Chapter Text
Scene 1
PAUL GROSS'S VOICE: Previously, on due South . . .
Buck Frobisher picks up a canister and stands up, letting one rip as he does so. A half-dozen others on his team flinch and wave the air in front of their faces.
FROBISHER: Gas.
A guy fires an incendiary grenade at a dumpster. Bob is there with Fraser.
BOB AND BEN FRASER: Muldoon.
Muldoon grins at our heroes.
FRASER (VO): He died thirty years ago.
Kowalski and Fraser knock on the door of room 2409. The door opens. Ray Vecchio is there. He is wearing a thin moustache. Fraser is delighted to see him.
FRASER: Ray!
KOWALSKI: [looks at Fraser] Ray?
FRASER: Ray Vecchio.
KOWALSKI: Ray Vecchio?
Vecchio's eyes dart, alarmed, back and forth between Kowalski and Fraser. Muldoon steps up behind him.
FRASER: Oh, dear.
Everyone—Fraser, Kowalski, Vecchio, Huey, Dewey, Francesca, Welsh—is in Welsh's office.
VECCHIO: Muldoon has weaponry for sale and a buyer. He just needs somebody to broker the deal.
In the hotel room, Vecchio is sneering at Muldoon.
MULDOON: I was under the impression I was going to meet someone called Armando Langoustini.
VECCHIO: You are.
MULDOON: So who the hell is Ray Vecchio?
VECCHIO: How the hell should I know?
Everyone is leaving Welsh's office.
WELSH: [to Vecchio] Well, look, you be Ray Vecchio, 'cause you were Ray Vecchio to start with.
KOWALSKI: And who am I?
WELSH: You can be Stanley Kowalski.
KOWALSKI: Okay. [He heads out.]
VECCHIO: Later, Stanley. [Kowalski turns around and starts to come back at Vecchio, but Vecchio heads back into the office to talk to Welsh.] Sir.
Fraser is glaring at Muldoon from across the Ferris wheel.
MULDOON: Your mother was a pretty woman, Benton, but when I shot her, she dropped like a big old sack of potatoes.
Bob is bundling up to leave his cabin.
FRASER: But where are you going now?
BOB FRASER: To tend to something I should have tended to a long time ago. I'll come back. Until I do, stay alert. And get Muldoon. For me, and for your mother.
Muldoon is aiming at Fraser. Kowalski and Vecchio are charging through the water feature, Kowalski in the lead. Muldoon fires. Fraser, hanging from the Ferris wheel, sees Vecchio collapse, shot. He is horror-struck.
Vecchio is lying in his hospital bed.
VECCHIO: Do you Mounties still always get your man?
FRASER: We try to.
VECCHIO: Go get him, Benny.
In a small propeller plane, Muldoon hears a thump on the fuselage.
MULDOON: What the hell was that?
Fraser and Kowalski are clinging to the wing.
KOWALSKI: You know, Fraser, being your partner has certain drawbacks.
The plane takes off.
Scene 2
Fraser and Kowalski climb aboard the plane and pull the door shut behind them.
KOWALSKI: Not bad, Fraser. Not — [They hear several guns cocking at once; when they turn around, at least four guys are aiming at them.] — good. Not good at all.
Muldoon comes back from the cockpit into the cargo bay. His guys get to work binding Kowalski's and Fraser's hands behind them.
MULDOON: Benton Fraser, you're getting to be damn near as irritating as your father was. [Fraser glares at him. Muldoon turns to his guys, the leader of whom has a moustache.] Throw them out when we're over the ice fields. They'll be lost forever.
KOWALSKI: Ice field, what the hell's an ice field?
FRASER: It's a field of ice.
BOB FRASER: The Yank tends to miss the obvious, doesn't he?
FRASER: Sometimes.
KOWALSKI: Sometimes? Well, what is it the rest of the time?
FRASER: Well, it would still be a field of ice.
MOUSTACHE: Both of you just shut up.
The guys who have finished binding our heroes' hands pistol-whip them up the back of the heads. Our heroes go down.
BOB FRASER: Oh! He's rude. [Bob tries to hit Moustache on the head, but his gun is imaginary.] Why do villains have such hard heads?
Moustache brushes away something that had tickled the back of his neck.
Credits roll.
Paul Gross
Callum Keith Rennie
Beau Starr
Camilla Scott
Tony Craig | Tom Melissis
Ramona Milano
and Gordon Pinsent as Fraser Sr.
plus Draco the dog
Dean McDermott, Anne Marie Loder, David Marciano, Bo Svenson, Kenneth Welsh, and Leslie Nielsen as Buck Frobisher
McDermott and Loder (Turnbull and Stella) are sharing billing and Marciano (Vecchio) is behind them both. I will never understand.
Scene 3
Welsh is briefing everyone in the squad room.
WELSH: All right, we got a major smuggler who deals in dangerous weapons. They have an unknown buyer and an unknown objective. Okay? Keep your ears to the ground and work your snitches. Just remember, we've got two missing officers out there. There'll be no vacations, there'll be no leave —
FRANCESCA: — and no sleep for anybody. Which means we work twenty-four hours a day, eight days a week, which comes out to exactly eleven thousand five hundred and twenty minutes every week. We're going to break out the plastic hoses on this one, guys. We want these suspects sweating between the ears. We — [She realizes everyone is looking at her like she's nuts, in particular Welsh, whose demeanor clearly says "Are you finished?"] — the floor is yours, Harding.
WELSH: All right, let's get to work. Huey, Dewey, you talk to the guy we picked up at Olcott Trucking. [to Francesca] Any word on your brother?
FRANCESCA: Well, they moved him onto another ward, but he's still got a bullet in him.
WELSH: Lucky guy.
FRANCESCA: He's still got a bullet in him.
WELSH: But it didn't kill him, did it?
FRANCESCA: Well — [Her tone is very clear about how low a bar she finds this.]
WELSH: That was a golden bullet. The world's his oyster now. He can retire at full pay, do anything he wants to do.
VECCHIO: Any word from them? [Francesca and Welsh both look up.]
FRANCESCA: Ray!
WELSH: Vecchio.
Vecchio is leaning in the doorway and looks like he should definitely not be out of bed.
Scene 4
The plane is in the air. Fraser and Kowalski are struggling against their bonds. Bob is trying to beat the captors about the head with his gun and having no success.
KOWALSKI: We're in trouble, aren't we, Fraser.
FRASER: Well —
BOB FRASER: Oh, throw him a bone, son. Something encouraging.
FRASER: Yes, we are in big trouble.
BOB FRASER: That's encouraging?
Fraser succeeds in getting his hands untied.
KOWALSKI: What are you doing? Do mine, do mine.
FRASER: All in good time. First of all, we need to determine where this aircraft's destination is. [He sneakily grabs a radio off a crate.]
KOWALSKI: We already know that, Fraser. Death. The destination is death. Now do mine. Come on.
FRASER: Can I borrow your chewing gum?
KOWALSKI: Why?
FRASER: I'm going to stick it in my ear. Please.
Kowalski spits his gum into Fraser's hand. Fraser is doing some MacGyver operation with string.
KOWALSKI: Look, I don't get you. We're stuck in a plane and you're making some arts and craft wire sculpture type thing.
FRASER: No, no, no, what I'm going to attempt to do is to plug into the satellite uplink. Hopefully intercept some of the binary information from the airplane's communication system.
KOWALSKI: Wire and gum?
Fraser makes the connection. He listens to a few seconds of what we all used to hear when we connected to the internet via a dialup modem, during which time his eyes kind of cross and roll back in his head a little. Then he disconnects.
FRASER: We're in luck. Muldoon's in the process of organizing a rendezvous. My guess is that it's connected to the second stage of his plans.
KOWALSKI: How do you get that from a piece of wire and some gum?
FRASER: That's not important. What is important is that we now have the coordinates for the rendezvous. Seventy degrees north by a hundred and twenty-five degrees west. If memory serves, that's Franklin Bay.
KOWALSKI: [scoffs] It's not important. What is important is, Fraser, we're going to get tossed out of the plane onto an ice field.
FRASER: Well, that too.
KOWALSKI: Yeah.
FRASER: But rest easy. I have no doubt that Inspector Thatcher is organizing a rescue party e'en as we speak.
Even if you're fluent in Morse code, you can't as a human person decipher binary computer code such as is transmitted by a hissing buzzing clanging modem unless you have some sort of decoder chip implanted in your head. Maybe not even then. I like that the show is finally allowing Fraser to just handwave the impossible things he does. No more slow your own heart rate, calculate the cubic feet of air in an ostensibly airtight room, clamp down your own saliva ducts, whatever—just don't worry how I know this, it's not important.
