WB’S TARZAN-6-SURRENDER

 

WB’S TARZAN-6-SURRENDER

“I don’t know that anyplace is safe right now.”

 

“I don’t have to tell any of you that this suspect is different. So the usual tricks aren’t going to work.”

 

“Look, I know John Clayton is a lot of things. He…he’s wild, he’s hard to handle, he’s unpredictable, hell, he might even have fleas but he’s not a cold blooded murderer. I know that. I’ve done see him save too many people. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you. So, I’m going to help you save his ass.”

 

A 30 second or so “previously on TARZAN…”

 

Middle of the night, Internal Affairs wakes Jane up. The same man that was at Jane’s door arrives at Kathy’s, barging past the assistant (Mary is her name…maybe?), serving a warrant. He has many police with him. The warrant is for John Clayton’s arrest. Oddly, the man at Jane’s door and Kathy’s door look like the same actor, sort of. They are dressed the same but their faces look slightly different. As depicted, it looks as if the intrusions are being perpetrated at the same EXACT time so…I’m not sure if this is supposed to be the same man or not. They certainly are dressed almost exactly so I’m guessing it’s a fancy time thing they’re doing to the non linear presentation? In either case, it’s jarring but works in a way that gives a boring warrant thing a faster pace?

 

 

The one with Jane looks older. The one with Kathy looks younger. I’m guessing it’s not the same man as the episode progresses because…one has his hair parted on the right side (the older one with Jane) and the other seems to have no part (the one with Kathy).

 

A quick check on IMDB doesn’t help much.

 

Jane’s apartment number: 513.

 

BTW the shots of NYC look fabulous.

 

The man with Jane tells her they know everything. She asks to bring John in but he just tells her she doesn’t realize the kind of trouble she’s in and to get dressed.

 

With Kathy pleading for John to give himself up, he puts his hands out for the cuffs and is cuffed roughly. But when Gene gets rough, John resists arrest and tosses Gene to the side and kicks him on his way to the ceiling. He comes back down, hits Gene again and flees.

 

He takes the trees in the room and drops down to down some more officers. As Gene fires on him, John jumps through a glass window (it happens once an episode now, almost and probably every episode). Gene reports they are unit 575 as John is on the run.

 

Gene says, “Son of a bitch.”

 

Kathy finds blood on the glass leftover on the window sill.

 

 

As he IA investigator (possibly named Sands) questions Jane, Scott warns Jane to wait for the Union Delegate. Jane tells the truth and from the IA man, she realizes Donald Ingram is lying. The IA thinks Jane coerced Donald, the witness. Scott wants a minute alone with Jane.

 

John is wounded on his knee and hides in a small grove amid luncheon or dining chairs set in a small leafy tree area. Before that we see him amid towering buildings and it looks really great, even if it might not be NYC. John ties off his leg above the wound.

 

Scott wonders if what Jane is telling him is true and why she didn’t bring it all to him. In their conversation they keep referring to John as a “kid.” By my reckoning, Fimmel was about 25 when this was made.

 

Scott asks for Jane’s badge and gun, suspending her until the outcome of the investigation.

 

On the street, Jane asks for Sam’s help but he wants her to stop. She wants to question Donald.

 

Jane explains John is innocent and pure and helping him and saving his life is the right thing to do. She leaves Sam, sarcastically thanking him for his help…which he does not yet give.

 

Jane goes to a roof to look for John? A song plays.

 

And…she finds him on the roof and cuffed. 5550184 is the number Jane gives Kathy via phone to call back from another phone. Kathy does and it is a pay phone; Jane figures Kathy’s line is probably tapped. She needs Kathy to leave without the cops following her; Jane wants her to take a cab and get out and get another one. If the phone is tapped, won’t the police hear that?

 

Soon, John is somewhere with Jane, Kathy and a doctor helping him. John resists the IV. Apparently, the doctor is named Ben Jaffe played by actor John Kozak.

 

Their source at the DA’s office gives Patrick information for Richard.

 

 

Scott gives Sam a new partner on loan from the One Five: Carey who knows Sam.

