Highway To Heaven Cast: We Have Forever Part 2

Airdate: 02/17/1988

Directed By: Michael Landon

And now, the second part of this unintended two-part episode that will alter the course of the series forever.

Assignment: Mark is “assigned” to help Jonathan restore his faith.

The assignment is quite different — although there’s still none, officially. In part 1, Arthur’s wife Jane passes away, and Jonathan has fooled himself to believe that he’d be allowed into Heaven to reconcile with her upon her death. But this was just a rule he has made up—and he was wrong: his probation wasn’t meant to conclude with Jane’s death, and he still has works to do. In response, Jonathan turns against the orders, separates from Mark, and essentially goes mad. Then, by chance, he saves a girl named Jennifer, who is attempting suicide by drowning in the ocean.

And Part One eventually concludes with Jennifer rescuing a puppy and then asking Jonathan to stay at her house until he can get back on his feet.

Keep your distance.

And she immediately asks to hold him.

Groundbreaking, for a Christian series.

Now, Part Two is essentially a love assignment between Jennifer and Jonathan.That’s not the first time he falls in love: One Winged Angels during Season One was about the same. Mark once argued that every assignment is partly about them, but this episode is entirely about Jonathan — and partly about Jennifer as well.

Although this time, Jonathan is the assignment.

And he likes that beach.

• Background

The background of the episode remains the same as in Part One: Los Angeles and Westward. The curse beach.

This second part spans at least two months, as revealed near the conclusion of the episode, when Jennifer tells Mark how long Jonathan has been living at her place.

That makes it hard to place in the season: Part one was supposedly set in early 1988, and there’s a problem with that. The cold open for Love And Marriage (the one added for its syndication broadcast) is about Jonathan and Mark reminiscing their four-year journey.

It’s been long-established that the Pilot takes place in early 1984 (before March at least), which means this cold open and its annexed assignment have to take place in January 1988, around the same time as this episode. So, if this really spans two months in Winter, it means that it must take place after the cold open, and it has to be set from February or March to April or May 1988 at least.

However, later on this season there’ll be another two-part episode spanning even longer. So, the only way to fit this would be taking it that season four lasts more than year (unlike the preceding three seasons, it doesn’t conclude in summer), and that season four and five actually take place concurrently. Maybe this season does never end.

Otherwise, just take it that it takes place in early January and ignore the Love And Marriage cold open; that’s not even official (it was not sold in the newest DVD version), and its existence would create many problems beyond its conflicting background.

Anyway, the setting is the same as Part one, although now they also go back to the Laurebrook Camp from All The Colors Of The Heart from earlier this season. Which is an existing camp (the “Bloomfield” camp for the Junior Blind).

• Characters

This two-part episode is particularly unique within the series. Throughout the story, Jonathan’s voice-over reveals his inner feelings and thoughts. It marks only the fourth time in the entire series that an episode features voice-over narration during the episode itself rather than solely in the epilogue — the other episodes were Basinger’s New York (voice by the titular character), the second Vietnam episode in season three (by the Vietnam vet), and the Ghost episode in season three (by Jonathan, like here).

In detail, his voice-over plays when falls in love with Jennifer and feels guilty over it.

And then, he goes out to the beach and prays out loud.

He neglects to mention that he already cheated on Jane in One Winged Angels and never told her.

But this was an episode in which Jonathan forgets much of his past in the series. For example, at some point he decides to go get a job.

With his references, should be easy enough.

But he can’t get any.

Maybe he’s ashamed of getting back to his old employers, as he had left all these jobs after one week.

Then you didn’t do your work.

This is problematic for several reasons. One, he’s been working many different jobs for forty years, he should have references. And not from his superior, but from his actual employers. I mean, he worked as a teacher three times (so far), as a cops four times, and the list goes on. Unless he’s ashamed to get back to his employers, when the longest job he has ever had didn’t last two weeks.

Moreover, earlier in the series — before his superior provided him with fake references — Jonathan routinely found work simply by proving his worth and demonstrating that references say very little. His earlier crusade against employers demanding references suddenly seems forgotten here.

