i can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles...
hey, it’s me! here i am, back at it again. (i’m gonna aim for once a month with these, because, like, emotionally i am not down with spending 4 hours a week doing nothing but analyzing csi cyber. i have shit to do. like not watch csi cyber.)
if you’ve lost the plot a bit, i’ve got a list of all my recaps here. some quick stats for people who don’t want to read all that shit
times the writers didn’t actually know how computers or other electronic devices work- 65
times someone should have been fired or arrested for bad policing or hacking- 45
times brody should have been sent back to jail- 7
van der geek death toll- 4
times the writers forgot how time works- 22
times the writers forgot how the police works (for example, that there are other police and fbi divisions, including people who are qualified to do CSI shit)- 28
times i wanted to steal krummy’s lunch money- 53
times they used the holodeck that they invested millions of taxpayer dollars in- 4
times they use l33t sp34k to convey that someone is a hacker- 7
times vdg is a bad parent or partner- 13
times avery does bad psychology- 33
characters named ricky skaggs- only 1, unfortunately
times IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU- ALL OF THEM GET OFF THE COMPUTER
Triggers for this episode- alcohol, stalking, blood, drugging, kidnapping, basic entitled dude bullshit
we open at a hot, hot nightclub that's apparently an old castle or some shit. It's full of attractive young people drinking and dancing and using apps, so you know shit's going to go down. Raven is there with a friend, Tracy, and she asks tracy how she found this place. Tracy used an app to find it, so she's going to be the victim in this episode. She tells raven what she's been missing working every friday night- namely, “major male hotness.” man, i've really missed the csi cyber writers interpreting things that an actual human being might say. While they chat about the male hotness, some guy hearts them both on heartmate, an app which is not at all like tinder. They make fun of him for being a loser, a skill that raven needs to leverage more often in her professional life.
just as they team-reject this guy, some guy walks up behind tracy and hits on her. He asks if he can buy her a drink, and she turns him down, and he's like “hey that's cool I go to alcoholics anonymous” and she's like “samesies” and it's kinda weird and uncomfortable. He tries to pick her up, but she tells him she has a boyfriend, so he fucks off out of there, giving us a nice view of the fact that, in this incredibly packed busy nightclub, there's a solid 10 feet of space between the bar and any people. Tracy laughs and reveals that she lied about having a boyfriend to him. “But this guy,” she narrates as a guy hearts her on heartmate, “unf, hell to all the yeses.” these writers! They're so good at talking to people! The guy who hearted her walks over and starts nuzzling her, and rejected club guy watches from afar, glaring.
Afterwards, raven and tracy leave the club and hop in a cab. Rejected club guy opens up heartmate and clicks onto raven's profile. He somehow uses the distance feature to track her down, despite them being in a cab and him being on foot. When he gets there, he calls the police to say that he's worried, because his neighbour might be in danger and the guy's still in there. Oh, you sneaky boy!
a swat team breaks into raven's apartment, where tracy is sleeping on the couch and raven is apparently full naked in the bedroom. Wait, how did he know what apartment she was in? There is no way that heartmate is that precise in distance tracking, and even if he saw them through the window or something, I think “my neighbour is in trouble, I heard gunshots? Oh, where she lives? Uh, let me find a street number…. Yeah I don't know her apartment number, but I know the window faces the street and I think it's the third floor….” would not raise some questions.
one week later, raven is chatting with brody about the SWAT team. Brody, I know it's casual friday, and apparently permanent casual friday for you now, but I think you still have to wear your id. He asks if she knows who called the team, and she teases him because apparently when the swat team was called, he snuck out via the fire escape! Wait, what? Did she go home with tracy then call brody over to bang? Or was he waiting there all night in her apartment all alone? We know they're not roommates because apparently the knowledge that they were in the same apartment would be trouble, even though they're talking loudly about how they're totes magotes banging in their workplace, but whatever.
