The Pretend:   Coast Guard Lieutenant

The episode begins with a short scene of Jarod, learning to control his movements under water in a swimming pool.  Holding his breath, he propels himself around in tight circles.

Miss Parker and Sydney have missed Jarod again and are left to interview a man who is showing them the room at a Seattle YMCA that Jarod has already vacated.  Jarod left another red notebook there - this one with articles relating to a nuclear disaster that was averted.

The man asks Miss Parker and Sydney how Jarod "Spitz" was able to avert the disaster, if he wasn't really a nuclear engineer.  Sydney seems ready to tell the man that "Mr. Spitz" is a Pretender, but Miss Parker cuts him off and finishes the sentence that Sydney began by saying that "Mr. Spitz is a fascinating man."

Miss Parker finds a row of paper dolls that Jarod has left and asks Sydney if he has any idea what they mean.  One of the dolls has a teardrop drawn on its face.  The man tells Sydney and Miss Parker that Jarod was a quick learner and became an advanced swimmer in just 5 weeks ... apparently, Jarod's main purpose at the Y was to learn how to swim!  While listening to the man detail Jarod's time at the Y, Miss Parker finds a toy boat floating in the bathtub, and on the edge sits a toy helicopter.  The man continues talking, saying that the last week that Jarod was there, he spent every day in the water, but didn't swim a stroke -- all he did was stay in the deep end of the pool and tread water for hours on end.
 

Commander Bilson tells Jarod that anyone can fly, the real question is whether or not Jarod has "sea legs."  The two of them leave Martha and walk toward the dock, where Bilson secures a boat to take out.  They pick up the radio operator on the way and are soon speeding across the water.   They soon come upon the "Magdeline," a boat that appears to be abandoned and Bilson tells Javier to call it in.  Bilson and Javier let Jarod board the boat to search and he soon finds himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun held by Roy Abbot.  Bilson knows the man and hands Jarod orders to give to Roy that give them permission to tow him in ... his boat is taking on water and his supplies are low.   Jarod tells him that it's for his own good.  Roy wants them off of his boat and doesn't want to be towed anywhere, but he has no choice.

Jarod calls Sydney at The Centre.  He's painting something on a canvas as he talks to Sydney.  Sydney gestures to a sweeper to trace the call.  He tells Sydney that it's funny, but he can't see "their" faces - only their eyes ... dead eyes.  Sydney asks Jarod who he is talking about, but Jarod says he doesn't know -- just eyes of people who aren't alive today because of how Jarod's simulations were exploited.  Miss Parker picks up an extension and listens in.  Sydney asks Jarod if he's trying to right the wrongs by acting as an avenging angel and Jarod says that it's something like that.  Finally, Sydney asks Jarod why he's calling.  Jarod tells Sydney that he wanted to know if Jarod is my "real" name.  Sydney tells him that he thinks it is ... at least, that was what he was told.  Jarod thanks Sydney and gets ready to hang up.  Sydney asks him not to hang up and tells him that he's worried about him.  Jarod asks Sydney why he doesn't go to the authorities if he's so worried about him.  Sydney tells Jarod that he knows he can't do that.  Jarod wants to know why and asks Sydney if it's because he loves him, or if it's because he's afraid of what Jarod knows.  Sydney tells Jarod that the DSA's that he took contain his work.  Jarod corrects him, saying that they contain his life and hangs up.  Miss Parker tells Sydney that they've got his genius - they managed to trace the call.

In a novelty store, Jarod is amazed to find that someone manufactures "fake dog poop" - the merchant tells him that they do it because it's funny.  Outside Jarod sees a small girl buying flowers with her Mother and watches them as they take them to the grave of Tom King.  Jarod looks at the newspaper clipping regarding Tom King's death in his red notebook - the Coast Guard has ruled his drowning accidental.
 
 

Miss Parker, Sydney and a sweeper team break into a room at the YMCA, expecting to find Jarod there.  Instead they find another man ... one who says that Jarod conducts the Philharmonic and to whom Jarod has given 6 months free rent just to transfer his phone calls on the premise that he travels a lot.  Sydney tries to hide his amusement at Miss Parker having been tricked by Jarod again, and fails.  Miss Parker tells him to shut up.

