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return to Due South: season 2 episode 12 "Some Like It Red"
Some Like It Red
air date March 28, 1996
Scene 1
A young woman is striding purposefully through a rough part of town (which we can tell because of the lit-up patrol cars, the sirens on the soundtrack, and the stock shot of the sex worker approaching a car at an intersection that we've seen at least twice before in season 1), carrying a bag. She goes into an alley where a man has just struck a match and lit a cigarillo, which he almost immediately throws on the ground and stomps out as she approaches him. She takes something out of her bag.
YOUNG WOMAN: Here. [She hands him a big brass candlestick.]
MAN: It's nice. It's very nice, once again. You're a regular Bonnie Parker, kid.
YOUNG WOMAN: I told you.
MAN: Yes, you did.
YOUNG WOMAN: And I also told you there's more where that came from.
MAN: Yes, you did.
YOUNG WOMAN: Good. Then this time I want — [He grabs her and throws her down onto the hood of his car.]
MAN: No, this time I do the telling. Now, I want you to stop yanking my chain. Stop playing games. I want the rest of that stuff. And I want it tonight.
YOUNG WOMAN: Look, I told you it is not that easy —
MAN: I don't think you heard me. I said — [She pulls a gun. He lets her up, but he's laughing at her.] — Don't hurt yourself with that.
YOUNG WOMAN: Don't try and follow me.
MAN: What, and get shot? Uh-uh. But I'll be seeing you again, cookie. I want what you got.
She runs away.
It's some nice writing and performing here, how without knowing really anything about these two people we know that the young woman is not familiar with this neighborhood. (Bonnie Parker, of Bonnie and Clyde, was a Depression-era bank robber and gangster. So we don't know where this young woman found the candlestick and "more where that came from" that she's selling this dude, but he is definitely accusing her of stealing it.)
Scene 2
Fraser and Vecchio walk into a bar. Music cue: "Flying" by Blue Rodeo (in the background, not a montage).
FRASER: I can't thank you enough, Ray.
VECCHIO: Yeah, well, you're right about that. So why's Thatcher so hot in the pants to get a hold of this hooch, anyway?
FRASER: Well, the Superintendent General is due in from Moose Jaw today, and apparently he's quite particular to it. Inspector Thatcher is nothing if not gracious.
MUSIC: ♫ I'm not saying I'm angry now, I'm just wondering why you changed your mind. Happens all the time. ♫
VECCHIO: Well, next time tell me sooner, okay? [Fraser nods.] Yo, Murph.
MURPH: Oh, Ray. Good to see you, lad.
VECCHIO: I'd like you to meet a good friend of mine. Benny Fraser, Kevin Murphy.
MURPH: Pleasure.
FRASER: Likewise.
MURPH: He told me you were in a jam. Glad I could help out.
FRASER: It's very much appreciated, sir.
MUSIC: ♫ How does it feel to have a winning hand? From a first-rate failure to the leader in the chosen land, people never understand. ♫
VECCHIO: Murph's the man, Fraser. He collects hooch like my sister collects losers. You know what his nickname is?
FRASER: I haven't a clue.
VECCHIO: The Whiskey King of the Windy City. Isn't that great?
FRASER: No, see, Ray, I find that difficult to believe, in that nicknames generally tend to be a bit shorter. "Whiskey King" or "Windy Guy."
VECCHIO: Yeah, well, that's his nickname, all right? The Whiskey King of the Windy City. You ask anybody.
MUSIC: ♫ If the world keeps spinning 'round it'll be all right, you said if you were on your own you could really fly. While you're up there, turn around and touch the sky. I guess the point of getting out is never saying goodbye. ♫
FRASER: Excuse me, sir, what is the bartender's nickname?
SIR: Murph.
MURPH: There you are, boys. My last bottle of Glendorlan Scotch whisky. The teardrops of the angels, my old grandda use to call it. This might be the last bottle in the city. It's a shame to part with it.
VECCHIO: Yeah, but five hundred American ought to dull the pain, eh, Murph?
MURPH: That it might, Ray, that it might. Show me the color of your money, she's all yours.
Fraser starts counting out greenbacks. Vecchio sees a woman he's surprised to recognize and goes over to talk to her.
MUSIC: ♫ You learn your lessons in the hardest times, run out of patience, lean on the bold faced lie. People never wonder why. ♫
VECCHIO: Annie? Annie MacRae?
ANNIE: [gradually recognizing him] Ray. Ray Vecchio!
VECCHIO: Yeah.
ANNIE: Hi!
VECCHIO: Hi!
ANNIE: Wow.
VECCHIO: You're, uh . . . you, you look like a, um . . . are you, are, are you a —
MUSIC: ♫ I feel too tired to scream and shout, left in the sun 'til the colors all fade out. If the world keeps spinning 'round it'll be all right. You left us long ago so you could really fly. ♫
ANNIE: A nun.
VECCHIO: You're a nun! You're a nun!
ANNIE: You're surprised.
VECCHIO: Well, yeah, I'm surprised. How long has it been? Uh, you been good?
ANNIE: I — yeah. Actually, Ray, I'm in bit of a hurry. I'm trying to find this girl. Does she look familiar? Her name's Celine. She's the one on the right.
MUSIC: ♫ While you're up there, turn around and touch the sky. I guess the point of getting out is never saying goodbye. ♫ (Instrumental break.)
VECCHIO: Uh, she looks a little young to be making the bar scene.
ANNIE: She is, but, um, false IDs are easy to come by these days. I usually find her in one of these places on Rush Street.
VECCHIO: Well, if you want I could put some manpower on it.
ANNIE: What do you mean?
VECCHIO: Well, believe it or not, I'm a cop.
ANNIE: Oh, no, uh, no, that's fine. Thanks, Ray. It's good to see you. [She heads deeper into the bar.]
VECCHIO: [following her] Annie. Hey, Annie — [He grabs her arm.]
ANNIE: Ray.
BIG GUY: [grabs Vecchio] The sister doesn't want to be bothered.
VECCHIO: Yeah, well, neither do I, so do you mind letting go of me? [Annie hurries out of the bar. Vecchio and Fraser both notice her go.]
BIG GUY: Did we forget our listening ears today?
VECCHIO: No, pal, did you?
MUSIC: ♫ Fly, and while you're up there, turn around and touch the sky. ♫
Vecchio shoves the guy away from him. The guy falls back and bumps into Fraser; Fraser falls to the ground and drops the bottle of Glendorlan, which shatters. Diefenbaker grumbles. Vecchio follows Annie out of the bar.
FRASER: Oh, dear.
MURPH: Sorry, lad. No refunds.
MUSIC: ♫ I guess the point of getting out is never saying goodbye. ♫
Vecchio is outside on the street, but Annie has already disappeared.
Glendullan is a distillery that is still producing single malt whisky (random detail: Scotch is spelled whisky; everything else is spelled whiskey); their 18-year-old Speyside averages about $100 a bottle here in 2022, so $500 in 1996 is preposterous. But Glendorlan, which is clearly visible on the label of the bottle Fraser drops and breaks, doesn't exist, so hell, that bottle was probably literally priceless.
Fraser is being a pedant about nicknames, but that's part of what we love about him, his pedantry. There should be a different word for this kind of nickname, though, like "The Windy City" is totally Chicago's nickname, but it's not any shorter than "Chicago." Moniker isn't quite it. I don't know, I'm stumped.
So Vecchio knows this woman from before she was a nun and is surprised that she is now a nun. And she is vehemently Not Interested in the fact that he's a cop. That's some more nice writing and nice communication in just a few seconds of performance.
Credits roll.
Paul Gross
David Marciano
Beau Starr
Tony Craig
Catherine Bruhier
(plus Lincoln the dog)
Camilla Scott, Michele Scarabelli, Marisol Nichols, Heather McComb
Scene 3
Vecchio drives up to a school and hops out where Annie is talking to a couple of students.
VECCHIO: Annie? Excuse me. Annie, do you have a minute?
ANNIE: See you girls later. [The students walk away.] Ray, I'm sorry about last night.
VECCHIO: Well, you're sorry? I almost got my head bashed in.
ANNIE: Yeah, well, I'm glad you didn't. I just don't want the police involved.
VECCHIO: Look, forget the police. This is me, all right? Now I did a little checking, and I found out that you're a big shot around here.
ANNIE: Yes —
VECCHIO: I also found out that the girl that you're looking for is one of your students.
ANNIE: Yes, and I can find her myself. She's done this a few times.
VECCHIO: Look, maybe I can help. Will you let me do this for you?
ANNIE: Off the record?
VECCHIO: Yeah, off the record. Now, I'm gonna have to ask some questions. You know, turn over some rocks.
ANNIE: No, that's exactly what I don't need, the cops barging in here upsetting the girls. I'll tell you what's going on as long as it stays between us. Okay?
VECCHIO: Well, I don't know if I can do that.
ANNIE: Ray!
VECCHIO: Of course, just between you and me.
ANNIE: [laughing] You haven't changed since high school. Come on in.
Where did Vecchio do this digging?
Scene 4
Vecchio and Fraser are in the car.
VECCHIO: So this kid Celine turns out to be pretty wild. She likes to run away, and Annie tracks her down. Now, Annie doesn't want to report her, because if she does, she's going to be sent home, and home isn't a pretty place. Three stepfathers in the past six years. But this time, there's something different going on. Some of the girls are getting out of hand. Check this out. [He hands Fraser a revolver.]
