Episode
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven: Through a Dark Circle
Overview
Desperate to open the loft portal and re-connect with Shelly, Draven dabbles in magic, unleashing a terrible force that even he may be incapable of overcoming. Desperately lonely, Draven attempts to re-open the loft portal door using ancient incantations. He believes he is successful when the door energizes. However, what emerges is not his beloved Shelly but the beast-like, evil force of executed serial killer Richard Lee Wilbanks (Lawrence S. Smilgys) who has been waiting for an opportunity to return and wreak vengeance on everyone who saw him die. He easily overpowers Draven, who loses his regenerative powers in the devastating fight. When several of those who were present at Wilbanks' execution are violently kidnapped, Detective Albrecht and his new partner, Capshaw, are assigned to the case. Draven confesses to Albrecht that it was he who unleashed this terrible force and when Cordelia, who was an Assistant D.A. at Wilbanks' trial, is also kidnapped, the rift between the two men s
Details
- Series
- The Crow: Stairway to Heaven
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 11
- Air date
- 1999-01-17
- Runtime
- 42 min
Episode context
Through a Dark Circle is Episode 11 in Season 1 of The Crow: Stairway to Heaven. It aired on 1999-01-17. The runtime is 42 min.
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Episode 10: Death Wish
Still trying to reconnect with Shelly, Draven visits her gravesite only to stumble upon the ghost of a young boy who (apparently) only he can see. The six-year old ghost, Casey Thompson (Jared Zabel) is lonely, and worried about his stunt motorcyclist father, Jake Thompson (John Hawkes), whom he believes will die soon. Jake, ""the World's Greatest Daredevil"" plans to jump 300 feet, over 30 cars, as part of a pay-for-view television event set up by shady promoter Royal Boyd (Jason Shombing).
When contacted by Draven, Jake refuses to believe that his son is desperately trying to send him a message. When Jake's stunt mechanic dies in a freak bike explosion, Draven feels compelled to intervene, despite the fact that Detective Albrecht and his uncomfortably inquisitive new partner Jessica Capshaw (Christina Cox) have been assigned the case. Draven finally persuades Jake to let him do the jump instead, since he cannot die, and they exchange talismans, but things go wrong when Draven is kidnap
Episode 12: Disclosure
Shea's abusive mobster husband turns up and Draven tries to help her but in doing so exposes himself to the Police Internal Affairs Department who are already investigating Albrecht.
Strange tales have been coming out of Port Columbia's criminal underbelly and Lieutenant Morgan Fine (Tim Kelleher) from Internal Affairs is sent in to investigate. He is suspicious of Albrecht's secretive work habits, mysterious sources, and sudden rise in arrest success rates, so he leans on Jessica to determine if her partner is a dirty cop.
Meanwhile, the Blackout is running smoothly with Shea (Gaetana Korbin) as the new manager but when her mobster husband, Frank Moran (Kavan Smith), turns up, having bought the place, it is obvious that he is determined to get his wife back, by force if necessary. Draven turns to Albrecht for background on Moran and when he learns that the man is corrupt and ruthless with judges and cops on his payroll, he realizes the only way to protect Shea is to put Moran behind b
More episodes from this season
Episode 9: Before I Wake
The loft portal has vanished and despite his frantic efforts, Eric Draven can't connect with Shelly. Desperate to help him snap out of his profound depression, Sarah suggests he go to a psychiatrist for hypnosis. Under Dr. John Dorsett's (Don Most) care, Draven regresses into a former traumatic life, as a Native American called Blackfeather.
