The BEST episodes of Without a Trace season 3
Every episode of Without a Trace season 3, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Without a Trace season 3!
Without a Trace is a fast-paced procedural drama about the Missing Persons Squad of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The sole responsibility of the special task force is to find missing persons by applying advanced psychological profiling techniques to peel back the layers of the victims' lives and trace their whereabouts in an effort to discover whether they have been abducted, been murdered, committed suicide or simply run away. The team reconstructs a "Day of Disappearance" timeline that details every minute of the 24 hours prior to the disappearance, following one simple rule: learn who the victim is in order to learn where the victim is. Senior agent Jack Malone heads the dedicated team that knows too well that every second counts when someone vanishes.
#1 - Volcano
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 2/3/2005
When Ian Norville disappears on a field trip to a museum in Manhattan, the team gets involved, but it isn't long before Jack turns his suspicion to his father, Daniel, who soon admits that he didn't take the necessary precautions with his son, who happens to be autistic.
#2 - Light Years
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/14/2004
This time, the team searches for a delusional appearing Sci-fi fanatic who disappeared from his appartment after ranting on about those "out to get him" (before peeling back the tinfoil covering his windows). Jack also has to deal with the consequences of his actions in the affair and how it affected the rest of the team.
#3 - Nickel and Dimed (1)
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/4/2004
A young mother disappears after leaving her three year old son with a babysitter.
#4 - Nickel and Dimed (2)
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/11/2004
To find a missing young mother who was recruited as a drug mule, Samantha goes undercover to lure the drug trafficker who recruited the young woman.
#5 - Thou Shalt Not
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/7/2004
The team search for a nurses' aide who who disappeared from a rural road while changing a flat tire, only to discover that she is actually a fugitive wanted for the bombing of an abortion clinic.
#6 - Upstairs Downstairs
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/21/2004
When a nanny, and the child she took care of, disappear from her employers' home after being fired by them, the team must determine if the nanny is a kidnapping victim, or a kidnapping suspect.
#7 - In the Dark
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/23/2004
The team searches for a recently blinded girl and her companion who disappeared during a camping trip. Vivian takes over as the supervisor, while Jack struggles to say goodbye to his family.
#8 - 4.0
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/6/2005
Tara Patterson disappears from a bus stop on her way to an S.A.T. prep course, and the team is called in to investigate the disappearance of the 4.0 student. While investigating, the team soon finds out that Tara is in deeper then they think when they start learning about smart drugs and married men with secrets.
#9 - Doppelgänger II
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/18/2004
When a homeless woman disappears from a shelter, the team is forced to re-examine the case of twin brothers Greg and Rick Knowles. Five months earlier (Doppelganger), Greg Knowles had confessed to a series of brutal murders, but the team was always convinced that it was Rick who had actually performed the killings. When Greg is released from jail and exonerated of the crimes, the team has to work against the clock to prove that Rick is the guilty party and to save one twin from the other.
#10 - Trials
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/25/2004
When a juror disappears, the initial belief is that his disappearance is connected to the trial that is being covered, where a young man named Terrell Brooks has accused of murdering Janelle Billingsley. When the team investigates further, they learn that not only did Ducek change his will to leave his younger lover a fortune, but he has been rather mysterious about a painting from his youth in Czechoslovakia. The team soon begins to believe that Ducek is really a former Nazi soldier named Klaus Reinhardt.
#11 - Malone v. Malone
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/9/2004
Things with Jack and Maria's divorce are getting nastier as Maria's attorney forces Jack to relive not only his childhood traumas, but also throw his affair with Sam in his face and attack his dedication to his job.
#12 - Transitions
Season 3 - Episode 18 - Aired 3/31/2005
When Stephanie Healy doesn't show up for choir practice, the team heads in to investigate and soon learns Stephanie had recently had a fight with her boyfriend. While speaking with Eddie, the team is shocked to learn that Stephanie used to be Stephen Patrick Healy. Convinced that the truth to what is happening in Stephanie's present lies in her past, the team investigates who Stephen was. Vivian has trouble hiding her worsening problems from the team, and is upset that Martin has been talking to Sam about his suspicions.
#13 - American Goddess
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/28/2004
The winner of a plastic surgery make-over T.V. show vanishes during a publicity event, which was all about her.
