Recap / Young Indiana Jones And The Demons Of Deception

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

An episode from the first season of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ("Verdun, September 1916", first broadcast 25th March 1992) and an episode from the second season ("Paris, October 1916", first broadcast on 10th July 1993), later re-edited into a single feature-length episode entitled Demons of Deception which, chronologically, is the ninth instalment in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.

September 1916. Indiana Jones (serving as as Corporal Henri Defense) is working as a motorcycle courier for the French Army, and has numerous close calls delivering orders to officers on the front line. When General Joffre gives Indy orders that will send men — including Indy's friend Remy, who has returned to the front line after recovering from wounds sustained in combat — to certain death, he takes matters into his own hands. Later, Indy and Remy are delighted to get two weeks of leave. They head for Paris, where Indy meets and commences a relationship with Mata Hari, a dancer who is suspected of being a spy.

This episode contains examples of:

• Age-Gap Romance: Mata Hari is over twenty years older than Indy.
• All There in the Manual: The comic book adaptation of "Verdun, September 1916" identified the (unnamed and uncredited) German pilot who strafes Indy while he's carrying out his courier duties as none other than Hermann Göring — although the pilot clearly has a moustache, which Göring never did. Göring, who can be seen in the background during the book-burning scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, would later appear in Attack of the Hawkmen as one of the pilots Indy and von Richthofen have lunch with.
• Ambiguous Situation: A couple:
  • It is not made clear exactly why Indy gets transferred back to the front line after destroying Joffre's order (and his motorbike). Presumably the generals do not suspect him of having destroyed the order on purpose (although that's what he did), because he would have been court-martialled and shot for that. He probably reported that he crashed the bike (quite possibly embellishing the story with the earlier incident which saw him getting strafed by a German biplane), thus explaining why he was unable to deliver the order, so it's likely that he was deemed to be unreliable as a courier and therefore returned to his unit.
  • The show keeps it vague on Mata Hari's supposed spying activities; she's portrayed here as a High-Class Call Girl with quite a few well-connected lovers. She thinks that this will protect her, whereas Indy points out that it actually puts her in danger, as it's already brought her to the attention of the French police (who've arrested him on suspicion of being a spy due to his association with her).
• Armchair Military: The French generals have shades of this, having laid out their big war map on a snooker table, with the cues being used to push the figures and arrows around; sometimes, they clear away the figures and arrows so they can play snooker on the war map. Those on the front line, such as Colonel Barc, do not have much faith in their abilities.
• Artistic Licence – History: A couple of examples, fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.
  • Nivelle was actually promoted to the command of the French Second Army (a position previously held by Pétain, who was himself promoted to command the French Central Army Group) in May 1916, not September as stated (or rather, implied by the date in the original episode title) here.
  • Jean-Marc's explanation of how the war started includes the statement that the Archduke of Austria was assassinated in Serbia, whereas he was actually assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina (which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908). Given that he's an army chef explaining this to a group of army couriers, he could be forgiven for this (especially as the rest of what he says, for example the bit about Germany invading Belgium because it was "on the way" to France, is basically accurate).
• Bloodless Carnage: As with Trenches of Hell, the battle scenes are brutal, but there's not much blood shown.
• Call-Forward: This won't be the last time that Indy gets strafed by a German aircraft.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Indy starts behaving like this when it becomes clear to him that Mata Hari keeps standing him up because she's seeing other men as well as him.
• Exact Eavesdropping: When he's sent into No Man's Land to eavesdrop on what the German officers are saying, Indy just happens to be in the right place when they're talking about the "Big Berthas" being moved into position. Also counts as a Contrived Coincidence, as Indy has recently spoken with a French artillery sergeant who told him that "Big Bertha" is the nickname of the German's heaviest artillery guns.
• Femme Fatale Spy: Mata Hari is one of the classic Real Life examples of this trope.
• Flash Forward: Towards the end, there's a brief one to Mata Hari's execution by firing squad, which occurred a year after the events of this episode.
• Foreshadowing: A couple of examples.
  • This episode sees Indy get involved in espionage ... in more ways than one. Later episodes will see him officially working for military intelligence.
  • It's not the last time Indy encounters an artillery weapon that gets transported by train.
  • Mata Hari suggests to Indy that it might be worth his while trying to get a posting to Africa, as it's probably less dangerous than the Western Front. That's where he goes next.
• High-Class Call Girl: Mata Hari, who reacts with fury when Indy angrily calls her a prostitute.
