Young Indiana Jones -- Episode 16: Tales of Innocence

To Watch: Click Here

Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:

In northern Italy, Indiana Jones gets into a lover's quarrel with Ernest Hemingway over an Italian country girl. Then, he goes to North Africa on a mission to find out who's been supplying guns to anti-French marauders. 

Memorable Quote:
You rat!  ~Indy
Me?  ~Ernie
You dirty, two-timing rat!  ~Indy
Judas!   ~Ernie

Highlight:
Two amusing scenes between 4:30 and 7:30, first where Indy gets frazzled by an Italian soldier that almost hits him with friendly fire (great acting by Flanery here), and then in a jeep where Indy pretends to not speak English.

Lowlight:

The romantic tension between Indy and Edith Wharton was a bit uncomfortable given their age difference, similar to MacGyver and Viktoria in The Enemy Within. As I said in that post, I'm not against older women and younger men hitting it off, but this lady looks like she should be Indy's mom.

Brushes with historical figures:

• Ernest Hemingway
• Edith Wharton
• Lowell Thomas

Other thoughts, observations, and questions I didn’t ask when I was in fourth grade:

• I like how the episode starts in medias res and how we're not sure what exactly Indy is doing or why he's pretending to be missing an arm. 
• 23:46 mark -- a clever Farewell to Arms reference. 
• A few notes about the co-stars:
• The wikipedia page of Veronica Logan (Giulietta) says: "On the set of Young Indiana Jones, she met the actor Sean Patrick Flanery, with whom she cohabited for a period in Los Angeles."
• The actress who plays Giulietta's mother also played Shmi Skywalker (mother of Anakin) in Star Wars Episode 1, and she was married to Bille August who was the director of this episode. 
• Hemingway is played by Jay Underwood, who I vaguely remember as Chip the robot from the 80's movie Not Quite Human. 
• Originally I assumed that Ernie was the "other guy", but then I figured he wasn't when I saw the photo of the Italian guy in the living room, so I was surprised when it was revealed to be Ernie even though I had predicted it initially. 
• It doesn't take long for Indy to forget about Giulietta, as evidenced by his dalliance with Nurse Sophia. 

Final Analysis:

Overall, a good episode. The first half was well-written and amusing, even if I'd prefer the series to emphasize action over comedy. I wasn't wild about the Edith relationship in the second half, but I liked the subplot involving the French traitor and the swordfight at the end. Ranking it 4th out of 16.