Numb3rs: Jacked (Episode 512)

Wow, this is so weird.  It’s my very last recap at Recapist.  I figure I’d better get that out of the way now, to avoid any confusion.  My fellow (soon to be former) co-workers, Annie, Nova, Ran and Gemma have already explained the situation in their recaps.  To repeat it here is just redundant.  Really, all I have to say on the matter is that our parent company is now getting the equivalent of what they are paying.   

Therefore, I had just five days to come up with something with which to end my run and I’ve included it at the end of this recap. As for the coworkers I mentioned above (and the others), as well as Michael – the original site runner – you are all awesome.

Enough of the maudlin parts and let me move on to what you really came here for, the recap!  While I was writing this I realized that the screencaps tell an entirely different story.  Really, I should worry about it, but what could possibly happen to me now?  Never leave a recapper in a situation that lacks almost all possible consequences!

Oh, one other thing.  I feel like a drink.  I deserve one as this is the end of an era, so for this recap, we have a drinking game.  It goes like this:

1 sip for every shot of someone on the phone
1 sip for every shot of the bus.
1 shot for every pedaconference in the eppesode
1 shot for every time a main character appears on a computer / TV screen
1 shot for every time a pair of brothers (real or fictional) appears in the same shot.
2 shots for every time Don appears with an FBI symbol behind him.  (The FBI shirts don’t count.)

Now, if you make it through the eppesode conscious, you may have the highest tolerance for alcohol ever but you may need a new liver.   Therefore, I suggest you only pick two of the options.  You will still be unconscious but your liver should still be working.

We begin with the Ting Tings and that iPod song that was so addictive it’s now on my iPod.  It’s very appropriate considering that’s what all the hostages are thinking for the entire eppesode.

We also have, could it be?  It’s Marshall Flinkman!  Oh, buddy, you’re so going to wish Sydney Bristow was on the bus with you for this eppesode.

Poor Marshall now has the thankless job of driving tourists around LA.  The tourists in this crew include all the standards: the emo-kid who hates everything, his frustrated mother, a nice but average looking guy, a couple of baddies, Fisher Stevens, and a whole bunch of other schmucks we won’t care that much about.  As for Marshall, he has to smile and greet every one of them as if they’re all the freaking Queen of England.

The tour starts with the announcement of the sites that will never be seen as well as the baddies being painfully conspicuous (a word which here means: pulling out guns and taking all the passengers’ belongings).  Frustrated Mom speaks for everyone – offering whatever it is everyone has – thus bringing herself to everyone’s attention.  Mom is promptly defended by NBALG (nice but average looking guy), who also has a camera phone and starts transmitting images of everything that’s going on.

The windows are covered over with something from a spray-bottle to make the lighting in the bus much more in tune with the lighting we’ve come to expect over the past couple of seasons.  What doesn’t make any sense is the order to turn up the heat or why the driver hesitates in pressing the BIG PANIC BUTTON at his feet.  Don’t tell me Marshall Flinkman has developed a fear of technology!

IHOF / Streets of LA:  Don and David pedaconference about the bus, giving David a chance to exposit.  Ah, my BFFedcake giving exposition makes me nostalgic.  Anyway, we’re introduced to Len, the head of security for the bus company.  There’s some gizmo (technical term) installed on the bus that lets it be stopped remotely.  

We watch the bus drive around LA, followed by Colby & Liz, splitting up all the partnerships for the eppesode as Nikki is clearly invisible and mute for the whole thing.  On the other hand, we do get the return of Tim King, as played by Dylan Bruno’s big brother, Chris.  It’s distracting how much those two look alike.

The problem is the bus isn’t stopping.  Not that we couldn’t have predicted it.  What I couldn’t have predicted is that the director, Stephen Gyllenhaal, didn’t have a spectacular crash of the bus driving straight through one the FBI’s vehicles.  Considering the action sequence we got in “Guns and Roses,” one of my all-time favourite eppesodes because it was the start of my OTP, the lack of kabooms is quite a letdown.  All the SUVs do is pull out of the way.  Sure, there’s some squealing of tires, but nothing cooler than that.

The bus’s security system has been hacked so there’s nothing Tim “Colby’s secret brother” King, in charge of SWAT, or Don, the chief Fedcake, can do about it.  I wonder who they’ll turn to for help with cracking that.

