Here we open with two men sitting in a big black Buick talking about how their "boss"-Big Eddie Little is being transferred to another prison the day before his execution is to take place. He's not being flown or taken by train, nor even a car. Next we see that they are beside a road (supposedly in Bayonne, New Jersey) where a long-distance, 50-mile road walking race is taking place. An overhead shot shows that Larabee-wearing # 13 even though he was never Agent 13-is in the lead. Later in the group of race walkers is Max (# 86) and the Chief (# 1). Max is handcuffed to a fairly old man, Big Eddie Little.
Max talks to Big Eddie while the Chief walks on ahead to talk to Larabee. One of the men in the car, One-Way Al, gets out and "joins" the race with a small pair of wire cutters, and snips the chain, letting Big Eddie and himself slip off to the side to climb a hill to escape, just as the Chief notices that Max is, once again, oblivious to the man he is guarding not being there anymore. Seeing them dash up the hillside, Max pulls out his revolver and fires five wildly inaccurate shots, then tosses his gun onto the pavement where it discharges and hits Big Eddie in the back of his shoulder. He continues up the hill swearing vengeance on Max.
Big Eddie and his pals are holed up in some mountain cabin (New Jersey is known for its mountains, as is Washington, D.C. where Max and 99's hospital is located, some 220 miles from Bayonne.) We never hear exactly where they are supposed to be. Al is ordered to go to a nearby hospital to bring back a doctor to take the bullet out of Eddie's shoulder. His buddy, Cortez, reminds him they are in the cabin near the lake. Al goes out the back door and drops right into the lake, coming back in rather quickly, totally soaked, saying, "The cabin overlooking the lake..."
Although the Chief wants Max to leave town for his own safety, Max won't leave 99 and the newly born twins alone. He goes to the hospital and learns they are in the incubation room, and that only 99 can go home that day. He and 99 leave the incubation room wearing gowns and masks just as Al shows up and points a gun at Max insisting the two come with him.
At the cabin, Max tells Cortez he isn't a doctor. Cortez says the only thing keeping you alive is that you ARE a doctor and we need you to take a bullet out of the man in the next room. So Max will play along-it's his only choice.
Alone with Big Eddie, Max gets in a quick call to the Chief, telling him all sorts of details about the ride from the hospital-time, turns, etc. Larabee says he knows just where the place is, he was there once. They hang up the phones and when the Chief says where is the cabin, Larabee says, "Just south of Berlin."
Max luckily gets the bullet to pop out unnoticed by Eddie. He goes through the ruse of removing it by just making noises, then dropping the bullet into a tray. Eddie says he has great hands-he never felt a thing. He promises the doc (Max) that as long as you live, I'll do you any favor you ever want. When Al returns to the room as Max and 99 go back to the other room, he tells Al to kill them both-can't have anyone know where he is, you see.
Before Al can kill them, Eddie comes out of his room, pointing his gun and recognizes Max. Smart pulls the old "this cabin is surrounded" routine, but even though he did manage to call the Chief, he didn't expect him to be there, so when he calls out to the Chief, he is more stunned than the three bad guys to hear him answer.
Figuring they are beaten, the three agree to surrender. Max tells them to toss their guns on the floor. They all do and their guns hit each other and the floor, each one winging one of the bad men. This leads to a 2-minute discussion (it seemed) about whose gun hit who, as though it mattered since they are all friends and nobody tried to shoot anyone, I just said, "Who cares?"
That bit about the cabin overlooking the lake was followed by an establishing shot of a cabin at least 100 feet away from the lake, rather nullifying that bit.
I sort of want to accept that CONTROL would try a novel way to transport a prisoner, but making him walk 50 miles in a race, especially when he's a fairly old man to begin with, is stretching things beyond the breaking point. And once again, whoever Max is guarding disappears because Max never does watch the man he's guarding. In the episode at the end of Season 4, he stands with his back to the phone booth while his man in the booth is whirled around when the phone booth swivels to the other side of the wall, replaced by an empty booth. He does this TWICE! Today, he just walks along, talking but never glancing to his right to see that Eddie is still there. Of course, the Chief WAS behind them, but he moved on ahead to waste time talking to Larabee, who was only concerned with winning the race. If they actually were moving a prisoner this way, they would have had, at the very least, one agent purposely walking behind Big Eddie all the way so he would never be out of sight of at least one agent.
Another point: All the Chief did when he saw Eddie had escaped was watch Max try to shoot him. A good Chief would have had his own gun and fired as well.
This was another episode where Max was dumb in almost every scene-not even bright enough to think to use his shoe phone to call the Chief. 99 had to suggest that to him. About the only laughs came from Larabee, for the Berlin line and for his reasoning for not stopping while in the race to pull a nail out of his shoe-not when he's in the lead.
I'll give it a 4-partly for Larabee, partly for not being much of a repeat of a previous plot-the doctor bit had been done before, but the road race of walkers was new. After doing my review, I look to see what zsenorsock thought. To my surprise, he loved it. I think we basically agree-within one star-on about 85% of these shows, but not on this one. I guess on this one, I'm Roger and he's Gene.
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