Helloooooo! Time to walk a little further into this episode…[okay more of a crawl but given this episode is called Night Crawler I think it’s appropriate :)] Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
Back to the Odessa Funeral home, I mean Birol’s guest accommodation.
Birol enters Amanda’s cell. Whistling. Happy. Ughhhhhh [Birol walks over to where Amanda is wearily sitting in the corner. He crouches in front of her and yanks off her heart pendant. Amanda has a little bit of fire in her as she protests.]
Amanda: Oh, no!
Birol: Sorry, about that, but I need this for now…
…Don’t worry, I won’t lose it. I’m sure it has sentimental value.
(Amanda gives a nod.) [Like she has a choice.]
(He gives her little playful tap on the cheeky as he skips out of the room.) [Way too happy with how his plan is coming together!
You don’t fool me Birol. You don’t understand or value sentimentality at all!]
(We cut to Birol skipping down the stairs continuing to whistle to himself. He is holding the necklace in his hand, as he is met at the bottom of the stairs by Mara, they kiss softly) [I try not to vomit loudly! Soooo I’m going to save us all from looking at a still image of it!!! ]. 
[To me, this looks like the foyer at the agency where Mrs Marsden sits lol. but redone of course.
Anyway, Birol reveals himself to be the arrogant you know what that we all know him to be..
{He walks over to a small desk in front of the staircase and takes out a small notebook. It holds paper the size of the one we saw Billy holding. He turns back to Mara.}
Birol: I might as well tell you I made love with your sister last night.
[The way he says this is like- I can sleep with whoever I want: I am King!! Honestly, this guy is designed to really lead me to just hate his guts. I’m starting to wonder if Yusef was on to something when he said he thought Birol deserved to die!!!! rofl]
Mara: It’s not the first time. [Internally Mara tells herself: hoorahhhhhh I got a night off! Yuck!!!] 
Birol: But I always came back to you. 
[I think Mara accepts it too easily for her cover to be believable. but ugh. The tender cheek caress is a bit much. lol.. whatever I don’t even want to think about this!] 
…So the practical view is best. Also, this time it was business…
[Mara sees the love heart necklace hanging from his pocket. lol. set up much?!]
…Deliver this like the first. It’s my deadline.
[They don’t seem terribly concerned about finger prints?]
…I’ll move the woman a few more times until Stetson gives me Night Crawler, or I deliver Amanda to the Libyans.
Back to the photo booth!
{Lee and Mara speaking from separate booths.}
Mara: It was in his pocket at the Maryland house. A heart shape on a platinum chain. [platinum? lol you can tell it’s platinum and not silver from that far away? she’s good!]
Lee: Yeah, Amanda wears one.
Mara: Addi has a fetish, he wants nothing in his pockets to ID him. He checks every minute. He must have just put it there.
[is it just me or is this idea of Addi’s fetish pretty funny and lame?! Pretty flimsy line to rule out the idea that he could have put the necklace there a while ago. whoo kinky!]
Lee: This could be the break.
Mara: Be cautious. Addi has six houses in D.C., or more. He says he moves Amanda. We are never told where or when.
Lee: Well, why do you think I’m sitting on my hands, huh? Do you know where she is?
Mara: I’ve drawn a map. It’s taped under your seat.
(Lee pulls a piece of paper out from underneath him and unfolds it.) 
…All right, I’ve gotta try. His new deadline only gives us twelve hours and this whole Libyan thing is too iffy. What’s the risk to you? [awh bless, Lee isn’t throwing Mara under the bus to get Amanda back! that’s our Lee!!]
Mara: Phyllis has been to the house. But Addi won’t need much suspicion to kill me. I don’t want to die…but I don’t want her to die in my place.
(The meet up comes to an end..) [Lol gosh I hope Lee remembers to take his photos with him haaaa.]
(Next, we find Lee and Francine looking all stealthy in front of the Birol guesthouse.)
[Awh.. Francine is there for Lee.. and deep down, she is probably there for Amanda too! She just won’t admit it haaaa]
Lee: All right, if he’s in there, he’s not burning the midnight oil. I’ve got enough immobilizer to stiffen a division.
Francine: You ready?
[I know Francine is in ninja dress here but it still looks really funny to me to see Francine with gunk on her face like that!]
Lee: Yeah.
(Francine injects Lee with something.)
