Heading back to IFF.. and we join PopTutTowne.. okay I think this is Towne.. but it’s been ages so forgive me if I’m wrong..
Towne: To quote Mark Twain, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”…
(to Amanda)… You believe me?
Amanda: Oh of course I do… [Is she just saying that now? or does she still really believe him? – sorry no need to answer just thinking out loud as I experience the ep]
… Now all we have to do is convince the entire United States government. [As the agent of record, she’s the ideal agent to do it!]
Lee: That’s me. [Not just you. and thank goodness for that! 😉 Seems Lee and Amanda are vacillating here… one moment they’re ‘we’ and the next.. they are in opposition]
Lee looks up at Amanda and smiles. But.. I don’t think this is a happiness smile.. what do you think?
I think it’s a reminder – like it or not Amanda I have authority here. but.. the smile does take the edge off at least.. 
(Billy enters) [Back from his meeting with Gregory I guess.. I wonder if he decided to buy the house 😉 ]
Billy: Amanda – Scarecrow, we’re huddling in the bullpen.
(Billy gives them a head toss to motion they need to come join him)
[Can I just say I love love that Billy includes Amanda here – IMHO an indicator he values her contribution and does see her as the agent of record here]
Amanda: Yes Sir.
Lee (to Towne): And you’re the football. 
As Amanda gets up she responds quietly to Lee: That’s unnecessary.
What a great call. Good for you Amanda. She is gentle in how she reprimands Lee here. but she is clear – and shows her support for Towne (seems I got my answer- yes she does still believe Towne).
I agree with Amanda – unfunny humour Lee..
This reminds me of the first scene with Lee and Billy – where Lee accused the Russians of trying to win a Kewpie Doll.. he was accusing the Russians of playing games and wanting prizes. Seems to me Lee is ‘playing’ with the same mindset here. Amanda- is very aware this is no game. And Towne’s life is not a football.
Somehow, for me this joke of Lee’s is his lowest point in this episode – to make a joke out of a person’s life like this so directly – Is IMHO cruel and disappointing..
Lee is caught up in the game.. and I guess he is so certain Towne is guilty he doesn’t see it as cruel. But, he also knows that Amanda does not see Towne as guilty.. so for me.. Ahh Lee.. you need to take a good look at yourself and your behaviour here.. and hopefully Amanda’s well placed response will assist with that!
As Amanda walks around Towne she gives him a reassuring touch on the shoulder and heads out the door..
Towne is looking pretty afraid and defeated.. 
[not very spy like of him.. note to scarecrow!]
Followed by Lee, who gives Towne a last satisfied look as he leaves..
Towne is left with the armed guard..
and worried for his future..
I’m going to keep this one short – as I don’t want to cut the next big scene up..
Very high stakes here!!!! I guess it is not just Towne’s life at stake here.. it is Francine’s also.. but Francine is an agent – Towne is potentially a civilian (with a high clearance granted) though we the audience know he really is a civilian..
Soooo any comments you’d like to share at this point everyone?
Was anyone at this point convinced that Towne was guilty? Innocent??
I confess I completely missed the experience of seeing this ep and not knowing the outcome – as I had been spoiled from the start.. but in this walk I am trying to imagine the experience of watching and not knowing.
At this point, I think there is plenty of evidence that points to either outcome.. But because of that one scene where Gregory tells Popovich he went to a lot of trouble to convince people he’s Towne – IMHO we are left in no doubt.. it’s more a case of the audience wondering how they’ll figure things out, and what damage is going to be done before they do!
Even if we didn’t know about the doppelganger with random paint on his shoes who misses Moscow, I guess the fact remains: It can’t be that both Lee and Amanda are right here.. and there has been a power struggle going on between Lee and Amanda as a result of this situation. How is all this going to impact the development of their relationship? have they grown enough together to get through this?
Will this result in a full stop to their romance?
or a comma to pause their romance progression?
at this point – it’s putting a big question mark on their romance for me! 
Whatever the outcome- this situation highlights for me that the professional impacts the personal between Lee and Amanda…. so this episode is going to be of major importance!
