3/7 Season Four Episode Eight: Photo Finish -Scarecrow & Mrs King

Ready for more? The show continues!!!
We get another one of those sliding transitions that this episode seems to want to use as much as possible remember..we are in the middle of a flashback while Lee and Amanda discuss the past in the Q bureau (aie, it’s confusing!).
We cut to an exterior shot of a restaurant.

Lee: In fact, you were so caught up in that assignment, I started getting a little jealous.
Amanda: You did?
Lee: I told you. You weren’t listening.
(As we hear the voice over, we see inside this fancy restaurant.

There’s Lee and Amanda holding hands across the table.)
[How sweet is it to see them stroking hands like that. Adorable!    ]
Lee: What kind of plans do you have for the weekend?
Amanda: Oh, I have about three inches of paperwork to do for Beaman’s class. He’s got me doing a full security review.
Lee: Boring, boring, boring…
…I have something much more intriguing in mind.
Amanda: Such as?
Lee: Crump is in Argentina, and I have the key to his cabin… …You, me, moonlit nights –
Amanda: Aw, stop.
Lee: — crackling fires –
Amanda: Stop.
Lee: — barbecued steaks –
[Lee ain’t stopping!! He’s about to get to the indoor tennis. I’m sure of it! whooooooo.. -Hope Alan is ready with the espresso machine in the gutter, right?!]
Amanda: STOP…
…I have to work.
Lee: Amanda, Crump’s cabin is a once-a-year opportunity, and for us it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity –
[Nice sales technique there Lee. But she ain’t buying it]
Amanda/Lee (at the same time): -If you know what I mean.
Amanda: I know what you mean.
Lee: Great. Then I’ll get Beaman to spring you.
Amanda: No, no. I don’t want you to get Beaman to spring me. I really want to do a good job in class.
Lee: Amanda, you have been at the Agency for three years. What’s to prove?
Amanda: Well, I’ve been there three years, but I’ve – everything I’ve done, I’ve done with you. I’m doing this on my own, and it feels good.
[Lee can’t really argue with that and thank goodness or I would have been cranky with him!
I think he’s frustrated, but he also admires her for her dedication. What do you think?
IMHO he looks at her with great pride. He knows she doesn’t have anything to prove to him, that’s how he feels, but he gets what she’s saying here. I LOVE this conversation and that we finally get Amanda talking about her career explicitly. It’s been a while! ]
Lee: All right. What’s this assignment?
Amanda: Statik Aerospace.
Lee: Piece of cake.
Amanda: Big place.
Lee: Statik is a great outfit. I know. I did the original review. [lol of course you did. haaa] Trust Tanner. You can have this thing wrapped up by Friday, easy.
Amanda: I don’t know. There’s some things about it that I just don’t like. Their, um – their security badge system’s out-dated. They have video cameras in some places they really don’t do any good. And they buy too much floor wax.
Lee: Shadow shock.
Amanda: Shadow shock?
Lee: Uh-huh. Definitely shadow shock.
Amanda: What is shadow shock?
Lee: Just the way med students come down with every disease they study, new agents become suspicious of everyone and everything. You need a rest…
…and a guy with a healthy sex drive.
[What? What what what what what???????!!!!
Oh my gosh. how am I supposed to keep taking in words, images, sounds -when I just heard that???!!! ghaogabbaba0

Iwsod. Snap out of it. you can do it..
There. that’s better. phew. Where were we?! 

lol Lee has the good sense to laugh at that one. Very cheeky!] 
Amanda: Aww…
(They share a laugh.)
[Amanda gathers up all her resources to respond.. Again- such determination and strength on display!! haaaa!]
…Not this weekend.
Lee: There goes the cabin.

Amanda: The cabin’s not going anywhere.
Lee: Heh.
(the moment ends with Lee having another laugh to himself.)
[I’m glad it ended with him still feeling in good humor about her working. I’m guessing I’m not alone in enjoying seeing Lee crave more of Amanda’s company, and expressing that. Good to see him wanting to be with her! And Amanda? I think she’s pretty gentle with him here, she doesn’t totally shoot him down. The cabin will still be there. Heck – didn’t they just get back from Pine Top? lol]

We have another slide transition here.. This time, a flashback to Amanda’s house, we see Amanda waxing the kitchen floor.
(The following dialog is a current-time voice-over)
Lee: I wasn’t the only one who thought you were going a little overboard.
Amanda: I was being thorough.
Lee: As — only you can.

