Waking The Dead : What Happened and Why in
Final Cut

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If the first cut is the deepest, what does that make the final cut?

Detective Superintendent calls the Cold Case Squad together to deliver the news that they will be adding a new Sergeant to the team. Frankie and Grace make some noises about the team being fine without new people but just then Boyd springs the news that the new Detective Sergeant is none other than Mel Silver. Joyful congratulations are thrown about with ony Spence remaining somewhat reserved. Headmaster Boyd calls his favorite pupil into his office. Boyd says that he expects Spence's promotion to Inspector to happen at any time. Spence does not sound as convinced.

Sometimes what makes a cold case is more obvious than at other times. Here, they get a call to investigate a mummified body found in a restaurant bin. After they bring the body to Frankie's lab, the team's new Sergeant announces that dumping bodies may be in bad taste but it is no big deal. Frankie says she may not be a detective but in her opinion people do not dump cadavers unless they have something to hide. To which Boyd replies, "Where would we be without your suspicious mind?"

In what seems to be wholly unrelated to anything, a crowd of reporters and police have gathered in front of a large house, Marlow House. A woman inside is chanting and dancing around in a dark room. A man outside tries to get in by telling the officer at the door that he has business inside. An officer inside leads the woman, Camilia Baptiste, out.

In no time at all, Frankie turn up several clues for them to begin to identify the corpse. She figures out that the mummification process was probably an accidental by product of the body being in an airless warm void. She finds a packet of hand rolled cigarettes in the mummy's pocket. The body is dressed in a snazzy Lord Andrew suit. Grace drops a personal tidbit (perhaps too personal) when she says that she used to have a boyfriend who shopped at Lord Andrew's. Spence finds a set of car keys with a turtle logo. Finally, Frankie also discovers that the victim's nose had been cut off before he was shot in the temple.

The Wonder Twins share a moment as Mel tries to reassure Spence that he will be promoted soon enough. Earlier, during a team case meeting, Spence had said something to Mel about celebrating her promotion with drinks. Mel jokes that perhaps she will make Inspector before Spence. In Spence's state of mind, I suppose it might be funny, but I doubt it. Plus, the scene was lost to those rough Atlantic swells, so if you missed it, try not to fret over it.

It turns out that the mummy was carrying around a distributor's amount of red leb (hashish) and the hand rolled cigarettes were marijuana. The car keys operated a Gordon-Keeble of which only about 100 were produced in the mid '60's.

Finally, a connection to the house we had seen earlier. Mel invites the team out for a curry but they must postpone those plans in favor of a trip to where the body may have originated. The house is dark and to say it is creepy would not be an exaggeration. The first thing they find is a large Jamaican flag over the mantelpiece and a small decorative cross is painted on the floor. Spence finds an open chimney breast and Frankie reaches up into it and pulls out a mummified rat.

Outside the house, Boyd asks if anyone wants a ride back. I cannot be sure where North Kensington is in relation to the office or their homes but if they all arrived in one car, wouldn't it be expected for them all to return in that car. No matter. Grace tries to console a distraught looking Spence over his promotion to Inspector, but as it turns out that the team's psychologist has misread the situation.

In the daylight, the team returns to the house which is again surrounded by police and reporters. Inside the wall she finds another corpse. This one has not been mummified.

The building's developer, Karl Meerman, barges in wanting to know what they are doing. Boyd intercepts him with rubbish about the building code. Without mentioning the corpses they found, Boyd suspects that Meereman had discovered the mummified corpse and had it dumped away from the house. He takes him down to the station to interview him. Meereman says that he has always been in property. I believe in a past life he was an unscrupulous coffee bean farmer in Kenya. Meerman denies any knowledge of the body.

Meerman tells Boyd and Spence that pop star Toni Dean is the new owner of the house. The previous owner was a black church which let it out as flats. Meerman tries to ingratiate himself and avoid charges for his action by handing over a medallion on a chain. At first he claims that he found it under the floor boards but Boyd believes he found it in the cavity alongside the body.

The team spends time discussing the new owner. Grace wonders aloud why they are discussing Dean when the murders took place 30 years ago. Boyd agrees and shifts his focus to why Meerman tore into the brick wall in the manner he did. He surmises he knew something was back there.

