Horatio Caine

Template:CSI character Lt. Horatio Caine is a fictional character in the series CSI: Miami, played by actor David Caruso. He is known for his devastating one-liner put-downs to Miami's villains, his "sunglasses of justice", and for his highly popular portayal of a Crime Lab Lieutenant who is single-minded, in control and with a determination to protect both his team and the crime victims he encounters.

Caruso portrays Caine in a very idiosyncratic manner, sometimes leading to parodies of the character (the most well known of these is probably Jim Carrey's on an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman[1] in 2008). Caine is often seen putting on a pair of Silhouette Titanium Model 8568 sunglasses (with special polarized lenses), which online fans have started referring to as "The Sunglasses of Justice" or "Justice Shades". He often stands sideways to the person to whom he is speaking and has a tendency to cock his head to one side (after removing his sunglasses) so that he can address vulnerable people with a steady but not intimidating eye-contact. He tends to do this more with surviving victims of crimes or his colleagues. Worth a notable mention (though not a quirk of his character) is that he has a habit of clearing (walking out of) frame after saying his lines. Another characteristic of Caine's is when—after finding a body, usually just before the main theme music and sequence plays—he will sternly look off into the distance, put on his sunglasses, and then say a one-liner that pertains to the nature of the crime (he will often make some kind of a pun on the situation, but not always).

Beyond this, Caruso's CSI is an incredibly persistent, dogged, and at time ruthless crime fighter who has suffered a great many personal losses both before and during the events of CSI: Miami (see especially episodes 424 - "Rampage"; 501 - "Rio"; and 603 - "Inside Out"). He is very insistent on the integrity of the lab and his team, showcased in such episodes as "One of Our Own" (425) and "Burned" (522). In addition, Caine remains extremely protective of crime victims, often going so far as to give them his phone number should they need to talk. He remains close to some of the victims of crimes that he investigated. Caine's protective behavior is perhaps portrayed the most clearly in the cases that deal with children, and he reserves a special wrath for those who would hurt them, even when confronted with heavy opposition (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode 222 - "Cross Jurisdictions," CSI: Miami episodes 503 - "Death Pool 100"; 407 - "Felony Flight"; 417 - "Collision"; et al.). Horatio Caine's catchphrase, said many times throughout the series, is "We never close."

Head of the Crime Lab

In the CSI continuum, Caine is (and has been throughout the show's development) a supervisor at the Miami-Dade crime lab, a forensic analyst and former homicide detective and bomb squad officer (his forensic speciality is arson and explosion evidence). He is very protective of his team, who affectionately call him "H." He is very concerned about the reputation of his lab, and takes great care to keep them clean, perhaps because of his experience with his tarnished younger brother, Ray. Unlike his counterpart in Las Vegas, Gil Grissom (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), he is a commissioned police officer, and thus carries a badge & gun. A superb marksman, Caine doesn't hesitate to use deadly force when needed. He is also an ardent advocate of the death penalty for particularly heinous crimes, and doesn't think twice about threatening suspects with it in such cases. In the first two seasons, Caine carried a 9MM Beretta Cougar on the job. Since the beginning of season three, he has been shown carrying a SIG-Sauer P229. He is very insistent on gun maintenance, especially since team member Tim Speedle was killed in a shootout after his gun misfired because of lax maintenance. In fact, one of the reasons for Caine's nearly on-the-spot selection of Officer Ryan Wolfe as Tim Speedle's replacement (in episode 303, "Under the Influence") is Wolfe's compulsive care of his firearm due to OCD.

He is later forced to fire Wolfe, as the younger CSI compromised himself during the course of the investigation due to his gambling debts and lack of honesty regarding the situation (episode 522, "Burned"). Caine indicates a willingness to allow Wolfe to redeem himself, however, and possibly allow him to return to the team after reviewing all the files from his previous cases (episode 523, "Kill Switch"). Wolfe has also violated protocol before.

At the end of Season 2 (episode 223, "MIA/NYC — Nonstop"), Caine travels to New York City in pursuit of a murder suspect and meets Detective Mac Taylor and his team, inaugurating the first season of CSI: New York. Caine later reunites with Detective Taylor and the New York CSIs to track down and arrest the murderer, Henry Darius, who would be extradited to Florida to face the death penalty (CSI: Miami episode 407, "Felony Flight," CSI: NY episode 207, "Manhattan Manhunt").

