Luke Huntley: John P Ryan, Anthony Reuben: Allan Arbus, Jimmy: Martin Kove, Doris Huntley: Barbara Stuart, Det. Webster: Charles Cyphers, Gloria: Victoria Peters, Gertrude: Anne Ramsey, Minnie: Marki Bey, Palmer: Sy Kramer, Hotel Clerk: Ruth Forman. Written By: Amanda J Green and Rick Edelstein, Directed By: Charles Picerni.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

While Luke and Hutch enthusiastically greet each other, Gertrude (played by the remarkable Anne Ramsey) remarks to Starsky with dry condescension that it doesn’t seem right to charge her with being a “peeping tom” with “those two guys are carrying on like that in public.” This is an uneasy reference to the physical intimacy that often marks not only the relationship of Starsky and Hutch but with other friends and family members (Jake Donner in “The Plague”, John Colby in “Deadly Imposter” and Starsky’s brother Nick, to name a few). Luke then hugs Starsky – hard, from behind – and Starsky is similarly physical with Luke, dabbing his eyes with his tie as Luke jokes about Hutch making detective first class in seven years (an unusually fast track). Later, when all three approach Luke’s suburban home, Hutch and Luke are again arm-in-arm. At the station, Starsky dismisses Gertrude’s comment lightly but perhaps this woman, with her polyester pantsuit and putrid scowl, is indicative of the insufferable ridicule the show has endured over the years.

On a side note, voyeurism and engaging in public displays of affection are not the same thing, no matter how Gertrude tries to swing it. The fact that she compares these, or in fact is excusing or justifying her behavior by pointing out that some sights are worth ogling, is just spiteful on her part.

The Perils of Nostalgia: At The Pits, after another long male-banter session, the sort of bullshit-crap guys indulge in with no women around, Hutch asks about Luke’s wife and Luke makes a disparaging comment about marriage. Hutch is quick to say, “you’ve always been the happiest of couples, huh? Come on.” This defensive remark underscores Hutch’s enduring– and occasionally blinding– sentimental streak. He wants to believe people he admires (particularly married couples) are stable, happy and normal. He is unaware, or perhaps consciously overlooks, his former partner’s unpleasantness, and his itchy dissatisfaction with himself and his life. Notice throughout Starsky maintains a respectful distance, neither contributing to or disagreeing with his partner’s opinions, even when Hutch makes a semi-fool of himself defending Luke and his wife who, while childless, has “enough love for ten kids”. Note Starsky’s careful glancing at his partner. You can almost read his mind as he watches Hutch hurtling toward disillusionment.

Luke Huntley says, “Cops are on the street more than he’s in the bedroom … I didn’t even give her a kid. I love her like my right hand.” Wait – his right hand? Both Starsky and Hutch admirably resist sniggering at this.

Both Hutch and Starsky have father or mentor figures who weaken and fail (figuratively in the case of Huntley, John Blaine and Mike Ferguson, and literally in the case of Jake Donner) and “best friends” from the past who turn out to be rotten (John Colby) or at least questionable (Ted McDermott in “The Action”). Starsky’s brother is a reprobate. Girlfriends are murdered (Terry and Gillian) or murderous (Diana). “Uncle Joe” Durniak is a Mafiosi. The suits in the LAPD are out to get them (Chief Ryan, etc) as well as a collection of lawyers, fellow officers, and feds. It’s always “who do we trust time”.

Luke is an unpleasant, agitated, gum-chewing, facile character, disparaging his assignment as soon as he gets it and seeming to have a big chip on his shoulder about what he’s entitled to, as well having a grudge against marriage in general and his wife in particular. Has he soured over the years, or has Hutch always been willing to overlook his irritating flaws? Luke boasts that he taught Hutch everything he knows. Can this possibly be true?

Anthony Reuben, played by the slightly miscast Allan Arbus, is another suit-wearing crime boss in a nice, paneled office, with ferns and a glittering cognac-stocked bar. However, he is the only one in the canon who comes off as equitable and practical rather than sadistic or scheming. Throughout, he maintains an intellectual composure verging on the soulful.

What time is it when Doris comes home, and moments later, the guys arrive? There is sunlight, and also darkness. There are shadows cast, but evening crickets singing.

Why does Doris wonder if Luke is home, calls out for him, when it is clear his car isn’t in the driveway and all the lights are off?

It seems odd that Doris, a cop’s wife for twenty-five years, would address Starsky as “Mr. Starsky,” after he is introduced as Hutch’s partner. Rank appears to be pretty important to cops, and she would know it. Is Doris making a faux pas when she addresses Starsky as a civilian? There are other examples of title corrections, for instance in “Partners”, when Dobey corrects the nurse, telling her to address him by his rank, and in “Black and Blue”, when Hutch corrects Mary when she calls him “Mister,” saying it’s “Officer.”

Where has Luke been all these years? Why has Hutch lost touch with him? Luke is nicely ensconced in his bungalow, and he’s still with the department. And yet Hutch has never been to his house and has never met him off-hours. And Luke has to re-introduce him to his wife.

What do you suppose is Starsky’s attitude toward Luke? Marginally friendly, is he also accepting of Luke’s importance to Hutch, bothered by his partner’s hero-worship, or is he skeptical of the whole thing?

Hutch reveals more of his blind spot when he remarks to Starsky as they walk off, “she got sick in a hurry, didn’t she?” Starsky says, “You’re the family friend. How’d you diagnose it?” and Hutch says, “I don’t think I want to.”

Why, after Luke makes his touching speech to his wife about her troubles are all his fault, does he abuse her in public? He’s rude about her at Huggy’s but in private he’s supportive. Does he think he has to be a macho shit around other men? Does he assume the new breed – the much-younger Starsky and Hutch, both on the cusp of feminism – are not that much different than he is, and fall into the women-are-bad-news category?

It’s nice to see our friend Sy Kramer again, this time as a protected witness against Reuben. Kramer, as in “Cover Girl”, manages to imbue his small role with a remarkably crisp superciliousness, making Palmer not only a major pain to protect, but memorably so.

Does it matter that Jimmy shoots Palmer so that Palmer flies backwards out the window and down several stories? Wouldn’t a “quieter” murder give Jimmy more time to leave the hotel without detection? This way chambermaids are screaming and people are alerted to the grisly scene nearly instantaneously, making a discreet getaway more difficult than it has to be.

Huntley says to Reuben, “either you pay off, or I blow the whistle that you arranged it.” Who is threatening who at this point? And does it really matter? Both have about an equal amount of dirt on the other; Huntley could have spun this differently, but since his goal was to get the money back, he was forced into a corner. He blackmails Anthony Reuben with a tape recording that not only implicates Reuben, but just as strongly implicates himself. How was Luke going to explain his voice on the tape?

Reuben tries to set Luke up as a “high-minded cop with too many years on the force … and too little to show for it … finally breaks down and goes on the take.” We’re meant to see Reuben as a myopic gangster, but is he really that far off the mark?

Enraged by Dobey’s skepticism, Hutch yells that “Luke was a cop with twenty-five years on the force!” using a long career as a way of convincing Dobey of Huntley’s integrity. In “Strange Justice” it’s Dobey indignantly using the twenty-years-on-the-force argument to bolster Dan Slate’s honor, a fact Hutch pointedly ignores.

“Where you going,” Starsky says calmly as Hutch rages about Luke’s innocence and then starts to leave. Hutch blows him off. Dobey looks at Starsky. “What do you think?” he asks him. Starsky replies, “What do you think I think?” The two of them look at each other as if they have come to an understanding. But the question remains: what is Starsky thinking? That Luke is innocent? Or that Hutch is wrong? Or that Hutch needs to be left alone? What?

Doris tells Hutch, “I’ve been a cop’s wife long enough to have learned not to ask any questions.” Apparently Luke is of the same school, although asking more questions over the past ten years might have averted the situation. Luke should start with, “Honey, where are your wedding rings?”

Luke’s a seasoned cop. Why doesn’t he put Jimmy on the floor, or better yet handcuff him, in order to secure this deadly killer? Standing upright with hands against the wall does nothing, a fact Jimmy dramatically proves.

Hutch has Luke’s photo with him at the murder scene. He’s obviously begun suspecting him long before, and yet he’s kept it to himself, in yet another instance of the two partners being estranged from one another.

Hutch tells Starsky before they get to the warehouse stand-off with Reuben and Luke, “Look, I promised Doris I’d give her the money.” Interesting that money is the motivating factor – and indeed the rationale – for all the death and despair in the lives of these people. Doris tells Hutch about Luke but extracts a promise Hutch will return the money to her, putting Hutch in a terrible moral dilemma. Luke sets up Reuben and Hutch for the money. Luke sets up Palmer for the money. Hutch tries to convince Dobey the money is more important than career, integrity, or even human lives. In the end, it is unclear if Doris gets the money but she sure loses her husband. If Doris thought waiting for him to come home from work was lonely, she now gets to wait out a shameful prison sentence.

Dobey muses, regarding Hutch’s comment defending Huntley, that he’s thankful he would never have to make that decision. Just for fun though, would Dobey make the same decision as Huntley, in his place? Would Hutch?

Hutch doesn’t have one bit of hesitation about taking Starsky with him after Luke asks Hutch to come alone to the meet. We’d all like to think Hutch would have taken him no matter what, but what if Starsky hadn’t come walking up to him in the middle of the phone call? Would Hutch looked for Starsky before he left, or was his decision more of a more well, he’s here anyway, so why not thing?

Hutch lies to Huntley about two things: the time of the meet and coming alone. He must have justify this to himself in some way. Does he consider Starsky so much apart of himself that he doesn’t even make the distinction that bringing him isn’t technically alone, or does he feel at this point Huntley doesn’t deserve honesty? And also, his having a partner to bring seems to accentuate the fact Huntley is deeply, tragically isolated. A partner of his own throughout this ordeal might have eased his burden.

Notice how Hutch doesn’t try to hide Starsky as he walks toward Luke.

Why do Reuben’s henchmen wear suits? What possible purpose can this serve? Does Reuben insist on a dress code, thinking this increases the intimidation factor?

Luke tells Reuben he “preys on lonely people”, that he is evil, but really it’s Doris’ own fault that she got into this mess. Reuben can be blamed only so far: does Doris and others like her have no responsibility in this?

Starsky is, as usual, calm and detached throughout this episode, as he is very often in the fourth season. A quiet conversation between the two of them about the situation would have much improved this episode which has, for all its narrative suspense, a kind of dull inevitability about it.

What is to become of Doris? Her husband is in jail, disgraced. Her fifty grand probably ends up in the police fund as Huntley fears. She’s got a major gambling addiction, no support and is going to be lonelier than ever.

The title of this episode is perplexing. The well-known phrase is “birds of a feather flock together.” This means people of similar attitudes and behaviors always end up together, or “like attracts like”. Ornithologists explain this behaviour as a safety-in-numbers tactic to reduce the risk of predation. Who might this refer to in this episode? Addicts and their exploiters? Cops, backing each other up no matter what? Husbands and wives, despite the lies? Huntley and Reuben, sharing a cell? Starsky and Hutch, once again united against the world? Or does the title infer Luke Huntley and Tony Reuben are closer in spirit than either one of them would admit?

Tag: Juxtapose Doris and her gambling activities with Dobey, Huggy, Starsky and Hutch avidly betting over pool at Huggy’s. Also, note how Dobey slips into jive talk as they play pool, as if all black men are part of the same ghettoized subculture. Say what?

For David Soul, music and acting are of parallel importance, and he gives Hutch a similar love of music, although his two onstage performances in “Long Walk Down a Dirt Road” and “Moonshine” are comedic ones, with him as a nervous wreck (I suspect as a self-deprecating nod to his extraordinarily successful career as a singer-songwriter) and Starsky as his enthusiastic number-one fan. Hutch also has many informal scenes of playing music (“Velvet Curtain”, “Running”, “Little Girl Lost”), and is often seen humming or singing. He writes a lyric to Marianne in “Ballad for a Blue Lady” and is excited to receive an album in the mail in “The Game”. But his best musical moment is in “Body Worth Guarding”, in which he sings a song to Anna, a scene notable for its sweetness and sincerity. Surprisingly, Starsky, often portrayed as being either tone-deaf or indifferent to music, also plays guitar and sings a fragment of a song, this time to a tense, watchful Monique in “The Avenger”. Significantly, both these scenes show the detectives offering a song as a gesture of comfort to someone they are protecting. For some fans the favorite musical moment might be the robust performance of the jocular “Black Bean Soup” both Starsky and Hutch perform for a motley collection of friends in “Death Notice”, resurrected in “The Set-Up”, the one and only time they sing together.

