THE BLUE NOTEBOOKS

Detailed recaps of the FIRST SEASON episodes of "The Pretender"


All of the written synopses are the sole property of the author and cannot be reproduced in any fashion without the author's expressed written permission. To contact the author see the guestbook on the INDEX page. All of the images are the property of the original filmmakers and are reproduced here, under fair use, only to promote the projects of Michael T. Weiss and to entertain his fans. We cannot and will not create hard copies of images for sale, so please don't ask.

EPISODE #01, PREMIERE

Synopsis pending... not finished yet


Episode #02, Every Picture Tells A Story

FIRST SEASON EPISODE 02: "Every Picture Tells a Story"

Linked with Permission from Genie
We see Jarod treading water... and treading water... and treading water... in slow circles in the water of a large swimming pool.

YMCA, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: Miss Parker, Sydney and Sam the Sweeper enter Jarod's room at the Y along with the manager, who tells them that Jarod had said he was an atomic engineer named Jarod Spitz. Sydney asks if Jarod looked all right when the manager saw him, and the manager proclaimed, "He had a physique the pros would kill for." The manager then tells Sydney that Jarod spent about six weeks there, averted the threat of a nearby nuclear plant, and spent much of his time learning how to swim. Jarod went from "Tike" to "Advanced Adult" in only five weeks, and spent the last week in the pool simply treading water.

Miss Parker finds the red notebook which describes Jarod's concerns about the nuclear plant disaster he averted, and she also finds a set of hand-in-hand, plain white, cut-out paper dolls (of interspersing "adult woman" and "little girl" figures). On the face of each little girl figure was a single blue tear. She then goes into the bathroom and finds the bath tub still filled with water. There is a small toy boat floating on the water, and a toy helicopter sitting on the rim of the tub. She picks up the helicopter toy, spins its prop, and says to Sydney, "I wonder what your science project is up to now."

OFF THE COAST OF SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA we see Jarod, as Lieutenant Jarod Campbell, dressed in a Coast Guard uniform, riding "shot gun" in a Guard helicopter. The 'copter is piloted by a female Lieutenant, Martha Poole.

The helicopter is circling a spot in the ocean where a small boat is on fire. Pooleand Jarod see the female captain of the boat jump overboard just before an explosion takes place on the boat. Jarod dumps his head gear and cap, and jumps out of the side of helicopter into the ocean, despite warnings from the pilot not to do so. Just as Jarod hits the water, there is another explosion on the boat which destroys the craft entirely. The helicopter circles the wreckage, and the pilot scans the water for Jarod, who surfaces once, then goes back down under the water and disappears for a moment. "Come on, Jarod," the pilot mutters to herself. Jarod then appears on the surface of the water again along with the female captain of the derelict boat. He tells the woman, "Hello. My name is Jarod. You're going to be just fine," and swims her away from the wreckage.

AT THE CENTRE, Sam the Sweeper delivers a FAX to Miss Parker as she walks through a corridor. The FAX is from Jarod and reads: SORRY I MISSED YOU AT THE "Y"... THINGS AREN'T ALWAYS THE WAY THEY SEEM. 4/13/70. JAROD.

Miss Parker the walks directly to a room where Sydney is conducting an experiment with two small twin girls, whom Miss Parker refers to as "Thing-One" and "Thing-Two". Sydney dumps a bowl of colored sticks onto the top of a glass table, and without stopping to manually count them, the twins tells him there are precisely 2,324 sticks on the table top. Sydney tells them they're right, and Miss Parker interrupts him saying she needs to talk to him, now. Sydney leaves the room where the twins are and goes out into the corridor with Miss Parker telling her that her "theatrics" are upsetting to the children. Miss Parker dismisses his concerns and tells him she's in the middle of the pursuit of Jarod and that take precedence over anything Sydney is doing. Miss Parker then informs Sydney that she's having Broots instigate a tracking of Jarod from the Tech Room. Sydney tells her, "Broots's technology isn't going to help track a chameleon. Jarod changes color; he blends in... Patience, Parker. We must have patience." Miss Parker responds with: "Patience may be a soothing catch-all for the potatoheads in psychogenic services, but my father and the boys in the Tower equate patience with failure."

She then equates Jarod with the Uni-bomber, a "whacked-out prodigy", who evaded capture for decades and then was eventually caught after he wrote "a letter to mommy". Miss Parker tells Sydney, "It's the smart ones who always do something stupid."

As MissParker heads for an elevator, Sydney tries to deflect her by saying they can take the stairs. "It's only three floors. Come on." Miss Parker tells him to stop being the nurturer. It's been twenty years since her mother's "suicide" in the elevator, and Miss Parker isn't afraid to ride in the thing. She and Sydney enter the elevator, the doors close, and the elevator starts to descend. Sydney tells Miss Parker that her mother was a remarkable woman, but Miss Parker blows him off saying, "My mother was weak. Period. She couldn't take the stress of S.I.S. or this place. I don't have that problem." Sydney continues with his overtures of assistance and tells Miss Parker that if she ever needs to talk to someone about her mother's death, she can come to him. Miss Parker gives him a mocking laugh and tells him that one of the last things her mother did before she got on the elevator and died was to have a clinical session with him. "No thanks," Miss Parker says. "I'll take my own chances."

IN SAN DIEGO, it's early morning and Jarod is packing SAR (search and rescue) gear into the Coast Guard helicopter. Martha arrives and tells him he looks too rested to have been sleeping in base quarters (which she refers to as "the iron cot"), and he tells her he lives off base. She asks him how he managed that, and he says with a proud smile: "I forged my transfer papers." Martha starts to chuckle, then looks rather ill and steps away from the helicopter for a moment. Her sudden nausea seems to pass quickly, and Jarod asks her if she's all right. She tells him she had some bad sushi and it made her sick.

Before their conversation can continue, they're interrupted by two male Coast Guard Officers, Commander Powell and Lieutenant Commander Paul Bilson. Powell compliments Jarod on the rescue of the woman the day before, and Jarod quips that he was glad he took "those swimming lessons at the Y". Martha interrupts and tells Powell she wants to talk to him about her rank review. Powell says all reviews go through the "L.C." and points to Bilson. Bilson promises her he'll get right on it, then turns his attention back to Jarod. He tells Jarod that he won't be going up in the helicopter today; Bilson wants him on a Coast Guard cutter so he can test Jarod's sea-legs. Jarod says a good-bye to Martha and goes with Bilson.

Bilson takes Jarod to the docks where the Coast Guard cutter "Rescue 45" and a smaller craft, "The Christi", are docked. A mechanic tells Bilson that The Christi is "purring like a kitten", but Bilson waves him off and says he'll be going out on 45. Bilson and Jarod first, however, stop at another cabin cruiser owned by fellow Coast Guard officer, Javier Padilla. Bilson tells Javier that it's time to get going, and Javier gets his things ready after finishing up a conversation on a short wave radio set. Bilson tells him he could the internet to talk to people, but Javier claims he's a "purist" who "craves static". Before exiting the cabin, Javier kisses the tips of his fingers and touches them to a crucifix hanging on the wall.

Out on the ocean on Rescue 45, Jarod, Bilson and Javier talk as they're on patrol. When Javier finds out that Jarod had supposedly transferred from duty on the Great Lakes, he dubs Jarod "Fresh Water Boy". Jarod tells Javier to cut him some slack; he did, afterall, join up with this San Diego team, which had the best SAR record in The Guard. Bilson and Javier both proudly proclaim that that's the truth.

Rescue 45 comes along side a small private craft named "Magdeline" which is anchored asea. Circling the Magdeline in Rescue 45, Jarod can tell just by looking at the craft that it's listing about 3°. Bilson tells him to go aboard and check the small boat out. As Rescue 45 comes up along side the Magdeline again, Jarod steps over onto the Magdeline and looks around, calling to see if anyone is on board. From below decks, a small man emerges holding a shot gun which he aims directly at Jarod. Jarod steps back on the deck slowly and tells the man, "Oh, now, sir. Nobody's here to hurt you." Bilson and Javier start to laugh, and the small man looks over to them, drops the shotgun, and grumbles an expletive. Bilson introduces the small man as Roy Abbott to Jarod, and then admonishes Roy for upsetting "the new guy" (Jarod).

Roy tells Jarod to get off his boat, but Jarod loiters for a moment telling Roy that he can tell that the Magdeline is taking on water and that Roy is nearly out of supplies. He asks Roy if they can escort him back to shore where the boat can be looked at, and Roy can get the food and store he needs. Roy refuses, saying he has everything he needs right there on the boat. Bilson then interrupts and hands some paperwork over to Roy which states that if Roy doesn't take the boat in for repairs in one week, the Coast Guard will come and tow his boat ashore, with or without his permission. Roy looks at the paperwork angrily, and Jarod tries to comfort him with: "It's for your own good, Mr. Abbott."

Jarod finishing the painting for Miss ParkerAT THE CENTRE, it's evening and Sydney gets a telephone call from Jarod. Jarod says that he's surprised Sydney isn't making his rounds down corridor fifteen, and Sydney tells him he's been busy with other work. As they talk, Miss Parker and Sam the Sweeper enter Sydney's office. Sydney motions to one of the telephone extensions in the room, and Miss Parker goes to it, picks up the receiver and listens in on the conversation.

IN HIS LAIR IN SAN DIEGO, as he talks to Sydney on the telephone, Jarod is painting on a large canvas. When Sydney tells him they found his lair in Seattle, Washington, Jarod is unimpressed. And when Sydney tells him he was surprised to find "bath tub toys" at the lair, Jarod answers: "Well, it's certainly better than the kind of play time you foisted upon me." As he continues to paint, Jarod mentions to Sydney that he can't see the faces of the people in his nightmares, but he can see their "dead eyes" looking at him. Sydney asks Jarod what he's talking about, and Jarod tells him the eyes he sees in his dreams are the "eyes of people who aren't alive today because of how you exploited my simulations."

AT THE CENTRE, Sydney takes that criticism without comment, and then asks Jarod why he's called. Jarod says he wants to know if "Jarod" is his real name. Sydney says, "I think it is, yes. At least that's what I was told." Jarod gives Sydney a curt 'thank you', but Sydney tells him not to hang up. Sydney then tells Jarod he needs to come back to The Centre because Sydney is worried about him. Jarod responds with an angry: "If you're so worried about me, why don't you go to the authorities?" Sydney tells Jarod he knows Sydney can't do that. "Why?" Jarod asks him, "Because you love me? Or because you're afraid of what I know?" Sydney tells him that it's not safe for Jarod out in society; that if people out there knew about the gift Jarod had, Sydney would never be able to protect him. Jarod picks up a DSA and looks at it, and says, "If they find out what I have, you won't be able to protect yourselves." Sydney complains, "Those DSAs contain my work," and Jarod angrily responds, "No, Sydney. They contain my life." Jarod disconnects the call, and Miss Parker looks at Sydney, smugly, from across the room. "We got your genius," she tells him.

IN SAN DIEGO the next morning Jarod is at Boardwalks End - Gifts and Novelties shop, looking over some novelty items including giant scissors, chattering teeth, toy snake-in-a-can, and fake dog poop, which he refers to as "imitation canine feces". Jarod asks the clerk in the store why anyone would want fake dog poop, and the clerk says, "Because it's funny." Jarod looks at the fake dog poop and responds with a somewhat confused, "Oh."

Jarod is distracted from his shopping by the view of a little girl outside the store, who's purchasing a small bouquet of white flowers for another vendor. The little girl takes the flowers over to her mother and shows them to her saying, "I got the white ones. They were his favorite." Jarod follows the mother and daughter to a nearby cemetery and watches as they settle down next to a large headstone with the name TOM KING on it. Jarod opens the little red notebook he's carrying and reads the articles pasted inside of it. Headlines read: MAN LOST AT SEA, DROWNING RULED ACCIDENTAL, and FAMILY VOICES FRUSTRATION WITH GUARD SEARCH. Along with the articles are pictures of Tim King, and his wife and child... the same mother and daughter who are at the gravesite now. Jarod watches as the little girl places the flowers on her father's grave, then he leaves the girl and her mother to their private grief.

AT THE YMCA IN SAN DIEGO, Miss Parker, Sydney and Sam the Sweeper burst into the room from where they believe Jarod's last telephone call was generated. Sam gabs a man trying to jump out the window, and pulls him back into the room. The man explains that a guy named Jarod gave him six months free rent in the room if he'd transfer his telephone calls from there. Sydney sees the telephone transfer equipment, and looks ruefully over at Miss Parker. Miss Parker tells Sydney to "shut up".

ON THE MAGDELINE, Roy Abbott is listening to an LP of Wagner's opera "The Flying Dutchman" when Jarod arrives in Rescue 45. Jarod asks for permission to come aboard Roy's boat, and Roy reluctantly agrees. Once on board, Jarod remarks that Magdeline is "a pretty lady". Roy looks over at a framed photograph of a woman he has in the cabin of the boat, and asks Jarod what he knows about Magdeline. Jarod says he wasn't referring to the woman in the picture, he was referring to Roy's boat. He then asks Roy if the woman, Magdeline, in the photograph is Roy's wife. Roy says she might have been, but he never had the courage to propose to her. Now, he didn't know where she was, and was too depressed to go searching for her for fear she didn't love him any more and would reject him.

To try to lighten Roy's mood, Jarod tells him that he's brought him some supplies from town, and that Roy can have them if he'll trade Jarod for a small wooden chest Roy had carved. Roy tells Jarod that if he brings him some candles the next time he passes, he'll agree to the exchange. Jarod takes the small chest, thanks Roy for it, and promises to bring the candles. Just before he leaves the Magdeline, Jarod asks Roy if he ever listened to Mozart's "The Magic Flute". Roy says "The Flying Dutchman" is all he needs. Jarod tells Roy that when he was a small child he was allowed to listen to "The Magic Flute" once, and when he listened to it he became an eagle in his mind; he was able to go anywhere, do anything, and nothing could stop him. "Maybe Mozart knew something Wagner didn't," Jarod says. Roy looks at him for a moment, and replies with, "I ain't moving my boat."

