Pros and Cons - Episode 4

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Original air date: February 8, 1983

Written By: Stephen J Cannell

" BA's friend is held in a prison where the warden arranges fight to the death boxing matches where the winner gets released, only to be hunted down and killed.   So the ATeam gets themselves arrested and BA has to prepare to fight 

Sidney's Rating: I gave this a 9.  Love that Murdock is integrated in it more than Jamestown.  There are some great lines and BA gets some real funny ones.    Overall it's a great episode 

side note: it would take them at least 36 hours to get from LA to Florida

so what stuck out to you about this episode - post and let's discuss ........

[sidney]

ONLY A 9?!?!?!?!?!?

PROS AND CONS is a perfect 10. A perfect 10. It is absolutely amazing episode... Murdock screaming Trash Bags! alone makes it one of the best episodes in five seasons.

Why only a 9, ladyjay?

[Deleted]

I do love this episode - a 9 is an exellant score - it would have been just a tad better if the team was together for more of it. But there was some awesome dialogue. BA really has some great lines
Ok don't get me started on Murdock - you know I love him so. And yes TRASH BAGS !!! Is awesome. You know what I love even more - when he's sitting in the floor and says " I wanna 'em. I wanna 'em" and he bangs the sink and the wall. He's so cute there.
I don't like the kid - him crying in the van is so fake and forced. Even though he's not in it much - he still drags it down for me. Although that kid played in another short lived series that I loved as a kid ...... Bonus points if you can name it
Oh you know what I forgot? The tag scene where they are all sitting around the table and Face/ Dirk is trying to make Murdock/Dwight laugh. And succeeds. Oh Murdock is so incredibly swoon worthy there - in just his t shirt. But if you watch Amy sitting next to Face , she looks over at the two of them and starts laughing too. I wish we could know what was so funny.
Ok I'll bump this up to a 9.5. I just can't do a perfect 10 -I reserve that for my absolute favorite episode. It's the one I compare all others too But anything I would give a 9 or 9.5 is pretty close in the running

[amyk]

I get the bonus points....it's VOYAGERS!!!!

[amyk]

P.S. I loved VOYAGERS back in the day...not sure if I would love it now. Jon Erik-Hexum! Yeah!

[amyk]

I don't quite understand the scene where the Strikersville cop or whatever he is wants to arrest BA, Hannibal, and Murdock, but his deputy (or whoever that guy is) restrains him from doing so. Does anyone else understand the reasoning there? Something about arresting Yankees and a Senate investigation? Are these cops in on the prison fighting-to-the-death scheme? Why does it matter whether they arrest "Yankees" or southerners?

[Deleted]

Yes AmyK - you got it!!! Voyagers. I loved it as a kid but you are right , we would probably watch it now as adults and think " how could we like this lame corny show ". But back in the 80's as kids - we loved lame and corny. Plus Phineus Bogg would still be easy on the eyes like he was then.

I never got the whole "Yankees" thing either. How many Yankees found themselves arrested in Strykersvilke, Fl.? Also I assumed the cops that did the arresting were not in on the fight ring - that it was just the warden and some prison guards. But maybe they were - maybe they had orders to look for potential candidates for the fight program and if someone fit the bill - get them trumped up charges to get them sent to jail ? Maybe ??

[amyk]

Actually, the official name may have been "The Voyagers." Not sure now. But yes, I would have traveled around time with Phineas Bogg! Could leave the kid behind, though. I don't remember his name on that show.

Anyway, I'm just about finished with this episode. I am going to give it a 9 also on the Sidney scale. I also make a deduction for the fake crying and also just that Joey seems like he should be Jase's son and not his brother to me. But I'm watching the tag scene right now, and I do so love that when Dirk is apparently doing something to make Dwight laugh. Gotta rewind and look for Amy laughing, as I didn't notice....

One other thing that I was thinking about as I was watching the episode this time....I like when Hannibal is "telling" BA about the fight, but in reality he seems to be conveying that he and the team are not going to let BA down. I love it that they can communicate thougths without speaking words. Real friends!

[sidney]

I always took the not arresting them thing to be because they wanted to lay low. Maybe yankees caused trouble? Yankee lawyers or something? I don't know. But I thought they needed to keep things very dull so no one came around asking questions.

I loved Hannibal's sign language. That was a frickin' hoot.

[Deleted]

Or when they are in the yard and BA makes like two hand signs and Hannibal comes back with a whole string of insults to the one prisoner - hehe

[amyk]

Oh yeah, that part is funny, too.....wonder what BA was thinking that whole time! Probably something like "he's on the jazz and I'm the one who's gonna have to pay...."

[Nance]

I dont think he is thinking that. You can see a smile on his face. Very subtle... he's enjoying it. Haha

I liked the 'be safe' sign language too. The team probably used some signs in Nam when they couldn't talk. Sounds can travel far in the jungle.

Dirk and Dwight are staring at eachother in that last scene, so probably one of those old blinking/laughing games? And Dirk is winning haha

I'm not going to give it s n number though. I missed the first 15 mins because I had to walk the dog. A visible one...

[Deleted]

So how come when the police ran their prints nothing came back to alert them they had Hannibal and BA? Why weren't the MP's alerted. Now taking into account that in the 1980's it probably wasn't as simple as today with running the prints through a database but still....
Also after BA's fight in the yard -the warden says to get on the phone and let everyone know there's a big fight on Saturday. So what day did the ATeam get arrested ? The warden doesn't say the fight is tomorrow - he says Saturday. So how long was the team in there before the fight - couple of days , a week? Amy wears two different outfits to the jail so are we to assume it's only two days?

[Deleted]

So I'm feeling particularly dorky tonight -
the nurse in the hospital wing ( or was she supposed to be a doctor ? ) said that they give Murdock a trash bag and he's quiet for a couple of hours and then starts all over again. So it looks like in the over the wall scene, Murdock has 7 trash bags tied to his chair. Hannibals are harder to count because his don't even look fully inflated. But we'll assume 7 bags per chair. So if Murdock got one trash bag every couple of hours - it would take him 28 hours to get 14 bags. If it was three hours in between - then 42 hours

[sidney]

Aug 22, 2016 19:02:33 GMT -5 @ladyjay said:

So how come when the police ran their prints nothing came back to alert them they had Hannibal and BA? Why weren't the MP's alerted. Now taking into account that in the 1980's it probably wasn't as simple as today with running the prints through a database but still....
Also after BA's fight in the yard -the warden says to get on the phone and let everyone know there's a big fight on Saturday. So what day did the ATeam get arrested ? The warden doesn't say the fight is tomorrow - he says Saturday. So how long was the team in there before the fight - couple of days , a week? Amy wears two different outfits to the jail so are we to assume it's only two days?

They didn't run BA's prints because from the moment they had him, they wanted to keep it quiet that they did. They knew he was going to be joining the fight club and they wanted less documentation of who he was and that he was there. That's what I always thought anyhow.