The episode starts with the black-and-white John-Doe-O-Vision as our hero walks into his broker's office; cut to colour as said broker looks up from his fried-egg sandwich and says, "Fasten your seatbelts, because here he is!" I don't honestly know for sure if it's a fried-egg sandwich, but if I were a stockbroker sitting at my desk, that's what I would want to be eating. John responds, "I woke up this morning with a taste for pork bellies." Mr. Broker starts muttering about how commodities are a high risk. John sits down and starts to pontificate, and I'm not even smart enough to recap what his exact reason is for wanting to do some pork-belly speculating, but it does have something to do with the International Association of Icebergs announcing that G-72 is about to break right off. Mr. Broker asks the very pertinent "what does this have to do with pork bellies" question, to which John replies, "Just buy now -- 50,000 futures." Apparently, as John explains, the increased water temperature from the melting iceberg means more precipitation in Bolivia, which in turn means great revenues from pork bellies. Can someone dig up John Maynard Keynes from his grave and ask him what all this means for me? Thanks. Blah coffee, blah relationship to pork bellies, blah whopping profit blah. Mr. Broker is stunned. He's made enough of a commission in the last, oh, three minutes to put one of his kids through university. Still looking stunned, Mr. Broker shakes John's hand and says, "See you week." Ah, gloating -- geniuses really do it best. And our international man of mystery is off.
John Doe HQ. John Doe's phone rings, and Karen sighs, loudly because, well, the phone ringing interrupts whatever she was doing at that particular moment, which from the looks of things was putting a book on a shelf. She answers, "Doe's place." She then proceeds to have a conversation with a non-character named Colin about how they're still "good" on the Baltic room. Oh, wait, Karen wasn't actually working; she was "snooping around" John Doe's apartment to "find out what he's all about." Is it the mandate of every single show I recap that there be an annoying "assistant"? Why does he have an assistant, anyway -- he doesn't even have a real job? Right. She's "comic relief." Yes. I use those terms both sarcastically and lightly. Can I do that in one sentence? Any. Way. Karen waxes on about how Doe's got no "snapshots of friends or family." She pauses in her peasant blouse to muse, "No music, no DVD collection, ah, there's nothing personal here." Then she says, "Hey! Does that credit card thing really work?" With the phone tucked under her ear, Karen jumps over to a locked door, and breaks into the very room her employer has deemed off limits.
Of course, inside she finds John Doe's Secret Lair, resplendent in all its geek glory. There are maps, many many maps. There are charts detailing colour blindness. There are computers, monitors, and lamps, oh my. Karen is still talking to Non-Colin. She goes over and investigates a gerbil-cage-looking glass aquarium with a blue light. Of course, John walks in and says, "I thought we agreed this room was off limits." Then he fires her. Okay, he doesn't fire her. She abruptly cuts short her mesmerizing conversation with Colin and hangs up the phone. John says, "Not a great first week on the job, Karen." Okay, he needs an assistant, but he doesn't want her in the room that contains all of the stuff that she could be assisting him with? Of all the maps, charts and diagrams, it's the list of likes and dislikes that fascinates the kinder-brain of Karen. "Whoa," she says, "you write down things you like?" John explains that it's a memory device he finds useful. Still stunned by the chart (because spicy hot dogs and driving fast are so "shocking"), Karen whisper-says, "Yeah, well, most people don't have to remember, they just know." Karen remains just as stunned by his chart entitled, "Friends." No, Courtney Cox-Arquette is not at the top of list. John lists Karen Kawalski, Digger, and Frank Hayes as his "Friends." John tries to rush her out of the room once again, but Karen's not budging. Apparently, the "Friends" list was enough for her to think the room is all way too "psycho-killer freako" for her. John looks tortured. "Where did you come from exactly?" she asks. He looks over to the map of Horseshoe Island. Well, nothing gets past Karen; she rushes over to the map on the other side of the room. Wow, this woman is beyond annoying. She asks, "This is where you're from?" John responds, "I don't know. I have no idea how I got there." She bolts across the room as he tries, yet again, to get her out of there and off the topic. He says he doesn't want to talk about it. She says, and I quote, "Well, tough ta-tas." Yes. "Ta-tas" has now entered the everyday lexicon of the Fox Network -- shame on you.
