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TV Review: Intelligence – “Down But Not Out”

Let me preface this by saying that if we don’t hear soon about a season two of Intelligence, I will personally hire a Henchman Bob to do some damage. OK, I won’t, but I’ll be really, really peeved.

The season one finale, “Down But Not Out,” resolves some issues – mostly issues known as Dick Royden – but ends on a cliffhanger. And we’re hanging from a very tall cliff here. If the show does come back, obviously Jimmy’s an integral part of the show and I don’t believe he’d be killed off. If it doesn’t come back, we could be left thinking he’s a goner, except that title offers a some hope, if we choose to look at it that way.

The season’s ratings weren’t great, but you could say that about most CBC shows this year, and I can’t believe the network has anything surpassing the quality of Intelligence in the pipeline, or that scheduling it against frequently top-rated House didn’t have an effect on its popularity.

Written and directed by series creator Chris Haddock, the season finale is another pulsating drive toward a frenetic conclusion, all to a pulsating soundtrack by series composer Schaun Tozer. Jimmy is frantic to find out who in Canada’s intelligence community is threatening to out him as a rat, giving Ian Tracey a chance to show the menace that is always bubbling below the surface of the generally diplomatic Reardon.

In the meantime, he arranges his affairs as best he can, including getting his undercover cop connection to scout out the guy’s identity; spreading the word that Dante’s Disciples are out to smear the Reardon empire, to counteract any word on his informant status that may leak to the street; and to get his banker to stash Reardon’s cash. Bankers are trustworthy, right? Ronnie shouldn’t worry when no one can find banker Hogarty by the end of the episode, right?

Mary is frantic to stop Dick Royden , American mole and Jimmy’s unknown target, ascend to the job she covets – head of the Asia/Pacific region of CSIS. So she gets faithful – or is he? – subordinate Martin to wire Royden’s hotel room, and old friend Eddie to drop a hint to the Americans that their mole has been exposed. “Which one?” ask the CIA, complicating matters further for that second season that better be on the horizon.

Her senator connection has reiterated that Royden is untouchable, implied Mary’s job is in danger, and taken her off the case of proving Royden’s American connection, so Mary has also had to warn informants Randy Bingham and Katarina to get ready to run.

Ted, who is ecstatic to learn Mary will be losing her job and he’ll be finding it, is less frantic than relieved that Jimmy plans to head down to the US to talk to his American distributor – the guy who’s been coerced to work with the DEA as part of Ted’s master plan to have Reardon arrested on American soil. He’s a little less relieved that Jimmy is bringing ex-wife Francine and daughter Stella along for the ride. Is it possible Ted has a shriveled little heart somewhere in that chest cavity? There’s even further evidence when Jimmy arrives in Seattle with his family and Ted discovers that his DEA connection might just be planning to kill Reardon instead of arrest him.

Ronnie takes advantage of Jimmy being away to give Bob orders counter to Reardon’s own – to let Phan take care of Dante if he’s so inclined and therefore remove that particular threat to the Reardon empire.

Jimmy’s undercover cop has come through and narrowed the search for the person threatening to expose him to Dick Royden. Mary and her team overhear Royden talking to his American handler and head to arrest him. Katarina, who’s been warned to pack her bags and get her family prepared to move – again – makes arrangements to see Royden, against Mary’s orders.

Those three threads come together when the Organized Crime Unit’s wireroom overhears room service (otherwise known as Bob, perhaps?) enter Royden’s room, then later, a woman screaming in that room. When Mary and Martin arrive, they find Royden dead and Katarina swearing that someone got to him before she could.

Jimmy meets his American distributor in a bar, but realizes it’s a setup and finds himself trapped in the bathroom with a gun that doesn’t work, a bar full of armed DEA agents, and a cell phone that lets him tell his daughter – who has discovered what her daddy really does for a living – that he’s sorry for the life he leads and that he loves her. It also lets him tell his clingy and slightly insane ex-wife Francine that he’s always loved her. Stress does bad things to people.

The next episode of Intelligence … well, we don’t know yet. But it better air sometime in the fall. Don’t make me hire a Bob.

Waiting on renewal news …

Some random comments from the TV, Eh? site after the Intelligence finale aired:

  • Loved the show and the entire season. I hope it is brought back for another year or two. Finally a decent CBC show.
  • best show on TV. Congrats to CBC, but now they have to advertise it better. Maybe movie theaters? Newspapers? whatever it takes. This show has to go on!
  • excellent series!!! bravo cbc!!! this program and at the hotel is what this network needs and they do it well beats the crap outta the us counterparts. cant wait for the return of the next season. great acting not to over the top you get the feeling its natural. and the soundtrack is very fitting as well sean tozer i think?? good stuff!! i agree with reviewer above needs mucho marketing. people will be hooked by the pace the show sets not to jumpy yet. enough that your not bored. sorta like 24 in a good sense. keep it up to all involved in this production
  • My wife and I really enjoy the show (its the only one we make sure we watch each week). I was wondering if you had heard anything about next year?

