The Sentinel Season 2 Unnervingly Detailed Episode Guide (Part 2, 2x12-2x24)
by Zelempa***** 2x12 Blind Man's Bluff Jim loses his sight, and Blair has to lead him around everywhere. Then, Blair gets drugged and goes nuts.
**** 2x13 Hear No Evil Jim goes to the doctor and gets his ears cleaned, and his hearing is too good! Twisted cops.
** 2x15 Secret Jim captured.
** 2x16 Dead Drop Blair trapped in an elevator.
* 2x17 Red Dust Russians. Radioactivity. Rock'n'roll.
** 2x18 Smart Alec Blair has to advise a teen prodigy. There are spiders.
*** 2x19 Private Eyes Naomi's psychic friend helps Blair and Jim on a kidnapping case.
*** 2x20 Vanishing Act Some guy is thought dead but isn't or something. I don't know, Jim keeps touching Blair.
** 2x21 Pennies from Heaven Jim and Blair try to recover lost money from the poor people amongst which it was distributed. Good luck with that.
*** 2x22 Survival Chasing criminals through the woods.
**** 2x23 His Brother's Keeper Jim's brother is a suspect in a crime; racetrack; Officer of the Year.
*** 2x24 Sleeping Beauty Girl wakes up after an eight-year coma with emotional IQ of a 12-year-old. Luckily, Jim likes 'em young.
2x12 Blind Man's Bluff
Jim and Blair order hot dogs from a stand; Jim discusses a girl he wants to ask out, while Blair gets momentarily distracted playing with a laser pointer, because he's a little kitten. "Why don't we try to stick to the subject at hand, huh?" asks Jim. "Now, whose dog is this?" Heh. The dog will not be important. Blair exposits that the girl Jim likes is a friend of his and he's afraid it'll be awkward if it doesn't work out. Besides, they've only ever talked on the phone.
BLAIR: We're male animals, right, Jim? Attraction is partly intellectual. But the visual components are a major aspect to it--without the physical thing, we don't have the whole package.
JIM: What are you saying, Margaret's not attractive?
BLAIR: I'm saying that... she has an inner beauty.
Ha. Jim still wants to meet her. Call from Simon. There's a jumper on a bridge. Since when is Jim the guy you call for this kind of thing?
The girl on the bridge is swaying and dancing and saying "Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?" The view over the rushing dam waterfall is nice and Jim agrees, but then the girl starts talking about a golden castle. She wants to go there. Jim tries to stop her, but she goes forward; he holds her hand, dangling over the side, trying to pull her back up, but she struggles free and falls into the water. Jim looks horrified.
In Simon's office the three credited characters hypothesize that the girl was high on "Golden," a new designer drug which makes people see golden hallucinations. Jim takes Blair to see "Sneaks," a snitch with a fascination with shoes. Over the course of the conversation with him, we learn that the Golden is coming from "Slicks," over at the amateur drag strip, that Slicks wants to make a connection with a big-deal drug distributor called "Cyrus", and that Blair's an "8 1/2" (small feet!) Sneaks walks away with Blair's "sneakers".
I don't understand this Sneaks. What shoe size is he? He seemed willing to take Jim's shoes if he had been wearing a kind that Sneaks wanted, and I guarantee Jim is no 8 1/2. Also, why did Jim wear combat boots to a meeting with an informant whom he knew only exchanged information for sneakers? I'll ignore the obvious question, "why not exchange information for money, and then buy many shoes?" because I already know the answer: "Shut up!"
Anyway, back in the loft, Blair puts on new shoes and Jim explains that Cyrus is a myth created by the DEA. By posing as Cyrus's men, Jim hopes to stop the flow of Golden out of Cascade.
Jim and Blair go down to the amateur drag strip. Blair tries to guess the winner of a race, but Jim correctly calls its opponent and then smirks "Looks can be decieving, huh, Chief?" FORESHADOWING. I guess. Jim finds Slicks using his super-eavesdropping skills and approaches him and his two friends, claiming to be a point man for Cyrus. When they don't respond right away, he calls them "three blind mice." This is starting to get to me. Jim gives them his card and starts to leave, but one of the men says "You dropped something." A bag of Golden. They're in.
As they walk away, Jim plays with the bag, and Blair warns, "You're getting that stuff all over your hands." Jim sees a man watching them, and Blair doesn't, even when Jim points him out. Then Jim's sight goes out of control. Car headlights flash to one big field of gold light.
Are you okay? No? Well, you could just like, grab my hands or whatever, I don't know. Whatever.
After commercial, Jim and Blair are in a doctor's office. He says Jim's vision problem is not caused by anything physical, is most likely neurological, and may or may not go away. He wants Jim to enter the hospital for tests and treatment. Jim says that won't work for him, thanks the doctor, and calls for Blair by his first name. "It's all right, buddy," says Blair soothingly, helping him up. This episode rocks.
Simon's office. Jim fills in Simon on the progress, pretending nothing's wrong. Simon finally wises up when Jim turns and walks directly into Blair, then opens the door into Blair's head. Blair cries out. "Oh God, I'm sorry, man," says Jim, reaching out and groping Blair's head. Simon: "All right, one of you tell me what the hell is going on."
Cut to post-explanation. Simon wants to take Jim off active duty until he's better, arguing reasonably, "One bullet and I lose you." Jim argues adamantly that he needs to still be on this case; he's already set up his cover, and he keeps seeing the face of that girl as she slipped off the bridge. Blair thinks that, with Jim's other senses and some help from him, he can pull it off. Oh, no, boys, I am totally with Simon on this one. This is not a good idea. For one thing, won't people wonder why Jim is always staring off into the middle distance instead of looking at them when they're talking? It was one thing with Simon, who was distracted with looking at the files on his desk and pouring coffee and so forth, and Jim spends half the time looking over in Blair's direction in meetings anyway. But undercover? Won't he want to stare at the marks intensely and menacingly?
Anyway, Blair suggests a "trial run" out in the bullpen, and Simon agrees, but "no help from you." Oh, now, that is just not fair. Help from Blair is the #1 100% bestest-ever thing about Jim being blind. The trial run consists of Jim accusing Henri of drinking too much cocoa ("it's your figure") and spending $20 on a muffin (note: when you're blind, it's probably not a good idea to say "Keep the change.") Then Margaret, Blair's friend, shows up, looking to meet Jim. She's a perfectly pretty girl. She and Jim agree to get together soon. Even though he seemed unimpressed with the trial run, Simon agrees to let Jim meet with the contacts again.
Loft. Blair tries to teach Jim to use sonar. Good luck with that one. Blair thinks the blindness was caused by a "power surge" to his senses but that he can get his vision back through "an act of will." Helpful. Jim gets a call from the contacts.
Blair drives Jim's blue SUV to the contact point. Jim gives Blair a radio transmitter and binoculars and heads off on his own on foot. Blair explains the visuals as Jim meets with two of the contacts and exchanges the suitcase of money for a Thermos full of Golden. After the deal, the third guy arrives and scans Jim for bugs. Of course they find one and hold guns on him. Jim manages to disarm one, and there's a tense standoff until Blair tricks the man holding Jim at gunpoint into thinking he's being targetted by shining the laser pointer on his chest. Jim says of course he's wired, he's backed up by more of Cyrus's men. They buy this and let him go.
Loft. Jim is playing with the salt and pepper shakers, moving them in front of his face and trying to see them, as Blair cleans up from dinner. There is a knock at the door--Margaret! Blair stalls, saying he has to put on a shirt on, while they set up Jim with a towel over his eyes like he has a headache. As soon as Margaret comes in Jim takes it off, so I'm not sure what that was supposed to accomplish. Jim offers her a drink and gets up, walking to the kitchen arm in arm with Blair.
Well, they certainly get along nicel-huh? Wait. Huh? Why did Blair have to put on a shirt again?
Whispered conversation in the kitchen: Jim tries to give Blair money for a movie. Blair doesn't want to leave Jim alone with Margaret, but Jim says he may as well get used to being blind. "I'll keep things simple." "Simple for you, maybe," says Blair, and I'm really not sure what that means. Anyway, Blair finally agrees to get lost. He hits Jim in the head with the door as he goes. Now, there was no reason for that to happen. "Great guy," says Jim.
Coffee shop, the next day. Jim is being a weirdo.
JIM: Mmm. I detect glazed buttermilk. (continues to chatter as Blair goes to buy donut; gesturing at his nose) It starts right at the tip and works all its way back. (inaudible as Blair orders) It's an explosion, just an explosion.
BLAIR (grabbing Jim's hand as he starts to gesture): Here's your donut. You got your donut.
You wanna shut up about the damn donut?
Blair can't believe Jim just talked to Margaret last night, and didn't "hit on her". "All I did was whistle," says Jim. "Whistle?" "Yeah." Jim whistles. "Like a bat," he explains. Blair and I both think Jim is crazy. Phone call from contacts.
Simon and Blair watch with binoculars as Jim meets with the dealers. In the middle of the deal, a sniper starts firing at both of them. Jim gets behind the truck and radios Blair, asking him to locate the sniper for him. Blair does (and it's the guy Jim saw right before he went blind). "20 yards to your left" is apparently good enough direction to get Jim within hand-to-hand distance, and there's a clumsy fight. Guy turns out to be the father of the girl who jumped off the bridge. He accuses Jim of killing her with his drug.
Jim and Simon question the dad. He feels pretty bad about lousing up the bust. He gives them a lead to the kid who sold the drugs to his daughter, and Jim reports that that kid could only tell them about a DNA-molecule-looking sticker on the car of his dealer. In the bullpen, Blair tells Jim about a report on the drug (it's made with rare and controlled substances, so should be easy to trace) and Jim goes to meet with Simon in his office. While he's gone, a boy delivers a bunch of pizzas, saying they're paid for: a note says "To the hard-working officers of Major Crime, continued success. Chief of Police Warren." Blair's like, awesome, free pizza. Oh Blair. Can't you tell that these are 100% guaranteed laced with Golden and soon you, too, will be out of commission?
When Jim and Simon emerge, Blair's gone, and Jim confirms my suspicion in re: Golden pizza. There's a piece missing. Jim can't find his backup .38. Where's Sandburg?? Trouble in the garage!
Simon leads Jim to the garage where Blair is standing on the roof of a car, crazed expression, pointing a gun. An officer reports that he has been yelling about demons. Ha ha, of course he has. Blair's shooting randomly, and he hits a gas main. If he shoots again, the whole place could explode. Jim goes to talk to him. "Are you crazy? He won't even recognize you!" says Simon. "I gotta try," says Jim. Don't worry Simon, this is definitely a situation where the purity of their love will save them.
Jim approaches Blair, blinking against the continued shapeless golden light. "What's going on?" Blair seems to remember that Jim is blind, because he explains that the golden fire people are coming through the walls and the floor. Starting to cry, he shoots again. "Blair, listen! Your gun isn't going to work with the golden fire people! They're not going to be afraid of the fire, it's only going to make them stronger," says Jim. Dork. Jim tells Blair to do the "bat-echo" trick: "The one you taught me! Close your eyes and clap your hands!" "No, man, that is not gonna work here, man," says Blair. I agree. The gun thing was at least plausible. We see through Jim's eyes, and he can almost see the outline of Blair's face through the light. "What if it doesn't work here, Jim? I don't think it's gonna work," says Blair, cocking the gun into Jim's face, and looking insane. "Trust me," says Jim, feeling for and gently taking the gun.
"I don't think it's gonna work."
"Trust me."
"It's all right."
Hospital. Blair unconscious, Jim by his side. Simon comes in to ask how they are. Apparently the pizza contained 10-20 times the amount of Golden that would kill a man. So, it was a prohibitively expensive but poetically just assassination attempt. Simon says they haven't had any luck tracking down the ingredients in the drug; Jim remembers the logo the boy saw.
Bio-Helix Labs! The dealers are there and there is already a shootout in progress as the police arrive. Simon tells Jim to sit this one out because of his vision. Come on, Jim, let the purity of your love heal your sight! While the other officers work their way into the lab, Jim hears an engine revving inside. A car breaks through the door, and Jim takes off after it. Driving sightless. Great. The chase takes them through some rough terrain, but Jim is gradually getting his vision back. He manages to force the other car into a ditch. The driver gets out and runs into a construction site. Jim can see well enough to follow him, surprises him with a gun pointed at his head. Yay! We win!
Loft. Jim is lying on the couch and Blair standing behind. He is well! Jim reports his vision is fine except for "residual kind of--" "Glow," chimes in Blair. Ha ha, they are both high. Knock at the door. Margaret. "What's she doing here?" cries Jim. Blair: "I realized it's crazy for me to try to keep you guys apart. I'm giving you both my blessing." "Wait wait wait wait," says Jim, grabbing Blair before he can answer the door. Blair wonders if Jim's worried Margaret won't be beautiful enough, but Jim says he is worried because he lied to her. "So make it up to her," says Blair, hand on Jim's shoulder. Jim nervously asks how unattractive she is. "No, forget it, forget it. I don't care. Should I?" "No. You shouldn't," confirms Blair. Heh, Jim is cute when he's nervous. Blair finally opens the door. Cue music as we see Margaret through Jim's eyes: clear, beautiful, with a golden glow around her. Blair takes off. "Hi," says Jim. THE SENTINEL!
"Wait wait wait wait!"
Bottom Line: I would like to find the man who came to the sweeps storyboard meeting and said "Why don't we incapacitate both Jim and Blair in ways which maximize the motive and opportunity for abundant physical touching?" and shake his hand.
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2x13 Hear No Evil
Two guys grapple. A third man shows up and helps the first man. They drag the second man into a helicopter.
CPD. Jim comes out of the men's room. I'm hoping Blair will be in there with him, but no, it's Simon. At least he wasn't alone. Simon tells Jim to report to his mandatory physical. Jim's worried they'll figure out about his abilities. Not if you don't tell them, Jim. My doctor thinks I'm healthy and you know why? I just say I am. No complaints! Nothing unusual! It's not like you have to fake not having a heart murmur or something. Just don't read the last line on the eye chart. Simon asks, "Isn't this the whole reason why you have to put up with Sandburg? Let him figure out how to deal with it." Oh, Simon, even you know "whole reason" is going a bit far there. Also: Jim, I think this means you and Blair need to play doctor. Again.
Jim and Blair squeezing through another door. "You knew this day was coming, you put it off as long as you could. We'll just have to do the best we can." Jim: "What do you mean by 'we'?" Blair is taking Jim to the doctor! I hope he goes in the exam room! Also, I hope this takes up the whole episode and that teaser with the men beating each other up was just a red herring. Blair: "I got something at stake here, too. What if the world finds out about your Sentinel abilities prematurely? There goes my thesis, my book... the movie rights alone..." Jim: "You're kidding." Blair: "It could happen!" Yes, and imagine if there were some kind of, oh, I don't know, weekly one-hour television programme! Naaaahh.... it would never work.
Doctor's office. Jim gets a form to fill out and he and Blair sit down in little side-by-side chairs.
JIM (speaking low, so as not to alarm the elderly couple waiting): What am I going to do?
BLAIR (fidgeting leg nervously as Jim fills out form): Just stay calm. Your body should respond normally to the tests as long your senses don't get over...
JIM: Stimulated.
BLAIR: Right!
OVER. STIMULATED. I love this show, and it only gets better. Okay. Blair tells Jim to have a "mantra." He hops into a cross-legged pose on the chair.
BLAIR: Meditation is not only about spirituality. It affects the body in many different ways, including the senses. All right? Now don't fight me on this one. Just work with me, I'm trying to help you. Now first off take a deep, cleansing breath. (does so)
JIM: He's here for ongoing therapy.
ELDERLY COUPLE: Mm.
BLAIR (eyes closed): Come on. Repeat after me. (inhales) I am...
JIM (closes his eyes; inhales): I am...
BLAIR (exhales): Relaxed.
JIM (exhales; quietly): Relaxed.
BLAIR (opening his eyes slowly): Yeah. Is it working?
JIM (breathes, opens his eyes, meets Blair's, almost whispering): Yeah.
BLAIR (almost whispering): Yeah.
"Yeah."
The serene moment is broken when Blair suddenly shouts "Blah!!" Jim starts, and Blair cracks up giggling. HA. Blair is awesome.
 |  | |
| "Blah!" | Ehehehehe! |
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Blair laughs, tapping Jim's knee. "Let's start over." Zoom in on Blair breathing, "I am..."
"Relaxed," Jim finishes, now in a gown in the exam room. Blair isn't there, except in SPIRIT. In Jim's MIND. "I am... relaxed. I am... freezing!" Jim goes to adjust the thermostat, but is stopped when Dr Grant, a pretty redhead, enters. We get a hilarious Montage of Jim Gets A Checkup And Maybe Flirts, The Way You'd Flirt If You Were A Cheerful Muppet. Getting a Checkup. "Your eyes match your dress!" "Ahhhhhhhh!" Finally, about the hernia test: "This is my favorite part!" He gives a great "Yowza" look before he coughs. In the end, she says he's fine except for one thing: his ears are full of wax! "I'm surprised you can hear anything at all!" He's hesitant to let her clean them out, but she says "You don't hear a difference, I'll owe you dinner." NOT ETHICAL. "Easy, easy," he says nervously as she approaches with a cleaning syringe thing. Commercial! WHAT A CLIFFHANGER!
Jim is in bed and, even though he has earplugs in, we hear all these loud noises: a drippy sink, a truck in the street. An annoying, continuous, skitchy-scratchy sound. Cut to a close-up of Blair's pen against his notebook. Jim climbs over the back of the couch in only his boxers and steals Blair's pen. "Do you have to write so damn loud?!" He throws down the pen, and the sound makes him clutch his ears.
Yoink!
BLAIR: In your case, your Sentinel hearing compensated and we never knew how powerful it actually was. We're just gonna have to start at the beginning again.
JIM: Oh, that's great, that's really encouraging.
BLAIR: Come on, Jim. It'll be fun. I mean, your hearing is one of your greatest assets. And if you've only been using it at half speed? Think about what you could do.
JIM (clapping throw pillows over his ears): Spend the rest of my life being tortured by dog whistles.
Jim goes back to bed and we cut between scenes of him writhing in inability to sleep and the guys from the beginning in their chopper. One pushes the other one out. Jim runs to the door, buckling his pants. Blair asks what's up, and Jim says he heard screams. He runs outside, jacket in hand, still shirtless. A moment later, Blair catches up with him wearing a scarf and gloves, so it must be pretty cold. Good thing Jim doesn't have super skin sensitivity OR ANYTHING. Jim leads Blair on a quick run to the edge of the bay. He sees a police chopper dropping a body into the bay, but Blair doesn't. I'm not sure how he could miss something like that. "The body was here," he says, indicating the ground. He finds a glove with blood on it. Blair: "Son of a bitch."
Crime scene, next day. Simon calls to Jim, but Jim doesn't turn around. He has in new earplugs. Blair explains, "He hasn't taken his eyes off the recovery operation. He's totally zoned out." Simon goes up to Jim and gets his attention. Jim says he saw a police chopper drop the body, and Simon says it's a heavy accusation--a cop killing another cop--and there's no record of a police chopper in the area. Jim knows what he saw. Victim's wife arrives on the scene, for Pathos.
CPD. Jim is going nuts with the deafening sounds of the office: Simon on the phone, asking his ex for another day with Daryl because it's his birthday (awwwww); high heels clacking; tick-tocking clock; writing, stamping, flirting, stirring. Blair comes up to his desk and wordlessly drops a device in front of him. He bounces on his heels. Jim looks at him. "Well?" asks Blair. "Does it work?" "Yeah, I'm all ready to wax my board and hit the surf," says Jim, which remark I don't understand. Does it look like something...surfer...y? "You're kidding me with this, right? What is this?" Blair tells him to listen, and he does--things are at normal volume! "Yes! It works!" Blair's so excited. I love it. He explains it's a white noise generator, and pops open a little box.
