Previously on Jake 2.0...wow, they keep repeating the very basic info. Jake Foley, affable IT guy, gets infected with nanites (a.k.a. nanotechnology) and is infused with super-strength and the ability to wirelessly connect with technology. WE KNOW. We WATCH the SHOW. And he has a crush on some blonde who couldn't possibly care less about him. There's a cute scientist lady, and a tough, fair female boss (whose name I'm changing this week, from Agent to Leader of the Pack -- a cool girl-group song, and she is the boss of them. She deserves a better nickname, she's cool) who places him at the center of a new covert ops team. Then, on his first undercover gig, he blows his cover to the blonde, who says it's "hilarious" that Jake is an undercover agent. Jake? Lose the blonde. She's no good for you.
Another cool POV shot opens the show. From a satellite orbiting the earth, we fall through the atmosphere and land in...the "Phillipines"? Is that near Philly? Gee, it's really a shame that a smart show has to spell the name of a country incorrectly. I guess they don't have spell check for krylons yet. Or maybe it's supposed to be a fictitious country that is in no way related to any actually countries, living or dead. Any real resemblance is only coincidental. Anyway, we're on Marinduqe Island. Two Filipino men in pale suits stand in front of a tough-looking black man in a leather jacket. He opens a metal briefcase to reveal a pack of Morely cigarettes (shout out to The X-Files!) and a tiny, key-sized mechanism. Turning around to face the suits, he begins his pitch. He wants a five-million-dollar down payment for some technology that will allow a person to blow up a particular target without arousing suspicion. In my experience, all someone needs to do that would be four commercial airplanes. Those worked pretty well in recent history. Why, only local law and security officers were dispatched to combat that attack. A tiny detonator, smaller than a cigarette pack, well, that's some second-level shit. Anyway, the whole shebang costs twenty million dollars. Not cheap. But little is effective, particularly when you don't want to draw attention to yourself, or mess with any timers or wires or anything. Speaking softly, the man in the black leather jacket takes the cigarette pack and walks about ten feet to an abandoned, rusted-out school bus. He places the pack inside and walks back over to the suits, explaining how effective this new detonator is. Then he presses the tiny mechanism and the bus blows up. Wow, he's only ten feet away and he doesn't even flinch! There isn't even any debris, just a massive bus-sized explosion about ten feet away from people. The suits hit the ground, but are unharmed. That's some well-contained exploding school bus for you. Must be something in the air over in those "Phillipines."
Credits. Jake's life just got reeeeal interesting.
Another POV satellite shot, through the atmosphere, and down to Canada. Hey, great, we can spell "Canada" correctly! USA! USA! up: The proper spelling of "Mexico." A female voice says over a radio that "Operation Canada Goose is complete." up: Operation Canadian Bacon. Delicious! Sizzling! Great at brunch! Kyle, a.k.a. The Man, stands by a stopped tractor trailer. Helicopters chop nearby, emergency lights flash, many men are hauled off in handcuffs. He sees Jake and asks how he knew that truck had all the guns in it. Oh, Jake interfaced with something. It's all wireless, you know. His Croatian is "pretty minimal," but he thought he heard the driver say something about his "mother's cheese gun." The Man goes, "Uh huh. So in the report you'll just say, 'his mother's gun.' Good work. Let's go." Yeah. Omit the cheese. Except in the case of a joke, or while cooking. So, we've learned that Jake is still goofy, but more confident in the field; effective, too. That's great.
Jake arrives home at his new apartment, just in time to collect his piled-up newspapers from his new nosey neighbor, Karen. She's all up in his business, like bugs on a windshield on a hot night driving through Florida. Splat. So, how was his vacation? Jake lamely says, "You know how those cruise ships are!" She says she thought he went to Yellowstone. He did! Via...Panama! Karen keeps asking questions like it's any of her damn business. Is she being deliberately obtuse? He's lying, yo. He's clearly not used to it, and yes, his lies are weak, but a more sensitive person would notice it and back the fuck up. Karen? You best be getting out of my Jake's face. She sees a butterfly bandage on his head and leans in even closer. "Were you in a fight?" Jake says something about how his carry-on shifted in flight, just like the airlines say it might. Karen's reply? "That's kind of big for a carry-on." Wow, Karen could be a recapper for TWoP; she's overly attentive and picks on every little detail. Good show! Jake finally escapes her, and ducks inside. See ya, Karen!
