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It seems as if good news is finally brewing for Mary Beth and Chris. Word has gotten out that a new detective has joined the force, another female in the hopes of balancing things out more fairly and relieving the pressure on Chris and Mary Beth.
Chris and Mary Beth dawdle through coming in as to not witness Isbecki and some of the guys attempting to butter up this new female co-worker.
They make it in and Isbecki taunts them with, "You're late...you missed the welcoming."
"Nuuuuts..." Chris says sarcastically as she and Mary Beth sign in and hang up their jackets.
It turns out that Lt. Samuels, their supervisor has actually assigned Chris and Mary Beth the role of showing the new officer, Diane Turner, around and training her.
Samuels also tells them that if they have any problems, to please come to him. Deep down inside, however, they sense that Samuels really doesn't want to hear about any problems, knowing his penchant for wanting to believe everything is always fine in "his" precinct.
Chris and Mary Beth are pleased, however, to have Diane train with them and introduce themselves warmly to Diane.
Initially, Diane seems very friendly and cooperative and appears to have done well as a uniformed officer; Diane proudly announces that she had a crucial role in an earlier drug bust.
It's Chris and Mary Beth's turn to patrol the streets, so they take Diane and cruise the streets, chatting and looking out for any trouble. Chris drives a tad fast getting to one suspect scene where cops are gathered and Mary Beth gently chides her not to show off. Chris laughs that maybe Diane would like some action.
They get to a scene where a building had been burned to near ashes with only a smoky, charred frame standing. It turns out that the cops could use aid, so they park and go in.
Although the fire is out, the smoke is still so thick that Chris and Mary Beth have to cough on the way up the narrow, dark staircase.
Upstairs, the coroner and an investigator are peering over the remains of a woman's dead body.
Diane immediately declares that it must be a murder; look at the strange mark on the woman's neck.
Chris admits that this is possible, but also to consider other options, like still dying of the smoke inhalation and also to consider another physical factor.
Diane leans over and begins to tap and poke the body and Chris has to stop her since the coroner needs to finish his job preferably without added fingerprints.
Back at precinct 14, Isbecki manages to butter up Diane and asks her out on a date.
It turns out that it was a murder after all and Diane crows about it to the guys and most of them except Marcus Petrie flock around her like bees to honey. Chris and Mary Beth can see that she is enjoying the attention and it rather unnerves them that Diane appears focused on the glory.
Another unsettling incident occurs when Chris and Diane are casually discussing why they entered police work and Diane says that it was because she'd heard that detectives "make a lot of money." That makes Chris nervous.
Isbecki, who often gets on Chris's and often Mary Beth's nerves, comes over and brags about his "romance" with Diane and how "cool" she is, irritating Chris and worrying Mary Beth.
Chris confides her fears about Diane to Mary Beth in a bathroom break and Mary Beth still wants to give Diane the benefit of the doubt. Chris also wants to give Diane every chance, but she can't help but notice a troubling underlying attitude problem behind Diane's charming facade and smiley face.
Diane's attitude begins to rear its unpleasant head when Chris is explaining a procedure to her and like most very intelligent women, Chris accidentally goes into a tad bit of elaborate detail. Diane snaps at Chris, "Oh, I know that" startling both Chris and Mary Beth. Chris stops mid-sentence, embarrassed.
At another lunch break, Diane is once again playing the part of the honey with the swarm of bees aka guys surrounding her and this time she is bragging about having gotten into the police force with even less qualifications than Chris and Mary Beth, almost at the same level that men have traditionally been admitted. That makes Chris and Mary Beth queasy. Mary Beth admits to being a tad envious, but realizes that maybe it's a sign that more doors are opening for women, that now the NYPD are not giving women as much hardship about entering the police force as they themselves endured.
A bit later, when Diane and Chris are out of the office, Mary Beth receives a call that a baby is missing and asks her if she and Chris had gotten the earlier messages about it. Mary Beth has not and realizes that Diane had been the one managing the phone calls at the time. Shocked, Mary Beth writes down the information, then lets Chris and Diane know about it...but doesn't mention that Diane failed to deliver this important message.
Chris, with Diane in tow, goes back to the burnt-down flat building to question any possible witnesses or suspects. They question almost everyone they see, but as they are walking back out to the car, Chris happens to look up and spots a rather ragged, tatty woman gazing sadly out a broken window on the second floor.
Chris realized that they missed her and insists on going back into the flat to ask her despite Diane's arguing and asking why they need to ask every single person in NY city.
Chris manages to get the woman to let them in and the woman, a thin, tired, dejected, tense-looking person invites them to sit. Chris can sense that she is frightened and hiding something.
"I don't like to look at the TV anymore," says the woman in a tinny voice. "All about rich people's problems...so I look out the window...life is more interesting out there sometimes...like movies out there."
