Previously: Doesn't matter anymore.
Sam's doorbell buzzes at 3:23 in the morning. Sam is currently showing more skin than we've seen on this show in a while. The buzzing turns to pounding on the door. Then it's buzzing again, as Sam slowly wakes up and checks the time.
The buzzing and pounding continue as Sam meanders into his kitchen, dumbfounded fact that someone could be at his house in the middle of the night. Not a very active cop, I guess. "Hey!" he screams. "Who is it?" And that "hey" right there? That's the "hey" I'm taking as a shout-out. "Jane," answers a man's voice. And what Sam says should be grounds to stop recapping right the fuck now. Just forget week and move on with our lives and pretend this never happened. Because Sam actually says this: "Jane? Doesn't sound like Jane." Sam then looks through the peephole. We see Jane on Tarzan's shoulder. "Sam?" she now calls out. "Oh, my God," says Sam as he unlocks both locks on his door. "Quick! Get in, get in, get in!" Do you think Sam's tendency to repeat things is a script problem, or the actor's fault?
Sam put a shirt on, so I'm bored again. Jane apologizes for going to Sam's. Why the F would they go to Sam's, anyway? Does she think the police wouldn't think to look for her there? Sam tells Jane to shut up and ice her head. Sam, you had me at "shut up." "Sam, we might have been followed," says Jane. "John, were you?" asks Sam. "Pam, how the fuck did this show make eight episodes?" you ask me. "Y'all, I don't know." Tarzan says they weren't followed, and that's good enough for Sam. "There you go," he says. "I want to know right now, Jane. Who the hell did this?" Jane plays all coy and damsel-in-distress-y, enough that I'm so tired of her. I truly am. Sam asks if it was Gene. Jane reluctantly admits that it was. Why the hesitancy, Jane? Sam says "dammit" and "son of a bitch," because that's what angry cops do. Jane: "Sam, let it go. We gotta find someplace safe for John." Just let it go, Sam. Jane likes getting beat up by men and saved by monkeys. That's her thing. Don't judge her. Sam says that there isn't a safe place ("Jane."), since Tarzan's a cop killer. Blink, blink. "Then where do we go?" Jane asks. It's like exactly the same dialog in every single episode. Doesn't this show have a writer's room? Sam thinks for a second, and then opens a drawer in his entertainment center. He hands Jane the keys to his family's cabin upstate. Aw, man. Fuck the previews for this show. Didn't they make it look like they were going to be trapped in a jungle somewhere? I don't need some Blair Witch bullshit. Sam just now remembers his upstate New York hiding place, and suggests that Jane and Tarzan go hide out there for a while until he figures out what they should do. I wish we were going to see the ninth episode -- the one where Sam and Jane go to jail for ten years. Jane remembers that she has a sister, one who hasn't seen her for a couple of days. Sam says that he'll take care of UselessNicki. Aw, yeah! Baw-chicka-bom- bah-na-nah-na!
There's another buzzing at the door. Sam's a popular guy tonight. This springs Tarzan into action, and he must flip over the couch in excitement. "All right. Let's go, let's go. Come on, come on. Let's go in the back." Yeah, definitely go in the back. Definitely, definitely go in the back, Sam. Jane picks up some girly sweater that is supposed to be Sam's, and a change of clothes for someone. As the doorbell keeps buzzing, Jane and Tarzan walk backwards into Sam's bedroom. Don't question the logic! Sam tells them to stay in the bedroom. "Especially you," he tells Tarzan. This show suuuuucks. He turns out the light. The person at the door is knocking and buzzing just like Tarzan was earlier. How thick are Sam's walls that the person at the door wouldn't have heard them talking? Sam slowly wanders over to the door. This time, he doesn't use the peephole because that would border on making sense. He unlocks the door that now has three locks instead of two. It's Gene. Of course. And Gene has some butterfly stitches on his face, and a cut lip. "What the hell do you want?" Sam asks, predictably. Gene walks into the apartment and asks Sam what he's doing up. Sam says he's up because Gene woke him up. Gene asks Sam if he talked to Jane tonight. Sam says he hasn't. Gene says that her boyfriend, "the cop killer," jumped him and his guys, and that a couple of them are in the hospital. Sam is pleased to hear that Tarzan kicked some ass: "What does that have to do with Jane?" Gene says that it was all a set-up by Jane, and that she even took a few shots herself. Sam says that Gene's full of it. Gene tells Sam to tell Jane to turn herself in, with Tarzan, directly to Gene. "Otherwise, I don't know how much more my boys can stand before they...you know...blow." Heh. Sam says that he imagines there's a lot of that going on between Gene and his boys. Point for Sam. He tells Gene to get out of his place: "Go home. Take your medication, you psycho. Let's go." As Gene heads toward the front door, he looks around the apartment. He stops when he sees a drop of blood on the floor. Sam looks down and sees it, too. "So, you haven't spoken to Porter, huh?" Gene asks. He then makes a beeline for Sam's bedroom. This makes something break in Sam's frontal lobe. "What do you think you're doing? What do you think you're doing? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Gene opens the bedroom door, but there's nothing in there but some rustling window treatments. Gene makes a grumpy face, and I drop my head into my hands. Seven episodes of exactly the same story. Isn't that amazing?
