User Reviews

This second installment of THE FUGITIVE establishes the core theme of the show, the standard story which will be re-told so many times. The central story is: Kimble's altruistic compulsion to help everyone he meets gets him into a dangerous situation, and then the dangerous situation escalates to a climactic moment where Kimble's life depends on whether a weak or morally-ambiguous stranger, (usually a woman, but sometimes a man or a child) trapped in a stable but degrading life, will take the safe, easy option and stay weak and trapped, or whether she (or he) will decide to break out of her (or his) situation, and free herself (or himself) by helping Kimble escape, in some risky or heroic way.

Everything about this particular installment is great, right up until the ending, which is, unfortunately, god-awful and unbelievable. Up until the climactic moment, the pivotal character has been so such an evil, unrepentant, irredeemably bad seed, that her final decision to give up her satanic, idolatrous fantasies and do the right thing makes no sense at all.

Other than that, it's a fine Fugitive hour, with a terrific child-actress (Gina Gillespie), scary bad-guys, and the hard-hitting bright-but-dreary rural-American atmosphere which makes the show so compelling. And if you watch carefully and don't blink, you'll even see Elisha Cook, Jr., as one of the gang.

Watching this series again, I find myself impressed by the strength of the stories in these early episodes. Here Kimble finds himself in evey man's worst nightmare, accused of child molesting. Typically he is holed up in a Nowheresville in rural Missouri where watching traffic lights change colour would be a thing of wonder for the locals. Jenny Ammory, a lonely, dysfunctional child, has a wild imagination and causes mischief with her made up stories. Unfortunately, her parents and all of the other inhabitants of the town, are such inbred hicks that they are ready to believe them. Kimble finds her school books in the road and returns them to her as she dallies by a pond in the woods. Having failed to do her homework, Jenny sees a way of deflecting attention when her young, attractive teacher Miss Norton, goes into the school barn to speak with Kimble when he delivers fuel. She rushes home to tell her mother and, before you know it, the locals are in full pitchfork and burning torches mode, after the teacher's job. Kimble too suffers at the hands of his thuggish boss Tyson, who thinks Miss Norton is his property. Kimble is told to leave town but first goes to the PTA meeting to clear Miss Norton. He gets Jenny to admit she was lying about any impropriety but, Jenny retaliates by saying that Kimble chased her in the woods. Despite her just being discredited, the town rises up again in response to the accusation and Kimble is chased. Again he comes across Jenny by the pond and pleads for her help. Tyson arrives and is ready to shoot our man, when Jenny suddenly has an attack of conscience and admits she made the whole thing up. This episode has real tension. Kimble is a fugitive but for a different reason. The vindictive little girl and maladjusted townsfolk seem to exist in a different world of morality from the rest of humankind. A world where a suggestion or accusation is proof enough of someone's guilt. And if they think it, watch out! Superb acting from Gina Gillespie as the unpleasant child. I seem to recall she appeared in a number of similar roles in the sixties. Madeline Sherwood plays her mother with such convincing redneck self-righteousness that she would practically repeat the role later in the episode The Devil's Carnival. Another story about Hickville. Watch out also for Hollywood veterans Ray Teal and Elisha Cook junior as supporting characters. The moral? Don't hang around in a small town in Missouri!

Kimble crosses paths with a spiteful, hateful, angry little girl who's only focus in life seems to make everyone around her as miserable as she is.

Her only friend is a doll that she keeps underwater in a creek. Why she keeps the little doll tied underwater is probably her murderous tendencies emerging. She probably moved onto killing baby animals not long after this and then moved on to people.

She's so twisted and out of her mind that she concocts an attempted rape story on Kimble just to get out of being late for school and not having her homework done! She's pure evil!

And she goes even further by accusing Kimble of having sex with the school teacher during school hours in the nearby barn---and the whole town just believes every word without question. They all seem to be just as messed up as she is!

It's a very good episode that moves along at a swift pace and I felt badly for the poor teacher yet at the same time I wondered why on earth she would want to stay in a town with all those crazies and not pack her bags and leave.

It was interesting to hear her tell KImble how she was basically run out of many small towns in the past simply because she was pretty, young and single and a threat to the local wives. Wow. It's hard to believe times were actually like that, but I guess if a woman was past a certain age back then and still unmarried, it raised flags with ignorant people and the accusations would fly. So I guess I could understand why she would have had enough and finally fight back and stay, which is what Kimble's advice was to her.

I liked Kimble a lot here. Much more so than in the fourth season. I have already finished the series and am re-watching it over again now and I notice how different he is in the early episodes compared to the final season.

He's much more relaxed, amiable and easy going than in the fourth season where he was visibly tired and looked like he's had enough of the series.

Even with police, KImble is conversational and relaxed and easily hides that he's on the run from the law whereas in later episodes, he lowers his head, keeps quiet, and just looks fidgety and guilty as hell which only attracts the cop's attention to him.

In this episode he even tells the sheriff "Come with me" when he goes to the town meeting to help the school teacher...something you would never see him do with a cop in later seasons. I like him a lot better here because he easily puts on a common citizen facade around police rather than act like a guilty person with something to hide when they're around as he did in later seasons.

The episode builds up nicely to an exciting climax at the creek where the psycho girl keeps her creepy little drowned doll. It's a solid 10 episode that I can only find one minor little fault with.

I can't believe that evil little girl would turn into a girl scout so quickly the way she did in the end. After all we've seen of her during the first three acts, it's much more believable that she would scream bloody murder to the men with the guns and have them all shoot Kimble in that creek just to keep people from finding out she's a big fat liar.

It doesn't detract anything from the episode and I guess in the early 60's a happy ending was expected from TV shows. But you just know that creepy little girl grew up to be an insufferable woman who made other's lives around her miserable and probably wound up becoming a female serial killer!

The cast in this one is interesting. We have Arch Johnson making the first of his three fuge appearances. He is Kimble's boss who beats him up for looking at "his girl" who's really not. Then there's Crahan Denton, who would be in the show five times. Ray Teal shows up as the sheriff. Ray is almost always the sheriff. Elisha Cook Jr is also on hand, having recovered from being shot dead by Jack Palance in the great Shane. And look closely for Bill Erwin, who has an uncredited part as the minister. Erwin had a memorable part in Seinfeld as crotchety old geezer Sid Fields, who Jerry agrees to spend time with.

About the show. Kimble is in a small Missouri town where being good looking is met with hostility. Kimble has two strikes against him because he is using the name Jim Fowler, but he denies knowing Marlon Perkins. There is adorable little Jenny, who takes orders from a doll she keeps submerged in a pond. She is kind of a cross between Rhoda from the Bad Seed and Alexa Bliss. She makes up a story that Kimble tried to molest her. We assume it's made up, although Kimble does take an uncomfortable interest in her. Anyways, the town is about to kill Kimble until Jenny suddenly grows a conscience and recants her story. Sheriff Ray drives Kimble to the bus stop and tells him he would be happy to provide a reference for his next job. This episode is noteworthy because it features a lovely, single woman, played by Pat Crowley, who unbelievably does not fall in love with the doc.