THE INNOCENT: Madlyn Rhue as Clara Valder, who seven years before, was in a romantic relationship with Solo, but his work got in the way of that. Though an American, she is now married to a wealthy Albanian man, and believes in doing the right thing over his protestations, like hiding a Roman leader who stole compromising documents from the secret police. That, and asking her old boyfriend for help. This makes her only borderline an innocent. Madlyn Rhue's immortality was assured when she starred opposite Khan in Star Trek's "Space Seed", but she was all over television in the 60s, 70s and 80s, even after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She died of the disease in 2003; her final role was the recurring librarian on Murder She Wrote, a character created at Angela Lansbury's behest so Rhue could meet the annual requirements for her SAG health coverage.
REVIEW: There's not a lot of connective tissue between episodes, not on 60s TV, so it's fun to find Solo and Illya still in Rome after The King of Knaves Affair, apparently taking some time off to do tourism, and get involved in a personal mission. Hey, the last time, Waverly left word that they should "keep themselves busy", so this is fair game. Terbuf is a fictional Balkan country that's really Albania geographically - in real life, Tërbuf is a village in that country, and the show's Terbuf's nickname, "the land of the eagle", is also what the Albanian name for Albania (Shqiperia) means. So I'll use Albania, thanks. The other word I'm gonna change for the length of this review is the G-slur, which I'll correct to Roma, if that's alright with you. I don't blame an American 60s show for this, we're a long time from the corrective awareness. Terbuf by any name is all the locations from The Finny Foot Affair in any case.
Great to see Madlyn Rhue in this, but then Star Trek will very often dip into the same actor pool when it starts up. The nasty lieutenant Fest of the secret police is played by Michael Forest (Apollo in Who Mourns for Adonais?) and the soldier loyal to the rebels by Rex Holman (Wyatt Earp in "Spectre of the Gun"/J'Onn in Star Trek V). Forest should be peeved at Richard Donner, here directing his last UNCLE episode, because he so often shoots only his jackboots, and the script (by Alan Caillou, who also plays the main heavy Colonel Morisco) humiliates the character by having Solo steal his pants (a great way to nullify a tail), which is repeated at the end by Illya after he punches him repeatedly into an offscreen bloody mess. I'm being facetious, it's certainly memorable stuff, as is his gratuitous smashing of a mandolin, and the fake firing squad, engineered to break Solo and Clara (she collapses, he doesn't). Though the third bad guy on the call sheet, he's still who I'll think about in relation to this episode.
Though it's an elective (not THRUSH nor any specified enemy of UNCLE), this Affair still has some nice spy moves and countermoves. The Albanian authorities replace Clara's husband with Albert Paulsen's Major Vicek and forced to play along lest they kill her Stefan, a ploy to let the American agent rumble Roman leader Emil for them. He's a venal hedonist who has fun with his villainy, but proves very easy to "turn" at gunpoint. The Roma rebels are pretty smart, too, playing along with Illya's fake Roma credentials, but pouncing on Solo as soon as he shows up, and Walter the rebel who will lead them to Emil once they gain his trust is Emil himself. A classic. The rebels are quite keen to save their helpers before fleeing too, so G-word or not, this is a positive portrayal of the Roma. We also get escapes via silent plastique explosives, the boys staying outside the cell to show they could always have escapes, and a well-shot chase scene with in-vehicle POVs.
The big winner of the episode is Illya, who gets more to do than in any other episode to date. He's a master of trivia. Smuggles himself into the country as a fisherman. Deploys a complicated Roma identity (at which point, you're ready to ask why Solo needs to even come into it), even if the rebels are too wise for him. Leads raids against a prisoner transport and Major Vicek. Poses as an Albanian officer to trick Fest. Plans out a bold escape out of the country in broad daylight. Fights two soldiers who shake him down single-handed. He's a super-agent in this. While Solo takes care of business, the main thrust of his arc is his lingering feelings for Clara, who at the end, clearly chooses her husband over him, even if Stefan sold her out initially (and paid for it). It's a bittersweet ending, but Illya did warn him several times about mistaking the present for the past.
HEARD ON CHANNEL D: "Believe me that this man does not cook food. He makes love to it." "Well, they should put people like that in asylums, not restaurants." (Solo and Illya)
"To people in my profession, it's pretty hard to camouflage the stench of the Secret Police. They can put newspapers on their faces, but somehow the smell just sort of creeps over the edges." (Solo)
"I don't think you'd like my brand." (Illya on the cigarettes taken by the local police - it's really his UNCLE transmitter)
"I tell you it was on the tip of my tongue, but that big bang scared it right out of me." (Solo, after the firing squad)
"We'll break the chain when we get to Italy." "There's no rush. It's really not holding anything together." (Illya and Solo on the chain tying Solo to Clara)
BONDED: One of the ways Solo mirrors Bond is in his history of tragic love affairs. Albert Paulson (Major Vicek) was never a Bond villain, but he WAS used five separate times as a Mission: Impossible baddie.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: It's a great one for Illya, the guest stars are very strong, and Donner gives it an extra lift, too.
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