brightknightie | Let's chat about FK's "The Code" (just for fun!)

Crossposts: http://brightknightie.livejournal.com/217799.html

Entry tags:

Let's chat about FK's "The Code" (just for fun!)

The random-number generator determined that "The Code" is the episode to rewatch and chat about, just a little, desultorily and casually, as discussed in my previous post.

Come and play! No pressure. Why not pop "The Code" into the DVD player or stream it? Why not share a thought, memory, question or joke?

"It's the suit, Schank, the suit!"

Have you ever noticed that there's a plain-clothes officer in the squad room through most of the episode, whom we see only from the back, who is wearing the identical '80s-pop-style jacket that Natalie wore in first season's "Dying to Know You"? Of all the things to have actually survived the eighteen-month hiatus between seasons, the switch between networks, and all the rest... good grief! :-)

In other costuming and hairstyling/makeup blurbs, I personally thought that Natalie looked particularly nice, Nick looked unnecessarily worn, Schanke's brown suits are magnificent choices for all the characterization and cultural context they imply, and I was reminded once again that absolutely everyone wearing blazers all the time everywhere is so, so, so '90s.

Not costuming, but setting: That's the same hot dog stand as in "The Fix," surely! Fun. :-)

"I hate winter!"

"The Code" aired on May 13, 1995, as second season's 21st episode, and IMDB and Amazon streaming list it in that order. But it was filmed as second season's 24th episode, and it appears in that production order on the DVDs.

Either way, "The Code" comes after "Be My Valentine" (and therefore after the Schankes' Hawaii trip); it's just a question of how long after. In production order, 24 "The Code" comes immediately after 23 "Be My Valentine," and Schanke's "I hate winter!" mood could perhaps be seen as in some ways as post-vacation blues. And surely Schanke's seasonal grumps (and plan to purchase cross-country skis per Myra) would be more suitable in February (immediately following when "Be My Valentine" is set) than May (when "The Code" aired).

"I'll get your heater fixed; it's on me."

Continuity kudos for remembering from way back in first season that the Caddy's heater is broken — humorous that it's still/again broken? Nick babies that car, yet doesn't get the heater fixed... because he doesn't feel the cold? or perhaps a more car-related reason? — and plugging that into Schanke feeling cold (and Nick not), and Schanke offering to get it fixed on him, and Nick objecting over the cost to Schanke. (Additional continuity kudos for all the "Partners of the Month" call-outs! Not just the physical plaque reappearing. And the "If Looks Could Kill" echoes.)

It's nice at the end that Nick loans Schanke the Caddy without conditions — unlike "Close Call." I'd like to think that this means Nick regrets abusing his hypnotism power over Schanke in that way in "Close Call," making Schanke wash the Caddy for him, but while that's a valid interpretation for production order (where 22 "Close Call" immediately precedes 23 "Be My Valentine" and then 24 "The Code"), it breaks for aired order (where 25 "Close Call" comes after 21 "The Code"), and so aired order would suggest that Nick is moving the other direction.

(Decisions, decisions! Second season order giveth and second season order taketh away. Do we want "Crazy Love" or "Blood Money" to be the last straw before Janette leaves? Do we want the Schankes' Hawaii trip in "Be My Valentine" to come before or after "Partners of the Month"? Do we want Nick and Natalie in "The Fix" to come before or after Nick and Natalie in "Be My Valentine"? These are rhetorical questions, of course, just illustrating that second season order matters to interpretation. Naturally, always pick whichever order amuses you most!)

Having Schanke's car break down — and then get hit! — naturally means to symbolize all Schanke's personal and career frustrations at this point, when all these difficulties are coming to a head. It's after both "Partners of the Month" and "Be My Valentine," in either order, so he's reconciled with Myra over whatever was so stressing them in this year — and what was that? wish we knew! — but perhaps the lifting of the weight of that personal family struggle has just made the weight of the other frustrations more clear.

"We met earlier."

