Wages Of Sin

Yeah, I don't know why this episode is called "Wages Of Sin" either. And the "Previously" was filled with shots we've never seen. So, whatever. If they don't care about us, we don't care about them. Deal?

We open with exterior shots of Xena's house, but we can hear Tarzan yelling and crashing about inside. The pedestrians seem rather calm. Inside, Xena's maid, Mary, calls for her. I love this, Xena says, "What the heck happened?" "Heck." Mary explains that they thought Tarzan was sleeping, so the doctor tried to take his blood pressure. Chaos ensues.

Tarzan is pulling quite the Johnny Depp on his room. I would, too, if my room was half kelly green like his is. There's a strange moment when Tarzan tries to slam the door in Xena's face, but there are actually two sets of double doors, and the four heavy wooden doors become confusing for someone who...anyone, actually. Quick side note: how come we haven't had the "Person who was in isolation becoming accustomed to American life through the magic of television" scene yet? That's always my favorite, from Daryl Hannah's "Bloomingdales" to Austin Powers learning about the deaths of Jimi, Janis, and Mama Cass. Mary leaves, because she doesn't have the enormous shield of Xena's necklace pendant to protect her. Xena is now panting as she watches Tarzan trash his room. There's a really nice vase in the corner begging to be smashed. Tarzan almost busts his elbow through the sheetrock as he says he wants to go. Xena says she can't let him leave, since this is the only place she can protect him from Richard. Tarzan repeatedly whacks his elbow into the corner of the room. I'd appreciate it more if he wasn't wearing that shirt. Wouldn't his gunshot wound heal easier if there wasn't a nasty shirt restricting it? "John," Xena says, panting. "I'm on your side." She says it in such a way that I don't want to believe that she is anymore. And it'd be more interesting if this show wasn't so black and white, good guy and bad. And when will Tarzan get his cape? If he's going to be a superhero, he'd better get some awesome toys soon. "I'm your family," Xena whispers, still breathless from how hunky her nephew is. Tarzan's all sweaty and angry, still beating against a wall. "So is he," Tarzan sneers, picking up a footstool (who has footstools?) and hurling it into the window. "John!" Xena screams. Tarzan punches out the rest of the glass and walks barefoot through the shards out the window. Xena's too slow to walk the three steps behind him, and has to lean out the empty window, satisfying one of the required shots in this show. Tarzan scales the wall of Xena's building, escaping yet again. "John!" Xena screams. But it's too late. We only hear the sound of horns honking.

Cathedral. Bagpipes play "Amazing Grace." We see Michael's flag-draped casket emerge from the church. A somber Jane doesn't look at the casket, but rather at the ground. I think she's decided to grow the bangs out, but she's not really doing anything with them right now. To show us that she's in mourning, she opted not to wear the lipstick that really pops. She's still wearing the green eye-shadow though. A person died, not fashion. As the casket nears Jane, she begins to tear up. She watches it pass. A solemn Sam watches it pass as well. And from a nearby rooftop, Tarzan has the best seats in the house. Tarzan isn't very smart. This is probably the worst place he could be -- at a funeral filled with cops for the very cop he dropped. But Tarzan likes watching Jane no matter what she does.

And from another nearby rooftop, two thugs lean over and watch the proceedings. "There she is, right there," says the one with the enormous binoculars. I wish there was a font called "Shifty Wiseguy Voice," so I could use it right here. When Shifty says, "Jane Porter," suddenly Tarzan goes into SwimmyEar, and his heartbeat becomes louder. He listens as the two men inform us that they've been hired to follow Jane so that they can find Tarzan, who's apparently always around her. These guys are so good at what they do that they don't see Tarzan standing at their eye level on a nearby building. That's some good work there, fellas. (That was in my Chief Wiggum Voice font.) In fact, the one with the binoculars says, "No sign of him." We can see them from where Tarzan is standing. How shitty are these guys?

Tarzan leaps away and does an unnecessary shoulder roll to leap over a thigh-high fence. Bagpipe music makes me uneasy. It sounds like pain. Tarzan scales the church. Maybe it's another church. Oh, we can see that it's another church because Tarzan stops at the sign that tells us it's a Methodist church, and clearly Michael just finished up his Catholic mass. Anyway, Tarzan climbs up the church wall quite easily as we see the police officers finally put Michael's casket in the hearse. On the roof of the church, the wonderfully manicured Tarzan finds the blissfully unaware thugs still leaning over the side. Now, Tarzan. Remember what happened to you the last five times you've fought someone on a rooftop. Oh, that silly monkey. He never learns anything. Tarzan fights while Jane barely weeps down on the street. Tarzan's fights continue to go into slow-motion whenever he lifts and throws someone off of his still-clothed shoulders. Gunshot, shmunshot. Tarzan is proud of the move he does where he leaps in the air and traps one bad guy in his arms and the other one between his knees and takes them both to the ground. Wait, why are there three bad guys now? Too bad the bagpipes don't bust it techno-style for the fight. Tarzan pulls back his hair and pants as the coffin finally gets seriously pushed all the way into the hearse. These things take time, after all. Tarzan lifts up the Carson Daly-looking thug -- who was waiting for Tarzan to grab him before he began "acting" -- and throws him against those pyramid-looking things that are all over Tarzan's rooftops. "Leave her alone," Tarzan says. He then throws Carson to the ground, pants, looks around, and disappears.

Jane finishes her one tear and the hearse door closes. Then the insanely bad opening credits begin their painful wail.

Morning. Jane's house. Jane leans into her coffee cup and thinks as bad music plays in the background. She does exactly what I do -- puts the cup down and rubs the migraine in her forehead. Then she rubs her head back and forth in her fingers, wishing this was all a bad dream, wondering what she's gotten herself into, wondering just how many times that Tarzan is going to escape and show up in her window, wondering why she doesn't just buy a damn screen already, wondering why everybody in New York keeps their windows screen-less, and their rooftops so empty. Anyway, Tarzan's back, and through her living-room window this time. Good thing Jane doesn't have a sister who lives with her. "What are you doing here?" Jane asks for the fiftieth time. "Your uncle's still looking for you," she adds. No shit, detective. Tarzan tells Jane he can tell she's hurt by looking into her eyes. Jane responds by keeping her eyes open as wide as she can for about thirty seconds. "You have to go," she says for the nine hundredth time. Hey, Jane. I think your sister's bedroom might be one of the safest places to stuff Tarzan. And I'll bet she'd like some hot monkey loving. There's this thing that happens when they do close-ups of Tarzan's face when he's about to talk: he doesn't look hot anymore. He's all square and mouth-breathing, and his nose looks too Sean Penn-ish for his face. Jane finally blinks with an eye-roll and tells Tarzan she asked him to leave. Tarzan says he wants to help her. Jane does the full soap-opera body spin, with her head starting lower as she blinks furiously to bring up the tears and deliver the clich: "I don't care what you want." Tarzan swallows a bit, hoping we think that means he's "choked up." Jane continues: "How many times do I have to tell you that? And now someone is dead." Yeah, just some guy. "Michael's dead." Not to name-drop, or anything. "Because you won't listen." And maybe because you keep finding Tarzan and asking him to solve your cases with you. "So please...leave me alone." Tarzan lowers his bottom lip to expose his tiny bottom teeth, turns on his heels, and jumps out the window again. Nice pants, Tarzan. Jane walks to the empty window and holds the breezy curtain.

