Nancy's birthday dinner with Carson is cut short when Detective Tamura shows up with a warrant to arrest her for contempt of court. Meanwhile, George, Bess, and Ace work together to summon up one of their ancestors to help locate Odette's Englishwoman lover Mary's soul amongst billions in the spirit world.
Tropes
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Nancy's legal birthday doesn't give her an exception from being arrested for contempt of court since she recanted her testimony, and of course being held hostage in the police station with many other people by "the Arbiter" who wants justice for Dolores.
- Everybody Did It: Everybody at the precinct (except for Nancy and Temura) played an unfortunate role in the death of Dolores.
- Schmidt was her boyfriend, but he was married. She came into town to break up with him, and they argued, leaving her so upset that, in the parkinglot
- she backed into Mitzi, who, after exchanging insurance information, pulled a Karen and called the cops on her, accusing her of being a drug dealer with stacks of cash.
- She was therefore pulled over by then officer (now councilman) Fraser, who arrested her and slammed her head against his car. He threw her in a holding cell and left her there, and threatened
- officer Hammond into doing the same. The head injury worsened until she went into seizures and died. Fraser and Hammond then drove her car into a ravine and dropped her body in the ocean.
- Ultimately, the only person who didn't play a role that night was Ryan, though he did provide some helpful evidence. The show missed a beat where they could have pointed out that not only did they murder an innocent woman, they let someone who had been genuinely dangerous that night (driving blackout drunk) walk free.
- Karma Houdini: Nancy figures out who the Arbiter is, but lets her go.
- Missing White Woman Syndrome: The episode's plot revolves around this. Unfortunately the same time that Rose Turnbull got kidnapped, an older black woman named Dolores visiting from Portland went missing after leaving a restaurant. Because Rose was a local white girl at the time the police decided she should get more focus as their police resources were stretched too thin at the time and they weren't concerned about a tourist going missing. And one of the police officers actually caused Dolores’s death due to Police Brutality and coerced another officer into not only allowing poor Dolores to die but also into helping him cover up her death.
- So Proud of You: Unsurprisingly, George wasn't really raised by her mother, but by her Great Aunt Mei, who was pretty tough with her. She admits, though, that she's very proud of the strong, capable woman George has become.
- Pulling the Thread: All the threads. Everyone involved is tangled in a web of lies. Pulling at each individual thread unravels someone else's lies until, there's the truth.
- Spotting the Thread: More like hearing the thread as Nancy figures out the mastermind's identity by the sound of a church bell in the background of their message.
