The Lone Gunmen

It seems that the poisoner is searching for her lost son, and the man has reason to believe that Mrs. Haag is the poisoner, because the dates are correct. He then shows a picture of the German officer to Frohike, and suggests that only Frohike could pass himself off as the son. The man explains that he is named after his father, Michael Wilhelm, the prefect of Verzuney, and the same resistence leader who was shown dead with the pastry in the propoganda film. He seeks justice for his father's death, and informs the Gunmen that he is staying at the Belmont should they decide to contact him. After some coaxing, Frohike decides to go for it, and they get to work making him look a little more Aryan. There is only one small detail left, the Dauvos family birthright, it seems that all members of the family carry a distinguishing birthmark shaped like Germany. On their heinies.

Frohike is understandably a little concerned about being poisoned, so Byers and Langly have reassured him that they're going to monitor all of his vital signs remotely. With all bases covered, they head off to Elwood, New Jersey, and arrive at 3:17p.m. Frohike walks up to the front door and is greeted by a rather mild-looking old woman who doesn't say much, but ushers him in when he explains that he feels his is her long-lost son. On the way in, he tries to get a good look at her tush by pulling back her elastic waistband, only to be cut short by a very stern, angry woman at the top of the stairs who demands in a heavy German accent, to know what he's doing. Frohike plays it off, claiming he say a mouse. It seems this sterner woman is in fact, Mrs. Anna Haag, and the Frohike tried to get a gander at Mrs. Allsap (the maid)'s behind. (Those of you who are X-Files fans will recognize Mrs. Haag as none other than Ms. Anna Fugazi from "Emily"). Frohike again claims to be the son ("Dolph") of the old lady he's speaking with, and she responds with a big hug, which sends his telemetries through the roof. Langly and Byers panic, but before they can get a response from him, there is a loud banging at the van door. Byers opens the door to see another elderly lady outside, who thinks that Langly is a girl, and that Byers is playing "slap & tickle." When Langly is revealed to be a man, she asks them what they are doing, spying on Mrs. Haag. Byers recovers, saying that they are surveilling (Langly interjects: "The Maid!") because they are from INS and they have reason to believe the maid is not a U.S. Citizen. The nosy old lady indignantly replies that the woman is most certainly not American, she's French! While Byers again tries to handle the situation tactfully, Langly pretty much kills the chances of them coming off like nice guys by threatening to send her to jail "with all the other old bags" and slams the door in her face.

It's now 9:16 p.m. at the Haag house, and Frohike is preparing for bed. It seems that Mrs. Haag has insisted that he stay the night, and Frohike hasn't had an opportunity to check out her rear end. Mrs. Haag is the suspicious sort, butting in on him while he's trying to communicate with the other two. Quickly, Frohike hides the equipment in his clothing, claiming he was saying his prayers, "thanking the Lord above that we've found each other." Mrs. Haag gives him some clothing that belonged to her second husband, claiming "he was a tiny man too." She then takes his clothing (and equipment) away to be laundered.

7:04 A.M. As the paper boy rides by the microbus, we see Byers inside, trimming his beard, and Langly complaining of severe hunger pains. The neighbor lady that came snooping around the van the day before is paying a visit to the Haag house, and as she turns to leave, gives an "up yours" gesture towards the van. As Langly tries to contact Frohike, the maid discovers the radio, and without formality, dumps it in the trash. Meanwhile, Frohike (in lederhosen!) comes into the laundry room looking for it, and must once again defend his actions to Mrs. Haag, who comes in with her usual "What are you doing?" (Drinking game addendum for Episode 3: Everytime Mrs. Haag says "What are you doing?" -- take a drink.) He just wants his clothing back. But Mom has something special for Frohike, a tasty-looking pastry! Frohike, alarmed, tries to beg off, but she insists that he eat. As soon as her back is turned to make some juice, he makes a convincing "mouth full" noise and then deposits it into the trash, retrieving his radio. Of course, it wasn't too smart to put the pastry in the trash, because he needed it as evidence. So, Frohike goes back to the kitchen to dig the pastry out of the trash, but is intercepted by Mrs. Haag, who wants to go out for a little exercise. Meanwhile, the maid comes in to clean up, discovers a perfectly good patry sitting in the trash, and decides to enjoy it for herself.

Back at Gunmen HQ, Yves has arrived and is breaking in. Once inside, she heads for the computer and begins to hack, when all of a sudden, the room is filled with the sweet, opening strains of "Bad to the Bone." This is where we see the very important storyline arch of Jimmy's cut legs, as he slides in, wearing nothing but socks, a button-down shirt, and shades. Whether or not he is wearing underwear is up to you. He air guitars most heartily along to the song, much to Yves's horror, and then spots her, making a desperate dive for some pants. Yves continues to hack, retrieving a mini-disk and making for the door. Jimmy stops her, and she places the mini-disk securely in her bra and Jimmy, being too much of a gentleman, simply cannot go in after it (wuss). However, Jimmy won't let her leave. So Yves starts to 'fess up, it seems that she feels the boys are in way over their heads. For one thing, Michael Wilhelm, the prefect of Verzenay, died childless. No kids. So who the hell was that guy who gave the Gunmen the want ad?