Out on the ocean, Jarod is paying a call on Roy Abbot, who is listening to Wagner's Lost Dutchman on his record player. Jarod finds out that the Magdeline is named after a woman that Roy loved but never asked to marry.  Jarod says that he knows it's hard to wonder if someone you love is still out there somewhere.  Roy listens to what Jarod has to say, but answers only with "I ain't movin' my boat."  Jarod offers to trade some supplies that he brought from town for a small wooden chest from the bridge.  Roy tells Jarod to bring out some candles the next time he comes by and he's got a deal.  Jarod agrees and takes the chest, then asks Roy if he's ever heard Mozart's "The Magic Flute."  Jarod tells Roy that when he was a child, he was allowed to listen to it and in his mind, he became an eagle - he could fly anywhere he wanted.  Jarod remarks that perhaps Mozart knew something that Wagner didn't.  Roy doesn't appear to care - he simply says, "I ain't movin' my boat."

Back on base, Jarod and Martha Poole are just returning from a routine helicopter patrol.  She chastises Jarod for not keeping his eyes on the water and looking at charts that he brought with him instead.  He tells her that he was trying to orient himself in relation to the charts and offers to buy her lunch if she will let him pick her brain about some of the old searches.  Martha agrees, "as long as it's not sushi."  Jarod says he doesn't want to get tagged as a fresh waterboy on his rank review ... and that brings Martha up short.  She remarks that Jarod has only been there three days and he's already getting a rank review and she should have made LC months ago but Commander Powell keeps putting it off.  Jarod tells her that from her nausea and her sore back that he thinks she must be about 9 weeks pregnant.  Martha is astounded that Jarod has figured that out.  She says that her husband doesn't even know yet.  He tells her that he was a mid-wife once.  Martha tells Jarod that she doesn't want to tell the Commander because if Powell or anyone else finds out, she can kiss away her chances at LC.  Jarod assures her that the secret is safe with him.

Miss Parker is asking the new technician, Broots,  about how long it will take him to backtrack Jarod's phone call.   Broots says that Jarod's method is so basic and simple, using International land lines, it could take about 24 hours.  Miss Parker gives him 12 and walks away.  After she's out of hearing range, Broots says, "I can do it in 8," turns his bike around and wheels it away.

Jarod is asking Martha about the Tom King search and she tells him that he should ask Bilson about it since it happened during his regular Tuesday night patrol and he was the one in charge.  She said that no one knows how his boat went down and it was never found, but it was particularly sad because the coroner said that King treaded water for a day and a half before he drowned.  Jarod says that the search pattern was determined by water currents found using directional buoys and wants to know why, when the satellite information indicated that the currents were moving southwest, did Bilson deploy a search pattern to the southeast.  Martha has no answer.

Tom King's daughter sees Jarod eating and Oreo and tells him that he's doing it wrong.  He doesn't know what she means, so she shows him how to properly eat an Oreo ... twist, open, eat the middle, then group-ups put the brown cookie in their ice cream.  Jarod asks her why they don't just sell the white-stuff in the middle - and she says that it wouldn't be any fun that way.  Jarod remarks that her Mom works hard and the girl says that since her Dad died, that's all her Mom does.  She tells him that she gave her Dad a statue from church to keep on board his boat - to keep him safe, but it must not have worked.  Jarod says that he knows how hard it is to lose a parent and asks her what part she misses most.  She tells him that she misses her Mom's smile the most.

Jarod watches one of the DSA's where he simulated the Apollo 13 mishap. In the background, he sees a young Miss Parker watching.  The young Jarod comes to the conclusion that he can save his crew by using the gravitational pull of the moon to slingshot the craft back toward Earth and Sydney congratulates him, saying he knew that Jarod could save his crew, if he wanted to.  Thinking about it, the current day Jarod concludes that Bilson didn't want to save Tom King.

Continuing to paint his canvas, Jarod calls Miss Parker at home in the middle of the night.  He tells her that he chose the YMCA because he was watching "Retro-Night" on VH1 and he saw a singing group from the ‘70's extolling the virtues of staying at the Y.  He tells Miss Parker that they way they make fake dog poop - appearing to be one thing when it really is another - is the perfect metaphor for the way that her Father and The Centre distorts the truth.  She asks him what truth he means and as he plays with a DSA, Jarod tells her that it's all in the note he sent her ... it's the truth about what makes her sad.

Roy Abbot comes up on deck to find that Jarod has left him the box of candles he promised to complete the trade, and a record of Mozart's "The Magic Flute."

At a Bar-B-Q with Bilson and Javi, Jarod brings the conversation around to the failed Tom King rescue.  Bilson says that Tom's wife blamed them for his death just so she could deal with it.  He tells Jarod that they did everything they could to save that man.  Javi looks uncomfortable during the conversation and remains silent.  Later, as Jarod is lighting candles at church, he sees Javi come in and then leave.

