Recap: Aboard a corporate helicopter, Eugene Kay (an engineer in the R&D division of Baxter Aviation) implores his corrupt boss (Stanley Weston) to make the much-needed adjustments in the design of their new fleet of helicopters, warning, "You'll never get away with it." Stanley coldly tells Eugene he's no longer needed...and his henchman growlingly informs Eugene he's been abruptly terminated. As Eugene stares back at him perplexedly, Stanley says, "It's been a pleasure having you in the company" and watches as the hapless engineer is shoved out of the helicopter somewhere over the ocean. Over in King Harbor, a grumpy security guard shoves a homeless man down a flight of concrete stairs...and Murray just happens to be standing at the bottom of the stairs, witnessing the abuse. The security guard threatens to lock the bum up if he ever catches him panhandling on the premises again - but the bum argues that he's an inventor and has the right to gain access to the U.S. Patent Office. Murray chimes in and concurs that if the bum has official patent business, he shouldn't be barred from the government office. When the security guard loses all interest in the matter and wanders off, the bum admits to Murray that he actually was panhandling, 'cause he's trying to raise the patent fee for his new invention: a small square thing that prevents people from falling asleep in front of the TV. Sounds like an odd thing to invest even an ounce of energy in, but OK. The bum says he can't get the thing to work properly, primarily 'cause people tend to...uh, blink while they watch TV...so Murray chews on that conundrum for a few seconds and suggests implementing "a micro digital time delay" to around thirty seconds. The bum joyously chirps, "Yes, yes! You've done it!" and tells Murray he owes him one, then asks for his contact info...and when Murray indulges him and then asks what his name is, the bum introduces himself as Baxter Bernard. As Nick and Cody work on the The Screaming Mimi's deteriorated wheel assembly, Murray tells them about his run-in with Baxter Bernard - but the two express their deep skepticism that he just happened to run into the richest man in the world. Nick reminds him that Baxter Bernard is the owner of around twenty companies, including Baxter Electronics and Baxter Aviation. When Cody goes off-topic and grumbles about how much time, money, and maintenance Mimi regularly requires, Nick gets all bitchy-defensive and says it takes a lot of work and money to maintain a classic. Murray ignores their bickering and insists that the bum he talked to was definitely Baxter Bernard, and that he helped him work out a kink [that anyone with a semblance of programming knowledge should have been able to figure out on his own] in his latest invention - but Nick and Cody tell him they suspect the guy was "Larry the Bum", a local vagrant who's been seen panhandling in the area. They urge Murray not get his hopes up about what was probably a faux celebrity sighting. A fancy blue helicopter - the new BaxterCraft 1000! - lands in the nearby landing space. A woman climbs out of the cockpit, asks which of them is Murray, then tosses him the keys as she brusquely says, "A gift from Baxter Aviation." She then strides over to a waiting cab and climbs in, ignoring calls from the Riptide trio to stop and explain the unexpected delivery. Murray cackles about the "boss" gift, which he estimates is worth around $5 million...and a dismayed Nick concedes that it's a great piece of machinery, but then stubbornly insists, "If you want character and personality, you gotta look to the Mimi." He then climbs inside the cockpit and can't help but be impressed by the sleek, top-of-the-line control panel, while mumbling that it's kinda weird to get a big ticket gift like this from a mere acquaintance. He hands Murray a note addressed to him from Baxter, asking them to please pick him up from the top of Point Dune...and Nick immediately perks up at the prospect of flying the spiffy new chopper.
