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addictedtostorytelling · 6 months

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Hello, I am asking about GSR because I love your thorough and thoughtful answers. I'm rewatching early CSI, and I know that the opinions of the producers towards GSR were not always favorable early on - they'd planned to can the whole relationship after S3, if I recall correctly, but WP & JF campaigned to keep them going. So I'm wondering, for early GSR, do you think that some of the claim that Grissom always loved Sara is retconned to fit the later plot? Or do you think that Grissom was written/acted to have been in love with her the whole series, and just keeping it under wraps, as the character later claims? Can we canonically read S1, S2 & S3 William Petersen acting a Grissom who doesn't know what to do with his feelings of love for Sara, or is it more likely that he was at the time meant to be acting as not sure how to handle her being so interested in him while his interest was not as strong? It seems like by S4 Butterflied that the writers & WP had decided Grissom was currently and had been in love with Sara. Would appreciate your thoughts!

hi, @nostromosigningoff!

thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you like my answers.

in response to your question:

up front, i will say i do not believe that the idea grissom expresses in episode 04x12 "butterflied" (and also at later points, such as in "immortality") that he has always been in love with sara represents a retcon.

for something to be a retcon, it has to contradict a previously established canonical plot point, thereby breaking the continuity.

for example, in s1, catherine is established to have a sister (who often helps to care for lindsey), but in later seasons, she is depicted as an only child; her sister being written out of existence is therefore a retcon.

so since it is never established that grissom definitely is not in love with sara pre-s4, then it can't be a retcon to have him say (or at least imply) in episode 04x12 "butterflied" that he has been in love with her the whole time he's known her.

it's not a rewriting of explicit history.

there is room within the narrative for what he says to be true and (within the universe of the show) to have always been true.

and, ultimately, i think the show makes it pretty clear that grissom does in fact have feelings for sara from the start, not only through explicit textual acknowledgment but also through certain acting choices billy makes, staging decisions, overarching themes, etc.

that said, the question of "was he (outside of the universe of the show) always intended to have been in love with her and only her from the beginning?" is, admittedly, a little more complicated, the answer running along the lines of "yes and no."

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

first, some clarification: despite the fact that the showrunners eventually questioned the viability of gsr at the end of s3 (after grissom had declined sara's dinner invitation in episode 03x22 "play with fire"), they were not (in general) unfavorable to romantic gsr prior to that point.

while anthony zuiker had never intended for csi to be a show that focused primarily on the characters' home and love lives (and instead wanted to keep the drama firmly situated in their work), gsr had indeed been conceptualized of as a romance—and a mutual romance, at that—from day 1*.

* or technically "day 2," since jorja fox was only hired and the character of sara sidle only created after they had already filmed the pilot.

jorja fox was cast as sara with the understanding that her character would be "the love interest for gil grissom"—and note the wording she was supplied, which suggests that grissom has an interest in sara (and not that sara has unrequited feelings for him). she knew going into the job that her character was meant to match up with the show's leading man and be the object of his attraction.

to that end, many scenes throughout csi s1, s2, and s3 were written and/or directed and acted with the gsr romantic angle explicitly in mind—with the feelings evident on both sides.

multiple episodes of the early seasons heavily feature and develop the notion that grissom does have both a sexual attraction and an emotional connection to sara, beyond anyone else, and only really make sense within that context (e.g., episodes 01x03 "crate n' burial," 01x10 "sex, lies, & larvae," 01x23 "the strip strangler," 02x16 "primum non nocere," the entire grissom jealousy arc of early s3, etc.).

moreover, within these episodes, sara is not always shown as being the "pursuer." there are plenty of times when grissom expresses his attraction to, feelings for, and devotion to her unprompted, such as, for example, in episode 02x16 "primum non nocere."

this example is especially relevant to our question, as grissom's "since i met you" quip not only establishes his attraction and emotional connection to sara but also specifies that it has been a "from the moment he met her" deal. since when does he care about beauty? literally from the moment he met her and realized how beautiful she is.

