Upon arriving in London, Indy and Remy visit the Belgian recruiting office in London. Indy, pretending to be Belgian, lies about his age and name, using the name Henri Defense, taking the last name from a sign above the recruiting officer’s head: Defense no fumer (No smoking). The officer sees straight through his lies but accepts them both into the army. Outside, Remy explains that there was no reason for the subterfuge; the army will accept anyone.
After a dinner celebrating their enlistment, Remy is invited back to a widow’s room, so Indy wanders the city. He encounters a widow at the bus stop and, thinking she is flirting and lonely, awkwardly asks to go back home with her after sitting next to her on the bus. Offended, she demands to be let off the bus. Indy goes up top, but a siren blares, and the bus fare collector comes up to tell him to seek shelter. A zeppelin above them is bombing the city, and he and the woman narrowly escape being hit.
Later, Indy realizes he’s holding a pamphlet the bus employee handed out, and it tells him where to find her. He gets directions and arrives at a meeting hall, where suffragettes led by Sylvia Pankhurst are championing their cause. He sits behind the woman, still wearing her bus uniform, and initially appears restless, but when a nervous woman continues to be mocked by men in the balcony, Indy stands up and defends her.
As a result, the bus fare collector, Vicky Prentiss, joins Indy for tea afterward. Women come up and congratulate him on his actions, including Sylvia Pankhurst.
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He tells Vicky he’s joined the Belgian army, and she speaks to him in French. He responds in kind, and then they switch to German, Italian, Hungarian, Swedish, modern Greek, ancient Greek, and Arabic, but ultimately she speaks a language Indy doesn’t know: “You mean your name is Jones, yet you don’t speak Welsh?” Vicky explains her mother is Welsh and her father a diplomat, and she and Indy realize they’ve both traveled extensively, even sharing similar experiences in Egypt when the camel drivers left them at the pyramids. They leave and take a walk outside, stopping to help a woman and her hungry children, and then bid each other goodnight.
Indy plans to visit Miss Seymour before he leaves for the army, and he invites Vicky to join him. He explains, “Almost everything I know, I owe to her.” They travel by train to Oxford, and when they arrive, the tutor is astonished to learn Indy has joined the army and orders him to write to his father. Then she ruffles Vicky’s feathers when she attacks the methods the suffragettes are using to advance their cause. Vicky defends their actions, saying that no one has taken them seriously before. Miss Seymour declares that she has spirit.
Later that evening, Indy and Vicky join Miss Seymour for a dinner where Winston Churchill is in attendance. But Vicky loses her temper again, slamming her hand down on the table at dinner and launching a trifle at Churchill’s head. Like Miss Seymour, he says that Vicky has spirit.
The next morning, she apologizes to Miss Seymour but explains that her mother was a suffragette and became an invalid due to her treatment in prison. Then, Vicky takes some extra time off work, and she and Indy go visit her parents, where her mother discusses in more detail the horrific prison conditions and that her family kept her going through that difficult time.
Indy and Vicky spend idyllic days together, taking picnics, riding bikes, visiting ruins, and declaring their love for each other. But when they return to London, Indy goes to the offices of The Women’s Dreadnought, the newspaper Vicky writes for, to inform her that he’s been called up and has to leave for the army. They have a romantic dinner, and Vicky tells Indy not to ask her to marry him. She has too many ambitions, and he’ll be at war for possibly several years. Heartbroken, Indy leaves and tosses the ring into a body of water nearby.
When he arrives at the train station in his Belgian army uniform, Remy joins him with his new wife Suzette and her children. Just as Indy boards the train, he sees Vicky in the crowd. She came to tell him goodbye. They stare at each other as the train moves, pulling them further apart.
Thoughts
I really love this episode. There are references back to Indy’s time in Egypt and China, we see how proficient he is in a variety of languages, and we get to see an older Indy interacting with his former tutor.
It’s also a charming episode of young love before we get into the heavier episodes when Indy’s at war. The scene at the train station at the end feels like a dramatic, epic scene in a movie and not a 45-minute television show. All in all, really beautifully done.
Related DVD Documentaries
- Winston Churchill – The Lion’s Roar
- Demanding the Vote – The Pankhursts and British Suffrage
- Fighting for the Vote – Women’s Suffrage in America
History
Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British prime minister during World War II, soldier, artist, historian, and writer. He won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1953.
Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960) political activist, writer, and leader of the British suffragette movement.
Fun Facts
Elizabeth Hurley (Vicky Prentiss) is best known as Vanessa Kensington in the Austin Powers films. She also appeared in Bedazzled with Brendan Fraser and The Royals.
Julian Fellowes (Winston Churchill) created the beloved Downton Abbey series, as well as The Gilded Age and Belgravia. As an actor, he has appeared in Tomorrow Never Dies, among other television series and films, but his last acting credit was in 2005.
Kika Markham (Sylvia Pankhurst) is Vanessa Redgrave’s sister-in-law, having been married to Vanessa’s brother Corin until his death in 2010.
Vanessa Redgrave (Vicky’s Mother) belongs to the British Redgrave acting dynasty. Her siblings Corin and Lynn were actors, as well as her daughters Joely and the late Natasha Richardson. Dame Redgrave has appeared in countless Shakespearean adaptations as well as Call the Midwife, Atonement, Deep Impact, and Letters to Juliet.
In the original televised episode, a bookend segment included Indy and Vicky reuniting when he hears her say, “Deeds, not words” while dining out at a restaurant.
