The Avengers

Season 2, 1962-3 - Episode 2


prologue © Canal+

epilogue © Canal+

Propellant 23

Teleplay by Jon Manchip White
Directed by Jonathan Alwyn

Murders

Victim Killer Method
Jules Meyer Paul Manning poison
click a name
to see the face
mugshot

Transport

Marque/type Plate
Cathy's MGA RVB 115

Minutiæ

Steed's telegram to Meyer reads:
Unable meet you Marseilles. Join you Paris. Love S.
The entire prop is hand-drawn, if you look closely, with the fine print in the letterhead just being lines across the paper.

Catherine Woodville had appeared as Dr Keel's doomed fiancée, Peggy, in the very first episode, Hot Snow, back in 1961 and was briefly married to Patrick Macnee.

Steed reconises that Meyer had been poisoned, telling Cathy that the police think it's heart attack but the dilation of the pupils and blue lips suggest a hexabarbitone.

When Cathy quips "How did the French get left out?" Steed laughs and says they gave him his only sticky moment, except that the 'dimwitted official' (Leclerc) didn't realise the significance of his telegram. When Cathy says she isn't surprised when it said he couldn't meet him and there he is, large as life, Steed defensively says it was in code. "You need a new code book", she replies.

Cathy's clearly had training, when she describes searching Meyer's case she mentions even squeezing out the toothpaste tube and emptying all the containers.

That's some code book! Shanghai is code for the new Chinese rocket being tested in the Gobi desert, and 'fruit juice' is its fuel.

Catherine Woodville mistakenly says Tissot is at the "Hôtel de Ste Honore" despite everyone else - and Tissot's cap - saying "Hôtel Excelsior". We learn it's at 23 rue de Gallien.


main cast other © Piers Johnson 2006