There is not only an abundance of singing on the part of Starsky and Hutch in the series, but an unusual amount of dancing too, owing in part to the disco craze of the times but also as an a way to compliment and contrast the muscular physicality of the fighting and chasing scenes (“Las Vegas Strangler”, “Tap Dancing”, “Fatal Charm”, “Murder at Sea”, “Death in a Different Place”, “Discomania”, “The Avenger”, “Starsky’s Brother”, “The Snitch”, and off screen in “Moonshine”). This willingness to engage in and enjoy music belies their hard, masculine characters and gives the series a truly unexpected, enjoyable optimistic element often absent from the grim content of the storylines.

Marianne Owens: Jenny O’Hara, Harry Owens: Sandy Baron, Joe Fitch: Malachi Throne, Chicky: Stack Pierce, Casey O’Brien: Arell Blanton, Stanton: John Karlen, Charlie Baron: Dominic Barto. Written By: Sidney Ellis and Paul Michael Glaser, Directed By: Paul Michael Glaser.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

This is a very perplexing episode, almost abstract its content and direction. All the action has already happened: we come in after the crimes have been committed, the bullets have flown, and the perpetrator has been arrested and is facing a grand jury investigation. This is the aftermath, and the atmosphere is largely hushed, almost mournful, with bits and pieces laying on the ground. Viewers have to infer from those pieces what has happened, and what is now happening, and make sense of it all.

One would think that an episode written and directed by one of the stars would tend to concentrate on the relationship of the two detectives, the most important element in the show. Unfortunately this is not the case. Starsky and Hutch spend most of this episode as virtual strangers, Hutch refusing to share information with his partner or to even call in, and Starsky barely registers when Hutch arrives late, having been beaten up. Starsky ends up trying to do both their jobs by himself and cover for his partner, while Hutch gets too involved with the person he should be investigating. It’s “Rosey Malone” all over again, this time with Hutch, but without any of the sparkle or wry humor between them.

The Tale of Rosey and Marianne: both men go undercover to get information from women connected to someone who is living a life of crime. Both men fall in love and sleep with these women. Both men need reminders from the other that they are cops who are supposed to be doing a job. Both men get discovered as undercover cops and face the wrath from the women, and both men feel bad about the duplicity, but justify it to themselves and the woman by claiming powerful feelings of love and protection, that the process is ultimately for their own good. And most importantly, and ironically, both Starsky and Hutch fail in their efforts, as Rosey flees to Mexico with her father and Marianne refuses to give up her brother.

We catch a glimpse of Glaser’s wonderful flair for directing in the first scene, in which the shadow of the killer plays on the wall.

Notable is the extreme amount of smoking in this episode. The four major characters, Fitch, Casey, Marianne and Harry, are all desperate for a cigarette. Lighting a cigarette and inhaling is a useful device for all of them: it allows time to think, slows down the moment, fills a terrible void, calms the nerves, and in Marianne’s case it provides a tiny frisson of power in that it creates a need for a chivalrous gesture from Hutch. For Casey here in the opening scene it is as a cruelly casual response to the fatal beating going on only a few feet away.

There is an unusual instance of Dobey himself at the initial crime scene. However he offers nothing of substance other than the irrelevance of the victim’s height. Because the script is so vague we are forced to assume the anxious, bad-tempered Stanton is the DA gathering ammunition for the grand jury investigation.

It’s a great scene with the intense confrontation with Stanton and Hutch, and again a director’s flair for framing: we only see Hutch’s hands grasping Stanton’s collar.

The casting of Jenny O’Hara, the queen of unshed tears, is a triumph. Trembling, fragile and intelligent, her continual smoking and drinking suggests a deep psychic discomfort. When she confronts Hutch later in the episode and cries out that she’s a person, and that his actions hurt, her voice breaks in a truly heart wrenching way. In fact she uses her voice in many creative ways: it breaks in pain, soars in song, raises in anger, and drops to a whisper. Does she do her own singing? It’s very good and it sounds like it could be her. The only time in the entire episode we see her smiling is when she’s giving a blistering rendition of “High Flying Bird”.

Brother-sister relationships are always fascinating and they’re rarely depicted in film or television. This one is especially good, with Harry alternately tender and dominating, cruel and helpless. And in the end, risking it all for her. They also look a lot alike, with the same long face and prominent cheekbones, dark hair and large eyes.

Part of Soul’s song “1927 Kansas City” is recited when Hutch shows his lyrics to Marianne, which is a lovely detail. Stack Pierce, who plays Marianne’s accompanist, is a professional pianist.

The music in this episode is well-chosen, subtle, sophisticated, and always advances the plot. In the beginning we see Marianne singing “High Flying Bird”, its lyrics indicative of her situation: the character in the song longs for the freedom of a bird while lamenting her situation. “Lord, look at me here, I’m rooted like a tree here”. (The words notably, change the gender of the bird from the traditional female to a “he”, no doubt reflecting a woman’s longing for the freedom and power inherent in men.) Later, she is practicing with the low-key but loyal accompanist Chicky, attempting to master the difficult “Nature Boy” by Eden Abez with its echoes of Dvořák, which has become a jazz standard. Again, like “High Flying Bird”, this is a song about someone longing for freedom and independence, and the assuredness that the greatest achievement is to be loved by someone who loves you in return. Significantly, Marianne can’t get this right and quits in frustration, signaling to us that she is unable to be free, or loved. And then she sits listening to “Nobody’s Heart” while sitting alone in her room following Hutch’s betrayal: “Nobody’s heart belongs to me, heigh ho, nobody cares. Nobody writes his songs for me, no one belongs to me.” This echoes her bitterness about her revelation that Hutch, although ostensibly having written her a song, is only interested in using her for a larger, more complicated means of justice. Then, right after, we see her gorgeously silhouetted in gold, in the dark of her club, singing Hoagy Carmichael’s extraordinarily beautiful “Baltimore Oriole”. Again with the bird theme, she laments “no life for a lady, to be dragging her feathers around in the snow”. This music is not predictable, is sensitively chosen, perfectly reflects the action without hammering home its point.

Hutch is undercover, hoping to get close enough to Marianne to get to Fitch. He’s been in this position for less than a week, and has known Marianne for less than three days. Why, then, does he force her on the dangerous dash through the streets to shake loose Fitch’s henchmen? He even pulls her into a hiding place and puts his hand over her mouth in an aggressive, frightening manner. This is an antagonistic move on his part and doesn’t make sense from a policing standpoint, or a moral one. Fitch immediately pegs him as a possible undercover cop, and what woman would put up with that sort of behavior? (Marianne does, apparently,which is part of her problem.)

The sparring between Starsky and Hutch regarding duty is another tiresome repeat of an argument we have heard many times. It’s depressing to watch. Unlike other episodes (“Rosey Malone”, “Bindfold”) there is no escalation into cleansing and possibly redemptive shouting, and no culminating gesture of affection either (“Lady Blue” and “Pariah”).

Nice direction again as the morning sun is reflected off Starsky’s badge as he wakes Harry.

Marianne is listening to Joe Pizzarelli’s “Nobody’s Heart” when her brother comes to visit. Marianne may be the most depressed person in the series, but she still has the get-up-and-go to have fresh flowers in her room. From a fan, perhaps?

Harry says, “the two of you shared a bed and not a word was spoken?” He is assuming a sexual encounter that we not only don’t witness, but see no evidence of. Marianne doesn’t correct him. Assuming Harry is right, when would this have happened? After their hair-raising run down city streets? And if it didn’t happen, why wouldn’t Marianne put her brother at ease and tell him he’s exaggerating? Is this a matter of pride with her, or does she just not care about the details? Another clue as to something sexual taking place between them is later in the alley, when Hutch says “I’m sorry” and Marianne says bitterly, “About what? It wasn’t too bad, was it?”

When Hutch and Marianne have their revealing conversation in the alley, how much does Casey overhear, if anything? And why talk knowing Fitch’s loyal soldier is so close? Hutch is very aware of him, but seems to wait until Casey has walked out of earshot, but there is no way Casey would let this golden opportunity to eavesdrop go by.

Marianne tells Hutch he is as interested in what happens to her as the “man on the moon.” Later, Hutch’s answer to her about who beat him up is “the man on the moon.” Is Hutch slinging it back at her, remembering her earlier comment? How hostile is this, anyway?

It seems impossible Hutch has genuine romantic feelings for Marianne. She’s so hard she’s in danger of shattering, like a frozen twig. Hutch is normally turned off by brittle, clingy women, and Marianne is both: even her powerful contempt is mired in a desperate neediness. He may have protective feelings but he’s very distant and careful. He has two very subtle moments in which the door is open to a more substantial relationship and he fails to walk through both times. The first is when he is pleading with her to help. She tells him she will marry him, and they can go away forever. All Hutch has to do is say, “Yes,” echoing what he is asking her to do. Hutch hesitates in his answer, and then says, “That’s not the point.” Later, Marianne tells him she can’t do it alone. Hutch says, “We could do it.” Marianne replies, “You really believe that?” It is Hutch’s second waffle-answer, “I’d like to,” confirms the fact he isn’t entirely sure and can’t be counted on. Both of Hutch’s hesitations, while entirely human, are not what Marianne wants to hear.

Marianne telling Hutch the solution to her sticky situation is to get married strikes me as peculiarly old-fashioned, and not very practical. Only in Jane Austen novels is marriage ever the solution to anything, but perhaps she’s being ironic.

The station seems all a-buzz in this episode, unusually so, possibly reflecting Starsky’s whirling mind. Phones are ringing, people rushing around, voices fill the background. It’s quite sad when Starsky asks other cops if they have seen Hutch around. Not too long ago, the opposite would be the case: Starsky alone would know the whereabouts of his partner. Now, he is as clueless as everyone else.

One of Hutch’s character mainstays is he has never worn a watch, in part because of his contrary, conspiratorial loathing of modern conveniences. But now he is wearing one. He looks at it, and then asks Marianne the time. Is his because his watch was broken in fight? Is his vision blurry? Or is he trying to engage her to stay longer?

Let’s get this straight (and in this hazy, backward episode getting something straight is not easy): Casey snaps a photo of Hutch in the alley, then one or more of Fitch’s men grab and beat him. Even though they have discovered somehow he’s a cop, the beating isn’t fatal, but rather violent notification of Fitch’s fury and nothing more (why not? Wouldn’t they be tempted to dispatch him permanently? Fitch has no problem committing multiple murders, and right now he’s so far into it one more couldn’t make a difference). Hutch escapes and goes to Marianne’s, either to warn her or shock her by his appearance into doing the right thing. Fitch, frustrated by the escape, then puts a hit on him by using the photograph (although, having snapped it long before assaulting Hutch, one might think Fitch had been planning something all along, because why else would he take the photograph in the first place? As a means of identifying your future victim? A ghoulish souvenir?).

I don’t care how rushed Starsky is, surely he could have actually stopped the car to talk to Huggy, who has some very important information to impart. However, the scene is visually arresting, and Huggy’s panting jog adds to the sense of anxiety.

Thank god for that tag. Without that tag I could shoot myself, the show is so depressing and dour. This is one time the jokey, relaxed element of the tag is welcome. Hutch is allowing himself to be all goofy with Starsky, talking happily to his plants without a hint of self-consciousness. He seems relieved, nearly giddy, to be rid of this case (and rid of Marianne). However, nothing can quite overcome the bleakness of this episode. Nothing is solved: Marianne has lost her brother, the case against Fitch is pending, the bitterness of Hutch’s failure undercover lingers. Even the joke at the end has a sour aftertaste: the police don’t get their raise, and Hutch’s plan for a greenhouse is doomed.

Clothing notes: Hutch once again wears his signature moon-and-stars necklace, and with it the tusk pendant. He’s also a standout in a buttery-soft caramel fringe jacket that looks so right on him it could be his own.

Buzzy “Angel” Boone: Steve Oliver, Candy Reese: Lynn Benesch, Tommy Reese: Ray Walston, Hammerlock Grange: Richard Karron, Camille Boone: Hilary Beane, Stella: Paula Victor. Written By: Joe Reb Moffly, Robert Dellinger and George Arthur Bloom, Directed By: Sutton Roley.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

This is a strange, uneven episode, with narrative difficulties and an overall sense of the blahs, and you’d think the series has explored the world of wrestling more than enough in its short run (“The Heavyweight”, “Omaha Tiger”).

