Showing posts with label bios. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bios. Show all posts
Monday, September 13, 2010
Played by CSI Head Researcher David Berman, David first appears as a well-qualified but junior coroner, assisting with Dr. Al Robbins' work in the morgue. He slips easily into idol-worship, seeking to please his boss and the CSI team, especially supervisor Gil Grissom. Despite this, he is as handy with a comeback as any of his colleagues, and even stands his ground with lab manager Conrad Ecklie when pushed too far.
David is apparently a practicing Jew, based upon his comments that "Every Phillips boy gets a lifetime subscription to "Hux" (a fictional mens' magazine) for his Bar Mitzvah". His father is a colonel at Nellis Air Force Base.
In the early seasons, David is treated as something of a mascot by the CSI team. CSI Sara Sidle gently turns down his clumsy attempt at flirting, but gives him a "C for cute". Whether or not he takes her advice to toughen up, he comes to enjoy the appreciation and respect of his colleagues over the years. His immediate boss, Al Robbins, clearly treats him as more of an equal as the years go by. Nick dubs him "SuperDave", or just "Super" after Davis saves the life of a still-living autopsy subject, while Grissom refers to him as "our excellent assistant coroner and baseball trivia expert."
While seemingly inured to the grotesqueries of death, David is a strongly emotional person, occasionally commenting on the sadness of a crime. He is often seen treating the subjects on his table with tenderness beyond mere respect, especially the young. He is deeply devoted to his colleagues both as workmates and as friends he enjoys helping. He literally tears up at Grissom's farewell: "There's bugs every where, David. ... I will miss you, though."
David engagement and marriage provide for a running gag over the seasons. We never meet David's partner, but he speaks of her with open adoration. From his first retort to Nick's teasing him to get a girlfriend, ("Actually, I'm engaged...?"), his relationship seems to progress quickly and happily. Although his future parents-in-law are less than taken with his career, he describes his girlfriend as someone he can talk to about his work: "She loves this stuff. Why do you think I'm marrying her?". The CSI's seem to realize that their young David is growing up, and their behaviour towards him changes. Catherine and Sara take time to ask him about his wedding plans, and Al occasionally dispenses advice from one married man to another.
Later seasons show David as a happily married man, still nerdy, but without the glasses and extra cuddle factor about the waist, confident in his job - and occasionally slipping out hints about just how happily married he is.
Warrick Brown was a CSI Level 3 in the Las Vegas Police Department Crime Lab. Born in Las Vegas, he was raised by his grandmother, whom he credits with keeping him grounded during his turbulent adolescence. He is a complex character, with idealism and compassion, humble despite his strong intellect and investigative talents, but with personal demons that threaten to wreck his life and damage the reputation of his team.Warrick has an addiction to gambling. Before, and while, working for the LVPD, he ran book for various high-level worthies in Las Vegas. He is a card-counter: a poker-player with the ability to memorize long series' of plays in order to mentally calculate his odds of winning. Like all counters, he keeps this skill a secret. Card-counters, once found out, are generally banned from poker tables.
In addition to the financial and psychological problems gambling causes him, Warrick also runs afoul of the law on several occasions. In the series' first episode, he places a bet for a judge, and loses a large sum of money. In order to make up the debt, he leaves rookie CSI Holly Gribbs alone at a scene while he places another bet. Holly is killed; Warrick is brought under investigation, and the judge claims that he will "own" Warrick for a long time.
Warrick is mentored and sometimes covered for by his direct supervisor, Gil Grissom. Grissom considers Warrick, an highly talented CSI, to be his natural successor, and seems to consider Warrick's problems to be resolvable. He guides Warrick through various legal and political mazes to help clear his name and keep his career on track, in a pattern that repeats several times over the years.
Warrick shares a gentle but unresolved flirtatious relationship with his co-worker, CSI Catherine Willows. Although their chemistry is obvious, Warrick eventually marries his recent girlfriend Tina, seeking stability in his life. Their marriage lasts only two years, and the final season shows the old sparks coming to life between Warrick and Catherine.
