Recap: An anxious looking, middle aged blonde woman is driving towards Ojai...and in the next scene, two thugs discuss their failed attempt to kill her. One of them says he thinks he managed to nick her in the arm with a bullet, and that he was able to trace her movements to a car rental agency and learn that she asked for directions to Ojai. Thug #1 furrows his brows and says, "Ojai...she's gone back to tell Jaime Sommers she's her mother"and Thug #2 replies, "Really? After all these years? What if Jaime believes her?" Thug #1 contorts his face all sinister-like and says, "Then we might have to kill them both." Eeeeeek! The injured woman, meanwhile, continues to drive while rubbing her bullet-grazed arm. Jaime is dreaming about herself as a child, riding a pony. Her mother appears and gives her a locket...and a few seconds later, the ringing phone wakes Jaime. The caller is a woman informing her that her parents' graves were vandalized last night, and that she needs to rush over to the cemetery, like pronto. Jaime arrives at the cemetery and stares at her parents' graves: Ann and James Sommers. Everything here looks to be in good order, so I'm not exactly sure what sort of vandalism the graves suffered. A dog bounds over to her, and she notices that Puzzles is engraved on his name tag...and as she pets him, she has a flashback of the dog she had when she was a small child, and his name was also Puzzles. A woman sitting in a nearby car summons the dog, and he obediently bounds over. Jaime scrunches her face in shock and bewilderment as she stares at the woman driving the car and incredulously mutters, "Mother..?" Mama Austin breezily tells Jaime she probably imagined the dog, the woman, and the car. LOL. Jaime irritably insists she heard the woman's voice and that it sounded exactly like her mother's - but Mama Austin says she was at Ann Sommers' funeral and that the power of suggestion can be very powerful. She wonders if they should maybe discuss this with Oscar, but Jaime snaps, "No!" and denies being crazy. Mama Austin reminds her that not so long ago her brain kept short-circuiting whenever she had romantic thoughts about Steve, then says she promised Oscar and Rudy she'd keep an eye out for any signs of squirreliness. Jaime gets angry and accuses her of acting as a spy, but Mama Austin says she only agreed to report back to them 'cause she cares for her and wants her to be safe. Jaime insists again that she saw Puzzles, then says she's going to drop by her childhood home to look for the pooch - who, if he's actually still alive, would make him one of the oldest dogs in all of dog history.
Jaime arrives at her childhood home and has brief flashbacks of her dearly departed parents. She greets Mrs. Noah, the current owner, and asks her if Puzzles is around. Mrs. Noah points over at Puzzles - OMG! he lives! - lounging on the front patio. Jaime asks her if Puzzles ever plays near the cemetery, but Mrs. Noah says she doubts seriously that a 20+ year old dog would have the strength to trot all the way to the cemetery and then frolic around. Jaime thanks her for her time and heads off - but suddenly her bionic hearing kicks in in time for her to hear a car engine start up. Off in the distance she notices the same car she saw being driven by her ghost-mother from the cemetery, goes, "Wha-a?!" and bionically races after it. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. When a truck appears in the oncoming lane, Jaime comes to an abrupt halt and throws in the towel on the pursuit. Jaime smugly tells Mama Austin she saw Puzzles at her childhood home - proof that she didn't imagine seeing him at the cemetery - and Mama Austin doesn't ask her to do the math that would explain how a dog she had when she was a small child could still be alive. Jaime is startled when she notices that Oscar is in the room and gets annoyed with Mama Austin for contacting him. Oscar says when he told Rudy Wells about what she experienced at the cemetery, Rudy worried that her fragile brain was starting to implode again and was causing her to hallucinate. He then hands Jaime a file folder labelled Top Secret, and says it contains the truth about what really happened to her parents. Both were professors at the university - but, apparently, her mother also worked undercover for the U.S. government. Jaime looks shocked and is all, "Wha-a?" and Oscar drops the bomb that they were both murdered. Jaime's like, "OMG!" and says she really did see a car that looked like it was being driven by her mother - but Oscar insists it's only possible for Ann Sommers to exist in her memories and dreams. A confused Jaime says she doesn't know what to think, so Oscar urges her to get some rest, not tax her brain further, and promises to call later. After he and Mama Austin head out, Jaime settles onto her couch to start reading the confidential file folder, and has another flashback of her mother giving her the locket she still wears around her neck.