Draven's alter ego had just as troubled a past as the present incarnation. Although he found his soulmate in a missionary's daughter who defied the wishes of her controlling, bigoted father to be with him, Blackfeather was murdered. He then returned to rescue Rebecca Morgan (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Shelly Webster) from the men who killed him and then threatened her. To Sarah, sitting in on the session, it seems like Draven is out of his mind; however, a Native American Masters' student, Jane Cogo, confirms that the dialect Draven is speaking is genuine. Draven can't come out of hypnosis, however, and Blackfeather seems stuck in the now
Episode 13: The People vs. Eric Draven
Eric has hit rock bottom. After four months caged in jail he is finally on trial for the murder of Shelly but is helpless to defend himself against the charges. His court-appointed lawyer, James Pearl (Jaimz Woolvett), won't believe the truth and is only sticking with the case because he believes it will jumpstart his career. Sarah is desperate to help but her mother refuses to let her take the stand. Even when Darla does relent, Sarah's testimony, far from helping, further damns Eric.
Albrecht has his own problems. He is still under suspension, Cordelia has moved out and won't even speak with him and his ambivalence about what really is the truth makes it hard for him to defend Eric on the stand. As the evidence mounts, Eric is painted as a jealous lover who had his girlfriend brutally murdered then staged his own death. When Funboy takes the stand, claiming that Draven hired him then tried to blackmail him for the murder, Eric can't stand the lies and lunges for the thug, further dam
Episode 8: Give Me Death
Top Dollar, aka Jason Danko (John Pypher-Ferguson), has an evil plan -- to die at the hands of The Crow and gain evil immortality. He breaks out of the prison asylum, killing a guard in the process, and sets out to goad Draven into a deadly confrontation.
Meanwhile, Draven meets The Skull Cowboy (Kadeem Hardison) who has come to help him through the portal into the Land of the Dead and the longed for reunion with Shelly. As the cat-and-mouse game between Draven and Top Dollar intensifies, Sarah, Darla and India are drawn into danger. Despite Skull Cowboy's intervention and repeated warnings to Draven not to give way to Top Dollar's pressure, Draven loses his self-control after one of his few friends is murdered.
Top Dollar and The Crow then face off in a climactic battle, but the stakes are high: Eric Draven could forever lose his opportunity to reconnect with Shelly, and The Crow could unleash an evil force as deadly as himself.
Episode 14: It's a Wonderful Death
Awaiting his sentence, Draven mulls over the events that led him to a jail cell when the Skull Cowboy reappears, sending him back to the day of his and Shelly's murders. Trying to alter the tragic chain of events, Draven discovers that fate, and the origins of a Crow, are unalterable...
After being judged guilty of Shelly's murder, Eric is languishing in jail awaiting his sentence. As he begins reliving the events that brought him so low, he starts to imagine how he could have prevented this nightmare. The Skull Cowboy (Kadeem Hardison) appears and, despite warning Draven to be ""careful what you wish for,"" allows Draven to go back in time to the day that he and Shelly died.
Suddenly transported back to the Blackout and a band rehearsal, Draven blissfully reunites with Shelly, elatedly believing he can put everything right. The problem is that in changing one event everything else shifts. By traveling back to the time before he was a Crow, Draven has no special powers, and no relationsh
Episode 7: Double Take
Draven is furious when he discovers that a young woman has assumed Shelly's identity. He tracks her down but during their confrontation realizes that she has taken the alias to escape from the Mob, which has already killed her husband.
Draven's intervention unwittingly exposes her to her pursuers, forcing him to save her from becoming their latest victim. Along the way, both Draven and the woman, Antonia Scanlin, are able to find that rare friend of the opposite sex who can understand how deeply in love they were with their dead partners. Draven cannot yet move on to re-unite with Shelly, but he can help Antonia to her heart's desire.
Episode 15: Birds Of A Feather
In shocking turn of events Draven is set free by Judge Morrison but life on the outside is still bleak. Albrecht has been demoted to a beat cop and Draven feels terribly alone without Shelly until he meets another Spirit Crow.
Citing that the jury ignored his instructions, Judge Morrison overturns Draven's conviction and sets him free in a dramatic reversal of fortune. But a cloud of suspicion still hangs over Draven, and, because of his association with Albrecht, over Albrecht as well. As if that weren't enough, Albrecht's girlfriend Cordelia, leaves him.
