6/7 Season Four: Episode Eleven- Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag–Scarecrow & Mrs King

Christmas Eve, and on to the King home..  
Jamie: (passing Phillip a present) Here. This is from Aunt Lillian. What do you think?
Phillip: Red sweater, just like last year.
{Dotty enters in background, dressed up and carrying a coat.}
Jamie: Well, if she left the price tag on it again, maybe we can exchange it.
Phillip: Sounds good to me.
{Joe enters, wearing a nice suit.}
Joe: I heard that, guys. Now you leave those alone. We’re gonna open presents right after church. (points at Jamie’s feet) Those shoes could use a little polish…
[hmmm I could skip the whole Joe King being the responsible father thing. Bah Humbug. He makes me grouchy. haaaaa.. lol. and if he is wearing a wedding ring, where is his partner?]
Jamie: Uh, it’s up in our room and Aunt Lillian’s got the door locked.
Phillip: Her headache’s back.
Dotty: I think we ought to leave her here. I mean I don’t need her snoring next to me in the pew.

Joe: I’ll see if she wants to go. (to boys) Now you boys hurry up and get ready.
Jamie and Phillip: (muttering as they go to leave room): Let’s go, come on, come on…
{The boys exit as the phone rings. Joe goes to answer it. We hear him in background as Dotty chatters.}
Dotty: Okay… The goose is in the oven and it’ll be ready when we get back from church. Which, by the way, will be in forty- five minutes.
Joe: (into phone) Of course, Sweetheart…
[Sweetheart? He is talking to his partner right???!!! Nooooooooo!!!!!]
…Well, the boys will be disappointed. Well do you think there’s any chance you could catch up with us at the church?
Dotty: (rolling her eyes) Oh don’t tell me. She’s going to be late again?
Joe: No, don’t worry. I understand. We’ll see you back here for presents . . . Okay, bye-bye.
{Joe hangs the phone up and turns to Dotty, who’s fuming.}
Dotty: Ahhh, just once, I would like to have my daughter home on time on Christmas Eve and my sister’s hands off the goose.
{Joe laughs as they leave room.}
[I bet some of us don’t mind the whole Joe calling Amanda sweetheart and all that. Yeah it’s better than the old cliché fighting with the ex thing.. Super healthy and all..
but.. I just like to have fun with how much I don’t like it lol!
I think back to the supposed original idea for this show, that Amanda would be married and living a secret life as a spy and all – with American Dream the movie being the inspiration – but then they went and gave Amanda a boyfriend instead and well.. Lee and Amanda were the true OTP sooooo boyfriend had to go!
Having a friendly ex-husband is a convenient compromise I guess  – it means there’s that person at home parenting, not dumping on Dotty, and freeing up Amanda to save the country. Leaves Lee and Amanda free to fall in love too all while her domestic life can chug along in the background of all the espionage! Soooooo I guess I can’t really complain he is there. But! ‘Sweetheart’ is crossing a line for me!!!

Anyway, that’s about as much as I wish to focus on Mr Joking!]

(On to Titan Toys again.. Lee and Amanda break in… And inside we find the three wise geniuses from the bar being badgered by Falcon…
Falcon: I strongly suggest we step up the pace, gentlemen. We don’t want to be here all night.
Engineer #1: We could do this on Monday.
Falcon: (off screen) We have an investor who wants the latest. So just get the data on tape and we can all go home.
(Lee and Amanda sneak around and see what’s going on..)
Engineer #1: We’ve got an hour to dump all the databases…Continued Receiver imagery, laser tracking…fiber optics, control monitoring... there’s a lot of systems in that toy…
Falcon: yeah, just do it.
[So these engineers believe they are actually working on toys?!]
Lee: (whispering) Let’s see if there’s another way in.
[Why do they need another way in? They’re in?!]
{They turn to leave and find Ingle (Kringle) standing with a gun trained on them.}
Ingle: Most people use the front.
[Most people are boring. And hey – Santa doesn’t use the front door either!!!!] 

(Elsewhere in Titan Toys, there’s a Christmas children’s nativity event happening..Lots of activity… and children. Lots of children… did I mention there are lots of children?!  Falcon is seen in his office giving a little girl a lollipop. Gag.
The guests leave and join the others.. and Falcon sends Santa and two lady helpers out to be part of the show.
Falcon: Come on guys. You got a couple hundred kids out there going bonkers. Let’s roll, huh?
(Ingle Kringle leads Lee and Amanda into Falcon’s office at gunpoint.
Lee and Amanda try to bluff their way out of it but Falcon isn’t buying it.)
Amanda: Our dispatcher knows we’re here. We already filed a preliminary.
Falcon: I don’t think so. You would’ve shut me down long before I got close to delivery…
..Inside please.
[rofl. I guess politeness costs nothing! And hey, it’s christmas eve! ha!]
{As Lee and Amanda walk into the room, Ingle walks up to Falcon.}
Ingle: American agents inside your operation and we haven’t even received the pilot project.
Falcon: (starting to pull the door closed, closing Lee and Amanda inside) Which is why I insisted on an escrow account, Ingle. The data dump’s gonna be completed by 9. If for any reason we fail to deliver…
[Yeah! let’s just outline the arrangements in front of federal agents. I guess that gesture and the unfinished sentence is the ‘…they need to die’ part]
{Falcon locks door.}
Ingle: True. It is your problem. I’ve got the midnight flight with or without the designs. It’ll be Christmas in Dresden in an hour. They ring the bells, play the Christmas pageant in the church (He chuckles) Oddly enough, they still celebrate Christmas in the GDR.
[soooo what do you all make of this little moment? Seriously weird Ingle Kringle!]
Falcon: Wait for me in the computer room
Ingle: I’ll kill them now.
(Ingle Kringle turns to head back to Lee and Amanda, but Falcon stops him.)
Falcon: Absolutely not. If there’s a chance that these two have backup, we can’t leave the bodies here… And, there’s a couple of hundred children crawling the halls. You want to carry them past the kids like a couple of yule logs? (beat) …I’ll take care of this…first, I’ve got about twenty rent-a-cops that I gotta move away from the back of the plant before I can get them out that way. Go.

