Tag: TNT

Pezzini finds it tempting to call in sick and stay in bed all day – with Conchobar – but decides to go to work anyway. Not long after she leaves, however, a band of masked thugs burst into her apartment and kidnap Conchobar. Like him, they’re Irish nationals, but they have no personal interest in him. To his captors, Conchobar is valuable only as a bargaining chip they hope to use to lure his brother, an IRA terrorist, out into the open. Pezzini goes above and beyond the call of duty to find who has taken her lover and where he’s been taken – and she even begins to use powers beyond those granted by her badge to this end. The terrorists want not only money, but the Witchblade itself – and when Kenneth Irons refuses to help her retrieve it, Sara Pezzini finds herself up against the invincible might of her own weapon…and an infinite well of rage and hatred tapped by the death of someone very close to her.

teleplay by Richard C. Okie
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by James Whitmore Jr.
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Kim De Lury (Conchobar), Trent McMullen (Sean), Deborah Pollitt (Terrorist), Dree MacDonald (Terrorist), Brendan Wall (Terrorist), Tracy Shreve (?), Johnie Chase (?), Kevin Rushton (?), Nenna Abuwa (?)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stricken by grief, Pezzini has locked herself in her apartment for four days. But while she isn’t inclined to get up from her bed, she’s terrified when the Witchblade roots her to that spot, expanding itself into metal tendrils that wrap around her body. Danny appears to comfort her and warn her that the Witchblade is testing her resolve and her character – a test which, if failed, will prove to be fatal. Kenneth Irons is also watching the proceedings closely, and feeling them as well through some kind of link to Sara. Through the test, Sara discovers that she is not related to Joan of Arc, Elizabeth Bronte, or an ancient Celtic goddess of retribution…she is Joan of Arc, Elizabeth Bronte, and an ancient Celtic goddess of retribution. Meanwhile, Jake McCartey is undergoing a test of his own as Captain Dante tries to recruit him into a shady elite police brotherhood known as the White Bulls – an association that would require Jake to sell Pezzini out.

teleplay by Roderick Taylor & Bruce A. Taylor
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by Neill Fearnley
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman) and Lazar

Notes: The choice of the Lovin’ Spoonful song “Do You Believe In Magic” may be a bit of an in-joke – series star Yancy Butler is the daughter of Lovin’ Spoonful band member John Butler.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Dante assigns as many of his officers as possible to keep an eye on a shady arms dealer who may be peddling his wares in New York. Pezzini protests the assignment, citing her already overflowing homicide workload, but Dante insists. Gabriel comes to Pezzini with word that one of his best friends has been killed, but she can find no evidence that the deceased – a comic book artist with a drug habit and more than a few enemies – did anything more than commit suicide. The arms dealer surveillance assignment quickly blows up as the man in question is gunned down by a sniper with a powerful weapon. Not long afterward, Ian Nottingham – Kenneth Irons’ hired hand (and hired gun) – turns himself in to Sara, claiming to have been the shooter.

teleplay by Richard C. Okie
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by James Whitmore Jr.
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Kathryn Winslow (Vicki), Bill McDonald (Orlinsky)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Pezzini and McCartey are in the midst of a roundup of prostitutes as they try to crack the case of a murdered pimp, but Pezzini is startled to find a package addressed to her. Contained within are various newspaper clippings about the suspicious deaths of NYPD officers, and a videotape recorded by her father, who suspected the existence of a corrupt elite police organization known as the White Bulls. The tape then goes on to implicate a young ambitious cop named Bruno Dante as a particularly vicious member of that order. Sara corners her former captain – also her father’s ex-partner – to ask him to verify the White Bulls’ existence. And while he is able to give her that information, and tell her that Dante killed James Pezzini, that information will cost him his life – and will mark Sara for death too.

teleplay by Richard C. Okie
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by Robert Lee
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Bill McDonald (Orlinsky), Kenneth Welsh (Captain Siri), Eden Roundtree (Charlene), Christopher Cordell (Transvestite)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sara Pezzini has gone rogue from the NYPD, and Dante makes finding her – and killing her – the top priority of the White Bulls. But also on their slate is finding the missing daughter of a congressman whose influence could be of help to Dante’s elite officers in the future. McCartey, who is still in touch with Pez, asks for her help on this case, and she refuses until Danny convinces her that it could win McCartey’s cooperation in her quest for justice. Pez does indeed find both the missing girl – who was raped and murdered – and the perpetrator…but what can she do to bring down a serial killer without alerting the police to her presence? If she succeeds, she may yet find out who Jake McCartey really is.

teleplay by Richard C. Okie
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by James Whitmore Jr.
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Keir Dullea (Irons’ doctor), Eden Roundtree (Charlene), Kelly Ivey (Kate Havilland), Stefan Brogren (Leeman Bostwick), Noah Danby (Burgess), Ken Kramer (Lars)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sara Pezzini’s quest for justice is growing closer to a resolution – and growing more dangerous. Ian tracks her down, ostensibly to say goodbye to her, and she and Gabriel narrowly escape as Dante and the White Bulls follow Ian to their hideout and shoot him down in cold blood without even the slightest hint that their target was armed. McCartey balks at Pezzini’s suggestion of using herself as bait to catch Dante, but realizes there may be no better way to take the corrupt police captain down. McCartey arranges a meeting at an FBI safe house, while Gabriel – suspecting that McCartey’s still working for the White Bulls – receives a visit from someone who only Sara herself could see until now. At the meeting, Dante says too much and winds up in the middle of an FBI raid – but he also tries to take a last shot at McCartey, which Pezzini sees coming. She fires first, inflicting a mortal wound, and learns from Dante that Kenneth Irons gave the order to kill her father. McCartey is stunned when Pez leaves the takedown to confront her benefactor/antagonist, and with Gabriel in tow goes to try to get her out of trouble. Irons needs more of Pezzini’s blood to extend his life…and he’s willing to kill all of her remaining friends to ensure her cooperation.

teleplay by Ralph Hemecker
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by David S. Jackson
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Keir Dullea (Irons’ doctor)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Pez 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.

teleplay 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

Jake 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.

written 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

Brooding 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.

written 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

An 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.

written 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

Convicted 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.

written 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

Irons 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?

written 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

A 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.

written 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

Two 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.

written 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