Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Another 1-off case for Kate Bishop trying to be a Private Investigator (without a license) in Los Angeles. She and Lucky the Pizza Dog are still house-sitting a beach-side trailer and cat for 2 old hippie ladies (who seem to have been away at a festival for a looong time).
But this issue starts with a flashback to a man playing music and another man overseeing recording of it.
46 years later the same man old and bearded is wandering down the passing lane of the 405 Freeway, annoying lots of motorists, when Kate cycles past and stops to help him. He keeps saying someone's stolen something from him so she offers to get it back for him, and asks if she might pay him.
She somehow gets him to the trailer of 2 neighbours Finch and Marcus who we met in #14. They recognise him as Will Bryson. In the 60s he and his brother Grey were the Bryson Brothers who were the California Sound before that was invented. Then they disappeared into mental illness and weirdness, trying to complete the album Wish which was to be Will's masterwork. Will says it's that which was stolen. Parts of it have been leaked on the Internet, and he blames his brother. But Finch has checked a medical bracelet worn by Will, and called the number. A doctor and 2 burly orderlies come and take him away.
Kate smells a case so she researches the Brothers on the Internet in the library. The library's security settings won't let her 'illegally' download stuff so she asks the librarian if she can give her extra permissions. The librarian has her arrested and she's taken to Det Caudle (who we also met in #14). He dismisses the 'case' she's working on and again tells her to leave town, but he lets her go.
Next she takes an open-top-bus celebrity-spotting tour past the millionaire Brysons' house. She jumps off the bus and into the estate in full Hawkeye gear. The very old house still has a very old security system so she easily breaks in. But the orderlies spot her so she has to leap back out again. She spots Will topping up the swimming pool and he invites her into his studio, There's a very expensive grand piano sitting in the middle of a wading pool. The piano is Will's but he can't remember where the pool came from. He shows her a wall rack full of vinyl records which he says hold all the sessions where he attempted to record the perfect version of Wish, and it's some of these which have been 'stolen'/leaked. Kate notes that the labels are all blank, but Will says he *knows* what's on each of them.
Then the 2 orderlies find them and 'ask' Kate to leave. She refuses and a fight ensues. She breaks 1's jaw but loses her quiver of arrows. So she tries to hit the other bruiser with her bow but he takes it off her. They both start beating on her. Will Bryson tries to stop them but Kate is soon unconscious.
She wakes to find herself held up by the orderlies in front of Grey Bryson who's in a hospital bed dying. He freely admits to leaking the recordings to the Internet. Will made him waste his life recording all the attempts at Wish, and now he wants the world to know what a failure his brother was. Presumably they then throw her out.
Much later when her injuries have healed she's in the supermarket where she meets her mystery friend again. She tells him about it and admits that she just left the brothers to it. So she never got paid and she's beginning to think she makes a useless PI. But she thinks it might be LA that's the problem. But he lifts her mood by showing her a flyer advertising a single performance of Wish by Will Bryson at a local club.
Kate attends with Finch and Marcus. Will is cleaned up (but he plays the piano with his feet in a paddling pool). He dedicates a song to his late brother and his favourite superhero in purple. Kate thinks he means her but it turns to be the Hulk. But the performance is beautiful. Only marred by a female whispering in her ear "Found you". She turns but can't see who it was.