5/10 Season Two, Episode 10: Playing Possum-Scarecrow and Mrs King

Lee, Amanda and Yuri drive back to the bowling alley, and we hear Lee tell Amanda that they have no choice but to trust Yuri- but he will keep an eye on him.. Yes.. thanks for the reminder! Whooo can they trust Yuri? well.. I can’t pretend I don’t know he is a good guy!  

Next thing we are at the Odessa Funeral home.. the guy who had been following Yuri is there, he says there is no doubt, he saw Yuri go into the bowling alley after the American agent, then the agent ‘hurried away with his lady and (Yuri) followed.’ and then this guy lost them..
‘His Lady’? I like!!!   they seem to realise the bowling alley is being used as some kind of headquarters.. great cover! not!! Ah.. so this must be Barkhov, Ulanovsky and Kreshenko.. They have that cheesy SMK baddie dialogue we know and love Yuri is the one man who can stop them! and.. he cannot be allowed to do that! muahahahaaa!! The plan? wait for Yuri at the bowling alley, and kill him, and kill anyone else who is with him..
Kreshenko is surrounded by coffins, wires and  a battery etc. I guess the potential bomb Yuri was worried about is a reality! Ohhh  and I love this last line  of Kreshenko’s: and if you are caught? Kill yourselves! ROFL!!

So back to Lisson Lanes Bowling alley! Lee’s back in time for his phone call.. looks like it has gotten dark in that hour since the last call.
Francine is stalling on bringing Scarecrow in.. but Lee reminds her of the allowances which can be made for urgent situations.. Francine seems very unsure here.. you can tell something isn’t right.. and it’s not just the shirt, the necklace, the earings and hair combo The script says Francine is at Nedlinger’s – that’s a bit random don’t you think! for a HQ?! Anyway, Francine tells Lee to be at the phone in one hour and to wait in the backroom- his key still fits. ( My goodness.. just how many keys does Lee have to carry with him? LOL! ) Ha! Lee does his trick of looking down the phone at Francine again!

Lee ushers Amanda and Yuri into the back room to wait for Francine’s call. Ahh I see Amanda got her bowling ball back! thank goodness.. everything is going to be alright now!!

Wow.. the agency has quite the little set up in this back room! [they can do their spy business, and have a little destress by bowling 😉 ] I guess now Yuri knows about it.. they’ll have to close it down?!

LOL a bit more machismo between Lee and Yuri here..as Operation Possum comes up again.. This is probably obvious to North Americans, but before this episode I didn’t get the title of this episode at all! Being Australian, I know lots about possums, and have seen a lot. but I couldn’t see the connection! then.. I  found out there are different kinds of possums –  In the US there is an ‘opossum’ which likes to play dead. There is even  a ‘ virginia opossum’.
So, the phrase ‘ playing possum’? I hadn’t heard it before.. but it now makes sense to me that it would mean playing dead or pretending to sleep.. (If it were based on Australian possums it would be the operation where you hide and only come out at night!) I guess the writers use this phrase as the agency is in sleep mode for this episode.

Okay! back to the episode.. sorry got sidetracked.. machismo time! remember?!
Yuri: why does contact with your superiors take so long?
Lee: Err My unit is on hold.
Yuri: Operation Possum?!!!… 

( Lee scowls!)

… I’ve heard of it!

Lee: Mmm you’ve heard of it huh?..

Well you have one that’s very much the same…

It’s called Hibernation.

( Yuri grumbles) HaaHaaa!!! take that! tee heee.. Lee isn’t going to be intimidated by Yuri – and vice versa! Actually I like how it is put in the script: ‘Their one-upmanship ending in a tie’ 
Call me crazy, but I though codenames for things were to protect the purpose of the operation – so you wouldn’t know what it was when you heard the name! ROFL.. I would never guess what operation possum is or operation hibernation is! Not!!  haaaa! so funny!

Lee turns back to his sweetheart  
Lee continues now addressing Amanda: Uh, Listen, sweetheart, uh there’s really no cause for you to have to hang around.  [cover or no cover – it’s very swoony!!]

…So ah why don’t you go on home, and I’ll call you later okay?

Amanda: Ok, I’ll just go home and wait to hear from ya.

Lee: yeah.
What do you think? Satisfied with the lovely ‘sweetheart’ ?? I was..Tee heee.. until I read the script! LOL!!
Can you guess what they do here in the script?? –  Check it out- I’ll quote what the script says:
‘A Glance ( by Lee) at Yuri and he crosses to her, deliberately gives her a kiss and a hug.
Lee: I’ll call you, okay?
Amanda (recovering from the surprise of his embrace): Okay. Yes I’ll be waiting.’