What's up with Patrick Delahanty having met Captain Cohen earlier that evening, doubtless looking for Schanke at the precinct, and progressing to a mutual first-name basis — and flirting? — in that time? I think that this is supposed to prove that he's very, very charming (the script certainly tells us repeatedly that he's very charming, or at least that Schanke believes that his friend must be very charming), but... is he?

"I would have eaten glass to hear that."

"You guys are chasing rainbows and I'm splitting from Oz."

"The Code" is to Schanke, in so many ways, what "The Games Vampires Play" is to Nick. I'm not sure that's ever struck me so forcibly before! But I've been having a very tough year in my own workplace, and perhaps that led Schanke's frustrations to hit home with me in new ways.

I wish that Schanke weren't wrong in the episode. The story punishes him, in a way, making him make the wrong deduction and stick by it; making it on the word of a sleazeball that Schanke makes a break for what looks like a brighter future, and then he's back almost where he was, and apologizing to Nick to boot. I wish that the episode had let Schanke figure out the answer by observation and not by coincidence, and sooner than or in tandem with Nick and Natalie. I wish that Schanke had... won.

"Dogs go to the end."

It's heartbreaking what Schanke says with his dead friend's body warm in his arms: "Friends. Who needs 'em. Right, Nick?" The rules of '90s syndicated TV shortchange this experience for Schanke and for us.

I don't feel like I got all the pay-off I could have hoped for with this sudden appearance of Schanke's childhood best friend, first roommate, five years' partner (though not first partner, as that was Jim Anderson, per first-season's "Hunters" — aside that Patrick claims he taught Schanke everything Schanke knows, while Schanke credits Jim with being his model). Maybe it's just that Patrick died at the end of the episode and was never mentioned again, in the way of '90s syndicated shows, but...

"The Code" bristles with small call-outs to previous tidbits about Schanke, such as Schanke's conflicted relationship with his father (cf. "For I Have Sinned"), his need to get away from home (cf. "that wild bicentennial summer" from "Dark Knight"), and coming from a less than privileged background and rising on hard work and merit... well, Schanke rose on merit (this Delahanty guy lost his moral compass, if he ever really had one, and rose without merit by some point). Remember how "Hunters" ends, with Nick listing off heroic things Schanke has done as an officer (clearly having read Schanke's file at some point, if not just then for the first time). Schanke was firmly identified in canonical text as "a good cop" long before the phrase became a controversy and mockery in fandom for poor Tracy.

Yeah, although second season does have Nick show less respect for Schanke than in first season, and though it uses Schanke as more of a comic foil than as Everyman, and though "Curiouser & Curiouser" makes explicit that Nick feels guilty for not giving Schanke his due... I still feel that something is not quite right about the depth of the disconnect between Nick and Schanke in this episode. Is it because we're seeing it more from Schanke's perspective, and we usually see it from Nick's?

(In aired order, "Curiouser & Curiouser" comes immediately after "The Code," as if in cause and effect. In production order, "Curiouser & Curiouser" comes five episodes before "The Code." Oh, second season.)

Patrick Delahanty, whomever he was with Schanke in their pasts, looks initially like he has made it much further, higher than Schanke. It might have been good, for Schanke's sake, for the story to point out, on the other side, that Delahanty — perhaps? — has no Myra, no Jenny, as Schanke does (in addition to not having a functional moral compass), and that Nick and Cohen do respect Schanke, and Delahanty's "colleagues" don't respect him.

"Terrible likeness, really."

Oh, yeah, and there're flashbacks. Set in Arizona, a la MarrowComp and Schanke's friend's boasts of Scottsdale. With curare ("harmless if taken orally" in the real world, btw). And a horse! And the actor who will later reappear in "Hearts of Darkness" as the abusive, adulterous, hockey player; he does a really excellent job here as the bounty hunter, I think. Yet that has got the be the most passive Nick flashback ever, good gravy. Yikes. I suppose that the betrayal by a supposed friend (and rescue by a "real friend"?) are the parallels, past and present, and that's enough, but I nevertheless find the lack of contextualization somewhat unsatisfying.