70°N 125°W is pretty dang close to Franklin Bay, depending how much of Amundsen Gulf is indeed Franklin Bay. My question is, how is that plane going to get there? It must have more than twice the range of the little plane Fraser and Vecchio crashed in in "North." Which—this looks like a bigger plane than that, and there are light aircraft whose range is over 1,000 and even potentially 2,000 miles, but even so, bro, I don't think this plane is starting from Chicago and getting to 70°N 125°W on a single tank of gas.
I can't think of a good reason for Fraser to have said "e'en" instead of "even."
Scene 5
In Thatcher's office, Thatcher and Turnbull and Diefenbaker are packing for their rescue mission.
THATCHER: The car's ready, and the flight leaves in exactly seventy-two minutes.
TURNBULL: Ah, sir, I'm nervous. You see, I've never flown before, and quite frankly, I've never been more than ten stories off the ground, and — this airline you've chosen. Is it reputable?
THATCHER: Rest easy, Constable. It's the only airline that matters.
They are on an Air Canada quadjet airliner of some type that all I can tell you is it's not a 747.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT (VO): Chicken? Fish? Full-body massage?
TURNBULL (VO): You're absolutely right, sir. No other way to go.
I don't believe Air Canada offers full-body massages, nor is it appropriate to expect that sort of service from the cabin crew of any airline, but ha ha, sexual availability of flight attendants, what a funny funny joke that isn't at all tiresome. Meanwhile, of course Thatcher will be an Air Canada partisan, but Stan Rogers died in a fire on an Air Canada flight, I'm just saying.
How has Turnbull never flown before? When he moved to Chicago, did he do it on a bus?
Scene 6
Vecchio is in the interview room with Huey and Dewey, talking to the guy from Olcott Trucking.
VECCHIO: Hey, Jerry. You ever heard of the Iguana family?
JERRY: Yeah.
VECCHIO: How about a guy by the name of Armando Langoustini?
JERRY: The Bookman? Of course. I mean, in my line of work, that's a guy you look up to. I mean, he'd kill you for a parking spot.
VECCHIO: And what would you think about a guy who got on the wrong side of Armando Langoustini?
JERRY: I'd say the guy's pretty stupid. [Vecchio drops his ID on the table. Jerry blanches.] You're the Bookman? [He looks at Huey.]
HUEY: Mm-hmm.
JERRY: You mean I'm —
HUEY: Yep. [He gets up from the table.]
JERRY: Okay. Muldoon met this guy a couple of times. The buyer.
VECCHIO: Gimme a name.
JERRY: I'm bad with names. [All three detectives make dangerously disappointed faces.] Wait, wait, wait. He had, like, a code. Code name. One seven F O C seven six.
Vecchio nods.
Vecchio's sneering Armando persona is—well, it's not that Armando is cool, but it's good the way Vecchio can shake him off and put him back on again.
The code name is 17FOC76. Hmm.
Scene 7
Fraser and Kowalski are still on the light plane. They are holding their hands behind their backs, pretending to be still tied up.
KOWALSKI: I think I can take 'em.
FRASER: Ray, patience.
KOWALSKI: Look, this is no time for patience. Look, all I got to do is draw 'em a little closer.
FRASER: Ray!
KOWALSKI: It's okay. Don't sweat it, don't sweat it. I'm going to do it your way. Okay?
FRASER: All right.
KOWALSKI: Excuse me! [He and Fraser both roll to their knees and stand up, hands still behind their backs.] Henchmen. It would be very much appreciated if you were to throw down your weapons of mass destruction and surrender yourselves to my partner and myself. [The henchmen scoff at this idea. Behind them, Bob Fraser is unimpressed.] Okay. Dolphin Boy. [He charges at Moustache, hitting him with his shoulders. Moustache uppercuts him right back at Fraser.]
MOUSTACHE: He always like this?
FRASER: Well, I, I'm sorry. He's somewhat impulsive, and I think that actually what he wanted to say — Ray?
Fraser and Kowalski simultaneously headbutt the henchmen, both of whom go down in one.
BOB FRASER: Four to go.
FRASER: Dolphin Boy?
A minute later, Fraser and Kowalski block the cockpit door with a crate. The guys in there are yelling and protesting.
KOWALSKI: Look, this isn't going to hold them for long. Remind me, Fraser, is there some sorta thing about shooting a gun off in a plane?
FRASER: [shopping in the cargo bay; he grabs a couple pair of snowshoes and a couple of duffel bags] Well, that depends on the altitude. If you're up high enough, any puncture of the airplane's skin can cause a massive depressurization and — well, just imagine that you were, say, a bowling ball being sucked through forty yards of garden hose.
I'm imagining a bowling ball being sucked through forty yards of garden hose, and it's not going well for the hose. I think Fraser's analogy could use a little workshopping if he's trying to emphasize the danger to the bowling ball in this situation.
Scene 8
Huey is writing on the board in Welsh's office.
HUEY: One seven F O C seven six. Fo. Foc.
DEWEY: Hey, watch how you pronounce that. It may not fly on television.
HUEY: Ba-dum tss.
WELSH: We're getting nowhere fast here.
FRANCESCA: We've got to be on the wrong track.
VECCHIO: Track? [has a brain wave] Track. Train.
HUEY: What train?
VECCHIO: Train track. Train. Train. Look. I got it. One seven seven six. Seventeen-seventy-six. The War of Independence. F O C. Fathers of Confederation. We've tangled with these clowns before.
WELSH: Yeah, but the Bolt brothers are both doing life in the federal pen.
VECCHIO: Well, then, let's run down all their visitors, who came, when they came, where they went.
As they speak, Randal Bolt is getting a visitor.
BOLT: Hmm. An extended family is a good thing, isn't it, Cyrus?
CYRUS BOLT: Yes it is, Cousin Randal. It is indeed.
Francesca has tracked this information down.
FRANCESCA: One visitor in the last month. Cyrus Bolt. Cousin on his father's side. Right out of Idaho.
WELSH: We got his whereabouts?
DEWEY: ATF crime data has Cyrus Bolt checked into the Meridian two weeks ago. He hasn't checked out.
WELSH: Pick him up.
For what feels like the first time all season, we can see Francesca below the shoulders and she's got a visible little tum. Impossible to say if that's a Milano who's about five months along or a Milano who's had the baby and is almost but not quite back in the shape she was before, but there you are.
Scene 9
On the plane, Kowalski is bracing the crate against the cockpit door with his body. The guys inside are shouting and fighting back. Fraser is packing the snowshoes and whatnot into another crate.
KOWALSKI: You got a plan?
FRASER: You bet I do. We're going to jump.
BOB FRASER: You're not going to cut and run, son?
KOWALSKI: Out of the airplane?
FRASER: Well, it's either that or they shoot us.
BOB FRASER: It happened to me. It's not so bad.
FRASER: This stuff ought to keep us warm.
KOWALSKI: All right.
MULDOON: Get this damned door open!
KOWALSKI: Toss me a parachute.
FRASER: Well, you know, that's the really exciting part of this plan, Ray. There are no parachutes.
MULDOON: Open that damned door!
FRASER: [standing with Kowalski at the open hatch on the side of the plane] The snow is bottomless, so it should be — well, it should be like falling into a duvet.
KOWALSKI: Yeah, I'm going to take my chances here.
MULDOON: Blow it off its goddamn hinges.
Muldoon starts firing. Kowalski turns and shoots back at the door. Fraser pushes his crate out of the plane.
FRASER: Ray, look! Turtles!
KOWALSKI: Turtles? [Fraser shoves Kowalski out of the plane.]
FRASER: [puts his hat on, salutes Muldoon and the henchmen] See you at the rendezvous, gentlemen.
He jumps out of the plane and is somehow right behind, that is, above, Kowalski. Muldoon leans out the door to yell after him.
MULDOON: See you in hell, Benton!
Fraser shoves the crate off the plane at 9:54 on the playback and Kowalski at 9:58; he jumps out himself at 10:03. This sort of plane appears to have an average speed of 175 mph (well, a cruising speed of 150 knots, and for this purpose I'm calling that close enough), which is about .05 miles per second, so in five seconds the plane will have gone about another quarter-mile.
The snow isn't bottomless, of course—there's land under it—and even if it's soft and powdery to a depth that's safe to land in after jumping out of a plane, how will the guys get out again? Conversely, if it's got a stopping depth shallow enough that they can reach the surface, how will they not break several bones (or rupture one or more internal organs, or both) when they hit it?
I wish they'd acknowledged the fact that they've done "we'll jump" / "like hell" before, but I'm glad that "Great Scott, turtles!" apparently works on everyone.
