Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Gun, an anthology series that ran on ABC for six week in 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Tonight, we finish up Gun!

Episode 1.6 “Father John”

(Dir by Jeremiah S. Chechik, originally aired on May 31st, 1997)

Father John, the final episode of Gun, is also one of its worse.  The only thing keeping it from being the absolute worst is that Robert Altman directed that episode that dealt with the country club presidency and then there was that episode with Daniel Stern as the guy having an elaborate Hollywood fantasy and, of course, there was last week’s episode with Kirsten Dunst…. actually, now that I think about it, of the six episodes of Gun that were produced, Father John is in the top 3 but only by default.

The episode stars Fred Ward as John Farragut, a newspaper columnist who is also a recovering alcoholic and who is always struggling to keep up with his alimony payments to his ex-wife, Joyce (Brooke Adams).  John doesn’t have much faith in the world but he has always worshiped his Uncle John, a priest for whom he was named.  When Uncle John dies, nephew John is shocked to discover that his uncle not only died with a lot of money hidden away in his room but that he also owned the pearl-handled gun that appears in every episode of this series.  What secrets were being hidden by Uncle John!?

Nephew John sets out to find out.  At first, he assumes that his Uncle must have been having an affair with a woman named Gloria (Angela Alvarado) but he then comes to learn that Gloria (whose real name is Gabriella) is a refugee who was rescued from a sex trafficking ring by his uncle.  Uncle John had the gun to protect Gabriella and now, it’s time for his nephew to continue to protect her.

It sounds pretty straight-forward and, to be honest, there really aren’t any unexpected twists in this episode.  That said, the episode itself is incredibly overwritten.  We not only get to watch as living John tries to solve a very simple mystery but, even worse, we have to listen to his narration as he tells us the details of what he’s doing.  Of course, we can already see what he’s doing so it all feels a bit redundant.  The narration itself is so hard-boiled that it feels almost like a parody of the detective genre and I found myself wondering why anyone would want to read anything written by a man whose narration is essentially a collection of clichés.  John Farragut is the type of guy who says, “If you sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” as if he think he’s the first person to ever come up with it.  Surprisingly, Fred Ward is very much miscast as John Farragut.  With his weathered face and his weary tone, it’s hard to buy Ward as someone who 1) still hero-worships anyone and 2) would still be crying about having never met his father.  Farragut appears to be nearly 50 and he’s still whining about stuff that most people get over or have figured out by the time they graduate college.  Farragut’s actions often only make sense if you accept that idea that he is impossibly naïve about the world and that’s not the feeling one would ever get from a character played by Fred Ward.

With this episode, Gun ends on a boring note but, then again, it was never a particularly exciting series to begin with.  For all the notable actors who appeared in Gun, it’s hard to think of any stand-out episodes or performances.  If I had to rank the episodes, it would go something like this:

1. Ricochet 
2. Columbus Day
3. Father John
4. The Hole
5. The Shot
6. All The President’s Women

That’s not a very impressive list, to be honest.  Gun perhaps would have worked better if there had been some sort of continuity as far as the gun itself was concerned.  Perhaps the show would have worked if there had been a feeling of the gun following a natural journey from owner to owner.  Instead, it just randomly showed up in each story and sometimes, it was important and, far more often, it was just a prop.  The show certainly had nothing to say about American gun culture.  It was an uneven show.  The opening credits featured U2 covering Happiness Is Warm Gun and Bono’s overbaked interpretation of the lyrics felt appropriate for this show’s flashy but shallow style.

Next week, there will be a new show in this time slot.  What will it be?  Uhmmmm …. ask me next week.