Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 2.7 “Rape and Revenge: Part Two”

Posted on October 22, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Hunter and McCall are in South America.

Episode 2.7 “Rape and Revenge: Part Two”

(Dir by Richard A. Colla and Gary Winter, originally aired on November 9th, 1985)

Picking up where last week’s episode ended, Hunter, with the help of an orphaned street urchin named Iggy (Dan Ponce), has managed to track down where Raoul Mariano lives in Curaguay. He’s also learned that the country is controlled by the brutal secret police and that Mariano is the son of a feared general (Michael Ansara). Hunter has also arranged for a burned-out American named Jimmy Crackin (Larry Hankin) to fly him over the border to the safety of Bolivia. Of course, Hunter won’t be leaving until after he’s killed Mariano….

What Hunter did not count on was McCall suddenly showing up and asking him not to assassinate Mariano on her behalf. Even after Hunter points out that Mariano is going to get away with all of his crimes otherwise, McCall argues that Hunter should not put his life in danger to kill him.

Hunter disagrees. However, he doesn’t assassinate Mariano. Instead, when he confronts Mariano, Hunter gives Mariano a gun to keep things fair. When Mariano opens fire, Hunter shoots back in self-defense and kills him. Essentially, this was all so Hunter could avoid being portrayed as a cold-blooded killer. If this episode were made today, Hunter would have no hesitation about shooting Mariano, whether he had a gun or not.

Mariano is killed early on in the episode. The rest of the running time is taken up with Hunter, McCall, and Iggy trying to get to the helicopter in time to make their escape. Fortunately, it turns out that the Curaguayan army is no match for a determined Los Angeles homicide detective in a big car. The episode ends with the helicopter flying towards Bolivia, taking Hunter, McCall, and even little Iggy to freedom.

(To be honest, it still seems like this would all lead to an international incident of some sort but whatever.)

Compared to Part One, the second part of “Rape and Revenge” is pretty much just a straight-out action story. It was satisfying to watch Mariano meet his fate. That said, I could have done without Iggy the talkative urchin. I think he was mostly included to soften the fact that this episode was basically about Hunter trying to murder someone.

Next week, Hunter and McCall will be back in Los Angeles!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 2.6 “Rape and Revenge: Part 1”

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode is a difficult one.

Episode 2.6 “Rape and Revenge: Part 1”

(Dir by Gary Winter, originally aired on November 2nd, 1985)

I nearly didn’t watch this episode.

When I saw the title of this episode and then read the plot description on the IMDb, my first instinct was to try to find an excuse to get out of having to watch and review it. The plot description read: McCall is raped by a visiting diplomat and her colleague’s hands are tied when he claims diplomatic immunity. Nearly every episode of Hunter so far has featured McCall getting into some sort of trouble. She’s been kidnapped countless times. She’s been shot at least three times. She’s been in more than a few fights. In the past, that didn’t bother me because no one is going to mistake Hunter for a realistic show. But when I read what was going to happen to her in this week’s episode, I immediately imagined that the show would handle it in the worst and most insensitive way possible.

Still, I watched the episode because I’m a completist. And you know what? I was wrong.

This episode opens with Hunter and McCall investigating the discovery of a dead woman at the Curaguayan Consulate in Los Angeles. (Curaguaya is a fictional country in South America.) One of the consuls, Raoul Marino (Richard Yniguez), immediately starts hitting on McCall, despite the fact that she’s conducting a police investigation. Later, Raoul sends three different flower deliveries to McCall’s house. When Raoul then shows up at McCall’s house, she tells him to leave. He rapes her and then flees. McCall calls Hunter, who rushes over to her house and then takes her to the hospital.

Because he has diplomatic immunity, Raoul thinks that he can get away with rape. He also thinks that he can get away with shooting Hunter in the shoulder when the latter confronts him. And it turns out that Raoul is correct. With both McCall and Hunter temporarily out of action, he boards a plane to Curaguaya and returns home.

To the show’s credit, it handles McCall’s rape sensitively. Stepfanie Kramer gives a strong performance as McCall. The scenes at the hospital, where the still bruised McCall is examined by doctors and investigators, capture the fact that the trauma of being raped doesn’t just end with the act. My fear was that this episode would have McCall magically recover at the end of the hour. It didn’t. Instead, we watch as McCall goes through therapy and as she slowly reaches the point where she feels that she can return to work. But even when she does return, the pain and the trauma are still there. This episode doesn’t simplify rape or use it as just another melodramatic plot twist. For that, it deserves a lot of credit.

(My only real issue that, during a recovery montage, the scenes of McCall in therapy are mixed with scenes of Hunter recovering from being shot in the shoulder. I feel like McCall deserved to have that montage to herself.)

This is a two-part episode. The first hour ended with McCall realizing that Hunter had traveled down to San Pablo, Curaguay to get revenge on Raoul. (Hunter previously told McCall that he was taking a few days off to go fishing.) McCall then made a reservation on the next flight to San Pablo. The story concludes next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.15 “Black Pearl”

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, the bicycle mayhem continues.

