Without A Trace 2.5 "Copycat" Review

                                                         
A woman disappears from outside her home, leaving her baby in the car.

3 Hours Missing

Chief Casey (Scott Allen Campbell)  tells Jack (Anthony LaPaglia) about Doris Levin, (Claire Rankin) 35 and a mother of 3.  Jack remembers it fits the profile of Rockville.  He has a flashback to to a woman, Caucasian; stay-at-home mother, taken in broad daylight.  Back in 1991, a series of 5 female kidnappings in Rockville, they all “ended up dead.”  The kidnapper was caught and is still in prison.  Doris’s husband had an argument with her, she came home late and he assumed she was having an affair.  He’s jealous, paranoid.  They trace his phone.

5 Hours Missing

Jack explains about “The Rockville Killer.”  All his victims were female, around 25-35, housewives, mothers, abducted during the day whilst doing chores; placed in his car, taken to abandoned warehouses in the area, raped and tortured for days and strangled to death.  He then painted their nails, applied make-up, dressed in lingerie like they were dolls.  A tape is received with  music playing in the background.  Randy Thornton (Keith Brunsmann) the kidnapper and killer is serving life in downstate Prison. Viv (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) asks Jack if he doubts it was him?  Jack has another flashback and replies he has no doubts.  He didn’t have a partner and Jack spent a year on the case, carrying out all checks, phone banking, computer showed he was the solo killer.  Martin (Eric Close) suggests it could be a copycat.  Jack says they’re dealing with someone very clever.

Viv asks if there are any other suspects.  Casey tells her Jack was thorough and became an expert on the case.  He worked hard and it affected him badly, especially the last victim.  He was one hour late.  6 months later, he’s still not over it.  He still wears on it.  Viv thinks it’s his job in general.  Martin says Jack has a history with the killer and not a very good one.

6 Hours Missing

Jack tells him he likes to be in control so they must let him, he likes authority.  Martin asks who Bob Sherman is?  He visited him in the last 8 months.  It’s his new lawyer.  Jack sees security tapes from 2 weeks ago and spots someone he knows.  He has a flashback to a man in prison issue orange: .

7 Hours Missing

The man is Graham Spaulding (Conor O'Farrell) he came to see Thorton.  He’s been inside for 10 years and now he wants to represent him, mentions he knows Jack.  He is sloppy, makes mistakes and got a client off.  He needs to find a small mistake in Thorton’s case.  Spaulding isn’t at his apartment.  He’s a sociopath and a killer as well as a paedophile.  They find red coloured rags and his PC.  Jack finds a baseball with the signature of Richard Clemente.  When Jack was little and lived in Pittsburgh, Clemente was his favourite player..  Viv says Clemente died in his prime, so it could be a message, a threat, warning him he’s coming after Jack.  He’s in Queensborough penitentiary.  He’s a paedophile and Jack exposed him for what he was, the worst possible thing.  Danny (Enrique Murciano) suggests if he wanted to get back at Jack, he’d take another child.  Or, Viv adds, Jack’s child.  So what’s he doing with a 35 year old woman?  Jack believes he’s copying an old crime to feel superior.  He picked Rockville because of Jack’s involvement.

Martin’s going to find out what he read in the library.  Sam (Poppy Montgomery) hates malls.  She shows Doris’s children a photo of Spaulding.  They saw him outside their house whilst playing basketball.  He saw their mother.  Ryland (Kyle McCaffery) the youngest saw him drive by and waved at him.

22 Hours Missing

He was reading back issues of law enforcement magazines.  Viv checks out the sports memorabilia store.  Sam reveals forensics discovered the red on the rags was paint.  He had a ’98 black Ford Explorer.  Viv says he painted it.  He’s looked at every article about the case.  Martin thinks Spaulding is obsessed with Jack and everything about him.  Richard Clemente, music, he wants the audience there in 1991.  They go to the warehouse in the newspaper photo.  Jack goes in alone and has a flashback to the last victim; found dead on the chair.  Tchaikovsky was playing.  He finds a wedding ring on the chair.  Viv calls Jack.  Spaulding wants him on the other end.  They trace the call.  Doris is still alive and knows about Jack being late for the others.  Jack wants to speak with her.  The cellphone from the tower is routed within half a mile of Jack.  Viv calls Martin and tells him Spaulding’s in the immediate vicinity.  He doesn’t want the 5 minutes of fame Jack never gave him.  The whole point is that Jack can’t do anything to save her.  Martin and Danny don’t find him.

31 Hours Missing

The ring was Thorton’s signature.  He would remove the ring before he killed them.  This wasn’t released to the press only agents on the case knew.  The Ford Explorer was painted red.  Danny comments Spaulding was here.

