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, two special guest stars appear on Hunter!
Episode 2.8 “Million Dollar Misundestanding”
(Dir by Michael Peerce, originally aired on November 16th, 1985)
Hey, it’s Robert Englund!
In this episode, Englund appears as Vaughn. Vaughn is in charge of both the motor pool and the police impound lot. He’s been given orders not to let Hunter ever have a nice car because Hunter inevitably ends up destroying every car that he’s given. Vaughn takes his job seriously. That said, he still gets tricked by Hunter’s old “snatch a key while Vaughn isn’t looking” trick. “HUNTER!” Vaughn shouts as Hunter drives off in a new car that will be totally destroyed by the end of the episode.
It was nice to see Robert Englund. This episode aired in 1985, a year after the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street. This is probably one of the last roles that Englund played that was not, in some way, written to capitalize on him being a horror icon. Instead, he’s just a normal guy who gets annoyed with Hunter. Even when he’s yelling, there’s just something innately likable about Robert Englund.
This episode also features the great Robert Davi. Not surprisingly, Davi plays the main bad guy. He’s a security guard who masterminds the robbery of an armored car. He nets a million dollars in the robbery, kills his co-workers, and then kills his partners-in-crime. He puts the money in the trunk of a stolen Trans Am and then drives off. However, when he stops to make a call from a payphone, the Trans Am is stolen once again, this time by two teenage car thieves. Hunter and McCall crash into the Trans Am, totaling it.
At the police impound lot, the owner of the Trans Am is not happy to see that her car has been destroyed, However, she is happy to discover a million dollars in the trunk. Later, when Hunter and McCall go to her house to personally apologize for destroying her car, they discover her floating dead in her swimming pool. The money is missing.
Believe it or not, Robert Davi is not the murderer here. Instead, the woman was killed by her employer, club owner Tito Constantine (Phil Rubinstein). He has the money hidden on his boat. Davi, who has previously attacked both McCall and Hunter in his search for the cash, hijacks the boat. Hunter and McCall show up and chase after him. It all leads to Hunter and McCall recovering the money and two bad guys ending up all wet. Remarkably, neither one of the bad guys is killed in this episode. That’s a rare event for Hunter.
This was an enjoyably chaotic episode. Hunter is at its best when it focuses on gun fights and car chases and that’s what this episode was all about. Toss in Robert Englund and Robert Davi and you have pure 80s excitement! This episode worked for me.
