Hello Conviction fans! Are we ready for “Enemy Combatant?” Last week, the team worked to free a man wrongfully imprisoned as the Black Orchid Killer when a similar crime scene appeared. We learned about Tess’ fascination with serial killers, as Wallace and Hayes tried to balance their personal life with work.

Work quickly collides with personal when her father, former President Morrison, arrives at her apartment and sees her with Wallace. Her father summons her into work and goads her into taking a challenging case.

The Case: Enemy Combatant

Omar Abbas has spent the past six years in a military facility. He is being held without trial for allegedly planning a chemical attack in Manhattan. Omar was a cab driver and was caught carrying a duffel bag containing sarin gas.

Omar is a month into a hunger strike, and, despite Hayes’ reluctance to take the case, her father lets her know that not only may Omar be dead in five days but he might also be innocent.

All communication with enemy combatants is monitored, and confidentiality doesn’t apply to this case. Hayes urges Omar to eat and drink, but he refuses. Whether he lives or dies is the only thing he has control over.

Omar claims the duffel bag containing the sarin belonged to a fare. Since it was off the books there isn’t an official record of this. His father was supposed to be driving the cab that day, and there’s a possibility that it was planted to frame his father.

Omar didn’t have any enemies, but his father did. The man he had issues with directs Sam and Maxine to look into Omar’s cousin, Asif. The cousin has terrorist ties. Asif can’t be found, but, when they question his roommate, they find a photo of Omar and Asif at a terrorist camp.

So much for Omar not having terrorist ties.

When questioned about the photo, Omar claims that he pretended to be interested in Al Qaeda in order to be able to talk to his cousin. After talking to him in person, Omar convinced Asif to come home.

The call ended due to Omar convulsing, and he is now being force fed through a tube, losing any leverage he had. Tess is skeptical of his story, but Frankie believes it due to a similar experience he had with his own cousin and a gang.

As usual, Wallace summons Hayes to his office, but, this time, the Department of Homeland Security is there, too. DHS wants Hayes to drop the case and refuses to share the name of their confidential informant that corroborates Omar’s ties to Al Qaeda.

With the help of a slightly creepy guy in a greasy spoon, Frankie and Hayes manage to track down Asif. He tries to run when they find him but reveals that he is the informant.

ABC

Asif credits Omar with getting him out of the terrorist camp. After Omar was arrested, Asif was picked up by DHS for questioning. He was held for days and barely given food or water. He eventually told them what they wanted to hear — that Omar was Al Qaeda.

Hayes convinces Asif to recant his earlier statement against Omar in an attempt to get him released, but her request is denied. The CIU’s only hope to save Omar is to track down the 911 call that tipped off DHS to the sarin gas.

Maxine learns that the call was never entered into a phone log, and the call entry was deleted. To make things even more difficult, the recording is missing. When Hayes goes to her dad wanting to speak with his source, he stonewalls her. He claims that he needs to stay out of it. She starts questioning his agenda and claims that he never wanted her to win, and that was why he gave her an impossible case.

An anonymous envelope is delivered to Hayes’ apartment in the middle of the night containing the missing call log. Did her dad give her the call log?

ABC

Now the CIU can track where the call originated from, and, thanks to Occupy Wall Street, there may actually be video footage. Omar remembers dropping off a young man near the area where the call originated. When asked if the young man left a duffel bag in his trunk, he isn’t sure.

After meeting with one of the security guards at a bank, the CIU finds a new suspect: Paul Sedgewick. He isn’t one of the protesters on the morning in question, but he had thrown eggs at bank employees the week before.

Paul comes in for questioning. He holds the bank responsible for family financial problems and blames the bank for his father’s heart attack. He had to drop out of college, and, when he went back, he switched majors from pre-med to chemical engineering. The moment Hayes implies he knows how to make sarin, he refuses to speak with them without a lawyer. Hayes persists and tells him that he chickened out by leaving the sarin in the cab.

Paul has zero interest in continuing the conversation, but, when he tries to leave, he runs into DHS in the elevator. Now that the CIU found the real terrorist, DHS is willing to share information. Hayes quickly figures out that the DHS agent is her father’s source. DHS agrees to back Hayes’ recommendation to free Omar as long as it remains classified. She reluctantly agrees.

The DHS agent makes sure to mention that keeping everything classified won’t stop the right people from knowing. Hayes asks her dad about it, and he reveals that there’s an opening at the UN for Secretary General.

Hayes and her father are both there when Omar is released. He is reunited with his family and meets his daughter for the first time.

Hayes takes the opportunity to call out her father for having an agenda with that case. He tries to placate her, and, when that doesn’t work, he brings up Wallace. Hayes states that she loves Wallace, so her father plays on her insecurities, claiming that Wallace is using her for her connections. Hayes is done with the conversation and walks away.

Later that evening, Wallace wants to celebrate, but Hayes is distracted. Clearly, her dad got into her head.

Final Thoughts

For weeks, I had wondered when and if we would see Hayes’ dad. I was curious to see what her dynamic was like with her father. She’s clearly fond of him, and it’s adorable that he calls her “Bug.” However, that doesn’t absolve him for using Hayes and the CIU to get a job. Getting involved in her relationship with Wallace doesn’t endear him to me either. He’s kind of a jerk.

Earlier, Hayes was so certain of her and Wallace. She didn’t care that her father didn’t think they’d last. It was great to see her so confident about Wallace, considering how hesitant she was to start things up again. But now? Now she’s questioning if Wallace has an agenda. Her parents may be two alpha dogs, but they’re also master manipulators. I’m glad she and Jackson have each other, because their parents are something else.

I loved the little smirk on Sam’s face when he dared to call Hayes “Bug.” Considering how much she picks on him, it was great to see him do it.

Conviction is on hiatus next week and returns with the Season 1 finale, “Past, Prologue & What’s To Come,” on January 29th. Hayes and the CIU revisit a failed case from her days as a defense attorney. It was also the case where she met Wallace. Plus, Sam’s questionable actions involving Rodney Landon resurface. Does it threaten the future of the CIU?  We’ll have to wait and see.

What did you think of “Enemy Combatant?” Let us know in the comments below!