A waiter at a Chinese restaurant is kidnapped in full view in Chinatown. Naturally, nobody saw a thing. Charlie Wong, the local crime boss, tells Mr. Lee, the boy's father, that if he agrees to pay tribute to him (which Lee has been refusing to do), he will be more than happy to find the boy. Fraser and Ray set out to prove the kidnapping happened and to rescue the boy, while also dealing with Jurisdiction Friction when the FBI swoops in to make a mess of things.
Tropes
- Accidental Aiming Skills: Ray is a good shot, but not enough to intentionally shoot a gun out of someone's hand in the heat of the moment.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Subverted. Ray shoots the gun out of Charlie Wong's hand, and after Fraser compliments him on his marksmanship, they clarify that Ray was, of course, actually aiming at Charlie's chest.
- Cunning Linguist: Fraser can read and speak Mandarin and Cantonese, thanks to lessons from his librarian grandmother, but laments that he has forgotten most of the other Chinese dialects.
- Epic Fail: The FBI agents raid the fireworks factory that the hostage was being held in both after he would have been executed anyways, and well after Ray and Fraser rescue him and get him to safety. On top of that, they manage to set off the fireworks stored inside when they preemptively open fire on the unoccupied building.
- Faux Affably Evil: Charlie Wong is impeccably polite, speaking respectfully to everyone through a permanently affixed sneer. Nobody is fooled by his politeness.
- Foreign Queasine: When Fraser orders in Chinese, Ray asks that he make sure not to order anything with internal organs.
- Friend or Foe?: An FBI tactical squad nearly kills Fraser and Ray by preemptively opening fire on a warehouse the two of them are inside investigating.
- Honor Before Reason: Mr. Lee doesn't expect Charlie Wong to return his son alive, and similarly doesn't expect the American police or FBI agents to rescue him. So he goes Charlie Wong under pretense of paying tribute, hoping for the chance to gun him down instead.
- Imminent Danger Clue: When Ray is getting ready to square off against an incoming group of bad guys, he realizes they're wearing FBI-issue tactical gear, meaning they're not bad guys. Which doesn't mean they're friends either.
- Jerkass: Agent Ford treats everyone like idiots, which wouldn't be so bad if he showed any competence at his own job.
- Jerk Ass Has A Point: After his men nearly kill Ray and Fraser, Ford points out that they had no legal right to be in that building, while ignoring the fact that his men opened fire on the building with automatic weapons before identifying themselves to anyone inside.
- Jurisdiction Friction: A bunch of trigger-happy FBI agents swoop in to seize the investigation and pursue it in the clumsiest and most incompetent manner possible.
- Meaningful Echo: At one point, Fraser takes Ray into a closet, saying it's "a place I like to go to listen", and then starts recalling sounds he heard near the crime scene in order to uncover clues to the case. Later, when Ford freezes Ray and Fraser out of the case and starts questioning a suspect on his own, Ray takes Fraser into the precinct men's room, saying, "It's a place I like to go to listen". He then opens a vent shaft in the ceiling that allows him and Fraser to listen in on Ford's interrogation.
- Racial Face Blindness: Charlie Wong remarks that Americans like Agent Ford can't even tell a Chinese person apart from a Japanese person, nevermind an honest Chinese man from a dishonest one.
