Recap: Nick is piloting a helicopter tour aboard the decrepit Mimi for a terrified looking couple whose terror mounts when the chopper starts making choking sounds while smoke billows out the back. The husband begs Nick to land his hunk of junk, and Nick's like, "We don't have much choice" and somehow manages to return the chopper to its regular landing spot. He apologizes for the "wind current" they must have caught - but the husband snarks that he'll be hearing from his lawyer, then storms off with his ashen-faced wife. Cody and Murray rush over to excitedly inform Nick that they have a case - and that it was referred to them by their newest frenemy, Myron Bell. Nick rails about how much he hates Myron and all the shitty clients he's been throwing their way...but when pieces of Mimi start falling off and clattering to the ground, Nick concedes that they could definitely use a payday. Get that dilapidated thing serviced already! The Riptide trio meets up with Myron, who tells them that their prospective client is a creep named Roger Ramsdale who wants them to get hard proof that his estranged wife is a money grubbing whore. The Riptide trio + Myron head over to Roger's house and find Roger lounging by the pool, barking at someone named Craig Walters over the phone. Myron introduces him to Nick, Cody, and Murray...and Roger scowlingly says, "I want you to prove that my wife is a slut", then orders the willowy blonde who's hanging around nearby to fetch him a beer. He glares disdainfully at Nick, Cody, and Murray and growls at Myron for bringing him three such obvious lightweights...and when a fed up Nick says he's ready to walk, Myron stops him and tells him that Roger, while an undeniable douchewad, is an important client who throws a lot of lucrative business his way...then adds that he's prepared to pay the Riptide Detective Agency $5,000 to dig up proof of his wife's sluttiness. Murray asks Myron if he's absolutely sure that the woman is a slut, and Myron's like, yep, she's the supreme queen of all slutbags, then points out that any woman who would debase herself by marrying Roger has to have at least a few screws loose. Fair point. Nick says he hates the way this job is starting to shape up, but agrees to work the case, given their dire financial situation. Myron's like, "Yay!" and gives them the name of their target: Joan Ramsdale. The Riptide trio heads over to Joan's suburban house and stares confusedly at her lovely flower garden and white picket fence. Inside, Joan is meeting with her own PI, an attractive brunette named Tracy who will soon demonstrate her annoying habit of saying 'get outa town!' whenever she hears something that displeases her. The trio appears on Joan's doorstep just as Tracy is on her way out, and they decide it'd be plausible to pretend to be vacuum cleaner salesmen and pretend that Roboz is a convincing vacuum cleaner prototype. Joan smiles warmly and graciously invites them inside while Tracy climbs into her car and gets a call on her car phone from her PI partner Jane, aka the willowy blonde woman who was just hanging out undercover at Roger's house. Sneaky! Jane tells Tracy that Roger just hired three detectives - two hot guys and a bespectacled dork - to dig up dirt on Joan. Tracy shrieks, "Get outa town!" and tells Jane she's pretty sure she just encountered them on Joan's doorstep. A stern looking man pastes a photo of Roger on his calendar, then glares stonily at it before drawing his gun and aiming at it. Joan allows the Riptide trio to dump dirt on her carpet so they can demonstrate Roboz's vacuum cleaning abilities - even as Roboz is roaming around the house, snapping photos that might provide evidence of Joan's slutty lifestyle. Cody apologizes for their non-functioning vacuum cleaner and says they'll bring it back to the lab to make the necessary tweaks...and Joan's like, "No problem!" She says she sees Roboz's potential and would like to put down a deposit on the contraption, then smilingly says she's confident they'll get it working. The trio stares at her in stunned disbelief, agrees to put her name on a nonexistent waiting list, then beats a hasty retreat. When they climb into their car, they notice that Joan is on her way out and decide to follow her. Tracy, who's watching them surveille her client, calls Jane and tells her to get over here pronto so they can launch a tag-team tailing operation. The Riptide trio follows Joan on her wholesome errands, which conclude at the Children's Hospital...and the photos Roboz snapped at her house prove to be just as fruitless in revealing her to be a shameless harlot. They decide their next move will be to head back to Roger's house to tell him they're no longer going to spy on his squeaky clean wife - but only after they corner Tracy and Jane and call them out for tailing them...then invite the two ladies to join them for lunch. Tracy and Jane advise the Riptide trio to dump Roger as a client on account of what a ginormous asshole he is, and Tracy expresses her exasperation with anyone who'd ever agree to work for Roger with another 'get outa town!' Jane explains that around the time Joan left Roger, she noticed some oddities in his finances...so she hired her and Tracy to look into it. Nick and Cody says they're A-OK with throwing in the towel on this dead end spy job and invite Jane and Tracy to come along to Roger's house so that all five of them can participate in the [spoiler] impending car chase. As Tracy waits in her car, Nick, Cody, Murray, and Jane enter Roger's house - but when they call out his name a few times, he doesn't respond. Nick quickly discovers Roger's bullet riddled body in the bathroom - just as Jane spots an armed man, who's clutching a silver briefcase, race out of the house and into his car. The four run out after him and pile into Tracy's car so they can pursue the likely killer...and Nick and Cody unleash a string of misogynistic insults at Tracy to loudly express their disdain for her sub par driving abilities, then groan in incredulity when she dutifully stops at a red light. As Nick and Cody rail about her deficiencies as a female PI, she and Jane snap at them to shut it, and smugly tell them that they both managed to get the killer's license plate number. The Riptide trio + Jane and Tracy arrive at the Children's Hospital to inform Joan about her husband's death, and are stunned to see that Lieutenant Quinlan and his team have already arrived and are in the middle of arresting Joan. Jane and Tracy run over to ask whassup with him arresting an innocent woman...and when they identify themselves as private investigators, Quinlan laughs condescendingly and says, "Lady investigators, that's all I need." When he asks them if they're on The Case of the Stolen Recipes or Knitting Needles, Jane gets all in his face and calls him out for his ridiculous-even-for-'80s-TV-standards misogyny while Tracy wearily mutters another of her 'get outa towns!'. When Nick and Cody rush over to break up the altercation, Quinlan derisively asks them if siccing a couple of lady PIs on him is their idea of a joke, then informs all of them that Joan Ramsdale has just been arrested for conspiracy in her husband's death. And that if they have a problem with his impetuous-to-the-point-of-unlawful style of policing, they can suck on it. Over dinner at Straightaways, the Riptide trio + Jane and Tracy discuss the latest development in the case: the authorities are suspicious about a $5,000 check that Joan refuses to explain, so they're leaping to the assumption [with absolutely zero proof] that she used the money to hire a hitman to kill Roger. Jane proposes they all work together to solve this case before the end credits roll, and Nick says he's willing to try - but only if they refrain from hitting them over the head with their "women's lib stuff". Tracy wryly tells him that women in the U.S. have been liberated for quite some time...then says, similarly, that she and Jane won't put up with any idiotic, testosterone-fueled competitions that men of their ilk like to engage in. Murray laughs aloud at the many pissing contests he's seen between Nick and Cody over the past eight episodes, then contorts his face into a serious expression when he informs everyone that he just recalled a critical piece of information that could crack the case wide open. Aboard the Riptide, Jane and Tracy gush to Murray about how impressed they are with all of his fancy computer equipment. Murray says he suddenly remembered that when they first arrived at Roger's house, he was having an argument over the phone with someone named Craig Walters...so he figures that maybe that guy could be the murderer. He then punches Craig Walters into his computer and finds a profile on the man, which somehow indicates that he's the owner of a 7mm gun. [Interesting that a person's gun purchasing history would be available online in 1984.] Jane remarks that 7mm is a very unusual size for a gun...and when Cody snidely asks her if she's a gun expert, she shrugs and says she can hold her own at a gun range. Tracy proposes they drop by Craig's house first thing in the morning to follow up on this lead. The Riptide trio + Jane and Tracy head over to Craig's place, and we learn that Craig was the stern looking man from earlier who had pointed his gun at Roger's photo...which, jackpot! After rifling through his stuff, they find photos of a pregnant woman named Ellie Thompkins...and a few seconds later, Murray spots Craig running towards his car, then leaps inside it and squeals off. Nick smugly tells Tracy, "Now you'll see a proper car chase!" before he and Cody race out of the house and jump into his red Corvette. When Nick runs a red light, he's promptly stopped by a traffic cop, and he and Cody sheepishly agree to not mention a word of this humiliation to Jane or Tracy. The next stop for Operation Solve Roger's Murder is the restaurant where Ellie Thompkins, who's visibly pregnant, works. The Riptide trio + Jane and Tracy ask her if she knows Craig Walters, and she's overly forthcoming about how he quickly became her more-than-just-platonic friend and Lamaze coach, and that he's been a UGE help to her ever since getting knocked up by Roger Ramsdale, her douchebag ex-lover who was recently killed. She adds that when she told Roger about the baby, he became enraged and ordered her to get an abortion - but she refused. When she ambles off to wait on other tables, Cody wonders aloud if the $5,000 check Joan refuses to account for was her way of helping out the woman her moron of a husband so carelessly knocked up. Jane and Tracy visit Joan in jail to ask her about the $5,000...and she admits that, yep, since Roger refused to take responsibility for the sweet, naive woman he impregnated, she decided to help her out with a little spare cash. She then checks the time and says she needs to go now 'cause she promised her cellblock-mates she'd teach them how to knit. The Riptide trio mulls over everything they've learned this episode, then theorize about the series of events that likely led to Roger's murder: Roger refused to pay for the baby he knocked Ellie up with and ordered her to get an abortion...and when she refused, he hired a hitman named Craig Walters to kill her - but Craig promptly fell in love with Ellie and decided 'why not just kill Roger instead?' Seems like a reasonable change of plans. Nick and Cody decide that their next step will be to ambush Craig at Ellie's next Lamaze class, and enlist Jane and Tracy to give them cover by posing as their pregnant wives. Ellie squeals happily when Craig makes an appearance at her Lamaze class. She gabbles about the people who dropped by the restaurant where she works at the other day to ask questions about him...and when Nick, Cody, Jane, and Tracy enter the room, she's like, "Hey, there they are!" Craig's all, "Ack!" and makes a break for the exit and manages to climb inside of his car...and after Cody misfires at the car a few times, Jane grabs the gun out of his hand and shoots out one of Craig's tires, then smugly tells Cody that she's an expert marksman...er, markswoman. A few seconds later, they get the news that Ellie has just gone into labor, and they all start scrambling around to get her to a hospital, stat! After what seems like a pretty short labor, Craig enters the waiting room to announce to the Riptide trio + Jane and Tracy that Ellie just had a baby girl. He says to pass along to Ellie that he loves her, then allows the police officer, who's been waiting politely inside the hospital this entire time to arrest him (LOL), to handcuff him and lead him away. Everyone looks bummed at the arrest and hopes that the judge will go easy on Craig, given that he only killed Roger to protect Ellie. With that said, they all decide to celebrate the successful wrap-up of this dreary case by heading over to Straightaways for some sustenance. Jane and Tracy tell the Riptide trio that St. Joan is now interested in doing whatever she can to help Craig and Ellie...and also that she's eagerly awaiting her robot-style vacuum cleaner from the three charming salesmen who dropped by her house earlier in the episode. As the trio chortles at the impossible naivete of the woman, Myron pops up from out of nowhere and tells Nick and Cody that he has a new client for them: a man who wants to get hard proof that his daughter's punk boyfriend is a transvestite. I'm sure that the daughter will discover that for herself in due time - but that's all I'm going to say 'bout that. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