Oh, why... this is so sudden...
It's a new pair of earplugs, each with a mini white noise generator built in. Aww, Blair went all out! Jim calls them "attractive" (I don't know if he's being sarcastic) and Blair says "Aren't they?" (I don't know if he's being sarcastic).
BLAIR (as Jim puts on the earplugs): Yeah, just put those on in there.
JIM: Nice!
BLAIR (grinning, patting Jim on the shoulder): Uh-huh!
JIM: Not bad. Now I can get some work done. Were you able to contact Marten's wife?
BLAIR: ... You know, a thank you would be nice.
JIM: Thank you. I'll remember to send you a card, okay? Anything?
BLAIR: You're welcome. Nothing.
JIM: Well, keep trying.
Oh, Jim takes his Guide for granted. I really love how excited Blair is in this scene--his enthusiasm about his project, and about making Jim happy, is adorable. And Jim does really appreciate the result, in that, at least, it brings him up to normal from miserable. It's nothing less than he expects, though, because he's used to having the world's most awesome Guide. Well, I'll say it without prompting: thank you, Blair. Thank you for being you.
Time to get down to business, as signified by Blair putting on his glasses. Jim explains that the blood on the glove was O+, the deceased was A, so it's probably the killer's blood, but the DNA typing won't help if they don't have someone to compare it to. What cop would want to kill Marten?
Jim sits across from Simon's desk, playing with what appear to be father and child figurines, while Simon talks on the phone. Hanging up, he tells Jim that Marten's captain will neither confirm nor deny that he was involved in an IA investigation. Jim says they'll have to contact IA themselves. Simon: "You want me to make that call?" Jim: "No, I can handle it."
Jim goes to see red-headed IA officer Sheila, known to us from 2x03 Deep Water. She can neither confirm nor deny what cases are open, and she's also mad at Jim for not returning the calls she made to apologize to him after he was cleared. She says she can't give Jim access to her files on Marten (NOT THAT SHE NECESSARILY HAS ANY) unless he provides compelling evidence that the cases are related. His claim that he saw a police chopper from half a mile away in the dark? Doesn't count.
Jim watches Marten's team--an elite force calling themselves The Crew, according to Jim--load up their giant guns through a window, as Blair stands on his tippy-toes to peek over his shoulder. The Crew is totally led by Dr Wen from Scrubs. Dr Wen (not his real name) gives his men an inspirational speech ending with "Let's get out there and do it!" to which the men chant "DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!" Outside the door, Blair looks queasy. (Come on, do it, Blair. You know you want to.) He says they remind him of a warrior tribe that "used to get so pumped up, they'd kill everything on the way to a battle. And on the way home."
Jim decides it's a good time to enter the room, announcing, "Jim Ellison, Major Crimes. This is Blair Sandburg." No explanation, but, midway through the ensuing frigid and uninformative conversation, Dr Wen asks, "What did you say his name was?" "Blair Sandburg," Blair repeats meekly. "He's an aide to the department," Jim explains. Wen preps to go on his bust, calling after Jim as he leads Blair out of the room, "Call me when you find out who killed Marten."
Also, call me when you get copies of those prom pictures.
Jim and Blair try to (undoubtedly illegally) observe and record the bust. Blair has a video camera, but he can't see inside the dark garage. "I can!" says Jim, as if he's just realizing it. But, I mean, if the point is to gather evidence that Sheila will consider admissible, it doesn't matter, right? If the video camera can't get it, it's worthless. But, whatever. Jim peers in and watches some drug dealers loading heroin for a second before the garage door comes down, and the light reflecting off it makes Jim wince. Blair holds his arm while Jim explains that the light "whacked out my senses for a moment." But he can't use hearing, because he needs the white noise generators. Blair wants to try an experiment: "When you take out your white noise generators and see if you can consciously make your hearing piggyback on your sight into the warehouse. See if you can get the two to link up. Let your eyes guide your ears." Jim tries this and it works until the approaching police cars distract him. "All right, we're learning something!" says Blair. Cool. Learning is awesome! Jim wants to leave out his earplugs, but Blair isn't sure "cold turkey" is a good idea.
A limo which Jim saw loaded up with heroin leaves the scene. Jim and Blair follow. At a bridge, a man gets out and dumps a duffel bag over the overpass. A chopper approaches. The sound of the blades overwhelms Jim, and he's so distracted looking for his earplugs (while Blair keeps asking if he's all right) that he doesn't see the police chopper touch down and get the bag. Blair gets it on tape, though, so it doesn't matter.
Jim and Blair show the tape to Sheila. She agrees it's compelling evidence but can't give out information to a non-cop. "Jim, it's all right, man. I got some papers I can grade; I'll catch up with you later."
Hint: Sheila: Jim is going to share everything with him anyway. I mean, seriously. The man has his hand on Jim's breast.
Now he's outta the picture, see, time for some heterosexual innuendo. Sheila asks if we can "do this thing" without "coming to blows," and concludes that it will be possible "as long as you stay on your side of the desk."
Sheila tells Jim there's allegations that the Crew has been skimming drugs and cash from busts. "We just have to prove it," Sheila concludes. "'We'?" asks Jim, recalling an earlier moment in this very episode. Sheila says she wants to run the cases concurrently. Jim: "And what about Sandburg?" Is that all you ever think about, Jim? Sheesh. (Oh, I know I love it.) Sheila says he's in. They agree to discuss the details over Thai food.
Cut to home cooking... not Thai food at all, but scrambled eggs, and we all know that that means on this show. Blair comes out of his room, doing up his pants, and is surprised to see Sheila making breakfast. He goes over to Jim, who is putting on shoes on the stairs, and continues messing with his fly and belt while he murmurs sidelong, "You didn't come home last night..." Jim insists nothing happened, they went out then talked, Jim fell asleep on the sofa, Sheila came over early to work on the case. Wait, he fell asleep on which sofa? Because if it was her sofa, and then they both just came over together and he... changed... his shoes? That's one thing, but if it's his sofa, then he did come home last night and what Blair means is that he didn't come to bed. But I guess it's unlikely he would have been too tired or drunk to make it from the sofa to the bed, so it must have been hers.
"You didn't come home last night."
Anyway, Blair's delighted that Sheila will share the information with both Jim and him. She makes a "if you talk I'll kill you" joke. As they sit down to breakfast, Blair leans into Jim's ear and mutters, "What did you do the real Sheila?" Doesn't Sheila wonder what they're constantly gossiping about that they can't share with the rest of the class?
Probably not the best episode to be whispering sweet nothings into his shell-like, but whatever.
"Thank you for putting this together, this is very nice," says Jim, and it is--scones and bacon and all--but, Jim. The hell. This gets a thanks, but no love for the tiny white noise generators? Come on now.
The big information revealed at breakfast is that the guy Jim saw place the duffel bag--his name is Brooks--is Marten's wife's ex-husband. The trio goes to Marten's wife's cabin the woods to question her, and finds her dead. Jim sends Blair off to search for a town or cell service and call the local authorities. He hears digging in the woods, goes to check it out, and gets a shovel to the head for his trouble. While he's gone, Brooks and Dr Wen pop out and abduct Sheila. Jim wakes up in time to apprehend Brooks, but drops and breaks one of his earplugs in the shuffle. Dr Wen gets away with Sheila in a chopper.
Simon shows up to the cabin. He, Jim, and Blair find a list of names-mostly Crew people, presumably people who were in on the conspiracy--and figure Marten's wife told him about what was going on and got them both killed. Blair says the Crew must have had a "code of silence", which makes sense for a "tightly knit unit": "They're constantly in dangerous situations. They depend on each other to stay alive." Simon asks, "Jim, you been teaching the kid all our secrets?" Yes, teaching him the ways of depending on each other and being tightly knit. I think Blair's been contributing at least as much of that, though. Jim hears a helicopter, and Blair's psyched that he can control his hearing. They do a little excited slappy-hands dance.
While Simon tries desperately to go to his happy place.
"Chief," Jim says warmly, "good job." Yes! Finally some recognition for the Guide.
The chopper is come to take them back to Cascade. They run out and get in. Blair looks a little green, and Jim asks if he's all right. He says yes. What happened between now and The Rig, when he was all "Whooo, look at that ocean" through the chooper window? Oh, right, he remembered he had a fear of heights.
Dr Wen threatens/plans to drop Sheila out of the chopper.
Simon's got a laptop in the chopper and he's looking up one of the names from the list in the cabin, the civilian helicopter pilot. Jim asks for his blood type--it's O+. (Also, he's allergic to penicillin, just like me! Remember that, guys. That's one of the things my doctor doesn't know.) The pilot of this chopper says the polcie choppers all have tracking devices so they're on the right track for finding the rogue, but too far away for visual range. Sounds like a job for the Sentinel! Over the din of the blades, Blair talks into Jim's uncovered ear, gesturing with one arm round his shoulder. He tells Jim to do the piggybacking trick to locate the rogue chopper. The blades, Blair explains, are like white noise--he can cut through it. Jim agrees to try.
Dear show: Stop having great visuals for me to cap and recap, or this review will NEVER END.
Except for a brief moment where Jim gets fixated on his watch, it works, and he directs the pilot to the chopper. "How did you see that?" "Uh, he eats a lot of carrots," offers Blair. There is a chopper chase which I don't think I could recap if I tried. It's just a chase over the water, and Jim can hear the people in the other chopper so there's this constant narration of "Faster!" "Easy, easy!" "I got it!" At one point, Jim asks Blair if he's okay again. That's all I got. Just as Dr Wen is about to drop Sheila, Jim gets a clear line of sight and shoots him in the back. Sheila then takes his gun and tells the pilot to land at gunpoint. In the Good Guy Chopper, the good guys all laugh with relief and delight. Jim says "I hate carrots."
All this, and 30SwB too? Jim and Blair lean on opposite sides of the doorway to Simon's office (NB: the doorway to Simon's office is not that wide) and Jim explains the crooked cops' scam to Blair. They make adorable unison gestures. Simon leads the boys out into the hall, where he asks if Jim and Sheila are doing a little "internal investigating." EWWWWW. Sheila comes up, trailing a tall, silent man, thanks Jim for saving her life, and hugs him. Simon is about to hand over a $1 bill to Blair when Sheila introduces her companion as her fiance, and Simon takes his dollar back. "You just cost me a buck," Blair tells the fiance. He looks at Simon. "I need those for books, you know." Blair, did you ever know that you're my hero?
It might have appeeeeeared to go unnnnoticed...
Bottom Line: Blind Man's Bluff was good. Why not make an episode about Jim's, oh, hearing? And instead of losing it, it's too good? Sounds good to me! For sheer volume of tiny J/B moments, this is the best episode so far that doesn't take Jim and Blair's relationship as a fundamental aspect of its main premise. (I'm counting BMB in that group since Jim got his vision back only when prompted by Blair's accident.) Not every episode can be about Jim and Blair's deep and abiding love, but this is a prime example of how to make an episode that isn't: fill it with sense issues, Guiding, random touches, and various shots of both main characters zipping up their pants.
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2x15 Secret
Middle of the night. Jim comes downstairs and watches part of a news report that's playing on TV about Ben Chavez, a DEA agent who has gone missing. Blair comes in with a Cree fishing spear--they're preparing for another one of their little outdoorsy vacations. Blair says "traditional methods are more satisfying," making a crazed violence-against-the-fishes face. Easy there, tiger. Jim teases him a bit, then rubs his (own) arm. He pulled a muscle and none of the pain medications he's tried have worked. Haven't we been over this? Dialing it down? Blair flips a bit. "Why didn't you tell me? This is exactly the kind of thing I need to know!" He worries that novocaine and anaestheic might not work on Jim--what if he ever needs surgery? Jim: "Don't you think you're overreacting a little?" Blair: "No, I don't think I'm overreacting. We've got to do some research. We need to prepare for stuff like this!" I think this is sweet, because it's clearly not about the research--it's about taking care of Jim, looking out for him--his future, his times of need. Jim as usual is not appreciative. "If you want to do pain research, you experiment on yourself, all right?" No, Jim, that wouldn't--that's not--Blair isn't--sigh.They're interrupted by a phone call from one of Jim's old army buddies, Sam. Sam's desperate to meet Jim right away, saying, "It's about the colonel." Worried that his friend is in trouble, Jim agrees to meet him. Blair: "Just remember, 3 AM, you and I, we're on the road, man."
Jim meets Sam at a garage somewhere and Sam's about to tell him some important secret when the gunshots start. Ambush! Jim is tranqed, and Sam is pushed off the top level of the garage in his car, crash-landing fatally on the street.
Simon and Taggart are finishing up a marathon work session when Simon's work phone rings. He groans, and groans again when Sandburg starts chattering a mile a minute on the other end. Jim hasn't come back, and he's worried. Simon: "Did it ever occur to you that Jim might just be knocking back a few and reminiscing with an old army buddy? I mean, he doesn't have to report in to you." Ooh, cold. Blair insists that Jim wouldn't just disappear on him like that. While they're talking, the door opens, and Blair expects it to be Jim, but it's a couple of guys in suits who raise their guns at him. Blair drops the phone, ducks out of the way of the shots, and runs into his room. Simon and Taggart hear the "fwoop!" of silenced shots over the phone.
Blair makes it to the street and tries to use a pay phone, but it's busted. He sees the bad guys' van, and he ducks into what must be an all-night bakery. As the car passes, he lifts his little head over the curtain and peers out. Poor Blair.
He sees a bus across the street, and runs over, just catching it. The driver gives him a hard time--he's kind of a wise guy, and says things like "Feed the kitty or hit the bricks." (He refrains, however, from adding "Out you go, pixie, t'rough the door or out the window!") To be fair, Blair does come off black-helicopters-paranoid, begging to use the radio equipment because he's being followed. Finally Blair gives up and just pays the fare (with a wrinkled, undoubtedly sweaty bill he pulls out of his waistband like a jogger or stripper). He stands in the aisle and calls out, "Hey, does anybody have a cell phone? I will trade this handmade Bantu bracelet for two minutes on somebody's cell phone!" The driver yells at him to sit down, then quietly calls the police: "I have a disruptive passenger. Possible substance abuse."
Simon and Taggart check out the loft. It's trashed, and no sign of Blair or Jim.
Blair sees the bad guys board the bus and sit down near him. He's frightened, but at the same stop, a police officer boards. The driver points out Blair. Blair is happy to be arrested, and he mouths off to the officer. (I kind of love this suspense-thriller gimmick--it takes a bit of thinking outside the box to realize you don't not want to get arrested.) Blair also tells the police to "arrest those guys in black suits too," but when he looks back, they're gone, and he looks crazier than ever. So... were they just figments of his imagination? I guess they could have quielty gotten off, since the bus was stopped, and it was pretty clear they weren't going to get their hands on Blair while he was in police custody. It would be cool if this was the episode where Blair finally succumbed to madness, though.
Behind bars, Blair gives a little smile to the criminal standing next to him.
Make new friends, but keep the old.
In a cage, that's where. Cut to Jim lying, tied to a fallen chair, on the concrete floor of a basement or something, with a dirty-faced woman peering at him through chain-link fence. Jim asks who she is, how she got here, how long she's been here, who the bad guys are, and what they want. She says her name is Tanya.
At the station, Blair bemoans his fate ("I'm supposed to be fishing this weekend and instead I've been shot at, I've been on the skid row express all night long, and then thrown in jail!"). Taggart comes in to report that the body in the car had a tattoo, but that's all they have to go on for ID. Blair begs Simon to let him work on the case: "I know I'm not a cop, but Jim and I -- we're a pretty good team." Doesn't Blair work on every one of Jim's cases by default, despite not being a cop? And doesn't Simon know this? You would think his helping to find Jim would be default, especially considering Simon's established pro-personal-interest stance on police work. But no, Simon refuses, telling Blair he's going to be a protected witness, and he's got to go back home and let Taggart bodyguard him.
This is as good a place as any, I think, to place my rant about this episode in general, which is that I think it would have worked better earlier in the chronology. All of these character and relationship battles (Blair's relationship with Simon, and with Danger) have been fought many times over before. Simon has already consented to let Blair do an awful lot, including multiple undercover missions, and on top of that he's told Naomi that he considers Blair "part of the team." Why draw the line at letting him help here, when his life and Jim's are at stake? Sure, it's a little unusual to be working with just Blair and not Jim-and-Blair, but we've seen snatches of it happening before--Blair following orders direct from Simon, or doing research with Simon and Taggart while Jim is off doing something else. It's also odd, at this point, that Blair is as freaked out as he is about being shot at, etc.--he's had a difficult night, to be sure, but he's been in equal danger on many prior occasions. If I were him I would be more worried about Jim. He's either dead or trapped without access to the outside world somewhere, Guideless.
Anyway, at the apartment, Blair and Taggart find Jim's army ranger unit's yearbook photo or whatever, and one of the guys' tattoos matches the one on the body.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jim can't pull off hats.
Blair calls Simon who tells him they've already ID'd the dead guy from his prints, and he's Sam Holland, an employee of Graf Technologies. I don't know why Simon's freely divulging info to Blair; maybe it's reflex. He lets Blair go when he's interrupted by an FBI agent who wants Holland's body, saying it's evidence in a matter of national security, so Simon and his petty concerns about his missing officer can suck on it (I may have paraphrased). Blair calls back, one step behind as usual, to float his theory that Holland must have been involved in covert ops somehow.
Since we're in classified, "cloak and dagger" territory now, Blair decides to call up his old friend Jack Kelso, whom Joel identifies as "the CIA whistleblower in the Brackett case." Man, Joel's involvement in that case gets him a lot of mileage. A bit later, Blair is feeding Taggart lunch (what a sweet protected witness he makes) when Kelso calls back with some info too sensitive to discuss over the phone. Blair nervously agrees to meet him on campus. Luckily, Taggart chooses that moment to get indigestion and head for the bathroom, and Blair grabs his coat and escapes. I suspect there was more than ostrich in that chili.
On some quad, Blair and Kelso are watched from afar by badguys. Kelso explains to Blair that Graf Technologies is a CIA front and the boss, Colonel Normal Oliver, was Jim's unit's contact for the Peru mission which ended up so disastrously. Jim apparently placed the blame on Oliver. We also learn that Oliver was an excellent sniper. Cut to a bad guy (not Oliver) lifting his gun. When the shooting starts, Blair pushes Kelso out of his wheelchair and behind a wall, but he's a little late--when he turns Kelso's body, his face is streaked with blood. Blair calls for an ambulance. Not with his phone, he just calls.
Hospital. Blair and Taggart watch Kelso sleep through a window into his room. Simon comes up and exposits that Kelso will be okay, but Blair is in trouble. Blair objects, "I was worried about Jim!", and starts to fill in Simon when some CIA guys come up intending to take custody of Kelso. Simon stands up to them, saying he'll need to see a federal order, which they don't have. Grumbling, they leave. Simon thinks Blair is onto something.
In the doggie cage, Jim scoots over to the chainlink gate separating him and Tanya and asks her to try to loose his bonds. He's got on one of those unbreakable twist-tie things, and she says it needs to be cut. The player checks the inventory, but there is nothing there, and then hovers the mouse around until it lights up on a nearby red lightbulb. "If only I could break the housing on that light," says Jim. Ah! Hint! (The player clicks on the light and then on the gate lock. "I can't use those two things together.") Jim uses his supersense-related combination-hearing skills to unlock the gate, bringing Tanya into his cell. He dreams up a plan whereby Tanya gets on his shoulders, but Tanya, the more practical of the two, demurs. She takes off Jim's belt, assuring him, "It's not what you think," and uses it as a whip. Then she uses a shard to cut Jim's bonds. Puzzle 1, solved!
