Plot

Detective Kennex and Dorian investigate a string of murders by a copycat of a serial killer whom Kennex's father put in jail. As the investigation unfolds, biotechnology from the future sheds light on crimes of the past. Meanwhile, Dorian receives his performance evaluation since being reactivated.—Sohaib

At a homeless shelter, a young woman named Abby gets hassled by a man offering to share his pod for the night. A man in a wheelchair tells her about another shelter that might have beds open. After they get their food supplement food pill, they head over to it.

Glen introduces himself to Abby and brushes her hand, which hurts her. Suddenly, she starts to feel woozy and he stands up out of his chair and stuffs her in his van trunk.

At the station in yearly review, both Maldonado and John Kennex rave about Dorian. Rudy argues that Dorian doesn't need to undergo the Luger test to see if he's emotionally fit for duty. Dorian speaks to the panel with his usual blissed-out mellow attitude and tells them being a cop is the best thing that ever happened to him. Afterward, John harshes his buzz by telling him it took a lot longer than usual.

In the car, John further messes with Dorian by saying he told the panel the truth: that Dorian has no concept of personal space, that he scanned John's balls, that he abducted a DRN from a hospital, and that he exposed himself to John. (All true, out of context.)

John finally gives him a break and admits he's messing with him.

At the crime scene, they find Abby's lifeless body. She was dumped there. John finds straw next to her body and finds she was sewn up. She's stuffed with straw. John recognizes it from a case 10 years ago involving "the Straw Man," Michael Costa -- a black man, unlike the white man who posed as disabled. The investigating officer was Edward Kennex, John's father. It was the collar of his career -- right before he was killed.

Back at the station, John is denied access to his dad's case notes, which he finds strange. Dorian reminds him his father was still under investigation for selling seized robotic tech at the time.

Maldonado runs down the case. Just like the Straw Man did, the killer removed all of her internal organs, including the brain, and replaced them with straw. They never find the organs.

The killer is a copy cat, and could be a schizophrenic psychopath like Costa. Dorian suggests they find out who Costa has been talking to in prison.

John asks Maldonado for permission to access his father's files and she promises to take care of it.

At the prison, the warden explains that Costa failed the red line test for mental disorder as a child but is a model prisoner now that he's on medication.

Dorian and John talk to Michael Costa in his cell, behind a force field. He's peaceful and calm and says he would have blackouts but he knows in his heart he didn't commit the crimes. He gave up after the fifth appeal. He tells them Detective Kennex came to him at one point and said he believed he was framed.

Dorian checks the visitor log but doesn't find John's dad. John goes along with it. Costa says Edward Kennex told him he was working on an angle about robotics and crooked cops, but he was killed in the line of duty two months later. He knew no one would believe him after Kennex died so he dropped it.

On their way out, John tells Dorian he recognized a name in the visitor log as an alias of his father's. If Edward was right, it means the original killer is back.

Meanwhile, the Straw Man in a wheelchair approaches another homeless woman in line for a shelter, offering to show her to a better one.

Back at the station, Detective Stahl says the stitching on the current and past victims is the exact same technique. She suggests it might not be a copycat. John keeps his thoughts to himself.

Maldonado calls him in and gives him his father's case file, which was sealed by Internal Affairs.

John tells Dorian he doesn't want to tell the rest of the department because some of the same people who were working with his father 10 years ago are still there. And he wants to go over his father's files by himself.

Dorian goes to examine the victim's body in Rudy's lab. He finds the puncture wound on her index finger. Dorian tells Rudy he got a call back from the review board, which is a little unorthodox. He advises Dorian to make them comfortable by acting like an MX.

Home alone, John plays the hologram of his dad's files. DNA and blood from multiple victims was found on Costa's clothing and he was found carrying a surgeon's knife. An expert witness said the stitching was expert. John listens as his father theorizes that Costa was abducted the night before the last murder and had evidence planted on him and could be innocent.

