Season 2 Overview

Airdate: 02/26/1986

Directed By: Michael Landon

One of the most peculiar show of the season and the entire series, for multiple reasons.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan is “assigned” to help Mark come to terms with his guilt over an accident.

It’s very unusual. One thing to point out is that it doesn’t begin with an assignment right away. Actually, it doesn’t really feature an assignment at all — at least not in the way the show has followed so far.

So, apparently, Jonathan and Mark are taking some days off at an amusement park, while waiting for an assignment. Because, sometimes angels get a vacation too. While there, Jonathan and Mark spot a lonely girl.

Maybe that’s the assignment.

So, for some reason Mark decides to show off his cop skills and handle the assignment without Jonathan’s help, eventually finding the lost girl’s mother.

You might say a probationary, aspiring one, even though he’d like to be a man a little longer.

But Mark doesn’t care about being a probationary, one winged man — and seems flattered by her remarks.

Don’t worry about the part that you get to be dead to become an angel.

So, the assignment is concluded, to the next episode now.

However, as he drives back (to somewhere) with Jonathan, he notices a car crash by the road.

And it turns out it’s the little girl’s car, and she died there.

When did a family show turn so gloomy.

So, Mark feels responsible for the accident, and feels haunted by what could have happened if he hadn’t helped the girl back at the park.

Then, it might seem that the assignment is about Jonathan helping Mark process this grief.

But it isn’t the case, either.

Apparently, Mark officially parts way with Jonathan.

After one year and a half together, they are not together anymore.

So, there’s no “assignment” this time: it’s not that Mark feels guilty, and Jonathan is assigned by his superior (or by his own initiative) to help his friend realize it was just an accident. Instead, Jonathan completely disappears from now on, and the episode is just about Mark, all alone, while trying to cope with his own guilt.

Later on, Jonathan will come back to invade his friend’s mind — so, in some way, Mark will become Jonathan’s “assignment” — but that’s just for ten minutes towards the conclusion. And it’s unclear whether it’s an official assignment or it’s Jonathan’s initiative, or it’s all random: Jonathan says that their superior had the idea of giving Mark’s the Stuff at the conclusion, but all the events leading up to that moment (like Mark who bumps into one of the dead girl’s friend) might or might have not been set by Jonathan.

Anyway, that’s the fourth time in the series the assignment is partly or entirely about one of the protagonists; and, again, Mark is the subject: the first time was Help Wanted: Angel (when he fell in love), the second Going Home, Going Home (when he met the young version of himself in the past), the third in Change Of Life (when he traded place with an actress), and now here, struggling with regrets. There will be episodes where Jonathan is the assignment — but so far, it seems like his friend has more problems to work out.

Just because he’s the friend of an angel, he’s helped more than other people.

More specifically, this episode is actually very similar to Going Home, Going Home for multiple reasons: on both cases, the assignment revolves around Mark in its entirety (unlike in the other two instances, where the assignment was also partially about an entire community in one case and a spoiled actress in the other); then, in both episodes Jonathan invades Mark’s head (actually, on Going Home, Going Home the entire assignment took place inside Mark’s head, while on this episode just the conclusion), and both assignments stem from some tragic car accident — and involves Mark wishing to change past events to erase or correct his mistakes (on that episode, he wanted to tell his grandpa how much he meant for him, while here he wants to prevent the accident).

However, unlike that episode where the assignment was thoroughly laid out by Jonathan at the beginning, this time it is more uncertain: actually, it’s one of the very few episodes in the series (possibly three) without any assignment whatsoever. And it’s not even like The Secret, where there wasn’t any official assignment but the characters somehow improvised one (Mark helping his colleague’s family), nor like Plane Death, beginning without an assignment and unveiling it later. Now, it’s just Mark learning to deal with his guilt — not being assigned by his superior to do so, nor being prescribed a way to (like, he could have gone back to his sister and ask her for help or something). So, it’s not an official assignment, except maybe for the conclusion.

• Background

The only certain detail is that the episode takes place in 1986, as revealed by the grave of the girl.

