An Army recruitment center is bombed with two people inside it: Army widow Carly and her infant son Tommy. She is found unconscious and he does not make it. An organization called Operation Molly are so eager to help that they end up interfering with the investigator.
This episode shows examples...
- Amateur Sleuth: Operation Molly is an online organization composed of this who assist the police in investigations; their name comes from a cold case where the group was able to identify a teenage girl who went unclaimed for five years that OM was able to solve. However...
- This trope gets Deconstructed as they prove to be overly enthusiastic: two women from Operation Molly go through Derek Sherman's trash and office making anything they did and could've found inadmissable. One of them befriends Carly just to get information that might inculpate her and her testimony, and her job as a hair stylist and not a trained profiler is then used by Carly's attorney to generate reasonable doubt.
- Ambiguous Situation: Lampshaded. The DA's office cannot make a case beyond reasonable doubt against Carly or Derek Sherman as what little untainted evidence there is points to both of them without exonerating one over the other.
- Angst? What Angst?: Carly does not act like you might expect someone dealing with the death of a child which leads credence that she's the one who started the fire that killed her baby.
- Deconstruction: Operation Molly represents an element and premise of some Police Procedurals over the years, that of a "civilian consultant" who assist in a police investigation often employing unorthodox background (a hairdresser's assistant equals being a skilled profile) and Loophole Abuse (being a civilian means they can procedures the police can't). However, they are not trained professionals, prune to bias, and repeatedly overstep their bounds despite orders to do so. One member even attempts to Frame The Guilty Party despite this becoming the primary evidence that points to Derek Sherman in the first place. In the end, they make such a mess of things because they assume that Police Are Useless is in play here and it's unclear who the culprit even is.
- Downer Ending: Thanks to the interference of Operation Molly tainting several pieces of evidence and the ambiguity of the untouched evidence the detectives were able to collect, there's no definitive way to know if Derek or Carly were responsible for the Army Recruitment Center bombing. Ultimately, Jack has no choice but to drop the case against either on the logic that its better to not convict anyone as opposed risking imprison the wrong person.Rubirosa: I can see the headlines now: "No Justice for Baby Mikey".
- Framing the Guilty Party. One of the Operation Molly admits spraying butane on Sherman's knapsack for this purpose.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Vicky is an Amateur Sleuth who took it upon herself to do some profiling of Carly, feeling Derek Sherman was wrongfully accused.
- Offing the Offspring: There's reason to suspect Carly did this.
- What Were You Thinking?: McCoy cannot believe the shitshow the case around the bombing becomes thanks to the police signing off on allowing Operation Molly to assist in the investigation when their antics taints several pieces of evidence contributing to the episode's Downer Ending.