John notices his dad circled the victim's feet in the crime scene photos.

Dorian calls. John heads to Rudy's lab, where he reports the victim had nothing under her fingernails, not even specs of anything. Rudy has a theory that this victim isn't the real victim. John points out three weeks isn't enough time to abduct and clone someone. Rudy's theory doesn't explain that.

John looks at the victim's feet. Dorian says she's flatfooted.

Rudy breaks out his organic 3D printer and explains that bioprinters more than five years old couldn't do feet arches because they print from top to bottom and the material settles, leaving the copies flat-footed.

Providing a victim's body means the police stop looking. They think the victims could be alive.

At a warehouse dock somewhere, the latest kidnap victim wakes up strapped to a table and sees a replica of herself being printed.

At the station, Dorian catches Stahl and Paul up on their theory. The straw was used not out of some sort of psychopathic urge, but because bioprinters can't make organs.

John tells Maldonado his father's theory and mistrust of the department, that he was trying to prove Costa's innocence and it was related to stolen robotics.

Dorian interrupts with a report of another body.

At the scene, Dorian sees the same pinprick on her finger and they connect it to the blood draws at shelters for the supplements.

Maldonado sends a heavy police presence to all the shelters but two to try to drive the Straw Man there. Detectives go undercover at the others.

Paul chats up a homeless young man in blue neon sunglasses and gives him bitcoin to go get a place to stay.

Waiting in the car, Dorian asks John about his dad. He tells a story about his dad refusing to take a cut of drug bust money, even when his commanding officer put a gun to his head. A few months later, his entire dirty unit got busted except for him.

At a shelter, the Straw Man is about to run his routine, but leaves when he sees an MX.

At the shelter where Paul is staked out, he notices blue neon sunglasses on the ground and a van driving away. He calls it in.

A drone follows it and shows a body in the back.

The Straw Man is about to unload his next victim when he sees the drone.

Using facial recognition, Stahl IDs him as Glen Dunbar, with a background of trading illegal tech on the black market.

John and Dorian pull up on the dock warehouse with teams of police. They find the young man alive in the back of the van, but unconscious.

The Straw Man runs side and grabs a gun as police storm the place. John opens a container inside and finds a body with wires running into it. Dorian finds the two most recent victims still alive in other canisters. MXes carry them to safety outside.

John sends Dorian to investigate a report of shots fired. John explores the warehouse alone in the dark with his flashlight and gun drawn.

MXes come up on the Straw Man's body, down on the ground. Dorian scans it and finds it's a duplicate with a bomb inside.

He radios John, who turns around and gets a board in the face. The Straw Man attacks him. John grabs a knife and stabs him in the chest but he keeps coming. John empties his gun into him and blue sparks fly.

Dorian examines the body and finds human tissue fused with biotech. He's been made into a cyborg.

Going over the Straw Man's equipment, they find most of it is stolen from the evidence room -- the crime John's father was accused of. Dorian checks his records and finds Silas Grant, the officer in charge of the evidence room at the time, was killed three weeks after John's father.

Back at the station, Stahl explains the Straw Man had a degenerative disease he was trying to slow with robotics. His victims were test subjects. The tech lasted for 10 years and started to break down so he needed new test subjects, so he started killing again.

John reports to Maldonado. They think Grant was setting Edward Kennex up for the thefts and both were killed by the Straw Man. Michael Costa is being released from prison.

Dorian goes in for his review board call back, acting like an MX. But the reviewer tells him his term is being renewed following his glowing reviews, especially from John, who credited Dorian with being the reason he wants to stay on the force.

In Chinatown, Dorian finds John. He presents him with a wrapped leg-shaped thank you gift that's a serious upgrade from what John has now. He got it through Rudy. John is touched.

Dorian mentions the credit John gave him for wanting to stay on the force and gets choked up, annoying John. And then they're called to the next case.