What ransom amount is demanded in Grave Danger?

The ransom demanded in “Grave Danger” is one million dollars. In the two-part CSI season-five finale, kidnapper Walter Gordon buries CSI investigator Nick Stokes alive and gives the team 12 hours to deliver the money.

The episode turns the ransom into part of a larger revenge scheme. Catherine Willows asks her father, casino mogul Sam Braun, to provide the million dollars after the city refuses to finance the payment. Grissom then takes the money to the designated location, where Gordon reveals that the kidnapping is driven by anger toward the crime lab rather than simple financial gain.

Viewers often confuse this amount with the two-million-dollar ransom in “Crate ’n Burial,” an earlier CSI episode with a similar buried-victim premise. “Grave Danger” is also notable because Quentin Tarantino directed it and contributed the story. It originally aired as a two-part finale on May 19, 2005.