Ah.. and now we come to the flying fox! (I’ve learned since last time I visited this episode that this contraption is called a ‘zip line’ in the US! Well 
in Australia it’s a flying fox! named after a type of Bat-google it if you don’t believe me 🙂 )
Anyway, Lee slides along first, without incident, followed by Peggy- the blonde model. As Peggy begins her descent, Amanda nervously laughs and says to those around her: I’m not crazy about heights haa ha..!
recruit:What if you were being chased by someone shooting at you?
Amanda responds: ha that might make a difference.
[wow.. that recruit seems to have decided it’s his job to stand right behind Amanda and scowl at her.. Man.. she gets enough of that from Francine! No more please!! The irony being: Amanda knows very well what it’s like to be chased by someone shooting at her! So can it Bozo! grrr.. only she gets zero credit for it.. it’s like they’ve forgotten the difficult situations Amanda has already been through!]
Clunk!!!! Peggy (in a really bad wig) gets stuck and panics in mid-air…
Billy says on the Megaphone: Easy Miss Marlowe, stay as still as you can.
Err she doesn’t pay any attention to Billy! and she screams louder and wiggles more.. I started thinking: please fall already! 
Peggy: Somebody help me!!! argh!!! I can’t hang on!!!!
Nobody moves! LOL!!! Then, of course super Lee (who is suppose to be incognito) jumps into action (while the two instructors do nothing 😆 ) and he grabs some ropes to help Peggy. [I remember the script mentions Lee looks at Billy, and then Billy nods his OK for Lee to act – but none of that here! Lee is his own boss haaa]
Before Lee can do anything though, Amanda yells to Peggy from the perch: Don’t panic Peggy!
…Help’s coming! Ohhhhh!!! 
Hanging on to the Flying fox, Amanda leans over and (in a really bad wig) accidentally begins to slide down the rope.
Amanda collects Peggy on the way past as Peggy grabs hold of Amanda around the waist.. way to go Amanda!
The phrase Amanda calls out as she accidentally starts down the zip line makes it seems like she intended to help her doesn’t it! Amanda didn’t mean to do it, but I think she does an awesome job, hanging on and dealing with the blonde grasping at her for a ride while panicked.. I remember thinking the first time I saw this – whoo!!! I hope those tracksuit pants aren’t too baggy!!
Can you imagine that woman grabbing onto Amanda and accidentally pulling her tracksuit pants down?! LOL- that might pass on family TV these days.. but in those days I guess it would have been a no go… still, it makes me laugh to think of it! hehehee.. (now that is real indignity! I am sooo glad they didn’t do that to Amanda!!) tracksuit pants can be dangerous!
Love the stunned look on Francine’s face as she sees Amanda making her move!
Everyone gathers around the zip line landing area to congratulate Amanda and comfort Peggy! What a nice difference to everyone just gathering around to watch you embarrass yourself! 
Oh my! Lee comes rushing over,
immediately calls Amanda’s name and almost hugs her (!!)
then with a huge smile he grabs her and moves her away from the others.. Ohhhh swoon!!!
Amanda’s so funny here! Such adoration! when moments earlier she was viewed with derision!
I could watch this moment over and over.. Lee’s admiration and pleasure at Amanda’s bravery here is open and unmasked!!! whoaaaaa!!!!
Then.. Lee checks himself and tries to lower his enthusiasm a little.. but the message is clear 
squeeeeeeeee!!!!
Lee overcome says: Amanda?! that was…
[Lee checks himself! and Amanda waits expectantly for Lee’s declaration!]
……. errr Not Bad.
Amanda: Thank you!! Thank you so much 
Love how Amanda slaps Lee on the arm while saying this too! I think what they really want to do is hug! hehehe… but they’re not ready ( we don’t have to wait long for that though huh! tee heee)
Well done Amanda!!
I don’t think Lee’s smile could have been any wider! Nice to see him not hiding his joy at a job well done! Two compliments so far? I am in shock!!! At this stage, I am sure Amanda understands the significance of Lee saying ‘not bad’ and that he indeed meant it as a compliment. Pre-Brunettes are in- This is a huge step!! Hooray!!
I also love that this kind of redeems the run of mistakes Amanda had been shown doing up till now! Finally.. a bit more in Amanda’s favour!
Back to the downtowner! and Uh oh… the secret pavlova had a little incident which revealed the ringer..
Describing Amanda as “A very clever and devious woman. One who has very convincingly been playing the role of an inept bumbler” ?? clever I get.. Devious? Rofl!!! that is funny!! These baddies give the agency too much credit! hehhee
Gregorian is surprised to hear the ringer is a woman. 
But Vardosk isn’t surprised at all.. ‘why not?’ is his attitude.. you know it’s ironic, sometimes I get the impression that the baddies are more liberated when it comes to women and their abilities than the agency
I am sure Cindy is going to love the use of ‘ inept bumbler’ -Cindy??!!! teee heee.. hope you are hanging in there!
Hope everyone is!! So far.. my sensibilities are not too ruffled and I’m finding this to be fun!..[I think putting this episode before Brunettes has reduced my expectations!] but if your’s are? feel free to complain away
The baddies are carving out a candle, and preparing to provide ‘the method’ the secret pavlova will use to assassinate the Ringer..
Pavlova will break into the instructors office and check the personnel files to be sure.. but is warned to keep this a secret, so as not to alert them.. the secret pavlova must remain secret!
Oh and by the way, I think Amanda deserves extra marks for rescuing her fellow recruit from certain death!!!!!