We’ll be right back with more of Scarecrow and Mrs King after this commercial break 😉
I can’t wait to hear from you guys about all this!!
"Just walk with me.." 
I think I actually was believing Towne had to be guilty based on the evidence even though I knew SMK would probably make it turn out differently. I misunderstood the scene between the doppelganger and Gregory and thought “Oh no, he IS bad!” and for me the register proved it.
Personally if I’d been working the case, I think I’d be suspecting Towne the way Lee does.
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I should also add that I was kind of biased against Towne because of the MSG incident. I get migraines from a similar ingredient, maltodextrin and so my mom, aunt and I have to be super anal, especially when I’m with them because they can eat it. For example if one of them eats flavored chips and then touches something without cleaning her hand off and then I touch it, I’m in trouble. And we’re all at a point where we check and double check everything.
I also had a horrible experience at a restaurant where I’d asked the waitress about if maltodextrin was in the chicken I’d ordered. She brought the dish without confirming and when I asked again she said “Oh yeah, it’s fine” all casual and after I ate it I had an eight day headache.
So to hear Towne seem so cavalier the way he responded “Oh I forgot” — he didn’t sound like it was that big of a deal and yet we see her swelling up. I felt like “Uh, a loving husband should be taking more care than that. I bet Lee would be triplechecking for no MSG if it were Amanda and then practically grovelling if he made that error!” And then to see him back at the Chinese restaurant I was like “Well there you go. He doesn’t even care because he’s a KGB agent and his wife is just part of his cover.”
And you thought Lee had biases?
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Was the football comment directed at Towne as a joke? I thought Lee meant it at the guard as in “Guarding the football” or implying Towne is like the “football” nuclear codes that have to be guarded in reference to Towne’s mathematics knowledge. In other words, “And now you’re the football the Marine is guarding because you could effectively start a war.”
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I guess I am thinking that if Towne really was KGB parading as some innocent patriotic American mathematician I could understand Lee making such a joke. Afterall the two of them would know this is how the spy game goes – and it is a game. I also think Lee must think that now it has got to be obvious to Amanda that this is the case, those birth and death records should have convinced her and she would join his side. He knows how he would proceed, but he hasn’t gotten to know exactly how Amanda does, not yet.
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All sounds very logical to me! 🙂
And yet I was emotionally irked by Lee nonetheless 🙂 my experience of the scene was that this was low. And as Amanda said, completely unnecessary!
I always find it fascinating that we can all react differently.
Maybe in a year’s time watching this scene I may not be so caught up in it and may not care about Lee at all ha!
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Maybe you were irked by Lee because you were picking up on his irked state as well. The guy really was unsettled here… 😉
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It’s irritating to see Lee acting in this way again here. He was so much better in the previous post. Clearly finding Towne’s death in the register tells him he is right. I’m guessing Amanda is not convinced and the fighting may have started again in the car on the way back to the Agency – hence the tension between the two here. I’m guessing Amanda came up with all these ways of how the book could be faked and how they could prove it was a fake and Lee just wanted to accept what they found and move on. Boo Lee!
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It is irritating. I put it down to that period after conflict where you are superficially no longer disagreeing with your partner (be it work partner or romantic partner) but the slightest thing can set you off again (low threshold for reignition of diagreement). Lee needed a period alone to let all the tension settle down. But, this being the international spy business, there was not time to calm down properly
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Just going on the record to say that this whole name–in-the-death registry totally confuses me, even after watching this episode many times. I simply don’t get it. Hopefuly once we get to the end of the walk through this episode someone can explain to me exactly what was going on and how it fits into the overall scheme. I feel very dense, but if the shoe fits…
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Me too, Raffie! I’m so confused!
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I still think that just adding a note in an old registry shouldn’t be enough to convince a government agency that someone is dead. Like I said, they still haven’t uncovered an official death certificate with a doctor’s signature. When it comes right down to it, there’s also no grave for little William Towne.
