Friends, Family & Guests: Rande Rae Norman & Jennifer Mimore (Unknown - Mickey and Sharon Croft), Don S. Davis (Lt. Donnelly), Tim Henry (Frank Walters), Michael Rogers (Detective Bryan), Walter Marsh (Justin Sellers), Noah Beggs (Brandon Ross), Paula Bellamy (Miss Daly), Jim LaCamell (Terry).

After finding the missing daughter of a famous reporter, Mac tries to solve the mystery behind the missing.

Opening Scene: A news anchor, Mickey Croft, is doing the news and ends the broadcast with a plea to the public with help finding her missing daughter, including a long rant about the incompetent police force. The production staff discuss cutting her off, but they think she’ll get them all fired, so they let her talk. She finishes with a promise to give an update on the investigation every night until the police assign someone who isn’t a "Keystone Kop." The two production guys agree that they wouldn’t like to be the police chief or the "yutz" he’s going to put on the case.

Mac, folding a paper airplane, grouses "Why us?" Fuller says it’s their lucky day, and Mac drawls that if it weren’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all, and Fuller agrees. Mr. Walters comes to the door, and Fuller greets him, saying they’ve been expecting him. He introduces him to Mac. Mr. Walters asks where the wonder cop is who’s supposed to solve everything, and Fuller repeats that they’ve been expecting him, this is Officer Tony McCann. Walters gripes that Mac is just a kid, and Fuller explains that Mickey Croft’s missing daughter is sixteen and his unit specializes in that age group. Mac jokes that they have subscriptions to "Teen Beat" and everything. Walters says he also has a smart mouth, "Sad, but true," Mac agrees. Fuller cuts in to inform Mr. Walters that Mac’s not exactly jumping for joy at the assignment either - that their fellow officers won’t enjoy being shown up by Jump Street. Mr. Walters says they don’t have a choice, but he’d still prefer a real cop. Mac says he’s a real cop but instead of a salary, he gets credit at his community college. Mac and Fuller pull his leg a little bit longer, and Fuller decides, "Ix-nay on the B.S., Mac, it’s time to go to work." Mac says the guys downtown never liked them anyway and throws his paper airplane. He smirks at Mr. Walters on his way out.

Mac is downtown at the police station, asking Det. Bryan, another officer, for some help, and Bryan informs him that the captain and lieutenant said that whoever ended up getting stuck with the Dragon Lady’s case was persona non grata. They’re ticked that she made them look like fools. Mac says he just wants to know what they’ve done so far. Bryan finally relents and tells him it’s been two days, there’s been no time - they’ve checked her friends, the train station and the airport, and that he and his partner, Larson, have five other cases hanging. Lieutenant Donnelly, annoyed that Bryan is filling Mac in, steps in and tells Bryan to tell Mac good-bye, and then he motions for Mac to come to his office. He reluctantly does so. Lt. Donnelly says he figured they’d give the case to Jump Street - they’re the only cops both hungry enough and stupid enough to want it. Mac tells him they could cooperate and both come out looking good, but Lt. Donnelly doesn’t want to cooperate. He has a sucker in his hand, and he shakes it at Mac. Mac points out that the more time that goes by, the less chance they have of finding her. Lt. Donnelly gets up and asks Mac if they’re going to send him back to Newark if he doesn’t find her. Mac, suddenly nervous, asks how he knew about that. He says he has friends back there and heard about a Boy Scout getting in some trouble. Mac says he had some help getting there, and Lt. Donnelly says that’s not the way he heard it. Mac says, "You know, sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing staying a cop. Most days I feel good about it. Then someone like you comes along, and I have to think it through all over again."