Now, after about sixteen useless passes over the obvious, Karen finally gets to the incredibly long and drawn-out point: "Are you saying you have amnesia but seem to know everything about everything else?" Blah his mind, blah a computer, blah he's a fountain of knowledge blah. Then he throws out some crazy facts just to prove that he's a motor-brained genius, in case we didn't get it already. That's right. In case we'd never read a description of the show, watched an episode. or hell, ever heard of a character called Jason Bourne -- I mean "John Doe." Yawn. Karen calms down and asks about John's Sign. She says, "Does it hurt?" He says, "No. It was just there." Then John asks, "Karen, can I trust you with this?" Now, if this were a soap opera, of course within seconds John's secret would be broadcast over the local television network, causing a scandal and massive amounts of job loss. She says, "Um, yeah, sure." I don't know, but I'm not too convinced she's not going to blab everything to Non-Colin, the phone friend from a town called Contrived. Before they have time to further discuss John's very special situation, Karen bolts, claiming that she's got to get to art class. Oh great -- a peasant-blouse-wearing, secret-door-snooping hippie art major is now privy to the inner workings of John Doe's HQ? Someone had better alert the Pentagon.
Seacouver. Workers at a very muddy construction site uncover a steel drum, whose lid just magically lifts off like a peanut butter jar, revealing a bunch of human bones, miraculously preserved, and screaming, "Mystery!" Later that night, the police have now roped off the site and are doing basic crime-scene stuff. Frank snaps his fingers and walks over to Stu, who is staring into the barrel with a flashlight. Can he identify the body? Stu says, "No sign of clothing, fingerprints long dissolved." Frank snaps back, "Well, is there anything you can tell me or is it time to call John Edwards?" Stu responds, "Female. Based on the rate of decay, and the oxidation on the drum, I'd say she's been down here at least thirty years." Frank shakes his head and then says, "Hey, yo -- Bob the builder, what used to be here before this?" Because all construction workers love to be condescended to in the middle of the night, while working a job they're probably under time constraints to finish after just uncovering a thirty-year-old corpse. Is everyone on this show a wisecracking comedian? Bob The Builder says, "A parking lot, before that --" he shrugs his shoulders. So, we cut to a police clerk who looks it up in the computer and says that one Stephen Prescott owned a house there from 1960-1968. Frank mutters to Captain Jamie, "Probably pulled a John Wayne Gacy and buried her in the backyard." Then he asks the clerk to pull up Prescott's old driver's license so they can take a look at him. Did Seattle driver's licenses even have pictures in the 1960s? Both Frank and Captain Jamie are stunned -- the picture on the license from 1968? You got it -- our friendly neighbourhood amnesiac genius John Doe. In the words of Captain Jamie, "You've got to be kidding me." Word to that, sister.
Credits.
Police Station. John Doe stares into his own image on the screen. Captain Jamie quips, "Care to explain how you stayed looking so young all these years?" John responds, "I don't know -- maybe somebody hacked into the DMV and manipulated my photo after seeing the article in the newspaper." Why would they go to all that trouble? That's a logical question, right? Not to John Doe! He launches full-throttle into an explanation of how easy it would be to hack into the systems. I'm not going to go into the technical terms. But, in short, he hacks in, finds Captain Jamie's license, then replaces her picture with a picture of a cartoon character. She's nonplussed: "Cute." Pause. "Still doesn't answer the question: Who would be interested in setting you up for a thirty-four-year-old murder." Note: Captain Jamie is not on Doe's list of "Friends." Enter Frank. He adds, "Or some clown just picked your head shot randomly." Jamie: "Enemy? Disgruntled ex?" Apparently, Frank's done some real detective work; he's uncovered Prescott's ex-wife. Jamie looks quickly at the report he just dropped on her desk and adds, "Good. Let's see what she can tell us." John Doe gets up to leave with the detective, only Jamie stops him before he can catch up to Frank. He's directly involved in the case, so she doesn't want him on the case. Oh, and also, he's not a cop. Doe whines, "Someone's trying to set me up. I'm going to be out there either way."