Later, at the helipad with Martha, Jarod is studying an armful of charts and paperwork on previous rescues. Martha tells him he needs to focus his attention on the 'copter; it wasn't a library. Jarod says he's just trying to orient himself with the west coast search patterns, and tells Martha that he'll buy her lunch if she'll go over some of the old rescues with him. She agrees -- as long as he doesn't try to feed her sushi.

At lunch, Jarod brings out charts and paperwork relating to the drowning death of Tom King. Martha says that was a particularly painful case. Although a search had been initiated by Lieutenant Commander Bilson, and went over several days, the wreck of Tom King's boat was never found. When his body was finally recovered from the water, some time later, a coroner's report indicated that he had treaded water for a day and half before he died. It was very upsetting. Jarod goes over the charts with her asking her to explain how the search was conducted. He asks her to confirm for him that directional buoys indicated that King's boat was somewhere around Piltchers Point when it sank; the SAR then followed the coast south-east of that point. Martha tells him, yes, that's what happened, and tells him that he seems to understand the procedures very well. Why was he asking her about it? Jarod tells her that he doesn't understand why the search pattern went south-east, when satellite monitoring stations operating on the day of the incident indicated that the current in the area where King's boat went down was traveling SOUTH-WEST. Martha looks stunned, and has no answer for him.

As they get ready to go back to work, Jarod tells Martha that he's up for a rank review. Martha is furious and says she doesn't understand why Jarod, who's only been there for about three days, was already up for a review when she herself had been trying to get a promotion for months. Jarod asks, "When are you due?" Martha tells him she should have been upped to "L.C." weeks ago. Jarod says, "Not your promotion. Your baby." Again, Martha looks at him, stunned. She tells him she hadn't even told her husband she was pregnant, and asks Jarod how he knows about it, "Were you an obstetrician?" Jarod tells her, "No, but I was a midwife once." He guesses, by the indications of her nausea and sore back, that she's about 9 weeks along in her pregnancy. She tells him not to tell anyone else about it until she's secured her rank review, and Jarod promises that her secret is safe with him.

AT THE CENTRE Miss Parker nabs Broots in the corridor of SL-5 by the Tech Room, and asks him how long it will take him to trace Jarod's last telephone call to its real source. He tells her that Jarod did a heck of a job re-routing the call and that it will take him about 24 hours to trace it. Miss Parker snaps, "You have twelve," and walks away. When she's gone, Broots mutters to himself, "I can do it in eight."

Jarod learns how to open an Oreo cookie

IN SAN DIEGO near the King Bait and Tackle Shop, Jarod is munching on Oreo cookies while he watches Mrs. King work. King's daughter walks up to him, and tells him he's eating the cookies improperly. He sits down on a nearby bench and asks her to show him the right way to eat them. She shows him how to twist the two halves of the cookie apart and then eat the icing out of the center first. "Why don't they just sell the white stuff?" Jarod asks, and the little girl answers, "Then it wouldn't be as much fun."As they continue eating cookies, Jarod tells the little girl that her mother is a hard worker, and the little girl tells him that ever since her father died all her mother does is work. Her father is with Saint Andrew, she tells him, the patron saint for fishermen. She had once gotten her father a small statue of St. Andrew, and put it on his boat, but because the boat was never recovered after it sank, she didn't have the statue anymore. Jarod tells her that he understands how hard it is to lose a parent, and asks her what she misses the most now that her dad is gone. She answers, "My mom's smile."

AT HER HOME Miss Parker receives a telephone call in the middle of the night. It's Jarod. He tells her he was feeling a little bit guilty about his virtual phone game, and thought he should speak to her directly. She tells him she should record this conversation so she can play for him at the next Centre Christmas party which, she says, Jarod will be attending, rest assured. She asks him why he was routing his calls through the YMCAs around the country and he tells her, "I was watching Retro Night on VH1 and they were doing the 70's -- which, as you know, I missed. There was this singing group extolling the virtues of staying at the Y, so... here I am." Miss Parker grumbles, "Cute. Not funny, but cute."

Jarod tells her that he's discovered fake dog poop, and she asks him why she should care about that. Jarod tells her the stuff is fascinating: it looks like one thing, but is, in reality, something totally
different.

Jarod: "Isn't it the perfect metaphor for how your father and The Centre distort the truth?"
Miss Parker: "And what truth is that, Jarod?"
Jarod [looking at a DSA]: "The truth about what makes you sad."

IN SAN DIEGO at a dock side picnic with other Coast Guard officers, Jarod notices that whenever the subject of Tom King is brought up, Javier gets very quiet and seems very upset. The next day, he finds Javier is a local Catholic church, coming out of a confessional booth... looking very worried.

Jarod then conducts his own search of the area off of Piltchers Point, by scuba-diving south-west of the directional buoys. He finds the wreckage of King's boat at the bottom of the ocean. The craft is split in two, it's blue hull cracked along the center. Jarod takes several photographs of the wreckage, and also finds the little statue of St. Andrew on the boat. He removes it and takes it with him. Then he goes to the dock where Rescue 45 is kept, and finds paint transfers on the hull of 45 that match the color and texture of the paint on Tom King's boat. He scrapes off samples and takes them with him as well.

BACK AT THE CENTRE Miss Parker joins Broots and Sydney as they do the final traces on Jarod's previous telephone call to The Centre. Broots says that tracking Jarod was a real treat, "He's a damn clever guy." Broots tells Miss Parker that the call was seemingly initiated from room 334 in the Y in San Diego, but was actually routed to that room through 173 separately initiated telephone calls from around the globe. The 173 calls were, by the way, charged to Miss Parker's calling card. Tight-lipped, Miss Parker asks where Jarod is now, and Broots grins and tells her he's in the one place they'd never look: in room 335 -- right next door to the room where they'd searched for him previously -- in the same YMCA in San Diego.

IN HIS LAIR, Jarod uses his laptop computer to hack into Javier Padilla's bank account. By looking over the information there, he discerns that every Wednesday -- the day after Bilson and Javier go on their nightly Tuesday patrol -- large amounts of cash show up in Javier's bank account.

The next morning, Jarod confronts Javier in church with the photographs of Tom King's boat, and the information he's gleaned from Javier's bank account, and suggests that King was killed by Javier and Bilson because King accidentally found out about the contraband Bilson and Javier were running during their Tuesday night patrols. At first Javier tells Jarod he's wrong, then, as his conscience gets the better of him, Javier admits that Jarod has the basics of the story correct.Jarod and Javier exit the church and settle on a becnh at the nearby cemetery where Tom King is buried. Javier explains to Jarod:

Every Tuesday night Javier and Bilson would meet up with a Mexican hauler, the Santa Marca, and pick up shipments of stuff (Javier thought it was crack but he wasn't sure because he never looked at the shipments), which they would then transport to a third party, and for which they'd get paid large amounts of money. On the night King's boat went down, it was foggy. Javier and Bilson didn't even see his fishing boat until after Rescue 45 ran into it and sliced it in half. When they came about to look over the wreckage, they found Tom King in the water. He was still alive, treading water. Javier put a hand out to rescue him, but Bilson put a gun to Javier's head and told him to leave King there. King was a witness to their drug-running escapade, and couldn't be permitted to live. Frightened, Javier left King to die, and helped Bilson conduct a search later in areas where they knew King wouldn't be found. Javier hadn't told the authorities about it because he was afraid he'd go to prison. But, he tells Jarod, he would now accept prison in a heart beat of going there would help to put his conscience at ease.

That evening Jarod sets in motion a scheme to trap Bilson, and begins to close up his stay at the Y. He tampers with the engine of The Christi; he puts the photos of King's boat and other evidence into a large manila envelope with COMMANDER POWELL written on the front of it; he puts the little statue of St. Andrew into the wooden chest carved by Roy and wraps it for mailing; and he wraps up the painting he's competed in newsprint paper and writes TO MISS PARKER on the wrapper.

The next morning, Miss Parker, Sydney and Sam the Sweeper arrive at Room 335 at the Y and break the door down. When he hears the commotion, the man in Room 334 (who was transferring Jarod's calls) comes out into the hallway to see what's going on. Miss Parker snarls at him, "You didn't tell me he was right next door." The man answers frankly: "You never asked." Jarod has vacated the room, but left the painting for Miss Parker there, and the red notebook which contains the articles about the King drowning. Realizing that Jarod's probably still in the San Diego area, Miss Parker rushes out to try to catch him.

Although Bilson is expecting Javier to join him for the regular Tuesday patrol, he's surprised when Jarod shows up for duty. Jarod explains that Javier is sick and can't make it that day; he also tells Bilson that he's not feeling very well himself, "Bad sushi", and asks Bilson if he can go to the Head before they start their patrol. Bilson says that's all right, and when Jarod is gone, Bilson goes over to Javier's boat to see if Javier is there. Javier isn't there... and neither is most of his stuff, including the crucifix which had been mounted on the wall of cabin. Bilson starts getting a bad feeling about the whole thing, and his worry is exacerbated by the fact that while he's in the boat, he gets a call over the radio from the Santa Marca. The Santa Marca wants to meet with Billion and Javier that morning at 10 o'clock rather than waiting for their regular 6:00 pm appointment. Bilson doesn't like the change of plans, but agrees to meet the hauler. What Bilson doesn't know is that the call that supposedly came from the Santa Marca, and actually come from the YMCA, Room 334, from the same man who had been transferring Jarod's telephone calls.

Jarod arrives at Javier's boat and tells Bilson he's ready to get to work. Bilson tells Jarod that the patrol is going to be a boring routine one, and that he (Bilson) can handle it by himself. He tells Jarod, "Go take care of your gut." Jarod thanks Bilson for the time off, and leaves. Bilson then goes out to the docking area where Rescue 45 usually is, and finds that the cutter is already gone. So, Bilson takes the Christi out and races to rendezvous point to meet with the Santa Marca. But the Santa Marca isn't anywhere to be found... and the Christi has engine trouble and stalls in the middle of the ocean. Bilson calls for a rescue unit, and is happy to eventually see Rescue 45 speeding over to his area. The cutter is coming too fast, however, and Bilson realizes that the Christi is gong to be rammed by Rescue 45. Bilson dives off the side of the Christi just before Rescue 45 hits the little boat and shears it in half.

Rescue 45 then slows down, and Bilson can see that it's being piloted by Jarod. Bilson demands that Jarod help him out of the water, and Jarod tells him he can't do that: he's not really a member of the Coast Guard, and beside, he says, Bilson's predicament seems to be poetic justice for Bilson's murder of Tom King. Jarod tells Bilson everything he knows about the King drowning, and describes for Bilson the horrors of treading water in the ocean for hours -- even days -- with no hope of rescue. Jarod then leaves Bilson where he is, and steers Rescue 45 away from the area. As he heads back to dock, Jarod calls in a report of some "floating debris" in the vicinity where Bilson is so a clean-up crew will be dispatched to the area.

Before he gets near the docking area, Jarod realizes that another cabin cruiser is approaching Rescue 45 very quickly. He recognizes Sydney, Miss Parker, and two Sweepers on the boat, whirls Rescue 45 out into the ocean, and races away. Miss Parker's boat chases after Jarod's. Over a loud speaker Miss Parker tells Jarod he has no place to run, and Jarod responds: "Sydney raised me to believe my mind could take me anywhere." Rescue 45 lurches out away from Miss Parker's boat and seems to be getting away, when the engine suddenly shuts off, and the boat starts to drift. Believing the craft has run out of fuel, Miss Parker tells Sydney, "See. It's always the smart ones who do something stupid." When her boat comes up along side Rescue 45, Miss Parker has Sam the Sweeper get on board to look for Jarod... But Jarod is nowhere to be found. The only indication that he was on the boat, is a piece of notepaper from the YMCA with the words MISS PARKER on it, a DSA from 4/13/70 taped on it, and a pile of fake dog poop. Sam hands Miss Parker everything, including the fake dog poop, and she just looks at it, irritated.

AT DOCK SIDE, Javier approaches Command Powell, and hands him the envelope with all the evidence about the King drowning. When Powell asks what the information is about, Javier admits, "The truth, sir..."

AT THE MAGDELINE, Roy is surprised to see Jarod in water, swimming by on his way back to port. "Nice day for a swim," Jarod says gleefully as he makes his way past the Magdeline.

SOME TIME LATER, at King's Bait and Tackle shop, Mrs. King and her daughter receive a small package in the mail. When they unwrap it, they find inside it the small wooden chest that Roy had carved. Opening the chest, they find the little statue of St. Andrew.

In a newspaper rack near the bait shop, we also see a newspaper with a headline that indicates that Bilson and Padilla are being charged with the murder of Tom King.

