These aren't strictly "reviews" but they're not exactly objective either.  The main purpose is to briefly explain the characters and plots of the episodes.  For now, there are only the 5 episodes in which Bobby Marlow appears.  I may do others later if there seems to be any interest.  Thanks to JaC for checking them over for factual errors and making some good phrasing suggestions. (I still use the word "creepy" too much, but sometimes it's the only word that truly fits in eps 12&13.)

Note:  When I first started writing, I spelled Bobby's last name "Marlowe" because that's just what I thought it was, but if closed captioning can be trusted, I think it's supposed to be "Marlow".  So if you notice the spelling difference between the Benevolent series and these summaries and the later stories, that's the deal.  Not a very big deal, but I thought I should mention the inconsistency.

"A Cinderella Story"
(Season 2 Episodes 1 & 2)
Written by Alan DiFiore, Chris Haddock, Esta Spalding
Directed by Anne Wheeler

The official website at CBC.ca says:
Coroner Dominic Da Vinci is back in the headlines when he calls for Vancouver City to set up a red light district following the death of a high-priced escort, and the continuing mystery of the 28 missing prostitutes who are presumed dead. Doubt is cast on the guilt of a man serving time for a murder.
"Dominic Da Vinci" - Nicholas Campbell, "Patricia Da Vinci" - Gwynyth Walsh, "Mick Leary" - Ian Tracey, "James Flynn" - Robert Wisden, "Leo Shannon" - Donnelly Rhodes, "Sunita (Sunny) Ramen" - Sue Mathew with guest actors Katherine Isabelle as "Madeline", David Kopp as "Gerry", Jen Griffin as "Rae", Mackenzie Gray as "Bigler", Kathleen Gati as "Gwen", Blu Mankuma as "Sid Samuels", Vincent Gale as "Kowalski", and Ron Selmour as "Vincent Marx".
 

The rest of the story:
Gwen Marquetti has come to Vancouver from the US looking for her runaway daughter, for some reason she thinks that she'll have more luck finding Maddy if she pretends to be "working" so the other hookers will be more open about talking to her.  Her boyfriend brings her coffee and offers to cook for her (this is the first time we see Bobby, but his name is not mentioned and we don't know what he does for a living--he is just Supportive!Man at this point ;-).  He also tries to convince her to stop blaming herself for her daughter running away and that maybe she deserves an occasional day off from walking the streets pretending to be a hooker.  She takes neither of these suggestions well.

We see two young men exchanging young women, and then we are treated to Gerry Towne's welcome to your new life spiel as he gives his new acquisition the rundown on how things work at "Elegant Companions".  Her name is Maddy and she's very young.  She thinks she's hit the big time, nice place, new clothes, classy business... then she's locked in her room until the doctor comes to give her a "checkup".  After she's given a little freedom to move, she happens to see a news story about another dead prostitute and recognizes the woman as her mother.  She sneaks out and goes to the Coroner's Office to identify the body, where she talks to Dominic about how her mother was a schoolteacher not a hooker.  He offers her help, which she pretty much ignores.

Later Dominic meets Bobby Marlowe on the street--they seem to be very comfortable friends--and Bobby tells Dominic that he was dating the latest "dead hooker" (who wasn't a hooker at all, she was a TEACHER, damn it!).  He met her when she came into Vice for help looking for her runaway daughter and they started dating and a few months later she moved in.  Dominic tells Bobby that he has spoken to the daughter and then puts his arm around Bobby and urges him to come along (wherever) and it's such a caring gesture (very sweet!).

Gerry-the-pimp beats up Maddy for leaving the apartment, but mostly he's got his own troubles with the police because the "high-priced escort" mentioned above worked for Elegant Companions. Gerry's a slimy snake who gets off because they can't prove that he knew the dead guy was allergic to the penicillin that killed him--they can't really *prove* that Gerry gave him the penicillin in the first place.  And even though he's a "Yank", they can't deport him either, so he moves his business but keeps right on doing it (one may logically conclude so anyway).

Bobby catches up with Maddy and tells her he was a friend of her mother and that he'd like to talk to her, tell her all the things Gwen said that she'd have wanted Maddy to hear.  Maddy's got a trick waiting so she doesn't look too interested.  He gives her a card with his number and tells her to call him.  We're left with the impression that she won't and Bobby seems pretty aware of that likelihood.

Plenty of other stuff happens too, but that's pretty much all the Bobby-related parts.  All the plots weave together, but they never catch the killer.
 

