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Season 2 Witchblade

Emergence

WitchbladeNYPD detectives Sara Pezzini and Danny Woo are on the trail of a criminal named Gallo who, among other things, is suspected by Pezzini of murdering her father, and, more recently, a childhood friend of hers. In the ensuing chase, Pezzini and Danny are separated, and Pez finds herself in an art gallery at the mercy of a trained killer. The only thing that saves her life is the Witchblade – an armored gauntlet in one of the display cases which seems to somehow make its own way onto her arm in the melee, deflecting bullets and effectively ending the fight by sparking a huge explosion which kills the gunman. Pezzini is understandably confused by what has happened, especially when there is no evidence of the gauntlet later (though she can’t explain the origin of the ancient-looking bracelet which now graces her wrist) – nor is there any evidence of a dark-clothed man who she spotted gazing at the Witchblade in the gallery.

As she recovers from the fierce fight, Pezzini’s dreams are infiltrated by the bracelet, filling them with images of death, battle, and even Joan of Arc. And the man in black from the gallery is watching her and reporting back to an unseen master – a master who owns the Rialto Theatre, a property in which Gallo is interested. Pezzini and Danny act on a tip about Gallo’s interest in the Rialto from rookie cop Jake McCartey – whose somewhat hazy background doesn’t inspire Danny’s trust. Unknown to the two veteran cops, two others tag along when they stake out the Rialto – the man who has been trailing Pez, and McCartey, who seems determined to get a piece of the action. But at the last minute, Pez decides not to make the move – though what she doesn’t tell Danny is that somehow, the Witchblade told her that Danny would die if she tried to take Gallo down now.

Eccentric billionaire Kenneth Irons, owner of the gigantic Vorschlaag Industries and collector of art and artifacts related to the Witchblade, has been watching Sara Pezzini closely. His henchman, Ian Nottingham, has been following her. But Irons wants to control whoever wields the blade, and Sara’s introduction to the weapon didn’t take place under violent enough circumstances to make her impressionable enough to bend to Irons’ will. The billionaire orders Nottingham to kill her and retrieve the Witchblade; he already has someone in mind to wear it, someone who is already in his thrall. But despite Nottingham’s proficiency in close combat, Sara defeats him and, in the process, kills Irons’ candidate for the Witchblade. This only convinces Irons that he will have to resort to other means to achieve ultimate power…and to kill Sara Pezzini.

Season Two Regular Cast: Yancy Butler (Detective Sara Pezzini), David Chokachi (Detective Jake McCartey), Will Yun Lee (Danny Woo), Anthony Cistaro (Kenneth Irons), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Eric Etebari (Ian Nottingham)

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Ralph Hemecker & Jorge Zamacona
directed by Joe Chappelle
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Marika Dominczyk (Christina Wales), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Conrad Dunn (Gallo), Joe Butler (Arnold Buck), Leah Coldrige (Debbie Buck), Dov Tiejenbach (Turnville) and Lazar

Note: Guest star Joe Butler is the real-life father of series star Yancy Butler, and a former member of the rock group The Lovin’ Spoonful.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Destiny

WitchbladePez and Danny are called to the scene of a homicide in the dock district – a security guard was impaled through the chest with some sort of bladed instrument, but not a very sharp one. Pez questions Kenneth Irons, but their brief meeting ends in his barely-veiled threat, and shortly afterward, she’s on the case of two more grisly murders – both committed with the same weapon as the dock guard. Even more amazingly, analysis of the bodies reveals that the weapon may date back to the time of Christ. Pez and Danny visit Irons’ home, where she discovers a business card for an online relic search service. She visits that site’s home base and finds a potential ally in a young internet entrepreneur, Gabriel Bowman, who was unable to find something for Irons: a spear that may have been used to inflict Christ’s mortal wound on the cross. That spear, like the Witchblade, can be wielded only by those destined to carry it – and it contains the masculine equivalent of the immense power of the Witchblade, which can only be worn by a woman. Iron intends to use the Spear of Destiny to kill Pez, and in the inevitable confrontation, one of them will end up dead.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Jorge Zamacona & William J. MacDonald and Ralph Hemecker
story by Jorge Zamacona & William J. MacDonald
directed by David Carson
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Bill McDonald (Orlinsky), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Dov Tiejenbach (Turnville), Johnie Chase (Paul), Jean Moon (Sidney) and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 2 Witchblade