So, this episode must be set after Keep Smiling and Change Of Life (which took place before the 1985 Christmas holiday in 1985), as well as The Last Assignment (set during the Christmas holiday), while it’s unclear whether it’s before or after To Bind The Wounds (that had no clear indication on the matter). Either way, it’s one of the first episode set during the new year. And it kicked off Jonathan and Mark second year together (the Pilot is set in early 1984, before March) by having them go separate ways. Although it’s just temporarily.

The rest of the setting is unclear: the amusement park where they go to at the beginning is in California, while the desert Highway used when Mark is walking alone is located in Arizona, where the conclusion of the Pilot took place.

So, it would be plausible to conclude that the episode began in California, and then Mark drove alone all the way to Arizona, which is not that far to go to overnight.

However, the curious part is that the episode does not actually take place in Arizona: when Mark wanders through a town looking for a gas station, the owner of the station is listening to the radio, which reports an accident on the “421 Highway” (the accident where the girl was killed, and which Mark considers himself responsible for).

Except there is no 421 Highway in Arizona, or anywhere in the western United States. The only Highway 421 is all the way in North Carolina, across the country.

This means that the episode supposedly take place in North Carolina. If that’s the case, it’s not entirely implausible — the next episode would also take place somewhere in the East (supposedly), so Jonathan and Mark may already be there from this episode. However, it is unclear whether this episode occurs before or after the next one. Another problem is that the amusement park scene at the beginning was filmed in a real California amusement park. And while the show actually depicts Mark driving all night after the accident, it seems highly unlikely he could have driven all the way from California to North Carolina immediately after the incident.

So, what it all boils down to is that it’s either North Carolina or Arizona, or a country where these two states are actually adjacent; possibly it’s the same country where Tuolumne and Mentryville are the same town.

To complicate matters further, it is revealed that the victim of the accident is a friend of the boarding house owners where Mark is staying at. And when the boarding family abruptly leaves to go to the family whose daughter was killed in the accident, it is highly implausible that either family would travel from Arizona to North Carolina — or vice versa — just in a couple of hours.

Hard to believe.

You mean, all the way to North Carolina? Like, right now?

So, the setting is either North Carolina or Arizona, or a country where these two states are actually adjacent; possibly it’s the same country where Tuolumne and Mentryville are the same town.

Instead, the timespan is unclear as well, but it should be around one week: the episode begins the day of the amusement park and the incident, the second day is Mark driving all the way to that town somewhere and causing a fire, the last day is when he recovers at the hospital and the episode concludes. However, the second day (the one where Mark wanders lone though the empty town) is a Wednesday, because the gas station is closed that day.

And the owner explains Mark it’s always like that on Wednesday every week.

Then, at the conclusion, when Mark is released from the hospital and reconciles with Jonathan, the gas station is open.

That means this last part can’t be set the day after the fire (that would be Thursday), but likely one week later. It’s plausible, considering Mark had to recover from the fire, and it’s hard to believe it took him one day.

• Characters

The episode is basically about Mark trying to deal with the grief, and it is much apparent it is a great burden for him, as revealed through some details. For instance, when he gets to the gas station to ask where he can spend the night in, he decides to buy some booze too.

Not again.

In the Pilot, Mark was an alcoholic, and was suspended from his job for it. Then, he met Jonathan, who helped him recover from his problem — and he was never shown drinking from that episode. The only time Mark was about to drink again was in Help Wanted: Angel, upon being abandoned by Stella — and that moment showed how deeply afflicted he was from that.

Now, this marks the second time in the series he’s shown drinking — similarly to what he did after Stella’s breakup — which reveals how emotionally involved he feels after the accident.

But there’s something something odd about him even before the accident: the “assignment” basically starts with Mark who wants to go to the amusement park, and gets on a roller coaster.

There’s seems to be a problem with the very premise of going there in the first place: during one episode in the first season, there was a scene in which Mark and Jonathan were at some amusement park, and Mark refused to follow the go to a roller coaster because he was afraid to, and even the “beard would turn green” (his words).

