3/4 Season Four:Episode Nineteen–All That Glitters –Scarecrow and Mrs King

So, on to the Danton Mansion.. and the big test of Lee’s loyalty to Amanda, not! I’m going to rely on Clagjanet’s trusty transcription for this next sequence..
(Lee is sitting on the sofa, thumbing through Elisa’s social diary. Elisa enters, and passes him a cognac.)
Elisa: Diamond tiara for your thoughts, darling
Lee: You do stay busy, Elisa
Elisa (sitting beside him): Short attention span, boring company.
Lee: Boring? The names on this calendar are right out of the pages of Who’s Who. How can that be boring?
Elisa: Even filet mignon every night gets tiresome. Besides, variety is the spice of life.
(She leans in and drapes herself against him)
At least that’s what you used to whisper in my ear.
(She shifts closer and begins nibbling his ear)

Lee (moving away): Hey! Hey, hey, hey.
Elisa: Still ticklish in all the old familiar places?
Lee: We have got a lot of ground to cover tonight.
Elisa: Exactly what I was thinking. [gah!]
Lee: Business.
Elisa (sitting back): Before pleasure? You have changed, haven’t you? I’m not at all sure that I approve.
Lee: I want to talk some more about the names on this list. Now you’ve been seeing a lot of General Garrett lately. He was at your birthday party.
Elisa: You’re barking up the wrong tree, sweetheart. Grumpy Garrett and I are like old hunting buddies. We get together every now and then to scratch and sniff and tell rude jokes. The most romantic thing he ever did was to name his Jeep after me. [oh? He called his Jeep Floozy? How delightful!]

(Lee laughs.)
Elisa (snuggling into Lee again): Did you ever name your Jeep after me, Lee?Lee (after a long pause as he studies her, visibly uncomfortable): No. I never did.
Elisa: I know what you need. You need me to slip into something a little more comfortable.
(She stands and exits while Lee looks thoughtful.

Cut to Elisa’s bedroom.
A masked figure dressed entirely in black is using a knife to cut into the pillows on her bed.)

Elisa (offscreen): I won’t be long, darling Be a dear and open another bottle of champagne.

(The intruder grabs all the torn pillows and darts into the closet to hide. Elisa enters and crosses to the bed, tosses aside the remaining pillows and turns down the bed. [Sooooo it’s not just Amanda who wears Pyjamas as glamour wear?!
It looks terrible on both Amanda and Elisa!]
Cut to Lee still downstairs. He has picked up one of Elisa’s high heeled shoes and is studying it.
Cut to Elisa walking to her dressing table and lighting all the candles on it.
Cut to Lee still staring at shoe. He laughs to himself then shakes his head and drops the shoe.

[What’s Lee thinking????]
Cut to Elisa sitting at dressing table, removing earrings.

Cut to Lee, laughing to himself.
Cut to Elisa, brushing her hair. Her eyes go wide as she sees something behind her in the mirror. She rises to run away but the intruder hits her on the head, sending her to the floor. The intruder runs out the bedroom door and as Elisa falls, she knocks the candles off the dressing table. The lace table cover catches fire as Elisa lies motionless.
Cut to Lee writing a note. He tears it from the diary and leaves it on top of the cognac glasses. We see it says “Call you tomorrow, Lee”

Cut to exterior view of Elisa’s bedroom window where we can see the light and smoke of the fire.

Cut to Lee: walking out of the mansion and coming down the path. When he is almost at the street, we hear an alarm go off and he turns to see what is happening. He sees the light of a fire in the bedroom window and races back inside and up the staircase. Lee runs into Elisa’s bedroom and sees her on the floor. He picks her up and leaves as the maid urges him to hurry.

Lee carries Elisa down the stairs. Maid follows.)

Maid: The fire department’s on an automatic alarm. I’ll get everyone out of the house and direct the firemen.

Lee lays Elisa on the settee in the front hall and watches her, worried.

It cuts to an ad break.. and next we find Elisa with an oxygen mask still laying on the sofa while Lee muses about what’s going on and tries to figure it all out.. the earring was planted by someone other than who was searching for it..

Elisa is taken by ambulance to the hospital, and Lee calls Billy from the vette… Elisa’s going to survive (drat), and Amanda identified Carpenter, who they now know served in Grenada, was the source of the earring. Go Amanda..

Lee heads to Carpenter’s office… to rummage around and wait for him to arrive.. Lee asks questions…

he tells Carpenter about Elisa being hurt and in hospital.. he gives away he cares about her (in his creepy way).  So Carpenter finds out his baddie colleague McGill tried to hurt his object of infatuation…

lol at the Doris Day movie exchange.

The Bachelor officer’s quarters watch Doris Day movies? I’m not touching that..

