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How does one encapsulate an hour of car-based action television in just a few paragraphs without giving away all the good jokes? Well, let's see here. KITT turns into a police car at one point. That was kind of interesting. Oh, and there was a car chase that ended in a car flipping over, but that was kind of a downer, since the driver died. That never happened on The A*Team!
Oh, and in the alleged plot, Michael goes on an undercover mission and promptly gets himself poisoned, because he's really not very good at this undercover work. The poison includes a truth serum for no reason other than that it gives Zoe something to be excited by. Seriously, when you learn that someone you work with is going to die in precisely two hours, thirteen minutes, and forty-five seconds, is your first reaction "delight that he'll be saying some inappropriate things"?
Finally, even though he's been poisoned, Michael proceeds to pretend to shoot a famous geek and then escape. Then he dies and comes back. And KITT learns the meaning of faith, which is so important in these trying times. For example, I have faith that this show is going to continue to get sillier while still taking itself weirdly seriously.
Come back on Friday to read the full episode weecap (filled with all of Montykins good jokes). In the meantime, discuss the show with other fans in our forums.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Night. KITT wants to know if Michael is awake, because a new mission is coming in. You know, they have that cool hangar with a basketball court and everything. I don't know why they always have to get their orders while they're out on the road like this. Michael claims to be awake, although KITT's biometric fooforaw blahblah sensors indicate he's still fatigued from the last mission. You mean the one on the beach in Mexico? With all the tequila and bikinis? That didn't look that fatiguing to me.
Michael gets out and puts his cellphone on KITT's hood, which lights up and starts showing all sorts of random information. KITT offers to just display everything inside like normal, but Michael claims that he likes being outside. Michael checks out the mission while KITT reminds him about something we don't know about that A) has to be done tonight, and B) will upset Sarah if it isn't. KITT claims to have "confirmed the item's location", and it looks like we're in another one of those episodes where everyone talks vaguely about "the item" and "the target" instead of actually saying what they're talking about. It's like these scripts got about 70% finished, but had to be run into production before anyone had time to put in the details. In this case, the "item" appears to be a silver briefcase.
Back at HQ, Carrie (that's the FBI agent that Sydney Poitier plays; you might have forgotten she exists since she's been gone since the pilot) is watching the same footage as Michael and confirms that it's the right thing. Billy and Zoe are trying to have a conversation about whatever's happening tonight, but Alex is being a Mean Boss and cutting them off in midsentence. That means there's a lot of "But isn't tonight --" and "She's gonna be --" going on, because it's suspenseful to have characters talking about things when the audience doesn't know what's going on. Wait, did I say "suspenseful"? I may have meant "a cheap effect to imitate suspense without any actual suspense at all." I get those confused sometimes, which explains why that film society never invited me back after my speech where I called Hitchcock "Indisputably the Master of Cheap Effects to Imitate Suspense Without any Actual Suspense at All."
Anyway, Alex is much more interested in the mission, which involves grabbing this guy with the briefcase. He's apparently an expert smuggler, and this is their chance to grab him. We see him walking through a fairly pleasant outdoor cafe area, and it occurs to me that they're using a knee-high tracking shot. And I think that was the video feed KITT had, which means he was hacking into some kind of hubcap-cam. The smuggler sets the briefcase down to a Gourmet Sausage Sandwich stand (because the Hot Dog people wouldn't pony up for product placement?) and a guy in a cream-colored suit says into his wrist that the item is down and the woman he's with goes after the courier. HQ doesn't know who these people are, so KITT taps into a radio frequency (you know, any random radio frequency will do). Zoe bets Billy five dollars that the mission is screwed, which seems inappropriate. Do you really want someone on your team who's got money riding on failure? Sure, it's only five bucks today, but that's still incentive for her to "accidentally" lose contact with KITT or something. Incidentally, I have no idea where KITT or Mike are. They're just offscreen somewhere being notified that things aren't going right. What, like they can't check the ratings themselves?
