You could do that or you could just click through the thumbnails below to get to the high-res version, both of them are 1920 pixels wide, and they’re formatted for widescreen monitors which I’m fairly certain are kind of standard these days. There’s the original:

And the letter box edition, in case you’d rather not see the dingy sidewalk in front of the Harding:

Download away until our servers start getting tapped out.

(*Usage Note: Lazers of this nature should be spelled with a “Z”, obviously. “Lasers” are for science experiments and pointing at things on a presentation screen. “Lazers”, in the meantime are for wreaking havoc and destroying entire cityscapes and make that fun “pew pew” noise.)

Oh hey great, SFWeekly published their yearly Best of San Francisco lists last Wednesday, but I guess we were too busy getting excited that one Katherine Dunbar was probably going to end up scrubbing half the neighborhood with a toothbrush to notice. Anyhow, it’s Sunday now, which means white people all over the country are sitting down with a cup of coffee and their favorite relics of print journalism. And those of us who are too cheap for the $3 Sunday Chronicle (with print-only exclusives!) have a little bit of time to digest the inky-stinky pages of the Weekly. So how’d the neighborhood fare this year?
Pretty well, actually!

In the reader’s poll, we’ve got Nopa hauling in another Best Restaurant award (as well as “Best California Cuisine”, which means they’re really good at putting avocados on things, I think.) Papalote’s Throwdown win over Bobby Flay probably didn’t hurt in putting them back at the Best Burrito spot, which they haven’t won since like 2008 or something. (That’s not that long ago!) Although if you’re not into 3  kinds of meat in your burrito, you’re still in luck because Little Chihuahua won Best Vegetarian burrito for their little Plantain and Black Bean number. In the Best Pizza category we also get to claim Little Star, proving once again that people in San Francisco have a hardon for deep dish despite this growing rustic/Neapolitan trend. (Flour + Water was the editor’s choice for “Best New Restaurant”, but when has anyone ever been friends with an Editor anyway?)

Within walking distance, we’ve also got the Best Brewery at Magnolia, the Best Greasy Spoon at The Pork Store, Best Barbecue at Memphis Minnie’s, Best Tapas at Cha Cha Cha, and Best Sports Bar at Kezar’s. (The wings at Kezar are unparalleled, but we’d argue that Nickies bottomless Mimosa deal in the Lower Haight is much better than fighting Rugby hooligans and Wisconsin Badgers for their mediocre Bloody Mary.)

We also have the “Best Place to Fix Your Bike Over Dinner and a Beer” at Mojo Bicycle Cafe, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that the bike shop usually closes at 6 and no one eats dinner that early.

Oh and we’re counting Sexiest Singer-Songwriter Thao Nguyen as a win for the neighborhood too, because we just spotted her on her own Sunday ritual: coming back from the Divisadero Farmer’s Market this morning.

Rounding out the rest of the you-could-walk-there-from-here winners, in case you’re curious:
-Best Music Festival – Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
-Best Cannabis Club – Vapor Room
-Best Bike Path – The Wiggle
-Best DIY Community center – Workshop
-Best Bike Ride for Kids – Panhandle to Sutro Heights
-Best Curly Haircut – Madusalon (insider reports indicate results may vary on this one)
-Best Fancy Movie Theater – Sundance Kabuki

Anyhow, I guess the honeymoon with the ex-wife didn’t go well because we won’t see Kelly at all this episode, but the first wife Lisa is back and she’s super annoying. And I just now noticed that every episode cold-opens with the sound of the foghorn, even though I can’t recall seeing any actual foggy moments in the show. I don’t really have any other DVDs of pre-TiVo network TV series to verify, but I bet this was a trick producers would use in the 90’s to get people to stop microwaving their Hungry Man meals and hurry to the couch.

Back to the show! We open on Lisa, who is returning to the scene of a swanky event she catered earlier in the evening. She’s just popping in to pick up some kitchen supplies she left behind, but it looks like the menu for the after party includes: FRESH MURDER.

DUN DUH DUN. But also – seriously, Lisa? This is like the third gangster who you’ve thrown a party for. “Lisa Bridges: Gangster Caterer” is what her business card says.

After she calls 911, Nash brings in the team to investigate the scene at the home of this guy Linus Mills who we all just saw committing murder. But Linus is just hanging around like nothing happened while Lisa has a minor freakout out on his deck. This should be a pretty simple case (shouldn’t they all?) but there’s a slight problem: Harvey is having a hard time “locating the deceased.” No more Mr. Nice Bridges, now it’s time for Hardknox Bridges:

“So where’s the body?” “ooooh donchoo mess with my man”

So they bring Mills down to the station, but they still haven’t found any evidence against him, and his creepy-calm reaction is to tell Lisa that she should probably see a therapist, but overall it sounds like she’s a pretty good caterer. We also find out that this Linus Mills is a professor at “San Francisco University” and that he just raised a lot of money for a good cause tonight which he’s “gonna use to stay above this.” I don’t know if he means he’s going to use the money to pay his bail or if he’s talking about a slick PR move, but either way he sounds like a total douche who definitely killed someone.

Naturally, Nash and the team’s the next step is to start finding dirt on Linus, but of course that won’t be easy! His birth certificate burned up along with a courthouse somewhere, the university he went to in Bosnia is getting shelled into oblivion, etc etc. So the real mystery is who is this guy who managed to get tenure at a fictional, but presumably accredited institution of higher learning without having any credentials whatsoever? We know he committed the murder (thanks Lisa!), but first Nash has to figure out who he is, then he’ll figure out how he did it. Cheech, ever helpful, suggests they start by asking “that Tarot Card reader on 4th.” And we’re off in the Hemi ‘Cuda!

Through a bit of movie magic, Nash and Cheech leave their Tenderloin offices to drive over the top deck of the Bay Bridge to Berkeley San Francisco University which looks an awful lot like Berkeley, but is apparently somewhere in the city. I could just let this go, but it bugs the crap out of me because later Harvey says he’s going over to UC Berkeley to ask his old professors a few questions and in my mind that’s just too much fucking with the space-time continuum. Anyway, off to college!

Nash and Cheech are auditing Linus Mills’ class which is apparently 30 seconds long because that’s how long his presentation on the death due to brain trauma lasts before the bell rings. (Also, what college has bells?)

“Cause of death seems to be your specialty…”

Nash and Dr. Mills have a nice little smirk-off session in which Mills pretty much admits he killed someone, and that he’s really good at hiding the evidence. Is that how you get away with murder? By just rubbing it in the faces of the police?

Meanwhile, Lisa never did get her kitchen supplies back, so now she’s just going put on her best 1996 Blossom hat and waltz in to the home where she just witnessed a murder barely 12 hours ago so she can play out all her little Nancy Drew fantasies. The chutzpah on this one!

But actually the maid just lets Lisa in while dropping jokes about how much money Professor Dr. Mills makes while she can’t even pay her rent. Lisa is really terrible at snooping, but she manages to slam her finger in a drawer while thumbing through some party photos. She recognizes the dead girl in one of the photos, and the maid – who has no clue a murder happened at the house she takes care of – confirms that Linus has been dying to get that girl to go out with him and that she works at a Dutch Architecture firm in the city. Before she can leave with all this great new evidence she found, she’s got to put some ice on that finger she just slammed in a drawer. So she just shoves her hand in the ice maker because caterers are very cleanly when it comes to hygiene and stuff, but look what she found!

A diamond necklace! In the freezer! That’s weird, right?

Meanwhile, Mills is up to no good. He’s got a thermos full of something in little plastic bags that is apparently “the only prototype in existence” that his goons are going to test to make sure they work and then “implant them.” Huh? Who? Are these robot chips? Is he building cyborgs?

“EXCELLENT.”

During a creepy confrontation out on the terrace as Lisa is making her hasty exit, Mills gets all up in Lisa’s face to tell her, “we both know what you saw.” What is it with this guy? He’s creepy enough without telling everybody he just killed someone. Oh and he notices the necklace is gone, so he gets his goons on the phone to let them know she needs to be “dealt with.”

Now that poor Lisa has a target on her back, Nash has to put her in protective custody, but of course she can’t go to some nice hotel with an armed security detail. Nope I guess she’ll have to stay with Nash because his penthouse apartment that has been repeatedly broken into and has no door is definitely the safest place for her. At least Cassidy is excited.

Now Cheech has to go over to the wake for his dead business partner, which is weird because didn’t that guy die like 3 weeks ago? But first they have to stop by “that Dutch Design Firm” which is a lead they picked up out of nowhere, totally independent of Lisa’s snooping. Let me rephrase that – Lisa is the only one that actually went looking for clues instead of trying to mindfuck the bad guy and the one lead she found is totally irrelevant because Nash just pulled the same thing out of thin air. Are we clear? OK, good. Now we can move on to the Dutch who are so ahead of their time with these edgy office designs and looks like the Hitler Youth dressed by Banana Republic:

Put away your boners, boys because we’re here to do some detective work. Nash and Cheech want to check out the desk of the recently deceased Bernika Launders. But she’s not deceased! She’s right here at her desk!