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Recap: Three beefy men, who are clearly up to no good, pull up to what looks like a rich person's house...and the most psychotic looking of the three, Carter, clutches his gun, tells the other two he'll only need five minutes to commit his nefarious deed, then exits the car. As that's happening, a pretty blonde woman named Sherry climbs out of a cab, tells the driver to wait for her, then dashes toward the front door of the house. Eeeeek! Sherry rings the doorbell and comes face-to-face with Dr. Robert Atkins, her until recently lover. Robert irritably tells Sherry to dry her tears, accept the fact that he gave her the dumperoo, and go home. A tearful Sherry wails, "You're not worth crying over!" and storms out of the house, climbs back into her cab, and gives the driver her home address. Carter, meanwhile, sneaks into the house, shoots Robert in the chest, then puts on a pair of latex gloves before rifling through the dead man's drawers. He finds a set of keys to a boat called The Endeavor and cackles to himself about how awesome it'll be to sail on to Mexico. In the next scene, Carter and his pals - Lou and Dennis - have docked The Endeavor at King Harbor and are partying hearty while harassing the scantily clad Contessa babes. Aboard the Riptide, Nick and Cody are wearing nose bandages after a night of brawling with military men whose girlfriends they decided it was a wise idea to flirt with. Cody says he's sick and tired of getting his nose broken for what most men would consider easily avoidable behavior and declares that, starting now, he's going to adapt his communications approach to the more non-violent recommendations he's been reading about in his favorite new book, The Conversation Game. Nick rolls his eyes derisively and scoffs at the notion of not letting every hostile confrontation degenerate into a fist fight. Tammy gets so fed up by the noisy harassment that she storms aboard The Endeavor to ask the men to please lower the volume of their partying...and Carter responds by looming over her and dickishly asking her to repeat her complaint. When she firmly reiterates, "Keep. It. Down", he grabs her by the arm, cackles about how he's now going to make her stick around, and forces her to dance with him...and Lou and Dennis cackle about how Carter "finally got one". Ew. Tammy yells at the creepy psycho to let her go, then smacks him hard across the face...and he responds by tossing her overboard. A few seconds later, the Riptide trio hear Tammy's screams and are all, "Wha-a-a-t was that?" As Tammy swims back to the dock, unhurt, the Contessa babes tell Nick and Cody about the annoying loudmouths who have parked themselves in the slip next door and suggest they call the police. Cody decides this is the perfect opportunity to test out the advice he read about in The Conversation Game and greets Carter, Lou, and Dennis all friendly-like and assures them he's not looking for any trouble. Carter snaps back that he and his beefy pals are looking for plenty of trouble...but then quickly backs off when Nick pulls out his gun and orders them to get the hell out of King Harbor. While out at sea, Carter brandishes his gun and tells Lou and Dennis he wants to turn the boat around and punish the beach bums for publicly threatening him...and by punish, he means completely overreact by pumping lead into both of them. Dennis reminds the psycho that they're about to pick up their pal Davey, who's getting released from prison soon...and if they can avoid committing any superfluous murders, they could be in Mexico within a day or two. The Riptide trio are out for dinner at Straightaways with a couple of Contessa babes, listening to the comedy performance of the new Straightaways/Contessa manager, Max. Interesting...I guess Mama Jo decided to abruptly leave the nubile Contessa babes in her charge for greener pastures elsewhere. After wrapping up her schtick, Max ambles over and reminds the babes they should get to bed at a decent hour 'cause they have an early morning charter...and then, apropos of nothing, Murray starts bragging about all the cash the Riptide Detective Agency made last year, and that he's heading back to the boat to pore over their tax records. Er, OK..? Carter sneaks aboard the Riptide a few seconds before Murray returns. He sneaks behind Murray and puts a bag over his head before kicking him unconscious...then knocks poor Roboz over when the cheeky robot makes a grabbing motion at him with his little hook hand. Nick and Cody are on their way back to the Riptide when they see Carter sneaking off the deck and stupidly yell, "Hey you!", which prompts Carter to shoot at them before racing off on a small motor boat. Nick and Cody leap into a dinghy that just happens to be stationed nearby...but the chase quickly ends when Carter's bullets deflate the dinghy and force the two back to shore. Murray tells Nick and Cody that their tax records got pooched during the break-in, then quickly gets to work looking up who the registered owner of The Endeavor is. Murray's computer search leads the Riptide trio to the home of Dr. Robert Atkins, whose lifeless body is being wheeled by first responders. The trio mulls over the best disguise with which to sneak past police in order to independently investigate the murder and decide on pool cleaners. Nick and Cody put an Al's Pool Service sign across the side of their vehicle and change into matching beige jackets and caps...then hide Murray in the back seat before pulling up to the Atkins driveway. In cartoonishly bad southern accents, they tell the gullible police officer guarding the perimeter that they're here to turn off the faulty pool pump in order to avoid a massive flood on the property...and once they're inside the gates, Murray and Cody disguise themselves as medical researchers so they can sneak inside the house and poke around for helpful clues. The cab driver who was chauffeuring Sherry around on the night of the murder has been summoned to the Atkins house, and is now talking to a detective. Murray and Cody slip into white lab coats and tell the officer on duty that they're here to collect the petri dishes they were working with Robert on...and alarm him about the contagion-related perils if the bacteria laden experiments are allowed to remain in the house. The officer's all, "Oh no!" and allows them roam about freely in this ridiculously unsecured [even by Riptide standards] crime scene. Cody and Murray see a police detective questioning Sherry - just as Lieutenant Quinlan bursts into the room, asks the detective why he's wasting time questioning a suspect, then barks, "Book the broad!" One has to wonder how in blazes this Neanderthal became [and continues to be employed as] a police lieutenant. Cody and Murray exit the house before Quinlan can spot them, then fetches Nick so the three can safely squeal away in their car. As they muse about a blonde woman being the primary murder suspect, they suddenly see her pop up from the cargo area of their vehicle with a gun clutched in her hands. After the commercial break, Cody makes use of the skills he learned from The Conversation Game and tells a highly distressed Sherry that they're willing to listen to whatever she wants to say about her fears and anxieties...preferably after she puts the gun down. As she mulls that over, Nick grabs the gun from her, prompting her to wail, "Wah! I just wanna kill myself!" The four stop off at a fast food restaurant, where Sherry insists to the trio that she had nothing to do with killing her ex-lover. Murray says he believes her, not least 'cause the mood ring they made her wear just prior to this conversation is glowing orange - which confirms that, yep, she's telling the truth. They reveal to her that they're PIs who recently had a nasty run-in with the three thugs who stole Robert's boat and likely killed him...and Sherry tells them everything she knows about the boat, along with Robert's shady business manager, Sidney Gorman. When Sherry wonders aloud what she should do now, Nick advises her to steer clear of turning herself in to Quinlan, who's just going to treat her like an insect stuck to the bottom of his shoe while she's in his custody, and suggests she instead hide out aboard the Riptide. Carter, Lou, and Dennis pick up their friend Davey after he's dropped off via a local sheriff's ferry. Carter gives him a rugged man-hug, then tells him he stole a fancy boat so they can all sail to Mexico in style...but before they do that, he has a score to settle with two beach bums who sassed him earlier. He hands Davey a gun and asks him if he's into committing a double homicide, and Davey's like 'Let's see...I just got out of prison ten minutes ago, but why the hell not murder two random guys I've never heard of for no coherent reason?' The Riptide trio heads to Sidney Gorman's office, pretending to be officials from the U.S. Coast Guard. After flashing their phony badges, they demand whatever info he has on The Endeavor, and tell him they suspect it's being used for drug running. Sidney looks visibly edgy and unconvincingly says he doesn't know nuthin' from nuthin'...and after the trio exits his office and hide in the hallway, they spot Sidney rushing out of his office and down the nearest stairwell. The follow him to an apartment complex and watch as he bangs on one of the apartment doors yelling, "Carter! Open up!" ... and when no one answers, he races back to his car, roughly shoving Nick out of the way in the process, and starts driving so excessively fast that Cody is forced to abandon the chase. Murray theorizes that perhaps Robert was planning to fire Sidney, who responded by hiring Carter to kill him. Nick and Cody decide that that sounds like as good a theory as any the writers are likely to come up with...and that they need to find Carter asap so they can force him to confess and thereby clear Sherry of any wrongdoing. The trio returns to King Harbor and notices that - ack! - Sherry and the Riptide are both gone. Murray pulls out his ginormous "portable" computer and suggests they use Roboz's signal to track the boat, and Nick says he'll go start up the decrepit Mimi's engines so they can launch a dramatic, by air rescue. Aboard the Riptide, Carter puts a bag over Sherry's head and snarls, "You're coming with us." Eeeek! While aboard Mimi, Murray easily tracks Roboz's signal and gives Nick the coordinates. The bad guys mull over the idea of pawning Murray's fancy computer gear, then joke about using Sherry as their personal maid. Sexist jerkwads. Dennis stares at a nervous looking Roboz, who makes a popping noise when Dennis amuses himself by pouring beer over the orange bot's head. While hovering over the stolen Riptide, Nick gets on the blowhorn and orders the bad guys to surrender...to which they respond by firing on Mimi. Murray and Cody fire back, then lower a dinghy and leap into the water after it. Cody gets close enough to throw a grenade at the bad guys, which causes them to flee to a nearby island...then tackles two of them at once, while Nick quickly lands Mimi and attacks Carter before punching him into submission. Hurray! Over dinner at Straightaways, we learn that Sidney Gorman was stealing money from Dr. Atkins, who then threatened to fire him, who was then killed by Carter. Good guesswork, Murray! The two Contessa babes amble over to smugly inform Nick and Cody that they're having dinner with Todd and Mitchell, two volleyball coaches they all met off-screen. Cody grumbles that the men seemed like good talkers and probably read The Conversation Game...and this prompts him, Nick, and Murray to chuckle heartily. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"! Recap: An attractive flight attendant named Connie Moreci arrives at the house of her friend, Arty Truman, just as he's telling someone on the phone how paranoid he's getting that someone is following him, and that he doesn't think it's safe to have it anymore. After the call, he lets Connie in and gives her the package he wants her to deliver to his brother, Walter. She remarks on how "edgy" he's acting, but then just kind of shrugs amiably and gives him a cheek kiss goodbye before heading back out. A few seconds later, an armed man breaks into Arty's house and advances on him - just as the camera pans over to Connie, who looks as if she's forgotten to tell Arty something. When she hears a gunshot, she rushes up to the house and peers through the living room window and sees the armed man standing over Arty with his gun. When he glares over at her, she's all, "Ack!" and swiftly totters down the street in her high heels. With the killer in pursuit, she races to the nearest busy city street and spots an excellent hiding place: a movie theater. Aboard the Riptide, Nick and Cody are preparing for a double date with two buxom hotties, Tammy and Bambi from the Contessa, whose curfew has been temporarily suspended while Mama Jo is out of town to care for her sick Aunt Nellie. Murray returns to the boat with a pizza and cheerfully tells the two that dinner is served, and a pained looking Nick explains that when he and Cody sent him out for pizza, they expected him to stay gone for the entire evening so they could work on nailing the Contessa babes...in weirdly close proximity to each other, apparently, given the limited square footage of the boat. Murray looks hurt for a few seconds, then points out that dating anyone who opts to live under the thumb of a woman who refers to herself as Mama Jo constitutes a lack of ethics, but Nick and Cody assure him that any bonings that occur are entirely consensual...and that they're horny, shallow men whose penises have basic human needs. They then urge Murray to get out there and find a girl of his own, then give him whatever cash is in their wallets, along with the keys to Nick's red Corvette. Murray seems adequately placated with that and ambles off, just as Tammy and Bambi arrive. Murray is aimlessly wandering the streets when he comes upon the same movie theater that Connie found refuge in earlier. He loads up on popcorn and candy bars, tiptoes inside the theater, and finds himself seated next to a sobbing Connie. He tries to comfort her by reminding her it's just a movie...and when he offers her some popcorn, she declines and rushes out. Murray follows her to ask