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Diagnosis Murder Season 5 Episodes
Season 5 Episode Guide
25 Episodes 1997 - 1998
Episode 1
Murder Blues
Thu, Sep 18, 199745 mins
Steven and fellow LAPD Detectives Halloran and Stang (who are partners) find Councilman Watson ( whom they wanted to question about corruption) passed out at home on tranquilizers Mark prescribed; in the next room is his separated wife Janet's corpse. She has been shot and her blood is all over the house. Police Chief Masters, a political rival for the mayoral campaign, refuses to comment. Mark decides to look into Watson's claim to have been framed, working together with Captain Cynthia Pike; even though it may make Steve look bad, he is happy to collaborate. Amanda hopes to work trough her an 'amicable' divorce from baby CJ's dad by becoming a medical examiner in the coroner's office but she finds nothing; this "negative" finding is enough for Mark to prove there was a frame, and that Stang had motive and opportunity - he shoots himself; his gun was used for Janet's murder. Now Mark sleuths on; Stang could have been framed himself if Masters is in the plot. Stang's partner Halloran, now also disgraced, tells Steve that Stang was Janet's lover. Jesse treats Pike for a strange, bad tetanus poisoning, which leads Mark to an even scarier plot.
Episode 2
Open and Shut
Thu, Sep 25, 199745 mins
When David McReynolds realizes that Allison Porter wants to go public with their illicit love affair, he strangles her in the bath on her 18th birthday, just before his father Peter McReynolds proudly swears him in as fellow Justice on the California Supreme Court. New assistant medical examiner Amanda confirms the lack of bruises suggests no struggle: Allison knew her killer. Mark finds her stolen jewelry on an OD'd junkie named Otis, but believes he didn't kill her and soon catches David in a lie. The Sloans discover his under-age affair and that Allison's parents had also found out about it from her diary. Steven finds David murdered at his dinner table, with Allison's mother's gun, but she admits having been David's lover herself and claims she was unable to shoot him. David's medicine for a pancreatic disorder opens another trail, but without proof, yet Mark finds another way...
Episode 3
Malibu Fire
Thu, Oct 2, 199745 mins
When a forest fire rages near Malibu, the Community General mobile team and voluntary firefighter Steve soon find not only the flames and shifting wind endanger them and other lives, but also a number of personal motives for murder among locals centering around the only general store-owner, his daughter and a recently released investment fraudster who nearly ruined many locals.
Episode 4
Deadly Games
Thu, Oct 9, 199745 mins
Former cop turned bodyguard Frank Waldeck arranges a murder attempt on his filthy rich employer Victoria Larkin and himself for which he frames a mentally instable fan of hers who he has 'commit suicide'. When she's committed to Community General, reason for an impractically strict security regime, Dr. Sloane soon smells a rat and suspects him, especially when the richest stock criminal is also brought in, but who is the intended next victim and how can it be saved?
Episode 5
Slam Dunk Dead
Thu, Oct 16, 199745 mins
Jesse proudly serves as the LA Mustangs basketball team doctor during filming for a commercial, but starts worrying when the vials from a routine drug test he took are smashed in his new car. It's time to panic when the star player dies from the binary poison formed by the combination of anti-allergen (Jesse prescribed) and the antibiotic - the star's chart didn't mention when he quickly read it, but now does. The sleuths find out it was mixed in with his sponsor's pills, while the star had an endorsement rival with a drug problem. Mark also looks into the team staff's personal interests, from manager David Clarke to towel boy Dwayne. Only during Jesse's hospital board -likely to fire him- he pieces the puzzle together.
Episode 6
Looks Can Kill
Thu, Oct 23, 199745 mins
When Jesse's young patient in fine condition dies just after jogging, her supplier, a certain Marco with a criminal record, is hunted down and arrested but Amanda's autopsy proves his supplements were safe, a hospital infection killed her - after another plastic surgery in an amazing long series, all the more surprising for a girl of natural beauty. Now the popular but profit-driven Dr. Elaine Denell's specialized clinic is the target of an examination, which finds it was so badly managed that it is closed down, but Mark and Steve feel it's too easy, especially when the victim's former best friend is nearly killed by a car before Jesse's eyes, so they dig in the past of less obvious suspects...
