Crime of the New Century
Mutant X Episode Synopses
Crime of the New Century: Episode #109.
Tag: The Mutant X team sets out to rescue a young boy who's been mysteriously kidnapped. [ Transcript]
Cast & Crew: Written by Joe Johnson; Directed by Graeme Campbell
Jennifer Dale.... Wendy Stone
Marc Donato.... Joshua Valentine
Paulino Nunes.... Burke
Deborah Odell.... Lisa Valentine
Rod Wilson.... Corbin Valentine
Official Synopsis: Corbin Valentine (Rod Wilson), an astronaut famous for saving his crew when their shuttle crashed, and his wife Lisa (Deborah O'Dell) are suddenly awakened from a peaceful night's sleep, only to find that their son, Josh (Marc Donato), has been kidnapped. Knowing that Lisa and Josh are both new mutants, Adam (John Shea) decides that Mutant X needs to do a little investigating. Adam and Emma (Lauren Lee Smith) disguise themselves as insurance investigators and go to the Valentine residence where they meet Special Agent in Charge Wendy Stone (Jennifer Dale), who informs them that the perpetrator was a professional. At the same time, Shalimar (Victoria Pratt) sneaks around the grounds of the Valentine's mansion looking for clues, and spots a rope dangling from Josh's bedroom window. Meanwhile, Josh's kidnapper, Burke (Paulino Nunes), holds Josh hostage on an abandoned tugboat and tends to the burn on his own hand which he got from Josh's under-developed thermal transfer powers during the kidnapping. Back at the Valentine home, Emma discovers that Lisa is also a telempath when she intercepts the psychic link between Lisa and Josh after showing Lisa a picture of her missing son. At Genomex, Wendy, who is actually in cahoots with the GSA, is scolded by Eckhart (Tom McCamus) for failing to bring him the boy. An annoyed Eckhart warns Wendy that Josh is a priceless commodity, and she better deliver him soon. Back at the Valentine mansion, Shalimar finds a tree that smells like sulfur. Just as she cuts off a piece of bark to bring back to the lab for analysis, Wendy appears, takes her sample and tells Shalimar to leave. Inside the mansion, Emma uses her telempathic abilities to pinpoint the exact location of Josh and his kidnapper. Brennan (Victor Webster) and Jesse (Forbes March) immediately set out for the tugboat and take Burke completely by surprise. He tries to fight Jesse and Victor, but realizing he's no match for their powers, jumps overboard. Jesse and Victor rescue the terrified Josh, just as Wendy and a bunch of fake FBI agents pull up, grab Burke and force him into their car. After reuniting Josh with Lisa, Jesse gives Adam a large sum of money and a disk he took from the tugboat. Back at Sanctuary, Adam becomes suspicious when he hears a news report that Wendy declined to speak to the press, and has Jesse hack into the FBI database where he finds no record of her. Adam quickly searches Mutant X's files and finds that she has been working undercover for Eckhart. Suddenly, Emma has a telempathic vision of Corbin carrying Josh out of their home past an unconscious Lisa, and realizes that Lisa must have had Josh kidnapped to protect him from his father. Back at Genomex, Wendy and Eckhart interrogate Burke, who confesses that he was hired by Lisa to kidnap Josh. Eckhart, confused about why Lisa wanted to have her own son kidnapped, orders Wendy to kill Burke on the spot. Meanwhile, Adam and Emma rush to the Valentine home to question Lisa, but when they arrive, they find that Corbin gave Lisa sleeping pills and took Josh without her knowing. When Lisa awakens, she admits that Corbin was only trying to protect Josh by taking him to a secret genetic bioengineering facility that could make him normal. Adam and Emma are convinced that the two must be at Genomex. Meanwhile, Corbin and Josh enter Genomex and are confronted by Wendy, who injects Josh with a subdermal governor. As Wendy takes them to a clinic to be held, Corbin realizes that Wendy and Eckhart are not looking to help him, and he has made a drastic mistake. At the same time, Adam takes off in the VTOL aircraft to track down Wendy, Corbin and Josh, and alerts Brennan and Jesse of their location. Brennan uses his powers to release Josh from the holding room, while Jesse fights off an oncoming agent. After deactivating Josh's subdermal governor, Brennan and Jesse rescue Corbin from Wendy's clutches and the four take off for Sanctuary where the Valentine family is happily reunited.
