Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the case of a psychiatrist found slain and dumped just outside of the mayor's residence.
At first, one of the victim's mentally afflicted relatives seems the most likely suspect, but the team soon become suspicious of a crooked halfway house whose operators run up huge and unnecessary bills at the expense of the government.
Nevertheless, the murder clues point to a disturbed ophthalmologist who thinks mental illness comes through the eyes, and might have been conducting shameful experiments on his tormented patients, especially when Goren and Eames realise that his research into schizophrenia could be masking mental health problems of his own.