This episode begins with limits – specifically Harry’s
inability to use technology because he’s a wizard and, above that, Bob’s
intangibility making him unable to physically interact with the world. Something
that’s especially poignant after last episode when we learned Bob was cursed
into his skull after being punished for trying to resurrect his dead lover. He’s
even more depressed when a prospective client arrives and refuses his help
because she wants Harry
Harry runs into her walking home – asks if she needs help
and she gets hit by a car (with a fuzzy faced magic man driving).
Time to report it to Detective Murphy (who covers every
crime everywhere in Chicago ever). The deceased is Raychelle Banton and she had
cut out Harry’s newspaper advert. Murphy has a bit of a snit because any case
she has involving harry comes with a whole lot of randomness and lots of lies –
now Harry says they also close the cases but I have to question that. Sure they’re
resolved to Harry’s satisfaction, but I can’t imagine the paperwork would list
the cases as closed at the police station. Murphy still invites him along to
play (at least Detective Kirmani questions why they’re letting harry all over
their crime scene but Murphy shuts him down) and examine the car that ran
Raychelle over.
Harry finds tallow in the car and takes this to the very
angsty Bob (thankfully Bob is both an actor who can pull off melodrama and he
snaps out of it relatively quickly) and an answer machine message from Raychelle
saying she had been seeing things. Time for
investigation at the college and to meet someone whose picture was in Raychelle’s
date book, Dante. He claims to know nothing. Time to follow up the
investigation with some magic and entering in Raychelle’s apartment, leaving
his finger prints everywhere and finding an extremely expensive piece of jewellery–
and been attacked by a man in a hood who magically disappears in a closet.
Confirmation of magic!
The jewellery is part of a series of very expensive
burglaries that Dresden reports to Morgan – which seems awfully precipitous. As
Morgan points out – it doesn’t take magic to steal and make things disappear.
They have their usual argument – Morgan makes it clear he’s a busy man with a
war to fight and little time for Harry’s problems – but Harry makes it more
personal and asks where the Council and their war against Dark Magic was when
his father died. It was a good, heavy scene with a lot of issues touched on –
including why Harry is doing what he does.
Harry does some magical spying on Dante and his two rich,
connected friends – and they’re together with a lot of expensive purloined
goods, referring to a Caleb and that Dante is working to clear his family’s
medical bills. He follows them on their little bank robbing job where they
magically dive through the banks walls to steal money. The problem is that one
of them, Carson, only gets part way through and is ripped in half.
To the pathologist! And Waldo Butters is geeky and fun
(but needs Polka music) declares that the body was killed by a large blunt
instrument – and he was dying, rotting from the inside. Murphy confronts harry
who knew both where the other half of the body would be (inside a locked bank
vault) and that Carson was dying.
On to Bob (Murphy seems oddly placated by random
platitudes) and some research. A tallow covered severed hand is, of course the
Hand of Glory (it says a lot for my reading choices that I knew this from the
beginning when they found tallow in the car). The severed hand of a dead thief
covered in wax – it draws the energy from the boys (who all have emotional
issues which makes them vulnerable) to power up super thief talents – like the
ability to walk through walls – courtesy of the thief spirit bound in the hand
candle. And that spirit is taking them over.
Time for awkward parent interviews! Mrs. Whitfield, the
mother of one of the surviving rich kids who has an interesting collection of artefacts
– and when he asks about a Hand of Glory she kicks him out. I suppose this is
supposed to be suspicious, but if a strange man came to my house asking after severed
human hands I’d show them the door as well. Some more action and confrontation
before Mrs. Whitfield comes to Harry to tell him that they did have a Hand of
Glory, that it’s missing and that her husband used to be obsessed with it. And
that he died with it in his hands.
Which is what happens to Brady as well – leaving only
Dante to carry the Hand, and Caleb’s spirit which is getting stronger. Time for
the final confrontation and some magic fire to save Dante and finally destroy
and banish the manifested Caleb. And a wonderful finale wrap up with Morgan - I liked it, i did.
I am glad that both Detective Kirmani finally questioned allowing
a rather eccentric civilian all over the crime scene and we had overt
acknowledgement that Dresden is requisition the police force for his services. And
I’m glad that Murphy makes it clear that while he should share information with
the police, this isn’t a reciprocal agreement and the police don’t have to give
him information. Too often Urban Fantasy detectives are given extreme police
access for no reason. As well as them just having money without any real
explanation how they earn their living
We have a nod to class with Dante’s family – his mother
trying to recover from a stroke but the family not having enough money to pay
the medical bills. We further see when the college kids harry spoke to have
powerful connections and that causes Murphy to chide him for bothering them.
I like the confrontation between Morgan and Harry about
how the council lets so much slip through the cracks with their war on dark
magic, how many victims fall through. But I’d like to see more from the High
Council’s side – if they are at war with Dark Magic every second of every day,
as Morgan points out, I’d like to see these epic battles that take up the
Council’s time. It would make the Council more sympathetic, introduce, perhaps,
a little epic into the plot line and explain why the Council can’t investigate
these issues.
Inclusionwise it was pretty good on a racial standpoint - while Dante is stealing, his motives are as pure as can be - compared to his rich, white privileged companions.Raychelle was still very expendable though - and then became the motivation for the whole episode. Too many women's deaths are just thrown in to give menfolk the motivation to act.
I’m actually pretty impressed with how the Dresden Files
manages to include a moderate amount of magic with a relatively small special
effect’s budget (and smaller props budget. Did I mention the hockey stick
wizard staff?). It’s subtle and well done – though, again, it’s really
important to step back from the books and treat the show as an entity in its
own right.
This episode had a lot of very powerful scenes that
examined a lot of issues. We had class, neglected children, lots of talk about Bob
and his situation and exactly how innocent is someone when their bad choices
lead them to hurt others – even if that specific hurt is unintended? The
discussion with Morgan, why harry cares, why he should care and why the High Council
can’t care. It was a really rich episode and really upped the quality of the
series, showing it’s happy to bring some depth to the series and take it beyond
the monster of the week.