Part of me feels cheated.. a kiss?? and a hug???!!!! LOL!! but part of me knows this just makes Ship of spies and all that anticipation so much better!!!! What do you think? They could have gone for a kiss on the cheek.. These two are so all or nothing huh! At the same time, I still don’t get this cover – but it does make sense for Lee to be giving such a ‘hands off!’ message to Yuri if he was a young, top soviet agent! Oh well.. it is what it is! Moving on!

Amanda: ( to Yuri) Goodbye!

Lee: Okay ( and Lee begins to show Amanda to the door.)
Yuri calls her back and asks if Amanda recalls anything of what was said between Barkhov and Ulanovsky.. Amanda looks to Lee before answering.. he gives a little nod to her – so she responds.. saying she doesn’t remember much.. Just that one of them hated the food and the other missed his girlfriend!

Yuri’s excited! All the information is in Amanda’s memory! It doesn’t matter that they can’t access the computer files yet!

Yuri says with hypnosis they can be retrieved. Lee is immediately thoughtful – whooo yeah maybe!!!

Amanda is immediately dubious..  She doesn’t think she can be hypnotised!
Yuri: I do have a doctorate from the university  in Psychic studies in Murmansk.
Ohhhh my!! that is so funny! psychic studies has it’s own university?? I wonder if Angelo from Lost and Found was a lecturer there.. and look how psychic he turned out to be about his wife!
Lee’s looking like he thinks this is worth a try!
Amanda: I understand, but hypnosis just won’t work on me, you know… ( Lee silently looks at Amanda- he looks curious!)

…Not that I’m afraid of it or anything…

…It’s just that –…

(Amanda sees the look on Lee’s face and without missing a beat she changes the direction of her thinking! so funny! I love how Lee tells Amanda here without saying a thing – she just looks at him and knows immediately that he thinks it’s worth a try )  ….Well, if you’d like to try…

…we could but just don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work. Because I just don’t think it’s gonna work on me.

Lee’s so funny here! He just stares at Amanda!! Maybe he can’t believe the coincidence of it all either!

It’s very sweet how they know each other so well now! She did this same thing towards the end of Our man in Tegernsee remember? when she was arguing with Lee that she should come with him and Harry to the mill?

Amanda is willing to give it a try, because Lee thinks it is worth a try   and I think because she trusts him.. she trusts that Lee isn’t going to let Yuri do anything to her head while she is under (IF she goes under!)Yuri could have made her cluck like a chicken everytime the phone rings or something  

Yuri leads Amanda back to a seat at the table.. everyone settles in for hypnosis..[ Lee is very trusting of Yuri here huh.. a Russian agent hypnotising his sweetheart? you’d think he’d be hesitant..but not at all!] So.. Yuri puts Amanda under , very easily!

the head tip to the side looks weird! but.. I guess letting her head fall would have meant we can’t see her face – and well this is TV!  While I’m complaining?? I may as well add- I hate this pink top of Amanda’s!! what’s with all the padding?? I think there are some publicity shots of her in this outfit.. I’ll see if I can find one – but I love Lee’s tie!! It looks plain but it has a lovely embossed pattern of some kind on it – I’m hypnotised by Lee in that tie! 😉

Now she is under, Yuri tells her she is typing the transcripts – okay this instruction from Yuri makes the fact that Amanda literally puts out her hands and makes silly looking typing motions a little more bearable.. Less cringeworthy! (what do you think?)

I think it is suppose to be funny..but it isn’t! (and the music to go with it’s commencement is even more annoying to me! ) … and it’s something to make this little moment entertaining- because when you think about it, all that is happening is Amanda is recounting what was said between two other people – hard to make interesting IMO..Oh well.. it is what it is!! and I do enjoy watching Lee concentrate so intently on Amanda!

So what info do we get out of this little typing game?
Well.. let’s see – Amanda can be hypnotised!
and.. from Barkhov and Ulanovsky’s conversation we learn:
– American food is terrible.. and  they visit a restaurant called ‘ the Balalaika’ where there is a waitress called Svetlana..
Yuri brings Amanda out of her trance.. commanding her to feel awakened and refreshed ( how nice of him! an added perk! )

Immediately, Amanda starts on about how she’s sorry she couldn’t go under hypnosis.. Lee doesn’t set her straight, he’s off  looking for clues ha! Does anyone find this gag with Amanda funny? me .. not so much.. but glad the typing is over!

Anyway, they look for the restaurant they mentioned in the phone book.. they find there is a Balalaika restaurant a few minutes from where they are.. so they prepare to go check it out..

I’ll finish up there for the moment! Hope you are enjoying this episode as much as I am!! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts when you are able byeeee!!