Eine Kleine Frohike

"Eine Kleine Frohike" is the third episode of the first season of The Lone Gunmen.
==Synopsis==
Frohike attempts to convince a Nazi war criminal that he is her long-lost son.
==Summary==
A World War II news clip is played relating events that happened during the liberation of France. At least twenty members of the French resistance were poisoned by a traitor from the Alsace-Lorraine region know as the “Poisoner of Alsace.” The last being the prefect of Verzenay. They are unsure of the identity of the poisoner but suspicious of one Madame Davos, best baker of Verzenay. American troops capture a high ranking Nazi officer (with a stunning resemblance to Melvin Frohike) but he refuses to divulge any secrets about the Poisoner.
Madame Davos sends her baby away with a German soldier on a bicycle.
 complains about their new hire's filing strategy as he picks “The Warren Commission” out of the “T” section along with several other files starting with the word “The.” stands up for Jimmy Bond, explaining you just have to know how to deal with him. Then he finds he newly cleaned keyboard spilling water onto the floor and changes his mind on the matter. John Byers sticks up for Bond, reminding them that his life savings is all that is keeping the paper afloat at the moment.
When Jimmy Bond arrives they start to talk to him about leaving but Jimmy Bond explains how proud he is to work for them. Frohike tries to yell at Bond to fire him but it doesn't work; he doesn't think he is really angry with him.
An older man arrives with a folded newspaper to speak with the Lone Gunmen, he is looking for Frohike. He wants his help in capturing the Poisoner of Alsace, infamous Nazi collaborator. Explaining that he believes the Poisoner of Alsace has been placing ads in European newspapers looking for her lost son. It was believed that she had a child out of wedlock with a Nazi officer and the child was sent to Berlin with the retreating army.
Introducing himself as Michael Wilhelm, son of the French resistance leader poisoned shortly before the Allied Invasion, he believes in his heart that the woman who placed the ad, Anna Haag, is his father's killer. Given Frohike's resemblance to the Nazi officer, he would be a perfect candidate for pretending to be the lost son. Frohike refuses but Wilhelm tells them to reach him at the Belmont if he changes his mind about it.
When questioned why he won't do it, Frohike explains he can't possibly pass himself off as 56 years old. They transform him into a younger looking man. He questions how he can pull this off given that he can't speak French or German but they assure him he can lie and say he was raised in the states.
Langly relates the only way to identify the woman as Madame Davos is a birthmark all members of the family have on their posterior. So he has to spot this Germany shaped birthmark on Mrs. Haag and regrettably needs the birthmark drawn on his own ass too.
While John Byers and Richard Langly observe and listen from the van, Frohike goes to home of Anna Haag and follows the woman who answers the door. Under Langly's encouragement, he cautiously tries to spot the birthmark on this woman, which makes for an awkward introduction with Anna Haag when she appears and asks him what he thinks he is doing. He makes the claim of being her son and embraces her as the housekeeper Mrs. Allsop continues to plod away, half oblivious to the world. They lose contact with Frohike when he embraces his “mother” as her son, Dolph.
Outside, the elderly neighbor lady knocks on the Lone Gunmen's van. She asks why the van is parked there, at first assuming some hanky panky, but Byers and Langly explain they are surveiling Mrs. Allsop for the INS. Langly tells the woman off and slams the door of the van.
Finally that night, they regain contact with Frohike and learn he is being forced to stay for the night. He is interrupted while speaking with the others and conceals the earpiece set in his dirty clothes and says he was merely praying when confronted by his “mother.”
The next morning, the transmitter is lost to the laundry and then the trash thanks to Mrs. Allsop. Langly and Byers watch the neighbor lady visit Mrs. Haag but she doesn't seem to tell the woman about them watching the house in the van. Frohike, trapped in lederhosen, tries to recover the earpiece but is strong armed into receiving a treat from his estranged mother: A pastry.
He avoids it by placing it in the trash while she is turned away, juicing oranges. He finds the transmitter in the trash and puts it back on in the other room. Byers suggests that he retrieve that pastry because it is evidence and should be analyzed. When he returns to the kitchen, Haag claims he looks weak and should follow her. Mrs. Allsop comes in and takes the pastry out of the top of the trash and goes ahead and eats on it.
