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return to due South: season 3 episode 2 "Eclipse"
Eclipse
air date September 21, 1997
Scene 1
Some guys in suits are hustling a man in handcuffs down the hall at the 27th precinct. One of the suits shows Huey his badge.
SUIT: Hallett. Internal Affairs. Open the cage.
Huey looks over to where Welsh is standing in his office door. Welsh nods. Huey takes the handcuffed guy and leads him down the hall toward the holding cell.
HUEY: So this is the guy.
SUIT (HALLETT): Yeah. Doesn't look like much, does he? He's gonna cost you all your jobs.
GUY WITH A BEARD: [takes a folded document out of his coat pocket, delivers his whole monologue right at Welsh] All right, people, find a spot, stand in it, and listen up. My name is Brandau, State's Attorney's Office. This is Detective Hallett, Internal Affairs. I'm sure you all recognize these as court documents. They are the product of two months' background investigation, and they authorize me to conduct a probe into allegations of corruption concerning this district. We will be at this for as long as it takes, so go about your business. But if we call, you drop everything and come running. Bear in mind, noone is outside our interest, and noone is above suspicion. Any questions? No? Good. [Welsh pushes right past him to leave his office and go out into the squad room.] You still a lieutenant, Harding?
WELSH: You still a jerk?
GUY WITH A BEARD (BRANDAU): What a funny guy. But I think you'd be even funnier sitting in the state penitentiary. So where is he?
WELSH: He's a cop. He's out working. He's not wasting people's time like you.
BRANDAU: He's not going to show up?
WELSH: Oh, don't worry, he'll show.
BRANDAU: Oh, I — I'm not worried, Lieutenant. But if I were you, I'd be worried. 'Cause it could be one hell of a dark day, and not just on account of the eclipse. If Vecchio doesn't show up by the end of his shift, you're in for a rocky ride.
Always nice to get a visit from IA. I think the last time we saw them was when Victoria had passed Fraser those stolen bills. (I am reminded that they appeared in "The Duel," but they just lurked in the back of the room and never said anything, so let's not count that appearance.)
Scene 2
"Ray Vecchio" is at home in his apartment. He is wearing a black tank top and red and white striped underpants. Music cue: "Oh What A Feeling" by Crowbar. The radio is on, and he is making instant coffee.
RADIO: And coming up later today, a solar eclipse. And remember, kids, it's perfectly safe to look at the sun. No matter what anyone else has told you, the sun's rays are completely harmless. No, no. Just kidding! Keep your head, keep your eyes closed. Now let's have a listen to Crowbar on Blast from the Past. ♫ Bop bada baa, bop bada baa. Bop bada baa, bop bada baa. ♫
"Ray Vecchio" tips some Smarties out of the box into his hand, counts six of them into his coffee, and pours the rest into his mouth. The phone rings; he lets the machine get it. He stirs the coffee with the handle of a wooden spoon.
WELSH: It's Welsh. We need you in here, Detective. Now.
"Ray Vecchio" swats the machine with the wooden spoon. He takes a sip of his coffee and makes a face.
RADIO: ♫ Oh, what a feeling, what a rush. ♫
"Ray Vecchio," dressed now, loads a clip into his handgun, spins it around his finger like a gunslinger, and stares into the mirror, very "you talkin' to me?"
RADIO: ♫ Oh, what a feeling, what a rush. ♫
"Ray Vecchio" is even more dressed. He grabs a pair of handcuffs and glares into the mirror again, then takes a deep breath and smiles.
RADIO: ♫ Well you we got the feeling, makes you come alive. We're gonna boogie woogie, we're gonna rock and roll, we're gonna jive. ♫
The phone rings again. He lets the machine get it again.
WELSH: I don't see you in here, Vecchio. You'd better be on your way —
"Ray Vecchio" hits the button on the machine again. He is packing a duffel bag: radio, tape player, a variety of surveillance equipment. He finishes with a pair of binoculars and a bottle of Scotch.
RADIO: ♫ We're gonna make you loose, go where you have to go. Gonna fill your head with music, satisfy your soul. Oh, what a feeling, what a rush. Oh, what a feeling, what a rush. Oh, what a feeling. ♫
The phone rings again. He lets the machine get it again.
WELSH: Vecchio, where the hell are you? That is, of course, I'm assuming you still want to work at this station. We got urgent matters here need your attention, Detective. Serious stuff. Get your butt in here now.
"RAY VECCHIO": Not today, Welsh.
"Ray Vecchio" picks up his bag and walks out of his apartment, leaving behind an obituary page with one notice circled in red.
Oh, the things we are learning about the new guy. The striped underwear. The tattoo on his right arm. The pot soaking in the sink. The instant coffee (ugh) with candy in it. (I'd have made a face too.) The utter impatience with Welsh's messages on his machine. (Aww, remember when we had answering machines where you could hear the message as someone was leaving it? Hell, remember when we had phones?) The hooded-eyed stare into the mirror. His apartment has a galley kitchen with a sort of breakfast bar rather than a wall, so that's a floor plan I can appreciate. There's a kind of Tiffany-style pool-hall stained glass shade ("BILLIARDS") on the hanging lamp above the bar, a couple of bar towels on it (one of which lies under the phone), and a shutter that he could pull in to close off the kitchen. Avocado fridge-freezer, my beloved. Hardly any cabinets, and what cabinets there are are frontless. In the rest of the apartment we've got a fishtank, a wall clock with a neon rim, a midcentury club chair and ottoman, a bicycle hanging from the ceiling, and some dusty hardwood floors. Steam heat, apparently (isn't that a radiator over there while he's filling the bag)?
The label on the Scotch says "Glen []lanach," which is (unsurprisingly) fictitious.
. . . We're bringing some eavesdropping gear to a funeral, perhaps? That's a bit of a stumper.
There was a solar eclipse on September 6, 1997, but it was not visible in North America. (At least this fictitious eclipse seems to be a little less made-up than the one in Little Shop of Horrors, no? ". . . when suddenly, and without warning, there was this ♫ total eclipse of the sun! ♫")
Credits roll.
Paul Gross
Callum Keith Rennie
Beau Starr
Camilla Scott
Tony Craig | Tom Melissis
Catherine Bruhier
and Gordon Pinsent as Fraser Sr.
(plus Draco the dog)
Jackie Burroughs, Diego Matamoros, Alan Peterson, Maria Vacratsis, Walter Alza
Scene 3
Welsh and Fraser are walking down the hall at the 27th precinct. Fraser is carrying a head of cabbage and a live fish in a plastic bag of water.
WELSH: This whole thing began with the con that they have in the holding cell. He's called Siracusa. Apparently he had a sit-down with one of the reps from the State's Attorney, tried to cut himself a deal for an early release. He said that our whole station was bent, taking in drugs with arrests, skimming off the top. How'd he come across this information, they ask? He said he used to be a stoolie for one of the dirty cops, a detective. Which detective, they ask? He points the finger at Ray Vecchio.
FRASER: Ray Vecchio is not corrupt, sir.
WELSH: Oh, yeah, you know that and I know that, but between them all, IAD doesn't have a half a brain. In here, please. [He ushers Fraser into the supply closet and closes the door behind them.] Now, on top of that, Brandau and I have this thing. [He turns on an overhead light.] We've been going at each other on and off for about twenty years. Now, any excuse he gets, he's gonna jump on, and he'll start digging. Now, I know this station is clean, but there're always loose ends. If Vecchio doesn't show, this district will have its collective ass in a sling.
FRASER: So you need Ray Vecchio.
WELSH: By end of shift. Five o'clock.
FRASER: Which one, sir?
WELSH: Which one what?
FRASER: Which Ray Vecchio? The detective formerly known as Ray Vecchio, or the current detective known as the former Ray Vecchio?
Someone opens the closet door.
WELSH: What?
OFFICER: I was looking for toilet paper.
WELSH: [gives him the newspaper he's carrying] Here. Scram. [The guy scrams.] I can't go in there and tell them that Ray Vecchio is undercover on another operation and that this guy at the desk is not the real Ray Vecchio. If I do, these morons will have it on the six o'clock news, and the real Ray Vecchio will end up the dead body leading off at eleven. See? The only way to handle this is, we gotta bluff it out. You look for the new guy. I'll stall.
FRASER: Understood.
WELSH: All right.
Welsh points to the light, which Fraser turns off before they both leave the closet.
Bluffing it out with Internal Affairs is sure to go well. Excellent plan, Lieutenant.
This closet is bigger than the season 1 closet, for sure.
Scene 4
Elaine meets Fraser and Welsh in the hall.
ELAINE: Hi, Fraser. What's with the cabbage?
FRASER: Party supplies.
ELAINE: For the eclipse?
FRASER: Ah, no, actually. It's Detective Vecchio's birthday.
WELSH: Fraser, it's not the new guy's birthday.