While all this is going on, Tanya finally decides to tell Jim who she is and what's going on. She says she's a secretary for Graf Technologies and that all this started when Sam Holland caught Colonel Oliver with a classified file on DEA agent Ben Chavez, and two days later Chavez's cover was broken and now he's on the run.
Blair and Simon go to Kelso's office to try and find the info that he was going to give to Blair. When they get to his computer, the files are slowly disappearing from some elaborate GUI representation. "Someone must be sucking them out by modem!" Blair cries. I love 1997. Blair unplugs the modem and tries to copy the remaining files onto a disk, but they start disappearing again--Blair calls this a virus. They get some of it, but they'll need a "monster anti-virus program"!
Driving back, Simon is snappy with Blair, and Blair pretends to endorse a paranoid CIA assassination theory to annoy him. Their rapport is kind of fun. Simon notices they have a tail, and Blair looks back and IDs the guy as one of his pursuers. Simon calls for backup and they lure the guy into a trap. Simon gets out, telling Blair to stay down, and holds his gun on the guy: "Cascade PD! Freeze!" The bad guy shoots in Blair's general direction. Simon shoots him dead, looks badass-ly over his gun, then turns to ask Blair if he's all right. Simon is the new Jim.
A guard comes into Jim and Tanya's cell area with a tray of food, and Jim surprise attacks him. Tanya leads Jim out into the hall, and while Jim's working the next combo lock, she karate chops him and pulls a gun on him. Double crossed! "Get up," she says. As Jim obeys, he secretly palms a nail.
Tanya and two bad guys chain Jim up to some pipes. He repeatedly makes quips along the lines of, "And we were just getting along so well," to all of them, regardless of whether he's seen them before or not. They don't seem that interested in interrogating him at the moment and leave. Jim tries to pick the lock of his handcuffs with his nail.
At the station computer lab, Serena says she'll do her best with the disk, but warns that the information is pretty trashed and could be useless. Simon flips out, saying the disk is the only lead and failure is not an option. Blair gives a "I don't like it when Daddy yells" face. Simon storms out, and Blair tries to smooth things over, telling Serena, "We're counting on your legendary expertise." Blair's a sweetie.
Out in the hall, Blair and Simon commiserate about the lack of leads. They agree guy who shot at Blair was a kamikaze. Blair taps Simon on the arm, and Simon snaps, "WHAT?" Blair: "Simon, I didn't say anything before, but... you don't think..." Simon, gently: "You're wondering if Jim is already dead." Blair swallows and nods. Simon thinks if they wanted Jim dead, they'd have killed him in the garage. Blair sighs and generally looks verklempt and Simon pats him on the back.
Blair contemplating Jim's death.
In the bullpen, Taggart has an ID on the dead shooter, and a map found in his possessions. It's marked: "Olympia 3300," "Chavez 714," "Federal Building." Blair recalls Ben Chavez. Simon tells Taggart to do more research and says "Sandburg, you're with me." Yes! Blair is On the Team!
Federal building. Simon tries to meet with Agent Cameron, the guy who called for Holland's body, but when he bursts by the secretary to find Cameron, it's not the same guy. Anyone who called "not a real FBI agent" way back in act 1 can collect their prizes now. At the station, Serena has managed to recover a file with a photo and dossier on Colonel Oliver--Simon IDs him as the man he thought was Agent Cameron. Simon and Blair thank Serena for her hard work. Just then, Simon gets a call that Kelso has regained consciousness.
In a rare bit of realism, Jim's not making much progress with his lockpicking. He hides the nails as Tanya re-enters and they exchange thin banter for a bit before Colonel Oliver comes in, putting his arms all over Tanya because of course they're together. Except Oliver has more chemisty with Jim:
OLIVER: Hello, Jim. What's it been, seven years? Given the situation, you look pretty good.
He does!
JIM: I knew you would eventually show up, Colonel.
OLIVER: Nice to know I never left your thoughts.
Jim asks what all this is about, and Oliver says, "Ben Chavez."
Aaand we're back at the hospital. Kelso tells Simon and Blair that Chavez ratted out a group of rogue CIA agents working for some cartel, and they ordered him killed. They figure Oliver must be one of the rogues, and Chavez is coming in tonight at 7:14 or on flight 714. Kelso reminds them Oliver is an expert sniper: "Sounds like a classic assassination scenario to me." Kelso's still raspy and hooked up to machines but you can tell he loves this.
Oliver tells Jim his evil plan is to frame Jim for Chavez's murder and sticks him with a hypodermic needle as Jim grits it-will-never-work-isms. (Of course it won't! What they need to do is train Jim to kill every time he sees the queen of hearts or something.) Considerately, just in case we forgot the beginning of this episode because two weeks elapsed between the time we watched the beginning and the end, as it did for me, we get a remindy Blair voiceover: "I mean, if pain relievers don't work, what about novocaine at the dentist? Or, for crying out loud, you're having surgery -- what about anesthetics?" Jim slumps down, or pretends to.
Chavez's motorcade sets off from the airport. Meanwhile Oliver and his team push Jim down a hallway in a wheelchair. Meanwhile Blair, in Simon's car, gets a call from Taggart explaining the building meant by "Olympia 3300." They figure the sniper will be waiting on the building. Simon radios for backup and puts the red light on his dash: "To hell with the Feds!" "Yeah-hah," Blair laughs.
A man brings a supposedly-unconscious Jim up to the roof. Jim uses his nail in the least expected way: he drops it to distract the guard and, while the guard is looking down, Jim attacks him with his bare hands. Up on the roof, Oliver is preparing to shoot when Jim arrives with his latest victim's gun. There's a moment of doubt where his sight unfocuses, but then Jim delivers a speech ("I always wondered why I survived the jungle. Now I know," which seems to give Oliver more importance than he deserves, and all of Jim's other conquests--Blair included--less) and uses his supersense-related aiming skills to shoot him off the building. The bodie lands on Tanya and the other bad guy's car and they start to drive away, but Jim shoots the tire. Blair and Simon show up; Simon pulls Tanya out of the car and demands to know where Jim is. "Simon!" Blair calls. Simon looks up to where Blair is looking, and sees the tiny silhouette of Jim outlined against the sky. Cut to Jim who is looking down grimly at them. He raises a "just a moment" finger even though they can't possibly see. That's it? That's our reunion?
Wrap-up in the bullpen. Jim is sitting at his desk reading, and Blair is sitting on top of the desk with his hair down and his butt about six inches from Jim's magazine. Simon's cheerful because he finally got a good night's sleep. Taggart comes by and to tell Jim he's wanted for more statements, which Jim bitches about. Yeah, I'm sure it's a lot less important than that magazine you're reading, buddy. Taggart: "They love you over there." Jim: "It's nice to be loved." He would know. Taggart says Jim he should have seen Blair and Simon working together: "They really make a great team." Simon and Blair glance at each other. "Does this mean I should be looking for a new partner?" Jim asks. Immediately Blair and Simon both cry, "No!" Blair and Simon start bickering and Jim slips out to make "statements. Lotsa statements."
No! Hell no! We don't swing that way!
Line of the Episode: Blair to Simon, after Simon yells at Serena: "Whoo hoo Captain, you really know how to massage your staff!"
Bottom Line: Even though Jim and Blair are apart for pretty much all of this episode, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. As far as apart-ness goes, there's a difference between "wrenched apart by cruel fate, trying to make it back to each other" and "just doing different things," with the former being superior in that it allows for plenty of separation anxiety, longing, what-if-he's-dead angst, etc. That said, there wasn't that much of that in this episode (just snatches here and there), but the interaction between Blair and Simon was very good, and I enjoyed the sort of 39 Steps-ode escape sequence in the first act. Accepting that Jim/Blair togetherness is not an option, I guess my only request is that I would have liked to see Jim being tortured in more psychologically complex ways.
And, I'll reiterate my previous complaint, that I think this episode retreaded some of the same ground as previous episodes, and backtracked to before some of the milestones that we've passed. I suppose it's a failing of this show in general that what seems to be major character/relationship development often ends up having not much of an impact on future episodes.
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2x16 Dead Drop
Blair comes out of an antique shop into the 40th floor lobby of a highrise building and waits for the elevator. Waiting with him are a woman in a nice jacket, a tall guy with dreads and a flannel coat, and an impatient businessman with a briefcase. Oh, no! People from all walks of life! This elevator's fucked! A model runs in at the last moment, dropping her head shots everywhere. Blair helps her pick them up while the impatient businessman, in surprising move, holds the door. Oh, no! Dramatic irony! We're so boned! Blair, wait! Blair! BLAIR TROUBLE SANDBURG, I FORBID YOU TO SET FOOT IN ANY SOON-TO-BE-CUT-OFF-FROM-THE-REST-OF-THE-WORLD ENCLOSED SPACE WITHOUT JIM!BLAIR!
Oh, well. I wonder if Blair will have puppies on the elevator.
At the police station, Simon asks Jim out to lunch, but Jim turns him down because he has a date with Blair. (Well, he does.) Blair's late, though. Jim tries to call his cell, but he doesn't answer (why not, I wonder?). Jim changes his mind and says he'll just go with Simon and Blair can catch up with them.
On the elevator, Blair mutters some incoherent nonsense, and the businessman gets out, leaving behind his briefcase. The elevator stops and hovers between the 30th and 31st floors.
Just as Jim and Simon are getting ready to go, Taggart brings the news that there's a call from a guy calling himself Galileo and making an extortion attempt. Simon starts a trace (save your breath, Banks, it never works) and talks to Galileo, who informs him that he has hostages in the elevator at Wilkinson Tower. Jim scribbles on a pad and then holds it up: "SANDBURG IS THERE!" (This has to be a psychic premonition, because later, on the phone, Blair will tell him that he was in the building getting something appraised for the university, unnecessary exposition if Jim knows his schedule by heart.) Galileo says he wants $5 million wired to his bank account within the hour, and to show he means business, he drops the elevator five floors. All this for five measly million?
Whooooa! Blam. Passengers hit the floor. Sitting on the ground, Blair asks if everyone is all right, then pulls out his cell phone. He gets reception in the elevator? His call is, of course, to Jim, and he's all Captain Scott stoic: "Doesn't look like I'm going to make it to lunch."
Um...jeans and my brown coat. Why?
Jim fills him in on the situation. "Well, that's, uh," says Blair, calmly, "that's interesting. I assume that, ah, (tremor enters his voice) you're on top of this. I mean, you're on top of this, right Jim?" Jim tells him to sit tight. "Jim!" Blair calls into the phone, but it's too late. He closes the phone and smiles pleasantly out at the other passengers.
Simon, Jim and Taggart arrive at Wilkinson Tower. We learn that it's Taggart's day off but he wants to help Sandburg. That's sweet. As they enter the lobby, Jim laments, "I can't believe Sandburg's in the middle of this. Before he started tagging around with me, the worst that could happen to him at the university was a paper cut." That's kind of sweet, too, but Jim, for once, you had nothing to do with the danger Blair's in. He was on an errand for school. His role in this is purely innocent civilian victim. Now, get out there and make up for all the times you have put his life in jeopardy by throwing yourself passionately into the rescue operation, okay, big guy? I think we understand each other.
Security suite. Presumably, they took the stairs. Galileo calls up and explains that, until/unless his money is wired, he'll drop the elevator five floors every ten minutes and then the remaining 15 floors at 1:00 (it's 12:16 now). Is this episode going to be in realtime? Simon asks how he expects them to get the money, and Galileo suggests they go to the owner of Wilkinson Towers, whose name is... wait for it... Wilkinson.
The good news is that one of the trapped party is Caitlin Wilkinson, the daughter of the building owner. The bad news is that Mr. Wilkinson is notorious for not negotiating with terrorists. He must be pretty damn rich to have had the opportunity to craft such a reputation. And all this guys wants is five million? I'm sure there are other ways to get it if they really can't go to Wilkinson. Besides, can't they just give the guy the money so he'll let the prisoners go, then, you know. Find and arrest him? When it's safe? The security chief tells a story about how Wilkinson didn't even pay up to save his own life one time, and Jim says, grimly, "His neck's not on the block-- we got an elevator car full of innocent people, including my partner." Yeah, Jim, I'm sure it's your feelings for Blair that are going to get him to pay up in the end. Priceless.
Wilkinson shows up to the security suite and confirms that he doesn't submit to extortion attempts, even when he hears about his daughter. He gives a little speech with some poker metaphor ("Do you think I built this tower by folding every time somebody called my hand?") and then leaves. Simon says, "That guy has some set of stones." Jim: "Yeah. Only stones are like elevators -- you drop them, and they fall." I... I. Huh? I mean, I guess that's true enough of actual stones, but Simon was clearly talking about testicles. TESTICLES, JIM. And, I mean, I guess testicles drop? But I still don't think the metaphor works. Sorry, Jim, but thanks for playing.
Jim briefly briefs Blair on the phone and then comes onto the loudspeaker in the elevator with a soothing message for the hostages. Doesn't help much; the natives are restless. Caitlin explains to the group that she doesn't have a good relationship with her father because she married someone he didn't like.
Galileo phones back up and Simon lies that they haven't yet gotten in touch with Wilkinson, but Galileo says that's strange considering he's standing right next to you wearing (list of all the things he's wearing). Galileo's tapped into the building security! That means he must be on th premises. They put tape over the cameras and shut off the microphones so they can talk in private. Jim sums up Galileo's profile (good with electronics, etc.) and Wilkinson asserts he won't murder four people because he's "not a closer." As if in answer, Galileo phones, informs them their first ten-minute deadline is up, and drops the car five floors. The passengers go screaming and crashing to the ground, AGAIN!
Jim immediately yanks the microphone and demands, "Blair, are you okay?--Sandburg, can you hear me?!" The best thing about this episode is the outtake where Jim/Richard says "Blair, honey, are you okay? I don't care about the rest of those people, I hope they all die. Crushed like little ants or whatever they do. Are you okay?" It's funny because it's so, so true.
"Blair, are you okay?"
In the elevator, Blair eventually calls out, "Yeah, I'm all right." Meanwhile, Katie moans, "My ankle!", from beneath the dogpile. Blair stands up and yells at Wilkinson to do something, if he has "one ounce of human compassion or feeling." Oh, sweetie. He also yells at the madman, "Come on, quit messing around! Come on, this isn't funny any more!" Long pause, then he adds, "You broke her ankle!", with strangely excellent comedic timing.
Jim tells Wilkinson in his coolest, grittiest, Clint Eastwoodiest voice that they're going to try and get those people out, and he better come up with the money. He storms out, and Wilkinson bitches, "What's his problem?" What do you mean what is his problem! He is a cop trying to rescue innocent people! Simon tells Wilkinson that Jim's problem is that "that's his friend in there, and if you cared half as much about your daughter, maybe this whole thing would be over." I have several reactions to this. (1) Half as much as infinity is still infinity, and that's IMPOSSIBLE. (2) Why is a personal interest in one of the party the only legitimate reason for saving hostages? (3) I can't believe the elevator episode turned into a LOVE CONTEST episode. I can, however, believe that Team Partners (Go Jags!) is KICKING ASS.
Jim comes up with a rescue plan. Details not important.
"Yeah, so how come we gotta pay the price?" asks Dreads Guy. "I got a wife and four kids!" Nice Suit Woman concurs, "Yeah, and I have a twelve year old daughter!" Blair, silently: I have a love I have a love, it's all I have / I love him; I'm his / And everything he is / I am, too! Caitlin says the man she married was fired by her father, and now they're broke. Is the twist that the killer is her husband? Because that's stupid. If she's in on this, it's double stupid, because she so wouldn't be dropping hints like this. Caitlin says she's in real trouble now, because she's pregnant. Like a jackass, Blair yells "YOU HEAR THAT? SHE'S PREGNANT!" Pause. "You're a GRAAANDFATHERRRR." Simon puts more pressure on Wilkinson to cave. Aren't there more productive things the police could be doing?
Yes. Jim is riding up to the halted car on top of another car (not in it; that would be too easy). He calls Blair to let him know they'll be doing some work on the car, trying to weld it to the line so it can't drop. The other passengers are staring at Blair as he hangs up. He just shrugs. I understand that he knows or suspects that the Galileo can hear what he says, but it's still kind of unfair of him to have extra information, especially when the other passengers start getting nervous, hearing noises above the car. Jim calls Blair and tells him to make some noise to mask the sound. Next thing we know Blair is leading his fellow-passengers in a rousing Macarena. Unclear how he got them to do that.
Takes ya back, doesn't it?
Galileo figures out anyway that a rescue attempt is in the works and tells Simon to have the rescuers check the roof of the car. Jim finds C4. Galileo has Simon order Blair to open the briefcase he left behind--it's a time bomb display, ticking down from 20 minutes. Blair clutches his head in dismay. Galileo makes lame pun about "the gravity of the situation." On top of the car, Jim and his pretty blue eyes know what's coming, and he mutters, "Oh, God." Fwoom! Car go down. Jim hurtles down with them, with ridiculous special effects. Car stops, and they're all moaning and writhing inside, but Jim is FINE.
Instead of climbing down to give Blair a hug or something, which is what I would have done, Jim climbs onto another elevator and rides down to the next floor, where he joins Simon. They're discussing their options when Jim hears someone using a power tool on an upper floor. He tells security to cut power, and they do; in the elevator, it goes dark, and the hostages freak out. Jim heads for the stairwell. Blair checks his watch and tells everyone to brace themselves for the next drop--but it never comes. Dreads Guy is excited that cutting the power affected the brakes, and thinks they therefore might get out of this. But, as Blair points out, there's still, you know. A BOMB.
Jim, running up endless stairs, pauses to radio Simon, "I don't like this." Nobody likes running up stairs, Jim. But he means Galileo. Jim thinks he has something else up his sleeve or something.
Simon is giving Wilkinson parenting advice (Wilk: "She never listens to me!" Simon, through his teeth: "Maybe she needs you to listen to her.") when Taggart comes in with an ID from some prints Henri found earlier and I forgot to recap. Galileo is, of course, Caitlin's husband. Simon asks how they can "get to" Galileo, and Wilkinson suggests through his little brother, who still works in the building.
Galileo and his little brother, who has shown up at some point to do some accomplicing, have an expository conversation written by middle-schoolers, the upshot of which is that the elevator jacking was just a ruse to get them to cut the power so that the alarm system would be disabled so that they could hit up the vault. There's a vault? Galileo still plans to kill the hostages, though, including Caitlin. Little Brother: "She's your wife!" Galileo: "You should have thought of that before you two did the deed." THE. DEED. So Caitlin isn't carrying an Evil!Baby, just an Evil'sLittleBrother!Baby. Galileo shoots brother.
Jim hears the scream and continues running up the stairs. Simon radios him the info about the suspect. In the elevator, Blair describes the bomb to Taggart on the phone. Simon takes the phone and tells him the suspect is Caitlin's husband. "Wh-what do you want me to do?" Blair asks. Simon tells him to pump Caitlin for info. In ship news, Nice Jacket Woman is clinging fearfully to Dreads Man. Blair stares at Caitlin in the torchlight for a moment, and she looks creeped out. Then Blair asks, "When is he going to let you off?" Caitlin denies her husband's involvement at first, then caves and says he promised he would shut off the bomb. The other passengers are like, The hell, Caitlin. Blair gets a call from Wilkinson, and hands it off to Caitlin. There's a father-daughter mutual apology, until Blair awesomely says, "Yeah, yeah, this is all great, Caitlin, but we don't have time for this. Where is he?!" Caitlin says he's in "the exchange." Apparently the vault is part of the 37th floor bullion exchange. Of course. Simon radios Jim the info.
