INTELLIGENCE REVIEWS-SEASON ONE

• Review of Episode 1 (season premiere): Where Good Men Die Like Dogs

  The pilot had a wee problem in that it was difficult to tell whom to root for. The season premiere doesn't have that problem. Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey) and Mary Spalding (Klea Scott) are quite clearly set up as the sympathetic protagonists here. There are plenty of other storylines and plenty of other POV characters, but our two heroes are Jimmy and Mary from here on out. Bad news if you're a Matt Frewer (Ted Altman) fan. Good news for those who like Ian Tracey and Klea Scott.

  The opening credits, with their bird's-eye view of Vancouver's mean streets in sepia tones, are pretty cool in a Cold War sort of way. Very effective. We then go to Jimmy flying a plane over some lovely scenery, all sea and green trees. God help me for a total fanwanker, but I couldn't help wondering if Tracey was flying the plane for real or what. Considering that in Vancouver, if an actor seems to be driving a car, he's really driving the car, it wouldn't surprise me. Not like they have the tons of money that Hollywood has for gratuitous stunts and stuntpeople. But I did wonder, if it were true, where the guy found the time in his schedule. A pilot's license ain't something you pick up overnight�especially for a two-engine or a seaplane.

  Jimmy lands at a dock and meets up with a friend, an older man named Colin who trades with Jimmy on "the island" (Vancouver Island, I presume). Colin tells Jimmy the take is less than usual all around because the bikers are moving in on the marijuana action (biker gangs are a major problem in Canada and essentially own the docks in Vancouver Harbour). He then goes on to say that his wife has throat cancer and is terminal. He wants to retire, but has a replacement whom he will introduce to Jimmy. Jimmy later tells Ronnie (John Cassini) he thinks that Colin is really intimidated by the bikers and that's why he wants to pull out. Colin's subsequent murder near the end of the episode leaves Jimmy angry and upset. At the end of the ep, he visits Mary and asks her to monitor the investigation into Colin's murder for him. She agrees and asks, "Is this the beginning of a war?" "God, I hope not," he replies. "What goes around comes around, I guess. Right?" This is the last line of the ep.

  Mary has her own woes. She has to justify keeping Jimmy as an informant to the sleazy old survivor whom she is supposed to replace as the West Coast CSIS regional director. Roger Deakins (Tom McBeath, who played the grieving father in DVI's This Shit Is Evil and a nasty ex-narc in season six) is a canny old survivor who is impressed neither by his slated successor Mary nor her would-be nemesis and competitor Ted Altman. Mary fends off Roger's insistence that he become Jimmy's handler (something that Jimmy absolutely refuses to do) and secretly tapes the call to cover her own ass. She also complains to Roger's boss, James Mallaby (John Mann), but she's careful about this. She knows that if she can't be seen to handle Roger mainly on her own, she may be shut out of this promotion. The situation starts to go south when Bill (Dan Joffre), Ted's rat in Jimmy's operation, turns up dead in Mexico with three bullets to the back of his head. Jimmy assures her that he sent Bill down to Mexico to put him on ice not kill him. Mary believes him, but nobody else does. "You've got blood on your hands now," Ted tells her with blatant hypocrisy when he informs her of Bill's untimely demise.

  Things get uglier for Mary on the homefront when her soon-to-be ex-husband, Adam, checks himself out of the hospital early (he had a serious stroke near the end of the pilot). He shows up unexpectedly at their apartment, even though she'd changed the locks (also in the pilot). They have a nasty confrontation. She's ensconced herself in one of the OCU's safe houses (an impersonal apartment) by the half-hour mark. Jimmy meets her there for a few drinks and mutual grousing. Adam goes ballistic when Jimmy unexpectedly calls Mary during their dustup and Adam intercepts the call, assuming (as cheating spouses often do in classic projection mode) that Jimmy is her new boyfriend. Considering the obvious chemistry between Mary and Jimmy, this isn't totally off base--maybe more premature. Right now, it's the buddy chemistry of two weary survivors and outsiders. But it could turn into something more. This season would be far too soon for that, though, assuming a relationship of that type between them would work at all. Jimmy thus is an unexpectedly close witness to Mary's rapidly disintegrating marriage.

  It's therefore difficult to say what Jimmy's motivations are for getting his narc rat Rene Desjardins (Michael Eklund) to investigate Mary right down to her toenails beyond the obvious of being prepared and on top of things and one up on her. After all, he's well aware that she's investigated him down to his toenails. What goes around comes around. But there seems to be as much curiosity on his part as anything sinister, as well as a need to make sure that Mary is on the level about her domestic problems as she gets drawn into his, as well. In fact, their relationship quickly takes on an almost easy-going aspect to it, especially when Jimmy's own fractured relationship with psycho ex-wife Francine (Camille Sullivan) goes completely south.