The first thing Hutch does when Starsky talks about the will is to power up like an appliance plugged into a wall circuit and start in with the smoothly elaborate insulting. He doesn’t even know the details, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

Starsky says that one week “from today”, following his inheritance, he’s going to be a free man. Hutch holds Starsky back from complaining too vociferously to Dobey, telling him to at least wait until the will is read. All very friendly, but what does Hutch really think about Starsky being so ready to quit his job, especially without even talking to him about it? Is he worried about Starsky’s careless, carefree attitude about something so important to both of them, or does he think Starsky’s fortune can’t possibly be real? Perhaps he is accustomed to his partner’s wild swings of euphoria, and is confident that when the time comes he wouldn’t walk away no matter what. Joking aside (and this scene is very jokey) it is unfortunate we are not given any indication of how Hutch really feels about any of this.

There is a fine line between Starsky’s eagerness to give up his job, abandon his partnership with Hutch, buy a lot of flashy stuff and show off his sudden riches, and his brother Nick’s greedy approach to life. In “Starsky’s Brother” we were encouraged to dismiss Nick and his avaricious ways, but Starsky seems to be cut from the same garish cloth.

When Hutch says “sorry about your uncle” Starsky looks embarrassed, as he should. And when Hutch gives his condolences, does it seem as if he’s doing it knowing full well that Starsky isn’t mourning, not one little bit, and so deserves to be ashamed of himself? Starsky deserves his fate when he eventually gets such a small amount from his uncle’s estate.

When Hutch tells Starsky, “It takes all makes and models to fill that four-lane highway we call life,” does he consider himself in the upper echelon and Starsky not? Would he put himself in the Rolls and Bentley category? And if he does, isn’t that just a little but ironic, considering what he chooses to drive?

Gym Notes: Hutch is excited to be back in a sweaty, dirty gym. “Look at this!” he says, pointing.”Look at that!” and “I used to do that.” His touristy finger-pointing is wonderful (and lightly done too, kudos to Soul for that), and entirely consistent with his earlier claim in “Omaha Tiger” of being a three-time state collegiate wrestling champion. It is hilarious when Starsky flashes a peace sign to some nut furiously punching a ball. A guy in a trench coat stares at them, and Starsky says, apropos of nothing, “I’d walk a mile for a camel.” That’s a Camel Cigarettes advertising logo, but why it’s said here (to Hutch’s happy chuckle) is a mystery. A camel-colored coat, perhaps? Who knows?

What’s the difference between a boxing and wrestling environment? Is there one? With all the posters, punching bags and other apparatus, this place reads more “boxing” than the sham entertainment of old-style wrestling. Did the episode’s writers go the wrestling route rather than the more legitimate boxing route because of its grimy dilapidation, “as stale as yesterday’s mashed potates”? An excuse to drag out silly costumes, or simply more room for pathos?

It’s assumed, for no reason, that the intended victim of the shooting is Buzzy Boone. But why not Hammerlock Grange, who was also in the ring at the time? Nobody entertains this idea for a moment.

When Prop Universes Collide: I normally do not point out details external to the Starsky and Hutch world, but it’s worth mentioning that the poster in Sammy Reese’s office advertises a fight between “Kid McCook” and “Mike Mason” was used in the original Star Trek series in the episode “City on the Edge of Forever.” When Star Trek “Enterprise” did an episode entitled “Storm Front,” they used the same one. This is second-hand information not verified personally.

Hammerlock gives Starsky a painful rundown of exactly what happened when Boone was shot. Starsky goes down hard, and groans. Do you think he falls on his holstered gun? If so, imagine the pain.

Why are people going to the Main Event at the wrestling match going into door marked “Studio 5”?

Perhaps no scene magnifies the dilution of the series in its fourth and final season than the scene between Hutch and Camille, Boone’s first wife, largely because it so strongly echoes the interrogation scenes between Hutch and Simon Marcus in Season Two’s “Bloodbath”. Granted, Marcus is sitting in jail after being tried and convicted of his crimes and Camille is being interviewed in her home, but if you take the two scenes, only two years apart, and look at them side by side, one is struck by the intensity and focus of the Marcus scenes, and the passivity in Camille’s scene. Both Camille and Marcus have information vital to the case at hand. Both are talking in mystical riddles. Marcus is superior and Camille bewildered, but both are deeply wounded to the point of psychosis. Both are filmed in semi-darkness. Both have retreated to a “spiritual” life to escape the rigors of everyday pain. But here the similarities end. Camille is a suspect, but Hutch has five minutes with her, dismisses her as a nut, and that’s that. We also don’t see Hutch arrive or leave, adding to this scene’s insubstantiality. We don’t hear his report to either his partner or Dobey. He doesn’t use his extensive experience with mentally illness. But if he paid attention to what Camille was saying, as he did with Simon Marcus, he might have picked up the clues in both her odd manner and her repeated words. The first half of these repeated words appear to be giving Hutch her motivation, the second half of them are more of a soothing verse for herself. Here, in order, are all of Camille’s repeated words: “years, change, me, lines, years, change, him, hold onto, here, today, tomorrow, understood, still friends.”

Camille tells Hutch, “Can you predict the path of a vine?…The light and the dark are deceptions, by one we are shadows, by the other, ghosts … but in love we are solid, in love we are true, in love there is reason for all that we do.” This is also strikingly similar to what Simon Marcus tells Hutch. Perhaps the real mystery here is how Buzzy Boone managed to get two very different women to adore him: alterative-lifestyle Camille, and spunky down-to-earther Candy.

The suspenseful scene in which Hutch opens Boone’s ticking locker to see the gruesome skull is a Sutton Roley classic: good angles, sudden explosive action, and briefly unfocused camera lens heightening the sensation of shock.

“Wrestler Claims Victory in Unscheduled Bout with Dummy” is headline on page three. Is this where Hutch hatches his plan to have Starsky portray the Golden Angel, Hutch focusing in on the key word “dummy”? And does Hutch think up this plan, putting his partner at risk of injury, because of his deep unhappiness with Starsky’s preoccupation with his inheritance?

Hutch and Starsky do not work together very often on this case. Hutch reveals some hidden animosity when he tells Huggy that Starsky is “spending more time talking about the will than he is on this case”. Hutch normally hides his emotions effectively. How bugged is he that his partner is preoccupied with money, and is that different than being preoccupied by a woman?

Buzzy Boone is eating in nearly every scene he’s in. Despite being at the center of this mystery, he’s not a particularly well-drawn character, but this detail may indicate a casual, pleasure-driven personality and a basic happy-go-lucky approach to life (not even getting shot affects his appetite). “The Golden Angel” is announced as the “Wrestling Champion of the World.” Even taking into consideration wrestling’s dramatic fall from popularity, Boone does not look or act like a champion of the world in any sense. He doesn’t appear to be ambitious or disciplined. He looks to be about 35 or older, making him slightly over the hill, even in the world of showbiz wrestling.

It is very touching that as Mortal Enemies Angel and Hammerlock are being announced, (Hammerlock being “the man you all have learned to hate,”) the two of them are helping each other get ready for the “interview”. Hammerlock helps Angel with his outfit and gently straightens out his halo. Angel smooths out Hammerlock’s moustache. Which leads to what I believe is the over-arching theme of this episode: truth and lies, reality and play-acting. The writers are telling us that these things are not always mutually exclusive. Tommy Reese’s assertion that wrestling is the “goss-i-pull truth” is both far from the truth and yet truth condensed. The “grudge match” masks the true friendship between the two wrestlers. Camille engineers frightening but non-lethal stunts to act out her negative feelings. Masks are worn by everyone, for good and ill.

Veteran actor Ray Walston is truly wonderful in this episode. Natty and crisply elegant, he is stern and smart one moment, and then convincingly cheesy in the next. He lives up to his “Smiling” nickname with ghastly, empty grins.

The scene in which Hutch tells Starsky (and Dobey) that the biggest audience of the year is expected for the fight is a truly odd one. There is a deeply thoughtful, almost philosophical silence as Starsky stands in the doorway, thinking. The silence continues for an unusual length of time. Sad music is heard. The long shot slowly pans in, and then swivels to the back of Dobey’s head as he stands looking out the window. As with much of this episode, the emotional undercurrent does not match the on-screen content. For instance, the pivotal scene with Camille, although nicely staged, is basically a throw-away, while this fairly inconsequential acknowledgement of the bloodthirsty aspects of popular culture is treated with Shakespearean gravity.

The referee “Louis the Nose” is a great, unexpected addition to the story. Hutch can simply not stay away from the theatrical makeup. He looks very much like his alter ego in “The Game”, complete with bulbous nose. He is allowed to vent his more severely annoying traits as well.

Hutch, as the referee, yells to the officials, “Expension, expension,” which is an unknown word.

Was the whole set up predicated on the idea that Starsky and Hutch suspect, or are certain, that Camille Boone is the perpetrator of the heinous acts? This is never commented on, or explained, even in the tag. We are then forced to imagine the entire performance – having Candy acknowledge her “true love”, Angel agreeing to take off the mask, etc, and including the “unexpected” element of Boone, unable to stay away, leaping to the ring – was all scripted by Starsky and Hutch to enrage Camille into jumping up and acting out. But was it? How much of this was intentional, and how much was happenstance?

If Starsky and Hutch suspected Camille was homicidal and dangerous, and if they see her enter the wrestling venue, why didn’t they just nab her as she walked in? They could have easily confiscated her weapon and saved everybody a lot of trouble. Camille most likely would have confessed – loudly, ferociously, and at length. It’s unusual enough for a young, single woman to attend a wrestling match to spot her a mile away, although it’s possible they were fooled by her wig and dark glasses.

Both Lillian Spenser and Camille Boone are wives who don’t like the violence in their husbands’ “sports” job. (here, and in “The Heavyweight”)

Coincidence: Eddie “Omaha Tiger” Bell nearly suffocates Hutch in the wrestling ring, Starsky sharply calls it off, saving Hutch. Now Dobey nearly strangles Hutch in wrestling ring by pulling him through two twisted ropes, Starsky sharply calls it off, saving Hutch.

Tag: it’s rather nice how Starsky orders a flamboyant catered affair to celebrate The Angel’s bout, showing his true generous nature. Buzzy says “deep down inside (Camille) hated me.” This is not accurate, and goes even further to showing ol’ Buzz as a genial, good-hearted moron. Camille loved him, deeply and violently. What she hated was the various losers and parasites (and Candy-coated temptations) of the wrestling world that robbed her of the man she loved. Why she translated this into shooting the object of her devotion is a mystery typical of the Forth Season, in which logic is very often sacrificed for splashy theatrics. Shouldn’t she have shot relentless promoter “Smiling” Tommy Reese instead, or better yet, his daughter?

We know Camille is responsible for the attacks on Boone. But is she physically responsible, or did she hire someone to do the dirty deeds? The timed devices are sophisticated. Planting the flashing skull in Boone’s locker isn’t easy, especially if someone were to recognize the ex-wife (no one did). The shooting is delicate, and specific, indicating a professional assassin. The phone calls are perfectly timed. To accomplish all these acts she must have hired a hitman, similar, eerily so, to the similarly named “Angel” of “Cover Girl”, a guy also proficient with bombs and guns. How good would it have been to have Walter “Angel” Allen escape detection in “Cover Girl”, only to pop up and get nabbed in this episode? But that aside, who Camille hired is left unsolved, and unacknowledged, which is too bad.

Starsky’s uncle’s odd generational birth control issues: the uncle has fifteen children, who in turn have a total of only three children among them. Those three children have an astonishing thirty-two children, an average of just over ten children per family. So what happened with the uncle’s children and their lack of offspring? Oh, and one last nice detail – Starsky’s check is dated Jan. 16, 1979, the day this episode originally aired, and an unusual contemporary element.

Clothing notes: suit jackets abound. Hutch looks great in his earth-tone wardrobe, including soft yellow jacket, sun and moon necklace and tusk necklace. Both Starsky and Hutch look less and less like the hoodlums they were always accused of resembling in earlier seasons; they both look like solid citizens in their corduroy and collared shirts.

Nick Starsky: John Herzfeld, Frank Stryker: Antony Ponzini, Victor: John O’Leary, Al: Nicholas Worth, Jake: Eddie Fontaine, Weldon: Stanley Grover, Mrs. Krupp: Joan Shawlee, Bronson: David Moses, Marlene: Elizabeth Brooks, Katie: Liberty Godshall, Carol: Linda Lawrence. Written By: Ralph Wallace Davenport and Robert Earll, Directed By: Arthur Marks.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

It’s a pet peeve of many viewers when major modifications or additions are made to characters and the audience is expected to accept these changes as a given. Starsky has never ever mentioned having siblings and here comes Nick, younger brother, to change the biography. Still, John Herzfeld gives a truly wonderful and nuanced performance here and it is to his credit that we come to accept him as a Starsky sibling without too much difficulty. He was carefully chosen to play this difficult role, some say by Glaser himself after he saw Herzfeld in a play with the possibility of replacing Glaser if Starsky was killed off in the last episode. Nick was to reform and become a cop, but that was scrapped, as was the plan to have Roz Kelly join the cast as Detective Linda Baylor (“Fatal Charm”).