Scene 10
Fraser and Kowalski fall from the plane into the snow. Kowalski leaves a flail-shaped imprint; Fraser leaves a cookie-cutter Mountie-shaped one.
FRASER: Ray? You all right?
KOWALSKI: I'm under thirty feet of snow. How could that be all right?
FRASER: Well, you're alive. Start digging.
Kowalski struggles up out of the snow. He has trouble getting his footing, but he staggers over to Fraser, who is standing there looking around absolutely beaming.
KOWALSKI: You break something in your face?
FRASER: Not that I'm aware of, no.
KOWALSKI: Look, we're a hundred miles from nowhere in a frozen wasteland, and you're grinning like an idiot.
FRASER: [nods] I'm home.
Well, there is that. (It's not like he hasn't been back since he left, given that he had a vacation long enough for Vecchio to leave town and Kowalski to get in his place, but never mind.)
They both hit the snow at 10:10 on the playback, one after the other. So Kowalski was falling for about 12 seconds and Fraser for about seven. Accelerating at 32 feet per second per second, Kowalski has fallen about 2300 feet and Fraser only about 800, and they shouldn't land (a) at the same time nor (b) right next to each other (or, I guess, for them to land at the same time the plane can't have kept level but will have had to descend 1500 feet in eight seconds, which if Muldoon was flying and left the controls to come shoot at them I guess is not impossible?); I guess a quarter mile isn't that far, but the guys just aren't going to land side by side unless Fraser can somehow dive out of the plane in a directional way and catch up with Kowalski as he falls. Which, given that he can stay with Kowalski when they're both flying improvised fire extinguisher jetpacks, may be plausible? But come on.
Do note, though, that Kowalski is covered with snow and Fraser doesn't have a flake on him. Good to know that some things never change.
Scene 11
Cyrus Bolt is in Welsh's office.
CYRUS BOLT: You ever hear of the United States Constitution? Second Amendment?
WELSH: A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the rights of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
CYRUS BOLT: Now you drag me in here to answer to your nancy-boy laws just because I happen to have a couple of guns?
VECCHIO: Couple of guns, huh? How about six hundred grenade launchers, eleven hundred assault rifles, four hundred and fifty flamethrowers, and an unknown number of small arms.
CYRUS BOLT: So I'm a sportsman.
LAWYER: And a licensed arms dealer with a well regulated militia. All perfectly legal.
VECCHIO: A well regulated militia? How about a bunch of losers running through the woods with enough firepower to flatten the Sears Tower?
CYRUS BOLT: [angry, clearly threatening Vecchio] You ever see a maggot crushed?
WELSH: [provoked] I'll crush you, mushmouth! [Cyrus Bolt comes at Welsh. Couple of uniforms catch him and drag him away, snarling.] Book him. Book him!
LAWYER: [following Bolt out, calling after him] I'll talk to a judge. You'll be out in no time.
CYRUS BOLT: Take your hands off of me! Nobody calls me mushmouth! Not even my momma! [It takes more and more officers to get control of this guy.]
WELSH: You know, Ray, sometimes when somebody gets lost in the system, even their lawyers can't find 'em for a few days.
VECCHIO: Human tragedy, sir.
WELSH: Yeah.
CYRUS BOLT: I'm going to kick your butt from here to Cincinnati!
Scene 12
Out in the snowy wilderness, two figures are trudging through the snow, one (presumably Fraser) dragging a load, the other (presumably Kowalski) following.
KOWALSKI: Fraser, I'm not up to this. My idea of health is a cup of coffee without sugar. I'm not fit. I mean, I'm fit — I'm city fit. I'm just not snowshoe fit.
BOB FRASER: Got to keep going, son.
FRASER: Got to keep going, Ray.
BOB FRASER: Track the weasel to his lair.
FRASER: Muldoon's rendezvous is two days from now. We take a direct route, we should be able to intercept him.
KOWALSKI: Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. Two days from here?
FRASER: That's right. So. Weight forward, heels up, place it on your toes, and away we go.
Kowalski falls on his face.
KOWALSKI: Where are we going to sleep?
BOB FRASER: Sleep? When I went after Muldoon, I went full out. Eight days and eight nights. [He leans down and shouts at Kowalski like a drill sergeant.] I slept on my feet!
Fraser has put on mittens and a warmer coat and also, apparently, changed into the trousers that go with the brown or blue uniform rather than the jodhpurs that go with the red tunic. Also probably a sweater. Kowalski is wearing some bib snowpants and also evidently some more layers than he was wearing before they left the plane. When have they had time to do this? And wouldn't changing your clothes in the windswept outdoors be very cold indeed? Why is neither of them wearing a hat? WTF?
Scene 12
A dogsled pulls up to a cabin. Turnbull hands the reins to another Mountie, who has come down off the porch, and comes around to help the passenger disembark. The passenger, of course, is Thatcher.
TURNBULL: Was that not exciting or what, sir?
THATCHER: Worst four hours of my life.
After getting her off the sled, Turnbull is carrying Thatcher inside by picking her up around the middle. Her body is stiff like a popsicle.
TURNBULL: Here we go. [He bumps her into the doorframe.] Sorry. Sorry, sir.
FROBISHER: Meg Thatcher! Perfect timing. Just firing up a little moose hock here, wrapped in wild boar tongue, smothered with Gorgonzola cheese.
THATCHER: [fake laugh] Delightful. Buck Frobisher, this is Constable Turnbull. Constable Turnbull, Buck Frobisher.
FROBISHER: [shakes Turnbull's hand] Turnbull. Good to see you. [His mitten is on fire.]
TURNBULL: [trying to put out the fire without letting go of Frobisher's hand, which would be rude] Ee, ee! Ah! Ah! Ah! Oooh.
Finally the fire is out. All three of them take a moment to pretend nothing happened.
THATCHER: So, Buck, you only have dog sleds here, no snowmobiles?
FROBISHER: Well, snowmobiles take gas, Inspector.
TURNBULL: I thought you had gas, sir.
FROBISHER: Oh we have plenty of gas, son, just why waste it? Just throw down some tallow for the dogs and they run forever. [Diefenbaker barks.] Dief? [turns to another of his crew members] Throw some tallow down for the dog, willya?
TURNBULL: Speaking of tallow, sir, I've got a half a mind to strap on the old feedbag myself.
THATCHER: Yes, Turnbull, you have got half a mind. What I need is a good hot bath.
FROBISHER: Well, nothing in the way of a bath here. Never felt the need for it myself. Though there are people who do just go outside and roll around in the snow. [offers them a moose hock] Burnt or well done?
How does Turnbull know how to drive a dogsled? If he's originally from the far north like Fraser, won't he have had to fly on a plane before, you know, ever, and probably a small one at that?
Scene 13
Kowalski is curled up in a sleeping bag at a camp fire. Fraser is sitting up, tending it.
KOWALSKI: Fraser, you ever get the feeling that — you know, you're lost?
FRASER: No. Quick look to the stars or the sun, you can always find your location.
KOWALSKI: No, I don't mean where you are, I mean who you are.
FRASER: Oh. When I first came to Chicago, I felt as though I was from another planet.
KOWALSKI: Which you are.
FRASER: Which I've come to accept. [The melody of "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers begins to play in a wistful sort of solo string rendition.] Everything was unknown, and at times it was frightening. I felt as though I was an explorer. An urban explorer.
KOWALSKI: Urban explorer.
FRASER: I remember one time, we were on a stakeout, and I was trying to explain the sense of otherworldliness to the detectives. I was telling the story of Sir John Franklin, who set out to discover the Northwest Passage. But I realized, as I was telling the story, that they'd all fallen a— [Kowalski has fallen asleep. Something howls.]
BOB FRASER: The Yank won't survive this, son. You might have to — you know — leave him in the snow.
FRASER: Do you ever listen to yourself? To what you're actually saying?
BOB FRASER: I know. I can't help it. Muldoon is tearing at me. I can't sleep, can't eat.
FRASER: You can't sleep or eat because you're dead. You're also very pale. I can practically see through you.
BOB FRASER: Oh. Trick of the Northern Lights. Find him. After we sleep. We need sleep, I know. Except me, of course.
Fraser gave Bob enough what for in "North" about the possibility of abandoning his partner; you'd think Bob (that is, Ben's subconscious) would have learned by now that it is Not Going To Happen (with the arguable addition of especially not this partner).
Scene 14
Cyrus Bolt is in an interview room with Welsh, Huey, Dewey, Vecchio, and his lawyers.
CYRUS BOLT: Nobody locks up Cyrus Bolt and lives to see their grandchildren.
VECCHIO: Yeah, well, it's a big building with a big system. Mistakes happen.
There's a knock on the door, and Stella comes in.
