I forgot to mention at the end of the original pilot, right after Tarzan started sniffing, right when Avril started wailing, Jane pulled Tarzan in for a long kiss. And I guess the end of that episode was "To Be Continued..." which feels so Nickelodeon to me. So that makes this episode -- which feels a little lost and pointless -- Part II of the pilot. Maybe it was originally supposed to be a two-hour "event." But my guess is that when they scored Lucy Lawless a few weeks ago, they overhauled the entire storyline, adding this extra hour here to introduce the Clayton sister.
Also: I am currently staring at my Shaun Cassidy album. I still have it. I still love it. Maybe Tarzan can bust out a little "Da Doo Run Run."
We open with Jane's open window again. But it's daylight, and Jane is sitting to her windowsill. It's tempting to count the number of times she's going to blink in this episode, but I think I'll leave it up to you for week's drinking game (drink once for every time she blinks, drink twice when she calls him "John," even though he told her to call him "Tarzan"). Jane looks up in the sky, blinking. Michael enters. He asks why she's not asleep yet. Maybe because it's the morning? "I just couldn't sleep, I guess," she says. Michael caresses her arm. Did he just get off work? It's daylight! Michael says he can't say that he blames her, after what she went through tonight. Do they know it's not night-- never mind. Moving on. Michael tells Jane that it's freezing in the room, and closes the window. He tells her to get to bed. She obeys, like a good woman should. She gets into bed and Michael asks if he can get her anything: "Water, Advil, tequila?" Jane giggles goofily, and says she needs all of the above. Michael says, "You did real good last night. You stopped a real bad guy." Jane whispers that she doesn't feel good. Michael: "I know how your brain works." He tells Jane that she can't beat herself up about Tarzan's dying: "There's nothing you could have done. Do you understand? He brought you back to me." Michael starts his creepy whisper here, which he won't stop for the rest of the episode. It's his turning point; from now on Michael is a "bad guy," for reasons that will remain unclear, since he probably has a right to angry that his almost-fiance is monkeying around with a man who never wears shoes. Michael leaves, telling Jane to get some sleep. The sunlight now pierces Jane's eyes. She pulls up the covers. Michael shuts the door, which somehow makes the sunlight go away. It's a little confusing. Jane forgot to wash off her makeup.
Exterior shot of Jane's apartment in daylight. It's a little cloudy, which we can see over Tarzan's shoulder. Tarzan is perched on a nearby roof corner. He's watching Jane through her window. Again. He hears a woman screaming in the distance. Tarzan turns, and the screen goes blurry as we hear her scream for help again. Then her screams sound like they're coming from underwater. Tarzan leaps into action, jumping from roof to roof until he lands in "Central Park."
“ The girl finally uprights herself and runs off again, leaving behind her iPod. There's no way in hell a girl would leave that shit behind. You go back for the iPod; it's like a child. ”
A woman runs through the jungles of "Central Park." Men in jackets, gloves, and ski masks follow her, taunting, chasing. She keeps running, looking behind her as all girls in chase scenes do. She then, of course, trips while running down a hill. She gets up and sees the men, who are getting closer. They are cheering each other on as they approach. The girl finally uprights herself and runs off again, leaving behind her iPod. There's no way in hell a girl would leave that shit behind. You go back for the iPod; it's like a child. Coincidentally, that's the very reason I've never bought one. I'd mostly use it for jogging, and I'm such a klutz I know I'd drop it, or I'd have a gang of masked gentlemen chase me for it until I left it in the dirt. The girl runs again, but as she reaches a tree, a man is already standing there. Pow! He punches her right under the neck, and she falls backward to the ground. The men swarm around her, saying things like "Hold her down." But nobody touches her just yet. It's nice to see that Fiona Apple is getting work again these days, since she won't record another album for me to obsess over. This girl runs without a sports bra. "You're gonna love this," one of the men says, and sounding like a young boy, and it doesn't fit in with the other men shouting to hold her down, and it's almost like a mistake or a subliminal message. Is the young man talking to me? His cohorts? His fallen jogger?
