Time to Party!!! Ahhh Compson has snuck into the party having found himself a tuxedo..where is his camera?
Lord B, Lee and Amanda arrive.. Gwyneth joins them wondering where they’ve been.. apparently Lord B likes to avoid the crowds, and sneak out for a cigar.. fair enough..I guess.. this entertaining wasn’t his idea. though, maybe not very supportive of his wife. hmm
Hmm what do you think of Lady B’s outfit? A brave and surprising choice IMO.. Looks a bit YSL to me.. considering all the drab 
grays and outfits Lady B has been wearing – this is a nice change!
Lady B remarks that she is sorry she couldn’t cancel the party at such short notice, and she hopes Lee is feeling alright.
Lee responds: No no no, I’m feeling fine, Lady Bromfield. Really. I was very lucky.
well well well.. as Lee says ‘ I was very lucky’ he looks at Amanda and smiles.. so far I think that’s as close as we’ve gotten to Lee being nice to Amanda without trying to manipulate her in someway..
That is like water in the desert – and said with a smile and in a tux no less!!!! 
Yes Lee you are very very lucky – to have Amanda!!! Even if you can’t yet admit it! [it isn’t too long before he does though thank goodness!]
Uh oh.. here comes Lady AnnoyingWitheringspoon..
Now I really don’t like her.. she interrupts Lee’s almost thank you to Amanda for saving his life! 
Lady W: My dear, I’ve been looking simply everywhere for you..because I do want to find out what happened. I mean, how did you ever come to be in that position?
At this, Lee spots Compson.. who is standing behind him watching him.. If I didn’t know better – I’d say he wants to be seen.. and he wants Lee to chase him..
Compson takes off, Lee follows LOL! without a word other than: Compson! [he’s so singleminded with his work.. completely ignoring Lady B and Lady W!]
Lady W continues: Now do tell me, I’m sure it’s time you can tell me something.
Amanda simply responds: it’s Compson.. I… And she leaves also.. tee hee.. The ladies are left confused! tee heee..
Lady W: Compson??????!!! Who’s Compson???
We see Compson run through the hall of weapons with Lee close behind him…
Amanda walks behind – and notices one of the pikes is missing.. Uhhh Ohhhh!!
We see Compson running through the garden, with Lee still in pursuit.. This is quite a long sequence here in the garden.. it goes for three minutes!! Three 
minutes of no dialogue, and cat and mouse in the garden maze.. my goodness.. the music is pretty good though.. and well who could complain about more 
of Lee in the great outdoors in his tuxedo?? This is the stuff of dreams don’t you think? Only.. he is usually running towards me, and carrying flowers.. err not chasing a man whom he thinks may have tried to kill him! 
hehehhee..Not far behind them, Amanda is on their trail also..
Uh oh.. Compson runs for the maze.. and Lee is going to have to follow him in there..
Gorgeous though isn’t it! ( Lee in a tux, and the maze! )… Lots of danger music.. and stealthy moving around the maze… The pike could plunge out from a hedge at any moment!!! Amanda enters the 
maze also.. she is really putting herself in danger here.. She could have just yelled out to Lee that there is a pike missing – but she can’t help herself.. she’s got to follow Lee!
Uh oh.. we see the baddie (well, we see his shoes! ) is in there.. holding the pike and ready to strike..
Lots of worried looking Lee wandering the maze and finding no one..
Cool camera angle!! You can juuuust make out Amanda on the left, Lee in the middle and Compson on the right.. but no sign of the baddie.. Finally.. Compson lunges at Lee from behind.. they wrestle a little, and the pike goes through the hedge and stabs Compson in the back.. Ouchies..
As Compson slumps to the ground, Amanda rounds the corner..
Lee looks shocked here huh..
Do you think they are wanting us to think that Amanda may think for a moment that it was Lee that stabbed Compson?
You know, I think Compson lured Lee out to the garden on purpose.. but was he working with the baddies? Or was this his own initiative? [and he was anonymously tipped off to photo opportunities?] How did the baddie follow them down to the maze? and know to take the pike? It’s like Compson lead Lee down there and it was all set up ready to go.. but.. then why did Compson wrestle with Lee? why didn’t he just stay out of the way? I thought maybe Compson lured Lee down there for a fight- to teach Lee a lesson.. but then that doesn’t explain how the baddie could have gone unseen by anyone when following them, or been waiting for them to come to the maze? It isn’t really explained is it? maybe later in the episode it will I don’t remember.. Thoughts anyone?
Anyway, Back to London and Scotland Yard!.. Inspector Keaton! Hello again!! A big 
hooray for continuity!! I enjoyed him in To catch a mongoose.. Only, this time Lee is a suspect for… Murder!
