#07x13

hey, @musicallover33​!

so i know that in the break room scene near the end of episode 07x13 “redrum,” it seems as if sara is directing a lot of hostility at keppler specifically, but, honestly, for as angry as sara is about the whole situation, i don’t think that her anger is ever really for him on an individual level.

certainly, she never really gets close to the guy and probably doesn’t have a very high opinion of him overall.

for one thing, his vibe just seems to give her the creeps.

for another thing, he unwittingly shit-talks grissom in her presence in episode 07x14 “meet market,” which doesn’t win him any points with her.

for yet another thing, he does some pretty shady things that ultimately cause a lot of trouble for the department, which, again, is not a way into her good graces.

and, of course, the reverse forensics issue is the kicker, on top of everything else.

even so, for as much as she might not relish working with keppler or have a lot of respect for the way he goes about his job, i don’t think sara really considers any of that stuff personal.

sara and keppler only ever interact on a professional level, and their interactions even on that front are so limited that she is seemingly able to rationalize his role in the reverse forensics operation ex post facto. 

after all, keppler doesn’t really know her or the rest of the team, so in a way he can be forgiven for not trusting them to keep quiet about the investigation; to him, sara, nick, warrick, and greg are all potential liabilities, so it makes sense that he would try to keep them out of the loop.

while sara would have preferred he be honest with them, she gets why he might not want to be. as a secret-keeper herself, she understands on a logical level that it’s generally best to limit how many people are “in the know” regarding sensitive information—there’s some merit to the old saying: “three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead”—so for as much as she might not like how everything goes down, i don’t believe she takes exception to keppler’s actions in an emotional way.

she disagrees with how keppler runs things, and she’s angry about his attempts to dupe her and the boys, but the truth is that betrayal can only really come from one’s friends, and he’s never actually her friend.

so she’s pissed at him for being unethical, but she’s not hurt. 

—and especially not because he doesn’t really live long enough after the fact for her to have to truly reckon with him one way or another.

in the end, he’s a weird dude she works with for a few weeks. he’s party to withholding some important information from her, but it isn’t a personal thing on either side; it’s strictly business.

however, with catherine, it’s a completely different story.

in her case, there are definitely hurt feelings involved on sara’s side, and it is a personal thing.

whereas sara is able to give keppler a pass because he doesn’t know her or the rest of the team, catherine does know them—and, in sara’s opinion, that means she should know better than to keep them in the dark.

to sara, while it makes sense that keppler would raise the suggestion that they play the operation close to their chests, it doesn’t make sense that catherine would go along with it.

while sara gets that it’s generally true that secrets become harder to keep as more people learn them, she also feels like that principle doesn’t apply in this particular instance and that catherine could have trusted the team to be discreet. 

of course, the matter of how much catherine acts of her own volition in this case is open to debate. 

on the one hand, once keppler initially floats the idea to stage the operation, undersheriff mckeen essentially orders catherine and brass to take part in it (whether they want to or not) and tells them to swallow whatever qualms they have about lying to their coworkers in order to make the sting a success. 

on the other hand, mckeen never specifies that catherine has to lie to sara, nick, warrick, and greg in particular (just “coworkers” more generally, which could be interpreted to mean only the lab techs and/or uniformed police called to the scene), and catherine does make the active choice to continue lying to her guys even after they start to display visible suspicion regarding the holstein case.

either way, whether we as viewers think catherine is entirely culpable for her own actions here or not, sara most likely doesn’t know about the mckeen angle; in her view, catherine alone is responsible for making this decision.

brass gets more of a pass in her books because he’s not in charge of making decisions for the team in the same way catherine is. 

in sara’s view, catherine should have stuck up for the team. she should have responded to keppler’s suggestion by telling him, “no, my guys are good. they can keep a secret. if we let them help us with this, they’ll make sure it’s done right.”

that she didn’t advocate for them (at least insofar as sara knows) is a slap in the face, as sara sees things; not only does it indicate a lack of trust in them, but it also indicates a lack of respect for them, as well. 

after so many years working together and all that the team has gone through as a unit, catherine owes them her discretion, in sara’s opinion; she should have trusted the people who’d been having her back for over seven years as opposed to the rando she met literally one week earlier.

sara probably can’t help but think, with some bitterness: if he were present and running the shift, grissom would have trusted the team. he wouldn’t have lied to them.