Episode 2.15 “Black Pearl”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on January 5th, 1997)

TC arrests a woman named Alana (Angela Shelton) on drug and assault charges, just to discover that she’s an undercover DEA agent. TC fears that Alana is in over her head and he tells Alana’s superior, Enright (John Michael Bolger) that he needs to pull her out of the operation. Enright is like, “Whatever, bicycle boy.”

And, to be honest, I think Enright kind of has a point. Why are the bicycle cops always trying to tell other law enforcement agencies what to do? Every episode, either TC or Palermo and Chris gets a really angry look in their eyes and starts barking out orders at people they barely know. It’s bad enough that they ride bicycles. Do they have to act like a bunch of self-righteous pricks as well?

Speaking of bicycles, Victor has to get recertified to be a bike cop. Uh-oh, sounds like Victor could lose his job! Even worse, Victor’s partner in this episode is Chris so not only is Victor in danger of getting fired but he has to spend an entire week listening to Chris put him down. Seriously, there are few characters in the history of television that I dislike as much as I dislike Chris Kelly. Chris is the type who dismisses everyone’s problems before then launching into her hundredth monologue about how much it sucks going from being an Air Force pilot to a bike cop.

Victor trains with Hans Rhey. In this episode, everyone is like, “Oh my God, Hans Rey!” I had no idea who Hans Rey was. I looked him up after this episode and apparently, he was a superstar on the bicycle circuit. Hans does a lot of clunky bike tricks As was so often the case withe professional athletes who played themselves on shows like this, he wasn’t much of an actor. If anything, this episode reminded me of how stupid most people look riding their bicycles in the middle of the street.

Victor gets recertified. Alana ends up dead. Presumably, TC’s upset but since the actor playing him was only capable of one fascial expression, it can be hard to tell. In the end, the real tragedy remains how dorky everyone looks on the bicycles.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Boulevard Nights (dir by Michael Pressman)

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I recorded the 1979 film, Boulevard Nights, off of TCM on December 14th, 2017).

Boulevard Nights tells the story of two brothers, living in East Los Angeles.

Raymond Avila (Richard Yniguez) used to be involved with the street gangs but he’s gone straight. He still likes to cruise the boulevard. He still likes to make his lowrider hop up and down. He still knows better than to trust outsiders and he always makes sure that he’s not around whenever the cops show up. But, unlike many of his old friends, Raymond is now determined to stay out of trouble. He’s got a job working at a garage and he dreams of the day when he’ll have his own auto shop. He takes care of his mother. He keeps an eye on the neighborhood.

Chuco Avila (Danny De La Paz) is Raymond’s younger brother and also his opposite. Chuco is a high school drop out who doesn’t want to cause trouble but who says that he can’t stop getting angry. Chuco always carries a switchblade with him, even bringing it to a job interview. Chuco only feels secure when he’s a member of a gang. Chuco steals. Chuco fights. Chuco huffs paint and gets a snake tattooed on his arm. Whenever Chuco has to hide out, he goes to a graffiti-covered shack that he shares with a stray cat.

There’s a war coming as random skirmishes between two separate neighborhoods lead to greater and greater violence. Chuco is looking forward to it. Raymond just wants to avoid it. He’s got a good job and he’s planning on marrying Shady Londeros (Marta DuBois). But, as Raymond explains it to Shady, if a war does break out, he’s going to have his brother’s back.

The plot of Boulevard Nights is a familiar one. Stories about good and bad brothers have been told since ancient times and anyone who has ever seen a “gang” movie should be able to guess everything that’s going to happen in Boulevard Nights. It’s not a spoiler to say that the war between the two gangs leads to tragedy. You can see that tragedy coming from the first five minutes of the film. It also doesn’t take a psychic to predict that one brother will survive while one brother definitely will not. The only question is whether the film will end with either Raymond or Chuco wistfully staring out at the Los Angeles skyline.

What does set Boulevard Nights apart from other gang films is that it never glamorizes its violence and it was also shot on location in East Los Angeles. When Raymond and Chuco drive through their neighborhood, the small and dilapidated houses that they see are the houses that were actually there in 1979 (and which might still be there today). The use of real locations brought a grittiness to the film that the by-the-numbers script failed to provide. Boulevard Nights also featured a cast largely made up of amateurs. Members of the gang were played by actual gang members. Needless to say, this led to some noticeably uneven performances but it also created an authenticity that would otherwise be lacking.

Boulevard Nights is an uneven film but, because it was shot on location, it functions as a bit of time capsule. If you want to know what East L.A. looked (and sounded) like in the late 70s, you can either purchase a time machine or you can watch this movie. For many viewers, watching the movie will be probably be the more practical choice.

Last year, Boulevard Nights was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.