BIONIC WOMAN Recap: The List

Title: “The List”
Original Airdate: 11.7.07
GMMR Recapper: Jo

Paris, a Cylon, a little loving and we have our first interesting episode. Brownie points if you can correctly explain why. Answer at the end in my grip section.

Boring B-plot. Boring, because it was all about the whiny sister, whose name I’ve yet to learn. Fingers crossed that in the strike time, the writers get the brilliant idea to kill her off. A mental note only of course. Boring sister throws party to get some boy who brought another girl to the party. Boo hoo. So naturally she bails, drives the car without a license and under the influence, but gets as far as backing over the curb before the cop who was just outta frame flipped his lights on. Jonas has to bail her out of jail, gives her the “I’m not your father, but” slash “Jaime has her secrets, leave it be” speech and doesn’t tell on her.

But back to the Cylon in Paris. Let me just say, I don’t remember what this bad guy was supposed to be called, because frankly he scares me just a little, so we’ll just call him Leoben for good measure. (If you’re keeping scoring, we’re 3 for 12 on cylon guest stars…) So Leoben is selling a list of secret operatives. I wish I had a tally on how many shows and movies attempted to steal, sell, destroy or publish said list….Leoben likes to kill his potential buyers and have lots of plastic surgery. The Berkut Group teams up with the CIA to get the list. Which means our girl Jaime gets to reunite with Tom, the hottie TA/CIA operative she previously made out with. But mostly she wants to know why he didn’t call.

Their mission takes them to a Paris Embassy where Jaime bionically IDs Leoben. Tom, of course, doesn’t realize Jaime’s super duper special and goes along with all her hunches because he’s distracted by her pretty face. Aw. Leoben locks them in a room and Jaime lets Tom take a few good runs at the door before she busts it down. Tom finds an excuse to make out with her twice, once as a cover and once for fun. If she had gone back to the British accent, she might’ve gotten a third…They bust a sell but catch the wrong guy and Tom gets left behind.

The CIA, led by Aunt Zelda, decide to leave Tom behind. Jaime, the rebel, gets Jonas to caught up the $8 mil to get Tom and the list. She defuses a bomb and out runs him by a mile and she is soo close to getting busted with her gifts. But they save the world and he promises to call.

So have you thought of it yet? Why this episode was slightly better than all the rest? Was it the lack of Burke? Not really. Was it the lack of Sarah Corvus? No, she would’ve been good but I don’t think she could’ve shared time with Leoben without completely breaking the fourth wall for the BSG fans out there. Give up? This week, Jaime actually cared about something. I said on my own space to rant last week that Jaime Summers has no wants. No goals, no obstacles. It’s like she woke up, said “Oh I’m bionic” and then ho hum went back to life as usual. This is how you murder a character. Compare her to Sydney Bristow: dead fiancé issues, father issues, mother issues, triple life, secrets, secrets and more secrets, the Vaughn saga and THEN came the butt kicking and world saving.

I’m not saying Jaime should be as loaded down as Sydney was, but she will have to care about something for the audience to care about her.

Stand firm, WGA.

Jo lives in small town Texas, not that far from Dillon, and loves writing almost as much as watching TV. Until TV Guide or a literary agent comes knocking, she’ll keep occasionally updating, but never proofreading, her own blog http://brickstorm.blogspot.com.