Two security guards with an alarm company get a radio dispatch about an alarm activation. They both think it's probably nothing, but the dispatcher tells them to check anyway because "that's what the customers pay for." Also it's literally their job.
A white convertible with three teenagers in it is parked outside the call address. One of the guards knocks on the window with his flashlight. He tells the kids to turn down the blasting music. When the kids don't listen, he reaches and shuts the radio off.
"All you had to do was ask," laughs the male driver. The female passenger taunts, "You pass that civil service exam yet?" The driver asks if the guards like his new car: "Maybe you'll get one for your birthday too." All the teenagers laugh. I'm pretty sure they are all high on something. The guy in the backseat tells the guards to come back when they're real cops. The guard yanks the driver's door, gets it partway open, and the kids drive away.
Elsewhere, two burglars dressed all in black creep up the front porch of a house. A sign on the front lawn says SPLIT SECOND SECURITY. The burglars deactivate the alarm and pick the lock to get in. They start snatching up silver, collectible coins, jewelry, and a briefcase full of cigars. They go upstairs, surprising a teenage girl in front of her mirror. She screams.
The burglars run out the front door just as a woman, presumably the girl's mother, pulls into the driveway. She runs inside, calling, "Quincy! Quincy! Are you all right? Where are you?" Quincy comes out of her room, unharmed. She tells her mother, "I saw them. It was the security guards. They just ran out." Quincy's mom hugs her. Theme song.
In Rufus's office, the captain tells Tom that 17-year-old Quincy is the only witness to the burglaries, but she can't positively ID the suspects. The guards are insistent that Quincy and her friends are the real culprits. In the other 4 burglary cases, the alarms were deactivated. "Inside job," says Harry. Doug says, "Yeah, but which side?"
Finding out which side is responsible is, of course, Jump Street's job. "Great, we get to babysit rich kids and rent-a-cops," Tom gripes. Fuller asks if Harry is up for the assignment if it gets physical. "I've never felt better," Harry assures him.
Tom is sits in the office of Hamilton High filling out some forms. Quincy knocks on the door, asking for a late pass. "This is becoming a habit," says the secretary. Quincy fires back, "Talk to my shrink." The secretary gives Tom a schedule and tells him it's almost 6th period. Tom turns in his form and tells the secretary that his cousin told him to look up Quincy. "She just left," says the secretary.
In the hallway, Quincy is standing by her locker with the two guys from the car. Tom approaches Quincy, saying his cousin knows a friend of hers. "Great," she says dismissively. The two boys steal a passing teacher's wallet. Quincy introduces them as Alex and Ted, but doesn't bother to tell us which is which. Quincy rattles off details she learned about Tom from peeking at his school forms. "Photographic memory," she explains.
At Split Second Security, Doug and Harry are filling out job applications. Doug reads off the list of requirements: state-issued guard card, firearms permit, baton permit, and current CPR/first aid card. New guards must also pass a 2-week classroom course, get a medical check-up, and get drug tested. A mustached man tells them, "I'm Lieutenant Peters. Welcome aboard." "But we gotta take all these tests and classes," says Doug.
Lieutenant Peters explains that those are old applications. Split Second was bought out by a corporation that only requires a weapons permit and a clean driving record. He shows Doug and Harry to the locker room. Next we see, they're outfitted in Split Second uniforms and have been issued guns. "You need possession, intent, and opportunity before you can draw on a suspect," he tells them. Peters calls over Danbury and Mickman, the guards from earlier, and introduces them to their new trainees.
Tom comes out of class at Hamilton High and finds Quincy sitting on the hood of the Mustang. "You memorized my license plate too?" he asks. Quincy tells him, "It's a gift." She asks why Tom was kicked out of his last school. He says it's not her business. When she promises to keep a secret, Tom says that he stole a teacher's wallet. Quincy asks for a ride and Tom agrees.
At Split Second, one of the guards (of course we weren't told who was Danbury and who was Mickman), thinks 3 years there will look good on a police application. The other one asks if Doug and Harry want to be cops too. One thinks neither looks like academy material; the other says Harry is because "they have quotas for guys like him." "I betcha we make cop before either one of you do," Doug challenges.
The guards are dispatched to an alarm activation and get in the car. At the address, they're greeted by the maid, who only speaks Spanish. Everyone has to shout over the ringing alarm. Doug finally understands that she's trying to tell them the homeowners are away. Mickman, the blond, deactivates the alarm. "You mean you had the code this whole time?" Doug asks. Mickman tells him, "We have all the codes." Because, duh. Doug and Harry looked surprised.
