PRIVATE EYES WEST COAST – Episode 102 – A Shroom With A View (limited spoilers) ⁓
Grace
Shade and Everett (or is it Shade and Shade now?) are evaluating applicants for the live-in nanny job when Raine (Khamisa Wilshire) rings their doorbell. “I’ve got a case for you,” she says. Raine is accompanied by university student Lauren (Summer Kastner) and the case is Lauren’s missing roommate, Mayette (Jana Morrison), who left in the middle of the night to go for a hike in Copperstream Park.
Summer Kastner in her TV debut as Lauren, whose roommate has mysteriously vanished, and Khamisa Wilshire as the Shades’ occasional assistant Raine.
Mayette has not responded to any texts, and failed to show up the next day for an important exam. (Copperstream is likely a thinly disguised reference to Goldstream Provincial Park, about 19 kilometers north of Victoria.) Mayette had a note shoved under her door before she left. She threw it away, but Lauren fished it out of the trash. “Talk and you’re dead,” the note said.
At the park, the detectives run into Park Ranger Nick (Kurt Long) who tells them he saw Mayette get into a car with a guy wearing a plaid shirt, cargo pants, and Bluntstone boots. Mayette dropped her Philosophy class after getting into a kerfuffle with the TA, who explains that he invited Mayette to be part of his thesis research, and she submitted something written by ChatGPT, which he passed along without reading it over. She apologized, than dropped the class, saying she was “distracted”.
Park Ranger Nick
A listening device is found attached to a plant in Mayette and Lauren’s dorm room. The guy that sold the device (Jonathan Bruce) identifies the purchaser as Connor (Kevin Osea), and remembers that Connor was carrying a sports bag with a number on it, which Shade says means he’s on the team. Connor admits placing the listening device, but tells Angie: “I’m not stalking her, I’m her soul double.” and explains he was just “doing the assignment” for the “Soul Double Society”, a club for single students run by Grace (Mae Belen) designed to help members find their soul double, by any means necessary.
Mayette and Ethan
The notion of a soul mate is discussed. Matt (Jason Priestley) clearly believes in soul mates and thinks Angie is his. Angie (Cindy Sampson) observes that Shade had a “whole life and a whole other wife” before her and also that: “love is a choice. You choose your person every damn day, and that’s how it should be.” Raine puts forward the idea that “soul mates are a myth invented by rich men to sell diamond rings and white dresses”.
The second time The Shades are in the lecture hall, text dealing with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre is on the screen in front of the class. That couple might well be considered to be an example of soul mates.
Connor
After Grace hooked Mayette up with Connor as a soul double, Mayette rejected Connor for Ethan Kovalenko (Oscar Chark), who works in a record store. This led to a falling-out with Grace.
Ethan’s boss says Ethan is about to be fired because he disappeared about the same time that Mayette disappeared without explanation and isn’t answering texts. Ethan is into edible mushrooms and has a social media account dedicated to foraging, That account’s latest post was a selfie with Mayette in the forest.
The Shades’ three main nanny candidates: Paola van Kleef as ‘Gen Z Nanny’, Lynette Kissoon as ‘Strict Nanny’, and Marissa Leong as ‘Sweet Nanny’
Will (David Kaye) explains that foraging can be very profitable. “I once went off-grid for six weeks, picking pine mushrooms,” he explains. “Restaurants pay big bucks for ’em. Guys make a “G” a day, easy, cash, but you gotta watch your back, though, because it’s way easier to rob someone else’s stash than it is to pick new ones…And you gotta know what you’re doing. Death cap mushrooms come by their name honestly.” Will also points out that “you can’t legally pick mushrooms in Provincial Parks“.
The main suspects in Mayette’s disappearance are Connor, Ethan, and Grace. The mystery is solved only after an empty shell casing is found along a trail in the park.
Celeste trying on a Norwegian Sling for Angie’s half-brother Will
While all this is going on, Will has been pursuing his assigned task of interviewing potential nannies for Dex. After rejecting all of the three main candidates (played by Marissa Leong, Lynette Kissoon, and Paolina van Kleef), Will spots Celeste (Rowan Wales) giving off “nanny in the Alps” vibes in the park, decides to lure her away from her present employment, and teaches her how to use a Norwegian Sling. Because of his diligence in considering possible nannies, and also because (one would like to think) they were reluctant to poach someone else’s caregiver, the issue is resolved when the detectives decide to hire Will to take care of Dex while they are out detecting. Will and Celeste now have similar jobs and Will seemed quite taken with her.