Camilia Baptiste comes into the office and puts a bear hug on Boyd all the while calling him Moses. Not unlike his encounter with Annie Keel in A Simple Sacrifice, Boyd shrieks in terror and has Grace rescue him. Mrs. Baptiste seems to be in a world of her own design. After releasing "Moses" she starts to speak of ghosts who walk and watch the house. She then fixates on Spence and yells at him, asking why he never did anything when he saw them come and why does he now keep his mouth closed. Spence tells her they found the bones.

When Spence takes on an accent to speak with Mrs. Baptiste and talks about bones, it is the second time in the episode that I had a flashback to Murder by Death. "You have buns?" "Not buns, the bones in my body." The other time was when Boyd was saying that all of Toni Dean's hits were number 2's. I guess you had to have seen Murder by Death, a few too many times.

Spence tells her that they do not want to speak with Mrs. Baptiste but with Oduda. Spence lights a black candle. A calm comes over her or perhaps 'al doudah' surfaces to speak in Mrs. Baptiste's place. She places a necklace around Spence's neck, saying that he needs a charm. She puts out the candle and says she does not want to talk anymore.

Boyd pulls Spence aside and tries to get him to explain what has transpired in the room. Spence does not have a lot of answers, he can only say that Obeah is not Voodoo. He returns to Mrs. Baptiste and asks her who told her to watch the bodies. Mrs. Baptiste remains animated. She really flips out when Spence asks her if she put a curse on the people who threw her out.

Boyd asks Spence how Mrs. Baptiste knows him and Spence says, she knows everyone where he lived. Boyd follows up with the logical question of where. Fret not, if you missed Spence telling everyone when they walked into Marlow House that he used to live there. Spence merely neglected to mention it. No, he does not have an explanation for the omission but more surprising is that Boyd is relatively mellow when he learns the truth. It must be that favorite son thing.

They return to the house where Frankie is excited that she has found two large sheets of lead under the floor boards. She believes they were placed there to conceal something. For some reason they do not even toy with the idea that Superman lived there and stored Kryptonite under the lead.

Spence becomes captivated by the memories of his time in the house and has a flashback to when he was a small boy playing with his father. Boyd finds him. With Boyd's prompts, Spence tells him that he was six when his father left for Jamaica. He was supposed to come back but never did return. Spence says, even after he grew up, he never found out what went on in the house; it seems he did not retain many friends when he joined the police force.

Boyd declines Spence's very sensible request to be taken off the case. Spence counters that he does not have special access because he is black. Boyd says he should not have second thoughts but should do his sworn duty. Okay, the victims were buried roughly 30 years earlier, Spence lived there when he was 6 years old, Spence is in his mid-thirties - is it so unreasonable that he might know the people involved and hence not be perceived to be the best officer for the case? I seem to remember there being some intra-team conflict about Spence's personal involvement with a suspect in Thin Air. Spence wanted to stay on that case, Boyd wanted him off; not sure what happened since then to bring about this change of philosophy.

Patricia Quinn, Toni Dean's manager is perturbed by the news of dead bodies in Toni's new home. Little does she know that Frankie found two more skeletons with their heads wrapped in plastic under the lead. Boyd opts to make use of the buzzing press, unauthorized by the Met, of course. He announces that the victim was a white male whose name probably began with a "p" and drove a Gordon-Keeble. He does not mention the three other bodies they found in the house.

Later we see Patricia Quinn screening what she calls the director's cut of a very graphically violent film, Projections. At the office, Grace and Mel also watch a version of Projection that someone has sent them anonymously. They watch scenes of a boxing match. One combatant knocks the other unconscious. It then switches to different angles of the same scene Quinn was watching and the scene takes place at Marlowe House. The murder weapon is a shovel while in the actual murder a heavy pickaxe was used. Neither are traditional murder weapons but might be used for self defense. Grace says she remembers the movie from the 60's (although she must mean 70's since the events took place in 1969). She says there was a big fuss about violence and depravity in the cinema. Grace offers a T.S. Eliot quote, "we have the experience but missed the meaning." There is a lot of that going around.

Spence walks alone. He pays an unexpected and apparently infrequent visit upon his mother. He tells his mother about Mrs. Baptiste and that she has disappeared from care. He believes since his mother has known Mrs. Baptiste for a long time that she may also know why Mrs. Baptiste was in a house with four bodies. His mother professes to know nothing. It is difficult to know what to make of Spence's relationship with his mother. It is interesting to see that Spence does not relax in her presence. Granted he is there because he is on duty, but still he seems guarded. Perhaps his Mummy's Curse takes the form of her keeping him in the dark about his father. Spence says he has a bad feeling inside about his father. His mother says, she cannot do anything for that.

