Season 1 Overview

Airdate: 03/13/1985

Directed By: Michael Landon

As it has become quite clear by now, the series alternates between emotional, hard-hitting episodes and breezy, brisk-paced ones. This episode definitely falls into the second category.

• Assignment

This time it’s a similar yet different assignment than earlier ones: it’s basically elderly folks trying to prevent the foreclosure of their homes. The premise combines features right from the Pilot: there is somebody foreclosing houses to build condominiums, there are some elderly folks involved who resort to some implausible plan to prevent that, and two of them will fall in love, eventually.

However, there are a couple of features to point out here: one, there is no drunk cop to save now (like Mark was in the Pilot), but they replaced that story with one about the age retirement issue. For the first time in the series, they touch upon the topic of forced retirement (which was deemed illegal in 1985, the year this episode was released). Although the story is not entirely about that (actually, it’s something they only briefly mention at the beginning and never discuss again), still, that’s the first time they talk about it, and there is going to be an assignment in the fifth season that will be entirely about that.

The second feature to point out is about the perspective of this episode, which is totally unique in the series: most of the episodes so far (but also in the future) are either told through both Jonathan and Mark’s point of view alone (such as in Plane Death) or a combination of theirs with someone involved in the assignment (basically a global, impartial perspective that encompasses everyone). Instead, very rarely, the episode is told exclusively through the point of view of the people involved in the assignment (in particular, Helen and Paul), completely neglecting Jonathan and Mark and leaving them in the background. And this episode is the first of those very rare, featuring exclusively Helen and Paul’s perspective. So, no scene where Jonathan and Mark are driving at the beginning, no scene where they are discussing about the assignment, they are just cut out completely and become the secondary character this time.

• Background

Considering the peculiar view of this episode (Jonathan and Mark never interact alone), there are no references to previous assignment, nor details about the settings now. Much of the assignment takes place in “Hawthorne Street”, but that’s a fictional place. It’s rather unclear where that street is, as multiple conflicting informations are given throughout the episode. So, the setting could be worked out as downtown Los Angeles because that’s where most episodes in the series are produced and takes place.

However, this time it could also be New York: at the beginning of the episode, Helen mentions that her daughter wants her to move to “Westfield“, and that’s in New Jersey. Of course, it can be that they are still in Los Angeles and the character doesn’t want to move to the East Coast (or they could also mean a fictional “Westfield” that it’s actually in California, maybe around Tuolumne and Mentryville or between them).

But then, Helen’s daughter claimed that in her house in Westfield she has more space than she had in Oakhurst. So, there are several places with that name: one is in California, the other town in New Jersey, and even one in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, putting the Oklahoma one aside for a minute, it can be that she lived in either New York or Los Angeles, moved first to that Oakhurst (either California or New Jersey one), and then Westfield of New Jersey, or another fictional “Westfield” somewhere still in California. To complicate this matter further is Paul, who reveals that he grew up in a block nearby, and mentions a series of places.

Actually, the school of “PS 84” might be a real operating school of New York, while “Bradford” is a town, still on that area. So, it seems like he’s talking about New York, and they are set there. If that were the case, it would be reasonable, considering that the next assignment won’t take place in California either.

But then, there would be the problem of how could Jonathan and Mark get there in the first place, considering that all the assignments from As Difficult As ABC onward are set in Los Angeles. It could be that they had traveled to New York in the time between the conclusion of an episode and the beginning of the new one, or that they had other assignments along the way that weren’t part of the series. Or, again, maybe this assignment actually takes place shortly before or after the “Going Home” one, and the Oklahoma settings that time could be justified by considering they were headed to New York or they were coming back from it after this assignment. Of course, it could also be this assignment takes place in Oklahoma, as we know Jonathan and Mark had been to that state for the Going Home assignment, and because there is an Oakhurst there too, but it’s unlikely that they are set there because of the other details: there would be no town named “Westfield”, nor any “Bradford” block in that state (unless it were a fictional Oklahoma with some LaGrange Bridge that’s actually in California pretending to be in Oklahoma).