So Jane and Tarzan got a car somehow, but that's not important. And it's daylight now, but that's not important either. What's important is that they're "upstate," and we're "apathetic." Tarzan should wear his seatbelt, so his pretty face isn't mangled during a head-on collision. Tarzan -- who's slipped into Stupid Mode again -- hits at the radio buttons, and is amazed to hear sound come out of the car doors. Hey, do you guys think Tarzan can read? How does he get around Manhattoronto without a basic knowledge of the alphabet? Every time Tarzan hits a car button, Jane flips it back off. Jane won't stop staring at the rearview mirror. Really, for five hours we're supposed to believe Jane has been worried that they're being followed? Tarzan watches the window roll up and down, and then looks at Jane proudly. Just in case we can't figure out what Jane's staring at, we go to JaneCam, and watch a picture-in-picture of the rearview mirror. And then, just in case we're watching this show with our eyes closed and our brains on "tard," Tarzan turns to Jane and tells her that she keeps looking "in there." Strange choice of words for Tarzan, who should think that a mirror is some kind of magic glass that lets you talk to yourself. Jane tells Tarzan -- and by "Tarzan," I mean "the people the writers think are total idiots" -- that she's worried that they're being followed. Tarzan looks behind them for three seconds and concludes: "We're not." Okay, then. Sorry we didn't ask you sooner, Tar. "Okay," says Jane.
Tarzan then bends the rearview mirror down so that Jane can't see it at all, and tells her to stop looking. She's got side mirrors too, Apeman. Tarzan's window is half-down somehow. "John," says Jane. Tarzan leans in, touches Jane on the arm, smiles, and says, "Don't look back." And then: "Look where we are now." My fingers palsy and roll backwards from the keyboard, repelled at the thought of typing another word -- of having to watch another second of this show. My fingertips wrap around my wrists and cling to the ends of my sleeves, begging me to stop torturing myself -- and by extension, all of you guys. It's not fair to any of us. My cats are running around my house howling, screaming with pain at the sound of this wretched writing, of this flimsy premise, of this remarkable parade of bland acting and melodrama. It's insulting that The WB thinks you'd want a show like this. It's insulting to think that there's a group of men who think they know you well enough to give you a show that you would fall in love with, and this is the crap they serve up. It's like getting a vacuum cleaner for your birthday. It's like breaking up with someone and finding out he bought his new girlfriend the one thing you'd been coveting for years. It's like waking up in the morning and realizing you've got to go to the worst job you've ever had, and kiss ass all day long so that you can keep that crap job that treats you like shit because one day you might get to make enough money to move away from this crap job that makes you feel like a child. And I'm only on Minute Eleven of this episode. Jane agrees to relax and take in how beautiful everything is. Tarzan shows his lower teeth, bobbles his head around on his shoulders, and smarms, "Yes." Jane blinks a few times, and then smiles demurely.
Precinct. The lieu tells Sam to close his office door. He tells Sam that Jane has disappeared -- that he had two guys trail her, but that she ditched them, and now they can't find her. He asks Sam whether he's seen her. Sam says he hasn't. The lieu groans and sets about closing all the blinds on all of his office windows. He asks Sam if he's seen Taylor. That's Gene, but Taylor is also the name of my grumpy cat, so it's pretty funny to think that the bad guy on this show is named after my cat. The lieu shows the report that Gene and some guy named "Bridgem" (maybe that's Carey from the last episode?) filed last night. Lieu says he doesn't buy the report, but that they're sticking to the story. Sam says he can't say anything about it. The lieu reminds Sam that it's his ass on the line, too. "Look, I know Gene's a hothead," he starts, and then some music starts up as if that's a line that should make for compelling, dramatic music. The lieu says that he told Gene not to be anywhere near "the Michael case." He says that's all he can do until somebody speaks up. Speak up, Sam! Why not speak up? The lieu tells Sam that if he had a way to talk to Jane, he'd tell her to turn herself in so that he can put her in protective custody. Then he opens the door and tells Sam to leave, calling Gene in. Gene gives Sam the stink-eye as he enters the office.
