INTELLIGENCE REVIEWS-SEASON ONE

• Review of Episode 7: Love and War

  This week puts us just over the halfway mark, with all of the major storylines now in place and an increasing pace (if that seems possible) as we head for the season finale. Which will probably be sometime in January. And I seem to be seeing a pattern now of buildup in one ep, ending in a cliffhanger (as in last week), and then a payoff in the next ep. And this week---what a payoff.

  Dante the Disciples leader, for example, isn't quite as cocky as he's been acting. One of the guys who jacked Mike last week goes to him and admits that the operation went a little wrong: "Mike got hurt." Dante looks worried, or maybe just upset. But either way, the Teflon Biker thing is apparently just an act. Later, he tries to bluster his way out of admitting any involvement in the affair to Jimmy when Jimmy comes to him. But he doesn't look very happy when Jimmy asks him repeatedly if he's involved, then warns him, "I'm comin' to ya now [in reconciliation]. I can't come to you again." Or when Jimmy notes the awfully strange "coincidence" between Colin's death and Mike's getting mugged. Jimmy says that all he wants is "peace and prosperity", which Dante claims he wants, too. But you can tell that Dante knows it's just a matter of time before Jimmy figures out that the bikers were behind it--and that Dante's worried by what will happen next.

  That will come sooner rather than later and Dante would be even more worried if he knew that Mike recognized one of the robbers--the guy who reported to Dante--and that little cop birdies are feeding Jimmy info about Mike's robbery. Near the end of the ep, Mary tells Jimmy that the bikers were involved. She won't give him the names (after all, she still thinks that he's directly involved in Bill the Grow-Operator's death), but Jimmy doesn't need them. He's got another cop informant in his back pocket that Mary still doesn't know about--Rene. Rene earns his keep and then some this ep, getting a couple of constables on board in the search for the missing cash and Mike's attackers (he naturally understates the amount stolen to them so that he can keep a quarter mil of it), then giving Jimmy an asked-for portrait gallery of all known Disciples from the police database. Ooops. Well, that's a common problem when you're such a high-profile bunch of badasses.

  Mike survives--no big surprise there, unfortunately. Twenty-five stitches and a night in the hospital and he's back home with his trashy blonde bartender girlfriend whose name I can never remember and who is no brighter than he is. Jimmy and Ronnie visit him the next morning while he's in the process of frying up an egg and sticking it in a blender with some tomato juice (hmmm, healthy). He's not supposed to talk, but of course, he does, anyway. This is Mike. He lives to live dangerously.

  Jimmy's team circles the wagons and starts discussing war. Ronnie wants to strike back at the bikers right away, but Jimmy wants to make sure of the target first. He points out that theirs is a small operation and that they can't afford to go off angering possible enemies at whim. Even Mike sides with Jimmy on this, so Ronnie has to back down (though he does start carrying a gun, resulting in a cute scene where Sweet cozies up to him and tries to get him to put it away--or run away--with her). But Jimmy later admits to the family bodyguard, Bob Tremblay (Darcy Laurie), that he doesn't think he has the heart to get into the fight anymore. Bob shrugs and suggests that maybe it's time to retire.

  Nice idea, but it could be that Jimmy is just getting punch-drunk from too many opponents coming at him at once and needs to take down one or two. This is brought home when Mike's ex-con buddy from last week looking to make a deal for a bunch of guys growing dope underground up in the Arctic (no, seriously) turns out to be unknowingly fronting for the DEA narc Winston (John Tench), with whom Jimmy takes a meeting. Jimmy seems at first unaware of the threat, even as Ted and George gloat over this new inroad to the Reardon Organization. But having no obvious reason to distrust the guy doesn't stop Jimmy from having him tailed. Shouldn't be hard to do with that huge black muscle truck Mr. Inconspicuous Undercover DEA Guy is fond of driving.

  Francine also shows up as Jimmy is standing outside the bar shortly after Mike is taken to the hospital. Covered with his brother's blood and looking dazed, Jimmy just wants to go for a walk and clear his head. Pity, then, that Francine wants to join him on that walk and takes the opportunity of his weariness and confusion to feel him up. I remain continually amazed at the ability of both Tracey and Sullivan to convey the ugly aftermath of an abusive relationship (with the genders reversed) without Jimmy coming across as a pussy-whipped wimp or Francine as Joan Crawford on a bad hair day. That takes real skill.