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Blues in A-Minor (Episode 8)
Written by Alan Di Fiore, Chris Haddock, Esta Spalding
Directed by Chris Haddock/Tom Braidwood

The official website at CBC.ca says:
The death of a child always hits hard for those who have to investigate, especially when it looks like suicide. Da Vinci tries to rein in a community on a quest to publicly expose a suspect

"Dominic Da Vinci" - Nicholas Campbell, "Patricia Da Vinci" - Gwynyth Walsh, "Mick Leary" - Ian Tracey, "James Flynn" - Robert Wisden, "Leo Shannon" - Donnelly Rhodes, "Sunita (Sunny) Ramen" - Sue Mathew, "Bob Kelly" - Gerard Plunkett, with guest actors Sarah-Jane Redmond as "Sgt. Kurtz", Jane Sowerby as "Kate Mizlowski", David Abbott as "Reverend Lymon", Adam Harrington as "Phil" and Reg Tupper as "Richard Zeto".
 

The rest of the story:
[Bobby Marlow is right in the middle of this case and yet again the official website doesn't even mention him (or that guy who plays him, Callum...something or other ;-).  I don't know what the deal is there.]

A little boy's body is fished out of the river--Byron Mizlowski according to the name and address sewn into his jacket.  The police and coroner investigate, not knowing whether it was suicide or homicide.  The pathologist reports that Byron had been sexually abused, so the case gets even more complex and heartbreaking.

[Meanwhile, Mick and Chick investigate what looks like a murder scene with no body.  This is a great subplot but to go into any detail would spoil it and it has nothing to do with the main story.]
 

Bobby Marlow comes to Dominic's office, asking about the case because he read about it in the newspaper and the name of Byron's school twigged a memory of an old case.  He says he might know something, but he'll get back to Dominic when he knows more.  Then Bobby goes to talk to a young man named Ryner Paget.
 
After Dominic takes Bobby to the morgue to see Byron (Bobby likes "to put a face on these things"), Bobby takes Dominic to see Ryner, who describes his experiences of being molested as a child. Ryner identifies a picture of Richard Zeto, a music teacher at Byron's school (and the last person to see Byron alive) as the man who had molested him.

Bobby's working a pedophile case, but Shannon and Kosmo (played by Venus Terzo, who oddly enough is also not mentioned in the credits of the website ep guide even though she's a regular main cast member) are more interested in their case which could be a homicide.  Dominic steps in and takes control of the argument (masterfully! <sigh>) and the case.  He goes in under the Coroner's Act and seizes everything from Zeto's house since it's a potential crime scene.  Dominic, Helen and the cops go through his stuff and find a lot of pictures of children and a naked picture of his fiancee.

Shannon and Kosmo start questioning Zeto, but the interrogation really gets creepy and intense when Kosmo leaves and Bobby comes in. (That man knows how to work The Box!)  Zeto finally admits that Byron did stay a little later than the other kids at band practice that night and the boy looked really sad.  As soon as Bobby mentions Ryner, Zeto lawyers up.

There's a scene with Bobby and Dominic and Sergeant Kurtz about handling the school and the other kids.  Bobby and Dominic present a united front.  It's cool.

ToughandThreatening!Bobby goes to the school and lets Zeto know that he'll be watching him and "Oh yeah, don't bother coming to work tomorrow--You've been suspended."

Leo Shannon goes back to talk to Byron's mother.  Phil-the-shifty-eyed-stepdad starts to become something of a suspect.

Chief Coroner Jimmy Flynn gets upset with Dominic for calling the school's Principal and getting the man all upset and going on a witch hunt for pedophiles or something like that...

Helen finds a letter in Zeto's papers that causes everyone to cuss a bit when they see it.  Turns out Ryner had written to the pastor, the music director (Zeto), and another man from his church accusing them of molesting him--a full *year* before he had talked to Bobby.  Bobby is very pissed.

Leo goes to see the mother again.  She has killed Phil after finding a tool in the trash can and confronting him with it--he'd been abusing Byron with it.  So the poor kid probably committed suicide after all (but this is never explicitly stated).

Dominic goes to see Richard Zeto, who is painting over graffiti on his garage door.  He tells Zeto that the stepdad did it and that he's completely clear, but it's no comfort to either of them.

The last scene is Bobby listening to Ryner give yet another version of his story.  This time it was four men in robes, one of them was Satan, and he's confident that he'll remember the others eventually....  The look on Bobby's face is heartbreaking.

