The two-part season finale kicks off with the often-rocky yet currently stable couple Sam and Andy waking up together. After a playful exchange, Sam presents Andy with a key to his apartment. However, Andy doesn't want to accept it. When a confused Sam says he thought it'd be convenient, Andy says "Convenience is boring, and I am not boring. I am a stallion and I cannot be tamed." Sam reminds her stallions are boys, but she brushes it off and the scene ends.
When Andy later tells Chloe about the incident, Chloe says, "it sounds to me like you are still holding on to a past experience that has left you superstitious but if you don't let this go, you're going to be the one that blows it apart. Happy is good. Happy should not make you nervous. And everyone knows you always take the key." Andy realizes she has a point.
But a lot happens before that girl talk.
After Andy and Sam's morning interaction, Chloe and Nick are shown arriving at the station. Chloe immediately asks Nick for outfit advice for the gala the officers must attend that week. (Just give Chloe a female friend already!) He eventually tells her to choose a red dress, but gets distracted from Chloe's rambling by the sight of Andy arriving with Sam. He looks over at them sadly, quietly.
However, later he saves Andy by offering to take a just-reinstated Duncan with him after hearing Oliver tell her that Duncan requested to ride with her, to her chagrin.
Cut to Holly pointing Gail towards a private room to supposedly discuss a case she worked months ago. However, once inside the room, Holly abruptly pulls Gail into a passionate kiss. She then explains she is no longer with "somebody else" because the woman thought Holly wasn't over her ex. She and Gail agree to talk but Gail suggests tomorrow because she has "a thing" that night. Holly is at first disappointed but agrees and leaves, giddy and beaming.
Shoot to Nick and Duncan in their squad car. Duncan brings up Andy and when Nick implies Duncan obliterated his relationship with Andy, Duncan insists it wasn't all him and suggests that he isn't the only one who Andy got on the wrong side of. When Nick asks what he means, Duncan says he heard Andy "dropped him like a hot rock" when Sam was shot. Nick claims that's not quite what happened but then demands that Duncan shut up.
Meanwhile, as Andy and Chloe are discussing what happened with Sam, they come upon a parking garage attendee angrily chasing after a car that has skipped the toll. As they calm the attendee down, an explosion goes off inside the garage. They rush in to find where it came from, and eventually find a woman, unconscious but alive, near the blown up vehicle. And so begins the case of the season finale.
The Case
Once Sam, Traci, Oliver and the ETF meet at the scene, they collectively learn that the explosive was an IED located under the car and detonated by a timer. It's similar to a bomb that went off in a diner four years ago, but because the damage was so contained, it had to be targeted to a specific person. The victim Andy found is presumably the driver/target but there was no ID on her and the plates were burned off.
Elsewhere at the scene, Andy fills Nick in on what happened. She claims that the blue hatchback that jumped the toll before the explosion is familiar to her somehow. She and Nick then decide to split up and check the street and nearby stores for cameras since the parking garage doesn't have any.
A couple of scenes later, Sam and Traci learn that the victim is Briana Kelly and the car is registered to a numbered company.
Cut to Duncan trying in vain to talk to Andy. When he says they both made mistakes, she says, "The only real mistake I made was giving you too much credit, and not reporting you sooner, oh and trusting that you wouldn't record me and try to ruin my career just because I gave you the benefit of the doubt." His response infuriates her more and she coldly dismisses him.
Shoot to Traci telling Sam that she's discovered Briana is the only daughter of Aidan Kelly of Kelly construction, aka the head of the Irish mob; the car is Aidan's personal vehicle.
Suddenly Oliver and the ETF team come running out of the garage; another bomb has gone off at an intersection downtown—this time with casualties.
In the next scene, Oliver briefs the officers at the station. He explains that six people were wounded in the second explosion and the driver of the targeted car, Michael O'Neill, died. O'Neill is Aidan Kelly's second cousin and second in command of his "less than legal activities." Oliver posits that both bombs were meant for Aidan, and Detective Steve Peck says that because the bombs were made of industrial grade explosives, the Gang Squad's top suspect is Sergey Malakov, a plumbing, heating and construction king. There happens to also be bad blood between the two families and Kelly's company beat out Malakov's for major contracts including the tower located where the complex the officers recently helped clear out used to be. At that, Andy tells Nick that that is where she thinks she saw the blue hatchback. She asks Dov to pull up the body cam footage from that day.
When Dov starts to fulfill her request, he discovers that footage has been deleted, but he chalks it up to a glitch and calls a friend to ask how about recovering it.
Cut to Duncan again trying to talk to Andy, as she's at her desk reviewing the body cam footage. When he says he deserves to be there just as much as her, she says he's only still there because of his father and he doesn't actually deserve it, he's not a real police officer. At that, he gives up, dejected, and walks away. Shortly thereafter, Andy spots the car in the footage and asks Dov to pull up footage from Chloe's camera. Luckily what she needs is from before the time period that Chloe deleted. It turns out, the driver of the car is the same man who got aggressive with Andy over a stolen bike. Andy is sure it's him and it's the same car. He's her suspect.
