Hide Sight - Recap

Mac is filling in his team. He got a message from his senior officers
telling him there is no sniper. He tears up said memo, announcing there
IS a sniper. We see the sniper take out a woman at a congratulatory
office party while Mac explains that this guy is good. Beyond good. He's
precise, he's determined, and he leaves no witnesses. Ballistics test
indicate that the shot was fired from approximately 300 yards. They hope
this was an isolated incident. That's what his superiors want everybody
to believe, anyway. The truth is, they have no idea when or where the
killer will strike again.

The killer strikes again. This time, it looks like he's just using his
scope and firing on whoever loses the spin.

Sheldon tells Sid he must have missed the "no vacancy" sign out front.
Sid is up to his eyeballs in new arrivals. The wound of sniper victim #2
is much smaller than that of #1. Chances are excellent the round is
still inside, and they can run it through IBIS. The scan indicates the
location of the round, and that it also appears only a bit deformed.
When Sid prods the round, it explodes and throws him several feet. He is
in and out of consciousness. His vitals are good, but he's dazed and
confused. Jo holds up Sid's glasses and said if he hadn't been wearing
them, he'd be blind.

Sheldon has lab techs rounding up the bits from the accident. When
tested, they indicate positive for nitroglycerin. The sniper is shooting
people with explosive bullets.

Chief Ted Carver is having a word or three with Mac. He reiterates that
the press is to be left entirely out of the loop. That's a direct order
from Carver's superior to Carver, and now to Mac. Mac feels the public
has a right to know. Carver disagrees, and his word is the last one on
this subject. Mac refuses to let it stand. The IBIS hits show that the
ballistics are a match. The people need to know. The faster they know,
they faster they can protect themselves. Carver won't back down. Mac
doesn't want to attend the press conference if he's not allowed to be
honest. Carver says it will look bad if he's not. Carver talks to the
press and flat-out lies. Even when pressed, he lies. A reporter directly
addresses Mac, and he starts out following Carver but winds up admitting
that based on the reporter's description, the people were in fact killed
by a sniper. The press goes mad, and they both walk away. Carver asks
what the hell he's supposed to tell the commissioner and the mayor now.
Mac says he can say in all truth that Mac never uttered the word sniper.


Adam is measuring blood spatter at the first crime scene. Based on
trajectory, he is able to determine where the shot was fired from.
Lindsay and Jo are on the roof looking for evidence. They find several
boot track impressions. Jo finds what would appear to be a hair from
the shooters forearm. Lindsay asks about the possibility of DNA, but Jo
says no. There's no root. It appears to have fallen out. Flack calls
Jo to tell her there is no connection between Elizabeth Grant and
Vanessa Walters. If there's no connection, then the sniper is just
killing anybody. Lindsay picks up a bug carcass from the boot print.
There is human blood on the carcass. She'll run tests.

The sniper fires again. It's apparent he is a younger man, probably in
his mid-20's.

Danny is running some ballistics tests, and he fills Sheldon in. He had
placed nitroglycerin in a bored-out bullet and fired it into a gel body.
He notes that he did a little digging and found that nothing like this
has been on the market since Hinckley's assassination attempt on Reagan.
That means this is homemade. Sheldon says the sniper must be
modifying store-bought rounds to explode. He asks about the rounds and
Danny tells him it's the kind of thing you can find at just any hunting
store. He's more intrigued by the source of the nitroglycerin. Sheldon
says that could be homemade as well. What he wants to know is why the
second round didn't explode until it got to autopsy. Danny already
figured that out. He created a second round. In this one he only used
half as much nitroglycerin. The round did not explode on impact, but
will explode if agitated. Sheldon tells him to demonstrate, and takes a
step back. Danny drops his goggles into place, and prods the round with
a pencil. It explodes. They realize Sid is lucky he didn't lose a
finger or two. Danny asks how Sid is doing, and Sheldon says fine.
They tried to send him home for the rest of the week, but he's already
back in the office. Danny jokes that Sid is not happy unless he's
looking at dead things.