Retirement Community. Cue Stereotypical Obstacle #1: The Infirm Incapable Of Speech. A nurse feeds Mrs. Ex-Prescott some applesauce as she explains that the woman hasn't said a word since her stroke five years ago. She adds, "I'm afraid your drive out here was a waste of time." Frank starts acting like a detective and asks, "Is there anything you can tell us about her ex-husband, Steven Prescott?" Cue Stereotypical Obstacle #2: The Obstinate Witness. The guys over at Law & Order run into this one all the time; when faced with the prospect of talking to the police, any suspect, witness, or person generally connected to the investigation becomes so bitchy and whiny that it warrants the patented "tough-love" talk from a detective. The nurse says, "I really don't think it's appropriate for me to discuss my patient's personal lives." Frank insists that her job as a nurse is to help people, and to truly help Mrs. Ex-Prescott, she needs to spill her guts about what she knows regarding the poor woman's marriage. The nurse softens, and then recounts, "I remember Agnes used to call Steven 'The Big Mistake,' I actually started using that one myself." Doe asks if she has any idea why they got divorced. Apparently, "the bastard cheated on her." Frank: "So who was the happy home-wrecker?" Hot Lips isn't sure, because apparently Agnes vowed to never speak her name. The nurse continues, "She was as betrayed by her as she was by her husband." Frank scrunches up his brow and chews on the obvious for a while: "Someone close, a friend or a sister." He looks over to John, and then asks if Agnes has any family albums they could look at. Afraid not -- Agnes moved into the home without any personal effects. The nurse says, "All those memories --" John cuts in: "Are locked up inside her." Pause for poignancy. The nurse gets up and leaves, having finished giving Agnes her lunch. John walks carefully around so that Agnes can see his face. He bends near her, and we catch a glimpse of black-and-white Mrs. Ex-Prescott as she whisper-yells, "Murderer!" when she sees John's face, and he's completely freaked out. Because it's one thing to have amnesia, but to wake up one day and find out you're responsible for a thirty-four-year-old murder, well, that would really suck.
John Doe HQ. Karen is sitting on the couch, doing -- what, exactly? Not assisting, not typing, not much of anything, actually. John stands in front of a mirror, whinnying about how Mrs. Ex-Prescott called him a murderer. Karen whines, "Okay, this is like, major over-share." Could this character possibly BE any more annoying? The two run through the possibilities: Could he be Steven Prescott? No. Because then he'd be fifty-two years old, and clearly, he's not fifty-two. According to Karen, only "old" people are fifty-two. She adds, "Maybe you're a vampire or something." Let's pause for a second. It's daylight. The apartment has wall-to-wall windows. Not only is Karen an idiot -- she's an idiot who has never seen Buffy, the original movie or the television show. John insists that Karen be serious. Her reply: "You could be an alien revisiting your abductee?" He pauses. She says, "Seriously? Have you been tested medically to make sure you're human?" He rolls his eyes and starts to walk away: "I'm so glad I shared this with you." Karen starts off on yet another fanciful X-Files-inspired tangent: "You could be a time traveler!" This one sticks. John turns back around. She continues, "Yeah! That's why you haven't aged at all -- you just jumped through time." John explains that the science does not exist for time travel. Karen points out that it might not exist in the now, but it sure as hell could exist in the future.
University of British Seacouver. John and Karen are going to see a professor about the whole time-travel/physics issue. They are both dressed completely differently than they were in the scene. What day is it? The course this professor teaches is entitled "Physics and the Reality of Time Travel." Apparently, "her boyfriend Colin" knows the professor keeps office hours until 1 PM. Cue the annoying hippie environmentalist harassing people as they try to make their way into the building. First, it's a poor girl carrying fresh-cut flowers. Hippie Environmentalist damns her because the pesticides used to grow the flowers have endangered six different types of tiger beetle. Ouch. Visions of my undergraduate life just flashed by my eyes. He jams a pamphlet into her arms. He accosts Karen because she's wearing leather shoes. Annoying Activist says, "Animal skins. Do you know how many creatures had to die just so you could strut around wearing the latest fashions?" John turns around and says, "None." Blah fake leather shoes blah. Then he lays his genius on poor activist: his sweater is Australian wool, and the Australian government permits the slaughter of five million kangaroos annually, because they're pests that eat the grass the ranchers need for the sheep. Pause. "Nice chatting with you." And with that, they leave a stunned Mr. Greenpeace behind.
Okay. Guy in a lab coat fiddles with big shiny silver machines. He and Doe discuss the probability of time travel, paradoxes, and Albert Einstein. I'm honestly too dumb even to transcribe what they're actually saying, so you'll just have to make do with that. In short, Dr. Time posits that time travelers would have to have their memories erased as a "cosmic safety switch designed to prevent paradoxes." Wait! I think Fox has just solved the mystery of time travel. Quick, someone tell Marty McFly. In addition to not having any memory, people who travel through time are super-geniuses. Karen speaks up: "Lay it on the line for me, Doctor -- is it possible that my friend here traveled back to 1968 and ate some chick there?" You know -- John wouldn't want anyone to know why he's seeking this information. Plus, the woman wasn't eaten; in fact, the cause of death wasn't specified, and honestly, why would she freak Dr. Time out in the first place? Someone needs to sew up her mouth so it eventually grows over itself. Any. Way. Dr. Time doesn't care whether or not Doe might in fact be Hannibal Lecter circa 1968, and responds, "There is one way to find out for sure. Get an MRI." Karen: "What will that show?" Dr. Time thinks that time travel is like sending a fax -- information is transmitted from point A to point B, but some bits are lost, or altered, and the MRI results will show if there are any fissures at a molecular level. What's a fissure, you may ask? Well, it's a telltale sign of time travel, of course!