I think that we could have won back precious seconds by cutting much of the model's overdose at the beginning, and then spent those seconds on fleshing out whatever Nick was doing/seeking in the flashback, and/or the aftermath of Schanke's friend's death.

What do you think?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This was a fun one for my first dive back into the show in a number of years, because I always did really love the Nick and Schanke partnership (as well as the Nick-Nat-Schanke triad). But yeah, I agree that the episode suffered somewhat for the episodic, reset-to-zero nature of '90s TV. I was noticing at the beginning how relaxed Nick and Schanke are around each other (compared to their sometimes more adversarial relationship earlier in the series) and how much affection there is in, especially, the way Nick relates to his partner -- and then it blew up very suddenly and completely, and never really got a resolution in the episode itself. I assume their bantering at the end is meant to suggest they're good again, but the underlying frustrations are never really dealt with, Schanke is the one who apologizes (I agree with you about wishing he'd managed to get a win instead), and we're left with the general takeaway from the episode that "friendship can't last". Or, at least, that seems to be what the characters are left with, at least in terms of the episode's actual text, if not its subtext.

.... even though the events of the episode underscore the opposite (and more optimistic) reading just as strongly, if not more so. In the flashback, Nick is betrayed by a brand-new "friend" but saved by an old one; Schanke's childhood friend turns out to be a bad guy, but his actual friendship for Schanke is genuine; Nick and Schanke are both obviously bothered by the rift between them, enough that both of them apologize at different points in the episode to try to repair the friendship. It's actually a very optimistic episode on a subtextual level, even if the characters themselves don't seem to realize it. Yet the episode still felt emotionally incomplete to me. Despite the continuity callbacks, it felt like the episode would have benefited from having the emotional plot drawn out over several episodes -- more time to set up Schanke's hitherto-unseen childhood friend, more time for his rift with Nick to develop naturally, and more time to repair it. It felt like Nick and Schanke should both have had more faith in each other, by this point in the series, than they seem to; the "argue-rift-repair" theme is pretty well established for them by now, and with this episode coming so late in the series, they just don't seem to have learned anything from past rides on that particular roller coaster.

On a different tangent, I love how well, for its era, this show delivers competent, professional female characters. Cohen was one of very few female bosses in genre TV at the time; Nat was one of a relative few female series regulars with scientific jobs, who was regularly seen doing her job and being respected for it in the show. (The "Amanda ... Patrick" thing did feel somewhat out of left field in this episode, though. It felt like it was leading up to something that never quite materialized.) There was not a whole lot of Natalie in this episode, comparatively, but I enjoyed the scenes she was in; we got to see professional Nat, and Nat attempting to troubleshoot Nick and Schanke (or, at least, tell Nick when he's being kind of a jerk to his partner).

I never could figure out if the running joke about Nick's heater being broken and Nick not being bothered by the cold is another vampire trait that his co-workers don't recognize (which has implications for fic!), or if a joke is just a joke ...

Nice choice of episode, though, and it was fun to revisit the show. It really has been a long time since I watched it. I'm glad you suggested it! :)

>"enough that both of them apologize at different points in the episode to try to repair the friendship."

That's a good point. The mere fact that there are two -- Nick's to Schanke and Schanke's to Nick -- resonates, and should inform the story structure.

Nick was prodded to his by Natalie; Schanke may or may not have been prodded to his by anything besides circumstances.

Schanke pre-emptively accepts Nick's apology even as Nick is still trying to articulate it; Nick accepts Schanke's apology by chalking up the incidents to "temporary insanity." Both of them seem to want to give apologies when they owe them, and both of them seem to want to shortcut accepting apologies when they're owned them.

The dying Patric Delahanty also apologizes to Schanke... sort of. Patrick says: "I'm sorry you believed in me."

Speaking of the dual apologies (and one bonus apology), "The Code" also offers three "codes" to compete for the titular slot:

Personal commitment:
The "dogs go to the end" code between Schanke and Delahanty.
Fronteir culture:
The code "of the West (one of them, anyway)" invoked in the flashbacks, in which Nick owes the man who saved his life.
Vampiric bonds:
That Lacroix will always know where to find Nick ("That's our code").