TV Review: Intelligence – “Dante’s Inferno”

Prior to this week’s season finale of Intelligence on CBC, I half expect to hear: “Previously on Intelligence … everything goes to hell.”

The last episode, “Dante’s Inferno,” takes the threads of the previous 11 episodes, wraps them around the necks of Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey) and Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), and leaves us with a divine drama that somehow must be at least somewhat wrapped up this week, or leave us with a hell of a cliffhanger before we’ve heard about a second season.

Jimmy and Ronnie are too late to save Johnny, the Vietnamese tortured by Dante’s men to reveal Reardon’s connection to his nephew’s death. Did he talk? What does Dante know? Hard to say. It’s always hard to say with this show – who knows what.

Jimmy’s furious with Mary for not instantly answering her phone while they were pursuing Dante’s car, but she was busy shredding files rather than let them fall into the hands of her CSIS overlords, who are infiltrated by moles. Besides, Jimmy needs to save some rage for later, given how the episode ends. For now, he insists she preserve his anonymity in the murder investigation, which she does reluctantly.

Dick Royden, who Mary suspects is an American double agent, meets with Ted to coax from him his files and a statement on Mary’s culpability in the death of their wireroom mole, Lee. Royden dangles Mary’s old job as the carrot in front of Ted, and the threat of being the scapegoat himself as the stick.

Ted’s DEA pal is still working with Reardon’s American distributor to lure Reardon down to their jurisdiction. And the convergence of events in this episode make the option of fleeing to another country appealing to Reardon. So things are looking good for Ted so far.

Things aren’t looking quite so good for Mary. At the not-particularly-polite request of her senator friend’s flunky, Mary is attempting to gather hard evidence to prove Royden is a double agent, with the help of Katarina’s patriotic prostitution allowing her access to his incriminating cell phone activity (and allowing him access to her wallet – so now how much does he know?).

Mary’s also protesting the directive to let Royden make his move up the CSIS chain while trying to turn him back from the dark side again. When flunky threatens Mary’s job if she doesn’t cooperate, Mary threatens to go to the media about Canada’s infiltrated intelligence agency.

Jimmy’s got more personal issues on his mind. His first thought, in case Dante knows the truth, is to protect his daughter Stella. He asks ex-wife Francine to take her away, but she convinces him to let her move into his house (and his bed) instead. It’s understandable that Jimmy is drawn to Francine, who’s been through this with him before – she’s the comfortable old shoe who looks like the sexy stiletto. And like a stiletto, Jimmy would be wise to keep her away from any sensitive parts.

Later, Ronnie makes an even more strained analogy about beautiful water being full of poison, then throws the glass in his friend’s face. “You do not want to get involved with Francine again. Wake the fuck up.” Yeah, that’s what I was going for, too, only using nicer words.

Jimmy’s got bigger issues than his messy relationship, though he doesn’t yet know that. When Ted stalls Royden on the statement about Lee and lets him know that Mary’s taken the informant files, Royden is less than pleased. He stalks into Mary’s office to make an astonishing threat that leaves her looking as shaken as we’ve seen her: Give me the files, or I go to the media with Jimmy Reardon’s name as your star informant.

When Phan learns of his cousin’s death, his first thought is getting retribution for the bikers’ act of retribution, and he looks to Jimmy’s henchman, Silent Bob. In order to stall him, Bob convinces Phan to think big. “You want to kill a snake, cut off its head, not its tail.” Bob, who has spiritual and humorous depths until now unseen, counsels Jimmy to give Phan time to allow his grief to work itself out, though Ronnie’s tempted to simply get out of the way so Phan can take care of their Dante problem.

Jimmy, ever the pacifist first, vigilante second, pays a visit to Dante to see what he knows, in the guise of making peace. And while you really do need a scorecard on this show to figure out who’s screwing whom, Dante’s done the math and added up the death of Jimmy’s man Colin being tied to the bikers, the fact that Jimmy’s been working with the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese’s involvement in his nephew’s death, and come up with 2+2=4. Jimmy tries to convince him it’s 3, or 5, but the sums are stalled when a cop arrives to chat with Dante about the shooting.

Mary’s day isn’t going any better than Jimmy’s. Katarina overhears Royden’s phone call where he rather indiscreetly – or setting her up? – says “Don’t worry about Mary. I’m taking care of her. She won’t survive the week.” Literally, or figuratively? I wouldn’t bet my life on him meaning job survival, and Katarina warns Mary to watch her back.

Mike Reardon is facing a tussle over bank machines in his club, which may pay off later but seemed an annoying distraction from the increasing stakes of the rest of the episode.

