Waking The Dead : What Happened and Why in
Anger Management

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If you see life in the disjointed, non-linear, partially fantastical manner as presented in Anger Management, do as I do, don't tell anyone. Such stuff as what dreams are made on and our life is rounded with a sleep and this episode is rounded with a gun shot in the night.

Underneath the hustle and bustle of an expressway, Detective Inspector Spencer Jordan, Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd and local serial killer schizophrenic Samuel Jacobs drive out to a deserted area. Boyd motions to Spence to wait by the car while Boyd and Sam, who is in handcuffs, go in search of something. Sam says it is under the tree. Boyd walks off from Sam a few paces, Sam reaches down near his feet and retrieves a gun. He asks Boyd to tell him his first name Boyd responds and Sam shoots.

How did it come to this, you ask? We flashback to two weeks earlier, when Dr. Frankie Wharton was very interested in a suicide in a halfway house (probationery services hostel). Her main interest was that she believed it was a murder. The coroner said it was a suicide in part on the police officers' acccount that the gun had been found in the victim's hand. Frankie says that she was not able to document the scene properly. Before you yell stop the presses this is not a cold case, Frankie discovers that the .38 Special in the victim's hand has been traced to two unsolved murders; one in 1977 and another in 1983.

Detective Sergeant Mel Silver briefs the teams on the 1977 and 1983 victims. Both men were shot with a single bullet through the head. One was a drug dealer and the other a bookmaker, the illegal gambling type bookmaker. The current murder, Tim Denby, was of a man who might as well have been a saint because there is no obvious reason anyone would shoot him. Except he worked for the probation department which controlled the lives of these just released from prison residents.

Boyd is being treated by a psychiatrist, Elsbeth (elspeth?). I like any doctor who does not insist upon being called "doctor," of course, I'm assuming she is a doctor. Boyd has not been seeing her for very long. He says he does not think it will work. If it had been going on for a long time he would have been able to conclude, "this isn't working." Elsbeth has the difficult task of trying to get Boyd to deal with his anger issues. Boyd wants to be helped because he asks sincerely if she is getting annoyed with him. It is a nice gesture. Nonetheless, Peter Boyd appears to be an unhappy chap.

Boyd says that outside of work he is perceived as being an even tempered person. That's a statement that we are going to have to fuil under, "we'll take your word for it," because mercifully this is not one of those lame ass work place dramas that dwells on life outside of the workplace. At work, Boyd confesses to becoming annoyed with his staff. He feels as if he must do everything himself. Oddly, he says that just once he would like one of them "to pick up and run with something." It is true that they don't do that, except for all the times they do. Clearly, Boyd is misremembering all the times one of his team runs with an idea and then he throws a fit because he was not the instigator. But as he says, he is the one paying the psychiatrist bill so he should be able to construct a world of his choosing.

Therapist and patient decide that Boyd must recognize the events that trigger his tantrums and think of a phrase or a loved one to calm him down. He tells Elspeth that he chose lines from Shakespeare's The Tempest because they put things in perspective that we are only here for a short time and then we disappear. Moments earlier in their conversation Boyd said it wouldn't matter if the sun rose after "the bomb" went off because no one would be around to see it, so how would he know if he disappeared from the earth. Elspeth interprets it as life goes on, a positive thought.

Boyd says that his son Joe disappeared seven years ago. Finally, now I know why Elsbeth seems so familiar. You of course remember Elaine Morrison, who was played by Jackie Clune, she could be Kerry Fox's sister. The seven years is interesting. Continuity Police say that in Blind Beggar Boyd tells Grace that his son started running away 10 years ago when Joe was 15. He does not say how much time passed between then and when Joe was last seen. Seven years seems unlikely, especially if any time has passed between now and the events of Blind Beggar.

Spence and Mel go to the probationery hostel where the shooting occured. They speak first to Don Keach, he had been in prison for killing a man who assaulted his sister. Don was practicing Tai Chi when he heard the gun shot. He went into Tim Denby's room and found the body. Don says that Sam Jacobs arrived to the hostel just as he was about to phone the police. Sam is another resident who seems to have been a little late arriving for an 11pm curfew.

One of Sam Jacobs' special talents is playing the guitar, his other talent is killing people but we'll get to that later. His flamenco style guitar music permeates the episode adding depth and color. As for Sam, his long white hair and intense gaze remind me of Bob from Twin Peaks. Sam explains the delay in calling the police as a byproduct of Don's panic attack about going back to prison. He really should not have to explain a delay at all since every time mentioned by Don or Sam has been prefaced by "about."