ALSO SOME TIME LATER, we see Martha Poole receiving her commendation to the position of Lieutenant Commander from Commander Powell.detail of the painting Jarod did for Miss Parker

IN HER HOME, Miss Parker takes a drink and a cigarette over to her in-home computer set up and sits down in front of the machine to view the DSA Jarod had left for her on Rescue 45. On the DSA are images from 1970 and the day on which Miss Parker's mother died in the elevator in The Centre: We see images of a young Jarod just finishing a simulation of the Apollo 13 mishap. Sydney is with him, and helps him down out of the small spherical "pod" in which Jarod had been simulating the space craft capsule. In the background, we can hear a woman start to scream, "No! Nooooooooo!" Jarod looks across the Sim Lab, and shouts, "They're hurting her!", and tries to rush over to the area where the woman screamed. Sydney grabs him and holds him back, telling him to stay where he is. A male voice from the elevator can be heard shouting, "Get her off the elevator!" Then there is the distinct sound of a gun shot. Jarod struggles to escape from Sydney, but Sydney hold him fast. Another male voice from the elevator area shouts, "Get the kid outta here!", and three more very distinct gun shots can be heard. The area is then filled with the screams of a young girl crying, "Mommy!" and "No!" A male voice demands, "No, keep her back, keep her back!" Two Sweepers then come into view dragging a young Miss Parker away from the elevator area into the Sim Lab. Miss Parker is screaming and struggling and crying. Jarod sees her and stops fighting with Sydney. He instead focuses his concern on Miss Parker, and watches her agony. The DSA stops with a freeze-frame image of the young Miss Parker, her mouth agape with grief and terror, a single tear running down her cheek.

In her home, Miss Parker, trembling a little with shock over what she's just viewed, looks away from the computer monitor to the painting she had received from Jarod. We can see that the image depicted in the painting is the exact same image of Miss Parker as a child now shown on the computer monitor. Her hands shaking, tears in her eyes, Miss Parker picks up the nearby telephone and says to the receiver, "It's me... I want to know what really happened to my mom."

A FEW DAYS LATER, the Magdeline comes to port, and Jarod helps Roy with the docking procedures. Jarod tells Roy that the real Magdeline is out there somewhere, but Roy will never find her if he doesn't start to look for her. Roy thanks him, and tells Jarod he's "going for a walk". Roy steps off the boat onto the dock, and walks off in search of Magdeline, but before he leaves he asks Jarod, "What are you going to do now?" Jarod smiles and tells him, "I think I'll go for a drive."

When we next see Jarod, he's in the compact driver's seat of a speed-racing car, dressed in a bright red racing outfit, and his pit crew is helping him get his helmet back on.

DISCOVERIES: Jarod discovers the joy of Oreo cookies, and also discovers novelty toys (including fake dog poop, giant scissors, snake-in-a-can, chattering teeth, fake spilled cola, and glasses with eyeballs on springs that pop out and dangle when Jarod wears them.)We discover that Jarod once posed as an atomic engineer, was once a midwife, and later posed as a race car driver.

TRIVIA: The File Number on the folder containing the information of the SAR for Tom King and his boat was: BM-243-11C

BEST LINES: Jarod to Martha when she initially tells him she's ill because she ate bad sushi: "Is there any other kind?"// Jarod to Bilson when Bilson asks why he came to San Diego: "I was feeling kind of cooped up where I was living."// Jarod to Bilson when Bilson threatens to have him court martialed: "Well, that's very serious, but a court martial... it won't exactly effect me. You see, I'm not really a lieutenant... In fact, I'm not really in the Coast Guard!"

OUR REVIEW: For only the second episode in the series, this one had a lot of information in it. It was a character exposition episode with an interesting mystery behind it. We thought the fake dog poop thing was a little heavy-handed, but... liked the fact that Jarod was able to see the metaphor in it. In this episode, we got to see Jarod's expressions of frustration and grief; and we got to see Miss Parker come to the realization that he mother's death was not a suicide but a murder. (On the DSA we distinctly heard four gun shots. "Suicide" victims don't get the chance to shoot themselves FOUR times.) We also got to see Sydney get a bit of a come-uppance from Jarod during their telephone conversation wherein Jarod told Sydney, "If they find out what I have, you won't be able to protect yourselves." A classic line from a once-victim, now re-gaining control of himself and his situation. The threat in that statement was as evident as Jarod's rage over the fact that his life, up to the point where he escaped from The Centre, had been distilled down to records kept for a scientific study. A very good episode.

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Spitz: reference to Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz.
Campbell: perhaps a reference to American author Joseph Campbell who is most noted for his writing on achetypal heroes and mythology. His first work, published in 1949 was: "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". Very "jarod", huh?
Singing group extolling the virtues of the Y: The Village People, and their hit song "Y.M.C.A."
Scuba Diving: See The Interviews to learn about Michael T.Weiss's real scuba diving experiences.


episode #03, Flyer

FIRST SEASON EPISODE 03: "Flyer":Jarod fortifies himself with PEZ

OPEN: Miss Parker and Sydney are walking through a huge windmill farm in the hills just outside San Francisco. Their guide is telling them that Jarod discovered the spot and told them to build the windmills there because it was a "natural heat vortex". Heat from the desert collided there with in-coming ocean breezes and created its own wind index, which ran the mills. The windmills, in turn, generated electricity. The guide tells Miss Parker and Sydney that Jarod would sometimes spend entire days, "just eatin' PEZ and takin' in the hawks", watching the birds fly and hover, and testing air currents and up drafts by throwing sand into the face of the turning windmills. Sydney looks up into the sky at a hawk flying overhead and says, "Jarod. What are you up to now?"

IN ARIZONA Jarod -- as Jarod Wright -- is piloting an F-16 fighter jet. He shouts out a joyful, "Wooooooo-hooooo!" and tells another pilot, Tom "Man-eater" Matthews, who's flying along side him, "This is so cool." Matthews tells Jarod he's passed the gauntlet, and if he wants the job as a Skyvionics test pilot, he can have it. Jarod accepts the job, and celebrates by rolling the jet at a fast pitch.

Later, at the Skyvionics Testing Ground, Jarod meets another test pilot (a hot-shot named Dixon), and a mechanic named Lawson. Matthews brags that his newly developed Scimitar computer chip will make jets and commercial airplanes faster and more efficient than ever before. The chip's stock gained over 13 points recently, and Matthews was on the verge of conducting a test of the chip for the Pentagon. He tells Jarod and Dixon that they're both up for wingman, and that he'll make his decision later as to which of them it's going to be. In the hanger, the mechanic Lawson also brags to Jarod about how efficient the new chip is: it can make the response time between pilot and machine 10 times faster than it was before. He's interrupted, though, by an Air Force lieutenant, Janice Gant, who's acting as a Special Projects Officer, overseeing the upcoming Pentagon test of the chip. She tells Lawson she wants his specs immediately, and he leaves Jarod to get them for her.

While Lawson is away, Gant walks over to a series of "magic eye" (stereographic) posters Lawson has mounted up in the hanger. She tells Jarod she's looked at them dozens of time but can't find the hidden image in them. Jarod points to each poster, one after the other, and says the images are of "a penguin at the sphinx, a penguin on a camel, and a penguin riding a Nile barge. Now there's something you don't see every day." Jarod explains that in order to see the hidden images, she has to look at the posters, while deflecting her "primary eyesight 8° to the left." Jarod then introduces himself to Gant as the replacement for test pilot Ronald "Hammer" Collins who had died in a crash several weeks earlier.

Later that afternoon, Jarod rides a red bicycle over to a nearby avionics cemetery where old wrecks of jets and airplanes lay in pieces in the desert. He goes through the wreckage of Ron Collins' plane, and then opens up the red notebook he's using to keep track of his investigation of the crash. Headlines on the newspaper articles enclosed in the notebook read: TEST CRASH PILOT ERROR? ...and COLLINS FAMILY STRUGGLES ALONE. Collins had died during a test of the Scimitar chip, and the crash was blamed on his error. Although he had time to eject from the jet before it hit the ground, he never did. Since he was blamed for the crash, his pension was revoked, and his family (a wife and young son) were left without the income and security the pension would have given them otherwise.


Jarod asks Mr. Hollace about being "seen" through the TVThe next day, in his lair, Jarod is watching a DSA from 01-16-69 which shows images of him as a child, performing an endurance test on a stationary bike. In the background is Sydney talking to a smoking, balding man. The balding man's face is to the camera, but he's too far away for Jarod to hear what he's saying. Adult-Jarod freezes a frame of the image of the balding man, and is setting up a modem to transmit the image, when his landlord, Mr. Hollace comes in snooping around. Mr. Hollace is kindly, but seems to suffer from a form of paranoia. He complains that Skyvionics is conspiring with the government to wreak havoc on civilians; he talks about stalking black helicopters and "grey men"; and tells Jarod he's made sure that the TV set in the guesthouse where Jarod is staying doesn't have a "reverse imaging device" (so no one will be able to watch Jarod through the TV). Mr. Hollace has also made sure to block any television station transmissions that might be carrying subliminal mind control messages.

Jarod notices that Mr. Hollace has a small black canister in his hands, and Mr. Hollace tells him it's a canister of Halcyon gas that he was able to confiscate from the government. The halcyon (besides being a fire control substance) is a potent hallucinogen that was used, Mr. Hollace tells Jarod, experimentally on local civilians. When the government told people it was spraying the area to get rid of an infestation of med-flies, he says, they were really testing halcyon's effects on the masses. Jarod is concerned that Mr. Hollace has a canister of the stuff, but Hollace tells him his sample has been cut with 50% oxygen so it isn't as potent as the pure stuff the government uses, but it could still make people drowsy and "loopy" if they got a whiff of it.

AT THE CENTRE, Broots shows Sydney and Miss Parker the image of the balding man that Jarod transmitted over the internet. Both Sydney and Miss Parker recognize the man as "Mr. Raines", and express worry that Jarod may find out too much about him.

IN ARIZONA, Jarod is at the Tail Fin Bar looking at the images of aviators on the walls. When the female bar-tender asks him what his "poison" is, he doesn't understand her; so she asks him what he likes to drinks. He tells her he was raised on "optimized nutritional supplements" of wheat grass, hearts of palm, asparagus and tomatoes... and she tells him he wants a Virgin Mary with celery garnish. Jarod tells the bartender to give him two.

A few moments later Lt. Gant arrives at the bar. She's ready to yell at Jarod for taking his jet out over Clearview Ridge, but he wards her off with the offer of the Virgin Mary drink and the explanation that he was just running a simulation of the flight that killed Ron Collins. He doesn't want the same thing to happen to him, he says. Gant tells him he won't suffer the same fate as Collins as long as he sticks to non-alcoholic drinks. According to Matthews and Lawson, she says, Ron Collins was in the Tail Fin bar drinking it up the night before the accident. He died because the alcohol in his blood caused him to black out when he pulled too many "G's".

Later, Jarod goes to the Collins house and finds Ron's son outside playing with paper airplanes that don't fly very well. Jarod introduces himself, and greets Ron's widow with the gift of a post humus Gulf War Commendation that he'd managed to get from the Air Force (through what means, he didn't say). Pleased by the gift, Mrs. Collins invites Jarod to stay for dinner: hot dogs and macaroni. After dinner, Jarod and Ron's son are lying out in the Collins' front yard looking up at the stars. The boy tells Jarod that he and his father studied the stars a lot, and that they had snuck out the night before Ron's accident, to go into the desert to star gaze. Jarod asks the boy if he's sure about that, and the boy tells him, yes. Mrs. Collins didn't know about it because the boy had kept it a secret: his mother didn't like him going out in the middle of the night... So, Jarod understands, even though Lawson and Matthews told the authorities that Collins had been in the bar drinking the night before the accident, Collins was actually out star-gazing with his son. Matthews and Lawson were liars... but why?

BACK AT THE CENTRE, Broots informs Sydney that the image of Mr. Raines which Jarod had sent downline also contained an executable file that, when activated, opened up a communication interface. Employing the interface, Sydney would be able to see and talk to Jarod over the computer when Jarod came on-line. Sydney asks Broots not to tell anyone about the interface.Jarod simulates Ron Collins' death

IN ARIZONA, Jarod goes to the Skyvionics hanger looking for Lawson, hoping to confront him, but instead find several people gathered there, including Tom Matthews, who tells Jarod that he's chosen Dixon to fly as wingman for the Pentagon test. Matthews still wants Jarod to fly as a "bogey" during the test, though, and directs him to another hanger where a Dracon jet is being housed. Needing some flight hours in the Dracon jet, Jarod takes it out for an overnight flight... He lands it at La Grange, a private airstrip owned by The Centre in Virginia, and then takes off three hours later and heads back to Arizona. During the three-hour layover, Jarod goes to Washington, D.C., and steals a packet of Air Force SPO paperwork and videos regarding the Scimitar chip dog-fight simulation test in which Ron Collins was killed.

Back in Arizona, Jarod watches the videos and reads the materials, then he goes out to the hanger, gets into one of the F-16 fighter jets parked there, and runs a simulation of Ron Collins' last flight through his mind.In his mind, he can hear the crash, feel Collins' terror, and see the flames when the jet exploded on impact.

Jarod then pulls the Scimitar chip out of one of the jets and takes it back to his lair. He puts the chip into the remote control "clicker" for the television set, and runs it through a series of tests to find out how well the chip works. Although all of the specs for the chip stated that it had a failure rate of only 0.4%, Jarod's tests indicate that the chip's failure rate is actually 3.1% Going over schematics of the jet, too, Jarod realizes that the chip was linked to several systems in the jet, so when the chip failed all sorts of key systems failed with it, including altimeter controls, infrared systems, and the ejection unit. He realizes that Ron was unable to eject from the jet, not because he was drunk and had passed out, but because the Scimitar chip in his jet failed and cut off access to ejection systems.

The next day, Jarod goes to the Clearview Institute for the Deaf, and, using American Sign Language and spoken words, requests that the director of the facility give him some help. The director, a young deaf woman, signs-and-says she'll be happy to give Jarod whatever assistance he needs. As part of her assistance, she "speaks" to him from across the table without using vocalizations or sign language, and Jarod has to read her lips in order to understand what she's saying. After several lessons, Jarod is able to read her lips perfectly. In sign language he thanks her for her time, and then returns to his lair.

