Bionic Woman - The Education of Jaime Sommers - Episode 105

 Are all CIA agents as hot as you? 'Cuz if they are, sign me up!

Last week on Bionic Woman: my stupid local station, News Channel 8, had this scrolly thing going across the bottom of the screen.  The scrolly thing informed me and the rest of the Metropolitan area that due to a basketball game, this week's Bionic Woman was being bumped to Thursday at 7:00.  Hey, News Channel 8!  Up yours, you bunch of sports-favoring, sci-fi prejudiced douchebags!  Nobody important cares about the Portland Trailblazers!  And you've made my recap late!  That's especially frustrating since this episode's name sounds for all the world like the title of a porn movie.  I really wanted to know what was going to happen.  Ahem.  Okay, enough TV geek indignation.  Bring on the bionics, already!

A soldier wearing American fatigues wakes up beneath a sign that reads, "Welcome back heroes."  He looks like he fell into a garbage disposal, he's so scratched up, but his expression is oddly bland and calm.  He stands up ramrod straight and purposefully walks through a bustling medical tent, grabbing a scalpel as he goes.  His face still expressionless, he stabs an on-guard grunt in the neck!  The grunt falls to the ground and cuckoo bananas soldier grabs his gun and turns to face the medical ward full of doctors and nurses.  A doc tries to talk him down, but the soldier fires robotically around the tent, mowing down everyone in his path.  Charming fellow.

Jaime and her friends are setting a great example for her younger sister by drinking margaritas and talking about boys.  Jaime says she doesn't need a man to make her happy, whereupon her friends only half-jokingly call her pathetic.  Holy shit!  Who writes this crap, and why are they under the impression that the year is in fact 1944?  If those were my "friends," I'd shove them straight out the door, margaritas and all.    At any rate, things get serious as they see a news broadcast about the soldier killings, and Jaime gets a call from Berkut.  Jonas and Antonio explain that the rampaging soldier was one of three recently-released Americans who were held captive by Al Quaida.  All turned on their own men, and all turned out to have neural implants in their brains.  The implants were developed by a Dr. Howard Samuels, and are supposed to be used for legitimate medical needs.  Burkut's investigating how Dr. Samuels' chips got to Al Quaida.  And how will they begin the investigation?  By sending Jaime to college, that's how!  They'll enroll her undercover in Dr. Samuels' grad program, and she'll have to pretend that she's transferring in from England.  "How's your British accent?"  asks Jonas.  I groan out loud, because everyone knows that Michelle Ryan is in fact English, and I'm certain that the accent thing is about to become the running lame inside-gag of the episode.  I am not proven wrong.

Nerdy lab tech Nathan geeks it up while giving Jaime a crash course in Neurobiology and Cellular Neuroscience.  She looks at him like he's off his rocker; she went to Harvard for awhile, but she was an Irish Literature major and studied James Joyce.  Jaime whines (accurately) that you can't fake math and science, and she's going to come off like a complete idiot.  Nathan's advice?  "Wear glasses... you'll look smarter."  Hee! 

A glasses-clad Jaime arrives at her first college class, but it doesn't get off to a very promising start.  Dr. Samuels is lecturing when her cell phone starts to blare.  Damn, I hated those 'tards in college who didn't turn off their freakin' phones.  So does Doc Samuels, apparently, because he proceeds to get his scientific briefs in a bunch and ask who the heck she is.  Jaime replies in her British accent that she just transferred in from Oxford - her name is Clarissa Whyte.  Ha!  Could they have come up with a snootier British name?  The very sound of it invokes dainty tea sandwiches and spats and Long Live the Queen.  Cheerio, wot?  The doc isn't swayed by her chahming accent, and decides it's time for a pop quiz about what centers of the brain fire when someone's ticked off.  A noticeably hot TA helps "Clarissa" cheat her way out of the question, and Jaime gives him a come-hither grateful glance once the professor's attention is off of her.  Yowza!

Ruth and Antonio look over perp profiles, searching for someone who may have passed the neural implants to terrorists.  One man, Nadeem Samad, seems good for it, and Antonio takes up the investigation.  Meanwhile, Jaime has moved into a dorm room, and there's so much wrong with this picture it's painful.  Where to start?  With the too-furnished room?  Or the fact that nobody but Freshman and Sophomores live in dorms?  Or how about the roommate dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl, complete with bow-adorned plaid headband?  Hey Bionic Woman crew!  Have any of you ever even set foot in college?  Apparently not, because next we learn that Jaime's got a paper on Neuroscience due, while the roomie's got one on James Joyce.  Each understands the others' subject better - so why not do each others' papers?  Conveniently, nobody brings up the fact that doing someone else's homework in college is grounds for expulsion, so the girls merrily trade homework, then go to a party.  There, Jaime meets up with the cute TA named Tom.  Time to get the flirt on!  Nathan, monitoring Jaime by spying on her with her own bionic eye, is all jealous and possessive.  He tries to get her attention by calling her cell, but Jaime's too busy gazing into Tom the TA's pretty eyes and hearing about how father died of Parkinson's, and now he wants to be a neurosurgeon and help people.  Jaime's panties all but burst into flames, and then jealous Nathan finally gets her attention by pushing a button and making her bionic ear go all wonky. 