Hutch is interrogating Mrs. Krupp, accused of beating her husband with a baseball bat. Of course this is played for laughs even though it isn’t remotely amusing, especially when she mentions her husband is small and frail. Mrs. Krupp also has the bat itself in her hands during the interrogation, a procedural no-no. When the other officer calls Hutch away, he asks her to charge Mrs. Krupp with “first-degree husband beating” and she says, “there’s no such charge!” This is a confusing exchange, as we never know whether Hutch really intends to charge Mrs. Krupp or if he’s merely intending to scare her with a phony indictment.

Short Memories: Dobey is seen eating out of a can of chilli. Hasn’t he learned anything from Hutch’s near-fatal experience in “The Game”? Next, Starsky is picking someone up from the airport and getting ticketed for illegal parking. Hasn’t he learned anything from “The Plague”?

Nice staging as we see only the back of a curly-haired guy in a brown leather jacket trying to pick up a pretty girl. We are intended to think “Starsky” and we do. Then the shot turns to the real deal standing a few steps behind. And first impressions don’t mean everything: Nick looks quite a lot like his brother but has none of his beauty, or his charisma.

Starsky, with awe-inspiring ease, picks up the girl right from his brother, and to top off this display of chutzpah he uses the pitfalls of his own profession to change her allegiances from brother to brother. She stares at Starsky, mesmerized, and agrees to meet with him that night at a nightclub. Nick is good-natured about this but one wonders if this thrilling display of alpha maleness is just another log on Nick’s bonfire of jealousy. Nick then says to Starsky, “Two years and you’re still trying.” Starsky smirks, “Who’s trying?” At this point Starsky hasn’t seen Nick for four years, so this remark is interesting. What happened two years ago that Nick and Starsky remember?

Nick is very well drawn by writers Ralph Davenport and Robert Earll. Throughout, he is nervous and placating, displaying an exaggerated self-confidence to his brother that withers away to nothing when on his own. He is both ambitious and lazy, vain and insecure. There are similarities between the Starskys: Nick can also be energetic, likeable and quick on his feet. But, in the classic dilemma of someone trying (largely unconsciously) to live up to an older, more powerful and more successful brother, he is missing some essential ingredients. Most importantly: the internal calm that comes from moral and ethical maturity. Without these things Nick will always suffer from insincerity and lack of impulse control. (And what do you suppose happens to him when he returns to the east coast? Yes, he performed a selfless act, assisting his brother and possibly averting a crime. But how deep does this altruism go? Does it vanish as he leans back in business class and looks out the window at the clouds, his mind wandering to unsettled scores and unclaimed money back home?)

Marlene really delivers when she arrives with her gorgeous friends. However, she changes her allegiance with Starsky with startling alacrity the moment she sees Hutch. Starsky, to whom this whole thing was a joke to begin with, couldn’t care less.

Of course Starsky and his brother end up dancing more with each other – actually ending up in each other’s arms – than the girls they were supposed to be with. This is entirely consistent with the theme of the series, that women are merely peripheral to the action and that the real story are male relationships. Also, the intensity of the physical affection the two show each other seems out of proportion with the emotional distance of their actual relationship. Is all this hugging and grabbing merely compensatory, a family trait, or a diversionary tactic meant to hide the fact they fundamentally dislike each another?

Coming back drunk from the disco, Nick is singing the Beatles’ “I’m a Loser”, with its disturbing words disguised by cheery upbeat music, so much like Nick himself, who also wears a mask and is not authentic in his daily life. Is Nick trying to tell his brother something? Should Starsky be listening more closely? Starsky notices Nick’s expensive new suit. He also comments on Nick picking up the tab for the evening. And yet he shows no curiosity about where the money is coming from. I have a sneaking suspicion Nick’s drug dealing – and drug use generally – has been well-known by Starsky for years. Perhaps he thought Nick would grow out of it eventually although it’s obvious there is nothing he can do about it anyway, as Nick is a headstrong stubborn sort of guy in no mood to be on the receiving end of brotherly advice.

Nick asks Starsky why he works so hard in such a dangerous job and for little material gain. “Tell it to me straight,” he says, “don’t you ever get tired of it? Don’t you ever get sick of it?” For all his scheming and prevaricating, Nick comes right out and asks the question. He asks it twice. “What for? What for?” There is a little silence as the two stare at each other. Nick breaks it, saying (in disgust) it’s no point in asking. It’s a strange moment that leaves us wondering. Why does Nick interrupt what could have been an honest conversation? Did he really not want to know the answer, suspecting it would be something he didn’t want to hear? Or does his disgust reveal a decades-old communication problem between them? And was Starsky going to answer? If not, what was stopping him?

What does Starsky reach up and grab on the door frame to his bedroom while talking to Nick? It looks like a dried leaf from some kind of arrangement.

Agent Weldon says pointedly to Starsky, “Maybe there ought to be a law about people like us having families.” Is he referring to Agent Bronson’s lack of children? Starsky’s brother? Or is he possibly thinking of his own children, and the fear of leaving them behind?

In “Velvet Jungle”, Hutch mentions Starsky being “back east” three years ago as they devise the barrio bar plan. Here Hutch mentions Starsky hasn’t seen Nick in four years when Nick comes to visit, two years later. It’s possible these two mentions are the same visit. This would match up to when Starsky had his first case out of uniform. But it is also entirely possible that when Starsky went back east it didn’t include seeing Nick. Nick and Starsky make a point of saying they haven’t seen each other in four years. A season earlier, Hutch mentions Starsky being on the East Coast a “few years” ago. This must be the same trip, as the times match.

Hutch, who has been exhibiting a great lack of restraint so far, finally has enough and asks Starsky, “He’s calling out to you … what’s he trying so hard to make you find out?” Typical Hutch, he is psychologically incisive and unsentimental, asking Starsky to look at things logically. But is Hutch correct when he says Nick wants his brother to understand his situation? Do you think Nick would tell the truth if Starsky asked him?

It’s great when Starsky has had enough of Nick’s facile hey-how-ya-doin’ act. When Nick gives him the exaggerated brush-off at the Pits Starsky gives us a wonderfully subtle moment of frustrated head-shake that is only partially comic.

Throughout the series, Starsky is consistently portrayed as being an honorable man, loyal friend and conscientious officer. However, Nick accuses him more than once as being a negligent and uncaring brother. In the “The Set-Up” it’s suggested the Starsky family was either protected by or bought off by the mob following the murder of his father. So, deprived of the influence of both father and brother, and surrounded by the temptations of easy money, Nick fell into the influence of the criminal life. But is Nick’s accounting to be taken at face value, or could there be more to the story than we hear? Did Nick, in fact, push his brother away, or alienate him in some way? Or did Starsky in fact turn his back on his family? If he did, does this alter our impression of him as an exemplary human being? This episode tells us a competitive and jokey relationship with one’s family members – while choosing to ignore signs of trouble – can be damaging in the long run. Both brothers are guilty of this.

Huggy explains his first name to Nick, “Huggy’s the name and my game is the same. The ladies they love me ‘cause they all want to hug me.” There is never any sign of women expressing affection for Huggy, so can this really be true? And if it is, what do you suppose the “Bear” means?

It’s interesting to watch Nick’s indifference to Huggy’s considerable charms, both before and after Starsky and Hutch’s arrival (unlike his sychophantic reaction to Dobey, whom he calls “sir”). To Nick Huggy seems like a pesky mosquito, swatted away or ignored. He merely bangs the table and demands drinks, calling Huggy a dismissive “garçon”. Why is this? Nervousness, or callousness?

Hutch tells Nick Starsky, “I don’t care what happens to you. I care what happens to your brother.” Did Starsky overhear this part at the door? If he did, would this be embarrassing, maddening, or would it merely confirm what they both already know?

Starsky shows up, Hutch leaves. Nick says yeah yeah yeah, he pushed a little weed while here in LA, as if it’s a foregone conclusion Starsky already knows and is getting ready to bust his chops. But how would Starsky learn this information? The only two people who know are Huggy – determined to keep it a secret – and Hutch, who doesn’t have time to tell him. So Starsky must have had to lean on Huggy pretty hard, unless he has other sources.

Right after the argument with Starsky, Nick accepts a dangerous job from Stryker. He said he only provided goods to the needy and soft recreational drugs to the hippie crowd but now he’s playing in the big leagues. Nick is therefore going into this not because of material gain but because of a passionate desire to prove himself worthy to his brother in some perverse way. A big F-You, basically. Which is immature, as well as stupid.

The first thing Stryker says to Nick, “I like your jacket.” The last thing Stryker says about Nick is to tell his thug to keep Nick’s jacket nice after killing him; Stryker wants to give it to his one of his nephews.

Nick admits to selling weed to Hutch, and then to Starsky, separately. Starsky is angry, it seems, not because Nick is pushing “a couple of kilos of weed,” but because the “harm is you lied to me … and I don’t know what else you might be turning.” This seems to be quite different from the way Hutch understands Nick’s dealing. Starsky sees the bigger picture, while Hutch is facing the immediate problem.

Nick isn’t especially intelligent. Case in point, when confronted by Starsky he says, “Are you working for the Abolitionists or what?” Abolitionism was all about the ending of slavery. What Nick means is Prohibition, and even that is incorrect, as Prohibition attempted to wipe out the use of alcohol, not marijuana, but Nick is probably making a generalized statement about intoxication.

Tag: Huggy is so very not-sober in the tag, jumping all over the place and blabbing excitedly. And if Nick is such a good pool player, why did he lose the first game? Or is that part of the hustle? Starsky must be in touch enough with Nick to know he is “another Will Mosconi,” or perhaps some things never change over time. There is another revenge of the lefties joke (“Captain Dobey, You’re Dead”). Speculate on the secret relief both Starsky and Hutch feel when it’s time to drive Nick to the airport.

Clothing notes. Starsky does not wear his Adidas. He looks great in his disco outfit. Nick, on the other hand, in a brand new suit we are supposed to admire, looks like a junior gangster. Every time Hutch wears a Hawaiian shirt one suspects he is wearing the back brace underneath it. Hutch continues to wear the extraordinary tusk object around his neck as well as a blue ring. Both brothers wear identical outfits – dark pants, bright orange shirts – during the majority of their time together.

Kate Larrabee: Maud Adams, Walter “Angel” Allen: Calvin Lockhart, James Brady: Allan Miller, Minnie: Marki Bey, Dr. Harriman: Russ Marin, Lindsay: Jerome Guardino, Richards: Bo Byers, Randy: Jeffrey Tambor, Big Ed: Ken Olfson. Written By: Rick Edelstein, Dan Ullman, and Robert Dellinger, Directed By: Rick Edelstein.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

There have been other professional models depicted in this series, most notably Sharman from Season Two’s “Running” as well as the bevy of background girls in “The Groupie” and “Velvet Jungle”. But Maud Adams is the only one who truly looks and acts the part. Models are more striking and strange-looking than merely pretty and Maud Adams more than fills the bill with her height, extraordinary cheekbones and deep blue eyes. To the contemporary viewer she may seem a little too old to be at the zenith of a white-hot career, but fashion’s predilection for emaciated preteens was not as common in the late 70s.

Except for the glossy Knots Landing-esque “high-end” feel to this episode (a common issue with Season Four) this is a very good episode, filled with arresting characters. Of note is Allan Miller’s Brady, with his peanut obsession and his quaking fear-based relationship with Angel. Also good is the sarcastic toy store proprietor, a contemptuous and lonely gay man in desperate need of a cocktail. The story’s urgency helps propel the episode too, although compared to past ticking-clock episodes (“The Shootout” and “Deck Watch” for example) it feels as if some of the air has leaked from the tire.

Hutch’s legendary healthy diet has hit the skids by the time the Fourth Season rolls around. Here, in the charming opening scene in which he solemnly gives legal advice to a kid, he is eating a doughnut and drinking coffee. But one has to ask the question: how does Hutch not know Stuart, the boy on the phone, isn’t another victim of abuse (“Crying Child”) but rather a smart alec who can be safely ignored?

Starsky has dental problems. Is it because it’s funnier to watch an unapologetic omnivore like Starsky deprived of his pleasures? However, unlike “Losing Streak”, the joke isn’t explored through the episode; rather, it’s dropped and never shown again. This points to a disconcerting habit in this final season: the introduction of a character or detail without any further elucidation.

Punk rock is mentioned for the first time, signaling a profound change in the cultural life of Bay City. However, this does not seem to have trickled down to the studios of the expressive photographer Randy, who orders an assistant to play energizing music at the shoot but gets flutey Muzak instead.

