Fancy chews out Andy for the stunt, but Andy suggests that it wouldn't have happened if he had actual police work to keep him occupied. Fancy says he's still deciding what to do; Andy retorts that Fancy's made up his mind and is trying to screw him. He leaves the Loo's office and makes a big scene back in the squadroom about his new plans for organizing his desk. Fancy comes out to quiet him and agrees to meet him after work: "No ranks, just folks."
Kelly tries to talk his partner out of career suicide, but Andy's determined to have his say with Fancy, even if it means he'll never get to work with John again. Shortly before the planned confrontation with Fancy, John reminds Andy to keep his cool.
The detective and the Lieutenant square off in the squad locker room after work, and their argument quickly turns to race when Andy suggests that Fancy feels compelled to play things so tight because he's black. Fancy tells Andy that he's full of it, that he cut Andy a lot of slack during his days as a boozehound because he used to be a good cop and a good teacher. Andy says that he could be both of those again if Fancy gives him a chance, and pleads for a chance to get back with Kelly, whom he "raised." Fancy, touched by Sipowicz's vulnerability, says he'll think it over and get back to him tomorrow.
The next morning, Fancy informs Andy that he's back in the detective's rotation, and should start working the Ceizler homicide (See Plot Three) with John. Andy's lucky streak continues when one of the room service chefs at the Seville winds up in the precinct on a solicitation bust. Andy manages to get the chef out of it in exchange for him slipping a little something extra into Giardella's next meal: some feces from Medavoy's bulldog. Andy makes sure to be on hand so he can hear Alfonse's reaction to the sumptuous dish.
John escorts Susan to a benefit gala for the National Diabetes Fund, where he bumps into Laura, who's there with her new law firm. Their conversation gets cut short when Susan Wagner tries to cause a scene about Thomas' latest mistress, who's in attendance on the arm of one of Thomas' subordinates. John takes her home before things get out of hand.
The next night, John gets called back by Mrs. Wagner, whose face sports several nasty bruises, courtesy of Mr. Wagner. John suggests that she leave her husband; she counters by suggesting the possibility of paying Kelly to kill him. John reminds her of his day job and tells her not to continue discussing that particular topic in front of him.
He and James head out to Ridgewood to look up the Dileo brothers, but they get spotted enterting the building, and the brothers lead them on a chase that ends when they successfully leap to an adjacent building, while James blows the jump and barely manages to hold on to the fire escape. "What are you, a circus cop?" John quips. "Yeah, I'm Flying James Martinez!" the panicked rookie yells before John helps him down safely.
The next day, Martinez gets word that the Dileos, Michael and Jamie, got busted buying narcotics from an undercover agent, and that they were trying to sell their mother's VCR to pay for them. The narcotics cops, not realizing that the two were suspects in a murder investigation, interviewed Mrs. Dileo, who told them that she gave her sons the VCR. With Andy reinstated to active duty, the two veteran detectives split up to interrogate the two brothers individually, but get nowhere.
They decide to approach Mrs. Dileo again, but she refuses to admit knowledge of any crime by her sons. When John's soft-sell doesn't work, Andy steps in and lays on a guilt trip about how Lois Ceizler didn't deserve what happened to her, and suggests Mrs. Dileo ask God about what to do. She agrees to follow Andy's advice, and the next day comes to the precinct to tell the detectives that her VCR was, in fact, stolen.
Armed with this information, John manages to get older brother Michael to confess that they attempted to rob Mrs. Ceizler's home to get money to pay for drugs, and that when she surprised Jamie by being in the house, he killed her. He laments that they only did the robbery because he insisted that Jamie not sell their mother's VCR, and then wound up trying to sell it, anyway.
John makes sure Fancy knows that it was Andy that moved Mrs. Dileo to come forward, and thanks "Flying James," who's being transferred back to Anti-Crime, for working with him the past couple of months.
Seeking someone with whom she can safely talk about all this, Janice approaches John, who wants nothing to do with her. Later on, when he hears on the radio about Gennaro getting arrested, he offers Janice his sympathies, but won't talk with her beyond that.
While declining Mrs. Wagner's murder solicitation, John gets a page from Janice, who tells him that her father shot himself "while cleaning his gun" in an attempt to make sure his wife got his full police benefits, which she would have been denied had he gone to prison. In his suicide note to Janice, Gennaro wrote that he was forever grateful that "You're a good person, and you weren't touched by any of this." As Janice breaks down crying, John puts his arm around her to comfort her.
A few days later, Josh comes back to inform John that the permit board elected to return his gun to him. And though he says he may see some merit in what Kelly said to him the other day, he declines a suggestion to leave the gun with John until he can sort out all his feelings about the mugging and the shooting. 4B says he hopes that, despite all this, John still considers him a friend, since he hasn't made many in New York. John, feeling very sad about what the city has done to Josh, insists that they're still friends.