The Sentinel: An Inconsistently Detailed and Heavily Blair-Centric Episode Guide for Season 1

The Sentinel is a crappy mid-90s cop show about which I have recently become affectionate after watching the ten episodes of season 1. I should warn you right now that I paid almost zero attention to the actual plots of the episodes (don't worry, they made no sense anyway) and zeroed in with laser-like focus on the scant character development and peaceful scenes of domesticity and camaraderie. Enjoy!

The Switchman

We open in the jungles of Peru, where some army guys are ambushed by a bunch of natives with poison darts who for some reason are really scary to the guys armed with P90s. The natives bring out one of their warriors--it's Jim Ellison, MIA commando!
            Flash to five years later. Jim is a detective for the police department of Cascade, Washington. His boss, Simon Banks, shows excellent bossing skills by explaining vaguely that Jim is off staking something out or something and he'll be back when he feels like it. Because he's a loose cannon, and plays by his own rules, and, for some reason, still has a job!
            Jim is leading a raid on someplace when he begins to smell gas and hear ticking which nobody else hears--and it's a good thing, since he manages to get everyone out just before the place explodes.
            Jim goes to the hospital to get himself checked out. Only one doctor is at all interested in his super senses story, a squirrelly long-haired hippie type who looks and approximately acts like the love child of Noel from Felicity and Mr. Turner, the cool teacher from Boy Meets World, only short and with every other word in his speech being "man." He is hyper excited about Jim's problem. He gives Jim a card for one Blair Sandburg, an anthropologist at Rainier University, and disappears. A moment later Jim's real doctor enters missing his badge, and Jim figures out the little bouncy doctor wasn't a doctor at all--and is, as Jim confirms by following up on the card, Blair Sandburg himself.
            Blair is just as insane as ever in the safety of his cluttered office and he tells Jim the ridiculous overgeneralization that will become the opening monologue of the show: "In all tribal cultures, every village had a sentinel. Now, a Sentinel..." is someone with heightened sensory abilities. Blair wants to study Jim for his thesis. In exchange, he will be Jim's "guide": he'll tag along and help him learn to use his senses and generally be a sidekick.
            Jim isn't exactly sold, but he and Blair go out to some campus marketplace or something where Blair tries to get him to practice and test his powers. Some girls hit on Blair and then walk away. Blair asks Jim to eavesdrop on them using his super hearing; Jim does and he hears one girl say she'd like to go out with Blair if only he'd ever ask her out. Jim spitefully tells Blair she doesn't like him.
            Suddenly Jim starts focusing on something across the street and he wanders out into the path of an oncoming truck. Blair jumps onto him, flattening them both on the road so that the truck actually goes right over them (right), saving his life. Blair explains about the "zone-out factor," how Sentinels sometimes focus in on one sense ignoring all others, which is probably why it would be a pretty good idea to have a guide after all.
            Oh, and there is some stuff with this woman who works at the police office and is Jim's ex-wife. They go on a date. Jim's poor tongue is too weak for the spicy food. They kiss in the rain. She is never important again.
            I think, after that, there is some sort of adventure? I don't really remember but I have a sneaking suspicion it involves Jim hanging off the runners of a helicopter for a really long time which has nothing to do with his actual superpowers and everything to do with the sheer awesome power of his manliness.
            In the end, Jim pulls aside his co-star for the soon-to-be-traditional show-ending 30 Seconds With Blair(TM), and they have a conversation where they use the word "partners" about a dozen times.

The Seige

Since Jim and Blair have pinky-sworn never to be parted, Jim asks his boss if Blair can tag along with him on his police missions, as an observer. He claims that Blair is studying police-related stuff and that furthermore he is family and Jim needs to do him this favor. The boss puts on a brief show of objecting but soon enough he's just like "whatever," possibly because Jim was fired years ago and he's just been humoring him ever since.
            Jim goes out to lunch while Blair is filling out paperwork (this show is exciting already!!!) Simon also wandered off somewhere, to the chagrin of his son, Daryl, who has come to his dad's workplace to hang out and play video games and be bitter about his parents' divorce.
            While Jim and Simon are out, some bad guys gain control of the police radio and send a million units out to some godforsaken place, then take over the police station for reasons I don't remember but which were undoubtedly stupid. Everyone is herded into one room to be hostages except for Blair, who was peeing, and who in an adorably nervous and hand-wringing fashion takes out two or three of the terrorists with things like stall doors and vending machines.
            Jim and Simon come back in time to see the terrorists dangling Daryl out the window and figure out what's going on. Jim sneaks inside using his Sentinel senses and stealth and manliness, eventually saving the day or whatever.
            Simon notices Jim acting weird and using his senses, but he wisely doesn't bring it up until after the danger is over, at which point he demands to know what is going on. Jim tells him, and he's just kind of like "Oh. Okay." Jim wanders over for his 30SwB(TM), where they continue to act like little boys with a big secret.
            BLAIR: Did you tell him? Did he freak?
            JIM (touching Blair's face with both hands): I think we're gonna be okay.

