Tonight on CBS their new show S.W.A.T. inspired by the television series and feature film airs with an all-new Friday, May 16, 2025, episode, and we have your S.W.A.T. recap below.
On tonight’s S.W.A.T. season 8 episode 21 called “Ride or Die,” as per the CBS synopsis, “When an auto carrier truck gets hijacked by a high-speed crew, Hondo encounters a ghost from his past – a violent car thief thought to be long-dead.
As the brutal road warriors tear across L.A. in pursuit of a mysterious $60 million car, Hondo’s old rivalry reignites, and he’s forced to confront a long-held fear.
Also, Gamble is thrust into a personal crisis when her brother, Leon, becomes tangled in the investigation, putting Gamble’s SWAT future in jeopardy, in the first part of the two-hour series finale of S.W.A.T.”
So make sure to stop by tonight between 10 PM and 11 PM ET for our S.W.A.T. recap. While you wait for our recap make sure to check out all our television news, videos, recaps, spoilers, and more, here!
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On tonight’s S.W.A.T. Finale episode part 1, someone came back from the dead. His name is Torque Vaughn. He used to carjack with a crew. He ended up killing people and SWAT went after him. Vaughn tried to get away with his crew during a raid. There was a crash followed by an explosion.
It was believed that Vaughn had died with most of his crew, but he was somehow back in LA again. Very much alive. He hijacked a trucker to steal a car from the back. The trucker took a photo of him and sent it to the police knowing it might result in his death. He was a braver man than Vaughn or his new crew believed him to be. And he was killed for it once Vaughn saw that the message had been sent.
The photo alerted the police. The trucker’s body was moved. Only the truck itself was still missing. Vaughn had to take it with him because he didn’t have enough time to steal the car he wanted and these things have trackers nowadays. The cops caught up to the truck.
They were just too slow to stop Vaughn from escaping. He got away with a car he wanted. He could have easily have stolen another and so that car meant something to him. Capturing Vaughn was also personal for Hondo and Deacon.
They were on the SWAT team that carried out the raid ten years ago. Hondo even grew close to the family of one of Vaughn’s murder victims back then. He killed a thirteen year old girl. She was in the crosswalk on her way to a piano lesson. Vaughn didn’t care. He mowed her down and kept on driving at impossible speeds.
Hondo had to catch Vaughn. He wouldn’t sleep at night if he didn’t. He had his people looked into him. Gamble later found out how Vaughn came back from the dead. The body they found ten years ago was so burned up that they only got a partial DNA match.
The person that died back then wasn’t Vaughn. It was his half-brother, Ben. Ben was never heard of again. Nor was he with his brother when Vaughn returned to LA. Vaughn started off in a new city.
Powell learned that he was in Vegas. He was dating a woman named Chantel Rivers. She was from Vegas. She runs a shell company that does fake car registries. The cops there were building a case against her. She also grew close to a man by the name of Rico Castro. This was important because Vaughn didn’t stop at one car. He carjacked numerous cars that were all once owned by Castro.
Castro fled the country after someone close to him betrayed him. He was a big-time drug dealer. He loves cars and collected them. It’s how he hid some of his money. He was forced to flee when someone set an anonymous message to the DEA with evidence against Castro. After he fled, the DEA gained possession of his cars.
They auctioned it all off. Vaughn came back to LA to now steal those cars. Chantel was seen in photos with Castro. It was her job to collect information. She was also seen driving her boyfriend’s crew to the scene of another carjacking.
If that trucker had never taken the photo, no one would know about Vaughn’s involvement. He was never seen with Chantel back in Vegas. The cops there knew she had a boyfriend and that was it. They never identified Vaughn. Gamble checked with her brother, Leon. He thought Vaughn was dead too.
He said Vaughn used to be known as the “Ghost” because he always got his cars out of the city. He said no one ever knew how and Gamble suspected her brother wasn’t telling her everything. She told Hondo what Leon said. She also added that she suspected he was holding back on more.
Gamble was right because Leon didn’t tell her everything. He didn’t mention Ralph Hayes. The cops tracked down Hayes themselves. They knew he worked on Castro’s cars and they showed up to find Hayes already dead. Leon was surprisingly at the scene. It didn’t look good for Leon. He was soon interrogated.
Gamble offered to do it herself and her bosses turned that down because it was unethical. Leon wasn’t just her brother. He was her twin. There was a chance he committed a murder and having Gamble interrogate him could be enough to get the case thrown out.
Gamble was sidelined. They questioned Leon without her and it was all for nothing because he didn’t do this. He claimed he went there to warn Hayes. Hayes used to have carjackers work for him. He gets them to drop out of shop class to do jobs for him. Vaughn was one of them. Leon was another.
It was Hayes that turned against Vaughn first. Vaughn killing him was a two for one. It was all shown in Hayes’s hidden security cameras. Vaughn wanted to know where was the car with the computer. Castro was too paranoid to use his computer at home and he had one put in his car.
The computer in this specific car would give Vaughn the key to Castro’s empire. He could get really rich. Or he could sell the information for twice as much as it was worth. He mentioned to Hayes that he had a buyer lined up and that’s why he needed to know where the Mclaren car was. Castro’s lawyer had it. The DEA didn’t get all of Castro’s cars.
Castro’s lawyer showed up at the DEA’s office in Castro’s car and no one realized it. She was able to drive crucial evidence away. Vaughn found the lawyer. He nearly put her in a coma for beating her that badly. And he got the computer he wanted.
Vaughn also left Chantel to drive the stolen car. She was captured. She tried to be brave. She was sticking by her man until they told her about Monique. Monique was Vaughn’s fiancé years ago. She took a reckless driving charge for him. She served four years. She had nothing left afterwards and moved to Boston. It’s where she got into prostitution.
She’s been arrested several times for it and looked haggard. Hondo showed a picture of what Monique used to look like compared to now. It was enough to scare Chantel.
She gave them the information she got. It wasn’t much. Gamble figured out the rest. Hondo personally chased after Vaughn and he ultimately killed before he could kill someone else.
Now, that the case was over, Hondo called the victim’s family again. He told them that Vaughn was finally dead. Gamble thought she underestimated her brother. She stopped by his place to watch the game with him. She also found one of the stolen cars in Leon’s backyard. He was working with Vaughn the whole time. And she tried to arrest him.
It didn’t matter much because he knew she’d never used his weapon to take him down. Gamble later told Hondo about her brother. She mentioned she let him get away and she put in her resignation.
She was going back to Oakland. She needed to put distance between herself and her family. Gamble leaving him as well as why she was leaving left SWAT vulnerable. Only Deacon had other concerns. Heather was back. She was still stalking him and so he filed a restraining order against her. He found out that stalked a professor.
Heather broke into the professor’s home to wear one of his shirts. She took pictures of herself in his marital bed to send to his wife. Deacon’s family was out of town. He knew what Heather was going to do next and so he called the cops on her. Heather was arrested. It was all caught on camera. Thanks body cams! Heather will finally get the mental health treatment she needs and hopefully stay away from Deac and his family.
THE END!
