The fifth series of the crime drama spin-off focusing
on an elite group of New York cops continues. This

week, Goren and Eames probe the murder of a
bridesmaid in a seedy Brooklyn hotel. The suspects
range from her drunken friend to an actor who may
have taken method acting to the extreme.
As a blizzard descends on New York City, two
young women from out of town are forced to seek
refuge when their flights are cancelled. They ask
their taxi driver to take them to the nearest hotel,
which turns out to be a squalid fleapit called the
Brooklyn Lights Inn. A nervous Megan tells her
drunk companion, Alice, that she believes
someone in the hall was watching her. Alice
dismisses her concerns, but when she nips out to
the bathroom during the night, she is horrified to
find Megan dead on her return.
Detectives Goren and Eames examine the
scene and find that Megan has been beaten
around the head by a blunt object. A traumatised, guilt-ridden Alice reveals that she left the door open when she went to the toilet because she could not find the key in the dark. “I didn’t think anything like that would happen,” she says. “I am so sorry!”
Evidence from the hotel indicates that Megan’s attacker may have known her. Goren and Eames learn that, on the night of the murder, Megan and Alice had been drinking with two men in a bistro.
One of them, Jason, was apparently offended by Megan because she rejected his advances. Did Jason follow them to the hotel?
This theory is discounted when Jason is found to have an alibi, but Goren questions the restaurant staff about the other diners that night.
One of them was an oddball regular who changed tables during the course of evening – possibly so that he could watch Megan. “He moved to keep an eye on her,” Goren says. The detectives trace the suspect – Lester Summerhill – to a dingy hotel room, where they find the walls plastered with disturbing images. Discovering that Summerhill is a cabbie, Eames asks, “I wonder if he drops off fares at the Brooklyn Lights Inn?”
The case takes another twist when the detectives learn that Summerhill is in fact Tim Rainey, a family man with a young son. His wife, Ellen, explains that Rainey is a dedicated method actor who immerses himself in his roles for months at time. “That’s part of his acting process – he isolates himself from us, so he can fully transform into his character,” she says. Rainey has been living alone in the hotel and working as a taxi driver for the last three months, preparing for a film role as a serial killer – but the project was
cancelled a month ago, and Rainey has still not come home.
Goren and Eames now have good reason to suspect that Rainey has become a genuine killer.
They do not have enough evidence to arrest him for murder, so Eames decides to entrap him on a separate charge of promoting prostitution.
Hauled down to the station for questioning, Rainey admits dropping Megan and Alice at the hotel, but says he resisted Alice’s attempts to lure him inside for sex. “Alice wanted someone to come back to her room that night and she wasn’t too picky about who it was,” he says.
The detectives test this version of events with Alice, who claims she blacked out from the alcohol and cannot remember what happened.
Prodded by Eames, she unexpectedly confesses to murdering Megan.
The confession throws Goren and Eames into a dilemma. Forensic evidence indicates that Alice could not possibly have killed Megan; moreover, they are convinced that Rainey is the killer. “You made this problem,” Deakins tells Eames. “Now fix it.” Can they find a way to break through Rainey’s mask and prove his guilt once and for all?