SWAT is following the bus, and Fisher Stevens now wants to make contact.  It’s a good thing Don is the one who has to talk to him on the phone because, if it were me I would totally say, “Well why don’t you get off the bus so my foot can make contact with your ass.”  There are a lot of people right now who are probably quite happy I’m not a Fedcake.

So Fisher Stevens makes his demand, 18 million dollars by 7p.m., one million for each passenger and NBALG continues surreptitiously filming.  In four hours, the Fedcakes have to save 18 people and 18 million.  These are my Fedcakes.  I have faith in them.  As for Fisher Stevens – I have the same amount of faith that he’ll be royally screwed by the end.

Title Flash.

La Maison d’Eppes:  Charlie, Amita and Larry arrive to a smell I don’t need to imagine.  I grew up sandwiched between a cattle farm and a chicken farm.  I know exactly what cow manure smells like.

Alan’s so excited about joining the think tank that he’s already jumped into experimenting on whether or not charcoal + manure = best battery ever for a cell phone.  Geez, Alan, you didn’t need to go through all that trouble!  Just find out what the kid did in “Thirty-Six Hours” to make his cell phone last longer than any phone in recorded history.

We get introduced to our second major conflict of the eppesode.  It’s Larry versus Alan.  Larry doesn’t think “brute force experimentation” is appropriate at this stage.  Personally, I agree with Larry only because when it comes to brute force experimentation, if Ray-Ray isn’t there-there, it’s not as much fun-fun.

Alan, on the other hand, wants to work “from the ground up.”  I guess he took that literally when it came to using cow shit.  As for Charlie, he avoids having to choose between his two greatest mentors when Don calls him in to help on the case.

IHOF/Streets of LA:  The bus is still driving around, followed by SWAT.  Colby’s been dropped off to pedaconference with Don about why the bus is just going around in circles.  

They may want to know what the bus is doing but I want to know what exactly this place sells!

Since the computer was hacked, and the unhackable system is clearly hackable, Charlie’s able to bring Amita, and her awesome shirt into this week’s case. She may only have 3.5 hours in which to do it, but this is Amita.  She can steal someone’s mojo remotely online!  She can do anything!

This gives Don a chance to pedaconference with Len, only to be interrupted by David, as Don should pedaconference with people who are Fedcakes.  Okay, in reality, Don’s called away to talk to Fisher Stevens on the phone.  He can see cops following the bus because even with the windows painted over, the bus is still better lit than the IHOF.  More threats ensue like he’ll kill one hostage every minute after 7pm.  He also uses Frustrated Mom to prove the hostages are all still alive, leaving Don, David and Len, frustrated at not being able to snap the baddie’s scrawny little neck like a twig.

While Don and David might not have anything, Liz does, even if she doesn’t have her partner this week.  The NBALG is actually a cop from Miami and his squad room is sending the video feed from the phone to the Fedcakes.  The question is, if this guy is from Miami, why doesn’t he have his own Sunglasses of Justice?

The feed is so poor, they can’t initially use facial recognition software, which reminds Don of that time, you know, when Charlie did that thing?  Well, Liz remembers that it was from “Jack of All Trades” and she’s one step ahead of Don, as they’re using the same thing to try and find out who the baddies are.  (Like my technical explanation there?)

Liz’s pager goes off, and she admits she was supposed to fly to Denver to interview for the supervisor of the Organized Crime unit.  Considering how we first met her, it’s a logical step for her career, even though Don doesn’t want her to go.  Come to think of it, neither do I!  Who knew that I’d ever say that about Liz?  I guess now that she’s no longer a threat to my OTP, she’s filling a void of snark left so empty by the departure of Megan and I’ve finally dubbed Nikki and Liz Artemis and Athena, she can’t ever leave!

And the bus is still driving around LA.

Cal Sci:  The great trifecta of math is trying to find out how to hack the 128-bit encryption key to get control back of the bus.

Alan comes in and asks if he’s interrupting, to which his son answers, “It’s just attempting to rescue a busload of tourists being held at gunpoint by four men demanding 18 million dollars.”  Oh Charlie, was “yes” too difficult?

