Stitchers – The Dying Game

By starrymag | April 30, 2016

By: Lyndsey Nadeau

 

The “Stitchers” team gets a dose of Chinese culture and pop stars in this week’s episode entitled The Dying Shame while Kirsten (Emma Ishta) furthers her obsession in the search for her father. Meanwhile, Cameron (Kyle Harris) tries his best to pretend he’s interested in Nina (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Linus (Ritesh Rajan) is a sad puppy waiting for Camille (Alison Scagliotti) to stop acting so sketchy.

The Death of a Pop Star

 

Coco Soo (Angela Zhou) is the biggest popstar in China and is in Los Angeles for the opening leg of her first U.S. tour. This is all put to a halt when Coco is murdered while her bodyguard, Mei Ling (Pamelyn Chee), is passed out drunk on the floor. As Maggie (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) introduces the case, Chinese authorities are en route to retrieve the body and to bring Mei Ling back to China to face charges. Coco’s husband, Liang Soo, is a super-rich Chinese industrialist who is well-connected in high places. With several possible suspects in this case, it is necessary to solve the case within their small window and prevent it from becoming an international incident.

 

Once Kirsten enters the stitch, a creepy paparazzo confronts Coco with blackmail in the form of a picture of her and her “boyfriend.” Mei is angry Coco escaped to meet a man without her. Later, when she goes to apologize to Mei, she is attacked by an unknown Chinese man. The man demands she reveal the whereabouts of a “he”, and when she refuses, he doesn’t hesitate to kill her.

 

With this information, the Stitchers team guess the man in the photo was Coco’s boyfriend and speculate the husband hired an assassin to kill Coco and her boyfriend. Cameron notes that Chinese culture pushes people to do anything in order to save face and avoid shame.

 

Mei Ling escapes from Fisher (Damon Dayoub) when he tries to question her, proving she has some impressive self-defense moves. Her escape causes the team to wonder if she is involved in the murder. After searching through online photos of Coco, they find the agency where the creepy paparazzo is employed. When Kirsten and Fisher show up at his place, they see his body slumped over his desk and his camera missing. Fisher also finds Mei, who immediately surrenders.

 

When brought back for questioning, Fisher learns that Coco was like a sister to Mei and she would do anything to protect her. She was not drunk on the night of Coco’s murder; someone had poisoned the water in her room. That meaning someone wanted to ensure Coco was not being protected. Mei tells Fisher that Coco’s husband was profiting from her career and there’s no way he would’ve wanted her dead. Mei asks Fisher if he will help try to reveal the killer. The tables have officially turned.

 

The Chinese man who killed Coco is now trying to unscramble the encoded photos from the deceased paparazzo’s camera. Whatever is in these photos will help him locate someone named “De Deshei.” Is De Deshei (Tzi Ma) the man in the photos?

 

Back at the lab, Linus and Camille realize whoever stole the photos is also the person who killed the paparazzo. They also figure out whatever is in the paparazzo’s photos is the reason Coco is dead.

 

Unable to fully trust her, Fisher brings Mei to stay at Cameron’s apartment where she won’t be able to easily escape since it only has one door. The two bond over pizza and realize they have a lot in common. He talks about his ex-wife and how she never understood his relentless police work. Mei says that he needs someone who understands him. It seems like that woman is sitting right in front of him. Too bad that she lives halfway across the world.

 

Kirsten enters another stitch and finds herself in Coco’s dressing room again. This time, she notices Coco is looking at a necklace. The monitor is detecting a strong emotional token related to the necklace. She jumps to another memory in a greenhouse where Coco is talking to an older man, who appears to be her father. This is the image that was on the paparazzo’s camera.

 

Coco’s father is De Deshei, the same man who the killer has been looking for. De Deshei is supposed to be in a Chinese prison for insider trading, but instead he is working at a Chinese nursery in Arcadia. He insists that he was framed, but Coco doesn’t know if she can believe him. He gives her a jade necklace belonging to her great grandmother and directs her to tell someone where he is if they threaten her.

