"SPECIAL DELIVERY" Out of Touch May 1, 1998

by
Gordon Hom

The McGuffin (the term coined by director Alfred Hitchcock), that thing that everybody wants, especially the Bad Guys in "Special Delivery" are a pair of currency plates for the printing of the front and the back of a hundred dollar bill. This storyline is borrowed from the Michael Douglas 1989 film BLACK RAIN, in which Asian gangsters slice and dice each other up for the valuable plates. This is, in 1998, a very much outdated storyline since the modus operandi for counterfeiting has changed drastically due to technology. The most preferred way of counterfeiting these days is color laserprinting due to the advances made in copiers. That's what prompted the US Treasury to re-design the one hundred dollar bill - it's just gotten too easy to copy a bill, digitize the monetary image and clean up the finer details. The Treasury plans an eventual updating of all US currency to defeat the improved technology. Shame on the NASH BRIDGES writers for not keep abreast of these latest developments, especially here in San Francisco Bay area, home of Silicon Valley and multimedia development.

This episode is further devoid of social reality (NASH BRIDGES is a police show after all) by demonstrating a provinciality towards the different strains of Asian gangsters. In that movie BLACK RAIN, you got Japanese Yakuza gangsters (those are the ones with missing pinkies and dragon tattoos). In "Special Delivery," we have the feared Triad from Hong Kong with roots in China. An informant Tony B. laughs at the notion of "Canadian Asians." Is this the multicultural NASH BRIDGES we're used to? People living in Seattle know there is one of the larger Chinatowns in North America located in Vancouver just hours across the border. This episode of NASH BRIDGES just lacks a worldliness that is present in San Francisco. Then there's the site of the final shoot-out, an evil gambling den (safely described as the Quon Ho Mahjong Parlor, ah - but we know what goes on there...) which is full of smoking Asians. Nash and company are staked out here, really inconspicuous as the only Caucasions, aside from Tony B., in the joint. And oh my God, to think that mobster that tried to rape Lynnette...

The dangerous Evan/Cassidy illicit relationship continues, as Evan is placed inside Lisa's house to guard Lynnette. With Cassidy also living there you know it's trouble as Cassidy leads Evan upstairs to, we assume, her bedroom. Evan is discovered buckling up his pants, with hickey on neck, and lipstick smeared all over his face by an astute Harvey. Cassidy and Evan are both gleefully defiant as they run up the stairs, like the young lovers in TITANIC, a film they both saw in a previous episode. Maybe they were viewing Cassidy's stamp collection - wait 'til Nash finds out...

And finally, to top off an episode completely in la-la land, is the murder that Joe's father discovers even legal? An illegal entry into the apartment, an illegal search and seizure which brings discovery of incriminating evidence is not admissible in court. These are the fruits of a poisoned tree - some criminal lawyer out there please give us some expert feedback...

For more, see synopsis for Episode 52

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