Back to Lee’s apartment to go over what they found in what I guess was Lee’s dad’s war room (aka bunker).
Great to see Lee and Amanda sifting through all this together. Not knowing what’s in there, Lee is placing huge trust in Amanda by not taking this all away to look through it all by himself before deciding if he will share it with Amanda. For me, this illustrates the trust Lee is now placing in Amanda 
Incredibly swoony stuff. Much better than a tuxedo! 
[okay well maybe only just! tee hee]
Lee: Another list of corporations.
Amanda: You know, I’ve never heard of any of these companies and so far none of them are listed on any of the exchanges.
(Amanda seems to be comparing these companies to the companies listed in the stock exchange results in the newspaper.)
[Ahhh so this is what people did before the internet! 😉 ]
(Lee looks over the corporations list) [deep in thought mode. I see Lee fixed his hair before tackling this lol]
Lee: These notes are 30 years old. They may very well have gone out of business.
Amanda: Every single one of them? 
Lee: Uh, that would be a long shot.
Amanda: Mm-hm.
[I don’t know why but it’s cute to see Lee biting on his thumb like this.. maybe it’s because it reminds me of little Lee?!]
(We see a close up on the corporations list.)
Anything of interest here everyone? I’ll leave this massive list for others to explore! I love to dig into these names and see if connections can be found. or lol bloopers. But.. I’ll leave this one to others to explore! I’m short on time 😦 Anyone here know shorthand? Are the scribbles short hand? If so, anyone able to translate? ]
Lee: Oh, we’ll run it through the agency computer; see what it comes up with…
(Lee waves his hand over the list in close up.)
(here’s a hand close up.. but.. is it Lee’s hand? what do fans think?)
Lee:…I wonder what these symbols are?
[lol not short hand I guess. Or maybe we find out they are and I’ve completely forgotten! but errr have subconsciously remembered?! that’s possible! A bit like Lee forgetting the bunker, but remembering how to screw in the light bulb for light!]
Amanda: I don’t know. They’re all over the place. It’s funny.
Lee: What?
Amanda: Well, I don’t know. They’re vaguely familiar but I don’t know why. [Nah Amanda would know short hand wouldn’t she. She was practicing her short hand when playing the cover of Lee’s secretary in To Catch a Mongoose. I must be wrong!]
(Distracted by the funny codes, absent minded Amanda picks up a book in their collection and opens it.. )
Lee: Got to be a code of some kind.
Amanda: Yeah. Hmm.
(Amanda opens the book and immediately pauses)
Lee: You have something?
Amanda: Well, it’s, uh, a letter…to you from your mother. [What was it doing in his dad’s war room?!]
(Amanda hands the book to Lee)
Amanda (very quietly): It starts up there.
Lee reacts..
I’m sure you’ll describe his reactions here better than me..
Please do!
I’m guessing that Lee is torn, he wants to hear what his mother has to say to him, but he knows it’s going to hurt. Lee is ready to face this pain and grief, he knows hearing what his mother has to say is precious. I’m thinking this isn’t worry about his mum confessing to being a double agent and that’s the furthest thing from his mind – what do you all think?]
Lee: “My dear son. There’s so much I want to tell you when you get older.”
(Lee pauses…)
(Lee hands Amanda the book)
…Amanda, would you?
Amanda quietly: Are you sure?
Lee quietly: Yeah.
[I think Lee is determined, but knows it’s going to hurt, so he reaches out to Amanda to help him get through this. It’s quite a symbolic demonstration of how Lee is no longer dealing with this on his own, and how now Amanda is in his life, and he has let her into this painful chapter – he can deal with this and accept and welcome her support. Err I mean, this is how I’m seeing it – what do you all think? why does Lee give Amanda the book to read it for him?]
Amanda: “My dear son. There’s so much I want to tell you when you get older so I’m writing it all down, lest I forget.”
Amanda looks up at Lee here, and then looks back down at the book. 
Lee responds with a nod. 
He seems to be jumping in his seat a little – all excited. Like he’s little Lee again!
And he smiles..
[What a gift finding this is! And.. with Amanda reading it to him – he can accept this gift, even though it also hurts – IMHO!]
He’s eager to hear more.. 
Amanda: “I’ll start with your father. Everyone thinks… we met in the States in 1949…”
(At this point, Amanda’s voice morphs into Jennie’s voice. We see the shot transition to a flashback) [LOL why does this remind me of the end of Wayne’s World?!]
Jennie: …but it actually happened during the war in London.
Jennie: I was walking down the street one night, minding my own business, when suddenly, a cheeky Yank…
(Jennie is walking along, and we see the cheeky yank turn her around so she was walking along with him in the opposite direction.)
Matt: Excuse me, miss.
