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 Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan’s in trouble and so is the audience.

Episode 2.9 “The Secret”

(Directed by William Claxton, originally aired on November 27th, 1985)

This is an odd episode.

While heading to visit yet another one of Mark’s former cop buddies, Jonathan stops the car at a country store.  He spots a young man being bullied by three rednecks.  Jonathan politely asks the rednecks to back off.  When the main redneck tries to attack Jonathan, Jonathan responds by punching the guy out.

UH-OH, JONATHAN’S BROKEN A RULE!  He immediately gets summoned back to Heaven for a disciplinary hearing and, as a result, he’s not in the majority of this episode.

I’m going to assume that Landon had something else going on that caused him to skip out on the majority of this episode.  (This was also the first episode of the series to be directed by someone either than Landon or Victor French.)  Still, having Jonathan throw a punch seems out-of-character.  Over the course of the first two seasons, Jonathan has dealt with a lot of bullies and usually, he just uses his powers to make their car break down or to make them trip over a branch.  The Boss has never had a problem with that so you have to wonder why Jonathan didn’t just make the bully’s car radiator start to overheat or something.  As well, it seems like Jonathan was acting in self-defense and to protect the guy who was being bullied.

Anyway, the important thing is that Mark has to visit his friend on his own.  Wes Fowler (Barry Jenner) has been married to Carol Fowler (Linda Miller) for nearly 18 years.  When they first married, Carol told Wes that she couldn’t have children and, as a result, they decided to adopt a young girl that they named Heather.  Shortly after adopting Heather, Carol did get pregnant and gave birth to Shelley.  Having recently turned 18, Heather (played by Leslie Bega) is now curious about who her birth mother was.  A little research leads to her discovering that her birth mother is …. CAROL!

Carol explains that Heather’s father was an ex-boyfriend who left town as soon as he discovered that Carol was pregnant.  When Carol married Wes, she wanted to adopt the daughter she abandoned so she lied about not being able to get pregnant so that Wes would agree to the adoption.  When Wes finds out about this, he gets angry and, along with Shelley (played by a young Shannen Doherty), he moves out of the house.

Can Mark put this family back together again?  Of course, he can.  And you better believe Jonathan returns to Earth during the show’s final moments.  This is Highway to Heaven, after all.

This episode felt off to me.  Some of it was the absence of Jonathan.  Some of it was the fact that, even when working solo, Mark didn’t really do that much other than stand in a corner and observe.  Both the soap opera dramatic and the performances were so over-the-top that they were impossible to take seriously.  This almost felt like a parody of Highway to Heaven as opposed to an actual episode.

Oh well.  So much for this episode.  Hopefully, next week’s episode, which apparently involves a man being mistaken for a monster, will be a bit better.  We’ll find out soon!