Mac, in his Jeep, drives into Mickey Croft’s driveway. She asks him in and says Mr. Walters didn’t think it would be a good idea for her to go to Jump Street with him this morning because he was afraid Mac would try to get out of the case and she’s not good at taking no for an answer. He points out that she didn’t make things easier with her editorial. She grins, saying she wanted to provide them with incentive. Mac asks her if it’s like dating another boy to get a boyfriend jealous, and she candidly says she never had a problem getting her boyfriends jealous. She’s controlling and flirty, doesn’t seem at all upset about her missing daughter, and she makes Mac blush. Lunch is served - she has cut the crusts off his sandwich. He mentions that his mother used to do that, and she asks what kind of boyhood he had. "Short," he says, accepting the plate. Mickey says that she and her daughter, Sharon just moved there two months ago - she had gotten her start on the local paper and they had been gone for fourteen years. Sharon had adjusted well, everything was cool with friends, boys, drugs or school. Mac says she knows all the questions, and she says she should - the police have already asked her several hundred times. Mac asks how much money Sharon would have had on her, and Mickey says she has just gotten her weekly allowance - $20 - and Sharon couldn’t have gotten very far on that. Mac says gently that he doesn’t want to upset her needlessly but there’s a possibility she needs to consider, and she slams the knife down on the counter. "No," she snaps, "we will not consider anything but finding Sharon and bringing her back safely. Is that understood?" Mac doesn’t reply to that but asks if he can see Sharon’s room now.

Up in Sharon’s room, which is decorated with lots of pictures of Sting and the Police, Mac asks for a picture of Sharon, and Mickey takes one from a bulletin board. She asks if he needs anything else, and he says not for now, and she leaves, telling him to let her know if there is. He looks around her room, going through her tapes. He presses play on her cassette player, and "Kid Fears" by the Indigo Girls starts playing - but all the tapes say "Sting" and are handwritten. She has Sting and The Police posters on her wall. Mac sees pictures of her with friends, makeup, jewelry - everything looks normal. In her tidy closet, he feels up in a pile of stuffed animals and finds a pack of birth control pills. He looks at her picture and puts the pills back. He looks around, looking at the Sting poster again and then leaving. The next thing we see is a marquee that says "Sting - Around The Clock - All His Movies." Mac buys a ticket and goes in - a bit startled by seeing the same unsmiling blonde girl selling tickets, taking tickets and selling popcorn. He enters the theatre and moves along the back, trying to look at the people in the nearly deserted place. Then he sees her, sleeping alone. He wakes her up softly, saying he’s Anthony McCann, her mother sent him to find her, and he’s a police officer. She doesn’t speak, just stares at him for a second and then curls up away from him to go back to sleep. Mac tries again, saying that her mother will be happy to see her and asking if she’s been there long. He takes a pinch of popcorn, saying he bets it sucks, and then tasting it - saying it does suck and throwing it on the floor. She looks over at him and says that the hot dogs suck too. He says it’s a shame that Sting had to end up in a place like this, and she says "better here than nowhere." He asks if she’s ready to go, and she nods. He lets her wear his jacket, and then they leave together.

They pull up at her mom’s house, and go in. Mickey is having a drink by the fire. She’s ecstatic that Mac found Sharon and hugs her - and then she tells her she’s filthy and they’re going to have to get her cleaned up and get some food into her. Sharon doesn’t say a word. Mickey asks if she’s all right, and when she doesn’t answer, she asks Mac if Sharon is all right. Mac reassures her that she seems to be. Mickey suggests that Sharon go upstairs and change, and it will give her a chance to fix Sharon something to eat and thank Officer McCann. Sharon wordlessly takes off Mac’s jacket and gives it back, and he tells her "We’ll see you, huh?" She looks at him and silently goes upstairs. Mickey asks Mac if there’s any way she can pay him a bonus, and he says no. She offers to walk him out, and he says he likes it when things turn out like this. Mac leaves, and Mickey turns around, seeing Sharon at the top of the stairs in a bathrobe. She smiles and says that’s better and offers her some leftover chicken from the icebox. Sharon, arms crossed, says "I know." Mickey asks what she’s talking about, and she says more strongly, "I know."

