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I Sure Hope David Caruso Never Reads This

Enough navel-gazing, let’s push that off the top of the page with some discussion of David Caruso and his hit (?) television series, CSI: Miami.

Set aside for a moment the question of CSI: Miami itself, which is what unholy force prompted the producers to say to themselves “What the hell, might as well do another city, just because we can,” or, later, “Let’s do this cool Westernish finale to each show, where the characters walk in a row on a beach looking cool in their cool shades, in slow motion, while cool music plays, that would be awesome and cool and not seizure-inducingly hilarious at all, right?” and, finally, “This show seems to be tanking under its own self-involvement! What can we do? I know, let’s have two murders per episode! That’ll teach all those bastards filling the Ten O’clock Dead Body of the Night slots on the other networks, taking ratings away from us. THEY only have ONE dead body, we have TWO! Not even counting David Caruso!”

So, David Caruso. I used to watch NYPD Blue back when it was “edgy” because everyone else was still using tripods, and I remember that he didn’t use to be so soul-clenchingly terrifying. Didn’t he used to be sort of cute? A little too intense maybe, but I don’t remember ever peeing my pants in fear when he appeared on screen.

Now, though, there are two things that make him just the pure unfiltered stuff of nightmares: the way he looks, and the way he sounds.

I mean mostly, he still looks like the David Caruso we remember, but something’s…not quite right. It’s not that he’s getting older -- in fact, it would be a relief if he did, because instead of aging he seems to be sort of curing. You can still see the lines and contours that made up the David Caruso we used to know, but they are oddly discolored, leathery; his face does not move like a face should. And something is wrong underneath. It appears that his skin is stuffed with shredded softcore noir movie scripts rather than healthy, living flesh. Something inside David Caruso seems to have withered, whimpered and died. And I don’t mean to get all metaphysical, but do we really know what transpired during those years between the time he left NYPD Blue in search of movie stardom, and the time he turned up on CSI: Miami, and blighted the depths of our psyches with his ghastly new visage? Do we know what lengths a man will go to, what sacrifices he will make, to escape the career-killing depravity of a movie like Jade?

Then there’s that voice, which really needs to be discussed in two parts, because there is the regular voice, a sort of cycling growl that merely adds a layer of threat to even the most mundane statement. That voice just makes you a little uneasy, maybe sets off primal alarms deep within the lizard brain, perhaps resonates in the subconscious for a time: “I’m going to the store for milk,” David Caruso mutters, and that night you dream of car accidents and starving puppies. That sort of thing.

And, of course, the other voice, the one that seems to get used when David Caruso is trying to be firm, or intense, or something – I really can’t remember because I black out and lose track of the plot line when I hear That Voice. That organ-dissolving snarl, straight from the crypt, that no pregnant woman should ever hear lest her baby come out with glowing red eyes and twenty perfect little claws. I spent a large part of the time I lay awake last night, wide-eyed, trembling, stiff-necked, the horror working upon me like a hit from the crack pipe, wondering what could possibly be in the script for this show that causes David Caruso to use That Voice.

I don’t know, and since my eardrums shriveled up and fell out last night at 10:45, I probably never will. But I suspect that being a writer for this show is like walking a minefield – you’re always second-guessing yourself, checking to make sure the dialogue you wrote is as innocuous as possible. Lots of “he says pleasantly,” “he whispers gently,” etc. You don’t want to be the guy who writes the line that causes David Caruso to use That Voice. Oh no you don’t. Those guys get fired right quick, and then David Caruso appears in their bedrooms at night, smiling like a death's head and saying nothing at all because once you have heard That Voice, the damage is already done.