The two thugs are still on the hunt for their target. Thug #1 says they'll be in Ojai in about an hour, and that he won't miss next time he gets a clear shot. Mrs. Noah calls Jaime to tell her about a bizarre thing that just happened: a woman stopped by to see the house, appeared to know where everything was, and was the spitting image of her dead mother. She apparently told Mrs. Noah she would be in town for one day so she could pay her respects to an old friend...and then will leave as mysteriously as she arrived. Jaime bionically races over to the cemetery and catches her mom-alike placing yellow roses atop James Sommers' grave. When the mom-alike spots Jaime advancing on her, she tries to run away - but Jaime grabs her arm and refuses to let her go. She demands to know who she is, and the overwhelmed woman covers her face with both hands and mumbles unintelligibly. Jaime pulls her hands away, peers into her eyes, and gently asks, "Mother..?" and the woman gives her a smile, tousles her hair affectionately, and moans, "Oh Jaime. Oh yes." Oscar is yelling at some flunky about why all of the information about Jaime's parents isn't included in their files, and the flunky tells him to chillax and explains that part of these records have been sealed. Oscar barks, "I want them!" so the flunky tells him that only OSI staff with high security clearance (such as Oscar himself) are permitted to request them. After reading the full report on the Sommers' demise, Oscar tries to reach Jaime, but gets Mama Austin instead. He tells her he fears that the woman buried in the cemetery isn't Jaime's mother, then grimly says, "It seems there were two Anns." It also seems that he just revealed top secret information to a civilian on an open phone line. Jaime's mom-alike - we'll call her Ann (for now) - tells Jaime that her plan was to catch a glimpse of her and then leave, and Jaime's all, "Wha-a?!" and asks her who's buried in Ann Sommers' grave. Ann says it wouldn't do her any good to know the answer to that...but when Jaime guilts her about how she owes her an explanation after pretending to be dead for so many years, she agrees to spill the beans - but insists they find somewhere private to talk. The two thugs are still on their way to Ojai. One of them pulls a gun out of the glove compartment. Eeeeeek! On the way to somewhere private, Ann tells Jaime that her father had been traveling with a woman named Kris Stewart when the fatal car accident occurred, and that the people who killed them are now after her. Jaime tells her there's an old barn up the road, and that they can have a proper heart-to-heart talk there. Once they reach the barn, Jaime asks Ann what Kris was doing in the car with her father, so she explains that she often needed cover so she could secretly attend spy conferences. Apparently, Kris looked a lot like her - especially after getting plastic surgery - and would stand in for her so no one could suspect that the real Ann was off doing government spy shit. I guess I can buy that. Jaime suddenly looks alarmed and says, "How do I know you're not Kris?" - right?!! - and Ann says whether or not she is or isn't is a moot point, since she's pretty much a dead woman walking now that she's being hunted by a couple of slow moving thugs. She tells Jaime that after her faux death, the government allowed her to continue working for them as long as she agreed to pretend to remain dead...'cause if her enemies knew she was alive, they'd have gone after her (her meaning Jaime). Jaime mulls over the nonsensically muddled storyline the writers have saddled her with this week, then asks her why she decided to return to Ojai after all this time. Ann gives her a vague non-answer that explains nothing, then suggests they pay a visit to Mama Austin.
The thugs finally reach Ojai. That can't be good. Mama Austin is wigged out by the sight of Ann Sommers, and tells Ann and Jaime that Oscar called to let her know about the shocking return of Jaime's mother from the dead. A conflicted looking Jaime implores Ann to tell her something that only her real mother would know, so Ann points at the locket she's wearing and says she gave it to her on the day she was fake killed. Jaime bursts into tears and says that that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she's her mother, and the two hug and weep together. Oscar is reading the secret file on the murders of Ann and James Sommers. His flunky asks him why no positive ID was made at the time of the accident, and Oscar says that everyone simply assumed it was Ann. He then says they're going to need a court order to exhume whatever body is in Anne's grave, so they can confirm that Kris Stewart is the one who's buried there. Once that's settled, they can start looking for Ann. Oscar stares concernedly into space and darkly adds, "The other side will want her too." Jaime tells Ann that she and Steve Austin were engaged to be married when she had her fateful skydiving accident, got horribly injured, and was made into a government-subsidized bionic cyborg without her consent. Ann looks confused and is all, "Huh? What's bionic?" and Jaime says it's probably easiest to demonstrate the concept. She jogs over to a nearby tree and [then stands back as her blonde-wigged stunt double] bionically leaps up onto the top branch...then leaps back down and lifts a heavy old tractor. Jaime happily tells her mom that, like her, she was brought back to life after being presumed dead. After recombobulating herself after seeing her bionic daughter in action, Ann grins and says she's so glad to have this precious time with her. Jaime chirps, "We have our entire lives!" but Ann sadly shakes her head and says that that isn't going to be possible. She explains that once her usefulness to the government was no more, she started working for some bad dudes on "the other side" and became a double agent - which means she's now being hunted by both sides, and that it's too dangerous for her (her meaning Jaime) to be seen with her. Jaime suggests calling Oscar to see if he can do anything to help, but Ann nixes that idea and says he'd have no choice but to put her in prison.