Watching the DSA of himself from 01-16-69, Jarod zooms in on the image of Mr. Raines in the background of the bicycle experiment. Matching his own lip movements to those of Mr. Raines', Jarod is able to decipher what Raines is saying without having to actually hear him: "...Listen to me, doctor... The kid asks about his father again, tell him daddy loved him very much, and daddy died in a plane crash. That's not exactly a lie. Are we clear?"

Later, Jarod finds Lawson alone in the F-16 hanger, and confronts him with the information he has about Ron Collins' crash and the Scimitar chip's true failure rate. Lawson admits that he knew about the failure rate all along, but kept it a secret because he believed the 3.1% ratio, even though it was much higher than the 0.4% noted in the specs, was still an "acceptable" rate... and he was waiting with Matthews to sell the chip to the government and commercial buyers so he and Matthews could make millions of dollars. "Put yourself in my shoes," Lawson complains to Jarod. And Jarod tells him, "I already have," and leaves the hanger.

Later, Jarod returns to the hanger when no one is there and tampers the jet's systems. He connects some of them to a remote control device, and patches others with Silly Putty. He then calls Lt. Gant on the telephone, tells her what he's found out, and tells her what he's up to now. Jarod has his computer-to-computer talk with Sydney

Later, Jarod returns to his lair to have his computer-to-computer chat with Sydney. When the interface between Sydney's Centre computer and Jarod's lap-top computer is engaged, the two can see and talk to one another. Jarod shows Sydney a picture of Mr. Raines and demands to know who Raines is and what Raines knows about his (Jarod's) father. Sydney only tells Jarod Mr. Raines' name, but doesn't divulge anymore information about him. He then starts to tell Jarod that Jarod father's "was a aviator who flew with..." Both computer screens go blank as the transmission is cut off by Miss Parker. In his lair, Jarod swears in frustration at the blank screen.

Furious that Sydney and Broots tried to pass information to Jarod without her approval or knowledge, Miss Parker takes Broots away with her and gives him a sound talking to. He tells her that Sydney forced him to keep quiet about the interface, and she tells him Sydney isn't that good at making threats. She wants a better explanation. Rather than giving her one, Broots tells her that he'll make it all up to her by telling her where Jarod is. He was able to trace Jarod through the interface, he says, and knows precisely from where Jarod was transmitting.

The next day, Tom Matthews is all ready for the Pentagon test of the Scimitar chip, but is furious when the pilot, Dixon, doesn't show up to fly the main jet. (Back at his apartment, Dixon is under the influence of a whiff of halcyon-enhanced oxygen -- thanks to Mr. Hollace -- and can't get out of bed.) Matthews tells Jarod he himself will fly the main jet, if Jarod will still act as the "bogey" in the dog fight simulation. Jarod agrees, and with members of the Pentagon and Lt. Gant watching (and listening over the P.A. system to everything the two pilots say when they're in their jets), he and Matthews start the test of the Scimitar chip. Gant, who was already aprised of what was going to happen, tells the general to watch and listen carefully to the pilots.

Once airborne, Matthews discovers that Jarod isn't interested in the test, and has started a real dog-fight in the air. Matthews is angry that Jarod is up-staging him, and pushes his own jet to a higher speed in order to overtake and out-perform Jarod's jet. As Matthews' jet reaches critical speed, the Scimitar chip in his jet suddenly malfunctions and he loses control.

While Matthews struggles to get his jet level again, Jarod tells him that he'll inform Matthews how to fix the jet if Matthews confesses to the truth about the death of Ron Collins, the true failure rate of the Scimitar chip, the Matthews' falsification of the chip's test records. Believing he'll suffer the same fate as Ron Collins if he doesn't comply, Matthews hysterically confesses to everything, and begs Jarod to save him. On the ground, the general has heard it all.

Jarod, using the remote control device, ejects Matthews from the malfunctioning jet himself before it crashes into the desert. When Matthews parachutes to the ground, he finds the General and Lt. Gant waiting for him. The general yells at him: "Matthews! The government wants a refund!"

Later, Jarod stops off to say his good-byes to his landlord, Mr. Hollace, and thanks him for his help. Mr. Hollace apologizes to Jarod for being such a "weirdo", but Jarod tells him he believes everything Mr. Hollace told him about government conspiracies and secret experiments. He then gives Mr. Hollace a map of The Centre facility in Blue Cove, Delaware, and tells him that this, too, is a secret government-funded installation where illicit experimentation is taking place. "People should be made aware..." Jarod says. "I'll spread the word," Mr. Hollace promises, and Jarod tells him, "I'm counting on it."Mr. Raines

The next day, two huge black limousines arrive at the Tail Fin Bar, and Miss Parker and Sam the Sweeper enter to look around for clues about Jarod. They find, among the other photographs of aviators behind the bar, a new color photo of Jarod in a flight suit. When the bar tender realizes who Miss Parker is, she gives Miss Parker Jarod's red notebook and a box filled with Silly Putty. Impressed on the surface of the Silly Putty is a newspaper article which tells about the new discoveries involved with Ron Collins' death, and the fact that his pension has been reinstated, so his wife and son will have the extra income they need to survive.

Unable to locate Jarod himself, Miss Parker walks out of the bar empty-handed, and is faced with the angry image of Mr. Raines glowering out at her from the back seat of his own limousine. Raines complains that she apparently has not developed the "Parker killer instinct" herself, and warns her, "Jarod is not some minor inconvenience for you to pad your Centre expenses with." Raines' limo then drives off, leaving Miss Parker in the desert dust and wind.

The episode closes with images of Jarod conducting a Philharmonic orchestra... after assaulting the stodgy stage manager with a paper airplane and offering him some PEZ.

DISCOVERIES: Silly putty, Virgin Mary drinks with celery garnish, lip-reading.

BEST LINE: Lt. Gant asks Jarod if he invented the stereographic posters, and Jarod tells her: "Not officially."

OUR REVIEW: So... Jarod can now read lips. That's a handy-dandy skill to have (it worked really well for Hal9000 in "2001"). And we found out that Jarod's father was an aviator who might or might not be dead. Hmmmm. Bit by bit, we're learning a little more (even as Jarod does).

Some of the episode wasn't edited properly, and seemed to slog by at an annoyingly slow pace: especially the scenes with Collins' little boy. And although the scene regarding Mr. Hollace's nightmare about Hiroshima was somewhat touching, it, too, was something of an annoying distraction that didn't particularly add anything to the story itself. Nonetheless, this episode, overall, was a good one, providing us with more of a view of Jarod's life in and out of the Centre, and tying in the "paranoia" angel of "The Pretender's" sister-show, "Dark Skies" (which also concerned itself with secret organizations, Majestic in this case, little grey men, and conspiracies). We also got to see Jarod really enjoying the freedom that flight offered him. He looked like he was in his element up there.
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Wright: Obviously a refernce to Wilbur and Orville Wright (the Wright brothers)


episode #04, Curious Jarod

FIRST SEASON EPISODE 03: "Curious Jarod":

The scene opens on a junk yard. Miss Parker and Sydney are walking through the aisles of segregated trash, heading toward a small encampment where Jarod -- as Jarod Woods -- had recently set up a lair for himself. The junkyard manager is with them, and talking to them as they go along. He says Jarod was there for about a month, and kept himself occupied by reading everything he could get his hands on, mostly books that had been confiscated from a library when it shut down. Most of the books were about science and mathematics, and included such titles as "The New Prometheans", "Physics and Random Probability", and "Making Odds Even". The junk yard manager also tells Sydney and Miss Parker about Jarod's theory about the aerodynamics of the 50¢ piece: that because of convolutions on the face of the coin it will, more often than not, land face-up. Miss Parker is unimpressed.

At the Marquis Casino in Las Vegas, we see Jarod -- now as Jarod Felson -- at the black jack tables with piles of chips in front of him. He's playing eight decks at once, and winning so much money that he's captured the attention of the casino's security chief and president. Intent on shutting Jarod down, one of the security guards asks a waitress named Ivy to offer Jarod alcohol on the house. Ivy tells the security guard that she's tried that already, but Jarod insists on drinking nothing but Dr. Pepper. When Jarod's winnings reach over $100-grand, the casino president has security pick Jarod up and bring him to his office.

In the office of casino manager, Peter Morgan, Jarod sits in a chair, smiling at the security chief and guards around him. Morgan tells his people that Jarod must be "a complete idiot" if he thinks he can rip off the Marquis Casino by cheating at the black jack tables. Jarod says he wasn't cheating, and he had no intention of keeping his winnings. As a matter of fact, he turned over all of his chips to Ivy and let her return them to the security chief's office. Morgan then asks what Jarod is doing there, if he's not there to win anything. Jarod excuses himself from his chair, goes over to a console of video monitors and, directing the surveillance cameras in the casino via the computers there, tells Morgan to watch one of his dealers, a man named Martin Rawlings.

As Morgan and the other watch on the monitor, Rawlings uses the slight-of-hand skills he'd developed as a former magician to skim chips off the House's stack and pass them on to a courier -- one of the waitresses in the casino. Jarod tells Morgan that thousands of dollars are disappearing in the fashion, and Morgan asks him where the chips are going once the courier has them. Jarod points to the security chief standing in the room with them, and tells Morgan that the stolen chips are in the chief's chip holster attached to his belt. The security chief protests, but Morgan has the guard confiscate the holster from the chief. The guard opens the holster up and finds the stolen chips inside. Morgan fires the chief on the spot and hires Jarod in his place as head of security.

At The Centre, Miss Parker, Broots and Sydney are going over the books and other materials they'd taken from Jarod's junkyard lair. In the book "Making Odds Even" Jarod had left a small, red toy monkey (from a "Barrel of Monkeys" game) tucked between some of the pages, had highlighted everything on every page, and had retraced every figure "8" in the book. Sydney tells Miss Parker that the number 8 was Jarod's favorite number; that Jarod liked to call it "Upright Infinity" and liked the flowing, interlocking symmetry of the form. He is convinced that the "Making Odds Even" book was the key to Jarod's next pretend, and determines that it might signify a pretend dealing with high-risk games of chance: gambling.

At the Marquis Casino, Jarod is in the gift shop reading a copy of the children's book "Curious George". A little girl sees him, and he asks her if she's ever read it. She said she read a "million times" when she was "a kid". Jarod asks her if she knows who the man in the yellow hat in the book is, and she whispers to him that she doesn't know. He thanks her for her time, and takes the book with him when he lives the shop.

Later, poolside outside of the casino, Jarod meets Peter Morgan, Peter's wife Kitty, and Steve Hanlon (the casino owner). Jarod says he's a big fan of Hanlon, and had read his book "Master Your Space". He was also impressed by Hanlon's company motto of "families first", he tells them. Hanlon is appreciative of Jarod's accolades, but Morgan just thinks Jarod is "kissing up" to the boss. He tells Jarod that Hanlon's not interested at all in families; he's just trying to make a buck.

After his meeting with Hanlon and Morgan, Jarod catches a cab. While he's sitting in the back seat, he reads through his latest red notebook. Inside it are newspaper clippings with headlines that read: "Showgirl Beaten, Maggie Blaire in Critical Condition", "Showgirl in Coma", and "Alone: Sleeping Beauty Fights for Life". Jarod goes to Maggie's room in the hospital, where she's still lying comatose in her bed. He takes her hand and says to her softly: "I'm sorry it took so long for me to get here, Maggie."

While Jarod sits with Maggie, a male nurse name Buddy comes in and says he's surprised that Jarod is there. Buddy thought Maggie had no friends or family; he also tells Jarod not to get too attached to Maggie because she probably would never recover from her coma. Jarod says he knows she's in bad straights, and asks Buddy to page him should there be any change in her condition. Buddy promises Jarod he will.

In New York City, Miss Parker and Sydney have a street corner meeting with some mobsters known to Miss Parker. Even though the mobsters try to intimidate Miss Parker into leaving them alone, she refuses to back down. She tells the mob boss that she wants him to find out at what gambling casino Jarod is staying; and that if the boss doesn't do what she tells him to do, she'll sic the Port Authority on him and shut down his smuggling operations. The mobster says he'll do what Miss Parker asks, but he wants $50-thousand for his troubles. Miss Parker agrees.

In the Marquis Casino, Jarod finds an Elvis impersonator named Bernie Baxley sulking at his dressing room table. Jarod asks Bernie what's wrong, and Bernie tells him he's just been fired. "Did it have something to do with the bird thing?" Jarod asks. Bernie doesn't understand what he means, and Jarod clarifies, "The 'goose'?" Bernie laughs, and says, no, he's not being fired for goosing the lady guests at the casino. He's been fired because he's overweight and too old for the part he's playing anymore. He says he's scared about being unemployed at his age... and he's scared about the fact that now, as he can't be "Elvis" anymore, he'll have to figure out who "Bernie" really is. [[This dilemma of Bernie's is fascinating to Jarod who has the reverse of Bernie's problem. Jarod aches to know who "Jarod" really is, rather than pretending to be other people all of the time, but hasn't had the chance to find out much about himself yet.]]

At the Centre, in his office, Sydney gets a telephone call from Jarod. Sydney tells him they'd found his last lair, and all of the books. Jarod responds a little angrily by saying, "It's a pleasure to read whatever I want these days." Sydney asks what all the books and games are about, and Jarod responds with a flat, "It's in the mail," and hangs up.

In his room at the casino, Jarod creates a figure-8 out of a string of the small, red Barrel of Monkeys monkeys. Later, we see Jarod arrive back in his room at the casino dressed in a policeman's uniform. He tosses a police report about Maggie Blaire onto his bed.

