Young Indiana Jones -- Episode 17: Masks of Evil

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Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:

In Istanbul, Indiana Jones is undercover as a Swedish journalist whose mission is to communicate French peace terms to a Turkish general. Next, he goes to Transylvania to investigate a mysterious Romanian general who has kidnapped some allied POWs. 

Memorable Quote:
Naturally, the loss of an innocent life is to be regretted, but the operation has been a wonderful success.  ~French intelligence officer

Highlight:
Here's a fun fact: the name of the Romanian vampire is Mattias Targo. The name of the Hungarian tough guy in Die Hard 3 is Mathias Targo. Both were written by the same person, Jonathan Hensleigh.

Lowlight:

I didn't think anything could be worse than the second half of Espionage Escapades, but the last 25 minutes of this episode is my new series lowlight. One thing I've appreciated about the series thus far is that it didn't delve into the magical elements that the movies did (and which were my least favorite parts of the movies). In the Transylvanian castle, however, things get wacky with lightning balls, frozen floors, and of course blood-sucking vampires. Not my cup of tea.

Brushes with historical figures:

• Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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

• Indy pulls off a pretty good Swedish accent. I recently watched Boondock Saints where he does a good Boston Irish accent. 
• It's bad enough that Indy is stringing Molly along as part of his cover, but then he makes it worse by asking her to marry him and accompany him to Sweden. Clearly he likes her a little bit but not enough to tell her the truth. 
• It's easy to see who the mole is going to be when Stefan pushes the guy who was willing to talk off the roof. 
• Molly's not the most dynamic personality, but it's a sad moment when she dies.
• Getting back to the Memorable Quote, how was the operation a wonderful success?  At least in the part that we see, the Turkish general says he's not interested in the French terms. 
• Some great shots of Venice in the middle of the episode, and interesting that they made the effort to get the shots even though the location has no bearing on the plot. 
• The American colonel seems too high ranking to go on a two-person mission. Little does he know that he's about to be dismembered by a vampire. 

Final Analysis:

I'm not a fan of this one. The first half was just ok, and the second half was irredeemable. Ranking it second to last.