TVSquad

I know we don't usually recap this show, but I happen to think that tonight's episode was exceptional. I tend to be hot and cold on Without a Trace and I only watch if I'm not too tired once CSI is over. Tonight, I'm glad I watched because the show came from a totally different angle. Instead of the usual storyline of following the different investigators as they put together leads to find their missing person, the entire show was done from the perspective of the parents of a missing child, played by Laurie Metcalf and Matt Craven. As a viewer of Without a Trace, I am usually in on all the twists and turns a case takes, but this time I was on the outside with the parents and I wasn't receiving any information about what the FBI was doing to find the missing kid.
 
The show opened with a 15-year-old boy, Sean, who appeared to have a wonderful relationship with his parents as he headed out on his bike (yes, he had a helmet) to go to the arcade. The father woke up at 12:40 am to discover the son was still gone. The father and mother made phone calls to everyone they know and then, at 5:00 am, they filed a missing persons report.

The FBI showed up at the family home, immediately split up the parents and started asking them uncomfortable questions about their relationship and their missing son. It turns out, mom discovered the son was drunk recently but kept the secret from the father. Then, the parents are whisked away to the FBI offices to look at a boy in an interview room whom they had never seen. The investigator didn't explain why the suspect was being questioned, and then he insinuated that their missing child may be a drug dealer. Of course, the parents were horrified and didn't think so. But, was he? They don't have time to mull that thought over because suddenly they're whisked in to a computer room where they see a picture of their son's bike. It's severly damaged but his helmet is nowhere to be found. The mother walks into the hall and confronts the FBI agent who was interrogating a possible suspect. She demands to know, "what did he do to my boy?" The agent evades the question and gives a simple answer, "he says he didn't hurt your son." The mother wants to know if it's possible that her son is just out having a good time. Reluctantly, the agent says that's possible.

There's all sorts of activity around the FBI offices as the parents sit at a conference table and stare at the timeline the investigators have created so far for their missing son. We see that the boy left the arcade at 9:30 pm and then there's a huge space of time that is unaccounted for until the father discovered the boy missing at 12:40 am. Some blonde FBI agent sits down at the table and starts showing the parents photos of kids from a yearbook, kids who may be "bad". The parents recognize the kids, but their son hasn't been friends with any of them since grade school. Another FBI agent interrupts the discussion to ask if they know a girl named Becky Grolnick. Nope, the parents have never heard of her but it seems their son called her cell phone a lot over the last few days.

Once again, the agent questioning them suddenly leaves the interrogation for a phone call. The parents begin to discuss their situation and the father blames the mother for being too lenient on their son. Then, another agent, looking distressed, tells the parents that a teen-age boy matching their son's description was found dead in New Jersey. They're having trouble identifying him so the parents will have to go to the morgue.

The parents arrive at the morgue and a body, under a sheet, is wheeled out. The coroner lifts the sheet to reveal a badly bruised boy. The father vomits in a nearby sink but the mother stays strong and confidently says that it's not her son. Her son has a birth mark on his shoulder and this boy does not.

The parents are returned to their home where another FBI agent is monitoring their phones. They receive a phone call, put on a trace, but it turns out to be a concerned friend. Nothing happens for hours. Night falls and no one can sleep. The father asks about the dead boy they saw in the morgue and wonders what happened to him. The FBI agent says he can't tell the father much, but the boy was probably killed at the hands of an abusive, alcoholic father.

The doorbell rings and it's Becky Grolnick and her mother. Becky admits that she was raped at a party recently and she told Sean about it. She's worried that Sean may have confronted her rapist and the guy killed him. Becky refuses to say who raped her, but the FBI agent in the room guesses his name: Van Horten. This outrages the mother, who attacks the FBI agent, then flees to her room upstairs. The parents don't understand why the FBI isn't telling them everything it knows.

The father travels to the FBI where he confronts the lead agent and begs for information. He returns home to tell his wife that their son may have been kidnapped by this rapist because the son threatened to turn the boy in. Suddenly, they get a phone call and are whisked away where they learn that their son is being held hostage by the rapist in an abandoned warehouse. They arrive to the perimeter of the police scene but cannot go any further. Frustrated, all they can do is listen to the scanners. They learn that the lead FBI agent is negotiating with the rapist to let Sean go. Then they hear that the S.W.A.T. team has been called in. They hear gunshots outside the car, the father tries to run toward the shots, but an FBI agent puts him back in the vehicle. They wait to hear anything on the radio and then they learn their son is safe and is headed to the hospital.

The episode ends with the parents running to see their son before he's whisked into surgery for a broken leg. The parents embrace. Then, the camera turns to the two investigators, Agents Malone and Fitzgerald, and follows them. As they leave the hospital, they talk about the next missing person's case: a woman was kidnapped three blocks from her home.