Bionic Woman - Episode 108 - Do Not Disturb

Emotionless? What are you talking about? This IS my mad face!Previously on Bionic Woman: Antonio selflessly took a bullet for Jaime, then dropped dead right in front of her.  Jaime reacted pretty much in the same way that she reacts to everything (from being chased by terrorists to complimented by a hot man).  Read: a bland yet somehow still cute expression which makes me think of JC Penney catalog models.  Okay.  I can't hold it in any longer.  Where's the angst?  This is supposed to be a drama!  Is it at all possible to wring some real feeling out of this chick?  And speaking of real feeling, where did Sarah Corvus go?  The camera pans across Katee Sackhoff's face for two seconds and it's like a punch to the gut, but we zoom in on Jaime 158962254 times per episode and I'm left with one thought: "Meh."  Michelle Ryan, you need to step it up a few notches.  In the spirit of change through snark, I'm not going to pull any punches.  So sorry, Bionic Woman, but it's just got to be said. 

The Berkut group clique apparently has a dive bar that they frequent when the underground cinderblockery get to be too much.  They all do shots and toast Antonio.  A totally loaded-on-tequila Ruth even declares that she slept with Antonio once before she became a butch lesbian and it was amazing!  Everyone else in the room: "Um... awkward!"  Jonas has his eye on a blank-faced Jaime, asking if she's okay.  Jaime replies that she is; in fact, she's starting to get used to losing people.  Later on, Jaime's doing her usual walk-along-behind-a-perp-and-spy-on-him routine.  This time the baddie is some white guy with dreadlocks riding a motorcycle, who looks almost exactly like those creepy twins in the second Matrix movie.  As Nathan monitors via the bionic eye, Whiteydreads realizes that she's following him and takes off.  We get a musical Moby montage of Jaime running after him, the bionics kicking in.  She jumps into his path, but he pulls out a gun and shoots at her, shattering car windows as she dives for cover.  The chase continues into a parking garage, and the guy charges.  Jaime jumps out of the way just in time and clotheslines him.  Whiteydreads tumbles off of his bike and Jaime throws him against a fence.  She proceeds to yell at him for running away like a mommy scolding her naughty toddler, and also to kick him a lot with her bionic leg.  Ouch.   Jonas and Nathan watch, taken aback at Jaime's sudden penchant for violence.  Nathan is all, "She's totally PMSing."  I sigh and rub my temples.  This is going to be a long episode.

Jaime calls Tom but he's not answering his phone.  She leaves him a boo-hoo message about how sad it is that she has to put on a big cheesy smiley face at the end of the day when she sees her sister.  She still hates all the lying.  Hey Jaime!  Y'know what helps with that?  Telling the truth.  Yeah.  You should try it sometime.  When Jaime walks into the apartment, fake smile at the ready, Jonas is there doing dishes.  Jaime:  "Eh??" She sends Becca out of the room and confronts her boss about being in her personal space.  He retorts that he's concerned about her and wants her to take some time off, but Jaime replies that work is all that's holding her together right now - if she really thinks about all that's happened, she'll fall apart.  Jonas gives her a choice: she can take a week of vacation or she can hand-deliver a briefcase to some guy in Montana.  It's still work, but away from the office.  Jaime observes that Antonio would have said that a briefcase is never just a briefcase.  "Antonio's dead," notes Jonas.  Touché. 

Jaime has chosen door number two:  Montana Briefcase.  And guess what?  She's decided to take her sister with her on this little road trip!  Now, y'all on the East Cost may not realize this, but the drive from San Francisco to Montana isn't some easy couple-hour weekend getaway.  It's more like a 20 hour long haul (if you don't stop for food.  Or to pee.)  Hope you brought License Plate Bingo, Jaime, because you're going to need some kinda distraction in order to keep from throttling your sister.  Becca, for her part, is wondering why the hell she has been yanked out of school to go on a spontaneous trip... to the "Treasure State."  Jaime's all, "It'll be a bonding experience!"  She's got big plans for them to stay at a hotel and get girly spa treatments and gab all night.  Meanwhile, back at Berkut, Nathan finds Jae sparring with a Random Extra.  And this one wins my award as Oddest Tacked On Storyline of the Year: Nathan wants Jae to teach him to fight so that his big brother will stop beating him up and giving him black eyes.  Apparently he still lives with his parents.  Really?  Nathan, you're doing ultra high-tech computer security work for a top-secret deep pockets organization, and you're living in your parents' basement?  Either that is the most awesomely lame thing I've ever heard, or you are a big fat liar and also actually a bad guy.  Time will tell.

