Steve has his suspicions about Eugene Vickers, Bob Cole, Rick Hughes, and Jim Michaels, four detectives in his precinct. He thinks the four are involved in a burglary ring, and he takes his concerns to IA detective Lloyd Schroeder. Unfortunately for Steve, he picked the wrong IA guy to go to, as Lloyd decides not to bust the four but rather "negotiate" a fair share of their last and biggest job.
However, the detectives decide they would much rather prefer Schroder didn't get a cut, and decide to whack Schroeder and pin the blame on Steve to kill two cops with one stone. Setting up a meeting with Steve at Schroeder's apartment knock him out, and plug Schroeder with Steve's gun. Mark sets out to clear Steve's name and find out just what final score the cops have planned.
"Vanishing Act" displays symptoms of the following tropes:
- Blackmail: Schroeder tries to get a cut of the group's kidnapping profits by threatening to take them in for their burglary ring. Before that, he was already blackmailing Rick Hughes with pictures of him in bed with underaged girls.
- Blackmail Backfire: A downplayed example, as Schroeder was really murdered by Vickers wanting to settle an old score with him. Being blackmailed over the kidnapping was just the excuse he needed to pay that score back.
- A Deadly Affair: Schroeder had an affair with Eugene Vickers' wife before the events of the episode. This is revealed to be Eugene's reason for killing him, with the blackmail just being his justification.
- Drives Like Crazy: Mark's questioning of Bob Cole has him talk to the detective while he is doing a precision driving course and a pursuit test. Bob drives just fine through them, but it's pretty rough for Mark considering he's in the backseat that doesn't have seatbelts.
- Dirty Cop: The main four cops and Schroeder, if the rest of this page hadn't tipped you off to that by now.
- Faking the Dead: Tommy fakes shooting Mark when he walks in on his meeting with Vickers to get him to confess to being the one that shot Lloyd dead.
- Firing in the Air a Lot: Mark accidentally fires the gun Vickers gave him to hold suspects in a vice raid, which keeps the crooks from running at least.
- Left for Dead: Bob's motive for murdering Schroeder comes from the fact that while the two were on a narcotics raid, Schroeder abandoned Bob and nearly got him killed.
- Multi-Part Episode: The first two-part episode of the series.
- Ransom Drop: Tommy delivers two bags into the men's restroom to pay Gus' ransom. As it turns out when Jack tails him, this is a decoy drop, as the bags are filled with shredded newspapers.
- Strike Episode: A sub-plot throughout the episode is Delores and the other nurses going on strike after Norman fires five pediatric nurses due to budget cuts. The strike ends thanks to Gus giving Community General the ransom money.
- Suspicious Spending: Part of what tipped Steve off to the group's activities was them throwing money around, including a Corvette Rick bought and Bob buying a damn plane.
- The Teaser: This episode does not have any footage before the opening sequence, and this pattern repeats until we get to season 2's "You Can Call Me Johnson".