And no, she wasn’t at any party last night. She was at home, but yes that is her necklace – although she thought someone had stolen it from her desk and she has no idea who Linus Mills is. Oh! She realizes they must be mistaking her for Elki Haansen (I’m sure I spelled that right.) – Bernika is a dead ringer for Elki and people confuse them all the time. Oh and Elki must be out sick today because no one has seen her.

So Cheech is on his way to try to make a business deal at a wake (Super classy, Cheech) while Nash and Lisa are off to the home of the dead Dutch designer.

At the wake, we find out that Cheech’s business partner was pretty well connected with the mobsters, that the deceased has too much rouge on and looks like a clown, and that the actor playing him can’t hold his breath to act dead for 3 seconds. Oh and that it’s really rude to try and sell your bar to a dead man’s widow at the funeral.

Meanwhile at Elki’s Dutch Modern apartment: Get down!

One of the shooters gets away, but of course he drops his wallet. Which has a bunch of fake IDs and a security pass to the medical lab at San Francisco University. You know what? That actually could be a real college student.

So now we’re breaking in to the Lab at SFU and Lisa is tagging along, acting like an 8-year-old. But the best part is her terrified face when they find Elki’s body while hiding in a walk-in refrigerator:

Back at the station, Nash is running the paperwork. Mills signed Elki’s death certificate. Really? This lady was at his party, and now she’s dead, and someone thinks it was this guy, but they still let him do the autopsy? San Francisco in ‘96 just seems like a terribly lawless place. Anyway, now Nash is looking for a pattern, but Lisa thinks there’s some sort of “Oliver Stone thing” going on. Cheech has his own theory though:

Anyhow, while they wait on some results of Harvey’s computer search (remember when you had to wait for computers to do stuff?) they go to check out Cheech’s new bar since he’s apparently stuck with it now and YUCK this place is a dump! But the manager’s not there, just the guy in the rainbow overalls taking out the trash, and he won’t let Cheech in the bar because “MY HEAD’S GOING TO EXPLODE!” (He says that!)

So we waste a couple minutes on another scene of domestic bliss in the Bridges household. Lisa and Nash cook dinner. Cassidy has a tattooed, punk-rock dude come over to study with her. And Harvey’s showing up with some actual results. Mills has signed three death certificates in the past 18 months. And, surprise! They were all for Northern European girls who died from bullet wounds. (But were they all out on the terrace for the neighbors to see? We can’t be sure.) But the coroner did a new autopsy did find “this little cracker jack prize”:

Some kind of computer chip! Computer chips were the #1 item on the black market in 1996 apparently. Whatever, Harvey is going to meet with his old Berkeley professors in the morning because if they don’t know what it is, no one will. And while Mills is scheming to get his chip back, Nash has heard back from his CIA buddy. It turns out Mills is part of a splinter group that used to work with the DEA tracking down drug dealers and the CIA suspects he’s gone in to business himself. Now normally, this would bug me that all this info didn’t turn up when the guy was being accused of murder, but I get it now, if the government was more efficient we wouldn’t have such great police dramas anymore. From now own I’m gonna blame stalled healthcare reform on the fact that Scrubs is still a TV show that exists.

Anyway, Nash and Lisa reminisce over old case where Joe and Nash had to dress up like Disco Jewelry Dealers and such, but in the morning she seems really creeped out that she woke up in Nash’s bed. No time for a morning romance though because Harvey is on the phone and he’s got something down at the station that Nash is totally gonna dig. And now Lisa is being a total bitch because Nash said she could come along, or don’t, whatever – so she didn’t. But then she decides she does want to play detective, and whoops now you’re being kidnapped

Down at the station, Harvey is talking excitedly about the computer mumbo-jumbo about the computer chips and hwo they could sell for like billions of dollars on a foreign market and, duh they’re probably from that secret government lab in down in Palo Alto. Also, Mills is on the phone and he wants to trade Lisa for the chip with the usual stipulations like “come alone!” Harvey’s plan to follow Nash obviously doesn’t work. that probably has nothing to do with his vehicle:

Nash has a little meeting with some goons that look like “Talent Agents from CAA” and as they pat him down, they manage to miss Nash’s brass knuckles while he lifts the goon’s pistol. Oh you and your magic. Nash breaks in to Mills’ lab, where he’s threatening to give Lisa a lethal injection and send her dead body to Holland (what?). Lame fist fight ensues, but Mills is the one that ends up with the syringe in some place uncomfortable.

With the case all wrapped up there’s nothing left to do but check out Cheech’s Paradise Lounge. Which, as it turns out, is the most popular place on Folsom st.

“Congratulations, bubba! It looks like you’re the proud owner of a gay bar!”

THE END. (Until next week, sigh…)

So where were we? Oh, right – Nash was busy, er… getting busy with an army Captain on her desk at an Army base in Fort Point. A decidedly hetero ending to an episode so chock full of potentially gay situations that they left Cheech out of it entirely, because god forbid anyone start to question the nature of the buddy cop dynamic. That episode’s bumbling attempts at reversing gender roles after already setting up Nash to be a shameless womanizer made me wonder if maybe some Women’s Rights group didn’t petition the producers, asking them to include more strong women characters.

But compared to that episode, episode 6: “Vanishing Act” is firmly “masculine.” There are more strippers in this episode than cops. In fact, it leads off with the guys in a surveillance van (it’s always a van, isn’t it?) spying on some unsuspecting woman’s window like they’re some sort of Estevez/Dreyfuss combo.

Meanwhile the team is supposed to be keeping an eye on Harvey who’s working an undercover job with the Russian Mafia. He’s also clearly intoxicated because of how he’s a Professional Detective and getting drunk with ex-KGB agents is always a good idea. But no one in the group hates the Russians more than Cheech, which prompts Nash to bring up his partner’s sudden departure to Sweden that happened like a million episodes ago.

Long story short: Cheech points out that there are no “heartwarming, happy-go-lucky Latino characters” in Ignmar Bergman movies, so he got to move back to SF and get his job back even though was trying to retire before, but I guess now he doesn’t want to. How quickly we forget.

So Harvey’s holding 500 grand, which he’s supposed to exchange for something in a deal that’s going down on Muni. He’ll just hop on at 10th and Market, make the exchange, and hop off at 4th. Muni is obviously a really great place to do a deal like this, because what could possibly go wrong in the course of four blocks on the Muni? Muni never has problems. Ever.

But sure enough, something goes wrong because we’re still in the first 4 minutes of this TV show and if nothing went wrong it’d just be a show about a cop arresting people instead of a show about a cop who consistently shows up in time to watch criminals shoot each other in the face. The surveillance team can’t hear what’s going on with Harvey because the overhead cables are interfering with his wire – it’s an old KGB trick, duh. Now Harvey has gone missing from the F-Market and Nash is threatening to keep everyone on the train all night until someone remembers seeing something.

The only person on the train who saw anything was an ancient woman who swears he got off at 8th Street and that he was followed by Elvis. Or Elvis got off first and Harvey followed – she’s not sure of the order in which they left the train, because of how she seems to be even more drunk than Harvey was, but she is definitely sure Elvis was involved. OK, but I’m pretty sure the threat of being stuck on a antique streetcar from Milan all night would cause me to make up some pretty weird stories too.

Back in the SNEAKY SURVEILLANCE VAN, their Russian Translator/intern girl is watching a live feed from the Russian Mob’s main office, and they look PISSED. Apparently Harvey never answered their phone call, so they didn’t make the deal to unload a whole bunch shipload of tractors and cranes. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from this show, it’s that there was a lot of stolen stuff for sale during the Clinton administration.

So, while waiting for Harvey’s wife Bonnie to return home so they can give her the bad news (Harvey has a wife? Why does he call all those sex chat lines then?) Cheech begins to suspect that Harvey’s house is a little too nice for his government salary. That red herring lasts for literally three seconds before Cheech uses it as an excuse to describe his latest money making scheme, which will allow him to double an investment of fifty thousand dollars. “Foolproof,” he says. “You’re an idiot,” says Nash. (I’m paraphrasing.)

But Bonnie is pretty useless as a witness. She insists nothing unusual has happened around the house in the past few days. There is absolutely nothing unusual about keeping an entire room as a shrine to a dead hippie:

So 150 Grateful Dead ticket stubs are missing. We have another mystery on our hands! (I mean, besides the one about how you find time to go 150 Grateful Dead shows while becoming a detective.) And Cheech – that guy never lets up – Cheech still suspects Bonnie, but a quick search in the computer database on turns up one arrest:

Indecent Exposure in ‘92. An arrest which (curiously enough) is not related to a Grateful Dead show, but something she picked up when the cops raided a private club where she was giving lap dances. The handy computer system also knows she used to work at a place called “Tyrone’s Classy Lady” and “The Love Bubble.” They just don’t name strip joints like they used to.