Don't even try to understand why Tarzan's now sitting backwards in the passenger seat of the car, feet propped up on the headrest. If you try to understand it, the insides of your ear canals begin to itch. Trust me. "Why are we stopping?" Tarzan flirts. "Nature calls," Jane says. Whoa-whoa-whoa -- she's a laaa-dy! Tarzan realizes that this means he's got a shot at finding out if Jane's a natural redhead, and pulls himself out of the car window. "It does?" he asks, pretending not to know what's going on. He follows Jane, who stops unbuckling her pants long enough to tell him that "the Little Boys' room is over there." Stee -- who happens to wander through the living room at this time -- gives Tarzan the line, "Uh, I shat in the woods for twenty-five years." Jane tells Tarzan that it's only an expression, though, and that there's no room for him to find over there. Thanks, Jane. Tarzan nods to nobody, making the Spicoli face. He "thinks" for a second.
Tarzan gets into the driver's side of the car and tucks his hair behind his ears and adjusts the rearview mirror. Yep, this is a guy who's never been in a car before. Jane left the engine running, apparently, because she's got Stupid Disease. Tarzan has it too, and uses two hands to move the gearshift from P to D. Huh. The car doesn't start rolling, though. Maybe Tarzan should try the emergency brake. Tarzan lifts his clean foot and drops it heavy on the gas. The car screeches forward. "[thud]," says closed captioning, but we hear a very loud crash. Jane comes running from behind the bush, and I'm saddened to see that she hasn't peed all over herself. "John!" she yells, and it sounds like Tarzan's head has been rammed into the steering wheel. Jane runs to the car.
Don't try to figure out why the passenger's-side door is open, or why Jane runs to the driver's-side door instead as she shouts John's name over and over. Don't try to see how the car could have crashed into air like it seemingly did. Jane finds Tarzan sitting still, his thumb touching his forehead, his face frozen in a grimace. It's more of a "She's gonna kill me face" than anything else. In fact, it's so casual that Jane drops being frightened, and simply tosses a "Ya all right?" Tarzan gives a meek "Sorry." I guess that sound is supposed to be blown gaskets, but it sounds like Tarzan might have discovered a waterfall. Tarzan pulls himself out of the window again. (This stunt brought to you by Toyota.) He obviously walks down a small set of stairs as he joins Jane by her side. Jane waits for someone to move the stairs, and then opens the door. She gets in and tries to start the car, but can't. "I guess we're walking," she says to Taran. What, no AAA? What about "AAAA-aaaahhh- aaaahhhh-AAAAHHH-AAAAHHH!" I can't believe we've watched this entire half-season without one jungle call. Bullshit. So before Jane abandons Sam's car in the middle of nowhere for colliding with molecules of oxygen, she asks Tarzan to help her rip off the license plate. Tarzan just yanks that thing off like it was held with a strip of double-stick tape. Jane says that if anyone sees Sam's car, they could be followed. Yeah, without that license plate, it could be anybody's 2003 gray Toyota Forerunner abandoned on the side of the road, on the way to Sam's family's cabin in upstate New York.
Meanwhile, back at Plot We Couldn't Care Less About, Gene tells Carey to run Jane's credit card, cell phone, outhouse, henhouse, blah, blah, blah canceledcakes. He tells Carey to keep doing it until he finds something. Carey asks about Sam. "Run his car, too," Gene says. And then he calls this guy Jeb. Wait. Is his name Carey, Jeb, or Bridgem? Oh, forget it. Gene sips his coffee from his girly Fiestaware, and then winces when the hot cup somehow makes his fake lip-scab hurt.
"So, John, what made you think you could drive a car?" Jane's a slow reader, or so we must surmise from the fact that her head's still in that one piece of paper she's been carrying around since they left Sam's car. "I saw people do it," Tarzan says. "People in city." Where? Your city was pretty devoid of cars, from what I've seen on this show. Jane says that was his first mistake, because people in the city can't drive. Try the veal, people. A police car pulls up behind them. Once again, Jane tells Tarzan to stay behind and let her deal with this. She tells him to try not to look like a fugitive. Jane tells the sheriff she's glad to see him, because they had a mishap with their car. Oh, good, Jane. Now they won't trace that car without plates to you. The sheriff says he saw that gray four-door, and asks what happened. Jane says that a bee flew in the window, and that she has a thing about bees. Jane sucks. "You from the city?" asks the cop. Jane says that she is, and asks if it's that obvious. The sheriff says that a tow truck is on the way. He offers to give them a lift to the garage, which is twenty miles away. Tarzan makes a guilty face, and I'm surprised he doesn't shout, "Jane! He'll take me back to the jungle!" Jane says she's got a friend who lives up the road, and that he'll give them a lift. "He's probably worried about us," Jane lies to a cop. And doesn't she think it's a little risky lying to a sheriff of a small cabin town where there's nobody around? I mean, the sheriff is going to know there's nobody up in that cabin. The sheriff checks out Jane's ass as she walks away, and asks her name. Jane lies and calls herself Dianna Morris. Miss Morris, wherever you are, I do believe you should sue. The sheriff says, "Your car's got no [sic] plates." "It did," Jane lies again. The sheriff takes a quick look at Tarzan, whose toes curl when he lies, and this kicks off some tribal flute. Jane looks guilty as hell. The sheriff tells her he'll stop by the garage later and check on them. Jane thanks him and walks away. The sheriff gets back into his car. He's got a rearview air freshener shaped like a fish.
