Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.15 “Jump Start”

Posted on February 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to 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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

Wait a minute! This isn’t Friday afternoon! This is Saturday morning! Why am I posting my review of this show now?

I’m only human. After a long week, I was so exhausted on Friday that I couldn’t even find the strength to former coherent thoughts about a show as simple as T and T. So, I put off the review until this morning. Of course, I’m still tired. All of this thinking is exhausting. Roll the opening credits so I can take a 90 second nap.

Episode 2.15 “Jump Start”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on February 20th, 1989)

In a rare nod to maintaining some sort of continuity from episode to episode, this week’s episode of T and T opens with a flashback to a previous story. We once again witness how two hapless crooks — Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea) and Finn (Ron Gabriel) — tried to pull a gun on T.S. and Decker, just for the clip to fall out of the weapon. At the time, my feeling was that the two crooks were both too incompetent to be viewed as a legitimate threat and this follow-up episode proved me right.

Fritz and Finn are back on the streets, having had their criminal charges dismissed on a technicality. They want revenge on Turner for sending them to jail so they decide to steal his car. However, because they’re both incredibly incompetent, they have to ask Max (Kathleen Laskey, who also played Marlene on Check It Out!) to steal it for them. Just as with so many episodes of Check It Out!, Laskey was this episode’s saving grace. She brought so much badass attitude to the character that you couldn’t help but cheer Max on as she stole Turner’s car.

Unfortunately, Laskey really isn’t in much of this episode. For that matter, Alex, Decker, and even Turner have reduced roles. The majority of the episode is devoted to Fritz and Finn and their total and complete incompetence. I get that it was meant to be comedic but these two characters were so stupid and so foolish and so obviously doomed to failure that there was absolutely no tension as to whether or not Turner would be able to get his car back. As far as I could tell, Turner didn’t even bother to report that his car had been stolen. He just tracked the two guys down and took it back. That’s the power of T and T!

Anyway, this was a throw away episode. I’m not sure why, out of all the villains that have been on this show, T and T decided to bring back the least impressive of them. Episodes like this leave little doubt that all of the serious criminals left Toronto as soon as Mr. T showed up.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.14 “The Contender”

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, T.S Turner returns to the ring!

Episode 2.14 “The Contender”

(Dir by Alan Simmonds, originally aired on February 13th, 1989)

T.S. Turner meets Kevin Hart!

No, not that Kevin Hart.

Instead, the Kevin Hart in this show is a boxer and he’s played by an actor named Phillip Jarrett. (Kevin Hart, I immediately, noticed was very handsome for someone who made his living getting punched in the face by professionals. I checked with the imdb and I was not surprised to learn that Phillip Jarrett was a model before he went into acting.) Kevin Hart is a contender for the championship but his trainer has vanished. With the big fight coming up, Hart’s manager asks T.S. Turner to train him for the fight.

Kevin Hart turns out to be a boxer with an attitude. He shows up at Decker’s Gym with his entourage and is miffed to discover that Turner is running late. “What does T.S. stand for?” Hart demands to know, “Too Stupid?”

“Temporarily Sorry,” Turner says as he steps into the gym.

“Temporarily?”

“Yeah,” Turner growls, “I was sorry but now I’m not.”

Turner works hard to train Hart. Or, at least, it appears that he works hard. For the most part, we just see a montage of Hart doing physical stuff while Turner yells at him. Despite Turner’s efforts, Hart doesn’t even seem to care about the fight. He does care when someone takes a shot at him in the gym. Pressured by Turner, Hart finally confesses that he agreed to take a dive. He also says that all of his other fights were fixed as well. That’s why his former trainer ran away. He didn’t want to be involved with a boxer who was owned by the Canadian Mafia.

Turner doesn’t have any time for that attitude. He tells Hart that he has the talent to win the fight on his own. He also tells Hart that it’s time to fight like a man and win. Inspired by Turner’s words, Hart does just that. By the end of the show, Hart is the champ. I imagine he’s got the mob after him now but oh well. I mean, Sonny Liston reportedly upset the mob and he still managed to live a full and exciting life until his mysterious death at the age of 40. So, I’m sure boxing’s Kevin Hart will be fine and maybe, some day, he’ll change his mind about hosting the Oscars.

