Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week …. it’s Halloween!

Episode 2.5 “The Devil and Jonathan Smith”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on October 30th, 1985)

It’s Halloween and Mark Gordon has got himself in some trouble.

Left alone while Jonathan helps a guy learn that gambling is never a good idea, Mark accidentally runs over a kid.  The child is taken to the hospital in critical condition.  Though Mark is told that the accident was not his fault, he still feels guilty and remarks to one doctor (Anthony Zerbe) that he would even give up his own soul for the child to get better.  And wouldn’t you know yet — suddenly, the child gets better!

It turns out that the doctor wasn’t a doctor at all.  He was Jabez Stone, a bookstore owner who works for the Devil (played, with two horns on his head, by Michael Berryman).  Jabez explains that unless Mark holds up his end of the bargain, the child will die.  He gives Mark a contract to sign, stating that he will give his soul to the Devil at the end of Halloween.  Without Jonathan around to advise him, Mark signs the contract.

When Jonathan does finally return from his mission, he’s not happy to hear about what Mark has done.  Jonathan explains that he can’t just order Jabez to destroy the contract.  Instead, he’s going to have to somehow convince Jabez to give him the contract.  In short, Jonathan is going to have to pull a con job.  Since he’s an angel, Jonathan is not allowed to lie or steal.  But there is a con artist named CJ Barabbas (Conrad Janis) who might be willing to help.

Or, CJ might be planning on tricking Jonathan into surrendering his own soul to Devil!  As CJ tells Jabez, he would be willing to do anything to make sure he got a cushy office job if he should happen to end up in Hell.  Is CJ planning on betraying Jonathan or is it just another part of the con?

Well, you can guess the answer.  We’re only in the second season of a five-season show and, if Jonathan lost his soul, that would make the rest of the series kind of awkward.  There’s never any doubt that CJ is playing a long con on Jabez and the Devil and it’s actually pretty easy to guess just how exactly he’s going to pull it off.  This isn’t The Sting.  It’s Highway to Heaven.

That said, this was a fun episode.  Michael Berryman and Anthony Zerbe both seemed to be having a ball playing such cartoonishly evil characters and Conrad Janis was actually rather charming in the role of CJ Barabbas.  Season 2 has gotten off to an uneven start but this episode was both humorous and, in its way, kind of touching.  Landon and French were close friends in real life and that friendship comes through as Jonathan tries to keep Mark from spending an eternity in Hell.

Next week, Jonathan teaches a bunch of factory workers a lesson about pollution!