|
Writer: Mark Wilding
Director: David Straiton
Air Date: 11.19.2003
Cast:
Christopher Gorham...Jake Foley
Keegan Connor Tracy...Diane Hughes
Philip Anthony-Rodriguez...Kyle Duarte
Judith Scott...Louise Beckett
Guest Stars:
Laura Harris...Angela Hamilton
Rachel Hayward...Valerie Warner
Jim Byrnes...Chief Director James Skerrit
Rob Stewart...Miles Jennings
Miranda Frigon...Tech Agent Susan Carver
Lisa Marie Forbes...Stenographer
Gustavo Febres...Captain Garcia
Frank Ferucci...Colonel Alonzo
Umar Gordon...Armed Guard #1
Juan Llorens...Jorge
Peter Grasso...Apartment Man
Tre Verhoeven...Megan Reilly
Tiffani Timms...Janet Reilly
Steffan Chavarria...Lab Tech
Synopsis
As the episode opens, Jake bursts into Lou's office, furious. He told a woman she would be safe, that they would protect her. Lou yells right back that that wasn't his promise to make. Their tête-à-tête is interrupted by armed guards. Kyle and Diane are similarly met by big guys with big guns, and the team is led to an Emergency Board of Inquiry. It seems that Lou's boss Skerrit and the NSA brass aren't happy with the conduct of Mr. "I Have Nanites So I Don't Have To Follow The Rules" on his latest mission. If they don't like the answers the team gives? The project will be shut down.
As the head of the board, Valerie Warner, questions the team we find out about the mission through flashbacks. When asked to start at the beginning, Jake does—with Kyle getting Jake to double date with his current girlfriend's little sister, who is something of an NSA groupie. After three daiquiris, Janet throws herself at Jake—literally. The boys are saved by the bell when they are called back to Sat Ops because three vials of a deadly biological weapon were stolen. The catch? it's a weapon that the United States is on record as never developing, let alone selling. Kyle and Jake are ordered to go to Santa Costa recover the gas and the thief. They have a shoot-to-kill order.
Any testimony Jake makes regarding the varcon gas is stricken from the record. Jake watches helplessly as his objections regarding the mission are deleted from the stenographer's notes before his eyes. Any mention of the US developing or selling varcon gas is considered treason, despite the fact that they do and did. The hearing continues, as the teams frustration mounts. It's not the nanites coming under fire, but Jake's conduct as an agent and his refusal to kill a rogue CIA agent who stole the varcon gas.
Flashback to Diane teasing Jake about his blind date as she gives him shots in preparation for the mission. Jake asks her, had his date not turned out to be a psycho, would it have been safe for him to sleep with her? he's worried that he could infect a potential partner with the nanites. Diane assures him that it unlikely, but can run some tests to be sure and sends him off to the bathroom to provide her with a sample.
In Santa Costa, Jake and Kyle capture a couple whom they believe to be the thief and her buyer. Vials were found in the man's apartment. However, the real thief watches Jake from a window. Believing the mission over, Kyle sends Jake back to the hotel, where he gets a call from Diane. His lab tests confirm that he's "good to go" as far as safe-sex is concerned. Jake heads down to the hotel bar, and is picked up by an attractive blonde—Angela, whom unbeknownst to Jake is the woman who stole the varcon gas. They have wild monkey sex, trashing half the hotel room in the process. The next morning, Jake awakens to hear Angela accessing his laptop—and he recognises the sound of her charm bracelet as from the audio clip Lou played from the site where the gas was stolen. Jake calls Kyle, who tells him the couple from the apartment were just a philandering husband and his mistress and the vials were fakes. Jake and Angela square off at gunpoint, and Angela tells him she's CIA after the varcon gas. She then kicks Jake in the head, knocking him unconscious.
Kyle arrives to find Jake and Angela gone. Cut to Angela arranging a meeting with her actual buyer—Colonel Garcia—as she drives down a Santa Costa road, unaware Jake is clinging to the undercarriage of her truck. When she stops for the meet, Jake appears with a gun but despite his orders doesn't kill her, just demands she tell him what's going on. Angela tells him a sad story about her kid sister who was backpacking through Santa Costa two years earlier, and was killed when the Santa Costa government used varcon gas on the village where she was staying. She's on a suicide mission to kill the men responsible for her sister's death, Colonel Alonzo and Colonel Garcia. Colonel Garcia arrives and Angela tells Jake to play along or they're both dead. Posing as Angela's partner, Jake waits outside while Garcia authenticates the gas inside a mobile lab. Angela won't sell until Alonzo is there. Garcia orders his men to kill Angela, who fights back. Jake joins in the fray just as the vial of gas is broken. he tosses Angela a gas mask, but gets a lungful himself. Garcia and his men die ugly deaths, and outside Angela prepares to trache Jake, but the nanites save his life. Angela demands to know what Jake is—nobody can survive direct contact with the gas. Jake hedges, and instead tells her that the people he works with at the NSA can bring Alonzo in, make sure he pays for his crimes. Angela and Jake meet up with Alonzo, who orders them out of their car, telling Jake to raise his hands. He does, revealing the remaining two vials of varcon gas. Kyle arrives—but not to arrest Alonzo. Instead, while Jake watches helplessly, Angela is handed over to Alonzo. Kyle and Lou point out that yes, Jake did disobey orders. But that faced with a complex situation, he did what any good field agent would do—he played along, and did his best. And that any other agent in the same situation would be dead.
