Millicent returns to Amanda with a tray of tea.
Millicent: Here we are.
Amanda: Oh, good.
Amanda’s being polite, but she seems to be feeling the pinch here.. she’s likely waited longer than she would have preferred and knows Lee is waiting for her back at the agency. I didn’t think she was letting Lee down earlier, as she had come up with a compromise of reading his notes.. but now that she is continuing to stick around.. I think she’s letting Lee down and not keeping up her end of the bargain!
Millicent: You know, I’m not at all surprised that Alan gave you all that money….
…He’s the soul of generosity. He’s always doing little things for me, and he’ll never take anything in return…
….Sugar.
Um did Amanda actually want sugar in her tea? she didn’t ask she just makes a statement. lol… Oh well I guess she could have asked earlier!
Amanda: Thank you.
Millicent: Mm-hmm. 
Amanda: Well, I tell you what, if he’s not back in a few minutes,…
…maybe I could just give you the money, Margaret.
Millicent: Millicent.
Amanda: Millicent. [random. Why the mess up with the name? I wonder if this was an ad lib flub by KJ and they just continued on anyway.. then again it could be because Amanda is distracted.. and wanting to leave. Millicent seems a bit lonely and to enjoy the company.
Is it just me or is there no tea in those cups? If there is, there isn’t much!] Oh wait. tea?! Is Millicent a tea sipping baddie???!!!!! lol..
Millicent: No-oh. Ah, I’m sure he’ll be right in. You’ve waited this long.
(Millicent and Amanda hear ‘Alan’ arriving)
[smk seems to love the name Alan!].
They turn..
we see him walk into the room.. Alan is indeed Rupert Andretti aka Sallee!
His stunned look as he sees Amanda is priceless! I’ve hit the car of a stalker?! How the flippin heck did she find me??!!! gah!!!
Millicent and Amanda walk over to greet him.
Millicent: Here he is.
Amanda: Oh. Hello.
Millicent: Alan, this is Amanda King. She tells me you’ve met already?
Amanda: Yes. 
(Amanda reaches into her king size handbag (ha).. to pull out the money.. Sallee is still stunned.. and Millicent doesn’t seem to notice)
Millicent: You naughty boy. If you had errands to run, why didn’t you ask me?
[what is he 10?! ugh.. I suspect living with Millicent as a border would be torture.. if he’s a baddie why is he boarding with someone who is so nosey?! It had been six months or something hadn’t it? ]
We cut back to Sallee staring unblinking at Amanda..
Intense! Does Amanda sense that she’s in danger?
Millicent : And what was so important you had to lose your sleep?
Sallee just continues with that unblinking stare. Unrelenting.
We cut back to Amanda who forges on.. she can see he is not happy!
[I mean really..I think her idea was dumb, even if the guy wasn’t a baddie.. How could she explain having found him without freaking anyone out??!!! ]
Amanda: Uh, look, I got the estimate on my car, and it was only ah, a hundred and twenty-five dollars, and I figured if your budget’s anywhere near as-
Amanda looks up and stumbles with her words a little.. 
She sees the unrelenting silent stare but then continues.
He is really not happy. A very effective silent stare.. this is a new baddie technique I think! 
Amanda continues and plays this out to the bitter end…
… tight as mine,…
[She plays it relaxed, but I think she really just wants to get the heck out of there]
… you’d probably want this one seventy-five back, so … here it is.
Amanda hands it back to him. 
He reaches out to take it, the stare unswerving! it’s like a silent: get out! What is Millicent to make of this?!
Amanda: I was pretty lucky to find ya’.
[oh rofl! she really did try to explain it with luck whahhahaahahaaaa.. Oh that is hilarious!!!!!! lol I’m pretty sure it wasn’t suppose to be though 
]
Millicent: Alan…
Poor Millicent. Awkward! 
Amanda turns to Millicent and hurries things along. Let’s put an end to this misery shall we?! And.. quit staring at me!!!!!!!
Amanda: Well. It was nice to meet you, Millicent. Thanks very much for the tea, and…
She turns back to Staring Alan
…I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll… just…
Amanda turns to walk away.
Amanda is heard calling out as walks away off camera and leaves: … be going. Bye-bye. Thanks again.
The shot zooms in on a close up of Alan. Who finally blinks!!! He seems a bit teary. but then, it could be because he didn’t blink for a few minutes!!
Millicent: Alan?
Finally he seems to snap out of it.
