Goodbye & Good Luck Sara Sidle
Last night Sara Sidle, and Jorja, said goodbye to Gil Grissom and CSI in a tear inducing episode, properly titled ‘Goodbye & Good Luck‘.
Note: This post will contain spoilers for the episode. If you do not want to be spoiled then do not read until you have seen the actual episode.
Over the past couple of weeks we saw Sara withdrawing from her job as a CSI, getting more emotional about certain cases, even going as far as telling Greg she is “tired of dealing with death every day“.
In last night’s episode Sara and Ronnie are called in to investigate a wrecked up house with blood on the floor but no bodies. When one of the bodies does show up, alive and well but with a knife sticking in her back, you can see the pain written over Sara’s face at the revelation that this might be an abusive relationship.
The husband returns and first shows concern but becomes increasingly upset thinking that his wife called the cops and attacks her; Sara is frozen to the spot and watches as the cop and medic take down the husband and Ronnie pulls back the wife, no doubt flashing back to her own childhood.
Sara tells Ronnie to ‘finish it up’, but Ronnie asks her how they should handle this and if there’s something they can do she answers that they’ll “be back for her body next month, or his, or both.” That they can not do anything about it and Ronnie shouldn’t think they can.
Visitors from the past
When Sara is walking through the lab, Mandy walks up to her saying she has something for her regarding the case Nick and Catherine are working on. One of the fingerprints matches in AFIS: Marlon West; whom we all remember from season 6’s ‘The Unusual Suspect’ where he was on trial for the murder of one of his fellow classmates but gets bailed out by prodigy child Hannah West, his sister.
Briefing Grissom and Catherine about this new development, Sara requests to take over the case, Grissom says yes, but Catherine supervises. As the investigation goes on Sara becomes more convinced that this time around Hannah did kill the victim.
Hannah however is ahead of the game and is playing mind tricks on Sara during the interview, having caught on early that something was off about the CSI and after some research found out what happened in last season’s finale and this season’s opener. Sara becomes frustrated with Hannah’s taunts and slams down her hands on the table, ordering Hannah to “stop playing games with me.” Hannah retorts that Sara is the one who is playing the games.
As the investigation goes on, Marlon admits to putting date rape drug GHB in a lubricant to teach the victim a lesson, but keeps with the story that he did not kill her. Sara believes him and tells him that it is Hannah. Marlon admits that Hannah was even weirder after their parents’ death, but is still wondering why Hannah would do such a thing.
When Marlon is in a cell, Hannah meets with her brother at his request, she never out admits that she killed the girl, but tells him that she does everything because she loves him. Marlon hangs himself in his cell after Hannah leaves.
When Sara goes to confront Hannah about it, she thinks Sara is playing a sick joke until Hannah sees a picture. Hannah breaks down, yelling that it is all a lie. She grabs Sara, pulling them both to the ground, sobbing that Marlon can’t leave her. Sara, visibly upset and close to tears herself, does not know how to react, but is shown putting her hand on Hannah’s shoulder as the scene ends.
Following that, Sara walks through the lab right up to Grissom, kisses him silently and walks away. In the locker room Sara cuts the name tag off her vest and replaces it with a piece of tape that reads ‘Good Luck’ on it and hangs it in Ronnie’s locker. She then throws her own name tag away and leaves.
The episode concludes with Grissom, who finally realized that the kiss was a goodbye kiss, reading a letter from Sara, explaining that she hasn’t been feeling well and that she is tired. That since her father died she has been living with ghosts and that is time to bury them. And despite her fighting to stay, she can’t do that in Las Vegas and is leaving; afraid that if she doesn’t, she will selfs destruct, and worse, he would be around to see it.
Thoughts
This is the first time I have been happy, of some sorts, with how a character was written out. It was a bittersweet goodbye; Jorja is no longer part of the regular cast, but Sara’s exit was handled, in my eyes, properly. It fitted the storyline and the character background.
I did a double take, followed by a loud ‘Yes!’, when I saw Marlon West’s picture flash up. I was hoping that some day we would have Hannah (and Marlon) back on the show; “the one that got away” as Grissom put it.
Sara’s pain is perfectly handled by Jorja Fox with subtle looks and at times emotional detachment (when she tells Ronnie that they can’t do anything for the abused woman).
Props go out to Jorja and Juliette Goglia who were absolutely amazing in their scenes together; from Sara’s inner conflict to Hannah’s slow realization that she now truly has lost everything. You can’t help feeling sorry for the girl despite the things she has done.
Juliette, who reminds me of Dakota Fanning, is brilliant throughout the episode and her chemistry with Jorja is a thing of beauty.
Despite the, for me, high yuck factor, Sara kissing Grissom goodbye fitted with the character and plot of having Grissom realize to late that Sara was saying goodbye and then not being able to catch up with her.
Will CSI suffer from Fox’s departure?
In my opinion no. Sure a cast that has chemistry is a something every show should have and a character departure can have devastating results; when Ally Walker left Profiler, the show went down hill. That entire show thrived character chemistry. The writing was good, I will give it that, but the interaction between Sam and the rest of the characters was part of what made this show.
CSI however is story-driven, not character-driven. Yes, Jorja brought a heart to the show, one I have not felt for any of the other characters (except for Catherine and her daughter) and she well be missed, but if the writing stays strong, the show should not have anything to fear.
Now what?
As written in Angelique’s post, it was Jorja’s own decision to leave CSI and official sources are already saying that it will definitely not be Sara’s last appearance on the show.
I would certainly love seeing guest appearances from Sara to see what she has been up to in her little ‘away time’ and if she was able to bury her ghosts.
Tags: CSI, Jorja Fox, sara sidle
