Well here we are, up to the final episode of The Adventures of Fu Manchu ever made-Fu Manchu's Raid...
The episode opens with mass chaos across America. Atomic bombs have hit Seattle, Los Angeles, Aferend (I don't know the spelling), and Milwaukee (NNNOOOOOOOO, not the Happy Days gang!)! The Panama canal has been destroyed! Sixty-one American cities are under attack! Traffice is being diverted east, but is meant to be going south-sabotage is at play!
The episode cuts to Fu Manchu's evil lair, just as Karamenah arrives. "You're late!" Fu glares at her. Karamenah apologizes, saying she was caught up in a massive traffic jam ("Rasberry! I'd recogize this jam anywhere! Lone Starr!"). Contrary to Fu Manchu's plans, the city has not been completely evacuated already. It was here in the episode where I thought 'oh, so that's it! This nuclear attack panic was a hysteria trick orchestrated by Fu Manchu!'...and I think I was wrong-this is one confusing episode!
Fu instructs Kolb to get Fu's associate in his current diabolical plan for world domination. Then Fu unveils his plan...which is SSOOO stupid! He thinks that this invasion scare will make everyone sell their homes, thus making the stock market crash... Um, Fu, if America is invaded-nuclearly at that-people aren't going to go to the trouble of selling their homes! They're just going to get the hell out of dodge before a nuke turns them into glass! And even if they do try and sell their homes, who'd they sell them to? People who want to live in a nuclear warzone? And I know real-estate agents are sharks (to quote Lionel Hutz-"There's the truth!"*nods yes*"and the truth."*nods no*), but there's no way they'd stay to help the houses get sold!
The episode cuts to Dr. Petrie's office. Thanks to the traffic congestion, Betty, just like Karamenah, is late for her job. But Dr. Petrie isn't a villain like Fu Manchu, so he's going to greet his secretary and friend warmly..."You're late!"...Or, maybe he's as bad as Fu Manchu! Ah, 50's, how nobody misses you!
Dr. Petrie mentions how another whole ambulance of doctors was meant to have arrived by now as well. Then he makes the episode fall into a confusing mess, all by saying- "Lucky this is just a drill, and not the real thing!".Ok, what was that whole invasion opening? Was it a mass hysteria plan of Fu Manchu, or was it a drill orchestrated by the government! If it was by the government, then Fu's real eastate plan is screwed, as no-one is actually in danger. But, if this is a government drill, then why is everyone outside acting so hysterical?! They're causing so much damage and traffic jams that surely something is going to get screwed up! And that's already present without Fu having sabotaged traffic!
Outside Petrie's office, a car crashes, and someone gets out of the wreck and runs off after distracting his helpers, telling them that someone else is inside the car. Petrie and Betty help get the other man out of the car, and he is hauled into an ambulance...An ambulance that was never called...
Back at Fu's lair, the guy who ran off is back, and explains what happened. Just as Fu's about to lose his temper, Kolb comes in with Captain Jalmer (Otto Reichow), the injured man in the car, who Kolb managed to spirit away with a fake ambulance.
There's a newspaper montage of 'the stock market crashing', which makes no sense, since the whole invasion was just a drill..Or was it Fu Manchu? TELL ME PROPERLY, EPISODE!. Then, seven minutes into the episode, Nayland Smith finally appears! He is being asked by a government guy if he ever encountered any traffic sabotage during the war, and Nayland answers the guy's stupid question (To paraphrase-Guy: "How could saboteurs divert traffic?"-Smith: "By posing as traffic wardens and making traffic go in a different direction."-Guy's mind is BLOWN). Petrie and Betty arrive at the meeting, and the government guy asks them for a description of the man from the car crash. They give a description, and Nayland Smith, with a ridiculously small amount of information to go on, immediately knows that the man is Captain Hans Jalmer, formerly a nazi, and now a mercenary-a mercenary who, last time he encountered Nayland Smith, was in the employ of Fu Manchu...
Back at Fu Manchu's lair, he orders a henchman, Rudick (Mel Welles-Gravis Mushnik!) to plant false stories in Russian newspapers, as the West are always reading them. The stories he wants planted are-1: A leading Russian scientist has been awarded the highest hnour someone can get in radar science; 2: A Russian pilot has just been given an award for his 'extraordinary aerial reconaissance'; and 3: Have a photo of an American landmark be published in a Stockholm newspaper.
Sometime later, the news is reporting that the radar system of the northern hemisphere has been breached. This (falsified) information 'proves' that Russia has a superior radar system, which means that billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted in developing the West's current, supposedly now obselete radar system. Nayland Smith refuses to believe the claims, and goes off investigating.
Meanwhile, Fu Manchu is gloating evilly, and acts like a moron! He says that since everyone in America thinks that their country's radar system is useless, this will make the stock market crash... GO BACK TO SCHOOL, FU MANCHU! If America's radar becomes obsolete, the entire country will NOT become bankrupt! Fu starts acting out his evil plan even further...
Will Fu Manchu shatter America with bankruptcy and a nuclear war?
Will Karamenah and Kolb tell their delusional master how the stock market really works?
Will the episode get more sexist than a Folgers Coffee ad?
Fu Manchu's Raid is one hell of a confusing story! Out of all episode of The Adventures of Fu Manchu, Raid's plot is probably the weakest. The story is simultaneously complex, and very dumb. There's also a disconnect between the first and second halves of the episode. There's all the poorly-explained/written stuff about the drill, and real estate, then, about halfway through the episode, neither the drill, nor real estate are ever mentioned again, and Fu's plane/radar scheme.
All of the regular supporting characters get little to nothing to do. In fact, neither Nayland Smith or Dr. Petrie contribute anything to the plot until the end.
While not too bad, Raid is probably the worst episode of Adventures.
And, that's all, folks! I killed procrastination with a zyat kiss (massive dacoit points if you get that!) and pumped out six reviews for this show's episodes in only a few days, and I've finally finished reviewing all episodes of The Adventures of Fu Manchu!...I will be back later with a final post on this fun series...
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