Hmm Lee and Amanda have changed clothes ( I guess a tuxedo isn’t appropriate drat) and ugh.. Lee has put on his white turtleneck again.. [At least I know some of you are enjoying it – even if I’m not !! ] only now he has teamed it up with a ghastly jacket.. Ok.. I will try not to focus on it!!! But Amanda? she has changed into a new outfit and is looking gorgeous!!! I guess the party was a midday thing? a tuxedo at midday??? ohhhh whatever.. I can’t get the time straight in this episode.. anyone else confused?!
Amanda is in full protective mode of Lee here, Lee tries to get her to stop but she seems determined so he lets her have her say..
since he is being accused.. and she is going all out to support him 100%..
Amanda: Mr Stetson may have a temper, and he Blows Up!!
( LOL!! the look Lee gives Amanda when she does this!! tee hee –Amanda! are you trying to put me away for life?! )
Amanda continues: … but it blows over [eventually!] . And he’s not violent or irresponsible and and I really think that it should go on the record that he was angry ( ohhh dear!!) because Mr 
Compson published the story and the photograph about Lord Bromfield and myself and it wasn’t true. I was angry and Lord Bromfield was angry, but we didn’t kill him.
Here is that theme again – Amanda wanting to set things straight with the truth, but it doesn’t help because things appear to be different to what the truth is.. Hmm..
Inspector Keaton: somebody did madam.
Amanda: but it wasn’t Mr Stetson sir.
Lee: Amanda!
Amanda: yes?
Lee: Inspector Keaton didn’t say I killed him, he said I had a motive. Which you’ve just confirmed.
Amanda goes to interject but Lee holds up his hand to silence her. He’s not angry with her which is great, but.. he can see it is wise for her to quit talking!
Lee continues: Now please, be quiet.
Knock me over with a feather.. Lee is actually being quite nice to Amanda here.. Yes I’m a bit grumpy with Lee this episode! Notice Lee.. when you say please, and are nice to her – she responds! [I love that about Amanda!!]
Inspector Keaton: Thank you Mr Stetson. Mr Newhouse ( who is sitting behind Lee and Amanda, and I am assuming he is MI5?) has told me about your investigation.
Newhouse: we cannot have that compromised Keaton. There is too much at stake here. Our man Ransome ( yep MI5!) has already paid with his life.
ROFL!!! as Newhouse talks.. you can see Amanda in the foreground mouthing something to Lee here..
I think she says something about getting him in trouble.. Lee mouthes to Amanda to keep quiet.. and Amanda mouthes back she’s sorry..
[what do you guys think? Any fab lip readers out there??!! such a coupley thing to do!!! I love that Lee doesn’t loose his temper with Amanda here – LOL I guess if he did loose his temper at all here, Keaton might be keen to arrest him for his temper- and how he took it out on Compson! but a very cute Lee/Amanda moment.. ]
Keaton responds to Newhouse: Granted. However, one cannot ignore the fact of Mr Compson’s death.
Lee: well for the moment you can mark it down as accidental.
Keaton: A pike driven through the back is hardly accidental Mr Stetson.
Lee: yeah but it wasn’t meant for Compson. I think it was meant for me.
Amanda: For You??!!!!
Lee: Yes. We know that this sex scandal incident was a setup. [Hooray Lee is finally getting that brain in gear! Must be all that 
country air ] I think it was designed to get me to Bromfield Hall to eliminate me.
Newhouse: I hadn’t realised we were that close in our investigation.
[you probably weren’t! LOL!! ]
Lee: Neither did I. I guess when they couldn’t terminate the investigation, they tried to terminate the investigator.
Newhouse: Lord Bromfield is undersecretary at the foreign office. As liason with the intelligence community he’s privy to a great deal.
Amanda: but why would Lord Bromfield try to kill anyone at his own home?
Lee: I don’t think he would. There’s Errol Pridemore, MI5 and Geoffrey Douglas-Wood, whoever the hell he is. [rofl! we don’t hear Lee say that very often! Lee knows everyone! ]
Newhouse: Ohh I’ve already run him. We’ve nothing on him, except a very active social calendar. Nothing on any of the other guests either.
Lee: great.
Keaton says he can delay investigating Compson’s death by 24 hours.. how does Lee respond – thank you?? teee heee. no!
Lee nods responds: Mmm!
Lee isn’t sure what his next move will be.. only that the game is back at Bromfield Hall – so suddenly he is super keen to be back there! how ironic..
This scene ends here.. so I shall finish up for the moment.. As always.. feel free to have some input here and share your thoughts – thanks for reading and bye for now!
"Just walk with me.." 
Okay, I have another comment, totally unrelated to the one below.
I would dearly love to see how the scene in the maze would have continued!
