An airline stewardess is found dead, and she looks like she could be Annie Norris' twin sister.

She's not the first stewardess who has turned up dead, but previous investigations got stalled.

The detectives of the 1-2-5 Precinct decide to approach this case a little differently. Annie goes undercover as the dead stewardess. She searches the stewardess' apartment and makes herself at home. When the roommates return, they are shocked to see "her" -- she's been missing for two days.

While searching the apartment, Annie finds a wad of cash stashed in the ceiling, with a datebook containing an entry for the next day, highlighted with a flight number and a seat number.

Although Annie has never been on a plane before -- or even left the state of New York -- she's game to follow through with her undercover operation.

Sam tells her that "sometimes it's nice to pretend to be someone else, somewhere else, far far away from home." He tells her a story of his childhood, when he had a pretend spaceship made from cardboard boxes. The "window" of his spaceship was a cover from the Saturday Evening Post featuring an illustration of a boy with a stewardess.

When it's time to fly, Sam Tyler goes undercover as a deadheading pilot. He gazes out the window, as if expecting to see gremlins. He hallucinates seeing the earth from space, like in his pretend spaceship.

The passenger in the designated seat is a frequent flyer with priors, and he looks as if he's seen a ghost when he sees Annie.

He asks her if she has "it" -- he 's been dreaming about "it". When he grabs Annie, Ray Carling, who is also undercover, intervenes and has the plane diverted back to New York.

The pilot is a smarmy horn dog with a sexy, outgoing wife. They are into the swingers lifestyle. Annie gets herself invited to their next swingers key party, and takes Sam along as her "date". Sam surprises even himself when he tellers her "If you get hurt, I'll level the place."

When Lt. Gene Hunt arrives with a prostitute and Sam discovers bondage equipment in the bedroom, things get interesting....

This was an amusing episode, although the most over-used 70s cliche is the key party and sexy swinging lifestyle of pilots and stewardess. Cliche though it may be, it does provide opportunity for laughs, such as Sam's using the alias "Tom Cruise" at the party and rattling off almost every Tom Cruise movie title in casual conversation.

The music choices were excellent in this episode, as they were in the previous one.

Everything seems to be a touchstone for Sam. Was it always Annie's face on that magazine cover, or did it become Annie after he saw her in the role of stewardess?

Jealousy is a eternal truth, and it is at the heart of this episode. Sam is in love with Annie, although he doesn't realize it yet. Jealousy is what also drives the perpetrator to murder.

This episode doesn't advance Sam's time shift mystery, but it is a character building episode, Sam's childhood memory of playing in a cardboard box and his memory of the magazine cover are heart warming.

(Original air date: 3/11/2009)