INTELLIGENCE REVIEWS-SEASON ONE

• Review of Episode 13: Down But Not Out

  Oh, dearydearydear, as the great (but fortunately not late) Gene Wilder once put it. What a cliffhanger. Right up there with the moment Commander Riker said, "Mr. Worf, fire." Or Butch and Sundance went out in a blaze of sepia-toned glory. Oh, dear. This ep leaves Jimmy alone, in enemy territory, surrounded by deadly foes, with his back literally to the wall and no weapons but a faulty gun, a cellphone and his own considerable intelligence.

  But no more on that until later. Because I'm cruel.

  We pick up the morning after the previous ep with everything going straight to Hell for both Jimmy and Mary. They seem equally screwed. Jimmy wakes Rene out of a sound sleep banging on the door and ringing the phone. He doesn't quite kick down the door, but he does kick Rene's cat box all over the place (awww, Rene has a cat). He wants to know who in the OCU is trying to out him and he doesn't like Rene's casual attitude about it. "If I go down, everybody goes down. That includes you! Now's not a good time to be changing themes on me." Later, Rene gives him some info--the mole is either Ted or Royden in CSIS and Mary is on her way out. Jimmy wants to make sure before he closes in (a surgical strike) and he's bewildered why someone in CSIS would want to out him. But not so bewildered that when he meets with Mary, he doesn't press her--hard--for a name. Angry as he is, Jimmy's all for solving their mutual problem. Even though she knows that Jimmy can do it, Mary won't give him the name that could save her.

  Mary is also meeting with all of her other informants to tell them to disappear--including Katarina and Randy Bingham. Katarina is less than thrilled, of course. She'd been hoping to settle down, but "don't worry about me. I always land on my feet." She stays loyal enough, however, to agree to meet with Royden one last time, in the hopes that Mary can get some intelligence out of it.

  Randy, meanwhile, predictably freaks out when Mary tells him to take a few days off. He's finally coming out on top (so he says) and can't afford to leave. Not that he necessarily should worry--Ted fields a call from Royden who wants to "take a meeting" with Randy. Randy is apparently a person of interest to many people in law enforcement. Still, if Mary gets through this, she'll obviously need to rebuild some bridges with her snitches.

  Speaking of Ted and burned bridges, Ted tries to oversee Winston's handling and doesn't take kindly to Winston calling him "a Canuck desk jockey". Ted makes it clear that Winston is just another snitch playing both sides of the law and not an actual cop (interesting), then drives off, saying, "Remember Al Capone and 1812, baby."

  Ted has later cause to regret these words. Royden meets with him and offers him the CSIS job, even as Royden is meeting with Mary to inform her of his taking over her CSIS job and asking her for her informant files (pretending that she'll stay in OCU). So, who's to say he's being honest with Ted? Mary, who knows perfectly well that Royden intends to oust her completely, bats her eyes and insists that it's all news to her, but of course, it's not. She is, in fact, ten steps ahead of Royden (let alone Ted) in terms of intelligence-gathering. The problem is that nobody will let her use it. Catching up with the senator on her way to the airport proves unsatisfactory. The senator makes sympathetic noises before leaving Mary to her henchwoman, who apparently thinks that being more macho than the boys is the way to go. "It's just my job," she tells Mary a few scenes before she officially removes Mary from the investigation. "I know what your job is," Mary retorts.

  But Mary still has a few aces--namely, Martin and Eddie. Martin helps her go through Royden's hotel room again (arrogant old Dick really doesn't have a clue). It's mainly bad news, but at least she knows where she stands. Superior intelligence is about all she's got left at this point. Martin, now that Mary has made it clear to him how valuable he is to her, seems quite firmly in her court. "It's a wonder nobody has put a pillow over his head," he says, after listening to hours of Royden's sleep apnea on the wire. One of the very funniest moments of black humor in the show is when Ted comes burbling in after his dinner with Royden and tells Martin (in strictest confidence, of course), "I'm about to be bumped up the ladder. Any day now." Then, he puts his finger to his lips. Martin, who has just been discussing bringing down Royden with Mary, smiles and puts his own finger to his lips. God, I love Martin.

  What have they been discussing? A desperate plan that may unseat Royden and get him out of the picture. Mary wants to out Royden to his bosses in American intelligence. Martin figures that either they'd yank Royden or have him stay on and become a double agent. "Either way, we win," Mary says. "That's a very good idea," Martin says brightly. "Pull the trigger, ma'am. Pull the trigger!" So, while Ted is 'fessing up to Martin, Mary is calling her good buddy Eddie, so that Eddie can put a bug in an ear at the CIA.

  And it works absolutely beautifully. In fact, Royden has made so many enemies that he gets caught in the crossfire of their various plans and really gets taken out. Mary meets with Jimmy in a rainy parking lot (the weather really sucked in a biblical way chez Vancouver last November). "I think I have a solution," she says. "I sure fucking hope so," Jimmy replies. He tells her that if she doesn't do something in the next couple of days, he'll take care of it to protect his own people.

  So, even as Mary's plan works, and Royden gets a phone call in his hotel room telling him to pull out, other plans are going into motion. Ronnie discovers that Royden is the leak and puts Bob on it to take Royden out (something that Jimmy was up for, btw, but isn't present to decide). As Mary and Martin are quietly celebrating Royden's defeat-by-phone after hearing it on the wire and are heading over to arrest him, their wire-room guy hears Katarina shriek. Katarina had been making her "appointment" with Royden and discovers him kneeling across the bed--very dead. "He was dead when I got here," she says when Mary and Martin come in. "I swear to God; someone beat me to it." The killer is probably the waiter who had just brought room service to Royden's room and whom Katarina passed as she came up. From the hotel room, Martin calls Ted (who is down in the U.S. with George on a few sick days) and tells him, "Royden's dead. Mary is still alive."

