return to Due South: season 1 episode 3 "Manhunt"

Manhunt
air date October 6, 1994

( Scene 1 )

I've watched this several times to see if it's supposed to be that the bus driver is just petrified with fear, and I think it's a genuine Weekend at Bernie's up in here instead.

A quick google suggests to me that White Island Maximum Security Prison in NWT is fictitious, so I'm not updating the map to show its location.

( Scene 2 )

In case anyone has wandered in who is too young to know this, Leslie Nielsen (1926–2010) was a big fucking star. He was a jobbing actor before the creative team on this show were even born, and by the mid-90s he was already a goddamn legend. Having him in the third episode would have to have been a pretty big get.

Northern Ontario is a big place, so there's no point trying to work out where Frobisher's detachment is on the map, either.

Clearly the creepy dude who was wearing the bus driver as a hat is Geiger.

( Scene 3 )

I love a serious performance from a comic actor.

Credits roll.

Paul Gross
David Marciano
Beau Starr
Daniel Kash
Tony Craig
Catherine Bruhier

(plus Lincoln the dog)

Leslie Nielsen, William Smith, Cali Timmins, Gordon Pinsent as Fraser Sr.

It's vaguely interesting that Gordon Pinsent's credit (an "as" credit, woo-hoo) is "Fraser Sr." rather than "Bob Fraser." (Only vaguely.)

( Scene 4 )

I'm not sure what the point of the Career Day setup was, but I guess when you're the Deputy Liaison Officer, you liaise with whoever calls your boss looking for a liaison. It's meant to be with local law enforcement, but sure, the public schools need learning about that sort of thing too. These kids look like they're about fourth-graders.

( Scene 5 )

First things first: It was totally him. Come on. This woman, who it turns out is Frobisher's daughter, was absolutely in love with Fraser rather than with the unfortunate ex-Bruce. Saying "I was in love with someone else" was a trial balloon, and his stammering gasping reaction shot the trial balloon right the fuck down, and she backed as gracefully as she could into plausible deniability, which is fair enough. The last time she saw him he was not much more than 20 years old. We don't know how old she is, how long she and Bruce were married, how old Patty is, or any of that, but might it be safe to assume she might be approximately his age, and she and Bruce might have been married about 10 years, and the last time Fraser saw her was at her and Bruce's wedding? And both of them have had rather a lot of life happen to them since then. She's had a kid and gotten a divorce; he's solved his father's murder and moved to Chicago. (Her mother is not mentioned, and there's that comment about putting her father within arm's length of a woman, so we can conclude this young woman's mother is either no longer married to Sgt. Frobisher or she is dead, though we have no idea when this will have happened. I assume the mother is dead, and I assume it's relatively recently, which is why she's so panicked at the possibility of losing her father, but that could just be me projecting quite a bit.) (We also don't know when Fraser lost his own mother, so it might have been since the last time he and Frobisher's Daughter here saw each other.)

Anyway, non-projecting detail: So Frobisher is at a desk job and his daughter knows he hates it.

How did she know he was in Chicago, anyway? Someone at the docks remembered seeing her dad get on a barge that was coming to Chicago and she thought maybe he'd called Fraser? I feel like if she knows how close her dad and Fraser's dad were, then if her dad vanishes and nobody knows where he's gone, the first thing she should do is try to contact Bob Fraser, and failing that, she should try to contact Ben Fraser. The fact that the barge was bound for Chicago should be beside the point.

I guess it's possible she didn't know he was in Chicago specifically, but the barge was headed for Chicago and she comes to the consulate as you do when you're looking for help in a foreign city, and to her utter amazement and good fortune the Deputy Liaison Officer turns out to be her father's best friend's son, who's out just now giving a Career Day presentation to the fourth grade at Please Spare Me Elementary School, and then she heads over there to meet him rather than wait back at the consulate with Inspector Bumbles and Constable Deserved Fraser's Job. Fair enough, that makes a lot more sense. And then once she realized he was in Chicago she hoped it would turn out her father had called Fraser.

Finally, if they haven't seen each other since their early 20s, but they knew each other well enough for her to have been in love with him then, and their fathers were very close, going back quite a way, I do not believe this young woman would call Benton Fraser "Fraser." I think that was some sloppy script writing. She would call her father's best friend's son, whom she was in love with when she married someone else, "Ben" if she did not call him "Benton." (His father called him Ben, so I could go either way on this; but her calling him "Fraser" just clangs for me.)