Okay. The University of British Seacouver has an MRI on the premises, in the science lab. How expensive are those machines? Any reason a physics department would need one, other than to test for time travel? John Doe lies on the bed, awaiting his test. The technician tells him he'll have to remain very still. John blabs on about the origins of the machine, and by this point, even the technician doesn't care. He presses a button, and John starts to move back into position for the test. But wait! The patient "thinks" he feels claustrophobic, and orders the technician to reverse the bed. John pants heavily as the bed comes out to its resting position. "Karen," he shouts, "I'm claustrophobic! Learn something new about myself everyday." Aw, newfound phobias, how fun. Yawn. From the scan room where they view the results, Dr. Time asks, "Is he always like this?" Karen responds, "It's complicated." Dr. Time speaks into the microphone: "I think we'd better sedate him." Cut to a drugged-out John Doe trying to figure out what on earth they sedated him with. The technician reminds him to lie still, because the test will become quite loud. Even when he's sedated, he's a never-ending fountain of information: "I know. Did I mention that I know everything?" The internal eyeballs of the poor technician roll around and around his pretty little head. The button is pushed, and John's bed starts back into the belly of the beast. The machine whirs and beeps. The technician starts tapping away at the keyboard. John looks absolutely freaked out. They're not getting any picture, because something's interfering with the scan. More machines beep. Apparently, there's something metal inside Doe, and it's distorting the magnetic field. John starts screaming; then he smashes his head on the machine, which triggers a memory. It's a flashing white light, a human image, and what looks like water. He pulls himself out of the machine and whisper-screams, "I saw something!" Then he takes off, hospital gown and all.
John Doe HQ. Karen paces frantically outside the elevator. John gets off, and she assaults him with kindness. Blah she's been looking for him all over, blah what happened to him, blah is he okay. She pads after him into the apartment: "Talk to me! What's going on? If there's something wrong I want to help." Sure, now she wants to be helpful. He says, "You can't help. Nobody can help." He goes inside and closes the door in her face. Doesn't she have a key?
Inside, John unwraps the metal detector he's just purchased. Where does one buy stuff like that? I guess if you're a genius, you know where to buy everything. He starts to scan himself, and ends up on his Sign, which goes off like crazy.
After the commercials, memories are still torturing poor John Doe. Instantly, John comes back into consciousness. Karen's blabbing on about something, but instead of being upstairs in his loft, he's now in a restaurant/bar wearing totally different clothes. He asks, "How long have I been here? I was just upstairs in my loft." She picks at her fingernails, "Ah." Pause. "No." She continues, "You were just telling me you don't know how old you are." He whisper-emotes, "I'm seeing things. Memories." He glances around and starts to see things in colour. John gets up, exclaiming, "I'm seeing things in colour." Karen snarks, "Yeah, newsflash, so do I." John yells, "I'm colour-blind or at least I was. Something's happening to me!" He rolls around on the floor, writhing in pain, and then starts to tear out his hair -- or better yet, Karen's hair. "This means something! This doesn't make any sense." Karen gets up and says, "Okay. You are officially weirding me out now." Yeah. What-freaking-ever. Everything weirds Karen out; a bird flying overhead would weird Karen out. John looks stunned, Digger hands him a scotch on the rocks. He asks, "Did I order this?" Digger: "Is that a trick question?" John thinks that maybe the MRI triggered things in his brain. Karen, of course, has another theory -- it's missing time catching up to him.
Thank you, Frank, for walking in and getting this episode back on track -- that's right, the Prescott case. They've identified the victim. She was Steven Prescott's maid. Frank thinks that Elizabeth Menzogna was murdered because she was having an affair with Prescott. John asks if Frank thinks he killed the woman. Thankfully, Frank does not think that Doe's responsible, but he wants to prove it incontrovertibly before Captain Jamie needs to explain the mysterious similarities between John and their main suspect. Frank sits down and says, "Slippery guy, this Prescott. There's no paper trail on him at all until 1968." John interjects, "Like he appeared out of nowhere." Frank continues, "Then boom! Police start digging into the missing maid and the guy falls back off the radar screen. Disappeared like Copperfield." Pause. "The only way to trace him is through the victim." John insists he needs to know more about her. Frank asks, "Anything you're not telling me?" John shakes his head, and we get a flash of black-and-white vision. Frank jumps up and says, "Okay. Let's go." Go where? "You're not the only one with a brain, Mr. Mensa. Found a cousin of the victim's down in Maple Valley." And they're off!
