[S5E15] When The Party's Over

The blue flu sweeps the NYPD following a pay dispute for officers, resulting in 40% of the force calling in sick. Mac Taylor, on his way to a charity function for the Manhattan Museum Restoration, notes the lack of cops on the street and at the precinct when he stops a shooter himself. Stella is at the function with fireman Brendon Walsh as her date. The two watch wealthy newspaper publisher Robert Dunbrook unveil a million dollar donation to Deputy Mayor Stuart Kaplan's charity, but when he calls for Kaplan to accept the check, the man doesn't appear. The reason is quickly revealed: a multitude of balloons are released from above, and with them falls the body of the deputy mayor. Hawkes and Danny arrive at the scene, but Danny quickly pleads illness and, despite Hawkes' scorn and skepticism, leaves the scene. Stella finds a circular trace pattern of blood on the floor and thinks that the origin of it might lie with Brendon, who rushed to help Kaplan after his body landed. She goes off to collect his clothes, leaving Hawkes and Adam to process the scene. Neal Weston, Kaplan's brother-in-law comes looking for Kaplan's thirteen-year-old son, Jake. Adam searches for the boy and finds him hiding in a cabinet. He's able to draw him out with the offer of a soda and the use of his iPod. Stella tracks Brendon down and retrieves his clothes. At the morgue, Sid determines Kaplan was strangled, noting an odd bruise pattern on the side of his neck, possibly made by the murder weapon. The team gets a lead when Hawkes finds a broken off part of an NYPD badge belonging to a detective named Stan Miller at the scene. Mac questions Miller, who admits to confronting the deputy mayor over the pay cuts and confesses they got into physical fight, but insists he left Kaplan alive.

[S5E15] When the Party's Over

Gillian brings evidence against Kaplan to Mac: the deputy mayor was running fraudulent charities. Mac points out that the person who left the newspaper on her car left it two hours before it was published, leading him to suspect it could have been Dunbrook. Adam finds trace on his iPod and is surprised when it matches trace found on Kaplan's neck, linking Jake to the murder. Stella is finally able to identify the bruise on Kaplan's neck as one made by a clip-on tie. Stella and Flack go to Weston's house to find Jake, and Stella spots a board game with pieces like the one found on Kaplan's body. Flack recognizes the boy as the same one who he saw sitting in the precinct earlier, waiting for Adam. Stella and Mac try questioning Jake to no avail, so they turn the boy over to Adam. Adam recognizes OCD traits in Jake, and draws the boy out. Jake tells Adam that his father found him hiding during the party and snatched away the game piece he was holding. Jake lost control and attacked his father in order to get it back, accidentally killing him in the process. Jake tells Adam that even though his dad was mean sometimes, he really loved him. Adam leaves the precinct upset, followed by Stella, who is concerned about him. Mac gets a call to meet Dunbrook and is surprised when the man opts to end the union standoff by handing Mac a check for twenty million dollars for the NYPD. Though Mac has qualms about taking the check, Gillian does not. Danny returns to work, and immediately offers to help Hawkes with his workload. The two set aside their differences and work together.

Tyler watches over Damon who knows what buttons to push to make him enter the cell. The two of them argue and when Tyler gets close enough, Damon grabs him and feeds on him. Damon gets his strength back, breaks the chains and escapes. Damon heads to find Wes to ask him for the antidote of the ripper virus, but Wes refuses to help him, leading Damon to kill him. Meanwhile, Katherine takes Nadia to a church to keep her safe while waiting for Wes, but because Wes is taking a long time with the cure, Katherine leaves to find him. When she gets to his laboratory, she finds him dead.

Stefan and Damon watch over Elena waiting for her to wake up. Meanwhile Caroline and Tyler discuss her sleeping with Klaus. Matt takes Nadia's body to bury it despite Stefan's suggestion to throw her in a ditch. Bonnie is praying to her father at a church when Katherine appears, ready to cross over to the other side via Bonnie. Before she does, she takes the time to reveal to Bonnie that she had already accepted her death sentence before showing up at the Salvatore house, but that did not mean she would cooperate. When Katherine went to Wes' laboratory earlier, she found out that Wes never intended to help Nadia. He had instead extracted werewolf venom from Nadia's wound and used it to enhance the ripper virus. Katherine then injected herself with the virus so that when Elena wakes up, she will be doubly infected. 041b061a72