Welcome back to Cardinal season three, where our detectives try to make sense of the senseless and I attempt to figure out how North Bay only has one ATM. Rolling into my Cardinal S3:E04 Lemur recap after the break!

We open with our young killer Jack (Alex Ozerov) screaming himself awake in the middle of a nightmare. Sharlene “Mama” Winston (Rya Kihlstedt) soothes him back to sleep with a cuddle.

We know he’s a killer because we saw him murder Roman (Drew Zeran) and Irena Barstow (Marlaina Andre), now we know why: he is part of a “family” led by Mama setting up their own nuclear-resistant bunker called Northhaven and the Barstows had weapons they “need.” He’s psychologically unstable, he saw red and murdered them when they didn’t listen to him.

Sam Duchene (Devery Jacobs) witnessed the murder, she was upstairs in the bedroom where she’d met her married lover Randall Wishart (Aaron Ashmore) previous to all the murdery bits. She got away but dropped her phone, which was recovered by Jack and is now his most prized possession. He stalked her to school and home, picking up some of her remarkable art and possibly becoming infatuated with her.

MEANWHILE, our favourite Algonquin Bay police people are investigating 3 things at once: the murders, some robberies of ATMs in town (also done by Mama’s “family”) and Detective John Cardinal (Billy Campbell) is trying to find out who is sending him nasty notes about his wife’s recent suicide and whether or not they actually killed her.

Sergeant Noelle Dyson (Kristen Thomson) is having the worst year of her life, losing her sister to cancer and witnessing the troubling suicide of a young man.

It’s basically a laff riot, amirite? Let’s roll on and find out what happens after Jack’s nightmare.

Sam and her mother Wendy Duchene (Jennifer Podemski) go back to see Cardinal and his partner Detective Lise Delorme (Karine Vanasse) about Jack stalking Sam, he’s calling her phone and following her whenever he can. Sam was able to get a pretty good look at him at school, though (whew, college! Not high school, thank the gods) so she’s got a sketch the police can use. She’s an amazing artist.

Ontario Police Detective Jerry Comanda (Glen Gould – a personal fave) is on hand to help, Sam will be staying with him at a safe house. First she gets to discuss her romantic life choices with her mother in front of him, yaaaaayyy.

Back at the cabin, “family” member Lemur (Nick Serino) continues to teach former street kid Nikki (Sophia Lauchlin Hirt) how to hunt and trap and stuff, good headshot on that adorable bunny, Nik! *I don’t mean that*

Jack said that Lemur is in love with Nikki, but considering he puts up the “you were a prostitute so now anyone who wants sex from you should just get it” offense when she rebuffs his advances means he may be thinking of her in a slightly less romantic way that Jack thinks. He’s also very young.

*Do I have to say how shitty it is to throw someone’s past in their face like that when they’re working so hard to move forward? Or that you can’t even call it sex work (which is work!) when you’re underage and unable to legally make that choice? I don’t need to, right?

The police synergize and come up with some more ideas for tracking Roman and Irena’s murderer, McLeod (James Downing) knows of a bar where they use white pine sawdust on the floor, just as was found on the victims according to lab tech Abby Harris (Kathryn Alexandre). Okay, she’s not a lab tech but I can’t remember what they call CSI investigators in Canada.

*Erm the victims were taped together and tied to a boat that was sunk in the middle of a lake. They retained sawdust transfer???

The barmaid Alanna Neven (Julia Chantrey) does remember seeing the Barstows, AND the guy they were meeting, presumably the guy with the guns that Jack wanted so badly. She’s got a description of the gun guy, who came in by himself the next day and waited as obviously as possible for a call. Who’s Mr. Neck Tattoo Gun Runner?

We have to wait to find out, first we’re going to look at the Barstow’s rental vehicle, which has just been found covered in evidence and holding a big bag full of money and an assault rifle.

Cardinal and Delorme brainstorm on a picturesque dock, they have no choice to accept that the lovely Barstows everyone respected are gun runners.

Lemur and Nikki have moved on to hand-to-hand combat training but it’s about to get a lot worse with Jack in the mix. He’s much bigger and meaner than both of them. He chokes Lemur out in seconds, just like his dad used to do to him. He follows that up by clocking Nikki with a full punch to the face, Lemur thinks he has something against women, like the girl Jack liked in Colorado.

*Isn’t there a statistic that mass and serial murders also have a higher than average instances of domestic abuse or straight up violence against women? Okay, it’s mass murderers.

Jack clearly feels a little bit bad after he threatens both Lemur and Nikki’s lives, that’s not “family” approved.

Mr. Neck Tattoo has been found, Misha Pulaski (Christian Bako) says he only met the Barstows once and for sure did not sell or buy guns illegally. He’s not much help, aside from confirming that the Barstows brought a lot of guns to sell.

Back at the cabin, Lemur offers to get Nikki something to make up for not protecting her from Jack, she demurs then spits out: True Religion jeans, super skinny, dark indigo wash. Hahaha size?

*I am probably the only woman I know who buys jeans on the reg without trying them on first.

Mama is cooking on a…is that an AGA??

What is that?? It’s huge! I love it. One day I will buy one and admire it every hour on the hour while polishing it with soft cloths in between ginourmous batches of soup.

Mama grabs kitchen shears to start dressing the rabbit; Nikki and I run upstairs instead to see to Lloyd Kreeger (Tom Jackson!!) so I can find out what Mama did to him with the fishhook last week. I wouldn’t watch because I didn’t need it in my head, but it looks like just his hand was hurt.