At the Chapel, Joey, with little toilet paper pieces on shaving cuts, walks around collecting money from people, and then he hands some of it to Mac. Mac asks what it’s for, and Joey says it’s his cut of the bets, explaining that they all bet he’d find Sharon, while some other cops couldn’t wait to bet against him. Mac grins, saying it’s reassuring that they all had faith in him, and Joey says actually they all thought anyone with a brain could have found her, and nobody downtown qualified. Mac hands the money back, and Joey tells him to keep it, and Mac insists that everybody go have a pizza on him. "Pizzas for everybody! On Mac!" Joey yells, his arms up in the air. Mac halfheartedly lifts his hands and continues playing pinball. Fuller comes up to him and slaps some money down on the pinball machine. Mac is impressed with the size of the bet, and Fuller says no, he just got long odds. Mac says he’s beginning to feel like a racehorse and that he doesn’t think he should take the money. Fuller says that he does, and he’s Mac’s commanding officer. At Joey’s desk, Joey’s blowing off to two other officers about how you have to take risk, and he did, and now he’s a better person, and Sharon comes in and asks him where Officer McCann is. Joey points over to the pinball machine, and she goes to talk to him, He asks how she is, and she says she’s fine and never thanked him. She says he was really nice, and she’d like to take him to lunch. "Anywhere I want?" he asks teasingly, and she agrees, saying that she has a credit card for emergencies. "This is definitely an emergency," he says.

Gravy is being poured on top of meat on a cafeteria tray, and behind the tray we see Sharon, wincing. "This isn’t what I meant," she says, and Mac reminds her that she said they could go anywhere he wanted. They take their food outside to a table, and she says everyone is impressed with how fast Mac found her. Mac says not everybody is. Sharon says that her mom said Mac searched her room, and Mac says not really, he just looked around - he wasn’t there to take inventory. "So...you don’t have to always tell everything?" she asks hopefully, and Mac says, "sometimes the nicest thing you can do for somebody is not tell them everything." Sharon looks down at her food and says that her mom kept a secret from her about her dad - she had always thought he died in a car accident, and then when she was twelve she found out she was illegitimate. Mac keeps his eyes on her, making a mess of his food as he listens. She says that her mother told her that there were worse things than being illegitimate, and Mac agrees. She says that what she liked was that her mom thought she was grown-up enough to know, and that’s why it’s so hard. Mac holds her gaze and says, "Sharon, if there’s something you want like to talk about," and she says there is. Then she says no. Mac says it would be confidential, and she tells him to forget it. He says it’s her choice, and she says she called him because she was afraid. He guesses that this is what made her run away and she nods. He reassures her that if there is any way to help, he will, and she quickly says that he can’t. "Try me," he says, and she says, "I said no. I think I want to go home now." He says okay, and she asks if she can borrow his coat. He puts it around her shoulders, and they leave.

When they get to her house, he walks her up to the door and she hands the coat back to him. She thanks him, and he thanks her for lunch. Mickey is waiting when they open the door, and Sharon bursts into tears, telling Mac that she’s sorry and running upstairs. Mac tells Mickey that something is really bothering Sharon, and Mickey says that she’s taking Sharon to a doctor and he’ll help her with it. She explains that she hasn’t given Sharon an easy childhood, and Mac tells her that it hasn’t hurt the way Sharon feels about her. Mickey says that it’s been one uprooting after another, and that she didn’t want to come back here - they were happy on the East Coast - she thought Sharon understood, but obviously she’s having some problems. She cradles her drink close to her chest and says that seeing Mac also seems to have upset Sharon. Mac says that’s not what it is, and Mickey says that Sharon will be back in school tomorrow and that she wants Sharon to return to a normal pattern - and that excludes seeing Mac. Mac says it’s her call, but... and she interrupts, saying she’s glad he understands and she’d better make sure Sharon’s okay. Mac smiles and says okay and goes back to his Jeep, putting his coat back on. He goes for his keys and finds a note in his pocket: "633 Corsica Dr. Apt #2." He looks up at Sharon’s window, and she quickly closes the curtain. At 633 Corsica, Mac gets out, giving a homeless man some change on his way in. Upstairs, he knocks on Apt. 2’s door twice, and then he opens the door slowly, entering the apartment. He goes around saying, "Hello?" and looks in all the rooms, and then he sees something, covering his nose to take a breath. It’s a dead body.

