return to Due South: season 2 episode 4 "Bird in the Hand"

Bird in the Hand
air date December 21, 1995

( Scene 1 )

This asshole! What's he doing in Chicago, and who did he have planting exactly the right handcuff keys and whatnot in exactly the right secured-area restroom toilet tank float ball beforehand? (And doing such a good job with the electric tape that the marshal didn't see it, because that search was pretty thorough, hands down in the water and everything.)

I would have been just so happy if just one of the loudspeaker announcements had said "The white zone is for the immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the red zone." I feel like they really missed an opportunity there.

Credits roll.

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

(plus Lincoln the dog)

Lee Purcell, Ken Pogue, Dick Anthony Williams, Scott Gibson, Philip Williams, Stewart Arnott, Dean McDermott, and Gordon Pinsent as Fraser Sr.

( Scene 2 )

Well, we've seen Dean McDermott before, as one of the baddies in "The Man Who Knew Too Little," but there's no obvious connection between that guy and Constable Turnbull—who has no stars on his sleeve, meaning he's been in the RCMP for less than five years. This guy's a piece of work, isn't he? But I'm glad Fraser is being allowed to do real liaising rather than mannequin guard duty and picking up dry cleaning.

A portrait of Jean Chrétien, who was prime minister at the time, is visible behind Turnbull.

( Scene 3 )

Gerrard's prisoner number is CB#098175043, in case that should ever be relevant to you. Also, right now these feds are seeming like less of a jerk than the usual feds (Ford and Dieter).

Frobisher! Buck Frobisher was Bob's best friend on the force! (Wasn't at his funeral, though. Hmm.)

Fraser was doing a really nice job being cool about this discussion of Gerrard, and then he was visibly surprised when Borland said "disappeared;" and by the time Fraser says "Well, I would still have to clear it through the consulate," he's rocking back and forth a little in his chair. Just for that second! But oh my goodness, I love that detail of this performance.

( Scene 4 )

I am so proud of Fraser for asking if Vecchio's rhetorical question was serious, and I can barely contain my delight over "Is it pertinent?"/"Not even close." That is funny shit! And I'm also pleased, I guess, to see some follow-up from last week, where Louise St. Laurent wants to be sure Vecchio remembers what he needs to remember on the stand, given that he's not always able to put his hands on notes he may have taken in the course of his investigations.

( Scene 5 )

I am not a lawyer, and the history of Illinois' two-party consent law is convoluted, but it looks to me like probably Vecchio was okay surreptitiously recording that conversation without the knowledge of Fraser or Nash in 1995. I think today that recording would not be permitted in Illinois outside a narrow set of circumstances that this conversation doesn't meet (it looks to me like it would be allowed with prior approval from the state's attorney and if he were investigating a forcible felony, human trafficking, recorded child sexual abuse material or sexual exploitation, some gang- or drug-related offenses, or similar, OR if he were a uniformed officer conducting an "enforcement stop"—and in all those cases the recording would be admissible in court to protect the officer but not as evidence against the other participants in the conversation except in an even narrower set of circumstances).

( Scene 6 )

Better fucking hope that tape recorder isn't working in your pocket right now, Vecchio, because I'm pretty sure what just happened was you offered to let your friend kill a man with your gun having decided ahead of time that it will have been self defense. Again: Why do we love a cop show? Sigh. I'm going to focus on the fact that through the whole conversation, Fraser was either failing or refusing to understand what Vecchio was talking about (in the end it turns out the answer is "failing," but either one would do).

"Two'll get you seven" is a statement of favorable odds. Even money ("five'll get you ten") means the payout is the same as the bet (plus you recover what you put down in the first place), so winning an even-money bet of $5 will get you $10 (for a net gain of $5, which is equal to your original stake). If you bet $2 and win and get $7, that's also a net gain of $5, which is two and a half times your original stake—in short, it's a good bet (though why this is colloquially used to mean "it's highly likely" I'll never know, because surely a thing that is likely to happen would not pay out well if the bookmakers had anything to say about it).

( Scene 7 )

I expect punching Gerrard in the face was very satisfying for Benton Fraser, and also that he'd probably never admit it.

( Scene 8 )

Okay, Fraser putting his foot on Gerrard's throat is hot, that's all there is to it, and Gerrard is a lousy slimy bastard who probably deserves everything that happens to him.