Quotes:
Jesse: You know, when is Eckhart going to learn? No matter how many guys he sends after us, they're always outnumbered.
Jesse: 20 bucks.
Brennan: What?
Jesse: We both agreed. The first one to use their powers pays 20 bucks.
Brennan: You know, I should have let him crack you in the back of the head.
Jesse: No.
Brennan: Yeah.
Jesse: 20 bucks.
Brennan: Okay, you know what? You’re just lucky I’m a man of my word.
Jesse: Mm-hm. Ow!
Brennan: Oh, gee, I’m sorry. I must have rubbed my feet on the carpet.
Brennan: Yeah, I know when I was 10, I could barely jump-start a dead battery.
Shalimar: You were boosting cars when you were 10?
Brennan: No, I was just, you know, helping people out when they had a dead battery.
Jesse: Ah, a regular Good Samaritan.
Brennan: Wait, hold it. Adam left me in charge.
Jesse: Oh, is that right?
Brennan: Yeah.
Jesse: Oh. 'Cause from where I was sitting, it seemed like he was talking to me.
Brennan: You know, you keep chowing down like that, you're gonna be all mass all the time.
Jesse: Adam put you in charge of the pizza now?
Brennan: I thought rich kids were supposed to be well-mannered.
Jesse [mouth full]: I have perfectly fine manners.
Brennan: Send us a sample, we’ll do an analysis.
Jesse: We?
Brennan: Yeah, what do you want me to do it myself?
Jesse: No, I’ll handle it. Your labwork’s still a little sloppy.
Brennan: What, kind of like your eating habits?
Burke: Hands up!
Jesse: You know, that's not gonna help you. Kevlar, head to toe.
Adam: Wendy Stone. A new mutant with the power to increase the molecular density of organic matter.
Jesse: Heavy.
Mason: There's only so much G force the human body can take, Mr. Burke. Before it explodes like a crushed grape.
Corbin Valentine: Trust me, Josh. Your mom and I want to give you the best. We want--
Joshua Valentine: You want me not to be a freak.
Corbin: Please, Josh. You need help, buddy.
Josh: Mom was trying to help me. You just want to get rid of me.
Mason: So this must be Joshua. Have you any idea what a special little boy you are? Not very talkative is he? What do you think of my world?
Josh: I think it sucks.
Mason: It’s a credit to the gene pool when a father’s heroic nature finds itself in his son. But it can be terribly disturbing when these genetic anomalies create such a turmoil in a family.
Corbin: I’ve tried to explain that to Joshua. He’s got a little glitch in his genetic makeup that we can fix. That’s why we’re here, right?
Mason: Right.
Brennan: Where'd you learn that?
Shalimar: I taught him. Got a problem with that?
Brennan: I have no idea what you're talking about. Hey, let me do that. I know the NuJack system inside and out.
Jesse: You know, you never admit you’re a criminal, but you pull this criminal rank on me all the time.
Shalimar: Out! You guys can work this out in the dojo.
Lisa Valentine: I’m not strong. I’ve spent my whole life denying I have any power. I’m not like you, Emma.
Emma: Yes, you are.
Josh: So this is Freak Central, huh?
Brennan: Yep.
Josh: Can I come live here with you guys?
Jesse: Maybe. When you're old enough. And we have a height requirement too.
Josh: My dad thinks something's wrong with me.
Brennan: You know what? Come here, sit down. Now, if you ask me, I think he's just afraid.
Josh: Afraid of me? I'm just a kid.
Jesse: A lot of people are afraid of what they don't understand.
Josh: But my dad said he thought he was helping me.
Brennan: Take it from me. He’s totally wrong.
