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 cliché: "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.
I don't know how Tarzan keeps finding empty streets in New York, but he's got some kind of jaywalking karma. As he walks through the mostly-hazy shot, I begin screaming, "Take off your shirt!" The song sings, "And if I told you/ That I'm sorry/ Would you tell me/ You were wrong?" No. "Would you hold me down forever/ If I came to you for answers?" Yes. "I saw/ Pictures in my head./ And I swear I saw you opening up again." Dirty. If you watch this scene sped up, you can see Tarzan's runway walk is workin' it. Also, I love the tiny ripped collar. So very '80s. Lovin' it, Tarzan. Now it's night, and we're still in Times Square. Matt Nathanson tells us it would be heavenly if we could rescue him now. Sorry, Matt. You got yourself into this bullshit. Nobody's pulling me out, either.
Is it night now, too? When Sam and Jane are talking to the ransom parents? That's a little confusing. "So what happens now?" the mom asks, almost echoing the last words of Matt's song. Sam says that the FBI is working on it all, and not to worry. The drop site will be under surveillance, so when the kidnapper shows up to collect, they'll follow the kidnapper until they find the boy. Yeah, it always works that easily, doesn't it? The father reminds Sam that the email said there couldn't be any cops. Yeah, that's usually what it says. "Maybe we should just pay," the dad says to his wife. "They won't see them, sir," Sam says. How do you know that, Sam? The mom says, "My baby might be dead." Jane gets so doe-eyed that I want to trap her in my headlights before I hit her with a Jeep. "Try not to think that way," Jane says to the mother. "There's still a lotta hope." Man, I wish she'd break into song. Mom says it's hard when you lose someone. "Jason isn't lost," Jane says. "And we're gonna help you find him." But then that would mean that he's...lost. Oh, this is like when Jane says the law isn't about what's right and wrong. That silly Jane. She always forgets what words really mean. Sam and the tearless dad exchange looks. The mom and Jane exchange looks. And then Jane busts out with a smile. What? Hi, parents of kidnapped boy. Who are you guys? What do you do for a living? Why would someone take your son? Any suspects? What's the email address that they used? And when was the last time you saw your son? Who is he? How old is he? What's he like? What are your names? No? Nothing. Fine. Then I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS SUBPLOT.
If it's Tarzan, then it must be raining. And it's night. Jane stares doe-eyed at a limo parked right outside the station. Jane never carries a purse. And she's soaking wet just from being outside for ten seconds. The limo window goes down: Xena is inside. She arches a sharply waxed eyebrow in Jane's direction. Jane looks back at the station. Man, there's never a cop around when you need one. Jane almost gets hit by the Scariest Cyclist Of All Time. It's a tall man in shorts, wearing a heavy blue coat with something strapped to his back. And I think he's wearing a mask over his face, under a red cap. He looks like the Jack in the Box CEO. As Jane runs to the limo, she holds out one hand toward off-camera, so we're supposed to imagine her one hand stopped all of New York traffic. Since we're in New York, nobody honked.
Xena scoots over to make room for Jane. If Michael's favorite opening line was "Hey," then Jane's is this: "What are you doing here?" Xena says she can't find Tarzan anywhere, and asks if Jane has seen him. Jane says she saw him this morning. Xena asks why Jane didn't bring Tarzan to her. "Because I wasn't thinking, and I was angry," Jane says. "I told him to leave." Xena reminds us all once again that it's dangerous for Tarzan out there. They keep saying it, but I think it's more dangerous when he's around cops and Claytons. Jane's all teary, saying she's sorry, but she's not a part of this family, and already this case has cost her too much. Yeah, these are lines you might recognize from every bad cop movie you've ever seen. Xena, unsympathetic toward Jane's dead fiancé, says she hopes to find Tarzan before Uncle Skinner does. And with that, Jane gets out of the limo. It drives off, and Jane heads back into the station. Why did she leave the station in the first place? Wait...wait. She's not going into the station. She's stopping. She's standing still. She's thinking. She turns around. We see an overhead shot of Jane looking toward some trees. The back of Tarzan's head comes into frame as Jane turns back around and runs into the station. That crappy song starts up again. Tarzan stops leaning over the rooftop. He walks away. At some point, it stopped raining.