Police and ambulances are everywhere, and the body is taken away. Lt. Donnelly comes in, noticing Mac’s presence, and they smirk at each other. Lt. Donnelly asks who was first on the scene, and a uniformed cop says "McCann." Lt. Donnelly comes out and asks Mac if this is true and asks what he was doing here. Mac says yes, he was the first one here, and he estimates that the guy, a Richard Watkins, has been dead three or four days, killed by a paperweight. Lt. Donnelly, with another sucker, asks again what Mac was doing here. Mac says he means no disrespect, but he (Donnelly) has a tendency to repeat himself. Lt. Donnelly throws his sucker on the ground and points at Mac, lowering his voice to say, "Listen, Buster, the last thing we need is a guy like you making us out to be a bunch of screw-ups." Mac says calmly that back at the Academy, in Newark, he had this instructor, Charlie Monroe - a great cop - who told them on the first day, "work hard and do good work." Lt. Donnelly, baffled, asks what his point is, and Mac says he offered that they could do it together, but Lt. Donnelly said no. He says that foolish pride is downtown’s second biggest problem and Lt. Donnelly doesn’t even want to know their biggest. "The hell I don’t," Lt. Donnelly growls, and Mac says it’s butt - tush - rear end - they’re always either covering their own or kissing somebody else’s. "Work hard and do good work," he repeats. "Hell of a teacher, old Charlie." He walks off.

At the high school, Mac goes to the office and asks them to deliver a message to Sharon Croft. The clerk, Miss Daly, asks who he is, and he says he’s Anthony McCann, a friend of Sharon’s. "Really," she says cynically, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face - he’s just so cute that she can’t resist. She tells a student, Melody, to take the message to Sharon, she’s in room 220. Mac thanks her and walks off, and Miss Daly puts on her glasses to get a better look at him as he leaves. Behind her, a big guy in a football jacket gets up and follows McCann out. Out in the hall, Mac is suddenly surrounded by several big football players, one of whom, Brandon Ross, asks him what he wants with Sharon Croft, saying that she’s his girl. Mac says he’s lucky, and he agrees, adding that he doesn’t think Sharon would have a sleazeball like Mac for a friend. Mac says he’s wrong, and the guy pokes him in the chest challengingly, saying that Mac is wrong, and that no one else is going to come on campus and hassle Sharon. He pushes Mac back against the lockers, and Mac grabs his hand, twisting his finger back and making him wince. Mac says that he’s not looking to put him down in front of his friends and asks his name. Brandon tells him, and then he says to tell them all that he checked Mac out and he’s okay, got it? and then he asks who has been hassling Sharon. Brandon says some old guy, short and fat, never seen him before. Mac says he doesn’t think he’ll be coming around again. The bell rings, and he releases him, saying it’s good that he’s looking out for her and so is he. Sharon comes out and stands still, looking at him. Slowly walking toward him, she insists that she doesn’t have anything to tell him. He asks her if that’s true, then why did she put the address in his pocket, and she says she didn’t. He tells her that he’s on her side as she gets books out of her locker. She says for him to go away and leave him alone. He tells her there’s been a murder and he wants to help her, and she again says for him to leave her alone and forget he ever met her. He says he won’t do that, and she says he has to and that he’ll only make things worse. As she says loudly for him to just get out of her life, her mother appears in the hallway, looking extremely pissed off. Sharon goes to her mother, who hugs her and tells Mac that she obviously didn’t make herself clear. Mac says Sharon is in trouble, and Mickey says it’s nothing they can’t handle. She walks closer to Mac and says, "Don’t make it necessary for me to contact my lawyers, McCann."