Jaime makes a hasty exit from the party, then calls Nathan to chew him out for busting up her flirtfest.  He retorts that she's supposed to be on a mission to Samuels' lab, so Jaime calmly remains on the phone with him as she scales buildings and leaps huge distances to break in.  She still needs to work on her landing technique, though.  Nathan thinks Tom's only trying to get in her pants, but Jaime's not so cynical; she doesn't want to leap to the conclusion that everyone's trying to screw her.  Literally.  After breaking into the lab, she gets on the computer and finds Samuels' contact files.  She also finds Tom's dossier, and naughtily lingers a moment to look at it.  But just then, in walks Professor Samuels with his uberpresent sidekick Sean.  "I know who you are," he says ominously.

It turns out, though, not so much.  Samuels is under the impression that Jaime's a pharmaceutical company spy.  Quick-on-her-feet Jaime insists that she's just a neuroscience-fascinated transfer student.  After she got in trouble in class, someone told her she could make it up by cleaning the monkey cages in the lab.  And how'd she get in?  Ummm... the door was unlocked?  Just then, Tom, who has been lurking nearby and therefore heard every word of the conversation, walks up and takes the rap.  He claims he was the one who (jokingly) told her to clean the monkey cages, and he left the door unlocked.  Samuels seems to buy it for the moment, but snaps that he's keeping his eye on Jaime.  When the prof leaves, Tom asks what Jaime was really doing, and she  lies about  looking for a copy of the notes.  He offers to help her - over dinner, then kisses her on the cheek.  I melt into a little puddle of girly goo on my couch.  What a hottie.  He's probably rotten to the core, but I just don't care.  And from the look on her face, neither does Jaime.

Antonio is spying on Samad, looking bored until the guy's phone rings and he seems to be negotiating a terrorist deal - Samad, you've just won an all-expenses paid 24 hour surveillance!  Meanwhile, back in Samuels' class, the prof demonstrates the abilities of his neural implant chips.  A young male subject with a neural disease has been given a chip that prevents him from getting tremors.  But the implant has a shadier side: it can be used to make him do their bidding.  Sean the sidekick gleefully forces the guy to juggle, and even burn himself with a small blowtorch.  The other students seem morbidly fascinated, but Jaime is understandably disgusted.  That shit's just wrong.

Antonio and Nathan compare notes.  Antonio becomes interested (and not in a good way) in Tom after hearing about his educational history.  Meanwhile, Tom's getting coffee with Jaime.  They flirt some more, and then he leans in and kisses her.  Everything's coming up roses until who should interrupt... but Antonio?  In a hilarious scene, a startled Jaime introduces him as... her uncle.  "It confuses a lot of people," Uncle Tony admits in a deadpan fashion to the equally befuddled Tom.  "You know, because I'm American."  HEE!!  Antonio pulls Jaime aside to have a word with her.  Samuels is clean, but they think that Tom.. not so much.  His Stanford degree is phony.  Jaime's gut wants to hop in the sack with Tom thinks Tom's a good guy, but Antonio points out that the last man she dated replaced half of her body with supermachines.  So, yeah.  Your instincts, Jaime?  Not always spot-on.

Jaime has apparently decided to ignore Antonio's suspicions.  She flirts with Tom some more over the phone, then heads to the bookstore to pick something up.  As she walks down a seemingly deserted campus alleyway, her bionic ear hears footsteps.  Jaime grabs her assailant's arm just as he sneaks up behind her.  A gun goes skittering away, and she fights with the hooded baddie.  This scene includes a number of awesome, handy college clichés: the baddie fights her with a chain torn off of a nearby bike rack, and finally Jaime kicks him into a poster kiosk.  Jaime warns her attacker that he has no idea what she's about to do to him.  Whereupon he pulls off his hood... and it's the patient from Samuels' lab, the one who was juggling and burning himself earlier.  The guy moans that he can't control his actions, and begs for her help.

