Season 2 Overview

Airing: 12/04/1985

Directed By: Victor French

This is the second episode of Season 2 split into two parts, and the last of the season like that (the first and second are the only seasons of the series to have two episodes divided in two parts airing separately). It also marks the return of Diane, Mark’s cousin, and Scotty, the quadriplegic lawyer she married back in Season 1. So, it’s one of the few episodes of the series to have recurring characters.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help both a quadriplegic lawyer and a disfigured sculptor fulfill their aspirations.

It’s a double assignment, and one is almost entirely handled by Jonathan. So, first, he has to take a job as handyman in a small neighborhood and meets Julian, a sculptor who is forced to live as a recluse in his home as people calls him “Monster” due to some unknown facial disfigurement.

Just another town where people judge each other based on what they look like.

Actually, a kid explains Jonathan that they call the Monster “Frankenstein”, probably forgetting that’s not the name of the Monster in that story, but of the scientist.

Jonathan is confused too.

But that’s the 80s, in a judgy town, and if people are confused nowadays, that was totally acceptable.

Maybe Jonathan never even read the book, and he doesn’t know it.

Then everybody’s wrong.

Unless they were knew it, and they were implying that Julian is a monster just like Frankenstein the doctor is, and not the creature.

Anyway, Jonathan is hired as handyman in a blind woman’s house, next door to Julian’s. And she likes sleeping in the woods alone.

But nobody judges her for that.

So, what Jonathan is really up to is trying to get Julian to hang out with this blind woman, Rachel, and possibly have them fall in love.

So, it’s a love assignment, third of the season (after Cindy and Popcorn), and, just like in the Cinderella one, it resembles a fable.

Before someone accuses this series of copying from that fable, at least they acknowledge the inspiration.

The episode was divided in two parts: on part 1, the assignment is get them to fall in love, while on part 2 is to help Julian prove his innocence after an accident that almost kills the girl.

But, alongside this principal assignment, there’s also another one: Mark’s cousin Diane (who had already appeared in A Match Made In Heaven) is having trouble with her marriage to Scotty (who got marreid to her on taht same episode) and they need the angel and his friend back to save it.

Actually, there’s no assignment for them on part 1, but they are introduced because they will come useful in part 2 (especially Scotty, for his job).

Anyway, Mark is busy trying to save his cousin’s marriage, and can’t help Jonathan with Julian and the rest of the assignment. Or maybe he was tired after carrying out an entire assignment without Jonathan’s help in the previous episode, so he just took some time off — which is also what he had intended to do on that episode but he couldn’t because he had to help his friend’s family (and because he has a job with no holiday, but Mark has probably understood that by now).

• Background

The timespan is unclear: it seems to be at least three days (when Jonathan arrives in town, Rachel finds Julian by the river and then Julian is arrested at the conclusion) but it’s unclear. And quite implausible that two people fall in love in a single day.

Instead, the setting is unclear as well, but the episode was produced in California, and Scotty and Diane met there on season 1, so it’s likely there.

• Characters

Now, as of the characters, the episode takes back Scotty and Diane Wilson, so it’s important to remember their story, even though it’s likely not everybody knew that by the time they aired this episode.

First, they introduced Scotty in the two part episode One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade (the episode about a baseball player turned pommel horse athlete). On that occasion, he was an aspiring lawyer, and eventually became one by the end of part two, and his story was supposed to conlude there.

However, it didn’t, and he came back for another episode, A Match Made In Heaven, where he fell in love with Mark’s cousin Diane, an architect. By the time they met each other, she quit her job, and Scotty helped her get it back, with a promotion, too. And that’s when she began feeling something for him.

So, they spent a lot of time together (neglecting Mark) and they eventually got married by the end of that episode. It seemed like their story was supposed to conclude then.

But it didn’t, and they are back here. And with some huge differences.

After having dinner with Jonathan and Mark, she comes back home and make a drastic revelation.

So, if she had to “go back to work”, it means that she must have quit it in the first place. However, in the episode A Match Made In Heaven she looked very happy about her job, and she was thrilled to have a promotion. Instead, it turns out that, at some point after the conclusion of that episode, Diane quit her job as architect and became housewife. But there’s something else too: here, they reveal that Scotty was never an attorney in the first place.

Now, that seems to be contradicting to everything in A Match Made In Heaven: first, because she was an independent woman and they never implied she was gonna quit her job to marry Scotty because he needed to be taken care of or something. And second, because they never implied Scotty was just a bookkeeper, also because, if he were one, the whole story of getting Diane back her job wouldn’t have never happened in the first place. I mean, she got it because he said he had an audit for Diane’s former employer, but if he were just a bookkeeper, he wouldn’t have had anything to do with that.