In the elevator, the bomb counts down from 4:00. Blair starts using the workman's tools to pull up the carpet. The floor's metal. He asks for a blowtorch. The workman has one, because, sure. Blair wants to cut a hole in the floor and drop the bomb, "boom!" He's seriously insane in this scene. Dreads Workman starts work on the floor, but Blair snatches the blowtorch, "Here, let me have that. Two summers at a sheet metal plant -- fastest torch in my crew." Of course. He sends an unnerving, darting look at the workman. "Nothing personal." If I were on that elevator I'd add "anthropology student killing spree" to the list of things to be worried about.
Did I ever tell you about the Fire People?
Alternating shots of Blair torching and Jim reaching the roof, strapping himself to a cable, scaling down the side of the building, and kicking through the plate glass window into the exchange. Finding the bad guy, he quips, "My history's a little rusty, but wasn't Galileo known for, uh, dropping the ball?" Again with the dropping balls. Hand to hand; Galileo ends up holding a gun to Jim and quipping, "There's more than one way to get a divorce!", while holding out a detonator. Luckily, Little Brother wakes up from being dead long enough to shoot Galileo in the leg. Jim and Galileo struggle for the detonator, and Galileo pushes the button just as the bomb is falling through the shaft. Jim: OH NO MY GUPPY!!! Of course Blair's fine--we cut to the elevator people cheering for him as they pointedly fail to die--but Jim doesn't know that. He tells Galileo he's going to drop him off the building, and there is no evidence that he doesn't, in fact, do this.
Firemen gets the hostages out. Blair is the last to be pulled out, by Taggart. He tells Caitlin to take care of herself and her baby, and gives her a random Meaningful Look. He and Jim walk off toward the exit together bantering slightly about Blair's good-luck charm needing reappraisal. "Only this time..." "Take the stairs," Blair finishes his sentence.
Reunited!
Bottom Line: Don't put Blair in a box. Just don't. On the plus side, this may be the only episode in television history to feature a pregnant woman trapped on an elevator who doesn't give birth.
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2x17 Red Dust
Okay, here's the deal. Some Russian girl Katrina is having a birthday party when the restaurant gets shot up. They're involved somehow--they know all the major players--but when Jim and Blair question them later, they pretend to be clueless. Blair thinks they have to "break down some barriers." I guess Jim's hottness does okay at that, as Katrina's sister Micki gives Jim her card. Jim finds a bracelet which makes his fingers tingle--radioactive.
Jim and Blair go to Micki's newspaper, which is called the "Rumor" (or rather, some Russian word which translates to "rumor" according to Blair), where she is apparently the only staff member, and she and Blair alternately speechify about secrets, rumors, shadow governments, KGB, police, trying to help, etc. She eventually relents and gives them the address of the bracelet owner, Katrina's friend Sergei Tomsk.
The scene at Tomsk's apartment is kind of cute. Blair does his usual Guide thing to help Jim find which apartment is Sergei's by feeling for radiation heat on the mailboxes. The apartment door is unlocked, and Sergei is blasting music which makes Jim wince and Blair nod his head along cutely. They wander into Sergei's bedroom, where he and Katrina are naked under blankets making out and completely oblivious to the two strangers who just stroll by the bed until Jim turns off the music. After some informal introductions, Jim tells them to get dressed because they need to go to the hospital--they're in danger because radioactive. So Katrina gets up, pulling all the sheets around her, and revealing Sergei's naked--oh, wait, he's wearing boxers. Huh. Blair, who never made the slightest pretense of turning away, gazes steadily at Sergei and asks about his awesome music.
I'm pretty sure this is what "come-hither eyes" look like from the back.
Sergei's excited to meet another fan and starts playing him a record. Blair grins broadly and nods his head along, and Sergei does a dorky dance in his boxers. I kind of love him. Jim taps Blair, "Sandburg, this is getting a little painful." Whether he's referring to his senses or watching Blair flirt is unclear. Blair just-one-more-minutes him. Katrina comes back in a dress, and Sergei goes off to dress. A moment later, Jim looks for him in the bathroom and he's gone, window open.
Okay, so at the hospital, the doctor says Katrina needs to be held for observation, and nobody can see her. Micki, who's kind of shaken, reveals some more info: Sergei brought a briefcase the night of the shooting to be given to some guy called Mayakovsky. Jim asks where to find him.
Cut to Jim and Blair driving. Blair is wondering where to find Sergei; he gets an idea and asks to be let off at home. He's pretty cute in the car, as always in these Jim-driving-in-profile, Blair-in-shotgun-looking-at-him shots we get every episode. He asks to be let off at home to follow up on something. Jim tells him to be careful even though he's the one who's going to find some crazy guy whose idea of fun is to fight barehanded in a boxing ring with a guy with a knife. Yep, that's what Mayakovsky is doing when we cut over to him. Mayakovsky bests his challenger and tells him, "Never let your opponent dictate your emotions." "Easier said than done," comes a voice, and we pan over to see a silhouette of Jim leaning against something in a John Sheppard kind of way. Yes, I'm sure it is easier said than done, for you, Officer McFeely. Jim threatens Mayakovsky vaguely and then leaves.
 |  | |
| Hero Lessons from Det. Jim Ellison and Col. John Sheppard: A hero goes to the gym to lean against stuff and watch other men spar. | ||
Blair's big revelation, that he was working on, is "Sergei likes this band." Jim and Blair go to a concert for this kind of faux-80s who sings in German, which makes this scene kind of a nice contrast with Nick Cave in Wings of Desire, you know, and anyway, Jim absolutely hates it, but Blair's grinning and dancing. Jim eventually spots Sergei and they run after him (Blair runs like a dork.) Outside the club, Sergei hops on the back of someone's motorcycle, and someone else shoots at the boys. As usual Jim throws himself on Blair to protect him. The rest of the scene is also typical: Jim jumps up, aims, shoots, misses, turns, "You okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine."
Jim and Blair swing by the Rumor office the next day and Jim sees Micki meeting with Mayakovsky in a car. He tells her to find the briefcase. She exits the car and Jim approaches her, offering his help/protection, but she says they both know it won't help. Jim's wearing a snowflake sweater, as is his wont in Russian-themed episodes. Jim heads back to the car where the cell phone rings and Jim snatches it out of Blair's hand (another go-to move for the Ellster). They're called to...
The hospital! They found... someone. Someone sick. I don't know. Jim suits up and goes into a clean room to talk to him, but he dies. Out in the hall, Blair does his coatrack act while Jim talks to Simon, telling him he needs more time. Simon says he doesn't have time, the Feds are coming to take over the case because of the danger posed by the radioactive people. "My hands are tied," says Simon. "Mine aren't," says Jim. He pats Simon on the belly. SIMON. SIMON, he pats.
Simon's in his office when some Fed comes and asks to talk to Jim. Simon quips, "He went out for a newspaper." Cut to Micki coming into the darkened Rumor office. Is Jim going to jump her? Pan over to--Jim leaning against the wall in John Sheppard style, again. Did he take gay lessons for this episode?
 |  | |
| Hero Lessons from Det. Jim Ellison and Col. John Sheppard: A hero poses with his hips thrust out and his legs shyly crossed. | ||
Jim exposits that Katrina has leukemia and Micki has known it all along. Micki admits that needing the money for the bone marrow transplant is the reason they're mixed up in all of this: Sergei, Katrina's boyfriend, has a plan for getting the money. Apparently a plan involving transport of radioactive goods.
Out in the car, Blair puts on his glasses and sees someone running down the alley. He calls Jim, who tells him to stay put, but "No time," says Blair. Mayakovsky is driving up and shooting at the runner--Sergei. Blair drives closer, opens the door, and yells at Sergei to get in. Mayakovsky shoots Sergei and takes his briefcase and runs, and Sergei collapses by the car door. Blair runs to his side. Jim and Micki come out, and with his last breath, Sergei tells Jim the location of his next plutonium-selling rendezvous. Blair's still holding onto him, looking stricken, as he dies.
At the station, there's some exposition and plans to use Micki as a decoy or something, but I can't pay attention because I'm trying to figure out what Blair's long-sleeved T-shirt says down the sleeves--"SEA" something. Sea World? There's a fish on the front. It's kind of ridiculous. We go to the rendezvous point, which devolves into a shootout between plutonium sellers, buyers, and SWAT team. Micki and Katrina are there. Blair saves Katrina; Simon saves Blair; Jim ends up being towed by a rope behind a boat. All right. I'm officially no longer interested in this episode. Suffice it to say it ends with bare-knuckle boxing between Jim and Mayakovsky, and even though Mayakovsky has a knife, Jim wins, because he doesn't let his opponent dictate his emotions, and also because he slams Mayakovsky across the face with a fire extinguisher. Then Jim has to steer the boat back to shore, which he does by sitting in the pilot's chair and pulling on a lot of levers between his legs.
Freudian.
Wrap-up at the bullpen. Micki thanks Jim, saying that the government is paying for Katrina's hospital expenses as thanks for her participating in the bust. "It would be nice, someday, to see you again," says Micki, with a lack of conviction appropriate for the chances of that happening, and Jim says, "That would be nice," with a lack of specificity appropriate for his lack of conviction. (Oddly, Micki is the one woman we do see again, in 3x09 Red Ice.) Micki kisses him on the cheek and leaves. Blair comes up behind Jim and mocks the way Micki says "Myister Elleeson," which is kind of insensitive for an anthropologist. "You wanted to break down some barriers, man; I think you just did." "Yeah, we'll see," Jim mutters. Man, he hates women. So much!
Non J/B Pairing of the Episode: Blair/Sergei. Oh Sergei, your radioactive effervescence left a tingly residue on Blair's heart.
I'll sleep in your embrace at last!
Bottom Line: At least Jim and Blair were together for once, and there were a plethora of super-typical moments--in the car, get down, are you okay?, etc--but nothing new or special. There's no real reason to watch this episode again.
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2x18 Smart Alec
Some maintenance guy is poking around some basement when some unseen person grabs him and holds his head in some tank of poisonous spiders.
"Look at her shapes, look at her curves," Blair is saying, gazing lovingly at an 8x10 photograph as he and Jim walk into the bullpen. Turns out he's talking about a 12th century Mayan urn. He explains that it was designed for "the king's watcher," maybe a Mayan Sentinel (good to know he's still working on the Sentinel project). He's expecting it to arrive for him at the university any day now. "I'm sure you two will be very happy together," says Jim. Heh.
I'm looking at her shapes and curves, Blair, and I'm not sure you should be calling her "her."
Simon interrupts to tell Jim to head down the university and check out a body. Blair hopefully suggests Jim was chosen because he knows Blair and Blair knows the uni, but Simon says dryly that Jim was next on the roster. Poor useless Blair.
At the crime scene, Jim meets up with Suzanne, chief of campus security, and an ex-cop. Jim sees evidence that the body was dragged and suggests foul play, but Suzanne is reluctant to jump to such a conclusion. She says it's a peaceful campus. While they're talking, a boy in a giant bike helmet watches with interest.
Later, still on campus, Blair approaches one Professor Buckner in search of his precious urn, which he understood was delivered to him by mistake. Buckner says he hasn't seen it. Blair is all woobie-disappointed. Buckner asks Blair for a favor: a difficult genius from Canada (!!!) needs a faculty advisor. He's a fourteen-year-old prodigy called Alec Summers, and his fields of study are physics, architecture, neurolinguistics, and anthropology; but despite his high IQ, nothing holds his interest, and he's in danger of flunking out. (Actually, that all sounds like a great combination of fields to prepare him for Stargate travel. Just sayin'.) Buckner wants Blair to be his faculty advisor (is Blair really faculty? I guess he's a teaching fellow) because Alec reminds Buckner of Blair when he first came to college. Blair's like, Oh, God.
At the station, Jim and Suzanne compare notes. Jim found out that the kind of spider that bit the victim is only found in Australia. Suzanne has the janitor's to-do list, so they can figure out where he may have been attacked. Jim zeroes in on an off-site farm facility connected with the university.
Meanwhile, in his office, Blair is kissing some chick. It's one of the rare Blair Has An Actual Girlfriend episodes! Alec--who, like all classic Alecs, is young and blond--comes in and mouths off at them for awhile, which I feel is deserved. Making out in your office while you wait for your young advisee is not really professional. Jim enters and beelines for the coffee machine, and it's nice to see he's as comfortable in Blair's office as Blair is in his. Blair says, "Hey, Jim, you remember Molly." "Sure," says Jim, who totally doesn't. Blair introduces Alec, who tries to get Jim to talk about the case, and says he studied arachnids on a research grant at age 12. "If you fill me in, I'll help you solve the case." Jim blows him off. Alec asserts, "I bet my IQ's bigger than yours and his put together." Hee hee. Blair puts his hands up in a surrender gesture, and Jim agrees, "No doubt," but he's pretty much the master at putting his foot down, so Alec doesn't get his way. He huffs off. So, Alec was bratty, but I'd be kind of pissed, too, if everything I said made the adults glance at each other and chuckle.
Jim and Suzanne check out the farm facility. Jim asks about insect research and the head guy says they do some, and shows him the lab where two grad students are working. One of them is Lacey from Corner Gas. They claim none of the insects they work with are poisonous to humans, but Jim hears Lacey's heartbeat speed up, and he has his doubts. After Suzanne and Jim leave, Lacey freaks out--blah blah, "A man is dead!", blah blah--and her boss comes in and holds her hand into a scorpion tank until she promises not to say anything.
At the university, Blair has lured Alec back with the promise of a driving lesson. In Blair's classic car (what do I know about cars? It's old and green and it has an open top), Alec refuses directions, saying he wrote a computer driving simulation at age 10, and proceeds to joyride over campus roads and sidewalks in a way that puts pedestrians and parked cars at risk and makes Blair yell and moan and look through his hands. Blair finally grabs the wheel to pull him over and kicks him out of the car.
Blair complains to Buckner about Alec. Buckner says that Alec's in a difficult position, being smarter than most of his peers but emotionally young. Blair should be able to relate, "because you were taking college courses at 16." Ah, I thought that was just fanon. I guess, technically, I was taking college courses at 16, too, if you count taking psych at the community college for high school credit. Buckner takes a call and pointedly stares until Blair leaves. On the phone, Buckner tells the caller in no uncertain terms to take the shipment and leave him alone.
At the bullpen, Jim gives some instructions to Rafe--is this the first time we've seen Rafe? he's kind of cute--when Suzanne bursts in to scold Jim a bit for conducting his investigation too harshly. It's a delicate situation because of funding issues related to the farm facility. They don't want to alienate them. Suzanne insists on joining Jim in his investigation, and he seems perfectly happy to have her along.
Rafe! He doesn't get a line per se but he gets to nod a lot.
Blair comes into his office and finds Alec at his computer. Alec says he's just correcting some of Blair's work. "You're what?" Alec also says the urn in Blair's photo is a fake, a Mexican counterfeit from the 1930s. Blair tells Alec to focus on his own work, Alec smarts off and leaves. Blair sits down at his computer and frowns at Alec's work. "How did I miss that?" Ha ha! Blair is bad at anthropology.
Alec goes to Buckner's office to complain about Blair and finds it empty with the door open. Blair's precious fake urn is on the table; Alec goes over to examine it and accidentally drops it. It shatters, and there's a metal cylinder inside. Alec picks it up. A guy appears in the doorway. Alec tries to talk his way out of the situation, but the guy tries to attack him, and he runs away, down the hall, outside. He jumps into Blair's car, finds a spare key somewhere (glove box?) and drives off, considerably less ridiculously than before.
Jim and Blair are driving--I don't know where they're going, out to dinner, maybe--and Blair's complaining about Alec while Jim laughs at him. A reckless driver warning comes in over the police radio, IDing "a gray '62 Corvair, plate number 743 SFU." (I really don't know anything about cars; I even got the color wrong!) Jim automatically recognizes the description and is already altering his course when Blair says, "Jim, that's my car!" "Yeah," says Jim. He knows, Blair!
Alec in Blair's car is being chased, and does things like say out loud, "Force equals mass times acceleration, so..." because he is smart. Alec tries to shake him by driving into a construction site and ends up crashing the car. The pursuer abandons his quarry as the police begin to arrive.
After commercial there's police all around the site and Alec is out of the car, wearing a blanket, to signify that he has recieved medical attention and will be A-OK. Only a cup of cocoa could further seal the deal. Blair yells at Alec, upset about his car. He refuses to believe any of Alec's story. Jim tries half-heartedly to calm Blair down. Blair wildly tells Alec that "Ellison is putting you under arrest for auto theft."
Cut to Jim and Blair walking down the university hall, Jim explaining to Blair why he didn't put Alec under arrest for auto theft. Witnesses reported seeing a second car, and he believes Alec's chase story. "Why are you letting this kid get under your skin like this?" "Because he stole my car. Why didn't you arrest him?" "That's not what this is about." "Jim, that's exactly what this is about." I don't know what Jim thinks this is about.
I gotta be honest with you: I only capped this shot because it looked like they were holding hands.
As they reach Buckner's office, Jim makes a helpless "Will you believe this guy?" gesture to the world at large. Then Blair puts a hand on Jim's chest--Something is Wrong. Well, Buckner's not there and he left the door open. There's no sign of the urn, which Blair thinks is confirmation that Alec was lying, but Jim finds a shard under a table. Blair can't figure out why Buckner lied about having the urn all along. Jim gets a call.
Alec sits on the steps playing with the cylinder, which looks kind of like a space-ace toothbrush holder, but when he gets it open, it contains one of those glass cylinder things with a bug in it.
Buckner's body has been found in a car in the parking garage--it looks like a carbon monoxide suicide. Jim points out that the body is too tense and stiff for such a death, and spots a hypodermic needle mark in Buckner's neck. Suzanne wonders if the deaths are related. "All I know is you've got two deaths in four days on your peaceful campus here," says Jim coolly. "Let's go, Chief."
Station. Blair thinks the bad guys will be after Alec and his cylinder (I guess he believes Alec's story now). After Blair leaves to find Alec, Simon recaps the ridiculousness of the plot points: "So far, we have two murders, poisonous spiders, a Mayan urn, a mysterious cylinder, and a teenage genius. I mean, this whole thing is really beginning to bug me." Jim: "You didn't just say that, sir, did you?" Wanh-wannnnh!
Alec uses Blair's office phone to social engineer the address of the urn's sender. He calls the boss at the farm facility and arranges to meet with him. At the rendezvous, in a public quad on campus, Alec tries to negotiate, and the boss and his thug try to intimidate him. Alec tells them they can't try anything in public, and they're like, "Oh, yeah?" and hypodermic needle his FACE.
Elsewhere in the quad, Blair runs into Molly. She's all, "Hey, stranger!" Blair, have you been taking Not Calling lessons from Jim? Blair apologizes for being busy and says he's looking for Alec. Just then he spots him being loaded into a car and dashes off to rescue him. That's what happens when you get involved with a man on this show, Molly: they're always running off to rescue other men. And you'll just have to be okay with that. As Blair approaches, the boss guy says loudly that Alec passed out and they're taking him to the clinic, and then he sticks and gun in Blair's side and guides him into the car. None of the bystanders seem to be watching too closely... except Molly.
Alec and Blair tied up somewhere on the farm complex. Alec is smartmouthed as usual, telling the bad guys they can't kill him or they won't get their cylinder, and Blair tries to get him to back off, to no avail. The bad boss threatens Alec with a poisonous spider, and Alec reveals he's arachnophobic (his explanation for why an arachnophobic did an arachnid study: "My psychologist thought it would help!")