So, it’s either California or New Jersey, but it remains largely unclear in the episode. Certainly, if it really were outside of California, they didn’t actually move the production there.

• Characters

Due to the peculiar view of this episode, Jonathan and Mark are actually in the background and do not have much time to talk either. Actually, Mark has just six lines in the whole episode, and more than half of them are one shot sentences like “You sound busy” (and that’s one line) and “Exactly”, his last line in the episode. Probably whoever wrote this episode considered Mark has a sidekick, not a protagonist like Jonathan. But Jonathan doesn’t get to have much attention either, so they are equal on that.

That makes the episode realistic somehow: by showing the assignment without Jonathan and Mark’s interference, they are just depicted as two random people who get into your life and help you solve all your problems. That’s basically the way every characters they’ve met so far must have felt, two mysterious guys coming out of nowhere and helping you for no reason; it must be pretty confusing at least.

Anyway, it’s a very peculiar approach, and there are very few episodes like this (wheer JOnathan and Mark’s perspective is not considered), but now it’s the first one. That’s why the whole episode feels rather odd this time.

• Actors (Little House)

This episode boasts an actress that has to be pointed out: the character of Helen is played by Eileen Heckart, the second Academy Award-winning actress to appear on the series (the first was in the Pilot). But she’s also a familiar face for Little House audience: she had appeared in one episode during the fifth season of that series, playing an elderly lady who falls in love with that insistent and pushy gambler from Winoka, and they both lasted one episode).

Actually, there is something curious about her previous roles: during her decades-spanning career, she starred on many TV projects and sitcoms. One in particular was in 1979, the same year as her Little House appearance: those were the days when TV was just taped laughs and character randomly smiling at each other during the opening credits, and sitcoms were sprawling everywhere like plastic flowers on Little House, just to be chewed out shortly after. And, that year, she appeared in the ABC sitcom Out Of The Blue. If the name doesn’t ring any bell, that’s probably because it wasn’t much successful: it only lasted 12 episodes (and they aired just 8 of them), and then it was cancelled after three months.

However, what’s important to point out is the premise: it was about “Random”, a probationary angel sent on Earth to act as the “guardian angel” to some orphans. It sounds incredible, but it actually existed, and it was five years before Highway then.

And Heckhart had a recurring role in the sitcom as Random’s superior, credited as “Boss Angel”.

Actually, It’s not the first precedent to Highway: during the 1980s, there was another sitcom, “Down To Earth”, which was about a probationary angel sent on Earth to help a single parent raising some children. Sure somebody must have copied by the other. But Out Of The Blue and Down To Earth were just sitcoms and were both bereft of any religious implications (nor any serious implications whatsoever beside getting people to laugh, just like any other sitcoms on TV), while Highway was definitely bolder than them.

Also, none was successful as Highway was, especially Out Of the Blue, which was canceled even before getting to half of the first season.

But it must have really impacted on her. I mean, imagine like her face when her agent called her and told her they wanted her for a TV show about a probationary angel sent to Earth assisted by his human friend to help some people struggling with some hard choices. She must have had nightmares. But then she was reassured it was by Landon (whom she had already collaborated with), and that she wouldn’t be the one to play the angel. And that it was a serious show, most importantly. Even though they got her for one of its more lighter episode.

• Production and Settings

The episode was produced by February 1985, roughly immediately after the previous one. Apparently, it took place in California: in particular, the “Hawthorne Street” where the elderly live is fictional, while the interior part of the building headquarter for the Halstead is the Bradbury Building in Downtown L.A.

