Frankie Drake Mysteries Season 1, Episode 1

Mother of Pearl – Director: Ruba Nadda/Writer: Michelle Ricci

Welcome to my first review of Frankie Drake Mysteries, a Canadian show about a couple of female detectives in Toronto in the 1920s. This first episode starts with a classy couple (Abe and Nora Amory, played by Canadian stalwarts Derek McGrath and Wendy Crewson) staying in a fancy Toronto hotel. Abe is a steel magnate from Pittsburgh in town to do a deal, but he gets a shock when he finds a string of pearls missing from the hotel suite’s safe, with a feather left in their place. Elsewhere, we meet Mary Shaw, a Morality Officer with the Toronto police. Mary shows up at Frankie Drake’s office looking for her, but finds Frankie’s partner (Trudy Clarke), along with their friend Flo. Trudy and Flo are setting a trap for a married man (using Flo as the bait), so I guess detective work in the 20s was a lot like today: trying to get evidence of marital infidelity. Trudy tells Mary that Frankie’s at Quon’s Cafe, so Mary heads over there and gets a surprise when she finds Frankie (naked) undergoing the ancient Chinese practice of cupping to help her quit smoking. Mary tells Frankie about the robbery at the hotel and shows her the feather (a drake feather) that was left behind. Frankie isn’t sure what Mary is so worried about until Mary tells Frankie that her father was a big-time thief (suspected in a major gold heist twenty years ago), whose calling card was a drake feather. Frankie—who thought her dad was a small-time con man, not a major thief—is stunned. She’s even more upset when Mary tells her the cops think Frankie might be mixed up in this new robbery.

At the office, Frankie and Trudy discuss what to do. Trudy offers to ask around to see if anyone’s fencing the pearls, while Frankie goes to talk to one of her dad’s old pals, Jack. He confirms that he and her father were master thieves back in the day (and admits they ripped off the big gold shipment), but denies having anything to do with the theft of the pearls. He takes her to meet another of the old gang, Morris, who’s now an alderman. Morris also denies stealing the pearls, and both he and Jack swear no one else knew that Frankie’s dad used a drake feather as a calling card after their robberies. Trudy goes to the hotel to learn what she can from the staff, using the fact that she’s black to pass herself off as a servant. She gets the Amory’s butler to open up and he tells her that Nora Amory is a gold-digger who married Abe for his money. Frankie pretends to be from the insurance company so she can talk to Abe. He tells her about a couple of flower deliveries and mentions a window cleaner with a funny company name on his shirt: Da Gama Cleaners. Nora shows up and immediately realizes Frankie isn’t an insurance investigator. She assumes Frankie is a reporter and tells her to get lost. Back at the office, Ernest Hemingway stops by, looking for a story for the newspaper he writes for, but Frankie won’t tell him anything about the robbery, or her father. Later, Frankie admits to Trudy that her father used to use the names of famous explorers when conning people, so it still looks like someone used his old M.O. to steal the pearls. Trudy tells Frankie what she found out about Nora, including that she lied to Abe about her background. Frankie goes to the hotel to confront Nora, who denies stealing the pearls, but when Frankie mentions her name, Nora reveals that she’s Frankie’s mother.

Frankie’s skeptical, but Nora quickly convinces her she’s telling the truth about being her mother. She still denies stealing the pearls, pointing out that she’s married to a rich guy who buys her whatever she wants. Nora thinks Ned (Frankie’s dad) stole the pearls until Frankie informs her he’s dead. Frankie is pissed off that her mother just walked out on her all those years ago so she leaves, but continues venting her anger to Trudy back at the office. Mary arrives with info about other jewel robberies where the names of explorers were used, and the thefts occurred in places where Nora was, which convinces Frankie her mother is guilty. She finds Nora about to leave town, which makes her even more certain of her mother’s guilt, but Nora continues to deny any involvement. She swears she went straight when she married Abe, but when Frankie mentions that the cops suspect her (and figure she was working with someone on the inside), Nora offers to help her find the real thief—although neither of them is thrilled to be working together.

Hemingway drops by Frankie’s office again, but instead of browbeating her for a story, he gives her a photo of her parents with her as a baby … the first one she’s ever had. Trudy convinces Frankie that working with her mom might not be so bad, and Frankie gets an idea. She asks Jack and Morris to meet her at Quon’s and surprises them with Nora. Turns out they knew Nora was alive, but swore to Frankie’s dad that they’d never tell her. Nora accuses them of stealing the pearls, laying out exactly how they could’ve done it. (Morris went in as a flower delivery guy to unlock the window, Jack was the window washer who snuck in to steal the pearls, and the second flower delivery was Morris coming back to lock the window again.) Jack and Morris deny stealing the pearls and Nora later tells Frankie she believes them. She admits she was always the brains of the operation and that Frankie’s dad was a small-time con who went straight when Frankie was born. On the other hand, Nora wasn’t into the domestic life and took off. She mentions that if someone is using their old methods of thievery, maybe they’ll use their method of fencing the loot too: putting a cryptic ad in the lost and found classifieds. With Trudy’s help, they find the right ad, which mentions a meet at a cemetery. When they get there, Morris is sniffing around and Nora intimidates him into admitting he saw the ad in the newspaper and thought he could cash in. They find a pearl at the grave of Frankie’s father (proof that the thief has the necklace) and bully Morris into putting another ad in the paper asking to meet in the hotel lobby. The thief will show up hoping to sell the necklace, but will be caught instead.

