The Sentinel Season 4 Ridiculously Detailed Episode Guide
by Zelempa***** 4x1 Sentinel, Too Part 2 Jim's love brings Blair back to life; Jim, Blair, Megan and Simon track Alex through South American jungle.
*** 4x2 Murder 101 Blair's obsession with bringing down a student guilty of plagiary and rape costs him his job at the university. I think?
* 4x3 Four Point Shot More like BORE point shot!
**** 4x4 Dead End on Blank Street Noir. Very noir.
*** 4x5 The Waiting Room G-g-g-g-ghosts!
*** 4x6 The Real Deal Jim, Blair, and Megan are "helped" by the washed-up star of a 60s action show.
*** 4x7 Most Wanted Jim and Blair help a woman who is being stalked by her cuddly criminal dad.
***** 4x8 The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg Blair finally completes his thesis, and Naomi sends it to a publisher without his permission. Jim's secret is out, destroying his ability to do his job, his trust in Blair, and perhaps the partnership of a lifetime. Oh, noes! What will Blair do? Only the most awesome thing possible!
4x1 Sentinel, Too Part 2
In the part of this episode I like to call "the end of the previous episode," we open with the EMT saying "I'm sorry, guys" as he gives up on reviving drowned Blair. Jim objects and goes to give Blair another round of CPR, and we get some clear Jim's-mouth-to-Blair's shots which were OC last time. From then on it's a bit retconned: Simon is the only one to pull Jim off Blair, and Jim shouts "Don't you go! No! He's alive!" and Simon says, "He's gone!" "Oh, God, no," Jim murmurs. But then Blair's face goes all glowy. Jim sees visions of a wolf's face appearing over Blair's, of a wolf turning away from him, and then of Incacha, who says in a deep, cheesy English language voice, "Use the power of your animal spirit."
Jim pushes Simon aside and kneels next to Blair, caressing his face. The wolf and the panther run toward each other and then leap into each other, becoming one in a flash of light. SERIOUSLY. I COULD NOT MAKE THIS UP.
Look! Photo evidence!
Flashy-lighty heartbeat image. In the moment we've been waiting for since day one, Jim finally listens to Blair's heartbeat. He recommences pumping Blair's chest. "Come on, Sandburg," Simon cries reverently. Blair spits out water. Jim calls the EMTs back. He props Blair up on his side until the EMT takes over, and then he stands with Simon and Henri, and everyone looks like they're about to cry.
Let's review what just happened before we go on to the next gay, shall we? Jim and Blair's spirit animals entered one another and unified. Jim and Blair are officially, canonically, soulmates. Literally, their souls mated. It's already been established that they are mentally, physically*, and emotionally** gay for each other, they are now spiritually gay for each other. I just wanted to make sure I had that perfectly str--well--clear. Okay. Let's continue.
* Okay, there's no canonical sex, but they're always touching.
** OH MAN DEFINITELY.
Hospital. Jim enters Blair's room, joking that there are easier ways to meet nurses. Blair thanks him, and Jim says "I couldn't let you die. You owe last month's rent." So he does pay rent, then? I was never sure about that. Blair describes the image he saw while he was out: he was a wolf, and he was "colliding" with a jaguar. Jim says he saw the same thing. Blair, laughing amazedly: "Einstein said the greatest experiences we can have are the ones with the mysterious. We are definitely there, my brother." He stares intensely at Jim and waggles his oxygen-thingy-equipped fingers. "Come on in, man. The water's nice."
Jim: "Chief, I don't know if I'm ready to take that trip with you."
"The water's nice."
Chief. I DON'T KNOW. IF I'M READY. TO TAKE THAT TRIP. WITH YOU. I--I mean--I mean--I--their spirit animals just melded! Honestly the only judgment call here is whether Jim is talking about sex or marriage, right? And I'm not talking whether yes-or-no, I mean whether which-one. I mean: correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the appropriate subtext-to-text translation of that dialogue, no?:
BLAIR: Einstein said the greatest experiences we can have are the ones that involve sexing each other up. I'm here; you're here; our inexplicable attraction is mandated by the gods. Let's go for it, man.
JIM: Chief, I don't know if I'm ready to take that trip with you.
Because Jim's line REQUIRES NO TRANSLATION.
HOLY LORD.
AN-yway, unpreparedness for trip-taking into the mysterious aside, Jim goes to Alex's former apartment (now a bombed-out ruin!) and lays his hands on stuff to get psychic visions. (See, Megan isn't wrong.) He sees Alex and her partner.
At the station, Jim shows Simon a file on the partner (Carl), which he tracked down using a combination of research and hunches. He knows (he just knows!) where to find Alex and Carl. He explains to Simon about his visions, and Simon is basically just like, Okay! Magic policework-- I am on board with that.
We get a vision-scene of Alex and Jim morphing from their jaguar forms and then making out. I'm pleased to report this is Alex's vision, as she kisses Carl in Sierra Verde, Mexico. (I'm a little confused to learn that this episode takes place in Mexico, but I'll go with it.) Alex tells Carl she wants to go with him to make the sale--presumably of the Highly Deadly Disease!TM--stating, "I'm your partner." Is there a reason they're emphatically mirroring the Alex and Carl's relationship with Jim and Blair's (partners! partners! we're partners!), and then showing lots and lots of Alex and Carl making out? No? Maybe? Yes? Carl says he'll handle it and then they can go out and celebrate, and Alex says "Why don't we stay in and celebrate." I mean, yes, right?
Alex uses her super-eavesdropping skills to observe Carl's meeting with his buyer, and she hears him talking the buyer into paying more money than they'd agreed on. Later, when Carl meets up with Alex, he doesn't tell her about the extra money. She proposes a toast "to equal partners." The irony is lost on him.
Jim and Simon arrive at the local police department at Sierra Verde. Police chief Captain Ortega hasn't seen Alex, but he knows where to find Carl: he leads them to the morgue! Okay, that was a legitimately surprising way to get the Carl-is-dead reveal. Jim gets some more flashes of vision, and notices evidence on the body to explain what happened: Alex kissed Carl, then snapped his neck.
They go to bring their evidence to Captain Ortega, who tells them in low voice that it's not safe to talk there, and he'll meet them at a cafe. Then, unbeknownst to our heroes, he goes straight to some drug lord bad guy thing to inform him about the meeting. While he's there, Alex calls the drug lord to set up a deal.
Jim goes back to the hotel room, pauses before the door--he hears a heartbeat inside. He draws his gun and kicks down the door, only to find: Blair! He's lying on the bed, with Megan standing over him. Hooray, I was afraid this episode was going to be largely Blair-free. Blair asks about Alex, and Jim privately recalls a vision of himself and Alex at the Temple of the Sentinels. Jim reports that he has to meet Simon at the cafe. Blair--still feeling a little shaky after his death, I guess--volunteers to stay behind, but Jim grabs him by the hand and drags him off the bed. (Just like every morning?)
Jim, Blair, Megan and Simon hang out at the cafe until a police officer comes to give them a list of suspects. Just then, a giant tank rumbles up, and the guys therein start shooting everyone! The Fantastic Four duck and cover and run for awhile, finally losing the tank by going to a party.
That night they sleep on pews at a church, figuring it's the safest place to stay. Blair tosses uncomfortably for awhile ("We obviously must have sinned to have deserved this"), then sits up, leaning over the back of Jim's pew, peering over at his wife-beatered muscliness, and asking him questions about the case. Jim keeps trying to send him back to bed with gentle pushes to the forehead.
Would you stop worshiping? We're in a church, for god's sake.
Finally he sits up resignedly when Blair starts talking about Alex: "She already tried to kill me. Well, actually, I guess she did, huh?" Pathos! Jim says he's not getting the sense that Alex wants to kill him from his visions. Blair realizes the visions are their only edge, and he pushes Jim back down to a lying position: "You should be asleep, man. Something might come to you. What are you doing messing around with me?" Oh, what indeed.
Asleep, Jim and Alex both have visions of meeting on a beach for Rocky Horror-style elbow sex and kissing. So then they actually in real life meet on a beach for Rocky Horror-style elbow sex and kissing. Real life deviates from the vision when Blair interrupts, all, "Jim! What's going on?!" Alex takes Jim's gun out of his holster and points it at Blair, but Jim stays her hand. Blair runs up to join them, and Alex runs away. "Stop her!" Blair cries, but Jim finds himself unable to point the gun at her.
As Jim and Blair walk down the beach, Jim explains that, when they were kissing, it was as if he and Alex were being controlled by some external force! Oh, that's what he always says.
...and fine dining, for friendship, maybe more.
Blair suggests it's a Sentinel mating ritual. Jim, gesturing vaguely at his crotch: "What are you saying, I'm being controlled by some primitive sexual desire or instinct?" Still gesturing vaguely downward, he urges Blair, "You gotta help me get ahold of it!" Oh, Lord. Blair shrugs violently. "This is beyond my area of research!" So stuck in the gutter right now, and never coming back. Anyway, Blair thinks Jim and Alex are being drawn "back home." He spouts some new/old Sentinel mythos about a Temple of Light and magical waters which you bathe in and see the Eye of God. Magic bathhouse what?
Jim sneaks to the Bad Evil Drug Lord's compound and overhears a phone conversation in which he and Alex arrange to meet.
Megan's gathering up everyone's stuff from the church when she happens upon The Sentinels of Paraguay, Blair's Burton book, and that same tired old daguerrotype of the 19th century Sentinel that seems to be so informative to everyone.
All four Bobbsey Twins creep through the jungle to the rendezvous point. Alex arrives by helicopter. Suddenly Jim leaps out from his hiding place to warn Alex that this is a trap. Everyone's like, What the hell, Jim. A bunch of guys with rifles jump out of the brush and start shooting at Alex, who makes it away in the semi-damaged helicopter. Jim & co. shoot at the assailants from their hiding place. When it's all over, Jim asks Blair, "Are you all right?" and Blair says "I'm fine, but what's the matter with YOU?" Point.
Jim is busily Sentinel-tracking Alex from the taste of the petrol her helicopter is leaking when Simon pulls Blair and Megan aside and tells them he's going for help and they should keep a close eye on Jim. First sensible thing anyone's said on this show, ever. But shouldn't Megan go since she's ostensibly the one who doesn't know about the Sentinel thing? Not like Jim is making any effort to hide it, since he's gone into "*sniffs the air* - This way!" mode. Blair lamely tries to explain away his abilities by saying he was totally like the super-best in his ranger unit, but Megan's not buying it.
Alex finds the Temple of Light! Jim has a vision of it. That night, by the campfire, Megan feigns sleep and listens to Jim telling Blair about the vision. Blair asks, "How are you feeling about Alex?" Jim says he wants to stop her, but he also wants to protect her.
God, look at them with their little blankets and their coffee cups; even in the wilderness they're domestic.
Cut to Badass Simon badassly ambushing Captain Ortega in his office and hitting him with some moral and physical authority!
Jim dreams of Incacha, who tells him, "The danger you face is not to be shared by your friends." Wait, it isn't? Isn't that kind of antithetical to the theme of this entire show? Jim sneaks off alone in the middle of the night. As Blair and Megan prepare to go after him the next morning, Megan asks point-blank, "Is Jim a Sentinel?" Blair doesn't respond.
When Jim arrives at the temple, Alex totally blow-darts him in the neck. Man down!
Jim wakes up lying in a shallow stone basin of water. He can't move. Alex sits on the edge of his basin and tells him he's still drugged, and that she found carvings on the wall, which she magically understood, indicating that early Sentinels used to achieve isolation in the pools to heighten their senses. They also drank this concoction. Jim, who can apparently still move his mouth, moralizes vaguely, "Alex, you're moving way too fast. This knowledge has to come from understanding, not in some kind of drink!" Really? What's the point of the ancient mixology lesson on the wall, then? Alex says her sense powers have doubled, and she wants Jim to join her. Peer pressure! She pours the drink into Jim's mouth; he resists at first, then succumbs. It looks nasty, like one of Blair's alfalfa shakes.
Psychedelic Jim time! Visions of Peru, Ranger Jim. "My obligation is to help people." "You could be the real thing!" "Are you prepared to make such a journey?" Jim screams.
Blair and Megan find the wreckage of Alex's helicopter. When they turn from it, they're surrounded by guys with guns.
More Jim visions: An explosion. Megan falls. A shooting. Simon falls. Jim cries out for Incacha, who tells him to face the darkness in his dreams. "What do you fear?" Dead-wolf-Blair vision. Explosions. Blair lying unconscious. Blair running, hiding behind the truck. Blair saying, "He's gone!" as Jim gives CPR to Danny. (Interesting parallel.) Blair reaching for Jim in the vat of oil, desperately crying, "Jim!" Jim giving Blair CPR, a voice saying "You let him die!"
Jim in the Superspiritual Sentinel Temple Pool of Seeing the Eye of God Thinkin' About Blair.
Jim yells, "THIS IS NOT ME!" And then... the spell is broken. Or the drug wears off, suddenly. Jim can move again. All thanks to him exploring his One True Fear: losing Blair! I love this show.
Jim gets up and finds Alex in a nearby water basin. He tries to wake her, but stops, hearing voices outside.
The drug lord's men have tracked Alex to the temple. They still have Blair and Megan hostage. Two of the men creep inside--oh, come on, now. Like the Sentinels aren't going to defend their temple. Sure enough, Jim ambushes them and knocks them out. A third man tries to use Blair and Megan for cover, pushing them inside the temple on their knees ahead of him, but Jim has some kind of trap set up with a vine. He knocks the guy off his feet and then jumps out and punches him out. As he's going to untie Blair and Megan (DON'T WORRY YOU GUYS, BLAIR IS ALL RIGHT, JIM ASKED), Alex wakes up.
Alex marvels in the intensity of her senses: "I can feel the vibrations of the earth itself. I can hear the clouds moving in the sky. I can see the molecules in a drop of water." For some reason which isn't super explained Alex wants to open the canister of death, and Jim tries to talk her down: "This isn't the way of the Sentinel. We have to watch over and protect people." Jim finally distracts her by taking her hand and slowly kissing her. While they make out, Alex sees an explosion that nobody else sees, and then starts freaking out: her skin! her ears! her eyes! Jim holds her while she cries. Vision of Alex saying "We were one" as she fades into flames. Alex passes out.
