Episode 102: Paradise Lost

In an interview at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, Michelle Ryan discussed this episode: "I think the first episode [after the pilot] is Jaime really coming to terms with the fact that she's bionic. Throughout the first script she's constantly wanting to go back to her old life, and she's ... doing all of this training with Jae and sort of working out her abilities, and it's sort of very much her discovering for the first time all of these different things... I think the first three episodes are going to be her sort of dealing with her bionic abilities and training and learning." "Bionic Will Reveal Ryan's Jaime", Sci Fi Weekly, Patrick Lee. July 30, 2007.
This episode introduces Antonio Pope, played by Isaiah Washington.
==Synopsis==
Jaime and Becca attend a cemetery funeral ceremony for Will Anthros. Jonas Bledsoe is also there, and after the ceremony, tries to convince Jaime to come in, but she tells him she plans to go on as if nothing ever happened.
After dropping Becca off, Jaime goes alone to Will's apartment. While searching his place, she finds a loose floorboard and under it a dossier of Jaime made by the Berkut Group. The profile dates to two years prior to their first meeting and includes Jaime's SESI I.Q. test and photos of her marked as being from 2004.
Upset, Jaime goes to a small bar to sort through her feelings. She tells the bartender that she has decided everything is now about "Mr. Right Now". So she attempts to have sex with the next guy she meets in the bathroom, but gets rough and hurts his ribs. Jonas interrupts her rendevous in the bathroom, and tries to convince her to come work for him in between periods of Jaime throwing up in the sink. She asks Jonas about the dossier, but he explains it away telling her that they are "a private, clandestine group dedicated to keeping rogue organizations from ending civilization as we know it", and that they're saving the world. However, when Jonas asks if she's "in", Jaime still refuses to join up.
The next morning, Jaime gets a call from Becca's school. Jaime meets with Becca and her school's principal in the principal's office. Becca is accused of smoking pot on campus. Rather than expelling Becca, Mrs. Buezy considers excluding her from any school activities. However, Jaime convinces Mrs. Buezy to let Becca continue to participate in drama club including the talent show this coming Friday. She later tells Becca that smoking pot in the girl's locker room makes her a cliche. Becca tries to downplay it and threatens to move back with her father. Jaime agrees to let her do so if she wants to.
In Jonas's office, Jonas and Ruth watch security camera footage a contact got to Ruth of the decimated town of Paradise, Idaho. The footage documents at least 14 people dead, but she believes there is good evidence to think there are more. Jonas says the military hasn't said anything to him about it. Ruth replies that there is a media black-out of the event and it is a complete cover-up of what looks like a biological attack.
At a diner, Jaime meets with one of her friends. She says she is okay except for a ringing in her ear, and they try to comfort her for the loss of her fiancee and the way her sister is acting. However, when a second friend arrives, the two make Jaime feel uneasy talking about their successes.
Later, Jaime is at a bookstore reading through the book What Color is Your Parachute (2008) when she runs into Antonio Pope. Antonio introduces himself without mentioning his affiliation to the Berkut Group and offers Jaime some advice including to think about what she could offer the world. Jaime returns to the diner to continue reading the book and overhears a news report on television News Channel 8 that it is now day 2 of Crisis in Paradise. The news report says that the town's small population of 201 have been quarantined without explanation, and that the military has set up barricades not letting anyone in or out of the town.
Jaime leaves the diner and her bionic hearing identifies a lady on the ledge of an apartment building crying and considering to jump. After spotting the lady with her bionic vision, Jaime runs super-fast past a janitor and up the steps of the building. She grabs the lady with her bionic arm just as she begins to fall, and lifts her back onto the roof and collapses next to her. Jaime claims to the lady that she could do that because of her pilates.
Jaime goes and sees Jonas Bledsoe in his office, who is taking a call. Jonas asks her if his 16 year-old daughter is too young to be on the pill. Jaime says it's better to be safe than sorry if she's sexually active, but Jonas says she's too young. Jaime tells Jonas she's willing to give working for him a try with conditions: she has to be home by 7pm every night to have dinner with her sister, she doesn't work weekends, and he has to get her sister on their health plan. She also notes that this Friday night, she has to be at her sister's talent show to see her in a number from Annie Get Your Gun, and that she has a ringing in her bionic ear. Jonas replies they're working on it, then re-introduces Antonio Pope to Jaime as her supervisor.