So, all the pining and suffering of the episode, and all the regrets and guilt he’s struggling with for helping the little girl at the park — could have been avoided if he just had been coherent with what he said then, and would have never asked Jonathan to go to the amusement park in the first place.

Instead, he had to wish for being given the Stuff and erase his mistakes.

In this episode, he even adds that he used to love them when he was younger.

As if there were such thrilling roller coasters in the 1930s, or when he was a kid.

And the problem is even amplified by Jonathan, who adds that he used to hate them when he was a kid. And he was born in 1917 and died in 1948 (as revealed here). Not sure it’s much realistic. Unless the characters meant to make reference to the actors by jokingly taking distance from them (as it has already happened multiple times, like in Help Wanted: Angel or in the Halloween Special too). If that was the case, then it means Landon used to like them, and French didn’t that much.

Anyway, there’s something odd about Mark even after the accident: when he reconciles with Jonathan with bandages on his hands, and insists on driving all the same.

He should have learnt that driving in an unstable way might cause accidents that kill girls. But he likes reckless driving more, apparently.

• Production and Setting

As for the setting, the episode was produced around California and Arizona too. So, the amusement park where Jonathan and Mark go to at the beginning is the Knott’s Berry Farm, in California, and it’s an existing park.

Curiously, the park is operated by Six Flags, the same operators of the Magic Mountain park, the one the characters went to in A Child Of God (when Mark refused to go to the roller coaster). Perhaps Landon had some arrangements with them, or he used to take his kids there and he liked it enough to include it in the episode.

Then, most of the episode was produced in the town of Arivaca, in Arizona (not Tucson here).

Quite a lonely town.

Instead, the production of the episode began on January 15, following the preceding one, and concluded one week later. Actually, the preceding episode To Bind The Wounds was also produced in Arizona (at least most of it). So, production was already hanging around there, and didn’t have go to California and back. Likely that’s why they made these two episodes consecutively.

The script was written by David Young (a new highwayman) and completed on early January, just two week before the production could start off. One curious aspect is that, for most episodes of the season, production began about three weeks after the screenplay was finalized — which is reasonable considering the time required for actors to study their lines, for the production schedule to arrange locations, and for technical preparations. However, this episode was an exception: the script was finalized on January 6, just one week before production began, and that was the same day production resumed working after three week break for the Christmas holiday, and began To Bind the Wounds (which too one week).

So, considering that the production of that episode wrapped just the day before this one began, basically it means the actors had no break between the two. It’s really a hectic schedule, mostly for Landon and French, who were still committed to the that Vietnam episode while the script for this one went in, and they didn’t have time to study it.

Here, one curious thing: the script for the episode is marked as “Story No. 21”, to indicate the order they began writing each story compared to the rest of the series (not just the season). However, in the first season there were ten screenplays that remained unproduced — the episode The Right Thing was marked as 34 and dated February 1985, one year before this. So, by considering the story numbers of each script, it means this episode was originally written for Season 1 (or at least its premise was outlined then) but for some reason it remained unproduced that season, and was selected one year later. Maybe they realized it was too similar to Going Home, Going Home, and thought that one show about Mark dealing with his past mistakes as the subject of the assignment was enough for one season. But then they also realized it was a good premise and didn’t want to totally abandon it. So, they pulled it off for a year and made some revisions to fit the characters in season two (that’s why the draft is dated 1986 like the rest of the season). Or maybe it’s just that nobody wrote any better script this season, and Landon decided to recycle this from season one.

Anyway, there are some curious differences between the episode and the way it was written there. For instance, in the original script, the beginning of the episode was meant to be slightly different: it was supposed to start with Jonathan and Mark already at the roller coaster. Instead, in the final episode, it begins with them driving somewhere, and Mark reading the newspaper and commenting out loud (as he’s used to). This scene was removed when the episode went to syndication (and from the YouTube show available), yet it remained in the DVD version.