Seacouver Street. John and Frank ramble down the street, discussing Frank's personal life. Apparently, he's got marital problems. The pair passes by a store window with a large jar of jellybeans. Doe asks, "Have your kids ever been to Hawaii?" They are offering a free trip to Hawaii to anyone who can guess the correct amount of jellybeans in the jar. Frank doubts that his kids would want to go with him to Hawaii -- especially because he's been living at the "Super 8 Motel" for the past little while. John explains exactly how many jellybeans are in the jar. Frank crosses his arms. I nod off to sleep for a bit, because this has absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand.
Maple Valley. Elizabeth's cousin Vanessa walks out of her house holding a tiny dog. She says, "I guess I always held out hope that Elizabeth was still alive." They walk to the front end of the deck, where John lays down a water dish for the pet. "Must sound ridiculous after all these years." John insists, "Not at all. Sometimes hope is all we have." Frank gets down to business. He asks after Elizabeth's employment with Prescott. A City Of Vancouver bus heads down the road underneath her apartment. Vanessa says, "I've been around the block too many times to mince words, Detective." Pause. "My cousin was having an affair with the man. She knew it was wrong but love is love." Wow. I didn't think you could fit that many platitudes in one thirty-second speech. "I couldn't stop that." Wait. There's another one. John asks if she has any idea where Prescott is today. "Dead, I hope." She looks off into the distance. Another City Of Vancouver bus goes by. "My pastor is always preaching about forgiveness." Frank says, "It's all right. I think this qualifies as one of those things." Which means what, exactly? What "thing"? Who knows? Frank talks in such strange patterns, it would probably take me about a hundred episodes before I could interpret them correctly. Yet another City Of Vancouver bus goes by in the distance. "Rumour was when the police started looking into Elizabeth's disappearance, he went underground. Maybe fled the country." Doe dives right in with his usual sense of social grace: "How can you be sure Prescott killed her? I mean, did you know him?" Obviously she didn't know Prescott or she would have made some sort of comment about how Doe looks exactly like him. I mean, if a stroke-ridden octogenarian can recognize the similarities, a spritely-minded sixty-year-old would absolutely have noticed that the two are the spitting images of one another. No. She didn't know him, but she knows "in her bones" that he killed her cousin. Then she says, "As soon as he found out about the baby." Frank cocks his head forward like a rooster intent on a fight upon hearing this little tidbit. "What baby?" The pieces start to fall into place. She says, "Their baby. Their son." Doe replies, "Their son? What happened to him? I need to know." Well, she was afraid of what Prescott would do if he found out, so she put him up for adoption. She needed to protect him. Frank follows Vanessa back into the house as she carries her puppy over the threshold into the main room. He wants to know about the adoption. If they could prove Elizabeth and Prescott had a son, they could prove motive. Vanessa says the records have been sealed forever. John snaps, "We have to find the records. Now!" Frank apologizes for John's rudeness by explaining that he's a rookie who is still in training. Vanessa picks up a dusty folder and explains that all she has are some old photos. John grabs one and stares at it, intensely screaming, "Is this me? IS THIS ME?" on the inside.
John Doe HQ. Picture in hand, he comes into his apartment, where Karen has decorated all of the walls with eyeballs. Yes. You heard me. Eyeballs. Large ones, small ones -- all different sizes, because giant eyeballs are just the calming influence a man with amnesia needs when he gets home after a long day of being a genius that solves crimes even though he's not a detective. Karen thought the eyeballs would be a "kicking logo" for their business. He smiles and says, "As little as I know about my own taste, I know I don't like this." Karen rambles on about the weirdness meaning something, and it's that particular search for meaning that keeps her sticking around. They bond. I yawn. John goes into his Special Room and puts the photo in a scanner. Karen asks if it's their first official "clue or something." Then she asks if this means they're off the time travel "trip." Doe starts clicking away at the computer, explaining that his current theory -- he's the illegitimate son of Prescott and Elizabeth -- actually makes sense. Karen says, "That would explain the family resemblance." Then she adds, "Ew. Dear old Dad's a murderer." Karen and John discuss adoption. She was also adopted. Her take: she's glad she doesn't know her birth parents, because they might be "sickos." John's take: 175,324 children were put up for adoption in 1968, and 59 percent of them were male; what if he was one of them? Doe pauses for a minute. Then he says, "I have to talk to Vanessa." Karen: "I thought you just did?" Doe: "No. Without Hayes, about me, about Elizabeth. Maybe she can unlock my memory, and answer all of this." He touches the baby image on the screen. Karen asks if he's okay. Because ten minutes can't go by without her a) being weirded out about something or b) asking Doe if he's okay. Because you know, this could all just be some "heinous co-inky-dink." Yes. Those were her actual words.