Wrap-up. Catatonic Alex is led away on stretcher by police officers. Blair's explaining what happened to Simon, and Megan comes up and adds helpfully, "She put her Sentinel senses on overload." Megan asks Simon how much of this to put in her report ("That's up to you, Inspector"). Blair goes over to Jim, who confesses he felt he had all the answers after his little dip in the Pool of Answers, but he forgot. I'll give you a quick refresher: "Blair." Jim says he wanted badly to return, but he didn't. Blair says of Alex, "That's the difference between you two. She lost her way." Earlier today the moral of the story was, for Jim, "Trust your visions," like before he'd been holding himself back from the Sentinel tradition too much, but now Alex was giving in too much? I'm not entirely sure how you're supposed to know where the line is. Anyway, that's that.
The end!
Bottom Line: This is a great episode for Sentinel mythos and, with the first scene in particular, for Jim/Blair OTPness, marred only by Jim's insistence on making out with Blair's murderer.
[comment on lj | top | reviews page | home]
4x2 Murder 101
Two youths sneak into a highly protected mansion, and we get the obligatory "girl in tight spandex pants squeezes butt past laser thingies" shot. As they're downloading (or, as the screen reads, "offloading") data from the computer onto their laptop, the owner of the mansion comes home and finds them. So the obnoxious-sunglassed boy burglar (Brad) shoots him. The girl burglar panics a bit, but agrees to continue the digital heist.
Crime scene. Serena and Jim find the girl's blonde hairs. Where's Blair?
Oh, he's actually doing a class! The snatch of his lecture we see manages to be both judgemental and uninformative:
"Today, children are sacrificed on the altar of neglect and abuse, but in ancient tribal customs it was a matter of solemnity. Ritual sacrifice, by definition, means surrending of value [sic] of something that was physically, morally, and sexually uncorrupted; which means that everyone in this room would have been safe, right?"
This gets a general nervous titter from the class.
Oh, well, what he lacks in speech skills he makes up for in chalk colors.
The burglars enter, late. Brad is still wearing obnoxious sunglasses. Blair and Brad have some annoyed professor/smartass student byplay. Brad sits down next to a shy-body-languaged, mousy girl, caressing her leg. She immediately gets up and moves, leaving behind a folder which Brad takes. Girl burglar looks on disapprovingly.
At the end of class the kids turn in their papers, and Brad hands in the folder. Morbidly curious, Blair opens it and finds a post-it reading "This is finishes it. So stick to the deal. -Rick"
Blair catches up with Brad and his partner in crime on the quad and tells him he knows the Rick of the note (another grad student) and that buying a term paper earns him an immediate F. Brad says he didn't buy it and they argue a bit, and Brad (who expositioned at one point that he has a rich dad, btw) threatens Blair's job. Ha! For your information, Brad, Blair doesn't even like his job!
Jim and Taggart head to a rendez-vous point where Blair was supposed to meet them, but he's not there. "Looks like it's just going to be you and me," says Jim mildly. "So, we're, um...," Taggart blinks nervously. Ha ha ha! Pinch-hitting for Blair and he has no idea what's expected of him. Does Blair usually start out with a little foreplay, or...? Jim exposits that they're breaking it to/checking out the victim's girlfriend. So, straight to business, then.
Taggart is very kind and Dr. Watson-y to the girlfriend, who tells them she doesn't know anything about the victim's clients (he was a sort of cyber P.I.), because he never violated confidentiality and told her: "He's proud of doing what's right. Kind of straitlaced. You should see his sock drawer... and the way he folds..." She breaks down. This scene is so affecting because I imagine it's exactly what Blair would be like if Jim died in the line of duty.
Blair catches up with Rick of writing-Brad's-term-paper fame. Rick doesn't want to talk about it at first, but then he confesses that he wrote the paper because Brad raped his girlfriend (Jill, the shy girl from class). Yeah, I don't really understand either. Anyway, Blair feels so sympathetic he agrees not to turn in Rick to the academic honesty committee. "This guy's wacked," Rick warns Blair of Rapist Brad. "Watch your ass." "Yeah," says Blair nervously. Well, that makes sense.
Blair talks to the head of his department, who tells him that if the girl doesn't report the rape, there's nothing the university can do, "nor, I imagine, your police department!" Aw, Blair's little police department. He reminds Blair of all the money Brad's family has donated and encourages him to "give him a C and forget about it."
At the station, Taggart asks to stay on the case, and Jim agrees and tells he did good work with the girlfriend. Aw, that's sweet. Jim finds Blair at his desk, going through police records. He tells Jim about Brad's plagiarism and then adds, outraged, that he also drugged and raped a student. But the kid's rap sheet is clean. Jim kicks him off the computer so he can work on his, you know, MURDER CASE, and Blair huffs off. Simon comes by all "What was that all about?" "Something at school," says Jim dismissively. Ha ha, Jim is an asshole. Simon tells Jim they found info on Connie Roberts, a possible client of the victim's whose name Jim found imprinted on his legal pad. When Jim and Taggart go to talk to her, she claims not to know the victim, but Jim senses she is lying.
Blair talks to Shy Jennifer, telling her he wants to "nail" Brad. but Jennifer says anything he does to Brad will only end up getting taken out on her. She explains that when she originally reported the rape, her dad was fired, and when she changed her statement to say that she was high at the time and couldn't be sure what happened, her dad was rehired with back pay. Brad watches the conference from afar.
Blair's walking home, reading a book, totally oblivious to his surroundings, when a bunch of guys get out of a car and start beating him up! Somewhere, Jim, carrying a classic grocery bag with a baguette sticking out the top, gets his internal Sandburg in Trouble Alarm. He arrives to Blair's rescue just as one of the thugs is about to take a baseball bat to his prone body. One of the thugs draws a gun and they all get away. Jim helps Blair up, gently saying "Let me see" and tilting his head to see his gashed-up eye area.
Poor baby!
Jim gets a call from the victim's girlfriend and brings Blair along to see her fresh from the beating, with the limited first aid treatment of putting a bag of frozen peas from the groceries on his eye briefly, and then telling him to wear sunglasses. (It looks like the little sunglasses he was wearing with his Blossom hat in Poachers must have been hanging around the car.) Girlfriend is happy to meet Blair: "Detective Ellison told me about you when I said Dennis had an interest in anthropology." Huh, really? I imagine that conversation went something like this:
GIRLFRIEND: You must think me silly for going on like this, but the truth is, I was rather attached to my boyfriend. I will miss the little things... the way he separated his whites and colors... his keen interest in anthropology...
JIM: Your boyfriend's into anthropology? You're kidding! My boyfriend is an anthroplogist!
GIRLFRIEND: It warms my heart to know that, Detective. It sounds as though our boyfriends have a lot in common.
JIM: Yeah, except mine is alive.
TAGGART: What Detective Ellison means to say is that he is very sorry for your loss.
GIRLFRIEND: I understand.
Tenuous anthropology connection aside, Blair is pretty distant and uninterested in the case, but perks up a bit when the girlfriend hands over a camera with a zoom lens, saying her boyfriend liked to take pictures (another thing he and Blair have in common!) and maybe they can make something of the film. At the station, Jim, Blair, Simon and Taggart pore over photos of the girlfriend and Connie (who was apparently under the P.I.'s surveillance). In one, she's meeting with a guy whom Blair IDs as Brad.
Jim questions Brad, who is as besunglassed and obnoxious as ever, implying that he and Connie were sleeping together and saying, "Been awhile for you, huh?" Twice since this morning, I'd wager. Watching through the two-way mirror, Blair rages, "When he's gonna NAIL him!" and Simon, annoyed, asks Blair, "Why don't you just shoot him?" Ha. Simon is awesome. Jim goes into the usual creepster mode he puts on for interrogations with young men, massaging Brad's neck and giving him "friendly advice". Man, the lawyer's sitting right there and he does nothing.
I'm not sure Jim and Blair have in mind the same definition of the world "nail."
Brad and his girlfriend do some hacking. Girlfriend exposits that if they get married, their fathers, competing CEOs, will cut them off. Aww, Brad's just hacking into corporations to steal and sell multimillion dollar patented code so he can get married!
Jim and Blair talk to Brad's and his girlfriend's dads. Brad's dad accuses Blair of having a personal agenda against Brad. Jim remarks to Blair as they leave that he's really endearing himself to this family. "What's not like?" says Blair. "Your face is pretty scary," says Jim. Cute.
Station. Jim proposes, correctly, that the kids just wanted to steal the software and only killed in the heat of the moment when cornered. Blair blusters and shouts, and Simon suggests Prozac and tells the team to go easy on the families since he's been getting calls about their handling of the case. When Blair admits he filed a code violation against Brad at school, Simon snaps, and yells at Blair that if he doesn't back off, "the brass" is going to take away the case and Simon will have to fire Blair. Yikes!
Chancellor's office. Brad sits there smiling obnoxiously as his lawyer responds to Blair's charges by bringing up Blair's own record: he has missed more teaching days than any other TA, including an unannounced trip to Peru, and nobody has seen a draft of his alleged thesis. HA! About time. And it looks like Blair actually did destroy the intro that offended Jim. The chancellor urges Blair to compromise with the Bradster, but Blair won't budge on his Principles, so the chancellor tells Blair his absenteeism has been documented and he is henceforth terminated permanently. YIKES AND A HALF!! She totally just went quality-of-mercy-is-not-strained on his ass!
So, wait, I mean, is Blair still a student? Was he just fired from the TA job, or is he expelled from his program? If it was just the job, is it his stipend that depends on that or his very scholarship? I mean, is he just without cash flow now, or is he going to have to fork up tens of thousands of dollars if he wants to stay in school? None of this is explained to my satisfaction.
Taggart brings in some evidence from a search of Brad's girlfriend's house--blonde hair, an electromagnet on which Jim finds a fiber from the victim's carpet. All signs point to yes, in other words. Blair comes in and announces that he was fired. Jim asks what he'll do and Blair says he talked to a lawyer and he may have a case, but it'll cost him. We get some key info as he asks Simon for money and Simon says "Sandburg, you know we don't pay observers, but if I'm still here next week I'll see if we can invent a job." The reason he doubts his permanence is they're bringing in Brad. "Yes!" cries Blair.
In keeping with the "move carefully" ethos, Simon and Jim meet with the kids' dads to give them a chance to have the kids turn themselves in. As they walk back to meet Blair and Taggart they have a cute exchange:
JIM: Did his "I pray you're wrong" sound like "I'm going to sue your ass"?
SIMON: No more than having to "do what's right" meant "cut and run."
JIM: Are we cynical?
Jim listens carefully and hears the dads talking to their kids (who were waiting nearby the whole time). The kids fess up to the whole scheme and the dads decide to get them out of the country by helicopter immediately. Simon radios for a cop copter, and he sends Blair to go with Jim in it. Unfortunately, Blair has decided that this is going to be one of his randomly chosen "fear of heights" episodes. So he gets to make some uncomfortable faces during the lengthy ensuing helicopter chase. At one point he grabs the back of Jim's seat and Jim shouts "Chief, get a grip! On something other than me!" "All right, I'm good. I'm cool," Blair mutters.
So they lose the helicopter for awhile and when they find it the kids are gone; they've been transferred to a boat. They find the boat and of course Jim is going to jump onto it. I mean there was never any question of that. Still, Blair expresses surprise at Jim's plan.
BLAIR: How are we going to stop them?
JIM: Like a runaway stagecoach.
BLAIR: What are you talking about?! That means jumping!
JIM: Right.
BLAIR: That's crazy!
JIM: Right.
BLAIR: What if they swerve and you miss? That leaves me!
JIM: Right.
BLAIR: ... Don't miss!
Jim doesn't miss, so we can all drink. Brad tries to attack him with a harpoon while he hangs onto the rail, but Jim grabs the harpoon and flings Brad into the water. Figuring, I guess, that that takes care of that!, Jim progresses forward onto the boat to get the girlfriend. She's about to take a page out of Jim's book and hit him with a fire extinguisher, but he talks her down and takes it likes it's a gun. Meanwhile, Blair has their copter trail the boy, who is swimming for CANADA! and FREEDOM! Blair repeatedly asks the pilot to go as low as possible, whereupon he takes a small but, to him, terrifying leap into the water to swim after his mark. He catches him and yells "Hey, if you noticed, I'm not in class today! I hope you don't file a greivance!"
Bullpen, later. Blair comes in with his hair down for the first time all ep and his eye a little less swollen, customary butterfly still in place, and moralizes a little about how you can't always get what you want, and he and Jim call each other "Wally" and "Beav". Jim asks about school and Blair (possibly still in Beaver Cleaver mode) says "The principal and I worked things out," which I'm not sure if that's supposed to mean he actually made some kind of a deal with the university, because if so I need to know what it was. Come on, guys, I'm in this show for three things, here--the gay, the mythos, and the academic politics-- and I know you just served me up the first two last week but now you're letting me down on number 3! Jim actually gets off a cute line undercutting the wholesome Beaver game [that phrase has never been uttered] with the horrors of police work: "Hey, that's pretty keen, Beav. Well, Dad called, said we've got a body down at Miller's Pond." They punch each other playfully on the chin and walk off.
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| Acceptable manly expressions of affection, figs. 297-298. | ||
Bottom Line: I like Blair-at-school episodes, and this one served the awesome bad-times-for-Blair scene of actually firing him (and right after Simon threatened to, too!) The drawback is that, of course, we never really see the consequences and/or possible resolution of said termination, and his status at the university and at the station is left very much up in the air at the end of the episode.
Speaking of bad times for Blair, his savage beating was also kind of a delight to watch (sorry, Blair). I find his anger interesting, also, but I'd have liked to see its roots more carefully explored. Why this case, this kid, in particular? It started before the beating, so I don't think it's that. We could conjecture that the academic honesty angle bothers because he's so pure and defensive about his own work, or the rape outrages him because of his love of womankind, but neither of these motivations is specifically laid out. He seems to have a particular hatred of Brad; did someone like Brad once screw him over? (Perhaps literally?) It's not really explained, and I think, if Blair's going to have Roy's-death levels of anger, it needs to be.
[comment on lj | top | reviews page | home]
4x3 Four Point Shot
Oh, lovely, another basketball episode.
In the unaudienced arena, the Jags are playing the Cascade PD. The actual gameplay is fairly informal for the moment, and there's some trash-talk. We learn they're staging this for some kind of commercial. Blair shows up late, looking particularly tiny next to the seven-foot basketball players.
Look how tiny!
He says he had to do a lecture, so I guess there were no ramifications from last week's firing? Blair is upset to learn he's not allowed to be in the commercial. He complains about it, pointing out the things he's done for the department. At least Jim gives him a compensatory high five.
