Against the Wall: Memories We Fear (S1, EP8)

“Memories We Fear,” the 8th episode of Season One of “Against the Wall,” opens with a dead bride, who has a knife in her back and someone wearing plastic gloves  is fixing her lipstick and snapping photographs, before pulling the veil over her face.  Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” is playing.

Here are some of the guest stars in “Memories We Fear”

(left to right) Tom Amandes, Paulino Nunes, Peter MacNeill, Drew Nelson

Abby (Rachael Carpani) and Lina (Marisa Ramirez) get called in to a crime scene where another woman has been stabbed in the back The police photographer punched the criminologist and they have to look into it. Abby asks Lina who she wants to be: Cagney or Lacey? Lina prefers Starsky and Hutch.

Lucas “Flash” Givens (Tom Amandes), the crime scene photographer, is an alcoholic who “struggles with severe demons,” according to the priest who has been ministering to him: alcohol and post-traumatic stress disorder from photographing dead bodies. “The memories we fear,” says the priest, “are the ones that haunt us” but that comes up later. We just thought we’d bring it up now so you know where the title comes from.

First the girls take a look at Lucas’ work space which is a mess. Abby is a little freaked by the small space full of crime scene photos, but Lina says “you better get used to it if you want to be in homicide.” A photo of Lucas’ son reminds Abby of a Christmas when she and her brothers didn’t get any toys. “You must’ve been bad,” Lina says, but Abby knows that’s not true, so “Why the Kowalski kids didn’t get any presents one Christmas” becomes the secondary mystery that must be solved in this episode.

The detective search Lucas’ locker. There they find a half-empty bottle of booze and a photograph of the victim in the alley. Detective Rosene (Paulino Nunes) tells IAD that they are looking at a boyfriend and don’t think it’s Lucas.

Abby runs into Donnie and asks him about that toyless Christmas. He doesn’t remember at first but then the light dawns. “Oh, right! Yeah, that was the Christmas you cried because you didn’t get some stupid football,” he laughs. “It wasn’t any football,” Abby recalls, “It was a 1985 Bears NFC Champions Commemorative Football. I still can’t believe I didn’t get it.”  Abby must expect her parents to get her everything she really really wants.

Lucas shows up with his union rep. Lucas explains how he has to dissociate himself from the victim in order to do his job. He knew the victim so that messed him up bad. And now he doesn’t remember what he was doing but he does remember he slugged the criminologist because he made a joke about the victim that was inappropriate. He split because he had been drinking. Lina is now sure he’s their man, but Abby thinks he’s a “wounded animal.” A search of his house turns up more potentially incriminating evidence and also leads them to think that Lucas may be a serial killer. Then Lucas disappears!

When Abby find him, he’s in the church with a gun planning on committing hari kari. Somehow this is deemed a hostage situation. The SWAT Team and all the Kowalskis show up. Abby stands in the line of fire so Lucas can’t be shot.

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Semi-Spoilers:

Abby consults her brother Steve on the Christmas mystery. Steve thinks their father was sick with the flu. Their mom tells Abby it wasn’t the flu, it was depression. “Why didn’t anyone ever say anything?” Abby moans. She really thinks she is entitled to know all her parents’ business. Sheila doesn’t know why he was depressed and he never told her. This leads Abby to check get her father’s file out at IAD. Can you believe this? LOL! The loss of that football so scarred her soul that she will break department rules to find out why she didn’t get it.

Lucas is not the killer. Detective Rosene and Abby’s instinct were right and he tells Abby that he looks forward to working with her in Homicide someday. “Are you really going to leave me for Homicide,” Lina asks? Abby says Lina can come too and keep the partnership going. What good is Starsky without Hutch? “Wait, Lina says, I’m Starsky and you’re Hutch.” Abby says there’s no way Lina could slide across the hood of a car with “that bump.”

“For your information,” Lina says, “sliding across the hood of a car” is exactly how she got that bump. Car Wash Day at the Flores’ house. Squirt guns, wet tee shirts, hot wax. That how they keep the fun in the marriage.

We didn’t tell you who the killer was, but we will tell you that “Against the Wall” is about to heat up next week. Brody’s coming back!