Jim is talking to Suzanne at the station when he gets a call from Molly. He relays to Suzanne what Molly (whom he refers to as "Sandburg's girlfriend"--whoa, the "g" word! I don't think I've ever seen Blair so serious about any woman!) saw. Suzanne IDs the farm boss from Jim's description of Molly's description of his car.
Back in Spider Central, Alec figures out that the bad guys' plan is to develop a superbreed of crop-killing bugs that only they have the technology to destroy. He muses all this aloud in front of the bad guys so they know just exactly how dead he has to be in order for all this to work. For a genius, he's kind of stupid.
On the way to the farm, Jim tries to give Suzanne a gun, and she reminisces about the time she put down her gun in an attempt to protect the life of a hostage, only to have the hostage-holder kill the hostage and himself with her gun. That was why she left the force. Jim tells her "The only way to deal with your past is to face it," so she takes the gun. That was easy.
At the farm, Jim and Suzanne split up. Jim turns on his Hearing (Blair's Voice) skill, and hears Blair arguing for his life, unsuccessfully, with the boss guy. Just then someone comes up behind Jim and sticks a gun in his neck. Suzanne to the rescue: she arrives with Jim's gun drawn, telling the attacker to put down his weapon. Instead, bad-guy cocks the gun and says, "Drop it, or he dies." Gasp! It's just like that other time we just heard about just now! After the commercial, Suzanne shoots the bad guy, and Jim says, "Nice shot." Phew! I think we've all just learned a little lesson about facing your fears. And how you should do it. Jim. Jim. Listen to me, Jim. Come out of the closet, Jim.
Inside, boss guy hears gunshots. Blair says the police are here and he should just give himself up, but he says, sensibly, that he should, in that case, leave. He leaves Blair and Alec tied up with spiders crawling toward them. Alec identifies them as poisonous, and starts to panic. Blair tries to talk Alec into calming down so he won't get bitten once the spiders start crawling on him. I love when Blair's Guide skills come in handy. Blair eventually saves the day by telling Alec to back his head against the wall suddenly--there's a button behind him which turns on a showerhead. It washes the spiders away. Once Blair and Alec are nice and wet Jim comes in to rescue them. "Get me out of here, Officer," Alec begs as Jim enters and makes a beeline for Blair.
Whatever, kid. Maybe I'll untie you after I free my partner here. Maybe.
Sunshine! Campus! Alec is trying to teach a very dorky looking helmeted Blair to Rollerblade. Molly arrives and kisses Blair, elbow pads and all. This must be love, people. Alec tells Blair he's going back home to be a kid for awhile before he continues with college. Jim and Suzanne show up; Jim asks Suzanne to join the CPD, and she says no: "This place needs cops, too." I actually kind of love that they had a new-character-of-the-week plot, that Jim interacted with her, that she was a girl, and that they didn't try to impose an awkward romance: they just interacted like a pair of professionals. Anyway, they part, and Jim wanders over to ask Blair to lunch. Alec invites himself along.
Note to self: Blair/Alec slash would be very bad and wrong. POSSIBLE EXCEPTION: Blades of Glory AU.
Bottom Line: I like university episodes; I like to see as much of Blair's world as of Jim's. There wasn't anything exquisitely slashy, but more of a baseline established-relationship level of interaction, which is perfectly fine. My main problem with this episode is that, for a "facing your fears" theme, we saw pretty much exactly zero of Jim or Blair facing their fears. What's the good of a theme if it doesn't affect either of the characters we'll see again? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the plot of any episode of anything is just an excuse to do something cool with the characters/relationships, but I suppose, for that, I'm probably watching the wrong show.
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2x19 Private Eyes
A teacher is guiding some elementary school kids around an art museum. The credits say "and Leigh Taylor-Young as Naomi Sandburg," and I rejoice a little bit, because I love Naomi. A creepy lady in sunglasses approaches a little girl (who's hanging back for snarking purposes, because she's Spunky) with a clearly false story about how her mom is sick and they need to go to her right now. The kid, Gwen, seems to wise up when the woman throws her into a truck: "Hey!" she cries.
Cut to Jim and Blair getting out of the blue SUV and crouch-running over to hide behind a cop car. Police are exchanging gunfire with some criminals in a cabin. Blair kind of cowers as Jim answers his cell phone. "What? ...Yeah, he's fine, Naomi!" Blair looks up at his mother's name; Jim passes him the phone. As action erupts around them, including a biker bursting through the wall of the cabin and Jim shooting out his tire, Blair tries to convince Naomi that the noise is just Jim watching TV. This is an adorable scene, none the less because the show seems to be parodying itself.
Not a great time, Mom.
Jim and Blair are talking to Simon in his office when Naomi bursts in all "I was so worried!" and hugging Blair. Apologizing, Blair takes her out into the bullpen where she introduces him to Charlie Spring, the friend with whom she drove up from Big Sur (where she apparently lives?), who knew Blair was in danger because he is a psychic. He's kind of a short, repugnant fellow. Dare I say Penguinesque? Jim comes out and loudly doesn't believe in psychics. Simon calls him over to inform him about the kidnapping, and Jim heads out, tapping both Simon and Blair in gestures of farewell and come-along, respectively.
Jim oversees some police guys setting up trace equipment in Gwen's father's home. Father and mother, separated, bitch at each other. The mother sets up some tarot cards, apropos of which Blair mentions that his mom knows Charlie Spring. Mother, excited, wants to ask him about Gwen, but Jim says, "He's a charlatan!" Call comes in from the kidnappers, who name their price. At Jim's encouragement, the father asks to speak to Gwen, who tells them she doesn't like it there because the kidnappers are stupid, and kicks the male kidnapper in the nuts when he tries to take the phone away. Is this going to be like "The Ransom of Red Chief"?
For once on this show, a trace worked, but all they know is that the call came from a cell phone somewhere in the area of the Cascade National Forest. Blair plays Jim the tape of the call, Guiding him through using his sense of hearing to isolate the sounds. Blair helps Jim put together the sounds and figure out they were calling from inside a trailer. Frustrated, Jim asks how that will help. Charlie Spring pops up telling him his thinking is limited. Naomi follows onscreen and hugs Blair. (For those of you wondering how they got here, it's because, if you were watching closely, you'll notice that Blair gave Gwen's mom the copy of Charlie's book in which he was using Charlie's business card as a bookmark. I know! They actually explained something, and they did it subtly! I'm just as surprised as you are!) Naomi says brightly that she and Blair will be working on another case together. Blair smiles at her, and Jim rubs his head. Let the good times roll.
Charlie runs his hands ostentatiously over Gwen's stuff while her mom weeps, Jim rolls his eyes, and Naomi clasps her hands and grins. Blair sorta stands around.
Who to side with...
Charlie says Gwen is scared, but okay, that he senses something about a kitty (her kitty sweater, the mother explains) and that Gwen was wearing a tiny silver locket. The mother confirms. Blair: "We didn't know about the locket, Jim."
Female kidnapper--we'll eventually find out her name is Stevie--looks in on Gwen. Male kidnapper says he's surprised her dad isn't making them pay to bring her back, so, there's my Red Chief reference. The male kidnapper is totally J.D.'s brother from Scrubs, so I'll call him Dan. The kidnappers have a stilted conversation where we learn that they owe money to some kind of scary crime boss named Tom... something. They bicker, then Dan realizes he forgot the passports! Then he tries to get up off the couch, but can't! Worst. Kidnappers. Ever.
Stevie calls to give the family the instructions for dropping off the ransom money. Simon tells Jim to handle the dropoff, saying he can take "the kid" (Blair). Charlie shows up wanting to be taken along; he saw something about a black car and a dog, but he doesn't know what it means yet, and he thinks he could be of use. Jim and Simon say no way. Once Charlie backs off, Blair steps in, quietly lecturing, "Throughout recorded history there have been documented cases of psychic phenomenon that can't be explained. Primitive people also believe in the powers of the Sentinels. Now, you can't tell me that those powers don't exist." Oooh, good argument, Blair. Defeated, Simon says, "...OK." I still think he's a giant pushover.
By the way, I just looked up Leigh Taylor-Young's website (the amazing domain of lty.com), and she is Naomi. She talks about her "spiritual journey" and she has photos of herself in the 60s with (a) iconic male figures like Peter Sellers and Andy Warhol and (b) her little son, about whom she writes:
By 1970, Patrick and I were on our own and we became deeply bonded by all the experiences that can happen between a working single mother and a little boy. The "normal" family structure was not to be ours. We had to become very flexible and adventurous to make our special journey together work for the highest possible good.Freaky, huh? (About working on TS, she writes, "Richard Burgi and Garrett are so funny together on and off camera. There is an energy from them that extends and completely lightens the work environment of a set." That's nice. It's good to know they had fun with this.)
Anyway, Charlie, waiting in the car while Jim and Blair bring the duffel bag of money up into the hotel, sees a black car with the license place "T Dog," and tries to call Jim, but he's on the phone with Simon. From the parking garage in the basement, Dan pulls out the giantest cell phone I've ever seen and calls upstairs. Jim answers, and Dan instructs him to drop the money down the laundry chute. Jim tells Blair to wait until the last second to make the drop, while he tries to get down in the elevator and get a look at the kidnappers. (Blair doesn't have a watch, so he has to count, "One mississippi...")
Tom Whatsisface confronts Dan in the lot, holding a gun in his face and demanding his money. Dan says he has it. "What'd you do?" asks Tom. Dan kind of grins and says, "...Kidnapped a kid." Heh. He's so entertaining that I almost don't mind that Jim and Blair are not in this scene. Tom asks for, and recieves, the location of the trailer containing Gwen, and then shoots Dan dead. Nooo, Dan! Tom walks off with some new nefarious plan which I'm not sure I understand, while meanwhile Jim hears the shot and Charlie senses it or whatever. They meet up at Dan's body.
At the station, Charlie and Jim discuss the case, and Charlie corners Jim into admitting he's giving the psychic stuff the benefit of the doubt now. Jim: "Listen, Charlie, the only reason I'm keeping an open mind about this is because I need all the help I can get on this case. I don't have to go throwing you a bone every time you're right about something, okay?" That sounds kind of like how he feels about Blair, except for the part about not throwing him a bone. OHHH.
Simon gives Jim some files, then Blair calls, telling Jim to get down to the parents' house right away. Turns out there's news crews swarming around; someone leaked about the case. We don't have to wait long to see who it is: in Gwen's room, Charlie tries to get a reading off a teddy bear, then thanks it, and calls the news. Down in the kitchen, he tells Jim, Blair and the parents that he knows where Gwen is.
Blair drives, and Charlie confidently directs him through some winding paths in the forest. They come to a dead end. I thought you should know that Blair's looking cute in his glasses and a pair of largeish hoops on his left ear. Jim starts getting suspicious as reporters arrive.
Finally, we're at the loft! Jim and Blair bring Charlie home; Naomi is already there, bustling around the kitchen. Jim starts hurling accusations, suggesting Charlie is trying to create a media circus to boost sales of his new book, and bringing up some indictment charges he learned about from Simon's files. Naomi defends him, saying he's trying to give of himself, and we all have money problems. There's some chaotic bickering for a moment, then Blair jumps in, silencing everyone with, "He broke a cardinal rule!" (dramatic pause) "He believed he was infallible." Also, he stood on the shoulders of giants, and what he did took no discipline. Blair makes a passionate speech about how Charlie's powers are a gift, etc. Blair loves a superpower! Charlie admits he was the leak--he was just so confident about his own abilities and wanted to show off--and Naomi admonishes, "Charlie," seeming genuinely disappointed in him.
Tom arrives at the trailer and takes over. He holds Stevie at gunpoint and makes her call the parents demanding more money. The new drop-off point is a locker at the bus station. Jim drives the father there and keen-eyesights through the window, seeing the father find a note and bus ticket in the locker.
Blair pops his head into his bedroom and finds Naomi meditating with incense smoking all around. He doesn't disturb her, just gives this lovely, deeply affectionate half-smile and closes the door.
Out in the dining area, Charlie is focusing on a teddy bear of Gwen's; Blair flips, taking it away, saying, "You're off the case! This is theft!" He continues that Charlie totally snowed Naomi and now she's hurting, and "I got a real problem with people who hurt my mom." Blair is adorable when he's angry and I love how stern he is with this guy whom he was defending earlier--probably all the more because he was defending him earlier. Charlie begs to be allowed to help, and Blair refuses at first, but seems to be weakening when Charlie gives up his phone and asks to be allowed to make amends.
Jim watches carefully as Gwen's dad transfers the money into a bag he found in the locker, gets on a bus with his ticket, puts the bag in an overhead compartment, asks the driver about a stop, claims to have gotten on the wrong bus, takes down an almost-identical bag from next to his, and leaves. Another passenger then gets up and takes the bag full of money. Jim stands under the window and listens as the passenger talks to Tom on the phone, saying, "She's just a little kid. You really have to whack 'em both?" Guy has no sense of secure communication. He's not only on a public phone, he's on a PUBLIC BUS. Jim boards, grabs the guy, demands to know where Gwen is. They grapple on off the bus, and Jim actually sustains some damage, getting himself slammed into the side of the bus over and over, before vanquishing (knocking out) his opponent.
Back at the station, Simon is actually the one to suggest asking Charlie for help. Jim calls home, and Naomi answers; she doesn't know where Charlie and Blair went, but she gives Jim Charlie's cell number. Why doesn't Jim call Blair's cell? I think he has one. Does he? Sometimes it seems like they share one between them, but sometimes it seems like they have two--like in the elevator episode, when Jim kept calling Blair from various places. Maybe then Blair had their phone and Jim borrowed a different one, I don't know.
Anyway, Blair picks up Charlie's cell, and tells Jim where they are (down at the pier). Jim drives down to join them and asks Charlie what he's got. Charlie is pleased to have won over Jim and says he has a name, Rob M. Blair and Jim, doing their usual tagteam-mindmeld-soulmates-brainstorm thing, figure out that could be Roberts Marina. They all run to Jim's car, with Blair hustling particularly, I think because he wants to be sure to grab shotgun.
They get to the marina but don't know what to do next. There's too many boats to check them all. Charlie tries to think while Jim and Blair helpfully yell, "Come on, Charlie!" "Charlie, come on!" over and over. Jeez, guys, since when did Charlie become your only asset? Can't you, you know, detect something? Charlie gets the slip number of the boat, but when they get there, it's gone. Jim spots it zooming off. Jim and Blair commandeer a boat, leaving Charlie on the dock, and motor off after the bad guys. Blair drives, Jim shoots.
That's what I call riding shotgun.
Jim shoots Tom after Gwen creeps up and provides a well-timed distraction by kicking his henchman off his feet. Jim instructs Blair to drive up alongside the other boat and then he sort of hops over onto it, which I guess counts as jumping onto a vehicle. There's one last suspenseful moment when Gwen unexpectedly pulls a gun on Jim, and he talks her down, explaining that he's one of the good guys and he's here to take her home. She finally lets him take the gun and clamps onto his arm. So, kind of a sweet scene there.
At the station, Gwen wears Jim's leather jacket and drinks cocoa until her parents show up. The entire station claps as the parents and child are reunited and walk out together. Naomi notes that it looks like the parents are going to give their marriage another shot, and Blair says, "I hope it works out. Especially for the little girl, cause it's not too often that parents stay together, especially these days." Naomi gives him a sidelong look, as well she should. Jim very kindly apologizes to Charlie for doubting him. Charlie stares a moment and then suddenly clamps his arms around Jim, who stiffens up (not THAT way!!!), absolutely hating to be hugged. Off-camera we can hear Naomi laugh, "Isn't that cute?" as Jim desperately tries to free himself.
I have never been more unhappy.
Bottom Line: I'm not really a fan of Charlie, but I liked this episode anyway, because it had Naomi, and it had some good moments for both Jim and Blair, although not really together. I was also oddly touched by Gwen's tough-but-vulnerable moment of almost-killing-Jim and, of course, amused by Dan Dorian.
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2x20 Vanishing Act
A shifty-looking guy is hanging around a flower shop. Jim and Blair's blue SUV parks across the street, and our heroes get out and stroll down the street. Blair is looking for a birthday present for Sam, the lab tech, whom he's dating again. Not sure why Jim's along for the ride, except that he needs Blair's company for sustenance. Blair explains that, although he missed Sam's birthday, he still has until the end of the 48-hour window to make it up to her, but as time passes, the magnitude and expense of any potential present must increase. Jim: "Is there some sort of handbook where this stuff is written down?" Blair: "No, that's the interesting part about this type of cultural rule, Jim. It's not written down anywhere. Everybody just knows." Jim spots the shifty-looking guy across the street. SLG sees him, too, and starts running. Jim runs after him, causing cars to stop short and honk.
Jim chases the guy into a side street, but then can't find him. Blair comes up behind Jim and asks what's going on; Jim hears a car coming, turns, and throws his arms around Blair, pinning him to the ground.
 |  | |
| Gayest. Lifesaving throwdown. Ever. | ||
Seriously, the only way this lifesaving throwdown could be gayer is if Jim lingered, looking down at Blair and blushing, and Blair made a quip about how he usually likes to be on top. Or started glowing. Possibly both would be required. But it's not to be. Without a second glance at Blair, Jim gets to his feet, looking around in vain for his vanished quarry.
In Simon's office, Jim and Simon exposit for the benefit of Blair and the audience that the man Jim was chasing was Gordon Abbott, a former accountant for a mob business and witness in a federal crime, to whom protection was promised, but who got thrown in prison anyway. He was supposedly killed in prison and his wife and kid were supposedly killed in a car bombing. But Jim knows what he saw!
At Simon's advice, Jim goes to talk to Dan Singleton, the [guy] in charge of the case. He and Jim spend so long giving each other the silent evil eye that Blair has to introduce himself. Singleton accuses Jim of thinking he saw Abbott because he wanted to, and tells him he (Jim) may have Abbott's death on his conscience, but he shouldn't drag Singleton into it. In the car on the way back, Blair asks Jim what's up, and Jim admits that he was the one who promised Abbott protection, even though he wasn't sure he could ensure it. Now he feels guilt.
In a part we didn't see, Jim apparently searched the hotel room owned by whoever registered the license number of the car that almost ran over Blair, and there he has found a tape recorded hockey game cued up to a shot of the audience showing Abbott's wife and kid. So their deaths were faked, too. Jim and Blair head over to Sam's lab, needing the picture enhanced so they can read the aisle number and find out what seats the non-dead family was in; in sight of Sam's door, Blair says, "I think you can handle this one on your own," and ducks forward, walking bent-over to hide behind a cart someone's wheeling past. When Jim enters the lab, Sam asks, "Where's your friend?" and Jim pretends not to know. That'll never be convincing, Jim. Sam enhances the picture, Jim gets his info, and heads back into the hall. Blair cutely pokes his head out from a drink machine and asks with his eyes if the coast is clear. He ducks back when Sam appears in the doorway, telling Jim to tell Blair she doesn't like cowards.
Is it safe?
Armed with his knowledge of the seat number, Jim finds out the tickets were bought by Gordon's friend. He and Blair head over to the house and find the friend's mangled body. Blair looks ill as usual and Jim touches him on the shoulder and tells him to wait outside. I think what I like best about Blair's corpse aversion, besides that it's a perfectly realistic aspect of Blair as a civilian doing police work, is that it's the one thing in this show they seem to manage to handle with continuity and consistence. Jim finds a flower petal on the body.
