Eyewitness Episode 1.08 The Larson's Dog

Ryan romances Kamilah to get close to Lukas. As she tracks the killer, Helen develops an unexpected emotional connection with Ryan. Meanwhile, Gabe uncovers a clue to his wife's mysterious past.

Lukas goes into witness protection.

After last week's cliffhanging-close call with Ryan and Lukas, Helen puts Lukas into witness protection with the FBI until an arrest is made for the string of Tivoli murders. Of course, that's right under the nose of the killer himself, Ryan Kane. In a bizarre twist that we can only chalk up to her state of grief over Sita, Ryan seduces Kamilah first into the bedroom and then around his finger when he convinces her to come back to work and play watchdog for Lukas. It gives him an inconspicuous reason to keep tabs on Helen's witness while planning his next move. He also post-coitally copies the tracking information from Kamilah's burner phone over to his so he knows Lukas' exact location at all times.

Philip isn't so safe.

Lukas being put in witness protection also means, however, that he's the only one being protected; Ryan knows there was a second person in the cabin that night, but Philip hasn't confessed to being there, so Helen doesn't know there's any reason to protect him. That keeps Lukas and Philip very tight this episode -- even in school -- while Philip mutually benefits from having Kamilah around all the time. Whenever they're not together, both Philip and Lukas are a nervous wreck.

Helen and Gabe pick up on Philip's romance.

Despite their best efforts, Philip and Lukas fail to completely hide their relationship from the ever-perceptive Helen and Gabe. When he's put into witness protection, Lukas hands his phone over to Helen so that the killer can't track his whereabouts. Soon after, the phone buzzes with a text from Philip telling Lukas he misses him and asking if he's okay. Above the message, Helen spies a cute selfie of them cuddling. Meanwhile, Lukas is staying at Helen's in a basement guest bedroom while in the protection program. Gabe catches Philip sneaking down at night to sleep with him. Nothing is said to Philip about either revelation, and Helen has been so absent due to the case that she and Gabe don't even speak with each other about their thoughts until the end of the episode. They hit some rocky terrain this episode (Gabe finding the key to Helen's secret murder storage unit is a major wrench), but it's clear they're in it for the long haul, through thick and thin.

Tony steps up to the plate.

You'll remember in episode 106 that Tony gets a hold of Sita's recovered cell phone after her suicide. Doing some digging through it, he finds a suspicious text from a blocked number: "42 Poughkeepsie Street. She meets him there. Get it done. Tonight." Turns out, that address is the hookah bar that Bella and Ryan were meant to meet in earlier this season. Tony decides to get video footage from a security camera outside the bar from the day of the shootings, thinking it may be a makeshift HQ for Mithat. The video ends up not having much of use, but at least Tony's playing like a real cop now!

Helen goes to Ryan to decode the security video.

Here's one of two moments this episode that we learn just how crazy -- and scared -- Ryan is. He's caught between a rock and a hard place when Helen comes to him to decode the potentially incriminating videotape of him at the hookah bar the night of the cabin killings. He does it for her, but as it's loading, he secretly cocks a gun to her spine, ready to shoot if she were to see him in the video. Thankfully, his face is obscured in the video, and Helen fails to identify him.

Helen and Ryan have a heart to heart.

Thinking it may well be the last time he sees Helen (because he's going to kill her), Ryan opens up a bit to Helen while their security tape is loading. Helen tells him a about Gabe and marriage life, and Ryan recalls a time that he felt that way about someone, retelling his first encounter with Bella. He was tracking the hookah bar for months and fell in love with a girl that was always there, then finally got the nerve to talk to her after the case wrapped. He tells Helen she was younger and didn't have any way of understanding what he was all about, but that he was in love with her. "How did it end?" Helen asks. "Badly," he says.

Then Helen opens up, too. She recalls how she was going to kill herself after leaving Buffalo. She wrote the letter (which Ryan saw in her box), bought the pills to overdose, then miraculously, her car broke down in Tivoli and met Gabe before doing the deed. "This incredibly decent man loved me, so I became the woman he met that night, and that's still who he thinks I am," she says. "It's working, but it's a whole lot of work to keep it working -- to be someone you're not." Without her knowing that Ryan, too, is very much pretending to be someone he's not, it's a touching moment of connection and vulnerability from both parties, but especially Helen.

Lukas doesn't remember what Ryan looks like.

The more days that have gone by, the harder it is for Lukas to remember what the killer in the cabin looked like. And Philip, unfortunately, didn't see him either because he was under the bed. This makes it particularly unlikely for Helen's latest plan to work: she flies in a professional sketch artist from Buffalo who specializes in kids and teens who have experienced trauma.

Ryan pulls the trigger.

The day that the sketch artist is supposed to arrive, Ryan shoots Lukas. We don't know if he's dead yet, but knowing his time is running out before the sketch artist draws him, Ryan gets his sniper the day of the artist's arrival and shoots Lukas while he's riding his new motorcycle around the dirt biking course on his property. Watching Lukas fall mid-air off his bike with a bloodied shirt is just heart-stopping, and the look on Philip's face when he realizes what' s happened is pretty heartbreaking, too. We'll be crossing our fingers until next Sunday in hopes that he makes it out alive. Ryan can't get away with this!