By Brandon Nolta

A recently repatriated P.O.W. gets up from his hospital bunk somewhere in Iraq. Without a word, he picks up a scalpel, slashes a guard’s throat, then picks up the guard’s weapon and lays waste to the doctors and patients. No, it’s not THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE v. 2.0, although it does turn out the soldier had a neural implant. As Jonas (Miguel Ferrer) tells Jaime (Michelle Ryan) at the beginning of this week’s BIONIC WOMAN, there’ve been a couple of other attacks by guys with similar implants, which are normally used to treat depression but seem to work well in engendering homicidal impulses. Bonus.

This doesn’t sit well with the Berkut Group, so while Antonio (Isaiah Washington) goes on a hunt for whoever is distributing the implants, Jaime gets to go undercover at a university to check out the guy who developed them, a renowned neuroscience professor (Kenneth Walsh). Irony of ironies, her cover identity is an English transfer student, so Ms. Ryan gets to use her natural speaking voice for once. Anyway, she gets to know the professor’s T.A. Tom, which drives Jaime’s handler/lab tech Nathan (Kevin Rankin) slightly mad with jealousy. Maybe that’s why the professor catches Jaime breaking into his lab so quickly. $50 million and she can’t scan the area using those bionic appendages? Nathan can get the security code for the lab, but he can’t tap the surveillance feed? Come on, people.


What Nathan can do, once Antonio nudges him, is find that Tom’s identity only goes back six years, which means the focus of the investigation changes. Fortunately, since Jaime’s already hanging out with him, it’s easy to do. On her way to a date with Tom, Jaime is attacked by a guy who turns out to be the subject of an experiment in neuromuscular signal processing Jaime saw earlier in the day, which was essentially an exercise in human remote control. Against Jonas and Antonio’s inclinations, Jaime stays in the field close to Tom, who is looking like the main suspect in the implant smuggling game. Soon enough, Jaime’s hunting down Tom, but things surprisingly aren’t what they seem, and alliances do some shifting before the big violence at the end.

I have to say, I was having some doubts about where this show was heading, but this episode feels like the writers have settled on a direction and are letting the narratives find their own way. Jaime’s mission this time around allowed her to get a taste of the life she had hoped to have, and Ryan played that aspect up nicely without wallowing in could-have-beens. She seems more comfortable in the role now, which might be related to the writers finally letting the stories develop without rushing everything.


Between letting the story breathe and Jaime’s happiness at finally going to college, even if just for a while, the show managed to find a nice vibe that encompassed both the romantic moments and the bionic violence. Plus, Ms. Ryan’s natural accent is quite sexy; they need to find a way to get her using that more often. Anyway, if BIONIC WOMAN continues to improve in this fashion, it should turn into a damn good show pretty soon. Take notes, NBC.