Season 8 - Episode Guide

New recruits arrive at Baywatch to try out for rookie school, including Hobie, Manny, and newcomers: Lani McKensie, a part-Hawaiian, part-Caucasian wanting to be a professional dancer; April Giminski, a naive college student majoring in design unfamiliar with swimming in the ocean; and Skylar Bergman, April's roommate who wants to become a paramedic. Along with Donna and Jordan to assist, Newman must teach the recruits the basics of lifeguarding a beach. Manny becomes angry at Mitch after failing an eye test due to a technicality that disqualifies him from rookie school. After Samantha quits her position as Baywatch Captain, Chief Johnson offers Mitch Sam's job with a promotion to Captain. But Mitch turns her down, feeling more needed at the beach than away from it. Meanwhile, Lani's insanely jealous ex-boyfriend Darren follows her from Hawaii, where Cody met her after breaking up with C.J. and inspired her to try out for rookie school. Darren will not allow her to start a new life without him.

Lifeguard Rookies compete to join the Baywatch team, while Mitch makes a choice about accepting the job of Captain.

Veteran lifeguard Jack "JD" Darius shows up to try for the open Lieutenant position, but memories of a failed rescue still haunt him.

On Memorial Day weekend, Mitch, April, and Skylar face many problems after discovering the dead body of an elderly Navy veteran whose two elderly Navy buddies want to give him a proper burial at sea. Meanwhile, Lani sprains her ankle during a rescue and considers leaving Baywatch for a career as a professional dancer until Cody professes his love for her. On Hobie's first day as a professional lifeguard, he has difficulty escaping his past when his former surfing friends, J.B. and Conner, give him a hard time over his new job.

April's brother Charlie and her mother Paige are living with her in her small apartment. It's very hard for April to see Charlie so sick and that everyone is being nice to him out of pity. Everyone has been told that Charlie has a rare form of cancer and that he is getting treatment for it at UCLA. Later April tells Mitch that Charlie is not being treated there, they just use him for research. Charlie tragically passes away, and Baywatch, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, and United States Coast Guard, hold a memorial service for him.

Caroline Holden returns to Baywatch and sparks fly between her and JD while sleaze-ball reporter "Riptide" Roger Pelton (Shadoe Stevens) plagues the lifeguards with insider scoops. The tables are soon turned when his cameraman falls in the shark-infested ocean and his copter sinks.

Caroline is torn when she must make a choice between JD and her dream of being an actress. Jordan meets her birth mother.

The Santa Ana winds blow an air of mystery into Baywatch, as well as a deadly creature that is disturbing the ocean calm. April's love life is reeling as she has to choose between Manny and Hobie.

Mitch is reunited with his old Baywatch lifeguard friend, Craig Pomeroy, now a full-time lawyer in town trying to honor a Native American's dying wish to die peacefully on sacred Indian grounds, now the public beach. Meanwhile, Neely Capshaw returns to Baywatch after being incapacitated for months in a skiing accident, with a hidden addiction to painkillers. When Donna figures out Neely's secret, she unsuccessfully tries to persuade Neely to get help because Donna's sister, too, had an addiction to painkillers. Also, Hobie uses a fake ID to get into a nightclub with his friends and suddenly wins a $1,200 prize dance contest with Lani moonlighting as the dancer "Kyra."

Cody breaks regulations and leaves his tower five minutes early. In those few precious minutes a teenage girl disappears in the surf. A full scale search and rescue mission is instigated.

Caroline is hijacked by a young thief and forced on a wild chase across the beach. Mitch confronts Neely about her addiction to painkillers -- and learns a shocking secret.

While diving, April and Craig are pulled through a power plant intake pipe and into a chamber and must fight for their lives to avoid getting sucked into the deadly turbines.

Cody is left to die in a sunken boat after he and Mitch track down and are captured by smugglers.

When Manny breaks up with April, romance heats up between her and Craig.

When Cody and JD try to make extra money collecting sea urchins, disaster strikes and Lani loses her hearing during the rescue. After engineering a meeting with a beautiful woman, Mitch has the wildest first date of his life.

Mitch helps old buddy Garner Ellerbee track down drug smugglers.

Cody makes a wild bet with some local hotshots.

Comedian Jeff Altman guest stars as an annoying medical supplies salesman who drives the lifeguards crazy while they are quarantined at headquarters - a quarantine that is interfering with everybody's plans.

The new nanny for Neely's baby develops a deadly obsession for Mitch.

A beautiful jewel thief tricks Hobie into asking her to join him and the other lifeguards on a cruise to Alaska. On a cruise to Alaska, a brush with death intensifies the growing relationship between Mitch and Neely. On a cruise to Alaska, Mitch and Neely realize they're in love.