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Wednesday 3 October 2012

Without A Trace 3.12 "Penitence" Review

CROTON CORRECTIONAL FACILITY
Prisoners are escorted on a bus, inside one starts a fight and others join in.  One standing around with a broom disappears.

42 Hours Missing
The prisoner’s name was John MacAvoy (Jeremy Davidson) and his sister Laura (Anne Ramsay) asks the FBI for help. Viv  (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) tells her he’s not a missing person.  Jack (Anthony LaPaglia) says everyone including the warden think he’s escaped.  Laura says he would have been out on parole in 2 weeks and reads them an extract from his letter; 'my faith is truly being tested.  Come what may know that you are truly in my heart and that I have tried to walk the path the Lord has laid out for me.  Love Mac.'  Viv asks what’s happened to him if he hasn’t escaped.  On her last visit he told her he was attacked by guards and they threatened to kill him.  Viv assures her they’ll look into it.

44 Hours Missing
There were 66 inmates and 64 after the fight was stopped.  Ferris (Corey Reynolds) also escaped.  They don’t have any leads.  The fight was a distraction and they hid in the food service truck.  The guards realized they were missing after a head count but it was too late.  The guard assigned to the gate left it open, it was him, Orley (Dean Norris).  The Warden Hillary Guiterrez (Jenny Gago) says the relationship with her staff was fine.  Mac punched a guard 18 months ago during a fight.  Viv tells her they’re here because he’s missing.  Damon Ferris was state raised and has been in and out of prison since 16.  He and Mac weren’t friends as Mac was part of the Arian tribe; the leader is Beast.

Laura doesn’t seem to recall when Mac told her about the attack.  Jack tells her the real truth is she called everyone, i.e. the sheriff, warden to sell them the idea of him not escaping.  He lied about being killed by the guards.  He beat men up as part of a group.  Laura tells him people change and she saw this at his parole hearing.  He apologized for killing Mrs D’Angelo’s husband in a drunken brawl and cried.  He seamed sincere.  Mrs D’Angelo dropped her objections to parole.  Jack wants a list of known associates Mac may contact.

Danny (Enrique Murciano) and Viv question Beast but he’ll only speak to Danny, he’s not black. He has a 666 tattoo on his arm.  Viv asks him why Arians would help a black inmate escape?  He replies there’d be one less of someone like her.  Viv says he’s trying to steer them towards Ferris.  Danny replies that’s why they’ll focus on Mac.

Sam (Poppy Montgomery) finds Mac hasn’t contacted anyone on the list.  Viv asks for a background check on Orley.
The Chaplin (Damien Leake) attended Mac’s hearing and wrote a letter about his deeds.  He can’t see into the priosners’ souls.  They’re usually working an angle anyway.  Mac assumed religion for parole until a few weeks ago.  Mac told him he got no comfort from religion.  His father was a drunk and beat him up.  Every hit made Mac meaner.  He excluded his weak feelings and doesn’t cry or show mercy.  He can’t even recall the face of the man he killed and now sees him all the time.

Danny reads a bible in the prisoner’s cell.  He speaks with the Professor (Dave Florek) Mac’s cellmate.  He wants a job in the library in return for information.  Mac left the Arians and cut his tattoo.  He and a prisoner Randall Bowen (Billy Lush) seemed to be an ‘item’.

47 Hours Missing
Randall attempts to hang himself in his cell.

48 Hours Missing
Viv asks the warden why he wasn’t placed on suicide watch? As he was Mac’s punk, the warden thinks he’s got a death wish.  Viv says he had a good reason to escape.  Mac was protecting Randall.

Kansas (Cyrill O'Reilly) runs a gang.  He comments that Viv did a good thing by bringing a white man with her, i.e. Martin (Eric Close). Martin says he’s in charge and they ask why Beast helped Ferris escape?  Why Mac escaped and carved out his tattoo?  Martin comments on how it must be frustrating not having visiting privileges.

Jack tells Sam the Highview PD reported a stolen car with guns and ammo.  Sam thinks the escapees must be up to something big.  Danny questions Randall.  He understands why he needed protection from Mac and made a choice to survive.  Randall tells him it wasn’t his choice to make.  The others gave him to Mac as a present when they heard about his parole.  Kansas said they should take care of each other.  Mac didn’t want Randall.  He protected him because he reminded Mac of someone.

49 Hours Missing
Sam finds that in 1999 a Jersey City patrolman was shot and killed.  This carries a capital sentence.  An eye witness, Doris came forward to testify against Kansas at the Grand Jury trial.
Danny asks about Doris.  They need Randall’s help and offer him protection.  Viv says he knows something.

Jack tells Laura he’ll arrest her for obstruction.  Mac didn’t mention Doris and he wouldn’t kill her.  They had an argument and she wanted to help him.  He hasn’t done anything good in his life and only knows how to be inside.  He belongs in prison.  Jack tells Laura Mac was trying to let her down gently.  Laura asks Jack if he’s ever tired of being wrong about people.  Danny is stabbed by Randall.

53 Hours Missing
Martin pulls off Danny’s blood patch.  No one else knows of this set-up and he’ll be  recognized by the others for stabbing an FBI agent.  Randall tells them Mac kept a low profile.  He requested Randall should get transferred.  Mac told them he wasn’t one of them anymore.  Kansas wanted him to take care of Doris.  Jack says Doris is alive and well and in protective custody.  Sam says she spoke to the DA 6 months ago, the same time Mac began Bible class.  The DA moved her up so Mac had to escape now.

