Episode 8: In the Bag

Previous: Episode Seven: The Princess and the Paupers Next: Episode Nine: The Flame and the Pussycat

Honey West is escorting young Margaret Mary Driscoll (Maureen McCormick) across country on an airplane. We can sympathize with Margaret Mary (always Margaret Mary, never Margaret) because her parents are divorced and are shuttling their daughter between them across the country, but Margaret Mary is a spoiled brat, and is giving Honey a run for her money. (Yes, H. West and Co. is being paid well for what Honey originally thought would be an easy assignment.)

Margaret Mary pesters Mr. A (Robert Carricart).

Margaret Mary talks to three different fellow passengers, complaining to each about her suffering under Honey’s guardianship.

These fellow passengers might seem random at this point, but their faces should be remembered and watched out for hereafter.

She pesters the mustachioed Mr. B (Everett Sloane)

...and Mr. C (Len Lesser)

Honey spills Margaret Mary's cup of water in Mr. C's lap.

At the airport, Sam meets Honey and Margaret Mary and escorts them to baggage claims.

Here is the scene in baggage claims.

Possibly for the first time, there are African-Americans on "Honey West."

Just as Honey and company discovered in the previous episode that they are in the 1960s and not the 1950s, in this episode they discover that not everyone in America is white—at least not in the baggage claims area at the airport. And before you point out that the African-American men in baggage claims are service employees (if vitally important ones), notice the African-American woman in the first of these pictures, walking across the screen in the background. She actually appears at least three times. Yes, these were the days of inchoate enlightenment, but they did not carry enlightenment very far in that there are no other appearances by African-Americans in this episode.

L-r: Mr. C, Mr. B & Mr. A

Notice, too, that the three men that Margaret Mary talked to on the plane are all in these shots in the baggage area: The distinguished Mr. A (Robert Carricart), the mustachioed Mr. B (Everett Sloane), and the soggy-lapped Mr. C (Len Lesser). But if you are watching this episode for the first time, you’ll probably only notice the distinguished Mr. A if you notice any of these three.

Two presumed treasury agents stand at the right, one of them the

ubiquitous Don Gazzaniga who appears on the show so often. On

the left is the African-American extra who can't stay off camera.

When Honey calls attention to the two plainclothes law enforcement officers looking in their direction, Mr. A subtly reacts to this [not pictured here], even though he is not featured in the shot. (Good acting.) Then he reacts again in a closer shot that features him. Now even the casual viewer will realize that Mr. A does not want the law scrutinizing him.

So, Mr. A switches his carry-on bag with Margaret Mary’s identical bag...

Don Gazzaniga, Robert Carricart, and George Hoagland

...just before the two government agents ask the distinguished man if his name is "Arkudian." As they take him away, notice that Mr. B, with the mustache, and Mr. C. (over Mr. A's left shoulder) are standing by nonchalantly.

Honey reaches to pick up what she believes to be Margaret Mary’s carryon bag. At the same time, Sam realizes that Margaret Mary has disappeared.

The private eyes frantically look for her, but she is nowhere to be found. Then they spot her doll.

“She’d never go anywhere without this doll,” says Honey. “Not willingly.”

Later on, Honey and Sam are still frantic, but the setting is now the living room of Honey’s combined office/apartment, about which something should be said:

When Honey enters her office, there is, first, a reception area. Next comes an inner office. Both rooms have curtained windows BTW. At the back of the inner room is a secret panel that leads into Honey’s living room. Beyond that are Aunt Meg and Honey’s bedrooms and, of course, a spacious lavatory with a sunken bath suitable for soaking in bubbles. (See Episode Three: “The Abominable Snowman.”) Where Sam lives is never made clear, but presumably elsewhere.

There are no Amber alerts in 1965, but Honey and Sam have alerted airport security that Margaret Mary is missing. However, they have not alerted the police and neither has the airport. (I am not sure if this makes sense even in 1965.) Fortunately—or so they seem to think—Margaret Mary’s father has called to tell Honey that he will be out of town for the next three days; so, can they babysit Margaret Mary a bit longer? Honey agrees without telling Mr. Driscoll that his daughter is missing. (Yikes!)

Honey and Sam argue about what to do.

Then Aunt Meg suggests looking in Margaret Mary's bag.