The "dogs go to the end" code between Schanke and Delahanty.

Momentary bit of cultural disconnect: when Delahanty told Nick that Schanke was "his dog", it wasn't until he started actually explaining the in-joke to Nick that I realized "dawg" (for a male buddy) actually wasn't slang yet in 1995! At least, none of the characters seem to recognize it as such; it's a reference to something totally different. For the most part I don't really find myself feeling that aware of the different time period of the show, but it's those little things that are a bit startling.

... also, speaking of time period, I JUST realized that in the FK fic I wrote for fkficfest years ago, I had made their lack of cell phones a plot point -- but in this episode, they have them! Oops! I guess that's a case of thinking the show was longer ago than it actually was.

Anyway, on the actual topic of the comment, I kinda feel like one of the reasons why the episode feels a bit scattered, thematically, is because it never really nailed down exactly what "Code" it was referring to -- code of the West, vampire code, code of friendship, Schanke and Delahanty's personal code. None of these are quite the same, thematically, and so the episode wanders from one to another, without a tight through-line between them.

:-) Nick and Schanke both have cell phones right from the start of the series (the phones get visibly smaller each season).

If I remember correctly, Schanke has to pull out the antenna of his cell phone before he uses it to call Myra in "Dying to Know You" (he uses a pay phone to call Myra in "For I Have Sinned"). And in some episode that's slipping my mind right now, Schanke says that he "can't believe" that Nick is letting Schanke use Nick's "car phone" to make long-distance calls because they're so expensive that way. :-)

I wonder whether and how the perception of the episode might change if it were titled "Codes" instead of "The Code."

If it were "Codes," the title would encompass all three codes, and it would also encompass things like jargon and in-jokes, communications under people's noses, things misunderstood without the keys to decode them...

>"I love how well, for its era, this show delivers competent, professional female characters."

Yes!!!

For all the "neck of the week" action and "damsel in distress" detours, FK's simple respect for its women characters -- recurring and guest, human and vampire, present and past -- was astonishing in its day, I think. Maybe even unrealistically so... idealistically so... for some of the cultures depicted?

Natalie and Grace represent Science, and the consulting science experts (e.g. the ballistics examiner who tries to hit on Schanke, the medical examiner who kills the man who murdered Natalie's goddaughter, the third-season computer technician) are almost all women, too. The exceptions are two male lab techs (one of whom proves to be a murderer) and two male computer technicians (also one of whom turns out to be a murderer).

The show (and therefore the Nick character) almost always (especially in first season!) assumed that women were competent, diligent and intelligent, and that if this was blocked or stymied, it was because of things in the way -- cultural things, psychological things, plot things on which the story could turn -- never because of inherent gender traits. Schanke's occasional forays into demeaning women are uniformly exposed as idiotic (if not potentially fatal), and otherwise only bad guys demean women (at least until the haystack and bar scenes in "My Boyfriend is a Vampire;" poor third season has many problems, include sad retrenchment on FK's fundamental quiet feminism).

I appreciate Saint Joan's role in FK in this context.

Are you sure that Close Call was filmed before The Code? I always assumed it was vice versa because of the sequence from The Code they cut into Close Call. And also with Schanke's broken car makes more sense in this order.

Nat's jacket:

I realize I do have to rewatch the episode after all in order to properly discuss details. But just curious, are you talking about Nat's jacket with the coloured hearts? I recall that that was also worn by a girl at the gym in "If looks could kill" (the episode with the baroness I mean, not sure if I got the right title).

The Code:

By the way, interesting that you've chosen this particular episode. I had planned to watch it at the next opportunity after I've just seen Joseph Ziegler live on stage. :)

>"Are you sure that Close Call was filmed before The Code?"

I am sure that in 1996 the fandom in general understood the production number of "Close Call" to be 222 (the 22nd episode of 2nd season), and I am looking right now at the North American DVD set to confirm that the DVDs, which go in production order, do indeed place "Close Call" as 22 (they do; it's on Disc 5).

