In this episode of JAG, Lt. Colonel Sarah MacKenzie is sent to the U. S. Consulate in Aceh, Indonesia to deal with a rape allegation against Corporal Lassiter (Craig Zimmerman), but finds herself in the midst of an increasingly hostile populace eager to mete out mob justice to the alleged rapist.
Because Indonesia has no status of forces agreement with the United States, the local police are unwilling to release Lassiter to Mac and Gunnery Sergeant Galindez (Randy Vasquez). Captain Jarot (Dennis Dun) is convinced that Lassiter raped the girl at the Dollar a Drink Club because when the police apprehended the corporal, he was running away from a mob of fifty men.
Despite Galindez's exhortation, Mac gives Jarot her wedding ring as bail for Lassiter. Jarot accepts, but Mac and Galindez have a tough time getting Lassiter back to the consulate because of the angry mob, who think Lassiter has escaped accountability.
Once back inside the consulate with Lassiter, Mac meets Lylyana (Courtney Mun), who is impressed that a woman is a United States Marine, but doesn't buy Mac's explanation for why she doesn't have a gun. Lylyana thinks it's because Mac is a woman, just as her own mother can't be head chef at the consulate on account of her gender.
The police deliver to the consulate Lassiter's personal effects at the time he was arrested. Lassiter had some cash and a ticket from the Dollar a Drink Club, it must be a plant, Lassiter contends. But Galindez orders Lassiter to lift up his shirt, revealing Lassiter has been scratched up by someone with long nails. Lassiter blames Jarot, but now both Mac and Galindez are convinced Lassiter is indeed guilty. Even so, Mac refuses to turn Lassiter back over to the Indonesians.
The recently promoted Gunnery Sergeant Simpkins (Brandon Douglas) is handed a grenade through the gate and dies. His right hand man, Staff Sergeant Wakefield (James MacDonald) is blinded in the attack. Mac takes command of the Marine detail and is issued a handgun, to the delight of Lylyana, who drew a picture of Mac with a rifle.
Mac tells Lylyana to go home. The Marine gives the little girl the eagle, globe and anchor emblem off her cap and puts it on the girl's shirt. Mac asks for the USS Guadalcanal to sent a helicopter for evacuation because the consulate is about to be overrun. Consulate General Dart (Sam Anderson) orders all classified documents shredded, a process that will take hours to complete.
The mob tear down the gate. Mac informs the helo that the consulate has been overrun and asks them to stand by while she figures out an alternative extraction. Lylyana shows up and tells Mac about a secret tunnel Dart didn't know about.
The Americans escape to Lylyana's school, where the helo arrives. But the mob has figured out what happened and now threaten the evacuation once more. Lylyana screams at Mac that she forgot the drawing but it's too late now to go back for her. Apparently Lylyana dies in an explosion.
Once safe aboard the Guadalcanal, Mac calls Chloe (Mae Whitman) while eaten up with guilt about having allowed Lylyana to die.
Meanwhile, Commander Harmon Rabb and Lt. Loren Singer (Nanci Chambers) defend Lt. Commander Keegan (Christopher Birt), a Navy SEAL accused of preemptively murdering a would be hijacker aboard a commercial plane. Lt. Harriet Sims (Karri Turner) was on the same flight and is called to testify as a witness for the prosecution.
It is clearly established that fellow passenger Anton Summer disabled the smoke detector in one of the plane's restrooms and smoked cigarettes in there. What happened when he came out of the restroom is not quite clear. Singer clearly establishes that Sims, who was coming home from a grief support group, could not have witnessed the altercation between Keegan and Summer all that clearly, since, for one thing, it started when she was having a very sad dream.
Singer's aggressive questioning has the effect of traumatizing Sims on the stand once again over the death in childbirth of her daughter, Sarah Roberts. In private, Rabb chastises Singer for her tactlessness. He would have used the stuff about the dream, but not how Singer used it.
Even though it was Singer who questioned his wife so aggressively, Lt. Roberts blames Rabb, since he's first chair. Nevertheless, the defense case is complicated by the discovery of Lance Corporal Edgarton (Mike McColl), who saw Keegan getting drunk at the airport bar and almost had an altercation with Keegan.
Keegan is found guilty, and ordered to go to anger management classes, but is not sentenced to any jail time. He's unlikely to make captain now, but at least he's a free man.
Roberts and Sims forgive Rabb and ask to wait with him for news about Mac.
Tropes found here are
- Overzealous Underling: Singer goes too far in a brutal cross examination of Sims, causing the latter to break down crying on the stand. This in turn causes the court members to become sympathetic to Sims and see Singer as a bully.
- Permission to Speak Freely: Singer asks for this after Rabb chews her out for not running her aggressive cross-examination strategy by him as first chair. He denies it outright and curtly dismisses her.
- Rank Up: Staff Sergeant Simpkins is promoted to gunnery sergeant.
- Shout-Out to N Sync: Chloe is going with friends to an *NSYNC concert. It all sounds so frivolous compared to Lylyana's childhood.
- Spotting the Thread: Lassiter's story about the scratches on his stomach coming as a result of a police beating falls apart when he identifies the man who did it as the chief inspector. As Mac already met the inspector and saw he is a fastidious man who keeps his nails trimmed to the quick, she knows the corporal is lying.
- Tagalong Kid: A young Indonesian girl named Lylyana starts to idolize Mac and sticks to her. She ultimately saves the day by finding a secret tunnel through which all consular staff and marine guards evacuate.
- Vigilante Man: Rabb and Singer's client is a Navy SEAL aboard a commercial flight who fatally intervened in a scuffle with someone who might have been trying to hijack the airplane.
- You Are in Command Now: Mac ends up in command of the evacuation from the consulate after an explosion kills the Marine detachment CO and blinds the XO.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: After Mac and Galindez rescue Corporal Lassiter from the mob, he thanks them. A disgusted Mac tells him off while the Gunny orders the other Marines to get him out.