(in the flashback, we hear Dotty and Captain Curt talking in the background. Amanda is waxing the kitchen floor. We hear Dotty and Curt in the background talking)
Dotty: You can’t fly around out there with them shooting off fireworks.
Captain Curt: Every Fourth of July.
Dotty: Wait a minute. Don’t talk to me unless it’s over a bottle of wine.
(they enter the kitchen.)
[LOL check it out, Dotty is dressed like him. haaa..]
Captain Curt: Good evening, Amanda.
Amanda: Hello, Captain Curt. Hi, Mother.
Dotty: Now, what are you doing? Looks like you’re marking off parking spaces.
Captain Curt: No, those are airplane tie-downs. Pay attention.
Amanda: It’s really not as strange as it looks.
Dotty: Of course it isn’t. Everybody waxes their floor at 10:30 on a Saturday night.
[Oh Dotty you have no idea, if only you knew what certain cabin and guy with a healthy sex drive Amanda had given up this weekend to instead: wax the floor!]
Amanda: No, Mother. You see, we’re doing a documentary at IFF and I’m trying to prove the theory that the average person uses 1.4 ounces of wax per 10 square feet of kitchen floor. [my eyes just glazed over. how about you?!]
[Yeah it really is as strange as it looks. Nice try Amanda]
Dotty: Uh-hm-hm
Captain Curt: When you get done, if you’ve got some wax left over, I’ve got a Monte Carlo out in the driveway. She could wax that. It’ll go faster.
Dotty: Don’t encourage her. Captain Curt came by to help me study for ground school.
[I find it funny that they call him ‘Captain Curt’ rather than ‘Curt!’ ]
Amanda: Oh, I think that’s great, 10:30 Saturday night, good time to study.
[haaa good one Amanda!]
(There’s no reply for that. lol. Dotty and Curt start walking away.. )
Dotty: M-hah. We’ll get the wine.
Captain Curt: Get the good stuff.
[So where are the boys at 1030 on a Saturday night?
I guess they could be in bed already.
this having Joe back in the picture is great for Dotty and Amanda’s love lives!
Ahhhh the young and the restless – ahem. I don’t know this guy’s name but I do recognize him. haaa..
I find it strange Lee was referring to other’s noticing her dedication and then cutting to a Dotty and Amanda scene, when Lee wasn’t even there and how would he know about it. The flashbacks are an interesting attempt to shake things up a bit, fair enough… but I confess- it makes walking through an episode kind of confusing! Anyway, enough with the flashbacks, lol.]

Back to the Q bureau -current time- and Lee and Amanda are about to head into that meeting about the letter..
Lee: Chances are, the review board is not gonna bust you for floor wax.
Amanda: I still haven’t figured that out, either. They buy too much. It sits in their warehouse.
Lee: Yeah.  Well, come on. We better get down there.
(They head to the meeting together.) 

(Scene changes to review board room.)
Mrs. Frampton: Overall, we’ve been quite pleased with your performance here at the Agency, Mrs. King. Certainly, no one can point to any problems with security while you’ve been employed here… [rofl really? What about the Artless Dodger?! what about Spiderweb?!]

…You’ve had two full-scale special background security checks, right?
Amanda: That’s right. Uh – the first one was when Mr. Stetson first recruited me, and then –ah – there was another one about a year ago.
[Heart necklace is back..
oh and funny I was just reminded of spiderweb..
I went back to look at my walk through that and found I had actually included part of this scene in the walk through spiderweb -Back when I hadn’t yet figured out it was best to not refer to what is ahead in the walk.-
Sooooo I’ve deleted those comments about this from Spiderweb, and instead I’m putting them here.

This boardroom scene doesn’t fit with this little exchange in Spiderweb, when Larner first suggested Amanda was the leak:
Lee: that’s impossible! She’s not an agent at all, she isn’t even a trainee in the strict sense of the word. She just helps us out.

Larner: and because she just helps us out she was never given an all out security check!

