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Friday 12 October 2012

Without A Trace 3.13 "Volcano" Review

An autistic boy goes missing from a museum after he runs away from his father who tells his brother to fetch him.  He doesn’t want to leave the dinosaur exhibit.

2 Hours Missing

Ian (Dyllan Christopher) has a tendency to run off and that’s why his father was on the trip with him.  He’s gone home to get the locating device receiver which Ian wears on his wrist.  He’s been gone 2 hours and their mother is at work.  The device leads them to his bracelet, which Jack (Anthony LaPaglia) wants analyzed by forensics.  Martin (Eric Close) talks to some Indian tourists.  Jack tells his father that his looking for Ian isn’t helping and he should stay here with him.  His father, Daniel (Vincent Angell) admits he always finds Ian.  Jack needs his help and has to ask him some questions.  Ian went missing at 12;30pm and Daniel had been gone for 2 hours.  He looked for Ian for about 45 minutes: under the truck, stairs, garbage cans, he likes those places as they’re warm and quiet.  Makes him feel safe.  He went downtown by car.  Jack needs to establish  time line.  Jack tells Daniel witnesses saw him shout at Ian.

2 Hours Missing

Ian’s mother, Kate (Christine Tucci) tells Sam (Poppy Montgomery) that his locating device resembles a watch.  This had been cut off.  Ian has been described as “high functioning” by doctors and struggles with communication with others and social issues.  He has his own room.  Elliot (Hayden McFarland) has to share their room.  She and Daniel went to a class for autistic children and the instructor said that in 5 years time most of the couples would be divorced.  His one-to-one assistant was Anu Singhal (Shaeen Vaaz) and she called in sick last night.  She was  a part of preparing Ian for the field trip and his mother showed him a video of the museum.  Sam asks if Daniel forgets the receiver often.  He always has it with him.

3 Hours Missing

Viv (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) says forensics found the cut was made by a small blade.  Sam’s given them  a list of Ian’s therapists and helpers.  Anu has a Masters from Columbia in social work.  She hasn’t been seen all day.  Danny comments Anu would’ve known how to cut off Ian’s locating device.
Elliot reads a book on insects.  Sam doesn’t like them either.  She asks him why Ian ran at the museum.  He lies and says because he touched him.  Sam asks if it was because his father yelled at him.  Elliot looked for Ian on his own, he’s good at finding him.  Last time he ran, he found him in an alley.  Elliot gives him his hand and he takes it.  He thinks Ian would run to Anu.

Danny (Enrique Murciano) has a checked a list of employees Martin sent him.  One of them John Sewell has no match to his social security number.  He hasn’t paid taxes in over 3 years.
Danny questions Sewell at the museum.  He’s confused because his name tag says ‘J Sewell’ but a J Larabee (Lennie Loftin) stole artifacts from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  There must be a mix-up.  He comments if he was going to pilfer from a a museum, he’d change his name to J Sewell.  The guard runs and Danny gives chase.  He ran because he was going to arrest him.  Danny tells him from the surveillance video, he wasn’t at his post.  He admits to seeing Ian in the basement with blood on his face.  Ian ran from him.

4 Hours Missing

Daniel says he didn’t see Ian.  Anu is attached to Ian but wouldn’t hurt him.  Jack asks for a blood sample form Daniel; it’s standard procedure.
Anu tells Viv she was at an interview as she thought they wouldn’t be needing her anymore because they didn’t know what to do with Ian.  Ian drew volcanoes.  Daniel wanted to send him to a special school.  There was a disagreement with Elliot, but he tells her Ian nearly broke Elliot’s arm.  Anu tells them Ian doesn’t need the school.  Daniel was always positive and patient but changed overnight.

Ian’s shoe is found in a park in the snow.  Martin assumes it fell off when the kidnapper took him.  Danny says stolen artifacts were found at the guard’s apartment.  Viv says Anu’s alibi also checks out.  Danny says that Daniel’s attitude changed a week ago.  Ian was seeing a Dr Rosalin Whitmer (Shannon Cochran) 3 times a week for the last few years but stopped going a week ago.  Daniel cancelled his appointments.  Viv wants the doctor to talk to them about Daniel.  She was looking at a new area of treatment for Ian which involved a complete work up on the parents.  Daniel isn’t Ian’s biological father.  He didn’t know of this and was angry.

5 Hours Missing

Daniel says his knowing isn’t relevant.  Jack would like to believe he’s innocent.  He had means opportunity and now motive.  He undergoes a polygraph.

Ian’s real father lives in Arizona.  She didn’t know which one of them was Ian’s real father.  It was when they were separated and she thought it was over.  He was wounded at first.  Daniel replies that he has never harmed Ian and hasn’t hurt him this morning either.  The polygraph was inconclusive.  Daniel tells Jack he’ll look him in the eyes and tell him he didn’t hurt Ian.  Jack says he wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t lied to him.  His mother thinks Daniel hurt Ian.  They argue and Elliot says he killed Ian.

6 Hours Missing

He went after him in the basement and pushed him.  His hand got caught in a caged rail.  Ian wanted Anu.  He cut off his device and cut his wrist.  Ian ran away.

Martin says Ian came out of the museum but isn’t headed for Anu.  She was supposed to be there with him.  He recalls the tourists at Strawberry Fields.  They must have reminded him of Anu and so he must’ve followed them.  The bus driver, Barstatis (Vincent Gustaferro) tells him Ian was hiding in the luggage.  He thought he was stealing and he ran away towards left on Washington.

7 Hours Missing

The whole family searches for him as well as Jack, Sam and Martin.  Jack finds him in an alley under some stairs.  Daniel apologizes for what he said.  He reaches his hand to him and Ian takes it.  Daniel thanks Jack for helping and hopes he never sees him again.

A routine episode showing the the frustrations of a family dealing with autism.  Routine in the sense that it focused solely on the investigation without any grey areas.

Danny: “Nice resume...Now where the hell is she?”
Danny actually gets out of the office for a change to do some chasing after a suspect.
Ian drew volcanoes hence the title of this episode.  Do we assume forensics had already analyzed Ian’s shoe before Martin brought it back to the office.

Ian’s mother saying her husband was “wounded” after he learnt of Ian, that’s putting it mildly.  The polygraph would be inconclusive, for one thing Ian went missing in the afternoon and not morning, so there’s a mess up of the time line Jack mentioned earlier on.  Elliot reaching out to Ian to bring him home, later repeated by Daniel.

That’s the fourth time Jack’s been proven wrong this season: the first time was in episode 2 with the bomb, he said it was on a remote and Viv was right it was on a timer.  Then he was wrong about the prisoner in ep 12, he had changed.  Also you could say he was wrong about his wife, the shrew - oops, when he told his lawyer she wouldn’t have gone behind his back planning the divorce and taking his daughters away from him.  Here he was wrong about Ian’s father, he didn’t kidnap or kill him.

Three actors in this show, Vincent Angell, married to Christine Tucci in real life and Vincent Gustaferro became close whilst filming as they have sons with autism.  Vincent thought the episode was well written and addressed issues parents face.

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