Over the last four years, and in my last recap for Recapist, I come to the biggest realization about the relationship between Alan and Charlie.  I don’t mean the father/son relationship.  What I mean is how they can be related to each other.  Even though Charlie, Amita and Larry are all really busy with life and death things, Alan still needs to mention that Ray-Ray agrees-agrees with Alan-Alan over the cow shit-shit.  Justifying crazy experiments just to prove you’re right to people who have other things to do at that moment? OMG, if <i>that doesn’t explain where Charlie got it from, nothing could.

Larry, who adds more fuel to the fire and confusion as to who exactly Charlie emulates when he puts on his I-must-be-right pouty pants, says some dude in astrophysics agrees with his take on things.  

Of all people, it’s Charlie who reminds everyone of the 18 potential corpses on the bus.

IHOF:  In the lobby, David is now pedaconferencing with Len, destroying my earlier theory that pedaconferences may only be done by Fedcakes.  They’ve identified one of the baddies as a mechanic who was fired by Len for not doing his job.   I will not comment.  I will not make a snarky comment.  That’s the inside man.

Just like before when David interrupted the pedaconference between Don and Len, Liz interrupts this one.  At the sign in desk is a woman named Caitlin, whose fiancé is NBALG.  Her fiancé texted about the crisis and this made me suspicious.  I don’t care about her sob story that she’s supposed to get married this weekend.  Can one send a video feed and text at the same time?  Either this is impossible or I’m the biggest luddite on the internet.  Don’t answer that.

In a moment that really frustrates me, Don tells Caitlin that they can’t talk about an ongoing investigation, only to have Liz receive a call saying the great trifecta of math has hacked the hack.  My issue is that she tells Don this in front of Caitlin.  Oh Liz, it saddens me to see you used so shamelessly to advance the plot!

Don heads out into the field, leaving orders for Colby and his secret brother to meet him there.  What confuses me is why we needed to have Charlie on a screen to tell us nothing other than what we already knew. Plus, David could’ve done a fly-by exposition about where the bus is.  What is the purpose of this scene?

Streets of LA /Cal Sci:  For some reason, Fisher Stevens feels the need to move NBALG nearer the front of the bus but NBALG leaves his camera phone on the shelf. Sure, at the end of this eppesode, it makes perfect sense, but when I first watched it, this scene seemed so pointless, it bugged me.  How could they not notice this guy putting the phone in plain sight?

At a blockade, Don, Colby and Colby’s secret brother are awaiting the bus.  Geez, even King’s voice sounds like Colby’s, only deeper.  I dare someone to only listen to this eppesode and see if you get confused.

My lovely views are interrupted by Fisher Stevens giving further instructions about the ransom.  It’s all the standards: no sequential serial numbers, no marked bills, and no funny business.  Blah, blah, blah.

There’s supposed to be a tense moment here as we’re all supposed to think Charlie isn’t going to stop the bus in time.  Please, this is Charlie, of course he’s going to make sure his big brother isn’t flattened by a tour bus!

In frustration, Fisher Stevens threatens Frustrated Mom.  This reminds emo-kid that he actually does love his mother.  Ah, network television always finds new and inventive ways to make parenthood look unattractive.  (That is, until the kids are grown up like the brothers Eppes.)  Yeah, so there’s a lot of posturing about how many Fisher Stevens plans on killing and how SWAT doesn’t have a shot but it’s NBALG who puts a stop to things by announcing he’s a cop.  I guess he’s also suicidal.

IHOF:  While Len and David are watching the developments on the bus, no one notices that Caitlin’s wandered into the room just in time to see her fiancé being threatened by Fisher Stevens and his crew.  Way to keep her out of the loop, Fedcakes!

Streets of LA:  Don and Fisher Stevens try to negotiate, but they both want something.  The former wants to keep everyone on that bus alive and the latter wants the bus started to be sure the Fedcakes can’t storm it and break his skinny neck.  The Fedcakes are given one hour or NBALG dies.

IHOF:  Giving up on negotiating, Len wants to convince his boss to pay the ransom because he doesn’t want this situation to turn into another Waco.  David, on the other hand, disagrees and, of course, I’ll always side with David.  He is my BFFedcake.  Plus, David has the math on his side.  I hate to sound crass, but think of the size of Waco versus the number of people on the bus.  Enough said.

