AUS Television: City Homicide, Episode 4.13 "Once Bitten"

City Homicide
Season Four, Episode Thirteen, Once Bitten
Original Air Date:  September 29, 2010

An off-duty Rhys finds himself in trouble when he pursues two kids he witnessed committing a robbery.  One of the men bite him and they both get away.  Upon investigating the scene closer, Rhys finds that the owner of the business was murdered.  The case gets complicated and Rhys faces a danger that could cost him his life.

While listening to a witness relate what he'd seen (or not seen) to Nick, Rhys sees an onlooker in the crowd that draws his interest but the man disappears into the crowd.  Matt orders Rhys back to headquarters to get an ID on the men. Once there, he finds that his bitten arm is in a pretty bad condition.  He gets a call from Matt and, ignoring his injury, he heads out to work on the case.

No one seems to be able to identify the photo Rhys has of the guy he saw flee the scene of the crime.  Nick and Rhys end up in the home of the onlooker that drew Rhys' attention at the scene, Murray Denton.  Denton is strange, to say the least and Rhys feels he is borderline Aspergers. 

When one of the teenagers, the one who bit Rhys, is brought in he certainly gives the officers a fight!  While struggling with the uniformed officers, Rhys notices track marks on the kids arm causing him concern over his injury.  The boy admits to bashing the deceased man and taking the money but he insists they didn't kill him.  While searching the kids belongings they learn that his accomplice was a girl.

Rhys ends up telling Nick he was bitten and Nick insists he must get a blood test and put in a report because the kid is a user.  However, Rhys is still reluctant to get the injury taken care of.

While brainstorming, the team concludes the attack was part of a protection racket.  While everyone else goes off to investigate that lead, Nick goes back to talk to the suspect.  Nick warns him that if he doesn't go in and get a blood test he will be speaking to "old school" Jarvis who will not be as nice about the issue as he (Nick) is.

At home with his aunt, Bernice, Rhys expresses his doubts to her about his capabilities of working in homicide.  When she touches his arm, he flinches and she forces him to show him his arm finding the bite.

Rhys questions the shop owner and Nick and Duncan question Denton about the female suspect and the protection scheme.  After leaving the cafe, Rhys chases down a girl and arrests her for questioning.  The girl, an obvious junkie, admits to stealing the money but she insists she and her boyfriend didn't kill the man.  She implicates "eagle" and Rhys immediately knows who she's talking about. 

Bernice questions Matt about Rhys' ability to handle the case and mentions the bite.  An angry Matt goes immediately to Rhys once away from Bernice.  He orders Rhys to have an injury report on his desk in a half hour then to find the man who committed the murder.  Matt asks him if anyone other than Bernice knows about the injury and Rhys outright lies to him and tells him no. 

Uniforms bring in "eagle" and Nick and Rhys go into talk with him.  He claims he was "doing his shopping" and didn't kill the barber, Charlie.  Rhys, thinking something is odd about Denton, goes into speak with Bernice along with Nick.  Rhys looks at a complaint made against Denton alleging Denton was a pedophile.  The complaint was made by the deceased barber.  They bring Denton back in for another talk.  Denton doesn't break even under Nick's intense questioning.  They then turn their attention to Costas, the owner of the cafe next to Charlie's business.

Attention goes back to Denton when Nick and Rhys feel he might have been a witness.  Rhys goes to speak to him alone.  He wants to know what Denton saw because of the eye for detail he has.  It doesn't seem like Denton will say anything at first, but, when Rhys is getting ready to leave, he starts to talk.  He gives Rhys a photographic description as to what happened. 

Knowing Costas the murderer, Rhys goes alone to his cafe so he can catch him before he gets rid of the murder weapon.  Costas comes out of the cafe and sees Rhys searching the building for the knife and comes back out with another.  Rhys is in a very bad position as Costas could easily overtake and kill him but Rhys is able to make the murder arrest and close down the protection scheme racket.

Rhys proves himself in this episode, I think.  I also think he has earned a friend in Nick.  Rhys is a bit stubborn and very naive but he should learn as time goes by.  He put himself in danger with Costas and things could have gone very bad, very fast but they didn't.  He was able to close the case proving he's more than just a college degree.  I found it a bit crazy on his part that he seemed so reluctant to have the bite taken care of but, I guess he was probably afraid of what he might hear.  The good news at the end where the junkie's blood tests came back negative was a relief to him.  Imagine if he'd gotten that news earlier how much better he could have performed knowing he was A-OK?

Matt is slowly getting used to his new position.  I hope that now we have Matt as a Sergeant we don't see less and less of Stanley Wolfe.  Stanley has long been one of my favorite City Homicide characters and I'd miss him were he to leave again.

Music From This Episode:
Silk Suits (Kram)

As music is a great part of City Homicide, I'm going to try to make a note of the music in each episode from here on out.  I can't guarantee that I'll always be able to identify every song in every show but I'll give it a shot.  If I've got time, I might go back and put together a list of music from old episodes as well.  (I'm not making any promises about that, though!)

For more information:
City Homicide Official Site:  http://au.tv.yahoo.com/city-homicide/
Internet Movie Database:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1024932/
TV Rage:  http://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-17228