I shall finish up there for the moment! Thanks for reading – and do join in and share your thoughts or feedback or questions.. anything! It’s lovely to have people to ‘ walk with’
Byeeee, Iwsod
"Just walk with me.." 
And I absolutely LOVE the way they almost hug and realize they shouldn’t break undercover characters. It’s so adorable.
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This flub seemed like an exception to me for a couple of reasons. For one thing, Amanda seems to have leaned too far out and fallen on it before she was ready, as opposed to taking it deliberately the way she did on Magic Bus. For another, when I was growing up there were a couple of playgrounds that had ziplines and I have to say, those things are temperamental. (And before the moms on here start having a panic attack, we weren’t up that high. In fact, an adult could easily move the zipline when it got stuck without reaching up very far.) Sometimes they’d get stuck and we’d have to jump down (and if it at recess, find a teacher to unstick the stupid thing so we could use it again). And sometimes you just wouldn’t jump right and it would slow down or something. I rode across them most of the time with no problems, but I did have my share of having to drop off, so the inconsistency here doesn’t bother me — especially since I was probably riding them more than Amanda was.
They sure were fun though. If I wasn’t too tall for one now, I’d love to go do one for memory’s sake after seeing these eps. But the adult ones are up WAY too high for me!
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I think the scene with the random guy saying “what if you were being chased by someone?” and Amanda’s self-deprecating response that that might make a difference are a key theme to this episode and really the whole series. Amanda has shown, and Lee knows, that she can and will do all these things when they are necessary, but in these contrived situations, she is hopeless. Amanda’s character throughout the series centers around doing whatever she can to help people, and she has no idea how amazing she can be when situations call for it, but she always steps up. And having this zipline bit come right after that conversation really highlights this truth. This is why this episode has never bothered me, and I actually like it, because it reinforces Lee in his eventual feelings of “who cares what she can do or not do in contrived situations; she always comes through when I need her and when it counts.” Even the upcoming memory test that she fails abysmally reinforces this theme – Amanda remembers things that are important and relevant to real-life situations, not random stuff on a tray. All of us mothers know how to use our brains, memory, and resources on what matters and skip the rest, and this episode highlights that about Amanda for me. So I never considered it a dumbing down of Amanda, just an exposition of her character that comes through when it counts and knows how to use her mental resources economically for what matters.
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Oh wow – I really like this take.
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I think this was the episode when I decided for myself that “Not bad” is Lee code for “very well done!”
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A piece of useless information: we call a flying fox a foefie slide in South Africa. Yes really !!!
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foefie?!!!! too funny!!! thanks Learjet! you know, that sounds like a great code name! 🙂
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Um … How did the bad guys get the explosive candle to their assassin? Did they just drive up to the “secret” training camp and hand it to her? Was there the Agency equivalent of parents’ day at summer camp and the baddies pretended to be Pavlova’s doting brothers?
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Great observation – I never thought of that.
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Ah so Amanda takes credit for a rescue she didn’t intend to make LOL
I know it’s plot contrivance but it irks me whiny Amanda wasn’t anywhere near holding in the zip wire and then once Peggy is thrashing about she’s suddenly holding on to it.
Anyway Amanda saves the day, however unintentionally. Ah Lee is so happy and generous in his smile of admiration for her, even if his words don’t reflect it. Cute, very cute. Although I do question how on earth he was going to rescue Peggy using the rope!!!
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This is the first time that we realize that Amanda “is not crazy about heights.” Yet in “The First Time” she flew a helicopter and in Episode 2 “There goes the Neighborhood” she and Lee escape from the roof of Connie Beth cosmetics on a crane, so kudos to the writers for reminding us that overcoming her fear of heights to get away from the bad guys is all in a days work for Amanda. If Amanda is remembering those past experiences, she is probably saying to herself, “Zip line – no problem!! At least no one is shooting at me. . .”
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LOL Jeanine!! You’ve come up with some great moments there.. I’m not sure if your comments are tongue in cheek?? – or if they are as they read?? sorry!!
I say go with what works for you! If you are happy with this logic that’s great – I wish I could be so optimistic!
For me, the connection is too vague.. I don’t feel that is the point they were trying to make – but you know I wish they had?!! Or.. I wish I could see it that way!! Just one line connecting previous adventures with finding the courage – and underlining that training is completely different and not as errr ‘motivating’ could have helped..
I am about to post the next section now, but I have really enjoyed this episode up to this point and I’ve found Lee to be charming (!!) and Amanda often hilarious.. but this is about where my opinions tends to change on this episode.. so please feel free to offer an optimistic point of view.. I might need some help with that!! 😉 byeeeee
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How’s this for an optimistic spin – every section you post is closer to being done with the episode. 🙂
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So funny, go Amanda! 🙂
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Oh, I am still here. Good thing for Peggy the ‘inept bumbler’ rescued her. What would have happened if no one came to her rescue? Did she have a back-up plan?
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LOL! 🙂 Brace yourself for what’s coming Cindy! 😉
What was the back up plan? I guess she figured there were at least 3 agents around other than the ringer, so someone should have helped her..
I think the first time viewing this, we wouldn’t yet have known Peggy was the secret Pavlova, infact it could have been a misdirect – it is pretty risky of Peggy to set herself up like this.. so it makes sense we would have assumed on first viewing the secret Pavlova did this to Peggy – but oh how wrong we would have been huh! 🙂
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I remember trying to decide who Pavlova was the first time I watched it, and even re-watching it after so many years, I was stumped at this point.
I always have to grin when Lee congrats Amanda. We’ve come a long way from the “Not bad” at Magic Bus, haven’t we?
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Well, here it is, Amanda is a hero!
I just love the zip wire scene.
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