Pan down to Tarzan sitting on an alley street. The song keeps getting worse, echoing Tarzan's "feelings." It's raining again. Tarzan is shivering and pouting. I wasn't going to do this, but I must reprint these shitty lyrics. "I'm surrounded/ You spill all alive and brand-new./ And I'll forget about you long enough/ To forget why I need to/ And I saw pictures in my head./ And I swear I saw you opening up again./ Cause I would be heavenly/ If baby, you just rescue me now." Is he singing to a woman, or a tributary? What's with the spilling and opening? And how can you be heavenly? Commercials. Finally, something that makes sense. And more nudity than on this show.
Casa de Lost Baby. Mom's pacing while Dad's calmly sitting in his chair, listening to the police radio. Sam, Jane, and the lieutenant are the only other people in the room, and the lieutenant tells Mom that the FBI will call as soon as they see the suspect. "Don't worry, you're in good hands," an unasked Jane tells the mother. "What's taking so long?" she asks. Mom's got some serious TMJ.
We see the ransom bag in a trashcan on the street.
We see a surveillance camera set up in a building across the street.
Cop #1, holding coffee, looking around obviously.
Cop #2, wearing sunglasses, looking around shiftily.
Cop #1 with coffee and Cop #2 with sunglasses are about five feet apart.
Cop #3 is Asian Housewife Cop. She wears a ponytail, so we can see her earpiece crawling up her neck. Nice going, Asian Housewife Cop. You done fucked up this one.
Cop #4 is Rastafarian Black Guy With Toothpick. He's playing this out real cool, like, you dig?
Holy crap. "You have new mail," says the computer from the other room. (Although the closed captioning tells us they once used the AOL "You've Got Mail!", but probably couldn't get the clearance ["From a Warner Bros.-produced show on The WB? That's pretty harsh, AOL TIME WARNER." -- Wing Chun]). What a great thing to have going while you're trying to rescue your son. Anyway, Mom's a total internet junkie, so she must run to see if her soap opera mailing list is dishing any good gossip. Whoa. They've got one of those fancy computers that's in a corner without a chair, just propped on the corner of a fancy desk. And it's a fancy computer because when it gets mail, it automatically opens it. The email is of several shots of the different cops I've just described. At the bottom of the email it reads in 50 point font: "YOU LIED TO ME JASON IS DEAD [sic]." Mom's panting a little, and Dad looks fine. Well, I guess they're going to come out of this okay.
I love this, too. Back at the station, Sam's reading over what I guess is the email, and he shakes his head and makes a puffing sound. So that's it? We don't get the rest of that last scene? We still don't know why there's a kidnapping or who's kidnapping or what the hell is going on? And then when they have that huge scene, nobody does anything? We just move to the scene? Why even bother? What does this have to do with Tarzan? Why is this show called Tarzan? Sam complains to Jane that they've tapped all of their leads "three times over." I guess there's no need to let us see any of that. "We're never gonna find the kid this way," Jane says. What way? Who's the kid? Where have you been looking? What's happening? Hello? I feel as sheltered as Tarzan. Jane thinks for a second, and then stands up. Sam asks where she's going, but Jane's on a mission. Sam even says "hey" a few times, but that doesn't stop her from just walking off the job without a word. Nice partner.
Jane walks out of the station and immediately begins checking rooftops. As she runs across the street, she once again puts her hand out to the part of the street that we can't see, so we're supposed to think she's a cop and that there are cars on that street. End of scene. RIVETING.
Greystoke. Someone is informing Richard that Tarzan is the heir to one-third of Greystoke Industries. And he called Tarzan "that boy," as if Tarzan's still five. Anyway, WE KNOW. "And he's running wild in the streets." WE KNOW. "He's uncontrollable," he concludes. SO YOU KEEP TELLING US. Richard says there's something that controls him -- "Actually, someone." Barf. "I need to talk to Detective Porter," he says.