Hours later, John investigates adoption records at a furious pace. He searches databases. He delves deep into the theory that Prescott and Elizabeth are his parents. Cue The Memory. Then cue Doe waking up in Vanessa's apartment, only she's lying in a pool of blood beside him on the floor. Oh no! She's dead. Oh no! Contrived Plot Stereotype #43 -- The Dead Witness. This means that John Doe might not ever get to the bottom of this mystery.
Police Station. Frank circles around Doe like a shark circling its prey. I guess John must have tried to explain the whole blacking-out-and-waking-up-miles-away-from-home phenomena he's been experiencing, only Frank's not buying it. John mumbles, "I just wanted to talk to her, about me, about the baby." Frank slams his fist down on the table: "What does that baby have to do with you?" Doe doesn't answer, which prompts Frank to yell, "This Ollie North routine is getting real old real fast." John apologizes. Why did he go back? Why was he giving Vanessa the third degree in the first place? Frank screams, "Now I'm telling you this is starting to paint a really ugly picture here, John." John grabs his head, like it's the source of the entire world's pain, as he explains to Frank that he's been blacking out since the brain test. He huffs. He puffs. Then John says, "These flashes, voices." Frank leans in: "Whose voice? Was it Vanessa's?" John pants and whirls his eyes around like light is their cocaine. Frank continues, "Was she screaming?" John doesn't know. It was all too much of a blur. Frank deadpans, "Well, you'd better start getting it in focus. Just when I was starting to trust you." Frank slams the door and leaves John alone in the interrogation room. There's a single light on the desk, only it looks like a spotlight, shining a circle around the now prime suspect for Vanessa's murder.
From behind the glass, Frank and Captain Jamie look at John writhing on the table, tormented by his visions, tormented by his knowledge, tormented by his torment. Frank: "You and I have seen hell of a lot of horrible bastards." Pause. Is everyone on this show a stereotype who can only talk in platitudes? Frank is a Type A cop, the one who's been on the beat, who knows the streets; similar Type A cops include Lenny Briscoe, Andy Sipowicz, and Sully from Third Watch. He continues, "There's something in their eyes, you can see it. Whoever this John Doe is, I don't think he's one of them." Captain Jamie responds, "I hear you, but that's all you've got, and I can't sell a hunch upstairs, Frank." Jamie continues, "I'm just getting settled in this new job. I can't go out on a limb for a guy who just fell from the clear blue sky, despite how much help he's given us." At this point, Doe is up and pacing around the interrogation room, wallowing in his anguish. Frank purses his lips and looks through the glass before going back into the room. John greets him: "Got an idea that might be able to give you some answers." Frank's not biting: "It's too late for that. The DA's already got you fitted for an orange jumpsuit." John lets out a big sigh. Then he quotes Voltaire, of course. Frank quips, "What, are you a philosophy major now too?" John doesn't get down with the good-natured ribbing. He's all business: "Just five minutes, Frank, please."
Crime Lab. John quotes a case where bloodstain pattern analysis exonerated the subject. We're about to take a trip down a road called Influenced By C.S.I. It's a wide road, with lots of twists and turns. He sets up his experiment by telling Frank and Jamie to imagine that the lab is actually the room where Vanessa was murdered. Make sure you note that while on this road, you need to take gravity, air resistance, and the direction the blood was traveling into account. As John puts on a lab coat, a technician brings in a dummy that is "all rigged and ready to go." John notes where the killer would have stood -- just behind the victim according to the pattern of her injuries. The technician hands him a kitchen knife. John stabs the dummy. It makes a splooshing sound. Lab Girl says, "Wide arching back-splatter. If you killed her, your shirt would have been covered in blood." John giggles. "Not just my jeans, I must have been lying in it [the blood, he means], crawled through it." Jamie's convinced; she loves science. Then she says, "You have twelve hours to find out who really did this. Frank, you and him are glue." Then the boss goes off to deal with some of her other cases -- you know, the ones we don't see. This leaves Frank, who asks, "Where'd you learn all this?" John grins and says, "Discovery Channel." There's nothing like a gloating genius to really make your day when you're working a double homicide. Yawn. John goes on to thank Frank, who makes some comment about how he's not going to have a "macho violin moment." Yeah, um, okay, whatever you say -- I can type it, but that doesn't mean I have to understand it.
