due South meta: Did Bob take the hush money in the pilot?

[luzula]

I've been discussing this with desireearmfeldt a couple of times, and I'm curious to see what other people think.

My personal head-canon is that Bob did not take the hush-money, and before I discussed it, this wasn't something I'd reflected much over--it was just my spontaneous assumption. Desiree had spontaneously gone in the opposite direction. Anyway, now that I've thought more about it, my reasons for thinking he didn't take the money are:

1) What we see of his character later in the show: we know he bends the rules sometimes, but when we see him doing that, it's not for personal gain (hmm, can you think of any instance?). I just don't see him as putting that much value on money/material gain. And he's a sergeant, it's not like he wouldn't get a decent pay anyway, enough for what he'd need.
2) Gerard absolutely has a motive for faking the evidence, because he wants Fraser to back off and not turn him in.
3) At the end of the pilot, one of the RCMP superiors (Underhill?) says: "There is no record of your father making any withdrawals. None of the deposits were made in person. People will believe what they want to believe. I know what I do." Which I guess means it could easily have been faked?

Of course, it could also be that I don't want to believe Bob took the money because I like him. So, what do you think?

Comments

[alassenya]

I never believed he took the money -- it was part of Gerard's back-up plan just in case the murder attempt went wrong, to make sure that Bob's testimony would be invalidated. I think if Bob had taken the money (even if he told himself that it was for a good cause, like an education fund) it would have eaten away at him like the memory of Victoria ate away at Ben, and we would have seen some evidence of that through the series.

[mysticalchild_isis]

I always got the impression from the pilot (and from what we hear of Bob later) that he did not take the money, and it was simply a plot of Gerard's. The Gift of the Wheelman has that line from Fraser about how the only thing a father needs to leave his son is a good example of how a man should live his life, and I can't reconcile that with a Bob that would have taken the money.

[green_grrl]

I've always assumed the same as you. First, Bob just doesn't seem the type; it would be wildly out of character. Second, setting up an account without Bob's knowledge is such a classic frame.

[brigantine]

Oh, yeah. Easy peasy. Well, setting up the account initially might be a little dicey, since there's paperwork that requires a signature, unless the account's being set up for a minor (I was a bank teller for a bit in the late '80's), but once the account was set, making dodgy-looking deposits would be simple if the "owner" of the account isn't aware it exists and has a tendency to wander off into the wilds for months at a time. While withdrawals (back then, none of this internet banking stuff) needed to be made in person, deposits into the account could be made by anyone.

The savings account record Gerard showed Ben not only didn't show any withdrawals, it only showed the dodgy deposits. There was no other activity at all that we'd normally see on the average person's account; varying amounts deposited on varying dates, the occasional withdrawal. It looked like an account freshly set up for exactly that one purpose.

ETA: Hmmpf. This was supposed to be a reply to Green_grrl's comment about setting up the account as a frame, but it didn't post that way.

[sage]

Oh, see, I apparently have a totally different thing going on in my head about this.

Gerard: take the money & go along or else I destroy you.
Bob: I can't do that. Also, we were partners, you ass!
Gerard: Haha! You already have! *proffers bank book with a flourish* And...you know you always loved Buck best, you jerk.
Bob: Huh. Well I guess I have, then. And, er, I suppose that's true. Sorry.

Bob: *phones Charlie Underhill* So, Gerard is taking bribes and the hydro utility is doing a supremely evil thing.
Charlie: That's quite a conspiracy. Have any proof?
Bob: Not enough. I'll play the game a little while and see where it leads us.
Charlie: These are some powerful enemies you're making, Bob.
Bob: I'll be careful.

Charlie: *eulogizes Bob while eyeing Gerard and Fraser*
Fraser: I have to solve this.
Charlie: *points Fraser to Gerard's trail*

Fraser: What do you mean I can't come back to Canada?!
Charlie: This is an ugly business we work in. The RCMP has a nasty-ass history, and don't you forget it. Wait til the current storm blows over and we'll see. Or maybe wait until I retire and can't be officially censured.
Fraser: I...guess I'll go back to Chicago?


The thing I'm undecided on is whether Charlie was complicit, too. I could go either way. Maybe he threw Gerard under a bus, or maybe he genuinely had no idea and legit represents the Mountie ideal while Gerard is the evil anti-Mountie of yore, with the awful history of harming aboriginal peoples.

Charlie comes off as SUCH a politician, though, that I'm more inclined to think him complicit. Especially in the way he calls Fraser & son the last of a breed, thus excluding them from all the rest of the Mounties who willingly play the same corrupt game.

[shayheyred]

I cannot believe Bob would take the money. Due South is in many ways a show in which characters are exactly what they appear to be. Shadows only appear on "good" characters if there's a plot payoff (think about when Fraser does something bad, or dishonest -it's always to right a wrong. His one legal infraction -- the release of Victoria -- eats him up, and he pays for it with a bullet in "Victoria's Secret." Fate is not always kind, but it is fair. Ray V is portrayed as a possibly shady cop in the pilot, but again, it's never for himelf; if he cuts a legal corner (which we really don't ever see proof of) it's to bag the bad guy. Ray K seems to verge on doing those same sorts of things, and I can see him willing to maybe cut his own legal corners or punch a suspect. But both Rays are good guys, and their natures both become significantly more honest once they meet Fraser.

So now we come to Bob. Bob has quirks and weirdness and gaps where normal emotions toward people may be, but he's Fraser's role model. I know - they have a contentious and mutually misunderstanding relationship. But I can't believe that we'd be expected to have Fraser's go to ghost and advisor be a guy who would take a bribe. Some people disappoint Benton Fraser, but we've no real indication that Dad did so, except emotionally.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I took the account as something Gerard did to make sure if anyone started digging into Bob's death that they would cover up the death's circumstances to make the bribe disappear.

I'm thinking that if the account was set up somewhere (or by mail from somewhere) Bob might have been, Old Mountie is all anyone would remember if they didn't know Bob or Gerard or (Buck), saying anything was done in person.

Of course, with Benton in Chicago, it's much harder for him to do any community policing that might lend to not putting a lake the size of Germany over land too few people care about.

I suspect someone is still very upset that that tribe/village was able to use their stipend to hire lawyers to get them secure in the hunting lands that would keep them viable as opposed to the 'reserve' that would end in them dispersed somewhere else.

(Of course, I have the nasty suspicion that Muldoon killed Caroline so Bob would 'run him off a cliff' as the best alibi of all, death. Just like I think he was 'friends' with Bob figuring that would keep most people tight-lipped about what he was up to, expecting a fix.)

[lyr]

I always thought he didn't take it, for exactly the reasons you name - but mostly particularly because of reason #3.

[ride-4ever.livejournal.com]

Well, I have always believed in my heart that Bob didn't take the money, but it also seems to me that the hints-in-canon indicate it was a set-up to be called into play as one more part of the crime AGAINST Bob.