Think about it: Compson has fallen to the ground in front of Lee, violently stabbed to death by a pike — but the pike is not in the body. The murderer must have taken it with him! (Or, dropped it in a place where Lee and Amanda can’t see it.) So, here are Lee and Amanda, who, from the looks of things, are pretty much lost in this maze. A murderer may be just a row away, but the hedge is too thick to see through! I would think they would be terribly afraid that a pike would come jutting out at them at any moment, or that the axe part of the weapon would come down on them from behind! They are trapped in a maze with an axe murderer, it will be getting dark soon… And as far as I can tell, Lee is not even armed (perhaps American agents are not allowed to carry concealed handguns in the UK). Yikes!
How did they get out of there? Did Lee boost Amanda up so that she could see over the top of the hedge and try to spot the murderer, and/or see if she could find a way out? So many questions, so many possibilities!
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If anyone could get them out the quickest, my money’s on Amanda. I’ll bet she remembers some random detail about the layout of the maze and will know where to go.
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I think you’re right that American agents can’t carry guns in England. I feel like I remember reading that in a book by Secret Service agent Joseph Petro. It’s like that in Canada too.
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Except that he pulls a gun on Connie in “To Catch a Mongoose” so they are playing fast and loose with that rule.
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As usual 😄
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So… Lee has concluded that the “sex scandal” thing was a “setup,” a ruse to get HIM out to Bromfield Hall. I would have thought that to be a humorously self-centered conclusion, but he is correct! His theory is confirmed by a conversation between Geoffrey and Gwyneth later in the episode. My question is, how on earth did they expect that to work, exactly? We know that Lord Bromfield received a mysterious “telephone call from the Hall” (presumably arranged by Geoffrey) telling him that Gwyneth wanted to see him at the Morris dancers’ performance. And we know someone gave Amanda a flyer about the dancers. But how do you assure that Amanda will actually decide to go to the performance AND that Lord Bromfield and Amanda will bump into each other at the performance (isn’t that pretty unlikely?) AND that he will put his hands on her for a moment AND that a photographer will capture this moment on film AND that the tabloid press will deem this worthy of publication AND that Amanda will not just go home immediately after that AND that Lord Bromfield will go along with Gwyneth’s suggestion to invite Amanda and Lee to the house party? Even if the photographer, Compson, was “in on it” (something that never occurred to me until I read the comments here), I think this plan to lure Lee to the Hall was about as far-fetched as it possibly could be! Am I missing something? It does make me think that Compson must have been a co-conspirator, otherwise there is no way this could possibly have worked.
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Fashion Police:
The turtleneck has never bothered me too much…I actually quite like Lee in a turtleneck, even if cream is not his color. It’s the fact that he’s wearing another one of Dean’s hand me down plaid jackets that really bothers me.
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This whole bit has always had so many holes for me. I chalk most of the Compton stuff up to PlotPurposes and let it go. But it always seemed to me that part of Lee picking up the pike in the armory was was intended to show that Lee’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon yet that isn’t even brought up in the discussion at Scotland Yard. Obviously they know he’s and agent so maybe he’s not *really” a suspect anyway?
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Hi Raffie and L&A!
It’s hard to nut things out when it’s been ages.. I’ll have to refresh my memory here.. Hmm! Wish I could just remember everything with ease!
Yes Raffie and L&A – I’m on board with the baddies being tucked away in the maze already too.
I was picking apart the logic of all the rest of the events and dialogue- (In the post and in comments)
I can see Compton has some kind of arrangement with the baddies – he was the photographer who took the original images to set up Lord Bromfield..
But It’s not conveyed clearly that Compton was in on luring Lee into the maze …
If Compton’s aim was lure Lee into the maze so the baddies can get him – why did Compton lunge at Lee and start wrestling with him? why not just get out of the way so the baddies can do their thing?
I’ve concluded Compton was just a lousy thug.. and didn’t know how to go about this sort of thing – he was use to taking pictures!
LOL..
Now I think about it – turning up to the party without his camera suggests he was there for a different reason that his usual photographic work.(i.e. Lure Lee).
Maybe Compton didn’t know why he was luring Lee – but if that’s so wouldn’t the baddie have told the photographer to lure Lee in and get himself out asap? (they don’t want a witness to murder surely?)
Really.. this all still seems pretty convoluted to me.. when it could have been quite simple.. one line from the baddies about how Compton was just suppose to lure Lee there for them and leave, rather than get stabbed kind of thing..
Ah well.. don’t mind me! so lovely to revisit a scene with Lee in a tux 🙂 I’ve been missing that magnificent sight!!!
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I can imagine two szenarios here.