FRASER: Well, yes, but the former Ray Vecchio always had a party. If we wish to maintain his cover, it follows that the current Ray Vecchio should have a party as well.
ELAINE: And we use the fish for?
FRASER: For the games. Bobbing for trout. You see, I, I've organized a traditional Yukon celebration in his honor.
WELSH: Couldn't we just bob for apples?
FRASER: Well, they're not very plentiful in the Yukon.
WELSH: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. [He walks away.]
ELAINE: Is that a traditional Inuit game?
FRASER: No, the locals favor something called Twister.
ELAINE: [humoring him] I'll take the fish.
FRASER: Ah. Thank you kindly. [She takes the fish and walks away, and now he's standing in the hallway with a head of cabbage.] Oh — ah, well.
If bobbing for trout is not a traditional Inuit game, then how is a party that features bobbing for trout a traditional Yukon celebration? I ask you.
Scene 5
"Ray Vecchio" is at a cemetery. He greets a groundskeeper who is driving a golf cart much too fast.
"RAY VECCHIO": Morning. [shows him his badge] I'd like to get into that crypt.
GROUNDSKEEPER: Can't be done.
"RAY VECCHIO": Why not?
GROUNDSKEEPER: For one thing, you're still breathing.
"RAY VECCHIO": Ten bucks.
GROUNDSKEEPER: Do I look like a man who would take a bribe of money?
"RAY VECCHIO": [sits next to him on the cart, opens his duffel] Isle of Mull, sixteen-year-old single malt Scotch.
GROUNDSKEEPER: [takes the bottle] I'll get the key.
The Isle of Mull is an island, rather than a distillery, but they do distill whiskies there. Here in 2023, I see some Mull singles at 15 years and older starting at about $125. Even at 1997 prices ($125 today would have been about $67 then, and I feel terrible about that), that's a pretty good trade up from a $10 bribe.
Scene 6
Fraser and Diefenbaker are following the landlady up to "Ray Vecchio's" apartment. A janitor is mopping in the hallway.
LANDLADY: He's okay in houses?
FRASER: Scrupulous.
LANDLADY: Good. [looks at the mopping janitor] Well, don't just move the dirt around! [She rolls her eyes and turns back to Fraser.] Very mysterious man, this friend of yours.
FRASER: In what sense, ma'am?
LANDLADY: He clomps.
FRASER: Clomps?
LANDLADY: In rhythm. [She opens the door and they go into #309.] Well, most tenants, I get to know. But him? Very secretive. And I wouldn't know about the clomping except that I live right below him. [She sits in a leather armchair. Fraser is looking around; he picks up a photo off the top of a rolltop desk.] You know, I'll be fixing my hair or something and I'll hear this, ah — well, it's not really like clomping, actually, it's more like he's shuffling or something.
Diefenbaker has turned over a corner of a rug. There are numbered footsteps and arrows painted on the floor. He whimpers.
FRASER: Dancing, possibly?
LANDLADY: There you are, yeah. Heh. And he's real light on his feet. I can get hypnotized and just sit there for an hour easy.
Fraser nods and keeps looking around.
It's not clear who's in the black and white picture. A man and a woman, and the man might be "Ray Vecchio," but it could be someone else. There's a little box fan on top of the desk also. A foot locker over next the rug Diefenbaker turned over. Bookshelf with hand-labeled VHS tapes on it. (This is already more than we ever saw of Vecchio's house.)
A part of me wishes they'd made this apartment 310 instead of 309, on account of Fraser's old apartment was 3J.
Scene 7
"Ray Vecchio" is in the crypt, which belongs to the Carmichael family. He whistles "Oh what a feeling" and sets a camera on a tripod. He goes back to his bag for more equipment and pauses, feeling like something isn't right; then he ostentatiously keeps whistling and setting up. He looks around, then steps up to a grated window and looks through it with binoculars. Among the headstones and a stone madonna there's a fresh grave with one of those green grass tarps over the mound next to it.
The funeral surveillance thing is not any clearer than it was before.
Scene 8
Back at "Ray Vecchio's" apartment, Fraser has found the obit page with the circled notice. It's the Chicago Guardian, and the circled notice is for Ellery; the date is not visible.
LANDLADY: So what's your story? You work in a circus?
FRASER: Ah, no, ma'am. Royal Canadian Mounted police. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I've remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate.
There is a long pause.
LANDLADY: Don't take anything.
FRASER: Understood.
We've seen the Guardian before; I guess the weekly in "Red, White, or Blue" must have been the daily paper's weekend magazine?
Looks like you can see through to the bedroom behind the landlady. There's a poster on the wall over the headboard: "We give LUCKY green stamps," though why this ersatz "Ray Vecchio" should decorate his apartment with Canadiana is unclear to me.
Scene 9
"Ray Vecchio" has been wandering around the crypt; he steps back up to the grated window and looks through his binoculars and the groundskeeper is right there. "Ray Vecchio" jumps back.
"RAY VECCHIO": Augh! Jesus, you scared me to death.
GROUNDSKEEPER: [brandishing the bottle at him] This thing doesn't work.
"RAY VECCHIO": What do you mean it doesn't work? It's just a bottle. It doesn't work or not work.
GROUNDSKEEPER: If nothing comes out of it, what is it?
"RAY VECCHIO": It's empty.
GROUNDSKEEPER: But it isn't empty, so it must be broken.
"RAY VECCHIO": If it was broken, it'd be empty.
GROUNDSKEEPER: Exactly. So it's not working.
"RAY VECCHIO": [opens a knife, smashes the neck off the bottle] There. Now it's broken and it's working.
GROUNDSKEEPER: Good man.
I like this scene. It's kind of back to the very freak-sympathetic old school style of season 1.
Scene 10
In Welsh's office, Brandau and Hallett are pleased that Welsh is being audited.
BRANDAU: That's nice. That's so nice. It's so nice to see the IRS taking an interest in you the same time we are.
WELSH: Yeah, it's nice to see you guys take the word of a career scumball over mine.
HALLETT: Mr. Siracusa has nothing to gain by his allegations. Why would he make them up?
WELSH: Come on, Hallett! Think I don't know he's up for release? Think I don't know Brandau here is waiting to nail me for most of his adult life? Look, you guys knock yourselves out, I got a station to run. [He storms out of the office. In the squad room, Huey is supervising a squabbling mob of men in white tie.] Hey, hey, hey! Anybody wants to get their head cracked, keep talking. [Everyone shuts up. Welsh beckons to Huey.] Who're the penguins?
HUEY: The graduating class of the Grenville School of Deportment and Domestic Service. Apparently they were setting a table when a rumble broke out over the correct placement of a spoon.
WELSH: Book 'em. [He crosses the room to talk to Elaine.] Fraser check in yet?
ELAINE: No.
WELSH: All right. Give Ray another shot. [Elaine picks up the phone.]
HALLETT: [from Welsh's office door] Ms. Bess . . . Besbriss?
ELAINE: [puts down the phone] One month before I get to become a real cop and this happens.
WELSH: Be straight. You have nothing to hide.
Elaine goes into the office.
The brawling butlers are funny, a nice harmony with "elves, not Elvis," but my main question is: One month before what now? Has Elaine been in the police academy this whole time?! (I guess they teased it in "The Duel," not that we knew that was what they were doing at the time.)
Scene 11
In the Carmichael crypt, "Ray Vecchio" is taking a coffee break. He hears a noise; a rat scurries around behind the plinth of a big stone angel. "Ray Vecchio" creeps up to another part of the crypt with his gun drawn. He hears a noise again and ducks back into the main part of the crypt. It appears empty. He moves very quietly and sneaks around the angel, aiming his gun as he turns the corner.
"RAY VECCHIO": Don't move.
FRASER: Hi, Ray. ["Ray Vecchio" lowers the gun and shakes his head.] So we're on a stakeout. That's good. Who's the target?
"RAY VECCHIO": None of your business.
FRASER: Ah. Secrecy. That's very wise. You know, it reminds me of a time I spent near Skull Rapids. I was holed up in the carcass of a caribou for almost seventy-two hours. And you know, to this day I have no idea who we were actually waiting for, but I can tell you that after seventy-two hours, the smell of a caribou carcass . . . it's almost hallucinogenic.
"RAY VECCHIO": Are you unhinged?
FRASER: Not that I'm aware of.
"RAY VECCHIO": Hey, how did you find me?
FRASER: Well, you'd circled an obituary notice in a newspaper that was lying on the counter in your apartment.
"RAY VECCHIO": Wait a minute, wait a minute. You broke into my apartment?
FRASER: Well, no. That would be illegal. Your landlady simply let me in. She's very fond of you, by the way.
"RAY VECCHIO": You invade my castle, you track me down, you almost get your head shot off. You wanna tell me why?
FRASER: Well, two reasons. First, I brought you a present.
"RAY VECCHIO": For what?
FRASER: For your birthday.
"RAY VECCHIO": It's not my birthday.