( Scene 6 )

( Scene 7 )

So I have complicated feelings about this. On the one hand, whatever is going on with this phone caller's cat is probably not a violent crime, so she's called the wrong department in the first place. On the other hand, what Vecchio is in the middle of is trying to make life difficult for Huey and Louie. This isn't as dishonest as getting Fraser a wolf license (which did involve domestic animals, so maybe Vecchio really has had enough of that sort of thing for the moment), but it's a little sketch. Hmm.

( Scene 8 )

First things first: There are apparently approximately two hundred places to drive across the border between Canada and the United States, but what's a factor of eight and a half among friends?

Now then. I spent a lot of time thinking, how does a barge get from northern Ontario to Chicago? Ontario is, as I said, pretty big, but the waterways bordering the northern part are pretty much the Hudson and James Bays, right? I mean I think of northern Ontario as being basically like one of these images: like, the northern third or so of the province, or maybe even the northern half.

Yeah, no. It turns out he didn't say northern Ontario, he said Northern Ontario, capital N, which is a specific region of Ontario, the southern edge of which is apparently fuzzy for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture but the whole of which actually includes most of Ontario by land area.

So freighters can indeed come from Northern Ontario to Chicago via Great Lakes shipping routes, and although I've now learned that about Northern Ontario, I don't frankly see how any ship or boat would get from any part of Canada to Chicago without going through Sault Ste. Marie, so I don't entirely understand Fraser's question. (If there were seven freighters of which two came in from Sault Ste. Marie, where did the other five come from? If there were seven freighters and two craft that came in from Sault Ste. Marie, where did the other seven come from? It's a mystery, but fortunately one of no importance whatsoever.)

( Scene 9 )

Benton Fraser was born in 1961. So Bob had a watch issued to him by the RCMP in 1950, and still assuming you can't join until you're 18 (which we don't know for sure, but it seems reasonable), that means Bob must have been born around 1932 (and can't have been younger than 29 when Ben was born).

So—all mechanical watches are spring-wound, aren't they? Is this watch hand-wound or self-winding? Whichever is "better," I guess, which I don't know. But okay: We knew Frobisher paid a chunk of cash and Chekov's Watch for transport to the United States on a garbage scow rather than drive his own car or take a plane or a bus like most people would have done, so he clearly wanted to get off the grid; what we didn't know until now was how special that watch was supposed to have been. (But apparently not everyone who got them in 1950 cared enough to maintain them for even one generation?)

( Scene 10 )

I don't think the fact that Frobisher knows they're coming should necessarily be reassuring to Vecchio. He could still greet them with a bullet, couldn't he?

Hotel guy says Frobisher's a carnie, that is, a traveling carnival employee. Maybe that's Frobisher's cover? Or maybe the guy drew a conclusion from the fact that he only had one bag.

( Scene 11 )

So this Frobisher is a real prince of an old man, huh? Put aside for a moment how rude he is to Fraser; he's drunk. But he also doesn't seem to give the kind of shit about his daughter (and his grandchild) that you'd assume based on how worried she was about him.

( Scene 12 )

So did Buck find Bob and carry him home on foot?

( Scene 13 )

It's hell being the comic relief, isn't it, Vecchio. (I actually do think that line is pretty funny.)

Okay so: From southern Michigan to Whitehorse, YT, I assume the five states across which the police and FBI pursued Geiger were Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and then he crossed into Canada from Minnesota and kept going northwest from there. Alternatively, he could have gone from Michigan to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont and entered Canada in southern Quebec and then turned west, but that seems less likely. He could have gone north from the bank he robbed and missed out Indiana and Illinois but crossed Lake Michigan into Wisconsin somehow (I don't know what the Lake Michigan ferry crossing situation is like; usually ferries don't cross lakes at their widest points, though, right?) and then gone through Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana before entering Canada somewhere along the Montana border; similarly, he could have gone north through Michigan, crossed over to the Upper Peninsula, and then gone west through Wisconsin etc. rather than just get into Canada right there. BUT only Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador have provincial police forces—the other provinces and all the territories get their provincial-level policing from the RCMP—so Geiger must have crossed into Canada in either Quebec or Ontario at the furthest west.

Anyway, Whitehorse is a long way from southern Michigan. This dude took some catching. (The state borders on this map are approximate. I couldn't find a U.S. map at exactly the same projection as the Canada one I was already using.)

( Scene 14 )

Frobisher says "that brings his total to twelve," but I count eleven: two FBI men (2), a state trooper (3), a highway patrol officer (4), a local officer (5), two provincial police officers (7), two members of the RCMP's emergency response team (9), and the "two that we know of" since he escaped from prison (I assume that's the prison bus driver and the border control officer). Maybe Frobisher is counting the bank guard (but not the two other employees; maybe they survived)? (You may make your “Geiger counter” jokes now.)