Jennie: I beg your pardon.
Matt: Look, I’m an American. [That explains everything! haaa ]
Jennie: Huh. Really?
Matt: I’m in trouble. Someone is following me. Just…walk with me, please?
[Couldn’t you just die?! Just Walk With Me!! But why is this said with no close up?! in the dark?! booooo..]
Jennie: No, I will not!
(Jennie moves out of grasp and tries to head back in the opposite direction. But Matthew grabs her by both arms.)
[That smooth move apparently written in Lee’s DNA.]
Matt: No, no. Please,..
Finally we get a close up!
…I’m in trouble…
(Jennie doesn’t look to be resisting much!) 
… Please?
Jennie: All right. What do you want me to do?
[Aie. I am looking forward to hearing what you all make of this! If there’s a man in a red hat I’m going to lose it! We do have a red telephone booth 😉 ]
Matt: It’s urgent that this letter be delivered to the Prime Minister’s office immediately. It’s life or death.
[Does the Prime Minister have a red hat?!]
(Matthew pulls a letter out of his inside jacket pocket)
[LOL I reckon this sounds like a line! ]
Jennie: Oh, no, really, this is absurd. 
[So is your accent Jennie ]
Matt: What’s your name?
[Hmm maybe he should have asked that first!]
Jennie: Huh, I don’t think that’s any of your business.
(We see Matthew realising someone is approaching and he has to go. So he hands the envelope to Jennie and starts to run.)
[If someone had seen him there it was obvious he just gave something to Jennie!]
Matt says as he starts to run: Just deliver it, please? Just deliver it.
[He says it quite loudly.. so this baddie that’s pursuing him must be blind and deaf. Hmm things are looking good for Matthew to make a getaway! ]
A couple of seconds later, two men in suits and hats run past her, in the direction in which Matthew ran.
Jennie watches this, sighing. 
Seeing the two men pursuing him, she’s convinced Matthew is legit. LOL I see this and think the two guys could be Matthew’s wingmen! haaaaa…
We see the time shifting wobbles.. and re-join Lee and Amanda back in the 80’s. 
Jennie’s voice morphs back into Amanda’s. [hoorah. would rather listen to Amanda’s voice any day!]
Jennie: But he said it was a matter of life and death, so I did try to deliver the letter.
Amanda: “Of course, who would let me in 10 Downing Street, and I didn’t think I should put it in the post.”
Amanda: “Then one night, there he was, peering in the window of my basement flat.”
[Is it just me or is this hilariously inappropriate?!
The vibe here is (I think) – how wonderful! Lee’s dad tracked down his mum… and it was the beginning of a fabulous love story!
But I just hear: creepy peering through the basement window of her apartment!!! whahahahaa..
At least when Lee found Amanda he reconnected with her in a public place in a totally humiliating but adorable outfit!
whahahahaaa… I suspect this is modern ears hearing this dialogue on my part.. and I appreciate that in the 80’s stalking and harassing women wasn’t taken as seriously as it is now- IMHO of course. Sensibilities here have (happily) shifted.]
Lee looks up.
Amanda: And it goes on and on…. 
(Amanda flips over a number of pages. A rather long letter.. Lee looks really happy!)
[What a discovery! Can’t wait to hear what you think of all this!
Do tell!!
I think the wonderment here I can see in Lee’s expression – is Lee’s wonder that his parents met in a very similar way to how he met Amanda… Lee being a cheeky yank! And.. LOL yes even some of the exact same dialogue – in case the audience couldn’t see the connection. Who knew sentence structures and mating practices were coded into DNA? tee hee..
I like to think that Matthew had told little Lee (leaving out the top secret bits) how Matthew met Jennie… and that it was subconsciously stored away and so it was one day used by Lee.. When destiny had brought Amanda along in her PJ’s and raincoat.. ahem.. I’m not a huge fan of the whole destiny romantic connection trope.. but.. I figure it’s what smk is going for and I’ll go along for the ride.]
…There’s even a family tree…
…It’s really quite a legacy.
[that and great pick up lines! ]
Amanda hops out of her seat, and moves over to sit riiiiiight next to Lee on the sofa. 
She puts her arm around him…
And strokes him on the shoulder…
Lee looks up to meet her eyes.
Amanda quietly: Like father, like son.
They look at each other a moment..
And we get a zoom in on the two of them…
And Lee looks away. Amanda seems to just be open and accepting here with Lee as he processes all this! 
awhhh…
Lee looks like a dark cloud has been lifted off him here
I also think the like father like son thing implies that there is just no way Matthew (and Jennie) are double agents, baddies, common blackmailers or whatever.
Can’t wait to hear what you all think!
One last comment on this scene that would have been a total mood kill (even worse than a Wayne’s World reference I think. haaaa) I see there are plants at Lee’s apartment window. 