—and, honestly, that’s where sara’s hostile remarks in the break room scene come in.

“if i have something to say to you, catherine, i'm gonna say it in private,” she bristles in response to catherine soliciting her opinion on the matter. she then glances at keppler and adds a quick, brusque, “no offense.”

while her speech act specifically excludes keppler, make no mistake: the act itself (and the hostility behind it) is aimed at catherine.

it’s her way of indicating that keppler doesn’t get to be part of these kinds of personal conversations—that he isn’t part of the team family, whereas catherine is, which is something catherine should have remembered before she decided to stonewall and mislead everyone.

sara is essentially telling catherine, “were this situation reversed, we would have trusted you. we wouldn’t have kept secrets.”

it’s a blistering indictment of catherine’s choices on her part.

—but, unfortunately, that’s really as much as we get from this storyline.

for as much as not only sara but also nick, warrick, and greg express deep senses of betrayal regarding catherine’s actions here, there doesn’t seem to be much visible fallout from the imbroglio going forward.

for sara in particular, she works the margo dort case with/under catherine exactly one week later in show time.

within the universe of the show, episode 07x13 “redrum” takes place on 01.25.07 and episode 07x14 “meet market” takes place on 02.01.07. 

during the course of the investigation, she and catherine only interact face-to-face once, and when they do so, they speak only about the case, and their interaction appears completely civil and professional, with no hints of underlying animosity toward catherine on sara’s part.

likewise, in the next episode, sara and catherine again only interact briefly within the context of the investigation de jour (see episode 07x15 “law of gravity”); as before, there is no indication of lingering resentment or tension between them.

—and such is the case with them for the rest of the season.

if ever they do have a conversation about sara’s feelings concerning the events of episode 07x13 “redrum,” we certainly don’t get to see it play out on-screen. ditto for if they deal with any residual relational effects from what happened going forward.

though it’s definitely possible that they do have some kind of hash-things-out moment in the timespan between the events of episode 07x13 “redrum” and 07x14 “meet market” or that there is at least some nagging friction between them until a few days have passed and sara has cooled off in the wake of the break room scene, i don’t believe that such is the case. 

rather, my sense is that, at least with regards to sara, we don’t get to see any kind of aftermath not because it takes place off-screen but, frankly, because there isn’t any. 

for as angry as she is at catherine in the moment, i do think that sara moves past that anger fairly quickly—not necessarily because she comes to agree with catherine’s choices or even condone reverse forensics as a general practice but rather out of a sense that maybe she (personally) doesn’t have a right to blame catherine for something she is guilty of doing herself.

recall her words to warrick as they break into the evidence locker: “you know, i really hate deceiving people because, eventually, you get what you give.”

methinks she realizes that it’s somewhat hypocritical for her to be mad at catherine for withholding information in order to ensure the success of an endeavor when she is doing the exact same thing with regards to her relationship with grissom.

she and grissom love their team members and trust them with their lives night-in and night-out, but they’re still not willing to tell them the truth about their relationship and/or living situation. they’ve been lying to everyone for a very long time—and not just telling one big lie (like catherine does) but many lies of varying sizes and shapes at multiple different points.

that so, i tend to think that sara makes the conscientious choice to “call it even.”

catherine had her secret; sara still has hers.

nobody comes out smelling like roses in this situation.

sara probably can’t help but imagine how the team might react to finding out about her and grissom, considering everyone’s reactions to the reverse forensics operation. she can picture the looks on nick, warrick, and greg’s faces; their senses of shock and betrayal. would they ever be able to trust her and grissom again? and what about catherine, who’s been one of grissom’s best friends for twenty years? could she ever forgive them?

anyway, i tend to think sara lets everything pass under the bridge sooner rather than later. i also don’t think she and catherine ever talk about the issue directly—she just shows up to work the next shift, acting like nothing happened, and catherine takes the out she’s been given. they both just let it go.

if you’re interested, i do have a little ficlet about some of the reverberations of the reverse forensics operation; it touches briefly on sara’s feelings about catherine’s role in the incident.

MotW: amazons

Any Cas? Nope

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