| “ | Deal is, you've got to share the wealth.. 50:50... Take it as a, finder's fee. | „ |
| ~ Vincent Hopper's line upon offering his so-called "Hope Ticket" to Marlene. |
A Dollar, A Dream is the 18th case of the 4th season of the series and is the 87th overall.
Description[]
A car is found at the bottom of a lake with the remains of a woman missing since 1999 inside. The detectives learn the woman had endured dire financial straits after her husband's death and was forced to live in the car with her two young daughters. Meanwhile, Jeffries confronts the hit and run driver who caused his wife's death.
Synopsis[]
Flashback to September 13, 1999:
The scene starts with Abby, waving her hand, feeling the breeze of the air outside of their car window, as she, her big sister Natalie, and her mother, Marlene Bradford, are riding their car towards the neighboring street. They stop at one of the houses and take a peek on it, as Abby reminisces their old home and trying to look for a new place to stay, recognizing that the remaining members of the Bradford family was deemed homeless, after losing their matriarch of the family and everything they own. Natalie, on the other hand felt shame on their fate whenever she sees someone still being rich, but their mom still giving them an assurance that they will be having a new home one day and also promised a very great 10th birthday for Abby, as she will be celebrating her birth in two months. They later stop at on a nearby park and take a rest from there.
The afternoon of November 17, 1999, the day of Abby's birthday, Marlene's is seen submerged under water, with their home stuffs and properties, alongside her corpse was stashed still inside the car. The following days, her case was ruled out as a missing person.
Back to present day:
An environmental group finds a car while testing the bottom of a lake. The Philadelphia police department takes over the case when a female skeleton and a bullet are found inside the car, together with the stuff mentioned above. From the car's registration plate, the detectives trace back the victim's identity. She was identified as Marlene. After her husband died of cancer, her family lost everything, including their home, to pay the medical expenses. Marlene and her daughters started living in their car. Then on Abby's 10th birthday, on November 17, 1999, Marlene disappeared; she dropped her daughters off at school and never came back. The girls were placed in foster care and soon separated.
The team starts the inquiries from Abby and Natalie. They had lost contact after being separated. Abby, the younger one, was lucky to land with a good family, but Natalie, since she was older, was bounced from one home to another, never finding a permanent placement. Besides, Natalie always thought her mother was a failure and was angry at Marlene, believing that she abandoned them. Natalie also tells the team that at the homeless shelter, Marlene angered a woman named Vita who had tried to claim the bed they were assigned. The young woman had threatened Marlene and stormed off.
Marlene had a job at a local convenience store. Her boss, Mr. Patel, had given her a gun – the same with which she was shot – to protect herself and her kids. At the store, Marlene had met a homeless man called Vincent Hopper, who told her about a place in a nearby park where many homeless people lived. There was also a lake at the park; the same lake her car was found in over seven years later.
Marlene moved to the park with her daughters and their car. One night at the park while lamenting her situation, Hopper gave Marlene a lottery ticket he called the Hope Ticket. He told her that they would split the winnings evenly if they hit the $1 million jackpot. They were sharing their dreams when Natalie came screaming to her mother that their car, with Abby sleeping inside, was gone. Marlene panicked and then realized it had been towed, but never reported it to the authorities, citing the possibility that she was frightened for her daughter's wellbeing. Marlene and Natalie managed to find Abby and the car in the tow truck lot. Abby was quite scared but safe and sound. Marlene tried, without much luck, to convince the tow driver, Tony, to give her the car, at least for the night. Tony refused to return it without the fee but as Marlene couldn't afford it, she offered to sell her gun. Not finding it, and believing it was stolen by Tony, he made Marlene understand that he accepted another way of payment by offering a "dirty proposal". Marlene wanted to keep her daughters safe, so she had no choice but to agree, leaving Valens and Vera disgusted by Tony's extortion of her.
Later in the car, Marlene and Natalie had an argument over what she had done. Natalie harshly claimed her mother should've died instead of their father, to which Marlene replied by slapping her. Natalie ran away and Marlene couldn't stop her. Still, she went looking for her daughter and found her at their old house. They apologized to each other. Marlene decided to try her luck with the lottery ticket. It came out to be a $25 win. They were happy because they could now afford a cake for Abby's birthday. Marlene told Natalie they would have a decent celebration for Abby's birthday when the girls came back from school but first, she had to pay a "finder's fee." Because of that detail, the police realized that Hopper was the last person to see Marlene the day she disappeared.
The cops realized that Hopper was lying all along and started questioning him. He confessed the crime; Marlene came back to the park saying the ticket was a winner and handed over his half of the money. He couldn't believe it was only a $25 win and all he got was $12. He wanted more; he wanted the remainder of the half-million dollars he thought they won and his dreams of reuniting with his family to come true. Marlene tried to remind him that it had been years and his son was now an adult but Hopper refused to listen. He started searching her car for the rest of the money, crushing the cake Marlene had just bought for Abby. She tried to stop him and make him see reason. Instead, Hopper lost control and shot Marlene with the gun he had found in the car.
The cops arrest Hopper for murder. The other suspects continue with their new jobs: Vita welcomes some customers entering a supermarket and Mr. Patel walks down to the side of the restaurant he's currently working at to give some food to a homeless mother and her two daughters who remind him of Marlene. Abby and Natalie reunite in the park, where they "see" the ghostly image of their mother smiling back at them.