FRASER: Yes, it is.
"RAY VECCHIO": No, it's not.
FRASER: Well, I think you're wrong about that. You see, Ray Vecchio was born —
"RAY VECCHIO": Hey, uh, let's — just drop that, okay, Fraser? You and I both know I'm not Ray Vecchio.
FRASER: You're not?
"RAY VECCHIO": No.
FRASER: You're sure about that?
"RAY VECCHIO": I don't even look like him.
FRASER: Well, you could have had plastic surgery.
"RAY VECCHIO": You are unhinged.
FRASER: You think?
"RAY VECCHIO": Yes, I think. Look, I'm not Ray. I mean, I am Ray, but I'm not Ray Vecchio. I'm Kowalski. . . . Stanley Raymond Kowalski.
FRASER: Your name is Stanley Kowalski?
"RAY VECCHIO" (KOWALSKI): Look, my dad had a thing for Brando. Me, it was always Steve McQueen. So I go by Ray.
FRASER: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Ray Kowalski.
They shake hands.
Okay, first of all, there is a weeping angel in the crypt, I repeat, THERE IS A WEEPING ANGEL IN THE CRYPT.
There doesn't seem to be a Skull Rapids in Canada; the only one I could find is a section of Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River east of Cisco, UT. It's not a shock to us that Fraser will go off on a one-time-in-the-middle-of-nowhere tangent, but this new guy doesn't know him yet, so "are you unhinged" is a perfectly fair question for him to ask. But it's a little disappointing that he's abandoning the Ray Vecchio ruse so soon. Is this crypt (full of recording equipment) really a safe place to be admitting that you're not who everyone has agreed to pretend you are? Why not take a birthday present from a guy's best friend for the guy's own safety? Jesus.
The "don't even look like him" / "could have had plastic surgery" callback is cute, but for my money the best part of this scene is Fraser's genuine surprise when he says "Your name is Stanley Kowalski?" Like: Yes, it is a bit of a surprise that a guy born after 1951 would be named Stanley Kowalski, because that name is so inextricably linked with (the 1948 play and its 1951 film adaptation) A Streetcar Named Desire and Marlon Brando's performance in it. People do name their kids after fictional characters—hi to everyone named Willow, Arwen, Daenerys, and even Jessica—but Stanley is not a particularly good guy, is he, so why a family named Kowalski would look at Streetcar and decide it's a good idea to name their son Stanley is a mystery to me. But Ray Kowalski's dad was a Brando fan, apparently. Brando (1924–2004) was a big star in the 1940s and 50s, so if you're a new dad in (assuming Ray Kowalski and Ray Vecchio and Benton Fraser are roughly the same age) the early 1960s, naming your kid after Brando or one of his characters might not be a huge reach . . . and if your name is already Kowalski, it's true the name "Stanley" is right there . . . but oof. (Steve McQueen (1930–1980) (whom I always have to remind myself was not James Dean) was a big star in the 1960s and 70s, so it's not a surprise that the son of a Brando fan would have a different preference.)
(On the other hand, Fraser's boss's name is Margaret Thatcher, so you'd think he'd be hard to surprise by now.)
But here's the thing: Why is all of this news to Fraser here in the crypt? What did he and the new guy talk about on their dinner date last week?
Scene 12
Huey is leading the white-tied butlers through the squad room.
HUEY: Come on.
BUTLER: Yes, sir.
HUEY: Get your butts over here.
BUTLER: Sir.
HUEY: Enough with the good manners.
BUTLER: As you wish, sir. [holds his chair for him]
HUEY: I said, enough.
BUTLER: Yes, sir.
Behind him, another of the butlers is helping a confused witness on with her coat.
Scene 13
In Welsh's office, Elaine is being interviewed.
HALLETT: Is this your phone log?
ELAINE: Yeah.
HALLETT: Why all the calls to Vecchio?
ELAINE: Maintaining contact with the detectives is part of what I do.
BRANDAU: Not after you're clocked out, it isn't. You got a dozen calls there after your shift.
ELAINE: It's not a nine-to-five job.
HALLETT: What does "China white" mean to you?
ELAINE: Nothing.
BRANDAU: [scoffs] Try again!
ELAINE: Dishes.
HALLETT: Drop the attitude, Besbriss.
BRANDAU: You know it's heroin. You were in on it, weren't you?
ELAINE: I don't know what you guys are talking about.
HALLETT: Missing drugs.
BRANDAU: Besbriss. You wanna be a cop? Give me Vecchio, and give me Welsh. Most importantly Welsh. Then you just might get to be a cop. Otherwise, who knows what might happen?
If a White guy from IA threatens to withhold opportunities for advancement unless you provide false testimony against a colleague, what's a woman recruit of color to do? No wonder Elaine looks nervous at the end of this scene.
Scene 14
In the crypt, Fraser is trying to talk Kowalski into coming back to the station.
FRASER: People are counting on you, Ray. They could lose their jobs.
KOWALSKI: Look, Fraser, let's get this thing straight. You want me to sit in front of a bunch of guys, who are going to grill me about corruption that never happened, but if it did happen, it happened to another guy, but I'd have to answer for it anyway?
FRASER: Yes.
KOWALSKI: Forget it.
FRASER: If you don't, Ray, you will lose your shield.
KOWALSKI: Look, Fraser, I've humped this job for a long time. Bad hours, bad food, and bad guys. And for what?
FRASER: For the pride and honor of knowing that we make it possible for good people to tuck their kids in at night, turn out the lights, and know they'll be safe.
🤮
KOWALSKI: You gotta be kidding me.
I knew we were going to like this guy.
FRASER: No, I'm not.
KOWALSKI: You believe all that?
FRASER: Yes, I do.
KOWALSKI: You never doubt it?
FRASER: Never.
KOWALSKI: You're a lucky guy, Fraser. Me, I never wanted to be a cop in the first place. I always wanted to be something else.
FRASER: Why didn't you become something else?
KOWALSKI: That is the reason I'm here today.
FRASER: Do you mind if I ask you what that reason is?
KOWALSKI: [back at the window with the binoculars] Do you mind if I ask you what your wolf is doing?
Fraser looks through another window. Diefenbaker is bringing flowers to a grave with a stone dog on it. It is marked "NATASHA."
FRASER: I have no idea. Although in his youth, Diefenbaker did display a keen interest in horticulture.
KOWALSKI: You know, Fraser, when they offered me this assignment, they made it sound kind of normal. They say "Hey, Ray, here's a chance to start over. Ditch the past." "What's the catch?" I say. "Oh, your partner's Canadian." Canadian? I got nothing against Canadians, except for the time when they won the World Series —
FRASER: Two times.
KOWALSKI: — which I'm willing to overlook.
FRASER: Thank you.
KOWALSKI: But at no time did they say "Oh, by the way, you'll be working with a Mountie who's got a wolf that's a florist." [He has put on a pair of glasses, but now he hands them to Fraser.] Hold these, will you? Oh, that's good. [He's looking through the binoculars again. A couple of guys—one younger and clean-shaven, the other a little older with a beard—are moving a casket from one hearse into another hearse.]
FRASER: Is this the target of the stakeout?
KOWALSKI: Nah, just something's queer. Let's check it out.
The Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993. As of 2022, these remain the only World Series won by teams not based in the United States.
- There have been 118 World Series: 1903, 1905–1993, and 1995–2022.
- From 1903 to 1968 there were no non–U.S. teams in Major League Baseball; from 1969 to 1976 there was one; from 1977 to 2004 there were two; and since 2005 there has been one.
- From 1903 to 1961 there were 16 teams in the league.
- In 1961 there were 18 teams.
- From 1962 there were 20 teams.
- From 1969 there were 24 teams.
- From 1977 there were 26 teams.
- From 1993 there were 28 teams.
- Since 1998 there have been 30 teams.