 

But wait a second—the little boy with the red cap has appeared in the stitch again. By now, it’s obvious he has nothing to do with the cases. Kirsten finally sees it’s Cameron as a child, at the same age he first met Kirsten in the hospital. He’s there to tell her he is a construct built by a friend who cares about her and was created to resemble someone she trusts. Before she leaves the stitch, he says that there’s something waiting on the doorstep that will tell her who he really is. She cannot tell the team this.

 

Now the killer and the team are on their way to same location. The killer shows up at the nursery, claiming he’s from the National Police Agency. De Deshei says he was framed by his partner Zhu Dan Wu and he’s innocent. The man knows he’s innocent because he works for Zhu Dan Wu. He’s not there to arrest him, but to kill him like he killed everyone else in his path. Fisher and Mei show up just in time to stop him, followed by Kirsten and Cameron. The man was hired as an assassin by Zhu Dan Wu to kill Coco’s father, but pretended to be part of an undercover Chinese police task force.

 

Kirsten consoles Mr. De and promises that Coco knew he was innocent. She then returns the jade he had given Coco. Fisher clears Mei of any wrongdoing, then encourages her to forgive herself for Coco’s death. When they part ways, Fisher is noticeably sad he had to let her go, even though she is possibly one of the very few women who really understands him.

The Fairy Tale Woman

Nina and Cameron continue to get to know each other by having their first all-nighter discussing movies and not sleeping together until Cameron’s alarm goes off. Kirsten later assures Cameron that it’s totally cool if he talks about Nina in front of her. Cameron wants Kirsten to meet Nina, but she’s spending all of her free time trying to dig up information on Elizabeth Brown – her father’s first wife. Cameron is worried that she’s getting a little too obsessed with looking for her father so Kirsten proves she’s fine by inviting Cameron and Nina over for dinner.

 

Although Nina and Cameron love talking about movies and “Dr. Who,” it seems as if their favorite topic is Kirsten. Nina proves to be the most patient girlfriend ever by putting up with Cameron telling her everything there is to know about Kirsten. Nina is relieved to discover that Kirsten is not a world-class chef because Cameron basically portrays Kirsten as a woman only found in fairy tales. Kirsten approves of Nina because she makes Cameron happy, but is she being honest?

 

Sadly, Kirsten won’t let Cameron in on what the child version of himself told her in the latest stitch; although she probably wants to.

 

Real Boyfriend vs. Pretend Boyfriend

 

Nina may be the most patient girlfriend in the world, but Linus is losing his patience when it comes to Camille’s mysterious behavior. Camille continues to work undercover by “pretending” to date Liam, but at times it’s questionable if she’s pretending. A sexy accent does have the tendency to have a manipulative power over people.

 

Witnessing the emotional toll this is putting on Camille and Linus’s relationship, Maggie offers to take her out of the assignment. Camille promises that she can handle it, but Maggie says she is more worried about Linus. Still, Camille doesn’t want to quit now after putting in all the time. Perhaps this is the answer Maggie is looking for to test Camille’s commitment.

 

Linus realizes Camille has been lying to him about her whereabouts. He spends hours cooking her a nice dinner, then finds she’s nowhere to be found at the library where she said she’d be. Poor Linus cannot catch a break or move up from his status as a doormat.

 

The Real Elizabeth Brown

 

After calling countless people with the name Elizabeth Brown, Kirsten gets somewhere when she reaches who may be the real Elizabeth’s mother. Of course, she says Elizabeth died six years ago, and hangs up when Kirsten mentions Daniel Stinger.

 

Later, Kirsten opens the package on her doorstep and discovers a copy of Coco’s album with the message, “Hearing a hundred times is not as good as seeing once.” This is the same quote Coco said to her Dad in the stitch. What does it mean? Maybe it’s not as obvious as baby Cameron thought.