In the main room of the police station, one of Frank's kids comes bounding up to him, screaming, "Daddy! Daddy!" I start thinking of Frank Sinatra. Hum a couple bars of "Don't Rain On My Parade." Imagine how much it sucks to be addicted to heroin like Christopher on The Sopranos. I'm ignoring the blatant and unnecessary family placement happening on this damn show. Cue Frank's marital problems front and center. Blah his wife was sick of waiting for him, blah the kids are at the police station, blah Samuel Jackson blah Changing Lanes. Frank dumps the kid off, and the boy and John have a "moment." The kid asks about the fake blood. Frank deals with his wife. Doe starts telling the kid all kinds of freaky facts about blood. He starts every sentence with, "Did you know [insert freaky and totally irrelevant fact here]." The Kid retorts, "Did you know you talk weird?" and "Did you know that your shoelace is undone?" Then John does the whole "rabbit-ear" shoe-tying thing. Ah, tenderness. Frank and John discuss how his son is a "great kid." Then Frank asks where John got the whole "tie your shoe" bit. Okay, this entire scene was simply a segue for John to muse about the fact that he doesn't know where it came from, that it was something he just knows -- something from a life, or, dare I say it, a memory.
Crime Lab. Doe puts on his detective hat. He's staring at Elizabeth's rib cage, where he finds a French oak seed. Which is peculiar, because that particular kind of oak is very rare, and it doesn't grow within 6,000 miles of Seacouver. Frank steps in as John says, "Didn't you say the body was found in --"
Frank finishes: "An oil drum." Now they're in the evidence room. John discovers that said oil drum is really a fermenting tank used to make wine. John Doe is like Fox Mulder on super-speed. Frank says, "So whoever killed Elizabeth had to have access to something like this." See, now everyone's a genius. "That narrows it down a little bit." John takes the line of thought that much further: "A vendor. Someone who works in a fermenting plant." Cue the "amusing" crack, "Yeah, great, it's either Ernest or Julio Gallo." Doe goes on to say that only three companies exported French oak during 1968. Frank says, "I'll run it." For a second, I thought he said, "I'll run with it," meaning he'll take the fermenting tank on a little field trip.
We're back in front of the computer with the same clerk who looked up Prescott's driver's license in the first place. She finds a company called Columbia Terrace Vineyards. Apparently, it's the only winery on the west coast still importing French oak today, and get this -- they've been in business since 1968. Co-inky-dink? I don't think so. Frank looks at the printout and says, "Says here the owner's William H. Leverton." Joe responds, "William Henry Leverton, born 1967, deceased 1968." Eureka! Light bulbs start flashing. Frank says, "That's how Prescott did it." The two of them start to leave the computer room, and Frank says, "Stole a dead kid's ID, established a new label, and kept on making wine." They turn a corner. "We're bringing some friends along for this one. This guy's got a way with a knife." Yeah, but you guys are cops -- with guns. If you played rock-knife-gun, the later would always come out on top. And how come John Doe knew that William H. Leverton died in 1968? If he's an encyclopedia of births and deaths and near-deaths, why can't he flip through his mental alphabet and find his own damn self, saving us all the trouble of watching an entire season of this show?
The police cars race to Columbia Terrace Estates. Frank, the SWAT team, and John freaking Doe, who's not even a cop and doesn't carry a weapon, go into the house. Damn. I hope he gets shot. And then sues the Seacouver Police Department for reckless endangerment or something. Any. Way. Flashy guitar music follows the SWATs up the stairs and into the bedroom, where William Leverton, or Steven Prescott, lies on a regulation hospital bed with an oxygen mask on. At least the nurse stands with her hands above her head. You'd think that someone might have, oh, I don't know -- called ahead to find out if the guy was even healthy before taking an entire SWAT team over there?
After the commercials, Frank says, "Stand down. Lower your weapons." The "nurse" comes over and says, "What's going on here. This man's very ill." Frank asks authoritatively, "Is this man Steven Prescott?" The "nurse" snots, "No. His name is William Leverton. This is his house." Doe asks, "How long has he been like that?" Then he walks over to the man lying in the bed and gets right down into his face before asking, "Are you Steven Prescott? Do I look familiar to you?" Not "Did you kill Elizabeth" or "Did you kill Vanessa" but like little Baby Bird, Doe wanders around wondering, "Are you my father?" Please. So, Old Geezer Guy does his best impression of Darth Vader. The "nurse" snits, "What do you people want?" Well, considering they're the POLICE, they might be asking about a CRIME. Honestly, are the guns, shields, and badges really that confusing? Frank says, "I think we've made a huge mistake." Doe asks Vader, "Are we related?" Vader doesn't answer. He just looks around with his eyes and sort of semi-passes out. John goes to lift the oxygen mask from his face, and this triggers the same flashback he's been having all episode.
