John walks into The Sea (Digger's club). He says to himself, "Tommy, Tommy, Thomas, Thomas." Digger says that he thought John's name was John. John says that he thought so too, until this. He holds up a piece of glass and asks for a chemical that I'm not even going to attempt to spell out. Digger jokes that he carries that chemical with him everywhere. John looks over the bar and spots "the best thing," a bottle of alcohol. Annoying Waitress comes up and asks who Tommy is. John recaps the last scene of the episode, where the woman called out to him using the name Tommy. Annoying Waitress asks who that woman was, and John says that he's about to find out. John says that the woman is the key to it all, and that he saw her in color. Digger and the waitress (does she have a name, or what?) have no clue what John is talking about, like, he should either fill them in or keep it a secret, but this is just kind of stupid. John says that the woman knew him from before. The waitress asks, "Before what?" John flashes back to the opening scenes of the episode, for those of you who missed it. So now we're all caught up. John says that by the time he got to the ferry terminal, the boat was empty. John wonders if the woman was his wife. He used "a nail file and a toilet plunger to cut a piece of the window she touched." He's like MacGyver with selective amnesia. Digger asks John who he is. John says that the answer is in the fingerprints that showed up after he poured alcohol on the glass. Couldn't he just tell them his background? Why is it a secret? I don't know.
Somewhere in Seattle-couver (because it's supposed to be Seattle, but you know it's filmed in Vancouver), a middle-aged man walks out of his house and dives into his swimming pool. You know he's fairly rich because it's an Osbourne-style pool, made to look like a pond. Except that the pool is filled with blood. The guy screams. Cut to the guy explaining to some cops, including Frank, what happened. His wife wonders what animal the blood came from. Cut to an investigator telling Frank that it's human blood. Frank thinks it must have come from a bunch of people, due to the amount, but the tech says that the blood was diluted. Frank hopes for a blood type or some DNA, but the tech says it's not possible because of the chemicals in the pool. I don’t know. If they give a scientific answer, I just accept it at face value and hope someone on the forums will tell me if it's not plausible. I was an English major, people! Frank tells another officer that the wife and daughter took a swim just before bed last night and the water was clear, which leaves eight hours for the perp to dump the blood. The officer tells Frank about the state-of-the-art security system in the house and grounds. Frank asks if the pool man has the access code. The officer says no, and adds that the security company confirms that the system was on all night. Frank says he'll want to talk to the security company. He moves on to talk to another tech, who says that he ran a complete diagnostic and there's no blood in the water pipes. The tech leaves. Frank says, "I've got a pool full of blood and a dozen explanations for how it didn't get there." Who is he talking to right now?
Back at the police station, Frank's boss asks what the M.O. is on Pickford, the pool owner. Shouldn't she be asking what the motivation for the crime is, not the M.O.? Anyway, the boss thinks Pickford must be "protecting something special" to have such an elaborate security system. Frank tells her that Pickford claims he was just protecting his wife and daughter. Pickford and his brother own an import/export business, and Pickford is a deacon at his church and sits on some charity boards. The boss tells Frank to run a list of Pickford's clients and see who might be holding a grudge. They reach the lab, and the boss asks a tech how things are going. The tech says something scientific, and then translates that the victim was killed within the last twenty-four hours. Frank points out that they have the blood, but not the body.
John walks into the police station, and Frank heaves a sigh. John tells Frank the missing answers to his crossword puzzle, like that wouldn't be annoying. John says that he has a fingerprint and he wants Frank to run it through the computer. Frank says that he can't use city resources on a whim. Oh, come on. Sure he can! John tells Frank that it could be his wife. Frank picks up a folder from his desk and says, "A certain John Doe has reported himself missing in fifty precincts across the country in the last month." So John hasn't given Frank his back story either? I still don't understand why it's a secret. John says that he'll explain some other time. Frank says that he has a riddle that needs solving, and offers up "a little tit-for-tat," which has to be the dirtiest-sounding expression that's not actually dirty.
