Bleeding Hearts (Season 1, Episode 5)
Premise: Toronto’s Major Crime Unit investigates the beating death of a young car thief found inside a car carrier, and finds a crime syndicate and a romance scam behind him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 5
- Starring
- DS Henry Graff (Aden Young), DS Frankie Bateman (Kathleen Munroe), Insp. Vivienne Holness (Karen Robinson), DCA Theo Forrester (K.C. Collins), Mark Yohannes (Araya Mengesha)
- Guest stars
- Chantel Riley as Anise Walker, Sabryn Rock as Connie Walker, Percy Anane-Dwumfour as Sam Falade, Blessing Adedijo as Zara Kwame, Emmanuel Kabongo as Detective Langston James
- Director
- Sudz Sutherland
- Writers
- Annmarie Morais
Summary
The Case
“Bleeding Hearts” opens with Sam Falade, who moved from Ghana a year earlier, promising his girlfriend, Zara Kwame, that their life is about to get better; at her cellphone store job, her boss, Anise Walker, argues with her sister, Connie, over money and their house. A new sports car owned by Engel Muller then vanishes from a restaurant valet, and a random inspection of a car carrier bound for Montreal turns up Sam inside it, beaten with rebar. Leos Marek, who runs the yard, says the security cameras have been broken for a year.
Muller, who has three assaults on his record, denies the killing but recognizes Sam from the vehicle registration office, where Sam worked. At the cramped rooming house he shared with Zara, the detectives find registration papers for all six cars on the carrier and forged immigration papers: “immigration brokers” rushed the couple into Canada and then put Sam to work paying off the debt. Leos suddenly confesses, but his story falls apart, and his remark about his daughters points the detectives to La Lame Rouge, a vicious syndicate. Detective Langston James of Guns and Gangs says the gang would not kill a top earner like Sam.
Phones hidden in the room show Sam also ran romance scams for the gang, and his $4,000 phone, tracked to the spot where he died, was first registered to Connie Walker. Zara says Anise bought it, supposedly as a birthday gift for Connie. Connie has sent the man she calls her fiancé about $100,000 and is trying to sell the family house behind Anise’s back to join him in Tunisia.
The Interrogation
Anise brings Connie in, and the sisters are split up. Anise has been covering Connie’s bills since she lost her job; Connie complains that Anise acts like her boss. Brought to identify the body, Connie insists the dead man is not the Sam she knows. The detectives then turn on Anise: she bought the phone knowing Connie would pass it on, tracked Sam to his real life and perhaps hired Zara to keep watch on him. Anise breaks, saying she followed Sam to the shipping yard to threaten him with the police and he brushed her off, and that she did the worst thing she could to free her sister.
The ending
Spoiler: Anise is led away while Connie, still sure Sam is waiting in Tunisia, begs to stay with her. The detectives predict the syndicate will hand Connie’s account to a new scammer by morning, and a phone chimes with a message.
Suspect’s fate: Anise Walker, arrested.
Why it stands out
- Emmanuel Kabongo appears as Detective Langston James of Guns and Gangs, a friend of Graff’s who owes him a favour, though Holness makes clear she will not tolerate another loan of his time.
- Dr. Lucy Da Silva does not appear; her autopsy report is offered to Connie at the identification instead.