Wanted Dead or Alive: Part 1
Directed By: Robert Harmon
Written By: James Yoshimura
Falsone and Stivers investigate a shooting involving three bounty hunters, led by Dennis Knoll (Christopher Meloni), who shot someone while chasing a bounty hunter. Ironically, one of the bounty hunters who got arrested jumps his own bail to chase his fugitive, which leads to a car chase in which Mike and Lewis crash into another car, leaving Lewis and one of the passengers in the other car badly injured. Gharty and Munch argue with each other over Gharty's past service in The Vietnam War.
This episode contains examples of:
- Back Story: Sheppard tells Lewis when she was working the fugitive squad, Dennis Knoll helped bring in someone they were trying to track, so she considers him a friend.
- Berserk Button: The Vietnam War seems to be this for both Gharty and Munch, though for very different reasons.
- Call-Back: Munch reminds Bayliss one reason he doesn't trust Gharty is because of how Gharty acted during the shooting in the projects.
- Cliffhanger: The Car Chase results in an accident that leaves Lewis and an elderly woman unconscious.
- Foreshadowing: Gharty and Munch's acrimony towards each other about The Vietnam War will eventually come to a head in a future episode.
- Hot Pursuit: Deconstructed, as the episode demonstrates why real-world cops don't (or shouldn't) get into car chases lightly. What is the most exciting car-chase scene by far in the show's history finishes with Mike Giardello, possibly because he isn't an experienced pursuit driver, nearly running over a pedestrian and then crashing into another car at an intersection, seriously injuring Lewis and (it later turns out) killing an innocent member of the public, while the target vehicles both get away.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Lewis admits he has respect for bounty hunters because of Have Gun – Will Travel, while Bayliss tells him he's mixing that up with Wanted: Dead or Alive. Sheppard doesn't recognize either of those shows.
- Two-Part Episode
- What Did I Do Last Night?: At the beginning of the episode, Gharty doesn't remember how he got home the night before.