Chris gently and softly prompts her to take about the "movies" she sees out the dirty, cracked window. The street is very dingy, narrow, and dark and is full of vagrants, homeless ragged people, drug deals, and run down stores.
After meandering about a bit, the woman finally confesses to seeing a man drag a woman into another building and says that she thought she saw the woman crying and seeming upset.
Chris gently tells her to try to remember, that there has been a crime committed, that her information would be very helpful. Chris, however, is wise enough not to push, that she needs to be very gently drawn out slowly, not pressured. She can feel the woman's deep fear, even as the woman appears to be casually knitting or crocheting. Chris tries to reassure her that whatever the woman says will be kept confidential. But the woman is still very, very afraid, so Chris decides to wait about.
"THERE'S BEEN A MURDER AND THERE'S A BABY KIDNAPPED!" Diane suddenly bursts out, essentially perforating Chris' right eardrum and frightening the poor possible witness into a terse silence. Chris' stomach turns over and she reaches over to clamp her hand on Diane's arm to shut her up.
Chris feels the woman close up, sees how rigid and still her body becomes as she tightly tells them, "I don't know of any crime..." and denies seeing anything and picks up her knitting and continues it. She does not look at either one of them again and Chris, right ear ringing, fears that the woman is on the brink of madness, thanks to Diane. Chris is also extremely frustrated with Diane!
Outside, Chris is seething and hollors at Diane to just follow her lead, which is what Diane was supposed to be doing.
Diane arrogantly argues that she'd been on the streets also and "knew" all about interviewing witnesses and adds that she thought intimidation would "work."
"You have to be able to read people!" Chris explodes, irritated by not only Diane's arrogant attitude, but her now-apparent ignorance of this simple concept that she allegedly learned at the police academy.
Diane argues that she was trying to read the woman and Chris challenges her, "What did you see?"
Diane says with actual seriousness, "Somebody to get information from."
Chris, astounded by this lack of even the elemental knowledge, informs Diane angrily that it takes more than that.
Feeling a stress headache coming on, Chris plops into the driver's seat and digs into her purse for aspirin while swearing under her breath while Diane, sulking and glaring at Chris, gets in on her side.
Back at work, Chris mentions the incident to Mary Beth as they are practicing gun targeting. Mary Beth is also uncomfortable now with Diane, but still is hesitant to say anything negative and hedges that Diane "made a mistake."
Chris kind of whooshes, still frustrated over the incident and reminds Mary Beth that they knew this when they first started.
Mary Beth has her headphones on by then and is trying to concentrate, but Chris keeps distracting her and she misses several shots. "Look at that..." Mary Beth pulls her headgear off, a tad irritated herself. She wails that because of the missed shots, she will have to come back next week and do it again.
Chris, finishing her practice, turns her gun and completes the shots Mary Beth missed. Mary Beth relaxes and smiles at Chris ruefully, thanking her.
One thing that made them a good team was that they always owned up to their errors, something Diane doesn't appear to be capable of doing. Chris and Mary Beth find this out clearly when they get back to the office and Samuels immediately calls them in and dresses them down because allegedly, they are "picking on" Diane! Both Chris and Mary Beth are stunned and hurt by this false accusation and burst into a storm of angry protests, but to no avail. Diane has snowed over Samuels and Samuels is now oblivious to Diane's deviousness as well as her incompetence and the obvious evidence beginning to surface that Diane might not even be who she is claiming to be. Discouraged, Chris and Mary Beth leave.
To add to their embarrassment, Diane has been gossiping about them behind their backs to their male co-workers and Isbecki makes a caustic crack about them supposedly being "nasty" to Diane and "mistreating" her.
Later on, Mary Beth sees Diane at their desk and Diane accuses Chris of giving her a hard time and tries to get Mary Beth to side with her. Mary Beth, angered by this malicious gossip, tells Diane off and lets her know that she is way out of line and to straighten up her act, that someone else was going to see through her. Diane sneers back that Chris has "poisoned" Mary Beth "against" her and makes more snide, mean remarks about Chris, which infuriates Mary Beth enough to blast her, full finger out. Diane, not wanting to be overheard being blasted, falls silent, but sadly her attitude does not change; she mostly sulks in silence and childishly refuses to speak to either Chris or Mary Beth.
She continues to do plenty of talking behind their backs, however and starts to dissappear on Chris and Mary Beth's watches, which lands Chris and Mary Beth further in hot water with Samuels, who is still failing to see Diane's destructive behavior.
Chris admits that she is partially relieved not to have Diane around as much, since Diane, in addition to badmouthing Chris, has been constantly grating on Chris' nerves. Mary Beth has to soothe a frazzled Chris several times after working with Diane.
Chris, scores a small victory, however when she manages to draw the frightened witness into the police precinct and gets her to try to identify the suspect in the kidnapping. The woman doesn't find the suspect, but Chris gives her encouragement for trying. The woman, still frightened, asks to stay in the room with Chris and Mary Beth when the others start to leave, as she feels very comfortable with them.