In Tom's Mustang, it's clear Quincy isn't buying the stolen wallet story; she keeps asking what Tom really did to get expelled. The white convertible seen earlier rear-ends the Mustang, twice...on purpose. Quincy tells Tom to pull into the oncoming traffic lane so she can talk to Alex. Alex asks what she's doing with Tom. "Not enough," Quincy replies, readying herself to climb into the convertible while both cars are still moving.
A Split Second car is in the lane also illegally occupied by the Mustang. Hickman is driving and tells Harry, "There's only the Fletcher house on this road, but they pay for a drive-by twice a day." Doug sees Quincy standing with one foot on the Mustang and one on the convertible. Even though it's painfully obvious what's happening, he asks, "What's that?" Harry tells Mickman to pull over. Danbury wants Mickman to keep driving.
The cars are now on a collision course, which Quincy doesn't seem to notice. Tom tells her to get back in the Mustang. "You scared, Tommy?" she taunts, "Tell me you're scared." "All right, I'm scared. Just get in the car!" he says. At the last second, the Mustang swerves off the shoulder. We see Quincy landed safely in the white convertible. The Split Second car has also stopped. Tom gets out of the Mustang; Harry gets out of the security car. They look at each other.
At a fast food place, Harry stands near the counter, drinking a soda. Doug asks if that's his whole lunch. Harry's not hungry. After that experience, I don't blame him. Doug takes his loaded tray outside to where Mickman and Danbury are sitting. "You know the academy has a physical as well as a written, right?" Mickman asks rudely. Doug looks uncomfortable, as he always does when someone makes a fat joke. He makes an excuse about forgetting salt and goes back toward the inside of the restaurant.
Doug sees Harry with a bottle of pain pills and says conversationally, "I thought you stopped takin' those." "Doctor's orders," Harry says. When Doug adds more salt to his lunch, Mickman picks on Doug's diet some more, asking if he knows how much salt is already on it. Doug takes a bite and almost gags from the amount of salt.
At Quincy's locker, Tom asks her about the stunt she pulled the day before. "Come on, you didn't feel that rush?" she says. Tom tells her it was stupid. She asks what he's doing that night. She also says, "You like to take things that don't belong to you. I like that in a man." Quincy tells Tom to pick her up at 11:00.
Tom tells the captain that Quincy might be planning a break-in. "These kids are crazy," Doug says emphatically. Fuller says, "I don't know what happened out on that road yesterday, but I don't want it repeated. Understood?" The captain has done some digging into Quincy's background and learned that her father died 6 months ago: "I hear that can be pretty hard on a kid that age." Tom doesn't answer.
That night, Split Second gets called about a silent alarm; it's possible the prowler is still on the premises. At the address, Doug asks Mickman if he thinks it's the neighborhood kids. "I know it is," says Mickman, "Now shut up before you get my head blown off." The back door opens and the guards start firing. The sound of the gunshots gives Harry flashbacks to getting shot himself. The back door creaks open. A very scared but unhurt dog emerges. "You coulda killed somebody," Doug scolds as he picks up the dog.
Tom picks up Quincy as scheduled. She's wearing all black and carrying a pair of gloves. Ted and Alex are meeting them. Tom asks where her mom is. Quincy says she's on a date and her dad is away: "My shrink says that's part of the problem. No authority figure to check my sociopathic behavior."
Tom parks the Mustang down the block. Alex and Ted come out of the bushes to report that the homeowners have been in bed for half an hour. Quincy tells the boys the alarm code. Alex picks the lock, but they don't go inside. Instead, they go to Split Second headquarters, still in their burglar garb. They sneak past Lieutenant Peters, who's asleep at his desk.
In the locker room, Quincy tells Alex to call the dispatcher and tell him to check out a problem in the computer room. When the dispatcher goes into the computer room, Ted locks him in. Ted throws his voice, asking an available unit to check out the break-in.
Danbury, Mickman, Doug, and Harry respond. Quincy tells Tom to let the dispatcher out of the computer room.
The Split Second officers roam through the house Ted just broke into, looking for the intruder. Doug's attention is drawn by a scream from upstairs. He goes into the bedroom and finds an older couple. The man points the gun at the Split Second crew and instructs his wife, "Call 911. Tell them we caught the burglars." Doug puts his hands up.