He has many recurring enemies throughout the series, from serial killer Walter Resden to abusive Internal Affairs Agent Rick Stetler or corrupt judge Joseph Ratner. Some he thought put away for good come back to haunt him. Clavo Cruz, serving a life sentence for murdering a woman (episode 201, "Blood Brothers," episode 315, "Identity"), escapes custody in a dramatic rocket attack on a courthouse (superficially injuring coroner Alexx Woods). Cruz then kidnaps a court stenographer and forces Horatio to bring him $1 million dollars in exchange for her location. It is all a set-up, however, and Caine and Delko are ambushed on the roof of a parking garage. Though Horatio shoots down one man and escapes without injury, Delko is critically wounded even as Caine fires at the fleeing gunmen (episode 514, "No Man's Land"). Horatio eventually forces Cruz out of hiding by removing all his avenues of escape. Cruz approaches Horatio outside the Miami-Dade Crime Lab, and Caine kills Clavo with a single shot to the chest (episode 515, "Man Down").

Caine finds himself targeted by the son of a crime lord he helped put in jail some years earlier. After Caine's vehicle is vandalized, the young man smugly denies culpability, but Horatio sets him up in return and arrests him with deep disappointment after the young man walks headlong into his trap and tries to kill him (episode 602, "Cyber-lebrity").

Life before CSI

Caine's parents named him after author Horatio Alger. Before he moved to Miami, Caine worked in New York City as detective with the NYPD. It was there that he killed the man who murdered his mother; his own father. On the job, in 1995, he was badly stabbed while investigating a case in which children were locked in closets while their parents were murdered. The perpetrator, Walter Resden, harbored a deep grudge against Caine, collecting the blood from the stabbing and preserving it for 10 years in order to frame him for the murder of Caine's girlfriend, Rachel Turner.

After his arrival in Florida, Horatio joined the Miami-Dade Police as a homicide detective but later transferred to the bomb squad, where he was mentored by Al Humphries, an older cop whom Caine highly respected and considered a good friend; Humphries was later killed after accidentally triggering a bomb he was attempting to disarm. Finally, Caine moved to the Crime Lab, accepting a promotion to lieutenant, which earned him the animosity of Sergeant Rick Stetler, who was also vying for the rank. When veteran CSI Megan Donner went on personal leave following the death of her husband, Horatio became the permanent head of the lab.

Personal life

Caine's original backstory, revealed over the course of the first three seasons, revolves primarily around his relationship with his late brother Raymond Caine, also a police officer, and with Raymond's supposed widow, Detective Yelina Salas. His brother was an undercover narcotics officer, and there are several suspicions surrounding his death. Horatio has, several times, found himself cleaning up Ray's messes. He discovers that his brother had an out-of-wedlock daughter with a drug addict, and he attempts to conceal this information from Yelina, even to the point of making her think the girl was in fact his own child. When the girl, Madison, falls ill and requires a transplant, Horatio is forced to reveal her true relationship with Ray to Yelina (episode 316, "Nothing to Lose"). It was revealed in episode 320 ("Killer Date") that Raymond's apparent death had actually been staged to enable him to go deep undercover to gather information for a government investigation. Raymond and Horatio are briefly reunited when Ray Jr. is kidnapped. The brothers successfully rescue the boy and fake Ray Sr.'s death again before packing the whole family off to Brazil (episode 324, "10-7"). Unfortunately, Ray Sr. is unable to keep out of trouble even there, culminating in his murder; he dies in Horatio's arms (episode 501, "Rio").

The show also explores another of Caine's history: the events surrounding his mother's murder. In the episode "Manhattan Manhunt", a continuation of "Felony Flight", Caine is momentarily interrupted on his case when he is served with a subpoena. In "Nailed", Caine informs the rest of the CSI team that he had recently been charged by a district attorney in New York with the murder of the man who had killed his mother. It is later revealed in "Collision" that this man was actually Caine's own father. After arresting Resden, who is charged with murdering his foster siblings because they didn't defend him against his abusive foster father, whom he also attempted to kill, Caine reveals that he identifies with Resden because he, Caine, was physically abused by his father.