He gives an update to which Gene says, “I bet she’s going the guy right now,” about Jane.

 

When Sam Sullivan intercepts this, Gene asks, “Porter doing you too?”

 

Sam answers this with, “No, your mother’s all the woman I need.”

 

Jane makes John promise to stay where he is. She tells him she is not going to quit on this. He recognizes she is tired.

 

When Jane arrives on the street near her apartment Gene Taylor is there. He tells her to stay out of his way when he finds John Clayton.

 

Kathy storms past Richard’s secretary, Dani, to go into his office. Kathy will sign off all of her voting shares in Greystoke industry if he calls off this witness. There’s a rider involved that states Richard agrees never to touch John’s trust, his shares or his inheritance. Richard refuses this: his plans include John being released into his custody after being pleading insanity and as for Kathy, he plans she will be charged with obstructing justice, a scandal to follow, and he will get her shares and John’s shares. He even now considers them already his. He says he came to her and Jane and begged John be contained and rehabilitated.

 

Sam shows up at Jane’s and is going to help her get to Donald, “If you let me have a cup of coffee.”  He goes on, “Look, I know John Clayton is a lot of things. He…he’s wild, he’s hard to handle, he’s unpredictable, hell, he might even have fleas but he’s not a cold blooded murderer. I know that. I’ve done see him save too many people. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you. So, I’m going to help you save his ass.”

 

When Jane thanks him and touches his arm, he jokes, “Will you back up off me…” and something about skipping this Hallmark moment and the next thing she will be crying. She calls him her best friend.

 

OMG. The info Sam gives Jane costs him, what he says…a date with one of the ugliest police clerks “you ever saw.”  How times have changed even since 2004. This would never fly nowadays!

 

He has a duty roster for the men guarding ingrams. This means Jane can get their financials. Sam already did that, citing brilliant minds think alike. The credit card purchases are all within the same five mile block radius in the Bowery.

 

Jane goes to a Homemade restaurant (a pizza place) and gives a cover story: her boyfriend’s name is Matt Carlton and he works nearby and this young man she’s talking to probably delivered to him. She lies about it being her boyfriend’s birthday and she wants to surprise him at lunch but he had a brand new job and she forgot the address and doesn’t want to call because it would ruin the surprise. He lets her take the card and she order a pizza, which she throws out (a large pepperoni, no mushrooms).

 

Jane sees Donald in the window as he reads a book. He’s in a hotel. She climbs the fire escape ladder but one rung falls off and she’s hanging by it. John is above her. Jane gets back on the ladder as John shimmies down the drain pipe from the roof (like Spiderman).

 

John gets her to the side roof and they are face to face, happy. He gets her to a window where she goes in and while an officer is taking a shower (I think?), she meets Donald, who reacts less nervous and upset than we expect.

 

Jane claims she can protect him but he tells her the policemen that keep him here work for Richard!

 

Against expectations, which would be that John would appear and calm Donald further, when John pokes his body into the window, Donald reacts badly and has a loud breakdown. This alerts the guards outside. They are both men of color and both smoking.

 

John does calm Donald down, gets him to trust him, and when Donald refuses to go out the window as the guard bang on the door, guns drawn, a look from John gets Donald to be brave. Sava Drayton plays one of these men guarding Donald.

 

John says to Donald, “Trust me.”

 

When the men enter, Jane, John and Donald are gone out the window.

 

Hiding below, John has his hand on Donald’s chest and Donald touches John’s hand.

 

Jane calls Sam; Carey says he will cover for him. Two men in a car followed John.

 

The doctor gives Jane some coffee and bids goodbye once Sam arrives, he and John seem to share a touch and a moment, too. Despite John’s gymnastic abilities, the men abduct Donald from Jane, Sam, and John. John can’t catch their car.

 

Jane thinks they need Donald alive and won’t hurt him. She tells John this as John is worried about Donald.