So assuming (arguendo, as they say) that each team has exactly equal odds of winning the World Series each year, in 1903–60 each team had a 6.3% chance of winning each year and a 356% expectation of winning once in that period; in 1961, each team had a 5.6% chance of winning; from 1962–68, each team had a 5% chance of winning each year and a 35% expectation of winning once in that period; and so on. That is, if the league had two teams, each team would have a 50% chance of winning each year, and it would (statistically) take two years for each team to win the championship, so after two years, each team "should" have won once. But from 1903 to 1968 the odds of a Canadian team winning did not exist, right, that's a divide-by-zero error. For the purpose of this rabbit hole, we're actually only interested in World Series from 1969 onwards. From 1969 to 1976 inclusive 24 teams, one of which was Canadian, were eligible to win each of eight World Series. Eight available championships, 24 teams, even if a different team wins every year, 16 of them are still going to be winless at the beginning of year nine, right? So the expectation of any given team—for our purposes, specifically the Canadian one—winning one of those World Series was (1/24) * 8, or 33%. From 1977 to 1992 inclusive 26 teams, two of which were Canadian, were eligible to win each of 16 World Series. So the expectation of a Canadian team winning one of those World Series was ((1/26) * 16) * 2, or 123%. From 1993 to 1997 inclusive 28 teams, two of which were Canadian, were eligible to win each of four World Series (because there wasn't one in 1994), so etc. etc. ((1/28) * 4) * 2 = 29%. From 1998 to 2004 inclusive 30 teams, two of which were Canadian, were eligible to win each of seven World Series, ((1/30) * 7) * 2 = 46%. From 2005 to 2022 inclusive 30 teams, one of which is Canadian, were eligible to win each of 18 World Series, (1/30) * 18 = 60%. So in the history of there being Canadian teams in Major League Baseball, if every team had won an exactly equal share of World Series, Canadian teams "should" have won (this is where it gets tricky for me, combining the percentages, but I think I can do it) 8/24 + 32/26 + 8/28 + 14/30 + 18/30 = 2.92 of an available 54 World Series championships. If you want to do this as if we're in 1997, that's fine; lop off 18/30 and 14/30 and say from 1993–96 (because the World Series is held in October and we're only in September 1997 right now) blah blah 28 teams blah blah three World Series (because there wasn't one in 1994) blah blah etc., ((1/28) * 3) * 2) = 21%, so in the history of there being Canadian teams in Major League Baseball, if every team had won an exactly equal share of World Series, Canadian teams "should" have won 8/24 + 32/26 + 6/28 = 2.3 of an available 28 World Series championships. And they had actually won two of them. So Canadian teams have underperformed just a bit, haven't they, Constable? Is all I'm saying. (Look, I'm originally from Cleveland, so I guess I'm just going to be mad about professional sports more or less forever.)
Scene 15
Diefenbaker barks at the monument to Natasha and then settles down on it. At the hearse, the two guys are doing some sort of an exchange. The younger one opens a small bag to reveal a bunch of cash.
YOUNGER: It's all there?
BEARD: Uh-huh.
The younger guy takes the bag back toward the first hearse, where Kowalski is standing and pretending to cry.
KOWALSKI: Mom. Mom.
YOUNGER: What?
KOWALSKI: [pointing to the second hearse] That's my mum in there.
YOUNGER: No, it's not.
KOWALSKI: Yeah, it is. [He throws his arms around the guy.]
YOUNGER: No, it's not. You're confused with, ah . . .
BEARD: Grief.
YOUNGER: Yeah, see, that ain't your mother. That's, uh, Mister . . . Smith.
BEARD: John Smith.
KOWALSKI: No, that's my mum. [climbs into the second hearse] Mum, I'm so sorry. [stops crying] Just wanted to see your face one last time. [He opens the casket.]
YOUNGER: Hey, you can't do that!
KOWALSKI: Mum, how you've changed. Into Cuban cigars.
YOUNGER: [puts a gun in Kowalski's ribs] That's enough, man. Out of the car. [Kowalski lowers the casket lid.] Easy. That's it. That's it. Easy. Easy.
The guys turn Kowalski around to face the other hearse. Fraser is there.
FRASER: Gentlemen. My name is Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
KOWALSKI: Pull out your gun.
FRASER: I don't have a gun.
BEARD: You don't got no gun?
FRASER: No, I'm afraid not. But if you'd be so kind as to step to one side, the detective will read you your Miranda rights. I assume that weaponry you're holding is illegal.
YOUNGER: Does a bear shop in the forest?
FRASER: In my experience, bears don't shop.
YOUNGER: Hey, wise guy, step out of the way.
Diefenbaker barks and charges the two guys, knocking Younger down into Beard.
FRASER: Run.
Fraser and Kowalski run. The two guys get up and fire after them.
KOWALSKI: You don't have a gun?
FRASER: Obviously you weren't fully briefed. [Younger fires a shot. Beard takes cover behind a headstone and fires another. They both give chase.] I'm not licensed to carry a firearm.
KOWALSKI: And you didn't bother telling me before?
FRASER: Well, it didn't seem germane at the time.
The two guys are still chasing and shooting. Fraser and Kowalski duck behind a headstone. Kowalski is loading his gun; Fraser is patting his pockets.
KOWALSKI: What the hell kinda word is that?
FRASER: I'll be right back.
KOWALSKI: Where are you going?
Fraser hands Kowalski his hat, does a somersault out from behind the stone, grabs a thing from the ground, and hurries back to cover.
FRASER: It's your birthday present. I dropped it.
KOWALSKI: Are you a freak? [He pops up and shoots three times, felling a small tree. The bad guys are still advancing and shooting.]
FRASER: It's a dream catcher. I made it myself. You see, you hang it in your window, it catches all your bad dreams, you sleep well at night.
KOWALSKI: [pops back up and fires four more times, chipping a stone madonna, then gets back down again] I sleep fine.
FRASER: And these are eagle feathers.
KOWALSKI: Fraser, when they shoot us I'll be glad I knew that. Come on, let's go.
They run, heads down, and duck behind another gravestone.
FRASER: You'd be surprised at how difficult it is to acquire an eagle feather. First of all, you have to apply to the National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado. [They run again. Kowalski fires two more shots.] And then you just have to hope that someone finds a dead eagle in the woods and that they have the presence of mind to put it on ice and then courier it to Commerce City.
KOWALSKI: Really?
FRASER: Really.
KOWALSKI: Go.
FRASER: Go. [They run again.] And then basically you just wait, and you hope that no shaman or tribal elder needs an eagle feather in some sort of sacred ritual, which of course would take precedence over your relatively minor desire to use the feather in a gift for your partner.
KOWALSKI: How many rounds have I fired?
FRASER: By my count, seven. Duck!
They dive behind another stone. This one has a big obelisk on top of it.
KOWALSKI: We're sunk. I left all my clips in the crypt. I've only got two rounds left.
FRASER: You know, I don't mean to be critical, but you might want to consider some remedial practice on the target range. Your aim is appalling.
KOWALSKI: Hey, I'm a good shot.
FRASER: By what criteria? You've fired seven rounds; you haven't been within fifty meters of your target.
KOWALSKI: I'm a good shot, I just need my glasses. I also left them in the tomb.
FRASER: No, you didn't. No, you didn't. Here. [He gives Kowalski his glasses.]
KOWALSKI: Why didn't you tell me you had them?
FRASER: Well, I didn't realize you were blind.
KOWALSKI: I'm not blind, I just don't see all that good.
FRASER: [peeking around the plinth, seeing the baddies trying to work out where they're hiding] All right, we've got a bit of time, so just to finish this off: If you happen to pass all of these hurdles, you might be one of the few, the lucky few, as I was, to have this precious symbol of freedom delivered right to your door.
KOWALSKI: [puts on his glasses] What are you talking about?
FRASER: The eagle feather.
Bad guys resume firing.
KOWALSKI: You are a freak. [He pops out from behind the monument and fires two shots. The first shot knocks the gun out of Younger's hand, and Younger falls down. The second shot knocks the gun out of Beard's hand. Younger starts to crawl to retrieve his gun, but Diefenbaker is standing over it, growling. Kowalski runs up and kicks it away.] Hey. [Beard is coming along thinking about retrieving his gun, too.] Down. Down! [Beard gets down. Kowalski starts cuffing.] Hands.
FRASER: That's good work, Ray. Now we'll have to return to the station for processing.
KOWALSKI: You have the right to remain silent.
FRASER: Ray, we have to return to the station for processing.
KOWALSKI: I am not doing that, Fraser. Anything you say may be held against you.
FRASER: Ray, standard operating procedure, field manual chapter seven —
KOWALSKI: You have the right to an attorney.
FRASER: The arresting officer —
KOWALSKI: If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you.
FRASER: — shall transfer the suspect to the nearest station house for processing —
KOWALSKI: Do you understand these rights?
FRASER: — with dispatch.
KOWALSKI: Do you understand these rights?
YOUNGER AND BEARD: Yeah!
FRASER: With dispatch.
KOWALSKI: You like procedure so much, you take 'em in.
FRASER: I'm not the arresting officer.
KOWALSKI: Look, Fraser, get something through your head. Keep a shield, lose a shield, I don't really care. I am not leaving this graveyard till I finish what I came here to do: Take down a bent nail named Marcus Ellery. Until I do that, I'm not leaving. Period. Dot it, file it, stick it in a box marked "done." Okay? [He turns back to Younger and Beard.] Come on, get up!
Fraser asking the guys to step to the side so the detective can read them their rights is a callback to the bar scene in the pilot, which Fraser himself has already revisited and shown that he knows better now? But he's had a couple of head injuries since then so maybe he's forgotten all that.
