Post by niecie on Aug 19, 2013 17:01:52 GMT -5
The return of Elisha Cook Jr! Also the first appearance of Kitten! And Bob Herron has a real role, as one of the guys planting the trap under Jim's mattress. (We'll get a closer look at him when he wins the boxing match later in the episode.)
Also, one of Artie's triple-disguise episodes.
As Robert Conrad points out in the introduction to this episode, the electric chair is anachronistic, since the first one wasn't used until 1890.
The guys hid a little item inside a pigeon egg! I'm amazed. Jim attaches it to his inspector's badge, and you can see the eggshell on the counter as he does so.
Artie as the street preacher catches us up on what's been going on: robberies, murders, etc. And I think he must have familiar with street preachers, since he has the style of talking down cold. He throws in a good bit of humor too, in his manner of dealing with the guys on the roofs. And of course, there's that song. Oh my, that song! *rolls eyes*
He does a deft job of dealing off the bottom of the deck, so to speak, to give Jim the special copy of his flyer.
Oh, and Artie also asks someone to hand out the rest of the flyers to the other 'brethren and sistren.' *grin*
When Jim is in the hotel lobby, he keeps running across a bald man with a newspaper. We will see him again later. For that matter, when Jim arrived in town a bit earlier and walked up to hear the street preacher, a little dog was running around. We'll see the dog again later too.
Jim's pseudonym is Charles Lane. Interesting. There will be an actor named Charles Lane playing the banker in TNOT Hangman in a later season.
When Artie the street preacher said those who investigated the unsolved crimes were being murdered in their very beds, he wasn't kidding, was he? That's what nearly happens to Jim -- twice. It is just a good thing that Jim tosses his bag onto the bed before he lies down on it! For that matter, I wonder if there was anyone upstairs, considering the holes that trap made in the ceiling!
I do wonder, though, that no one seems to have heard the gunfire.
Jennifer McCoy from across the hall, who comes over to visit a strange man in her nightie.
So, she overheard the desk clerk call Jim the man from the Bureau of Prisons, but didn't overhear the gunfire. Then she spots the shot-up mattress and gets a freaked-out look on her face. And as soon as Jim confirms that he is from the Bureau of Prisons and shows her his badge, suddenly she's sliding her hands up his chest as she bewails the fate of her poor darling uncle. Jim's right: Sarah Bernhardt she's not! I like her much better when she just speaks her mind.
The fact that the desk clerk is stunned to see Jim again is instructive, isn't it? Jim even asks him, 'Surprised to see me?'
Jim walks out of the hotel and runs into Kitten -- literally. She really doesn't have much to do in this episode, not like she did in Murderous Spring. But it's lovely to see her (in my opinion). Now she does send the second assassin after Jim, and if not for the dog -- yay for the dog! -- Jim might have been hit with that red-hot horseshoe!
Jim & Artie's conversation as they walk down the street is full of gems of banter, such as:
J: Speaking of the dead, you've got it easy. That street preaching is at least safe. I've been here less than an hour, and someone's tried to kill me twice already.
A: Well, they failed, I hope.
and
J: You keep an eye on her.
A: Just an eye? I have so much more to offer!
Does anyone blame Jim for throwing that chair onto his bed? Yeah, I didn't think anyone would. I sure don't. Don't blame him either for making sure he has a derringer with him as he lies down to sleep (without changing into nightclothes either).
Now, that whole sequence where the desk clerk goes into the janitorial closet and uses the master valve to snuff the gas lamps in Jim's room, then turn the gas back on, all while Jim is sleeping -- oh, but that makes me want to holler at the screen: 'Get up, Jim! Wake up!' Thank goodness someone really does start hollering at him! And then Jennifer breaks the windows in the transom to try to get him some fresh air, bless her heart!
Jim agrees to help Jennifer, and makes sure she understands that by helping Jim, she might have put herself in danger, and that the street preacher can help her.
The prison entrance reminds me of the entrance to the fort in Freebooters -- the prison yard looks familiar too.
Pity the warden's ideas didn't stop with arts and crafts for the prisoners, eh?
You know, both Jennifer and the warden told Jim she went out to the prison to visit her uncle, yet when Jim is talking with the uncle, he sure seems to act like he hasn't seen her in years.
Jim is very observant, picking up details about 'Uncle Giddy' that contradict what he's been told about him; unfortunately, Jim shares his observations with the wrong guy when he tells the guard.
Jim goes to hide in Giddy's cell, only to find that the man has disappeared in less than a minute. As he's feeling the walls looking for a secret exit, you can just barely see the blocks that make up the secret door wobbling in and out.