STELLA: This is Mr. Bolt's release order.
CYRUS BOLT: Ha! [He goes and grabs the release order and is about to leave the interview room.]
LAWYER: Mr. Bolt!
CYRUS BOLT: Step aside, you ineffectual pissant.
WELSH: Just what is this big deal you got cooking?
CYRUS BOLT: Bigger than you have the capacity to imagine. [He stalks out, followed by his lawyers.]
WELSH: Oh, I want somebody on this guy day and night. [He leaves.]
DEWEY: [follows Welsh] I got the days.
HUEY: [follows Dewey] I got the nights. Ba-dum tss.
Vecchio and Stella are left in the interview room by themselves.
VECCHIO: I'm sorry, I don't think I've had the pleasure.
STELLA: Stella. Stella Kowalski.
VECCHIO: Ray Vecchio. The real Ray Vecchio.
Stella finds Ray Vecchio charming, which is a good thing, because why would she have given a shit that Ray Kowalski was not the real Ray Vecchio? She never thought of him as Ray Vecchio in the first place. (In fact, given that she's with the state's attorney's office, shouldn't she and Ray Vecchio have met before? When she said apparently Vecchio didn't read Guy Rankin his Miranda rights, did she just hear that from someone but never in her entire career clap eyes on the guy until now? I guess even all the time he was mixing it up with her colleague Louise St. Laurent they never managed to be in the same place at the same time.)
Scene 15
Fraser and Kowalski are hiking up a hill through the snow. Fraser is carrying a pack on his back; Kowalski is staggering and stumbling.
KOWALSKI: Fraser, can we take a nap?
FRASER: Soon, Ray.
KOWALSKI: Soon when?
FRASER: As soon as we get over that. [He points to a 10,000-foot mountain looming in front of them.]
There's nothing that high within a two-day walk (I mean, a difficult two-day backcountry hike) from Cape Parry, which is what's up at the north end of that peninsula we were talking about when Fraser said 70°N 125°W and Franklin Bay, because of course it's all river delta up there, but never mind.
Scene 16
Later, Fraser and Kowalski are scaling the mountain.
FRASER: Just relax, Ray.
KOWALSKI: I can't.
FRASER: Just look above you.
KOWALSKI: I can't.
FRASER: One hand after another.
KOWALSKI: I can't! Ah! [He falls. Fraser catches him.]
FRASER: I got you. I got you.
KOWALSKI: Jeez, you know — these aren't my underwear.
I'm pretty sure that's what Kowalski said, and I think he means he just shit his pants. Which, given the spill he just almost took, fair (although we don't know what, if anything, they've been eating).
Scene 17
An SUV pulls up on the tarmac at an airport. Cyrus Bolt hops out, tucks a pistol into his jacket, and heads for a plane. A car rolls up and comes to a completely ungraceful stop. Huey, in the passenger seat, glares at Dewey, who's driving. Dewey shrugs. Huey pulls out his phone and dials.
HUEY: [rubbing his neck] Ow.
The ongoing Huey-and-Dewey-hate-each-other's-driving gag is fine, but Huey wouldn't feel that kind of whiplash if he'd wear his goddamn seatbelt.
Scene 18
Thatcher is taking a bath in a wooden barrel. Turnbull is standing by acting as a hanging rack for her loofah and things, wearing a blindfold. A curtain separates them from Frobisher and the rest of his detachment. The phone rings and Frobisher answers.
FROBISHER: Hello?
WELSH: Inspector Thatcher?
FROBISHER: She's up to her beautiful neck in hot water.
WELSH: We've been tracking Cyrus Bolt. He just took off for Tuktoyaktuk. We think he's en route for a meeting with Muldoon, destination unknown. Could you pass that on to her?
FROBISHER: Will do.
Thatcher hangs up her scrubber.
THATCHER: Turnbull, I need a towel.
FROBISHER: Inspector —
She stands up in the bath. Turnbull pulls the curtain. Thatcher screams and gets back down in the bath as Frobisher's men hoot and catcall. Frobisher glares at them until they shut up. He pulls the curtain shut again.
This was almost certainly not necessary in general, still less so given my conclusions about Thatcher's history of being sexually exploited, but I'm glad Frobisher stood in her defense rather than encouraging his boorish troops.
Scene 19
Halfway up the mountain, Fraser and Kowalski are cliff camping in hammocks. Kowalski is swinging in his.
KOWALSKI: Ha ha ha! I like this, Fraser. This reminds me of a swingset I had when I was a kid.
FRASER: Ray.
KOWALSKI: Whee!
FRASER: Ray.
KOWALSKI: Whee!
FRASER: Ray. Ray.
KOWALSKI: Whee!
FRASER: Ray!
BOB FRASER: Hypothermia, son?
FRASER: Possibly. [He gives Kowalski another blanket.] Put your legs in the hammock. It's time to go to sleep. Here, wrap up.
KOWALSKI: Anything you say, Fraser, buddy buddy calamari —
BOB FRASER: Is the Yank going to make it?
KOWALSKI: — chicky chicky — oh, Lord —
FRASER: I don't know.
KOWALSKI: — my ass is numb.
FRASER: I don't know.
KOWALSKI: Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Kowalski pulls his legs into his hammock. Fraser tucks the blanket around him. They are hanging from the side of the mountain and very, very alone.
At the beginning of this scene, the stars and the waning crescent moon (illuminated on the left because northern hemisphere) look very close. At that phase the moon doesn't appear until well after midnight, but it's strange that they'd have kept hiking through that many hours of darkness (in Whitehorse, YT, the sun sets at 8:00 p.m. in mid-March and rises again at about 8:15 a.m.). For a giggle, I asked timeanddate.com for moonrise times in the Yukon in March 1999, and as it turns out, third quarter is accurate! So that's fun. But it doesn't answer why the fellas weren't tucking in to sleep until three in the morning.
It's harrowing to hear Fraser admit to his own subconscious that he doesn't know whether Kowalski will survive. And even more so, of course, to hear Kowalski praying Our Father at this point.
Scene 20
The next morning, Fraser wakes up to the wind howling. He calls to Kowalski.
FRASER: Ray. [Kowalski does not move.] Ray. [He has ice crystals on his beard stubble and his eyebrows.] Ray. [But his lips aren't blue. This show wouldn't dare . . . would it?]
KOWALSKI: Hmm? [Thank God.]
FRASER: Oh, dear.
I mean, yes, an incapacitated Kowalski is going to be a lot of extra work for Fraser. But it's better than a dead Kowalski!
Fraser has no ice crystals on his beard stubble (of which he has none) nor his eyebrows. If it was possible for exactly one of them to sleep with his back to the wind, he should have arranged Kowalski on that side, so presumably this is his Teflon hand-laundry good luck surfacing again instead.
Scene 21
In Frobisher's cabin, the phone rings.
FROBISHER: Frobisher here.
WELSH: Inspector Thatcher? [Vecchio is in his office, pacing and wheezing.]
FROBISHER: She's up to her pretty neck in Mounties. [Thatcher is in a single bed between Frobisher and Turnbull — all fully clothed, but Turnbull is cuddling a stuffed dog and huddled up close to her. She is looking very put out.] Hold the line. [He hands her the phone.]
THATCHER: Thatcher. [She elbows Turnbull off her.]
WELSH: Yeah. Bolt's plane never made it to Tuktoyaktuk. He dropped out of sight south of there, around Franklin Bay.
THATCHER: [gives the phone back to Frobisher, annoyed, and sits up and looks at a map on his wall] Franklin Bay. Hardly a precise location.
Scene 22
Fraser is climbing the mountain with Kowalski strapped to his back and the pack strapped to Kowalski.
BOB FRASER: Your mother and I were once trapped in a terrible blizzard on our way to Resolute to pick up supplies. I thought I was done for. Your mother, too. We still looked a lot better than the Yank does now.
FRASER: Well, what did you do?
BOB FRASER: We pushed on through the cold and the pain. Kept each other going.
FRASER: Because that's what partnership is all about.
The show said Fraser and Kowalski's relationship is the same as Bob and Caroline's. They've said it twice now, along with pointing out that willingness to lay down your life for someone is true love. I don't know what else I could be meant to conclude here.
KOWALSKI: Fraser, you got this hypothermia thing? 'Cause you seem to be talking to yourself.
FRASER: Possibly.
KOWALSKI: Okay, well, Fraser, just listen to me. You've got to push through the cold and the pain and keep moving, 'cause that's what partnership's all about. There's red ships and green ships, but there's no ships like partnerships.
FRASER: Oh, Ray, you're starting to blither. Ready? [He keeps climbing.]
KOWALSKI: I'm cold, and my back is hurting from the weight of the pack.
