CSI:New York

Season 1 - Episode 23 - What You See Is What You See

Written by Andrew Lipsitz
Directed by Duane Clark

It will introduce us to Mac Taylor's local coffee shop, where he enjoys spending his Saturday mornings reading the new Sports Illustrated over breakfast. The minute he walks in, Amy, a waitress at the coffee shop, begins to prepare Mac's food - he always wants the same thing. Only this morning, Mac's routine is somewhat disturbed, when a woman named Rose walks up to Mac and nervously attempts to make small talk with him.

Unfortunately for Rose, she's picked a bad day to finally approach him. While she's talking to Mac, his attention is drawn to Seth Collins, a ragged man coming out of the bathroom with a folded newspaper in his hands. He sits down next to a near-empty plate, and nervously looks through the room. He doesn't even notice Amy walking up to him to clean the table until it's too late. He shouts at her to leave his stuff alone, but she's already picked up the plate and the newspaper - and then freezes in shock as a gun slides out of the fold. Seth quickly picks it up, but there's no way to pretend it didn't happen.

Rose chatters on, oblivious to what's happening behind her. Mac is forced to waste precious seconds getting her to shut up and sit down. He looks at his gym bag, but there's no time to retrieve his gun from it - particularly as he spots another customer in the back, putting down his copy of Guns & Ammo with scary calm. Mac has to act now in order to prevent a bloodbath. He walks up to Seth, and tries to calm him down. Seth's clearly torn - he wants to get out of this, too, but can he really trust Mac if he puts his gun down? While Seth's mind is racing through the possibilities, Mac slowly inches towards Amy, so he can protect her.
But then he sees the Guns & Ammo reader draw out a gun. Mac tries to signal him to stop, but already the man fires off a round, missing Seth by several feet. At hearing the shot, Seth snaps out of his indecision, and reflexively pulls the trigger - firing a bullet straight into Amy's chest. He turns around and shoots the man with the gun, fatally wounding him. Mac jumps Seth, but he manages to break free and run away. Mac wants to follow - but then sees that Amy is still alive, although there's blood gushing out of her chest. He decides to stay with Amy, and hope the evidence will eventually lead him back to Seth.
After Amy is taken the hospital, Mac calls in the CSIs. He promises Amy's brother that they'll do everything possible to track down Seth. At first, this seems easy enough, when DNA from Seth's coffee cup reveals his full identity, and he's quickly arrested. But just as quickly, he's let back out on the street - and Mac has no idea why, or who authorized it.

Then the CSIs make a stunning discovery. Inside the shirt Seth wore at the time of his arrest, they find a piece of tape. Seth was wearing a wire while in the coffee shop, and Mac realizes he must have been there as an informant on someone else's case - probably a Federal case, as Mac is stonewalled whenever he tries to get any answers. Now Mac must not only find evidence tying Seth to the shooting of Amy, he's also got to make sure that when he does, the Feds don't take away his entire case...

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