So, Honey dumps out the contents of the flight bag and realizes that it isn’t Margaret Mary’s. There is every kind of men’s shaving product in it—both manual and electric.

“Boy,” says Honey, “this guy must've had five o’clock shadow all day,”

Bruce chews on a shaving brush. Aunt Meg can't get him to stop. Honey tries to get it away from him, and it comes apart, spilling the jewels.

"Diamonds and rubies and emeralds! Oh, my!"

“That’s what I call smuggling,” says Honey. I have news for her. Everybody calls it smuggling.

Then a visitor—the man from the airplane with the mustache, who claims his name is Bartholomew—enters the outer office with Margaret Mary in tow, and Margaret Mary herself innocently conducts an exchange of herself for the flight bag.

While Sam goes to get the flight bag—and evidently puts back the gems off stage—

Honey notices that the mustachioed man keeps his right hand in his coat pocket where there seems to be a gun-sized bulge. When Sam returns and lets Margaret Mary take the bag to the strange man,

Honey has Margaret Mary also give him a pen with the H. West and Co. logo on it.

After the man disappears, Honey drops Margaret Mary in Meg’s lap.

“Here, hold on to her. She’s…”

“…Slippery how they got by customs, Sam, isn’t it?”

Honey is in the back of their van, talking to Sam on the microphone even though he's only a few feet away. He is driving the van around Los Angeles, following the signal from the radio-disguised-as-a-pen that they gave Bartholomew.

Sam is not only talking to Honey, but everybody else at the same time.

Sam, really, can you say distracted driving?

Sam forwards a call from U.S. Customs to Honey who gives them Bartholomew’s description: Brown hair, mustache, portly—"not my type."

Meanwhile, Bartholomew rejoins the distinguished Mr. Arkudian and...

...so much for the brown hair—

...or any hair to speak of...

...and so much for the mustache...

...and never mind about him being portly.

Bartholomew dismisses Arkudian’s concern about the man who seems to have been shadowing them. He says that shadows tend to disappear when you turn out the lights.

He is more concerned about Honey and Sam whom he considers to be loose ends that he plans to eliminate. (Here’s the idiot plot: Bartholomew would probably get away with this caper if he didn’t decide to press his luck now.) He commits himself to meeting Honey West once more, wearing a new disguise. Finally, Bartholomew breaks the pen… causing Honey to lose the signal. (Once again, Bartholomew is lucky, apparently not knowing that the pen contained an electronic tracking device. He just goes around breaking pens given to him by people he dislikes.)

Honey tells Sam they’ve lost the signal. So, they return to the office, where they find that they’ve had a visitor. A very messy visitor.

But if it was Bartholomew or any of his associates, why would they come back when they already have the jewels?

And why did they wrap Bruce in a curtain?

From blood on the curtain, Sam concludes that Bruce put up a fight.

(The real Bruce has been declawed; not so the fictional Bruce.)

And how did Bruce get into the office when he is always supposed to be kept in the living quarters, behind the secret panel? A note from Aunt Meg explains it all: Margaret Mary kept amusing herself by opening and closing the secret panel, so Meg decided to take her for a walk in the park.

While Sam goes to find a ladder to rehang the curtain (at a time like this, and with the same bloody curtain?), Honey is alone in the office when a man turns up asking for help in a seemingly unrelated case. Honey doesn’t recognize him, but it is Bartholomew in a new disguise.

He gives her a cockamamie story about a haunted house to lure her to a mansion that is “a mile off the main highway.” (Don’t Californians say “freeway” rather than highway?) When she suggests she could come to see him tomorrow, he pleads with her to come tonight.

Sam interrupts the meeting with a phone call to Honey: the signal from their pen has restarted. (Sam must have gotten distracted while looking for that ladder.) They start roaming the streets in their van again.

But they have company.

It's Mr. C, the guy Honey spilled water on in the plane. Man, he really holds a grudge.

Honey and Sam are encouraged when they get close to the signal—until they trace the activated tracking device to the park, where they find Aunt Meg and Margaret Mary, who is drawing pictures with one of Honey’s pens and must have activated it by accident.

Just out for a walk in the park. Fancy meeting you here.

Honey takes back the pen.

(This tells us that Honey and Sam cannot tell the signature of one of their identical tracking pens from another one, which relates to a forgettable minor story point that we will encounter later. But it makes no real difference to the plot.)