Maybe Lee has a terrace out there but it looked to me his apartment was on the second floor?
Oh and one last thing.. if you want to go back to the blog post where Lee first turns Amanda around and says: ‘Just Walk With Me’ 🙂 – that post is HERE.
Yes, I agree it’s a travesty that the episode ‘The First Time’ was done by me in 3 posts. Criminal! I hang my head in shame!!!! And.. I’ve been fearful of prosecution ever since!!! I’ve promised I’ll go back to it, when we are done with season4, and cover it more thoroughly – as it deserves! Hope you will all still be part of this journey when that time comes (oh in about 10 years haaaaa kidding!!!)
I’m snowed under with RL at the moment, so will get back here when I can. I’m looking forward to reading all your wonderful thoughts and conversations about this! bye!
"Just walk with me.." 
Looking at these flashbacks and thinking…when JAG was on it did three flashback episodes where all the actors play different characters in a flashback storyline (including where the lead plays his father the Christmas he went missing in Vietnam). If we’d had a S5, how cool would it have been if they’d devoted a whole ep to one of Matthew & Jennie’s old cases with everyone playing different roles? BB would obviously be playing Matthew and they’d bring Jennie back. Maybe KJ as a young Emily Farnsworth? Not sure for the others but it would be awesome to bring the whole cast into it in some way as well as recurring cast members like Smyth, Leatherneck, etc. It would have been SOOOO cool!
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Oh what a gift Lee’s mother left him! And I think asking Amanda to read it to him allowed him to hear the words from a loving woman’s voice. I lost both my parents, my mom quite suddenly, and any time I see something with their handwriting on it, I treasure it. I still have a mini cassette tape with a voicemail from my mom that she left in 1993.
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I must confess that I really wanted Lee to lean in for a short, sweet, and tender kiss here after the “like father, like son” comment. That would have made the whole episode for me, both as a teenager and {blush} still today.
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I don’t mind the contrived similarities of “meet” stories. As “meh” as I am over some of the late s3 and s4 episodes, it’s the little gems that keeps me going. I adore the comic, feisty Amanda we saw earlier and the sweetness of this scene with Lee feeling vulnerable yet able to trust his heart completely in Amanda’s hands. I love the beauty shining through the two of them.
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It all almost too contrived for me. Almost! But its SMK and so I am going to roll with it and love every nuance. This makes for fun and romantic fiction.
I absolutely love the fact that Lee has spread it all out on the table for the two of them to go over together. And I think all of those Lee Tupperware walls are gone. Gone, gone gone! It makes his erratic behavior at the beginning of this episode make perfect sense to me. He was facing that last self protective wall and I think he was desperate to have it gone (maybe that was why he was pursuing the truth about his parents) but that last barrier was freaking him out. And I love it that Amanda recognized it and just pushed it down when she went to his apartment. It really didn’t take much for her to dismantle it. I think Lee was poised and ready, just not sure how to go about it. These two are so good at this now. And that is what I love about them and this show. They took 3 years and they slowly and respectfully got to know and trust each other and now Lee, the lone wolf, the man with the four black books who was really, really bad (LAF) is now letting Amanda completely in and he is relishing it. I love the smile on his face as she begins to read. I also appreciate the expression as he first opens that book. Man! Maybe his parents and his childhood had become a bit abstract to him? But right here, in this moment, they are about to become real. This is his mother’s handwriting, she touched that book. And this was written by her for him. That is real. And I can see how it would be hard to read it himself the first time. But the alternative would take immense trust and a knowledge of being cared for by the person he chose to have read it to him. And it was easy for him to entrust that to Amanda. Its really wonderful to see.
I guess the sameness of his parent’s story substantiates Lee and Amanda’s own experience. I love the idea that little Lee had heard the story and somehow it got stuck in this own head and so he reenacted it. That is a fun idea to play with. I think its good fun that Amanda ends up reading this to Lee. And I really appreciate the respect that Amanda has for Lee and all he is sorting through her. She is amazing and Lee knows it!
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Takes you a while to share your insights, morley, but when you do … wow … just … WoW!
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Thinking about walking through S1 “again” puts a smile on my face!
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Ugh – more emotion from Lee than makes me comfortable. I do enjoy the scene between Lee’s parents, and I do like Amanda’s “like father, like son” line though. And yes, Lee is definitely doing the right thing by including Amanda in sifting through their find rather than do it himself and include her after the fact. He’s getting smarter! Haha
I think that the secret war room in the basement must have been for Lee’s dad and mom because the letter to Lee looks as if it is in some sort of journal or diary. I don’t see his mom leaving that in the secret room unless she went down there on a regular basis.
