Jaunted

The chronology of this episode was a bit tough to follow but the themes, quite clear. Kate struggles with keeping her career and relationships separate, Laura wrestles with 1960s racism and a brief interlude with Colette hints at her desire to entire the man's world of becoming a pilot. The only thing we hear from Maggie (Christina Ricci) this episode is that she sure can throw a house party, and she's renewing her flirtation with Michael, the Village Voice reporter.

BOOM—at Madrid-Barrajas Airport, the girls are throwing a pseudo-sleepover in the middle of the aisle, onboard their empty plane. Champagne! Truth or dare! Giggling! Laura reveals that the photographer from LIFE Magazine of last episode has taken nude photographs of her (with her permission), but she didn't sleep with him as "he wasn't the right guy for sex; he was the right guy for nude photos." Who wants to bet the nude photos will resurface and cause a scandal? The jury's out on whether or not she has the negatives...

Onboard this special sailors-only flight is Joe, an African-American serviceman who quickly develops a romance with Laura after they bond over a common desire to rip up their domestic roots and go see the world, against the wills of their respective disapproving mothers. Despite her natural attraction, Laura first gives in to the racial MORES of the time, locking her bedroom door while Joe sleeps on the couch after Maggie's party, and politely getting him to leave the apartment with her after the landlord disapproves.

After a racially charged fight in Grand Central Station incited by Laura and Joe holding hands, the pair grows closer and Joe admits that Laura is his spot of color in a gray world, far from his gray submarine and the gray ocean "trying to crush you like a tin can." Referring to her statement on the LIFE photographer from earlier, Laura says to Joe "you're the guy" (to have sex with) and they get it on.

Meanwhile Kate is having serious relationship issues with her Yugoslavian boy toy Nico, whom the CIA would like to turn into a double-agent. With his return to Yugoslavia looming, Kate calls up her CIA boys and informs them of Nico's plans. This causes the CIA to burst in on them in the middle of the night and kidnap Nico. He is taken to an insurance company in Crown Heights, Brooklyn—a front for a CIA operations building—where he must decide to either become a double-agent or have a taped recording of his personal beliefs turned into the Yugoslavian secret police. Kate is eventually invited to help convince him to work with them (the CIA). Nico retorts, "This is not 'working with;' this is a death sentence."

Meanwhile, in a flashback to the sailor flight from Madrid, Kate is asked by a serviceman to give them all a stewardess striptease. She challenges the sailor to do it, and he does, though not before asking her "you're not a dirty Communist lover, are you?" The irony is that, in fact, she is as she loves Nico, a Communist!

The episode ends with the departure of Nico back to Yugoslavia as a double-agent, and the tense and emotional goodbyes between Kate and him at the Pan Am terminal before he boards Pan Am 22 to London and she begins her round-the-world flight. Kate admits to her sister: "my boyfriend's a Yugoslavian Communist," and Lauras reassures her that nothing else matter but the love she has for him. "Just smile through it."

Before the episode closes we also get a cute little update on French poodle Colette. While the sailor stripper is doing his thing back in the cabin and the first and radio officer head out of the cockpit to see, Dean invites Colette to sit and take the wheel, helping to fly the plane. She is beyond thrilled, and the spark between them flares up yet again. Foreshadowing! Earlier in the episode, one of the girls had said that the only other flight attendant to have taken the wheel ended up marrying her captain not long after.

Next week: hurricanes and more drama in the cockpit!

[Photos: ABC]