Episode 7
Fatal Impact: Part 1
Thu, Oct 30, 199745 mins
Mark and Amanda participate in the emergency plan at its grimmest: examining with the National Transportation Safety Board a plane-crash without a single survivor, just victims to identify. FBI liaison agent Ron Wagner claims charge over NTSB and LAPD as Victor Pawel, linked with the Russian mafia, was on board in handcuffs with another FBI-agent. They discover two passengers are missing, there was a hijack and all bodies are radioactive...
Episode 8
Fatal Impact: Part 2
Thu, Oct 30, 199745 mins
Amanda's boyfriend Special Agent Ron Wagner declares he's taking over the investigation of the plane-crash and its hijack and smuggled Russian nuclear fuel rods for the FBI, but soon realizes he couldn't make anything like the necessary progress without the ingenious doctors trio and Steve. They team up for the investigation which becomes desperately urgent as there are indications that the nuclear material is used for bomb likely to be used to cause an LA Apocalypse by surprising, personally vindictive suspect Diane, the spokesperson of the bereaved.
Episode 9
Must Kill TV
Thu, Nov 6, 199745 mins
When one of Dr. Sloan's patients, a major network's VP of program development, ignores his warnings by rushing back to stress-ridden pilot season after a heart-attack, he's not surprised to hear the next kills her, until Amanda's autopsy shows her nitro-pills were substituted with placebo sugar. As Jesse is desperate not to have to spend his first (fishing) vacation in years with his father, who was never there for him, he successfully applies for a job in the studio's mail-room and thus gathers an insiders perspective which confirms the length of the list of suspects, which largely remains after he finds successor hung in her office, as the job mass-produces enemies: jealous and ambitious rivals, actors, producers and even loony fans for who her approval of a pilot or decision to scrap a show is vital. Yet after it turns out the first victim died from seeing a specially doctored vile version of a pilot she had already pre-approved, Mark figures out a less obvious culprit and the way to ferret him out...
Episode 10
Discards
Thu, Nov 13, 199745 mins
Jesse's dad Dane Travis fights off an assaulter with amazing ease, then turns up in Jesse's flat unannounced, and thanks to Mark's good word is granted quality time, fishing together in Baja. Steve examines a certain Kim, found at LAX with a broken neck. Dane bails out on the fishing, Jesse has to content himself with dinner in Del Florio at 8. Jesse gets another surprise visit from his tall step-brother Bruce Travis from Toronto, whose mother may divorce Dane, Jesse invites him along to the restaurant; when Dane hears, he gets jumpy and strangles Bruce in the lavatory before Jesse's eyes, explaining it's an assassin, not his son: Dane is a CIA analyst without a family and forcibly takes unwilling Jesse for his own safety to a company facility, where he confers with colleague Cinnamon Carter on spy matters and tells both he fears to be targeted by Jim Kesler, the son of a former colleague whom Dane had to kill before he switched to a desk job after the Cold War. Jesse decides to stick with his dad; they contact another master at the game, John Garrison. Steve and Mark's only clues on the Kim and Bruce murders lead to Alexander Drake's 'bug business', where Jim is the number two. Drake is shot while with the Travis men, who persevere.
Episode 11
A Mime Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Thu, Nov 20, 199745 mins
In this comedy, Rachel York stars as an attractive in-your-face polymath who finds a murdered mime in her bed. She will do anything to solve that murder, including stealing Steve's badge and calling herself Lieutenant Stevie Sloane. In the end, Mark and Steve agree that "She is really something!"
