Photo Courtesy Of ABC
Warning: Spoiler Alert
After a one-week hiatus, the ABC series “Forever,” returned to the airwaves on Tuesday night, with an episode that pushed all the right buttons; a murder in which the spotlight shown on numerous suspects, a flashback to the year 1957 and an ending that left viewers with their mouths agape and wishing they broadcast the next episode immediately. The main theme of this installment, resonated strongly with Dr. Henry Morgan, as the victim had reinvented himself from a working class guy born in Oklahoma, to a member of English nobility. Morgan’s quite familiar with reinventing one’s identity, a process he’s undergone perhaps dozens of times in his over 200-years on this planet.
We start out a nouveaux-rich mansion, where we see a banquet’s about to take place. We focus on a young couple, discussing the affair, the man whose the intended groom complains that the party’s not the intimate little gathering that her father promised. The bride to-be, Emily Sontag, tells her British fiancée Colin, that the word intimate doesn’t exist in her dad’s vocabulary. Colin then says instead of getting married at his family’s castle in England they should elope, but Emily’s pining for her royal-wedding at the castle, he reminds her he’s a viscount, nobility not royalty. Colin seems nervous, as if things aren’t what they appear to be.
Emily’s father Norman Sontag, a self-made man, who owns a textile-mill in New Jersey, retains his blue-collar demeanor as Colin thanks his future father-in-law for the lovely event. Sontag says wait until you see the wedding, my little princess deserves a castle and you’ll provide that right? Colin once again looks uncomfortable as the scene ends. Turns out Colin had reasons to feel uncomfortable as he’s found dead in a Central Park fountain the next morning.
Detectives Martinez and Hanson are on the scene and Hanson says this case seems tailor-made for Henry, but Jo tells him that it’s Henry’s day off. At that moment Morgan and Abe, are eating Sunday breakfast and Abe’s scouring the obituaries, looking for possible antique owners. His face shows some pain and he says oh no, turns out his best friend when Abe was 12-years-old, Lyle Ames just passed away. Henry barely remembers the name and Abe tells him they were friends when the family lived on 69th and 2nd.
The phone rings and Henry answers it to find Jo on the other end, telling him they’ve got one of his, an English Aristocrat with ties to royalty, after checking with Abe, Morgan tells Martinez he’ll be right there. When he arrives we find Colin’s suffered a severe blow to the back of his head, and an even deeper gash to his carotid artery. But as Henry investigates the victim’s remains, he realizes that Colin’s not a viscount, he’s an out-and-out phony. When they get back to Henry and Lucas’ office, we’re informed Colin was actually an American as Henry’s determined by the shape of his soft palate. It indicates that he spoke like most Americans do.
Henry then examines the victim’s suit and notices a special stitching technique, used by just one tailor in New York City, Morgan’s personal tailor Arturo. The pair travel to see Arturo and he recognizes Colin as a regular customer, who always paid in cash and picked up all his suits but one, the tuxedo for his upcoming wedding. He directs them to the Wedding Registry on the second floor.
The events of the case cause Morgan to flashback to 1957, when Henry his wife Abigail and 12-year-old Abraham, lived in that apartment on 69th and 2nd, as Henry’s attempting to add some grey to his temples, to make him appear that he’s aging. Abigail makes fun of him, but Henry’s concerned someone will find out about his secret and they’ll need to move again. Abigail assures them that they’re perfectly safe and nobody’s going to out him.
They meet the head of the Bridal Registry, a young English woman named Patricia Bedard, who seems quite taken aback when she hears of Colin’s murder. She gives Martinez the information on Emily Sontag, but Henry notices bumps on a bike-messenger’s calves and follows him out to the street. The guy realizes Morgan wants something from him, then Henry asks if he can have a closer look at the messenger’s legs. The guy’s about to start beating on Henry, when Jo arrives and flashes her badge, then Morgan tells her, this man has the same marks found on Colin. The messenger says it’s referred to as chain-burn and it’s a common hazard in his profession. Henry produces the picture of Colin and asks the messenger if he recognizes him, but he probably knew him with blonde-hair. The messenger looks for a few seconds and that look of recognition flashes in his eyes, he says the guy’s Dwight Diziak, whom he used to work with until about a year-ago, when he just vanished.
We find out that Dwight’s from Oklahoma, got pushed from foster home to foster home as a kid and has a criminal record. They decide to reveal all this information to Emily when they talk to her, to see if she could’ve been involved in the con. Sontag’s clearly distraught over his death and seemingly shocked by the scam he was pulling. She’s got a doorman and security footage to verify she never left her apartment the night before.
Abe’s getting dressed in his best suit and it turns out he’s heading to Lyle Ames’ funeral and would like Henry to join him as his wing-man, apparently there’s a woman from his childhood he expects to be there. Morgan’s rather appalled at the idea that Abe would use a funeral as a pick-up spot and declines going. He instead heads back to the lab and Lucas found some ripped paper in Dwight’s suit pocket, he pieced it together and it was a torn-up check for a million dollars to Colin from Norman Sontag. Lucas comments on how hard a life one would have constantly looking over their shoulder. That in turn sends us back to 1957.
Abigail and Henry are walking in Central Park and Morgan’s enjoying the changing of the seasons and the crispness in the air. His wife responds, that it’s a sign that everyone aged a year, including him, then laughs at him as his grey hair is now on his shoulders. A man with a crutch looks at Morgan with recognition and Abigail kisses her husband, as she heads off to her shift at the hospital.