FRASER: Interesting. A Hildebrand Yankee thirty-eight. You don't see these very often.
VECCHIO: No, that's why I ran the numbers on it. You're never gonna guess who it's registered to.
FRASER: [thinks for a moment] Eliot Ness?
VECCHIO: How did you know that?
FRASER: Well, it's quite simple, Ray —
VECCHIO: No, simple for you is some long drawn-out story about your grandmother's library in Runamukluk.
FRASER: Well, actually, it is quite simple. It's engraved right here. [shows him] E. Ness. Now, guessing that the E stood for Eliot was just inspiration.
VECCHIO: Will you give me that? You're not supposed to be carrying that gun anyway. [He grabs the gun back.]
FRASER: [after a moment] Tuktoyaktuk.
VECCHIO: What?
FRASER: You said "Runamukluk." I assume you're referring to the time my grandmother moved her traveling library to Tuktoyaktuk.
VECCHIO: Oh, Tuktoyaktuk, Runamukluk, what's the difference?
FRASER: Well, about two thousand kilometers.
VECCHIO: Is that necessary?
FRASER: Not entirely, no.
VECCHIO: Okay, so the question is, how does a sixteen-year-old Catholic school girl get a hold of the gun owned by the man who brought down Al Capone? That is the question, not whether or not Tuktoyaktuk and Runamukluk are two thousand miles apart.
FRASER: Kilometers, and I have no idea.
VECCHIO: Well, neither do I. But when Annie told me she found the gun in Celine's room, I knew she was in real trouble. That's why I've been on the phone all morning beating the bushes for a likely recruit. Annie's going to let me plant a teacher on the inside to get a lead on this Celine girl. The only catch is, it can't be a cop, and she's got to be a woman.
They park the car and get out.
FRASER: So have you found someone?
VECCHIO: Yeah. Brenda Luisi. She retired from the force last year. I'm just going to drop these plans for the school off. [He is about to put the plans in the mailbox.]
FRASER: [takes a stickie note off the door] Oh, Ray, this is for you. Oh, the poor girl. She's broken her leg.
VECCHIO: She broke her leg? How could she break her leg? I just spoke to her an hour ago.
FRASER: She's staying at her mother's house.
VECCHIO: Oh, I can't let Annie down. All right, look, I've got to have somebody in there first thing in the morning. I'm going to go back to the office and make some calls. Could I drop you off somewhere?
FRASER: No, that's all right. I'm, ah — [He looks around and makes up a destination.] — I'm going over here.
He goes over there, wherever that is, and Vecchio heads back to his car.
I am not, as I've said, a Gun Person, but I can find no evidence that there is such a gun as the Hildebrand Yankee .38—although you'd think if they just made something up the people who are Gun People would howl, so probably there is and I just can't find it? (The Yankee 38 seems to be a sailboat, which is probably cluttering up my Google results.) I do find several articles that say despite popular depictions, Eliot Ness actually seldom carried a gun, normally wearing an empty shoulder holster. (He may not even have needed a gun when he "brought down" Capone, as the latter was convicted of tax evasion rather than for any of his more violent crimes.) Anyway, when he did carry a gun, he may have favored the Detective Special, which appears to be smaller than this affair Fraser is looking at.
There is, of course, no place called Runamukluk, 1242 miles from Tuktoyaktuk or elsewhere. I am unaccountably interested by the fact that 2000 km is 1242 miles (well, 1242 3/4) and the amount of money Vecchio was insisting was due to him in "Vault" was $1242. If he had insisted he was getting his $1242.75, I'd have been even more impressed.
I like that Fraser admits it is not entirely necessary to correct Vecchio and then carries on doing it anyway. And do we think Brenda Luisi really broke her leg in the hour since Vecchio spoke to her, or do we think she agreed to take the gig to get rid of him and then split?
Scene 5
At the 27th precinct, someone in a blue dress and black shoes is coming down the stairs and walking down the hall. She turns and goes into the squad room, but we still can't see her face. She's carrying an overcoat and wearing a silk scarf; she has long, straight, very red hair. Huey checks her out.
ELAINE: Great dress. Nieman's?
MYSTERY WOMAN: Sears.
ELAINE: Really? Looks fabulous on you.
MYSTERY WOMAN: Thank you.
WELSH: [on the phone] I'll call you back. [He hangs up and quickly comes out of his office.] Hello, I'm Lieutenant Welsh. Is there anything I can assist you with, young lady?
MYSTERY WOMAN: I'm here to see Detective Vecchio.
WELSH: His office is right around here. I'm going to escort you personally.
MYSTERY WOMAN: That really won't be necessary.
VECCHIO: [on the phone] Samantha, come on, I'm dying here. Yeah, I had somebody, but she fell through. Look, it's just for a couple of days, I'll pay you out of my own pocket. [The mystery woman puts down her handbag, sits down next to Vecchio's desk, and crosses her legs.] I'll be right with you. [on the phone] Look, look, Sam, school gave you allergies because somebody was grading you. This time you're gonna be the one doing the grading. Thanks for nothing. [hangs up] Elaine!
MYSTERY WOMAN: I'll do the job.
VECCHIO: I don't even know who you are.
MYSTERY WOMAN: Actually, I believe you do. [She stands up and turns around and faces the camera. It is Fraser.]
VECCHIO: I'm sorry, I don't.
MYSTERY WOMAN (FRASER): [in a more normal Fraser voice] Ray, it's me.
VECCHIO: [eyes bugging out] Fraser?
Okay, apparently when your lead actor gets bored in the back half of season 2 this is what can happen.
It is simply not possible that Huey, Elaine, Welsh, and Vecchio were all taken in by this subterfuge. I'll allow Vecchio not to have been paying attention for the first ten or twenty milliseconds because he was focused on his phone call, okay, but this is a guy who met Fraser once and then the next day only made it two steps past him before realizing it was him in a different uniform; by now they've been best friends for almost two years and I'm not buying it. Maybe Huey and Elaine were both on their way to other tasks, but Elaine looked right at the mystery woman and spoke to her; maybe she was looking at the dress more than the person? Welsh stopped what he was doing and came out of his office to speak to her. One of these colleagues would have recognized Fraser, because for christ's sake, look at him: This is not a woman you've never met before, this is Benton Fraser in a wig and a dress. It is also, just to get this out of the way, not an especially flattering dress, no matter what Elaine says—although the best part of her line is "Really?" at the suggestion that you can get a great dress at Sears—nor a good wig, nor a correct lipstick color. If Fraser is trying to pass as a cisgender woman, he is doing it wrong.
Which is really where the rubber meets the road in this scene, alas. How long a time ago 1996 was. The term "cisgender" existed by then but was not yet, I think, in widespread usage. I am not qualified to discuss the general worldwide state of cishet acceptance of queer identities in the mid-90s, but my own personal recollection is that the U.S. government was neck-deep in pretending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was inclusion. In the world of entertainment, Eddie Izzard was talking about the "crowbar separation" between transvestites and drag queens. (In 1998 she would describe herself as a "male lesbian," which sounds pretty reasonable to me as a waypoint along the road to self-realization as genderfluid, but that's literally just my read of what the words mean, because what the hell do I know about how other people feel except what they say about it?) We were also in the midst of the successes of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), both of which had sympathetic drag queen and (definitely in Priscilla, arguably in To Wong Foo) transgender characters—and which, if I'm reading this list correctly, may be among the earliest popular examples of "cross-dressing" characters who aren't hiding from anyone or anything or even necessarily putting on a performance (they are all performers, but they continue to present as women even when they're not performing, unlike, for example, the cast of The Birdcage (1996)) but simply dressing as they like and to hell with others' expectations. This very due South has had one fleeting moment with a similar character before and played it for a quick laugh, but not a mean one—Vecchio, not the person wearing the dress, was the butt of the joke.
Of course what Fraser is doing here is not being who he is but trying to convince others he's someone else. Sigh. I suppose the show is walking a fine line in that they have to have the other characters be convinced, because it's important that they believe this is a tall, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, deep-voiced woman, without even bothering to try to convince us, the viewers, because it's important that we know it's Benton Fraser in a wig and a dress. And/so I don't know how much weight to put on the fact that he doesn't "pass." I know trans women who absolutely do not give a shit if they look like (what people think of as) cis women, and I know trans women to whom it's very important that they do. Go figure: It takes all kinds.
I think this episode would not be made today.
Scene 6
Vecchio and Ms. Fraser are walking in a crowd.
VECCHIO: You're not gong to fool anyone in drag.
MS. FRASER: Well, I fooled you, Ray.
VECCHIO: Ah, this is crazy. I know I'm in a bind and I need some help, but this is going too far.
MS. FRASER: Well, I'm sure if the situation were reversed you'd do exactly the same for me.
VECCHIO: Not in a million years.
MS. FRASER: Really?
VECCHIO: I'd never be caught dead in drag.
MS. FRASER: Well, there's nothing to be ashamed of, Ray. In fact, certain clans in the northwest Tlingit believe that a man should experience life as a woman in order to be a better man —
VECCHIO: All right, all right, okay, but it's only because I'm in a bind. Now, I'll run it by Sister Anne, and if she says it's okay, then we'll do it, but if anyone gets wise to this, it was not my idea, do you understand?