Ferris is picked up by state troopers.  He got the weapons from his cousin.  He doesn’t know where Mac is.  He saw his chance during the yard fight.  Mac was sweeping, minding his own business.  The guards went in and headed straight for Mac.

55 Hours Missing
Viv tells the Governor Orley is dirty.  He paid cash on an addition to his house costing $100,000 on a $45,000 salary.  The records of prison assignments show Orley changed Mac’s assignment to yard duty.    Martin wonders how Kansas keeps going inside.  He’s missed his daughter’s life whilst inside and knows he’s filed 7 petitions for visiting privileges.  Viv brings his daughter to the prison.  Martin tells him the fight was a diversion for Mac to be taken out.  He tells him to speak with Randall.

Danny tells Randall part of the reason why he tried to kill himself is because Mac tried to protect him.  His sister deserves to know the truth about her brother.  Kansas gave up Randall so if he goes back inside he’s a dead man.  He tells Danny Mac couldn’t kill Doris.  Kansas wanted him to persuade Mac to change his mind.  The guards brought Mac to him and din’t have a choice.  Mac lights a candle.  He’s listening to someone else now and says doing this will make Randall safe.  Mac hugs him and Randall stabs him twice.  He cleaned up and Mac’s body was burnt in the incinerator.

Jack tells Laura that Mac didn’t suffer.  Laura reads his letter:
"Dear Laura
It seems like every week the Chaplin preaches on Psalm 23 – like I have to be reminded that I’m walking through the valley.  It’s the other stuff, the goodness and the mercy that I need to hear about and I’m trying to find inside myself.
My faith is truly being tested but I’m not afraid.  Come what may, know that you will always be in my heart and that I have tried to walk the path the Lord has made me.
Love Mac."

Jack: “I don’t appreciate being made a jackass.”
Laura: “People change.  You’re wrong.”
Jack: “Not people like that.”  hey this people change line was used by Horatio in CSI:Miami 10.11 Crowned.  That was a coincidence all these years later.

Viv: “Your brother talk to you about what I was like inside?”
Danny: “No, the only thing he said is that everything that happens in here happens for a reason.”
Of course Danny’s brother was right about things only happening in prison for a reason, almost always the wrong ones.  No wonder prisoners who go in come out worse off than when they went in, in most cases. We get a mention of Danny's brother and him being in prison and how lucky Danny was not to have walked that path.

Danny looking through the Bible in the cell, was he just looking at it or was he looking for something inside it.    Typically prisoners do find religion in prison.

Professor: “You should watch your back…sweat smells of fear…”
Danny: “You should watch your mouth….maybe you should get your nose checked out.  That’s a little friendly advice.”
Danny has to rescue Randall when he hangs himself, true to form it’s what we’ve expect from him: he always has to do this, save someone or find the DBs etc.

Jack: “I just get tired of being right.”  Again he’s proved wrong.  Though makes you wonder why he wasn’t right about Maria or maybe he didn’t want to believe what a backstabber she’d turn out to be.

Danny being stabbed.  You could sense that was a set up a mile off.  He wouldn’t really be so silly or reckless as to walk around in prison on his mobile, oblivious to his surroundings.  Especially since he knows all about prisons and the prisoners.  Though on the other hand, it would’ve been interesting if something actually happened to one of the team at some point and not just Sam.

Danny:”You just shanked a Fed – thanks to me, you’re big man on campus okay.”  But in the end he didn’t really need his help anyway or protection.

Danny: “do the right thing.”

Randall stabs Mac in exactly the same way he did to Danny, no wonder he was such an expert at it.

Jack: “For what it’s worth you were right.  Your brother had changed.”

Mac’s letter at the end and the Chaplin referring to the same Psalm, you’d think he’d had a premonition about his fate and what awaited him.  Especially since he also tells Randall that doing what he was would make him safe.  He didn’t put up a fight.

Jack mentioning he’s never wrong about people.  Whereas at the end you know he’ll be proved wrong again.  The second time in this season so far.  He was also proved wrong in season 3 episode 2 about the bomb at the abortion clinic being on a remote, whereas I was on a timer.

It was a bit silly Beast saying he’ll only talk to Danny since Danny isn’t exactly a WASP, though he is 'white.'  Would’ve thought the Arians would’ve been prejudicial not only against black people.

Jack: “You shouldn’t eat this stuff.”  Another clue as to what’s going on between Sam and Martin when Jack tells her she shouldn’t eat junk food.  Some of Martin’s bad habits running off there since he’s the only one who does this.  Also one episode Martin eats a sandwich for a change so there’s Sam's good habits brushing off on him.

Going to prison didn’t affect Danny in any way re Viv’s question to him about his brother, does this mean they’ve been speaking to each other since he was released.

Danny’s scar seems to have vanished from his wrist.

A familiar episode of CSI here.  Lots of clues about what happened in this episode; such as the shank, Danny getting stabbed was just a repeat of what happened to Mac.  Wonder if they knew then Randall was guilty.

Also appears in the last episode with Danny’s brother, season 2 episode 18 Legacy – he didn’t really tell anyone about him and Viv asks about him in this episode.  Does that mean everyone knows of his brother now.  If so, she knows his name at least Danny’s real surname.  DO we take it they’ve been talking about his brother.  She could find out Danny’s name, that is if Danny isn’t his actual first name.

See CSI:Miami episode 24 from season 1 Body Count where an inmate at a prison is stabbed to death in the prison yard.  The murder being a decoy to help inmates escape.  Corey Reynolds before being cast in The Closer.

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