We’re back with gritty super-Canadian drama Cardinal from CTV, rolling only two years behind so we’re moving fast! Hang on! We start Cardinal S2:E02 Kevin after the break!
We ended last episode with our lead detective John Cardinal’s (Billy Campbell) discovery of a decapitated and horribly murdered person in a cave, how is this connected to Red (Alex Paxton-Beesley) who lost her memory thanks to a bullet? She reacted to a marker nearby the path, has she been in the cave? Did she do that? Was she running scared because she saw that happen or because she was afraid she’d be next? She’s being treated as a victim, what with the bullet in her brain and all, but I think it’s worth asking the question.
Cardinal’s partner Lise Delorme (Karinne Vanasse) is out there the woods with him, a forensic team carefully searches and documents everything in the vicinity. There are bloody pointed sticks, they look the same as the type holding up what’s left of the body in the cave. There aren’t many maggots and a dearth of blood, this can’t be where the person was killed.
It looks like a ritualistic sacrifice, even the genitalia has been removed from the body. There is a tattoo, however, it helps identify the dead and mutilated person as Dave Elhurst (David O’Malley). They’re pretty sure he was in possession of the gun that shot Red, there goes their one lead.
The scene is crawling with police, Detective Ian McLeod (James Downing) argues with Delorme about the importance of a railway spike then Detective Jerry Commanda (Glenn Gould) walks in holding his nose against the smell.
McLeod called Jerry in because there are chalk markings on the walls, he thought they were indigenous. Jerry plays along for a second then suggests McLeod call Behavioural Science.
Cardinal and Delorme head out, behind them drives Leon (Daniel Petronijevic) who is in the truck we saw chasing Red right before she got shot.
I apologize, I couldn’t identify him last time, but he’s the guy we saw with Toof (Brock Morgan) and Kevin (Jonathan Keltz) by the water in a cottage. He may also be the guy we saw with scars from whipping in the shape of an X on his back.
Cardinal and Delorme meet with Dr. Chin (Patrick Kwok-Choon) who is a doctor of the bug variety and has the information on the insect activity on what was left of poor Dave. There were three types of flies and they don’t give us much but date of death: 12 days previous.
We know Dave hasn’t been seen for two weeks, that’s about right. That timeline excludes him as Red’s shooter, so looks like we’re back to trying to find that gun again.
Dave’s boat, the Muskee-Doe, is docked over at Leon’s cottage, that might be a good place to start.
Gosh, sorry, I messed up again. I’ll get it! Leon is at the cottage, he is NOT who has the X of scars on his back. That’s Ray (Bruce Ramsay) and he knew Red was alive. Leon lies to Ray, swearing he killed Red and buried her deep, that’s why they haven’t found her yet.
Leon very obviously stares at Ray’s mutilated back until Ray says he can ask what he clearly wants to know. He answers the question I was wondering: did someone whip him or are those signs of self-flagellation, as part of a ritual? The latter, “every crack of the whip brought me closer into my own power.” The ritual helped him control and focus his appetites.
Red flips through pictures on a tablet while Dr. Paley (Andrew Musselman) catches Cardinal and Delorme on her progress. She’s starting to be able to remember things that are happening now, but nothing from before her trauma. She’s irritable and remembers Cardinal, those are both new.
She’s worried. Does whoever shot her think she’s dead? Are they going to try again? (They totally wish, and probably)
Cardinal’s up early the next day, but his wife Catherine Cardinal (Deborah Hay) is already up and thinking. She’s about to go on a two-day teaching trip to Toronto, she’s decided she’s going to take a break from therapy for awhile after.
Cardinal and I: oh no.
Catherine has a serious mental illness, she’s what they used to call manic depressive and now have labelled as bipolar disorder. It’s become quite trendy to use that as a description of your personality these days, but no: she’s got the full blown chemical imbalance in her brain and has several hospitalizations in her past to show for it. There have also been suicide attempts, that’s why Cardinal is so dismayed to hear Catherine speak on discontinuing treatment. These things have come up before: she feels fine, she doesn’t want to keep going over the same ground, next maybe the meds make her feel funny…this is why clinical mental illness is so difficult to manage with a mostly-functioning adult.
