West and Gordon receive a summons from Admiral Agnow, chief of Naval Intelligence for the Pacific Fleet, but upon arrival they find that he and his staff have been murdered. An attempt on the agents' lives soon follows. Next day, they are informed by Assistant Secretary of State Levering Davis that the king of the strategically important Sandwich Islands is seeking an alliance with the United States and will soon arrive secretly in San Francisco; the agents must determine who is behind the recent murders and why, as well as the cause of the destruction of the frigate Youngstown, before King Kalakua arrives.
Disguises used by Artie: Stevedore/Docker/Longshoreman
(30:15); Henchman disguise(45:00)
Tropes present in this episode:
- Being Good Sucks: One traumatized, near-comatose crewman is the only survivor of a wrecked ship. Since there are high stakes involved, Artie disregards the sailor's precarious health and plays on ingrained military discipline to drag out an account of what happened. Artie is clearly not at all happy about having to do this.
- The Mole: Haruko Ishuda, Barclay's beautiful secretary. Turns out she's a secret agent working against Barclay for the Japanese government.
- Mugged for Disguise: Artie knocks out a guard and disguises himself as one of them.
- Pendulum of Death: Jim West and Japanese agent Ishuda are captured by the villain Barclay. In an effort to get Ishuda to talk, Barclay has West strapped to a table beneath a slowly descending pendulum blade. Barclay even mentions having got the inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's story.
- Shout-Out: This episode is full of shout outs to Dr. No.
- Trojan Horse: What better way to locate and infiltrate a villain's underground lair than to have his mooks carry you inside? Of course, they think they're delivering a crate full of rockets, not a crate full of Artie.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Barclay wants to free Hawaii from both American and Japanese influence...
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: ...so he can rule it himself.
- Yellowface: Nehemiah Persoff as the half-Chinese Adam Barclay.