The chip from Jaime's assailant's brain matches the one from the rampaging soldier.  Tom's looking better and better for the bad deeds, and Jonas wants to pull Jaime from the job.  But Jaime retorts that if Tom's in on it, she wants to bust him.  Besides, she's already close to him - she can dig up the good dirt.  Jaime and Tom go to dinner at a sushi restaurant, even though it turns out that neither of them likes sushi all that much.  Isn't that the truth?  I really believe lots of people get sushi because it's trendy, not because they find it tasty.  Seriously... seaweed?  Ick.  Anyhoo, Tom notices that she's distracted, and asks if she wants to skedaddle.  Before you know it they're making out in his apartment.  That tongue you just slipped him is all part of the research, eh chica?  Before things get too hot and heavy, Jaime breaks off the makeout session by being high-maintenance and insisting that Tom go get her some pink champagne.  Tom and his blue balls heroically go on a bodega run, and Jaime takes the opportunity to rifle through his shit.  She scans the room with her bionic vision and checks out wholesome photos of Tom with his mom.  This guy's too good to be true!  He's even got neatly labeled bottles of spices in his kitchen drawers.  Darling, if I were you, I wouldn't be asking if he's a spy - I'd be asking if he's gay.  I'm just sayin'.  The spices are just too over the top for Jaime, who opens up a bottle of tarragon and finds a neural chip inside.  Busted!  Jaime hightails it out of there and calls Berkut with her findings.  But she also looks guilty as she gets a text from Tom, asking where she is. 

Meanwhile, Antonio is still surveying Samad.  The Berkut crew follow him to a building and bust down the door.  He swears that it's his brother's apartment and that he's just dropping something off, but inside a copy of Alice in Wonderland Antonio finds a cutout the perfect size for transporting a neural implant.  He wants to know who Samad's supplier is but the creep just lapses into prayers in Arabic.  Pasted on the wall, Antonio notices a newspaper article about a mother, sister and child being killed in a bombing.  Beneath is a photo of three women.  Antonio asks Samad if this was his family.  Is that why he's helping terrorists obtain the neural implants?  "Too many have died," Antonio insists.  "Let's end this."

Jaime sits on campus, watching happy couples walk by and looking for all the world like a wistful old maid.  Jaime, darling, you're only 24.  I don't care what those margarita-swigging harpies you call friends say: you've got time!  Jonas calls to let her know that the neural implant from Tom's house matches the others from the case.  What's more, Berkut thinks that Tom's on his way to make a drop to the terrorists.  It's up to Jaime to stop the drop from happening - she should kill Tom if necessary.  Harsh!  A sad-looking Jaime follows Tom to an open-air Fall produce market, where she observes him giving a man an envelope.  Jaime catches up with the envelope's recipient and unceremoniously just grabs it from him.  Way to do some subtle spy work, Jaime!  Turns out that the envelope only contains some paperwork completely unrelated to the case.  But Tom's no dummy: Jaime's jig is up.

 Tom wants to know just who the heck "Clarissa" really is.  Jaime hedges, but it's too late for denials; her accent's gone right out the window.  She admits that she's with the Berkut group, and Tom turns out to be CIA.  A lot of that going around lately - wasn't there a hot doctor in last week's episode who was CIA?  Dude, I'm working in the wrong place!  Tom calls Berkut arrogant, but neither his frustration nor the urgent terrorist threat keeps him from continuing to flirt with Jaime.  Just then, our Bionic Woman overhears something down in the marketplace.  It's Samuels' assistant Sean... and he's making a drop!  He's the terrorists' contact!  Tom goes down to bust up the rendezvous, and from the walkway above Jaime spots a third bad guy with a gun aimed at her man.  She jumps down in a superheroish fashion, just in time to knock Tom out of the way.  The bullet hits the terrorist buyer.  A knock-down drag-out fight in the Fall market ensues, with Jaime and Tom working in sync against the bad guys amidst an awesome backdrop of screaming marketgoers and gigantic piles of fruit.  Antonio finally arrives and grabs one of the baddies, and Jaime beans the fleeing Sean upside the head with a cantaloupe.  Hee!  And the best part?  Tom the hottie looks way impressed.

It turns out that Sean sold his soul for that classic reason: cold hard cash.  Jaime wonders why the CIA hates Berkut so much, and Antonio tells her it's because they don't have any red tape or bureaucracy to wade through - they can get things done.  Jealous!  Jaime gazes down at Tom, and Antonio, reading her mind, says it's not a good idea.  Later, Jaime packs up her dorm room, telling her roomie that she's had a family emergency and has to go back to England.  But before she heads out, the roommate passes along the James Joyce paper.  Jaime's writing got an A.  Awwww... it's clear that Jaime would love to go back to college, but her responsibilities just won't let her at the moment.  Just don't end up one of those 50 year old know-it-all undergrads who come to class and try to take over the lecture, 'kay Jaime?

Against Antonio's advice, Jaime goes to Tom's.  She hesitates and doesn't ring the bell, but then comes face to face with him on her way back down the path.  Tom asks her to come in and help him pack; his mission is over too, and he's moving on.  Later, sitting amidst boxes and lit candles, he tells her his real story; he was recruited out of the army by the CIA because he has a nice face (you got that right) and people trust him.  Tom asks her what her story is, and Jaime sighs.  This is her last night of college - couldn't they just pretend they're normal, and live in the moment?  Tom leans in to kiss her, but asks her real name first.  "Jaime Summers," she smiles.  They smooch and we fade to black.