Meanwhile, ever-diligent Evan Cortez has some info on the Russians, they’re having a fire sale and unloading the stolen goods to the Japanese. Oh and Bryn (remember her?) just found out that some of the stolen money has been spent on a jumpsuit that belonged to the late Elvis Presley at an antique store on Market and Franklin run by this guy:

Now Nash and Cheech have a warm trail, because the suit had some stains on it (presumably from popcorn butter) and Orville Redenbacher up there directed the Elvis impersonator/Grateful Dead fanboy-kidnapper to the best cleaner in all of Chinatown because of how this show is maybe a tiny bit racist, but not really enough to actually offend anyone. Either way, one smash cut and throwaway scene later and we know the suit will be ready “tomorrow! after 10 o’clock!”

Skip to this Elvis guy’s creepy Saw basement/makeup trailer where Harvey may be tied to a pipe, but his indomitable can never be restrained. We know this because of how he still finds a way to drop hot word napalm on Elvis, who is also his brother-in-law. We still don’t know what he’s planning on doing with the money, but we do know he’s also sent that off to be laundered. (OH THE PUNMANITY!)

So Nash and Cheech’s new plan of attack is to stake out the Chinese Laundry in the morning, grab anybody going in that looks like Elvis, and “beat the crap out of them.” More proof that being a detective in San Francisco is just like being in High School.

Some other major plot points that barely seem worth discussing: Cheech’s golden investment opportunity involves buying a bar in the Tenderloin at a low auction price because it was recently seized by the ATF, and then flipping it for double what he paid for it. Oh and Nick Bridges has escaped from the nursing home again.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant AJ along with Cortez and the Nash Bridges Backup Dancers divert the incoming Yakuza boss by convincing him the meeting has moved to Carmel and putting him in a limo they borrowed from Cortez’s buddy. I bet most high-ranking Yakuza bosses will just get into any limo that a Japanese guy tells them to. Especially when they’re on foreign soil. Mob bosses are always very trusting people like that.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a Dirty Harry situation in Elvis’ basement/green room. Harvey has managed to pull a phone to his person so he can make a call, but of course 911 is busy, so he figures he’ll just call Nash’s house to ask for a ride home. Perfect plan that will really save Nash a lot of work and I bet he’ll be happy he doesn’t have to think to hard for the rest of the day, except – whoops! You’ve got Nick Bridges on the line and he’s got Alzheimer’s:

So Nick didn’t escape from the old folks’ home, he got kicked out for having old people sex with a woman at the home named Charlotte Drennings who is in her late 60’s, but she “still puts off those pheromones.” TMI, Nick!

He does want to make sure everyone is clear that he actually “wooed the lady” by smuggling in some Cold Duck and putting on cologne – this wasn’t some “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am” kinda operation. Nope, see the problem came when he accidentally broke her hip mid-coitus. Wamp wwaaaamp. No sooner is this beautiful love story out of Nick’s mouth than another officer, who’s a big fan of Nash’s work comes walking through the door gaping hole where the door should be to arrest Nick because a woman at the home has filed a complaint against him. As Nick gets carted off downtown, he remembers that he’ll finishing fixing the leaky tub when he gets back. Wait – leak? …Leek? Harvey Leek! Oh Yeah, Harvey called and said something was important, but Nick can’t remember what…

It’s not really a big deal though, because he’s out of jail and meeting Nash at the station in less than 20 minutes. That kind of seems like a west of taxpayer dollars if you ask me. Also, Elvis-looking jumpsuit guy picked up his ridiculous outfit from the cleaner’s already. He didn’t even wait to get it cleaned! But he did say he was headed to some place called Rodney’s, presumably a strip club.

Back at the sting operation, AJ is putting on his best (worst!) Japanese accent while Cortez cracks jokes about the Marx brothers because he’s not funny and they’ve already crushed three bottles of vodka and they ordered some hookers to come over with ping pong paddles.

Over at Rodney’s, even Nash’s VIP status can’t get any info out of the hostess Ginger, but maybe that $50 bill he found growing behind her ear can! (Also: Gross, you’ve got to scrub back there, Ginger.)

Now that Nash is leaning in a little closer and Ginger got all that gunk out of her ear, she remembers that Elvis’ real name is Aaron Crow and he’s the MC going on right now. So Nash could have just waited 30 seconds and saved himself 50 bucks. It’s not like the guy is very inconspicuous:

But he senses trouble, bolts out the back and: “Elvis has left the building.” – Cheech Marin, 1996.

Nash’s “pornographic memory” comes in handy here because he remembers when Rodney’s used to be Tyrone’s Classy Lady: former employer of one Bonnie Leek. (Also, I’m extrapolating here, but has everyone at the station seen Harvey’s wife naked then?)

Back in his green room, Aaron “Elvis” Crow is pissed! He hates cops! He’s gonna kill everybody! He’s nuts! Jump to the sting operation and the Russians won’t seal the deal until AJ sings karaoke. So naturally, he puts on some Creedence:

Back at Bonnie’s, Cheech still thinks she’s connected to this whole thing – after all, she knew Harvey would have all that money, and she used to work with this guy Crow. But the truth will out and she admits crow is her brother-in-law, married to her stupid sister who is possibly even more nuts than Bonnie. Apparently they got drunk on margaritas the other night and Bonnie let slip that Harvey would be going undercover with 500 grand. OK, all the dots are connected now, except we still don’t know where Harvey is, but I’d be willing to bet it’s the same place where everyone will shoot each other in the face.

So Nash attempts to jog Nick’s memory with some clam chowder, which is apparently brain food? And getting memories out of an 80 year old man with Alzheimer’s is easier than just tracking down Bonnie’s stupid sister and asking where her husband is, I guess. Sure enough, after some free association with the only thing Nick can remember: “Wild Wild West” (which no one has said on this show ever) it suddenly hits him: Western Addition! He’s in the Western Addition!

AJ and Cortez wake up hungover from their party with the Russians thinking there’s an earthquake, only to find the Yakuza boss knocking at their door, demanding to know why he had to take such a nice long drive down to Carmel. Meanwhile, across town, Nash and Cheech set out to find a street in the Western Addition that has both a school and a factory on it. Which was surprisingly easy to find, and the lock on the door to Elvis’ basement was even easier to pick, because Nash used, “Magic!” (or a lockpick)

We did it, we found Harvey! Mystery solved! Some other crap happens with the sting – the Russians don’t trust AJ anymore, so they call Harvey back and he makes an EPIC BUST:

EPILOGUE: While I respect the attempt at exploring Harvey’s character for once, it’s not really effective because he doesn’t change at all. He just gets beat up and then he gets to bust the Russians, which also doesn’t help Nash’s track record. Cheech has a slight development, in that he now owns a bar in the Tenderloin because his business partner just had a heart attack and he doesn’t know who the other buyer was. Nick is off the hook because he proposed to Charlotte to get her lawyer son to drop the charges.

Essentially, everyone in this episode was reduced from their usual cartoon selves, down to only one dimension: The Chinese guy owns a laundry. The Japanese guy must love karaoke or he can’t be trusted. All the women are strippers or hookers. (Well, except Bryn but all she wants to do is order room service, so that’s not much better.) The Russians drink vodka and do shady black market deals. The white people are all drunken horndogs that are nuts for dead musicians. (Turns out Harvey took his Grateful Dead tickets to have them mounted on a Day-Glo Poster as a surprise for Bonnie.) Cheech makes jokes about eating eating bean burritos and farting. And just when I thought Nash was getting his swagger back after the “Javelin Catcher” incident, we’re left with a shot of him doing the dishes:

Next Week’s episode is titled: “Aloha Nash”, so I’m going to assume we’re headed to Hawaii. Awesome, I love a good “interrupted vacation” episode!

Long after actual, quality programming has returned to my television, I’m still here watching nearly 15 year-old episodes of Nash Bridges. Even though we’re now halfway though season one, that’s only 3% of the show’s 122 episode run. I really wanted to lead off this week with some thoughtful comments about how we’ve come so far but still have so long to go, but all I came up with were some self-deprecating remarks about how I must be the only Nash Bridges superfan in the entire universe. That was until I found this incredibly creepy Jodi Lyn O’Keefe (Cassidy) fansite, whose proprietor (a lady) has just recently confessed to purchasing all six seasons on DVD so she can create Jodi Lyn tribute videos on YouTube and is Facebook friends with the actor who plays Evan Cortez. I’m actually feeling fairly normal now.