He also says he was 30 when he brought Bob Fraser in after the latter got his leg caught in a bear trap. (I would have said "pulled him off the pack ice" instead of "off the icepack," but what do I know.) Of course, Bob said by then Buck's hips had started to spread, which, 30 seems a little young for a man to be losing his figure, doesn't it? Anyway, "Do I look like I'm thirty? Do I look like I'm forty?!" is good stuff. The implication, naturally, is that he's past fifty. His daughter is of a similar age as Fraser, who as we know is about 33, so figure Frobisher for his mid-50s at the absolute minimum. (In 1994, Leslie Nielsen was 68.)

( Scene 15 )

This is such a small scene, but it's such a sad performance. Like—Frobisher has been a solid jackass since the moment we clapped eyes on him, and Fraser is torn up that he isn't being allowed to help him.

( Scene 16 )

TV and film lighting crews have a hard job when there are practical effects like characters turning off lights or blowing out candles. The lantern Fraser was using casts way more light than a real lantern should, of course, because the viewing audience needs to be able to see him, but when he blows it out, the timing of the room getting dark is just a little bit off. I can't imagine how many takes they have to do of that kind of shot.

( Scene 17 )

THAT SMIRK. It's at 19:19 on the DVD of this episode, and we have not seen Fraser make such a face before. Nor abandon his post! I'm forced to assume Frobisher rolled up at exactly the moment his shift ended, because otherwise, holy cow. Unrelatedly, the woman getting her picture taken next to Fraser must be very tall, wearing heels, or standing on a curb while he's not.

[late edit: I can now offer an animated gif of that smirk, which didn't work at all in a still screencap so I didn't bother:
]

Renting the uniform and then falling off the horse and hailing a taxi are much more the sort of thing you'd have been expecting as a viewer when Leslie Nielsen turned up. So it looks for a moment like we're off into a silly Police Squad/Airplane!/Naked Gun place, but then there's the bad guy, lurking and reminding us that our heroes are up against a serious problem here.

Frobisher's rented uniform has regular trousers rather than the jodhpurs Fraser wears with his red tunic, and his boots are a little less tall. Also he is wearing brown leather riding gloves when he's on the horse and opening the taxi door. Fraser is also wearing brown gloves when he gets up on the horse. He had his hands behind his back when he was standing at mannequin attention, but he was not wearing gloves when he stepped toward the horse and then was wearing them when he mounted the thing. These are apparently magic gloves that can appear and disappear as needed.

When they get in the cab, what happens to the horses? Never mind, I guess?

( Scene 18 )

Lest we forget that in addition to his Sherlock-Holmes-and-Lieutenant-Columbo-style detective skills, Fraser is also pretty to look at.

( Scene 19 )

On his rented uniform, Frobisher has six stars on the left sleeve and three chevrons on the right (on the upper arm, which is where I generally expect such things, not like Gerrard's four chevrons on his cuff in the pilot, where I expect naval officers to have braids). (Fraser has two stars on his left sleeve, and has had since the pilot.)

Diefenbaker is so far the only character in this show who is in any way aware of irony, apparently.

( Scene 20 )

The meta-silliness of this scene is too much for me right now.

( Scene 21 )

Okay: The horse stuff was one, the bar was two, and this was three—that's the rule of three, right? We've escalated the goofiness to the max and we're going to get back to our drama already in progress, right?

( Scene 22 )

And just when you think they're going to stay silly—here's Vecchio doing comic relief again—they slam you into sober reverse and get serious. I keep talking about Leslie Nielsen, but that's because this performance is a master class. "That man was several years younger than me." The poignancy of that line, and the unexpectedness of it after the horses and the bar and the bingo hall.

Okay and the man who was several years younger than Frobisher was born in 1937, so I'm going to say Frobisher was born not later than 1934. Which means, if he was indeed 30 when he fetched Bob Fraser back off the ice, that that happened not later than 1965 (before Frobisher's 31st birthday). And if my math about Bob is also correct, then he'll have been about 32 or 33 at that time—the same age Ben Fraser is now—which doesn't strike me as so old he can't do his job anymore and ought to stop, the way he said in his journal.

Pelican Bay State Prison is at the extreme northern end of California, right on the border with Oregon, but nevertheless off the bottom left edge of my map graphic, so I'm not doing an image with Pelican Bay on it. :-) And the James Gang were the notorious band of highwaymen and train robbers led in the 1860s by Jesse James and his brother Frank.