And then Fraser's struggle with Bob over taking his vengeance on Gerrard is so good! So good! Look how badly he really does want to shoot Gerrard, or club him to death with a lamp, or tear his head off, or strangle him with his bare hands! Or all of these things! Or to let Vecchio do it! God, the effort it is taking him to do what his conscious mind knows to be the right thing. (Where is Grandmother Id at this point? Gerrard hired someone to shoot her son. She must just be howling.) PLUS that tiny moment, they probably thought we wouldn't notice, "No, if I really loved you, I would've —" Oh. Oh, oh, oh. He can't possibly be telling his father he didn't really love him, of course. But he thinks he was a bad son? AUGH. OH, FRASER.

Tiny note for Bob: If it's a freak accident, you can't really say "happens all the time." Otherwise, carry on.

( Scene 9 )

I can't tell which prime minister's portrait is prominently displayed on the adjacent wall to Fraser's office door. But I think we can all agree that this scene with Turnbull, the comic relief of which is quite welcome at this point in the narrative, is actually Canadian for

PALIN: Guards! Make sure the prince doesn't leave this room until I come and get him.
IDLE: Not . . . to leave the room . . . even if you come and get him.
PALIN: No. Until I come and get him.
CHAPMAN: [hiccup]
IDLE: Until you come and get him, we’re not to enter the room.
PALIN: No. You stay in the room and make sure he doesn't leave.
IDLE: And you’ll come and get him.
CHAPMAN: [hiccup]
PALIN: That’s right.
IDLE: We don’t need to do anything, apart from just stop him entering the room.
PALIN: Leaving the room.
IDLE: Leaving the room. Yes.
PALIN: Got it?
CHAPMAN: [hiccup]
(etc.)

( Scene 10 )

So Gerrard's crookedness began before the East Bay thing. Not surprising. The question is why it took Bob so long to realize he was dirty.

Of the approximately 200 border crossings between the United States and Canada, nine or ten were in Minnesota in 1992, when Gerrard was doing his gun running:

1. Lancaster, MN (Tolstoi, MB)
2. Pinecreek, MN (Piney, MB)
3. Roseau, MN (South Junction, MB)
4. Warroad, MN (Sprague, MB)
5. Angle Inlet, MN (Northwest Angle Provincial Forest, MB) (unstaffed)
6. Baudette, MN (Rainy River, ON) (bridge)
7. International Falls, MN (Fort Frances, ON) (bridge)
8. Rainier, MN (Fort Frances, ON) (bridge; rail only)
9. Grand Portage, MN (Pigeon River, ON) (bridge)

There also used to be a crossing at Noyes, MN (Emerson East, MB), which closed northbound in 2003 and southbound in 2006, and a bridge at Pigeon River, MN, which closed in 1961 in favor of the one at Grand Portage. Most of the crossings listed here are staffed 24/7 (bridges and Warroad/Sprague) or at least year-round for large parts of the day (Lancaster/Tolstoi, Pinecreek/Piney, and Roseau/South Junction), so I expect Gerrard and McFadden will have used the unstaffed Angle Inlet crossing, where you're supposed to go to a video phone eight miles away to make your customs declarations.

( Scene 11 )

"Snowback"?!

( Scene 12 )

The weapons issue is surely a federal crime, so it's not up to the state's attorney (which is Illinois for DA) to prosecute. Maybe she's calling because Nash is bringing a grand theft charge?

Couldn't Fraser just have obstructed some justice last week instead of going through that whole Milk Duds–stealing rigmarole with Huey and Gardino?

( Scene 13 )

IDLE: Er, if . . . we . . . er —
PALIN: Yes?
IDLE: If we, er —
PALIN: Look, it’s simple. Just stay here and make sure he doesn't leave the room.
CHAPMAN: [hiccup]
PALIN: Right?
IDLE: Oh, I remember. Can he, er, can he leave the room with us?
PALIN: No. Keep him in here, and make sure he doesn't —
IDLE: Oh, yes! we’ll keep him in here, obviously. But if he had to leave and we were with him.
PALIN: No. Just keep him in here.
IDLE: Until you or anyone else —
PALIN: No, not anyone else. Just me.
IDLE: — just you —
CHAPMAN: [hiccup]
IDLE: — get back.
PALIN: Right.

Things that amuse me about this scene: Louise St. Laurent's absolute time capsule of a burnt-orange lipstick that matches her hair. (It's the same color she's worn the whole time we've known her, but somehow in this scene it has really struck me.) Welsh's pursed-lip glare. Turnbull's super-prim feet-and-knees-together-under-his-desk seated pose. McFadden's mishmosh of "complicit" and "duplicitous."