The way to make watching this episode entertaining is to pretend that Mr. T was playing Clubber Lang and not T.S Turner. Apparently, in an early draft of his script for Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone wrote a scene in which it would be revealed the Lang changed his ways and became a preacher after losing his rematch with Rocky. So, this episode of T and T — and really, the entire series — works best as Clubber Lang fan fiction. As Rocky said at the end of Rocky IV, “Everybody can change!”

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.13 “Hunted”

Posted on January 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, someone takes a contract out on T.S. Turner’s life!

Episode 2.13 “Hunted”

(Dir by Richard Oleksiak, originally aired on February 6th, 1989)

Someone has hired a hitman to take out T.S. Turner!

Fortunately, Hickson (Timothy Webber) is not a very good hitman and he somehow fails to shoot Turner despite having a high-powered rifle and, during the initial attempt on Turner’s life, the advantage of surprise. (Technically, he misses because T.S. moved to get a parking ticket off of his car’s windshield at the exact moment that Hickson fires his rile but still, it’s not like T.S. is a small target. The hitman just isn’t that good at his job.)

Despite the fact that someone has just tried to kill him, Turner doesn’t want to go to the police. This actually makes sense when you consider that Turner spent years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. He has every reason to distrust the police. He has personally experienced how they can screw up a case. That said, Amy decides to go to the police on her own. This leads to Detective Deakin (Matt Birmin) being assigned to keep Turner from leaving Decker’s Gym.

Turner is not happy about this and actually, it turns out that Turner’s instincts are correct. Deakin is the man who hired the hitman! It turns out that Deakin’s younger sister was an innocent bystander who was injured during a high-speed chase involving Turner and a bunch of criminals. Turner may have caught the criminals but Deakin’s sister slipped into a coma and died. Deakin has spent years obsessing on Turner and he is determined to get his revenge.

What’s interesting that, when Turner finds all of this out, he actually feel very guilty about what happened to Deakin’s sister, to the extent that he doesn’t blame Deakin for wanting him dead. One thing about action shows like this is that there are always innocent bystanders who witness every car chase or shoot-out but it’s rare that we ever hear about how they were effected by suddenly being exposed to so much violence. How does the person who witnesses a bad guy being shot just a few feet away from them react? How does it effect their lives? Myself, I would totally be freaked out and I would probably have trouble sleeping afterwards. Often times, shows like this concentrate so much on the action that they ignore the human aspect of it all. T and T deserves some credit for at least acknowledging that Turner’s actions, even when he’s fighting on the side of the law, have consequences.

That said, Deakin is still technically the bad guy and, when he and Hickson corner Turner in a water treatment plant, Turner points out that, as soon as Hickson shoots Turner, Deakin is going to shoot Hickson to cover up his involvement. This leads to Hickson turning on Deakin and the two of them end up shooting each other. Turner survives and hopefully, he’ll be a better drive from now on.

This was a surprisingly good episode. Matt Birmin gave a good performance as Deakin and the water treatment plant was a properly atmospheric location for a final stand-off. The second season of T and T has been hit-and-miss but this episode definitely worked.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.12 “Wendell’s Story”

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

T.S. Turner protects a man who finds some money! Didn’t he already do this?

Episode 2.12 “Wendell’s Story”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on January 30th, 1990)

Who is Wendell?

Wendell (played by Wayne Robson) is beloved figured in this show’s fictional Canadian city. Wendell lives on the streets, sleeping in a tent in an alley and spendinh his days eating whatever food he happens to come across. Wendell is good-natured and he doesn’t take it personally when the local teenagers toss a half-eaten apple at him. Wendell is such a nice guy that, when he comes across a duffel bag full of money, he doesn’t keep the money for himself but he instead starts handing it out to random people. It’s his way of thanking everyone for helping him and everyone is very polite about waiting their turn to be handed some money.

Way to go, Wendell!

Unfortunately, the duffel bag belonged to two incompetent crooks named Errol (Gareth Bennett) and Fritz (Dominic Cuzzocrea). Now, when I say incompetent …. listen, T and T has featured it’s share of dumb criminals but there have never been any dumb as these two. Not only do they lose the duffel bag but they also continually lose track of Wendell. They’re the type of crooks whose ammo clips regularly fall out of the guns. These guys may be incompetent but they do fire a gun at T.S. at one point. T.S. escapes injury but, as he explains to Amy, shooting at him makes things “personal.”