Streets of LA:  Colby’s secret brother wants Charlie to do some sort of math magic with thermal signatures.  Charlie’s response, “I think world peace has a better chance at happening in 60 minutes.”  Hold on – is he saying world peace will never happen?  What about a pony?  What about a shout out?  Come on Charlie, I’ve had one hell of a week; you’ve got to give me some hope here!

Well, I may not get any hope for my shout out, world peace or pony, but Charlie does give the Fedcakes some hope on figuring out the best way to get a shot at one of the baddies.  It’s amazing that Charlie will still do this, even though he’s potentially setting someone up to die.  He’s come a long way in 4 years.  

We get one heck of a Charlie-vision that equates killing the hostage-takers to interior decorating.  That is, if the interior decorator planned to shoot the ugly couch afterwards.  He’s going to make a 3D image of the video, allowing everyone to know where the people are on the bus at all times.  

Luckily, the program works using light and shadow and if there’s one thing the bus has plenty of, it’s light.

IHOF:  Liz takes a moment to comfort Caitlin.  While it’s a sweet moment for Liz, Caitlin is just too grating and too quick with saying exactly the right thing to elicit sympathy, for this scene to ring true.

Streets of LA:  King and the Fedcakes have vastly different views on how to deal with the situation.  King just wants to shoot Fisher Stevens and Don wants to find out what the ultimate plan here is.  When Colby sticks up for Don, I expect King to give the brother he doesn’t know about a noogie.  

I’d also like to point out I love how the continuity people keep missing Don’s hat going on and off and on and off.  I guess with his seriously unflattering hat head in this eppesode, they decided to turn a blind eye to it.

Cal Sci:  Amita, along with what I think is my favourite shirt she’s ever worn on this show, arrives with coffee and news that the situation is deteriorating.  It’s not what you’d expect.  It has nothing to do with the bus.  Nope, the two major influences in Charlie’s life are about to come to blows over shit, literally.  

We get the truth about the situation.  Larry is depressed because the Higgs-Boson / CERN research being postponed.  I theorize it has something to do with aliens, since I recapped that incident back in September.  The depression is obvious because since when has Larry ever been against weird experimentation?  I love how Amita does not mention the obvious: his girlfriend moved to the other side of the freaking country.  Hello?  We’re not talking constant Megan references here but one would be nice, and appropriate right now!  

Charlie refuses to take sides even though he was voted team leader of the think tank.  In what has to be my very favourite Amita line, ever, she says, “Don’t look at me.  I voted for myself.”  Hee!  You know what Amita, at this moment, I would’ve voted for you.

Before Charlie has to make a choice between his father and his mentor, he finishes the 3D imaging.

IHOF / Streets of LA / Cal Sci:  The edits are just too quick for me to distinguish each setting otherwise there would be a series of one sentence paragraphs.  Like this paragraph would’ve been if I didn’t add this sentence.

David is giving the Fedcakes in the field all the information on the baddies.  They’ve already identified the mechanic, but there is also Fisher Stevens, aka John “Scrawny-neck” Buckley, Andrew Hays – pilot and getaway guy, and Victor Kirov, the computer dude.  Oh and can I add I wonder how the Fedcakes manage to have so many pictures of these guys just wandering around town.  I mean, I know it looks more dramatic on the computer screen, but it makes it far less believable that they couldn’t identify these guys earlier.  

Another problem is the baddies have no connection to each other and, as Colby puts it these types of people don’t “hook up over MySpace.”  I don’t know, perhaps they started one of those exclusive Facebook groups?  Perhaps they have a friends-only LJ?

Fisher Stevens needs some serious advice on how to make people feel better.  Saying “only a few of you” are going to die, isn’t reassuring to anyone.  Perhaps next time he should include the odds.  I’d feel better if there was only a 1 in 10 chance.  What the baddies don’t know is that Charlie is sending the 3D imaging to the Fedcakes, both in the field and in the IHOF so now they have something Fisher Stevens doesn’t know about.

As Charlie is calculating the shots for each of the baddies, the call is made to Don that the hour is up.  So while Fisher Stevens is being ironically meta about “the angle” the Fedcakes are working, it’s really now a race between Charlie’s math and the baddies’ bullets.  What isn’t taken into the equation is the camera phone being noticed.  When Charlie gets a lock on the fourth baddie, Fisher Stevens, and the snipers shoot, they discover they’re firing into an empty bus.  All that’s there is Marshall Flinkman with a fake bomb strapped to him.  (You’d think Marshall would know it was a fake, but no.) The baddies were able to keep a tab on things by planting their own camera in the bus the Fedcakes surrounded.

