Airdate: 01/20/1988

Directed By: Michael Landon

When the game gets tough, Highway gets tougher. And this assignment needs it.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help both a bum and a counselor involved in a court battle.

It’s particularly harsh. And bums are involved.

Mark is not really pleased.

As explained at the beginning, it’s a double assignments with Jonathan and Mark having two subjects.

One is Matthew, an alcoholic former lawyer who eventually wound up being a bum.

One day, his friend—another alcoholic bum—is arrested for stealing a bottle of liquor, and Matthew decides to defend him.

But there’s another subject.

The second is Mrs. Reynolds, an attorney hired by a ruthless councilman to clear the block of bums.

To do that, she decides to make an example of Matthew’s friend by charging him with a felony and threatening him with years in jail, hoping to scare the other bums away from the block.

Now, Jonathan and Mark must help both sides: they need to help Matthew assist his arrested friend and get him released from jail.

Meanwhile, they are also to help the woman realize she’s being manipulated by the councilman, and admit that she has a problem with alcohol and begin doing something about it.

There are several peculiar aspects to the assignment. One appears right at the beginning, when Jonathan and Mark introduce themselves to Matthew and Humphrey and offer to buy them a meal. The two men reject the offer and want booze, Jonathan and Mark refuse and the bums walk away.

Mark then asks Jonathan whether the assignment is blown.

But Jonathan simply tells him that what they have to do.

They only intervene again after Humphrey is arrested and Matthew needs help.

If they had to wait for Humphrey to be arrested before starting the assignment, then there seems to have been little reason for Jonathan and Mark to approach them earlier in the first place.

This may suggest that the assignment was not originally meant to unfold that way, and that Humphrey could have avoided jail if he had listened to them. That’s pretty much what Jonathan has been preaching for all the series: he can’t force people to change, he can only guide them but it’s up to them. So, if the bum had heeded him, things could have been different for him.

At the same time, though, Jonathan’s decision to remain in the background instead of keeping Humphrey from stealing the bottle (he only warns Matthew once the theft has already occurred) may imply that he knew the arrest was necessary to bring a change in Matthew and do something about his problems.

That, in turn, suggests either that Jonathan can foresee the future or that his superior had already informed him how events needed to unfold. Maybe Humphrey didn’t have to steal the bottle, but the moment he refused Jonathan and Mark’s help, it became inevitable for him.

Another unclear point is Mrs. Reynolds and her problems: Jonathan explicitly tells Mark that she is the second part of the assignment, yet they make no effort to approach her at first. In fact, their only major interaction with her occurs only when Jonathan try to persuade her to drop the charges against Humphrey the bum the day.

As a result, despite her importance to the story, there is relatively little direct interaction with her. And that may partly be the cause of what happens to her.

• Assignment Schedule

This episode’s conclusion has some unprecedented implications for the future. Once they’ve helped Matthew establish a house for bums, Jonathan and Mark are invited to have dinner with him. And this time, he’ll probably buy it for them.

But Jonathan declines, with a very odd justification.

That leaves Mark confused, as they still need to help Mrs. Reynolds with her drinking; she’s part of the assignment too.

And Jonathan makes is stunningly helpless.

That’s a big thing: basically, it implies that they have to move on despite still having one part of the assignment left unresolved. Oddly, Jonathan only tells Mark that she is not their assignment, without explaining what will happen to her now.

It might confirm that Mark and Jonathan do not get all the time they want to work on their assignments; rather, their superior tells them when it’s over and they have to drop it, even when they haven’t concluded it yet. And now they are forced to leave her behind.

Something similar had already been suggested in season one, when they were working on the assignment involving Diane and Scotty: toward the end of the episode, when Scotty broke up with her, instead of helping them reconcile Mark simply made an excuse and told her that they couldn’t help her as he had to leave with Jonathan for a new assignment; even though that one had not been concluded successfully yet.

Of course, they eventually stayed one more day, just long enough to get them married, but if they had had to leave right away, it would have implied that they do not get as much time as they want or need to solve an assignment. And that’s what’s being confirmed here.

However, this case is different, as it marks the first time in the series that they do not conclude the assignment successfully, or at least only solve part of it. Effectively, they saved Matthew and helped him get back on his feet, recover from alcoholism, and then help other homeless people. At the same time, though, they couldn’t get her to recognize her own drinking problem, and she ruined her life.

• Background

The episode takes place in October 1987, as explained by the judge when she reveals the date Matthew’s friend stole the bottle of liquor. The assignment itself most likely unfolds over the course of the usual week or ten days, as confirmed toward the end when Matthew calls Jonathan and Mark to tell them of his accomplishments in then last two weeks. So, that means this assignment was concluded by Halloween, and it chronologically takes place right before the women prison episode (which was set in Thanksgiving, although without specifying which year).

That excludes the epilogue, which Jonathan explains it’s set several months later.