meanwhile, avery is looking at a tablet in her office, and db walks in with a baby binky in his mouth. Oh, so this is going to be one of the weird fetish episodes. Db says that he didn't get them so mommy avery could give bad baby db a spanking, but actually because they're bluetooth enabled and can detect the baby's temperature, location, and what medications the baby had. I don't know why he bought seven of them, but, like, whatever, you do you, dude. He asks how avery's doing, but before she can answer, van der geek wanders by to tell them that they have an update on the “infamous” (a word which here means that we've never heard his name) garth rizzo. You know, normally i'd say this guy might be a friend of ricky skaggs, but idk, he seems like a rat to me.
garth rizzo is otherwise known as “the most hated man on the internet.” he runs a revenge porn site called shamedexxx.com, which kindly places big black censor bars over the women's tiddies. Wait, even with the censor bars, is it still fine to just bring up porn on the big screen in the cybercave? Why did they have to give his website the hit? Anyway, vdg makes a point of how he really, really wants to arrest this guy, but he hasn't actually done anything illegal yet so they have to prove he's been hacking people. You know, guys, far be it from me to criticize vdg, but, like, this is the first time ever in his life that he's ever given a shit about due process. It's a bit weird that the first time he doesn't just show up and tackle a guy to the ground is the porn guy for jilted exes. I'm just saying, mister “i know what it feels like to want to murder your ex-wife!”
they explain what revenge porn is, and then raven glances at her phone so avery tells her to leave while they go through all the victims, track them down, and contact them to get their devices and see if they've been hacked. This guy hasn't even committed a crime yet! Are there seriously no proven hackers left?
raven goes to get a latte with tracy. She's been having hella computer-based problems. Her utilities were shut off, then her mail was put on hold via an online form (oh, no, not the mail! Like, seriously, it's been a week since they met club guy [also spoiler, it was probably club guy what did it] and it's 2015, it's not like anything important comes in the mail) and then she got fired from her job for sending an e-mail to her coworker about how she was going to tell his wife about the affair they were having. It's notable that he did not get fired for that same affair. Finally, two days ago, she got kicked out of her apartment, because she apparently e-mailed the landlord and requested to end the lease. I am not an expert on DC rental law, but I think 5 days isn't enough notice for your landlord to completely shut you out of the apartment. Did he get a new tenant, despite not showing the apartment to anyone because otherwise she would notice? If not, why would she not just sign a new lease under the same terms?
Then she went to the cops, and the cops told her that they couldn't do anything because she didn't know who hacked her. That's, like, the best cop-work i've seen ever? “sorry I know there has been a crime but I can't help you because you have not already solved it on your own, and we can't kick it to the cyber division because they're too busy tracking down every woman in revenge porn on the internet to see if they've been hacked.” raven offers to check out her computer and shit to see who hacked her, and just then her phone gives her a notification to let her know that her bank account has been emptied. Because that's a thing that happens, I guess.
meanwhile, back at the cybercave, vdg is telling someone on the phone that they're being unreasonable. He then gets back to work immediately, but avery stops him with an “elijah, there comes a point where whatever's going on in your personal life starts to reflect on your work.” yeah, and that point was halfway through the last season when he started emotionally abusing coworkers, destroying physical evidence, and committing some pretty serious police brutality because he was mad that his wife wanted to get her dream job and take the daughter that she was more or less raising on her own with her, but you were pretty much down with that noise.
It turns out that he was on the phone with his father, who had been refusing cancer treatment. This is a pretty personal and nuanced issue, which vdg boils down to “it's not fair to MEEEEE that he's chosen to go gently into that good night.” how dare he, when he could be taking care of my daughter for me!
time for a sick cyber-montage, in which raven hacks into tracy's bank accounts! We see that, instead of just transferring the money out, the hacker purchased several expensive things that just happened to add up to the exact amount left in her bank accounts. That takes skill. I would have expected the bank to call her about it, because usually banks do that when you spend several thousand dollars in three minutes, buying multiple TVs in one transaction, that sort of thing. She could also call the bank and explain that she was hacked- oh wait shit never mind I forgot that would make sense. Or maybe that cop from earlier also runs the bank. Who knows.
