"It's time for living."

The boys of the 1.2.5 Precinct celebrate Ray's birthday with booze and hookers, partying like it's 1973. Although Annie and Sam each have reasons to hang back and not participate, they soon loosen up and join in. As Sam does his best Michael Jackson impression, he moonwalks right off the desk, backwards.

The next morning, the party is long over and the precinct is littered with hung-over cops, passed out from a long night of partying. Sam is awakened by the sound of a ringing phone (an iconic sound that viewers of the BBC version know to be a call from "the present/future" or, or this case, 2008.) Sam answers, and hears the heart monitors and his Mom's voice, warning him that they plan to turn off his life support system at 2 o'clock. And from that point on, we know that someone will die that afternoon.

Hung-over though they may be, the cops of the 1.2.5 respond to a hostage crisis at Memorial Hospital where, according to Lt. Gene Hunt, “some nutjob is going to start killing people at 2 o’clock.” The “nutjob” is holding a psychiatric surgeon and a ward full of patients hostage. His demands include an EEG machine (medical equipment that reads brainwaves) and a nurse with surgical experience.

Detective Annie Norris, who has medical training as part of her psychology degree, volunteers to go in but Gene ignores her offer. Sam volunteers to run the operation, based on his advanced training and certification in hostage negotiations, but Gene scoffs that off as well. He puts Detective Ray Carling in charge.

Sam wants to go inside, but Gene and Ray say no. But Sam sends Chris to find an EEG and asks Annie to do a psych profile on the hostage taker. In response to a question from Annie, Sam tells her, "I heard from my mother in 2008. They're going to pull the plug on my life support at 2 o'clock. Apparently I'm in a coma. The hostage taker is going to kill some one at 2 o'clock. They're connected." Annie calls him a narcissist and walks away.

Chris finds an EEG machine, but he wants to rig it with surveillance equipment. Then SWAT arrives. (Remember the opening of the old SWAT TV show? Yeah. It's still that impressive, and the retro cop show music really makes the moment.) The hostage taker, Michael, and SWAT exchange gunfire. Sam jumps in to begin negotiations, ignoring Gene’s signal to stop.

Once inside, Sam finds that Michael just wants the doctor to fix his brother Johnny, who's botched lobotomy has left him silent, emotionless, and unable to interact with the world. And if the doctor declines or fails, Michael will detonate the bomb he has strapped to his chest. We later discover that Michael has staged more explosives throughout the hospital.

With the hospital completely locked down, there's nothing much Sam can do inside except observe and wait. When Gene calls to demand surrender, Michael declines and demands a bus. But, he lets Gene speak to Sam, who gives him enough intel to pin down where they're being held, the number of hostages, and Michael's state of mind.

While Sam waits, a television soap opera catches his attention. On screen, a man lies in a coma as the doctor tells the man’s wife that there is a delusional psychosis, and that there can be no happy ending.

Later, a hostage is shot as he tries to ambush Michael. Sam tries to save him, but Michael knocks out. While he's unconscious, Sam thinks he sees Maya, but it’s really Annie. She and Gene have entered the building, dressed as a surgical team for the injured hostage. They discover more explosives. Michael, infuriated by his discovery of hidden weapons in the EEG machine, straps a bomb to Annie. He demands a bus to the airport, and then a plane to take him and his brother away.

Under pressure from Sam, the surgeon finally admits that the surgery won't work. The bus arrives, and Michael forces the hostages to wear hoods and line up to walk to the bus. Michael dresses Sam in his own clothing, as a disguise, and tapes the gun to Sam’s hands. Gene and Annie disrupt the march to the bus, and fall on Sam to protect him from SWAT gunfire.

As 2 p.m. approaches, Sam has a flashback to his first meeting with Maya, and it makes him smile. Somewhere, his mother's voice says, "He's smiling!" Johnny, the lobotomized brother, smiles too.
The squad ambushes Michael, but Gene takes a bullet. Luckily, his ever-present whiskey flask saves his life. In fact, he's carrying three of them.

Afterward, they retire to their usual bar to celebrate. As Sam leaves the bar, he sees that television soap opera on a television in a window, and the woman played by Maya tells the Sam in the hospital bed that she’s leaving.

Throughout this series, we’ve seen the character of Lt. Gene Hunt diverge from that of the original BBC incarnation. In this episode, his purpose becomes clear. The aging tough guy is really just a stand-in for the Greek chorus, observing and commenting on the eternal truths of the story.
This becomes clear when Gene comments, in the bar, that “We all go crazy at some point. It happens to every cop who gives a crap about what he does. That’s why we’re alcoholics. That’s why our women leave us. We’re broken toys. What makes us different from those folks in the psych ward? We keep each other sane. That’s what it’s about. In any decent precinct house, we keep each other sane.”

We’ve seen similar statements from him in past episodes about family, about honor, and about loyalty. He may not be politically correct, but he’s honest and that’s what we love about him.
The soap opera parallel strongly points to Sam being in a coma, despite the red herrings that we’ve been pointed to in previous episodes.

The hostage taker’s brother Johnny, trapped inside his own head, strongly parallels Sam trapped in a coma. When Sam smiles, Johnny smiles, as if he knows more about what’s really happening to Sam than Sam does himself.

The music choices for this episode spot on. If they’ve used the retro action cop music previously, it didn’t stand out. But in this episode, it works – and brings back memories.

The little details of life in 1973 are excellent – the Polaroid camera, the typewriter and the correction fluid, the soap opera, the clothing, and hair. Kudos to the set designers on this one.