DA VINCI'S CITY HALL REVIEWS-SEASON EIGHT

• Review of Episode 110: When the Horsemen Come Looking

  This ep went by a lot faster than usual, not a bad sign at all. I glanced at the clock once expecting it to be around the half-hour mark only to see that we were forty minutes in. Yep. The show is finally back on form, with several downright fun scenes, particularly a hilarious mutual confession between Zack and Friedland and a funny exchange between Sam and Phil Rosen over the dirty laundry Phil's been collecting about Bill over the years. Most of these scenes don't even involve Da Vinci getting the upper hand, so they're not exactly what you'd call payoff scenes. Those will come, just not quite yet. Instead, this ep starts off ugly with the stabbing of a john in the red light zone and ends ugly with the firemen going ape over Komori's arrest for obstruction.

  I didn't catch where the title line was uttered, but it's embodied in the overall theme of the episode. This ep is a bit like one of those Star Trek eps where the Enterprise is facing off against a small fleet of Romulan warbirds and it's looking bad--and suddenly, the Borg show up and all bets are off. This week, the Borg are the RCMP. They're investigating both the Police and Fire Departments. Resistance is futile.

  Ha.

  Da Vinci finally voices his reasons for trying to get Kaspar to lay off the Police Department to his minions (and the Fire Chief), even though he can't stand either Bill or Charlie. They're surprising, but compelling. Da Vinci believes the rumors that the Horsemen have been trying to take over the policing of Greater Vancouver. Being a former Horseman himself, he might be on to something there. He's afraid that the RCMP will use this investigation as a way of discrediting the entire Police department. So, he tries to get Bill to cooperate, even as he's trying to isolate the damage and have the investigation (and the police stonewalling of it) discredit only Bill. "I don't want our stuff to become fuel for their [the RCMP's] agenda," he tells the minions. "There's always an agenda behind the agenda," he later warns the Fire Chief. He also gets the P.M. to promise to back him up in telling Bill to back down.

  Unfortunately, his plans go a bit haywire when the investigators turn their attention on the Fire Department, try to search Komori's office, arrest him when he blocks them and end up in the middle of a firefighter riot. In yet another cliffhanger ending, Da Vinci and Kaspar both arrive on the scene in the middle of a bunch of screaming firefighters (including the Fire Chief) pounding on the investigators' car while a bemused Komori sits inside, in handcuffs. As an ex-EMT, I could make a snarky comment, here, but I think I'll refrain.

  And it's official--Charlie is a homophobic, mysogynistic, lying scumbag with no brains. Oh, wait. That was already official. Never mind. However, this week does see Charlie becoming far more open in his pathetic delusions of political ambitions. He goes behind Bill's back over the red light zone and bails on him at a critical moment with Kaspar. This forces Bill to grovel and promise to be a good boy to Kaspar, who promptly turns on the Fire Department.

  Then, Charlie tells Constable P.E. to stonewall Kaspar's RCMP investigators and play the PTSD card. When she complains that she wants to get back on duty, he sends her up to the union rep's office, then makes a call suggesting she get another psych eval before she's allowed back on duty. While she is unwisely following his advice in hopes of getting reinstated, he tells the Xena wannabe who snitched on her last week to get her doctor to drug her up, then tries to get her to give up dirt on her buddy.

  "I'm not asking you to talk out of school, here, but do you recall any other incidents where Constable Ferris might have been behaving in an unstable manner?" he asks her. "What do you mean, exactly?" she says, a look of dawning comprehension finally replacing the rather venal stupidity from last week. "Any weird behavior, any unusual, deviant behavior?" he says, leaning in close. She looks ill, but whether it's because she's finally realized what a snake he is, or she's thinking of Constable P.E. hitting on the Xena wannabe who got killed is hard to say. Either way, the homophobia is pretty thick in this scene.

  Constable P.E. would be best served having a chat with Mick à la Josie Hutchins' sister. He'd be the only one possibly sympathetic to her situation. This gets a subtle boost in the scene where she's talking to the police shrink about how she can't get the incident out of her mind. She's no longer sure if she ordered the dead constable in or if the woman jumped in ahead (as I recall, it was the latter). Then, the shrink asks her if she hears voices. She says no. Interesting, especially since the next scene involves Mick Leary. Mick spent much of season five hearing the Canadian equivalent of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and acting like a violent wacko. Yet, he stayed under everyone's radar. Constable P.E. seems pretty sane to me, but Charlie is trying to railroad her out of the department as unstable. Granted, Mick is a lot quieter, but then, Mick is a straight man. Her being a woman and gay probably is not helping her one bit with scuzzball Charlie.

  Charlie also attempts to influence Chick on the grow-op investigation. Alex Diakun, who gets a high billing this week, has a good time playing Chick very cool when he's put on the hotseat. When Charlie leans on him to stonewall the investigation, Chick asks him, "Is this coming from you or from the Chief?" Later, he warns Da Vinci that Bill is stonewalling on the investigation and is the only one involved canny enough to cooperate with the two investigators from the Police Complaints Commission. The female investigator is played by the actress who played Leo's partner from season six ender, "Seven Tentacles". I can't tell if she's the same character as that one. Probably not, since she's RCMP.