During the final stressful months of Warrick's marriage, he becomes dependent on prescription medications - sleeping pills as well as stimulants. His behaviour becomes even more erratic, and after he misses a call-out and becomes personally involved with an investigation of a crime-boss, his friend and fellow CSI Nick Stokes confronts him on his dependency. Warrick appears to listen, but later goes on a drinking spree with devastating consequences.
His long-running and increasingly dangerous investigation of Gedda, a Godfather-type kingpin of the old order, gives Warrick a renewed focus, but ultimately proves fatal. It is revealed in later episodes that Warrick has a son, Eli, and was in the process of trying to get custody of his child when he was accused of murdering Gedda. In a Psych evaluation DVD from Child Services, Warrick refers to Gil as a father figure.
The CSI team, including visiting Sara Sidle, hundreds of uniformed officers, his ex-wife Tina and son Eli all attended Warrick's funeral at First Baptist Church, where Grissom gave his eulogy.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Clark County Coroner Dr Albert "Al" Robbins is a gentle, professorial presence in the autopsy bay and a worthy adversary on the witness stand. His particular brand of whimsy and his ability to explore and unravel the most awful violent causes of death make him a pillar of the CSI's professional support team. He considers himself a team-player, however, CSI Supervisor Gil Grissom points out that one doesn't become County Coroner without being competitive.
We know more about Al's personality and acumen than we do his personal life. In totality, we know Al has been married "forever" to his wife Judith, with whom he has three children, and that they once considered buying a house in the tony Henderson area. Their youngest is described as being fourteen years old, in an early-season episode. He invests a great deal in his family, working hard on his marriage (regular counselling, separate vacations once a year, adopting a healthier lifestyle at his wife's urging). While the actor's own legs were amputated following a car accident, we do not hear Al explain his prosthetics to the other characters - although he occasionally pops his leg back on or grouses about finding it hard to bend his knees. He also wears a pacemaker due to congenital bradycardia. An itinerant musician, Al plays and sings in a classic rock band in his spare time, taking local gigs around town.
Al enjoys a more casual, open friendship with CSI supervisor Gil Grissom than many others do, in part due to their similar ages, but also their mutual scientific fascination with the gruesome elements of their jobs. The two share a deep professional respect that lets them argue cases out, and occasionally let their hair down - cracking awful jokes over crime scenes, chasing a rat all over the coroner's suite, and in one case, singing together in tribute over the body of a murdered rock star.
Al acts as a big brother to assistant supervisor Catherine Willows, making pointed suggestions to her about not saying goodbye to her deceased ex-husband in the morgue, or using a dead body to scare her daughter into less risky behaviour. Perhaps most importantly, he takes an avuncular interest in his protegee, assistant coroner David Phillips, who progresses from a shy, overeager youth to a confident, happily married man over the years.
Al has, in all likelihood, the strongest stomach in the building, and an admirable emotional capability at dealing with the most horrific crimes upon a human body. He barely notices all but the very worst stench of decomposition. Though sometimes grumpy, the only time we see Al reach his emotional limit is during the investigation into CSI Warrick Brown's death, at which point Al hands the autopsy duty over to the day-shift coroner, though he receives Warrick's body at the autopsy bay as a sort of honour guard.
While not a CSI, Al is considered part of the team, and gives the CSI's free access to the coroner's suite whenever they need to come in. He adores his job and the team, and declares to himself that he "is never going to retire." In recent days, we see him giving a warm welcome to the newest CSI, ex-physician Raymond Langston, as a fellow medical man and contemporary
Wisecracking, deadpan Jim Brass is an ex-New Jersey cop turned CSI turned cop again. When we first meet Brass, he is the Las Vegas CSI night shift manager, with Gil Grissom his second in command. Upon the death of newcomer CSI Holly Gribbs, Brass is taken out of the lab and put back in the Homicide division, putting his objectives potentially at odds with his old CSI team. The tension between the groups most often leads to mutual excellence, but occasionally to frayed tempers and political fallout during high-media or particularly gruesome crimes.