Josh: I never thought my dad could be wrong about anything.
Jesse: He’s human.
Brennan: Just like us.
Josh: Well...not just like us.
Shalimar: If you ask me, I can't believe she's taking him back.
Emma: If you ask me, I'd say the Valentines have a lot of issues before they're home free.
Adam: Yeah, but that's what relationships are all about, confronting challenges every day, right?
Trivia & Nitpicks: This episode's title, "Crime of the New Century," might be a parallel to the infamous 1932 kidnapping and murder of pilot Charles Lindbergh's infant son, which was dubbed "The Crime of the Century."
Special guest star: Deborah O'Dell, who plays Lisa Valentine in this episode, returns in season 3 to play casino owner Kristen Greg in "Wages of Sin."
This is the first and last time Jesse issues instructions to Brennan which Brennan actually follows.
We learn that there are many different clinics and compounds at Genomex; Mutant X finds Joshua in clinic 6 in compound 4.
Adam taught Brennan how to electrically disengage subdermal governors. Shalimar taught Jesse how to hack into the NuJack satellite system.
Emma's non-telempathic power #6: When Emma sends Josh the image of a merry-go-round to persuade him to turn around, she demonstrates yet another non-empathic gift, the ability to cast illlusions through the connection of another telepathic mutant.
If you recognize the underpass in the teaser’s fight scene, it’s because you saw it in the teaser for “Russian Roulette.”
Brennan sparks Jesse in the teaser, probably at about the voltage of a joy buzzer. Not bad for someone who'd never used his power on a person before "The Shock of the New." I find it hard to believe prank boy hadn't done that before.
How can Josh be an elemental if his mother is a psionic? I think a paternity test is in order.
How did we not notice how easy it was for kidnapper Burke to get through that high priced security system?
I don't believe Brennan’s favors for friends line, he was totally boosting cars at 10. (I suspect with his background, trouble found him...)
Jesse says Brennan’s labwork’s still a little sloppy. Perhaps this is from lack of practice? The only time I can remember Brennan doing anything remotely resembling labwork is when Adam hands him a mortar and pestle in “Dark Star Rising.”
Adam apparently misses his “Adam Zero” days. When he and Emma go undercover as insurance agents, he calls himself “Zolo” and Emma, “DeNono.” LOL.
Why doesn’t Wendy Stone recognize Adam and Emma? It’s one thing when low-level staff members like Karen Bell or Dr. Richard Saunders don’t recognize Mutant X team members, but Wendy is an honest-to-goodness GSA field agent.
Why on Earth is Brennan bouncing that tennis ball? Argh.
In a leap of logic so amazing that you have to see it for yourselves, Brennan, Shalimar, and Jesse brainstorm until they translate a rain of pennies into an abandoned warehouse at Lincoln Salvage Company. Brennan first suggests that pennies might be a Josh’s idea of a lot of money. Obviously, he hasn’t seen the Valentine's mansion.
The MV has Mutant X license plates. Isn't that just a little conspicuous?
Brennan tells Jesse that if he’d electrocuted Berg while he was standing in a metal boat, they’d all be toast. The same logic doesn’t seem to apply when Brennan’s standing on metal catwalks while electrocuting Caleb Mathias in “Lazarus Syndrome,” Morgan’s GS agent in “A Breed Apart,” or Nick Maddox in “Within These Walls.”
Emma's meditating in a darkened Sanctuary, so why is Adam making all that noise, playing on the computers?
Is it just me or is the room where Lisa Valentine wakes up after Corbin slips her the sleeping pill a new set?
Aside from being cool and dramatic, there really isn't a good reason for Brennan to knock the door down when he and Jesse are rescuing Josh. Besides the fact that the commotion would alert even the most inattentive GS agents to their presence, they don't know exactly where Josh is located in the room. Had he been strapped to a chair that was closer to the door, the poor kid would have been smashed flat.
Good Josh, hit the gun, not the person. Someone taught you well.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 4 Food intake: 1 piece of pizza (Jesse), 1 water (Brennan)
Return to The Mutant X Warehouse
Crime of the New Century: Episode #109.