At the Chapel, Mac sits, thinking, and Fuller comes out to ask him if there’s anything he wants to tell him. Mac says no. Fuller asks why he’s getting calls telling him to order Mac to stay away from the Croft girl. Mac says, "Beats me." Fuller asks if he’s keeping secrets from him, and Mac gets up, saying that secrets make sense, and none of this does. Fuller says none of what? Mac tells him what happened with Sharon and the note. Fuller asks if Sharon put it there, and Mac says he thinks so. Fuller guesses that Mac didn’t actually see her do it, and he says no, but he went to the address and there was a stiff. Fuller asks if there is any connection to the Croft case, and Mac says he doesn’t know, and that Sharon won’t talk and Mickey’s being nasty to him. Fuller asks who is handling the killing, and Mac says Donnelly is. "Fine. Let’s leave it up to him," Fuller advises. Mac reluctantly agrees. Just then, Joey enters with "a readout on your homicide." Fuller says, "Your homicide?" and Joey asks if they want to hear it or not. Fuller says no, and Mac says yes. Joey says Fuller can cover his ears if he likes, here it is. He says it was Richard Watkins, age 58, a minor city official. Was driven out of office fourteen years ago and has had a hand to mouth existence ever since, if they know what he means. Mac asks what kind of scandal. "McCann!" Fuller yells, and Joey says the computer didn’t say - trust him, he looked - and suggests that Mac should go to the library. "He’s not going anywhere, right, McCann?!" Fuller insists loudly, and Mac says, "Uh, right, Captain, nowhere." He thanks Joey for the information and they do some weird handshake where Joey says "Salmon," and Mac says "Jump," and then they flutter their hands away and Joey says "Spawning." Mac tells Fuller that he’s right, asking if he’s ever gotten a popcorn kernel stuck between his teeth. Fuller says it happens all the time and slowly he realizes what Mac means. He tells Mac "I don’t want to get any more calls from downtown, McCann. I don’t like talking to the people downtown. Is that understood?" Mac resignedly says it is, and Fuller says, "Go to it." Mac, surprised, says "Yes, sir."

Mac breaks into the apartment and looks out the window at the rainy city outside. As he walks around the dark apartment, he goes into the room where the body was and finds a pin on a jacket bearing a label that says "An original by Christopher Ryan." He lays it down and looks at the curtains billowing by the open window - and then he is tackled by Brandon, who knocks him down on the bed and runs. Mac chases him through the apartment and down the stairs, rounding the side of the building and chasing him through an alley and across a street, through another yard and then down another street and around another building, finally catching him in a trash area of an apartment building. He demands to know what Brandon was doing there, and Brandon gasps that he thought the cops were finished. Mac asks if that gives him the right to go on a scavenger hunt. Brandon asks who he is to ask questions, and Mac shows him his badge, asking him again what he was doing there. Brandon says that Mac has to read him his rights, and Mac says he’d be happy to as he’s booking him for assaulting a police officer. He throws him back against a wall and asks if he’s planning on going to college. Brandon finally agrees, saying that somebody paid him a hundred bucks to find something for them. Mac says if they’re going to play 20 questions, they can do it downtown, and he starts to pull him along with him, but Brandon stops him, admitting that it was Mrs. Croft. He hands Mac an envelope, saying that Mrs. Croft told him to get what is inside and he didn’t know what she wanted with them. Mac looks inside - there are pictures of a much younger and scantily clad Mrs. Croft with a bunch of people at a party. Another photo has her with an older man.

Mac is visiting Mr. Sellers, who was in the photo and now at a nursing home and amused that Mac wants to talk to him - everyone who knew him is either dead or doesn’t want anyone to see them talking to him. They are in the recreation room, playing some kind of skeeball-like shuffleboard game, and the same Tommy Dorsey jazz tune plays that was used in #58 "Eternal Flame." Mac jokes that even he remembers the case - it made the papers back East. The man says he was just a baby, and Mac says he was almost eight years old. "What did YOU know about hookers?" the man says gruffly. Mac says he didn’t know much, but he knew a lot more after hearing about him and his pals on the City Council. He laughs and says he just bets he did - he doesn’t know what ticked people off more - that they were cavorting with call girls or that they were using city money. Mac says it was probably the money. The guy says it was Watkins’ idea to use city money and he was a damn fool - never had two dimes to rub together and all of a sudden he couldn’t spend it fast enough. He compliments Mac’s skill on the game and asks if this has to do with Watkins’ murder. Mac shows him a picture, and he laughs, saying it’s the old party crowd and none of them looked good even then. He bends to play, saying that shuffleboard is a lot like life - the best shots not only score but knock your opposition on their keister as well. Mac asks him if he remembers the name of the reporter that wrote the story, and he says it was Mickey Croft, chuckling that he’d never forget that one.

