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What is your opinion on Sam Braun? I think Catherine should have cut him off completely.

speaking from an outside-of-the-universe-of-the-show perspective, i actually enjoy catherine and sam's interactions a lot.

i like that their relationship is complicated and messy, with catherine feeling, on the one hand, loyal to sam because he is her father but, on the other hand, disgusted by him because he is a murderer.

the way that their relationship plays out seems real to me. for example, i fully believe that part of catherine always sensed, even before she knew for sure, that sam was her biological father. i also fully believe that even though sam never claimed catherine or married her mother, he did realize she was his kid and looked out for her throughout her life (see episode 07x09 "living legend"). the implied depth of their relationship is there, as far as i’m concerned; catherine and sam read like two people who have known each other for catherine's whole life and who have a lot of different emotional threads tangled up between them.

even outside of the narrative itself, on an acting level, marg helgenberger and scott wilson play off of each other well; scenes like the ones where sam forces catherine to beg him for nicky's ransom money in episode 05x25 "grave danger" pt. ii and where catherine calls sam a "thug in thousand-dollar shoes"—great line, by the way—and he slaps her across the face in episode 07x02 "built to kill" pt. ii are especially electric.

the writers get a lot of good mileage using sam’s criminality as a narrative conflict for catherine to face. having to navigate between her personal relationship with her father and her professional integrity thrusts catherine into moral hard places, forcing her to make difficult decisions in both her professional life and her personal one (and particularly when sam is actively dating her mother).

and that’s just the crux of good writing: presenting your character with an impossible choice and not allowing her to avoid choosing.

when it comes down to it, catherine doesn’t always do the right thing where sam is concerned—she tests his dna; she cashes his check; she takes his ransom money; she continues to have a relationship with him even after she knows with some certainty that he is a killer.

and that’s just plain interesting.

given that catherine is a character who doesn’t have many long-term romances (and especially not ones that are given a lot of screen time over the course of the series), her father-daughter relationship with sam turns out to be one of her most prominent and dynamic relationships on the show.

so, all in all, i’m a fan.

but that’s speaking from an outside-of-the-universe-of-the-show perspective.

inside of the universe of the show, sam is bad news, and catherine would absolutely be better off if she cut him out of her life.

not only is he a bad guy in the sense that he occasionally kills people who cross him (or at least pays other people to do so), but he is also bad for catherine personally, in that he frequently puts her in positions that compromise her career, at times emotionally manipulates her, and even gets physically abusive with her once in a while.

while he does gift her a lot of money (enough so that she can, as a single mother, afford to send lindsey to a posh private school come s3), just being connected to him places both her and lindsey in danger, making them targets for his enemies (as is the case in s7 in episodes 07x01 and 07x02 “built to kill” pts. i and ii).

though i don’t doubt that sam does, in his own way, love catherine, he also is a selfish enough person that he can’t seem to place her well-being above his own; he is willing to let her (and lindsey) get hurt if it suits him, and he isn’t ever particularly apologetic when catherine gets caught in the crosshairs of his business dealings. to him, it’s all just the price of running the town.

from a character perspective, i can understand why catherine has a difficult time severing ties with sam, even after some of their more unpleasant encounters, as he does in many ways provide for her and there is a genuine emotional connection between them.

however, i also know that if i were catherine’s friend and she asked me what i thought of sam and her relationship with him, i’d tell her that i didn’t like the way he treated her and that she would do well to steer clear of him—which are things i think that catherine already knows for herself on a logical level but which she might not be able to reconcile with emotionally.

had sam not died suddenly at the start of s7, who knows how long catherine might have continued to maintain her relationship with him or if she ever would have reached a point when she said, “you know what? i’m done giving you second chances. you’ve killed enough people, and i’m out”?

anyway.

that’s my take.

thank you for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: catherine #csi #catherine willows #sam braun #abuse cw #let's talk shop #fcebl #csiverse

CSI Challenge Part 2

Day 26: other pairings you ship

#csichallenge #CSI #CSI CBS #Morgan Brody #Greg Sanders #Sofia Curtis #Jim Brass #Sara Sidle #Nick Stokes #Lily Flynn #Sam Braun #Wendy Simms #David Hodges #Tina Brewster #Warrick Brown #csichallenge2 #day 26 #nadine050198

[Outside, Sam and Nolan have a heated exchange.]

#solstice legacy #sam braun #nolan chase #ts4 story #ts4 legacy #ts4 gameplay #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 story

Sam : Okay. I get it. You've had a really hard time lately, you're stressed out, a few people died... Cath : Twelve, actually. Sam : Not the point. They're all dead now and who's fault was that? Cath : Yours! Sam : That's right, no one's.

#CSI #Catherine Willows #Sam Braun #Cath x Sam #Text