Before moving to Vegas, Brass was married, with one daughter, Ellie. Over the course of the series, we learn that Brass' marriage broke down over mutual infidelity, and that Ellie is in fact the biological daughter of his ex-wife's lover, a dirty cop whom Brass later helped expose. Brass himself had an affair with a fellow cop, Annie Kramer, now a captain in the LAPD, and chose, quixotically, to take the blame for his divorce, rather than point to his wife and her lover. Brass raises Ellie as his own, but buries himself in his work, remaining distant from her and from his wife.
Ellie Brass remains unaware of her biological status, though her increasingly delinquent behaviour may well have begun in her unsettled childhood. To Brass' sorrow, Ellie becomes a street hooker and drug addict in LA. Their paths converge once more in Vegas, when Ellie is brought in for questioning during the investigation into the murder of a travelling drug pusher. It is not until this point that the CSI team learns of Ellie's existence. Brass attempts to convince Ellie to move back in with him and clean up, but she turns him down, telling him that it's too late to make amends, and that she's going to go back to her mother. We meet Ellie later on in LA, after her roommate is murdered, and again in Vegas, when Brass is shot and lies near death. The pair are shown to make the smallest of steps forward each time.
Taking his return to the badge philosophically, Brass tries his best to be a good cop and a good man while attacking the underbelly of Las Vegas' seedier culture. While he still has an eye for the ladies, he is shown to live a solitary life, married to his job, and occasionally indulging in a heart-to-heart over single-malt with Grissom, or telling war stories to the CSI team. He is a particularly talented interrogator, moving between sincere sympathy and provoking angry, revealing outbursts from suspects.
Despite being shot in the chest during a hostage situation, Brass' worst career moment comes when a young officer in his line of fire is killed, in a harrowing case of suspect surrender appearing as attack. He is shown dealing with both instances emotionally as well as pragmatically: he has the date of his shooting tattooed around the bullet scar to remind him of his mistake, and although he takes the news quietly enough from Grissom, he breaks down while trying to apologize to the wife of the officer he killed.
Brass is an idealist at heart despite his gruff exterior. He jokes grimly about being nicknamed "Squeaky" after trying to clean up the Newark PD from within, and later describes how any thought of fast-tracking his career withered after he let it be known he was not open to police graft. His estranged daughter Ellie remains a sore point in his life, and he reaches out to her more than once with little hope of return. And while his colleague and friend Grissom tends to deal with the roughest cases by staying emotionally distant, Brass finds his way forward in renewing his determination to clamp down on all those who seek money, power and revenge upon the backs of their fellow citizens.
So cutting-edge he sometimes injures himself, Greg Sanders joined the Las Vegas CSI lab as a DNA technician on the graveyard shift. We first meet Greg drumming along with his stereo while waiting for assay results, and his passionate love of music, 80's-inspired hair and t-shirts, and irreverence to authority become running themes thereafter.
A full-scholarship Stanford Chemistry grad and erstwhile high school Chess Club captain, Greg is an only child. He describes his parents, especially his mother, as being completely devoted to him, and rather than rebelling against them, Greg turned his natural quirkiness inwards. He professes a love of goth-rock and glam-pop rock, recreational latex club wear and body-painting, surfer girls, SCUBA diving, top-quality gourmet coffee and various but unconfirmed sexual kinks. In later seasons, he also becomes fascinated with the white-collar mobsters and history of Old Vegas, about which he writes a book.
Greg has Norwegian roots, as evidenced by his mother's maiden name, "Hojem", his anecdotes about his grandfather, Papa Olaf, and - to his chagrin - his susceptibility to a strain of foot fungus that affects people of Scandinavian heritage.
