Ties That Bind – Director: Eleanore Lindo/Writer: Carol Hay
This one starts with a young woman named Jenny teaching English to some Chinese people. When she leaves, Mary starts following her through the darkened streets. Jenny meets with a tall Chinese guy and gives him some money. Mary keeps following her, but Jenny just disappears. The next day, Mary goes to Frankie and Trudy to ask them to look into Jenny’s disappearance, since they have connections in Chinatown. Frankie agrees, but notices that Mary is acting weird and figures she’s holding something back.
Frankie asks Wendy about the Charitable Society where Jenny taught and Wendy says it’s run by a successful merchant named Li. The Society helps new immigrants and even lends them money sometimes, since Toronto banks refuse to deal with them. Frankie talks to James Li, who tells her he’s
seen Jenny hanging around an opium dealer. Trudy checks the alley where Jenny disappeared and finds a charm from a bracelet. Mary goes to Wendy’s speakeasy to meet Frankie and Trudy and is surprised to run into a police detective named Bradley. He mentions reports of a woman vanishing from the same area as Jenny and tells Mary they should keep each other apprised of how their investigations are going. Trudy shows her the charm and Mary recognizes it right away, suggesting she knows more about Jenny than she’s letting on. (She tries to cover, but she’s really not a good liar.) Frankie mentions Jenny being seen with an opium dealer and asks Wendy if she knows anyone like that. She mentions a “Party place” where people can supposedly get opium. Frankie drops by that night, but can’t get past the bouncer … until her mother (Nora) convinces him to let her in. Nora says she’s there with her latest guy 
(a young lawyer) and mentions the host’s name is Tommy Chao and that his guest list is very exclusive. When Frankie mentions opium, Nora wonders if that’s where Tommy’s money comes from and offers to help investigate. They snoop around and Frankie finds a room with a couple of women passed out in it. Tommy shows up and Nora covers for them, but he’s suspicious. Later, she tells Trudy and Mary about the women and Mary is ready to go in as Morality Officer to get the women out. Frankie pressures her into admitting that Jenny is actually her younger sister.
Mary tells them how Jenny has always been a rebel, disagreeing with their father on everything until she finally left home. Mary wanted to find Jenny to give her their mother’s new address, but didn’t want to get Frankie and Trudy involved with her family squabbles, so she pretended Jenny was a
stranger. They all go back to the club and while Nora and Frankie distract everyone (including the bouncer) with their shimmying, Trudy and Mary sneak upstairs. Unfortunately, the room Frankie saw is now empty, but they do find a notebook with Jenny’s handwriting in it and a vial filled with clear liquid. Nora mentions that her lawyer boyfriend got really secretive when she asked him about Tommy, but she offers to dig up some info on him. Mary gives Detective Bradley the charm from the alley and he says he’ll look into it. Frankie shows Mary the notebook, which has writing in a secret language that Jenny and Mary used as kids. They find a series of dates 29 days apart and figure out Jenny was 
meeting a boat at the wharf whenever there was a new moon. Trudy takes the vial to Flo for analysis and it turns out not to be opium, but a vaccine for tetanus. When Trudy tells Frankie and Mary, they decide to go ask Tommy Chao why he’s got vials of vaccine lying around. But when they get to his house, they find the place trashed and Tommy dead. They catch a young Chinese girl named Ling trying to run away. She doesn’t speak English but does mention Jenny’s name. Mary calls in the murder and finds out Detective Bradley is nearby, but when she goes to talk to him, he gets knocked out and she’s chloroformed.