Frank leads John into the crime scene. Frank starts explaining the case, but John takes off on his own. John touches the water (which appears gray to him) as Frank explains that it's fresh blood. John sniffs his hand and keeps walking. He spots a disaffected (and I know this due to the many tiny braids in her hair) teenaged girl smoking at the edge of the yard. She gets up to walk away. John spots a scar on her arm and notes that it's the "eye of Horus." She says disdainfully that it's "just some Goth symbol." Are there really still Goths these days? John notes that the symbol was also on the cover of a Sisters of Mercy album. The girl keeps trying to walk away. John asks if she did it to herself on purpose. The girl asks if he's "some kind of private dick, or what?" John answers, "Or what," and asks if she has any theories on what happened. The girl says that it was either "A, any human being who comes in contact with my dad-hole or B, that drug-crazy screwed-up daughter of his, or C, Colonel Mustard." I think I like Disaffected Teen a lot better than Annoying Waitress. I wish she were a regular.
John inspects the security system and starts listing off the specs to Frank, like Frank cares. Frank says as much, stating that nothing John said explains how the blood got in the pool, because it's not like it just fell from the sky. John spots a garden hose and takes off. He grabs some antifreeze and starts climbing a trellis to the roof. Frank is all nervous about John's anti-establishment ways. John kneels on top of the roof and looks around. Cut to a hose that goes into the pool. The camera follows it back to the source -- a gutter. Frank realizes that John is demonstrating how the perp poured the blood from the roof, into a hose, through the gutters and into the pool. Thus, no extra blood was spilled, and the perp didn't set off the security system because he was on the roof. John says that the perp was trying to send a message, as he walks outside the yard, looking for how the perp got onto the roof. Frank points out a footprint in the dirt. John calculates that the ladder indentations reveal that the perp weighed 130 or 140, so it must have been a woman. Well, that's kind of sexist. Frank notes that it could have been "a slight man, more than likely." John traces the route the perp must have taken. He finds a leaf on top of the fence, and asks Frank what color it is. Frank tells him, and John figures out that it's "marsh bellflower," which "blooms in moist meadows and flat river plains." Frank lists off some nearby locations that fit the bill, including "Sedro-Woolley." Pickford walks out and hears the tail end of this conversation, and comments that his brother has a ranch in Sedro-Woolley. D'oh!
Frank and John pull up to the brother's ranch just as a SWAT team is declaring the house clear, and the leader says that there's no sign of the brother anywhere. Frank spots the barn. Cut to the SWAT team plus Frank and John entering the barn. They find a corpse hanging by the feet from the ceiling, with a small puddle of blood underneath. I think I had a nightmare after watching that scene, although it was very artfully done. Maybe because it was very artfully done.
John studies the corpse, which is now lying on a gurney. He points out some evidence that a professional embalmed the body. Frank's boss shows up and calls John "McGruff, the crime-fighting dog." She pulls Frank aside and asks why a civilian is tramping all over the crime scene and handling the corpse without gloves. Before Frank can offer up an excuse, she asks if he thinks the situation "would fly upstairs for one minute." She tells John that his services are no longer needed. John tells her that the guy was alive while he was being embalmed, and explains the evidence that points to that. The boss tosses John into the back of a cop car and tells the driver to get John out of there. John leans out the window and reminds Frank of their deal, like, couldn't he use a little more discretion in front of the boss?
John hangs some signs around town that say, "I'm missing," and include a mug shot. See, but I thought his past was supposed to be a secret, since he hasn't bothered to explain it to Digger or Frank. And yet he's hanging signs all over Seattle-couver. John notices some wedding rings in a jewelry store window, and flashes back to the woman who may or may not be his wife. If she were his wife, don't you think she'd be looking for him a little harder? Especially after she spotted him on the pier. If I were him, I'd go back there hoping that she would be searching for him. Anyway. John walks into the jewelry store and says that he's wondering about his wedding ring. The saleslady thinks that he's a "future groom" hoping that his ring isn't too tight. She asks his ring size. John isn't sure, but he does know that fingernails grow faster than toenails. Okay, at that point, if I were the saleslady, I would call the cops, because what a bizarre thing to say. She hands John a band, and he tries it on. She tells him that he has "husband" written all over him. John starts saying, "Husband, husband, husband." Okay, now I would definitely call the cops. What a loony-tune. The saleslady says that the band is on sale, but John says that the word "husband" doesn't ring a bell, and he wants more time to think about it. He tries to get the band off, but it won't move. You'd think someone with all of the knowledge in the world would know that he should relax his hand, instead of doing what most people do, which is to stick their finger straight out and pull on it. Even I know that. The saleslady thinks the ring is trying to tell him something, and leaves to get some lotion. John struggles with the ring some more, and then pulls some cash out of his wallet and drops it on the counter; then he leaves. How did he know how much it cost?
