Recently the "A" key has worn off of my laptop keyboard. I blame Tarzan, with its repeated uses of the word "Jane" and the fact that Tarzan has yet to be called by his jungle-given name.
We open with Tarzan perched on the roof of his jungle. He's peaceful, waiting for the time he'll jump just behind Jane. His meditation is interrupted by Xena, who says, of course, "John?" Then: "Something's wrong, isn't it?" She informs us that Tarzan hasn't seen "Jane Porter" in a while. She asks if his mood has something to do with Jane. Tarzan blinks. "She doesn't want to see me," he says. Xena: "She said that?" Tarzan: "No." Except, yeah. "When I'm with her," Tarzan says, "She's sad." Xena says that Jane wouldn't have gone though all of this trouble if she didn't have feelings for Tarzan. "Then why do I make her unhappy?" Tarzan asks. Xena says that people can feel two things at once: "Even opposite things." I love that Xena flirts openly with Tarzan. Tarzan says he can only feel one thing. That's called "limited range," Travis.
Jane's playing cop down a deserted alley, holding her gun low as she rounds a corner. Jane backs herself into a dead end, as she likes to do, and flails her gun around this way and that. No partner, no backup. That's how Jane likes to play the damsel card. The closed-captioning, my best friend, says, ["Ugh!"] when the "Bad Guy" whacks Jane across the back with a 2 x 4. People on this show are eerily resistant to painful stimuli. Jane falls and drops her gun. But luckily the Bad Guy (note the Bad Guy Do-Rag) stands over Jane and waits for her to grab her gun again. Just as she's about to reach it, he hits her again. Jane flies through the air and into the required trash bags waiting to soften the blow. Jane has fallen against a dumpster, and if you'd like to call backup for Jane, the number on the dumpster reads "1-800-555-0011." It's apparently for the New York City Sanitation Department. Jane pushes herself up against the dumpster and faces the Bad Guy. This is when he pulls out his Bad Guy Switchblade! Duh-dun-dunnnnnnh! Nice manicure, Bad Guy. Jane pants, and searches the rooftops for her knight in shining J. Crew. But nothing. So Jane stands up and charges the Bad Guy herself. "[Grunting.]" Struggling. Flinging. Jane falls into a pile of traffic barrels that happen to be set up; she tosses one at Bad Guy, to no avail. In fact, when he catches the barrel, instead of hurling it back at Jane's head, he throws it out of their way so she has time to stand up. Not the sharpest Bad Guy in the tack shack. Jane picks up an empty, unbroken wine bottle and smashes it over Bad Guy's head. Then -- as the Bad Guy dances the Bad Guy Woozy Swerve -- Jane starts kicking the man's ass. She knees him three times until he hits the ground. Enter Sam, right on cue, impressed that Jane did that all by herself. He even looks around for Tarzan. Jane wipes the "blood" from her lip and unconvincingly says that she did it all by herself. Jane's employee review is going to look mighty strange.
“ Sam makes Jane promise to stay away from 'John Clayton.' But he didn't say she had to stay away from... Tarzan. ”
"Later." Sam teases Jane for missing Tarzan. Sam says that this is what Jane wanted: "You told him, 'Stay away, stay away, stay away.'" Can we get that in writing and sent over to Xena, please? Sam likes to repeat himself a lot this episode. Jane says, "Look, Sam..." And then proceeds to explain that everything about Tarzan was full of danger and excitement and now she's missing the adrenaline rush. Maybe you could drop a few more fiancs off of a roof, if you're really missing the hot action. Sam grabs Jane's arm so that they don't miss their mark and stops her from screwing up the shot. He tells her to go bungee-jumping, if she wants excitement. He makes her promise to stay away from "John Clayton." But he didn't say she had to stay away from...Tarzan. Jane's cell phone rings, and as she digs out her phone, she grumbles, "Who is this?" It's time for the first half installment of your Minute with Mitch Pileggi! Jane asks him how he got her cell-phone number. "I need to see you," says Clayton. "No," Jane says. "I'm busy." It's very frustrating to watch our first half of the MWMP, because we're having to see a reflection of Clayton in a glass library case. He tells Jane that he's spoken with Donald Ingram, the witness to Michael's death. Clayton makes sure to use everybody's full names when recapping what Ingram saw, ever hopeful that this show is gaining in audience. If that's the case, they may want to explain why the word "Tarzan" is never used in this show. "When can you come by?" he asks Jane, who blinks her way to the opening credits.
