Johnie Chase | Through the Shattered Lens

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.

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new 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 show can be found on YouTube!

This week, it’s two stories for the price of one!

Episode 2.18 “A Friend To The End”

(Dir by David Morse, originally aired on April 17th, 1989)

Before I say anything else about this episode, I should make clear that I’ve been watching Friday the 13th on YouTube. Every episode has been uploaded and 99% of the uploads are clean and clear and easy to follow. Unfortunately, this episode was the exception. The sound quality was terrible. The image was often blurry. I’m not sure why this episode — and none of the other uploaded episodes — was so bad but it was bad enough that I occasionally struggled to follow the plot. That’s not the fault of the show. It’s just that the video that was uploaded to YouTube was really bad. While I think I got the gist of the episode, I should still make clear that I watched it under less than ideal conditions.

This episode actually tells two stories. With Jack out of town, Micki and Ryan are trying to retrieve the Shard of Medusa, a crystal that turns people into statues. DeJager (Donna Goodhand) is the artist who currently owns the shard and who is using it to turn her models into stone. What’s interesting about this story is that, when the episode begins, we join in medias res. Micki and Ryan already know that DeJager has the shard and they’re already making a plan for Micki to go undercover as a model.

Unfortunately, they’re so busy trying to get back the shard that they don’t really have time to look after J.B. (Zachary Bennett), Micki’s young nephew who keeps getting left at the antique store while his newly-divorced mother runs off with her latest boyfriend. (Interestingly, Ryan scornfully asks Micki about “your sister,” but since Micki is Ryan’s cousin, wouldn’t Micki’s sister also be his cousin?) While Micki and Ryan are busy trying to get back the shard, J.B. is breaking into a nearby haunted house and befriending a troubled boy named Ricky (Keram Malicki-Sanchez). What J.B. does not know is that Ricky is actually a living dead boy who is kept alive by a cursed coffin. In order to continue to live, Ricky has to sacrifice people to the coffin. Ricky isn’t happy about this. He just wants a friend. J.B. is willing to be that friend but what will happen when Ricky, desperately in need of a new sacrifice, turns his gaze towards Micki?

One of the strange things about this episode is that, when J.B. tells Micki and Ryan about Ricky, they both assume that he’s just making something up. After everything Micki and Ryan have seen, would they really be so skeptical about J.B. claiming to have met a ghost in a long-abandoned house? The other interesting thing about this episode is that the two storylines didn’t really intersect, beyond the fact that J.B. felt neglected because Micki and Ryan were spending so much time trying to get the shard. At one point, DeJager breaks into the store and briefly grabs J.B. but that’s something that probably would have happened regardless of whether or not J.B. had ever met Ricky.

Did this episode work? I’m hesitant to give a final verdict because of the poor quality of the upload. That said, Keram Malicki-Sanchez gave a good performance as the tragic Ricky and I appreciated how all of the stuff with DeJager almost played out like a good-natured parody of a typical Friday the 13th episode. Bad upload and all, this episode worked for me.

Finally, seeing as how I reviewed St. Elsewhere earlier today, I simply have to note that this episode was directed by Dr. Jack Morrison himself, David Morse.