Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Mac starts by investigating a vigilante group bombing drug operations. Its leader, Challenge Center instructor Manny Lopez, is a detective whose son died from drugs and who believes dealers evade the law; casualties in a later operation expose the cost of his campaign. In Romania, Mac and Pete try to examine files from Ceausescu’s regime. Loyalists attack to destroy them, but Mac saves the evidence and is taken hostage, where he tries to turn one agent against the old regime’s violence.
A Challenge Center boy is accused of killing a police officer with a gun tied to earlier murders, and Mac seeks the weapon that can clear him. He helps Lisa, a teenage friend whose drinking has entangled her with burglars and a murder charge. An East German exile’s reunion with his granddaughter goes wrong when Mac learns she is a Stasi operative. After Mac blocks serial killer Zito’s parole, Zito escapes by killing two orderlies, kidnaps Pete, seriously injures Lt. Murphy, and uses riddles to force Mac to find him. Mac solves the trail, reaches an abandoned monastery, and saves Dr. Skinner from an electric-heater trap. Zito is returned to the state hospital, but the closing scene shows him concealing a lockpick and preparing to escape again.
Mac later searches for Alexander the Great’s tomb, infiltrates a biker gang to protect parolee Earl Dent, and investigates the fatal beating of Father Jim. Pete’s failing vision becomes a continuing concern. In “Blind Faith,” he struggles with glaucoma while Mac helps Pete’s former love expose political killings in her country. The final episode, “Hind-Sight,” finds Mac and Pete recalling their cases as Pete awaits eye surgery, ending the season on their partnership and Pete’s health.