A piano version of "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who plays as John sketches a picture of his mystery woman. John voice-overs something about how no one knows who he is. Cut to John at the club, playing the Who song on the piano. Frank's boss comes in and watches him. I think I liked Giles's version of this song better. John finishes his song and spots Frank's boss. He sits to her at the bar, as she compliments him on his range. John says that he's a jack of all trades, and the boss says that he has one trade too many. John starts spouting off some facts about peanuts. Man, he would be really annoying to hang out with. John further ruins the vibe by saying that the boss must have a hard time being a woman in a man's world, and that it must be even more difficult for her since people whisper about nepotism. See, I was right when I said that the picture she was looking at in the last episode was her dad. The boss gets pissed and says that she ran his Social Security number, and she knows that he's not a coal miner from Kentucky. She warns him against playing games with the police. John denies that he is. The boss spots his scar and asks if it's a chain-gang tattoo. John claims that it's a birthmark. The boss leaves. They so want each other. Mark my words. They will be kissing by February sweeps. If the show lasts that long.
Annoying Waitress lets herself into John's place, only to find that he has stacked all of his furniture against the walls in the entryway. She examines a lamp that she thinks cost more than her entire apartment (and I'm sure Gustave would know if that's true), and asks John how he got so much money. Well, there's a polite question. John says that he made a timely investment in the Zagreb Croatian Exchange, but that he's getting rid of all of his stuff because it's not Tommy. John tells Annoying Waitress that the mystery woman was wearing a silk scarf, which statistics suggest would mean she's wealthy. However, the lotion he found in her fingerprints was a drugstore variety, which would suggest the opposite. Further, she's a brunette, whom statistics show are more conservative than blondes. Um, we are? Whatever. Anyway, John thinks that his furniture is "too ostentatious" for the mystery woman, and for Tommy. Annoying Waitress walks into the apartment and sees that John has written all over the walls. Cra-zy! John runs through a bunch of statistics rapidly, and Annoying Waitress asks what meth lab he ran into last night. John says with a great deal of enthusiasm that he's getting closer to finding out the truth. Annoying Waitress tells him not to come any closer to her, and asks what's wrong with him. John asks if she wants to know the truth. Finally! He tells her, "The truth is, I don't know who I am. I'm nobody." She thinks that he means he's adopted, because she is too. John doesn't bother correcting her. She assumes he thinks that the mystery woman is related to his birth family. She's really dumb. Why would a member of his birth family, who presumably hasn't seen him since he was born (if even then) recognize him now?
They are interrupted when Frank walks in. Yay! I finally find out that Annoying Waitress is named Karen. She's still annoying, but at least it's less to type. She calls Frank "5-0" and asks for the men's opinion on two paintings. Of course, they each pick a different one. Karen leaves. Frank tells John that he didn't get a match on the fingerprint. John sinks down into a chair. John says that "the other end of the finger must really mean something," and asks John about his back story. John says, "What back story?" Why is it a secret again? Oh, right. It's totally not. I mean, he clearly doesn't care if people think he's crazy, as we just witnessed. And he's not shy. And he's been putting up those signs all over town. I don't know. Anyway, Frank says that the bad guys are still out there. John asks, "What about Lieutenant Bosslady?" See, he doesn't know her name either!