With that said, this episode actually contains absolutely zero appearances by Ms. O’Keefe (or Cheech and about 80% of the supporting cast for that matter) so maybe that DVD box set wasn’t such a good investment. What it does have though is a stellar cameo by none other than notable Drag Queen and 1990’s TV Personality RuPaul, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We can already tell Episode 5: “Javelin Catcher” is going to be great because of the vaguely homoerotic undertones in the title. As we open on what, according to IMDB, used to be the North Beach Housing Project on Bay Street. The neighborhood in the shot looks quaint enough, but someone obviously told the producers if they play cheesy 1990’s rap beats over it, it’ll look much more ghetto. [Sidenote: the block has since been rebuilt as an apartment complex with a Trader Joe's and a Starbucks.] So OF COURSE the victim of the shooting we’re investigating would be gang-affiliated. The crime has a curious twist: We know someone is dead, but there’s no body! And the only piece of evidence is a size 11, extra-wide Air Jordan. Ha! Remember when gangsters used to wear Air Jordans? In 1996 I was wearing Air Jordans (Size 6, Children’s). I was so gangster.

The reason for the missing body? Inspector Bryn is dropping hints left and right that the weapon used in the killing was VERY LARGE, but Nash is too hung up on the killer’s motive (“some kind of Romeo got caught doing the pony ride with a rival gang member’s sister”) to pick up on it. Now we’re learning a lot about Nash: He asks a lot of questions, but not because he’s a detective – because he just likes to hear himself talk. When Bryn says he needs to see the crime scene, he sighs and laments that there is only one witness in the entire complex: a six year-old kid whose only quote is “BOOM!” Nash still doesn’t pick up on it though, mostly because he’s an egotistical dickhead who doesn’t actually listen to anyone. Which explains why it took him so long to notice this:

“Call ballistics. And tell ‘em to bring the realllly big tweezers.”

Or maybe he didn’t notice because he found this to be a perfectly acceptable entryway for an apartment. He’s actually got the same setup at his stupid earthquake condemned penthouse.

Back at the station Nash and Harvey are trying to deduce what this new weapon is that’s out there on the streets. We know last week Nash became an expert on bombs, so he rules out bombs and calls this the work of “some kind of a kick-ass assault weapon.” Just some regular cop-talk. He also says it “blew a hole the size of the East River.” Do people from San Francisco make references to New York landmarks all the time? Does that seem weird to anyone else?

That’s not important though because Lieutenant AJ strolls in with attractive Army Captain Sandra McCormick who is in search of a Javelin Anti-Tank weapon that has been stolen from an army base in Pacifica. Those gangsters! They’re always knocking off liquor stores and army bases in Pacifica to bring anti-tank weapons back to the city to start gang wars over who boned whose sister. MYTH: PLAUSIBLE.

Of course since Nash is a misogynist prick, he revels in the lady captain’s screwup. Suddenly she doesn’t seem so tough in her dress uniform and her tone quickly changes from “I’m here to kick ass and find a penis rocket” to “Oh, please help me, Mr. Bridges! Help me with your powerful Hemi ‘Cuda!” (Gender roles, you guys.)

On the other hand, Nash does ask one good detective question and we learn that eight rounds of ammo are missing along with the weapon.

“Damn, this is gonna be fun!” (Ugh. No, Nash Bridges.)

Meanwhile Cortez is trying to get RuPaul, queen of the Transgendered Sex Worker’s Union, to identify someone who has been beating up the ladies of Polk Street, but he is visibly uncomfortable with the awkward gender distinctions. You could teach a Gender Studies 201 class based entirely on the content of this episode, that’s how powerful this stuff is.

Cut to Fort Pacifica, where a befuddled Army Officer is confronted by someone who looks an Indiana Jones villain, but is not actually a Nazi – he’s part of some kind of Mafia. This creepy gentleman, it seems, was supposed to purchase the Javelin (we sell weapons to creeps all the time, no big deal, Ollie North.) but instead ended up with some MRE’s (“Meals Ready to Eat”, duh) that another gentleman had come to purchase.

OK, so let me get this straight – the Army base was shutting down so they decided to sell their extra rations to the residents of the North Beach Housing Project? OK, that seems a little insulting, but I’ll allow it. What’s more insulting though is that our new friend Vincenzo “Vinny Diamond” Diamond (Wait, who’s the drag queen here, again?) didn’t even inspect the goods he purchased before arriving home to the ravioli factory he probably runs his operation out of. Vinny, this is why you’ll always be small time: because you’re an idiot.

Anyway, Vinny tries to shrug it off and play tough, putting on his best Brando voice:

Really? You’re allowed to kill your friend if he lies? Is that how friendship works?

As Vinny’s limo heads to an appliance store in Bayview where they also sell weapons that are hidden in refrigerators and washing machines, he lays out the situation to his driver: Apparently, he only gets 10% cut of all the jobs he and the other mobsters pull off and he’s pissed that he never gets invited to the annual mobster Christmas party on the Don’s yacht. (The Don gives everyone Tiffany eggs and bicycles for Christmas.)

Meanwhile, Nash is hot on the trail of the Javelin. Except, he is literally headed in the wrong direction:

After spending his time at Fort Pacifica watching an instructional video on the Javelin weapon, he decides Big Barry would know where to find this thing. Because a guy who runs Rick James’ Superfreaky Disco Barbershop will probably know if anyone in the neighborhood accidentally received an anti-tank weapon instead of army rations.

Barry (sadly not played by Barry Bonds) is outraged by the violence on the streets, but won’t give up the shooter’s name so Nash is forced to “cash in a chip”. 99% of detective work is actually blackmail.

Meanwhile Vinny is talking about “friendship” again, this time with the arms dealer/appliance salesman who sold the Javelin to some guy named T-Bone. And the race is on! Will Nash find the weapon first or will creepy mobster guy get to to use it to ruin some Mafia Don’s pleasure cruise?

Nash and the Lady Captain track down T-Bone, but before they can get any info out of hims, he’s gunned down by a driveby shooter in a 1940’s sedan like some kind of Dick Tracy thugs.

Whoops, there goes your witness.

Jump cut to the Cortez residence, where we see Evan, uh… “finishing up” with a lady. The first thing he says is, “Are you ok?” which is always a sign that your relationship is going well. So glad we got to find out that Cortez is an underperformer who is wildly insecure in bed. This is very important character development.

Back at the station, the Lieutenant is interviewing RuPaul again. Girls on Polk Street are scared. The rash of beatings has gotten bad. Also, I think it goes without saying that when I say “girls of Polk Street” I mean “Transgendered sex workers”, not like…”26 year old girls who spend too much time in sports bars” or “Club Rouge Patrons”.

ANYWAY, the Lieutenant needs someone to go undercover as a tranny to lure the guy in and stop this rash of hate crimes. Bryn, the one biological female in the room volunteers, but RuPaul insists she’s “too real”. Harvey is suspiciously eager to pretend he’ll take one for the team on this one, but RuPaul immediately vetoes Harvey on account of his beer gut. She does, however, love the look of Cortez’s soft hands, but he is reluctant to take on the job. So that sex scene was trying to tell us that maybe he’s gay and is having trouble admitting it to himself?

Nash and Lady Captain head to T-Bone’s house because now that he’s dead I guess you’re allowed to just go search his place? Probably not a big deal since he appears to live in a shanty in an abandoned lot in Bayview anyway. He’s got a widescreen TV, so we know he’s living large (in his shack), but the Javelin’s no longer there (probably because that’s a shitty place to keep valuable stuff). Whoever bought the weapon left behind the instruction manual though. That’s so friendly of the guys at the military to include the instruction manual in their illegal sale of military property.

Suddenly, a payphone in T-Bone’s shanty rings and Nash answers it, but what he doesn’t answer are all of my questions about why T-bone has a payphone in his shack and if he still has to pay with quarters to make a call. On the other end of the line is some punk white kid who bought the Javelin but can’t figure out how to work it without the instruction manual. (Sophisticated weaponry is HARD.) This is how we know he’s an idiot. Well, that and the fact that he quickly accepts that Nash must be T-Bone’s boss and so they arrange for him to come by and pick up the instruction manual in half an hour. CLEVER GIRL. So this guy Jimmy and his dimwitted friends are an arcade just playing videogames and planning their robbery of an armored truck that makes deliveries to the “San Francisco Bank” at Market & 6th. Normal gang meeting place.

So Vincenzo, is also friends with Big Barry. You can tell by the looks on their faces:

After a $400 haircut Barry gives Vinny the run down of the robbery going down at Market & 6th. So I guess Vinny is just gonna run down there and stop a couple of guys with a rocket launcher all by himself? Why doesn’t he have any henchmen? What a terrible mobster.

So the white gang, who still don’t have the instruction manual for the Javelin (they seem to be the only ones too stupid to figure out how to use it) are headed to their heist even though Jimmy has gone missing? I guess he wasn’t that important to the operation because of how he’s a total idiot. Also, is this gang from Fresno or something? Because they’ve got the best getaway vehicle:

No, guys, you don’t look at all like the Beverly Hillbillies. What gave you that impression? No…no…I’m sure everyone will be super scared of you when you roll up in that magnificent piece of machinery. Also, they were carrying the rocket launcher on top of a load of vegetables?

