Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, Johnny goes to prison!

Episode 2.25 “The Prisoner”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired on June 5th, 1989)

After Johnny Ventura’s father is killed by an invisible man….

Wait, what’s Johnny doing here?

No, don’t get me wrong.  I understand why Johnny’s there, mostly because I have the benefit of hindsight.  I know that Johnny is going to replace Ryan during the third season and this episode was obviously designed to get the audience used to the idea of Johnny being a part of the show.  The majority of the episode follows Johnny as he’s sent to prison, having been framed for murdering his own father.  The culprit is another prisoner, Dayton Railsback (Larry Joshua).  Dayton has a kamikaze pilot’s jacket that allows him to turn invisible whenever blood is spilled on it.  Whenever Dayton’s invisible, he sneaks out of the prison and searches for some money that he stole ten years earlier. Johnny is the only person in the prison who knows what Railsback is doing so soon, he’s being targeted by the invisible man.

While Johnny is dealing with life in prison, Micki, Ryan, and Jack are attempting to prove that Railsback is the murderer.  It’s a bit odd because the three of them — our stars! — are barely in the episode and, when they do appear, they’re just hanging out in the antique shop.  They talk about all of the investigating that they’ve been doing but we don’t actually see them doing it.  Watching the episode, one gets the feeling that John D. LeMay, Robey, and Chris Wiggins all shot their scenes in one day and then left on an extended vacation.  They showed up just long enough to establish this as being an episode of Friday the 13th, despite the fact that almost the entire episode is about Johnny.

Needless to say, it was a bit of a disjointed episode.  The show kept jumping from Johnny in prison to Railsback killing people outside of prison to everyone hanging out in the antique shop and it was a bit difficult to keep track of who was planning what.  Myself, I was surprised at how quickly the show went from Johnny’s father being murdered to Johnny getting tossed into prison.  We don’t even see Johnny’s trial.  Johnny was passed out when his father was shot and, quite frankly, it seems like he could have made a very credible argument that he was framed.  (The invisible Railsback puts the gun in Johnny’s hands but he doesn’t manipulate Johnny into pulling the trigger so it’s not like there would have been any powder residue on Johnny’s fingers.)  Johnny and his father appeared to have a pretty good relationship so you really have to wonder what type of case the prosecution made.  The episode ends with Johnny killing Railsback and then being released from prison.  So, is Johnny going to have to on trial again?  I mean, he just stood there while Railsback burned to death.

Weird episode.  It didn’t do too much for me.  I’m going to miss Ryan once season 3 starts.