NSA offices. Jake calls Sarah and gets her machine. Tag, she's it. He's sorry he's missed her, he was on a cruise to Yellow...Panama. Yes, Yellow Panama, it's on the coast, kinda touristy. He didn't like it. Miss ya! BFF! Call me! Click. Post-hanging up, Jake says out loud, "That was lame!" The Man slips up behind him and says, "Cumbersome, maybe." But that's the life of an NSA agent. Always having to lie to one's loved ones. "Hazard of the job! Hope you like the single life, that's what most of us end up with." Or you could date internally. Like, Jake could date Dr. Thora, and The Man could date Leader of the Pack. Or, if I were a Ho!Yay type of person, I could suggest a match between Jake and The Man. Anyway.
War Room. Leader of the Pack is running though what went down in the "Phillipines." 100 kilos of compressed microsyntex was detonated. An amount the size of a nine-volt battery has a fragmentation pattern of a hundred yards. And yet, says the annoying recapper, the suits and the man in the black leather jacket were not a hundred yards away from that bus when it went kablooie. Leader of the Pack continues; microsyntex is on America's list of banned weapons. We have a list like that? Does it include commercial aircraft? Leader of the Pack knows all the players that we saw in the teaser. Carano, the man in the black leather jacket, and the pale-suited duo. Leader of the Pack sees this a chance to get all of them, the terrorists and the dealer. Jake says cheerfully, with the cutest smile, "Where do you want me on this? I do speak pretty fair español." I would love it if Jake's legendary proficiency with Spanish became a running gag, a la Mrs. Columbo on Columbo, or Indiana Jones's catchphrase, "I hate snakes!" Leader of the Pack and The Man both open their mouths and exchange looks like, oh, listen to the white boy go on about how he speaks the español. The Man says they want him on the corner of 4th and Mass. Jake is all, "Oh." Carano's daughter Theresa has a studio there, they'd like Jake to keep an eye on her. A giant picture of her flashes up on the War Room's screen -- wow, she's super-pretty! Jake is all, "Following a girl around for hours? It'll be just like college." Ew. He was kidding, but still. Ew. Stalkery. The Man says warningly, "Jake, there can't be any contact." Jake says, "Just like college!" Oh, god. Pathetic.
Woo hoo, rock music. Jake eats Twizzlers and sits in his car, rocking out and staking out Theresa, a.k.a. the Arms Dealer's Daughter. He locks in her apartment window via his rearview mirror and begins to give a blow-by-blow to the woman on the other end of the radio. Arms Dealer's Daughter is in a white tank top, painting something, he can't tell what, he can't see what it is, could be watercolors. The Woman On The Other End Of The Radio (a.k.a. TWOTOEOTR) is all, Jake? "Just watch her." Jake can do that. Jake could be a recapper for TWoP, too. But then, oh shit, here comes the meter maid, and Jake's meter has done gone all expired and shit. TWOTOEOTR says, "So what? Just do that nano-thing." He can't, it's mechanical. Oh, the limitations of nanites! Those adorable little things. Jake gets out of his car, and then we see that Arms Dealer's Daughter is grabbing her cute tan suede hobo purse and heading on out of her place. Perhaps a chance meeting is in the works! Jake only has bills in his wallet, and he doesn't suppose the meter maid makes change. The meter maid looks at him like she doesn't suppose Jake has brains in his head. He tries to make a dash to a store to get change, and then, kablooie, there's Arms Dealer's Daughter, feeding his meter like the cool chica she is. Jake, remembering The Man's orders to keep his distance and maintain no contact with Arms Dealer's Daughter, puts his head down and walks away, mumbling "thanks, good Samaritan!" She calls after him, "You're welcome!" Jake has a very un-spy-like attack of manners and walks back to her. He hands out a bill to pay her for her meter coins. She's all, this is a twenty. Jake figures the ticket would have been fifty, so she saved him thirty. She refuses to take his cash, but he says she could use it to buy some new paints. She's all, "How do you know I paint?" Jake thinks fast and says he sees it all over her alluring, tight white tank top. She says yeah, but mainly she does restorations. Jake finds that reeeally interesting. "Restorations are really important 'cause they make things like new, in a way." Brilliant. I bet she never looked at it like that before. She offers to show him her work. Yowsa!