Frank says that he'll probably regret it, but he's in this line of work to make a difference, and so is his boss, so she'll come around. He hands John a folder. Frank says that John was right about the embalming, and adds that the killer used poison to paralyze the victim first by putting it in his breakfast cereal. The paralysis caused the victim's lungs to fill with fluid, and he drowned. John says that the killer staked out the victim. Frank says that there are no fibers or other evidence at the scene. John looks at some crime scene photos and says that the hair on the body is flattened, which indicates that the body was washed after death. Frank thinks the killer just wanted to eliminate fingerprints. He adds that they found traces of a rare herb, pinang, on the body. John says that it was found on the fingertips, and Frank confirms it. John says that the killer was concerned for the soul of his victim, because in Buddhist burial rites, the body is cleansed and pinang is placed between the hands of the corpse to prepare the soul for its afterlife journey. Frank looks through the report and finds a list of countries with which Pickford's company did business. One is Vietnam, which John adds is more than three-quarters Buddhist, and there are many Vietnamese immigrants in town. Frank wonders how many funeral parlors there could be in Little Saigon, and John answers, "Four." See, sometimes John would be annoying, but sometimes he would be useful. Kind of like the internet. But you can't turn him off, like you can with your computer.
John and Frank travel to a funeral parlor in Little Saigon. The owner tells John (in Vietnamese) that Nguyen, their embalmer, called in sick. John asks for an address for Nguyen, and the owner gives it out. Cut to John and Frank arriving at Nguyen's apartment. John knocks, but no one answers. John inspects the lock and then asks Frank for a hairpin and some scissors. Frank raises a foot and kicks in the door, then says that he can't believe John just did that. Inside, they find a bunch of herbs hanging from the ceiling, drying. John starts naming them all. Frank finds a picture of Nguyen and a little girl in a frame on top of the fridge. Who puts pictures on top of their fridge? Just then, Nguyen walks in his back door. When he sees the men in his kitchen, he flees. John and Frank chase him outside and down the street, where they lose him in the crowd. John focuses in on an ATM, which will be important in a minute.
My stupid FOX affiliate cut off the beginning of the scene, but I'm going to assume that John and Frank are working with a bank or the city whoever owns the security cameras around. A woman helps them to find Nguyen in various footage taken from around the city. They figure out that he was headed for the docks. Frank deduces that Nguyen was going to Pickford's company. John pulls up the address from his brain, and they take off.
Disaffected Teen Pickford arrives at her father's company. When she enters the office, a fuse starts burning. Elsewhere, cop cars are screaming down the highway. Mr. Pickford shows up at the office as well. Disaffected Teen complains about having to work for her father, and then the wall erupts in flames. Disaffected Teen runs out. The cop cars pull up. Pickford reaches for a fire extinguisher. John runs into the office and sees that the extinguisher is a Class B, so he wrestles it away from Pickford and they both run outside.
Fade in on Pickford telling John outside that he could have put out the fire himself. A lab tech shows John a readout indicating that the extinguisher's contents are poisonous. Pickford asks how John could have known that. John says that the building code requires Pickford's office building to have a Class A extinguisher. I totally didn't get this on first viewing, because I'm dumb. Basically, Nguyen gave Pickford a fake extinguisher filled with poison, and then started a fire to give Pickford a reason to use it. John knew it was fake because it was the wrong class. Which I'm sure you totally got, but I didn't. Lt. Bosslady walks up. A uniform hands over a Class A extinguisher that he found in a dumpster in the alley. Lt. Bosslady looks at John like he's good enough to eat. She tells Pickford that they have an APB out on Nguyen, but in the meantime, they want to put Pickford in protective custody in a safe house. Mrs. Pickford asks about her and Disaffected Teen. Frank says that they will be safest if they are far away from Pickford. Mrs. Pickford says that they can stay with her mother in Issaquah, and then thanks John for saving her family. Lt. Bosslady tells John to imagine the consequences if his hunch was off. Then she admits that she's glad he had the hunch, and walks off.