I'm sure what Kowalski means is that the pack is digging into his back in a way that's uncomfortable.
Scene 23
Frobisher mounts up, farting. Thatcher is bundled up in a sled Turnbull is going to drive. Other teams are in two other sleds.
FROBISHER: Move out!
They move out.
Scene 24
Fraser and Kowalski reach the summit.
KOWALSKI: Top of the world, Ma! Top of the world! [A triumphant rendition of the melody of "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers plays—strings, tympani, they're going for "stirring" to match the scenery.]
FRASER: That's a wonderful movie. Jimmy Cagney, Virginia Mayo. White Heat. Nineteen-forty-nine.
KOWALSKI: Look, Fraser, I just climbed my first mountain. I need a moment to triumph.
FRASER: Oh, right, of course. Well, please, go ahead, Ray. [Ray punches the air.] Oh, there, that was good. Now let's see what we're going to do about getting down.
KOWALSKI: Down? [It is indeed sheer and craggy on the other side of the mountain.] I love down. Down is a piece of cake. Down is fun. Down is great. Down is —
FRASER: Stop! Down is dangerous. This is the ice field they were going to drop us on. Fissures abound. Move slowly.
KOWALSKI: Fissures?
FRASER: Yeah, deep cracks in the ice, frequently snow-covered.
KOWALSKI: The ice is full of deep cracks? Is that what you're telling me?
FRASER: Yes. Now, Franklin Bay is that way. You know, Ray, you have to think of an ice field like — well, a mine field. Now, if you —
KOWALSKI: Mine field? Come on, Fraser — [He runs off, but because he is tethered to Fraser, Fraser has no option but to run after him.]
FRASER: Whoa, whoa, Ray —
KOWALSKI: — come on, let's go —
FRASER: — whoa, Ray —
KOWALSKI: — let's go, come on, let's move —
They fall into a fissure, of course. They're wedged in there from the waist down.
FRASER: You all right?
KOWALSKI: Oh, yeah. I'm stuck.
FRASER: Yeah.
KOWALSKI: Where are we? [They're probably a hundred feet down the crevasse.]
FRASER: We're trapped.
KOWALSKI: You're going to get us out, right? You're going to use some of that northern folklore type stuff and get us out, right?
FRASER: Not this time. We are well and truly trapped. Give me your gun. [Kowalski's gun is in the bib of his snowsuit, so he's able to get it. Fraser stuffs a red handkerchief into its muzzle and fires up in the air. The red handkerchief flies out of the fissure like a flare.] All right. Now we just have to wait and hope that — that in this vast, unpopulated, untraveled wilderness, that somebody sees it.
KOWALSKI: And if nobody notices it?
FRASER: Then we die.
KOWALSKI: Ah.
I'm just so glad Kowalski quoted White Heat (1949) rather than Titanic (1997) ("I'm the king of the world!") that I'll overlook the fact that right after James Cagney says "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" he is engulfed in flames and dies.
What idiot would hear "mine field" and start running? I mean, running the other way, maybe. But running through a mine field is not the way to get through a mine field safely, am I right? I feel like even I know that. (I'm going to leave behind both "I just climbed my first mountain" and the fact that the fellas are jammed in that tight spot hip to hip. I feel like those things balance each other out.)
I mean, but listen, if either of them had fallen in there by himself, he'd have fallen much further and probably died, definitely been unrescuable. Only because they were together could they get stuck that relatively short way down as they did.
Scene 25
In Welsh's office, Vecchio and Stella are sitting on the couch; Francesca and Welsh are at Welsh's desk. All are drinking.
VECCHIO: Well, for all we know they could be — well, they could be stuck in a block of ice somewhere or something. I mean, it's not like I care, it's just —
STELLA: You care.
VECCHIO: Do you think so?
STELLA: Mm-hmm. I think you have a generous heart.
VECCHIO: Well, thank you, Stella.
WELSH AND FRANCESCA: Oh, please.
Stella and Vecchio glare at them.
Scene 26
Fraser and Kowalski are still hanging out (ha!) halfway down the crevasse.
KOWALSKI: You know, when I add it all up, I only got one regret. That I never went on any, ah, kind of real adventure.
FRASER: You don't consider being trapped two hundred feet down an ice crevasse an adventure?
KOWALSKI: Nah.
FRASER: Ah.
KOWALSKI: More like, ah, finding the, you know, the top of the Nile. Or the tomb, King Tut's tomb. Dating a supermodel. [Fraser makes an "oh, well, yes" face.] Or Franklin. What the hell is Franklin, why did I think of Franklin?
FRASER: [chuckles] In eighteen-forty-five, Sir John Franklin set off in search of the Northwest Passage with two boats, the Erebus and the Terror. And he was last seen navigating Peel Sound, July twenty-sixth.
KOWALSKI: Nobody found him?
FRASER: No. No, no. Many went in search of his hand reaching for the Beaufort Sea, but none found him.
KOWALSKI: I get out of this, I live through this, I gotta find that hand. I'm gonna find that reaching-out hand.
FRASER: It might be the hand of death.
KOWALSKI: Yeah, well, I've faced death.
FRASER: And what did you do?
KOWALSKI: I sang. Of course, it was ABBA, so it sort of spoiled the romantic effect. But, yeah, I sang.
FRASER: Then we should sing.
KOWALSKI: What, "S.O.S."?
FRASER: No. [He starts to sing "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers.] ♫ Ah, for just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage — ♫
BOB AND BEN FRASER: ♫ — to find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea. ♫ [Fraser's red handkerchief has landed in the bearded face of a surprised white dude on the ice.] ♫ Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage — ♫ [The bearded white dude can hear the singing on the wind; he also sniffs a little.] — ♫ and make a Northwest Passage to the sea. ♫
FRASER: ♫ Westward from the Davis — ♫ [The bearded dude appears hanging upside down into the crevasse.]
BEARDED DUDE: Benton?
FRASER: Delmar!
BEARDED DUDE (DELMAR): How you doing?
FRASER: Oh, you know. A bit stuck.
DELMAR: Hey, good to see you.
FRASER: Yeah.
DELMAR: It's been, what, since grade four?
FRASER: Yeah, at least.
DELMAR: God, I loved grade four. So. You boys want out, or are you okay where you are?
KOWALSKI: Out. Out would be good.
FRASER: Yeah.
DELMAR: Okay. [He backs up out of the crevasse.]
KOWALSKI: Grade four?
FRASER: He was — he was held back a bit.
When Kowalski was facing death, he sang "S.O.S." by ABBA. Was that the time Marcus Ellery robbed the bank and he (at age 13) peed his pants, or another time facing death?
Where are those happy days? They seem so hard to find
I try to reach for you, but you have closed your mind
Whatever happened to our love? I wish I understood
It used to be so nice, it used to be so good[REFRAIN] So when you're near me,
Darling, can't you hear me? S.O.S.!
The love you gave me,
Nothing else can save me. S.O.S.!
When you're gone, how can I even try to go on?
When you're gone, though I try, how can I carry on?You seemed so far away, though you were standing near
You made me feel alive, but something died, I fear
I really tried to make it up, I wish I understood
What happened to our love? It used to be so good(refrain)
Maybe Fraser doesn't know that one, and that's why he suggests singing "Northwest Passage" in the face of death. For the romantic atmosphere. (The romantic atmosphere.)
Anyway, I think it's delightful that Delmar asks if they want help rather than just charging ahead and assuming. It seems like a knucklehead question from a guy who repeated the fourth grade at least once, but in fact "May I help you" is much more correct than "Let me help you," so well done!
All right. Yes: In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin did leave England in command of HMS Erebus and accompanied by HMS Terror to search for the Northwest Passage, which after late July of that year were never again seen by Europeans. (The Wikipedia article on the expedition says "In late July 1845 the whalers Prince of Wales (Captain Dannett) and Enterprise (Captain Robert Martin) encountered Terror and Erebus in Baffin Bay, where they were waiting for good conditions to cross to Lancaster Sound" and cites Richard Cyriax, Sir John Franklin's Last Arctic Expedition; a Chapter in the History of the Royal Navy (London: Methuen & Co., 1939), 66–68; I can't get Google Books to show me those pages, but I've got "The Erebus and Terror, when last seen at the end of July, 1845, were moored to an iceberg on the east side of Baffin Bay, opposite Lancaster Sound," so I'll take it. They seem not to have reached Peel Sound until the summer of 1846. But never mind: The gist of Fraser's comment is accurate, which is that the entire expedition was lost; all members were declared dead in 1854. By 1999, many had gone in search of Franklin and his lost ships, and noone (that is, no Europeans) had found more than a trace of them here and there. (Fear not: Of course we'll come back to this.)
