kolchak: the night stalker -- episode 8: bad medicine
several things are certain in life. death. taxes. june gloom in los angeles. that you will miss every green light when you're already late.
and that eventually in a large metropolis, someone will take it upon themselves to victimize a city's super rich. such are the latest goings-on in the fair city of chicago.
we join our story with an evening in the swanky abode of one rhonda june markay, a magnate in the business of women's unmentionables and the inventor of a brassiere bearing her name. as the leading purveyor of ladies' intimates, she's been able to collect more than a few shiny baubles -- some of which she wears as she enjoys a cocktail in her well-upholstered chair.
alas, it would not be a quiet night for ms. rhonda june. blame the big, noisy crow that breaks through her living room window. the big, noisy crow that turns into a big, silent, menacing indian. the big, silent, menacing indian that somehow puts rhonda june in a trance, takes her jewels from her and kills her while making it look like a suicide.
rhonda june won't be alone in whatever heaven is reserved for super rich ladies killed mysteriously while being robbed of their extravagant jewelry. she'll be kept company by lucy dupont addison, who isn't just a wealthy symphony patron ... she donated the money for the opera house. that distinction only goes so far when you find a snarling coyote standing feet away from your dead doggo.
after that, the pattern is the same.
snarling coyote --> big, silent, menacing indian --> dead rich lady
ostensibly the signs in these deaths suggest suicide, which is exactly what the police are going with. you might be shocked to know that carl kolchak doesn't agree. (i know, right?) kolchak has already leaned on the idea that foul play is involved. his theory is somewhat backed up by miss emily's suggestion that neither woman fit the profile of someone who is suicidal.
who knew that miss emily was caught up on the latest edition of the dsm?
what really gets kolchak's spidey sense tingling was a kerfuffle at a local gem exchange. police respond to a call and enter the building to find a pair of guards dead on the floor. which is usually an ominous sign. the safe has also been broken into. which also is not normally a good thing.
believing the suspect(s) is still in the building, the cops let the k-9 unit go. it doesn't go well. after hearing a yelp, the officers find the dog down after apparently being attacked by another dog. again, file under "not good". the other thing they find isn't really a thing. it's a person. it's a big, silent, menacing indian who chucks a couple of cops down some stairs, dodges a few bullets, then jumps off a rooftop and disappears.
i would like to remind you that kolchak and the c.p.d. experienced something similar way back in episode 1 when jack the ripper tap danced off a rooftop before kicking the cops' doors in. but in kolchak's amnesiac world, it doesn't warrant a mention. or each episode takes place in a parallel dimension ... which would add a mind-blowing dimension to this show.
of course, the police are trying to come up with a working theory. so, here goes...
- the suspect(s) caused a diversion
- in the confusion, the guards shot each other directly through the heart
- the suspect(s) are believed to be high-wire acrobats or trapeze artists
i've always heard that carnies weren't trustworthy. never imagined they were into the world of high-stakes jewelry theft. makes you wonder why they try so hard to rig those stupid games.
ever the skeptic, kolchak slyly gets the real word on the ballistics report which shows that both guards in the gem exchange robbery were killed with bullets from their own gun.
*cue dramatic chipmunk*
time for kolchak to hit the streets for answers. he starts with an underground source -- a barber who honed his skills at your unfriendly neighborhood penitentiary because of his proclivity to take shiny things that didn't belong to him. looks like he's gone straight, tho. he doesn't know much about the murders and their corresponding robberies. but he does believe that our thief is a collector. so far, all reports suggest that they've gone after big, expensive jewels while leaving the lesser stones untouched.
the next move is to check with local dog kennels to find out what kind of dog might have mauled the police canine. kolchak turned out to be half right. the tracks at the scene were left by a dog. if you can call a coyote just a "dog". whatever. it's semantics. to-may-to, coyote.
as our reporter friend surmises, a man dressed like an indian with a dog is just a weirdo. a man dressed as an indian with a coyote is an indian. which is really an interesting hypothesis. if a man is committed enough to his idea that he'd dress in native american garb to go rob a jewelry store, why wouldn't he go all the way and get himself a coyote? ain't no such things as halfway crooks. do it right or don't do it at all.
since kolchak isn't one to half-ass his theories, he does to a local university to talk with dr. agnes temple, who specializes in native american mythology. she hips kolchak to the idea that he's tangling with a diablero -- a special tribal sorcerer who has the power to put people in trances and turn himself into different animals. which, conveniently, sounds like the dude terrorizing chicago's 1 percenters.