Strange time jump to, I guess, a few minutes later, when Jane is standing in front of her refrigerator with her hands on her hips and Nicki is asking if she can ask a question. "Yeah," Jane says, reaching out and grabbing Nicki by the hair before she passes. "What's up?" All casual like that. Nicki: "Why do you have to lie to protect this John guy? Just tell the truth." Geez, Nicki, last week you were all, "When you elope with the monkey, will you be Mrs. Jane Tarzan, or can I just call you second banana?" Jane says she can't tell the truth. "But he killed Michael!" shouts the girl who was strangely absent from the funeral. Jane turns and says that he didn't kill anybody. "Tried to save Michael," Jane says, so unable to believe her own lie that she has to roll her eyes while shifting her head at the same time. "Michael is dead," Nicki says, because somehow we might have forgotten that someone died, and that someone had the first name of Michael. "And you were there, you know what happened," Nicki adds, just in case you're just tuning in, maybe because you've heard all the good praise about this show that has caught America's attention. "Why aren't you going to say anything?" Nicki whines. Jane says that would put Tarzan in danger, both from his uncle and from the other cops. Nicki blinks a million times and relents. "I don't understand," she says. Hey Nicki, get in line. "Then you just have to trust me," Jane says. Oh, is that all we have to do? Because you're so good at what you do, Jane. Nicki stares at Jane for a while, clearly not trusting her, and I'm thinking soon this tertiary character will be visiting her mom for good.

The station. No flags at half-mast here. Jane stands in the doorway and watches all the "action" of people handing pieces of paper to each other, men rifling through file cabinets, wandering officers, and people answering phones. Oh, it just brings all of it back, doesn't it? Sam's talking to Gene as they look through some paperwork, complaining that they haven't found anything. Gene jerks his head in Jane's direction. Sam asks her if she's okay. Jane's all smiles. Everything's great. They hug. Sam asks why she's not taking the week off. Jane says she got sick of daytime television. Gene says that the lieutenant wanted Jane to take it easy. I guess the Captain got fired for being too much of a stereotype. Jane asks what they're working on, as if somehow it wouldn't be Michael's case, since they are the only cops in New York. Sam tells her not to worry about it, and that they have it under control. "Mike's case?" Jane asks. Gene and Sam stare at each other for a little while. Jane says she's fine and she wants to know. She says she's still Sam's partner. She drops her jacket and sits down for a briefing. Sam says he thought at first that it was the rich kids from the parking garage who did it, but none of them was big enough "to take Mike." That and they were busy getting arrested at the time. Sam says he now thinks there was someone else with them. At this point, the lieutenant calls Sam into his office. He stops when he sees Jane sitting there, doe-eyed. She says that whatever it is, she wants in on it. "You should be home," the lieutenant says. Jane says she'd rather work, to get her mind off whatshisname. They all lower their heads as Jane tries to remember his name. They decide to move on, anyway. Jane says "Please," so they let her in on the case.

Shot of an open email on a computer screen. "DO YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR SON ALIVE?" it says. There's a picture of a kid with tape over his mouth, crouched under a newspaper. "Ransom demand," the lieutenant informs us. The lieutenant tells us that the Feds are actually working on this case. You know what's awesome? The headline of the paper says "DEADLY DIVES." As if Michael's death would be the giant headline of the New York Star. That's so funny. The lieutenant tells Sam that they're going to take care of the parents. Sam's offended, saying he's not a babysitter, and that he wants a piece of the hot kidnapping action. But Jane, for some reason, is intrigued by the young boy's big, calm brown eyes. "Sam," Jane says, turning from the screen. "We should talk to them." And that somehow settles it. The closed captioning informs me: "[Matt Nathanson's "I Saw" plays.]" Looks like some typist is banging Matt Nathanson.

Wow, this is so lame. So there's a shot of Tarzan walking through Times Square. He's walking across traffic, and we're supposed to believe he's still barefoot, which is the worst thing I can imagine. But I do believe I see tiny flip-flops under his feet, covered by what's supposed to be his baggy pants. Pan way back until we mostly see New York City. It's hard, though, because we're busy vomiting from the song telling us that everything is going to be all right.