Before continuing with this episode I’d just like to point out something I missed in the 10th post on this ep..
See Billy’s shoe?! I don’t know how I missed that… ahem..
Yes Raffie – I did a little editing mischief! 
this pose of Billy’s deserves a giggle..
When we last looked at this episode, we left Lee and Vic at the party, about to have a private chat..
Lee randomly sort of half reaches for his gun when they are alone.. LOL but Vic assures him he won’t need it. Vic asks Mr??? Lee responds : Stetson
Vic: The night my brother was killed, I saw you and two other men charge into our offices. Now, are you police? [‘charge’ LOL hardly! Lee swaggered in! 
]
Lee: No but… close enough. [‘charge’ is close enough to ‘swagger’ in your book Lee?! Lee has that – ‘ugh.. my job requires I deal with scum’ look on his face! ]
Vic: All right. I need your help. Frankie Columbus had my brother killed, and now he’s my partner. [that would be ‘unsilent’ partner]
Lee: You’re wondering how long it’ll be before you end up like Malcolm, right?
Vic: Right. [So Vic is a baddie of the save your own butt variety ]
Lee warns Vic he won’t get amnesty from prosecution, but he can offer him protection – for Vic that’s good enough!
Billy joins this err ‘Private Party’ !
Vic: I just wanna stay alive, and I wanna help you bury Columbus. [Ahh so a bit of justice for Malcolm too huh.. though it appears that’s secondary to saving his own butt! ]
Lee introduces Billy to Vic- Lee calls him ‘Billy’ ?? err that’s not very secure no??
Paulie sneaks up on them and introduces himself..
and his gun to this little party!
Guess Paulie is the Party Pooper!
Paulie disarms Lee and Billy..
Lee: Look, pal. [Uh oh!!] There are a lot of people around here. 
You’re taking a big chance.
Paulie: Then we ought to 
leave. All right, now, you listen good..I‘m gonna get real nervous, if one of you brave guys tries something…
…So much as breathe wrong- I’m gonna start shooting. Understood? Let’s go. Come on.
With the gun trained on them all, he leads them to the limo.. and away from the party.. I love how Lee adjusts his jacket as he begins to head in the direction Paulie wants him to..
LOL.. even held captive Lee is all swagger and style way to go making Paulie feel inadequate Lee!
I’m really surprised Lee doesn’t make some noise of his own here. but then.. I guess we wouldn’t have the smk women’s moment to shine!!
Back to Amanda, she’s heading inside to take the fake 
documents from the safe when she notices something out the window.. Uh oh!!! Thank goodness Amanda sees Lee 
being a ‘wise guy’ as he is forced into the car with a big stomach 
punch.. what did you do Lee? call him Pal again??!! Amanda sees them get in the limo at gunpoint.. rofl! this location view out the window is too funny.. that park is in heaps of episodes.. it is the park they walked around in Spiderweb.. and I think this is the original 
location of the Calvin Elementary school where Amanda showed around Princess Penny! it’s opposite this park. Let’s see if it has a horseshoe shaped driveway!
Amanda springs into action finding Francine..
…they run off together after the car with the 
chef guy yelling “Francine, you leave this tent and you’ll never work with me again! ” 
Francine raises her hand as she runs away and can be heard yelling in the distance “Is that a promise?” !!! rofl!!
Thelma and Louise err I mean Amanda and Francine, arrive at the front of the home in time to see the limo drive away..
Francine and Amanda sneak up to the Burling 
Bros Van [LOL where are all the guest’s cars??!!!] yep.. I remember those stairs! LOL! Anyway.. they take off in the van following the limo ..that poor kid sitting on the back bumper- he’s lucky he didn’t fall on his butt! Love the little cry he gives.. haa!
LOL Yep.. that’s a horseshoe shaped driveway!
On to Columbus meats.. we find that Mr 
Columbus has had a fresh batch of meat delivered.. eww!!
hehehee..
Don’t you just hate it when Lee gets treated like a piece of Meat? sorry.. couldn’t resist..
Can I just say here that.. Vic and Lee seem to be dangling and swaying from side to side.. and.. Billy is completely still.. and.. you can’t really see his head!!
Err.. is it possible that is not Billy? (or Mr Ngamo) and that is a dummy??? [a rather short dummy! ] because Mel wasn’t physically capable of hanging like that maybe?? hmm?? What do you think? it looks weird!
That actually looks quite painful hanging like that.. I bet BB and the actor playing Vic (Kip something..) both got free chiropractic care for the next week..
Mr Columbus: So. What have we got here? Vic, I know. Who are your two new friends, huh, Vic?…
[Vic remains silent.. well.. he doesn’t really know who they are!] …No badges, nothing, but they were carrying guns huh.. Real big, professional guns, huh, Paulie?
Paulie: That’s right.