After a day of field work, during which all available hands are called to assist with a catastrophic bus accident, Greg confesses that he feels constricted by lab work. The team is quick to support his move into the field, especially Grissom, who is impressed with Greg's attitude of "not being about the money." CSI Sara Sidle, for whom Greg harbours an unsubtle torch, is assigned as his key mentor through his training as a field CSI. Sara responds to his overtures with amused tolerance, and over the years, their friendship settles into a strong bond that they come to rely upon. Within the year, Greg passes all his proficiency exams, and becomes a CSI Level 1, welcomed with champagne by the team. His fellow lab rats are largely supportive, with the notable exception of David Hodges, who takes any opportunity to complain.
As the little brother of the team, Greg visibly matures through the series, sometimes painfully. His hyperactive, bored-genius antics are regarded with eye-rolling amusement by the others, but when Greg is injured in an accidental lab explosion, they quickly rally round him, and he realizes that they consider him part of the team. Later, during one of his first solo callouts, Greg is attacked by a wandering mob of youths, and is beaten nearly into a coma. The subsequent criminal and civil trials, in which Greg is accused of murdering or causing the death of one of the attackers, leaves him a sadder and wiser man. There is no grand emotional realization to be gained in such cases, and he simply has to learn to absorb such events as part of a law enforcement officer's career.
On his way to LA to meet with publishers about his Old Vegas book, Greg is called back to the lab by Catherine, with the news that Warrick has been killed. Greg is visibly shaken, but deals with his shock and grief by staying busy, helping Sara make Warrick's funeral arrangements. It is he who first discovers that Warrick has a son.
Greg, having served as a sort of "everyman-audience" figure as he progresses, rises to his own challenge: earning a track record as a reliable CSI, and coming to terms with the emotional and practical realities of the job. Recent episodes show him as a settled career CSI Three, focussed on his job and at least looking the part of a respectable criminalist and expert witness - though still very much Greg.
Sara Sidle, until recently, was an elements analyst at the Las Vegas Police Department Crime Lab. Born on September 17, 1971, in California, Sara Sidle grew up in a B&B run by her two hippie parents. Always analytical, Sara would present them with business plans and suggestions for the business.
Despite the hippie background, the Sidle home was abusive and violent. When Sara was nine, her mother, Laura, killed Sara's father and was sent to a mental institution. Sara (and presumably her brother, though he is only mentioned once) spent the rest of her childhood in the foster care system. It is said that she had a rocky start in the system, was unreachable and angry, and was moved around a lot in her first year. Despite these circumstances, or perhaps because of them, she focussed her energy on schoolwork. She graduated high school a year early, at age sixteen, and left for the east coast to attend Harvard on a scholarship, where she majored in Physics.
After Harvard, she moved back to Los Angeles, and began moonlighting nights at the county coroner's office. She eventually joined the LA CSI team and began working as a full time investigator. In 1999, she met her future supervisor and fiance, Gil Grissom, at a Forensic Academy Conference in California. Many years later, she admitted that she stayed behind to ask so many questions about archaeology because she was trying to get up the nerve to ask him to dinner.
In 2000, Grissom asked Sara to come to Las Vegas, where he was the LVPD Crime Lab night shift supervisor. One of his CSI's, Warrick Brown was under investigation after the death of newcomer Holly Gribbs, and Grissom needed Sara to run the internal investigation. Sara was met with a chilly welcome from the team, but she soon showed herself to be fair, unbiased and a talented investigator, and the team was happy to have her come on board permanently.
Sara's obsession with her work rivalled Grissom's, to the point that he became concerned for her. He mentioned that she barely slept, she read forensic journals or listened to her police scanner for fun, and didn't seem to like anything else. He encouraged her to have fun and find something outside of work. Despite the fact that Sara's increasing bitterness was based in their unresolved attraction, she took his advice to heart, and briefly dated paramedic Hank Pettigrew. This relationship ended when she found out that he had another girlfriend.