"Later." Tarzan walks through a field. He's found a walking stick. He smiles, happy to be in a place that has trees, even though it's nothing like a Congo jungle. Jane grumps up behind him, saying that this is why she quit Girl Scouts: "I hate the bugs, and I hate dust." She checks her map and then looks up in the air, saying she needs some bug spray. Tarzan is all grins. Jane says they're close to the cabin. "We also want to find a glass of water...before Jane drops dead." Tarzan, throw the map in the water. Jane's talking in the third person. Finally, this could get interesting.
The sheriff's back at the abandoned Toyota. He checks the passenger's-side visor, the glove compartment and the...radio? He opens the hood and waves away smoke. The car's still smoking? He radios from some wireless CB somewhere: "Scott. Hey, it's Tim." The radio we can't see answers, "Hey, Tim." Heh. Sheriff Tim gives Scott the engine number to run over the wire to see if anybody's reporting a car theft. They deem this exciting enough to swell the music and blackout to commercial.
I'm so excited about week's last episode. So excited I can't stand it.
Sam's family's cabin isn't vacant for very long, it seems, given that it's pretty well taken care of. The lawn is maintained, and everything is dusted and in place. Jane says, "Okay, Sam. Tell me you have canned goods." And then she walks over to the cabinet where they keep the plates, opens the glass cabinet, and presses her hand to the shelf, staring down the dishes. No, I have no idea what she's doing, either. We then can't see her, as we watch Tarzan pick up a pair of binoculars. He stares at her from one end. Jane complains that this is what she loves about the city: "You got everything right there. Your bagels and your chocolate milk and you have smoothies and out here we got...." They stare at each other. "We got nothin'." Jane laughs and blinks a few times. Then: "Oh, my God. I haven't even thought about it in like, an hour." Tarzan: "About what?" Jane: "The murder case." This show really would make a fantastic comedy. "And Donald Ingram and Richard Clayton. It's just...It's just us." More staring. Then Jane walks away, saying that this is exactly why they need food and water. "There's food," Tarzan says. "And water." Jane asks where that would be.
Try not to vomit at the acoustic guitar that accompanies this scene of Tarzan and Jane by the lake. Try not to leave the room when you see Tarzan in some shallow water, trying to coax Jane to join him and fish with her bare hands. Try not to quit your job and leave the country when you see Tarzan's "reaction" to Jane's not wanting to join him for fishing. Try not to scream so loud your neighbors call the cops when Jane sits up straight and says, "John! There's a bee." Try not to stab yourself in the eyes when you see the CGI bee dart in front of Jane's face. Try not to slam your forehead repeatedly against your coffee table when Tarzan tells her to leave the bee alone. But when that CGI bee lands on Jane and stings her in the shoulder, it's okay to cheer. And it's okay to laugh when Jane decides the best way to deal with a bee sting is to slap yourself hard on the sting a few times. But your punishment is the rest of the scene, when Jane wails and cries while Tarzan catches the largest trout that's ever been placed in a creek. Jane whimpers and whines about getting stung until Tarzan carries his slippery fish to dry land and then smacks Jane on the arm with a handful of wet mud: "Mud. It takes away the pain." And then the real punishment comes: when Tarzan and Jane get into a mud fight. Notice how they're already covered in mud before they start throwing it at each other. Jane and Tarzan get really close, close enough to sniff, and Tarzan? He sniffs Jane like she's a mud-covered she-beast with pheromones streaming from her unwashed armpits. No kissing! "I'm filthy," Jane admits as she backs away. I feel disgusting, too.
Night. Tarzan and Jane, two fugitives hiding out, light a fire in their cabin. Dogs howl in the background. At some point, Jane and Tarzan washed their clothes clean of mud. Don't question it! They shiver to each other. "They're singing," Tarzan tells Jane. "That's nice," she says. "John, they sound like they're right outside our door." Tarzan says they are, but that she's safe. "Do you want me closer?" he asks. "Or farther?" Jane says he's okay here, like this. "I don't mean now," Tarzan says. He's so selectively stupid, isn't he? Just like a boy. "I mean always." He touches her face again. She closes her eyes. Jane wishes things could be simpler. "They can be," Tarzan says. Jane asks how. "We can stay here," Tarzan says. Jane laughs. "Together," Tarzan adds. "No," says Jane. Tarzan asks why not. "Because I have a life back home," Jane lies. "I have Nicki." That's like saying "I have warts." Jane says she has a job, which she doesn't: "And John, even if I didn't? Sometimes you have such innocence. And sometimes you are so violent." Unpredictable? "Unpredictable. So how could I choose to stay out here with you when I don't know what I'd be choosing? When I don't know you?" Tarzan storms out of the room. That's the right answer, Tarzan. You're finally doing something right. Jane sighs and blinks. Her arms flop around aimlessly.
