"Tribal" music. Chrysler Building. This could be the opening for SNL, but no. We're in Tarzan Country. We leap from tall building to tall building in a single bound, but it's not Superman. And we swing from one area of New York to another, but it's not Spider-Man. We soar and leap, soar and leap, over the darkened New York sky, hovering between bridges, along busy streets, in the middle of Times Square until...we're headed right for a building! We're going to crash! Shortest show ever! Aaahhh!
We're okay. We're in a laboratory of some kind. There's a shirtless man tied to a table, but we can't see his face due to the large scientific lamps. The pretty, shirtless man struggles, and the enemies in black train their guns on him. He makes grunting sounds as he pulls at the chains that bind him to the metal table. A man enters through the cage bars. We know he's a scientist from his white coat. He takes a gigantic syringe from another white coat. They smirk at each other as the pretty man continues struggling. The scientist approaches the pretty man, whose grunting only makes him hotter. "Easy now," the scientist says. "Just need to borrow some blood." But see, this show, this Manhattan is filmed in Toronto, and it's totally given away in the first line, when Mr. Scientist says "boorow."
Interior shot of the laboorowtory window. There are some lights, and the sounds of a crash. A man wanders into frame, thinks for a second, and then checks out the window. He pants, gasps, can't believe what his scientist glasses are telling him!
Then we see it: the lab is completely demolished. Every piece of glass shattered. The table is overturned. Three men pose in the "passed-out from monkey concussion" stance -- each with one arm out or over his head.
Scientist 3 gasps as someone hits all of the keys on his keyboard. We see the scientist from behind and then the pretty man leaps all the way up to the window somehow. CRASH! He's through the window, on top of Scientist 3! Alarms are sounding! Glass is smashing! It's on!
For some reason, all of the lights are off now, and the bad guys have to use their flashlights with their guns as they slowly make their way down the hallway, looking for the pretty man. They turn a corner. There he is! He starts to crawl, as if he's ape-like, but evolution happens in less than a second, as he stands and runs the rest of the way. The men with guns begin firing, which makes the pretty man have to jump into the air and bounce off a wall, through a doorway. I'll bet he's Tarzan!
Something shatters! It's unclear what, but that's okay! Keep moving! Action! Tarzan runs through another, very similar-looking hallway.
The flashlight guys are moving ever so slowly through the hallway, trying to find the jumping monkey-boy. "Subject is on level 3-4," one says to the other. Which one? Three or four? Which one!? The men follow their flashlights into what looks like a supply closet. Suckas! Tarzan tosses them out of another window, like the opening teaser of every episode of ER!
Now the alarms are really pissed off, and they kick it to high gear as more flashlight guys are deployed to shine their lights through other windows, and walk around in ski masks and dark clothes.
Another guy finds his way into another room, and he lowers his flashlight gun since there's a dim blue light in this room. And even though everybody's being really quiet, they keep their radios on full-blast, so I'll bet Tarzan knows they're coming. They quickly figure out that Tarzan must have escaped to outside, because the Venetian blinds on one window are crooked just a bit, just like how they usually are when you can't get the strings to line up, or when you have a pet who loves to fuck with the Venetian blinds. Anyway, these guys with guns are really good, because they determine that Tarzan must be outside. The guy sticks his head out the window. Aw, man. It's raining! Of all the days. He doesn't see anything below him, like a dead Tarzan splat on the road. Instead, he sees these tiny buildings that are supposed to represent New York from high up. Hi, Matchbox cars and shoebox buildings! So...maybe.. he just might...could he be....The man spins, looks up, and...D'oh! He's climbing to the roof! Barefoot! In amazing-fitting pajama pants! "He's headed up to the roof!" our smart guy informs everyone. He then makes a head-jerk to the left, where the roof...isn't.
Tarzan climbs to the roof. He gasps. We see bullethole wounds on his shoulder, his necklace against his naked, wet torso. He's breathing hard. He's wet. He spins for no reason, gasping, spinning. The music is majestic. Tarzan has amazing back muscles, and that pull of muscles right over the ass -- well, thank you, costume department, for rolling Tarzan's pants and tucking them in to expose as much of this man's naked torso as possible. Emmys for you. Tarzan runs and tries to hide behind the loud music, because the Men With Flashlights are back, and they are so angry to be out in the rain! They are looking around, standing in a cluster, when Tarzan leaps into the air with a grunt! Quick editing flashes as we see Tarzan leap and fall, leap and fall! Tarzan kick! He spin! He fling around like Keanu Reeves! He hold onto one man while kicking another!
Tarzan kicks and spins, kicks and spins. He's a one-man fighting machine. Tarzan moves into slow motion, sweeping the leg of another MWF, who flies into the air and groans. Tarzan monkey-jumps over to a fallen MWF and hits him over and over again, swinging his arms back and forth. Tarzan so angry! Another MWF is behind him, grabs him, and pulls him back. Tarzan moves into slow motion again, falls onto his back, and rolls the MWF over his shoulders. He then bitch-slaps the MWF. Oh, the abs! So pretty! Tarzan monkey-jumps to the other MWF who got up again, swinging his leg and kicking the MWF in the face! Tarzan monkey-crawls through the rain on all fours. He spins. The cymbals kick in, and Tarzan stands up. He's triumphant. He's soaking wet. He's amazing-looking. Holy cow. I hope his hair stays wet and in his face for the entire episode. I hope it's only this shot, of him panting and half-naked, as "tribal" music alternates between flute and congo drums.
Dammit! Another bad guy is making his way quickly up the stairs. This one's the guy who spotted Tarzan out the window. Thanks for finally showing up, dude. He's without ski mask, so maybe he's slightly important. He opens the door all slowly, but stands right in the middle of it, so that it's not really covering anything or anyone. He looks around, and slowly realizes that all the MWFs are unconscious, drowning in rainwater. He walks out onto the roof, anyway, his face instantly soaked. His flashlight gun is getting all wet! Whoa! Tarzan does a flip in the air, spinning toward the MWF, kicking his flashlight gun right out of his hand! Awesome! Tarzan picks the MWF up under the arms and flings him out of the way. The MWF yelps and flies through the air, and falls flat on his face. And yes, we get another shot of Tarzan, his face covered, his chest exposed, naked and panting. Hold it. Hold it! Dammit! That MWF won't give up! Tarzan walks toward him. I'm glad, because the monkey-crawl really hides the abs. The MWF is gasping, trying to do something with the hand trapped under his chin. Tarzan quickly comes into focus, and whips his head to the side, his wet clumps of hair flying afterward like dreads. Tarzan looks. Focuses. Tarzan sees something! More MWFs! They barge through the door, flashlight guns blazing. Instead of ski masks, these guys have baseball caps. Man, if that's how they tell rank, how confusing! The main MWF gets up and turns. He sees that Tarzan is no longer standing sexily above him. The other MWFs are so confused they can only stand still, moving their flashlight guns around so that their beams look like the beginning of a rock concert. The main MWF makes his way to the edge of the roof. Majestic music plays again. The man slowly walks to the edge of the roof. He leans over and looks down. The camera pulls back. We can see that the sign on the roof reads "Greystoke." The camera pulls down to the corner of the underside of the roof, where a majestic eagle statue looks over the city. There, dangling from its head, is the incredibly strong, muscularly gifted, fantastically drenched Tarzan. He kicks and hangs, presumably for a very long time, as the music swells, the cymbals clash, and the orchestra has a gigantic orgasm. As do I.