Along the lines of my comments in the last post, I don’t think I would expect Lee to think that reading a letter from his mother would hurt. At least not as much as he’s showing here? If it were me (and I have experienced the loss of a parent, albeit not as a child and not suddenly), I think I would have been more excited about finding something new from my mother. Just last week I came across some old checkbook registers in my basement (not a secret room 😉 ) with my deceased parent’s hand-writing on them. Yes, it did make me sad because they are no longer here, but the stronger emotion was fascination and a happiness at the unexpected memory. I guess after all these years coupled with what was probably the most traumatic experience of his life, Lee is just overcome with emotions and feelings he’s maybe not sure how to handle? Or is letting come out because he’s with Amanda and she has superpowers where this is concerned?
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I will definitely be around for when we wrap around and do season 1 again. Hooray!
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Oh yeah, me two!
As I missed the first time, I’m awaiting the second walk through it eagerly – even if it’s gonna take ages to get there… tee hee… 😀
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Hoorah!!!! 🙂
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Me too! I plan to stick around for whenever we finish the walk and start re-walking!
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“… why does Lee give Amanda the book to read it for him?”
I believe Lee asked Amanda, who is herself a mother to young boys, to read his mother’s letter to him because that was the closest he would ever get to once again hear his mother tell him a story. You can see by the expression on his face how much hearing that family history means to him.
When Amanda says, “Like father, like son,” Lee gets the added joy of realizing he is “a chip off the old block.” What boy doesn’t want to grow up to follow in his father’s footsteps and be just like his Dad?
What Jennie, bless her mother’s heart, did by writing all this down was to give Lee back the priceless gift that was stolen from him decades ago — his family.
It’s why, in spite of the many flaws, I just love this episode!
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I totally agree, Nancy; just love what you wrote. ❤️
I could only come up with Lee being too agitated to be able to read the book himself. His vision also might have stated to blurr a little?
I think it’s also another sign he opened up completely to Amanda and wants to share all things with her even when he doesn’t know what’s coming up. He trusts her even in the unknown.
Now Lee really starts to act on his “I’ll follow her blind trough a blizzard at midnight” statement as he once told Harry V. Thornton. 🙂
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[What was it {Jennie’s letter to Lee} doing in his dad’s war room?!]
Could have been Jennies war room, too… Especially when she also has been a ‘spy’. 😉
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Exactly!
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Maybe it was the place where they kept any info about their spy life. Maybe the suspected that there could be a chance that something might happen to them and here is where they put things, maybe even for Lee or other’s to find some day. That is a tragic thought. That they lived under the shadow of their own possible demise and were preparing to have a way to communicate these secrets to Lee somehow, someday?
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I kind of feel like the comment “like father, like son” is a step of acknowledgement for Lee and Amanda about their relationship. After all, she’s commenting on the way Matthew met his WIFE. Not just a special someone, but THE special someone. Amanda says it, and Lee doesn’t argue.
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Sometimes what the S&MK writers give the actors invites deep nuances of interpretation. Thanks for this in their performance!
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Half of the company names clearly have to do with industrial construction (electrical, plumbing, building materials, machine parts, tool & die, etc). Each company listed is followed, not by an address or a telephone number, but by names; vital contacts, such as the President, CEO (Chief Executive Officer), Vice President and Treasurer. Of concern is H.D. Fane, who is listed as V.P./Treasuer at Gaillean Electrical AND Treasurer at Houghton Tool Supply.
The names without a title under each company are probably some of the company’s board of directors. I state this because J.N. Redmont is listed under 2 of the companies and Bayard J. O’Neill is listed under 3 of the companies. Matt & Jennie have an arrow in pencil connecting O’Neill to 2 of the 3 companies and, just to the right of the lower arrow, you see the third company. It is quite common for a retired or still active company executive to sit on the Board of several different companies so I don’t consider that a typo.
I took 2 years of stenography (shorthand) in high school, which I only ever used to take class notes all 4 years at university. In those days, there were no copy machines so lending your notes to a classmate was a huge risk. One look and no one ever wanted to borrow my notes! The shorthand here is meaningless to me and, assuming these are Jennie’s, perhaps they use different shorthand in England?
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The shorthand here is meaningless to me and, assuming these are Jennie’s, perhaps they use different shorthand in England?
That’s what I, too, guess. Each language has it’s own shorthand and even within the same language (as in English) it might differ between ‘British’, ‘American’, ‘Australian’ and all other countries where English is the official/national language.
So what? Do Lee and Amanda need an English person who’s able to read some 30 year old shorthand? That could be difficult. Or can anyone in ‘Crypto’ manage that task – someone like Ernie, the autodetection guy for faces…?
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I believe it’s Pitman shorthand but probably a tangential issue not for discussion here.
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