Episode 54: The Plague, part two

It’s a great little movement when Hutch he sees Kaufman watching him through the glass: he hitches his yellow gown just slightly in a flirtatious, almost girly gesture, then smiles sadly, as if thinking his default to self-depreciation is pretty futile in a situation as dire as this. Good one, Hutchinson.

“How’d you like to walk around in a paper dress all day that makes you look like Florence Nightingale,” Hutch complains to Dr. Kaufman, (a non-sequitur if there ever was one: Florence Nightingale was a nurse, not a patient, and wore a full Victorian gown, not a little slip of paper). “It’s what underneath that counts,” Kaufman replies, which is mildly shocking, given her reserved personality – but said, it must be pointed out, only because Hutch is talking unseen around the side of the wall. Amused by her comment, he comes around the corner and stares at her.

Is it a trick of the director’s, or of nature’s, that Hutch looks so lovely in this scene?

Doctor, Heal Thyself: “I mean it,” Dr. Kaufman says. “I wouldn’t have the courage to do it except for the conditions.” A seriously dysfunctional comment if there ever was one, if the “it” in this instance is “be honest”. We can seriously doubt her committment to this new direction of hers when Hutch taps on the glass and stares at her – looking for what? Confirmation that she’s doing all she can? Evidence of emotional commitment to him, or to the case? – and his gaze is so painfully direct she runs away rather than offer him any sort of comfort. So how bad can she be if Hutch is the mature, no-bullshit one in this duo? Bad, bad, bad.

Starsky and Hutch are observed in quarantine for seventy-two hours and released due to lack of evidence of the plague in their blood. Later, Dr. Meredith says the plague shows up in one’s blood within seventy-two hours or it doesn’t show at all. So what the heck happened to the diagnosis with Hutch? If the plague can be detected by a simple blood test on the street, how come it couldn’t be found in Hutch when he was in the hospital the first time? An interesting hypothesis is that he contracted it later, through someone else, which is also doubly poignant because he was so close to avoiding it.

Why did Hutch get the plague, and Starsky didn’t? Why was Helen immune? Or Dr Kaufman, for that matter? These questions are moot, really, because there are many historical incidences of some getting sick and others close to them not, and for no discernible reason except for fate.

When Hutch gets the attention of Dr Meredith he insists on getting the doctor to hold up a photograph of the virus, even though it can have no real meaning to him. He just needs to see. It’s typical of a detective’s evaluative, detail-oriented approach to absorbing information, and a born skeptic’s insistence on unassailable proof. If Dr Meredith had a piece of paper with incomprehensible blood-factor analyses and toxicology screenings Hutch would have insisted on seeing that too.

Dr Kaufman compares Hutch – twice – to a little boy. The sublimation of sexual feelings to maternal language makes her one confused doctor indeed.

Does Helen Yeager have a checkered past? All the elements are there. She has a hardened, brittle façade. She’s a loner, seemingly with no friends. She lives alone in a rural area with no close neighbors – no chance of friendly over-the-fence chats – bringing in temporary borders for income rather than having a regular job. She behaves when Callendar tells her not to go to the police when most of us would have called the authorities or a doctor long ago. When Richie asks if Steele is going to die she answers “I don’t know”, which indicates she’s prepared to have someone die in her house. She doesn’t want to know what Steele does for a living when anybody else would be curious (a stranger with pseudonym? Pretty exciting stuff, especially for a lonely woman). She keeps her boy away from people. You get the feeling, even though it’s never spelled out, that it’s the two of them, tightly bound together, against the world. All this points to the possibly Helen Yeager – if that’s your real name, ma’am – has been beaten and abused, or her son has. Or both. “You owe us nothing,” she tells Callendar, sharply. “We were paid.” It sounds bitterly no-nonsense, the words of someonne who has been schooled in some pretty tough lessons. She’s also awfully composed when Starsky bursts into her house and grabs her by the mouth, pulling her into him. She freezes, then calms down in a remarkably short period of time, as if this has happened before.

Dr Kaufman is uncomfortable when she watches Starsky stare at Hutch though the window. Perhaps she’s mentally comparing her inability to look at Hutch with Starsky’s intense refusal to look away from him. His complete disregard for her is unnerving and she turns to go. This is when Starsky does something extraordinary. Flatly, unemotionally, he says, “Do me a favor and don’t ask any questions. Got a lipstick.” She says yes and gives it to him, and at this point leaves abruptly, although if it were me and a man asked for a lipstick I would stick around and see what he does with it. Starsky stares at Hutch a while longer, then starts to write (backwards, which takes forethought). What else could he write, but his own name? He can’t very well write “get well soon” or “hang in there”. It’s also meaningful that he writes not only his own name, but Hutch’s familiar, and affectionate, condensation of it.