Realistically, he could have tried Brian’s workplace, where they were willing to hire a man without realizing he could not read.

Or even returned to the gym where he and Mark had already proven themselves capable trainers and cut men.

If nothing works, he can sell himself as slave and work the first month without pay. That would certainly give him any job.

But there’s more: after giving up on getting a job, he goes fishing.

So, his lessons from One Winged Angels is busted. He already got back on this vow before (Back To Oakland is a recent example), but this episode is remarkable in the way Jonathan tries to break up everything he’s been teaching in the past four seasons. Although it’s fitting—being an episode about him losing his faith.

He also forgot his lesson in A Child Of God in season one: at the beginning of that episode, he revealed for the first time in the series that he had been on probation for almost 40 years; when Mark reported it was too long, Jonathan just replied it wasn’t according to his superior. Had he remembered that punchline at the beginning of this episode, he could have spared the trouble. Or maybe Landon liked that punchline so much he made this episode about it.

And then he forgot about Jane: when he’s sitting by the fire with Jennifer, she tells him that she wants to stay with him forever and asks him to pray for the same thing. However, by this point he doesn’t know Jennifer’s identity, and if he asks for it, then it seems like he’d be cheating on Jane, who is supposedly waiting for him.

Lastly, there’s a problem with the cold open in Love and Marriage: during the celebration of their anniversary, the wish was to keep working indefinitely.

So, he’d rather stay on Earth working with his buddy than go to Heaven with Jane, forever. Maybe the cold open takes place after this episode, and by then Jonathan had already come to terms with the idea that he would still be reunited with her eventually. Although it’s hard to believe this episode takes place before that cold open (which is set in January 1988, in the anniversary).

More likely, that cold open doesn’t exist. So just ignore it.

Actually, about that: it’s unclear what will happen to Mark and to his friendship with Jonathan once Jonathan’s probation finally ends. If Jonathan intends to spend eternity with Jane in Heaven, then he will inevitably be separated from Mark, who seems to have no life outside his work and his friendship with Jonathan — aside from his many secret Oakland friends, of course.

This partially answers that: it’s perhaps as important for Mark as it is for Jonathan, and reveals something potentially redefining for his future after the series. After being abandoned by Jonathan, who is being reformed by Jennifer at her house, he finds work at a factory without relying on fake references.

Somehow, he found a job while Jonathan couldn’t. Maybe Mark had accumulated real references, while Jonathan didn’t. Or maybe he sold himself as slave.

But realizes he hates the job.

Then go get drunk at your sister’s.

Sort of.

But most importantly: it’s unclear how he could get a job. He has worked with Jonathan for the past four years, so he probably has the same references. And yet Jonathan couldn’t find any job. Maybe he should apply there.

Also, it’s rather strange that Mark wouldn’t get a job as a cop (it was suspended in 1979, but he also got it back in season two.) Maybe there’s a rule that states you can’t talk about your life as angel’s assistant once your career is over; which means that, to his employers, he’s spent the last four years drifting around.

Anyway, he eventually quits and sets to continue helping people the way Jonathan taught him to.

Except that he has no guide assigning him the job.

So, he has to find an assignment: he’ll decide to go back to the offer Caz made him in Part one, and work at the Laurelbrook summer camp for blind children—the one from All The Colors Of The Heart early this season.

That choice is actually very revealing. Throughout the series, Jonathan and Mark helped countless people and worked in many different places. Yet out of all those possibilities, Mark returns specifically to the summer camp. The idea that summer camps is where he’ll eventually settle had already been foreshadowed in season two: at the end of the Camp Good Times assignment, Mark thanked the children and admitted that he had just experienced the best week of his life, adding that he hoped to come back someday.

At this point (when he goes to meet Caz at the Summer Camp for blind children), Mark has no idea that Jonathan will regain his probationary status and that the two of them will resume traveling together. As far as he knows, their job is over permanently. So, his decision to become a camp counselor is the closest thing the series will provide as answer to what he’ll do once Jonathan eventually returns to Heaven, if ever.

