Episode Guide: Bounty

Intro Teaser

[Two men with shotguns come barging through Murdock's door.  Murdock dives off the bed.]
Murdock: [from where he landed on the floor] Well, let's not jump to conclusions.
[Murdock crashes head over heels through a window]
[Outside]
Murdock: [confused tone] A-Team?
Pa Bounty Hunter: And you're going to help me catch them!
[In the A-team van]
Hannibal: Bounty hunters.  They want to collect on all of us.
Murdock: [on phone] I don't think we need to worry about them.
[Car chase]
[Decker confronts face at the V.A.]
Decker: Peck?
Face: Decker.
[Face jumps out of the laundry basket and punches one of the MPs]
[Outside.  Kelly pointing gun at Murdock]
Kelly: I have a gun on you.  Put your hands up.
[Murdock kisses Kelly]
[Kelly held hostage by bounty hunters]
Kelly: I'm all right, but—
[Murdock listening at the other end of the phone]
Pa Bounty Hunter: You want to see this sweet little thing again, you better hope Smith does what I tell him.
[Team outside van with their hands up]
Bounty Hunter: They don't look so tough to me.
[B.A. glares at him]
Hannibal: The game aint over 'til the last hand is dealt.
[Explosion]
[Credits]

Reasonable summing up of the ep which got in a lot of the good bits. 

I spotted two lines that weren't in the episode itself.

Murdock: [Just after the bounty hunters break into his room] Well, let's not jump to conclusions.

Wonder what that was in answer to?

Hannibal: Bounty hunters.  They want to collect on all of us.

Added to explain what was going on for the summing up in the teaser I suppose.  It's not accurate either—they don't want all of them.  They specifically mention they don't really want Murdock.

 

Plot

Two hillbillies with shotguns break into the V.A. and kidnap Murdock.

Face goes to the hospital to find out what happened and runs into Decker.  He gets away and goes to the film lot where Hannibal is filming to tell other others what’s going on.  Hannibal drops what he’s doing and they go back to the van in case Murdock tries to call them on the phone.

Meantime Murdock is driving his kidnappers to distraction by chattering constantly in the truck and by the time they arrive at the house they’re ready to kill each other as well as him.  Pa bounty hunter appears on the scene and explains that Murdock is bait to catch the rest of the team.  The military is offering a reward for their capture and he wants it.  Murdock denies all knowledge of any A-Team but Pa is not convinced and has him taken indoors and tied up.  He tells him to ring the others.

On the phone Pa tells Hannibal want he wants them to do.  B.A. has a wiretap on the phone and retrieves the number. 

Face and B.A. pose as building contractors to get in the telephone operators and use the computer there to trace the address. 

The bounty hunters leave the house to go and get the team and Murdock escapes.  The bounty hunters see him running from the house and shoot at him but he gets away.  The goy looking for him.

The team arrive at the house to find Murdock already gone but Decker just arriving.  As they race away one of Decker’s shots clips the phone aerial on the van.

At a garage, Murdock tries to phone the van but can’t get through.  The bounty hunters drive past and Murdock hides in the back of a van of one Kelly Stevens, a local vet.

Some way down the road the bounty hunters force the van to pull off the road.  They open the back but find only a very fierce looking Alsatian dog and let Kelly go on.

A bit further down the road Kelly stops the van, takes a gun from the glove compartment and checks out the back for herself.  She finds Murdock lying in the back with his arms around the dog and orders him to get out.  Murdock is entirely unconcerned by the gun Kelly’s pointing at him, recognising it as a toy.  He explains to Kelly about the bounty hunters.  She decides that as her dog liked him he can’t be too bad and takes him home with her.  (And wouldn’t you?<g>)

They chat for a while about the radio then Murdock asks about her boyfriend, expressing surprise that such a pretty girl hasn’t got one.  She laughs at him but he insists and grabs a mirror to show her.  She tells him he’s crazy, but he knew that already.

Decker has enlisted the local police and set up a roadblock.  The bounty hunters pass through it and in the process discover that Murdock was in the back of the van after all.  They head for Kelly’s place.

The rest of the A-Team hijack a local radio station to get a message to Murdock. 

B.A. and Hannibal blow up the roadblock.

Back at Kelly’s Murdock is moping around, looking out the window and waiting to hear from the team.  Kelly reassures he that they’ll find him and he agrees.  They’re proved right a few minutes later when Face’s voice comes over the radio asking after a howling’ mad little lost sheep and giving out a phone number to call.

Murdock phones the number and gets B.A. on the line who does a very good job of not sounding too relieved to hear from him.  Murdock tells Hannibal he lost the bounty hunters a few hours ago and doesn’t think they have to worry about them any more.

They do however have to worry about Decker who also hears the broadcast and heads for the radio station, arriving just to late to catch them.

Murdock reluctantly leaves Kelly behind and meets up with the team.  At the first opportunity he gets to a payphone and calls her, only to find out that the bounty hunters he didn’t think they had to worry about anymore have turned up again and are holding her hostage.

They want (guess what) the team to surrender in return for letting Kelly go.  The team assures a very unhappy, stressed Murdock that they’ll get her back safely.