( Scene 23 )

Diefenbaker nods. Diefenbaker nods. This dog, man.

That door is pretty sturdy if it takes Fraser at least two tries to kick it in. (He did Drake's apartment door in what looked like one kick in the pilot.)

( Scene 24 )

Frobisher described himself and Bob Fraser as having thought they were immortal, not invincible, but the idea is the same.

( Scene 25 )

The heavy object is some sort of hardware connected to the gurney in some way. It looks like the handle of a screwdriver, but it's obviously much heavier. Not the bed controls or anything like that.

( Scene 26 )

I can't get over how uncomfortable they seem with each other here.

Granted, Vecchio is feeling rattled and maybe even a little betrayed by the fact that Fraser has turned out not to be invincible. He's helpless. His best friend is lying there in the hospital, could have bled out, could have lost his leg, and there's nothing he can do except assure him the dog is being looked after? And then Fraser asks for Frobisher instead?

And we can add "have a friend visit him in the hospital" to the list of things Fraser doesn't know how to do, though in fairness, many or most people may not know how to do that. But I mean. Look at some of the things he doesn't say. "Thanks for coming, Ray." "I'm glad you're here." The text doesn't reflect the warmth with which he does say "No, thanks" and "I'm fine," but honestly: His best friend is scared for him, and he talks about his boots and asks for someone else almost immediately.

None of it strikes me as out of character, but it is so uncomfortable and I don't know what to do with it. (And they’ve done this before! Vecchio was in the hospital and Fraser was with him there and it was nowhere near as strange as this!)

( Scene 27 )

( Scene 28 )

Contrariwise, this scene between Fraser and Frobisher is not awkward or uncomfortable at all, even when Fraser says he can't imagine having a desk job and immediately realizes it was the wrong thing to have said and apologizes—and Frobisher's face didn't even fall all the way before Fraser apologized and he shrugged it off. These men are at ease with each other in a way Fraser and Vecchio were simply not, thirty seconds ago. Even the gentle scolding is easier (they both know Frobisher is not going to take the offer of protective custody, of course, and Fraser is clearly not going to take it easy and get some rest, either).

And then Frobisher tells the story of Bob Fraser's wallet, which I freaking love. There is no need or purpose for it in terms of Fraser and Frobisher's relationship; Frobisher has already accepted Fraser's help and more or less apologized for being such a jerk in the first place, and Fraser has implicitly forgiven him for that and explicitly forgiven him for his injury. Telling this story isn't a peace offering. It's a plain act of generosity on Frobisher's part. He can't literally say "Ben, you have no idea how much your father loved you," but he can say this. Look at Fraser's smile as Frobisher is leaving the room. He's got a tiny bit of his father back.

(After my dad died, a friend who'd known my folks since before I was born and been a tremendous help to them when he was ill reminded me of a time my dad and I had been at their place for dinner—I think I was visiting because my mom was out of town one weekend. Anyway we'd played bridge, and my dad had stuck me in seven spades—I'd opened them so I had to play it even though he'd bid it—and there hadn't been a lot of other bidding, so I didn't have much other information, not that I'd probably have understood it because I knew I was the weakest player at the table, but I concentrated and played carefully and made the big slam, and the friend was reminding me of that story specifically because he wanted to tell me how he'd watched my dad watching me play that hand and how proud he could see that he was. [This was not the time I bid four spades and then made seven, and I can still remember the sinking feeling of having three made and all that was left in my hand was ♠️AKQJ, like it does not feel great to lay them down when what you're laying down is "oh my god we missed a big slam I am so sorry"—fortunately my dad was able to think back through the hand and what was where and assure me it hadn't been there to be bid, so making it was a perfect storm.] I will be the first to tell you my relationship with my dad was much closer than the fictitious relationship between the Frasers père and fils! But even if your dad would have and did say "I'm so proud of you," it's a nice thing for someone who knew him to tell you once he's gone.)

I would normally assume that a wallet stitched by a little kid would be stitched by a six- or seven-year-old, but if Bob Fraser lost the thing that day Frobisher brought him back off the ice, it must have been new at the time because Ben Fraser can only have been barely four years old. (Unless Frobisher was not actually as young as 30 when that rescue took place.)

( Scene 29 )

Makeup note: It is a convincing wow-my-leg-really-hurts performance, partly from the limping and partly from the sweat on Fraser's forehead. Nice work, makeup team! (I did not need him to say "ow" with every step to believe he was in pain. In fact I'm a little surprised he did say "ow" with every step, but like Vecchio, we haven't really seen him hurt before, have we, so maybe my surprise is unwarranted.)

