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Tuesday 27 November 2012

Without A Trace 3.17 "Lone Star" Review


 Estate agent Lance Hamilton (Lochlyn Monroe) gets a visit from a woman as he’s showing a house and disappears.

21 Hours Missing

Martin (Eric Close) tells Danny (Enrique Murciano) he’s Lance Hamilton, 32 from El Paso, Texas and relocated 10 years ago to New York.  He works for Windsor Shore.  Danny wonders who’d hang cattle horns in their house.  Martin comments he may be "trying to compensate for something.”  Danny finds lipstick on a wine glass.  Martin finds a piece of a shirt cuff with blood in the fireplace.

22 Hours Missing

His secretary tells Viv (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Sam (Poppy Montgomery) that Lance didn’t check in with her so she called around.  She doesn’t recognize the woman Lance met with in the sketch.  Sam asks her about his personal life.  She recalls a woman came to see him a few days ago.  Lance tells her she’ll spoil everything and doesn’t want her here.  She wore a wedding ring.  She hasn’t seen her before either.  Viv asks for his files.  Sam comments he’s probably got problems with most women.

Danny finds out he sells houses in pairs and sold some to a James Fusco, aka Jimmy the Tooth (Jon Polito).  He’s on the white collar watch list and has been in trouble for money laundering, etc.  On the day of the disappearance Jimmy called Lance seven times within 4 hours.  He tells Jack (Anthony LaPaglia) he wanted to buy another house because his wife is picky.  He was meant to see another place yesterday but he didn’t show up so he went to Lance’s house.  There he saw a woman catching a cab.  When he walked in he saw him burning clothes in the fireplace.  Lance denied anything was wrong.  He identifies one of the women in the 2 sketches.

Martin checks the records of Lance’s female clients.  Danny tells him the Tox report on the blood was HIV positive but it wasn’t his.  Martin calls up a hit on the other woman in the sketch who brought commercial property 6 months ago on Riverdale: Valerie Serbanesco (Alexia Landeau).

26 Hours Missing

Danny and Martin visit the property and Martin asks for Valerie.  Danny asks if she’s available and stops Martin from showing his badge.  Valerie brings out the girls and they flash their FBI badges.  Ooh.

27 Hours Missing

All the girls were kept in locked rooms.  Danny finds their passports locked away too and says there was no way out for them.  Jack comments on the sort of life they didn’t come here for.  They think Lance runs the place and are afraid of him.  One girl tells them she had to pay to come to the US and do what she does.  They do this to pay for coming here.  Lance paid $40,000, that’s $5,000 for each girl.  They were told they’d be here for 3-6 months but no one leaves.  Ariana (Sarah Demeestere) couldn’t run away as they threatened to kill them and their families.  They caught one trying and was beaten up as an example: Nadia (Katerina Mikailenko) is missing since the night before last.

Danny tells Jack they’ll have to inform the INS.  Jack tells him they can’t be deported.  Danny comments he’s bothered about Lance being a real estate agent.  Viv informs Jack of a woman boarding a flight at JFK with a gun heading for Texas.

29 Hours Missing

The woman is Beth Norwood (Bridget Flanery) and she tells Jack she forgot to declare the gun.  She wasn’t on a return flight.  Her husband gave her the gun: Lance.  She has a contact if there were any problems.  His name is Lance Norwood and he’s an undercover policeman from Nassau County PD.  He called her the other night drunk and told her to leave.  There was blood on his shirt.  He gave her the gun.

31 Hours Missing

They found out there was money laundering going on through real estate.  (Alex Sol) Pelosi ran a brothel with Jimmy, who got into the flesh trade.  Lance hated what he saw and talked Pelosi into buying better properties so he’d get better clientel: lawyers, bankers etc.  Martin mentions Nadia and they tell him Lance brought her in a few nights ago.  She told them about the teacher who recruited her in Romania.  They had to send her back in because they needed the number one man.  It would take them at least another 3 weeks.  Lance told them she was 15 and only a child.  Martin tells them she was beaten up.

Beth doesn’t know Pelosi.  Jack tells her about the girls and trafficking.  She met Lance at the pier and he told her he had to do this. Sam catches Viv fixing her heart monitor.  She asks her not to tell anyone yet, “even Martin.”  She gets a call; Olivia (Audery Wasilewski) rented a 12 seater van.