When can Jane come by? Faster than she can break a promise! Greystoke Industries. Clayton tells Jane that Ingram's account is a good sign for Tarzan. He says the fact that Tarzan tried to save "Michael Foster" (remember when everyone just called him "Mike"?), it means he's got more human instincts (or "humanity") than they figured: "It means maybe we can civilize him." Clayton asks why she won't bring Ingram forward. "I'm trying to protect John," Jane says. "From other cops. Prison. You." Burn, Jane. Burn. Clayton smiles and says that Jane could lose her shield over that. Jane says, "Look. If this is some kind of blackmail attempt? You can forget it." Today's secret word is "Look." I'll italicize them from now on so that you can keep count. Clayton says he doesn't want to blackmail her: "I'm impressed with you." Jane's busy doing soap-opera blocking: her back is turned away as Clayton talks so that she can do a haughty spin toward Clayton to ask indignantly, "What?" Clayton stands: "You did what needed to be done. John shouldn't be mixed up in a cop's death. It's an unpredictable situation. There's too many wild cards." Again, I ask: What? Who's a wild card? What unpredictable situation? Are they still talking about Tarzan? Am I still watching Tarzan? Clayton gets a flirty smile and says, "You know, you and me, we're starting to think the same way." Jane clenches her jaw, frowns, and says, "No, we're not." I wish they'd put Mitch Pileggi back in his relaxed khakis and black knit tops. He looked awesome. "Why can't we work together?" Clayton whispers. "John trusts you." He tells Jane to convince Tarzan to come back to his cage to work on his people skills. Jane shakes her head. "No," she says. Clayton interrupts: "All right. I admit. Mistakes were made." Hit it, closed-captioning: "[chuckles]." Clayton's got some Manson Lamps going as he stares Jane down and continues: "But I love John." Ho. Yay! "I just want to help him be the man that he's meant to be." Me too. It starts by having him take off his shirt. He's meant to be the naked man on The WB! Jane, for clarification, asks what that is. "A Clayton," responds Clayton, jaw clenched. Well, if you insist. Take off your shirt, Mitch Pileggi! Blink. Blink, blink. Blink. Clayton pulls Tarzan's necklace out of a box, and says, "He was wearing this when I found him." Have they forgotten we know all about the necklace, including the picture in the locket? I guess so, because Jane looks at it like she doesn't know what it is. "It was his mother's," Clayton says. "I think it's all he had to remind him of where he came from." Remember when Jane gave it to you IN THE PILOT? It's not like we're on the fifth episode, here. Anyway, Jane, awesome detective that she is, just takes the necklace and apparently hands it to Tarzan, not wondering why Clayton would ask her to deliver something for Tarzan to keep on his person. Blink, blink. Jane leaves. Blink.
Jane's apartment. Before she's even entered the living room, she's asking UselessNicki if she's okay. She can't even see Nicki's face, since Nicki's blocked soap-operatically. "Yeah," Nicki pouts. "What's wrong?" Jane asks anyway. Nicki says that it's not her, but a friend. "You remember Darcy?" Jane pretends not to for a second: "Darcy...Yeah, yeah, yeah! She's a painter." "Photographer," Nicki corrects with an eye-roll. Jane apologizes. Nicki says she hasn't seen Darcy in four days. She calls, but Darcy doesn't answer her phone: "I'm starting to get worried." Jane asks if Darcy has ever done anything like this before. Nicki says that Darcy will hole up for midterms, but not like this. Nicki doesn't have Darcy's parents' information, since she's "from Ohio somewhere." Oh, that old place. Nicki sighs and says she's probably being stupid and that Darcy is probably fine. Jane agrees, strokes Nicki's head, and says she'll go check it out. Nicki thanks her. "[Chuckles.]" Jane kisses Nicki on the forehead. I guess Jane doesn't have real work to do that she's paid for by the city.
"[telephone ringing in the distance]." We're at the precinct, and Jane is the slowest dialer I've ever seen. Sam walks in and casually asks, "So, was this Darcy girl at her dorm?" She's got a dorm? I'm only asking because I've seen the rest of this episode already, and she totally doesn't have a dorm. She has an apartment. Jane says that nobody had seen Darcy at her dorm for a while, but that she got Darcy's voicemail code from the college. I hope she had a search warrant for that, or Darcy's got a nice lawsuit. The voicemail: "Hey. Darcy. It's Gary. Uh, I don't know why you're not returning my calls." The stage directions for Gary must read "[Like a meth addict.]" Gary: "Uh, I'm gonna come over there. Right now. And we're gonna have a great time. Okay? Look, we had a plan. And you are not gonna break this plan, you understand me? I'm coming over there right now, Darcy, and you'd better open the door." Jane and Sam finally conclude that they might need some help on this one.