T.S.’s plan to protect Wendell and catch the bad guys is to have his friend Decker wear a fake beard and pretend to be Wendell. It’s a good plan, except the bad guys come up with a similar plan and, as a result, there are two fake Wendells wandering around and T.S. has to figure out which one to beat up. T.S. gets so confused that it gives the bad guys time to to get the drop on him. Fortunately, the bad guys once again fail to load their guns correctly, which gives T.S. and Decker time to knock them both out with one punch.

This was not a particularly complicated episode. Nor was it a very suspenseful one, as the bad guys were such idiots that they never came across as being any sort of threat. More time was spent with Wendell teaching Joe how to live on the streets than on the villains trying to get their money back. (Why is Wendell teaching Joe how to live on the streets? It was T.S.’s idea, which leads me to wonder if T.S. is planning on kicking Joe out of the gym at some point in the near future.) As for Amy, she spent most of this episode setting up her new office and getting annoyed with the perfectly nice guy who had an office across the hall. The show may be called T and T but it’s usually one T who gets to do anything.

This was a bit of a forgettable episode but Mr. T did yell, “Hey, fool!” after the bad guys attempted to shoot him so that was kind of fun.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.11 “Hard Way Home”

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

T and T is back …. with a kidnapping!

Episode 2.11 “Hard Way Home”

(Dir by Al Waxman, originally aired on January 23rd, 1989)

Joe has the worst luck when it comes to making new friends!

One of the main themes of the second season of T and T has been T.S. (and, occasionally, Amy) acting as a mentor for teenage Joe Casper. The season began with Joe losing his mother to a bomb that was set by Canadian Neo-Nazis. T.S. apparently adopted Joe and now, the kid spends all of his time at Decker’s gym. Whenever Joe makes a new friend, they either turn out to be a criminal or a victim of a crime.

This week, Joe’s new friend is George Papadopolous (David Stratton), who invites Joe to toss a football around with him in the park. However, once they get to the park, George is grabbed by a couple of thugs and tossed into the trunk of a car. Joe chases the car and even grabs onto the bumper but ultimately, he can’t save George.

When a banged-up Joe returns to Decker’s gym, T.S. assures him that his new scars will make him the most popular kid at his school. Joe then calls George’s father and is told that the whole kidnapping was a prank and that he shouldn’t call the police. This sounds strange to T.S. so he investigates on his own.

It turns out that George’s father is Peter (George Sperdakos), a big man in Toronto’s Greek mafia. Someone has kidnapped George and is demanding a huge ransom. Members of the Greek community are all donating their own money to help Peter raise the amount. Because Joe was able to get the license plate number of the car that George was tossed into, it doesn’t take long for T.S. to discover that George was abducted by Peter’s rival, a used car dealer named Frangos (George Touliatos). However, Frangos is not working alone. It turns out that Peter arranged the kidnapping of his own son so that he could pocket the ransom money!

Needless to say, thinks work out in the end. George is freed and Peter is arrested. At first, Amy tells T.S. that there is no way that she would ever agree to represent Peter because 1) she knows that Peter is guilty and 2) Peter can’t afford to pay. But then the members of Greek community (who are apparently very forgiving) donate their own money to convince Amy to defend Peter in court. Does Amy win the case? The episode ends before we find out.

This episode really showed the disadvantage of trying to tell a story like this in just 30 minutes. There was never any suspense over who kidnapped George because there was only time to introduce one suspect! Peter turning out to be in on it was a nice twist but it came out of nowhere because there really wasn’t any time to properly set it up. This would have been a good hour episode but, at 30 minutes, it just felt rushed and it didn’t have any fun Mr. T line readings. Toronto looked nice and cold but otherwise, this was a forgettable episode.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.10 “Conspiracy”

Posted on December 22, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, T.S. goes up against his scariest opponent yet!

Episode 2.10 “Conspiracy”

(Dir by Robert Malenfant, originally aired on December 5th, 1988)

Two pre-teens, Paul (Michael Fantini) and Colby (Alan Fawcett), come across a million dollars hidden away in an apparently deserted warehouse. In slow motion, Paul throw the money into the air and declares that he and Colby are rich. Of course, Paul doesn’t stop to consider that the money is probably linked to something illegal and that it’s dangerous for him and his best friend to take it.

