We cut to a sunrise or a sunset over the Lincoln monument.. gorgeous..
We see a building exterior.. 
[This looks familiar.. anyone?!]
We find Lee and a man (apparently named Danley) talking as they exit the building.. 
Danley: Normally it’s no problem but with the cockamamie condition of our Soviet relations, State can’t touch this guy. Now as soon as the paperwork is completed, Mr. Dorloff is to be on the next flight to Moscow.
Lee: Oh come on… 
Danley: With our apologies.
Lee: Pat! You guys have got your head in the sand as always. This little nebbish could help us bring the hammer down on Alexis Tolst!
Danley: That’s your side of the street. Diplomatically, this is not a good time to be rubbing a defection in the Soviets’ face. 
[lol fair enough. seems Lee wants Pat to do his job for him! Funny how that exterior shot looks nothing like the building they came out of!]
Lee: Well, of course if he guy was a ballet dancer, that would be another story right? 
Or a hockey player or some folksinger who has a couple of little ditties about freedom and cornflakes.
[lol Lee is up to his old tricks.. insult a pencil pusher and expect he will then change his mind!]
Danley: How do you know Dorloff isn’t KGB?
Lee: I don’t. I freely admit it. I don’t. But if I could get a clue that would put me on the trail of Comrade Tolst…
[not his problem Lee. I gotta say, this scene is a real waste of time and for me makes Lee look like a rookie agent! ohhh I am so critical!!! okay okay.. but – I do love to see Lee in the great outdoors – 
and I think it is awesome that Pat seems to have a physical disability here and it’s not part of the plot! It just is. Fantastic. whoo hoo!! ]
Danley: Arrest him.
Lee: That’s FBI… [So talk to them! 
] 
…No I want him free and I want him on our team. I’ve got a feeling this is… this is something big, Pat… [Ohhh Lee has a feeling. Gosh, why doesn’t Pat just do what he wants??!! facepalm..]
[Didn’t that blond already walk past?! The KGB really are everywhere!!!! 
]
… Course, you know if the guy did cross the KGB, he is DOA in Moscow. He’s got a gift. We can use him. 
Danley: A ‘gift’ isn’t enough. I wish Dorloff could dance the Nutcracker but he’s not a ‘persecute’, he’s not an intelligence asset, he’s not a refusenik, he’s not even an M-40 desirable…
[A wha? anyone?]
…He’s a nobody… 
[Lee has no come back for this.. it’s kinda true!]
…And for future reference, yanking at my heartstring is not going to ring the bell. Now I’ll be damned if I’m going to put my butt in a sling so you can take all the glory. 
Lee doesn’t verbally respond.. At the end here IMHO looks a little offended… or.. maybe he’s looking a bit busted 
The scene ends here.
Uh oh…. at the end of this scene, I’m actually cheering for Pat! I think he’s spot on!!! what do you all think? Lee doesn’t even offer to do him a favour or something.. ugh!
I wonder if Lee is pushing here because he wants this to be a success for Amanda? Hmm.. maybe a little.. but I do think he would not do it unless he really wanted Tolst.. Thoughts everyone?
Moving on to Lee’s
and Amanda is seen carrying coffee into the dining room..
Francine: Well, the State Department will make one concession. We can keep Zhmed in the safe house until we’re finished interrogating hm. But then they want him on a plane in seventy-two hours.
Lee and Zhmed enter the room and join them.
Billy: Well, for what it’s worth, I managed to alter a police report stating that he was found with an illegal passport. And there won’t be any mention of his attempted defection. 
Amanda: That’s not much.
[call me crazy, but Amanda the hospital volunteer isn’t acting like she doesn’t know these people who err work for the state department 
know what I mean?!]
Zhmed: No dices, huh? 
[He looks pretty flat.. as per usual! the only time this guy has been at all animated was when he was eating real chocolate, and honest to god nougat…….Someone give this guy a candy bar!!]
