Eric Delko

Template:In-universe/Television Template:CSI character Eric Delko (né Delektorsky) is a fictional character on the hit CBS drama CSI: Miami. He is played by Adam Rodriguez.

Background

Eric Delko is the, phenomenal fingerprint, tires and drug identification expert of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab, as well as their underwater recovery expert. The character is the youngest of four children, behind three sisters, he has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Miami, where he played right field for the baseball team (and is a former college classmate of wildlife conservationist Jeff Corwin) and is fluent in Spanish.

His original family name was Delektorsky; his father, a Russian national who had been assigned to Havana during the 1960s, married a Cuban woman, with whom he had three daughters. When his mother was pregnant with him, his father decided that he wanted a better life for his family, so he moved the clan to Miami not long after, and shortened the family name to Delko in an effort at Americanization.

Delko typically acts as the team's frogman when the situation arises—his boss has even termed him his best diver. In episode 410, "Shattered", his job is endangered when he is busted for drug possession. It is later revealed that he had been buying the drugs for his sister Marisol, to ease the pain she suffered while undergoing treatments for leukemia.

It is revealed that Delko is a Roman Catholic.

It has been recently revealed that Eric was born in Cuba before his mother and adoptive father arrived in the USA before receiving fake birth documents for him. Delko pressed his mother for the truth after he revealed that he knew his American birth certificate was a forgery, and had acquired his real birth certificate from Cuba. He told her he became suspicious after realizing several key facts in the story of their arrival in the US changing each time she told it. Also she told him that his biological father was a terrible man, and wanted to shield Eric from him by hiding his identity with the forged papers. It was Delko's biological father, in fact, who had ordered the hit on him.

In the season 8 opener, it was revealed in a flashback that Eric discovered a BMW that was dumped in the Everglades with a body in the rear, and called Detective Caine. Eric was a tow truck driver at the time and was on a quest to find sunglasses for Caine. As he knew the area quite well, he helped Caine recover the murder weapon which Caine used to prevent an innocent man from going to jail. In this same episode, Eric meets Calleigh and hits on her by saying "Are you going to give me your number now or later?" Calleigh's response is that she doesn't date people she's even remotely involved with at work, and Eric replies "Ok, for now." Caine, impressed by Eric's eye for the minute details, convinces him to go to the police academy, get his badge and work for the new CSI team later.

Relationship with colleagues

Eric has been involved with a number of women, including co-worker Natalia Boa Vista (who at one point thought she might be pregnant with their child). Despite Natalia's apparent duplicity (he told an FBI agent that she slept with him to get information regarding the lab), he remains protective of her when her ex-husband harasses her at crime scenes under the pretext of performing his duties as crime scene cleanup.

He also had a relationship with the unstable Gloria, who broke the car windows of Natalia (because of Eric's former relationship with her), and also of Eric's sister Marisol (thinking she was Eric's wife). She stole Marisol's purse from the car, and later becomes suspected of being Marisol's sniper shooter when she is found to have been in hotel room below where the sniper shot came from, and when a sniper rifle turns up in the trunk of her car. She ends up having been there with her own rifle to shoot Marisol, but couldn't do it, and then hears the shots from the room above her. However, she did provide some important information that lead to the capture of the real suspects.

At one point, Delko 'tooths' - text messages - someone for anonymous sex, though he later seeks counseling when his badge goes missing after one such encounter. Despite any appearance of womanizing on his part, Eric Delko is actually protective of women in general, standing up for them against abusive men.

He has a close relationship with colleague Calleigh Duquesne. They care very greatly for each other - Calleigh is the one by his side when Eric is in the hospital, gravely injured. Early in season seven it is shown that after the shooting Eric started thinking about his future and admits to his therapist that he's been thinking about settling down and he'd like for it to be with Calleigh, revealing he has fallen in love with her. Later in Season 7, Eric finally admits to Calleigh that he "can't imagine living his life without her" as she lies unconscious in the hospital after suffering from smoke inhalation, and they kiss in the episode "Sink or Swim" after Eric is released from ICE custody. Eric is seen waking up nude in Calleigh's bed in episode "Wolfe in Sheep's Clothing" and they share the bathroom as they get ready for work. As of Season 7, they are in a romantic relationship that they are trying to keep hidden from the rest of the team.

