Title: Conundrum (Go to glossary for definition)

Original Airdate: June 19, 2001
Season: 1
Episode: 2

Writer: Edithe Swensen
Director: Neill Fearnley

Music:
Song title? - Artist? (beginning of episode) 56K
Let Me Up - Brand New Immortals 56K
Chicago - Groove Armada 56K
I See You Baby - Groove Armada 56K
Mohammed - Dandy Warhols [Lyrics] 56K
There's No Other Way - Blur [Lyrics] 56K
Song title? - Artist? 56K
Song title? - Artist? 56K
Poor Old Joe - Black Toast
Child 'O Mine - Roger Daltrey 56K

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Guest Stars:
Laila Robins as Dominique Boucher
Malin Akerman as Karen Bronte
Kathryn Winslow as Vicky Po
Will Corno as John Sansmain

Someone calls Sara to report a murder. Sara and Jake find human skeletal remains posed in the snow at the crime scene. They notice suspicious marks in the snow and a slashed garbage bag. Sara also discovers a cobra tongue ring in the mouth of the skull.

Sara knows the victim is Gina Maris from a missing persons report.

She and Jake go to the Boucher Agency to interview Dominique Boucher, who reported Gina missing. While flipping through pictures of Gina, they find a photo of Gina in the same pose as that of the bones at the park. Dominique suggests that Sara and Jake talk to Karen Bronte (a model and Gina's roommate). Karen sees Sara and gives her an odd look. Sara notices someone in the balcony. The person runs up to the roof and disappears. When Sara looks down from the roof, she sees a little girl sitting on the steps. Dominique, concerned with what had just happened, sends her models away from the agency.

Vicky PO, coroner and forensic scientist, tells Sara and Jake that the bones were soaked in acid and seemed crushed.

When Sara arrives at Karen's apartment to meet up with Jake, Karen gives Sara an odd look again. Karen takes a photo of a lady with a little girl from the mantle and shows it to Sara. Sara is shocked to find that the lady in the photo looks just like her and has the Witchblade on. Karen tells Sara that the lady in the picture is Karen's grandmother, Elizabeth Bronte, and the little girl (who looks like the girl Sara saw on the steps from the roof of the Boucher agency) is Karen's mother. Sara borrows the picture to make a copy.

Irons and Ian are talking about Dominique Boucher. Dominique is a pretender and has been lurking and waiting for the right time to regain possession of the Witchblade. Irons worries that "Dominique risks inadvertently giving Sara knowledge for which she is not yet prepared." Ian tells Irons that he is underestimating Sara and that she has already found Karen Bronte. Irons orders Ian to give Sara "a taste of her heritage, but only a taste and then break off all connection between them."

Jake and Karen are shooting pool at a bar. Jake sees a one-armed man shooting pool nearby. He remembers the marks in the snow and the slashed trash bag that could have been made with a hook. Jake confronts the man. The man swings at him and injures Jake's hand and escapes. When Jake escorts Karen back to her apartment, the one-armed henchman knocks him out and abducts Karen.

Sara has a vision and suspects that Dominique is involved.
Jake captures the one-armed henchman, John Sansmain, and forces him to reveal where Karen is.

Sara goes to Dominique's agency where Dominique is waiting for her. Dominique says that Gina's death was a mistake and that Karen was the target. Dominique wanted to killed Karen to eliminate a blood heir to the blade and to lure Sara into a fight. Dominique attacks Sara with her mechanical snake. Sara fights back. Sara throws the Witchblade over to Dominique. The blade latches onto Dominique's wrist. It transforms into a glove with a sword. Dominique tries to slash Sara, but the blade would not allow it. Instead, the sword retracts and the blade transforms into a serpent-shaped glove. Sara orders the blade to tighten on Dominique's wrist. Sara then reaches out to order the blade to return to her. She hears Karen's cries and finds her with a snake. Sara breaks the chains holding Karen and rescues her. Jake arrives moments later.

When Sara visits Dominique in her jail cell, she finds out that Dominique has aged significantly. Sara wants to learn more about the blade from Dominique, but Dominique refuses and tells her that she doesn't want her to succeed.

Sara and Jake go to interview Karen, but find her gone and her apartment empty.

• Vicky may have an alcohol problem. Sara sees a Vodka bottle in the trash in Vicky's lab. When Sara confronts her, Vicky says she's dealing with it.
• Sara and Elizabeth Bronte look the same. Karen Bronte shows Sara a picture of her grandmother, Elizabeth Bronte, who looks just like Sara. Elizabeth Bronte also wore the blade. The little girl in the picture, who is Karen's mother, looks like the little girl Sara saw in her vision.
• Kenneth Irons put the Witchblade on in one instance only ("At the dark of the first new moon of the second half of the last century").
• Sara opens the box that her father left her and finds a bullet with a black bull engraved on it.
  Ian explains to Sara that only women can wield the blade because they can stand pain, which is the same reason they bare children.
• Dominique was involved with Kenneth Irons when he first owned the blade. There is a photo of Kenneth Irons with Dominique wearing the blade in French Guiana in '59. Kenneth Irons dumped her when he found out that she was a pretender.
• Dominique let the henchman wear the blade and it cost him his arm. The henchman, John Sansmain, was fitted with a prosthesis five years ago.
• Karen Bronte is a blood heir to the Witchblade.
• Wearers can suffer a rapid aging process. Dominique ages significantly in her jail cell after she loses her fight to take back the Witchblade. The blade can also stop the aging process. Irons looks the same as he did in the photo that was taken in '59.