In the forensics lab, Sam IDs Jim's flower petal, and they discuss the case until Blair comes in with a big jauntily-wrapped present, which he deposits on Sam's bench. Sam frowns. "I can't accept this. It's not a birthday gift. It's a guilt gift." Blair tries to argue his case, but Sam just turns to Jim, promising she'll try and track down the store the flower came from. Jim says he thinks he knows where to start and heads for the door, tapping Blair, he of the hurt puppydog expression, to follow him. In the doorway, they put their arms around each other, and oh my god this is so gay I have to pause and catch my breath. Jim rubs Blair's arm and says "Come on. You'll live to fight another day."
 |  | |
| Yeah, and I bet Jim has some ideas for your comeback, Blair. | ||
Cut back to an incredulous-looking Sam so we're perfectly aware of how very much in her presence they're discussing her. And cuddling. To Jim's dismay, Blair turns back into the room, heading for Sam, but all he does is snatch up his present and leave. Rock on! Whatever it is, give it to Jim.
Jim runs into Abbott's wife near the flower shop from the beginning and tries to ask her questions, but she's understandably still pissed at him about the whole getting her husband killed thing. Also, he keeps calling her "Mrs Abbott," even after she says her name is Morgan now. (Her first name is Elise, so I'll just call her that.) She drives off, and Jim returns to his car, where Blair was just kind of hanging out, I guess.
Elise Morgan/Abbott goes to pick up her son, Joey, and in a huge fake-out, we see him standing waiting for her, and we see her pull up across the street--hey! it's going to be fine! Nope, because a big black car with tinted windows comes driving in the opposite direction, closer to his side of the street, and steals him. Jim and Blair drive along and find Elise hysterical in the street. When he finds out what happened, Jim does the evilest of evil turns, and careens off into a car chase sequence. His driving is particular reckless today, and Blair keeps grabbing the side or the dash; during one skid-turn, Jim actually throws an arm out across Blair protectively.
He's... he's wearing a seatbelt, dude, it'll be okay.
They lose the car, but almost run over Joey, who is suddenly just standing there in the middle of the road looking scared. Next thing, everyone--Jim, Blair, Elise, Joey--are back at Elise's house. Jim wants to talk to Elise, but, in a realistic touch, Joey's still shaken and doesn't want to leave his mother's side, so Blair steps in and makes friends with Joey and diverts his attention (another nice piece of continuity, since it's exactly what he did in 2x02 Out of the Past). "Your friend has quite a way with kids," says Elise. "He's not so far removed," says Jim, fondly.
After getting a threatening call from the mob boss guy, Elise admits to Jim that she and her husband arranged to meet in the park later that day. Jim finds a bug in a lamp and hastily calls down Blair, telling him to stay with Elise and her son and call for backup while he goes to the park. He finds Gordon, but so do the bad guys; Gordon disappears after getting grazed with a bullet.
Back at the house, Sam finds a kind of bug that only Feds have, and Jim thinks Singleton may be behind this. Joey is being taken into protective custody. Blair tries to help Sam carry something, and she shuts a door in his face. To Jim, Blair laughs, heartily, "I guess we're just gonna be friends, man." Simon gets a call, a tip from a pharmacist who saw Abbott buying first aid supplies. Jim and Blair go to the area and Jim spots Abbott trying to tend to his wounds in a parked car.
In an interrogation room, Jim talks to Abbott, trying to get him to testify against Singleton. (For something. As carefully as I've been trying to watch, I think there's some important points I missed, probably when I was musing about what could be in that gift box of Blair's. Toaster? Foot massager? Bottle city of Kandor?) Understandably, Abbott is not interested in Jim's promises of protection. The best part about this scene is how it's all about feelings. Jim: "I know how you must feel." Abbott: "You have no idea how I feel!" Jim: "All right, I don't know how you feel." Abbott: "Damn right you don't know how I feel!"
Singleton shows up at the police station, asking to talk to Abbott; Jim isn't going to let him, but Abbott sees Singleton playing with his wife's keychain, and he demands to talk to him. Jim tries to eavesdrop on the conversation through Simon's office door but Singleton eyes him suspiciously and turns on the radio. Jim winces and declares he can't hear, but Blair's like, "What are you talking about? You can filter that out."
Seriously. We've been over this, Jim.
But all Jim knows when Singleton leaves and Abbott demands to be let go--which Simon okays--is that Singleton was saying something about Elise. Simon informs Jim that Elise is gone, the officers watching her killed. "You think he's going to try and trade himself for his wife?" "I would," says Simon, full of compassion and gravitas.
Jim and Blair tail Abbott and find him pushing a gun into Singleton's face. They collaboratively talk him down. Cut to Singleton handcuffed to a Dumpster while Jim and Blair run off on part 2 of their adventure, trying to save Elise, I guess. Abbott goes to a junkyard meet with the mob boss, who gives a bad guy speech with an accounting theme ("One thing I learned: You gotta make the books balance.") We end up with a junkyard fight; Gordon and Elise Abbott reunite and run away fairly early after Jim starts shooting, and he continues dealing with the mob boss's men, protecting the couple, and dodging cars being thrown at him by a henchman operating a crane as Blair gets a rare chance to shine in the fight when he knocks out the crane operator with a wrench and then uses the crane to pick up the mob boss's getaway car, with him in it. Pan Pipes of Blair is a Badass.
Station wrap-up! Abbott thanks Jim and leaves. Sam comes in, says she's willing to accept her present back--her 48 hour grovelling window is closed--and kisses Blair. As soon as she leaves, Blair goes to Henri all "I need to buy my present back," but Henri needs it for his own 48 hour window. Blair gives his apologies to Jim and Simon and runs off, presumably to the mall. Simon: "What's up with him?" Jim, philosophically: "Sandburg inhabits a rather strange and confusing world."
Bottom Line: Your typical Sentinel A-plot--neither particularly offensive nor particularly interesting--is spiced up somewhat by a Lothario Blair B-story and several inexplicably great J/B touches.
Liiiiike this.
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2x21 Pennies from Heaven
Weird music montage of homeless people and beggars. High school kid, Marcus, walks with his friend; friend wants to play video games, but Marcus wants to study for his history test. Nerd. Suspicious looking guy is alternately watching them and the overpass, using binoculars. An armored car driving across the bridge suddenly blows a tire and skids; the back opens, and money flutters down over the huddled masses. People grab the cash as the music pipes back in, something about rain. Artsy.
Jim is driving, roommate-scolding passenger Blair to use the air freshener after he goes to the bathroom. Ew. (a) I know it's obnoxious of me to pretend that Blair Sandburg's shit don't stick like everybody else's, but, can't I? (b) Doesn't the air freshener bother Jim? Radio reports a "major disturbance" at the overpass and Jim alters his course. "Oh God, Jim, that's--that's money!" "It's a free-for-all," Jim agrees. Jim asks some older men what happened, and they deny seeing anything (or taking anything), but describe a kid holding a basketball and wearing a Jags sweatshirt--pretty terrible distinguishing features--as a possible witness.
At the station, Blair suggests this is a "finders keepers" situation. Jim: "I agree in theory, and it's an interesting moral dilemma, but bottom line, you take what isn't yours, it's stealing." Oh Jim. You're so lawful. Blair asks, practically, "So what're you gonna do? You going to arrest the whole community?" But they won't worry about that yet, because, as Simon explains, the next week is an amnesty period; anyone can return money, no questions asked. Blair: "Guys, this is a fascinating experiment in social behavioral science." Simon stares at him for a moment, then turns to Jim, asking him to investigate the possibility this wasn't an accident.
Jim questions the guards from the armored car--Trout, Marshall, and Lone--but they're unhelpful. He notes Marshall's marine corps insignia ring.
Rafe is manning a turn-in-money booth and reports no recovery yet. Walking away, Jim hears a basketball bouncing and turns to see a kid in a Jags sweatshirt. Wearing the same sweatshirt as the witness those guys described! Why, it must be him! Jim puts on his Jags cap obsequiously and strikes up a conversation. Marcus is of course unhelpful. Jim: "Some of the people that picked up that money might think of it as a gift from God, but in reality, it belongs to the U.S. government." Jim, you know this is a lost cause, right? You can talk about "doing the right thing" all you want, but you're asking people to give up boatloads of free money--money that doesn't really belong to anyone else--for some abstract notion of Right. I'm just saying, you may as well just give a speech about the killers of your father while you're at it.
I first moved in with Blair on the trail of the killers of his apartment, and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I have allowed him to remain, attached as a liaison, to me.
Marcus goes inside where his father is arguing with the rent collector, Ungar, the shifty guy who was watching the armored car crash. Dad is leading a rent strike. Marcus is afraid the building owner will send thugs to kick them out; dad assures him they're on the right side of the law, but Marcus isn't so trustful of legal protection.
Some people actually return some money! Jim asks Blair for a $100 bill for comparison.
BLAIR: What do I look like?!
JIM: You look like the type of guy that would carry around a c-note just to impress women. Come on.
BLAIR (looking around shiftily): For your information, it's for emergencies.
JIM: Emergencies. Earthquakes, floods... stranded co-eds?
BLAIR: Why you got to hurt me like that? ...Come on.
JIM (shrugging): You bring it upon yourself.
Oh man. Blair actually looks hurt, too. Clearly this is an old wound. I guess Jim has his own reasons for bitching about Blair's Casanova tendencies. The money's counterfeit, if you were wondering.
"Why got got to hurt me like that?"
In the office, Simon figures someone replaced the money going to the treasury with counterfeit bills, then staged the accident to explain where it went/divert suspicion--the treasury would have noticed the counterfeit. "What do you think, inside job, Jim?" Jim gets a call. Over his shoulder, Blair points at his coffee cup, as if asking America for permission to grab a refill. Call is from Lone, one of the treasury guards with a conspiracy theory. The guard who was originally supposed to be on the truck couldn't go because he got food poisoning after eating dinner with the driver. Jim arranges to meet up with him and hangs up. "Definitely an inside job."
Marcus tries to secretly pay the rent, but Ungar informs him the money is counterfeit, and also, not suspiciously at all, he adds that if Marcus tells anyone he was at the bridge, he'll kill him.
The other two treasury guys, Trout and Marshall, log onto "Chatter Net" to talk to their boss-in-crime, who goes by the handle MrJones. A chat website? Jeez. Least secure communication ever. MrJones arranges a rendezvous and asks if they took care of Lone yet. Trout and Marshall glance at each other, their faces close. Oh, Lord.
Everyone on this show has a partner!
Jim and Blair arrive at Jim's meeting with Lone in some kind of office/lockerroom thing, but he's not there. Jim smells blood and finds Lone's body in a locker. Later, when the coroners are loading the body into a bag, Jim makes them pause, and gently strokes Lone's face; Serena asks if he found something, and he says no, and asks to see Blair outside. You know, Jim, you could just walk outside, and Blair will follow you anyway. Jim says he saw an impression of a marine corps insignia ring.
They go to check out the tire from the armored car. Blair remembers he never got his hundred bucks back from Jim. Jim, unconcerned, examines the tire and says it probably got logged in with the evidence. He seems to take perverse pleasure in announcing the money's on its way to Washington to be examined.
BLAIR: Ah, Jim!
JIM: Don't worry about it. The department will make good on it.
BLAIR: The department won't make good on it! My hundred bucks is lost in some bureaucratic abyss. (put-upon, long-suffering martyr voice) That's okay...
Man, Jim, you're an asshole! What are you trying to do, keep Blair poor so he'll always depend on you? Hey, why don't you just mix Pine-Sol into his soup so he'll be nice and sickly too?
Jim figures out there has to have been a third man involved in the scheme since the charge on the tire was blown remotely, and there was no triggering device on the truck--and since, as he tells Simon later, Marshall and Trout are idiots. "So who else are we looking for?" asks Blair. Jim, testily: "I don't know, Chief, what do you got?" Is Jim on the rag or something this week? Blair shrugs elaborately, and Simon tells Jim to question the crash witness--"Use some of that Ellison charm." Blair gives the Half Grin of I Know That Charm!
Awww, yeah.
While Jim and Blair go and have a chat with to Marcus's dad, Marshall and Trout go to their rendezvous in a condemned building to pick up their cut of the money. As soon as they open the door to the designated apartment, a giant explosion engulfs them. Later, at the crime scene, Taggart tells our heroes there was a gas leak, any kind of spark would have sent it up. The victims were ID'd by Dental. "There go your murder suspects," says Blair helpfully.
Jim checks out the toasted-out apartment. He notes a sulphur smell, and asks to use Blair's Swiss Army knife. Don't give it to him, Blair, you'll never see it again! Jim lifts the bottom of the doorframe with the knift, and finds parraffin and sandpaper. Someone engineered a giant match-striking scenario that would spark as soon as the door opened. Jim gives back Blair's knife. I guess he only takes things worth $50 or more.
Marcus's dad talks to Marcus; he's sullen. The dad believes for some reason that returning the money is the right thing to do, though, and he convinces Marcus to do it. At the money-returning-station, Jim asks if he saw anything again, and I'm not sure why Jim is so sure he did, but he says no. "Marcus, this isn't about the money anymore," says Blair, doing his gentle calm-down-the-witness thing. "The three guys in the armored truck -- they're dead." "No, they're not just dead, they were murdered," Jim corrects impatiently. I think he got that, dude, chill. Marcus waffles a bit more and then tells on Ungar.
Jim and Blair find Ungar getting into his car outside his hideout. Jim comes forward with gun drawn and yelling arresty type stuff; Ungar just zooms his car forward, sending Jim tumbling over the hood. I'm pleased to report that, although things like getting run over don't generally faze Jim, he's actually limping once he struggles to his feet. Blair rushes over and puts his arms around him: "We gotta get you to the hospital!" "No, let's just go," Jim insists. Blair hops into the driver's seat and Jim limps around to shotgun, where he radios an APB.
"We gotta get you to hospital!"
Jim limps into the station, Blair tailgating; Blair trips, falling into Jim, who snaps at him. Normally I'd cut him some slack here since he was injured, but he's been like this all episode.
Maybe if you didn't walk so freaking close to him, Blair, you wouldn't... oh, who am I kidding.
Simon exposits that Jim has, indeed, been to the hospital, in case we were worried, and some info about the case: Ungar works for a property company owned by Adam Latham, who is the owner of the building where the two guys were exploded, and who, it turns out, owes millions of dollars in back taxes.
Jim and Blair check out another of Latham's properties. "You should be home in bed," Blair says, patting a still-limping Jim on the back. "I may walk like Walter Brennan, here, Chief, but duty calls," and I'm excited because I actually know who he's referencing. Figures Jim would like old Westerns. I bet he thinks he's John Wayne. You can forget what I said about buying a gun, Chief, you ain't exactly the type.
"You should be home in bed."
Marcus sees Ungar. He runs to a pay phone to call Jim, who's driving with Blair. In the car, Jim hands Blair an envelope; he got the reimbursement. Blair's disappointed that it's five twenties instead of a hundred-dollar bill, and Jim rolls his eyes and tells him to go to a bank and get over it. Okay, that's justified, I think. Jim gets the call from Marcus, getting the location info just as Latham grabs Marcus and shoves a gun in his back. Jim and Blair drive up as Latham tries to get Marcus into a car with Ungar, explaining that a hostage could give them "leverage". Jim comes out guns blazing, Latham runs away, and Jim stops to cuff Ungar and tell Blair to watch him before tearing off on foot after Latham and his briefcase full of money.
Chaseity chase, through a trainyard, up some steps, onto the roof of a building. I'm thinking about how Latham pronounced "leverage" the English way, with the long "e", and I'm wondering if it would sound affected to start doing that with my American accent, and how it's probably already affected that I said "nyews" and "herb" (with a fucking "h" in it) and I wonder who pronounces it "basil" and who pronounces it "baysil" and before I know it Jim is hanging off the roof with Latham about to step on his fingers or whatever. Jim manages to grab onto Latham's leg and throw him off balance, and he falls four stories down onto the roof of a car, and looks pretty damn dead. His briefcase has come open where he dropped it and the wind blows a rain of money down over Jim and to the corpse and wreck below. Jim flips himself onto the roof. One more pathetic shot of HE GOT HIS MONEY NOW AND LOOK WHAT GOOD IT DID HIM!
Jim and Blair come by the apartment building where Marcus's dad and the other tenants are painting. Dad explains, "With the owner's death the building fell into receivership. The mayor needs to score some inner city points so he sells the building to the tenants for a dollar." Yeah, right. Blair's excited: "Look at this! The community coming together, this is great." Blair's kind of patronizing. Jim tries to talk Marcus into joining the police force, but he doesn't want to deal with any more "punk ass fools" than necessary. Jim and Blair chuckle and head back to the car; Jim's limping. "You still hurting from the accident?" Jim says no, he's got a splinter from the red cedar Blair sprinkled on the bathroom floor as a "natural deoderizer." Jim tells him, "Use the spray." Oh, good. I'm glad it all came back to poo.
Bottom Line: Some bickering/bitchiness between Jim and Blair, which I like all right, but not as much as I like the affection. And mostly the episode was about the plot. Meh.
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2x22 Survival
Jim and Blair discuss Blair's love life as they walk into the bullpen. "What were you thinking of, letting her read all that stuff?" Jim asks, slapping Blair on the head. Blair: "I actually thought that honesty would strengthen our relationship. I'm stupid, I'm stupid," and he knocks himself on the forehead with a gratuitous "knock on wood" sound effect. "Just how detailed were these diaries?" asks Jim, and Blair sends him a look. "I'm an anthropologist." Heh. Cute. Simon calls over Jim, interrupting his big-brotherly advice/sympathy.
There's actually nothing unusual about this scene--this is how Jim and Blair typically have conversations--but I had to break up this block of text.
Simon asks Jim to ride along as the police escort in a prison vehicle that's transporting this criminal, Quinn. Jim gets all tight-lipped and silent; Simon says he knows Jim hates Quinn, but he's the only one available on the roster. Jim acquiesces curtly. Simon sighs and says, fine, he'll ride with Quinn, if Jim will bring up the rear of the convoy. "You can bring the kid along," says Simon, like a bribe. Since when is it Simon's job to make sure Jim enjoys his orders anyway? Jim doesn't want to bring Blair (what?!) but Simon says, "Humor me, okay?" So, does Jim think Blair is going to be in danger, even though Simon calls this a routine "milk run"? (From past experience, he'd be perfectly justified.) Does Simon suspect Jim's senses will be needed? Does... does Simon love Blair?
On the drive, Jim tells Blair the story of Quinn--how he masterminded a heist; how Jim was supposed to go in and negotiate with him; how his new rookie partner insisted on going instead to prove something to his dad; how Quinn killed the boy, and now Jim feels guilty. Amazing how easily he let Simon go in his place this morning, then. (But it does explain his reluctance to let a young guy under his protection come on this trip.)
The convoy is, of course, ambushed by Quinn's semi-automatic-armed men--or rather, one man, who I think ends up getting killed by the police because we never see him again, and one woman, whom I'll call the Quinnette even though her name is Lisa. Simon is briefly knocked out in the crash, and while Jim and another police officer are having a firefight with Quinn's man, Quinnette helps free Quinn, who takes Simon hostage. There's an ambiguous moment where two things happen at once--the non-Jim officer goes forward and Blair creeps out of the car--and Jim yells something which sounds suspiciously like "Blair!", but then the other officer gets shot and Jim runs to him, so maybe it was "No!" The fact that I can't tell the difference just goes to show how bad the sound is on my AVIs. Jim trains his gun on Quinn, but Quinn's holding Simon and he's got backup so he's only going to end up dead--him or Simon or both--if he shoots. Then there's a helicopter there for some reason, and Quinn, Simon and Quinnette get away in that. As they're flying off, Jim zooms in on the chopper and sees it's leaking fuel.
