So let’s see.. Francine is having a really really bad day. Now the ruthless assassin Francine said couldn’t possibly be a threat to the event has turned up and taken her hostage!
All the agents stand outside the main ball room watching.
We see the timer moving fast toward zero!
Suddenly, Van Kleef rushes up to the doors and wastes no time – he volunteers his superior knowledge of the premises:
Van Kleef: The rear doors! If he gets out there he could go in a dozen different directions!
Van Kleef is very assertive here! Go Van Kleef! Now he understands the danger he’s on his game!
[That and he’s probably mad at Sallee for ruining his champagne fountain 
]
Back in the ballroom, Sallee is hurrying Francine through the room.
They are right under the chandelier and we cut back to the timer – 
Uh oh.. will Francine’s mistake be the death of her???!!!!
I sure hope not, I can always count on Francine to give us a bit of fashion flair- whether I like her style or not, she never fails to be interesting!!! 
A few more shots cutting between a rapidly moving timer, Francine and Sallee under the chandelier, Lee standing outside looking all intense..
yes, we must see a shot of that whoooo.. And the chandelier lights. Uh oh… 
The chandelier lights start to glow very brightly, the power surge triggered by the timer starting. We see the dial starting to increase..
Quick Lee!!! Do something!!!
Billy: Lee, the bulbs are about to blow!
[LOL why did Lee wait so long to move??!!! Love the music here whooooo very intense!!! Has Lee left it too late to act???]
Lee opens the door a crack and yells out intensely to Francine from the doorway-
Lee: Francine! Get down!
[I don’t know why – but that’s funny!!!
What is with Sallee all of a sudden? I thought he was super clever and cool under pressure. But here he is seeing the light bulbs brighten –a sign that his plan has been triggered and the bomb is about to blow, and what does he do? go right underneath it?!!!!! ]
Anyway.. Francine acts immediately.. she knocks the gun away, 
Go Francine!!! Now this is Girl Power!!! She hits Sallee, and dives under a table.
Sallee: Oohh!
Yeah Sallee just can’t bring himself to crawl under a table himself.. ahem..
We cut back to the crowd at the door panicking that they have no table to hide under rofl!
Voice: Get down!
Voice: Watch out! Cover!
Voice: It’s gonna blow!
Everyone ducks.. 
The timer hits zero,
the power dial moves to maximum.. (wouldn’t the zero have started the movement of the dial toward the max? why did the dial move before the timer went off? me confused.. anyway.. focus on the pretty lights!! whooooo)
Whoooaaaaa!!!!
The chandelier explodes,
aaaand explodes…
aaand explodes..
Hey! did you guys notice? the chandelier exploded!!!
Wow.. they went for it with this one!
the chandelier starts to fall..
and lol.. explodes again!
Aaaaand again!!! rofl this is just like those eggs in Our Man in Tegernsee
Oh enough already! haaaaa.. It explodes flying straight for us and it goes to black.
LOL I think they put a few sparklers on there!
The dust is still in the air.. Lee and Billy rush into the room yelling..
Lee: Francine!
Francine (muffled): Yeah, here!
Lee leans down under the table to help Francine out. LOL that the other tables are turned over.. but Francine’s? No. Francine picked a good table
Lee: Come on. Ergh.
Lee helps her up.
Lots of noises from Francine as she gets out from under the table, she seems a little out of it.
And dishevelled.. My goodness she has had a bad day! [Then again it’s not so bad – Lee isn’t letting go and.. she is alive! ]
She turns around and sees what’s left of Sallee on the floor.. This is pretty graphic for smk no?
I’d say he’s had a worse day!
Lee: Ergh. You all right?
Francine: Yeah, I’m okay.
Lee: Huh? …He’s really dead this time. 
Lee pats Francine on the arm for some comfort..
So glad he didn’t give her a hug..
Glad Francine’s okay! Maybe now she’ll be a little more humble?! tee hee..