Cut to Frohike, suffering terribly at the hands of Mrs. Haag. She has him doing situps. She has him doing jumping jacks, she has him running. His telemetry is off the charts. Fortunately for Frohike, he falls and twists his ankles, and she takes him home for some good old mothering. In the living room, as she ices his ankle, she apologizes. He flippantly replies that he'll live, but then she gets deadly serious: He has to live so that they can make up for the time that they lost. She had been tortured for over fifty years, wondering what happened to her son. She starts to cry, and then insists that he eat something. Feeling bad but still a little afraid, he suggests a pizza, and she consents. She leaves to go make the call, and Byers reminds Frohike of the pastry. Frohike is beginning to doubt that this sweet old woman is really the poisoner of Alsace. Arriving at the kitchen trash, he discovers the pastry is gone, and then he spots it in the laundry room with the bite taken out of it. Mrs. Allsap is on the floor, dead.

Mrs. Haag is very distressed. Frohike's instinct is to go to the cops, but Michael Wilhelm (the imposter) called and informed them that if Frohike left, it would only arouse Mrs. Haag's suspicion, and she might try to leave the country. Instead, Frohike stays and makes the acquaintance of Louella Everidge, the neighbor lady who snooped around the microbus. She's so excited that Mrs. Haag and her son have been reunited, but, because of the tragedy of what happened to Mrs. Allsap, She has decided to have a little get-together at her place that night, an informal wake. Mrs. Haag is going to take a shower, which means that Frohike has the chance to catch a gander at her keister. It truly is a date with destiny.

Meanwhile, at the Hotel Belmont in Washington D.C., we see Michael Wilhelm leave room 425 on some business or another. Yves and Jimmy come along to do some investigation. Yves believes that Mr. Wilhelm was a member of the Stazzi -- the East German secret police, and was personally responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of would-be defectors, and that there's a bounty out for his arrest. Just as they get to the door, a porter comes through the hall, and Yves grabs Jimmy and orders him to pucker up. He doesn't actually get to kiss her, as soon as the porter's gone, it's back to burgalury, and the unravelling case of Michael Wilhelm. Yves suspects that he is the long-lost son of the poisoner of Alsace, and that he needs a decoy to make sure that the supposed reunion isn't a trap. Yves heads into the room, leaving Jimmy at the door as a lookout. Alas, Jimmy is not that great of a lookout. As he is about to leave the lobby, Mr. Wilhelm discovers he has left his cellphone back in the room, and returns for it. Jimmy was expecting him to use the elevator, and when Wilhelm uses the stairs, Yves has only a quick second to disappear when he returns to his room. She does Yvesdrop on a phone conversation in German. He then places another call, and she slips out the window and berates Jimmy for being such a crappy lookout. All the same, she's going to do the right thing and warn the Gunmen that Mr. Wilhelm is planning on doing them in. It seems she speaks fluent German.

Back in New Jersey, Frohike is steeling himself to take a picture of Mrs. Haag's butt. This is perhaps the most painful scene I have ever watched. Just as he's about to pull open the door and take a photo, he slips on the tile and arouses her anger once again, begging off that he needs a bath, and that he didn't know she was in there. So, we see Frohike sitting in a tub, and Mrs. Haag comes in the check up on him. He uses it as an opportunity, trying to get her to talk about a possible birthmark, but she plays it cool, and insists that she shampoo his hair, causing more panic for Frohike, but, she knows its a toupee and tells him to take it off. She then reveals that she, too, wears a wig, and she will love him just the way he is, always. Once again, Frohike can't seem to add it up the Mrs. Haag is the poisoner.

Yves pulls into the neighborhood under the watchful gaze of Mrs. Everidge. Byers is a bit concerned at her appearance, but Yves has come to alert them that Mr. Wilhelm has set them up. Langly is also upset at seeing Yves, he walks toward the van, munching on a muffin, accusing Yves of stealing their Nazi. But Yves explains, as quickly as possible, that Mr. Wilhelm is not the son of the prefect of Verzenay, that he is really the son of the poisoner herself, and that he is coming to kill the Gunmen and retrieve his mother. Furthermore, Mrs. Haag is not the poisoner of Alsace, but rather the decoy, and that Mr. Wilhelm has had them watching the wrong woman the whole time. The actual poisoner is someone close to Mrs. Haag. Someone, perhaps, right next door. Someone like Mrs. Everidge! Now, Langly can't believe that, because hey, she just caught him peeing in her bushes, and instead of yelling at him, she gave him a tasty... muffin... And, Langly falls over backwards.

Inside the Haag residence, Frohike is getting ready to go to the wake, when Jimmy gets his attention outside. But Jimmy isn't very good at charades. The next thing he knows, Jimmy is right at the window, he climbed up the downspout in order to tell him that Mrs. Haag is not the poisoner. Speak of the devil... there she is! She's found the transmitter, and she's a little pissed. It's time to come clean.

