The Barefaced Contessa

The Barefaced Contessa gives Ken a woman from his past and a scheme that is aimed at him. Jean Di Cesare and her daughter Isabella run a fashion show on a boat, taking money for dresses they never intend to deliver. They are planning to trick Ken as well.

CBS is guarding a charity antiques auction at Kedleston Hall, and Ken is expecting Jean. She is one of his old flames, who left him ten years ago and later married an Italian count, Vincenzo Di Cesare.

She tells Ken she has left the Count because he beat her, and that he now claims the sports car she took with her. Isabella is being followed by a lovesick Italian baker, Enzo, whom she met through a dating agency her mother used to run, and a scruffy man in an even scruffier car is following them both.

Jean moves in with Ken, and their old passion returns, in a scene where they make toast while miming to music from Carmen. When Harry suggests she might have ulterior motives, Ken will not listen. Harry follows Isabella and sees Enzo bundle her into a car.

The scruffy man is Jerry Owens, who works for a debt-collection agency and wants the car back for the firm that hired it out. He tells Harry that Jean and Isabella are known con-artists, blacklisted for credit under thirty different names. Ken is gutted and refuses to believe it.

Jean then has second thoughts. She tells Ken everything, saying she wants to put her dishonest past behind her and live with him. But Isabella is not finished. Without her mother's knowledge, she pretends that Ken is working for the Count and demands £5,000. Ken, unaware that this is the scheme, offers to get it, and reluctantly asks Rocky to sell White Lightning, which Rocky says is like the Lone Ranger selling Tonto. Harry and Rocky hide the bike instead, and Harry withdraws the money from his own account.

Jean is disgusted at what she has done and knows Ken could never trust her again. After several attempts to write a farewell note she leaves a message on his answering machine. She and Isabella drive off, but Harry and Jerry Owens stop them, Harry demands the money and Jerry repossesses the car. Ken is feeling sorry for himself at home when Harry turns up with a trailer carrying White Lightning.

Helen Slavin wrote the episode and Nicholas Laughland directs. Gemma Craven plays Jean, Robin McCaffrey is Isabella, and Robert Demeger is Owens.

The best idea is Jean's change of heart. A con-woman who cannot take the money from the man she loves is more interesting than one who can, and it leaves the damage to the daughter and to Harry's bank account. The weakness is Ken, who is deceived for much longer than the audience. The fan site observes that the dates do not quite add up either, since Isabella looks older than the ten years since Jean left Ken allow. It is nonetheless a warm, sad episode.