MS. FRASER: Understood. Oh, one other question. Do you think teal is my color, or should I lean towards mustard?
VECCHIO: Who cares?
MS. FRASER: Well, I do.
Doesn't Vecchio have a sister he's roped into unofficial police work in the past? Why can't Francesca go pretend to be a teacher for a couple of days? (Why can't Elaine?)
The Tlingit are a matrilineal society, but I have no idea if they have beliefs or practices about experiencing life as other genders do.
This light teal is a better color for Ms. Fraser than mustard would be, but I think a deeper blue would be better.
I think what frustrates me is that Fraser is trying to pass. Ms. Fraser's voice is higher, and she's carrying her body and using her hands differently than Fraser normally does, so it vaguely bothers me that she didn't get a better wig or, like, blend her rouge so she looked a little less clownish.
Vecchio's crisis of masculinity just makes me tired.
Scene 7
Ms. Fraser is at the school talking to Sr. Anne.
ANNIE: When Ray told me he was sending help to find Celine, I had no idea this is what he meant.
MS. FRASER: Well, neither did he. And I'll confess, there are certain aspects of this assignment that are beyond the scope of my training.
ANNIE: I can see that.
MS. FRASER: You can?
ANNIE: Um, you — you've got a tag hanging from your wig.
MS. FRASER: Ah. [pulls off the tag] Rectified. [tucks the tag into her bra]
ANNIE: I think you'll find eleven D to be a rather spirited class. I hope you're prepared. [Ms. Fraser looks up at a young man on a ladder cleaning a transom window.] That's Todd Skolnik. [Todd aims his spray bottle and pretends to shoot them.] By the attitude, you'd think he ran the place. Certainly isn't much of a handyman. You ready? [Ms. Fraser nods. Sr. Anne leads her into the art room, where voices are chattering and paper airplanes are flying.] Class. Girls, can I have your attention, please. [The girls take their seats.] Thank you. Sister Viola is ill today, and this is her replacement, Ms. Fraser. Please make her feel welcome.
GIRL WITH A HOOP EARRING: [pretending to cough] Yeah, right.
ANNIE: Wanda, would you like to repeat that?
GIRL WITH A HOOP EARRING (WANDA): I didn't say anything, Sister.
ANNIE: Good luck. [She heads out.]
WANDA: She's going to need it.
WANDA'S FRIEND: Totally.
As Ms. Fraser is hanging up her coat, Wanda fires a spitball. Ms. Fraser catches it out of the air. Wanda hides behind her hair and pretends to have been working on her sculpture the whole time, but Ms. Fraser knows it was her.
MS. FRASER: I believe this is yours.
WANDA: You weren't even looking.
MS. FRASER: No. It's completely unnecessary if you have even a rudimentary understanding of the principles of aerodynamics, wind displacement, and trajectory. I'd be happy to explain them to you, if you'd like.
WANDA: That's okay.
MS. FRASER: Well, it's your loss. [Wanda and her friend do WTF eyes at each other. Ms. Fraser looks at her seating chart and goes over to a girl who is working on her sculpture and staying quiet.] Are you Melissa?
MELISSA: Uh-huh.
MS. FRASER: Oh, this is you. It's very good.
MELISSA: Thanks.
MS. FRASER: But she seems a little sad, don't you think?
MELISSA: I guess.
MS. FRASER: [starts humming tunelessly; looks at the sculpture and then at the girl] Smile. [Melissa tries.] No, really smile. [Ms. Fraser does a bright smile with kind of jazz hands.] Smile. [That prompts a smile.] That's it. [She works on the sculpture a little more.] Whose work is that?
MELISSA: Oh, that's Celine's.
MS. FRASER: And she's not here today?
WANDA: Celine took off.
MS. FRASER: Oh. And where did she go?
WANDA: Ask Ducky.
MELISSA: My name is Melissa.
WANDA: She's Celine's little gopher.
WANDA'S FRIEND: Totally.
MELISSA: That's not true.
MS. FRASER: There. [turns the sculpture back to Melissa, who smiles at it.] It takes seven fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown. Save your energy, you're going to need it in your child-bearing years.
Ms. Fraser tosses her scarf over her shoulder. The bell rings.
I'm puzzled by Wanda interrupting when Ms. Fraser is talking to
DuckyMelissa to tell her to ask Melissa where Celine has gone off to. Like: Thanks, kid, that's exactly what was already happening, so you can put a sock in it any time, am I right?Also the child-bearing years thing is bizarre, but somehow I have no trouble believing it is something a substitute art teacher would say to a teenager? Ms. Fraser is using a variant of Fraser's Smooth Voice when she's urging Melissa to smile, and for a moment it makes the female impersonation oddly more convincing; I'm not kidding about how distracting that voice is. I don't see how a teacher taking over a student's project is helping the student learn anything.
The makeup is a little more evenly blended in this scene, but I still don't care for the pink lip.
Scene 8
Sr. Anne and Ms. Fraser are walking in a covered outdoor corridor.
ANNIE: So did they eat you alive?
MS. FRASER: No. Although I confess I was extremely nervous. The girls are very sweet. And, ah, I did make contact with Melissa, although she wasn't very forthcoming about Celine.
ANNIE: She thinks she's protecting her.
MS. FRASER: Yes, well, that's what friends do for each other, isn't it.
Sr. Anne heads back to her office. Ms. Fraser heads up the stairs.
VECCHIO: Psst. Fraser!
MS. FRASER: Ray, what are you doing here?
VECCHIO: Look, I've been over Rush Street and the Loop and Lincoln Park putting the word out on Celine. Nothing. Since I was in the neighborhood, I figured I'd come by and see how you were doing.
MS. FRASER: Oh. It's still too early to tell.
VECCHIO: Right, right, right. I see you were speaking with Sister Anne?
MS. FRASER: Yes.
VECCHIO: That's good. That's really really good. Uh . . . did my name come up?
MS. FRASER: I can't say as it did, no. Is there something on your mind, Ray?
VECCHIO: No, no, no, no. Well, since you asked, if my name does come up, now, I'm not asking you to twist her arm or anything, but I'm just kinda curious what she thinks of me. You know, if she's holding a grudge or anything.
MS. FRASER: A grudge?
VECCHIO: Yeah, well, you know, Sister Anne and I, you know, we used to be, ah, boyfriend and girlfriend. I mean, before she was Sister Anne. And, uh, ya know, things were going along, and I wanted to get a little more intimate, you know, do more of the boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, if you know what I mean?
MS. FRASER: All too clearly.
VECCHIO: Okay, so — c'mere. [They step into the shadow of a pillar.] So there we were, doing a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and all of a sudden her old man comes bursting through the door, and he blows up like Krakatoa. He starts calling me all kinds of terrible names and forbids her ever to see me again. It was ugly, Fraser.
MS. FRASER: I can imagine.
VECCHIO: All right. So the question is, do you think that someone can get over that? You know, take it in stride and move on with their lives?
MS. FRASER: Ray, are you asking this question because . . . [Vecchio nods.] And you think she became . . . [Vecchio nods. Ms. Fraser rolls her eyes and walks away.]
VECCHIO: I knew it. Thanks.
Was Vecchio's relationship with Anne before or after his relationship with Irene Zuko? Seems like he really got around in high school, huh?
Scene 9
Melissa answers her door.
MELISSA: Ms. Fraser.
MS. FRASER: Are you all right?
MELISSA: Yeah, I'm okay.
MS. FRASER: You seemed upset earlier.
MELISSA: No, I'm all right.
MS. FRASER: Can I come in?
MELISSA: Um, I guess.
MS. FRASER: You're worried about Celine, aren't you?
MELISSA: Oh, she'll be okay. I mean, I'm sure she'll be okay. 'Cause she always comes back.
MS. FRASER: And you and she are best friends.
MELISSA: Well, she's the only one here I trust. I mean, nobody's really who they say they are.
MS. FRASER: Do you know where she is?
MELISSA: No. I don't know, she just disappeared.
MS. FRASER: Well, let's see what we can see. This is Celine's side? [looking around the room and the closet] Her school blazer is still here, which would indicate that she changed into her street clothes before leaving, which means she probably wasn't kidnapped. On the other hand, this collection of stuffed animals suggests that she had to leave before she had time to pack her favorite things.
MELISSA: Hey, you're pretty good. [Ms. Fraser picks up a shoe, sniffs it, and whistles.] Uh, you really don't want to be doing that. Those are her gym shoes.
MS. FRASER: I think she does more than gym in these shoes. There are traces of limestone and fungus. [She scrapes something off the bottom of the shoe and licks her finger.]
MELISSA: Ew —
MS. FRASER: Or is it mold? [licks again]
MELISSA: — Miss — you really don't want to be doing that.
MS. FRASER: [straight-up licks the bottom of the shoe] Fungus. [She puts the shoe down and is interested in how the bed shifts.] Hmm. [She starts bouncing on the bed.] Boing, boing, boing, boing —
MELISSA: What — what are you doing?
MS. FRASER: It's interesting.
MELISSA: Huh?
MS. FRASER: The springs fourteen through eighteen are out of line. May I . . .?
MELISSA: Yeah. [Ms. Fraser reaches under the mattress.]
MS. FRASER: Did Celine have, uh, problems with her back?
MELISSA: Sometimes.
MS. FRASER: Ah. [pulls something out] A diary.
MELISSA: That's — her diary. You, you don't want to read that. She's my friend.