Gene and the man with no name are working late at the precinct. NoName tells Gene about Sam's car found, on the side of the road. "So what the hell's in Hamilton County?" Gene asks, referring to the place where the car was reported possibly stolen. "Trees, mostly," NoName answers. Brilliant. He says that there are also vacation homes and hunting lodges. "All right," Gene says. "Then let's go hunting." At this point, my friend Laura turns to me and asks, "Why is everyone on this show bald?" And my friend Martha adds, "Or has incredibly long hair?"
It's morning, and Jane walks out of the cabin wrapped in a blanket. She finds that Tarzan has been cavorting with a wolf, presumably all night. Finally: Tarzan gets some. Woo! Tarzan spanked that lupussy. Sorry. That's the worst joke I ever told. I'm tempted to delete it. But NO! I have to watch this show, and I'll bet two-thirds of you never watched a single episode, so you have to suffer through my crappy wolf joke. I could make a lupenis joke, too. But I won't. Jane slams the front door of the cabin, but that's not what scares Tarzan's new girlfriend away. It's the one step of her bare foot on the wooden floor. What did Tarzan feed that wolf? And why is Jane so captivated by Tarzan petting a dog? The wolf runs away when he sees that Tarzan's got another girlfriend. Tarzan is disappointed.
Gene and NoName show up at the "lodge" in Hamilton County. Gene introduces himself to the sheriff, and solves our "dilemma" by introducing the other one as Jeb Carey. What a terrible name. But "Jeb" is easy to type. Sheriff Tim asks Gene if he tangled with a bear. Gene's lip cut is worse today than it was yesterday. He touches it and laughs, admitting that he did something like that. He says tjat the animals in the city aren't as polite as bears are. He says that they are in town to help some friends who got "conked" on the side of the road. Sheriff Tim tells them that it's a gray four-door. Jeb describes Jane as a "nice-looking brunette." Why do they always try to make us think that Jane's got brown hair? Sheriff Tim calls Tarzan a "hippie" who wears no shoes. He says he thought they might have stolen the car. Gene says it's their buddy Sam's car. Oh, who cares about this scene, right? It doesn't matter. Let's get back to the stupid cabin fever. At least that's mostly silent.
Dammit. I forgot about Sam. He shows up at work and complains about picking up a Saturday shift when there are five college football games on. The guy at the front tells Sam he's sorry about his car. Sam asks what he's talking about. He tells him that they found his car...you already know all this. Car in ditch. Gene and Jeb are on it. Sam and Jane are bad cops. Moving on. When Sam runs out of the precinct -- presumably to go retrieve his stolen, crashed car -- the guy at the desk actually calls out, "Hey, Sam? Where you goin'?" What? Do people read these scripts before they shoot them?
"John!" Jane screams up toward the trees. "Where are you?" Tarzan's in a tree, of course. "Come on," he calls to her. "John, are you mad at me for what I said last night?" Are we in the tenth grade, or eleventh? Wait, wait, wait! Tarzan took off his shirt! But he keeps bending forward, knees up, so we only see his shoulders and part of a nip. Boo! Tarzan asks why he'd be mad. Jane blinks an answer. Tarzan tells her to climb the tree. Jane: "Um. You know what, John? I've never really climbed a tree and I don't see any reason to break a perfect streak." Tarzan accuses Jane of being afraid, and jumps down to help. Jane says she's not afraid. And because you watched Episode Seven of a show that's already been cancelled, you inflicted this scene upon yourself. The music kicks in, and Jane decides she'll try climbing the tree. She drops her sweater and tells Tarzan to move over. And this tree, in the abandoned whatever forest of whatever? It's got a wooden ladder nailed to it. And Jane, who sucks? Jane, who's a total girl, she flails around trying to climb a ladder. She slides and falls. Tarzan tells her it's easier barefoot, so she takes off her shoes. They flirt. Tarzan leaps up the tree. Thank you for that shot, cameraman! Jane is similarly stunned into silence. Then she climbs up the ladder. Didn't this cop have to scale anything to earn her badge? The tree has a rope, which Tarzan unties. Wait. Is this the tree of One Tree Hill? Jane and Tarzan then swing on the rope over the lake. Wait. Is this Young Americans? Tarzan's and Jane's stunt doubles swing back to the tree and out to the water again, where Tarzan lets go, and they fall in slow motion to the water. They come up in slow motion, and they're too far away for us to enjoy them wet and happy. They splash at each other in slow motion. It is as joyless as it is sexless. I'd rather watch cats hump at this point.