Tag: The Mutant X team sets out to rescue a young boy who's been mysteriously kidnapped. [ Transcript]
Cast & Crew: Written by Joe Johnson; Directed by Graeme Campbell
Jennifer Dale.... Wendy Stone
Marc Donato.... Joshua Valentine
Paulino Nunes.... Burke
Deborah Odell.... Lisa Valentine
Rod Wilson.... Corbin Valentine
Official Synopsis: Corbin Valentine (Rod Wilson), an astronaut famous for saving his crew when their shuttle crashed, and his wife Lisa (Deborah O'Dell) are suddenly awakened from a peaceful night's sleep, only to find that their son, Josh (Marc Donato), has been kidnapped. Knowing that Lisa and Josh are both new mutants, Adam (John Shea) decides that Mutant X needs to do a little investigating. Adam and Emma (Lauren Lee Smith) disguise themselves as insurance investigators and go to the Valentine residence where they meet Special Agent in Charge Wendy Stone (Jennifer Dale), who informs them that the perpetrator was a professional. At the same time, Shalimar (Victoria Pratt) sneaks around the grounds of the Valentine's mansion looking for clues, and spots a rope dangling from Josh's bedroom window. Meanwhile, Josh's kidnapper, Burke (Paulino Nunes), holds Josh hostage on an abandoned tugboat and tends to the burn on his own hand which he got from Josh's under-developed thermal transfer powers during the kidnapping. Back at the Valentine home, Emma discovers that Lisa is also a telempath when she intercepts the psychic link between Lisa and Josh after showing Lisa a picture of her missing son. At Genomex, Wendy, who is actually in cahoots with the GSA, is scolded by Eckhart (Tom McCamus) for failing to bring him the boy. An annoyed Eckhart warns Wendy that Josh is a priceless commodity, and she better deliver him soon. Back at the Valentine mansion, Shalimar finds a tree that smells like sulfur. Just as she cuts off a piece of bark to bring back to the lab for analysis, Wendy appears, takes her sample and tells Shalimar to leave. Inside the mansion, Emma uses her telempathic abilities to pinpoint the exact location of Josh and his kidnapper. Brennan (Victor Webster) and Jesse (Forbes March) immediately set out for the tugboat and take Burke completely by surprise. He tries to fight Jesse and Victor, but realizing he's no match for their powers, jumps overboard. Jesse and Victor rescue the terrified Josh, just as Wendy and a bunch of fake FBI agents pull up, grab Burke and force him into their car. After reuniting Josh with Lisa, Jesse gives Adam a large sum of money and a disk he took from the tugboat. Back at Sanctuary, Adam becomes suspicious when he hears a news report that Wendy declined to speak to the press, and has Jesse hack into the FBI database where he finds no record of her. Adam quickly searches Mutant X's files and finds that she has been working undercover for Eckhart. Suddenly, Emma has a telempathic vision of Corbin carrying Josh out of their home past an unconscious Lisa, and realizes that Lisa must have had Josh kidnapped to protect him from his father. Back at Genomex, Wendy and Eckhart interrogate Burke, who confesses that he was hired by Lisa to kidnap Josh. Eckhart, confused about why Lisa wanted to have her own son kidnapped, orders Wendy to kill Burke on the spot. Meanwhile, Adam and Emma rush to the Valentine home to question Lisa, but when they arrive, they find that Corbin gave Lisa sleeping pills and took Josh without her knowing. When Lisa awakens, she admits that Corbin was only trying to protect Josh by taking him to a secret genetic bioengineering facility that could make him normal. Adam and Emma are convinced that the two must be at Genomex. Meanwhile, Corbin and Josh enter Genomex and are confronted by Wendy, who injects Josh with a subdermal governor. As Wendy takes them to a clinic to be held, Corbin realizes that Wendy and Eckhart are not looking to help him, and he has made a drastic mistake. At the same time, Adam takes off in the VTOL aircraft to track down Wendy, Corbin and Josh, and alerts Brennan and Jesse of their location. Brennan uses his powers to release Josh from the holding room, while Jesse fights off an oncoming agent. After deactivating Josh's subdermal governor, Brennan and Jesse rescue Corbin from Wendy's clutches and the four take off for Sanctuary where the Valentine family is happily reunited.