And.. when he does.. it’s a pretty evil look!
He heads toward the door after Amanda. I think he’d like to stop her.. and not in a good way. ahem.
We see Amanda close the front door, and as she heads out down the driveway she hears the front door open.. she turns back to see Sallee but she hurries away a little bit faster. Yep, Amanda’s danger alert is going off! And.. a good thing too.
Sallee walks out onto the porch, watching her as she walks away. He pulls a garrotte out of his jeans pocket and holds it.. ready for action.. will he go after Amanda?
(Off camera) Millicent: Alan? Come and get your tea. 
Hearing Millicent’s voice.. he seems to make a decision..
And the scene ends there. Was the decision to run? We know he’s a killer.. will Millicent be okay now he’s been rattled like this? Oh nooooooo…
I figure as an assassin he’ll assume the worst here.. that Amanda is on to him.. her skill at finding him would indicate she’s got resources behind her. Uh oh…
Brace yourself for an iwsod rant..
or if you’re not interested feel free to skip it 😉
I’ll rant about this once, and I promise I won’t harp on and spoil your enjoyment of this ep. I’m not a fan of the ‘Amanda randomly, accidentally, completely unknowingly stumbles into international espionage’ storylines. The whole of this initial set up irritates me, we’re suppose to take this seriously?! The odds of this happening are billion to one and farcical. The episode should milk the farce for all it’s worth and laugh at itself.. we can laugh along with this too. But.. if it takes it seriously and expects the audience to also, I think it’s irritating!
Give me a plot like Mr Brand’s any day.. I can even forgive the whole ‘Amanda is working on something tied to the baddie of the week and doesn’t know it yet’. But the ‘Amanda accidentally had a run in with an infamous assassin while purchasing fuses’? Purlease.
Amanda is officially working on cases at the agency now, in some kind of capacity. Early on I accepted this kind of extreme coincidence because she was a typist. lol and they needed to contrive ways to keep her in the spy game. I was totally on board with that tee hee….and they did it early on with a wink. Here? I’m not sensing a wink, and involving her due to dumb luck now is to me highly irritating!!!!!
Time…… to try to cheer myself up!
Okay. Rant over. If you’d like to rant about how much you love it, feel free to. I rant, but I don’t assume everyone will agree with me. We are all entitled to our own views and to express them respectfully I feel better having gotten it off my chest.
Now I’ll focus on the swoony Lee and Amanda dimension to this episode, and who knows.. there may even be some actual spy/detective work ahead of us to redeem things!
We’ll pause here.. and I’ll look forward to hearing from you guys. Thanks for reading!! 🙂 RL is keeping me too busy to comment much, but I’m loving reading your comments! You guys rock!! 🙂
"Just walk with me.." 
Ok, I’m new to posting on the blog, so I’m sorry if anything I say has been discussed already. This is one of my absolute favorite episodes of the whole series, for multiple reasons. But one thing that cracks me up about it: Sallee is so super chatty in the earlier scene with the car accident – I mean he just will not stop talking to Amanda! And then, starting with this scene, if I’m not mistaken …HE DOESN’T SPEAK A WORD (until his final scene)!! He just has the super intense stare that never stops! Just makes me laugh every time! That stare still scares the life out of me, though (and really makes my eyes water).
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He definitely only has two moods..
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His stunned look as he sees Amanda is priceless! I’ve hit the car of a stalker?! How the flippin heck did she find me??!!! gah!!!
…your comment has me in stitches… so true. Just imagine if we wouldn’t know already that Sallee is the baddie, we’d absolutely agree with him being all weirded out, LOL. Not the smartest move by Amanda, no matter how well intended.
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Ah, forgot to mention. While the plot is contrived, I don’t mind so much here, because the are so many hilarious moments happening in this episode because of this that make it worth it, imo. Also, if such a coincidence happens now and then, I’m okay with it, it just shouldn’t happen too often. After all, the only way to stumble upon supposedly dead Sallee is if someone actually stumbles upon him…and stranger things have happened. 😉
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LOL, iwsod, on your rant. Let’s face it though, by this time in the series, anything that is not a Lee/Amanda scene is just plain filler. By now everyone who watched this show was probably just not paying much attention to the plot or not plot, but rather were waiting for Lee and Amanda goodness. Compared to today’s tv shows, I think many of the 80s tv was very light and full of coincidences. Murder She Wrote spings to mind. Another show I loved, but full of contrivances.