Fraser doesn't want Kowalski to take the bad guys to the nearest station house; he wants him to take them to the 27th precinct. So he's already off-manual. Pbbthht. (I don't know what SOP field manual chapter 7 he was reading from in 1997. Since January 2022, the Chicago Police Department directive on field arrest procedures says "Members will transport an arrestee immediately to the appropriate Department facility and in a Department vehicle equipped with a protective divider or a squadrol, unless circumstances would make this unreasonable or impractical." So I could make a case for either Fraser or Kowalski being right.) He also can't count; by the time he said seven shots, Kowalski had clearly already fired nine. I don't know how many rounds are in a normal clip; there appears to be a range.
I'm not sure why we need the whole monologue of how to get an eagle feather, especially given that this dude isn't the partner Fraser was making the gift for. Dream catchers were very big in the 90s, weren't they. We weren't as collectively aware of cultural appropriation at that time as we are now, to say nothing of how we should have been.
Also, I'm not from Chicago so I can't evaluate the accuracy of Rennie's accent, but I'm fairly sure nobody born and raised in the state of Illinois would call his mother "Mum." It's okay to be Canadian, bro. There are a lot of you in this show.
Kowalski missing his target by 50m is pretty bad. That's 164 feet, getting close to 55 yards, half a football field. He'd have to be aiming in an actual opposite direction to miss that badly, wouldn't he? Let's assume Fraser is being hyperbolic. I do like Kowalski's glasses hanging off his ears down under his chin at the end of the scene.
Scene 16
Huey is being interviewed in Welsh's office.
HALLETT: Tell us about Alcorn Street.
HUEY: That was a stand-up bust.
HALLETT: Oh, yeah.
HUEY: Yeah. Took down a couple of real dirtbags, Ray risked his life to save a child. Yeah, it was a great day for cops.
BRANDAU: No kidding. You scored a big haul of the China white.
HUEY: What are you talking "scored?" We seized a shipment of heroin.
BRANDAU: You seized ten kilos of heroin. By the time it was signed into evidence control there was only one.
HUEY: That's crap. [He gets up to leave.]
HALLETT: Hey, we'll tell you when we're done.
HUEY: I don't have to take this.
HALLETT: [pushes him back into his chair] Sit down.
BRANDAU: Look, you got a fine record, Detective. Could be you were just taking orders. Right? You give me Welsh, you give me Welsh, and then maybe I can help you out.
Even if Huey never liked Vecchio, he did always say (or at least agree with Gardino) that he was honest.
Scene 17
Diefenbaker is hanging out by the Natasha monument, eating the flowers. Kowalski is back in the crypt, looking through the grated window with his binoculars.
KOWALSKI: In the seventies, Ellery went on a tear. String of armed robberies from Illinois to Texas. Hit anything with cash. Jewelry, armored trucks, banks — he did one bank right in my neighborhood. Ten years ago, he's convicted of a, a heist outside El Paso. En route to the state pen, he escaped. After that, went off the grid. It's his mother they're burying today.
FRASER: You think he'll attend.
YOUNGER: It's his mother. He'll show.
Younger and Beard are caged up in a gated part of the crypt.
KOWALSKI: Who asked you?
BEARD: Look, don't get so miffed, he's just trying to help.
KOWALSKI: I don't need your help.
YOUNGER: Fine. But I detect a hole in your plan.
KOWALSKI: Oh, yeah?
YOUNGER: Yeah. Assuming Ellery shows, which I agree he will, what are you going to do? Statute of limitations has run down on the guy.
FRASER: You know, he's right, Ray.
KOWALSKI: Look, whose side are you on?
FRASER: I didn't realize there were sides.
KOWALSKI: Look, Fraser, there's always sides. There's bad guys, then there's everybody else. Marcus Ellery: bad guy.
YOUNGER: That may be, but you got no grounds to arrest him, man.
KOWALSKI: Look, this is not official business, so shut up! It's personal.
FRASER: You know, Ray, Francis Bacon once wrote that revenge is a wild kind of justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
KOWALSKI: Did Francis Bacon ever meet up with Marcus Ellery?
FRASER: It's unlikely. Bacon died in sixteen-twenty-six.
KOWALSKI: Well, there you go. If he had, he would have whistled a different tune.
BEARD: A wild kinda justice. Yeah, I like that.
Bacon did die in 1626, and he did write exactly that in Of Revenge. He goes on to say "Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon" and "This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well." Put another way, (a) choosing not to take revenge is nobler than taking it, and (b) holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die. All very well, but Kowalski has some personal beef with Ellery and probably isn't in a mood to hear any of this right now.
I AM NOT A LAWYER, BUT: The statute of limitations is three, five, seven, or 10 years for most felonies in Illinois (with some crimes where the victim was under 18 having a period of 25 years from the victim reaching the age of 18 and some, like murder, having no limitations at all—but these are not relevant here). However, depending when Ellery left Illinois, he might actually still be subject to prosecution for a crime he committed in the 1970s, so Younger and Fraser should can it. If Ellery's statute of limitations was three years but he left Illinois and didn't come back before that three years was up, the clock stops until he returns. (source)
Scene 18
Huey is still in Welsh's office with Hallett and Brandau.
HUEY: How many times I got to tell you? We only seized one kilo.
HALLETT: Not according to the evidence log. What's this?
HUEY: It's my name.
HALLETT: Yeah, and this?
HUEY: My signature.
HALLETT: Thank you, Detective. Ten.
HUEY: It was one. Ray will back me up.
BRANDAU: Well, you know, he hasn't even bothered to show up, has he? He's left you to take the fall. Huh? What does that tell you?
HALLETT: Think about it.
I mean, okay, so the log shows 10 kilos. Hallett and Brandau haven't offered any evidence that nine of those kilos went missing, have they? They just keep saying "this says ten but there was only one" without any documentation, what the fuck?
Scene 19
Everyone is still hanging out in the crypt.
BEARD: This guy Bacon. Does he got any books out?
FRASER: Yes, actually. The Advancement of Learning, uh, Novum Organum, and an incomplete yet very fascinating work called Instauratio Magna.
BEARD: I gotta check into that.
YOUNGER: What is wrong with you, man?
BEARD: [while Kowalski is scanning the cemetery] Look, if we don't get off on a technicality, we're looking at fifteen to twenty at Joliet. I could put that time to good use.
KOWALSKI: Shut up. [He sees someone shooting a gun at a grave.] Gun. [He and Fraser run from the crypt.]
YOUNGER: [smacking Beard] I told you, that's you, that's your head.
It's not a hundred percent clear what Younger is saying to Beard. I got "I told you" and "your head," but in between is tough to parse.
The full title of The Advancement of Learning is Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human, and Novum Organum is the second part of the (not incomplete) Instauratio Magna, but never mind. Maybe Fraser's grandparents catalogued their Baconia differently.
Scene 20
Fraser and Kowalski run toward the sounds of the gunshots. Fraser jumps over shrubberies and gravestones rather than go around anything, and he tackles the shooter, who is an old woman in a cloche hat. Her gun goes flying as he rolls over on top of her. Kowalski takes aim as they come to rest.
FRASER: Oh, dear.
KOWALSKI: Who the hell are you?
OLD WOMAN: Gladys. Carls.
FRASER: [not getting up off her] I'm terribly sorry, ma'am. We thought you were a desperate criminal. Did I hurt you?
OLD WOMAN (GLADYS): [patting him] No. It is a bit stiff, though.
FRASER: What is, ma'am?
GLADYS: My leg.
FRASER: Ah, yes. Let me help you up.
GLADYS: Thank you. My hat. There we are. [She grabs her hat, and Fraser picks her up.] Oh. I, I'm, I'm just visiting my husband.
KOWALSKI: What, you hate the guy so much you fire six shots into him after he's already dead?
GLADYS: Hate him? Good Lord, no, I loved him dearly. I'm just executing part of his will.
KOWALSKI: What, he's, like, a masochist or something?
GLADYS: [chuckles demurely] Oh, well, we'd try that sometimes, but he hated pain. No. No, he was, um, acorophobic.
KOWALSKI: Ah, he's afraid of acrobats.
FRASER: No, no. Insects.
GLADYS: Exactly. Well, you see, Henry was of the belief that, ah, lead would discourage insects from feasting off him. So I, ah, shoot a little in every now and again to keep them away. I, I don't know if it works, but it makes me feel better.
FRASER: I understand.
KOWALSKI: [re-holstering his gun] You understand.
FRASER: Ah, ma'am, I'm afraid we're going to have to check your firearms certificate.
GLADYS: Oh, by all means.
FRASER: Thank you kindly.
KOWALSKI: Freak.
Fraser carries Gladys back to the crypt.
Okay this scene is a stumper. Couldn't Gladys have buried Henry in a lead-lined casket if lead was important? Has anyone else ever heard of "acorophobia"? My cursory research suggests "entomophobia" for fear of insects, which makes a lot more sense. Of course the internet is full of "did you mean acrophobia" and "did you mean agoraphobia," which I did not, but even insisting that it stop telling me about Greek ἄκρος "highest, topmost, at the extremity" and ἀγορά "market," the best I can find for ἄκορος is a type of sweet-smelling rush that was used to cover floors? Classicists are welcome to help me the fuck out here.
