The Night of the Legion of Death

By Miss Sunbeam

Episode # (aired): 68 (November 24, 1967)
Episode # (filmed): 61, according to my calculations (fourth episode of 67-68 to be filmed, but aired later)

Apparent J/A intimacy: ** Their relationship seems a little past-tense here.
Compelling plot holes to be spackled or fixed: nuttin' compelling.
Reason to spackle the episode anyway: Artie's sad face as he watched Anthony Zerbe break down in front of a crowd.
Shirtlessness: Tragically, none, but Artie does get to wear a smart-looking fez!
Physical contact: * Jim carries Artie out of the morgue but it's not sexy. Artie's made up to look corpse-like, and he's all disoriented.
H/c potential: ** Artie is declared dead.
Angst potential: **** Angst ought to work, because Artie seems so disturbed when he realizes the parallels between himself and Anthony Zerbe; besides, Jim is carelessly making time with some girl who looks like a mangled Michelle Pfeiffer.
Jim beauty: ***** Impermeable and glacial.
Artie beauty: ** Tired, noble, fez-wearing.
General bizarreness of episode/bad scriptwriting: * Not illogical. I kept thinking the screenwriters might be making an allusion to Nixon's election, since there's a sleazy politician having a hysterical nervous breakdown, etc. etc. But Nixon wasn't elected until a year after this ep aired. So maybe it's prophetic.
Importance of having this on a pimping tape: *
Apparent relationship status: They haven't slept together in a while; Artie's got big circles under his eyes from lack of shackin up, but Jim's been getting nooky from all over, so he's a happy shiny person.

Plot recap: Okay, here goes. There's a Legion and they are Of Death. They wear hats like Harry Mudd's and they are from an unspecified "territory" which wants to become a state.

As the show starts, the Legion is getting ready to hang a guy who looks a little like an albino Sasquatch (turns out it's Artie!) but Jim suddenly appears in the sixth floor of the Territory Book Depository and apparently shoots Artie just before they hang him (this scene really is a strange redo of the Kennedy assassination.)

Artie "dies".

The Legion of D. comes after Jim, who does the burning-ring-of-fire thing and falls into a nicely decorated underground thingy, which opens up into a gazebo containing a good-looking girl. She appears to be WAY hot to trot, so she kind of sticks out her bosoms and tells Jim she'll help escape from the Legion if . . . if . . . Jim gives her a really sexy kiss and then goes through the escape hatch she shows him.

And he ends up in a swanky drawing room where the L. of Death corner him.

Turns out the L.O.D. serve both the territorial governor, played by well-groomed B-movie actor Kent Smith, AND his secretary, who is Anthony Zerbe!!! I love Anthony Zerbe!!! He is so 70's television-movie to me! And he was the head zombie in "The Omega Man"! Plus he turned up a couple of years ago as F. Murray Abraham's boyfriend in "Star Trek: Insurrection" as an evil commander!!! I love Anthony Zerbe!!!

Well, it seems like Anthony Zerbe is actually in control of the governor as well as the Legion of Death – he's the power behind the throne, so to speak, while the governor just sits around guzzling liquor from the peculiar push-button bar that opens up into the escape hatch that Jim used and caressing his mistress, who happens to be the hot gazebo babe mentioned above.

Anthony Zerbe (I love Anthony Zerbe!) tells some of the L.O.D. to torture Jim, but Jim escapes and goes to the morgue where Artie's "body" is supposed to be. Mangled Michelle Pfeiffer is standing around there too, so we get to meet her.

Artie is in one of the sliding morgue-drawers. Seems Jim shot him not with a bullet, but with a tranquilizer dart (such as they used on recalcitrant moose in "Wild Kingdom"). Artie says he feels as if he's got a "noggin full of tapioca," and frankly it's all very unpleasant to think about: Artie ingesting that drug and being declared dead. He asks Jim not to "wait until the last moment" next time (I guess he's referring to the fact that he was within five seconds of being hanged). Jim shrugs it off. It's all a little creepy.

They flee their various pursuers (RC pretending to drive a covered wagon in a manly excited fashion) and then he and Artie jump off and lie on the ground and screw around while the bad guys chase the wagon (alas, they do not screw around in the right way.)

"Who's the girl?" Jim says.

Artie looks around, sadly excitable.

"Not here, Artie! Back in town."