Nick revs up the chopper and makes lift-off...and unnerves Murray and Cody by doing some fancy flying tricks and deep dives. They approach Point Dune and spot Baxter, who's waving up at them - just as a second chopper suddenly appears out of nowhere. A couple of thugs leap off of it and chase after Baxter in a brazen attempt to abduct him...and as Nick tries to land close enough to rescue him, the bad guys open fire. Nick is mystified when, a few seconds later, the BaxterCraft suddenly starts to malfunction and spin in circles. He manages to safely land...and after he, Murray, and Cody leap off and hide in some nearby foliage, one of the thugs shoots at the empty chopper, resulting in a massive explosion. The trio stares at each other in puzzlement and vow to learn who those men were, why they would want to abduct Baxter Bernard, and why a brand new helicopter functioned so shittily after being shot at. The trio hitches a ride back to King Harbor on the back of a dilapidated pickup truck, then discuss how shocking it was that a brand new chopper malfunctioned after being riddled by a few bullets. Nick says he intends to call the FAA to file a report - just as they see that there's a brand new replacement chopper parked in the landing space with a big red bow across the front hood. An intrigued Murray glances around the cockpit, but doesn't find a note this time...and a few seconds later, Baxter Bernard appears. He removes his mangy grey wig and beard, introduces himself, and apologizes for them nearly getting blown up just now. Over at Baxter Aviation, the woman pilot who gifted Murray with the first helicopter (Denise McKean) is summoned to the head office to be questioned by Stanley Weston (the CEO) and his nefarious VP of Security (David Brady) regarding Baxter's whereabouts. She says that despite being his personal pilot, she has no clue where he is...and can only share that she received a memo, instructing her to deliver a new helicopter to the address provided and leave the keys in the co-pilot's seat. David informs her that they had to shoot down a new BaxterCraft today and are curious about who was inside of it, but she just shrugs and cheekily retorts, "You should have asked first." Stanley reminds her that members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are going to be present for a delivery ceremony that will demo the new BaxterCraft 1000 fleet, and that it's critical everything runs smoothly...and Denise is like, "Yeah, whatever" and exits the office. Stanley asks David who in blazes keeps issuing company memos without their authorization, and David explains that some unknown person keeps accessing their internal computer system and directing staff to do things. On top of that, they just learned that an additional chopper has gone missing...and can't help but come to the obvious conclusion that Baxter is somehow behind it. Stanley orders David to have Denise followed, 'cause he's pretty sure she knows more about Baxter than anyone else at the company. He warns David that they need to put an end to the shenanigans before the big unveiling ceremony - otherwise their evil [and really stupidly short-sighted] scheme to put a fleet of defective helicopters into circulation that will imperil army pilots could blow up in their faces. No pun intended. Denise makes a beeline over to the nearest pay phone to call Baxter at the Riptide to make sure he's OK. He assures her he's fine and warns her about all of the trouble brewing at Baxter Aviation. She tells him that Stanley and David just interrogated her regarding his whereabouts and isn't sure she convinced them she has no clue where he's holed up. She then asks him if he took a second chopper, and he promises to explain everything once they're face to face. Baxter sheepishly explains to the Riptide trio that he hasn't been running Baxter Aviation for the last ten years...and during that time, Stanley Weston has been involved in various plots to defraud the government. When he explains that Stanley is about to sell a fleet of BaxterCraft 1000s to the U.S. military, knowing it has a deadly design flaw, Murray looks aghast as he points out that army pilots could die as a result, and angrily asks him how he could allow such a thing to happen. Baxter says he does blame himself, and that Eugene Kay had reached out to him to discuss the impending catastrophe - but when he failed to show up at a meeting they arranged in secret, he's leaping to the (accurate) conclusion that the poor man is dead. Baxter then says he needs some hard proof before he can start blowing the whistle - despite the fact that he's the owner of the company and could step in and blow the whistle, like right now - and officially hires the Riptide Detective Agency to gather incriminating intel. He hands over his credit card for any expenses that might be incurred, then gets distracted by all the buxom, bikini-clad nymphets aboard the adjacent boat (the Contessa) ... and they giggle, wave, and invite him to join them for cocktail hour.