Jane finds an empty, rather clean alley, and begins walking through it, calling out to Tarzan. Why this one? Where is it? What's happening? Hello? "John! Where are you? I need to talk to you! If you're up there, answer me!" She keeps walking. "John? John, I need your help!" Nothing. Blink, blink, blink. Hands on hips. Sigh. Turn around and -- Tarzan leaps down. "Jane!" Jane walks back and asks if he can track anyone: "Like you do with me?" Tarzan kind of nods. "I need you to find someone," Jane says. Oh, sure. If the FBI and the NYPD can't find the kid, a monkey who doesn't understand guns should be the perfect man to -- why do I care?
Playground. This is apparently where the boy was snatched. Jane says his dad turned to take a phone call. When he turned back, Jason was gone. "So he's lost?" Tarzan asks. Jane explains that someone took him. "What for?" Tarzan asks. I don't get this thing every week where poor Tarzan tries to understand the evil things we do. LIKE SOMEONE TOOK YOU, TARZAN. How could that possibly be hard for him to understand? Jane says that someone took Jason for money, and that if the man doesn't get the money, he'll kill that boy. Tarzan turns around and squints. "I need his scent," he says. I don't know why Jane didn't already know that. "His scent," she says to nobody, since Tarzan walked away. "Of course you do." You can't try to inject jokes in this script, people. Comedy doesn't work like that. It's funnier when you're trying really hard to make this a good show, and then Tarzan's all, "I need his scent." That's hysterical.
Casa de Lost Baby. Cops are still all walking around, so Jane lets herself in. She passes what appears to be a Daytime Emmy on the staircase. My heart is beating as fast as the "tribal" music.
Jason's room. The cleanest kid's room ever. Jane walks right in and starts touching things, fucking with evidence, doing a good cop job. She stands beside a toy truck that appears to have the word "SEX" boldly printed on the side. Jane touches a few things, and then decides that the SEX truck isn't good enough. She touches some art supplies. She walks over to the bed and picks up the rumpled teddy bear resting on a stuffed truck. "May I help you?" asks the mom, who wants to know why this cop is holding her son's bear. Jane apologizes and says she wanted to borrow something of Jason's. "What for?" the mom asks. "For fun." Jane stammers that they have "a sort of a bloodhound." Way to keep Tarzan under wraps, Jane. Mom asks if that could work. "I hope so," says Jane. Mom walks over and says, "Please. Bring him back to me." Jane stares. Blink.
Jane teleports over to Tarzan, who's still at the playground. She hands him the teddy bear and asks if this will work. Tarzan takes the bear and holds it. He does not sniff. Jane stares. Tarzan stares back.
Tarzan's running through New York. Really it's more of a jog, with quite the attitude. He stands on something, and suddenly he's on a rooftop, looking over a mostly empty street. He keeps running. We can see Jane running behind him, trying to keep up. Jane, don't you have a car? Tarzan leaps off the second floor he's suddenly on, onto the roof of a moving van. This gives Jane the opportunity to shout his first name a few times, and gives Tarzan the opportunity to show off more gymnastics. The driver of the van gets to yell "Hey!" twice. Tarzan runs away, giving Jane the opportunity to lean over the railing and look down. Those same four shots just keep happening in this show over and over again. The lean, the look, the jump, the shouting of first names. I'm so bored with this show. Aren't you? "Dammit," Jane says, because the detective has once again lost her stalker.
Pleasant shot of a roller blader enjoying a nice New York day.