( Scene 14 )

"Ever since Waco" refers to the 1993 siege and destruction by fire of the Branch Davidian cult compound near Waco, Texas. Both the ATF and the FBI bungled that situation badly, but at the time, the ATF was a component of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the FBI (as always) of the U.S. Department of Justice, so it's not totally clear to me how the latter would have been able to simply "absorb" the former. (Uncle Wiki says ATF was briefly a division of the FBI in the 1930s just as Prohibition was ending.) I mean, ATF was transferred to DOJ in 2003 in a post-9/11 reorganization of federal cabinet departments, but the two bureaus' remits are different enough that the one absorbing the other doesn't seem at all obvious to me.

( Scene 15 )

McFadden is leaning hard on the idea that Fraser has it in for Gerrard, isn't he. From "You're not just going to pick up the phone and kick around old times" to "He could be dead, this guy's got the motive" to "I'll have you indicted" (which is not really his prerogative as an ATF agent, but never mind). And by the way, ATF agents are feds, too, just like FBI agents, so it's not totally kosher that "the feds" are the other guys in this conversation McFadden is having.

I guess if I'm going to line-check Hamlet references and do 200 words on O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi," I should probably take three seconds to point out in case anyone is unaware that Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, whose names (TIL) may originally have come from an 18th-century epigram about the composers Bononcini and Handel and are generally used today to refer to a pair of people who are so alike as makes little if any difference. It's a surprisingly literary reference for Vecchio to make, but I suppose there's a better than even chance he saw the movie if it was re-released or televised in his childhood? (He's from before VHS tapes, of course.)

( Scene 16 )

Why is Ovitz looking for Fraser (or Gerrard), incidentally? (Why isn't he with Thatcher, wherever she is?)

IDLE: Okay. Fine. We'll remain here until you get back.
PALIN: And make sure he doesn't leave.
IDLE: What?
PALIN: Make sure he doesn't leave.
IDLE: Who, the prince?
PALIN: Yes! Make sure —
IDLE: Oh, yes, of course! I thought you meant him! You know, it seemed a bit daft, me having to guard him when he's a guard.
PALIN: Is that clear?
CHAPMAN: [hiccup]
IDLE: Oh, yes. That’s quite clear. No problems.
PALIN: Where are you going?
IDLE: We're coming with you.

( Scene 17 )

Borland's license plate is RCW 139. The mystery continues. (There is of course no mystery about how Vecchio helped with that tire. I'd say it is indeed commendable, but probably not in the way Fraser means.)

( Scene 18 )

This scene is pretty continuous, but I'm going to cut here so I don't have to wait forever to talk about two things. First, apparently after cuffing Gerrard's hands behind him at the consulate, at some point Fraser recuffed them in front of him before they came here. I guess that will have been at the same time as he and Vecchio changed into civvies?, because at the consulate Fraser was in his red uniform and Vecchio was in a suit, and now Fraser is in blue jeans and a different plaid flannel shirt and probably a different leather jacket, the previous jacket and the blue buffalo check shirt having presumably been ruined by the gunshot (as will have been the light blue henley, but I can't see what layer he's got under the plaid flannel at this time), and Vecchio is in a charcoal cable-knit turtleneck sweater. They both look great.

Second, regrettably, the bit of barrel that is going to be where Fraser's knife lands is clearly visible the entire time Gerrard is sitting against the thing.

I'm not an expert in stunts and effects and whatnot, but I assume a number of things:

• I assume the prop knife Paul Gross pulled out of his boot was blunt.
• Even so, I assume Ken Pogue was nowhere in front of him when he "threw" it.
• Even so, I assume that for the safety of the camera crew, Gross dropped the prop knife behind his back or never actually let go of it at all.
• I assume the knife that landed in the wood block to Pogue's left was pulled there in a whole different shot by some system of wires and magnets.
• I assume the sounds of the knife whooshing through the air and hitting the wood were added in post.

I applaud the effort they made to camouflage the target bit of that barrel, but by me the effort was entirely unsuccessful. I wonder if it would have been better if they'd built out the whole barrel in that extra-puffy paneling, and then the relevant staff (or section of staff) had been the only one with a slot in it? Maybe that wouldn't have been safe enough, which of course is ultimately much more important than how it looks.

( Scene 19 )

First things first: He is totally sulking.

So the last time the Frasers spoke before Bob's death was Christmas 1993, which if Bob was audibly uneasy about the Gerrard thing lends support to the idea that he was killed in February rather than in August and I'm probably just going to have to live with that. Sigh.