It was a twist I didn’t see coming.  Unfortunately, what I did see coming was the death of NBALG.  Afterwards, Fisher Stevens turns and mugs for the camera, before shutting it off, leaving the Fedcakes and Charlie completely confounded.

After the commercial, Marshall explains about how the busses were switched before the panic button was set off and how he was ordered to drive around or be blown up.  Yeah, well, I may be typecasting but Marshall Flinkman should know better.

As for Don, he’s going through all the guilt we’d expect.  If there is one thing we all know about Don Eppes, it’s that he takes responsibility for things over which he has no control, even though he shouldn’t.  He even says it is his job to get inside the guy’s head.  Well, only peripherally, Don.  You know whose job it was?  MEGAN’S!  Well, since he’s feeling so terrible about it, I think Robin should turn up, right now, and comfort him.  You know why?  Not only is it good for Don, but also it sucks that the final eppesode I’m recapping for Recapist doesn’t feature my OTP!

IHOF:  Liz and David pedaconference on how the baddies stole another bus the night before.  You know, Len, as head of security and not mentioning this, should be fired for plain old stupidity.  Even if he didn’t know about it – that’s still a major sign of gross negligence.

Liz doesn’t want to tell the fiancée NBALG is dead, but she will because she’s not one to shirk her duty.  Besides, David has to so eloquently tell Fisher Stevens that Don is in the bathroom.  Come on, David, that’s a bit flippant for you!  I would expect a comment like that out of Guildenstern, not Rosencrantz!  Besides, the baddies already have the upper hand and even moved up the deadline by half an hour.

Charlie explains the actions of the baddies using the analogy of a poker game.  The whole point is to throw off the opponent’s game by psyching them out and studying their opponent’s game first.

Len, who is clearly not well versed in the adorkable brilliance that is Charlie Eppes, insists that next time he has to be the one to talk to Fisher Stevens.  After four and a half seasons, you’d think people would trust Charlie at this point.

In the conference room, Liz is comforting the almost-widow (pun intended) and starts feeling things are hinky when Caitlin won’t leave the IHOF.  Now, if I were to not leave the IHOF, people would assume I was there to drool at Fedcakes and that would be a perfectly valid deduction.  For a woman to want to stick around in the place where she’s told the love of her life is dead, sets off alarm bells for both me and Liz.  In a great moment, Liz offers to get Caitlin more tea, an offer which here means: send Caitlin’s cup to the lab to check her prints.

Cal Sci:  Charmita, discussing the crazy tactics of the baddies, walks right into an argument between Alan and Larry.  Finally stepping in, Charlie’s surprised to find out it isn’t that they disagree with the other’s idea – it’s more that they agree so much, they can’t decide who is more right.  Larry suggests that they do a think tank project on that concept, and calls it the Eppes-Fleinhardt Paradox.  Alan responds by wanting to reverse the names.

This brings me to Amita’s second greatest line ever.  She compares Alan and Larry to Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny with the whole rabbit season / duck season thing.  Personally, I think that the next think tank project should determine whether Alan or Larry is Bugs Bunny and who exactly would Elmer Fudd be in this scenario.

The cartoon reference, which no one but Amita gets, which, I’m sorry, just makes everyone else look really, really sad, gives Charlie some necessary inspiration.  Who knew the first think tank breakthrough would be inspired by Merrie Melodies?

IHOF:  Caitlin was never a fiancée but a conwoman who once worked for Fisher Stevens.  Liz totally made up for the revealing of information earlier and then some.  Instead of arresting her, Don decides Caitlin should stay so they can play the player.

David’s found the connection.  It’s not Fisher Stevens who is the ringleader, but NBALG.  As a police officer, he interviewed all of the baddies when they were arrested in conjunction for something involving Cuban drugs.  It’s at this point the eppesode veers into territory I couldn’t have predicted.  At first, the Fedcakes think that NBALG felt terrible that a young mother was onboard but Charlie comes in to declare that it’s duck season, not rabbit season as the Fedcakes think it is.  The video of the shooting proves that it was staged as the blood pellets under NBALG’s (shall be renamed EBALG, exchanging nice for evil) shirt exploded before the gun was fired.  The techie guy was in charge of what is the first mistake the criminals didn’t intend to make.

