In the next scene, Jarod is talking to the father of the missing girl.  He tells Mr. Bracken that his name is Jarod Waxman and that he is a detective with the police department.  The father says that the police already looked through Jessie's room and said that a teenager missing less than 48 hours wasn't going to be a high priority case ... but the father is certain it isn't a case of a teenage run-away or a stunt and he's worried.   As Jarod looks around the room, he realizes that Jessie is a collector of Angels.   The father says she has been collecting them since her mother died, three years ago.   As Jarod looks though Jessie's favorite book, The Power of Angels, he finds a card with a demonic image on it ... on the back, in Jessie's handwriting, is the phrase, "Gates of Hell."

In the workroom of a wax museum, Jarod is working on a wax head, but the face has no features.   The owner of the museum, Mr. Klineman, tells Jarod that the faceless man reminds him of Jarod.   He asks Jarod if the wax head is a gift for a friend, and Jarod tells him that it is "more like a message" as he packs the head in a box.   Mr. Klineman tells Jarod that he's brought him a snack ... Alcatraz Oysters ... which can only be found at a specific place in the San Francisco bay.   Jarod is uncertain about eating them, but tries one and likes it.   He then realizes that they have a pungent odor and drips a little juice on the note that he is including with the head.   The note says, "Beware of strangers bearing gifts."   Jarod says, "This might just do the trick."

He shows Mr. Klineman the card with the demonic figure on it and asks him if he has ever seen anything like it before.   Mr. Klineman has an immediate and horrified reaction!   He shows Jarod the tattooed numbers on his arm that indicate he was in a German concentration camp and tells Jarod that members of the "SS" wore insignias that which were on the card.

(Quick images of Jarod as he changes his clothes and then ...) Jarod flashes the card in order to enter a punk/Gothic club called "Gates of Hell"  Once inside, he encounters a girl who has pierced most of her face in one place or another and Jarod tells her that he is looking for someone ... a magician.   She tells him that she's seen Hawk handing the cards out to a select few and that he's holding court in the back room.

Jarod enters the back room and observes a young man speaking to a small group of teenagers, apparently "looking into their minds" and finding their deepest secrets.   One of the teenagers tells Hawk to tell them again about the "Angels Flight."   As Hawk's assistant looks uneasy, Jarod speaks up and says that it was a dream that the great Houdini had repeatedly throughout his life ... Houdini felt that given the power of angels he could break free from the boundaries of earth and soar in the heavens like a God -- but when he died, his dream died with him.   Hawk is surprised and looks suspicious of Jarod, but manages to recover and suggests to the room that they reassemble again at midnight for a "reading session."   The room empties, but Jarod stays.   He tells Hawk that the group seems to be very loyal.   Hawk tells Jarod that he offers them something that the world has denied them ... love.   Jarod tells Hawk that he wishes to "learn from the best" and shows Hawk a trick involving pouring salt out of a shaker, then blowing it away - leaving a word spelled on the table.   The word is "love."   Hawk is duly impressed and tells Kessel, his assistant, to give Jarod the address for the midnight session.   After they have both left, Jarod pulls out his red notebook, opens it to the page with Jessie's picture and says, "Where are you, fallen angel?  Where are you?"

At The Centre, Broots runs up to Miss Parker with a box in his hands and tells Miss Parker she is not going to be happy with his news.   Sydney asks him if he's found Jarod and Broots says it's like he fell into a black hole.   Miss Parker leans close to Broots and says, "Like your social life?" and Broots agrees with her.   They all notice Lyle across the hall, standing with an Oriental girl and receiving a gift of cigars and champagne from someone - but no one seems to know who sent the gift to Lyle or why they sent it. Broots tells Miss Parker that he heard from Jerry in transportation that Mr. Lyle is expecting some "hot shot" from the west coast, but doesn't know the person's name.   Broots is wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt and Miss Parker comments on it as she starts to walk away ... just then Sydney reminds Broots of the package in his hands and he calls Miss Parker back, saying that it is for her.   She opens the box, finds the faceless head and the note - and wonders what Jarod is up to now.