I've never personally seen the "Close Call" script or production notes, so I have no independent evidence.

For myself, I've always advocated for privileging the aired order over the production order (e.g. "Francesca" was originally 321 in production order, after 320 Ashes to Ashes, because no one told the author of "Francesca" that they were killing off Vachon). Opinions and preferences differ, of course.

I imagine that production numbers are assigned when filming begins, not when editing ends, so there could easily be overlap in post-production.

The production order vs. aired order vs. DVD order thing is pretty tricky in a lot of fandoms! There's one episode in season five of White Collar that was, I think, filmed as the second or third of the season, and originally supposed to go there, but got moved to, I think, episode five or six -- and is obviously out of continuity there (in terms of the way the characters relate to each other; and also, the previous/following episodes are clearly supposed to happen without a break between them), but would've been out of continuity as 5x02 or 03, also, because the plot relies on some stuff that happens later! It's a very cute episode that literally doesn't feel in continuity ANYWHERE in the season it happens in.

In the end I guess all we can do is pick the order that works the best for us, and try to work with that. XD

Yes, I mean the jacket with the black background and the big white and pastel colored hearts. I remembered that Natalie wears it in the morgue in "Dying to Know You," as Denise tries to pick up psychic evidence from the murdered chauffeur's body; I don't remember seeing it in the gym in ILCK (I'll have to watch for it). Big sales for that jacket in FK's Toronto, evidently. ;-)

Yes, "If Looks Could Kill" is the English title of the episode with Baroness/Doctor Sofia Jurgen!

:-)

The thing *I* noticed about that jacket is that the extra who's wearing it is wearing it in two different scenes that are, unless I got things mixed up in retrospect, supposed to be taking place on two different nights. Maybe there was a sale on those jackets at some Toronto boutique. ;) (Both in-universe AND out of universe.)

I've decided to interpret that the jacket's successive night outings in this episode would be equivalent to the sweater that I keep over the back of my chair at work -- not part of my day's outfit, but liable to be worn over successive days' outfits when my workplace is chilly. :-)

Ok, managed to watch it tonight.

During the flashback it struck me, what exactly is Nick doing there? Apparently he was travelling. Which he can only do at night for obvious reasons. So why is he settling down at a campfire in the middle of the night instead of continuing on his way and find shelter before dawn? Is it for the company? Did he plan to move on once the other was asleep? Did he plan to have a midnight snack? I would say not, considering the timeline. Although the bulletin says he's wanted for murder. So apparently he hasn't given it up yet at this point. That brings about the question what happened before that caused all three of them to be openly wanted for murder. Someone must have been careless. Is it another plot by LC, as in the episode where Nick is hanged?

Just a few random thoughts.

That flashback is indeed astonishingly lacking in context! And without that context, it makes so little sense.

As you say, why was Nick there, and why was he calling out aloud to see whether others were there? Why does the bounty hunter not just let the other man kill Nick, when a dead Nick is what the bounty hunter is after? (Does the bounty hunter know Nick is a vampire, and know about curare? Or does he poison all his targets?)

The wanted poster shows all three of them, but says nothing that we can see about which one committed the murder and which are accomplices, or how the murder was committed ... if indeed there was a murder at all (with Lacroix and Janette around, I presume there was) and the wanted poster isn't a frame-up for some other plot.

In this flashback, Nick is all but absent in his presence, if that makes any sense. Where is he inside his head? I can only guess.

I'm just glad to read some interest thought on the episode!

The older I get, the more I appreciate Schanke as a character, and wish they'd done even more with him in the series.

Thank you for reading, and for joining in!

Yes, I know that I, at least, didn't appreciate Schanke's potential twenty years ago as I do today.

Observing how very human-centric "The Code" is, it occurs to me that no third-season episodes are remotely that human -- that fundamentally real-world, that traditionally police procedural. Removing Schanke (and not replacing him with a character who doesn't know about vampires) cut off a storytelling arm.