the fact that he does so proves: he's not just a boss stuck in the awkward position of having a subordinate with unrequited feelings for him; he has feelings of his own, which he often expresses independent of her saying or doing anything to provoke him to.

while he is undeniably conflicted about his feelings and unsure of what to do about them, the fact is that he does have them.

and much of the tension between grissom and sara in the early seasons is based on that reality—both explicit narrative cues (such as catherine bringing the issue up to grissom in episode 02x15 "burden of proof," prodding him to deal with whatever lingering romantic feelings exist between him and sara so they can effectively work together) and billy's acting choices make that point clear.

the problem is that neither grissom nor sara can ever just fully walk away from their connection; that deep down, neither one of them wants to.

so.

outside of the universe of the show, the situation was that the showrunners had this ship that had been written as being romantic from the beginning, with mutual feelings on both sides, which they had then teased for so long and complicated in so many ways that after three seasons—which is the traditional point at which most tv "will they or won't they?" couples have their slow-burn arcs resolved—they were questioning if it was still viable (and particularly as the ship was polarizing and not universally popular with the fans).

after all, by this time, they had already had grissom and sara acknowledge the attraction head-on (see episodes 03x02 "the accused is entitled" and 03x22 "play with fire") and had had grissom turn down sara's direct romantic overture toward him, so it was time to either "drive or get out of the car," so to speak.

it was never the case that the showrunners (as a collective) had hated gsr or been against it as a romance from the get-go. it had also never been the case that they viewed it as a one-sided, "sara is in love with him but he is indifferent to her" thing, either.

whatever else may be true, grissom was consistently shown to have feelings for sara (which oftentimes complicated their interactions).

it's just that after the rigmarole of s3, there was some question of "now that we've gotten grissom and sara to this (fraught) point, should we bother to continue their romantic relationship? or is our audience burnt out on all this angst? do people actually still want to see them together?"

the writers were inclined to think no, especially because (as stated) gsr as a concept had always been divisive among fans.

however, both billy and jorja understood gsr to be so central to their characters that they advocated for the romantic storyline to continue (and eventually see some consummation).

over the course of the hiatus between s3 and s4, they lobbied to maintain the ship (or, in other words, to go with the original plan), and eventually, they persuaded the showrunners to stick with it, which meant that s4 began with romantic gsr "still on the table."

as talked about in this excerpt from the csi: crime scene investigation companion book,

because billy and jorja were successful in their campaign, there was essentially no gap in coverage with gsr being written as romantic throughout the series; that throughline persisted from episode 01x02 "cool change" on, even after the events of episode 03x22 "play with fire."

now.

all of the above said, a couple of things should be noted:

first, csi was always a show with multiple writers who, though they functioned as a team, were nevertheless not a monolith in terms of how they conceptualized of the show, its characters, their storylines, etc.

that so, mileage would often vary with csi storytelling depending on which particular writer was the primary one for a particular script or even longer story arc.

though gsr was conceived of as a romance from the beginning of the series, prior to them "going canon" with the big reveal at the end of s6, there were various writers who put their own spins on the ship. some of them applied little effort to developing the romance angle as main text on the show, adhering to the zuiker "focus on the criminalistics" mandate to the letter and leaving it mostly to billy and jorja to inflect their performances with attraction/interest "between the lines" as they would in the absence of more explicit treatment in their scripts. however, others would alternate based on their own whims or what the story of the day called for, sometimes teasing the romance explicitly and other times downplaying it and/or leaving it understated (especially in favor of other potential grissom ships, like kessom). still others consistently played to and developed the romance, pushing that overarching story along and establishing it as a series mainline (the most reliable captains of this last camp, for my money, being david rambo and sarah goldfinger).