Jarod is up to a number of things - flashes of him painting parts of a face and inserting them into a box ... reading a book on how to perform magic ... then practicing what he has just read.   Jarod arrives at the address that Kessel gave him ... tries to open a door that has a gargoyle on it and finds it locked.   He hears Hawk's voice from another part of the building, which looks like it might be a converted warehouse, and wanders over to get a look.   Jarod is standing up on the second level and Hawk is down below - in a pentagram - with the teenagers from earlier in the evening placed all around it.   Hawk reveals "secrets" from the past of two more of the teenagers ... a girl whose mother died in 1994 and used to call her "puppy" and a young man who has been hiding the secret that his father abused him for years.   In between the two, Kessel discovers Jarod standing there.   Jarod remarks on the security of the locked door and Kessel says that Hawk likes to keep his personal life, personal.   Kessel tells Jarod he'd better go downstairs, since the session has already begun, but Jarod says he wants to ask him a question first ... then flashes the card with the demonic image on it at Kessel.   When Kessel asks Jarod where he got the card, Jarod says that he likes to keep his personal life, personal.   Kessel looks rattled, but tells Jarod that he'd better go before he misses the session.   Soon after Jarod gets downstairs, Hawk ends the session and tells everyone that Mr. Kessel will collect their "offerings."

Back at The Centre, Miss Parker has received three more packages from Jarod ... a set of eyes for the faceless head, with a note that says, "See no evil," ears, with a note that says, "Hear no evil," and a mouth that says, "Speak no evil."   She asks if there is any more information regarding what's going on with Lyle, but neither Sydney, nor Broots has any.   Miss Parker is assembling the parts of the face onto the head.

Jarod is busy breaking into Hawk's locked lair.   Inside he finds a computer and accesses files on all of the teenagers that were in the group that night - and there is also a file for Jessie.   Each file has all of the information about that teenager's "secrets" ... clearly, Hawk is nothing more than a con man.   In a box in the desk, Jarod finds an assortment of jewelry that might have been given as an "offering" ... except that included is a necklace with an angel pendant on it.   The necklace belonged to Jessie and she wore it constantly since her mother died.   In her computer file, Jarod sees that Jessie's mother did not die from cancer, as her father had originally told him -- but had committed suicide.

Hawk and Kessel see Jarod leaving the building and Hawk tells Kessel to "kill the son of a b***h."  (Sorry again, but this is a "G" rated site and the language on The Pretender appears to be harsher this season)

Jarod has a "heart to heart" with Jessie's father and tells him that he knows that he wasn't given the full story.   Jessie's father admits that he didn't tell all of it ... his wife contracted cancer and was losing the battle - so one night she just climbed up on the roof and jumped.   She was holding her angel pendant when the police found her dead in the alley the next morning, and Jessie's preoccupation with angels began at that time.

At The Centre, Miss Parker has assembled all of the parts of the face onto the head that Jarod sent.   Miss Parker, Sydney and Broots all stand back to look at it - but none of them recognize it.   Broots remarks that it kind of looks like "Gilligan" and when Miss Parker doesn't understand to whom he is referring, he attempts to explain it.   Miss Parker is not amused and says, "You grew up in a trailer park, didn't you?"   Broots is taken aback by the comment and says, that it was a mobile home, actually.   Looking at Jarod's notes again, Miss Parker notices that they are all slightly stained.   She sniffs at it and says it smells like "low tide," then gives them to Broots to be analyzed.

Jarod is trying to figure out what happened to Jessie.   He is looking at his red notebook, looking at her angel pendant - then looks at a book he found at Hawk's, entitled "A History of Fallen Angels."   He begins thinking along those lines ... Jessie's mother jumped from the roof and fell to her death and one of Hawk's followers said, "Hawk says that the angel's flight is attainable" ... soon we see Jarod on the roof of the warehouse where the midnight session was held.   He sees stairs leading up to the ledge of the roof, then goes down below and follows a trail of blood into the building from the ground floor to the basement.   In there, he finds Jessie, bloody and battered and barely clinging to life.   Just as he is about to get her out of there and take her to a hospital, Kessel comes up behind him with a gun.   Jarod turns on Kessel and asked him what happened ... didn't Jessie have enough to offer?   Or did she find the computer files on the "wealthy disenfranchised young people" that were recruited off the streets by Kessel.   Kessel tells Jarod that Jessie found out that it was all a con and that he didn't know Hawk was going to kill her.   Jarod tells Kessel that Hawk didn't kill her - she's still alive, but barely.   Kessel caves in and lets Jarod take Jessie to a hospital to get the care she needs to survive.

