The Unusuals: Circle Line (I Draw the Line!)

Completely going amnesiac about last week’s events this week, Schraeger and Walsh attempt to help one of their own who blacked out during a raging bender and might have killed someone.

The episode begins in the station, not with Walsh and Beaumont banging in Walsh’s apartment. I am assuming because Beaumont is still in the hospital and masturbation is not usually shown on TV. Dispatch reminds everyone it is Crime Awareness Day, tomorrow is crime prevention day, and Thursday is Sloppy Joe day. I’m glad that at least 1 day a week they try to prevent crime instead of solving already committed ones. I suppose if they had more than 1 day and were successful they’d be out of a job.

Alvarez is dragging in a creepy clown into the station. He bumps into Schraeger and Walsh. The clown was stabbing random people with hypodermic needles because he believes they all have STD’s. As Schrager and Walsh go upstairs she comments “Clowns sure were different when I was a kid.” Not sure how old she is but didn’t she ever get traumatized by Killer Clowns form Outer Space? Or John Wayne Gacy?

They are stopped by a guy whom is introduced as Lou Powell, an officer in another squad or division or something. Lou is upset about something so Casey wanders off so they can talk in private. He can’t talk to anyone in his squad. Lou explains that he’s been sober for 5 years but he thinks he might have killed someone last night. He woke up 2 hours before with blood on his shirt and his off duty weapon missing. Walsh takes the shirt from him, going to get it analyzed by lab tech. Lou tries to say thanks but Walsh says “If you did this, I can’t protect you.”

Delahoy is in the Chinese restaurant ordering. He makes a joke about frogs and squab necks. Alvarez walks in. “‘Stache.” So they go off naming types of mustaches. Tom Selleck, nay, Serpico. Mine is the Chevron, made popular by Einstein.”He leaves with a “Keep it real, man.”

Which is kind of funny considering that the next second Delahoy sees a vision of a young girl in a high school varsity jacket, who obviously isn’t real. She says his mustache makes him look old. “Karen?” asks Delahoy. She transforms into Brown who is standing at the chair opposite Eric and clutching the top. A body showed up late last night with a gunshot wounds. ‘Son, it’s Leo.”

Schraeger is let in on Lou’s problem. She asks to see his knuckles and they are all scraped up. He must have been fighting. She then asks to see what is in his pocket. There are a couple items including a little drink umbrella. The only interesting thing to Casey is a picture of the periodic table of elements. Why can’t they ever pull something alive out. Would be so much more interesting. A frustrated Walsh tries to ask what Lou remembers. He says he remembers a liquor store so they decide to start there. As they walk out Brown stops them to see if they can take a larceny case. Walsh says they can’t they have a “1313.” Brown says they have 6-0. As they walk away he explains to Casey that a 1313 means Officer in trouble. They have 6 hours to resolve the problem.

Delahoy goes to the morgue to see the body. He talks to the attendant who tells him that the man died in a liquor store robbery. He slowly walks over to the body, then he laughs. He peels back the sheet to reveal an Asian guy. He tells the girl that this isn’t his partner. She says that the social security number matched the ID. She morphs into Karen and starts talking about her life being ruined in high school because she got knocked up by another guy. He winces with a headache and asks the attendant what she knows about tumors and hallucinations. She confirms that tumors can cause hallucinations. He tells her to get a real ID on the body. Oops, she already told the Social Security office he’s dead. Why do they assume it’s a stolen ID? Maybe another Leo Banks lives at the exact same address as Leo. It’s not like Leo Banks is a really ethnic name either, an Asian guy could be Leo.

Back at then station when Banks walks in people are hugging and cheering and whistling. He has no idea. “You’re dead,” Delahoy says. “Not funny.” Delahoy explains to Banks about the Asian guy who got popped holding up a liquor store. “I don’t want to be dead,” Banks whines. So they are going to get the guy’s prints and find out who he really is. Hey, I suppose it’s better that he found out that his ID was stolen than not, right?

Lou takes Schraeger and Walsh to the liquor store he walks by everyday to remind himself he triumphed over booze and out of the blue the night before, maybe because of a case or trouble with the gf he decided to get a 1/5 of tequila. They ask the guy at the counter if Lou was there the night before. The guy says that Lou was. there and got excited about the tourist brochures. They look through the brochures until Lou remembers that he was looking through them for the Circle Line. This prompts Casey to semi freak and whine “Walsh, I don’t like boats. I don’t like boats, Walsh.” The only emotions she seems to have are semi whiny, sarcastic and angry.

Alvarez is sitting at his desk. The clown is in the pen and starts taunting him about the pictures of his wife on the table, saying that she has herpes. Leo is talking on the phone. He finds out that the ID’s were stolen by a Jimmy KungFu. He sees that Jimmy has taken a Disney cruise with his money. Banks is pissed. Delahoy points out that now he’ll probably never had jury duty. They look over Banks’ credit card reports and figure out when the purchases began, a couple months before in a coffee shop. Karen appears again and asks if Delahoy is going to stop if he’s dead. They decide to go pay Jimmy Kung Fu a visit.

