Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
In season 6, Grissom and Catherine reunite their investigators under one night-shift team, while Captain Jim Brass works with Detective Sofia Curtis. A police shooting leaves an officer dead and tensions high in the Latino community; later, a hostage standoff puts Brass in the line of fire. The season also gives Nick room to deal with the trauma of being buried alive: he struggles through the opening cases and later searches for a missing child. Other investigations range from a movie star’s death and a suspected cult mass suicide to a corpse found in a suburban home and a story told through conflicting witnesses’ memories.
The cases keep testing the team’s assumptions. Grissom investigates a psychic’s death, and Sara faces a young girl whose testimony changes the direction of a murder trial. Grissom and Sara trace a headless Civil War reenactor’s death to an accidental shooting, while Catherine and Warrick uncover how a man’s drugs, alcohol and sugary binge contributed to his death. The finale, “Way to Go,” begins with Brass undergoing surgery after he is shot by Willie Cutler. The CSIs continue their cases as they wait, and Brass briefly flatlines after surgery before doctors revive him. He survives and begins recovering with the team around him.
Brass’s estranged daughter Ellie visits, but the crisis does not repair their relationship. She leaves the hospital upset after seeing her father, even as the CSIs remain by his side. In the final scene, Grissom speaks privately with Sara about death; Sara tells him she is not ready to say goodbye. Both are wearing bathrobes in the same bedroom, revealing that their relationship has become romantic.