After commercial we're in a clearing in the woods. Some Feds, including a woman who flirts with Jim and gives all the earmarks of being a babe of the week but we never see her again, show Jim the crashed chopper. Its occupants have fled. The Feds say it's a hostage/kidnapping situation and it's now their jurisdiction, but Jim thinks it should be his because Simon is his captain. At any rate, the Feds think Quinn will have headed east and they're going to send their search party out that way, but Jim can tell they went north using his keen sense of smell. He covers, "It's, uh, a hunch." The head Fed is not impressed, and calls for a rescue party to stand by for when Jim gets hopelessly lost on his wild goose chase. Nice. Blair grabs two giant fully equipped hiking backpacks from a big pile of giant fully equipped hiking backpacks that I guess the Feds have brought and gives one to Jim. "Chief, I think I want you to take a squad car back into town, okay?" Blair reminds Jim that he (Jim) needs him (Blair) for backup, and that he's hardly a novice at wilderness stuff. Yes, yes, we've all seen Flight. I guess Jim remembers, because he doesn't put up much of a fight.
Quinn and the Quinnette find a cabin in the woods and they bust in and steal stuff. When its owners get back, some crazy gunloving get-off-my-property types, they go nuts. A news report about Quinn explaining how he's looking for money he hid in the woods only solidifies their plan: they head out with their semi-automatic hunting rifles (which Quinn didn't steal) to track down the culprits. So, to recap, in the woods, we've got: the Quinn group, including Hostage!Simon, whom they're slapping in the face and causing to put on looks of Quiet Smoldering Rage; the Hunters, as aforedescribed, on their trail for revenge/moneymaking purposes; and Jim and Blair, on that same trail, for justice purposes.
Jim and Blair come to a cliff above a rushing stream. Oh, right, Blair's fake acrophobia. He keeps peering over the edge of the cliff, wincing at the river below, and basically having exactly the level of anxiety any normal, rational civilian would have to the real danger posed here. Maybe he only thinks he has a fear of heights because he does in comparison to Jim "Death Wish" Ellison.
Across the brush, the hunters recognize them as "the cops from the news broadcast," and decide to kill them for some reason. Shots ring out, and Jim does his customary pull-Blair-to-the-ground move. The hunters have more firepower and higher ground, so Jim announces that they'll have to jump. Over the cliff. Into the water. Uh, sure, Jim. Hope you've repented for all your sins recently. Blair, of course, refuses, but he requires a surprising little amount of convincing for someone with a crippling fear of heights, or a BRAIN. They jump together, not, unfortunately, holding hands.
 |  | |
| Almost, though. | ||
"Ohhhh myyyyy Gooooooodddd!" screams Blair as they descend. They hit the water, float downstream a bit, and climb out on some rocks, unrealistically unharmed. I think this shot--wet, bedraggled, climbing out of the stream--is one of the many associated with a kissing blooper. No such luck in a canon, though.
Blair's dizzy and exhausted as they traipse through the woods into nightfall; he collapses at the foot of a tree. Jim checks him out, agrees he got "pretty well banged up," and declares this good shelter. Blair can stay put, and Jim will continue searching and then double back around for him. Oh, this won't end well. Blair asks, "Are you going to think less of me if I actually take you up on that offer?" "I'll probably think of you as a spineless, self-serving goober," Jim assures him with a smile. Oh, they're so manly and cute. Jim heads off, tossing back a final warning to Blair to stay awake and not light a fire. Great, he has a concussion. Way to leave him for the bears to eat, Jim. Blair mutters to himself, "Campfire, right. What am I gonna burn? Cold and wet is my world."
The bad guys do some bad things to Simon. They refuse to let him eat soup and they smoke his cigars and throw away the cigar case his son gave to him. (Honestly, Daryl? That was the best you could come up with?) Later, Jim finds the cup and the case. On the trail! Meanwhile, Blair hears noises and he lights a lighter and calls for Jim. "I really hope that's you, Jim!" Of course it's not; it's the hunters. They knock him out.
Blair wakes up looking like hell--wiping his mouth, bleeding from his forehead. The hunters ask him about "your buddy," and Blair says he drowned. The hunters are about to shoot Blair dead (again, motives unclear) when they get into an argument. They wrestle a bit, and then one shoots the other and gets all weepy about it.
Everyone on this show has a partner!
Blair's running, jumping, looking over his shoulder like a frightened gazelle when he slams full-force into Jim's chest. He freaks out like a frightened gazelle with a head injury (or a boy recently turned human from stag) and Jim has to hold him steady and say, "Whoa, easy, Chief. Chief, it's me," until he calms down a bit. Blair, fisting Jim's coat collars, babbles out his story.
Look how frightened!
When he gets to "they knocked me out, man, they were gonna kill me," Jim puts a hand on Blair's hair briefly, checking out the ugly bruise on his cheek. "Whoa, whoa, shh," he says, but, worse luck, it's not a comforting "hush, darling, don't cry" shh, it's more of "shut up so I can listen" shh. "They're moving away," says Jim, to transition us to a scene of Quinn's group. Well... but Jim comforted Blair after the cut, right?
DO IT JIM
Quinn's group ends up at the old mine shaft where Quinn has hidden the money. They lower Simon down and he gets the duffel o' cash. They're about to grab the money and let him fall when Jim arrives, gun outstretched, ordering them to pull Simon out. Simon's on solid ground, still holding the duffel, when the hunter shows up, gun blasting. Blair gets shot in the leg and falls to the ground, and Simon and Jim put his arms over their shoulders and drag him into the mine... cave... thing. Area. Outside, the firefight continues. Jim talks to Simon--asking if he's all right ("Never better") and sizing up the situation--as they both calmly and efficiently tear up bits of their clothing for bandages. Jim tells Blair to breathe and relax. Blair grits his teeth and grunts in pain. Pretty nice pain acting on Garrett's part.
Order your Sentinel(TM) Makeshift Mineshaft Hospital Playset! Comes with everything you see here.
Outside, the bad guys make a truce in the interest of getting the money back from Simon. Jim hears them plotting to go in after the good guys. Also, Jim only has one bullet left. Also, Blair is still shot. ("I can't believe I got shot!" he cries. Dude, I can't believe you can't believe that. You've been caught in how many crossfires since you took up with Jim?) So, yeah, they're pretty much screwed. Jim asks Blair if he can move, and Blair says, "Yeah, just give me your shoulder." So Jim loads Blair up onto Simon's shoulder and they head further down into the mine, with Jim hanging back for surveillance. They take cover behind a cart or something and Jim starts grabbing wads of cash, igniting them with a lighter, and throwing them out toward the bad guys. Blair groans. "Come on, baby," Jim murmurs, lighting another wad. I think it's supposed to be just a general "Come on, baby," but it was pretty hard on the heels of a Blair pain noise, so... I hear what I want to hear. Jim threatens to bonfire the whole mess of cash.
While the bad guys go regroup, Jim feels an air current, and Simon tells him to check it out alone, since Blair shouldn't be moved. We get a nice little scene of Blair/Simon bonding. "How did it feel when you got shot?" Blair asks, and Simon admits "it hurt like hell." When the bad guys decide to smoke 'em out, lighting a fire in the mine entrace, and sending smoke billowing down the corridor, Simon pulls Blair low to the ground. As Jim finds the back exit, Simon and Blair decide they can't take any more smoke inhalation, and Simon gets Blair's arm around his shoulder again and they make their way back toward the entrance. "We're coming out, Quinn!" Simon calls. The hunter's all glee and we're going to be rich! and Quinn, of course, shoots him.
Simon and Blair come out and drop the money at Quinn's feet. Jim watches from a distance. Quinn raises his gun. Jim aims carefully and shoots into a building which explodes. I guess he saw that there were explosives in there? For mining? It kind of makes sense? But you'd think an explosion would put his friends in just as much danger as his enemies. At any rate, it provides a distraction. Simon grabs the Quinnette, Jim runs in and grabs Quinn, and Blair sort of props himself up with the hunter's abadoned gun.
Jim holds Quinn over the mine shaft, gritting out, "It would be so easy..." Blair covers the Quinnette, now cuffed, with his gun, while Simon goes over to the shaft and says, simply, "Jim." One more moment of will-he-or-won't-he and then Jim pulls Quinn back to safety and cuffs him.
Wrap-up. As Blair is wheeled by on a gurney, chatting up the girl Fed from waaaaay earlier, Simon assures Jim he would have done the right thing even has not Simon been there. Jim: "I don't know about that." Simon: "I do." Meaningful look. Jim gives Simon his son's cigar case. That's nice.
I'm happy to report that Jim now goes over and talks to Blair. Jim tells Blair not to let this new girl see his diaries. "No more diaries for me, man, I'll wait until I'm old enough and write my memoirs." Jim: "I can't wait for the movie to come out." On signal from Jim, Blair's gurney is slowly raised up toward the rescue chopper. He panics, "Jim, I'm afraid of heights, man, help me!" Jim: "Aw, you're gonna be all right." "I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid," Blair tells himself. We close on a ridiculously long shot of the chopper swinging Blair's gurney from a ridiculously long harness, and Blair calling, "Jim! Jim, get me doooooown!" You know, although I think Blair's acrophobia, if it indeed exists, must be extremely mild, I still don't think it's right to make fun of it in this way.
Non J/B Pairing of the Week: This is an excellent episode if you like Blair/Simon; there's a lot of the kind of wounded-arm-over-shoulder-slinging and heat-of-danger protecting/falling into each other that's usually reserved for Blair and Jim. Jim and Simon also get their share of intense/emotional moments.
Bottom Line: Considering the title and set-up--the partners must depend on each other for survival!--I was expecting a lot more, so I can't help but feel disappointed. Still, it's a reasonable episode, with plenty of Hurt! Messed-up! Blair!
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2x23 His Brother's Keeper
Horses speed by on a racetrack. The camera stays way too long on an unnecessary sign explaining that the races start tomorrow. Simon's watching the horses and talking to two old men, one of whom is talking about kids who are "destined for Harvard from the day they were born," although the first time I hear it as, "destined for Harvard and to date a boy." Apparently Simon is sponsoring a horse which he has some family connection to (well, I mean, he's related to the previous owner of the horse, not to the animal itself).
Blair and Jim enter; Jim is complaining that about cruelty to animals while Blair defends the "sport of kings" (I thought that was curling?), which is surprising if you consider that Blair is the one who's generally pro-liberal-environmenty things, but not if you consider that Jim is the one who's a giant grumblepants. He might as well just get a T-shirt that says "I'd rather be watching the Jags." Blair says these horses have it made: "the best food, the best medical care, and then they get to stud!" He confirms Jim's assessment that he's jealous. You heard it here first, folks: Blair's desires, in this order: food, medical care, sex. This is perfectly reasonable considering Blair's lifestyle. He's probably barely out of the hospital from his bullet wound last week. Anyway, the rest of this scene is Jim hearing an unidentified Rice Krispie-like noise and Simon informing Jim, to his dismay, that he's been volunteered to head up a special security detail for the mayor at a racetrack-related benefit dinner thing tonight. Blair looks on, smiling. "You knew about this?" Jim asks him, betrayed. Blair's all, hey, look! Horsies!
And we're at the benefit. The owner of the racetrack, Ben Prince, and his cronies are joking and laughing. "In this world, some people take, and other people get took," Prince Shirley MacLaines, inappropriately cheery considering he's lifting Miss Kubelik's post-suicide-attempt sentiment. Over by some fairy-light-adorned shrubbery, Blair chats up a lady, trying to explain the thrill of the racetrack. "I know, I used to be a jockey," she says. It's worth noting that she's exactly Blair's height. The potted plants tower over them both. She is now "vice president of a corporation" (any corporation!), which news causes Blair to take a desperate drink. Luckily, Jim comes up behind him then, takes his arm, and leans down to ask to talk to him privately. Ooh, privately!
Excuse me, I think you have my date.
Oh, Jim just wants to bitch him out. And wear a matching green vest and bowtie at him. And it's not private at all, because Simon is there. Jim whines that this is a PD event, it's crawling with cops, and there's no security detail needed. He's sniping at Blair for knowing about it and not saying anything when an emcee up on stage announces that someone present (!!) is going to be recognized as Officer of the Year! "I could be home watching basketball," says Jim, and too bad this is a formal event or he could have worn his new T-shirt. Also: how does he not realize what's going on? Simon's been grinning at him like a loon. Or maybe he got it and he just didn't care, because when the emcee declares "this year's honoree will be Detective James Ellison," Jim just stares at Blair for a moment, and then trudges toward the stage, telling him, Simon, and the rest of his brothers-in-arms, "I'm gonna get you guys; all of you." Blair and Simon grin at each other and high-five cutely.
Another clear shot of the formalwear. Guys, I hear Ellison totally rented a hotel room. For afterward.
Prince steps out onto a balcony for a smoke and gets grabbed from behind. Jim hears something as Simon is apologizing for the deception ("We just wanted it to be a surprise!" Blair at least ought to know by now that Jim hate surprises). By the time they get out there, Prince is lying dead ten stories down.
Ground floor. The body's being zipped up. Jim thinks he was pushed. Simon tells him to keep it quiet until he has real evidence, and Jim agrees distractedly; he's spotted a face across the crowd. Tender piano music plays as the recognizee cries, "Jim!" Jim: "Stephen!" Blair, silently: Shit.
"It's amazing how two guys can live in the same town and never run into each other," says Stephen. I mean, I guess that's what he says. I kind of tuned out after "two guys." Jim's face is expressionless as he asks, "You were at this thing?" Pat, the jockey Blair was chatting up earlier, comes up and explains that she and Stephen have some financial deal with the racetrack. Jim nods and turns back to his party, bidding Simon and the cops farewell, and steering Blair away with him with a hand on his arm. Blair: "Who was that guy?" Jim: "My brother." Blair, silently: GOD IS REAL!
Forensics! On the surveillance footage from the building, Jim sees what could be the reflection of the killer in a glass door, and asks Serena to enhance it.
Racetrack. Blair puts money on a horse that isn't Simon's, and the ensuing race is actually kind of exciting, because I don't know who the show wants to hurt more: Blair or Simon. I'm pretty sure it's Blair but no! His horse wins! During the race Blair, looking like a misfit in his civvies amongst a row cops in identical red racetrack jackets, cheers and grins and puts on his reading glasses to see the track better and is generally adorable in all ways.
Anthropologist among cops
Serena emails Jim the photo on his laptop which he has. It's Stephen, of course.
Jim talks to Stephen in his office, which is I guess on the premises. Jim asks what Stephen was doing on the balcony before the murder, and Stephen says Prince was threatening him with a lawsuit against his company. Stephen's understandably upset that his relationship with his brother consists of several years of ignoring followed by a murder accusation, and he coldly denigrates Jim's career choice.
Blair collects his cool $80 and ostenatiously counts the four bills in front of Jim. Simon and the rest of the cops come up in their identical jackets, and they may as well just be snapping their fingers and singing "When you're a cop you're a cop all the way from your first syndicate to your last haul-away!" (I know, I know, lame.) Blair hilariously and very transparently scrambles to hide behind Jim.
You can't seeee meee!
"All the kid did was put a bet on horse," Jim attempts to defend. "Yeah, the right horse," Blair pipes up from behind him, laughing. Jim raises his hand semi-off-camera, and I'm not sure if he's saying "hold on" to the cops in front of him or if he's about to hit Blair. He snarks and walks off, and the cops surround Blair, taking his money and his betting book. Bullies.
Blair wanders up behind Jim, who's staring off, hearing the noise again. He watches where the sound's coming from--piggybacking?--and suddenly giant cracks spring up in a pillar before his eyes. Oh no, Jim's going nuts. No, it's just totally unrealistic. Jim pushes the crowd away and a slab of concrete falls off the pillar, revealing a body encased in the cement.
Quick investigation after the body's pried out. Simon briefly questions Stephen, who IDs the victim as the construction foreman and promises to look into it. "So, Jim, that's your brother, huh?" Simon asks. Blair smiles affectionately, "I could sorta see the family resemblance." They have a similar sort of thin-lipped grimace, it's true. "I never could," says Jim shortly, and walks off. Woobie!Blair blinks up at Simon, who gives a look like, AWKWARD.
In their office, jockey-turned-VP Pat tells Stephen to resign: he oversaw the construction, and the taint of death could "jeopardize the merger." Stephen leaves and Pat makes a MYSTERIOUS SECRET PHONE CALL.
Jim briefs Simon on his investigation so far, handing him a photo of "the suspect." Simon's like... dude, this is your brother. "It's a long story, but I don't actually know him all that well. The truth is, he's just another suspect to me," says Jim, and Blair gives a Concerned Look of Wow Jim, Way To Harsh On Someone You're Supposed to Love (What Does This Mean For Me?) Simon says "If this gets serious, I'm going to have to pull you off the case." *If*. *Going to.*
In a super-shady parking garage, Pat gives an envelope of money to a guy with confusing patchy facial hair. "Get rid of Stephen Ellison."
Loft! Yay! "People change. Look at your experience in Peru, it changed you," Blair is saying, defending Stephen, and I'm just noticing that Jim and Blair have really cute bookshelves built into the end of their kitchen island. Blair encourages Jim to open up. (Just like he does every n--okay, poor taste.) Jim puts a little tender light jazz onto the stereo and gazes soulfully out the window. "My dad raised us. Mom was gone." Oh, this is going to be good.
Tell us, Jim! Tell us about your tortured past!
"He was always pitting us against each other," Jim continues, and Blair stands very, very still, like he's trying not to scare a deer. Jim tells Papa Ellison vs. Stephen vs. Jim stories, like: "He [father] was going to go on this business trip. Japan, Australia -- I don't know where it was, but he had promised Steven that he was going to take him on this trip if he kept his grades up. One day Steven comes home with a B--a B. The old man says 'Stephen, sorry, the deal's off. Jimmy, pack your bags.'" Blair, empathetically: "So he punishes him by rewarding you." In the end, if you're curious, Stephen framed Jim for joyriding in the dad's car and got to go on the trip after all, and Jim joined the army. Guys, I just want to say that I love this.
Ooh, now we get a Blair Youth story! "Once when I was fourteen, I went to this store and I stole this microscope, right? (Yes, a microscope, Jim, I was a science nerd.) Anyway, um, the cops caught me and I swore up and down that I'd paid for the thing and I kept lying and getting in deeper and deeper. And finally I just couldn't take it anymore, and I had to come out and tell the truth. But by that time, nobody was listening." Blair thinks Jim has "stopped listening" to Stephen. Really? Really, Blair? That's a pretty tenuous friggin' metaphor, but I'll let it go, because that story rocked. And because it's pretty clear you were really hinting at something else. I think you both should just "come out and tell the truth" before you start "getting in deeper and deeper." (Okay, okay, poor taste!)
Jim's not interested in Blair's stories of childhood science nerd woe, because he sucks at everything. He's about to take a walk when the phone rings. It's Stephen, saying he found a bunch of false evidence about himself at work, and he needs Jim to meet him. Jim reluctantly agrees. After they hang up, we see the silhouette of a gun against the window of Stephen's office. Oh noes!
At the rendezvous (a parking garage, natch), Jim is shot at by an unknown assailant. Jim looks for the shooter, but he disappears before Jim can find him. In a car, he finds Stephen slumped over a seat, bleeding from the head. I seriously think they've killed off Stephen as Jim pulls up his body, but then he turns, conscious. His head's just been grazed. Jim calls for an ambulance, then sees the attacker in the shadows just in time to duck another shot.
At the station, Stephen explains his theory, speaking very slowly and carefully because I guess he thinks Jim's dumb. That or the actor has some line memory problems. The upshot is he thinks Pat was behind all this, because she's been skimming money, requisitioning cheap building materials (which explains why the building keeps falling apart), and the foreman knew about it. She's taking out whoever stands in the way of the company's progress, particularly the merger. Prince's lawsuit could have held that up. Jim points out that all this evidence implicates Stephen just as much.
