Episode Report Card Alex Richmond: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Training Day
By Alex Richmond | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.16.2003
We have another one of those awesome POV shots, bouncing between a satellite in space, through the atmosphere, onto the planet, and eventually landing on the surface in Tunisia. A truck jounces across a dirt road. The driver says, "Sandstorm in position." Agent copies Sandstorm. The Man explains to Jake that some terrorists "got their hands on an EMP." Jake says helpfully, "An electromagnetic pulse bomb?" No, an Emerson Lake and Palmer record. It could be reeeeally bad in the wring hands. Can you imagine the damage someone like P. Diddy could do with that? Shudder. Sandstorm says via radio that they only have half an hour of darkness left, and he wants to proceed. Agent says to go for it. We have a very Stormship Troopers-like action sequence, sans the giant bugs or Casper Van Dien. Storm storm, bomb bomb, kablooie kablooie. Then, a horrible moment of silence, broken only by the hiss of Sandstorm's radio. Agent calls for him, then again. Still nothing. We get anxious reaction shots from everyone in the room. Then Sandstorm comes back, saying he got the EMP, a little sand in his radio. Agent says, "Tell you what. Come home in one piece and I'll fix it myself." Jake is impressed. The Man says, "That's what real agents do."
Jake's apartment. The fake Hives play in the background ("Get Naked") as Jake pounds a nail into the wall, muttering, "That's what real agents do, Jake. In the real world you'd be dead, Jake." Then -- mee mee mee mee mee! -- he pounds the hammer really hard and makes a giant ding in the wall. Can I just tell you? I had dirty thoughts when I was typing "Jake," "pounds," and "nail." Yup. There's all these boxes around, and no more Turbonegro posters hanging up. Hey -- this is a new apartment! What in the White Stripes? Is Jake living alone now? What happened to his roomie, Grunge Slacker? Did he not test well with UPN audiences?
The phone rings, and Jake answers it. The TV is on, with a snowy, staticky screen. Sarah's on the phone, with a stupid computer question: "Where's my C drive?" Oh, boy. Jake does not say, "Duh," but rather, "It's in your computer." Control-function-8. Sarah finds it, then says she misses him and wants to take him to lunch to "catch up." Jake is all, "You do? Yeah, sure!"
There's a knock on his door, and kablammo, it's Dr. Thora, looking all cute and demure in her glasses and nice black coat. She didn't mean to interrupt, and she brought him a desk lamp. A desk lamp of looove. You know, when I want to let someone know how much I really care, flowers or wine just don't cut it. It's lamps or nothing. Jake just stares at her blankly as she explains that she was just in the neighborhood, well, not really, ha ha, here's a lamp! Jake says that's really nice of her, and would she like to come in? Maybe a glass of water? She says yeah, then he remembers that all his glasses are packed away. He hunts for one, and with his hands full of laundry, he complains to her that he gets home and all his stuff is packed up in boxes, and his roomie is transferred out of the country (waah, Grunge Slacker!), and he's moved above Luigi's Deli for security purposes. He takes a deep breath. "You smell that? I do. Twenty-four hours a day." Dr. Thora nods and says she thinks he's handling things pretty well. Jake doesn't agree. He saw the way they were looking at him the other day. He doesn't know if he's cut out to be a spy. Dr. Thora takes a step toward him with a deadly serious look in her eye. "Do you know what will happen to you if you don't make it?" Jake looks a little worried. Dr. Thora won't get her Nobel prize, is what. And she really wants that -- she wants the medal, she wants the fame, and she wants the money. So Jake had better adjust his attitude, or she's "going to have to kick [his] nano-bot butt." Jake smiles and laughs, and Dr. Thora and every other woman with a pulse melts. Dr. Thora notices that his TV is all snowy. Jake says yeah, he's been waiting for the cable guy to come. She points out that he can fix it himself, to the tune of "mee mee mee mee mee!" He asks if that wouldn't be illegal. It's not like he's unscrambling porn channels. Dr. Thora says it should be illegal for the cable companies to make you wait around all day and not show up. Big fat word to that. And ooh, look, the cable box is set to channel 69. What a wonderful number, when your mind is in the gutter. Jake concentrates, then -- mee mee mee mee mee! The picture clears and there's an old black-and-white movie on. Jake asks if Dr. Thora wants to hang out and watch a little TV. She happily accepts. There's a super-cute scene of them hanging around on the couch, watching a movie, and Dr. Thora slowly relaxing down into the cushions next to Jake. Aww! And move over, honey.
We pan by the Washington Monument, then the NSA shield, then Jake and The Man going through various forms of security clearances in a stainless steel-lined sleek building -- the bowels of the NSA, I presume. The Man takes his gun. Jake is still without one, but he says geekily that as long as he's with the Man, he's protected. The Man exits through a sliding stainless steel door, which almost closes on Jake. Whoa! Better watch yourself, poindexter. The Man shows Jake the most secure vault in the NSA, behind three feet of steel and impenetrable to any blast. What about a blast of Jake's red-hot lovin'? Jake looks and just says, "Cool." Sigh. Jake is such a country mouse. It's adorable, though naiveté isn't a great selling point for a spy-in-training. Jake wonders about Agent Sandstorm, and whether he himself will get sent to an "exotic" faraway place like Tunisia. The Man wheels around and delivers a little speech to Jake: this is the NSA, where 46,000 people have been given "the awesome responsibility of keeping this country safe." Did he just say "awesome responsibility"? I'm flashing back to the last show I recapped that was on the UPN, Dead Last, which used the same phrase, but that responsibility was about seeing ghosts. I now suggest that any scripts that come into UPN from now on have the scripts closely read for that phrase, and that phrase then be eliminated from said scripts. It isn't good when you're echoing a phrase from a show that tanked. I mean, Dead Last was a live-action Scooby Doo, only without a dog or the word "zoicks!" The Man finishes with saying that no one working for the NSA really cares if Jake ever goes anywhere "exotic." Jake gulps, then says, "Right. Oh, of course." God, those lips.