John sees Disaffected Teen standing alone by the water. He walks up and says, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." I think he could be arrested for that, since she's underage. Oh, he was talking about his scar. He shows her his mystery mark and asks if she has any ideas what it is. She doesn't answer. John says that she and her family are going through a tough spot. She says he doesn't know the half of it. John asks what she means. She says that they are freaks, and wonders why she can't have a normal family. John knows what she means. Disaffected Teen asks if he's married, and then looks at his wedding band. John says that his family is "a little nondescript." Disaffected Teen says that her parents fight all the time, and her father has "a whole walk-in closet full of skeletons." John asks what she means. She says that people are always pissed at him and hanging around. Pickford comes over and barks at his daughter that they have to go. She stands up to leave, but tells John that she thinks his mark is some kind of astrological sign. She's actually not a bad actress.
John walks into his loft and finds Karen there, crying. She says that she lost her keys and got locked out of her apartment, so he invites her in. He asks if she's okay. She doesn't answer at first, but then says that she has a lot of credit card debt, a cat to support, her rent is due, and she just got fired. John is surprised that Digger fired her. Karen admits that she forgot to seal up the lobster tank. But they didn't die. So who cares? I think he fired her because she's annoying. Oh, and also she's only eighteen, so maybe she's not allowed to serve liquor? John says he's sorry. Karen gets all excited and says that she has an idea: John should hire her as his assistant. Oh my God, she is so annoying. She's that kind of annoying where she thinks she's really cute, and you just want to slap her. John tells her that he's "a bit of a loner and not too good with attachments." Her face falls. After a minute, she says that based on what he's done to his apartment because of a mystery woman, he seems to be looking for attachments. Well, if that's true, he just thinks you're annoying and doesn't want to work with you every day. Take the hint! Karen leaves.
John searches the internet for information about the ferry schedule. Shouldn't he just know that information? He knows the contents of the phone book, but not this? I don't understand the breadth of his knowledge. John voice-overs a bunch of questions about himself.
In the bar, Digger calls John "Sherlock Holmes" and pours him a shot. Digger toasts, "May all your ups and downs be under the sheets." Can I just tell you that I was at a wedding where that was the best man's toast? I thought it was kind of inappropriate. Anyway. John starts spouting off statistics about marriage licenses. Digger reveals that he's been married many times. John asks how it feels. Digger says, "You ever had a root canal? Ever watched a Maui sunset three Mai Tais in? Feels like a little of both. Why? Some filly trying to take you out of the race?" John wonders if she already did.
John sits at home and works on the case. He wonders why Pickford's brother's death involved a simulated drowning. John searches the internet for information on import/export routes. He pulls up a list of manifests for Pickford's company, and realizes that one of the containers is missing.
John tells Frank and Lt. Bosslady that the missing container was accounted for in Pickford's outgoing cargo inventory, but it never came in. Lt. Bosslady asks what happened to it. John says that it was loaded for discharge but never made it to shore. Frank says that it's "a regular Scooby Doo." Lt. Bosslady says that the only place to hide it is in the water. Cut to a crane placing the missing container on the dock. A cop walks up and opens the door, and water floods out. Along with a bunch of corpses. Eesh. John, Frank, and Lt. Bosslady are stunned. Inside the container are even more corpses, all of whom appear to be Vietnamese.
The cops execute a search warrant on Nguyen's home. Frank tells Lt. Bosslady that Immigration is trying to find families of the deceased in Vietnam, and Forensics is trying to ID the victims. Frank asks the room at large what Nguyen is hiding. Lt. Bosslady wonders how long the Pickfords were smuggling immigrants on the side, and if Nguyen was the first to find out. Frank says that the Pickfords are cowards for drowning the immigrants instead of facing charges. Lt. Bosslady wonders why Nguyen didn't go to the police. John points out that Nguyen probably didn't have great experiences with the Vietnamese cops, and Frank adds that Nguyen and the other immigrants were breaking laws by entering the country, so they wouldn't want to alert the police to their presence. Lt. Bosslady says that Pickford is in their safe house, so it should be easy enough to bring him in for questioning. John spots a phone book on the table, and opens it to find a bunch of surveillance type photos of Pickford's wife and daughter. Frank picks up a slip of paper and hands it to Lt. Bosslady, who realizes that it's the address of their safe house. She tells Frank to call there and then go out there. John starts to follow them, but Lt. Bosslady stops him. She knows he helped, but he can't be involved anymore. John looks at the photo of Nguyen and the little girl, then looks at the photo of Mrs. Pickford and Disaffected Teen. He looks in the phone book and sees that the word Issaquah is circled. He flashes back to Mrs. Pickford saying that she was going to stay in Issaquah.