They head to a local garage and start the usual fun with acetylene torches, tools and automatic weapons.

Just as the bounty hunters are starting to get restless the team arrive and get out of the van with their hands up.  Pa bounty hunter releases Kelly and takes an unfortunate moment out to gloat before Hannibal triggers the remote controlled weaponry they’d just installed in the front of the van.

Of course all the bad guys get punched out instead of shot and just as they’re finished with that Decker turns up again. 

Murdock pauses for long enough to give Kelly a kiss before running after the already moving van.  Kelly stands looking a bit lost in the middle of the road.

Back at the V.A. hospital Murdock is sat in the garden when one of the staff tells him he has a lady visitor.  It's Kelly of course.  She tells Murdock she’s missed him and he admits he’s missed her too.  She doesn’t understand why he’s there and he tells her it’s a long story.  She offers to hear it over pizza. 

 

Bad Guys

Bounty Hunters

Actually have a vaguely sensible plan—grabbing Murdock from the hospital is certainly easier than taking on the team directly.  Bit stupid of them to leave him alone in the house, though if Murdock had waited five minutes he could have got away without them noticing and coming after him, which would have saved a lot of problems.

It's one of the universal Rules of TV that bad guys are rubbish at knots and these are no exception—that was a very half-arsed bit of tying up.

I do like the squabbling sons, especially when they get frustrated enough with Murdock to start having a pop at each other--funny.  And Pa ruling the roost was quite convincing.  The Indian was scenic though he didn't really do a lot.

MPs

Poor Decker--ran more or less smack into Face and still didn't manage to get him.  Then to add insult to injury he had to spend the whole ep a step behind the bounty hunters as well as two steps behind the team.

 

Good Guys

Only Kelly, who takes pity on and helps out Murdock (and who could blame her).

Likeable character.  Not a fainting-flower girlie, she has the oomph to face down the bounty hunters and attempt to confront Murdock with the toy gun which he sees straight through.  The relationship between them is nicely developed through the ep and the end when she comes to visit him at the hospital is very nicely done.  It'd have been nice to see that go further.  (Suppose that's what fanfic's for<g>)

 

Hardware, Action and Scams

Phone-tapping

B.A. is apparently just adept with electronics as he is with mechanical stuff.

Getting the address

Face enlists B.A. to pose as workmen at the telephone operators.  What exactly his banging nails into the floor is supposed to accomplish other than a lot of noise is unclear, but I suppose he was in a hurry and can be excused--he certainly left the operator on duty looking very flustered.

Radio hijack

I liked this idea a lot.  Creative way of getting message to someone, although you wonder what they did with the poor radio staff--it wasn't clear how long they were there for but I got the impression it was at least a few hours. 

Showed how well the team know each other and work together as well--checked out the local stations as soon as he could once, he realised the phone was out.

Blowing up the roadblock

Not sure why they needed to leave the radio station, blow up the roadblock and then go back to the radio station, unless it was purely meant as distraction.  Those MPs really need to learn to pay attention.  Surely someone supposed to be on watch does turn their head occasionally...

Van weaponry

Nice toy.  Can't remember if they ever used it again though.  Seems like it would have been handy to keep working.

Liked the bit when they're building it too when Face is trying (without success) to avoid getting his hands oily.

The inevitable brawl

Relatively short and simple.  Four bounty hunters, four of the team.  I do like Murdock's blowing the guy down the slope.

 

Random Remarks

Being in the hospital and not out on a mission has done nothing to dull Murdock’s reflexes as he positively flies off the bed to cover when the bounty hunters barge in!  I adore the way he’s still trying to play his video game as they’re trying to take him away.

I like the bit in the car when he’s annoying them as well.  Especially his response to the frustrated bounty hunter yelling, “What are you, crazy?”
“Well of course I’m crazy.  You got me out of the mental ward at the V.A. hospital, stupid!”

Murdock really does have a very good episode.  Probably why this is one of my favourites.  He copes better than you might expect out on his own without the team and in trouble.  He’s quite different from his usual manic self but still very much in character.  I love the bit at Kelly’s where she jokingly tells him he’s crazy and he just replies very quiet and sweet that he knows that already.  And of course he gets the girl!  Well sort of--the end scene at the hospital is very sweet and a bit sad too.  I’d have liked to see that relationship explored further.  Guess there’s always fanfic<g>

There’re some nice character moments.  B.A. trying not to show how worried he is about Murdock even though it’s obvious already to the rest of the team, and the way the whole team reassure Murdock when he's worrying about Kelly.

I’ve been trying like crazy to track down the song Face plays when just after they find Murdock.  From the snatch of lyrics we get it sounds so appropriate.

Pretty grounds the V.A. has.  Though I’m not convinced that a repeat escapee like Murdock would be allow to wander them unsupervised.  I wonder what book he was reading.  Well holding anyway.

 

End Frames

Murdock kissing Kelly.
Hannibal going into the bar.
B.A. and Face posing as workmen.
Murdock running from the bounty hunters.
Face and Decker in the V.A.
Car chase.
The road block exploding.
B.A. in the van.
The team with their hands up, outside the van.

 

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