Mac chats with the production staff. One of them asks if he’s there to beg forgiveness from Mickey Croft, and he says nonchalantly that begging’s not his thing -that he sometimes whines, but he never begs. He gets a cup of coffee and brings up the fact that this guy used to be the managing editor of the paper here and that begging’s not his thing either, is it? He says this, and Mac points out that Mickey hired her when she made anchor. The guy says it’s called loyalty, which is a rare commodity in their profession. He leans to wake up a crew member and tells him to sleep on his own time. Mac asks him, "But she got her start with you." He says she broke a story on a councilman and some call girls, and it broke her into the big time. Mac says she was pretty young, only 21, and that something like that is a tricky thing for a new reporter, isn’t it? He says she brought it in, so she got to write it. Mac says it had to be one big-time potential lawsuit, and the guy says she had all the facts solid - names, dates, everything. Mac doesn’t let up, asking how he knew her information was reliable. "You’re not going to let this go, are you," the guy finally says, and Mac says he can’t. The guy motions for him to follow him into a private room.

At the Croft house, Mac pulls up in his Jeep. Mickey is waiting for him outside. She says Frank called and told her, and she wasn’t sure who would be there first - Mac or the police. Mac says he thinks they should talk first. She thanks him, her voice low, and they go inside. He asks for a soda when she offers him something, and she takes this to mean that he’s on duty. He says he is, and she says "you’re good at your job, aren’t you?" He follows her into the living room, saying, "Afraid so." She turns to him and says, "How much do you know, and how much is guesswork." He says that mostly he knows - how she was making her living back then, how you knew Watkins and the other councilmen. She asks what his guesses are, and he says that she wanted to become a reporter, saw her chance and took it. She shakes her head, saying that it’s not that simple. She turns and crouches in front of the fire, staring into it as she tells him the rest of the story - Sharon was two and she didn’t feel much older, but she knew she could make it if they could just hold on, and then Frank told her that there were going to be cuts at the newspaper - all that could protect her was coming up with a story - a significant piece. Jumped her out of the hotel room into the city room. Everything she ever hoped for. Mac says that no one ever figured it out until Watkins read about her becoming the new local TV anchor and remembered who broke the story years ago. She says he came to her and demanded hush money, and she knew it would never end, so she went to his apartment and killed him. She stands up, holding a fireplace poker casually. Mac says he doesn’t buy it - the fingerprints on the photo she gave him didn’t match the murder weapon. She calmly says she wiped them clean. Sharon says "It’s all right, Mom. He knows." Mac says no, he’s guessing, based on the fact that Sharon’s leather jacket was in the apartment. Mickey suggests that maybe she borrowed Sharon’s jacket, and Mac says he doesn’t figure her paying blackmail. Mickey reminds him that she already told him that she didn’t pay it. Mac offers his theory - Watkins came to Mickey, and when she didn’t pay up, he started harassing Sharon at school. Mickey lets the poker fall to the floor and walks slowly toward him, and he asks how Watkins got Sharon to come to the apartment. Sharon says tremblingly that he said he was an old friend of her mother’s. Mickey warns her not to say anything, but Sharon continues, saying that he showed her pictures and started saying ugly things about her mother and what she did. When she started to leave, Watkins grabbed her and started touching her. She starts crying then, confessing that she just picked up something and hit him - and then there was blood everywhere and she ran. Mickey pulls her close and tells Mac that she will get Sharon to retract what she just said and no prosecutor will take the case. Mac admits this is probably true, and Mickey asks him what the point is then, and why is he here? Mac says that Mickey should know how hard it is to live with secrets and shouldn’t want her daughter to live like that. "The point, McCann," she repeats strongly, and he suggests that Sharon turn herself in and tell the truth. Mickey is understandably upset about what else might come out, and Mac tells them how much they have to tell to satisfy the police. Mickey asks if he’s going to tell them anything else, and he walks away to leave, saying softly that it’s not his concern...it’s not even his case.