Killers

Jim is involved with some gang warfare. The world's most fake black people argue about ostensible success vs. "forgetting where you came from." There's a part where Blair has to protect a gang member's grandmother by posing as a social worker (which involves wearing a tweed suit and his "take me seriously" reading glasses and putting his hair in a ponytail and carrying a briefcase), and he gets all the people who live in the housing development to band together against the gangs. Because all the black people needed was for a dorky white guy to come in and teach them about neighborliness. Sigh.

The Debt

Jim is hanging out watching TV at Blair's place, which is a large warehouse. It's a shitty place to live but he likes to square footage. Jim is unnerved by Blair's monkey (Blair is conducting a study of the effect of TV violence on a particular monkey. Well, he says he's studying the effect of TV violence on monkeys, but he has a sample of one, so.) Suddenly Jim's Sentinel senses tingle, and he gets Blair out just as the building explodes (because that's what happens in this show). It turns out the place next door was a meth lab or something. Blair and his monkey need a place to stay. Blair begs Jim to come stay at his place, which he believes is the only way he'll be assured of getting his monkey's TV access back quickly and relatively uninterruptedly; Blair promises it will only be for one week. Jim's curmudgeonliness gives way and he finally reluctantly agrees, but only for one week!
            I don't remember much else about this episode but although Blair's monkey is gone by next episode, Blair himself never, ever moves out.

Cypher

Jim and Blair investigate a crime scene--this time, it's a serial killer's handiwork. Blair is so disturbed by the site of the body that he can hardly make out with his girlfriend of the week that night; after Jim shows up, the girl freaks and leaves, Blair ends up lonely and pantsless on Jim's couch.
            At the police department the next day, Blair bonds with Dr. Bates, the psychiatrist who's been called in as a specialist on the case. They talk about serial killers--ritualistic, probably abuse victims, may leave a calling card (in this case, a yellow scarf), may do weird shit for the thrill of taunting their victims, blah blah, the usual. Jim uses his super senses to compare the voice on the victim's answering machine with the voice on the 911 call she supposedly made and concludes that they're different and therefore the killer made the call and therefore the killer is a woman. Since serial killers like taunting their victims (did you know?), there's a chance the killer might go to the funeral, so Jim and Blair go. Jim spots a woman wearing a yellow scarf but Blair, not realizing this, tips the killer--and a bunch of reporters--off by pointing her out with elaborate gestures. Jim follows the killer to a bridge where she jumps off, a ridiculous means of escape which turns out not to be fatal and will not be mentioned again in the episode.
            Not only is Blair in the doghouse for enabling the reporters to tape the killer, but the cops suspect him of leaking information about the case to the media. Jim sticks up for Blair but Blair still decides he needs to prove himself by doing a little investigating on his own of the killer's drug dealer, who hangs out a rock'n'roll club Blair knows. Blair takes his girlfriend and explains what he's doing so everyone in the audience knows for good and sure that she is the leak.
            The cops subpoena the reporters' tapes of the escaping killer; Jim uses his super sight to identify the heavily veiled killer as a man in drag. After another killing and an eyewitness report, Blair excitedly tells the investigators his theory that the killer assumes the identity of his victims. The psychiatrist thinks that's brilliant and helps them figure out the killer's identity--some guy who was in an insane asylum.
            Jim and Blair interview the killer's dad. He tells stories about how the killer killed and assumed the identity of his baby brother. Also, he was an abuse victim. Blair gets a Faraway Look of Compassion.
            The cops get the killer's records faxed over from the asylum. They are signed by Dr. Bates! "Why didn't he tell us he was the killer's psychiatrist?" Jim wonders. Then everyone sort of realizes at once that the psychiatrist IS the killer--or rather, the killer has assumed his identity. It's actually kind of cool, because I didn't figure it out until they did.
            Sure enough, Dr. Bates has disappeared. He was the killer--and the leak. That night on campus, Blair tells his girlfriend all about it, apologizing for thinking she was the leak. She's upset that he doesn't trust her and leaves. Blair glances at a window and catches sight of--himself, lurking in the bushes. When he turns there's nobody there.
            Back from commercial, we've cut to the chase: the killer has of course assumed Blair's identity and is dressed like him, using his mannerisms (saying "man" a lot, kind of being a valley girl), and holding him hostage in a warehouse somewhere. Blair is gagged and the killer is creepy and touches his face and threatens him and calls him "Hairy Blairy." It's not clear whether that's a reference to the long bounteous curls emanating from his head or his body hair, which, as we have had occasion to observe earlier in this very episode, is ample.
            When Jim realizes Blair is missing he steps up his efforts to try to identify the location of the killer's killing location (WHAT A GREAT SENTENCE) using the taste of the water found in the victim's lungs or something gross like that.
            Blair is ungagged and yelling at the killer about killing his brother, because that's what you do in his situation on TV, and the killer is shaking his head in "Does Not Compute" fashion and yelling at him to shut up, because that's what you do in his situation on TV. Jim takes this opportunity to burst in all heroic-like. He fights the killer. The killer ends up falling from something and dying or something.
            Back at the police station, everyone watches a news report about Jim's daring rescue of "a police observer." Blair is shaken but okay, and Jim hovers protectively.