Mary wakes up in a basement with her hands and feet tied and her sister tied up beside her. She asks Jenny about the smuggling and Jenny says the boat is bringing in women not opium. She also says she’s trying to help the women, not hurt them. Mary tells her about Tommy being dead and Jenny
gets really worried. At the morgue, Flo tells Trudy that Tommy Chao was a doctor and used to get vaccines from her to give to people at the clinic he ran out of his house. That doesn’t really fit with him being an opium dealer, but Nora shows up at Wendy’s to tell Frankie that Tommy financed his clinic by getting donations from all the rich people at his big parties. (The two women Frankie saw were recovering addicts Tommy was helping.) With Wendy translating, Ling tells Frankie and Trudy how she was smuggled into Canada to be a bride for some local. She escaped from the ship and Jenny helped her get to Tommy’s to hide out. In the basement, Jenny tells Mary the same thing and they start sniping at each other about authority. Mary unties Jenny, who refuses to reciprocate unless Mary apologizes. At the office, Ling tells how she was tricked into coming to Canada thinking she’d be reunited with her husband. When they ask about the other women, she draws a symbol she saw on a truck that took the women away. At Wendy’s they find the symbol on some 
advertising and it turns out to be James Li’s import/export company. In the basement, Mary and Jenny reconcile (partially) and look for a way out. They don’t find any tools, but do stumble across some some fireworks. Frankie and Trudy confront Li about the smuggled women and he tells them to get lost. They hear the firecrackers in the basement ad go to look, finding Mary and Jenny. Frankie tells them Li is the smuggler, using Jenny’s students as prospective husbands, but they still have no clue where the brides are.
Li won’t talk until they realize Detective Bradley must be in on the whole thing. Frankie says Bradley will let Li take all the blame, so he admits he brought the women over to marry locals. He tells them Bradley has the
women and wants to auction them off to the highest bidder, so Frankie forces him to set up a meet with Bradley. Frankie asks Nora to play a madam from Chicago looking for hookers and Li sets up a meeting with her. She convinces Bradley she’ll pay a lot for the smuggled Chinese women, but insists on seeing the “merchandise” first, so Bradley arranges a meet at the Botanical Gardens. At the Gardens, Frankie and the others watch as Nora argues with Bradley over money. She 
bluffs him into bringing out the girls and Frankie and the others come out of hiding to arrest Bradley. Nora promises to get her judge friend to keep the smuggled women from being deported. Later, Mary and Jenny make up and Trudy’s friend Bill (who’s still sweet on her) finds Ling’s husband and reunites them. They all go outside to watch some fireworks they liberated from Li’s place.
This is a pretty good episode that gives us more insight into Mary’s background. We’re only seven episodes in, but Mary’s already my favourite character, so I like seeing a bit more about her family life. Apparently, she had to referee between Jenny and their father and Jenny resented her because she thought Mary was taking his side. From her point of view, Mary resented Jenny for getting all the attention. Jenny is presented as the rebel
(and “bad girl” to some extent), but in her own way Mary is kind of a rebel too. She’s certainly very progressive, wanting to become Toronto’s first female police detective, and suggesting to Bradley that if they had Chinese police officers, it would make the people in Chinatown trust them more. I think Mary and Jenny have more in common than either of them would care to admit. Kinda like Frankie and Nora; it’s nice to see her again and Wendy Crewson seems to be having a lot of fun with the part. She and Lauren Lee smith certainly do a pretty good double act.
Noticeable Things:
- Wendy says there’s one Chinese woman in Toronto for every twenty men, which explains why Bradley thought smuggling women would be so lucrative.
- Mary and Jenny’s secret language is called “F Language”, where they insert an F sound into every syllable of every word.. Frankie tries, but can’t grasp the nuances.
- Frankie uses brass knuckles to deck the guy guarding the basement door.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Was it dangerous? Did you have to smoke opium?” Mary asking Frankie for all the sordid details of Tommy’s party.
- “You have to teach me that some time.” Mary after watching Trudy pick a lock.
- “It wasn’t Jenny. She might be a rebel, an opium smuggler, an annoying sister, but she’s not a murderer.” Mary defending her sister.
- “Of course. What kind of rebel doesn’t smoke?” Jenny when Mary expresses surprise that she has matches.
- “True … but girls with guns.” Trudy after Li says she and the others are “just girls”.