Bionic blogging

"Boo!" A skeptical and newly bionicized Jaime Sommers confronts cult leader Jonas through a two-way mirror (my favorite scene of the opening episode)

I f I can blog The War, I can blog The Bionic Woman, too, I guess. The latter is certainly more entertaining.

Basic plot: Girl meets boy. Girl tells boy she's pregnant. Big semi rams car with girl and boy inside. Boy replaces girl's legs, one arm, an eye and an ear with bionic stuff that gives her superpowers. Boy turns out to be part of some secret CIA or scientists' cult or something. Boy helps girl escape secret lab. Girl fights nasty bionic blond girl. Boy's father escapes maximum security prison 1000 feet below the earth. Girl agrees to work with secret scientists' cult.

Gee, Dr. Will, that's nice that you're going to Paris and oh, by the way, I'm pregnant with your baby: Jaime knew how to shake things up even before being bionicized

As I recall, the old Bionic Woman series from 100 years ago had a woman with mechanical stuff implanted in her body and she worked for the government and did goody-two-shoes missions for them. The 2000s version is starting off as a lot like Alias. (Not that star Michelle Ryan is up to Jennifer Garner standards yet but that's a whole different story.)

The first episode sprinkled mysterious clues all around, no doubt with a few red herrings in the mix.

To take things out of the plot order, Jaime Wells Summers (Michelle Ryan) is a woman with secrets. And she acquires a boatload more of them in the first episode. On the surface, she's a mild-mannered bartender in San Francisco who has custody of her bratty teenaged sister. But there are mysteries. The sister, Becca (Lucy Hale), was dropped off at Jaime's by her father for her to take care of.

A surprise ending to the date: the next thing Jaime knows it's, "Honey, I cut off your legs"

Ethan (Dad Sommers), who we haven't met yet, is some kind of a radical. Jaime makes it sound like he follow around demonstrations and drinks a lot. Extra material at the Web site has an old clipping from 1970 of his participating in a sit-in in Washington to protest the Kent State murders. This would place him in his mid-50s now.

Little sister Becca has her own secrets. We learn in the first few minutes that she's under a court order that forbids her "to be near a computer plugged into a phone line." Actually, Jaime herself has a sealed court file from in 1998 when she was 15 or so. Apparently juvenile delinquency is a family tradition. According to the Web site "dossier", Dad Sommers claims he first got involved in the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) when he was 15. I see a pattern emerging...

Bionic Sarah on a bad hair day: renegade chips in your cerebral cortex will do that to you

Jaime's new bionic stuff includes chips implanted in her cerebral cortex that apparently act as sort of an extra Freudian unconscious, including giving her the coordination and reflexes to do stuff like deflect tossed knives with her hand, dodge bullets and leap from one tall building to another with a single bound.

Her MMPI psych evaluation from sometime earlier in her life is stamped Secret/Classified in the Web site version. "She adapts extremely well to change," it says. Lucky thing. Oh, her bloodstream is now one-eighth "anthrocytes" which apparently heals her wounds about as fast a Wolverine's mutant powers in the X-Men movies. If I'm not mistaken, rival bionic woman Sarah Corvus (Katee Sackhoff) breaks several bones in Jaime's hand or arm just before tossing her off the roof but Jaime is fully healed seconds later. More on Bionic Sarah in a minute.

You fell in love with a psycho-killer, and you're calling my girlfriend names? Dr. Will (r) chats with Jae about Jaime's longevity

Jaime's guy is surgeon and professor Will Anthros (Chris Bowers). Dr. Will is the son of Anthony Anthros (Mark Shepard). Old Man Anthros is imprisoned in a super-secret prison 1000 feet below ground. He was involved somehow in bionicizing Bionic Sarah. Dr. Will was involved in the project, too, somehow. Bionic Sarah has a mystery thug boyfriend who has some kind of vague but sinister eastern European accent. Eurothug and someone he calls his brother (who we don't see) kidnap Barbara, the wife of a guard at the super-dungeon name Bobbie, and force him to spring Old Man Anthros, who at the end is walking with Bobby across a snowy mountain in California and evidently planning to do some more secret stuff with Eurothug.

Bionic Sarah was a soldier known in particular for her sharpshooting expertise which we see in action in the opening episode when she shoots Will in the right shoulder from a nearby rooftop. When she was implanted with everything, she lost control and apparently the "kill people" program took over and she killed several people in the Wolf Creek Biotech Facility, where the scientists' cult does its bionic experiments. She was in love with Jae Kim (Will Yun Lee), one of the Wolf Creek team. "Wolf" is a theme for Jae. He tells Will he once had a wolf as a pet and compares Jaime to a wolf as a way of suggesting she be killed. It's not clear if he was really talking about Bionic Sarah.