The settings are familiar to longtime Highway Travelers: it’s near Alone (the one about the bum child who is then adopted by a troubled shattered family).

Actually, some of the settings are exactly the same.

Looks familiar.

The store Matthew’ friend inadvertently steals liquor from is the same one where Arnie used to steal cat food for his cat.

And he was almost caught, if Jonathan hadn’t rescued him by convincing the owner to give him a job.

Of course, Arnie didn’t need it, as he was eventually adopted by a troubled family, but it’s strange that the same shop keeps getting targeted by so many bums. Just imagine it: Arnie could actually be working at the shop now, sees a bum trying to steal booze, remembers what it felt like when he himself was a bum stealing for his cat, and lets the man get away.

And the second half of this episode would never happen.

Also, the man running the shop probably wasn’t too impressed by Jonathan’s idea of giving jobs without references to bums who steal from his liquor store. Otherwise, he would have offered that bum one instead of calling the police on him.

And the second half of the episode would never have happened.

Maybe people just don’t listen to Jonathan’s punchlines anymore.

Just the same way the ratings of Highway to Heaven had dramatically dropped by season four.

Sad, ain’t it.

• Characters

As for the characters, there’s a striking moment involving Mark: once Matthew finishes the story about how drinking led to the collapse of his practice — in a way similar to how Mark drank himself out of his job as a cop years earlier — he demands alcohol.

And Mark reacts emotionally.

Very emotionally.

While Matthew lashes out at him.

That gets Mark even more worked up.

That’s a huge revelation: it’s the first time in three seasons that anyone explicitly mentions it again. It’s important to point out that Mark used to have booze problem (as revealed in the Pilot) which caused his suspension from his old job as police officer; then Jonathan helped him confront them and he seemingly recovered well. The last time the series dealt directly with Mark’s alcoholism was in Heaven on Earth in season two, when he blamed himself for the death of a girl in a car accident.

Then he separated from Jonathan and started drinking again, started a fire while drunk, and finally quit for good.

After that, however, the series barely addressed the issue anymore. On the contrary, Mark often seemed to be coping quite well, even occasionally drinking socially (as he did in Oh Lucky Man in season three, for example).

And now, this part reveals how difficult the struggle still is for him, despite all the progress he has made, and how something like alcoholism never completely disappears.

That also explains why Mark becomes so invested in this assignment: maybe he relates to Matthew; in a way, that Matthew had a stable career for years, but gradually lost everything due to his drinking problem until he wound up a bum. The only real difference is that Matthew never had an angel to help him — at least not until now.

As for Jonathan, this time seems unusually informed throughout the episode. At the beginning, he practically recounts Matthew’s past in detail.

Later, he tells Mrs. Reynolds that she is being manipulated by the councilman, whose only goal is to drive homeless people away from the block.

And on the night Humphrey commits suicide after being locked up, Jonathan makes one final attempt to convince Mrs. Reynolds to drop the charges and let him go.

I mean, hard to believe that Jonathan talking to Mrs. Reynolds the night Matthew’s friend was about to commit suicide was a coincidence.

Maybe Jonathan’s superior sometimes provides him with background information for certain assignments.

Even though, on other occasions, though, Jonathan and Mark are left wandering around for hours before they even figure out what their assignment is.

• Production and Setting

As for the production side, the episode was filmed over the course of a week between late November and early December, and it was written by Perine, the man behind a bunch of episodes in season one (like As Difficult As ABC). Actually, his involvement becomes tighter in these last two seasons, as though he were to become the new headwriters now that Gordon has almost left (by the time they made this episode, he had already quit writing for the series; there’ll be just one more episode by him, produced later on).

As for the setting, there are some notable places and here several familiar sets. Besides the convenience store at the beginning where the bum is caught and arrested — which is the same liquor store as Alone — the alley where Humphrey and Matthew drink together was shot at Rosslyn lofts, in the same alley where they shot All That Glitters from season three, when a thief stole a briefcase from two drug dealers.

It feels as though the writers were inspired by earlier “bums and bins” assignments when putting this episode together. They avoided involving the third of Landon’s obsessions, probably because that would have made the story even darker than it already is.

Anyway, the final confrontation between Matthew and the councilman takes place at the Los Angeles City Hall, which already served as the Congress in the Washington episode in season three.

Though they didn’t shoot in that same room.

This exact assembly hall is being reused twice more in the series, including once later this season.

Glossary:

A’s (Oakland Athletics): at the conclusion of the episode, there’s a sort of Easter Egg when Jonathan and Mark day watch the opening from a distance. At exactly the moment Jonathan turns to Mark and nods the same way he does whenever they have to go, while Mark is heading toward the car, there is someone behind them who looks really familiar for a brief moment.

There!

He could be anyone: a random guy who was just on his breakfast and had no idea they were shooting him, or even Victor Allen French Jr. eating. He was the son of Victor French and apparently regularly worked as his father’s stand-in and personal driver, from season nine of Little House on the Prairie through the entire run of this series.