One woozy flashback later and Doe's in the car with Frank, who's going on about having your skivvies pulled down around your ankles or something. Does this guy ever talk in understandable sentences? John says, "Where are we?" This makes Frank very angry: "What?" Pause. "Is this some kind of game to you? Because we just came out of Leverton's five minutes ago." Pause. "I'm getting pretty tired of this." John insists he had another blackout. He pants. "I don't know what's happening to me." Frank cracks, "You're not getting enough oxygen to your brain." Oxygen? Oxygen. Oxygen! That's it! Sherlock Doe has cracked the case wide open. "Turn the car around! Leverton is Prescott. He's the killer." Frank looks unimpressed: "Really. Well, let me reassemble the tactical unit." Ah, sarcasm -- friend to all Type A cops. John blathers on about the oxygen tank; apparently, it was still on factory settings, which means he wasn't using it. Frank: "But what about Nurse Ratched?" Heh. Doe postulates that she was wearing a costume, and that she's Prescott's trophy wife. Frank complains, but he does reluctantly turn the car around.
But wait! When they get back to the mansion, Prescott/Leverton is gone. Frank screams, "Dammit!" John Doe looks through a desk in the bedroom as Frank continues, "He's got a ten-minute lead on us, maybe he's going to another residence --" Nope. Doe knows he's going to the airport. Is he a psychic now too? Nope. He smiles at Frank as he holds up a flight confirmation.
Cut to the car chase. Sirens. Lights. John Doe gives Frank instructions on how to get to the airport in Seacouver. In fact, Doe gives Frank the exact route Leverton will be forced to take based on traffic patterns, street cleaning, schedules and bridge access. Yawn. What fun is that if you know how the chase is going to turn out even before it really starts? Frank runs a red light, and of course, they almost slam into good old Leverton in the middle of the intersection. Of course, Leverton can't control his vehicle. Of course, he crashes ostentatiously into some construction. Of course, his car flips over, spins around, and then bursts into flames. John and Frank look on as the car, and the main suspect of a double homicide, goes up in flames.
Hours later, Captain Jamie is at the scene. Doe walks up and asks her where the body is. She says that there isn't one. It got torched. He tries to tell her that he needs to know if Prescott was his father. She interrupts and tells him he's pretty much off the hook for both murders. This doesn't appease our gentle genius. He wanted to find his daddy.
John Doe HQ. Doe walks in, and Karen asks how his visit to the doctor went. Specifically, she asks if the doctor proved that John was an alien. This woman has got to go. If this show has any chance at real success, she has got to go. She is the most annoying character on television. She's more annoying than Lucy on The Practice. ["Ragdoll doesn't say that lightly, folks." -- Sars] Doe pours himself a glass of water. She asks if he's still having blackouts. He's not. Insert some medical explanation here, using very technical terms that I don't understand. Suffice it to say, he's not happy about losing his visions. Karen says, "Hey. I thought you'd be psyched to lose the acid flashbacks." John wants them back -- but they're gone. He goes into his control room and looks at the photo of Elizabeth. Karen bursts in and asks, "Did you get that x-ray you wanted?" Yes. It turns out his Sign has left small traces of metal buried in his chest. She says, "So, ix-nay on the time travel device?" John nods: "I don't know anything. If it's a brand -- there still could be metal filings present burned into my flesh, but what kind of brand, and why?" So, basically, the doctor answered all his questions with a "bunch more questions." Boy, that Karen, she sure is perceptive. "Did you get any straight answers, like if Prescott was your father?" Doe looks at Elizabeth's picture again and says no. They bond. Karen says she's going to keep his secret. Doe's pleased. He's going to keep Karen on his list. They smile. She leaves the control room, but only after making the astute observation that the woman they found in the barrel could quite possibly have been Doe's mommy.
The kind, sweet part of Doe's unknown personality purchases a really nice headstone for Elizabeth Menzogna. He has it inscribed, "Devoted Friend and Mother." With some beautiful lilies in his hand, he bends down and leaves the bouquet on her grave. Then he's off to tackle on Identity Quest once again.