Recap: Two henchmen (Ziegler and Bollings) arrive at the office of their crime boss (a nondescript grey-haired man named E.G. Shaw) to report that his former chauffeur, Mack McPherson, has authored a manuscript about the criminal organization they work within...and that he went so far as to name names. Ziegler expresses disbelief that a seemingly loyal flunky like Mack would so brazenly spill the beans like that, while Bollings sanctimoniously says he never trusted the cretin. Shaw grumbles that McPherson was always somewhat of "a shaky commodity" and calls the manuscript a serious omertà breach. He orders Ziegler and Bollings to permanently silence McPherson quietly and efficiently and see to it that no one besides them learns of the existence of his 'tell all' manuscript. Murray has dragged Nick and Cody to the Crow Bar Express, a gritty bikers' bar, to meet with a potential client (Mrs. Farringham). A biker/waiter arrives at their table to deliver drinks...and in the process, splashes beer all over them. An irked Nick and Cody tell Murray they really really want to flee this dump, and that Mrs. Farringham can just stop by the Riptide if she wants to talk to them about a case. The waiter jumps in and asks, "What if they already got to her?" and starts nattering about how "they're everywhere". Nick stares at him suspiciously for a few seconds, then reaches over and pulls off part of his fake beard, and explains to Murray that this faux biker is Mack McPherson, aka a pain-in-the-ass clown he and Cody met during their time in the Air Academy. Mack tells them he's in real trouble, produces a $100 check in exchange for their help, and promises to explain everything. Ziegler and Bollings arrive at the Crow Bar Express, presumably after getting a tip that Mack was last seen inside the seedy watering hole...and as they amble over to the club, a sketchy looking guy appears out nowhere and stares intently at their car. Mack glances around nervously as he explains to the Riptide trio that he just finished writing a manuscript about his former crime boss that could get him killed...and that since he's being tracked by a couple of goons, he can't get to his apartment to feed his pet parrot (Otto). He hands Nick a second check, this one for $200, along with the key to his apartment, and Murray tells him they'd be happy to look after Otto. When Nick and Cody shoot him the stink-eye, Murray says they're unlikely to encounter any trouble doing something as mundane as caring for someone's pet parrot...and Cody just shakes his head as he glares at Mack and mutters, "You'd be surprised."
Mack spots Ziegler and Bollings enter the bar and preemptively creates a diversion by insulting the burly biker who's playing pool. When a full-on brawl ensues, Mack sneaks out the back door...and a few seconds later, Ziegler and Bollings run out after him, followed by the Riptide trio. As Mack squeals away from the scene in an old pickup truck, Ziegler and Bollings are dismayed by the sight of their car, which has been stripped of its tires. When the Riptide trio emerges from the bar, they grumble about how miffed they are about getting sucked into the bar fight diversion, then pile into the Jimmy to head over to Mack's apartment to see about taking care of Otto. When they enter the apartment, they're startled to find it completely trashed. Otto, who's sitting in his cage in the middle of the living room, squawks, "Freeze turkeys!" ... and the Riptide trio instinctively raises their arms - until they quickly realize they're taking orders from a parrot. A few seconds later, the trio hears someone approaching the front door, so they grab whatever they can find to use as weapons and hover by the door. A woman enters the apartment, and when she sees the three men brandishing makeshift weapons, she's all, "Ack!" and starts hyperventilating. The men assure her they're not going to hurt her, and Murray hands her a paper bag to breathe into...and when she's finally able to speak, she introduces herself as Gloria Burghoff, aka Mack McPherson's fiancée. The trio looks surprised that any real live woman would seriously consider marrying a doofus like Mack, then urges her to accompany them to the Riptide for safety reasons. While en route to Pier 56, they pepper her with questions about all the naughty things Mack's been up to lately, but she says she knows nothing about whatever Mack gets himself into, deadpanning, "We didn't really talk very much. Mostly we just had sex." Mack is at Hank's Airfield, renting a helicopter so he can go airborne and stage his death [by making it look as though he crashed into a desert mountain] so that E.G. Shaw's goons will finally stop tracking his whereabouts. After news of Mack's faux death has circulated to the public, Cody reads over the crash report, and Gloria remarks on how she was able to memorize the entire report after just glancing at it 'cause she has a photographic memory. She then suggests they pre-empt any investigation by the FAA and