Sisterhood of the anthrocytes: Bionic Sarah gives Jaime some friendly advice about how to handle her new powers

Jae thought he had killed Bionic Sarah three years ago when she lost control. But she's obviously still around. When Jae discovers this, he goes to the super-dungeon to ask Old Man Anthros how he kept her alive. Old Man Anthros just grumped about how he had been stabbed in the back and didn't respond directly about Bionic Sarah.

It was Bionic Sarah who was driving the semi truck that rammed Dr. Will's car and messed Jaime up. The truck hit the driver's side. There are several possible plot strands that can spin off from this. It actually reminded me a lot of the car crash at the end of Season 4, the next to last, of Alias. One is that after the crash, Bionic Sarah goes to see Eurothug at a dive boarding room. Eurothug is sewing up stitches in his left forearm. He asks here, "The doctor, did you kill him?" And she says it was like a ride at Disneyland, which he took to be a yes. Then they make out. But the next time she comes to the boarding room, Eurothug is gone and there is writing on the wall that says, "You failed me".

Then later, she shoots Dr. Will in the shoulder through the window at his apartment while Jaime is standing next to him. But part of reputation is her sharpshooting. The Web has a "Sykes Group" document describing her as an excellent "marksman". So did she really intend to kill Dr. Will?

The connection between Jaime and Bionic Sarah is also a mystery. We don't see her go up to wrecked car. If she had, presumably she would have seen that Dr. Will was almost miraculously unscathed while Jaime was seriously smashed up and then finished him off. If she really intended to kill him. But while on the operating table after the crash, Jaime has a dream of Bionic Sarah in the truck heading toward them. When she recovered a bit, she doodles a picture of Bionic Sarah's face.

Then there's Dr. Will. It seems that he was keeping his work secret from Jaime and only bionicized her because she was about to die. But was she that damaged in the crash? Dr. Will didn't seem to have much trouble doing a major cutting-edge reconstructive/neurological on Jaime right after he survived a major car crash. Later he helps her escape and we see him making pitches to the team to give her time to adapt to the new powers on her own outside the Wolf Creek cult facility. But when she runs to Dr. Will's apartment and he tells her, "We're the only ones who can protect you." But at this point Dr. Will hasn't heard that she's met Bionic Sarah. Who did he think was threatening her besides the Wolf Creek scientists' cult?

Bionic Sarah interrupts a post-lovemaking idyll by shooting Dr. Will in the shoulder - and, yep, that sure looks like the right shoulder to me

The climax of the opening episode is a Buffy-style karate and smash-up battle between Jaime and Bionic Sarah in the rain on a rooftop. Why in the rain, I wondered? I first thought they were going to do a wet t-shirt thing, but they didn't really do that. Anyway, Bionic Sarah comes to visit Jaime at her bar, apparently seeking her out and already aware that Jaime had been bionicized. Jaime seems to vaguely remember her and asks if they've met. Bionic Sarah says, "We met very briefly." But we haven't seen the two meet before. The only hint would be if Bionic Sarah went up to the car wreck. But then wouldn't she have seen that Dr. Will was still alive? She gives Jaime some sisterly advice in the restroom about how to adapt to her sight and hearing superpowers.

Then she goes outside into the alley. Jaime follows her there and is menaced by a lone street punk with a switchblade. Her battle chips fired up and she quickly put him on the ground and was about to cut his throat. Then the scene cuts to Jae in the car watching Jaime go into Dr. Will's apartment. Was the switchblade guy a test?

Right after then, Dr. Will gets shot and Jaime rushes over and has her big battle with Bionic Sarah on the roof. But Sarah actually seemed to be testing her to see just what kind of bionic powers she had. It wasn't clear what he purpose was. In fact, Jaime asks her at one point and she says she doesn't know.

Another interesting bit comes in the fight when Bionic Sarah takes a cigarette break and asks Jaime what bionic parts she has. Bionic Sarah said she had two bionic arms and two bionic legs, plus a bionic eye originally. But she said she (apparently she herself) had added another bionic eye and also some chest parts (bionic boobs?). She discovers in the fight that Jaime has only one bionic arm. But she assumes that Jaime has two bionic eyes and Jaime doesn't correct her.

Another mystery comes in the first conversation between Eurothug and Bionic Sarah. She asks Eurothug if he misses "the way things were". He says he can't remember it, apparently referring to some earlier life. When they start smooching, she asks him, "Do I remind you of her?" and he says something about her skin.

Among the other characters in the Wolf Creek cult is a blond named Ruth Truewell (Molly Price) who looks quite a bit like Bionic Sarah and who seems to have some special connection (not necessarily romantic) to Jae, Bionic Sarah's former boyfriend.

