Bionic Woman

When we first met Becca, Jaime’s little sister, she was supposed to be a paranoid girl with few (if any friends). She was originally written as a “socially isolated” computer hacker who grew up going to protests and had no tolerance for the traditional structures of society. In the first episode we learned that there was a court order preventing Becca from using a computer, and she and Jaime seemed locked in a cross purposes pattern of angry fighting that seemed unbreakable.

With each episode, however, we see Becca morphing away from that type of character and more towards the stereotypical cute and confused teenager. She’s obsessed with over priced jeans and show tunes, participates in the theater at her school, and has more than a passing familiarity with alcohol. While we have never seen her friends, we know they exist because she was caught smoking pot with them at school. And as of last week we learned she has enough transformed from being a socially isolated computer hacker to having the social cravings to pick up random guys and engage in heavy petting (leading towards casual sex?) in the back of cars in alleys.

If all of that is not confusing enough, Becca inexplicably has her computer back as well and seems to use it regularly and in front of Jaime without Jaime having comment or concern. Perhaps that is because the New Becca rarely speaks of protest groups or hacking urges, she seems less likely to use her supposedly superior computer skills to snoop than to make slide shows of family photographs or pimp her MySpace page.

The constantly shifting portrait of Becca is becoming a detriment to the show. Becca is supposedly designed to be Jaime’s connection to the real world, a contrast to her dark and shadowy days at the Burket Group and her surreal life as a Bionic Woman. The show clearly envisions the emotional ties between the sisters to be one of the emotional points of the show, and it has worked amazingly well considering how little we really know about Becca.

But this will be become less effective as each episode passes and Becca’s character becomes more strained. How much can the audience care about a character we know so little about? And if the tether that keeps Jaime tied to the real world is untied, how grounded can Jaime really be?

It is frustrating because the character of Becca has a lot of potential. We have speculated before that Becca’s gifted computer skills could be a huge asset for Jaime in the future, and talked about how Jaime’s entire characterization depends on her having this familial connection.

Much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jaime depends on her personal relationships to keep her focused on what is important. And much like Buffy’s frenemy Faith, it is Sarah Corvus’ lack of relationships that leaves her lost in the confusing whirlwind of her rapidly ending life. Becca could be the grounding point for Jaime, but not if the Bionic Woman writers continue to take her down the path of Dawn, the whining brat of a sister that Buffy was suddenly saddled with in Season Five. It took Dawn exhibiting some admirable traits of her own for Buffy fans to care about her, and it is going to take some consistency and some competence for Bionic Woman fans to really care about Becca and her relationship with Jaime Sommers.

Jaime Sommers, Lucy Hale, Becca Sommers, Bionic Woman, sister, hacker, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Faith, Dawn

Becca Sommers is Jamie’s troubled little sister, a computer hacker who the pilot reveals has a court order against her forbidding her access to computers. According to the NBC website, Becca was much closer to her parents than Jamie because she was born during the Mount Pleasant riots in D.C. and her parents took that as a sign of her revolutionary future. So they took Becca around the country with them to various protests, while Jamie was left alone at home.

Becca’s nomadic lifestyle during her formative years forged her love for junk food, changing places, and laptop computers. It also caused her to have trouble relating to kids her own age, because she really had no experience with them until she went to school at age six. The first time she got caught hacking was in the fourth grade when she was caught in the school’s mainframe, then a couple years ago she was caught hacking into a government site and prohibited from using the web at all.

Becca’s bio also talks about her uncanny ability to tell when someone (especially Jamie) is lying to her, her attraction to protest groups and social anarchists, and her general isolation from kids her own age.

It should be interesting to see how the character of Becca develops over the course of the series. The writers clearly have a plan for the character, and I hope that it is sooner rather than later that Jamie and Becca begin to work together — rather than against — one another. But given the description of Becca’s character that hope may be in vain.

Bionic Woman, Lucy Hale, Jamie Sommers, Becca Sommers, hacker, anarchist