Two men do finally hold the woman down and she begs to be let go. One man holds a switchblade out to the camera, and then flips it open with the most emotion an actor covered from head to toe in fabric can summon. The girl starts hyperventilating, but then she sees Tarzan in the trees above her. Somehow this makes all the other men turn around too. The closed captioning says it's because a twig snaps, but I didn't hear that. As Tarzan leaps toward the gang of would-be rapists, the woman lets out another scream. We don't see how Tarzan disarms the guy with the knife -- they give us a reaction shot of the woman instead. Then Tarzan's flipping the men over one by one as they patiently wait their turn to get beaten up. Tarzan flips on his wrist to kick another man. The jogger doesn't get up, but rather watches the entire thing with interest. Tarzan monkey-jumps over to another tree and climbs it so that he can leap into the fight again. He jumps and does a few flips for no reason, lands on the ground, and then punches another assailant. That man picks up the knife that is conveniently by his side, and runs away with one other man. "Go, go, go!" one yells. "Let's get outta here!" another one says. What happened to the other kids? Are they still on the ground? "No!" wails the Central Park jogger, as Tarzan approaches her. "Don't hurt me!" Yes, when a pretty man leaps in from nowhere and beats up all of the masked, armed men who just finished chasing me, the first thing I assume is that the pretty man wants to hurt me. "Hurt you?" Tarzan asks, that perfect English he's so capable of speaking coming out flawlessly once again. But then they are interrupted by the "[indistinct conversation coming from police radio]," as the closed captioning describes it. Those are some good cops to find a woman in trouble who never called in for help. Tarzan monkey-jumps away as the cops call out a helpful "Hey, you!" The jogger watches Tarzan escape. She's awed, but doesn't tell the cops that he saved her. They keep yelling at Tarzan, but oddly enough don't draw their guns. Tarzan, once again, escapes.
“ Michael shouts from the other room to ask if she'd like her coffee black. How long have they been dating? Didn't he propose? Never propose without knowing how she takes her coffee. ”
If there was ever a doubt that this show is confused about itself, the opening credits -- with the strange song and stranger imagery -- are proof enough. Here's a tip: I don't ever want to see a title crawling with animated ivy. Also, the fact that the shots used are all culled from the pilot can't be a good sign.
Morning, again. Jane skips her workout regimen, and dresses in a striped shirt, unbuttoned down to there. Michael's in the doorway again, but he's wearing a different outfit this time. He asks if she's sure about coming in today. Jane says "yeah" twice, adding that she could use a little normalcy. Where did Michael sleep a couple of hours ago? "I can use a cup of coffee, actually," Jane laughs. Michael does a creepy cock of his head and says, "Well, I can help you with the coffee part." Jane thanks him after he leaves the room. She heads over to her desk for her pager, badge, wallet, and gun. She loads the gun with ammo and appears to cock it before putting it in her back holster. Jane sees Tarzan in the mirror, perched on her window once again. Jane runs over (and for some reason we hear sirens for a second) and tells him he has to get out of there. She tells him it's dangerous for him to be there right now. Michael shouts from the other room to ask if she'd like her coffee black. How long have they been dating? Didn't he propose? Never propose without knowing how she takes her coffee. Tarzan is angry, and enters the room protectively, wanting to know what he is doing there. "John," Jane whispers so hard that Tarzan's hair blows in her morning-breath breeze. "You have to leave now."
Unneeded little sis Nicki wanders into the kitchen. Michael asks what she's doing up so early. Nicki says she has a class at 9. So what time is it? How long were they asleep? Seriously, I'm moving on. Michael says that the first rule of college is not to have any classes before noon. Nicki says she just figured that out. Michael asks why Jane didn't warn her about that. Nicki says she's sure Jane loved morning classes. Hi. Jane almost died in a fire last night. And Michael proposed. And a monkey-boy supposedly died saving Jane's life. It's not really business as usual, is it? I guess so. Nicki leaves, having just successfully flirted with Jane's maybe-fianc.
Jane goes into the bottom drawer of her dresser and tells Tarzan to listen to her. She says that everyone thinks he's dead, and they need to keep it that way until she figures out where he should go, so he needs to stay out of sight. Wouldn't her empty apartment -- with Nicki at school and herself and Michael at the station -- be the best place for him, then? "What kind of place?" Tarzan asks suspiciously. Jane says that they have to find a place where he'll be safe from his uncle. She gives him some clothes (but doesn't offer a pair of shoes), telling him he can't wander around New York looking like that. Why not put him in a hotel room? Tarzan doesn't want to wear the clothes, because he's too busy staring through a wall at his new enemy, the owner of said clothes. Oops, Tarzan's Australian accent came out a bit on his "these are his" line. Jane pushes the clothes to Tarzan's chest and tells him to leave right now. Tarzan crouches in the window again and gets right up in Jane's face, smiling. Jane stares, open-mouthed, blinking. There's a sound. Jane turns, wiggles her head, blinks, exhales, and turns back again. But Tarzan is gone. She runs to the window and looks out, AGAIN. As she shuts her window, Michael enters with that cup of coffee that took forever. "Hey," he says again. Jane turns and blinks three hundred and twelve times, like she's having a fit. My favorite thing about the art direction in Jane's room is the almost empty bulletin board, with a few pictures from National Geographic thumb-tacked to the bottom corner.