Oscar calls Jaime at the ranch to tell her he's camped out at the cemetery, exhuming her faux mother's grave. Jaime tries to sound casual as she goes, "Oh, really..?" but keeps mum about her interactions with Ann. Oscar tells her he'll drop by her house in half an hour...and after Jaime hangs up, her bionic hearing kicks in, and she alerts Ann that someone is coming. Ann cries, "It's them! They've finally caught up to me!" and Jaime jumps into action and leads her out the back door. They're immediately spotted by the thugs, but Jaime manages to keep them at bay by bionically throwing hay bales at them...then throws them into the stable, locks the door, and rips one of the tires off their car. She and Ann quickly climb into Ann's car and squeal off. Oscar learns that the dental records conclusively prove that the body in the grave is indeed that of Ann Sommers. He deduces that the woman who resurfaced must be her doppelganger, Kris Stewart, which means that Jaime could be in grave danger. Eeeeeek! Oscar and a handful of OSI agents arrive at the Austin ranch, but Jaime is nowhere to be found. They find the thugs' tire-less car and check out the license plates...and Mama Austin worriedly tells Oscar she has no idea where Jaime is. Oscar informs her that the woman claiming to be Ann Sommers is an imposter, then asks her if she thinks that Jaime would reveal her bionicness to the nefarious double agent. Let's see...has there been a single mission so far where Jaime hasn't revealed or brazenly demonstrated her bionic strength to everyone in viewing range? So...yeah...consider the double agent fully aware of Jaime's bionicness, Oscar. Oscar tells Mama Austin that Kris Stewart started working for "the other side" soon after she was let go from the government, and that there's a possibility that she might try to sell Jaime (aka OSI's bionic cyborg) to the bad dudes. Ack! Jaime empties her bank account - a little over $2,000 - and gets back into the car with Ann - I mean Kris. As they head to the airport, the thugs (who must have quickly escaped from the stable and made their way downtown in a new car) track their movements from a distance. Oscar orders an 'all points bulletin' for the fake Ann Sommers and sternly tells his OSI flunkies that they all need to be on the lookout for her. As Kris drives, she notices that they're being followed...and the thugs launch an aggressive pursuit and eventually force her off the road. When they approach the car with their guns drawn, Kris politely greets them and asks if she can talk to them somewhere out of hearing range from Jaime, and they just kind of shrug and go, "Yeah sure, OK." Kris tells Jaime to stay in the car and ambles off with the amiable hit men...and Jaime activates her bionic ear and is shocked when she hears one of the men say, "Hello, Kris", and then order his partner to "get the girl". Kris asks them if they're planning to kill Jaime, and they're like, "Uh, yeah. Pretty much." She implores them to spare her faux daughter 'cause she has absolutely nothing to do with their nefarious bidness...and assures them she's totes OK with being murdered as long as they leave Jaime alone. They're like, "Yeah sure, OK" - they're very agreeable! - so Kris goes back to the car and tells Jaime that these two nice men are FBI agents and she needs to go with them, and that this is goodbye. As the three walk off, Jaime defiantly mutters, "Not quite goodbye yet" and bionically races after the car. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. She manages to get ahead of the vehicle and causes a blockage by throwing a tree in the middle of the road, which the thugs crash into. One of the thugs waves his gun around as Jaime grabs him and bionically pulls him out of the car...and as that's happening, the gun goes off and a stray bullet hits Kris. As she slumps against the back seat, Jaime coos at her that everything's going to be OK...and a sheepish looking Kris confesses that she's not really her mother. Jaime sassily replies, "I know, Kris."
Jaime visits Kris in the hospital and gives her a bouquet of yellow roses. She asks Kris why she didn't turn her over to the thugs when she was pressured to, and Kris says she's known her ever since she was two years old, and that she was great friends with her mother. She explains that she knew about the locket 'cause Ann told her she was going to give it to her, and then died later that day. She puts her sad face on and says that Ann was the best friend she ever had, and that she wanted to come back to the only place she ever felt safe and loved. Jaime tells her she would have helped her if she'd been honest about her identity...and Kris wearily says she was tired of being herself and wanted to pretend to be her mother, even if only for a little while. Moving forward, she has agreed to cooperate with the OSI and testify against "the other side" in exchange for a light prison sentence. Jaime finds Mama Austin gardening at the ranch and tells her that Kris is going to be fine. Mama Austin confesses that she wasn't thrilled when "Ann" resurfaced 'cause she likes thinking of herself as her sole mother figure. Jaime's all, "Awww.." and tells her she's definitely stuck with the job of being her substitute mom...and then the two reminisce about old times, declare their mutual love for one another, and head back to the house with their arms around each other. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
1 Comment
Amina
8/25/2018 05:09:29 am
I watched a few re runs of The Bionic Woman; was disappointed for Jaime that the woman was not Ann Sommers afterall. Leave a Reply. |
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