Dude. We're supposed to believe that at some point last night Jane and Tarzan played Cribbage. Come the fuck on. Tarzan can't count to fifteen. Well, they weren't playing Cribbage correctly anyway, so whatever. Maybe Tarzan knows some kind of jungle Cribbage he used to play with the tigers. Carey walks into the cabin and opens Jane's wallet, checking out her badge. Didn't she have to turn that in last week? Carey gives the cabin a good stare-down.
I guess Gene's too damn lazy to walk the twenty-five feet to the cabin, and prefers to let Carey wander into a potentially hostile situation unarmed and alone. Good thing they weren't home, huh, Carey? "Well?" Gene asks impatiently. "We got the right place," Carey tells him. Gene sighs and opens his trunk. He pulls out a couple of guns. They load them.
Tarzan and Jane are wandering somewhere. Jane decides to ask Tarzan what it was like for him where he grew up. She asks if he was scared or happy. Did he wonder where his parents were? Dead to him, thanks. "Was it exciting, all that freedom?" Jane asks. Tarzan admits that it was, and Jane laughs. Jane says he must have been more at home there than in the city. Tarzan says it wasn't. Tarzan has a cold. Jane: "But you knew it so well. I mean, John, it was your world." Tarzan: "No, it wasn't." Jane: "Why not?" Tarzan pouts and then admits, "There was no one like me." Aw. "I was different. Alone. It was dark all the time." Tarzan walks up and grabs Jane's boob. "In here," he continues. They stare at each other, bathing in the silence, able to sustain themselves off the cheese content in that last sentence. There's a sound of birds flying, and a crow. The closed captioning tells me there are "[footsteps]," but I don't hear them. "John," Jane whines. Tarzan looks away and finally covers Jane's mouth with his hand. "Shh," he says. "They're coming." Jane is so turned on right now.
Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro are running through the...sorry. It's Gene, in hunting gear for whatever reason, and Carey in plain clothes.
Tarzan and Jane wait until they can see the men running toward them, and then they take off.
Sam somehow made the drive -- which took both Jane and Gene all night long -- in less than two hours. Go, Sam. Where'd you get the car, by the way? "Jane!" He runs to the cabin. "Jane!" He runs in. He runs out. "Jane!"
Tarzan is way outrunning Jane, and she doesn't seem to mind. She tells him to hurry. They run barefoot.
Gene is out of breath, and uses this moment to stick out his tongue and load his shotgun.
"Come on. This way." Tarzan grabs Jane by the waist and points her in another direction. Jane runs like a total girl.
Gene and Carey make sure to stick to a jogging pace so they don't accidentally catch up with the ape and woman just ahead of them. Gene stops for a second to find the footprints in the mud. They're right where he is, so that's easy enough. They keep going. Way to waste my time.
Tarzan and Jane run. Because they're trying to lose them, Jane shouts out that they're right behind them. Good work, detective.
Gene and Carey run.
And I know you can call this one. This is the time Jane falls flat on her face. Tarzan goes back to her. Jane tells him to go on without her. "We're almost there," Tarzan says, caressing Jane's cheek again. "Where?" Jane asks. Tarzan pushes Jane, and she almost falls on her face as she starts running again.
Running.
Running.
Running.
Tarzan finds some water. "What are you doing?" Jane asks. Tarzan makes tracks go into the water.
Gene looks for the tracks.
Tarzan and Jane run noisily through the creek. Brilliant!
Tarzan leaps up a tree.
The nine inches of water is too much for Gene's bursitis, and he must slow down considerably as he makes his way through the rapidly moving creek.
Tarzan tells Jane to give him her hand so that he can pull her up. Jane looks at him and winces audibly, as if she's thought about what it'll feel like when her shoulder detaches from her collarbone. Tarzan pulls Jane's stunt double up the tree with one arm.
Gene and Carey cross a one-foot creek and look right up where Tarzan and Jane are sitting in a tree.
Jane stares at them.
But Gene and Carey don't see that they're looking at Tarzan and Jane, because we are following the rules of Looney Tunes here, apparently.
Tarzan puts his hand over Jane's mouth again from behind, and because she wasn't saying anything, he whispers, "Shh!" Be vewwy qwiet. They're hunting sweeps week.