Afterwards, Jaime meets with a bionics technician, Nathan, who tries to fix the ringing in Jaime's ear. After trying several technical solutions, he gets it working again by patting Jaime on the back of the head. Nathan then confirms to Antonio that she is ready to start training. Jaime and Antonio leave into the hallway and Antonio confirms that their first meeting was planned down to the Jack Russell Terrier, Scraps, which he borrowed from the pet store down the street because Jaime had one when she was little. Antonio says their long conversation was to confirm she wasn't compromised and that she wasn't with another agency.
Antonio then lets her begin her training with Jae Kim, who uses the same moves on Jaime as Sarah Corvus, giving Jaime flashbacks to their fight. Jae explains that her bionics have a muscle memory and that's why she is experiencing deja vu. He adds that Sarah was calibrating herself for a future fight, and that just because she has bionics doesn't mean she's invincible. Jaime continues her practice session doing one-armed pull-ups with her bionic arm and slalom-style running inside and out of the building posts. Jaime then fights some more with Jae and kicks a dent into one of the metal building supports.
After fighting, Jae details some of Jaime's abilities: she can run at least sixty mph, has enough power in her arm to shatter a brick and can bend steel with her grip. He continues that Jaime has 2000/20 vision and that her ear can isolate a conversation from 2 miles away as if it were in front of her. Jae adds that if she succeeds in her training she can become a formidable weapon but if she fails she will go insane. Jaime asks if that's what happened to Sarah Corvus, but Jae replies that he doesn't know. He tells her that no matter how he feels, she's the enemy cause she killed 14 of their agents and survived him shooting her in the head. When he asks Jaime how she wants to continue their training, Jaime asks to be set loose on "some real bad guys" but Jae says that would be Jonas's decision.
Ruth and Jonas are talking in Jonas in his office, and Ruth pleads to go to Idaho to investigate the deaths. Jonas refuses until Jaime, who is listening through a window outside his office, offers to accompany Ruth, and then he agrees saying a field test for Jaime might not be a bad idea. Leaving to take a phone call, he tells Ruth to report back to him and to have his office soundproofed.
Jaime and Ruth go to Paradise in Ruth's car, a 1972 GTO. In discussing Jaime's feelings for Ruth, Ruth tells Jaime the first thing they teach you is "not to get too close to anyone in this game" and the second is that it is a game. Upon reaching the blockade quarantining the town, Ruth shows a badge and they are allowed to pass through. As agents from the Dept. of Agriculture, they enter a tent serving as a makeshift examining area, where Marty, a CDC doctor, shows them one of the victims and notes that there are no survivors. Afterwards, they exit the tent and Ruth takes a cellphone call from Jonas. Ruth reports that the whole town is dead due to an airborne synthetic—one they developed themselves called DMC-30. Ruth adds that they are safe now as the gas only has a 12 hour toxicity level and that she is going into town to take samples and find the distribution system. Jonas replies that he will put a team on standby just in case. When Ruth notes that the group doesn't have any men for a team, Jonas remarks that he will hire some—he'll call Halliburton.
Back at the bionics facility, Jae Kim returns to his office to find a note from Sarah Corvus with a yellow rose on his desk. It reads "Couples counseling? You know where to find me. —Sarah". Just then, Antonio reports to Jonas that the security checkpoint has been breached and that there is no one responding to communications. Antonio is surprised to learn that Jonas sent in Ruth in with Jaime when Jaime had only been with them for three days.
Using her bionic hearing, Jaime senses that someone else is in town. So Jaime helps Ruth to locate that person—a young girl named Vivian, who appears to have been in town during the gasing, and is inside her home brushing her teeth when they find her. She asks them where her grandma is.
Jae goes to the Yellow Rose Hotel and the matredee, who recognizes him as Mr. Park, tells him that his wife is waiting for him upstairs. Jae proceeds upstairs, gun drawn, and Sarah Corvus is waiting for him in a room they previously used for a romantic rendevous. Jae enters the room, a points his gun at her, but he can't get himself to shoot her again. Sarah lowers his gun and wishes him a happy anniversary.