her if she's OK, and she's like, "Not really, there's a gunman waiting for me outside" and explains that she witnessed him shoot her friend Arty. Murray perks up and tells her that this sounds like a case for the Riptide Detective Agency and convinces her to bring her case to his two associates. When the two exit the theater, Connie spots the gunman across the street and points at him and squeals, "There he is!", and he reacts by scurrying to his car and driving off. Seems like a weird thing for a murderous gunman to do after going through the trouble of stalking her all those hours. Murray then decides 'why not pursue an armed murderer in a car that I'm, in no way, adept at driving?' and engages in an erratic car chase that entails him running red lights, swerving onto sidewalks, and crashing into piles of garbage. When a policeman finally pulls him over, he implores the officer to cut him some slack so he can continue pursuing the bad man who's been stalking Connie all day after murdering her friend. The officer responds by glaring at him in stony silence, then shakes his head in dismayed incredulity. The Riptide phone starts ringing just as Nick and Cody are rounding third base with the Contessa babes. When they finally get around to answering the phone, Murray tells them he's in jail and implores them to bail him out...and before he's able to prattle nonsensically for more than a few seconds, Cody gruffly replies that he and Nick will be there, pronto, and abruptly hangs up. Murray commiserates with his cellmates about the appalling conditions of their holding cell, and insists that he's an innocent man. A pimp, who's dressed in unmistakable pimp-wear, concurs and says that he got picked up by the cops 'cause of what he was wearing while trying to market his goods...and when Murray asks him what type of goods he markets, Pimp deadpans, "Encyclopedias." A few seconds later, Murray is sprung from the holding cell...and after complaining to Nick and Cody about his arrest and lamenting the plight of falsely imprisoned encyclopedia salesmen - LOL - Connie appears from out of nowhere, gets introduced to Nick and Cody, and grimly reports that someone has sneaked into Arty's house and made off with his dead body. Ew. Walter Truman is at the Lima, Peru airport, waiting for Connie to arrive and deliver his brother's package. When she doesn't make her usual appearance, he asks a flight attendant whassup with Connie not being on the flight, and she shrugs and informs him that Connie didn't show up for work today. Connie takes the Riptide guys over to Arty's house, shows them where she saw the gunman shoot Arty, and deduces that he must have returned to the scene of the crime and stolen his body. When Nick and Cody look visibly skeptical, she explains that she regularly delivered packages from Arty to Walter (in Peru), which contained insulin for his diabetes and various other harmless toiletries. Nick asks her if it's possible Arty was slipping something illegal inside the packages, and Connie's like, "Dunno" and pulls out the package Arty gave her earlier. Nick rifles through it and finds nothing out of the ordinary - diabetic chocolate and insulin - and then the camera pans over to the gunman, who's parked in a black van across the street and eavesdropping on their conversation via a bug he must have installed inside Arty's house. Murray suggests they all head back to the Riptide so he can punch Walter's name into his computer and see if anything useful comes of it. The gunman watches the four exit Arty's house and drive off...then covertly follows them. Murray doesn't have any luck finding info on Walter or his current whereabouts and is about to throw in the towel on the whole thing when the gunman calls the Riptide from a nearby pay phone and reports that he has information on Arty Truman's dead body, and to meet him on Fisherman's Island in thirty minutes if they want to know more. Nick and Cody decide 'hey, let's leave Murray and Connie unattended to run this fool's errand!' and opt to travel separately (in case it's an ambush) to Fisherman's Island via the decrepit Mimi and the Ebb Tide and keep in touch via radio. Murray remarks to Connie how bizarre it is that an anonymous tipster would know to call the Riptide, and Connie concurs that it's definitely weird, but not any kind of red flag that should be alarming her right now. She stands up and nearly stumbles from diabetes induced dizziness, then tells Murray that since she's in desperate need of some insulin she's just going to take a shot of Walter's. Nick and Cody have arrived on different ends of Fisherman's Island, but there's no sign of the anonymous tipster. Connie takes a shot of insulin and says she's feeling better, but warns Murray that she's going to need to eat something in about half an hour. She then studies Walter's insulin bottle more closely and notices something sparkly inside...and upon further scrutiny, she realizes it's filled with diamonds. When it finally dawns on Nick and Cody that they were lured away from the Riptide so that the gunman could harm/kill/kidnap Murray and Connie, they're all, "Hey! We've been had!" and race back to the pier. When they arrive at the Riptide, the boat is in total disarray...and Murray and Connie are nowhere to be found. One of the Contessa babes, Tammy, pops by to warn Nick and Cody that Mama Jo will be returning home tomorrow, along with her sick aunt...and if they're still interested in coupling up, it's going to have to be tonight. Nick looks pained as he declines and explains that Murray and their latest client were just kidnapped - and Tammy says a few minutes ago she saw Murray, Roboz, and Connie leave with a man who was driving a black van. Nick and Cody somehow deduce that the gunman must have been eavesdropping on their earlier conversation via a bug in Arty's house, and race over there in the hopes that the bug can be traced to the gunman and his current location...which doesn't seem remotely plausible, even within the context of Riptide's general state of suspended reality - but then I'm a recapper, not a bug/surveillance expert. The gunman orders Murray to use all of his power as a dorky computer whiz to to track down Walter Truman, and Murray agrees to do it if he gives Connie something to eat so she doesn't go into diabetic shock. The gunman impatiently tosses Murray some kind of processed snack, then points his gun back at him and orders him to get busy computing. Nick and Cody rush over to Arty's house, wave a detector around, and find the bug under the living room table. To their surprise, the detector goes off again when Cody waves it near the diabetic chocolate bar, which they soon realize has a safety deposit box key embedded in it. On their way out, they encounter Arty's brother, Walter, at the front door. When he asks them if they know whassup with his brother, they tell him that something nefarious has happened to him, then urge him to tag along with them to the police station. Murray surreptitiously types a 'help' message to his besties - SOS, Nick and Cody: I'm in Warehouse 3 at the docks' - which superfluously gets sent to everyone within a ten mile radius who's currently sitting in front of a networked computer, and results in a lot of confusion for employees in a nearby cube farm...as well as a local weatherman, who reads the message on the air. While en route to the police station, Cody spots the SOS message on the electronic sign adjacent to a bank...and immediately makes a u-turn to rescue Murray. Murray tells the gunman that the satellite service he needs to perform a Google search on Walter Truman doesn't work so well during business hours, but the gunman continues to point his gun at him and barks at him to keep trying. Nick and Cody arrive at Warehouse 3 and tiptoe inside while Walter waits by the car. Murray, meanwhile, pretends that one of the keys on his keyboard is stuck and tells the gunman he needs something thin and plastic to unstick it. The gunman stupidly hands over the thinnest plastic thing in his wallet, his driver's license, and Murray notes his name (George Bobbitt) and taps it into his computer to get the man's deets. A few seconds later, Nick and Cody storm into the room...followed by Walter, who aims his gun at the group and [not fatally] shoots George Bobbitt. Murray tells everyone that, according to his computer, George Bobbitt is an ex-CIA operative who's devoted his life to chasing an assassin known as The Lynx, aka Walter Truman. As Nick and Cody are all, "Wha-a-a?", Walter demands the stuff that was in the latest package that Arty had passed along to Connie, so Nick hands him the safety deposit box key that was embedded in the diabetic chocolate, along with the insulin. Walter contemplates his gun for a few seconds, then informs the Riptide gang that since he only has two bullets left, he's going to have to dispose of the four of them more efficiently, aka lock them inside the storage room and set the warehouse on fire. As smoke starts seeping into the room, a quick thinking Murray orders Roboz to use his extra strong computer hook-hand to break open the doorknob on the flimsy door that I'm sure Nick or Cody could probably have easily kicked down - and the three (plus comatose Connie and wounded George Bobbitt) safely make their way out of the warehouse. Walter grabs a cab and speeds over to the bank to empty his safety deposit box, while Murray examines the imprint the key made in the diabetic chocolate so he can identify which bank it belongs to. Walter accesses his safety deposit box, which is filled with diamonds. He carefully packs them up and quickly exits the bank - just as Nick and Cody pull up, leap out of the Corvette, and tackle him to the ground. When the diamonds scatter across the sidewalk, Walter looks at his lost fortune in disbelief and moans, "My diamonds!" On a restaurant patio, the Riptide gang and Connie chuckle heartily about how George Bobbitt's lifetime quest to capture Walter Truman took them a mere day and a half. Connie lifts her wine glass and toasts "three helpful men" - just as Mama Jo lumbers over with her sickly Aunt Nellie. Mama Jo smugly tells Nick and Cody that she and Nellie - meaning, not Tammy and Bambi - will be joining them for dinner...and the two men look none too pleased about being so unexpectedly cockblocked. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"! Recap: Two scary looking hooligans enter a Cabo San Lucas cantina, harass (American gringo) Lane Preston for not yet giving them their final payment, and proceed to rough him up. They drag him out of the bar so he can watch his trophy wife Dee Dee fake plead from the back of the hooligans' car to pleeeeeease do everything he can to free her from these savages. An emotionally wrought Lane reminds the men he's given them every last cent he has and begs them to hand over whatever evidence they have against his wife and release her - but the hooligans just cackle about Dee Dee's possible fate of serving ten years in a Mexican prison for her crimes. After that, they climb into the car and squeal off with Dee Dee, leaving Lane standing helplessly in front of the cantina moaning, "Nooooo!!" Brandy Preston (Lane's daughter) arrives at the Riptide, warmly greets Nick and Cody (since apparently she once dated them both), and tells them she's worried that something terrible may have happened to her father. She explains that he recently sold his retirement house in Cabo and spends his days drinking in a local cantina...plus, she can't seem to get a hold of Dee Dee (who we learn used to work for Mama Jo before she sunk her hooks into Lane). Brandy says she's contacted a bunch of other PI agencies, but couldn't get any of them interested in her plight 'cause of the Mexico factor. Murray solemnly retorts, "Risk is our business" and asks her to provide him with any background info she has on Lane so he can punch it into his computer and hope that something helpful pops onto the screen. Nick and Cody head over to the Contessa to ask Mama Jo about Dee Dee's employment history, and Mama Jo dismissively says she fired the tart 'cause she was a gold digger who constantly hit on the wealthy men who chartered her boat. That evening, Nick scratches his head about why a hottie like Dee Dee would settle for a milquetoasty dud like Lane Preston, and Cody shrugs and suggests it was an unlikely love match. Murray somehow manages to pull up Lane's tax return on his computer (interesting that personal tax returns were digitized and available online in 1984), which shows that during the previous year Lane earned 400K. The three nod at each other knowingly and decide that a gross salary of 400K is probably enough of a score to attract a gold digger like Dee Dee. The next morning, Murray, Nick, Cody, and Brandy board Mimi and fly to Cabo, then arrive at the cantina where Lane has been drinking away his troubles...and somehow Murray took time out of the mission to stop by a tourist shop and buy himself a sombrero. Brandy sees her father slumped at a table and cries, "Dad!" - but he snaps at her to leave him alone, then runs out the back exit. Nick and Cody make a half-hearted effort to chase him down, but quickly lose track of him and return to the cantina to ask the bartender to spill the beans on whatever he knows about Lane. When the bartender feigns confusion and mumbles, "No hablo ingles", Nick waves $40 in front of him in humorously smug fashion as if it's an impressive amount of bribery cash and demands he talk, damn it! The bartender decides a little extra pocket money couldn't hurt, so he tells Nick and Cody that Lane is in big trouble with some scary people and that for the last little while he's been living like a homeless person on the beach. A few seconds later, he makes a break for the back exit and races through the nearest alley...which seemed wholly unnecessary at this point, but OK. The head bad guy (Mr. Brown) is informed that a