Anyway, I am also not interested in Gladys and Henry's sex life, and it's not really okay that she presumed to share that information so immediately upon meeting Fraser and Kowalski. (I was about to say "so soon after being introduced," but in fact the introductions are still incomplete!) And "it's a bit stiff," forsooth. And why doesn't Fraser put her down? Can't they look at her firearms certificate (by which I assume he means the permit for her gun) and then send her on her way? Why haul her back to the crypt with them? Also, are they just going to leave her gun? (There's a moment right before Kowalski re-holsters his gun where I suppose it's possible he's picking up her gun, but it's hard to tell for sure, because only part of one of his arms is visible. I guess let's assume that's what he was doing, because otherwise, Chekov's Random Handgun is just lying there loose in a cemetery, which can't be safe.)
Scene 21
Welsh is in the squad room talking to Elaine.
WELSH: He's not here in an hour, we're all going to be looking for new jobs on the back of matchbooks.
Elaine gets up and leaves her desk. Welsh looks at Fraser's trout, swimming by itself in a small aquarium.
I don't think that tank is big enough for that fish; there's no enrichment in there for it; and what kind of job do you find on the back of a matchbook? Gig work, presumably?
Scene 22
Back in the crypt. Again.
KOWALSKI: Can I ask you something? Do you find me attractive?
Hello?
YOUNGER: Oh, I wouldn't say attractive.
BEARD: No. Cute, maybe.
GLADYS: Ah, I'd say well-favored.
KOWALSKI: Did I ask you?
YOUNGER: Sorry, I thought you were asking all of us.
KOWALSKI: Well, I wasn't, so zip. [to Fraser] Well? You find me attractive?
FRASER: In what sense?
KOWALSKI: In the sense of . . . you know, being a woman.
FRASER: Do I think you're an attractive woman?
KOWALSKI: No. No. I'm not the woman. You're the woman.
FRASER: I'm the woman.
GLADYS: No, I, I'm a woman.
KOWALSKI: Butt out.
BEARD: Well, she is.
KOWALSKI: Well, I know she's a woman. I'm asking Fraser to pretend that he's a woman. Okay?
GLADYS: Oh. Can you do that, dear?
FRASER: Well, I have done that, yes.
BEARD: So have I. It was rather fun. Heh heh.
KOWALSKI: Look, you three zip, and you, you pretend you're a woman, okay? You find me attractive?
FRASER: Very much so, yes.
HELLO.
KOWALSKI: You're not just saying that?
FRASER: Well, I'm not really qualified to judge, Ray. [Kowalski kind of snort-laughs and turns away.]
GLADYS: Oh, and what's funny about that? He isn't.
KOWALSKI: That just sounds like something my wife would say.
FRASER: I didn't realize you were married.
KOWALSKI: I was. Not anymore.
BEARD: That is so sad.
KOWALSKI: Well, just, you know. Two careers, she worked at the state attorney's office, just didn't work out.
YOUNGER: Oh, I recognize that tone of voice. That's a "Hey, it's no big deal" tone of voice, you know?
BEARD: Yeah, he would know. His wife left him. He was a broken window. [pats Younger on the shoulder] Glass everywhere.
GLADYS: What about you, dear? Are you married?
FRASER: No, ma'am, I'm not. But I am acquainted with loss and, on occasion, loneliness.
GLADYS: Oh, yes. Loneliness, hmm? It may sound silly, but I wonder how the sun will feel today when it's blocked out by the moon. [She is cozying up to the weeping angel and shuddering.]
FRASER: Yes. It does seem sometimes as though the border between life and death is very poorly guarded.
GLADYS: Hmm.
BEARD: Yeah, and if you're carrying the wrong passport, you wind up in a little drawer in one of these places.
YOUNGER: What I'm thinking is, who the hell has all the passports? I mean, I wouldn't be here if I had all the passports, you know?
FRASER: Or would you? That's the question, isn't it?
KOWALSKI: Right. Right. Like you can't go forward until you go backward. Like I tried to run away from my past, but you can't do it, cause it's in your skin, it stays with you. You gotta retrace your steps to figure out how you got here. [He is thinking. Music cue: "Oh What A Feeling" by Crowbar, with some distortion.] I took this bus, I drove this car, I got on this train, I walked down this street, I turned this corner, I opened this door, and I stepped into a bank.
A flashback begins. A portable radio is playing "Oh What A Feeling." Kowalski walks into a bank in a blue-toned scene; it's a bank and it's 1974.
Bop bada baa, bop bada baa
Bop bada baa, bop bada baa
KOWALSKI: I was thirteen, and she was a Gold Coast girl. Private school. She was untouchable, but I was working it. I was lying like a maniac. I was John Lennon, James Bond, Joe Namath, all rolled into one.
Oh, what a feeling, what a rush
A couple of kids, a boy and a girl, are at a teller window. The girl sees something that worries her; she whispers to the boy.
GIRL: I think that man has a gun.
The portable radio is still there. A man pulls a gun and raises it above his head. The boy, who is wearing glasses similar to Kowalski's, looks.
BOY: Gun!
The man with the gun fires it at the ceiling. People start screaming. The man yells at everyone.
MAN: Down on the floor, now. Now! [The tellers and customers and everyone except the girl start hitting the floor.] You, little girl, get over here. Get over here! [She goes where he tells her.] Kid. Fill that bag up with money. [He slides a bag over next to where the boy is lying on the floor. The scene flashes between the radio and the man and the boy, who is scared.] Get up, fill it up. Get up. Get up! Now! [The boy gets up. The man is holding onto the girl.] Turn around. Turn around! [The boy turns around, hanging his head. The man laughs.] Look. The kid messed himself.
The boy has wet his pants. An older man who is down on the floor shakes his head, disappointed in him. The scene flashes out to show the boy all alone in the bank, with the wet spot on his pants and the radio on the floor. Then it flashes in again on the girl, who struggles free from the man's grip and runs out of the bank past Kowalski, who is standing and watching. The boy calls after her.
BOY: Stella!
The music on the radio ends.
KOWALSKI: Stella. [He starts to take his glasses off.]
The flashback ends.
In the crypt, Kowalski finishes taking his glasses off.
KOWALSKI: Stella.
YOUNGER: So. Did you get the girl?
KOWALSKI: Yeah, I got the girl.
GLADYS: Ahh.
KOWALSKI: That was Stella, my wife.
BEARD: She married you even after, you know, what you done?
KOWALSKI: Yeah, but that's not the point. The point is, I mean, my whole life, it all starts and ends with this one guy. I'm like, ah, one of those, um, whatchamacallem, ah, knights looking for the Holy Grill.
FRASER: Grail.
KOWALSKI: What?
FRASER: Holy Grail.
KOWALSKI: You sure?
FRASER: I'm pretty sure it's not a diner.
KOWALSKI: Grill, grail, whatever. I'm just trying to settle an old debt.
The crypt door opens and the groundskeeper stumbles in. The Scotch bottle is empty.
GROUNDSKEEPER: Okay. Number one. This is either empty, broken, or not working. And. Number two. They're here. [He falls down.]
GLADYS: Oh, Tom, dear!
Kowalski looks out the grated window again. Cars are arriving in a funeral procession.
That was a lot.
These cigar smugglers remind me a lot of the cops at the end of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Am I the only one? You remember the guys:
At the end of the gangway appeared a heavily armoured and space-suited figure waving a vicious Kill-O-Zap gun. "We don't want to shoot you, Beeblebrox!" shouted the figure.
"Suits me fine!" shouted Zaphod back and dived down a wide gap between two data process units.
The others swerved in behind him. "There are two of them," said Trillian. "We're cornered."
They squeezed themselves down in an angle between a large computer data bank and the wall.
They held their breath and waited.
Suddenly the air exploded with energy bolts as both the cops opened fire on them simultaneously.
"Hey, they're shooting at us," said Arthur, crouching in a tight ball. "I thought they said they didn't want to do that."
"Yeah, I thought they said that," agreed Ford.
Zaphod stuck a head up for a dangerous moment. "Hey," he said, "I thought you said you didn't want to shoot us!" and ducked again.
They waited.
After a moment a voice replied, "It isn't easy being a cop!"
"What did he say?" whispered Ford in astonishment.
"He said it isn't easy being a cop."
"Well, surely that's his problem, isn't it?"
"I'd have thought so."
Ford shouted out, "Hey, listen! I think we've got enough problems on our own having you shooting at us, so if you could avoid laying your problems on us as well, I think we'd all find it easier to cope!"
Another pause, and then the loud hailer again.
