Mercy's new E.R. attending gives the cops and paramedics a hard time while ignoring Carlos's attempts to hit on her; Doc is saddened to hear that Jerry has decided to take a disability retirement; Jimmy is upset when Joey goes to Bobby first after he becomes ill as a result of Jimmy's letting him overindulge in sweets; Jimmy and Bobby take out their conflict over Kim and Joey in a game of one-on-one; Sully and Ty arrest a purse snatcher who will do anything to stay in jail once he discovers that his victim's son is a mobster; Faith hands out street justice to a gangbanger responsible for the deaths of two little boys.

Ty is worried about Sully's dating Maggie; Faith and Bosco lose a witness who turns out to be the perp in a homicide; Bobby prepares for Matty's release from prison; while driving the bus, Carlos collides with a pregnant driver and later attempts to revive the baby she delivered prematurely after Sarah pronounces it dead, unaware of the consequences for the parents; Jimmy rescues a boy from a tree; Bosco and Ty take issue with Sully over his handling of a belligerent collar.

On the hunt for a robbery homicide suspect, the police shake down all young black males they encounter, igniting racial tensions throughout the city. The suspect in question turns out to be Puppet, whose younger brother was killed as a result of Puppet's gang activity despite Doc's attempts to turn him away from the streets. After he's shot by the cops and goes into hiding, Puppet solicits Doc's help by proclaiming his innocence. The ensuing lengths to which Doc goes to get Puppet to the hospital and save his life while avoiding the cops wreak havoc with Doc's relationships with both civilians and the squads.

The ordeals of an elderly friend prompt Sully to consider his own loneliness; Alex regrets revealing that she discovered Jimmy on the eve of his wedding having sex with an old flame who happens to be Lombardo's current girlfriend after the news spreads like wildfire throughout the squad; Jimmy and Brooke get married.

Faith, Bosco, Carlos and a wounded Doc find themselves trapped in an abandoned tunnel and unable to reach Central on their radios; the firefighters get into mischief during a long lull between calls; when the C.O. can't raise Bosco on the radio, Sully tries to cover for him.

Bobby's attempt to keep Paulie away from drugs ends tragically.

It's September 21, 2001 and the squads continue to battle through their emotions and their misgivings about their hero status, while working double shifts and spending every free moment at ""the pile"" searching for the missing; Kim returns to work and teams up with Doc, which allows an emotionally frayed Alex to return to paramedic duty; an exhausted Sully attempts to co-exist with his prospective in-laws while he waits for an opportunity to marry Tatiana.

Faith returns to work from a few days off. She apologizes to Bosco for hiding her illness and promises to never shut him out again.

Filled with guilt, Doc begins to second-guess himself on every call. Kim reminds him that Ryan would have choked to death had Doc not removed Ryan's collar and intubated him. She also tells him repeatedly that everyone makes mistakes, but her words don't seem to have any effect. He begins to visit Ryan daily, clinging to the slim hope that the paralysis may only be temporary, resulting from bruising to the spinal cord. Doc's prayers are answered one evening when Ryan is able to move his fingers.

Kim and Doc treat a junkie whose boyfriend maintains that she was injured in a fall. When it becomes apparent to them that her injuries were caused by a beating, the boyfriend flees the scene. Soon after they arrive at the hospital, she dies, and the hunt is on for her killer.

During the investigation of the gang shootout, the officers are questioned and presented with evidence which suggests that Ross was killed by friendly fire; Carlos learns that Vangie is dead and that he might be the father of the baby her sister leaves at the firehouse; on the first anniversary of Bobby's death, Kim quarrels with Jimmy over her visitation with Joey and confronts a female gang during a call; and Doc is visited by the father of a former patient whose debilitating injury may have been caused by Doc's error during treatment.

Hopelessly in love with Kylie and concerned that she will lose her Latina heritage if she is adopted by a white couple, Carlos considers raising her until he realizes that the couple can give her the sister, the grandparents, and the extended family that he cannot; Kim's preoccupation with her new PDA drives Alex crazy until they are able to use it to save a very sick man, thus redeeming themselves in the eyes of a hypercritical Dr. Peterson; Faith and Fred are still on uneven ground about the sergeant's exam; in an effort to shake Chevchenko's tree, Faith and Sully execute a clever plan to disrupt the Russian's bookmaking operation, which also opens the door to the possibility of the still-missing Tatiana's return; Bosco is cleared for duty, and he and Faith agree to be partners again as soon as he returns.