Another thing that struck me as odd is Schanke's spur-of-the moment quit. Is it really possible to quit a job from one day to another in Canada? What about contracts?

Schanke seems to come to this decision on his own without consulting with Myra and Jenny. Don't they have any say in the matter? Myra has established her cosmetics sale in Toronto. Certainly she won't be as delighted to start from scratch. And taking Jenny away from her friends and in the middle of the school year appears rather cruel.

Nick also resigns on the spur of the moment. In "Black Buddha, Part 1," Nick just hands his badge and gun to Reese and leaves.

>"Is it really possible to quit a job from one day to another in Canada?"

In the US, for most normal employment situations, yes, certainly, you can quit or be let go at any time; the exact laws vary state by state. I assume it is so in Canada as well.

(Can people not leave jobs in Germany without prior notice? Can you not lose your job without prior notice? I understand that France has laws about not firing people...?)

In the US, it's polite to give notice before quitting -- two weeks' notice is traditional, and is considered good form -- but nothing requires you to give notice, and many employers will hustle you out the door the moment you give notice, anyway. Similarly, employers aren't required to give you any notice or severance if they dispense with your services, whether through a layoff, a firing, or no reason given (although it is considered very good behavior for an employer to give some sort of severance or warning, it isn't required).

>"What about contracts?"

Schanke is a regular employee, not a contractor, so he would not be under an individual contract.

Do you mean, what about the police union's contract with the city? I imagine that the union would want the city to give offers' notice before laying them off or firing them, but would want officers to be able to resign whenever they want to, and that the city would prefer the other way around.

>(Can people not leave jobs in Germany without prior notice? Can you not lose your job without prior notice? I understand that France has laws about not firing people...?)<

In Germany, it's usual to give prior notice. In my case, it's a 3-month notice, both ways. This assures that the employer can find a replacement and that the employee can find another job. Actually I find it a horrible situation that people can get fired without prior notice. There are exceptions, of course. For instance when you start on a new job, you have a 6-month trial period during which you can quit anytime and also the employer can end the working relationship. But once you've passed that period and moved on to a contract of employment of indefinite duration, you're hopefully safe from such unpleasant surprises.

I would imagine that especially when you're employed by the city as Schanke is, it would be required to give prior notice. In Germany, you give notice, the city gives out a bulletin that a job is available, and in the ideal situation you could train the newbie before you leave.

>Schanke is a regular employee, not a contractor, so he would not be under an individual contract.<

But certainly the City of Toronto has standard contracts that their employees sign which state their salary, vacation time, and terms of quitting?

>"Schanke seems to come to this decision on his own without consulting with Myra and Jenny. Don't they have any say in the matter?"

That's an excellent point! Myra and Jenny are both mentioned by name in this episode, so it's not that the episode has forgotten that they exist.

Schanke seems to have gone rogue; he seems to be making this decision without consulting his family. We can imagine "what if?" he did or didn't ask Myra before doing this, but the extremely limited canonical evidence would point to not asking her; there just doesn't seem to have been any time between when he had this inspiration and when he executes it to have gone home and seen her -- though perhaps he phoned -- and then he goes directly from work to Delahanty's hotel suite.

Not consulting Myra would seem...

Hmmm.

I'm thinking of "Dance by the Light of the Moon," when Nick pretends to be falling into Anne Foley's web. Could Schanke be faking? Could Schanke be pretending to fall for Delahanty's line?

Hmmmm.

No, I suppose not, although that would have been really outstanding.

So not asking Myra could point either to a complete breakdown on Schanke's part, or perhaps to a subconscious safety valve -- imagining that he could "act out" in this way and that she would then make him put everything back the way it had been. Or perhaps he trusts that she would indeed love this adventure; perhaps this is the sort of thing that Myra would really love to do...?

Arriving late to the party (and without rewatching, either)....

"I don't feel like I got all the pay-off I could have hoped for with this sudden appearance of Schanke's childhood best friend, first roommate, five years' partner [...]. Maybe it's just that Patrick died at the end of the episode and was never mentioned again, in the way of '90s syndicated shows, but..."