In a move that may end up getting her more involved in the increased stakes than she might want, Ronnie gets Sweet to convince Dante’s sister – who I have to say is considerably hotter than her brother – that Reardon had nothing to do with his nephew’s death. Even though he kind of did. Shhh.

The tense final scene unites Mary and Jimmy in her car as she lets him know about his possible pending exposure as an informant, and advises him to disappear. He angrily hammers home the point that his family, friends, and associates are doomed right along with him, whether he disappears or not. He demands Royden’s name, but Mary, looking sick, steadfastly refuses. “I can’t. I won’t.”

The season finale of Intelligence airs Tuesday, Jan. 30 at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Holy shit

Since I won’t do anything crazy like change my Intelligence review-writing schedule just because there’s no House review to write (after all, there’s still that backlog of three book reviews I keep whining about, and I’m still working – like actual work – at 10 p.m., so those aren’t getting done any time soon either). But was that ever a great episode. Since “holy shit” is all I can come up with right now, I’ll quote a commenter, just in from Blogcritics:

Wow. I just saw tonight’s episode. Haddock is a genius. All season long he’s been introducing these little plot threads, dozens of them, leaving them dangling, unresolved until you wonder whether they meant anything at all. Then suddenly, subtly, there’s one little twist of the writer’s fingers, one flash, and you realize all those threads have been tightly woven into a short little fuse, and you’re about to witness one hell of a big explosion.

TV Review: Intelligence – “Not a Nice Boy!”

With two episodes remaining in season one of CBC’s Intelligence, Mary Spalding and Jimmy Reardon seem no closer to unraveling their respective messes. In fact, they seem far more raveled.

Mary’s not riding as high as last episode, after her senator ally first orders the investigation on CSIS director Dick Royden to go “black” and then cuts off direct ties with her. Through her proxy, the senator orders Mary to simply watch and wait as Royden moves in on the Asia/Pacific region directorship she’d been promised, until she can turn the suspected double agent. Did I mention, while watching Royden take over the job Mary desperately wants? Nice.

Despite his American distributor getting caught in the DEA plot to catch Reardon, Jimmy seems to be riding higher this episode. His plan to set up an offshore bank to take care of his money laundering woes is working out, though he’s put his shipping business up as collateral. Ronnie nags him about ensuring Francine the loose canon won’t rat on them, but Jimmy is strangely unconcerned, and his confidence is surprisingly not misplaced.

He stages a drug bust that catches an unsuspecting Francine, but she refuses to inform on her ex-husband in exchange for dropped charges. It’s hard to imagine the price Jimmy has paid for that loyalty, but he was definitely confident of it before the test. Still, she did change her mind about her drug purchase when reminded of her family, so there might be a loyal heart in there somewhere.

Loyalty is bought in many ways on this show. Mary has bought Katarina’s by reuniting her with her family, so she can now ask her to prostitute herself to Dick Royden in order to position herself as a long-term informant. Stripper Tina’s loyalty is harder to discern, but she’s another example of swapping sex for intelligence. And coke. The world of intelligence is definitely not a nice one.

Neither, of course, is the criminal world. Michael Reardon really is like a big kid. A big, dumb kid. A big, dumb kid with criminal tendencies. He discovers that his nightclub deal is not exactly legit, and the previous owner has disappeared with Mike’s cash payment. He and his associate hunt the guy down at his shrieking mother’s apartment.

Mother: Please don’t hurt him He’s a good boy.

Mike: No, he’s not a good boy. He’s a very bad boy.

He evades them during their fairly pathetic search, but they ambush him later as he tries to escape with the money. Score one for Mike, whose loyalty to Jimmy is one of his only good boy traits.

Jimmy and Mary exchange favours in one of their patented car meetings. Mary assures Jimmy that his cooperation in an arms deal with stock broker Randy Bingham is protected. What she offers him in return for that cooperation is assistance getting away from tricky questions about his bank machine deals, as well as hooking him up with someone who can help with a currency exchange. That favour seems superfluous now that he’s set up an offshore bank. She apparently doesn’t know about that yet – despite her supposed informant Tina’s knowledge. He apparently either wants another money laundering option or he’s happy enough with the clue that she doesn’t know about that yet.

In a rare glimpse of Ted’s personal side, he has a strange exchange with a man in a bar, first exchanging stares, then confronting him in the bathroom to ask what the guy’s looking at. Is Ted homophobic? Gay? Both? Paranoid, but not enough to not talk about CSIS’s political machinations in a bar?

He earlier discovered from Roger Deakins that Mary was moving to oust Royden, which would leave her position at the Organized Crime Unit open – possibly for Ted, if he plays his cards right. Now he learns that Royden is moving to oust Royden and step in as director of the Asia Pacific region, which also puts Ted on track to taking over Mary’s current job. Both sides see Ted as the devil they know, which is not particularly flattering, but puts Ted in a win-win situation. Unless he rocks the boat. Like, say, getting caught at his little plan to trap Reardon in the DEA’s snare. Seems a little late to put those worms back in the can, but I won’t count crafty Ted out yet.

