Keen Eddie – Summer DVD Review – Black Like Me

photo: fox

Keen Eddie
Black Like Me

Season 1, Episode 7

Nicola – Associate Staff Writer
nicola@thetwocentscorp.com

Just another day at the office – Eddie and Pippin are investigating a robbery at a jewelry store.  One clerk is seriously injured, the other only saw the brand of the suitcase the robbers put the jewels in.  Doesn’t look like such an extraordinary case, so Eddie heads back to Scotland Yard for lunch.  In the cafeteria, Eddie inadvertently insults all the black people in the queue, including Nathaniel.  What a dirty racist, tsk tsk.

Fiona is less than supporting when he tells her about what happened.  She teases him and he taunts her right back, undermining her relationship with Nigel. Then it’s off to work again.  They have a suspect in the robbery – Charlie White.  Eddie and Pippin head in to interview him.  He’s a robber who’s done time for the same type of crime three times – not the brightest man you’ll ever meet.  But they have to let him go when Pippin receives word that someone else has confessed to the crime.

The new suspect is Georgie Pendergast, a black man in his thirties.  Eddie and Pippin go in to interview him.  He confirms that he did it and they go to his apartment to search it.  They find the suitcase the clerk recognized.  There’s a light shining into the apartment from another apartment across the way.  Eddie looks out the window and sees a woman shining a mirror at them, who quickly heads back inside.  A bit suspicious, no?

Doing a little slick detective work, Eddie determines that this girl is Julie Mordant, convicted of robbery and girlfriend of Charlie White.  Another interesting factoid about this case: Georgie bought the briefcase the day after the robbery.  Eddie connects all the dots and wants to know why Georgie is taking responsibility for something Julie’s boyfriend did.  And, of course, Georgie says he did it for love.  He says he loves Julie and she loves him, not Charlie.  He says that if Charlie goes away, he’ll implicate Julie in the robbery and she’ll go away for it to even though she didn’t do anything, and she’ll do a lot of time because of her past convictions.  If Georgie goes away he won’t do much time because he has no record.  He thinks they’ll be together after he gets out of jail.  Eddie thinks he’s a fool and lets him go.

Then he gets a visit from Julie, who tells him that Georgie is indeed the man that he wants.  She says that they were friends, but she doesn’t feel the same way about him he feels about her.  She says he asked her to marry him and proposed with a stolen ring.

Eddie goes to see Georgie to tell him what Julie says.  Georgie says that he told Julie to tell the cops that, and Eddie thinks he’s crazy.  He says he’s going to find a way to put Charlie away and allow Georgie and Julie to go free, if she truly loves him.  Georgie points Eddie in the direction of a key.

On a stakeout, Eddie and Pippin watch Julie say goodbye to Charlie.  Julie goes to Georgie’s apartment and it’s starting to look like she’s trying to set Georgie up.  She’s got a bag with the gun used in the robbery.  But he says he believes her and they seem to make up.  When she’s in the bathroom, he hides the gun in his briefcase.

Eddie and Pippin head after Charlie to see if they can figure out what he’s up to.  They tell Charlie that he’s being played by his girlfriend and try to make him a deal.  He doesn’t take it, but he’s obviously shaken.

Later, Georgie runs out to the police van while Julie is in the shower and has a copy of the key to where the jewelry is hidden made.  When Julie comes out of the shower she finds Charlie instead of Georgie, who says that the cops are onto them and they have to move.  He isn’t very nice to her.  He goes to check on the key and luckily finds it there.

Julie calls Eddie and tells him that she saw a gun and a jacket with blood on them at Georgie’s apartment.  She and Charlie head for the airport.  Georgie calls her when she’s there and she tells him she’s on the way to his place.  Charlie unlocks the locker that should contain the jewelry.  Unfortunately, the cops are standing just a little ways away, along with Georgie, and they swoop in to arrest them.  It looks like Georgie might have been a bit naive after all.

While Georgie’s relationship might have come to disappointment, Fiona and Nigel’s is still going strong.  I love that they’re still together, that they’ve never really wavered despite the added complication that Eddie brings.  It’s obvious that Eddie and Fiona have feelings for each other, but they don’t have to jeopardize Fiona and Nigel.  Perhaps if the show had continued on for longer than it did we would have seen more concrete displays of affection as far as Eddie and Fiona go, but for now it’s nice to just have it on the back burner.