At the Chapel, Fuller and Mac are laughing sarcastically over the outcome of the case - a newspaper article with Mickey and Sharon Croft that has Donnelly quoted as taking all the credit for getting them to turn Sharon in, due to "his department’s reputation for tenacity." Fuller asks if Sharon will be okay, and Mac says the ADA cut a deal - she will be charged with involuntary manslaughter and probably will get a suspended sentence. Fuller says that’s not what he meant, and Mac says they’re fighting over who’s going to take the rap for each other and he thinks they’re in good shape. Then he says he wouldn’t mind having someone like that in his corner. Fuller reflects a moment and encouragingly says "Yeah well...maybe someday." Mac looks away and says, "Yeah. Maybe," looking like he doesn’t believe it will ever happen.

Cyndi Glass: Michael Bendetti holds the show together admirably as Mac here, showing us Mac’s quiet competency and talent for undercover work. It’s a pretty standard episode, except for the fact that instead of the team efforts we've seen lately, this time Mac is on his own - Joey is not assigned to help him (but does, without being told to by Fuller), and Hoffs isn't even in the episode. I like the way Mac finds Sharon, and I also like it that the show is only partway over when that happens. Most of the really good stuff is in small and subtle pieces of what seems at times a complex puzzle. The plotline of Mickey Croft’s past coming back to haunt her parallels nicely the scene in which Lt. Donnelly brings up Mac’s history in Newark. Additionally, the recurring theme of the Jump Street cops vs. the "regular" cops is played out well, with a balanced portrayal: the helpful Detective Bryan along with the ridiculous Lt. Donnelly (made even more so by his constant holding of a child’s sucker)

 I’m always surprised at how the officers somehow know when Capt. Fuller really means no and when he means "I’m saying no because I have to cover my butt, but I really want you to solve the case even if it’s behind my back." In this one at least, he finally tells Mac to go ahead and it's spelled out. Joey’s two scenes are humorous, as his face has shaving cuts covered with toilet paper squares, and in the second one he’s in a tank top in the scene where he gives Mac the info - and looking mighty fine, if I may say so. The actress who played Mickey Croft was great in her flirty older woman demeanor she kept up with Mac, her steel determination to protect Sharon, and her casual handling of the props (the fireplace poker, the sandwich knife). The only thing I question here is her age -she is supposed to have been 21 when the scandal broke, and Sharon was 2. Fourteen years later, Sharon is 16...and Mickey is only 35? She looks a little older than that. Finally, I must comment on the brief scene with Mac and Joey doing their funny "Salmon! Jump! Spawning!" handshake- where did THAT come from? Was it ad-libbed? If so, Steven Williams somehow managed not to laugh. Or was it scripted? Either way, they pull it off well.

Some great direction here as well - the suspense is kept up throughout the show without the trite use of red herrings, and we easily see that Mac cares for Sharon. The Indigo Girls’ song was quite perfect for Sharon’s state of mind (dare I suspect that they couldn’t get a license for a Sting song?) - and when Mac found her at the Sting film festival, it became pretty apparent that the city police were as incompetent as Mickey said they were - where ELSE would she be? It just reiterates the point that Mac, with training in the field of undercover work with teenagers, would pick up on these clues from her room, but gee - did they have to be knocked over the head with it? Her room was practically a Sting shrine. I’d like to know if Bendetti ran track in high school - if not, it’s a shame, because in one long and well-filmed scene, he chases Brandon for several blocks, with hardly any edits - he can REALLY run. I found myself feeling extremely sorry for the camera operator who had to keep up with him during the chase. At the end, Mac’s scene with Fuller is touching, as he indirectly tells us how lonely and alienated he feels - great foreshadowing for the next episode. I’ve noticed that in Season 5, they did a better job than in any other season of keeping the episode-to-episode continuity more or less intact, no matter what order the episodes were actually filmed in.

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