After this, Sara became increasingly more abrupt and argumentative, especially with Grissom, and seemed to be in a self-destructive spiral. In 2005, she was pulled over at a roadblock and was arrested for driving under the influence. Because the blood alcohol limit had so recently been lowered, she was not charged, but Grissom was informed. Shortly thereafter, she had a very public confrontation with Catherine, a senior CSI, which resulted in her suspension. This appeared to trigger Grissom to act, and he asked her, as a friend, to explain what was happening to her. Sara revealed her violent childhood and her mother's killing of her father. That conversation seemed to turn a corner in their relationship, though it was some time before they were revealed to be a couple.
In 2006, it was revealed that she was in a romantic relationship with Grissom that had obviously been going on for some time. Their fellow CSI's were kept uninformed until late 2007, when Sara was kidnapped by the Miniature Killer, and Grissom explained the killer's motivation as revenge to "kill the only person he ever loved." Sara escaped but was badly injured, and was found by colleagues Nick Stokes and Sophia Curtis. Upon returning to work, she moved to the Swing Shift, so she and Grissom could still be together without violating lab policy. While physically healing, Sara seemed to be increasingly ground down by the constant scenes of death and abuse that made up her daily life. At this point Grissom proposed marriage, which she accepted delightedly. This seemed to bring her out of her PTSD-induced depression, but only temporarily. A month later, Sara decided to leave her job at the crime lab after a series of emotionally harrowing cases, culminating in the return of a youthful murderer who had previously "run her in circles". In a tearful letter, she explained to Grissom that she had to leave to bury her ghosts.
Sara's character arc is a cyclical journey through personal darkness, and finally into the acceptance of genuine love and hope. At first she appears preternaturally energized and eager to please, but this facade eventually wears off, and her old scars revealed. She is unable to make any deep human connection, and sets herself up for failure when she attempts to, seeking approval from unavailable or authoritative men. It is only when she opens up her past story that she begins the long process of healing, and in doing so, she also helps Grissom more than she seems to realize: he himself becomes much more comfortable and open. Sara's departure in the middle of Season Eight does not seem to be a return to her old pattern of running away, but a positive decision to revisit her past and come to terms with it, so that she can move forward.
Sara is occasionally heard from indirectly, as she and Grissom talk by phone, or her ex-colleagues ask after her. It is speculated that she will return in at least two episodes of the next season.
Sara was last seen in the jungles of Costa Rica in the arms of the recently retired Gil Grissom.
Nick Stokes is a Level 3 CSI from Dallas, Texas. Born August 18, 1971, he is the youngest of seven children born to his father, a Judge and mother, a prosecution lawyer. Nick was expected to go into Law, and left the family fold to go into Law Enforcement instead, after taking his degree at Texas A&M University.
Nick is generally considered the most low-maintenance of the crew, with little drama in his life, and little need for attention. He is a solid, reliable worker and witness for the prosecution, but becomes driven to make a case stick when angered or appalled. Perhaps because he is easily taken for granted, the team is not at all prepared when he is kidnapped and imprisoned in a glass coffin, containing a camera through which his terror and agony can be watched. On shooting out the single light to save the battery that also runs oxygen into his coffin, he inadvertently lets in thousands of fire ants. He is found by Warrick and Grissom barely alive, but eventually makes a full recovery.
More than any other character, Nick represents the emotional heart of the series. He is deeply empathic and does not hide his feelings, especially from the families of victims of crime. He reveals that he was molested as a child by a last-minute babysitter, which may explain in part his need to offer emotional comfort to those in pain - and to help put abusive criminals behind bars. His best friend was Warrick Brown, a fellow CSI with whom he had a brotherly rivalry and affection.
