Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
D.B. Russell arrives from Seattle to lead the Las Vegas lab after the fallout from Ray Langston’s killing of Nate Haskell. Ray has been cleared and moved to Baltimore, while Catherine and Nick adjust to reduced authority under the new supervisor. Morgan Brody also joins from Los Angeles, bringing her strained relationship with her father, Conrad Ecklie, into the workplace. An early emergency puts her aboard a medical helicopter hijacked by its injured passenger.
Catherine’s connection to Laura Gabriel draws her into a case involving stolen military weapons and hired assassins. When she and Russell become targets, they evade the gunmen and use a staged death to help trap Laura’s husband. Catherine then leaves the lab for the FBI. Russell recruits his former colleague Julie Finlay, whose expertise in blood evidence comes with an unsettled professional history between them. Other investigations force the team to work through a blackout and examine a body found in Al Robbins’s wife’s bed.
The finale exposes police corruption behind a triple homicide near the sheriff’s campaign dinner. Evidence initially implicates Jack Gilmore, but he has been framed, and the trail reaches imprisoned former undersheriff Jeffrey McKeen. Ecklie kills an armed suspect who proves to be McKeen’s son. The consequences spill into the investigators’ families: Ecklie is shot while protecting Morgan, and Russell discovers that his granddaughter Kaitlyn has been abducted. Disillusioned by McKeen’s continuing influence, Nick walks away from the job. These threats remain unresolved at the season’s close.