The scene ends there.. is it just me or is this quite a weird, different action finale for smk? Very strange to have Amanda not in the scene at all…. How does what we got compare with the script? Anyone?
Interesting to have a finale where it’s Francine who is in peril.. there was no major punch up to finish things off and the novelty murder weapon was a chandelier!
What do you think? I don’t mind it for a change up.. but hey – do you think Lee would have gone into the room if Sallee had taken Amanda hostage?
You know what else I find a little unusual – we had Jamie and Phillip heading off to a science fair in the opening scene, showing us how overloading a fuse makes it blow etc. etc.. and they left with Dotty for the fair. But.. there is zero mention of them since. Old SMK would have had Amanda mentioning them, wondering how they are going, trying to call them, we may have seen her call them.. but.. it feels to me that Amanda is melding her two worlds less in this ep. Maybe this is a one off.. or maybe it’s a new trend. I guess we’ll see! thoughts?
I’ll pause here and let Francine fix her hair.. lol.. back with the finish of this ep soon!!!
"Just walk with me.." 
Iwsod said: What do you think? I don’t mind it for a change up.. but hey – do you think Lee would have gone into the room if Sallee had taken Amanda hostage?
Shoot, Iwsod, I juuuuuuust asked the exact same question on my comment on the last post! I totally think Lee would’ve done anything to rescue Amanda if she had been nabbed by Sallee. In fact, I’m thinking he’d have taken Sallee down before they even got into the ballroom.
The chandelier explosion caps (and comments) had me belly laughing!!
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rofl. Great minds and all that! 🙂
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I like what Pallina mentions about Francine being in a trance because of all that she’s had to deal with, especially what has transpired in the last 15 minutes or so. I know that she is trained to be able to handle all of those things, but she’s had a lot to deal with prior to this case. It took Lee to get her out of that trance. Lee pulled her back to her sensibilities. Francine has noticed Lee’s transition of loyalty to Amanda. You could see how defensive she was earlier regarding her work at securing the hotel. Lee tried to calm her then, but she could probably sense some doubt or questioning from him. I’m sure that this is something else that has been bothering her. She wonders just where her friendship is with Lee. Francine has had a lot weighing on her of late.
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This episode has some very interesting differences between the script and the filmed episode. The chase scene leading up to Sallee nearing the ballroom shows Sallee disguised as a bus boy trying to blend into the crowd in order to get away. Also the script describes Sallee as having a limp (from the explosion in Buenos Aries) which gives him away. Amanda is the one who spots him and informs the others. Sallee suddenly finds himself surrounded by agents, he checks his watch, he has two and a half minutes until the explosion. Surrounded by agents he calculates his options and runs for the ballroom doors. Halfway through the ballroom the chandelier explodes and kills a shocked Sallee.
I wonder if the hostage taking of Francine was to have the viewers feel sympathy or perhaps appreciate the value of Francine. It seems rather random that such an experienced agent would be so helpless when I suspect that if Amanda was the hostage we would have seen a clever Amanda style escape.
Lol, I love that they included sparklers in the explosion scene. Too funny!
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Is it New Year’s Eve? Is it Australia Day? No, it’s not fireworks, it’s the SMK action scene. Great screen caps, Iwsod. Poor old Francine, she really gets a lot of the bad luck here (and in other episodes). And doesn’t always come out with her dignity intact. what impresses me the most is that she managed to do all that ducking and diving, and gun-knocking in that very narrow skirt. Well done, Francine 🙂
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rofl!
Thanks learjet you are very generous 🙂
yes Francine needs a guardian of her dignity too 🙂
Good point! all done in a narrow skirt: and Heels!!! kudos to Francine!
Mancine would never have been able to do it 😉
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I think that Francine seems as in a trance here because she was so mortified with what happened the whole day up to that moment.
At the same time, I can see that Amanda and Francine do exactly the opposite they would do in other circumstances: on the one hand, as Janet Hill pointed out in the 16°of this episode, Amanda immediately obeys Billy’s order without question; on the other, we see Francine who doesn’t react immediately against Sallee. If I could, I would re-name this episode as “The episode of the ‘opposite'” or “The SMK world upside down for one day” ;).