I was going to say something here about how it's really more like a low five, and I was going to see if I could work in some kind of sexual innuendo there, but I got distracted because Jim tucked in his pinny. Look! Priceless dorkosity!
On the sidelines, Blair talks to Daryl, who asks him to convince his dad to let him join the Police Academy. Daryl has apparently scored a scholarship to Duke and Simon wants him to go there and be all academic and safe. Blair thinks Daryl should do what he is most passionate about.
Simon has to cut short the game when he gets word of the prison escape of Garrett Kincaid, the guy who led the seige on the police station in which Daryl was shot at and dangled out of the window. Daryl is visibly nervous to learn his attacker is on the loose.
A couple of basketball players come by the station to ask Jim and Blair to find their missing scorekeeper and to give them tickets to the next game. When they leave Jim takes the tickets from Blair (like they're not just planning to go together anyway), and then Simon takes them from Jim as he sends the boys off to check out a body.
At the crime scene, Jim super-sees Kincaid's dogtag. At the station, Taggart gives Jim the report on the dead guy--he worked for city records--and Jim sends Taggart to look for the players' missing person while he and Blair follow up on the victim. Blair's disappointed about missing the game and Jim says grudgingly that he can do this legwork on his own. Blair says he couldn't let Jim do that because he'd feel too guilty, but just as the elevator doors are closing he adds "But if you insist!" and slips out. Ha ha asshole.
At the hall of records, Jim finds out that the victim was a member of Kincaid's group of gun nuts, and that just before he disappeared and died he pulled the blueprints of the sports arena. Taggart calls from the missing scorekeeper's home, reporting it's a shrine to Kincaid. He actually uses the word "fandom." We intercut scenes of the seige guys dragging guards into closets; Blair, Simon, and Daryl enjoying the game; and Jim calling up to warn the arena. But before he can reach security, the phone line cuts out. He turns to the records lady with a hard expression of I Am Bruce Willis. "I'm gonna need a hard copy of those plans."
Blair and Daryl are just coming back into the arena with hotdogs when the power shorts. As people start to panic and question, Kincaid comes in and randomly shoots a basketball player. Kincaid's ability to hold an entire arena hostage being due, mainly, it seems, to his gun, Simon creeps forward and draws his own cop gun on Kincaid, only to be captured by some henchmen. When some other men get the broadcasting equipment back up, Kindcaid sends out this lengthy speech about freedom to bear arms, the cleansing of the world that will happen in the upcoming Millenium disaster, and other craziness. Then he makes the cheerleaders dance. Diabolical!
As Jim secretly enters by way of some ducts, Blair and Daryl sneak off into the halls to do some recon and have a little conversation about whether Daryl really wants to be a cop.
Blair and Daryl share a moment... at least, I think it's Blair and Daryl. This episode is so damn dark, it could be anyone.
Meanwhile, Simon and a henchman exchange the dialogue, "Do you really think you're going to get away with this?" "We already have."
Anyway so what Kincaid wants is money from some millionaire in the audience, and when he's conferring with the guy and getting him to transfer the funds, it seems like they're in on this together, for some reason (the millionaire's motivations are unclear), but instead of letting everyone go as per the agreement, Kincaid lets everyone go except the team and Simon. He announces that anyone left inside will be shot. Jim gets a head start on the danger by falling down a straight shaft. Don't worry guys, he'll be okay. In fact, this plot thread will never get taken up again.
Two armed and dangerous henchmen, including the former missing person, lead Simon to join the rest of the hostage team, and a tense argument is interrupted by Blair running a hotdog stand into the scene. The team, Blair, and Simon punch the henchman manlyly, and Daryl gets off a blow to the back of the head with a snack tray as one of them is about to go for Simon. Just as the good guys gain control, Kincaid and a bunch of his cavalry arrive. They march the hostages to a truck; loading, Simon gets in some "If you hurt my boy...!" scenery chewing.
On the truck, Simon and Daryl hug. They stop at some kind of inspection point, and the basketball players agree they have "a bad feeling about this." Where's Jim?
Oh... jumping in through the roof. Where the hell did he come from?
Bad guys open up the truck, armed, ready to kill the hostages, but instead Jim, Simon, and a basketball player are ready, and leap out all combatty and punching. Blair and Daryl lead the other players out quietly through the roof. Bad guys knocked out, Jim hands Blair a gun and has Simon arm the rest of the party, and they head out after Kincaid.
"The docks." A Jim-sneaks-around-Blair-close-behind sequence, rare only in that Blair is actually armed.
That or they are both grabbing their crotches. Again, dark.
Long story short, there is a climactic shoot-out between an entire basketball team and a Russian sub. (It's short story short, really. Nothing is really explained.) One of the players uses his skills to throw a canister of tear gas, which he found lying around somewhere or something, into the hatch of the submarine, and Jim closes it, trapping the bad guys inside, because he is into cruel and unusual punishment. A little banter about four-point shots, Jim gets called "coach," the actual coach and a player do a chest-bump, Blair high-fives Daryl, and... that's it? No resolution of the Daryl plot? No cut to forty minutes later, with everyone bad being put into police cars and everyone good wrapped in blankets and drinking cocoa? No back at the station, Jim and Blair joke around and touch each other gratuitously and push real close together to get through the office door at the same time and mock each other on through to the elevator? THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS SHOW WHERE IS IT
Will this slightly off-putting shot of Blair doing up his ponytail help?
Bottom Line: I have been watching this episode since the beginning of time.
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4x4 Dead End on Blank Street
We open on various artsy close-ups: a cigarette being lit, a ticking watch. A voiceover: "I don't have to tell you how it goes. You know better than anyone." Ah, the clipped, meaningful-voiced, stiltedly colloquial sentences of the Tribute to Noir episode. Pan back and around and we see a young IA guy is interrogating a sullen Jim. I like how even though we have an IA person already set up in the show, that red-headed woman, we get this young buck instead. His name is Ray Aldo, but I'll call him Ray because Jim does and because I like when people named Ray are questioning people. He urges Jim, "If you're not going to come clean for yourself, do it for the people who still care about you."
On cue, we cut to Blair watching from outside the two-way mirror. Simon comes in and reports, "Veronica is sticking to her story. Doesn't look good."
RAY: Tell me about the money.
JIM: That's just the punchline. You gotta hear the setup to get the joke.
RAY: Tell me from the setup. From the first line.
JIM: The first line, huh? All right, but you've got to pay attention cause I can only do this once.
Two questions. 1. How come Ray's so on board with hearing the long drawn-out story, instead of saying, as I would, "Give me the Cliff's Notes, will you? I haven't got all day." 2. Why can he only do this once?
Anyway, this leads into a flash-back in black-and-white. Jim and Blair are driving in the truck from a crime scene. "As usual, my partner was getting sociological on me," Present-Day Jim VOs, but inside the truck he's getting just as into the conversation, arguing against Blair's proposition that gang warfare has been the same since caveman days by claiming it's become more trivial since it's no longer about the necessities of survival--as he lists them, "food, water, women." Blair points to the Crusades as an example of politically motivated warfare which is, I guess, old, though I think he is getting just a smidge out of his original time period of prehistory. Jim says a "true warrior" would never betray a brother-in-arms for money, and Blair informs Jim he "borrowed" some cash. "The defense rests," says Jim, but I'm not sure what point was just proved--is he saying that Blair isn't a true warrior, or that Jim is because Jim hasn't killed him?
Moving the plot along, Jim pulls over a reckless driver who turns out to be a friend of his from Special Ops, Archer. Archer hugs him tight and Blair, obviously feeling left out, quips, "Either my lessons on road rage are working or you two have met before." Nice try, Blair, but Jim still agrees to go on a date with Archer.
One of the few uses of deep focus of which I approve: highlighting Blair's isolation.
There's another vaguely flirty exchange with present-day Jim and Ray and then we cut to b&w of Ray talking to Simon with Jim not present, so I guess they're telling this story collaboratively? Ray tells Simon there's drugs missing from the evidence locker. Simon says he trusts Jim and "his team", and Ray says they'll be doing an investigation anyway. Jim and Blair enter, and Ray tells Blair to "keep [his] calendar clear." Yeah, you freakin' longhair. Blair does a fake-scared shudder "ooh," and says, "If that man's ass were any tighter, it'd be inside out." I find it hilarious that Jim is now relating that to Ray. Possibly as a compliment.
Simon says the drugs are missing and someone will have to take the fall, and as Jim goes to his date, we get a VO, "I'd had any idea the poor sap about to take the high dive was me, I'd never have walked into Riley's Grill." Of all the grills in all the world, Jim has to walk into Riley's. Extra points to the authors, here, for reminding us of one of the greatest romances of all time as Jim goes to meet Archer at a fancy restaurant. They're both in snazzy suits, which I guess is supposed to invoke the 40s, but it does make it look more like a date.
After some barely-disguised pipe about how Archer has a perfect internal chronometer, though, they are joined by a woman. It's Katie Hitchcock from SeaQuest: DSV. I think she has been in other episodes, playing different characters, or maybe that was Due South. Anyway, in this her name is Veronica. She is Archer's wife now, and Jim says "I guess the best man won," which is such a brief and tight way to completely lay out all of the backstory we need about their dynamic that I would sit back and marvel at it had they not ruined it by adding a completely unnecessary flashback within a flashback: scenes of Jim, Archer, and Veronica at a bar; Jim and Veronica having sex; Jim in his ranger uniform and beret carrying big bouquet, seeing Archer and Veronica kissing, and walking away sadly. I guess Jim's tour of duty took place in Canada because there's a conspicuous Canada Post mailbox behind him.
In the--okay, not the present day, but the original flashback, the three head out of the restaurant as Jim VOs, "After dinner I let them talk me into coffee back at their place. Maybe I was too numb to say no. Or maybe I was just enjoying the pain." Oh, angst, angst. You're so getting a threesome tonight so don't even complain. On the way out Archer is stopped by a man who seems to want something from him, but backs off when Archer introduces his companion, the cop. So that's a little suspicious. Then when they get back to the house, it's been totally ransacked. I guess there will be no "coffee" tonight.
Things are getting cozy in the interrogation room as Ray brings Jim (actual, not metaphorical) coffee and asks after his suspicions about the B&E. Then Ray suddenly non-sequiturs, "Would it be fair to say that you fell in love with Veronica the first time you met?" Oh, Ray, of course he did. Where have you been? She is the love of Jim's life that got away; a new one surfaces nearly every week, you know. Jim is totally the Tenchi Muyo of Cascade, cosmically fated to ultimate, epic romance with every woman one he meets. Jim stiffens and mutters "Something like that."
Ray, smoking: "And this relationship was intimate? By that, I mean physical." Intimacy and sex are two totally different issues, Ray! But, more relevantly: Seriously? Jim says it was more than that and asks what he's driving at, and Ray asks quietly, "Why didn't you?" Awww, this isn't even about the interrogation anymore; he's just a kid looking for a nice romance story. Jim softens a bit--"Sandburg asked me the same question"--and lists some reasons for not going after Veronica: work, Carolyn (whom he refers to as "some lady"). I just want to take a moment to silently savor the fact that Jim is thoughtfully deconstructing his love life while his interrogator looks on with interest and sympathy, because the show sure does.
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| Tenderest. Interrogation. Ever. | ||
Next Jim segues into the next part of the flashback, in which Veronica arranges to meet him privately at a beach. She wants Jim to keep an eye on Archer because she's afraid he's involved in something bad. Oh, no, Jim! Rule #1 of noir detective fiction: never trust the client! She thanks him and kisses the side of his mouth, and they lean their heads together, and Jim is just opening his mouth for more when he runs his hand over her engagement ring and breaks it off.
Jim and Ray's next scene is short so here it is directly:
JIM: Looking back I can see that's where she first set the hook... but for some reason, I didn't fight it.
RAY: Well, she's an attractive woman. You had feelings for her and you wanted to believe everything she said.
JIM: Careful, Ray. You're almost sounding like a human being. You might've shown that when you char-broiled Sandburg.
Which leads us nicely into Ray questioning Blair, also in b&w, although it must have been, like, yesterday. Ray pulls out his cigarettes and Blair goodies at him about second-hand smoke, so he doesn't light up. Well, that's nice. "You and Ellison are friends," says Ray. "You hang out together, you go to crime scenes together..." Is that what the kids are calling it? (Oh man, I wish.) "I'm working on my thesis," says Blair defensively. "That's why we stay so close." Ray: "It's okay! I think it's great." Ha! He soooooo knows. Blair gets annoyed and says some rah-rah pro-Jim summing up. Gloriously, the climax of their argument is:
BLAIR: I know him.
RAY: You think you know him.
BLAIR: Wrong. I know him.
Brown is giving Jim some info on the driver of the Caddie that stopped Archer earlier--he's some kind of loan shark type called Lovejoy--when Blair comes up complaining that his interrogation was as frustrated as "trying to teach a card trick to a monkey." Let me just restate how cute it is that Jim faithfully and passive-aggressively recounts all of Blair's jabs at Ray in this narrative for his benefit.
Jim goes and talks to Archer, who gets pissed and tells him to stay out of his business, and then Jim and Blair go find Lovejoy in a quaint bar playing some kind of Warner Brothers-esque background tune. Lovejoy knows about the IAD investigation of Jim and accuses him of being a smack dealer and having his "hands in Archer's pockets", which earns him a defiant "Are you for real, man?" from Blair. Lovejoy tells Jim to tell Archer he's running out of time. Lovejoy leaves and Blair urges Jim to get someone else to take over the case. Jim insists that he has to do it because Archer is his friend, and Blair gets all blinky and look-away-y and says "Wrong friend." "What?" Blair says "You think I'm blind, Jim? The one you're trying to protect here is Veronica," but personally I think that's an ass-covering save.
So sad, so unnecessarily sad!!
Speaking of Veronica, Jim gets a phone call from her, worrying about Archer. Suddenly, outside her window, Archer's car explodes! The explosion and fire are orange and give off orange light in the black-and-white world. In the present day, Ray lights up asks Jim if it bothered him that Veronica was the only witness.
