return to due South: season 4 episode 11 (or season 3 episode 24) "Hunting Season"

Hunting Season
air date March 11, 1999

( Scene 1 )

Does he mean he wants to see more of her specifically or more of people taking those two guys down a peg?

( Scene 2 )

Head cheese probably is pretty durable; it's a terrine made from veal or pork face preserved in aspic, and I don't see why it wouldn't keep in an uninsulated light airplane in the far north in March, where the daily average high is not higher than 10°F (-12°C), much colder than an ordinary refrigerator. (Why on earth Jake is transporting 500 lbs. of the stuff is a separate question.)

( Scene 3 )

"My constable name" is cute. I'd have preferred it if the restatement of "constable" had been slightly different; I think "My constable, uh, my constable name is Benton Fraser" would have been funnier. (I mean but I'd always prefer it if he didn't say "My name is Constable Benton Fraser," because it's not. His name is Benton Fraser, and his rank or title is Constable. "I am Constable Benton Fraser," yes; "My name is Constable Benton Fraser," no. Ah well.) I don't know why he's not on a stepladder to change that light bulb, but whatever, I guess the Canadian consulate is not subject to OSHA regulations?

Also, you know, the name Mackenzie should indeed be familiar to a dude who grew up in Inuvik on account of Inuvik is on the delta of the mighty Mackenzie River, which rises at the western end of the Great Slave Lake and flows more than a thousand miles north to the Arctic Ocean, draining most of the Northwest Territories (almost all, now; about half when what is now Nunavut was still NWT), more than half of Alberta, and fair slices of northern Saskatchewan and BC. To say nothing of the fact that there is a town of Mackenzie a hundred-odd miles north of the northern bend of the Fraser River in British Columbia. My point is that these are not uncommon names.

(When I was looking for the course of the Mackenzie I learned that there is a community on its banks named Little Chicago, about which all the internet seems to know is that it's there. I put it on the map for you for free.)

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)

Dean McDermott, Matt Heney, Vince Bruni, and Jessica Steen as Maggie

( Scene 4 )

Those would be the official channels, because you're not just a Mountie, you're the deputy liaison officer. Why is the fact that Fraser has a friend in the Chicago PD presented like some sort of brainstorm?

It's odd that Maggie can vaguely hear Bob, right? The only ones other than Fraser who've ever been able to see him have been Gerrard and Frobisher, although a few minutes before Gerrard saw him Bob was able to make his voice audible to the bad guys when the situation called for it. But this doesn't seem to be something he's doing on purpose. Hmm. 🤔

(I guess Fraser probably said "Here, let me have your bag.")

( Scene 5 )

It doesn't take Fraser long to go from "my friend at the Chicago Police Department might be able to help" to "back off, friend at the Chicago Police Department." But seriously, what did he think was going to happen when he put a pretty blonde woman in front of Ray Kowalski?

What's actually a little surprising is how interested in her Fraser seems to be himself, his preference having generally* run to brunettes before now (with, if you're leaning that way, just the one obvious exception. Not, of course, that hair color is the only relevant factor; Fraser, at least, isn't that shallow (though Kowalski, so far, may be), and the women he's bothered to notice and be interested in have almost all had background or interests or both that he shared. Your main control-group examples are Miss Cabot, who was all equestrian and countrified (though in a rich-girl way), but blonde, and whom he was not interested in at all; and Francesca, who is a brunette, but with whom he has very little in common except proximity to the police department, and whom he has never been especially interested in. (I feel like it's highly unlikely that he did sleep with her, but if he did, it was probably because it was easier than not?) So your outliers are Elaine, a brunette with whom he has much more in common than Francesca but whom he is also not interested in, and Katherine Burns, a blonde with whom he has nothing at all in common but for whom he leaves his post to join at the party and waltz on the patio. (I assume whatever relationship they had went nowhere.)

*I admit Mackenzie King is an edge case; she was a brunette the first time we met her and a blonde the second, but he was maybe more into her the second time than the first. And for sure she was more interested in Fraser than he was in her. But except for Victoria and Janet, about whom is that not true? Meh, leave her off this list if you want. My point holds even without her.