Anyone else wondering where Cole and Beaumont are? It’s harder to pull a Rose and Bernard on this show considering those two are both main characters. Guess there’s no fallout at all from last week’s episode and we’re just gonna forget about it. Not. I’m going to add HWCABSUTS? How Would Cole and Beaumont Screw Up This Scene?

Walsh, Schraeger and Lou are on the Circle Line. Schraeger looks uncomfortable like she has a mild case of heartburn. Walsh gets a call that the blood on Lou’s shirt was human but it wasn’t his. Lou waxes nostalgic about the his wife and their first date on the Circle line in ’96. They decide their next course of action is to track Lou’s phone and credit cards to see if those give away any clues. Schraeger pulls Walsh aside and suggests that Lou is playing them and building a murder defense of mental incompetence. Walsh shrugs it off, he doesn’t believe it. Lou calls them over and says he remembered he didn’t actually make it onto the boat the night before, the guy closed to gate. Elated, Casey bolts through the crowd. Now it might be just me thinking about how much someone who hasn’t had a drink in 5 years can hold, but this walking around blacking out sounds pretty farfetched. Most likely he’d have just passed out or needed his stomach pump. But I suppose I’ll sacrifice the science for the story.

At the station Alvarez goes into the utility room to make coffee, where Lou was sitting earlier. He finds a bloody tissue in there. Another guy enters and Alvarez questions him about Lou. The guy explains that Lou used to be called Trainwreck because of his alcoholism. He would carry around gin in a contact solution bottle.

Delahoy and Banks go to Jimmy Kung Fu’s apartment. He’s not there but his girlfriend is. She refers to Banks as “The Dummy” they’ve been getting all the stuff from. They ask about Jimmy and find out he’s a danger freak, the opposite of Leo. He wants to take all his stuff back immediately but Delahoy plies her for information. She decides to make a deal for information about where Jimmy Kung Fu got the ID. They find out for the price of CD’s and a game console the ID was sold to him but Lowdown in Alphabet City. When I heard Alphabet City the drama geek in me immediately went to RENT and I started thinking of a song involving selling out to ID scammers to make Rent. But I’m weird.

At the station Walsh is pleading for Lou to help him solve his case because they only have 3 hours left. Lou is quickly falling apart, sulking about being Trainwreck. Walsh believes the night before was a mistake. Tells him if anyone asks why he’s there he’s seeing Walsh about a case.

Alvarez is sitting at his desk researching Lou and the clown explains that he found his wife in bed with her pilates instructor and that turned him into a “joker.” Alvarez confronts Walsh about the bloody tissue. Walsh warns him to mind his own business and take care of the clown. Alavarez says he’s not afraid of Walsh. Walsh says Alvarez doeesn’t get .He inks they’re all a bunch of freaks. “You’re the biggest freak of all,” Walsh reminds him. “I’m watching you,” is the best Alvarez can come up with. They seemed to have done away with the brief notion of using Alvarez’s wife to make him likable, as she’s only appeared in one episode. Odd, considering she’s the DA, but again, whatever. Their cases are simple and don’t need none of that fancy trial and lawyer stuff.

Casey and Walsh talk as they walk to the car. Walsh believes he has moved him way from Alvarez. Casey believes Alvarez might be right. She believes that Lou really did kill someone. Walsh is still holding out because onetime Lou talked a girl off a ledge. Casey points out that the phone and credit card records didn’t show anything. Walsh believes that they can deconstruct Lou’s night in another way. They call dispatch and ask if there was any “512′s” the night before, 512′s being a 911 incident involving an off duty officer. Dispatch informs them of a mugging so they head off to the site. Delahoy sees Karen as everyone in the station, all Being John Malkovich style. She reminds him that he can’t ignore his tumor forever. He excuses himself, asks Banks to cover and leaves.

At the scene of last night’s mugging Schraeger and Walsh question the officers who responded. They tell them that the guy had appeared cloudy and tried to rob 2 guys with a saw. He ripped his knuckles up in a fight with the two guys. He wouldn’t take a ride to the ER. But the guy wasn’t alone, he had a blonde with him with nice tits. (I’m not going into the stupid joke about names for boobs and penises that lasts the rest of the episode. Sorry ABC if I wanted to hear boob and penis naming contests I would sit in on a group of 6th grade boys.) They figure he kept drinking and met her at a bar. They notice across the street is a Tikki bar, and because of the umbrella in Lou’s pocket they decide to investigate.

Alvarez finds Lou alone in the basement file room. He lies casually asking if Lou wants anything because Walsh asked him to check on him. “Mustaches have to stick together,” he says as he introduces himself. He offers to throw away the bloody bandages that Lou is unwinding from his knuckles. He leaves the room and goes to Brown saying that they have a problem. Brown gets angry and tells Alvarez that Walsh has 90 minutes. Furious Alvarez says that Walsh is dirty. Brown is shocked. “Did the building exercise teach you nothing?” Alvarez continues to pout so Brown throws him out.