They do look alike.

Actually, that’s not the only time he appears in the series: he had already made an Easter Egg appearance in the season two Halloween special (the one about Hell, not werewolves), during the driving scene at the beginning in which Jonathan scares Mark by briefly taking on Mark’s face. And he played the man who was supposed to appear as Mark, as Victor French himself was busy playing Jonathan in the passenger’s seat. (More about it at the “Actors’ Self-Reference” entry of that episode).

He also made a bunch of Easter Egg appearances in Little House (as in The Older Brothers episode in season nine), so this wouldn’t be unprecedented.

Kiddo.

Surely, even if he weren’t Victor Allen French but just an impostor, he stole Mark’s A’s cap.

Blooper: one blooper at the beginning, when Mrs. Reynolds and the councilman are discussing bums matters, and the councilman is keeping his left hand down.

But then he’s keeping it up, and holds it with his right hand instead.

Bums And Bins: it has both from the BBD, the three Landon’s obsessions.

This episode takes a very peculiar approach to the “bum assignment.” Unlike other episodes that portray homelessness mainly as a tragic circumstance, here the two homeless friends, Matthew and Humphrey, have consciously chosen their lifestyle and insist that they do not want to be “saved.”

Although it doesn’t mean they like this. It’s definitely new.

There’s also plenty of booze. Though it’s not an obsession yet.

Punchline: there are some punchlines which definitely stuck home. When Jonathan finally remembers that he should be helping Mrs. Reynolds too, he confronts her with the bum problem, and tells her to remember that people are not born homeless and she’s judging Matthew’s bum friend too harshly.

But he does that in a familiar way.

And the woman can’t stand this line anymore.

That’s exactly the punchline Wally used in his puppet show — the same one attended by Landon’s daughter — when he warned the audience never to dismiss homeless people as “just bums” and that everyone has a different background.

Curiously, the Wally episode was written by Landon, while this one was not. So either the writer of this episode watched the Wally show and deliberately reused the punchlines because they fit so well, or Landon recalled those lines and improvised them while filming this episode because he believed they captured the point. In both cases, it would be a recycle (like between The Last Assignment and Jonathan Smith Goes To Washington, or The Banker And the Bum and both Keep Smiling and Change Of Life, to name some other recycled punchlines).

However, this time it can be justified by taking it that the Wally episode effectively served as a lesson for Jonathan, and that Jonathan is now repeating that lesson to someone else. That can be the case: the Wally episode was a peculiar one in which the “assignment” was more for Jonathan and Mark to learn something from Wally, rather than helping him in some way. And given how invested they were in that episode, it probably hit the mark.

Anyway, there’s also another very important point in the episode. At one stage, while Matthew is delivering his speech, he calls attention to how people often appreciate those who publicly reveal their personal struggles, while ignoring or condemning others who suffer from similar problems but lack respectability.

It’s no place to discuss this, but it’s remarkably bold and likely aligned with Landon’s belief, who never made a fuss over his personal life problems, nor sought to be seen as inspiration for that.

Epilogue: one of the most important parts of the episode is its conclusion. And there’s a lot going on.

For one thing, it takes place months later. This makes the episode one of the few in the series to feature an epilogue taking place way after the end of the rest of the assignment. Other prior examples include The Banker and the Bum, Sail Away and To Touch the Moon—although in To Touch The Moon there’s no confirmation.

Then, it features Jonathan’s voice-over—the third time in the series (after Help Wanted: Angel in season one and Sail Away in season two; there’s also the Ghost episode, but the voice-over was in the prologue on that one.) More in general, it’s the fourth time an episode concludes with a voice-over about the consequences of the assignment (Mark’s in Bless The Boys In Blue is now included).

Most importantly: Jonathan and Mark quit. For the first time in the entire series, the assignment was not carried out successfully, and they had to give it up to someone else. Probably to Matthew’s deceased friend.

Either way, the epilogue it’s actually even bleaker than what it was supposed to be: apparently, the original script reported that the woman was supposed to stare at the Bogart House for some time, and then slowly walk in. However, in the final episode, she just stands there, and the episode concludes without showing her getting into the house. Which doesn’t mean she’s actually going in to seek help.

Even Jonathan and Mark just ignore her when they drive away next to her.

Now, Jonathan was too distracted looking at the building and Mark was doing the driving—but it’s hard to buy that none of them notice her.

You did that on purpose to leave her to another angel.

Ratings: 29 million audience. 23rd weekly TV program, 5th TV genre show.

This episode aired in late January and continued improving on the ratings of its predecessor, which had suffered a drop from A Mother’s Love but was still performing quite well compared to the earliest episodes of the season (the Halloween special is still down there). This showed that January was a very important month for Highway, and perhaps the season still had a chance to be renewed by the end of the year, provided the ratings did not decline again. Season three had followed a similar pattern, though, and the audience now seemed difficult to win back.