Frannie Henning arrives at the office and tells them that they have found her father. She shows them pictures of her father, Philip Stein, who disappeared in 1969. She does not seem particularly interested in the facts of his death but wants to claim him. Boyd shows her the mummified remains and she bolts from the lab.

After his visit with his mother, Spence runs into some neighborhood thugs. Fraser, the leader of the pack holds a gun to his head and tells him that they must make a show for some other thugs. The visiting thugs grab Spence and throw him against the wall. Pressed against a column one of the away thugs cuts his neck as a well dressed man in a black sedan says, "Jordan's cut." He tells Spence that he will "bleed to death like his old man." Spence pulls out the same gun the home thug held on him. It is enough to frighten the away thugs, well, away.

If you are having trouble keeping up with the dead bodies at Marlow House, you are not alone. To sum it up, four bodies were recovered. Two bodies were under the floorboards. The floorboard bodies appear to have been killed by one person using a weapon of convenience. Most likely this was an act of self-defense. Another body, Philip Stein was found sealed behind the chimney breast on the first floor. Stein was killed with a handgun and badly mutilated. This was the mummified body that Meerman found and dumped into the restaurant trash. The final body was walled up in the ground floor flat. He was shot at close range with a shot gun. The squad cannot help but take notice that the film they watched bears an uncanny resemblance to what may have brought an end to two of the victims uncovered beneath the floorboards of Marlow House. Forensically speaking, if you can do that, the deaths do not appear to be related but rather Marlow House looks like a dumping ground for bodies.

Frannie Henning continues to amaze. She seems to have made some sort of deal with the director of Projection, Gerry Raistrick. She says he promised to give her exclusive information for her book. Raistrick enjoys a libation or twelve while she rants. He tosses her out angrily.

Spence searches for answers. He goes to see a guy who might as well be Rocky Balboa's trainer to ask about his father. When he was a kid, Darcy Early told him his father was a hero, now he tells him his father left because his last fight was a fix. Suggy Gardner wanted Spence's father to lose but instead he won. It was something to do with drugs. Spence realizes that his father is alive and that he never left for Jamaica.

Spence makes an appearance at the office. Mel gives him grief about not being around to do the piddling little tasks he does in a normal episode. However far from the norm, Grace calls him into her office to talk. She needs him to translate what Mrs. Baptiste said the day before. Spence obliges her by telling her that Obeah means folk medicine. Oduda is the queen of folk medicine and Bones is the king. Mrs. Baptiste was put in the house to make sure the ghosts did not come back. The bags were placed over their heads after death to make sure they could not find their way back.

Spence still wants off the case. Boyd says conflict is inevitable with cases, it has even happened to him. Boyd does not mention, but I will, that he has a conflict every other week. He gives Spence 48 hours leave to deal with whatever is bugging him with the caveat that if he finds out anything about the case that he will report the information.

Mel takes a few moments off from adding stuff to the board to say that Philip Stein wrote bthe film under a psuedonym, John Wright. The director is alive and well and living in an old folks home north of the river. Patricia Quinn's real name is Gina Sciaffra. An Italian surname so Boyd's first thought is that she is in the mafia.

Spence hops a double decker his mother is riding. It is too small of a detail to wonder how he knew she would be on that particular bus. He asks her questions about his father but she is unwilling to tell him much. She does confirm that he is not dead. She even seems shocked that he could believe his father is dead. Spence says she must tell him that he is not safe anymore.

Boyd and Mel find the director's home but not the director. They find a jar labeled, "remember who has the final cut," filled with liquid and a nose. Gross does not quite capture it. The nose is a perfect match for the mummified Stein. Apparently, someone gave the director the nose as a warning to keep his nose out of other people's business and to keep quiet about what happened at Marlow House.

The director, Raistrick, appears to direct himself out of the living world. While sitting in a movie theater he injects himself with something and dies. Outside, a police officer finds Philip Stein's Gordon-Keeble.

Detective Jordan waits for his mother to leave home then searches her flat for clues about his father's whereabouts. He finds that his mother pays the local barber a great deal of money every month. Spence gets a haircut (although he looks exactly the same before and after) and then follows the barber when he leaves after work.

It turns out Patricia Quinn aka Gina Sciaffra is connected to a Florida crime family. She is up to her neck in drug trafficking. It occurs to them that she knew about the boides in Marlow House and is just using Toni Dean as a front so that the bodies would be discovered. Boyd comes to the more troubling conclusion that the Cold Case Squad is also being manipulated, only he is still not sure how or why.

