INTELLIGENCE REVIEWS-SEASON ONE

• Review of Episode 5: Where There's One There's Another

  Wow. Just...wow.

  If there were any lingering doubts about whether Francine should be anywhere near Stella, let alone have full custody, consider them dispelled this week. Right in the beginning, Stella spells out exactly what's wrong with this picture when she calls Dad. Seems Mom is downstairs throwing a party with a bunch of lowlifes and getting blotto. Stella's conversation with Jimmy is interrupted when Francine comes staggering upstairs. Stella deflects Francine's questions about why her door is locked and who was on the phone by pointing out that she locks her door to keep Francine's "boyfriends" out of her room. At that point, Francine starts insisting that her daughter come down and sing for her guests. Stella puts her off with some well-timed adolescent sullenness, but as cute-albeit-dysfunctional this type of thing was in "Postcards from the Edge", it comes across as deeply creepy pandering here. Francine is just this side of selling off her daughter to the highest bidder.

  Suddenly and shockingly, the bothersome little clues that have been adding up over the past several weeks about just why Jimmy needs to get custody, and pronto, come into abrupt focus. I suddenly found myself realizing that Stella is twelve years old, that she is just this side of puberty. How much longer will it be before Francine drags home a pedophile? And how much longer will it be before Francine's blatant jealousy of her daughter turns deadly? A dinner between her and Jimmy later in the ep makes this really clear, even as it refuses to let Jimmy completely off the hook for marrying her in the first place. To paraphrase Judge Judy, he picked her, after all. Francine makes a telling comment when he admits that he doesn't remember what she likes to eat and she points out that that's because he never cared before. Jimmy then apologizes for any hurt he'd caused her in the past and she apologizes for being a wacko (no, just kidding, it's a more vague admission of causing him pain). They seem to be making a little progress when Jimmy gets her to order what she wants (a Caesar salad) and then orders one for them both. But then, he makes the "mistake" of asking Francine about Stella.

  "Can we not talk about Stella for a change?" she snaps and visions of the Brothers Grimm dance in one's head. I mean, what else do she and Jimmy have in common at this point save the child they created and reared together? Francine only cares about Stella because Jimmy cares about her. This would be disturbing enough if Stella were a dog. But it's pretty clear that Francine's obsession with keeping control of Stella is not just insecurity about her parenting skills (yeah, it sucks being an alcoholic, drug addict and general skank) but also intense jealousy of her own daughter. In contrast, what's good about Jimmy's home situation for Stella becomes equally clear: he keeps a quiet, stress-free home and he protects Stella from the adult problems in his life while simultaneously teaching her how to watch out for them and avoid them. Jimmy may be a gangster. He may be a drug dealer. But he's a good parent, not just a better parent than Francine (the latter not being any kind of tough stretch).

  So nobody should be surprised to hear that near the end of the ep, the sensible Stella runs away from home, takes a bus downtown (not hard, since half the busses from the West Side go down Seymour St.) and surprises her dad by appearing at the strip club. Jimmy is shocked and torn between joy at seeing her and extreme worry about Francine's reaction. He's got reason to be worried as it comes at him in 3-D when Ronnie comes over in the midst of his hugging and questioning Stella with a cell phone hooked up to Francine on the other end. "Guess who? And she's screaming," he says, holding a hand over the phone. Francine, indeed enraged beyond sanity, declares that she is coming right down to the Club and if Stella is not ready to go back with her, she will "burn that place to the ground!" Jimmy placates her by saying that Stella will stay with him that night but he'll take all three of them out for breakfast the next day. The ep ends with Stella upstairs playing the piano ("Ode to Joy" by Beethoven, I think) while Ronnie looks on affectionately. She stops, and as the screen goes black and the credits appear, she says, "That's all I know."

  Apropos of not much, let me add that it was really nice to see and hear the end credits tonight with no ads for some show I don't want to see plastered all over them. Please keep doing that, CBC.