  Later, Francine shows up where Jimmy's trying to have a quiet breakfast on the rooftop at the club and tells him she thinks that Stella should go away to boarding school, something that the lawyer suggested to Jimmy, but Jimmy summarily rejected. She makes out that she's worried Stella will get hurt in the upcoming war, a possibility Jimmy can't deny. But she shows her true colors when she tries to french-kiss him goodbye. Looks like she just wants Stella out of the way because Stella is competition for Jimmy's attentions. Ick. Speaking of Mommy Dearest...

  While Jimmy is distracted by his brother's attack, Mary has troubles of her own. But like Jimmy, she's facing up to them a lot better than her enemies might like. They don't meet again until the end of the ep, when they reaffirm their partnership--she tells him who's after him and he agrees to run guns with Randy in exchange for the information. Then, she goes and uses her ID to get a liquor store manager to open up and sell her some booze. "It's been a very long day," she tells him in classic Jane Tennyson understatement.

  Yes, indeed. Mary spends that day and the previous night cleaning up after the fallout of Lee's murder. First, there are the two Chinese "delivery" guys who show up right after the murder to clean up the body and the crime scene. At first, it's not clear if these are Mary's boys or the gang's, but her conversation with Martin quickly makes it clear they're not the OCU's as she calls Ted and has him break the delivery van's taillight (her nauseated swallowing in reaction to Martin's cynicism in the wake of Lee's death is rather endearing), then arranges a traffic stop by the VPD. Then she calls the lovely Don Frazer and has him get a friendly Homicide guy to take charge of the investigation. And then she has the brother and sister picked up as they are getting ready to flee the country. Ted is as big a snake as ever in this ep, even gloating over Mary's supposedly imminent professional demise to Roger. But it's nice to see him be a team player for once. I was beginning to wonder if he made any time at all in his busy schedule of drinking and double-crossing for actually doing his job.

  But Ted's predictions of disaster for Mary are premature because Mary has found another mole--and it's Roger (much to Mary's shock). This explains why Roger looks so nervous when a clueless Ted is gloating to him. Ted is certainly looking more and more out of any of the major loops. But it could be that the leaks don't stop at just Roger. Shadowy American spy Richard Royden (David Green) is furious that Mary is continuing the investigation into Lee's death and even more furious to find out that she has inconveniently outsourced it to Vancouver Homicide, where he can't make it disappear. He throws up an almighty cloud of outrage when Mary gets Homicide to subpoena his records and Mary finally backs down when James Mallaby supports him in his stonewalling. Hmm. Methinks some gentleman doth protest too much. But Mary backs down awfully fast. I can't help thinking that she has another card up her sleeve. Maybe she thinks she'll turn Roger?

  Speaking of "turning", the ever-annoying Casey Whelan unexpectedly contacts Mary again and wants to go back to work for her. She offers up her husband on a plate (getting your arm in a sling and a black eye will do that) to Mary as an informant. I'd forgotten that Randy was tangled up with the bikers. Should be interesting now that Jimmy's helping him run guns and going to war with the bikers at the same time. Mary has Ted bring Randy in for a little chat where she threatens him and gives him an obvious out at the same time. Being a classic rat, Randy turns so fast, he looks like a spinning top. Sure, he'll work for Mary, show her who's connected to whom in the gunrunning business. She doesn't let on that she already knows that he does a lot more than just "put people together" as he claims, that he's actually in it up to his neck. And she certainly doesn't mention Jimmy.

  If Mary survives the bloodletting she's about to unleash, she could end up with a much higher job in CSIS than she had previously anticipated. But she's going to have to paddle fast as the level rises, especially now that Royden has gone from merely disliking her to actively going for her head.

  Next week: Eps 8: Jimmy, now sure of his target, sets up a sting against the bikers. Meanwhile, Mary closes in on her second mole--Roger--while uncovering a third (jeez, CSIS security is holier than Swiss cheese) and Jimmy's lawyer discovers, a little late, Francine's reason for being "reasonable" about Stella the past couple of weeks. Well, you knew it couldn't last.

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This page was last updated on 11/22/2006