scour the crash site themselves...and when Cody points out that it could be traumatic for her to see the place her fiancé just died, she concurs and instead offers to stay behind and make herself useful by writing down everything Otto is currently squawking in case it can provide clues about what Mack was up to before his untimely demise. Nick pulls Murray aside and tells him to turn on Roboz so that they can monitor whatever Gloria does when she doesn't realize she's being surveilled. E.G. Shaw is annoyed at Ziegler and Bollings for not finding the manuscript before Mack turned up dead, and they tell Shaw he probably had it with him when he perished in the chopper crash. They also inform Shaw that Mack was seen talking to three guys at the Crow Bar Express, and that a woman named Gloria Berghoff is in town, trying to track Mack down. Shaw chews on that for a few seconds and ordered them to scour the crash site to see if there's any proof that the manuscript was destroyed...and Ziegler and Bollings agree, though it remains unclear how it would actually be possible to confirm that a stack of papers got destroyed during the course of a fiery crash in mountainous terrain. Nick pilots The Screaming Mimi over to the crash site with Murray and Cody on board. Murray scours the area with binoculars, remarking on how there's pieces of debris everywhere (though no sign of Mack's body) - just as a small plane piloted by Ziegler and Bollings charges at them as they open fire. Murray and Cody fire back...and the skirmish ends when Nick realizes that Mimi took too many bullets to be able to stay airborne indefinitely. When the trio returns to the Riptide, Murray checks in with Roboz, who reveals that Gloria made a phone call during their absence. When Nick tricks Gloria with a fishing photo of himself and his cousin Tony and IDs Tony as Mack, Gloria is forced to admit that she's never actually met Mack McPherson and has no idea what he looks like. Cody dials the number she had called earlier and is astounded to learn that it's the offices of the FBI...and after another bout of stress-fuelled hyperventilating, Gloria explains that she's an FBI stenographer who always aspired to become an agent - but flunked the physical, no doubt 'cause she tends to hyperventilate every time she gets stressed. Her boss sent her to King Harbor to take a statement from Mack regarding his connection to E.G. Shaw - but she had no idea at the time that Mack had written a manuscript about his experience as the crime boss's chauffeur. She says she'd looooove to crack this case with the hope that the FBI brass would magically promote her to agent, then abruptly changes the subject and offers to show the trio her notes to determine whether or not Otto squawked anything useful while they were away.
Gloria shows them the phrases Otto squawked at her, but nothing seems particularly useful - until the bird suddenly begins reciting numbers that sound like the combination to a safe. Nick jots them down, and the trio heads over to Mack's apartment to see about getting into his safe. Ziegler calls E.G. Shaw from Hank's Airfield to report that he and Bollings flew over the crash site, but all they found was charred metal. He adds that they ran into a fugly pink chopper while they were there and figured 'why not shoot at it for no real reason?', and E.G. Shaw asks them to pass along the aircraft's ID number so he can find out who the lookie-loos were and suss out whether or not they know anything about Mack's manuscript. The trio heads back to Mack's apartment, finds the safe located under where Otto's cage was placed, and open it. They don't find anything of value - except for a business card for Sidney Harnack, aka the chief editor for a tabloid rag called The National Investigator Newspaper. The trio heads straight over to the newspaper's headquarters to ask Harnack if he knows anything about an exposé on E.G. Shaw...and Harnack pales and wails, "That's supposed to be top secret!" When he suddenly clams up, Cody fibs that they're all from the FBI to investigate the matter, urging Gloria to show him her name tag and parking pass. Harnack immediately cracks and says he's been in contact with the exposé's author - just this morning, in fact - and that he just sent that person a check in the mail. Cody perks up and is all, "Wuh? This morning?" and leaps to the conclusion that Mack McPherson must have staged his death - but is actually very much alive. Harnack provides them with the PO Box on the return address of his message, and the trio decides that their next move will be to stake out the post office to see who shows up to retrieve the check. Later, at the post office, Mack has disguised himself as a bearded old man with a limp when he hobbles into the post office...and after he opens the PO Box the trio is monitoring, they surround him and are all, "Ah ha!" as Murray tears off his fake beard. He stares at them sheepishly and chucklingly asks, "Is this a coincidence or what?" It's, um, what.