group of Americans are in Cabo asking a lot of nosy questions about Lane Preston...and Mr. Brown stares worriedly into space for a few seconds before ordering his flunkies to track them down and "take care of the problem". The Riptide trio (plus Brandy) heads over to the beach where Lane has been living in a crude looking shack. Brandy rushes over and cries, "Dad!", and he hugs her and says she shouldn't have come. He asks Nick and Cody to take her home - just as Mr. Brown's flunkies appear, punch Cody, and ask Lane whassup with his American visitors. Lane fibs and says he has absolutely no idea who these people are, and the perplexed flunkies grab him and drag him off while warning the trio not to make any trouble. Seems like an inadequate way to "take care of the problem" as Mr. Brown had ordered. As they drive off, Murray assures a despondent Brandy that they'll get to the bottom of what's going, and the four head back to their hotel to determine the next steps for Operation Rescue Lane and Uncover Whassup With His MIA Trophy Wife. Nick and Cody take stock of their gun supply while Murray presses them to remember some unique tidbit about Dee Dee that could help move this storyline forward. Cody recalls that when he dated Dee Dee, she loved to drink a complicated cocktail - something along the lines of the Empellón Cocina's fat-washed mezcal - and was always irritating the shit out of bartenders by making them whip it up for her. Nick pauses his gun prep to stare at Cody in utter incredulity and snap, "You dated Dee Dee?!" and rambles on for what seems like a really looooong time about how completely bamboozled he feels to have discovered that juicy nugget. Cody does his best to ignore Nick's weird dramatics and gets on the phone with the local cantinas to see if a gringa has ever come in and requested her special, pain-in-the-ass drink. Cody's sleuthing quickly pays off...and in the next scene, he and Nick are in a bar, "incognito" in silly hats and sunglasses as they spy on Dee Dee while she flirts with an unsuspecting, hapless man at the bar. Afterwards, they follow her car and find themselves at Bad Guy Headquarters, peek into a window, and see Lane in one of the rooms, tied up. Cody punches one of the guards and bursts into a room where Dee Dee is arguing with Mr. Brown, while Nick sneaks in through a side entrance and unties Lane. Nick steers him out of the house, shoves him into the nearest vehicle that looks like it can be hotwired, and waits for Cody to emerge. As the three squeal off to safety, Lane shrieks, "Nooooo!! We have to go back for Dee Dee!" Poor dumb sap. Back at the hotel, Lane explains the genesis of his Mexican nightmare: he and Dee Dee were at a party hosted by Mr. Brown when heroin was found in Dee Dee's purse...and Mr. Brown took Dee Dee hostage and told Lane he'd only release her if he handed over an exorbitant ransom. Nick gently suggests that it's pretty obvious Dee Dee set him up, then proposes they launch a sting operation, aka send in a guy to pose as a rich, hapless barfly so they can figure out just willing a co-conspirator Dee Dee has been in her own hostage taking. Murray volunteers for the task...and after Nick and Cody do their best to not laugh out loud at the absurdity of using their dork friend as bait, Murray haughtily accuses them of treating him like he's only good for the computer nerd type stuff so he can stay firmly relegated to the background whenever the 'sexy action scene' portions of the show get filmed. They admit that, yep, he's definitely on the nose about that, but decide that since Murray is the only one of them Dee Dee has never met, they have no choice but to wire him up, let him loose in the cantina where she likes to order her complicated cocktail, and hope that something useful comes of it. Lane remains skeptical of the operation 'cause, despite the mounting evidence that she's a gold digging schemer, he can't bring himself to believe that his trophy wife would betray him this way. Murray dons a suit, slicks back his hair, and seats himself at the bar. When Dee Dee shows up looking for her date from the other night, she barely gives Murray a second glance...so (with Nick coaching him from the other end of the wire) he lays it on thick about how coldly he just got dumped, is in possession of a giant diamond ring he has no idea what to do with, and would she happen to be free for dinner? Subtle, Murray. Dee Dee perks up at the mention of an available diamond ring and coos about how delighted she'd be to dine with him. Over dinner, Murray natters on and on about computers, while a visibly bored Dee Dee pretends it's super refreshing to spend time with a man who's not obsessed with sex. Murray blushes and says he feels the same way, then decides 'why not turn this sting operation into an actual date?' and discreetly turns off his wire. Nick and Cody immediately get alarmed when their feed is abruptly cut off and correctly assume that Murray is falling for Dee Dee's charm. When Murray and Dee Dee go outside for an evening stroll, Murray confesses that he's been lying to her all evening, then asks her all judgey-like why she's picking up strange men in bars when she's married to Lane Preston. Dee Dee tells him she's being forced to do it for Mr. Brown, who's blackmailing her for $10,000 after finding heroin in her purse. Murray mulls that over and decides 'why not blow the last scrap of lid off my cover?' and informs Dee Dee that he came to Mexico with Nick Ryder and Cody Allen at the behest of Lane's daughter, and she looks weirded out and is like, "Ack! I know those guys." Nick and Cody desperately search in and around the cantina for fear that Murray will compromise the mission, even though - sorry, guys - the horse is long out of the barn on that one. Dee Dee makes a phone call and mournfully tells Murray that Mr. Brown keeps her on a tight leash...and a few seconds later, the bad guys pull up in front of them. Dee Dee shoots them the stink-eye and snarks, "What took you so long?" as they grab Murray, stuff him into the back seat of their car, and squeal off with Dee Dee in tow. At Bad Guy Headquarters, Murray gets slapped around and interrogated about what Nick and Cody are planning - but Murray refuses to reveal anything and chides Dee Dee for using her looks to extort money from unsuspecting men in cantinas. The interrogaters get impatient with Murray's lack of cooperation and drag him to the weight room for a more stringent torture session. Nick and Cody are aboard Mimi, using Murray's computer gadgetry to locate their friend. It's unclear why they don't just assume he's in Bad Guy Headquarters, a location they already know about from rescuing Lane. The bad guys tie Murray to a weight machine upside down and use the apparatus to stretch his arms and legs. Murray refuses to talk, except to say he has zero problem with being stretched to death if it means protecting his besties. Nick and Cody manage to capture audio on the bad guys talking about their torture of Murray in the weight room. As Mimi sputters from overheating [why does Nick never arrange for this contraption to get a tune-up??], they land near Bad Guy Headquarters and leap off the chopper clutching high-powered rifles. They spot Dee Dee attempting to drive away with Mr. Brown and his briefcase o' cash - but Cody puts an immediate stop to their getaway by shooting at their tires. He then races to the weight room, turns Murray right-side-up and unties his arms and legs. Nick forces Dee Dee and Mr. Brown into the chopper - and the two glumly sit, passively resigned to their fates as convicted fraudsters, as they all wait for Cody and Murray to emerge from the house and climb aboard the chopper. As Nick takes off, Cody opens the briefcase, finds it filled with stacks of cash, and gleefully screeches, "We scored!" That you did, Cody. That you did. Lane is thrilled to have gotten his money back and dejectedly says he feels like a fool for falling for Dee Dee's scam. As well he should, the dumbfuck. Brandy refers to Nick and Cody as her brothers and thanks them for getting her father back in one piece. The two ignore the brother remark and each give her a lingering smooch (which was weird) ... and as she climbs off the Riptide and ambles down the pier with her father, Nick stares longingly after her shapely form and tells Cody how much he'd loooove to tap that again. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"! Recap: Nick, Cody, and Murray are aboard the Riptide, monitoring their discreetly placed surveillance cameras as they await the appearance of the masked burglar who's been robbing local merchants. Murray rails about how he's been relegated "the computer geek" of the trio, then chides himself for always shying away from physically taking on the bad guys. Cody points out that his geekiness is a credit to the diversity of their fledgling PI firm, and that leaping into silly Riptide action sequences isn't always as easy as it looks. Murray isn't appeased by that and insists he be trained on how to act more tough, so Nick and Cody half-heartedly promise to school him in the ways of faux punches and superfluous street brawls. When the surveillance footage on the computer suddenly goes on the fritz, Murray's all, "Ack! Something's going on!" and catches a snippet of the masked burglar stealing their hidden cameras. The three race out to nab him, passing Mama Jo and her buxom lady crew, who are watching the action from the deck of the Contessa. Cody tackles the burglar, and the two roll around and punch each other...but the burglar manages to overpower Cody and run off, then shoves Nick into the water and easily flattens Murray. The Contessa babes and a group of local businessmen run over, groan in dismay as the burglar escapes by speedboat, and admonish the Riptide trio for once again failing to catch the slippery criminal. Cody holds up a black leather glove and says he managed to pull it off of the burglar's hand, then pompously calls it "a road map" that will lead them straight to the thieving scoundrel. One of the businessmen warns the trio that if they don't catch him by end of day tomorrow, they're officially off the case. Back on the Riptide, Murray studies the black glove, while Nick strips off his shirt, stands around shirtless for a gratuitously long time...yum...then slowly changes into some dry clothes. The next morning, Murray decides to start getting in shape...and makes himself a raw egg blender drink before jogging to the Chariots of Fire theme music. A few seconds later, he gets a stomach cramp and staggers across the pier, where a young woman looks as if she just spent the night. She tells him she's been waiting for someone aboard the Riptide to wake up, and Murray perks up at that and tells her he's one of three detectives who lives there. When she remarks that he doesn't look like a detective, he explains, "I'm wiry, very quick reflexes. And I live for danger." The woman, who somehow refrains from laughing aloud at that, introduces herself as Alison London and says she's looking to hire the Riptide detective agency. Murray's like, "Yay! A case!" and offers to introduce her to his partners. Alison tells Nick, Cody, and Murray that she'd like them to confirm whether or not she committed a grisly murder by stabbing her boyfriend (Jack Wingate) to death...and says this while clutching an extraordinarily large butcher knife as she prepares their breakfast omelets. As the three stare at her with ashen WTF? expressions, she further explains that the murder happened three years ago, and that she just finished serving a three year sentence in a mental hospital. When Nick asks her what evidence the prosecution had against her, she admits that a bunch of people saw her standing over Jack's dismembered body with a bloody knife in her hand. She says she has no memory of that night, then begs them to take the case 'cause she'd really like to know whether or not she's a deranged killer. A wigged out Nick says he's going to have to put a pin in making a decision 'bout that until after he, Murray, and Cody can discuss this in private. Murray says he likes the sound of this case - but Nick thinks it's too dangerous to keep a potential ax murderer around, and is particularly uneasy about letting her near their large butcher knives. Murray says he has a strong hunch that Alison is not a killer, and Cody says he couldn't give a rat's ass either way - as long as she's willing to pay them to take her case. Nick reluctantly agrees...'cause, really, how much private detective work can they possibly expect to fall into their laps like this? As the Riptide trio heads over to the King Harbor police precinct, Murray says he'd like to take the lead on questioning the cops. He greets Lieutenant Quinlan, compliments him on something or other, then tells him they're looking into the Jack Wingate murder. Quinlan gruffly tells him to take a flying fuck, then admonishes the three for interfering with an active investigation. When they're all, "Wuh? Active?", Quinlan explains that Alison London escaped from a mental hospital last night...and that since Jack used to smack her around a lot, he's pretty sure she snapped and then retaliated by cutting him into pieces. The three climb into Cody's ugly milk wagon car to head back to the Riptide, and they wring their hands about not wanting to get into trouble for harboring a convict. When Murray decides to check in with Roboz, he hears Alison screaming in the background...and when the camera pans over to the Riptide, we see that the masked burglar is dragging Alison around the main living area...though it's unsure what exactly he's trying to accomplish with that. When the Pier 56 neighbors race over to see whassup with all the screaming, the burglar runs out and once again escapes via speedboat...and Alison dashes off in the direction of the parking lot, jumps into Nick's red Corvette, and squeals off. Nick, Cody, and Murray spot