‘CSI: Vegas’ Series Finale Summary: Shocking, unexpected villain twist

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read on if you have not seen “Tunnel Vision,” the series finale of “CSI: Vegas,” which aired on Sunday, May 19.

“Things are about to go kaboom.” So says Beau (Lex Medlin) during Friday night’s series finale of “CSI: Vegas” as he prepares to detonate a series of bombs. But perhaps he’s describing everyone’s thoughts, as the show’s characters discover halfway through the episode (“Tunnel Vision”) that they’ve been hunting the wrong villain all season.

With Max (Paula Newsome) kidnapped and Chris (Jay Lee) injured by some kind of nerve agent and in the hospital, the ‘CSI’ team continues to blame tech billionaire Truman Thomas (Owain Yeoman) – until they find his death. body. (Says one character, who discovers that Thomas had injected himself with outdated synthetic stem cells: “If he wanted to live forever, my husband should have worn a bulletproof vest.” LOL, truth! Those crazy tech billionaires, amirite?)

It’s actually a completely different villainous group that took Max through the 600 miles of flood channels that lie beneath Las Vegas. In a secret laboratory, they force her to create better DNA coding after she reveals theirs was “sloppy.”

And who are “they”? Well, rogue Saudi spies, of course. Faran Tahir plays the real villain of the season, a character who had infiltrated Truman’s AI robot and DNA hacking laboratory.

One character helpfully fills in the plot details says, “The agency has been warning us for years that foreign governments are infiltrating American companies and stealing technology.”

Turns out the Saudis had holed up in Truman’s Mojave Kinematic Designs facility to obtain his own DNA synthesis research and border-sensitive robots. But when Max started snooping on Truman’s work, the Saudis had to “tie up their loose ends.” They killed everyone involved, hacked into our lab, and deleted every file in the case.”

And in the end, it wasn’t Truman who was responsible for the deaths of Cliff Roland, Valerie Hammond and Robert Cuevas. How smart were the bad guys? They had all the robots bugged, so our crack ‘CSI’ team – one of which was in their office – was under surveillance the whole time.

“They didn’t have to die,” Tahir’s character tells Max. ‘But you continued to study Truman. You wanted it to be an arrogant billionaire, so I wrapped it in a gift for you. At least I tried.”

While private planes were grounded in Vegas, the Saudis nevertheless prepared their escape. And like any good villain, Tahir’s character (did he have a name? Maybe? In the photo above he’s called ‘Gray Suit’. At least give our villain the respect of a name!) made sure to spell out his plan to Max before he tried to kill her. “Truman’s dream of having AI-powered robots fix all our genetic flaws could be pure fantasy. But as you’ve seen, his technology is very real.”

His plan? “To show my superiors how useful synthetic DNA can be. Military operation, forensic obfuscation. The possibilities are exciting.”

Good news: Max manages to distract our villain and get out of the way with his gun – just in time for Josh (Matt Lauria) and Serena (Ariana Guerra) to save the day.

Josh has tied up some loose ends, worked to regain Max’s trust and sees himself rewarded by returning him to Level 3. “I’m back?” he says. “You never left,” she replies. Later, Matt and Allie (Mandeep Dhillion) share a tender moment as he shares the news about his reinstated job (while Serena looks on). It seems that the “will they” is winning over the “will they/won’t they”!

So hey, looks like things are tied together nicely, right?

(Well, not quite. In an earlier version of this story we said the episode, season and series would end with what appears to be a mysterious murder. But that was in the early screener we saw – that didn’t actually happen. Make the final cut.)

But that’s it for “CSI: Vegas!” I hope you have no more murders, Vegas!