John takes off in his car, but gets stuck in traffic. He stands up and hotwires a nearby motorcycle. After strapping on a helmet, he takes off, weaving in and out of traffic.
Nguyen fills a syringe with a clear liquid and then squirts a few drops into a canister. John is still driving really fast. Frank and Lt. Bosslady are also driving fast. Nguyen fits the canister into a gun. John goes off-road on the motorcycle and nearly takes out a bunch of pedestrians. Frank and Lt. Bosslady drive fast. At the safe house, a cop informs Frank that Pickford is present and accounted for. Pickford sits by a large window and watches sports on TV. He looks up when he hears the sirens outside. Nguyen sneaks up to a fence and points his gun towards…Disaffected Teen. This was kind of like the end of Silence of the Lambs when the cops go to the wrong house and Jodie Foster goes to the right one. Before Nguyen can shoot the poison dart, John yells at him in Vietnamese. Nguyen turns and points the gun at John, who says he knows what happened to Nguyen's daughter and brother. Nguyen starts crying and says that Pickford has to pay. John tells him, "Not like this." Nguyen swings around as if to shoot Disaffected Teen (who is wearing headphones, which is why she didn't hear the whole altercation). John knocks him down, and Nguyen falls into some trashcans. John goes to check on him and discovers that Nguyen shot himself in the leg with the poison dart. He's dead. Well, good thing John wasn't responsible.
Pickford is led into the police station in handcuffs. Lt. Bosslady asks John how he knew. John says that he saw the photographs and figured that Nguyen had a daughter and brother who were killed by Pickford, so he wanted "an eye for an eye." Lt. Bosslady says that she might have been wrong, and maybe John can help. Well, it doesn't hurt that the police are really, really dumb. John spots Disaffected Teen sitting on a bench, and asks her if she's going to be okay. They quote Sisters of Mercy song lyrics to each other. She asks who he is. John says that he's John Doe. She asks if his wife's name is Jane Doe. She's awfully chipper for someone whose father was just arrested. John tells her that it'll be okay. She asks how he knows. John says that he knows everything.
John walks out to the waterfront. The sausage vendor yells out to him, so John walks over. The sausage vendor says that something is troubling John. John says he's looking for someone. The vendor says that it's a lady, because it's always a lady. He offers up a piece of advice: "She will turn up, but only if you stop looking." The vendor gives him a sausage on the house. That sounded like a euphemism, but it wasn't. John takes a bit of the sausage, then sets it down on a bench and removes his wedding band. He flashes back to the woman calling out, and tosses the ring into the water.
At the bar, Karen tells Digger that she got her stuff. She has a huge box, like, did she live there too or something? John walks in and tells her that he changed his mind, and maybe he does need an assistant. Oh, God. That means that I have to put up with her every week. Maybe she'll be killed for sweeps or something. John tells her that her first assignment is to help him get his furniture back inside. Digger warns John not to let her near his fish tank. John picks up the newspaper, which was sitting on the bar, and reads the headline: "Savant Doe Aids Police."
Back in his apartment, John adds the newspaper clipping to a growing collage on his wall of information and evidence as to his identity.
Cut to an office staffed entirely by men wearing white shirts, black ties, and black pants. They are all sitting at workstations with laptops, telephones, and little lamps. One guy pulls up the article about John Doe on his computer. He prints it out, and then hurries down the hall to an office. He hesitates at the door, and then hands the paper to a woman. She looks at it, and then excuses him. She turns, smirking, and looks out the window. It appears that she is in Istanbul. I know it's not Constantinople, but that's nobody's business but the Turks.
week: A psych patient who was locked in his room all night commits a murder. A psychologist offers to help John unlock his repressed memories with a sensory deprivation chamber.