| The Pretender episode | |
| Crazy | |
| Season 3 | |
| Episode # | 3.01 |
| Airdate | October 17, 1998 |
| Writer(s) | Steven Long Mitchell, Lawrence Meyers and Craig W. Van Sickle |
| Director(s) | Fred K. Keller |
| Previous episode |
Bloodlines (Part 2) |
| Next episode |
Hope and Prey |
| All The Pretender episodes | |
Crazy is the first episode and season premiere of the third season of The Pretender which first aired October 17, 1998 on NBC in the United States. It features an appearance by recurring guest stars Jamie Denton as Mr. Lyle, Harve Presnell as Mr. Parker and also features Jon Gries as Broots.
Summary[]
In this premiere episode of Season Three, Jarod masquerades as a pyschotic person to get admitted to an asylum in order to help a patient named Mary who is trapped there because of what she knows about the murder of her friend, Erica. Jarod has an interesting time telling the whole truth about his life for the first time, to people he does not know, confident in the knowledge that it is so far-fetched they would not believe him. Jarod rescues Mary and has Dr. Randall (who committed the crime and locked Mary up) admitted to another mental institution as a deranged and suicidal patient.
Recap[]
Episode begins with Angelo’s nightmare of the blast. A disposal team goes through SL-27 remains to find any remnants. They find a hand.
Miss Parker, seemingly untouched by the blast, walks into her father’s office. Mr. Parker with his hands in bandages sits there and informs her of the body found in SL-27. She wants to know whether or not it is Sydney’s, but it is too soon to tell, they need more pieces.
As it turns out Parker wrote a report which informs the Centre that Sydney planted the bomb, but she tries to defend him, explaining that he did so out of a misdirected sense of guilt and compassion. Mr. Parker also tells her that the Triumvirate wants a different approach to the current strategy i.e. they insist on adding a new player. He plays a DSA of Jarod which is a survaillance feed showing him rampaging through Centre’s Record Lab. They seem to think that Jarod’s body survived the blast, but not his mind.
Jarod is brought to Pleasant Wood Psychiatric Institute using force and a straight jacket. He is humming the tune Cree Craw, Toad's Foot.
Back at the Centre, Broots with an arm brace on his left hand, tells Parker, that the body found was in fact Gar’s. They also see Mr. Raines, who is carried around via wheelchair and as it turns out, he has been mostly occupied in Renewal Wing. Parker goes to Renewal Wing, in order to find out if Raines has found himself a new playground since Sydney blew up his old one.
Jarod is introduced to his psychiatrist Dr. Carla Goetz and her colleague Dr. Randall Blythe as a John Doe, with no ID. He was brought in by the county medical personnel, who found him at Dairy Queen where he insisted that he was a rodeo clown. They introduce themselves and Jarod asks – Where are my mom and dad? After which the doctors ask Jarod to introduce himself. He says that his name is Jarod and when they ask about his last name, he replies – I don’t know. It changes every week.
Miss Parker is going through Renewal Wing, when she hears voices and hides in one of the rooms there. About to leave, she hears a question – Who’s there? – and thus finds Sydney, who has been locked up there for re-education. They talk and she eventually discovers that Sydney is blind due to the injuries from the explosion.
Jarod is asked by Dr. Goetz to speak of his past, so he does.
Jarod: I was stolen from my parents as a child and I was raised by a place called the Centre. Think hell, with nicer furniture. /---/ No windows. No doors. No light. No Hope. They take all that away. /---/ The ones that decided, what I ate, when I slept, who I saw. When I talked. They decided everything I did. /---/ They had eyes in every ceiling, every wall. They never blinked. They were always on me, every minute every hour every day of my life.
Dr. Goetz: Why'd they do this to you?
Jarod: To control me. I'm a pretender. I can become anyone I want to be. Except I don't know who I am. I've been a shrink before. It's really very over-rated. You don't believe me?
Miss Parker and Broots go through the Centre’s Record Lab to find out what Jarod was searching for. They find out that he worked there as a janitor and accessed two files – Major Charles and Catherine Parker. Also they find a load of books in his locker about the troubled mind and one about Houdini.