Whitey sighting! He's one of the guards chasing Jim.
Aha, that braided cord Jim had dangling around his neck in the first scene -- now he unwinds it from around his waist, attaches a small explosive to the tip, then whips it, causing the explosive to blast near the guard. Yeah, it was a whip.
One is the most impressive stunts of the whole series, Jim crashing through that wall!
And the lines between Artie and the girl:
Who do I have to kill?
How did you know?
Huh???
Well, they found a dungeony looking cell to stash Jim in, didn't they? Full of cobwebs, dark, straw on the floor, and just a pallet thrown in the corner for him to lie on. But why do they say Mr B? The warden's name doesn't have a B in it. For that matter, it really sounds to me like the warden calls Jim 'Mr McCoy.' I ran it back several times, and the closed captioning messes up at that point, so I can't tell for sure if the warden says something about McCoy, or calls Jim McCoy.
The banter between Jim and the warden is well-written, I think. And then the evening's 'entertainment' turns out to be the two mugs who failed to kill Jim in the teaser slugging it out to see which of them earns... well, the right to keep living, I think?
Uh-oh. Someone's spotted that Mr Lane is really Mr West!
That warden is just nasty, ringing the bell to start the fight when Jim has his shirt half off like that! But hey, if there are no rules, that suits Jim just fine. As soon as he can get his balance, he takes out that much bigger fellow. Yay, Jim! But the warden sure looks stunned!
Is that why they named that one character McCoy, so they could do the line about 'the wrong McCoy'?
Oh, Jim sure feels honored all right! Can't you tell?
Meanwhile, Artie is going to deal with the executioner -- or the electrocutioner, as the man himself prefers to term it. Artie does so well with loud, brash personas, doesn't he? And he pulls a distraction to slip a little something into the man's drink. I love the 'real live wire' line -- yeah, it's a pun, considering what the man does! And Artie is talking out of the right side of his mouth, something he did a LOT of.
'Real killing' -- argh!
'He did walk like her, though. Well, here's to crime!' My word, the writing throughout this episode is gold!
I love Artie's wince at the 'shocking' pun.
Jim does NOT make it easy for them to get him into the electric chair!
Oh, now the warden deliberately calls Jim 'Mr McCoy.' Maybe that explains earlier.
Yay for Artie taking the warden hostage to get Jim out of the chair! Pity the guard running the generator sees what's going on and kills the juice though.
Jim has just what he and Artie need in his boot heel. *grin* And Artie waxes a bit poetic.
I love the print the safe is behind, btw. Very famous painting -- wish I could remember the title -- and you can tell it's a print because of the smooth reflection the light makes across it as it opens.
He's really very clever, that warden, rigging the prison to blow up and planning to have someone else identified as his dead body.
And now we see what the little thing Jim put on the badge at the very start of the program does.
Bless Jim's heart! He's concerned not just for his own life and Artie's, but won't let the men in the prison die. And if the warden won't disarm the bomb, they'll all just wait together for the big finale. Bluffs the warden very well!
The guard says if Jim and Artie get away from him again, it will be over his dead body. The warden responds, 'I'm inclined to agree with you.' Which shows that not even the guards know about the warden's little escape plan.
The warden no sooner finishes picking up his spilled moolah than Jim and Artie reappear, this time both armed with shotguns. The warden: 'Oh no, not again!'
Don't you love how, when they finally reach the bomb in the central storage room, it has the huge word EXPLOSIVES stenciled across it along with the timer and the wires! Yeah, no one ever noticed that there was a bomb in the central storage room! And when Artie sees the word and the timer, he says, 'Oh!' in a 'Here we go!' tone of voice. And then he starts counting down the seconds until the bomb goes off as he pulls out a little wire snipper and takes care of the bomb.
They just barely get out the gate before the alarm starts sounding. Funny how the warden has to argue with the guard at the gate to get out, too.
And there's Jennifer McCoy, waiting for them. The warden is so rude to her though! They really have to squeeze to pack everyone into that tiny carriage.
The tag is fun, yet annoying. Jennifer, upon learning her uncle is really going to be executed, immediately begins whining about her money. Jim keeps her going for a bit while he and Artie make snarky comments, but then he gives her the key to the safety deposit box where her money is held. She gives him a big kiss in gratitude. And what does Artie get? A handshake. Why, she made his whole day!
From the looks on Jim & Artie's faces when Jennifer says what she wants most doesn't cost any money, I would say that the writer snuck in a little innuendo there.
Artie pulls a fast one on Jim at the end. And then I'm left wondering just how the two of them plan to continue their billiards game on a moving train? (And for that matter, why was Jim wanting Artie to supply him with addresses -- presumably of girls -- when the train was getting underway that very minute?)