Anyway, it hasn't taken Fraser long to get hung up on Maggie Mackenzie, but she's from Inuvik, 1999 population just a little more than 3,000. Say a little less than a quarter of those 3,000 people are under 20 and almost 60% are over 35, that leaves maaaybe 20% between 20 and 35, which is 600 people. What are the odds Fraser meets one of the (statistically speaking) not quite 300 women in his age group of interest from his home town in Chicago? Taken that way, it's not a huge shock that he's drawn to her.

Francesca, for some reason, still thinks she has a shot at Fraser and is conflicted between solidarity with Maggie (she hasn't spoken to another woman on our screens since she asked Mama Lalla about the curse on the station, which is one of a very few times she's spoken to other women at all, only about half of which have passed the Bechdel test) and wanting to shove her at Kowalski so Fraser will be unoccupied and free to return his attention to herself, which he's not going to do.

( Scene 6 )

I see now that the "correction" re: Yukon and NWT in "A Likely Story" was probably planted for the purpose of being able to call back to it here, but that doesn't make Fraser's correction accurate, and he should stop being a dick immediately.

( Scene 6 continues. )

I was going to skip over the gross way Fraser and Kowalski are behaving toward Maggie and toward each other and just point out that Maggie has one star on her sleeve (she did say five years, and it appears she wasn't rounding up) and a marksmanship qualification for pistol but not rifle. But I'm also going to note that Bob, that is, Fraser's subconscious, isn't really sure what he wants, is he? Get some land, build a house, feel trapped? Innnteresting.

( Scene 7 )

Polygraph is useless at determining truthfulness, but never mind.

( Scene 7 continues. )

Kowalski:Maggie::Francesca:Fraser. (Oh, wait, didn't I read somewhere that they don't do analogies on the SAT anymore? How much younger than myself does a reader have to be for that notation to be meaningless? Ugh, I am feeling older every minute.) His failure to realize that his openings are being left lying on the floor is making me extremely uncomfortable.

( Scene 8 )

( Scene 9 )

Are these the Torrelli brothers?

( Scene 10 )

I feel like any minute now the words "You betcha" are going to come out of this woman's mouth.

( Scene 10 continues. )

When last we heard of Joe Obodiak, he was a janitor in Eagle River. Now he was apparently a blacksmith in Eagle Creek. Although Mackenzie and Fraser are not unusual names, I feel like Obodiak kind of is, so maybe get your show bible together, writers' room? Although the name does get me a fair few hits when I google it—generally in Saskatchewan, which, as luck would have it, is also where there is a rural municipality named Eagle Creek. (There's also an Eagle Creek in BC, in the suburbs of Vancouver, but I'm not sure someone living there would need a moose hide tanned for him every year. Of course I'm also not sure how someone in Eagle Creek, SK, would be in regular communication with someone in Inuvik, but one thing the writers of this show have been consistent about is the northwestern folks moving around a lot over there, so who knows, maybe the Mackenzies came south . . . to Saskatchewan . . . for the winter?)

( Scene 10 continues to continue. )

I ADORE Maggie asking if Bob has seen her mother. I loved that about her the first time I saw this episode mumbleteen years ago and I love it even more now, years after losing my own dad. That little moment between her and Bob is just gorgeous: the way she's kind of quickly processed that she's speaking to a ghost and decided to roll with it, and the first thing, the first thing she does is ask about her mother; and the kind of combination tone he puts on the word "No"—he's both delighted and confused to be talking to someone other than Ben and (but) sorry he doesn't have a different answer for her. Brilliant, brilliant. Nice work, Steen; beautiful work, Pinsent. ❤️

( Scene 11 )

( Scene 12 )

I was going to say something about how the pemmican always looks like jerky, but I see I've already done that. The point stands. At least they've been consistent?

( Scene 13 )

Franco Zeffirelli was the director of the Romeo and Juliet you probably saw when your high school English teacher showed it on video (but the stars of which were abused in its filming), among other things. He seems to have been an antisemite and a hypocrite. Imagine our shock.

