"The Prisoner" is an episode of JAG that first aired on May 8, 1996. Directed by Michael Zinberg. Written by Evan Katz.
Lt. Commander Harmon Rabb, Jr. goes sailing in Hong Kong, he's there to meet his supposedly real girlfriend, Maria Elena. But he's kidnapped by the Chinese, who think he knows what the Americans would do if China tries to take the Matsu islands.
Under the direction of Colonel Yang Chee (Aki Aleong), Captain Lishi (Page Leong) interrogates Rabb, and suggests she might be able to tell him what happened to his MIA father. Rabb is placed in a cell and talks to a guy in the next cell. That other prisoner claims to be Harmon Rabb, Sr. (voice of Richard Crenna, uncredited). It could just be a trick by the Chinese. But he seems to know a lot of things the Chinese would not know...
Rabb Jr. goes into a coma for almost a month. However, when he comes out of it, a minor injury he suffered before the coma should have healed by now. It's just another lie to get him to reveal what he knows about American strategy in the region.
Lt. j.g. Austin finds Rabb's boat has gray paint stains, which she asserts is proof that his boat was rammed by a Chinese military vessel. Commander Krennick (Andrea Thompson) goes to Assistant Secretary Bair (Steven Anderson, from "Smoked") for help, but he's unwilling, until she threatens to tell his wife about an affair that has never actually happened.
With a little help from Inspector Chang (Tzi Ma), Krennick and Austin eventually succeed in breaking Rabb out.
Tropes
- Ambiguous Ending: Was Rabb Jr. really imprisoned in a cell next to his father? Or was that just a hallucination from the truth serum? At the end of the episode, Rabb is inclined to believe the latter, except that a Chinese colonel says something that lends credence to the former. Colonel Han was Colonel Chee's predecessor. Chee took command ten years ago. So how could Rabb have known about Han if Lishi didn't mention him? Or maybe she did mention him at some point? Rabb can't be sure now.
- Bilingual Bonus: There are a few lines of Chinese that are not translated, though it seems to be limited to lines for which the viewers just need to get the gist of it, or the lines are not relevant to the plot.
- Driving Question: What happened to Harmon Rabb, Sr.? He was shot down over Vietnam on Christmas 1969, when his son was barely 6-years-old. While this episode fills out the backstory, it raises more questions than it answers. Rabb Jr.'s search for the truth about his father will drive him for four more seasons.
- Hearing Voices / Cuckoo Nest: Rabb in the Chinese military prison, talking to his father. However, we see on the surveillance cameras that he's talking to no one. Maybe the drugs made Rabb suggestible. Since the interrogator mentioned Rabb's father, it seems plausible that Rabb would imagine him.
- Overly Long Name: Maria Elena Carmelita Moreno Gutierrez. She's real, both Krennick and Keeter have seen her. Rabb Jr. could just as easily refer to her as just "Maria Elena," or, as Lishi suggests, just "Maria," but he insists on saying the whole long name.
- Prison Episode: A lot of the episode takes place in a Chinese prison.
- Sexual Extortion: Krennick is not having an affair with the Assistant Secretary of State, but she threatens to tell his wife that they are in an affair in order to get him to cooperate with efforts to bring Rabb back.
- Translation Convention: Chee and Lishi have a few conversations in English, just the two of them, even though realistically they would speak in Chinese, because there isn't a need or want for English-only speakers to understand what they're saying. But the viewers need to understand most of what they say to each other.