That moment never actually arrives, though: the series finale never resolves Jonathan’s probation, nor does it depict him permanently leaving Earth, so Mark’s future after the series remains unresolved as well. But if Jonathan were ever finally allowed to return to Heaven permanently at some point in the future, it seems likely that Mark would spend the rest of his life working at a summer camp, whether Good Times or Laurelbrook-Bloomfield or any other.

Unless he dies before Jonathan ever concludes his probation, and becomes a probationary angel. Or Jonathan never concludes his probation. Then, they’ll probably be working forever.

They have forever. To be probationary angels on Earth.

• On Angel and Probation

At the end of the episode, Jonathan’s probation is restored and everything turns out fine. Just like Ted in Love At Second Sight did. But the most important part is Jennifer: as the audience gradually realizes throughout the episode — or perhaps suspects all along — basically it turns out that Jennifer is actually the angel form of Jonathan’s late wife Jane, who has returned to Earth and been assigned to help her late husband, Arthur (now Jonathan), restore his lost faith. As her first assignment.

And yet another angel who looks up to pray to the superior. Some practice goes with the job.

Anyway, just like her husband, she was given a new body and a new identity for her probation.

It’s rather weird: she knew that Jonathan was Arthur, the man she loves, but that he has a different body. So, she’s in love with the same person who doesn’t look the same anymore; actually, he looks like someone she has never seen her whole life.

Also, it seems that becoming a probationary angel and helping a relative is a passage every probationary angel goes through as part of the job: in season three, probationary angel Ted was assigned to help his wife Laura; even Jonathan was assigned to help Jane back in season two.

Anyway, as part of her new identity, she now looks like Leann Hunley, in the 1980s at least. One curious detail: this Part Two also revels her family name is “Sims”, which is the same one as Mark’s grandpa in Going Home, Going Home; they might be related or something. Maybe Mark has a lost sister, the same way he has an unofficial brother who was never introduced in the series.

Are you another lost sibling?

Anyway, Jennifer’s officially the fifth angel Jonathan and Mark find on their way: the first was Petros Hadiar (or Saint Peter) in season one, then Harold in season two, Ted and Clifford the field supervisor in season three. There’s also Wally and the dog in For The Love Of Larry, but those are excluded here; they were different.

Also, she’s the only female angel in the series. After so many encounters before, it started to seem as though women can’t be one. Which is probably a good thing for them.

• Production and Setting

As for this Part Two production, it was made in a week at the same time of Part One, although portions of it were added one month later. As revealed by the script and later confirmed in interview to the actress playing Jennifer, the We Have Forever show was originally meant to be a single 45-minute installment shot in December 1987, but during production Landon realized it was getting longer than anticipated, so he decided to add new scenes to get to ninety minutes and split it into two parts. According to Leann Hunley in an interview on the Chicago Tribune dated February 1988, the new portions that Landon wrote to stretch it longer were produced in January 1988 on Saturdays to accommodate her schedule with a soap that aired on the same day as Highway, but on a different network in the nine o’clock time slot.

So, parts of this Part two were shot in December, while other portions in January after Back To Oakland was done. They probably already had the production schedule for that episode ready and the actors locked, so they couldn’t postpone it to make this part two.

The setting remains Los Angeles, with the beach scenes at Westward, and Malibu Road is where Jennifer’s house is.

The place where Mark met Jonathan at the end of the episode, as instructed by Jennifer, is the Trancas Country Market, along the Pacific Coast Highway.

The Camp Laurebrook is Camp Bloomfield instead.

And that’s an existing camp (until it all burned, at least; more about it here).

Glossary:

Angel Revelation: this was rather unique. It’s the only time in the series Jonathan is not the one doing the revelation—actually, he is the one to be revealed to by Jennifer.

Highway Actors: in this episode, Caz returns for a scene to hire Mark back to the Summer Camp.

His character will come back in season five, played by a new actor.