The next day, Jarod meets for a poolside lunch with Peter Morgan and Steve Hanlon and tells them he's been going through the casino's books and discovered that some of the figures were "off" for the month of July. Hanlon tells Jarod not to pursue that line of inquiry; he knows the books are off for that month. He tells Jarod that after Maggie Blaire was beaten up, on the 4th of July, the casino suffered from guest cancellations and bad publicity. In order to get the public to return to the casino, he rigged the winning of several large "jack pots" for some of the customers. When the gambling members of the public found out that winnings were big at the Marquis, they returned there.

Later that evening, Jarod is escorting Ivy to her car in the parking garage. When they pass the place where Maggie Blaire had been beaten, Ivy feels very uncomfortable. She tells Jarod that she can smell the scent of gardenias there and it gives her the creeps. (Ivy explains that gardenias where Maggie's favorite flowers; Maggie always wore one in her hair.) Ivy also tells Jarod that the last time she saw Maggie, Maggie was excited because she'd just won a lead part in a big show in Atlantic City and was readying to leave the Marquis. Shortly after that announcement, Maggie was found beaten into a coma in the parking garage.

Jarod sees to it that Ivy gets to her car safely, then he starts searching the area where Maggie had been found. He sees, tucked in under an overhang, a surveillance camera that looked down right into the place where Maggie had been attacked. Jarod goes to the security bay in the casino and searches through the video archives to find tape of the day Maggie was attacked, but all he can find are images of her, from another part of the building, punching out her time card on her way out of the building. Although the caption on the video tape reads "07-04-96"; however, Jarod isn't convinced that the tape is authentic. He uses the security bay computers to zoom in on the time card Maggie was holding in the video. The date on the card reads "04-8-96". He then knows that the footage of Maggie on the July 4th video was actually footage from April, and had been spliced into the 07-04-98 video tape. But who did that...?

Back in his room at the casino, Jarod is going over the crime photographs of Maggie Blaire's beating... and he also watches a SIM of himself, from 10-12-67, when he was a child. In the SIM he was supposed to be the man who murdered Marylin Monroe, but he can't go through with the simulation. Young-Jarod looks to Sydney and says he doesn't understand why Marylin had to die; "No one should have to die alone." Sydney tells Young-Jarod to pay attention to what he's doing, "Focus on the killer, not the victim..." But Young-Jarod can't do it. "There's something wrong with this picture," Young-Jarod says.

Adult-Jarod looks over the images of a bruised and battered Maggie Blaire, and says to himself that there's something wrong with those pictures, too. He notices an odd-shaped bruise on her face (a short of "shield" shape). Jarod then goes out on the floor of the casino and studies all of the principal workers he can find. While he's studying Peter Morgan, he realizes that Morgan is wearing a watch with the same distinctive shield-shape as the bruise on Maggie Blaire's face.


At The Centre
, Broots brings a large package to Sydney. The package is wrapped in brown paper and has a glorified figure-8 on the side of it. Sydney opens up the package to find that inside it is nothing but a small wire cage, with a single small, red toy monkey hanging in it. Miss Parker comes into the room, see the cage but doesn't remark on, and tells Sydney that she's heard from the mobster in New York. She wants Sydney to go with her to meet with the mobster.

That evening, Jarod goes to visit Bernie Baxley in his RV, which is still parked in the casino's parking lot. Bernie is packing up all of his things, including a snowglobe he got from Graceland, and is readying to leave. While Jarod chats with Bernie, his beeper goes off. Buddy, at the hospital is paging him.

Jarod arrives at Maggie Blaire's hospital room to find her in extreme physical distress. Jarod takes Maggie's hand and tells her, "It's all right. You're not alone," and continues to hold her hand until she dies. Later, from his room at the casino, Jarod calls the hospital and tells them he'll pay for all of Maggie's hospital bills. The hospital informs him that the bills have already been paid... by Kitty Morgan. Intrigued by this, Jarod uses his laptop computer to run fingerprint traces on Kitty and Peter Morgan. He discovers that Peter Morgan has a past record of assault.

In New York, Miss Parker and Sydney meets with the mobster who says he'll tell Miss Parker where Jarod is, but he wants $100,000 not $50, 000. Miss Parker agrees and hands the mobster an envelope engorged with bills. The mobster informs her that one of his people in Las Vegas had spotted Jarod in the parking garage of the Marquis Casino. Miss Parker thanks the mobster and then informs him that she had actually brought $200,000 with her, and was surprised that he didn't hold out for more cash. "Who knew you'd be such a cheap date," she tells him as she walks off.

The next day, Jarod goes to Maggie Blaire's graveside, and discovers Kitty Morgan there, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses. Kitty tells Jarod she was just there to pay her respects to Maggie, but Jarod doesn't quite believe her. He snatches the sunglasses from Kitty's face revealing the bruises around her eyes. He tells her he knows Peter Morgan and Maggie Blaire were having an affair, and when Maggie told him she was leaving to pursue her career in Atlantic City, Peter went berserk and beat her. Jarod also tells Kitty that he's found Peter's police record, and knows that Maggie and Kitty aren't the only women Peter has assaulted. Sobbing, Kitty tells Jarod that when she found Peter's copy of the surveillance video that showed Maggie getting beaten, Peter threatened to kill her if she told anyone about it. Riddled with guilt over Maggie's death, Kitty then tried to make amends by paying all the hospital and funeral expenses herself. Jarod tells her that that isn't enough. They have to stop Peter before he hurts anyone else.

Later, Kitty meets Jarod in the parking garage and hands him Peter's copy of the surveillance video fro the night Maggie was attacked. Jarod takes the video to his room and watches it... then he spends the rest of the evening practicing the forgery of Peter Morgan's signature and making telephone calls. He packs up an envelope filled with evidence about Maggie's attack and addresses it to the Las Vegas Police Department; does some money transfers over the telephone and the computer; and prints out a packet of information which he puts into another envelope with Steve Hanlon's name on it. He then goes to Bernie and asks him for his assistance.

The next morning, Jarod is packing his bags when the maid, Blanca, comes in to supply the room with some fresh towels. She tells Jarod that she's concerned he hasn't gotten any sleep for the past five nights, and he tells her he's been too busy to sleep. They have a short conversation, in fluent Spanish, about the Curious George books and the man in the yellow hat (whom Blanca can't identify either), and then Jarod is ready to leave.

On the floor of the casino, Ivy approaches Steve Hanlon and gives him the envelope Jarod had addressed to him. She tells him that Jarod wants to see him in the security bay around 10 o'clock. Meanwhile, Jarod finds Peter Morgan and tells him he's discovered a huge money-pilfering scam in the casino. He tells Morgan that $100,000 is being skimmed off the money pick-ups every Tuesday at 10 o'clock. The armored truck driver is in on the scam, he says, and acts as a courier, transporting the stolen money to another location after it leaves the casino. Jarod tells Morgan that if Morgan can trick the armored truck driver into telling him who the scam artists are and where the money is being taken, Hanlon will make Morgan president of the casino for life. Delighted with the idea of being Hanlon's "hero", Morgan agrees to do whatever Jarod tells him to do. Jarod has Morgan wait for the armored truck to arrive around 10 o'clock, and then approach the driver and tell him it was "business as usual" and to give him the information he wants.

At 10 o'clock, Hanlon arrives in the security bay but discovers that Jarod isn't there yet. He adjusts the surveillance cameras to search for Jarod and Morgan, and finds Morgan waiting at the front door of the casino as the armored truck arrives. Curious as to why Morgan is there, Hanlon "ups" the sound feed so he can eves drop on Morgan's conversation with the driver. He hears Morgan and the driver talk about money being stolen from the casino, and Morgan telling the driver that it's "business as usual". Believing Morgan is working with the driver to steal the money from the casino, Hanlon is livid.

Meanwhile, believing he's just caught the armored truck driver in the middle of a money-stealing scam, Morgan grins at Jarod and says he can't wait to tell Hanlon all about it. Jarod tells him Hanlon should be in the security bay, so Morgan rushes off to see Hanlon and tell him the "good news" about his being able to uncover the scam. Jarod stays behind for a few moments to smile at the armored truck driver... who is really Bernie dressed in security uniform. A la Elvis, Jarod points to Bernie and says, "Thank you, thank you very much." Bernie takes on an "Elvis" stance of his own and smiles back at Jarod.

Meanwhile, Miss Parker, Sydney and a pair of Sweepers arrive at the casino.

Jarod goes to the security bay, and arrives only a few seconds after Morgan. Morgan starts to tells Hanlon about the scam he's uncovered, but instead Hanlon confronts Morgan with the tape made by the security camera of Morgan's conversation with the armored truck driver. Morgan says he was just play-acting and asks Jarod to explain it all to Hanlon. Jarod steps forward and tells Hanlon that Morgan has been masterminding the theft of thousands of dollars from the casino every month, was in cahoots with the armored truck driver to steal from the Marquis, and had shunted all the stolen money into a Swiss bank account. Morgan insists he's been set up, and doesn't HAVE a Swiss bank account. Hanlon then shows Morgan the envelope he had gotten from Jarod (via Ivy) earlier. The envelope is filled with receipts of money transfers from Las Vegas to Switzerland... and they all have Peter Morgan's signature on them. Morgan insists that that documents are forgeries, but Hanlon doesn't believe him. When Morgan tries to flee the room, Hanlon has two security guards grab Morgan. They start to beat him up, and Jarod leaves the room.

In the hallway outside the security bay, Jarod is met by three officers from the Las Vegas Police Department. They had received his evidence in the killing of Maggie Blaire and want to know where Morgan is. Jarod directs them to security bay, then starts to head out of the casino.

When he's on the main floor, Jarod is spotted by Sydney who calls to him. Realizing Sydney, Miss Parker and the Sweepers are there, Jarod runs through the gambling room and exits the building. Outside, on the steps, Jarod is trapped between Miss Parker and Sydney and the two Sweepers. Before they can converge on him and capture him, however, casino security guards show up. They ask Jarod -- who as far as they know is still head of security -- if he needs some help. He tells the guards that Sydney, the Sweepers and Miss Parker are grifters who've tried to rip off the casino. He wants them all arrested... and he wants Miss Parker strip-searched, telling the guards, "She may be palming chips."

Miss Parker: "Oh... you BASTARD!"
Jarod: "Just doing my job. Ma'am. Head of security, you know."
Miss Parker: "I WILL get you."
Jarod: "Wanna bet?"

Jarod tosses a 50¢ piece into the air toward Miss Parker. She reaches out and grabs it, and Jarod calls, "Tails." Miss Parker looks at the coin. He's right.

Later that same day, Jarod goes to the graveside of Maggie Blaire and leaves a wreath of Baby's Breath and Gardenia's behind for her.

After being released from the authorities, Miss Parker, Sydney and the Sweepers go back to the Marquis Casino and search Jarod's room. They find a mobile made out of poker chips and 50¢ pieces, the red notebook, and Jarod's copy of "Curious George". On the flyleaf of the inside cover, Jarod has written: TO THE MAN IN THE YELLOW HAT. FROM THE MONKEY THAT GOT AWAY.

The episode ends with Jarod, dressed in a National Wildlife Federation uniform, in a jungle setting. He takes a chimpanzee out of the back of the Federation truck and carries it into the jungle, explaining to his guide that he's returning the chimp to the wild because, "Living creatures... They don't belong in captivity."

TRIVIA: The building used for some of the external shots of the Marquis Casino, is the same building which will later be used for some of the external shots of The Dragon House in the season finale episode of the same name.// The address for the LVPD was: 1916 Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89109.

DISCOVERIES: Games of chance; Elvis; Dr. Pepper; Barrel of Monkeys toy; Curious George.

BEST LINE(S): When the mob boss is shown a photo of Jarod by Miss Parker, and Miss Parker tells the boss that Jarod is running a gambling con, the mobster says, "He's no con. Not with that face; no way."

OUR REVIEW: We easily linked Jarod's dislike for captivity with his imprisonment in The Centre, and his use of the monkey in the wire cage as a metaphor for his own existence there, but didn't really get the whole "Curious George" angle. The Barrel of Monkey's toy would have been enough; Jarod's pursuit of the identity of the "man in the yellow hat" was distracting and, in the end, inconsequential to the story. Nonetheless, we felt this was an interesting episode with an equally interesting "sting" operation at the end of it.

We were distressed, however, at the beating of Peter Morgan at the end. From Jarod's point of view, subjecting Morgan to a beating was "poetic justice" for Morgan's abuse of women, but... if beating people up is wrong -- and it is -- then it's wrong no matter who gets beaten up or for what reason. True, Jarod never hit Morgan himself, but he did stand by and watch Morgan get punched.


episode #05, The Paper Clock

FIRST SEASON EPISODE 05: "The Paper Clock"

The episode opens with images from a dream Jarod is having. In his dream he's a young boy standing out in the backyard of his home. His mother is there, but her back is always to him. He cannot see her face. Clocks suddenly appear everywhere around him; all ticking. He tries to get his mother to look at him, but she doesn't hear him and doesn't respond to him. An alarm on one of the clocks goes off... And Jarod wakes up with a start.

Jarod's dream -- his momJarod's dream -- the clocks

In The Centre, Broots tells Sydney that Jarod has been calling every two minutes, like clockwork, but will speak to no one but Sydney. Broots then sets up a relay so that he can record, listen to and trace Jarod's telephone call. Sydney picks up the line and tells Jarod he's there.

In his lair, Jarod tells Sydney about the dream he been having... then flips a switch on a unit next to his telephone. A loud electronic squeal goes over the line, and Sydney and Broots have to pull away from their receivers so as not to be deafened by the noise. When the squeal stops, Jarod grumbles, "Tell Broots I've discovered Radio Shack." Realizing that Jarod knows about the tap and has found a way to thwart it, Broots throws down his headset and leaves the room. Sydney remains at the phone, however, and continues to talk to Jarod.

