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"!
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