Shot of a black SUV on another street. Jane runs down a different street. She stops running. The SUV gets closer, cutting across several lanes of no traffic. Jane sees the passenger side of the SUV open. And Jane says (say it with me, you know the words): "What are you doing here?" Doesn't anybody read this script when it's finished, or do they only write each scene right before it's shot? Richard gets out of the SUV and says he was looking for her. Jane asks how he found her. Um, you're the only cop in New York, and you're running all over town? Jane's trying to be a mean cop here, all short and curt. She asks what he wants. Richard says he'd like a friendly conversation. Jane: "Mr. Clayton, I'm not your friend, and I never will be." Burn. Richard sets his jaw and says he'll get right to the point: "Where's my nephew? I want him back." Jane asks why, and I execute the perfect TiVo pause during her eye-roll; it makes her cross-eyed with one lid almost closed. Hee. Richard says he wants to help Tarzan. Jane: "The kind of help where you shoot him with stun guns or the kind of help where you chain him up in a box?" The second one. And the first. Both. Can I answer both? Richard says they can't let Tarzan run wild in the streets "like an animal." Why not? Jane sighs. Richard says that if Jane doesn't help him find Tarzan, she's going to get hurt -- not by him, but by Tarzan: "My nephew's a savage." He says he has four men in the hospital to prove it (only four?) but that he doesn't have to show Jane to prove it because she saw it happen. Richard says it's curious that Jane's boyfriend, who was going to help Richard find Tarzan, took "a nasty dive off a ten-story building." He says that Tarzan needs to be supervised until he's rehabilitated. He needs psychiatric care: "I have all that. What do you have?" Jane looks around and swallows as Richard asks, "Good intentions?" Jane snaps, "Bye, Mr. Clayton." She turns and leaves. Richard shouts at the back of her head to be reasonable before someone else gets hurt. He's totally in the middle of traffic, by the way. But Jane leaves, and Richard finally gets back in the car. The street is completely empty, so it's easy enough to handle Richard's request to "stay with her."
Jane walks through other alleyways, and appears not to be followed by an SUV, as she looks up at the rooftops for Tarzan. Tarzan whips in behind her and grabs her. Jane gasps, like a good damsel and a shitty cop, and Tarzan whisks her up on a loading dock. He whispers into her face, "Let's go." They run off somewhere just as Richard's SUV turns the corner into the alley. D'oh! I guess they lost her. Oh, well. So much for that storyline.
Somewhere else in New York, under the bridge downtown. Jane, quite the nag, tells John...dammit, I mean TARZAN that even though she appreciates what he's doing, he can't just run off and leave her like that. Um, is he on the payroll? Then SHUT IT, MISSY. "We lost a lot of time," she scolds. Are you kidding? It's been about fifteen minutes. "This is how I hunt," Tarzan says into the microphone of the ADR done well after this scene was shot. Jane says she understands that, but that there's a "lost little boy" out there. Man, is this show from twenty years ago? The lines are so lame. Tarzan stops Jane as she finishes explaining how every second is precious. He leans in and repeats: "This is how I hunt." But we don't know how that is, since that bear's not around anymore and he never sniffed in the first place and we don't know where we are or what he' s doing to find the boy or why he's here. Whatever, Tarzan. Just TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT! Tarzan walks away, kicking off pan flutes and jungle drums as Jane stares into nothing. She then follows him, immediately back in nag mode. "Are we close?" she asks, running after him.
Apparently not, because now it's night, and they're still walking, both looking quite well for having walked for about six hours straight. Tarzan makes a beeline over to a boat. Then he stops and puts his hand out. "What?" Jane asks. Tarzan says, "The scent. It leads there." Tarzan walks over to the boat, but Jane says his first name and tells him to wait. For backup? That kid's so dead by now. "John, John!" Tarzan enters the boat, and Jane follows with her gun/flashlight combo raised. Tarzan walks through the boat and finds an empty bed with a juice bottle and a McDonald's apple pie box. Jane concludes that this is where they must be keeping Jason. What? Do you see any evidence of Jason? You just broke and entered into a boat without a search warrant, and you're on the run with a missing monkey-man. What the hell is wrong with you, detective? We get another shot of the "kid food," and I can see that the apple pie was actually another juice box and there's an open box of crayons spilling onto the carpet. Great. Feed the kid Indian Red. Talk about torture. Tarzan steps closer to the bed and then calls Jane over. Jane stares for a second, and then tries to register the right face to say, "Oh, my God." Tarzan asks who it is. The flashlight on his face lets us see that it's David Gest. SCARY! "Jason's father," Jane corrects us. He's bleeding from the nose and wig, dead. Tarzan sad. Pamie sleepy.
So now all the cops are at the boat, and Jane's got some 'splainin' to do. "The father's involvement puts a whole new spin on the investigation," says some cop. Ya think? "We need to know friends, employees, associates -- whoever took the kid, Bancroft obviously knew him." Brilliant deduction, FBI guy. And finally we get a name for the dead man. But I still don't care! Sam tells Jane he talked to one of the Feds. "And?" Jane asks. Sam says he won't tell her until she tells him how she found the boat. Jane says she followed a couple of leads. Sam asks which ones. "Later, Sam," Jane says. "What did the Feds say? Do they really think this guy kidnapped his own kid?" Sam says they think he partnered with someone, and that they obviously had some kind of "minor disagreement." Jane asks if Bancroft is rich. They did live in a mansion, from the exterior shots. Sam says the background check missed it "the first time" and even his wife didn't know, but it turns out he was in a large six-figure debt to some Atlantic City casinos: "I guess he wasn't any better at cards than he was a kidnapping." Oh, the fun. Jane asks if it was all the wife's money. Wait, now they were rich? Sam says that the mom's money was all in a family trust and he couldn't touch it. ["That happens on Law & Order ALL the TIME: you think they're rich, but it's the wife's money, and the husband does something sinister to get him some." -- Wing Chun] The cops shake their heads. Jane: "That kid's still out there, Sam. We gotta find him." God, this writing! Why do they make it so bad!?
Jane wanders somewhere away. She passes a fence. "John," she says. John is "hiding" right on the other side of the large gas drum to Jane. He crawls over to her. "Follow me," he says. He skitters away. Jane, on the job, follows.
We're at some truck. Jane asks Tarzan where the scent goes from here. Tarzan looks around. He touches the ground, right to the water. "It ends," he says. Well, great. That's just great. Tarzan sits down. Jane looks out on the water. Tarzan asks why the boy's father would hurt his own child. "You really care about this kid, don't you?" Jane asks. What? Okay, Detective Jump 2 Conclusions. Tarzan: "My father died. And I was lost." Jane asks if he remembers his father. He was five, not a fetus. "A little," Tarzan says, getting up. Jane says she's going to keep looking for Jason. Tarzan says he'll help, and starts to walk away. Jane grabs his arm and says, "John." Then she says he can't help, and he already said the scent was gone. Jane: "Listen to me. Your uncle's still out there and he's still looking for you." Man, how many times has that line been said in three episodes? Jane tells Tarzan to go to Xena's, because Xena's looking for him, too. Tarzan walks away.
And straight to Xena's. "Okay," Xena says, following Tarzan into his restored bedroom. "Wanna try this again?" She says she knows he's used to taking care of himself, but that this city can be dangerous, and Xena's one of the few people he can trust. She even repaired that window already. Xena sits and says she understands: "I can't make you stay. It's your choice. But I'd really like you to." She totally growls that last line, hoping that Tarzan will stay silent and TAKE OFF HIS SHIRT. No response, so Xena gets up and heads to the door. She asks him to open the window the time he wants to leave. Tarzan watches as Xena leaves the room.