Scene 27
Delmar has got Fraser out of the crevasse, and the both of them are hauling Kowalski out too. Kowalski lies gasping in the snow.
DELMAR: Well. Guess I'll be getting on my way.
FRASER: Thank you kindly, Delmar. [Kowalski struggles to his feet. The wind is blowing.] Where are you heading, anyway?
DELMAR: Further north. [Kowalski falls down.] Yeah, got to get out of this wilderness rat race. Country's getting too crowded. [Kowalski clambers up to his feet again.] Couple of hunters over at Trojan Valley, there's some guys with heavy armament over at Diamond Head, and ten thousand feet up on Mount Sabine, there's a soccer team eating each other.
KOWALSKI: Would you mind repeating that?
DELMAR: Yeah, Argentine soccer team there eating each — eating themselves up on, ah —
KOWALSKI: No, no, no, not that. The part about the heavy weaponry.
DELMAR: Diamond Head? Yeah, all decked out in black, snowmobiles, the whole thing. Anyway, Benton, good to see you.
FRASER: You too, Delmar.
DELMAR: Ah — grade four, huh? Sticks with me like a bowl of gruel. [All chuckle.] Be safe.
FRASER: You too. [Delmar hikes off into the snow.]
KOWALSKI: They all like that around here?
FRASER: Like what? I mean, the territory's largely unpopulated.
KOWALSKI: Like Grizzly Adams. Kinda, kinda nutty like that.
FRASER: Well, for the most part, yes.
DELMAR: Oh, Benton! There's also a bunch of Mounties over at King's Creek!
BOB FRASER: King's Creek, son. Gotta get to King's Creek.
FRASER: King's Creek, Ray.
KOWALSKI: So, what? We're changing plans?
FRASER: Yes. We've got to get the rendezvous coordinates to Buck Frobisher at King's Creek. Climb aboard!
Music cue: "Resurrection" by Moist.
Here comes the resurrection
Everybody's got to die from something
Nothing ever left to leave you when you go
I saw you strip my babies
Animal the way you cut them might be
Animal the way I cut you from below
And if anger is the ending
Of the thing that we've become
For the mother and the father
And the sister and the son
Through the shallow without wanting
Realization to mistake
Through the ugliness
The open all the things we can't replace
I will control
Fraser has taken a position on the back of a sled. Kowalski gets on the front.
The two of them sled all the way down the mountain, fissures be damned.
They dodge around a multitude of obstacles once they get below the tree line.
At the end of the slide, they catch big air, land, and go straight through three tents before coming to a stop right at the edge of Frobisher's cooking fire.
FROBISHER: Well, Ben, just in time. I'm firing up a little moose hock. Good trip?
Fraser and Kowalski, both caked in snow and ice, nod.
I don't know any of the places Delmar mentions, so I'm not going to do the map again. It sounds like he says "Trojan Valley," of which Google is unaware in Canada; there is a Diamond Head on the side of Mt. Garibaldi 50 or so miles north of Vancouver and a Mt. Sabine at about the same latitude on the eastern end of British Columbia, but those are thousands of miles from the northern areas where we've been led to understand Fraser and Kowalski jumped out of the plane on the way to Franklin Bay. There's also no King's Creek all the way up there. In short: The whole thing is a mystery, including the Argentine soccer team reference, because I think when Delmar says "an Argentine soccer team eating themselves" he is referring to the amateur Uruguayan rugby team that (with a couple of dozen others) crashed in the Andes in Argentina in 1972, which you may remember from the film Alive (1993).
Scene 28
Night has fallen. Lanterns are burning in the Mounties' pup tents; Fraser and Frobisher are sitting and talking by the campfire.
FRASER: Delicious meal, sir.
FROBISHER: Ah, thank you.
FRASER: We should be able to make Bolt's rendezvous by midday tomorrow.
FROBISHER: Hmm. Yes. Is, ah — is he around here by any chance? Your father, I mean.
FRASER: Oh. No. You know, he never told me? About my mother.
FROBISHER: Well, what could he say? That he was a flawed individual? That he failed your mother, failed you? He was half mad with grief, Benton. He did what he could. What he knew.
FRASER: He became a murderer.
FROBISHER: Muldoon laughed at him. Laughed in his face. Mustn't be too harsh on him, Ben.
KOWALSKI: I'm not so sure about this rendezvous. I mean, we only got half a dozen Mounties, and they've got forty armed men. The odds are kinda funky.
FROBISHER: Well, it isn't any good if there's no challenge. Well, I think I'll go lay down some tallow for the dogs. [He farts copiously as he stands up.] Oh, Diefenbaker. Bad manners. [laughs with Kowalski] Hounds these days. [He moves away; Kowalski takes his seat by the fire.]
KOWALSKI: So if we live through this, when we get back to Chicago I guess you'll partner up with Vecchio? That's okay, 'cause he's a — good guy. You worked with him for a while.
FRASER: You know, Ray, my father and Buck Frobisher were partners for more than twenty years, and their territory was thousands of miles. Sometimes they wouldn't see each other for months. But no matter how far apart they were, they always knew that they were partners.
KOWALSKI: I'm not sure if you —
THATCHER: [appearing inconveniently] Fraser.
FRASER: Duty —
KOWALSKI: — barks.
Kowalski smiles to show no hard feelings. Fraser gets up and steps away from the fire with Thatcher.
THATCHER: I've been thinking about the matter of our transfer. You know, I look out into this cold, barren, empty landscape, where any mistake could be your last. Where you're surrounded by endless miles of silence with only yourself for company. And — and I can't think of a life less appealing. [Fraser hangs his head, disappointed.] But obviously, it is where you belong.
FRASER: Yes, sir, I think it is.
THATCHER: So then this could be our —
FRASER: Possibly.
THATCHER: Then — maybe we should —
They may be leaning in to kiss one last time. We'll never know, because Frobisher and the dogs start howling at the moon.
Fraser. Honestly. Not when you've just finished proposing to Kowalski, innit?
Scene 29
The next morning, Frobisher is rallying the troops. Everyone is listening patiently, except Turnbull, who is rapt.
FROBISHER: They have called this day the eleventh of March! And whomsoever of you gets through this day, unless you are shot in the head or somehow slain, you will stand at tiptoe whene'er you hear the name again, and you will get excited at the name: March the eleventh! We happy few, we few, we band of brothers; our names will be as like household names. And those who are not here, be they sleeping or doing something else, they will feel themselves sort of crappy, because they are not here to join the fight on this day, the eleventh of March! [Fraser nods. Kowalski raises an eyebrow. Turnbull weeps. Thatcher can't believe it.] Move out.
The group breaks up to move out. Fraser puts a note in Diefenbaker's collar.
FRASER: Go. [Diefenbaker barks and runs off. Frobisher comes over.] I've sent for reinforcements, sir. Just in case.
FROBISHER: Good thinking, Fraser. [Diefenbaker bounds through the snow. Frobisher sounds the charge.] To battle!
Frobisher and Fraser are on horseback, leading a column of four dogsleds. At the top of a crest, Bob watches them go.
BOB FRASER: We're going to get him, Caroline. I promise you. Promise.
Diefenbaker keeps bounding through the snow.
Frobisher, of course, is attempting to echo the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V:
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
St. Crispin's Day is October 25, which I suppose is one reason Frobisher couldn't just do the regular speech. 🙄 (This episode didn't air on March 11, which is a bummer.)
Scene 30
In Welsh's office, Welsh and Francesca are pacing; Stella and Vecchio are now sitting very cozily together, with her practically on his lap.
STELLA: [to Welsh and Francesca] Look, you're making me dizzy.
VECCHIO: [to Stella, stroking her hand] You're making me dizzy.
FRANCESCA: You know, it's the not knowing that's making me crazy. [Vecchio starts wheezing. Stella pats his back.]
WELSH: You know, knowing those two, they could be standing in the middle of a frozen lake right now, staring at a map.
Scene 31
Fraser and Kowalski and the gang are standing in the middle of a frozen lake staring at a map.
KOWALSKI: You sure this is the place?
FRASER: Well, these are the coordinates. A hundred and twenty-five degrees west by seventy degrees north. [There is a groaning crackling noise.]
KOWALSKI: What the hell was that?
FRASER: Oh, it's just the ice cracking beneath us.
KOWALSKI: Ice cracking?
FRASER: Well, it's not uncommon, Ray. It's caused by the ebb and flow. This is a fjord that opens out to the sea.
KOWALSKI: Why the hell would he want to meet here in the first place? I mean, why wouldn't he want to deliver his guns in the warmth and safety of any American city?
Meanwhile, Diefenbaker runs around a pile of firewood and scrabbles at the door of a cabin. A red-clad Mountie answers.