Why doesn’t Kate commit suicide? She’s a powerful, decisive woman. She knows what she wants. Her lifestyle and profession puts her in close proximity with any number of drugs which would do the trick. It seems strange to add the extra stress of not knowing when, or how, but possibly there is more to Kate than depression. Is she unable to inflict self-harm, does she fear the stigma attached to suicide, or – most interestingly at all, and something I would use if I were writing this episode – is she seeking to be immortalized through the ultimate in victimization?

The Logic Police: a handsome, well-dressed man pushing a baby carriage through the gritty streets of a bad neighborhood – and then abandoning that carriage – is not the best method of assassination. It’s far too showy and weird. Why don’t any passers-by, particularly women, notice him walking away from the pram? Exit Richards and Lindsay from the brownstone. If Lindsay is a witness in a sensitive court case, and in fear for his life, why not wait for police backup before walking into the street?

Angel is a classic Rotten Criminal in the series pantheon. He is fashion-conscious, vain and egocentric. He pursues “sophisticated” things (classical music and games of chess) and tosses out pseudo-intellectual statements to intimidate others. “People,” he says. “People never cease to amaze me.” This means he believes he is different, possibly better, than mere “people”. He uses toys in intricately murderous ways, more to amuse himself than for practical reasons. Like Professor Gage from “Class in Crime”, he needlessly complicates situations as a test of his own intelligence, believing he can outsmart everyone. However, unlike earlier episodes in which good and evil collide at an intersection, Angel never spars with Starsky and Hutch. There is no thrilling showdown. Therefore, we only get to see a collection of eccentricities rather than a fully-realized Villain.

Brady the go-between is coolly authoritative with Kate, but with Angel becomes a self-conscious, trembling inferior. Angel tells him, “You can soar like an eagle or self-destruct like some hophead.” He asks which one Brady thinks he is. Brady responds, in probably the most honest answer he has given anyone, “I guess it’s self-destruct.” Right after Brady’s strangely endearing answer, Angel tells Brady he won’t be able to contact him anymore. Is Brady’s answer the reason? Or had Angel decided to cut ties with him before this conversation?

Starsky goes to James Brady and shake him down. He goes alone. This is a significant scene and it should be done as a duo; because it’s a solo it feels strangely unbalanced, even though Starsky employs his wonderful trademark molassis-like menace. (Hutch is, presumably, off “comforting” Kate). It’s odd that Starsky does not ask James where Angel is, how to contact him, or any other details that may be essential in stopping the hit. Brady is the only link to a homocidal bomber who probably has a rap sheet as long as your arm. Instead Starsky issues a threat or two and then he leaves. Is Starsky so sure Brady won’t cooperate that he doesn’t even try? Doesn’t he think bringing him down to the station might shake something loose?

Unusually for someone with her wealth and celebrity status, Kate lives in a typical suburban house on a typical suburban street. She might be staying in her parent’s house except Hutch remarks on her good taste in decorating (hilariously condensed into one-word praise: “plants”) , or is she hiding out in plain sight? Also, where is her manager, her personal assistant, reps from the agency, or any number of people continually buzzing around internationally famous fashion models? I have asked this question a thousand times in other similar situations in which young women in peril are mysteriously alone (Terry in “Starsky’s Lady”, for example, or Emily from “Blindfold”).

Hutch has insisted to Starsky that he and Kate were “just friends.” However when alone with her there seems to be more than friendship in their past. Kate says, “you’re still drinking beer right out of the can?” and Hutch says “oh yeah.” This is in stark contrast to Hutch’s ex-wife Vanessa insisting he drinks “vodka with a splash of tonic.” Kate, then, knows more about Hutch’s intimate habits than his own wife did. Why, then, does Hutch insist it was nothing much when he talks to Starsky? Surely dating a girl who later becomes as famous as Kate is worth bragging about. He has certainly bragged about less than that. A small chronological problem arises when Kate mentions she knew Hutch seven years previously which puts him in the police academy or thereabouts, and not back home in the Midwest, but perhaps Kate is misremembering.

However, there are some similarities to Vanessa. Kate mentions drinking beer out of a can in the same amused, slightly disbelieving way Vanessa does when Hutch invites her to a place called The Pits and she says, “you haven’t changed.” This implies Hutch’s determination to be what these women would call “low class” has gone on for some time.

Cultural Connection: Kate has a charming Swedish accent, which means her family immigrated to the United States when she was a girl. Hutch is unusually blond and blue-eyed, and when they drink, he says Skål. Minnesota, where Hutch hails, has a very prominent Swedish population, so we can suppose Hutch is Swedish on his maternal side, unless his father changed his name, as many immigrant families did, in order to fit in (from “Hultgren”, most likely).

Kate tells Hutch, “With death over your left shoulder, everything is important.” How does that work? Some would argue that oncoming death, or a brush with death, would cause one to decide what is important and let the rest go. Or perhaps Kate means that she is no longer ignoring or dismissing the feelings of others. If we read between the lines, we can guess Kate has lapsed into self-absorption or selfishness of the feted, and has forgotten how to listen or care for others.

Hutch tells Kate he finds it hard to understand that she would hire someone to kill her before she dies of natural causes. “I don’t know you can consider death before it comes. Life is all we’ve got, whatever the circumstances.” This is an unusually sincere comment from someone who holds his emotional cards close to the chest, but there seems to be something about Kate that inspires a certain level of candor. She speaks quietly and seems very focused and mature. When Kate says she fears life of wheelchairs and bed pans, he goes on to say one of the most compassionate (and truest) things we ever hear from him: “Do you think people in hospitals, using bed pans, are no less beautiful than you or me?” This is a fascinating and quite touching conversation between two unusually beautiful people, neither of whom seem to find comfort in that aspect of themselves.

On a side note, it is interesting to note Hutch is book-ended by two women from his romantic past wanting something from him and claiming cancer as an excuse for bad or impulsive behavior: his ex-wife Vanessa and now Kate.

Notably, the Mozart sonata Angel likes continues to echo in the background music of his scenes. This is the only time I can think of in which the music is built thematically around a character.

Starsky is disrespectful to Minnie, lewdly staring and treating her disrespectfully, although one suspects he will give her full credit for the post office idea. Minnie, oddly enough, has migrated from coroner to police officer (“Discomania”). She is still a lot of fun and has the deathless line: “you’re a trashy boy, Starsky.”

Hutch’s happy relationship with Kate is an uneasy echo of three previously “happy” relationships: Jeanie, Gillian, and ballerina Anna. All these take place under artificial circumstances: the woman knows she is in danger, and turns to Hutch to protect her. Hutch is flattered and feels in control. There is a bubble around them keeping the world at bay, Starsky included. In all instances glamour plays a part: the women live beyond the norm, profiting from their natural gifts while battling unseen demons. They see in Hutch a fellow prisoner, the only one capable of understanding the relentless exploitation of beauty. All these relationships have a time pressure. Hutch is called on to be both professional and personal. He does his job and then disengages.

Angel says, “There are no accidents in my life.” Does that mean he intends, for some reason, to get caught? Is this why he doesn’t immediately drive away from the hotel when he sees he familiar Torino parked there? Is this why he self-destructs “like some hophead”, as he said to Brady in the park earlier?

Why don’t Starsky and Hutch radio ahead and tell Officer Batson to keep Kate from turning on the lights? Either they don’t they trust him to do a good job or they can’t get hold of him. But isn’t there another squad there who can get there sooner than Starsky and Hutch? Did they try calling Kate on the phone?

Remission doesn’t always last forever. Supposing Kate suffers a recurrence of her cancer. Do you suppose she will again seek an early exit, or will she decide to keep going, no matter what? And what is this episode’s moral take on the subject? Hutch argues for the continuation of life, no matter how terrible the suffering, but isn’t this an easy stance to take when you have not walked a mile in someone else’s shoes?

Tag: it’s great when Hutch mentions Randolph the Great, Starsky says “I bet” and Hutch laughs. It’s a laugh of pure relief and hints at Hutch’s happiness at being in the presence of the one person who does not want anything from him. Despite the fun of the shoot, one wonders at the problematic situation arising if these photos were ever to fall into the hands of a vengeful crime boss or an easily-irritated LAPD Internal Affairs officer.

Clothing notes: Hutch wears his extraordinary tusk necklace, we glimpse his treasured green t-shirt. Starsky wears a snappy jacket and slacks to the dentist, which is a bit strange. Both are dressier than normal. From the looseness of Hutch’s shirts, we suspect a back brace is still being worn.

The irony of the series is, food with the bad guys is generally good or good for you, and food with the good guys is generally bad, or bad for you. From beluga caviar to oatmeal, fancy French restaurants to expensive liqueurs, the bad guys have it good. Starsky is generally suspicious of this while Hutch takes a more complicated approach, enjoying what he’s offered while implying it’s not that special, and that he, a simple cop, finds this sort of indulgence tedious. With the “good guys”, i.e. witnesses, helpful colleagues or other cops, eating tends to take place in down-market burger places, bars and with street vendors.

But when Starsky and Hutch are together, it’s not eating itself but the refusal or inability to eat that is the dominant image. Basically put, Starsky wants to eat and can’t, Hutch can eat and won’t. Even in the Pilot, Hutch promises Starsky dinner but then drives off in the opposite direction. Starsky is denied food in forty ways in “Iron Mike”, he starves because of a sore tooth in some episodes and in others is repulsed because of a sensitive stomach or illness, or is forced to abandon his lunch because of an urgent call. Hutch interferes with his food or drink in an astonishing number of episodes, often grabbing what is in Starsky’s hand and eating it himself. For Starsky, the love of fast food – often “ethnic” in nature, filling, calorie-rich, and humble – implies a love of comfort and an ease in the diverse but squalid Bay City. So when Hutch makes his withering comment that an autopsy of Starsky will exhume a “petrified beef burrito” (“with onions”, Starsky adds helpfully) this is not so much a joke as it is an admission of cultural envy. A generally optimistic, slightly blinkered personality, Starsky’s battles with the fates – uncooperative candy machines, ill-timed calls to duty, and unfortunate choice of gangster-run Italian restaurants – is twice as affecting because of his endearing credulity: he sincerely believes things should go his way. Of the two, Starsky, voracious, easily pleased, and accepting, is far more likely to be actually starving.

Starsky is denied food, Hutch is disappointed or repulsed by it. By far the more likely to actually be eating, he is horrified by greasy spoons, by Starsky’s choice of restaurant, by what others are consuming around him, and by the bad nutrition habits of society at large. Because he is both pedantic and contrary by nature, he uses food as a catalyst for his many acts of mischief. He taunts Starsky with “bear meat, acorn and dried root surprise” in “Satan’s Witches” and concocts an elaborate plan to trick him into drinking one of his health shakes (“Pariah”), as well as continually sabotaging his partner’s food in creative ways or stealing it for himself. Significantly, he is the one to find a rat in his (largely empty) refrigerator (“Vendetta”). Hutch is also hip to trends (his clothing and jewlery, jogging and meditation, biorhythm calculators and credit cards) and so when the health food phenomenon hit the mainstream during this time you better believe he was an instant and sanctimonious convert. He also uses food as sexual manipulation (“Bounty Hunter”) but also as friendly consolation (“Lady Blue”). Food represents Hutch’s sense of being lost or lonely in this world. It’s never quite right: he’s usually fighting, denying, or wielding it as a weapon. He drinks milk, unusual for a grown man, the wholesome blandness possibly symbolic of his utopian ways of thinking. Even though Hutch makes a big deal of fasting for extended periods of time in “Silence” and “Vendetta” (denying himself as, I suspect, a form of self-punishment) he is far more likely to be consuming something. And hating it.

So why are Starsky and Hutch deprived of food in so many ways? Well, satisfaction is not the aim of this series, frustration is. Starsky and Hutch, as moral arbiters among thieves, are fueled by psychic, intellectual and metaphysical hunger. They must suffer many failures before triumph, or the triumph itself is hollow. Food – absent, corrupt or tantalizing but unobtainable – implies gratification. Once gratified, one is sated. Once sated, one is content. And contentment breeds complacency. Since crime will never cease, Starsky and Hutch will never be complacent, never stop fighting, and they will never find fulfillment. (Likewise, for certain fans, the “will they or won’t they?” question will always remain unanswered.) It’s fascinating this series ends with what seems to be a triumphant act of eating – fine food and wine, both Starsky and Hutch ready and willing and for once equal in their desire and ability to consume – only to be thwarted by a last-second disaster.

