Bullets and Bikinis s3ep1

co-starring: Vincent Bagetta as Joey Epic, Jeana Tomasino as Denise, Betsy Russell as Tina, Ben Piazza as Councilman Prescott, Kimberly Ross as Sandy, Tony Giorgio as Mr Carlin
Written by Mark Jones
Directed by Dennis Donnelly

The team help two women who are being put under pressure to sell the hotel left to them by their father.

A bright and entertaining start to the third season, buoyed by a sunny setting and plenty of good humour, picking up from where the guys left off at the end of season two. After the initial scene-setting, the light tone is established in the meet-the-client scene with Murdock and Face's rendition of “Surf City”. In fact, there's so much singing in this episode, it's almost a musical. We get “Surfin' USA”, “California Girls”, “Fun Fun Fun” and “Moon Over Miami”.

The action is nothing particularly special but Baggetta makes a good villain and the eye candy quotient is practically through the roof, which always helps. The story rattles along at a fast pace and the few weaknesses hardly matter given the number of scenes which are pure comedy gold. BA's nervous trip to the dentist, Face giving hotdog training and Murdock's version of Mr Toad's Wild Ride all add to the fun.

The latter third is padded out by one of the longer construction sequences in any episode, so long it's actually split into two sections. An explosive final battle and inevitable car flip is not the most imaginative of action but it serves its purpose well. It's the script that's the key here in what is an excellent writing debut for Jones who, as story editor for season three, would go on to write or co-write 8 more episodes during the season. 9/10.