Welcome to 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 Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958.  The show can be viewed on Tubi!

This week, Casey makes the mistake of being nice.

Episode 1.10 “The Scapegoat”

(Dir by Teddy Sills, originally aired on December 16th, 1957)

Call this one “Casey Screws Up …. Again.”

Casey and Detective Hank Hopkins (John Connell) are escorting embezzler Dorothy Boyer (Lenka Peterson) to jail.  As they wait at an airport, Casey cannot help but feel sorry for Dorothy.  Everyone who sees Dorothy recoils from the sight of her handcuffs.  (“She’s a crook!” one little girl yells.)  Casey agrees to take off the handcuffs as long as Dorothy doesn’t try to run away.  Of course, as soon as Casey is distracted, Dorothy runs.

Casey and Hank try to track down Dorothy.  They discover that Dorothy was embezzling the money so that she could afford a special school for her son, who is repeatedly described as being “retarded” but whose noncommunicative behavior suggests that he would probably, today, be diagnosed as having some form of autism.  Casey and Hank fear that Dorothy is going to murder her child, to spare him from being sent to a “public institution” while she’s serving time in prison.

They’re right.  Dorothy is on the verge of throwing her son off a bridge when Casey, Hank, and the cops track her down.  Casey says that she understand why Dorothy is scared.  “You think your son will be sent to a public institution and people will be cruel to him!” Casey says.  “What about me?  I work for a public institution!  Was I cruel to you?”

“Who’s going to give love to a backward child!?” Dorothy cries.

Casey then taunts, “Go ahead, throw him over!”

This causes Dorothy to realize that she loves her son too much to toss him over the bridge.  The episode ends with Casey speaking directly to the camera.  Dorothy will only have to serve six months in prison.  As for Casey and Hank, they’re put on official probation for three months for letting Dorothy escape.  “You live and you learn,” Casey says.

This episode was a real time capsule.  Yes, it was weird to hear the term “retarded” tossed around so casually, though I found the term “backward child” to be far more offensive.  But, let’s be realistic here.  This show aired 1957 and it’s a bit silly to expect a 68 year-old television program to sound like it was written in 2025.  To me, what was really upsetting was how everyone that Casey talked to seemed to feel it was perfectly understandable that the father of Dorothy’s child abandoned Dorothy because of their son.  Everyone, except for Casey and Hank, acted as if Dorothy should be ashamed of her child.  To make clear, the show did not endorse that attitude but still, the callousness of almost everyone in Dorothy’s life was hard to take.  I was glad that Casey cared.

That said, I did cringe a bit at that “I work for a public institution” line.  One nice person does not signify a change in culture.