Night Train

Poor Jim has a cold. He may reject Blair's offer of an all-natural native remedy, but he's too strong and manly to reject a top secret mission for which it's somehow not okay to tell Blair what's going on but is okay to bring him along. They're supposed to pick up some cargo on a train. Once they get there, Jim tells Blair they're picking up a man, a crooked accountant who's sold out his consorts in exchange for a plea bargain and witness protection. Why they didn't just drive him, I don't know. I'm pretty sure "But that wouldn't allow for wacky train hijinks!" would be the writers' answer but not, hopefully, Cascade PD's.
            Jim goes to scope out the rest of the train, leaving Blair to watch the criminal (who for some reason Jim has handcuffed to Blair, claiming it's "protocol." I submit that it is not protocol to handcuff criminals to Blair.) and his hot lawyer, whom Blair fancies. Once out of Blair's sight, Jim proceeds to order non-drowsy NyQuil.
            Lawyer girl comes to join Jim, put off by Blair's leering. She flirts. Jim is too distracted to pay much attention because his senses have gone haywire! His vision is blurred, he's sensitive to light, everything sounds loud and intense. He tries to get some respite in a bathroom and has to play it cool when Simon calls to tell him they've got word that the criminal's enemies are on the train and Jim should be prepared for a fight.
            Jim stumbles back to the home car where he pulls Blair away from his game of Go with the criminal (they're playing with pennies; how do they tell whose pieces are whose, heads and tails?) to confide in him about his senses and confess he took the NyQuil. Blair is too scientifically intrigued to be mad but he doesn't have any brilliant ideas; he thinks Jim will just have to wait it out.
            The bad guys are coming! Jim entrusts Blair with the safety of the criminal and lawyer in the home car, giving him his gun and telling him to shoot anyone who comes in who isn't Jim. Meanwhile Jim goes out to try to hand-to-hand with the bad guys. His wacky senses mess him up and he ends up zoning out on the light and getting thrown out the window. Inside the home car, Blair panics as he hears the bad guys approach: "I'm actually gonna have to shoot somebody!"
            The bad guys enter and immediately disarm Blair. They help the criminal escape. It turns out they're on his side! The lawyer is all "Noooooo but our plea bargain!" but the criminal just doesn't care. He cuffs Blair and the lawyer to the chair and goes off with his henchman to hijack the train.
            Meanwhile Jim is hanging on to the side of the train using the power of his manly might. He'd like to climb back in but he's paralyzed with sensory overload. He flashbacks to a happier time:
            Blair has built a contraption which produces revolving flashy lights designed to put Jim's vision on overload so he can learn to tune out overstimulation and focus on his other senses. Blair tells Jim to put his chin in the chin-hold-thing. Jim does, briefly, but then moves away: "I don't like it," he whines. Blair's like, fine, you're the one who wants to learn to control his senses. Jim finally relents and puts his head in. Blair murmurs advice in his ear, like "Focus" and "ignore the light" or something.
            Back in the present, Jim listens to Blair's murmurs and drags himself along the train.
            Back inside the train, Blair and the lawyer have sexual tensiony hijinks trying to stretch into the proper position to get Blair's backpack out of the luggage rack so they can use his Swiss Army knife to pick the lock on their handcuffs. Blair tries to make a move and gets shot down cause he's overzealous.
            The night passes in this way. (I guess. Next thing I know we're cutting to morning.) The next day there is a big fight between Jim and the bad guys and there are police people. Plot things happen.
            Meanwhile, Simon spends the entire episode about to smoke a cigar and sign his divorce papers, but he keeps getting interrupted. Finally, back at the police department, he makes Blair bend over and signs them against his back.
            Also at the PD, the lawyer lady hits on Jim briefly before noting that Blair is smart and saying something like "if only you two were one man you'd be perfect." Which is odd since it just seemed like she liked Jim and not Blair. Jim and Blair shrug at each other.

