CSI: Vegas' Co-Writer Isn't Fully Closing The Door On The Silver Ink Arc
Contains spoilers for "CSI: Vegas" Season 2, Episode 16 — "We All Fall Down"
"CSI: Vegas," like any self-respecting episodic police procedural, can be depended on to supply viewers with brilliantly twisted killers employing uniquely convoluted methods to dispense with what is often a lengthy list of victims. For fans of "CSI: Vegas," the silver ink case that spins out across Season 2 provides these elements in spades, positing a maddeningly complex series of gruesome murders perpetrated by a suitably high-I.Q. psychopath (or two).
Finally reaching its conclusion in Episode 16 of Season 2, the silver ink affair left a grisly string of thallium-poisoned corpses and a seriously ill Sonya Nikolayevich (Sara Amini) in its wake before the Vegas crime lab team zeroed in on not one but two culprits, each with their own demented motives for murder. Ostensibly finalized in the aforementioned Season 2 episode, "We All Fall Down," it turns out this particularly nasty narrative arc may not be totally, definitively dead.
Asked if the silver ink storyline had run dry, series showrunner Jason Tracey told TV Insider, "It's wrapped for now," but he then added, "We reserve the right to dip our toe back into that water." And the truth is, he and episode co-writer Craig O'Neill have some good reasons this ink-stained plotline might continue.
The CSI: Vegas silver ink case could have a few mysteries yet to unravel
As "CSI: Vegas" exec Jason Tracey explained in the TV Insider interview, the silver ink case grew out of a feature film spec script he and writing partner Craig O'Neill had in their back pocket for years. "We always loved that storyline," Tracey said, "and we spread it out as an arc for Season 2." He went on to note that a lot of the plot elements of the case were already well established in their minds as he and O'Neill constructed the silver ink story. "A lot of the wheels and the nature of what the bad guy's plan was were baked into the cake from 17 years ago," he said. "It was good to write from a place of knowing the end before you begin."
In the interview, Tracey seemed at first to want to kill off the idea of more to come from this particular storyline, saying, "There's no current plan to [continue the silver ink narrative], so yeah, for now, I think the book is closed." But co-writer O'Neill apparently couldn't resist dangling a further exploration of this poisonous plot line, noting that in their earlier film spec script, they featured one person who got a silver ink card but who wasn't "activated" to kill someone and escaped, possibly to turn up later. "So who knows," O'Neill said, "maybe somebody comes back with a silver card at some point in the future."