SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read on if you happen to haven’t watched “Tunnel Vision,” the ultimate episode of “CSI: Vegas” that aired on Sunday, May 19.
“Things are about to go kaboom.” That’s what Beau (Lex Medlin) says on Friday night’s series finale of “CSI: Vegas” as he prepares to detonate a series of bombs. But he could be describing everyone’s minds, because the show’s characters discover midway through the episode (“Tunnel Vision”) that they’ve been chasing the incorrect villain all season.
With Max (Paula Newsome) kidnapped and Chris (Jay Lee) injured by some type of nerve agent and within the hospital, the “CSI” team continues to position the blame on tech billionaire Truman Thomas (Owain Yeoman) — until they find his dead body. (Says one character, who discovers Thomas had been injecting himself with de-aging synthetic stem cells: “If he desired to live ceaselessly, my guy must have worn a bullet-proof vest.” LOL, truth! Those crazy tech billionaires, amirite?)
It’s actually a completely different villainous group that has taken Max through the 600 miles of flood channels that lie beneath Las Vegas. In a secret lab, they force her to create higher DNA encryption after she reveals theirs was “sloppy.”
And who’s “they”? Why, rogue Saudi spies, in fact. Faran Tahir plays the actual baddie of the season, a personality that had infiltrated Truman’s AI robot and DNA hacking lab.
Says one character, helpfully filling within the plot details: “The bureau has been warning us for years that foreign governments are infiltrating U.S. firms and stealing tech.”
Seems the Saudis were nestled inside Truman’s Mojave Kinematic Designs facility to grab his proprietary DNA synthesis research and borderline sentient robots. But when Max began snooping around Truman’s work, the Saudis needed to “tie up their loose ends. They killed everyone involved, hacked our lab, erased every file within the case.”
And ultimately, it wasn’t Truman in charge for the deaths of Cliff Roland, Valerie Hammond and Robert Cuevas. How smart were the bad guys? That they had bugged all of the robots, so our crack “CSI” team — which had one sitting of their office — were under surveillance your entire time.
“They didn’t must die,” Tahir’s character says to Max. “But you wouldn’t stop digging into Truman. You wanted it to be an smug billionaire, so I gift wrapped him for you. At the very least, I attempted.”
Paula Newsome as Maxine Roby and Faran Tahir as Gray Suit. (Sonja Flemming/CBS)
CBS
With private airplanes grounded in Vegas, the Saudis nonetheless prepared their escape. And like several good bad guy, Tahir’s character (did he have a reputation? Possibly? Within the photo credit above, he is named “Gray Suit.” At the very least give our bad guy the respect of a reputation!) made sure to spell out his plan to Max before attempting to kill her. “Truman’s dream of getting AI-powered robots fix all our genetic flaws could be pure fantasy. But as you’ve seen, his tech could be very real.”
His plan? “To indicate my superiors how useful synthetic DNA may be. Military op, forensics obfuscation. The chances are exciting.”
Excellent news: Max manages to distract our bad guy and get out of the best way of his gun — just in time for Josh (Matt Lauria) and Serena (Ariana Guerra) to avoid wasting the day.
Cleansing up some loose ends, Josh has worked to regain Max’s trust, and see rewards him by reinstating him back to Level 3. “I’m back?” he says. “You never left,” she replies. Later, Matt and Allie (Mandeep Dhillion) share a young moment as he shares the news about his restored job (as Serena looks on). Looks just like the “will they” of the “will they/won’t they” is winning out!
So hey, looks like things are type of tied up nicely, right?
(Well, not quite. In an earlier version of this story, we mentioned that the episode, the season and the series ends with what appears to be a mysterious murder. But that was within the early screener we saw — it didn’t actually make the ultimate cut.)
But that’s it for “CSI: Vegas!” Hope you don’t have any more murders, Vegas!