While en route to Pier 56 in the Jimmy (with Gloria in tow), Mack cheekily tells the trio he doesn't hold a grudge against them [for what exactly remains unclear], and an incredulous Nick points out that throughout this episode he's lied to them and nearly gotten them killed, bitterly mumbling, "Everything you touch turns to trouble." Mack explains that he got tired of working for an uppity employer like E.G. Shaw, so he figured 'why not write an exposé about the murderous criminal and then shop around for a newspaper to publish it?' Gloria reads over the manuscript Mack's been carrying around with him, remarks on how he "named names", and deduces that, yep, he's a dead man. LOL. The trio then introduces her to Mack as a wannabe FBI agent-in-training who's been hanging out with them in order to observe the escalating problems of the self-inflicted schmozzle that he (Mack) has so stupidly gotten himself into. When the five arrive at Pier 56, Ziegler and Bollings squeal over, grab Mack and shove him into their car, then shoot the tires of the Jimmy so that viewers don't have to endure a long car chase sequence just yet. Murray declares, "Mack's a dead man, guys" and says he can only assume that E.G. Shaw is going to kill him at his earliest convenience. After that, the trio (+ Gloria) puts their heads together to think of something they might bargain with...and the only idea that comes to mind is that since Gloria has a photographic memory and can create a copy of Mack's exposé, they can make E.G. Shaw think there's at least one other copy floating around. Why yes...that sounds just crazy enough to work! Over in the lion's den, Mack assures E.G. Shaw that he was only joking about approaching a tabloid to publish an exposé that goes into grisly detail about all the crime-ing he witnessed during his employ...then hangdoggishly admits that it was very wrong [and fairly idiotic] to ever write something that could so easily get him killed. He tells Shaw he has $50,000 in savings and would be more than happy to hand that over in lieu of being murdered - but Shaw just demands to know who else knows about the manuscript. At that point, Mack proceeds to throw everyone involved under the bus and names Sidney Harnack, the Riptide trio, and his parrot Otto, who really functions more as a "sort of a tape recorder with feathers". A few seconds later, Cody calls Shaw to make a faux deal: he'll hand over all existing copies of Mack's exposé in exchange for Mack. When Shaw says he doesn't believe there's actually another copy of the exposé , Cody begins to read the draft that Gloria was able to hastily write up...and Shaw's all, "Drats" and agrees to make the swap - but only if they show up in their underwear. The Riptide trio (+ Gloria) arrive at the rendezvous spot, and it looks as though only Cody and Gloria obeyed the 'come in your underwear' edict. Cody explains that the last existing copy of Mack's manuscript is underneath Otto's cage, then hands the cage to Ziegler and Bollings while Mack is permitted to walk over to where Nick is standing. E.G. Shaw covertly tells the goons to just kill everyone once they get what they came for, and they're like, "Roger that." Ziegler fiddles with the bird cage to pull out the manuscript, which triggers a mini bomb that I'm guessing Murray must have rigged. The chaos of the explosion turns the tables on Ziegler and Bollings, who are quickly subdued at gunpoint by Murray and Gloria. Mack, meanwhile, is all, "Nooooo! Otto!", so Nick and Cody hastily assure him they used a fake bird for the purposes of swapping him for the manuscript, then jump into the Jimmy to pursue E.G. Shaw, who has fled the scene in his big blue car.
After what seems like a really loooooong car chase on and adjacent to the beach, E.G. Shaw crashes through a guardrail, then is thrown from the car before it plunges off of a cliff. Nick and Cody roughly haul the old man to his feet as he stares despondently into space. Back at the Riptide, the trio is celebrating Gloria's promotion to Director of Interrogation Analysis. As they toast her smarts and ambition and dig into a plate of fried chicken, Dooley bursts aboard, glares at the plate of dead bird, and leaps to the conclusion that they're dining on Otto. Nick assures him they're not, explains that they used a fake bird for the bomb distraction, and that Mack took Otto home, where both are now safe and sound. A placated Dooley directs his attention to Gloria and asks her if she remembers all of the cheesy one liners she documented while Otto was squawking nonsensically, 'cause he somehow thinks it's not at all stupid to repeat them while he's flirting with women...and when she says she does and would be more than happy to recite each of them, he grabs a pad and pen and starts to write them down, much to the visible annoyance of Murray, Nick, and Cody. 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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