there was also variation, even among those writers who did place gsr romance on the center stage, in terms of how they portrayed the dynamic, and particularly with regards to the question of grissom's characterization within it. some wrote more toward grissom being confused, others toward grissom being repressed and afraid, others toward him being manipulative of sara's feelings, others toward him being conscientious of power structures and professional considerations, etc. they also had multifarious interpretations of the exact nature of the romance itself, especially in terms of what grissom and sara's pre-vegas history might be, the type(s) of attraction at play and how that might manifest, what exactly the characters' hang-ups and motivations with regards to each other were, the level of intimacy between them, etc.

that being the case, we can't really speak of all of the writers and showrunners sharing a common attitude toward or understanding of gsr without oversimplifying the matter.

the truth is, views among the writing and production staff on the show toward gsr were as various as they were/are within the fandom.

carol mendelsohn, for example, has spoken of the fact that there was never a consensus in the writers' room about whether or not grissom and sara had slept together prior to sara moving to las vegas. she personally felt that they had, though other writers/producers felt they hadn't.

while there was a baseline understanding across the production that sara was meant to be grissom's love interest and that there was some kind of nebulous ~history between them, there were lots of different ways members of the production team interpreted and depicted that relationship beat (which is why the gsr storyline sometimes feels so inconsistent, even within the course of a single season).

another thing we have to keep in mind when talking about intentionality re: gsr romance is that while we as fans often talk of ships "always being endgame," more often than not, showrunners and writers don't operate with that kind of certainty in place.

with the exceptions of shows where the main romance is the be-all, end-all central plot point, with the whole story revolving around particular characters getting together/staying together/having an eventual happy ending, in most cases, most tv romances do not come with a guarantee of endgame status. writers prefer to keep their options open, writing toward what is most interesting and playing on chemistry wherever they may happen upon it.

they also sometimes are constrained by production realities (such as studio mandates, shifting actor availabilities, cast dynamics issues, etc.), which make it so they can't necessarily just "write what they want."

that so, while it is accurate to say that the writers always conceived of gsr as being mutually romantic in nature—as per the character notes jorja was given by the production team and the fact that when billy and jorja first met, they did so with the understanding that they were going to be scene partners/playing love interests going forward—it is not accurate to say that they always believed (much less knew for a fact) that grissom and sara would wind up together in the end/become the flagship of the show, spanning all fifteen seasons and a movie/get married and live happily ever after, and particularly not from the beginning of the show.

sara was meant to be grissom's primary love interest from the beginning, yes—and certainly their dynamic was written with mutual feelings/interest on both sides.

however, "primary" does no mean "only," and neither does it necessarily mean "forever."

that so, before the character was really solidified, particularly in early s1, the writers had occasionally fitted grissom into some interim romances and tried to present him more as the archetypal "cad about town" than would later be the case.

they also, as the show progressed, sometimes teased and explored other romantic options for him than sara, mainly with heather kessler, writing those interactions in such a way that (had they wanted to, and particularly had the audience reacted favorably) they could have slotted heather in as grissom's "primary romantic option" rather than sara instead.

so for as much as sara was created to be grissom's love interest from the beginning and for as much as gsr was written as a romance (with feelings on both sides) from sara's first appearance on the show, gsr was not necessarily intended from the beginning to be endgame.

in the writers' views, it was one option of many potential ones—a main option, a consistent option, an option they poured a lot of narrative time and attention into developing over the course of the show's first three seasons, yes, but an option all the same; one possible choice among many.

it wasn't until s4, after billy and jorja's intercession, that they really decided to make gsr endgame, knocking all other possibilities off the table.

that choice on their parts was, of course, cemented in episode 04x12 "butterflied."

so.

getting back to your original question of "was grissom always written/acted as being in love with sara from the get-go or was he originally meant (prior to s4) to have been more uncertain?" here are my thoughts:

as established, both billy petersen and jorja fox knew from the beginning that their characters were meant to have some kind of romantic connection, and the writers were definitely conceiving of gsr that way.