Adding insult to injury, Albrecht is demoted to beat cop and Capshaw assumes his desk in the detective division. Treated as a pariah by the public at the Blackout, Draven goes outside where he sees a woman demolish two strong attackers in an alley fight. To his shock, Draven discovers that, she, too, is a Crow. He befriends the angry, confused woman and helps her learn the truth about her former life.
She was the happily married, suc
Episode 6: Solitude's Revenge
A released prisoner, hell bent on vengeance, captures his nemesis Detective Albrecht, not realizing he has also kidnapped The Crow.
For seven long years Drew Kessler (Christopher Syher), a killer without a conscience, has been a model prisoner. Privately, however, Kessler has been creating a fully detailed revenge fantasy against the man who pursued him relentlessly and put him behind bars -- Daryl Albrecht.
Based on a controversial plea-bargain for manslaughter, Kessler is released for good behavior. He immediately puts his vivid nightmare into effect, taking Albrecht to an abandoned industrial island, where the hunter will now become the hunted. The one thing he has not bargained for is that Eric Draven has followed them there and is willing to put what little life he has on the line for Albrecht.
Episode 16: Never Say Die
The evil spirit of Rasputin is released by an unscrupulous Russian who plans to harness it for his own empowerment but needs access to the portal between the worlds that Draven opened in his loft to make the process complete.
An ancient order of Russian priests is the keeper of a manuscript that holds the evil predictions of the mad monk Rasputin. When the chief guardian, Father Andrew (Stephen Dimopoulos), is brutally murdered and the book stolen, the priests turn to the police for help. Albrecht, now demoted to a street cop, steps aside so Capshaw can take the case but she is highly skeptical of the fearsome prophecies and powers described by the tome.
While visiting at the police station, Sarah overhears the story and hurries to warn Draven that whomever stole the manuscript will need access to the portal between worlds, which is in Draven's loft. As if on cue, Alexander Sokolov (David Lovgren), who has the manuscript and intends to use it for evil, comes to the loft but is deterred
Episode 5: Voices
A day at the carnival with Sarah brings Draven closer to Shelly when he meets a teenage trance-medium who may be unwittingly involved in murder.
A day at the Carnival brings back painful memories for Draven of one of his first dates with Shelley. At the fair, he and Sarah stumble across a young trance-medium whose handlers claim he can channel dead spirits.
Jesse (Brendan Fletcher), a sad, exploited teenager, actually has the powers he claims. He connects with Shelly who has a message for Draven -- that he must continue to ""set things right"" as a way of finally clearing the slate to allow the two of them to be together. Draven thinks he has found the means of reaching Shelly always, but the contact is short lived.
Jesse is being exploited by his handler Doc (Gerard Plunkett), who uses him as a meal ticket to identify ""marks"" in the audience for robberies. When one of those robberies results in murder, Detective Albrecht turns his attention to Jesse, who seems to have predicted the kill
Episode 17: Lazarus Rising
A shadowy group of powerful men approach Draven with an offer he can't refuse - to reunite him with Shelly forever.
Dr. Dorsett (Don Most) seeks Draven out, carrying an unusual offer from the Lazarus Group. This secretive consortium of powerful men smoothed the way for Dorsett's therapy license to be re-instated and he owes them a favor. They claim to posses advanced technology which will reunite Draven with Shelly and want to test it on Draven. Unbeknownst to him, the Lazarus Group is a secret society rumored to have been in existence since the time of the Druids, and their interest in him is anything but benevolent.
The society is dominated by the physically frail but still intimidating Frederick Balsam (Mavor Moore) who holds sway not only over Judge Morrison (Jerry Wasserman), who unexpectedly released Draven from jail, but also over head scientist Dr. Jack Saks (Robert Wisden), and group member Steve Fentress (Terry David Mulligan). Draven agrees to the experiment, but once hooked