The Maltese Cow - Episode 27

[Deleted]

Original Air Date : December 13, 1983

Written By : Richard Christian Matheson & Thomas E Szollosi

Sidney's Rating Scale: 9.9+

I actually had time to watch this episode today and was reminded how much I love it - this is a stellar episode for me - how do I love it - let me count the ways:

I love Mac Murdock - he is adorable!

I love the fight scene in the restaurant with Face and Murdock bowing to each other after they throw the guy over the bar

I love the reference back to Vietnam and how Sam helped saved their lives

I love them all dressed in black 

I love the Face and Murdock entering the hotel room and Face motions to Murdock and Murdock motions to the invisible behind him

I love the gonzo headache and being able to read and speak Chinese

I love the ending tag scene with BA taping Murdock's mouth shut and boy, BA looks quite handsome in that hat

I love when Mac Murdock sees the Maltese Cow he immediately is back to just Murdock - drops the whole persona and I love the whole zany fantasy life speech - moo

I love the escape from the police station - they don't know who they have up there.   I love it.........when a plan comes together

I forgot how much I really loved this episode

A few things I was thinking about then watching though

1) why would the US deport gangster Chris Thomas instead of putting him in jail - is that something that happens a lot - people getting deported?   Seemed weird to me

2) the fireworks warehouse - ok the seemed a bit corny that they stopped the bad guys with fireworks and honestly wouldn't setting off all those fireworks inside the building have caused everything to explode?   Although it is quite obvious when they are knocking boxes over that they are empty boxes

3) at the police station when the finger prints come back - Captian HM Murdock is listed with all the others  and as part of the armed and dangerous ATeam.    My guess is that running the prints would have alerted the Military so they would have known that Murdock was there and with the guys - they would have found out he was part of the team.    His days of being a secret weapon should have been over at that point .   

[Morgan]

MALTESE COW nearly ties with STEEL as my number 1 episode.
I love everything in it. Everything you mentionned Ladyjay, plus Face's hilarious asthma scam...
I love the little Xmas note at the endo too.

And of course, one of the best (if not the best) ILIWAPCT of the whole series.

Jan 28, 2017 22:57:47 GMT -5 @ladyjay said:

3) at the police station when the finger prints come back - Captian HM Murdock is listed with all the others  and as part of the armed and dangerous ATeam.    My guess is that running the prints would have alerted the Military so they would have known that Murdock was there and with the guys - they would have found out he was part of the team.    His days of being a secret weapon should have been over at that point .   

I totally agree with you on that. Murdock would now be an exposed weapon...

[amyk]

I watched this one yesterday and wrote some comments, which I'll go ahead and post first, before I read what the others have already written here:

I love so much about this episode, but I get kind of bored with it after Murdock and Face go to the hotel room and discover that Sam and Sun have been taken by the tong. From there on out, it does not interest me as much, until the tag scene. So I’m just going to give this one an 8 on the Sidney scale.

I love Mack Murdock, and I also love all of Hannibal’s snarkiness. I love it when he says “I don’t mean 2:05” and then how Murdock makes his fingers show “2” as they leave.

And one of my favorite parts of the whole episode is how the officer wants psych to be called in because Murdock is seeing cows up there in Sanders’ office.

Chris Thomas does not really interest me much as a bad guy / mobster. He’s no Crazy Tommy T.

I wish we had experienced the time Murdock thought he was a plaid jacket named Willie! I wonder what that was all about!

I love how Face takes out FICA, Security, and group medical deductions from the gross pay for the team!

BA looks nice in the cowboy hat.

[amyk]

I love the gonzo headache and being able to read and speak Chinese

Do you think Murdock really can read and speak Chinese, or did he just make up what he said? After all, couldn't he just have surmised that the message written on that mirror very likely was something like what he said (which I think was along the lines of "death to all enemies of the Lun Chin")?

[amyk]

I love the ending tag scene with BA taping Murdock's mouth shut and boy, BA looks quite handsome in that hat

Funny that I also commented on BA in the hat before seeing your post!

[amyk]

1) why would the US deport gangster Chris Thomas instead of putting him in jail - is that something that happens a lot - people getting deported? Seemed weird to me

I don't know if I ever thought about that before, but you make a valid point. Presumably, he's American, right? So how could they even deport him? Can't you only deport someone if they have another home country to be deported to? What country would take a gangster? Seems that it would have made more sense if they just said he's been hiding out in some other country that didn't extradite him back to the States or that nobody has even known where he's been for the past 10 years.

[Deleted]

Jan 29, 2017 22:03:53 GMT -5 amyk said:

I love the gonzo headache and being able to read and speak Chinese

Do you think Murdock really can read and speak Chinese, or did he just make up what he said? After all, couldn't he just have surmised that the message written on that mirror very likely was something like what he said (which I think was along the lines of "death to all enemies of the Lun Chin")?

Knowing full well how biased I am - of course Murdock and speak and read Chinese.   I believe he had a genius IQ and is quite fluent in many languages.   Sigh - he is so awesome.    Thinking of Murdock makes my Monday morning more bearable 

[amyk]

But do you really think he became able to read and speak Chinese just from having a gonzo headache?

[Deleted]

Well, with Murdock you never know!

[Deleted]

In Murdock's case - I'm thinking he knew how to speak and read Chinese and just used the headache story to get a reaction from Face - maybe

But and I don't know much about it - there is a psychological disorder called Foreign Accent Disorder where people get bad headaches or head trauma and then start speaking with an accent they never had before. Of course that is just an accent not a new language but Murdock is an over achiever - lol

[Deleted]

When I was a kid, I could do some pretty precise accents without really knowing how. No headaches or languages though!

Hmmm-does that make me related to Murdock??

[Morgan]

I've read of people, coming out of a coma and speaking another language. A language they couldn't speak before their accident. No idea how this is possible.

[Deleted]

wow - that is amazing. Ok, so hypothetically if you could all of a sudden speak another language, what would you want to be able to speak?
I would love to be able to speak Polish since that is my heritage. I so wish that I had asked my grandmother to teach me when she was alive.
I know that we have many bilingual people here on the forum and that is so cool.

[Morgan]

I can speak a little German and I am learning Spanish. However, I'd love to speak Chinese and to write Chinese calligraphy. I find it so beautiful.

[amyk]

I would like to speak fluent Arabic.