Frankie: So what are you? Punks?
[I love how Paulie is just cracking his knuckles in the background.. getting ready for his piece of the action.. ] Mr Columbus approaches Lee.. knife in hand..
Lee: Drop dead, Columbus. [whooo Lee why didn’t you call him Pal?!]
Mr Columbus is unmoved: Hey! Call me Frankie.
So funny!! I love that line in response to Lee’s cheek- it underlines how lame ‘drop dead Columbus’ is for a tough guy haaaa!!! but well.. Poor Lee- he is restricted by the PG rating!
Err okay I’ll call you Frankie.. just don’t damage Lee! I wonder what would have happened if Frankie had said: ‘What a guy!’ Would Lee have suddenly wanted to kill Billy??!!!
…You hear that, Paulie? Guy’s hangin’ from a meat hook and he’s giving me lip. [At this we hear Paulie giggle.. yes Giggle! he loves his boss’ jokes! ]
Maybe Valerie can expand on this [go for it Valerie] .. but I just wanted to mention that ‘meat hook and Mafia’ is a real life connection.. It is rather gory so I won’t elaborate other than to mention there was a famous mafia hit which involved a meat packing plant – and people being hung on meathooks.. only they weren’t being hung by ropes… ewww.. you don’t want to know! but.. I think smk is alluding to the fact that Columbus (err I mean Frankie! Nice Frankie!) is not to be trifled with.. Lee, Billy and Vic are about to loose their lives if something isn’t done fast- Vic’s very ruthless.. I think in the 80s that connection would have been more readily made by the audience than these days.. Oh and there was a famous mafia family called Colombo ( close enough!).
But! back to the episode.. Frankie gets ominous with Lee.. stepping a little closer.. his tone becoming serious..
Frankie: You’ve either got a lot of guts, or you’re real stupid.
So.. has Lee got a lot of guts?? or is he real stupid? rofl!!! Do share your thinking.!
You know I think Lee is fabulous.. but he doesn’t exactly know how to diffuse a situation and not provoke someone – you know?? especially when they’ve got a big knife in their hand. :shocked:
Hmmm.. Lee are you counting on that being a bendy knife again?! It could be a bendy knife.. but I can’t tell 
shame!
Well I shall finish here for the moment. Would you like to share any thoughts about the episode or what I’ve written? It’s been a while since I posted about this ep! Sorry for the delay.. sometimes real life demands it but I’m thrilled to be back to this episode again and normal routine byee for now!!
"Just walk with me.." 
I love Lee, don’t get me wrong, but when he can be an idiot when it comes to being caught by the bad guys. He smartmouths them way too much, as evidenced in the previous scene when he gets hit as they’re forcing him into the car. Although something I just wondered — could he have spotted Amanda in the window and done something to get her attention? I can’t remember enough of the angles, but we know as a federal agent he can give a sidelong glance without being easily spotted. But then that wouldn’t explain his surprise when she showed up at the end.
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#2019rewatch
There had to be some hocus-pocus filming angles, brief sleight-of-hand staging clips of the 3 actors in that uncomfortable and painful position, green screen boxes the actors stood on that “disappear” on the aired episode, etc. Call me naïve, but I just have to believe the film industry wouldn’t purposefully risk bodily injury.
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I actually asked Bruce about this because it looks SO uncomfortable. He laughed and said they were all on wire harnesses and so not really “hanging”, which I kind of knew, but be that as it may, if I had to spend even five minutes with my arms up like that, I feel like I’d pass out.
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Thanks for sharing BB’s reassuring explanation. If these three guys played basketball to stay in shape, keeping their arms up for this scene wouldn’t be too bad. I rolled 2 coats of paint onto my cathedral ceilings (LR & DR) while standing on a tall ladder and my feet complained more frequently than my arms. Of course, that was 17 years ago in my mid-40s.
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#2019rewatch
Again, I defer to my comments from last November. I will add that on my rewatch today, BB seemed to me to have kinda watery eyes and maybe dried out/cracked lips in the garden scene with Billy, Vic and Paulie. He must’ve not been feeling well during the filming of this episode. But he still did an amazing job.
Also, Paulie and Frankie are baddies to the bone (meat pun totally intended). They are so authentically believable as these characters!
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This scene is quite visually memorable – the meat, the colors of Billy’s dashiki, and the way they are all hanging. There are a lot of sights about this episode that resonate in my memory, actually…starting with Sally’s white coat, Dotty’s Foxy Grandma sweatshirt, Francine’s blue/purple interview ensemble, the hallway scene between Amanda & Francine while discussing toilet brushes, Lee’s swagger into PP, Malcolm’s death discovery and more (now Billy’s shoe). (Note: I am purposefully not mentioning the solar panel jacket, Betsy Jordan’s dress, any earware, or Vic’s beard – all memorable, but not pleasantly so..actually I don’t mind the beard.)