Instead, old Jane only appears in a flashback which is actually a scene extracted from Keep Smiling, the part in which Jonathan and Jane spent the night by the beach.

The new Jane, or Jennifer, is still Leann Hunley, who will guest appear in Heaven Help Us six years after this episode.

Real score: the moonlight, once more. Just, don’t get used to it: actually, it’s the last time in the series this piano melody will play. And it’s the last episode of the series about Jonathan and Jane.

Highway Of Mysteries: as in Part One, the story is filled with mysteries, the greatest of which involves Jennifer’s true identity as Jane.

That’s a game-changer. And it adds a whole lot of mysteries: one, remains unclear whether Jennifer has officially become a probationary angel like Jonathan — so she would have to remain on probation for at least forty years, as he has — or whether she simply returned for this very special assignment and is now back to Heaven waiting for him. (Basically like the Dog in For The Love Of Larry, who became an angel to rescue his family, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was going to work as angel like Jonathan).

Another possibility is that her probation differs from Jonathan’s entirely. The series suggests that there are multiple kinds of angels with different responsibilities: some, like Jonathan, travel around helping people (though apparently without a human companion), while others angels handle different duties, like assigning missions (episode Heaven Nose, Mr. Smith), assisting probationary angels on difficult assignments (Petros Hadiar in Help Wanted: Angel) or supervising their assignments (Clifford in A Mother And A Daughter).

The mystery comes after Jonathan reads the letter, in which Jennifer wrote that their “job” is more important than anything. Which implies she has become a probationary angel like Jonathan.

But then it means that she’ll probably have to work longer than him (her probation began 40 years later; even though it’s implied that angels serve different time with no rule, it’s likely that she’ll conclude it after him). So, when he’ll eventually ascend to Heaven, she’ll probably won’t be there yet. Being an angel will haunt him forever.

And secondly, now that they’re both angel, they can work together. If Jonathan was allowed to take a human companion in the Pilot, maybe he could ask to have an angel companion (like the angels in the TV series Heaven Help Us, the one with Hunley in a guest appearance).

Maybe there’s rule stating that one friend is enough for an angel. What an enslaving job.

Another mystery concerns how this episode ties back to Part one: back then, she couldn’t tell Jonathan who she really was because she must first restore his faith. However, this raises questions about their first meeting, when she attempted to drown herself. And she explained it was due to a man she was in love with but was abandoned by.

If Jennifer truly is Jane, then she’s inexperienced probationary angel and may have decided to approach the assignment by inventing the story about being abandoned by her husband. Yet now, with the revelation that she is actually Jane, it seems likely that the story was fabricated merely as a pretext to draw Jonathan in.

At this point, it’s worth asking whether that monologue (when she says she was abandoned by a man she loved) was accurate or not, and if there were some truth in it. Think about it: in Keep Smiling in the season two, Jane told Jonathan (unaware he was her husband) that her husband Arthur worked hard and often neglected her, as he was always busy. And Jonathan replied that her husband did it to give her stuff to make her happy. Maybe the story Jennifer told Jonathan wasn’t entirely made up, but was actually connected to her own experience with Arthur — and to Jonathan, too. It is impossible to tell whether Jennifer’s story was entirely fictional or partially inspired by her real relationship.

That possibility is not to be ruled out, especially considering this was her first assignment, so she may have relied on her own experiences in order to find a way to approach Jonathan back in Part One.

And that is something Jonathan has never done before: one thing is saying a white lie (as he does multiple times) when he pretends to know someone he doesn’t actually know. But making up his entire background is an entirely different thing. He’s probably too experienced to pull something like that.

Anyway, if that that were the case, it means that Jennifer was talking about Jonathan when she told him the story about her lost lover in part one. And Jonathan insulted himself, unwittingly.

Also, when she promised she wouldn’t kill herself anymore, she does that on Jonathan’s life. But if she knew that he was her husband (and that he was dead), then she also knew the promise was essentially worthless.