( Scene 14 )

( Scene 15 )

Apparently Turnbull's not the giant dope people (including Fraser and Thatcher) tend to think he is. I still can't work out the basis on which Thatcher's subordinates choose to call her "sir" vs. "ma'am."

( Scene 16 )

Kowalski did his weird nasal "well, that's great" thing again. I don't care for it.

( Scene 17 )

[suspenseful chord] The plot thickens.

( Scene 18 )

See, the thing for him to do would have been to go stand by Maggie and take her by the arm as soon as Thatcher said boo on the phone, rather than huddle up and whisper about her and give her a chance to abscond.

( Scene 19 )

Fraser is hanging his head, pretty ashamed of himself, and it's not easy to watch. Is he thinking about the time he told Kowalski he'd never made a procedural mistake? Is he thinking about the last time he believed in a woman he didn't really know, who turned out to have taken advantage of him, killed people, etc.? Because I am. It's actually pretty sympathetic of Thatcher to point out that Maggie was very convincing; like, it's not at all wrong of her and Welsh to be pretty mad right now, right?

( Scene 20 )

Thatcher is not wrong on the principle: Fraser's been lucky many, many times, but his naivete was bound to catch up with him at some point, wasn't it?

( Scene 21 )

SEAT BELTS, fellas. Also: Nobody's checking for parasites in that urban bush meat. Rosie might be getting protein and culling the local rat population, but who knows what kind of public health emergency she's setting herself up to be the nexus of. Tsk.

( Scene 22 )

If the husband called himself Casey Mackenzie, then Mackenzie is Maggie's married name, so how is the fact that her mother and his father were friends contributing to his feeling that the name is familiar? (Except, as I said, that it's not an unusual name in the first place?)

His not-always-being-such-a-dope aside, I'm generally as happy to dunk on Turnbull as the next person; but I have to wonder two things.

1. Fraser had the paper in his own hands; why on earth couldn't he tear the fucking article out himself in the first place rather than handing it back to Turnbull and asking him to do it?
2. Why do they need to tear it out at all?

I have a very clear memory of watching Angels and Demons in 2009—the one in which Ewan McGregor burns his own chest with a branding iron, yes, that might have something to do with the clarity of my memory—and the biggest jump scare of all being when the female sidekick tells Tom Hanks they don't have time to copy something into their notes and tears a page out of a volume in the Vatican archives. I may have screamed out loud. My point is this: Even if they don't have a stepladder, do they not have such a thing in the Canadian consulate as a COPY MACHINE?

( Scene 23 )

Everybody's deeply involved with people they don't really know that well, it seems. (Why couldn't Thatcher stop Maggie herself? Come on, lady, are you a Mountie or aren't you?)

( Scene 24 )

Let's get Turnbull speaking French out of the way first, shall we? Yes yes the caption says "A street in Paris," so what he's supposed to have said is "Champs Élysées, mon ami," the Avenue des Champs Élysées being, yes, ho-hum, a street in Paris. Forsooth. It is the street in Paris, named for the Elysian Fields, the classical Greek heavenly afterlife. Normally the s at the end of "champs" would be silent, but because the next word begins with a vowel, in this name it is pronounced; but there's no "de" in the name anywhere, although Turnbull pronounced his second word very clearly as "d'Élysée," in which case he shouldn't have pronounced the s at all. Given that he also very clearly did pronounce the s, I've transcribed his utterance as "chance d'Élysée," which would mean "[the] luck (or fortune) of heaven." I'll absolutely grant that the subtitle is right there telling us that he was referring to the Champs Élysées, but if the show is going to spend all that time not re-recording dialogue until the actors by God pronounce things properly, I'm going to spend all this time reporting what they actually fucking said.

In either case, he probably doesn't mean "We'll always have Paris;" he probably means "This is not the end" or "Until we meet again" or something of that sort, and maybe he should have said "bonne courage" or "au revoir, not good-bye" or similar.