33 Hours Missing

Viv found a directory on the front seat of his car.  In Nassau County, Spaulding was looking for Doris, middle aged woman and circled everyone in the book.  Richards Doris 230 del Mort .  Viv asks who Doris is?  Jack replies not to waste time on it.  At prison, Thorton gives Martin a CD: PHOR JACK.  Spaulding left it for Jack. Martin listed to it and Jack should hear it alone.  He asks them to stay.  Music plays.  He could have used Wagner, more flare than Thornton.  Spaulding says she’s dying and asks how he feels about this?  Knowing this, part of him’s dying too.  Jack must save them all, because he couldn’t save her.  16 years old and losing his mother like that.  Does he lie awake at night thinking, What if?  He’d been a better son, smarter, better behaved, then she wouldn’t have killed herself and he wouldn’t be walking around with his secret.

Jack tells them about this.  He was 16, came home from school and no one was home.  He sat and watched TV for hours.  His father came home and knew something was wrong.  He has a flashback to a woman in the car, the exhaust blocked with a hose.  In the garage, he found the motor running.  His mother’s name was Doris.  Sam asks after Jack.

D Sotheby informed them of two baseballs sold.  One in Tribeca, paid $3,000.  Dwayne and Church, an art gallery. This was 2 blocks from jack’s house.  Sam says Jack wouldn’t know this.

36 Hours Missing

Jack wants him to make a mistake and call the press.  He’s going home, to make him think he’s quit, then he’ll call him.  He’s watching and will issue a statement to the press.  Saying the lead agent in the FBI’s efforts is on medical leave.  Hear this on the 11 0’clock news.

37 Hours Missing

Maria (Talia Balsam) doesn’t like what the job does to Jack. And thinks it’s all he really lives for.  Jack insists this isn’t true.  Spaulding calls and the call is traced.  He’s fine, disappointed.  He won.  Spaulding doesn’t think it’s fun if Jack forfeits.  Jack replies, “I save people, it’s my job.”  His speech in court.  Spaulding doesn’t even like women.  Spaulding wants to return to his old ways.  He’s fretting about his wife and staying at his apartment.  He feels sorry for Jack, living with all the stress, is that his job or his whole existence?  He hangs up.  Jack realizes he’s in the building across the street.  The team use the fire alarm to evacuate the building.  Jack finds Spaulding in 4A, by the window.  He thought he was going to get out, he’ll be joining his mother soon.  He sits on the window ledge.  Jack tells him it’s over and if he tells him where Doris is, he won’t get the death penalty.  Spaulding replies he doesn’t have the constitution for the death penalty or life in prison.  He jumps and hangs onto the ledge.  He slips out of Jacks’ hands.  Jack has another flashback to his mother in the garage and says Doris is outside in a car, Viv tells everyone to look for a car with the motor running.  Jack finds her in the boot.

Jack thinks of his mother.  It wasn’t the first time she tried to kill herself.  3 months earlier he found her in the garage with the car running and crying.  She made him promise not to tell anyone- so he didn’t.  He wanted to and was going to tell his father, but Maria knows what he’s like.  She told him she wouldn’t do it again and he believed her.  Maria replies, he would, he was only a child.

An episode, which although looks like another routine missing person’s case, is beyond that as it focuses on Jacks’ former investigations and more importantly, an early part of his life, with repercussions that come back to haunt him.
Tim Matheson made a guest appearance in a season 1 episode, The Friendly Skies as well as returning to direct two this season.  Now in Hart of Dixie.

Jack: “Dealing with someone of above average intelligence, capable of researching material, twisting facts and incorporated into his own scenario.”
Martin: “Husband’s a lawyer.  They’re usually of above average intelligence.  Sort of.”

Jack: “classic alpha male with homophobic tendencies sublimated into his hatred towards women.  Likes to be in control, let him.  Secretly he likes authority…Good luck Clarice.”  Good analogy, calling Martin Clarice, the novice entering the killer’s domain for the first time.Martin:  “Be glad you weren’t there.”  He says this to Sam, but she would have liked to have been there.

Spaulding; “I know how your mother died, Jack…you can’t save everyone Jack.  But he can try.  Spaulding gives him a big clue where Doris is by reminding him of his mother.

A Jack episode, we get lots of insight into his personal life and also why he does this job.  As well as showing his dedication to the job.  Which interferes with his married life to the discord of his wife.  This case meant a lot to him because he couldn’t save any of the victims from the earlier cases.  This was one Doris he could save.  When Viv pushes him for an answer about who Doris is, he tells her to drop it.  He lived in Pittsburgh and was a baseball fan, particularly of Richard Clemente.

Jack’s line “I save people, it’s my job.”  Perhaps sums up his whole character.  In a round about way, Spaulding gets Jack to face up to his mother and his past and he finally talks about her to Maria.  Something maybe he should’ve spoken to her before since they’ve been married so long.

danny: "SO where's our beauty school drop out now?"  A reference to Grease.

Music
Tchaikovsky’s Arabian Dance
One of these Mornings by Moby.  Also featured in the season 1 episode, Suspect, also with Spaulding.  In this epsiode he had a cup and saucer on the table and when Martin and Viv arrived at the scene.  Here it's the same cup and saucer when Jack gets there with Casey.