Soon, Paul and Colby are spending money all over the place. They buy new clothes. They buy new bicycles. Local store owner Bud (Charles Woods Gray) is concerned about the amount of money that Paul and Colby suddenly seem to have. He meets with his old friend, T.S. Turner, and asks Turner to talk to the boys.

Paul and Colby meet with Turner at Decker’s gym and Paul lies and says that the money came from his grandmother. He also says that he loaned Colby the money for Colby’s new bike. After the boys leave, Turner says that he knows that there is more to the story and that he’s going to investigate on his own. Turner invites Joe to investigate with him. It’s good to see that the show’s writers finally remembered that Turner and Amy basically adopted Joe at the start of the second season.

Turner is not the only one investigating. The counterfeiter who created the money wants to know who stole it. Birken (Martin Neufeld) may drive a car with a personalized license plate that reads “Rainbow” but he’s still a scary dude. He’s so dangerous that he doesn’t even wear a shirt half the time! No one is going to tell Birken what to do.

Eventually, Birken kidnaps Paul and ties him to a chair and threatens to suffocate him if he doesn’t help Birken get back his money. That leads to this rather disturbing sight:

The villains on T and T are usually fairly generic and forgettable but Birken is probably the scariest man in Canada. He’s certainly the first villain on this show to be just as intimidating at Mr. T. As soon as Birken shows up, the viewer has no doubt that he’s willing to kill anyone to get back his money. For once, the stakes on this show feels real.

Or, at least, they feel real until T.S. Turner shows up at Birken’s loft. (This is yet another episode where T.S. somehow manages to sneak into a building without being noticed.) When he confronts Birken, Birken attemps to show off his karate moves but T.S. takes him down with one punch.

It’s a bit of an anti-climatic ending, which is a shame because this was actually, by the standards of T and T, a pretty good episode. Birken was both memorable eccentric and genuinely menacing. Still, he was no match for T.S. Turner. No one stops Mr. T.

Retro Television Review: T and T 2.9 “Hostage”

Posted on December 15, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Amy, T.S. and Joe get involved in a — ugh — hostage situation!

Episode 2.9 “Hostage”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on November 28th, 1988)

Fleeing from the police after a botched robbery, two sweaty crooks, Rook (Lawrence King) and Larry (Angelo Rizacos), duck into Don’s Sporting Goods and end up holding 8 people hostage, including Amy and Joe! What a scary situation! These eight Canadians probably just wanted to buy new hockey jerseys and now, they’re being held hostage!

The police, of course, are ineffectual. T.S. tracks down the ex-wife of one of the men but she can’t convince him to come out of the store. The two crooks don’t want to go back to prison so they’ve demanded a lot of money and a plane and they’ve given the Toronto police only two hours to meet their demands. Inside the store, Amy tries to reason with them. Rook knows that things have gone too far and that they need to surrender to the police. But Larry is sweaty and violent and determined to escape with the money.

I groaned a bit when I saw what this episode was going to be about. I absolutely dread sitting through anything that involves hostage negotiation. There’s really not much that can happen in a story like this, other than the hostage takers doing a lot of yelling and the negotiators saying, “You’re going to have to give us more time!” It’s really not much fun to watch people getting guns pointed at their heads while some loser rants and raves about how he’s going to pull the trigger unless he gets what he wants. With the exception of Dog Day Afternoon, hostage taking is usually pretty boring to watch.

Probably the biggest mistake that this episode makes is that it sidelines T.S. Turner for much of the action. The main appeal of T and T is the chance to watch and hear Mr. T take down the bad guys. T.S. spends the majority of this episode just standing around and only he gets to call one person “brother.” Finally, during the final few minutes, T.S. ends up crawling around in the building’s loft so that he can break through the ceiling and take out the hostage takers but, by the time he does, the two criminals have already turned on each other. For once, it falls not to T.S. to capture the main bad guy but for the bad guy’s accomplice to shoot him in the back.

All in all, this was a disappointing episode. Amy failed to talk the criminals into giving themselves up and T.S. failed to capture the criminals by himself. What is Canada even paying these two for?

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.8 “Every Picture….”

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, T.S. and Amy battle the Canadian Mafia!

Episode 2.8 “Every Picture….”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on November 21st, 1988)

This episode of T and T continues to insist that the show is taking place in a place called Metro County. It even features a newspaper called the Metro County Eagle and suburb of Metro County that is called Ridley. As well, it appears that all of the cars in Metro County have American-style license plates.

