S.W.A.T. Recap 12/09/20: Season 4 Episode 5 “Fracture”

Chris is still gunning for the job in liaison. She was training like a demon to win Master Gunner because this would in turn lead to the liaison position and she really wanted to beat her friends. Both Tan and Street were in the running. They both wanted the Master Gunner position because like Chris they know they could use this to gain bigger and better promotions and so the three were quite competitive. The guys made jokes about how well they were in practice. It was just Chris that chose to undersell how well she’s been doing in training because she plans on outperforming everyone and she’ll rub into their faces then. However, it didn’t matter who won the position to Hondo because he just wants to make sure its someone from his team that wins.

Hondo was also asked into Lynch’s office. Lynch told him there was a problem within the department. It seems that they made a big push over twenty years ago to hire more Black Americans as police officer and that was great for a while because then it meant there was more diversity. There was just one problem with these hires. They all happened around the same time and those same men and women were now retiring around the same time. The department was about to get a whole lot whiter. They needed to make another push in Black and Brown communities and so they wanted Hondo to be the face of this campaign. They were asking him to be a mascot, but Hondo didn’t want to do it.

Hondo thought these campaigns were pandering to these communities in order to fill up a quota. He didn’t want to be the face of something he didn’t believe in and he also didn’t think it would work. Not after May. In May, there were several BLM protests because George Floyd’s death had sparked something in this newer generation and so right now many distrusts the police. They’re not just going to forget that if they see a campaign with Hondo’s face. Hondo did a lot for his community so that might be interest only not enough to fill a quota and even Hondo knows this. Hondo didn’t know how to help the LAPD with their diversity problem and he thought their current solution was too weak for the problem.

No sooner did Hondo mention that not much has changed in all these years that a bombing happened. The bombing happened at Gates Reality Group and it became a concern for the FBI. The FBI has been looking into radical white supremacists. They heard some chatter on the dark web about a series of attacks and think this could be one of them. FBI Special Agent Carr has been working with Lynch. They believe Gates Reality Group was targeted because it was owned by Jeff Gates and Gates recently wrote an op-ed on reparations. This could have made him a target. Someone on social media write he bombed the building to protect his way of life and he asked other people to join him in this mission.

The team couldn’t trace the social media post. Only they could trace the young man who delivered the package by hand and it led them to Ronald Coogan. SWAT moved on Coogan’s home. They barged in expecting to find a terrorist and it turns out Coogan wasn’t a terrorist. He just works for Choreable. It was an app that allowed people to hire others to do their chores and so Coogan was paid to deliver the package as well as several others. It was the “others” part that frightened the team. They traced these packages and one had been delivered to a Meghan Brown at her law office. The team went to the law office. They found Meghan’s son with the package in his arms and so Hondo quickly identified himself as LAPD before he talked the young boy into slowly lowering the package to the ground.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. It was just a little too close to comfort the team and it seems saving Meghan’s office had also given them their first clue. The bomber called the office. He left a message in which he accused Meghan of following him on the bus. He said that she was in on the conspiracy out to get him and it was clear this man was suffering from mental illness. Hearing this man’s delusions had upset Tan. Tan grew up with a father who was schizophrenic and there were a lot of bad moments at home. Tan was so upset with hearing a message like that, that he wasn’t at his best for the Master Gunner position. Not that he would have been able to defeat Chris anyways because Chris had one of the best times there ever was. And so there was some good news to be had.

There were more good news later one. They traced that phone call back to Charlie Pierce. Pierce suffers from schizophrenia and he constantly goes off his medication. His brother couldn’t convince him to stay on it when he was alive. His sister-in-law doesn’t even know where he’s staying because Pierce thought she was working against him and he wouldn’t stay at her house. Pierce was a sick man. He didn’t know what he was doing and so the team tried to find him before he could hurt anyone else. They later found his apartment. He was riddled with bomb-making materials, but Pierce wasn’t home and he had been spotted before he could hand the package over to someone else to deliver.

Pierce therefore was making his way on foot with the bomb. He took a bus to an outlet and that’s where the team spotted him. They tried to arrest him. He managed to hide in a storage area with a hostage and he was threatening to blow them all up if SWAT came closer. The team members that Pierce could see tried reasoning with him. They did their best to keep Pierce’s eyes on them as Hondo and Deacon came behind him and they stopped the bomb from going off with a supersoaker on steroids that they received from the bomb squad. The team handled the bomb. They arrested Pierce and maybe prison will force him to take his meds. Later, Hondo went to Lynch. He has a solution. He thinks they should do an open forum in black and brown communities with black officers.

Hondo believes this will help convince people to join the force. He got the idea after he found out Erika joined LAPD because she had a read an article about him and the young man he helped. So, Hondo was going to be a part of the solution and not just complain from the sidelines like he planned.

Now, Chris didn’t get the Master Gunner position. She lost to Street and that just reminded her how much things have changed. It used to be Street who was struggling. He now has this new position and Molly. Chris meanwhile was living in her uncle’s garage and it was as she was complaining about this to Erika that Erika mentioned she was looking at apartments. Her current situation at her sister’s now doesn’t work since she’s on day shift and so she and Chris could move in together.

THE END!