Lindsay and Jo go to work on the evidence. Mac and Sheldon continue to
try to find a connection between the two victims of the sniper. Sheldon
points out that if nothing else, they are both female. Strawberry
blond, with blue eyes. Lindsay points out that the first victim was
killed celebrating a multimillion dollar deal for her corporate law
firm, so maybe there's a motive in there. And maybe he killed the
second victim to hide the motive regarding the first victim. Flack is
out canvassing witnesses, but thus far has nothing specific. Lindsay has
information on the bug. It is indigenous to Mexico/South America. Mac
thinks that's the only lead they have, until Jo comes in with
mitochondrial DNA results for a young man who disappeared 15 years ago.
His name is Michael Reynolds. Mac spent three years searching for him.

The sniper, Michael, was kidnapped, as we see in his flashback memories.
He kills one of the bugs that is crawling on him. When he hits the
floorboard, it seems loose. He is able to pry it up, and that's how he
was able to escape. He was reunited with his parents as his younger
brother looks on. Mac's memories take over. They caught the guy who did
it. His name was Arthur Francis, he was a twice-convicted sex offender.
The whole time time they were searching, they were questioning whether
the boy was alive or dead. Mac remembers this case as being the first
time he questioned which option would be preferable. He went to visit
Michael several times after he was reunited with his family. Mac
remembers Michael wanting to wear his badge whenever he saw him; he even
asked if the badge was pure gold. His brother Tom was curious, too. Mac
was positive one of the boys would become a cop. He lost touch with them
when his work life became so busy.

Sheldon joins them. He hasn't been able to dig up anything on Michael.
No bank, home, job - nada. Kind of strange, actually. Mac suggests they
approach locating him from his last known address, the one he grew up
at. It's a very strange room that Mac and Don find themselves in. Don
and says he's thinking "guilty". Mac suggests he go talk to the
landlord, find out about the parents. In Mac's mind's eye, he can see
Michael painting the walls. A covered glass jar catches Mac's eye. He
picks it up and sifts it back and forth before putting it down and
picking up the mortar and pestle nearby.

The young woman waves at Mac from the window across the way. She opens
her window and he does the same. She tells him the boys have been gone
for years. The parents go to Florida every year, they've been gone
about a month. Her name is Haley. Mac remembers her being interviewed
when Michael disappeared. She was nine, just like Michael. She
remembers his nightmares, how he used to scream. She could hear him
clear through the windows on both apartments. The nightmares happened
every night for years. Haley says the only thing that helped him was
the painting. That's when he seemed to be at peace. She tells Mac that
Michael left when he was 18. She doesn't know where he went, she doesn't
think he even told his parents.

Flack runs back into the bedroom Mac is in. They have another sniper
victim. This one is a gentleman, wearing a suit and tie. Unlike the
other two victims, he was out on the street. His name is Brian Sanders
and he commutes to the city every day from Connecticut. Jo tells Mac he
is married and has children. He was shot in the torso not the head, as
the other two victims were. The chief shows up, and Mac asks him if
he's ready to give the truth to the public. As they are walking Carver
asks Mac how sure he is the the shooter is the sniper from the other two
cases. Mac fills Carver in on Michael Reynolds. The chief asks Mac
what he wants from him. All Matt wants is for Carver to let the
commissioner know they are going public with everything they have thus
far. The city needs to be on high alert, or he guarantees there will be
a forth victim.

Lindsay fears she has reached a dead end. Everything points to Michael
Francis. Jo tells her it's classic Stockholm Syndrome, since Michael's
captor was Arthur Francis. They get a current address for Michael
Francis, and everybody moves in. When Michael doesn't answer the door,
they take it down and are immediately faced with a dead body. Don and
Danny see bugs crawling all over the victim. He was killed with a small
caliber weapon at close range, possibly suicide. However there are
signs of a struggle as well. If he'd did kill himself, where's the gun?
Don says under the body, but when Denny flips him over, there is no
gun. Rigor mortis indicates he's been dead more than 48 hours.
Therefore, he can't be the sniper.

