Clementine

Clementine is the fourth episode of Season 2 of The CW series Kung Fu. It premiered on March 30, 2022.

## Synopsis

GIVING UP THE PAST - After finding himself in a bind, Dennis (Tony Chung) turns to Nicky (Olivia Liang) for help, leading them to uncover an auto theft ring in Chinatown. Elsewhere, when an argument about family causes Henry (Eddie Liu) and Nicky to have their first real fight, Henry reluctantly reconnects with his estranged father. Finally, Evan (Gavin Stenhouse) is forced to make a difficult decision that could cost him his job. Tzi Ma, Kheng Hua Tan, Shannon Dang and Jon Prasida also star.

## Plot

Althea’s having a rough time on her first day of her new startup. Dennis naturally comes by to try and help her feel better, taking her car, Clementine, to get the team some encouraging food. That’s where the trouble starts…

Dennis Soong, supportive husband that he is, took Clementine, Althea’s pride and joy, for a ride. Bad idea. While trying to get Althea’s team some pineapple buns on their first day to snack on, Dennis leaves Clementine’s engine running. In and out in less than 30 seconds, Dennis emerges to find Clementine … gone. Uh oh.

While Nicky and Henry are researching, Dennis barges in, freaking out about Clementine. The police were no help in trying to get her back. Begging for Nicky’s help finding her, the two pay Evan a trip to try and get some help. Evan tells them about a string of carjackings around the city, focusing mostly on easy targets (crimes of opportunity … like leaving the engine running). He agrees they should try and use Ryan’s car as bait to lure the thieves out.

Ryan, Dennis, and Nicky do a stakeout and catch a girl trying to steal Ryan’s car. She tells them she doesn’t know anything; the robbery was a one time gig and she did it for rent money. They use her to text a number to get the drop-off location. Feeling bad, Dennis gives her cash for rent while Nicky gives her information about the community center so she'll be set up with an job. Ryan splits off to investigate a clue about the hospital Mia was born at — information they got from Mei-Li telling Po Po about Mia. Po Po found this out having tracked a mysterious one-off phone call from Mei-Xue 20 years back to a hospital.

At the community center, Althea barges in, furious at Dennis ghosting her all day (and receiving a bank notification about a lot of money leaving their account). She wants to know what’s going on. After telling Althea the truth and getting a hit on the location of the party where Clementine is supposed to get blow up (see more below), Althea storms away from him, clearly still upset.

Nicky, Althea, and Dennis arrive at the party. Leif (portrayed by guest-star Richard Speight, Jr.) introduces himself and his girl Tamra, aka “Lady T” (guest star Briana Buckmaster), who gives the crew the party’s wild offerings of the night. These include a shotgun range with rifles, drugs (complimentary of course — “we’re not drug dealers”), and … karaoke. After some inquiry, we learn Clem’s already claimed for someone to blow up.

Nicky wanders off to try and send pictures of the cars to Evan so the police can bust the party, but there’s no cell connection. Althea realizes there are signal jammers. Dennis’ cover is blown by someone he knows and Leif and Tamra come to escort them out back. The security guys fund Nicky snooping around in the garage and try to apprehend her — key word being try as she gives them a frankly embarrassing beat down. Out back, Leif orders the remaining private security to kill Althea and Dennis and find Nicky and do the same. They refuse, so he takes a gun from one guy. As he’s poised to shoot, Nicky flies out of nowhere and disarms him. After another (embarrassing) beat down, the seemingly defeated Leif takes advantage of a moment of Nicky’s distraction and runs to Clem, peeling out the lot. Nicky and co. jump in a car to give chase. With only one way to stop Leif, Nicky taps Clem. Clem survives! Leif gets out and tries to run but Nicky stops him … only to reveal that there are explosives in the trunk about to blow.

Dennis apologizes to his wife. Althea says it wasn’t really Clem she was angry about but that Dennis felt like he couldn’t tell her the truth about what was going on. Dennis says he just wanted to be perfect for Althea, not wanting her to realize she’s too good for him, an insecurity stretching back to high school. She tells him he’s never going to be perfect and neither is she, but she loves him and that mistakes in their partnership will only make them stronger as they tackle them together. They kiss and make up … then Clementine goes boom in the background, meeting her untimely end. While Althea cries, everyone is okay and the perp is apprehended.

Henry and Nicky have an ahem … steamy moment before duty calls. Henry checks on the encryption decoder algorithm Althea was running on the laptop they stole from Tan’s mansion. Like last episode, we see Henry’s dad call him. This time Nicky notices. After he doesn’t answer, she tries to urge him to reconcile with his dad, pointing out how she managed to mend bridges with her family after up and leaving for the monastery. Henry snaps at her and there’s palpable tension.