Melinda Rogers: Caren Kaye, Jack Parker: Robert Loggia, Sears: John Ashton, Agent Ed Ohlin: Arthur D Roberts, Agent Bill Walters: David Knapp, Harold: Darryl McCullough, Barbara Wilson: Marianne Bunch, Mr. Marks: Gerald Hiken. Written By: Robert Dellinger, Directed By: Nicholas Colasanto.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

“I’ve got my application into the police academy,” Hapless Harold says to Melinda. This after leaving a loaded gun slung across a chair in her room. Speculate on the chances he will graduate.

Starsky and Hutch interrogate Harold and accuse him of being in on the heist. Young Harold is befuddled, but then when they comment that he didn’t even “manage to get off one shot” he tells a story about a girl, blushing and smiling all the while. Where is the indignant avowal of innocence? Where is an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the charge? Where is the dawning horror that his sole raison d’etre is in danger of disintegrating before his eyes? Also, note that we never witness him telling the story of why he never fired his gun. Or hear him explain why it is he had just one bullet in that gun. Perhaps he did; we will never know.

In my opinion this is one of the worst episodes in the entire canon, maybe the worst, and I do not level that charge lightly. “Turkey” has at least the festive air of experimentation, “Dandruff” never intends to be anything other than farcical cotton candy, “Playboy Island” has a tinge of exotic travelogue, the upcoming “Golden Angel” at least has narrative trajectory. But this episode has very little going for it. The story is flaccid. Despite a childish need to out-perform the Feds, Starsky and Hutch don’t exhibit any feeling about the case. Hutch just wants to play dress-up, Starsky is half-asleep. We never see any actual police work. The actual “groupie” is irrelevant to the story. There are one too many gratuitous scenes of girls in bikinis. The music is terrible. The sets look cheap. The crime – ooh, stolen furs – does’t carry any real weight. Characters appear and disappear without rhyme or reason. Dobey is made to look ridiculous in his temper-losing scene. Starsky’s dangerous drawing of fire at the end endangers the lives of innocent bystanders. Rather than evil, Smooth Tony Zucker merely looks tired. There is a lame joke at the end.

There are a few moments that almost make it worth while: the first shot of the two of them in the interrogation room, murmuring to each other in a joking way, nose to nose. And they’re smiling, too, enjoying the moment, enjoying the work, talking in shortcuts that underscore their closeness (“ping pong”).

Like his other forays into undercover acting, Hutch is having way too much fun posing as Jack Ives to even concentrate on what he’s supposed to be doing. His over-the-top rube-from-the-sticks act compromises the case: he is far too memorable, and far too preposterous. It is, however, a remarkable performance: how can a handsome man descend to icky dweeb just by combing his hair forward and donning a pair of glasses?

“Margo (possibly Margaux) keeps having to calm down her yorkies,” flamboyant photographer Renaldo says, illustrating why a shoot for Vogue went long. This is a great all-purpose line that should be adopted by everyone in the fashion business. This rage-fueled artiste is a rare instance of Starsky overshadowing, if briefly, his partner.

Starsky must be using his own camera equipment. As we’ve seen in “Blindfold” taking pictures is a hobby of his. If so, he is awfully serious about it: one has difficulty imagining Bigalow signing out anything as expensive-looking at those cameras.

Jack Parker says “the future of fashion is in youth.” Well, duh. There are other ways in which fake-fashionista Parker shows himself to be perhaps not the best man for the job. His swimsuits aren’t that great. The indoor lattice-look of the showroom is déclassé. He’s too quick to accept Jack Ives. He lets Melinda do all the work. He seems distracted and out of sorts the entire time. He shows no actual interest in bathing suits. However, he is better at this than Hutch is, having been “undercover” for a year or more without detection.

In the days before instant information, a letter of reference, a good story and a cheap business card is all Hutch needs to convince Parker that he is a force to be reckoned with in the fashion business. How things have changed.

The limp-handshake remedy is maybe the best moment in the entire episode. Note that it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything, and is most likely a nice ad lib bringing a bit of color to an otherwise generic businessman-blows-his-top scene.

Three major fur robberies in a single month is just asking for trouble. Tony Zucker should cool it, or at least try something else. How many stolen furs can one man move on the underground market, anyway? By this time the sales of furs had started to decline, no longer considered the last word in luxury.

The scene with the two federal agents is very good. The jurisdictional pissing match between the Feds and the local police department is a great excuse for drama in this and other procedurals. Starsky and Hutch are wonderfully snotty, and their relaxed, masterful body language is fun to watch. Later, Starsky tells Hutch they have matched Jack Parker to Mafioso Tony Zucker, and that the FBI have been building a case on him, presumably for awhile. Hutch says amiably, “I wonder how the Feds are going to feel when we pull this case out from under their noses.” In this case, as in others, ego wins out over common sense. Of course the encounter with the two agents comes to nothing, since the script is so pointless.

Why would Hutch endanger his cover by taking Melinda to The Pits? Another suicidal act, like Starsky’s later shrugging indifference to danger? So when surfer-dude Chicky from “Deck Watch” shows up and says hi, the jig is up.

Hutch professes a discomfort around dogs. If he is speaking as Jack Ives, one wonders why he feels the need to pile on the layers of psychological complexity to his persona, since it bears no relation to his aims. Of all the guest stars on this episode, the basset hound is most memorable, and most endearing. He huffs and wuffs and wags when Hutch and Melinda come home, and tries to sit in Hutch’s lap.

“I can read cop at eight hundred yards,” Melinda says, snuggling closer. “And you have cop written all over you.” Is this true, or is Melinda lying to herself? She certainly didn’t know Jack was a cop when she spent all that time with him at the showroom, and later over dinner. It was only when a seed of doubt was planted at the Pits that she put two and two together. Although it is pretty impressive: many people would not have jumped to he must be an undercover detective! when a date is mistaken for someone else. Melinda then says if he isn’t a cop he must be a narcotics agent, or with the IRS. She has reasons for both those: her boss has a little coke habit, and is loose with his taxes. What, do you think, would be her reason for Jack Ives being a detective, infiltrating the business she works so hard for? Does she even wonder?

Hutch tells Starsky the “good news” is Melinda Rogers doesn’t have so much as a parking ticket; apparently this makes her trustworthy. However, he had no idea of this the night before when he allowed himself to be seduced. Why was Hutch so quick to take her into his confidence? He knew she was involved with Hapless Harold, that she had something to do with his inability to fire a gun (yes, yes, the Freudian implications are endless). She has “suspect” written all over her. Surely he could have come up with something to stall her, or convince her she was mistaken. If nothing else, resolutely sticking to his story might have worked.

There must be a missing scene involving stolen bullets. Melinda takes a bullet from the gun of each sexual conquest. Did she take one from Hutch? And if so, why is it never mentioned? If she didn’t, would that be because Hutch is too alert? (doubtful, re: “Body Worth Guarding”)

Melinda starts shadowing Sears, Zucker’s henchman. She’s caught and tells a convincing story that lets her off the hook. Interesting. Perhaps Melinda isn’t so much a cop groupie as a cop wanna-be. This would certainly make for a better, less sexist, episode. (Hutch seems to think this too: later, looking for her on the ship, he wonders if she’s “dusting the deck for fingerprints”.)

I henceforth introduce the notion that Melinda is not a harebrained sex-obsessed fetishist, but rather a woman who lacks authority and so appropriates it from men through seduction, manipulation, and ultimately castration. She has built up a deep resentment toward those powerful arbiters of her life and career – men. Which she hides beneath a faux-cheerful, silly mask rivaling the undercover personalities of both Jack Ives and Jack Parker. She works hard in a business well known for its slavish demands, but knows she will never topple the male-dominated power structure. She markets sexually provocative swimwear but scorns the effect they elicit. She is under the thumb of a detached, omniscient male boss yet is forced to please him. These contradictions and inequities have caused her to hijack the power she feels she deserves. But what to do when ninety per cent of the men you work for are gay? And how to you act out your aggression invisibly? By targeting the most obviously powerful men in society: law enforcement. By consuming them, she becomes them, and so gains what they have, namely authority and efficacy. I mention castration because there is a strong possibility she takes on these men in order to humiliate them, figuratively as well as literally stealing their bullets, by unceremoniously rejecting them after the sexual encounter. This humiliation is punishment for their inability to protect or rescue her from her predicament. Of course we don’t see any of this, and you could level a charge of contrivance against me and have it stick, because there is nothing in the story that says I’m right. But let’s make a purse out a sow’s ear and wear it proudly, shall we?

Huggy makes it pretty clear the benefits of a relationship with Starsky and Hutch when he greets them cheerfully as, “My main man, my slack, my pipeline to the city treasury.” And yet in other episodes – most vividly in “Black and Blue” – he claims only to provide information when a life is on the line. Throughout, he seems to espouse both approaches to snitching. Huggy can be very contradictory. Notably, even though they seek critical information, Starsky refuses to pay Huggy, giving him only a dime for the telephone, and later refusing to shell out the promised fifty bucks. Is this a way of keeping Huggy in line, or does Starsky really not care whether Huggy comes up with anything?

Melinda tries to wriggle out of danger by claiming to be a police officer; Sears rummages in her bag, pulls something out and tosses it is Zucker. He laughs and says, “oh yeah, that’s a cute badge, baby.” What is the object they’re looking at?

Dobey loses his temper, shouting about the phone call he received from Melinda. “I’ve never had a call like that in my entire career!” In the nearly thirty years he has been on the force, has Dobey never gotten a phone call from a frightened, unclear caller hoping to pass on information? Impossible. So why the unreasonable overreaction?

What is the scar on Hutch’s lower back from?

Hutch confronts Zucker, dropping the Jack Ives persona. Zucker, too, drops the Jack Parker persona. Ok, so here we have two powerful males facing off, divested of their frills and nakedly hostile to one another. It makes absolutely no sense for Hutch to do this. There is no evidence Zucker knows he is under surveillance. There is not yet enough evidence to bring a grand jury in to convict him on racketeering. He has not yet been tied, conclusively, to the fur heists. Why is Hutch willing to throw away an undercover operation, and why now? Is “Jack Ives” like an itchy shirt he can’t stand to wear another second? Also, why does he reveal himself as a cop to Zucker (if that is, indeed, what he is doing), and then take his word for it when he gives him the suite number where Melinda is? Doesn’t he suspect a trap?

For his part, Zucker is similarly dumb. He pulls a gun in the hallway, and then checks for witnesses. Plus he only looks to the left, completely missing Starsky. Has his time in the sun-drenched world of beachwear dulled his criminal instincts?

Robert Loggia is the tanned, unctuous gangster in three episodes. In all of them – “The Fix”, “Foxy Lady” and now here, he gets to tie Hutch to a chair.

Starsky is talking to himself as he heads up the corridor to Parker’s stateroom. Imagine what he is saying. Typically graceful and focused, his scene here is very good.

Melinda calls Dobey “Dopey” and neither Starsky nor Hutch corrects her, which seems mean.

The climactic scene with gunfire and frightened girls is curiously dull and also absurd and illogical. Starsky draws Zucker’s fire on a crowded ship deck ostensibly to empty the gun of bullets, but all the indiscriminate firing is appallingly dangerous to bystanders. This scene is reminiscent of Starsky drawing the fire of Father Ignatius at the movie theater in “Silence”. (He also mentions to Hutch in “The Specialist” about feeling like a carnival game as they walk along the balcony at the hotel on the way to dinner.) Athleticism aside, this is suicidal behavior on his part.

The tag: It’s quite a nice, relaxed scene, albeit with some sexual murkiness. Shall we even question why Starsky pursues someone who has already been with Hutch only hours before? Melinda seems a little wily and high strung for his tastes, and you’d think after “Velvet Jungle” he’d be thoroughly sick of girls in the fashion industry. Was he just really impressed with her ability to hold a gun on a suspect? Or is this just another elaborate way to one-up his partner?

Clothing notes: Nothing quite compares to Renaldo’s astonishing navy jumpsuit with crotch-to-neck zippers. Jack Ives wears an appalling leisure ensemble, and Huggy is sharply attired in all his scenes.

Joan Meredith: Vonetta McGee, Mrs. Greene: Lily Valenty, Vivian: Candace Bowen, Train: Rene Levant, Mary: Susan Kellerman, Elaine: Regie Baff, Bruce: Michael T Williamson, Mrs. Freemont: Judy Jean Berns, James: Maurice Sneed, ER Nurse: Mary Mercier. Written and Directed by: Rick Edelstein.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

There are many references to the colors black and blue in this episode: Hutch picks blue for Starsky to choose in the ESP test, Starsky refers to himself on the radio as Blue Seven, Joan Meredith is black, Starsky’s eyes are blue (something Meredith brings up twice, Starsky himself brings it up as well), there are blue clothes (Nosy Neighbor’s robe, all the denim worn by the cast, Starsky’s robe, Meredith’s outfit in last scene). Vivian says to Meredith, “you may be black, lady, but your uniform’s blue,” implying that these two things are incompatible. Black and blue is a term for bruising, as well.

