- Title: Silk Stalkings – Powder Burn
- IMDb: link
“Powder Burn” brings back Christopher Mayer as Rita’s (Mitzi Kapture) short-term fling earlier in the season in “Hardcopy.” Back in town, Tyler wants to pick up where the pair left off, but it takes him the entire episode, including asking Chris (Rob Estes) for advice, to win himself a second shot. Given the time devoted to the subplot it seems likely there were plans to use Mayer as a recurring character in fleshing out a long term romance for Rita, but, for whatever reason, this is his final appearance on the show.
As for the murder of the week, it involves uncovering and shutting down the alliance between local broker Jeremy Trenchard (Peter Sands) and arms dealer Steiner (Trevor Goddard) who killed their last drug supplier in a drive-by that also killed the daughter of a prominent Palm Beach official. The case involves Hutchinson (Ben Vereen), going in undercover rather than Chris or Rita, where he successfully charms Trenchard’s girl (played by Vanity), although his first meeting with the racist Steiner goes far from planned. Pulling Chris and Rita from the surveillance van into back-up roles as crazy thugs, the team manages to make one more run at Steiner, through Trenchard, and successfully take him down.
Although the Tyler thread is never followed up on, the storyline does work to flesh out the more romantic side of Rita. The episode is more notable for Hutchinson in the field, an idea that even Chris and Rita balk at initially, proving himself even after getting apparently gunned down by Steiner’s goons. As for Vanity, she fits the show’s revolving list of attractive actress well enough, although her character simply disappears from the latter-half of the episode.