This leads to a new theory.  The previously non-violent baddies are still non-violent; they just wanted everyone to think they are willing to kill.  Confused yet?  Well, the Fedcakes have been thinking it was duck season all along when really, it is rabbit season.

Fisher Stevens calls, not knowing the season has changed; he demands that all the money be sent to an account in the Cayman Islands.  As for Len, he plays Fisher Stevens by pretending that he’s in charge, when really, we all know who is actually calling all the shots.  Speaking of shots, I hope you poured some more, if you picked the right item for the drinking game.

There are more hollow threats towards Frustrated Mom while the FBI hold their cards close to their chest.

Random Building:  Caitlin, having finally left the IHOF, meets up with the not-dead EBALG.  Well, there was at least one thing she said that was true.  She and EBALG are definitely together; that is, until Liz and David arrest them, separating the couple permanently.

Warehouse:  Without explaining how they found the warehouse, the Fedcakes converge on the bus full of hostages.  The pretense that the bus was driving around LA in the daylight was kept up by the one thing the Fedcakes want back more than anything.

Colby and his secret brother are paired up here, so drink up or enjoy the view, considering your choices at the beginning of this recap.

One by one, the Fedcakes surreptitiously capture each of the bad guys. My favourite way of capturing one of them, is King borrowing 20 bucks from Colby, only to toss it out as bait.  Somehow, I think this is much more meta than originally intended.

Fisher Stevens, for the first time in this eppesode, is the one left in the dark.  He calls right on time, only to find his crew arrested and the bus surrounded.  In a last ditch effort, he exits the bus with all the hostages gathered around him.

Don has had enough of this bullshit, and calls the bluff.  He tells everyone to slowly move away from the guy with the scrawny neck, since he never actually killed anyone.  He even brings out EBALG for proof of the winning hand the Fedcakes hold.

The last ditch effort of Fisher Stevens to maintain control, shouting “Do not walk away!  Do not walk away!  Get back!  Come back here!”  Wins as my final NPAL™ for Recapist.  Why?  Once everyone runs away, Frustrated Mom punches him.  He was already looking laughably weak and desperate while the hostages ran off, but this was the final straw.  For me, the punch after all that blather is just as funny as Daffy’s beak spinning around is for Amita.  He can’t even bluff that he won’t put the gun down.  Looking around at a room full of snipers, Fisher Stevens realizes the game is over and probably pisses himself.

Besides, all the gun held is blanks.  Insert your own joke here.

IHOF:  While the baddies are being taken in for questioning, David tells Don that Liz has headed off to Denver.  Oh please don’t tell me that the last eppesode I recap for Recapist isn’t also Liz’s last eppesode, please!  

Things turn a bit more serious as Don admits to David (who is probably the only person he would admit it to, considering the events of last week ) that he was afraid he was responsible for the death of a cop.  Don’s been there before and doesn’t want to go there again.  David reassures him that no one died and Don’s a good leader.  Personally, I would’ve been happy if David had said it more Ninth Doctor style, dancing around shouting “EVERYBODY LIVES!” but as I learned this week, things don’t always work out as I want them.

La Maison d’Eppes:  It’s the time for celebration.  Standing over the best supporting (and well lit) prop in the show, the lime green fluted bowl, they celebrate the think tank’s new exciting project.  While the project seems to deal with every fundamental question in history, Amita sums it up by saying they can have both rabbit season and duck season.

Oh yes, and somewhere along the way, someone must’ve counted my vote as Amita is now the team leader.  Yay!  Thus my final recap for Recapist ends with Alan and Larry snarking rabbit season and duck season at each other, Charmita joking about a recount in the votes, and one recapper who is infinitely sad to be going.

It also ends, if anyone was playing along with the drinking game, one very large hangover for the readers, since I lost count at 50+.  

So, that’s it.  Please stay tuned to this space for any future announcements should I find I new home.  

I’ve also made a little something to say goodbye.

Recapper’s Note: For now, Spy is offline

ETA:  I can now be found at my blog, I, Spy.