Finch gives Reese the day off, as it is his birthday, and hands him a small gift containing a key. Finch does this because he knows that the new number will bring back bad memories for Reese. Finch decides to deal with the next number on his own with help from Detective Fusco: Karen Garner (Dagmara Dominczyk) a woman who is on the run from the U.S. Marshall Service for identity thefts. Finch decides to take help of Detective Carter, but she has a news of her own for Finch regarding a murder in New Rochelle relating to Reese's past. While Carter and FBI agent Donnelly (Brennan Brown) visit New Rochelle to find links related to Reese, Finch, who is in pursuit of Karen, is confronted by Reese, who suspects that Finch is working a case by himself. They find out that Karen's actual name is Sarah Atkins, who is on the run from her husband Brad Jennings (Jeremy Davidson) of the U.S. Marshall Service, who framed Sarah for his own good. In the same way, flashbacks shown throughout the episode reveal that Reese's ex-girlfriend, Jessica Arndt, was ostensibly killed in a car accident, when actually her husband Peter Arndt (Jonno Roberts) killed her by snapping her neck when she hit her head on a table during a fight and then staged the accident to cover it up, eventually leading to Reese killing him in retribution. Sarah is taken into custody by Jennings and is taken out of the city where his plans to kill her are foiled by Reese. Finch asks Carter to look for Reese after losing contact with him. She finds Reese, who is taking Jennings to deal with him, and lets him drive off with Jennings in the back of the trunk, not knowing what Reese will do to him. Later, Carter gets Reese's old military information and shreds it afterward to avoid Donnelly finding out about everything. She then receives a call from a warden letting her know that Jennings is now serving an imprisonment in Torreón penitentiary in Mexico after "a man in a suit" turned him in. Later, Finch gives Reese an address that he forgot to include with the key. The address leads him to an apartment that Finch has now given him. In the last flashback, a man in a wheelchair that Reese accidentally bumped into after learning of Jessica's death turns out to be Finch, who was too late to save Jessica.
Air Date: May 3, 2012
Written by Erik Mountain & Jonathan Nolan and directed by Frederick E. O. Toye.