Rogue

In Jim'n'Blair's Sensation & Perception Lab o' Fun (aka their apartment), Blair aims to test Jim's sense of taste by blindfolding him and having him identify the miniscule amounts of some substance in a glass of water (if the amounts are so miniscule, what's the blindfold for?) The phone rings, and Blair goes to answer it while Jim stays behind and easily identifies "salt...sugar...vanilla extract...EUUGHH!" Oh, no, that cup wasn't part of the experiment--he drank the bad milk!!!
            That was some professor on the phone. Blair's agreed to lead a class as a favor and he begs Jim to come speak to them about his time in Peru. So, instead of their regularly scheduled lecture, the kids in the class get to see Blair stall for about thirty or forty minutes while Jim is held up at the station followed by a brief stage-whispered spat re: Jim's lateness followed about about two words of Jim's talk before there's an explosion.
            After Jim gets everyone out safely, taking special care to make sure Blair is okay, the police investigate and find that the explosion was just a diversion so that the perpetrator could steal the Ebola virus, which happened to be lying around at the university. (When asked "Why was the Ebola virus at Rainier?" the only answer the university employee who had been guarding the biolab gave was "It was going back tomorrow!" So... that's okay, then.) It turns out the villain is a rogue CIA agent (the actor wants to be one of those shining-smiled handsome devilish guys so hard he almost pulls it off; no doubt the following conversation took place:
            CASTING AGENT: You're playing a rogue CI--
            ACTOR (overlapping): A rogue?? Finally, the part I was born to play!
            CASTING AGENT: A rogue CIA agent.
            ACTOR (dreamily): With a heart of gold.)
            Rogue Guy knows about the Sentinel thing and threatens to blackmail the boys--as well as, you know, release the Ebola virus--unless they help him break into somewheres: Jim using his super senses, Blair using his super ability to tell Jim to use his super senses. After some stalling and discussion with the police they agree to help, which ends up involving ridiculous puzzles. First, they have to figure out where to step on a minefield (Jim accomplishes this by listening to the mines buzzing or something to pick out the safe spots to step; Blair helps by tripping and falling into his arms). After they make it through, the rogue activates the whole minefield so nobody can follow them. (The fact that that's an option means the "puzzle version" of the minefield is completely worthless and I have no idea why that's the default setting.) Then they have to open a door with a combination lock. Blair tells Jim to use his sense of touch to "feel" when the tumblers are in place; as it turns out, a little light turns green whenever he gets one right, which means he (or anyone) could have used the sense of sight. I posit that this is poor safe design. After these two puzzles, we reach what the rogue was after: a jet. For some reason.
            Guards are coming. Blair runs back to warn them about the minefield (which he does by throwing his shoe, and I challenge you to think of a girlier thing he could have done). Jim stays to take down the jet with the pure power of testosterone. He claws open the hatch, hits the ejector and gets Rogue Guy into a scuffle, during which the detonator for the Ebola bomb is broken.
            Rogue and Jim run outside to join Blair, who is unsuccessfully trying to convince them that he isn't the villain. Jim succeeds where Blair failed through the power of yelling sternly. He and Rogue run to Rogue's car, where he's keeping the Ebola bomb lying around in his trunk, and there's a bonding moment where Jim and Rogue cooperate to diffuse the bomb, chanting the colors of the wires they're cutting in unison. ("One...two...three... blue!") Then Rogue is arrested or something, I don't know.