her on their way back to the pier and race after her...and for some reason she drives to wherever The Screaming Mimi is parked and crashes into the front part of the helicopter. When Nick, Cody, and Murray rush over to ask her what in blazes she's fleeing from, she screeches, "He tried to kill me!" Alison admits that she omitted the part about escaping from the mental hospital 'cause she assumed they'd refuse to take her case. Murray suggests they move forward with this inane storyline by looking into any possible enemies Jack may have had, so Alison tells them to start with Carol Davis, her bodybuilder gal pal who testified at her trial. Nick, Cody, and Murray head over to a nearby gym, where a leotard clad Carol Davis is lifting weights. She tells the three she's really not sure if Alison killed her boyfriend and that Jack was a skirt-chaser who made enemies of jealous boyfriends all over town. Murray, who's feeling extra sassy this episode, smirkingly asks if she and Jack ever hit the sheets...and Carol shoots him the stink-eye before throwing a heavy exercise ball at him, which knocks him to the ground. Haha! She advises Nick and Cody to head over to a rival gym and talk to Heather Johnson, who she describes as "a sexual predator" and a person of interest who probably knows something about Jack's demise 'cause of all the sleeping around she does. Heather Johnson soaks her lithe, bikini clad body in the gym's hot tub as she breathily tells Nick that, yep, she hooked up with Jack plenty of times and needlessly adds, "He was dynamite in the sack." She chuckles about how naive Alison was, and that Jack's friend and junkyard partner, Sharky, would get really angry about the shitty way Jack treated Alison. Heather climbs out of the hot tub, gives Nick an appreciative once-over, and suggests they start going at it - but he's like, "Gross" and dismissively says he's definitely not her type. A few seconds later, Heather's beefy husband Vic appears out of nowhere and punches Nick for ogling his wife in a bikini...and the rumble quickly spills into the weight room, where a roomful of exercisers passively watch them roll around on the floor. Nick manages to fight Vic off, flee the gym, and escape into the milk wagon...and Vic glares over at Heather and grumbles, "I'm tired of cleaning up your messes." The Riptide trio (plus Alison) head over to Sharky's junkyard. Murray once again offers to take the lead in doing the questioning and tells Sharky that he and his friends are investigating a murder from a few years ago. Sharky tells him to get lost and starts shoving him around, so Alison intervenes by shrieking, "Sharky! No!" and running over. Sharky's all, "Wuh? Alison..?" and looks happy to see her...but then a minute later gets angry at her for never calling him back while she was confined to the mental hospital. When he starts shoving her around, which seems weirdly out of character based on what Heather just told Nick at the gym, Nick and Cody pull Sharky off of Alison, wrestle him to the ground, and leave him laying in the dirt. While en route to the Riptide, Cody points out to Alison that Sharky had good reason to kill Jack - just as a pickup truck slams into the milk wagon from behind, then collides with it from the side and causes it to roll over a cliff. Despite the car wreck looking fairly unsurvivable, somehow the four are able to easily climb out the overturned car without injury and be all, "Phew! That was close!" In the next scene, Quinlan is berating Nick and Cody for harboring a known criminal, then orders them into a holding cell. Mama Jo and her Contessa babes put up the bail for Nick and Cody, who are informed that Alison was just shipped back to the mental hospital. As Quinlan cackles about how much he looooves seeing Nick and Cody (and Murray, I assume) behind bars, Mama Jo tells him to give his fat mouth a rest and open the cell door now that their bail's been put up. Hee! As the Riptide trio discusses their next move, Cody points out that no one yet knows that Alison has been sent back to the mental hospital, and that they should use this brief window of opportunity to smoke out Jack's killer. He suggests they call up their three suspects - Carol Davis, Sharky, and Vic Johnson - and "leak" that Alison is staying in a hotel room at Straightaways, and then casually mention that she just regained her memory of the night Jack was killed and now knows who the real killer is. Cody says that if everything goes according to his calculations, the killer will show up at Straightaways and try to off Alison. Nick and Murray decide that this idea is just crazy enough to work...and after basking in the glow of his brilliance for a few seconds, Cody tells Murray they'll need him to act as a decoy and pretend to be Alison. Murray looks delighted to be included in the more heart-stopping part of the operation and asks if he's being asked to do this 'cause of how wiry and limber he is...and Cody's like, "Um, sure..?" Cody calls Sharky and tells him that Alison, who's currently staying at Straightaways, now knows who killed Jack...and Sharky snarls, "I don't give a shit. Fuck off" and hangs up on him. In the Straightaways hotel room, Murray dons a brown wig and crawls under the covers, while Cody hides in the bathroom. Nick, meanwhile, heads back to the Riptide to initiate radio contact with Cody and Murray...and runs into Heather Johnson, who insists on coming aboard for a glass of wine. When the camera pans over to the Riptide, we see that the masked burglar is aboard...and he quickly hides in the closet when he hears the two come in. Heather opens the wine bottle in the kitchen, while Nick heads over to the living area and fiddles with the surveillance and radio gear. He wryly tells Cody that the horny broad he almost got beaten up over is on the boat with him and that she's refusing to take the hint and leave. A knife-wielding man enters the Straightaways hotel room - just as a knife-wielding Heather tiptoes towards Nick with a demonic look on her weirdly chiseled face. Cody flies out of the bathroom and leaps atop the knife-wielder, while Heather raises her arm and prepares to strike. Roboz suddenly detects what's happening around him, is all, "Hell no, lady", and releases a warning beep. The beep prompts Nick to whirl around and be all, "Ack!" at the sight of the giant knife in Heather's hand - just as the masked burglar decides it's the perfect time for him to burst out of the closet, the dumbfuck. Heather accidentally (?? not sure) stabs the burglar, then is quickly overpowered by Nick - just as Cody urgently yells over the radio that Vic Johnson is the real killer. Nick glares down at a now subdued Heather and mutters, "I'm not so sure." Nick, Cody, and Murray stroll down the pier and recap all that was uncovered in this inane episode:
Alison drops by the Riptide to inform the trio that she was released from the mental hospital this morning, then tells them she's sooooo grateful to learn that she didn't butcher her abusive boyfriend. She tearfully thanks them for believing in her when no one else would, then declares herself a new person. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
Recap: At a company called the Betatech Corporation, the Chief Executive Analyst (whose nameplate reads Natalie Kramer) has just wrapped up a night of working late. She packs up her things, shuts off the lights, and heads down to the parking garage, where a young blonde man aims a rifle at her and opens fire. A few seconds before that happens, Natalie happens to drop her car keys and bends down to pick them up - and narrowly misses getting her head blown off. She opens the car door wide enough to reach the car horn, which promptly alerts the security guard. She tells him she was just shot at, so he runs off in search of the gunman, but doesn't have any luck finding him. Murray is gabbling to Nick and Cody about the party he's planning to host aboard the Riptide for a brainy group he belongs to that regularly convenes and calls itself The High Q Club. Nick looks less than thrilled by the idea of having to socialize with overly smart people and says he'd much prefer to spend the evening at Straightaways - but Murray implores him to hang around and circulate. Natalie, who's also a High Q member, is clutching her invitation to Murray's party as she ambles over to the Riptide, where the party is already in full swing...with Roboz zooming around serving hors d'oeuvres, and geeks exchanging geek jokes and busting a gut over the cryptic punchlines. Natalie gives Murray a hello hug before the two go up to the deck...and Nick remarks to Cody that the woman who just hugged Murray looks familiar. He then says he's getting sick of all the math jokes he can't understand and wants to get some air. Natalie tells Murray about the brazen attempt on her life and that the police are doing fuck-all about it, so he tells her that since he and his boat-mates have started a fledgling PI business, they could probably sort out the whole mess for her. When Nick and Cody amble over to get introduced, Nick finally remembers where he knows Natalie from and is all, "Hey, remember me? We were in the same geometry class in high school!" Natalie shoots him the stink-eye and reminds him she wore braces, was nicknamed Flatty Natty, and that she's still holding a grudge against him - all these years later! - for cheating off her geometry test. Nick does his best to look contrite while Murray tells Nick and Cody about the attempt on Natalie's life and that she's willing to hire their PI services to look into why someone is trying to kill her. Over drinks at Straightaways, Natalie tells the Riptide trio there's only one person she could think of who might possibly want to shoot her: Danny Sanders, aka a co-member of the Betatech Brain Trust. She then tells them that a different member of the Brain Trust, David Powell, was recently killed in a car accident...then wonders aloud if it's possible that Danny is in the midst of a deranged plot to off the entire Brain Trust so he doesn't have to share in the glory of whatever they've been brainstorming over. Sounds like an implausible stretch, but OK. Natalie then calls it a night 'cause she has to prepare for an early morning meeting, shoots Nick another hostile stink-eye, and heads toward the dock. A few seconds later, a brown car comes out of nowhere and aims itself straight at Natalie, and she's forced to leap into the water to avoid being roadkill. Cody hears her screams and jumps into the water after her...and once he has her safely in his grip, he declares that she's going to have to stay aboard the Riptide until they can figure out who in blazes is trying so desperately to kill her. The next morning, Murray is tapping away at his computer for intel, and tells an intrigued looking Natalie that so far he's learned that David Powell was killed in a car accident...and that he finds this death fishy 'cause David was an experienced race car driver. He's then somehow able to dig up a psychological assessment that was recently done on Danny Sanders and learns that he was recently diagnosed with a sociopathic personality. Natalie looks impressed by Murray's high level computing abilities and says she hopes that Nick and Cody aren't just riding on the coattails of his brilliance...and a few seconds later, Nick and Cody lumber in like dumb oafs, clutching a box of donuts. Natalie shoots them a WTF? glare and accuses them of letting Murray do all the work, so Nick explains that they generally let Murray do all the preliminary computer type research before the script inevitably calls for the two of them to interject themselves into silly action/fight sequences. Natalie derisively tells Nick he's just as much of a mooch now as he was in high school...and after she bitchily storms out of the room, Nick stares after her in puzzlement and tells Cody and Murray he's mystified by her bad attitude towards him -'cause back in high school, he was pretty much the only guy who'd talk to her. Nick, Cody, Murray, and Natalie climb into Cody's old milk truck of a wagon (?) and drive around looking for the brown car that nearly killed Natalie. Remarkably, they find it parked in Danny Sanders' driveway...and when they climb out of the wagon to investigate, the blonde shooter from the parking garage scene appears in a window of the house and opens fire on them. Cody races towards the house, bursts in, but is karate chopped by the blonde guy, who looks like he's a Martial Arts expert. He then leaps into his brown car and squeals off, while Natalie picks up a piece of paper that he accidentally dropped and stares confusedly at the cryptic diagram etched on it. Nick grimly informs everyone that Danny Sanders was just shot dead inside his house, so the four of them pile into the milk truck wagon and attempt to pursue the brown car...but are forced to give up the chase when the clunker's engine conks out. The four head over to the King Harbor Police Department, where Quinlan is grumbling to someone over the phone about what a pain-in-the-fuckin'-ass it is for him and his cop team to have to handle security for an upcoming parade. He slams the phone down, then turns his attention to Natalie and the Riptide trio. He cackles at the theory that someone is trying to kill all the members of a Betatech Brain Trust (even though two-thirds of the Trust is, uh, dead), so Nick points out that the blonde guy who was seen in Danny Sanders' house around the time he was shot is the same guy who's tried to kill Natalie on two occasions. Quinlan stares at him in dickwadded incredulity and snarks, "Am I supposed to drop all my other cases for this?!", and Nick refrains from retorting that since there's obviously a deranged killer on the loose in the community, he may want to consider functioning like a halfway normal police lieutenant and assign the case to a detective. Murray, meanwhile, is tapping away on the fancy new computer the