Jaime and Becca pull up to a rest stop in the Beartooth National Forest.  Jaime needs to make one last call on her cell phone; then she'll fork it over to her sister to hold onto for the rest of the trip.  As Becca makes a (much-needed, I'm sure) pit stop, Jaime grabs the briefcase and runs over to a nearby car.  The nervous guy inside pulls a gun before recognizing her and then proceeding to leer like nobody has ever leered before.  Jonas' contact is all twitchy and creepy, asking Jaime questions.  Like does she really have x-ray vision and if so can she see that he totally has a raging boner right now?  Jaime rolls her eyes and is all, "Just say the password you douche."  After Mr. Twitchy recites the entire spiel to "The A-Team," Jaime tosses the case at him and gets the hell outta there.  She makes her last call to Jonas, to let him know she made the drop.  And BTW, his contact is a real nut job.

Jaime and her sis arrive at their hotel, all set for spa treatments and fattening room service.  But who is this, checking in right after them?  None other than twitchy briefcase boner guy.  Gross!  In their room, Jaime and Becca relax in robes, while twitchy briefcase boner guy enjoys himself by pulling out a length of rubber tubing and a syringe, then proceeding to inject himself with some kind of nasty shit that makes him shake like Britney Spears at a child custody hearing.  

Hotel lobby, the next morning.  Boy-crazy Becca makes eyes at a guy about her age in the gift shop, as the gal at the front desk tells Jaime that some stalker guy has been calling for her all night.  He's back on the line now, and Jaime picks up at a courtesy phone.  It's Jonas, who scolds her for turning off her cell.  Their twitchy contact has "gone quiet," and Jonas wants Jaime check on him in room 203.  Jaime's not sure how she'll be able to escape the sticky teenage clutches of her sister, until Becca cheerfully introduces her to Gift Shop Boy, a.k.a. Nick.  Jaime suggests that the two of them go find a breakfast table, and she'll "Make reservations at the spa" and meet them in a few minutes.  As a doe-eyed Becca stumbles off after her new crush, Jaime goes to check on the twitchy dude.  He's got a really cool room with psychedelic stars on the ceiling, but he can't appreciate them, because he's too busy lying dead as a doornail on the bed.  Cue that cartoon dog wearing a trenchcoat that used to be the mascot of the anti-drug program at my elementary school.  Just Say No, kids!!

Time to call Jonas.  The twitchy dude is toast, apparently courtesy of an overdose.  Jaime decides it's her biznass to find out who he is.  To that end, she pries open his suitcase and finds a disassembled assassin's rifle.  Jaime's next logical question: what's in the briefcase she passed him?  Jonas tells her that she's supposed to be on vacation, and that he's going to send someone else to take care of everything.  She should just plop the dead assassin in the bathtub with plenty of ice, toss in a few of those pine-scented tree air fresheners and skip on back to her sister.  Jaime does what he says and stashes the Berkut briefcase in her room.  But then she doubles back, because it advances the  plot she just can't help herself.  Bionically, she pries open the locks on the briefcase and finds a file with a photo of a bald, bespectacled guy, presumably the assassin's target.

Jaime goes back down to the restaurant and meets up with her sister and Nick.  Becca's made thrilling plans for the day; they're going on a gondola ride with Nick and his pops.  I scratch my head, picturing little boats on canals being piloted by dudes in straw boater hats.  Gondolas in Montana?  Okay.  My confusion is interrupted as Nick's dad shows up, and... he's bald and bespectacled!  Crap!  The guy's name is Vincent Aldridge, and he's all, "Gondola time kiddos!"   Jaime, looking like a deer in the headlights, makes a quick excuse then gallops outside and borrows a valet's cell phone to call Jonas.  She 'fesses up to having opened the briefcase, and tells him that she's about to go on a gondola ride with a v.v. bad man.  Vincent is a nuclear engineer who poses as an accountant.  He's about to sell weapons secrets to North Korea.  Like, plans to make a nuke that would, y'know, actually work.

"Shiner" Nathan is sparring with Jae when  Jonas lets him know that they're going to Montana together to clean up the whole dead assassin/gondola-ridin' nuclear bad guy fiasco.  This of course continues the fabulous Berkut tradition of deigning people ready for fieldwork after they've worked with Jae for all of five minutes. Good luck, Nathan... don't forget your Kevlar!

Jaime, the bad guy, and their respective teenage tagalongs are riding in... an aerial tram.  I guess that by "gondola" they meant one of those big aerial cars that rides on a cable up the mountain.  Phooey.  I wanted to see the guy in the straw hat.   Jaime's all suspicious of Vincent, who makes boring small talk about timeshares until Becca nips that in the bud - no work!  Vincent apologizes that sometimes you mistake your job for your life if you love what you do.  Which he does!  Jaime snarkily wonders aloud how accounting could be so controversial.  Vincent looks a little taken aback, and as they exit the tram Becca's all, "Nice going!"  Jaime promptly realizes that Vincent never told her he was an accountant - she got that info from Jonas, and now Vincent's onto her.  Back at the hotel, Jaime steals another moment on the phone to call Jonas, who tells her that since she's been made, she'll have to take Vincent out before he kills her.

