Special Agent Samantha "Sam" Spade is a fictional character portrayed by actress Poppy Montgomery on the CBS television drama ''

Without a Trace ''Without a Trace'' is an American police procedural drama television series created by Hank Steinberg that aired on CBS from September 26, 2002, to May 19, 2009 with the total of seven seasons and 160 episodes. The series focuses the cases of ...

''.

History

Samantha is a

Special Agent In the United States, a special agent is an official title used to refer to certain investigators or detectives of federal, military, tribal, or state agencies who primarily serve in criminal investigatory positions. Additionally, some special ...

in the New York City FBI

missing persons A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, o ...

case squad led by Special Agent Jack Malone. She was raised in a poor, troubled home in the town of

Kenosha, Wisconsin Kenosha () is a city in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Wisconsin, fourth-most populous city in Wisconsin, with a population of 99,986 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. S ...

and as a result is particularly empathetic to kids in troubled situations. She was very unhappy as a teenager and tried to run away when she was sixteen, but was stopped by her mother and a policeman. She had a short-lived marriage when she was eighteen. She has had an on-again-off-again romantic relationship with Jack Malone, that began with an affair while he was married. She also had a secret office romantic relationship with Martin Fitzgerald, which ended because of disagreements between them on whether or not to reveal it to the rest of the team. She has a son, Finn, from a one-night-stand with Brian Donovan, who is played by Adam Kaufman, Montgomery's then-real-life boyfriend. In Episode 18 of Season 5, Sam's estranged older sister, Emily ( Molly Price), visited. When Samantha was fourteen, she killed her mother Patricia ( Tess Harper)'s then-boyfriend (

Joe Henry Joseph Lee Henry (born December 2, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. He has released 15 studio albums and produced multiple recordings for other artists, including three Grammy Award-winning albums. Early life H ...

) with a shovel because she caught him sexually abusing Emily (Episode 19). They buried him in the woods next to the cabin and eventually grew distant from each other. Samantha learns that as a result of this abuse, Emily had a son, Randy, who now has cancer so she sought a

bone marrow Bone marrow is a semi-solid biological tissue, tissue found within the Spongy bone, spongy (also known as cancellous) portions of bones. In birds and mammals, bone marrow is the primary site of new blood cell production (or haematopoiesis). It i ...

donor A donor in general is a person, organization or government which donates something voluntarily. The term is usually used to represent a form of pure altruism, but is sometimes used when the payment for a service is recognized by all parties as re ...

. Sam is not a match but her mother is a possibility. Spade received her name because her mother was a fan of fictional detective

Sam Spade Sam Spade is a fictional character and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel '' The Maltese Falcon''. Spade also appeared in four lesser-known short stories by Hammett. ''The Maltese Falcon'', first published as a serial in the pulp ...

from '' The Maltese Falcon'', created by

Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( ; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade ('' The Ma ...

References

External links

''Without a Trace'' Official CBS Website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spade, Samantha Without a Trace characters Fictional American detectives Fictional characters from Wisconsin Fictional Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel Television characters introduced in 2002