Back at the NSA, TWOTOEOTR leaps up to find The Man. "I think we've got a problem."
Jake is all up inside Arms Dealer's Daughter's apartment, listening to her talk about "peeling back layers of dirt" to "reveal the artist's true intention." Jake is all, glarrh, a pretty girl is talking to me. She's really talking at the canvas, but whatever; this is closer than Jake got to any girl in college, or so he reminded us a million times. Well, twice. Then ADD is all, "What do you do?" Jake says he "restores computers." Well, repairs them. Back at the War Room, Leader of the Pack and The Man and TWOTOEOTR and Dr. Thora listen in to this little conversation and ponder who's trying to pick up whom. Dr. Thora is all, she's all over him! Meow, Dr. Thora. ADD thinks that "coming up with answers to problems is creative," and then tells Jake her name, Theresa Carano. Jake fumbles and says, "Alan Hergot." He comes from a long line of Hergots. ADD asks if he's always this nervous around women. Dr. Thora is all, "She's making him nervous!" Mareowr! Ffft. The soft, Portishead-y music starts up, and ADD says her dad pushed her into the art world, since he "didn't want [her] to be like the other women in her family, dependent on men." Wow, she's talking about her dad already! This should be the easiest spy job ever. Jake looks at all the paintings, then gets all kinds of flustered when he sees one of her, nude. A self-portrait. It's more modernist, not realistic, but the sight of all that skin is enough to make Jake even more nervous. "Look at the time! I totally forgot I have this meeting! I guess I better go." She's all, okay. He thanks her, and she says, "You know where to find me, Alan Hergot."
Back at the NSA, The Man chews out Jake. "She put money in my meter, I didn't want to seem rude!" Dr. Thora is all, "Uh-huh!" They argue, their voices tight and high. He's all, "What's that supposed to mean?" Dr. Thora says ADD's approach was "a little aggressive." Mee-YOW! He leans in and asks her if it's so difficult for her to believe that ADD might actually be interested in him. That's not it, Jake, you dimwit. Then Leader of the Pack walks up and reminds them that this is about a different kind of booming -- kaboom, not boom-boom-boom, let's go back to my room. She says that Carano is still missing, and the two suits have been spotted heading towards North America. Jake apologizes for screwing up. Leader of the Pack suggests that Jake get a painting, since ADD "likes him." Jake wouldn't want to "use her like that," unless if ordered to. Dr. Thora is all, "Go Alan!" Ffft fftt, weaowr.
Jake walks through the halls of the NSA with his dingy painting. Dr. Thora skips after him and teases him about having to talk to a girl for work. He brushes her off like a fly and says he's not used to lying to girls. Well, he'd better get used to it.
Bing-bong! He arrives at ADD's place with the painting. Her professional analysis hypnotizes Jake. She grabs his hand to encourage him to touch the thick brush strokes, and he has a tiny orgasm. She's all, why'd you pick this one? He likes the "tall, dense trees that look like you could get lost in them." She's all, "All right, take off your shirt!" What? Oh, he's going to help her restore the painting. She excuses herself to get brushes and paints, then calls for him to get some beers from the fridge. He does a quick scan of her caller ID box, then looks at her mail. From outside ADD's apartment, we see the man in the black leather jacket, staking out her place just like Jake did earlier. He talks on his cell phone: "Don't worry, Carano. We'll find out who he really is soon." Dun dun dun!!
