Episode # in order of airing: 56 (aired April 7, 1967)

Episode # in order of filming: 56 (pc 6628)

Apparent J/A intimacy: ***** Pretty very pretty intimate, I’d say.

Compelling plot holes to be spackled: It’s always about Miquelito, isn’t it? Plus: Where’d they dig up that stupid actress who plays Belladonna? Her skirts are weirdly short, but I guess they had to find something she could do. “Here, you can’t act, why, you can barely speak English, but at least you can show your legs!”

Reason to spackle the episode anyway: Well, Jim and Artie ARE lovers.

Physical contact: **** When Artie “dies” (for the second time at the end), Jim can’t keep his hands off him.

H/C & Angst potential: N/A. As you see, Artie “dies” and so does “Jim”, but none of this goes anywhere. (Actually Jim and Artie react with splendid Victorian brio to everything.)

Jim beauty: ***** Spectacularly spectacularoovius!

Artie beauty: ***** As Artie, excellent.
* As Tooth-sucking Codger, well, I don’t know.
******* But, as Mr. Lindsay, Artist!Southerner!Elvis!Imitator! OH MY GOD.

General bizarreness of episode/bad script writing: *****+ See plot recap.

Importance of having this on a pimping tape: N/A. It’s too weird for the uninitiated.

Apparent relationship status: ***** Quite happily married.

Fashion note: Girls, I am SO tingly! As Mr. Lindsay, RM has a) FACIAL HAIR and b) he’s AN ARTIST and c) he’s from THE SOUTH. Then he changes into a cowboy outfit with the most beautiful post-modern pallette: aged-mustard buckskin jacket, washed-olive shirt, with a cool scarf and hat. My man Artie is stylin!

Plot: It’s too tough to describe, but I’ll try. Okay, Miguelito has formed “an alliance” with an unnamed superpower and they’re going to conquer the world or Baja California or something, but first he has to steal a lot of money and then he’ll telegraph the other forces and they’ll rush in and take over and he’ll become king. Whatever. (There’s never really a genuine plot as Aristotle would define it in WWW, but this one is totally off the charts.)

It all begins with a bank holdup and what appears to be Jim defending the bank, but, oh, it’s not Jim, just an incredible simulation, and then Miguelito’s gang shoots him. Oh, I get it! They’re just “rehearsing”!!! Miquelito even has a little canvas director’s chair and a little beret and a little megaphone! “PITiful,” he intones. “Ab-so-lutely PITiful. This rehearsal was nothing short of a DISASTER!”

After the credits, the burglary-ring-cum-community-theatre-group really do rob a bank. And, to distract the bank people, they waltz in dressed as undertakers and bearing a coffin that contains Miguelito with a little reading lamp!

Then, when they’ve successfully carried out the bank caper, Miguelito sets fire to the money. (“Burn, banknotes, burn!” he chants anachronistically.) So why does he burn the money? ‘Cause it’s still just a rehearsal! How metaphysical!

However, a couple of the gang (which is composed entirely of morons) can’t resist taking a little bit of the money and spending it and so two charred bank notes eventually make it back to Jim and Artie.

Jim traces one of the bills to a saloon, and Artie tracks the other bill back to a boarding house.

At the boarding house, the skin-crawlingly irritating madame or proprietress or whatever is played by Patsy Kelly (remember her as Lily Fortune’s mother). We meet her when she’s bitching to the other sad-sack boarders because she has a brand new guest. “He’s a real gent! He’s an artist!”

Guess who!

I adore the way Artie uses his body as much as Jim adores the way Artie uses his body. (Besides, just because RM didn’t do stunt work is no reason to discount his physicality.) LoveloveLOVE the tiny prissy-footed walk he creates as Mr. Lindsay, the artist from Dixie.

Mr. Lindsay gets into a big flirting frenzy with Patsy and with her maid. He also shows off his sketching skills, especially with those “sayuDD face lawng-horn steeeuhs” of theirs. (That’s “sad-faced long-horn steers.” I translate Southern, you know.)

Lotta plot in a tiny amount of time: As he leafs through his sketchbook, the charred hundred-dollar bill falls out. Patsy says that’s strange because she received a burned bill like that the week before. “Now who ‘round heah could POSsibly be as prosperous as meeee?” Artie says. (Hee). But the maid spills coffee on Patsy before they can discuss the matter further, and, in the midst of this brouhaha, one of the boarding-house guys ironically welcomes Artie to their “happy abode.”

To which Artie does the coolest thing: he preemptively channels Elvis! How wonderful is that!

“Thankew” he says, “thankew verra much.” Aw, that’s such an Elvis trademark that even the garbage cans at Graceland have “Thank You” on one and “Thank You Very Much” on the one next to it. (But this was filmed in 1967 and Elvis won’t appear before a live audience for another five years! I realize this is eerie to non-Elvisites. But fab gospel to the likes of me.)

