return to Due South: season 2 episode 15 "Body Language"

Body Language
air date April 25, 1996

( Scene 1 )

(Should the bicycle messenger have been riding on the street rather than the sidewalk?)

Credits roll.

Paul Gross
David Marciano
Beau Starr
Tony Craig
Catherine Bruhier

(plus Lincoln the dog)

Camilla Scott, Lisa Engelman, Nick Sandow, and Milton Berle as Shelley Litvak

Milton Berle (1908–2002) may be the biggest shot to have been on this show. (Ruffalo may have grown up to be a bigger shot, but he nor Ryan Phillippe weren't big stars when they guested here.) Bigger than Leslie Nielsen? I think maybe. For sure this is the first person who isn't Gordon Pinsent to get an "and/as" credit.

( Scene 2 )

How does he know where to look?

( Scene 3 )

Is the diner the same place Fraser and Bob were eating when Victoria turned up? It looks pretty similar, but on the other hand, if you've seen one lunch counter, you've seen many, many of them. The diner is definitely playing "New World Coming" by Dawn Aitken on the stereo, which is a neat trick, as that song was written for s1e8 "Chicago Holiday part 2"—like, it exists in our world as a bit of soundtrack, but apparently it exists as a pop song in the world of the show as well. (Doylewise, it was probably cheaper than licensing a "real" song nobody would hear much of anyway.)

I think "How could you not remember" is a bullshit question for Vecchio to ask. People don't always remember things, and he's asking a waitress about a random customer without being able to tell her anything that necessarily should be memorable about her, so what the fuck? (But now Vecchio is the one who knows where to look, and at least this statement of "know where to look" is motivated.)

( Scene 4 )

Fraser is doing a lot better than he did in the lingerie emporium that time. Good for him, I feel like he's growing. Of course what I want to know is: Whose bachelor party did he attend where he won the prize for the moose call? I'll start the betting with Steve.

( Scene 5 )

Are they laundering this money, or what?

I can find no lyrics to any of the songs where we can hear people singing. It doesn't help that there is also a song called "I'd Rather Be Your Lover" by Madonna, which this one is clearly not.

( Scene 6 )

What they're going for with the dancer appearing as she does is a reference to Botticelli's Venus on the Half-Shell The Birth of Venus, and I suppose I'll allow it. It's vaguely interesting to have an exotic dancer appear more dressed than what she's meant to be representing.

( Scene 7 )

Vecchio's sojourn into the world of Good Cop lasted about four seconds, yeah? And then it's threatening witnesses with subpoenas and implying a person can't both have a conscience and work as an exotic dancer, and sigh. (I don't know how Fraser knows Ida doesn't smoke.)

( Scene 8 )

How much illegal gambling does Vecchio do?! Playing poker for large amounts of money and betting on prize fights?

( Scene 9 )

Thatcher's backlash against last episode's smoochies is right on cue.

( Scene 10 )

I don't know what's going on with this points system Huey and Vecchio are talking about, but it's good to see Huey getting his sea legs back.

( Scene 11 )

You stop them because they're not the only ones getting hurt when they fight one another, Huey. Your job is to protect and serve, is it not?

( Scene 12 )

( Scene 13 )

That's right, there are other people affected by what the police and the Mob do! Who knew? It's almost like we live in a society.

( Scene 14 )

See, if I were Ordover, and I said "Somebody must be talking" and the guy in front of me said "No, not me," that's the point I'd begin to suspect him if I weren't already. Barry would have done better to say something like "Who do you think it is?" But: Why wasn't Barry one of the guys the police found at the warehouse? Given that when he was talking in his sleep he was begging to be allowed to do it and promising that he would.

( Scene 15 )

Is it important that Fraser keeps referring to the rat as "her" rather than "it"?

( Scene 16 )

Isadora Duncan was an important dancer in the early 20th century, arguably the creator of modern dance. I can't find anywhere she's quoted as saying clothing is dishonest, but she did eschew corsets, high collars, long sleeves, and other constricting garments and performed in Greek-inspired loose flowing tunics, leaving her arms and legs visible, and with her feet bare. (Scandale!)

( Scene 17 )

The 1:4 ratio of jalapeños and honey makes me wonder: Can Diefenbaker do math?

( Scene 18 )

When Litvak says "get along, little dogy," he's referring to the lyrics of a cowboy ballad or cattle-driving song:

Whoopie-tee-yi-yo, git along, little dogy
It's your misfortune and none of my own
Whoopie-tee-yi-yo, git along, little dogy
For you know Wyoming will be your new home.

A dogy is an orphaned calf in a herd of cattle. There's apparently a lot of "Get Along Little Doggie" all over Al Gore's Internet, but it's nonsense; you don't drive herds of dogs.

( Scene 19 )

I guess the point of this conversation is that Barry doesn't follow through?

( Scene 20 )

Here he is not following through on the assignment to kill someone, for example.

( Scene 21 )

So Ordover is systematically attacking Litvak. Why? Maybe just because he's bigger?

( Scene 22 )

One doesn't care to think what they're going to do to her.

( Scene 23 )

This is a surprisingly sensible assessment by Fraser and Vecchio of how long it will take Ida to change and do makeup and get out of her apartment again. By which I mean, usually isn't this sort of thing played for laughs? Men think "oh my God, a woman went back upstairs to fix her makeup and change her clothes, we'll never see her again," but these guys assume she will be timely joining them so they're alarmed when she doesn't.

( Scene 24 )

Ordover is fairly good at that reverse psychology thing.

( Scene 25 )

It's not clear if Fraser is using "came out of the closet" metaphorically as well as literally, or what.

( Scene 26 )

I have no doubt Fraser and Vecchio understood each other perfectly through all this dialogue.

( Scene 27 )

( Scene 28 )

Nonsense! Fraser dislocated his shoulder to get out of a straitjacket not 18 months ago.

( Scene 29 )

Fraser taking Vecchio's suggestion literally and then it immediately working out for him is an extremely satisfying throwback to the early days of this show and I love it very much.

( Scene 30 )

How did Vecchio get in, though?

( Scene 31 )

It's a long time since I've worried about stepping on a crack and breaking my mother's back, but was it all indentations in the pavement you had to avoid or only post-installation cracks? Like, sidewalks have seams built in; are those cracks, or are they something else? My kid is definitely in the hopping-around-while-we-walk-home stage, but he'll jump over anything—a grate, a leaf, a splotch of gum. He hops over the white stripes in the crosswalk. So he wouldn't be any help.

Anyway, is this the first woman we've ever seen who looks at Vecchio and doesn't even notice Fraser standing there? No wonder he's so flummoxed.

Cumulative body count: 24
Red uniform: The whole episode

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