MOUNTIE: Hey, fella!
He crouches down to get the note off Diefenbaker's collar. On the fjord, Bob Fraser comes up behind Frobisher.
BOB FRASER: Buck.
FROBISHER: Bob. Wondered where you'd been. You're a little pale.
BOB FRASER: I'm still dead.
FROBISHER: Yes, well, I'm having a hard time believing that.
BOB FRASER: Well, there you are, then.
FROBISHER: That's another story, with my regrets. We'll get Muldoon. For Caroline.
BOB FRASER: For Caroline. [He sees something and points.] Oh, look out. Trouble.
FROBISHER: What? [A phalanx of snowmobiles—nine of them—is approaching.] Great Scott. Form up! Form up! Husband your ammunition. Shoot to kill. Or if not, at least to hurt them enough that they'll give themselves up.
The team forms a couple of ranks, some Mounties kneeling in front, others standing in back, and aims rifles at the snowmobilers. The ice cracks even more under their feet.
KOWALSKI: Is that normal?
TURNBULL: It's perfectly natural, Ray. You see, the movement of the sea under the ice causes it to heave and crack —
This is more than that. The ice heaves and cracks and splits, and our heroes can tell something is up. Fraser goes to his knees to be sure he doesn't fall in the fissure that is forming. The snowmobiles brake; their leader raises a hand.
CYRUS BOLT: Hold up!
Fraser and Kowalski are being lifted on the sail of a submarine that is rising out of the ice.
FRASER: With reference to your earlier question, Ray, it would appear that Mr. Muldoon is delivering a Delta-class Russian nuclear submarine to Mr. Cyrus Bolt.
FROBISHER: Retreat and report.
KOWALSKI: What would Bolt want with a nuclear sub?
FRASER: To hold the planet to ransom, I should imagine.
Frobisher and the rest of the Mounties try to take cover behind the parts of the submarine that are above the ice. Fraser and Kowalski try to open the hatch.
CYRUS BOLT: All right! Go!
The snowmobiles begin to circle the submarine, exchanging fire with the Mounties. Inside, Muldoon is looking through the scope. Fraser and Kowalski drop through the hatch; someone approaches Fraser, but Fraser punches him out immediately. The gun battle continues.
THATCHER: What about ammunition?
FROBISHER: We'll run out, of course. It's to be expected in a firefight. But we have plenty of moose hock on the sled. That's a plus. [He shoots someone off the back of one of the snowmobiles.]
THATCHER: We're going to need those reinforcements.
Fraser and Kowalski proceed down the corridor of the submarine, punching Muldoon's henchmen to the floor as they go. Someone steps into a doorway; Kowalski fires at him. Muldoon hears the gunshots coming from inside the submarine. Outside, the snowmobiles stop circling and form up in a line.
CYRUS BOLT: All right! Let's kill us some Mounties! Fire! [They all start firing. The Mounties cower behind the shell of the submarine.]
TURNBULL: I'm too young to die!
FROBISHER: [looking at the sky] Hang on. My God! [A small airplane is arriving.]
THATCHER: It's the reinforcements!
A whole posse of Mounties start parachuting out of the plane.
MOUNTIE: Go, go, go, go, go, eh? Go!
Their parachutes are Canadian flags, of course.
FROBISHER: [waving] Air Mounties! It's the latest thing.
A kind of glass harp "O Canada" plays as the air wing drifts down to join the fight. Diefenbaker, in harness, is parachuting in as well. When they hit the ground, the baddies are outflanked, and the firefight resumes.
I've got a deus ex machina for Sgt. Buck Frobisher? Sign here, please. [h/t Cleolinda Jones]
I mean, last time we had a season-ending two-parter, we had Sea Mounties, right? So why not Air Mounties this time. Pity this is the series finale so we'll never get Fire Mounties, innit.
When Fraser says "a Delta-class Russian nuclear submarine" all I can hear is Leo McGarry speaking to President Bartlet in The West Wing season 3 episode 6 "Gone Quiet" (2001):
LEO: This is one of those things we've talked about that sounds worse than it is because of your inexperience with the military.
BARTLET: What is it?
LEO: Okay. The USS Portland is a Seawolf-class, or "big," nuclear submarine.
BARTLET: Yeah.
LEO: It has a crew of a hundred and thirty-seven. It is loaded down with highly classified intelligence-gathering equipment. And it is in the waters off North Korea.
BARLET: Right.
LEO: We don't have it right now.
BARTLET: What does "we don't have it" mean?
LEO: Well, as you know, with our ships, our boats, and our submarines, we keep in pretty close touch with radar, sonar, satellites, radio, encrypted messages — and we don't have the Portland now.
BARTLET: We don't have it?
LEO: We do not.
BARTLET: And they're in North Korea?
LEO: Yes. Last we heard. So we're going to set up meetings in the next few hours. Plus, if anything happens, I don't like people knowing you were running for election while the boat was out there.
BARTLET: Nah, I think I'll go ahead and cancel that trip, Leo. If only to stick around and see how this sounds worse than it really is.
LEO: I'll stick around, too.
BARTLET: I think you will.
Scene 32
In the submarine, Fraser and Kowalski have reached the bridge, where Muldoon is about to climb up a ladder to escape.
FRASER: Muldoon!
Muldoon shoots at them; they duck out of the way. When Muldoon stops firing, Kowalski pops back up and returns fire, but the best he'll be able to do is graze Muldoon's heels; he's gone. Out on the ice field, Cyrus Bolt and the bad guys are firing at the Mounties hiding behind the submarine, but the air wing Mounties are advancing on them from behind.
MOUNTIE: Gentlemen, please hold your fire. You are surrounded.
ANOTHER MOUNTIE: Excuse me, please, sir. Could you —
MOUNTIE: Officers will take your weapons — [The baddies are so surprised they stop shooting and turn around.]
CYRUS BOLT: Fight, you scum! Fight, damn you!
Frobisher and the submarine Mounties come up on the front, and now the baddies are indeed surrounded.
MOUNTIE: Go, go, go! Let's move it, move it, move it. Thank you, sir. [Muldoon comes up out of the hatch and looks at the revolting scene of Cyrus Bolt and his guys surrounded by Mounties.]
CYRUS BOLT: Memo to myself: Never try to raise an army of liberation out of a bunch of potato farmers from Idaho!
Muldoon jumps down into the snow and makes for one abandoned snowmobile. Kowalski draws Fraser's attention to this.
When Vecchio said "Wish me luck" and Fraser said "You don't need it," the next major thing that happened was that Fraser found out Muldoon had killed his mother and Vecchio got shot. Kowalski can't know that, but still, this feels like a dangerous callback, doesn't it?
FRASER: Wish me luck.
KOWALSKI: That, you don't need.
Fraser whistles. A horse neighs. As Muldoon boards the snowmobile, Fraser climbs down his ladder and hops onto the horse, giving chase immediately. Kowalski smiles watching him charge. Fraser pursues Muldoon along a path through the woods and ropes him with a lariat, pulling him off the snowmobile, which carries on riderless. Muldoon gets to his feet, brandishing a pistol. Fraser gets down from his horse.
FRASER: It's the end of the road, Muldoon.
MULDOON: Looks like you picked up your dad's DNA for determination — [The ground caves in under Muldoon's feet, and because Fraser is still holding the rope tied around him, he goes down too: They fall into an abandoned mine shaft. They both pop back up immediately, Muldoon getting out of the rope.] Whoo! Like I was saying. You don't quit very easily.
FRASER: I don't give up ever.
MULDOON: Well, I would consider that a character flaw if I were you. Because I'm now going to have to kill you with my bare hands. [He puts, as they say, his dukes up.]
BOB FRASER: You won't be doing any more killing.
MULDOON: Who said that?
BOB FRASER: Remember back twenty-nine years. [He steps out of a shadow.] Six Mile Canyon.
MULDOON: [spooked] Bob Fraser? You — you were shot. You're dead.
BOB FRASER: [raising his gun] So are you.
MULDOON: Oh, no. This can't be real.
BOB FRASER: [shoots at the ceiling, actually dislodging some snow; Muldoon flinches] It's real enough.
FRASER: How can he see you?
BOB FRASER: Because I want him to. [He comes out around from behind Ben.] Cross a Mountie, he'll hunt you to the grave. He'll hunt you from beyond the grave. [He fixes his gun point blank on Muldoon and cocks the hammer.]
FRASER: Dad, stop. This was wrong twenty-nine years ago, and it's wrong now.
BOB FRASER: [not looking away from Muldoon] Then what am I doing here, son?
FRASER: I think you've been given a chance to try and get it right.
BOB FRASER: [His hand his shaking a bit.] Will you take him in?
