Detective Murdoch investigates the murder of Richard Dawkins, who was beaten to death at the dinner table by two masked men just as he was about to make an important announcement to his business associates. Since nothing was stolen, Murdoch's new boss, Inspector Hamish Slorach, calls the killing an assassination. Dawkins was rumored to be selling his chandlery business. The harbor master says Dawkins was anything but a saint and the police should look to the seedier side for a solution to his death. Constable Jackson is badly beaten by two thugs which seems to confirm Murdoch's suspicion that the men who beat Inspector Brackenreid are the same ones who killed Dawkins. When they find a dead woman on the shore, Dr. Grace determines she was clubbed to death the night before the attack on Dawkins and was manacled before she died. Meanwhile, suffragettes recruit Julia to their movement and she is joined by Emily Grace. Receiving little support politically, they decide to hold a protest march, and are arrested and taken to jail.
This episode provides examples of:
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: At the end, between a force of constables and dockworkers.
- Big Damn Heroes: Brackenreid arrives just in time to save Murdoch while he was being beaten by the same men who beat him up.
- Heroic BSoD/10-Minute Retirement: Brackenreid, after spending three months in the hospital after being brutally being beaten up in the Season 7 finale.
- He's Back!/Let's Get Dangerous!: When Brackenreid loads his pistol and returns.
- You Shall Not Pass!: A villainous version can be found at the end of the episode, when the Constables are trying to get to the O'Sheys.Dockworker: You'll pass when I say so.
