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| Life Sentence | |
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| Season | 7 |
| Number | 21 |
| Writer | Christopher Silber, Adam Targum |
| Director | Jeffrey Hunt |
| Original Airdate | May 6, 2011 |
| Navigation | |
| Previous Episode: Nothing for Something | |
| Next Episode: Exit Strategy | |
Life Sentence is the twenty-first episode in Season Seven of CSI: NY.
Synopsis[]
After Raymond Harris retaliates against Mac and his retired first partner, Mac begins to discover more about Harris' motives and his ex-partner's dirty laundry.
Plot[]
Picking up where “Nothing for Something” left off, Mac gets a visit from his former partner, William Hunt, at the crime lab. Hunt says he got a text from Mac to meet him there, but Mac says he didn’t send it. Before they can say anything else, bullets pepper Mac’s office and injure several people in the lab—including Hunt, who is hit in the arm.
The shooter took aim from an empty floor in the building directly across from the lab, and Mac assembles a team to head over and check it out. They find an AK-47 and a familiar subway map—the shooter was Raymond Harris. Mac confronts Hunt and tells him pushing Harris around put a target on their backs. Hunt says the target was always there, and he just sped up the process.
The AK-47 matches a case from 1994, where it was used in a drug robbery gone wrong. Witnesses said the bullets came from the second floor, and Mac recognizes the building’s address because that’s where he and Hunt arrested Harris. Harris was questioned during that case, but they couldn’t find the gun. Trace on the AK-47 leads Hawkes to suggest it was hidden in a wall. Wondering if Harris went back to his old apartment for the gun, Mac and Danny head over there looking for him.
Meanwhile, Harris waltzes into the precinct and says he wants to file a harassment complaint. He says the man who attacked him looked like a cop who arrested him 17 years ago. The team has no choice but to put Hunt in a lineup, but Harris pretends he can’t identify the man who attacked him after all. Harris wants them to feel intimidated, but Mac refuses to play along. When Harris leaves, Mac tells Flack to put a tail on the ex-convict, and he wants someone to stay with Hunt as well.
The team analyzes Harris’ old apartment, and they find the niche in the wall where he hid the AK-47 and the ammo. They also find a small amount of blood under the carpet, but there’s an even bigger stain under the floorboards. The blood belongs to Miranda Thomas, Harris’ fiancée. She was found dead several weeks after Harris was arrested. Miranda’s DNA is also found on a rosary the team finds in the home of former drug dealer Lucius Woods. Woods died from starvation and dehydration, and he has been dead for several weeks. Woods was Harris’ boss, and the drugs and money they confiscated the night he was arrested belonged to Woods. Mac and Jo determine that more than $100,000 was taken out of the bag when Harris was arrested, and Mac confronts Hunt about it—Hunt admits to taking the money, but it has been too long to arrest him for the theft.
During the time he spent in jail, Harris assumed that Woods killed Miranda over the stolen money. He killed the drug dealer slowly and painfully, but then he realized Woods wasn’t the man responsible for his fiancée’s death. Mac figures out the truth when he sees a strange impression left in the floorboard after Lindsay pulled back the carpet to find the pool of blood in Harris’ old apartment. Mac immediately recognizes the pattern: it’s from Hunt’s Fraternal League of Patrolmen ring. Hunt killed Miranda, and Harris believes Mac is also to blame. Mac goes for a drive with Hunt, expressing his anger and disappointment and insisting that they make things right. Harris rams their car and opens fire, shooting Hunt and going after Mac. Mac is able to get the upper hand, and Harris gives him no choice but to kill him. It’s too late for Hunt, who dies beside Mac as more police officers arrive.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Gary Sinise as Mac Taylor
- Sela Ward as Jo Danville
- Carmine Giovinazzo as Danny Messer
- Anna Belknap as Lindsay Messer
- Robert Joy as Sid Hammerback
- AJ Buckley as Adam Ross
- Hill Harper as Sheldon Hawkes
- Eddie Cahill as Don Flack
Guest Cast[]
- Peter Fonda as William Hunt
- Clifton Collins, Jr. as Raymond Harris
- Jenny Mollen as Det. Angela Sayer
- Vince Pavia as Officer Stone
- Michael Worth as Lucius Woods
- Alana Morshead as Miranda Thomas
- Sheridan Crist as Trevor Arnette
- Jennifer Hammond as Lab Tech
Trivia[]
- The episode appears to be partly inspired by the 1997 Norwegian crime thriller Insomnia and its 2002 American adaptation.
See Also[]
| CSI:NY Season 7 | ||
| The 34th Floor • Unfriendly Chat • Damned If You Do • Sangre Por Sangre • Out of the Sky • Do Not Pass Go • Hide Sight • Scared Stiff • Justified • Shop Till You Drop • To What End? • Holding Cell • Party Down • Smooth Criminal • Vigilante • The Untouchable • Do or Die • Identity Crisis (NY) • Food for Thought • Nothing for Something • Life Sentence • Exit Strategy | ||