Mr. Wilhelm pulls up to the van and pulls out a gun. He walks confidently over, opens to door, and sees Langly sprawled out on the floor, looking very... dead. But it's just a fake out! Langly opens his eyes, ditracts him, and Yves delivers a neck-injected knockout drug. Jimmy helps Langly puke some more, but Yves needs him to get undressed.

At the Everidge residence, Mr. Wilhelm appears at the door, and is escorted quickly to the back room. While Mrs. Everidge listens at the door, Frohike proceeds to explain that Mrs. Haag is without a doubt the poisoner of Alsace, and she knows that Frohike isn't her son and she'll try to poison him next! Right then, there is a shriek from the sitting room. An old lady is dead in the chair, pastry in hand. Frohike then yells at Mrs. Haag, calling her a Nazi and threatening to call the police. But Mr. Wilhelm stops him by pointing a gun at him. He then directs his attention to Mrs. Haag, asking if she is in fact Madam Dauvos, because if she is, he is her son. But, Mrs. Everidge butts in before Mrs. Haag can actually lie--she is the poisoner of Alsace! She is Madam Dauvos! She only befriended Mrs. Haag in an effort to find someone whose story matched her own, so that she could search for her son anonymously. But, Mr. Wilhelm is unconvinced. He wants proof that she is, in fact, the poisoner. Surely enough, Mrs. Everidge drops her pants, and it seems to be all the proof they need. And, as such, Jimmy can take that voice-altering retainer out of his mouth, and take off that makeup job that Yves put on him! And, the old woman didn't really die, it was all just a setup. Mrs. Haag is a little pissed, after all, Mrs. Everidge was the one who delivered the pastry, claiming it was made especially for Frohike, and it ended up costing her a very even-tempered maid who was apparently content to eat out of the trashcan. Those are hard to come by these days.

In the aftermath, Frohike apologizes to Mrs. Haag, and feels particularly guilty for having mislead her into thinking that she had found her son. But, she's cutting her losses, she figures she knew what it was like to have a son for a day or so.

And what of Mr. Wilhelm? It turns out Yves was right after all, and she's currently cashing in the bounty for capturing him. The Gunmen are, as usual, exhasperated with her, but Jimmy isn't so sure, after all, she didn't have to stick around and bring Madam Dauvos to justice, but she seemed to do it out of the kindness of her heart. Frohike reminds Jimmy he can still be fired.

Hardware: In the office, Byers is running an ancient PC Machine, possibly a Gateway. The tower in the background appears to be of Mac extraction.

Media: The french punk song is "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand. I've also noticed that Snow created a variation of the Grandfather theme to Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" when Frohike first meets Mrs. Haag. And of course, "Bad to the Bone" is by George Thorogood and the Destroyers.

Pop-Culture Points: The title is most likely a re-working of the title of one of Mozart's famous "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (A Little Nightmusic). The scene where Jimmy is air-guitaring without pants is a spoof of Tom Cruise's air-guitaring scene in the 1983 movie Risky Business. His line "Nazis--I hate those guys" is a pretty famous line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Back in 1944, animators didn't have 3D rendering capabilities, and that animation of the Eiffel Tower looked pretty computerized.

Frohike would have had more sense than to leave the pastry on the top of the trash. If Mrs. Haag had seen it, he would have had to deal with her anger, and he was scared enough of her already.

The title, "Eine Kleine Frohike," translated quite literally from German, would assume that Frohike was of the fairer sex.

This happens in some later episodes as well: When Jimmy takes off the makeup job, you notice that the whole smiling mouth was part of the mask--which would make it very unconvincing. Also, it appears that the eyes were also part of the mask. In essence, even if Mrs. Everidge didn't notice that he wasn't blinking, and that his lips weren't moving when he was speaking, Jimmy pretty much would have suffocated.

Byers and Langly... INS!
Byers laughing at Frohike
Early morning shave
Frohike pantsing Mrs. Allsap
Frohike in Lederhosen
Having reservations about passing as a fifty-five year old man.
Yves looking coyly at Jimmy
Jimmy air guitaring
"You were so fooled!"
Langly mans the van's periscope
The poisoned muffin
The prefect of Verzenay
Jimmy putting on his pants
The poisoner says goodbye
Yves is up to no good... or is she?
Does this guy remind you of anyone?

Byers:
"I assure you we're neither slapping nor tickling." (49K)
"I'll have to ask you not to reveal our presence here." (50K)
"What are you doing here?" (30K)

Frohike:
"Oh, you moron..." (58K)
"You are so fired!" (34K)

Langly:
"In Old Yeller, the kid shot the dog 'cuz he was rabid..." (84K)
"You're in! Now pants her!" (39K)
"Damn man, where's your tuba?..." (93K)
"Come on! That nice old lady?" (240K)
"Guten tag, sucker!" (27K)

Jimmy:
"Nazis... I hate those guys..." (64K)
"I know who you are, you're that lady who's name is the same backwards as it is forwards..." (115K)
"The guy we thought was the son of the guy that died..." (113K)