The Unusuals: The Tape Delay

A geriatric crime spree divides Banks and Delahoy while Casey Schraeger struggles with coming out of the closet about being rich.

Walsh and Schraeger are chasing someone. They corner him behind a dumpster They yell to throw out the backpack. A white backpack is thrown out. Then they yell for him to put his hands up. Out crawls a kid about 10 years old. The screen then flashes the words “One Day Earlier.”

Dispatch mumbles her usual inane and nasally comment, this time about a suspect driving on the sidewalk. Alvarez goes to Walsh’s desk asnd asks him to a Rangers game. He points out that Walsh is scheduled to be off when the game occurs. Walsh tries to protest but Alvarez does’t hear it. Amused Schraeger asks “Is Alvarez your best friend now?”

Beaumont arrives and Walsh tries to talk to her but she shuts him down. Delahoy wanders over, munching on an apple. He asks Beaumont to taste it, does it taste funny? Like salami? “No.” I personally would probably not question a crappy piece of fruit tasting like meat. But that’s me.

Brown gives Banks and Delahoy a case of an 87 year old man named Spiegelman who tried to rob an armored car robbery guy. They question the old man. who said he tried to wrestle the bag of money away from the guard but got winded and had to sit on the curb. Delahoy wants to know why he would do this, maybe he blow his retirement on strippers? Why the hell not rob an armored car at 87? Prisoners get sweet medical care! Better than most of us! Makes perfect sense to me!

Spiegelman asks if Delahoy ever lived in a nursing home with everyone sitting around waiting to die. “I was an accountant for 30 years, married for 50.” Delahoy points out that a nursing home might be boring but prison is worse. Spiegelman points out that being old sucks. “Can’t pee and taking pills sucks!” Banks really doesn’t want to put the guy in jail but Delahoy says he did the crime and it’s his own fault. “Can I get a seltzer?” asks Spiegelman. Haha! Old people and seltzer. Sometimes it’s the only thing in the fridge. like young men and beer.

Brown assigns Walsh and Casey to a detail “protecting” a business tycoon named Gary Reed who is in town. (But not protecting because using that word jinxes the situation and it goes to hell. Apparently like saying good luck in show biz.) He’s been getting cryptic postcards. Casey asks why the man doesn’t have bodyguards. “Crap rolls downhill,” explains Walsh. Why spend money when he can call the governor who can call the mayor who can call the Chief of Police for them to do the work. Casey points out they they like have crime and stuff to stop. Brown points out it will be easy work, he’ll get room service and go to bed. When they leave Banks enters. He tells Brown that he called the nursing home and found out Spiegelman has dementia and that they have no case.

Walsh and Schraeger meet Gary Reed at the hotel. They check out his room before he enters and ask for his itinerary so the advance team can check it out. Tells them that he only has banking meetings to go to in the morning. He explains to Casey for expositionary reasons that he created genius banking software and makes so much money he can’t give it away fast enough but he’s still down to earth and keeping it real cos he still wears a watch his dad gave him when he was 8. He tells them he’s gonna stay inside and order room service and watch a movie. Nothing crazy is gonna happen at all, of course, cos this isn’t an obvious set up.

Casey complains about it being protection detail and Walsh whines that saying that word is gonna guarantee problems. He tells her as a rookie she has to take the first watch. “Why?” “Can you sleep in a chair?” “No.” “There you have it.”

Back at the station Beaumont and Cole are bringing in a suspect named Jason. He’s complaining that she bit his hand. She points out he stuck it in her mouth. They stopped him for expired plates and they found ski masks, guns and crowbars in his car.

Casey is bored sitting in her chair, (never heard of a magazine or book?) and asks why Beaumont was being weird to Walsh back at the station. Walsh explains that he apparently yelled at Beaumont in her dream, and when he wake up, she was sitting there staring at him. He asked her what was wrong and she told him about the dream, and that she was waiting for an apology. instead of apologizing he said it was ridiculous which made her mad. Casey cringes, and on behalf of women everywhere I sigh. Women who get mad about their dreams are probably nutcases you should stay away from, they give a bad name to normal women everywhere. I myself would have probably gone beyond ridiculous and said that it was retarded. Good thing I’m not a lesbian.

