Up to Snuff (Season 3, Episode 5)
Premise: A real snuff film screened at a Toronto festival sends Graff and Bateman after a hired killer and into a bitter custody fight.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 5
- Starring
- DS Henry Graff (Aden Young), DS Frankie Bateman (Kathleen Munroe), Insp. Vivienne Holness (Karen Robinson), Mark Yohannes (Araya Mengesha), Dr. Lucy Da Silva (Nicola Correia-Damude)
- Guest stars
- Jeremy Walmsley as David Barnes, Katy Breier as Nell Barnes, Al Mukadam as Sebastian Mercer, Wayne Best as Nell’s Father, Don McKellar as Lester Cake
- Director
- John Fawcett
- Writers
- Rory Diamond & Adriana Maggs
Summary
The Case
“Up to Snuff” opens at a playground, where six-year-old Logan Barnes falls and hurts his arm as his father, David, tells him to come down, with his mother, Nell, close by. Later an anonymous DVD dropped at the Cinephile festival shows a masked man beating a captive and lowering him into a barrel of acid. Host Lester Cake calls in Graff, an old acquaintance, and insists the footage is genuine. A school announcement on the soundtrack leads to a garage near a school with an empty tripod, a new rug and the barrel, and the acid is traced to a break-in at Atkinson Steel.
Night worker Javier admits he replaced the broken lock and names a fired employee, Ryan Gray, whose mother, Shirley, recognizes the masked man’s balaclava as one she knitted and recalls a stack of cash, roughly $40,000, in his dresser. A parking note on her van points to a North York strip mall, where furniture-store video shows new employee David Barnes helping Ryan carry a rug out the back and never returning; his bracelet matches the victim’s. Nell, who runs a skincare company, says David had moved out. Family friend Sebastian Mercer claims a drunk David broke Logan’s arm, and Nell’s lawyer confirms she was seeking sole custody and a restraining order.
The Interrogation
Nell’s father says Logan first told him he simply fell, that a high-chair accident Nell blames on David was his own mistake, and that Nell has a job offer in Chicago; he had quietly sought a lawyer to help David. Sebastian, a venture capitalist with Chicago ties, admits he and Nell are a couple planning to move there and that he paid Ryan, an old high school friend, $40,000, though only, he claims, to frighten David. Ryan has since been extorting him with the video.
Ryan’s burner phone pings at Nell’s house, and Logan is gone; street video shows him hugging the man who carries him off. The detectives realize the man in the barrel was Ryan: David overpowered his attacker, swapped clothes, edited the film to fake his own death and has now taken his son. Guessing he is headed for the Arctic that Logan loves, police turn the search north and find David with a rifle at a cliff edge. He sends Logan to an officer, then talks of jumping and says he never meant to kill. Graff and Bateman tell him Nell’s father was on his side and that Logan still needs him, and he gives himself up.
The ending
Spoiler: Reunited with his mother, Logan tells her his new name is Thomas. The detectives agree to pursue any evidence against Nell, knowing it could leave the boy with both parents in jail.
Suspects’ fates: David Barnes, arrested; Ryan Gray, killed by someone else; Sebastian Mercer, other or unclear.
Why it stands out
- K.C. Collins does not appear, making this the first episode of the season without Theo Forrester.
- Don McKellar guest stars as Lester Cake, host of the Cinephile festival, who greets Graff by his first name.