Instead, the graveyard where Helen and Paul’s corresponding husband and wife are buried that they visit often is the Rosedale one, in Los Angeles (of course, it has to be assumed that’s not Los Angeles in case the episode were set out of California)

As for the production, it was written by Parke Perine, who had already collaborated some episode back for As Difficult As ABC; that’s weird, as he had already written an episode of Highway, so he was familiar with the series, yet he made this unprecedented decision to cut Jonathan and Mark out of the action and tell the story exclusively through the rest of the characters now. Anyway, production likely began on February right after the last episode and lasted one week. That’s a very strenuous pace, considering they’d be producing one episode of Highway a week every week starting form January 2nd (for As Difficult As ABC) without taking a single day break now. Maybe that’s why Jonathan and Mark are not featured that much now: they needed a vacation (which Mark even anticipated at the conclusion of the previous episode). Of course, It’s not the case for Landon, who is the director, but maybe it was for French, who only speaks six lines here. Or maybe this was a different assignment.

• The “Stuff”

One problematic aspect of this episode is the way Jonathan uses the “Stuff”. Actually, he doesn’t much use it in the episode, even though he could have done that on multiple occasions. Then, there are many parts where it’s unclear he actually used the “Stuff” or not, and to what extent. For instance, when the news that Halstead was about to mere is out, it’s unclear whether it was Jonathan who leaked it, whether he had used the “Stuff” to do something or if maybe it was his “Superior”. Then, when the Halstead’s heads devise a strategy to stop Helen and the neighborhood, Jonathan overhears them working as window-washer. That’s definitely weird, because it means he was hired as such at some point in the episode, though they never show that.

Another weird instance is when they devise that ridiculous plan involving Helen collecting bins, as they believe they will find sensitive informations there. However, Jonathan by now has already used the power of vanishing to move from one place to another (as he did Plane Death) as well as the power of being invisible (The Banker And The Bum), so he could have used those to enter the buildings and find the document alone, saving time and effort. Unless there were some kind of rules before using the power, like he has to tell someone he’s an angel before becoming invisible (as he had done to Melvin The Banker) and he didn’t now. Or, maybe, this episode actually takes place at the same time as Going Home, Going Home and he still hadn’t unlocked the invisible power with the “Stuff”. Or it’s the “Stuff” that just activates randomly.

Glossary:

Bins: they play an important part of this assignment, although it’s not about them (or the problem of pollution).

Security Now: this episode continues to show the way security system were faulty in the 1980s, or how people are so trustful of each other they don’t use them at all. An instance of it is the entire plan to find the secret document: Jonathan really thought Halstead was going to leave such important reports in the bins, and they wouldn’t burn it or whatever. But he was right, as they eventually find it.

And the curious aspect is that Paul had even brougth this problem up.

If it really were tight, it wouldn’t be a Highway episode.

Another is when the Halstead is having an emergency meeting and nobody realizes Jonathan is standing behind a glass and overhears them.

The Police: this episode adds to the many where the characters never calls the police when facing a problem. However, there is a difference with other instances: on those cases, the problem was that Jonathan and Mark didn’t alert the cops when it was the best thing to do, while now it’s other characters (the Halstead) to avoid that, although they have reason to believe Paul was involved in the plan against them.

The “Stuff” Power: in the episode Jonathan has the power to block a gate and then open it with his mind.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an elderly woman rally her neighbors in an effort to prevent a multinational corp from establishing in their community.

An elderly woman, Helen, is visiting the grave of her husband. Then, she comes back home to her daughter, who suggests that Helen move in with her and her husband.

It’s not often you see a daughter trying to convince her mother to move in with her, instead of pushing her into a care facility (the Pilot was an example). Actually, right the next episode will be about that too. But now, there’s an exception.

Anyway, their conversation is interrupted by Jonathan and Mark, who arrive to rent a room.

So, she accepts them as boarder, but warns them of her strict lunch schedule, and Mark has one of the few lines of this episode.

Then, she explains it’s because of her job. Because she still works, and she’s not past mandatory retirement age.

