Real life for one moment becomes theatre.
An episode from the first season of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ("London, May 1916", first broadcast on 11th March 1992) and an episode from the second ("Ireland, April 1916", first broadcast on 12th June 1993), later re-edited together to form a feature-length episode entitled Love's Sweet Song which, chronologically, is the seventh instalment of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones and his new friend Remy Baudouin travel to Europe in the hope of enlisting in the Belgian Army. Their ship, though, only takes them as far as Ireland, where they need to take odd jobs to save up the money for the next leg of their journey. Indy works as a bartender in a Dublin pub while pretending to be a rich American in order to impress a local girl named Maggie (whose brother Sean keeps a wary eye on him). The struggle of identity for Ireland itself causes an upheaval in the form of the bloody Easter Rising, which erupts before Indy and Remu can leave for London.
Once in London, the pair enlist. Knowing that his life will soon turn to deadly combat, Indy seeks out the comfort of female companionship, inadvertently attending a suffragette meeting and becoming smitten by the beautiful bus conductor Vicky Prentiss. Indy and Vicky spend a brief but idyllic time together in the English countryside and meet up with Indy's old tutor Helen Seymour, who invites them to a dinner attended by Winston Churchill.
This episode contains examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Winston Churchill reacts to his Food Slap from Vicky in this way. Vicky and Helen later share a laugh about this as well.
- And Starring: Kika Markham as Sylvia Pankhurst.
- Artistic Licence – History: Although the real Sean Lemass had several siblings, he did not have a sister called Maggie — she's a fictional character who was invented for the show. It's also worth noting that Sean Lemass, who was born John Lemass, was known as "Jack" within his family and only started using the more Irish-sounding "Sean" after the events of 1916.
- Bait-and-Switch: On the way to Oxford, Indy tells Vicky that Helen Seymour always treated him like an adult. When they get to her house, she tells him off for running off to Mexico and enlisting to fight in a war in which his country is not (yet) involved. Then she makes him sit down and write a letter to his father before she lets him have some tea.
- Bar Brawl: In the Dublin pub where Indy and Remy find work, a fight breaks out between a soldier and a civilian. Going by the accent from his one line, the soldier is an Irishman who has enlisted in the British Army, so he naturally takes exception to the clearly pro-Feinian civilian.
- Been There, Shaped History: Indiana Jones was not just in Dublin at the time of the Easter Rising
, he got (quite literally) caught in the crossfire. - Berserk Button: Vicky does not like being addressed as "my dear young lady".
- Big Brother Instinct: Although it is not clear which of them is the eldest (given that she is fictional), Sean Lemass displays this towards his sister Maggie, as he does not approve of her seeing Indy. Even before he finds out that Indy's not the rich American Maggie thinks he is.
- Brutal Honesty: Indy does this when he comes clean to Maggie that he's not a millionaire, he's a waiter in a pub — and once he's earned enough money to catch the ferry to England, he'll be gone.
- The Bus Came Back: Helen Seymour, Indy's former tutor, returns for her only appearance alongside Sean Patrick Flanery as Indy note .
- Call-Back: After Indy gives money to the poor woman and helps her to save face by insisting that it's a loan and not charity, he explains to Vicky that he learned this from his mother, who did a similar thing when they were in China.
- Career Versus Man: Vicky, an aspiring writer, has this dilemma when she finds herself falling in love with Indy. She chooses career, and lets him down gently.
- Comforting the Widow: Remy is very excited about romancing Suzette — especially when he learns that she's a widow (her husband having died fighting the Germans). Indy tries the same thing with an Englishwoman he meets while waiting for the bus who tells him that her husband recently died on the frontline, but he just gets a slap in the face.
- Contrived Coincidence: Vicky's father, Sir Peregrine Prentiss, is — like Indy — a former student of Helen Seymour's.
- Cunning Linguist: After the suffragette meeting, Vicky and Indy have a conversation in multiple languages; both were well-travelled as children on account of their fathers' careers (Vicky being the daughter of a diplomat) and said fathers encouraging them to learn the local language of wherever they visited. Both can speak French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Swedish, Greek and Arabic — but Indy can't speak Welsh, which Vicky knows on account of her having a Welsh mother. Indy points out that, despite having a Welsh surname, his father is actually Scottish.
- December–December Romance: Hinted at in the original Old Indy bookends to "London, May 1916" note , in which Indy and Vicky are happily reunited in 1992 after he hears her voice coming from the next table over while having dinner with his accountant.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: A shot of Big Ben establishes that Indy and Remy are in London. Later, a shot of the Bridge of Sighs establishes that Indy and Vicky are in Oxford.
- Fighting Irish: In the form of the 1916 Easter Rising, no less. Before then, Sean Lemass has a fight with Indy, who gives as good as he gets.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Indy and Sean Lemass become good friends after fighting each other.
- Food Slap: Delivered by Vicky to Winston Churchill, no less, after she forces the dinner party conversation onto the subject of votes for women.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: This happens to Remy and Suzette, a widowed Belgian refugee living in London, who get married after a whirlwind romance.
- Friend to All Children: Indy shows this side of his character by playing with the kids he and Vicky meet in the park.
- Good-Times Montage: Indy has two — one with Sean Lemass in Dublin before the Easter Rising, and another with Vicky in Oxford. Both involve cycling and bodies of water.
- Historical Domain Character: In Dublin, Indy meets future Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Sean Lemass (although his sister Maggie is fictional) and playwrights Sean O'Casey and William Butler Yeats. In London, he meets Sylvia Pankhurst and Winston Churchill.
- Inspirational Martyr: The Irish Volunteers can't hope to hold the GPO against the might of the British Army; instead — as several characters point out — the aim of the Easter Rising is that they hope to become examples of this trope. By executing them in the aftermath of the rising, the British Army ensures that they achieve this.
- It Will Never Catch On: When the Irish Volunteers proclaim an Irish republic at the GPO on Easter Monday, quite a few people in the crowd don't take them seriously, thinking it's some kind of joke. This changes after the British Army puts the Easter Rising down.
- Liar Revealed: Subverted — the Belgian recruiting officer spots straightaway that Indy is lying about his name, nationality and age when he tries to enlist — but lets him join anyway, because the Belgian Army is not fussy about who it recruits. Truth in Television in 1916, by which point it did indeed accept just about any able-bodied volunteer, regardless of name or nationality (and, like quite a few other armies in World War I — and the Irish Volunteers for that matter — it didn't enquire too closely about a volunteer's declared age).
- Line-of-Sight Alias: When joining the Belgian Army, Indy opts to use an assumed name, "Henri Défense" — from the "Défense de Fumer" ("No Smoking") sign he can see. Immediately afterwards (in earshot of the recruiting officer, no less), Remy out that he didn't have to do this, as the Belgian Army will (as stated above) take anyone.
- Love Makes You Dumb: Indy, who has the hots for Maggie, spends what little money he earns in the pub on her, causing her to assume that he's a rich American; even though he clearly can't afford to spend his money like that, he does little to dissuade her of this notion.
- Molotov Cocktail: Before such a thing was named after Molotov, no less.
- Mr. Exposition: Remy explains to Indy (and, by extension, the viewers) that Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Which, prior to 1922, it was.
- Never My Fault: Indy and Remy blame each other for the fact that their attempt at stowing away on the ship across the Atlantic failed when they got caught on the first night at sea, following which they were forced to work as deckhands.
- Noodle Incident: A couple.
- We do not learn what went on between Indy and Henrietta, the pretty young lady on the ship, although she is clearly unimpressed to find that he is working as a deckhand and wants nothing more to do with him.
- During their multi-lingual conversation, Indy tells Vicky that his favourite city is Stockholm. We never see him visit the Swedish capital; one of the episodes planned for the abortive third season was to see him go there in 1909 in what was intended to be an homage to The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
- We also never see Indy visit Hungary (and none of the episodes planned for the abortive third season had him going there), yet he can converse in Hungarian.
- Oireland: In the Dublin part, Sean O'Casey and Sean Lemass both complain about the stereotypical "Oirish" portrayal of their nation, before dropping straight into those stereotypes.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted and justified in the Dublin part, as Indy meets two Irishmen called Sean, both of whom are real people.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Vicky's father, Sir Peregrine, comes across as one of these before we even see him. Although he has a couple of things in common with Henry Jones Snr., the contrasts are also very much apparent as he's a supportive father to his daughter.
- Riddle for the Ages: In the original Old Indy bookends to "London, May 1916", Indy's accountant never does find out how Indy's still got a steady income despite his having retired years ago.
- Sarcasm Mode: Vicky, in response to Indy asking if the big airship looking over London is one of those Zeppelins he's heard about.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Sir Peregrine has been nothing but supportive of his wife's campaigning for women's rights, even though his career as a diplomat has suffered as a result.
- Shout-Out: While cycling around Oxford, Vicky quotes the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who studied at University College — the same college her father was at.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Seans Lemass and O'Casey have this dynamic — both want an independent Ireland, but O'Casey wants a socialist independent Ireland.
- Young Future Famous People: In Dublin, Indy meets and befriends Sean Lemass who, like him, was just 16 at the time of the Easter Rising (although the fact that he looked older than his age, subtly alluded to here by the fact that he's shown drinking in the pub, meant that he had been allowed to join the Irish Volunteers). Lemass would go on to serve as Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland from 1959 to 1966. In Oxford, Indy briefly meets future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, although he was in his early forties and was already a well-known public figure by 1916, having served as a Cabinet minister from 1908 until 1915.
