return to due South: season 4 episode 6 (or season 3 episode 19) "Odds"

Odds
air date November 11, 1998

( Scene 1 )

Is it just me, or does "It's been a bad month, it's been a bad night, well, a bad year" not actually make sense? He should have said "It's been a bad night" and then escalated from there.

In poker, a half moon is a semicircular table. So the woman, sitting on the straight edge, is the dealer; this is her game.

( Scene 2 )

And "scarpa" means "shoe." She should be named Donna Scarpa, why not.

( Scene 2 continues. )

I can make out almost none of the lyrics to the song—it seems to begin with "Sounds beneath the window" and I can hear "the ancient of the old" because I've been told (by the end credits) that's the title, but not much else. Can't find it online anywhere. Anyone got any help?

As-Nas as the ancestor of poker: very possibly. "I poke you" en français: it seems less likely.

Fraser is looking at Denny Scarpa with the same kind of expression of finding this woman compelling and not really understanding why that he had when he met Janet Morse, so this is sure to go well.

It's not surprising that Dewey thinks he could beat an expert in her own area of expertise just because that expert is a woman. This is a world in which one in eight men (in a nonscientific survey, though one imagines precisely none of the men in the survey were tennis players) believed they could score a point against Serena Williams. And much as in the case of the Dude Perfect Show, I would love to see Detective Thomas Dewey try to bluff Lady Shoes at her own table. For fuck's sake.

Credits roll.

Paul Gross
Callum Keith Rennie
Beau Starr
Camilla Scott
Tony Craig | Tom Melissis
Ramona Milano
and Gordon Pinsent as Fraser Sr.

(plus Draco the dog)

Stephanie Romanov, Andrew Tarbet, Paul Miller, Jack Nicholsen

(plus Dacquim the dog)

( Scene 3 )

Kowalski notices it too! As if Fraser has never before fallen for a woman he didn't know.

( Scene 4 )

I think Francesca becoming a cop is a terrible idea, of course, but (a) I understand her struggle to Find Herself and (b) I have to say I have not stopped loving the Welsh-Francesca father-daughter dynamic. ❤️

What kind of odd head shape would prevent a person wearing a veil? I have a deceptively large head, myself, so mass-produced hats tend not to fit me and I usually have to go with the largest size when I'm knitting myself a hat, but doesn't a chapel veil just drape over the head? I'm confused by Francesca's hat situation.

She is also, since we're talking about the shape of Francesca's body, not at all puffy or wearing a top layer or hidden behind her desk or a file folder or a vase or otherwise visibly dealing with the fact that the actress is pregnant at this time. This episode aired just a week after the previous episode, but who knows what order they were shot in, which I suppose is another reason not to give the character the same pregnancy as the actress. 🤷

( Scene 5 )

I mean, I don't think so? You can hold a coffee cup in two hands?

( Scene 6 )

It's no wonder Fraser's back is giving him trouble, being how he landed (a) hard (b) [right where the bullet is still threatening his spine(https://fox.dreamwidth.org/1503518.html#cutid3). Yikes.

White and Exley, of course, are the main characters in L.A. Confidential, the latter of whom is the son of a famous detective who was murdered—where have we heard this before? Anyway, I'll take Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce over these two cats any day.

( Scene 7 )

What would she have done if one of the detectives had drawn the ace of spades, I wonder?

( Scene 8 )

Goood.

( Scene 9 )

( Scene 10 )

The predictability of this stunt is slightly hampered for me by its depending on a poncho. Why is this civilian aide (apparently a civilian bicycle aide?) wearing a poncho? Is it raining?

( Scene 11 )

Those feds are a couple of fuckwits.

( Scene 12 )

( Scene 13 )

I don't see why she doesn't just lift the table out of the cuff? It's not as if it's bolted to the floor? So I don't know, maybe she's not that bright after all.

I do enjoy the extras going by at the end of the alley puzzled and entertained by Fraser and Kowalski lying there on their backs talking to each other. (They can't be random passers-by, can they?, because randos would stop and try to watch the scene being filmed, which wouldn't do at all.)

The license plate on the car was LGB 648. We've seen that one before.

( Scene 14 )

1. Fraser is totally falling for her. Observe that he says "I'm not" in the same tone he used in "Bird in the Hand" to say "[I don't sulk](https://fox.dreamwidth.org/1506769.html#cutid19)" when he was, in fact, sulking.
2. I'm getting tired of his assumption that women need protecting.
3. Before anyone argues that Kowalski should have said "card sharp" instead of "card shark," I looked into it, and both terms have been in use for more than 100 years.