It’s probably an anticipation of the next episode, in which Jonathan and Mark will actually attend a “secret disarmament” talk between the US and the Soviet Union minister. Either way, it wasn’t written anywhere, and they added it later.

But then, also the scene at the amusement park was altered in the show. Basically, in the original script, both Jonathan and Mark were supposed to be on the roller coaster, with Mark making all those scared, comical faces while Jonathan would remain unfazed and take it “In stride, as unruffled as he would be sitting on a bench” (the way the script put it). However, in the final episode, they only show Mark on the roller coaster making the faces.

Yet, they never show Jonathan — as if he weren’t there. And only when it all stops, it turns out that Jonathan has been on with Mark the whole time, sitting near him.

Probably Landon read the script, and was too frightened to do the scene, so he just omitted it and jumped on the roller coaster later. Or maybe he even tried to do that, but he couldn’t keep the straight face required for it (and he couldn’t show an angel having fear), so he just decided to cut his character out of it.

Because, Jonathan is a probationary angel, but Landon is not.

And Mark is just Mark, who has to do everything they tell him to.

Glossary

A’s: for some reason, during much of the episode, he doesn’t have his cap on with him. It’s the second episode in the series in which Mark doesn’t have it (the first episode was Help Wanted: Angel, where he took it off right at the beginning upon meeting Stella and never wore it back for the rest of the episode). About that, it’s unclear what happens to the cap in this episode: Mark has it when he gets to the boarding house, then he appears without it when they all have dinner, and doesn’t have it during the hallucination. Next, when he wakes up and saves the girl from the fire, he still doesn’t have it, same as when family thanks him supposedly one week later.

Just at the conclusion, when he reconciles with Jonathan, the cap is back.

Angelic Recovery: the episode has one rare instance of it (a moment where Mark suffers from severe injuries and miraculously recovers, just like that). It occurs when Mark enters the house on fire, and passes out.

Then, he has that weird hallucination of turning the world into Heaven, and then he wakes up.

In a house on fire like that, he must have received some angelic stuff.

Blooper: there are two instances. One is at the beginning: when a little girl buys a balloon, she’s seen hugging it tightly, and her left hand around it.

However, before she walks away, she now holds it by the limp.

The second blooper is by the conclusion, when Marks is shown around the Earth he has fictionally created — where slavery hasn’t been abolished yet. Anyway, the girl who was polite and now acts as a spoiled doozy is scolding her maid for ironing the wrong dress, and when the maid walks toward her, a long shadow appears on her back.

Likely there was somebody from the production. A similar blooper occurred in the Pilot, during the final act.

Highwayman: the episode was written by “David O. Young”, who is a mystery. Apparently, this show is literally the only credit he has of his whole career; then, he seemingly retired, or went for another career, or changed his name. Either way, nothing is available about him.

Recycle: there are two sure instances, and another weird one. The first one is the very beginning, when the episode opens with a random highway in Los Angeles.

I know, Mark, it looks familiar.

That’s the same way they began Help Wanted: Angel, in season 1.

This exact scene will also be recycled a second time in the third season.

Anyway, it’s the third time one episode recycles something from Help Wanted: Angel, and it’s certainly not going to be the last (that’s the most recycled episode of the entire series). Probably the producers put a lot of effort into that episode and were quite put off by the ratings (it’s still the least-watched show of the series so far, and it will remain such until the third season), so they decided to honor it by referencing it elsewhere. Or maybe they assumed no one had seen it and thought no one would notice.

But then, there’s a second recycle (not from the same episode this time). The the scene at the beginning in which the characters are on another Highway in the desert and Mark proposes going to the amusement park is a recycle too.

That’s exactly the way they began an episode earlier this season.

The only difference is that Landon and French read new lines in the voice over.

Anyway, there would also be a third recycle, but it’s more in the background: while Jonathan and Mark are eating frozen bananas and witness the kids buying the balloon, the music playing out during this entire part is the happy circus-like song from the merry-go round.

