstinct: While they aren't related, she seems to feel this way towards Greg (who's about 20 years younger). For one, she seems the most upset when he is nearly beaten to death in ''Fannysmackin''.
* TheBusCameBack: Another GrandFinale example.

* MsFanservice: She used to be a stripper, way back in the day (and not an OldShame for her, even when a DA tries to use it against her in court). She's had a couple of ToplessnessFromTheBack scenes and an interrogation where she unbuttoned her blouse every time her suspect gave her an answer.

* PutOnABus: Season 12. She's with the FBI now.
** TheBusCameBack: Like Grissom, came back to Vegas for the series finale case, which started at the casino she inherited, and decided to stay.

** The long version: Catherine has several times had a very strong reaction to cases where a little girl is the victim of their case, to the point where she will allow her own emotions to cloud her judgement. It is hinted this is because she is the mother of a young girl. Her emotions have caused her to severely jump the gun when it comes to a suspect and showing no hesitation to add her own verbal disgust and disbelief towards a suspect when they tells her their side of the story. Sara even once {{lampshade|Hanging}}d this by snarking that it was "fun" to hear Catherine's theories rather than process the actual evidence. Ironically, every time she has let her emotions take control of a case like this, who her hatred is focused towards has always turned out to be a mere victim of "being at the wrong place at wrong time," shown by the evidence they were in no way involved with the case, but by the time that is revealed she often has completely ruined said guy's life.
** ''[[{{Deconstruction}} Brutal]]'' case in point being Leo Finley from "A Thousand Days on Earth." She believed he was a child molester because of his name on the Sexual Predator Watch List though he was only there because of an incident where he got high on hallucinogenics and walked out naked in front of a bus full of children. After the man's fiance found out about his past (through Catherine vindictively outing him) and that he was using an assumed name, she kicked him out of the house and then got him fired by telling his boss. The man walked up to Catherine in the parking lot after this, threatening to shoot himself in the head on her front lawn one day, even calling her a "blonde Nazi bitch" when she [[BlatantLies insists]] she was [[JustFollowingOrders just doing her job]].

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Her [[spoiler: being Sam Braun's daughter]] has gotten things done with her superiors at least once, even after his death.
--> '''Brass''': Unbelievable! [[spoiler: Sam Braun]] has more influence dead than I do alive!
* ShipTease: With Warrick, up until his marriage. She even referred to the event as the "end of a fantasy".

* UnwittingPawn: Catherine met an old friend of hers who believes that her abusive husband (who is the president private military contractor) is targeting her. Knowing the husband's shady deals overseas, Catherine recommends her friend a lawyer who could protect her. Weeks later, the lawyer's firm is attacked by a group of hitmen and Catherine's friend as well as the FBI agent assigned to protect her are killed and Catherine herself is eventually targeted. [[spoiler:It is then revealed that the whole thing was setup by the friend who faked her death in order to frame her husband and Catherine (who will have the motive to do so) will be the scapegoat]].

** And anyone who tries to hurt Sara. Pity that didn't include him.
** In-universe, Grissom cites three Berserk buttons

* DramaticIrony: In the first PC game’s fifth case, '''Leda’s Swan Song''', Gil is left in a storage locker to be eaten by flesh-eating larvae. The irony comes in when you add in Grissom’s profession in entomology.

%%* FriendToBugs
* GameOfNerds: He likes baseball.

* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Especially in the earlier seasons. Despite his intelligence and expert grasp of human nature, Grissom led a very isolated life, and rebuffed most opportunities of interaction outside of the workplace. He even turned down Sara's initial dating requests in Season 3.

* MarriedToTheJob : For most of the series, at least until he married Sara. Catherine used to tell him to take his head out of his microscope once in a while.

** TheBusCameBack: He did have a cameo in season 12's "The Two Mrs.Grissoms," and returned at last for the series finale in September 2015.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: One early episode had him investigate a friend of the sheriff's as a murder suspect in an apparent suicide, wrongly as it turned out. Grissom swiftly found out that no amount of being the force's BunnyEarsLawyer would excuse his political cluelessness that time.

* WhamLine: For seven years, fans noticed an underlying degree of tension between Grissom & Sara, leading them to devise a term for it, "GSR." In the Season 7 finale, it finally comes to the forefront when Grissom realizes the extent of the Miniature Killer's revenge:

* FanNickname: He's only been called Super Dave a handful of times in-universe, but the name's stuck with the fans.