"Now see here, guy," said the voice on the loud hailer, "you're not dealing with any dumb two-bit trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines, little piggy eyes and no conversation. We're a couple of intelligent, caring guys that you'd probably quite like if you met us socially! I don't go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it afterwards in seedy space rangers' bars, like some cops I could mention! I go around shooting people gratuitously and then I agonize about it afterwards for hours to my girlfriend!"
"And I write novels!" chimed in the other cop. "Though I haven't had any of them published yet, so I better warn you, I'm in a meeeean mood!"I am of course dismayed that the woman Kowalski was married to was named Stella, but at this point I shouldn't be surprised. And having the boy yell her name is just belaboring the Streetcar reference. (In the play, Stanley has hit Stella in a drunken rage and she's been sheltering with a neighbor; he sobers up and screams for her from the courtyard until she comes back to him. So the set-up is not at all the same, but a young man named Stanley hollering "Stella!" is iconic.)
I sort of wonder what these two kids were doing in the bank by themselves, but I guess young teenagers might have odd jobs like babysitting or paper routes or mowing lawns or what have you and may need to do their own banking. I don't see why Beard thinks it's a surprise that Stella would have married Kowalski even though he peed his pants when he was threatened at gunpoint when he was 13. I mean: Maybe it would be a surprise that she'd date him after that, but marrying someone you've dated since you were a teenager isn't a huge shock, right?
Side note: Ray Kowalski was born in 1960 or 1961.
Apparently Stella was out of Ray's league. The Gold Coast is a fancy-pants area of Chicago, and evidently young Ray went to public school. How did he and Stella meet in the first place? He doesn't say, but he was trying to impress her (John Lennon, music icon; James Bond, international man of mystery; Joe Namath, football hero) and not doing very well? (Only in that case why were they at the bank together?) And after this he was more successful. So Kowalski thinks this bank robber, which must have been Ellery, is responsible for the beginning of his real relationship with Stella? And . . . somehow also for the end of that relationship? Which is why Ellery is his Holy Grail? I'm not quite clear on this.
Instead let's talk about Kowalski being so invested in whether Fraser finds him attractive, shall we? The scene is at great pains to point out that Fraser is not in fact a woman 🙄, but at the same time, Kowalski doesn't ask "Do you think women would find me attractive"—he's very clearly asking Fraser and nobody else. 🤔 And Fraser, meanwhile, tries to have it both ways: He says he's not qualified to judge—which is baloney—one breath after saying "very much so, yes." In short: ?!!!?
Scene 23
The funeral is wrapping up. Diefenbaker is baying at the Natasha monument.
GLADYS: Is your wolf all right?
FRASER: I think he's grieving. His breed is uncommonly sensitive. He feels sorrow profoundly.
KOWALSKI: [smacks at the grated window with his binoculars] He didn't show up.
YOUNGER: Guy doesn't show to his own mother's funeral? I mean, we're low-life, man, but that, that's a new standard.
The groundskeeper, whom Gladys has been patting on her lap, stirs and mumbles.
GLADYS: Hush, Tom, dear, shh, go back to sleep. Shh.
FRASER: You know, Ray, I'm pretty sure he'll come. We have time.
It didn't take Fraser long to get on Kowalski's side after that "with dispatch" tiff, did it?
Scene 24
In the squad room, it is 4:30.
HUEY: Running out of time.
ELAINE: He's been in there for thirty-seven minutes.
She means Welsh, who is now in his office with Hallett and Brandau.
HALLETT: This was on your watch, Lieutenant.
WELSH: I stand by my detectives.
HALLETT: Ten kilos down to one, we're talking big-time felony charges.
WELSH: I stand by my detectives.
BRANDAU: You were a clown twenty years ago, and you're still a clown, Welsh. You pushed me aside every chance you got, and when that wasn't enough, you put my brother in jail. My brother! I'm gonna tell you something. Nothing's going to give me more pleasure than taking you and this whole stinking division down. You got me?
Ah, so Brandau has beef with Welsh. That should probably preclude him from investigating the guy, shouldn't it? But what do I know. The deal with loving a cop show is that everyone in law enforcement except our heroes is presumed to be scummy, am I right?
Scene 25
A patrol car is taking the two cigar smugglers away; Fraser puts Gladys in the back of a cab and waves. Back in the crypt, Kowalski is looking at the dream catcher.
KOWALSKI: I lied, you know.
FRASER: You did?
KOWALSKI: Yeah. About Stella. To Stella. When I was in the bank — she thought I'd humiliated myself on purpose. To stall for time so she could get away. I never told her any different. She thought I was a hero. I played along. [He gives a bitter chuckle.] Whole marriage based on a lie. I was a con job then, and I'm a con job now.
FRASER: You know, Ray, in my limited experience with the subject, I've found that very few lifelong bonds are formed based on whether one partner or the other urinated in their clothing. I'm willing to gamble — not with money, mind you, but I am willing to gamble — that Stella looked beyond that one incident and saw the whole person.
KOWALSKI: What do you mean?
FRASER: In December nineteen-eighty-eight, a young boy was being held in a warehouse. You went in even though you knew your cover had been blown. You drew fire, you were wounded, yet you managed to rescue the boy. Your first citation. In December nineteen-ninety, in a jewelry store, you single-handedly held off three gunmen, saving four innocent lives. Your second citation. In September nineteen-ninety-three, you faced down three escaped murderers, and you brought them to justice. Your third citation. You're a good policeman, Ray. And I would be proud to call you my partner. And my friend.
KOWALSKI: What was that last part?
FRASER: Friend.
KOWALSKI: Lend me some money?
FRASER: Money and friends don't mix, Ray. [He pats him on the back.] Let's go to work.
This is sweet. (And it's good backstory. Do we now know more about Ray Kowalski's history on the force than we ever knew about Ray Vecchio's?) Fraser should have thought about money and friends not mixing before he borrowed cash from Vecchio to ransom Mr. Mustafi's vacuum cleaner, but maybe that's where he learned that.
On the other hand, assuming they called the taxi and the uniformed cops who are taking away the cigar smugglers using Kowalski's phone, why couldn't they have done that "with dispatch" as Fraser was saying in scene 15?
Scene 26
Fraser and Kowalski leave the crypt. Diefenbaker grumbles at them.
KOWALSKI: How'd you know all that stuff about my background?
FRASER: Well, I had your fingerprints. I went through your files.
KOWALSKI: You're a real nosy parker, aren't you?
FRASER: Ah, I think it's prudent to know the mettle of the man you work with.
KOWALSKI: [laughing] Prudent. Is that like germane? [Diefenbaker barks and runs ahead. Kowalski looks at the dream catcher.] You think this thing would fly?
FRASER: Well, it's not a frisbee, Ray. It's a dream catcher. It tangles up bad dreams.
KOWALSKI: But do you think it would fly?
FRASER: There's only one way to find out.
Kowalski puts down his duffel bag and throws the dream catcher. It flies true and far. He and Fraser watch it soaring. A man standing by an open grave sees it coming down toward him and plucks it out of the air. Kowalski didn't see the guy catch it; he's looking for it on the ground, but then through some gaps in the gravestones he sees the guy holding it. He puts his glasses on and realizes who it is. He runs at him and jumps on the guy's back. The guy is about twice his size, and they struggle for a bit and then both fall into the grave.
MAN: Jeez. Aw. Hey, man, whatever you want, my money, my wallet, it's yours.
KOWALSKI: [eventually gets his gun out of its holster] Ha. You remember me? Oh, yeah. You remember. Little kid in the bank? Nineteen-seventy-four? Oh, yeah. You remember. Kid wet himself. Tell me you remember.
MAN (ELLERY): Hey, what the hell's happening? [It is getting very dark very quickly.]
KOWALSKI: It's an eclipse. [He stares at Ellery.] I don't believe this. Ah — you don't remember me.
ELLERY: Hey, kid. I've robbed a lot of banks, and I've spent a lot of time in jail. I don't have much of a memory about anything.
KOWALSKI: I spent my entire life looking for you! Looking for some payback, some revenge, maybe even . . . kill you, and . . . now I get you face to face, and . . . I can't even see your face. It's . . .
ELLERY: Hey, you do what you gotta do, man. I just came here to say goodbye to my mother.
KOWALSKI: Ah. Your mother. Huh. Okay. You can go now.
ELLERY: You're letting me go?
KOWALSKI: Yeah. Thanks.
ELLERY:: For what?
KOWALSKI: For making me what I am. A cop.
It's starting to get light again, and Fraser is looking for Kowalski.
FRASER: Ray? [He bumps into a gravestone.] I'm terribly sorry. Pardon me. Ray? [He walks directly into another stone.] Augh.
As the eclipse ends, Kowalski is lying alone in Ellery's mother's grave with the dream catcher on his belly. His face is peaceful, not at all troubled.
KOWALSKI: He overpowered me. Ran away.
FRASER: Are you all right?
KOWALSKI: I'm good. [He tosses Fraser the dream catcher.]
FRASER: Well, we really should, ah —
KOWALSKI: Face the music.