FRASER: Oh, yes.
After a moment, Bob uncocks his gun and turns around and hands it to Fraser.
BOB FRASER: There is one thing I'd like to do.
MULDOON: And what would that be?
Bob turns around and decks Muldoon with a single roundhouse punch to the face.
BOB FRASER: [shaking out his hand] I don't know why anyone ever does that. Lord, that hurts. [He realizes Fraser is staring at him kind of oddly.] What?
FRASER: You're fading.
BOB FRASER: I've solved my last crime. I caught my last man. No reason to hang around.
FRASER: [sad] It's just I, ah — I thought you were permanent.
BOB FRASER: Oh, son. Nothing's permanent.
Music cue: "Holy Tears" by Tara MacLean.
Holy tears, they linger on
Holding you, my love,
Forever gone.
Wrapped inside a twisted world,
I can't decide what is even real anymore,
As though I ever knew.
Tangled in these silhouettes,
Floating face down in a river of regrets
And thoughts of you.
Holy tears, they linger on
Bob and Ben Fraser both hear a kind of shimmering sound, and when they turn, a woman steps out of a shadow.
BOB FRASER: Caroline?
FRASER: Mum.
Caroline, for it is she, turns from Bob to look at Ben. She reaches up and pushes his hair off his forehead and then she smiles, so happy to see him.
Fraser has tears in his eyes. His mother steps back away from him, sorry she has to leave. She turns to Bob again. He looks at her.
Hand in hand, Caroline and Bob step into the light shining down from the surface where the mine shaft opened. They turn back to look at Ben. He smiles at them through the tears in his eyes.
Bob and Caroline step through the light into the shadow on the other side, but before they reach it, they disappear completely.
Okay, stipulated: It's a little weird to have a guy's wife play his character's mother. Nevertheless, it's a walk-on part that who would bother auditioning for? and I can see having her come in and do it more or less as a favor to the show, don't have to spend any time getting to know each other or building any kind of rapport, put her in the cold-weather gear and get the shot in 20 minutes and move on with the considerable expense of the rest of the episode. On a practical level I get it.
And the moment she creates is lovely. (It's all her, as well; he has his back to the camera and Pinsent isn't even in the frame.) I appreciate that Caroline's focus is on Bob, whom she must have been waiting for, right?, because whatever borderland/afterlife situation she found herself in, he was somewhere else, not joining her, obviously not for the first 25 years she was there, but even since he died himself, which, not unreasonable of her to expect he'd turn up, right? But as soon as Fraser calls to her, she looks at him, and look how her face changes! Because the last time she saw him, he was only six, and now here he is, a man grown, and she thought she'd never see that but here she is: What a gift. Maybe the fact that I have a six-year-old has softened me unusually. But that smile is gorgeous.
Anyway, then she turns back to Bob, as she must, because it's time for them to go. Nothing, indeed, is permanent. Poor Fraser, losing each of his parents twice, am I right?
And/but/so okay: This Bob is evidently not Fraser's subconscious, unless what's happening here in the mine shaft is Fraser having some kind of break(through). Maybe that's why Bob is (a) visible to Muldoon, (b) able to actually shoot the gun and punch him, and (c) looking so peaky and grey and then actually disappears. Last Three Minutes Of The Series hypothesis: Since "The Gift of the Wheelman," what we see as Bob has been Fraser's subconscious; but the Bob who is visible to other people (in "Bird in the Hand" and "All the Queen's Horses") is in fact Bob Fraser's ghost. I'll have to think more about what that means with respect to "Hunting Season," but I'm down with the idea that there are two Bobs.
Scene 33
Fraser is hooking up a dog team to a sled. The background music is a nostalgic piano rendition of "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers. Fraser is loading up the sled throughout what follows.
FRASER (VO): And life continues. Detectives Jack Huey and Thomas Dewey realized their dream of the One Liner.
DEWEY: [standing at a microphone] So what do you call a fish with no eyes? FSHHH. [He gives the crowd "huh? huh?" eyes (just be glad he doesn't say "wocka wocka") as Huey does a drum roll and cymbal crash.]
FRASER (VO): And their comedy club played the marginal houses for a long time. Constable Turnbull decided to run for public office.
TURNBULL: [out of uniform, shaking hands and kissing babies] Oh ho ho ho, hello!
FRASER (VO): But his campaign got off to a rocky start when he was run over by his campaign bus.
TURNBULL: [moving to cross the street without looking first; a horn sounds] No!
FRASER (VO): My old partner, Ray Vecchio, did indeed cough up a golden bullet. [Vecchio wheezes; Stella pats his back; he spits a bullet out into his hand.] And he and Stella moved to Florida, where they opened up a bowling alley. [Vecchio and Stella stare at the bullet and then at each other with a wild surmise.] Francesca Vecchio made the cover of Life magazine with a record six immaculate conceptions. [Francesca picks a crying baby up out of a crib; several other children ranging in age from about six months to probably about three years are around, standing up in cribs, playing on rocking horses, jumping on beds.] And she loved her babies as though they were her own.
WELSH: [to some uniformed cops lined up in front of his desk] Does anyone have the answer? [Nobody does. Welsh rubs his eyes in despair.]
FRASER (VO): Lieutenant Welsh stayed behind his desk, because that was where he belonged.
TV ANCHOR: And now for international news. [Over his shoulder is a picture of Saddam Hussein and a gaggle of uniformed Iraqis.] Saddam Hussein is on the run —
FRASER (VO): Inspector Thatcher transferred to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — [The over-the-shoulder picture zooms in, and one of the uniformed soldiers behind Saddam is Thatcher, who turns her head to glare flintily at him.] — where she was instrumental in the destabilization and overthrow of several world dictators.
TV ANCHOR: — as the Ice Queen.
FRASER (VO): And as for Ray — or should I say Stanley — Kowalski, Sergeant Frobisher geared us up with tack and tallow. [Fraser steps onto the back runners of the sled, which pulls out over the snow.] And led by Diefenbaker, we set off, Ray and I. We set off on an adventure. [The sled comes to a stop. Fraser is driving; Kowalski is sitting.] And when we looked below, he saluted.
FROBISHER: [puts down his binoculars] Godspeed, Benton.
Music cue: "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers, at last.
Ah, for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin
Reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line
Through a land so wide and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Frobisher salutes.
FRASER (VO): Sergeant Frobisher saluted, and I saluted back.
Fraser reaches down and pats Kowalski on the shoulder. Kowalski does "let's go" finger guns.
FRASER (VO): And off we went to find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea. And if we do find his hand, the reaching-out one — we'll let you know.
The sun gleams for a moment behind the mountain pass.
And then they're gone.
Last part first: You should not, repeat, should not say Stanley. How dare you.
Saddam Hussein was, at the time this episode aired, still very much in control of Iraq and the subject of considerable western sanctions and U.S. and UK missile strikes. I can't find the exact picture they've spliced Thatcher into because he was captured in 2003 and executed in 2006, so well done Ice Queen, I guess?
If Francesca "loved her babies as though they were her own," then the details of their conceptions are irrelevant, right? (Though "as though they were her own" is a shitty thing to say about an adoptive parent.) Another wasted opportunity to have had the character be pregnant at the same time as the actress, if you ask me. Which I know nobody did.
I don't have anything in particular about Turnbull's or Welsh's ever-after storylines, but let me ask this about Huey and Dewey: I don't understand how their club—a fixed address—would have played the marginal houses for any length of time, short or long. If they bought and established the One-Liner, wouldn't their place be one of the marginal houses? Also, wasn't Huey going to buy a drum machine that he could program to do the rim shot for him? What's he doing sitting behind a set?
Anyway. So Fraser and Kowalski are off to find the hand of Franklin. In 1999, of course they couldn't know—or more accurately, they certainly could have known, but nobody did, because white people had spent more than 150 years not listening to the Inuit—that the wrecks of the Erebus and the Terror would be found (by white people; the Indigenous people knew they were there) in 2014 and 2016, respectively. It's disappointing to think that Fraser, of all people, would go searching for Franklin in Nunavut and not ask the local Inuit for help, so I'll choose to believe that he did ask, and that maybe he and Kowalski were part of the greater world discovery 15 years later. Why not. Headcanon accepted.
Cumulative body count: 44
Red uniform: Only until they jump out of the plane and land in the snow; oddly, once he's in Canada, he doesn't wear it again
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These scenes run together quite seamlessly, in fact, but the first one is all flashback and the second one is all new. At the same time, I know this is billed as a two-parter, but I question the need for a "previously on" when "previously" was the previous hour. All there's been is a commercial break. "Several minutes ago, on due South . . ." doesn't have the same ring to it, I guess.