“The Skin” is episode two of season two of Special Unit 2.
A woman returns home with shopping. She sees a man approaching and starts hurrying, dropping a rose. Then the man is gone. She heads to her house and the man picks up the rose. Then a completely different man, her husband, hands her the rose at the door. Inside, the woman is unpacking and talking. When someone calls out to her. Also her husband. The first one says it’s the end of the world as they know it and attacks.
Kate is ribbing Nick about his latest girlfriend as they arrive at the scene – it turns out she works in a mud wrestling bar – when Jonathan says he isn’t going in until the coroner finishes. A husband and wife. Cut to pieces. Literally. No fingerprints, no footprints. Nick thinks there’s something. There is. Skin, like reptilian, with scales and shredded. That means something to Nick and he heads in. Johnathan explains that the MO is identical to what killed Nick’s last partner. Kate thought they caught it and that it was one of a kind. It seems it isn’t.
Back at the precinct, Page tells Kate that Nick and his partner didn’t know what they were looking for. And they didn’t get there in time to stop Nick from seeing what had happened to his partner. Julie’s murder changed Nick. He found the thing that killed her, but had the strength not to do the same to it. Only because he realised lifelong incarceration would be the greater torture.
Johnathan explains that the creature is cold blooded, like a reptile, and can change its appearance to anyone from a victim’s memory. Page explains that they are impossible to catch. Last time was a fluke; a late spring snowstorm sent it into false hibernation. It killed 15 people. Not for food; the Chameleon eats rodents. For fun. Chameleons are so rare it was hoped they’d caught the last one.
Page speaks to Kate and Nick in his office. He wants to talk to the Chameleon they have. There’s an obligation to try, for the next victims. Kate volunteers to talk. Nick says he will go with.
Page stops some records that are being shipped to the archives. He wants them sent to a high security lockup, then he’ll check in another month or two. And Carl reveals he’s in them. Page thinks Carl is running scared. He is. Page gives Carl two alternatives. Be put in a small, very safe, box. Or, if he likes being able to breathe, hit the streets.
Nick and Kate head to see the Chameleon (Mark Sheppard) and heat his cell up a bit more. The Chameleon says the other will pile bodies up until winter unless it gets what it wants. Nick isn’t bargaining with it. They get called over the intercom and the Chameleon shows Nick the last face Julie saw. Nick’s.
Page says that the dead husband’s credit card was used by his killer to get a motel room. The appearance matched the dead husband. Heading there, the manager is Jerry from “The Wraps”; he recognises Kate and Nick. Heading to the Chameleon’s room, there shower sounds to be on. Fastened to it is Jerry. The real Jerry. With a sign saying ‘BRING HIM TO ME.’ Nick calls a warning, but the Chameleon transforms, takes down two men and gets away.
Page says the Chameleon made a mistake that allowed them to find it and won’t make it again. It’s now killed a family of four. Kate says maybe the captive Chameleon knows what this one wants. Carl has been trying to get out again; his people are making no progress because the Chameleon is always transformed. Nick says it’s time to negotiate.
Negotiating involves Kate turning down the temperature of the cell. To confirm the theory as to whether or not freezing temperatures will kill the Chameleon. It finally agrees and says that Chameleons can’t stand the idea of others within several hundred miles. The Chameleon will help. Because it doesn’t want another Chameleon in its own territory. But it will have to go out and track it by smell.
Not an idea anyone else really wants to do. But they seem to have no choice. And they’re tracking something that can appear as anyone, which makes it harder. The captive Chameleon is constantly taunting Nick.