Somebody picks up the item -- sorry, I mean "briefcase". They've got me doing it now! -- and I believe it's the person that the courier was trying to get it to. The guy in the cream-colored suit tells his cuffs that the item is mobile, and his partner reports to her lapel that she's been made. KITT is providing many exciting camera angles, and may also be responsible for the exciting spy-music soundtrack. The courier escapes through a glass door with a security keypad. It may be locked, but c'mon, it's still glass. Billy says that the door leads to a magical zone where KITT doesn't have any cameras, and Zoe is naturally delighted that a dangerous smuggler is getting away, because it means she gets five bucks. The guy in the cream-colored suit draws his gun and takes down the guy who now has the briefcase. The guy in question is a kid who claims that "some guy" paid him $300 to carry the briefcase to the far side of the mall. Is this really the safest way to move secret items? It seems like the smugglers' plan has a lot of moving parts. And it all turns out to be a setup anyway, because the briefcase just contains a large, friendly "Have a Nice Day" smiley face. The kid wants to know if his parents will have to be told about this. Zoe pays Billy five bucks, although I'm not sure how "some other group of agents we don't have anything to do with get burned" figures in to their original bet.
Carrie tells Mike to proceed as planned. Alex wants him to find out who those people were. The courier meets his contact and hands him a thing. But then his contact clocks him and drags him into the innocuous black van parked nearby. The van pulls out as the two of them fight in the back. But who's driving? Why, this is no ordinary van! It's... KITT! And the contact pulls off one of those Mission Impossible-style rubber masks to reveal that he's really Mike. KITT converts from "van" to "KITT", although Mike claims that they're being careful not to show up on cameraphones or anything. They don't look too careful to me. Mike claims that the car-changing effect never gets old, which is not a sentiment I agree with. And now to the credits!
As KITT enters the hangar, which increasingly feels to me like footage they add to stretch the episode out to an hour, KITT reports that he has notified the powdered wigs of their return. Well, I should hope so, otherwise those giant doors won't open. Apparently they're preparing for "duplication," which is a vague process that will be left undefined for the moment. It turns out that the incompetent stooges were from the Department of Homeland Security, and the crack Knight Industries squad is debriefing them now. Hey, just leave everything to the professionals and their magical talking car, okay, guys? For example, watch how professionally they handle their prisoner: first, Mike demands to know what the courier's other job is. They know exactly where he is and how many jobs he has on today's schedule, but they don't know what they are? The courier isn't talking. Then Mike wants him to read off an index card. No dice. Finally, Mike decides to get rough, which makes Zoe all squealy. The courier gets bundled into KITT's front seat, and KITT's autorestraint system is deployed. Then loud music that might be Rage Against the Machine starts to play as KITT starts to spin around and upside down and so on. Spin, spin, spin. The courier gets nauseous and agrees to read the card, which says "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog". Now, I can understand that being useful for typing, because it includes each of the 26 letters. But it doesn't include all possible sounds, does it? What if they need to make a "sh" sound?
As a computer repeats the words, Zoe cheerfully straps an ominous device to the courier's head. She claims that it extracts information directly from his frontal lobe, but that turns out to be her idea of a little joke. She also claims that the reason she almost burned out the eyes of the last guy she strapped this to was because she was hung over. That might not be a joke. Hey, you know where Zoe would fit right in? Torchwood. While the device does whatever it does, Mike grabs the courier's Blackberry and sets it on KITT's hood. So what we've learned in this episode is that KITT has the ability to take the data inside a cellphone and display it on his hood. I guess that could come in handy, but whose idea was it in the first place? Which tech said "Hey, we have this paint that can change color, so why not have a cellphone port on the hood? It'll be fun!"?
Suddenly! Sarah appears in an extremely tight dress and says that she heard that Mike got another assignment. The music would like you to know that she is an attractive woman in an extremely tight dress, and Sarah would like to add that she hopes Mike can finish the mission in time to take her to a wedding. Mike points out that the wedding is in five hours, so it's a little weird that she's already all dressed up for it. After she leaves, Mike catches the courier eyeballing Sarah's butt, and KITT mentions that the pickup is "scheduled to take place in 34 minutes and 18 seconds" at an industrial warehouse. And the estimated travel time is "42 minutes, 12 seconds." These are awfully exact estimates.