Some time later, Helen vents to Jonathan about the corporation she works for as cleaner, Halstead, which is trying to buy her property against her will in order to build something else there. She confesses that she feels hopeless about the situation, and Jonathan tells her that she should fight back.

It’s not going to be the only incredible thing to happen in this episode.

But Jonathan tells her other people are just like her.

Meanwhile, Paul, an employee of the Halstead who also happens to live in the same neighborhood, is informed that he will be forced into mandatory retirement due to his age, and that there’s nothing personal about it

The news leaves him crestfallen, as he’s been using work to feel useful with his life and to distract himself after the death of his wife. So, when he returns home, he pulls out a gun.

This was supposed to be a Christian family show.

Nonetheless, the show suddenly remembers there are families watching it, and before Paul can compromise himself, someone knocks on his door.

Of course, that’s Jonathan, who asks him what he thinks about Halstead’s project. And when Paul tells him that’s sturdy enough, Jonathan tries to make him see it another way.

Here, one thing to notice: basically, when Jonathan asked about Halstead plans that Paul complied while he worked there, he replied that in such a plan they don’t take into account the personal feelings of those involved in the acquisition — which is pretty reasonable. However, that’s also what Paul was told by his superior when he was put on forced retirement, that there’s nothing personal in such decision — which made Paul get upset by that.

Maybe it was a jab at how people do their jobs and get so used to them, eventually forgetting what’s more important for them. Luckily, there’s a probationary angel with an ex cop there to help them.

Anyway, Jonathan asks him join Helen in her plan against Halstead.

Still, Paul dismisses Jonathan and tells him that he has other plan, and Jonathan decides to talk him into this by recycling an old punchline.

That’s very similar to what he said in an episode very early in the season, when he tried to convince those old actors to stand up against some hooligans in the neighborhood, and one actor (who had planned to do what Paul was doing here) thought it was crazy. At least Jonathan realized that punchline was quite wacky, and now he’s refined it.

Anyway, Paul attends the meeting where Jonathan is exposing his plan toprevent Halstead from evicting them all. The audience might think it revolves around some crazy gambling (it wouldn’t be the first time Jonathan resorts to it to help some elderly folks buy back their place), but now he has something better: he wants the neighborhood to agree selling their houses and use the proceeds to invest in Halstead, so they could fight it from inside.

Now, when Jonathan came up with this idea, or whether it was inspired by some divine hint, is a mystery. I mean, Jonathan has been dead for over 30 years, so how does he know so much about shares and multinationals. These questions go unanswered because, as mentioned earlier, this episode is told from the perspectives of the people directly involved in the situation, especially Helen and Paul. So, we never actually see the moment Jonathan comes up with this plan, nor do we see him discuss it with Mark.

Anyway, just like for the gambling plan in the Pilot, Jonathan is persuasive enough for them.

That shows that you don’t know what he’s talking about.

But they wouldn’t be that sure if they knew Jonathan actually died more than thirty years earlier.

Anyway, someone reasonably objects to the execution of the plan, pointing out that Halstead has only offered them $50,000 for each house—far too little to buy enough shares to influence the company’s board.

However, Jonathan already has a plan to address that. And it involves a limo, apparently.

With Mark.

No matter how groundbreaking this show was at the time, it can’t avoid its 80s setting. This part might be stepping out of the line for modern audiences, but it wasn’t done with any bad intentions back then.

Anyway, Jonathan’s idea was having Mark dressed up in an Arab turban and pretending to go door-to-door, offering $150,000 for each house. And the plan works: the Halstead delegate sees him in action, immediately reports to the head of the Halstead who gather and discuss about it.

So, fearing that some foreign multinational corp is planning to establish in the same neighborhood, they set to raise the selling price and offer anybody one hundred fifty one thousand, eventually falling for it completely.

Now, everybody in the neighborhood accept the offer and collect the money, and get ready to start the next step of the plan, but Jonathan informs them of a new strategy.

