It’s time to head back to Sin City with CSI: Vegas season 3. The season premiere, titled “The Reaper,” starts off with a flashback to the end of season 2 to help everyone get caught up.
Josh (Matt Lauria) is in the back of Serena’s (Ariana Guerra) car and Maxine (Paula Newsome) isn’t ready for him to go into processing for the murder of the man who murdered his mother. She says the DNA under his mom’s nails matches Kahn’s (Shane Callahan). Josh doesn’t know what to say other than he probably shouldn’t say anything.
Beau (Lex Medlin) and Chris (Jay Lee) are looking at the crime scene trying to figure out whether Josh put the body inside. Penny (Sarah Gilman) says it’s not a choice, it’s their job. Chris marvels that he took a day off and all hell broke loose. Penny explains that a dancer found Kahn’s body, and that he was working with the dealers that Josh’s mom was working with. They decide they need to take the dumpster back to the lab to find evidence to help Josh.
Back at the lab, Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) says it’s good to see Serena full of fire and hopes she can get some answers to help Josh. Bobby (Reggie Lee) shows up and says this is the kind of day when he wishes he turned the sheriff job down. He has to admonish the team because of Josh’s involvement and Max is insulted when he gives her a copy of the manual. Catherine is furious when Bobby says he’s holding a press conference and wants Max beside him. He informs them that the press is going to find out that Josh got Trey (Daniel di Tomasso) out of jail.
In fact, speaking of Trey, he’s on a mission. Raphael Tarquenio (Benito Martinez) is waiting for his Maserati at the valet and he’s about to murder the valet attendant when Trey drives by with the Maserati on a flatbed tow truck.
Allie (Mandeep Dhillon) visits Josh in jail. She knows Josh didn’t do the things he’s being accused of, and she thinks Trey’s behind it. Or maybe it’s Kahn’s people. She wants to know where Trey is.
As it happens, Trey is rigging the car he stole to drive into a building. He looks on with satisfaction when it explodes.
Penny tells Allie she’d never crash a $200k car into a yogurt shop. Serena says Trey has gone rogue and he’s trying to get back at the boss who killed Josh’s mom. She starts to issue orders but Max reminds her that she’s overseeing the cases that are tied to Josh. Beau calls Max into the back of the yogurt shop, revealing that there’s a whole drug shop in the back and he wonders if Tarquenio’s name is on the paperwork. Max says it won’t be that easy to pin it on him but it gives them a start. Allie tells Beau to go back to the hangar to see if they can find a link.
A case of misdirection
Catherine and Beau scrub the hangar looking for fingerprints, but Tarquenio isn’t careless. Their blue light is picking up where Kahn may have bled out…only Max finds out from the coroners that he didn’t die of blood loss. The cuts were torture related. She wants to know what they find when they finish.
Chris feels an engagement ring under her glove. She says she’s been on five dates and she really likes him. He promises to keep her secret safe. Allie arrives and says Max had the idea to use Kahn’s clothes and the dumpster to figure out what came from the dumpster and what didn’t. They find dozens of stains on the clothes so that gives them a direction.
Catherine gets a search warrant for the Tarquenio house and he greets her with snide familiarity. She shows him the warrant and he says he was the victim of a crime. As they search the house, Beau finds a bunch of bleach which could have been used at the hangar. They try to get information from Tarquenio’s nephew, Zach (Alan Pontes), but he’s very nervous. Tarquenio wants answers.
Trey leaves a message for someone, saying that Tarquenio has people looking for him. As he finishes the message, he realizes they’ve already found him. He drives away and finds an alley between casinos. Serena pulls up behind him and says she just wants answers. She asks if Josh belongs in jail. He says she’s right but doesn’t think the cops will believe him. He calls Josh family, but is that true?
Catherine tells Max that Trey turned himself in, but there’s a problem. Josh says Trey didn’t do it. Trey stopped him from killing Kahn. Detective Carson (Sean Alexander James) wants to hear the truth and Max suggests that Josh gets a lawyer.
The coroners determine that Kahn died from a torture-induced stroke, which means he wasn’t directly murdered. Allie wonders if someone left the box cutter to throw them off the case. Penny and Chris give Allie a rundown of the stains on the jacket. So far nothing matches the dumpster, so he was probably murdered somewhere else. She suggests they use all the tools, no matter how long it takes.
Bobby visits Max to see what the delay is with her report. Max says the report will have all the facts when she hands it over. He says there’s a new development, which takes them to Tarquenio’s house. He shows them a video (in the presence of his attorney) that shows Josh and Trey with Kahn. he wants to know how long it will be until the criminals are charged. Bobby assures him it will happen “today.”
Serena visits Josh and tells him they took her off the case. She says he’s being arraigned and she understands he’s trying to protect Trey but he needs to wake up. She begs him to tell her what happened. When he reveals he went to Red Rock, she realizes he didn’t have time to be at the murder scene. She presents this evidence to Max, but she needs more proof. Max is still trying to figure out how Kahn’s shoulders were dislocated. She thinks Kahn dislocated his own shoulders by writhing in pain, and if they can figure it out then they can figure out who killed him.
One hot pepper
Max tells Allie that Josh has been charged. She gives Max the details of the stains, and one alcohol stain stands out. Beau says that the chemicals from Tarquenio’s kitchen don’t match the stains. Allie visits Chris and Penny, whose eyes are all watering. Penny finds a pepper from one of the hottest peppers around, and they realize this could be the key.
Back at the lab, they cook some peppers and Chris dabs some on his tongue because he doubted the process. It’s a neurotoxin. Allie thinks they used the cooked pepper juice to kill him, and they go to the body and find that Kahn was injected with the juice. So who did it?
They found a pepper stem at Tarquenio’s house and Catherine recalls seeing Raphael eating peppers. They raid the house looking for pepper juice. They also find the chair where Kahn died.
Josh is being discharged when he realizes a photo of his mother is missing. Max is there and Josh thanks her for believing in him. She says she’s disappointed and she doesn’t know if he’ll be able to keep his job. Outside, Josh sees Trey being led into the station. Josh says Trey was there when he needed him, though Trey says he didn’t do it for Josh. As he’s being led inside, Trey says he never forgot Josh was family.
Max praises Allie’s leadership and enjoyed her use of partners. Catherine interrupts and says she got a call from Tarquenio. They go to the roof and Tarquenio shows up with his nephew, who says he didn’t mean to kill Kahn but things got out of hand. Tarquenio says he didn’t know what happened.
Max hopes Josh doesn’t freak out when he learns Rahpael got away. She frowns in concern when Catherine tells Raphael she’ll “see him real soon.”
CSI: Vegas season 3 airs Sundays at 10 pm ET/PT on CBS, with new episodes available to stream the following day on Paramount Plus.