MS. FRASER: I understand. [hands her the diary]
MELISSA: You — you mean you're not going to make me give it to you?
MS. FRASER: Not if you don't want to.
MELISSA: Yeah, but you're a teacher.
MS. FRASER: Well, that doesn't mean I can't respect people's decisions. We'll just have to find another way to help Celine. And of course that is what she needs right now. She needs our help. [She turns to go.]
MELISSA: Ms. Fraser? [gives her the diary] Don't tell Celine I gave it to you.
I'm interested in the "nobody's who they say they are" of Melissa's school experience, of course, which is clearly there to tee up some betrayal when she finds out Ms. Fraser is a dude, but right now she doesn't know that, so I wonder what she's talking about? Is it Wanda and her friend, who are Mean Girls? They don't seem phony to me, just mean.
Any adult sniffing (literally!) around a kid's room in a boarding school is creepy, right? But also probably totally allowed. I imagine the kids' parents sign over most or all of the kids' privacy when they send them to such places. Sigh. But Ms. Fraser is playing it correctly, earning Melissa's trust very quickly by not asking her to betray any of Celine's confidences. I suppose for that reason I will have to forgive her for the suggestion that a teenager will cause herself back problems by shoving a diary under her mattress—with a book that size under there, shouldn't the springs kind of compensate so you couldn't really feel it from on top? Isn't that part of the point of pocket sprung mattresses?—and for not acknowledging that mold is a type of fungus.
Scene 10
Vecchio and Fraser are in the car.
VECCHIO: Fraser.
FRASER: Mm-hmm?
VECCHIO: About that bottle of Scotch?
FRASER: Mm-hmm?
VECCHIO: Ah, you're not even listening. [Fraser makes a sort of growling noise.] What are you doing back there?
FRASER: Well, I'm changing. And I'm reading Celine's diary. Listen. "The scent of pungent flowers drifted in the breeze of the crypt like gossamer lace as my love took me into his powerful arms and made love to me."
VECCHIO: Girl's a poet.
FRASER: Mm-hmm. [He makes more growling and grunting noises.]
VECCHIO: What is going on back there?
FRASER: Well, let me tell you something, Ray, I think that the person who invented pantyhose should be brought up on charges of cruelty, sadism, and reckless endangerment. They pinch in the most inappropriate places.
VECCHIO: Yeah, well, most people who wear 'em don't have those places, Benny.
FRASER: Ah, I've got a run. [He throws away the tights.]
VECCHIO: What else does the diary say?
FRASER: Ah. Um. "Cries of ecstasy burst from me as if fire had branded the depths of my soul with a love that could never be quenched. I gifted him with a treasure of gold and time; he gifted me with his love."
VECCHIO: Hey, I'm no English major, but that stuff is so purple I'm getting diabetes.
FRASER: You just mixed a metaphor, Ray.
VECCHIO: Yeah, well, I said I was no English major. Well, it sounds like to me if we find the guy with the powerful arms and the unquenchable fire, that's the guy who has her.
FRASER: Well, yes, I think you're right.
VECCHIO: Now does it say anything else about the guy? Like, ah, height, weight, hair color, distinguishable marks, that sort of thing?
FRASER: Ray, it's a diary, it's not a police report. However, I did notice that the handyman Todd was wearing a watch. And not just any ordinary watch, Ray, it was a vintage nineteen-thirties Audemars Piguet Moonphase chronometer in eighteen-karat gold. There were only one hundred of them made.
VECCHIO: Yeah, so she gifted her lover with time and gold.
FRASER: Precisely.
VECCHIO: All right, I'll go check out this Todd guy while you make out your report.
FRASER: Right.
VECCHIO: Oh, and Benny, before I drop you off?
FRASER: Uh huh? [Vecchio does a whole pointing-at-his-face gesture, probably meaning "Check your makeup, bro." Fraser grabs for the rearview mirror.] Oh, dear.
He pulls off his earrings.
We're with him on the pantyhose, of course. Was 1996 too early for bare legs? (He'll have had to shave to pass as a woman either way, so once you shave, why bother with nylons? Unless it helps you act the part, I suppose.)
I'm not going to look an awful lot harder for a 1930s Audemars Piguet Moonphase in 18K, though I did look back at scene 7 and we can indeed see that Todd Skolnik was wearing a gold watch on a leather band; the Googles are showing me (very beautiful) ones from the 1980s reselling for prices in the low five figures and brand-new gold Audemars Piguet watches in other collections inching closer to $100k, so let's assume that a rare Moonphase from the 1930s is worth more money than Celine (a) realizes or (b) would know what to do with.
Scene 11
Fraser is in his office being scolded.
THATCHER: I gave you one job, Fraser. Albeit a menial one, nevertheless one which will allow me to brighten the life of a man that I respect more than anyone else in this force. A man who I hold dearer than my own father.
FRASER: I'm working on it —
THATCHER: I've seen you track a snowflake back from the cloud it came from. Finding one simple bottle of Scotch whisky can't be that hard.
FRASER: You wouldn't think so, no.
THATCHER: No, you wouldn't. [She turns to go. He rushes to open the door for her, and they practically collide.] Is that perfume I smell, Fraser?
FRASER: [He nods.] Passion flower, ma'am.
Thatcher leaves, unimpressed. Fraser sniffs his own wrist and then gets back to work.
I'm sort of interested in the degree to which Thatcher wants to "brighten the life" of this particular male superior, given what she went through (and my interpretation of it, which I don't think is all that out there) in "We Are the Eggmen." I'm less pleased that she's having Fraser do the work for her; if it's that important to her that she get this particular bottle of Scotch for this particular superintendent then I'd think it would be important enough to hunt for herself. "I got you this thing" is a lot more of a thoughtful gift than "I had my subordinate get you this thing." At least I think so. But Thatcher's love language is Greek to me.
I definitely like "I've seen you track a snowflake back
fromto the cloud it came from" (though once again I wish they'd reshot until the actor could say the line in a way that made sense); I think it shows Thatcher beginning to appreciate the diligence of Fraser's investigative work. I still don't think that's a good enough reason to have him buying her Cop Dad presents, though. And then as she leaves his office, it sure looks to me like she thinks he's been neglecting the Scotch project to spend some perfume-transferring sort of time with a woman and she doesn't like it. Is she mad because he's taking attention away from the search for that bottle of whisky, or is she mad because he's coming home smelling like another woman's (that is, not her own) perfume? Thatcher's social feelings for Fraser are complex and not entirely clear even to her yet, I think.
Scene 12
Vecchio is at his desk on the phone.
VECCHIO: Yeah, that's right, Glendorlan. . . . Not since nineteen-sixty-five? Oh, come on, Sully, you've got to do better than that. . . . Oh, yeah, and when you wanted your parking tickets fixed, who did you call, huh? . . . Yeah, thanks for nothing. [He hangs up and gets up to get his coat and scarf.]
ELAINE: Ray, I got the address on Todd Skolnik. Four-twenty West Lexington.
VECCHIO: Nice neighborhood.
ELAINE: You want to hear his history?
VECCHIO: Yeah.
ELAINE: He went down for grand theft auto in ninety-four. The school put him on the work release program to integrate him back into society.
VECCHIO: Well, it looks like old Todd just integrated himself back into the slammer.
Near as I can tell, 420 W Lexington is a real address in Chicago, though possibly not a residential one. It seems to be in the medical district, not far from the Greyhound station, which is not the nicest-looking part of any city I've ever been to.
Scene 13
The young woman from scene 1 (Celine) and Todd are at an antique store trying to unload a silver flask.
YOUNG WOMAN (CELINE): Look, are you interested or not? There's lots of other places we could take it.
PROPRIETOR: No, no, it's, ah — it's quite nice.
CELINE: All right, so how much?
PROPRIETOR: Well, it's all based on how much I can get for it, and a piece like this is rarely actually —
TODD: Look, if you don't want it, it's okay.
PROPRIETOR: That doesn't mean I won't give you a fair price. I was thinking something in the neighborhood of a hundred dollars.
CELINE: That's the wrong neighborhood. [starts to take the flask back]
PROPRIETOR: [hangs onto it] Two hundred. That's all you'll get anywhere. [Todd gives a little nod.]
CELINE: Done.
PROPRIETOR: [counting out cash] It is a lovely piece. You mind if I ask you where you came across it?
CELINE: Yeah, you know what, I do.
She and Todd take the cash and go. The proprietor smiles and makes a phone call.
Is it just me, or does this guy remind anyone else of Christopher Walken?
Scene 14
Vecchio goes into 420 (presumably he is on W. Lexington St.). He goes up to #4 and bangs on the door.
VECCHIO: Chicago PD. Open up.
Todd and Celine are walking along the street. She is hugging him.
TODD: That antique guy was asking too many questions.
CELINE: What do we care? We're out of here, right? Right? Give me a hug, Todd.
She jumps into his arms; they laugh and hug and kiss.
TODD: [smiling] Freak of nature.
A blue van pulls up. Vecchio is picking the lock on Todd's apartment door. Celine notices the van.
CELINE: It's that guy from the antique store. We should get out of here.
He puts her down, and they run. The van speeds up to follow them. Vecchio is in Todd's apartment looking around. Todd and Celine jump over a chain and cut through a parking lot. The van speeds up to turn the corner and try to cut them off. Vecchio looks in Todd's dresser drawer and finds a jewelry box. Todd dodges into traffic, is hit by a car, and rolls into the street. Celine screams.