And this set must be tiny, because Gene and Carey walk three feet out of frame and then back again, as if they were supposed to have been wandering around lost. It's so ridiculous. This is all so ridiculous! This show has hit a low I couldn't have forseen! How can putting Tarzan back with trees and nature make the show even worse? They're frolicking, and Tarzan's trying to drive, and they're flirting, and his shirt is off. They gave us everything we wanted, and it only made it that much suckier. This show is painful. I am pained. My chest hurts. I can't do this much longer. "Where'd he go?" Gene asks. "I don't know," Carey answers. Carey is wearing any old city clothes, and Gene's just shy of war paint. "Couldn't have gone far," Gene concludes, looking up again where Jane and Tarzan are. Gene and Carey stare at the ground and continue walking.
"They'll be back," Tarzan informs Jane, the stupidest cop in the world.
Night. Howling. From me. Tarzan and Jane are still wandering. How big is Harrison County? Tarzan tells Jane that they need to move faster because "they" are close. Tarzan hears something and throws Jane to the ground and gets on top of her. That's the way to do it, Tarzan. She's not good at subtlety, anyway. Gene and Carey are right there, flashlights blaring. Good way to hunt, with a bright beam in front of you. And have these guys been ten feet away from each other for twelve hours? And how did Tarzan and Jane get right back in front of them again? FORGET IT. Anyway, of course it's Sam whose got the flashlight ("Hey, hey, hey! Sam! Sam!" he identifies himself), and not Carey, but apparently Tarzan thinks all black people look alike, and almost pounces on Sam, a man whose couch he's pawed. Way to sniff that out, Tarjohn. Also: good cop work, Sam. You catch criminals with those skills? Jane's on the ground in front of Sam, and he actually has to say this line: "Hey. I know I look crazy in hiking boots, but you don't gotta hide." And Jane, of course, has to say, "Sam, Thank God it's you." Sam guesses that "this whole Blair Witch, tricked-out, covered-in-scratches thing" means that Jane and Tarzan ran into Gene and Jeb. Jane says that they did. And Sam, brilliant cop he is, decides that they need to run to the car, back at the cabin, as fast as they can. And Tarzan, the only one who gets anything done around here, must stay to fight the bad guys, which he does, promptly. "Hey, hey!" shouts Sam when he sees Tarzan go in the other direction. "John, where are you going?" Jane asks. Tarzan says that he wants the bad guys to follow him. Jane says that she's not going to let him do that. "Take care of her," Tarzan tells Sam. Welcome to every single episode of Tarzan. "Let him go, let him go, let him go!" says Sam. Thrice.
Gene and Jeb hunt. Tarzan leaps from a tree. "There," says Jeb "Captain Obvious" Carey. And then Gene just stands there for fifteen seconds.
Jane thinks they should have left Tarzan. Sam thinks they need to get to the sheriff. "And bring more cops down here?" Jane whines. "No way." She turns back to get Tarzan. Right. Sam stops her and reminds her that Gene and Jeb have shotguns, and she's got nothing. He says they need some help. He walks over to his car and opens the door. As he starts to turn the key, he looks over at Jane, wondering why her ass isn't in the car yet. Is she waiting for an invitation? No. See, Jane -- herself the worst cop in the world -- is partner to the second-worst cop in the world. So neither of them heard Gene (who must have a space/time portal that allowed him to run behind them while also being where Tarzan was), who walked through sticks and fallen leaves to put a gun to Jane's head. Jane instantly goes limp, looking at the ground. "I guess I could have thrown an elbow or something," my friend Laura says in falsetto at the television. "But then how would some big, strong man save me from this?" Martha joins in, "I mean, I guess I could have made a noise or kicked him or tried to stop him or something, since none of us saw a man approach me as we walked to the car. Oh, well!" We continue in this manner all through the commercial break.
Gene tells Sam to get out of the car. Sam says Gene's name. Gene says Sam's name. Sam gets out of the car and tells Gene that if he hurts Jane, Sam will have to kill Gene. Gene responds by putting the gun closer to Jane's head, which makes her wince and kicks off Sam's repetition mode: "All right, all right, all right, all right." Or perhaps he's singing an Outkast song. Sam puts his gun on the hood, deciding not to shoot Gene when the gun was pointed at him. Then, for no reason at all, Gene pushes Jane toward Sam, letting her go. Carey gives a melancholy "No sign of him." Thanks for trying, Jeb. "John's long gone, Gene," says Jane. Jesus, even her rhymes are feminine. Gene says he's going to make Tarzan find him. He shoots in the air. Jane winces and blinks.