1.) Compson didn’t know why he was luring Lee. Why he didn’t leave the maze? Well, I think he just wanted to lecture Lee for taking the film. He told Lee, he would be sorry for doing that when Lee and Amanda arrived at Bromfield Hall – remember? I guess he just saw his chance for revenge and got in the way of “pike-guy” – a deadly mistake.
Or
2.) He was there to struggle Lee and put him closer to the hedge. Otherwise “pike-guy” wouldn’t have been able to stab Lee. Unfortunately Comson got to close to the hedge and ’cause “pike-guy” can’t see through it he got stabbed. Dead by accident.
In each case Lee would have been right when he said it was set up to eliminate him.
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SMK: Lee looks good in black, white, blue and maybe red. Mustard, cream, beige and bilious brown are a mistake: especially together. He looks worse than Amanda’s car!! At least there is a tux in the scene before.
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I love the whisper discussion they have at New Scotland Yard. It is a totally couple thing to do. And notice how many times they give each other significant looks to covey messages in this episode. You only do that with those you are veeeery close to. And Lady Bromfield in her nightgown, hahahaha! So not stylish at all, even in the 80s style vacuum.
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Oops, I meant ‘convey’ messages., not a group of birds. My fingers don’t know how to spell; bad fingers! (could be because I am lying down while typing and haven’t slept well in days….. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)
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Why is Lady Bromfield entertaining guests in her nightgown? Yikes! And if Amanda was trying to reverse the image of her as a sex siren, that dress was perhaps not the best choice – compared to the stodgy English ladies around her, she looks provocative indeed!
Was KJ wearing heels all the way through the maze scene? I keep looking to see if she’d switched to sneakers.
I think Amanda’s statement at Scotland Yard supports my understanding of why she doesn’t fight with Lee as much any more. As she says, he has a tendency to fly off the handle about things, then it quickly blows over (I am reminded of the scene in “Brunettes Are In,” when he snaps at Amanda over the laundry, and is instantly remorseful). Arguing with him only prolongs the situation and keeps his hackles raised; responding to him in a calm, measured way helps dissipate his high emotions.
Random thought: If Lord Bromfield is a liaison with British intelligence operations, wouldn’t he know Lee was an American agent working with MI5? Does he know that Errol is an agent? (Or perhaps he just thinks Errol is Jeffrey’s boyfriend, as I did when watching them together; that might explain why Gwyneth “can’t stand” Errol. Competition!).
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I completely missed the mouthing at each other in New Scotland Yard. I am going to have to go back and watch it. For purely research purposes of course 😉
Love how Amanda despite her best efforts ends up making Lee look more guilty tee hee verbal diarrhoea at its best 😉
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Ooh, yeah. Forgot about that scene. So maybe Compton was supposed to be sure Lee got it, but then he got it instead. Oh, well, only in tv-land do these kinds of stories make sense – suspended disbelief. lol.
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Okay, my take – Compson was hired to help set up Lord Bromfield. He was lured to the maze to eliminate him as a witness and make Lee look guilty at the same time, which would get Lee out of the way. So, Lee was wrong when he said they wanted to kill him, but they definitely wanted him gone.
And, I think this is the next day. The killing would have brought out the police, who would have questioned everyone, but they would have brought Lee and Amanda back the next day for “more questions.” However, since they obviously know who they are, this was a chance to collaborate on the incident and the mission.
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Hi Debilyn! I LOVE that you are grappling with this too!!! Together maybe we can work some of these convoluted points out! 😉 or.. we can at least work out that the writing doesn’t make sense 😉 haa!
I had not thought of the theory you suggest! Killing Compson if he knows too much does make sense..
Ok, I’ve had a think.. and watched the upcoming scene between the two baddies in the library – hoping they might shed some light on this.. [This is where having access to a transcript can save alot of time!!]
whooo I think they do! Pridemore is stressing and he says he agreed to Killing Ransome, who is in his department, and to killing Stetson, but (Pridemore): but that little toad of a photographer-
Geoffrey: – was an accident.
Pridemore: Yeah, and it’s generating a full scale investigation! I don’t know how you felt under Inspector Keaton’s questioning but I felt damned uncomfortable.
I’m thinking this confirms that killing Compson was an accident, and Lee was indeed the real target. And that now they are in even more hot water thanks to the murder investigation now underway by scotland yard – and Pridemore is not happy with it.. Ie this wasn’t planned.. Check out the scene sometime and let me know what you think! 🙂
I’m still confused about how they could have followed Lee to the maze unseen- especially when Amanda was also following, or waited there for him…. but.. I think this might be case of – well they just did! 😉 tee hee..
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Wouldn’t they have already been tucked away in some corner of the maze, waiting for Lee to be lured in?
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Yeah, that’s what I thought too, raffie.
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