Francine: Okay, you’re neutralized for ten minutes. How much silence before I come in after you?
Lee: Thirty minutes. If you lose signal, you go in there and get me, pronto. Okay, ready?
Francine: Mm-hm.
{Lee climbs over the gate and belly flops on the other side and then crawls forward. He stops and releases a spray canister near the ground which lights up a red laser.}
Lee: He’s got a laser alarm grid. Okay, here goes the gas. {Lee throws the canister through the window and quickly climbs in through the wall of smoke.}
Francine: You got a green light. I’m tracking you on frequency two point three one five.
Inside, we see:
{Birol is staggering down the staircase in the dark holding a flashlight and coughing. When he gets to the bottom of the stairs he falls to the ground, immobilized. Lee comes in the door and heads to Birol.}
Lee: It’s GZP. Zap gas, Birol… 
{Birol is now paralyzed on the ground, eyes wide. Lee begins handcuffing him to the staircase rail.} …You’ll be stiff as a board for twenty minutes and then you’ll feel like the bad end of a train wreck for a week. But it won’t kill ya.
[what a shame]
{From outside, Francine listens to Lee’s voice over the radio.}
Lee: Francine, I got Birol. There’s no sign of Amanda. Keep a look outside. Some of his boys may be waiting in the wings. [Boys? Lee the one thing about Birol is that he loves to use women on his team!!]
(Back inside.. 
Lee finds Amanda’s necklace
He struggles to keep himself together.. )
Lee: Don’t you go away, huh? If you’ve hurt her, my business with you hasn’t even started yet.
{Lee busts open the door to Amanda’s darkened cell.
He shines his flashlight on the ground and sees Amanda lying on the floor.
He runs over to her and crouches down beside her.}
Lee: Amanda! Amanda?
[Uh oh. I hear the ‘there’s something wrong’ music!]
{As Lee looks at her he realizes something is wrong. He reaches a gloved hand to her neck and is able to peel off a thin, latex mask from her face to reveal his source, 
Night Crawler/Mara, who Lee now knows has been found out by Birol.} 
…Oh, my God! 
{Lee stands up and takes a step back. He suddenly falls through a trap door on the floor and lands in a slimy fishing net. NOTE: The script lists this as a viscid hardening foam.}
[I know I shouldn’t laugh. but when the trap door activated I just couldn’t help it. I mean how did the door know to wait until the mask had been torn completely off?! rofl.
Then I saw all the slime and what was hilarious truly became flippin hilarious!!! this place truly is the house of horrors.. and where the heck did the slime come from?! poor Lee so humiliating!]
(Back to Birol and he wakes up.. He hid a little explosive in his shoe so he could blast apart handcuffs. [good for him. Still hate ya. but.. nifty!]
Back to Lee – looks like his light, his gun, his tracker have all fallen out of the net into a pool of slime.) [really? how did the gun fall out?! it’s big?! magical weapons sucking slime I guess.]
(Of course Birol comes to gloat.. and prod Lee a little..)
Birol: You should’ve slit my throat when you had the chance.
Lee: When I get my hands around your neck, I’ll– –ah! Where’s Amanda?
Birol: You found Night Crawler upstairs in the cell. So did I. She’s not dead, you noticed. Nor is Amanda. My business with you has just started.
[I thought this guy was an evil terrorist, why wouldn’t he kill Night Crawler? I figure he’ll keep Amanda alive for the five million] 
Lee: Get me out of this stuff. Come on, get me out of it!..
[Yeah Lee when are you going to learn that yelling at a terrorist doesn’t make them do what you want?!]
{Birol picks up the nozzle and directs a short burst in Lee’s face.} …Aah!
Birol: Solvent. I’d close your eyes. You should’ve come in here with an army, Stetson, but I knew you wouldn’t. I know you so well.
[Birol begins dousing Lee with the solvent.]
(Outside the Birol guesthouse, Francine’s watches as the place blows up!) [Uh oh.]
I’ll pause here.. sooooo what thoughts you got to share with us all hmm?? Anyone else finding Lee kinda pathetically funny here?!
Any and all thoughts are very welcome!!!
"Just walk with me.." 
Peeling the mask off Of her face haunted me when I was a teen
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I connected the painting of Amanda’s face and the mask making years ago, but I always thought it was odd that Birol didn’t have what he needed to make Amanda’s torture easier, but he had plenty of art supplies to make a mask.