It turns out that Jim's speaking of the Mangled Michelle Pfeiffer.

So they go back to town and visit Mangled Michelle P. to discuss the script. She tells them the evil territorial governor has imprisoned her good-guy dad.

Jim and Artie serve a warrant for arrest on the charges of corruption to the evil governor. But Anthony Zerbe (I.L.A.Z.!) steps in and tears up the warrant, and THEN he arrests Jim for the murder of Artie when Artie was in his albino-sasquatch mode.

Well, Jim gets put on trial; he even has a court-appointed lawyer (who is so incompetent I suspect he's really a court-appointed notary public). Jim seems doomed because, before Anthony Zerbe testifies against Jim, he shakes hands with the jury and reminds them that he -- Anthony Zerbe!-- is watching everything they do.

But Artie makes an impassioned speech to the court in his albino-sasquatch drag, and, since he's obviously alive, Jim is declared not guilty.

The courtroom clears, but the Legion of Doom comes in to get Jim and Artie. Artie changes into a snazzy-looking Egyptian with excellent posture and fab fez and then vamooses.

Meanwhile, Jim faces off with the L.O.D.

Fight. Fightfightfight. RC really is the Nijinsky of fists, isn't he? He's impeccably graceful at kicking and hitting, and it's a pleasure to watch him. I know everyone else has known this for forty years, but I never paid any attention to it (poor old Sunbeam: always out of it.)

After the fight, Artie and Jim break into the governor's house (gratifyingly they are wearing classic sex garb: Jim's got on his blue suit with those black sex-chaps and Artie's clad in the suede coat with that pinned-back, package-revealing front). They arrest the governor and take him off in a carriage, but, before they get too far, Artie is disgusted to realize that the governor is far too weak to be as powerful as everyone is pretending. So he and Jim speculate about who the real power in the territory is. Surprise, surprise, Anthony Zerbe pops up of the canebrake and tells them that he, HE, *HE* Anthony Zerbe, is the real power and now he's going to Show Everybody. Seems he's tired of being "obviously different" (which is actually news to us - it's hard to be "obviously different" on the WWW) and he doesn't want to be at the beck and call of the "glossy hollow people" such as the "wonderfully endowed" governor. :)

I forgot to mention that the governor had been on his way to a speaking rally before he was arrested, but now he just leans over and dies. Jim and Artie look appropriately muted.

Oh, Anthony Zerbe decides he'll go to the rally in the governor's place. He begins to work up the audience saying, "2! 4! 6! 8! We'd love to be a state!" etc. etc. And then he tells that the governor is dead, and they're all sad, but Anthony Zerbe says it's okay, because HE Anthony Zerbe is there and he's always been the real power behind the throne, etc. etc.

The crowd grows increasingly uneasy because Anthony Zerbe is becoming obviously unglued and they start leaving while Anthony Zerbe gets crazier and crazier.

Jim is sitting with the Mangled Michelle Pfeiffer and looking thoughtful, but Artie becomes heartsick. He clearly sees the parallels between himself and Anthony Zerbe, and now Anthony Zerbe's on stage making a fool of himself and people are rejecting him and Artie is shaken, just shaken. With a little bad luck, that could be Artie: on stage, in service of the wonderfully endowed, glossy Jim, and no one, not even the wonderfully endowed, glossy Jim, realizes the extent of his power, the manipulative depths he's capable of.

Artie is so perturbed that, when Mangled Michelle P's father is freed and Artie and Jim escort Mangled and Paw Mangled over to the Wanderer for a toast, Artie tells Paw Mangled he has something he wants to show him, just to give Jim time to fuck Mangled (who's in her Michelle-Pfeiffer-Scarface-chilly-power-blonde mode now).

Artie leaves, knowing Jim will betray him; he leaves, scared he's becoming an aging theatre queen who can only provide a little outside puss for his boytoy while he hopes the boytoy won't run off.

*sigh*

Things I loved:
Anthony Zerbe!
Jim's wonderfully endowed chaps!

Things I hated:
Michelle.
Anthony Zerbe brought low, even if he was the villain!

****************************** Final Conclusion: Actually, Artie has underestimated what a straight arrow Jim is; twenty years later, they're still sharing the same bed, waking up to kisses in the warm linen-colored Victorian light of day, and Artie can't even remember a time he ever doubted his noble Jim.