csi: crime scene investigation
leapin’ lizards (22/24)

The successful Las Vegas-based forensics drama continues its seventh season. This week, the disappearance of a casino employee leads the police to uncover a UFO cult that believes reptilian aliens are taking over the world.

On a dusty ranch in the desert, heavily-armed SWAT police have a suspect surrounded. Holed up in his farmhouse, the man engages the police in a shootout before finally turning a gun on himself. The dead man is Hank Connors, and the police believe he may have been involved in the disappearance of casino card dealer China De Vere one week before. Connors was in a UFO club with China’s husband Preston, who is also missing. The CSIs begin a sweep of the ranch and soon make a gruesome discovery in the barn: China’s head is mounted to the wall like the head of a stuffed animal.

A subsequent search of Connor’s house reveals a wealth of information on the UFO cult. Grissom dusts off a film of the group’s leader outlining his belief that reptilian aliens are trying to conquer the planet. The cult’s propaganda claims that the aliens can only be killed by having their heads severed with a sword – as with China De Vere. “So Connors cut off her head because he thought she was a serpent from outer space?” Sara asks. Meanwhile, Nick finds bones from the rest of China’s body in the pigsty and backyard.

Suspicion now falls on Connor’s friend Shannon Turner (Ally Sheedy, ‘The Breakfast Club’), who initially claims not to know China De Vere. She bites Greg’s hand when he tries to take DNA from her, but further incriminating evidence surfaces when Catherine discovers a sword in Shannon’s house and a mug bearing a photo of Shannon with China’s husband Preston. Prints from the sword match those of Shannon, while lab tech Archie discovers CCTV footage of her in the casino, playing cards at China’s table and making friends with her. “I think she was gaining her trust – stalking her,” Sara says.

Brass draws the pieces together and lays them before Shannon: “You killed China and you got Connors to help you move the body,” he says. Brass also tells her his theory about what happened to the missing Preston: “Connors killed Preston because he was obsessed with you and he wanted to eliminate the competition,” he says. But Shannon insists that Preston cannot be killed and is in fact over 4,000 years old: “Preston is a great man,” she says. “He has the wisdom of the ages.” Shannon reveals that China was a dangerous reptile and, as a self-styled “Protector of Mankind”, she was obliged to kill her.

But what appears to be a closed case takes a sharp turn when Brass answers a call from a sheriff who has found a naked man wandering the desert. The man is none other than Preston De Vere, who says that he was abducted by aliens: “I was a captive, held against my will,” he says. Preston claims not to know that his wife is dead, and says that he was with another member of the UFO cult on the night in question. Brass knows that Preston and Shannon were close, but can he prove that they killed China together? In order to expose the manipulative Preston, Brass and Grissom visit a meeting of the UFO cult. But the cult’s members believe that the police are alien lizards, and refuse to talk to them...