Love and Guns

After Blair helps Jim take down some heavily armed bad guys by spraying a fire hose at them (violating Jim's concern-based orders to "get your butt off the street"), Jim approaches him all gentle and "I know you might be feeling some shock right now" and touching his leg, but Blair is A-OK--in fact, he's super psyched to help Jim with more action and adventure, and he's disappointed when the next favor Jim asks is low-danger recon. Specifically, he wants him to spy on a Rainier student (Maya, the daughter of the suspected gun runner kingpin dude). Blair protests until he sees that said Maya is really hot.
            Blair then proceeds to conduct a romance with Maya which includes passionate kissing, meeting the people closest to each other (Maya meets "my friend, Jim"; Blair impresses Kingpin Dude with his knowledge of art) and fervent exchanges of "I love you." Blair and Maya's love is only rendered slightly less epic by the fact that the whole relationship appears to occur over the course of only one day. On the evening of that day, Maya prepares a romantic picnic dinner in Blair's office, during which Blair asks about what her daddy does, and after answering some of his questions, Maya tired of that line of conversation, and offers herself to him, shyly telling him that he'd be her first. Blair freaks out with guilt which appears to her to be a revulsion to virgins, and leaves.
            Meanwhile, Jim's been doing policey stuff related to the gun peoples. He has to work with a Fed (also a hot woman). He really dislikes her and, in a daring (for this show) rejection of the accepted TV schema, is not attracted to her.
            Kingpin finds Maya crying and she tells him that things didn't work out with Blair because he was spying on her. She asks her dad if he is doing anything illegal, and he says no, but his bodyguard--who threatens to take down Blair and indeed Maya herself should they get in the way--says "yes, yes"! Shortly thereafter, Blair goes to Maya's house to apologize and is duly taken hostage, gagged and threatened, as is his wont. Luckily, Jim shows up in time to save him, as is his wont; the dad is taken down, Fed lady gets shot in the arm, and Maya is left with her world turned upside down.
            The final two minutes find us for the first time all episode at Jim 'n' Blair's Apartment o' Domestic Bliss, where Jim, somewhat softened toward the Fed lady now that she's had her comeuppance and been injured, is making her Chinese food. Blair is moping in his room, which is decorated with what appear to be pink-maned horsies and Lego bricks. Maya comes by to tell Blair she's going back to Chile to find herself. Blair says he loves her, and she says "I love you too...and I hate you too." They embrace and part. Jim pokes his head in to say some inconsequential things about Chinese food. Blair, who is crying, says "Not now, Jim, okay?" and Jim nods understandingly and leaves.

Attraction

Jim and Blair are investigating a jewel theft. Jim gets a weird tingly feeling near the safe. Blair has him walk around to test the limits of the tingles, to the bemusement of the jewel-shop owners.
            Suddenly, we cut to a car where Marcus from Babylon 5 is talking on the phone! He still has a ridiculous English accent but unfortunately he is not constantly quoting from "A Christmas Carol" in this role.
            That night, Blair tries to help Jim pick up girls at a bar, but Jim's not into it, protesting that this really isn't his kind of thing--until a hot (ish) redhead walks in. Blair encourages Jim to go for it and he does; cut to a few hours later, and we see he's totally transformed into this unJimlike horndog, playing with her hair, kissing her, ignoring her hemming and hawing that maybe this isn't such a good idea.
            The next day Blair is all "whoo! you were out late!" until Jim reveals he just drove around aimlessly for awhile after Laura (the redhead's name is Laura) took off. After a little more gossip Blair's ready to get down to the business of making Jim sniff evidence. He doesn't feel tingly anymore.
            Another crime scene, another tingly feeling. Blair tells Jim to look for other hotspots besides the safe and he finds the point of entry, a skylight. The trail leads him across the street where a fancy-schmancy party is going on. A guy with a ridiculous English accent who is not Marcus (although Marcus is also at the party) protests that it's a private party and Jim and Blair can't just barge with their rough plebeian clothes and ways; he's only marginally cowed by Jim's badge. After Simon shows up to back them up, Jim spots Laura and, mesmerized, goes over to talk to her. Grinning, Blair makes Jim's apologies to Simon. Simon is a little miffed, but not TOO miffed, since, as stated, he is a terrible police chief.
            Various things happen at the party including Jim super-eavesdropping on Laura to find out that she and Marcus are ex-married, and the other police officers catching some watch thieves, but not the big diamond bust they were hoping for, and Blair walking in on Jim practically doing Laura in a coat closet. He's just like "Uh... hi!"
            Jim goes home with Laura. They make out. She starts to talk about how this isn't a good idea and when Jim asks why she just says "Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime." He does not follow up on this. Instead, they make out more and dry-hump on the bed but don't have sex unless those expansive black panties she's wearing are secretly crotchless.
            Marcus and Not!Marcus are English at each other for awhile.
            Back at Jim'n'Blair's Bachelor Pad, Blair is finally concerned about Jim's uncharacteristic interest in girls. He suspects that Jim's super senses make him super susceptible to Laura's pheromones. Furthermore, he thinks Jim's tingly feelings at the theft sites are because Laura is the thief, setting his thought process only about thirty minutes or so behind the audience's. Jim thinks that's dumb until Blair gives him a cup from which Jim gets the same tingly feeling. Blair reveals it was Laura's and he stole it off a tray after she set it down at the party last night. Jim is convinced.
            Jim and Blair go to try to find Laura. In the car they have an uncomfortable (for me) conversation about Feelings and The Meaning of Love, which is of course something Blair would talk about and I'm a little surprised that Jim seems to be getting just as into it.
            The meeting of minds is cut short when the boys spot a car. A woman's foot peeks out from inside the door and Marcus walks around, gets in, and... the car explodes!!!!
            Jim goes to Laura's apartment to look for clues or something, and, surprise surprise, she is there. The woman in the car was somebody else. She, Marcus and the other English guy are the thieves. She tries to use her sexy powers on Jim and he does indeed kiss her and lean into her crotch-first, but he also handcuffs her to the bedpost, and not in the sexy way. Then he captures the other English guy who was going to escape through tightrope walking because, oh yeah, all the robbers were circus performers.