  Naturally, there is far more to this ep than Francine chewing scenery and then spitting it out all over Jimmy. Speaking of women scorned, Sweet is very torqued off to see Kristina getting treated like the top female dog at the club and keeps complaining about it to Jimmy and Ronnie. Jimmy in particular shines her on since he's encouraging Kristina to get close to his banker, which Kristina is doing just swimmingly. Kristina, however, does not have all clear sailing. Mary calls up Kristina, then mops the floor with her when they meet. Seems Kristina has been "too busy" to meet with Mary. Mary, ever the true Alpha Female, also has much more leverage over Kristina than Sweet ever could. She cracks the whip and reminds Kristina that she is working on her back for her visa here. Kristina, cowed, promises to be more conscientious and fills Mary in about the banker.

  But this is a minor issue for Mary, who is closing in on her mole. I didn't quite get it right last week (yes, you can stop laughing back there in the peanut gallery now). It turns out they were doing two operations, not one. The apartment Martin went into belonged to the mole's girlfriend. It's the wife's apartment where they sent in fake delivery guys to bug it.

  Anyway, Edward and Martin are still doing active surveillance of the girlfriend's place from across the street. Martin is trying to get freelancer Edward to go into business with him, since Edward's freelance spy work is greatly lucrative and Martin wants in on the action. Martin is busily trying to persuade Edward when Mary comes in and asks them how it's going. They tell her that something new has come up--the girlfriend's brother has been contracted to kill some Chinese dissident who is coming to town. Who it is, they don't know yet.

  In the midst of this exchange ensues a hysterical little chat about the girlfriend's wardrobe. Mary, who is watching the girlfriend change into a new dress through binoculars, comments, "She's got about nine thousand dresses in her closet."

  "Tried half of 'em, already," Edward snarks.

  "That's a nice one she's got on now," Mary says (it's fire engine red).

  "I like the black sequined. Eddie likes the Mini," Martin notes. These three really have to work together more.

  Mary then closes in on her quarry, which isn't the girlfriend and her dresses, at least not yet. She sets up a clever sting on her mole. This sequence is quite tense, with a lot of cool, evil music extrapolated from the electronic synth stuff they put in the "previously on" section at the very beginning of each ep. I was sure the guy would get whacked before Mary's people got to him. First, she has her secretary hand off a file to him (the secretary snubs Ted as she goes to do it). Then, the secretary suddenly asks for the folder back. The mocked-up folder claims that the OCU is going to do a bust on the Red Eagles (the mole's girlfriend's brother's gang). When the mole tries to pass off this information, Mary has him snatched off the street and taken to a warehouse, where she sticks him in a cage. After making him wait, she comes in and offers him scotch in a plastic cup and a deal: either he goes to jail for fifteen years plus or he turns his coat and works for her against his former employers, keeping all of the perks including the girlfriend, the wife (who wants to go back home), the house, his job and his freedom. He also will give up the name of the dissident and what that plan is. He needs a little time to think it over, but not that long. He agrees to her deal. You so know he's not long for this world.

  Meanwhile, Ted is admitting his real ambitions to the DEA guy and sort of, kind of getting a brain. He visits the guy on his boat (yes, obvious shades of Sonny Crockett, there), where the guy serves him a cookout while Ted casually spies through binoculars on other people in the harbor. Old habits die hard. The DEA guy wants Ted to give up all of the OCU files on Jimmy: "Everything on Reardon. I'll serve him up just like that big old steak." Ted admits that his ambitions run much higher than being head of the OCU. He wants Mary's new job, not her old one. This is a big old Duh for anyone who's been watching, but it's still instructive to hear Ted admit it.

  It's also instructive to see Ted insisting on concessions from DEA Guy later in the ep. He brings the files, shows them to the guy and then refuses to hand them over until the DEA Guy's narc-to-be agrees to meet with Ted. Ted's a slow study, but not quite so slow at DEA Guy thought. Not that DEA Guy is the sharpest knife in the drawer so far, either. "My involvement needs to be kept quiet until I say so," Ted says. The DEA Guy assures him that that's entirely up to him. And of course, we all know that won't go smoothly for long.

