L.A. Takedown

L.A. Takedown is the third episode of Season 1 of The Player.

Summary
Alex travels to Los Angeles to stop the Southwest Sniper before he kills again.

Plot
Still convinced that Ginny is alive, Alex (Philip Winchester) asks his friend Donovan (Dustin Ybarra) to investigate a mysterious SIM card he found behind a photo of his ex-wife. Alex instructs him to find everything he can off the grid to ensure the House can't find out what he's up to.

Meanwhile, there's a new bet in play. Cassandra (Charity Wakefield) and Mr. Johnson (Wesley Snipes) have been tracking an elite sniper who has been killing people in the Los Angeles area. It's up to Alex to stop him before he hits his next target. With the bet on, Cassandra and Alex head to California. In LA, Alex investigates the scene of one of the murders. He locates the sniper's nest, and learns the hard way that it's booby-trapped. After his brush with death, he remembers that the booby trap is a signature of a famous hit man from the Garza cartel named Aaron Suarez. As Alex prepares to leave the scene, we see Suarez himself watching Alex.

In Vegas, Detective Brown (Damon Gupton) gets a call from an FBI agent, Rose Nolan, asking him to investigate a missing persons case. After perusing the file, Brown notices that the victim, Justin Foucault, was in the same special ops group that Alex was. His interest peaked, he goes to Foucault's house to investigate. His wife tells him that Foucault was acting strangely before he went missing, and that she suspected he was involved in something dangerous. She shows him a picture of Foucault with a mysterious woman with whom he was seen the day he disappeared. The woman's face is too blurry to identify. Meanwhile, Cassandra calls Mr. Johnson to warn him that Brown is investigating Foucault, who she reveals to be Alex's predecessor as the Player.

Back in Los Angeles, Alex meets Cassandra at their temporary base of operations. After combing through the evidence, they figure out that the victims were all connected by a scuba diving trip to Los Robles, Mexico. Alex travels to the town, where he finds a photo from the trip that suggests the next victims are Bob Sturm and his son, the other divers on the excursion. Alex's presence alerts thugs from the Garza cartel, who chase him away from the village. After barely dodging bazooka fire, Alex escapes with aerial support from Cassandra.

Alex tracks down Bob Sturm at his home, but soon realizes that Suarez is preparing to take the kill shot from a vehicle outside. Thinking quickly, he shoots Sturm in the arm so he falls out of the line of fire. After Suarez drives off, Sturm tells Alex that the reason everyone is being killed is because they foolishly took money that belonged to the cartel during their trip. With Sturm's help, Alex and Cassandra find his son Jake at a music festival.

Realizing that Suarez is probably already at the festival, Alex decides to try a different approach to saving the target. With Cassandra's help, he sets up his own sniper nest on a nearby roof, trying to hit the sniper before he can hit Jake. Just as Alex is about to take the shot, a helicopter appears and rains fire down on the pair. They get away, but Suarez has disappeared. Alex chases Suarez down to the festival, where he finds Jake being held at gunpoint. Alex jumps in the way, and Suarez grabs a bystander, saying he'll shoot if Alex doesn't move. They have a standoff, and just when things look like hey'll take a turn for the worse, Cassandra shoots Suarez from the rooftop. The bet is won.

Hunkered down in Alex's apartment, Donovan continues to decrypt the SIM card. Suddenly, Mr. Johnson appears behind him and knocks him unconscious. Mr. Johnson combs through the files on the card to see what Alex is up to. When Donovan wakes up, he's told to lie to Alex about the SIM card if he wants to keep his family safe. When Alex returns home, Donovan hands him files of innocuous emails and phone calls from Ginny - everything but the files of interest Johnson took with him. Alex sifts through all of the data, and sadly begins to think that she might be gone after all.

That night, Detective Brown meets FBI Agent Rose Nolan at a remote location. She informs him that the reason she asked him to investigate Foucault is because there are a number of former special ops members who fit the same profile - men suspected of being in a secret organization and then disappearing. Special ops members, she says, like Brown's friend Alex Kane.

Links
summary from NBC.com