Natasa wrote of Jenna: <I can't believe it never occured to me before: she's actually flirting with him in this scene! First she appears in that outfit, and then *she* directs him to the treasure room - knowing what his reaction would be.>

And this is *after* the charming little exchange:

JENNA: You wouldn't be trying to get rid of me would you? AVON: I have to get rid of Blake first. You're next on my list. JENNA: That would have been very disarming, if I didn't know that you meant it.

<Why would she do that? Why didn't she keep silent about the room until Blake was out of danger? Unless, of course, she was also quite tempted by the gems and half-considered dumping Blake as well?>

I think she was tempted, but couldn't quite bring herself to the sticking point. It's always hard to get a handle on Jenna's character, but given her background and her tendency to hardness, the wealth may have put a rather large dent in her *very new,* untried (and from my reading rather unnatural for her to this point) alleigance to the idealist (she never did answer Avon's "what do you want to be rich or dead," did she?)

<Perhaps Avon just articulated what they both had in mind? (And then she articulated refusal to desert Blake - which they also both had in mind).>

Yup. Had he *really really* wanted to stop her hitting that teleport button to bring Blake back, he could've. I find the whole thing a bit like Avon and Cally in Horizon ... he needs someone else to *agree* to the decision to desert before he can actually *do* it.

The whole mess impacts rather nicely on their entire subsequent history, IMO, and they never do quite forgive each other - Avon never quite forgives Jenna for not agreeing to go before he was in too deep emotionally to do it himself (as he proved to be in the very next episode :-)) and Jenna never quite forgives Avon for the fact that she did genuinely consider the offer. That almost-flirting, and the rather nice light teasing:

JENNA: I don't think he likes you, somehow. AVON: I think I may have to reprogram this machine. JENNA: That still won't make you likable.

- disappear; from then on they can be brisk and business-like (Bounty) or coldly witty (Shadow), but there's a definite touch of acid in the interaction right the way through to Star One.

and on a different Avon-and ...

<I guess with Servalan sex appeal is closely related to the appeal of power, so she started noticing Avon when he became the "owner" of that big ship, and "seduce Avon" became synonymous with "get the Liberator".>

Yeeesss, she was probably bright enough to realise early that Blake was about as seduce-able as a rock - it's a wonderful non-relationship they have, they show absolutely *no* interest, good or bad, in each other as human beings. Apart from Gan, I don't think there was any member of the Liberater crew past or present whom she had less to do personally with than Blake, was there? (This is, of course, because Travis was created to do all the personal interacting with Blake, preferably with extreme and violent prejudice. But that's not Playing the Game).

And Avon? For the first two series, had his attention span fully occupied trying to keep *up* with Blake, anyway ...

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