Jarod tells Sydney that it seems strange, but he feels "homesick", even though he doesn't know where "home" is. Sydney tells him his home is at The Centre, "You were never meant for the outside world." Angrily, Jarod responds with, "Spare me the white leopard speech, Sydney." He then demands that Sydney give him some clue to his own past. Jarod tells Sydney that if Sydney will give him some information about his family, Jarod will return some of the DSA's he'd stolen from The Centre when he left. "A piece of my past, for a piece of yours."

Jarod and Isaac
In Los Angeles
, in the huge lobby of a courthouse, Jarod -- posing as Jarod Holmes -- is met by his new client, Isaac Dexter, who he's never seen before. Isaac is up on assault charges; he's claimed self-defense and Jarod has been assigned as a lawyer to defend him in court. To Jarod's surprise, Isaac is a tall black man who's dressed as woman in a bright pink skirt/jacket combo, high heels, full makeup and a wig. In response to Jarod's shocked expression, Isaac asks, "Didn't anybody tell you?" Jarod says, no, but he'll stand up for Isaac in court anyway. Appreciative, Isaac smilesand asks: "So how long have you been a lawyer?" Jarod, heading for the courtroom, tells him, "... About seven minutes." Now it's Isaac's turn to look stunned.

Later, Jarod arrives at the law firm of SLOANE AND ASSOCIATES. He's met in the office of senior partner, Mr. Sloane, by Sloane and another attorney named Bradley Dumont. Dumont mocks Jarod's last client -- Isaac -- and thinks the whole case is a joke, but Sloane is happy that Jarod won his case easily, and didn't balk at the fact that Sloane had thrown him a "curve ball" for his first case. Sloane then asks Dumont how the Whittaker case is going, and Dumont says he's too busy with other cases to work on the appeal. Sloane reminds him that the court date is coming up shortly and that he'd better get on the ball.

Sloane's secretary, Annie, comes in with some completed work for him, and Jarod and Dumont leave the office. Outside the office, Jarod tells Dumont he'd be happy to work on the Whittaker appeal, and Dumont, who really isn't interested in the case, tells Jarod he's welcome to take over as long as he doesn't tell Sloane about it.

At The Centre, Sydney meets with the Centre's Director -- an elegant-looking black woman -- and tells her about Jarod's proposal: the trade of DSAs for information about his past. The Director says she'll discuss the idea with the Tower, but makes no promises.

The Rubic's CubeAt the law firm, Jarod comes across Annie struggling with a Rubic's Cube. She tosses it away from her, and complains that she can't do it. Jarod picks the puzzle cube up, and asks her where he might find the file on the Whittaker case. Before Annie can answer, Sloane arrives with five dictation cassettes and asks Annie to transcribe all of them and bring them to his boat that night. Annie tries to say she can't do it, but Sloane won't take no for an answer. He smiles at her, tells her how invaluable she is to the firm, and walks away. Annie looks back at Jarod and tells him that if he wants information on the Whittaker case, he'll have to go into the basement archives to find it. But, she warns him, it's impossible to find anything down there. Jarod grins at her, says, "Nothing's impossible," and hands her the completed Rubic's Cube puzzle.

Jarod goes into the basement, and finds a whole box of materials on the Whittaker case, including crime scene photographs, newspaper clippings, and four video cassettes. Among the crime scene photos is one of a bloody shoe print. The sole shoe that made the print has a distinctive horizontal-line pattern on it.

Jarod carries the box of information out of the basement, and is leaving the law firm building with it, to take it back to his lair, when he's intercepted by Isaac. Isaac, now dressed in a bright orange satin mini-skirt and leopard-print jacket and cap, thanks Jarod for all his help with the assault case. As a token of his gratitude, Isaac says, he'll act as Jarod's personal chauffeur... driving Jarod wherever he wants to go in Isaac's Fab Cab (a yellow cab Isaac has purchased in lieu of the limousine he'd like to have). The cab is decorated with swirling designs on the outside, and jungle-print upholstery on the inside. Jarod is grateful for the transportation and agrees to let Isaac be his driver.

At The Centre, Miss Parker (in an uncharacteristicly upswept hair-do) barges in on an ESP test Sydney is conducting with a young girl. Without seeing a card Sydney is touching, the girl is able to draw (with an electronic slate and pen) an image of the face of the card: such as a star, wavy lines, etc. When Miss Parker bursts in, the little girl wipes her electronic clean. Miss Parker takes Sydney outside of the cubicle where the little girl is seated, and demands to know what he's been promising Jarod. Sydney tells her that he's approached the Director with a proposal to trade Centre DSAs for information on Jarod, and Miss Parker is furious. She tells Sydney she's going to kill his deal, and she storms off. Sydney turns back to the little girl in the cubicle, and realizes that on her electronic slate she's drawn an image... of a woman with a sad face and tears running down her cheeks.

In Isaac's cab, heading for the California State Correctional Facility where Marcus Whittaker is being incarcerated, Jarod listens to the "blues" on Isaac's stereo and reads through his little red notebook. In the notebook are newspaper clippings with headlines that read: "Learning Disabled Janitor Arrested in W.L.A. Murder" and "Marcus Whittaker Sentenced in Audrey Price Slaying: Claims Innocence".

While he's driving, Isaac talks to Jarod about "the blues" and about "truth". Jarod asks him for the truth about why Isaac dresses as a woman, and Isaac tells him he doesn't know why he likes it, he just does. All of his life Isaac felt something was "off" or missing from his life, and when he "found" women's clothing, he felt whole and happy. Himself dressed as a woman was his "true" self, he says. Isaac then tells Jarod that he wasn't happy pretending to be something he wasn't -- dressing like a man, acting tough -- and says that when people pretend to be something other than who they are, they run the risk of losing themselves forever. Jarod winces and nods: he can totally relate to that.

At The Centre, Miss Parker, Sydney and the Director all meet in a hallway, and the Director informs Miss Parker that The Centre has agreed to Jarod's deal. When Miss Parker protests, and threatens to tell her father about what's happening, the Director informs her that it was Mr. Parker who cast the deciding vote okaying Jarod's deal. The Director then promises Sydney that she'll have something for him to give to Jarod by the end of the day.

In his lair, Jarod has the nightmare about his faceless mother again, and wakes up with a jolt. Unable to sleep, he goes through the Whittaker case file and watches the videos, which contain newsreel footage and other images related to the case. From the videos, Jarod learns that Mr. Sloane was the personal friend of a man named Michael Metzger, who owned the building in which both Audrey Price (a tenant) and Marcus Whittaker (the janitor) lived. Sloane and Metzger tell the press that they were together on Sloane's boat the night Audrey was killed, and when they heard about the slaying, Whittaker agreed to pay all of Marcus's legal fees as long as Sloane and Associates defend him.

Jarod then goes through the 5,612 pages of information in the file, and discovers that the bloody shoe print was never brought up in Sloane's defense of Whittaker, and neither was the fact that the murder weapon was never found. These two major flaws in the defense case resulted in Whittaker being found guilty of the crime... and necessitated the appeals process, in which Jarod was now involved.

The next day, Jarod has Isaac drive him to several shoe stores. In one store that has seven different pairs of deck shoes foe sale, Jarod sits on the floor for over an hour, studying the soles of the shoes... while Isaac shops for high-heels. Eventually, Jarod finds what he's looking for and tells the clerks he'll buy all seven pairs of shoes...and some red sling-back heels for Isaac.

Later, in his lair, studying the Whittaker case, Jarod is interrupted by a knock on the door. He gets up and greets a neighborhood by, who's brought Jarod a copy of the book, "My Days in Court" by Alan Edwards. The book is dirtied and ratty-looking because the boy has dragged it around town behind his bike. Jarod pays the boy $5 for wrecking the book. The boy tells Jarod that he has friends, and they can boost a car for Jarod if he wants them to. Jarod says he'll keep that in mind, and thanks him for his time.

The next day, Jarod goes to a bookstore where Alan Edwards is autographing copies of his new book, "Prosecutor at Large". When Edwards sees Jarod's ratty copy of "My Days in Court", he asks what happened to it. Jarod says he's read the book over and over again, and used it as a sort of "bible" in his own legal career. Edwards is flattered, and asks Jarod who he is. Jarod introduces himself as John Corey, Jr. Edwards tells him that he went to law school with a man named John Corey, and Jarod tells Edwards that he's John Corey's son. Overjoyed at meeting the son of his friend, Edwards invites Jarod to lunch.

Over drinks, Jarod and Edwards talk about John Corey... and the Whittaker case. Edwards was the prosecutor who won the conviction against Whittaker. He tells Jarod that Sloane and Associates did a horrible job defending Whittaker; which is why Whittaker lost. The prosecution kept waiting for a ferocious defense of Whittaker by Sloane and his partners, but it never came. It was almost as though Sloane WANTED to lose that case.

Jarod goes again to the prison where Marcus Whittaker is being held and gets an opportunity to talk to him. Marcus is working on a paper clock as he talks to Jarod; he says a "pen-pal" had told him how to make them. Jarod supplies Marcus with some extra card stock so he make the clock stronger, then he asks Marcus to tell him about the night Audrey Price was murdered.

Marcus tells Jarod that he was bringing Audrey flowers, like he normally did, and found her body on the floor of her apartment. It was "twisted up" and there was blood all over. Marcus says that at first she looked like she was asleep -- except for all the blood -- and when he realized she was dead, he ran away and hid in his janitor's quarters. Marcus also lets Jarod know that he noticed something missing from Audrey's coffee table when he went in and found the body: a large stone owl, one of a set of three, that she usually had displayed there. He also confirms for Jarod that Audrey was seen at lunch in her apartment every day by Michael Metzger, Mr. Sloane's friend. After the murder, though, Marcus says, Mr. Sloane told Marcus not to mention Metzger's daily visits to Audrey. Not knowing any better, Marcus did what Sloane told him to do.

Jarod takes all of this information back to his lair. He then uses his laptop computer to hack into the local phone company's archives to find out what sort of telephone calls, if any, Metzger and Sloane made on the night of Audrey's killing. He discovers that Metzger made a telephone call from his house to Sloane's boat shortly after Audrey was killed... But both Sloane and Metzger had said Metzger was on Sloane's boat that evening. If Metzger was with Sloane, then how could he have called Sloane from his house? And why would need to call at all? Jarod realizes that Sloane and Metzger are both implicated in Audrey's death...

Jarod at the docks
Later, Jarod goes to Mr. Sloane and informs him that the District Attorney has issued a warrant for the murder weapon in the Audrey Price killing. Sloane doesn't take the news well. Shortly afterward, Jarod follows Sloane to Sloane's boat and sees him carry a large stone owl (wrapped in plastic) onto the boat, where Sloane hides it.

Later still, back at his lair, Jarod dozes off, but he's awakened again by the dream of his faceless mother. He calls Sydney and asks if The Centre has agreed to their deal; Sydney tells him, yes, the deal was sanctioned by the Director and Mr. Parker... and Sydney sends a photograph to Jarod via e-mail to prove it. The photograph arrives in Jarod's laptop computer while Jarod is still on the phone to Sydney: it is an image of Jarod's mother's face. Jarod asks if the woman in the picture is really his mom, and Sydney says he believes it is. Thankful, Jarod tells Sydney he'll meet him at their appointed place and time, and Jarod will turn over some of DSAs to him.

That same night, Jarod goes through some audio dictation cassettes of Mr. Sloane's voice, and, splicing them together, makes a new message to Annie in Sloane's voice. Jarod calls the office and, using the spliced up audio tape, leave the message on Annie's voice mail so she can retrieve it first thing in the morning.

The next day, outside Sloane and Associates, Bradley Dumont can't get his car started. He's surprised and thankful, however, when a black in a chauffeur's uniform walks up and offers to drive Dumont to his next appointment in his limousine. Dumont hops into the back of the limo, and we see, as the driver walks around to get into the driver's seat, that he's wearing bright red, sling-back, high-heel shoes. It's Isaac!

Isaac drives Dumont to his appointment, then drives him right out of city. When Dumont realizes they're leaving Los Angeles, he tries to get out of the limo, but finds that Isaac has locked all of the doors. Isaac drive Dumont all the way to Las Vegas. He needs to keep Dumont out of the city, so Jarod can go into court that day as Marcus Whittaker's representative.

Meanwhile, inside the office Annie retrieves her voice mail and gets the doctored message of Sloane's voice that Jarod has placed on the machine the night before. In response to the message, Annie leaves the office again.

In court, Sloane is surprised to see Jarod seated at the defense desk instead of Dumont... and is doubly surprised when Marcus Whittaker is also brought into the room. Marcus sits next to Jarod and asks the court to allow Jarod to represent him. Sloane argues that such a thing is very irregular, since Bradley Dumont was supposed to be the one assigned to the case, but the judge says Marcus has a right to choose anyone he wants to represent him. Jarod thanks the court, then calls his first and only witness: Mr. Sloane.

Jarod confronts Sloane with the fact that although Sloane had told the police that Michael Metzger was on his boat at the time Audrey Price was killed, Metzger had called Sloane from his house only five minutes after Audrey's time-of-death. Jarod also says he knows that Sloane wears a size 11 deck shoe... the same kind of deck shoe that left a bloody shoe print at the murder scene. Annie then arrives in the courtroom with a canvas bag of items she's gotten from Sloane's boat -- items she thought Sloane himself had asked for. Jarod opens the bag and pulls out the large stone owl, explaining to the judge that the owl was the murder weapon... and that it had just come from Mr. Sloane's boat.