Sam went to prison for beating a neighbor so severely he was partially paralyzed. The neighbor had molested Sam's wife, Rebecca. Upon release from prison Sam had a warm homecoming from his wife and their daughter. Except for that one moment of uncontrolled rage it appears as if Sam is a well-adjusted, balanced individual. Apperarances have never been more wrong.

Frankie plays around with bullet trajectories and figures out that Tim Denby did not kill himself. Rather, she confirms her hypothesis that he did not kill himself, since she never believed that his death was a suicide.

Rabbi Reg Solomon pays a visit on Sam one evening. It is nice for the deranged to have spiritual guidance. Sam's wife called the Rabbi. Sam tells him about going to see the man he maimed, Steven Walsh. Steven seems very angry and frightened by Sam's appearance and hobbles off, all the while crying out that he is going to call the police. I wonder if Steven has tried to assault any more women.

Frankie finds that Don Keach's sweatshirt has traces of gun shot residue (firearms residue ). She also finds dna that puts two other men in the room. Sam Jacobs, whom we know fairly well and Mark Andrews. Mark Andrews really is a character better suited to be on Keen Eddie, but that was cancelled well before its time. Mark says that he went to the probationery hostel to visit his former cellmate, Sam. He says that he was at Bosco House just before curfew.

In his interview with Mel and Grace Foley, Sam says that he did not go into the room the night Tim Denby was shot but he had stayed in the room when he first arrived at the hostel. Sam says that Mark did come to see him one night and that he was staying in that room at the time. Unfortunately for the investigators, the explanation accounts for Sam and Mark's dna samples in the room. I'm wondering if there were so many people in and out of that room, how they managed to pinpoint only two dna samples. If Mark were only a casual visitor, what was he doing to leave so much dna?

Sam presents Mark's visit as a friendly get together but we are privy to a flashback of a somewhat more ominous conversation. Sam spots Mark and asks him what he is doing there. He tells Mark to tell Phil that "I haven't changed my mind."

Boyd interviews Don Keach alone. Don did not like prison but he did seem to spend a lot of time taking their rehabiliation courses, mostly to correct problems he never had. He says that he took several courses in anger management. He and Boyd have a fascinating conversation about managing anger. We cannot tell whether Boyd is interested in the substance of what Don is saying or whether he is manipulating the impressionable young man. Boyd lets Don demonstrate his tai chi but at the same time he tries to incite him into admitting to shooting Tim Denby.

Boyd then moves on to Sam Jacobs. He asks him if he saw Don with the gun, Tim says no but again in a flashback we see Sam and Don in the room with Tim's body. Don is waving the gun around, distraught. Sam is in the room telling Don to put the gun in Tim's hand. Boyd is suspicious because it takes Sam a long time to answer. Sam covers with some lame explanation. Boyd decides to let the men leave. Spence wants to know Boyd's plan, but Boyd tells him just to do as he is told. I think most would agree that there is no way that Spence or anyone could take the lead in an investigation when Boyd keeps them in the dark.

A free Sam Jacobs looks in a hidden compartment at the base of a statute in a park but seems disappointed to find it empty. Later he stands in front of a house where Mark Andrews is inside with a group of men drinking and smoking cigars. We do not know who these men are or what Sam is thinking as the stands in the night. However, the next morning Sam meets with Rabbi Reg. In yet another flashback, we see Sam in the backseat of a car driven by Mark Andrews. Another man is sitting beside Sam and he tells Mark to piss off. Phil is a vulgar thing. In a flashback within a flashback within a flashback, we see the two men have known one another for a very long time. Phil says he has a job for Sam, Sam does not seem interested. Phil makes thinly veiled threats towards Sam's wife and daughter.

Sam asks Rabbi Reg if it can ever be justified to take a life. Sam really means whether it is okay to kill someone when you are not being paid. Maybe Sam wanted to be in the Deathwatch episode where he could engage in the debate about authorized and unauthorized killings. The question has caused him so much stress it has split his personality.

How much would you pay for pizza delivery? How about if the pizza were delivered to you as you sat on a park bench? Still not as much as Sam paid, well then he must have been paying for the fake police identification that was included in the package. If you are getting the impression that Sam may have more experience with the wrong side of the law than just that one attack on his neighbor then you are right.

Wearing a disguise and pretending to be a maintenance worker, Sam makes his way into the cold case lab. He comes across Frankie as she is preparing to leave for the night. Sam abandons his mop and bucket for a hood which he puts over our Frankie's head. Frankie fights for air under the hood. Sam plays a tape recording of a distorted voice that says, "you are in danger, you have a gun I want." It then says, "raise your hand if you understand." Frankie raises her hand. I'm not at all sure what his recording would have said if she did not raise her hand. In any event, with Sam still restraining Frankie, she reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out the keys Sam needs.

