| Episode Overview | Summary | POI | Cast and Characters | Crew |
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Finch is working as an operator at a 911 call center while Reese and Shaw run surveillance on him from a rooftop across the street. The trainee supervisor, Sandra Nicholson, listens in on one of Finch's calls and compliments him on his talent for the job. Reese and Shaw discuss the case with him over the headsets and Finch reminds them that Sandra is their newest number. Meanwhile, Sandra helps a trainee deal with a call about a woman trapped in a submerged car, and the woman escapes safely thanks to Sandra's advice.
Meanwhile, Fusco is at the precinct house, irritated with all the detectives coming to him for advice now that he's a rising star because of his arrest of Simmons. (“The Devil's Share”) A new transfer, detective Jake Harrison, asks Fusco for his advice on a case involving a dead woman, Tara Cooke, fished out of the river. Fusco tells him to handle it on his own and goes to his desk, where Finch calls him about Sandra. Fusco informs Finch that she has a clean criminal record but that she has a juvie record that is sealed under court order. He admits that he can't get into it and Finch thanks him for his time. Once Fusco hangs up, he reluctantly goes over to help Jake.
At the call center, Finch taps in to Sandra's phone line. She receives a call from a young boy, Aaron Hollenberg, who says that he's home alone and men are breaking into his apartment. Sandra tells him to hide in the closet and then sends the police there, while Finch has Reese and Shaw head there as well. The men search the apartment and Sandra overhears them talking in Spanish. Aaron's low-battery tone on his phone goes off, notifying the men to his whereabouts, and they easily capture him. However, once they do, they take the phone and tell Sandra to answer her phone. An unidentified man calls Sandra and tells her that she's going to do whatever he says, or he'll have Aaron killed.
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When Sandra becomes suspicious, the caller offers to cut off Aaron's hand to prove that he's serious. He then tells her not to alert anyone or disobey his command, and to call off the squad car she sent to Aaron's house. Sandra does so while Reese and Shaw arrive at Aaron's apartment and discover that the kidnappers have already left with the boy. Finch accesses the home computer's webcam and brings up the footage, and Reese realizes that they're not military based on their lack of tactics. He identifies them from one man's ring as Templarios, a Mexican kidnapping ring that work for the drug cartels. Meanwhile, Finch tries to track the mysterious caller's phone via his GPS and sends Shaw to check it out, while Reese tries to get a lead on the Templarios.
Fusco and Jake go to the private equity firm where Tara worked and check the carpet of her office for a match against fibers found on her body. Reese calls, interrupting Fusco, and the detective confirms that the Templarios hang out at El Certero, a local bar. Meanwhile, Tara's coworker Brent Holm wonders why they're checking out Tara's office when she was killed at the river. Gina Kincaid and her husband Ron, the CEO and CFO of the company, come in and pledge their help. Fusco asks them for the security footage from Tara's last day at the office before she died.
Sandra reluctantly logs Aaron's call as a prank and the caller orders her to shut down the backup generator. As Sandra goes to do it, the caller comments on her actions and she realizes that someone is watching her every move. Meanwhile, Finch brings up the internal cameras and watches as she goes to the basement. She convinces the security guard that she left an earring in the generator room and he agrees to let her in. Sandra takes the sign-in pad and starts to leave a help message, but the caller advises against it and says that she must not care about Aaron or Joseph, a boy she was with 20 years ago. Realizing she has no choice, Sandra signs her name and goes down, and shuts off the backup generator. The caller then tells her to go to the server room for her next task.
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In the server room, the caller has Sandra log into the system and then tells her to delete all 30,000 recordings of 911 calls from two days ago. Sandra refuses, saying they're potential evidence in court, but the caller insists. Meanwhile, Finch tries to discover how Sandra's caller is accessing the building security cameras. Shaw calls to confirm that she's found the limo the caller is using. However, it's empty except for a phone taped to a relay. Finch tells her not to tamper with it and Shaw interrogates the limo driver. He has no idea who hired him to drive around town. Meanwhile, Finch realizes how the caller is monitoring Sandra and goes to find her, while telling Shaw to get the driver to give her a description.
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The caller orders Sandra to make the deletion just as Finch comes in behind her. He mutes Sandra's cell phone and then tells her that the caller has planted a minicam on her headset, allowing him to monitor her. Finch figures that if they can identify the one call among the 30,000 that the caller wants deleted, they can work out who he's working for. Sandra tells the caller that she needs an elite admin code and that her IT manager, Todd, has it on a keychain. The caller tells her to get it and she leaves, taking care not to look in Finch's direction. Meanwhile, Finch starts going through all 30,000 calls to find the one they need.
Back at the precinct house, Jake checks the office footage but finds nothing unusual. Fusco tells him to check on Brent just as Finch calls him. He's managed to narrow down the 30,000 calls to 312 potential suspects, and needs Fusco to check half of them... in the next five minutes before Sandra will have to delete the files.
