Original air date: September 19, 1996

Written by: Steven Long Mitchell & Craig W. Van Sickle

Directed by: Rick Wallace

Having just missed Jarod on a tanker ship in Alaska, Miss Parker and Sydney track him to a hospital where he plans on exposing an alcoholic surgeon who crippled a young boy.

Jarod’s Discoveries: Ice Cream, Wheel of Fortune

Jarod’s Occupations: Freighter Captain, Wall St Broker, Fireman, Pilot, Surgeon

Jarod’s Aliases: Dr Jarod Russell

Behind the scenes insights and the Creator’s Take

Official Synopsis

Jarod, an extraordinary individual capable of assuming anyone’s identity, escapes from a mysterious corporation called The Centre, which isolated him at an early age and exploited his genius.  Now, Jarod aids those who have been wronged.  In this episode, he gives surgeons who crippled a young boy a taste of their own medicine.

Inside a simple hotel room, Jarod watches a DSA of himself as a young boy, when he was a prisoner inside the Centre.  Young Sydney looks into the camera and remarks that Jarod has demonstrated more talent than any of the other Pretenders.  Shortly thereafter, Young Jarod asks Sydney about his mother and father.

In the present day, on the deck of the Martha Cook, Miss Parker and Sydney quiz the first mate about Jarod, who had been impersonating a sea captain in his effort to expose a company that contaminated an Aleut village by dumping chemicals at sea.  Meanwhile, inside Queen of Angels hospital, Jarod, now Dr. Jarod Russell, comes to the aid of a young girl who swallowed a marble.  He performs an emergency tracheotomy, saves the girl’s life and wins the respect of Gwen, a head nurse.  Later, Jarod meets with Dr. Miles Hendricks, who runs the hospital, and Dr. Alan Trader, Chief of Surgery.

Back at the Centre, Miss Parker tells Sydney that Jarod’s ATM account is being monitored, and as a result, the Centre will be able to pinpoint his whereabouts when he makes a transaction.  While searching Jarod’s quarters, Miss Parker happens upon an origami figure, which Jarod deliberately left behind as a clue to his motivation.  Miss Parker identifies the figure as Onisius, the Greek god of retribution, who defends the weak and abused.  Parker realizes Jarod sees himself as a vigilante out to protect the weak.

At the hospital, Jarod asks a young nurse, Nicole, to run a complete diagnostic test on a vial containing his own blood.  Later, he also befriends an elderly Greek woman, Mrs. Nikkos, who suffers from constipation and hates hospitals and doctors.  Jarod cancels Mrs. Nikkos’ surgery and has her drink some herb tea instead.  At the Centre, Miss Parker grows excited when the head technician informs her that Jarod made an ATM transaction in Sante Fe, New Mexico.  But it soon becomes clear that Jarod scrambled the ATM tracking system, making it impossible to pinpoint his whereabouts.

At the hospital, Jarod asks Dr. Grimes to look at a set of x-rays.  Grimes reacts with confusion, as the x-rays are of Kevin Bailey, a young patient of Dr. Trader’s who is confined to a wheelchair.  It becomes apparent that the pre-op and post-op x-rays are identical: Both show a severing of the boy’s spinal cord.  Grimes finds this puzzling, as it means that someone copied the post-op x-ray and labeled it “pre-op.”

While relaxing with Hendricks and Trader at a fitness club bar, Jarod notices that Dr. Hendricks takes medication for a heart condition.  The topic of conversation shifts to the hospital’s malpractice problems.  Jarod mentions the Kevin Bailey case, which Trader quickly labels a “witch hunt” on the part of the media.  Later, Jarod contacts Sydney by phone.  He tells him he fled the Centre after he learned that his simulations were being used for nefarious purposes.  As a result, many innocent lives were lost.  Sydney claims these were military contracts…and he had no way of knowing their ultimate application.

With his ATM account frozen, Jarod manipulates the stock exchange and makes off with five million dollars of the Centre’s money.  Later, Jarod approaches Trader and tells him he may have made a serious error during surgery and inadvertently left a hemo inside a patient.  Trader describes a solution that will allow Jarod to remove it without informing the patient, saving the hospital from potential litigation.

Jarod stages a phony fire inside the hotel where Sydney and Miss Parker are staying.  During the confusion, Jarod, disguised as a fireman, approaches Sydney.  He gives him instructions on how to retrieve the five million dollars…but demands he be told the truth about his parents.  Sydney assures Jarod that both his parents died in a plane crash.  But Jarod informs him that a lab test shows a genetic anomaly in his blood…something not present in his parents’ blood.  As a result, it is impossible that he is their son.  Sydney then claims he has only repeated the story the Centre fed him…and he has no idea who Jarod really is.  Suddenly, Miss Parker appears.  Jarod escapes via an elevator.

Jarod discovers that Gwen has a prison record.  He confronts her for the truth about what happened to Kevin Bailey.  It turns out that Trader, an alcoholic, severed Kevin’s spinal cord when he moved him.  Dr. Hendricks covered up the incident and threatened to expose Gwen’s past if she didn’t go along with the story.  Gwen gave the pre-op x-rays to Hendricks, who made her promise to keep quiet about there existence.

After spiking Dr. Hendricks’ bottled drinking water with a substance that simulates a heart attack, Jarod arranges to play racquetball with Hendricks.  When the doctor complains of chest pains, he is rushed to the emergency room, where Jarod pages Dr. Trader.  Meanwhile, Miss Parker informs Sydney that she managed to pinpoint Jarod’s location at Queen of Angels Hospital.

Fearing that Trader is too inebriated to perform the operation, Miles begs Jarod to step in.  Jarod agrees to do so, with the proviso Trader reveal the location of Kevin Bailey’s pre-op x-rays.  Once Jarod learns their whereabouts, he turns the operation over to a drunken Trader.  A terrified Miles protests.  When Jarod exits the room, he reports Trader as being drunk and asks security to step in.  Miss Parker and Sydney arrive at the hospital and begin searching the hospital rooms.  Mrs. Nikkos tells them that a man just ran up the fire escape.  Miss Parker gives chase…not knowing Mrs. Nikkos lied.  Jarod escapes and, impersonating an airline pilot, flies to San Diego.