Jaunted

Meanwhile, on this first flight to London, the pilots leave the cockpit door open and in saunters a sassy, sexy lady who's obviously curious, but also there with the explicit desire to seduce a pilot. Her name is Ginny, and she manages to catch the fancy of Dean before returning to her seat of her own volition: "I'll head back to my seat. These boys have a plane to fly." Yes, it's difficult to imagine a day when cockpits weren't Fort Knox, but their leaving the door just wide open as they did is a tad bit unbelievable.

As for the drama sisters Kate and Laura, each has her own dramatic storyline this episode. Laura (the runaway bridge) is resolute about returning the engagement ring to her former fiance, but—whoopsies—she pawned it in Harlem when she began her Pan Am career. Alas, whoopsies again as she returns to buy it back from the pawn shop (now with wads of cash) to discover it's already been sold. Kate is searching for something as well, but naturally it's for her next CIA assignment; she's got to obtain the fingerprints of a Soviet spy masquerading as the Italian girlfriend of a friend of that handsome passenger Lanza.

Enter another new face stage right! Boarding the plane to go from London to Monte Carlo, we have the arrival of a Pan Am Senior Vice President—whom we'll call PAA guy for now. He's awaiting his "assistant," who's running late for the flight. She boards, and—surprise—it's Ginny, who's obviously not this guy's employee...at least not for things like stenography.

The tension is on as Ginny managed to successfully seduce Dean in London, but now she's the mistress of one of his bosses at corporate. Even worse than this love triangle is the fact that Dean encourages Ted to use the knowledge of the mistress to potentially blackmail his way into becoming a PAA Captain. Foreshadowing!

Nico Lanza rejoins the plane for the flight to Monte Carlo and, since Kate worked her CIA magic to move his lustful eyes from Maggie to herself back in London, he's all flirty with Kate on this flight. At this point, we've lost interest in Laura's efforts (and Ted's, as he insists on tagging along) to locate her engagement ring. The Kate-Nico storyline is far more titillating.

Just one question: how'd they all end up in Monte Carlo, exactly? Monaco doesn't have an airport; it's got a heliport. They would have had to land their Boeing 707 in Nice, France and then take a fancy weekend down the Cote d'Azur in the tiny principality, which they apparently did for Dean to continue his dalliances with Ginny and Kate her seduction of Nico.

Seduction success all around as Kate not only gets the Soviet lady's fingerprints at the Casino (by spilling red wine on her white gloves and then offering a goblet of club soda to clean), but she also gets Lanza into bed. The CIA decides to add her to the payroll for a job well done, and it's hinted that the agency may want to recruit another character to spy.

The fresh characters of Ginny and Nico will absolutely return next week, as the previews tease further drama and—crazy as it seems—some involvement with Maggie possibly being fired from Pan Am.

Kate waits to rope Nico into a date at the casino

[Photos: ABC]