Take It Like a Man - 199

[A couple of moderately interesting plots; but, not the JAG that got us all hooked on the series. Ms. Meyers should have had a psychologist review her script, or at least talked to one before submitting it. Dialogue is unrealistic and contrived.] Marine Corporal Hal Strange was bilking schools and organizations out of speaking fees, claiming he received a silver star that he didn't. The SECNAV decided to throw the book at him and Mac (M) was assigned to defend while Harm (H) prosecuted. M acted glib, rushed and childish to Chegwidden (C) and others and continually picked fights with people. M advised Strange to change his plea to guilty; but he said that "he deserved the medal" and refused. He condescendingly told M that he "doubted she had any idea of what combat was like and had ever killed anyone." Her look told him otherwise and then there was stupid dialog about how "didn't she think she deserved one?" Webb (W) was back and in her apartment. After intimacy, she then told him that "one of these days he wouldn't receive such a welcome." He asked if she was mad that he was leaving or that he wasn't there when Sadik came. After more insipid conversation about how killing "made you more alive and made you more passionate" she told him that he was "sick." He said he wasn't having the conversation and left. She told C that Strange said he had earned the medal but his men wouldn't vouch for him so he wanted his day in court to stick it to the Marines. She argued with him saying "you don't know me as well as you thought!" When he suggested she had come back to work to soon, she glibly claimed that she was "honored to help Sadik obtain the martyrdom he desired and anticipated a fruit basket from the white house for riding the world of a terrorist." She blasted into her defense by attacking the teacher who had hired Strange to speak; and continued after H's objections were sustained to the point that the judge held her in contempt. C read her the riot act and ordered her to see a psychologist at Bethesda. She shot back criticizing his behavior "denying your own broken heart." (oh good grief) He told her to "lock it up" and get her "butt to the shrink before she exhausted what was left of his charitable nature."

Tom Johnson called H because Mattie (Mt) wasn't taking his calls. He wanted to "see my little girl" and H had to corner her into having dinner with him. He told her that he knew she could handle it and she pouted that "I know I can… but can you?" (?!) Mt acted like an arrogant ass at the dinner, attacking her dad for "killing her mother." H effusively apologized for her and forced him to accept a ride home. He told Mt that someday she would regret pushing him out of your life and she sulked that "I think I was happier before I met you!" Taking her to school, H gave her brochures for Alateen which she agreed to "consider" if he "would forgive me for being such a brat." Bud (B), on the other hand, went back to his role as the series' buffoon. He showed Turner (T), back from the "big easy" with Verese, a rare Habu pit viper snake that he was keeping in his office because "the evidence room was too cold." Trying to arrange a plea bargain for a Ensign Thompson, who had smuggled it in from Okinawa in his shirt, B had to visit him in the hospital where he was receiving anti-venom for his bites. B found the lid to the snakes cage open and then spent the entire episode sneaking around the office looking for it without telling anyone. He even barged into C's office just as C was finding the heart shaped locket that Meredith had given him. Thompson wanted the snake to go to the Zoo instead of "becoming a wallet" and B frustrated the convening authority into granting it, along with no brig time. T found the snake in his office and duct taped into his garbage can.

M went to W's apartment and was all over him at first, so he stopped her saying: "this isn't you." More odd dialog started with his: "standard psychological debriefing" after Paraguay, her having finished his assignment for him last week, and lashing that people had "inconvenient emotions" and he "didn't have what it takes to make me happy." With the psychologist, Lt. Cdr McCool, she was just as glib and flippant. After she related the story (because her file was classified) McCool offered that the "killing had left a hole in your subconscious." (?!) She continued her abrasive defense of Strange and discussed "medal inflation" where people got them but didn't deserve them. He said that he had saved two men but they wouldn't back up his story. She then lit into H about his "brother preferring to live in Russia than around you." She claimed H "pulled people into your circle just so you can push them away again." He told her that "this isn't about me loosing interest in Mt. You think I'm loosing interest in you." On the stand, Strange admitted he was a loner and the men didn't like him. H looked at M when he responded: "that's the problem with being a loner. You make it impossible to be your friend, then you wonder why you're always alone." M told Strange he was loosing and asked if he had ever asked the men "nicely." She gave him the address of one of the men, who was shown later testifying that Strange had really saved them. He had gone to thank Strange and was attacked about being incompetent. The men decided that they would never admit the incident. "All I ever wanted was an apology," he claimed. Then, after recalling Strange to the stand, M looked at H while she offered "you just wanted someone to realize what you'd been through and in your anger you went about it the wrong way."

Back with McCool, M said her childhood was unpredictable and she was afraid of abuse from her father. She "went back to thinking that I had to look out for myself and every disagreement became a chance to attack." When McCool tried to engage her into more conversation, M blurted "I'm fine now, continued talking wasn't the agreement" and started to leave. She said killing her former husband was a tragedy because she had cared for him; but "last week was just taking out the garbage." McCool told her she could always come back. Back at Webb's, she apologized; then, told him that if he "shut me off when I need you one more time… were done!" "Sadik wanted me," she said, so she had tested him to see if his thoughts were as "pure as he claimed." He resisted, she said, "like I wish I had my entire life." She admitted that "he was down when I shot him," the report was agency charity, "I killed him because he had hurt someone that I love." W responded, "I love you too, Sara."