Some of these comments have made me wonder about the title and Mara being Night Crawler. A night crawler is a worm that is used as bait. Now I assume that Lee is the one who came up with the name for his source and it’s a very unfortunate name. Poor Mara is basically somewhat of a pawn in the whole situation.
And that whole scene with her and Birol just makes me want to take several showers. So gross that right after kissing her he would announce that he slept with her sister. Not the SMK that I prefer.
Glad to see Francine supporting Lee in what he’s attempting to do.
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Someone give me a back story on that necklace. I think I read a fanfic somewhere that it had come from Lee. I like that Idea. I think I had a theory about that… I need to rediscover it.
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If you think of the story title, could you let me know? I’m curious.
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I remember reading this one https://www.fanfiction.net/s/72482/1/An-Open-Heart
Not sure what I think of it now. But I think I like the idea that Lee gave it to her and I have memories of looking at all the episodes in which she is wearing or not wearing it and it worked with my idea – or at least I could make it work (I tend to like doing mental gymnastics when it comes to SMK)
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Thanks, Morley! We enjoy the mental gymnastics you do here too!
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The kisses between Birol and Mara are just weird. Not very romantic, but still vomit-inducing.
But I really wish I had her hair!
At this point I can longer remember why the Petrag sisters even involved themselves with Birol now. Why is Mara with him? Is she a double agent for someone or some country? I really don’t get it. And why is she willing to let herself get hurt as long as Amanda doesn’t get hurt? I’m so confused!
Interesting that the map is taped to the seat yet we see no tape or evidence of tape when Lee pulls it out from under the seat.
Good thing Birol’s laser grid is far enough away from the fence so that Lee doesn’t trip it when climbing over it. But it’s so nice of Lee to let Birol know all about the gas and how long he’ll be out for.
Now I finally understand the paintbrush in the previous scene with Amanda/Birol. I guess it was some sort of glue or something to make the fake face to put on Mara! One mystery solved!
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Oh! The glue makes sense now… thank you BJo!!!
And, LOL about Mara’s hair… hehe
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“Interesting that the map is taped to the seat yet we see no tape or evidence of tape when Lee pulls it out from under the seat. ”
A good double-agent always carries double-sided tape. 😉 Oh…wait… Did they have double-sided tape in the 80s?
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Oh…drats! I still can’t make the italicized, tabbed comments work. 😦
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From watching old interviews on youtube of KJ & BB I learned a couple things. Though, I sheepishly cringe as I post, bcs I figure most of you already know these things. But, here it goes:
BB said the good guys weren’t allowed to shoot and kill the baddies, so they were always trying to figure out how Lee could lose his gun, so the scenes would have to end in a fight. Yeah, not sure how he lost the gun in the net, but seems it had to be.
KJ said she bought the heart neclace for a Saturday Night Live ep she did. She wanted something that would sparke. She sure got a lot of use out of it. I wonder where she got it. When I first saw it, I figured a suburban mom would only have a cheap necklace, so I didn’t think much of it. You know, the kids got it for her from a local Xmart for $9.99. Uhm, guess not.
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I didn’t know either of those things, so thanks for sharing, Colorfulangel! I still think of that necklace as a gift from the kids and/or Dotty. She treats it like it has sentimental value.
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I’m glad you shared too, colorfulangel!
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Not sure where she got it, but do know when she got the inspiration for it! In S2’s Double Agent episode, a tongue-tied Amanda was introduced to Arlene Francis, who almost always wore a diamond-outlined heart pendant. Scroll down past the fire/undoing the belt scene to the snapshot iwsod posted of Arlene wearing it in 7/7.
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BB always tells that story about how Lee had to lose the gun but also always conveniently forgets episodes like Unfinished Business where he got to shoot a guy at point blank range… I mean, it probably is true that CBS preferred it to be light on the murdery stuff, but also, it was an action show so of course they needed a big fight scene, and what’s the fun in a gun at a knife fight? or a fist fight? or Lee’s fave – the foot fight?
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Ha, Okay, this snap shot of Lee wearing the shoe polish (first one), he looks like Sgt. Carter from Hogan’s Heros.
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Confession: It took me THIRTY years to make the connection between the weird painting her eyes thing and Addi making the fake Amanda mask. Throw in the where-did-it-come-from goo and it is little wonder that this episode is so confusing.