That’s the same composition that played out from the merry-go round in Help Wanted: Angel, when Mark proposed to Stella. Now, it’s hard to believe that all merry-go rounds in Los Angeles have the same music: likely, they recorded the song coming from the one in Help Wanted: Angel (or David Rose wrote a 30 second one) and they recycled it every time the characters approach one. However, it’s just a background composition, and it can be justified by considering that these two merry-go rounds really had the same music (that’s not hard to believe either). So, not a recycle like the other two.

Highway Of Mysteries: the episode has some of them. One is in the setting: it’s unclear whether it’s Arizona or anywhere else. Mark is wrecking his car, going to Arizona and then Carolina and back.

A second one is with the characters: when the owner of the boarding house is told that the little girl is dead, he immediately tells his wife to go over to the girl’s place, and takes their infant son too.

Now, there’s just no rational way to justify taking the son too, instead of leaving him there with his sister and grandma, who take care of him all day long. Of course, that’s better for the kid when the fire burns down the house, but they don’t know that. And the worst part is that, when their daughter is denied to come too, they justify that in the most ridiculous way.

So, their son is a grown man.

Then, another mystery is when Mark decides to quit his traveling with Jonathan, and orders him to get off the car. So, Jonathan is left to the side of the road, just like that.

Hold on: where’s his bag?

Now, it has become apparent that Jonathan carries around a bag that looks like a convicted felony one. He is shown with the bag in the opening of each episode (that recycle from Little House), and occasionally during the episode (as in The Monster Part 1 or Keep Smiling). What he carries around is a mystery (he could materialize clothes if he wanted to), but it’s now established that he has one. Yet, now that Mark left him, he drives off before Jonathan can get his bag.

Imagine now Mark suddenly turning around and pulling over like: “You forgot this”.

One last mystery at the conclusion: when Mark and Jonathan reconcile, Jonathan reveals that in the past few days, while busy Mark was dealing with his guilt, he went to Heaven to see the little girl that died in the accident, but then adds something odd too.

Now, what is that supposed to mean: that she will come back as an angel, or that she’ll appear in a dream or something. Because they will never “see her along the way”, nor they make any passing reference to her and this episode again. Likely it implied that what they learned from her would be with them forever, or something like that.

The “Stuff” Powers: this episode is much peculiar also for the way Jonathan uses the Stuff. Apparently, in the second part of the episode, Jonathan invades his friend’s mind (for the second time in the series) and gives him the power to “erase his mistakes”, or whatever.

That’s something with multiple implications that won’t be discussed here. But, apparently, it has a technical term too.

And where did you read it? In the book “How to complete your probation to be a perfect angel” maybe.

Really, if there’s a “technical term”, as Jonathan put it, then someone must have taught him that. It might be another mystery, but it can also be justified by considering Jonathan was just showing off.

You mean like “every time” in your life, or just in the last few days.

That’s odd, because Mark never specify when he said that. So, it really might be as long as he has been a kid. He should have been more specific. But the odd part is that Jonathan understands that Mark was trying to say “just recently”: as the hallucination starts before the fire, it means they are not in the present, and what has changed is just what Mark has wanted to from the day of the car accident to the fire.

However, there’s also another moment Jonathan uses the “Stuff”, and it’s at the beginning: when they notice the accident by the road, Jonathan asks Mark to go away.

That implies that Jonathan somehow knew that the little girl was involved in the accident — and probably feared Mark would have felt guilty.

Ratings: 33 – 34 million audience. 16th weekly TV programs, 2nd TV genre show.

Despite airing one week following the other episodes, all very strong in ratings, this time it unfortunately didn’t match the strong results of its immediate predecessors, breaking the show’s successful streak of episodes scoring 22 ratings points (above 37 million). Actually, it lost more than two points compared to its predecessor, and ranked as the least-watched episode of all the ten before it. It seems like people liked episodes centered on Jonathan and Mark together more, compared to those focusing mainly on Mark—where Jonathan appears less. Still, the ratings remained solid by the standards of the time and even higher than most episodes from the first season—just not as high as the one featuring Jonathan’s story about his late wife, to name an episode where Jonathan plays a more prominent role in the assignment.