They set the trap (with help from Jack and Morris) in the hotel lobby and wait for the thief to show. While they’re waiting, Nora tells Frankie the main reason she left was because she wasn’t the maternal type and was afraid of wrecking Frankie’s life. Abe shows up in the lobby and they worry that the thief will get spooked if he sees him, so Nora hustles him away. Hemingway arrives, hinting that he recognizes Frankie’s mother and Frankie promises him an exclusive if he leaves. (She also tells him he should stick to writing fact, not fiction.) The thief doesn’t show up and Frankie suddenly realizes what’s going on. She confronts Abe in his suite, accusing him of trying to commit insurance fraud by pretending the pearls were stolen (and trying to cash in twice by selling them). She also tells him about Nora being her mother and an ex-thief. He admits he was trying to get the insurance because Nora’s tastes are so expensive and he’s heavily in debt trying to keep her happy. When they first married, Nora told stories about the Drake gang in Toronto, which is how he knew their methods (although he had no idea Nora describing her own crimes). When he goes to get the pearls, they’re gone … and so is Nora. Frankie runs down to find her, but Nora’s waiting and willingly returns the pearls to clear Frankie’s name.

Frankie gives the pearls back to Abe, who dumps Nora and leaves. Nora hints that she might stick around Toronto for a while. Frankie still doesn’t trust her, but it’s obvious that she wants to (and they do seem to have a lot in common). Later, Mary reads Hemingway’s (heavily redacted) article about the Drake Gang, but Frankie makes her swear to keep quiet about the surviving members … especially Nora. When Frankie goes to get the pearl she got at the cemetery (to show Trudy), she finds it gone and a drake feather in its place … presumably the work of her mother.

This is a pretty good introduction to the series, showing us the main characters and a bit about who they are. Understandably, we learn the most about Frankie, finding out about her parents and something of her childhood. The show avoids the problems of an infodump by having Frankie learn all this stuff along with us. Having such an unconventional upbringing probably explains why Frankie is so independent and such a maverick … qualities she’d need to be a woman detective in the 1920s. We see her parents’ gravestones, which indicate that her mother (supposedly) died in 1895. Frankie mentions that her mom died when she was four, so I guess she was born in 1891. She also says her father died ten years ago and the death date on his grave is 1912, so I assume that means this is set in 1922. We’ll probably get more clues about setting and Frankie’s background as the series goes on.

I’m also assuming we’ll find out more about the other main characters. All we know about Trudy is that she’s Frankie detective partner and Frankie treats her like a friend and an equal, confiding in her and taking her advice. Mary is on the Morality Squad, which was mostly concerned with the morality of women at the time, checking to make sure their dresses weren’t too short, or that they weren’t walking the streets alone at night. The Morality Squad dealt with things like gambling, drinking, and prostitution, but also policed homosexuality and interracial romances, both taboo back then. Mary seems kind of nervous and uptight, which maybe fits with being a Morality Officer, but she seems particularly nervous around Frankie. Maybe I still have Xena on the brain, but it almost seems like she has a crush on Frankie. That would be interesting, but we’ll have to wait and see where this goes. We don’t know anything about Flo yet; I do know she works at the city morgue, but I assume we’ll get more on her later too.

Noticeable Things:

• Ernest Hemingway actually did write for the Toronto Star in the early Twenties, living in Toronto in 1919-1920 but continuing to file stories with them after moving to Chicago. If this is meant to take place in 1922, maybe he stopped in to visit his old colleagues.
• Frankie has an Egyptian artifact given to her by Howard Carter, who she says she met in France just before the Great War. Carter actually did start looking for King Tut’s tomb in 1914 and had to stop when the War broke out. He discovered the tomb in 1922, so maybe he sent Frankie the artifact then.
• There’s a photo of Amelia Earhart on Frankie’s table, but she wouldn’t have been well-known in 1922. Maybe Frankie met her before she was famous.

Favourite Quotes:

• “Oh, it looks like you’ve been attacked by an octopus.” Mary’s assessment of the cupping Frankie has undergone to stop smoking.
• “Yeah, yeah, you had cannoli.” Frankie showing how distracted she is when Trudy mentions getting a photo of the husband canoodling with Flo.
• “I’m a work in progress.” Frankie’s reply when Nora says her father wold be happy with how she’s turned out.