A Most Foiled Assault – Director: Gary Harvey/Writer: Jennifer Kassabian
This one starts at a gym where several women are practicing fencing. Women haven’t been allowed to compete in the Olympics so far, but these women are hoping to be the first. Unfortunately, some men aren’t happy about that and have even attacked some of the competitors. One of them (Ida Barenson) has hired Frankie and Trudy to protect her. She shows them the other women on the team: Valentina and Sabina Levitt, sisters who are both highly skilled (although Valentina tends to let her temper get the better of her); and La Jaguarella, a South American fencer
who has been training since childhood and whose grandfather was a champion. The training is interrupted when an asshole named Archie Avery barges in to complain about women overstepping their bounds. Frankie roughs him up but a scream from the locker room draws her and Trudy’s attention. It was Jaguarella who screamed because she found their coach (Milton Homer … great name) dead with a sword in his chest and the last member of the team (Ruby Scialfa) lying unconscious nearby.
Since Archie disappeared during the ruckus, Frankie wonders if his tirade was a distraction so the killer could get in unseen. Ruby is arrested immediately after Jaguarella tells the cops she’s certain Ruby killed their 
coach because he was cutting her from the team. The murder has made the gym owner nervous and he withdraws permission for the women to train there. That freaks Jaguarella out and she’s already worried that the team might not be allowed to compete without a coach. Frankie and Trudy find some white powder (which they assume is talc) in the locker room. There’s a footprint in the powder, but it doesn’t match any of the shoes in the gym. Flo tells them Ruby was probably knocked out from behind, so Frankie figures she’d better talk to Archie about the timing of his diatribe. At the police station, Hunter and Lyle talk to Mary about the murder, but she quickly realizes they don’t want to hear that Detective McIntosh’s investigation is less than thorough. Trudy and Mary talk to Ruby, who tells them she talked to the coach and was knocked out from behind, which means the killer was already in the locker room.
Ruby points out that Homer was killed with a sabre, but women are only allowed to compete with foils, so the sabre must’ve come from outside the gym. Frankie talks to Archie and his friend Louis, who aren’t too bothered by the murder even when Frankie hints he might be in trouble if he was in league with the killer. At the morgue, a falconer named Basil brings in a human finger that his bird found … and he flirts heavily with Flo. Jaguarella convinces the gym owners to let the women practice there again. During practice, Valentina finds Louis in the locker room disguised as a woman.
Louis denies killing Homer, claiming he was trying to make the team in disguise to screw things up for them at the World Championships. Louis says he was at work during the murder, so he couldn’t be the killer. At the office, Ida and Trudy discuss the murder and Ida shows Trudy some fencing moves. Frankie and Alessandro talk about women’s rights and he mentions 
that some women already compete on the European racing circuit. (They also try some popsicles, but don’t seem to like them much.) Flo tells Frankie and Trudy that Homer had cocaine on his clothes and they wonder if the powder in the locker room was cocaine. Frankie figures someone might’ve been taking the coke to enhance their performance. Frankie goes to see Archie, since it was a sabre from his club that killed Homer. Archie says Homer used to coach at his club and took the sabre with him when he went to coach the women. At the gym, Trudy discovers that Homer filmed the women practicing and wonders if there’s film of the day the murder happened. The cops took the camera, but Trudy figures Mary can get the film for her. Mary runs into Stephen Reid at lunch and despite her dislike for his Socialist (or Communist) leanings, opens up
to him about the murder. Flo gives her assistant advice on men, but the assistant tells Flo she needs to get out more instead of drowning herself in work. Frankie and Trudy are watching some of the practice film when Ida calls them to meet her at the gym. Turns out they have a new coach, a former champion named Esmerelda Moreno, who was forced to retire after some kind of scandal. Jaguarella wants Frankie and Trudy gone and when Esmerelda agrees, Ida has no choice but to fire them.
