Lock-Up (episode)

Information
"Lock-Up" is the 11th episode of season 1 of Martial Law. It first aired on December 19, 1998.

Summary
"Sammo and team target an arms-smuggling ring operated by prison inmates."

--DVD description

Synopsis
The episode begins with Sammo, undercover, trying to buy a coffin. He is anticipating an illegal gun-selling deal, and Terrell, Louis and Grace are waiting in a van nearby as back-up. When they see the deal happen, the detectives spring into action to arrest the buyers. The seller, a young woman, manages to slip away.

After interrogating the coffin seller, Sammo and Terrell learn her name: Anette Delgado. They visit the strip club where she works, but she is not there. However, they learn of her boyfriend, who is incarcerated in the Tri-County Penitentiary, and deduce that he must be the mastermind behind the gun-smuggling operation.

The warden of Tri-County visits the station, dismissing the notion that any of his prisoners could be involved in the operation. He offers to put the facility on lock-down to make sure, but Sammo knows that their suspects will be prepared for this. Thus, he and a hesitant Terrell go undercover as prisoners themselves, under the guard of a woman: the assistant warden, Landers.

Here, they befriend an older Chinese man, Chu. They also soon meet Anette's boyfriend, Cor Hessman. Sammo tries to impress him by getting into a fight with his crew. Despite Sammo's skills, Hessman gets the upper hand on Sammo by sneaking up behind him with a knife. He spares his life, warning him to be more careful.

Later, Hessman offers Sammo a job building the illegal guns for him. Sammo states that he only fights for his own reasons, and shows Hessman a magic card trick. While he is distracted, Sammo discreetly takes Hessman's journal, as evidence of his crimes.

Terrell, meanwhile, comes face to face with Skunk--the bootlegger who was arrested in "How Sammo Got His Groove Back". Skunk recognizes Terrell, and demands that he help get his parole hearing moved up. Otherwise, Skunk will tell everyone that Terrell and Sammo are undercover officers. Instead, Terrell beats up Skunk, who is then sent to solitary confinement by Landers.

Sammo then meets up with Terrell by the basketball court. Knowing that they have to get to the warden--to turn in Hessman's journal as evidence--Sammo picks a fake fight with Terrell. It goes somewhat awkwardly, as Terrell has some trouble following Sammo's whispered directions, and finds him too heavy to throw. Nonetheless, Landers does take the pair up to the office.

Sammo and Terrell ask to see the warden, but Landers tells them that she has made him sick, via eye drops in his coffee. They realize that Landers is Hessman's accomplice, helping him get away with his operation unnoticed. Even worse, Landers tells the detectives that Skunk has told her of their true identities. She and Hessman have Sammo and Terrell handcuffed around a pillar, intending to dispose of them.

Just in time, Chu arrives with a key and frees the detectives. They urge him to get himself to safety, and he does. Sammo and Terrell seize the opportunity to attack Landers, Hessman, and their crew, who are trying to export the guns in garbage trucks. They manage to defeat the villains, just as Winship and Louis arrive to help.

Back at the station, Louis speaks with Sammo and Terrell. They had asked Louis earlier to look into Chu's case, and Louis discovered that he was innocent and will now be released. The person who had reported Chu was an anti-Chinese bigot, later arrested in a hate crime. Sammo and the others lament that an innocent man had lost so many years of his life.