Hey, it's The Church! Boy, "Under the Milky Way" is a hoary old song. It's as hoary as older episodes of Law & Order. It's one of the hoariest rock classics, even though it stands up well. Jake in his t-shirt and ADD in another tight white tank get to cleaning the canvas. She says, "Don't be afraid to really push." Dr. Thora, cattier than an animal shelter at the end of the month, is all, "I bet that's not the first time she's said that." I smell chicken, I smell liver. Meow Mix Meow Mix, you deliver. The Man is all, "This is going nowhere," but then Jake steers the conversation around to ADD's parents. Her dad travels a lot; her mom died when she was ten. Jake says all in one breath, "Oh I'm sorry, what does your dad do?" She says "importer/exporter," then confesses that he's an arms dealer. "It's not something I tell most people...you're not most people." He asks what that was like growing up, and she says her dad never missed "anything that mattered," like school plays. What about the kids who did miss their parents at school plays, because what your dad sold someone blew them to bits? Sorry, playing devil's advocate. Keep on playing footsie-round-the-canvas. She says her dad sent her these shoes recently. "Caracas has the best shoes." Leader of the Pack and The Man are all, Caracas, get on it right now! ADD says the step in their painting is to let the putty dry overnight -- which means Jake has to come back tomorrow. Jake is all, oh. Okay.
War Room. Leader of the Pack and The Man trace Carano's movements through South America. He's still way ahead of them. The Man is all, ready for your date tonight? Jake is all, it's not a date, we're just going to be painting. The Man tells him they know that ADD talks to her dad on the phone, and they need Jake to get that contact information for the NSA. Jake is all, gulp.
Jake knocks on ADD's door, and is stunned when she opens it wearing a slinky brown halter dress. Oof! She looks amazing, and Jake says so. "Are you allowed to paint in that?" Well, the putty has to dry for another day, so she made dinner and opened a bottle of wine instead. "I hope you don't mind that I tricked you." It doesn't look like he minds. They clink glasses, and she goes off to get "the chipotle sauce for dipping." He does a quick scan of the apartment, but she comes back with the sauce and says sternly, "I want you to be honest...is this too spicy?" He loves it. Then they slow-dance to some mellow Latin music. When he's holding her, he nano-scans her PDA and comes up with a phone number for "Papa." She takes her cheek off his and says "it's so cute" when he "scrunches up like that." Jake says, "I scrunch?" Yes, his forehead, when he's concentrating. Then they kiss. Oof!
War Room. Jake tells Leader of the Pack and The Man that ADD's dad called twice in the last nine hours, from San Salvador and Santa Ana. Leader of the Pack traces Carano to his hotel, and says, "When he moves, we move."
Eighteen hours later in San Salvador, Carano's on the move. We're there with the agents, and back in the War Room, the whole gang watches heat-sensor blips move on the big screen. Leader of the Pack wonders where the buyers are for the kaboom device. Jake looks thoroughly worried. The agents in San Salvador want to get Carano and the device right now. Leader of the Pack says to go for it. Then sounds of gunfire ring out in the War Room, and little heat-sensor blips stop moving and cease to be. TWOTOEOTR says, "That's a lot of bodies." The gunshots keep ringing out until the agent in San Salvador radios in. His team has sustained two injuries, three Colombians are dead, and Carano? He's dead too. Worried faces all around, none more so than Jake's.
Back in the lab, Dr. Thora and Jake argue like a married couple. He blames himself for Carano's death. She insists that he was just doing his job, and he had no control over the outcome. Jake says he delivered the information that led to the shoot-out. Then his cell phone rings. It's Arms Dealer's Daughter.
Back at ADD's place, he sits to her as she cries. She always knew something like this would happen. "He was shot eleven times. What kind of people would do that? I didn't even get to say goodbye!"
Leader of the Pack is all, "You went to see her? Without authorization?" Yes, he did. She's flying his body into the country so she can bury it to her mother. Leader of the Pack says she's sorry a girl lost her dad, but not sorry that a "dangerous arms dealer is dead. You shouldn't be either."
Jake types up his final report, with six years of backstory on Carano to go through. As he types on his laptop, things ADD said to him echo in his brain. "Are you always this nervous around women?" "My mom died when I was ten...my dad's an arms dealer." Jake hears her voice and types and types.