Alas in the light of the day, it appears as if Frankie's ordeal did not really happen. Frankie tells the team that when she came in to work that morning she found that someone had broken into the lab. The thief made off with the .38 Special and some dna lab results from the Denby case. Boyd is annoyed that someone has invaded their space. He is equally troubled by Frankie's non-reaction. If you were looking for clues that Frankie is lying to the team about what happened that is the biggest clue. Frankie tosses major fits when they walk into her lab without wearing one of those white coats. She should be hitting the roof if someone had defiled her sanctum. It must be that Sam attacked Frankie.

How is Sam handling the guilt of what he has done? Apparently he broke a one of his wife's heirloom figurines. His wife asked him about it but it was his daughter who told the wife what happened. Not seeing any of the actual events, we have to take the daughter's word for it that it was just an accident. She tells Sam happily that he must feel better now that the truth is out.

Whether Sam feels better about his wife's figurine is unclear. He does seem to be happy to have his gun back. He spies on Mark Andrews and then tackles him to the ground. He pins Mark down while holding the gun to his head. Sam has also made use of the dna reports he stole which indicated that Mark had been in Tim Denby's room. Sam realizes that Mark thought that Sam still lived in that room. Mark must have gone in there that night to kill Sam. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you think about Sam being executed, Mark did not do the basics of getting close enough to his victims. Mark confesses that he was paid 1000 quid for the hit.

Mark is on the prowl again in disguise. This time he is in a bar on the hunt for Phil. He wants answers from Phil. Phil says he was concerned about Sam's conversion. Sam counters that he has never given him reason for doubt.

Frankie eventually confesses to Boyd about the incident. We only get the tail end of the conversation on BBCA. Dr. Wharton was embarrassed that she was overtaken and worse yet that she could not remember any of the details that they rely upon to solve such cases. Boyd cannot understand why she lied to them.

Phil Brown has been calling Sam's home. It seems that he wants Sam to know that he can get to them. Sam lies to his family about his connection to Phil. It is not as if Phil will be calling the house again because soon after we see Phil in his car asking an unseen but evidently handsome person if they are feeling "horny." Moments later a bullet ends his life.

The team, sans Frankie, brainstorms about the identity of the killer and the gun owner. It is one of those conversations where you feel you have missed a lot. They know that the gun was used to kill nine people. Previously, we only knew of two others. They know that the shooter is a hired killer and the person who has hired him or her has known the person since the 1970's. They know a lot. They even know that there is a third person involved in the Denby kiling. There really is no way to challenge their analysis since we are only given their conclusions. Not much fun there. The only analysis we get is that they decide that the only way that the killer would leave his favorite gun at the crime scene would be if he or she did not do the killing. It still begs the question of how he became separated from this treasured piece. They determine that a third person was involved because the person doing the hiring would never do the killing with a killer on the payroll. What about when you want to eliminate your hitman? See it is more fun when we get to second guess their logic.

The team refers to those involved as Messieurs X, Y and Z. We know them as Phil Brown, the man with the money, Sam Jacobs, the hitman, and Mark Andrews, the man hired by Brown to kill Jacobs. Eventually the team figures out that the second hitman mistook Denby for his target. Denby could not be the killer because not only was he an all around nice guy, he also has an alibi for at least one of the nine killings.

Just as the team is feeling relatively good about the investigation, Spence comes in with the news that the gun stolen from Frankie's lab has been used to kill Phil Brown. Two shots were fired into Phil, one in the chest and one in the head. Phil was killed in a remote location. He was either forced to go there or he knew the person and went willingly or the two men met up in that location. There is no real explanation of why they decide this is the work of the original killer, the kiiller they believe shot Denby or someone else, they just fixate on the original killer changing his style.

Spence and Mel go to visit Phil's former personal assistant, Mrs. Hayworth, you can also call her Rita. She seemed to be a bit taken with her boss. In a flashback, we see now dead Phil and Mark discussing Phil's horticulture interest. It seems Phil grew very rare flowers. I'm not sure who is having this flashback since Phil is still dead and Mark is nowhere around. In fact, the first Mel and Spence learn of Mark's connection to Phil is when Mrs. Hayworth mentions it. This is very odd since Mark was a person of interest in a homicide investigation yet they did not even learn where he was employed. Hopefully, Mark gave them phony information. I'm sure there must have been some way for Phil to hide his connections when necessary. Otherwise it might be appropriate to question their collective detecting skills.