Banks brings Lowdown in for questioning. They speculate that he got his ID’s from a dirty waiter at the coffee shop. Lowdown tries to make a deal with them that he’ll either give them his buyers or his sellers. Banks ignore him and go through his files, commenting on how neat he keeps them. Who says all criminals are disorganized messes? Gotta have a system if you’re any good. He discovers that Lowdown has Delahoy’s ID, too,and sold it.

Delahoy goes back to the morgue. She is embarrassed because she didn’t fingerprint the body before calling the social security office. Delahoy starts to tell her how he got diagnosed with his brain tumor, when he hit his head. He wants her to examine him. She protests but he points out that she won’t tell anyone because he can basically blackmail her over her mistake. Although he doesn’t use the word blackmail because that would make him a dirty cop. And there’s already enough of them.

Schraeger and Walsh talk to the bartender at the Tikki Bar. He says he doesn’t notice people who don’t have flapjacks, aka boobs, and lots more boob references here. Casey doesn’t get some of them. How long has she been a cop? Hasn’t heard these, really? She asks to see the periodic table card again. Walsh asks “Crossword?” ENNNNNTTT (Buzzer for wrong.) Then they connect that Lou was with a chick and so maybe the periodic card has something to do with a hotel. Casey looks it up on her phone and comes up with a Boutique hotel called “Element.” Because all cops go to boutique hotels for hook-ups?

Banks remembers, with a laugh that he and Eric shared a check the day the ID’s were stolen. As he goes through the file he is incredulous because the guy who stole Eric’s ID actually improved his credit and bought a house. He asks Eric about his past so Eric tells him about a house his father built on Lake Placid and Karen and how he lost her. He decides he is going to pay a visit to the guy who stole his ID, and he wants to go alone. I would love if someone stole my ID and made my credit better.

Lou, Schraeger and Walsh go to the hotel. They find out that Lou was there and that he’s all paid up through the next day. They go upstairs to find the blonde in bed. She’s Ellen Richards and she was beaten to death, with what looked like a revolver. Casey thinks this proves that Lou killed her and dumped the gun.

Delahoy stands outside the house of the guy Bob, who stole his ID. Karen appears and wistfully says “That could have been us.” Delahoy says no, because of the tumor. The man comes outside to see why Delahoy is there. When Delahoy tells him his name the man pleads, “Please don’t arrest me. I changed my life. I’m good now, please don’t tell my wife.” The wife comes out to see what’s going on. “Everything’s okay Mrs. Delahoy” Eric says. “There was a robbery in the neighborhood. Have you seen anything?” Nope. She goes inside. The fake Eric thanks him. “Stay out of trouble, you’ll be alone soon enough,” the real Eric warns. So I guess they’re sharing bank accounts for the rest of their lives?
Karen appears again. “That was nice,” she offers. “Good to see you, even if you are a hallucination. I think you were the only girl I ever loved…Can I call you?” “I’m married. Don’t give up.”

Brown says the 1313 is over and they are taking Lou into custody. Another cop comes up and tells them that the blood on Lou’s shirt is the girls. But the weird thing is that both the girl and Lou tested positive for rohypnol in their systems, aka ruffies. Walsh proposes that maybe someone drugged Lou and the girl, aka the bartender, followed them to the hotel and killed her. Casey realizes it’s probably the bartender. “Go!”

They bring the bartender in for questioning. They bring out a picture of him and Ellen that was taped up in the men’s bathroom at the bar along with a bunch of others. He denies that she was his girlfriend, that he only does casual flings. Schraeger said she called Ellen’s room mate and found out that Ellen dumped him a week before, after 6 months. (Maybe I should call her Casey when she’s wimpy and Schraeger when she’s crazy butch cop? Hmm. Research needed.) So obviously what happened was that Ellen met a man and took him to the bar to make the bartender jealous. He calls that he wants a lawyer and they laugh and say they are taking their search warrant to his place.

Banks is starting to feel better about the stolen ID. Delahoy suggests that Eric steal a new ID from the box and become a completely different person. He suggests a couple of the names before coming across Peter Sharp, a name that interests them both and makes me think of the Simpsons and the “Max Power” episode.

Walsh stops Brown and Alvarez and explain that they found bloody clothes at the bartender’s apartment. An angry Brown calls Alvarez into his office. “I don’t know what to say,” says a grateful Lou. “Go to AA again,” answers Walsh, “And if you need me before you find a sponser, call me.”

Walsh and Schraeger go over to the Chinese food restaurant. Alvarez shows up and Walsh gives him another life lesson that he won’t comprehend. “You’re a good cop,” he tells Alvarez. “We’re all freaks. And the more important thing than rules is cops first.” Cops deserve some slack, they’re family so help instead. If cops are family shouldn’t he be taking care of his wounded lady? Isn’t he her Man? He tells him if he follows these rules people will stop filling his locker with peanuts. Then he orders him a beer.

Back at the morgue Delahoy is getting in to a hospital gown. The morgue attendant tries to draw blood and Delahoy yelps. “Been awhile since I did this so someone alive,” she reminds him. So he’s not going Jack Bauer style anymore, now he’s wimping out with the whole “treatment” thing. I suppose that’s a good thing,considering he’s my favorite character.