  Chick plays it very cool with the two investigators. He has no intention of being made the scapegoat. He allows that he could have missed the notice the first time around, but then again, maybe it was planted. When asked if he was pressured, he naturally says no. This seems to satisfy them. He's the only one who does in this ep.

  As the end of last week's ep established, a john is stabbed, probably by a hooker, in the red light zone during Da Vinci and the P.M.'s tour. Charlie and Sam the Dom minion are on the scene. Charlie immediately calls Bill's secretary and tells her to rouse up the national press, then snows Sam about it. Bill appears to be unaware of this, though he's petty enough to uninvite the mayor to the Policeman's Ball. It's the Moron Patrol in charge at police headquarters again.

  <>pChick is the Homicide detective on the stabbing and we have Lou doing his bit for the coroner's office. Due to Charlie's games-playing, Da Vinci quickly finds himself in the hotseat with calls from all quarters to close the red light zone. Naturally, Da Vinci digs in his heels and refuses.

  Things are not helped when firestarter Mina Basra (a friend of Billie Simms) gets the widow of the dead john to sue the city (citing Da Vinci by name). The widow has either convinced herself (or been convinced by prim, little Mina) that her hubby wouldn't have been out trolling for a little prepaid love action if the red light zone didn't exist. Yeah, right. You gotta love hypocritical self-delusion on that high a level and Mina seems to be very good at exploiting it. "Mina Basra," Da Vinci muses. "She's trouble."

  As I noted at the beginning, Phil Rosen (the lawyer from season six who once famously called Da Vinci "a media whore") also reappears, bless him. His conversation with Sam is a real hoot. Sam wants to pump him for any dirt he's gathered about Bill. Rosen isn't just willing, he's downright excited about the opportunity to finally nail Bill. "So, he's [Da Vinci] gunning for Bill?" he asks Sam. Sam demurs but Rosen knows better. He happily agrees to give Da Vinci all of the dirt that he needs--but only if Da Vinci comes and gets it personally. What he's got is too explosive to be let out prematurely. When Da Vinci shows up, he hands him an absolutely huge file. Oh, boy. Bill is so going down.

  An unfortunate side effect of this scene, though, is how uninteresting the two Dom minions are as characters. It's not just that they remain underdeveloped--Rosen never got much development, either--it's that they have no personal color. They have no personal opinions. They have no values that they want to defend or destroy. They live and breathe solely to keep their boss in power and, as such, they work to keep him in the middle of the road and keeping as many people as happy as possible. When he refuses to do this, Rita, in particular, gets very unhappy with him. They seem to be allergic to the same passion that got Da Vinci into office and gives him such popularity in the polls. It's an irony that really shows up in bland Sam's interaction with Rosen. Rosen shares Da Vinci's passion (even if they frequently disagree--and loudly). He's a vivid, interesting character, even briefly sketched. But Sam and Rita...well, by their very nature, they're not. This could be a longterm problem for the show if they are going to continue to be billed as major characters.

  As I said at the beginning, Friedland has it out with Zack. Zack admits that he started off as a spy on the homeless squat, but has been off the payroll for several weeks now. He's genuinely there to help. He then confronts Friedland with the fact that he's not Friedland. After they come to a wry truce, Friedland/Franklin 'fesses up. He was originally a schoolteacher. But then, he went to work in a bank, where he embezzled over 20 million dollars, only to go blow it in Vegas. Anyone watching this scene who remembers the real-life event on which it's based (and/or the movie Owning Mahoney), will get a kick out of it. Ian Tracey actually played the detective who busts the title character in the movie. Da Vinci fans will especially enjoy Zack's reaction: "20 million bucks--Why didn't you just take it and go someplace warm?"

  Carter and his partner are back (though all too briefly), investigating the teen psycho blonde bombshell's allegations that two adult guys did the actual gay-bashing fro the season premiere. They, of course, claim it was all her idea. Considering what a sick bitch she is, it's really hard to tell who is lying.

  Again, we end with Mick. Mick doesn't get a lot of screen time in this one, but he does make a doozy of a find--Claire discovers another photo on the internet, this one of a naked masked man with Garth. The man has a birthmark on his shoulder that matches one on Dubreau. They've put the two of them literally in the same frame. Mick, needless to say, is excited about it. So, he's very unhappy when he goes to tell Kosmo and Joe the good news and discovers that not only do they know this already from Sex Crimes, but that Bill is going to move on Dubreau. In fact, we shortly see them telling the sleazoid lawyer they want to talk to Dubreau.

  Mick is feeling the stress this week, what with Brian trying to give him another mocked-up bad guy, Bill horning in on his action and threatening to scatter the pedophile ring Mick is convinced still exists at the Century Club and Kosmo giving him no joy on the friendship front. Everybody's crowding him this week and it's making him jittery. "Yeah, this screws things pretty good for your end," Joe says. "Yeah...shit," Mick sighs. I expect this storyline to blow sky high as early as next week and engulf a whole lot of others.

  Next week: A Few Good Bites Before They Slap Me Down: Komori's station stages a protest when the Police Complaints Commission comes back with an ambiguous verdict, Da Vinci comes under federal investigation and Mick raids the Century Club after someone tips off Dubreau to his impending arrest.

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This page was last updated on 1/25/2006