‘CSI:NY’ Gets Personal As Season 7 Draws To A Close

CSI: New York has delved into more personal storylines lately, and the last few episodes of season seven will feature romance, a couple contemplating the future and a visit from an old colleague. (Minor spoilers after the jump!)

The New York writers made a conscious decision to include more personal moments this year. When the show first began, the network wanted to concentrate on the crimes and solving mysteries every week. Seven seasons later, the writers have a bit more wiggle room. “We get a little more leeway to delve into those storylines, and yeah, I think that by season seven we’ve earned the right to delve a little bit more into it,” co-executive producer Zachary Reiter told E! Online. “Certainly the addition of Sela Ward (Jo Danville) allowed us to explore her a little bit more than we would some of the other characters because she’s new and people want to know who she is and where she comes from.”

Personal storylines often include romantic relationships, and fans will soon see Dr Sheldon Hawkes (Hill Harper) with a new girlfriend. Camille Jordanson (Lesley-Ann Brandt) was first introduced in “Smooth Criminal”, and she’ll be back in the nineteenth episode of the season, “Food for Thought”. “I think he’s intrigued by the fact that this is a girl he grew up with, he’s known her for a very very long time,” Reiter explained. “[She’s] not somebody who just kind of popped up in his life, but I think that they are at different stages in their lives. [We were] intrigued with the notion of finding someone from his past that sees him in a different light and in a romantic way now.”

Married CSIs Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo) and Lindsay Monroe (Anna Belknap) have been in the background for most of the year, but Reiter promised something coming up for them as the season draws to a close. “We set something up—I don’t want to get too much into the finale but something comes up where they just start thinking a little bit more about the future,” he revealed. “I don’t want to tease that too much and honestly in these last few episodes—because we dealt with Danny and Lindsay so heavily at the end of last season with Shane Casey (Edward Furlong) and everything that happened up at the lighthouse with Lucy, the truth is we kind of took a step back so we could pay a little more attention to Jo and her relationship with her kids and the daughter that she adopted.”

The end of the season will also find Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) dealing with an old colleague. “There’s a two-episode arc, episodes 20 and 21, where we introduce Peter Fonda,” Reiter explained. “His character is Mac’s old partner, back in the day when Mac first joined the NYPD, he had a few years on Mac in the department and they dealt with things differently. They always had a different perspective on law enforcement and how they do the job. But an old old case comes back to haunt them and through episodes 20 and 21 you learn what that is and what their differences are and how that comes to a head. To see two heavyweights like Gary Sinise and Peter Fonda is a lot of fun.”

The full interview—featuring more about Hawkes’ love life, Jo’s family and the end of season seven—is available on E! Online.