Day. Precinct. Paperwork. I am now completely asleep. Jane reads, moving her lips, because she's stupid. Sam stands under an American flag and says, "You know you move your lips when you read?" He should know that about her by now. And man, how dumb is Jane? Jane laughs, tosses her hair, and says, "How long you been standing there?" Sam asks if she's found anything. Jane says she's been looking into the family business -- S.E.K. Scrap Metal Yards: "Dad married into it." Whose dad? Sam asks what it tells her. "Absolutely nothing," Jane replies. Like this scene. Sam sits down and gets into Jane's face. "I would die for you, you know that, Jane? But I need you to talk to me." Jane gets doe-eyed again, and says, "Okay." Sam says that the suspects in Mike's murder case all report getting beat down by a wild man with long hair and bare feet on the scene. Sam's just now getting around to that? Sam: "He sounds familiar to you, Jane?" Sam reminds Jane that she never told him how she found the boy's father, something half of New York's Finest couldn't do: "But without any backup, you find Dad. That's amazing. Me, I've only seen that kind of thing happen once before, Jane. Someone who could find anyone, anywhere. But that guy's dead, right?" And then...the scene just ends. Okay.
Tarzan's walking around some water. Crawling to tribal music, looking and thinking, crouching and jumping. He wanders along some grass, leaping some pipes.
Jane and Sam are both cross-armed, standing somewhere else in the station as Jane asks Sam to say something. I guess "time" has "passed." "What do you want me to say?" Sam asks. "Huh? What do you want me to say? John Clayton is alive? He killed one of my friends. And my other friend -- probably my best friend -- is protecting him?" Jane interrupts to say Sam doesn't understand. "No, I don't understand," Sam clichés. Okay, I guess Jane didn't do such a good job of explaining what happened, if she somehow told the story with Tarzan killing Michael. Sam then actually has to say, "Now listen to me. Serious as a heart attack, you have to bring him in." Lordy. Jane says she can't. Sam says that if Tarzan were really trying to save Michael's life, like she says, then there shouldn't be any reason why he can't come to the station. I agree. Jane says that a bunch of cops aren't going to care if it was self-defense or not. Wait. Self-defense, or Tarzan tried to save Michael? Pick a side, Jane. Sam says Jane can't just cover it up and let Tarzan "run around kicking people's ass [sic]." Sam says that Tarzan is dangerous, and Jane says again that she can't bring Tarzan in: "I need time." Sam asks what she's going to do. Jane says she needs to figure something out, but that she needs Sam to be quiet. "I won't lie for you, Jane," Sam says. "I'm sorry, but I won't do it." Thanks, partner. Jane does some staring and blinking as Sam walks off. Why is it so dark in the station?
Tarzan leaps off the highway and onto some concrete, over to a fence, and down into a junkyard. Here's a place where barefoot people should jump and roam. We zoom in on Tarzan so we can know he's on to something.
Jane's surfing the web. She leans in and blinks. She looks at the picture of the boy again, and runs her mouse over the ropes used to tied him. Jane moves her mouse over to the opened Photoshop toolbar, and selects the zoom magnifying glass. The computer blips. Jane zooms the lower part of the screen, and we can see a reflection in the corner, or something written on the floor. S.E.K. it says in reverse. So that truck in Jason's bedroom, it didn't say SEX. It said SEK, but from far away, that looks totally the same.
Jane drops printouts of the zoom on Sam's desk, and says it's a reflection from the car. What car? She asks if he recognizes that logo. She says she saw it on "the little boy's" truck when she was doing an illegal search and seizure. Way to return the teddy bear, by the way. She says it's the family business. You already told us. She thinks it's where they can find Jason. Sam pulls out another piece of paper and asks which SEK would it be, as there are two dozen spread all over. Jane points at the one in Brooklyn and says that's the one. Sam asks how she knows that. Jane says it's just a hunch, but that Tarzan told her that they crossed a river. When did he do that? Sam makes a face. Jane: "Sam, later on you can be pissed at me all you want. But right now this is the best we got. And I need your help." She stares at him.