Well, back to Jim as he swans into Ye Olde Quaff Hut. (You know, Jim’s look is distinctly curious. In interviews RC says all these things such as “it was part of the matador style” and “those pants were easier to do stunts in” etc. etc., but none of this rings true. I think Jim dresses that way because Artie’s got a Leather Schoolboy fetish and that’s that.) He wins a big bar fight, as usual. And then Miguelito turns up.

The more I see Michael Dunn, the more I love him. His hubris is so touching, and in a strange way he humanizes Jim. Jim only shows emotions for two people in the whole series, and that’s Artie and Miguelito.

(WWW has wonderful physical dynamics, and Miguelito vs. Jim is one of them: physical perfection vs. deep deformity, with the extravagantly Protean Artie on the sidelines. Wow!)

Anyway, Miguelito decides to explain the plot to Jim. Oh, RC makes such beautifully expressive faces while the tiny doctor is talking. ‘Ey, you. Yeah, YOU! I slap you weeeth my glove and challeeenge you to a duel, those of you who say Robert Conrad cannot do thees acting thing!!! My seconds will call on you at dawn!!!! Because RC is great here, marvelously creative in his responses and beatifically gorgeous.

Okay, now back to Artie. Patsy’s hanging out clothes and “Mr. Lindsay” wanders over. Uhoh! She has a black eye! She’s gotten beaten up because she knows too much. What is they say on “Mystery Science Theatre 3K”? “Now is this touching? Or boring?”

No matter. The maid appears, and, oh, no! she’s in Miguelito’s gang! And there’s a lot of running around amidst the sheets Patsy was hanging out to dry. (A fight in the middle of a lot of hanging laundry is a fabulous visual idea. They don’t do much with it here, but props to the notion anyway.) Ends up with the maid shooting Artie point blank! And there’s a commercial as we grieve over Artie’s death!

After the commercial, we find Jim and Miguelito wandering around this odd prison-like compound while Miguelito explains the plot at excruciatingly ennervating, W.C. Fields-imitating length. However, all I notice is the cunningly hot angle of Jim’s hat! This scene ends with Miguelito calling for volunteers (of which there is no shortage) to kill Jim!

Now back to Artie’s “corpse” – oh, look! His dark thick eyelashes are fluttering! His broad manly chest is rising and falling! Artie’s not dead – he’s merely sleeping! (His thick sketchbook stopped the bullet!) So he opens his eyes and says, “Ah cain’t say ah’m disappointed, but ah coulda swore I wuz daid!”

God, RM is the greatest actor on earth.

All right, oodles more plot. Artie traces the killer back to the faux-prison camp where they’re sort of taunting Jim and making him run around. (Lots of Miguelito-yadda-yadda about fate and crap. You know, if Dr. Loveless would just shut up and kill Jim, he might be successful for once.)

Although, now that I think about it, Miguelito does make a reference to Jim’s “muscular bag of tricks.” Heh heh, he said “muscular bag of tricks”!

Then, when Miguelito and his batch of morons FINALLY decide to shoot Jim, Artie shows up in senile-oldster drag, fooling everyone but Jim. He sets off some bombs and they both escape to the nearest town to telegraph for help, but, no!, all the telegraphs for miles around are down!

Our boys decide Miguelito must have his own private telegraph service, so they set off to find it. And find it they do in this room full of huge blinky generators, along with Miguelito and the stupid Belladonna who pull guns on them.

Looks like Miguelito has won. (I’m so sure.)

Okay, here comes another great line.

Artie and Jim chat a little about their defeat, and then Artie utters the totally lapidary phrase: “My aunt Maude always told me, Artemus, if you’re losing the game, the next best thing you can do is upset the chessboard” and he’s throws his handsome self right into the big sparkly generator! Honestly, if greatness were a dishwashing solution, RM would be soaking in it!

Well, that ruins Miguelito’s plans, although he seems eerily resigned. I believe Miguelito thinks that, since he killed Artie, it’s worth it in the heartbreak he’s caused Jim. But you know what: Jim resolutely refuses to believe Artie is dead. And, as he cradles Artie’s warm stimulating body in his strong arms, his stoic denial is fascinating to behold.

Then, to wrap it up, Artie’s not dead and Jim sweettalks Belladonna into betraying Miguelito, who nevertheless escapes through a little swinging door designed for laundry.

A weird ending: It’s NOT the usual Jim and Artie preparing to have unlimited sex back on the train, but just Jim standing out on a dusty street looking very perplexed as a nanny walks back pushing a baby carriage.

Cut to the baby’s hand flicking a cigar ash on the street!

Hasta la vista, baby!