CELINE: No! No!
She runs to him. Another passerby comes off the sidewalk. In the apartment, Vecchio hears the horns and the squealing tires and looks out the window, then hurries downstairs. The proprietor of the antique shop was the passenger in the van; he speaks to the driver.
PROPRIETOR: All right, let's get out of here.
They hop in the van. Celine is sobbing over Todd. People are getting out of their cars to come see if they can help. She gets up and flees. The van peels away. Vecchio comes running out of the building.
VECCHIO: Police, get out of the way. Police. [He reaches Todd and checks for a pulse.] Call nine-one-one.
As the bystander rushes off to call 911, Vecchio feels around in Todd's pockets. He comes up with a card from the antique store.
That's a lot of getting out of here for one scene.
Scene 15
In the school music room, Melissa is practicing the euphonium. Sr. Anne and Ms. Fraser come in.
ANNIE: Melissa?
MELISSA: Yes, Sister Anne?
ANNIE: I have some sad news to deliver in chapel tonight, but, uh, I wanted to tell you first.
MELISSA: Is it Celine? Is she okay?
ANNIE: It's about Todd.
So I guess that 911 call wasn't in time.
Scene 16
In Melissa and Celine's room, Ms. Fraser brings Melissa a cup of tea and sits next to her.
MELISSA: You know, Celine was only seeing Todd for a couple months. I mean, at first I thought it was just to make her parents crazy. But then I think she was really into him. I mean, she could have anyone she wanted, she's so pretty and so popular. And she was really great to me. And now I just kinda wish that she would just come home. [She cries.]
MS. FRASER: Shh. Shh, shh. Don't. You'll just make your eyes all red for the dance. [gives her a tissue]
MELISSA: I don't want to go to a stupid dance anyway. I might as well be invisible.
MS. FRASER: You know, when I was growing up in the far north, I used to watch the girls in the village — well, I mean, the other girls in the village — and I would try to figure out exactly what it was that made one girl, say, more popular than another one or more in demand than another girl. And I used to think it was that they were more attractive.
MELISSA: Oh, please, please, don't tell me that they want the plain girls, 'cause I already know that they don't.
MS. FRASER: No, actually, they wanted the girls with the sharpest teeth.
MELISSA: [laughs incredulously] The sharpest teeth?
MS. FRASER: Yes. In the north, sharp teeth are very important for cutting leather and manufacturing clothing.
MELISSA: So you want me to file my teeth?
MS. FRASER: [considers this] Well, that's a thought. No. The point of the story is that it wasn't their teeth that made them popular. It was the self-confidence that came from having a purpose and a goal. And the young men responded to that. [She pauses for a moment.] Would you accompany me to the dance?
MELISSA: Yeah, I'd like that, thanks.
I don't know why it's so hard to tell the Elizabeth Bennets of the world that they're still the lead even if the Jane Bennets are made to be more conventionally beautiful than they are—with more regular features, perhaps, or (as is usually the case) blonder hair. This young woman playing Melissa is doing good work in the awkward and lacking-self-confidence area, well done, but she's actually very pretty, and possibly part of the point is that all young women are lovely in different and unique ways, but I'd like it if any property ever would cast someone we didn't have to work so hard to believe didn't think she was pretty herself. Sit down, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and Anne Hathaway as Mia Thermopolis. I am tired.
I don't know what to make of Ms. Fraser asking Melissa to the school dance. Like, I feel like that would be at least a little weird even if Ms. Fraser were a cis woman and a real teacher, which as far as Melissa knows she is. Right? (Also, I'm sorry, we've all bitten off a thread we couldn't break with our hands if we didn't happen to have our scissors immediately available, but is Ms. Fraser suggesting that the young women of the far north cut leather with their own front teeth? These would be the daughters of the women who chew the boiled inner bark of the poplar to make rope? Forgive me, but I believe even the remotest, most uncontacted peoples have, as far as we know, advanced enough that they use tools, and the Inuit are obviously not uncontacted, no matter whether they wish they were, which I have no idea.)
Scene 17
Ms. Fraser is walking down the hall. She feels under a desk and then sniffs the ends of her fingers. She kneels down and swipes her finger under the base of a column, sniffs whatever she finds there, tastes her fingertip. Wanda and her follower friend from the art class come from around a corner.
WANDA: We're onto you, Miss.
WANDA'S FRIEND: Totally. [Ms. Fraser is alarmed.]
WANDA: We see the way you're always opening doors for women.
WANDA'S FRIEND: And the way you're, like, incredibly tall.
WANDA: And polite.
WANDA'S FRIEND: Totally.
WANDA: We hear the way you talk.
WANDA'S FRIEND: For sure. You know, you can't fool us.
WANDA: We should have known it right from the start.
WANDA'S FRIEND: You're a Canadian.
MS. FRASER: Oh. Do you think we could keep this between us?
WANDA: We'll see.
The girls turn on their heels and walk away. Ms. Fraser smells her fingers and continues in the opposite direction.
Are Canadians unusually tall? Like Scandinavians?
Scene 18
Vecchio and Ms. Fraser go into the antique store Celine and Todd were in earlier. She picks up a horn and squeezes the bulb. It honks.
VECCHIO: Put that down.
MS. FRASER: Sorry.
PROPRIETOR: Good afternoon. Can I help you find something?
VECCHIO: Well, actually, someone. We're looking for a missing person. Have you seen this girl?
PROPRIETOR: Yes. She was in here yesterday.
VECCHIO: Did she say anything like where she had been or where she was going? Anything that might help us?
PROPRIETOR: Are you her parents?
VECCHIO: No, we're just interested parties. Look, if she should come back, would you give me a call? [He starts to write his number on his card.]
MS. FRASER: Excuse me, would it trouble you too much if I could have a look at that flask?
PROPRIETOR: Oh, I see you have a taste for Art Deco. Now, this is a very fine piece from the early twenties. I just got it in. [Ms. Fraser licks the flask. The proprietor makes a face.] Ma'am. Are you going to buy that, or what?
MS. FRASER: [puts the flask back down with a patronizing chuckle] Oh. No. [nods toward the door] Ray?
VECCHIO: I'm sorry, I can't take her anywhere. If you should see her again, please call me. [Ms. Fraser is waiting at the door; Vecchio opens it.] What, you can't open the door yourself? [They go outside.] What the hell were you doing in there?
MS. FRASER: I recognized the spores on the flask, Ray. They come from the same fungus that I found on the bottom of Celine's shoes.
VECCHIO: Which means?
MS. FRASER: Which means that she found the flask somewhere on the grounds of the school, snuck it out, and came here with Todd to sell it.
VECCHIO: So she's looting stuff out of the school.
MS. FRASER: It would appear. And that's not all. There was a name engraved on the bottom of the flask. Frank Nitti. Two t's.
VECCHIO: Al Capone's right-hand man.
MS. FRASER: Mm-hmm. [They have reached the car.]
VECCHIO: Frank Nitti's flask, Eliot Ness's gun. What is this? A garage sale for the Untouchables?
MS. FRASER: Well, if we can establish — Ray! Manners.
VECCHIO: [comes back around to open the passenger side door] You know, Benny, there's a limit.
MS. FRASER: A limit to good etiquette? I think not, Ray.
VECCHIO: Just get in the car before I beat you with your purse.
I once saw a man open the car door for his wife; she got out and, while he was closing the door, walked up to the door of a restaurant and stood there looking at it, much as Ms. Fraser did here; he scurried up and opened it, and she walked into the vestibule and stood there until he could scurry around her to open the inside door. It was astonishing. I've never been (or, as far as I can remember, met) a woman who expected that sort of deference, and if I did need my husband to help me out of the car for some reason, I'm sure I'd wait for him to finish with the car and then we'd approach the door together if I also needed him to be the one who opened it. Standing there insisting that you're helpless seems preposterous to me.
Frank Nitti was not just Capone's right-hand man but also his cousin; but it was only Ness and his G-men, not the gangsters, who were The Untouchables.
Scene 19
Back at the antique shop, the proprietor and the man from scene 1 are looking at the picture of Celine that Vecchio left.
PROPRIETOR: You find the school with these uniforms, we find the girl's stash.
MAN: Aw, there must be thirty schools with uniforms like that.
PROPRIETOR: With this crest?
So we already knew the proprietor was skeezy after he was chasing Celine and Todd in the van, but now our suspicions have been confirmed.
Scene 20
Melissa is looking at her teeth in a bathroom mirror. Celine appears behind her, crying.
CELINE: Mel.
MELISSA: Celine? Oh my God. When I heard about Todd, are you okay?
CELINE: Not really, no.
MELISSA: I don't know what to say to you. [She is crying too.] Is there anything I can do to help you? Anything?
CELINE: Yeah. Will you come with me?
MELISSA: Celine, you mean run away. Why can't you just stay in school? Look at what's happened already.
CELINE: No. No. Todd and I had such great plans. I, I have to do this for him.
MELISSA: Yeah, Celine, but it's dangerous.
CELINE: Not if we get the rest of the stuff tonight. You have to come with me, Mel. You're my best friend, aren't you?
MELISSA: [drying Celine's tears] Of course I'm your best friend —
CELINE: And, and, and best friends, they, they stick together, right?
MELISSA: Yeah, they stick together, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I can run away.