Agape

WitchbladeJake McCarty is assigned to work with Dean, an undercover narcotics cop with a reputation for being a dangerously loose cannon, when two teenagers turn up dead with an unidentified drug in their systems. Pez does some digging of her own and discovers that a new drug – which relieves its users of any fear or sense of self-preservation but vastly increases their strength and adrenaline – is making the rounds. She also encounters Ian again, who pledged that he would take vengeance upon her for killing Kenneth Irons, but now Irons’ henchman has changed his tune, promising to protect Pezzini whether she likes it or not. Dean uses Jake to set up a sting operation, but when the drug dealers take Jake’s gun from him, Dean comes in shooting. The sting turns into a massacre – and most of the shots fired by the dealers will be traced back to Jake’s gun. Dean turns on the wounded Jake and tries to kill him, but Jake gets away. When the police arrive, Dean pins the blame on Jake. The rookie cop is now on the run from enemies and friends alike, and only Pezzini believes he’s innocent. But even she might have a hard time believing who’s been helping Jake stay alive.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Larry Barber & Paul Barber
directed by Paul Holahan
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Robert John Burke (Dean), Robert Procelli (?), Louis De Franco (?), Ted Kerva (?), Luciana Lada (?), Philip Eccles (?), Daniel Petrovjvic (?), Angelo Tualt (?), Sasha Ormond (?), Jordan Barker (?), Wayne Ward (?), Robert Racij (?), James Binriew (?), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Consectatio

WitchbladeBrooding over the death of Irons, Ian Nottingham mysteriously begins to take on some of his former master’s personality traits. He contacts the Black Dragons, a small elite force of ex-military troops of which he was once a member, to kill Sara Pezzini. It just so happens that Pez is on the Dragons’ trail already, with surveillance video of a recent murder/robbery pointing toward them. Moebius, the leader of the Black Dragons, warns Ian that Pezzini’s death is a mission to which the Dragons will commit themselves until it is completed, or they are all killed. Sara evades the Black Dragons’ traps, and finally Ian realizes that to stop them from killing the woman he loves, he will have to eliminate his brethren himself.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Richard C. Okie
directed by Neill Fearnley
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Peter Mensah (Moebius), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Wade Eastwood (Andy), Fragna Dusai (Black Dragon #2), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 2 Witchblade

Static

WitchbladeAn unusual murder – a small-time local rock star who seems to have been ejected from an 11th story hotel window aboard a luggage cart – gets Pezzini’s attention, especially when the autopsy reveals that he was knocked out with a taser first. A young woman who found the man’s body later commits suicide, and Pez decides to ask her therapist if she had noticed any unusual behavior before. The therapist, Dr. Anna Granger, notes her patient’s tendency to hear voices – something with which Pez can easily identify. McCarty checks and discovers that several recent suicides were also among Dr. Granger’s clientele. They go to question the doctor, and find clues linking her to the hotel murder.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Larry Barber & Paul Barber
directed by Neill Fearnley
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Tamara Gorski (Anna Granger), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Dov Tiejenbach (Turnville), Cormac (Mac), Gabrielle Ashby (Lorelei)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Nailed

WitchbladeConvicted killer Karl Dalack is released early, much to dismay of Detective Danny Woo. Years ago, before he was Pezzini’s partner, Woo burst in on Dalack’s apartment after hearing a girl’s terrified cries from behind his door – but with no warrant, could do nothing but give in to Dalack’s demand that he leave. The girl’s body was found later, molested, her fingernails painted and then ripped off of her fingers. Woo broke into Dalack’s apartment with no warrant and found enough evidence to convict him of a string of similar murders – but with no search warrant, the evidence was inadmissible, and Dalack was charged with only a single count. Now, years later, Woo and Pezzini are charged with protecting Dalack upon his release from prison – and with keeping an eye on him to make sure he won’t fall back into deadly old habits. What Woo doesn’t expect is that his own niece has been hand-picked by Dalack as his next victim.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Richard C. Okie
directed by Rick Rosenthal
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Currie Graham (Dalack), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), Pizuo Peck (Meija), Sharlene Glen (Jennifer Rose), Michael Rhodes (Cop), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Lagrimas