Listen, T and T, you’re not fooling anyone.

We can all see the snow on the ground.

We can all see the frozen breath whenever a scene takes place outside.

We have all noticed how polite all the extras are.

We can all see the hockey hair and the denim jackets.

Even more importantly, we can all hear the accent whenever anyone apologizes or asks, “What’s this all aboot?”

Everyone knows that T and T totally takes place in Toronto! Obviously, a lot of a Canadian shows deliberately tried to leave their setting ambiguous so that they could appeal to viewers in the United States. Interestingly enough, the most successful syndicated Canadian show in the United States was Degrassi, which was always proudly and forthrightly Canadian.

As for today’s episode, it opens with a waitress named Kathy (Jacqueline Samuda) fleeing from a diner after she happens to see her picture in the newspaper. It turns out that a lot of people have noticed that picture. One of them is a burly mob hitman (Paul Coeur) who calls the paper and demands to know who took the picture. When the editor refuses to name names, the hitman breaks into the office to search for the name himself.

Because Amy is friendly (and maybe more!) with the editor, she volunteers T.S. to investigate the photograph. T.S. and Amy track down the photographer, a nerdy teenage prodigy named Lenny (Robert Haiat). After talking to Lenny, they track down the diner where Kathy worked and eventually, they break into Kathy’s apartment. Kathy isn’t there.

“She either left in a hurry or she’s a bad housekeeper,” T.S. growls.

Meanwhile, the hitman kidnaps Lenny and demands that he take him to the diner where the picture was taken. When Lenny’s father tells T.S. that the abduction is all his fault, T.S. says, “I’m going to make this right!”

Kathy, it turns out, is actually named Maria. Because she testified against her mob boss brother, she’s in the Canadian witness protection program. Lenny kind of ruined all that by taking her picture. Now, she’s hiding out in a church but, after the hitman catches a priest entering Kathy’s apartment, he’s able to track her down. This hitman is so evil that he’s prepared to shoot Kathy in the head in the middle of a church! Luckily, T.S. shows up just in time.

“HEY, FOOL!” T.S. shouts before beating the crap out of the hitman.

There’s a simplicity to T and T that you really have to admire. For all the talk of T.S. being a detective and an advocate of peace and understanding, he solves most of his problems by either punching someone out or throwing them through a window. This show reminds us that the simple solution is sometimes the best.

Anyway, you know what? This was a really good episode. The mystery was intriguing. The show generated actual suspense over who would find Kathy first. The scene in the church was nicely atmospheric. Even the sentimental ending, with Kathy giving T.S. a crucifix to thank him for saving her life, felt totally earned. Way to go, Toronto!

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.7 “Fast Friends”

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mr. T whacks the attack!

Episode 2.7 “Fast Friends”

(Dir by Alan Simmonds, originally aired on November 14th, 1988)

On a rainy night in Toronto, Jonah (Leslie Toth) asks his friend Adam (Peter Spence) for permission to borrow Adam’s car. Jonah explains that he’ll only need the car for an hour and he just has to do some “business.” He promises Adam that this business has nothing to do with drugs. Adam hands over the keys.

So, from the start, this episode establishes that Adam is idiot.

I mean, seriously, once can just look at the sweaty and fidgety Jonah and tell that he needs the car to pick up some drugs. When someone who hasn’t taken a shower in a week tells you that he has to go out and do some “business,” it’s guaranteed that the business is going to involve drugs. And even if Jonah was being honest about not being involved in the Canadian drug trade, who lets anyone borrow their car? Even if it was a life-and-death situation, I would not give any of my friends the keys to my car. That’s right — I would rather that someone die than let them drive my car.

But Adam feels differently. He hands over his keys and, of course, Jonah drives to a warehouse and picks up several vials of crack cocaine. Jonah is in debt to some drug dealers so he needs to pick some crack to sell on the streets. But since Jonah is a no-good junkie, he smokes a little before he gets back in his friend’s car. While trying to return the car, Jonah attracts the attention of the police. Jonah abandons the car in an alley and runs for it.

When Adam finds out about what happened, he yells at Jonan and then, stupidly, heads down to the alley to get the car. Adam is shocked to find crack cocaine all over the front seat because, again, Adam is an idiot. Suddenly, the cops show up and arrest Adam!