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There is a song lyric that the Field Mouse sings to Thumbelina in the cartoon of the same name. ‘[He’s] dead, dead, very very dead!’ that always pops into into my head when I see Sallee’s body.
Glad to see Francine finally waking up and deciding to save herself. It must be her superspy training that allowed her to pick the one table that was barely impacted (I think the place settings are untouched too). The randomness of the overturned tables reminds me of the original Star Trek series where the actors would lurch in different directions in response to the Enterprise being hit. I guess the laws of momentum and inertia need not apply in TV land.
You know what I would have rather seen?
If the writers insisted that a hostage be taken, that Sallee grabbed Van Kleef. And Francine could tackle Sallee and get Van Kleef safely under the table before the chandler blew up. Then they could still snipe at each other which would have been hilarious considering the experience they just shared.
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I love that! Darn!!! why did they not ask you to join their writing team?!!!
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Yup, we really need to build that time machine for Cindy!
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That last picture of the falling chandelier and the sparklers is a neat shot. I wonder if I used it as a cover photo on Facebook if anyone would be able to guess what it is?
And maybe Francine had to wait until the last minute to get herself free from Sallee so that he would be vulnerable in the explosion and she could find some safety. Too soon and Sallee might have gotten away again. Maybe?
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I dare ya!!!!
Hmmm.. keep trying to fill those holes Morley 🙂 Hmmm.. yes maybe.. Francine could have been ‘holding her fire’ haaaaa till she was far enough away from the men so that if she made her move Sallee couldn’t shoot the other agents, I guess..
Given she didn’t know about the bomb about to blow she wasn’t including that in her plans no?
But the most non sensical thing for me is that Sallee would see the bombs starting to glow brightly, about to blow – and he goes and stands under it?!
No sense!
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Well, maybe Sallee was thinking along the lines of “They’ll never get me alive!” – since obviously there was no way for him to get away. He wouldn’t have made it to the back door and if he’d have taken cover, either Francine would have taken him out or one of the agents would have shot him.
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true! Maybe he had gotten use to being ‘Dead’ haaaaaa..
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He had too many trails now. Oh! He had made too many personal contacts and too many normal people had seen him. That theme could fit in with this episode… How interaction with normal can and should change you for the better. Could work 😉
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lol.. whooooo genius! I love it!!! 🙂
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Maybe he thought that either he’d really be dead (in which case it wouldn’t matter that people had seen him) or his appearance would be changed out of recognition after having a chandelier explode above him? A real nasty baddie – I’m glad to see the back of him. Didn’t like how he treated Millicent one bit 😦 😦
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Yes Poor Millicent! What happens to Francine is nothing compared to what happens to poor Millicent!
I suspect Sallee will be in the top 10 baddie list for season 3! Looking forward to your golden tea cup awards Cindy 🙂
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See, this is what I’ve been saying. It definitely looks like Francine would have been able to handle Sallee any time she wanted to (and without turning into Mancine, too, which is a rarity). So – why didn’t she do so before she was dragged into that room and ran danger of being, quote, “cut to ribbons” by an exploding chandelier (nice explosion btw, I think I’ve seen action movies where fuel trucks blew up with less “ado” … ;))? Ah, right. Billy said “Hold your fire”. Good girl, following the boss’s orders. lol
I also do wonder whether there was some instance of Martha Smith putting her foot down and going “Okay, folks, I’ve had it with that ridiculous stunt double. Either you get someone who looks more like me and less like Hulk trying to do a Francine impression or you stop writing action scenes that I can’t do myself.” When was the last time we actually saw Mancine?
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Hiya Knell. Oh yes I just like to cry for Mancine because it’s flippin hilarious!
but.. not great for Francine’s dignity 😉
rofl.. yeah we’ll just snigger away at this whole set up! 🙂
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