Recap: A cyber bandit wearing white gloves has broken into an office on a university campus, and is tapping away on a computer. The burglar's accomplice says he hears someone coming and urges him to "boogie" and start the deprogramming process. The bandit's like, "I'm on it" and starts to deprogram whatever nefarious thing he's doing - but isn't able to fully finish the process when he's forced to flee so he doesn't get caught red-handed. The two men race off just as Professor Thomas Tharp bursts in...and he glances around the office with a look of puzzled bewilderment on his face, then glares suspiciously at the computer. Oscar and Rudy discuss the unknown cyber bandit who was able to transfer $5,000 from an OSI account late last night without anyone being able to trace where it went. Rudy shakes his head in dismay and says that whoever's stealing from the OSI is a genius 'cause there doesn't seem to be any way to stop him...such as, I dunno, tightening up cyber-security at the OSI, or putting a temporary freeze on withdrawals from the OSI bank account until someone in the IT department can get to the bottom of whatever the hell's going on. Rudy says there's one bit of good news: the bandit was in such a hurry to flee that he left behind some un-deprogrammed code, which means they were able to identify the computer terminal used in the theft: a computer in the library at the fictional South Coast University, which has a direct connect into the Library of Congress. Apparently, the clever bandit devised a program that logs onto the Library of Congress, and this somehow gives him unfettered access to the cash stores of various banks and businesses throughout the country...which sounds highly improbable, but then I'm a recapper not a pre-Internet age network administrator. Oscar furrows his brows and solemnly says, "Amazing, Rudy", then adds that a breach like this could mean that top secret OSI material might become "as available as a library book", namely their documentation about Jaime and Max (and Steve, I'm assuming) in what they generically refer to as The Bionic Project. He stares concernedly into space for a few seconds before rhetorically asking, "Do you have any idea what a foreign power would pay for that?" and Rudy refrains from pointing out that much of Europe, in particular a cluster of fictional East/West German border towns, is already well acquainted with Jaime's "top secret" bionics after getting first hand demonstrations of her super human abilities during the course of her various overseas OSI missions. Rudy tells Oscar he can put a pin in that concern, 'cause - at least for now - it looks as though the bandit is only interested in withdrawing money. He says he put together a profile on the person and deduced that he/she is highly educated, has likely worked for a government or bank, and is probably a teacher or alumnus of South Coast University. Oscar says they're going to need to get someone over there, pronto, and Rudy concurs and says he's already spoken to Professor Tharp, who almost caught the bandit in the act. Oscar picks up the phone, hits #1 on his speed-dial and cheerily asks, "Hello, Jaime..? How would you like to go back to college?" [Answer: fuck off, Oscar. I'm too busy teaching school five days a week to take on anymore of your idiot missions]
Jaime is impersonating a student on the South Coast University campus when she's nearly mowed down by a cyclist (a black dude named Benny). He shrieks, "Sorry! I'm late for work!" and cycles over to his place of employment, the Gypsy Wagon lunch truck. Jaime gathers all the stuff that spilled out of her bag during the near collision and is approached by a letter jacket clad jock, who flirtily asks her if she needs help. When she declines, he shoots her a look of incredulity and says, "You must have no idea who I am" and she confirms that, yep, that is correct and asks him if he could direct her to the physics building. He stares back at her blankly and says he has no idea, but that he could easily show her where the phys. ed building is located...and she mutters, "Shocker" while ambling over to the Gypsy Wagon. She stands in line behind an old lady (Mrs. Simpson) who's a senior student enjoying some continuing education in her twilight years. Benny orders the lunch truck cook, a Native American dude named Mango, to make Mrs. Simpson's order a special special, which appears to be fast food slop with a side order of cash. Jaime orders a cup of tea and asks if anyone in the lunch truck knows where the physics building is, and Benny says he has to deliver lunch to Professor Tharp, whose office is in the building, and would be happy to walk her over there in a few minutes. The overbearing jock takes it upon himself to sit beside Jaime on a nearby bench and get all touchy feely with her, to which she reacts by telling him she's not interested and could he please get lost. Benny notices what's going on and heads over to launch a rescue by "accidentally" spilling his drink all over the jock...and then Jaime sends the jock flying through the air by bionically tipping the bench in her direction as if it's a teeter-totter. When he lands with a painful sounding thud, Jaime tells Benny they'd better get the hell outa there. As Jaime and Benny stroll across campus, Jaime tells Benny she's taking a computer course from Professor Tharp. He exclaims, "I dig computers!" - but says he thinks Tharp is a turkey. When the two arrive at Tharp's office, Benny hands him his lunch, while Jaime introduces herself. Tharp goes, "Oh right. Jaime Sommers, from the government" and Jaime's all, "The fuck?" and looks miffed at him for blowing her cover in front of Benny. After Benny heads out, Jaime chides Tharp for being as blabby as she usually is on her missions, and reminds him that he was supposed to keep mum about her status as an OSI agent. Tharp dismissively assures her that it all went straight over Benny's head - just as Benny can be seen through the window, mocking Tharp with a turkey impersonation, gabbling, "Gobble gobble!" LOL. Jaime tells Tharp she plans to uncover the bandit's identity by taking classes, asking questions, and - fingers crossed - catching him in that act when he makes a return trip to the computer.
