"Tiger, Tiger" is an episode of JAG that first aired on March 24, 1998. Directed by Tony Wharmby. Written by Thom Parham.
Lt. Commander Rabb and Lt. Roberts take Josh Pendry (Will Rothhaar) on a "tiger cruise" aboard the USS Stockdale. On watch, Josh spots a lifeboat. The Stockdale rescues the Cuban refugees aboard the lifeboat, including a pregnant woman, Rosalita (Michelle C Bonilla).
However, the refugees turn out to be Cuban dissidents, the pregnant woman's belly is in fact a pouch containing a gun and explosives, and the woman's brother turns out to be Miguel Cortez (Victor Rivers), leader of the dissidents.
Miguel commandeers the ship and Rosalita holds most of the children hostage, except Erin (Troian Bellisario), daughter of the ship's XO, used as leverage by Miguel to get the launch key from Commander Terry (Kirsten Holmquist), and Josh, who snuck off into a Seahawk helicopter.
The dissidents destroy the ship's Comm Center and the Small Arms Locker. Rabb finds Josh in the hangar and tries to make a cell phone call, to no avail. Josh grabs the helo's antenna and climbs up to the roof with it but almost falls off when Rabb comes back in the hangar, having earlier vetoed the idea of Josh taking the antenna beyond the hangar's steel bulkheads.
Now Rabb helps Josh reach the hatch. Josh secures the antenna on the outside and soon the Secretary of the Navy (Paul Collins) is apprised of the situation. SecNav sends F-14s to shoot down any missiles launched by the Stockdale, and a SEAL team to insert on the ship.
Miguel discovers Rabb and forces him to confess that he was able to communicate outside the ship. Then Rabb convinces Miguel to abandon his plan to assassinate Fidel Castro, but Rosalita won't release the hostages. Rabb shoots Rosalita in the forehead. Roberts reassures Rabb that was the only way he could have saved the children's lives.
Back safely at JAG HQ, Josh is reunited with his mother, Annie (Daphne Ashbrook), who then dumps Rabb. Roberts asks Rabb to be Best Man at his wedding, having just recently proposed to Harriet over the phone.
Tropes
- Assassination Attempt: against Fidel Castro.
- Bilingual Bonus: The line "Fifty minutes later, está libre nuestra Cuba" is not subtitled, but most viewers will get the general meaning even if they don't know Spanish: the dissidents intend to use the USS Stockdale to assassinate Castro, and so they will be hailed as liberators (presumably they have accomplices on the island ready to act once Castro dies). However, the viewers who do know Spanish will feel the word choice is not quite right. The verb word should probably be "será", meaning "will be", rather than "está", meaning it currently is, which it is not.
- Cigar Chomper: Rabb at the beginning of the episode, Cortez before he kills the captain and as he takes the XO's daughter to deliver the key to launch the harpoons.
- Hollywood Silencer: The Cuban dissidents have guns with silencers that make a "fwip" sound when shooting.
- Noodle Incident: Chegwidden puts Mac on the phone to the USS Stockdale and tells her to pretend to be a woman calling her boyfriend. So Mac pretends to be Sherri calling Tony. Apparently they're based on actual people Mac knows, so after the call ends, Chegwidden asks who Sherri and Tony are. Mac essentially replies he doesn't want to know.
- Pillow Pregnancy: Rosalita appears pregnant but is in fact carrying a pillow with guns inside it.
- Shout-Out:
- To Titanic (1997): Early on in the episode, Josh reports an iceberg "off the port bow." Rabb explains that he and Annie "took Josh to see Titanic last night before we sailed."
- To Under Siege: Josh mentions that a character in that movie got a call out to the Pentagon from a lifeboat.
- This Is Reality: After Josh suggests something he saw in a movie, Rabb says that unfortunately this is not a movie, and points out the various difficulties they have to overcome in order to get a message out. They're in a helicopter in the ship's hangar. The helicopter has a radio, but the signal can't go out the ship's bulkheads. The lifeboats also have radios, but they're very short range.