Shot of the moon. I guess this is "later." Sam and Jane are now handcuffed to the front of the car. Sam gives Jeb the stink-eye. "Thought he was a friend of yours," Jane says. Yeah, that was rather unclear. Gene litters, so we know he's a really bad guy. "You know something?" he asks. "I freakin' hate the country." He tells Jeb to shine the flashlight up in the trees, because that's where Tarzan will be coming from, so we know he won't be up there. Sam sings, "He'll be coming to get your ass when he comes!" Gene: "Shut up, Sam!" Sam asks Gene how he talked Jeb into torching his career: "What, did you promise him some lottery tickets?" Gene says that the only people torching careers are Sam and Jane. Jane gives Gene a serious stink-eye. Sam delivers the worst line in this show's history. "Oh, really? Because off the top of my head I count kidnapping. I count assault with a deadly weapon. I count ex...cessive force [sic]! Not to mention ugliness under the color of authority [shit]." Sam says that Gene shouldn't have hit a fellow officer. "She's no cop!" Gene screams. He says that his friend Mike died because of Jane. Sam: "Aren't you supposed to be way off this case? Huh?" Sam concludes that Gene had never intended for the lieutenant to find out about any of this: "Was that the plan, Gene, huh? Kill John Clayton when he shows up? And then kill all the witnesses? Is that your plan, Gene?" "Well, when you put it that way, Sam, it does seem like a lot of work...." There's a rustling, and Gene gets impatient. He walks up to Jane and tells her to call her boyfriend. "Call yours," says Sam. Burn. "Drop dead," Jane says like she's Italian, with some weird lisp she picks up when she's playing tough. And Gene punches Jane dead in the face. Then he points his shotgun at Sam and screams for him to back off. "Why don't you hit me like that, you bitch?" Sam asks. Gene tells Jane to call her boyfriend. This show didn't earn this scene. "He'd kill you if he saw you right now," Jane whispers. "Fine!" Gene shouts. And then, honestly, he goes, "Bring it on!" Oh, no he di'in't! "Ring the bell!" Shit, y'all! There's a lot of staring, and then Gene points his rifle at the forest. He and Jeb walk toward the trees. Psych! Just a raccoon! And then BAM. Tarzan swings out, using the one-two raccoon-apeboy switch, the oldest trick in the book! Tarzan beats up the bad guys once again, while Jane and Sam take their sweet-ass time trying to dig the handcuff keys out of the discarded Jeb's pocket. Sam worries that he might be touching Jeb's dick. Jane is worried that Tarzan is about to kill Gene, and warns him not to add to his growing body count. Well, she just goes, "John. John." I make up my own show as it goes along.
Sam jokes that Gene's doing the perp walk to his own car. Behind him, Jeb's completely unsupervised. He and Sam stare at each other for a second, and with that look, I see the thirty or so pages of storylines about the two of them that got scrapped. "Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go," Sam says as he pushes Jeb into the car. Tarzan pouts. "Hey, hey, hey, hey," Sam says, warning Tarzan to step back from the car. "It's the last one we got." Tarzan looks to Jane, who agrees, and puts her hand out like a kindergarten teacher for him to take. Sam radios in backup. Now? Sam tells Jane and Tarzan to get out of there. Wait, what? I thought...oh, forget it. Jane hugs Sam and thanks him. Sam is forced to call Jeb and Gene "hella crazy," and warns Jane that they might describe her and Tarzan. Tarzan nods, suddenly able to understand the word "hella." He tells her how the lieu said he'd put her in protective custody. Sam advises her to do it. Sam tells Sheriff Tim to round up "Barney and Gomer and Goober." Tarzan takes a moment to stare deep into Sam's eyes. Kiss him! Man, that would make Jane jealous. "Thank you," he says. Sam nods and tells Tarzan not to worry about it: "I'll put it on your tab." Bad music whisks Jane and Tarzan off into the night.
Tarzan and Jane walk down the street. Jane smiles sweetly. She says she's been thinking about the plane that was supposed to take him home. "Even with no mirror," Tarzan says, "you keep looking back." And then Jane says, "Well, this time, I'm looking in the other direction. I'm looking forward to the plane. I don't want you to get on it." Tarzan says that when he's there, she's in danger. "There are worse things," Jane says. God. "Like what?" Tarzan asks. This show. It should come with health insurance. Jane: "Like you spending the rest of your life alone because of me. I don't want that. And I don't know what's gonna happen with...us, or with anything. But I'm sick of running. I think we should go back and face your uncle. Face everything. What do you think?" Tarzan "thinks." Then: "Will you teach me how to drive?" Jane laughs and says she will. First teach him how to tie a shoelace. And how to use a comb. And tell him boys shouldn't wear chambray denim shirts anymore. And also: shut up. Jane walks away, and Tarzan looks back like, "Dude? Am I getting laid tonight?" And then the closed captioning says "[ooh-ooh ooh ooh-ooh]" and it's all too hysterical. It's so funny I almost forget to be angry that they cheated me out of my Minute with Mitch Pileggi™.