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An Invitation To Romance
air date April 6, 1995
( Scene 1 )
Well, it's good to see Inspector Moffat and his nutty ideas about diplomacy again.
The envelope is addressed to N.J. Ellis, 746 West Lakeside Place, Chicago, Illinois, 60640, which may not be a real address, of course, but 60640 is a real Chicago zip code in the Lincoln Square neighborhood.
( Scene 2 )
But I suppose Constable Brighton got a gig that actually has something to do with law enforcement.
( Scene 3 )
I feel like even if you didn't know Jane Krakowski was a dancer, you'd be able to tell by the way she bevels her feet in those t-strap shoes as she crouches down to pick up her packages, innit?
What she says in French is "My name is Katherine. How are you?", "Very well, and you?", and "Close the door, Jacques, thank you" (twice).
Meanwhile, ARE THERE NO CROSSWALKS IN CHICAGO? I'll buy that in 1995 the wheelchair user might have needed a hand because there were probably not sufficient curb cuts, and the old lady in the first instance might have needed a little help keeping her balance or getting all the way across the street in time. But those nuns were young and healthy and are almost certainly competent to cross a street, and besides, why was everyone waiting for a break in traffic instead of going to the corner and waiting for a freaking light?
Credits roll.
Paul Gross
David Marciano
Beau Starr
Daniel Kash
Tony Craig
Catherine Bruhier
(plus Lincoln the dog)
Jane Krakowski, Nicholas Campbell, Joseph Ziegler, Arthi Sambasivan, Frank Pellegrino
( Scene 4 )
Oh my god this woman is exhausting. (Do we think Fraser is learning anything about how exhausting he can be sometimes? Probably not.) Nice work, Krakowski.
What's going to happen to all those people who were in line when the window closed? Freaking post office.
( Scene 5 )
I simply do not understand "Oh, no, I wouldn't want you to get in any trouble" when she is offering him exactly what they are asking for at the other window. I'm glad he took the damned thing anyway.
( Scene 6 )
Fraser could learn a lot from this delivery guy. Do not engage the energy creature! "Sign here, please. Thank you. Have a good day."
( Scene 7 )
I . . . my head is spinning.
( Scene 8 )
OH JESUS IT IS THE SAME HOUSEKEEPER FROM "CHICAGO HOLIDAY." (Did he hire her away from the hotel? Or does she work evenings there because she's busy in the daytimes here?) So fair enough: The letter doesn't actually matter. Good to know.
Katherine and Nigel are both awful. Maybe they deserve each other. I like that even his employee thinks he's being ridiculous.
( Scene 9 )
I am 100% with Vecchio on this. What the fuck, radio commentators who announce that they can't describe what they're looking at.
( Scene 10 )
It makes sense that both parties intending to marry need to appear at some point in the application process. Like, you can't just get yourself a license to marry whomever you please; they have to agree to be named on it as well. I'm sure that we submitted copies of both our IDs and then I went to the county courthouse and picked up the document by myself, although the present "How Do I Get A Marriage License" page for my county says that's not an option—the form isn't even online, because both parties have to appear in person. Maybe that's changed since we got married. Anyway, for Cook County, Illinois, it says both parties have to appear not just in person but together, so Katherine is indeed not following the rules. Unless there were some way they could have appeared together to fill in the application and then she was just going to pick up the license at some later time? But that doesn't seem to be how it works; the thing is issued while you wait, so there's no applying and then going back for the final license.
( Scene 11 )
The tiny bit of awareness Fraser had managed to develop was snuffed out so immediately we barely noticed it.
( Scene 12 )
Fraser is almost literally the horse's ass in this scenario. It's pretty funny, but also impressive that the dress is voluminous enough to hide even his boots.
I like how the dressmaker has notes and then didn't follow them. Almost as if he's met one or more bridezillas in the past.
Of course we must now ask ourselves why Katherine is going to marry a man who would kill her if he found her speaking to another man. Like, I said they're both terrible, but of course she's just exhausting, not controlling and violent. He is much worse.
( Scene 13 )
I also do not know what the Swiss are like. "Tiresomely neat," isn't that how Douglas Adams had Arthur Dent describe Switzerland? I do not believe its people have a reputation as hotheads.
( Scene 14 )
It is unlikely, is it not, that Jasmine would be hired for a reception job at a Canadian consulate without being able to say more in French than she does in this scene (all of which sounds fine to me except "merci pour attender," because the infinitive she's looking for is attendre, "to wait," and in any event I think she should have said "merci d'attendre" or "merci d'avoir attendu"; I could well be wrong about both of these—Google Translate suggests "merci pour l'attente"—but I know I'm right about the infinitive).
So Moffat was hollering about the tailor, but Vecchio thought Fraser's job was in danger, so he's going to go stand on mannequin duty—which he believes is the most ridiculous assignment possible—rather than go home and watch the rest of his basketball game. Aww! That's a good friend, right there.
