The Irrational - Point and Shoot

With Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) helping a legal team rather than the FBI for an episode, "Point and Shoot" almost feels like a different show. I wonder if this plot was a hold over from a slightly different pitch for the series, since the FBI involvement is minimally shoehorned in as a separate B-story. The main story involves the death of Kylie's (Travina Springer) friend in a police raid gone wrong and the court case by the victim's husband looking for justice. Malcolm-Jamal Warner stars as an expert witness for the other side whose involvement in the case convinces Alec to sign on leading to some interesting back and forth between the experts on the stand and a frank discussion about the use of experts in court cases.

Given the nature of the tragedy, the episode is more racially-charged than the episodes of the series preceding it leading to one of the strongest sequences of a pair of local cops intimidating Kylie in order to send a message to Alec. The big conspiracy discovered late in the episode deflates a bit of the tension. While the episode references an experiment for Phoebe (Molly Kunz), and Owen (Arash DeMaxi) to perform, it actually takes place off-screen removing one of the show's strongest storytelling techniques while giving us far too much FBI filler of the old cold case. The different take on the episode proves to be more compelling, but the show continues to fail to embrace its strengths, while running away from sequences that set it apart from the rest of the genre, when given the opportunity.

• Title: The Irrational - Point and Shoot
• IMDb: link