Opening title card. Shit, y'all. This will be the best three episodes of fun we ever have together.
"[birds chirping]" says the closed captioning. We pan down from some lovely Pottery Barn drapes to a photograph of a woman and a man together, and then to an alarm clock that turns...6:30. Music plays. The redheaded woman "wakes up" by turning her perfectly made-up face toward her arm.
Quick shot of woman doing a pull-up.
Quick shot of her doing a push-up.
A sit-up.
Another pull-up. Legs crossed this time.
Push-up.
Stomach crunch.
Pull-up. This lady does everything out of order.
My favorite. Shot of the shower. The camera zooms in. She's rinsing her hair, the shower curtain open.
Fully dressed, the woman grabs her keys. Her cell phone. Her gun. Her ammo. She locks and loads, checking herself out in the mirror. Jane loves herself, but she's still deciding on growing out those bangs.
Seconds later: different song, television playing in the background, Jane pours herself a strawberry smoothie. The television isn't on, so maybe it's the radio we hear? "Morning," a blonde in pajamas says to Jane, who quickly identifies her for us as Nicki. She asks Nicki about the dishes from last night. Nicki takes a second before making this deliberate pageant-worthy spin on her heels and sauntering over to Jane to deliver the master line: "I move away from Mom only to move in with Mom, the sequel." The two women don't say anything here, but the closed-captioning guys appear to have a little fun by immediately writing "[groan] [chuckle]." It's because Jane offers Nicki some of her smoothie, but Nicki wishes she lived in the dorms. See how quickly we're establishing relationships and ages? Jane tells Nicki that she could live in the dorms if she gets two jobs and works her way through school like Jane did. "I'd rather rob a bank," Nicki pouts. Jane says that if Nicki did that, Jane would have to arrest her. Notice Jane's amazing eye shadow here. It will never falter for the sixty minutes. In case we haven't figured out that they're related, Nicki here is amazed that Jane would arrest "[her] own sister." Jane turns to the front page of The New York Post, where a cop gets his or her news, and sees INFERNO KILLER ON THE STREETS. NYPD Manhunt! "Hey, check it out!" Jane laughs. "It's Michael!" We hold on the bottom right corner of the newspaper, where there's a picture of a man in a suit. The caption reads, "Detective Michael Foster speaks to the media." That's what a good newspaper caption tells you, exactly what you can already ascertain from the photograph. Jane then holds the paper up to display for Nicki, who once again saunters over to say, "Wow! He looks good." She leans down and sighs. "Is he amazing or what?" Jane asks. "Why's he dating you again?" Nicki asks, prompting the stink-eye from Jane. Nicki laughs, and stands back up again. Jane then sighs and turns over the newspaper, sick of it already. "Hey, what's wrong?" Nicki asks, immediately concerned. Jane sighs, and says, "It's just...working a case like that. Can you imagine how great that would be?" "You'll get there," Nicki assures her. "Yeah," Jane says, in full soap-opera mode. "Right." She walks away.
I'm curious as to why they changed the girl playing Nicki, so I pop in my copy of the original pilot (called Tarzan and Jane) and forward to this scene. Well, it starts with the newspaper, and Jane saying, "Hey, Sis! Check it out!" A girl with a black Bettie Page cut leans in and says, "Damn, he looks good!" They're a little gigglier, and seem closer together in age. She asks Jane what Michael's doing with her again. Then the girl is out of frame as Jane gets moody about the case. "Have you seen my keys?" OtherNicki asks as she digs through her purse. Then: "Hey!" Jane looks up from the sink, where she's making tea or something. "What's wrong?" the sister asks. "Nothing, it's just...you know. I mean...working a case like that. I...Imagine how great that would be?" OtherNicki immediately gets on my bad side by saying, "You know what? You'll get there." Jane downs the last of her strawberry smoothie, which wasn't set up in this version. "Yeah," she says, after a gulp. End of scene. I kind of like this one more, the other one was so "I am standing here, older sister, telling you that I prefer living with you instead of our shitty mother, but I am of college age and would have other choices, if I were a workaholic like you, who have a boyfriend in the papers doing what you would like to do."
Precinct. Michael of New York Post fame is explaining this "serial case" they're working on. Victims are homeless. The perp uses kerosene, getting them alone and then setting them on fire. A man wanders into the back of the meeting. Jane is to him, admiring her boyfriend's work. Michael says that there are no witnesses, so until they get more focus, they should just canvass. Jane's partner interrupts: "What about Edward Creal?" Jane immediately pulls on his arm and whispers, "Sam, don't. It's not our case," all, "Leave my boyfriend alone when he's working." Jane looks down, embarrassed. Nice roots, Jane. Michael asks what about him. Sam says the cases sound kind of similar: "Maybe your boy's a copycat." Some guy wanders through all out of breath from his barrel belly. "We checked it out," he exhales. "But, uh, we don't think so." Oh, okay. Thanks. "It's a different M.O. Besides, he died in prison after you busted him a few years ago, Sam." No one is listening to Sam and BellyChief, because Jane and Michael are making goo-eyes at each other in the middle of the station. Get an interrogation room, people. We're working. On a serial killer. "Don't you two have a stray dog to catch?" BaldCop asks Sam and Jane. "I don't know, Gene," Sam smiles. "Is your wife missing?" Gene stands up, indignant, and Jane ushers her partner away from the real cops.
"I bet you thought that was hysterical," she says as they walk away. "Not at all," Sam says. "I've seen Gene's wife." Sam's a loose cannon! Jane informs us that Sam has already been in front of the review board twice this year: "You are always pissing people off." She asks Sam what his deal is. Sam asks if she really wants to know. She does. "Really?" "Mm-hmm." Sam says, "The truth is, I LIKE pissing people off! I'm super-good at it! And that is my deal." Jane walks away, and Sam pulls her back. He says that they have to chase any hunches they have, and that's how you get to step up and play with the big boys: "Just trust your gut." He says he's going to poke around the Inferno Killer case and see what he can see, but he needs Jane's help. Jane says that it's not their case, it's her boyfriend's case. Sam scoffs as Jane says that they should just do their jobs. She walks away. Sam looks almost at us, letting us know there's no way he's going to take this lying down. Or standing there. Whatever.
Comparing to original pilot: Exactly the same.
Okay, head MWF is now standing on the roof again, still staring right where we left him. There are men around him, collecting "evidence." A woman asks for his attention. But he notices a scrap of red fabric, the same color as Tarzan's amazing pants. He holds it in his latex-gloved hand as "tribal" music plays again. The "tribal" music is better on Outback Steakhouse commercials. I love this: Tarzan's scrap of pants still has fresh blood on it -- blood which stains Captain MWF's glove. He looks up again, staring out at the sky as we hear traffic below.
Original pilot checks out, too. But why did that woman ask for his attention, and then we never saw her again?
City park. We follow two women for no reason until we find Jane and Michael. She's eating a pretzel. He wants a bite. She flirts a piece of food in and out of his mouth and ultimately doesn't let him eat it, saying that he should have gotten his own. It's awkward, their "Oh!" sounds, like how people exaggerate noises for babies because they instinctively know that babies are stupid. Michael says he needs to go give his commissioner a progress report. He asks if they're still on for Thursday. As they walk, Jane tells him that she's got a forensics seminar that night. Michael laughs and says it's "lame" that they can't even hook up for dinner and a rental. "We're an uber-couple, right?" she asks. "It's the price we pay." She kisses him and says goodbye. Michael calls her back, and stammers that he was thinking that he's had it with his tiny apartment, and his lease is up in a couple of months, and he never sees her anymore. He doesn't want to rush into anything, but wants to know if they could get a place together. Jane busts out in a confused smile. He asks her to say something, so she hugs him. Pan back to New York bridge. Ah, New York love. Always happens over pretzels.