Looks like our shots are getting artsier and artsier: we see Jim and Simon interrogating Lovejoy about Archer's death, with a superimposed reflection of Blair's face to show he's watching through the mirror. The light and mirror or window give off overexposed light against which Simon is silhouetted. Pattern in the window looks like chain-link, I guess a version of the old blinds-as-bars trick. I catalogue the visual effects so lovingly I don't pay attention to what goes on in the scene. Okay, so Lovejoy says he and Archer were involved in a money laundering scheme together but Archer was screwing him over and "skipped town with five hundred large," whatever that means. Lovejoy says Veronica called and told him Archer would pay back the money that night at the restaurant. Jim gets up and leaves abruptly.
Jim angrily questions Veronica in her home. She knew about all this?! She's resistant at first, but when pressed for the truth tells a story about how Archer did tell her, drunkenly, about the crimes, but made her run away with him, threatening her and beating her. Jim gives her a sympathetic hug.
Simon and Blair's faces reflect, in color this time, against the present-day interrogation, as Ray scolds Jim for not bringing in accessory-after-the-fact Veronica for questioning. Jim says, staunchly, "She was a victim," with Protect the Victims face.
Continuing the story, Jim timeskips ahead one month: "We started seeing more of each other." I'll bet. They meet on the beach. (I wonder if it's the shore of Veronica Lake?) Veronica tells him she just found out she's getting three million from Archer's life insurance. Man, if only she and Archer had made it look like an accident, they'd be getting six, right? Oh, sorry, I mean, Veronica doesn't care about the money, she loves Jim! They make out.
LoftYay! Blair comes in with groceries and says "Long time no see." He asks about the case, and Jim says they're no closer to finding Archer's murderer. Blair suggests that Veronica had motive and opportunity, and Jim gets angry and says she couldn't have planted the highly technical bomb and anyway shut up and he's going to bed!
BRIEF INTERLUDE: Let's enjoy some shots of the boys' faces in black and white photography, shall we?
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| *elevator music* | ||
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Aaaand, back to the story.
Jim walks on the beach by a boat with a yellow light, which is odd, since it's neither exploding nor significant, looking for a prowler that (he VOs) Veronica reported hearing. He catches up with the prowler and finds that it is Archer.
After the commercial Jim pieces together the plan while Archer stands by indulgently. Archer offers Jim one million dollars to walk away, but Jim refuses, angry at Archer for using his "love and friendship" against him. They hear sirens. Archer snaps at Jim for calling backup, saying, "You never did like the solo missions, did you?" NO JIM LIKES A PARTNER. Jim says, "I didn't call for backup." Archer: "...That bitch."
Archer starts to walk away, but Jim calls him back, and they draw guns on each other. Jim shoots. Archer gets a sort of pathosy death scene, and we cut to ambulance guys zipping him into a body bag, so I guess he's really dead now. Jim tells Simon about the insurance scam, but Ray walks up with Veronica, informing him of her story: it was Jim and Archer who were in on the scam, but Jim killed Archer to get Veronica.
Once Jim finishes telling his story, Ray turns off the recorder and tries to get Jim to confess to Veronica's version: "You were in love. Hey, it happens all the time." He leans forward and tells Jim he believes Veronica, and Jim is going down.
Jim leaves and, going to his car, meets Veronica, who emerges from the shadows to tell him it's over and he can't win. She gives him a chance to run away, offering him money, and he refuses. She leaves as Blair comes up and asks Jim what he'll do now. "Start acting like a cop."
Simon finds something at an explosion site and tells some cop minion to bring in Ellison.
Ray and Simon question Jim, Blair present. An order for a chemical explosive in Jim's name. Jim says Archer forged his signature, something he learned to do in ops, but Simon still asks for his badge and gun, against Blair's protestations. Jim gives them up and leaves.
Blair catches up with him outside, and asks what's next. (I submit that the "acting like a cop" line would be more powerful here, after he's lost his badge and gun.) Jim wants to check out the chemical warehouse explosion site for more clues. He stops Blair before he turns to get on that, saying, "Whoa Chief, uh... I-I'm sorry. I was wrong about her, you were right." Dawwww. Blair doesn't seem to know what to say to that; he gentles, "Well, that's all right. I mean, come on, we all make mistakes, right?" Jim says it was a "good-sized" mistake, and Blair adds, "It was huge." "All right, enough," says Jim, leading Blair off with a hand on the back of his neck.
In their investigation Jim and Blair find some semi-melted security tapes, which they bring back to Serena for analysis. She can't do assignments for Jim since he's suspended; she needs authorization. From the background, Simon badasses, "I'll authorize it." He did a background check on Veronica and found a chemical explosives link.
Jim does his usual identifying-the-important-frame-before-the-resolution-is-good-enough-to-see-what's-going-on SENTINEL SENSES TO THE RESCUE thing. Veronica and Ray are on the tape. Oh noes! Ray was behind the WHOLE THING and trying to frame Jim! If only we hadn't been so focused on reading Ray's bizarre lines about love as hitting on Jim we might have seen them for the anvils about being attracted to Veronica they really were! Unless we did see that. Still, I choose to believe that Ray is an incorrigible gossip.
Jim goes to Veronica's and tells her she is under arrest. She tries to bargain with him, and when he refuses, she pulls a tiny gun on him. Jim super-hears the ticking of Ray's watch and realizes he is nearby, listening in. Jim navigates the conversation with Veronica, asking her who she intended to shoot at the door, and getting her to admit to him that she was planning on killing Ray and running with all the cash. Ray rushes in and Jim ducks out of the crossfire just in time for Ray and Veronica to shoot each other.
Sirens as Jim leans over Veronica's body, going into the Gentle Jim mode he pulls out whenever anyone is seconds from death, "shh"ing and "breathe"ing. She murmurs, "If you loved me, you would have let me walk away." Ouch.
This is just like the two guys at the end of Double Indemnity only more romantic less romantic.
Backup including Simon and Blair arrive just as she dies. "Jim, are you okay?" Well, he's crouched over a dead woman, Blair, what do you think? But Jim says, gruffly, "Yeah."
Standing outside the house, Blair asks Jim if Veronica was shooting at him or Ray, and Jim doesn't know. Simon and Blair decide leave Jim alone for awhile. "He'll get over it," Blair assures Simon as they head back inside. "Maybe not today, but soon." And for the rest of his life. Simon lampshades that Blair sounds "like an old movie". Fade to b&w on Jim staring meaningfully out into the middle distance.
Non-J/B Pairing of the Week: Although Jim/Veronica/Archer gave off something of an OT3 vibe, especially at the beginning, I was just waiting for Jim and Ray to start making out in that interrogration room. It's just that Jim is an attractive man, Ray had feelings for him and wanted to believe everything he said.
Bottom Line: It's probably clear from the level of minute detail and direct quoting that I enjoyed this episode. The Tribute to Noir thing is gimmicky, but gimmicky isn't always bad, especially in a long-running genre show where episodes can tend to repeat the same formula. The unusually framed shots, black-and-white photography, and movie-score style music give the episode a fresh and memorable feel.
Given the interrogation framing story, I do have some issues with the POV. It's a Jim flashback complete with occasional present-day-Jim voiceovering; no matter how much enjoyable the byplay between Ray and Blair, it needs to go unless Jim saw it. Admittedly, the writers did manage to limit themselves in the flashbacks to scenes where either Jim or Ray was present, but I just don't buy that Ray is providing Jim with completely accurate and detailed accounts of his own experiences at appropriate chronological moments in his narrative. Nobody's that cooperative a questioner, not even Ray "Tell Me More, Tell Me More, Did You Get Very Far" Aldo.
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4x5 The Waiting Room
Blair's driving in the middle of the night, listening to a talk radio show ask callers what they are afraid of when his car stalls out and some thugs come up and start hassling him. Blair dials his phone and says, rather calmly, that there's a 604 in progress. After some more attempts with the ignition he gets the car started, sending a carjacker tumbling over his hood, and proceeds to drive straight into a fence. He clambers out and runs into an abandoned building to hide. Running terrifiedly, he trips over a severely injured man. He frantically tries to help stop the bleeding.
Jim and the police to the rescue, arresting the carjackers. Later we see Jim and Simon comforting a traumatized Blair as the man he was unable to save is carted away. Jim sees a shimmery figure in the window of the abandoned house. When they go upstairs to investigate, Jim reports feeling intense cold, and Simon suggests maybe he has the flu that's going around. Then he smells something sweet, which the others can't sense. He--and we--see a cheesy special effect of a silhouette made all of light.
At the station Jim is reaching for tissues as he works, so I guess he really is sick. Simon comes up to bitch at him for coming in to work, and then hands him a bottle of medicine. Jim mutters that last time he took that stuff he fell off a train, but I submit that it was climbing on the outside of the train that caused him to fall off the train. Jim throws the medicine in the trash.
Blair, of course, comes up with his little leaf pouch native remedy thing, and Jim, though he sniffs it and makes a face, obligingly puts it under his tongue as Blair tells him to. Within moments Jim is making a hilarious rubberface "eeeuuuuggh!" motion, which he leads into pumping his fist and saying "MAN, I feel like a million bucks!" Blair tells him to give it some time, and Jim thanks him absently. Blair continues to hover. After a moment Jim turns to him: "What?"
BLAIR: We need to talk, Jim.
JIM: Look, if it's about last night--it was no big deal! Let's just... let it be.
BLAIR: You can't just ignore this, man.
I... I just... I have no... whoever is responsible for this conversation... Thank you.
Once I come back down to Earth, Jim is talking about how he's sure there's a logical explanation for his sensory experiences. Blair continues to press, and Jim gets up and grits, "Chief. I have had about as much as I can take with this Sentinel stuff." It's interesting to see him fed up with his Sentinel-ness as a whole, but Blair, perhaps wisely, chooses not to pursue the larger issue, and instead says of the paranormal experiences (and/or subtext), "You can't just shut this door after it's been opened!" He starts jabbering about ghosts, and Jim makes oh-no faces as Simon and Taggart stroll up behind him and burst out laughing. "Ghosts?!" Blair staunchly defends his open-mind stance, and Jim buries his face in his hands. Blair turns back to Jim as the mean kids walk away making "wooooo" gestures. "Don't pay attention to them." Jim, dryly: "You've been a big help, thanks."
Loft. Jim comes down into the living room in his bathrobe, and thanks Blair for the remedy--it worked! Blair is putting together a bunch of X-Files type equipment, like an EMF detector, and Jim makes fun of him a little. He says he was tired last night and the light he saw might have been a reflection of some of the crime scene equipment. "I'm sorry, I disagree," says Blair. "You're entitled to," says Jim respectfully. So polite! They get a call--there's something going down at the old apartment.
Taggart, Jim, and Blair head down the hall of the old building. Blair's clutching his equipment box. Creepy choral/theremin music. The door at the end of the hall opens by itself, and wafts of smoke emerge. Blair's expression changes. "Okay, guys, you can come on out." Rafe and Brown emerge, laughing and smoking cigars. Brown laughs, "Someone needs to make him a detective!"
Jim and Blair head back to the car, the others still joking around behind them. "Loosen up, Sandburg!" Always the goody two shoes, Taggart says maybe the joke wasn't so funny, and asks Jim if he really believes in this stuff. Jim: "What I believe or don't believe is irrelevant. I'm working a homicide here." Good answer, Jim; noncommital and yet on Blair's side. The others drive off, and as Jim starts to get in the truck, he turns back and sees something in the window of the house. He tells Blair, "Hey, Chief, get your stuff." Blair protests that he's sick of the jokes, but Jim's serious. They head back in.
In the house Blair's all, "You don't have to humor me; I really don't care," but Jim is too busy reacting to various sensations to pay much attention. Blair starts filming, but he doesn't see anything unusual. Jim does: he sees a woman in the mirror. (He's also in the mirror, so it's not him that's the woman, worse luck.) The woman reaches out to him, and he meets her hand with his. He gets a flash of images and the mirror seems to shatter. When he blinks back into reality, the woman is gone and the mirror is fine.
Next day Jim and Blair are at the station looking through photos when Simon comes in with the ID of the murder victim and the name of his partner (EVERYONE). Simon starts to tease Blair, "I hear you had a run-in with your ghosts last night," and Blair very seriously says, "Yeah, I did. Lucky for us the guys didn't drive it away." Simon scoffs, and Jim takes up Blair's cause, confirming that they did see the ghost it's trying to contact him. He explains they're trying to match a photo to the composite he saw in the vision she gave him. Simon flips out, "I have stood behind you on the Sentinel thing, but as far as ghosts go, you can't ask me--!!" Jim just looks all earnest and blue-eyed at Simon cause he knows it's only a matter of time before he caves, and there it is. "Put the picture out on the street. See if the guy is even real." He leaves, and Blair says proudly, "I can't believe you told Simon all that!"
And Jim's all, Yeah, well. *cough cough carburetors*
Jim and Blair meet up with the victim's partner, who shows them some threatening letters he and the victim got as a result of preparing to knock down the building. Then they head over to a soup kitchen where Taggart has found the guy in Jim's composite sometimes goes. He's a schizophrenic homeless man named is Dunlop. Jim and Blair check out his stuff, left with the shelter: a suitcase of all women's clothes. Jim says they smell like the ghost. There's also some photographs of the ghost woman and a diary.
That night at the ghostly apartment, Blair looks over a police file on the ghost--her name's Molly and she was murdered in 1953. Jim learns from the diary that, at age eight, Dunlop witnessed the murder and saw "a man with stained fingers" bury the gun in the park. Jim wonders how he ended up totally obsessed with the woman and in possession of her stuff, and Blair suggests he can sense the ghost too. "There's a line of my research I've never told you about because I thought you might get upset..." Jim, warily: "And what would that be?" Blair: "One of the symptoms of mental disorder is heightened senses." Jim considers this, and then says, "Well, I know I'm crazy for putting up with you." Blair laughs, probably relieved that there wasn't another Night Shift-style research backlash. Jim asks Blair what's all the equipment he's got, and Blair shows him some stuff he borrowed from the uni to record Jim's reactions to the ghost: heart rate, respiration, and--he holds up a long thermometer and laughs evilly, "Body temperature." Jim's eyes widen.
I mean, really widen.
Cut to later that night. Jim dozes with the diary in his lap. The ghost appears in the mirror. Jim calls for "Chief" and then "Blair," but Blair is busily working and listening to his headphones. Jim approaches and Molly gives him another vision. We see the apartment as it was in the 50s, when Molly was living there. She pours herself a glass of wine, glances out the window, and then goes to the mirror to toast herself, "Mrs. Sam Bromley." Then the mirror shatters as a bullet hits it--through her. The vision fades, and Blair finally notices Jim standing at the mirror. "Your respiration's showing like you just ran a three-minute mile!" He does not mention temperature. Jim explains what he saw.