Frankie rips apart the Gordon-Keeble and finds roughly ten thousand pounds and a reel to reel audio tape. The tape is of two men talking about police officers they have on the take. One of the men on the tape is Vincent Peverell. In the present day, two men have a similar conversation about "wild boy" Peter Boyd. Vincent Peverell says that he once tried to bribe Boyd but Boyd would not sell out and they cannot find anything in his file with which to blackmail him.

Separately, Boyd confirms Peverell's bribe attempt. Still, Peverell was able to get to at least five high level Met officers. Quinn must have known about this and thus needs someone like Boyd, who is outside Peverell's sphere of influence to bring down Peverell. Boyd gets assistance from Ray Geddes, a member of National Criminal Intelligence Services, NCIS. His organization has been building a case or trying to build a case against Peverell for years. Geddes suspects that Peverell may have bribed someone inside NCIS. He confirms that Peverell buys and sells drugs in America. He is involved with the same crime family as is Patrica Quinn.

Fanny Doodle loves Frannie Henning but someone else is not so keen on Frannie. She settles into her flat to watch herself on a television chat show. She is promoting her new book, which even the interviewer realizes is uncannily similar to the real life discovery of her father's murder. As she watches a hidden assailant steps out from the shadows and bludgeons her to death. He escapes with a padded envelope that he found in her apartment. Mel and Boyd arrive moments later to find her lifeless body.

Spence has followed the barber to a flat where he discovers the very lively body of his father. The two men share a bittersweet reunion. Spencer is thrilled to see his father after so many years but he is in anguish that his mother knew but kept Spencer away.

Spencer reports in to his surrogate father Boyd. He tells him that his father was trying to protect his community from the East Side firms which were trying to push their drug trade into the community. Suggy Gardner set up a deal for a fight between Vincent Peverell and Spence's father, Carlton. Carlton Jordan was supposed to take a dive in the fight. The deal was that if Carlton lost, then Suggy would leave the community alone. However, Carlton found out that Suggy would never leave them alone and thus he decided not to throw the fight. He beat Peverell to a pulp in the ring. Then Peverell sent a team to attack Carlton at home at Marlow House. Carlton defended himself vigorously and buried the bodies in the house. Carlton was treated for his wounds. Spence's mother, who was a nurse, invented a name for him but the danger was still there and he could never return home.

Frankie and Grace identify the fourth corpse at Marlow House. Frankie does a facial reconstruction on the skeleton (not sure how she figured out he wore a mustache, maybe she found extra hairs near the bones) and compares it to a photograph Grace found of Suggy Gardner in Peverell's files. He disappeared in 1970. Somehow there must have been a power shift in the crime firms because Peverell who was an underling murdered Gardner.

It is time for Boyd to meet the parents. Boyd asks if Mr. Jordan was badly injured that night who came to his rescue and who buried the bodies. The Barber appears and says that it was he who helped Spence's father. He lived in the house and heard the two men attacking him. He says he made up a cover story that Carlton died after the fight but that he had killed the two men who had come for him. It was such a good cover that Peverell came back later with two more bodies, Stein and Gardner for The Barber to bury. Wisely, he spread the story that he left for Jamaica.

Quinn has made arrangements to leave that night for Florida, leaving them to deal with Peverell. However, Boyd has another plan for her. He arranges for Spence to pose as a cab driver to take her to the airport. Boyd and some backup form other crime divisions follow. Meanwhile wherever she is, Mrs. Baptiste does some non Voodoo but voodoo stuff.

Peverell ambushes Meerman at Marlow House. They seem to know one another. Peverell wants to know how Quinn knew about the history of Marlow House in the first place. Peverell obviously believes that Meerman betrayed him and to thank him, Peverell puts a bullet into Meerman's head. Meerman becomes the fifth corpse at Marlow House (albeit lost in the Atlantic).

Peverell joins in the taxi cab fun by following the cab. Spence turns down an alley and stops the car, locking Quinn inside. Peverell picks his moment and tries to kill Quinn. Just as he has his gun drawn on her, Boyd and the others rush in. He tells Peverell he is not going to arrest him. The FBI is along to arrest Quinn. Peverell says if Boyd is not going to arrest him then he can leave. Boyd corrects him, he is not going to arrest him but Spence will. Spence steps out of the car and proceeds to set right a lifetime of doubt, misery and injustice.