( Scene 15 )

I . . . kind of love Drunk Thatcher. I also enjoy Fraser standing there having no real idea what (if anything) to do—although he should probably be glad she's off her face, because Sober Thatcher doesn't like it when he houses random women in the consulate even when Fraser is the only one wearing a union suit—but Drunk Thatcher is pleasing me greatly.

( Scene 16 )

"Depends on how you define cheating" means she totally cheats, doesn't it.

But mainly: That massage scene was not far shy of soft porn, holy crap. The low light, the sultry music, the moaning? The last time we saw Fraser this intimate and unguarded with anyone was when he put Victoria's fingers in his mouth, which of course means, 🚨🚨🚨

( Scene 17 )

See in cable syndication you can do a lot more innuendo than you could do when you were on network television so I know they're talking about all of her rather than about any part of him but they also just went ahead and said SHARK IN HIS UNDERWEAR?!

( Scene 17 continues. )

No proof that she's protecting someone, Fraser? Did we not learn underneath Lake Superior that Kowalski's instincts are worth listening to?

( Scene 18 )

( Scene 19 )

She couldn't claim asylum?

( Scene 20 )

Fraser, Fraser, Fraser, you are someone she can use.

( Scene 21 )

[flinch] Ooh, he said that. Oof. It was 1998 all right.

( Scene 21 continues. )

"We are on Fourth Street" just means Kowalski is dealing out the fourth card of the hand.

Huey has played poker with Fraser before, is the thing. (We talked then about how gambling is illegal in Illinois, too, but the show seems to overlook that when it's inconvenient.) Remember, he lied to get him to fold a straight flush. Fraser's been hit on the head a couple of times since then, but why wouldn't Huey remember that?

( Scene 22 )

( Scene 23 )

After the neck massage in scene 17, that kiss was practically chaste. (Practically.)

( Scene 24 )

🤨 It's been less than 90 seconds since he asked her who said he doesn't trust her. Turns out our boy does know how to bluff.

( Scene 24 continues. )

Can he not back out because doing this scam is going to make him a man?

( Scene 25 )

( Scene 26 )

Although she has a Russian name, the actress was born in Las Vegas, so damned if I can see why she should suddenly in the beginning of this scene seem to have a trace of an accent.

( Scene 27 )

Hmm, a man named Lawrence was killed in Bakersfield, not unlike Denny Scarpa's brother Larry? Hmm. Never mind: Has this whole episode been an excuse to get Fraser into a tuxedo? Because I'm okay with that.

( Scene 28 )

Okay I think "Hey, I own that tux" / "What do you charge?" is funny.

( Scene 29 )

Relax, you pinheads, it's been one hand.

( Scene 30 )

He's going rogue, that's what he's doing.

Packard wouldn't have been her given name, of course; he means it was her original surname. I guess this is where they pay off the adoption records he was looking at in scene 17?

( Scene 30 continues. )

The Joey-and-Denny thing feels a little underdeveloped to me. He's the trigger man, but he apparently doesn't know that she's out to get Farah for personal reasons rather than just to rob everyone at her game and keep all the money for herself (although if she's that good, either at poker or at cheating, why does she need to have Joey come in and bomb the place to get all the money)? But anyway, he's had enough and wants to get out of this line of work, and she talks him into doing one more game—only he's at the table in this one rather than disrupting it, so, okay—and then they can be together always? So basically she's using him even more than she's using Fraser, right? But why on earth can't she shoot Farah herself with that gun she was smiling about a few minutes ago? I don't really see the point of Joey at all, to be honest.

( Scene 31 )

But Kowalski does owe Fraser air. He did even before they bet air on this poker game just now.

Fraser is wearing a sleeve garter on his right arm (and probably also on his left, but we can't see it from here). Can it be that he's borrowed Huey's shirt along with the rest of his tuxedo (presumably including the tie and studs and cufflinks), and the sleeves are too long? (By the way, with a black tie he should have worn a fold-down collar; that stand-up wing collar goes with white tie. Hardly anybody actually follows this rule anymore, but they should.) Or is the sleeve garter just there as part of the gambling costume? He didn't take his jacket off at the poker table, so what's the point—except looking good, which I admit it does? (The deck they're using has Canadian flags on the cards, which I think is adorable.)

Cumulative body count: 35
Red uniform: Most of the episode, though without the tunic some of the time, and finishing in black tie

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