Nemesis

Robin, a single mother of a terminally ill child, realizes the end of her son’s life is near. Desperate to pursue expensive treatments, but living below the poverty line in a seedy city of the early 1980s, Robin disguises herself as a high-profile masked vigilante killer dubbed the Court Jester to hold up a nearby bank. An off duty detective inside the bank attempts to stop her. In the ensuing standoff a young boy is shot (it’s unclear by whom) and Robin flees into the night. After stashing her disguise and revolver in an anonymous alley, Robin returns to her run down apartment to find her ailing child unresponsive. Robin rushes him to the emergency room where she runs into the detective, who just delivered the wounded boy from the bank. A paranoid conversation reveals the detective’s grief over the injured boy, but does not reveal if he knows Robin was under the mask that night. Robin’s child survives, but is not expected to live long. Neither is the child from the bank. Guilt stricken and penniless with two children dying in the hospital because of her, Robin begins to unravel at the seams. Her descent is hastened by the relentless pursuit of the detective, the disappearance of her discarded mask and weapon, the shape of what looks like the real Court Jester stalking her throughout the city, the brutal assault of a mugger who is found dead shortly after their confrontation, and the violent warnings of her landlord demanding rent at knifepoint. Increasingly confused and despondent, Robin is horrified to find herself consoling the wrong child by his hospital bedside on more than one occasion. Meanwhile, the detective is not faring much better. As the Court Jester vigilante slayings become more prolific, the detective finds his black and white view of justice repudiated by the rest of the city, even by his own colleagues. To that end, his pursuit of Robin falls into an uncomfortable gray area even for him. He knows the right thing to do is arrest the mother, but how can he take her away from her dying son? The scenario only grows more complicated when he learns it was his bullet that struck the child from the bank. When a Court Jester slaying aligns with a nightmare Robin has of murdering a witnesses to her confession, Robin convinces herself she is the vigilante at large. She then threatens the ER doctor in charge, who dismissively declares her son a lost cause, resulting in her banning from the hospital. That night, her son dies and Robin implodes. As if on cue, the real Jester appears in her apartment, delivers her missing mask and the bloody knife of her (now slain) landlord and leaves. The message is sent: join him in fighting back at this unfair world. Her first target: the detective, whose presence in her life led to her, at the very minimum, not being with her child in his final moments. The detective, pulling up to her apartment to finally make the arrest, sees the masked Jester fleeing into the night. Assuming it's a disguised Robin, he gives chase and opens up to her about all his regrets as a failed instrument of justice, particularly regarding her and her child. Refusing to quit in the pursuit of true justice, he asks her to give herself up so that they can both receive the judgment they deserve together. Instead, the Jester raises his gun and fires…at a third person. It’s Robin, masked and wielding the knife, attempting to kill the detective. The Jester resumes his escape. The detective, having failed again, briefly waits, then continues his pursuit.