Lloyd (I can’t not say that in my head as L-lloyd thanks to the LEGO Ninjago Movie, thanks for that!) is a wealthy cabin owner that Mama and her “family” are holding captive for one reason specifically (I may have missed the reason if it was during the torture part) but he’s trying to bond with Nikki. She accuses him of perving at her, he denies it with alacrity and I loved that. He wasn’t angry or aggressive, just very firm and I think she realised she was perhaps projecting her past onto him.

He asks her to look for his friend Henry Sizemore (Gregory ‘Dominic’ Odjig), maybe he’s around the bunkhouse? Or maybe Jack slit his throat before they even took Lloyd, which is what happened.

With Delorme planning to sit stakeout on the town’s sole ATM (apparently) and his daughter Kelly (Alanna Bale) out with friends, Cardinal finds himself at loose ends. He opens an invoice from a funeral home, something shocks him and he ends up at an apartment building talking his way inside.

Ahhhhhhh the funeral home invoice was prepared by convicted felon and Cardinal nemesis Roger Felt (Richard Waugh) whose apartment Cardinal is trashing as we speak. Man. I don’t know if it’s all the unrest in the US about policing, but I find it hard to watch Cardinal do shitty stuff like this and what he did last time to another convicted felon.

Nikki scrapes together her courage and asks Mama about Henry to be told quite calmly of Henry’s murder by Jack. Now Nikki’s worried about Lloyd, he managed to humanize himself to her, good job! It might be that she doesn’t want to have to kill him herself.

Mama is selling a vision of the dystopian future where money doesn’t mean anything and only the survivalist things she’s teaching her adopted family will have value.

Jack is not happy that Sam is being kept under lock and key but he steals a few moments watching her stand in front of the windows in Jerry’s apartment and I why do I want him to be happy? He’s a murderous thug! But he’s damaged and he seems to be clinging to this one piece of brightness in his dismal and violent life.

Roger Felt is brought into the station for questioning, Noelle is not ecstatic that Cardinal is running his side investigation during their double homicide inquiry but the evidence that Roger printed the note is clear. She agrees to let Cardinal interview Roger but not alone.

Roger apologizes immediately for sending the incredibly nasty notes but falls apart completely when Cardinal asks him where he was the night of Catherine’s murder. Pretty sure that’s a dead end.

Delorme relieves Detective Ash Kular (Zack Smadu) on stakeout of the lone Algonquin Bay ATM (or the only one being robbed regularly), I wonder if this is when Lemur will make a run for some True Religion jean money.

*They’re like $400 CAD, which is $0.87 USD.

Oh wait, Delorme is waiting at the wrong ATM, the other Algonquin Bay ATM is around the corner and it’s just been robbed. She follows the direction the suspect took, catching a lucky break when he’s hit by another car and has to get out on foot.

If there is a footchase on Cardinal, it’s always Delorme out there running someone down. Ah shite, maybe not any more, I think she’s been shot (she hissed “asti” under her breath and I LOVE the French Canadian swearing on this show!) but she follows him into a dark alley anyway.

Ah no, the father of one of the previous victims has been trying to play vigilante and he just caught a bullet to the belly from Lemur for his trouble. Marcus Glover (Michael Cram) struggles for breath as Delorme realises she’s lost the thief again.

Marcus thought his son Nathan needed to know someone had paid for what happened to him but I bet Nathan would rather have his dad not dead.

Delorme performs the terrifying and adrenaline-filled job of checking dark corners for an armed attacker by herself with only her eyes, a flashlight and single weapon to help her.

Marcus was able to stab Lemur so he doesn’t get far, but he’s able to call Jack for help. Jack finds him before Delorme does. Ten Canadian Tire dollars says he finishes Lemur off instead of rescuing him.

You all owe me ten Canadian Tire dollars because Jack shot Lemur for being weak and I need to get one step closer to that fibreglass kayak wooooo!

Delorme hears the shot, what will she make of this execution?

There is a present in the van Lemur was driving; Roman Barstow’s wallet so now they know their two main cases are connected. Since the van was stolen from Toronto’s Pearson Airport, McLeod will be reviewing CCTV footage.

Cardinal is struggling with the unwelcome resolution of his investigation into his wife Catherine Cardinal’s (Deborah Hay) death. Noelle asks him to stop, to accept that his wife committed suicide as she had tried to before and had threatened in the past. Catherine struggled with bipolar disorder and had been hospitalized more than once for…attacks? Outbreaks? Suicide attempts, really. There were reasons (guilt) and signs (changes in routines and medicines) all pointing to this being a legitimate successful suicide attempt but Cardinal thinks he would have known. He would have seen it.

This dejected and deflated sigh.

Delorme is shocked to hear about the depth of Cardinal’s investigation, he didn’t tell her and he should have. Noelle sends out a memo to all detectives warning them to not do any further investigating of Catherine Cardinal’s death then Delorme is there to catch everyone up. She explains how the murders and ATM robberies are connected, and how it’s likely the robber and the killer were working together. Cardinal wonders if it was like “a partnership gone wrong.”

Ohhhh that had nothing to do with the case, nothing whatsoever.

They yell at each other in the hallway, she’s taking over the investigation and he’s getting a weekend off in the middle of a triple homicide investigation and no, that’s not a good thing. She tells him to enjoy Thanksgiving with his daughter.

She heads into a conference room to review CCTV footage and eat pizza with McLeod, they quickly find Lemur and Mama stealing a van from the airport.

Mama in the present is holding a gun on Lloyd, who managed to slip his restraints and make it to the bunkhouse where poor Henry lays dead with flies all over him. She knocks him out and that’s where we leave it for this week. Until next time!