While Andy is away from her desk Duncan gets a phoned in tip about the car and he decides to check it out without telling anyone. He finds Andy's suspect in the back garage of the house. At first the man appears to be cooperative but when Duncan's back is turned, he knocks him unconscious.
Back at the station, Nick and Andy have matched a name to the face: Theodore McDonald. Andy soon learns the hatchback was registered to Ted's mother so they head to her address.
When they arrive at the house, they find Duncan in the garage cuffed to the steering wheel of a car rigged with a bomb. There isn't enough time for ETF to get there so Nick orders Andy to go outside and clear civilians while he has someone talk him through dismantling it. He says that if she stays with him he won't be able to focus, and claims that he has experience with this situation, but when she's gone and Duncan asks if that's true, Nick's face reveals it's not.
Nick describes the bomb to Bailey, who identifies it as an IED and talks Nick through separating the detonator from the explosives. However, the cord is too short to actually separate them enough. Bailey implies that there's nothing else he can do and Oliver orders him to get out of there but Nick suggests insulating the charge so it doesn't set off the explosives when it goes off. Bailey is skeptical but tells him what to do.
Nick's trick somehow works and once ETF arrives and takes over the situation, Duncan is able to thank a reunited Andy and Nick.
Just then, someone arrives from Intelligence to help out. It's none other than Sam's ex-girlfriend Marlo.
A few scenes later, Sam and Andy discuss this new surprise. Sam explains that he'd tried to contact Marlo after everything that happened with her but she never responded. Marlo soon approaches them and she and Andy exchange uncomfortable pleasantries. Eventually she says they'll be working on the case together, since Ted is still at large. As she leaves, Andy turns to Sam and says, "so we'll be wrapping this case up quickly, right?" Sam seems speechless.
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Now we get to the personal drama that unraveled throughout the episode, starting with Gail:
Gail
At some point in the episode, Gail makes a call that seems to be about date plans for the night. At the end of the episode, she meets a woman at a park. It turns out that the woman is an adoption agent helping Gail adopt Sophie-Anne, the girl whose mother died during a previous case, leaving her orphaned. Um, hello, Gail barely has her own stuff together, how on earth could she be ready for a child?
Chloe and Dov
Wes arrived at the scene of the explosion while Chloe was setting up a perimeter and during the interaction that ensued, Chloe told him their kiss was a mistake and he said he understood but yet he shared affectionate thoughts and twice touched her—to rub debris off her. After the second one, when he touched her chin, she retreated from the contact and walked away.
Dov witnessed the whole encounter and when he asked what Wes wanted, she said it was nothing and that she'd tell him if anything weird happened between her and Wes.
However, she later must reveal her secret when he confronts her about the deleted body cam footage. She tried to avoid it, hesitantly making up excuses but eventually stammered out a confession about the kiss.
At the end of the episode she tries to talk to him and again insists it meant nothing but he says if it meant nothing, she wouldn't have had to destroy the evidence. She begs him to trust her but he reminds her that he's been lying to him for months. He walks away upset, leaving Chloe fearful for their relationship.
Andy and Duncan
Andy was icy to Duncan throughout the episode but while he was waiting for Nick to save him, he radioed Andy and the two shared a sweet moment of reconciliation. Duncan apologized for everything he did—the screw-ups, leaving her with that kid.
"I wanted to go in the house to help you, I did," he says. "But I was scared, I just froze. And I didn't want to record you like that, make you look bad. But my step dad said... well, anyway, that's not your problem, but you were right. I don't deserve to be here. Well maybe here, sitting on this bomb like an idiot. Because it's true I'm not a real cop. Not like you guys. Can you do me a favor? Can you tell the other guys that I'm sorry." As he says this his radio ironically starts to die and he cuts out. Andy looks sorrowful and touched.
Thus, she softens up towards him when he is later freed and thanks her and Nick.
Nick and Andy
While Nick and Andy were waiting by the printer, Andy complained about Duncan trying to be her friend and Nick says Duncan tried to befriend him as well by claiming he and Nick were kindred spirits because they both had unresolved issues with Andy. Andy looks puzzled and Nick light-heartedly adds, "because of the way things ended with us." Andy tries to laugh it off but is confounded and when she tries to ask what he means, Nick heads off to get more paper.
At the end of the episode, after Andy scolds Nick for lying to her about having experience with bombs just to get her to leave, Nick brings it up again. Andy asks if what Duncan said is true and Nick says well you tell me, are you happy. Andy looks over at Sam and says she is, so Nick assures her that they are fine. Oh Nick I know you're being a gentleman but be a man, fight for her. Yell at her for what she did! We are finally getting a closure conversation but it's a lame one.
Check back here tomorrow morning for the recap of the second half of the finale, Everlasting.