Jarod dives at the point where Tom King was last known to be fishing and has no problem finding the boat.  He pulls the statue that King's daughter mentioned from the bridge and takes pictures of the boat.  It appears to have been rammed.  Back on shore, he looks at Bilson's favorite cruiser, #45, and sees that the paint has been scraped and damaged on it.  Jarod takes scrapings.

Miss Parker is looking at a picture of her Mother when then phone rings and she is called to The Centre.  Sydney working with another set of twins and Broots tells Miss Parker that he really enjoyed figuring out how Jarod's mind worked.  Miss Parker isn't interested - she only wants to know what Broots found out.  He tells her that he backtracked the call from Jarod's room # 334 at the YMCA through 173 interconnected International calls, all of which were individually initiated.  During this conversation, the twins with whom Sydney was working in the other room come toward the glass wall dividing the space and begin to watch what Sydney, Miss Parker and Broots are doing on the computer.  Broots says that initiating that many calls must have been very time consuming, as well as expensive, for Jarod.  Miss Parker snarls that she doesn't care what it cost and Broots tells her that's a good thing, because Jarod charged it all to her calling card.  Miss Parker's patience has run out and she wants to know where Jarod is.  Broots laughs and says that Jarod is in the very last place they would ever expect to look for him ... he was next door, in room # 335!

In his room, Jarod is eating the middle out of Oreos while logging on to the automatic banking system of San Diego Savings.  He accesses Javier Padilla's account and looks at the transactions.

The next day, when Javi goes to church, Jarod is waiting for him.  He tells Javi that he's doing the same thing there that Javi is ... looking for peace of mind.  He should Javi a picture of Tom King's wife and daughter and says he's also looking for the answer to why she'll never see her Father again.  Javi asks Jarod, "Who the Hell are you?" and Jarod replies that he doesn't really know.  Jarod says that he does know that Bilson and Javi make the same patrol in the south sector every Tuesday night and that every Wednesday afternoon Javi makes a rather sizeable deposit into his private account at the bank on Coronado.  He asks Javi what kind of contraband they've been running.  Javi tells Jarod he's crazy, but Jarod shows him the picture of Tom King's damaged boat and tells Javi that the paint on the hull of that boat is going to match the paint on the cruiser that he and Bilson were in on the night that Tom King's boat went down.  Javi realizes that it's hopeless to deny it and tells Jarod everything -- that he and Bilson meet a Mexican hauler every Tuesday night - bringing in a shipment of something.  Javi thinks it's "rock" but admits that he's not sure.  He says that he doesn't know how they hit Tom King's boat ... it was foggy out and he just didn't see it ... but they sheered it right in half.  Javi spotted Tom in the water, still alive, and he recognized him from church - he used to see Tom, his wife and his daughter at Mass every Sunday.  He tried to pull him on board, but Bilson prevented it - put a gun to Javi's head and told him to leave Tom because if they saved him, they'd go to jail.  Javi says he would take prison in a heartbeat ... just to get out of the Hell in which he's been living ever since.

Eating PEZ in his room, continuing to paint on the canvas and playing with the various novelties he purchased, Jarod wraps a package and puts the Tom King information in an envelope with Commander Powell's name on it.  He does something to one of the boats in the harbor  and starts a timer on his watch.  When the canvas is finished, Jarod signs the work, wraps it and addresses it to Miss Parker.

The next day, Jarod tells Bilson that Javi is sick and that he's riding patrol with him.  He says that, in truth, he's not feeling very well himself ... must have eaten some bad sushi.  He asks Bilson if he minds if he goes to the head and then catches up with him.  Bilson says that will be fine.  Jarod asks Bilson if there's anything wrong, but Bilson says that everything is fine and goes on his way.

At the dock, Bilson finds that his favorite cruiser (#45) is in use, then stops at Javi's boat to see if he's there.  As he's looking for Javi, the radio comes to life -- it's the Mexican hauler requesting a 10:00 AM pick-up, instead of the one for the evening.  Bilson has no choice but to say that he'll be there.  In fact, the radio call originated from the man in Jarod's room at the Y, the one who was transferring his calls.

Jarod arrives and tells Bilson that he's ready to go.  Bilson tells Jarod that it's only a routine patrol and that he can handle it himself.  He tells Jarod to go take care of his gut.  Jarod thanks him and leaves.

