An Old Flame

"An Old Flame" is the second episode in the seventh season of the show As Time Goes By. It originally aired on 26 April 1998

Plot
Lionel is in the kitchen with a wine rack, having just finished assembling it, places a bottle of wine on it and it falls apart. Jean comes in, laughs at Lionel’s wine rack, and tells Lionel that Harry in the living room to take Sandy to see a film. Jean tells Lionel that they should go to greet Harry and find out more about him as they don’t know very much about him. Lionel agrees under threat of Jean telling everyone about the wine rack.

Lionel goes to the living room with Jean and they both greet Harry. With some prodding from Jean, Lionel asks Harry why he joined the police force. Harry tells them that his father told him to join the police force, though he joined the army first as a Royal Engineer for three years,  and joined the police force afterwards because he thought being a police officer was a worthwhile job. Then Lionel asks about a rugby match from the previous day and they talk about that until Sandy comes in to take Harry away. As Sandy and Harry are leaving, Sandy asks Harry what the film they are going is about and Harry tells her that the film is about boxing. Sandy makes an annoyed looked away from Harry’s eyesight before they leave.

In the living room, Jean is annoyed that Lionel steered the conversation towards rugby instead asking more about Harry’s life. They both agree that Harry is a nice lad, but Jean is insistent that they still don’t know much about him. Judy comes in and teases Lionel about his wine rack as he goes to hide it. Once Lionel is in the kitchen, Jeans asks Judy how she is doing running the agency. Judy says she is doing well with Sandy and tells Jean that there was a phone call for Jean from a James Perry that was slurring his words. Jean tells Judy that she doesn’t know a James Perry and that she will not be returning his phone call.

Jean is in bed reading a book and Lionel is in the closet looking for his jacket, hoping it just dropped in there, somewhere. Lionel finds an old penny and comes into bed with Jean and they reminisce about what they could buy with a penny. Once they turn off the lights to sleep, Jean realizes that the person that called was James Penny, not James Perry.

Jean is in the street with Lionel ostensibly to go shopping for tennis balls and tights, but Jean simply wanted to make a secretive phone call to James Penny in a telephone booth, which she does.

Lionel is asleep on the couch in the living room as Jean comes in and wakes up saying, “Who did?” Lionel points out to Jean that he was only in the sports shop for five minutes and that Jean was there outside when he came out, without any tights. Jeans tries to explain that she put the tights she bought over the tights she was already wearing and Lionel says she has been behaving irrationally since that morning and that that means that she is up to something.

Random by editor
Sandy is sassy.