Casey hears screams coming from the stairwell. She decides to check it out to Walsh’s protests. After hesitating he follows. In the stairwell she finds a man attacking a woman. She pursues the man down the stairs until he escapes. She goes back to help the woman. They go back upstairs and get help from hotel security only to find Gary’s door open, everything ransacked and a small bit of blood on some furniture.

Cue the crappy happy intro music that always seems misplaced.

Back at station Walsh and Schraeger are getting reamed as they explain what happened. The woman has a concussion and no record. The blood was confirmed as Reed’s. There are no video records of Reed leaving the hotel. So someone at the hotel must have known something or helped the kidnappers. the captain is really pissed but he can’t bust Casey down like he would any other cop cos he owes her father a favor. So instead he’s just taking them off the case. Casey begs to use the favor instead to let them stay on the case. He gives them 24 hours.

Alvarez goes by Walsh’s desk. He wants to know if they are still on for the game. He brought him a hat his wife knitted because it gets cold by the ice. Walsh explains that he can’t go to the game because of the missing VIP. Sadly Alvarez says he understands and says it’s no big deal, he’ll ask Banks or Delahoy. “Next time,” Walsh promises.

Delahoy is eating yogurt, complains it tastes like ham. They find out their old guy robbed a pizza guy and stole his car. He tells Banks to go ahead wbecause he has a call to make. He calls his “Doctor” the put upon mortician he has been blackmailing and tells her about the symptoms. She says she might be able to understand if she did “An Autopsy!”He asks to meet her for lunch at the Apolo, the only restaurant that exists in New York beside that one Siberian one. She surprisingly agrees cos she’s an idiotic pushover. When she’s off the phone Alvarez goes over. “Got two tickets to a Rangers game tonight. “Thanks.” Eric snags them and keeps walking. God how lame. They can’t decide whether Alvarez is a pushy, a jerk, or Ron Burgundy. Hello! No brainer. Clearly it is a brainer cos the show is being canceled anyway.

Casey and Walsh bring in Mrs Reed. They look at the postcards that Gary was receiving and ask if he had enemies. She says that he didn’t have any enemies and then flips out. “You were supposed to watch him! How did this happen?” Well for all of us in TV land it’s a bit frigging obvious. Convenient a woman was almost raped in the hotel right where the cops could hear and investigate. That’s not a set up at all. Walsh tries to talk to Beaumont again but she’s still not talking. Cole tries to ask her what’s going on but she just takes it out on him. Their suspect, Jason is annoyed at all the in talk. They decide to Tape Delay him. (Which means something akin to doing fx on some footage to screw with his head?)

Spiegelman is driving about 20 mph with his blinker on, holding up traffic and waving like a beauty queen at people from his stolen pizza delivery Smartcar. Banks and Delahoy are following him. When they get close they tell him to pull over. He starts to speed up “We have hard candies,” they yell trying to tempt him. (This is the singularly funniest quotation of the entire series. Sigh, sad, it’s over.) He stops when he comes to a red light and they tell him to get out of the car, to the annoyance of the 50+ drivers sitting behind them waiting to go. Delighted Spiegelman says he’s never been in such a high speed chase. “Say hello to Mr Handcuffs,” says the weary Eric. (He forgot to mention Mr Shank.)

Schraeger and Walsh are in the hospital questioning the woman who was accosted in the hotel. “Are you sure you never saw the man that attacked you before?” She says no. She explains that she is a masseuse and she takes the stairs between jobs. She had been heading to a different one when she was attacked. They explain that they think the man was trying to make a diversion…Duh! They’re gonna show her some pictures to see if she can recognize him. Do cops really always show these picture books to victims? Don’t you need at least 5 pictures of a person to really see what they look like? 1 surely isn’t enough.

Cole and Beaumont are questioning their suspect about the stuff found in his car. They tracked it to a place in upstate NY. As they question him he keeps glancing at a video feed in which Beaumont is stabbing him and then almost choking him. He keeps turning around to see her standing against the wall doing nothing. It freaks him out. Finally on the video Cole holds up a sign that says “She’s crazy.” Are you okay they ask. “You seem jumpy.” They say that the concious manifests in strange ways. cole says he’ll give him a break if he confesses. He finally starts confessing when Alvarez interrupts. Beaumont yells at him to get out. Then Jason asks for his lawyer. (WTF is this/ I tried to wiki tape delay and it had nothing. did they film him in the interrogation and then film some special effects? How? This is irritating and not funny, just stupid. Let us in on the joke!)

Walsh and Casey find nothing on Reed. Brown says ransom came they want 10 million in unmarked bills by 2 pm. Weird ass banjo music introduces the next scene as Delahoy and Banks bring in Spiegelman again. “I feel alive! I need a nap,” he shares. they put him into the holding cell with Beaumont’s suspect. ‘Let us know if you need to tinkle.” Banks says that it’s all his fault, that they kicked him loose too quickly the last time. “No, he’s on a crime spree and wants to die free.” “He just feels abandoned.” Delahoy points out that jail is safer than being free, and why does Banks care so much?

Casey gives a meeting to the other cops about the kidnapping and the plan to do the drop with something called a Happy Baby backpack. (Some freakish Japanese ripoff.) The wife will drop it in a garbage can. They will surround and monitor it. Walsh and Schraeger will follow the money while other teams do other stuff.

In the car waiting for the drop Schraeger complains that Walsh knew she was rich. Since when is being rich like being gay and having to come out about it? He’s like DUH you have buildings named after you. You’re a good police officer that’s all that matters. She tells him to apologize to Beaumont it doesn’t matter who is right, it just matters that he listens. And another thing, she is amazingly spry for just having been shot an episode or two ago.

As Reed’s wife walks up to put the bag in barrel a school bus pulls up and interferes with the view of all the cops in a very Speed style. when Walsh and Schraeger finally run over the bag is gone and all the kids getting off the bus have Happy Baby backpacks. As they get ready to check all the bags 1 kid takes off running and they chase him.

Reread paragraph 1 and smack your head because of this retardedly unecessary flashback. The boy explains that some guy gave him 100 to take pack and run, and he’d never seen 100 bucks. He gives Walsh a note from the “kidnappers.” Warned you, no cops, now he dies. (My question that is never answered in the episode is how did the kidnappers know to make sure all the kids had the same backpack as the drop one?)

A body is found outside the hotel after the ransom drop. It has the charred remains of Reed’s childhood watch. The cause of death seems to be a fire. They won’t know if it is Reed until they get the dental records. Casey starts freaking out so Walsh grabs her and asks where she went on her last vacation, to calm her down. You have to get over it, there more decisions tomorrow, you might as well quit if you can’t do it. “I never quit.” She thinks they must have overlooked something so she’s going to surprisingly ask her dad for a favor, to get Reed’s bank records.

Dr Crumb meets Delahoy at the Apolo.”Thanks for meeting me. “I had a choice?” “Can’t 2 colleagues enjoy a meal?” “I gotta be back at 5.” He asks her to try his food, still tastes like meat. She suggest the tumor is pressing on his tasting center (real scientific name) or maybe he had a stroke. She says not many people like to hang around her because she tends to see them as they way they are going to die, obesity, smoking, etc. She tells him her work is inconclusive and he needs to see a real doctor because the next day he could wind up blind or paralyzed. “Hell of a lunch date,” Delahoy mutters. “Date? Gotta go.” She bolts.

Banks brings Spiegelman to the interrogation room. He shows him pictures of criminals who were either hurt or killed when committing crime. Scared straight yet?” “Having a great time!” Banks says that crime is terrifying for all involved. Spiegelman points at Banks’ vest and antibacterial hand gel, says he reminds him of himself because lived a safe life, never traveled or did anything.” “There’s one way to live, and that’s all the way,” Spiegelman has decided. Banks points out that if you’re going to to that you should do it for the right reasons, like making the world a better place.

Casey talks to her dad, and find out that Gary Reed is under FBI investigation for embezzlement. His banking program steals 1 penny for every transaction x 6 million a day! OMG! How did these writers not see Office Space? Or worse think they could copy it and make it any better? This is the most unoriginal laughable plotline so far. They get a call that the body is not Gary it’s an ex-con and it turns out to be the same guy who was attacking the girl at the hotel. Also, the body wasn’t just burned it was strangled to death beforehand. They figure out that it wasn’t about him getting away but it was about buying more time. Gary staged his own kidnapping! Bout time you figured that one out!