Loft. Blair's going through Molly's suitcase and Jim's watching the useless video Blair shot. Blair posits that if they solve Molly's murder she'll be able to pass on to the afterlife, because that is the way these things work on TV. I'm sure Blair's seen enough to know. Jim says if there is a next life, she deserves to go there. Before they can get too philsophical, they get a call from the shelter.
Dunlop is holding the nice shelter worker at knifepoint because he wants his suitcase back. Well, maybe Jim and Blair shouldn't have taken it! Jim tries to talk him down, and Blair offers up the case. He snatches it and runs off. Jim chases him, but he goes out a window. Jim figures he's gone...
...to the old apartment! He finds Dunlop in front of the mirror. Dunlop is mistrustful, but Jim gently explains he can see Molly, too. He puts his arm around Dunlop as he falls to his knees, and tenderly wrests away the knife; suddenly they both see Molly in the mirror. She shows Jim a vision of the original murder this episode was about, the body Blair found. The guy's partner did it! Blair comes in and finds Jim zoned on the mirror and Dunlop gone.
Station. Blair asks why Molly led them to Dunlop if the partner is the murderer, and Jim says maybe she knew Dunlop would give them info about her murder, but it doesn't really matter because nobody cares about this murder anyway. Taggart gives Jim a file on Sam Bromley, but says he's probably not a suspect as he's 80 years old.
Jim and Blair go to an art studio where a nurse is helping Sam Bromley work on a painting. She meets them and tells them Bromley won't be able to tell them much except about his current artwork, as he's got Alzheimer's. Jim and Blair have a little conversation about art--Blair suddenly remembers having heard of Bromley's work, and Jim says he doesn't understand this modern art yada yada that's not a painting, it's a blank canvas!!! Jim shows Bromley a photograph of Molly, and he says "My Venus!", but that's all they get out of him. The nurse says he has spoken of Molly before, but not in detail, and the memory seemed to be a sad one.
At the loft, Blair shows Jim a modern art book. There's a picture of a statue Sam Bromley sculpted--of Molly. It's supposed to be in a park near her house, but neither of them remembers seeing it. They get a call from Dunlop: he wants to meet them in half an hour to turn himself in.
Jim and Blair swing by the park on the way to meet Dunlop. There's no statue, just a pedestal with a plaque saying the date the statue was erected, two days after Molly's death. They're distracted by the sight of Dunlop heading toward the apartment. Jim draws his gun and runs in, telling Blair to stay behind him. Next we get a sort of action scene in the apartment: Dunlop is meeting with the partner/murderer, for some reason, and the partner pulls a gun and Dunlop pulls his knife, and Jim arrives with his gun, and Blair weilds the power of the phone. Partner runs away from Jim, pausing near a doorway with a beaded curtain to aim his gun. The beads wrap themselves around his wrist, making him miss. Jim shoots him down.
So that's that. Dunlop helps Jim wrap up some loose ends with some evidence he had about that murder, and then Jim asks about Molly's murder, specifically, where did the man with the stained fingers bury the gun. Dunlop says the man told him not to tell. Molly appears and gives Jim a vision. It's an extra detail from the vision where she toasted herself and then died, the view out the window: workers are preparing to put up the statue of her.
Back in the park, where the statue isn't, Jim taps the base while Blair holds his flashlight.
Not a metaphor.
We get a refreshingly realistic set of time-is-passing-this-is-boring slow montage-wipes before Jim finds the part that sounds different. One equally length chiselling-open-the-cement sequence later, he retrieves the gun.
So the next day Jim stages this sort of awful re-enactment, having the nurse drag Bromley over to the apartment with Dunlop and some police officers present, putting the gun in Bromley's hand, and encouraging Dunlop to recall the day he was threatened by Bromley. Jim gets what he wants, which is Bromley spontaneously re-enacting the threat, and then speaking lucidly about the murder and his reasons for it (he was married, and he'd lied to Molly that he'd divorce for her, but the wife and Molly would certainly meet at the statue dedication, and it would be so awful that he just murdered Molly instead. Okay.) Simon's satisfied with the confession and orders Bromley to be taken in. Blair protests passionately--the guy's 85! he's got Alzheimer's!--but Jim says they have to follow procedure. This is just like at the end of all those Lord Peter books when solving the mystery results in worse consequences than leaving it alone would have, and he feels bad. Let's rob an distinguished yet senile octagenarian artist of the few remaining shreds of dignity he possesses! Why? To make the GHOST HAPPY.
Well, I guess the ghost is happy, because Dunlop and Jim both sense that she has gone from this place. Simon tries to establish a logical explanation for everything that happened, but it's pretty weak and I think we just have to accept that ghosts are a part of the Sentinel universe. But only in the Halloween episodes. I mean, he's not going to become one of those people like the Sixth Sense kid or Tru Calling or whatever who have ghosts help them solve their own murders or anything.
Anyway, Simon's explanation for the visions is that Dunlop is crazy, one, and two, he analyzed the cold remedy Blair gave Jim and found traces of peyote. Satisfied, he exits, and Jim goes over to Blair. "Peyote," Jim repeats, and Blair defends, "Just traces," and there's still like twenty seconds left in the episode! Yes! I wonder what Jim-and-Blair antics they're going to fill it with and NOOOOO! Molly's ghost reappears! She becomes weirdly solid and holds out her hand, and Jim touches it, and instead of getting a vision he intertwines his fingers with hers, and she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek.
Why? Why? Why?
I guess.
Bottom line: I'm normally kind of annoyed by Halloween episodes that violate the hitherto established rules of the universe to introduce some new supernatural element, but Sentinel has so much unexplained mysticism anyway that it's not too jarring, and we got some choice moments between Jim and Blair with the new ghost-seeing secret standing in for their usual secret-identity-as-illicit-affair metaphor. "We have to talk about what happened last night!" Oh, for fun. Plus we have strong evidence that Blair inserts something in Jim's ass, and what more can we really ask for?
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4x6 The Real Deal
Some guy is watching Man from U.N.C.L.E. when someone comes up, turns off the TV, and looms, poised to attack.
On the phone at his desk, Jim tries to get out of a meeting, fails, and comes out to the coffee service to tell Blair in a long-suffering tone that Vince Deal is coming up. Blair's excited because he's "a character," and Jim calls him a "caricature." He's an old actor from a show called Braddock's Way who doesn't seem to realize life is not a TV show. They talk about what cop shows they liked as a kid; Jim liked Banacek, and Blair scoffs because he was an insurance investigator. Jim amends to Mannix ("good with his fists, dry sense of humor"; sounds familiar), which Blair grants. Himself, he liked Starsky and Hutch. (He says it's for the car, but I think it's for the slash.) Jim adjusts Blair's collars, saying his fashion sense is inspired by Huggy Bear. The question posed to Simon wins them a little Shaft byplay: "That cat Shaft was one bad mother--" "Watch your mouth," says Jim primly.
There, now you look presentable.
A Shaft-ish baseline kicks in in time for Vince's entrance. He's Robert Vaughan wearing large sunglasses and a long black coat with a rose pinned to it. (So I guess that was supposed to be Braddock's Way on TV in the beginning.) The music record-scratches as Megan (Megan! I was beginning to think she'd gone back to Australia) emerges from an office and catches sight of Vince. She interrupts Simon and Jim giving Vince a hard time about his last lame tip to gush about the show, which is apparently popular in Australia. She volunteers to take down Vince's tip while Jim announces he and Sandburg are going for lunch.
In the truck, Jim and Blair argue about where to eat. This episode is A-OK by me so far. I don't understand why they always eat together when they never want to go to the same place, but it makes me glad. More please. They get talking about Vince, and Jim says he doesn't get it; Braddock's Way was doing so well when it was canned! Considering this is two shows from the end of a truncated final season, I'm thinking this might just be meta. He gets a phone call from Megan--a body. No lunch for the boys!
Jim, Blair, and Megan check out the body: a "well-dressed young woman," according to Jim, covered in blood (we don't see her, but we see Blair's look-away-look-away reaction shot). It looks like she was shot elsewhere and brought here, but Megan points out the empty purse suggests a botched robbery. Jim catches sight of the woman's wallet off in the brush and goes to get a closer look. Megan sidelongs to Blair, "Is he doing his Sentinel thing?" Blair makes hasty shut-up! motions. "I can't believe I told you that," he moans. Megan promises "It'll be our secret." Oh, poor Blair wanted it to be his and Jim's secret. Jim gets the ID from the wallet--the victim was a reporter for the Daily Herald. Megan gets excited because Vince's tip was about a friend of his who was found dead--apparent suicide, but he thinks it's murder--after writing an expose for the Herald.
Exposition time! Simon, Jim, Blair, Megan and Vince meet in a conference room at the station; over a funky bassline, Vince examines the crime scene photographs and wonders pointedly, if his friend was supposed to have gassed himself, who turned off the oven? The officers decide to take a closer look. Simon eventually gets out of Vince (who admits he was "a little smashed" when he talked to his friend) that the reporters were going after a company called Hydra. Megan shows Vince out, and Blair laughs, "You gotta love him," and Simon deadpans, awesomely, "No I don't."
Megan promises to keep Vince up-to-date on the case and he asks her out for dinner. She says she has night watch, but another time. She seems to genuinely mean it. Vince gets in the elevator, and Blair comes up and warns Megan that Vince is old enough to be her father. Megan accuses him of being jealous. Blair says he doesn't want Megan to "fall for an image." "At least he has one," says Megan, and that doesn't make that much sense, but it seems to hurt Blair as she sweeps off, bumping into Jim. Jim's all "Let's go, Romeo," clapping both hands on Blair's shoulders as he turns him toward the elevator, and Blair asks, "Hey, what do you think of my image?" Jim: "Your image." Blair: "Yeah. Be gentle." Dawww, poor Blair. Jim, with dismissive affection: "I d'know, cut your hair and run for president, I'll vote for you, I'n't care." Blair grins all proud. Oh, Jim and Blair, I love you both.
"Be gentle."
In the truck on the way to the dead reporter's house we get some Blair-giving-Jim-directions banter and some exposition about Hydra--it's a new security firm. A call comes through on the radio--a 211 in progress at their very destination! They arrive, and Jim goes in with his gun, and we get an unnecessary but very cute shot of Blair sitting in the car watching intently. Shots fire through the door. Jim braces himself and enters firing, managing to knock the prowler off balance and knock him out. Vince stumbles in from the shadows, bleeding from the head, and collapses.
Outside later, surrounded by distractingly flashing cop cars, Jim yells at Vince for interfering in the investigation. Vince tells him to "dial it back" (unintentional Blairism?) and Megan and Blair take over to perform a more gentle questioning. Vince and Blair think the prowler was after the same thing Vince was, info for the expose, but Megan suggests that Vince is in danger because he was the last one to talk to the victim. Blair says he needs protection. "A safehouse?" Blair: "Not exactly. I'll be right back, unless you hear some gunfire."
Cut to a plateful of pancakes. Blair courtship-ritualling Jim into taking in another stray? No, Vince is already there, serving up the breakfast. Jim doesn't want any--he's "an eggs and coffee man" (Blair's speciality!). Blair makes faces at the burnt pancakes.
Dear Jim and Blair, how do always make breakfast so adorable?
Vince compliments the apartment, so much nicer than his, and Jim asks for the story on how the show ended. Turns out a close friend of Vince's was fired from the show and he got a bit too mouthy with the press.
Simon's office. Simon and Megan exposit about Hydra--it's run by ex-feds and hit men--to Jim and Blair as Blair annoys Simon by taking down a statue from his shelf and examining it. Still carrying on the conversation about Hydra, Simon gets up and takes the statue away, only to have Blair immediately pick up a souvenir coffee mug. Still holding the statue in both hands, Simon just boggles at the mug in Blair's hand. Heh. Anyway, the upshot of the conversation is Jim is going undercover at Hydra.
At the interview, Jim explains what ended his job as a police officer--he got too rough with a questionee--and they hire him. Jim's being shown around the complex when he hears Vince's voice. He sees Vince up through an office window, reading a script for a radio commercial. Ha! That's kind of a nice meta, too, since Robert Vaughan did all those personal injury lawyer commercials. You remember those: "You need to show the insurance companies you mean business."
Simon's office. Jim wants Vince out, Vince has Hydra computer access codes and a sob story about his friendship with the victim (EVERYONE), Simon caves.
Hydra computer lab. The logo is remarkably similar to the U.N.C.L.E. logo, and we get a sort of U.N.C.L.E./Mission Impossible theme music as Jim and Vince break in. Jim copies some info onto a disk and they're about to leave when the boss walks in. Guilty schoolboy looks abound. Vince starts babbling about method acting and Jim recovers enough to say he's escorting Vince out of the restricted area. The boss frowns but buys it, and while Vince is there, confirms the time of his commercial shoot. Vince says he had a thought: he wants a uniform there as set dressing. Jim!
Out in the hall Jim exclaims "I can't be in a commercial!" and Vince points out he's supposed to stay close and promises to teach him some breathing exercises.
Uh, I already have someone to tell me to breathe, old man.
Distracting back-and-forth lightning cut from Jim looking disbelieving to Megan in the loft giving everyone some info she I guess got off the disk about Hydra's shady bookkeeping practices. Jim says they need to "bait the hook."
Megan, dressed up like an upper-class lady, meets with the Hydra boss types. Convincingly acting nervous, she says her husband will be coming back from a business trip any day, and she has a situation she needs "handled" before then: she's being stalked by her ex-lover, a young artist. Oh, now why would you put Blair in that kind of danger? The bosses call in a female bodyguard, Marika, saying they like to assign her to the female clients: "It's more discreet." Marika gives Megan the eye and Megan smiles, "A lady with a gun; imagine that."
When Megan leaves, the boss types go over their security tapes and find Jim and Vince talking in the hall--confirming that Jim's not what he claims to be and Vince knows nothing. Shortly thereafter, Jim and Vince arrive at the soundstage and are accosted by men with guns. Oh noes!
After the commercial Jim very quickly dispenses with the attackers by kicking them in the head and crotch. Some damage is done to the soundstage and Jim emerges with the guys cuffed. Vince pops his head out from a mailbox (American!!!) behind which he was hiding.
In a posh apartment, Megan frets about the pros and cons of her husband and her lover. Marika tells her, "You can have it both ways." Megan stammers a bit, and Marika steps closer and says a line about how the husband is usually unfaithful too, which shouldn't sound seductive, but it does, and she adds, looking Megan up and down, "Just think about what you need."