Delko is usually the one who plays practical jokes on CSI newbies. In season 3,"Speed Kills" he sends Tim Speedle's new replacement Ryan Wolfe to help Alexx in the autopsy department only for Ryan to see a headless cadaver for the first time, shocking him. He and Ryan play a prank on new coroner Tara Price by putting a robotic dummy under the sheets and making it sit up thus freaking her out. He occasionally sends Ryan to do the dirtier work by exercising his seniority in ranking, only for a hapless Ryan to witness the grisly parts of the crime scene first-hand against his will.

Delko also maintained a friendship with fellow CSI Tim Speedle, who is killed in a shootout when his firearm jams because of poor maintenance. It had been Speedle that 'welcomed' a rookie Delko to the lab with a friendly hazing. Eric is at first deeply resentful of Speedle's replacement, Ryan Wolfe, especially when some of Speedle's previous cases comes under review. For some time, there is a measure of verbal sniping between the two. At one time, Delko fails to show at a crime scene to which Ryan is called on his day off, and Ryan is injured when a suspect shoots him in the eye with a nail gun; unsurprisingly, Ryan is upset with Eric, but in the end they work out their differences. Eventually, Delko comes to accept Ryan's presence, and they become strong co-workers and friends. In season 4, the two worked closely together in cracking the cases.

Delko was also friends with audio-visual lab technician Dan Cooper, and they are seen in one episode (season 4, episode 15 "Skeletons (CSI: Miami)") watching a beach volleyball tournament together with a group of bikini-clad women. When Cooper unwittingly reveals their activities to Natalia, she becomes offended at Eric. This incident helped lead to their breakup; however, Delko's friendship with Cooper ended when he and Calleigh Duquesne discovered Cooper had stolen Tim Speedle's credit card.

Delko was Horatio Caine's brother-in-law when Marisol married Horatio, but their family bond was tragically severed when Marisol succumbed to the gunshot wound she suffered at the hands of a Mala Noche sniper. Together, Eric and Horatio pursued the man (Antonio Riaz) who ordered Marisol's murder all the way to Brazil. There, Eric engaged Riaz in hand-to-hand combat, which ended when Horatio arrived and stabbed Riaz to death with the man's own knife.

In the Season 7 opener, Delko and Duquesne are especially confused and angered by Caine's shooting, and Wolfe's handling of the situation immediately after their arrival on-scene. Delko later found out, however, that this was all staged by Caine, Wolfe, and the ATF to allow Caine to go undercover and apprehend a major ammunition distributor in Miami. Eric was still somewhat hurt that Caine would choose Wolfe over him, but Horatio told him in person that the decision to include Wolfe over him was due in no small part to Caine's desire to protect Delko and his career at the Lab should the undercover operation prove unsuccessful.

In the season 7 finale, he attempts to help his Cuban father escape from the grips of the Russian Mob. However, the CSI's arrive on the scene and Calleigh shoots at the car he is helping his father escape in before she realizes that Delko is in fact the driver. When they reach it after it crashes, it is covered in blood, which his father claims is Eric's. In the next episode it is revealed he is alive and is wandering in the Everglades.

In the season 8 episode, In the Wind, his relationship with his former colleague Calleigh Duquesne seems to be more serious.

Other significant events

Nightclub Incident

During a night of clubbing with friend and colleague Tim Speedle, Delko is caught in a devastating nightclub fire set by the bouncer. Delko feels guilty that he couldn't save more victims, even though his efforts are heroic as he shepherds terrified clubgoers to an emergency exit. Despite the trauma of the incident, he insists on working the scene with the rest of his team.

Hostage Situation/Death of Marisol

In season four, Eric is taken hostage with others at a bank when a group of armed teenagers show up to rob it. When a 19-year-old gunman moves to rape a teenage girl, Delko opens fire, killing him. Two other bank robbers see him and start shooting with automatic Tec9's before fleeing.

In the episode where Marisol is murdered, Eric is also hit in the arm with a bullet.

