CSI’s second new episode of the night, “Hero to Zero,” began with a homeless man rifling through a dumpster when a gang of thugs terrorize him. They only stop when a man shines a light on them and orders them to pick on someone who can fight against them. They run toward him and the next scene shows Sara and Nick arriving to process the body. As Nick takes away debris covering his body, he discovers the dead man is wearing a superhero cape.
Sara discovers a backpack with a notebook inside of it that apparently captures comic images of the victim as a superhero fighting a gang. She had also found some footprints indicating more than one attacker, including some bare foot prints. As Dave is talking to Nick about time of death, Sara sees a homeless man coming back for his cart and he has no shoes.
In the lab, Sara has gotten food and shoes for the man named Roger. He tells her the hero saved him from villains who wanted to hurt him. Sara asks if he remembers anything that could catch the guys and he tells her about a red pickup truck that was parked in the alley.
Morgan tells Cooper that when she processed the shoes found at the scene, she found bits of granules stuck inside the impressions, likely due to the stickiness of the crime scene. Greg comes in with security footage of the thugs smashing a car and a business around an hour before the murder took place.
Greg and Finlay go to the scene in order to process for evidence to figure out who the thugs were. Greg tells her the gang had hit another store in the same area and he is currently making shoe impressions. There is powder all over the ground from a phosphorous tube that broke when the glass from the store was smashed. They may not be able to find prints since the thieves took everything and wore gloves, but Finlay discovers blood on the glass.
Cooper and Sara talk, where she finds out he was a comic book fan as a teenager, whereas she used science to escape her childhood. As they are talking, Hodges comes to tell them the trace in the shoe prints came from ground walnut shells and that the trace was charred. As he is leaving, Henry comes in to tell them the blood Finlay found came back to a male who was related to an inmate named Martin Preach, who has a son named Trey. When Sara sees his mugshot and that he has purple hair, she notices a drawing in the comic book shows a man with purple hair.
Nick and Sara bring Trey in to talk to him, but he isn‘t too forthcoming. However when he finds out that they think he killed someone, he tells them he is innocent. Meanwhile, Cooper goes to tell Morgan about Trey only being locked up so far on the theft. She tells him that none of the prints from the store crime scene match the ones from the alley. Cooper suggests she find Roger to see if he remembers seeing Trey.
Greg and Morgan go to the alley and find no sign of Roger. He goes off to check around the corner as she looks around. As Morgan is looking around, she sees a figure running around and soon, two people dressed in costumes appear in front of her. They ignore her command to step away until Greg comes up behind them with his weapon.
Greg and Morgan talk to the two superheros, who talk about protecting the neighborhood from crime. They mention being unable to find their friend, Dominion, and learn that he is dead. They tell Greg and Morgan his name is Brad Jeffries.
Cooper interviews Brad’s mother and stepfather, Seth, who tell him Brad got involved with the superhero movement, or online role playing, less than a year ago and that he always hung out with his best friends, Tina and Scott, in the basement. Meanwhile, down in the basement, Tina and Scott, the superheros, talk to Nick about Brad. Tina mentions she was a victim once and Scott says he’s a superhero to redeem himself.
Nick shows them the drawings, which turn out to be Brad’s, and they depict the gang they call The Disciples. Brad has more drawings he did in the basement and Nick finds one of the pick up truck that their witness saw. Tina and Scott tell them the driver had shoved a prostitute and Brad had smashed his fender, but they claim not to know much else.
In the break room, Morgan tells Sara about other people who are part of the superhero movement as Hodges comes in to talk about the walnut shells. Along with being exposed to a chemical trace and the charring, Hodges determines the source was likely from Sundip Pool Supply.
In the morgue, Greg comes to see Robbins to find out that the beating Jeffries received was non-lethal, but an attack to the back of the skul killed him instantly. Then, he stuns Greg by telling him that the bruising on his body had time to form before he was killed, at least 60 minutes between the time he was beaten to being murdered.
Greg tells Cooper about the results of the autopsy and shows him a photo of some marks on the victim’s neck. Cooper recognizes it as the hero’s weapon in the comic book drawing and the killer must have taken it since it wasn’t at the crime scene. Sara comes in with news about her lead, telling them she found charred walnut shells everywhere at Sundip Pool Supply and a demolition crew led by Tony Agrerro were the only ones in the facility. Plus, he owns a red pickup.
The police, Nick, and Finlay go to the building and find the red pickup, which has damage consistent with Brad smashing the fender. Nick and Finlay investigate and hear a beeping sound. They find a monster truck that is still warm and Finlay spots blood before they see the crushed body of Tony Agrerro.
Dave examines Tony’s body as Finlay reveals that someone intentionally messed with the pulley on the truck to make Agrerro fix it before he was crushed. Dave spots some scratches on the truck itself and he tells them the victim died around midnight. They also saw bruising on his face indicating he had been in a fight. Nick remembers Tina and Scott wearing spiked arm bands and think they might have delivered justice.
Sara goes to talk to Tina, who doesn’t seem to know what is going on. She is surprised to learn Tony is dead and tells Sara she was with Brad’s mom all night. However, they don’t know where Scott is and Sara spots blood on his costume.
Cooper and Greg discuss Agrerro’s crew and that Greg was able to get them to talk. All of them copped to the beating, but swore they left Jeffries alive. Cooper and Greg theorize that maybe Tony’s identity was revealed when his mask came off and he came back later to kill Jeffries. However, Morgan comes to shoot this idea down when she tells them Agrerro and some other members of the crew had gone to a bar and never left.
Nick talks to Scott, who is not talking, until he is faced with evidence that was found on his costume. He admits that he had gone to look for Agrerro, but that the man was already dead and he had reached in to check his pulse. He mentions hearing the engine running on the truck, but Nick feels he’s lying since the engine was not running when they arrived. Scott asks for a lawyer as he swears he didn’t kill anyone.
Cooper and Sara talk about Scott lawyering up and he reveals the alibi for the crew. A cop comes up to them to tell them the murder weapon was found after a man threatened tourists with the bag, claiming he was batman. It turns out to be Roger.
Sara interviews Roger, who claims to have found the club in a different dumpster. She asks for the truth of what really happened, but he sticks to his story. When asked for help figuring out which dumpster, he only mentions a gold star.
Nick goes to Cooper to tell him that Dave’s estimate for the time of death was wrong by 18 hours. Because the engine of the truck had really been running, it kept the body warm and caused his calculations to be off. They think that Agrerro was killed the morning after Jeffries was killed, meaning Scott was not the killer. Hodges comes in to tell them that butter found on the club was infused with ingredients common in Ethopian cooking and there was a restaurant five blocks from the crime scene.
Nick and Finlay go to the dumpster behind the restaurant, where they spot the gold star. The dumpster is empty though, but then Finlay spots a security camera. Sure enough, the camera spotted Seth dumping the club in the alley.
Cooper and Finlay interview Seth, who tells them that he had been approached by Agrerro after the man heard him talking to a bartender about Brad playing superhero. A joke was made about roughing Brad up and soon it became reality. Seth thought getting roughed up would get Brad to stop doing his superhero gig. He went to find Brad in the alley, but made the mistake of saying something about a gang. When Brad had said he would tell his mom, Seth hit him in the back of the head. The next morning, Seth had gone to pay Agrerro when Tony attempted to blackmail him. Seth jammed the winch cable to kill him.
Cooper finds Sara in the locker room and praises her on a job well done. He then hands her a gift, which turns out to be some of his old comic books so she can do some reading to escape her science world. Sara thanks him before looking at the comics.
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