SCORE: 2 out of 4 Tennis Balls

October 7, 1976

Dear Diary,

Mood Ring: Gray

 

The Bionic Woman can shuffle cards really good so on her show tonight Oscar had her go on a gambling ship to find some Ice Man and a bomb. She let the skipper guy kiss her (yuk!) but it was just for her job. That must be why she cried at the end.

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Assault on the Princess

THE BIONIC WOMAN 2x03

SET A COURSE FOR ADVENTURE

Hold on, kids. We might need some life jackets for this one.

 

 

 

May 22, 2013

Dear Bionic Blondes,

Mood Ring: Blue

 

Passengers, welcome to the White Star Princess Louise Cruise Lines! Before we board this ship tonight, we recommend you bring lots of cash to lose in the casino to our lovely bionic blackjack dealer. Dramamine and life jackets will be provided, not that anybody cares there's a bomb on ship anyway, and all drinks are on the house. Until the bartender runs out of ice.

 

What happens in 70s Vegas: Tonight's episode begins in the much groovier 1970s Las Vegas with show revue music, where all the establishing city signs and marquees are prism-repeated on your television screen like 12 times. Okay thanks I see it. All 12 of them. We are in fabulous LAS VEGAS, kids!  And the Bionic Woman was right on time tonight, too (I mean what are the odds?) and we're in some kind of unsettlingly decorated, seriously overly-lit, plush 70s Vegas office and we have to stop here for a moment so I can go cover my eyes with a cold washcloth and take some Excedrin.

 

So Oscar and Jaime are with some card shark guy named Joe, who I guess is like one in real life because his card tricks were better than his acting and OMG he is wearing the most GHASTLY SUIT EV. ERrrrr—while training Jaime to be a "regular pasteboard artist." I really have no idea what this means, but it appears to involve a deck of cards in a 'regular' capacity, while having nothing to do with art or a jar of paste.

 

I mean seriously dude, this suit. This is all I can see now. Did we get this from last week's lady wrestling costume Trunk of Shame™? Just so we didn't miss the fact his tailor also graciously designed matching PANTS for our viewing pleasure, Joe stands up and walks out of the scene. Ow my eyes.

 

Picture This: Oscar shows Jaime a photo of a guy named Lucky Harrison pulled from his IMDb page which has not been updated since the 1960s, and she's told he likes his women "gutsy and beautiful."  And then Oscar pulls out an 8x10 glossy of a missing energy cell about the size of a flashlight battery. (Does Mr. Cell like his women fully charged?)

 

But unfortunately no photo is available for the code-named "Ice Man," —the double agent who stole these energy cells because they don't know who he is. Only that he's going to smuggle them onto a gambling cruise named the Princess Louise. I love how Jaime is preoccupied, showing off her bionic shuffling and card tricks the whole time and is barely even paying attention to Oscar's weekly plot set up. Whatever, it's all in the script later.

 

Oscar says Harrison is a professional gambler and there's a government warrant out for his arrest but they can't board his ship to apprehend him because he's in foreign waters. Jaime skillfully fans her cards. Yeah did you say something Oscar? Her job this week is to try to get on that ship to find the Ice Man and the energy cells and oh by the way the energy cell is harmless as long as it's refrigerated, but if it gets warm, it turns into a "time bomb equal to 1000 pounds of dynamite."  Sure no biggie, Jaime can lift 1000 pounds easy. I’m pretty sure that's what he said. *shuffles cards*

 

What's up Dock: In order to gain entry on the ship at some fictional foreign dock named "Puerto de San Raton" Jaime pretends she's running from the law, which consists of a couple cars from the Barney Fife Museum with "Policia" stickers stamped on the side doors. Into the ship yard Jaime races, hiding behind a generous stack of 55 gallon drums which surely means Fembots are not far behind. And she's wearing a nice, 2- piece white chenille dress, with a tan purse and matching tan wedgie sandal pumps.