Apparently, Paul knows the Halstead was about to purchase another corporation, so they might as well buy from that (which is bound to surge when Halstead takes it).

But there’s a problem with this, and it’s Mark who brings it up.

Finally he has a line in this episode.

Really, this was the third line he has said so far in this episode, and it’s a very impersonal line that sounds more like exposition to the audience, because Paul was getting there in a moment. But likely somebody realized his character was not having much role in this (I mean, neither Jonathan is, but Mark even less) and they gave him this line to make this exposition look more interactive.

Anyway, they don’t know the answer to that.

And you had to keep this last detail at the conclusion of your exposition.

So, this doesn’t really make this “a better idea”, unlike Jonathan announced earlier. Unless they had insiders there.

Right, Jonathan is one: he’s an angel, he knows everything.

Maybe his Superior will tell them what to buy now.

Apparently not.

He has a different plan, and it involves Helen’s exclusive access to the Halstead structure thanks to her job as cleaning lady there. And it involves bins: Jonathan’s plan is to have her collect all trash from the Halstead and carefully sift into each paper.

So, they collect it.

And, of course, there is someone very qualified to drive now.

Again, I thought you needed like a special license to drive that truck, but at this point, maybe Mark really made some kind of similar job in the past, considering he had already driven a backhoe some episode ago.

Also, that’s very problematic for multiple reasons: not just a “Don’t try this at home” warning, (because what they are doing is quite illegal), but rather because, if Halstead were that big, they must have some problems with their security by just throwing away pieces of papers that would reveal highly sensitive information. But this series had many problems with security systems in the past, so there really should be no problem. Evidently it takes place in a fictional word where the tightest security system is lock at people’s door (Jonathn doesn’t even like that in the PIlot). And not everyone use them either (like the Hotel Of Dreams maid that left her locker open, or the house at the beginning of The Brightest Star as well)

So, in light of the current security system of the series, they all feel confident about it.

As if they really left such information just on scrap papers.

Eventually, they discover the name, “Electro Comp”, and Paul immediately proceed with the purchase. Later, he tells everyone about it.

But then, the big news arrive: as soon as he had made the purchase, somebody leaked the story of the merge ahead of time, and it all went crazy.

Which means they earned some twenty millions dollar now.

And that was possible because somebody leaked ahead of time the story that Halstead had planned to merge.

And Mark has one of the few lines of this episode.

Of course Mark, just like when you won that gambling horse race.

So, apparently, the moment Paul bought it, Jonathan or his superior leaked to somebody (maybe a journalist or whatever) that Halstead was planning to merge, increasing Paul’s earnings instantly. Or maybe Jonathan used the “Stuff” and slightly manipulated the prices.

Anyway, with this plan, they’ve earned the money they needed to get to own enough shares from Halstead to have decisional power and halt the project.

At the same time, at Halstead, everyone is mad because they were not yet ready to buy from where they were going to merge with, and they believe in a leak that broke the news out ahead of time. Which is illegal, of course.

You’re security system is all wrong, that’s what’s going on.

So, to make up for it, they have bugs installed around the building.

One day, at work, Helen and Mrs. Zabenko gloats over their accomplishment.

But they are unaware they were being spied on.

So, the board calls for an emergency meeting to discuss what’s happening, in case the audience has just tuned in: Halstead found out that Helen and Paul led their neighborhood in a ploy to spend around twenty milions dollars and buy from Halstead until they got to own a slight percentage of it.

Here, one curious detail about the context of Halstead: by considering the shares that Paul and Helen bought for 20 millions dollars, in order to have decisional power, it means Halstead is valued at around 330 millions dollars, which is realistic for a multinational organization of the 1980s. It seems like the writer did his homework, and didn’t just made up figures randomly.

Anyway, now they know that Helen and Paul are behind it, and they could have them arrested now. Yet, the board outline a counter-strategy, which basically consists of selling everything they currently own of Halstead themselves and buy from what they merged with. Then, in some months, they will be buy back on Halstead in enough quantity to enable them to own more than Helen’s neighborhood, in order to oust them from the management, just like that.