Morning. Jake has his final report for Leader of the Pack. She asks if this is everything. He says yeah, and asks permission to see ADD again. She grants him permission.
ADD's place. She welcomes Jake inside and presents him with the painting he brought, beautifully restored. He says she didn't have to do that, and she says she did. "It helped...helps. Working on this, and you, have been the only good things about the last few days." Jake blows his cover AGAIN. He says he's "not good," and not who she thinks he is. She's all, what? He wants her to know the truth. He's Jake Foley, an agent with the NSA. Since her dad was selling explosives to terrorists, Jake "used" ADD to get to her dad. She's all, "Are you joking?" "Our agents are the ones who killed him. I think you deserve better, and I couldn't live with myself if I didn't." She says, "I'm glad you can live with yourself now." He leaves. The man in the black leather jacket steps out of a corner in her apartment and asks if she's okay. ADD whips her silky brown hair off her face to reveal that it's dry of any tears, and has a smile. She says she's never been better -- "the NSA is out of the picture. Tell Soledad that they can take delivery tomorrow." Black Leather Jacket says, "You are good, Carano." She says, "It helps that men are the same everywhere. They always underestimate the woman." Ooh! She all deceived the NSA and shit.
A twin-engine plane lands on the tarmac. ADD, dressed in black, and a bunch of men in sober suits walk toward it. A wooden coffin is wheeled off. ADD looks appropriately sad, even though we all know by now that she's a big faker and is probably using a casket to smuggle in deadly weapons. Jake walks up behind her and is all, hey, I wanted to be here for you in your difficult time. She takes his hand in hers and, ever the actress, gives him a wan little smile. Then she walks towards the coffin, alone, alone. He says he knows her dad really died two years ago, in Belize. She does not say, "Oh, Be-leeze! That is such a half-truth." I also like to say, "That's un-be-weave-able." Jake says he now knows ADD was playing him from the moment she put coins in his meter, baby. We get sepia-toned flashbacks of all the smoldery glances she threw him as Jake recalls the shoes from Caracas, the PDA out in plain view. "Hey, it's a family business. You get millions running it, your father's enemies chase his ghost, and occasionally someone you hired to play your father's ghost gets shot. Eleven times, to be exact." She looks at him and smiles. "You're very good." She orders her sober-suited guys to kill Jake, and Jake asks The Man, skulking nearby in a jumpsuit and orange safety tape, for a little help. The Man and his crew out-draw the suits, who lay their weapons on the ground. But ADD has the explosive device, and tosses it at The Man and his crew, Jake nano-senses it, and tells The Man to run. There's a huge explosion, but The Man makes it and tells Jake to get ADD as he hangs back and shoots with the suits.
ADD takes off in a silver convertible. Jake runs after it -- mee mee mee mee mee -- and does a very Wonder-Woman-esque high jump into it as it speeds down the tarmac. He makes it into the back seat, and ADD pulls the car over so she can punch him. He takes each punch saying that he makes it a rule never to...then he hauls off and hits her, finishing with "do that." She slumps unconscious over the steering wheel.
NSA underground parking lot. Jake, holding the painting ADD restored, walks to his car. Dr. Thora skips after him like a bunny rabbit. Hey, Jake! Where ya going, what're ya doing, what's that big old painting? He says evidence cleared it, and he's taking it home as a reminder. Ehhh...a reminder of what, doc? A reminder that he can't trust people anymore. Not even himself. Dr. Thora is all, "What? Wait? For the mission, yeah, but you don't have to take that home with you. You just have to find moments with people that you do trust." He asks her where she's from. Bar Harbor, Maine. And him? Jake's from Akron, Ohio. She's all giddy. Yeah? What's in Akron? But their parking lot conversation fades out into Jake's VO of a letter he writes to Sarah, to tell her how he feels...how he really feels. He likes her. And not just as a friend. Then he puts down the pen and puts his chin on his fist, and looks so adorable I want to scream, "LEAVE THE BLONDE ALONE, JAKE!" Because she's not good enough for you.