 

Meanwhile our gambler bad guy Lucky Harrison is busy checking in his own cruise passengers personally, and OMG I am so so sorry. We have to stop here and officially rename this guy THE TIDY BOWL MAN. Sure, he's dressed like Mr. Yacht Club Thurston Howell The Third. But he also dons an earring in one ear, so he's clearly experiencing a Mr. Clean identity crisis, too. Kids, meet our new Captain Janitor du jour, Mr. Tidy Bowl Man. Welcome aboard and please remember to leave the seat down.

 

Stowaway Sommers: In the shipyard, Jaime purposely bumps into the Tidy Bowl Man and begs him to let her come on board. He says no way, lady. Moments later when he's busy talking to the Policia, Jaime has Rita bionic her up onto some cargo platform loader so she can sneak onto the vessel that way.

 

All this time, Señor Goldman has been sitting in the Mayberry police cruiser helping to stage Jaime's escape scene to con Harrison. Oscar requests a ride to the nearby naval station where he has a ship waiting to follow the Princess Louise out to sea.

 

Foghorrrrn Booooom! The steamer chimneys are blowing smoke and yay, set a course for adventure there's something for everyone because the Louise Boat is about to set sail! Rudders are spinning, passengers are out on deck waving bon voyage to their loved ones... but alas, Leo DiCaprio appears to have missed the boat this time.

 

Jaime skips down the hall in order to look non stowaway-ish, hooks the arm of a guy walking his girl and cheerfully says, "Hi there. Are you enjoying the cruise?" Tidy Bowl Man intercepts and scolds her for sneaking on his ship. Jaime asks if he's “going to give me 20 lashes and throw me to the irons?"

 

No, but he says he could get a couple men to throw her overboard. Jaime says he'll need more than a couple because she can handle herself pretty well.  During this exchange, Jaime bats her eyes and playfully fingers his lapel until he decides she's enough of a gutsy and beautiful  "bad girl" to interest him.

 

Windsor, Lose or Draw: The Bionic Woman's undercover name on tonight's mission is "Jaime Windsor," and Tidy has his assistant Tanner escort Miss Windsor to his private captain's quarters. As she's leaving, Tidy tells her if he had decided to throw her overboard, she probably could have easily floated back to shore on just her "inflated ego." Haha.

 

Better Safe Than Sorry: The minute Jaime is left alone inside the Captain's quarters, she heads straight for his little steel safe on the floor, hoping to find the energy cells. She cracks the code combination with her bionic hearing, but unfortunately inside there are only a few boring manilla envelopes. Not even a nude sketch of Kate Winslet.

 

Oops the Tidy Bowl Man walks in on Jaime just as she's closing the safe door. He surmises the cops must have been after her for safe cracking? No, Jaime says, she just had a little card-dealing trouble. Tidy wants to see how good she is, so he lays out a black cloth on his desk and requests she perform the "Las Vegas shuffle. Dealing blackjack to five players."

 

Palms Casino: Jaime deals the deck and knows all the blackjack numbers with the cards face down—until she gets to his hand, and guesses it wrong. Tidy is outraged! But Jaime doesn't flinch and points out there's a missing card in his left sleeve because… and I just love how Lisa Galloway makes a sudden guest appearance in Jaime's voice… "darlin' , you palmed it."

 

Tidy laughs at her gotcha moment and wants to hire her as a dealer. He buzzes his intercom for Mr. Grover to come take Jaime to "stateroom number 8." Adding, "and see to it she doesn't steal the compass on her way past the bridge." And now comes my favorite part.

 

Thanks to the benefit of viewing this distant wide shot on a large screen TV, Jaime's facial reaction to his line became noticeable to me for the very first time… she responds to Harrison's joke by goofily CROSSING HER EYES at him on her way out the door. Ahhhhhhahahaha!  I heart Lindsay Wagner. (And props to the actor Ed Nelson who played Harrison for actually being able to finish this scene with a straight face afterwards.)

 

Silver and Gold: So Grover (who incidentally looks like Burl Ives) locks Jaime into her stateroom after he leaves and she bionic hears him call someone to report his concerns about this cute stowaway and that Harrison is "going soft on her." They need to get in touch with the Ice Man and see how he wants to handle this. Oooo.