Night. New York bridge. Broken glass gets scooped up with shovel as Sam complains about the kinds of cases they get: "Stray dogs trashing markets." Sam and Jane walk away from the crime scene as Sam asks, "You know who we need on this case? Those two creepy German guys. You know, Las Vegas, the-the-the- the-the leathery skin? Siegroy and Freed [sic]." Jane laughs. "I bet they'd have our mutts jumping through hoops in no time." Oops. Even Gilmore Girls had the sense to take out the Bali joke before it was too late. "Yeah, they're magicians, not animal trainers," Jane says. JANE CAN SEE THE FUTURE! Sam says he'd like to see this case disappear. Suddenly they hear more dogs barking, and notice an animal-control van in a nearby alley. "Maybe they found our dogs."
Sam and Jane approach the vehicle. The van is filled with cages of pound puppies, all barking and growling. In the driver's seat, an anxious man in uniform lights a cigarette. Jane asks what's going on. "In there," the man says, opting to let two police officers enter a dangerous area without the slightest warning or foresight to know what to expect. Good work, dude.
Jane and Sam don't need to be briefed. They'd rather walk in, letting the scary music be their guides. They hold up their flashlights and walk slowly down the alley. "[crunching]," says the closed captioning. We see dogs, gathered, eating something. Maybe meat, on a box? It's really hard to tell. Sam's no good with a flashlight. And the sounds are not unlike the ones in that scene in Cabin Fever. Y'all know what scene I'm talking about. The music gets creepier, and Jane aims her flashlight on -- A MAN! TARZAN! "[growls]," says the closed-captioning, and Jane jumps back (like a good cop does). Sam opts for the other thing cops shout in situations: "Hey, hey, hey!" He also pulls his gun. Jane runs in the opposite direction, shouting, "I got it!" Tarzan does an unnecessary spin out of shot. Sam's still shouting, "Hey!" But then the dogs start barking at him, and he's too scared to go any further.
More "tribal" music. Tarzan leaps to the fire-escape ladder, muscles bulging, and starts pawing his way up the building. Jane stands, impressed. She watches until he's about halfway up the building, and then she runs the other direction again. Is she planning on taking an elevator? No, the interior stairs, which somehow allow her to run up the building faster than Tarzan's leaps and swings. Tarzan at one point is climbing the air-conditioning vent, but slow and steady wins the race, and Jane books her way up the twelve flights of stairs in no time. Jane is suddenly outside the building again, climbing up the last of the fire-escape stairs just in time to see Tarzan leap off the building onto the one. Jane runs, hauling ass across the building, leaps, and falls to the building, somehow not shattering her ankles. She falls on her face, gets up and runs again. Tarzan leaps in the air like he's jumping off a trampoline. Jane runs, leaps into slow-motion, legs bicycling in the air. She flies across the alley but -- she doesn't quite make it! She's clinging on by her French manicure. She kicks and gasps, sets her teeth, and tries to pull herself up onto the roof. She sees a cable on the ground and grabs it. She hangs on. But it's a cable for a satellite dish, and the dish immediately comes loose and flings off the roof, beaning Jane in the forehead before crashing to the ground below. This message brought to you by Time Warner Cable. Jane almost falls off the roof, too, but she's been doing all of those pull-ups in the morning, so she's still hanging on. She struggles, grunts, kicks, and pants. Her eye shadow is still perfect, but her patent leathers are going to be seriously scuffed after this. One hand slides off the roof -- she's only hanging on by three fingertips now (she must have used some Krazy Glue or something). Just as she's about to let go and fall to her death, Tarzan finally decides to do something. He grabs her hard by the wrist, making Jane gasp in fear and surprise. He lifts her up by one arm. Jane dangles from his massive arm. Tarzan's a little dehydrated from all this city life, I guess, so he's a little puffy in the face. But homeboy's got one hell of a shaving system. The only hair on this man's body is on his scalp. Jane swings from Tarzan's arm as he inspects her. They are both open-mouthed, awed with each other. The music is totally smitten with this scene. Jane tries to speak, but cannot. Tarzan is breathing hard. He looks a little like Spicoli in some of the close-ups, doesn't he? Tarzan pulls Jane to the roof, finally, and lets go of her arm. Jane staggers backward, trying to get her balance, her senses, and blood back to her left arm. In the most unintentionally hilarious moment of the 2003-2004 season, Jane then pulls out her gun and pants, "You're under arrest." Tarzan cocks his head to the side, confused by man's shiny sticks that are always getting pointed at him. Jane -- like the fantastic cop she is -- then passes right the fuck out. Into his waiting arms! The light kisses Tarzan's face as he looks down at Jane through his long blond hair.
Tarzan gently leans Jane back on the skylight. He cradles her head in his hands as he looks her over. Crouched over her body, Tarzan inspects his new friend. He caresses her cheek with the back of his hand. He then caresses his own cheek with his other knuckles. He moves past her lipsticked lips to her chin. He strokes her neck with the back of his fingers. He slides his hand down between her breasts to the exposed part of her flat belly where her shirt has flipped open. It's right to the cell phone she didn't use when she was in trouble. Tarzan strokes the skin of Jane's stomach. This wakes Jane up, and she uses the squinty-head-shake of "Do I have a concussion? Where am I?" She lifts her head and holds it, making a pained noise. Tarzan's game, and does the same. She sees him and pushes him hard, grunting. Okay. Tarzan love games, so he spins on his monkey feet and comes back at her. He smiles and pounces at her. You have the right to go bananas, mister! Jane leans back, still confused, not bothering to call for help or pull her gun or stand up or do anything other than look at this manchild. He leans in, smiling. He touches her open mouth with his fingers -- the ones that recently were ripping open raw meat, and have touched every filthy street, building, and roof in New York City. ["Um, Pam? When you really love someone, you even love their disgusting germs. Maybe someday you'll love someone enough to know that." -- Wing Chun] He puts those fingers in her mouth and makes an awed sound. Jane doesn't even flinch. In fact, she's loving it. Tarzan then touches his own lips and exhales. Jane blinks three times. Then there's the sound of a helicopter overhead. Jane squints and turns her head away as bright lights engulf the roof and Tarzan stands up to face the Man Beams bravely. His hair is awesome. Men swoop in on ropes from the sky. Tarzan shields his pretty face. Jane -- an officer sworn to protect and serve -- does nothing. Well, she hides her pretty face away from the bright light and wind. Tarzan growls and monkey-crawls over to the men in black, who instantly shoot him with tranquilizer darts. Tarzan looks down at his magnificent chest and then passes out. Jane watches all of this. A man stands over her, looking through his night-vision goggles. Jane squints until she looks like Bonnie Hunt reading a cue card. The man turns, like he's in a line-up, to a profile, the light hitting the patch on his arm. Gee. It's a "G"! Three men clumsily carry Tarzan into a net. Jane squints, and the man with the goggles stares at her again. Surprisingly, we don't go to Silence of the Lambs-cam here. He walks away. Jane, a police officer, still does nothing. Tarzan's all chained up in his net now, and the men fly out on their cables just as they flew in, this time with Tarzan in tow. Jane keeps watching as the men disappear into a beam of helicopter light like evil angels. Jane blinks a lot as the helicopter flies away. The "tribal" music starts again as Jane looks down on the roof and sees Tarzan's necklace. It must have fallen off when she was doing absolutely nothing to help him. She picks it up and holds it in the air. Breathless, there's only one other choice now: our first commercial break.
