On Thursday’s Rush Hour, Carter sneaks his cousin out of jail to use his contacts and track down the perpetrators of a robbery/homicide.
A woman is watching a horror movie when the lights go out. Her husband goes to the basement to reset the circuit breaker. An intruder insists he open his safe. After stealing its contents, the robber and his accomplice kill the man and his wife. One stops to take the man’s watch before leaving.
Carter calls Lee “Bruce.” Lee is offended, but Carter says Lee doesn’t know his first name either. Lee does.
Police Captain Cole fills the officers in on the latest in a string of home invasions. The home security system at each site was disabled, but they can’t find a link between the homes. She tells them an $80,000 watch was taken.
Lee and Carter get a call that a suspect is being chased on foot nearby. They almost hit the man with their car and Lee runs after him. Carter runs after Lee. After a spirited chase, Lee loses the suspect, but Carter sees him trying to enter a building. He halts him at gunpoint and the suspect pulls down his hood. It’s Carter’s cousin Gerald. Carter tells him to run, but Lee shows up so he’s forced to arrest him. He notices the stolen watch on Gerald’s wrist.
Carter is upset because this is Gerald’s third strike. Gerald says he got the watch on the street. He offers to help in exchange for Carter getting his charges dropped.
Cole doesn’t approve Carter’s plan to have Gerald track down the origin of the watch. She claims it’s like the plot of 48 Hours. He takes Gerald out of jail anyway and tells Lee that Cole was okay with it. Carter tells him taking prisoners out for the weekend is called the “48 Hour Protocol.”
Gerald takes them to the boardwalk to find Snakehat, who sold him the watch. Lee chases Snakehat down. Carter lets Gerald talk to him.
Snakehat tells them he got the watch from a long chain of people. Carter pays him $50 for the first name and they track down the rest. They find out it came from a pro thief named Sticky J.
They track Sticky J to a private night club. Carter and Gerald buy their way in and post Lee out front. Once inside, Gerald gets sidetracked and Carter is dragged into a back room. The abductors claim they know who Carter is and want to make sure he never comes back. Gerald tries to break down the door, but knocks himself out. He’s dragged into the room and put on the couch. Lee then busts down the door.
Lee fights the men and lets Carter loose. They interrogate the abductors who say they thought Carter was a pickpocket who’s been operating there. Carter and Lee let him go and then spot Sticky J in the club. He runs. Lee catches J and drags him outside.
Carter asks J about the watch. He stole if off the wrist of a blue-collar man at the club. He says the man was white and left-handed.
Carter gets the call there’s been another robbery/homicide. Lee is intrigued by a wall at the home.
Lee cuffs Gerald to the car. Carter throws him the keys to unhook himself before they leave the scene. Another officer threatens to report Carter for letting Gerald out of jail. Lee explains that they have him out under the 48 Hour Protocol. The officer laughs and walks away.
Carter tells Lee that he lied. Lee is upset that he can’t trust him. He leaves and tells Carter he needs to put Gerald back in jail before he reports him. Carter tells Gerald he has to go back. Gerald handcuffs him to a railing and says he’ll find the guys responsible and get back to him.
Lee comes back and says he’s bound to support a fellow officer. He lets Carter loose. Carter apologizes for betraying his trust.
Lee thinks that someone who worked on these homes would know the layout. He noticed that walls in the two latest homes both had the same pattern. Carter sees a painter and asks him about how the pattern is done. He says it’s a swipe of the trowel. Lee says that would create a mirror image of the pattern they see on the walls. The painter says the trowel holder was left-handed.
Didi talks to the contractors from all the houses. There were two men in common for several.
Gerald asks a worker where to find Nick to ask him about the watch. The man says he’ll get somebody who knows if Gerald waits. In the meantime, Carter and Lee show up. Lee handcuffs himself to Gerald. Gerald says he’s close to finding the watch thief. Carter shows him Nick’s picture. It’s the man Gerald just talked to.
They hear a gun click and Carter yells to get down. The room gets shot up. Carter runs after Nick, but Lee is still handcuffed to Gerald. They run out together. Lee and Gerald fight the accomplices together while Carter fights Nick. Lee manages to break the chain, then he and Carter battle the bad guys and win.
Cole wants to talk to Carter first thing in the morning. Lee says Carter doesn’t owe Gerald anything. He tells Lee that he robbed a guy with Gerald as a teen, but Gerald took the heat and never asked for a thing in return.
Cole punishes Carter by not letting him take credit for the arrests. He asks for a favor, but she shuts him down. She congratulates Lee on the arrests and he asks for Gerald’s release in return.
When Gerald is released, Lee pretends he was against it. Carter thanks him and calls him by his real name, Jonathan. He read it on Lee’s ID in his wallet that was dropped at the fight.
See the episode two promo: