I'm not sure about anything any more.
Two episodes from the second season of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ("Istanbul, September 1918", first broadcast on 17th July 1993, and "Transylvania, January 1918", one of the four unaired episodes of that season note ), later re-edited into a single feature-length episode entitled Masks of Evil which, chronologically, is the seventeenth instalment of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.
A top-secret mission sends Indy to Istanbul, where he gets engaged to an American woman who thinks he's a Swedish journalist. Exploring the city's dark and dangerous streets, he is thrust into a web of betrayal and murder when he realises that someone in his spy ring is a double agent who will kill to prevent himself from being exposed. Evil of a more enduring kind is encountered when he travels to Transylvania to investigate a renegade Romanian general who turns out to be a vampire. With his very life at stake, Indy must garner all his strength and wits in order to defeat the fiend and save mankind.
This episode contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: Maria's nationality. She is working for American intelligence and is engaged to a Frenchman, but we never learn where she's from. Her surname (Straussler) is German, although that could mean anything or nothing, and she has evidently spent enough time in the Transylvania area to have picked up sufficient vampire lore to know how to deal with Targo. For the record, the actress who plays her is Danish.
- And Starring: Ahmet Levendoglu as Mustafa Kemal.
- Blatant Lies: After successfully proposing to Molly, Indy promises to always be truthful to her. Even though she thinks he's a Swedish journalist called Nils.
- Call-Back: This is not the first time Indy has been an intermediary for a peace deal that would take an ally of Germany out of the war. Also, Indy admits to Molly that their conversation about whether they will feel the same about each other after the war reminds him of a similar conversation he had with Vicky. And, of course, Indy once again goes to Venice between missions.
- Call-Forward: This won't be the last time Indiana Jones goes to Venice — he even walks across what looks like the same bridge that he, Elsa and Marcus cross before going into the church in Last Crusade. It's also not the last time he gets chained up and forced to drink a potion intended to brainwash him.
- Continuity Nod: An impressed Colonel Waters refers to Indy's intelligence work in Barcelona, Vienna and Petrograd.
- Continuity Snarl: Although the two episodes combined for the TV movie were entitled "Transylvania, January 1918" and "Istanbul, September 1918", the re-edited story is presented as having the events of Istanbul occur prior to those in Transylvania, with a bridging scene showing Indy telling one of his Istanbul agents that he's being posted to Venice (from where he subsequently travels to Transylvania).
- Cunning Linguist: Indy can speak a total of 27 languages. Colonel Waters, on the other hand, speaks 32 — although sign language (which Indy knows) is not one of them.
- Demonic Possession: Maria is briefly subject to this; the obvious inference is that it's Targo, but no explanation is given as he himself does not refer to it.
- The Determinator: Mustafa Kemal, who is very clear in his ambition to create a modern Turkish republic out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: The fate of Molly, who dies in Indy's arms after being shot by Stefan (who thought she was Indy because she was wearing his raincoat and a hat that, in the dark, could be — and was — mistaken for his trademark fedora).
- Disney Villain Death: Averted, as being pushed from a footbridge to the courtyard below does not kill Targo.
- Double Agent: Two examples, one in each part.
- Stefan is considered by Indy to be one of his most trustworthy agents in Istanbul, but he really isn't.
- Franz Heinzer, one of the team put together by Colonel Waters to go and investigate General Targo, is actually Adolf Schmidt of the Austrian secret police. It's only when they encounter Picard that his true allegiance is revealed.
- Downer Ending: The Istanbul part ends with Stefan, the fellow-spy Indy trusted the most, exposed as a Double Agent. Who kills Molly just before he is himself shot and killed by Indy.
- Dwindling Party: Two examples.
- In the Istanbul part, the members of the "Balkan News Agency" spy ring are killed off one by one by the Double Agent in their midst.
- In the Transylvania part, the members of Colonel Waters's team are killed off one by one in ways both varied and gruesome; by the end, only Indy and Maria are left alive.
- Ear Ache: One of the American spies sent to investigate Targo had an ear cut off, which Targo sent to his superiors as a warning. We later see the spy (or rather, his undead self), and he is missing an ear.
- Enemy Mine: When Heinzer is revealed to be an Austrian agent, he explains that the Central Powers were as interested as the Allies in wanting to find out what was going on in Transylvania — although he is killed before this can be explored any further.
- Eye Scream: One of the American spies sent to investigate Targo had an eye removed, which Targo sent to his superiors as a warning. We later see him (or rather, his undead self) with just one eye left.
- Fight Dracula: The Transylvania part is the episode in which Indiana Jones does just that.
- Final Girl: Maria in the Transylvania part.
- Fingore: Picard, the French spy sent to investigate Targo, had a finger cut off, which Targo sent to his superiors as a warning. We later see him (or rather, his undead self) and he is indeed missing a finger.
- Foregone Conclusion: The Ottoman Empire never signed a separate peace deal with France, which kind of renders the outcome of Indy's mission to be an example of this.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that Stefan kills the Armenian before he can reveal who "The Wolf" is may serve as an early clue that "The Wolf" is, in fact, Stefan.
- Fortune Teller: Indy and Molly encounter one, who is clearly distressed by whatever it is she sees is going to happen, but they don't notice. Later, Vasily (one of Indy's few surviving colleagues from the Istanbul part) tells Indy about a dream he had in which Indy travels to a city surrounded by water (ie. Venice) and from there is sucked into a vortex full of blood — which foreshadows the imminent Genre Shift to Gothic Horror. In Venice, Indy encounters another fortune teller who tells him that he will soon be facing the devil.
- Genre Shift: From espionage to horror.
- Girl of the Week: Molly in the Istanbul part — she's an American teacher working in said city note . It's quickly established that she's in love with Indy, although matters are complicated by the fact that she has in fact fallen in love with his cover identity, that of a Swedish journalist called Nils.
- Gothic Horror: The Transylvania part, so very much.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Molly, a beautiful blonde who works in an orphanage.
- Halloween Episode: The original version of the Transylvania episode came across as this as it was bookended by Old Indy telling the story of his encounter with Targo to some kids at Halloween, and scaring them at the end with the help of some fake fangs.
- Haunted Castle: Targo lives in one of these, naturally.
- Historical Domain Character: Indy encounters Mustafa Kemal (better known to history as Kemal Atatürk
), Halide Edib and Sultan Mehmed VI. And quite possibly a reincarnation of Vlad the Impaler. - Intrepid Reporter: Indy is posing as one of these in Istanbul, where his cover is that of a Swedish journalist called Nils Anderson who's working for the Balkan News Agency (which is actually a front for the French intelligence network in that city).
- Later-Installment Weirdness: The Transylvania episode was one of the last of the second series (one of four not to be broadcast in the USA in its original form, in fact) and is rather different from the rest of the show thanks to its supernatural elements — which, while widespread in the rest of the Indyverse, were not usually used in this particular show.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: Before encountering Targo himself, the team encounters some ball lightning which seems to be trying to destroy them, and does some damage to a couple of rooms in the castle.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Heinzer seems to be aware of scientific explanations for some of the weird phenomena the group encounter in the castle before they meet Targo, such as the ball lightning and the spontaneous combustion of Waters. But he doesn't have time to elaborate on them before he is killed.
- The Mole: The French spy network in Istanbul, which is putting out feelers to Mustafa Kemal about a peace deal that would take the Ottoman Empire out of the war (leaving Germany without a key ally), has been infiltrated by a German mole known as "The Wolf".
- Mood Whiplash: This often happened with the re-edited TV movies combining two episodes, but it really stands out here — one of the grittier espionage episodes (think Petrograd rather than Barcelona) segues into a full-on Vampire Episode in which Indy must Fight Dracula.
- Noodle Incident: Within the first few minutes, it's established that Indy and Stefan have been working together for some time, as the latter refers to an unspecified event in Ankara that caused Indy to lose a Side Bet. This episode, though, is the first (and last) we see of Stefan although he has clearly worked hard to gain Indy's trust.
- Our Vampires Are Different: General Targo is somehow able to control lightning, control people via possession (albeit briefly) and make people spontaneously combust, in addition to which he appears to display psychic powers of some sort (for example, he knows Indy's real name without having been introduced to him). Unlike most (but by no means all) other vampires, he sports facial hair (a moustache and pointed goatee, not unlike Vlad the Impaler, who he believes himself to be) and wears colourful (if rather old-fashioned) clothes. His fangs are in the middle of his upper set of teeth, not on the sides. His undead followers would appear to be unaffected by sunlight. He can survive a knife to the back and falling from a great height; the only way to kill him is by a stake through the heart at a crossroads, following which his body bursts into flames.
- Paranormal Episode: The Transylvania part is the only episode in the entire series to have supernatural elements, even though such things are commonplace in the wider Indyverse. Indy and colleagues encounter ball lightning, Demonic Possession, blood pouring from the ceiling and Spontaneous Human Combustion (in a room seemingly made of ice, no less) before they get to the vampire and his undead minions.
- Real After All: Whether General Targo is actually a reincarnated Vlad the Impaler (in other words, Dracula) is up for debate. He certainly believes that he is, but even if he isn't, he's still an actual vampire.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Attempted; after Colonel Waters spontaneously combusts, Nicholas Hunyadi (one of the team sent to investigate Targo) declares that he wants to leave. Indy talks him out of it, but it ultimately does him no good.
- Shout-Out: Indy's pseudonym in Istanbul could be a nod to the Swedish children's story The Wonderful Adventures of Nils; an episode planned for the abortive third season would have seen Indy visit Stockholm in 1909 in what was intended to be an homage to that book.
- Spontaneous Human Combustion: The fate of Colonel Waters; it is not shown onscreen, although we do subsequently see his charred feet which are all that's left of him.
- Spy Fiction: The Istanbul part is very much of the stale beer variety.
- Torture Technician: Heinzer evidently used to be one of these before becoming a spy. Targo seems to have some of the attributes, but he's more interested in just killing his victims in gruesome ways rather than extracting information.
- Vampire Episode: Yup, Indiana Jones takes on Dracula. This episode actually provides the pic on that trope page.
- Villain Ball: Once Targo has Indy and Maria chained up, he makes them drink some sort of sedative/brainwashing potion and quickly unchains both of them afterwards. It does not occur to him to check that they have actually swallowed it; as it happens, neither of them did so, which is how they are able to escape and (eventually) kill him.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Colonel Waters is presented as an adventurous Spymaster who can speak multiple languages — in short, a potential mentor figure for Indy who, has Waters points out, is still just 19 years old. Indy for his part knows of him by reputation ("the Colonel Waters?") and is delighted to have the opportunity to go on a mission with him. Yet once they get into the castle, Waters, unafraid to lead from the front, is the first of the group to die.