Quotes:
Jesse: You know, when is Eckhart going to learn? No matter how many guys he sends after us, they're always outnumbered.
Jesse: 20 bucks.
Brennan: What?
Jesse: We both agreed. The first one to use their powers pays 20 bucks.
Brennan: You know, I should have let him crack you in the back of the head.
Jesse: No.
Brennan: Yeah.
Jesse: 20 bucks.
Brennan: Okay, you know what? You’re just lucky I’m a man of my word.
Jesse: Mm-hm. Ow!
Brennan: Oh, gee, I’m sorry. I must have rubbed my feet on the carpet.
Brennan: Yeah, I know when I was 10, I could barely jump-start a dead battery.
Shalimar: You were boosting cars when you were 10?
Brennan: No, I was just, you know, helping people out when they had a dead battery.
Jesse: Ah, a regular Good Samaritan.
Brennan: Wait, hold it. Adam left me in charge.
Jesse: Oh, is that right?
Brennan: Yeah.
Jesse: Oh. 'Cause from where I was sitting, it seemed like he was talking to me.
Brennan: You know, you keep chowing down like that, you're gonna be all mass all the time.
Jesse: Adam put you in charge of the pizza now?
Brennan: I thought rich kids were supposed to be well-mannered.
Jesse [mouth full]: I have perfectly fine manners.
Brennan: Send us a sample, we’ll do an analysis.
Jesse: We?
Brennan: Yeah, what do you want me to do it myself?
Jesse: No, I’ll handle it. Your labwork’s still a little sloppy.
Brennan: What, kind of like your eating habits?
Burke: Hands up!
Jesse: You know, that's not gonna help you. Kevlar, head to toe.
Adam: Wendy Stone. A new mutant with the power to increase the molecular density of organic matter.
Jesse: Heavy.
Mason: There's only so much G force the human body can take, Mr. Burke. Before it explodes like a crushed grape.
Corbin Valentine: Trust me, Josh. Your mom and I want to give you the best. We want--
Joshua Valentine: You want me not to be a freak.
Corbin: Please, Josh. You need help, buddy.
Josh: Mom was trying to help me. You just want to get rid of me.
Mason: So this must be Joshua. Have you any idea what a special little boy you are? Not very talkative is he? What do you think of my world?
Josh: I think it sucks.
Mason: It’s a credit to the gene pool when a father’s heroic nature finds itself in his son. But it can be terribly disturbing when these genetic anomalies create such a turmoil in a family.
Corbin: I’ve tried to explain that to Joshua. He’s got a little glitch in his genetic makeup that we can fix. That’s why we’re here, right?
Mason: Right.
Brennan: Where'd you learn that?
Shalimar: I taught him. Got a problem with that?
Brennan: I have no idea what you're talking about. Hey, let me do that. I know the NuJack system inside and out.
Jesse: You know, you never admit you’re a criminal, but you pull this criminal rank on me all the time.
Shalimar: Out! You guys can work this out in the dojo.
Lisa Valentine: I’m not strong. I’ve spent my whole life denying I have any power. I’m not like you, Emma.
Emma: Yes, you are.
Josh: So this is Freak Central, huh?
Brennan: Yep.
Josh: Can I come live here with you guys?
Jesse: Maybe. When you're old enough. And we have a height requirement too.
Josh: My dad thinks something's wrong with me.
Brennan: You know what? Come here, sit down. Now, if you ask me, I think he's just afraid.
Josh: Afraid of me? I'm just a kid.
Jesse: A lot of people are afraid of what they don't understand.
Josh: But my dad said he thought he was helping me.
Brennan: Take it from me. He’s totally wrong.
Josh: I never thought my dad could be wrong about anything.
