Re: Casey's Death


*NOTE, spoilers ahead*




Does anyone exactly get how Casey died? I haven't been able to see the whole story, and I don't know if it was the shot given in the beginning or something else?

All I'll say is no matter why the actress left the show, it was actually refreshing to show a character killed off in one of these shows. Too often, they had the spy just disappear, which can happen, but they always seemed happy. This one was just a shocker, and I think made it more believable.

Any clarification here will help.

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I believe it was season 1 episode 12, "The Fortune" The guest villainess was Barbara Luna. She and her husband absconded from their country with its treasury. The mission was to recover the treasure. Her henchmen caught and killed Casey, who was sent ahead to scout the location before the rest of the team infiltrated. That is when Jane Badler was brought in to replace Terry Markwell. It's the only episode I could find where both Badler and Markwell made appearances. If I'm not mistaken, Barbara Luna also guest starred in season 1 of the the original 1966 series, an episode entitled "Elena"

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She was scouting a stronghold when she was caught. The villainess was played by Barbara Luna. Casey was murdered by her (how is never revealed). In the story she is captured and the henchmen are told to eliminate her. Later her body is found floating in the ocean.

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She was scouting a stronghold when she was caught. The villainess was played by Barbara Luna. Casey was murdered by her (how is never revealed). In the story she is captured and the henchmen are told to eliminate her. Later her body is found floating in the ocean.

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I'm pretty sure she was given a lethal injection. I seem to recall Barbara Luna filling up a syringe and coming at her with it just before the opening credits.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzQZx-nfaWY

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Does anyone know the story behind Terry Markwell's departure? was she pushed or did she jump?.Looking back on the re-runs now it seems jane badler's character seemed to show alot more skin.I wonder if "sexing up" the female lead was a concious decision made by the producers due to fledgling ratings?

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I'll take a stab at this. I remember reading reading something about it in TV Guide magazine back around 1988. My memory is a bit short on details after 23 years, but it goes something like this. This was the time of the TV writer's strike in Hollywood. The networks needed some filler series to bridge the gap until the strike was settled. The producers recycled some old scripts from the original Mission: Impossible series from 1966-1973. To get around the California labor laws concerning strikes, the recycled series was filmed in Australia. Part of the agreement was to use Australian talent, including Thaoo Pengliss, Tony Hamilton, and Terry Markwell. Pengliss and Hamilton were already well known in America for their work on U.S. TV. Markwell was not. The original committment was for 13 episodes, by which time everyone thought the strike would be over. And it was. As it happened, ABC network renewed the series for an additional 9 episodes during the first season, and it went on to a partial second season. Hamilton and Pengliss agreed to extend, hoping to keep their faces in front of the American TV public. Markwell was indifferent, and did not extend. At least that is how I remembered it. If anyone else knows something different, please feel free to correct me.

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So she opted out on her own free will, interesting..I never knew terry markell was australian wow.Are you sure theo is though? I thought he was a brit

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That's only if my failing memory is correct in recalling the article I read 23 years ago. If you log onto the Mission: Impossible (1988) link here at IMDB you can look up the bio and creds on all the actors. Hamilton was born in England but was raised in Australia. Pengliss as actually born in Australia according to IMDB.

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You are right about Terry Markwell opting out. She was never happy with what she got to do and decided to go out as the only agent ever killed. I had a friend who worked on the show and this is what he said.

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What I thought was dumb was the shot at the end showing Casey's official picture and the word Disavowed.

That's absurd. Disavowed means no mention of her or her mission would be in the files. It would have been better showing her file being erased.

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I remember that as well. It made no sense. Either the script writer didn't know the meaning of the word, or hoped the viewing audience attached an alternate connotation. As you suggest ... and I can already picture it in my mind's eye, Casey's file dissolving from the screen before our very eyes.

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Remember tho, every time Jim heard the missions briefing he was told, "If any of your IMF agents should be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions."
The file will still be with the IMF as a matter of accurate record keeping,..but the cause and reason of her death (even so far as her employment with the IMF) would be disavowed publicly.