#14 - The Bogie Man
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 5/4/2005
Seven years ago, a thirteen-year-old girl named Amber Bryce went missing, and suspicion fell on her boyfriend, then-seventeen-year-old Curtis Horne. When Daisy Thorpe, who had become obsessed with getting justice for Amber's death, also ends up missing, the team is called in to investigate. While Martin and Danny work from the office, Sam and Jack work in the field, starting their investigation with the local cleric, Amber's father, and trying to find out why Curtis Horne has stayed in town all these years. While Vivian is home having troubles with Reggie, Martin makes a decision about his relationship with Sam.
#15 - Second Sight
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 4/14/2005
After a young woman named Agnes Deschamps goes missing, the team takes a look into her disappearance and learns that the young woman was believed to be a psychic. Sam has trouble accepting that one of their witnesses purports to be a psychic, although she is thrown when the woman correctly points out her problems with Martin. Jack, Martin and Danny pick up the extra hours with Vivian out awaiting heart surgery and together the team manages to track the young woman down after a supermarket parking lot kidnapping yeilds an unlikely clue.
#16 - Manhunt
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/24/2005
Martin is swamped with guilt after a young boy is kidnapped shortly after he jogs by. The team tries to reassure Martin that his presence was a help rather than a hindrance as they search for the kidnapped child, but Sam's continued reluctance to admit to their relationship partnered with Martin's jealousy of her relationship with Jack only cause more problems.
#17 - Lone Star
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/10/2005
Lance Hamilton is a successful real estate agent in his early thirties who disappears one day after showing a house. When the team gets involved, they soon realise that Lance had more than one dealing with a local hood, Jimmy 'The Tooth' Fusco, and begin to suspect that Lance may not have been the good guy everyone thought he was. After tracking down the woman Lance had recently been spotted kissing in his office, the team needs to revise their opinion, knowing now that Lance is one of the good guys, but wondering if he's died for his beliefs.
#18 - Neither Rain Nor Sleet
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/10/2005
After postal worker Rosie Diaz goes missing during what seemed to be a regular workday, the team initially connects her disappearance to her cargo, which include $12,000 worth of the game Demon Storm, which all the kids were after. But when the team gets in touch with child protective services, they learn that Rosie recently had her foster children taken away after an anonymous abuse call. A search of her home uncovers a DVD containing child pornography, and the team starts to look at the case from another angle. Danny comments on Martin and Sam's obvious closeness, and wonders why they're keeping it quiet.
#19 - Off the Tracks
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/5/2005
Danny is skeptical when the pregnant girlfriend of his missing estranged brother, Rafael "Rafi" Alvarez, and mother of their 9-year-old son, tells him that Rafi has transformed himself into a responsible family man, who recently obtained a loan to open his own body shop. But Danny's investigation uncovers that Rafi has been seen with a convicted car thief, and the large sum of cash he'd been flaunting for his purchase of a body shop didn't come from the bank. Though Jack makes the point that Rafi may have legitimate explanations for the suspicious circumstances, Danny braces himself for the very real possibility that his brother may have put himself in harm's way.
#20 - Penitence
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/13/2005
When Mac, a prisoner only two weeks from parole, disappears during a fight in the yard along with another prisoner, his sister contacts the FBI for help. No one can figure out why a member of the Aryan gang would escape with a black prisoner. While Martin and Viv talk to the other prisoners and Jack tries to wade his way through the sister's lies and half-truths where her brother is concerned, Danny focuses on a new prisoner who Mac had been protecting.
#21 - Party Girl
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/17/2005
When a spoiled heiress in her early twenties is kidnapped, the team has to work against the clock to save Chelsea, who is being featured on a website giving fans the option to choose whether she lives or dies. As they continue to investigate her disappearance, the team learns that Chelsea had finally been starting to grow up, but she may not have time to enjoy her new life.
#22 - Endgame
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 5/19/2005
Paige was last seen sneaking out of her office at the same time as an NYPD detective was asking her boss to direct him to Paige for a routine inquiry. To the team's surprise, the NYPD detective turns out to have been an imposter, causing them to question why Paige chose to run from this mystery man, what he wanted -- and if he caught up with her. Further investigation uncovers that the seemingly upstanding and socially conscious Paige was involved in a lucrative identity theft ring with close ties to a terrorist on a watch list who was recently seen in New York with her. Meanwhile, the remaining team members are gravely concerned about Vivian, who is undergoing open-heart surgery on that very day.
#23 - John Michaels
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/12/2005
John Michaels is a 71-year-old insurance investigator who went missing after last being seen getting into a car with two strange men. While investigating his disappearance, the team finds that he had recently tried to make amends with his ex-wife and has been trying desperately to get his older daughter on the straight and narrow. Things get strange in the case though, and all is not as it seems.