And is it just me or does Sallee look like he’s wearing a fat suit under his shirt? His buttons look a little stretched and his abdomen just looks a bit off to me. His head looks small for his body.
That is very creepy how Amanda found Sallee. If someone did that to me in RL, I think I’d be quite creeped out and start looking over my shoulder. I think Amanda senses from Sallee’s stare that she may have gone a tad too far in finding him.
But Amanda does tend to do that still doesn’t she. Her spy skills are definitely improving, but I think she sometimes can get in over her head and not realize the potential consequences. Thank goodness Lee is always there to save her bacon. She definitely needs some real agent training!
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I like the way Amanda instantly knows that something is off with Sallee while Millicent is clueless. Does that show us how much Amaanda has grown out of her naivete?
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She appears to be an old maid and he probably gave her lots of attention because he would know that would be the way to throw her off the track for whatever evil he had planned….and she was soaking up the attention and it appears she fell for him….but snapping his photo when he was sleeping was beyond weird ….IMO the thought of a single woman taking in a strange male boarder just doesn’t sound safe anyway.
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In the 1980s, about a third of all the Lifetime movies had to do with some similar scenario–Unsuspecting woman invites bad guy in. I’ve probably watched most of them.
A random thought just occurred to me. I wonder if she tried to take the picture while he was awake? She may have even asked him, then explained it was a ‘keepsake’ for her to remember all of the visitors she’s had. He of course, refuses. She assumes he’s just being bashful and decides to take it while he’s asleep.
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I agree with you, Iwsod, about the coincidences. If they would just go ahead and make Amanda an agent they wouldn’t have to come up with these contrivances to get her involved in a case. I remember in OBDOBD how when Lee couldn’t find Amanda after her mother was taken, he commented that knowing Amanda she probably found the bad guys. It’s almost like Amanda is a magnet for all the baddies. I like it when there is an actual case or Lee has an actual case and Amanda is asked or becomes his partner.
It was probably mentioned, but Millicent talks to Sallee as if he’s a child. She seems to be chastising him. Oddly weird.
That Sallee stare is quite ominous.
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The actor who plays Sallee is Stanley Kamel. Thought I’d look him up (IMDB). He died back in 2008. Looks like he acted in a lot of TV shows and movies, including Monk (which L&A mentioned). He was in a movie with KJ called Making Love back in 1982. He also starred in a movie in the 1990s with a title I found amusing…. “Dead Men Don’t Die.”
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Oh, and also The Rookies. How could I miss that one. 🙂
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Oh my gosh! what a catch!!! good one Sara! 🙂
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I love how you summed up your rant, Iwsod. Yes, SMK is missing the wink. It is best when it laughs at itself and refuses to take itself too seriously! A play-along-with-me wink would have made the preposterous plot line totally forgiveable 🙂
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Awh thanks Raffie!!! 🙂
So glad we can have our gripes.. and still appreciate the show and that there is no question of whether or not we really love this show. you know?!
I love it.. warts and all.. and if they don’t give us a wink from time to time.. we can have on amongst ourselves I guess! 🙂
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This whole scene is creepy weird for me! Millicent seems young enough to have an out side job, it seems weird for her not to work. Andhanging around the house in a dress and pearls, maybe June Cleaver is her role model. Sallee is very creepy!!! I think Amanda realizes that he is dangerous. I wonder what Millicent is thinking at this awkward moment. With the way she calls him to tea it seems obvious that his cold, hard stare down of Amanda didn’t phase her.
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Blinded by love (or infatuation 😦 )?
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She also plays the violin. The house may be paid for and she gets extra money from renting rooms or teaching violin lessons. Just a guess.
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Perhaps Millicent is a musician, a violinist, playing as a professional at a orchestra, practicing her part at home.
Renting rooms brings her some extra money and some company too.
She seems to have quite a crush on Alan/Steven Sallee or whatever his name is. Might be unhealthy…
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I like the idea of her being a musician or perhaps a music teacher. Either that or maybe she really is a widow and her husband left her some money but not a lot, so for company and a little extra income, she rents out a room. I’m still thinking of her as a music teacher.
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Maybe that could explain why she was comfortable letting Amanda into her home as she’s used to her students and their parents entering her “private space”?