(Amanda looks regretful)
Lee: Zhmed, the disarmament talks have just about shut the door on any defections. State Department thinks your case is a political mine field. 
Amanda: We’re sorry, Zhmed. 
[We? you work at a hospital Amanda! ]
Zhmed: Russian commissars sent me here. American commissars send me back. Who cares what I want? 
[Me? not so much… I’m sooo mean!!! ]
Amanda: We do! But we can’t make it happen by ourselves.
[Amanda gets passionate here! Francine is seen reacting: to Amanda? or Zhmed? or the coffee?? I’m not sure..] 
Zhmed: I could return to the KGB, find out what Tolst is up to.
Amanda: No you cannot! That’s much too dangerous!
[I like it! Stop babying him. Please, get on with this plot. Let Zhmed go!]
Zhmed: It’s the only choice I have!.. [whooo for a second there he actually almost showed an emotion!]
…My calculations tell me I have a ninety-eight percent chance of being killed the moment I touch Russian soil. My family will find out when they get a bill for the bullets.
Lee: You know, this could be a good chance to get a line on Tolst. [Lee the top agent and hardened professional finally makes an appearance! 
Aie… this plot and dialogue is so lame!!! We should have just started the scene with this line.. get on with it! Ohhh I’m so critical- I do love this show honest! but sometimes I want to give it a good slap!]
Francine: Are you sure you want to use someone you found in a tree house? 
[phew. Good thing she doesn’t know about the cookie monster chair! ]
Lee: We don’t have many options, do we?
Amanda: Zhmed… What will happen to your family?
[Oh shoot me now.
Why do we have to sit at Lee’s dining room table and talk about what will happen to Zhmed’s family?!
I think it’s time for me to start looking at Lee’s decorating.. yes.. that will help me get through this scene.. or wait! No, what about Francine’s gangsta necklace!!! And gaudy earrings?! Ugh.. it’s not working!]
Zhmed: If I were to become a citizen here, perhaps I could send for them but if I go back … Please let me do this. I want to prove I can be a good American. But I cannot be sent back and forth across the ocean with no chance to help myself. 
[yawn.. Umm did Zhmed say something? Whoo pretty lace curtains Lee! ]
Amanda: Sir. 
[Amanda looks up at Billy. Pleading. I’ll join her – oh please Billy, let Zhmed go into danger and lets get on with it!!]
Billy thinks..
Francine watches and waits for an answer [what is that figure behind her???]
Lee watches on too.. but he looks confident Billy is going to go for it! He smells Tolst is Toast 
Billy thinks for a beat then: I can get hanged for this,..
…but if you can bring us Tolst’s head, the State Department would have to let you stay.
[Aaand that should have been the second line in this scene!!! ]
Zhmed: Let me do it, please. 
[Aaand this should have been the third and final line in this scene!]
One more round of people looking intensely around at each other. 
Oh yawn. Enough! 
Okay, Lee looks pretty keen on this new state of affairs.. so the scene ends on a positive.. 
but.. Hooray. the scene is over. There is 2 minutes I’ll never get back instead of this scene, we should have seen Lee and Amanda out dancing or something.. maybe another Lee climbing a ladder moment.. or some gangsta could have told off Francine for stealing his bling. Yeah. that would have been better.. Aie. Am I in a mood or what?! If you love this scene – don’ t you pay any attention to me!!!!
Looks like we go to a commercial break.. because – gah!!! we are back again at Lee’s place! 
Billy: Okay, let’s try it again. What are you going to tell Tolst?
Inside, we start the scene with a close up of Lee pushing what looks to be a thumb tack into the bottom of Zhmed’s shoe. 
I guess it’s a tracker. Or Lee is just in a really destructive mood! Maybe he is over Zhmed too 😉
As the shot zooms out: we can be certain that this is indeed a close up of BB’s hands!!!! You hand fans okay? Need a helmet and droolbucket?!
We’ll wait while you go get one..
Back? all good?