The necklace has a locket, and inside is a picture of a mother, father, and young son. That's what the Chief is looking at right now. He says, "So he wore a necklace. That doesn't prove commandos or high-tech helicopters in the East Village." Jane can't believe he doesn't believe her. "I believe you believe it," he says. "If she says it happened, then it happened," Sam says. If I'm writing it, then I must be writing it. The Chief reminds Jane that her partner wasn't on the scene (thanks, Sam, for pussing out because three dogs growled at you), and not one person corroborated a helicopter flying overhead in the middle of the night. And apparently Jane suffered a mild concussion. Jane is indignant that a guy got "snatched" (heh) and they're not going to do anything about it. You didn't, Jane. The Chief says they'll fill out a wanted card and "pick the guy up." Who? Whatever. Sam says he'd like to concentrate on the Inferno Killer now. I'm sorry. I keep calling Captains "Chief," when I bet he'd rather be called The Captain. Sam says that the perp is "flame-broiling" in the same neighborhood where Edward Creal used to haunt. "They both found homeless victims in homeless areas, so what?" the Cap says. Jane is still eating her lips, upset that her new boyfriend is missing. Good thing she gets to wear sexy cop blouses. She looks over the Cap's table of family photographs. Her eye settles on the one where the Cap is taking a huge check from Greystoke Industries. How convenient! She gets excited, and tells the Cap that the man last night was wearing a patch with the Greystoke insignia. The Cap interrupts her and says she has to come back with hard evidence before he'll discuss anything else. "Sir, I know what I saw," Jane says. "Then prove it!" Hard-hit
ting dialogue you won't see anywhere else. They stare at each other until the Cap says, "Now, I'm done here. With both a ya." Sam raises his hands in the air and walks away. You're too close to the case, Porter! You're a loose cannon, Sam! Let's check on the original pilot for a second, shall we? Looks the same to me.
Homeless people. A mother and her son. She covers him in a blanket and calls him handsome. A BadManVan screeches down the alley. HomelessMom knows enough to pull her child out of the way and look worried. This show has the cleanest homeless people I've ever seen. Out of the BadManVan steps our perp. His van door reads: "Dead Crawl Extermination." The man approaches with a tank of insecticide. We see him for the first time. Now that's a dirty man.-- all sweaty with Serial-Killer Hair, and that mouth-breathing reserved for people who maim and mutilate. The man and the homeless family stare each other down in broad daylight. The music swells. Cut!
Jane's place. Nicki asks, "Come on, tell me. On a scale of 1 to 10. Is he a 7? A 9? A 10?" Jane doesn't want to answer. Nicki reminds Jane that the man saved her life: "That's so romantic." Jane says it's not romantic -- it's a case. Nicki: Right. Forgot. Why would your life ever be romantic?" Nicki leaves, and Jane looks up and smiles. She goes back to her laptop, equipped with fancy downloading capabilities. She's in the middle of The History of Greystoke Industries, a pop-up window she's downloading from some financial website. Honestly. It informs us that Greystoke CEO Richard Clayton's life has not been all mergers and success. On April 24th, 1983, his younger brother John -- who was the Greystoke CEO at the time -- was in a plane crash with his family over the jungles of the Congo (cue map of "Congo," complete with dot of "crash."). John, his wife Alice, and their son John Jr. were missing. The picture in the website report happens to be exactly the same photograph Tarzan carries in his locket -- the one photo that family ever took, I guess. And considering that locket's been in the jungles of the National Republic of Congo since 1983, it's holding up exceptionally well. Tarzan's photo looks brand-new. Apparently, Richard spent millions on expeditions to Africa to find his brother and his family, but last October he discovered the downed Cessna and the remains of his family. Here we see a little boy on a swing, shouting, "Higher, Dad! Higher!" Not too high, son. Daddy will crash. Original pilot: OtherSister asks if Tarzan goes up to 11, not saying that the thing was romantic. She apologizes, without the crack about Jane's life never being romantic. Nicki then enters the room again, asking, "He's an 11 then, right?" She leaves, satisfied. Jane shakes her head. The rest remains the same, including Jane having to show us the locket with the photo. We get it.
Jane waltzes right into Richard Clayton's lair. It's a big office -- big enough to have a basketball net. This guy is Mitch Pileggi, also known as Skinner from The X-Files, a show I only saw a couple of episodes of. But man, this guy is kinda sexy. Jane compliments Clayton's set-up. Clayton says he won't make the Knicks without practice. He shoots another ball, swoosh. "Though they could use a good point guard like me," he says, and Jane is smitten. Jane, you ignorant slut. You are wooed by every boy who looks at you for more than two seconds! Jane says she appreciates his seeing her. He says he'll do anything for the boys in blue. Or girls in blue, he amends. Jane says she's investigating an unusual case, about a pack of dogs causing a lot of damage in the area, and she's wondering if he may be the owner of one of the dogs, or if the dog is hiding somewhere in the building. Clayton's all, "Are you kidding?" He says there's no dog. "Then this isn't his collar?" Jane asks, holding up Tarzan's locket. Clayton turns to her. She looks back. They flirt over the ape-man's trinket. Important music plays as Clayton takes the locket from her hand and tells her it's very important to him that this all remain a private family matter. Then why tell her what's-- oh, forget it. "Walk with me," he says.
Clayton and Jane walk to the window we saw in the beginning of the episode. Men in white coats wander around, proving this couldn't be too much of a private family matter. We hear classical music, as Clayton walks Jane to the glass. "Let me introduce you to John Clayton," he says. "Though I understand you two have already met." We see Tarzan in a very nice J. Crew ensemble: brown pants and a black knit top. Jane's all, "I'm sorry. Did you just say...?" Clayton says that's his nephew, John, back from the dead. "He survived," he whispers. We see Tarzan, crouched down near a table, his hands clasped at his head as he rocks back and forth on his bare toes. "In the jungle!" Jane says, "No. That's..." "A miracle?" Clayton finishes. Lord. "We found him less than a mile from the crash site. He was sick. Thin. We AirVaced him back to stateside. It was pretty touch-and-go." And then they hired a personal trainer, got him in the gym five times a week, and now it's pretty touch-and-oh. (Sorry.) Jane asks if John remembers, and whether he can speak. Clayton smiles and says that when John was a kid, you couldn't get him to shut up, but now it's not that he can't speak; it's that he won't. His MRIs are clean, and there's no aphasia or brain trauma: "He's mute. Passive." Awesome. Jane reminds Clayton that Tarzan's caused some pretty sizable damage around town, which isn't too passive. "It's not his fault," Clayton says, touching his forehead. "Up here he's still a kid." Jane -- who is all about personal, private, family matters -- says she has to report this. She sounds like Sandra Bullock in this scene. Clayton says the DA knows all about this situation, and that the agreement is that if Clayton keeps Tarzan under full surveillance, Tarzan can stay there. As long as he's under medical and psychiatric care, the charges will stay dropped. "I'm gonna protect him," Clayton swears. "I owe my brother that much."