 

The Mini-Talkie Returns: How much do I love this little radio device Jaime uses to report to Oscar? She carried one a lot in the 3rd season, but I think this is maybe the first official time it shows up in her series, at least one this small.  Anyway, Oscar's floating nearby on a Navy cruiser just outside their radar range (not the stove brand), and Jaime relaxes on the bed and dutifully feeds him her plot discoveries thus far. Stay in touch will you okay you got it DOOR KNOCK.

 

Jaime stuffs the mini-talkie back into her purse and asks who’s at the door. It's Tidy Bowl Man, spontaneously dressed for the prom in a white tuxedo and no earring tonight, *sighs* so I guess I have to go back to calling him Harrison for now. Jaime answers with a hysterical eyeroll and great comeback line, "Well come on in, it's your boat, you must have the keys." SNICKER

 

Blackjack Threads: Hey look Harrison is playing wardrobe designer, and has brought a couple black dresses that "all his lady dealers wear" because Jaime has to work tonight. Jaime looks at the dress size tags, grabs one and takes it behind a wardrobe screen. She glares at him trying to watch her undress. "Haven't you got anything better to do?"

 

Harrison turns around and makes a call and orders something like 15 degrees and holding her steady at 20 knots, so I'm guessing it was the steering bridge and not room service. Jaime comes out from behind the screen wearing a lovely, v-neck black dress with extra-wide sleeves and white, art deco style trim. I smacking adore this dress!

 

Ace of Clubs: Now it's nightfall in the ship's Vegas-style casino room, as Harrison mills about greeting his passengers and managing his gambling operations. The camera pans the room to reveal his esteemed patrons list, including the Unsinkable Molly Brown, Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim and oh look, Maude is there, too.  (Seriously one of the women gambling at a table totally looked like her I swear I am not making this up!)

 

We see Jaime dealing cards at her blackjack table and woah, girls' been into the Tiffany's jewelry cabinet, too and is sporting some huge dangling diamond earrings and a heart of the ocean necklace. I mean seriously what is it about big ships and huge diamond necklaces?  (Actually it might not have been a diamond pendant. See close up in wardrobe at end.)

 

For her first night on the job, Jaime's unfortunately got some impatient, Soprano mobbish guy in a SCREAMING PLAID SUIT, who sourly asks Jaime if she's "gonna deal or shuffle the spots off the cards." Jaime gives him an ice cold stare back. And then oooooops…

 

Why, look who walks in: It's Romero from Fly Jaime! The Bionic Woman's jaw drops and she has sudden flashbacks to stewardessing  him on the airline last season and getting his hand off her ham and cheese. Jaime's like crap crap CRAP he's gonna blow my cover and get us all killed.

 

Romero has a great reaction face here when he first recognizes Jaime, plus a bunch of really funny lines tonight. While I found him slightly annoying the first time around, this time I kinda welcomed his comic relief.

 

Romero (played by Vito Scotti), who still harbors his boyish crush on "Miss Winters," drops little stewardess hints like "May I fluff your pillow?" She tries to ignore him and pretends he's mistaken, meanwhile her angry mob player is getting super annoyed with Romero's presence and interruptions.

 

Jaime tells Romero he either has to place a bet or leave the table, which has a "500 minimum." Romero gladly pulls out his wallet to offer even more— 5000 lira, but Jaime does some super amazing, split second, bionic currency conversion rate calculations in her head and determines that only amounts to $6.25.  Gurl how'd you KNOW that? (Incidentally I just googled today’s currency rate and 5000 lira is now only worth $3.32 USD)

 

Then the mobster guy in a bullying Jerrrrsee voice calls Romero a "little fruitcake" and he's had enough of his lip.  Harrison intervenes to see what's the matter, and the guy goes on to complain he's "in the hole 10 Gs, and this bimbo is bugging me." WTF?!  Oh wait, he was pointing to Romero as the "bimbo" here because I was just about to bionic him overboard myself for addressing Jaime Sommers in this ungentlemanly like manner. Then oops, Harrison calls her Jaime... so now Romero is even more convinced he is not mistaken.

 

"Jaime? Why even your front name is the same!" This one had me ROFLing. (And singing 'my baloney has a front name'…) Harrison ushers Romero off and says maybe he ought to try his luck at one of their other tables and gives him a free gambling chip.