Legal Troubles

In the 13th episode of season five, Eric finds himself being sued for $250,000 in personal injury after intervening in a heated and physical argument between a man and his wife in a bar. Despite the fact that they are later determined to be scam artists (and the husband's subsequent murder), Eric settles with the wife rather than take it to court, so as to prevent more scrutiny of the lab, particularly in the case of Delko and Horatio's less-than-official trip to Brazil earlier in the season. At the end of the episode, Eric signs papers authorizing his wages to be garnished, and starts arrangements to work extra shifts to cover the garnishment.

Memory Loss/Tim Speedle's Death

In the final minutes of "No Man's Land", Eric is shot in the leg and then the head during a shootout with men hired by escaped murderer Clavo Cruz. In the second episode of the storyline, he is rushed to the hospital, where he flat-lines. After every other attempt at revival fails, an adrenaline injection to the heart brings him back. Following a tense surgery, he remains in critical condition in the hospital. It is revealed that most of the bullet is still lodged in his temporal lobe, and that he may suffer permanent damage to motor skills, speech and memory due to the hematoma. This is evident as he consistently asks to see his sister Marisol despite the fact she has been dead for months, and he also has no memory of being shot by Cruz's men. Coroner Alexx Woods explains to the rest of the team that while Eric is alive, he may not be the same Eric they knew. Indeed, Eric's return to work several weeks later is difficult (in "Broken Home"), and he is frustrated with the slow steps he must take, relearning basics and making rookie mistakes. He almost lets a killer escape when he makes a simple but crucial error on a blood-presence test, mistaking H₂O and H₂O₂ in order of application, which yields a false negative as a result. However, Eric later provides the insight to find the murder weapon, and thus a perpetrator. Eric experiences such difficulties as double vision, which interferes with his performance. When Ryan gently points out doubled evidence markers, Eric snaps at him in frustration, but Wolfe is not offended, as he remembers his own vision problems after being shot with a nail gun the previous season. Eric's memory lapses apparently cover only the six months or so prior to his injury, and as such he no longer recognizes the woman who sued him. This is used by a lawyer in an attempt to prove his incompetence.

Even after three full years after Tim Speedle's death, Delko, still feeling the effects of a head injury he had suffered earlier in the series, suffers from vivid hallucinations of his deceased friend.

Traumatization

Early in season six, Eric Delko has flashbacks about his near-death experiences and panic attacks due to his fear and anxiety.

Working with Calleigh

At the start of season seven, Delko's therapist is murdered and as he and Calleigh are going through the files, Calleigh read where Eric has quoted "After I got shot, it really put things in perspective. Made me think about my future, settling down. It'd be nice if it were Calleigh.".

In mid-season seven ("Sink or Swim"), after his release from ICE custody, Eric eventually tells Calleigh he couldn't imagine living his life without her. They finally share a kiss in Episode 16 of Season 7 (Sink or Swim).

Departure and Return

In season eight, episode five ("Bad Seed"), Eric leaves the CSI team for many personal reasons. Horatio leaves a note on his windshield saying, "I'll always be here. H."

A few episodes later, Delko returns in the episode Delko for the Defense as a special guest star, to become an expert witness for defense against his former team. In the beginning of the episode, it was revealed that he was in Puerto Rico. He then tells Calleigh that he missed living in Miami and decided to come back. In the middle of the episode, Calleigh tells him that the district attorney is looking for a forensics expert and Delko tells her that he will think about whether or not he wants to work for him. In the end of the episode, Delko discusses things with the D.A. and decides to work for him.

In the beginning of the episode In the Wind, he and Calleigh embrace in a passionate kiss in bed, although it was laster interrupted by a phone call from the D.A., which Eric says he hasn't spoke to for a week. He works with the CSI team on a fifteen-year-old double homicide case. Around the end of the episode, as Eric is getting ready to go to the gym, Calleigh talks with him about what they did that night together.

Episodic appearances

This section contains episodes where Adam Rodriguez is credited as part of the recurring cast, as his character Eric Delko. He appeared in 172 episodes as a main cast, 174 in total.

• Season 8: Delko for the Defense, In the Wind Other appearances to be announced

See also

• CSI: Miami
• Adam Rodriguez