D. v~~v

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I just submitted a goof to IMDB, because that still doesn't make sense.

Disavowal means that the Secretary (and by extension, the United States government) will deny any knowledge of an agent's activities should that agent be caught or killed. It's meant to protect the United States from a diplomatic s***storm if one of the IMF people is caught spying on a foreign power, because said foreign power could easily make a very big and very public stink over it.

In this case, however, Casey is killed while doing surveillance on a deposed dictator and his wife who are enjoying political asylum in the United States. Since the dictator is one step above complete senility, the only one who could possibly make an issue of this is his wife--who's going to be spending the rest of her life in prison. Certainly no one in their former country is going to mind that the US government was investigating these people. So why would the Secretary bother with disavowing any knowledge of Casey's actions when there isn't anyone to disavow them to?

There wouldn't be a public relations problem on the home front, either, because deposed third-world dictators were not in particularly good odor with the American public in the late 80s (Manuel Noriega of Panama and especially Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, on whom Barbara Luna's character was based, come to mind very quickly). If anything, the average American at the time would have been calling for Emelia to get the chair, rather than taking the government to task for investigating her.

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I get you there, but to admit she died working for the IMF (a secret government organization) is to also admit that agency exists, which opens it to the public scrutiny and cries of outrage from allies and enemies alike.
It may give her family and friends closure, but it would open up a political s#!tstorm. Ergo it's just S.O.P. that any agent caught and killed while on agency business is automatically disavowed.
More then likely her family was told that she died in a plane/train/car crash and that would be that.

D. v~~v

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Hmm...maybe. I don't remember THAT much anti-government paranoia back then. We'd gotten through 1984 without any major issues, and everyone seemed to think that was that.

But I keep coming back to the target itself - the wife of a dictator in exile. She and her husband are living in the Florida Keys. This was the era of Scarface and Miami Vice; it would have been simplicity itself for the government to say that agent Casey Randall was part of a team assembled for the specific purpose of investigating possible involvement in the drug trade on the part of the Berezans, and that she was tragically killed in the line of duty during the course of this investigation.

No short-term PR problem - the Berezans are hardly good candidates for public sympathy to begin with, and suggesting that they may have been involved in drug running makes them even less so, while avoiding actually coming out and making the accusation openly where it can be refuted - and if the Secretary never specifies the exact agency involved, people are free to assume that it's the FBI, the CIA, the DEA, even the ATF, and after a couple of years no one will know for certain.

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but remeber this was not the only case she had worked if the u.s. had aknowledged her identity then the other people scammed by the imf force would know that the u.s. was behind the actions

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That could apply to any of the IMF team, original series and remake.

And yet, in the original series, they completely omitted the warning in the last two seasons--because the bulk of those two seasons pitted the IMF against organized crime on the home front, not foreign countries. Of the 59 episodes in which the target is an organized crime lord or family or domestic terrorists, only 12 of them contain the warning, most of them in the Landau-Bain years.

In contrast, the warning is given

--every time the target is a legitimate businessman or politician (for example, in "The Seal", where the target bought a jade statue legitimately, but the IMF needs to steal it away from him anyway)

--over three-quarters of the times when the target is an Iron Curtain country or spy or neo-Nazis, and

--over 80% of the times when the target is in a Third World country.


Thirty years later, it's not a big deal--but I think this is an indication of why the series didn't last very long. Bruce Gellar wasn't involved anymore, and the new creative team didn't seem to have more than a superficial understanding of what the series was about.

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In the British spy series MI5, the agents weren't allowed to tell anyone they knew (including their families) that they were spies.

In the first episode of the fourth season, the first scene starts at the funeral of an agent who died in the last episode of season three.

As the priest is giving the eulogy, she talks about how well liked at his job working at the Thames Valley Water Company. Apparently even after an agent's death, their cover is kept.

When God gave men free will, he had to of known that things wouldn't have gone his way.

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