Mac and Jo brainstorm about the case. If Michael's not the killer, then
who is? The DNA that they tracked was mitochondrial. Therefore, it's a
family of DNA, not specific to Michael. The hair had to have been from
Michael's brother, Tom. Jo looks up the reunion tape from Michael's
return, and sees that Tom is not included in the family hug. He had
probably been ignored for the past three years. Lindsay is skeptical
but Jo and Mac assure her that in this case, nature combined with
nurture resulted in Tom being a spree killer. Their discussion is
interrupted when Haley calls to tell Mac that Tom is back. She says
he's acting crazy, throwing things around like he's searching for
something. Mac tells her to step away from the window but she doesn't
move fast enough and Tom sees her. Mac tells Jo to send units to
Haley's apartment. Haley tells Mac that Tom is out of sight. He asks
if she is alone and she says yes. He tells her to lock the door and stay
away from the window. He hands the phone off to Lindsay and heads out
the door.

When he arrives at her apartment he knocks. When there's no response to
his calling her name, Mac kicks Haley's door in. He sees the officer in
the apartment across the way, shaking his head to indicate there's no
one there. He approaches the closet door, gun drawn. When he opens the
door Haley is safe on the floor of the closet. She is badly shaken, and
when Mac helps her out, she lands sobbing in his arms. She asks why Mac
thinks Tom came back, what was he looking for. Mac says he doesn't know,
but he will find out.

Everything from the apartment was boxed up and brought to the crime lab.
Mac finds an old VCR tape and watches the reunion, then Lindsay and JO
watch a one-man video show starring Tom, giving his impression of what
it was like to be Michael's brother. Joel freezes the tape and grabs
the image for Lindsay to have homeland security check it against their
videos, see if they can find him on the move. He must have gone back to
get the tapes. By now, he knows that the police are onto him, and his
next attack will likely be his last. His last sentence is "one day,
you'll pay."

Lindsay wonders if there's not a faster way to track him, as she is
finding no matches. Jo sends his picture out on NY Alert System. That
will put his picture on every cell phone in the city. Then they only
need one person to recognize him. Tom is shown looking at the tops of
the buildings around him. If he goes up he'll be out of everybody's
sight before they can arrest him. A young lady eyeballs him and calls
911. Mac and Jo head out. Tom is on the roof getting his sniper gun
ready. He looks through the scope and sees the police driving the crowd
to safety. Everybody has their shades drawn and now the sniper is
surrounded by snipers. Mac approaches Tom with his own SWAT backup.
They can't have air support due to the exploding rounds.

Tom shoots out the light directly below the sniper aiming at him. Mac
radios in that nobody is going to get a clean shot at Tom, he's too
well-protected. Mac calls out to Tom that it's over and he should put
down his weapon. Tom does so, but picks up a pistol. As Mac tries to
connect with Tom, Tom turns and fires on the SWAT man. Mac calls in
"man down". While he is radioing in, Tom takes a shot at Mac. They go
back and forth verbally, with Tom saying that he is getting all this
attention by killing. Mac tells him killing was not his only option.
While Tom is busy feeling sorry for himself, the SWAT man is bleeding
out. Tom is going to take the fatal shot at the wounded man. Because
he is surrounded by metal, Mac can't get a clear shot at Tom. He can
however get a clear shot at the bullets near Tom. He does so, and they
explode. Other officers rush Tom, and he is placed under arrest.

Jo find Sid in the lab. He's having trouble reading without his glasses.
She gives him a new pair just like his old ones, but this pair is a
little heavier. Jo tells him it's because they're impact-resistant; just
in case. Sid asks how she got his prescription and Jo says she's a
detective.

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