Sloane insists that he wasn't the one who had killed Audrey Price, and Jarod agrees with him. But, he reminds Sloane, Sloane WAS an accessory after the fact. Michael Metzger had killed Audrey in a jealous rage, and then called Sloane (and old friend of his) for help. Sloane went to the murder scene, removed key evidence and framed Marcus Whittaker for the killing. To throw the authorities off the track, Sloane and Metzger then pretended to care about Whittaker, paying for his court fees and defending him.... but not well enough so that a jury would find Marcus innocent.

Sloane says any good lawyer could refute all of the things Jarod's has said. The judge tells Sloane he'd better hire that good lawyer because she was putting him under arrest as an accessory. She also issues a bench warrant for Michael Metzger's arrest, and finds Marcus not guilty of the murder of Audrey Price.

As Jarod is exiting the courthouse, to go to the place where he and Sydney were supposed to meet to do the DSA exchange, Jarod is startled to find Miss Parker and several Sweepers (including Sam) there. They spot Jarod and chase him out of the courthouse and around the building, but Jarod escapes, driving away in Isaac's cab which has been waiting for him on the street. On the curb, Miss Parker finds Jarod's leather briefcase. She opens it up to find there are no DSAs in it; only a note which reads: YOU DOUBLE-CROSSED ME. -- JAROD. Miss Parker and Sam then try to drive off after Jarod, but find their car won't start. The same neighborhood boy who had gotten $5 for dragging Jarod's book around town, assisted Jarod again by removing the distributor cap and wiring from the engine of Miss Parker's car. Jarod smiles and waves at the boy as he drives past in Isaac's cab.

Several days later, Marcus Whittaker is freed from prison, and is surprised and happy to see Isaac, dressed nattily in a black suitcoat and miniskirt, waiting outside the prison for him -- with a limousine and Marcus's mother. Marcus's mom tells Marcus that Jarod paid for her flight out, and that Isaac will take them wherever they want to go. Before Marcus gets into the limo, Isaac hands him a present from Jarod. Marcus opens the present up and finds a paper clock inside the box with a note that reads: NOW YOU HAVE THE TIME IN THE WORLD, CHERISH YOUR FREEDOM, MARCUS. YOUR PEN-PAL, JAROD.

Bull-rider Jarod
The episode ends with Jarod at a rodeo, dressed in blue jeans and a pale straw cowboy hat. He's sitting astride a bull, and is told he only has to stay on for 8-seconds. "Eight seconds?" Jarod asks. "Eight seconds? Let's go --" The chute is opened and the bull races out with Jarod on top of it.

DISCOVERIES: Rubic's cube; paper clocks; bull-riding. Jarod also discovered what his mother's face looks like, and we discovered what The Centre's Director looks like.

REVIEW: It was interesting to see the Director -- and to find that she's female. But other than that the episode was lacking in much of anything interesting. The murder mystery wasn't much of a mystery, and the story seemed somewhat disjointed; although we did find Isaac amusing and endearing. The writers have to do better than this...
------------
Holmes: An obvious reference to Arthur Conan Doyles' super-detective character, Sherlock Holmes


episode #06, To Serve and Protect

FIRST SEASON EPISODE 06: "To Serve and Protect"

In his lair in Miami, Florida, an adult Jarod is watching a DSA simulation of himself from 09-07-74. He can see his child-self looking at an enlarged photograph of a POW in Southeast Asia, and he describes the man in the photograph to Sydney as someone who is "afraid... sad." The man in the photograph, Jarod says, feels alone and forgotten; he wants to cry, but the can't... because he's given up all hope of being found and being reunited with his loved ones. Jarod then looks directly at Sydney and tells him, "I won't give up, Sydney. I'll never give up."

In Cedar Point, North Carolina, we see Miss Parker and Sydney arrive at a shooting range/ gun club. They're talking to the owner who says Jarod had come to the range one day not able to tell the difference between a "pickle barrel and a gun barrel", and in less than 24 hours had taught himself to be an expert marksman. Jarod also spent time, the proprietor tells them, studying the slugs that had been expelled from the other shooters' guns. "He was real big on studying things... That ol' boy was multi-faceted." Sydney notices that on all of the paper targets Jarod shot at, the bullet holes spelled out the numbers "10:19". He asks what it signifies, but the proprietor doesn't know. The proprietor then tells Miss Parker that Jarod was staying at the hotel on the edge of town. As she and Sydney are walking out to go to the hotel, the proprietor stops them, and asks them to give Jarod his toy back if they see him. "His toy?" Miss Parker asks. The proprietor hands her a radio-controlled motorcycle with a rider on top of it.

In Miami, we see a motorcycle patrolman pull over a young couple in a Jeep. The driver of the jeep looks up sheepishly at the officer and asks, "Was I going too fast when I passed that truck?" The officer pulls down his sunglasses and we can see that it's Jarod. He answers the driver with, "No. -- When you passed me."

Later, at the Metro-Dade Police Department in Miami, Jarod, posing as Police Officer Jarod Starr, arrives for the beginning of his shift, and the desk sergeant (a woman) tells him he's late -- again. She's also angry because his transfer papers from Chicago haven't arrived yet. Jarod smooth talks her into letting him ride on patrol anyway. While he's at the desk, he meets two other officers: Carl Bishop and Frank Meyers who work patrol as a team. When one of their suspects tries to dash out of the station, Jarod trips the suspect so Bishop and Meyers can nab him again. Before Bishop and Meyers can leave, they're confronted by an Internal Affairs (I.A.) detective named Karen Swindell. She wants to talk to them again about a case in which they were involved. Meyers tries to complain and wheedle out of it, but Bishop tells him that Swindell is just doing her job.

Out on the beat, Jarod chases after a speeding three-wheel motorcycle when it runs through a red light and nearly causes an accident. When he pulls the rider over, he realizes that it's a 73-year-old woman named Millie. When Jarod asks her if she noticed the color of the light at the last intersection she drove through, Millie looks back at the intersection, then looks at Jarod and says, "What light?"

Back in Cedar Point, Miss Parker is leaving the parking lot of the Hound Dog Haven hotel to meet with Sydney who's waiting on the street by their limo. Miss Parker asks where their driver is, and Sydney tells her the driver had to "use the facilities". Irritated, Miss Parker groans, "That guy has the bladder of a squirrel." She tells Sydney that Jarod had left the hotel three days ago, and left behind nothing but a book: "Criminology and Law Enforcement Procedures". Sydney leafs through the book while waiting for the driver to return. Miss Parker readies to get herself back into the limo when a sheriff's car drives up and parks behind the limo. The sheriff and another officer exit their patrol car and approach Miss Parker. The sheriff politely but firmly demands that Miss Parker remover her jacket. She, at first, refuses but the sheriff insists. While she's removing her jacket, the limo driver runs back to the car, and Miss Parker snaps at him, "You are fired!" The sheriff asks Miss Parker to turn around, and when she does, he finds a pistol tucked in the back of her skirt. He removes the gun, and puts her into handcuffs, saying she's being arrested for a violation 369.7 of the penal code. When Miss Parker asks what that is, Sydney says it means she's being arrested for unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon. He then shows Miss Parker Jarod's book... with the Code 369.7 Section highlighted in yellow.

Jarod trying to figure out doughnut holesIn Miami: Jarod is next seen, out of uniform, visiting a doughnut shop across the street from the Kembrook Watch Repair store. He's having a discussion with his waitress: he wants to know why, if there's a hole-shaped space in the middle of a doughnut, the piece of dough punched out of the doughnut to make the hole is called a "hole". The waitress tells him she doesn't know, and then jokingly asks him not to tell her boss because she doesn't want him to think she doesn't know the doughnut business. Jarod agrees, and asks for another doughnut. The waitress grins at him and tells him she'll provide him one "on the house". Not understanding the reference Jarod politely says, "If you don't mind, I'd rather eat it here."

Jarod takes his doughnuts out onto the sidewalk in front of the shop where tables are set up for customers. He looks across the street and sees Harold Kembrook opening up his store for the day. Jarod tells the waitress that Harold looks very sad. The waitress explains to him that Harold had just recently lost his son, Marvin. Harold had had to give Marvin up for adoption when Marvin was a baby, but after Harold's wife died, Harold went searching for Marvin and had found him again only six months ago -- thanks to the help of a local woman named Susan Granger. Tragicly, Marvin had gotten a job as a security officer at the nearby Hoswell Jewelers, but was killed by police officers who said they'd found him trying to rob the place. The waitress doesn't know it, but this is the case that brought Jarod to Miami.

In a jail cell in Cedar Point, Miss Parker throws her hands up in the air and proclaims, "It's official: I'm in Hell!" She can't get out of jail immediately because the Judge that needs to oversee her release is out of town attending a bass tournament and won't be back for several days. To make matters worse, the entire legal staff of The Centre is also unavailable to her because they're all in the south of France on their annual sabbatical. Miss Parker tells Sydney she knows Jarod has done this to her. "He's up to something... and he needs me out of the way for 72 hours." She then demands that Sydney find her an attorney -- any attorney.

Back in Miami, before he goes on duty, now dressed in his uniform, Jarod finds the office where Susan Granger works and introduces himself to her by saying (frankly and sadly): "I don't know who I am." He tells Susan he's searching for his parents and that he only has 72 hours to do it. He has a photograph of his mother, and he wants Susan to do an internet sweep with the photo in the hopes that someone will be able to put a name to his mother's face. Susan agrees to help... and then tells Jarod that there's a group therapy session meeting at her office that evening with other parents and children who have been separated or displaced. Jarod is welcome to join them if he wants to, she says.

In Cedar Point: Sydney returns to present to Miss Parker the only lawyer in Cedar Point: an elderly obese gentleman who introduces himself as Henry J. Monroe, Junior, Esquire. Miss Parker looks at him, then looks to Sydney and says, "You have got to be kidding."

In Miami: Back at the police station, Jarod comes across the motorcycle-granny Millie, again. This time she's arguing with the desk sergeant. Millie was in an accident during which she side-swiped an ambulance and forced it off the road. The police department is now threatening to suspend her driver's licence. Millie pleads with Jarod to intervene on her behalf: her motorcycle is her independence, she tells him, and if that's taken away from her, "you might as well bury me, 'cause I'll be dead." Jarod sees to it that she's allowed to keep her licence for a while longer.

Later, Jarod is seen at the Hoswell Jewelers where he's purchasing a ring: one with a brilliant princess-cut diamond on it valued at $5,000 retail. Jarod figures in his head that that would be $5,328 with tax, says, "That's perfect," and hands the clerk a credit card to pay for the ring. The clerk warns him that the purchase will "max out" his credit card. He smiles and tells her, "That's the point." As he's leaving the store, he pulls the ring out of its presentation box, then drops the ring into a cup being held out by a pan-handling homeless man. The man fishes the ring out of his cup, looks at it... bites it... laughs happily and runs off.

At the police station, Jarod brings to Detective Karen Swindell the gift of a Bavarian Cream doughnut with a single candle in it. He tells her to forgive him for not singing the "birthday song" to her, but, he says, he never really learned it. Swindell asks him what he's doing there -- besides bribing her with doughtnuts -- and he tells her that he's been thinking about transferring to I.A. and would like her help in breaking down an actual case file. Swindell agrees to help him and asks him if he has a particular case in mind. He tells her he's studying the Kembrook killing.

Swindell verbally takes Jarod through the evidence at the crime scene and discusses the officers' stories about the killing, which don't seem to make much sense. The officers -- Bishop and Meyers -- had told I.A. that they went to the jewelry store in response to a silent alarm, and found Marvin Kembrook and an unknown accomplice robbing the place. When the accomplice saw the police officers coming, he shot Kembrook and ran off. It made little sense, but what was even more puzzling was the fact that there was no evidence to prove that an "accomplice" was ever there: no fingerprints, to hair, no footprints... Jarod asks Swindell if she believed the accomplice was fictitious, why did she accept the police officers' version of what happened. She tells him it's because there was no evidence to prove they were lying either. The only hard piece of evidence that linked the Kembrook to his assailant was the bullet that had been taken from his skull. Swindell tells Jarod: "Find the gun that fired that bullet and you'll find the killer."

Jarod is later found in the locker room at the police station, readying to go on his shift. Officer Bishop is also there and laughs when he realizes that Jarod is late -- again. Jarod tells Bishop he's hiding from the desk sergeant, because he doesn't want her to know how late he is. He also tells Bishop that his transfer paperwork was sent to his house by mistake, and asks Bishop if he will deliver the papers to the sergeant. Bishop agrees, and after Jarod leaves, Bishop opens up the packet of transfer papers and reads what's inside. Fascinated by what's in there, he calls his partner, Meyers, over to read it, too.Jarod imagines he sees his mother.

That evening, Jarod attends one of the group therapy sessions for displaced parents and children. He doesn't actively participate, but he does listen to other group members, including Harold Kembrook, who tell their stories: the heartbreak of losing touch with family members, the frustration, the worry... and the gratification that comes from even the smallest bit of information found on a loved one. As Harold Kembrook tells the group about his search for his son Marvin, Jarod -- in his mind -- hears Harold's voice transformed into the voice of his own mother, and he sees Harold's form becomes her form. Jarod's mother looks at Jarod and tells him, " Never give up. Never stop looking for the people you love because it's worth it... Never give up -- ever." Nearly in tears, Jarod blinks away the image of his mother and sees Harold sitting in front of him again.

Jarod nearly in tears at the group therapy sessionLater, in his lair, Jarod gets a call from Susan Granger. She tells him she has a lead on his mother from a source in Delaware who insists on remaining anonymous. The source recognized the photograph of Jarod's mother when it went over the internet, and can supply Jarod with a name and background information. But the source refuses to send any information over the telephone lines, FAX, or computer, and insists that it must be sent by special courier. Susan says the lead sounds "strange" and asks Jarod if he wants the source to send the information. Knowing it's coming from Delaware -- where The Centre is -- Jarod is momentarily reluctant, but then tells Susan to go ahead and get the information from the anonymous source. She tells him she'll call him as soon as the special courier arrives.

