WILD CARDS – Dial ‘A’ for Alibi – (limited spoilers) ⁓

The episode title comes from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial ‘M’ For Murder“, but the story is largely an homage to the other Hitchcock film released in 1954, “Rear Window“. Max (Vanessa Morgan) is hobbled with a sprained ankle and spends her time spying on her neighbours across the street. Her observations focus on Boss Babe (Jesse Fraser) and Red Hottie (Ruby Gillett) who are slightly modified versions of Hitchcock’s characters Miss Lonelyhearts and Miss Torso.

Like Jeff Jeffries, Max witnesses (through binoculars) what appears to be a murder. She tells Cole (Giacomo Gianniotti) about it. He is busy with another case, and no suspicious activity has been reported in the vicinity of Max’s condo, but Detective Yates (Amy Goodmurphy), whose driver’s license has been suspended for unpaid parking tickets, comes over to help. Yates slips easily into the role of Tom Doyle, and her first thought is that Max is on painkillers and hallucinating, so she asks Max where she keeps the drugs. “I was once on painkillers that made everyone look like Margot Robbie,” Yates fondly remembers. “It was a really great day.”

Yates, who is not on drugs, helps Max investigate, and uses three different disguises in the process. As a Fire Marshall, she uses “military grade spy glasses” borrowed from Max (who got them through Ricky) to figure out what the folks across the street are up to. “Can I borrow them?” Yates asks, meaning the glasses. “But if I forget, kill the feed about ten o’clock tonight, okay? You definitely don’t want to see what I get up to.” Since they both have been spying on other people all day, that seems more an invitation than a caution.

One wonders what Detective Yates’ first name might be. It has not been mentioned in the show’s press releases or on The CW’s website.

Across town, the apparently accidental death of an accountant turns into a murder investigation when Cole notices that the corpse’s shoes are tied with a Berluti Knot, a double-loop knot named for designer Olga Berluti, but which was used long before that by Edward VIII to prevent his laces from coming undone during military parades. It was Max who educated Cole on the intricacies of shoelaces, and it is Max who guides Cole to a successful conclusion to his case (over the phone).

Everyone gets together at Max’s place for Chinese food afterward, and Max’s fortune cookie fortune tells her “The love of your life may be in front of you.” (She’s sitting across from Cole and does not tell him about that.) Simmons reassures Yates that he still wants to be her partner, and Max complains about Yates’ tendency to natter on about everything, something Max herself is quite good at. Yates, the only one still hungry, goes with Ricky (Fletcher Donovan) for kebabs, and it seems her driver’s license has been restored, because Ricky says: “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a cop car before.”

At her father’s behest, Max has been studiously watching the memoir of retired con man Jonathan Ashford (Martin Sheen), whose writings she studied as a child. “Time has always been a critical part of my life, and profession, of course,” Ashford states from behind an impressively large desk. “More often than not, my freedom depended on it…I’ve known many men, who, in their later years, feared time. You know the old cliche: There’s simply not enough of it. Not me. I suppose I’ve always admired the indifference of time to the weight of memory, no matter what. It just keeps on ticking.”

That last line is part of a Timex advertisment, and the watch he places on the desk in front of him looks a lot like the watch Max took from Uriah Heep’s dead body in “Con in 60 Seconds” (episode 2.1). It causes Max to wonder out loud: “Did I just see what I think I saw?”

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WILD CARDS has been renewed by CBC for seasons three and four. Season three will begin filming in August, and will air in 2026. All episodes can be streamed on CBC Gem in Canada and on The CW in the US.

* Last Updated 5 months ago ago