The camera swoops around Tarzan as he rocks back and forth, touching his forehead to his hands. He stops for a second, and looks up quickly with an exhale. Jane sees this. Tarzan takes about two leaps and is suddenly up at the observation window, staring at Jane. They stare at each other, open-mouthed and slightly panting. "Hello," Tarzan says, plain as day. Hysterical. He might have just run his hand through his hair and gone, "Hey, 'sup?" And Clayton makes this face that makes me think that this whole "mute" thing was just bullshit, but I read somewhere that Clayton was supposed to be angry that Tarzan chose to speak to Jane first. In any case, right now I'm voting for Clayton being a gigantic liar, and that Tarzan's been chatty ever since they found him in the jungle. "Hi," Jane says. Clayton hits a button, and a wall comes shooting down over the window. He tells Jane that John's had enough excitement for one day. He backs away, leaving Jane to wander around, still mouth-breathing.
Down in the lab, someone's put his fancy tranq gun in its fancy tranq case. We follow his white lab coat over to where Tarzan has passed out on the ground. Two men in black pick him up and lift him to a bed. As they buckle him in, we focus on one of their badges, which reads Level 1. The camera pans over to the fourth guy fastening Tarzan to a bed -- his badge is missing! The MIBs leave, using one of their badges to open the door. As the "tribal" music gets more insistent, we see Tarzan finger the stolen badge, flip it so we can read the "Level 1," and then slide it under his perfect ass. He could have just used one of the seventeen utility pockets on his cargo pants, but whatever.
Fake Norah Jones music plays as Jane slow-dances with Michael. Man. I want more Tarzan! Jane looks over Michael's shoulder, through this tiny window in the restaurant that overlooks only Greystoke Industries. That's odd. Michael busts out from nowhere, "Okay, so when you describe me? Graceful's not the word you'd use." He asks what she's thinking. "I love you," she lies. "You know that, right?" Michael says he does, but wonders what the deal is. She took him out to dinner, went dancing. I guess she skipped that forensics seminar. He says it's unexpected. She says they could use a little unexpectedness. "But if you don't like it, we could..." she starts. Michael says he loves it. "This is a, this is a great idea." They kiss, and that's when asshole Michael's cell phone goes off. Dude, it's a nice restaurant. Put it on vibrate. Holy crap. Jane actually says, "Is that a cell phone in your pocket or..." Oh, I bet originally it was on vibrate, and that's why she says that. Otherwise, huh? Michael leans into her face and says it can wait. "We both know that it can't," she says. He takes the call. "Yeah," he says. "I can't hear you. Please hold." He tells Jane he has to take the call and apologizes to her rolling eyes. He kisses her forehead and leaves. Jane looks after him as the camera swoops around to face her. Over her shoulder, we see an elderly couple, actually happy to be together, unlike Jane, who would like to be swing dancing with a monkey, if you know what I'm sayin'. And if you do, please tell me, because I don't. Heh. In the original pilot it is Norah Jones playing. Huh, but the cell phone still rings.
Michael's important phone call is about the serial killer. He walks outside the restaurant and onto the street. He says he needs the profiles right away. The camera swoops back around, and "tribal" music makes a snake-tail sound as we see that Michael has come face to face with Tarzan. They stare at each other for a second, and then Michael puts his call on hold. He slips a bill into Tarzan's hand, telling him to get himself something to eat. He walks away, back on the phone.
Inside the restaurant, Jane is at her table. She looks up, assuming that Michael is standing beside her. "Hey, that --" she starts. But no. It's Tarzan. He's looking down at her, kinda smiling. "John," she says. "Hello," he says again. "What are you doing here?" she asks. Probably not the first thing I'd say to an escaped apeman who was spying on me through the tiny window in the nearby restaurant. Tarzan has superpowers, you guys. Tarzan wasn't supposed to be a superhero, was he? "I came to see you," Tarzan smiles. Before Jane can comment on Tarzan's awesome grasp of the English language without a trace of an accent, the snooty maitre d' is on Tarzan's ass, clearing his throat, asking Jane if this thing is with her. "We have a strict dress code," he hisses. Shot of Tarzan's bare, but clean, feet. "Is he barefoot?" Tarzan looks down like he didn't know he was. The maitre d' says that Tarzan cannot be in this building, and that Tarzan and Jane must leave immediately. Jane apologizes. She says she'll get her boyfriend and then they'll go. "Get this guy out of here!" the maitre d' hisses. And Tarzan is immediately on him, growling, and scaring him into taking a few steps back. Jane yells at Tarzan not to attack. She pushes him toward the kitchen with both hands, saying they need to go out the door. But the door's the other way! You forgot your purse!
Rip in space-time continuum! Cop cars pull outside of the restaurant, just as Michael's finishing up the world's longest cell-phone call. He asks what they're doing there -- "they" being the MWF who has no mask, Clayton, and Sam. That is an interesting crew, isn't it? Sam asks where Jane is. Michael says that she's inside. Clayton, your interior light is on.
Inside, however, most people are just behaving normally, going about their restaurant business. "The lady left," the maitre d' says to Michael. "What?" he immediately asks. "With the barefoot gentleman." "The barefoot gentleman?" Michael asks, afflicted with a touch of echolalia. Clayton threatens Sam that if anything happens to Tarzan...but Sam interrupts to say this isn't Jane's fault. Is Jane wearing a tracking device? Clayton says he knew that if he found Jane, he'd find Tarzan: "I guess I was right. Wasn't I?" The other patrons are being incredibly patient.
Lordy. Typical swirly-cam shot of Times Square with Tarzan staring up at tall buildings. Loud music plays. Hee. On the original pilot it's "Hot in Herre." Tarzan hears jungle drums and makes his way over to a group of men beating on plastic containers. Jane makes her way through the crowd (all middle-aged or older people, smiling and bopping to the beat, as tourists do), apologizing for bumping into the scores of people gathered to watch five men beat on plastic containers. Tarzan has found home, and must crouch nearby to watch the men beat with sticks. He misses Cheetah. Oh. There are times when this boy isn't so hot. This is one of those times. This model isn't a smiler, y'all. Aw. Jane looks so smitten it is weird. She's all awed by him liking the drums. She crouches to him and says they're looking for him. "Come on," she says. "Let's get you home." Whoa. Very different on the pilot. Right here Tarzan freaks out when he gets out of the crowd. He gets all scared, and makes eye contact with a bunch of people as the drums fade away and he breathes hard. He looks around. Jane looks at him as he stares at her, confused. Then she's behind him, somehow, so that's crazy. He keeps staring people down, panting. They look back at him. The drums start up again as Jane gets in his face, asking if he's all right. He doesn't say anything, but looks upset. She tells him it's okay, and tells him to follow. Then we pan down for the scene. Huh. Wonder why they cut that. Maybe because the cop, and not the boy from the jungle, is supposed to sense the serial killer.
We pan down underneath the street, past the drums, to the rather clean sewers underneath the subway. Our serial killer approaches a sleeping homeless man. He douses the man with kerosene from the insecticide container. The man wakes up, coughs, and asks what the killer is doing. The serial killer lights a match from what looks like his neck. "Pest control," he Buffalo Bills, and tosses the match on the man, who immediately bursts into silent flame. No screaming. Death is immediate, and the serial killer didn't even have to take a step back. Wow. How efficient.