Ty bails Carlos out and unsuccessfully tries to help him smooth things over with Nicole; after Bosco and Faith break up a domestic disturbance between an old friend of Faith's and her lover, Faith convinces her friend to leave the abusive relationship; Alex gets irritated when the other firefighters make fun of her brother; Sully continues to drink and have a poor attitude on the job; Jimmy is appalled when his face appears on a poster for an erectile dysfunction product, and is stunned when he discovers that the company paid the charity for whom he posed for the picture $10,000 for the right to use the picture, and that their website got 3,000 hits the first day from women wanting to know his name; when he discovers that everyone thinks that he's guilty and he's likely to lose his case, Carlos resigns in the hope that Nicole will drop the matter, and he'll be able to avoid a conviction that will end his visits with Kylie and his hopes of becoming a doctor.

Sully hits bottom when Ty washes his hands of the partnership after Sully's drinking goes completely out of control; a thief strikes fear in the hearts of the police when he phones in false ""officer-in-need-of-assistance"" calls to cover his fur store robberies; Faith and Maritza go at it after Maritza's lonesome cowboy tactics nearly get another cop killed, and Faith is forced to shoot a perp to save Maritza's life after she goes after the perp without backup; Doc has an unpleasant encounter with Joy's father; Faith is disgusted when she finds out about Bosco and Maritza, and Maritza confirms that she put Bosco in front of a lie about a dying declaration to obtain a conviction on a drug dealer; Ty overcompensates for Sully's inattention to the job by becoming a ""supercop"" with an eye to getting a gold shield.

Cruz's desire to find the ring leader of the Meth ring puts Bosco in a uncomfotable position. Faith tries to improve her relationship with Emily and also gets a new partner, Sasha, at work. Noble is released and sets up a new date with Kim.

On his last day on the street, Doc's guilt and grief over Alex's death emerges as anger towards everyone he encounters, especially Eugene, the new paramedic trainee whose place Alex took the day she died; Kim becomes frantic as she fears that she have been exposed to HIV after having unprotected sex with a drug addicted Noble, and Jimmy agrees to accompany her when she gets tested; Swersky goes to bat for Faith by creating the opportunity for Bosco to talk to her before she's interrogated by I.A.B.; Carlos is less than thrilled when he discovers that Kim is the new supervising paramedic and Jimmy has been promoted to take over Lt. Johnson's position; Bosco returns to work and faces a hostile reception from the squad for ratting out Maritza; Faith awakes to discover that she's paralyzed; Maritza refuses to let Faith off the hook for shooting her until Bosco tricks her into recanting her story; Faith thanks Bosco for keeping her out of jail and saving her job, and then tells him to get l

Jimmy gets a promotion to a rescue squad in Brooklyn; despite their new captain's assurances, Doc suspects that he intends to close down the house; Sasha insists upon pursuing an investigation into the beating death of a hit-and-run driver after Maritza uses the confession of an innocent man as her stepping stone to an Anti-Crime reassignment; after Jimmy is trapped in a warehouse fire, Kim reassesses their plans for a future together; Rose's serves a customer at the bar who shares a past with Bosco.

Wary of Lester Martin, the high-priced lawyer his father has found for Mikey and the deal he's attempting to broker, Bosco warns his brother to stay away from Maritza, but Mikey decides to disregard his brother's advice and makes a deal to become her informant; for good measure, Bosco threatens to kill Maritza if anything happens to Mikey; Sully teases Ty about his budding relationship with Sasha; Faith and Bosco strike a deal with Laura, who also has no love lost for Maritza, to protect Mikey by helping her nab the drug dealers before Maritza gets to them; J.D. offers Kim a ride home, but stops off first at a rave that both Anti-Crime and Narcotics have staked out, thanks to information Mikey gave them; when some bad ecstasy begins to take a rapid toll, the paramedics call for backup, which prompts Maritza and her detail to storm the building; after an arsonist lobs a Molotov cocktail into the crowded building, Faith and Bosco give chase and capture him, while the firefighters rescue

Cruz and Santiago try to track down a gang member who murders witnesses to his murders. Grace finds her mother, who doesn't seem to welcoming.