Fraser's elderly friend Albert Hanrahan, drags Fraser and Kowalski into a situation involving spies, corpses, and illegal weapons.

Detailed Overview

Fraser and Stan meet up with Fraser's friend, Albert "H" Hanrahan, who gives every indication of being a spy. However, he is an excellent chess player and quickly check-mates the Chicago detective. However, Fraser must continue on his search for a new apartment, a task made difficult because he always admits that Dief is a wolf.

Meanwhile, Hanrahan spots something which looks very spy-ish: a man hides something in a trash bin. He retrieves the items -- some money and a ballet ticket -- but is quickly spotted by its new owner, a burly Slavic individual who attacks him. Luckily for the elderly man, Fraser, Stan and Dief are not far away. Stan knocks the man down but there's a problem. The man is dead. And Hanrahan has disappeared.

Welsh isn't happy that one of his detectives is involved in the death of a citizen, domestic or otherwise, and Stan is told to find out the corpse's identity post haste.

Across town, a search of Hanrahan's apartment doesn't yield much concrete evidence to Fraser except for the man's fascination with spies. But then he runs into Ruth, the weapon-toting landlady, and with some clues, determines that Hanrahan is hiding in her apartment below. Hanrahan gives all indication he is a spy, waiting for activation, but he doesn't feel he can give it his all anymore, so asks Fraser to go to the ballet in his place. Hanrahan saved the ticket.

Stan thinks Fraser is nuts for believing Hanrahan, whom he thinks is also nuts. Their conversation is interrupted when Welsh sends Stan and Fraser down to the morgue to ID the body of the man whom Stan accidentally killed. Stan doesn't even want to look at the body it disturbs him so much, so Fraser determines what killed the man via non-intrusive techniques: the man died of cyanide and is from Russia, and is most likely a spy. Stan is unfortunately left to ID the body, which means taking fingerprints.

Fraser ends up being approached by a dark-haired, Russian-accented woman at the ballet. She's interested in an arms deal, something which is definitely not on the program. It's after they're both asked to leave the theater (for talking too much) that the woman, Nada, and her comrades discover that Fraser is not their contact. He escapes from them and interrupts the ballet in the process, and once outside, flees their lethal bullets by jumping into a car.

A strange man with deplorable driving habits named Pike has saved the Mountie from possible death. Pike knows a lot about what's going on, spy-wise, but when a police car pursues them, he dumps Fraser out of the speeding car at a convenient corner. The car runs over a poor pedestrian's boombox. Fraser is just left with a lot of questions.

Back at the police station, Stan's hit a roadblock on identifying the corpse as he can't access the FBI files. Fraser links into the RCMP files. It seems a second KGB group called the Colonels that will attempt to intercept an arms shipment. Welsh warns Stan to stay out of Fraser's case as he's got to deal with the shooting team for punching and killing the man.

Stan becomes the unwilling baby-sitter for both Hanrahan and Ruth, who will hide out at his apartment until they can find out what's going on. Dief is left to protect the couple.

When Yuri (one of the bad spies) checks out Hanrahan's apartment, he meets with foul play.

At the station, Stan is roused from a nap in a jail cell. It seems Hanrahan's daughter (Nada in disguise) has come to pick up her father, whom she claims is mentally ill. Stan buys the story, until he gets a phone call on the drive over that the daughter died years ago. Fortunately Stan is a little crazy himself and when threatened with being shot by Nada, he speeds up the car instead. He slams on the brakes just in time to jump into a rescue car -- driven by Pike. Pike knows all about the Stan/Ray deception. After a brief but frenetic conversation in which Stan of course learns nothing, he's dumped out of the car just like Fraser was -- and another boombox meets its demise.

Ruth comes back to the apartment (she went out for aspirin). Both she and Hanrahan study the money the older man held onto, and figure out there's a microdot on it. Ruth encourages Hanrahan to 'make her proud' and capture the baddies. But before she leaves, she feeds Dief.

The body of the deceased spy has been found, and when Fraser and Stan come back to his apartment, they discover an unconscious Dief on the floor. He's been drugged. Outside, Stan sees a car and goes after it, but it speeds away after nearly running him over. The two cops commandeer a car to find Ruth and Albert.

The two octogenarians have found Nada and others at the loading dock for a freighter. It's when Stan spots his car (which Nada stole) that they know they've found the villains. They open a crate from which many yellow rubber ducks cascade, revealing a hidden cache of automatic weapons. Nada and Karl hears the noise, but dismisses her colleague's worries that it might be Nautilus, a legendary 'bogeyman' of spies. Ruth mysteriously disappears, leaving Hanrahan alone, and someone knocks him out. Soon Nada hears noise from the Mountie and Stan, and the bullets start flying. Fraser manages to disarm Nada but must seek cover when Pike arrives, shooting up the place. He believes Nada to be Nautilus whom he's pursued for decades, but Fraser's logic in regards to Nada's young age ruins that theory. The woman would have been twelve when Pike started hunting Nautilus. While Pike trains his gun on Fraser, Stan captures Nada. It seems no one is Nautilus -- until that individual reveals themself. It's Ruth! The harmless little gray-haired woman. Stan is totally confused as he's the only one who doesn't know about Nautilus. It's Hanrahan who saves the foursome from certain death by distracting Ruth till Dief can disarm her. During the confusion, however, Pike mysteriously vanishes.

On the street where they play chess, Stan awards a citation to Hanrahan for his help to the city. The older man doesn't mind there's no name on the plaque bestowed to him. 'They' (the government) can't divulge his identity, after all! Stan and Fraser are approached by another fast car driven by Ike, Pike's friend. It seems Nautilus escaped from the authorities using a knitting needle! They're given a piece of paper from Pike -- a letter stating that he will spend the rest of his life tracking Nautilus.

Music

FLORA'S AWAKENING
Performed by Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec
Conducted by Simon Streatfield
Courtesy of CBC Records/Les Disques SRC

An attentive fan has let us know that even though the opera piece is credited by the show as "Flora's Awakening," the actual piece is "Pas de Deux" from the Minkus opera 'Don Quixote'. Also, the dance being performed is not "Pas de Deux" or "Flora's Awakening."

Interesting Trivia

• Martha Burns (Nada) is Paul Gross' wife. She will appear again on the series as Caroline Fraser, Benton's mother, in the Season 4 series finale, "Call of the Wild."
• Maury Chakin (Pike) has appeared with Paul Gross in the movies Cold Comfort and Whale Music. He will appear again on the show as Jasper Gutman in the Season 4 episode "Mojo Rising."
• It is revealed in this episode that the real Ray Vecchio is impersonating a Mob lieutenant in Las Vegas known as Armando 'the Bookman' Langoustini. Ray's a dead ringer for the Bookman, who died in a car crash. Stan was brought in to hastily replace Ray as the cover story was 'fragile.'

Original Broadcast Information

• Australia: April 15, 1998
• Austria: November 24, 1998
• Canada: November 2, 1997
• Sweden: September 26, 1998
• Switzerland: March 22, 1998
• South Africa: December 24, 1997
• United Kingdom: December 14, 1998
• United States: Week of November 3-9, 1997

Other Cool Links

• The DueSies Project
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