Cody uses Baxter's credit card (that has a limit of 400K per month!) to make some over-the-phone purchases needed to crack this case, while Murray taps on his computer and complains that Baxter Aviation is way too locked up for him to be able to hack into. He says it'd really help if he had photos of every BaxterCraft 1000 in the fleet, taken from various geometric angles, so he can feed them into his computer and scrutinize the images from various geometric angles and determine the design flaw. Sounds digitally implausible - but then I'm a recapper, not a helicopter blueprint design flaw analyst. Murray meets up with Denise, who tells him she knows how to bypass Baxter Aviation's firewall through a back door that Baxter created. She then logs on, while Murray adjusts to the unfamiliar dynamic of having to watch someone else take the lead on a computer-based task. As Nick and Cody take apart the BaxterCraft to see if they can determine the design flaw, they call Baxter's recommended food service...and a few minutes later, a red van arrives, and a deliveryman/chef sets up a table, chairs, and serves them a scrumptious looking gourmet pizza. Denise types up a memo to authorize a couple of military press photographers to access the Baxter Aviation airfield and take photos, then suggests to Murray they send in Nick and Cody. Murray concurs with that plan, then asks her to check on the status of Eugene Kay...and when she taps in his name, his record indicates that he resigned two days ago, which she calls impossible, given that he's been an engineer with the company for over two decades. Nick and Cody, aka faux military photographers, get welcomed to Baxter Aviation by Pat Wolfson, the company's very chipper PR director. She gabbles about how the unveiling ceremony is tomorrow, and that it's a very exciting day for the company. As Cody starts snapping photos of all the choppers, Stanley and David arrive...and a puzzled Stanley tells David he thought that photographers were only going to be present during tomorrow's ceremony. David shrugs and says his secretary got a memo about a photo shoot happening today, and Stanley snaps, "Memo?!" and orders David to check the "photographers'" IDs. Nick and Cody stonewall David for as long as they possibly can...then hit him with their lighting panel before fleeing to their car and squealing off. David opens fire on their car before Stanley snarlingly orders him to 1) find out who they are by tracing their car, and 2) kill them. Eeeek! Back at the Riptide, Murray feeds the photographs of the helicopters into his computer so he can somehow perform an analysis of the aircrafts' internal geometrical makeup and magically diagnose the design flaw. When Denise asks why the chopper Nick flew wasn't able to self-diagnose the problem, Murray explains that because the self-warning system has been tampered with, the fatal design problems only present themselves when they're under stress conditions: aka, being shot at. Nick, meanwhile, is on the phone with Lieutenant Quinlan, who reports that marine patrol just recovered Eugene Kay's splatted body. When Baxter learns the sad news, he looks visibly upset and grumbles, "It's one thing to steal or cover up a crime, now they're murdering people to save a few million of my money." He bitterly adds that Eugene paid for his diligence with his life...and Denise offers to make him his favorite beverage while he processes his grief.