Now that it’s raining dollar dollar bills, y’all, the white boys skedaddle with a wad of cash. Good thing Nash got a solid look at the license plate because that incredibly old fruit truck with the fat man hanging off the side would be really hard to recognize. I bet there are like a billion of those in this city. Although it doesn’t really matter if they get tracked down or not because they just threw away the Javelin. Like – “in the trash” – threw away. That’s more effort than most people in San Francisco put in to disposing of their furniture.

So Nash has no trouble tracking them back to their hideout, but where’s the weapon?

A bum has it!

Just kidding Barry has it.

While all this was going down, Evan’s been preparing for his big debut as “Evanna”:

Just look at that dramatic mise-en-scene.

Anyway, now Barry is selling the Javelin to Vincenzo for four grand along with $1000 dollars of shampoo because that’s how business goes down.

Back at the station the Lieutenant is nervous about the missing rocket launcher, but Evan and Nash aren’t too nervous about a little Urinal Guy-Talk:

That’s quite a look of relief on your face, Nash.

Coming out of the bathroom, Nash gets a call from Barry who is ready to sell out Vinny if the department loses a signed confession they have on him, and soon Nash is off to Vinny’s house on Hillsbury Street, which is apparently somewhere near Telegraph Hill (no it’s not). But Vinny’s not home, so Nash and the lady captain give up to go stakeout his apartment from an overlook and also make out a little bit in the Hemi ‘Cuda.

Sidenote: remember when mountain bikes were cooler than fixies?

Not too far away, on Polk Street, Cortez is learning to walk in heels, while RuPaul waves down potential Johns and Harvey listens in from a cafe down the street.

“What are you doing waving? Who do you think you are? Ms. Princess Diana?”

Back in the bonermobile, Captain Sandra is asking Nash out on a weekend getaway to a little B&B she knows in Mendocino. They’ve barely exchanged two sentences over the course of this episode, so I’m just going to assume it’s his raw animal magnetism that really launches her rockets.

But this stakeout is pretty useless anyway – Vinny’s not coming home because Vinny’s over on Polk street trying to pick up Cortez who is still undercover as “Evanna”. OK, so Vinny turns out to be the one who’s sexuality is in question. This whole rocket launcher thing is just a classic case of overcompensation.

Back on the streets, Cortez picks up their man on their very first customer: he’s a preachy creep who thinks he’s cleaning up the streets. But the real fun comes when Cortez gets home, still in drag, to his girlfriend who has been waiting for him:

It’s definitely hotter than that nightgown you’re wearing.

By the next morning, Crotez and Harvey figured out that the guy beating up hookers works for a developer who is planning a project on Polk and wants to clean up the neighborhood. Vinny, on the other hand, is out on bail and Nash just missed him.

So that’s like basically having a warrant, I guess because Nash and Captain McCormick go crash Vinny’s apartment, where he lives with his mother – a silent, Jeff Dunham puppet of a woman:

I have to admit, that’s great casting. They both have that stupid look on their faces.

Nash finds some photos of Nick Vovokis, the big mobster in the city and deduces Vinny’s plan. Captain Sandra apparently doesn’t buy it though because she asks, “what makes you think he’s the target?”

Oh, I dunno maybe it’s because Vinny drew a big crosshairs on the photo…?

On the phone, Vinny let’s Vovokis know that the city is now his because Vovokis “never learned not to say the word ‘Frisco’.” That’s just more great writing from the team, is what that is.

As he tells Vovokis to say goodbye, Nash sneaks up on him and scares the crap out of him. Causing the Javelin to fire and blow up the water tower on Alcatraz.

In the epilogue, Captain Sandra is packing up her office. She’s getting a promotion and a reassignment to the Indian Ocean because “they got the gun back, and what more could they want?” Well, they probably didn’t want to have a piece of Army hardware blow half of a major American city, but whatever the episode still ends with Nash and Sandra doing the deed on her halfway-packed desk. HIGH FIVE NASH! BONERS WIN!

Next week: ugh, I don’t know. The episode is called “Vanishing Act” so maybe someone can make this nightmare go away?

Episode 4: “High Impact” doesn’t waste any time getting to the plot (which is fine, because I’m sure they’ll waste more than enough time in like 24 minutes). Anyway, someone is threatening to blow up the mayor! We know this because Cortez thinks all the squad cars and fire trucks and Nash’s bonermobile are overkill, but Nash fires right back with, “This is San Francisco, we take threats on the Mayor’s life very seriously.” Is he implying that other cities don’t take threats seriously? That seems kind of mean of him to assume. Besides, I imagine if someone called in a bomb threat on Newsom’s life, the police would just make a painful joke like, “but that’s impossible, sonny! we haven’t seen the mayor in town since ought-nine!” (Awful.)

But back to the bomb threat, because I have so many questions!

First of all, the bomb is in pretty much the dumpiest building in all of North Beach. It appears to be just around the corner from where Flo, the heroin dealing prostitute from last week used to hang out. Not even a strip joint wanted to move in to this place, apparently, and it’s probably “earthquake condemned” like every other building in this show – so why would the Mayor go there? The point of calling in a bomb threat on the Mayor is to imply that you’ve placed a bomb somewhere near the mayor right? That’s how bomb threats work?

Second, Cortez (still an idiot) triggers the timer on the bomb when he kicks down a door. OK, fine. I’ve seen TV, and kicking in a door seems like pretty standard police procedure so I can’t fault him for that, but why wouldn’t the bomber just make the bomb blow up when the door go kicked in? Wouldn’t that be more effective at killing people? (Then I started wondering if Gavin tends to open doors for himself or if he has someone do that for him?)

Of course, the bomber didn’t do anything that would actually kill anybody because that would make this person “a terrorist” and the criminals on this show are really more like troubled citizens who find the weirdest ways to act out their cries for help.

In this case, the generous one minute countdown on the time gives Harvey enough time to go from “very confident in my ability to disarm bombs” to “OH SHIT RUN!” with time on the clock to spare. Nash, of course, is in no hurry and calmly strolls out of that shithole with a cryptic note scrawled on a piece of cardboard before counting down 3… 2… 1… to the explosion.

Now, I could split hairs here about how the 22 seconds on the clock turns in to 29 seconds of screentime because that would be all: MYTH: BUSTED! I got you good, Hollywood! But this show is no 24 (it’s better) and Nash is no Jack Bauer even if they do both share a love for a nice drive after a couple of stiff drinks.

Also, there’s a new guy in the office named Rick and he’s the worst. Seriously, he wants to track down our bomber (who we’re calling “Alpha” because of something to do with bible verses) by going through the “Master Psycho List” systematically using a computer or something. While I’m sure the “Master Psycho List” is a real thing that all police departments have, this really serves to illustrate what a different breed of cop Rick is. And if that wasn’t enough he also insults Nash’s car, calling it “outmoded” as if Nash were riding the Cable Cars all over town. The main conflict in this episode is actually between Nash’s smug look and Rick’s dumb face:

Since Nash in charge of the unit while the Lieutenant is on vacation in Hawaii, he decides the next course of action is to call the Mayor and let her know they’ll be taking over her security detail. Wait: HER security detail? I don’t know why this is so surprising. I mean there’s precedent for it, in Real-Life San Francisco, so it’s not even that much of a stretch. But aside from that note on the bomb, no one has even mentioned the Mayor in the show yet. No time to waste though, there’s been another threat! In the Mayor’s bathroom!

After an exchange between Nash and Mayor Werksman we learn that Cortez is an idiot and had no idea his Mayor was a fierce Black woman. We also learn that she used to ride along with Nash (in the Hemi Cuda, I assume?) when she was the District Attorney and now that there’s plenty of sexual tension in the room, Bobbi asks Nash to be her personal bodyguard. Whoops, looks like we’ve accidentally written the plot of 1992’s The Bodyguard.

Unsurprisingly, the Mayor has also hired a “hot shot PI” who turns out to be our ol’ buddy Cheech who is back from moving to Sweden? And he’s really creepy now? And he also has no idea what the Mayor looks like because it must have seemed like a great idea to hire someone who’s never even seen the mayor. That’s not even important because, really, he just wants to strip search Bobbi’s masseuse:

In an age where we can follow Gavin’s every sandwich on twitter, it seems really odd to me that city employees would have no idea what their mayor even looked like in 1996. What did the Chronicle print pictures of back then?

And Nash’s new commitment with the mayor means he’s missing other important things. Like the meeting with his sister Stacy and the head of the Nursing Home their father Nick is getting kicked out of because he smokes too much and escapes to go find prostitutes all the time.

Sorry Nash, that’s you dad.

Back at the station, Nash starts to suspect Alpha is a former cop because the bomb was exactly like the standard bomb they teach you about in Police Academy. On a related note, Nash has been reading up on bomb making (in a book Cortez checked out from the library) so now he’s an expert on bombs because he’s got a photographic memory. Great, so Nash’s superpower is that he can learn things from books.

