Read our full summary after the jump! And there is a former star of Sailor Moon in this one: Robert Bockstael (Prince Diamond) plays Harvey Silver. Stephanie Morgenstern is also seen in this episode, playing an officer.We begin outside a crowded subway station surrounded by police and citizens. Spike maneuvers in a bomb robot towards a suitcase bomb as Jules counts down the time left before Spike detonates the suitcase. The case explodes... and rewind! Four hours earlier, the SRU complains about the broken AC as they head towards the briefing room. An old friend, the retired Sargent Daniel Rangford, visits the SRU and catches up with them. The SRU is alerted to the station where the suitcase is, and as they leave, Rangford hopes they keep the peace. Ed tells Sam about Rangford and how great his legacy with the SRU was. Back at headquarters, Rangford asks to use the Briefing Room and walks around the halls he once knew. He puts a letter in someone’s locker. The SRU arrives at the station which has been marked off by police line as they come up with a plan about the suitcase. Rangford asks Kira for a file, but he flinches a little when she says she needs clearance from the commander. He begins to speak in a threatening voice towards her and shows her a gun. Back at the subway station, Spike wheels out his robot as Jules works Command Post. At the SRU, Rangford takes Kira down to the archives, and holds her cell phone. As Kira goes in to retrieve the file, Rangford spots a plaque dedicated to him, and quickly turns away. The SRU doesn’t know why the suitcase is here in a public place. Rangford assures Kira that everything should come back to normal, and instructs her on how to act. As he walks back into reception with Kira, he is greeted by another of his colleagues. He talks the barest minimum to him and he walks away. Rangford tells Kira to sit down. Spike begins to scan the suitcase. Spike suspects there is phosgene in the suitcase. The same colleague back at the SRU gives Rangford a water bottle , and inadvertently he spots the gun. Rangford pulls a gun on the colleague , and backs into the briefing room. Kira sends a text message to the SRU and they split up, Ed, Wordy, Sam and Greg head back to HQ and Jules is put in charge of this situation at the subway station. Rangford keeps the SRU members at HQ at a distance as he locks himself in the briefing room. Roll Opening! Kira gets through to the SRU over voice and fills them in. They arrive back at HQ and figure out ways to monitor the situation using equipment he doesn’t know about. Spike finishes his scans and sends his robot, affectionately named “Babycakes” to open the suitcase. Ed starts the negotiations with Rangford. Greg talks to Kira and learns about what happened. Greg asks Kira to suit up and call up Rangford’s old partner, Harvey Silver. Ed is in a bind as Rangford has foiled his fiber optic camera, but Wordy manages to get another one in as Ed continues to talk. Rangford begins to drink out of his bottle of whiskey as he reads an old newspaper article. The SRU watches, and Sam begins typing in the event log. Rangford begins shooting at a chair, almost delusional as if there is someone else in the room. After a few shots he comes back to his senses. Rangford’s wife comes in, asking to see him, but Greg takes her aside. Ed breaks into the room, and Rangford holds the gun to his head. Commercials! Back at HQ, Rangford says if they move forward, he will shoot himself, as he goes through the rules of negotiation. He begins to lay out all the pages in the file in a circle around him.
Harvey arrives, but Sam deters him from coming inside the room, and Sam asks him about an incident in 1989. Babycakes surrounds the suitcase with a special scanner, and sees things he doesn’t want to see. Kira tries to talk to Evelyn, and she says that he is not the same man she married. He doesn’t enjoy a lot anymore, and he had nothing left to his life when he retired. Rangford talks more about what tactics will not work, including tear gas. Evelyn feels detached from her husband who has been “hanging off a cliff” all these years. We go to Harvey and Sam, and Harvey tells the story about what happened in 1989. It was at a house where an 18 year old was looking after her orphaned brother and sister. There was a home invasion, but by the time they got there, they had left. The rest of the team went back on patrol, and Harvey and Danny stayed to write it up and sit with the kids, trading baseball cards. Two hours later, there was a homicide there. The girl who they managed to save was brain damaged to the point where she couldn’t have a great quality of life. The other two were killed. Greg leaves Ed to find out more information. Harvey didn’t know what to say to Dan. Spike gets ready to detonate the suitcase. Ed rolls in a water bottle to Dan. Kira brings in a bunch of beta tapes from the incident. Greg finally allows Evelyn to see Dan, but behind shields. Dan is ready to shoot himself in the head again, but upon seeing Evelyn wants her to go away so he can do this without her. The suitcase detonates as Dan puts the gun towards the SRU. Commercials! Evelyn begs Dan not to shoot. Dan gets delusional again and appears to be talking to a child. Kira fast forwards to a police interview with the 10-year old girl after the incident.
You see Stephanie Morgenstern from her backside in this scene. We can now understand why Dan feels guilty - he told the boy to show his sisters how brave he was, and the little boy stood up to the criminals. Greg and Ed try to talk him down. Dan remembers what the little boy was like before he left, and he remembers seeing a screwdriver jammed into his throat. He blames himself for what happened and can’t take it anymore - all he sees are the ghosts of all his failed missions. He then asks Ed to shoot him. Ed takes the bullets out of his gun, and puts them on the ground. He takes off his equipment and his vest. He understands where Dan is coming from as he remembers all the calls they didn’t get to on time. Ed says Dan made him who he was, and he manages to pull him into a hug and takes the gun. The two men have a good cry about all their tough times as the camera pulls away. And we go to commercial. Spike looks at the remains of the suitcase, and sees actual hay and grass, and the remains of Dan’s Silver Shield which he earned for his bravery in this incident. The montage begins, as Dan is led away, and Greg promises to send him to rehab. Ed goes to his locker, and pulls out the letter Dan left for him. In the briefing room, Greg is with himself as he signs the incident report. Kira takes the report back to her office. Ed goes home and shows a special bulletin board with news articles about his career to his wife. He puts the note Dan left for him up there (a simple “I’m Sorry”) and hugs her. The end.This was one of my favorite episodes of the show because we saw more of the effects a lot of these incidents that don’t go as planned have on the officers - something which the montages at the end never seem to capture all of. I thought the performance given by the entire cast was superb!
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