Go-go-gadget Brooklyn Bridge crosser! SEK scrap-metal yard. Sam and Jane get out of their car and find a parking lot of discarded automobiles. They wander around aimlessly. Sam sees some guy looking into the truck of a car. "Hey!" Sam calls out. "What you got in the trunk?" Sam then touches his police badge defensively, and the guy by the car goes for the gun in his waistband. He shoots at Jane and Sam. Nice to meet you too, total stranger. So nice of you to wind up this case about which we don't know enough to care. I care the most about you right now because you're going to end this bullshit. Jane and Sam shoot back at the man, who tells them that the kid's in the car, so they can't shoot at him anymore. He shoots, gets in the car, and tries to start it. Sam tells Jane to hustle over to him, but Tarzan leaps onto the car, punches through the windshield, and hurls the guy out. What to the ever. He tosses the guy on the ground in slow-motion. Tarzan goes to turn him over, but the bad guy grabs a crowbar and slams Tarzan in the temple with it. Tarzan falls over. Jane screams "No." The guy gets up. So does Tarzan. Ain't nothin' gonna break his stride. The guy pulls out his gun and aims it at Tarzan for a while. Tarzan just stares at it, even though we know he can kick it out of this man's hand. Then Jane shoots the guy in the chest instead of the arm or the leg so that they can find out where Jason might be. The guy hits the ground. Sam and Jane run over. Jane grabs the crowbar and lifts the trunk. It's empty. "How we doing?" Sam asks. "He's not there," Jane says. She leans over the bad guy and asks if Jason is alive. She asks where he is. "The trunk," says the bad guy. Jane turns around and asks Tarzan, "John! Where is he?" Tarzan looks around. Sam: "What the hell's going on?" I'm wondering the same thing myself, Sam. "He's close," Tarzan decides. There's panting, and running. Pan up to the seemingly endless lot of cars. Commercial.
So Tarzan leaps on a few cars and in just about no time flat finds the trunk that holds the little boy. Thanks for the tension of the commercial break. Tarzan does do a funny monkey dance around the closed trunk when he finds the right car. And at one point, Sam wanted to call for backup, but Jane said that if he did then John couldn't stay. I mean TARZAN. "I don't care how many cops you call, John can work faster." That's not exactly...fine. Anyway, the kid's fine, and Jane waits to break it to him that his dad's dead from trying to settle his Atlantic City gambling debts. Sam radios in for an ambulance. Tarzan leans into Jason and gives him a scary face. Thanks for yelling, kid. You really made everyone's job a little easier. "Oh, Jason," Jane moans as she holds the weeping child.
Somehow, the kid got his teddy bear back, and he's sitting on an old car seat. Tarzan joins him. This promises to be some stimulating conversation. Tarzan asks Jason what the bear's name is. "When he was my mommy's bear, she called him Leo. But I call him Thomas." "He has two names," Tarzan says. "Like me." Tarzan looks up and makes eye contact with Jane on that one, remind her that his name is Tarzan. Sam gives Jane a questioning look, wondering why she's flirting on the job like that. The cops are finally arriving, and Jane tells Tarzan he has to go. Tarzan says goodbye to Jason. He looks at Jane and Sam for a second before disappearing. Like the kid won't mention him? Mom runs up to her son. Jason tosses the bear behind him and runs into his mother's arms. The lieutenant walks up and asks where "the perp" is. "He didn't make it, Lieutenant," Sam says. "How did it go down?" he asks. "How did you find the kid?" At least we're not the only ones left asking questions. We were HERE and we don't know any more than this guy does. Jane and Sam share the look of liars, and Sam says he's offended by that question: "I'm just a superstar cop." That'll look great on the paperwork. Jane tries not to giggle as Sam walks away. Oh, death is funny. Once again the closed captioning tells it like it is when it says "[sea gulls crying]." The closed-captioning person is the best writer on Tarzan.
