Recap: Steve and Jaime are at the ranch, riding around on horses and looking very much in love. Jaime brings up her surgery and says she's pretty sure that Blue Cross doesn't cover bionic reconstruction, and asks him who footed the bill for her cyborg limbs. Steve mumbles, "Uncle Sam" and Jaime asks what he expects in return. Steve replies, "Well, I guess he wants you to be part of the team"...and by team, he means himself and Oscar Goldman. Jaime looks unsettled and remarks how high "the stakes" are, and Steve provides nothing in the way of assurance and says, "Yep, they're pretty high." A few minutes later, they decide to run back to the house (I guess the horses will find their own way back), and bionically race each other in slow motion. Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh.. Mama Austin has just arrived at the ranch and is startled to see Steve and Jaime running toward the house in full bionic mode: leaping over high fences, stacks of hay bales, and a tractor. LOL. As Steve and Jaime approach the house, they notice Mama Austin's bewildered expression and stare sheepishly at each other. When Mama Austin whimpers, "Why am I so frightened?", Steve invites her to take a walk with him so he can explain to her the general premise of The Six Million Dollar Man, as well as Jaime's recent bionic reconstruction and future spin-off. Oscar Goldman drops by the ranch to tell Steve he has a problem in need of an immediate resolution. When Steve starts to whine about how he has a wedding coming up, Oscar grimly retorts, "There isn't going to be any wedding" and solemnly holds up a twenty dollar bill. Steve examines the bill with his bionic eye and finds nothing wrong with it, and Oscar's like, "Exactly!" and tells him it was made using a duplicate Denver Mint plate that was recently delivered to Joseph Ronaugh, the man who is intent on flooding the U.S. economy with superfluous twenty dollar bills. The mission - should Jaime choose to accept it, which she kind of has to considering she's now beholden to the Office of Scientific Intelligence - is to switch the money making plate with a defective plate. That way, they can trace all the various counterfeiting outlets once Ronaugh starts churning out those fake twenties. Steve says he doesn't like the idea of Jaime being sent on a potentially dangerous mission, so Oscar explains that it's "a delicate operation" that requires the power of her bionic ear to open the safe where the money making plate is being stored. Steve still doesn't approve, and Oscar's like, "Yeah, I really don't give a shit" and reminds him that there were strings attached when he agreed to transform his girlfriend into a secret cyborg agent. Jaime suddenly enters the room and says, "I couldn't help overhearing" - heh, good one - and agrees that she has an obligation to repay Oscar for saving her life. She assures Steve that she performs very well under pressure and wants to pull her own weight. Oscar smiles approvingly and tells her that tomorrow she'll receive the necessary training to carry out the top secret mission. Joseph Ronaugh (wearing another white suit!) is examining a large diamond when his sidekick (also in white) enters the room and announces that all systems are go on the Steve Austin hit. Ronaugh gleefully informs him that there's no need to carry out the hit, 'cause Steve is coming to them! He shows his sidekick a telegram from Jaime Sommers, accepting his invitation to play in a tennis charity tournament...and I'll assume it mentions that she's bringing Steve as her plus one. Ronaugh cackles, "Isn't that delicious?" and goes back to examining his diamond. Warehouse. Jaime is receiving training on how to silence any potential alarms and use her bionic hearing to crack a safe's combination...and then exchange the money making plate with a defective one. Jaime manages the task reasonably quickly and requests another run though - but Oscar tells her there's no time 'cause she and Steve have a plane to catch. Steve and Jaime are en route to whatever country Joseph Ronaugh and his gaggle of white-suited henchmen are headquartered in. Jaime tells a worried looking Steve not to stress about her so much, and jokes about how she can hear trouble coming from very far away. After Steve nods off, one of her hands starts to twitch involuntarily, and she's all, "Wha-a?" and stares down at it concernedly. After the plane lands, Steve and Jaime are chauffeured to Ronaugh's estate, where the portly counterfeiter schmoozily greets the couple. He kisses Jaime's hand and coos about how jealous he is that she's taken herself out of circulation - eww - and when she introduces him to Steve, he giddily says, "Colonel Steve Austin. I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see you face to face again!" A puzzled Steve is all, "Wha-a?" and asks if they've ever met, but Ronaugh declines to answer and says he'll show them to their rooms, where they can rest before cocktails. Subtle, Ronaugh. Steve tiptoes into the hallway and knocks on Jaime's door. When she answers, he tells her he didn't like the smug, cagey way Ronaugh was acting and thinks they need to complete the mission and then hit the road, asap. Jaime concurs and slips into the study across the hall, while Steve stands watch. She quickly finds the safe, which is hidden behind a painting, and presses her bionic ear against the safe door while slowly turning the knob. Steve, meanwhile, encounters Ronaugh's sidekick in the hall and starts chatting him up to deflect his attention away from the study. Jaime pulls out the money making plate and switches it with the defective one...but suddenly her hand gets all twitchy again. Out in the hall, the sidekick pulls a gun on Steve just as Ronaugh and a group of henchman appear and march toward him. Steve grimly asks, "Is this how you treat your guests?" and Ronaugh retorts, "This is how we treat thieves" and says he witnessed him stealing the Denver Mint plate from the back of his truck seven months ago. He growls, "You did considerable damage to me, Colonel Austin. And now I'm going to do considerable damage to you." Jaime is closing the