Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Young Indiana Jones -- Episode 7: Love's Sweet Song


To Watch: Click Here

Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:
Indiana Jones and his friend Remy stop in Ireland to work and raise money on their way to enlisting with the Belgian army, and Indy pals around with a young lass and experiences the Easter Rebellion. Then, he goes to London and falls in love with a suffragette who had a similar childhood to him of traveling around the world. He proposes marriage, but she declines in part because he's leaving for war and in part because she wants to devote herself fully to writing. 

Memorable Quote:
If you speak French and Spanish, Italian is not hard to learn.  ~Indy

Highlight:
The language duel between Vicky and Indy is classic and one of the very few moments from this series that I remember from when I was kid. In particular, the quote above always stuck with me. On the surface, it doesn't appear to be that memorable, but I remembered it so it gets the honor of being the memorable quote!  I also remembered that she stumped him with Welsh and that she referenced the Jones surname as being Welsh in origin.

These two have great chemistry together, and the actress who plays Vicky (more on her later) delivers her lines with great zest.

Lowlight:
The storyline with the Irish playwright was slow and didn't add much. I would have liked to see more time spent on Indy's relationship with the Irish lass.

Brushes with historical figures:
  • W.B. Yeats
  • Sean O'Casey (playwright) and Sean Lemass (politician) -- hadn't heard of these two before
  • Sylvia Pankhurst (suffragette) -- hadn't heard of her either
  • Winston Churchill -- heard of him 

Other thoughts, observations, and questions I didn’t ask when I was in fourth grade:
  • I don't have too much to say on the Ireland portion, other than the battle sequence is impressive (as in the previous episode), especially considering that this is early 90's network television.
  • Fun scene when Indy gets on the double-decker bus and gets forcefully rejected after putting a move on a widow. I noticed the conductor and thought, "She's cute -- Indy should have gone after her instead." I thought at first she was just an extra, and so I was surprised when she ended up as the heroine of the story.  I was even more surprised when I checked IMDB after the episode ended and discovered that it was Elizabeth Hurley, future A-list actress and supermodel! I missed her name in the opening credits and had no idea that she was Liz Hurley. I also had no idea that she was so talented of an actress (the only other movie I've seen her in is Austin Powers) -- she really is outstanding in this role.
  • Speaking of the bus, I like old-school double-decker buses. The only time I've been on one was in Disney World in the 80s -- they used to transport guests around Epcot's World Showcase until it was discovered that driving a huge bus through a jam-packed street full of tourists wasn't the best idea.
  • I never knew that the Germans used zeppelins to drop bombs. Being inside a zeppelin doesn't seem like a good place to be with a target on your back, and I read online that the British did eventually start shooting them down. 
  • Nice to see Miss Seymour again, and it's good of her to make Indy write to his father. 
  • Some other notable guest stars: Julian Fellowes (creator of Downton Abbey, of which I'm currently in the process of watching for the first time) as Winston Churchill, and Vanessa Redgrave as Vicky's mother. We saw her in the first Mission: Impossible movie as the arms dealer Max, and I'm surprised this show was able to get an actress of her reputation for such a small part.
  • 1:24:55 mark -- No words necessary in this scene as Liz's eyes do all the talking. Once again, she's really good in this episode! 

Final Analysis:
I have to say, this one tugged at my heartstrings a bit.  It didn't get to the point where I needed to reach for the tissue box, but I still found the last ten minutes to be quite poignant and melancholy. We can tell that these two are a perfect match and in love, but we also know full well that it's not going to work out between them in the end. The final scene on the train is very well done and heartbreaking at the same time. I didn't expect to top last episode so soon, but I really enjoyed Indy and Vicky's relationship, and I'm ranking this one 1 out of 7.

No comments:

Post a Comment