Nick occasionally dates and is friendly and attentive to the women in his life, but doesn't appear to be in any steady relationship during the series. In the final episode of Season 8, he is shown considering asking out the waitress of the crew's regular cafe, but we can assume he is forestalled by news of Warrick's shooting outside the diner.
Catherine Willows is a CSI Level Three and occasional Acting Shift Supervisor with the Las Vegas Police Department.
Raised in Vegas by a showgirl mother, Catherine became an exotic dancer and nightclub wild child. Finally finding her calling, she danced her way through a medical technology degree at UNLV, hung up her spangles and became a CSI, specializing in blood spatter analysis. Her supervisor, Gil Grissom, mentions the fact that she was his first friend in Las Vegas, and the first person he recruited for his team. While a reliable and meticulous CSI, Catherine still enjoys flaunting her sexuality, and occasionally uses it to make a point - or win over a difficult suspect.
Catherine is a single mother with an attitude and a complicated family life. Her late husband Eddie, from whom she "should have gotten divorced years ago" had issues with drugs and fidelity, and was murdered in 2003. Their teenaged daughter Lindsey seems to have acquired her mother's feistiness - talking back, running away, and hanging out with questionable friends. Catherine, despite her night-shift schedule, keeps a close watch on her, placing her in an highly disciplined private school, and spending as much time as possible with her during the day. Lindsey is soon to graduate and go to college, a fact that causes Catherine no end of anxiety.
Casino tycoon Sam Braun, a friend of her mother, is a surrogate uncle to Catherine during her childhood and stormy teenage years. While they operate on opposite sides of certain gray areas of law, they share a lasting affection and grudging respect. Catherine learns that he is, in fact, her biological father after performing a DNA control test during a murder investigation involving Sam. This comes to haunt her during the trial. When Sam dies, he leaves Catherine and her mother some of his fortune, but the vast majority of it is tied up in the land development trusts he began during his life.
Catherine, while well-liked and highly successful at her job, seems to be trailed by bad luck in her personal life. Grissom is known to have criticized her for having a personal life at all, as drama seems to find her despite her best intentions. Her dates seem to end up jeopardizing investigations, or involved in them. Her daughter was kidnapped as a warning to her, and soon after her safe return, her father was killed in her arms by the kidnapper. Her recent dating life is next to nil, though she shares an unresolved, and ultimately tragic, flirtatious relationship with her co-worker, Warrick Brown.
While not vain in the strictest sense, Catherine has a dancer's strong sense of beauty and style to go with her natural good looks. She has watched her mother age from a great beauty into comfortable older-middle-age, and as she watches Lindsey grow up, she is often shown to be struggling with her own signs of aging.
In recent episodes, Catherine is shown to be transferring her maternal tendencies to the team, attempting to steer Grissom through his fiancee's departure, and helping Warrick through drug dependency and a murder charge.
Gilbert "Gil" Grissom was born on August 17, 1956 in Santa Monica, California and grew up in Marina Del Rey, California. His father, a botanist, died when Gil was nine years old. His mother, who was deaf, ran an art gallery in Venice.
Grissom appears to have both moral and intellectual stakes in working as a criminalist. While he rarely, if ever, becomes emotionally involved in cases, he often makes pithy indictments or offers pointed quotations to illustrate his reaction. He was raised Roman Catholic, but he now seems to be a lapsed Catholic. He describes this as "practic[ing] a kind of secular Catholicism that involves ritualizing certain aspects of everyday life and imbuing them with a spiritual intensity they might not otherwise possess". This appears to neatly sum up his personal faith in scientific rigor as well as humanity, despite the crime scenes he attends every night. In an eighth season crossover arc, he confesses to FBI Agent Jack Malone that he thinks about "hanging them up" every day, but that he has "his pig" - in other words, the work still holds unanswered questions and fresh insights for him. Shortly thereafter, he agrees with colleague David Hodges' description of the work as "a puzzle" that he's not yet ready to let go.