Jane thinks she's on a date with Tarzan. It's a little embarrassing. As they pass a horse and carriage, Jane giggles, "Hey, slow down! Where are you going?" Tarzan immediately flings himself up a tree like Michael Jackson writing a song. "Up a tree," she says. "Great." She asks how Tarzan got out in the first place: "How did you find me? Are you some kind of bloodhound or something?" "I hunt," Tarzan says with a smile. "I hunted for you." Tarzan and Jane, sitting in a tree. L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y. Tarzan jumps down and asks, "What are you called?" "My name?" Jane answers, which should confuse Tarzan, but it doesn't. And I think it's bullshit that sometimes he's a jungle boy, and other times he's a college graduate. "Jane...Porter." Tarzan repeats: "Jane. Porter. I am Tarzan." Jane would get warned on the forums with her statement: "Um...? I thought your name was John." The piano in this scene is terrible. Tarzan spins Jane to face the ever-present Greystoke Industries building to say, "He calls me John." He says he's not going back. "I'm sorry," Jane says. "But I have to take you back." Tarzan whines, "He keeps me caged." Jane -- eye shadow still impressively impeccable -- says, "How do I explain this?" You retarded ape.... "You belong there. And you'll be safe there. And that's the law and I'm a cop and it's what's right." Oh. Well, when you put it in that twisted logic. What law? ["Seriously. I'm pretty sure Tarzan of age by now, if my math is right, and if he isn't, Jane the old bag shouldn't be falling in love with him." -- Wing Chun] Tarzan says, "No, it's not." He backs away and walks off. Jane crosses her arms and says she doesn't understand: "Your uncle? I thought he saved your life." Tarzan pulls one side of his shirt down to expose precious flesh, flawed with a scar. "He did not save me," Tarzan says. Reaction shot. Close-up. Reaction shot. Jane's got all kinds of smarts: "That's a gunshot wound." Tarzan must look away in shame. Jane asks what happened to him. Tarzan kicks off the flashback: "It was when I was free."
Gunshot. Jungle. Tarzan's in a tree, hair incredible, scars streaked down one shoulder. "It was when I was home." He looks down from his perch and sees men walking near a discarded gorilla costume. One man punches another. Tarzan grunts. "This is not a hunting expedition," we hear Clayton say. A very sweaty Clayton turns to the side and tells someone to put the monkey out of her misery. We see that the man who was punched is the head MWF, who I guess shot a gorilla for fun. Tarzan takes a step forward just as the head MWF cocks his rifle and pumps bullets through the gorilla costume. Tarzan leaps down with a sound effect, and Clayton looks up, shocked. There's the sound of bones breaking, of a man's muffled shout, the sound of a spear, and then we see Tarzan fly up in the air, trapped in a net. All the men on the ground point their guns in different directions. We hear more growling, and the sound of branches breaking. A rustling! The head MWF moves toward the sound. He shoots! Tarzan falls from the trees to the ground. A shocked Clayton holds his tiny gun still and looks terrified. He runs over with his crew to Tarzan. How does Tarzan know this in a flashback if he's unconscious? Clayton figures out that it's a man once he strokes back his pretty hair. Then he finds the necklace. "Could this...?" he starts. "John!" he whispers.
Flashback over. "I'm so sorry," Jane says. About what, exactly? The gorilla? Getting shot? Getting rescued from the jungles of Congo? Tarzan walks over and says he's glad he's there. "What?" Jane asks. This whole cast has Videogame Questionitis, the method of getting exposition out of someone by having one character talk while the other just keeps repeating the last word or asking "What?" to every statement. "How can you say that after everything you've gone through?" Tarzan says, "Because I've found you." Jane laughs in his face. "Right," she says. "You don't even know me." Oh, we know you, Jane Porter. Tarzan sidles up behind her, right over her shoulder, and sniffs her hair. The incredibly bad music pipes in here, "Hold on! You said." Jane doesn't move, but lets Tarzan circle her, sniffing her head. "And I held on!" Tarzan exhales over her shoulder. He drags his nose over her shoulder. "No, no, no, no," Jane whispers. "No, this is crazy. You don't, uh...I can...I can't." They face each other. Tarzan doesn't look pretty again. They pant, staring. Their skin is the only illumination in the city. "Right," she whispers. "This from a guy who walks barefoot in Manhattan." Okay. Jane tells him to come with her. "Your voice," Tarzan says. "I'm fine," she lies. "Come on." As the singer sings about someone giving of their life, Jane leads Tarzan right into the line of fire. Cop cars circle, and they cuff Tarzan, who can't believe Jane would betray him right after he sniffed her like that. He starts to run, but she tells him that they'll hurt him if he tries to go. Where did Tarzan get a ponytail holder? When? Jane tells the cops to go easy on him, but nobody listens because this crazy guy isn't wearing any shoes! Meanwhile, someone is burning to death just below the street they are standing on. Tarzan so upset! Tarzan seriously bummed out! Tarzan and Jane stare at each other, panting, as the guitar wails. Oops. I just ripped my bodice!
Well, for some reason, they decided to book Tarzan, so Jane's watching him get handled by the cops at the station. Hope he's got some form of ID other than that necklace. Then maybe he could talk to these people in that calm, collected way he's been doing, and they won't cage him up for being a mute animal. I mean, if the problem is they think he can't talk and needs constant psychiatric care, and he's only freaking out because he's being held prisoner, don't you think Tarzan could talk his way out of this one? You don't need Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer to win a jury over, do you? Tarzan's pretty pissed at Jane. The Cap tells her that Clayton will be over in fifteen minutes. Why? How far did they get from the restaurant? The Cap complains that the killer on the streets just claimed his fourth victim. "Clayton lied to me," Jane says. "He kidnapped John." The Cap says that Clayton is Tarzan's legal custodian. Of a twenty-five-year old man? "Against his will," Jane says. "We have to do something." Brace yourselves for this exchange. "There is nothing to do," the Cap says. "He's got the law on his side." Jane storms up, indignant. "I don't care! This isn't about the law. This is about right and wrong." Which...would be...the...law...which decides what's right and...forget it. Jane and The Cap stare each other down. The Cap says he'll handle Clayton and get to the bottom of it all, but he wants Jane out of there before Clayton shows up. "Have Sam run you home," he says. Where's Michael? Doesn't he work there? Thanks, fancy boyfriend. Jane tries to protest, but the Cap kicks her right out of there. "Now." Jane obeys. Obey, Jane, obey.
At her desk, Jane plops down. Michael shows up and says hello. She says hi. "Forgot your purse," he says. Nice attention to detail. But he might have come back for more than that, right? For some reason, Jane starts apologizing here for dealing with an escaped monkey-man, for working while Michael was taking a conference call. Michael's suddenly all, "Whatever, baby. I'm really swamped." He leaves, not offering her a ride home. Jane shakes her head and closes her eyes, thinking, "My monkey boyfriend never leaves me."
In the car ride home, Sam asks if Jane's okay with "this whole thing with the Clayton kid." She says she doesn't know what happened tonight, but that it's over now and she's okay. She wants to know why Sam's not taking her to his apartment. I don't know why Sam whispers this monologue, but he does, saying that since Mike and the Cap were only checking out current bug-exterminator places, he thought he'd check out ones that were no longer in business. One name caught his eye for no particular reason: "Dead Crawl Exterminators." But the name nagged at him, and nagged at him. Then he realized. Because, you see, that's an anagram for -- "Get ready for this," Sam warns us -- Edward Creal. Well, not exactly. You'd need an additional "E." Jane asks how much Scrabble Sam plays. He says it might be a copycat, and might not. Didn't the Cap tells us that Edward Creal died in prison? Anyway, somehow Sam has the address of a dead man's fictional bankrupt extermination business, and he's ready to check it out. "What the hell," Jane says. "Why not?" Yeah, not like there's a girl at home wanting her dinner. Jane says that someone once told her that she has to step up to the plate and trust her gut. Man, was that in this episode? It feels like it's been going on forever. Sam asks who gave her that advice. "I saw it on Dr. Phil," she says.