And what I need.
A knock at the door. Blair's voice on the other side. I'd like to note my satisfaction that everyone is using fake names this time; Jim's "Carl McQueen", Blair's "Anthony Drake," and Megan's "Olivia Somerset." Yeah, they sound fake, but at least they're trying. Anyway, Megan tells Marika to let Anthony in.
Blair's wearing a kind of a newsboy hat and a silk scarf because he's an Artist. He delivers some rather unconvincingly acted lines: "I was out of my mind when I wrote those letters. Don't you know that I love you?" Megan puts a hand on Marika's shoulder, bidding her lower her gun, and then steps forward and starts making out with Blair in front of her. So, Megan has now kissed both Jim and Blair unnecessarily while undercover. Blair's considerably more passionate reaction (he actually moans a little), for the record, puts Jim several points ahead in the Gay Grand Prix. (That and his code-name. I know it's a Steve McQueen reference, but still.)
The vaguely Sex and the City outfit earns Blair some points, though.
Megan leads Blair into the bedroom, and he starts to chat genially--"What do you think of my outfit?" (point for Blair)--but Megan's intent on doing the juvenile thing of pretending to make sex noises. Or... something. She throws a lamp on the ground and cries "Oh, Anthony, you beast!" Blair grins and makes a ridiciulous sort of elephantine beast noise. Listening at the door, Marika hears, "Naughty boy! Look what you've done!" and "I broke it!", followed by another elephant noise. She smiles and opens a magazine.
Station. Jim and Simon walk down the hall, talking. Jim's cover's blown, but at least they've still got Megan. And... Blair. "You must explain to me why Sandburg was necessary," says Simon, and I am on board with that, but as soon as Jim starts, "Captain," Simon doesn't want to hear it.
Bosses at Hydra get the results of their background check on Olivia Somerset. There's a picture--and it's not of Megan. Maybe it was a bad idea to accost the expert security agency with one shoddily-put-together fake identity after another?
Simon tries to comfort Vince, who is upset at himself for running away in the face of danger.
Megan and Blair sit on the bed. "We've been quiet for awhile. Maybe you should scream or something." "What makes you think Anthony's that talented? I think you should scream." "Me? I definitely think Anthony can make you scream." I think Blair is probably a screamer. They're still debating strategy when Marika and the male boss partner burst in with guns drawn. Marika finds Megan's gun, and they lead our heroes out.
Jim's taking Vince home when Vince reminds Jim of the last episode of his show--a cliffhanger which was supposed to be continued next season, but never was. Now that's definitely meta, as this show was apparently very nearly cancelled after Blair's death. Jim can't reach Blair and Megan's backup and gets nervous, so he heads to the fake Somerset apartment. He leaves Vince calling 911 for some guy who's been sapped, who is around, for some reason; and he heads up with gun drawn. The place is empty of course, but Jim finds a tape recorder which I guess Megan or someone left and rewinds just long enough to hear the bad guys leading Blair and Megan out and arranging to meet up with the big boss. What I would like to see is when Jim inevitably rewinds further and hears Blair making his animal-sex noises.
The... hell?
At the crime scene--of the guy being sapped--Vince commandeers a police vehicle, posing as Jim's partner. He wishes!
The bosses interrogate Blair and Megan. They pathetically try to hold onto their cover, even though it's way past blown. "I'm an artist!" Blair protests weakly. "She's--*Valley girl gasp*--she's an unhappy wife married to a man that--doesn't have time for her anymore. WHERE'S THE CRIME IN THAT, MAN?" The real kicker there is the pretentious-drama-club-kid pronunciation of the first (but not second!) "man." The male boss shoots gunshots over their shoulders threateningly. Outside, Jim hears and goes into Action Mode.
Cut back to the male boss, who wants to know who the "artist"'s influences are, asking about Van Gogh as he holds the gun to Blair's ear. Megan, who's been apparently learning American policework skills from Jim, snaps and promises to tell them everything if they let civilian Blair go. Blair one-ups her by claiming to be Detective Jim Ellison, saying she is a civilian actress and he'll talk if they let her go. Oh, those crazy kids. The boss is understandably confused and says "I happen to know the real Jim Ellison is--" "Right behind you," Jim cuts in smoothly. Aw, yeah.
Marika appears from the shadows and attacks Jim, and while they're fighting, the bosses get away. Jim knocks out Marika and unties his buddies, bidding Blair come with him and Megan guard "Mrs. Peel," another nice reference. The bosses run out into a slick black car, and Vince arrives to take up the chase. Jim and Blair join in the truck, and we've got ourselves a convoy. Well, a car chase, anyway. I don't have to like it, but it does fit with the theme of "things that happened in old cop shows." When Jim and Blair identify Vince in the next car, Blair yells at him to get off the road, but it's Vince's fancy driving that ends up corralling the bad guys into the plate-glass window of a TV shop where the TVs are playing a commercial for daily syndicated reruns of Braddock's Way.
I wish!
Wrap-up at the station. All this publicity got Vince a TV movie! Right. Vince shows Jim the script, saying he had the writers put in a small role for him: "Detective Madison" is described as "gruff, belligerent, head hard as a rock." Freeze-frame on Vince winking as we head to credits with funky bassline and Blair and Simon complaining that they're not in the script.
Non-J/B Pairing of the Week: It's Megan week. Encouraging sexual tension on undercover missions seems to be a hobby of hers; this episode, she was reasonably successful in getting Blair to participate (where Jim was a total non-starter in Neighborhood Watch). And Megan seemed, if not really interested, genuinely mildly charmed by Vince. But the main point I need to make here is that Marika so desperately wants Megan's junk.
Bottom Line: While Robert Vaughan plays a somewhat annoying character with a tendency to mumble his lines, he kind of always has, and I like Man from U.N.C.L.E. (another slash classic, by the way) and many of the other shows they're homaging. Blair and Megan had some fun scenes, and I liked it when Jim noncommittally agreed to vote for Blair for president. All in all a fun episode.
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4x7 Most Wanted
A guy goes to what appears to be a really shady job interview in a dank basement. The interviewer is obscured by shadows and his voice is disguised by a device which makes him incomprehensible.
A woman pushing a stroller is frightened by a stalker. This is what happens when you take your baby for a walk at, judging by the level of darkness and the number of people on the streets, about three o'clock in the morning. By the time she gets the attention of a police officer, the guy is gone.
Same woman--her name's Lindsay--reports her experience to Jim and Blair and Simon the next day. She gets an awful long way into her story before offhandedly mentioning that she in fact knows the identity of the stalker and that it is her estranged father, a notorious bank robber. This is maybe the kind of information you want to lead with, lady. Simon is all for helping her for the shot at busting a most-wanted criminal.
Jim and Blair stake out Lindsay's apartment from a conveniently located vacant place across the street. Blair's preparing a lecture, and Jim mocks him. I love these cozy domestic scenes. Blair doesn't think Lindsay is in much danger: "I mean, why would a father want to hurt his own child?" Even Jim's dad, he points out, would never want to kill Jim. Jim isn't so sure about that. This is maybe the kind of comment I might choose to follow up on, but Blair's caught sight of Lindsay undressing through the binoculars and he is officially distracted.
After the boys are relieved, they continue their Deep and Meaningful Conversation in the truck. Blair: "Maybe I was lucky not knowing who my real father was." I sort of love the rampant father issues in this show. At any rate, it's always nice when they bother to connect the characters' personal lives with the case.
And in a slight variation from the usual boys-in-profile-in-the-truck shots, we get a close look at an inexplicably pensive Jim.
Blair can't find his lecture notes. "Jim, we gotta go back!" Jim grumbles and remarks, "Of all the partners, I get the nutty professor," which seems to genuinely hurt Blair. Jim caves and turns around.
Blair's unnecessarily dismayed reaction to Jim's mild insult.
At the stakeout apartment, Jim and Blair knock and knock, but there's no answer. Jim hears slow heartbeats. He kicks down the door, and they find the other cops out cold. Jim leaves Blair calling an ambulance and runs across to Lindsay's. She and the baby are gone.
Lindsay and her baby meet with her criminal dad, whose name is Harry, in a car. He tries to give her money, but she refuses it. She calls him a bank robber and cop killer, and he admits to the former charge but insists he is innocent of the latter. She's all, whatever, can I go now?
There's evidence that Harry is gearing up for another big heist, so Simon gives the department one morning before he has to call the FBI to help with the collar. With rental car info from Lindsay, the PD tracks him to a hotel room, a feat which Jim suspiciously describes as "too easy." He's gone by the time they get there, but Jim catches sight of him nearby, and he and Blair ("get behind me, Chief; stay close") chase him into an old warehouse where Harry drops them through a trapdoor into a hole! Sure enough, Harry left a trail of breadcrumbs on purpose so he could get a chance to reason with his pursuers. He says a copycat is thieving using him MO. It's a former partner (EVERYONE) of his who is the killer--not him. He asks for charges dropped and help for his family if he turns himself in, and Jim refuses. Harry tries the "I have cancer" card. Jim's like, not my call, dude, so Harry leaves Jim and Blair to languish together in the hole. Which I hope they do, for the rest of the episode.
I don't know, I guess we could...
Nope, I guess they got out, because after the commercial they're in Simon's office, getting totally chewed out. Jim and Blair try to defend themselves, but Simon says "You don't talk now, I talk!" Oh, now daddy's all maaaad. He threatens to turn the reins over to the Feds--horror of horrors! Blair argues in Harry's favor, looking fruitlessly to a silent Jim for support, and Simon basically calls him a sucker. Blair points out that the guy "actually went to a hell of a lot of trouble not to kill us," and Jim pipes up, "Good point." Simon sends them off, telling Jim to do some "good police work." Ouch.
Out in the hall Blair snits, "You could have backed me up in there," and Jim says "Chief, you saw Simon's mood. I wasn't going to get anywhere with that." Blair thinks Jim believes in Harry: "I could see it in your face." How much do I love that Blair has gotten to the point where he can read complex thoughts in Jim's expression. Jim: "Right now, I don't know what to believe." He says odds are Harry is lying.
After another incomprehensible interview scene (during which it is now clear that the computerized voice guy is looking for people to help him with a bank heist), Harry sees his daughter being loaded into an ambulance. Hmmm, surely the fact that the last line Jim said is "let's see if we can beat him at his own game" has nothing to do with this! Harry goes to the hospital and sneaks into Lindsay's room, touches her hair, and calls her "sunshine" (as the audience all gets flashbacks of Jim over Blair's hospital bed [and vice versa]) whereupon Jim bursts out from behind a camera and holds Harry at gunpoint. Lindsay sits up. You're on Candid Camera!
As Jim leads CD out he gets a call from Simon--another bank has just been robbed, Harry's MO. Jim: "It can't be Harry because he's with us!" Jim sends Blair to drive Lindsay home while he and Harry go off on the trail of the robber in the truck. They came in separate cars?
While Jim and Harry talk bank robbery, Blair stays at Lindsay's (even though Jim told him where to meet up with him and Harry) and does his usual earnest-caring-big-eyed-kind-to-children chat-up of the single mom. Oh, Blair. He wants so desperately to have a family that he's always sort of inserting himself into the ready-made dad role in various broken homes, but his tragic inability to commit (slash undeclared prior commitment) ensures he'll always abandon them just as did his father before him! Blair and Lindsay have a conversation about fathers, with Lindsay saying she felt something of her father's childhood affection for her when he called her "sunshine" but she doesn't believe he can change. Blair brightly says "There's still plenty of time, right?" and then immediately hates himself for it. He apologizes, and Lindsay doesn't know what he's so upset about. Blair haltingly reveals that Harry's dying. Lindsay suggests, reasonably, that Harry may have been lying when he told them that, but Blair, grand high authority on honesty that he is, disagrees. He tells Lindsay it's not a chance he would take, getting all afterschool special about how he never knew his father. I love it.
Jim and Harry get their own precious moment when they're staking out some C4 plant or something (Harry is still cuffed) and Jim asks Harry if his bank robbery run was "worth it." Harry says he finally realized it wasn't, and Jim cynically suggests, "Let me guess. It was about the time you went to see your doctor last." Harry, to his credit, admits to that. He despairs a bit about missing the chance to be Lindsay's father. Jim says "You never stop being a parent." What would you know, Jim? Seriously, I want to know where that came from.
A guy comes out of the plant and Jim goes up to greet him. Guy is all friendly but then suddenly runs away. Jim chases him, catches him, and brings him back to the truck. Jim expressed pleased surprise that Harry didn't take the opportunity to run away, and adds, "I think I'm going to need your handcuffs." Heh, that's kinda badass.
On the way to the station, Jim brings Harry by Lindsay's. Blair immediately pulls Jim into the hall with an "I gotta talk to you," leaving a nonplussed Lindsay and child alone with Criminal Dad.
You remember, we have that thing. You know, the thing? The... thing.
Blair explains to Jim apologetically that he accidentally told Lindsay about Harry dying, and he figures they need a moment alone. I like how now they trust Harry completely and absolutely, and they don't care whether or not Lindsay feels comfortable with this arrangement.
At the station Jim tells Simon he got more info out of the guy he captured but Simon says it doesn't matter, as the Feds are on the case now, which is always the worst news ever on this or any cop show. Jim heads back to Lindsay's and smells gas, again! He runs inside and finds a plainclothes officer unconscious on the floor. He checks his pulse briefly and continues looking around. I think that's just to highlight the contrast when he sees Blair, drops to his knees, and immediately begins crying "Chief, Chief!" and trying to wake him with little slaps on the face.
Oh, no, not again! SUNSHINE!
As Blair snaps awake suddenly, Lindsay enters from... somewhere... and panics: she can't find her baby!
Jim and Simon meet with the Fed on the case, all confused, "Why would a man kidnap his own grandson?" Uh... why not? I mean, that's really the most logical explanation and I'm kind of hoping at this point that it's true and Jim and Blair's automatic faith in the man is proved wrong and we learn that even people who have or claim to have cancer can be bad, but there's still time for plenty of twists. Rafe comes in to call Jim to the phone. After talking briefly Jim leaves, telling Rafe he's going on a job interview.
Incomprehensible robot voice guy interviews Jim! Of course his standing-in-the-dark disguise is no match for Jim's vision, and when his eyes adjust to the dark, Jim sees it's Harry.
