Due South - Story Overview

Story Overview

The premise of the series centres on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) constable named Benton Fraser (Paul Gross) who travels to Chicago to solve the murder of his father; this is how he meets his soon-to-be partner, Ray Vecchio (David Marciano), a tough, streetwise cop. Accompanied by his half-wolf Diefenbaker (who adopted Fraser after saving his life, and is deaf, but can read lips), the investigation leads Fraser to uncover a plot by a company building a dam that is slowly killing the environment. This leads to the dam being shut down and many people losing their jobs. He also implicates corrupt members of the RCMP in the affair. This along with the loss of so many peoples' jobs makes him persona non grata in Canada, and he chooses to live in Chicago. This plot line is referred to repeatedly during the series, and from season three on he introduces himself to many by saying:

I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father and, for reasons which don't need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian consulate.

Marciano, the original Ray, did not appear in the post-1997 episodes, save for the first and last episodes, but was replaced by Callum Keith Rennie as Stanley Raymond Kowalski, a detective who was under orders to impersonate Vecchio while the real Vecchio was undercover. Marciano did return for the series finale, in which Vecchio returned to Chicago to break up a weapons-smuggling ring, and eventually ran off to Florida with Kowalski's ex-wife, Stella. In the last episode, Benton and his father's ghost finally solve Benton's mother's murder. This results in the ghost's departure. The series ends with Benton and Kowalski in search of the graves of the Franklin expedition. This missing expedition is immortalized in the Canadian folk song "Northwest Passage", which Paul Gross sings in the episode.