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Episode # (aired): 92 (first aired December 13, 1968) Episode # (filmed): 92 Apparent J/A intimacy: As we all know, Artie doesn't APPEAR! Compelling plot holes to be spackled or fixed: Artie DOESN'T appear! Reason to spackle the episode anyway: ARTIE doesn't appear! Shirtlessness: What does it matter! Physical contact: Artie doesn't appear!!!! H/c potential: Probably a lot, since Artie doesn't appear! Angst potential: Even more angst potential, because Artie doesn't appear! Jim's all brittle and "hey, Jeremy" but he's obviously in shock. Jim beauty: *** Jim's normal beauty is cut in half! He's got awful hair and he seems dispirited. (Hey, could the problem with RC's hair be that he has a slightly smaller-than-average head? Or maybe it's just the large musclebound body? Anyway, when he doesn't have that big leonine shock of duck-tail hair, the proportions seem a bit off.) Artie beauty: ARTIE DOESN'T APPEAR! General bizarreness of episode/bad scriptwriting:It's impossible to care. Importance of having this on a pimping tape: No comment. Apparent relationship status: Because we are who we are, we know Jim is still in love with Artie, even if he doesn't appear. Plot recap: Jim's supposed to meet Artie in a barber shop but, when he gets there, Artie's gone. However, since Jim's got to wait, he decides to get a shave, but it turns out to be a weird drugged shave because the female barber (Delilah by name) is in Dr. Loveless's employ. Okay, then Jim wakes up from his drugged sleep in a circus sideshow kind of thing and encounters a group of stuntmen, the most prominent of whom is Red West. Hey, it's Red West, Renaissance Stuntman! Red's a stunt person, he's a best-selling author (the shocking expose "Elvis: What Happened!"), he's a hit-song scribe ("Why Can't Everyday Be Like Christmas" as performed by Elvis), he's an excellent buddy of RC, AND (according to many) he definitely caused the King's early death by writing "Elvis: What Happened!" What a resume! Then a judge disappears and Jim goes back to the Wanderer where he says "Artie!" but it's not Artie: it's the pointless Jeremy Pike! All right then, Colonel Richmond merrily pops out of the woodwork to tell Jim that Artie's in Washington (hmmm), but, since there's a string of strange disappearances (like that judge), Jim's still going to have investigate them, only he'll be accompanied by stupid old Jeremy! Buncha stuff then happens: part of the "Jeremy" problem is that Jeremy is a psuedo-Artie, but we don't know him, so, anytime anybody looks peculiar, we are left to listlessly wonder if it's just Jeremy in disguise. Ultimately, Jeremy does put on a white wig and disguise himself as Mark Twain or Cottonhead McGeehee (I just made that up) or somebody anyway who's going to disappear. Then, he climbs in a carriage so he can disappear and so we the audience can be treated to a lingering and depressing look at Jeremy's pointless, unalluring ass. OH WHY BOTHER CONTINUING WITH THIS EMPTY CHARADE OF AN EP GUIDE!!!! The only good part of this episode is our bittersweet realization of what we lose when we lose Artie. The actor playing Pike is affable enough, but he seems to have the rich inner life of someone in a phone commercial! We are left to crave RM's dark joie de vivre, his complicated buffet of needs, his cobra-and-mongoose relationship with reality. While Artie's voice is a black satin comforter we pull up around about our necks, Jeremy's nasally speech has the appeal of a dental drill heard at a distance. All the urgency is completely drained out of the series. And all we can do is say ‘why?' Hey, possible motives for leaving without saying goodbye: a) Artie's playing the high-strung-bitch card (and not for the first time). "Oh, we'll just see how much you really care, Miss-Secret-Service-Stud-Thang!" b) We've assumed Artie spends a lot of his downtime stoned; maybe he was ordered to do a secret U.S.-Grant-ordered drying-out stint at St. Elizabeth's (the big federal looney bin in D.C.) c) Artie has a history: possibly some older lover has turned up and is needy. Artie frowns as he clasps his hands behind his back; he doesn't want to go, but his honor insists, yes, he must (it's that thin thread of honor that has always kept Artie grounded). d) Now, if this were a Gothic novel (which is actually a fab idea), Artie would have to leave to take care of his insane and incarcerated former relative or something who's gotten loose and is terrorizing the countryside. Hey, maybe it's an older half-brother who looks a lot like Artie (ala George Kirk) and only Colonel Richmond knows about the half-brother who's named something like, um, Phineas Gordon and Artie will have to go back East to hunt down and kill Phineas (after all, the Gordon family honor is at stake), but he can't bear to have Jim know because Jim might think Artie has inherited, you know, the *tainted* blood of the Gordons! *sigh* All in all, a very discouraging ep and, if you watch this episode back to back with the appalling "TNOT Camera" where Jim is just so horribly behaved, life becomes not worth living! :0 |
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