 

Name Game: But Loud Plaid Suit Whiny Mobster Dude is still not a satisfied customer because he's got a feeling "This chick's a mechanic and has raked me off for about ten grand." Oh, excuuuuuuse me? CHICK? I thought we were going to refrain from using these demoralizing terms when addressing our esteemed Sister Jaime Joltin’ Jesse Sommers Winters Windsor …Austin. Just use her front name, thank you and please have the courtesy to spell it correctly.

 

I love how Jaime raises her hands in the air in an "I'm clean" gesture of innocence. Oh like sure she is, after all those fancy marked card cheater moves she demonstrated to us earlier? Note to self, don't ever play the Bionic Woman in cards but DO take her with you when shopping in Rome to instantly calculate monetary conversion rates.

 

The Pissy Plaid Patron then hauls off and gives Harrison a back hand slap across the face when he suggests he's just a lousy player. Harrison appeases his dissatisfied customer by offering to send Jaime on break and gets him a new blackjack dealer.

 

Moonlighting: Jaime opts not to spend her break sneaking down to 3rd class steerage for beer and Irish dancing, and instead follows her bionic hearing to the bridge where she learns they are secretly plotting to take the ship off course. She's jumped once again by Romero on the way, and Jaime's like "you just don't give up, do you?" While she sweet talks him into spouting soliloquies to the moon about their windswept islands love, she bionics to the upper deck while his back is turned. "My little coquette, I will find you!"  vows Romero.

 

Jaime climbs the stairs to the bridge and shifts into flirtation gear with Tanner about wanting to see where the "real action is going on." OMG the creepy looks this guy gives her when he sizes her up made my skin crawl. Ewwww. Anyway she manages to bust him on the fact he is off navigational course, so he turns the ship's wheel back and just when she can tell he's about to get into date-rapey territory, she tells him she should probably let him get back to work "cause you might run into an iceberg or something." I love how Jaime's so anxious to get away from this creep she bumps into a pole on her way out.

 

The Promenade Deck:  Later  Harrison rescues Jaime from pestering Romero in the casino again and takes her for a moonlight walk on the deck. He confesses to her the importance of this ship being all he's got, and if he goes back to the states, there's a Navy court martial waiting for him because he once ran a floating crap game on a carrier while he was in the Navy and then deserted to avoid prosecution.

 

Profiling the Pirate: This of course begins to set the stage for Jaime sympathizing with the bad guy's predicament and motivations, and she asks him if he ever gets homesick. He replies, "give all this up? For what? For mom and apple pie and everything?"  But Tidy Bowl Man, then you'd miss the amazing wonders of Jaime's Pie Shop! Plus her mom's pretty cool, too.

 

Then Harrison suddenly gets all Film Noir gangsta mode angry on Jaime for this romantic distraction and turning his head with serious questions like that and who are you anyway and then he grabs her and kisses her.  Nooooooo! Ewwwww! Then he pushes Jaime away.

 

All the while this is going on, the bad guy Grover is on the deck above them super super quietly loosening the bolts on a searchlight so that even the Bionic Woman would be unable to hear, and thusly she does not see it come crashing down on her until it's almost too late. She bionc-bats it away and blames Harrison for trying to have her killed.

 

The Face That Launched 1000 Ships: Harrison is shocked and confounded that Jaime thinks he somehow planned this and storms off the set. Poor Jaime's left standing there all alone to come up with some kind of drawn out, cut to commercial face all by herself.

 

She finally decided on an expression that appeared to convey "slightly seasick with a dash of hurt and emotional confusion."

 

If there had been a thought bubble here, it probably would have explained, "Because I sorta sympathize with this guy who isn't entirely not cute, but no way because I like my military men ranked Colonel without court martials and sorry, this dude's like on America's Most Wanted plus he dresses like the Tidy Bowl Man and so we can only be friends."  (It's amazing what I am able to read from 5 seconds of blank stare at the camera, isn't it?)

 

Bottom Line: Lucky Harrison is officially a Not!Not!Steve so free drinks and gambling chips on da house. Woot!