Samuels then asks where Diane is as he's leaving. Neither of them know and they both are secretly relieved that she is not there to drive this witness into insanity.
Mary Beth manages to track down a lead to the woman who the witness had talked about. She brings it to Chris' attention and Samuels hears it and tells them that it's a lead and to go on it. They do and acquire a description of the woman in question who might have kidnapped the baby.
Marcus, who was not one of the guys buttered over by Diane, is listening with interest also when they come back.
Diane, unfortunately, is not far from them, and wanting to be center stage again, comes over waving a paper. She rudely interrupts Mary Beth and fairly smacks Marcus with the paper she's waving, which is the address to a place they already checked out.
Mary Beth goes over to the lead that she's gotten on and finds a mostly empty, run-down flat with lots of water leaks, dirt, and a crying baby. The man and woman who have the baby claim to be its parents. Mary Beth notices that the baby seems unusually flushed. She also suspects that the woman is lying and not really that baby's mother. The man, who Mary Beth senses, is not the father, carries the crying child back into the other side of the flat.
The woman tells Mary Beth that the baby is just a few days old and that's why it's crying so much. Mary Beth, recalling her own experiences with her two children as babies, knows this is a lie and also can tell by both the baby's cries and by its motions that this baby is several months old, not just a few days.
After being arresting and brought to the questioning room of precinct 14, the woman begins to sob and at first tries to insist that the baby is hers, but knows she's been uncovered by then. Diane, Chris and Samuels are present as the woman weeps out her story...she'd recently had several miscarriages and wanted a baby.
Diane begins to weep also, very noisily and distracts everyone. That really doesn't both Chris or Mary Beth, since they are used to a lot of crying at once, including their own crying occasionally.
But Diane and Samuels would later use it as a weapon against Chris and Mary Beth when Samuels gets on them about Diane.
"I've even seen men break down on this also!" Mary Beth fires back and tries to tell Samuels that that's not it as to why they are unhappy with Diane.
Diane, meanwhile, arrogantly goes on ahead to where the main suspect is still at the flat with no backup and without consulting either Chris or Mary Beth.
Samuels, realizes that Diane has gone AWOL again, but now realizes that he must send additional backup and assigns Marcus to tail Chris and Mary Beth back to the flat.
Meanwhile, Diane, stands alone outside the flat and claims to be a repair company. Gun poised, itching for action and anticipating later more glory and praise for herself, she foolhardely butts the flimy, half-broken door open and dives in...right into the suspect's steel arms and merciless agression. The suspect easily knocks the gun out of Diane's hand and beats her senseless, leaving her on the floor with a fractured skull, possibly some ruptured vertebrae, some broken bones, and many bruises. The suspect then flees.
Marcus, Chris, and Mary Beth make it to the flat just minutes later. They sense that there had been trouble here and that the suspect has fled, but are taking no chances and poise their guns. Mary Beth calls in, kind of miming a joke about forgetting to follow up and pokes at herself for her "forgetfulness."
Then Mary Beth, with a powerful stroke of her sturdy leg, sweeps the broken door easily open. Chris and Marcus leap into the doorway with guns poised. As they'd guessed correctly, the suspect has fled.
However, all three of them get the feeling that this is not over, that someone is still here.
That someone is the semi-conscious, beaten Diane lying behind a large chair. They gasp at the sight of all the bruises and know that she is seriously injured.
Chris, luckily finds a phone and calls 911 while Marcus looks around for more evidence and Mary Beth, tears of shock glimmering briefly in her eyes, tries to soothe Diane, speaking softly to her and telling her that an ambulance was on the way and stroking her softly as she would her own sons whenever they were ill or hurt.
The closing scene is when Diane is in the hospital recovering and everyone is back in the precinct by the next Monday.
Chris has sent get-well flowers and a card to Diane, despite the poor way Diane treated her.
Samuels informs them that Diane requested a transfer, then adds that the reason is "personality conflicts" and looks at them accusingly before heading back into his cubicle.
Mary Beth and Chris know that once Samuels decides post fact about something, it's useless to argue. Samuels usually means well, but is often out of touch with the real world and often fails to look around and observe what is really happening around precinct 14 and even around the NYPD. He also holds a rather dim cynicism to the idea that sexism is really that bad and figures women "have come a long" way, Virginia-Slims ad style.
Chris then discovered that the flowers she so lovingly sent to Diane has been sent back with a rather rude note, which leaves Chris feeling very hurt.
Mary Beth sympathizes and smiles at Chris that she's sorry about it. Chris manages to smile back at her friend, despite her wounded pride and hurt feelings, and tells Mary Beth how lucky she is to have her as a partner and friend. Mary Beth responds that she's fortunate to have Chris also as the final scene closes and they begin to tackle further cases.