CELINE: Listen, you can start living your life. I mean, we will be, we'll be rich, happy, free. [Melissa laughs a little through her tears.] Listen, just meet me at the steam tunnels tonight, okay? Eight o'clock. We'll get the rest of the stuff, and we'll get out of this hellhole for good. Okay? [She hugs her.]
MELISSA: I love you.
CELINE: I love you, too. Eight o'clock, okay?
MELISSA: Okay.
Celine leaves the restroom.
So Melissa's investment in her relationship with Celine is deeper than we may have realized, isn't it? Based on her conversation with Ms. Fraser, she does want the boys to like her, but that doesn't negate how important it is to her that Celine like her as well. I am not taking "I love you" as a romantic statement on its own, by the way; a teenage girl telling her BFF she loves her can certainly mean she loves her like a sister and we don't need to ship them just because she used the L word. It just doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to suppose that one of the things Melissa is so insecure about is that she's in love with Celine and doesn't understand what she's feeling or why. (Also, though, this is a show where a teenager can tell her best friend "I love you" and mean she loves her like a sister, but the guy actually telling his own sister he loves her maxes out at "I care about you." Oy.)
Scene 21
A nurse leads Vecchio into an activity room at an assisted living place.
VECCHIO: How's he doing?
NURSE: Oh, he's fine. [She leaves.]
VECCHIO: Hey, Uncle Lorenzo!
UNCLE LORENZO: Who's that?
VECCHIO: It's me, little Ray.
UNCLE LORENZO: Stand out here where I can see you, and keep your hands out in the open.
VECCHIO: [comes and sits in front of the old man] Don't you remember? I came by at Christmas. I brought you the chocolate cigars.
UNCLE LORENZO: Yeah. Maybe I see it now. I can't be too careful, you know. I hear the crew out of Dearborn Park is looking to give me some swimming lessons.
VECCHIO: Look, Uncle Lorenzo, I gotta ask you some questions.
UNCLE LORENZO: Everybody's asking me questions.
VECCHIO: It's about a gun. Eliot Ness's gun.
NURSE: [reappearing] Medicine time.
UNCLE LORENZO: Go on, get out of here. [She glares at him and goes.] Lookit, little Ray. Anyone gets wind of this, I'm gonna wish the Dearborn Park crew got me.
VECCHIO: I understand.
UNCLE LORENZO: Al's got it.
VECCHIO: Capone?
UNCLE LORENZO: Shut up! What are you trying to do? Get me killed?
VECCHIO: Are you telling me that Al Capone has Eliot Ness's gun?
UNCLE LORENZO: He did. But word is, Vito swindled him out of it along with the rest of the stuff.
VECCHIO: The rest of what stuff? Who's Vito?
UNCLE LORENZO: Vito Masucci. Al's brother-in-law. Don't you read the papers?
VECCHIO: I've been kind of busy.
UNCLE LORENZO: Eh, he's been taking from everyone. Capone, Nitti, all the big boys. He's building himself up a nice stash. Gold, furs, hooch. The works.
VECCHIO: It takes a lot of jam to steal from Capone. So how'd Masucci pull it off?
UNCLE LORENZO: Masucci's got this construction company. And he built the vault at one of the buildings he's working on.
VECCHIO: This vault. It wouldn't happen to be at St. Fortunata's, would it?
UNCLE LORENZO: Who's been talking? I'm a dead man.
VECCHIO: Look, Uncle Lorenzo —
UNCLE LORENZO: Basta! Get out of here. I don't know you. [Vecchio picks up his coat and goes.] I never seen you before. I want to be by myself. Everybody comes here. They want information. I'm tired of talking to people. Next thing you know, the phone'll ring, it'll be . . .
Aw, this poor old guy. I don't know why Vecchio needs to talk to his apparently Mob-connected uncle to work out that there's a stash of Prohibition-era stuff under the school given that he and Fraser have already determined exactly that, but here we are. Although—Vecchio is a second-generation immigrant, as he said in "Starman," so what's the deal with Uncle Lorenzo? Capone went to prison in 1932, ages before Vecchio's parents would have arrived in the United States. So Lorenzo, who is the brother or possibly the uncle of one of them, emigrated that much earlier and was mixed up with Capone's Chicago Outfit. How much was Vecchio's parent involved with that family business, do you think? That'd probably have a lot to do with why Vecchio's father hated cops.
Also, it does not appear that Capone ever had a brother-in-law named Vito Masucci; his wife was Irish (née Mary Coughlin), and the married name of his only sister to survive childhood, Mafalda, was Maritote.
Scene 22
The antique shop proprietor, the man from scene 1, and the driver of the van are in the school office talking to Sr. Anne.
PROPRIETOR: I'm sorry about this, Sister. The pipes burst next door, and we were afraid you might have some flooding. You mind if we check? Water damage can be pretty expensive.
ANNIE: Oh, no, please, thanks for letting us know. The last thing we need is another big expense around here.
PROPRIETOR: Oh, don't worry, Sister, we have everything under control.
ANNIE: I hope it won't take long. There's a school dance tonight.
She leads them out of the office.
It's like every maintenance crew in Chicago is actually criminals in disguise.
Scene 23
Kids are arriving at the school dance that evening.
GIRL SPINNING TRACKS: And now a favorite from nineteen-seventy-eight.
"Heart of Glass" by Blondie starts to play. It will play through the next couple of scenes; this is not a montage. A disco ball is hanging from the ceiling. Wanda and her friend are there; the friend is making eyes at someone across the room. Wanda is unhappy.
RECORD: ♫ Once I had a love and it was a gas. Soon turned out had a heart of glass. ♫
WANDA: These St. Arnold's guys are such geeks.
WANDA'S FRIEND:** Totally.
Melissa is standing with Ms. Fraser.
RECORD: ♫ Seemed like the real thing, only to find mucho mistrust, love's gone behind. ♫
MS. FRASER: You know, your makeup is exquisite.
MELISSA: Oh, thanks. Sister Anne did it.
MS. FRASER: You see that young man over by the punch bowl gulping down cup after cup? I think he's trying to work up the courage to come ask you to dance.
MELISSA: Come on, he's not even looking this way. [The boy is looking so intently at Melissa that he's ladling the punch right past the cup and back into the bowl.]
MS. FRASER: Well, you'll have to trust me, Melissa, but I have a profound understanding of the interior working of a young man's mind.
RECORD: ♫ Once I had a love and it was divine. Soon found out I was losing my mind. It seemed like the real thing, but I was so blind. Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind. ♫
MELISSA: Oh, God, I'm not going to be able to do this.
MS. FRASER: Sure you will.
MELISSA: He's coming over. What do I do?
MS. FRASER: Show him your teeth. [They both do very silly toothy smiles as the boy approaches.]
BOY: Um, do you, um, do, do you want to dance?
RECORD: ♫ In between, what I find is pleasing and I'm feeling fine. ♫
Melissa grabs his hand and rushes him to the dance floor. He hands Ms. Fraser his punch cup as he is pulled away. She sniffs the punch and makes a face.
I don't know a lot of nuns, but I'd be surprised if any of them were particularly good makeup artists, especially on other people. Maybe I'm making unwarranted assumptions. Meanwhile, I'm puzzled by Ms. Fraser being so comfortable giving a teenage girl advice about what to do when a teenage boy is interested in her, given Constable Fraser's complete inability to form coherent sentences when a grown woman is interested in him. I guess the difference is (a) the teenage girl is receptive to the teenage boy's attention, not to mention (b) Fraser does know something of what's going on in the teenage boy's head, while the grown women are (so he thinks) a closed book to him.
Anyway, the mid-90s feeling of the school dance feels legit to me as I remember the mid-90s, except for the punch—although I don't remember what we'd have had to drink instead. (And except for a kid who's already fretting about her social standing hanging around with a teacher—I'd expect her to have gone full wallflower—but every unhappy family is unhappy in its particular way, as the fellow said, so just because I don't recognize this coping strategy doesn't mean it isn't real.)
Scene 24
Celine is making her way through the tunnels under the school.
RECORD UPSTAIRS: ♫ Love is so confusing there's no peace of mind. If I fear I'm losing you, it's just no good you teasing like you do. ♫
She unlocks a door and goes into a room; someone catches the door rather than let it close behind her. Meanwhile, at the dance, a teacher from the boys' school bops his way over to Ms. Fraser, who is also bopping slightly.
RECORD: ♫ Once I had a love and it was a gas. Soon turned out had a heart of glass. ♫
BALDING MAN WITH A BOWTIE: Care to dance, Ms., uh — [He peers at her nametag, which requires him to look directly at her right breast. His name tag identifies him as Mr. Holmes.] — Fraser?
RECORD: ♫ Seemed like the real thing, only to find mucho mistrust, love's gone behind. ♫
MS. FRASER: Oh, uh, no, thank you. [She removes her name tag.] Thank you. I'm, I'm just here as an observer.
He takes her hand and gestures toward the dance floor. Melissa is dancing with the boy from the punch bowl and gives Ms. Fraser a sort of "Well, get on with it" look.
RECORD: ♫ Lost inside, adorable illusion and I cannot hide, I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside. We coulda made it cruising, yeah. ♫
Ms. Fraser puts down her name tag and the boy's punch cup and resigns herself to dancing with Mr. Holmes. She puffs a sigh through her lips as if to say "Here goes." Mr. Holmes strikes a Travoltine pose from Saturday Night Fever. Ms. Fraser sways her hips and snaps her fingers.