 

The next morning Jaime's sitting in her state room in a blue bathrobe with her back to a 3-way vanity mirror chatting with Oscar on her mini-talkie again. I guess because she's like I wonder what I look like from the back in 3 various angles talking on this thing. After she reports she almost got killed by a searchlight last night, Mr. Goldman wants to get her out of there.

 

One If By Land, Two If By Sea: Oscar doesn't think her going down with the ship line is funny, cautioning once again what would happen if one of those energy cells heats up. (Incidentally there are 2 dangerous energy cells on board, so why is it that they only plot-remind us that one of them could blow up?) And oh by the way Oscar says that Rudy says right before it explodes, Jaime should be able to hear a high pitched hum and also there's a submarine heading towards them, so that must be who the bad guys are planning to rendezvous with by taking their ship off course. Later dude.

 

Jaime puts her black gambling dress uniform back on and goes down to the casino room to do more Ice Man research. While she's at the bar ordering a glass of ICE water, the Tidy Bowl Man joins her and attempts to apologize for his behavior last night but suddenly gets a phone call that there's trouble in the engine room. Jaime follows him.

 

Steam Team: The crew is rushing out claiming they've been sabotaged and there's steam everywhere. Tidy goes in to try to find the problem and Jaime finds him crawling on the floor, helps him up while lightly brushing his sideburn (Um Jaime he's a Not!Not!Steve remember?) and his inspection determines the "Rudder Push Rod" has been disconnected.

 

Because this apparently needs a "Porto Power and ten hours to fix,"  Tidy would rather avoid the dead cruise ship rescue parties and CNN reporters that could result in his capture, so he wants to abandon ship and invites Jaime to join him on his 22-foot getaway sloop with enough supplies to last them a whole month.

 

Wow Jaime what an extremely generous offer to dump your highly rated television series and aimlessly float around the shark-infested waters of the Atlantic with the Tidy Bowl Man on a small boat. Are you sure you wouldn't like some time to think about this? I mean fercornsakes, he's got 30 days worth of supplies!  (Yes kids, the snarky tide waters are indeed beginning to rise on this Bionic Blonde cruise.)

 

Okay I Fold: Jaime decides it's time to "lay all my cards on the table," because she realizes he wouldn't sabotage his own ship to whom he’s so devoted. She tells Harrison about the Ice Man and the energy cell bombs and that his men Tanner and Grover are involved. She asks for his help, but he'll agree only if he can fix his cruise liner first to avoid the Navy, because his welfare is more important than his passengers.

 

While he races to the phone, Jaime bionic lifts the rudder back into place and then bashes the giant pin into it with an iron sledgehammer sound. Which was pretty incredible considering she managed that power hammer hit with her human, left hand. Harrison comes back, is just as shocked as the rest of us, and phones the bridge that they are back on course! Then he and Jaime leave to go find the mystery double agent.

 

The Ice Man Cometh: Back in the casino room, Jaime again scans the passengers on board and this time finally catches Grover talking to the bartender. She bionic hears him relay the message that Harrison fixed the rudder. OMG this bartender's mustard colored jacket seriously looks like it was made from Liberace’s drapes. Honey did we get this from the Trunk of Shame™, too? Jaime watches him scoop ice cubes into a glass and then it finally hits her… "The Ice Man!"

 

Reflections: Jaime goes back to her state room to radio Oscar her breaking Ice Man news. This time she decides to face the mirror, presumably so she can see what she looks like from the front chatting on this thing.

 

But even with the benefit of 3 expansive mirror angles and her ultra-bionic hearing, she fails to notice the bad guys entering her room. They completely take her by surprise at gunpoint, swiping her mini-talkie and carting her off to be locked up in a vessel storage room. Oscar freaks at the abrupt disconnection from Jaime. and orders his naval ship to head towards the Princess Louise. Which means it bleeps up on the Ice Man's radar, who responds by ordering ONE of his energy cells to be taken out of refrigeration and placed in a "nice warm spot" during the commercial.

 

Jaime gets escorted to some kind of supply room on the main deck with a vault lock wheel thingy where Harrison has already been kidnapped and stored.