Iwsod said: I wonder what would have happened if Frankie had said: ‘What a guy!’ Would Lee have suddenly wanted to kill Billy??!!!
This had me cracking up!! 😂😆😆😆
Also, another one of my favorite moments is Francine runs out of the catering tent with Amanda and the chef basically tells her shes finished if she leaves and she says, “Is that a promise?” while running away. Oh, Martha Smith cracks me up in this episode!!! 😂
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LOL, Iwsod! I am getting so good at spotting your photoshopping that I *might* have figured that one out on my own 🙂 Maybe. Actually, I got an extra laugh out of that because it reminded me of the time that the best man wrong “help me” in red nail polish on the bottom of my friend’s husband-to-be’s shoes. When they knelt at the altar for prayers and communiion, the “help me” showed up nice and clear for all to see. It caused quite a muffled giggle, and my friend was not at all happy when she found out. I thought it was pretty funny myself!
Funny, I never thought it was Billy hanging there, primarily because we never see his face. I figured it was a stand-in in a padded suit (sorry Mel); it never occurred to me that it could be a dummy. I do think it looks pretty painful, especially if one has back or neck problems (and I have no idea if MS did).
Yes, I remember the gory stories from the 70’s and 80’s about mafia activities. Most unpleasant. SMK is just piggy-backing off of real life and embellishing it to their advantage. I think they did a particularly great job in this episode in spoofing the real thing, walking the line between humorous and distasteful.
Jenbo, I’m glad you found a moment to drop in. Sounds like moving is going well — it’s such a big job, isn’t it?!? And as you come up for air, the holidays will be bearing down on you. Still, it’s nice to have a new home for the holiday season — new traditions to go with the old ones! But I should stop rushing it. I am in no mood to thing about December in September. Yikes. Sorry!
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*waves* I am treating myself to a quick SMK hit…….I mean its been nearly two weeks and I’ve not seen anything. I think I am having withdrawal symptoms…..we have moved house, hings are crazy busy but hoping they will calm down a little (kids ensconced in school as of today, hubby is at work) so I can squeeze in a little SMK. No proper internet yet (boy how did I EVER live without it!) that should be sorted next week.
Anyway all I wanted to say is the view of the three of them hanging makes me laugh out loud. I love how they put Billy, vertically challenged in between BB and the other guy. Good bit of comedy and also reminds me again of Top Secret (when they are hanging from the parachutes KC ;)).
Off to catch up with the next slice of the episode (pun IS intended ;))
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Hi all! I’m having computer problems (again!). This is the fourth computer that died after me working on some SMK fanfiction within 24 hours. I really don’t think it’s that bad, but the universe is trying to tell me otherwise. Ha!
Anyway, I just love Frankie and his stereotyped contradictions. He definitely has a place in my top 5 season 2 baddies.
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Ahh, that Frankie Columbus, such a typical mob guy. All nice and mannerable on the surface with those not so subtle undertones of maliciousness and depravity. “How about some nice veal chops?” “Fix up the wreath, make it look nice.” “Call me Frankie.” Seriously? Most dons or capos don’t like to get there hands dirty, they have lackeys and hitmen to do their dirty work. Frankie must really enjoy his work.
There was a Colombo mafia family in New York, but they were more well-known for their in-fighting. I guess they went through at least three internal conflicts. There were some Frankies and Paulies in that family.
There was a particularly gruesome mob murder in Chicago that involved a meat hook, a meat packing plant, and torture. I guess the guy had been a debt collector and some thought he had turned informant. He was tortured viciously and left somewhere for dead. Supposedly hanging from the hook is what will ultimately kill you as you could die from suffocation. Pretty heinous way to die. But enough of the gore. For some reason I had a fascination with this stuff in high school. Again, having lived in Detroit and Chicago you also get to hear a lot of mob stories. Al Capone had a house not too far from where I went to college.
Gonna have to check out the Billy, possibly not Billy hanging from a hook more closely. It’s funny when I saw the scene where Billy has his feet on the desk I kept thinking there would be something on the bottom of his shoe. Usually they mark props and clothing with something to identify who it belongs to. Every once in a while you see something on the bottom of the shoe, kind of like the line markers on the floor.
I don’t know about Lee. I don’t think he’s stupid, we know he has a lot of guts and I think he thinks that he can always get out of a difficult situation. I think he just doesn’t what to show any fear or appear weak in any way. He has been so full of swagger in this episode why stop and lessen it now? Okay, I’ve rambled enough for now. I must do get some sleep.