{Cut to the office where Lee and Amanda are imprisoned. Lee is fiddling with the lock while Amanda leans on it, arms crossed. Lee looks up with a grunt of frustration. Amanda shakes her head and he sighs, shaking his back. They both sigh and lean on the door.}
Lee: (angry) Just another Christmas Eve trapped in a nest of killers. (beat) This is getting to be our own little holiday tradition.
[whoooo a vague reference to an actual previous event! Merry Christmas fans!!]
Amanda: Look we’re in another jam, but we can’t stew about it. We gotta figure a way out.

Lee: Yeah.
{They both turn and begin running their hands around the door frame looking for weak spots.}
Lee: Well, we’d need a satchel charge to blow these hinges… I suppose you’re gonna say we can count on a miracle or two.
Amanda: Well, it’s the season for them.
Lee: Yeah.
Amanda: Three years ago, we were surrounded by a bunch of Russians. We got out of that.
[whoooo a very specific reference to an actual previous event! Very Merry Christmas fans!!]
{Lee climbs up on a chair and steps on the large table in the middle of the room to check the ceiling.}
[Bet you never guessed you would get the chance to see up Lee’s left nostril. haaaaaaa..]
Amanda: There’s gotta be a way we can get out of this.
Lee: (pushing up on ceiling tiles) Well, we’ll never get out through the ceiling There’s six inches of overhead.
Amanda: Okay, well, come down.
{She steadies him as he steps back down onto chair and then to floor.}
Lee: We don’t have a heck of a lot to work with, Amanda.
Amanda: Uh-uh. (she picks up a toy train)
{{Clagjanet:which is waaay nicer than the one Lee wanted to get for P&J!}}
Lee: (chuckles and starts picking up toys) Walter the Singing Frog.
..Baby Teardrops…
[How does Lee know Baby teardrops? is there a cut scene? anyone read the script?]
…Ah. And the good old trusty Tombstone Fanner…
…It’s all I ever needed when I was eight.
{Lee pulls the trigger and sets off a cap. Amanda jumps and gives a little yelp. Cut to the robot cat toy from Bernie’s emerging from under the table. They both laugh with relief.
Lee leans down and picks up cat. Suddenly we see his expression change as he stares at cat then at the gun. Amanda can tell he’s thought of something. He puts down the cat and starts pulling the gun apart.}
[It’s Macgyver time!!]
Lee: Amanda…
Amanda: Yeah?
{Lee pulls the roll of caps out of the gun.}
Lee: Check the shelves. See if you can find some more caps and batteries. These things must come with batteries.
{Amanda starts looking at a shelf covered in Harry the Things while Lee searches another shelf nearby. He pulls down a toy police car as Amanda finds a stockpile of batteries.}
Amanda: Okay, I got some batteries. They’re double-‘A”s… they’re only a volt and a half.
{Lee is looking over one of the Walter’s, opening the base. He yanks out a four battery holder trailing wire.}
Lee: That’s fine, that’s fine…we’ll wire them together in a series
Amanda: Yeah.
{Amanda is pulling all the batteries and boxes of caps from the shelf. She joins him at the table.}
Amanda: Here’s a whole bunch of caps and a whole bunch of batteries.
Lee: (picking up doll) How do you make her cry?
Amanda: Oh, well you just, uh…
{She places the baby in her arms and starts rocking it back and forth.}
Amanda: (crooning) Rock the baby, rock the baby.
Lee: (sighs, exasperated) Amanda? Amanda.
{Amanda snaps out of it and grabs the baby and presses its stomach with her thumbs.}
Amanda: You squeeze her stomach. You squeeze her stomach, just like this
[rofl. I guess they couldn’t have them rip her head off and find the bladder inside the toy in a christmas episode.. the kiddies would have been traumatised!]
Lee: Yeah
Amanda: Look tears, See (Keeps squeezing)
[I do love deadpan Amanda.
All the preparing to do something stuff has quite the build up. You know I actually do not remember what they end up doing!]
Lee: Okay. Let’s find something to contain the water.
Amanda: Uh-huh.
{Lee goes to shelf and plucks off another couple of remote controlled cars.}
Lee: Oh, and give me her dress.
{Amanda looks surprised.
Lee gives her a “well, go on” look and shrug.}
[LOL I think they could have had Amanda mishear what he said. Because when I first heard it I thought he was saying – give me your dress. A Freudian slip if ever there was one haaa.. but it would have been pretty funny if Amanda thought he was after her clothes, and not the dolls!]

It’s wonderful to see Lee and Amanda working together and sharing a few moments! Thoughts anyone? Happy New Year all!!!