"[telephone ringing in the distance]." That's how we know that time has passed. Enough time for someone to have made a Missing poster for Darcy. Hey, someone might want to tell Darcy's parents that they've filed a Missing Persons report. Perhaps they might want to be involved in the...what? Stay out of your case, you say? Okay. Have fun, you crazy cops. Jane scrutinizes the poster for a second and then says, "Yeah, send it out. Thanks." She hands it to Unknown Cop #49. Somehow, they know what Darcy was last seen wearing. Sam walks over and says that there's nobody matching Darcy at "The Hospital" (y'all know the one) and now it's time to check the morgues. Maybe they should have done that before the Missing Persons report? Jane shivers and blinks ten times because she doesn't like having to deal with people, dead or missing. Then someone delivers my favorite line on all of these cop shows: "Detectives? You should see this." They've hacked into Darcy's email account. They're lucky Darcy uses something like Hotmail, because they couldn't have read all of my old mail. Her inbox shows that the only person Darcy gets email from is someone with the email address "RAPTOR@Wexton." I don't know about you, but this shit would get flagged as spam immediately and then deleted. That's not an email address, for one, and secondly, don't use all-caps for your username. It makes me hate you. Anyway, this "stalker" has only emailed Darcy ten times, and we can see that Darcy has replied to four of those messages. "Big Day" is the first subject line. Then "Tell me more." Which Darcy did. Then "Photography?" Then "dining, dancing, art." Darcy wrote back to that one. "something special" she didn't, nor "not on a school night," "havin fun?," or "can't help it." But she did write back after "just a note." And I know you can all guess the subject line of the last email. Say it with me: "Hey." We can see the body of the email "just a note." It was "Dear Darcy, though [sic] I would send a little note to say 'hi.'" Sam asks to see "the last one," but instead, they open the first one with "Big Day." Sam reads with much enthusiasm: "Dear Darcy, just got your picture in the mail. You're beautiful. Can't wait to meet you tomorrow. In person." Well, if Darcy's fool enough to send a photo, the girl totally had it coming. And also: so far, it doesn't seem that Gary has done anything wrong. "That was a week ago Tuesday," says Unnamed Cop #92. "She hasn't used her computer since." Uh huh. Sam asks for "an email trace on this Raptor guy ASAP." #92 says it's going to take a while. Sam and Jane stare at each other as Jane shakes her head. I bet someone's got a gut feeling about something!
Fancy Xena house. "John?" Way to stay away, Jane. She wanders through the jungle. "Are you here?" Somewhere, a dove coos. Pan up to Tarzan on an upper ledge, staring down at Jane. "Why are you here?" he asks. Jane hands him his necklace. Actually, she slowly raises the necklace as we follow it up and then focus on her face instead. It's called "being dramatic." Tarzan leaps up and swings over Jane. Jane turns and gasps, beaming. She holds out the necklace, and Tarzan does a backward fall, flipping to his feet. He exhales. He takes the necklace and asks Jane where she got it. I guess I'm the only one who saw the pilot. Hey, what happened to all of Clayton's flashlight guys -- the ones who swooped in on helicopters who shot Tarzan up and took him to his cage three times an episode? They'd come in handy these days. "Your uncle," Jane says. "But he wants to hurt me," Tarzan says. Jane makes like a Budweiser ad: "True." She adds that Clayton deep down also cares about Tarzan. Jeez, this girl will believe any line of bullshit thrown her way. Tarzan puts on his necklace and fingers it, but he doesn't open the locket. He shows his bottom teeth and makes the ugly face. He thanks her and walks away. "Um, John?" Jane says. Tarzan barely turns around, just like a good soap actor does. "Look, I, um...." Jane stammers. "I know that I told you to stay here, hidden and everything...." Blink, blink, blink, blink. "And that's right, but if you wanted to just come by every once in a while so that I know you're safe." Jane's such an ape-tease. Tarzan asks if she wants him to stay there or not. Jane stammers around until her cell phone rings. "Porter," she answers, all nervous and breathy. Doesn't this girl have Caller ID? It's Sam, asking where she is. Jane lies to her partner again, and says that she's out eating lunch. Sam practically runs through the precinct saying they've tracked down the owner of the email address, and now they have a warrant. "You coming?" he asks. Jane simply hangs up her phone. She spins around to Tarzan and says she has to go. Tarzan walks deeper into his jungle.
A car zooms by some shitty apartments. I turn on the episode here at a party while we're waiting for food to show up because my friends don't believe me that the show I recap is quite this shitacular. From one glance at Jane, they all moan, "Oh, no!"
Jane knocks on a glass door. "Gary Lange! NYPD! Open up!" Nothing. Sam and Jane turn to look at the landlord, and give him the go-ahead. The landlord unlocks the door. Quick shot of Sam's silhouette as he aims his gun at the door. They enter, guns drawn, and case the empty loft. "NYPD! NYPD!" shouts Sam. Nothing. Empty. "Where you at, Gary? You in here? Huh? Huh?" Yes, Sam is taunting the suspect, and giving away his location. Nice partner work there, too. Anyway, they decide that the room is clear, and put away their guns. Then a girl enters, holding shopping bags. "Excuse me?" she asks. It's Darcy. Darcy walks into the middle of the room, silently. Jane sighs. Darcy says she's so embarrassed.