That said, I will happily ignore the plot because the little ersonal things are so interesting, For instance, I am intrigued that Lee and his usual superhero complex actually tells Francine that if she doesn’t hear from him in 30 minutes, that she should come in and save him. Our little boy is growing up!
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Clagjanet, I too had several decades before I got the TERRIFYING brush moment across the face made the mask. I always thought, too, it was hard to tell that was Mara when the creepy mask got peeled away.
As a side note, I think this was the episode that sealed my obsession as a young person with the heart necklace.
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THANK YOU ALL for clearing up that paintbrush moment! That scene scared the crap out of me when I was ten and at that point I’d never seen a Mission Impossible style mask. (Couldn’t figure out where the second Amanda came from!) Then I finally saw the ep again when the DVDs came and understood the mask but was still lost on the paint. Then rewatched it again with my aunt and said “What’s with the paintbrush?” and we still couldn’t figure it out!
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Oh my goodness! Mind blown!!!! I never put that together! The white paint makes so much more sense now! Bless you, clagjanet! Now that scene from my nightmares at least makes sense.
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I didn’t realize the “paint” was him making a mask, either…
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rofl. I love your confession clagjanet, yeah it wasn’t till I got the dvds that I finally figured out what was going on lol.
Heck yeah plot? Ultimately, I don’t care about the plot in Night Crawler – very swoony stuff!
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That net looks like something out of a 1980s kids movie (i’m thinking Gremlins and the Goonies etc). Evidently they used the same props for SMK 😀 😀
Best thing about this scene is Lee with black with the black ?? shoe polish. IMHO, I’ve never seen Francine look better. She looks great in the black jumpsuit. Actually, the black shoe polish looks better than her usual make-up and chunky jewellery…
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I’m thinking the makeup artists had a ton of fun with this episode! Looks like they put a pair of Simon’s big glasses on Francine before getting to work on her nighttime military camouflage.
(Simon was a character in the cartoon Alvin & the Chipmunks.)
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https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/01/29/arts/29marypoppins-blackface1/merlin_149718759_1d89ab3d-caac-4776-996b-326b1457ae2b-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg Francine’s face reminds me of Mary Poppins
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So much confusion, and yet I still love this episode! I don’t really understand why the Libyan thing is so iffy. It actually seems like a good plan, better than this one for sure. Lee going in alone is D-U-M-B! But the Libyan thing seems straightforward – they buy Amanda then give her to Francine for the deal she already arranged. But whatever – I’m glad Lee goes in to find her.
I never understood the solvent thing at all. Now I get that it’s to get the hardening foam off Lee? Ok…whatever.
Love your comments, clagjanet, Cindy, and Amandarambler! Cracking up at the fence now. The mask is super impressive – so realistic, LOL! And Lee is Nightcrawler – ha ha ha! Love it!
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The thing is, he wasn’t supposed to fall into a net, he was supposed to fall into this vat of foam. Why they ditched that but kept goo and solvent will remain one of life’s great mysteries.
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Oh wow! I had no idea. How strange!
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I am no longer able to watch Lee go over a fence seriously since the gag in Unfinished Business when he goes over the fence and Amanda goes through the gate…
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oh yeah that’s a great gag. I love it when smk doesn’t take itself too seriously!
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And let’s take a moment to appreciate Birol’s mask making skills. I dabble in cosplay and prosthetics and holy heck that is not easy to do at all.
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rofl – so true!
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I still haven’t gotten to comment on post 6 (this week has been a doooooooozie), and I’ll have more to add to this one, too, but I just have been anticipating this scene with Lee and Francine outside the house. After she shoots him with that stuff to keep him from turning into a zombie, Lee actually CRAWLs on the ground towards the house at NIGHT!!!! Nightcrawler!?! It’s Lee Stetson! 🙌🤣 I noticed that the last time I watched this episode and have been waiting forever to get to this scene!!!
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whooooo I love it!!! teee heeee. good one Amandarambler!
Maybe it’s for the best the walk is a crawl at the moment.. maybe even at night.. we don’t need to rush.
Really great to hear from you 🙂
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Thanks Iwsod! You are awesome!
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back at ya Amandarambler!
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Haha…true! And the ‘trap-door-net-lander-covered-in-goo’ wouldn’t have worked as a title. 😉
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