Second Acts

Second Acts, April 1, 2003

A brother's return, memories of 9/11, Lindsey's report and a JAG spy make for this tear-filled and vengeful episode of JAG called Second Acts that was put back on the Tuesday night schedule at the eleventh hour. An hour of war coverage was supposed to replace it.

Memories of the World Trade Center on 9/11 make for Harm and Sturgis' part of the show. Harm prosecutes a case and also represents Jenny Bruder, the wife of a man who was killed during the plane attacks on the World Trade Center. A PO by the name of Wilson shows up on ZNN reporter Dunston's(John D. Aquino) camera during an Iraqi shooting where WIlson saved several lives. Everyone sees this as does Jenny Bruder. This is when JAG steps in and takes over prosecuting PO Wilson with fraudulent enlistment.

The scenes with Jenny and Harm are tear filled as Jenny relays what happened after 9/11. She almost their home but because of the compensation fund set up for 9/11 victims and their families she was able to keep it. Harm tells her about how hard he searched for answers to his father's disappearance and lets her know that he will try his hardest to find out what happened. All Jenny wants to know is what happened to her husband that day. She doesn't care what happens to Matt. All she wants is answers to why Matt survived and why their bank account was empty.

Harm puts Jenny on the stand and tears fill this scene as she talks about that day and what happened afterwards. Matt then takes the stand and recounts the days leading up to 9/11. Jenny's husband and Matt were venture capitalist. Days before 9/11 they lost all the money and he took it out of their bank account helping Jenny understand why they were broke. Matt then tells here that her husband was killed when the ceiling collapsed on him. Matt got out somehow and joined the Navy to start a new life. He found a new name and a new start because he didn't like the Matt Divine that had worked, stolen and cheated money out of people.

After hearing both testimonies, the council finds that Matt should be punished for fraudulent enlistment, but should also be able to stay in the Navy. Jenny tells Harm that she's fine with it because she received what she wanted and that was to find out what happened to her husband that day.

Meanwhile, the audit that Lindsey did of JAG is getting around to everyone. The Admiral decides that since he is in command that he should retire. The excuses he gives is that he wants to see Francesca and marry Meredith. Unfortunately, Meredith tells Mac that he hadn't asked. Mac doesn't accept this sitting down. She works a rebuttal against the audit to give to the Admiral and while in the room gives him a piece of her mind about what he's wanting to do. Mac is right. The Admiral is not a person that gives up.

While Mac and the others are going through the report, they all find incriminating things that not many people would know. Tiner assures them that no one was in the files. This was when I sat up and the first words out of my mouth were 'Singer'. It all makes sense now. Singer gave Lindsey the information he needed and she was still working at JAG at the time so she was able to get into files. Somewhere before, during or after Singer and Lindsey did the deed that got her pregnant. That's what I think, but draw your own conclusions.

When the Admiral takes Mac's rebuttal to the SecNav, the Admiral relays the fact that he isn't going to retire to the SecNav. I think Mac got through to him. He just needed to hear someone else saying the things that he was thinking out loud. They both drink Scotch while talking about what will happen.

Sergei returns to introduce Harm to his new fiancée. Her name is Galena. Sergei asks Harm to be his best man. They will be married in Russia. I hope this isn't the end of our seeing Sergei. I've gotten to like the protective big brother side of Harm.

The shocker, however, didn't come until the end of the show when the SecNav dismissed Lindsey. He, angrily, fired him. Then when Lindsey left, the SecNav told the Admiral that, in actuality, the JAG gang was right. There was a spy in the headquarters. The spy was as they thought Commander Manetti. Manetti arrived home from TAD in Pearl Harbor to tell the SecNav that Lindsey's report was scathing. This is what the SecNav took as truth and fired Lindsey.

When the Admiral asked about Manetti staying on at JAG, the SecNav told him she would be staying for a few more weeks and then he had another job for her. I guess JAG has seen the last of Tamlyn Tomita. It's a shame because the scenes she was in were really good and I loved her southern accent.

