The Old Switcheroo – Director: Ruba Nadda/Writer: Carol Hay
This one starts with Frankie’s mom (Nora) announcing she’s now on the board of the Royal Ontario Museum. Nora insists she just wants to bring some life to the stodgy old institution, but Frankie assumes Nora is looking for new suckers to fleece. They attend a lecture by an archaeologist named Marian Hartley (played by Lara Jean Chorostecki from X Company), who talks about meeting Howard Carter on a train and being invited to join him in Egypt. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that actually happened to Frankie. She and Marian are old acquaintances (definitely not friends) and Marian has apparently appropriated one of Frankie’s adventures and made it her own. Marian goes on about working with Hiram Bingham at Macchu Picchu and unveils an Incan urn that she wants to sell to the museum. Nora is eager to
buy it (for $10,000), but Frankie assumes Marian is up to something. At the morgue, Flo deals with the dead body of one Jack Parkes (who died of a heart attack), whose brother (Ron) identifies the body and tells her there’ll be no funeral. Later, Flo finds Jack’s wedding ring that fell off his hand and decides to return it, since it has an inscription from his wife, Ingrid (who Ron didn’t mention). Flo and Mary go to Jack’s address, which turns out to be fake. But when they go to find Ron, his address is fake too.
Mary and Flo tell Frankie and Trudy what happened and Trudy offers to get her friend Bill to look in the city records for Jack Parkes. Flo decides they need fingerprints, so she and Mary go to the cemetery to dig up the body 
(with Mary pretending to be a grieving widow to get them in). Nora drops by Frankie’s office to ask why she distrusts Marian so much and Frankie hints that something happened in Cairo that’s still pissing her off. Frankie says Marian is a bullshit artist from way back, but Nora figures she can spot a liar a mile away (given her own penchant for bullshit) and says the museum curator has already authenticated the urn. If that’s not enough, they’ve asked Michael Walsh from the Field Museum in Chicago to come up and verify the urn’s provenance. At the cemetery, Mary and Flo dig up the grave and we learn that Flo’s husband died in the War, but she doesn’t know how he died, or
even where he’s buried. At the office, Trudy lets Frankie know that Bill couldn’t find any record of the Parkes brothers, so it’s probably a fake name. Frankie tells her what happened in Cairo: Marian took an amulet from a poor kid (a family heirloom) and sold it as her own. Frankie couldn’t stop her and it still gets to her. At the cemetery, Flo and Mary take photos and fingerprints of the corpse, but Flo notices some discoloration on his fingernails that means he was poisoned.
Flo and Mary bring the body to the morgue and tell Frankie their suspicions. Frankie says they need to identify the dead man, so Mary offers to check and 
see if his prints are on file. Flo notices a birthmark on his shoulder and a strange surgery scar that might help narrow things down. At the police station, a Detective named Grayson catches Mary looking through fingerprint files, but she bullshits him about wanting to educate herself on police techniques. Trudy tells Frankie that the Macchu Picchu excavation was chaotic, so anyone could’ve been there and taken some artifacts. Nora comes by to tell them someone broke into the museum but apparently didn’t take anything, so she wants them to figure out what’s going on. They check at the museum, where the urn is safely locked away and everything else seems to still be there. Mary tells Flo that there’s no record of the dead man in the police files and Flo lets her know she’s figured out that the strange scar was caused by an
organoscopy, a revolutionary new surgical technique perfected by a doctor at Johns Hopkins. Frankie confronts Marian, basically accusing her of committing fraud with the urn, but doesn’t get very far. Mary calls Johns Hopkins and finds out who the dead organoscopy patient was. Trudy tells Frankie that nothing is missing from the museum, but Frankie is certain Marian is up to something. Mary shows up to tell them the dead guy is Michael Walsh, which means the two cases are connected. Now Frankie is sure Marian is bullshitting everyone and thinks she can prove it.