Later, Nicky and Henry find out Tan was building a database of guardians from the laptop and theorize they can find Mia’s dad by looking through it. Dennis suddenly barges in freaked about losing Clementine. Dennis convinces Nicky to help him find Clem and Henry is left alone. While they’re gone, he listens to a voicemail from his dad, which says he closed out the family safe deposit box and to swing by if he needs his birth certificate, social security card, etc.
Henry decides to visit his dad who is happy but surprised he came. As they’re talking, a woman presumably a girlfriend awkwardly interrupts and leaves. His dad asks after him but Henry shuts it down, asking for his things. He also inquires after his Tai Po’s ring. His dad asks what it’s for. He gives the ring to Henry and tells the story of how he and Henry’s Mom met. He innocently (or so it seems) asks about Henry’s girl. Henry keeps it vague, saying he’s not planning on proposing any time soon but knows that Nicky’s it. His dad says that’s good because settling down too young was his worst mistake. Henry gets angry at that, as his father left his mother and left Henry with his Ah Po to raise him alone. Henry leaves without the ring, saying when the time is right he’ll pick one out on his own.
At the community center, Henry catches Nicky in the library. They both apologize for their respective parts in their fight. Henry tells Nicky about visiting his dad and says it gave him clarity; his dad is his past, but Nicky is his future. The two kiss before Ryan barges in, effectively ending the moment. He says that though Mia and Mei-Xue are listed under pseudonyms, the hospital found the Kell antigen in Mia’s blood, which is extremely rare (and has genetic modes of transmission). They use Tan’s laptop database to plug in the info, trying to find Mia’s dad who presumably has the same antigen. They get a name: John Liu. The three make plans to track him down and find Mia.

Henry’s dad and the mysterious woman are shown talking about Henry’s refusal to break up with Nicky over tea. They ominously speak about needing to separate them for the sake of “the mission” — which doesn’t bode well for our favorite couple.

Things are not looking up for our boy. At work, dirty DA Hughes calls Evan into a meeting with none other than Juliette Tan. Juliette claims that her family is being targeted — citing the mansion break-in as evidence for suspicion. Hughes hopes to pull traffic cam footage and catch the perps — which were Nicky, Henry, and Ryan. Evan’s assigned to the case. The whole thing feels very off, especially with a knowing smirk on Juliette’s face during the meeting.

After meeting with Juliette, Evan texts Nicky not to come back to his office. He meets her and Dennis at the community center and tells her he’ll do everything he can to protect them from the investigation. He also traces the Clementine’s drop location to a property owned by a guy named Leif Winzig, an ex-con who tried to go legit in Silicon Valley, but failed. After that, he got into the business finding exotic (i.e. dangerous) forms of entertainment for rich people: tigers and bazookas and explosives, oh my! Dennis recognizes the name and makes some calls. His (criminally reformed) sister Chloe knows someone who gets Nicky, Evan, and Dennis information about him. Leif and a mysterious woman are holding an exclusive party where the main event will be… to blow up cars, including Clementine. (Refer to the top of this article)

Back at the office, Evan reviews traffic cam footage on the streets Nicky told him they traveled on the night of the break-in. A license plate can be seen, but nothing else. He deletes the video and empties the trash. Nicky texts Evan asking about “the investigation”. Evan responds he took care of it. Back at the office, Evan tells DA Hughes the footage was clean, but she shuts the door and yells at him about tampering with evidence; the whole thing was a trap. She made a copy of the tapes before they hit Evan’s desk. She demands to know who Evan’s protecting. Evan asks how deep she’s in with the Tans. Hughes tells him she wants his resignation. On a phone call with Russell, Juliette says she got another one of their obstacles, Evan, out of the way. She also has a lead on Mia, who’s heading straight for her father.

## Cast

### Main

* Olivia Liang as Nicky Shen
* Kheng Hua Tan as Mei-Li Shen
* Eddie Liu as Henry Yan
* Shannon Dang as Althea Shen
* Jon Prasida as Ryan Shen
* Gavin Stenhouse as Evan Hartley
* Vanessa Kai as Pei-Ling Zhang
* Tony Chung as Dennis Soong
* Tzi Ma as Jin Shen
* Yvonne Chapman as Zhilan

### Recurring

* Vanessa Yao as Mia
* Ludi Lin as Kerwin Tan
* Fiona Fu as Po Po
* Françoise Yip as Diana Soong
* Marissa Cuevas as Nadia
* Chelsea Clark as Chloe Soong
* Kee Chan as Russell Tan
* Elfina Luk as Ziqi

## Trivia

* The episode is named after Althea's car.
* Leif the party host is played by Richard Speight Jr. the director of this episode.
	+ His character's girlfriend played by Briana Buckmaster also had an recurring role on Supernatural as Donna although his character never shared scenes with her character.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.thefutoncritic.com/listings/20220303cw08/