Vow of Silence

Blair takes Jim on vacation, feeling that his partner needs to get away from it all for a day. His idea of a restful retreat is a monastery, which Jim isn't too thrilled about, especially when the abbot takes away his cell phone, Walkman, and gun (although, he really isn't even allowed to give the guy his gun, like, at all. So.) Despite the name of the episode, Jim and Blair don't have to be silent; in fact, only one of the monks is doing a vow of silence. In fact, the abbot makes Jim stumble through an awkward grace. Blair crosses himself extremely half-heartedly.
            Of course the vacation doesn't go as planned and soon enough one of the monks is murdered. (It's the one who was doing the vow of silence, thus rendering that plot point moot.) He died by tripping on a tripwire down the stairs of the belltower, begging the question "Why didn't he trip on his way in?"
            As the newcomers, Jim and Blair themselves are suspected, until another killing which occurs while they are locked in their room clears them (even though the guy who was killed died when he turned on a light bulb full of kerosene, which either Jim or Blair could have easily set up earlier. And even though Jim smelled the kerosene which led to him and Blair both suspiciously shouting "DON'T GO IN THERE" as the monk went to his doom).
            Jim and Blair huddle and scheme; Jim's idea is to ask for a volunteer to go into town, and whoever most wants to get away from the monastery is probably the killer. But all the monks raise their hands, because they stick together, are selfless, and also maybe don't want to be murdered? Jim sends one of the monks out anyway.
            Meanwhile he uses evidence in one of the victims' rooms to figure out that one of the monks is a former criminal and the abbot knows about it! They go to the abbot who denies it but the ex-criminal steps forward and reveals his identity, but swears he never killed his brother-monks. Instead, they all decide one of the newest arrivals must actually be a spy from an organization (the mob, maybe?) interested in killing the ex-criminal for revenge. But who???
            Oh, the guy who totally just admitted it. Okay. Bad Monk gets everyone trapped in the bell tower and demands to know the identity of the ex-criminal. The monks are all "I Am Spartacus."
            The bad monk decides to just kill everyone and, locking everyone together, goes down to surround the house with gasoline. Jim uses the monks' tied-together belts to climb down to the ground, beat up the bad monk, and catch the match just before it hits the gas. There's a chase sequence where the monks, escaped from the bell tower, the newly-arrived mob guys, Jim, and Blair run around the abbey, accompanied by Gregorian chants set to a techno beat. Blair saves Jim's life by distracting a bad guy and the abbot saves Blair's by knocking the guy out with a shovel. Finally the cavalry arrive, in the form of the police and ambulances rassled up by Walking Into Town Monk.
            The abbot frets about his act of violence. Jim says "I forgive you." Thanks, Jim. Ex-criminal guy is hurt, but alive. Blair is relieved. Jim pulls Blair aside (his go-to move!) and suggests that for their next vacation they go to Vegas. "Sin City?" Blair repeats, and then grins and agrees, undoubtedly thinking of the inevitable Elvis wedding that will finally make them partners for real.