Life is a Cabaret – Director: Bosede Williams/Writers: Keri Ferencz, Sharron Matthews
This one starts with Frankie and Alessandro getting busy in his race car, which is parked in an alley. They’re interrupted by a struggle between a man and a glammed up woman. Alessandro is about to go help the lady when she decks her aggressor and takes off Frankie checks the guy and finds that he’s dead.
At the police station, Frankie and Alessandro can’t agree on what the woman looked like and Detective Lyle doesn’t seem to care about the case too much anyway. Frankie decides she’s going to look into it herself and Mary promises to help. Frankie checks the scene and finds a flower and a money clip with the initials “KM”. At the morgue, Flo tells Frankie the guy’s name is unknown and that he (officially) died of a heart attack. They
find $500 in his pants and a monogram on his shirt giving his name as Kelvin MacDonald. At the café, Trudy asks Mary to check a file for her on a new insurance case. She’s looking into the death of Penelope Wineman, who died in an explosion that was supposedly accidental, but Trudy wants to make sure there’s nothing fishy before the insurance claim is paid out. Frankie arrives and Mary tells her that Kelvin worked in his family’s business, making inner tubes and other bicycle parts and was reported missing by his secretary. Frankie goes to the MacDonald offices and meets the secretary (Beatrice) and Kelvin’s brother, 
Douglas. Beatrice mentions that Kelvin made a lot of calls to a florist’s shop that just happens to be located right around the corner from where he died. Trudy talks to Nathan Wineman about his wife’s death, but he’s not much help other than giving her a photo. Frankie talks to the flower shop owner Max Lister, who’s a lesbian and hits on her (which Frankie doesn’t seem to mind). Max tells her Kelvin ordered flowers every week but she has no idea who they were for. Frankie goes to the morgue to see Flo and there’s a man there who she immediately recognizes as the “lady” from the alley.
The guy introduces himself as Roger Leblanc and says he didn’t mean to take off after the fight with Kelvin, but was freaked out. Flo tells them Kelvin actually died of aconite poisoning, administered six hours or so before he died. Roger says he and Kelvin were at an underground club (the
Flower Shop, run by Max Lister) that caters to gay people (and where Roger does a drag show), and he was fighting with Kelvin because Kelvin was trying to break up with him. They try to narrow down Kelvin’s movements and find a couple of hours unaccounted for. Frankie tells Roger he should perform at the club tonight as if nothing’s wrong. He’s scared and since Frankie can’t go with him (because Max already knows she’s a detective), he asks Flo. Mary shows up at the office to let Trudy know that Penelope Wineman was pretty tight with a mob family named Gerrard (even having the boss’s daughter as her maid of honour) and that the cops figure the Gerrards might have been behind the explosion that killed Penelope. Trudy knows that would invalidate the 
insurance claim, so she figures she’d better investigate further. At the club, Roger introduces Flo to an androgynous singer (Henrietta Collins) and the bartender (Alistair), who freezes her out. Roger suggests Flo prove herself by singing on stage. At the MacDonald offices, Frankie hears Douglas and his father (Kenneth) arguing over business and finds out Beatrice knows more about how the company is run than Douglas does. Frankie tells them Kelvin was poisoned, but Kenneth won’t cooperate when she asks where Kelvin was between seven and nine, so Frankie returns later and breaks in. She finds a postcard of Henrietta Collins with a message on the back for Kelvin to meet someone at the club the night he died and to bring one hundred kisses. At the club, Flo sings and
wows everyone. Trudy and Mary check out the house where Penelope was blown up and some guy tells her he saw a man running away … a man he identifies from Nathan’s wedding photo. Trudy and Mary watch Nathan and catch him making out with Eloise Gerrard. At the club, Flo finds out Kelvin wasn’t too popular and is told to talk to Lloyd Easton, the manager of the Hippodrome Orchestra. He tells Flo that someone was blackmailing rich regulars at the club, hinting it may have been Kelvin. Before she can digest that, the cops raid the place and when Detective Lyle gets rough with Roger, Flo punches him and is arrested.