Opening scene: “You’re driving me home, you got nothing else to do,” Starsky says reasonably to a tired and crabby Hutch, trying to get him to take an ESP test. Hutch picks blue as a color, then tells Starsky he has to guess what number he’s thinking of. Starsky says “I’m getting seven,” and Hutch is shocked that his partner is right, which he ameliorates by attacking Starsky’s future career prospects and love life. He also says “pal”, which is, for Hutch, a peculiarly personal insult. Starsky continues to tease him out of his bad mood, repeating “This is Blue Seven,” into the radio, with a significant look at Hutch, reminding us once again that a large part of Starsky’s responsibilities are to distract his partner and keep his spirits up.

“She was just a kid,” Hutch says after being shot in the hallway of the suburban home. A compassionate response, given the situation, or is it less a plea for leniency as it is a bitter statement of fact?

“It’s just your ESP talking,” a wounded Hutch mumbles as he’s wheeled through the hospital corridors, Starsky at his side. “I only said seven to make you feel better. I was really thinking of two.” This is an out-and-out lie. Hutch can never conceal his emotions that well, and that was genuine surprise on his face in the car. What is the purpose of this competitive, bloody-minded defiance? Is it self-soothing, in a way?

Explore Starsky’s apparent feeling of ease around old women, citing his conversations with Mrs. Greene and Mrs. McMillan and his card playing with Hannah (here, and “Deadly Imposter”, “Deck Watch”).

Hutch is shot in the early morning. Starsky and Mrs. Greene are still waiting for word on his surgery after it is dark. The time on Starsky’s watch appears to read 11:00 pm. Does Hutch’s surgery really take that long? And why is Mrs. Greene waiting for what appears to be well over twelve hours to talk to her doctor? She is obviously an in-patient, as she is wearing a quilted house coat, so I suppose she could have been in and out throughout the day.

That is one screwy nurse who spills the beans that Hutch is going to be all right. She’s a) saying things she shouldn’t b) not asking if Starsky is a relative, the way the doctor did earlier c) attempting to smoke in a non-smoking area d) using very cavalier language, as if nothing is that serious and e) her name-tag is askew. She then bustles off to “OB”, although one hopes she isn’t going to handle any newborns. A real character, and a nice addition to the story.

“What’s wrong with her?” Starsky asks the doctor who’s seeing Mrs. Greene. When the doctor asks if he’s a relative, Starsky replies that he’s a cop. It seems open the door just as well: the doctor gives him the bad news.

Mrs. Greene’s reappearance is doubly touching, because she seems to have assumed, in both Starsky’s and the director’s eyes, the transcendent halo of beauty and goodness. The camera closes in lovingly and reverently, on their intertwined hands. If she did not have direct interaction with other people (she speaks to the doctor, later she is pushed in a wheelchair) I would suspect a fatigue-induced hallucination on Starsky’s part.

This is a particularly racially charged episode from beginning to end. Vivian describes herself as a “pig-tail pickaninny”, a particularly heinous racial insult. Yet she is not speaking her voice, but rather appropriating the racism of the world around her by mimicking it.

Starsky refers to his partner as “Kenneth Hutchinson”, perhaps for the only time in the series; he refers to himself in the shorthand as “Dave Starsky”.

I could do without the provocatively sexy saxophone and leering angle up the legs of Detective Meredith.

Interestingly enough, on the decision of a “new partner”: would Hutch would ever consent to having a new partner when Starsky is either wounded or indisposed? In the final shows Hutch tells Dobey, “I already got a partner, I don’t need another one.” But Starsky, other than a fairly token argument (“do I have a choice?”) starts in with his partner right away. I think on some level it’s the same thing, only handled in the opposite manner, the idea that Hutch is irreplaceable so it’s all academic anyway. Starsky is more mature and emotionally centered than Hutch is, he feels no need to make big statements. In his mind, Hutch is his partner, simple. Nothing can change that. In Hutch’s mind, partnership is a complex entity in which he is simultaneously responsible for and unable to affect – the dilemma of a neurotic and basically depressed person. Starsky is not depressed, nor is he neurotic. He takes on Meredith, he establishes ground-rules, he gets what he gets, he knows Hutch is waiting at the end of it, and that’s it.

This is the first time in the series in which a life-threatening injury affecting one of the partners is not the central point of the story. This is very much a symptom of the Forth Season, which is altogether less emotion-driven than years past. Yes, Hutch’s gunshot is well filmed, and Starsky’s hovering in the hospital real enough, but there is a certain ingredient missing from this familiar recipe. Anguish, perhaps. The story quickly moves on to its socially relevant issues, leaving no room for soapy scenes.

Vonetta McGee is extremely good, and photogenic too. Not only extremely pretty, she can occcasionally break out in a big silly grin that belies her crisp no-nonsense manner. She’s perfect as a stand-in for Hutch because she has absolutely no agenda here. In fact she appears to be thinking about something else the entire time rather than scheming to put herself between Starsky and Hutch or get ahead of them somehow. She’s ambitious, conscientious, and dealing with her own issues of identity, and all this keeps her so busy she has no time for games. Her later sexual encounter with Starsky doesn’t seem to have made a dent, either. She makes a sweetly oblique reference to it but otherwise seems to forget it as fast as he does.

One of the first “tests” Meredith passes is having cigarettes in her purse for use in interrogation. Later, she also clears other hurdles: standing up to Starsky, getting physical in the interrogation room, guessing the “guardian” issue correctly. Plus, Dobey really likes her, she fights Starsky in the park, charms the pants off Huggy, and bravely goes undercover. She sleeps with Starsky but doesn’t let it get in the way. She makes a joke at gunpoint. And best of all, she departs without complaint.

“Just what I need,” Starsky says in frustration, when the perp is transferred and Meredith knows the juvenile system better than he does, “an expert on kids.” Ironic, since Hutch is also an expert on kids, as evidenced by all his actions in the last four years.

“Hutch is never gonna believe this,” Starsky grumbles as he gets out the car to wrestle Meredith. Is he busy inventing stories to amuse his partner later?

Hutch makes a very good point to Dobey about the m.o. of the thieves; Dobey doesn’t seem to want to listen. Why not? Seems to me a cop laid up is the greatest mental resource there is. Intelligent, experienced and bored.

Starsky tells Huggy, “For a man that looks like an Egyptian horse, your house is made of glass.” Meaning Huggy ain’t no beauty either. But when Huggy asks Starsky to introduce him “to his next wife,” is he just using a figure of speech or has Huggy been married at least once before?

There are a lot of racial jokes and/or innuendos in the scene in which Starsky brings Meredith to the Pits. Huggy remarks admiringly that Starsky is dabbling in “cross pollination”, and asking pointedly, “are you telling me you just dropped by for a taste?” Grits in the ghetto, etc.

Starsky doesn’t tell Huggy right away that Hutch has been shot. Instead, he waits until Huggy brings up the subject in order to reveal the truth of the matter. This seems less than admirable: Huggy, after all, has also had a long relationship with Hutch and cares about him. Starsky’s holding back is a puzzle. Would he be more honest if Hutch was more seriously hurt? Is this his way of selling himself on the idea that his partner is only mildly inconvenienced, and will be back in the saddle very soon?

Huggy lays out his snitch rules very clearly when he says he’ll help when “somebody gets burned” but not for anything less than that. One gets the feeling this is an imperative he has set out more than once.

More scripted gems from Rick Edelstein: talking about his injury, Hutch muses “another six inches, it would be all over.” The nurse, giving him a shave, says, “Must be grateful for six inches, eh?”

For Starsky to accept and work with another partner, Hutch must be sentient, healthy and himself (i.e. prickly). Anything less would smack of disloyalty, a fact this episode goes out of its way to make as obvious as possible, taking every opportunity to remind us how well Hutch is doing, how he may in fact be actually enjoying his stay in the hospital, short of malingering. “Hutchinson Manor,” Starsky says, answering the phone. It’s Huggy, who asks how Hutch is doing. “Better than me,” Starsky says, driving the point home – it’s all okay.

I like how Hutch grabs himself a banana from the fruit basket and mimes being on the telephone while Starsky is on the real one. And is that banana six inches long, do you think?

When Starsky runs into Mrs. Greene in the hall, the action abruptly shifts into the same intense close-ups it did when they were together in the first place. It’s all so intimate one wonders if there is, in fact, a secondary level of reality here. Mrs. Greene, with her aphorisms and good humor, Old World charm and heavy hints of transcending Holocaust-like suffering appears to become a symbol of the will to survive, the gross unfairness of fate, and the magic of coincidence. Speaking to her during these tender moments, Glaser has never looked so lovely. His calm demeanor throughout this and other episodes of Season Four occasionally hovers near comatose, reflecting the actor’s general sense of indifference, but here his thoughtful quiet is put to good use.

One wonders, if their roles were replaced, how Hutch would relate to Mrs. Greene. One suspects she wouldn’t get very far with his oppressive, inward, selfish, Nordic personality, his unwillingness and inability to disclose the depth and reason for his suffering.

Meredith also calls Starsky’s car a “red tomato.” Hey, wait a minute, how does she know? Has she been listening to department gossip?

Train is very different from the other Fagin-like head of a gang of kids, Artie Solkin. For one, Train is a businessman, Solkin a self-styled mystic. Train rules with an iron fist, Solkin rules by emotional manipulation. Train treats his juveniles like employees, Solkin believes he is a custodian and caretaker. Train handles maybe ten kids simultaneously, Solkin focuses on one favorite at a time, with others at the margins.

It’s nice to see Maurice Sneed again staked out in the car with Vivian, looking twenty years younger than he did in “Manchild on the Streets”.

Vivian is beaten by Train when it’s revealed she shot a cop, and she cries. But apparently she hasn’t learned her lesson, because she pulls another gun on Starsky, and is ready to kill him. Does Vivian see herself as vigilante? Better, or smarter, than Train?

When she says “I already burned one cop” this is as good as a confession: otherwise Starsky would not have known who the shooter was. Bad move, sistah.

Candace Bowen as Vivian is outstanding here. Blazing with energy, her white-hot rage wipes everything else off the screen. Scrappy, nervy, of indeterminate age, she is perhaps the toughest girl in the entire series, and one of the most interesting. She makes tough-guy Molly from “Little Girl Lost” look like a cream puff. Even though she’s a cop-wasting gangster, it’s still disappointing when she’s stopped cold in her tracks under the light touch of Meredith’s foot. She deserves a good chase and tackle at the very least.

Could Meredith have played this better? Vivian has Starsky at gunpoint, Meredith has a gun at Train’s back. When threatened by Vivian, Meredith drops the gun, drastically changing the power dynamic. If she’d held onto it and backed away, still holding the gun, what could Vivian do about it? It would have been a standoff, and in Meredith’s favor: that gun could have kept both Train and Vivian at bay, at least temporarily.

Hutch comes to a fast realization about the case after calling the answering service in the same way he solved the case during “The Avenger”. By himself, at his desk, in a near-fugue state of fatigue and/or pain, exhibiting an extraordinary access to intuition. If he took Starsky’s ESP test he’d most likely pass with flying colors.

Why does Dobey slide out of the passenger door after Hutch when they arrive at Allied? It isn’t because the door is broken, as he gets out the driver’s side at Train’s. Is he nervous about exiting in traffic?

It’s interesting that Mary (our friend Susan Kellerman, late of “Quadromania”) is a white girl involved in a ring of black thieves. So much is made of Train exploiting black youths that Mary’s race is an anomaly not easily explained. How did he recruit her? Would she be considered part of Train’s gang? What’s her story, anyway?

Why does so much time pass before Train orders the execution of Starsky and Meredith? If he always intended to shoot them, why wait so long? Tied to chairs, backs against one another, looks uncomfortably close to a slapstick comedy.

The racial element in this episode is striking – it’s all anybody talks about. But how genuine is the divide, and is it the sole motive for Train’s actions? He makes the angry remark that Mister White Cop lives in “a fancy pad with fancy cars and fancy clothes” and “you don’t understand what we eat for lunch”. Fancy cars aside, there is no weight to this observation, and it’s odd that Train – relatively smart and observant, a man of the world – would assume a lowly police officer would have more money than he does. Does “White” trump “Cop” in his lexicon? Train believes racial and economic inequities justifies his criminal actions. By robbing middle-class people of their color televisions he has talked himself into believing he is, on some level, a social crusader. Does the fact that he is wearing a fancy suit and handling mountains of cash lessen the impact of his woe-is-me tirade, or is he right to speak on behalf of his impoverished people?