Back at the station Jim steps off the hallway and finds Blair. He takes him by the arm, walks real close, looks around shiftily, and then reveals that he just got recruited as a getaway driver for the next bank heist.
Sometimes I really wonder what their co-workers must think of them.
Jim figures (correctly, as it turns out) that the copycat guy stole the baby in order to force Harry to help him run the next job. Jim plans to go along with it, not telling anyone because the Feds would never allow it, and tells Blair, "I'll need your help on this one." Blair nods: "Just let me know what I gotta do."
There is a bank heist, and Jim is indeed the getaway driver. (Sorry, that's all the detail I do on action sequences.) Jim drops the different participants off at prearranged dropoff points; just after he drives away, each criminal is surrounded by police. So what was Blair's role, arranging that? Harry and the copycat guy have a showdown in a warehouse where Harry gets shot and Jim arrives in the nick of time to shoot the real bad guy. The cutest thing about the scene is that the baby is there and when Jim goes to pick him up, he coos, "Hi, sweetheart!"
Aww, Jim'll be a great dad to Blair's babies.
In the wrap-up, Jim, Blair, and Simon hang around in Harry's hospital room and Harry and Lindsay bond over the baby.
Bottom Line: For the second-to-last episode of the entire series, it would have been nice to see more major character stuff, but that's my complaint about every episode. I should just face that this is not really a character development show. We did get some conversation about fathers, which is actually kind of a big-ish theme of the show, so that was nice. All in all, a solid episode adhering to standard Sentinel formula.
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4x8 The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg
Well, here we are: the final episode. Look, listen, I'm not too good at emotional stuff, but you and I, Reader, we've been through a lot together over these last four seasons, and I--well, I don't know how I would have dealt with this Sentinel thing without you. And I... well... oh, you know. Let's just get to the recap.
Act I: Revelation
Over a reverent theme, we pan in through the loft window where Blair is typing the following (according to his voiceover and the snatch we see on the screen):
Humanity has long dug into its past in the hope that it will shed light on its future. Perhaps what this reveals is that it is the best of ourselves that will survive and lead us through the next millennium. Watching our every step will be our tribal protectors, The Sentinels, and their insight will further illuminate the spiritual connection of all things.
Caps his. The video isn't quite clear enough for me to make out the rest of the text on the screen; I can only catch enough of what's written above the final paragraph to verify that it is more or less gibberish:
...need to allow us that inner glimpse which... integral part of the new the millennium [sic]. Perhaps... we will then grasp a better understanding of... more like humans and less like the primitive monkey.... which was become our legacy.
Not so easy, is it?
With flourish and gusto (and some unnecessary Powerpoint-esque sound effects from the bored foley guy), he types, "THE END." Just a killer ending for your academic opus there, Perrault. Incidentally, I have it on good authority that Blair's is the first doctoral thesis to be set "once upon a time, in a faraway land..."
Intercut scenes of hands putting together a rifle with Blair formatting his title page. Suddenly someone grabs Blair around the neck from behind! He gasps! "Sweetheart!" It's just Naomi, giving him a hug. She emailed him to say she'd be by, but he didn't see; he turned off the phone (oh, dial-up!) to finish his thesis. She's excited that he's done, even though he stresses that it's just a draft, and asks to read it. Blair emphatically refuses, insisting it's "not good enough," and "I want you to be really proud." He takes off to meet Jim. Naomi asks if it will be dangerous, and Blair reminds her, "I'm just an observer, remember?" Someone truly on the ball might wonder what he's observing if he's already got a complete draft of his paper done, but whatever.
When Blair is gone, Naomi calls up an editor ex, Sid, and tells him she's promised not to read her son's thesis, but that's no reason a complete stranger to Blair shouldn't read it and offer constructive criticism! Oh, Naomi. I know a lot of fans dislike her for this, but she really does have Blair's interests at heart, as wrong-headedly as she goes about this. After all, the only reason he offers for not letting her read the thing is that he doesn't think it's good, and as she says to Blair, somewhat intriguingly, "You've always been your own worst critic." In hindsight it's clear that Blair should have given her some version of the truth--that he's promised to let the subject read it first as there could be privacy concerns--but what do you want, he was cornered. I also get the feeling Naomi's going out of her way to interfere positively in his life in any way that occurs to her because she feels guilty for not being there for him in the past. Not that I think she was in any way a neglectful parent--I'm sure she and Blair were quite close as he grew up--but even the most attentive working mothers can have that kind of guilt, and Blair is always off in the path of bullets now, and she may feel that by making sure his academic career's on track she can steer him away from that.
Speaking of bullets, the rifleman whose hands we saw now has his sights trained on a strike mob down at the docks. Blair arrives late to meet up with Jim and Megan, who exposit that they're here to provide security to the union leader. He's kind of a frattish jackass (Jim dryly calls him "a prince") named Bartley. He anti-endears himself to Megan by immediately asking "Got any more babes on this detail?" He calls Blair a hippie and tell him to stay off the TV coverage, "unless you want to shave your legs." Blair gives him a big insincere mimed laugh which appears to be the gestural equivalent of a rimshot. Jim looks thoroughly unamused and grits thinly, "Could we do this?" Jim doesn't like when people insinuate his boy looks like a girl! A hairy girl!
Bartley prepares to speak to the assembled crowd, but just in time Jim sees the rifleman and shoots out his sight. Sentinel aim! Megan hussles Bartley into a van as things get chaotic. We cut to later in Simon's office with Simon telling all the named officers except Rafe, "We're dealing with our old friend Klaus Zeller, aka the The Iceman." Huh, I thought he looked vaguely familiar, but I didn't expect a callback to a previous episode! Not that the backstory is remotely relevant. Simon fills us in that after Jim--"Ahem!" Blair coughs--Jim and Blair caught him, he broke out of prison. Simon warns, "He has a nasty habit of targeting his pursuers. Jim."
Rafe comes in and calls Blair out to the phone. Blair answers out in the hall and it's Sid, offering him a book deal: "The Sentinel is going to be the next Celestine Prophecy." I'd never heard of that, but apparently it's a huge bestseller about some guy who uncovers ancient manuscripts which lead to spiritual enlightenment--where? Oh yes, in the jungles of Peru. Blair just stands there, broken, for a moment, and then covers his face with his hand. "What did she do?" "She emailed me your thesis." Why did Blair write his thesis like a bestseller, anyway?
Nononononono...
Blair stutteringly and intensely tells Sid not to publish it, not to show it to anybody, to just destroy it, it was never meant to be seen. "That's all I have to say about it, thank you, goodbye." He hangs up as Megan and Jim come over, Megan wearing cunning eyeglasses, and ask him what's up. Blair says it was his mom. "How is Naomi?" asks Jim pleasantly. Aw, it's nice that he and Blair's mom get along. Blair, with a forced smile: "Just fine, until I get ahold of her."
Zeller orders a special gun to be built.
When Blair and Jim come home Naomi is in the apartment, on the phone with Sid. She passes off the phone to Blair and goes to accept a genuinely friendly greeting from Jim. She hugs him twice, because he's been working out. Okay, now it's getting a little creepy.
His lips say "Naomi, hi!" but his eyes say "Sandburg, help!"
"Did you know my son is brilliant?" Naomi brags. "He works pretty hard at keeping that from me, Naomi," says Jim, earning a laugh a swat. She's giving him a taste of the stew she's making when Blair comes back and asks to talk to Naomi confidentially. Jim says he'll be upstairs. "Confidentially," Blair repeats meaningfully, and Jim, looking a little hurt that there's something Blair can't say in front of him, agrees.
Next we see him sitting on the couch wearing headphones as Naomi and Blair talk in Blair's room. Blair accuses Naomi of not listening to him, and she says, "I'm listening with my heart," and even though she doesn't seem to understand why Blair is mad, she apologizes. Blair tells her, "there's stuff in there that could get me in a lot of serious trouble." "What kind of trouble?" "I can't tell you that. It's between me and Jim." I think he speaks of country matters. Blair tells Naomi not to do anything else. Naomi thinks. "Well, suppose that I--" Blair cuts her off by waving his hands and saying serenely, "Nnnooo."
Day. Jim and Blair head out to the truck doing a Vaudeville routine about Bartley:
BLAIR: You know what's funny about him leading the dockworkers is?
JIM: No, why don't you hum a few bars.
BLAIR: He's more like a "short"-shoreman!
JIM: Ohh, a "short"-shoreman...
You should talk, Blair, he's your height at least. As they get into the truck, they're mobbed by reporters. "Can you tell us why you chose to reveal your abilities at this time?" "How will the publication of Mr. Sandburg's manuscript affect your work with the polcie department?" Dumbfounded, Jim repeats, "My abilities...?" and turns to Blair, shocked and betrayed. "Chief, tell me you didn't--!"
Betrayed!
"I didn't do anything," cries Blair, wracked with horror and misery. "Let's hear from the Sentinel himself!" one of the reporters nails in the coffin. Jim insists he doesn't know anything and rolls up the windows, gearing up the truck. "Jim, I can explain," says Blair, but Jim says, barely controlled, "Chief, do not say anything right now." What? No, I'm okay. This color hurts my eyes, is all.
Act II: Reaction
Jim and Blair walk down the docks together silently, having evaded the reporters, I guess. Blair: "Why aren't you saying anything?" It seems they've already hashed out the facts, because Jim responds, "There's nothing to say, Chief. It's all been said. It's out. It's over. There's no going back."
Even on the Walk of Eternal Sadness, they can't help touching arms.
Jim continues, "I just thought we had an agreement that I was going to read your thesis first." Blair reminds Jim that he didn't do this and that he was planning on changing names to protect the innocent, but "I hadn't figured a way to do that without compromising the documentation!" You know, I'm pretty sure the documentation is just Blair's chickenscratch on the back of various napkins.
Jim insinuates that Blair knows more than he's letting on, which Blair of course finds offensive. "How long have we known each other that you think that's what I'm about?" Jim asks why he didn't mention this earlier. Personally, I kind of wondered myself why Blair didn't at least warn Jim that this might be an issue--he did kind of have a right to be included on that "confidential" conversation with Naomi--but I think Blair was scared that, you know, this might happen. Blair explains, "I thought it was over. My mom was doing what she thought was right. She didn't know what it was about." A pretty apt summing-up of Naomi's role there, much more concise than mine. Jim asks if the thesis was just lying around, then, and Blair snaps, "Don't try to run some interrogation on me, you're not going to find some weak spot in me! I'm not a perp! I'm your friend!" Jim gives him an insincere pat on the shoulder and tells him sarcastically that this is a great opportunity and he should go for it, and walks off.
Simon, Megan, and Jim meet with Bartley while Blair hangs around in the background on his cell. Bartley refuses to be protected, insisting that the deal he's making for the union workers needs to go through. He offers himself up as bait to draw out the assassin. Simon: "It's not our policy to endanger the people we're trying to protect." COULD HAVE FOOLED ME. Just as they are deciding, of course, to go through with it, Blair pokes his head in the inner circle sheepishly: "I think there's something you should know, I tried to put a stop to it, but, uh... the noon news is going to run a story about Jim and me." Simon looks at Jim, who turns and walks off. Simon, gently but firmly: "What is this all about, Sandburg?"
Cut to a reporter who recites the exact opening credits monologue all the way through. The newscast plays in the gun shop as Zeller looks over his masterpiece gun.
Blair meets with some university people. "I know this situation with my thesis has to be really embarrassing for the university," he begins to apologize, but no, they think it's great! Uh... huh. You would think they would at least be confused and dismayed at the academic lightweightness of his bestseller-style thesis, but no. They call in the others, some reporters and Sid and an apologetic Naomi. It's just an increasing parade of ridiculousness as Sid offers Blair a million dollars and talks about movie rights, and a reporter informs Blair that the Nobel committee is considering his research for the science prize. At this point you will be fooled into thinking this is a dream, but you are wrong.
Also, you just won the lottery and the gold medal for competitive sexual intercourse. How do you feel?
Squeezing in his writing between adventures, Blair has managed to produce a document which is simultaneously a viable bestseller and Nobel-quality scholarship. And of course it's going to be made into a movie just like Blair said. It is Blair's exact best daydream gone horribly horribly wrong. A reporter asks Blair for a comment, but after ascertaining he's not on live TV, Blair just leaves. I wonder what he would have done at this point if it had been live.
At the station Brown and Rafe crack jokes about Jim, asking him to use his senses to pick up gossip and to wear a superhero costume. Taggart asks Jim when he'll have a sense of humor about this, which I think is a little unwarranted, considering that it's so soon, and anyway, what was he supposed to say? Jim already did riposte pretty wittily to the guys. I his tone betrayed his extreme weariness. Jim tries to get to work as Blair comes out, and the guys start ribbing him. Rafe mentions the Nobel prize, and everyone starts bowing and crying, "We're not worthy!" Poor Blair and Jim. Blair runs off and Simon comes out to get everyone back to work. "The official line is this is not true. There is absolutely no proof!" He goes over to Jim to quietly ask if that's really what the official line should be. Can they deny it? Jim doesn't think so: "There's documented evidence. It's all written down." Damn Blair and his magic truth pen! Jim tells Simon he's already risked too much for Jim and it's his own problem. "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to do the only thing I know how to do, Captain. I'm going to do my job." Simon nods, and Jim pats his shoulder with grateful affection.
Hanging out with his protection in his office, Bartley asks Jim about his Sentinel senses. Jim snits, "Ask Sandburg. He's the expert." Cut to Blair walking down in the street with Megan, complaining that Jim doesn't trust him anymore, and meanwhile the advance is up to three million. He echoes my words from earlier (I should really write these after a complete viewing of the episode), "It's like my best dream--but also my worst nightmare." Megan says, "It's an extraordinary accomplishment, but I hate to see what it's doing to you and Jim." Me-gan is-a sla-sher. She very sagely advises him to do what he knows is right so that his and Jim's consciences will both be clear.
Upstairs, Jim cynicals that the reporters outsider are probably just waiting for someone to shoot Bartley so they get a prizewinning photograph. It's kind of cool to see Jim's attitudes about media from the A plot informing and being informed by the B plot here. Blair and Megan arrive just as Jim is heading out. Simon: "What are you doing? Go with him, Sandburg!" Blair: "He doesn't want me with him." Oh, just pump Blair's exquisite suffering into my veins already. Simon: "I need you with him." Si-mon is-a sla-sher!
