Recap: Dooley is on his way to the beach to go surfing when he's accosted by two men wearing business suits. They shove a large package at him, order him to plant it aboard the Riptide, and threaten him with a beating if he fails to do their bidding. A few seconds later, they squeal off, running over his surfboard with their car in the process. Dooley dutifully presents the package to the Riptide trio and explains what just happened. Murray says that if the package contains a bomb, he's fairly confident he can diffuse it...and when Dooley hears the word bomb, he quickly backs away and is all, "It was nice knowing you guys, but..." LOL. Cody gives him the keys to a vacant boat next door and tells him he can hide out there with a walkie-talkie so they can keep in touch, then sternly emphasizes that he is not to touch anything. After that, Murray urges Cody and Nick to leave the boat so that the three of them don't all blow up if the package does, in fact, contain a bomb...then sweats buckets as he begins to carefully cut open the box. Above deck, Nick tells Cody that this whole package thing "doesn't feel right", and so the two head back inside to hover over Murray's shoulder so they can get a first hand look at the package's contents. Murray pulls out a black bag, inside which is a giant bagful of white powder. Cody assumes it's a whole lot of cocaine and suggests they quickly swap it out for powdered sugar. He then orders Murray to set up a video camera inside the Riptide so they can document the conversation with whoever's about to come knockin'. That evening, two men who identify themselves as FBI agents show up at the Riptide and inform Nick and Cody that they have a record of them serving in Vietnam with General Douglas "Pittbull" Johnson...and Murray interjects to inform the men that he too served in the same unit - but in an information technology type capacity. The FBI guys are like, "Er, OK..?" and tell Nick and Cody that they need to "borrow" them for a special assignment concerning national intelligence, as in right now...so the four head out. Cody suddenly pretends to be chilled and says he's going back inside to fetch their jackets...and in the process slips the giant bag of cocaine into Nick's jacket pocket. He also gets a tracking device from Murray and tells him to track wherever they're about to go. Cody surreptitiously puts the tracking device on the underside of the Corvette, while Nick ambles over to the FBI car to tell the agents they'll be in the fancy red car...while covertly the bag of cocaine into the back seat. In the next scene, the four arrive at what appears to be a bustling FBI field office, and Nick and Cody are ushered into a private meeting room with Agent Mike Sharp. He briefly goes over each of their military credentials, tells them they're about to undergo a top secret briefing, and shares that the FBI suspects General Douglas Johnson of using military aircraft to smuggle cocaine across the U.S./Mexican border. Their mission is to get in touch with Johnson, pretend that they're a couple of strung out veterans having trouble adjusting to civilian life, and see if he puts them into his drug smuggling pipeline. Nick and Cody tell him they don't believe their old boss would ever be involved in anything illegal, but ultimately agree to what Mike promises will be a financially profitable undercover gig.
Back at the Riptide, Nick and Cody leave a message for General Johnson that they plan on dropping by the base with their dorky friend Murray. Nick and Cody agree that they both hate feeling like they're selling out their old friend, then suspect the FBI of planting cocaine on their boat in "a classic spook manoeuvre". The Riptide trio heads over to the base to meet with General Johnson, and he greets Nick and Cody by single-handedly knocking them to the ground in what looks like a painful yet playful wrestling match. They spend several minutes reminiscing about their tour in Vietnam, blah blah...and then General Johnson suggests they go out for something to eat. As one of the FBI guy sits in a corner of the restaurant and covertly takes photos, Nick and Cody lament to General Johnson about how horribly their lives have sucked since being discharged from the military, and that they both became hopeless drug addicts and are barely able to eke out a living "flying stuff" across the southern border via Nick's decrepit Mimi chopper. General Johnson assumes that by stuff he means narcotics, and rails about how much worse they are than "the guys from the Orange Grove", who apparently like to take the easy way out. He shoots them both a look of disgust before storming out of the restaurant...and Nick and Cody grin happily at each other and take this as proof that their dear friend couldn't possibly be part of a drug smuggling ring. They exit the restaurant a few seconds later and witness General Johnson being attacked on the street, then shoved into a car. The three rush over to their truck to begin a heart-stopping car chase sequence, but it soon becomes obvious that the bad guys messed with the truck's engine to preemptively knock out any pursuit. Nick, Cody, and Murray return to Pier 56 and notice that Dooley has not only ignored Cody's 'don't touch anything on the boat you're hiding out on' edict, but has brazenly thrown a dance party to which he's invited a gaggle of bikini clad women. A few seconds later, Lieutenant Quinlan shows up with a search warrant and storms aboard the Riptide. As Nick and Cody exchange knowing glances, Quinlan quickly finds the package that Dooley had given them, opens it, and pulls out the large bag of white powder. He cackles about how screwed they all are for being in possession of so much coke - until Nick smugly informs him that the white stuff is actually their stash of powdered sugar, which Cody laughingly says they can use to sweeten the coffee he just brewed. Quinlan does a quick taste test and grimaces at the fool he's just been made of, and accuses them of calling in the anonymous tip just to make him look like the horse's ass he is. Cody points out how nonsensical that theory is and urges him to listen to their side of the story for a damn change, and asks Murray to fire up the footage of their recent interaction with the two FBI guys.
