No Friends Like Old Friends – Director: Ruba Nadda/Writer: Carol Hay
This one starts with Frankie in London, having a motorcycle race with her old friend Louise Barton, with whom she served as a dispatch rider in the Signal Corps. They reminisce about the War before heading back to Louise’s place. She doesn’t seem to be enjoying married life too much (and her husband James is kind of a dick to Frankie). Louise makes a date to meet Frankie for lunch at the Savoy Hotel in a few days, promising her a big surprise. While waiting, Frankie runs into her old
commander (and lover) Captain Morrison and there’s definitely still a spark there. After Morrison leaves, another woman shows up looking for Louise, who’s very late. The woman (who Louise invited to join them at lunch) assumes something is wrong and wants to hire Frankie to solve Louise’s “disappearance”. Frankie is skeptical, but takes the newcomer more seriously when she finds out she’s Agatha Christie.
Frankie and Agatha talk to James (who’s still a dick) and he tells them Louise likes to go on long walks to relieve stress, but he has no clue where 
she goes. Agatha thinks James might have something to do with Louise’s disappearance, but Frankie warns her that real detective work isn’t like one of her novels. But since Agatha is paying her, Frankie has no choice when she insists on tagging along for the investigation. Back in Toronto, Trudy tried to fix a leaky pipe in the office and ended up causing a deluge. Mary and Flo help mop it up, but the power goes out too. In London, Frankie and Agatha go to see another woman who served in the Signal Corps (Ruby Weston), who says she hasn’t seen Louise for a while. (Ruby does manage to spill the beans about Frankie’s affair with Morrison.) Ruby says she once went on a walk with Louise, but her recollection is a bit muddled on the details. In Toronto, Trudy gets the office back to normal and her beau Bill gets a city inspector to come in and make sure everything is right. In London, Frankie and
Agatha find a hotel where Louise stayed and while Agatha distracts the desk clerk, Frankie checks Louise’s room, which is a shambles. A maid tells her she saw a man carrying Louise out to a taxi a few nights ago, so they track down the cabbie, who takes them to a “nursing home” … basically a place where husbands stick their unruly wives to keep them out of the public eye. They sneak in and find Louise half out of it. She says her husband stuck here in there, but Agatha (who was a nurse during the War) notices a puncture wound on Louise’s neck and realizes she’s been poisoned.
The head nurse catches them and throws them out and Agatha points out that if James did put Louise in the home, the cops won’t do a damn thing to 
help her. Frankie tells Agatha to figure out what poison is being used on Louise and heads back to the Barton house to snoop around. She finds a key to a safe deposit box at the Bank of Toronto and sends Trudy a telegram asking her to look into it. Agatha (who has a very low opinion of Toronto) has figured out that Louise is being poisoned with deadly nightshade. They go to a chemist’s shop for the antidote, but he won’t give it to them since Agatha isn’t qualified (at least by his standards). While they’re arguing, Frankie steals the antidote and they head to the nursing home. They discuss the War (and Frankie’s affair with Morrison) and we get another flashback of Frankie shooting someone. Before we can get any more info, they see the head nurse prowling around and Frankie tells Agatha she’ll have to get the antidote to Louise. In Toronto, Flo and
Mary try to con the bank manager into opening the safe deposit box (by claiming the owner swallowed the key and then died), but he won’t budge, saying he needs a key or the owner. Mary suggests they bring the corpse to the bank and the manager relents. They find a deed to a piece of land near Sudbury. In the nursing home, Agatha gives the antidote to Louise (who mumbles something about Blackwall), but gets locked in Louise’s room for the night.
Agatha signals Frankie, who climbs up to Louise’s room. They get her out through the window and take her to Ruby’s garage. In Toronto, Mary, 
Trudy, and Flo hit a dead end trying to find out about the Sudbury land, so Trudy reluctantly decides to ask Bill for help. He sneaks her into City Hall, where they find the info Frankie needs. In London, Frankie admits to Agatha that Morrison had her spying on their own people, looking for enemy agents. Morrison ordered her to stop someone from delivering stolen plans and that’s the guy Frankie ended up shooting. Frankie gets the info from Trudy about the land near Sudbury; apparently, Louise’s father owned it and it’s sitting on one of the biggest nickel deposits in the world, so if Louise dies, James will inherit that valuable land. A surveyor named Gregory Snow checked out the claim a while back, so Frankie asks Trudy to find out what she can about him. Louise isn’t much help since she can’t remember anything she said while drugged, and refuses to believe James would do anything to hurt her.
Frankie and Agatha know Louise is hiding something, so Frankie confronts James while Agatha tries to find out what “Blackwall” is. James denies poisoning Louise or knowing anything about her land. He convinces Frankie of his innocence and she gets word from Trudy that Gregory Snow isn’t a surveyor. Agatha returns and tells Frankie that Snow is actually Louise’s husband. They were mixed up in a black market operation (in Blackwall, London) and Louise went to prison while Snow escaped to Canada. And since they were never divorced, Snow is the one who’ll get the Sudbury land if Louise dies.
When they go to talk to Louise, they find out she knocked Ruby out and stole her gun. At the Barton house, Snow tells James about his wife being a jailbird and slaps him around a bit. Louise shows up and threatens to shoot 
Snow, but Frankie talks her out of it. Snow takes off, but Frankie catches him and kicks his ass. Later, Louise apologizes for lying about her past and says James has forgiven her … as long as Agatha doesn’t use their story in her next novel. Frankie meets with Morrison, but she’s not so enamoured of him now. She realizes he sent her into an ambush knowing she’d kill the traitor (who was just a boy). Morrison admits he did set it up and Frankie walks away, not appreciating his belated candour. Back in Toronto, Frankie gives new hats to the gals and thanks them for their help.
This is a good way to kick off the new season, Complete with a new opening title sequence and a new look for Frankie. (I’m not sure if her hair is dyed
blonde or if it’s a wig, since she has red hair in the flashbacks.) We also finally get to see what happened during the War that left Frankie so traumatized. I guess it makes sense she’d be affected so deeply; not only was the guy she shot very young, he was someone she knew and worked with. For Morrison it seems like the kid being an informer is enough to stop any feelings of remorse, but Frankie’s obviously not that cold-blooded. It’s nice to see another real-life character show up, and Agatha’s enthusiasm during the investigation is kind of funny. 
Apparently, she’d only published two books at this point (The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary) but was already making a name for herself. (Frankie even admits she’s a fan.) We also get a little in-joke at the end, when Agatha says if she ever goes missing she wants Frankie to investigate, a reference to Agatha Christie’s famous “disappearance” in 1926.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Great. I love baseball.” Trudy’s response when Bill says he’s taking her to a Maple Leafs game.
- “Well, there’s only two.” Mary after saying she’s called every estate agent in Sudbury.
- “I suppose you’re right. Pity.” Agatha disappointed that she doesn’t get to rough up Snow after Frankie subdues him.