 

Meanwhile up on the bridge, Tanner asks the Ice Man "what's gonna happen to the blonde. … isn't there some way we can… take her ...with us?" Okay just stop. NOW. OMG Tanner starts breathing heavily in some kind of creepy, obscene phone caller voice, while he's suggesting they forcibly abduct her like a sex slave. Was it really necessary to take this scene in such an icky direction? OTOH, Tanner's stupid suggestion DID get him whacked over the head by the Ice Man (THANK YOU!) but only because he just now realized Tanner was an idiot and incapable of focusing on their mission and also that he probably should have checked the sexual predators database before hiring him. But too late, this scene completely CREEPED me out.

 

 

Back in the locked storage room, Jaime sympathy-grimaces while she watches Tidy Bowl Man struggle with trying to turn the hand wheel to open the door. Jaime asks to try, and just as she's attempting to figure out a way to do this without revealing her bionic superpowers, she hears Romero strolling outside the door. Jaime gets his attention and convinces him to help them triple-team twist the wheel from both sides and maybe they can break the padlock on the door. Natch this works, and Romero is very pleased with his newfound strength and the fact he isn't a "Fruitcake" after all.

 

 

Row, Row, Row Your Boat: Suddenly the Ice Man and Grover are making their escape in a little row boat, heading towards the submarine that awaits them nearby. To catch them, Jaime races to the railing and starts to climb over it and, OMG, she's TOTALLY going to pull a Kate Winslet leap off the boat here (DON'T JUMP ROSE!), but is intercepted by the consciously regained Tanner (ick!) warning Jaime the Ice Man has planted the bomb, and it's probably going to explode any second now!

 

Jaime turns to the Tidy Bowl Man to ask for help but he's like sorry lady this is as far as he goes and he ditches her to go escape on his 22-foot 30-day sloop. Yes this Captain COWARD fully intends to abandon his own ship. But good ole Romero steps up, so Jaime asks if he will please go alert the passengers about the impending bomb and get them to the life boats immediately! Say no more, Romero assures her, "I've had experience in theeese crisis situation!"

 

Bombs Away: Down in the engine room Jaime's racing around and bionic listening for the bomb, pleading "come on you little hummer, where are you?"  Whereupon she bumps into Tidy, who has had a sudden change of heart about leaving Jaime to handle this crisis on his ship alone. (This is code for he probably couldn't get his escape sloop motor started.) Jaime's like great show me a warm hiding place where they would likely put this bomb. Meanwhile Romero's in the casino ordering everybody to get off the ship because there's a bomb, but nobody is taking our comedy sidekick seriously and he's flatly ignored. Who could have seen that coming?

 

Finally, Jaime hears the hum in some steel bolted box compartment in the engine room and torques all the bolts off it while Tidy has gone to look for a wrench.

 

Yay she races outta there with the energy cell, and bumps into Romero at the top of the Grand Staircase, and asks him if he knows where the freezer is in the galley, because she would like for him to take this about-to-explode energy cell bomb to the freezer immediately. And whatever you do, don't let it out of your hands!

 

 

With Romero successfully in charge of the bomb, Jaime runs to go catch the two bad guys.  WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT HOLD IT RIGHT HERE!!!

 

Jaime sweetie, let's regroup on our Homeland Security list of impending disasters, shall we?

 

  1. Bomb with potential to kill hundreds of innocent lives with an unknown temperature detonation factor.
    VS.
  2. Apprehending two bad guys making their feeble escape in a slow moving row boat.

 

And your trained, OSI agent emergency decision here is to put the caddish, Italian civilian Romero in charge of the WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION, while you go after the little row boat?  Whose idea was it to make the Bionic Woman appear a bit dinghy here? (Nautical pun intended.)

 

Alas, the script calls for Jaime to run back out to the deck to stop the row boat, whereupon she pulls an iron anvil out of the deck (actually, in nautical terms this rope-tying device is called a "cleet" but I've seen too many episodes of Road Runner so you can't fool me) …and she bionic hurls the anvil like a missile at the row boat and sinks it, just as the bad guys jump overboard to avoid being harmed. Angry Road Runner Score: 1000 points. Woo hoo!

