- On November 12, 1971, an Aboriginal woman is murdered. The four suspects come close to being arrested in the Spring of 1972, but are ultimately released.
- -November 12, 1971 - The Pas, Manitoba.-
Harold 'Bud' Colgan is watching hockey while drinking. His wife Joyce is cleaning up after supper. Their sons Rick and Lee are at the table. Lee is trying to convince Rick to dump his fiancée on the eve of their upcoming wedding. Lee then tries to get the family car for the evening, but Bud says no. Lee presses Joyce, who in turn badgers Bud until he finally gives in. Lee take a bottle of scotch and drives over to Jim Houghton's place and convinces him to come along. In town, they witness a race-riot outside the Legion and they watch as their friend Dwayne Johnston takes on a gang of Cree men, while Norm Manger, already drunk, is staggering around the scene. The police arrive and break it up while the crowd curses them, telling the cops to "go back to training school". Lee and Jim take Norm into the car and eventually catch up with Dwayne and they convince him to join them. Dwayne takes Lee's scotch and drinks it all, prompting them to go visit a friend of theirs, Jack Halliday. Jack's not home, but Lee smashes his window and takes two bottles of wine from him anyway. They then drive off. Jim, Norm and Dwayne are all happy just to go to the lake and get drunk, but Lee adamantly insists on his need to get laid. So to shut him up, they agree to get him "the next broad they see". They encounter Helen Betty Osborne walking home from the earlier riot. They agree to grab her. Lee, thinking that she's just another "Edwards Avenue Girl" (Cree prostitute), tries to ply her with wine, but she refuses. Dwayne gets out and forces her inside the car and they drive off with her screaming the whole time.
-November 13-
At the Clearwater Lake pump house, a man and his son are ice-fishing. The boy goes into the woods and discovers the body of Osborne. They call the RCMP, who come to investigate, but one of them is unconcerned about the case and is much more interested in "The Boston Strangler" case he's been reading about. Meanwhile, Lee wakes up from a nightmare, looks out his window and sees the car with blood all over the trunk. He goes over to Jim's and gets him to look at the car. Jim tells him to wipe it down, then go inside and act normally. At the Polynesian Café, the owner, Marg, is trying to put a stop to a shopping mall being planned on the Cree reserve, accusing the Cree of being "deadbeats" and "parasites". Dwayne come in and gets Darcy Bancroft, his lawyer, to go with him. At Freidman's, Lee bamboozles a Cree man into buying something he neither needs nor wants, as he is cashing his "Indian cheque". He hears a group of men talking about the discovery at the pump house and later tries to confide in Mel Friedman, his boss, but Mel doesn't care about an "Indian girl". The police discover the truth about Osborne's identity and proceed to round up all the Cree teenagers from the high school for questioning.
At Rick Colgan's wedding, Lee and his friend Donnie are getting drunk and generally being disruptive. So Lee sneaks the car keys from his Dad and he and Donnie go to a party at the lake. Lee convinces Donnie's ex-girlfriend Sherrie Linder to get in his car and he tries to hit on her unsuccessfully. He then boasts to her that he was there when Osborne was killed and that Jim and Norm were with him. She immediately gets out of the car. Lee gives chase shouting to her that "it wasn't me". Donnie immediately grabs Lee and they leave.
The next day, after one of Sherrie's friends teases and taunts Lee, Sherrie tries to convince Lee to come clean and go to the police, but Donnie warns her to be silent or she'll suffer the same fate as Osborne. Outside Friedman's, Dwayne and his friend Gary confront Lee about his loose lips. Lee tries to deny it but only denies saying anything about Dwayne. Dwayne accuses Lee of being gutless and tells him everything will die down soon. He also tells Lee their friendship is over and he better not talk or else. Mel Friedman overhears but only tells Lee to get inside and work.
Const. Hall of the RCMP convinces his sergeant to allow a priest to hypnotize a witness in order to identify a suspect vehicle. The plan works but when the owner of the car turns out to be Harold Colgan, a respected citizen of The Pas, Sgt. Murchison angrily accuses Hall of wasting $900 of RCMP funds for the scheme. Const. Cousins tries to one-up Hall by saying he had already checked the Colgan car the morning of November 13 and found nothing. Murchison is satisfied and decides to post an ad in the paper requesting help from the public.
At the café, two Cree students complain about the lack of service and say when the mall opens up, they won't return. Marg says that the mall may have some benefits after all. Constables Hall and Dubeck come in for some coffee and doughnuts and are ridiculed by the patrons for their newspaper ad. Outside, Dwayne and a group of friends collect Angie from the café then proceed to insult the police with hand gestures and faces. Hall angrily states that he hates The Pas and can't wait for a transfer "the hell out of here". In Dwayne's van, they encounter an elderly Cree man and they proceed to run him down with the van. They then get out and try to force-feed him wine. Angie tells Dwayne to leave the man alone, but Dwayne ridicules her, then tells her that "those people" are like scum and that he had no trouble at all with stabbing "the girl at the pump house" repeatedly, and that he actually enjoyed doing it.
-Six months later-
The RCMP receive an anonymous letter indicting Lee, Jim and Norm for the murder. Hall angrily confronts Cousins about his lie. Murchison, having read the note, angrily demands that the Colgan car be searched. After the car is taken away, Bud angrily confronts Lee, who admits the truth. Bud's only response is for him to not tell his mother. At the police lab, the search reveals a blood stain (degraded beyond usefulness), some black hair (inconclusive) and an actual piece of Osbourne's bra. Murchison tells his officers, as well as a few Mounties from Thompson to start squeezing the suspects until they crack. Jim refuses to co-operate except to say that Lee is the weak link. Lee almost cracks but then Bancroft appears and takes Lee away. Norm is plied with alcohol but refuses to co-operate. Norm is then snuck out by Gary. One of the Thompson Mounties identifies another one of Dwayne's biker friends, Curtis Turner, as a parole violator and confronts him. Curtis gives up Dwayne in exchange for a free pass. The cops then go to Dwayne's house, but he lawyers up immediately. At Darcy Bancroft's, Darcy tells the boys that as long as they are silent, there is no proof, and they will stay free. ("Silence is golden. And in this case, your silence is your freedom.") The Crown Prosecutor tells the Mounties that they cannot force them to talk and orders them to stop trying. Hall is pissed, but Murchison tells him that it's not over. He also commends Hall for his vigilance and initiative, then informs him that his transfer request has been approved.
That night, Lee and Norm are celebrating at the Legion. They meet two girls, one of whom is named Sandy, and convince them to join the celebration. Sandy whispers to Lee that she thinks Norm is an Indian. Lee and his friends then take Norm's beer over to the Cree side of the bar, but Norm stumbles into them. The Cree proceed to attack Lee, calling him "white shit". Donnie and some other white men proceed to attack the Cree, resulting in an all-out brawl. The Mounties come in and break up the fight. Hall and Lee stare at each other for a moment, then Hall leaves. Lee asks Sandy to dance, then a few minutes later, he proposes to her, and she accepts.
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Episode #1.1 (1991) in Australia?
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