Episode 12
Down and Dirty Dead
Thu, Dec 11, 199745 mins
Mark and Jesse are both impressed but a bit worried when joining Steve whose young friend Jake Hallman presents them to the set in the desert where Kyle Lewis professionally produces crazy stunt motor bike videos in the dunes but loses riders to Casey, a girl who is just out for profit. Then they witness Kyle's top rider and friend Spleen dying in a crash and find both bike and helmet were sabotaged. Jake is eager to grab his chance taking Spleen place, which makes him a suspect, and his hacksaw fits the traces on the doctored bike. When Amanda finds amphetamine traces in Spleen, Kyle points out that fits Casey's dealing past. Then Steve fails to arrest a masked burglar on a motor bike who just knocked out Sheila, who has a lover jealousy motive. A generous contract in favor of Spleen and a video recorder inspire Mark to set a trap...
Episode 13
Retribution: Part 1
Thu, Jan 8, 199845 mins
While Steve and his partner are celebrating the success of a six-month undercover investigation of the Valley's mob baron Gordon Gonza, he's critically injured by a shot in the stomach. Dr. Mark Sloan must trust his son's medical care to Jessie, but publicly threatens Gonza, proclaiming he'll pay with everything he's got. Steve's informant, porn actress Spring Dano, contacts Mark, and soon after, both Gordon and Spring are found killed: Gonza by binary poison and Spring by a knife. Mark is found bending over her corpse, is arrested, and put on trial for their murders while planted clues pile up.
Episode 14
Retribution: Part 2
Thu, Jan 15, 199845 mins
Mark, framed for the murders of mob king Gonza and a police informer from his entourage, is on death-row next to Malcolm Trainor, who masterminded to get his death sentence reverted now Mark, whose testimony decided it, is utterly discredited. Steve -and his partner- must find the real murderer fast; their best bet is Gonza's mob heir Ross Canin, whom he finds threatening his accountant, Malcolm's brother, but chief Masters orders them to stop investigating him, as it turns out with good reason, but maybe the key is where Gonza's missing fortune went?
Episode 15
Drill for Death
Thu, Jan 22, 199845 mins
As if General Hospital weren't stressed enough by an official emergency drill observed by state emergencies director Doug Hanson and five ambulances on the way after a real tunnel collapse, ruthlessly ambitious bed-hopper nursing administrator Karin Hatcher is bloodily beaten to death and left in the morgue, but the splatters pass unnoticed among all the fake blood for the drill. She already got the hospital job head nurse Maggie Dennings wanted, but aimed at Hanson's. Jesse and his frisky girl-friend nurse Susan Hilliard still hope to get away on romantic trip to Carmel. Next schizophrenic chemo-patient painter Art Amador is killed, possibly as an inconvenient witness, but Steve finds his identity is stolen twelve years ago by more famous Martin Beckman, his death drastically changes the value of each's works. A prominent patient, hospital board member Peyton Cartwright, one of Karin's lays, also owns a Beckman collection...
Episode 16
Rain of Terror
Thu, Jan 29, 199845 mins
When Mark and Amanda arrive drenched at a private dinner party in a canyon, they soon notice their hostess Vivien Sanderson and her daughter act suspicious, and indeed Amy has just knocked in her fiancé Pierce Maxwell's skull with a frying pan. When the other guests arrive, the body has disappeared, and soon a second murder is committed, now overtly but unwitnessed, on uncle David Coopersmith, who managed Amy's trust-fund very tightly. Mark calls Steve, but the connection was to bad to hear he's coming and brings Jesse - but what about the killer meanwhile?
Episode 17
Baby Boom
Thu, Feb 5, 199845 mins
A man holds a child-birth class hostage, along with Amanda, claiming that one of the expectant women used his sperm without permission. But when the doctor suspected of the practice us murdered, Sloan must find a way to defuse the situation whilst solving the murder.
Episode 18
Talked to Death
Thu, Feb 26, 199845 mins
When Darrin Tate is brought into Community General after his co-host Mary Montgomery decked him in their TV talk-show, they both insist it's staged between good friends during the weeks when crucial ratings are measured. In the next show he shoots her, and claims to be shocked finding someone switched the blanks she loaded herself with fatal live ammo. The doctors and Steve unravel motive and opportunity in the brutally competitive and deceptive studio circles for that murder and Mary's personal assistants which is masked as a fatal car accident.