Best Quotes of the Show:

"Don't jostle him. He's a finely tuned fighting machine."~Officer (about Divine)

(reading Lindsey's report)
"You're 'a security risk'."~Harm
"You're 'a loose cannon'."~Mac
"I 'show consistent and reckless disregard for responsibility'."~Harm
"And I love this one: 'unsupervised TAD with a member of the opposite sex'."~Mac
"You and me."~Harm

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."~Harm
(after Harm leaves)
"Somehow I don't feel better."~Mac

"He's a clever lawyer, but a lousy human being."~Mac (to Bud, Harriet , Jennifer and Tiner)

"Did you propose to me when I wasn't present?"~Meredith

"Interested?"~Admiral (proposing to Meredith in his office before Meredith walks out)

"It's absolutely not in your character to cave in and I refuse to accept that from you for any reason."~Mac
"Are you done?"~Admiral
"No, sir. You are offering to sacrifice your career and with all due respect that offer is not accepted."
"I hope that will be all?"~Admiral
"Yes, sir."~Mac
(Mac gets up to leave)
"Mac, thanks."~Admiral

"It was what you call a one-stop shop."~Sergei
"A one-night stand."~Harm

By Kasey

This episode was an interesting dichotemy - half I loved, or at least strongly liked, the other half I was ready to scratch at my ears until I drew blood.

First and foremost, during the opening credits I happened to see that Jade Carter was back and I about started cheering - I love the little Russian brother. It's fun to see Harm being the overprotective big brother, and I really like the character of Sergei. He's engaged now, to a Russian flight attendant named Galena. I'm not entirely wild about her, as I think she's a little flaky - or it could just be the language barrier - but I do like the idea that he's gotten himself a girl who he can be in love with and who, well, isn't Singer. Sergei asks Harm to come to Russia for the wedding and be his best man, and Harm accepts.

Sergei and Harm go to the bar to get drinks, and they have a conversation about Singer and her unborn child. Apparently, Singer called Sergei back in January using Harm's cell just outside of Benzinger's after the conversation overheard by Coates when he grabbed her arm - why didn't we hear about this until now? Why couldn't we have seen that scene? Who knows? Sergei believes she was telling the truth about him not being the father, Harm still doesn't think so. Sergei asserts that it was one night - not even the whole night - and meant nothing, and he thinks Loren could easily handle having more than one man in her life at a time. I loved Sergei's line: "It was what you call a one-stop shop." "One night stand," Harm corrects.

Then there's the story that continues from "Fortunate Son" - Commander Lindsey's audit of JAG Ops. The report has come out, and it's unflattering, to say the least (would we expect any less from the person on the show who's the second most fun to hate?). The Admiral offers to resign over it, but tells the staff that his reasons are otherwise: he wants to see his daughter in Italy, and he and Meredith have been discussing getting married. The humour comes in when Harriet congratulates Meredith on their engagement...and it turns out they're not engaged, and haven't even really discussed it. She and the Admiral have an interesting discussion over it that ends in her leaving his office when they were supposed to go to dinner.

I'm still not wholly convinced about the two of them. I think they're right for each other in a few areas, but mostly they still seem just...awkward to me. I certainly don't see them as right enough to be getting married yet.

We see Lindsey at his house (in the middle of the day - someone go kick his six for skipping out on work!) working on his computer. His wife comes into the room, and he deletes a bunch of computer files quickly. Around the same time, Mac realizes that a lot of the information in Lindsey's report are things that no one would know unless they had access to JAG's files. And the plot thickens!

Mac prepares a rebuttal to the report and takes it to the Admiral, basically gives him a sort of lecture on why he can't resign. He's offering to save his staff, but they won't accept that offer. Additionally, as she points out, Lindsey wanted the staff scattered to the wind, so it wouldn't do a bit of good for the Admiral to resign.

All of the things listed above were taking place in B-stories, and all of them I liked very much.

Then, of course, you have the A-story.

I think, in order to maintain any integrity, I must divulge first and foremost that I am a little tired of every single thing in the universe revolving back to 9/11. While I believe it was a tragedy, I am a strong proponent of "learn to move on" and thus get more than a little irritated when it's harped upon.

That said, I believe that the story was handled with tact and decency, and was interesting...but the widow, Jenny Bruder, drove me crazy. With no disrespect whatsoever intended to the families of the victims, Jenny spent the entire time being weepy and whiny to the point where her voice was reminiscent of the proverbial nails on a blackboard. I sympathized with her need to find answers - and I know Harm did, too - but I think she was portrayed as far too weak. Perhaps what would have been more interesting/effective would have been if she was at least a little stronger and more together. Additionally, I would've liked to have seen a few more scenes between Harm and Mac in all this, or even Harm and Sturgis - in "Fortunate Son", he and Mac discussed briefly the idea of the Vietnamese girls being one of his obsessions and they had a nice little conversation. In this episode, the only one to whom Harm even mentioned the connection of needing answers was Jenny.

All in all, a decent episode, though one I'll have to be sure to keep the remote nearby for re-watching; I'll probably fastforward through the certain scenes where Jenny's whining is intolerable and instead just watch Harm being a big brother and Meredith asking the Admiral "Did you propose while I wasn't present?"

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