Bionic Woman, episode 6: "The List"

Jaime Summers: creature of the darkness

As I said in a brief initial post on this episode, this episode showed that the cast of characters can make a decent stand-alone episode but still build on the longer meta-plot.

(Warning! Plot spoilers!) The episodic plot of "The List" had to do with Jaime and Tom, with whom she's reunited from the previous episode, trying to buy a list that has the names of a hundred or so US intelligence operatives (and/or Berkut Cult members). They go to Paris, Tom gets captured by the bad guys, Jaime eventually rescues him and does some bionic stunts. So far, Tom seems unaware of her superpowers, although when she kicked down the locked metal door of a wine vault that probably should have been a clue.

In the meta-plot, we get Jaime and Tom hooked up as a couple, and the chemistry is still there. Joshua Green at the TV Guide blog on the show calls Bionic Woman "the most revamped show of the fall". But that's not so terribly evident for those of us who aren't up on the details of who was planning to do what with it. The basic cast of regulars seems to be in place. But Isaiah Washington's Antonio was absent in "The List", and I've heard he's being taken off the cast. So it's probably him who Jaime "can't protect" in the preview of episode 7. Which is okay by me. He's the only one of the major cast so far that was a real stiff, even when he had decent lines like, "The last time you listened to your gut about a guy, he had your limbs replaced."

Jonas: I can never read anything in my office; maybe the lighting has something to do with it

Nathan the techie provided quite a bit of comic relief. He had a good exchange with Ruth in which he rattles off what he's doing in tech-speak, and Ruth says, "You realize that spies don't really - talk - that way."

He responds earnestly, "I know. It blows. I'm just - trying to bring back the cool."

This episode set up a pattern with Tom and Jaime where she's resentful that he's not showing her enough attention and he's trying to be protective of her. Which is an ironic twist in this one, since she's the one with the superpowers. Or, at least, if he has any we haven't heard about them yet. At one point, he's about to bust into the room where the bad guys are and insists on going alone without Jaime. She snaps, "Okay, so now I'm your trophy spy."

The embassy party scene was a lot like Alias; Sidney used to do gigs like that all the time. The difference with Jaime is that there's always the possibility that her bionic arm will fall off or something.

The most interesting piece that may have longer implications for the meta-plot is a complicated set of references to men and women calling each other. It begins at the first, where Jaime is complaining cryptically but bitterly to Becca that Tom hasn't called her for eight days after their "incredible, meaningful night". Jaime explains to Becca that Becca should not call her current crush Brennan, because that's against one of the rules in the conservative dating book for women, The Rules.

Becca chides Jaime for going by such a retrograde set of advice, but she doesn't call Brennan to invite him over for Quintin Tarrentino movie night, which she's hosting at the apartment while Jaime's off in Paris beating up enemy spies. But it still calls attention to the fact that it's peculiar that Jaime, who's scarcely conventional what with her bionic limbs and eye and ear and her clandestine career with the Berkut Scientists Cult, is embracing a stereotypically conventional approach to dating.

They continue the theme throughout, with Becca as usual providing a kind of parallel version of Jaime. Jaime gets Jonas to call Tom in as her partner on the Paris job. But she refuses, saying, "I don't call guys." Later he alibis himself in the hotel elevator by saying, (I think!) "I was in Afghanistan, that's why I didn't call." But Jaime's not buying it.

Tom to Jaime: I don't like taking dames on a mission

Then when Tom gets captured, Jaime apparently on her own initiative calls his cell phone. And even though he's tied up in a chair with a gun to his head, he says, "I can't believe you called me." To which she responds, "Shut up."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Becca's target guy Brennan shows up for movie night with some blond bimbo on his arm, which doesn't really make Becca happy. So she gets drunk and/or stoned and goes out for a drive and immediately gets busted by the cops. So she calls Jonas, who she's never met before, for help. (She's calling the guy this time; which Jaime actually told her to do.) Jonas then bails her out and apparently manages to have all charge dropped. So she and Jonas bond as his tries to play firm but understanding daddy with her.

At the end, after breaking procedures (including calling Tom in captivity) and losing about $4 million of the Cult's money, Jaime reverts back to her The Rules persona and tells Tom he has only one more chance to get this right. there's also a call from Ruth to Jonas. Jaime also continued to have issues with her cell phone; with all that bionic stuff in her head, you'd think the Berkut Cult could communicate with her without a cell phone! In fact, Nathan was communicating with her without a phone in the cafe scene; maybe only he could do it.

In the final scene in Paris, Jaime asks Jonas if Becca called him. He said no. So that means Jaime thinks Becca didn't call even the guy (Jonas) that she said it was okay to call. After Jaime gives him the "one more chance" lecture, Tom says, "I'll call you" as she walks away, leaving him to ponder in indecipherable ways of the female heart.

There was also a shadow-play with Becca on the idea of "The List". She tells Jonas in the car that she's frustrated at not being privvy to "Jaime's list of secrets". In her opening scene with Becca she refers to The Rules book as having "a list of rules".

Only the eye shadow knows: the right (bionic) eye is bigger than the other - but is it just make-up or some other trick?

Although it's Michelle Ryan's portrayal of Jaime that's the absolutely critical pillar of the shoe, I would say Becca is the second-most-indispensable character. It not only grounds Jaime the super-heroine to have domestic responsibilities as a single mom to her sister. Becca acts as a shadow character to Jaime, just as Bionic Sarah is another kind of shadow-reflection of Jaime's character.

So, is it too much of a reach to think that the fact that Becca's decision not to call Brennan didn't work out the way she wanted - he showed up with another girl - is a hint of how Jaime's reserve may complicate her relationship to Tom. I mean, given her distinctly traumatic relationship to Dr. Will, I can understand Jaime being cautious. But The Rules?

Becca's run-in with the law reminds us that there's a family history of juvenile delinquency, all at about Becca's age. Becca is some kind of computer hacker, a plot line they need to start developing but is under a court order over it. Jaime has a mysterious sealed juvenile court file, which I'm guessing has something to do with Becca's strange comment to Jaime in the first episode about their father, "You think you remember but you don't." Ethan (the father we haven't met yet) also had a bit of a j.d. record, according to the Web site.

This episode was lighter than the first five, with a lot more humorous and endearing moments.

But this episode continued with the "dark" theme that is the basis of the meta-plot. The opening scene with the failed buy attempt was very dark; it even had a cigar-smoking man, presumably Victor the bad guy, recalling the famous Cigarette-Smoking Man of X-Files. The hospital scene at the Berkut Cult compound, a good part of the initial scene with Jaime and Becca and the requisite scene in Jonas' office were all dark. I wonder if Jonas may also have a bionic eye. How else could he read anything in an office that's always that dark?

Paris, by contrast, was very bright. It is supposed to be the City of Lights, right? But the final scene when Jaime runs down Victor the bad guy was a very dark one. Also, the back-office scenes of the Cult team and the CIA were also on the dark side.

Even the wire that Jaime pulled was the right one in the scene where she disarmed the bomb strapped to Tom was black. Jaime's bionic self may be on the side of the angels. But she's a creature of the dark.

Tidbits or clues? I caught at least three explicit movie references in this episode: The Breakfast Club, Breathless and Reservoir Dogs. When Tom asks her in the elevator, "You're in the game, too, right?", The Game could also be a movie reference. We also got a new character in this episode, Alexis Vandermeer of the CIA, who we could see again.

Best line of the episode: Jaime after she and Tom check into the hotel room in Paris, "Well, since we're a married couple, we should just watch TV and not have sex."

Tags: bionic woman, lucy hale, mark shepard, michelle ryan, miguel ferrer, molly price