By way of transition, Honey announces that she is going to a haunted house.

Have we seen this house in a previous episode?

In this light, the AC Cobra looks like it might be yellow.

(I know you just moved in, but what a dump.)

Arkudian comes downstairs with a Luger semiautomatic pistol.

Bartholomew wonders whether Honey recognizes him now. [I'd need him to wear a mustache and lose the specs. How the heck does the actor see in those things, anyway?]

Bartholomew searches Honey's purse and takes her pocket revolver.

Arkudian and Bartholomew make Honey call Sam and tell him to hurry up and get there. Honey does, but she tries to drop clues that she is in trouble. Sam proves to be slow on the uptake. He is preoccupied by the odd fact that while on his way to meet her at the haunted house, he is suddenly getting the signal again, but "I don't think I'm following the signal—it's following me."

Meanwhile, guess who IS following Sam.

Mr. C [aka, Uncle Leo] just won't let that water in his lap thing go.

Honey negotiates to keep her lipstick. Bartholomew is reluctant, but he inspects it and lets her have it. So, she turns on the hidden radio transmitter in her lipstick and talks to Bartholomew about what he and Arkudian have planned.

Honey: "Are you planning to kill me?"
Bartholomew: "When your partner gets here."

Sam is listening and now knows that Honey is in trouble.

Bartholomew and Arkudian show Honey to her accommodations.

"This way, Madame."

Arkudian must think he is a maître d' and has forgotten he has a gun in his hand. Maybe he thinks it's a menu.

They stick Honey in a room with The Goon. (That’s how actor Gene Darfler is listed in the credits.)

Honey guesses that he's going for Rodin's sculpture, "The Thinker."
(Yes, this is from Honey's actual dialogue; she makes a joke.)

He is pretty much a weak link in the master plan. He has a really tough headache, and Honey offers to give him a massage. She takes the opportunity to give The Goon a Vulcan nerve pinch that puts him down and out.

Sam knocks out Mr. C when they meet outside (and also takes his gun from him). But then he has a more pleasant meetup with Honey.

"You never really need me to rescue you, do you, Honey?"

"Oh, occasionally I do, Sam. This just wasn't one of those times."

(This is not their actual dialogue, I hasten to say.)

Then Sam is greeted at the door by Bartholomew, who gets a hearty handshake from Sam.

But then Arkudian gets the drop on Sam.

"I'm ambidextrous: From picture to picture, I hold this gun in a different hand."

But Honey comes from behind and takes down Arkudian. (Bartholomew, who is amazingly standing up after being thrown on the floor, obviously saw her coming but never bothered to warn Arkudian.)

Chop...

...kick...

...take down.

The Goon is brought out, and he joins the other sad smugglers at the bottom of the staircase.

"We're Larry and Moe, and the guy on the left is Shemp. Curly ain't in this picture."

Sam is about to call the Treasury Department when Mr. C, walks in and identifies himself as a Treasury agent named Crimm. He has identification.

Honey points a gun at Crimm. Honey is often careless like that.
Shortly, Sam will point his own gun at Honey. Everybody does it.

He says he has been pursuing these smugglers all along and has piggybacked off of Honey and Sam's efforts to find them. Sam and Honey believe his credential, so Sam gives him back his gun. BTW Crimm says he found her tracking pen after Bartholomew broke it, and he had it fixed. He returns it.

The only relevance is that this explains how Crimm got onto H. West and Co. and how come Sam was picking up the signal from the pen as if it was following him. It was.

"You will get a special commendation from the Bureau," says Crimm. Neither Honey nor Sam notices that "the Bureau" usually refers to the FBI, not the Treasury Department, although the latter has many branches, one of which could be called a "bureau" for all I know, though I do not think so.

However, as Crimm picks up the jewels, Honey notices recent claw marks on the back of his hand.

Realizing that he is the one who burglarized her office, she takes Crimm down.

Sam is astonished, but Honey explains that if Crimm were a real T-man, he could have arrested the smugglers at the airport, and if he wanted to search their offices, he would have gotten a warrant. Sam makes Crimm sit down with the rest of the crooks to wait for the authorities to arrive.

"Now I stand corrected. Curly IS here."

In the epilogue, Honey and Sam drop off Margaret Mary at her father's.

They all agree that there were no problems during their time together, and everyone was well behaved.