Mayor Werksman’s schedule for the day includes a chess tournament in front of the Powell St. Cable Car/The Gap, which seems like a terrible place to be given that someone wants to blow her up. But she’s out there, practically with a target on her head while Cheech describes his near death experience:

Wait, wasn’t that like 3 episodes ago? And they’ve seen each other every episode? And what happened to Cheech’s Swedish wife? I guess they couldn’t shoehorn a horrible blind date scene into this episode, so instead we get this half-assed look into Cheech’s brain and all we find out is that he’s probably delusional. Also this hat:

DA MAYOR, indeed.

After a dizzying and far too long spin-the-camera-around-the-guy-on-the-cellphone-in-the-crowded-square shot, we find out:

1: Alpha has Nash’s cellphone number.
2: Cellphones didn’t have caller ID in 1996.
3: There’s a bomb under the chess match.

No big deal, because Nash read that book on bombs, remember?

Disaster averted!

But back at the station, asshole Rick’s computer thinks it knows who the bomber is: an ex-cop who’s put out a couple death threats on two former presidents and made it on the FBI’s Unabomber suspects list. Just look how self-satisfied he is!

Now the whole station is pulling overtime, which Rick so politely points out will be great for all the cops who could use the money for the facelifts their wives “so richly deserve and need” (uh, thanks?), but Nash can’t let all that get in the way of his family time. There are beers to be had with Nick.

So, I have to hand it to the writers on this episode. They somehow managed to make the Nash Bridges: Supersleuth scenes even more ridiculous, while making the Nash Bridges: Good Father and Great Friend scenes actually a little bit touching. Take this tender moment as Nick describes having to put down Nash’s dog “ol’ Jumbo” (Winner: best named dog, 1996.)

So, basically, Nick wants Nash to feel OK if he has to pull an Old Yeller on his pappy? That’s about as emotional as this show gets.

The next morning, Rick is assembling the SWAT team to go pick up his suspect, but Nash is still stuck on Grandpa detail because his Stacy is late to pick him up. And now Nash and Alpha are practically BFF, because he starts calling Nash’s landline to ask what he’s wearing to school that day but the phone makes Nick’s hearing aid squeal:

So now Alpha’s pissed that Nash is on Team Mayor Bobbi, but Nash is convinced this guy is not only a cop but also a cop with a hearing aid. Was Nick a cop? Maybe Nick is secretly trying to bomb the mayor during his Alzheimer blackouts.

While the rest of the force is following Rick off to arrest their obvious lead, Harvey is still working the evidence. And he’s got something he wants Nash to hear, but WHOOPS WRONG TAPE – that’s the one he recorded from one of his phone sex sessions (Is this what people did before free internet porn?). Once he gets that straightened out he plays the tape of the first call with Alpha, followed by the second call. He talks about some nerdy mumbo jumbo about “running it through the computer” and “putting in a reverse algorithm” (TWSS) and it turns out Alpha is a woman! Or has Harvey mixed up the tapes again? It’s hard to tell, because all the lady voiceover actors in this episode sound the same. So they run a “computer check” on all the females in the Mayor’s office, especially female cops with hearing disabilities. Which turns up Sara Wayne Nations, because all crazies have to have three names, that’s just a fact.

Just when Nash and Cheech are about to kick in the door of Nations’ Bernal Heights crazyshack, we arrive at the SHOOTOUT portion of the episode. Although, no one seems to be shooting at anything in particular, we do get a lot of footage of people shooting from cool cop stances.

Of course, Alpha/Sara has the place “wired to the tits.” (they could say that on TV in 1996?) Also, she has a total Ace Ventura anti-Dan Marino shrine:

So now it’s off to the Fairmont, where the Mayor is about to give a speech and, duh, anybody looking to blow her up would definitely make an appearance. But not without a brilliantly disguising herself with a copstache, obviously:

As the Mayor announces her campaign for re-election, Nash notices the bomb under the podium. Great, so we have all these cops working on her protection detail, and we know the assassin likes bombs but no one thought to check under the podium where she’d be standing? Even though it’s incredibly obvious?

So now this criminal mastermind has apparently totally lost it. She’s spouting vaguely religious verse, and she thinks Nash is the angel Gabriel because Cheech is shining a news camera’s floodlight in her eyes. She’s threatening to blow the whole place up, but lo! Nash must be an angel, because he’s holding a piece of wire? That’s from the bomb? I’m so confused, when did he steal that? Was it by sleight of hand wall she was jawing away?

With her bomb detonator not functioning , she rambles some bible verse while backing up to the ledge looking out towards Grace Cathedral and utters some very confused last words: “I’m not the final judge?” before taking the final plunge. Congratulations, Nash, excluding minor thugs and hoodlums, you’ve lost another criminal.

It’s OK though, because karma’s a bitch. And that bitch just landed on your car!

Just when I thought this episode was going to be the one where the writers cut down on the bullshit chit-chat, they have to go and throw in a mushy, 5 minute epilogue in which we learn that Sara wanted to kill the Mayor because of a speeding ticket she got on the Embarcadero Freeway “about five years go” when she was the DA. (Except, whoops, that shit fell down in 1989.) Nash spends the other four minutes driving around looking for Nick, who’s gone wandering again, only to find him out side of some Broadway strip club doing what the Bridges men seem to do best: getting into trouble while hunting for tail.

After only two episodes of this show, I’ve started spotting more and more annoyingly ludicrous elements. Not just little “movie magic” moments like putting in a CGI helipad on the roof of SF General. No, these are some truly absurd moments that make me think this show should rank alongside Dick Tracy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit as one of the great depictions of a gritty cartoon crimeworld where unspeakable acts are committed right under the noses of the unsuspecting citizens of Toon Town and solved by a rag-tag gang of animated misfits.

This might seem like fun to watch, but it’s kind of like reaching that certain point in your love affair with the City. You know, that point when you not only start to notice every piece of unscooped dog poop in your neighborhood, but you also start to suspect that not all of it is canine. What am I saying? I don’t know! But I’ve got five episodes left and that’s just Season One, so let’s just deal with it.

Episode Three: “Skirt Chasers” opens with another shot of the Embarcadero, still lit up like a fairytale castle for the holidays even though the writers have stopped making any references to what time of year it is. At least the director got the skyline flipped the right direction this time. (Why am I still hung up on this? Not even the internerds on IMDB are worried about this.)

There’s also this curious addition to Nash Bridges’ Magical Fairytale City: a vintage PCC car running on the J-Church line through Dolores Park, even though cursory research tells me these were all taken out of Muni Metro service by 1982. Meaning: HEY WHAT’S THAT STREETCAR DOING OVER THERE?

Cut to a couple bums drinking out of brown bags around a barrel fire, discussing the recent buyout of ABC by Disney (I’m guessing they’re so up-to-date because their blankets have The News on them). Oh, and apparently they cook socks?

Great. I feel like we were reaching for a Shakespearean dreamscape, but we landed somewhere in Hocus Pocus.

One of these homeless men must be the Oracle of San Francisco though, because he can see the future. Which consequently makes him one of Nash’s best informants. Nash and Harvey pretend to shake him down while slipping him a Grant (that’s a $50 bill, you know) in exchange for details on a big heroin deal going down real soon and real far across town. Harvey (the bumbling hippie) and Nash (the leathery, old dogface who says kind-of-funny things) exit the scene faster than the bum can say, “Zoinks! A ghost!” At least they’ve got their macho version of a Mystery Machine and some mid-90’s boner jams to rock out to.

They’re too late to the bust though and they’ve already missed the deal, but boy someone left an awwwful lot of evidence:

Turns out the two dead people, are the top two drug dealers in town, so whoever killed them must be the number three drug dealer in town, because how else do you move up in that job? It’s like corporate America, with more shootings. “Always be shooting.” That’s what they say in business school.

The team’s next move comes right out of Nash’s magic hat: They’ve got to track down Flo – “a hooker and a smack dealer that works at the razor and knows more about what’s going on in this city than Herb Caen and the mayor combined.” [By the way, if you'd like that quote as a ringtone, I've made it available for free in iPhone and mp3 format.]

The rest of the episode mostly follows Nash as he works his way up the ladder of a new drug/crime syndicate. Could it be? Is this some real police work? One would hope so, but unfortunately the writers have spent more time establishing that their stories are ripped from the headlines Saturday morning cartoons than they have in making them believable. Observe as they hunt down Flo:

To review: two hungry wolves (one literally smacking his lips) are stalking their prey, a very curious-looking bird. As they approach, the bird takes off running, but not before winding up and PUTTING ON FASTER SHOES then sprinting up the steps at Broadway and Kearny like it’s nothing. If that sounds familiar, it’s because you could replace “steps at Broadway and Kearny” with “side of a cliff” and “hooker” with “fast-running bird” and you’d now be watching an episode of Wiley E. Coyote.

None of this really matters though because Nash ex Machina comes roaring out of nowhere. He drops a couple reminders that Flo is still on parole and she quickly gives up all the names of all the dealers of all the substances that he can rattle off. The curious part is how he already knows everything about the dealers Flo hands over.