The nurses would have to agree among themselves to keep it up there, because when Hutch wakes much time has passed since Starsky wrote on the glass. Did Starsky go to the nurses’ station and order them to leave it alone, or did the nurses see it and make a pact among themselves to ignore protocol and did they have to fight with the cleaners? What did the other doctors think, Dr Kaufman in particular, when they walked by and saw it? Did anyone understand its true significance or at least spend a few moments contemplating what sort of dynamic is going on here?

Compare and contrast the two times Starsky’s name is written in red on something as a message. (the other is “Bloodbath”). Both events cause Hutch to have a profound emotional reaction. Both times it indicates the urgency of time passing, and one man’s life in the balance.

What’s a rural grocer selling onions and corn doing with twelve-year-old-scotch on the shelf? He sells it to Callendar.

It’s sort of amusing that the photograph of Callendar that Starsky has is not a mugshot or blurry surveillance photo but obviously the professional portrait of actor Alex Rocco. In it, he’s looking suave in a way that says “cast me”. Not the sort of thing a paranoid criminal would allow to circulate.

Starsky tells Helen not to touch Richie to avoid becoming infected with the plague. She replies, “Do you think I care?” Starsky says exactly the same thing as he fights to go into the sick room with Hutch.

Filming notes: Apparently, the hospital scenes genuinely upset Glaser in the scenes in which Hutch physically disintegrates, his real-life hospital visits during Soul’s dangerous bout with pneumonia still a recent memory.

“The name of the game is Hutch is dying,” Hutch says to Starsky as Starsky sits on his bed and holds his hands. He refers to himself in the third person – something he’s never done before – just as Starsky did when writing his own name on the window. It’s a combination of dissociation and inclusion, a detachment of the self while at the same time merging identities with the other.

Dr. Meredith tells Dr. Kaufman he suspected the plague was a virus, “when the antibiotics didn’t work on the new cases.” Did they work on the old ones?

So what is the name of the hospital Drs. Kaufman and Meredith work out of and Hutch is at? Starsky calls it Lincoln Hospital over the phone when asking to speak to Dr. Kaufman. Starsky and Hutch tell Lieutenant Anderson to head over to City Hospital and ask for Dr. Kaufman. And the physical site of the hospital is Memorial.

Doing the math, there have been three outbreaks of the plague in thirty-five years, according to Dr. Jonas Tishaun. This isn’t alarming to health officials? Wouldn’t Drs. Meredith and Kaufman be taking a VERY detailed and careful look at those past cases, instead of reading about them in an old, blue, dusty book?

Does Callendar have any redeeming qualities? He doesn’t harm, at least intentionally, the Yeagers. He gives Richie money for shoes and tells him to buy a flower for Mrs. Yeager. And he eventually comes in to save Richie when, strictly speaking, he doesn’t have to. At the same time, he is a vicious killer with a nasty history, not only killing his contact on the roof, but needlessly kicking the man’s corpse. One could interpret his actions in coming forward as a way to get out of the country rather than helping anyone one else, Richie included.

Starsky’s confrontation with the gangster Roper is one of the standout scenes in this or any other episode. Starsky’s commanding presence is in wonderful opposition to the rather florid, nervous Roper. He looks so cool standing there while Roper looks faintly ridiculous in his Hefner cranberry smoking jacket and his fussy games of chess and his offers of “anisette” to Starsky (as if). Starsky’s brusque one-word responses to Roper’s pretentious verbosity is impressive. “Talk,” he says, when asked why he’s there. Then: “Callendar.” It really is the most thrilling display of power, but unfortunately it serves to make Roper even more antagonistic than he was before.

When facing danger alone, particularly if the other is injured or ill, Starsky and Hutch seem doubly authoritative and intimidating. There’s a strange existential fearlessness in the way they confront their enemies. Look at Starsky at war with Vic Humphries in “Survival”, and Hutch so memorably standing up to Tom Lockly in “The Shootout”. When one is incapacitated and the other forced to act alone, it’s as if the power from one flows into the other, doubly increasing volume. When they’re together, the power is more evenly distributed, and therefore more palatable; one gets to be the laid-back guy, the other gets to goad and threaten. Very rarely do both act with equal violence at the same time.