BALD MAN WITH A BOWTIE (MR. HOLMES): Get down! You can really move for a big woman. [Ms. Fraser twirls and giggles.] I like big women.
MS. FRASER: Hmm.
MR. HOLMES: More of a good thing, you know? [He does an arm wave.]
RECORD: ♫ La, da, da, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, da, da, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, da, da, la, la, la, la, la, la, la ♫
VECCHIO: [approaching from out of nowhere] I'm cutting in, Jack.
MR. HOLMES: But we're not finished.
VECCHIO: Take a hike. [Mr. Holmes slinks off somewhere else.]
MS. FRASER: Thank you.
VECCHIO: [starts dancing] You owe me.
MS. FRASER: For what?
VECCHIO: For saving you from dancing with a guy.
MS. FRASER: Well it would appear that I still am dancing with a guy, Ray.
VECCHIO: Right. So Ness's gun.
MS. FRASER: Keep going or we won't be able to talk.
RECORD: ♫ Yeah, riding high on love's true bluish light, ooh, oh, ooh, oh, ooh, oh, ooh, oh ♫
VECCHIO: Right. [They both start doing the Batusi.] Who still does disco?
MS. FRASER: The St. Fortunata School, apparently.
VECCHIO: So Ness's gun?
MS. FRASER: Mm-hmm.
VECCHIO: And Nitti's flask.
MS. FRASER: Mm-hmm.
VECCHIO: [What are they doing, the hand jive? And a little do-si-do.] It all comes from this vault some Mob guy build on the school grounds back in thirty-one.
RECORD: ♫ Once I had a love and it was a gas. Soon turned out had a heart of glass. ♫
MS. FRASER: Where on the grounds? [They both hold their noses and wiggle down to the floor in a final step of The Swim.]
VECCHIO: Well, that's what no one's known for the last sixty years.
MS. FRASER: Until Celine and Todd found it.
VECCHIO: Bingo.
Melissa is still dancing with the punch bowl boy, but she sees that it's almost 8:00 and abruptly dashes from the room like Cinderella. She passes Wanda and her friend, who see her go and exchange a look wondering what she's up to.
RECORD: ♫ Seemed like the real thing only to find mucho mistrust, love's gone behind. Lost inside, adorable illusion and I cannot hide, I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside. ♫
MS. FRASER: [doing fouettés] Well, Melissa didn't say anything about this. Which makes me wonder what other things she's kept secret. [stops, looks around for Melissa, sees the punch bowl boy by himself]
VECCHIO: [realizes Ms. Fraser has stopped dancing] What?
MS. FRASER: Ray. [takes his hands] She's gone.
RECORD: ♫ We coulda made it cruising, yeah. ♫
They tango off the dance floor.
Sigh.
They had to do the do-si-do so they could tango toward the camera rather than away from it with Vecchio leading and Ms. Fraser following (or at least their arms and hands in those positions; it definitely looks like Ms. Fraser is leading from the following position, doesn't it, though I will be taking no wink-wink questions at this time). The dancing itself begins slightly goofy and advances to the positively Pythonesque, doesn't it? What's with the pirouettes?
Scene 25
Celine is hurrying through another part of the tunnel system under the school. Now she has a bag with her. The man from scene 1 grabs her and covers her mouth when she struggles.
MAN: We have some business to take care of, cookie.
Scene 26
Vecchio and Ms. Fraser come running up the stairs from the gym. A nun in habit is taping notices to the wall.
VECCHIO: All right, she's gone. I'll take the front, you take the back.
MS. FRASER: [smells something] Ray, wait. [She sniffs a couple more times, looks around, gets down on the floor and smells the nun's shoes.]
NUN: Can I help you, Ms. Fraser?
MS. FRASER: Uh, yes, please, Sister. Could you tell me where you've been for the last hour or so?
NUN: At the print shop in the basement. West wing.
MS. FRASER: Basement. Thank you. Ray.
Vecchio runs down the hallway; Ms. Fraser hikes up her skirt and runs after him. It is not at all ladylike.
Ms. Fraser running is not only unladylike, she is also unFraserlike, by which I mean, when Constable Fraser is wearing his normal trousers and shoes or boots he doesn't run with as wide-kneed and duck-footed a gait as we see here (in, of course, the effort to show the disguise is now just an outfit; this is the moment when Fraser switches back from being Ms. Fraser to being Benton Fraser in a dress).
Scene 27
Melissa is hurrying through the basement tunnels. She knocks on the door Celine unlocked earlier.
MELISSA: Celine?
Wanda and her friend come down the stairs behind her.
WANDA: Where you going, Ducky?
MELISSA: Nowhere.
WANDA'S FRIEND: It doesn't look like it. It looks like she's going, like, somewhere.
WANDA: You're right, Tiff. Let's go find out.
She opens the door and all three girls go into the room.
I'm not sure why this story needs Wanda and her friend, whose name is apparently Tiff. They're not really mean enough to be Mean Girls, are they?
Scene 28
Celine is handcuffed to a steam pipe. She is crying.
PROPRIETOR: Where is it?
CELINE: I don't know.
The man from scene 1 opens a valve and lets out some steam next to Celine's face.
PROPRIETOR: Next time, you'll be getting the steam cleaning. Oh, Celine, I know where the stuff you've been selling me comes from. I've heard all the stories. Now, where is the entrance to the vault?
CELINE: Todd knew where it was. I don't.
MAN: [seeing something behind the proprietor] Johnstone!
MELISSA: Celine!
PROPRIETOR (JOHNSTONE): Well, well, well, it's a party. [Celine's face crumples.] Maybe you'd talk a little better if it was one of your friends.
CELINE: No —
MELISSA: No, no — ow —
CELINE: No, please. No, please.
JOHNSTONE: All right, let's talk about that vault, then.
Is this fellow connected in any way to Senator Johnstone? 👀
I like Celine being even more upset when she realizes that now Melissa is in danger.
Scene 29
Vecchio and Ms. Fraser come running down the basement tunnel. Ms. Fraser stops at the relevant door.
VECCHIO: How do you know they're in here?
MS. FRASER: Fungus, Ray.
VECCHIO: Of course. [They go through the door; they can hear Melissa and Celine crying out.] They sound like they're this way.
MS. FRASER: [pointing the other way] Then I suggest we go this way.
VECCHIO: Do I dare ask for an explanation, or do I just take your word for it?
MS. FRASER: Well, it's similar to the Doppler effect, Ray, wherein the echoes bounce off the walls of the corridor, and then the pitch of the sound waves changes and amplifies —
VECCHIO: I'll take your word for it.
MS. FRASER: Very good.
I don't know, I might have preferred spending a minute or so on the whole explanation rather than that visit to Uncle Lorenzo and whatever that was all about.
Scene 30
Celine is leading Johnstone to the vault entry.
CELINE: I need some help.
Johnstone moves the heavy iron bar away from the door and pulls it open; they look in and see the loot shining, as gold always does in subterranean vaults, reflecting light from some unseen source.
WANDA'S FRIEND (TIFF): Oh my God.
JOHNSTONE: Totally. Al, you come in and get a load, and then come back for some more.
The man from scene 1 (Al) goes into the vault. Johnstone and the van driver haul Celine, Tiff, Melissa, and Wanda over to the other side of the corridor.
CELINE: Ow.
JOHNSTONE: Ladies, you're gonna take a seat over here.
Wanda and Tiff are appropriately frightened of Johnstone and his goons, which to me is another reason we don't need them, really—they're not adding anything we don't get from Celine and Melissa. Why are they here?
Scene 31
Ms. Fraser and Vecchio are coming closer; Ms. Fraser stops to look at something.
MS. FRASER: The girls aren't alone.
VECCHIO: The Doppler effect?
MS. FRASER: [points] Size twelve running shoe print.
Al is coming along the corridor with his first load of goods, his gun drawn. Ms. Fraser steps around the corner into his path.
MS. FRASER: Excuse me.
MAN (AL): [laughs in her face] Hey, ah, shouldn't you be grading papers or something, gorgeous? [Ms. Fraser laughs, then grabs Al's gun hand, spins around, and elbows him in the face. He falls to the floor, unconscious.]
MS. FRASER: [with a flip of hair off the shoulder] Grading papers, indeed.
Ms. Fraser takes Al's gun and hands it to Vecchio. They proceed to the vault entrance, where Johnstone and the van driver step in behind them with their guns drawn.
JOHNSTONE: Drop the gun. [Vecchio has his gun aimed at them, as well.] Drop it. Drop it.
VECCHIO: [dropping his gun] You don't want to do this. I'm a cop.
DRIVER: Well, that's too bad. We don't like cops.
Celine gets up and runs away. Melissa follows her.
MELISSA: Wait, Celine, where are you going?
JOHNSTONE: [to the driver, who is twitching to chase the girls] Never mind them. We've got to take care of these nice folks first.
. . . are Wanda and Tiff just there so someone (besides Our Heroes) is still in peril when Celine and Melissa are both brave enough to run?
Scene 32
Celine and Melissa are running away along the corridor.
MELISSA: Wait, Celine.
CELINE: Come on. We gotta get out of here. Come on, come on —
MELISSA: No, I'm not going. I can't leave Ms. Fraser.
CELINE: What are you talking about? They're going to kill us. We've got to get out of here.