Oh with the scene..
Zhmed: I’m going to say I thought the man at the restaurant was an American intelligence agent. And because I was afraid of being followed back to my hotel, I spent the last four hours pretending to be a tourist. 
Lee: Good, now if they do give you a polygraph test, just press your foot down on the nail on the toe of your shoe. 
[Lee hands back Zhmed his shoe]
Amanda: If you concentrate on the pain, it’ll throw off the test. 
[Ohhhh not a tracker? a self torture device!! whooooo!!]
Zhmed: Colonel Toast Tolst showed me this. He calls it beating the box. 
Lee: And this is the code you’ll use for any messages.
(Lee hands Zhmed a folder with pages of codes)
Amanda: Take as long as you need to memorize it.
(We see a close up on the codes as Zhmed reads it super quickly)
Zhmed I think I’ve got it. 
(make that – Zhmed memorises it! He hands the folder back to Amanda)
Everyone is amazed. He is amazing.. ahem..
Even Lee is amazed..
Except Iwsod.. who is still yawning! I think they should have slipped Zhmed the list in a bag along with some daffy dogs!
Hey, anyone recognise any cast members in this list? Rofl.. kidding
Okay well I’m going to sign off on this post and I cannot wait to move on to the next scene.. haaaa as you may have guessed But.. I will stay with this scene longer if it means I get to hear from ya!!! tee hee.. Aaaand I might make sure I publish the next post (which is likely more positive) asap!
bye!
"Just walk with me.." 
In the days of the USSR, A Refusenik was a Soviet citizen who the government refused to let out of the country. Most often it was a Jew who wanted to move to Israel. Jews were very looked down upon in Soviet society and had a hard time getting into in universities or very good jobs. It wasn’t an official policy like the Nazi laws — you in theory had the same rights but if your passport showed you were Jewish, you’d just find it harder and more road blocks in your way.
If you can find it on Amazon, there’s a great book called “For Tatiana” by Edward Lozhansky that talks about it more.
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I looked up the actor playing Pat and it turns out he had suffered from polio as a child and it had left him a araplegic. Which explains the unusual look of his crutches — I’ve seen wrist crutches and armpit crutches, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one that looks like a combination of them both.
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I nearly spit the milk and cereal I had in my mouth several times as I read this post! “Francine is seen reacting: to Amanda? or Zhmed? or the coffee?? I’m not sure.” OMG! Love your insights and frustrations with these scenes.
When Lee mentions ballet dancers, at first I thought he said “belly dancers” and it made NO SENSE!
Also – YES. A physical disability without it being a “thing.” LOVE IT!
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I believe the ballerina comment to be a reference to Mikhail Baryshnikov, who famously defected in the 80s via Canada
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Hi Karyn W, great to hear from you! it’s been ages.
Looks like you’ve adjusted your handle – I’ll edit your previous comment so it matches.
Hope you are well?
Thanks again for transcribing One bear dances! JWWM would be lost without transcribers who kindly offer their time and skill to contribute to our walk together!
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Just a couple of comments here…am in agreement about the boringness of Zhmed the human computer. And while I like seeing Amanda seemingly on equal footing with Lee and Francine while discussing Zhmed’s situation at the dining table, it still feels like a huge jump professionally for her. I know she went through a lot and proved a lot to everyone at the Agency during the Stems, but she really seems to be elevated here. Her words and body language in the scene where Lee’s coaching Zhmed on how to beat a lie detector test make it seem like she’s been in a situation where she’s had to beat one, and we all know she hasn’t – at least not like Zhmed might be. She was hooked up to a detector in the Stem 1, but she was being her honest self and not trying to be deceptive if I recall.
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These scenes were a bit of a snooze fest in regards to advancing the story or making it more interesting. I do like the Pat character. Lee can’t schmooze, bamboozle, or strong arm his way with this guy.
I was looking on that code list to see if any of the words Amanda remembered in back in “I Am Not Now…”, were on there. Didn’t want to pull out the DVD to compare.