Tom asks Doug, "How could I warn you about something I didn't know?" Fuller tells them to relax. Doug reminds Tom that cops have to follow certain rules. "We know it's the kids. Let's just bring them in," says Harry. The kids' parents can afford good lawyers; they can't make robbery stick unless they catch them redhanded. Tom leaves, saying he's late for something. Fuller asks if Harry is doing all right. Harry tells him yes.
Tom climbs onto the school roof with Quincy. She used to smoke up there until she found out cigarettes can cause cancer. Tom thinks it's crazy that she'll stand between two moving cars, but she won't smoke. Quincy argues that it's different, slow death vs. calculated risk. It's not worth being careful with yourself when "all it takes is one idiot in one car to plow the life right outta ya." Now we know what happened to her father...
Quincy asks how Tom's father died. Tom says it was a work-related accident. Quincy walks on a narrow ledge of the roof, speculating on what could happen to her: a car accident like her dad, successfully robbing a house, or doing 10 years in prison. She sums it up like this: "My fate in my hands. That's freedom."
Doug goes to Harry's apartment and remarks, "Wow, this place hasn't looked this bad since I lived here." Harry wishes everyone would stop asking him how he feels. Doug asks about the pills on the counter. Harry gets defensive and says he has a prescription. He'll finish his last bottle or two and that will be it.
At the fast food place, Danbury and Mickman talk about the burglary suspects. They wish they were cops so they could haul the kids to juvie. "They may think they're above the law, but they're not above me," says Danbury. Doug thinks they shouldn't let kids bother them so much. Danbury is angry that kids in a nice neighborhood who have Mommy and Daddy around to buy them anything they want are trying to get him fired. He and Mickman are tired of their crap; Danbury doesn't trust the cops.
Harry can't understand why the kids would risk their cushy lives to get a bunch of rent-a-cops in trouble. "We don't count," says Danbury, "As far as I'm concerned, they don't count either." He leaves the table. Doug asks why Danbury hates cops so much. "He tried a coupla times, but he never made it outta the academy," Mickman explains.
Quincy, Ted, Alex, and Tom break into a place called Playland. "It's your turn, Tommy, we've all done it," says Quincy as the four climb some type of wooden structure. Split Second gets dispatched to the Playland break in. "We'll handle this," Danbury says into the radio.
Ted breaks into an electrical box and flips a switch. We see the wooden structure they're standing on is a sizeable roller coaster. "These things make me sick," Tom says uneasily. Quincy tells him, "You don't have to ride it. All you gotta do is kneel...right here." Right here meaning the loading/unloading platform. Ted pulls a lever to start the ride and tells Tom to play chicken.
Tom asks what they're trying to prove. "I'm challenging you to feel life," says Quincy. Tom doesn't want to. Quincy won't get off the tracks until he joins her. POV shots of the ride. Alex announces, "It's coming around the last curve." Tom agrees to accept the challenge and Quincy gets up. The kids stand on the platform as the train whizzes by.
Tom has a few minutes to get back into position. Coaster Cam. "If you don't do it, I will," Quincy threatens, "And who knows if I'll make it off in time?" This chick doesn't need juvie, she needs a psych ward. Coaster Cam. Tom kneels on the tracks.
The Split Second Security car arrives at Playland's west gate and parks next to the kids' VW convertible. Doug sees the padlock has been cut. The train rumbles over their heads. Doug asks if they should call the cops. Danbury tells him to shut up. Back to Coaster Cam.
On the platform, Ted forces Tom further down and handcuffs him to the track. "We're friends now, you gotta trust us," says Quincy. Ted and Alex cheer that the coaster is halfway around; they need to be institutionalized too for being willing to go along with this. Coaster Cam. The kids cheer as Tom screams in mortal terror.
Doug, Harry, Danbury, and Mickman arrive on the platform. "Unlock it," Doug orders. Quincy singsongs, "Not yet." Coaster Cam. Doug pulls the lever on the platform, hoping against hope that's the brake. "Once it starts, it's on its own," says Quincy. Harry tells her to unlock the cuffs. Quincy holds out the key and says, "You do it" right before dropping the key on purpose.
Harry, Doug, Mickman, and Danbury scramble madly, looking between the rails with their flashlights. Coaster Cam. "I hope they don't find it," says Danbury. Tom, the only one who seems to hear this, is shocked. Coaster Cam. Alex crows, "Next to the last curve." "COME ON!" Tom bellows desperately.
