"Never Wave Goodbye", only the fourth episode into the entire series, and The Fugitive comes into it's own rare television air. If one wants to get some flavor of a scenic place they've never experienced this episode adeptly uses the charm of Santa Barbara as it's backdrop. Painting it more as a quaint west coast version of Rhode Island really works. Using the handmade sail craft as Jeff Cooper's (Richard Kimball's) latest job and cover works colorfully in his need to hide, work, and search for that elusive one-armed man.
Of course, Kimball is destined to struggle and here it's complicated which provides truly top- notch drama. First, he has attracted the attention of a jealous co-worker. The type of person who always seeks to promote his own agenda by wreaking havoc with those who he perceives as competition. The fuel for this is the sail shop's owner's niece who has taken up with Kimball much to the co-worker Eric's (a young , and already interesting, Robert Duvall) attempts to curb any attachments. The jealous co-worker seeks to destroy this couples relationship by bringing down Jeff Cooper (Kimball). Cooper is trying to leave and events keep making that harder, yet highly advisable.
The drama comes to a critical mass when an article in the LA newspaper announces a "one- armed man" has been arrested for a local crime and is in custody. Cooper (Kimball) believes this may be the very man who murdered his wife. He must stay long enough to go to LA and find out. On the elderly sail shop's owner death bed he promises if he finds the man he thinks might be "the right man" the niece will never have to be alone. This sets up the critical mass with the co-worker which unfolds with a surprise. All this while Lieutenant Gerard gets a POI bulletin and travels to LA to interrogate the one-armed man in hopes of finding Kimball, primarily, yet it is intimated Gerard may just believe there really is such an assailant as per Kimball's testimony. Slivers of doubt such as this small tidbit really flow like an undercurrent and add to the persona of the man sworn to bring in Kimball.
So, all the ingredients which make The Fugitive compelling TV are in full-tilt here in one story. And, to make it better it's a two-parter and it uses the time to develop this story exceptionally well; building human interest and drama which threaten to intersect in a possible game- changing outcome. The cast here is "spot-on", the locale fantastic, the story filled with drama, and has a good fleshing out of all characters involved. We even meet Gerard's wife and son giving him a much more humane side as opposed to his Kimball obsessed "to-the-letter", mostly one-sided, enforcer of the law. An excellent first part which is followed-up by the equally good second-part conclusion.
Of course, Kimball is destined to struggle and here it's complicated which provides truly top- notch drama. First, he has attracted the attention of a jealous co-worker. The type of person who always seeks to promote his own agenda by wreaking havoc with those who he perceives as competition. The fuel for this is the sail shop's owner's niece who has taken up with Kimball much to the co-worker Eric's (a young , and already interesting, Robert Duvall) attempts to curb any attachments. The jealous co-worker seeks to destroy this couples relationship by bringing down Jeff Cooper (Kimball). Cooper is trying to leave and events keep making that harder, yet highly advisable.
The drama comes to a critical mass when an article in the LA newspaper announces a "one- armed man" has been arrested for a local crime and is in custody. Cooper (Kimball) believes this may be the very man who murdered his wife. He must stay long enough to go to LA and find out. On the elderly sail shop's owner death bed he promises if he finds the man he thinks might be "the right man" the niece will never have to be alone. This sets up the critical mass with the co-worker which unfolds with a surprise. All this while Lieutenant Gerard gets a POI bulletin and travels to LA to interrogate the one-armed man in hopes of finding Kimball, primarily, yet it is intimated Gerard may just believe there really is such an assailant as per Kimball's testimony. Slivers of doubt such as this small tidbit really flow like an undercurrent and add to the persona of the man sworn to bring in Kimball.
So, all the ingredients which make The Fugitive compelling TV are in full-tilt here in one story. And, to make it better it's a two-parter and it uses the time to develop this story exceptionally well; building human interest and drama which threaten to intersect in a possible game- changing outcome. The cast here is "spot-on", the locale fantastic, the story filled with drama, and has a good fleshing out of all characters involved. We even meet Gerard's wife and son giving him a much more humane side as opposed to his Kimball obsessed "to-the-letter", mostly one-sided, enforcer of the law. An excellent first part which is followed-up by the equally good second-part conclusion.