• Historical Domain Character: Indy doesn't just meet Mata Hari, he loses his virginity to her. Also appearing in this episode are the French generals Joseph Joffre, Philippe Pétain and Robert Nivelle.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: The prostitutes Remy's hanging out with are quick to spot that Indy's in love with a woman to whom he's just lost his virginity, and sympathetically warn him that it won't last. They're right.
• Hotter and Sexier: The second part sees Indy in a short-lived sexual relationship (his first) with Mata Hari.
• I Call It "Vera": The Germans' most powerful heavy artillery guns are known as "Big Berthas".
• Mistaken for Spy: What with Indy going under an assumed name (and nationality), the French authorities naturally jump to this conclusion when they apprehend him while he's following Mata Hari.
• Mood Whiplash: More glaring than most of the re-edited TV movies which joined two episodes together. At the halfway point, the story switches from action on the Western Front to a love story in Paris.
• Mr. Exposition: Jean-Marc, the chef at HQ, uses various food items and condiments to explain to Indy and the other couriers how the war started — although this just makes Indy, shocked by the carnage on the frontline, question why everyone went to war over Serbia, a country he's never heard of.
  Jean-Marc: Look. France [places a baguette on the table] is on the left. Russia [places a round loaf of bread on the table] is on the right. The sausage is Germany, okay? Now, this is Austria [holds up a salt shaker]. The potato is Belgium and the beer is Britain. And here, we have Serbia [picks up a small tomato]. Now, when the Archduke of Austria is assassinated in Serbia, Austria threatens to invade Serbia. [pours salt on the tomato and eats it]
• Ms. Fanservice: Mata Hari, of course. We see her in various stages of undress, and doing an erotic dance.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: Indy, last seen escaping from captivity in Germany, is now a motorcycle courier for the French Army (who have decided to employ Belgian soldiers as couriers due to concerns about the reliability of the French soldiers who've previously been doing this).
• Nom de Guerre: Even the Levis, who are friends of Indy's father, introduce him to their friends as Henri Defense, "a patriotic Belgian of American origin".
• Noodle Incident: We don't get to see Remy dancing on top of a piano in a Parisian brothel, although we know he got a black eye as a result of falling off.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When Indy starts questioning Mata Hari over her real name, she shoots back by remarking that his real name is clearly not Henri Defense.
• Playing Sick: Having been wounded on the frontline (quite possibly as a result of what happened the last time we saw him), Remy is trying to prolong his period in hospital in order to delay getting sent back to the front. Indy is sympathetic but tells him to snap out of it, as it will probably land him in trouble if he gets found out.
• Really Gets Around: Indy is by no means the only man in Mata Hari's life. She's also seeing the French Minister of War, among others.
  • Remy, meanwhile, spends his leave hanging out with various prostitutes.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Colonel Barc. Pétain also displays shades of this — he's the only French general who takes Indy's report about German artillery movements seriously, and cancels Nivelle's order to attack as a result — to Joffre's fury.
• Right Behind Me: Madame Levi warns Indy not to get involved with women like Mata Hari ... and then realises that the lady herself is standing right behind her.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Indy and Remy get two weeks leave in Paris purely because Indy's father is friends with a professor at the Sorbonne, who is friends with the French Minister of War. Indy's leave later gets cut short by the French police who warn him off Mata Hari and send him back to the front.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Indy, having witnessed the futility of the French attacks on a well-defended German position, secretly destroys Joffre's order for another attack — along with his motorbike. As a result, he gets transferred back to a front-line infantry position, with no-one any the wiser that it wasn't an accident.
  Remy: I can't believe you did that. You could have ended up in front of a firing squad!
  Indy: They'll never figure it out.
  Remy: But still! You lost your courier's job, and put yourself back in the mud! You're crazy.
• Stuff Blowing Up: That German biplane strafing Indy is equipped with bombs too. They get dropped, and several buildings get blown up as a result.
• Translation Convention: At play here (as in most of the wartime episodes) given that most of the dialogue is in English but obviously meant to be in French. The exception is when Indy eavesdrops on the German officers, who are speaking in German, with English subtitles helpfully displayed for the viewer.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Professor Levi, a professor at the Sorbonne and a friend of Henry Jones Snr., becomes this when he invites Indy to a dinner party while the latter is in Paris — the dinner party where Indy meets Mata Hari.
• War Is Hell: As was the case in Trenches of Hell, it's carnage on the Western Front. When Major Gaston's men attack they sustain heavy losses, forcing them to retreat back to their original position. Indy, who had passed the order to attack to Gaston and witnessed the mayhem that followed, later uses this as justification for secretly destroying Joffre's order for them to attack again.