Despite the best efforts of Detective Luntz (Alar Adema), Adam refuses to betray Jonah. He claims that he was at home all night and that someone stole his car and left it in the alley with the drugs. Detective Luntz continually points out that Adam’s story makes no sense because, if Adam’s car was stolen, how did Adam know where to find it?

It looks like Adam is doomed but, fortunately, his mother hires Amy Taler and T.S. Turner! While Amy talks to Luntz in the hallway, Turner talks to Adam and shows off his new, far less menacing mohawk.

Adam tells T.S. about Jonah. T.S. tracks down Jonah at a local drug den. When Jonah tries to run, T.S. grabs him and says, “I know who you are, I know what you’re doing, and I don’t like it …. Talk to me, brother!” That’s all it takes for Jonah to realize the error of his ways. After T.S. beats up the drug dealers, Adam is released from custody. However, Jonah still confesses to possessing the drugs because it’s the right thing to do.

And that’s the episode! This was another instance in which the show’s 30-minute running time led to the story feeling a bit rushed. T.S. tracked down Jonah with remarkable ease and he really didn’t seem to have any trouble convincing Jonah to turn on his dealers. That said, the scene in which T.S. walked through the crack house was well-directed and full of a lot of creepy visuals. Say what you will about Mr. T’s range of an actor, this episode featured him at his most sincere. One gets the feeling that beating up drug dealers was something that Mr. T did whenever he had a break from filming.

Next week on T and T …. oh, who knows? Toronto’s a wild city.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 2.6 “A Secret No More”

Posted on November 24, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, things get muddy!

Episode 2.6 “A Secret No More”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on November 7th, 1988)

“On this episode….”

No, sorry, Mr. T does not utter those words at the start of this week’s episode of T and T. Starting with the second season, the show did away with the practice of Mr. T introducing each episode. It’s a shame because that was always one of the best parts of every episode. I especially would have liked to have heard how Mr. T would have introduced this episode, which features a lot of mud wrestling. “On this episode, Amy and I explore the world of mud wrestling and everyone gets dirty.”

This week’s episode find Amy and T.S. hired by an insurance company after a Canadian Senator named Sam Smale (Leon Pownall) is apparently killed by a car bomb. If the insurance company can prove that the car bomb was planted by gangsters instead of terrorists, the company can get out of paying any money to the senator’s wife. Wait? What? How does that work? Is that really something that would be put into an insurance policy? I guess the idea is that terrorists would be targeting Sen. Smale because of his job while gangsters would be targeting Sen. Smale because he was corrupt. I don’t know. It’s weird.

Sen. Smale was frequently seen hanging out at Toronto’s busiest mud wrestling club. The club is owned by the Granger Brothers, Charlie (Michael Copeman) and Red (Ric Sarabia). (“Those are two bad brothers,” T.S. says.) A review of the senator’s assets reveals that he was nearly broke. (“Senator business must be bad,” T.S. says.) Could Sam Smale have gotten into debt with the loan-sharking Granger brothers?

T.S. heads over to the club, where he meets the newest mud wrestler, K.C. Morgan (special guest star Vanity). K.C., however, is no ordinary mud wrestler. Instead, she’s a reporter working undercover and she’s uncovered evidence that the Senator was doing business with the Grangers! Needless to say, this leads to Amy, K.C., and T.S. all getting into a fight with the Grangers in the mud pit. It also leads to Senator Smale suddenly showing up and revealing that he faked his death and was planning on running off with the insurance money. T.S. promptly punches the senator and the corrupt politician ends up in the mud pit. Later, at the gym, T.S. talks about how silly Amy looked covered in mud and K.C. goes out on a date with T.S.’s best friend, Decker. (We learn, from K.C., that Decker’s first name is actually Danforth.) And that’s the end of that!

This episode packed quite a bit into 22 minutes. In fact, it was all a bit too rushed. This is one of those episodes that would have benefitted from an hour’s running time. I have to admit that I laughed out loud when the supposedly dead senator suddenly showed up with a gun on his hand, just because it was such an out-of-nowhere yet kind of lovable plot development. This was a totally ridiculous episode but that’s what made it fun. T and T is at its best when it embraces its own absurdity.

Next week, T.S. battles a crack dealer.

“On this episode, Amy and I attack the whack….”