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I agree that taking the photo of sleeping Allan and hiding it was creepy. But in terms of Millicent’s feelings being unhealthy – I’m yet to make up my mind on that one… maybe she had reason to fall for him? Or maybe it is unhealthy! I haven’t decided yet… This whole question is floating around in the back of my mind as we continue to walk through this ep.
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Agree! creepy weird!
I think we don’t know if Millicent works. but I do get the impression somehow that she is around the home a lot and craving company.
lol yes the dress and pearls are OTT aren’t they.. I think smk was wanting to tell us something with those choices 😉 a pearl necklace AND bracelet.. lol!
I wonder what Millicent is thinking too. I think she would be likely to be curious and asking Alan questions.. after all he is a ‘naughty boy’ – and uh oh.. this might be dangerous!!
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That’s true, Millicent’s main profession might not be important to the story. It is important that she rents rooms to people and that she might not be the best judge of character when it comes to picking her renters. She seems like kind of a romantic, maybe a sentimentalist.
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I love your rant on Amanda and coincidence Iswod. Please feel free to rant some more:-)
Much as I find the coincidence of Amanda’s car been hit by Sallee annoying, what I find really incredible is the notion of a notorious hit man living as a border in suburban Washington. I can’t see any man of Sallee’s age living as a border with Millicent (subject to him being sane, of course) but a man like Sallee would definitely avoid it. He would be so conspicuous and memorable among the neighbours in a quiet suburb and poor Millicent is definitely not the full shilling. So, having to take that unboard, him hitting Amanda in a borrowed car is too much of a further stretch for me. Having said all that, I still love this episode.
I also have say that the first time I watched this on the Dvd, I felt actual danger when Sallee was staring at Amanda. It is not often I feel fear for a character on Smk and in my opinion it was acted very well.
I think Amanda should avoid Alan’s, they always lead her into trouble.
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I think Amanda should avoid Alan’s, they always lead her into trouble.
Yup, by now that name should ring a huge bell within Amanda.
She should start running for the hills when she notices a guy’s name is ‘Alan/Allan’.
Fortunately she hasn’t meet another guy named ‘Lee’ who is a baddie… 😉
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Awh thanks Michele! 🙂
So agree with your thoughts on the unlikely choice of Sallee to hide out in the suburbs lol!
Agree! I still love this episode too!!!
In spite of the annoyances I am loving seeing Amanda be proactive and stepping out on her own.
rofl. Yep. I’ll join the avoid Alan’s club!!! 🙂
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I think the “Mary”/”Millicent” thing is a flub on KJ’s part but it does make it seem like a more real life conversation. I like that the two actresses ad-libbed over it and kept going.
It would be fascinating if it was meant to show that Amanda was distracted and concerned that she was letting Lee down by not checking his speech notes, but since SMK doesn’t really excel at subtlety and nuance, I would be surprised if it was a deliberate device to indicate her distraction. However, that doesn’t mean to say we can’t imagine that it shows Amanda’s thoughts are elsewhere and she just wants to get this thing with Rupert/Alan squared and be on her way asap to Lee. 🙂
Alan’s starey-starey act makes him seem just a wee bit psychopathic… 😯 Oh dear…that can’t be good…
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Agree fully, I think it was a genuine mistake but what a brilliant recovery from both KJ and Millicent.
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I was thinking that it was interesting that KJ and Jenny O’Hara (Millicent) ad libbed given she was just a guest star and I see in IMDb that Jenny O’Hara also guest starred in “Charlie’s Angels” (maybe someone mentioned this in the previous post) so I wonder if they were friends? Or just past colleagues?
I agree with Iwsod that the coincidence/Amanda/international plot story line has been overused. The writers in S3 have a bit unoriginal, repeating elements of plots several times. Grrrrr.
That still of Sallee is very, very creepy. It just screams: “I’m a baddie. I prey on vulnerable women. Don’t trust me”
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Alan’s starey-starey act makes him seem just a wee bit psychopathic… Oh dear…that can’t be good…
Ohh my gosh… That guy became Monk’s psychiatrist later on?
A psychopathic turned psychiatrist. No wonder Monk never got really better… 😉
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rofl well you know we can give anything a meaning on smk if we want to 🙂 whether one was intended or not 🙂 haa!
Brilliantly played by the actors this scene huh. Very powerful and ominous and with no dialogue whatsoever.. Kudos to these three!!!
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Sallee is definitely in contention for the Golden Teacup Awards.
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LOLLLLLLLLL! Love the meme, Iwsod!