As Henry prepares to head home, the man shouts out Dr. Henry Morgan and Morgan turns around. The guy looks him straight in the eyes and says it sure is you, I saw you get hit by an artillery shell on Normandy, I was standing right next to you and my leg got wrecked by a piece of it, but you look a lot better than me. Henry tries a lousy American accent and says you got the wrong guy, but the veteran shouts after him that Morgan’s the most authentic looking ghost he’s ever seen.
Martinez and Morgan head to Norman Sontag’s mansion and he’s just ripping Dwight from stem-to-stern, calling him a sociopath and other terms of endearment. Henry asks how Sontag hurt his back and the factory-owner says he threw it out playing golf. They then asks when was the last time he saw Dwight and Sontag says as the party concluded, which was about 10:00 pm, then makes some reference that the young man was a native of Oklahoma. Jo asks how he knew that, as they didn’t tell him or his daughter that. Henry then realizes Dwight came back, Norman threw him up against a wall, but the younger man in better shape knocked Sontag onto his desk, hurting his back in the process. He then pulled his seven-iron from the golf-bag next to his desk and whacked Dwight in the head with it. Sontag says he needs to speak to his lawyer and the three head to the station.
Sontag’s corporate attorney Peter Guzik, gives Morgan and Martinez, a typed out scenario of what Sontag admits to doing. The factory-owner says that Dwight returned two hours later, confessed to the entire scam, but he’d fallen in love with Emily. He doesn’t want any money or property, he’s just going to admit to Emily what he did and beg her to forgive him and marry him. He then said that Diziak left the house bloody, but alive.
Back at square one, Henry notices the catalog from the store that Arturo works at and includes the Bridal Registry and realizes that all of Dwight’s clothes come from that store. Jo theorizes perhaps he had a Henry Higgins, as she played Eliza Doolittle in a school production of My Fair Lady. They get records of the purchases and they were all bought with Patricia Bedard’s employee discount. Henry reminds that My Fair Lady’s based on Pygmalion, a story about a sculptor who makes the perfect statue and fell in love with it. Dwight was Bedard’s Pygmalion, she called off from work and she’s not in her home when they raid the place. But they see all the evidence that links Dwight and Patricia in the con-job they were pulling and they believe she killed Dwight in a fit of jealousy. Seems logical, but we’re just at the 38 minute mark. Henry then says she hasn’t gone on the run as her pictures are still on her desk.
Which leads us back to our final flashback of the evening as Henry and Abigail gather their possessions, running from Henry’s past yet again. Abigail says she just needs to pack-up their pictures and they’ll be ready, Henry looks exasperated but she says in a serious tone, these can’t get replaced. She then asks Henry if he’s told Abraham they’re moving and Morgan says he’s got a friend over and didn’t want to bother them. He enters the room to see his son and another boy under a tent, they fashioned out of a blanket each holding flashlights. The other boy asks Abraham to tell him about it and he says it’s the best day of his life. The other boy says he can’t wait until he gets his first kiss and Abraham says, don’t worry Lyle, it’ll happen soon. Then Lyle says Fawn Mahoney’s a “Real Tomato,” and Abraham says that’s she his, he’s going to marry that girl someday.
Henry arrives at the shop just as Abe’s leaving for the funeral and Henry tells him that he’ll play wing-man, a first kiss is really special and it’s his fault they moved. When we arrive at the cemetery, it suddenly becomes apparent that Fawn Mahoney’s the widow of Lyle Ames and Abe’s going to attempt to hit on her right then. Henry’s disgusted but then sees Emily Sontag and Peter Guzik walking from another plot and he surmises it’s Dwight’s funeral that day as well. However then he sees Patricia and tells Abe they need to follow her, Abe gives his card to Fawn’s grandson and tells him to tell her it’s from an old friend.
Bedard’s captured and admits that she and Dwight were in on the con together and in love, but he came back from getting assaulted by Sontag and told her the con’s off, that he’d fallen in love with Emily and that he was heading to her to confess all and hope she’d still marry him. She asks where they found his body and she tells them that’s the spot he proposed to Emily.
They head to the spot and Lucas and Henry reenact the crime and realize that Emily’s far too small and light to have killed him with the gold tipped pen, they realize was the murder weapon, which for those of you not counting at home, leaves us one suspect, Sontag’s attorney Peter Guzik. Martinez brings Emily in for questioning and tells the lawyer they found the murder weapon. The plan worked and they smoked him out as he dug up the pen and they witnessed then arrested Guzik. He’d always been in love with Emily and apparently snapped when Norman told him what Dwight had pulled.
Abe’s in the shop with his back to the door, when he hears it open and shouts out we’re closed. A woman’s voice says Abraham and it’s Fawn Mahoney Ames, he says he’s surprised she remembers him and she replies he was the only other man she kissed besides her husband. Abe asks her if she’d like to have coffee and she reminds him she just buried her husband two days before. But she tells him she’s just 20-blocks away and sure, she’ll be back in the area soon.
Jo and Henry, satisfied having caught their man, and she tells him with great affection, that he’s the most perplexing man she’s ever met. He’s fanatically private, nearly a medical-savant and buys tailored clothes on a Medical Examiner’s salary. He says I might as well level with you, I’m Hank Morgan from Ohio. She laughs and he gets in a taxi.
The mood changes immediately, when we hear the voice of the driver, it’s Henry’s stalker “Adam,” the man who claims to have the same condition as Morgan but he’s two thousand years old. He then says buckle-up Doc, wouldn’t want you to get injured, automatically locks all the buttons and drives away.
The Story Continues Next Tuesday Night at 10:00 pm on ABC.