[I can’t make sense out of this.. unless they count her being recruited as when she became a trainee agent.. but they make it sound like it was when he first met her, and it would only be a year or two maximum since she officially became a  trainee.. that’s too soon for all the checks -Lee says he has one every 3 years-  Oh ! and.. Amanda’s family tree was being checked for security reasons in There goes the neighborhood! I can only put this down to a contrivance needed for the plot to work.. Okay I’ll just go with it! ]
Lee: Yes. I ran my own field checks when we started working together, uh — habits, haunts, the usual.
[Oh dear, Lee looks so nervous! lol.
Amanda smirks at hearing this]
Amanda (to Lee): You did?
(They share a smile.)
[Oh guys no. Please don’t. Not here!!!]
Mrs. Frampton: Well, it’s all here in the record.
(to Billy) … A superb record, I think we all agree…
[Thank goodness Francine isn’t there haaaa]
(to the room) …I’m not trying to prolong the mystery, Mrs. King. But I think that you can understand why we were surprised.
[Geee call me crazy, but she seems to be prolonging the mystery!]
(she takes a newspaper out of her little folder and approaches Amanda)
Amanda: Surprised about what, Mrs. Frampton?
Mrs. Frampton: Educational records are standard in any background check, and we had been through yours from the University of Virginia twice. The third time we found this.
(Gives Amanda a newspaper. There is a photo of people holding placards in a newspaper page, headed “The Skwak 1972 Editor ABBE SPARKMAN”. The headline reads “University of Virginia Police Needed at Demonstration”)
That’s a March 4^th, 1972, edition of The Skwak, which was an unauthorized ultra-left publication that’s now –uh – defunct.
Billy: Why did it just show up?
[Yeah and with Amanda in her Welcome to America Mr Brand hair and pink pyjama outfit!!! rofl. that’s quite a time warp!

I can’t be certain, but that’s what it looks like to me! ]
Mrs. Frampton: Apparently, the official campus newspaper just donated their collection of radical off-campus sheets like these from the good old days, and UVA security put any interesting clips in the students’ jackets. Now, would you just read the top column, please.
Amanda: “ ‘Let’s light the fuse and see what happens,’ says campus activist” – me — “as hundreds of students set fire to the UV administration building.” I never said that.
Mrs. Frampton: Is that your picture on the top right?
Amanda: It looks like me, but it can’t be me, because I wasn’t there. This is a mistake.
Lee: Yeah, see, that’s it. That’s it. It’s a mistake. Amanda King doesn’t lie. [awhhh]
Mrs. Frampton: Mrs. King, we’re all grownups here. We don’t come down too hard on the occasional peccadillo, since our agents are rather spirited people (looking directly at Lee).

[rofl. I love this! In the middle of a pretty intense moment for Amanda we still get this quirky little dig at Lee thrown in there. His facial reaction here is priceless. Hilarious! BB does a great job! Sorry.. I digress!]
…But there’s certain kinds of conduct that we simply can’t overlook, not when our country’s secrets are at stake. So – what do we have here? Incitement to riot, destruction of private property and trespassing. Now, that’s a little over the line; don’t you agree?

Amanda: I didn’t do that.
[Hmmm..]
Billy: Ms. Frampton, I think you have a bad lead.
Mrs. Frampton: Billy, we’re checking it out.
[You know for an intelligence agent she’s a bit dim.  Maybe you should have confirmation before you consider writing letters and hosting meetings. Or maybe you should even ask the person about it first! If this is the archive, there doesn’t seem to be a way to verify it’s a true edition or if it’s been doctored.]
Billy: I stand by my evaluation. Amanda King is a top-notch agent candidate and a Class A security risk. Were she anything else, I would have known by now.
[Billy does an amazing job here on Amanda’s behalf! I’m so proud of him. Keeps his cool well. Plus it’s just super great to hear such nice things said about Amanda ]
Mrs. Frampton: Well, you certainly should have. We have a proposal on the table to downgrade your security status to a Stop S.
Lee: What? Subversive tendencies? That’s absurd.

Mrs. Frampton: All right. Since Mrs. King denies all of this and you support her so vocally, we’ll wait… [Umm is it just me, or is this all pretty messed up??!! Oh you are being vocal? okay then, we’ll wait. haaa as if!]
…But until this is proven one way or the other, I’m putting Mrs. King on a D-15 suspension order. Sorry, Amanda. I’m going to have to clip your wings.
Amanda: I — .
[Whooooo super intense close up of Amanda. What will she do?? Her whole career is at risk here!!
Umm be more vocal Lee that seems to work. Kinda.
lol. You know Lee was explaining how Amanda doesn’t have anything to prove after 3 years. Seems like there is always something to prove at the agency.]

Time to pause and reflect.. before we move on to how the heck Amanda is going to get out of this one?
Isn’t it wonderful to have some Lee content again?!
I’m going to eat my pancakes You too?