So, how do you take out an international nuclear baddie while still keeping up normal appearances with your nosy teenage sister?  By distracting said sister with a 3-hour spa treatment, that's how. Jaime makes like she's going in for a facial too, but she's fully clothed under her robe.  She bribes a spa attendant to keep Becca occupied for the full 3 hours, then makes a run for the assassin's gun.  The next thing you know, she's in the woods taking bionic aim at Vincent on his hotel balcony.  But Jaime doesn't seem to be cut out for the Grassy Knoll game.  She calls Jae for a pep talk, and he tells her that she shouldn't think of Vincent as a person.  Jaime's all, "Um a little hard to do when I just took a 2-hour aerial tram gondola ride with the dude and his kid."  Jae reassures her that this will get easier in time.  Buy that very idea is what scares Jaime the most.  She's not sure she wants it to get easier.

Eventually, Jaime decides to give up the idea of being an assassin and changes her plan to something a little more straightforward.  She goes directly to Vincent's hotel room, neatly taking out his bodyguards as they try to stop her.  Jaime's all, "Hey fake accountant you're coming with me."  She hustles him back to her room and puts him on the phone with Jonas, who gives him two options.  Option #1: spill the beans about what he's up to.  Option #2: die ASAP.  Vincent wisely decides to take door number two.  But he wants Jonas to get him the heck outta there, or his own people will off him.  Oh, and they need to take his kid along, too.  

Nick understandably wants to know what the heck and a half is going on as they hustle him through the hotel and out the front door.  The valets (including the one whose phone Jaime borrowed, and who now thinks he's her buddy-pal) pull up Vincent's car, and Jaime hops in the driver's seat.  As they careen off wildly down the road, Jaime decides it's a good moment to chide Vincent about coming clean to his son.  Pot, meet kettle!  No time to think about that, though, because suddenly Jaime's bionic ear hears some suspicious ticking sounds.  Frantically, she pulls over and orders everyone out of the car.  She and Vincent bail out safely, but Nick's door is stuck!  Jaime physically yanks the entire back door of the SUV off and pulls Nick out just in time; they duck for cover as the entire car goes kablooie in a giant fireball.
 
To get them back to the hotel (why are they going back?  Didn't they just leave?), Jaime randomly steals a car, doing her door-tearing trick again. That one is pretty sweet. She calls Jonas and lets him know she thinks they're being followed.  Back at the hotel, Jaime leads the way into the restaurant; their tail follows.  It's a good thing all of these Random Extras are milling about, or I have the feeling that they would all be at the bottom of a lake wearing cement shoes right about now.  Vincent takes the opportunity to ask who the hell Jaime is and how she ripped off that car door.  Jaime replies that it's none of his beeswax, kthx.  She also tells him that Nick deserves to know the truth, and when Vincent replies that he could say the same about Becca, she hedges that it's a different situation.  Jonas calls; he's out front.  Jaime promptly dispatches the two tails with a few quick one-two punches and they get Vincent and his son outta there.  Jonas meets them in the parking lot, and the buddy-pal valet takes the opportunity to try and make nice with Jaime again. He's callling her name and waving like mad, and Jonas promptly walks over and shoots him twice in the gut.  What?  Just for waving at her?  Jonas, you've got some seriously overprotective instincts going on.  Jaime is shocked too, until she sees a gun lying on the ground, where the dead valet dropped it.  Man, Montana is just crawling with bad guys.  Remind me to not go there on vacation.

Jonas' SUV.  Jaime's worried that if she keeps lying, she'll lose her sister for good.  Jonas advises her to do what she thinks is best, but wonders if Becca's ready to hear the truth.  Every person who knows about Jaime is someone who can be used against her, so spilling the beans to Becca is a complicated risk.  Either way, though, Jonas thinks Becca's lucky to have Jaime.

All of this espionage and car door-ripping has apparently only taken three hours, because Jaime's back in the spa waiting in her robe when Becca comes out.  Her sis notes that Jaime doesn't look relaxed or massaged or glowy at all.  Huh.  How about that.  I decide that Michelle Ryan also didn't really up the emotional ante much in this episode.  It was a little bit better, esp. when she was kicking Whiteydreads in the parking garage.  But it was still pretty Meh.  I'm waiting on you, Bionic Woman.  I'm still giving you a chance.  Please, justify my attention. 

On the drive back, Becca says she's glad that they came; she actually had a good time.  Jaime responds by hesitantly saying that she needs to tell her sister something.  I rub my hands together: is this it?  Is she finally about to come clean?  Sigh.  Nope.  At least not to the extent that I would like her to.  Jaime says that a man she worked closely with recently died, and it really affected her.  Becca is sympathetic, and says that Jaime can tell her about this sort of stuff.  She's stronger than her sister thinks.  Is there anything else Jaime'd like to come clean about?  After a long pause... "Nope," Jaime says.  "Nothing at all."  They head down the looooooong road back to 'Frisco to the sound of Dave Matthews.