Jarod continues: “Miss Parker's mother was murdered by the Centre. And her father, Mr Duplicity himself, he runs the place. Then there's Mr. Raines the Centre's answer to Dr Mengele, an emphysema-ridden corpse who drags around his breath of life in a tank. The thumbless man. Mr Lyle. He killed my brother. He killed me once too. And of course, Sydney. Pavlov to my dog, provider, protector, patriarch. He created me. You see I'm extremely valuable to The Centre. And while I search for who I am.... they search for me.“
Parker, Sydney and Broots go over his things again, finding out that he was self-medicating. Jarod at the same time uses the tricks he learnt from the Houdini book and escapes to another room in the same asylum, revealing his true plan. To set straight a strange case concerning two women who escaped the asylum. One of them was brought back and the other is still missing. He meets with the woman, Mary, held in the asylum, heavily drugged, but still coherent enough to understand when Jarod tells her not to take any more of the medication she is given.
Parker still wonders about the identity of her twin and talks to Angelo when Broots storms in saying “He is here!” and before he can explain Mr. Lyle walks in. He is here to help them catch Jarod again.
Jarod uses the alone time in Dr. Carla’s office to find and duplicate information concerning Mary. She gave him a sketch block for drawing. Mary has gotten clearer and tells Jarod that Erica, the missing patient, got pregnant from Dr. Randall Blythe and when he found out, he wanted to get rid of the baby, so Mary encouraged Erica to escape. They ran to the lake, but Randall came there and Erica went to speak with him. He knocked her unconscious and put her in his car, rolling the car into the water, and drowning her. Mary who was hiding saw everything but was then discovered by Dr. Randall but as the orderly arrived he could not kill her as well, so he brought her back and had kept her drugged since then.
Parker and Lyle share a heart-to-heart conversation that ends with Lyle cutting his finger accidentally and leaving Parker holding his bloody paper-tissue. She smirks and places the tissue into a plastic bag, in order to get it analyzed.
Jarod investigates the facts given to him. He finds the car and the body in the bottom of the lake. He makes sure that the car belongs to Dr. Blythe who still pays insurance for it and concocts a plan.
Sydney is still at the Renewal Wing and Raines is insinuating that he might never get out. After he leaves a “friend” steps in and offers a deal. The friend being Mr. Lyle. Miss Parker finds out that it was actually Mr. Parker who brought Mr. Lyle back to the Centre pulling strings "from Europe to Asia" to make it happen. Parker takes blood samples from herself and from Angelo as well, ordering Broots to have them analyzed. Later she discovers that
The dual opposition.
Lyle and Sydney are working together now. As it turns out the Trimvirate believed Lyle’s version of the explosion, that Gar was in fact the one to blame not Sydney as Miss Parker’s report clearly stated, so Sydney got out from Renewal Wing. Parker, although clearly disturbed by the turn of events, is willing to work with Lyle in order to capture Jarod. They figure out that he might be a mental patient somewhere.
Jarod goes ahead with his plan. He calls Dr. Blythe as a police officer to notify him that his car has been found. When Randall comes, Jarod forces him into the car and pushes it towards the lake, getting his confession. Afterwards he pretends to be a psychiatrist in another mental institute and he takes Randall in as a deranged and suicidal patient.
Broots in the meantime has found Jarod or John Doe as a patient in a mental institute. Parker and Lyle head out
there but Jarod is long gone by then. Dr. Carla finds the sketch book under Jarod’s pillow, opens it and sees drawings of the Centre, Miss Parker and Lyle.
Parker finds out that her brother is Mr. Lyle and informs her father of it.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
Guest Stars[]
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Co-Starring[]
- Andy Unberger as Fisk
- Christopher Carroll as Medical Professional
- Richard Ruyle as Worker #1
- JF Davis as Worker #2
- Ron Roggé as Orderly
Uncredited[]
- Don McManus as Dr. Randall Blythe
Pretend[]
- Janitor in The Centre's Record Lab
- Unknown mental patient at Pleasant Wood Psychiatric Institute.
- Police officer
- Psychiatrist
Quotes[]
| Lyle: | Tell me Parker. Exactly what are you willing to sacrifice? |
| Miss Parker: | Well my mother sacrificed more than her thumb. And I am willing to give just as much as she did. |