 

Sam suggests they hide John as his place. Sam has one condition: that Jane go home to sleep. After he gets her off in a taxi, he talks to John, telling him he likes him but that there’s no one he cares about more than Jane and she’s killing herself to help him. After their talk, John vanishes. “Oh, my God, Jane’s gonna kill me,” Sam says.

 

In the most intense scene in the series up to now, John shows up at Richard’s window in the rain. He comes in and surprises Richard, who is uncompromising in his outlook, telling him that it’s far too late to make it right now and that one of the reasons he is doing this is that John “spit in his face” when Richard wanted to “help” him. John wants him to let Donald go and stop hurting Kathy and Jane. Richard blames John for it all. “You make your bed you lie in it,” he tells John.

 

John bashes him to the wall and Richard urges him to kill him.

 

It will prove what Richard always said, “That you need to be caged.”

 

Mitch AND Fimmel are very good in this scene, in fact Fimmel’s grown into the role and his every look and every line by this episode are just about perfect. In fact, this episode is riveting and I couldn’t stop watching if I wanted to.

 

Sadly, by the time this first aired, almost no one was watching, even me. I think I video taped it and never watched it. Honestly, we all missed out. The viewers by not watching. The fans-- by not watching and dismissing it as “not Tarzan” even if they were right. The network-- by not giving it more of a chance and giving it the back nine episodes which would have brought it to 17 episodes.

 

Truth is: this flawed show is really not that bad and is rather watchable, despite the problems it has.

 

And again, in another good scene, another good performance, Fimmel as John, goes to Kathy’s and frustrates. He wants to go home. She thinks he is home but he means the jungle.

 

A girl (actress Samantha Gutstadt) brings Kathy a phone call from Jane Porter. Kathy tells Jane that John is at the air strip in Lindenhurst. She’s sending him back.

 

One of her jets is taking John as far as Brazzaville (sounds like that) in the Republic of Congo.  

 

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazzaville

 

Kathy thanks her and hopes this won’t be goodbye (does she mean Jane or John? It sounds like Jane).

 

Sam thinks John leaving is the right thing for both of them. Jane, once more, asks him to be her friend right now and for more help!

 

Two police in a car are confronted by Sam. One (who might be the character Tom Bridgham) of them calls Jane a two faced lying bitch. Sam responds, “Let me tell you something, you ever call her that again, I’m going to straight up whoop your ass.”

 

This is while they were watching Jane’s apartment. Sam distracts them long enough for Jane to run off. Carey betrays Sam and reports that John is trying to leave the country…to Gene. Carey wants to bring it to Scott, their captain but Gene will handle it himself.

 

Jane confronts John just before he gets on the plane and calls what he is doing giving up. She claims there are so many things they can try.

 

“Let me go,” he tells her. He moves to leave and she says, “So. That’s it, you’re just going to leave and you’re not even going to say goodbye.” Really, Jane?

 

A song as he returns to hug her and they nestle in each other’s necks.

 

Gene arrives with his two cronies that were watching Jane’s apartment. Jane tries to stop them. The plane, the letters on it C-FJBO, takes off. Jane knocked Gene down but he punches her down. Even though his crony tries to stop him, Gene kicks Jane over and over while she’s down. John, who never got on the plane, jumps from on high (from a bridge) to stop him. John beats all three men down.

 

Jane has passed out or is dead (surely not!?). John carries her back to the air strip area, which looks deserted.

 

I remember being disappointed by this ending, which I did see, in fact. I thought maybe the show would move to the jungle, which is what TARZAN is all about. Other than the title, there’s no word TARZAN in the show at all. Surely it’s not John’s name despite him telling the boy in an earlier episode that he has two names.

 

Despite all of that, on viewing in 2023, this is not a bad series. If it didn’t have the name TARZAN attached to it, I wonder if it would have succeeded or if the obscurity and everyone forgetting it and/or hating it, would have been even worse?

 

This episode is a strong one and Fimmel DOES impress here as does the entire cast. I’ve even come to like this Jane and the actress playing her.

 

Worth a watch.

 

SONGS:

"White Flag" by Dido

"So Are You to Me" by Eastmountainsouth

"Freetime by Kenna