After Jaime leaves, Tharp gets on the phone and tells whoever he's talking to that their friend's computer program is very valuable...and that after talking to the OSI agent, it's obvious that the OSI hasn't been able to break the code. He says that everything is ready to be set into motion, then gets an order to kill the OSI agent who's looking into the matter. Oh no! Jaime ambles over to the Gypsy Wagon to get a coffee and tell Benny that she too concurs about what a turkey Tharp is. Benny comes right out and asks her if she's a federal agent, and she chuckles and breezily says she's just a low level clerk who was sent to the university to take a computer course now that the government is computerizing all of their records. A skeptical Benny asks her what kind of computer system they're getting, and she replies, "A big one" ... and after Benny and Mango exchange a knowing glance, Mango slips a knockout drug into Jaime's cup of coffee. Jamie reports to Professor Tharp that Benny seemed overly curious about her presence on campus, and Tharp half-heartedly apologizes for blowing her cover and says he's not used to all "this spy stuff". He assures her that Benny is just a dopey lunch trunk flunky, but Jaime insists that the men that make up the food truck crew (Benny, Mango, and Stubbs) are a lot smarter than he's giving them credit for. After she leaves his office and is out of [non-bionic] hearing range, Tharp mutters, "A lot smarter" then installs a recording device on the computer that was the target of the earlier break-in. Jaime settles in for her all-night stakeout by sitting at a table in the library and pretending to study. She sips her coffee in an effort to stay awake - just as Mrs. Simpson joins her. She natters about her decision to go back to school so she could fulfill her life's dream of earning a college degree...and Jaime starts involuntarily yawning and eventually passes out. Mrs. Simpson coos, "It's all right, just sleep", then gives Benny and the food truck guys the all clear. They tiptoe inside the library, sneak past Jaime, and enter the computer office. Benny cackles gleefully as he calls the computer "my little money machine" and starts to tap away on the keyboard...while, unbeknownst to him, the device that Tharp installed earlier begins recording everything he's doing. Benny logs into the Library of Congress, then accesses the OSI bank account and transfers another $5,000 to his account. It's unclear why he doesn't think to transfer larger amounts of cash so that he can cut down on the number of break-ins he needs to risk doing. Tharp sidles up to Stubbs, who's standing outside the library building acting as a lookout. Tharp suggests to Stubbs that they get Benny to do their dirty work for them and dispose of Jaime - but Stubbs scrunches his face concernedly 'cause he's not totally on board with selling out his friend and/or getting into the murder business. While cyber thieving, Benny taps into the OSI's Bionic Project data and runs a profile on Jaime Sommers, who he learns is 28, 5'9, 120 lbs, has a grade 6 clearance, and possesses bionic capabilities. Mango's all, "Aaah man! She's here to stop us" and Benny promises he won't let that happen. Jaime phones Oscar to tell him she wasn't able to turn up anything last night 'cause she fell asleep and allowed the bandit to sneak past her and steal another $5,000 from the OSI. Oscar asks her if it's possible she was drugged, and Jaime mulls that over and says that since she's drugged, chloroformed, or restrained by rope in pretty much every episode, it's a definite possibility.
Benny laments to Mango being unable to de-program his computer code last night...and a few seconds later, a student named Raoul comes over to the Gypsy Wagon and requests a special special. Jaime, who's standing nearby, activates her bionic ear and hears Benny tell the lunch truck guys to be cool 'cause he's not about to let her (Jaime) catch them giving out special specials. Benny then returns Raoul's quantum physics book and remarks on how fascinating he found it - just as Jaime wanders over to report that the coffee she got from him yesterday tasted like shit. She unwisely orders another coffee...and after she ambles off, Mango shakes his head worriedly and tells Benny, "She's gettin' heavy." Jaime tells Professor Tharp that she's pretty sure Benny is in on the computer scam - but Tharp dismissively retorts that Benny is nothing but a dopey dead end kid. Jaime points out that anyone who reads books on quantum physics in his leisure time can't be dismissed as a dope, then informs him that she's going to do a deep dive into Benny's activities and see if she can uncover anything resembling a smoking gun. After she exits his office, Tharp calls someone to report that he plans to retrieve the computer tape later tonight, and that he's going to arrange with Stubbs, his inside man, to "kill two birds with one stone". Late that night, Jaime bionically breaks into the library building and heads over to the kitchen area. Benny, Mango, and Stubbs, who are staking out the building from a distance, are all, "Ack! What if she finds the thing we're hiding in the refrigerator?!" The men advance on the building with Benny armed with Stubbs's gun, as Jaime breaks into the padlocked fridge and finds a stash of money, along with a book on pre-Internet age computer coding. Ah-ha! Jaime activates her bionic ear and hears Mrs. Simpson ask the lunch truck crew whassup with them sneaking inside the building at this time of night, and they tell her they're here to stop Jaime from getting all in their bidness. Jaime ambushes them by leaping down from atop the fridge, grabs the gun from Benny, and at gunpoint demands to know what in blazes the four of them are into. Benny admits to being the computer bandit, and Jaime's all, "Yeah..? No shit" ... and Mrs. Simpson interjects and tells Jaime that Benny is the Robin Hood of South Coast University 'cause he's been stealing from the rich and helping a total of thirty-eight impoverished kids afford higher education. Benny explains that because he's black, he wasn't able to get himself admitted to university despite how hard he worked...so instead vowed to sneak into enough computer science classes and learn all he could on the down-low. Jaime shakes her head in wonderment and calls him incredible, but says that as a government agent she's pretty sure she's not supposed to condone his cyber crimes. Suddenly, Tharp and two thugs appear and chloroform Jaime from behind, and then Tharp then orders Stubbs to tie up his friends. When Benny's all, "Wha-a-a-at's going on?!", Tharp snidely tells him he's too damn smart for his own good.
Benny, Mango, Jaime, and Mrs. Simpson are tied up and transported over to the lunch truck...and the full extent of the nefariousness of this episode's plot is fully revealed. A sheepish Stubbs tells his friends he betrayed them 'cause Tharp offered him a shit ton of money, and Tharp tells Benny he recorded his computer program so he could replicate the cyber-thieving for his own evil-minded purposes. He then chloroforms Benny, puts the gun in his limp hand, turns on the gas, and sets a timer for a bomb to go off a few minutes from now. Jaime regains consciousness, smells the gas, and quickly realizes that she needs to get herself and everyone else out of the lunch truck pronto. She bionically breaks through the ropes on her arms and feet, then pokes everyone else awake and kicks open the back door. Everyone spills out - except Benny, who she has to go back for - and hobbles as far away from the lunch truck as possible so they can watch it blow up from a safe distance. Jaime asks the group if they know who's responsible for nearly killing them just now, and Mango tells her it was Tharp. She's all, "Mother! Fucker!" and bionically races over to the library. Tharp and Stubbs are inside the office, taking apart the computer so they can extract Benny's program from the recording device. Stubbs moans about how bad he feels for blowing up his friends, and Tharp snarks at him to shut it. When Jaime enters the library, Tharp spots her and orders his men to shoot her - but every one of their bullets miss as she ducks behind the stacks. She then bionically pushes the heavy shelving units onto the two men shooting at her, crushing them beyond recognition. Tharp, who really can't bring himself to do his own dirty work, orders Stubbs to shoot Jaime...but Stubbs is reluctant to commit murder on demand, especially after Jaime coos, "You're not a killer, Stubbs." Benny, meanwhile, has sneaked into the library and gives Tharp a hard thump on the back of the head with a heavy reference book. Hurray! Jaime strolls on campus with Benny, Mango, and Mrs. Simpson. She tells Benny that Oscar's OSI cyber experts think his computer program is brilliant, which explains why he was offered a lucrative job in D.C. as opposed to being charged for wire fraud or grand theft. He tells Jaime he was only too happy to accept the job, 'cause part of the deal was that the OSI would pick up the financial slack for the thirty-eight impoverished students he was helping put through university. The four chuckle over the implausible but happy outcome of this episode, and stroll along their merry way. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
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