[[folder: Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom]]

[[folder: Nick Stokes]]

[[folder: Warrick Brown]]

[[folder: Sara Sidle]]

[[folder: Greg Sanders]]

[[folder: Riley Adams]]

[[folder: D.B. Russell]]

[[folder: Morgan Brody]]

[[folder: Julie 'Finn' Finlay]]

[[folder: David Phillips]]

[[folder: David Hodges]]

[[folder: Wendy Simms]]

[[folder: Mandy Webster]]

[[folder: Archie Johnson]]

[[folder: Henry Andrews]]

[[folder: Bobby Dawson]]

[[folder: Ronnie Litra]]

[[folder: Captain Jim Brass]]

[[folder: Sofia Curtis]]

[[folder: Conrad Ecklie]]

[[folder: Jeffrey [=McKeen=] ]]

[[folder: "Lady" Heather Kessler ]]

[[folder: Sam Braun]]

[[folder: Paul Millander/The Bathtub Killer]]

[[folder: The Miniature Killer/ [[spoiler:Natalie Davis]]]]

[[folder: Nate Haskell/The Dick & Jane Killer]]

[[folder: Dr. Jekyll/ Chef Charlie Dimasa]]

* DirtyCop: [[spoiler:The first episode of the revival reveals during his time at the lab, he faked results by the truckload, putting any conviction resulting from said fake results in jeopardy. Sara believes it to be a FrameUp, but the DA wants him arrested anyway, and every one of his cases he was involved in is now under scrutiny.]]

** TheBusCameBack: Came back for the finale.

* DirtyCop: [[spoiler:The first episode of the revival reveals during his time at the lab, he faked results by the truckload. Putting any conviction resulting from said fake results in jeopardy.]]

** [[ReallyDeadMontage Really Left Montage]]: at the end of the episode.

* ArchEnemy: To Raymond Langston.

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: To the earlier ArcVillain. The Miniature Killer was an isolated individual who was a forensic challenge to the CSIs to track down, while Nate is a psychological foe who is able to manipulate others into helping with his plans even behind bars. They also contrast physically: [[spoiler:Natalie is a young woman who looks and acts like a stiff breeze would blow her over, while Nate is a middle-aged man who can pose a physical threat.]]

* StuffedInTheFridge: [[spoiler:Essentially. He wasn't exactly dead when Grissom found him, but he was close enough.]]

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: Not Heather herself, but in the GrandFinale [[spoiler: her toddler granddaughter is offhandedly revealed to have been killed in a car accident, which serves little purpose other than driving Heather across the DespairEventHorizon so she can be a murder suspect. She pulls the plug on her practice after her granddaughter died, which helped set up the plot of the GrandFinale]].

* RealityEnsues: One early episode had him investigate a friend of the sheriff's as a murder suspect in an apparent suicide, wrongly as it turned out. Grissom swiftly found out that no amount of being the force's BunnyEarsLawyer would excuse his political cluenessness that time.
-->'''Sheriff Brian Mobley''': In other words, you made a suspect out of an innocent man.
-->'''Grissom''': Obviously, that wasn't my intent.
-->'''Mobley''': [[SarcasmMode Oh, good]]. Then maybe you'll want to bring that up in the newspaper article.
-->'''Grissom''': What are you talking about? What newspaper article?
-->'''Mobley''': The one I'm arranging for your public apology.
-->'''Grissom''': I'm not making an apology.
-->'''Mobley''': Oh yes, you are! You don't go after a friend of mine, sully his reputation and then walk away. [[WhatTheHellHero Actions have consequences, Gil. Even yours]].

* WhatTheHellHero[=/=]RealityEnsues: He gave Grissom a major tongue lashing for turning his friend into a murder suspect for an apparent suicide, and wrongly, as it turned out, and forced him to issue a public apology.

* UnfortunateName: [[spoiler: Diebenkorn]].

* {{Transgender}}: He felt the reason his father's killers went free after his testimony was thrown out was that he was a girl and therefore "weak," so he decided to become a man, though it was implied he had gender identity issues going further back than this.

* DiabolusExMachina: Supplies a rather nasty and [[ShockingSwerve completely out-of-nowhere]] one in [[spoiler:"Fracked"]]. (Though, granted, it's fairly clear that there's not much he can do.)