it is also true that gsr was not intended to be one-sided; grissom was written and depicted as being an active participant from the beginning, just as sara was.

but as also established, the particulars of the connection between grissom and sara were very much "not pinned down."

it wasn't as if the writers wrote up a "gsr dossier" and handed it over to billy and jorja and said, "here is the entire history your characters share together, complete with notes about how exactly they feel about each other and what beats and nuances you should play with them going forward. also, you should know that we intend for them to eventually get married and be together forever, so make sure to foreshadow that as much as you can."

to the contrary: both billy and jorja have often spoken of the fact that given the preponderance of "blanks" in their character histories and how little information the writers gave them to go on regarding grissom and sara's past dynamic, they often consulted with each other to come up with what we fans might refer to as "headcanons" about what they believed had happened between grissom and sara in san francisco, as well as to make sense of what was currently going on between them at any given point during the early seasons of the show. they relied on each other to "get on the same page" and to create internal cohesion in their performances.

it wasn't something that was just handed to them.

they were also in the same boat as members of the audience when it came to wondering what the future held for grissom and sara as a couple while the show was still running.

while they knew their characters were romantically entangled, they didn't know to what end.

at the beginning, there was so much ship teasing.

but would grissom and sara ever get together? if they did, would the relationship be long-term?

they didn't know.

they were just going along with the story as it was being written.

and, as discussed above, the writers themselves didn't have some huge, overarching plan to start out with. they knew from the onset that sara was an emotional touchstone for grissom and someone he was deeply connected and attracted to, but they weren't necessarily married to the idea that grissom and sara would themselves get married.

as stated, "endgame gsr" was one possibility among many, and, particularly at the show's onset, when there were no guarantees of how long csi would even be on the air, it was a long-shot, far-off-into-the-future, we'll-get-there-if-we-get-there possibility at that.

there were a lot of moving parts in play and nothing was set in stone.

so.

all of the above being the case, can we say definitively that every second billy played grissom on screen, his intention as an actor was to depict grissom as being deeply in love with sara? can we say that he always fully understood grissom's motivations and knew that grissom was scared of the depths of his feelings for sara (as opposed to just being unsure of how to deal with her intensity)?

no.

while it's a safe bet to say billy was always aware that grissom and sara had history and that there was a possibility that they would eventually become a couple from the start, we can't say that he always knew exactly what was going on with them. there might very well have been times when he felt like the attraction was more one-sided or when he doubted anything would ever transpire between them; even when he perhaps thought that the writers might take grissom down other roads for romance instead (i.e., pair grissom with heather).

that said, did he, as an actor, nevertheless always seem to keep those initial notes on grissom and sara's connection "in his back pocket" so that grissom's emotional attachment to sara and attraction to sara played a consistent role in his characterization?

yes.

and did he regularly depict grissom emotionally reacting to sara (even if the nature of his reactions was more ambiguous), such that we as viewers can easily believe grissom's later claims that he has always been in love with sara when we view them from an in-universe perspective?

absolutely.

the facts that billy and jorja did come up with their own takes on gsr and talk through that "secret history" together and that billy so often ad-libbed some of the most romantic gsr lines ("since i met you," anyone?) and that billy did imbue grissom's reactions to sara with such emotion all strongly suggest that even if he didn't know for sure—based on a "word of god" dictum from the showrunners—what the exact nature of grissom and sara's relationship was or that they would for sure end up together, he was playing romance between them, and it was a consistent, deliberate acting decision on his part.

see, for example, his comments about his ad-lib of grissom calling sara "honey" in episode 03x22 "play with fire": "[the producers] said, ‘he can’t call her honey.’ but that’s exactly what would happen. he’s afraid for her—he’s afraid for everybody—but it is specifically for sara. he knows the stress she’s been under with him. with her shock, she doesn’t even know until later on that he called her honey. he doesn’t know that he called her honey. only the audience knows."