  Katarina, bless her, is shaken, though Mary is not exactly upset with the way things turned out. After the others leave, she crouches by Royden's body, staring at it with a subtle but triumphant smile. Truly, she has won as thoroughly as if she had nailed her enemy's head and hands on the Forum wall and the ensuing diplomatic flap will just be all blood and feathers. She'll be fine. She calls Jimmy's answering service and says, "Your problem is over. You can come home now." Exit Royden.

  There's a reason why she doesn't get Jimmy directly, but let's first deal with where Jimmy is. He's been scrambling to save his people from the rising water. First, he puts Bob on the detail of putting out rumors that the Disciples are putting out rumors that Jimmy is a rat for the cops. This cleverly defuses the information if it actually gets out, since everyone will now think it's a lie. Good thing, too, since Mike is having problems with biker drug-dealers trying to use the 25 as homebase. "They're like mushrooms," he tells Jimmy, "popping up everywhere!" The bikers definitely have an advantage of manpower over Jimmy's people.

  Jimmy then decides it's time to take a vacation. He'll go down to Seattle for a few days and pick up his money from the guy that George busted a few weeks back and he's taking Francine and Stella. Right into George's waiting arms. Oooops. George calls Ted, who decides to take a few sick days and go down for the arrest, still convinced he's going to be the next head of the OCU.

  Before he goes, Jimmy apologizes all round for getting everyone into the soup by turning high-level informant to the OCU, and makes arrangements to put the $50 million that he put up as collateral for the bank someplace safe. Ronnie is magnanimous in being proven right, but as soon as Jimmy leaves, starts making some very poor decisions. First, Jimmy lets him decide to hand the money over to the cokehead banker, Hogarty, for safekeeping. So what does Hogarty do with it? He promptly runs off with the money and a new blonde (having tired of Kristina).

  That's the least of Ronnie's dumb moves. He tells Bob to step back and let Phan go after Dante, after Sweet reports that Dante's sister is making no headway with him, even though Bob thinks it's a bad idea and Jimmy told Bob the exact opposite before he left. Then, as soon as Ronnie hears about Royden, he orders the hit on him. Granted, Jimmy was making noises about "taking care" of the mole as soon as they found him, but ultimately, it's Ronnie who makes the decision. Ronnie's problem is that he is reactionary and cannot (not to mention will not) change his ways, even to save himself. Sweet suggests that the two of them take a "vacation", too, asking him if he wants a normal life. "What's normal?" he says. "Everything's life and death. It's just, you know, fast...slow...we all gotta go." It's a great speech delivered well, but can you think of a better reason why Ronnie should not be the head of this operation? He's Mark Antony to Jimmy's Caesar.

  As the Reardon family heads to the border, Jimmy encounters some rebellion from Stella, who has figured out what Jimmy really does for a living and has been growing increasingly sullen over the course of the episode. Jimmy decides to table the discussion until they get to Seattle, but promises her that they will talk. Meanwhile, George is handing Jimmy's American contact a rigged gun. Jimmy had asked him to supply one for protection so he wouldn't have to smuggle one across the border. Little does Jimmy know that he is walking into a deadly trap--a bar full of heavily armed cops (including Enid-Raye Adams in a sadly small role) and his contact, who has turned nervous snitch.

  Jimmy leaves Francine and Stella at the hotel and goes to meet with the guy. As he goes in, Ted is sitting in the car outside with George. Ted slowly starts to realize that George has no intention of arresting Jimmy--the rigged gun is meant to give the DEA an excuse to gun Jimmy down (yep, welcome to the cliffhanger). "You can't shoot the guy for smuggling weed!" Ted says, finally getting with the program. George ignores him (like we're surprised), but it's nice to see Ted get a conscience, however late.

  Jimmy goes in clueless, but doesn't stay that way for long. His contact is very, very nervous. Jimmy, suspicious, says only half-jokingly, "If [the money's] counterfeit, I'll have to shoot you with the piece you brought me." The guy tells him it's in the bathroom. But as Jimmy goes across the bar, he sees a patron coming in being intercepted by an undercover cop and realizes it's a set-up. He goes right for the bathroom and the gun. It's difficult to tell if he realizes the gun doesn't work, but as he checks it out, he probably does. What happens next doesn't make me love the Ted and George storyline any better, but it's fantastic to finally see Ian Tracey go full throttle after being reined in for most of the season.

  Freaked, Jimmy realizes he is deep in enemy territory. Hiding out in the bathroom, he makes a phone call--to Stella. This is why Mary can't reach him directly. As he does so, Mike, at his bar, feels a chill and says, "That was weird!" Jimmy tells his daughter, "I love you. I'm sorry about the life that I lead." She reassures him: "It's okay. I love you, too." Then, Jimmy talks to Francine: "I've always loved you. You get out of that hotel room and head home right now." Protective as a tiger of his family to the bitter end.

  As he hangs up, ready to go do battle against what sure look like hopeless odds, Francine says with increasing panic, "Jimmy? Jimmy, what's wrong? What's happening? Jimmy?!" Then, the screen goes black and the credits roll. And that's it, friends, Romans and countrypersons until next season. There'd better be one.

  ---

  Next week: Da Vinci's City Hall reruns start up next Wednesday morning at 12:30 am (see the link to my reviews below). I'll do a retrospective of this season of Intelligence in a few days and I might just do that DVCH one I've been promising to do, too.

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This page was last updated on 1/31/2007