Recap: A police officer activates his siren and pulls over a white truck, which - surprise! - is being driven by Jaime. He chides her for driving too fast and asks to see her license and registration. She apologetically explains that she borrowed the truck from Jim Elgin 'cause she has an important meeting in the city...and describes Elgin as her legal guardian, despite her being a grown woman who's well into her twenties. The police officer brusquely gives her a speeding ticket and growls at her to slow down, and Jaime scrunches her face with irritation. Jaime arrives at Oscar's office, ignores the older man sitting across from him, and starts bitching about the $10 speeding ticket that some pompous ass of a dickwad cop just gave her. Oscar cringes, then introduces her to Commissioner Sam Hart of the Santa Regina Police Department. Jaime sheepishly apologizes for trash-talking pompous ass cops just now, but he's gracious about it and tells her that very soon she'll have a police officer's perspective. When Jaime's all, "Wha-aa?", Oscar explains that the OSI has been receiving disturbing reports from its overseas agents claiming that a foreign female spy has enrolled herself in the Santa Regina Police Academy. And since there have been vague references to a giant espionage plot in the works, he thinks that this spy could be the key to the entire operation. He tells Jaime that her next mission - should she choose to accept, which she has to 'cause he never gives her any choice - is to pose as a Santa Regina police cadet so she can find out who the foreign agent is and what she's planning. He informs her that he's arranged for a substitute teacher to take over her class at the Ojai base school, then flirtily adds that she'll look great in a police uniform. Jaime rolls her eyes and looks less than thrilled by the assignment. During the first roll call at the academy, which is being run by a sexist douchewad by the name of Captain Godfrey, a man wearing a ski mask suddenly bursts into the room with a fake gun, shoots blanks in the air, then runs back out again. Captain Godfrey informs the bewildered cadets, most of whom are hiding under their desks, that the fake intrusion was a test of how observant and fearless they are in a crisis...then asks if anyone can recall what the gunman was wearing. A curly haired woman named Arlene puts up her hand and offers a pretty accurate description, and Captain Godfrey gives her a curt nod of approval and tells the rest of the cadets that they're all going to have to become more observant and less pants shittin', not least 'cause this is the first time the academy has accepted women to be trained for street patrol. He says he's personally skeptical about a woman's ability to be a beat cop, but is reluctantly willing to give it a shot. [I'm sure the little ladies who are sitting in front of you thank you.] The fake gunman then re-enters the classroom, takes off his ski mask, and - surprise! - turns out to be the same cop (Officer Bob Welton) who issued Jaime her speeding ticket.
Jaime enters her dorm room and learns that she's roommates with Arlene, who tells her that her last name is Smith. Jaime compliments her impressive performance during class and asks her where she developed her sharp skills of observation, and Arlene abruptly shuts down and mutters something about picking up various skills here and there. She then hangs up a poster of Rinja Gabrin, an Indian woman who's known around the world as the Mother of World Peace, and gushes about how inspired by her she is. Obstacle course training! After the cadets change into sweat suits, Bob Welton and Captain Godfrey inform them that the results of the obstacle course will indicate what kind of shape they're in and how well they can coordinate their legs while jogging over two parallel rows of tires. Since the course was designed for men, they fully anticipate that "the ladies" may only be able to complete half of it. As expected, the men run through the course fairly easily...while several of the women cadets struggle to climb over the wall and make it through the tire section. Arlene, however, does extraordinarily well, which prompts Jaime to eye her suspiciously. She then activates her bionic hearing in time to hear Welton and Godfrey bet each other $10 on whether "the skinny blonde" will even reach the finish line. An appalled Jaime vows revenge for her $10 speeding ticket, then uses her bionic abilities to sail over the wall, easily race through the tire section, and hit the finish line in record time. She dances over to Welton and chirps, "Ten bucks for ten bucks!" which I have to think constitutes yet another breach of her status as an undercover OSI agent with top secret bionic hearing abilities. Jaime contacts Oscar and tells him she has no solid leads yet, but that she's highly suspicious of a cadet named Arlene Smith. Oscar tells her that he and his team will run a check on the woman...and by run a check, he means they're going to crank up the ginormous OSI computer with its ginormous magnetic tapes and bright flashing buttons, while a deafening dot matrix printer generates a hard copy of the results. Oscar promptly calls Jaime back on the academy's pay phone and tells her that they somehow missed the fact that Arlene Smith doesn't exist. Nice going, OSI chief. He can't say for certain that Arlene is the foreign agent, but tells Jaime to keep a close eye on her. After the call, Jaime is admonished by a hall monitoring cop, who barks at her to get back to her room 'cause she's going to need all the rest she can get for tomorrow. Jaime tiptoes back to her room, briefly hovers over Arlene's bed, and is shocked when she realizes it's empty. Elsewhere on the campus, we hear a woman speaking in a thick Russian accent to the hall monitor cop who just bitched at Jaime. The Russian says she knows that Jaime was slipped into the academy at the last minute, says, "Maybe zare's zomdink zare", and will ask her people to zee if zay have zomdink on heer. As two men carry over a crate containing a gun, the Russian says that their nefarious plot entails acquiring what they need gradually - crate by crate - so that no one notices a gigantic shipment of weapons. Seems prudent. When Arlene tiptoes back into the dorm room, Jaime turns on the lights and haughtily informs her it's 3:00am. Arlene claims she couldn't sleep and took a walk, then asks Jaime why it matters. Another female cadet, Parker, appears in the doorway and sleepily tells them to hold it down, then acknowledges that she's the crappiest cadet in the class and needs all the sleep she can get. She adds that she doesn't thinks she's cut out for policing...and after she ambles back to her room, Jaime and Arlene exchange suspicious glares.
The next day, the cadets are put through a speed driving test in a parking lot with pylons. Bob Welton, who's sitting in the passenger seat while Jaime drives, barks, "Break, turn, punch it!" then concludes that she's a very sloppy driver. When she points out how hard it is to focus while he's screeching in her ear, he snaps that if she can't take the pressure in an empty parking lot, there's no way she'll be able to handle herself on the street. As he bitchily storms off, Parker pokes her head inside the window and tells Jaime not to feel too bad, and that she did way worse on her driving test. Jaime calls Oscar for another update, and he tells her he can't find any other aliases for Arlene Smith. Jaime says she's almost certain that Arlene is the spy 'cause of how amazingly well she's doing in the academy - much like a foreign agent who's received this kind of physical training before - plus she sneaks out of their room at night. She tells Oscar she's planning on following her next time. That night, Jaime pretends to be fast asleep when Arlene tiptoes out...and after a few seconds pass, she gets out of bed and follows her. While she's doing that she notices a red delivery truck pull onto the grounds, and instead of hiding behind some nearby bushes to avoid detection, she bionically leaps up to the Santa Regina Police Academy sign. After the truck passes, she jumps back down and follows Arlene into the mess hall and finds her in the kitchen, munching on leftover chicken. While spying, Jaime accidentally knocks over a stack of dishes and has to sheepishly acknowledge to Arlene that, yep, she followed her here...and Arlene gets peeved and accuses her of being an undercover spy for her father. Jaime calls Oscar - FYI Oscar fans: he wears mustard colored PJs to bed! - to report that Arlene Smith is actually Arlene Hart, the daughter of Police Commissioner Sam Hart. Apparently, she uses an alias 'cause she didn't want her father to know that she applied to the academy. He would rather she become "a lady" and stay out of harm's way working as a research assistant in a law firm: a job Arlene hated. Oscar's like, "Thanks, babe" and wryly tells her to call him at a more reasonable hour next time. Arlene asks Jaime who Oscar is, so Jaime blabs the entirety of the OSI mission 'cause why keep intel about a top secret government mission a secret?