Meanwhile, Jeffries confronts Isaac Keller, the truck driver who ran over his wife, in the pouring rain, while he is closing the diner. He puts his gun to Keller's chest and tells him about his wife, about the way she was left to die slowly and alone after the car crash. Later on, when Lt. Stillman pays a visit to Jeffries at his own home, he tells his boss what he did but that he couldn't kill Keller: his wife wouldn't come back even if he would've pulled the trigger. In the end, he sits in his room and listens to a Miles Davis' records, his wife's favorite.
Crime Profile[]
Victim's File[]
| Identity | Name of the Victim | Age | Occupation | Last Seen | Perpetrator (Motive) | Cause of death | Portrayer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Marlene Bradford | 35 | Former housewife who later became a grocery store clerk after her husband died. | at Fairmount Park | Vincent Hopper (Madness because he believed that he was deceived by her hoarding the prized money) | Gunshot wound in her chest using 38MM revolver gun | Paula Malcomson |
Probable Suspect/s[]
This is the profile of the following suspected people who had a close contact with Marlene Bradford before she was found dead.
- A █ in their name section, states that it was that person WHO COMMITTED THE CRIME.
| Past Identity | Present Identity | Name of the Suspect/s | Age | Whereabout Status | Occupation | Relationship | Last Seen by the victim | Portrayers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
Abby Bradford | 9 / 10 (presumed at her exact birthdate where her mother was killed; 1999) 17 (present age) |
Alive | Student | Younger daughter | Last saw the victim during a heated conversation between her and her sister, Natalie about their street life now. | Darcy Rose Byrnes (1999) Jennifer Lawrence (2007) |
 |
 |
Natalie Bradford | 14 (1999) 21 (present age) |
Alive | Unknown | Elder daughter | Last saw the victim when Marlene found her at their old house after their fight the previous night, where they made up over their past arguments and misunderstandings. Natalie was the one who heard about "the finders fee" from her mother. | Channing Nichols (1999) Melinda Dahl (2007) |
 |
 |
Vita Chacon | 20 (1999) 27 (present age) |
Alive | Currently a saleslady for Blue Mart. | Acquaintance (one time seen) | Last saw the victim with her daughters at a convenience store where Marlene worked, where Vita witnessed a heated argument between Marlene and her boss Anil Patel. | Gloria Garayua |
 |
 |
Anil Patel | presumably about mid-30's | Alive | Former owner of a grocery store in 1999, currently a restaurant staff from KFC. | Former boss | Last seen confronting the victim about her car. Later, he gave his gun to Marlene as her first defense after he heard from Vincent Hopper on where she would be temporarily staying overnight (Fairmount Park, where her remains and her car were found). | Faran Tahir |
 |
 |
Vincent Hopper
|
51 (1999) 58 (present age) |
Arrested | Unemployed, living in Fairmount Park for 11 years. | Estranged friend and fellow street dweller. | Last saw the victim when looking for her to give him the finder's fee he was talking about. On Marlene's first night in Fairmount Park, Vincent gave his Hope Ticket to her, which he thought would win $1 million dollars. But when he received his half of the payment from her, it was just a $12 win, since the ticket only got a $25 winning. Vincent believed that Marlene was deceiving him to keep the money for herself, which enraged him and sent him out of control. He shot Marlene using the gun which her boss gave her. | Holmes Osborne |
 |
 |
Tony | 32 (1999) 39 (present age) |
Alive | Towing Service employee | No Relation | Last saw the victim pleading him to release their car as they didn't have any place to sleep that evening, and also tried to offer him her gun in exchange. However, with no gun in sight (Abby kept it), he made a dirty proposal to her in order to release her car without any extra charges. | Billy Gallo |
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Kathryn Morris as Lilly Rush
- Danny Pino as Scotty Valens
- John Finn as John Stillman
- Jeremy Ratchford as Nick Vera
- Thom Barry as Will Jeffries
- Tracie Thoms as Kat Miller
Guest Cast[]
- Paula Malcomson as Marlene Bradford
- John Diehl as Isaac Keller
- Billy Gallo as Tony
- Gloria Garayua as Vita Chacon
- Holmes Osborne as Vincent Hopper
- Faran Tahir as Anil Patel
- Jennifer Lawrence as Abby Bradford (2007)
- Melinda Dahl as Natalie Bradford (2007)
- Darcy Rose Byrnes as Abby Bradford (1999)
- Channing Nichols as Natalie Bradford (1999)
Co-Starring[]
- Verda Bridges as Social Worker
Notes[]
- Paula Malcomson (Marlene Bradford) and Jennifer Lawrence (Abby Bradford (2007)) are reunited together and they later played another mother and daughter roles again in the film The Hunger Games in 2012 as Mrs. Everdeen and Katniss Everdeen respectively. Coincidentally, both stories are alike as the film itself focused on a story of a single mother with two daughters in the family who fall into poverty and struggle to survive after the death of the husband/father.
- Faran Tahir (Anil Patel) and Gloria Garayua (Vita Chacon) also reunited and went on to have guest roles in Grey's Anatomy - Tahir played 'Isaac' in a season 6 episode, and Garayua played 'Dr. Graciella Guzman' from seasons 4 to 6.
- At 9 years old, Abby Bradford is the youngest suspect seen on the show.
- Though in a real-life investigation, minors are only considered and be prosecuted as juvenile, since they can't arrest yet in their younger age (if the crime was committed by an underage child).
- The flashback scenes used a grayscale color scheme, similar to Dog Day Afternoons, and Family 8108.
- However, unlike the latter, the ending montage for Marlene's appearance was fully colorized instead.
Gallery[]
Music[]
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