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hiya everyone!!! I’m thinking along the same lines as BJo.. Now I’ve posted the pics – I think that is Mel – but I don’t think he is hanging like the others. I think he has some sort of apparatus disguised by his dashiki.. something like a ski lift – what are they called.. a T lift?? he could be sitting on something like that.. maybe.. who knows! Anyway I think it looks funny how much longer Lee and Vic look (especially with their feet hanging and their arms up compared to tiny Billy who only comes up to their knees.. oh the indignity of it! You agree Claudia? you think he could be sitting perched on something?
yeah.. Frankie doesn’t delegate this part – this is his favourite part! and LOL.. don’t forget when he’s stressed he likes to ‘cut meat’ – or words to that effect! 🙂
I visited Chicago once Valerie.. a gorgeous city!! Yeah that suffocation thing Valerie – I think that is historically how crucifixion worked. An awful way to die..
Yes KC you really should pay attention more – I don’t know how you could have missed that!![writing on the bottom of Billy’s shoe] I know you don’t like to look at the details or anything ( Not! haaaa! joking!! 🙂 )
BTW – KC I can’t remember where I read it but loved your catch of Amanda’s number plate on another car!! whooo the plot thickens!!! 🙂 You’ve got to get these gems into a post of your own one day 🙂
LOL Morley! Billy and Serious biceps are not two concepts I put together easily in my mind!!!! rofl!! He was pretty old by this point wasn’t he.. I’m thinking that’s why he had his head positioned funny too.. he couldn’t adjust his neck when his arms were up!
Mr Colum- err I mean Frankie is about to meet his match!!! 🙂 Can’t wait!
KC I’m working on the memes idea in my study breaks.. provided it’s okay with Jenbo ( Hiya Jenbo!!) it will be best to do it over at Nedlindgers – it’s much easier to display pics over there for everyone!!! whooo I think it’s going to be lots of fun!!! 🙂 I guess I have a pretty visual sense of humour.. anyone else feel the same way?
Well bye all!
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Hey Iwsod–I’m glad you’re enjoying the finds, maybe as much as I’m enjoying finding them. 🙂
The Amanda’s-number-plate-on-another-car incident is in The ACM Kid (where Lee and the random agent are watching Alexi’s house–you’d think that Lee would notice her plate on another car and say something… [bwah hah hah–just kidding!])… they must have had a noob/intern/sleepwalker “working” in SMK props/vehicles that day!!!
Here’s the screencap
That’s definitely Amanda’s plate. 😀 (And with the binocular view, it’s reminiscent of the cattle scene in Top Secret!)
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Ha ha! I don’t know how we all missed Billy’s shoe sign… I guess WB wasn’t very good at community service messages… ROFL! (Nice one, Iwsod–I like the idea of more SMK memes!)
Ahhhhh… thank goodness for the ’80s–the keys left in the PP van ignition!
I love Paulie wheeling in the knife cart… very sinister–but without the sinister/suspenseful music that disappeared at the Columbus Meats door… duhm duhm duhm.
My take on the hanging-from-the-meathooks is that it is actually Mel and he’s concentrating really hard–I think his arms are bent ‘cos he’s flexed/holding himself up–unlike Lee and Vic who’re hanging. (It possibly also has something to do with the fact that he has shorter arms than the other two.) Note that Lee and Vic’s feet are just above the ground–if they put their toes down they’ll hit the floor–which they probably do in the close shots…??… I think it’s funny that Lee’s pants are sitting so high on his waist–it almost looks like Paulie gave him a wedgie for calling him “Pal”–surely, when hanging like that, the waistline would slip down somewhat ‘cos the stretch thins the abdominal area… know what I mean?!?!? 😀
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I guess Lee’s belt (the belt, the belt) was too tight, maybe? lol
From Frankie to Rostov – and yet, they were similar, weren’t they? Both very friendly as long as they got what they wanted.
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Too funny, iwsod! Place bad guy here – LOL. Did you do that in Photobucket?
Love Billy’s ‘uh-oh’ look when Paulie comes up from behind them. He looks good in his dashiki too.
I never wondered if that was Billy or not hanging from that hook, just always thought it must have been really uncomfortable. I also figured that whenever they had the close up shots, there was some sort of support under their feet if they wanted to use it. I wonder if Billy isn’t sitting on some sort of seat actually that is covered by his dashiki – maybe that’s why he had to use that cover so they could put him in something that would cover the seat? Not only are his arms bent as Morley says, but it looks like his knees are bent a little too vs. Lee and Vic’s.
I think Lee has guts, but he is also angry at being caught and hung up on that meat hook. And we all know that when Lee is angry is when he says the dumbest things!
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I think it really is Mel Stewart. I always assumed he was putting his martial arts skills to work and hanging Very still.
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ROFL!!
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I was wondering about Billy hanging there as well. It seems as if his elbows are bent and if that is the case he must have some serious biceps. I wonder if the swinging helps it looks like they are swinging on purpose.
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Looks like his legs are bent too. He is concentraiting to sit on this invisible chair, whooooo!
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