Dim Sum Lose Some - Recap

In the past, Ned is at the boy’s school for the holidays with the few others who have nowhere to go. Ingmar, another student, has a certified roulette wheel and runs games. Young Ned bets his chocolates but discovers as Ingmar spins the wheel that the chocolates were a gift from his mother. Ned loses them.

In the present, a mysterious stranger arrives at the Pie Hole. When Ned serves him coffee, the man says the pies are just as good as the ones Ned’s mother made. Ned panics and runs back to the kitchen, but Chuck convinces him to go out. The man introduces himself as Dwight Dixon and says he knew Ned’s father twenty-five years. Chuck and a smitten Olive come over and make sure Ned doesn’t run. Dwight explains he’s trying to find Ned’s father but Ned says they lost touch twenty years ago and refuses to help.

Emerson is enjoying a meal from the dim sum Chinese restaurant below his office when he finds a request for help inside of a fortune cookie. He goes downstairs and finds that Simone Hundin, dog trainer, is visiting the place. He’s still taken with her and she still commands him. She denies having sent him a message and leaves. Going into the restaurant, Emerson spots a Chinese woman crying. He goes to her and she denies having contacted him, and introduces herself as Lai Di, the wife of the chef Bao Di who has died. They immigrated from China to start a restaurant in the U.S., and Bao mastered his bun-steaming technique. His daughter Mei worked as a waitress but he was unable to buy his own restaurant. Bao complained to Lai Di about the fact he was under pressure, and then he died when his steamer blew up, driving a pipe through his head.

Lai Di believes the steamer was sabotaged and hires Emerson to solve the case. Emerson takes Chuck and Ned to the morgue and Ned brings Bao back to life. Chuck tries to talk to him in Chinese but he panics, saying that someone is going to kill him over a bet at the dim sum restaurant. He tries to run out the door but hits the pipe on the sides of the door and Ned re-kills him.

Emerson goes to the restaurant to talk to Mei and meets her fiancé, Rubbie Wu, the restaurant manager. She claims her father was too busy to gamble and Rubbie denies any gambling occurring at the restaurant. Emerson searches the restaurant then report updates Chuck and Ned then goes to find a lead. Olive reminds Ned that Dwight Dixon is still looking for Ned’s father, and Ned admits to Chuck that he doesn’t want to be reminded about his father. He finally gives Chuck his father’s address, taken from the postcard he received twenty years ago when his father said he was starting a new family. An old friend of Bao’s, Hua Jaing, comes to the Pie Hole. He overheard Emerson at the restaurant and explains there’s illegal gambling at the restaurant and has been since Prohibition.

The trio goes to the restaurant and Emerson hides. Chuck and Ned join him as he hides from Simone, who is at a table with several other men. They eventually figure out that the customers are using the food to illegally gamble without anyone else noticing. Emerson brings Simone to his office and asks her what’s going on. She explains how the whole thing works and claims not to know Bao. She does know the other players, including the gangster who runs the table, Shrimp Boy. Simone has an ironclad alibi and prepares to leave, but notes that Emerson is pretending there’s nothing between them. He explains that the more he’s attracted to someone, the greater the chance it ends badly. Simone is undeterred and they embrace.

Chuck and Olive go to Ned’s father’s address and find two teenage twins with Ned-like eyebrows practicing magic. They introduce themselves as Maurice and Ralston and explain that their dad left years ago and they kept the house.

After Simone leads, Emerson goes over photos of the restaurant and spots a busboy who is in every picture. He has Ned to meet him and points out that the busboy is wearing an expensive watch, hanging around the poker table, and watching Emerson and Ned. Chuck arrives and the busboy makes a run for it. Chuck tells Ned where he was and reveals he has half-brothers. In the kitchen, they lose the busboy but find the steamer… which starts to explode. It fires off a pipe and Emerson ducks. The hiding busboy is impaled and Ned brings him back to life. The busboy reveals an insurance inspector. Emerson points out that the pipe was crimped to ensure an explosion. The busboy explains that Bao Ting bought life insurance one day before he died and Mei is the beneficiary.

They confront Mei, who doesn’t believe her father would have left her any money. She tells them to leave and Shrimp Boy orders them off. A waiter gives Emerson an order with a message saying for him to meet him across the streets. He goes there to find Mei, who says she sent the fortune cookie. She wanted Emerson to meet Lai Di so she’d hire him. Mei couldn’t approach Emerson because Shrimp Boy has been watching her. She explains that Shrimp Boy doesn’t want her explaining that her father lost his money gambling to Shrimp Boy. Bao gambled his life savings and when that ran out, he asked for credit. Shrimp Boy agreed but forced Bao to put his daughter’s hand in marriage to his cousin, Rubbie. Bao lost and Shrimp Boy insisted the debt be fulfilled. Since Mei has kept to the bargain, Emerson figures she doesn’t have a motive and figures they need to question Shrimp Boy. When they wonder if they can turn to Simone for help, he tells them that they’ve both agreed to cool off their relationship. Chuck and Olive apologize to Ned but Check doesn’t believe Ned wants to remain unconnected. Ned insists he doesn’t want to do anything that might make his father happy.

Emerson tracks Shrimp Boy but is forced to hide when he spots Simone: it turns out they didn’t agree to cool off their relationship. However, as he hides he does get an idea: Olive and Chuck go undercover in the restaurant as Chinese waitresses while Ned and Emerson go in as high-rolling gamblers. Shrimp Boy and Rubbie are playing at the poker table and Chuck slips a drug to Shrimp Boy’s bodyguards forcing them to urinate. They run for the bathroom and Chuck slips the key to Olive so she can lock the door. Emerson and Ned come in and Emerson talks their way into the game. As they play, Ned and Emerson direct the conversation to Bao and his gambling his daughter. Shrimp Boy insists that the bet is sacred above all else, and that Bao came back to gamble with someone else to get his daughter back. Chuck realizes that Bao went directly to Rubbie to try and win his daughter back. He gambled his life insurance money, and Rubbie murdered Bao to collect. Emerson and Ned reveal their hands, and Emerson wins. However, Rubbie has captured the women and reveals that Emerson is in disguise.

Rubbie asks Shrimp Boy to keep them prisoner while he leaves with Mei on his honeymoon. As it turned out, Rubbie had Bao put up the life insurance and then won. Rubbie then sabotaged the steamer to kill Bao and collect the payout. Mei is surprised her father would do that, and Ned considers his father and his own assumptions. Simone arrives to state she requires honesty and respect from Emerson, and since he won’t she commands him to stay away from her. However, Shrimp Boy and his men draw on her. However, Simone’s dog Bubble Gum begs for food from Rubbie and Chuck realizes that he’s cheating at poker. Ned points out that Shrimp Boy honors the bet above all else, and the gang leaders searches Rubbie and finds hidden “cards.” Realizing Rubbie has been cheating him since childhood, Shrimp Boy honors the bet and cancelled Mei’s debt to marry Rubbie. Rubbie’s arrested, Mei collected the insurance, and Emerson received payment. Afterward, he confronts Simone and notes she never shows all of her cards so he didn’t either. He realized that when she came after him in the restaurant, she was showing a shred of vulnerability. He offers a more equal relationship and Simone agrees.

Ned and Chuck go to visit his half-brothers and Ned admits he doesn’t know his family and it was easy to make assumptions without knowing. Maurice and Ralston come to the door and Ned introduces himself, and they hug. They’re unaware that Dwight Dixon is across the street in his car… with a gun on the seat.

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