Jail. Cops are teasing each other about gambling on baseball while Tarzan fiddles in his cell. One asks the other who he is. "I don't know," one says, right in front of Tarzan. "Some nutjob." To protect and to serve, peeps. They go back to chatting about baseball inches from Tarzan's grip. Tarzan leaps, and we hear a growl from somewhere, but really Tarzan would only be leaping into the bars of his cage.
Before we can determine what the hell just happened, we cut to a different area of the station, where a familiar Greystoke-like alarm sounds. Michael turns around, concerned. I thought he'd left already! All the cops kick it into gear. Michael walks right over to Tarzan's cell, where the two cops are chained to one of the bars, and for some reason they've been stripped to their undershirts and bare chests. Like Silence of the Lambs, again, without so much face-eating. Also: it's not as hot. The Cap calls for a lockdown, saying that nobody gets to leave. Every cop grabs a rifle. Hey, boys. Want to know what you're looking for? Someone want to ask the two cops what's going on? No? Have fun.
The cops sneak up a flight of stairs, guns drawn. They lean against a door that clearly says, "No Entry." One guy slowly peeks through the window, like all good cops would do. Suddenly a pair of feet appear in the tiny window, and the door slams open, crushing at least four cops. Tarzan jumps on the door, shattering spines, and then runs off, ponytail holder be damned! He ollies off a closed door and up a staircase.
That sign says the freight elevator isn't in service, Tarzan! He doesn't care. He hauls himself up, swinging and spinning up the walls like a...monkey. His cargo pants are impeccable. He climbs up the elevator. More cops are in stairwells, listening. Tarzan scoots and grunts to the top floor, where he flings himself out to a supply closet. The music's keeping us going, the beat goes on. Run, Tarzan! Run! D'oh! Thwarted by the teleportation skills of one Michael the Bad Cop. He points his gun at his girlfriend's new boyfriend. "That's far enough," he says. "Get on the floor. Now." Tarzan takes a step closer, so Michael shoots his gun just past Tarzan's shoulder, destroying a few paint cans. He tells Tarzan again to get on the floor. Tarzan pants into his pretty hair as the tribal music keeps playing. Tarzan crouches to the ground. Michael approaches, one gun-clutched hand firmly planted to the back of his flashlight-clutching other hand. He circles Tarzan. As he goes to cuff him, he says that Tarzan's becoming a real pain in the ass. "What is it that you want?" Michael asks. Huh? Tarzan -- whose balls are as big as his pecs -- responds, "Jane." "Wrong answer," Michael says, and pushes Tarzan face-first to the ground. Tarzan uses his cuffed hand to grab Michael's, and flings Michael over his back. Wait! How did Tarzan get out of the cuffs? He tangles his legs in Michael's until Michael falls on his face. Michael turns, pulling his gun again, but Tarzan's already out the door. Michael takes a shot, but hits the wall. Dude, Mike, you could have killed somebody. Try and be a little more responsible with your piece. Michael stands up to follow.
Tarzan's on the roof again, flipping over the fire escape, dropping from one floor to another as the music plays. He dangles and cartwheels over the poles. The Tarzan stunt gymnast is crazy impressive. Michael finally appears on the roof with his gun drawn. Tarzan is long gone, doing a spinny jump from the last of the fire escape ladder. Tarzan slides down someone's laundry rope. (For some reason, it's raining only in that one shot.) Michael is open-mouthed, and shocked.
When two cops have a hunch, it's best to find an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the night when nobody knows where you are and just enter it, not bothering to call for backup. Particularly if neither of you is wearing any kind of protection. That's what I've discovered on my trips with television cops, anyway. Sam and Jane are ready to do what TV cops do best: get themselves in some serious bullshit that only a superhero monkey-man knows how to get out of. This show must have been sponsored by Energizer, because the flashlights are out again. Jane and Sam find the van with the "Dead Crawl" logo. "Nice work," Jane says to Sam. You mean looking up the address on Yahoo Maps? Yeah, good work, there, Sammy. Jane and Sam round another hallway with guns and flashlights drawn. "We're clear," Jane says calmly, which always means the opposite. They find a rickety old metal staircase. Jane says she's going to go up. "Stay in touch," Sam says. Well, if there's a serial killer, that means that young women have to make really stupid decisions because they're thinking about boys, and then everybody almost dies. So here goes. Jane goes upstairs.
Jane finds a room with a television playing some old movie that serial killers like to leave on in the background of things while they plan to kill the cops who just found something that will help solve the case. It's because the cops always get distracted by what's on television. Jane apparently doesn't care if the killer knows she's in the room, because Sam radios her at this point and they have a little chat about how she might have found him up here. He says he's on his way, but Jane's too impatient, and slowly makes her way over to the chair facing the television. She shines her flashlight on it, but it's a good thing he hasn't noticed her yet.
Sam tries to run up the stairs, but once he makes it to the top, the door closes on his head. He yells, but Jane can't hear it because she's more than one foot away. Sam tumbles down the stairs and passes out like all good partners do. Our bad guy watches.
"Sam," Jane says into her radio. "Sam, are you there?" She really doesn't care who hears her now. And she must have heard something that made her radio in, but she doesn't care enough to run to check on him. He's not answering, so he must be fine. In the background, the television tells us, "He's crazy! I didn't do it!" The television turns off, a split second too late Jane whips around, scared. She points her gun at the turned-off television. Shoot it! Jane whips her flashlight over to the electrical socket and sees that someone has unplugged the TV. No remotes for this serial killer. And as Jane stares down the socket, trying to figure out why the television isn't working, we see BugMan approach her, ready to ask if she's about a size fourteen. But he makes a creaking sound on the wooden floor! Jane spins, she sees him, she gasps! She goes to hit him with her gun. Yes, this cop's first instinct with her gun is to hit someone with it. There's a struggle. The gun falls, and then it goes off, because I guess Jane had already cocked it, but didn't feel like shooting it when someone was attacking her.
The gunshot soundwaves, carrying with them the sound of Jane shrieking, make their way through the abandoned warehouse over to some part of Manhattan where Tarzan stands on a roof, waiting. He hears that Jane is in trouble. His superpower: he's a great listener. And no split ends! We hear his heart pound, his breath pant. His hair undulates. He leaps, growling.
Jane is punching the shit out of BugMan. Doesn't think to pick up her gun and shoot, though. And Sam is no help at all. BugMan tosses Jane into some crockery. She kicks him and then hits him in the head with a pot. He punches her in the stomach and flings her across the room. He picks her up and throws her into a wall. The wall shatters and they fall through it! They're both stunned, covered in dust. Be careful, Buffalo Bill; she falls for anyone who pays attention to her. You could be her fixation. He stands up, panting. She struggles to get up. He saunters over to the bookcase, and then knocks it over onto her. Jane is trapped underneath the bookcase. Hee. It totally looks like she gets crushed. And somehow she turns around under there. "I can't go to jail," Buffalo Bill says. "My father died in jail." Wha? He's Edward Creal's son? How old was Edward Creal, dude?