Zoe hands Michael some contact lenses and Billy gives him a thing. Alex encourages Mike to finish the mission quickly because "you don't ever stand up a girl in a dress like that." Seems to me you have to stand her up, since it's way too tight for her to sit down. The thing we know, KITT's zooming along a road while Mike puts in contact lenses. And then he drops one. Riveting! Meanwhile, KITT is ruminating on the meaning of faith vs. realism. It turns out the thing Billy gave Mike is a magical voice-altering sticker that goes on the throat and then vanishes, changing your voice in some way that doesn't actually change it in any way but presumably makes it easier to beat voice-identification software.
They arrive at the warehouse, where there's a gunman who looks kind of like a buffed-up Seth Green. Buff Seth directs Mike inside, where he, pretending to be the supercourier, will pick up the package. Mike goes into the unfurnished warehouse where the bad guys are waiting. Why do these guys always have their meetings in these places with zero chance of security? I understand that the location is cheaper, but sometimes it's okay to go farther afield than the parking garage. After testing his magical retinal-duplicating contact lenses and voiceprint throat sticker, they tell him they don't trust him. So they poison him (oops! Dart in your neck!). Naturally. Of course they do. I know every time I hire someone for a job, I dose them with something that will kill them in three hours unless I give them the suspiciously Windex-like antidote. I mean, what difference does it make if the person I hire for a difficult, highly-secretive job is worried about their central nervous system shutting down, right? Frankly, I usually poison the driver of the bus, too. It's just common sense, really.
KITT enters the hangar (again with the time-filling hangar sequence!) and lets Michael out, warning him that they have to leave in exactly four minutes and 32 seconds. I'm starting to wonder how everyone else gets into the HQ room. Is there a front office with an elevator? I mean, there are a lot of people scurrying around down here. One of them, namely a blue-gloved Billy, grabs the latest silver briefcase from Mike and opens it while Alex insists that everything has to be documented. Sarah gives Mike a "general inhibitor", which will somehow slow down the completely unknown poison in his bloodstream. Meanwhile, Billy recognizes the secret item as a pass to "Tech for Tomorrow", which is a high-security tech conference, kind of like the TED conference which I only know about because of that one episode of My Life on the D-List where Rosie O'Donnell wanted Kathy Griffin to get Steve Wozniak to hook her up with a pass. There's also a coat check ticket, but first Sarah has to be Captain Bringdown and tell everybody that Michael has several different poisons in his body, including a hallucinogen and truth serum. Naturally, Zoe is delighted to know this and tests it by asking Michael if he's ever fantasized about Sarah in a Catholic Schoolgirl outfit. When he denies it, she concludes that it hasn't kicked in yet.
Sarah goes off to work on an antidote. [Because she is an all-types-of-science scientist. - Zach] Carrie takes a team to the rendezvous point (what rendezvous point? No one ever said anything about a rendezvous point) and says that they'll swoop in and grab the antidote. Alex hands Mike the suitcase and tells him that a soon as he drops the item (by which he means "the suitcase"), he must obtain ("get") the photo id of the recipient. Oh, and Billy has put a homing beacon in the suitcase. Is that everything? Well, Mike looks like he's feeling poorly.
KITT has made some calculations to approximate when Michael will die and wants to put the countdown up on the heads-up display. Even though these numbers are totally made up (just like most of KITT's suspiciously exact countdowns), we'll still be checking in with it occasionally. Right now, it's at 2:27:32.
Off to a pleasant park to a soccer field! Mike, holding his stomach and looking extremely suspicious, sets the briefcase down to a bench. See, this whole procedure seems screwy to me. Let's say you're the bad guys. You want to get this pass (and a coat check ticket, apparently) to someone. So you hire the greatest smuggler in the world to take it across town and leave it to a bench? Why not just have the recipient come pick it up from you? And if it's a job that needs the best in the business, does it really seem like a good idea to dose him with a hallucinogen-slash-truth serum before sending him on the job? That seems like it might be a liability.
Mike looks sick and sits down on a bench. While he's freaking out, KITT gently informs him that the item is moving southwest. Mike doesn't know what direction that is, so KITT rephrases it as "to your left". A woman in tight jeans and about seven-inch heels is strolling away with it. Mike tries to take her picture, but she turns and takes his picture. Then she jumps in a silver sports car and zooms off. Chase! KITT thinks she's a reckless driver. Alex shows up on the windshield to ask how things are going, and Mike blurts out the truth. So the serum works, at least. KITT slowly reports that there's an obstruction in the road ahead and the woman's chance of hitting it is 100%. Although she actually has plenty of time to go around the truck, which she does. But then...