Anyway, she finds an odd ip address. The hacker is a guy named kyle bristow, which raven tells avery. Avery goes “listen, one case of bank fraud doesn't require the whole cyber division.” no, avery, it just needed raven, and she solved it. The rest of the cyber-division can keep working on trying to find what this one guy who is, I cannot emphasize enough, innocent of everything except being a scumbag, might have done wrong. Avery agrees to send van der geek out, as long as raven stays to work on garth rizzo.
vdg's gun is out! He sees a blood trail leading from kyle bristow's front door, which is oddly even and symmetrical, but stops abruptly at the end of the walkway. He runs in, gun out, and sees that someone's murdered kyle before he got the chance. Rough day for vdg.
Kyle was murdered by being beaten to death with an ugly bookend he had on the mantelpiece. Vdg wants to give this case to the actual police, but avery says that raven proved he was the hacker (because it's not like the hacker could be his wife, because girls don't know computers) so there's a cyber element to this case so it belongs to the csis cyber. Kyle apparently had two phones, one of which was a burner phone with heartmate on it. Far be it from me to judge a cheater, but if you're going to cheat on your wife, why not use your real phone and hide the app somewhere? It's way less suspicious than just having a whole other cell phone. The heartmate phone has some very angry messages from tracy, with the positively incriminating messages of “DUDE. UMMMMMMM – you're MARRIED????? WHAT. THE. HELL.” and “You lying, cheating bastard. Is this some sort of sick game????? You're gonna pay for this. I could seriously kill you.” so they conclude that tracy is the murderer. Then we see tracy with blood all over her hands flashing back to the crime scene.
Intro at 11:26, although really we could stop here.
the definition of the week is cyberstalking. It's like stalking, but cyber! Thanks, csi, we needed that one spelled out for us.
raven and krummy are calling people up about the revenge porn. Krummy's entire interaction goes “I'm pretty sure this is your photo. Yeah. There's a naked photo of you online. No, this is not a prank. I'm an agent with the FBI. Hello? Ehhhhh well.” you got your typical-krummy-asshole-behaviour in my trying-to-deal-with-society's-objectification-of-women! Do they not have some sort of civilian-facing staff who could be doing this, instead of getting the best hackers in the world to waste time doing a job they're not qualified to do?
Raven is stressed because tracy, and krummy goes over to help, but raven takes the first opportunity to talk to literally anyone else. Unfortunately, that means van der geek, who tells her that tracy probably did a murder because she used to be an alcoholic. JUSTICE
for those who are interested in a sweet krummy cosplay, you can get his shirt here.
tracy leaves her motel room. How did she get a motel room? She has no money. Club guy is waiting outside, and follows her in his car after she turns her phone off. Once she's out of the area, he calls the police again to say that he found a murderer!
meanwhile, brody is explaining online dating to DB. Brody refers to the burner phone as kyle's sidepiece phone, and DB clarifies “side piece phone? You're saying that tracy was brody's mistress?” for any square old white dudes who may be watching. Kyle and tracy had been talking for a month, and she had been asking to meet for weeks. They then go over the messages we've already seen, because the episode needed padding. It turns out that kyle had also told tracy he was starting to fall in love with her, and DB goes “without ever meeting?” and brody goes “welcome to the world of online dating.” I mean, like, as someone who has dated online, it's a lot more likely to get unsolicited dick pics than love confessions, but hey, whatever, i've never been on heartmate. Nelson explains how tinder works, and then uses a girl as an example of how the app documents how often you cross paths, without noticing that the app also says she is literally 10 feet away from him. Db tells him to heart her, because apparently it's cool if the whole cybercave is a hotbed of fucking. Db is not into online dating, and tells brody that he's more into waiting for serendipity to strike. Brody asks if serendipity is an app. Get it? Because he's young! And they only know the apps and how to disappoint their elders!
raven is getting interviewed by the detective on tracy's case about how they found the murder weapon in tracy's hotel room, and she gets mad and says tracy was framed. She also lies about brody being in her apartment. Apparently they found tracy's fingerprints all over the crime scene. Raven leaves, and The detective then gets mad at avery and says that she needs to pass the case onto the police, because there's a clear conflict of interest on the cybersquad. We're supposed to think he's the bad guy for this. Avery says that it's clearly a cybercase, because it involves a computer, and that regular cops can't solve it. You know, it might help if there was another cybersquad, because apparently being on the cybersquad means that you will need to help solve cases that are directly related to your coworkers. Then again, I guess another holodeck that they never use would be a big investment.
