Plot

Jim's focus on catching a park shooter pulls parental attention away from his family, where Daphne crashes a senior party and runt JJ becomes a strategizing giant on the football field.

While patrolling the park at night in an effort to catch a mugger, Jim is mistaken for a murderous vigilante who has begun targeting the robbers; Stephanie makes a discovery that could explain how she and her family got their powers; Daphne uses her telepathic abilities to get into an exclusive party reserved for only the cool high school kids; and JJ tries out for the football team - with a lot of help from his powers.—ABC Publicity

Jim (Michael Chiklis) is still taking up his newest hobby: crimefighting. His patrol area this week is Franklin Park, "where you can get poison ivy, crack, and sexually assaulted at the same time," according to George (Romany Malco). However, a woman getting mugged will do, and Jim springs into action...literally. The only problem is someone beats him to it and shoots the mugger. Jim has no choice but to take the guy to the hospital. He does leave a note, except the media caught wind of it and assumed the same person who shot the guy brought him to the hospital, which certainly doesn't make Stephanie (Julie Benz) happy. Stephanie complained about Jim when he didn't have a hobby, and now she's complaining when he does, according to Katie (Autumn Reeser). (Sounds like being on some of the IMDb boards.) But Katie thinks it beats being a stamp collector, since their fingers are always sticky and their tongues are always dry. (Autumn really shouldn't have been on Entourage before saying that.) But Stephanie has bigger problems to worry about. Dr. Childs, the scientist whose ID card they lifted last week to switch out her blood sample, is now on her team. All that was missing was a "Hello, Newman." It was bad timing, as they did an analysis of the DNA breakdown of the plant. There were trace elements to the plant that were also in the bloodwork of Jim, Stephanie, and Daphne. And now they know what we figured out in the pilot: the plant was affected the same way as them.

As Jim tries to get the police to look for his vigilante...with no success...Daphne (Kay Panabaker) and JJ (Jimmy Bennett) are finding ways to put their powers to good use at school. Daphne is going to try to get her friends into an exclusive party by mind-reading someone to give them the secret location, and JJ discovered that he can analyze football practice and get the game down to a science. Jim cancels the camping trip he was going to take JJ on as a reward for his good grades until he catches this guy. "Until the next guy," as Stephanie accurately points out. But JJ is cool with it, as he plans to join the football team. Jim is skeptical, as JJ never showed interest in it before, but JJ takes offense to it. JJ finds the football coach and makes a deal to ace his history test in exchange for a tryout.

George, after Jim and he straighten out a little fight they had earlier, discover the vigilante, Meyers, shot the man who shot his son many years back after the man walked, and they theorize he's been doing it ever since. (BTW, when you do those city montages, don't splice together shots of Boston, New York, and Chicago in the same sequence.) They trace Meyers to a bar on the south side, and George briefs Jim on how to get Meyers to open up: pretend it's a blind date. Jim tries by talking about his son. It doesn't work. Jim got the impression Meyers was someone who just wanted to be left alone, as he did talk about being estranged from his son. However, Jim was wrong, as he makes it to the park again in time to hear a gunshot and see another dead perp. He calls out to Meyers, who runs. He checks the body, and the hoodie he's wearing doesn't endear him to the two witnesses who immediately call 911. Worse, they come to the station the next day to give him a description of who they saw. Jim slips on a co-worker's Coke Bottle glasses to disguise himself, and the couple gives the description. Round, middle-aged, thin, long hair (oh, good!), Cupid's Bow lips, just like Jim's.

JJ makes Rudy (1993) look like he was on steroids compared to his teammates. But the coach gives him one snap behind center. JJ's mind calculates the receiver's route, times the spot, and even tells him to angle the ball differently as he throws it. Touchdown, and JJ has a spot on the team. But his math coach has decided to spy on him and makes a call. JJ gets the third degree from Daphne, who is really into that whole pot/kettle thing given she scammed the location of the party from a stuck-up senior. But Mr. Litchfield instantly accuses JJ of being on drugs. (Seriously, this guy would have been fired by now in any school.) Jim and Stephanie are livid, but the teacher wants to know what could have caused JJ to have such a remarkable transformation both in the classroom and on the football field in such a short time. Jim and Stephanie confront JJ about it, and he goes into full denial. He can't believe they're accusing him of having powers, even though he does. Jim and Stephanie feel guilty about it, but Jim has a bigger problem, as he sketched the "perp" a little too well. Jim is on the news as the vigilante. Stephanie is upset because Jim is doing the same thing Stephanie was doing.

STEPHANIE: You can't have it both ways. You have to decide what kind of person you want to be. Do you want to be a parent, or do you want to be a vigilante?

Detective Cordero is none too happy that the sketch looks just like Jim, but George runs interference for him by bringing in Meyers' rap sheet. They bring Meyers in for a line-up, but the two witnesses don't finger him.

Daphne is in the party...and so is JJ. She accuses him of using his powers to get into the party, and JJ doesn't let her get away with that. Only problem is, JJ was actually invited, and Daphne wasn't. A little factoid the girl she scammed the location from points out. Daphne, however, has a way to stay in. She donates several bottles from the store she was at earlier. The store where she overheard the clerk think about taking a $50 out of the register. And the plan works great, except she can't prove the guy was taking money out of the register, but he can prove she was trying to buy alcohol illegally. Jim and Stephanie are not particularly happy about it, as one would imagine. She's about to spend a couple of months grounded, but JJ actually comes to her defense, saying she didn't drink at the party, and she only got as far as getting in. He admitted being at the party himself. Now Jim and Stephanie are mad at each other. Stephanie is ticked that Jim is no longer there being a parent, but he wants to know when it's going to be her turn to cover for him.

Katie continued her research into Dr. Volson, who spent a considerable amount of research time analyzing the genetic strands of DNA and seeing if there were any anomalies in them, and if those could be fixed. It was research Stephanie also looked at and Dr. Childs found by rifling through all of Stepanie's work. Dr. Volson must have been on to something big, because the research suddenly stopped, and Volson hadn't been heard from since.

Jim tries a new approach to capturing his vigilante: talking to him. He finds him at the bar drowning his sorrows. Meyers continues to deny it, saying he lost his kid long before he was shot. Meyers "missed his chance to save him." He also wonders if Jim loves his own kids so much, why is he in the bar with him? He comes home to a family that won't talk to him, so he decided to talk. He's mad at Daphne because she abused her powers, but he's equally mad at himself because he used his powers to feel better about himself, too. Jim suggests taking the lesson from JJ, who worked hard to make himself feel special without powers. (so they think) JJ managed to continue lying, and Daphne is upset for him doing that. Everybody, however, will go to JJ's football game, including Daphne. And somehow, JJ being the 3rd string quarterback doesn't stop him from playing, since this is a TV show. JJ's play is interspersed with Meyers returning to the park to stop another assault, only JJ gets sacked hard after throwing the ball, and the assault was two cops flushing Meyers out. He gets shot when he doesn't drop his gun, but JJ throws a touchdown pass. But it wasn't worth it for him.