I tend to see the opposite problem: not that Patrick's never mentioned again (for I can quite see that Schanke might not want to talk about his old friend's betrayal and Nick feel sensitive about bringing it up); but that there's no foreshadowing in previous episodes—perhaps just mentioning the names of two or three previous partners of Schanke's, or that he hardly ever heard from ol' Patrick nowadays, or something like that. You have the same problem in Season 3 where Tracy's parents' divorce and her mother's drinking problem are suddenly introduced out of nowhere.

Same cause, of course. In this respect, the show was already getting a little out of date at the time it was made (and seems even more so nowadays). Even series whose episodes are complete in themselves do usually have continuity in terms of characterization arcs. Perversely, Season 1 did that a bit: Schanke noticing the bottles in Nick's fridge in an earlier episode is brought up in "Feeding the Beast" when he asks Nick, "Are we talking about a drinking problem here?" However Seasons 2 and 3 were simply not filmed that way.

That, of course, is why it is possible for Season 2 to have been shot in one order and shown in another, yet still make overall sense.

While it is tempting to privilege aired order (if only since that's the way it's most familiar, if one saw it when it was originally shown), there are some points that make sense only if one takes into account the actual original order.

I'd like to quote something I wrote for the "Season 2" article in the wiki:

It seems originally to have been the intention to start broadcasting Season Two in late March, 1994. This can be seen from the following dates, which are fixed internally:

In the premiere of Season Two, “Killer Instinct”, the Internal Affairs detectives specifically question Nick about his whereabouts on March 5th and 17th, presumably the dates of the two murders.
The denouement of “Forward Into the Past” takes place on May 3rd. The date appears on the poster advertising the dance at the Ceilidh Arts Centre.
In the backstory to the main plot of “Unreality TV”, Natalie's god daughter, Cynthia, was abducted on May 12th: the date appears on the Missing Persons poster that was printed to aid in the search.
The events of the episode “Father's Day” obviously take place in the week leading up to the holiday, which is the third Sunday in June.

In the event, Season Two did not actually air until the autumn: "Killer Instinct" aired 17 September 1994. By that time, most of the episodes had already been filmed (as is obvious from the green foliage of trees in the background). Because of the delay, episodes were released markedly out of order to a degree not normally possible.

“Father's Day” was actually shown 29 October 1994, no doubt puzzling many viewers, since episodes relating to holidays tend to be shown in the week prior to the celebration. In fact, Season Two did have a seasonal episode, “Be My Valentine”. As a Valentine's Day episode, it was broadcast—as one might expect—in the week of the holiday, specifically on 11 February 1995. This made it the 15th episode of the season in airing order; but it was, in fact, one of the last episodes to be made that year, 23 out of 26. (Filming actually wrapped on 7 December 1994.)

What this means is that, for me at least, it makes more sense to take the production order for Season 2. After all, it is only because there was a delay in airing that such rampant reorganization was even possible. Most series that show episodes out of order do so because of a situation like that of "Francesca" and "Ashes to Ashes" (where aired order is the only one that makes sense).

Still, that's obviously going to be very much a personal choice—the more so since people's headcanon is bound to be influenced by the order in which they saw the episodes, especially if they taped them at the time and hence rewatched them in broadcast order for years. (The DVDs, after all, were so late to appear.)

Edited 2015-10-14 11:23 (UTC)

One of the things that I find intriguing in "The Code", especially in terms of the characterization of Schanke, is the way that he totally fails to recognize Delehanty's slick sleaziness, which is so obvious to Nick and Natalie (not to mention the viewer). In some ways, it not only makes Schanke look absurdly naïve for an experienced police officer, but also means that his considering (and accepting!) the offer of a job looks absurdly impulsive for a man with a family.

Then I thought of my other sister (not the one who is in fandom, who's a decent person and a good friend). Not to go into details; but the other sister broke it off with the family for twenty years; and, when she finally got back in touch, even though I was leery, I still was loathe to say anything that might lose me contact with someone of whom I had fond childhood memories. At least at first, till she backed me into a corner.