Jesse: He’s human.
Brennan: Just like us.
Josh: Well...not just like us.
Shalimar: If you ask me, I can't believe she's taking him back.
Emma: If you ask me, I'd say the Valentines have a lot of issues before they're home free.
Adam: Yeah, but that's what relationships are all about, confronting challenges every day, right?
Trivia & Nitpicks: This episode's title, "Crime of the New Century," might be a parallel to the infamous 1932 kidnapping and murder of pilot Charles Lindbergh's infant son, which was dubbed "The Crime of the Century."
Special guest star: Deborah O'Dell, who plays Lisa Valentine in this episode, returns in season 3 to play casino owner Kristen Greg in "Wages of Sin."
This is the first and last time Jesse issues instructions to Brennan which Brennan actually follows.
We learn that there are many different clinics and compounds at Genomex; Mutant X finds Joshua in clinic 6 in compound 4.
Adam taught Brennan how to electrically disengage subdermal governors. Shalimar taught Jesse how to hack into the NuJack satellite system.
Emma's non-telempathic power #6: When Emma sends Josh the image of a merry-go-round to persuade him to turn around, she demonstrates yet another non-empathic gift, the ability to cast illlusions through the connection of another telepathic mutant.
If you recognize the underpass in the teaser’s fight scene, it’s because you saw it in the teaser for “Russian Roulette.”
Brennan sparks Jesse in the teaser, probably at about the voltage of a joy buzzer. Not bad for someone who'd never used his power on a person before "The Shock of the New." I find it hard to believe prank boy hadn't done that before.
How can Josh be an elemental if his mother is a psionic? I think a paternity test is in order.
How did we not notice how easy it was for kidnapper Burke to get through that high priced security system?
I don't believe Brennan’s favors for friends line, he was totally boosting cars at 10. (I suspect with his background, trouble found him...)
Jesse says Brennan’s labwork’s still a little sloppy. Perhaps this is from lack of practice? The only time I can remember Brennan doing anything remotely resembling labwork is when Adam hands him a mortar and pestle in “Dark Star Rising.”
Adam apparently misses his “Adam Zero” days. When he and Emma go undercover as insurance agents, he calls himself “Zolo” and Emma, “DeNono.” LOL.
Why doesn’t Wendy Stone recognize Adam and Emma? It’s one thing when low-level staff members like Karen Bell or Dr. Richard Saunders don’t recognize Mutant X team members, but Wendy is an honest-to-goodness GSA field agent.
Why on Earth is Brennan bouncing that tennis ball? Argh.
In a leap of logic so amazing that you have to see it for yourselves, Brennan, Shalimar, and Jesse brainstorm until they translate a rain of pennies into an abandoned warehouse at Lincoln Salvage Company. Brennan first suggests that pennies might be a Josh’s idea of a lot of money. Obviously, he hasn’t seen the Valentine's mansion.
The MV has Mutant X license plates. Isn't that just a little conspicuous?
Brennan tells Jesse that if he’d electrocuted Berg while he was standing in a metal boat, they’d all be toast. The same logic doesn’t seem to apply when Brennan’s standing on metal catwalks while electrocuting Caleb Mathias in “Lazarus Syndrome,” Morgan’s GS agent in “A Breed Apart,” or Nick Maddox in “Within These Walls.”
Emma's meditating in a darkened Sanctuary, so why is Adam making all that noise, playing on the computers?
Is it just me or is the room where Lisa Valentine wakes up after Corbin slips her the sleeping pill a new set?
Aside from being cool and dramatic, there really isn't a good reason for Brennan to knock the door down when he and Jesse are rescuing Josh. Besides the fact that the commotion would alert even the most inattentive GS agents to their presence, they don't know exactly where Josh is located in the room. Had he been strapped to a chair that was closer to the door, the poor kid would have been smashed flat.
Good Josh, hit the gun, not the person. Someone taught you well.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 4 Food intake: 1 piece of pizza (Jesse), 1 water (Brennan)
Return to The Mutant X Warehouse