Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
The second season follows Grissom’s Las Vegas night shift after Holly Gribbs’s death reshapes the lab. The team investigates casino heir Tony Braun’s murder, a missing university student, a scuba diver lodged in a tree and a body found at a spa. Catherine and Sara work together on a train death and a remote desert homicide, while Nick is stalked. Warrick gets his first chance to supervise the team, and Captain Brass learns his daughter Ellie may be tied to a killing.
Grissom again faces serial killer Paul Millander, while Catherine’s past as a casino dancer becomes part of “The Finger.” In “Cross-Jurisdictions,” retired police chief Duke Rittle is murdered and his wife and daughter go missing. Catherine and Warrick travel to Miami, where Sasha is found alive but her mother Mina is found dead in a submerged car. Evidence leads the teams to kidnapper Gordon Daimler, whom Horatio Caine helps stop at the airport.
The season finale, “The Hunger Artist,” returns to Las Vegas: model Ashleigh James is found dead in a shopping cart, and suspicion falls on her homeless sister Cassie. The CSIs discover Ashleigh’s facial injuries were self-inflicted as she struggled with body dysmorphia and purging; infection and kidney failure killed her. Cassie had found her and placed the body beneath Ashleigh’s billboard. The case distinguishes the sister who moved the body from the illness that caused Ashleigh’s death. Away from the case, Grissom’s hearing deteriorates until ordinary street sounds become muffled.