Roper is just another example of what this series considers the lowest form of life: the unctuous businessman in luxurious surroundings, expounding ponderously and pretentiously about the downfall of civilization. These men are isolated, surrounded by lackeys, often in total, velvety silence broken only by the clink of teaspoons or the pouring of cognac. They have been allowed to flourish through the laziness or amorality of society. No one has dared to stop them. They feel immortal, untouchable. They are fascinated by the presence of Starsky and Hutch, as if staring at something thought long-extinct. These men always attempt, initially, to seduce Starsky and Hutch with manly world-weariness, a you-know-how-it-is camaraderie; they attempt to appeal to their chivalry, honor, or pride, while not understanding or possessing any of these things. Starsky and Hutch confront these men time and time again. Amboy, offering them caviar, C.J. Woodfield at the breakfast table in “Captain Dobey, You’re Dead”, Danner in his Boston-fern-filled study in “The Bait”, Lou Malinda at the health club in “Kill Huggy Bear”, Clay Zachary, the mastermind of the heist in “Foxy Lady”, and of course the ultimate evil: creepy Gunther, in “Sweet Revenge”.

We know Starsky has both limited time and a clear dislike of Roper, but would his request have been taken more seriously if he was more polite about the offer of the game of chess or refreshments? Roper is clearly unhappy with Starsky’s attitude. “No social amenities, get right to the point. You cops got no grace.” (An irony, given that Starsky stands there, theoretically, in what one might call a state of grace. His sole motive, after all, is love). Or did Starsky already know it didn’t really matter what he did or didn’t do, that Roper would have found something to bitch about?

I wonder of Roper would have allowed Starsky onto the compound if he hadn’t just won a game of chess against one of his musclemen. Gleeful in what is probably an artificial victory (I can just imagine the whispered agreement in the household: the boss wins, no matter what) he is temporarily struck by uncharacteristic generosity, and allows him in.

Watch Starsky’s request to Roper become more and more unlikely as Roper uses more and more casual, derisive forms of address for Starsky. At first it’s Officer Starsky, then Mr Cop, and finally just Cop.

Speculate on what Dobey is thinking, coming so late to the hospital with a bunch of flowers when he knew Hutch was in intensive care, in isolation, where no flowers are allowed. Not wanting to admit to himself the seriousness of the situation? Nevertheless, when he holds up the flowers behind the glass and hide his shock and sadness behind a brave smile it’s impossible not to have a catch in the throat.

What are the grubby denizens of the all-nite café and bar doing watching the news, which contains the plea from Dr Kaufman, and later Starsky? Seems to me the TV would be permanently on a wrestling match, baseball game, or Sri Lankan cricket, depending on the cultural leanings of the proprietor. Yet people at the bar seem riveted, almost respectful, rather than bored or dismissive; it’s eerily quiet.

It’s very touching when Starsky and Dr Kaufman storm down the hall toward Hutch’s room, hand-in-hand. I always have the feeling he doesn’t notice her all that much, or at least sees her as an abstract object, a means to an end, but by the time of the on-air plea he’s decided they better band together or else. He later gives her a huge hug when Callendar calls. No hugs for Meredith, suffering in silence in his lonely laboratory.

Tag: “Now that we’ve got no window separating us, you’re afraid to take a chance, is that it?” Hutch says to Judith. Right on the money, but still she hedges. “Come on, you big blond beauty,” Starsky says, grabbing Hutch by the arm, “I’m gonna take you home and tuck you in. You ain’t ready for the big leagues yet.” Hutch, nicely, lets himself be led away. Then, as Hutch joyfully expounds on being alive, both of them practically breaking into a run, Starsky lets loose with one of the biggest grins so far, and Hutch also grins, and hits him hard on the arm. A scene of pure joy.

It’s not a tragedy that Judith Kaufman walks off alone. She really wouldn’t be good for him. She lives in another state, appears to have maternal feelings, referring to his vulnerability and saying he looks like a little boy. She does a cowardly thing, flirting with him behind glass, where he is “safe.” She tells him she wouldn’t forward at all if he wasn’t expected to be dead in two days. When she is in his hospital room she gives no real comfort. She doesn’t talk to him, meet his eyes or touch him unless to draw blood. When Hutch presses her on her feelings, she leaves. Hutch calls her a coward to her face at the airport, not the best way to get her to stay. She also seems awfully fond of Dr. Meredith. Speculate on the amusing idea that, if she and Meredith were ever to get together, both will be picturing the same face.