The unease between Fraser and Vecchio is gone; Vecchio is already holding Fraser's hospital gown closed as he asks if he really has to. Ten-four, good buddy.

Costume note: Bro, you didn't let them cut off your boots, but I will bet five pretend dollars they had to cut off your pants, and even if they didn't, you were stabbed through them, so they'll have a big old slice in them and be soaked with blood. You're going to put that whole uniform back on? I get that there isn't time to have Vecchio go get you some other pants, but really?

Frobisher's stunt man, by the way, is now wearing plain black shoes with his straight-legged uniform trousers, as Fraser does with the brown uniform. (The more I look at it, the more convinced I am that Frobisher's stunt man is Fraser's stunt man in a white wig. Something about the gait and the fighting stance.)

( Scene 30 )

Have we seen this carjacked guy before? "Not again" puzzles me. Also, there are people in the background of this scene who see the carjacking happen and don't really react in any way. Nice.

( Scene 31 )

It was Chekov's Gum! Hell, it was Chekov's Ashtray Out the Bus Window!

Frobisher is wearing plain brown shoes now. Maybe it's the shorter boots he was wearing before and his trouser legs just aren't tucked into them. Just a slight continuity note.

( Scene 32 )

I haven't been canoeing in more than 20 years, but putting the stronger paddler in the back of the boat sounds familiar to me.

( Scene 33 )

There may be a knife hole in Fraser's trousers; they were certainly not cut off him, and they are certainly not blood-soaked.

Not a bad fight scene. Again with the makeup people helping to sell Fraser as fighting through a lot of pain. He looks pale. Nice work, makeup team. Also nice work stunt guys. Apparently when Frobisher said "Five, heavily armed" he meant a total of five guys, not that Geiger had five extra guys, right? Because the total roster was (1) straight into the crate guy, (2) youngish guy, (3) white-haired guy, (4) George, Presumably, and (5) Geiger. Two each for Fraser and Frobisher and one for Vecchio, who may not have as much experience as the Mounties have with melee fighting because he's so much more accustomed to just shooting?

( Scene 34 )

Where did the horses come from?! (I mean obviously from the same alternate dimension that the horses in scene 17 went to. But where is that?)

Costume-wise, Frobisher is again wearing brown boots that are not as tall as Fraser's, so I'm guessing the brown shoes were boots without the trouser legs tucked in. They are both wearing the big brown magically appearing riding gauntlets again.

So: From whom did Fraser hear about Julie and Bruce's divorce? Not from Julie or from Frobisher, apparently. I'd say from Bob, but we're being trained to understand that they didn't talk much or often, so why and when would Bob tell Ben that Julie Frobisher had left her husband? There must be some other grapevine. Anyway, Frobisher knows that Julie was in love with Fraser. He gives him the opportunity to realize it, but takes it as gracefully as she did when Fraser chooses to remain clueless. Because the longer I look at it, the more I read "You know the fella?" as meaning "I have my suspicions but I'm double checking" and "Sounds like a good man" as Fraser having concluded the Frobishers do mean him but pretending not to have understood this as the most gracious means of letting Buck know he doesn't love Julie and never will. I was thinking this might be pretty much the first time we've seen Fraser be that socially aware, but no, he was with Julie herself also—"Oh, good. I mean, I don't mean good, I mean —"—he knows immediately that "I'm so glad it isn't me you were in love with" isn't a terrific thing to have said. (He also regrets saying "Oh, I can't imagine that" about taking a desk job as soon as it's out of his mouth.) So I guess where I am with this is, why is he so flustered and wrong-footed by Elaine transparently trying to get his phone number (etc.) but able to be so graceful about this Julie issue? Why can't he just pretend not to know what Elaine is talking about (or the woman who says "I like your dog, call me," or whatever)? Is it because Julie is the only one who has made exactly one play (or, okay, one and a half, if you count Buck) and then backed off, and Elaine has not seemed to understand that "He doesn't know what you're talking about" means "He isn't interested"?

I don't know if this episode title "Manhunt" is a movie reference. The episode was obviously about a manhunt—two of them, if you count the search for Frobisher in the beginning scenes. There was a film in 1976 called Kimi yo Fundo no Kawa o Watare that is apparently sometimes translated as Manhunt, which on a first glance at the pilot looks like it has more in common with "The Fugitive" (or The Fugitive) than with this episode, but the titles have been linked to previous media titles, not plots, right? So there we go?

Cumulative confirmed body count: 5
Red uniform: Career Day presentation, guard duty, when it's the only thing he has to wear leaving the hospital

Previous | Index of annotated transcripts | Next