Grissom describes himself as "a ghost" in school, focussing on his studies and on his scientific interests. He was known to pick up and dissect animals killed along the highway, and was eventually called upon to assist local law enforcement with necroscopies and other forensic tasks. (It is hinted in the second season that Grissom has Asperger's Syndrome, or Asperger's-like tendencies, and these are key examples: social withdrawal and intellectual obsession leading to mastery of a subject.)
Grissom has a degree from UCLA in Biology, and completed his PhD at UC Berkeley. He enjoys teaching, perhaps in part because it provides him with a structured social setting in which he can find success through sharing his interests. He later take a professorial role with his crew, mentoring them through their career developments and imparting wisdoms gleaned from years of experience. As the crew draws near his level of expertise, he finds himself excited to be offered a teaching sabbatical, explaining: "I'm a teacher without any students."
At only 22, Grissom became the youngest country coroner in California history. Winning a surprise windfall in a college poker game, he set up his first Body Farm - a natural setting where donated human bodies could be observed and recorded at all stages of the process of decomposition, local predation, and of course, bugs - entomological interference.
At 29, Grissom switched careers and became a CSI, rising quickly through the ranks to become a shift supervisor. He eventually transferred from the San Francisco PD to the Las Vegas PD, and took over the graveyard shift. Under his guidance, the LVPD Crime Lab rose to a second place crime-solving position in the country, second only to the well-funded FBI national headquarters at Quantico.
Grissom, while attached mainly to his work, does make friendly connections with his staff. And at least one friend is willing to relocate entirely to work with him: CSI Sara Sidle appears in the second episode of the series, called in from San Francisco by Grissom to run an internal investigation. His night shift crew treat him as an avuncular figure, eccentric but wise, hilariously dry, and solid as a rock. His own supervisor, Conrad Ecklie, considers him the proverbial thorn and a possible contender, and takes every opportunity to put him in his place.
Grissom's inherited his mother's otosclerosis, a fusion of the small bones in the ear, which nearly led to the loss of his hearing. This leads him even further into himself, withdrawing emotionally from his crew, and especially from Sara, for whom he has feelings he can neither deny nor act upon. With successful surgery, he regains his full hearing, but the effects of his behaviour upon Sara take much longer to heal.
Grissom and Sara, while ferociously intelligent and adept observers, both find personal relationships awkward and difficult. Grissom especially takes a great pleasure and pride in his powerful mind, and doesn't often see the point in changing his emotional habits to accommodate the people around him. Sara, having overcome years of trauma to succeed in her chosen path, surrounds herself with emotional brick walls. It takes years for them to realize that neither of them is asking the other to change - only to be honest and willing to try. Six years after she arrives from San Francisco, Grissom and Sara are finally shown to be a couple, though they keep their relationship hidden from their colleagues for another two years. It is not until the end of the seventh season that Grissom reveals to his colleagues, during Sara's kidnapping, that she is the only one he has ever loved.
Upon Sara's return, she and Grissom must deal with the administrative effects of an interoffice relationship. Sara volunteers to switch to the swing shift, which brings "more daylight" into her life, but which leaves them with little time to spend together. Grissom, in his usual sideways manner, suggests that perhaps they should marry, and Sara agrees delightedly. This seems to boost her spirits, but even Grissom can't entirely stop her headlong spiral into a PTSD-sparked depression due to her violent childhood and more recent ordeal. She leaves him to return to California to confront her ghosts, while Grissom, giving her the space she asks of him, throws himself entirely back into work.
Season Eight shows Grissom in emotional retreat, occasionally speaking with Sara by phone or video, but otherwise channelling all of his energy into his work. His team is fraying around the edges, with Sara gone, Ecklie hovering, and Warrick's problems affecting his work, and he feels responsible. Warrick's untimely death and Sara's brief return for the funeral act as an emotional catalyst upon him, and within a few months, he makes the decision to retire as CSI.
We last see Grissom reuniting with Sara in the rain forest of Costa Rica.
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