Horatio Caine
Template:CSI character Lt. Horatio Caine is a fictional character in the series CSI: Miami, and is played by actor David Caruso.
Characterization
David Caruso portrays Horatio Caine in very idiosyncratic manner, sometimes resulting in parodies of the character (the most well known of these is probably Jim Carrey's on the Late Show with David Letterman[1]). Caine often is seen putting on a pair of Silhouette Titanium Model 8568 sunglasses (with special polarized lenses), which online fans have started referring to the sunglasses 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 women he has some affection for, in a more avuncular than overtly sexual manner. Worth a notable mention (though not a quirk of his character) is that he has a habit of clearing 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 does not hesitate to carry or use a weapon. 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. One of Caine's reasons for selecting Officer Ryan Wolfe as Speedle's replacement (in episode 302) is Wolfe's compulsive care of his firearm.
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").
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 for author Horatio Alger ("Cross Jurisdictions"). Before he moved to Miami, Caine worked in New York City. (Coincidentally, Caruso starred in the first two seasons of NYPD Blue as Detective John Kelly.) It was there that he killed the man who murdered his mother — his own father. (episode 417, "Collision") 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 (episode 406, "Under Suspicion"). Caine is eventually forced to shoot Resden, although not fatally (episode 415, "Skeletons").
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, who is later tragically killed after accidentally triggering a bomb he is attempting to disarm (episode 102, "Losing Face"). Finally, Caine moves to the Crime Lab, accepting a promotion to lieutenant (which earns him the animosity of Sergeant Rick Stetler, who is also vying for the rank). When veteran CSI Megan Donner goes on personal leave following the death of her husband, Horatio becomes the permanent head of the lab (episode 1.01, "Golden Parachute").
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. 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 208, "Big Brother"). 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 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 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 officer Rick Stetler orders, he instead works it out with his 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 Dresden 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 leukemia-ridden sister Marisol, 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 after his mother died, and 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) 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")
External links
- Compilation of Horatio's one-liners.
- Revel in... the power of... 'CSI: Miami'
- Best Horatio Caine One-Liner? (All About Forensic Science Poll)
- Jim Carrey's Horatio Caine impersonation at YouTube