The fifth season of the crime drama spin-off focusing on an elite group of New York cops continues. In this week’s episode, the shooting of a car salesman leads Logan and Barek to a conniving mother who was blackmailing different men by claiming they fathered her child.

Logan and Barek are called to a lonely country road where Joseph Sabo, the owner of a car dealership, has been shot dead. They find evidence that Sabo tampered with the traffic lights at the junction to force another car to stop, before attempting to shoot the driver. “Maybe Sabo was planning a hit,” Logan says. The driver appears to have shot Sabo in self-defence and driven off.

Enquiries reveal that Sabo was stealing money from his own business to pay off a mysterious debt, while further evidence from the scene indicates that the driver Sabo tried to kill was a woman and that she was driving a car he gave her. When they hear that the dead man had also been receiving calls from a mystery woman, they suspect he was being blackmailed.

In the meantime, Logan and Barek trace a man who was near the scene at the time of the shooting. Henry Vinson claims to know nothing about the crime, and appears to have no connection to Sabo, but the cops keep him under surveillance. In due course, Vinson meets with an attractive blonde woman and hands over some money. Logan and Barek swoop in to question the woman, Danielle Quinn (Elizabeth Berkley, ‘Showgirls’, ‘Saved by the Bell’). A gunshot burn on her ear suggests she is the mysterious female driver who killed Sabo, and she is arrested.

A search of Danielle’s car reveals a set of identical photos of her son, Charlie, all with different names. They realise she has been blackmailing married men – including Sabo and Vinson – by claiming they are the father of her child. “She franchised her own kid,” Deakins remarks. It is clear that Sabo wanted to end Danielle’s scheme by killing her, but the cops suspect he also had an accomplice.

However, Danielle denies the charges against her and refuses to help identify the other man who might be trying to kill her. With the victims of her scam unwilling to testify against her for fear their wives will find out they have been unfaithful, Logan and Barek seem to have hit a dead end.

In search of new leads, the detectives track down the real father of Danielle’s son, and discover that he has been hiding Danielle’s car in his garage.

The case takes on a new complexion when the cops study the damage to the car and realise that Danielle must have be lying down when she shot Sabo. “Danielle was waiting for him – she knew he was coming,” Barek says. This means Sabo’s death could not have been an act of self-defence.

In court, Danielle is defended by her sister’s boss, Declan Pace. However, Declan does such a poor job of defending her that Logan grows suspicious. He follows the lawyer to his car and sees him kissing Danielle’s sister, Claire. Logan now suspects Danielle knew about Declan and Claire’s affair and was using it for her own ends. “If she found out Declan was sleeping with Claire, don’t you think she’d put the squeeze on him?” Logan asks Barek.

If Declan was being blackmailed by Danielle, it gives him a motive for wanting to kill her, and suggests he could have been Sabo’s mystery accomplice. He may also have found the car and altered the damage to make it look like she was not shooting in self-defence. This theory appears to hold water when they are able to prove that Declan was the one who sabotaged the traffic lights. It is clear that the lawyer wanted Danielle dead, but then a new piece of evidence derails the case against him, and Logan and Barek must reconsider what they think they know.
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Tuesday 11th March at 11:00pm on five