WitchbladeIrons appears to Ian Nottingham, foretelling the arrival of a great evil. Pezzini begins to sense it too, as she’s working the bizarre ritual murder of a Catholic priest. Another ritual is on Pezzini’s mind, as she notices that nearly everyone around her seems to have someone in their lives – Danny and his wife are even expecting a baby. Pezzini is about to give up on both when new clues reignite her interest. Skin samples from under the fingernails of the dead priest reveal that whatever killed him cannot itself be killed. And Pezzini meets someone who could be the man of her dreams, but that once-in-a-lifetime love could be reduced to nightmares when Ian intervenes…but is Ian doing it to save Sara’s life, or out of jealousy?

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Jorge Zamacona
directed by James Whitmore Jr. and Neill Fearnley
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Jeffrey Donovan (Daniel Germaine), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Kenneth Wickes (Priest), Shabene Alen (Delivery boy), Dov Tiejenbach (Turnville), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Hierophant

WitchbladeA high-ranking figure in the Russian mafia turns up dead, and Pezzini suspects that her old adversary, mob boss Gallo, is at work again. Rather than boasting about being untouchable, as he usually does, Gallo catches Pezzini off-guard by claiming the murder is the work of a new crime boss known only as “V” – someone who really is untouchable, even by Gallo’s thugs. It’s not long before Pez, Danny and McCarty get someone else to talk about “V,” but it begins to look as though it’ll be a cold day in hell before they find someone willing to help them go up against him. And that’s appropriate enough, as Pez discovers that they’re up against pure evil, powerful enough to take any form that will stop her in her tracks before she can use the Witchblade to put an end to it.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Roderick Taylor & Bruce A. Taylor
directed by Paul Holahan
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: James Acheson (James Pezzini), Conrad Dunn (Gallo), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Roger Daltrey (Madame Sesostris), Arnold Finnear (Boris), Sergei Nirolich (Russian Mafia boss), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Veritas

WitchbladeTwo armed men ruthlessly hunt down a middle-aged man, catching up with him just after he reads a series of numbers over a cell phone and killing him. But this killing is out of the ordinary in many ways – the victim, William Ticknor, is a former intelligence expert for the U.S. government, and the last person he called, the person to whom he read the numbers, turns out to be Gabriel Bowman, Pezzini’s internet entrepreneur friend who specializes in objects of mystical significance. Pezzini, having recently had a cryptic conversation with the spirit of President Kennedy, is already aware that this case may be deeper and darker than even her partners suspect. Gabriel knew Ticknor, and had a business arrangement with him, but didn’t know exactly what Ticknor would be bringing him. He deciphers the numbers – exact latitude and longitude – and meets Pezzini there, only to find that it’s the exact spot where Ticknor was gunned down. Pezzini finds something taped to the bottom of a park bench, but soon she and Gabriel are being pursued by the same killers who murdered Ticknor. She kills one of them and then goes into hiding with Gabriel. Ticknor’s mystery package is a roll of undeveloped 8mm film of a kind that hasn’t been made for over 20 years, but Pezzini can’t show her face long enough to get it developed – she and Gabriel are wanted by the FBI for the murder of a federal agent. In the meantime, Danny Woo is trying to help Sara stay underground, but he’s growing increasingly suspicious of Jake McCarty’s cozy relationship with the FBI agents working the case.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Jorge Zamacona
directed by Paul Abascal
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Victor Slezak (William Ticknor), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Jeff Seymour (Agent Arness), John Bourgeois (President John F. Kennedy), Dean Hagopian (Agent Terrell), Sam Moses (Agent Spector), Patrick Garrow (Vic), and Lazar

