True Patriot Love (Season 4, Episode 4)
Premise: When a young bartender whose father died in Afghanistan is shot in an alley, Bateman and Darcy uncover a friendly-fire cover-up that leads to a federal minister’s home.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 4
- Starring
- DS John Darcy (Luke Kirby), DS Frankie Bateman (Kathleen Munroe), Insp. Vivienne Holness (Karen Robinson), DCA Theo Forrester (K.C. Collins), Dr. Lucy Da Silva (Nicola Correia-Damude), Mark Yohannes (Araya Mengesha)
- Guest stars
- Sara Canning as Betty Reid, Jonas Chernick as Landon Reid, Brendan Jeffers as Tyler Fremes, Nadeem Umar-Khitab as Nazir Khan, John Bourgeois as Colonel Mark Grundland, Jane Moffat as Tina, Aurelia Miller as Violet Reid, Luke Barrington as Ethan
- Director
- Winnifred Jong
- Writers
- Rory Diamond
Summary
The Case
“True Patriot Love” begins with Veterans Affairs minister Betty Reid on television, as bartender Tyler Fremes defends her against his mocking friend Will. A bearded man is waved through an airport customs booth, and Tyler, who also volunteers at a soup kitchen, goes over to check on a lone diner there. Hours after a shift at the CC Lounge, Tyler is found shot from behind in an alley. His wallet and phone are gone, but he still wears a gold ring; the bullet came from an old Soviet Makarov PM pistol.
The ring carries a service number belonging to Tyler’s father, Stephen, a private who died in Afghanistan when Tyler was nine. Bar staff recall a fight with a soldier known as Sergeant Sketch; his abandoned jacket leads to Will Dolan, discharged for failing a drug test after Tyler reported his painkiller use. Will describes a bearded man with a smiling seahorse keychain waiting at Tyler’s home. That leads to the Seahorse motel, where the man has vanished, leaving a photo of himself with Stephen and Betty. A parking ticket puts Tyler on Betty’s street the day before he died. Betty names the man as Nazir Khan, an interpreter she says turned out to be Taliban and shot Stephen.
Customs officer Sandy says she was offered $10,000 to let a “cousin” in on a stolen passport, and Nazir is arrested in a raid. He stays silent until the unit learns he gave Tyler the ring, Stephen’s wedding band, at the soup kitchen. Nazir then says Betty’s radio failed, she missed the all clear and shot Stephen by mistake, and later blamed him; Tyler believed him and told Betty to confess or he would. Federal agents take Nazir. Betty admits the confrontation and has an alibi, though an old photo shows a Makarov PM in her holster. Suspicion moves to her husband and chief of staff, Landon, a lawyer who lost four elections.
The Interrogation
Unable to break Landon’s alibi, the detectives revisit 2008. They accuse Colonel Mark Grundland, Betty’s commander then, who drove out alone after her radio call, of ordering a cover-up. At the Reid home, they tell Betty they know she reported the truth and argue that the press conference she booked after Tyler’s visit was meant to come clean, until Landon killed Tyler and leaned on her through their daughter. When Landon tells Betty she will be prime minister, she answers that he would be the one giving orders, then says on the record that he killed Tyler with her missing gun and admitted it.
The ending
Spoiler: Landon is taken away protesting. A closing remark notes that Betty will lose her Medal of Valour just as she may have earned it.
Suspects’ fates: Nazir Khan, arrested; Landon Reid, arrested.
Why it stands out
- Betty’s televised speech cites 158 Canadians who never came home from Afghanistan, and the same number is engraved after the service number on Stephen’s ring.
- The cover-up dates to October 14, 2008, the date on the incident report of Private Stephen Fremes’s death, 18 years before the case.