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Frank spends most of his time in Canada looking for Katia. Pimps keep bringing him blond, green-eyed young ladies named Katia, but they're never the right Katia. At one point, he ends up in a den of despair and perversion called the Catacombs and decides he'll have to make do with what he's got. This imitation Katia even washes Frank like she's some kind of biblical hooker. It's one of the saddest things yet on a show full of sad things.
Back in Detroit where people are actually working for a living, Dani and Joe realize that their dead trap-house dealer was connected to the decapitated Butterball in McCann's trunk. Joe is all too happy to give all the credit to Dani for breaking the case wide open, since the trail leads away from him and Frank. That's about all he's got to be happy for, though, because his smart-mouth teenage daughter comes to stay with him after she's caught shoplifting and her mom kicks her out.
When Frank isn't tooling around Canada, he's catching up with his old friend Sean. That's Maya's ex-husband Sean, for those of you keeping score at home, and he used to be a cop. Now he spends most of his days groveling for booze on the streets and providing a warm home for fleas. Frank, who has a soft spot for Maya because of Sean, warns her about Boyd's files. Internal Affairs has pictures of McCann and Joe doing dirty dealings at the International. Whatever she and Damon have going on needs to stop, he says.
Damon blows off Maya's concern. He's too busy raking in the dough at the blind pig, although it's not as much money as he was expecting. He suspects that Reverend Lowdown's men are skimming cash, but it's not easy to confront them without blowing his protection deal. On top of that, the Reverend's men are bringing in underage girls. Damon may be a drug dealer and murderer and pimp, but he's not a pedophile. He also has a small confrontation with Skelos at the pig, but nothing comes of it. Yet. Stay tuned for the full recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Low Winter Sun: Everybody ran to their computers or phones so they could talk to people about what had just happened on Breaking Bad.
Which brings us to the present day...
Frank walks into a dimly lit hotel bar. It takes him a while to do this, which isn't exactly thrilling TV, but the staging is sort of interesting. Everything is color-coded again, this time in shades of blue with velvety textures that suck up the light-like sponges. Frank moves from the relative brightness of the hallway to the darkness of the bar, and wonders if he'll order a whiskey or just drink in all this symbolism.
He sits down to a guy in a mid-range business suit. The guy doesn't say anything or even look at him. "I want someone in particular," Frank says. The guy still doesn't look at him. It would be funny if he were just there for, like, a paint convention or something, and Frank totally had the wrong guy. "Romanian," Frank goes on. "Light hair, fair skin, green eyes -- emerald eyes." You'd think Frank would have a picture of her, but he'd rather paint a mental image. "Her name's Katia," he says. The guy takes out a snazzy little catalog that's like the L.L. Bean of hookers. Frank flips through it and sees Katia's picture. Doesn't he think it's odd that a woman who's trying to pretend she's dead would have her picture in a catalog? Or that should be listed under her own name? Or that she would already be in this catalog a few short days after getting into town? Like the pimp ran off to Kinko's the minute she hit his doorstep to order a batch of new catalogs. Anyway, Frank points her out as the one he wants.
He waits for her in a nice hotel room, as nervous as a teenaged boy on prom night. He paces, adjust the drapes just so, smooths out the comforter. He sits stiffly on the edge of the bed, afraid to rumple it or himself. As the night wears on, though, he grows less and less prim. Eventually, he's surrounded by empty liquor bottles and candy wrappers from the minibar, and settles back to watch some TV. He's just drifting off to sleep when a knock comes at the door. Frank hurries to clean up the room and straighten up the bed again. He takes a deep breath and throws open the door.
Except it's not Katia standing there, but some other pretty blond who's almost a dead ringer for Sarah Carter. The guy from the bar stands at her side. "She's not who I asked for," Frank says. "She's a fun girl," the guy says. Frank pays him even though he didn't get what he ordered, which is where the similarity to shopping from the L.L. Bean catalog ends. The guy also holds onto Frank's driver's license for safe-keeping. Protecting the girls is probably more about protecting their investment than caring about their well-being, but, given the alternatives, I suppose it's better to be treated as something of a commodity.