Wondered if the title of the episode had any connection to what’s been going on, but no dice. All I could come up with is the song that became Bob Hope’s signature song and was also used in a movie he starred in. It was about a formerly married couple flashing back to the good times in their marriage. None of that relates to Zhmed.
Francine’s focus always seems to be on outward appearances and bases her decisions on those. She has an issue with the fact that Zhmed was in a tree house. Not being an athlete or ballet star he didn’t have many other options. For some reason his choice of a tree house makes him less reliable. Of course, I just be trying to find something more interesting to focus on myself and am just nitpicking.
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Pat’s speech cracks me up. It may have serious content but it’s such a mess (as a piece of writing) that I can’t believe the actor carries if off without starting to laugh.
Francine’s outfit looks very Christmassy to me. Mother Christmas with a thick golden paper chain around her neck and some of Francine’s patented weapon/ear-rings
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There are three different scenes here, so this may end up being a bit of a long post.
Season 4 does indeed seem to be taking a turn to the serious. In the old days, there was a simple approach of “Americans good, Russians bad” along with a dash of “silly Russians”, but in this scene with State Department we’re seeing a pretty uncomfortable fact about the state of US-Soviet politics in the mid-80s when it was no longer enough to just desire to leave the miseries of the USSR, you needed to have some kind of value to the US.
And Lee’s old tricks of “we can do what we like to bust those pesky Ruskies” are indeed wearing thin in this new era, a fact he only seems to be slowly becoming aware of in the face of an intractable pencil pusher who doesn’t let him get away with them.
I am also cheering for Pat by the end of this scene, but mostly because Lee is thinking only about the glory of catching this mysterious Tolst and very little about this little nobody that he’s using to do so.
Meanwhile, back at his apartment, the little nobody has an actual champion – inevitably it’s Amanda seeing the little picture inside the big picture, while everyone else is still caught up in the diplomacy and spy shenanigans (and, um, rightfully so – that’s kind of their job). It makes sense that the regular person who got dragged into spy work (somewhat) against her will would feel the most sympathy for another person in the same position, but coming right after Stemwinder, I’d have liked to see her in more of a “let’s get even with the Russians” fighting mood.
I have to agree Zhmed is just so dull in this show – I think they wanted to show his “computerness” by removing all emotion. Less than year later, someone would probably show Brent Spiner this episode and say “Ok, we want you to play a robot, just like this but with more warmth.”
Oh look, we’re back in Lee’s apartment! Why is it that all I can hear is the producer?
”Okay, we made it to Season 4, this show is obviously going to be on for years so let’s finally build Lee a permanent apartment set and this use the sh-t out of it!”
😔
The only good thing about this scene? Oh yes, The Hands. ❤️
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LOL at Brent Spiner reference.
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“… it was no longer enough to just desire to leave the miseries of the USSR, you needed to have some kind of value to the US.”
It was my impression that: (1) it was very difficult for a Soviet citizen to even be granted permission to leave the U.S.S.R. (It was predominantly those few in sports or entertainment and already off U.S.S.R. soil, who defected and sought asylum in a free country.) and (2), since the Soviets turned on their Allies (U.S.A. and U.K.) toward the end of WWII, there was a huge distrust of U.S.S.R. citizens being a Soviet/KGB spy or informant until that regime fell in 1989. So we must remember that this was the state of affairs throughout S&MK, which ended before the big change.
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hiya Clagjanet!
yeah the tone is more serious so true!
haaaa glad to see I’m not the only one cheering for Pat rofl! Poor Lee!
I love this insight Clagjanet! It’s so true to character!!!
But yes, some flow on effect from her stemwinder experiences would have been fab. I had to sit crouched in Lee’s car listening to him get it on with a russian floozy for a week – I want the Russians to pay!!!!!!! Err except you Zhmed. You seem harmless enough 😉
rofl this is hilarious! I love it. RoboZhmed!!!!