Coaster Cam. Harry can't find the key. Boy, would this be a hell of a way to write Johnny Depp off the show. The train is coming into the station now. Tom screams. Doug, Mickman, Harry, and Danbury climb off the tracks. Cut to Tom, alive with the other end of the cuffs open. "Wrong key!" laughs Quincy, holding it up. Ted helps Tom to his feet. The suicidal juvenile delinquents leave the cops and security guards behind.
The boys drop off Quincy and Tom at her house. Quincy invites Tom in: "You won't be able to sleep tonight, you know." Tom gets in the Mustang and slams the door. Quincy thinks he felt totally alive and free thanks to the coaster stunt. "You don't know anything about freedom," says Tom, "All you wanna do is control people."
In bed, Tom has flashbacks about being in prison. Someone knocks on his door and he gets up to answer. It's Doug and Harry in their security guard uniforms. "I know what you're gonna say," says Tom, "I didn't know about the cuffs. And if I didn't do it, she was gonna." Harry is angry that Tom let himself get put into that situation: "Do you know what it's like to really almost die? There's nothing exciting about it."
Harry gets more and more worked up, saying he's seen his friends and family die: "LIFE IS SOMETHING TO PROTECT, NOT TO RISK!" Tom knows that, but Quincy obviously doesn't. He asks, referring to the thrill of danger, "Isn't that why people become police officers?" Harry storms out.
"What's with him?" Tom asks. Doug parrots, "What's with you?" "I'm gonna quit," Tom mumbles. Doug wonders what Tom plans to do if the problem isn't his job. Tom tells him that Quincy and Company are planning another break-in for the following night, but he doesn't know where. Doug leaves.
Outside, he catches Harry popping pills in his truck. "I thought you were gonna stop taking them when the prescription ran out," he says. Harry can keep taking them as long as he's in pain. Doug asks if it's mental or physical pain. He thinks Harry has a problem. Harry denies it.
The next day at Split Second, Doug and Harry get keys to their own car. "I'm gonna miss you girls," says Danbury. Mickman smirks and laughs. Hey, It's That Guy moment! Mickman played a bike cop in Emilio Estevez's directorial debut Men at Work.
Tom pulls up to Quincy's house in the Mustang and she chides him for being late. She tells him to drive. Tom eventually pulls over in a grassy lot near Alex and Ted's VW. The burglary club will walk from there. They break into the Fletcher mansion; Ted and Alex go upstairs. The VW is spotted by Split Second. "Looks like they picked the wrong house tonight," says Danbury. Mickman wants to call for backup, but Danbury tells him no.
In the mansion, the kids rifle through drawers. Quincy takes what looks like a leaping dolphin statue out of a cabinet. "Is that a gun I see in your hand?" Danbury asks from behind her. He fires a shot that shatters everything in the cabinet. Mickman chases Alex and Ted.
Quincy and Tom barely avoid being caught by Danbury in the kitchen. Tom hits the silent alarm. Harry and Doug hear the dispatch and respond. Ted tries to bail out a window and falls about 12 feet to the concrete. "Don't move," orders Mickman. Sound advice given the kid's potential for a spine injury. Doug and Harry find him and ask where the others are. "Upstairs," Ted replies.
Doug tells Harry to stay with the kid. Harry doesn't listen. He follows Doug into the Fletcher mansion with his gun drawn. In an upstairs parlor, Danbury orders Quincy to freeze. Tom joins her: "Okay, you got us. Why don't you put the gun down? I'm a police officer."
Quincy takes a couple steps toward Danbury. "You won't use that on me, I know how guys like you think," she taunts, "You think you're so big and so strong with your gun and your uniform. You're a joke. You couldn't make it as a real cop and you can't even catch a bunch of dumb kids." She dares him to shoot her.
Tom warns her that Danbury will shoot to kill. "You don't have the guts, do you?" Quincy asks the guard. Danbury fires. Quincy drops the statue, which shatters on the hardwood floor. "I thought she had a gun," Danbury says, "I think you do too." Just as he's about to shoot Tom, Harry burst in and shouts, "DROP IT!" Danbury doesn't, forcing Harry to kill him.
Doug, Alex, and Hickman arrive. Alex drops to his knees beside Quincy. "Oh my God," says the teen. Doug leaves to call an ambulance. It's no good, though. "She's dead," says Alex.
At a bar, Tom apologizes to Doug and Harry. Harry says it wasn't Tom's fault. "She thought she was in control," Tom says of Quincy before leaving the bar. Harry considers the pill bottle in his hand. You know, mixing those things with alcohol is a really bad idea. "I think I have a problem," Harry tells Doug. End of episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment