Recap: Oscar shows Jaime two expertly forged paintings he has on display in his office and tells her that the forger is a genius, then orders his men to bring in the shameless scoundrel. He introduces him to Jaime as Pierre Lambert and describes him as a mediocre painter, extraordinary forger, and all-around dipshit. Pierre takes issue with that less-than-flattering assessment - but Oscar barks at him to shut up and sit down. He tells Jaime the Louvre was recently targeted by a forger and had two masterpieces stolen, which were replaced by fakes, and the police strongly suspect that Pierre is behind the theft. He adds that the authorities have no idea where the originals are, but are certain that Pierre is working for a top master criminal named Michael Beaumont. He hands Jaime a photo of Beaumont and tells her that the OSI and French police are doing everything possible to capture him. He then glares at Pierre and gives him an ultimatum: help them catch Beaumont or spend years of his life in prison. Pierre explains that he fled to the U.S. to hide from Beaumont, who thinks he's still working on a famous DeJon painting he plans to switch with the original in Paris's Rousseau Museum. Oscar says he wants to use this latest caper as a way to catch Beaumont in the act of switching paintings, then shoves a photo of a prison in Pierre's face. Pierre contritely agrees to fly to Paris with Jaime...and Oscar barks at him to get the hell out of his office, then pulls Jaime aside and warns her to be careful of the slippery trickster. Upon arrival at the Paris airport, Jaime tells Pierre to set up a meeting with Beaumont and says he can pass her off as his newest girlfriend. As the cab heads to Pierre's apartment, Pierre spots a man he recognizes, and looks alarmed and sinks himself down into the car seat. He tells Jaime he just spotted Jack Rochette, an art critic Beaumont uses to authenticate forged paintings. He tells the cab driver to make the next turn...then asks Jaime to pay the driver so he can quickly dash into his building unseen. When he's unable to slip away from Jaime once inside the building, he jimmies the lock of a random apartment and tells her it's his place. She heads straight to the bathroom to freshen up, while Pierre sneaks out when the real tenant - a portly, middle-aged man - returns home. A few seconds later, Jaime emerges from the bathroom and is spotted by the half-undressed tenant, who demands to know what the hell she's doing in his apartment. She stammers that she's a friend of Pierre's...and as scripted coincidence would have it, the tenant's son-in-law's name is Pierre, so he assumes that Jaime is having an affair with him. When he thrusts a framed photo of his daughter and son-in-law at her and accuses her of being a homewrecker, Jaime says there's obviously been a mix-up and tries to explain that her Pierre is not the same Pierre he's talking about. She then glances out of the window, sees Pierre run across the street and enter a building...and bids the tenant a hasty adieu. She bionically runs across the street, then leaps up to the window ledge of Pierre's apartment - with her luggage! - and climbs inside and seats herself in his living room. She glares at him and chirps, "Hi!", and he stares back at her in shocked bewilderment. She strides over to the phone and threatens to call Oscar and report his attempt to abandon the mission, but he begs her not to and says he only did it 'cause he's so terrified of Beaumont. Jaime assures him that the OSI will protect him (sorta), so he promises to not try to ditch her again, and agrees to set up a meeting with Beaumont. He tells her that for the meeting she's going to have to wear something slinky so she looks like the type of skank he would normally hook up with.
In the next scene, Jaime is decked out in a low cut black dress and tacky fishnet stockings, along with a curly blonde wig that has a ridiculous red flower pinned on one side. She tells Pierre to call Beaumont and arrange a meeting...and he makes a pretend call and lets loose with a string of brash insults - but Jaime calls him out after bionically hearing the automated sound of the operator's voice on the other end. She barks at him to stop fucking around and call Beaumont for real, and he sheepishly obeys. Pierre tells Beaumont he'll meet him at the Bon Chance Café to surrender and discuss their latest forgery collaboration. Beaumont agrees to the meeting...and after Pierre hangs up, Jaime warns him not to pull any more tricks. At the café, Pierre excuses himself to use the men's room, then heads straight to the pay phone to report to police that a hooker at his establishment is attempting to entice customers. He orders them to jail the hussy immédiatement! The French police arrive, spot Jaime in her blank skank dress, and forcibly escort her out of the café. She's all, "Wha-a-a? I'm an undercover OSI agent!" and explains, in a voice loud enough so that anyone within earshot can easily hear her, that she's an American spy working with the French Secret Service...and somehow restrains herself from showcasing her bionic abilities so that word of her superhuman cyborg strength can expand past North America and start spreading throughout western Europe. Beaumont's car pulls up...and Beaumont rolls down his window just in time to hear Jaime blow hers and Pierre's cover story. The police tell Jaime that they will have to verify her agent status, and she agrees to go to the station as long as they can resolve the matter rapidement. Pierre, meanwhile, is watching all this go down from the men's room doorway, then is, "Ack!" when he sees Beaumont's car parked in front of the café. Beaumont orders his driver to turn at the next corner so they can abduct Pierre when he tries to make a break for it. Incidentally, it is so interesting that every Parisian in this episode seems to speak in heavily accented English, even when speaking to other Parisians. LOL.
Jaime calls Oscar from the police station so he can vouch for her, then rushes out to resume carrying out her badly compromised mission. The French police salute her on the way out. LOL. Jaime witnesses Pierre being forced into Beaumont's car, so she hails the taxi that just happens to appear out of nowhere and barks, "Follow that car!" Beaumont quickly realizes they're being tailed, and orders his driver to continue on to his gated property. Beaumont brings Pierre into his workshop that's filled with various painting forgeries in progress and orders him to finish the fake DeJon 'cause he has a buyer lined up. Jaime is caught trespassing on Beaumont's property and is swiftly brought inside the house. Beaumont snidely says, "Welcome, Miss Sommers" and Jaime is somehow stunned that he knows her name, despite her indiscreet blabbiness during the previous scene. Beaumont tells her that Pierre confessed everything about their spy mission, then receives a call from the DeJon buyer: a powerful mafioso from Cannes named Alfredo Moreau. Jaime bionically eavesdrops on the call so she can hear Beaumont try to increase the price for the DeJon by telling him that a Greek shipping magnate wants the painting so he can give it to his Swedish trophy bride as a wedding gift. Moreau retorts by threatening to kill him for trying to fuck with the deal they already made, and Beaumont pales and says he was only joking and promises to deliver the DeJon original in two days. He hangs up and orders his henchmen to lock Jaime in the painting workshop with Pierre. Pierre complains to Jaime about how tired he is of painting forgeries, and is thinking about telling Beaumont he's not going to finish the DeJon, 'cause he figures either way he's a goner. Jaime implores him to finish - but to make one small flaw in the painting so they'll have a way of telling it apart from the original...and hopes that this will lead to Beaumont confessing his crimes. Pierre agrees and asks her if she'd be willing to change clothes and pose for him in a 'paint me like one of your French girls' Titanic type situation so he can feel more inspired, and she's like, "Sure, what the hell?" Jaime poses like the subject in the DeJon painting - mid-way through combing a lock of her hair - and Pierre finishes the masterpiece just as Beaumont and his henchmen enter the room. Beaumont looks over the painting, declares it a brilliant forgery, and says he wants the chemical aging process done on it asap so they can switch it with the original tonight. As they leave with Beaumont clutching the fake DeJon, Jaime bionically overhears him tell his men they'll dispose of Pierre and Jaime before they leave for the museum. Pierre sheepishly admits to Jaime that he couldn't bring himself to make a flaw in the forgery, but Jaime says it's no problem 'cause it'll be obvious to anyone that it's a fake given that the paint hasn't fully dried yet...which - the fuck?? - seems like a brazenly inept error for a high caliber criminal like Beaumont to be making, but then I'm a recapper not an art forger. Jaime quickly formulates a new plan to hoodwink the bad guys: she's going to dress up the mannequin (that just happens to be in the workshop) in her outfit, put on Pierre's clothes, then leap out of the window with the mannequin so that Beaumont et. al. will be convinced that she and Pierre plunged to their deaths in a defiant suicide pact. Yep, that plan sounds just crazy enough to work! Pierre starts loudly complaining about how fed up with life he is and how much he wants to end it all with Jaime...then hides on the balcony in his underwear while Jaime tosses the mannequin out the window. Beaumont and his henchmen are all, "Wha-at's going on up there?" and rush upstairs to see whassup - just in time to see who they think is Pierre [bionically] leaping to his death and landing face down beside his beloved. Beaumont and his henchman peer outside the window and decide that they're convinced beyond any kind of reasonable doubt that what they're looking at are the lifeless bodies of Pierre and Jaime. Beaumont says he'll arrange for the gardener to get a wheelbarrow and cart the dead bodies away after they get back from the museum...and once they're out of earshot, a clueless Pierre laments the sacrifice he believes Jaime would actually make for a dickwad such as himself. Jaime waits a few more seconds before leaping back up to the workshop...and when she calls out for Pierre, he assumes it's her ghost, coming back to haunt him out of revenge. She assures the dolt she's very much alive, but has no time to explain how 'cause they have a forgery switcheroo to stop!
Beaumont and his men arrive at the Rousseau Museum with the forged DeJon...and Jaime and Pierre pull up in a stolen car soon after. Jaime tells Pierre she's going inside to thwart the switcheroo - but that she needs him to create a diversion by throwing a rock in one of the windows. Jaime sneaks inside and leaps up to the second floor so she can get a good view of Gallery 3, where the DeJon is hanging. She watches the museum's security guard, who's in on the scam, lead Beaumont and his henchman over to the DeJon. They take down the original and hang the forgery in its place...and while they're doing that, they suddenly hear the shattering of glass and decide they all need to rush over to the window to investigate while leaving both paintings unattended. Jaime bionically leaps into the gallery and pulls a clever re-switcheroo...and when the thieves return, they leave with the same painting they came with. Jaime sneaks out of the museum and tells Pierre they need to get to Cannes asap...and that she's going to have to get a new outfit so she can pass herself off as a Swedish trophy wife. In Cannes, Beaumont and his henchmen arrive at Moreau's yacht to deliver the DeJon. Moreau looks impressed, and Jack Rochette (the art appraiser) assures him he personally witnessed the switcheroo with the original from the Rousseau Museum. Moreau hangs the painting on the wall, calls it magnificent, and hands over the $1.2 million dollar fee. Jaime and Pierre arrive at the dock where Moreau's yacht is parked, and she's dressed in a strapless white ensemble and a floppy beach hat. She bursts onto the yacht and lets loose with a cartoonish Swedish accent...and by cartoonish Swedish accent, I mean she's firmly in Muppet/Swedish Chef territory. She glares at Beaumont and sing-songingly snaps, "Diju really tink ju could cheat me and git avay vit it?" and Beaumont stares at her with a WTF? expression, not least 'cause he stupidly assumed she was dead, and tells Moreau the woman's name is Jaime Sommers and that she's an OSI agent. Jaime brushes that off as a lie and says she's the new wife of Greek tycoon Nick Theopolis and calls Beaumont "a naughty man" for selling her a forgery. She walks over to the DeJon, declares it too a forgery, then wipes her fingers on the painting to illustrate the wet paint. She rubs the paint on Beaumont's jacket while clucking, "Naughty, naughty", then summons Pierre aboard the vessel so he can confess that, yep, he forged the painting at Beaumont's order. Beaumont cries, "I've been tricked!" while an enraged Moreau orders his men to take him below deck so they can figure out how to terminate him. He then thanks Jaime for setting him straight about the forgery, and wishes her much happiness with her rich Greek husband. As Jaime and Pierre beat a hasty retreat, they walk past Beaumont, who's banging on the window on the lower level of the yacht pleading, "Help meeeeee!" Jaime says she'll break him out of there if he agrees to testify against Moreau and confess his many crimes...and when he eagerly agrees, Jaime bionically breaks the window and helps him climb out.
Back at the OSI, Oscar tells Jaime and Pierre that Beaumont's confessions helped the French authorities recover the original paintings that had been stolen, and that they're now back in the museum where they belong. He applauds Pierre for doing a good job on the mission, but Pierre laments all the harm he's caused everyone...then whines about how he's never going to be as brilliant an artist as the masters, blah blah. Jaime urges him to paint his own originals and have faith in himself, and reminds him that the masters didn't think they were masters while they were in the process of becoming masters. Pierre mulls that over and promises to give it a try. Fantastic. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
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