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Fantasy & Reality (episodes 12 & 13)

Both eps Written by: Larry Campbell, Chris Haddock
ep 12 Directed by: Chris Haddock
ep 13 Directed by: Tom Braidwood, Chris Haddock

Guest stars: Matt Frewer as Larry Williams, Wendy Van Riesen, Andrew Wheeler, Nancy Sivak, Peter Williams as Morris Winston, Sarah-Jane Redmond as Sgt. Kurtz,  Sean Day Michael, Fred Keating, Andrew Airlie, Sarah Strange as Helen, Alex Diakun and CALLUM KEITH RENNIE as Bobby Marlow.

The official site at CBC.ca says:
Not a thing.  Nothing!  For some mysterious reason, they stopped updating the official with episode #9 (December 1, 1999).  My e-mail inquiries remain unanswered at this point, and I have no hope that they ever will be.
 

The show opens with Dominic appearing on Talk Radio (Wake up people, Vancouver needs a redlight district! Sorry, I just love Crusader!Dominic  ;-).  This is intercut with scenes of a guy picking up a hooker, tying her up, and then stopping to fix a flat tire on his truck.  The police stop to investigate and find the bound and gagged woman in the bed of the truck.  Dominic gets a page, makes the call and it's Bobby, telling him about Ginger-the-hooker and the guy in custody, who was most likely planning to kill Ginger.  It looks like more than a Sex Crime to Bobby so he's already called Homicide.

[The subplot this ep had Leo Shannon and Morris Winston investigating dead body that was apparently electrocuted some place other than where he was found.  It's a great story but I'm not going to go into it.  Sergeant Kurtz tells Leo to clear it up fast so he can get to work on the Williams case, which is the only possible lead they have on the missing prostitutes at the moment. ]
 

While Dominic and Kosmo talk to Ginger, Mick and Bobby interrogate Williams in the Box.  The camera cuts back and forth in between the victim and the suspect in a he said/she said kind of thing.  Williams lawyers up and Ginger gets taken to the morgue to have her injuries photographed by Sunny, to see if they match those of Suzanne Myers and Gwen Marquetti (the dead prostitutes from Cinderella Story).  There seem to be a few similarities, but also some differences between the cases.  DNA tests will maybe prove some connection, but in the meantime they'll hold Williams on a sexual assault charge and use that to get a warrant.

While Bobby and Mick are searching his house and boat, Williams makes bail and Kosmo investigates the Bad Trick List looking for possible other victims.

Williams' lawyer springs Williams from jail and tells him he's set up an appointment with a psychiatrist, whose good review will help Williams' case tremendously.  We get a great brief shot of Bobby following Williams, who goes home to his in-major-denial-wife and acts creepy some more.

The scenes between Williams and the psychiatrist--Dr. Mark Kinnison, who is one of the best in the business according to Dominic (He even writes books!)--are really unsettling.  Lots of discussion about Williams's sexual fantasies and masturbation processes.

The Sergeant tells Dominic to call Dr Kinnison, who won't give up any info because he feels bound by lawyer-client privilege.  The cops decide to question the wife and that's pretty unsettling too.  But in the end, Mrs. Williams walks out of the Box claiming that Larry is the one who needs protection (from the cops), not her (from Larry).  Mick thinks they scared her.

Another scene with Williams and Dr Kinnison.  Williams asks if he's going to get a good report and Kinnison is obviously becoming disturbed.  The doctor goes straight to Dominic and says that he thinks that Williams has not only killed before but is planning to do it again.

The last scene of "Fantasy" is Williams getting out of bed and telling his wife he can't sleep so he's going out...
 

"Reality" opens with a visual of Williams in his car up on a mountain, sticking a racquetball in his mouth, trying to masturbate, and not coming to completion.  This is overlaid by the voice over of Williams talking to his shrink.  Dr. Kinnison asks if his fantasy is no longer working and Williams says that he needs to 'see better so he can remember'.  When asked for clarification, he says "I'm looking at the women."

Next Dr. Kinnison is talking to Dominic about Williams' latest vague guiltiness.  Dominic encourages Kinnison to see Williams again.

A brief scene in the squadroom between Mick and Bobby tells us that Bobby's been following Williams, but he lost him up on the mountain.  He picked him up when he came back down an hour or so later.  And Bobby's going back to watching Williams, who's at work, as soon as he gets something to eat.

Dominic and the homicide cops talk about evidence and DNA and funding for getting more DNA samples from the families of the missing prostitutes.  Leo and Mick go through pictures of the missing hookers to find those who are similar to Ginger, while Kosmo goes through the Bad Trick List some more.