he may not have been able to say for sure, "i know sara is the love of grissom's life and that he's going to marry her someday, so i'm gonna play him that way in every episode." but he knew enough to recognize the importance of that connection and to consistently depict it, leaving the door for development open.

he also knew enough (along with jorja) to advocate for the continuance of the gsr romantic storyline at a time when the showrunners were doubtful of it.

and because he did, grissom's later in-universe claims that he's been in love with sara the whole time are emminently believable, regardless of what kinds of questions were being asked behind the scenes regarding the viability of gsr from a production standpoint.

so that's the thing: when i look at grissom and sara's story, i see nothing in it that contradicts the idea that they've been madly and mutually in love with each other since 1998—and, in fact, i think their story only really makes sense when viewed through that lens.

even for as indecisive and tempestuous as grissom can be about his relationship with sara in the early seasons, never for one second do i doubt that he has feelings for her.

there is no episode i can look at and go, "yeah, at this point, gsr was completely off the table. they just added it in later."

if grissom was just wholesale uncomfortable with sara's romantic attentions on him and not sure how to deal with them, then episodes like 01x10 "sex, lies, & larvae," 01x16 "too tough to die," 01x23 "the strip strangler," 02x05 "scuba doobie-doo," 02x15 "burden of proof," 02x16 "primum non nocere," 02x23 "the hunger artist" (which, lest we forget, explicitly features grissom seeking out sara while a love song plays), 03x02 "the accused is entitled," 03x09 "blood lust," 03x22 "play with fire," 04x03 "homebodies," and 04x07 "invisible evidence" would never have happened—or at least wouldn't have played out the way that they in canon do.

and mind you: all of those episodes take place before episode 04x12 "butterflied" stakes its claims to the longevity, singularity, and depths of grissom's love for sara.

in those episodes, grissom's romantic feelings for sara are all made main text—acknowledged not only through william petersen's acting choices but in dialogue, staging, and even through the show's soundtrack.

they are deliberately shown.

and what's more: nowhere in the show is grissom depicted as having that same sort of consistent, almost unavoidable emotional connection with anyone else, either.

though of course fans can and do argue about what he may feel for heather or even other potential love interests besides sara, the fact is that just by sheer volume and duration, his connection with sara is his longest, most intense relationship on the show by far.

even if one does believe he may at some point have feelings for heather (which, of course, i don't), it would always be a situation of "and" not "instead of" where sara in concerned.

his love for sara is a thread that runs through the whole tapestry of the show.

it's never the case that he stops having feelings for her in favor of having feelings for anyone else. he also never really moves on from her, even when he declines her romantic overtures at the end of s3.

so at the end of the day, though neither the showrunners nor the writers nor the actors may have known with surety from the beginning that sara would end up being grissom's one true love and the only woman he ever had any real feelings for, and while at various points during the production there definitely were other options they considered, what the show ends up actually depicting (all doylist intentions aside) is that sara is the object of grissom's heart from day 1.

it's not a retcon for the writers or grissom himself to say he has always been in love with sara, because there is consistent evidence of it, both internal and external to the show, from the start.

it's not something that was shoehorned in or decided upon long after the fact.

the option was there from the day jorja fox signed her contract.

and it was given consistent enough narrative attention, both by the writers and by the actors, that by the time it is explicitly stated, it doesn't at all "come out of nowhere" or contradict anything already established in the show. rather, it confirms what has already been implied for a very long time prior.

so tl;dr? while the showrunners may not necessarily have been sold on a gsr endgame from the start, that also isn't to say that they were against it, either, or that eventually "going there" went against their original intentions.

gsr had always been on the table, and billy, for his part, consummate knower of his character that he is, was always, from the beginning aware of that possibility and depicted grissom accordingly, leaving that door for a gsr romance open, so that now it seems very clear looking back that the love was there all along.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #nostromosigningoff #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: gsr #meta: production #let's talk shop #csiverse

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