Riding away in their van, Honey allows that she is looking forward to her regular visits with Margaret Mary. Sam accuses her of having a "domestic side," which Honey denies.

Suddenly Margaret Mary's voice says, "Good bye, Uncle Sam. Good bye, Miss West. Good bye!"

Honey realizes that the girl stole the lipstick-transmitter from her purse. The two of them have a good laugh over it.

Reflections: This is another flawed but clever episode.

Especially clever is the way that the writers (and show runners) Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov, along with director Seymour Robbie, show us all of the bad guys in the first scene without expecting us to necessarily remember them all. Also, the three crooks have names that begin with letters in alphabetical order according to the order in which each of them first appears on screen. The attentive viewer will be rewarded for keeping an eye on them when all three appear in the baggage claims scene. (Viewing this episode at least twice is required.)

Honey is smart in this episode, figuring out all of the tricks. Also, Bruce, the ocelot, provides a couple of assists, from exposing the smuggling operation to marking Crimm as a bad guy.

Most episodes try to end on a humorous note, and these attempts at humor usually fall flat. Here, the epilogue succeeds in being natural and amusing, growing organically out of character and plot.

It seems odd that Sam uses the word "domestic" rather than "maternal" to refer to Honey's inchoate affection for Margaret Mary. I guess that the Standards and Practices Department at ABC still thought that the word "maternal," like "pregnant," was too suggestive. [Oh, no, I just realized that I've used the word "inchoate" twice in one commentary.]

Bartholomew is played by Everett Sloane, a prominent stage, radio, and screen actor (“Citizen Kane”) who displays a remarkable talent for creating different characters. He makes “In the Bag” work. He seems British here, but he was born in New York City. He died not long after making this episode, at age 55.

The little girl is Maureen McCormick who later played Marcia Brady on “The Beady Bunch.” At almost nine years of age, she was already a professional. (It is a sad coincidence that Everett Sloane died on her ninth birthday, 5 August 1965.)

Robert Carricart also seems foreign here, but although he was born in France during World War I, he spent much of his career acting in the United States on the stage and on the large and small screens, usually in supporting or guest roles, occasionally as a series regular on TV. He had the role of the regular character Wishbone on the TV series "Rawhide," but he was replaced before the series aired. (All of his scenes were reshot with the actor who replaced him.)

Len Lesser, who plays Mr. Crimm, is best known to “Seinfeld” fans as Uncle Leo.

I have a pet peeve about the abuse and misuse of guns on screen, which was rampant in the early days of TV, including on "Honey West."

Curiously, Mr. A holds the gun in his right hand here, but in his left in some of the other pictures above.
Actually, at 21:30 into the program, we see him switch hands in order to open a door behind him.

In this scene, Arkudian is holding an old Luger as if it were a cigarette lighter. His wrist is bent in a way that looks uncomfortable and would not be conducive to safety or accuracy if he fired the gun. He would probably hurt his wrist, for one thing. For another, he might miss, even at close range. He might accidently shoot his partner, Bartholomew, standing on the other side of Honey. (Talk about a circular firing squad.) On top of these dangers, Arkudian is so close to Honey that his loose hold on the gun might tempt her to consider taking it away from him, and since she is supposed to be an expert at martial arts, she might just be able to do it. [Not pictured: at one point he taps her on the shoulder with the muzzle—way too close for his own good.] True, Bartholomew has Honey's gun, but he put it in his pocket.

This episode now has a higher Martial Arts rating than I initially gave it. I don't know how I missed the three judo throws and one karate move the first time I watched, but Sam throwing Bartholomew was pretty good, even though, if you slow the video down, you can see that neither "Sam" nor "Bartholomew" are the actors, John Ericson and Everett Sloane. In fact, no attempt was made to make Sloane's stunt double appear to have gray hair; he clearly has a head of dark hair.

Then Honey takes down Mr. Arkudian with karate, and floors Mr. Crimm with judo.

Overall rating: 5/5

Martial Arts rating: 5/5

Introduction

Opening Theme Music & Images

Episode One: The Swingin' Mrs. Jones

Episode Two: The Owl and the Eye

Episode Three: The Abominable Snowman

Episode Four: A Matter of Wife and Death

Episode Five: Live a Little.... Kill a Little

Episode Six: Whatever Lola Wants....

Episode Seven: The Princess and the Paupers