Sandra asks Todd to get her a spare headset and takes the drive from his keychain just before he turns back around. Todd asks if she's okay and Sandra makes an excuse and quickly leaves.
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Fusco goes through the calls as quickly as he can. He hears Sandra take a call from an unidentified woman tearfully complaining that her boyfriend hurt her. The woman hangs up but Fusco checks the map location of the cell phone the caller used and realizes that she was at the same spot where Tara was before she died. He calls Finch and passes on what he's discovered. Sandra comes in and forgets to look away, and the caller demands to know who Finch is. When Sandra can't answer, the caller says that he will have to hurt Aaron to make his point.
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A parking garage several blocks away explodes, but the caller informs Sandra that Aaron is still alive. However, he has strapped a bomb of the same explosive power to Aaron, and he will set it off in fifteen minutes if Sandra doesn't delete the calls.
Sandra goes to a break room and breaks into tears, and Finch comes in behind her, taking care to stay out of sight of the minicam. He figures that caller knows about the child, Joseph, and is using that to put additional pressure on Sandra. She explains that when she 14, she was babysitting the boy, left him alone for a minute when he was taking a bath, and came back to find him dead. She was charged with negligent homicide but found innocent, but she's blamed herself ever since. Sandra admits that the worst moment was when she froze rather than try to resuscitate the boy. Finch points out that she was too young and inexperienced to have done anything, and asks about Tara's call. Sandra refuses to delay any further and put Aaron at further risk. As she leaves, Finch promises her that he won't give up on her. Once he's alone, Finch tells Shaw to hold onto the phone relay.
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Once she finishes with the limo driver, Shaw calls to tell Reese the description she got. The employer had a Templario ring as well. Reese goes into the bar and spots the man, Solano, wearing a number of piercings. The other Templarios come over and Reese advises them to let him through. When they refuse, Reese admits that he was hoping they'd choose the hard way.
Fusco and Jake go back to the equity office to confront Gina and Ron. They have footage from the office showing Tara carrying the burner phone she used to make the 911 call. They've checked the phone records and recovered a "delete voicemail" message that Tara left to Ron, saying that she wasn't going to help him cheat on Gina anymore. Jake has confirmed that the carpet fibers on Tara's body match the ones in Ron's trunk. Gina admits that they hired someone to delete the 911 call. When Fusco says that a young boy's life is at stake, Gina admits that they don't have a way to stop the caller.
Shaw arrives at the bar as Reese finishes knocking out the last one. They turn to Solano, who tells them that the caller pays him anonymously and there's nothing more he can tell them. Shaw grabs a pair of pliers and turns to Solano, demanding to know where they're keeping Aaron.
Finch manages to trace the phone relay and confirm that the other phone is at an office building. He calls Reese and Shaw, who have already found out the same information from Solano. As they prepare to go up, Reese spots a suit bag in a nearby car.
As Sandra prepares to delete the calls, the caller tells her that it's no longer necessary because his clients have been arrested. However, he doesn't plan to leave any witnesses and tells Sandra that he's going to have both her and Aaron killed. The lights go out as someone cuts the power and the caller says goodbye to Sandra. As the staff evacuate, Finch stops Sandra and says that the caller will send someone to kill her as they leave. She confirms that there's another way out and they head for it.
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The Templarios receive word that their employer is going to set off the bomb. As they leave, the elevator door opens despite the fact that they locked it off earlier. The kidnappers open fire at the figure inside, only to discover that it's a suit hanging from the ceiling. Reese and Shaw open fire from the side and Reese spots the bomb on Aaron. He prepares to charge over but Shaw stops him long enough to say that she'll clear the way. Shaw fires on the thugs while Reese crosses the intervening space and starts defusing the bomb.
As Sandra and Finch reach the alternate exit, a man opens fire on them and they retreat into the basement.
While working on the bomb, Reese tries to distract Aaron by talking about baseball. He cuts the last wire with seconds just to spare, just as Shaw takes out the last Templario.
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The hitman enters the basement only to discover that the floor is flooded. Finch steps out behind him with a live power cable and says that he'll drop it into the water if the killer makes a move, electrocuting him. Once the killer drops his gun, Finch tells him to talk and the killer says that he just works for the caller, and has no idea who he really is. Sandra takes the man's gun and then, furious, pistol-whips him unconscious.
When Jake and Fusco return to the station, Jake thanks Fusco for his help. Fusco congratulates him on how he helped the solved the case and then tells him to get back to work.
Later, Finch meets Sandra at a park and explains that he considers them kindred spirits because they both handle calls and take people. He then points out Aaron playing baseball nearby and says that he can give her one thing she doesn't get as a 911 operator: closure. Once Sandra leaves, Shaw and Reese join Finch and he thanks them for their help. Shaw gives him the phone relay and the mysterious man calls. It's clear that he's monitoring them, and the caller assures Finch that he doesn't plan to hurt Sandra or Aaron. However, he warns Finch that he'll be coming after him and his friends. Once the caller hangs up, Finch tells Shaw and Reese that it wasn't anything of consequence and throws the relay into the garbage.