All in all, a fun story with lots of snappy lines and not as many plot holes as usual.
Also, one of Artie's triple-disguise episodes.
As Robert Conrad points out in the introduction to this episode, the electric chair is anachronistic, since the first one wasn't used until 1890.
The guys hid a little item inside a pigeon egg! I'm amazed. Jim attaches it to his inspector's badge, and you can see the eggshell on the counter as he does so.
Artie as the street preacher catches us up on what's been going on: robberies, murders, etc. And I think he must have familiar with street preachers, since he has the style of talking down cold. He throws in a good bit of humor too, in his manner of dealing with the guys on the roofs. And of course, there's that song. Oh my, that song! *rolls eyes*
He does a deft job of dealing off the bottom of the deck, so to speak, to give Jim the special copy of his flyer.
Oh, and Artie also asks someone to hand out the rest of the flyers to the other 'brethren and sistren.' *grin*
When Jim is in the hotel lobby, he keeps running across a bald man with a newspaper. We will see him again later. For that matter, when Jim arrived in town a bit earlier and walked up to hear the street preacher, a little dog was running around. We'll see the dog again later too.
Jim's pseudonym is Charles Lane. Interesting. There will be an actor named Charles Lane playing the banker in TNOT Hangman in a later season.
When Artie the street preacher said those who investigated the unsolved crimes were being murdered in their very beds, he wasn't kidding, was he? That's what nearly happens to Jim -- twice. It is just a good thing that Jim tosses his bag onto the bed before he lies down on it! For that matter, I wonder if there was anyone upstairs, considering the holes that trap made in the ceiling!
I do wonder, though, that no one seems to have heard the gunfire.
Jennifer McCoy from across the hall, who comes over to visit a strange man in her nightie.
So, she overheard the desk clerk call Jim the man from the Bureau of Prisons, but didn't overhear the gunfire. Then she spots the shot-up mattress and gets a freaked-out look on her face. And as soon as Jim confirms that he is from the Bureau of Prisons and shows her his badge, suddenly she's sliding her hands up his chest as she bewails the fate of her poor darling uncle. Jim's right: Sarah Bernhardt she's not! I like her much better when she just speaks her mind.
The fact that the desk clerk is stunned to see Jim again is instructive, isn't it? Jim even asks him, 'Surprised to see me?'
Jim walks out of the hotel and runs into Kitten -- literally. She really doesn't have much to do in this episode, not like she did in Murderous Spring. But it's lovely to see her (in my opinion). Now she does send the second assassin after Jim, and if not for the dog -- yay for the dog! -- Jim might have been hit with that red-hot horseshoe!
Jim & Artie's conversation as they walk down the street is full of gems of banter, such as:
J: Speaking of the dead, you've got it easy. That street preaching is at least safe. I've been here less than an hour, and someone's tried to kill me twice already.
A: Well, they failed, I hope.
and
J: You keep an eye on her.
A: Just an eye? I have so much more to offer!
Does anyone blame Jim for throwing that chair onto his bed? Yeah, I didn't think anyone would. I sure don't. Don't blame him either for making sure he has a derringer with him as he lies down to sleep (without changing into nightclothes either).
Now, that whole sequence where the desk clerk goes into the janitorial closet and uses the master valve to snuff the gas lamps in Jim's room, then turn the gas back on, all while Jim is sleeping -- oh, but that makes me want to holler at the screen: 'Get up, Jim! Wake up!' Thank goodness someone really does start hollering at him! And then Jennifer breaks the windows in the transom to try to get him some fresh air, bless her heart!
Jim agrees to help Jennifer, and makes sure she understands that by helping Jim, she might have put herself in danger, and that the street preacher can help her.
The prison entrance reminds me of the entrance to the fort in Freebooters -- the prison yard looks familiar too.
Pity the warden's ideas didn't stop with arts and crafts for the prisoners, eh?
You know, both Jennifer and the warden told Jim she went out to the prison to visit her uncle, yet when Jim is talking with the uncle, he sure seems to act like he hasn't seen her in years.
Jim is very observant, picking up details about 'Uncle Giddy' that contradict what he's been told about him; unfortunately, Jim shares his observations with the wrong guy when he tells the guard.
Jim goes to hide in Giddy's cell, only to find that the man has disappeared in less than a minute. As he's feeling the walls looking for a secret exit, you can just barely see the blocks that make up the secret door wobbling in and out.
Whitey sighting! He's one of the guards chasing Jim.
Aha, that braided cord Jim had dangling around his neck in the first scene -- now he unwinds it from around his waist, attaches a small explosive to the tip, then whips it, causing the explosive to blast near the guard. Yeah, it was a whip.