After Stephen leaves, Simon asks if Jim believes him. "What does your heart tell you?" he actually asks. This is just stellar police work, here, Captain. Let's all just listen to our hearts and maybe the magic of love and the power of friendship will incarcerate the criminals and maintain law and order for us! That's kind of the motto of this show, actually. Jim admits the guy's his brother and he doesn't think he's capable of murder. Simon: "If you want me to take you off the case, just say the word." SIMON, GIVE AN ORDER, FOR GOD'S SAKE. Last time I checked, captain outranked detective. Also: you are a cop, and this is ILLEGAL. Jim says, "No, no, I'm fine." No, really, I'm so full, I couldn't arrest another brother if I tried.
Herman, Prince's oldest friend, whom he fu met in a foxhole in France--because everybody on this show has a partner--was feeding horses at the stable when the shooting went down, and he IDs the shooter. For some reason, it's Blair who suggests using Herman as bait to nab the guy (after all, he knows Herman saw him). Simon's like, Uh, no, but Herman insists, because he wants to die heroically for his friend. See? Magic of love!
Racetrack. The police put Herman in kevlar, hoping the shooter will make an attempt on his life at the big race. The police are still wearing their red gang jackets and this time Blair's looking more coordinated in his old red plaid. Jim spots the shooter and attacks him hand-to-hand; from a rooftop, Pat fires into the brawl. The distraction's enough to get the bad guy an escape, but as soon as he meets up with Pat in a dark room somewhere, Pat shoots him down. Jim and Blair find him a moment later. Jim sends Blair for an ambulance.
"Now what?" Simon wonders as they watch the attacker being medicaled away. Blair has an idea, but he admits, "it's a little crazy; we've never tried anything like it before." "This oughta be good," Simon mutters, but Jim says, loyally, "I'm open to anything as long as it works." I hope he keeps that attitude up in the--laboratory. Blair's idea isn't that off-the-wall: he asks Jim to trying tracking the gun from the smell of the gunpower.
Jim wanders into the grandstand with Simon and Blair at his heels, but he's distracted by the building falling apart again. Simon gets an evacuation announcement made. Jim and Blair follow the exiting crowd, still on the trail of the gunpowder. Pat throws away the gun, but it's too late: Jim's seen her. He tells Blair to get the gun (trash-picker!!!) while he chases after her. Of course they run onto the track and Pat grabs one of the horses. Yes, right, her jockey history! Glad that's coming into play here. Jim grabs a horse, too. Okay, there's no WAY Jim on a racehorse would catch up with an actual jockey on a racehorse. I guess this scene was probably fun to film, except that Richard Burgi is clearly on a soundstage about a thousand miles from an actual horse. Anyway, Jim doesn't disappoint: he catches up with her, jumps onto her running horse (does that count as a vehicle?), tumbles her off, and cuffs her. Another win for Team Law.
A crowd of men in tuxedos--Blair and, I think, all the named tertiary cops: Brown, Rafe, Taggart--stumble down the track singing "A Horse is a Horse (Of Course, Of Course)." Oh, no fair. You know I swoon for fictional classy drunks! So I guess it's the night of the actual OotY banquet, not just the announcement pre-banquet thingy? Jim gives his plaque to the horse he rode, which I guess is Simon's pet. The cops laugh about Jim's riding antics. "Jim's been holding out on us. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth. They kept horses, you know," says Simon, in an English accent. Oh my god, I was sure the "Jim can ride" thing wasn't going to be explained. But yeah, I mean, Jim's entire childhood story--season Jags tickets, classic cars, trips to the Pacific--did sort of paint a picture of wealth. Simon's excited because his horse has been doing well, and Blair, smoking a cigar, shrugs. I boggle.
Cigar + cute = does not compute!!!
Stephen's standing off by himself, and Jim goes over to end the episode with him, which I guess is fitting, I guess. Stephen thanks Jim for figuring out his building was about to go before anyone got hurt so they could make the repairs. So I guess this is some time later. Jim thanks Stephen for coming to his awards banquet. They apologize to each other for the past. The other men in the background burst into song again and start tramping off, Simon motioning for Jim and Stephen to come with. The brothers put their arms around each other and follow.
Bottom Line: I love character dev, backstories and families, and so this, like the enlightening first Naomi episode, gets a solid 4/5. Even though from the way it was described to me, I thought we would get more banquet scenes, with an obvious Blair-is-Jim's-date vibe. Still, there's no counterevidence, and we get to see them hanging around together in tuxes.
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2x24 Sleeping Beauty
Night, in the stuffed-toy filled bedroom of a twelve-year-old girl. Her mother enters and shakes her: "Stacey. Stacey, we have to go." Downstairs, Stacey's father is burning papers in the fireplace. "Where are we going?" Stacey asks sleepily. "I don't know yet," says the mother. They pile into the family car. Stacey's mother makes a special point of handing her a toy dog. Oh, great, it probably has diamonds in it or something. As soon as they drive off, a big semi truck parked behind turns on and follows. On a country backround, the truck edges them through the rail and into a ditch. Screams.
An early-twentiesish woman wakes up in a hospital room, screaming and clawing at the electrodes on her head. She knocks a tray onto the floor, catches sight of herself in a metal dish, and looks horrified. She runs.
Cut to Blair driving at night, singing along to Angie Ferris: "...This masquerade... Will I ever learn?" Apt. Blair screeches to a halt as the young hospital-gown clad woman--it's Stacey, I think you've probably guessed, so I'll just call her that--dashes in front of his car. He gets out and finds her cowering behind some trash cans. "Hey," he says gently. "Need some help?"
Jim is just settling down to the table for dinner when Blair enters. "I thought you were going to the movies," says Jim, who clearly wanted some Jim Time tonight.
Paperback book? Check. Bottle of water? Check. Ham sandwich? Check. Jim Night is a go!
He goes all passive-aggressive when Blair leads in Stacey, asking bitchily, "Is this your date for the evening?" Blair hushedly explains the situation. Jim surmises from Stacey's gown that she's an escapee from the psych ward at Engleman Hospital, and he calls to ask while Blair quietly explains to Stacey the cultural significance of a doll she pulled off his native art shelf. The hospital doesn't know anything about her, and Jim wants to take her down to the police station, but Blair refuses: "The station will terrify her!"
Jim gets called in to take over on a stakeout for a sick cop. As he's heading out, Blair asks to let Stacey stay for the night. Jim argues quite reasonably that they don't know anything about her, and what if she needs medication? But she's snuggled down on the couch with her doll, and Blair thinks she looks angelic, and of course he gets his way because it's Blair. Heading out (and taking his sandwich with him), Jim tells Blair to call Missing Persons, and he at least does that.
Morning. Blair apparently spent the whole night draped awkwardly over the chair across from the couch with Jim's paperback. There's a knock, and Blair lets in two guys from Somerset Hospital. Down on the street, he tries to relax Stacey "Hey, hey, take it easy!" as she struggles against the men trying to load her into a van. She's wearing an oversized gray robe over her gown--Jim's, I think. Was Blair just gong to give it to the hospital?
"Don't be so rough with her!" Blair scolds after they load her into the van, and the second time he says it one of the men pulls a gun on him. Seems like a rookie mistake there. As soon as they drive off and Blair is wondering what to do, Jim drives up, and Blair hops in and quickly outlines the situation. Jim doesn't require much exposition: when Blair says Chase, Jim chases.
Jim gets on the trail by using his super-senses to hear Stacey's cries. A bit of luck is that Stacey manages to escape the truck just at the right time, so that Jim drives up when the men are struggling to get her back inside. When they hear the sirens, they drop her and run. Jim and Blair arrive at Stacey's side, and she faints. Jim carries her back to the car.
After the commercial, Jim and Simon have somehow managed to track down Stacey's doctor, because he's in the loft checking her out. As Blair plays dolls with Stacey, the doctor explains that Stacey was in an accident eight years ago, and only emerged from the resulting coma a few months ago. She's undergone a lot of physical therapy since then (so at least they attempt to explain away her having working legs, etc), but despite having a woman's body she is emotionally twelve. The doctor wants to get Stacey back to the hospital, but Simon says she needs twenty-four hour surveillance until they at least figure out why the bad guys wanted her. Jim volunteers to arrange a safehouse, but Simon wants her to stay at the loft because "the less exposure, the better," or in other words, "shut up!" Simon, I know how you like to advance the plot by insisting that Jim and Blair jump through various hoops, but this is totally the worst place for her to be! The bad guys have been here!
Station. Jim has detectived, and found that Stacey's parents were run off the road by an unknown vehicular assailant, and that her father was an amazingly skilled auto mechanic. A notebook full of high-level-looking science was found in his possessions.
Jim and Blair take Stacey to her old house to see if it will dredge up any memories. Stacey goes up to her room and sees some girls playing through the window. She heads outside and joins them, silently picking up a Barbie and brushing her hair as the children whisper to each other, clearly confused by the strange lady, and Jim and Blair look on. I don't think a twelve-year-old would just randomly start playing with another kid's toys like that.
They grow up so fast.
Jim spots someone watching them with binoculars a ways away. He tells Blair to stay with Stacey and takes off. The children take what I think is under the circumstances a perfectly logical course of action: they ask for and then take their doll back from Stacey, and leave. Stacey looks sad for a moment, and Blair looks Concerned. I'm so glad he hasn't tried to get into her pants (yet?) Meanwhile, Jim chases the watcher through some streets. In an unexpected twist, the watcher is run over by a car!
Next Stacey turns her childlike wonder and wist to an ice cream truck, with children lining up outside it. "Can I have some ice cream?" she asks Blair. Blair stares because, holy crap, she just spoke! Stacey, misunderstanding his look: "Please?" Blair grins and gives her some money.
Stacey's doctor asks her what she remembers (nothing about the accident, a little about her mother, nothing about her father) while Jim talks on the phone. He reports to Blair that the now-dead watcher had a record, but they still have no idea what his connection is to Stacey.
Walking through the halls, Jim asks the doctor who's paying Stacey's medical bills as behind them, Blair and Stacey converse silently but intently. The doctor says Stacey is being paid for and researched by the Chadway Foundation because of the interesting rarity of her condition. The doctor takes off, and Blair and Jim hustle Stacey away from a nosy reporter.
Back at the loft, Stacey opens a box containing a spaghetti-strap dress with flowers on it. (She's currently wearing a plaid flannel shirt which is probably one of Blair's.) She exclaims that it's beautiful: "How did you know I'd like it?" Oh God, Blair has commenced being creepy--but no! Jim responds, "Lucky guess." Jim bought her a dress! This is turning into a strange sort of My Fair Lady situation. Next Blair's going to be saying "Oh, Jim, be reasonable" as Jim tries to teach Stacey how to disassemble and reassemble a gun in eight seconds in time for the next Cop of the Year Banquet.
BLAIR: Jim Ellison in a dress shop. I would have loved to have seen that. Oh, to be a fly on the wall.
JIM: Come on. I was married once.
Stacey gives Jim a long hug, and Blair looks up at them, wide-eyed.
 |  | |
| Whoa, hey, hi! | ...Huh. |
Stacey leaves, and Blair says, "Uh-oh..."
JIM: All right, Chief. You got anything to say, just come out with it.
BLAIR: I don't have anything to say. I think she said it all.
What? All she said was "I'm going to go try these on." Also: it's amazing how quickly they come to the point when it comes to the squicky sexual tension between a forty-year-old cop and an emotionally twelve coma victim, and yet the gay shit is all taboo.
Simon calls. They've ID'd the parents as physics profs at Pacific Tech University who disappeared nine years ago. Jim, Blair, and Stacey take a drive down to the university. Jim bids Blair and Stacey walk around campus and see if anything jogs her memory while he goes to talk to some of the parents' colleagues. Blair nods and gives him a little swat on the shoulder as he walks off.
A colleague of the parents tells Jim they were working on "eneration of light energy from sound - called sonor luminescence." He keeps popping Vicodin or something. Jim shows him Stacey's dad's notebook, and the colleague, looking disappointed, informs him it's just notes on a combustion engine. As the colleague leaves, they shake hands, and Jim feels his fast pulse. Jim asks who funded the parents' grant, and the professor says he thinks it was the Chadway Foundation.
Blair and Stacey approach a statue; Stacey remembers being there with her mother. As Jim walks up, Stacey's face lights up into a grin and she runs to him, crying, "Jim! I remembered being here!" Oh man. She's totally imprinted on him. Jim calls for the address of the Chadway Foundation.
It's a warehouse with a high-tech security system. Jim starts to climb the fence. "Hey. What are you doing?" Blair asks, his hand apparently on the small of Jim's back.
Look, I have to take what I can get in this episode.
"This oughta get their attention," says Jim, swiping a credit card or something in the swipey thingy, and punching in a lengthy fake access code. "Access denied" signs and sirens flash, and a bunch of guys drive up in a minivan and pull Blair and Stacey out of the car at gunpoint. Nice going, Jim. The nosy reporter from before comes out and informs Jim he's just broken into a military intelligence facility and is in danger of going to jail. Finally someone calls him on his vigilanteness. Honestly, Jim, how many times have I explained to you about warrants?
Nosy non-reporter--named Sullivan--interrogates our three intrepid heroes. Well, not so much intrepid as nervous (Blair), blubbering (Stacey) and petulant (Jim). When Jim gets tired of slouching and whining, he attacks a guard and pulls his own gun on him; before retaliatory measures are taken against him or his friends, the cavalry arrives, in the form of Simon and a bunch of Cascade police, to rescue them.
Jim corners the parents' colleague who fills in the gaps. The parents were peacenik fuel researchers who needed money. The colleague hooked them up with Chadway, who turned out to be a military front. When the parents found out how their research would be used, they refused to continue working. Sullivan thought they had turned their allegiance to a foreign government, and shortly thereafter they quietly disappeared. The colleague thinks they would not have destroyed their life's work, only hid it. Jim figures the Foundation has been waiting for Stacey to wake up, hoping she'd have a clue. (If they wanted it that badly, why did they kill the parents instead of capturing them alive? Oh, whatever.)
Boxes stacked up at the loft. Jim explains to Blair and Stacey that he had her parents' stuff shipped over from storage, hoping it would jog her memory. Oh, Jim! Keeping secrets from even Blair? Maybe he's in on it. The first object Stacey finds is her toy dog. Okay, definitely the McGuffin is in the dog. They also find a photo album.
BLAIR (guilelessly): Ha-aww, what a cute baby!
JIM (creepily): Is that your mom? She's pretty. You look a lot like her.
Stacey grows increasingly upset at the happy pictures of her dead parents and eventually drops the book and runs into Blair's room. Jim asks Blair to talk to her, but Blair says, "Right about now, I think you're the one she's closest to." "Me?!" cries Jim, as if he hasn't been encouraging it. Blair reports that he found something on the floor last night: he hands over a pink construction paper heart reading "Stacey Loves Jim."
Oh my God, I can't BELIEVE the clip of Blair solemnly handing Jim a Valentine hasn't been used out of context in vids from here to ya-ya.
Jim protests that Stacy's just a kid, and Blair says, "Jim, when you're twelve years old, your feelings--they may be immature, but they're still real, man," and he gives Jim a Long Hard Penetrating Look as if to say "I Should Know!"
Jim goes into Blair's room. Twinkly emotional music. Jim says he knows it's confusing right now, but "things will change." "Maybe I don't want things to change," says Stacey, "maybe if things change too much, you won't be around anymore." Jim smiles broadly. He's loving this attention, which is awful, because he's so not going to form any kind of lasting bond with this kid. He'll drop her just like she's one of his hot potato babes. "We'll always be able to be friends," he lies. "What if I want you to be more than just my friend?" Jim immediately goes into stammer mode, but I feel like he should at least find out whether she means "boyfriend" or "father" before he starts making assumptions. He says her emotions are "confused," and that her feelings "aren't what they seem to be." She gets upset and kicks him out, as any right-thinking person would. Jim goes out to the kitchen to lick his wounds with Blair, but soon feels a draft and goes to check on Stacey. She's escaped.
Wow, Stacey went to her doctor. Surprisingly good move, but the way that he smiles as we cut to commercial suggests he's working for the bad guys. Meanwhile, Jim and Blair report to Simon that Stacey's not at any of the places from her past. "What if it's a place from her present?" Blair I-totally-just-blew-my-own-minds. "The only new place she knows is the loft," says Jim. "And the hospital," says Blair in a "no, duh!" tone of voice. You just figured it out yourself, Blair, there's no need for that.
The doctor gets off the phone with "a friend" and goes to his trunk ostensibly to get Stacy a blanket, but instead he soaks a handkerchief with some convenient ether and knocks her out. Sigh. Next, Jim and Blair arrive at the hospital and find the doctor shot in his car. The plot is maybe a little too thick now?
On the scene, Simon and Sullivan of Chadwell bitch at each other, and Jim finds one of the mints the colleague guy is always popping.
In Stacey's old house, the colleague guy, who I now wish I'd named, hands a coming-to Stacey her toy dog. Oh, yay, he's introducing himself! I can call him Van Zandt from now on. He tells Stacey she needs to remember where her parents hid her research in order to clear their names, which is actually true, right? He gives Stacey a drug to help her memory. I don't know what kind of drug this is. She recounts the night they ran away as we saw it in the opening scene. Then she remembers her father had her toy dog, and Van Zandt rips it open and finds a roll of microfilm. But Stacey remembers something else: Van Zandt getting out of the truck that killed them. She accuses him, and he speechifies, explaining why he's the bad guy or whatever. It's not important (to me).
As Van Zandt exits the house, Jim pulls a gun on him. A henchman holds Stacey at gunpoint until she elbows him. Stacey wins! Van Zandt gets away with the microfilm in his station wagon, and Jim comandeers some passer-by's motorcycle to chase him tediously. The chase ends with Van Zandt careening into a gas pump and exploding, research and all, while Jim watches.
At the loft, Simon delightedly reports to Jim that Sullivan's been reprimanded by her superiors. Blair comes out of his room with suitcases, Stacey trailing behind, wearing a black lycra bodysuit/tights thing and a long dark-pink jacket (something Stacey McGill of The Baby-Sitters Club would have worn, I think. Come to think of it, Stacey's handwriting is pretty reminiscent of Stacey McGill's.) Jim: "Don't you look great! So grown up! Heh, heh." Simon does that super-obvious "Hey Blair, come look at this thing over here" thing, and Simon, WHY ARE YOU ENCOURAGING THIS. SIMON. WHAT. Jim expositions that Stacey's going to school in Portland to catch up on the education she's missed. She says she's scared, and Jim tells her to call anytime. She thanks him. He hugs her, sweetly, actually, like she's his niece or something.
See, that's how their relationship should be.
It's kind of long hug, though, and Blair thankfully interrupts it, saying they have to get to the airport. Jim tells him to drive safe and thank God they are out of there and Jim did not kiss her. Show ending quip happens between Simon and Jim as Simon offers to buy Jim a coffee and Jim says "Better make it a double; if I fall asleep now, I don't know when I'd wake up."
He adds, extraneously, "I don't think I'd make a very good sleeping beauty."
Bottom Line: Jim's relationship with Stacey makes me so uncomfortable. Between that and Jim and Blair's usual rapport, I'm thinking the writers are incapable of writing a conversation free of sexual undertones. On the other hand, there was disappointingly little Jim/Blair in this episode. Considering that this is a season finale, it's also kind of disappointing that it was very much a one-shot, with no particular relationship to the overall arc or themes of the show (such as they are).
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