I don't know if Bob would actually have hit Ben if he'd ever said "I love you, Dad." Maybe a whap upside the head, not an actual punitive strike such as Vecchio obliquely describes getting from his father. I need to admit to myself that the early and mid-1960s of Fraser's childhood were a different time than the late 1970s and early 1980s of mine, quite apart from the vast differences between the real relationship I had with my real parents and the fictitious relationship Fraser had with his fictitious ones. 😊 So when I think "Bob wouldn't have hit Ben, would he?" the answer is "Sure, maybe. Probably." BUT whether he would or wouldn't have done so is immaterial because this conversation is happening in Ben's head, and the Bob who is Ben's subconscious is saying "No, that's right, you could absolutely not have had this conversation in any productive way while we were both living." I'm interested by the blaming-the-grandmother of it all, though. The grandmother we met briefly in "Letting Go" was no coddler; Bob himself had to remind her that Ben had been shot and wasn't just staying in bed out of laziness.

( Scene 20 )

So the bad guy was bad enough that he was multiple-crossing Gerrard, which Gerrard frankly should probably have expected—not that Gerrard is actually a good guy, and "Yeah, you're an honorable man" was a nice touch (don't forget that Brutus is an honorable man, though I am not for a moment suggesting that McFadden be thought of in the Antony role here). I'd have preferred that the baddest bad guy in the episode not be the first Black man we've seen in a minute.

Pinsent is 5'8" according to IMDb. It's possible he may have been taller in his youth, but he's not stooped or anything here, is he. Pogue (1934–2015) was 5'9 3/4" also according to IMDb, and who do you suppose was that persnickety about that last quarter-inch and didn't just call the man 5'10" and be done with it? Honestly. So anyway, that's Gerrard taller than Bob Fraser for sure, maybe enough so to make an impression on Ben as a kid, or Ben could just be monologuing to buy time, which is actually what most of the first part of that scene is about, isn't it? He's summing up like an Agatha Christie detective. (Even 6'2" isn't tall enough for a seven-year-old not to be able to reach his belt, unless the seven-year-old is unusually small and the 6'2" man is all, I mean all leg.) (Just since we're on the subject of everyone's relative height, Paul Gross is listed at 6' even.)

Speaking of Pogue, though, we're now less than five minutes from the end of the episode, so there's not enough time left for Lee Purcell (as Louise St. Laurent) to have an important enough role to out-bill him in the guest credits—so wtf. (He was also billed behind Wendel Meldrum as Constable Brighton in the pilot. Seems like he got a raw deal to me.)

Anyway, I'm also glad we're back in the land of Chekov's Plot Devices and the Rule of Threes, and Vecchio's tape recorder works the third time we see it. 😊

So what do we think happened when Bob shouted "Let's get out of here" and the bad guys got it in their heads to get out of there? Of course, the Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.

( Scene 21 )

Vecchio is out of bullets, but never mind, I guess? The feds are going to go quietly at this point? Anyway, the important thing is, wait a minute, Bob can appear to Gerrard? I suppose I can see where Gerrard's own subconscious mind might have a thing or two to say to him about his actions over the past few years, so if he knew Bob as well as he did, I can dig that he might think yes, even now, Bob would try to help me rather than just letting me fall.

( Scene 22 )

I suppose St. Laurent will be the prosecutor of the particular violent crimes that took place here in Chicago, but I still think the gun-smuggling stuff is federal and not her business. Apparently she and Vecchio are okay now (or she doesn't care about the Turner brothers case anymore?), so that's something.

Poor Fraser. Did we know he'd been shot in the right leg before? We knew his left leg had been broken and reset twice; I'd have said that might mean his left leg could be fractionally shorter than his right—not that that's why they were walking in circles up in the northern woods, but still. Only we didn't know before that the right leg had been shot, did we? We know about the stabbing, is all we know about the right leg. Anyway, if Vecchio's note had said "If you must shoot me in the leg, please shoot the other leg," that would have been better, but that's probably too many words.

Oh, and the title. Of course the old adage is "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," which is a warning against the risk of losing what you've got by betting you'll be able to increase it. (As the fellow sang, you've got to know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em; know when to walk away; know when to run.) I always thought Gerrard was the bird, and the feds were hoping they could get Nash as well but might end up with neither of them; but now the more I think about it, I think Gerrard is the one doing the unwise gamble, having gone to prison for hiring the hit on Bob Fraser but basically got away with the weapons smuggling stuff and now rolling the dice again where he might go free for all of his crimes but he might also get himself killed.

Cumulative body count: 16
Red uniform: The whole episode except when the three of them are hiding out at the warehouse

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