Nick assures Baxter that the bad guys running his aviation company are about to go out of business, courtesy of the Riptide Detective Agency...and Baxter says he'd happily give everything he has to make that happen. Cody discreetly asks Denise if she and Baxter ever hooked up, so she explains that she met him (years ago) when she was in college. He was standing on a street corner, dressed in a rabbit's costume, ringing a bell and holding a bucket for people to donate their spare change. Apparently, it was a needless experiment to prove that people are in the spirit of giving - not only at Christmas time, but at Easter time too. Denise says that after she and the weirdo became fast friends, he offered to take her anywhere in the world she wanted to go...and she assumed he was kidding - until they were on a private plane, en route to Paris. She clarifies that there was never any kind of hanky panky between them, and that he was more of a mentor to her who got her hooked on flying. He helped put her through flight school and helicopter training...and got her to sneak him in and out of the Baxter Aviation compound once a week. Despite the fact that he's the owner of the company and shouldn't have let things deteriorate to the point that he had to be sneaked in and out of his own property. The Contessa nymphets are aboard a dinghy chanting, "We want Baxter"! and invite him to come over for a special surprise. Cody, Nick, Murray, and Denise urge him to go next door and have fun, so he figures 'ah, why the hell not?' and climbs aboard the dinghy. Murray continues to analyze the photos of the BaxterCrafts and deduces that the tail rotor is the weak spot. Nick says it makes perfect sense, since the occurrence of high stress manoeuvres while airborne wouldn't be obvious when simply viewing the blueprints. He asks Murray to print out these findings so he can warn the army asap. Next door, the Contessa nymphets tell Baxter they're throwing him a birthday party and chirp, "All your friends are here!" ... and a puzzled looking Baxter says it's not his birthday, then pales when he sees that Stanley and David are also aboard. One of Stanley's henchmen waves his gun around and tells the nymphets the party is officially over, then smugly reveals to Baxter that they were able to track him after "the PI clowns" he hired made purchases using his credit card. They force him above deck and onto a speedboat...and as he cries out for help, the Riptide trio rushes over to the Ebb Tide - only to discover that someone cut the fuel line. And when Nick races over to The Screaming Mimi, he's dismayed to see that it too was tampered with and not fly-able. Stanley and David ply Baxter with truth serum, then ask him how much the Riptide trio knows about the design flaw of the BaxterCraft 1000s...and Baxter mains, "Tail rotor, piece of junk" before passing out. Stanley chews on that for a few seconds before ordering David to kill the three Riptide PIs, along with "the broads next door". Eeeek!
Stanley's henchmen show up at Pier 56, notice that the Riptide isn't in its usual boat slip, and leave. Dooley, who's covertly standing nearby, radios the trio to warn them about the henchmen stopping by...and Murray breathes a sigh of relief that they got outa there so quickly. Nick then calls Denise, who informs him that Baxter is scheduled to be at the unveiling ceremony later today, remarking that she has no idea how Stanley got him to agree to that. Denise asks him if she can pilot Mimi [which somehow got repaired in record time] ... and when he reluctantly agrees, Cody and Murray chuckle over Nick's visible discomfort with someone other than him sitting in the pilot's seat. As the ceremony gets underway, a zonked looking Baxter slumps in his chair while Stanley introduces the BaxterCraft 1000 to the guests. He then announces the live demonstration and gives the thumbs up to the pilot sitting in the cockpit of one of the chopper models. He quickly goes airborne, then employs some fancy flying moves - but in doing so, triggers the problems associated with the defective tail rotor and starts spinning out of control. From the nearby Mimi, Nick alerts him to the tail rotor problem, and the pilot's all, "Ack!" and parachutes out of the chopper, which then takes a nose-dive and explodes on impact, 'causing the ceremony guests to recoil in horror. Stanley sheepishly assures the General in attendance that he can explain what just happened - just as Denise safely lands Mimi so that Nick and Cody can leap off and chase the bad guys on ground level. When Nick sees David and a henchmen squeal off in a car, he radios Denise to get Mimi back into the air and pursue them from above. Murray strides over to the General and tells him he knows exactly why the BaxterCraft went down, and that he has documented proof of a large scale cover up involving a fatal design flaw. Denise closes in on David and his henchman from above...while Nick and Cody race over and are able to subdue them by holding them at gunpoint. When Stanley is ushered off by the General to explain his role in The Tail Rotor Conspiracy, Baxter thanks Murray for providing proof of the design flaw. While waiting for his limo to arrive, Baxter tells the Riptide trio he's been working on a new invention: the boomer ball, intended for kids who have no one to play catch with. He then tosses the ball to demonstrate, but it goes all womp womp when he accidentally throws the thing into the water. He grimaces and says, "Still a few bugs in the system." He then tells the trio he's really going to miss them, now that he's returning to Baxter Aviation to take over the role of president. He shakes their hands, tells them he'll never forget them...then pulls another boomer ball out of his pocket, tosses it to Murray, and tells him to work out the kinks. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
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