I think something like that is going on here with Schanke. His friendship with Delehanty goes back into their childhood. Given their personalities, I bet that Pat was the more impulsive, sharper talking, dominant character: the guy with the clever, interesting ideas for things they could do. And Donnie was the loyal sidekick: the one who saw the potential problems, tried to mitigate the damage, but still got carried away by the excitement and adventure of it all. (I can imagine the Schankes lamenting the bad influence Patrick was on him: "He never used to get into such trouble. But that Delehanty boy...!")

They both went into law enforcement; at one point they were partners. (You back up your partner, just as "dogs go to the wall".) Then Patrick quit his job and headed elsewhere and ... Donnie hardly heard from him for ages.

Naturally, when his old friend turned up, he'd be so delighted to see him that he'd gloss over (hardly even admit to himself that he recognized) the changes that had taken place in the interim. As for Patrick: he is in a crisis, and wants the utterly dependable back-up pal of boyhood; and, being the type of guy he is, he still knows just how to play his old friend to get what he wants.

Myra might have had quite a lot to say about it all, you know. (When she finally found out!) At that point, Patrick might have discovered that their old friendship had a new and powerful rival. Schanke has always loved his wife—and their daughter, too, don't forget.

Seriously, the biggest challenge to his immediately quitting and taking up Patrick's job offer could have been Myra's insisting that they stay in Toronto till the end of June so as not to disrupt Jenny's school year. And it's quite likely that by then the honeymoon would be over (so to speak), and he'd have seen the kind of man that Patrick had become.

Edited 2015-10-14 11:55 (UTC)

Another thing that struck me when I rewatched it was the scene in the interrogation (or break?) room with Schanke and Delahanty. Delahanty seems to have kept much more in touch with their former acquaintances although he moved away than Schanke who still lives in Toronto. (And that before the age of facebook). This points towards Schanke's solitary social position which might be a consequence of the nightshift.
Although we do know from other episodes that Schanke has buddies he hangs out with like his bowling friends.

BrightKnightie -- We met earlier

I assumed that Delahanty had met Cohen from at least before he left for Montreal and the force.

Sholio -- it felt like the episode would have benefited from having the emotional plot drawn out over several episodes . . .

90s TV hadn’t come to the idea of a story arc just yet. It would have been great to have several different arcs proceeding at different rates. But in the 90s, most of the story lines had to be completed within the hour (45 min) time frame.

BrightKnightie -- For all the "neck of the week" action and "damsel in distress" detours, FK's simple respect for its women characters

One of the things I liked very much about the third season is that for all the dissatisfaction with Tracy, she was not a dumb blonde, she was a capable and competent detective.

pj1228 -- Is it really possible to quit a job from one day to another

This happens in TV time, not real world time. :-)

greerwatson -- there's no foreshadowing in previous episodes.

The disadvantages of not having a “book”.

greerwatson -- of Schanke, is the way that he totally fails to recognize Delehanty's slick sleaziness

Or the way he steadfastly (except for one episode) fails to note anything about Nick that could be vampire related.

All things considered, I'm glad you prompted the discussion of this episode. It was a real pleasure to watch it again.

--WD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Let's chat about FK's "The Code" (just for fun!)

"It's the suit, Schank, the suit!"

"I hate winter!"

"I'll get your heater fixed; it's on me."

"We met earlier."

"I would have eaten glass to hear that."

"Dogs go to the end."

"Terrible likeness, really."

no subject

the dual apologies

the three codes

Re: the three codes

cell phones

Re: the three codes

FK's quiet feminism

Episode order

Re: Episode order

Re: Episode order

that jacket

Re: that jacket

Re: that jacket

Flashback

Re: Flashback

no subject

no subject

Schanke's spur-of-the-moment quit

Re: Schanke's spur-of-the-moment quit

Re: Schanke's spur-of-the-moment quit

Re: Schanke's spur-of-the-moment quit

no subject

no subject

Schanke and Delahanty

no subject