The next day, Jarod meets officers Bishop and Meyers for lunch and offers to pay for it himself with his credit card. As they dine, Bishop tells Jarod that he has six kids from four different wives, but still manages to make enough money to support himself and everyone else. He then tells Jarod that he and Meyers read Jarod transfer papers. They know, they tell him, that he was investigated for taking payoff money from the local drug dealers in Illinois. Jarod feigns anger over their "discovery", telling them they had no right to read his file, and then says that nothing was ever proven in Chicago. Bishop says that it just proves that Jarod was good at covering his tracks. He tells Jarod that he and Meyers do special "jobs" after hours that get them lots of money for little risk, and asks Jarod if he wants to join them. They break into jewelry stores, after disarming the alarm systems, and steal only the stuff that's valuable and easy fence. Jarod pretends to be disinterested... until the waiter comes to him and tells him his credit card is no good (because it's been maxed out). Believing Jarod is broke, Bishop and Meyers pay for the meal... and invite him again to tag along on their next job.

They all meet later at a local park, where one of Bishop's six kids is finishing up a baseball game he's playing in. Bishop asks Jarod if he's ready to join them on their next heist, and Jarod says he has some questions first. He asks Bishop what will happened if the security guard in the jewelry store they've broken into comes before they expect him to. Meyers tells him they'll just act as though they had come to the store in response to a silent alarm. "We're in blue... We're the good guys. Nobody's going to suspect us." What if the guard does suspect them, Jarod asks. Then, Bishop tells him, they'll shoot the guard and say they caught him robbing the place. Jarod asks if that's what happened in the Kembrook case... and Bishop starts to get twitchy. He tries to leave, but Jarod convinces him to stay saying he just wants to know what they did to protect themselves from I.A.after the Kembrook shooting, so he can do the same if he has to. Bishop tells Jarod that rather than using their police-issue weapons to do any shooting, he uses an unregistered throw-away gun in an ankle holster. That way, the bullets can't be traced back to him. The gun's then put into the trunk of his car and hidden until I.A. stops its investigations. Satisfied, Jarod agrees to go on a "job" with Bishop and Meyers the following evening.

Later, when Jarod is on patrol again, he comes across a mild fender-bender in a parking lot regarding motorcycle-Millie and a teenager in a van. Millie banged into the side of the van and did some minor damage to it, but is arguing with the teenager over who is at fault for the accident. "You don't have to yell at me; I'm not deaf," Millie tells the young man, to which the young man replies angrily, "No, lady. You're blind!" Jarod intervenes and separates the two when Millie starts trying to punch the teenager. He walks the teenager to the back of the van to assess the damage, and tells the kid that a little sandpaper and touch up paint will fix it right up. The teenager insists he wants to press charges against Millie, until Jarod points out that the licence plate on the van is an expired one -- which can cost the kid $100 in fines if Jarod gives him a ticket for it -- "And," Jarod tells him, "I could, of course, search your van." The teenager agrees to forego pressing charges and leaves. Jarod goes to Millie and, taking her gently by the head, points her in the direction of a nearby optometrist's office.

At The Centre: Broots is approached by a female worker who tells him security has been breached. There's a lead on Jarod, she says, and a suggestion that someone leaked information directly to him from The Centre. Broots asks if Miss Parker has been notified about this, and the female operative winces and says, "I thought you'd like to do that." As the woman leaves him, Broots collapses into a chair and holds his head grumbling, "I'd rather stick my head into a bear trap."

In Cedar Point, Attorney Monroe has managed to get all the paperwork together to get Miss Parker out of jail. She threatens to sue everyone in town, and is leaving when the sheriff calls her back into his office with the information that a man named Broots is on the phone. "Take a message," Miss Parker snaps at him as she disappears down the hall. The sheriff calls to her, "He says he's located the target." A few seconds later, Miss Parker is back in the sherrif's office ready to take the phone from him.

In Miami, Jarod sets up the initial part of his plan to catch Bishop and Meyers in their next robbery attempt. He puts together all the information he's been able to gather about the Kembrook case and seals it in an envelope addressed to Detective Swindell.... He then breaks into Bishop's locker at the station and tampers with his gun...

Meanwhile, we next see Miss Parker in a limousine with Sam the Sweeper sitting next to her, loading a gun, and Sydney sitting across from her with his back to the driver. Miss Parker is smiling over the fact that she was able to get out of jail before Jarod hoped she would, and will soon be near enough to him to affect a capture.

Sydney is not so amused. "He wants to know the truth."
Miss Parker: "He can't, and you know it."
Sydney: "...He's willing to risk everything for an identity, a life."
Miss Parker (her eyes flashing): "That's what I'm counting on."

In Miami, the next morning, sitting outside the doughnut shop, Jarod again imagines that he sees his mother. She's sitting outside the shop, too, and he approaches her and touches her shoulder. She looks up at him, but doesn't recognize him. Blinking himself back to reality, Jarod is alerted by the sound of his cell phone ringing. He answers it. It's Susan Granger on the line again. She tells him she has the courrier's package, but won't open it until he arrives.Jarod goes immediately to Susan's office and takes the thin package from her. Happy and a little scared he tells her, "I'm so nervous." She comforts him with, "It's not every day you learn who you really are." Just as Jarod is starting to the package, there's a loud disturbance in the front of Susan's office. Susan goes to see what's happening.

Miss Parker, Sam the Sweeper and Sydney have all arrived, and Miss Parker is threatening everyone in the office with a gun, demanding that they tell her where Jarod is. Susan refuses to say anything, but Miss Parker manages to see Jarod escaping out the back. "He's heading for the roof!" she tells the sweeper, and she, Sam, and Sydney all run out of the office after Jarod.

Outside the office Jarod is almost to the top of the fire escape when Miss Parker sees him and shouts, "Jarod! Stop! I swear I'll shoot you in the back!" Jarod stops for an instant to look down on her, and Miss Parker fires at him. The bullet misses him but hits the railing close enough to his hand so that it startles him into releasing the courrier's package. The package floats down to where Sydney and Miss Parker are standing. We can see in Jarod's face the moment when he considers running back down to fight for the package, and the moment -- and frustration -- when he decides to escape instead. He flees up onto the roof. Sam chases him, but doesn't catch him. In front of Susan's office Miss Parker rips open the courrier's package and burns its contents by setting it aflame with her cigarette lighter. "So close and yet so far," she quips as the paper burns and shrivels.

That evening, despite his near-capture earlier in the day, a uniformed Jarod meets with officers Bishop and Meyers to rob a nearby jewelry store. Meyers goes into the office to disable the store's security system while Bishop proceeds intothe showroom to break into jewelry cases. Jarod stops him by pointing a flashlight and gun at Bishop. He recounts for Bishop the events that took place the night Marvin Kembrook died: Marvin had just been reunited with his long-lost father, and was relishing his new job as a security guard and his new-found life. Then he discovered one night that the jewelry store had been broken into, and he went inside to see what was happening. Marvin was scared at first... but then was relieved to find two policemen in the store. That relief was short-lived, however, when one of the officers -- who was robbing the place -- shot him and then blamed him for the robbery, ending his life and destroying his reputation in the process.

Jarod levels his gun at Bishop and says, "You're under arrest for the murder of Melvin Kembrook." Bishop draws his own police-issue weapon and tries to shoot Jarod but finds that the trigger mechanism is jammed. He then pretends to surrender to Jarod and bends over to put the useless gun on the floor. While he's bent over, he accesses his ankle-holster, pulls a gun from there, and shoots Jarod directly in the chest. Jarod is knocked over by the force of the blast and falls on his back into one of the glass jewelry cases, which shatters and collapses underneath him. Bishop, believing Jarod is dead says, "Sorry, Jarod, but I don't do jail. Too many mouths to feed."

Officer Meyers runs into the showroom from the office to see what all the commotion is about, and sees Jarod lying on the floor. He asks Bishop what's going on and Bishop explains that Jarod double-crossed them, so he shot him. He then tells Meyers to call for back-up. "What am I supposed to tell them?" Meyers asks. Bishop answers, "Tell them the truth. Tell them one of the city's finest was gunned down trying to stop a robbery."

A few minutes later, there are police cars all around the store, and Detective Swindell is on hand to take statements from Meyers and Bishop. Bishop tells her that he and Meyers arrived at the scene, and found Officer Starr dead on the floor of the jewelry store, apparently shot by a robbery suspect who got away. Swindell goes into the store, and asks Meyers and Bishop to show her exactly what they did when they arrived at the scene and found Starr dead. As they enter the showroom, Bishop and Meyers are stunned to find that Jarod is gone, and in his place is a bullet-proof vest and the envelope addressed to Detective Swindell. "Care to revise your statement, Officer Bishop?" Swindell asks him, but Bishops refuses to recant his story and insists he saw Jarod dead. Detective Swindell opens the envelope, and reads some of its contents. She hands the bullet-proof vest over to another officer telling him to take it to ballistics and get the slug out of the vest's chest. She then tells Bishop to open the trunk of his squad car.

Outside on the street, Swindell rummages through Bishop's trunk. While she's doing this, Bishop notices a three-wheeled motorcycle driving by. Sitting on the motorcycle behind Millie is Jarod. Jarod forms his hand and fingers into the shape of a mock-gun, aims it at Bishop, and pretends to shoot him. Millie (now sporting brand new glasses that make her "street legal" again) speeds off with Jarod clinging to the back of her bike.

Detective Swindell finds the unregistered throw-away gun in Bishop's trunk and places him and Meyers under arrest.

The next morning, we see Harold Kembrook sitting outside his watch repair shop with a slight smile on his face. He's reading a newspaper account that clears his son Marvin's name and restores his reputation. It states that Bishop and Meyers were responsible for the jewelry store robbery during which Marvin was killed, and clarifies that it was Bishop who had murdered Marvin.

Later, at The Centre, Sydney asks Miss Parker why, if she had Jarod in her sights, didn't she shoot to kill him. She answers, "I just missed, Sydney. No more. No less." Their conversation is interrupted by a telephone call from Jarod. He tells Sydney that he will never give up searching for his family, and Sydney tells him in return that Miss Parker will never give up searching for him. Jarod is willing to accept that, and is just about to hang up the phone when Sydney asks him about "the numbers". "10:19... What does it mean?" Jarod tells him, "It's who I am, Sydney. It's what you made me." And Jarod disconnects the call.

Sydney picks up the book on "Criminology and Law Enforcement Procedures" and looks through it. He finds highlighted in yellow the code: 10:19.... Missing Person

Sydney asks Miss Parker where she thinks Jarod will go next. Miss Parker takes the book from Sydney and holds it against her palm. She tells Sydney that her instincts tell her Jarod will go South. The episode ends with a clip of Jarod, very much North, dressed as one of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and riding a horse.

TRIVIA: There was an error made in this episode that several fans were able to catch. The series had established that Jarod was four-years-old when he was brought to The Centre in 1963. That would mean, of course, that Jarod was born in 1959. In this episode, however, Jarod said he was 11-years-old when, in1974, he told Syndey he would never give up the search for his parents. If he was 11 in 1974, he would've had to have born in 1963 -- the year he was brought to The Centre. D'OH! Although Jarod was supposed to be a genius, we really don't think he would have been able to recreate a model of the Empire State Building as a newborn.

DISCOVERIES: Guns and target practice, ballistics, highlighters, doughnuts. (Jarod's favorite is Raspberry Supreme, but he also likes Bavarian Cream.)We see Jarod as a Mounty at the end of the episode.

BEST LINE(S): Jarod introduces himself to the officers as, "Jarod Starr, with two 'R's." Meyers chuckles and says, "Hey! Like 'Ringo'!", and Jarod responds with, "Who's Ringo?"

OUR REVIEW: This was one of the best episodes of the season. We got to see a lot of character development along with the action, and were entertained by an interesting plot and equally interesting sub-characters. We saw how far Jarod would go to seek information about himself and his family -- even placing himself in jeopardy by accessing the internet when he knew that Centre operatives would discover what he was doing. And we saw how far Miss Parker would go to stop him -- even going so far as to shoot (at) him when the opportunity presented itself.

Some other reviewers have whined that they're distracted and annoyed by Jarod saying such things as, "I don't know who I am." They complain that his "whining" is "unmanly", and that the writers are creating schlocky melodrama where it doesn't need to exist. We disagree, of course. "The Pretender" is a weekly morality play in which Jarod is the archetypal man searching for his identity and place in the world -- recognizable by anyone who's ever actually gone to school long enough to get a diploma. [[Sometimes we wonder about newspaper and magazine reviewers. If they've actually earned any kind degrees -- which we often doubt -- they certainly can't be in journalism or literature, or these people would recognize such things as allegories, metaphors, and archetypes when they saw them.]] There's nothing schlocky about the character of Jarod, "The Pretender", or its production... And who says "real" men can't cry, don't feel pain, and don't need human attachment to feel whole and safe in the world?

Starr: Perhaps a reference, in part, to Ellen Gates Starr who, in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois (where Officer Jarod Starr supposedly came from) helped to found Hudd House, the first facility of its kind created to address and reform the horrible working and living conditions of Chicago's immigrant population. "Starr" might also be a reference to a character the books written by L.M. Montgomery (who also authored "Anne of Green Gables") in the mid-20's: an orphan name Emily Bird Starr. [Coincidentally, we learned in final episode of the first season of "The Pretender" that Jarod's sister's name is "Emily".]


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