In “Face Off,” Bionic Woman Jaime Sommers gets her first mission in the field. Her objective is to rescue an American doctor from a terriroist organization in Paraguay called the Sons of the Red Sand.
Antonio joins Jaime on her first mission and asks her to trust him. Unfortunately, that trust leads to Antonio dropping Jaime off into a pit of terrorists and the unwitting surrender by Jaime. Nothing can keep our Bionic Heroine down. Sommers kicks her way through her captives saving Doctor Mark Stevens - only to learn, that Antonio plans to kill Mark.
Why? It seems Mark was hired to decipher a flash drive obtained from Will Anthros. Mark takes his job one step further and reads the contents of the drive, learning all the secrets of the Bionic Woman. Wrong move Mark. Jonas doesn’t like that one bit.
When Jaime gets shot, rescuing Mark, the doctor removes the bullet earning Jaime’s trust. Funnily enough, I realized during this episode that the anthrocites that help Jaime to heal at an accelerated rate were probably named after the Anthros family who created both Bionic Women.
Mark drops a bombshell while removing the bullet from Jaime’s body. The data on the flash drive revealed that with Jaime’s current bionics, she’ll only be able to live for another five years. Of course, our pal Jonas knew all about this and left Jaime in the dark.
Jaime’s early death was forshadowed in episode 3 “Sisterhood.” Jaime learned from her sister Becca that their great-grandmother died at 25 of a genetic disease. Although they made light of the death, it was an early warning that Jaime Sommers might die from a cause outside of the occupational hazard of government employment.
Meanwhile, the original Bionic Woman Sarah Corvus walks willingly into a trap sprung by estranged lover Jae Kim and Jonas. Her hope is that Jonas’ team may have the knowledge necessary to fix her. She offers to turn Anthony Anthros over to Jonas for a cure. When she realizes the truth, that Jonas has no cure, she skillfully breaks free from Jonas’ minions and escapes.
Sarah, Knowing that death is in her future, takes a page out of Jaime’s handbook and seeks out a stranger for an old-fashioned one-night stand.
Jaime continues to protect Mark, allowing him to hold the drive while she distracts Antonio. This leads to a no-holds barred fight between Antonio and Jaime. Guess who wins? The Bionic Woman nails him with some bionic kung-fu.
Where does that leave Becca in all of this? She is still struggling with her relationship with her older sister. Becca discovers Jaime lied to her about her whereabouts. Jaime had said she was going to visit her friend Carli in Napa, when in reality she was flying to Paraguay. In an blatantly obvious turn, Carli shows up on Becca’s door step exposing Jaime’s lie.
In the closing scene with Jonas and Jaime, we got our first instrospective into Jonas’ humanity. Up until now, he’s been the cold-unforging boss who looks at Jaime as an object. Jonas is strictly concerned about the Bionic Woman’s dollars and cents value and not her personal well being. When Jaime asks about her 5 year lease on life, Jonas tells Jaime, “I will fix this.” Hard to believe that’s possible with one Anthros dead and the other playing for the other team.
I was extremely pleased with this episode. Not only did Jaime get a chance to really work out her bionics, but we also got to see the downside of having those physical augmentations.
