It turns out Tessa does have a female friend after all, but five minutes after we meet her, she gets attacked by a serial killer and has her forehead slashed. (Sadly, either the make-up to depict this was unavailable or it was deemed too horrific, since the wound's covered up for the rest of the episode.) Fortunately, Duncan and Tessa are on hand to chase him off. Duncan quickly realises the killer is copying an evil Immortal who he killed during his, er, century off from the Game and sets out to end things quicker this time.
This involves a fun team-up with Randi, who's starting to suspect Duncan's some sort of undercover operative. Unfortunately, since it's season one, it also involves a lot of padding scenes with police officers who manage to mess up a simple sting operation and then disappear to let the regulars solve everything.
It's a shame that the great John (JG) Hertzler only appears in a one-scene flashback where he rants a lot and gets beheaded. The present day antagonist is a rather flat character who doesn't even get a name in the episode, but that kind of fits. He's a non-entity trying to feel important by stealing someone else's ideas. Presumably the last victim Duncan saved identified Korolus, hence why the Scalper knows so much about his work. (Duncan says the press made a big deal of it.)
Richie gets a motorbike chase but this is very much Tessa's episode. Seeing the trauma Natalie's going through, Tessa decides to act as bait so Duncan trap the killer. So far, so routine, even if it is nice to see Tessa showing some agency. But the climax is what really elevates this episode above the humdrum as, against every rule of the show that we think we know, Tessa gets to save the day and take down the killer while Duncan's distracted. And yet she gets very little joy from doing harm to even an obscene human being. It's a surprisingly mature ending to an episode that improves as it goes along.
We also get a reference to Angie, with Richie speaking to her on the phone: Nice to know she's still around, even if they sound on the rocks!
This involves a fun team-up with Randi, who's starting to suspect Duncan's some sort of undercover operative. Unfortunately, since it's season one, it also involves a lot of padding scenes with police officers who manage to mess up a simple sting operation and then disappear to let the regulars solve everything.
It's a shame that the great John (JG) Hertzler only appears in a one-scene flashback where he rants a lot and gets beheaded. The present day antagonist is a rather flat character who doesn't even get a name in the episode, but that kind of fits. He's a non-entity trying to feel important by stealing someone else's ideas. Presumably the last victim Duncan saved identified Korolus, hence why the Scalper knows so much about his work. (Duncan says the press made a big deal of it.)
Richie gets a motorbike chase but this is very much Tessa's episode. Seeing the trauma Natalie's going through, Tessa decides to act as bait so Duncan trap the killer. So far, so routine, even if it is nice to see Tessa showing some agency. But the climax is what really elevates this episode above the humdrum as, against every rule of the show that we think we know, Tessa gets to save the day and take down the killer while Duncan's distracted. And yet she gets very little joy from doing harm to even an obscene human being. It's a surprisingly mature ending to an episode that improves as it goes along.
We also get a reference to Angie, with Richie speaking to her on the phone: Nice to know she's still around, even if they sound on the rocks!