*man in audience raises hand*
man: i have a question
marcas: yes? go ahead.
man: if this is an ancient tribal sorcerer, why does he need to make the deaths look like suicides? Can't he just kill these women, take their jewels and leave? is anyone really going to think to look for him?
marcas: ....
man: well...
marcas: just shut up and enjoy the show.
speaking of terrorizing 1 percenters ... the diablero decides to pay a visit to charlotte elaine van piet, who has just returned home from playing cards with the girls. this time, ol' d.b. doesn't even have the courtesy to let her get in the house. he goes all "form of ... a crow!" to attack and kill her driver. then he's all "shape of ... big, silent, menacing indian!" before snatching poor charlotte's jewels and choking her out.
for whatever reason, the diablero has perhaps figured out that going through the motions of making it look like suicide are far too much work so he opts for straight murder instead. you happy now, man?
kolchak arrives and finds some black feathers at the scene next to the dead chauffeur. at this point, it's pretty much game on. shortly thereafter, he's conning his way into an exclusive, by-invitation-only gem auction where he wildly warns the head auctioneer that the british are coming the jewels are in extreme danger.
you can probably guess how it goes from there.
- the auctioneer scoffs in disbelief.
- a crow crashes through the window.
- a big, silent, menacing indian kills everyone and steals their goodies.
- rinse. repeat.
the difference this time is that kolchak is just outside the door, sneaking a peek through a crack. he bursts in and snaps a few pictures of the fiend, blinding and disorienting him with his flashcube that is only slightly brighter than biting into a wint-o-green lifesaver in a dark cave. whatever. it does the trick and gets the man-bird to fly out the window. which would be great, except for the part where kolchak is alone in a room filled with dead bodies when the cops show up.
this has become a frighteningly common occurrence for kolchak. it seems to happen at least once a week. something's gotta give, right? either he gives up chasing crime stories or the cops stop actually suspecting him of stuff.
however, it does give us the obligatory "kolchak explains stuff to the police" scene. this one comes with a little twist, though. after kolchak lays out his theory of the diablero, captain baker asks what an indian sorcerer would want with a bunch of jewels. which ... is a valid question. unless he's running a fencing operation somewhere in the spirit world. i'm not sure how much a string of pearls is really worth when trying to cross the river styx.
(i know i've crossed mythologies. doooooooooon't caaaaaaaaaaare.)
after the cops realize they don't really have anything on kolchak, they let him go and he speeds off to visit dr. temple again. this time, she's joined by some friends. most notably mr. charles rolling thunder. i say most notably because the other two men with him (one of whom appears to be an actual native american!) aren't worthy enough to be introduced by name.
anyway, chuck tells kolchak that this particular diablero lived among a tribe of cliff dwellers and was cursed to acquire infinite treasure. chicago does boast a large number of wealthy people, but it would probably be well down my list of places to look for infinite treasure. maybe he overfished in all the other spots. **shrug**
oh. one other important piece of information. the only way to kill a diablero is to make him look into his own eyes. at this point i've decided that the ol' d.b. is a weird combination of medusa and mr. myxlplyx.
where would an evil, shape-shifting, jewel-stealing, big, silent, menacing cliff-dwelling indian hole up? as luck would have it, there's a pretty empty high-rise downtown. the developers ran out of money and only the first five floors of a 40-story building are occupied. that's about as close as you'll get to a cliff along the shores of lake michigan. of course, the elevator doesn't go all the way to the top ... leaving kolchak to hoof it 35 floors.
finally, our man makes it up to the ol' d.b.'s lair where for some reason, he's dropping pearls into the fire. which kills the theory that he's hocking them on some spiritual black market. kolchak tries approach slowly with a mirror. but Clumsy Carl returns at an inopportune time and drops the mirror, alerting the big bad to his presence. that's leads us to...
the chase!
kolchak tries to elude a coyote among the debris of the unfinished construction site and fortunately finds a mirror to hold up to mr. tall, dark and brooding. killing a diablero is not a pretty business. he collapses into a gooey pile that look like a block of moldy swiss cheese melted in a microwave. then ... dust.
so there's good news and there's bad news. the good news is that the murderer is gone without a trace. the bad news is that the jewels are gone too. welp. you lose some, you lose some more.
reporter's notebook
yes, that is richard kiel as the diablero. you probably know him as this guy or this guy. i particularly enjoyed him as this guy.
when i first saw this show, i contended that if there were ever to be a reboot that bryan cranston must play kolchak. nothing i have seen to this point in the series has disabused me of that notion.
the "kolchak is a shabby dresser" theme has become a growing part of the show. and it actually gets funnier every time they do it. this week, miss emily crying "FINALLY!" when kolchak threatens to upgrade his wardrobe was gold.
maybe this is because it's a show about journalists, but there's a weird habit of characters spelling out words or asking for the spellings of words and names. in defense of its attempt at realism ... kudos. it's just weird hearing tv characters ask each other grammar and spelling questions.
this week's word was d-i-a-b-l-e-r-o
quote of the week
mr. belloy: "and your name is?"
kolchak: "kol...worth. carl kolworth."
mr. belloy: "any relation to the woolworths?
kolchak: "distantly, yes. they dealt in wool, we dealt in coal."
it's not a great line. it just made me giggle.
next week on kolchak: the night stalker: kolchak's suspicions are raised when a foreign moss is found at a series of murder scenes.