Season 2 Overview

Airdate: 04/30/1986

Directed By: Victor French

This episode deals with a family issue. It’s also notable for being the last episode of the second season directed by French—not Landon or anyone else. Interestingly, it seemingly uses mature language for the first time in the series.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help the head of a home for young mothers deal with some pernicious allegations that could ruin her career.

It’s like a triple assignment. It supposedly begins while Jonathan and Mark drive to Pemberton, home for teenage mothers.

So, they meet Joyce, the head of the place, while she’s preparing for an upcoming interview to raise funds for the house. However, during the interview, a ruthless journalist, Dan Rivers, brings up some old allegations of stealing, to insinuate Joyce is inadequate for the role and the place should close down.

Nosy journalist.

And the assignment becomes helping Joyce clear the allegations and avoid the foreclosure of Pemberton. At the same time, they also decide to step into the life of some of the mothers there, including an irresponsible girl who secretly dates the reporter, and then another girl who plans to spread false allegations addressed to the journalist, in order to get back at him for what he did to Joyce and her.

• Background

The setting is California, of course, although the Pemberton house is fictional.

As for the timespan, it seems to last several days or maybe a week, but the exact timeline is unclear. On the first day Jonathan and Mark arrive at Pemberton, and Joyce has the interview.

The following day, there’s an emergency board meeting where Joyce resigns from her role. However, it’s not clear to determine the time that passes after that meeting and before Sandy writes those letters.

Also, the episode doesn’t conclude with Jonathan and Mark driving away in Mark’s car, discussing what they’ve learnt from this assignment and heading to the next. Instead, it concludes the day of the conference, implying that Jonathan and Mark will stay at Pemberton for some additional time even though their work saving Joyce is concluded. That could be the case, as they were so busy helping Joyce and the mothers that they completely dropped the job they were hired to do in the first place: clear the way for the new wing.

So, it’s plausible the downtime after the conclusion of this episode and the beginning of the chronological next one (either the season finale or something else) is longer than usual.

• Characters

As it’s a triple assignment, it might be helpful if Jonathan and Mark both worked on it. However, that’s not the case: Jonathan is handling most of the work alone, while Mark disappears early on and never reappears — his last scene is when Joyce is informed she’s has been ousted by the board, which occurs like twenty minutes into the episode.

That’s literally his last appearance.

Then, he completely vanishes for the rest of assignment: he’s even absent from the final conference, when the reporter publicly apologizes for his behavior. They are all there: Jonathan, Joyce, the janitor, the two mothers involved in the assignments — but Mark is not.

Also, before disappearing, he hadn’t played an important role either: he’s never shown interacting with Sandy, and he only talks to Joyce once at the beginning.

Maybe he was too busy doing the job he was hired to do in the first place, instead of playing the angel. Because Jonathan could use the stuff and handle all the work like he did in Keep Smiling, yet he has to leave his human friend slogging for them both.

It’s hard to be alone in this job.

Either way, there isn’t even a final scene of him and Jonathan in the car discussing what they learned from the assignment. Likely because Mark didn’t learn much, as he stayed away most of the time.

• Production and Setting

The episode was produced from February 20 to 27, and was directed by French, his last episode this season. And having him as director might explain why his character is largely absent (more details about it here, at the entry Production And Setting). It seems that French would rather either act or direct, not both at the same time, and in every episode as director, Mark is completely cut out from the assignment, or left in the background.

Anyway, this episode was written in early February by newcomer David Thoreau, who will come back in the future. So, he’s no highwayman, but if the name sounds familiar to some scholar, that is no coincidence: he’s a distant relative of the 19th Century literate Henry David Thoreau, the very same writer of Walden (that one, precisely). And now, his relative is involved as recurring writer in a TV series about angels. From nature to Heaven.

It’s actually unclear what followed it: apparently, Thoreau began writing novels, and in 1985 he turned to TV (this episode marks his first script of his entire career). So, he worked as a regular writer for Highway from then until the fifth season. After its cancellation, he kept on working on TV in other series, as well as on his novels (the last one that is accounted for is dated 1990, the mystery “The Book Of Numbers”). Then, during an interview in 1990, the only one of his career, he reported he was in the process of writing the script for a picture — which would be released six years later. But he only worked on multiple episodes across many TV series (never as a regular writer, unlike in Highway) and retired in 1997 from TV, and it’s unclear whether he still worked on his novels, or if he completely quit writing and retreated to a quiet Little House in some big woods (because he must have read that book, and then moved to the enemy side). Or maybe he watched that series may years later and felt compelled to move to Minnesota, without knowing it’s set in California, like many Highway episodes for that matter.

Anyway, he was the last recurring Highway writers: now, they are all there (Gordon, Paul W. Cooper, Perine, Thoreau, Vince R. Gutierrez, O’Kun), and they have already written something. So, the rest of the episodes in the series will be written by them, a regular writer member. Of course, that is excluding the highwaymen, who wrote one episode and then they were off.

Instead, as for the setting, the episode was produced in California, all around: in particular, the fictional Pemberton home is in Altadena, and was a real house.

Although it has been demolished now.

Instead, the school where Sandy used to go to is the Van Nuys High School (which will be used in a future episode too), and the house where Sandy’s boyfriend lives with his father, the greedy real estate developer, is in Encino, a familiar setting by now.

In particular, that Encino house is in the same Avenue where they made Summit a few episodes ago (it was the “secret meeting place” between Russian and US ministers).

Because Landon must have friends there, who are willing to give their properties in for his series if he needs — like The Monster a few episodes ago, which was produced in the same Calaveras museum used as court for Little House, and they didn’t even change it much to make it look more 1980s and less 1880s then.

Glossary

Blooper: there’s one blooper at the conclusion. When Jonathan helps that irresponsible mother promise she’ll be good now, he approaches her to kiss her.

Right there!

Now, there are two weird things here: one is the distracted stony expression of the girl — because, if a man approaches you and tries to kiss you, it’s hard to believe you wouldn’t react in any way. She could have turned her face quite bewildered by his behavior if she didn’t see it coming, or she could have smiled back is she did or something. Instead, she impassibly stays like that.

The second is that, the moment Jonathan kisses her, a figure behind him appears in the mirror. Now, it’s unclear who that figure is: certainly someone from the production, or possibly even French, who directed this (although French has longer hair and beard, so it’s unlikely). But at least that might explain why Mark wasn’t in the episode much — that’s French that was busy directing everyone from there.

Curiously, this wasn’t the first episode directed by French to feature someone appearing in a mirror: a similar blooper occurred during As Difficult As ABC, through the left car window — although that man was wearing a cap and appeared to be bald, so it’s unlikely they are the same person.

Or maybe they are, one year older.

Anyway, that’s not the only blooper: it’s an episode with plenty of babies around, so there are multiple instances of kids watching the members of the production. There’s even a slightly odd moment, though not really a blooper, at least entirely: right at the conclusion, they show a baby stretching to touch something or someone.

And the episode stops right there, before the kid spoils everything.

The Angel and Mark: when Jonathan meets Joyce and introduce Mark too.

Jonathan always has to introduce his friend.

Little House Actors: the character of Jack Brent, the greedy constructor who wants to foreclose Pemberton (and who unwittingly has a grandson there) is played by James T. Callahan, who might sound familiar.

But he’s not related to “T. Callahan” played by French on the Bonanza episode where he and Landon became friends (more details about it here), nor to the “T. Callahan” of Little House season eight (in the episode where Landon reunited with French after years).

Rather, he had a role on another Little House show, in the special episode Look Back To Yesterday (one of the three final movies at the conclusion of the series), where he played the doctor that diagnoses Albert’s leukemia.