Notes: Elements of this episode are based upon former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s theory on motives that the U.S. intelligence community might have had for killing President Kennedy in 1963; these theories were later turned into a movie, Oliver Stone’s JFK, but are best summed up in Garrison’s own book, On The Trail Of The Assassins (1988). Garrison’s theory, however, overlooks the role of Vorschlaag Industries in the Kennedy assassination…

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Parabola

WitchbladeA spree of hate crimes is followed by another spree – the bloody deaths of the perpetrators of those crimes. The sole survivor of a gay bashing tells Pezzini of a woman who saved his live, but she’s skeptical. She’s also skeptical of the tales of a crime lord named Lupo – specializing in hate crimes. Danny learns about a hate rally, and Pez decides to infiltrate it, but her attempt to bluff her way past Lupo’s guards ends in disaster – and the only thing that saves her life is the same vigilante who brought the gay bashing incident to a bloody end. The girl shows up at Pezzini’s door later, asking for use of the Witchblade, but curiously declining Pez’s offer of help in bringing Lupo to justice. The girl’s grudge with Lupo is personal, fatal…and far older than Pezzini can imagine.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Jennifer Beck & Ralph W. Hemecker
directed by Anghel Decca
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Eric Roberts (Lupo), Alexis Dziena (Bola), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Chuck Sansansv (Mr. Chen), Jake Simmons (Board Member #1), Edward Rov (Board Member #2), Shane Daly (Gay bashing victim), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Palindrome

WitchbladeA man turns up dead, beaten to death by blunt force, and Pezzini, Danny and McCarty uncover evidence of a secret fight club whose fighters are recruited mainly from one of the dockyards. Danny and McCarty manage to get jobs at the docks and stage a fight between themselves to attract the attention of one of the club’s recruiters. They’re inducted into the club, with Pezzini following to keep an eye on them, but she also sees someone else she feels an inexplicable affinity for – another fighter who goes by the name of Conchobar. Pezzini can’t explain why she’s drawn to the circumspect Irishman, nor can she explain her visions of being romanced by him – or witnessing his death. Nor can she explain why Conchobar seems equally attracted to her – or why he claims to know who she is, and has seen the same visions she has.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Roderick Taylor & Bruce A. Taylor
directed by Paul Holahan
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Kim de Lury (Conchobar), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Joel Marsh Garland (Eddie Pan), Gabriel Richards (Carlos Ramone), Irene Lopez Ruchelan (Mrs. Ramone), Robbie Rox (Foreman), Etheridge Hyndman (SWAT officer), Tracy Waterhouse (Nurse), and Lazar

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Season 2 Witchblade

Ubique

WitchbladePezzini awakens from a nightmare about dying at the hands of a younger woman wielding the Witchblade, but when she awakens, she discovers that the bracelet truly is gone from her wrist. At the same time, it seems that a blood-dimmed tide is loosed upon the world as a relentless global wave of unusual murders begins. Without the Witchblade to help her see past the barrier of death, Pezzini is helpless to get to the heart of these crimes. She still manages to find one amazing coincidence, however – every one of the murderers recently visited a web site called “CyberFaust” just before the killing spree began. But when Pezzini, Danny and McCarty view the site at the precinct, it delivers the message that Pezzini is responsible for the murder of Kenneth Irons. Pezzini and Gabriel look at the site, and discover that Irons is very much alive – and he is responsible for both the wave of deaths and the woman who now wields the Witchblade in the name of vengeance.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Richard C. Okie & Ralph Hemecker
directed by Bradford May
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Kate Levering (Lucrezia), Kim de Lury (Conchobar), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Megan Fahbinock (Wife), John Chesburn (Captain), Jason Jazakov (John #1), ? (John #2), ? (John #3), ? (Old Man), ? (Husband), Grace Slick (voice of the Witchlade), and Lazar

Notes: Continuing the series’ long-running fascination with classic rock music, the Witchblade finally gains her own voice here, and fittingly enough it speaks in the voice of Jefferson Airplane vocalist Grace Slick. Ironically, Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit is heard playing in the background of Gabriel’s office in one scene.

LogBook entry by Earl Green