Fraser gives Kowalski a hand out of the grave; Kowalski's pulling himself out pulls Fraser in. Kowalski walks away.
FRASER: Ray. Ray? [Diefenbaker grumbles over the rim of the grave.] Give me a paw, Dief.
None of this is how solar eclipses work, but sure. The important thing in this scene, of course, is that Kowalski gets the opportunity to take his revenge on Ellery, and then, as Bacon says, he chooses not to. It turns out he's the only one who's been torn up about their first meeting all this time, and rather than keep that whole acidic grudge alive, he lets it go. Good for him! Also, whatever it was he'd previously wanted to be, he admits he became a cop because of Ellery and that he's good at it and glad he did. I bet he feels 15 years younger.
I don't know how he got it in his head to throw the dream catcher like a frisbee, but never mind.
Scene 27
Back at the station, it is 4:57.
WELSH: He's gonna show. [Huey and Elaine and the whole squad room are skeptical.] He'll show.
Fraser and Kowalski and Diefenbaker come along the hallway. They enter the squad room. Kowalski still has the dream catcher in his hands. Hallett is looking at a Chicago PD personnel file with Ray Vecchio's name on it and Ray Kowalski's picture. He seems pretty smug. Kowalski and Fraser exchange a glance. Fraser seems a little nervous. Kowalski heads for Welsh's office, tapping his nose with his thumb as he goes by. Welsh taps his own nose with his own thumb. The office door slams.
My point is just, if personnel and records are in on the Kowalski-is-Vecchio op, wouldn't IA be in on it too? Otherwise, sure, fine, I like Kowalski giving Welsh the "bunt" sign, whatever.
Scene 28
In Welsh's office, Hallett is screaming at Kowalski.
HALLETT: Ten kilos! Street-grade heroin, down to one kilo, where'd it go?
KOWALSKI: You tell me.
HALLETT: You a hard guy? [Kowalski smiles just a little.] Huh? Chicago hard guy?
KOWALSKI: Your words.
HALLETT: You recognize this?
KOWALSKI: Evidence log-in.
BRANDAU: And is that your signature?
KOWALSKI: Looks like it.
HALLETT: And is that a ten?
KOWALSKI: No.
BRANDAU: We're not playing games here, Vecchio. Unless twenty-five years in the big house is your idea of fun!
KOWALSKI: Are you guys really bozos, or you just pretend to be bozos?
HALLETT: You wanna repeat that?
KOWALSKI: It's not a ten! It's a one, with a happy face. You know, happy day, bad guys off the street. Here, let me show you. What's this number?
HALLETT: Three hundred and sixty.
KOWALSKI: No, it's not. It's a thirty-six . . . with a happy face. See? See? Do it all the time.
BRANDAU: You, you want us to check through all the records?
KOWALSKI: [jumps up and gets in their faces] Go ahead, knock yourselves out. Or? We can cut to the chase. This whole station is shivering on the word of some apple polisher I never even met. Come on! Put me in a lineup. Siracusa can pick me out, I'm good to go, you book me a room in the big house. If he can't, you can pack up your little circus and go home. Deal? Deal?
It's ridiculous to suggest a handwritten 10 is actually a handwritten 1🙂, but it's a little ridiculous to think the form would have been filled in by hand anyway, isn't it? Shouldn't it have been typed up so these discrepancies wouldn't arise? But who cares, because Kowalski has called the question.
Scene 29
Kowalski and about five other guys are standing in a lineup. Outside in the viewing area, the guy who was brought in in scene 1 is standing with Hallett and Brandau and Welsh.
BRANDAU: Give us Vecchio.
HALLETT: Come on, Siracusa.
HANDCUFFED GUY (SIRACUSA): Number three.
WELSH: Number three, please step forward. [The guy next to Kowalski looks at him for a second—and then takes a step forward. Kowalski, who was apparently number two, doesn't move. In the viewing area, Welsh steps over to Brandau, who's looking a little ashy.] Your brother was nothing but a criminal, and I stand by my detectives.
Brandau fucks off. Welsh looks through the window. Kowalski does a particularly satisfied smile.
Okay: On the one hand, that was cool.
On the other hand, nobody's actually proven Vecchio wasn't dirty, have they? Because this lineup was rigged. Of course, Siracusa could have said "No, the guy I informed for isn't any of these guys" and put the onus back on Kowalski and Welsh, but he didn't, so I guess his picking number 3 out of the lineup does prove that Siracusa was making shit up, and he might not have been able to pick the real Ray Vecchio either. And thus and therefore, by the process of elimination, we can conclude that Vecchio was clean and either Hallett and Siracusa are lying about nine kilos of heroin going missing or someone altered Vecchio's evidence log to turn a 1 into a 10 to try and take him down.
Still it takes a little of the shine off Welsh saying "I stand by my detectives" when he knows perfectly well this particular defense is 70% lies.
Scene 30
Fraser, Elaine, Huey, and many other people are waiting in the hallway outside the lineup/viewing area. Welsh comes out and sees them all; he takes a few steps back toward the squad room; then he turns around and gives a thumbs up. Whoops and cheers. Huey pumps his fists in triumph. Elaine practically collapses in relief. Applause all around. Fraser smiles slightly and high-fives Huey before following Welsh.
That's nice that everyone is so happy Vecchio and Welsh have been exonerated.
Scene 31
The combined Vecchio's-birthday / we're-not-getting-indicted party is in full swing in the squad room, which is hung about with streamers. Music cue: "Oh What A Feeling" by Crowbar. The white-tied butlers from scene 10 are passing trays of hors d'oeuvre. Everyone is wearing party hats. Welsh is staring at the trout in the tank.
KOWALSKI: So this is a traditional Yukon celebration.
FRASER: It's a fair approximation. Without the snow, of course.
MUSIC: ♫ Bop bada baa, bop bada baa. Bop bada baa, bop bada baa. ♫
ELAINE: You all right?
WELSH: Oh yeah. Sure.
ELAINE: Gentlemen. [She and a couple of the butlers pick up plates with slices of cake.]
KOWALSKI: Huey, I don't think so.
HUEY: I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. [The cabbage is hanging from a string. Huey runs up and tries to kick it, and he almost does —] Ohh! [— but he falls flat on his back.]
KOWALSKI: [wearing his party hat on the back of his neck] Sad. [Diefenbaker grumbles.]
MUSIC: ♫ Oh, what a feeling, what a rush. ♫
FRASER: Party's going rather well, I think.
KOWALSKI: Oh, yeah, it's — [They mutually decide to leave the cabbage kicking station.] You know, Fraser — [He steps on Huey rather than over him; Huey groans.] — that was weird, seeing Ellery.
FRASER: Yeah, I should imagine.
MUSIC: ♫ Oh, what a feeling, what a rush. ♫
KOWALSKI: I mean, that guy dogged me my entire life, and now it's like, ah, the sky opened up or something. Ah, I don't know, it's —
MUSIC: ♫ Well you we got the feeling, makes you come alive. We're gonna boogie woogie, we're gonna rock and roll, we're gonna jive. We're gonna make you loose, go where you have to go; gonna fill your head with music, satisfy your soul. ♫
FRASER: You know, Ray, my father once told me that the sky isn't just above you. That if you look at the horizon, you'll see that it actually touches the ground. So if you think about it, wherever you go, you are actually walking in the sky.
KOWALSKI: You're a freak.
FRASER: Understood.
They leave the squad room, passing by the fish tank, where Elaine is watching Welsh bob for the trout.
MUSIC: ♫ Oh, what a feeling, what a rush. ♫
WELSH: [stands up and catches his breath] Ooh. It's a lot harder than it looks.
Elaine nods. Welsh dives back in.
The fish is still in the tank while he is doing this, so props to Beau Starr, I guess. Yeeks.
In the original Star Wars, a scene was cut between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt in a docking bay in Mos Eisley, in which Harrison Ford as Han Solo walked behind the actor standing in for Jabba. When that scene was "restored" in the 1997 Special Edition [ptui ptui], they shifted Han Solo so it looked (sort of) as if he'd stepped on Jabba's tail and added a sound effect of Jabba yowling in pain. It's an absolutely crap addition to Star Wars, but it was released in January 1997, which would have been plenty of time for the creative team on this show to be alluding to that when Kowalski steps on Huey as he walks by. (Not that I'm equating Huey with Jabba the Hutt. Just that we've got a sharpshooting second-lead hero stepping on a guy and maybe we're meant to subliminally be linking Kowalski with Han Solo just a little bit.)
It's nice that Kowalski has had this epiphany, and it's nice that everyone is getting into the games Fraser brought for the party, and the "walking in the sky" thing is nice although it doesn't sound much like Bob. But: Where are Fraser and Kowalski off to? Leaving a party he's actually hosting doesn't really seem like Fraser's style, does it? 🤨
Cumulative body count: 24
Red uniform: The whole time