However, Jonathan is revealed to be the window cleaner who overhears their plan.

And he understood everything correctly, I mean, he’s become the new wealthiest man on the plan by now.

Really, the heads at Halstead must have more than a leak in their security if they allow a window washer to hear your secret, emergency meeting where they discuss very sensitive informations about the company’s future. I mean, they got so mad about the leak that they had bugs installed all around the building moments ago, but now they just spill out sensitive information with a man behind him. It’s weird they managed to become such an important fictional corp with such a system.

Anyway, Jonathan informs Paul of the Hlastead’s plan. Then, at the shareholders meeting, Paul, Helen, and the rest of the neighborhood sit at the table and inform Halstead that they do not want them to build on their properties, as Halstead had predicted in their earlier meeting. But Paul surprises them by making an additional request.

That they won’t press charges against you?

No, really, because that’s the only thing Halstead can do now: I mean, Paul shared a sensitive information about Halstead’s merge, which spurred that collection and sifting through all those documents in the bins, and somebody leaked the story about the merge before it was finalized (which, again, it’s forbidden), just to earn money quicker than Halstead on the acquisition. And now Halstead knows that Paul was involved to some extent (because he’s sitting there with them, so he was among those who had bought shares from Electro Comp before the merge).

I mean, even though he didn’t actually leaked the story — presumably Jonathan did that (when Mark said it was “Heaven-sent”) — the Halstead’s heads don’t know that. What they do know is that Paul concocted at their back, and that he was somehow connected to the leak — because he bought before the merge, so he must have heard by someone (Jonathan or whoever), that such merge was going to happen in the first place. That would be enough to call the police and have him checked to see how connected he was to the leak.

But the head of Halstead is just greedy, believing it’s about Paul’s mandatory retirement.

You only think about money.

And Paul contradicts him.

So they can actually press charges against you.

Instead, he demands the entire board of directors to step down and make him and Helen the new directors. Otherwise, the entire neighborhood will sell their Halstead shares, which would cause the corporation’s stock to plummet and doom the company to bankruptcy. The directors ask how in the name of Heaven they had discovered their own plan, and Mark answers that.

And that was his final line.

And that is a big problem: I mean, that basically confirms that Paul was aware of the board’s plan to oust him and Helen after 90 days (the plan they outlined earlier), and that, if combined with the events earlier in the episode about the leak, may confirm to the board that Paul was responsible for it. And, again, it’s illegal, and he might get in real trouble now.

But nobody seems to be worried about the consequences of their actions.

Sure you “honestly” won, and now you just have to convince the cops about that.

They were as “Honest” as “Honest Eddy” was in his episode before Jonathan and Mark got in his dream.

So, they got even more than they bargained for: they got to stay in their homes, and effectively became the new directors of a huge international corporation — and they grew immensely wealthy in the process. But that’s just a side effect.

Their love is the most important thing on the assignment. Not the money, of course.

Anyway, Helen returns to the graveyard once again and introduces Paul to her late husband’s grave, implying they’ll become platonic friends or something like that

And then, they leave while Jonathan and Mark ominously watch them.

As was warned at the beginning, though, this was a one-of-a-kind episode, told exclusivity through Paul and Helen. Perhaps they got such a famous actress that they wanted to give them the main spot. Or the writer just was not well informed of the topic of the story and just wrote the story his own way. Like, he was just told the premise was about an angel and human helping people, and he set like: “Well, I’ll make a comedy dramatic story in which I’ll justify any advancement with the angel’s knowledge”.

Either way, the result is that Jonathan and Mark were completely ousted from the action this time, much like the corporations tried to oust the neighborhood and the neighborhood ousted them back eventually.

Anyway, this episode aired on March and scored similarly high to others. So, the series was keeping up well, even in such peculiar episode.