I honestly don’t think that, back then, the makers of our favorite spy show even thought that, 30 years later, there would still be people who’d discuss all the aspects of the show the way we do. Did we prove them wrong!
SA
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My brother used to watch “Dukes of Hazzard” (Don’t judge, OK, maybe judge just a little, LOL). We joked that if it was an odd numbered episode, Boss Hog would try to frame the Duke boys by planting mary-ja-wanna (marijuana) in their car or on their property and if it was an even number episode, then he would do the same, but with moonshine. The ultimate in recycling plots.
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I used to watch it too! ANd until today I never realised what mary-ja-wanna was!
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Cindy this is flippin hilarious!!!! I grew up watching dukes.. so it totally tickles my funny bone!
Ahh the 80’s so unsophisticated and easy to laugh at err I mean with! 🙂
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No worries, Iwsod. I’ve attempted a few times to write a post about another SMK episode that I have a similar gripe about, but I’ve scrapped it each time. I’ll post eventually. They could tweak these coincidences just a little more and they’d be perfect. We’d still have plenty to discuss 30 years later, right? 😉
Okay…Sallee. He’s one creepy baddie in my book. Hmm… Millicent as a potential tea-sipping baddie? I don’t know if she quite fits the bill. Do the tea-sipping baddies have actual tea in their cups? Maybe that’ll get her a pass. I do think she’s lonely but so far, aside from renting rooms to assassins, she seems harmless.
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I wonder if lonely Millicent and lonely Agnes the Agency librarian know each other? They certainly seem to travel in the same circles when it comes to meeting men. 😦
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Hello 2Goldens – so wonderful to see you stop by! It’s been a while!! 🙂
lol true. those lonely women and bad boys huh. Though with Agnes I’m thinking it was implied she was lonely and went bar hopping on the singles scene and uh oh.. found trouble. Meh.
I’m not sure what is the whole story with Millicent yet, but I’m thinking trouble came to her and she hadn’t been in the lonely hearts club 😉
The lonely woman seeking love device seems to be tried and true. oh heck, we could even put Amanda and her [Artless Dodger] ‘Alan’ in that category no?
Do we see Lonely men getting into trouble on smk? without thinking too deeply about it, I can only think of OOADP. And those men weren’t lonely.. they were errr ‘frisky’?
whahahahahaa..
Hope you are all having a great day! byee!
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Well, maybe Lee and Angelo in Lost and Found could qualify as the lonely men who trusted the wrong woman? Oh, and there were the guys who fell for the fake Amanda in Odds on a Dead Pigeon (although that one guy was married and really shouldn’t have been lonely 😛 ).
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Yeah true maybe lost and found is the guy’s version..
As I said about OOADP, the guys were IMHO portrayed more as ‘frisky’ rather than lonely.
At this point, I’m not really sure what’s up with Millicent – I just find taking a guy’s photo while he is asleep because he doesn’t like to have his photo taken is rather creepy.
That he was asleep in front of Millicent does suggest they shared some intimacy.. hmm I guess we’ll see if we can glean anything more about their relationship as things progress..
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Yeah, ‘Lost and Found’ also came to my mind…
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Thanks Sara – and I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts! 🙂
I’m sure we’ll be able to find an exemption for Millicent 🙂
Maybe it’s not a baddie indicator when she shares it?! tee hee..
or.. Maybe it’s the lack of ornate furnishings that lets her off the hook. and no baddie telephone?!
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Ahh, the SMK coincidences. You would think by now Billy would just ask Amanda who she met that day and put them under surveillance because they are obviously assassins, spies or general, run-of-the-mill baddies.
I always figured Millicent was the type that projects onto people and that is how she ‘knows’ that Amanda takes sugar in her tea. Or maybe because she likes sugar in her tea, then everyone must love it too.
And saying Sallee/Alan is intense is a bit of an understatement.
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Ahh, the SMK coincidences. You would think by now Billy would just ask Amanda who she met that day and put them under surveillance because they are obviously assassins, spies or general, run-of-the-mill baddies.
LOL!
Why didn’t you tell Billy 30 years ago? His job would have been soooo much easier… 😉
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Cindy — Can’t stop laughing! Your advice for Billy to “just ask Amanda who she met that day and put them under surveillance,” was truly inspired! Then to recall who, on Billy’s roster of Agents she met first, gets me started all over again. The thought of putting Lee under surveillance … oh how I needed an irrepressible laugh, thank you so much!
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