police department just got to see if it can provide any helpful intel...and Quinlan storms over, unplugs it, and growls at Murray to get lost. The cop assigned to administrative duty for the day is all, "Ack!" and tells Quinlan he just finished entering a shit ton of info for the duty roster on the computer, and that unplugging it likely deleted all that work. Quinlan stares back at him sheepishly for a few seconds, then barks at him to shut up and just reenter the data. Murray reveals that while he was tapping away on the police computer, he learned that the brown car that's being driven around by the blonde guy was rented to someone named Patrick Bennett. Natalie says she recognizes the name and thinks it's someone who works at Betatech, so the four fly over to the Betatech building in Nick's pink Mimi chopper...instead of just driving the few blocks like a normal group of people might. The four (plus Roboz!) land on the roof of the Betatech Corporation...and once they're inside the building, Murray heads straight to the nearest computer to look up background info on Patrick Bennett while Nick accompanies Natalie to her office. When she continues to haughtily ignore him, he calls her out on her rudeness...so she snarks back that he's an asshole mooch who uses people. She then puts her sad face on and explains why she's been acting so hostile: she used to crush on him in high school (understandably), and was heartbroken when he started dating Angela Crawford (that impertinent bitch). She self-piteously says she should have known that a popular jock could never be interested in her, and Nick stares at her sheepishly and says he had no idea at the time that she felt this way...then tells her the reason that none of the boys in high school pursued her was 'cause she was always so serious. And not very hot. He points out that since that awkward time she's become hugely successful, and jokes that the high school it girls are probably working as supermarket cashiers now. He then lets her in on a naughty 'kiss and tell' secret: Angela Crawford only looked voluptuous during her teenage years 'cause she stuffed her bra. Natalie chuckles and gazes lovingly at Nick, who takes off her glasses and performs an act of long overdue charity by planting a smooch on her lips. Squeal! A few seconds later, they hear Cody yell, "Come quick! We found the guy!" Murray and Cody are peering through a telescope, watching Patrick Bennett pack up his stuff in a hotel room across the street. Natalie takes a look and says she once saw this man gawking at her through his telescope, presumably while she was gawking at him through her telescope...and then the four (plus Roboz!) rush out of the building and cross the street to the hotel. Nick races up the stairwell and comes face to face with Patrick, and Patrick flattens him with a series of expert karate chop moves and then proceeds towards the exit. Cody comes running, helps Nick to his feet, and then the two run after Patrick. Outside the hotel, they find Murray flattened on the sidewalk, and he mournfully tells them that Patrick karate chopped him to the ground and abducted Natalie. The local parade, which is featuring a bloated looking politician named Senator Billings, is about to get underway. Quinlan is on site at the event managing the security detail and looking his usual pissed off self. Murray logs onto his '80s laptop to get the skinny on Patrick Bennett and quickly learns it's one of the many aliases that this assassin uses. He then uploads the diagram on the piece of paper that Patrick had accidentally dropped earlier to see if the operating system can make heads or tails of it - and Nick muses that it looks like part of a map, and that the angle drawn on the diagram appears to represent the perfect position from which to shoot someone...like during a parade that's scheduled to begin any minute, for example. Patrick has dragged Natalie to the Brain Trust Room inside the Betatech building, and is positioning his rifle so that it's aimed at the street below. Natalie manages to discreetly tap out a real time help me! message on her computer - but gets interrupted when Patrick sees what she's doing. He drags her away from her desk and looms over her menacingly as he threatens to kill her when all this is over. Nick spots Natalie's partial message appear on Murray's laptop - BRAINTR - and the three correctly assume that Patrick is holding her captive inside the Brain Trust Room at the Betatech Corporation. Senator Billings and his wife climb into a convertible and prepare to roll along with the various floats through the parade. As Patrick aims his rifle, Nick and Cody scramble to get Mimi over to the parade location asap. Patrick patiently waits for Senator Billings to get into the crosshairs of his rifle while Natalie stares over at him in horror. Mimi suddenly makes her appearance atop the parade, and the propeller wind causes all the papers inside the Brain Trust Room to scatter about. Nick gets on his PA system and informs the parade crowd that there's an assassin inside the Betatech building, and that he has a hostage. Quinlan bellows, "Stop the parade!" and orders one of his flunkies to check out the potential hostage situation inside the Betatech building. He then suggests to Senator Billings that he get himself inside a non-convertible vehicle, pronto. Patrick drags Natalie down to the lobby, where Nick and Cody pounce on him, then work together to fight off his expert karate chop moves. A few seconds later, two police officers storm the building and easily subdue Patrick. The Riptide trio, plus Natalie, amble around the pier and sum up how impressed they are with how everything in this nonsensical episode turned out. Natalie applauds Nick and Cody for their superior analytical skills and wanks them by suggesting that they're probably smart enough to join The High Q Club. When they arrive at an outdoor patio restaurant, Nick says he still doesn't get one of the math jokes he heard at the party - 'what do you call something that's 1.57 and also a dessert?' - and when he delivers the punchline - 'A piece of pie' - the bikini clad waitress goes, "Good one!" and laughs hysterically as Nick stares back at her in blank bemusement. As everyone chortles at Nick's expense, it remains unclear why Patrick thought it was necessary to murder three members of a Brain Trust team...'cause it kinda seems like the motive was purely to gain temporary access to their office space so he could assassinate Senator Billings during a parade. Things might have been far less bloody if he had just sought out a different vantage point. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"! Recap: A blonde woman named Tina is complaining to her gangster husband (Ricky Brazil) that she feels like a prisoner in their McMansion, wistfully reminisces about the days of yore she spent frolicking on the beach with Nick and Cody, then says she's particularly wigged out about overhearing him on the phone just now, ordering a hit on a policeman. Ricky snarks at her to stop complaining about her pampered life and keep her nose out of his murder bidness, but she tells him she's fed up with all of his criminal shit and stupidly announces that she's leaving him right now. As she races down the stairs, Ricky summons his security detail and orders the men to bar his wife from leaving the house...and Tina overhears the order and hides in the foyer closet until after the security guards have bumbled around the foyer in their search for her, shrugged at each other in confusion, and exited the house again. Tina sneaks into the garage, climbs into a wood paneled station wagon, and crashes through the garage door...and one of the security guards, Kenny, opens fire on her before Ricky tells him to cool it with the flying bullets. He then tries to get a hold of his hit man, Mitch, to call off the hit on Lieutenant Ted Quinlan (who I can't argue could definitely use killing), but Kenny reminds him that Mitch always goes off the grid shortly before abducting his targets. Ricky's like, "Damn.." then tells him to bring the car around so they can start scouring the area for Tina. Tina arrives at Pier 56 and approaches the Riptide just as Murray and Roboz amble onto the deck. Tina asks if Nick and Cody are around, so Murray explains that ever since the conclusion of the pilot episode, he, Roboz, Nick, and Cody decided they'll all live aboard the Riptide and work together as PIs. Tina bursts into tears and says she's pretty sure her husband's trying to kill her, and a concerned looking Murray asks Roboz to bring their guest a glass of water, which he promptly spills all over Murray's lap 'cause of whatever internal malfunctions he's suffering from that prevent him from ever being a fully reliable robot. As Tina chuckles through her tears at the wet mishap, Murray suggests to Tina that she take the Ebb Tide out to Shark Island and wait there for Nick and Cody to arrive, and in the meantime they'll use Roboz as an electronic communications system. Murray goes to Straightaways to look for Nick and Cody, who are in the process of getting roughed up in the men's room by Ricky's thugs. When Nick and Cody aren't able to give them whatever information the thugs are looking for 'cause they're not actually articulating what they want to know, the two are forcibly taken outside through the restaurant's back door and thrown into a van. The thugs bring Nick and Cody to Ricky's McMansion...and when Cody innocently asks Ricky how Tina's doing, Ricky assumes he's being sarcastic and snarls at him to not push it. He tells them he wants Tina back asap and that he's going to pay their joke of a detective agency $3,000 to find her and return her to the McMansion for a swift execution...then warns that if they fail to deliver, he'll make the two of them disappear. In the next scene, Nick and Cody are steel-toed off the estate...and after they peel themselves off the sidewalk, they rush off in search of Tina. When Nick and Cody slink back to the Riptide, Murray tells them about their newest client, Tina Brazil, and Nick informs him that her gangster husband just hired them to locate her. He explains that Tina was his girl before Cody stole her away and yet were all still able to remain friends...then suggests they board his decrepit pink Mimi helicopter to make the short trek over to Shark Island and reunite with Tina. Tina, who's now donning a gratuitously skimpy red bikini top and tan shorts, waves happily when she sees Mimi approach, then runs over and hugs Nick and Cody hello. They inform her that Ricky just paid them $3,000 to find her, and she wrings her hands worriedly and moans about how much she now regrets passing them over in favor of marrying the exciting bad boy. She says the last straw was when she overheard Ricky order his hit man to kill police lieutenant Ted Quinlan...and Nick and Cody are all, "Ack!" and inform her that they know Quinlan...and that for some unexplained-by-the-writers reason, Quinlan hates the two of them with the intensity of a thousand suns. Everyone returns to the Riptide, where Murray logs onto his computer to hack into the police department's network to see if Quinlan's current whereabouts are included in the log files. After a few seconds of tapping on his keyboard, he's like, "Jackpot!" and tells the group that Quinlan is currently having lunch at a local strip joint. Murray hands Tina a tracking device in the form of a clunky bracelet so that Roboz can help them keep tabs on her location through the duration of the episode. Nick and Cody head over to the strip joint so they can warn Quinlan that he's the target of a hit man...and Cody suggests that since Quinlan hates him slightly less than he hates Nick, he should be the one to break the bad news. Inside the club, Quinlan is enjoy the gyrations of a scantily clad stripper when his partner, Sergeant Myers, threatens to leave 'cause he's not into spending his lunch hour ogling skanky pole dancers. Cody approaches their table and is all, "Hey, Lieutenant!", to which Quinlan responds by physically shoving him away. Cody puts his serious face on and says he has some important intel to share with him, namely that there's a contract out on his life, courtesy of Ricky Brazil. Quinlan starts cackling like a mental patient and jokingly asks if he should go into hiding...and when Cody insists that he's really not joking about this, Quinlan gets weirdly antagonistic and punches him in the face. As Cody punches him back, the two spill through the door and continue fighting on the sidewalk...and after throwing a few more punches, Quinlan pretends to concede with a handshake, but then uses the moment of fake contriteness to give Cody a surprise kick in the back of the legs. Cody lays on the pavement, staring bewilderedly into space at the nonsensicalness of this needlessly violent encounter. As anyone could predict, as soon as Quinlan arrives home, he's abducted by a masked gunman who sneers, "We're goin' for a ride." Nick and Cody enter Straightaways and happen to catch a news broadcast about Ted Quinlan's abduction...and that since the two Riptide PIs were seen in a brawl with him at a strip club earlier, they're the number one suspects. Nick and Cody are all, "Ack!" and beat a hasty retreat from the restaurant. Soon after Quinlan is taken aboard a boat titled the Westerly, the kidnapper - the elusive and cartoonishly sinister Mitch - gets a call from one of Ricky's flunkies, ordering him to hit pause on Quinlan's killing until they can locate Tina Brazil. Mitch looks miffed and snarls, "You mean I kidnapped this cop and I can't do him?" ... and when the flunky tells him he needs to chillax until further notice, Mitch snarks at him to "step it up, 'cause I'm hangin' out on this deal". LOL. Few things are more awesome than "edgy" '80s primetime TV gangster-speak. Nick, Cody, and Murray are out to sea on the Riptide with Tina...and as Nick eavesdrops on