Keep It Real - Recap

A beautiful blond girl stands on a stage. Singing the Ramones at the top of her lungs and strumming her guitar. Her band stands behind her while blue and white lights flash by. Her fingers move fluidly along her strings as she sings right to Michael, standing in the crowd. His smile is noticeable. His eyes are locked, staring directly into hers. Josh, Michael’s roommate and best friend approaches Michael in the crowd with their beers. Josh hands Michael his beer and comments on Miranda, who is still singing the Ramones. He tells Michael that there are a lot of people there watching her but, she only has eyes for him. He continues to smile and she continues to sing, her fist in the air and her other gripping a Shiny brown Gibson guitar. She pumps her fist into the air again. “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!” She winks at Michael. “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!!!”

Michael is now lying on the floor of his apartment, dead. Money fallen, around him. In a pool of dried blood. His flannel button down shirt; open with no shirt on under it. Miranda stands in the hallway, crying. Lindsey walks onto the crime scene. She lifts the caution tape and walks up behind her husband, they have a laugh together and the opening music begins to roar.

Pictures of Michael’s corpse are taken at the scene. Pictures of Michael lying, pale, still. Money tossed around him. His bruised arm. He and Josh’s broken apartment window. The pool of blood, dried into the dark brown hard wood floors and the money. The elevator opens and a pair of shiny black shoes step out and begin walking down the hallway, each heel clicking on the vinyl with every step. Another pair of shiny black shoes begin to walk with the original and a voice from above welcomes Mac back. Mac tells Sgt. Messer his retirement papers have been sent back. Miranda (The blond girl singing) is now being interviewed; Still in Michael’s apartment. Miranda is still crying. She has no idea what happened. She heard the gunshots and went out to Michael to hold his hand. She is in shock, disbelief. Josh, Michael’s roommate was not there at the time and no-where to be found. Mac while examining Michael’s body finds defensive bruising on his arms. When he flips him over he finds what he believes is a bullet entrance wound. The wound; like a perfect quarter sized cross. Etched into Michaels flesh, covered by spattered dried blood. Mac assumes Michael had struggled with his attacker, was thrown to the ground and shot at close range in the back. With money still strewn about Robbery is ruled out as a motive.

Flashback to Michael and Josh standing in a record store; talking about the “First Punk Band.” Their discussion is overheard by Miranda who was there looking at guitars. and she corrects both of them. Michael obviously likes Miranda a lot, he turns to Josh, and agrees with Miranda. Josh shrugs it off and Miranda walks out of the store staring at Michael the entire time. Mac asks Miranda a few more questions and we flash again to Miranda standing in a room, Michael walks in with the guitar Miranda had her eyes on. He gives it to her. In disbelief she kisses him and the scene fades into Miranda is still answering Mac’s questions. Mac goes back to the lab and is informed that the entrance wound was really and exit wound. Michael was shot in the front after a struggle, he must have fought his attacker and fallen on the ground on his back, he must have been shot from the front. Also there was some sort of unexplainable reptile skin found on Michaels’ clothes. While interviewing Miranda at the police station Lindsey finds out that the broken window was caused by Miranda kicking it in. Michael had left his keys at the club. With no other way in Miranda opened the hallway window climbed out onto the fire escape and shimmied over to Michael’s apartment window and kicked it in. Miranda had no reason for not informing the police of this in the first place. She had liked Michael a lot and felt as if her father would approve of him, she was distraught and for some reason she didn’t inform them. Josh is still no-where to be found.

Meanwhile back in the lab Lindsey is dusting the evidence for finger prints, she finds something odd about the money, and the ink seems to run right off. After a few tests and a $5 dollar bill from Mac they discover that the money around Michael’s dead body was counterfeit. A motive begins to surface. Whoever the real killer was, must have known the money was fake. The real reason for Michaels murder was counterfeit cash. Meanwhile Josh still cannot be found, Mac has the secret service looking for the counterfeit money. Flashing back to Miranda’s interrogation; she had mentioned Josh was staying at a friends’ house and she did not know who that friend was. The CSI team decides to start checking out the places that Michael had spent the fake money. The only place they knew of was the record shop where Miranda, Michael and Josh had first interacted. Michael had bought the guitar from there for Miranda. He had used some of the counterfeit money to make his purchase. When interviewing the record store owner they notice his manicured nails. They explained the reptile skin found on Michaels dead body. He also admitted he deposited some of the money that Michael had used to pay him. He did not have any idea he was depositing fake money. But he was very confident in his story…Overconfident. The team begins to piece the evidence together, The reptile skin found on the body was actually jailhouse nail polish, the only traceable money was from Randy’s Record Store; and a gun dealer that Josh had gone to right after Michael was murdered. Josh was not hiding from the police he was running from the person who had killed Michael.

We go to Randy’s Record Store, where Randy is finishing up with a customer. He takes the money and wishes the customer a good night. He then puts the $20 dollar bill that the customer had given him up to the light and comments on it. “You can never be too sure”. He places the money in his cash drawer. After a moment Randy’s shop door chimes and he looks up, Josh is standing there with a gun drawn. Pointing it at Randy, Josh states that there “is a problem!” Flashback to Michael, in his apartment. Randy, standing in front of him. Holding him against the wall. Randy has a gun to Michael and explains to him that; His bookie whom he owes money to, beat him up because he tried to give them fake money. He tells Michael to call Josh and get him his money. Michael calls Josh and warns him. Josh listening on his own cell phone, is only able to hear a struggle and a gun shot. Then Michaels phone goes dead.

Randy is still standing at his store counter, with his hands up. He tries to talk to Josh, he tries to calm him down. But Josh knows that Randy had killed his best friend. Randy continues to talk, telling Josh he didn’t want to kill him. It was an accident, he didn’t even have his hand on the trigger. Josh doesn’t care, he wants to avenge his best friend. Randy grabs the gun he has taped to his counter and points it at Josh. Just as Josh is about to pull the trigger Mac opens the Record stores’ door. His own gun drawn he tells both men to put their guns down. Randy reluctantly does, while Josh still has his aimed right at Randy’s heart. Mac repeats his order for the men to lower their weapons. Josh slowly puts his hands over his head and Mac arrests him.

As Randy is being arrested the gun is taken from him and assumed that it is the murder weapon. Both men are arrested. Back in Mac’s office, Mac reaches into a box and gently lifts a service plaque out. He places the plaque on a shelf in his office, signifying that he is back to stay. Welcome back Mac.

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