( Scene 15 )
Katherine and Jasmine are among very few young attractive women we've seen not be interested in Fraser. (Brighton is debatable; Morgan, the villain in "Free Willie," didn't have much use for him; Louise Weber thought of him as a folk hero rather than a piece of meat; and Suzanne Chapin only had eyes for Vecchio (but may actually not even have ever met Fraser—though to be fair she barely met Vecchio either). Conversely, witness Francesca, Elaine, some number of other police department employees, Julie Frobisher, Miss Cabot, Tammy Markles (although she is presented as neither young nor attractive), that one young woman who didn't actually want to buy a car, practically the entire clientele of that club in "Chicago Holiday," Mark Smithbauer's PR representative, and the approximately three-dozen-strong choir of St. Michael's.
( Scene 16 )
You'd think this time, of all times, he'd have looked at the thing before leaving.
( Scene 17 )
Ack. Ugh. The layers of Do Not Want here are many. Fraser is being made aware of other people's sex lives without his consent or even interest in the matter; he's also got this guy thinking he's commenting on his sex life, which would be creepy enough if that's what the guy was doing, but it's somehow worse given that the guy is completely off base.
( Scene 18 )
Oy vey.
( Scene 19 )
So Katherine has completely turned a corner on not being interested in Fraser, eh? I mean it's good that she's come to some sort of realization about her relationship with Nigel being unhealthy to say the least. Assault, though! She is sexually assaulting him! Arguably to a greater degree than Tammy Markles did! She's apparently drunk a whole bottle of champagne, but of course that's no excuse.
( Scene 20 )
Okay so Katherine seems to have snapped out of whatever possessed her in the hotel room (to have sobered up, that is). But I still say "seduce" is a very generous term for what she tried to do to Fraser.
( Scene 21 )
How long is this game? He was already listening to it on the radio in scene 8, which was before they drove downtown to the county building, which took longer than 15 minutes, because in 10 it was 15 minutes until closing and there wasn't time for Nigel to get there. I'll generously assume that office stayed open until 5pm. And/but it was light out at that time, and now it's been dark for quite a while, and people are arriving for an evening event at the consulate. Black tie: after 6! I know it gets dark early in Chicago in the winter, but zoinks, you know? . . . An NBA basketball game is 48 minutes on the clock and usually takes a couple hours to play what with game time-outs, TV time-outs, halftime, etc. So if this thing began at 4:30, it could be wrapping up regulation play at 7pm. Fair enough.
I adore that Vecchio is having a real Fraser-style conversation with Diefenbaker.
( Scene 22 )
There's a lot going on here. I like the Fraser-and-Katherine stuff leading up to the loose thread, and her insisting that a button coming off his jacket is not the end of the world. She's right that he could take a risk once in a while. Of course her backstory seems to involve a little more of that than has been good for her. Fraser fills in a little more of the story of the woman he tracked up to Fortitude Pass, don't you think? I feel like "There was a woman once, Ray" and "I thought I was in love once" must refer to the same person. They wouldn't have been able to see the auroras while it was snowing for a day and a night and a day, though, so could the night they spent on the side of a mountain watching the northern lights have been a different night?
Anyway, I was happier when Katherine had snapped out of it than I was when she snapped back in and decided she was in love with Fraser. YAWN. At least she's not forcing herself on him at this point. And I'm glad she's decided not to marry Nigel.
I like Fraser's assumption that Vecchio is wearing his (Fraser's) uniform for personal reasons. And I like Perry not giving Nigel his gun. What's that about? Perry hasn't been into the tracking-Katherine assignment from the beginning. Do we think that's just because he thinks it's a shitty way to treat your girlfriend, or is there more there? (Is Perry carrying a torch for Nigel? Perry, you can do better! The guy's an asshole!)
( Scene 23 )
So now Fraser is interested in Katherine, apparently. At least interested enough to leave his post and come inside and dance with her, even if he doesn't intend seeing her ever again after this evening. That happened fairly suddenly, didn't it? Obviously the loose-thread thing impelled him to take the chance. He doesn't have a lot to lose, so why not roll the dice just once more. As for her specifically, the fact that she's no longer engaged to be married to someone else is certainly a start, but he wasn't interested even before he knew she wasn't available. Maybe the fact that he saw her go on a whole emotional journey combined with her urging him to take a risk once in a while to make him intrigued by the late-episode non-chattering-a-mile-a-minute Katherine. Anyway, if he is interested in pursuing something with her, I don't see why he shouldn't, particularly given that she's got her shit reasonably together in the past couple of hours. I'm more a fan of his pulling the thread at all, of course, and proud of him for unclenching just a little bit.
The music is Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" waltz.
( Scene 24 )
Cumulative body count: 10
Red uniform: The whole episode, with bonus Vecchio in the red uniform as well