Mary brings the film from the day of the murder and Trudy notices Jaguarella’s shoes are different from everyone else’s, so they wonder if it was her footprint in the cocaine. They talk to Ruby, who says Jaguarella 
offered her some coke to help her performance. She also shows them an article in the newspaper quoted an “unnamed source” in the police department about Ruby’s arrest being false. Mary realizes Reid wrote the piece and is quoting her. Flo calls Basil and suggests they keep trying to find the owner of the missing finger. Frankie and Trudy follow Jaguarella and find her buying cocaine from Archie. She admits she framed Ruby to end the investigation quickly, since she didn’t want the cops poking around too much. She afraid if she misses this Olympics, she’ll be too old for the next one, so that’s why she had Frankie and Trudy fired. She suggests that Coach Homer was thinking about getting rid of Valentina (who broke Jaguarella’s brand new foil, something that’s very hard to do), since her temper makes her a liability to the team. Mary gives Reid shit for his article and says he might’ve ruined Ruby’s chance of a fair trial. Frankie and Trudy show Valentina and Sabina the broken sabre that killed Homer and point out that Valentina broke Jaguarella’s foil the
same way. Valentina denies killing Homer and points out that she and her sister were fencing during the time of the murder. Reid shows up with a bunch of newspaper articles to try to mend fences with Mary. They comb through everything and find an article about how Esmerelda was kicked out of fencing for providing a drug cocktail that accidentally killed a fencer. They also find out that Esmerelda has been coaching Sabina since she was a child; Mary is so happy about Ruby being innocent, she lays a big smooch on Reid … so I guess she’s not mad at him anymore.
Mary is embarrassed by her display of affection, but Frankie and Trudy are more interested in the evidence. The article says Sabina only agreed to be coached by Esmerelda if she took Valentina too, so they figure the three of 
them were in on the murder. Frankie thinks the film from the day of the murder can help prove their hypothesis. Flo and Basil go to a crematorium to look for the body with the missing finger. When the attendant almost chokes on the finger, Flo saves his life and they find the right body and put the finger back where it belongs. Flo and Basil go to his place to celebrate. At the gym, Frankie and Trudy show everyone some film of the practice sessions, pointing out Valentina and Sabina’s signature stances and moves. But on the day of the murder, Valentina’s opponent had a different signature, meaning it wasn’t Sabina under the mask. Esmerelda had taken her place so Sabina could confront Homer about dropping her sister from the team. Sabina admits she killed
him because he wouldn’t change his mind and she wouldn’t go to the Olympics without Valentina. Esmerelda admits she helped Sabina because she wanted to coach a medal-winning team to repair her reputation. Valentina freaks out and attacks Frankie, who takes her down quite handily. Ruby is released and heads straight back to the gym. Later, Frankie and the others find out the women will be allowed to compete in the Olympics, but only individually, not as a team.
This is a good episode, showing some of the crap women had to go through 
back then just to compete in a sport. It’s interesting to see how dedicated the women are, doing everything they can to get ahead … just like men do. Alessandro mentions real-life female race car drivers Maria Antonietta Avanzo, Camille du Gast, and Eliska Junkova, proving that Europeans were somewhat ahead of their time when it came to women’s rights. Women did compete in fencing for the first time at the 1924 Olympics, but I don’t think Canada had any representatives. Mary’s romance with Reid is progressing well, although it’s hardly a surprise since the chemistry between them was palpable from the start. It’s
good to see Flo getting involved with someone too, though she’s always seemed to have an active social life. I guess that tapered off when she started studying to be a doctor, but now she’s going to try to find a balance between work and personal time. I’m pretty sure Reid is going to be a recurring character, but I’m not sure about Basil.
Favourite Quotes:
- “I keep by bird in my pants and my falcon on my arm.” Basil trying to be cute.
- “Are you as bad a falconer as you are a flirt?” Flo showing how unimpressed she is with Basil’s attempts to woo her.
- “It’s all in the reflexes.” Jack Burton … uh, I mean Frankie Drake, after taking Sabina down.