Simon tells Blair to "help him focus," so outside with Jim Blair starts telling Jim to isolate sounds. Jim: "I know what to do, Chief, all right? I know the drill. You don't have to quote me chapter and verse. Why don't you save that for your interviews?" Ohhh, Jim, so harsh and so eloquent. Jim hears the rifle being put together and loaded, and he tries to track the sound, but he has a hard time with all the clicking-equipment sounds of the reporters putting together their cameras and so forth. He wanders away, looking for Zeller, but is mobbed by reporters who pepper him with questions and flash bulbs in his poor blinking face. Blair sees what's going on and pushes over to Jim's rescue.
Back! Back, you fiends!
Act III: Retreat
Later in Bartler's office, a very much alive Bartley examines the dummy with a bullet hole in his head. Oh, phew, aren't you glad that charming dude is still around? They're going to pretend he's dead while he waits at a safehouse, but he warns them they have 24 hours before he goes ahead and does his deal thingy regardless.
Out in front of the station, Megan complains about all the evidence they have to go through as Jim and Blair send each other furtive little hurt looks. Megan: "It might go quicker if you two would talk to each other." Jim insists there's nothing to say, but then demands to know how Blair intended to keep Jim's identity a secret and maintain the validity of his research. "You couldn't have! You knew that! But you went ahead and wrote it down anyway!" Blair: "If I was going to help you understand your abilities, I had to chart your development in a scientific manner and you know that, man!" I still don't know what the problem is. Couldn't Blair refer to Jim as "J.E."? I mean... I don't know all the details, myself, but I know that protecting the identities of case study subjects isn't exactly novel territory in the social sciences. Anyway, it's momentarily forgotten as Jim zooms in on a robbery in progress across the street. He and Megan ambush the thief as he leaves the jewelry store; he recognizes Jim and starts jabbering about how neat it is to be taken down by the Sentinel himself. Jim is so not amused.
Loft. Jim paces. Naomi comes up and gives him some tea, as we pan out we see Blair is standing right there, off behind Jim, watching expressionlessly. Naomi feels terrible. "I know you were just trying to help Blair," Jim assures her, resigned. She begs the boys not to let this tear apart their friendship. Jim says "Things happen. People change," which, ohhh, ouch. He rends all our hearts as he declares plainly, "I can't take this attention. That's not me. I just want to go back to the way things were," which I interpret to mean before the secret got out, but Blair interprets to mean before he had his senses, and Jim goes with it. "There's got to be some way to let them go dormant. Some meditation you can give me," Jim suggests, looking at Naomi, but of course meaning Blair, and Blair responds, saying, "That's not who you are." Jim never reacts well to being told who he is, and this is no different. He finally turns to face Blair.
Fight!
Jim complains that people see him as a goofy comic book hero now. He just wants to "[be] a good cop and live a simple life." Oh, he does, he does, poor thing. He leaves with the parting shot, "Your research is done, Chief. Why don't you let it go?" Blair looks at the closed door where Jim used to be, then looks to his mother.
Jim arrives in Simon's office to see the tail end of Simon apologetically backpedalling with his boss. "He thinks I kept the Sentinel thing from him," Simon explains to Jim, who says, "Well, captain, in actuality, you did." Ha! Simon: "You're not helping." He gloom and dooms that he has no idea what to put in his report, that IA will get involved and all of the cases Jim has worked on will be up for enquiry. Jim requests to "go back to way things were... before Sandburg. When I worked alone." Ohhhh SNAP. Surprised, Simon asks if Jim's talked to Blair, and Jim says it's not his call, beginning to panic: "I want to go back to being a cop, just a regular cop, and with this Sentinel thing hanging over us, it's always right there and I, and I'm tired of it! I just want out." Simon, sadly: "Maybe it's for the best." Noooooo Simon! Not you too!
What I do find intriguing about Jim's little outburst there is that phrase, "it's always there." I think it's more than the project that's always hanging over him when he's with Blair.
But the project itself has been bothering him increasingly as it nears completion. The thesis/observation project is of course the ostensible reason that Blair and Jim do anything together, but Jim has come to really love Blair, while he's still at best ambivalent about his abilities. The only way for their relationship to move forward is in a post-Sentinel-project state, with both of them admitting that they don't stay together for the project but because they simply want to be together; unfortunately, it seems that the publicity which forces Jim's hand has come at a time when he is not comfortable doing that, and he still thinks that renouncing his abilities, or finishing the project, necessarily means the end of his partnership with Blair.
So is that what Blair intended to wait for? Really, I'm not sure Blair ever did really believe he could move forward with his project. I think he wrote it for his own satisfaction, just so that it was out of him. I think he always had in his mind, at least from Night Shift, that he might very well end up destroying it. But he needed to see it realized before he gave it up.
Right. Now I've dwelt on that as long as I can, and we really must move on. Are you ready?
Simon gets up to show Jim a photograph of the night Bartley was shot at--Jim was inches from Zeller when the paparazzi mobbed him. Speaking of Zeller, let's watch a bullet sailing from a rooftop, through the sky, through the window, through Simon's gut, through the wall, through Megan's shoulder, and into the doorway, narrowly missing Blair's head. Close-up on Simon's gasping face as the audience cries out with a collective "Holy crap!" Zeller smiles to himself over his rifle. Jim rushes to Simon and Blair rushes to Megan, who whispers a pathetic, "Sandy...!"
Act IV: Redemption
Jim and Blair stand and stare mournfully into the window of Simon's ICU roomlet and finally have a conversation.
BLAIR: No one was expecting this.
JIM: I should have been. I'm so off my game, Chief, with all this media crap. That bullet was meant for me.
BLAIR: Don't... don't block out your senses. This is when you need them most. And I can help you.
JIM: Take a look at that man. That happened because of me. I don't think it's a good idea to be around me right now. The only chance I got of getting Zeller is if I'm on my own.
The guilt (both sides)! The separation-for-your-own-protection (which despite Jim's holding Blair at arm's length anyway, certainly seems genuine)! I love it!
What could be sadder than Jim's sad?
A: Blair's sad.
Zeller finds out that Bartley is still alive.
In the loft, Blair goes through his papers, and Naomi, all choked up, asks if Blair still loves her, even after all this. Awww!
Some lovely sunlight illuminating Blair's Adam's apple. Which, in this episode, deserves to be a credited co-star.
Blair hugs her and very gently and lovingly reassures her: "We are all doing what we thought was right. Right?" Naomi nods, swallowing back tears. Blair continues a nice little speech: "Nothing happens in this universe randomly. It's all for a reason. And that's part of what I was writing about! You know, I always wondered if my work would ever amount to anything, and if it's taught me one thing, it's taught me that Jim is right." Pretty much, yeah. "I got it all. I got it all right here. [gestures around--at the documents, and/or Naomi, and/or the loft.] The brass ring. And now I know what to do." He asks Naomi to call Sid, and she agrees and kisses his cheek.
Jim and Taggart get a tip about Zeller's gun-maker and head to his shop. They're just heading across the street, cocking their guns badassly (well, Jim is), when the store explodes!!
Back at the station, they theorize about What This Means, when Rafe calls, "Hey, guys, Sandburg's on TV! Giving some kind of press conference!" We see Blair approach a podium, Naomi and Sid standing by, and Jim's intense face as he stands about an inch away from a giant TV displaying Blair, who's adjusting his papers and saying, "Hi. Thank you all for coming. I just have a short speech prepared here..." Here it is, burthened with photos and meticulous stage directions:
[close-up on Blair's profile, his voice dull with tear-nearness] In our media-informed culture, a scientist receives validation by having his or her work published and after years of research there is great personal satisfaction when that goal is reached. [voice quavering] However, my desire to impress both my peers and the world at large drove me to an immoral and unethical act. [looking down at this papers] My thesis, The Sentinel, is, is a fraud. [pan close on Jim's disbelieving parted lips]While my paper does quote ancient source material, the documentation proving that James Ellison... [long pause]
... actually possesses hyper senses, is fraudulent. [quickly, wiping his nose] Looking back, I can say that it's a good piece of fiction. [profile again]
I apologize for this deception and my only hope is that I can be forgiven [Naomi, looking compassionate] for the pain that I've caused those that are close to me [Jim's back, watching; he turns away]. Thank you. [flees podium]
I knew this was coming, so I can't react to it with as much pure genuine wonder and adoration as I did when I first learned about it, but let's all just take a moment to reflect on what a lovely and touching plot development this is. For the entire run of the show Blair has been working for this goal, his thesis, and when he finally accomplishes it after more than three years of work, and we learn that it is this unbelievably (really) magnificent achievement of literary and scientific value, he sacrifices it all--for Jim. I know I make a big deal about how every little shoulder-touch means they want to bone each other and I guess that probably cheapens this, but, and I am having a fleeting moment of seriousness here, whether you believe their relationship is sexual in nature or not, you have to admire the bond of love between them. Here we have the proof that it's unbreakably strong, surpassingly important, and entirely unselfish. For me, the depth of that bond is the perpetually-surprising quality which takes this lame semi-supernatural cop show with problematic plots and makes it something more, something worth devoting time and thought and creative energy to.
That and Blair's mouth.
Okay, I think I lost the strand of seriousness somewhere, there.
As Blair leaves the room, he barely seems to register the chancellor running after him, crying, "You've embarrassed this university for the last time! I want your office cleared out by Friday!" Well, yes.
Bartley refuses to stay in the safehouse; as Zeller has apparently died in the explosion, that's good enough for him, and he's ready to have his press conference and rally. Radio news reports on the rally, and we see Zeller listening. Oh, yawn, of course. So not the right place for this act break.
Act V: Resolution
In the hospital, Blair's talking to a doctor as Jim enters, and our boys meet up in the hall. Blair tells Jim Simon and Megan will be okay. Even in the finale, they didn't want to kill either of them off. Well, I'm okay with that. Blair heard they got Zeller, and Jim shrugs it off, not ready to commit one way or another on that. Pause.
JIM: I saw your press conference.
BLAIR [looks up briefly, then feigns casualness ineffectively]: Oh, yeah, you saw that? [shrugs and pauses in shrugged state] It's just a book.
JIM: It was your life.
BLAIR: Yeah, it was.
BLAIR: You know, you were right, I mean... I don't know what I was expecting to do with it. And, uh... I mean, where do I get off following you around for three years pretending I was a cop, right?
JIM: This self-deprecation don't suit you, you know. You might have been just an observer, but you're the best cop I've ever met. [Blair looks up and blinks] And you're the best partner I could have ever asked for.
JIM: You've been a great friend, and you've pulled me through some pretty weird stuff.
BLAIR [swallowing]: Thanks.
[Pause; Jim looks away, and then back to Blair, opens his mouth, knits his brow]
JIM: Are you ready to get busy?
ME: [coughs violently]
Our happily reunited Jim and Blair hang around the department with the rest of the non-critically-injured guys, making fun of Bartley, who's taken over Simon's office to arrange his press conference. Suddenly Zeller bursts in and starts shooting the place up, crying, "I want Bartley! I want Bartley!" Does it reflect poorly on me or the show that at this point in the episode I have absolutely no idea why? Jim throws down Bartley, and Blair heroically rescues Taggart. It looks like Rafe is shot several times in the general area of the brains, and I'm not too broken up about it, but we see later that he's alive and conscious, albeit with blood dripping down his face. Jim manages to get a round off into Zeller's gut from the other side of one of those large windows between the bullpen and the hall. He's just begun to relax when he Sentinel-hears the clicking of the gun reloading and realizes Zeller's not dead--just lying on the floor with bullets in his Kevlar. Jim ducks in the nick of time, but takes a bullet in the leg.
Jim manages to trail Zeller to the roof anyway, and sees him escape over the side on a rope. While he's crouching behind some kind of obstruction trying to decide what to do, Blair joins him, and we get a nice final action-togetherness moment as Blair helps him up and, supporting each other, they make it to the edge of the roof.
I like to think they'd have done this anyway even if Jim's leg wasn't shot.
They peer down at the escaping Zeller. "Do we help him up or push him over?" Blair wonders. Generally the answer to that question on this show is "help him up," but Zeller answers it for them by pulling out his guns and shooting (they duck) and then promptly falling several stories to the ground like a big stupid idiot. Jim and Blair poke their heads over and watch and make faces as he hits bottom.
United they huddle.
Fade over to Blair, looking pretty with his hair down and longer, perhaps, than ever, looking around the bullpen, wandering into Simon's empty office. Taggart asks him what's up, and Blair says he's taking a last look around: "I cleaned out my desk over at Rainier. I thought I'd do the same thing here. I'm a fraud, man. I don't think Simon's going to want me hanging around." On cue, Simon booms, "Sandburg, that is not your office!" He's being wheeled up by Rafe (bandaged); with them are Jim (with a cane), Megan (with her arm in a sling), Henri (unscathed), and Naomi, whom Blair is just as puzzled to see as we are. "I'd never miss this occasion, honey!" Simon says he understands Blair was fired from the university, and Jim tells Blair, "You're finished in this department, Chief," and I'm sure Blair thinks it's just lovely that his mother has come to support him while he's officially fired. "I-I kind of figured that," Blair stammers.
"As an observer," Jim amends, throwing Blair a detective's badge. Blair: "I don't deserve this!" Well, no. Simon says it's his provided he goes through police academy and firearms training. "And if you do, Detective Ellison is looking for a permanent, official partner." I'll bet. Jim ducks his head and limps over to Blair, who asks, "Yeah?" Jim just grins all broad. "What do you say?" "Say something, Sandy," says Megan. Blair says, "I'm still not cutting my hair."
"That's what you think," says Jim, pulling him into a headlock with his cane, holding his head and playing with his hair with his free hand. "They're gonna love you at the academy, huh? Captain, I'm gonna make a little Blairskin rug for you here." "What are you talking about! Ow!" Blair cries semi-incomprehensibly as we fade to green and "THE SENTINEL" for the last time.
Because this is how they say "I love you," folks.
Bottom Line: It's an emotionally draining episode but a great one, sending the boys through the ringer and ending on a high note. (The fact that the last words uttered in the show are essentially "Blairskin rug" is a little odd, but whatever!) The serieslong dissertation plot wraps up with a bang, and we get our fill of angst, sacrifice, affection, and good old friendly kidding-around between the guys. Speaking as someone whose typical reaction to episodes is "if only they had done this or this or this," I really don't think I could have asked for a more satisfying resolution. And so, much like the primitive monkey that is our legacy, Jim and Blair's purest love lives on forever to illuminate the spiritual connection of all things.