Yves Adele Harlow breaks into the Lone Gunmen HQ and catches Jimmy Bond reenacting a scene from “Risky Business.” He catches her stealing something from them on the computer and stops her from leaving. She explains that the Lone Gunmen are once more out of their league as the man who came to them with the whole scheme, Michael Wilhelm, can't be the son of the Prefect of Verzenay since he died childless.“So–who was the guy who was here?”
Langly and Byers watch Frohike go through an intense exercise regime under the supervision of Anna Haag. Eventually, he trips over a rock and winds up back at the Haag home with an ice pack on his ankle. She apologizes for pushing him too far and says they have to make up for all the time they lost during their long separation.
“The world was hard on little things then. It robbed me. It robbed me of my treasure. But today I have my treasure back.”
When she leaves to order a pizza, he goes to check on the pastry and finds it missing. He expresses his doubts about Mrs. Haag being the killer given what she just said not seeming like the words of a cold blooded Nazi sympathizer. He notices the pastry in laundry room through the ajar door and opens the door to find a dead Mrs. Allsop.
Frohike sits there watching the police, Mrs. Haag, and the neighbor as Mrs. Allsop is dragged away on a gurney. He expresses his contempt of Mrs. Haag, assuming she is a cold hearted killer and just puts on a good act. He introduces himself to the neighbor and learns her name is Louella Everage. She explains his mother will have a few friends over later for a wake for Mrs. Allsop. She seems very pleased that Mrs. Haag has someone like him at a time like this.
As everyone leaves and its only “Dolph” and Mrs. Haag, she explains she is going to take a shower. Frohike realizes he has a chance to confirm the birthmark.
Meanwhile at the Hotel Belmont, Yves Adele Harlow and Jimmy Bond wait for “Michael Wilhelm” to leave room 425, and then proceed to his room. She believes Wilhelm is a member of the Stasi, the East German secret police, who tortured and killed many defectors during the Cold War. If she can prove he is this man she believes he is, then there is a bounty for her to collect.
She explains to Jimmy that the man is probably Madame Davos’ son and he used the Lone Gunmen to figure out if the whole thing was a trap or not. Yves makes Jimmy her lookout and he fails to warn her about Michael Wilhelm because he returns via the stairs instead of the elevator. Yves manages to slip out after overhearing a phone call of Wilhelm. She is irritated at Bond but realizes they need to go warn the Lone Gunmen that the man plans on killing them.
Frohike fails to get a picture of Anna Haag's posterior to confirm the existence of a birthmark and slips in the bathroom. Once again, the van losses audio feed and Frohike lamely talks his way out of the snafu. Frohike takes a bath right after this incident and Haag tells him to take off the toupee which Frohike agrees to. She loves her son just the way he is.
The neighbor watches Harlow and Bond show up at the van and Bond fails to describe the situation. Harlow tells them Michael Wilhelm set them up and that she overheard him say in German, “the fools are spying on the wrong woman.” Byers guesses that Louella Everage is the real Poisoner of Alsace and used Anna Haag as a decoy. Langly disagrees.
“Come on, that nice old lady? I mean, sure, I called her a bag and everything, but, you know, she caught me peeing in the hedges just now, she didn’t even yell at me or anything. She even gave me these muffins.”The others look at Langly with concern as it dawns on him that he has been poisoned. He collapses.
Bond calls Frohike to the window with thrown rocks and tries to pantomime an explanation as a bewildered Frohike stares at him. He climbs up the drain pipe and tells him that Mrs. Haag isn't the one. At this point, Haag arrives and asks what the transmitter is and who that man outside is? Frohike tells her that they need to talk as Jimmy pulls the drain pipe down.
Lured in by a “dead” Langly on the floor of the van, Michael Wilhelm is tranquilized by Yves Adele Harlow. She asks a giggling Jimmy Bond to get undressed.
Michael Wilhelm arrives at the small party of Mrs. Haag and he and Frohike have a conversation they know Everage is listening in on. Frohike declares Haag to be the poisoner and that she killed his friend. Drawn by a scream in the other room, they arrive to find a woman dead in a chair with a pastry still in hand.
Frohike proclaims Anna Haag to be a Nazi and that he will go call the police. Michael Wilhelm has drawn his gun and insists that Frohike do nothing.
Everage admits to being Wilhelm's mother. She found Anna Haag through an Alsacen friendship society. Since her story matched, Haag acted as the perfect unknowing decoy. She even confirms the birthmark by dropping trou.Frohike: “My God, it is shaped like Germany.”