The csis cyber legal guy tells avery that she needs to get on garth rizzo so he can close the case file, because if garth rizzo gets arrested for non-revenge-porn reasons, that means he can start lobbying for stronger revenge porn laws. That's… that's not how things work. You can still push for somcething to be illegal, even if the guy who does it hasn't done any other crimes. No wonder the legal guy is so chill about everything that happens in the cybercave, he doesn't actually know how laws work.
meanwhile, in the cybercave, we see that the only time that kyle's real phone and his burner phone were in the same place was at his house during the murder. They figure it out by tracking the data points on the heartmate app on both phones, despite the fact that kyle supposedly didn't have heartmate on his real phone. That, and the fact that he types in lowercase on heartmate and using proper grammar with his wife, mean that the phones were used by two different people. They have to prove it with science, though. DB yells “Microbials” and runs the fuck out of that joint.
meanwhile, raven is telling a woman that her photo has been used as revenge porn. “i took that photo years ago,” the woman says, as a photo comes up in which she looks exactly the same, down to having the same makeup and hairstyle. It looks like she took the photo hours ago. Anyway, revenge porn is still bad and raven promises to hack the devices.
db is using everyone's unique face-germs to prove that the burner phone hadn't been used by kyle. “microbials are a new identifier, as unique as fingerprints.” Wait, why can't they just use fingerprints? That's still a thing that exists. Anyway, the germs are different, so the burner phone wasn't kyle. Glad we finally solved that mystery that the viewers have known the answer to since the beginning of the episode. Avery concludes that all the data from the sidepiece phone was all “cyberstaged.” we have a word for that, avery. It's “staged.”
club guy, meanwhile, is calling tracy's mom, pretending to be a detective. He asks where tracy is, and her mom tells him that she sent her a money transfer. What a garth rizzo.
at the cybercave, they're narrowing down who the catfisher was. They refuse to use the word “catfish” for some reason. They use the data from heartmate instead of the regular cell phone location data for some reason. He was following tracy around a bunch, so they triangulate the heartmate connections that aren't with tracy. Avery looks at his fake profile to psychoanalyze him because she hasn't done that in a while. “he chose kyle's photo. A handsome man, because our target has low self-esteem about his own appearance.” or because you don't catfish with ugly people, you dingbat. Some rando drops by a tablet that says kyle didn't do the hack, but that the hack came from a computer at a frame shop. Looks like tracy was FRAMED YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH. nobody makes that joke and it’s upsetting.
at the frame shop, they confirm that the hack was made from the employee computer and that he used a photo of kyle that he had brought in to have framed. They could have compared the schedule that they got from the heartmate matches with the employee schedule and catch their guy, but this episode still has a solid 20 minutes or so.
Wait, why would you catfish with someone who lives in the same town? That's asking for your mark to go up to the person in real life if they see them around and try to start up a conversation. they do realize that, like, there is a whole internet with pictures of pretty people on it, right? Here's my human lie detector analysis- this guy is bad at his crimes.
raven is stressed about rizzo and tracy, and has some emotions like “what if i'm wrong about tracy?” this loses some impact because we know objectively nobody in the cybersquad is ever wrong.
Tracy drops by the convenience store to get the money her mother sent her, but the transfer was cancelled- sorry, cybercancelled. She only has ten dollars in her wallet, and asks how much a sim card is. What a coincidence, it's exactly ten dollars! When she goes out to put the new sim card in her phone, however, club guy puts on a baseball cap and goes to talk to her. Oh, no, he slashed her tires and she has no access to money and he's offering her a ride!