Also, it’s not that easy to erase all traces of a person’s life. Maybe Towne’s parents are dead already and can’t vouch that he’s their son, but there have to be other people who have know him throughout the years. He might still have other relatives — aunts, uncles, or cousins, even if he didn’t have brothers or sisters. What about childhood friends or former roommates? What about old doctor’s records? Did he break his arm when he was twelve or have appendicitis or pneumonia as a teenager and spend some time in a hospital? What about the schools he attended? If the guy’s a math genius, his math teachers probably remember him. He was probably an honors student and won math trophies and scholarships in school. Maybe he was in clubs or scouts. If his old school still has his records or a trophy from a chess tournament or a little plaque that says something like “Student of the Year 1958, William Towne,” that should hint that he didn’t die at age two. What about yearbook pictures? People leave traces of themselves all over the place just by living.
Again, if Lee wasn’t so pressed for time, they could make a quick trip to his old elementary or high school, take a look at some records and old photos, and verify that there’s something suspicious going on.
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Also – surely the name “William Towne” isn’t that uncommon??
Thank goodness that online sources make checking these things out easier these days – although maybe L & A would enjoy a little field trip to Towne’s old high school…
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It just struck me that Lee and Amanda are doing the good cop/bad cop routine, except that it’s not really just an act here. It’s a big difference from when Lee first tried to explain the concept to Amanda back in Mongoose.
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Very true, Jestress 🙂 . It’s intuitive for Amanda to be the “good” cop
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Is this Towne’s interrogation, if so Lee’s comment about the football could be justified as just trying to get to him and getting the information they need.
“Towne is a civilian (with a high clearance granted),” I’m a little confused at what he needs the clearance for. Does he do math for the Agency? Is his clearance going to be higher than Amanda’s?
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That always confused me too. I would have thought he had a “security check” rather than a “clearance”, because he doesn’t seem to know anyone at the Agency which seems to indicate he doesn’t do any work there. I thought it was more that, given the type of work he does, he might have the ability to intercept and decode “secret” code.
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That explanation makes some sense
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I think when I first saw this I was still a bit confused, even though I knew that the Tuttle person was not really Towne. It felt like a human version of that shell game. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on.
I know that Lee is technically doing his job here, but I think he has been going somewhat overboard and been a bit overly zealous in his desire to be right or prove some point. I think him stating that he’s the entire US government was a bit much and I definitely did not like the football comment. I agree with Amanda that it was unnecessary. They still seem to be at the point of gathering evidence and he’s supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. I would assume by Billy’s announcement that they are going to try to hash everything out and discuss all the evidence they’ve collected. But Lee’s already decided what his verdict is. Earlier he used the term renegade arithmetic teacher in a joking way, as if that was something not possible. Now he has taken that joke and seems to believe it to be reality.
I also think I remember wondering who this Lee was. He seemed to be all over the place in this episode.
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I wonder how Lee felt with Amanda’s reassuring touch of Towne. A little bereft, I would think.
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Interesting that between this touch (but of Towne this time not Lee) and the misquote from NotShamba/Mark Twain or whoever it was – reminders of The Wrong Way Home. Also “wrong”.
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In Lee’s defence, treasoness or traitorous people are considered the worst of the worst. In military and espionage circles there is no mercy for people who betray their country.
Having said that, Lee is still being a cactus butt because the man PopTutTowne and the circumstances haven’t been adequately investigated or explained yet. Lee should be keeping an open mind and not focusing on a particular theory as being the only explanation – this is how innocent people get put in jail (or in some countries, put to death).
Amanda is possibly a bit guilty of going with her own theory to the exclusion of other possibilities too. Hopefully they will both learn a lesson from this experience. Lee has less of an excuse as he is supposed to be a seasoned investigator.
I think they are both letting their personal feelings confuse their logic and commonsense. They are at a critical junction in their personal relationship which I think has, for the time being, derailed both of them. Keeping with the railway metophor, at some point they are together going to have to decide to organise the switches so they either go the same way together or go their separate ways down different tracks. Of course, we want it to be the former option… 😉
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