Before Dave was horribly murdered in a cave, he ran a bait shop with Marci (Michelle Adams) who looks very uneasy to see a motorcycle parked outside. Wombat (Jon Ambrose) is a biker from the Northern Raiders gang, he throws her up against a wall when she can’t tell him how to find Dave and walks off with all the money in the till.
Time for a police briefing back at the station, boss Noelle Dyson (Kristen Thomson) listens as Cardinal takes everyone through what they know. Detective McLeod is there, so is Detective Ash Kular (Zach Smadu), he doesn’t see the connection between the two cases. To recap: Dave maybe stole the gun that possible shot Red, they wouldn’t have found Dave without Red. Inextricably linked.
They haven’t been able to identify Red yet, she didn’t come by plane, train or bus so Delorme suggests a gas station check between Pearson Airport in Toronto and Algonquin Bay. Let’s just say…that’s a lot of gas stations.
(Algonquin Bay is really North Bay and almost 350 km away from TO)
After the meeting, Delorme heads off to do Dave’s financials and fields a call from Marci, Cardinal goes into the autopsy.
*Watching through fingers*
We met Coroner Barnhouse (Conrad Coates – imagine being THAT good looking; how would you walk into a room and not have to duck everyone throwing their underwear at you?) at the crime scene, he walks us through the horrible things done to poor Dave. He was poked with sticks, his feet and head were cut off, but the worst thing seems to be that his junk was removed with a serrated blade before he died. He was also drained of blood while alive, that literally sounds like the worst.
Leon puts feelers out on the street for mentions of a redhead.
Back at the cottage Kevin and Toof chat a bit, they’re getting free food and lodging as part of a plan they’re in with Leon. Kevin’s a recovering drug addict, he plans to take his his share and head out West. We don’t know what that share is or what the plan is yet, Ray interrupts to tell them Leon’s back with pizza.
*I’ve totally assumed these guys are the next sacrifices. Kevin even says he used to hurt people when he was using, some people love to see themselves as writing previous wrongs.
Behavioural Sciences has decided Dave’s murder has Afro-Carribean roots, but there is no specific practice like this on record. On to the financials, seems Dave was laundering money for the Northern Raiders biker gang and why they’re annoyed and looking for him. That’s what Delorme got out of Marci.
Delorme doesn’t know how to answer, so she doesn’t and the moment passes. She knows she won’t be successful.
The only thing is: Dave’s crime scene isn’t super biker-ish and if they were looking for him, they probably didn’t kill him unless it was the sort of complicated double bluff bikers aren’t necessarily known for.
Marci gave a reasonable facsimile of the biker who grabbed her, Cardinal has another friend in the Ontario Police Department besides Jerry, he’ll call Alan Clegg (Kevin Hanchard from Orphan Black!!!!! That’s one of my favourite shows for which I was too late).
Alan knows all about Wombat but hasn’t heard of Dave or known anyone else to be killed in such a gruesome yet specific way. If Dave had crossed Lasalle (Kris Holden-Ried), the head of the Northern Raiders, though, maybe?
They head to the bar to meet Scott Lasalle; he doesn’t know where Wombat is but he wouldn’t mind finding out where Delorme is going. Wait. Wait I’m remembering something from the books…never mind never mind as you were. No spoilers!
He tells them nothing, says goodbye and walks in the back where Wombat is waiting. Now they know where Dave is, or rather, where he isn’t, they’ll need a new cleaner. Wombat will be in charge of taking out whomever killed their last cleaner, but first he has to go meet someone named Crowchild.
Ray, Leon, Toof and Kevin dock quietly and head onto a property with at least one motorcycle. Toof is lookout, the rest head inside quietly to surprise Wombat, who isn’t teaching anyone a lesson today. Leon knocks him out and pounds on his face until Ray stops him. He directs Kevin to the closet to get a bag full of money, Kevin’s more worried about the fact that Leon is duct taping a full-patch biker.