Frankie goes to Buffalo to meet Hiram Bingham (and they flirt like crazy) to 
ask him about the urn. From a photo, Bingham says the urn could be genuine, but states he’s never met (or even heard of) Marian Hartley. Bingham tells her about a secret treasure map he’s been looking for, a map with a spider symbol on it. Flo asks Trudy for help moving Walsh’s body (because the coroner is on his way in) and Trudy says they can take it to a mortuary run by a friend of hers. Frankie asks Marian where she was four nights ago and her alibi turns out to be Nora. Frankie tells Nora that Walsh is dead, but asks her to keep it
quiet. Frankie follows Marian and takes photos of her meeting with a guy. When Flo sees the photo, she recognizes him as the guy who claimed to be Ronald Parkes. Frankie figures the guy killed Walsh to take his place so he can “authenticate” the urn. When “Walsh” (whose real name apparently is Ron) shows up at the museum to see the urn, Nora knows he’s a fake but plays along.
Nora talks to Frankie and they realize Marian and the fake Walsh are pulling the old switcheroo: offering a genuine urn for sale, then switching it with a fake and having the fake Walsh authenticate it so the museum pays for a fake urn and they end up with the real one, allowing them to run the con 
again somewhere else. Frankie guesses that the break-in at the museum wasn’t to steal anything, but to leave a fake urn there so it could be switched later. They decide to let the con play out so they can catch Marian and Ron red-handed. Things work just as expected, with Ron switching the fake urn with the real one and telling Marian he’ll pass it to her at ten o’clock at the side door. Of course, Frankie and Nora are hiding and watching everything. Ron proclaims the urn genuine and Nora hands a cheque to Marian. But when Ron comes back to get the real urn, Frankie and Nora confront him. He takes off, but Trudy takes him out with a kung fu kick. Frankie confronts Marian, letting her know she talked to the Field Museum in Chicago. Apparently, they have the same “authentic” urn in their collection, so Frankie realized Marian and
Ron pulled the same con there. That explains why they had to kill Walsh, since he would have recognized them immediately. When Marian tries to take off, Frankie decks her. Later, Bingham comes to see the urn and proclaims it genuine, but Frankie smashes it. She shows him some markings on the inside, which turn out to be the treasure map Bingham was looking for. Frankie noticed the spider symbol on the urn and figured the map must be on the inside. Later, Flo and Mary return Walsh’s wedding ring to his widow. Bingham examines the map and invites Frankie to join him in the search for the treasure, but she prefers to stay in Toronto. Nora is let go from the museum board.
This is a pretty good episode, with some interesting twists. It’s a good 
opener for the second season, with a cool new opening and a new hairstyle for Frankie. Nora is fun as always and we get to know a bit more about Flo’s past. Trudy and Bill continue their flirtation, but now it seems like Trudy is really into him and he’s afraid to take things further. We get some more mentions of Howard Carter and meet Hiram Bingham, who may have been an inspiration for Indiana Jones (although I can’t find anything about him searching for lost Incan treasure).
Noticeable Things:
- Mary tells Flo she wants to go to a French restaurant to try coq au vin.
- At one point, Frankie smokes a hookah pipe but I’m not sure if it’s filled with tobacco or opium.
- While reminiscing about their time in Cairo, Marian mentions how “Lawrence” used to come into the bar and order drinks in his funny English accent. I’m thinking that could be a reference to T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia).
Favourite Quotes:
- “No, these tears aren’t for you.” Mary preparing to lie her way into the cemetery. For someone so honest, she’s a pretty good bullshit artist.
- “He’s still dead, if that’s what you mean.” Flo assuring Mary there’s no problem with the body they’re digging up.
- “With difficulty … and a wheelbarrow.” Flo telling Frankie how they got the body back to the morgue.
- “If our bosses knew how competent we are …”;“… we’d be fired for sure!” Mary and Flo commiserating about having to hide their detective skills.