She gets in his car, and he starts getting weird about meeting at the club, so she turns on the phone with the new sim card.
Cut to Brody and Raven, who are hanging around the cybercave. A computer beeps nearby, because they've been tracking tracy's heartmate profile. As raven helpfully explains, heartmate will keep tracking you even if you get a new sim card! Wait, why would she spend her last ten dollars on a new sim card, then? That's not even something that really plays into the narrative. Anyway, Brody goes to call VDG, and raven gives him this look which I guess is supposed to be concern but comes off more as “wait, vdg? Do you want her to fucking die?”
club guy, meanwhile, is getting all weird. “so, how's your boyfriend? Must be nice to have a boyfriend? Someone you can trust? Because he isn't a LYING LYING SLUTFACE? Have you ever heard of the red pill?” luckily, the cops track her down and bring her in and she looks completely freaked despite the fact that, you know, she's at least 10% safer in prison. 20% if VDG isn't allowed in.
tracy gets interrogated by avery. She says she didn't kill kyle, but she doesn't remember anything because she blacked out and she keeps seeing images of his body on the ground and lots of blood, so, like, not the most watertight of cases. Avery tells her she was catfished, without ever using the words “catfished” because we can only use one new term this week and we needed cyberstalking spelled out to us. She pulls up a picture of all the guys who work at the frame show, and tracy points club guy out for us. Turns out his name is holden. She doesn't mention him going all serial killer on her, which I think is a relevant detail in a murder case. Turns out holden was catfishing for weeks to find out that tracy likes amy schumer, tupac, and watching tv in her Pjs. Tracy is completely shocked that a guy on the internet who she has never met and who didn't send any more pictures besides his propic is not who he says he is, because she grew up in an amish community or something, I guess.
avery tells the legal guy that tracy clearly didn't do it. It's clear that she was drugged and holden got a hotel room, took her unconscious body there without anyone noticing, and planted all the evidence! Wait, how did he get the hotel room? Most hotels won't let you use someone else's credit card to check in, and she was out of it. If she even had a credit card- she seemed pretty convinced that the ten dollars was her last. Did he get the room with his own credit card? How did that not come up in the investigation? He then sent the messages from tracy's phone after taking her from the scene, which can be easily verified as false given that heartmate tracked the time she was at kyle's house and presumably also tracks the time messages were sent. But, like, they're not going to do that for some reason. I guess that's giving up.
avery goes to ask nelson and krummy if they have any evidence that tracy didn't do it, and they don't, because she was at kyle's place in the window of his time of death. Avery yells enzymes and runs out with db because talking is for the pre-cyber era.
It turns out that db's got an experimental testing method to test the enzymes of kyle's muscles so that they can determine the exact time of death, and it's proven that tracy didn't do it. Avery then goes to db and is like “wait how experimental is this?” this was your idea, avery!
yay, tracy's free now. Raven comes out as an fbi agent to her, and she's chill about it. Tracy gets a new phone and laptop that are completely hackproof, and they give her a hotel room. Hurray!
meanwhile, van der geek is driving his daughter, michelle, home. He Is a bad enough dad that she asks “why didn't grandpa pick me up from school? Is he okay?” because it's completely unthinkable that vdg could do some gotdang parenting without his dad being dead. Vdg, being a good comforting person, tells her, “yeah, it's cool, he's just asleep.” she asks if they can get ice cream because it's friday and grandpa always got ice cream on fridays. Wait, what? The club night was explicitly on a friday. Then, when tracy met with raven, it was also a friday. The next day was when all the stuff after that happened- we know because VDG told raven that the murder had happened yesterday. And this is the day after that, which means it's sunday. Is michelle trying to trick her dad into getting ice cream? You're gonna be a great cybercriminal someday, kiddo! Hack time itself! Anyway vdg starts crying and michelle comforts him and it's very heartwarming, but we never know if they do get ice cream.