Roger and Flo discuss things and figure Kelvin was probably not the blackmailer but one of their victims who decided to stop paying. So breaking up with Roger was Kelvin’s way of protecting him. Flo and Roger are released and Flo tells the others what happened. Frankie shows them the postcard and they wonder how Kelvin could’ve been banging Henrietta, since he was gay (and presumably so is she). Frankie decides to talk to Lloyd 
and sends Flo to ask Max a few questions. Mary and Trudy watch Eloise and Mary goes to interrogate her. They’re followed by some guy, so Trudy gets in his way and when he finds out who she is, he tells her he’s with the RCMP. Mary is shocked to find out Eloise is pregnant, presumably by Nathan. When Flo asks Max about possible blackmail at the club, she steers her towards the bartender, Alistair. Lloyd shows Frankie the blackmail postcard he received, with is worded almost exactly like the one Kelvin got, right down to the “one hundred kisses”, which Lloyd explains is a code asking for $100 or the blackmailer will show up at the person’s place of business and out them. Mary and Trudy compare notes and Trudy says the RCMP faked Penelope’s death to put her in witness protection because she’s supposed to testify
against the Gerrards. Trudy can’t tell Nathan his wife is still alive without putting her in danger and ruining the RCMP’s case, but if she doesn’t say something her boss will end up paying out a false insurance claim and will terminate Trudy’s contract when the truth comes out. At the club, Flo finds a wad of money behind the bar, while Frankie finds out that Henrietta hands out postcards every time she performs, so the blackmailer could be anyone. Frankie recognizes the blackmailer’s handwriting on a placard and realizes it’s Max.
Max admits she’s been blackmailing rich patrons to cover the protection money she has to pay the cops to keep from getting raided every night. (She also admits trying to put the blame on Alistair, who quits.) She denies killing Kelvin and says he didn’t show up until almost nine, when she saw 
him arguing with an older guy in the alley. Frankie realizes the money clip belongs to Kelvin’s dad, Kenneth MacDonald. She and Flo talk to Kenneth, who admits he wanted Kelvin to give up his lifestyle (and Roger) but denies killing him, saying he cleaned out his savings to pay off the blackmailer, although he had to talk Kelvin into taking it. At the office, Trudy strong-arms Nathan into withdrawing his insurance claim by hinting she might let Eloise’s father know who knocked up his daughter. When Frankie and Flo see that the MacDonald business is expanding, they figure maybe Douglas killed his brother to get him out of the way. They confront Douglas, who denies killing his brother and mentions that Beatrice actually came up with the expansion plans a while
ago. Frankie realizes Beatrice must’ve killed Kelvin because he would never let her be more than a secretary, while Douglas is more inclined to listen to her. They et a trap for Beatrice, telling her Douglas wants her to be vice-president, but pretending they poisoned her drink after the toast. They ask for a confession in exchange for the antidote and she admits she wanted recognition for being the real brains behind the business. Later at the club, Max tells Frankie she’s flush because of a donation from Douglas MacDonald and Flo does a duet with Elsa.
This is a pretty good episode that delves into the difficult lives of gay people, who were even more marginalized in the 1920s than they are now. I know some cities (Berlin, Paris, Shanghai) were quite gay-friendly in the 20s, but apparently Toronto wasn’t one of them, forcing people like Roger 
and Kelvin to hide who they were and making them easy targets for blackmail. It was interesting to see Max hitting on Frankie; I wonder if Frankie has ever dabbled in the lesbian lifestyle? She’s quite comfortable and open about sex in general, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she took a walk on the wild side with a woman some time. She certainly seemed more flattered than bothered by Max’s attention. It was cool to see Flo singing too, and her duet with Roger was good. S far as I can tell, the actor who plays Roger isn’t a drag performer in real life, but he does make a pretty good chanteuse, with a bit of a Mae West vibe happening.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Always a bridesmaid.” Max expressing her disappointment that Frankie is looking for someone other than her.
- “Rog, I’m about as shiny as they come.” Flo’s reply when Roger says he’ll have to shine her up a bit before taking her to the gay club.