Maniak

**Maniak** is the fourth episode of the sixth season in the remake version of *S.W.A.T.*, and the one-hundred-tenth episode overall, which was aired on October 28, 2022.

## Summary

When a convicted killer makes a prison break, the team works to protect the people on his hit list. Also, Hondo unexpectedly crosses paths with a former flame.

## Recap

Alexi Roman was given leave to show the local sheriff’s department where he stashed a body. The notorious killer was a dangerous man. No one trusted him and Hondo and his team were asked to come along. They were to serve as backup. Both the sheriff’s department and SWAT were to keep eyes on Roman at all times. They may have released him to show them where one of his victims were buried, but it wouldn’t have been the first time that killers sent the police on a wild goose chase and Hondo was thinking that very same thing when Roman led them out into nowhere. Hondo was thinking how it would be impossible for anyone to drag a body out that far by themselves when Roman’s real plan kicked in.

Roman never planned on showing them a burial place. He instead led them into a trap. When Roman along with everyone else was out in the open and far away from the cars, suddenly a helicopter appeared. There was a shooter on the helicopter. He fired at authorities. They tried to return fire and Roman escaped on the helicopter before he could be stopped. The team’s mission went from backup to fugitive apprehension. There was no telling where the helicopter was going. But many felt Roman wouldn’t leave the city. They feared that Roman would stay around to take care of his enemies there.

There were a lot of people that testified against him. Roman could be sticking around to take care of them. This opinion was even confirmed when the helicopter was found still within the city’s limits. Roman was seen getting into a car after the helicopter landed and that meant he was staying in LA. He could have taken that helicopter out of state. Yet, he stayed in LA. The police’s theory was proved correct and so they reached out to people who had something to fear from him. They wanted to warn them. Roman was very dangerous. He was originally born in Russia. He was expelled from the army there for assaulting a recruit and that’s when he immigrated to LA.

Roman wanted the American dream. He opened a nightclub that became the feeding ground for the underworld, and he was a horrible boss. He branded his employees with a brand he got from the army. It was shaped like a “V”. He also used physical violence and would often assault them. He was ultimately put behind bars for murdering his driver. The driver was an informant for the District Attorney’s office. He wore a wire on the night he died. The police never found his body. They only had the recording of the murder and that’s what sent Roman to prison for life. He was only released so that the driver’s family could finally have closure.

Then he escaped. Roman escaped with the help of his fellow expelled Russian soldiers. SWAT was able to identify them by the video of them stealing the helicopter in Portland. The team was able to catch up to the soldiers at a pawn shop. The two them that assisted Roman were arrested. It was just Roman who wasn’t there. He was still on the loose. But the team did figure out what he wanted with the pawn shop. Roman wanted to find his daughter. The team hadn’t realized Roman has a daughter. They thought he didn’t have any family and that he left behind any loved ones in Russia. It was his friends who first brought up this daughter.

His daughter took something she wasn’t to. His daughter was revealed to be Amber Morgan. She was the general manager at Roman’s night club, and she withheld her true identity from the cops when they first brought her in for her safety. Only Amber’s name was on a humidor that Roman was looking for. She purchased it from the pawn shop. Her father thinks she stole what was inside, but she hadn’t done so. Amber overheard her father talking about some diamonds he stole from a jewelry store. It was supposed to be his retirement plan. He hid the diamonds in the humidor. Amber heard about it, and she tried to take it after he was sent to prison.

But the humidor went missing. Amber couldn’t find it until years later when she saw it on the pawnshop website and so she used all of her savings to buy it. She then searched it for the diamonds only there weren’t any in there. Amber confessed everything after SWAT figured out who she was and stopped her before she could flee. She told the cops everything. She also agreed to help them trap her father. She was supposed to wait for him to call her and then get him talking long enough to trace his call however she cracked under pressure and admitted to him that she didn’t really have his diamonds. And so Roman figured out who did have them.

Roman realized that his dead driver had taken his diamonds. He went to the driver's home, and he ran into Street and an old colleague of Street’s named Miguel Alfaro. Miguel had recently joined SWAT. Both men were there to guard the later driver's widow. They also knew each other from Long Beach. There was a lot of bad blood between them. Street couldn’t stand the guy. He hated him from years ago. The two were in fact throwing fists when Roman arrived to steal back his diamonds. And so they worked together to stop Roman.

Roman was ultimately arrested. Hondo had a little talk with Miguel to warn him to stay on Street’s good side and Hondo got to reconnect with his old friend Nia. Nia had wanted to pick up things from where they left them, but he told her he was in a committed relationship now with Nichelle and that they were about to have a baby. And so, she told him she was glad that he got over his hang-ups.

Hondo had once said he didn’t want kids because he didn’t want to mess them up and yet he was glad to start a family with Nichelle.

Nichelle also had some good news. Her COPE program was picked up by the LAPD. Which means they get more funding.

## Cast

### Main

* Shemar Moore - Daniel Harrelson
* Alex Russell - Jim Street
* Kenny Johnson - Dominique Luca
* David Lim - Victor Tan
* Patrick St. Esprit - Robert Hicks
* Rochelle Aytes - Nichelle Carmichael
* Jay Harrington - David Kay

### Recurring

* Brigitte Kali Canales - Alexis Cabrera
* Nikiva Dionne - Nia Wells
* Niko Pepaj - Miguel Alfaro

### Guest

* Ivica Marc - Alexi Roman
* Emily Hall - Amber Morgan
* Jeff Corbett - Sheriff Doyle
* Sege Didenko - Serge
* Lindsay Pulsipher - Odette Cobb
* Bogdan Yasinski - Kiril Ivanovo
* Vladimir Tevlovski - Pavel Kuznetsova
* Lauren Stamile - Inspector Gen. Mary Jones

## Trivia

* Donovan Rocker has been mentioned, but does not appear in this episode.

### Notes

* Miguel Alfaro has been introduced for the first time.
* Street says one minute it was a funeral procession, the next minute it was Apocalypse Now