Curiously, that was his first collaboration with French, but not the last: the same year as that Little House special episode, Callahan appeared in one episode of Fame of the third season. On that same season, there are two episodes French was involved in: one is the season finale (with Supiran, an actor met in Highway here), where French played a guest character — and that also marked the last role of his entire career outside Highway, which kept him busy until his death five years later. The second episode he was involved in is an earlier one that season, as director (his last credit as director before Highway), and on that episode, Callahan made an appearance — playing a nameless doctor, again.

That can’t be a coincidence: he played a doctor on two episodes of two different TV series, both times directed by French and both shows produced the same year — the Little House one was produced in the summer and aired on December, earlier than Fame (which was produced on November and aired on January), and that can’t be coincidental.

Probably French thought Callahan looked convincing as a doctor, or maybe Callahan was known as the TV doctor at the time. Anyway, three years later he’s being directed by French (and it’s the third time in his career), though now he’s not a doctor, at least.

KA News: that’s an important one. In the episode The Torch a mysterious TV station, KA News, was introduced in the series, and it turned out this station will become permanent in the series. Now, they brought it back, playing a more important role. Basically, it turns out that Dan Rivers, the reporter viciously attacking Joyce, is from that network. So, it seems like that TV station wasn’t so good.

Actually, the journalism idea was a very sensitive topic for Landon, and in the episode they even mention the First Amendment.

And Jonathan had to remind him something.

That was already part of an episode Little House in the fifth season, and this idea about journalism and misconception of the First Amendment will be proposed again in an episode of the fifth season in this series.

And then, when Jonathan confronts him about the incomplete allegations, Dan uses an old saying to justify his actions.

Again, it will be used in that same fifth season episode.

The “Stuff” Powers: there’s a moment to point out about Jonathan’s powers: at the beginning of the episode, he uses his vanishing trick to sneak into the reporter’s station and ask for a delay in broadcasting the interview.

But he’s rejected.

Now, two things to point out here: this moment contrasts with a fourth season episode, where Mark (on that occasion, he has the “Stuff”), uses the power to convince a news broadcasters to air an interview by seemingly manipulating the reporter’s mind. So, if the “Stuff” can influence people like that, it’s odd that Jonathan didn’t use similar tactics here — or even to use the powers to erase the tape or something. It might be like breaking the stuff (because he has to talk people into doing things, not doing it for them), yet it wouldn’t be the first time he takes such initiative (like for An Investment In Caring, when he broke the news of the corp buying another one before time, using the Stuff).

Also, another odd thing is that Jonathan is trying to persuade Dan Rivers to delay the interview, and if he won’t use his power to do something, he could have reported it to Dan’s superior. Actually, Jonathan does confront Dan’s superior later at a party celebrating the interview’s ratings, telling him he should have mentioned that the charges were dropped, and the reporter’s superior gets angry because he realizes the interview wasn’t truthful. So, Jonathan could have gone to that man before the interview aired, and maybe prevent it.

Jonathan should have come to you.

Anyway, Jonathan also uses the Stuff when he’s informed that Bren is behind the interview.

The Job: for this episode, they are hired as gardeners thanks to Jonathan’s reference.

Ratings: 32 million audience. 15th Weekly TV programs, 3rd TV genre show.

It aired by the end of April 1986, four weeks after its predecessor, and it was more successful than it, though not as popular as many episodes in the second season. This is likely because the second season was extremely successful overall, rather than this episode underperforming. Actually, it will be the most watched episode if the entire series to air at the conclusion of the season (late April and early May), after the reruns have already begun. So, considering that on that time of the year the ratings usually shrink, this episode held on pretty well.

And then, one week later, they aired the season finale, which is completely unrelated to this episode and is a one part assignment (unlike the first season). For some reason, this season doesn’t have a final episode like the first season, which somewhat encapsulated the subjects of the season, but it’s more like some random assignment that could air any moment.