Cody and Tina, he looks wistful when he overhears her tell Cody she now wishes she hadn't chosen Ricky over him and that she'd loooove to go back to the days when he was teaching her how to waterski while she waitressed at Straightaways. Oh to be an aimless, young twentysomething again. Cody canoodles her and says, "Maybe we can get there again", and a jealous Nick gets on the boat's PA system and loudly announces that the margaritas he's been busily blending are ready. Cody wonders aloud why the hit man would proceed with abducting Quinlan while Tina is still at large, so Tina explains that since Mitch always goes off the grid whenever he gets a murder assignment, it's likely he didn't know that Ricky had temporarily called off the hit. Roboz suddenly detects the radio chatter from an approaching police boat, and everyone quickly hops aboard the Ebb Tide so they can speed away. They're able to make it near a dock that's hidden from view and discuss the best course of action...and eventually decide to approach Quinlan's partner, Sergeant Myers, to see if there's anything he can do to help move this storyline along to its predictably happy ending. Nick and Cody stake out Myers' house and leap in front of him when he steps outside to take out the garbage. Nick pulls a [clip-less] gun on him, explains that they're being framed for Quinlan's abduction, and informs him that Ricky Brazil was the one who put the hit out on his partner. When Nick says that they have full corroboration from Ricky's wife, Myers perks up and agrees to help. Cody meets up on the beach with Myers, while Nick and Murray hang back with Roboz so they can watch from a safe distance. Cody checks Myers to ensure he isn't wired, and when he decides it's safe, Tina emerges from her hiding spot. A few seconds later, a helicopter appears out of nowhere, along with the van that was used to transport Nick and Cody to the McMansion earlier. Cody's all, "WTF?!", then stares despondently into the sky when he realizes that Myers was working for Ricky all along. Cody and Tina are forced aboard the helicopter, while Nick, Murray, and Roboz helplessly watch from their hiding spot. Nick reminds Murray that since Tina is probably still wearing the clunky bracelet, they'll be able to track her location...and the two pack up Roboz and race over to where Mimi's parked. Cody and Tina are brought aboard the Westerly and are handcuffed to pipes in the same utility room where Quinlan is being held captive. Cody berates Quinlan for not taking his warning seriously, while Tina stares down at her clunky bracelet and contorts her face into a look of hopefulness. Aboard Mimi, Murray logs onto his computer, syncs his tracking software to Tina's clunky bracelet, and quickly determines that she and Cody are out on the open sea. Nick asks Murray to bring over the stash of live grenades (!) and empty glass jars he keeps aboard Mimi for just such occasions and tells him about the old put-a-grenade-in-a-glass-jar trick, which gives the grenade a longer delay before it explodes. Quinlan, Cody, and Tina are brought onto the deck of the Westerly, and Ricky snarlingly orders his men to shoot the three and toss them overboard. Ricky tells Quinlan he warned him about probing too deeply into his crimes, but Quinlan shrugs and growls, "Just do what you're gonna do." Cody implores Ricky to at least spare Tina - but Tina urges him not to beg on her behalf, then stoically says she'd rather die with him than stay married to a lunatic gangster. A few seconds later, Mimi appears overhead - hurray! - and Murray drops one of Nick's grenades-in-a-glass-jar onto the boat. Cody sees it, instantly understands the plan, and throws it at the engine room, which causes enough of a distraction for Quinlan and Cody to quickly overpower Ricky's men. Murray then leaps aboard the Westerly and points a gun at the already subdued bad guys, which gets a laugh out of Cody when he points out that the gun has no clip. Womp womp! After a game of volleyball, Tina and Cody hold hands and amble along the pier with Nick and Murray. Tina thanks them for saving her life, then says she's off to her waitressing shift at Straightaways. Cody gives her a peck on the lips and promises to pick her up later, even though this is the last we ever see of Tina. When the three arrive at the Riptide, Quinlan is there, writing up a ticket for all of the infractions they committed during the heroic rescue scene. When Nick and Cody are all, "Wha-a-a?? But we just saved your life!!", Quinlan says he doesn't owe them shit, and that he still has nothing better to do with his time than put every effort into running them out of town. Cody's like, "Whatever" and offers him a beer, and Quinlan says that even though he's off duty, he refuses to drink with jerks. Cody extends his arm for a handshake, then kicks him in the back of the legs, aka the very same way Quinlan had kicked him earlier. He proceeds to toss him overboard, giggling about how assaulting a police officer is A-OK as long as he's off-duty. As Cody, Nick, and Murray chuckle at the sight of Quinlan flapping around in the water, Roboz gets in on that action and zooms over with a glass of water in his mechanical hand, which he then dumps atop Quinlan's head. Well done, orange bot. Well done. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"! Recap: Aboard a charter boat called the Tradewind, an unseen man skulks around the snoozing passengers, makes his way to the control room, and softly whispers a mayday request into the radio. He then plants an explosive on the boat, hightails it outa there, and hits the explode button on his detonator. A female diver hears the explosion from underwater and is all, "Wha-a-a-a?" as she hastily surfaces and witnesses the burning wreckage of the boat she was just on. She hops aboard a dinghy that just happens to be floating nearby and motors it to the nearest island, where she breaks down and sobs. Fledgling private investigators and delicious '80s eye candy, Nick Ryder [squeal! - the main reason Riptide got included on this recap site] and Cody Allen, are showing their cuckolded client Max photographic proof that his wife, who's been MIA for the past couple of weeks, has been shacking up with her lover. Ouch. Max rails at Nick and Cody for prying into his life, and Cody's like, "The fuck? You hired us to look into where your wife disappeared to!" Instead of thanking them and/or paying for services rendered, Max punches Cody in the face...and when he advances on Nick, Nick picks up a garbage can lid to cleverly deflect the blow. As Nick and Cody beat a hasty retreat, Nick complains to Cody about getting sucked into this thankless PI gig that so far hasn't generated income for either of them - but Cody assures him that once Max's broken heart is mended, he'll pay up. The two amble over to the King Harbor Marina, where their home/detective agency headquarters is moored at Pier 56: a houseboat named Riptide. An aging female skipper named Mama Jo, along with her charter crew of shapely young women decked out in bikinis, are giving two middle-aged, grab-handsy men an ocean tour aboard their boat, the Contessa. The bikini clad women are all, "Eeeeek, Mama Jo!" when they spot the dinghy carrying the diver who just escaped getting blown up aboard the Tradewind in the opening scene. Mama Jo orders her crew to help the woman aboard the Contessa, then turn it around so they can transport her to King Harbor asap. Cody tells Nick that since they're about to turn thirty, they're going to need to put their heads together and figure out the best way to become successful PIs...and Nick absently mutters, "Uh huh" as he ogles random women through a pair of binoculars. Cody says they should maybe think about taking on a tech savvy partner so they can compete with the big firms (that's adorably optimistic of him), then suggests they see what their nerdy buddy from their army days of yore, Murray Bozinsky, is up to these days. Cody then turns his attention to the return of the Contessa and stares open-mouthed at the bikini clad women as if he's never seen females before. Mama Jo informs Nick and Cody that the Tradewind charter boat just had an engine explosion, and that her buxom crew just picked up Kimba Hall (the sole survivor). To move this leisurely-paced pilot along, she suggests that since they're now calling themselves PIs, they may want to look into getting a paying gig to investigate the explosion and locate the boat's remains. Nick's like, "Hey - good idea!" and adds that since he and Cody are also pretending to be security analysts, he'd like her permission to come aboard the Contessa and probe her bikini clad ladies with, uh, questions. Mama Jo snaps, "No!" and warns him to keep all forms of probing off of her boat and far away from her lady crew. Cody approaches a hotel owner named Mr. Dylan to see if he'd be at all interested in financing an investigation into the explosion of the Tradewind...and Mr. Dylan hems and haws for a few minutes before agreeing to employ the Riptide Detective Agency - but only if it'll get Nick to stop hanging around his hotel wearing his snug (!) red Tourist Information t-shirt and hitting on his waitresses. He advises Cody to talk to Dex Dexter [not to be confused with Dynasty's Dex Dexter], a boneheaded young hipster who runs the local boatyard, 'cause apparently he has information about a transmission which came from the Tradewind that warned of a hijacking. Cody locates Dex Dexter and gets a copy of the Tradewind's blueprints...and the two discuss a possible link between the explosion and a drug smuggling operation. Ted Quinlan, a perpetually angry police lieutenant, gets all in Kimba's face and accuses her of being part of a ring of hijackers who steal boats and smuggle dope. When Mama Jo points out that he can't actually prove any of that, he threatens to build a case against Kimba if the investigation doesn't result in something that can exonerate her...which seems unnecessarily hostile and dickish, but OK. He bellows, "Don't leave King Harbor!" then storms over to the road leading into the marina, where he runs into Nick and Cody. He mocks their fledgling detective agency and warns them that any investigating into the Tradewind explosion is police business and orders them to stay the fuck out of his way. The Coast Guard searches the general area where the Tradewind exploded...but they don't find anything and fly back to their home base. Mama Jo summons Nick and Cody aboard the Contessa to report that she's pretty sure Kimba's telling her the truth, and is giving them permission to talk to her so she can aid in their investigation...and she says this as though she's been put in charge of this grown woman she just met and gets to decide who she can and can't talk to. Kimba climbs aboard the deck wearing a bra-less tank top and does her best to look as distressed as possible while smilingly saying, "I guess I'm in some trouble. I need help." She tells Nick and Cody she's worried about the criminal charges Quinlan will slap her with if they don't find the Tradewind wreckage and prove that it blew up like she's claiming. Mama Jo offers to give Nick and Cody the coordinates of the location where Kimba was picked up by her crew...and Kimba stares beseechingly at Cody and moans, "Pleeeeease help meeeee.." Cody assures her that since she's so super hot, he and Nick would be delighted to help her out...and when he and Nick walk back to the Riptide, he decrees that while they're working this case, they'll need to agree that Kimba is "neutral territory". Nick mulls that over for a few seconds and concurs that, yep, their overactive penises should probably remain under lock and zip until after The Case of the Blown-up Charter Boat has been cracked. That evening, a shady looking hoodlum tells two shadier looking hoodlums in the back of a car that Kimba was just talking to the Riptide detective duo. One of the car hoodlums orders him to grab Kimba and bring her to the ranch for "questioning". Late that night, Kimba is grabbed by the shady hoodlum and his buddy and forcibly taken off the Contessa. When her screams pierce the air, Nick and Cody spring out of bed (in nothing but their white gitch!), and pursue the abductors. After a short car chase, the hoodlums crash their car and engage in a brief shootout with Nick and Cody, then decide 'ah fuck it' and flee the scene, leaving Kimba behind. Nick and Cody discuss with Mama Jo and Kimba why anyone would want to abduct Kimba, and Nick suggests they hire their old pal Murray so they can utilize his techno-genius to locate the remains of the Tradewind. He says that Kimba would probably be safer on the Riptide, and quickly assures Mama Jo that nothing R-rated below the waist will occur. Kimba refrains from reminding him that since she's a grown woman, he really doesn't need to make those kinds of assurances to the maternal figure she met a few hours ago, then kisses Nick and Cody on the cheek and thanks them for saving her from the hoodlums. The next morning, Nick heads over to his decrepit pink helicopter, The Screaming Mimi, and gets it started up so that he and Cody can quickly pop over to Santa Barbara and drop in on Murray. In lieu of the more sensible option of driving there, I guess. They decide that Murray's probably up for a paying gig, given that he recently lost his technology-based fortune to the whims of Wall Street. The Santa Barbara police are standing helplessly outside of a building that has a window blown out on one of the upper floors, and are urging Murray Bozinsky to surrender peacefully. Murray [who looks a lot like Bill Gates circa around the time this episode was filmed] sticks his head out the broken window and natters incoherently about how the corporate world compromised his integrity and soullessly exploited his computer genius. Nick tells Cody he thinks it would be a good idea to land Mimi on the roof of Murray's building so they can