The pilot introduces Matt and Emily, a man and a woman who deal with their personal relationship while focusing on their jobs as hostage negotiators. In this episode, the CNU deals with two separate crises: one regarding an estranged father about to lose custody of his sons and another revolving a young man who takes control of a coffee shop.
An air traffic controller hijacks the control tower to protest his innocence after he is blamed for a plane crash that killed 180 people. Matt and Emily discover the hijacker might be dealing with more than the accusation when they learn his wife is having an affair.
When the daughter of an Asian crime lord is kidnapped, Matt and Emily begin negotiating with the kidnapper for her safe return, thus compromising the investigation of the Organized Crime Division in the process. However, they quickly run into trouble when the Chief of the Organized Crime Division steps in and arrests the girl's father. Matt and Emily must find a way to save the girl without Bureau heads finding out.
During a confrontation at a bank robbery, Emily is taken hostage by the two bank robbers. Matt uses his people skills to catch the robbers after he determines they are a couple in love.
A young boy takes hostages in a hospital because the doctor is needs to operate on his terminally ill sister is on vacation and the other surgeons refuse to perform the procedure without him. Matt and Emily are called to save the hostages and help the boy.
The Greater Los Angeles Sniper (GLA) begins killing again after nearly eight years of inactivity, which causes unprecedented multi-agency co-operation. As motive changes come to light, Matt and Emily begin to suspect this is the work of a copycat, which begins a race against time to catch the real sniper before he kills again.
A man becomes enraged when he learns a surrogate mother for his child in an illegal adoption was a fraud. After he shoots the social worker who arranged the adoption, he takes the baby and the babysitter hostage at the surrogate mother's home. Matt and Emily are called to negotiate when the man calls radio personality, Avery Steele, to defend himself, and the standoff goes live on the air in Los Angeles.
After Matt and Emily save a young woman from a hostage situation, they learn the woman could be the victim of a stalker. Although Emily learns the woman has feelings for Matt and could be making false claims, Matt is determined to save her again.
Believing his sons have been tormented by school bullies and are planning a counterattack, a distraught father contacts the CNU after he finds notebooks and blueprints of his sons' school. Matt and Emily arrive too late to stop the boys, who have already kidnapped the bullies, and are torturing them and broadcasting it on the internet.
The CNU is called in to deal with a crisis situation at the headquarters of a credit union after an armed man takes a recently fired worker hostage. Meanwhile, the relationship between Matt and Emily is strained after she leaves his apartment early in the morning without waking him.
When capturing a drug lord takes them to Mexico, Matt and Emily become stranded without an escape plan. The two then must extricate themselves from a bad situation by using their negotiation skills after the predicament becomes violent.
When a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent tries to bring a foreign container into the Los Angeles port without an inspection, the FBI and police step in when the agent takes three of his own colleagues hostage. Meanwhile, Emily contemplates accepting a one-year assignment on a Special Task Force in Quantico that would mean being separated from Matt and is disturbed by his response.
Emily is left alone to negotiate a hostage crisis on a commuter train while Matt deals with a schizophrenic patient who has taken his therapist and her husband hostage.
As Darah, daughter of polygamous cult leader Warren Keegan, attempts to escape from her father and reunite with her sister, she is abducted by Warren and his three wives.
When a young boy is abducted from the Santa Monica Pier, Emily is thrown into the middle of the crisis. The situation becomes volatile when her personal life is brought into the public eye and she must confront her demons in order to save the child.
Cheryl becomes personally involved in the case after the key witness in a federal money-laundering case and his wife are kidnapped and held hostage.
When the teenaged inmates at a juvenile detention center overtake the jail and take guards hostage, Matt and Emily learn their goal is not to break out, but to keep the facility open after it was scheduled to be torn down.
The CNU resolves a hostage situation when a corporate executive takes 16 hostages in the company's boardroom. A second crisis involves a domestic situation that results in Matt and Emily questioning a decision they had made during the standoff.