in comes the legal guy, to point out that the enzyme thing isn't going to fly in court. Yeah, if only they had an exact time for all of tracy's movements and proof that the messages were sent from her phone later. Anyway, avery's all “it's not recognized now, but it will be in the future! There's real science to back it up! You know I do things in an unconventional way!” he still gets mad because they let her out on this experimental evidence, instead of the real evidence that exists. Like, I can't stress this enough. There is evidence that, at the very least, she left the area way before sending an “alright i'm walking in the door now” text. That should at least shed some doubt on the story.
tracy is walking down the street, and gets a text on her new hack-proof phone about how she looks good in blue but she should be wearing an orange jumpsuit. Turns out holden found her anyway! She calls raven in distress, and raven is all “that's impossible!”she goes to krummy, who explains that holden was actually tracking raven, and he followed raven into the fbi, and then used a cell catcher to get tracy's number. That sounds wrong but whatever, i'm not a tech guy. He's got a fake heartmate profile by the name of brad, so raven calls tracy up to let her know not to contact anyone named brad and to just stay in the hotel room. I mean, like, tracy, don't pick anyone up on heartmate. Now is not the time. I don't care if you want to show off your swanky hotel room.
tracy is bad at listening. She opens up a new heartmate account by the name of “amy” and tells “brad” she wants to meet for a drink in 20 minutes. Wait, what? Why? Why would you do that? You're under police protection! You don't need that! Holden accepts, because, yeah, he's spent a month tracking this chick and has finally stalked her down to her hotel room, but might as well take a break to buy a shitty margarita for some rando heartmate girl at 3 pm. You've earned it, holden.
Tracy also steals a box cutter from the hotel lobby on her way out, which is fucking rude. Luckily, avery comes in to let them know that tracy never checked into the hotel, and raven opens up all the heartmate users' locations to figure out that tracy made a fake profile.
so they track down holden, which is easy enough and I don't know why they didn't do that earlier. Tracy's plan was to just walk, like, ten feet behind him and then stab him on the street, so raven stops her from stabbing him and holden is under arrest and tracy isn't going to jail for anything, even though she was just about to try and kill a guy despite being pretty much safe from him. Hurray, all the people we're supposed to like are gonna be okay!
Avery says “let's get tracy home” despite the fact that, you know, tracy doesn't actually have a home. Raven asks how avery found her, and it turns out that avery slipped one of db's tracking pacifiers in the pocket of her jeans without her noticing. Has whoever wrote this episode ever worn women's jeans? You're not getting a penny in those shitty pockets without being able to feel it.
in the elevator, avery talks to vdg about his dad and he says he's real sad. Then she goes to talk to db and chides him for doing the enzyme thing, despite the fact that it was her idea. Avery, you're a bad boss. They talk for a bit about how the infamous garth rizzo is still at large, so I guess that the season villain is gonna be a guy who has not yet done any crimes. Then db mentions he keeps getting push notifications on his phone. Turns out brody created a profile for DB on soulmatestop.com, against his express wishes! It's not even a free site, it's just on a free trial period! DB's username is “dollabill” and brody and krummy go “DOLLA BILL YOOOOO” and it's…. this show is bad, guys. They make comments about db's virility and he says he's not comfortable with the situation and the show fades out on this blatant workplace harassment. Catfishing is cool when you're a good guy!
So, the tumblr site crashed the first time I wrote this out, so I had to rewatch the episode to make the commentary again. And you know what? This is a boring-ass episode. No wonder it took me a year to get to it. At least it had some half-decent basic social commentary, wrt entitled dudes. I guess they had to get all the good good social justice shit out there before the next episode, because that's the black lives matter episode and, guys, it's not good. It's a bad time.
question: how would you deal with cyber attacks against the US government?
donald trump: i am so strongly against cyber. we came up with the internet. cyber is a big issue. we need to be SMART and QUICK. let me tell you. my son has a computer. he’s 10! he’s so good on that computer so good you wouldn’t believe it!
well clearly she is qualified on account of the fact that she is one of the five named characters on the show, who else would they get? fuckin' krummy?
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
kaledo-art
germansingergirl
vaporwave
pixelskylines
stormborns