Boyd is outside the Brown estate and Spence tells him about Mark. Mel spies Mark up in a window. They search the house for him.

By the way, what is with Spence this episode? Whatever it is, I like it. Spence has spent far too much time being a reserved by-the-book type of guy. This episode he really lets loose and delivers some very memorable moments. "Knocking boots", "the James Brown scream." Weird but fun.

They don't find Mark but he finds them. As Boyd is rounding a corner, Mark lies in wait and punches him in the face. Mark runs away but trips over a bench and rips a hole in his leg. He collects the shotgun and one round of the cartridges that had spilled on the grouind and hides in a empty swimming pool. Mark seems to have trouble with his vision. Nothing like tossing in relevant facts in the last two minutes.

Boyd relies on his powers of persuasion to try and apprehend an armed murder suspect. Fortunately, in the battle of wits Mark is the one clearly unarmed. Rita calls Mark's cellphone to tell him that the police are looking for him. The ringing discloses his location. Boyd finds him and Mark tries to reach his bullets to load into the gun. Boyd does not take kindly to Mark's efforts, however ineffectual, to kill him. He lunges at him and wrestles him to the ground. He does not want anything from Mark other than his submission so this display of anger may be okay with his therapist. His excessive use of force as he holds Mark's head under water.

The next day at the cold cases office, Mark declines to have a lawyer present because he does not trust them. The ploy might work out for him except that Frankie has matched pollen from a rare plant found on Denby's neck with that of pollen found in the gun barrel. The same pollen was also found on a pair of gloves in Mark's bag.

They ask Mark to identify photographs of plants but he cannot because he cannot see clearly. Boyd lends him his eyeglasses. I will have to say this for Mark he does look good in Boyd's glasses. Boyd tells him that if he were wearing glasses the night he went to the hostel he would not have shot the wrong man. The prospect of being charged with both the Denby and Brown murders frightens Mark. Too bad Mark mistrusts lawyers because otherwise he might realize that he could make a deal to reduce his charges in exchange for information that will help them solve nine unsolved murders.

Time for yet another flashback. We see Mark in Denby's room on the night of the murder. Denby is asleep with his back towards the door. Mark shoots him and then checks for a pulse, transferring the pollen to his neck. The amateur assasin's cellphone rings, startled he drops the gun. He does manage to get out of the room and the hostel without being seen. We know Don Keach arrives next. He finds the gun on the floor and Sam tells him to put it in Tim's hand. Sam wants it to look like a suicide because it will mean a less intensive police inquiry and he can get his gun back easier.

Sam Jacobs returns to the office. He tells them he has an alibi for the night Phil Brown was murdered, he was with Reg Solomon. The Rabbi tells Boyd and Grace that Sam was not with him that night. It is unusual for a suspect to provide an alibi witness who they know will not corroborate their alibi. Either Sam is challenging Mark for the title of dumbest criminal of the year or his conscience is bothering him.

Adding to the case against Sam is a fingernail found in Phil Brown's car. Sam says that he left the nail in the car in case he changed his mind about confessing. But confess he does and of course with flashbacks, at least these go back further than a week. He says he met Phil when he was 16. Phil helped him get into a band. Sam became hooked on the lifestyle and on drugs. Sam says that Phil liked boys and he felt pressured to have sex with him. Soon after, he killed his first person for Phil. Phil paid him 500 pounds for the job in 1967. Mark got 1000 in 2004, in case you are charting the price of a hit. Sam says that it was a revolutionary zeal that kept him working for Phil. When that wore off he left the country, when he returned he made a deal with Phil to be his hitman once every 2 or 3 years. Phil paid well. Sam explains that the use of disguise and the passion of the flamenco allowed him to separate mentally his assasin actvities from his surburban wife and kid existence. He says that all went well until he was sent to prison for assaulting his neighbor. In prison, he had too much time to think and the two Sams collided.

He says he had to kill Phil Brown because Phil would not let him abandon the life of an assasin. He varied from his usual one shot kill because he knew Phil and because he was not being paid. He offers to show Boyd where the gun is hidden. Not sure why Boyd went for this, but he does and suddenly we find ourselves in the scene we saw at the very beginning of the episode.

We see the very end of the scene and learn that the one shot Sam fired was into his own head. Spence rushes to Boyd's side. As they stare down at what must be the start of a very long internal affairs investigation, Boyd asks why would he do that. Of course, without knowing which of the Sams pulled the trigger it will be hard to figure out why.