 

The Carpathia Arrives: Suddenly Jaime notices a navy helicopter flying overhead preparing to capture the bad guys in the row boat while the enemy submarine bails and submerges. Oscar's Naval ship is approaching. Essentially, reminding us that if Jaime had waited one more minute, our armed forces could have easily taken care of these row, row, row your boat escapees as part of their everyday military training missions.

 

So Jaime goes and rests on an outer staircase and removes her earrings. The Tidy Bowl Man approaches and asks her if she's all right. He notices she's shaking, and Jaime embarrassingly says yeah I know this is silly, and then she proceeds to collapse in his arms and begins weeping uncontrollably.

 

And I'm sorry excuse me did I actually just SEE this because WTF? Why would they suddenly turn the Bionic Woman into such a wilting flower after this routine anvil toss? It’s not like she even missed and failed—because she NEVER misses. And at this point, Jaime hasn't even bothered to go follow up on the status of the WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION she gave to Romero, to make sure it’s no longer a threat.  Who ARE you people and what have you done with my Bionic Woman?!

 

Oh look a message in a bottle has just splashed on deck, conveniently wiki-charting Jaime’s typical breaking points in order to help us assess the character validity of this sudden tear duct collapse.

 

 

 

 

The Ship Hits The Fan: I think it was perfectly appropriate for us to conduct the final scene at the CRAP TABLE, where Jaime and Oscar join the Tidy Bowl Man. He's about to be taken into custody for his past transgressions and current crimes including endangering his passengers. Of course Oscar (who incidentally has the other fuel cell in his warm hand and I fear it could go off any minute because they never did establish what temperature explodes them) …plans to see what he can do to lighten Harrison's sentence with the Navy in exchange for (sometimes) helping Miss Sommers. Jaime smiles and tosses the dice and hits the lucky number 7.

 

Just as the Feds are about to take Harrison away, he stops to tell Jaime he's hopeful that someday soon "I'm gonna see you again, Lucky Lady." I love how Jaime doesn't even smile back this time. I would surmise her expression here is actually more like "Sure whatever."

 

And then poor Romero is carried out on a stretcher shivering, wrapped in blankets with ice crystals formed on his beard—having dutifully followed Jaime's instructions not to let go of the fuel cell when he found the freezer.

 

"I did what you said I held onto it are you pleased?" Romero stammers. Jaime is all like oops sorry about your severe hypothermia, and she gives him a kiss on the cheek as a thanks. "If you only knew how warm that makes me feel."  Romero says, and of course now he wants to know when he's going to see her again. Yeah, well take a number behind the Tidy Bowl Man, Romero. The Bionic Woman has to go home now and get ready to hit the Road to Nashville.

 

Captain’s Trip Log: Mood Ring: Amber yellow. This episode was written by Wilton Denmark, who gave us the fabulous The Deadly Missiles—and this one seemed to have a lot going for it in the beginning. But then it just kinda shifted off course. I'm not sure why they didn't do more with the ticking thermal time bomb suspense opportunity, or why they allowed the story to get torpedoed with some gaping plot holes and confusing character inconsistencies for Jaime. But on the upside, I'll never be able to look at the Tidy Bowl Man again without being reminded of Assault on the Princess. And then I’m just going to make Jaime’s "slightly seasick with a dash of hurt and emotional confusion” cut-to-commercial face®

 

 

FASHION HIGHLIGHTS

 

Jaime wore 3 outfits and a blue terrycloth robe in this episode. For the opening scene in Vegas, a pair of white casual slacks and long-sleeved blue and white striped blouse. Then when she boarded the ship, a pretty white 2-piece (cotton?) chenille dress with cropped sleeves and wedgie sandals.

 

Followed by my fave— the fabulous, v-neck black dress with draping, triangular sleeves and art deco stripe bands on the sleeves and hem. With this, she wore black strapped heels, long diamond earrings and what looked like a diamond or silver chain combo necklace with a pendant. We could never get close enough to really see, however it did not “sparkle” as much as her diamond earrings.

 

 

And as you’ve probably guessed by now, I was a huge fan of the film Titanic and would give anything to dress Jaime in Kate Winslet’s hats.  -->

 

 

 

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