  Wacko Francine has got it into her coke-addled head that she is going to be Jimmy's wife again�all she has to do is get sole custody of their daughter Stella (Sophie Hough) and thus get Jimmy by the shorthairs. Early in the ep, she catches Stella talking to her father on a cell phone that he gave his daughter. Enraged, Francine confiscates it and rants away at Jimmy. Later, she coldly orchestrates a domestic incident where she refuses to turn over Stella on Jimmy's designated custody day, then calls the cops when he forces his way into the house to look for Stella. Jimmy never actually hits Francine, but Francine still gets him arrested. Francine plays a good game with the cops, though she's caught out in a lie by one of the uniformed officers who answer the call and a brief moment when she's alone inside the house waiting for them to arrive makes it clear she is not nearly as upset as she is pretending. Sullivan seems to relish playing unstable Francine to the hilt. I can't stand Francine. The woman shouldn't have supervised visits with a pet rock, let alone any custody of her daughter. But I have to admire Sullivan's performance. She is playing dead on this kind of destructive BPD personality. I've known women exactly like this.

  Jimmy is shaken and distressed by the entire incident, especially by Francine's insistence that she's going for full custody of Stella (aiyiyi, poor Stella!). No unrealistic Godfadda tough-guy fa�ade here, just a worried and frightened father who wants his daughter back. Ronnie is unexpectedly supportive, even above and beyond the call of duty. I have no doubt that Ronnie would whack anyone he felt was a threat to the organization (though Michael is a much better suspect for Bill's murder). Nor is Ronnie lily-white, since he appears to have at least one long-term mistress among the strippers, tough-as-nails Sweet (Alana Husband), whom he treats like dirt. But his support of Jimmy seems to stem from genuine friendship. A good aspect of the show is that both the best and worst actions of the characters often originate within the normal range of human emotions. Characters love and hate for real without a whole lot of calculation and that's what creates all of the complications in the plot. Sure, you have scuzzballs like Ted, BPD druggie nightmares like Francine and loose cannons like Michael, Jimmy's brother. But most of the people you see here are not manipulative sociopaths. It�s not a bunch of noir robots coldly jockeying for position.

  Ronnie tries to get Jimmy to stay with him at the club, worried that Jimmy will go back for another few rounds with Francine. There's a nice bit where Jimmy is sitting inside Ronnie's office, dazedly watching a stripper out in the club do her thing without really seeming to notice her that says volumes about how his views of women differ from those of both Ronnie and Michael (who likes sexually harassing Sweet). Jimmy has other ideas that he has no intention of sharing with Ronnie. When dimbulb Michael comes in and distracts Ronnie, Jimmy pumps the unsuspecting Michael for information about his source in the Hong Kong police (from the pilot), a guy named Lee who is a rat inside the OCU. He then takes off and visits Mary. There, he coolly gives her the name of her rat, then asks her for help with getting custody of Stella from Francine.

  Mary is stunned to hear about Lee, who works in the wiretap room. It's a major coup that proves Jimmy's utility and puts off Roger for the moment. But it also means that Lee has compromised the entire OCU for the past several years. "It leaves us with our pants around our ankles," she wryly tells Mallaby later. This is a major security breach she must now patch up. Too bad for Ted, who has lorded over the wiretap room and shut Mary out. Lee's betrayal puts him in a very bad position�again. How Ted survived his losing a briefcase full of informant files in the pilot has been glossed over. Let's hope they don't come up with some equally unrealistic nonreason why he will skate on the Lee Incident. He ain't that great a villain.

  Regarding Jimmy's domestic situation, Mary is sympathetic, but confesses that she's not sure if she can help him. She does sick her secretary, Sheila (Kyla Wise in a much more flattering hairdo than the pilot), on it right away, though. Considering Francine's unfortunate fondness for white powder, it shouldn't be hard to drum up something. The woman belongs on Judge Judy. As I was watching this interchange between Mary and Jimmy, it occurred to me that Mary might solicit Jimmy's help in dealing with Adam at some point. Oooer. The possibilities there.

  Finally, we have the Reardon sibs. Michael has already been mentioned as the obvious wild card who probably ordered Bill whacked. Michael resents the job Ronnie gives him at the club. Even though he's an ex-con, he feels he deserves better. He also resents both Jimmy's success and Jimmy's buddy relationship with Ronnie. He tries to screw the latter up at every turn, even balking at putting Ronnie on the phone when Jimmy calls the club. He's going to be lots of trouble in the future. It's not clear if Jimmy knows that Michael whacked Bill, but he should certainly suspect it. No way will he give up Michael to Mary, but he's not above giving up Michael's contact in the Hong Kong police to her.

  Meanwhile, Maxine (Sabrina Grdevich) is fretting about a possible audit of Reardon Shipping. Not enough of Jimmy's foreign drug contacts are making up invoices that look legit. Without these, she can't launder Jimmy's drug money and with so much mysterious cash floating around the business, it's sure to get audited at some point. Grdevich, again, isn't in nearly enough of the ep. But hopefully, when this storyline heats up, that will all change.

  Next week: Eps 2: Mary tries to get another rat into Jimmy's operation and it's Jimmy's turn to exercise damage control after Bill's murder.

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This page was last updated on 10/18/2006