The head guy at Wolf Creek so far seems to be Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer), former US Army colonel. At the Web site, we see that he testified about dirty war and biogenetics to Congress on April 11, 2000, saying among other things:

We need to move beyond traditional thinking. We need to envision deadlier ways of killing, not just to implement them, but to protect against them.

As an entity, the United States has a responsibility to the world. We are a country with international interests and accountability. Our army stands as a united wall of defense against other nation states. But what about those entities that do not play by established rules? We need a new way to protect ourselves, one that may include morally questionable techniques. This freedom can only be accomplished by smaller groups, acting independently of the government. These groups will act ostensibly without the government’s knowledge to create new technologies free from critical censure. The country as a whole will maintain deniability, while still preparing for the future. The Next World War is the Last World War. It will be a global campaign fought with little red buttons, Arctic Silos, fighter jets manned by drones, weather machines, bombs of suitcase and dirty varieties, vastly spreading chemical agents, and other technologies we have yet to identify. The whole thing should take about 15 minutes. We are not prepared. We need a radical over haul of our military and our systems of defense. And we need it yesterday. (my emphasis)

There are a few other little mysteries scattered her and there. Jonas refers at one point to the rest of Jaime's implants coming on line. She could have new powers popping up for years.

We get a glimpse of two female friends of Jaime's, who Becca refers to as "weird friends" when they come to babysit her. As Jaime leaves the apartment heading for her date and fateful wreck, she promises Becca that they will go to double-feature the next night. Double-feature? When was the last time you saw a double-feature advertised? Instead she has a long weekend at the cult compound as gets bionicized.

In Dr. Will's second scene, he mentions to Jaime that Old Man Anthros had planned his life since he was in the womb and Jaime was "the one choice my father didn't make for me". On their pre-wreck date that night, she tells him she's pregnant. He then tells her it has been five months and 14 days since they met.

You threatin' me, punk? Jaime continues her dialogue with Jonas on a dark and stormy night

When Old Man Anthros gets out of the dungeon, he says he hasn't seen the moon for 1023 days. Another family trait to watch, obsessively counting days? That time-frame puts Old Man Anthos' imprisonment at almost exactly the time Bionic Sarah lost it and Jae thought he had killed her.

We hear from Ruth at the cult facility that Jaime is from Horne, Iowa, and was born on February 23, 1983, making her 24 now. Her mother died from cancer. But Ruth didn't mention Dad Sommers at all.

When Jaime tells Becca tells the line about Dad Sommers and his protests and drinking, Becca makes the cryptic comment, "You think you remember but you don't."

When Jaime returns after several days in the cult compound after being reconstructed, Becca confronts her about her cover story which was that she and Will were off skiing. Becca tells her, "Dad used to say don't believe anthing until it's been denied."

Jae tells Dr. Will during a disagreement that Old Man Anthros "seemed normal, too". Dr. Will tells him that "if I'm anything like my father", he (Jae) may have just made a big mistake by confronting him over whether Jaime should be killed. Or did he mean because he compared him to his father in that way? It's not clear whether Dr. Will knows Old Man Anthros is alive.

There's a sub-theme about cigarettes. (Product placement bucks from tobacco companies?) Bionic Sarah smokes and tells Jaime that their anthrocytes in the blood immediately repair any lung damage from cigarettes, saying it's one of the benefits of being a freak. The only other smoker in the episode that I noticed was Eurothug; I wonder if this is going to be a clue that someone may have anthrocytes.

Dr. Will was talking before the wreck about a grant to do some project in Paris and he asked her to come with him. What's up with that?

Also, Dr. Will the guy whose family counts days obsessively moved their date from 8:00 to 8:30. Was he in on the planning of the wreck? Just before the crash, Jaime tells him, "You don't have to do this, you know." And he responds, "I know. So what does that tell you?" Then BANG!!!

The bar where Jaime works looks a lot like P3, the San Francisco bar in Charmed. Will Piper Halliwell turn up as her boss?

Finally: mistake or clue? Bionic Sarah shoots Will in the right shoulder with her high-powered rifle. But when the ambulance is being loaded a few minutes later, apparently with Will but we don't actually see or hear him in the ambulance, we hear a radio call saying they've got a guy who sounds like Will who's been wounded in the left shoulder.

Inquiring minds want to know.

My name is Jaime Sommers, and you'd better be nice to me (with apologies to The Twilight Zone and "Talking Tina")

Tags: bionic woman, chris bowers, , katee sackhoff, lucy hale, mark shepard, michelle ryan, miguel ferrer, molly price, will yun lee