Without A Trace: Deja Vu (Episode 615)

Hi, I'm Annie, and I'll be your recapper for the rest of the season. I have to confess something - I've only seen maybe 20 episodes of this show total. So, I know who everyone is (although for some reason I get Danny and Martin mixed up. I don't even know) but I'm a bit lost when it comes to ongoing storylines. If I screw something up, please don't hesitate to let me know.

At a recovery clinic, the brutally hot Christopher Wiehl is hooked to machines. He stirs, causing a nurse to freak out because, as we find out from a doctor later, Jay McCann has been in a coma for the last three years, caused by a car accident. Jay, still groggy, takes the news rather well. His wife, overjoyed by the news, flings herself over Jay and he seems bemused by the show of affection.

Six weeks later, Jay's doctor tells him his recovery is going well and it's time for him to be released. Jay seems a bit anxious but hopeful as he heads out for his daily walk...then vanishes. Five hours later, Danny gives Martin the case details and Martin marvels at the odds of a dude waking up from a coma and then going missing.

Hospital. Sam and Elena make a lot of noise bringing a huge vase of flowers to Jack, waking him up. Grumpy at having his nap disturbed, he asks what they're doing there and they cheerfully tell him they're bringing the flowers and a handmade card with a cartoon sketch of Jack from his concerned colleagues. "Concerned I was shot or concerned I'm coming back?" he grouches. Both, they admit. A hard-ass nurse gives him a two minute warning about his sponge bath and Jack asks if they want to stick around and watch. Elena and Sam practically trip over each other to escape. Hee. When they're gone, Jack checks his messages and Jen Long has called, sounding scared and saying she really needs to talk to him.

Martin talks to Kimberly McCann, who says Jay was worried about going back to his regular life. She tells Martin that Jay was kind of an asshole before the accident but he's changed since he woke up. He asks if Jay had any enemies in his old life and if he said anything about his accident. Kimberly says Jay was acting strangely the night of the accident. We get a flashback of that night, with Jay driving somewhere and telling his wife that she'd have to fill in for him at a charity event where he was supposed to give a speech. He's abrupt and evasive, then hangs up on her after snapping that he'll get there when he gets there. Kimberly says the accident happened shortly after the call and she doesn't know why he was heading out of the city. Martin senses she's holding back and presses her for more. Kimberly admits that a cashier's check worth $100,000 was made out by Jay to cash. She doesn't know who it was for and she's sure it's related to where Jay was heading, but she says he has no memory of that night.

Sam, Elena and Viv talk about what a ruthless, ambitious businessman Jay was before the accident and make plans to look through his employees and other business contacts to see if anyone was holding a grudge. Sam's phone rings and it's Jack, wanting her to check in on Jen, who said in her message that she was being followed. He tries to convince her that it's a real concern but, busy with the McCann case, Sam pretty much blows him off and says she'll send a police unit. Jack says that'll be fine but it's clear he's still worried.

Martin and Danny talk to Kevin, Jay's brother-in-law. Kevin was the last person to see Jay before he disappeared and he says that before then, Jay was in good spirits and planned to take a job at his company. But when he last saw Jay, Jay told him he couldn't take the job because he didn't know where he fits in anymore. He also says that's he's starting to remember things he doesn't want to and he's afraid of what he'll learn.

Sam calls Jack and tells him that NYPD went to Jen's house but nobody was there, and she assures him that they went to the door and didn't just do a drive-by. Jack lets it go but as soon as he hangs up he starts extricating himself from the various hospital machinery he's attached to. I hope he doesn't have a catheter.

Danny tells Viv that Jay went to his shrink asking for help remembering the accident but got angry and left when the doctor said they'd have to take it slowly. Elena has found something else - surveillance footage from about a mile away from the rehab center showing a man holding a gun on Jay and making him get into an SUV.

The team is trying to identify the gunman and Elena thinks Bruce Myer may be a good candidate. She says Kimberly McCann talked to him a lot before Jay's accident and after Jay woke up, the calls tripled. Unfortunately, it's a dead end. Bruce and Kimberly admit they were romantically involved but Kimberly says she told Jay about Bruce a week before he disappeared, and that she had broken things off with Bruce to give her marriage another chance.

After chewing on a fistful of pain pills, Jack staggers over to a table at an outdoor cafe, where Jen's mother, Teri, is sitting. After the obligatory "What the hell happened to you?" comment, Jack says it doesn't matter and tells her about Jen's call. Teri insists Jen is fine but eventually admits that things have gotten worse because Jen ended up on a witness list. Jack plays Jen's message for Teri and after hearing her daughter say she's being followed, Teri tells Jack that she sent Jen to her sister's apartment.

Elena and Viv go through all the mail Jay received after waking up and discover a series of letters, each progressively more aggressive about wanting to meet Jay, from one individual, Doug Gilbert. They pull up his picture and think he could be the gunman in the video.

Jack goes to Teri's sister's apartment and finds the door unlocked, with some blood on the carpet and Jen's purse dropped on the floor. He hears a small noise and opens a closet door, where a battered and panicked woman launches herself at him. After Jack assures her that he's FBI and calms her down, Jen's aunt says that a man fitting Joe Giusti's description came looking for Jen. Ashamed, the aunt admits she was so terrified that she told Giusti that Jen hangs out at the park.