Phan, Jimmy’s Vietnamese connection, doesn’t want to lie low after his part in the botched currency exchange raid that led to biker leader Dante’s nephew getting killed. His partner Johnny pays the price.

Dante pulls his car up outside the Chickadee to talk to Jimmy and Ronnie about any news on his nephew’s murder. After their “gosh, we don’t know”s, he opens the back window to reveal a beaten and bound Johnny, with a not-so-veiled threat to torture him further and do some serious damage to Jimmy’s empire if he finds out they were involved.

Uh oh.

The next episode of Intelligence airs Tuesday, Jan. 16 at 9 p.m. on CBC.

TV Review: Intelligence – “Things Change”

TV Review: Intelligence – “Things Change”

If I trusted CBC’s Intelligence to telegraph its intentions, I’d think the tide has changed in Mary’s favour and against Jimmy in “Things Change.” But because the next episode could conceivably be titled “Things Change Again,” I wouldn’t count Jimmy out or lay any bets on Mary’s smooth sailing.

But for this episode at least, Mary Spalding seems in full command of her empire. She discovers she has support from Ottawa to take over the Pacific Region of CSIS and to pursue her plan to topple Director Richard Royden, who she finds out has been investigated before. Escort boss Katarina is enlisted to seduce a willing Royden, who seems particularly interested in her “party planning” skills.

Mary’s even playing puppet master to Roger Deakins, the man whose job she’s about to take, and who had been working to topple her. It’s not clear that he’s abandoned his association with the devious Ted, but he’s now working with Mary against Royden to save his own reputation.

With more flexing of her muscles, she put the screws on stock broker and informant Randy Bingham, who’s shocked to learn that not only does she know about the arms deal he tried to hide from her, but she knows something he doesn’t – that the DEA is on to him, and in on that deal. She even makes her friend, freelancer Eddie and his ex-CIA friend happy by coating with cash her refusal to let them snag Falcone, their prey and Bingham’s contact, until she’s learned all she needs.

Recalcitrant stripper Tina is even made to start producing some useful intelligence when Mary reminds her that her visa depends on details, not vagueness. Tina manages to get alone with Reardon’s banker’s locked briefcase, and summons Mary.

Seemingly at the height of her powers, Mary’s imminent appointment to CSIS forces a change in Ted’s game plan – though that’s a plan she’s still not aware of, and which is poised to jeopardize her future job, her relationship with informant Jimmy Reardon, and her credibility.

While the DEA stalls in getting more pot to pass off to Reardon and tries to unload cocaine, which Jimmy refuses, Ted decides they should move in on Reardon’s US distribution immediately instead of waiting for the additional shipments. Though Winston the undercover DEA agent has made a couple of missteps in his dealings with Reardon, Jimmy can’t see past his need for a supply of pot to spot the dangers.

The noose tightens a little more, with Jimmy getting in bed with the bikers in a couple of ways. He unintentionally sets the DEA on to them by referring the coke shipment to Dante, and very much intentionally offers his planned offshore bank as their money laundering solution, and the key to getting rid of the disputes over the “penny-ante” ATM business.

When his lawyer asks about ex-wife Francine’s previous implied threat, and reminds Jimmy how damaging it would be to have her spill about the Reardon empire, Jimmy replies that he’s taken care of it with a confidence I have trouble believing is completely justified.

Almost as if he were actually smart and business-like, Mike buys the bar his slasher was stabbed in, without brother Jimmy’s help – for now. And the episode closes on that upbeat – for now – note. But I’m completely confident Mike’s going to find a way to screw it up for himself and for Jimmy too.

Ian Tracey, who plays Jimmy Reardon, directed this episode, showing mastery of the shadowy, shaky handheld style of the series – and giving me the opportunity to recycle some more unused quotes from when I’d interviewed him just before he was prepping to direct.

He explained his affinity for throwing himself into the show behind the camera as well as in front of it. “When I’m not working I don’t know what to do with myself,” he laughed. “I have a lot of experience, 30 years of acting, a decade or so of lighting, so I’ve got a lot of technical understanding, the understanding of how things are shot, especially at that pace.”

Chris Haddock, creator of both Intelligence and Da Vinci’s Inquest, gave Tracey his first crack at directing on Da Vinci’s. “I loved it, I was afraid of it, I did it anyway. I felt the pressure was on given the success of the show, but at the same time I felt like part of the family already,” the actor said. “A couple of years later Chris gave me another opportunity, and now it’s come up again. I’m going to take the opportunity every chance I get.”

The next episode of Intelligence airs Tuesday, January 9 at 9 p.m. on CBC.