Williams looks at the classified ads and manages to be disturbing even while eating his lunch.  Parked outside Williams's office, Bobby sees a woman in a trench coat go in (Williams gives her money and sends her into the back room where she puts on her bondage outfit). A few minutes later another customer tries the door, but finds it locked, making Bobby suspicious enough to check it out.  He becomes Action!Bobby, breaks into the office and pulls Williams off the call girl who is bound and in the process of being gagged.  Presumably, Bobby then hauls Williams in for breaking the terms of his bail (no hookers for you, Larry!) because the next time we see Williams he's talking to his lawyer in a jail visiting area.

Dominic goes to Jimmy and asks for funding for the DNA samples--private labs, very expensive, yadda yadda--and is quite adorably surprised when Jimmy says OK, he'll have to clear it with [whoever his bosses are] but he thinks they'll get it.

Dominic goes to talk to Chick about the potential evidence in Williams's truck and they both get paged to go out into the woods and look at some bones some hikers found.  Dominic, Chick, and Leo investigate what is apparently the remains of a cougar attack, and eventually stumble over some real evidence...in the Williams case.

Meanwhile, Mick talks to hookers on the street, showing Williams' picture around.  He finds out that one of the missing girls was wearing a red velvet dress when she disappeared.  Kosmo talks to a hooker who escaped from a bad trick a year before in a situation quite similar to Ginger's except the guy hadn't tied up her feet so she had escaped from the back of his truck.  They try to get her to pick Williams out of a lineup-- even after he speaks she can't be sure.

While Dominic is talking to Patricia about the hiker-bones, Helen comes in and tells him that Bobby's trying to reach him.  Bobby tells him that Williams made bail and is back home.

Inside the Williams house, there's much creepiness as the Mrs. tries to seduce her hubby who reacts rather violently--not hitting her or anything, just yelling and acting nutty.  Then it's magically the next morning and the two Williams act creepy some more, not answering the phone and staring at each other, etc.  Old Larry manages to suffuse the relatively simple words "Your coffee's getting cold" with menace in a low-key horror kind of way.  The whole scene is filled with tension drawn almost to the breaking point.  It's very well done, and yet difficult to watch.

Helen tells Dominic that they got the funding and the DNA samples will be collected.  Chick, some uniformed officers, and some dogs comb the mountain where the hiker-bones were found and find some other bones, an old campfire, and a rope hanging from a tree--the same kind of rope Williams used to tie up Ginger!  He calls Leo Shannon who comes and immediately spots a bit of yellow silk--that definitely didn't belong to the hiker.

Mrs. Williams is looking at the paper and sees the pictures of the missing prostitutes.  She recognizes a necklace in one of the pictures and goes to her jewelry box and pulls out the same necklace.

In a great scene that's too subtle to accurately describe, Mick goes to see Bobby, who is still staking out the Williams house.  They talk about how much Mrs. Williams knows or suspects, and then Mick offers to get Bobby something.  But Bobby's good, so Mick goes off to his meeting with Dominic, Chick, and the other cops where they look at a map and discuss evidence.
 

Next scene, we see Dominic and Bobby up on the mountain where Leo and Chick (and the dogs) have uncovered the graves of about five bodies that have been in the ground for different lengths of time.  One set of bones has some tatters of yellow silk mixed in and one is wearing red velvet.

Mick takes Williams into custody while Kosmo leads the search of the house.  Mrs. Williams gives her the necklace.

Dominic goes to talk to Patricia and Sunny about the bodies and the DNA samples and ropes and all kinds of stuff.

Mick and Leo question Williams and his lawyer, laying out all the evidence they have that Williams is the killer.  Kosmo brings in the necklace and after a brief attempt to explain/rationalize it, Williams drops his innocent act when Mick explains just how much Mrs. Williams is going to give up.

The cops take Williams up to the mountain (sans lawyer), and while Bobby, Sgt. Kurtz, and Kosmo wait on the road, Mick, Leo and Dominic take Williams up to the burial spot.  Williams tells them--quite cheerfully-- who is buried in each grave.

The last dialogue exchange is enough to send chills down the spine:

Dominic:  "All right, well, we have the five graves down here and there's one across the road that you told us about.  Are there anymore?"

Williams (with a unsettling grin): "You mean, any more like me?"

Leo leads him off as the camera pulls back to focus briefly on another mountaintop in the distance.  The camera then pulls back for an overhead shot of the men walking away from the graves.  Roll credits.
 
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