Next Scene…. time for another baddie meet up..
Carpenter is all mad Elisa got hurt, and unhappy to sell out agents to the Cubans. McGill turns the screws on him.

Okay, I’m finding this McGill is actually a pretty half decent baddie. She’s growing on me in her evilness haaaaaaa… I love the disdain she treats Carpenter with!

Back Billy’s office.. well we first see Francine in the bullpen, before she walks to Billy’s office..

What do you all think of this outfit?! Do you remember these jackets?!!!! Ugh..
Also, another red jacket! this is the episode for red jackets I guess..
ensemble? or nonsemble?

Francine heads into Billy’s office to join Billy, Lee, and Dr Smyth and move the plot forward a bit.. The Francine gag where she takes Dr Smyth literally when he says that’s absurd just makes her look like a dill and falls flat for me.

[What does it say on Billy’s mug?!]

So new info here – they have confirmation Carpenter has an alibi. Smyth then states the obvious like it’s a revelation – Carpenter has a partner who did it..
Dr Smyth assumes the partner is a man… ugh. Well this McGill will show him!
Dr Smyth is still working at getting the Grenada records… and there’s a path to getting them he is continuing to work on.

Back to Garrett on the golf course. McGill finds him, and convinces him the agency is on a witch hunt and has misconstrued his defensiveness as guilt, when really he was only being protective of his turf. She talks him into a strategic withdrawal temporarily and he buys it. lol because she flatters him. the big dill!

Garrett: Could be a strategic withdrawal under fire.
McGill: You wrote the book sir.
UGHHHHH

Next day, Lee, Billy and Francine are going over the Grenada files.. and Francine finds an order signed by Garrett.
Francine (reacting to something she found): How about the bombing of the Hale estate? Here’s the order for it and he signed it.

Billy: It’s an order for an air strike. Defensive cover for part of a mop up team pinned down by a division of Cubans guarding the airfield.
Lee: Except those Cubans turned out to be laborers and engineers. There’s something wrong here. I know Garrett’s tactics… he used the same style in Korea and Vietnam. He does not believe in close air support in a land action like this. [Glad Lee is using his brain and seeing it doesn’t fit!]

Billy: Fine. Talk to Garrett. See if he can tie Carpenter into it. If so, then like the man says, I think our teeth will be sharp enough and we can bring Carpenter in.

Next thing, we see Lee talking to McGill in Garrett’s office.

She’s playing the I’ll be as helpful to you as I can role while delaying Lee getting answers.

It’s left unclear if Lee is buying it.

The next scene is Carpenter joining McGill in the warehouse the jewels are stored in. He finds her about to double cross him, he then tries to double cross her threatening to kill her.. but she pulls a gun on him herself…

He turns and runs.

She shoots him in the back. [I won’t shed a tear, creep! I do hope his long lost twin brother Fred Fielder never finds out. ]

Next thing, two men are picking up the dead body like it’s a sack of potatoes and dropping it on a gurney. lol.
Francine and Billy discuss..

found (conveniently) under a shelf were a group of battle ribbons that had been torn off a uniform.

They figure out it’s probably General Garrett.
Francine: There must have been a fight.
Billy: That’s what it looks like… but Carpenter was a career military man. He wouldn’t run from a fight. (beat) He was shot in the back.
[oh that’s funny. Yeah he did run from a fight!!]

Next up, Lee is talking on the phone to Billy.Lee’s been trying to find Garrett, his info says he’s stayed local and is playing golf, but Lee thinks he won’t be found on the golf course. Why I don’t know.

As Lee says this, we find he’s tailing McGill, and we see her get in an elevator behind him.
Lee: I have a hunch. You know a general like Garrett doesn’t like to do paperwork. He’d leave that up to his aide de camp. Now I checked out who his aide was in Grenada. It was Major, then Lieutenant Sally McGill. She probably signed most of his orders. A good aide can do her general’s signature almost to perfection. (He sees McGill getting ready to enter the elevator) I gotta go, Billy. 

We see Lee is following McGill’s car from the oh so inconspicuous corvette…

he fiddles around with a radio device of some kind..  Yep. No one will notice that car following them!

Back to IFF and there’s a weird exchange between Billy and Francine making a big deal about how Lee’s receiver isn’t sending a signal. What could Lee be up to?? Billy and Francine try to figure out the mystery whooooo what is Lee up to?? and… why didn’t he just tell Billy on the phone why keep it a secret?!

Seems kind of contrived so the writers can try and insert some tension and drama. When there is zero reason I can see why Lee didn’t tell Billy he was following McGill when he had just been talking about her on the phone to him.

To cut a long story short. They whooooooo figure out Lee is following McGill!

ugh, the writers seem to be struggling for a hook here.. and they fail in my opinion… Has anyone read the script? Is there maybe an explanation for why some of this writing seems so weird at times?