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, it’s another violent couple of days in Los Angeles.

Episode 1.16 “Guilty”

(Dir by Michael Lange, originally aired on April 13th, 1985)

In 1979, Louis McMahon (Ken Foree) was convicted of murder and given a life sentence.  Six years later, he’s been paroled and …. wait, really?  He served six years for murder?  What the Hell, California!?

Louis is free and working as a cook.  When someone starts stalking and killing the jurors at his trial, Louis is the number one suspect.  However, before the killer strikes, he always calls his victims and rasps, “Guilty.”  Louis’s throat was slashed in prison and he’s now mute!  Or is he?  McCall suggests that Louis is faking being mute and …. well, yeah.  That’s what he was doing alright.

This is the most simplistic episode of Hunter yet.  McCall and Hunter figure out quickly that Louis is the murderer.  All the other cops refuse to take Hunter and McCall seriously because of …. reasons, I guess?  I mean, there really is no other suspect.  Louis is the one person who has a reason to what to commit the murders.  The only thing linking the victims is that they all voted to convict Louis.  And yet, once again, Hunter and McCall find themselves being told not to bother the obvious murderer.

Of course, Hunter ends up shooting Louis.  We haven’t finished the first season and I’ve already lost track of the amount of people that Hunter has shot.  While I am as concerned as anyone is about trigger-happy cops, I do have to say that everyone that Hunter has shot had it coming.  That’s especially true of Louis, who was an absolute monster.  Ken Foree did a really good job playing him.  Foree was so scary so that it kind of made up for the fact that this was one of the most predictable hours of television that I’ve ever watched.

Once again, Hunter and McCall save countless lives and they get no credit for it.  Instead, they get sent to park to arrest muggers.  As the episode ends, they actually catch one.  I was surprised Hunter didn’t just shoot him.