Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Ray Langston begins the season fighting to survive Nate Haskell’s stabbing, while Catherine’s team deals with a bombing at a police funeral. Their work also brings them into a house containing multiple hidden bodies, a death linked to fracking and a case involving a corpse that wakes in the morgue. Sara’s investigation at a college for deaf students brings her into contact with Grissom’s mother, making her marriage part of the case’s personal complications.
Haskell’s trial brings Ray face to face with his attacker again. At the same time, Nick receives a warning about explosives, and he, Catherine and Vartann become trapped in a booby-trapped warehouse. The threat leads back to Jason McCann, who dies in a confrontation with police. Haskell is convicted but escapes custody with help from his female admirers. He subsequently targets Ray’s former wife Gloria, drawing the investigators to Los Angeles and pulling Ray outside the limits of an authorized investigation.
The pursuit ends at Haskell’s childhood home. Ray overpowers him and restrains his wrists, but after further taunting about Gloria, cuts the restraints off and throws him over a banister. Haskell dies from the fall. The team reconstructs the violence, finding evidence that challenges a straightforward claim of self-defense. Brass has altered the scene, and Catherine suspects he also replaced the missing restraints in Ray’s kit. Her report nevertheless supports self-defense. The season ends with Internal Affairs asking Ray whether he defended himself or committed murder; his answer is not shown.