Directed by Deran Sarafian
Written by Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn, & Janet Tamaro
"Night, Mother" is the tenth episode of Season 1. It originally aired December 15, 2004.
Synopsis:
A bloody woman is found with her hands inside another woman's chest and a wooden stake is next to them. Meanwhile, a pickpocket is murdered.Tropes for the episode:
- Age-Gap Romance: Rachel Camden is older than her lover, Jason. She broke off their relationship because she and her husband, Todd, were trying to have kids.
- Enhance Button: Mac & Stella get an image off the reflection in someone's eye...from surveillance camera footage.
- Madness-Induced Omnivore: Mac & Stella find a bowl of half-eaten cigarettes in their first suspect's apartment. Turns out the woman was eating them while sleepwalking due to Post Traumatic Stress from witnessing paramedics attempting to revive her young son by massaging his heart after he'd been in a car accident.
- Not Good with Rejection: Jason does not take being dumped by Rachel Camden well; in fact he kills her for staying with her husband and trying to have a baby with him.
- Prison Rape: Discussed. Rachel Camden's killer, Jason, says he was in love in her. Stella then says he'll be getting plenty of love in prison.
- Reflective Eyes: In the reflection in the woman's eye on the security camera footage, Mac and Stella find a guy wearing jeans and a t-shirt and carrying a basketball.
- Sleepwalking: The first suspect is discovered to have been sleepwalking, and thus is not the killer; she just happened to walk into the scene after the woman was dead.
- The Corpse Stops Here: Zig-sagged. Don can't understand why Mac doesn't just arrest the bloody woman and charge her right away. Mac wants to wait for more substancial evidence.
- The Ophelia: Played with. The first suspect, named Ophelia, refuses to speak for a while and when she does, she mumbles about law procedures. Turns out, she's a law clerk who sleepwalks and suffers from sleep deprivation.