  The ongoing disaster that is Michael Reardon continues to win friends and influence people in his new job. He even tries to insult Jimmy's bodyguard, who is a boxer. Porky, pasty Michael actually accuses the guy of being out of shape. It is to laugh, as Daffy Duck used to say. Later, he asks Jimmy to give him his blessing, as he wants to get himself cleaned up by setting up his own operation. Jimmy hesitates. "You're a fucking wild man," he tells Michael, but eventually gives him his blessing. Only after this does Michael announce that he won't even have to borrow money from Jimmy, since he'll "bankroll" his new project himself. Meanwhile, a black guy in rasta braids, clearly his "bank", is waiting to talk to him. Jimmy, horrified, asks him what he means, but Michael jovially tells him not to ask, now that he's got Jimmy's blessing. Jimmy's face turns dark in an expression that would scare anyone with half a brain. But since Michael doesn't even have that, Jimmy just leaves. Vaya con dios, my brother and all that.

  Jimmy's lawyer, who still looks scarcely old enough to shave, is urging Jimmy either to reconcile with Francine (ha) or find her mentally unfit to have custody. Jimmy is still on the fence about the latter, but may be less so after Stella's flight and Francine's meltdown this ep. The lawyer also wants Ronnie to sell the club as he could get ten million dollars for it. Ronnie categorically refuses and Jimmy refuses to get involved or influence Ronnie. Ronnie's father bought the club before Ronnie was born. As far as Ronnie is concerned, the club is his home and he won't sell it for any money.

  A little real life background here--the real Penthouse Club is in the middle of a neighborhood Downtown that is being yuppified with a vengeance. Even the building is dwarfed by huge apartment and business buildings that have sprung up in the past decade. So, the pressure on it to be sold and torn down is not fictional.

  Ronnie's tentative solution is to convert the strip club back into a music club, which would bring it much more in line with the current neighborhood, which is Starbucks Central. Jimmy suggests he try buying "The 25", a music club that is for sale, but Ronnie doesn't like the neighborhood. Also, when Michael comes in and suggests bringing in his own band, Ronnie tells him he isn't interested in converting to a music club. Whatever he decides, he's obviously not going to let Michael in on it.

  Randy the squirrely stockbroker meets up with Jimmy again and Jimmy offers to transfer his guns in Panama to another boat for two hundred grand. "You can arrange for that to happen?" Mary asks incredulously when they meet later. Boy, is she getting an education.

  Randy is horrified by the price, but as Jimmy points out, Randy came to him to solve his problem not the other way around. Mary is skeptical that he'll agree to it, but not Jimmy. "He'll probably go home, do a couple grams of blow, chew his own leg off. About 6am, he'll call me up, give me the go ahead," he says cynically. Jimmy doesn't particularly want to get involved any further, but Mary persuades him to agree to taking some of Randy's worthless stock in payment and hold him off until she can give Jimmy the money for real. Randy, it seems, is scrambling to find Jimmy's money and turning over all sorts of fascinating rocks and Mary wants to see more rocks. Gee, could Randy or one of his associates be the coke dealer the DEA wants Ted to keep in the clear? Could be, since Mary's people can't yet identify whomever is Randy's contact. At any rate, Jimmy could use the money. He finds out from Maxine shortly before Mary calls him that the loan agreement Maxine had previously set up just fell through.

  Not all of Mary's news is good, though. The lovely Don Frazer has discovered that Jimmy's would-be hitman was connected to a Vietnamese gang. Jimmy is puzzled by this since he thought he had a good deal going with his new Vietnamese dealer friend. He and Ronnie then have a rather cold meeting with the guy (I keep thinking of him as "Vin Tuan" from DVI) in which the guy promises to clear up any issues that former suppliers might have with Jimmy and Ronnie. I can't help wondering if this guy is hooked up with Ted's DEA buddy somehow.

  Speaking of cold, Mary lets Don down gently but clumsily when she turns down his offer to go to dinner and admits that she's not ready for anything permanent. Considering her divorce-in-progress with her cheating hubby, this is no real surprise. Don is surprised, though. He covers it up well, but he's clearly disappointed. Awww. Poor Don.

  Next week: Eps 6: Has Mary really turned her mole? Will he live to become a double agent? Tune in next week. Meanwhile, Jimmy mixes it up with the bikers.

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This page was last updated on 11/09/2006