Jane walks through some deserted area. Don't bother explaining. We don't care. "Jane!" Tarzan whispers from some kind of cave. Jane boasts that she's always finding him in the shadows. Or in her bedroom. Or on the street. Or in broad daylight. Or behind her. Or in front of her. Or above her. "I wish you could be in the light, John," Jane says. "You deserve to be." Whoa. Wow. Then maybe you could help Tarzan live free, Jane. Maybe you should stop returning him to cages. Tarzan crawls out into the light, and joins Jane. He asks if the boy is with his mother. Jane says he is, thanks to Tarzan. "I'm glad you were here today, John." She apologizes for what she's put him through. The tender music begins as Jane explains. "Look, I was angry at you for Michael's death. I wanted to blame someone. Anyone. And...John, it's not your fault. It's mine. My weakness and my lies." Huh? Tarzan leans in (ugly close-up!) and says, "But I couldn't save him." Jane caresses Tarzan's arm as the song picks up. She tells Tarzan that she knows he tried. Kinda. Tarzan holds her wrist, and takes her hand. She pulls it away. She asks if she can take him back to his aunt. Tarzan smiles. "[insects chirping]." Marry me, closed-captioning person.
Xena's. "[breathing heavily.]" It's dark, and Tarzan's standing in his bedroom. He's still in those clothes, which seriously have to smell like oil and tetanus. I think Tarzan is trying to cry. He goes to the window. He opens it. Oh, for Pete's sake, you've been there three minutes! He heads out the window, and sees a cop car underneath. He looks around at the night sky. He climbs up and scales the building again. He reaches the roof. He crouches and looks over New York City. Once again, he listens to sirens as he crouches on another roof. He turns around and looks back at Xena's. He finds a window. He looks in, rubbing the dirt off the glass. He sees a bed covered in a sheet. He opens the window and crawls in. Tarzan has found bad music and a child's room. All of the furniture is covered in cloth. Tarzan takes one off and finds a bed. He touches a pillow. He holds it and sits down. "John," says the pillow. "Maybe this wasn't meant to be," the song sings. John pulls a tiny teddy bear out of the pillow. "Forever wasn't what you said/ You were someone else's voice instead." Tarzan uncovers some photographs of himself with his family. "Forever isn't what you meant/ One breath away from time well spent together." Tarzan is trying to cry as he looks at the picture. "Well, I should have known/ Our time was winding down." It sure is, Tarzan. I give you two more episodes. But I'm sure not holding my breath.
Useless Nicki walks to the front door, and announces to Jane that she was just leaving as Jane walks in. She asks Jane if she's okay. "[keys drop]." Nicki says she understands that Jane needs some time alone. "I've been lying to everyone I love," Jane says. Not really. I mean, Nicki already knew, and she didn't really love Michael. Who then? Sam? Jane: "Michael's dead. And I have all these feelings that I've never had before. I pray that they'll stop and then I'm glad when they don't." Nicki is so bummed out that she's going to be late for her date, but Jane's not done. (And neither is the song, but I can't keep quoting it because I've just gotten a nosebleed from the horribleness of it all. I'm not kidding. My nose is bleeding, but I don't want to stop because I'm so close to finishing this recap and I don't want to have to sit down with this episode again.) Jane: "I feel like I used to have it all figured out. Work. Love. I knew all the answers. So what's happening to me, Nicki? [sobbing] What's happening to me!?!" Nicki runs across the room and takes her [sobbing] sister into her arms.
Tarzan is wandering somewhere else. He leans into a dark room and finds another cloth-covered place. He opens more doors and finds a greenhouse, or some kind of jungle. There are doves cooing as Tarzan walks through the green. Why didn't Xena put him here in the first place? "I closed this place up so I could forget it was here," Xena says. Hi, did Tarzan wake you? Tarzan so sorry. "You used to live here," she tells him. "In this wing of the house. You and your mother and father." She says she couldn't go there after they disappeared: "This place has got your spirit. Your father's spirit." Xena walks away. Tarzan opens more doors and crouches on the roof ledge. Xena's right there, looking around suspiciously. She asks Tarzan if he'll stay. She and Tarzan smile at each other. Tarzan looks out at the sky. He looks back. There's no answer, since we're not sure how much longer this whole wreck of an attempted superhero franchise is going to be sticking around.
week Tarzan takes off his shirt. Whatever, you said that bullshit last week.