Where, in Meredith’s plea, did she lose Vivian, causing her to listen to Train instead?

In the tag, there is the presumption that Starsky and Meredith will never see each other again. There is a distinct elegiac quality to their mutually admiring but somewhat formal conversation. Other than Meredith moving swiftly up the departmental ladder, why is this a foregone conclusion? There is no reason the two couldn’t continue to date one another. Hutch, however, amusingly reveals his normally hidden jealous streak when he forces his way between them like a neglected puppy.

The Baron: Rene Auberjonois, Hilda Zuckerman: Audrey Meadows, Buddy Owens: Norm Alden, Dinty: Madison Arnold, Ellis: Blackie Dammett, Leo: Tracey Walter, Davidowsky: Jacques Aubuchon, Vivian: Leigh Hamilton, Harry: F William Parker, Van Dam: Alex Rodine, Adachi: John Fujioka. Written By: Ron Friedman, Directed By: Sutton Roley.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

Historical antecedents: a farce is an ancient theatre tradition characterized by broad, improbable situations, the use of disguises and mistaken identity, use of props, and verbal humor such as accents and word play. The plot is often confusing, the situations unlikely, and the scenes populated by childish, venal, vain and neurotic characters. Transgressive or irrational behavior runs rampant in this funhouse-mirror world, as the lowly become elevated to power, the genders blur, and sexual contravention is tolerated and even encouraged. It could be said farce, like its sharper, meaner cousin satire, is potent social commentary. Whether or not it belongs in the canon of Starsky and Hutch, whether it is undignified or just plain pointless, is a whole other argument, but perhaps we can admire the sheer audacity of even attempting this farcical addendum to the series. One would be hard pressed to imagine any contemporary police drama, “CSI” or perhaps “Law and Order”, veering so dramatically down this yellow brick road.

The episode opens with disco-lounge music burbling, a glass tower, and a long pan of the fancy salon filled with older rich women who seem sadly anxious to engage with their glamorous gay hairdressers. There is a lot of smoking and drinking here, martinis and ice buckets jammed with wine bottles, and of course klutzy Hutch struggling with a champagne cork (banging it ineffectually with his hand) and chatting up a sweet lady eager “for a change”. And here we go into the episode most either love or hate: an hour of sheer camp.

Identity Politics: Starsky’s Tyrone character seems to be an ultra-hetero Pink Panther-meets-Italian-mobster invention, with no real connection to the gay beauty business. Is Starsky so heterosexual he doesn’t even know how to act gay? If that is, in fact, what he is expected to do? It’s all a little blurry. Hutch’s Mr. Marlene is similarly baffling, as he is wildly attractive to the ladies, all of whom make an immediate play for him even though he is doing his best to be as flamboyant as possible. Do these women not care? Is sexual adventurism so rampant it doesn’t matter who is gay and who isn’t? The social dynamics are confusing. Also, both Starsky and Hutch, maintain their faux identities even when they don’t have to. Starsky keeps it up with Buddy the security officer, with Huggy and with Dobey, although he drops it briefly near the end with obvious reluctance. Hutch has thrown himself so completely into his role he keeps it up even during his conversation with Mrs. Zuckerman, who knows he is an undercover detective, and with Dobey, who shows tremendous forbearance.

Quite visually stunning is the scene in which the mysterious man goes down a polished chrome escalator lit with casino-style lighting. Why, however, does Starsky endanger the arrest – or at the very least make it messier and more dangerous than it should be – by shouting “hey” at the fleeing man? He should have simply boxed him in with Hutch, and made a quiet arrest.

Props: Starsky’s unexplained devotion to his stepladder is an amusing mystery. Hutch’s wig is consistent with the disguise elements of farce, but it’s gilding the platinum lily. And why curly? Mr. Marlene looks like a combination of Harpo Marx and the Rhinestone Cowboy. Later with the diamond merchant, he finally removes his itchy wig and then places it on another funny prop, a magically appearing wig stand.

After the arrest and soaking wet, Starsky and Hutch piteously wrap themselves in blankets, shivering and putting bare feet on Dobey’s desk. This scene also has Dobey scolding them and Starsky responding, “sometimes we act instinctively.” Hutch adds – with a little mince, a la Mr. Marlene – “sometimes impetuously.” There have been plenty of times throughout the run of the series in which both men have gotten soaked, and in more dangerous situations than a mere fountain. Remember the dive into the polluted, hypothermic ocean in “Terror on the Docks”? And yet they have never felt the need to appear as pathetic as this. Is this a result of their immersion into their characters? Is this diversion into the lifestyles of the rich and famous turning them into spoiled aristocrats?

Dobey rounds out the scene by referring to the salon as “where you two are practicing your culture”, which is possibly the funniest line in the entire series.

Neither Starsky nor Hutch have any idea who “the Baron” is. Hutch also goes “mmm?” when Dobey mentions the Belvedere diamonds, as if they know nothing about them either. So why go undercover – an expensive, time-consuming operation – before they have any facts?

On a minor note, Dobey shows the guys the cigars favoured by the Baron. Obviously they are rare and expensive. So why, then, is it such a huge box, with perhaps fifty cigars? Why not buy a couple individually? Dobey, a notorious nickel-and-dimer, has just blown the entire department’s budget.

The Baron is obviously no idiot. He has taken care not to leave any evidence identifying him. So why he is handing out Corona Superba Coronas like candy, wherever he goes? Blind spot, ego, or a writer’s lazy shortcut?

Nice cameo by screen veteran Tracey Walter, whose name is, lamentably, misspelled in the credits. Walter does a nice Igor-meets-Steve-Wonder performance as the canny smoke shop proprietor. Hutch is hilariously sibilant in his pronouncing the cigar brand, but it begs the question: why do you suppose he keeps up the charade as Mr. Marlene when seeking to make Leo an informant? Wouldn’t dropping the act and identifying himself as a police detective increase the chances of cooperation?

Starsky has a beautiful girl’s legs on his shoulders as he slowly undoes her shoes. Mrs Zuckerman has sent him to do a pedicure (in a hotel room?), but of course we see no implements of the trade, and no intention by either Starsky or his “client” to do anything remotely like it. Whatever he is really about to do is interrupted when she tells him about “the Baron”. This is an accidental discovery on his part, so there is no detective work involved. Of course.

Continuing with the eccentric, everyone-into-the-pool quality of this episode, it is nice to see our friend Blackie Dammett reappear for the third time as one of the henchmen in the silly suits. Dammett is sporting a couple of dramatic black eyes that appear to be real. Bad night before the day’s shoot, or what?

The ditzy woman is the salon is giving Hutch a tutorial in numerology. “1,9,4,9 adds up to 23…Now 2 and 3 add up to 5…I happen to be an 8, and 5 and 8 are about as far apart as you can get.” She suspects Hutch is a 6. Are Starsky and Hutch both 7, as Starsky guesses in his ESP test at the start of next episode’s “Black and Blue”?

Everyone should be more than a little worried when six gunshots are heard in the hotel, when Starsky and Hutch empty Buddy’s gun, but no one arrives to investigate. Also, why such a dangerous method to render a gun inoperable? Any one of those bullets could ricochet. Why not just take it away? There are two of them, and only one of him.

The fact hotel detective Buddy Owens does not know about two undercover cops is a problem. Wouldn’t the police department let him in on the case? He could be helpful, and his ignorance puts everybody in danger.

The following scene, in which the guys discuss the situation and follow the hotel detective into the basement where an improbable bomb goes off, is indicative of the charms – and evils – of this episode. Neither Starsky nor Hutch give up the various adopted quirks of their characters, which implies they do not take this case seriously and are having far more fun playing dress-up. Because they don’t care – and one suspects neither David Soul nor Paul Michael Glaser care, either – there is a certain dangerous element to this episode that can be bewitching, if you are in the right mood for it. The episode is soaked in a kind of chemical nihilism that echoes, or even amplifies, the times in which this was made. This kind of amoral hedonism is unfashionable in today’s strictly principled, calorie-reduced, rational and morally uplifting approach to televised narrative. I cannot think of a single police procedural that would condescend to this kind of candy-coated silliness. Yes, this episode is challenging to consider in any seriously critical way. Yes, it is right to dismiss “Dandruff” as stupid and disappointing. It is stupid and disappointing. But it’s also a) a traditional farce, with all the complex conventions intact, b) a glossy reflection of the times and c) a fairly naughty, anti-establishment nod to profligacy.

The main purpose of a farce, of course, is the opportunity to say the unsayable by cloaking it in absurdity. In some cases this can become a powerful political tool. Whether it is here is up for debate, but we can applaud this episode for its silly but whole-hearted embrace of gay men “practicing their culture”. Not exactly “The Boys in the Band”, but we’ll take what we can get. As well, the unabashedly booze-soaked, sexually liberated (or at least rapacious) swinging scene of the 1970s is also frankly depicted in the salon scenes in which the all-female patrons outrageously overpay for the privilege of “looking wonderful”, as Mrs. Zuckerman says. “Prince Nairobi” played by Huggy is a genial poke at the racially divisive atmosphere of the times, in which the average African-American is subject to appallingly endemic racism while an anonymously moneyed African “prince” is fawned over and revered. Surely this politically subversive joke on class hysteria is admirable, even in this context.

Post-explosion, Starsky and Hutch waste time with poor Buddy with their feigned accents. Starsky is on his beloved stepladder. It’s genuinely amusing when he says they should bring their own “gay” to the auction.

Buddy insists he has everything under control and resists the help of the LAPD. Why, do you suppose, an international cartel of diamond buyers would trust some lowly hotel security officer to arrange their million-dollar auction?

Why would Starsky and Hutch endanger Huggy by bringing him as the fake prince as well as having him do the crucial sleight of hand with the diamonds? Dobey is a little high-profile to pass, but surely there must be other police officers available for the job.

There are a few scenes that do not feature Paul Michael Glaser. Bored out of his skull and “resting” in his trailer, or what?

More prop jokes with the hospital side table that gives out on Dobey. Buddy’s gun and holster are hanging in the hospital room, unsecured, a giant no-no that is distracting.

The extended kissing scene between Mr. Marlene and the sexually aggressive “Vivian Vivacious” behind the door goes on for a very long time and its insertion into the narrative is apropos of nothing, which probably one of its charms, although it does cement this episode’s – and farce in general, it should be said – obsession with doors. Harry and his oversized golf clubs has no compunction in sharing his “girlfriend”. This encounter seems to be against Hutch’s will. Is it really, or is this more undercover “acting”? Hutch, like Starsky, has been sent to a girl’s hotel room, this time for a permanent. How this complicated, messy procedure can be done in a hotel room is beyond me. Coincidentally, both girls have no problem having a sexual encounter with the man they came in with in the next room.

The Baron of Beefs: Throughout the episode, the supposed mastermind does a bunch of dim-witted things that only serve to complicate the situation. His first appearance in the hospital when Buddy is admitted is pointless. He poisons one of the participants in order to bug his briefcase instead of surreptitiously hiding it, with no one the wiser. He goes to a lot of trouble with costumes when he doesn’t have to. He bombs the computer room and attacks Buddy, two risky moves that don’t achieve anything other than increasing the paranoia surrounding the diamond sale. He sets up his two henchmen to take the fall for him, severely inconveniencing two thugs with long memories. He baits Starsky and Hutch with a snide note. He advertises his cigar quirks for all the world to see.

There’s one Japanese man in the room, and the only man who has not yet introduced himself. And yet Buddy says, with some confusion, “Which one of you is Mr. Adachi?” Maybe the knock on his head was harder than we thought.

It’s a box, not a pouch. It’s a bug, not a listening device. Starsky plays a great game of semantics, saying “If you were to put something foreign into your ‘box’, would it then become a ‘pouch’?” Everything is topsy-turvy and mutable, language included.

Finally, this is another important aspect to the traditional farce: very often the culprit emerges victorious or unscathed. Like “Foxy Lady”, the guys are left looking mildly foolish. Also, Prince Nairobi is awfully cavalier with the diamonds.

Tag: the tag reinforces the supposition that farce is actually upholding a utopian view of society as well as a chaotic one, as the long-suffering (and insufferable) Mrs. Zuckerman blows out the candles on a patriotic cake while pontificating on the nation-building aspects of her gay-affirming, crazy-making way of life. Dobey then appears with a gift of cigars from The Baron. Did Dobey know the contents of the box? If so, why didn’t he subject the box to forensic science? Or does Dobey, like the guys, just not care? The two unnamed boys in black are awfully smooth with the lighters, causing Starsky and Hutch to appear worried for the first time.