Yes! As the mystery woman swerves out of the way of the truck, she comes up against the back of a pickup truck, and the car flips over just like it used to on The A-Team. Well, there's one difference, which is that the driver, um, dies. We see her blood-covered face and everything. That's kind of a downer, and now I regret the "Yes!" at the beginning of the paragraph. Michael soberly reports that he won't be able to bring her in for questioning. This mission isn't going very well so far. That's what happens when I poison the bus driver, too.
Michael soberly reports that bringing in the mystery woman for questioning probably isn't happening. And the HQ team tells him that no one was at the rendezvous point, so they probably had no intention of giving him the antidote. Huh.
As the HQ team tensely studies the stuff from the mystery car, Mike provides alleged comedy relief by saying things you're not supposed to say out loud. For example, he tells Zoe that Billy calls her the "Asian Sensation" behind her back. Zoe, of course, is delighted to have someone else in HQ who acts crazy. She's probably planning some sort of Inappropriate Behavior Team. She comments that truth serum is fun, but she doesn't proceed to do anything crazy. Phooey. Anyway, it turns out that the car had a gun made of plastic and rubber with porcelain bullets, so it's designed to get through metal detectors. Mike will now have to kill someone, but without knowing who the target is. Actually, even Zoe thinks that's a bad idea. KITT says that there are deleted emails on the laptop from the car, which indicate that after the target is dead, ten million dollars will be transferred into an account somewhere. And then it will be a simple matter for the magical computer-hacking car to figure out where that money came from, thus identifying the bad guys. Alex wants Mike to use the mask from earlier so "Michael Knight" won't be identified as the shooter. Doesn't he mean "Michael Traceur"? And Billy is going to make some paint pellets. Mike is more worried about escaping than about the fake assassination.
In the sleeping pod, Mike can't even button his shirt, so Sarah comes in to help him. She doesn't have an antidote yet, so Mike feels that he has to go through with this crazy plan. Hey, here's a wacky idea: why not have someone else do it? You know, instead of the guy currently collapsing because he's been poisoned? No, I guess that would be silly. Mike and KITT are off to the Tech for Tomorrow conference, where the nervous-looking guy gets through the metal detector with only some worry about his belt buckle. He gives up the coat-check ticket and gets... a purse. Ho ho ho! Get it? Because a purse is for ladies. And he's a dude! His serum-fueled explanation to teh coat-check girl is that he's a poisoned government operative blah blah etc. See, that's the sort of thing I'd be worried about with the truth serum. He rushes off to the bathroom.
Mike (for it is he) stumbles into the bathroom and puts in the purse's brand-new set of ridiculous contact lenses. It's not easy to put contacts in when you're in a hurry. You need to slow down and relax your face muscles. Also, it helps to make sure you're not poking yourself in the eyeball. He can't put it on with the rubber mask on, plus the guy whose face they're using for the mask is getting too much screen time. So off it goes! The contacts turn out to be magical high-tech targeting lenses that put a little graphic in front of every face they see, along with "TARGET DISCARDED" and a lot of other useless heads-up display nonsense. Oh, and beeping sound effects, which I'm not sure even makes sense. KITT encourages Mike to focus, but he's staggering a lot and bumping into things. Finally, he sees someone named Darian Richards, who is a rich nerd in the center of a great many cameras. KITT recommends caution, but Mike has to get in there right away, so he rushes in and shoots, relying on KITT's escape plan to save him.
KITT directs Mike through a series of hallways and kitchens and police to beat up before meeting him at one of the exit doors, disguised as a police car -- probably a Ford Crown Victoria -- just in time to look innocent for the real cops. KITT sends a fake police radio report to get through the perimeter. And now it's off to... somewhere. I'm not sure where. You know how sometimes you just want to drive? KITT finds a company that's been short-selling Darian Richards's company, which is a promising lead. In the lab, Sarah looks up from her antidote research to see a fake news report about Richards being killed. She calls Mike to see how things are going. At that moment, KITT reports that the ten million has been transferred. Michael hangs up, claiming that he has to go. He doesn't, really. It's not like he has anything else to do. KITT's doing all the driving and all the research, so Michael can concentrate on dying.