Sigh ah yes, there are always the hands.. the dimples.. the cheek muscle.. the hair.. the eyes..
errr where was I? umm great to hear from you Clagjanet!
Sorry I’ve not gotten back earlier guys the week is pretty full up for me!
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Anyone else confused that Zhmed has memorized a page of codes – with no explanation of what any of them mean?
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He is just THAT good! 😉
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No, he is a-ma-zing!
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Dang it! I should have come up with that.
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rofl. Yeah this was my first thought too haaaaaa!
Actually now I think about it, it almost sounds like a comic book hero or a magician.
The Amazing Zhmed!!!! whoooooo
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“Anyone else confused that Zhmed has memorized a page of codes – with no explanation of what any of them mean?”
What I wanted was to hear Billy ask Zhmed, “What’s the code in the third column, fifth up from the bottom?” In other words, where’s the “trust but verify” of this man’s abilities?
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I thought M-40 was a classof immigrant applicant (like skilled worker, entrepreneur, etc), but I could be reaching.
I think the scene with Pat was SMK’s attempt to inject some serious realism to the episode or a commentary about how sports and celebrities get preferential treatment and nice ‘nobodies’ will get sent back to the firing squad.
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Zhmed’s paperwork was for entry into Canada from the U.S.S.R. The first scene of this episode showed Zhmed (your “nice ‘nobody'”) and another Soviet (Zhmed’s KGB escort) breaking into the U.S.A. illegally from Canada.
The reason sports and celebrities got “preferential treatment” was predominantly because the U.S.S.R. allowed them to leave their country in order to participate in competitions (Olympics, for example) or performances (ballet, orchestra, etc). The U.S.A. considered these persons to be apolitical … not likely to be KGB informants or seeking to oppose the United States form of government.
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M-40 possibly a reference to UK Intelligence like M Something? With Lee’s apartment continuity was not a high priority on SMK. I mean almost every time Lee’s apartment is shown it is different, room lay outs, furniture, etc. I am showing my age here, but even when Mary Richards moved into her new apartment you could see that she took some of her furnishings and decor(including that iconic ‘M’) with her. Of course when you have Amanda&Lee to look at who is going to notice the sofa?
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“I mean almost every time Lee’s apartment is shown it is different, room lay outs, furniture, etc.”
I just assumed that Lee, being young and single, rented a fully-furnished apartment. Washington, D.C. is a city populated with politicians and diplomats with their staff; in other words, people living there for a period of time and it’s not their permanent home. Lee grew up moving constantly and, as a counter-intelligence agent in the nation’s capital, he would also be aware of the need to avoid settling for any length of time and creating a routine that would make him vulnerable.
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I thought it was because he went skiing for 2 weeks while some guy with an unpronounceable name designed his apartment, but how he was able to do that on a government salary is a bigger mystery to me. This makes much more sense.
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I never thought of the furnished apartment angle, that makes sense! Silly me, I have moved 15 times and keep hauling all my stuff with me.
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yeah I thought it was a whole package for Lee – part of his salary. I think Lee does at least take a few framed photos with him when he moves lol.
It’s funny though – overall it doesn’t add up because in season 1 Lee’s apartment was so full to the brim with trinkets from his travels, hinting at a fascinating and varied history when Lee was so mysterious and ‘intriguing’ to Amanda 🙂 now- much of his history seems to have been stripped away. It’s curious..
Hmm maybe Buzz Blade breaking in and rigging the place to blow with dynamite led Lee to decide to store his belongings in a secure location somewhere lol.
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Yes, I’m also wondering where Lee’s exotic bits and bobs have gone. Maybe they’ve moved to the Q Bureau??? To accompany Amanda’s “I just picked them in my garden this morning” bunches of flowers… 😀
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And I read that as ‘boobs” . It’s been a long day.
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😀
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Love this Gilby! Sounds like great continuity which rewarded loyal fans!
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