Jaime, Ruth and Vivian leave Vivian's grandparent's home as Ruth explains the situation. Vivian tells them that there was a weird gas truck driving circles around the town last night. Ruth goes to do more re-con and leaves Vivian with Jaime. Jaime hears some men appearing to be soldiers coming around a corner, but as they approach she overhears a communication that they are closing in on the girl now. There are at least six men in the battalion and they run from them into a surplus store. While hiding in the store, Jaime gets a call from her sister on her cell phone. Becca asks where her Denacious T t-shirt is and tells Jaime that their father gave her permission to move back in with him. Jaime tells Becca not to do anything till she gets back home and disconnects. One of the men that enters, and Jaime fights him and knocks him out with a paint can. Then, Ruth arrives through the back warning that others are on the way. Ruth grabs some military supplies from the store and booby traps a hand-grenade with a trip-wire as a surprise for those following them. As they leave the store through the front, four of the men enter through the back and the grenade goes off. Just then, Antonio, along with a bunch of other men that Jonas hired, arrive and shoot all but one man, whom they take prisoner. Vivian asks whom they are, and Ruth replies that they are with the Dept. of Agriculture.
Back in Sarah's hotel room, Sarah and Jae have finished making out. Sarah tells Jae that she didn't have control when she went on a killing spree at the bionics facility, and that she thinks someone hacked her. Sarah also tells Jae she understands he didn't have any choice but to shoot her.
Later, Antonio, Jaime, and Vivian are at the diner. Vivian thanks them for what they did for her, and leaves to meet with a female family member who is picking her up outside. Antonio notes that Vivian obviously has an immunity to the gas and the next step is to find out if there is more gas, where the rest of the gas is and who has it. Antonio says to leave that part to him. Back in the bionics facility, Antonio talks to the remaining fake battalion member and threatens to use a pair of grip pliers on him unless he tells him where he can find the rest of the DMC-30 gas. Later, Antonio calls Jonas and tells him that Ruth was right—that Paradise was only a test run and that they are running out 20 trucks full of the gas at midnight tonight. Jonas says he is on his way.
That night, the Berkut Group crew moves in before the gas trucks leave and capture the trucks and the other men. In the raided facility, Jaime spots a map marked with other cities planned for gasing including Springfield, Jackson, and Portland and notes that these guys were serious. After the raid, Jonas apologizes to Jaime for sending her into the field—that it was too early, but Jaime replies that it wasn't too early, and that she's "in".
Later, Jaime arrives at Becca's talent show and watches and photographs Becca singing with her partner. After the show, they step outside the Windmere High School auditorium and Jaime tells Becca she was the best. Jaime adds that Becca is going to live with her and that she's never going to live with their dad. Jaime notes that she doesn't want to lose anyone else. Then, Jaime and Becca walk away debating whether to go eat pizza.
==Background==
Like the first regular episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, "Population Zero", the first regular episode of Bionic Woman centers around a small town mysteriously losing its population to an unknown cause.
== Trivia ==
* In the first house Jaime enters, a TV is playing showing a scene from the episode "Exodus, Part 2" of the TV series Battlestar Galactica, which is also co-produced by David Eick.
==Cast==
===Starring===
* Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers
* Miguel Ferrer as Jonas Bledsoe
* Molly Price as Ruth Treadwell
* Will Yun Lee as Jae Kim
* Lucy Hale as Becca Sommers
===Special Guest Stars===
* Isaiah Washington as Antonio Pope
* Katee Sackhoff as Sarah Corvus
===Guest Star===
*Kevin Rankin as NathanRankin's performance appears to be uncredited.
===Co-Starring===
*Carly McKillip as Vivian
*Jacob Blair as Cute Guy
*Lara Gilchrist as Carly
*Erin Karpluk as Robin
*Lorena Gale as Mrs. Busey
*Michael Jocelyn as Priest
*Marrett Green as TV Announcer
*Chelah Horsdal as Suicidal Woman
*Emily Homes as Marty
*Chad Cole as Bartender
*Dalias Blake as Hazmat Soldier at Outpost
*Kurt Max Runte as Merc Leader
*Tyler McClendon as ND Agent at Stockyard
*Fabrice Grover as Doorman at Hotel
*Terence Dament as Merc at Stockyard
*Tanya Champoux as Dead Woman
*Troy Hatt as Becca's Duet Partner
==References==
 102