Directed by Frederick EO Toye
Written by Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn & Christopher Silber
"Vigilante" is the 15th episode of Season 7 and the 155th overall. It originally aired February 18, 2011.
A Serial Rapist is found murdered in the same manner as his victims. Later another is killed. The same person anonymously claims responsibility for both crimes. The investigators are torn between a sense that justice has finally been served for the men's victims and their duty to pursue whoever killed them.
Tropes for the episode:
- Advance Notice Crime: The killer calls 911 to report a murder and gives the location of the body. The operator asks when it happened and the perp replies, "It's about to," and hangs up. The call, conversation, and crime are repeated before the killer is caught.
- Armed with Pepper Spray: Rapists are being targeted by vigilantes armed with pepper spray. One dead offender is found with telltale burn marks on his face. The plan is complicated, however, when another of their targets is immune to capsaicin.
- Gender-Concealing Voice: A voice-distorting device is found at the second crime scene, clueing the detectives into the fact that the caller who reported both crimes is most likely not who he appears to be. When they reverse engineer the voice on the 911 tapes, they discover it was a woman who'd been calling all along.
- ...Or So I Heard: In a much-needed moment of comic relief, Flack & Lindsay enter a gym to question a suspect and observe the class currently in session:Flack: Pole dancing is good cardio.Lindsay: [gives him a look]Flack: So I've heard.
- Rape and Revenge: The motivation behind the killings...with a bit of a twist. It's not the victim who sets out to kill her attacker, but the man's defense attorney who got tired of seeing scumbags like him get off on technicalities and such.
- Self-Defenseless: The avenger uses pepper spray on a known rapist to try and subdue him. Due to a rare immunity, it doesn't even faze the guy, so an accomplice resorts to shooting him in the head.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: The first serial rapist is found bound, gagged and injured in the same manner as he had done to his victims, complete with the binding being done with purple tape. Only difference? He's dead. The "vigilante" turns out to be someone avenging the survivors.
- Vigilante Execution: The killer knew who the first victim was even though the cops hadn't been able to catch or even identify him for quite some time because she was a defense attorney who specialized in getting guilty scumbags off, and she had gotten disgusted by doing so, so she set out to kill him and others like him.
- Workout Fanservice: The pole dance class members practice their moves in spandex work-out attire.