But, that’s the way it is: maybe it’s because that episode was inspired by a true story (the one of James Troesh, who plays Scotty), while this episode isn’t, apparently, so if they had to bring those two characters back, then they would have to make some alteration.

But there’s something about Jonathan and Mark too: first, at the beginning of the episode, when he gets off the car, and takes something with him.

It’s the bag!

That’s right: the bag is back. It’s the same mysterious bag that Jonathan carries with him in the opening of each episode and in the Pilot, and then completely disappeared for the rest of the series. There was a similar one in One Winged Angels, but it was not that same one (and it was likely Mark’s).

But what it contains still remains a mystery (because he’s an angel, so he has no need to have clothes, money or anything).

Either way, that’s just the second time in the whole series the bag is shown in an episode.

Also, for the second time in the series, Jonathan breaks his vow of avoiding being part to killing animals, as he said in episode of One Winged Angels in the first season. Actually, he had already been shown disobeying that during The Smile In The Third Row, when he ordered shrimps for dinner. Now, he does that again: when he’s having dinner with Scotty and Diane, and he forces her to take the lobster, of all the things she could eat.

Maybe he implies that he didn’t want to take part to killing earthly animals but sea animals are not equal.

Instead, about Mark, something to point out is at the beginning: when he rents an apartment on his own, he takes something with him too.

It’s the other bag!

That’s the first time in the whole series Mark is shown carrying that bag (or any bag, for that matter).

Yet, it’s not the first appearance of that bag: they had showed it while Jonathan was packing it up in the episode One Winged Angels mentioned earlier. And now it solves one of the highway of mysteries (more details about it at the entry “Highway Of Mysteries” of that episode): it was Mark’s bag, and on that occasion Jonathan was such a friend he packed it up for him.

Of course, there are other mysteries pending, such as why would Jonathan need a bag in the first place.

Then he’s called by Diane asking him to meet her, he believes he already knows what’s all about.

She’s not.

But they’ll save this idea for a third season episode.

Anyway, what’s important to point out is the name she promised to give the baby (never mentioned before in the series).

That’s the first time in the series Mark reveals this promise Scotty and Diane made of having a child named after him. And they are going to talk about this again on another episode in the third season, when Diane will actually have a baby.

• Production and Setting

The town where the episode takes place is Murphys, in California, although the name is never given in the episode. Maybe because they didn’t want to offend anyone there by depicting the town as a strict old community of people believing in medieval tales.

The production took place on October, chronologically immediately after The Smile In the Third Row, and it lasted one week. As usual for two part episodes (unless they weren’t originally intended to be such), part one and part two were produced separately.

However, about the production, there’s something particular to point out: this was the only two part episode of the entire series directed by French rather than Landon (who got all the rest of them). It’s unclear whether that was a planned choice or a last-minute switch. In season 1 (it’s unknown whether it was a deal they officially stipulated or not), French directed one third of the season, and he was set to do the same here. So, it is possible that, according to the production schedule, this episode had to be directed by him. Of course, it’s also possible they actually choose which episode to direct, and arranged the production schedule accordingly. So, maybe French read the script and liked it so much he wanted to take it.

That’s a possibility, also because, in some ways, the episode parallels his own early career: in multiple interviews, he discussed that, when he started out acting, he mostly got to play villains or antagonists role stemming from his own rough appearance, to the point that people identified him as antagonist personally. In one interview, he joked that, wherever he went, people would “part ways” upon seeing coming because they were intimidated by him, and feeling judge by people only for the roles he played was “disheartening, to say the least”. Then, it all changed when he met Landon (that he credits as his “angel”), who asked him to be on Little House and gave him the chance to show a different side of his acting skill (more details about it and their friendship at the Special here). So, maybe he related to Julian’s character, and decided to make this episode. Or maybe it’s because his character didn’t appear much (as it will become apparent on part two).

Either way, it’s the only two-part episode he ever directed in the entire series. Curiously, in a Los Angeles Times articles dated 1988 (during season four), apparently French reported one day he came back home to watch a Highway episode “that had quadriplegic actors”, and he started crying, admitting he felt grateful of being part of a series where “that actor is able to do that”. It’s unclear which episode he was specifically talking about, but possibly it was one with Troesh, likely early in the series (so, either One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade, A Match Made In Heaven or this). And, considering he directed this episode, maybe he was talking about it, wanting to see how his show turned out. Even though, being the director, he probably had already watched the episode, and didn’t have to wait until it aired on TV for everyone.