Elena and Martin talk to Doug Gilbert, who hedges at first then admits he held a gun on Jay. However, he says it was just to get Jay's attention and he didn't want to hurt him, only convince him to come see his son, who is on a coma. Doug thinks that if Jay sits and talks to his son about what happened to him, he'll also wake up. Jay is sympathetic but tries to convince Doug that he doesn't remember what happened or know why he woke up. Doug tells Elena and Martin that Jay sat with his son for a while, then asked for a ride to Soho.

Park. Jack, looking more and more like the walking dead (the oozing face wounds really add to that whole zombie effect), is heckled by some punk kids. He's in no mood to take it though, and he shoves his gun into the leader's stomach and makes him look at a picture of Jen. The punk recognizes her but says he hasn't seen her lately. He also admits, after some threatening by Jack, that Giusti came looking for Jen and the punk told him that she comes to the park around 4:00 pm. Hey, I just realized that Giusti is played by Nick Wechsler, rocking a goatee and Sam Winchester hair. Hey, just because he's evil doesn't mean he's not pretty. Jack's phone rings and it's Sam, who is like, "Bitch, are you CRAZY?" He does not point out that he wouldn't be staggering around the city looking for Jen if Sam had checked on her like he asked, but he does tell her where he is and asks for backup.

Following the Soho lead, Danny talks to an apartment manager, who says that Jay did indeed come by earlier. He was asking questions about who lived in the apartment three years ago. It was a young woman named Robin Cassidy and the manager doesn't know where she lives now or where Jay went after he left. Danny calls Martin to ask him to run the name, Martin says that Robin was reported missing the same night Jay had his accident. Later, Elena says a lot of Robin's credit card records show charges to a hotel off the road that Jay was heading down when he had his accident. Viv is off to try and see if Jay was ever seen at that hotel.

In the park, Jack is trying to get people to look at Jen's picture in case they've seen her but he looks so gross that they're avoiding him as much as possible. Even the dogs are like, "Okay, I eat my own vomit and yet you look like you'd taste too nasty to snack on." A kind vendor gives him a bottle of water, which Jack gulps at gratefully, but he just horks it back up again.

Kevin McCann has been brought back in for being a dirty, stinking liar. Martin says they've learned that he booked a hotel room and was seen with Robin the night Jay had his accident, and they think the reason Jay had the cashier's check and was heading out there was because of his brother. Kevin says Jay was involved with Robin, then corrects himself and says in a way they both were. Flashback to post-coma Jay getting into Kevin's car and immediately punching him. Jay says he remembers Kevin talking to him while he was coma-fied about how Robin, one of asshole Jay's affairs, wanting $100,000 to go away. Kevin set it up at the hotel and Jay was supposed to meet them with the money, then Kevin would take her to the airport. But Jay never showed and Robin started to get angry and threatened to tell Kimberly, even claim Jay raped her. She tries to leave and Kevin pushed her away from the door, but she fell and hit her head. Kevin confesses that he got rid of her body because she was going to ruin Jay's life. Jay forgives his brother but says they have to tell the police because Robin had a family who deserve to know what happened to her. Kevin says he won't stop Jay but he can't turn himself in. Jay promises Kevin that he'll tell the police it all happened because of him, and he gets out of the car.

To Martin and Viv, Kevin says he doesn't know how Jay told it to the police but that's really how it happened. Surprised, they tell Kevin that Jay never made it to the police station. They ask Kevin where his conversation with Jay took place and head out to the address.

Undead Jack keeps trudging through the park and when he stops for a rest, he spots a diner sign nearby. He makes his way over to the diner, which is inexplicably closed in the middle of the day, and has some flashbacks to talking with Jen in a booth at the same diner, or a different but similar one? I don't know. This is where my lack of regular viewing is tripping me up. Anyway, he hears a noise through the back door and heads out just in time to see Giusti force Jen into a van then get into the driver's seat. As Giusti pulls forward, Jack fires a couple of shots at the windshield, causing the van to veer off, clipping Jack before smashing into a car. Wounded but still kicking, Giusti heads over to a prone Jack to finish the job he started, but he's not quick enough because Jack blows him to smithereens with about a gazillion shots.

Hospital. Martin talks to a doctor, who says that Jay was found on the subway. There are no signs of drugs or alcohol and when Martin enters the hospital room, he sees that Jay is back in a coma. Kimberly asks if he knows how it happened and Martin says his wallet was missing so he might have been mugged, but there's no way to know for sure. With all of her newfound hopes dying, Kimberly cries and asks why this is happening. All Martin can do is apologize. Well, that was a depressing ending.

Sam and the cavalry have finally arrived, albeit after the fact, and Giusti is loaded into a body bag while Jen and Jack, who will both be fine, are put into ambulances. Sam tells Jack she's going to ride with him and he stoicly tells her he'll be fine. Hilariously, she just ignores him and clambers into the back of the ambulance.