Thatcher defacing Fraser's uniform by snipping the lanyard is vaguely entertaining. Nobody really thought she was going to cut his throat when she came over to him with that giant knife and he uncovered his neck, but the idea that cutting a lanyard is the RCMP equivalent of handing in a shield is . . . no, okay, it's silly. Wouldn't it make more sense to slice the crown emblems off his epaulettes? And how would they demote Thatcher, if they needed to, who spends most of her time in business attire?

( Scene 25 )

My guess is, Ellen Stern must have known what kind of dad Bob Fraser was and figured he'd make the same contribution to the upbringing of his child whether he knew about her or not. And Fraser knows this, too, which is why he reminds his subconscious father that he didn't take the time to get to know either of his children.

( Scene 26 )

I have no earthly idea why that conversation had to happen in the men's room. None. Also, Francesca is back on her snacking, so one continues to be stumped about the relationship between the order in which the episodes were shot, the order in which they were aired, and the progress of Milano's pregnancy.

( Scene 27 )

This feels to me like it rhymes just a bit with Return of the Jedi:

HAN: I'm sure Luke wasn't on that thing when it blew.
LEIA: He wasn't. I can feel it.
HAN: You love him, don't you.
LEIA: Well, yes.
HAN: All right. I understand. Fine. When he comes back, I won't get in the way.
LEIA: Oh — it's not like that at all. He's my brother.

Except of course that what we've got here is Han and Luke talking about the connection between Luke and Leia (and Han not yet magnanimously offering to step aside). I think it's right for Fraser to leave it vague at this point, though, because "we're brother and sister, you and I" is the kind of news he ought to deliver to Maggie first, before he tells Kowalski.

Anyway, also, we only get the one verse of the song. The rest (which McLachlan in 1994 sings the same lyrics Gordon Lightfoot sang in 1967) goes:

The smoke is rising in the shadows overhead
My glass is almost empty
I read again between the lines upon each page
The words of love you sent me
If I could know within my heart
That you were lonely too
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter's night with you
The fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim
The shades of night are lifting
The morning light steals across my windowpane
Where webs of snow are drifting
If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter's night with you

( Scene 27 continues. )

I am not a lawyer in the United States, much less in Canada, but based on my extremely amateur researches in the Criminal Code of Canada, the Torrellis' bank robbery gang may have constituted a criminal organization, and their murder of Casey Richmond-or-Mackenzie will have been caused by them for the benefit of or in association with that criminal organization (or while committing or attempting to commit an indictable offence for the benefit of or in association with the criminal organization), meaning that's first- rather than second-degree murder, for which the sentence in Canada —because who cares that we're in Chicago right now; the crime was done in Canada and they should be extradited forthwith—is indeed 25 years to life with parole in 12.5 years or 10 years, whichever is less (that is, 10 years). Maybe? I can't tell if they should be ineligible for parole until 25 years of the life sentence (if, I mean, that's what 25 to life means).

( Scene 28 )

So Bob has finally admitted that he was a miserable father to Ben, and it is only at that point that Fraser is able to begin to forgive him. That sounds about right. Of course "everywhere I looked I saw your mother" is not an acceptable reason for—look, motherless children haunt their widowed fathers with memories of their (the fathers') dead wives. Family therapy was probably not available to Bob in the Northwest Territories in 1967, but the way out of that situation was through, wasn't it. Running away never solved anything; just, as I've said before, ask the Mysterious Man in Into the Woods:

They disappoint, they disappear,
They die but they don't.

. . .

They disappoint in turn, I fear,
Forgive though they won't.

. . .

Running away—let's do it.
Free from the ties that bind.
No more despair
Or burdens to bear
Out there in the yonder.
Running away—go to it.
Where did you have in mind?
Have to take care;
Unless there's a "where"
You'll only be wandering blind.
Just more questions;
Different kind.

Where are we to go?
Where are we ever to go?

Running away—we'll do it.
Why sit around resigned?
Trouble is, son,
The farther you run,
The more you feel undefined
By what you have left undone
And, more, what you've left behind.

We disappoint, we leave a mess
We die, but we don't.

Cumulative body count: 39
Red uniform: The whole episode except the period in which he's suspended.

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