MELISSA: No, Celine, I always do what you want, just not this time.
CELINE: This is going to be so good for us, remember? We're going to go away.
MELISSA: No, Celine, this is going to be good for you. Ms. Fraser's my friend, and I'm not leaving. You can go if you want to.
She leaves Celine standing alone and goes back toward the vault. When she gets there, Johnstone is still monologuing.
JOHNSTONE: Ah, you never know. They might find you if they open this place up again in another sixty years.
MELISSA: Ms. Fraser, duck!
Melissa throws a bottle. It crashes behind Ms. Fraser, but in the moment of distraction, Ms. Fraser makes a grab for Johnstone's gun. He swings; Ms. Fraser ducks, then pops up and punches him in the gut. Vecchio blocks one punch from the driver, but the driver's next punch gets him in the stomach. Ms. Fraser punches Johnstone in the mouth. The van driver shoves Vecchio onto the floor in the vault. Ms. Fraser shoves Johnstone onto a pile of loot; he kicks Ms. Fraser in the chest, who staggers back against a wall. Wanda and Tiff flinch. The van driver hauls Vecchio to his feet, where Vecchio socks him three times in the jaw. Johnstone hauls back, ready to hit the regrouping Ms. Fraser.
MS. FRASER: Whoa, whoa! You wouldn't hit a woman, would you?
In the moment while Johnstone is hesitating, Ms. Fraser knees him in the groin, then punches him in the face. Celine comes running back to join Melissa. Vecchio is about done handling the van driver; he punches him twice more, then whacks him on the back of the neck. Ms. Fraser punches Johnstone twice more, knocking him to the ground; and pretends to blow smoke off the knuckles of the fist we are agreeing to pretend is a pistol—and then notices a label on the floor from the bottle Melissa threw earlier: Glendorlan. Vecchio knocks the van driver around a little more.
CELINE: This one's for Todd.
Celine throws a bottle. It is hurtling through the air in slow motion. Ms. Fraser dives for it, but the fight has been too much for the complete disguise; when Fraser lands, catching the bottle safely, he is wigless.
MELISSA: Oh my God, Ms. Fraser, you're a cross-dresser?!
Find someone who looks at you the way Fraser looks at that bottle after he's caught it.
So I feel like, given her earlier comment about how no one is ever who they really say they are, Melissa handles the outing of Ms. Fraser a lot better than one might have expected? Meanwhile, once the bad guys were disarmed, I guess it's possible one or more of the girls might have thought it was a good idea to recover their guns, and I think it's good that nothing of that sort actually happened.
Scene 33
A police officer closes the back door of a transport van. Wanda and Tiff are sitting on the hood of a patrol car.
TIFF: We were almost, like, killed.
WANDA: We almost did get killed, you dip.
A news crew is also making their way across the grounds. Sr. Anne is talking to Vecchio.
ANNIE: You okay?
VECCHIO: Yeah. You?
ANNIE: Yeah. Yeah. The things in the vault will really help the school out. I owe you one, Ray.
VECCHIO: Ah, no you don't. Call it even.
ANNIE: Even for what?
VECCHIO: Well, you know, you, me, Nicky Stanglo's basement. It was all my fault.
ANNIE: Your fault? What? [incredulous] You think you ruined my life? That, that I had to become a nun?
VECCHIO: Well, I didn't say that.
ANNIE: Uh-huh. [laughs] It must feel awful to think you're responsible for the waste of a, a perfectly good woman.
VECCHIO: I am?
ANNIE: No, Ray. Look, I wanted to go to Nicky Stanglo's basement as much as you did. But after we got caught, I let you take all the blame. I'm the one who owes you an apology, Ray.
VECCHIO: Really?
ANNIE: Yeah. I was a coward. After that, I decided to never be afraid of my own feelings again. That's what led me here.
VECCHIO: So I'm not going to be struck down by lightning?
ANNIE: Yeah, no, not this time. Be a waste of a perfectly good man.
Fraser, for he is back to being himself, is talking to Melissa.
FRASER: You're very brave, Melissa. And I have to thank you for saving my life.
MELISSA: You lied to me.
FRASER: About what?
MELISSA: Being a woman?
FRASER: Oh, yes, that. Well, yeah, yes, I did lie about that. Those weren't my clothes, that wasn't my hair —
MELISSA: Those weren't your breasts.
FRASER: No, those weren't my breasts. But other than that, everything I said was the truth.
MELISSA: Well, that's good, 'cause the hair color wasn't right anyway. [She walks away.]
FRASER: Oh, thank you. [calls after her] I'll remember that for the next time. [Vecchio joins him.]
VECCHIO: You ready?
FRASER: Yes. [They head for the car.]
VECCHIO: You know, Benny, you weren't a bad-looking woman.
FRASER: Thank you, Ray.
VECCHIO: Of course, you weren't exactly my type, either.
FRASER: Well, what exactly is your type, Ray?
VECCHIO: Well, I like a woman who is kind and honest, with a good sense of humor.
FRASER: What, I don't have those qualities?
VECCHIO: No, no, you do, I just like a woman who is, you know — a woman.
FRASER: Well, that's — that's picky, Ray.
VECCHIO: Well, don't get in a snit.
FRASER: Well, I'm not.
VECCHIO: Well, good.
FRASER: Well, fine.
VECCHIO: So, what you are doing after work?
FRASER: Nothing with you.
VECCHIO: [laughing] You're so sensitive.
Wanda and Tiff's exchange would have made more sense if Tiff had said "We almost, like, got killed" or even "We almost got, like, killed" or if Wanda had said something like "We were almost actually killed, you dip." Mixing the "we were" and "we got" as they did made the dialogue not land properly.
I don't have a ton of use for the Vecchio-and-Annie C plot. Vecchio's whole romantic history is leaving me a little cold, to be honest. He and Annie were apparently involved enough for her dad to be angry enough that Vecchio thought she was maybe shamed into going into orders (so I'm going to guess somewhere between second and third base?—to use absolutely antiquated baseball metaphors that I have no doubt Vecchio himself would be one hundred percent fluent with—not that I have a good sense of how far would have been Too Far for a nice girl from a Catholic family in what I'm still going to assume was the late 1970s). Some time within about a two-year radius of that, he and Irene Zuko were involved enough that he was familiar with the drapes on her four-poster bed. Later on (maybe? as an adult?), he was involved with someone at some point who, at 2:00 a.m. one summer night, asked him where he thought the relationship was going; with someone else whom he may have been engaged to and then left at the altar, who subsequently married someone else; plus he was married at least once for some number of years. And yet all the numbers in his address book are out of date and women barely look him in the eye when they're telling him to get lost. I'm having a hard time remaining interested myself.
I APPRECIATE MELISSA TELLING FRASER THE COLOR OF HIS WIG WAS WRONG. I'm unable to sufficiently express my relief at the fact that the show admits this to us. It is almost enough to make me feel a little better about the gender-presentation-as-a-joke of it all. Because unlike (for example) the sainted Patrick Swayze in To Wong Foo, Fraser is in fact lying to everyone who thinks Ms. Fraser is a woman. Like, we can hold onto the truth that trans women are women (which isn't what Vecchio means when he says "I like a woman who is, you know, a woman," but [heavy sigh] it was 1996) (On the other hand, four episodes ago he said "If I was wearing a dress, I'd be a woman," which . . . which is it, Vecchio? Is it that only women wear dresses, or that only people who wear dresses are women? In Vecchio World, I mean, because out here in the real world neither of those things is true, but here we are.) and still admit that he was in fact pretending. (He did own those clothes and that hair and those breasts, so they were his, but not in the way he and Melissa meant, of course. I have to mention it, though, because of this scene from The Pirates of Penzance:
MAJOR-GENERAL: I came here to humble myself before the tombs of my ancestors, and to implore their pardon for having brought dishonor on the family escutcheon.
FREDERIC: But you forget, sir, you only bought the property a year ago. The stucco on your baronial castle is scarcely dry.
MAJOR-GENERAL: Frederic, in this chapel there are ancestors. You cannot deny that. Now, with the estate, I bought the chapel and its contents. I don't know whose ancestors they were, but I know whose they are now, and I shudder to think that their descendant by purchase—if I may so describe myself—has brought dishonor on what I have no doubt was an unstained escutcheon.I mean to say. That hair and those clothes didn't belong to anyone else, did they? Nor the breasts, which this is the second time the show has focused on breasts in particular; does someone have a hangup?) However: This is also another example of an episode finishing up with Our Heroes solving the case and the bad guys apparently getting locked away and all that, but the fate of the person or persons who had been imperiled being completely unknown to us. What I mean to say is: What's going to happen to Celine?!
The episode title is a play on Some Like It Hot, a 1959 movie in which Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon witness a crime and then hide from the criminals by posing as women. (Tony Curtis falls in love with Marilyn Monroe and admits he's been lying to her about being a woman, but she loves him anyway; Jack Lemmon becomes engaged to a millionaire expecting to divorce him and get half his assets when the deception is uncovered, but when he tells his fiancé he's actually a man, the fellow says, in one of the greatest last lines of any film ever, "Well, nobody's perfect.")
Cumulative body count: 21
Red uniform: In the bar at the beginning of the episode; in the back of the car after changing out of Ms. Fraser's dress; in the consulate being scolded by Inspector Thatcher; outside the school at the end of the case