Episode 19
An Education in Murder
Thu, Mar 5, 199845 mins
Noelle Andrew enjoys sadistically manipulating her fellow Norrington Hall private school students so they turn on each-other. After her deceptive promises and blackmail cause two deaths, ethics guest lecturer Mark Sloane gets wind and finds out her fiendish foster past through Steve. Mark is determined to prevent further victims, she to make him her next. Meanwhile Jesse wrestles with his girl-friend nurse's inability to keep emotional distance after her transfer to ICU.
Episode 20
Murder at the Finish Line
Thu, Mar 26, 199845 mins
When former racer Steve presents lay fan Jesse to his favorite team Eagin, star driver Matt Thomas has a nasty accident and accuses the crew team of sabotage. When the whole gang attends the race, he has a crash in the sabotaged car and dies- but from deliberate medication abuse. The sleuths dig into team rivalries and financial problems, to come up with several relevant plots.
Episode 21
First Do No Harm
Thu, Apr 16, 199845 mins
Unlike most episodes, this one has no deliberate killing. Instead, doctors Mark Sloan and Jesse Travis refuse to accept the grave medical consequences -such as medically irresponsible delays and refusal of necessary therapy- for non-affluent patients of the virtually exclusive medical circuits (ambulance, treatment facilities etc.) imposed by so-called HMOs, a type of medical insurance, which puts medical staff in an impossible position between budget-orientated rules, malpractice claims and Hippocratic conscience. A few fatal cases lead to law-suits and an arbitration procedure with serious financial stakes.
Episode 22
Promises to Keep
Thu, Apr 23, 199845 mins
Security guard Ryan Matthews (Gary Graham) shows up to identify the body of his murdered ex-wife, but it's not her. Little does the hospital know that Matthews is being blackmailed by a con artist who is holding her hostage. When the hospital is scammed and Matthews is the sole suspect, Sloan hatches a plan to expose the con man and clear Matthews name.
Episode 23
Food Fight
Thu, Apr 30, 199845 mins
It still seemed funny when the first victims just had food all over them after a grill exploded, but when the next attempt is salmonella poisoning with a (possibly accidental) fatality, the systematic attempts to ruin the competing top-caterers in Hollywood (that is those who trained with he recently retired top-dog, Gaylord) becomes a true nightmare- especially for Jesse, who is in charge this year of the hospital's benefactors ball and thus enlists his friends to help him choose a caterer, while the sleuths wrestle with an abundance of suspects with motives, several of which turn out to have committed party sabotages and keep accusing each-other...
Episode 24
Obsession: Part 1
Thu, May 7, 199845 mins
Just after the execution of Louis Sweeney, the serial Sunnyview bomber who got arrested thanks to Mark Sloan but whose motive remained unknown, a new bombing by his method happens - his son, popular investigative radio-presenter Carter Sweeney, manages to make two rivaling prosecution officials and the public believe it's not a copycat's work but proof Louis was an innocent victim of Sloane's prejudiced manipulation. Soon every member of the sleuth team sees his of her career in grave jeopardy as the bombings continue...
Episode 25
Obsession: Part 2
Thu, May 14, 199845 mins
Now that he and his friends are discredited and professionally hurt, Mark figures out how the geographical pattern of the bombings fits the Sweeney family's grudge against the city, just in time to save all but one victim on the thus predicted next bomb site. For once Amanda's boyfriend, FBI Agent Ron Wagner, sees something clearer then our overstressed sleuths: if Carter just planned to clear his father, he should have done it in time to prevent the execution. Finding proof that Carter is the lover of ambitious ADA Sharon Ellison gets Steve reinstated. Even once she's found out and taken care of, Mark is convinced that's not the whole plot, and even after he gets to the next twist, there's a surprise cliffhanger to the next season.