Michael Wilhelm pulls out a dental plate in his mouth that altered his voice and tears away the well made facial mask to reveal himself as Jimmy Bond. The police arrive and the “dead” party guest revives. Mrs. Haag berates the evil Mrs. Everage as she is taken away by the authorities.
“You are a liar.”“I’m not the only one."
Frohike apologizes about all the lies, for her getting hurt, and not finding her son. Anna Haag explains that for at least one day she did find her son.
Harlow leaves, having filed for the 1 million dollar bounty on Michael Wilhelm. The Lone Gunmen gripe about her typical behavior though Jimmy Bond reminds them that she did stick around to do the “cool make-up job.”
“She did save our butts. Maybe she’s not the person you think she is.”“You could still be fired.”
==Background Information==
*In The Lone Gunmen series, this episode is the second of six whose titles include the name of an individual main character from the series. The others are "Bond, Jimmy Bond", "Planet of the Frohikes", "Maximum Byers", "Diagnosis: Jimmy" and "All About Yves".
*"Eine Kleine Frohike" is German for "a small/little Frohike" - but the grammatical gender is feminine (in contrary to the male name Frohike). Probably this is just a minor translation incorrectness. *Note on above: This "incorrectness" is most likely intentional, so as to make more obvious the clear reference to "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."
*Writer , a self-professed "film geek", considered this episode to be his opportunity to bring many of his film influences to the series and play with those influences, but one influence in particular certainly had a big inspiration on the story. Ever since the production crew had started working on The Lone Gunmen series, Shiban had been keen to write an episode based on The Lady Killers, one of the Ealing Comedies, of which he had always been a big fan. Shiban had many reasons for wanting to do an episode based on that particular comedy, such as the fact that the concept involved an inherently very tense undercover mission and his belief that the tension in such a situation generated many comic possibilities. Shiban strongly believed that the idea to put Frohike, who was driven and had a slightly cantankerous attitude, into a situation where the character had to face the unfamiliar and maintain another identity would be fun.
*Indeed, Frohike actor Tom Braidwood found this episode was a lot of fun to do and commented that the episode was both outrageous and foolish, noting that these were exemplified in the whole concept of making the actor look like Mrs. Haag's long-lost son. According to Tom Braidwood, the make-up girls and costume people also had a lot of fun while working on this episode.
*Tom Braidwood was delighted to work with Ruth Manning, who played Anna Haag in this episode, and he found her to be "an absolutely fantastic person to work with."
* was a fan of this episode's teaser, noting that it hearkened back to the old Fox Movietone News. To create this sequence, the series' special effects team, led by Mat Beck, mixed old Fox Movietone News footage with extremely high-tech computer animation of maps of Europe during World War II. Vince Gilligan loved the way that Beck's effects unit segued the computer animation with the live-action news footage.
*As for cultural references in this episode, Jimmy Bond compares himself to the dog in Old Yeller and is seen air-guitaring to "Bad To The Bone" by George Thorogood. "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand can be heard on two separate occasions and sound effects similar to those of Psycho were used in the shower scene.
*When Yves first sees Jimmy, he is making a nod to the commonly parodied shot of Tom Cruise in "Risky Business."
*Frohike says, "I can't pass for a 56-year-old man," but Tom Braidwood was actually only 52 at the time of the episode's airing. This joke was repeated on The X-Files Season 11 episode "This" when Mulder asks Scully skeptically, "Frohike look 57 to you when he died?" and Scully responds, "Frohike looked 57 the day he was born".
===Cast and Characters===
*Sheila Paterson (Louella Everage) previously played Gina Watkins in episode "Fallen Angel" and Anna Fugazzi in "Emily".
==Cast==
Starring
*Bruce Harwood as 
*Tom Braidwood as 
*Dean Haglund as 
*Stephen Snedden as Jimmy Bond
*Zuleikha Robinson as Yves Adele Harlow
Guest Starring
*Ruth Manning as Anna Haag
*Sheila Paterson as Louella Everage
*Alan Dale as Michael Wilhelm
Featuring
*Jilena Cori as Madame Davos
*Mary McDonald as Mrs. Allsop
*Tammy Bentz as Uniform Cop #1
*Rob Seckler as Uniform Cop #2
==References==
SEMICOLON-SEPARATED LIST OF ITEMS/LOCATIONS REFERENCED IN EPISODE (BUT NOT LINKED TO IF ALREADY LINKED IN SUMMARY OR GUEST STARS SECTIONS)
Category:The Lone Gunmen episodes