The hearing is concluded, but Jake won't let the subject of the varcon gas go. He accuses the board of conducting the hearing looking for a scapegoat, and for being hypocrites regarding the varcon. Because they refuse to acknowledge that the varcon was used by their allies on American citizens, and then covered up, thanks to plausible deniability Angela Hamilton is rotting in a foreign prison. The team back Jake up, as he uses the nanites to upload the stenographer's report to the server, and threatens to email it to the AP newswire if Angela is not released. Rather than call his bluff, Warner lets the team go. Jennings is disgusted that they caved, but Warner threatens to cut out his tongue if he ever uses that snotty tone on her again. She is obviously the power behind the throne. Skerrit is told point blank that Lou is his girl—if she fails, he fails. Warner is impressed with Jake's moxy. She also fears and hates him and vows to bend him to her will.
Guest cast
Review
This episode feels a little odd, coming on the heels of "Whiskey - Tango - Foxtrot" where Jake seemed to have actually learned some of his lessons regarding following orders. However, props to the writers for having both Lou and Kyle not excuse Jake's lapses in judgement and flagrant disregard for the orders he was given. It good to see them stick to their guns. Unfortunately, by allowing Jake to get away with his behaviour (he blackmailed the NSA, for pete's sake!), the episode undermines this lesson. The structure of the episode is engaging—however the actual Angela plot leaves a bit to be desired. Angela's mission of revenge is played to make her sympathetic, but the truth is, she was still a rogue CIA agent taking the law into her own hands. The episode actually suffers from the parallels between Angela and the Wolf Pack—both of whom felt betrayed by their governments and planned to take revenge using a deadly weapon. Jake shows more sympathy for Angela because she's a beautiful woman who seduced him, and one wishes one could take Jake aside and tell him to stop letting Little Jake make his decisions for him. Or watch Lou do it, potentially backing that up with some more judo throws, so it sinks in. On the up side, Kyle and Jake's double-date, as well as Jake's scenes with Diane, are vastly entertaining. The entire sweeps-fuelled sex subplot is actually more engaging than the by-the-numbers spy plot. And the arrival of the NSA brass, and Warner's agenda, leaves the viewer hungry for more. The episode does do a great job of showing Jake's priorities as being with the people he works with—not necessarily the government agency they work for. "The Spy Who Really Liked Me" seems to have cemented team solidarity, and the hero shot of the cast walking down the hallway together and triumphant may have been a cheap thrill—but it was still a thrill.
Quotes of the Week:
Jake: "Hey. I got here as fast as I could. What do you need?"
Kyle: "You."
Jake: "I have a hard enough time talking to girls I actually know!"
Jake: "What did Kyle tell you?"
Diane: "Nothing. Just that she came on a little strong."
Jake: "I've had people shooting at me, and been less afraid."
Jake: "You know, it's funny. I've never had a female doctor before."
Diane: "Do you have a rash?"
Jake: "Is it safe?"
Diane: "You mean, um... Well, yeah. If you use a condom."
Diane: "Well, based on research, I can say with some degree of certainty that the possibility of transference-slash-infection is statistically low enough to be considered virtually non-existent."
Jake: "Uh-huh. So, I you're telling me I can have sex, right?"
Diane: "I should do some tests, just to make sure."
Jake: "Oh, I'm not thirsty, thanks."
Diane gestures with the cup to Jake's nether regions
Jake: "Oh."
Kyle: "What's Jake up to?"
Diane: "I got your test results back and you are good to go."
Jake: "You mean I...?"
Diane: "I mean that you can have sexual relations without fear of intra-hominid cross-transference."
Jake does a happy dance of "yay sex yay!"
Diane: "Of course, it's important to find the right girl, right? I mean, not in the strictly scientific sense of the word 'important.' But it's important."
Jake: "Yeah. yeah. Sure. Absolutely. It's not like I'm gonna—gonna run out of here and pick up the first girl I see."
Jake (to two pretty girls in bar): "Buenas noches."
(The girls walk away.)
Jake: "Adios."
Jake: "I'm in my room. With a woman."
Kyle: "Well, good for you!"
Angel: "I'm an Intelligence officer. What did you expect? I'm sure your real name isn't Jake Foley."
Jake: " Of course not."
Diane: "I need some tea, or something stronger. Are we allowed to drink on duty?"
Lou: "No, but we're gonna start."
Warner: "Did you see the way he stood up to us? That's a soldier."
Skerrit: "You like him?"
Warner: "Oh my God, I hate and fear him. But a man like that, bent to your will? Could accomplish anything."
Skerrit: "I don't believe he's bent to anyone's will."
Warner: "No. That's a problem. One I intend to rectify."
© Tara O'Shea 2003
|
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)