One is the most impressive stunts of the whole series, Jim crashing through that wall!
And the lines between Artie and the girl:
Who do I have to kill?
How did you know?
Huh???
Well, they found a dungeony looking cell to stash Jim in, didn't they? Full of cobwebs, dark, straw on the floor, and just a pallet thrown in the corner for him to lie on. But why do they say Mr B? The warden's name doesn't have a B in it. For that matter, it really sounds to me like the warden calls Jim 'Mr McCoy.' I ran it back several times, and the closed captioning messes up at that point, so I can't tell for sure if the warden says something about McCoy, or calls Jim McCoy.
The banter between Jim and the warden is well-written, I think. And then the evening's 'entertainment' turns out to be the two mugs who failed to kill Jim in the teaser slugging it out to see which of them earns... well, the right to keep living, I think?
Uh-oh. Someone's spotted that Mr Lane is really Mr West!
That warden is just nasty, ringing the bell to start the fight when Jim has his shirt half off like that! But hey, if there are no rules, that suits Jim just fine. As soon as he can get his balance, he takes out that much bigger fellow. Yay, Jim! But the warden sure looks stunned!
Is that why they named that one character McCoy, so they could do the line about 'the wrong McCoy'?
Oh, Jim sure feels honored all right! Can't you tell?
Meanwhile, Artie is going to deal with the executioner -- or the electrocutioner, as the man himself prefers to term it. Artie does so well with loud, brash personas, doesn't he? And he pulls a distraction to slip a little something into the man's drink. I love the 'real live wire' line -- yeah, it's a pun, considering what the man does! And Artie is talking out of the right side of his mouth, something he did a LOT of.
'Real killing' -- argh!
'He did walk like her, though. Well, here's to crime!' My word, the writing throughout this episode is gold!
I love Artie's wince at the 'shocking' pun.
Jim does NOT make it easy for them to get him into the electric chair!
Oh, now the warden deliberately calls Jim 'Mr McCoy.' Maybe that explains earlier.
Yay for Artie taking the warden hostage to get Jim out of the chair! Pity the guard running the generator sees what's going on and kills the juice though.
Jim has just what he and Artie need in his boot heel. *grin* And Artie waxes a bit poetic.
I love the print the safe is behind, btw. Very famous painting -- wish I could remember the title -- and you can tell it's a print because of the smooth reflection the light makes across it as it opens.
He's really very clever, that warden, rigging the prison to blow up and planning to have someone else identified as his dead body.
And now we see what the little thing Jim put on the badge at the very start of the program does.
Bless Jim's heart! He's concerned not just for his own life and Artie's, but won't let the men in the prison die. And if the warden won't disarm the bomb, they'll all just wait together for the big finale. Bluffs the warden very well!
The guard says if Jim and Artie get away from him again, it will be over his dead body. The warden responds, 'I'm inclined to agree with you.' Which shows that not even the guards know about the warden's little escape plan.
The warden no sooner finishes picking up his spilled moolah than Jim and Artie reappear, this time both armed with shotguns. The warden: 'Oh no, not again!'
Don't you love how, when they finally reach the bomb in the central storage room, it has the huge word EXPLOSIVES stenciled across it along with the timer and the wires! Yeah, no one ever noticed that there was a bomb in the central storage room! And when Artie sees the word and the timer, he says, 'Oh!' in a 'Here we go!' tone of voice. And then he starts counting down the seconds until the bomb goes off as he pulls out a little wire snipper and takes care of the bomb.
They just barely get out the gate before the alarm starts sounding. Funny how the warden has to argue with the guard at the gate to get out, too.
And there's Jennifer McCoy, waiting for them. The warden is so rude to her though! They really have to squeeze to pack everyone into that tiny carriage.
The tag is fun, yet annoying. Jennifer, upon learning her uncle is really going to be executed, immediately begins whining about her money. Jim keeps her going for a bit while he and Artie make snarky comments, but then he gives her the key to the safety deposit box where her money is held. She gives him a big kiss in gratitude. And what does Artie get? A handshake. Why, she made his whole day!
From the looks on Jim & Artie's faces when Jennifer says what she wants most doesn't cost any money, I would say that the writer snuck in a little innuendo there.
Artie pulls a fast one on Jim at the end. And then I'm left wondering just how the two of them plan to continue their billiards game on a moving train? (And for that matter, why was Jim wanting Artie to supply him with addresses -- presumably of girls -- when the train was getting underway that very minute?)
All in all, a fun story with lots of snappy lines and not as many plot holes as usual.