Glossary

Blooper: one instance at the conclusion. When Julian’s mother asks him why he’s cutting his hair, Julian appears with both hands hanging down.

However, when Julian is shown replying, his right hand his touching his new hair now.

Doozy: the character of Ridley is certainly one. I mean, he is a bully who annoys random people on the street to boast his childish wisdom.

And Jonathan has the “Stuff”, if you keep talking like that, you won’t exist on this planet anymore.

So, he’s the first doozy kid of the season. Actually, the quantity of doozy kids has drastically shrunk compared to the first season, and that applies to all the following season too. Maybe they realized there are some nice kids in this world.

Sunday Suits: when Jonathan and Mark go to the restaurant with Scotty and Diane.

It’s the second time in the series they go to a restaurant with them, second time they put that on.

Also, this scene was used by the distributor as the official image to promote the season — except it’s the wrong one.

They used a snapshot from an episode in the second season to officially distribute the fourth one. Probably the guy hey hired to do the editing has never watched the series.

But he didn’t, also because even the image of this second season is wrong.

If it doesn’t look familiar, it’s because that’s from an episode in the third season.

Apparently, it’s a common practice to mix up images from different seasons to promote TV series: for instance, in the first DVD release of the second season of Little House somebody put the fourth season dog. But at least they corrected that mistake with later distributions. Maybe they will realize it for Highway too and they’ll do something about it.

Hanging on: at Scotty and Diane’s place, in the living room, there’s a rural landscape picture that looks familiar.

I mean, it’s not really from Little House, but it resembles it very much. Also, they had already made a reference to Little House through a painting in the episode To Touch The Moon, so maybe they didn’t want to recycle that same one again.

Highway Actors: there’s a new face and two familiar actors. Of course as it’s an episode with Scotty and Diane, they called their original actors to play them. So, James Troesh is again Scotty Wilson, originally appeared here, when he met Landon who bought him the chair used in the series, and then here, the episode he personally wrote with his wife and that he directly based on his own life (one of the few episodes based on a true story of the series). He will come back in the third season as well.

Instead, Diane is played by Margie Impert, already introduced in A Match Made In Heaven; she’s also a Highway lifetime actress (but she will appear again in another episode of the third season, so she’ll become such later).

But then, there’s an appearance by Eve Brent as the landlady Mark rents the apartment from.

She only appears on this scene, and she’s basically an extra (credited in the closing credits). Actually, it wasn’t even her first collaboration with Landon, as she had already appeared in two episodes of Little House, as extra on both occasions And Landon likes to work with the same background actors in all his series: she will appear again in the third season, playing again a background character for just one scene. But then something must have happened and she came back in season five, that time finally playing a central character for the assignment.

Friendly Jonathan: there are multiple instances in the same scene, early on. When Mark has just rented an apartment and he’s settling in, Jonathan pops out of nowhere and scares him.

And Mark finally stands up to him.

He finally understood this by the second season.

Instead, the second instance is when Mark is trying to explain why Diane wanted to see him, and Jonathan continuously interrupts him because he knows everything already.

So, the point is that it’s unclear how Jonathan could know such things. I mean, either his superior told him, or he’s using the Stuff to read into Mark’s mind and predict what he’s going to say, or he has read into Diane’s mind and already knows everything that has been going on with Scotty. If that were the case, it would be the first instance of mindreading in the whole series. However, considering that Scotty ad Diane will become a new assignment by part two it’s also possible that it was just his superior filling him in on what has been going on in her life.

Also, Jonathan adds something weird: suddenly, the phone rings and Jonathan seemingly knows who’s there.

Of course, it’s her. And of course, he gave her the number.

Now, it’s quite hard to justify the way Diane got the number with the Stuff. So, it’s actually possible that, at some point before meeting Mark in his apartment, Jonathan actually stopped by to see Diane, and on that occasion she gave her the number. In any case, everything Jonathan does (from scaring Mark to interrupt him) is just to annoy Mark, and that makes it a friendly Jonathan instance.

Ratings: 36 million audience. 10th weekly TV programs, 2nd TV genre show.

So, part one aired on December 1985, although it felt more like a Halloween episode. Yet people didn’t mind that much and definitely wanted to see it— largely improving on last week’s one. Curiously, this episode scored even higher in ratings than the episodes they introduced Scotty in, as well as Diane’s one. So, there must have been someone in the audience watching this shwo that didn’t een know Scotty and Diane had already been part of the series before.

Anyway, by the time this episode aired, it became the second most-watched of the series so far, while the first one is Bless The Boys In Blue, even though both of them won’t remain as such for much longer.