SMASH! Spider-Man crashes through the glass ceiling (every apartment in New York has a skylight, doncha know)! Wait. I'm sorry. I mean, the Hulk smashes into the.... Sorry, sorry. Tarzan jumps in and beats up the bad guy with his simian strength. He punches and swings, punches and swings. He jumps off a wall, spins, somersaults, flings around this warehouse that looks like the place where Ren McCormick did his big angry beer-fueled dance number in Footloose. The bad guy has a huge pipe. "John!" screams Jane. "I already told you! Call me Tarzan!" I wish he'd say. BugMan hits Tarzan in the face. NOT THE PRETTY FACE! NO! YOU BASTARD! He hits him again. Jane -- the cop trained to protect and to serve -- screams, "No!" And then, weakly, crying, moans, "Get him!" Tarzan does a backward leap to his feet and stops the pipe mid-swing. He flings BugMan into some barrels. "Whoa!" BugMan says, as he falls head-first to the ground. Tarzan turns, pants, and once again lifts Jane up by one arm. She easily comes out of that overturned bookcase, without so much as a leg pinned. "Are you hurt?" Tarzan asks her. Obviously not. She could have just crawled out! Oooh-wee, he's got pretty hair. "I'll survive," Jane pants. "Let's go get Sam," she says, turning to leave. The struggling hand of immortal serial killers rises! It grabs one of those handheld firetank things. BugMan lights his torch and makes his way over to the barrels of insecticide. "Oh, my God!" Jane says. As BugMan slowly, slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y brings the flame to the chemicals, Tarzan leaps into the air over and over again, and falls onto BugMan. "John!" Jane screams.
Huge blast of orange flame. Jane jumps and flies backward, sending her through the last unbroken wooden beam in this shack. Exterior shot of flames CGIed out of the corner of a warehouse.
Inside, through the smoke, Jane coughs. She sees the fire and calls out to Tarzan. She gets more fireballs in response. She's choking on the fire that should have already killed her three times.
For some reason, we get exactly the same shot of the warehouse exploding.
Downstairs, everything's cool, and Jane touches Sam on the arm, which always wakes up a person who fell down some stairs. He gets up, disoriented, and follows her.
Jane and Sam stumble out of the warehouse, both coughing. They run underneath the window, where black smoke pours out.
Fade to the firemen putting the smoke out with their hoses. Pan down to all of the cop cars and fire engines. Everybody's talking, radioing, blah, blah, cop stuff. We see Michael debrief to Sam our wrap-up: "So the one guy's name was Trevor Whedon. But guess the name on the birth certificate: Creal. Gregory Creal." Sam: "I knew it. Like father, like son." Michael agrees. The Cap -- who loves stumbling into the middle of conversations and hijacking them -- asks about "the Clayton kid." Michael says that the firemen said "no chance." The Cap approaches Sam: "About this case. You were right. But that doesn't change the fact that you and Porter were completely reckless. Could have gotten yourselves killed." He walks away, but I'm sure we'll hear that exact speech a few more times this year. Sam and Jane stare at each other. Sam's got a bandage over one eye. Jane holds an ice pack to her wrist. Sam sips some coffee. Jane looks away, apparently upset.
Michael thanks one of the cops and walks over to Jane. He apologizes, and says he has to stick around and "wrap" some things up. She already solved your case, Mike. Does she have to give herself head, too? Michael tells her that some guy named Abrams will drive her home. Can't this girl get a car? Can't she drive herself? "Careful," Michael says to her as she climbs out of the back of the ambulance. Shut up, asshole. She just fought a crazy serial killer and escaped a fire. She's got it down a step. Ugh. "Jane," Michael says. "I almost lost you tonight." Jane repeats, "No, you didn't. No, you didn't." He means in the fire, not to the monkey, girl. Jane says she's there now, and everything's okay. "Okay?" Michael repeats. "No, no, everything is not okay. Think about it. All our 'being sensible' and 'let's not rush into anything.' It's wrong. I was wrong." Michael whispers, "I want you to marry me, Jane." Again: "Marry me." Jane answers with a long, shuddery, confused sigh, so Michael stutters an apology, and says it's been a long night. He says they should just get her home. He puts her in a car, once again telling her to be careful. Maybe you should watch yourself go and buy a ring, mister. What kind of proposal was that? You're obviously hoping she'll marry you and quit being a cop, what with the whole "Everything is not okay" bullshit. And you aren't offering to take her home, or let her stay on the case she solved. And you aren't offering your own place. Why won't Jane say anything? Michael says he'll come over as soon as he can and they'll talk. Jane, mute as Tarzan, lets herself be driven away from the case she cracked, and the man who's stealing her thunder.
Head MWF finds Clayton and asks, "What now?" Clayton exhales and says, "He can't be dead." That's probably a pretty safe bet, this being the pilot and all. "Keep looking." I think I see a tear in Clayton's eye!
Jane's place. Bathroom. We hear the shower water get turned off. At that same second, Jane opens the curtain. She's already wrapped up in her towel, her hair dry enough to swing around her shoulders. Brilliant. Jane stares at herself in the mirror, as all women torn between two men do. She hears a thump in the other room. Jane pulls her robe tighter, and turns off the bathroom light, to draw attention to herself. She grabs her nearby gun and sees that her bedroom window is open. She jumps into her bedroom, gun raised, and of course, Tarzan is standing there. They're bathed only in moonlight. He's covered in soot, with two gentle scratches near his eye. She's panting. He's waiting. "Oh, my God. You're all right," she finally says. He smiles. She runs up to him, tossing her gun onto the bed. She breathes and laughs in his face, and immediately realizes he can't stay in the city. Her eye makeup is awesome for having just taken a shower. She says they have to get him back home. "No," he says. Jane says that with everyone thinking he's dead, now's his chance to escape. "No," he says again. "I don't belong there." But you're Tarzan. Of the Jungle. Oh, wait. That's George. "What do you mean?" Jane soap-opera-acts. He leans in: "I belong with you." She blinks three times. He leans in and sniffs. She rolls her eyes back in orgasmic glee. And suddenly, right when I'm starting to get tingly, fucking Avril fucking Lavigne starts her moaning. Crap! She sings that infernal "I'm With You" song as Tarzan sniffs and sniffs and rubs his head like my cat does to my hand in the morning when he wants to be fed. Jane's totally digging it, even though Tarzan's all sooty.
Suddenly, Tarzan sees the door open. He leaps away as Jane turns to the door. It's Nicki. She asks if Jane's okay. Jane, flabbergasted, looks around but doesn't see Tarzan. The curtains blow in the window as Avril wails, "Isn't anyone trying to find me?" Jane runs to the window and leans out, trying to find Tarzan. It's a damn stupid song.
Night sky. Pan across to the top of some other building, where Tarzan is perched on the roof again, staring. He stands up, majestically, as Avril reaches her most screechy point. He stands majestically as a building is illuminated behind him. Where did Tarzan get jeans? With flares? Mmm. Tarzan stands in the wind, the only tolerable shot they keep repeating in this soap opera. We slowly fade to black. Weren't those extra six minutes worth it?!?
week, I think someone's going to try to find out if Tarzan's still alive. And I think Tarzan might take off his shirt! And maybe he'll escape something! Oh, and Xena's coming (Not to be confused with Xina.).