More on that in a moment, because in the meantime, there’s a problem with Cheech’s retirement paperwork. It turns out he’s not actually retired and he’s still got a month’s worth of days to work off. But no worries, the Lieutenant got him a real sweet gig as a traffic cop so he can relive all his CHiPs fantasies. Until, of course, he does something stupid like pepper-spray the son of the Police Chief for parking in a handicap spot and becomes the first cop to ever be kicked out of Traffic duty. And of course he does all this while eating a burrito.

While Cheech is out there getting in to trouble, Nash receives a tip from Detroit that one of the major mob bosses “Roscoe” has moved to San Francisco and will probably be trying take over the drug trade in the City and also that Roscoe likes to kill people using a .45 caliber pistol with a pearl handle. So, according to Nash, all they need to do is find the pistol and they can arrest this guy.

First of all: that is a ridiculous tip. Second, it confirms my suspicion that Nash still doesn’t do any work because he spends the next 15 minutes questioning suspects even though he already knows their answers. The only leads he ever uses come from either an unsolicited outsider or Nash’s robot memory banks. At first, it seemed that this might be because he’s a badass detective with a great instinct and plenty of years spent behind the badge, but really it’s just a way for the writers to avoid actually writing the middle act of each episode.

Last week, for example, the middle 20-25 minutes of the show subjected us to Kelly’s terrible blind date and Cheech’s babysitting/guitar playing. This week, it’s Cheech who is out to dinner with his old flame from high school, but she has since become a compulsive gambler, a recovering shoplifter, a “problem drinker” (but not an alcoholic), and a laxative abuser. In 2010 we have major celebrities going to rehab for various hard drug and sex-related addictions, but in 1996 Laxative Abuse was apparently a thing you could go to meetings for.

So while Nash is babysitting and Cheech is being bombarded by his high school sweetheart, Roscoe is out killing Flo and dumping her body on Treasure Island. A fact which he shares with Nash over the phone the next morning. So Nash and the gang do what any good cops would do and break into Roscoe’s cousin Antoine’s house without a warrant:

Sure, using a blowtorch and a hacked garage door opener seemed like the best way to do that, I guess. And I really wanted to care about the next 10 minutes of TV time, but they were spent driving Antoine around handcuffed to the drop top of the Hemi ‘Cuda until he finally gives up the location of the Precious Pearly Pistol. Turns out it was at Fort Point under a rusty metal grate! And then Roscoe and Antoine have a shootout because Antoine sold out! Meanwhile, Nash and Cheech hide behind a wall until all the bad guys have conveniently shot each other and now everyone’s dead except the one fat guy with a mustache.

Ugh! If it sounds like these recaps end abruptly it’s because the show consistently waits until the last 3 minutes to conveniently and annoyingly wrap things up. Each episode so far has been a mish-mash of cartoon characters running around a Hana-Barbara version of San Francisco telling pre-recorded jokes until the someone dies. METAPHOR. THE END.

Next Week: Cheech might be moving to Sweden with his hot wife? Where did she come from?

SPOILER ALERT: By the end of this episode, Nash Bridges will not solve a crime. This is starting to be a problem because that means we’ll be a quarter of the way through the first season’s run of eight episodes and Nash will be little more than a Reno Lounge Act cracking jokes and performing illusions while doing zero actual detective work.

I mean, I was never a huge fan of cop shows, mostly because I am not my grandfather (#teamconan!), but I’m pretty sure that detectives are supposed to be trained to look for clues and follow up on leads in order to SOLVE CRIMES. The premise of this show relies partially on the fact that other members of the SFPD don’t agree with Nash’s tactics. I can see why. It’s because Nash has no tactics, and no one likes the jerk who sits back, waits for all the pieces to fall into place and then takes all the credit for it. More on this later…

So, Episode 2: “Home Invasion” opens with (naturally) a home invasion. Through the jerky slow-mo of a Brian DePalma movie, we see a Winnebago on a nameless street and some face-painted intruders breaking into the home of a wealthy Asian gentleman. Meanwhile, Nash is returning home to his condemned very classy apartment. Judging by the enthusiasm he has for cracking open a beer, I can assume he had a very long day of doing nothing at his bullshit detective job while Harvey (the Deadhead one) called phone sex lines and Cortez (the go-getter sidekick) actually tried to stop some crime or at least go fetch Nash a latté. (They had Starbucks in ‘96, right?)

Really, I just think that the pilot spent so much time making Nash look like a clown, the crew decided to take their pencils into their hamfists and write the second episode to literally put the clown face on someone else:

This show is getting serious! Like: “dark” and “edgy” serious!

But Nash is clueless! Arriving at the crime scene, he learns this is the second home invasion in two months and it’s getting more violent. “But I thought this was a Vietnamese phenomenon,” he remarks. Sure, Nash, you’re right: only the Vietnamese ever get their houses broken into. I guess we’ll go tell the Chinese woman whose husband just got murdered over some necklaces that we have no idea what we’re talking about. That’s exactly what you tell a woman who’s terrified to talk to the police because she’s afraid the roving Mongol hordes of Pac Heights will return in their Winnebago to sack her village. Sorry we woke you, go back to sleep, Nash.

Sadly, not even Nash’s “I’m Very Sorry” eyes can coax the rattled woman into speaking, so it’s back to the station where the gang’s all here and they’re doing some real police work!

OK, so we’re looking for a big truck…

But wait, back up! Where did this new girl come from? Cabo? And why is she giving Nash gifts? Why is she so flirty with a guy who has so many ex-wives and a midlife crisis the size of Coit Tower? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

So Nash decides to answer no questions at all by taking a ride to see Terry Wong, the mob boss played by the guy who only plays Asian mob bosses on TV shows. (When will this guy ever get his Mr. Miagi role?) But Terry is too busy running his business to know who these small time thugs are. Also, his running his business entails: listening to hair metal, rigging the dice at his backroom craps table, and hanging out with Sylvester Stallone. These are all very important traits of a character we might never see again. Thank you, writers, for making absolutely sure we knew you could write three-dimensional nutjobs. I imagine it was hard with those big meat hands. ANYHOW, it’s off with Nash and Cheech who head back to the penthouse to prepare for their weekend slumber party because Cheech has been kicked out of his house, but he’s bringing over a bunch of Elk meat from his hunting trip and can he have the last Otter Pop?

While Nash is busy not doing police work in the middle of the day (is it the weekend? I can’t tell because he’s been wearing the same clothes this whole episode), it seems one of the criminals screwed up and used one of the stolen credit cards. This guy is pretty much a criminal mastermind, but if the whole crime thing doesn’t work out for him he can probably get a job at the genius bar. (Because of how smart he is.)

Unfortunately, the shakedown goes all wrong and leads to a hostage situation. Before Nash can talk the troubled teen out of doing something stupid, a shop owner comes from nowhere, pulls a shotgun and kills the poor kid. Nash sighs the exasperated sigh of a man whose life is completely beyond his control, and he knows he’s going to be working late tonight when he’d rather be eating elk meat and applying facial masks with his best friend. Please excuse him, he needs to just sit for a moment:

But instead of heading home where he has a freezer full of elk, he heads to Luigi’s for “drinks and maybe some food”, where his second ex-wife is also currently on a blind date with a dentist who has no salivary glands. Ugh, this show! If you close your eyes and play it on fast forward, it’s basically Family Guy meets Encyclopedia Brown. (A cartoon and a children’s book, keep up.) Just listen to this gem:

Perfect, I can just imagine a room full of writers holed up in the Fairmont, squinting through a haze of pot smoke and just wondering how they can work “he needs the lubrication for masticating” in to the script.

After the writers are done killing airtime, we arrive at the next morning. Nash has successfully re-bagged his ex-wife Kelly, Cassidy is OK with it, Cheech is cooking elk liver for breakfast, and the whole team arrives because hey, weren’t we all supposed to be working on preventing more home invasions and homicides? Or something?

But the team brings good news: a break in the case! Jimmy, the now-dead, gang member was a part of a brand new gang made up of people who were kicked out of other gangs. (Another brilliant idea, gangsters!) Even better is Cassidy trying to make sense of the whole thing by comparing it to Perry Farrell leaving Jane’s Addiction to form Porno for Pyros, because that’s who this show is really aimed at: 16 year-old fans of the Amazing Jonathan and Jane’s Addiction.

From here, the episode clunks along through a couple throwaway scenes that set us up to be in a nice cuddly place when Nash slides into bed next to Kelly. Only to have the Home Invaders come CRASHING through the skylights, guns blazing despite the fact that Nash’s apartment already sports a massive hole where a door should be.