sneak inside, rescue him from his office, then sneak him up to the roof for a quick getaway before the police can get it together enough to take control of the situation. Yep, that idea sounds just crazy enough to work! Inside his office, Murray is shredding documents...and when he's done with that, he takes a baseball bat to two large computers while shouting, "I built them! I can destroy them!" The cops, finally realizing that nothing is going to come of them standing uselessly outside the building and begging Murray to please surrender, decide to storm the building just as Nick lands Mimi on the roof. Nick and Cody race down the stairwell, locate Murray's office, and inform the dork that they're here to rescue him. Murray says he likes the sound of that - but that they'll need to pack up all of his computer/robot equipment...and this is the first sighting we get of Murray's DIY robot project: the orange Roboz. After a narrow escape from police, Murray shows Cody one of his latest inventions: a biofeedback mood ring that reflects the wearer's emotions. Cody's like, "Kewl!" and decides it might be helpful to put it on Kimba's finger to see if she's being honest about her Tradewind explosion story. Back in King Harbor, Cody gives Kimba the mood ring...and after she puts it on, he keeps an eye on it as she recounts her story about witnessing the Tradewind explosion. She tells them that they took aboard a man who claimed he had engine trouble, and Cody warns her that Quinlan is prolly not going to buy that 'cause he thinks she's part of a piracy group. Kimba insists she has nothing to do with any piracy conspiracy...and the greenish tint of the mood ring seems to substantiate her claim. Aboard the Riptide, Murray unpacks his computer stuff and lets Roboz roam around...and Cody remarks on how Roboz only seems to move when it hears them speak. Murray looks momentarily puzzled and explains that Roboz responds to high frequency stimuli, and says he'll look into the bot's peculiar behavior. In the next scene, Murray heads up to the deck, points over at the bikini clad ladies aboard the Contessa, and tells an incredulous looking Nick and Cody that he introduced the gals to Roboz, and that they all hit it off so well that he invited them to come over later and hang. With Roboz's help, Murray discovers a transmitter that someone slipped aboard the Riptide, and he quickly deduces that the device's voice-activated feature is what's causing Roboz to move only when he detects voices. Murray tells Nick and Cody he'll program Roboz to locate the bug, and then will use his superior IT skills to trace the signal and identify the person who planted it. As Roboz zooms around the Riptide's main sitting room in search of the bug, Murray gabbles about how excited he is about moving aboard the Riptide and experiencing all the fun adventures the three of them are sure to have throughout the series. Nick and Cody are all, "Wha-a-a?" and tell him they assumed that this arrangement was temporary - then are forced to put a pin in that discussion when Roboz locates the bug hidden inside a lamp. The three are aboard the airborne Mimi, working to pinpoint the source of the bug's transmitter, which ends up being a sprawling mansion owned by crime boss and drug overlord, Mike Santana. Nick's all, "Ack! Let's get outa here!" - just as smoke starts pouring out of Mimi's engine, leaving him with no choice but to land the decrepit chopper on the Santana estate...where they're greeted by Mike Santana and a small army of gun toting bodyguards. Murray smugly tells Santana that he traced their transmitting device, then mocks him for his low level level of expertise in the field of hi-tech gadgetry. Santana ignores the dork's brazen sass and tells Nick and Cody he heard that they've been searching for the Tradewind wreckage and says he has a vested interest in looking over what's left of the lost boat - but can't make a move in that direction 'cause he's under surveillance by the police. He promises to pay them $5,000 for delivering the wreckage to him, and Nick reluctantly agrees to the deal, then asks him to please provide some chopper parts so he can get Mimi repaired and back to King Harbor asap. The next day, Nick flies with Kimba aboard Mimi to see if she can help them locate exactly where the Tradewind blew up. When she giggingly asks whassup with Cody, he tells her he's still recovering from an unsightly bout of infectious hepatitis, but that he (Nick) is completely disease-free...as well as single and horny to mingle. Cody consults with Dex Dexter about pinpointing the exact whereabouts of the Tradewind wreckage and mentions that he and Murray are off to the open sea to do some more investigating. Cody and Murray are out at sea, aboard the Riptide, when a black helicopter appears out of nowhere and the pilot (Dex Dexter) opens fire on them. Cody shoots back with his slow shooting rifle, but quickly realizes he's outmatched in the weapons department. Above Murray's protests, he strips off his t-shirt and puts it and his hat on Roboz, then sends him onto the deck, hoping that the shooter will somehow mistake the three foot tall bot for a grown man, shoot at it until he's satisfied that "Cody" is dead, and fly off...and, yep, that's exactly what happens in the following scene. Once the coast is clear, Murray and Cody fish the injured Roboz out of the water...and Murray looks him over and happily reports that the bullets missed his CPU. Nick lands Mimi on the island closest to where the Tradewind exploded...and when Kimba blushingly inquires about Cody again, Nick tells her that, in addition to suffering from infectious hepatitis, he's also a recovering drug addict...and that he (Nick) has been selflessly sticking by his old army buddy until he kicks the habit for good and stops having violent seizures. LOL. Cody, meanwhile, radios Mimi to report that someone on a helicopter just shot at them, and Nick's all, "Holy crap!" and gives him the coordinates of their current location. Nick and Kimba get back aboard Mimi, pinpoint the exact wreckage site, and drop a transmitter into the water so they can return to it later with Murray's computer gear. Dex suddenly appears in the black helicopter and starts shooting at them, and Nick lands Mimi on the island, where he and Kimba hightail it to the beach and hide underwater with scuba gear to help them breathe. Dex shoots at the water, looks confident that he killed the two (even though every bullet somehow missed them both), then flies off. A few seconds later, Nick and Kimba emerge from the water and are all, "Phew! That was close." Cody and Murray zoom over to the island on the Riptide...and after a group discussion on how the last few scenes of the episode played out, they decide it doesn't make sense for the helicopter shooter to be one of Santana's henchmen. Impressive detective work, detectives. Everyone piles aboard the Riptide and heads over the exact spot of the Tradewind's explosion, and Murray is somehow able to locate the wreckage with the aid of his techno-gadgetry. As they transport the wreckage onto the nearby island and hide it with tree branches, Cody calls Nick out on all the fibbing he's been doing to Kimba regarding his faux ailments and drug abuse. Nick chuckles and says he only did it 'cause he really really wants to hit the sheets with the young hottie. Murray searches his computer for any intel on Santana and discovers that he's recently been trading large amounts of gold. That evening, Kimba joins Murray on the deck of the Riptide and remarks on how calm the water is at night...and Murray natters a long-winded mathematical explanation of why this is so, complete with diagrams jotted on the palm of his hand. Kimba interjects and says she remembers when he was a rich and successful computer genius and that she frequently saw his ugly mug on the covers of magazines. Murray tells her it's tough for a famous person to make friends, then quickly adds that Nick and Cody were genuine friends when they were all in the army together, and that they helped him avoid jail time by fleeing with him aboard a helicopter - much like they just did in Santa Barbara, which has somehow resulted in zero consequences from any California authorities. Nick tells Murray he now remembers part of the ID number on the black helicopter that was used in yesterday's attack, and Murray says he'll use that info to come up with a list of suspects. Kimba looks impressed and tells Murray that of the three of them, he's her favorite...and Nick looks miffed at being passed over for a skinny computer nerd and shoots Murray the stink-eye. Mama Jo tells the Riptide brood that Quinlan was storming around the pier in his usual 'I'm sooo fuckin' angry' fashion, looking for them 'cause he has a warrant for Murray's arrest. The three decide to stash Kimba at a nearby hotel and eatery, and use the friendly owner's office to hook up Murray's computer gear so they can look into who may have rented a black helicopter yesterday. Murray works his techno-magic and comes up with one familiar name - Dex Dexter - and Cody explains that he's the blonde hipster who runs a nearby boatyard and knows all about their boring quest to find the Tradewind's wreckage. Murray theorizes that Dex is probably involved in Santana's drug ring, but has decided to branch out on his own...and by branch out on his own, Murray guesses that he hijacked the Tradewind in order to steal all the gold that was aboard. Cody calls Dex, who's keeping company with a woman superfluously clad in a tiny red bikini, and tells him he found the wreckage of the Tradewind. Dex does his best to hide his shock at learning he didn't actually kill Cody and agrees to meet him at Pier 56. As Cody waits on the pier, one of the Contessa ladies approaches him and says that Mama Jo wants to see him...so he stupidly goes aboard and walks into a hostage situation, aka Dex pointing a gun at a gagged Mama Jo and threatening to kill her if anyone deviates from his instructions. Cody informs him that Nick is monitoring the situation from a few feet away and will surely call the police if he doesn't emerge from the Contessa...then taunts him about what Santana's going to do to him when he learns about the stolen gold. Dex ignores the taunt and orders the buxom crew to unhook the Contessa and take it out to sea...and when they follow through with this order, Nick and Murray are all, "Shit!" and rush over to Cody's speedboat, the Ebb Tide, but are all, "Fuuuuuuuuuuck!" when they see that the motor is missing. Santana's armed men appear out of nowhere, demand a progress report on the Tradewind wreckage investigation, and steer Nick and Murray over to a black car for a chat with Santana. Nick informs him about what just happened with Dex, Cody, and the Contessa babes, and Santana agrees to let him and Murray go so they can all work towards wrapping up this dragged out series pilot. Soon after Dex, Cody, and the Contessa crew arrive on the island, Santana and his men, along with Nick and Murray, storm the island via the Riptide (with the Ebb Tide in tow). Amid the chaos, the Contessa ladies rush over to the Riptide while giggling for help...and Nick discreetly informs Murray and Cody that he's pretty sure Santana plans to sink the Riptide with them and the Contessa babes aboard. Murray's like, "I'm on it" and activates Roboz so that he starts zooming around, and the noise is somehow enough of a distraction for Cody and Nick to launch a sneak attack on Santana's men and disarm them. Dex, meanwhile, flees towards the Ebb Tide, hops in, and quickly motors off...and Nick, Cody, and Murray race over to Mimi so they can pursue him by air. The bikini clad Contessa ladies waive gaily as they fly over the Riptide - LOL - and Mama Jo finds the nearest radio and alerts the Coast Guard. As Mimi hovers over Dex, Murray grabs Cody's rifle and opens fire, instantly incapacitating the speedboat. Nick's all, "Ack!" when he sees that smoke is once again pouring out of Mimi's engine, but is able to safely land on the nearest beach. He may want to get that pile of junk serviced for Episode 3. Back at King Harbor, Murray summarizes the last half of the episode to Quinlan, who barks at no one in particular that Dex Dexter is under arrest, and that Santana is to be taken downtown and booked. He gruffly admits to the Riptide trio that he's been wanting to get Santana off the streets for the last fifteen years, but stops short of expressing any kind of thanks for helping him accomplish that. Kimba tells Murray she'll need a place to stay until she can scrape enough money to get herself home, and Murray suggests she take a job on the Contessa, 'cause then they'll be able to see each other every day. Kimba likes the sound of that and leans in, removes Murray's glasses, and plants a big smooch on his lips, which...as if. As Roboz mops up a puddle of spilled beer, Murray bounds aboard the Riptide with a big smile on his bespectacled face. He tells Nick and Cody that Kimba just got a job as superfluous eye candy aboard the Contessa, and Nick chuckles and says that Mama Jo is never going to let him near "her girls" ... and a few seconds later, Mama Jo appears to confirm that, yep, the three of them are to keep their hands off of Kimba now that she's part of her crew of adult woman who seem to be A-OK with being denied the freedom of associating with whoever displeases the crotchety house mother. Murray scrunches his face in disappointment, so Nick suggests that the three of them go out to the nearest bar and celebrate their new partnership. Roboz perks up at the mention of a bar and eagerly trails after them, but accidentally falls into the water and helplessly floats on its back until Murray fishes him out. Womp womp! Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"! |
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Recapper: Isabel K. French
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