While Schraeger looks in files, Walsh calls form the hotel. Reed has stayed there 10 times over the past few months and Sally the masseuse worked him every time. He used the mistress as a set up because he needed to get the cash to get away because the FBI were watching his accounts. Walsh says they got his picture everywhere but not likely they’ll find him. He is impressed with casey being able to read the financial files. She says she learned because her dad wanted her in the family business. Walsh admits his mom dressed him up as a pretty leeetttle girl the first few years of his life. (????? Why? Why does this matter other than to disturb us?)

Delahoy returns to the station. Banks asks where hes been. “Where’s sunshine boy?” “I cut him loose.” Then he calls them. “I was selfish, Im going to do something constructive, dangerous and fun, wish me luck!” The screen flashes to Spiegelman talking to Jason in the cell. Banks charges in to the cell and grabs Jason. “What is he going to do?” Beaumont gets angry that Banks is touching her suspect.

Delahoy explains to brown why Banks grabbed Jason. “Do what you gotta go.” Banks, Delahoy, Beaumont and Cole and the suspect all pile into an interrogation room to question Jason about the job he was planning. “All we talked about was taxes!” Jason whines. Delahoy offers him a deal if he tells, which pisses off Beaumont and Cole. Jason explains that there is a warehouse full of pharmisuticals with enough pills for everyone in his retirement home to party for a year. BUT they took Spiegelman away before Jason had a chance to tell the old man about the security guard.

When Delahoy and Banks arrive at the warehouse they don’t see a security guard. They call out, with no answer. Then there is the sound of a gunshot. They take off running and find the security guard standing over the wounded Spiegelman. “I thought he was reaching for a gun!” the security guard says as Banks reaches into Spiegelman’s jacket and takes out the inhaler he had been reaching for.

In Casey’s searches through the financial records she finds out that Gary Reed bought a controlling portion of a shipping company 3 weeks prior. They figure out that he obviously wouldn’t be a passanger or a crew member but there’s the good old fashioned pirate or Cuban style of stowing away. She points out that ships are rarely searched on their way into America and even less likely to be searched on the way out. Ah, the wonderful strain of resources that cause such things as salmonella outbreaks and bad baby formula shipped from China.

As they load Spiegelman onto an ambulance he bemoans his fate. “what are people going to remember me for? A devoted husband?” Incredulous Banks says “I would give anything for your life. 50 years! I got one a one bedroom apartment and rubber floors. People you loved will remember you.” While he is talking spiegelman is making a face. “Please…You’re standing on my oxygen line.” And thusly Banks’ speech goes unheeded and unappreciated.

Walsh and Schraeger meet a man who works at the docks. they tell everyone to spread out and check all the containers. A ship that was supposed to leave an hour before was delayed. As they search Schraeger hears laughter. When they go to the container and open it they find Reed and his mistress sitting in the most WASPY modern pimped out unimaginable shipping crate ever. And it’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like the redneck apartment from Harold and Kumar 2. Reed offers them 1 million dollars if they walk away and pretend they didn’t see them. Casey sneers that they picked the wrong cop to bribe.

Everyone meets at the Apolo because its’ their Central Perk. Brown talks to Banks and tells him that the security guard felt so bad about shooting Spiegelman that he’s giving a donation to his retirement home. walsh buys Beaumont a girly drink and they go off to chat. She asks if the drink is his way of apologizing. He tells her that “Guys say stupid things.” Shocker. She whines about how she has to be tough on the job but wants to be herself around him-not vulnerable as he suggests. They get gooey eyed and decide their gonna bail to go bounce on the bed. But Walsh wants to stop a minute to talk to Alvarez.
“I thought you were going to the game?” asks Walsh. Alvarez admits that Delahoy took the tickets. Walsh then says that he has a friend at Yankee statium and asks if he wants to go sit on the grass in Yankee Stadium on Sunday. “Yah!” squeals Alvarez. “I’ll bring the hat,” offers Walsh.

Casey gets up on a table and says “I have announcement.” The burden of her richness has gotten to her. “My name is casey Schraeger. I am the daughter of the 25th richest family in NY, and I’m a cop. Thought you’d like to know.” They all ignore her like most normal people would do who don’t give a crap about anyone else. Then they make some butler jokes, the end.

Can anyone explain the tape delay thing to me?