After Tim Speedle's death, Caine has a recurring nightmare in which he (Caine) is the one whose weapon misfired. Rather than talking with a counselor, as Internal Affairs Sergeant Rick Stetler orders, he instead works it out with his then-girlfriend, State Attorney Rebecca Nevins (episode 310, "After the Fall"). He breaks up with her, however, after she makes a deal with a criminal he helped arrest (episode 313, "Cop Killer"). He later dates Rachel Turner, who is murdered by Walter Resden in an attempt to take revenge on Caine for "embarrassing" him in New York about a decade earlier (episode 406, "Under Suspicion"). Caine also has a deep, unspoken affection for his brother's widow, Yelina Salas, and he is consistently concerned about her well-being. Though she evidently shares his feelings, neither of them has acted on them (episode 522, "Burned," et al).

Despite knowing her for less than a year, Caine marries Eric Delko's sister Marisol, who suffers from leukemia, who is shot by a Mala Noche gang member and later dies in a hospital (episode 424, "Rampage"). He pursues the man who ordered the hit on her, Antonio Riaz, all the way to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and eventually kills him in a knife fight, but not before Riaz brutally beats Caine's brother Raymond to death and attempts to corrupt Ray's son, Ray Jr. (episode 501, "Rio").

As Eric Delko lies in critical condition in the hospital following a near-fatal gunshot to the head several months later, Horatio and the other team members take turns at his bedside. Delko, his memory impaired by his wound, asks Horatio where Marisol is. Caine is unable to say the words, but Eric interprets his silence and sheds wordless tears as they both mourn her death (episode 515, "Man Down").

Perhaps because he has lost several family members to violent crime, Caine is determined to the point of obsession to put criminals behind bars. Caine also advocates the death penalty, and is not afraid to threaten suspects with it (CSI: NY episode 207, "Manhattan Manhunt").

In the sixth season's premiere, Horatio finds out that he is the biological father of a suspect in a murder case. His son is an orphaned boy named Kyle Harmon. Kyle's mother, Julia Eberly, met Horatio sixteen years earlier when he was under the alias John Walden, doing undercover tactical work in Pensacola. Though Horatio claimed that the relationship was serious, at least to him, he never knew she was pregnant, as she disappeared only a few months later. Kyle then went through a progression of foster homes, and he eventually landed in juvenile prison after going on a joyride in a stolen boat. Kyle later becomes a suspect in the murder of his parole officer, and when he is brought in for questioning, Horatio immediately recognizes the resemblance and begins to investigate into his past. With the help of Yelina Salas (who found Kyle's birth certificate, which listed "John Walden" as the father, an undercover name that Horatio used in the past) and Maxine Valera (who confirmed the relationship by DNA tests), he discovers that Kyle is indeed his biological son. When Horatio calls Kyle "son" at the end of the episode, the young man angrily replies "I'm not your son!" (episode 601, "Dangerous Son").

After rescuing Kyle, who has been kidnapped out of jail and left in a pipe, Horatio admits to Kyle that he is his father. (episode 603, "Inside Out").

In episode 613, "Raising Caine," Kyle's mother Julia Eberly, who is now known as Julia Winston, is the prime suspect in the murder of her husband. While the CSIs prove that another man killed her husband, he claims that Julia planned the whole thing. Calleigh informs the man that they cannot prove Julia's involvement and therefore she goes free. Meanwhile, Julia tells Horatio that she left Kyle with his grandmother because she was not fit to mother him, but had always intended on taking him back once she was ready. She attends Kyle's trial, during which the main witness for the prosecution never shows, leaving the court no choice but to free Kyle. The CSIs learn that Julia Winston paid the witness a large amount of money to skip the trial. As the show ends the witness is seen, visibly hurt, taped to her steering wheel, with the car sinking into a lake. Back at the courthouse, the judge informs Kyle that both Horatio Caine and Julia Winston have filed separate custody suits, and Kyle must decide who he wants to go with. Kyle eventually decides to go with his mother, telling Horatio that she is all he has thought of for years. A clearly saddened Horatio tells him to keep in touch and delivers an icy farewell to Julia.