The unseen Russian woman is talking to her co-conspirators again, and she tells them that the report came in on Jaime, who her people suspect is an OSI agent. She sneers, "Vee can't let heer live until graduation." Oh no! The next training exercise entails the cadets pursing a criminal (played by Bob Welton) by car, then placing him under arrest without needlessly shooting him. Parker is the first one up, and she empties her gun of its fake bullets shooting at Bob for waving a wrench at her. LOL. The training officer pulls Parker aside and tells her she's definitely not cut out to be street cop. And probably not a shopping mall security guard either. Jaime and Arlene are sitting together on the steps of a fake building on the academy's back lot, talking openly (and well within earshot of the other cadets, OMFG) about the OSI mission at hand. Arlene implores Jaime to let her help, and Jaime decides that since she's been repeatedly compromising national security with her indiscreet blabbing this episode, why the hell not bring Arlene into the mission? A tearful Cadet Parker informs her classmates that she just got cut from the academy, but that the training officer told her he'd try to find a position for her as a file clerk, even though she can't type and has issues alphabetizing. Jaime and Arlene offer their sympathies until they're summoned for the training exercise. Jaime and Arlene pursue Bob Welton in a squad car...and when he gets cornered in an alley, Jaime orders him out of the car with his hands above his head. Bob exits the car, once again with the wrench in his hand, and Jaime barks at him to drop the tool and place both hands on the roof of the car. As that's happening, an unidentified cadet is climbing up to the roof of a nearby building and knocks a heavy set of studio lights onto the sidewalk. Jaime kicks her bionics into gear and pulls Bob to safety to avoid either of them getting flattened. Jaime calls Oscar to report on the attempt on her life and that Arlene had apparently spotted an unidentified woman climbing up to the roof. Oscar says he's worried that the foreign agent is onto their operation and that he'll be coming to Santa Regina shortly. Parker, meanwhile, says her goodbyes to the other cadets...then climbs into a police car with the hall monitor cop. She gleefully tells him, "Vee vooled dem. Everydink is verking pervekly." Eeeek! Parker's co-conspirators are in a secret garage, dressing up a car so that it looks deceptively like a Santa Regina squad car. Jaime and Arlene are in their dorm room, munching on pizza and racking their brains trying to figure out who the foreign agent could be. They exchange sightings on the red delivery truck that they've seen on the academy grounds a number of times, and Arlene says she was so suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number. Jaime asks her if she has some police friends who can run a check on the plate, and Arlene says, "Sure" and rushes out. Jaime hears something outside, so she races over to the window to see whassup and happens to spot the red delivery truck they were just discussing. She bionically leaps out the window, hops into her white truck, and starts following it. The drivers of the red truck notice Jaime tailing them...and when they radio Parker about it, she orders them to lead Jaime to the industrial area so they can dispose of her there. The delivery truck drivers, along with the driver of the fake squad car, cut Jaime off...and this causes her to slam into a telephone pole, which naturally results in the truck catching fire. Jaime escapes certain death by bionically kicking open the door, then races away from the truck as it explodes. I hope Jim Elgin has the funds to buy a new truck. Oscar and Jaime are meeting with Commissioner Hart, who's bitchily defensive about them smack-talking his men as if they're all criminals. He snarks at Jaime for getting in the way of a police emergency (say wuh?) and nonsensically says it was her duty as a motorist to get out of the way. Jaime explains that they didn't give her that chance, and reminds him that in addition to almost getting burned alive, she was nearly killed by a set of giant studio lights during a recent training exercise. The commissioner lamely says that that could have been an accident - but Oscar disagrees and says it's obvious that they're getting close to identifying the foreign agent. He orders the commissioner to assign Jaime to the Fifth Precinct and send her out as a beat cop so she can further investigate who the foreign agent might be. Jaime looks visibly annoyed at the extended mission, since she clearly didn't expect her faux policing to bleed into a Part 2 episode, but Oscar solemnly insists, "It's the only way."
Graduation! The cadets line up to accept their diplomas - and Arlene has darkened her hair so that her father won't recognize her...which, somehow, he doesn't. Jaime accepts her diploma, and gets a thank you from a smitten looking Bob Welton for saving his life earlier, and she shoots him a flirty wink. Mmm hmm. Meanwhile, Parker and her co-conspirators are sitting in the audience. One of them tells Parker that Jaime has been assigned to the Fifth Precinct, and Parker narrows her beady eyes and declares, "She von't last two days on zee job." Eeeek! Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
The Bionic Woman homepage
Recapper: Isabel K. French
Your contributions help keep the site ad-free
|