Alex tells Sarah that Mike will finish the job, and that she should take what she has and go help him. KITT tells Mike that the ten million dollars came from Walton Axe, the same guy who's been shorting the stock, and he's the subject of a Fortune Magazine cover story entitled "The Most Ruthless Man in Business". It's the same guy that poisoned Mike, which means that maybe Mike should learn to draw, because we could have had this information a lot sooner if Mike could have showed KITT what the guy's face looked like. [A police sketch artist could totally set up shop in one corner of the basketball court. - Zach]
So KITT hacks the guy's cell phone to locate him, and they call Carrie to report it. Darian Richards is there and he's complaining about all the fake blood on his expensive shirt. Zoe thinks the fake blood tastes like cherries. Stop tasting that! Everyone's in a hurry, so KITT switches to Attack Mode. And Mike calls Sarah on the windshield phone and tells her that he loves her. And Mike collapses. KITT soberly reports that Mike's heart has stopped, and that he is dead. Sarah's driving (a regular, non-talking car) and will get there as soon as the commercials are over.
KITT pulls over to the left side of the road, and I am pleased to report that one of the other cars actually swerves to avoid him. We even hear a voice yell "Whaddya doin'?" I like that, because too often there are high-speed chases on busy roads and none of the other cars even seem to notice. Watch Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift for a good example of this; the other cars are just obstacles to Tokyo Drift around. [I'll take your word for it. - Z] Oh! So anyway, Sarah grabs defibrillation paddles out of the glove compartment and shocks Mike. No good. It will be too long to wait for it to recharge, so she grabs a random wire and attaches it directly to him. Or something. Point is, Mike is now awake and alive, albeit shirtless. You know what? I think this whole poisoning subplot was just an excuse to get Mike's shirt off. Everyone back in KITT, because it's time to go get Axe. Mike's not looking too good, so KITT provides a syringe full of adrenaline. Sure. The chase is almost over, because Axe is going to get into a helicopter. So Axe goes into a parking structure with Mike hot on his tail.
They roar through the parking garage. They should be Tokyo Drifting here. The SUV turns out to have a .50 caliber machine gun in the back. Of course it does. Why not? The bullets don't break the windshield, but KITT claims they're damaging his nanoskin. I'm sure that's totally a real thing. Finally, they use the grappling hook to hook on to the SUV. Mike's out of action, so Sarah takes charge, ordering KITT to stop suddenly, which rips the back axle right off the SUV.
Although the Action Mode KITT's doors normally open vertically, this time they open sideways. There's a brief voiceover by KITT explaining that this is for protection, but I think they just forgot. KITT claims that his EMP won't work because it would be inconvenient for the plot. Or because of his damaged nanoskin or something. The bad guys have machine guns and there's a lot of shooting, but finally Carrie and the good guys show up and the helicopter takes off without Axe. Everyone's under arrest!
Carrie orders Axe to come up with the antidote, but he just smirks. She points out that if Mike dies, it's murder of a government operative. More smirking. Sarah is extremely convincing when she threatens to shoot him, and he reaches into his jacket for a glass container of liquid. Then he drops it on the concrete.
The antidote falls to the ground and breaks. Oh, no! But Sarah sops some of it up with her shirt (I'm surprised there's enough material in it!) and has KITT analyze it. The suspiciously quick analysis says that for reasons I won't go into, Sarah has to draw some of her own blood and put it inside KITT's glove compartment of holding. He does some beeping and provides an extract which blah blah blah Mike's on a beach and feeling fine. Sarah's there too. In fact, the episode ends with Michael and Sarah getting a brief moment of peace on the beach, which is touching if you've already forgotten what happened last episode. Then Alex calls and orders them to get back to work, which seems a little harsh, what with Mike actually dying and all.
Ridiculous, right? Discuss this episode in our forums, then see our picks for what's not ridiculous on television tonight in Going Through Channels!
Montykins does not have a car that talks to him. Monty also watches a lot of movies, which he writes about on Monty on Movies. You can email him at montykins@gmail.com if that's your idea of a good time.