They leave fingerprints everywhere! EVERYWHERE! Ray isn’t worried about Wombat and the bikers killing him, Wombat works for them now.
Wombat’s having a hard time breathing right now, I wouldn’t put him on anything strenuous, guys.
They sit there with an unconscious Wombat until there’s a knock on the door, hai Peter Crowchild (Brandon Oakes) and pals! He’s checked out Ray via his uncle on his reserve, they’ll be in business but Crowchild isn’t going to take care of the biker issue Ray just created.
Peter Crowchild has brought drugs in exchange for the money Kevin brought out of Wombat’s closet; I love that Leon digs out a chemical analysis kit to check the drugs and doesn’t just lick some off his pinkie like every other show.
They take Wombat back to the house with them, Ray riding his bike and the now-nervous Kevin wondering what’s going on. Leon tells them to get the wheelbarrow, I’m thinking we’re about to have another gross murder on our hands.
Jerry finds Delorme at the gym, totally not keeping an eye on her charges Rachel Wells (Nicolette Pearse) and Jordan Akiwenzie (Asivak Koostachin). She doesn’t even like helping out with the kids!
(She sure does)
After supper (I bet they ate grilled Wombat), Ray takes Kevin and Toof into his confidence at last. He hands out burner phones, they’ll be using them to develop their drug territory.
He quotes Machiavelli re: three types of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown and those who do not see. He is not happy when Kevin identifies the source, HE said that, damnit! Arts major Kevin shhhhs.
Recovering addict Kevin does not like the plan as presented so far; Ray will be giving them small stashes of drugs to sell and allowing them to keep the profit. Ray believes in the rule of three, he also has three rules:
- The first rule of the plan is to never talk about the plan
- Never lose control
- Never use the product
Breaking any of the rules is punishable by death by Ray. Kevin’s visibly nervous about the bikers after supper, Leon calms him down by saying that Ray is protected and therefore so are they.
This may be protection by spirits.
An emergency at the hospital triggers a memory of running for Red, it’s from before she was shot so it’s starting to come back.
Bad news for Delorme, she didn’t get the training she applied for at the National Intelligence Service. She was blocked by Malcolm Musgrave (David Richmond-Peck also from Orphan Black!) a member of the RCMP and Cardinal’s arch-nemesis. Well. He hates Cardinal and tried to use Delorme to take Cardinal down as a crooked cop. I’m just not sure Cardinal even knows who Malcolm is, which would probably result in hurting even more of Malcom’s feewings. Can someone be your nemesis if you don’t know they hate you?
*I once went to someone’s profile on Twitter and they had me blocked. How did they know to block me when I didn’t know who they were before that? I don’t know!
Ahhhhhh Red came to town with Kevin! That’s what she’s remembering! That makes sense, they’re both kinda pretty and around the same age. She flashes back on a fight with him in the past, we cut to him leaving her a voicemail message now.
Delorme was able to connect houses rented by the Northern Raiders to others, they’ve got one more to check out and it’s Wombat’s place. They sneak up with guns drawn to find blood all over the floor, one young man and another on the run. Extremely fit Delorme takes off after that guy.
Ahhh but it’s not a guy, it’s a girl, specifically Rachel Wells, who just told Delorme she hasn’t been hanging out with the bikers for 6 months. (I think she lied)
Police interviews split along the same lines, neither biker affiliate is talking. Rachel said she broke up with Zack (Greg Hovanessian, another incredibly conventionally attractive person, how do these people walk through life without constantly fending off hotel keys?) but Delorme can’t get anything out of her. Rachel asks to speak to Alan Clegg of the OPD, of which she’s an informant.
Hmm, nothing much new for us in interview, except now we know Lasalle knows someone is taking over his territory.
Delorme desperately wants to help Rachel escape this life, but what choice does Rachel have? She informs on the bikers or she goes to jail. It’ll be worse if the bikers find out.
Cardinal texts his wife that he’s still working late that night, then heads into an attractive brunette’s house. Erm what?
Kevin watches Ray check on Wombat, seconds before grunting and shouting starts. We’re out!
