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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the story of the snow queen comes to a close.

Episode 1.14 “The Snow Queen: Part Two”

(Dir by Richard Colla, originally aired on March 30th, 1985)

The second part of The Snow Queen saga opens with a stylish action sequence.  As Huey Lewis sings I Want A New Drug on the soundtrack, we watch as both Molinas (Dennis Franz) and Hunter approach, from opposite sides, the boat where Sally LaPone is hiding out with one of her friends.  Molinas is approaching the boat so that he can murder Sally for the mob bosses in New York.  Hunter, on the other hand, is approaching the boat to try to save Sally’s life.  The guards that surround the boat have no idea what’s going on and they end up getting into a gunfight with both Molinas and Hunter.  Molinas, being the sleaze that he is, pretends that he drew his gun to help Hunter as opposed to killing Sally.

Meanwhile, at a club, a smitten Vic Terranova (Dennis Farina) pushes McCall, who is working undercover, to take the stage.  Shots of McCall performing are mixed with shots of Molinas and Hunter shooting people and Sally once again escaping.

Molinas wants to kill Sally while McCall wants to use Sally’s testimony to take down Terranova and his drug-fueled empire.  Hunter wants to stop Molinas from killing anyone else and Sally just wants to be left alone.  The episode does a good job of switching from one character to the next, capturing the desperation of everyone involved.  One especially memorable sequence features Dennis Franz showing Sally’s pictures to a group of teenagers outside of a punk club.  Just from the reactions of Franz and the punks, one gets the feeling that the sequence wasn’t actually scripted.  There’s a gritty authenticity to the action in this episode and it makes for compelling viewing.

Of course, this is an episode of Hunter so everything does eventually lead to another shoot out.  Both Vic and Molinas go down in a hail of bullets and it’s actually kind of a shame.  Both Farina and Franz did such a good job in these two episodes that it’s unfortunate that their characters won’t be able to return in the future.  Franz, in particular, was brilliantly sleazy as the loathsome Molinas.  If only he hadn’t pulled that gun on Hunter, Molinas could have been one of those recurring villains that audiences would love to hate.

Still, all things come to an end and, since this is Hunter, they end in gunfire instead of arrests.  Sally survives but the final shot of the episode reveals that she’s been traumatized beyond belief by everything she’s seen and experienced.  McCall’s hope was that Sally would get immunity in return for testifying against Vic.  But, with Vic dead, Sally really doesn’t have any leverage that she could use to avoid jail.

Seriously, this was a dark episode!  But it was a compelling one and I’m glad that, for once, Hunter showed that not everyone just shrug off violence and move on.  Not everyone is Rick Hunter.