And then, when Jonathan saved her from drowning, he put her to bed to make her sleep. But angels don’t have to. Which means she just pretended.

She’s as deceiving as Jonathan.

But her identity as Jane implies other mysteries: if Jennifer truly is Jane, then she already knows both Jonathan and Mark, since they were both her tenants in her season two episode. Yet when she encounters Mark at the camp, she does not appear to recognize him immediately and even says she is looking for Mark despite already speaking to him.

Perhaps she didn’t remember him, or she was deliberately concealing her identity. Even so, the situation feels strange, especially because Mark would inevitably discover the truth once he read the letter. So, she could have told him right away.

And then, one final mystery is the conclusion. When Jonathan has recovered and the assignment done, he learns the truth in a letter and rushes back to Jennifer’s house — and it doesn’t exist anymore.

What on Earth is that.

Now, this part stands out as a mystery of the Highway: what the hell has happened to the house. I mean, there’s a missing chunk of apartment. How are they going to justify that to the neighbors: if the house has always existed, then someone else should notice that it’s not there anymore. And if the house had never existed and the place had always looked empty like that, then what has the neighbor been seeing in the last two months, while Jonathan has been living there. Unless Jennifer (or Jane) intruded everybody’s dream and made them see a house even though none existed. But that power is just too much.

It’s almost as though Jonathan’s life over the previous two months had been an illusion — or a dream. And the house where Jennifer supposedly lived no longer exists, or may have never existed. Of course, it was actually a wooden set conveniently dismantled by the end of the episode — but that is beside the point.

And then everybody forgets about the dog. The house disappears, yet the puppy was supposedly living in that house. At this point, it is unclear whether the dog was even real.

If the puppy was rescued after the car accident at the end of Part One, perhaps it implies that the dog’s actually died and returned as an angel too, just like Jennifer, later ascending to Heaven once the assignment was complete — like the dog from season three. Or perhaps it simply moved on to another assignment. Whatever the explanation, Jonathan barely gives the matter any thought, even though he easily could have adopted the dog and brought it along on the journey.

After all, season three implied this possibility when Jonathan allowed Mark to adopt the stray dog permanently before knowing he wasn’t a stray and was just dead.

Or maybe the dog has never existed. Which means Jonathan’s dream has been invaded by Jennifer. This was one of the most peculiar episodes of the series. And one of the most powerfully emotional.

The Job: at the beginning of the episode, Jonathan can’t find a job for the lack of references. That’s weird: he doesn’t need to talk to his superior to get references, he can just go back to his old employers. The only reason for going to his superior is asking for references about a similar job (in his case, being an angel). But he doesn’t and he can’t find any.

Meanwhile, it was easier for Mark, and he has a job at a factory. Maybe he used the real references from his life without Jonathan.

He means, he’s not getting drunk.

Anyway, if that weren’t odd enough, Mark eventually goes back to work as summer camp counselor. It’s the job he’ll most likely settle for the rest of his life.

But when Jonathan meets him after two months, and the truth about Jennifer is revealed, they leave for an assignment just like that.

So, Mark has no way to tell Jonathan what he has been up to, nor does Jonathan tell him how he saved Jennifer and what has happened in the past two months; most importantly, he doesn’t even give him time to quit his job at the summer camp before leaving. That’s not a very considerate move on his part.

Ratings: 28 million audience, 22nd weekly TV program, 4th TV genre show.

This episode aired in early February and greatly improved on the ratings of part one, becoming tied for the third most-watched episode of the season alongside Country Doctor and behind Time In A Bottle and A Mother’s Love in early January (that episode will remain undefeated for the rest of the year).

The ratings were still much lower compared to previous seasons, but they were definitely high by other episodes this same season, and restored to a pre-February base, when Back To Oakland skipped one week and interrupted the January streak.

It seems that people really enjoyed part one, and many more tuned in for part two. Or maybe Landon did well with the promotion. Either way, it’s definitely a sigh of relief for producers, and shows the season isn’t dead yet. Maybe this episode can help for the next one, and the ratings stabilize better.