safe when her twitching hand knocks over a vase, which sets off an alarm. Steve jumps into action and karate chops Ronaugh and his henchmen, then dashes into the study to rescue Jaime. He throws a chair through the window, and then he and Jaime leap out of the mansion and bionically flee towards a wooded area. Ronaugh and the henchmen race outside and climb into a jeep to pursue the couple...and once they enter the woods, Ronaugh climbs out of the vehicle and orders his men to keep following the two while he attempts to capture them on foot. Seems like a dumb strategy, but whatever. Steve, meanwhile, tries to block their pursuit by bionically bending over a tree so it's in the middle of the road...and then he and Jaime continue to flee. When the jeep approaches, the henchmen abandon the vehicle and chase after them on foot. Ronaugh suddenly appears from behind a tree, and his trigger-happy sidekick aims his rifle in the direction of where Jaime and Steve are running - but accidentally shoots Ronaugh instead. Haha! Oops. Shortly after the ridiculous caper, Steve and Jaime are on a plane, en route back to the United States. Jaime wryly says that even though the mission wasn't exactly "quiet and delicate", she did manage to pull it off. Steve reminds her they still have a wedding to plan, and when she wistfully asks him if they're going to live happily ever after, he goes, "You bet!" and ambles off somewhere to find a bottle of champagne. Ranch. Steve's parents are over, helping the couple prepare their wedding invitations. Jaime suddenly wonders aloud who's going to give her away (since apparently her parents are both dead), then asks Papa Austin if he wouldn't mind doing the honor. As everyone coos their approval, Jaime's hand starts twitching again and she accidentally knocks over a dish. Steve rushes after her when she flees into the kitchen, and she admits to him that lately her hand has been going haywire. Dr. Rudy Wells hooks up Jaime's entire arm to a giant machine - but according to the twitch-o-meter reading, it doesn't appear as though anything is amiss. Oscar discreetly asks Rudy if he can change her strength level from bionic to normal, but Rudy says they should probably give her system a chance to adapt to her new bionic limbs. Plus, he has absolutely no clue how to reverse the bionic level strength of her cyborg components. Ranch. Jaime and Mama Austin are going through the wedding checklist when Jaime's hand starts twitching again - but this time it's accompanied by a crushing headache. She tries to soothe the pain by rubbing her temples...and when Mama Austin asks her for clarification about something on the checklist, she gets uncharacteristically bitchy and snaps, "I don't need your help!" Steve enters the room and is all, "Wha-at's going on?" and Mama Austin downplays the incident and tells him it's probably just some pre-wedding jitters. Steve and Jaime are playing tennis when Jaime gets another headache, and is so tortured by the pain that she whips her racquet into the air. Steve looks alarmed and asks her if she's OK, and a few seconds later she stares at him blankly and goes, "What happened?" Steve points at her racquet, which is now wedged into the steel fence surrounding the tennis court. He half-heartedly assures her that everything's probably A-OK. Steve takes Jaime to the hospital for some x-rays. Oscar and Rudy review her scans and inform Steve that Jaime has a massive blood clot in her brain, and that her body is producing a crapload of white blood cells - a sign that it's rejecting the bionics. Rudy says they need to operate, like pronto, otherwise she could keel over at any moment. Jaime, who's waiting for the results in a private room, suddenly gets a debilitating headache. She knocks over a lamp and runs into the hallway clutching her forehead...and when an orderly tries to assist her, she bionically flings him out of her way and sprints down the hall toward the nearest exit. Outside, where a storm is suddenly brewing, Jaime flees the hospital clutching her temples and contorting her face into funny looking expressions of agony. Oscar and Steve are horrified to learn that she ran away, and Steve declares he's going out to find her. He ignores Oscar's protests and runs outside in bionic slo-mo in the rain storm. He races to a nearby farm, where he spots a broken fence, and enters a barn...but he just misses spotting Jaime, who has leaped out the back door. She makes her way to a phone booth, desperately picks up the receiver, and shrieks, "Steeeeeeve!" - but when she gets no reply, she wigs out and breaks the phone booth door while exiting. She's about to run off when Steve approaches. He tries to grab onto her, but she yells, "Nooooo!!" and fights him...until - in her hazy, short-circuited brain - she finally realizes he is her beloved. Her body goes limp, and Steve picks her up and rushes her back to the hospital. Jaime is in surgery...but things aren't looking good. Someone on the surgical team exclaims, "We're losing her!" and Steve, who's anxiously watching the surgery with Oscar, puts his sad face on as he reminisces about Jaime jogging. Someone else blurts out that she has a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and now has no pulse...and seconds later we hear the machine go into flatline mode. Rudy removes the oxygen mask from Jaime's face and glances over at Oscar and Steve while sadly shaking his head. After the doctors and nurses quietly amble off, Steve walks over to Jaime's lifeless body, kisses her forehead and cries, "I love you, Jaime. I've always loved you. Waaah!" Steve stands in his kitchen and gives the room one last look before leaving for D.C. After that, he goes down to the stables to take one last look at his horses...and imagines that Jaime is riding one of them. During the sad reverie, the voice of Lee Majors can be heard in the background singing "Sweet Jaime" - OMFG, who approved that? - and he tearfully stares into space as his grisly singing voice pays homage to his dead fiancee. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
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