In the first part of the two-part opener to season six, episode 615, "Ambush", the body of Kathleen Newberry is discovered by two kids "bomb-fishing" in the lake. Horatio immediately thinks somehow Julia is responsible for this, and indeed finds her fingerprint and her assistant's hair on the body. He several times questions her about her involvement, to no avail. At this point, Kyle is obviously partisan to his mother, and tells Horatio he won't let his father "use him against her." Julia manages to have Horatio arrested and extradited to Brazil for the murder of Antonio Riaz, the man who killed Marisol. Julia claims that she did this to protect Horatio from her old colleage, Ron Saris, who told Julia he planned to kill Horatio. At the end of the episode, Horatio is told by the Brazilian Chief of Police that he has made a lot of enemies there, but he is "free to go". The irony of this is not lost on Horatio, who has been handed a weapon by the Chief, and who hears a cadre of guns cocking as the closing credits run.

In the opening seconds of the second part of the episode, actually episode 616, "All In", Horatio is surrounded by a posse of Mala Noche vigilantes with firearms, but succeeds in taking out the whole gang with nary a scratch - "Mala Noche justice, meet Miami justice." The scene after the credits is his small plane landing in Miami, he none the worse for wear, only to have Delko inform him while crossing the tarmac that Calleigh has been kidnapped by her Internet stalker, whose web site is hosted by Dan Cooper, the former CSI technician whom Calleigh had fired for fraud (episode 604, "Bang Bang, Your Debt"). Calleigh spends the early part of the episode forced to assist two criminals who have shot their poker buddy to cover up the shooting, while Horatio and Delko and the full team are searching for her. Meanwhile Horatio meets face-to-face with Julia and informs her that Calleigh's kidnapping has the signature of Ron Saris, the thug who killed Kathleen Newberry and who is now living with Kyle and Julia. His warning to Julia is; "If you and Kyle stay with this man, you will both die." And she seems to listen.

During the season six finale (episode 621, "Going Ballistic"), Caine meets with Julia to tell her that Ron Saris is going to kill her and Kyle. She replies angrily that she can make her own choices, and that it is not any of his business. Caine responds to this by saying, "but where the boy is concerned it is [my business]." Caine then tells Kyle that he needs him and his mother to leave the country for a while. Kyle is upset, telling his father that he is just like all the "other ones." While waiting to put Julia and Kyle on a plane out of the country, Horatio is gunned down and left to die. Horatio takes a sniper bullet in the chest, but it penetrates his trademark sunglasses first. It remains unclear at the end of the season who Caine's shooter is, though several people have been portrayed as possibly having committed the crime.

In the season seven premiere, Caine appears dead, but had staged his own shooting on the airport tarmac with the help of Wolfe and an ATF sniper, much to the confusion and anger of Calleigh and Eric. This was done in order to allow Caine go underground to flush out and apprehend Saris. Eric seemed especially hurt by Caine selecting Wolfe to assist him. Horatio understood this, but confided in him that despite being the obvious choice, should the plan have failed, he didn't want to unnecessarily risk having anyone's careers tainted by the failure, least of all Eric's.

Caine is next seen at the home of Julia and Kyle, where if only for Kyle's sake, he tries once again to deter Julia from staying with Saris. He gives her the key to a "safe place" and instructs her and Kyle to go there and wait while he flushes Saris out of hiding. At the episode's end, it seems Julia has come to her senses. She agrees to ask a divorce from her husband (Saris), just as he is about to leave the Marina with a boat full of fused alloy bullets. With Horatio's family out of Saris's clutches, the two men face off. Saris fires first and Horatio ducks the shot. Saris sees an opportunity to escape and as it's all he can do to stop him, Horatio fires a round into the gas tank of the yacht, causing an explosion. As the fire department tends to the scene some time later, Eric, while happy to have his chief and best friend back from the dead, informs Horatio that there is no trace of the body.

Parodies of characterization

The Simpsons illustrated this habit during the episode Smoke On The Daughter where a character obviously intended to be Caine says a subject "Reached out (pause, puts on sunglasses) and killed someone." My Name Is Earl also parodied this with a sequence in Camdenites where Earl Hickey realizes he has to track down his psychotic wife, and has a character scream out much like the beginning of Won't Get Fooled Again. The online comedy video series Weebl and Bob also parodied it, in the episode "Ginger", with any different jokes such as horatios hair color, habit of making a joke and then putting on his glasses and several others.

External links

• Compilation of Horatio's one-liners on YouTube
• Revel in... the power of... 'CSI: Miami'
• Best Horatio Caine One-Liner? (All About Forensic Science Poll)
• Jim Carrey's Horatio Caine impersonation on YouTube
• David Caruso School of Acting (Comedy Inc.) on YouTube