Quinlan admits that the anonymous tip he received included a stack of photographs of the Riptide trio eating at the restaurant with General Johnson, and Nick says there's no way any reasonable person wouldn't conclude that this whole thing is an obvious setup. Quinlan mulls that over and asks them why the FBI would want to hang a drug charge on two bozo detectives, and they concede that that's a pretty damn good question and quickly head over to the FBI field office, which is now completely vacant. The trio correctly assumes that the men who had approached them about the secret mission weren't really FBI agents, and that they likely just abducted General Johnson with the intention of killing him. Nick, Cody, and Murray don their army uniforms and drive over to the Fort Sumpter military base. They tell the officer at the entry gate that they're here regarding General Johnson, and are promptly directed to the office of his aide, Colonel Davidson. When they enter Davidson's lodgings, they're dismayed to find that it's been ransacked...and when they search the bathroom, they find the body of Davidson (aka Mike Sharp), who looks like he was recently drowned in the bathtub. As the three sift through Davidson's files, they come across a device that detects radiation and somehow intuit that it's an integral clue in solving The Mystery of General Johnson's Whereabouts. Murray swiftly MacGyvers a makeshift computer by hooking up his keyboard with the phone, then linking it to the TV so it can function as a monitor. He easily hacks into the base operations network, then enters the serial number of the radiation detector, which the makeshift computer tells him is part of Operation Orange Grove. They quickly recall that General Johnson had sourly referenced Orange Grove when they were at the restaurant, so Murray queries 'what is Operation Orange Grove?', and is informed that it's a storage area for Agent Orange. He then queries 'where is it?', and a helpful map promptly appears on the screen, indicating exactly where Operation Orange Grove can be located. Nick asks Murray to use his old army login to book a military helicopter for four hours of flight time so they can speed over to the Orange Grove, and Murray taps away at his keyboard and books the aircraft.
Murray gushes about all the state-of-the-art gadgetry that's installed inside the military helicopter, and proudly tells Nick and Cody that he helped design the system. As Nick flies them towards the Orange Grove, Murray checks his car tracking receiver and informs them that the car the fake FBI agents were driving the other night (which he placed a tracker on) is in the vicinity. He correctly guesses that the car is parked at Operation Coke Smuggling Headquarters, where Johnson is mostly likely being held. The bad guys who are based in the nearby restricted zone are informed that an unauthorized helicopter is headed in the direction of their drug den, and in response they scramble their fleet of helicopters. Nick lowers the chopper close enough to the ground so that Cody and his assault rifle can leap off and perform a ground rescue of General Johnson. He enters a warehouse, finds the General tied up and blindfolded, and manages to free him while simultaneously firing on a large crew of bad guys and avoiding getting himself shot. General Johnson tells him that the bad guys tried to force him to sign a suicide confession - but that he refused, which is probably the only reason he's still alive. The two then flee the warehouse without getting struck by the gunfire coming at them from all directions and climb aboard the helicopter being piloted by Nick, who then does some slick manoeuvring inside a canyon so he ends up hovering over one of the bad guys' helicopter. General Johnson warns them via loudspeaker to land their chopper, otherwise they'll be shot at...and when the bad guys meekly surrender, General Johnson cackles, "Damn that's fun, ain't it boys?"
Early the next morning, Lieutenant Quinlan bursts aboard the Riptide to yell at the trio for not giving him any credit for the massive cocaine bust they're being lauded as heroes for...or filling him in on why Colonel Davidson turned up dead. Murray explains that Davidson was killed by the other bad guys after he started to have second thoughts about Operation Orange Grove...and a cranky General Johnson admonishes Quinlan for so loudly interrupting them so early in the morning. Quinlan dismissively tells him to go pee up a rope, then is all, "Ack!" when Cody informs him that their houseguest is the Brigadier General Douglas Johnson of the U.S. Army. Quinlan stares open-mouthed at the high ranking General, then salutes him before rushing off, red-faced...leaving General Johnson to chortle about what a jackass he is. The men then notice that Dooley is somehow still partying with the bikini clad women next door, and General Johnson perks up at the prospect of getting in on that action and hurriedly pulls his clothes on before heading next door to do some man-on-ladies mingling. Nick, Cody, and Murray mull over the idea of joining in the fun, decide 'sure, why the hell not?', and merrily follow the General. 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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