But whoops, now it looks like we’ve wasted too much airtime, so let’s literally cut to the chase: One of the bad guys dropped his cellphone in Nash’s apartment. A quick press of the “recall button” leads the fuzz directly to our guy who, realizing he’s been made, takes off in the Winnebago for a joyride on a stretch of freeway that’s been missing since the earthquake. A gun falls to the floor, blocking the brake pedal. The gas tank begins leaking. An axle is dragging and creating sparks along the pavement. This won’t end well:

So there you have it. There was no police work required to solve this case and the asshole just drove himself off the freeway in a ball of fire. We spent about 45 minutes of the episode feeling sorry for Nash because his job is very stressful! But despite all outward appearances, he is in no more control of his life than the Genius Bandits who had THE WORST getaway vehicle ever. Like the rigged game of craps in the Chinatown gambling hall, Nash knows he’s going to win, but where’s the fun in rolling the dice if you already know the outcome?

Next week: Maybe some detective work?

The other day, in the midst of a holiday season hangover, I happened upon a midday re-run of Nash Bridges – that mid-90’s, buddy-cop, dramedy series featuring Don Johnson in blazers without the sleeves scrunched up. Now, I’ll admit most of my interest in the show came sometime after a family trip to San Francisco (because of how I am infinitely obsessed with seeing places I’ve been on TV) and after Yasmine Bleeth was added to the cast in 1998 (because of how I was in ninth grade at the time).

Anyhow, this moment on my couch led to a bold new sort of New Year’s Resolution: I would subject myself to the first season of Nash Bridges on DVD because that seemed like a great idea at the time and the SF Public Library website told me both discs were available at my local branch. (Socialism: 1, Netflix: 0) I’m sure down the road I’ll realize this is all just a misguided attempt to connect with my adopted city, but for now I’m diving headfirst into Don Johnson’s San Francisco where it’s always the holiday season at Embarcadero Center, and there’s already something fishy going in with the city’s skyline:

OK, you almost got me, Director Peter Werner. I was so blinded by the pretty lights, I almost didn’t notice that you reversed the entire skyline. Good luck getting a job in 2010 where even my cheapass Vizio gets a picture of the Ferry Building so clear I can smell the organic goat cheese chevre. I suppose I should just be glad they didn’t blow their entire special effects budget on a mid-air helicopter collision in the first episode.

Moving right along, we find our hero beneath the warm red glow of the Port of San Francisco sign, in the middle of a sting operation purchasing some black market computer chips. Now, I never did quite make it through Pirates of Silicon Valley but I’m pretty sure this is how Jobs and Wozniak got Apple off the ground. By purchasing computer parts wholesale on the black market. Black market computer chips have always been a really huge problem in the city, is what I’m saying.

More importantly though, this scene also teaches us that even though the rest of the force doesn’t always agree with his methodology, Nash is such a great cop because he TAUGHT HIMSELF MAGIC as a child. Ugh, fine – at least we’ve got some character traits to work with. But remember this was the age of TV Guide and not TVGuide.com, so you should probably go ahead and lay out the whole backstory in the credits in case we missed anything:

Yes, perfect! “Encyclopedia of Magic (and Sleight of Hand)”! That was clearly the second most important thing about the character (after his birth date), so I’m glad we got that out of the way. Also: “Is that a Hemi?”, ROOKIE COP, The Chronicle, Weddings, Divorces, More Weddings!, Lonely teenage daughters, PORT OF SAN FRANCISCO. Fuck that commie Eisenstein, the art of montage was clearly perfected in the mid-90’s.

Now that we’ve got the main character all cleared up, the show wastes no time highlighting just how WACKY San Francisco is:

And that’s just while the lead in credits are still rolling! In under 5 minutes of screentime, this show has surrounded Nash with enough lovable weirdos to start at least one LoveFest Dance Party, and suddenly the whole MAGIC thing seems pretty normal, actually. In fact, Nash doesn’t possess a single character flaw. Things that should be flaws MAGICALLY become endearing qualities. (See what I did there?) His daughter Cassidy pokes fun at him for being broke after his first divorce, and while signing the paperwork on his second, his soon-to-be-ex-wife can’t resist one last dance.

Now for most people two divorces and a city cop salary would mean he leads a horrible life at home and should probably throw himself into his job catching the Intel Bandits until he drives away all his loved ones and finally takes a lateral stroll off the Golden Gate Bridge.

But not for Nash! Instead, he’s got an incredible penthouse apartment with a rooftop jacuzzi that he got on the cheap because it should have been earthquake condemned. It also doesn’t seem to bother anybody that the apartment doesn’t so much have a door as it has a wrecking ball-sized hole in the cinderblocks near the door-area. Between Nash’s war-torn apartment and the “earthquake demo” headquarters of Nash’s Special Investigations Unit/SFPD Tenderloin Precinct, this show had a very post-Gulf War reading of  “Baghdad by the Bay”.

As we move through the second act, it becomes increasingly apparent that things just sort of happen for Nash and nothing is actually a direct result of his super-sleuthing. The first break in the case comes from a name in Nash’s “pornographic memory”, as Cheech calls it. Of course we quickly forget about that rabbit he pulled out of his hat when it leads to a scuffle with 90’s femme fatale Lucy Liu. Later when Lucy Liu gives up a suspect’s name, Cheech and Nash go to check him out, only to find Nash’s first ex-wife Lisa is now the bad guy’s caterer?

Nailed it! This scene would be way more frustrating, if that weren’t such a real thing that real people say.

And it doesn’t really matter anyway, because now Wojack’s henchmen are shooting at Nash from rooftops and beating the crap out of him. This wouldn’t be very noteworthy either if it weren’t for the sympathy looks his banged-up face elicits from Lisa, who has called him over to fix some wiring in her house (after all, that’s what exes are for).

As Cheech and Nash stake out Wojack’s house the two men begin to appear increasingly impotent. Cheech has loads of fancy gadgets (like a fax machine) that neither one of them can work and instead the final break in the case comes from an Apple Newton (like an iPod Touch, but bigger and older) that Nash lifted from Wojack’s house, but that he can’t even figure out how to turn on.

Instead, Cortez – the young sidekick – has decoded some files and found the address of a place in Chinatown where the bad guys are hanging out having dim sum. In the chase that follows, Cheech is shot and Nash once again gives up pursuit to bring his old partner to the hospital.

As Nash realizes he won’t be able to make it to Cassidy’s High School play the whole tough-guy facade finally crashes down. It seems as though Nash has zero control over anything and in his last confrontation with Wojack’s henchman, Nash finds himself with a pistol pointed at his dangly bits under the table of some Fisherman’s Wharf tourist trap. He’s staring in the face of someone that could quite literally destroy his manhood. So how does he escape? MAGIC of course:

One throwaway scene in the middle of the episode poses a problem though. While Nash and Cortez are bringing young Lucy Liu in for questioning (in the backseat of his convertible, because that’s just good, honest police work) he responds to an unrelated call about a stolen taxi or something. This leads to an unnecessary shoot out on Nob Hill and a runaway taxi headed down a steep part of Mason street – Look out!

This scene seemed so unnecessary, like an excuse to throw in a car chase (and not even a very good one!), but then it hit me: the one thing Nash is ultimately in control of is the one thing all middle-age guys are in control of: their 1970 Hemi Cuda’s.

Next week: More magic, I hope.

I’ve mentioned our neighbor Rob Anderson before because he was getting pretty loose with the pours of haterade when he heard the news about the Divisadero improvements, but as curmudgeons are wont to do he didn’t stop there. Of course he’s been quietly blogging along over at the District 5 Diary (DOT BLOGSPOT DOT COM) all year and like every good blogger (except me, I guess) he decided to do a year-end wrap up. But unlike every other person on the internet his 2009 Year-End Awards are all really mean!*

He lays out twenty-three (23!) categories, none of which speak very highly of their recipients. The Personal Reinvention of the Year Award, for example, went to former SF Bicycle Coalition executive director Dave Snyder because he was recently “anointed as a ‘transportation expert’ by city progressives.” This would seem like a nice gesture if Anderson didn’t end it with “even though he’s just a bike guy.” OK, Rob, you’re right we should leave all the urban planning to people who think bikes are for children because they know what’s best for everyone, even though they’re just car guys.

Anyhow, including Snyder’s award, 11 of the 23 mention the SF Bicycle Coalition or bikes and cyclists in general as ruining our city, so I wasn’t going to get too beat up about some old guy who’s happy to scoot about in his car. (Because as long as he’s in his car there’s no chance I’ll accidentally make him break his hip if he passes me on the sidewalk.) But he had to throw in a particularly infuriating last word by naming Patricia Decker and Steve Jones, two people who I’m almost positive he has never met, as “Bike Fetishists of the Year” because Decker (who you may recognize from her SF Panorama byline) decided to name her bike Mireille, and Jones put some Burning Man-style shit on his frame and handlebars. Seriously? I guess this means Rob has never hung so much as an air freshener from his rear-view mirror (because his farts smell so good).

*this may or may not be true, I’m not really sure if there’s a way to “search” the internet to find out what people write about. Maybe they should make a card catalog or something.