32 Hours Missing

Olivia says Lance called a few hours after they left and told her to take the money from his boots.  He collected the van.  Viv and Sam find Nadia in the boot of Lance’s car dead with a note: THREE MORE WEEKS and his badge.  Martin thinks he’s not waiting around for the police.  Sam says the blood is HIV positive and belongs to Nadia.  The car belongs to Valerie.

Valerie wants witness protection.  The day after Nadia escaped, a friend of Pelosi’s was arrested, he thought someone had been talking so Valerie suggested it was Nadia.  He was at one of his warehouses in Queens, she called Lance but it was too late.  They found Nadia.  Lance was angry and told her he was a policeman.  Danny asks her what he meant when he said he’d take care of it.  She tells them about his lawyer friend.

Jack and Viv question Pelosi.  Viv rings up charges of child endangerment, exploitation and violation of  the White Slave Traffic Act.  Jack tells him he killed and tortured a 15 year old girl and they have evidence he killed a policeman.  He tells them he saw Lance a few hours ago.  He drove up in a van with a gun and took the girls.

Danny finds the lawyer, Wayne Aguliera (John Gallucci) an immigration lawyer.  He was at the University of El Paso with Lance.  He contacted the judge for 6 emergency T Visas.  Viv and Jack question Aguilera who tells them Lance had nowhere else to go and said he had to leave town.  He gave him money.  Jack comments he wouldn’t leave without his wife and takes Beth to him at the pier.  Jack tells him he found the car.  Lance says he saw them with the other girls.  They’re getting T Visas and Pelosi will talk.  Jack shakes his hand.

Danny and Martin make small talk about each other and Danny mentions Martin and Sam when no one’s told anyone there’s trouble in paradise.
Danny: “What have we got other than a little South Western flair?”
Danny: “I see you and Sam in a place just like this.  I do.  Barbecuing out back with the kids.  Uncle Danny coming over to shoot some hoops.”
Martin: “I’ve seen your hoop shot – you’d better start working on it now.”
Danny: “I’m unstoppable.”  Maybe someone should remind Martin in the season 2 opener Sam said she didn’t want kids.

Danny: “He’s not married because no woman would allow that.”  Well if she was from Texas she would, probably.  With his comment about the horns he must have angered a whole lot of red necks out there; he was married after all.

Danny: “We’ve got lipstick.”  Of course he would find that!
Danny: “Looks like somebody messed with Texas”
So Danny and Martin have been playing basketball together.

A much covered subject: slave trade from Eastern Europe, also covered in the season 3 episode of CSI:Miami where the girls also had their passports taken and locked away and in The Closer where the girls thought they’d become nannies.  As well as CSI:NY and just about every other show around.

It appears Viv also knows about Martin and Sam so despite Sam's objections to everyone finding out wonder if she told her or whether Viv found out like Danny and Jack did.

Sam: “Sounds like he’s got himself into some kind of a love triangle.”
Jack: “That’ll get you into trouble everytime.”  Jack and Sam always end up commenting on the subject of love, especially when it’s so close to home for both of them.

Danny and Martin sharing some more amusing moments: Martin: “It’s about time …I saved you half….I was talking about the stack of files.”
Danny: “D’ya mind?”  Funny Martin eating a sandwich and not his obligatory fix of junk food.  Danny eating for the second time this season.

If the police department had Pelose under surveillance why wasn’t he followed when he picked the girls up and when Lance turned up?

Danny:  she’s “directly responsible or she knows who did it.”  He was right she was responsible for Nadia getting killed to save herself and she knew who did it.  He usually gets the case breaking lines like asking what Lance meant when he said he’d take care of it.

Olivia called the FBI when Lance disappeared and not the police.  As for searching his office how come no one thought to look in the boots.

At least Viv was consistent and commented on the legal violations as she did in season 2 episodes too.  Strange how Danny mentioned calling the INS to Jack, maybe he thought this was the last thing on Jack’s mind and so he had to mention it.
Lance had blood on his face and part of his mouth too only no one thought of mentioning she was HIV positive to him.
Good to see Martin having to follow Danny’s lead this time re flashing! Badges.  Sam and Jack hardly getting soaked in the rain.
Twitter @mila255h

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