With Kessel's help, Jarod prepares a "sting" for Hawk.   He puts his shirt on a dummy and shoots it several times, so that Kessel can take it back to Hawk and tell him that he killed Jarod.   They remove the safety wire that Hawk kept hidden on the steps leading up to the ledge of the roof and Jarod tosses the dummy over the top to see where it will fall.

At The Centre, the face is fully finished now, right down to the hair and eyebrows ... but nobody knows who the face belongs to!  Broots analysis of the stains has revealed that they came from a very specific shellfish, found only in the San Francisco bay -- oysters!   Broots has also had the wax from the head analyzed and has found it to be the type used in wax museums.   He tracked down the one at which Jarod was working, called, and got a recording from Jarod that told them to bring along the wax head when they came chasing after him.   As Sydney congratulates Broots on his good work, Miss Parker tells them to hold off on that.   Then Miss Parker tells Broots to fire up the jet and to change his shirt (it's another Hawaiian looking one) because it makes her nauseous.

When Miss Parker, Sydney, Broots and Sam arrive at the wax museum, Mr. Klineman tells them that Jarod is gone but that before he left he designed a new exhibit, called "Centre of Shame."   When they go to see it, they see heads with the likeness of Miss Parker, Sydney and Brooks in what looks like a stock.   When Miss Parker puts the head that Jarod sent her on top of the body of a man standing nearby, the stock moves into position and all three of the heads in it are cut off.   Miss Parker, Sydney and Broots have just watched their own execution!!   Broots takes the head that Jarod sent them back and they all leave.

On top of the warehouse, Hawk is welcoming his group to "the angel's flight" ... suddenly, Jarod appears and Hawk is astounded - since he saw the shirt with the gun holes in it and thought that Jarod was dead.   Jarod tells all of the "followers" the truth about Hawk and taunts him about not being able to find his safety wire.   To avoid going to jail for his crimes as a con man, Hawk, leans backwards and falls off the building!   Birds flutter up into the air - they would have been part of the illusion ... except that Hawk had no safety wire to protect him and keep him from really falling!   Kessel is dumbfounded and then turns on Jarod and accuses him of killing Hawk.   Jarod just laughs and has everyone look over the side.   When the area below is illuminated, they can all see that he landed on an airbag that Jarod had placed there for the occasion!

Back at The Centre, Miss Parker, Sydney and Broots are staring at the head again - trying to figure out who it is and what it was that Jarod was trying to tell them.   At that moment, Mr. Lyle appears and tells them that the Triumvirate has taken a more "hands on" approach and has sent someone to act as a sort of in-house "internal affairs" person.   He then introduces them to Mr. Cox.   After Lyle and Mr. Cox leave, Sydney still wonders aloud who he really is.   Miss Parker tells him that Jarod has already shown them who Mr. Cox is ... the grim reaper.

Jarod greets Jessie and her father as they come out of the hospital ... Jessie thanks him and gives him the angel pendant - saying that it helped keep her safe  and maybe it will do the same for him someday.   Jarod takes it and says he'll keep it close.

They all go their separate ways, and the screen fades to black ...

(this episode was dedicated to the memory of Emigdio (Miggey) Chavez)

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This episode of The Pretender starred:
Michael T. Weiss as Jarod, Andrea Parker as Miss Parker, Patrick Bauchau as Sydney, Jon Gries as Broots, Jamie Denton as Mr. Lyle and Sam Ayers as Sam the Sweeper

Guest Stars:
Ryan Bollman, Patrick Darcy, Kay E. Kuter, James McDonnell and 
Lenny Van Dohlen

Also starring:
Amy Wheaton as Jessica;  Bob Borgia as Bob the Magician;  Cosmo Carnale as the ice cream man;  Alyson Croft as Leslie;  Chad Doreck as Duppy Demetrius;   Faline England as Gretchen;  Brandon J. Williams as Scott;  Abby Wolf as the female patron

"Angels Flight" was written by:
Tommy Thompson
and Directed by:
Chuck Bowman

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