‘Redemptio’ Throws ‘New York’ Into A State Of Confusion

Dr Sheldon Hawkes (Hill Harper) faces emotional turmoil and literal chaos in the upcoming CSI: New York episode “Redemptio”. (Major spoilers after the jump!)

According to CSI Files sources, “Redemptio” starts as one death row inmate’s life is coming to an end at a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania. Reggie Tifford (guest star Harold Perrineau) is preparing for his execution as a priest prays beside his cell. Reggie hasn’t touched his last meal. With ten minutes until Reggie faces his fate, Sheldon Hawkes arrives at the prison. He speaks to the warden and apologizes for being late—he got stuck in traffic.

The warden leads him to Reggie’s cell. Reggie requested Hawkes’ presence at his execution, but the CSI doesn’t know why—he’s never even met the man. The warden tells him they have one minute to speak to each other. Hawkes demands to know why he drove 200 miles to watch a stranger die. Reggie starts to tell him something—something he has been waiting to say for 15 years—but the guards approach and tell him that it’s time.

As Reggie is being lead away, Hawkes asks the other man what it was he wanted to tell him. Reggie reveals the secret he has kept for all these years: he killed Hawkes’ sister, Grace. Hawkes is shocked, but he doesn’t have time to process the information as Reggie is taken to be executed.

Hawkes watches from the other side of the glass as they strap Reggie to the gurney and insert the IV. A thousand questions run through Hawkes’ head—questions he may never know the answers to—as he prepares himself to watch Reggie die. Suddenly, one of the guards in the execution room starts to convulse and falls to the ground, coughing up blood.

The other guard yells for a doctor, and Hawkes rushes in to help. He feels for a pulse, but the man’s heart isn’t beating. He tries CPR, but he has to give up. The guard is dead. The warden orders the other guard to escort Reggie back to his cell. He and Hawkes are thinking the same thing: Reggie had the most to gain from having his execution interrupted.

Hawkes calls Mac from the execution room as several officers arrive at the prison. They hand off their guns and head toward the body in the execution room—but one of the men separates from the others. Instead, he heads toward the prison control room and pulls a hidden gun out to point at the guard. The officer orders the guard to open cell 17, but the guard hesitates. They struggle, and the gun goes off.

Hearing the sound of a gunshot, Hawkes hangs up the phone and rushes to see what’s going on. He and the warden hurry into the control room and see the guard dead on the ground. The warden realizes that they have another problem and yells for Hawkes to wait, but the CSI has already started chasing the shooter. When Hawkes bursts through the door at the end of the corridor, he realizes what’s going on: the shooter opened all of the cells, and now the prisoners are rioting. Hawkes turns back, but the door has already closed—he’s trapped.

Hawkes is surrounded by inmates who realize he doesn’t belong. As several men attack him, Reggie rushes up to help Hawkes fend them off. As soon as they’re free, Reggie expresses concern over Hawkes’ injuries—but Hawkes wants nothing to do with him. Reggie has to convince Hawkes to trust him before any more prisoners can rush up to attack them. Reggie swears that he didn’t kill the guard—confessing to Hawkes about Grace’s murder was the last thing Reggie had to do to make peace with this world. He was ready to die.

Hawkes reluctantly follows Reggie into a storage room and out of the sight of the other inmates, but as soon as they are inside, Hawkes can’t control himself—he attacks Reggie, slamming him up against the wall. This is the man that killed his sister. Reggie doesn’t fight back, but Hawkes can’t do it. He’s not a killer. He lets Reggie go. Reggie leaves the storage room as Hawkes’ phone rings.

Back at the lab, Mac and the rest of the team have assembled to figure out how they’re going to get Hawkes out of the prison. The riot is all over the news, and they know his life is in danger if any of the inmates realize he’s a cop. They all stand around the speaker phone as Mac checks in on him and tells him to conserve his phone battery. They’ll be working on a plan. They disconnect the call, and Mac orders the rest of the team to get blueprints for the prison. Their only chance at saving Hawkes is to break him out.

Meanwhile, Reggie returns to the storage room with a prisoner’s uniform. If Hawkes is going to survive this riot, he’s going to have to look like an inmate. Reggie wants to help Hawkes—not for his own sake, but for Grace. He accidentally killed Grace when he was high, and he lied to the police about it. He told them Grace was killed by her drug dealer, but in reality she’d already kicked the habit. All these years, Hawkes never even knew that his sister beat her own drug addiction. Her only mistake was trying to help Reggie.

Hawkes has no choice but to let Reggie help him—there’s another inmate he needs to find. Shane Casey (Edward Furlong, “Raising Shane”) was transferred to this prison, and Hawkes suspects he’s behind the death of the guard and the subsequent riot. They can’t let him escape in the middle of the chaos.

Please note that the above plot details have not been confirmed by CBS, Alliance Atlantis or Bruckheimer Films, and until such time you should treat this information as you would any other rumour. The above information comes from early script drafts and the details of the episodes are liable to change before the episodes are shown.

“Redemptio” will air April 14 on CBS.