Miss Parker, Sydney  and the sweeper team break in to the room next door to the one where the man is transferring the calls.  Miss Parker snarls at him for not telling them that Jarod lived next door.  The man tells her that she didn't ask.  Jarod has already abandoned the room.  Sam hands Miss Parker the red notebook that Jarod left and Miss Parker tells everyone to follow her -- they are heading for the Coast Guard station.

As Bilson is speeding out to the pick-up point, the timer on Jarod's watch ticks to zero.  The motor on Bilson's boat dies ... he's dead in the water.  On the docks, Miss Parker and her team are showing people pictures of Jarod.  Bilson tries to radio Santa Marca, but gets no response.  He uses his binoculars to search the area for help and sees his favorite cruiser, #45, speeding toward him.  Bilson radios the boat, asking if it's Javi, but gets no response.  Bilson radios again, telling the boat that it's on a direct course for his craft and telling it to veer off.  Again, he gets no response.  At the last possible moment, Bilson leaps into the water, and the big cruiser cuts his boat in two.

Jarod circles back in the cruiser.  Bilson is screaming at him to throw him a line.  Jarod tells him that he can't.  Bilson says that Jarod will be up for a court martial, but Jarod says that a court martial won't really affect him, since he's not really a Lieutenant in the Coast Guard.  Jarod tells Bilson not to worry ... he'll be okay.  Men have been known to tread water for days.  Bilson tells Jarod that he can't leave him there and Jarod tells Bilson that he can leave him ... just like Bilson left Tom King.  Then Jarod speeds away.

Martha Poole is talking to Commander Powell when Javi gives him the envelope from Jarod that contains the truth about what happened to Tom King.  Meanwhile, Jarod is radioing in ... telling the rescue crew that there is some floating debris out by buoy 29.

Miss Parker and her team have secured a boat of their own and are now chasing after Jarod on the water ... Jarod allows them to come alongside and Miss Parker yells to Jarod to give it up, telling him that he has nowhere to go.  Jarod replies that Sydney raised him to believe that his mind can take him anywhere and then pulls ahead and away from Miss Parker's boat.  While doing so, he pulls the tarp down on his boat, obscuring Miss Parker's view of the bridge.  After a few moments, Jarod's cruiser drifts to a stop.  Miss Parker tells Sydney that she told him that the smart ones always do something stupid ... but when Sam boards Jarod's cruiser, Jarod is no longer on it!  On the set is a note with Miss Parker's name on it, the fake dog poop, and a DSA.

As Roy Abbot is listening to the record that Jarod left him he sees Jarod swimming by!  Jarod tells him that it's a nice day for a swim.

The next morning, the newspapers have a headline about Tom King's drowning being revealed as a murder and Tom King's wife and daughter receive a package.  In the chest from Abbot's boat is the statue that he took from Tom's sunken boat.  Elsewhere, Martha Poole is finally getting the promotion she deserves.
 
 
 
 

Later that night, at home, Miss Parker is having a cigarette and a drink.  She sits down by a window and inserts the DSA into the machine that will allow her to see what is on it.  It's the DSA of the day that Miss Parker's Mother supposedly committed suicide in the elevator at The Centre.  She hears several gunshots, hears herself (as a child) scream, watches the young Jarod struggling with Sydney as he tries to run to Miss Parker's aid ... and then looks at the portrait that Jarod just left for her -- it's her, on that day, with a tear running down her face.  Another tear drifting down her cheek, Miss Parker picks up the phone, dials a number and says, "It's me.  I want to know what really happened to my Mom."

Back at the Marina the next morning, Jarod is tying the Magdeline up to the dock and is thanking Roy.  He tells him that Magdeline is out there somewhere and asks him what he's going to do.  Roy tells him that he thinks he'll take a walk.  Roy asks Jarod what he's going to do.  Jarod tells him that he thinks he'll take a drive.

We hear a voice on a PA call out, "Gentleman, start your engines!" and the screen fades to black.

Guest Stars:  Dennis Cockrum (???), Edward Evanko (Commander Powell), Elizabeth Heflin (Meg King), Hillary & Melissa Kidwell (Twins), Marjorie Monaghan (Martha Poole), William Sanderson (Roy Abbot), Pat  Skipper (Paul Bilson), Stephanie Sawyer (Kimberly King), Jacob Vargas (Javier Padilla) Iverson Warinner (Saltz), Michael Wyle (???) and Dell Yount (Vendor)

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