NYC Councilman Bobby Prince shares a secret with Sam after Prince is caught with a hooker during a raid on a motel. The secret leaves Sam with even more questions as well as the realization he has more in common with Prince than he had ever thought. Meanwhile, Gene Hunt locks down the precinct after a shooting, Maria and her father confront each other, and Ray's wife, Denise, adds tension to the drama.
When rock star Sebastian Grace receives a death threat, Sam and Chris are exposed to the rock-and-roll lifestyle that includes one of Grace's groupies called "Rocket Girl." Things really get strange when Chris finds Sebastian and Rocket Girl waiting for UFOs in the swampy area of New Jersey known as the Meadowlands.
With a life-and-death hostage situation paralleling own strange circumstances, Sam Tyler is ordered with the rest of the 1-2-5 to diffuse a potentially deadly face-off at a hospital where a crazed gunman is trying to force a doctor to reverse a dangerous operation on the renegade's brother, and the squad are all targeted in the gunman's cross-hairs.
The murder of a returning Vietnam veteran has Lieutenant Hunt outraged, as he demands a quick resolution to what quickly becomes a complicated and controversial case. As Sam and the squad's team of detectives explore the circumstances surrounding the homicide, Tyler is sent down a mysterious path that may provide clues about his own family's past and why he is back in 1973